Fergal O Gara, sponsor of the Four Masters, was a student at Trinity College in Dublin in 1615-1616. One of the earliest records of students at the college records his name: O'GARA, FARALL. [Grandson of Iriell, Moygara, Co. Sligo; Ward Jan. 12, 1615-16.]38
He was also one of the two knights elected to represent county Sligo in the Parliament held in Dublin, A.D. 1634. The O Gara family was, in 1648, dispossessed, consequent to the war of 16411652.39 The MacDermotts retained their rank as lords of Moylurg down to the end of the 16th century; and as successors to the O'Garas continued to hold considerable property at Coolavin, in Co. Sligo, down to recent times ; and The MacDermott is still known as Prince of Coolavin.40 In 1688 ninety per cent of the land in the county [Sligo] was owned by Protestants, making it the most Protestant part of Connacht. There were then about eighty-five landlords in the county. Half of them had owned land there before the 1641 rebellion and Cromwellian war. A few like Taaffe, and Richard Coote, Lord Collooney, held estates of over 10,000 acres. Others, like Kean O’Hara, held over 4,000 acres. The O’Haras of Annaghmore were the only Gaelic landowners to survive. They had converted to Protestantism early in the seventeenth century. The Taaffes of Ballymote were the only substantial Catholic landlords to survive. Others, like O’Connor Sligo and the O’Garas of Moygara, were irrevocably dispossessed and disappeared from the history of the region. Some Gaelic families stayed on as tenants on their former possessions and re-emerged again during the Jacobite War.41 The writer refers the reader to “Recorded Entries Concerning O’Gara Chiefs in Irish Annals” from years AD 964 through 1586 from The Annals of Connacht (AD 1224-1544), The Annals of Loch Cé, and the Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters from the Earliest Period to the Year 1616. 38
George Burtchaell and Thomas Ulick Sadleir, editors, Alumni Dublinenses; A Register of the Students, Graduates, Professors, and Provosts of Trinity College in the University of Dublin, Williams and Norgate, London, 1924, facsimile reproduction by Archive CD Books, Cinderford, Glos., England, page 633 39 John O’Hart, Irish Pedigrees or, The Origin and Stem of the Irish Nation, Fifth Edition, Volume I, originally published, Dublin 1892, reprinted, Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, 1999, page 204 40 Rev. Patrick Woulfe, Sloinnte Gaedheal is Gall: Irish Names and Surnames, Gill & Son, Dublin, 1923, page 350 41 Liam Swords, A Hidden Church, The Diocese of Achrony 1689-1818, The Columba Press, Dublin, 1997, pp. 18-19 59