Armachiana Volume 1 by Armagh City Banbridge & Craigavon Borough Council

ARMAGH MISCELLANEA

VOL .I

The Armagh Registers and the Archbisho ps of t he period

Presentment of Jury for the Survey of County Ar magh , 1608

Old County Custo ms , Crafts and Industries

Some County Armagh Outlaws of the 17t h and 18th centuries

The Orchards of County Armagh

The Ancient Schools of Armagh

City Charters and Cor poration Records

Charters , F airs and Markets

Railways in Count y Armagh

City Antiquities

The Armagh Observatory

Local Astronomical Links

Dunsink - Armagh . Affinities and Co ntrasts

Armachiana Volume 1

The contents of this digital resource is openly licensed via Creative Commons licence CC BY-NC

4.0 enabling reusers to copy and distribute the material for noncommercial purposes and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.

If any of the material is reproduced, in any form and in any medium, Armagh County Museum should be acknowledged as the source and the reference below cited.

Armachiana Vol1 (Armagh County Museum ARMCM.28.2014.38)

The cont ents of thes e volumes l a belled Armachiana are simply notes for t a lks to local and visitin g societies in search of material relating to it s histor ic a l b a ck ground and an cient monuments . They a re not of any great i mportance but may p rovide a gui de to studen ts seek ing d a t a on the county g enerally or on their own distri ct s i n particular . TGF Paterson

THE ARMAGH REGISTERS AND THE ARCHBISHOPS OF THE PERIOD

The subject fo r discussion this evening is the sequence of ancient Registers relating to the Ecclesiastical Province of Armag h , stu died from the local point o f view rather than from their links with Ireland as a whole In the time at my disposal I can only very briefly n o tice a few entries in the Primacies of the individual Arc h bishops. I c a nnot attempt the brilliant survey made by Professor Sayles some twelve months ago in .hich we were shown the value of such Registers to the hi st orian and given an illuminating exposition on thei r worth for comparative purposes with similar documentary mater ial elsewhere.

My examination must be much less comprehensive and consequently less widely informative - I must confine myself to the local aspect and leave the wider and perhaps even more interesting issues for some future occasion. It is gene r ally agreed that the most important manuscripts in the archives of the Archbishop of Armagh are the surviving Reg isters, a series of documents unique among Irish medieval rec ords. With some slight gaps they cover the pe ri od 1350-1550 and a re the chief source we now have illustrati ng the ecclesiastical activities of Pre-Reformation days in the Province of Armagh but we must

rememb er that although they throw much light on the histo ry of the See in those two centur ies , they are not the on ly sources available for th a t purpose . Iris h Annals supplement the Registers and indeed carry the story back to Pre-Christi an times. Written in diary fashio n and from P atrick ' s coming onwards, dealing principally with obituaries of abbots, kings, bishops, archbis hops, sc ribes, saints and scholars, they embody a detailed narrative of people and events linked with our city. They also tell us o f the frequent destruction that Armagh suffered by fire and otherwise, of tragic t ribal warfare, the arrival of the Vikings, the coming of the Anglo-Normans and so down the years.

Before passing on to the Regis ters we shal l, however, devote a few minutes to other manuscrip ts connected with Ar magh . The Book of Armagh compiled in our city in the year 80 7 is the only manuscript of early origin that can with absolute certainty be dated - and it is but a copy of an earlier work that probably pe rished in a Viking raid. Another notable script associated with Armagh and of almost equal antiquity is now, alas , in England - it is the product of an Abbot of Armagh who di ed in 927, The scribes or compilers of such works appea r early in the Annals and in so fa r as Armagh is concerned the re are notices dating ba ck to the year 720,

The wealth of manuscripts once housed in Armagh will never be kno1m. In the many burnings of the town the books of the local scribes were often lost, or carried off by attacking parties in the many conflicts that came our way . For instance, the Book of Druim Saileach, an old manuscript derivin g its name from the ridge of sallows, or hill on whi c h the old cathedral now stands is completely lost, though its existence is well established by references in surviving material . It seems to have been a composition of genealogical interest, the early inhabitants of this country being much concerned with battles and pedigrees - two subjects orally preserved by the poets or bards of the septs and in Christian times reduced to writing . One celebrated manuscript completed in Armagh in 1138 - less than half a century before the first Anglo - Norman reached Ireland - found a home in Paris, from which i t was later stolen, next turning up in Holland and much more recently finding a refuge in the British Museum . An ancient Book of Hymns of the llth - 12th century, formerly part of the Archbishop Ussher Collection is now, with the Antipbonary of Armagh, in Trinity College Library, the l a t ter a Hymnary tha t from internal evidence seems to have been in use in the Cathedral before the year 1549, and the r efor e well within the compass of our study . I n passing I would , however, like to remind you that we have

a secondary guide to affairs in Armagh in the period of the Registers . The "State P ape rs of Ireland" in the English Public Record Office begin in 1176 and we have excellent printed Calendars running to many volumes , in one of which in 1226 we find King Henry III requesting a s ite for a castle in Ar magh , presumably the edifice completed in 1236 that gave name to Castle Street, the street that in its outline preserves the in ne r ring of the hill - top settlement of pre - Patrican times. The Calendars of State Papers cover very fully the centuries from then onwards but our immediate concern is the "Re g isters". They may be briefly c atalogued as follows :(1)

(2) (3) (4) (5') (6) (7) (8)

The inclusive dating of 1350-1550 is based on the period of the Ar chbishops whose names and actions are al l ied with the particu l ar Registers . In rea l ity ,

howeve r, le aves from similar bu t earlier documents have been inse rted , often without regard to sequence of date.

Swayne ' s Register, the third i n po i nt of antiquity, carries an ent r y that may be dated between 12 1 8 and 1220 and therefore belonging to the archbishopr ic of Luke

Net terville who be came Pr imate in 1 216 and died 1227 .

Other s tr ay ent r ies relate to Acts of Arc hb i shop

0 Sc anlon who, i n 1264, bu ilt the Franciscan Fri a r y and in 1 268 a new cathedra l whose walls st ill remai n.

Othe r notab l e a rch bishops represented inc l ude John Colton, who a t a Pr ovincial Synod held be tween 1 383 and 1389 fo rb ade the gam e of Ga r baldy b elieved to have been a fo rm of hu rli ng , b ecause o f mo rt al sins and hom i ci des ensuin g the re f r om . Th e p en alty for d is obedience was excommun ic ation but t here the story ends . We are le ft in doubt as to ;mether the f a ith fu l fo r sook th e

rep r ehensib le game . An o ther p r oclama ti on renewed a statute enfo r ced by Colton's predecessors , Archbi shop s Fitzralph and O'Hiraghty, a gai nst mimes, jugglers, po ets, h a rpers, and drummers.

All are ori ginals wi th t h e ex ce p tion of the Dowd all Register which is a copy of on e no w lost. Transcri p ts of three o f the volumes, those of Swayne, Prene and Cromer, were mad e ' by a good scribe in the 1 8 th century. The task of completing the transcripts was carried out

by Dean Reeves whilst Librarian of the Public Library of Arma gh . His copies of Volumes I, IV, v, and VII are very superior i n accuracy and as specimens of caligraphy. Reeves first made rough copie s - they are now in Trinity College Library - and from those the beautifully written copies in Ar magh were completed in conjunction with the individual registers .

The earliest Register though, known as the Register of Archbishop Sweteman contains certain Acts relating to two earlier Archbishops which seem to be fragments from a volume or volumes now lost. Sweteman I s Register is, however , but a small portion of the records of h is Primacy and there is no doubt but that many leaves are missing - indeed the wonder is that the Registers should have survived the Reformation, the Civil War of 1641 -4 2 and the Revolution of 1690.

The complete set of Registers are now being microfilmed for eventual publication and the task has unfortunately received unnecessary and indeed unpleasant publicity. For instance, the Sunday "Iris h Press" of 7th January (last) featured a story about them having been found behind a veil of cobwebs in the Armagh Episcopal Librar y . Needless to say there is not the slightest truth in that assertion and, of course, there is no such institution in Armagh as the . Episcopal Library. We do

possess, however, an old established and well - known Public Library in ;mich cobwebs are conspicuous by thei r absence, and there the Registers are on loan from the Archbishop's archives . A similar tale was carried by an English Sunday paper some months earlier and the story was revived in the weekly bulletin of the Eire Department of External Affairs of 4th February, 1952 . There we were informed that "secr ets hidden behind a curtain of cobwebs for four to six hundred years are being revealed to three men in a room in Queen's University , Belfast", and again the Episcopal Library enshrouded in cobwebs appears and the absurd statement that "t he discovery of these Registers in Ar magh was the most historic find in Ireland fo r centuries" . We are also told that the Registers are written in Latin shorthand - medieval Latin in abbreviated court hand or with contractions would be more accurate - and it is utterly ridiculous to write of finding Registers that were neve r lost . They form part of the Archbishop's muniments, are at present on loan to the Public Library and are by his courtesy being microfilmed. They are well known indeed. They were used by Archbishop Ussher in the ea rl y 17th century; by Sir James Ware in the first half of the succeeding century; in the 19th century by Stuar t in his "Memoir of Armagh "; by King when writing his

"History of t he Primacy"; by th a t eminent scholar, Dr. Willi am Reev es - a former De an of Armagh and Keepe r of the Armagh Publi c Li brary; and in the present century De an La wlor published his Calen da rs of the Regist ers of Sweteman an d Fleming, Dr , Chart a Calenda r of the Register o f Swayne , the Rev , L. P. Murray Cal endar s of Cr om er and Do wdall Registers, and the Rev . Aub re y Gwynne, h is "Medieval Province of Ar magh" based chiefly on the Registers.

I t is a pit y that the P r es s should so disto rt factsan d an even gr eater p it y that the person who is credited with having made the s tatements in interviews, should not ha ve felt it necessary to repudiate what were in fa ct slanderous untruths.

Apa rt from their ecclesiastical i mpor t ance the Registers contain mu ch data on social and econ omi c p roblems in the centuries th ey cover , They also p rovi de us with old forms of place - nam es i n certain districts and pa rishes for which we of ten have no earlier s ource - in Ulster gene rally we have n o townland index until 1609, It may be of i n terest to d iscuss in a g eneral sor t o f way certain personalities appearing in the Registers who are of local significance. We have already menti one d Archbishop O Hiraghty, a former Dean of Armagh, who became Primate in 1334 and ·died in 1346. Dur ing his term of

office the old quarrel between Dublin and Armagh was revived, but the kin g intervened and commanded the Archbishop of Dublin and the Corporation of that city to refrain in future from molesting His Grace of Armagh. The disagreement, a form of jealousy or inferiority complex on the part of Dublin, was even then of some standing and was to occur a gain from time to time . One of O Hiraghty's Metropolitan Visitations survives also, with a certificate belonging to his successor, the famous Richard Fitzralph, one of the most celebrated Archbishops of Armagh. He is said to have been a na tive of Dundalk and was buried there, his tomb being long a p lace of pilgrimage . He was an author of repute on theological and other subjects and certain of his wo r ks, early specimens of continental printing, but publ ished long after his death are in the Public Library . They include his "Defence of the Clergy" publish ed in Rouen 1461, believed to be the earliest printed book by an Irish writer that has specific reference to Ireland. He was translated to Armagh in 1347 and died 1360. His successor was Milo Sweteman who became Archbishop in 1361, a year in which Ireland was afflicted by a pestilence that swept away multitudes of men but very few women. With him begin the Registers named as we know them to-day. His tenure of the archbishopric was both interesting and

eventful, and it had by then become the custom of the archbishops to reside in County Lo uth, usually at Dr omiskin or Termonfeckin, where they had palaces or castles and at Drogheda where they had a small mansion. At that time Louth was commonly known as the "En glish Ar magh " and Armag h and those parts of Tyrone that were incorporated in the See were spoken of as "Irish Armagh" . Sweteman did, however, reside occasionally in Armagh in his Manor beside the lake" - possibly the Abbey of Mullynure, later called Bishop' s Court , of which the re are now no remains. Like his predecessors and successors in the Primacy he was much worried by the conduct of the 0 Hanlons and O Neills . In 1374, for instance, Niallan 0 Neill t hreatened t o strip the archbishop and his clerks of all their possessions excepting the Cathedral Church but some sort of temporary settlement seems to have been reached for two years later the Archbishop appointed 0 O'Neillhis arch-seneschal.

Archbishop Sweteman died in 1380 and was succeeded by John Colton in 1381, who in 1397 made a Visitation of the Diocese of Derry that gives much information on the parishes of that See. The original Roll was part of the Archiepiscopal Collection here until the middle of the last century when, owing to an accident following its preparation for publication, it was not replaced in the Archbishop's

Muni ment Room, by 1ohich mischance it passed into private hands, was later sold, and is now in the British Museum . In Colton•s time a house of entertainment and support for the learned men of Ireland was founded and erected at Emain Macha in 13 87 by Nial O' Neill, King of Ulster, the site of which is still traditionally known as the "King's House".

Archbishop Colton died in 1404 and was followed by Nicholas Fleming whose register like its predecessor in the sequence is equally instructive. We, however, are chiefly interested in it from the local aspect. During his Primacy the Cathedral was destroyed by accidental fire at some date previous to September 1405. Whether it was repaired again immediately seems doubtful as a further reference occurs in 1414 when alms were being collected throughout the Provi nce fo r the repair of the Metropolitan Church which we are informed was maliciously burnt. In 1406 an item of particular local in te rest is recorded - the g r ant of three pa rts of the vaul t or crypt of the Cat hedral to the citizens of the town, during the Archbishop's life for ke eping goods in, on condition of their being obedient, p leasing and faithful to him and his church - the fourth part being reserved for church property . He died in 1416. His Register contains matter of earlier and later date.

Following the death of Archbis hop Fleming the See of Armagh was vacant for almost two years. Jo hn Swayne was consecrated in 1418 but resi gned in 1439. His Register is one of the most interesting of the group and incorporates Acts relating to earlier archbishops besides entries after a-~d subsequent to his resignation and death . In his Primacy the Cathedral was burnt by chance fire in 1428. In the same year we find a re ference to the tolls of the city, an item suggestive of a town charter then in being.

Archbishop Swayne's visits to Armag h were very infrequent and like his predecessors he was involved in the upholding of Armagh's supremacy. He refused indeed to attend Parliaments when held in Dublin rather than submit to the Archbishop of Dublin's restrictions. In his Primacy there were the usual troubles with the 0 1 Hanlon's and the 0 1 Neill 1 s and a letter written by the Primate to the then O'Neill reads as follows:- John Archbishop of Armagh to his beloved son in Christ Greetings. We have perceived by the relation of trustworthy persons that God has visited you, while he impressed upon both armpits of your body, two rather severe and as it were mortal ulcers, but happily as , we presume, at the prayers of some holy man, the said ulcers being broken and thereafter flowing away, you have been restored as it were from

death to li fe by the fa vou r of God. We counsel you fo r the future to exhibit g ratitude to God , Bl e ssed Ma ry, St . Patric k , our Church at Armagh and ourselves ". The p it y is that we know no thi ng o f 0 1 Neill ' s reacti ons to the Primate ' s c once r n fo r his wel fare . We are aware , howeve r, that interdicts and exc ommun ic ation were sometimes necessary when dealing wi t h the 0 1 Hanlons and O' Neills but of that later.

A rather curious effusion exists in his Re giste rit fol l ows an entry o f 14th August , 1431 , and i s in the nature of a complaint as regards women ' s attire, espe cially the t a ll cone - shaped head -dres ses of the period . It b ewai ls the fact :

"That fleshly lusts and feast s And furs of divers manner of beas ts, The devil of h ell them first found . Hole clothes cut in shreds

And the p ride of women ' s heads

Hath been destroyed in thi s land. God that beareth the crown of thorns

For his dea r passion

And never let h er lo ng tails

That be t he devil of hell his flails

Be the cause o f ou r confusion".

I n that century ·excess and exaggeration gov erne d every new style. The craze began af ter the marr iage of Anne of Bohemia t o Rich a rd III in 1383 . Re volutionary fashions were introduced by the new Queen, and it would seem f rom the ve r ses in question that some of t h em had actually reached Armagh. Before Anne's arrival in England, all

head- dresses had been designed as a covering for t he hair or as a means of enhancing its beauty but afterwards the one consumin g idea was to cover all traces of the fact that a woman had any hair on her head at all ! It was fo r almos t a century an age of fantastic head-gear and the woman who devised a fresh me t hod of adorning her head , be it with horns, boxes, or pads, was immedi ate l y fashionable. Dresses were equally elaborate. Width o f shoulders was emphasized, there was great va r iety in sleeves and a rather silly elongation of the toes of shoes that r e ached the heigh t of absurdity abo ut 1420, >men the toes became so l ong tha t they had t o be atta che d to the lrne es with chains t o prevent them tr i pp i ng the wearer. A few years later a law was enfo rce d prohi bi t i ng people >mo were not in re ce ip t of an income of £40 per year from wearing shoes with points longer than two fee t.

One fin 1 it di ffi cult to believe that the Ar magh of five centuries ago was a p l ace where women's modes were s o e xtreme as t o meri t the d isp l easu r e of th e chur ch but, of c ourse, we a ll remembe r t h e recent attempts t o ban stockin gless, sleeveless, neckless and hatless maidens from her services, a t h reat that merely resulted in them taking refuge in trousers and substituting coloured handkerchiefs for hats.

Swayne was succeeded in 1439 by John Prene (a former Archdeacon of Armagh) whose Register has also come down . Archbishop Prene was an energetic Primate and like earlier archbishops had many worries with local chief tains. He kept up the old customs and on his journeys to Arm agh and parish es in t he vicinity, his tenants on the See Lands were bound at their own expense to provide him with men, ho rses, and entertainment whilst en gaged in those duties. If they failed to do so th e threat of expulsion from the church was hu rled at them - we have an instance with regard to Clonfeacle in 1441. Such a drastic measure was no idle threat. Prene's denunciation of Felemy 0 Hanlon, and hi s followers must h ave struck terror to the less hardened adherents of the Clan O Hanlon. "May they fall in battle and be wiped out of the book of living. With sound of ter r or let their memory perish . Be fi re and brimstone the por ti on of their cup and in one generation blot out their name fo r ever. And as th is candle falls extinguished from our hand so fall their souls f ro m the sight of Almi ghty God and the company of Heaven unless they take thought and return to the fostering embrace of the church". With less important persons he was equally direct. When a widow was r obb ed in 1461 he excommunicated the pe rsons implicated, not only by Bell, Book and Candle, but also cursed them

standing, sitting, walking, ridin g , lyi ng , sleep i ng , waking, eatin g , drinking, in b read, liquor, f le sh , fish , butte r, le e ks, onions , g arlic and in all o t her occupations whatsoever from the sole of the foo t to the crown of the head ". Someti mes a complete pa r i s h was placed under an interdict - during wh ich all chur ch rites with few exceptions were suspended , No mass, ma rri ag e o r other service was celebrated - the church closed agains t the living and the churchy a rd agains t the dead. It was p erhaps the most terrible weapon of all.

Archbis h op Prene died in 1443 and in 1444 John Mey was appointed in his plac e. Ar chbishop Mey s Register has come d own to us also. He was Prim a te un til 1456 and during h is time as Archbishop th e English settlers were prohibited f rom wearing beards after the Irish fashion and ordered to shave them once a fo rtnight.

The Act of Parliament enforcing it was passed in 1447. In his Prim acy , in 1441, the custody of St. Patrick's Bell passed f r om the O'Mellans to the O'Mullhollands.

May' s successor was John Bole. He se rved as Archbishop fr om 1457 until 1470. During his Primacy he had a confirmation of a Market Charter and other privileges from Edward IV in the year 1 467 - the first record we h ave of any such grant to the city, He took an active interest in the diocese and was not content to

govern it from Termonfeckin as was t h en the rule. He had, however, plenty of troubles to contend with here. For instance, in 1466 when on a visit to the city two of his horses were stolen by members of the Clan O Mellan, the local sept that had previously been Keepers of St. Patrick's Bell, the family indeed from whom Lurgyvallen in the vicinity of the city derives its name. The Primate took measures for their recovery and we may assume that he received them eventually - in the meantime, however, he was compelled to hire trans p ort to take him home again to Drogheda. Similar accounts occur in earlier Registers - in Sweteman's Register for example, there is a letter from the Archbishop written in 1367 to the Chaplain of Castrum O O'Hanlon(Loughgilly) commanding him to admonish Malachy O Hanloyn , King of Erthyr (Orior) to compel certain of his subjects to restore goods taken from the Archbishop's messenger by violence (all set out in detail and including coats, hoods, belts, new shoes, linen and other breeches, gloves, cloaks, pocket knives, corn, salt, silver, etc.) one of the persons concerned being O'Hanlon•s younger son, Donald.

But to return to Bole 's Register. Under June 1458 it records the fact that a certain Art hur MacKearney of Armagh for the salvation of his soul and that he might avoid imminent danger had intended to build a wooden

bridge over the Kilcrewe river and a chapel at the plac e, but having begun the work and prepared much timber found h i mself unable to complete i t at his own expense. Li k e many of the entries in the Registers it fails to tell us wha t happened , other than that the Ar chbishop had g r ant ed fo rty days indulgence ou t of the treasures of the church t o a ll charitable Christians who should contribute to the finishin g of the work .

In 1471 , th e year after Bo le's death, J ohn Foxall was c onse c rated and remained Arc hbishop for fo ur yea rs without onc e puttin g a foot within t h e c ity. He was followed by Edward Connesburgh in 1475 who, because of inability to cope with d iocesan finances, re signed in 1480, whereupon 0ctavian del Pal a tio became Arc hb ish op rulin g the See unt il his deat h in 1513 . He was a man of sound learning and great political sagacity . His re gis ter containing "Memoranda" of Arc hbishop Bole and Kite has come safely down to us - it covers t h e period 1460 - 1520 . During his Primacy he remitted certain dues in 1509 so that the accumula ted sum could be made use of for the fabric of the Cathedral and its ado rnment.

During Archbisho p del Palati o 's time as Primate, Lambert Symnel, Pretender to the t h rone of En glan d, was crowned in Christ Church, Dublin, but the Archbishop not alone tried to persuade the Lord Deput y to p revent the

Coronation but finally withdrew from the Council and refused to take any pa rt in the crowning ceremonies.

In 1486 a tempest of wind accompanied by torrents of rain swept the Province of Ulster, uprooting trees and destroying houses and churches, and in 1491 the summer and ha rvest seasons were so wet it was impossible to save the corn and famine ensued. In the same year a blazing star, possib ly a comet was the precursor of a pestilence known as the English Sweat - a terrible fever that carried away the young and middle-aged men, but was less fatal to women, children, and old men. In the following summer most of the rivers dried up and cattle perished everywhere from thirst. Another comet visible for two months and fu rther fever added to the confusion and terror. In 1498 Armagh lost one of its greatest literary ornaments by the death of Charles Maguire, the eminent annalist. Such were some of the events of Archbishop del Palatio' s Primacy. Stuart tells us that in the Archbishop's time Armagh was reduced from its former splendour to a state of insignificance and quotes a Latin rhyme attributed to that period .

"Armagh - 'tis a pity Is now a vain city deprived of all common morality, The women go nude The meat's taken crude, and poverty there has locality", It reads: but in reality it was written almost three centuries earlier

by a ce r tain Hugh Tyrell who had assisted in the capture of the city in the days of the comin g of the Anglo - Normans . According to Irish Annals he deprived the church of Armagh of a magnificent cauldron, a theft that we are told brought him many misfortunes. That Tyrell should have found su ch a state of affairs in the city at that particular ti me was , of course, due to the continued ravages of war, a condition that reduced the inhabitants to pove rty and want . later and more popular version informs us that: -

"So fa r from the town of Armagh being witty, A much It is an extremely cocked-up and ridiculous city , Man , woman and lad thei r mann ers are bad The ladies I wish were a little more prude For I blush to narrate they are awfully nude, And if you dine with a gent, the meat ' s underdone And your host some poo r pa.upe r ly son of a. gun".

In the same year that del Pal a tio died John Kite was p romoted to the Primacy. Some of his Act s, strangely enou gh, a.re incorporated in the Register of his p r edecessor.

Arc hbishop Kite in cro ss i ng f r om England to his diocese of Armagh had an adventure that might have resulted in him neve r reaching Irela nd . His vessel was attacked by two Bre t on p ir ates and would ha ve been captured only that two Spani sh ships were quickly manned by the c i tizens of Drogheda who ha stened t o his assis t ance, rescuing him and bringing in one of the Breton boats a.s a p rize. He was a man of action and re mons trated wi th O Neill for having no thought but for his belly and p le as ure. A friend of Archbishop

Wolsey, he was present at that prelate ' s institution as Cardinal in 1515, and at the christenin g of Princess Mary in 1516, and in 1520 accompanied Henry VIII to the Field of the Cloth of Gold .

Archbishop Kite resigned in 1521 and George Cromer "a learned, g rav e and courteous man " was enthroned in the following yea r. His Register has been ver y fully calendared i n the Louth Arc haeological Jou r nal by the Rev . L. P. Murray . Three blazing s t ars, which appeared in the heavens in the years 1531 and 1532 astonished and ter r ified the people of Armagh and of Ireland as a whole ;,,ho viewed .them as indications of approac h ing calamities .

Two years later the shock of an earthquake was fel t i n Ir eland. In 1533 a P ar l iament was held in Dublin a t which the controversy be twixt t he Archbishop of Ar magh and the Arch bish op of Dublin as to precedency in Dubl in wa s renewed and de cid ed in favour of Armagh . In the next year Archbishop Cromer was presen t in Dublin when Lord Thomas Fitzgerald went into rebellion agains t the King and vainly appealed to that unfortunate nob le no t to plunge the Gerald.ines in war an d possible extinc ti on, but to rely upon the wisdom and justice of his Sove rei gnadvic e t hat unfortunately was no t take n .

Cromer's Register instances t he case of a citizen doing public penance in the Cathedral Church of Armagh

clothed in white as a pen itent and offering a poun d of wax in honour of St . Patrick on Sundays until the Primate was sa tisfied. He had a residence at Ar magh and during the winter of 1534- 35 incursions were made on his l and s in the neigh bourhoo d of Arma gh and a direct attack carried out upon his P alace at Dromarge on the outskirts of the city .

His Re gi ster incorporates some reco r ds o f his predecesso r Archbishop Kite, and also deals with ecclesiastical discipline, matri mo nial disputes, testamentary affai rs , s landers, an d churc h matters of the Province ge nerally and like the other Re gis ters is a useful source fo r names of the pre - Reformation clergy of the diocese.

Following Ar chbishop Crome r' s death in 1542 a shor t vacancy ensued but in the following year George Dowdal l was ch osen Pr imate . Hi s Regis t er of which we have only a copy includes the closing yea r s of Crome r and the firs t yea r s of his own term - th e period 1540- 1546., but f r om t hen on is an incomplete collection of scatte r ed wr i tings. The d o c tr in e s of Luthe r ha d then made mu ch prog r ess on th e Con t inen t of Eur op e and t hough th e beliefs of th e re fo rm e rs had achie ved a con s ide r ab l e i mpression i n

En g l an d it was very diffe re n t he r e . Th e Refo r mat ion in Britain wa s, h o wev e r, acceler a te d by th e i n termarriage

of Henry VIII with Anne Boleyn and that monarcHs quarrel wi th the Pope, resulting in a separation of himself and his subjects from the Papal See. Having secured the reluctant support of the English clergy he determined that the Irish Church should likewise break with Rome and acknowledge him a supreme head . He was successful with George Brown , Archbishop of Dublin, but Archbishop Cromer opposed the new regime. Archbishop Dowdall was appo inted Cromer•s successor by the King but the Pope declined to confirm the appointment . Dowdall did not, however, approve of the English liturgy and in the end refused to use it. Pressure was brought to bear upon him and a threat was made to make Armagh subordinate to Dublin. In 1551 the King and Council deprived him of the Pr imacy and in 1552 selected Hugh Goodacre - the first Protestant prelate of the See of Armagh . He died, however, in the following year, and in 1553 Edward VI was succeeded by Mary, daughter of Henry VIII, a Queen strongly attached to the Roman Catholic religion who recalled Archbishop Dowdall and re - instated him in t he See of Arma gh in March 1 554 . At the same time Mary caused the Archbishop of Dublin to surrender his patent thus restoring the Primacy to the Archbishop of Armagh. Archbishop Dowdall's second occupation o.f the See of Armagh had the approval of the Pope, but the death of Queen Mary in 1558 resulted in

Elizabeth, the only survivin g child o f Hen ry VIII corning to th e throne and the appointment of Adam Loftus, one of he r chap l a i ns as Archb ish op in 1562. Archbishop Loftus was Primate a t the ear ly age of twenty - e i gh t, but the See of Armagh n o t being financia lly productive he accepted the Arc hbish opric of Dublin instead in 15 67 ,

Th e English successfu l ly he l d Dubli n from the 14th century onwards and were able to c ontro l Ar magh t o s ome extent from Drogheda but in the period covered by the Registers it is clea rl y apparen t that although thos e pa rt s of the Pro vinc e of Arma gh situated in the P ale func tione d fai rl y wel l it was a very di fferent sto ry in the northern counties .

In c onclu sion I sho uld pe r haps st re ss the fac t that the Armagh Registers deal with Irel and as a whole, but mo re pa rtic ula rly with the Ecclesi astic a l Province of Armagh . They are, therefore, not confined to the Diocese only or indeed to Iri sh affairs . Th eir interest and appeal is much more extensive than their title sugges ts. The Province of Ar magh in itself embraces the counties of Armagh, Tyrone, Derry, Donegal, Sligo , Mayo, Galway, Cavan, Fermanagh, Lei trim , Lo ngfo rd, Meath, Westmeath, King's County, Roscommon, Mona gh an, Louth, Down and Antrim. In that huge area there are many places of pre -Christi an significance such as Emain Macha, Ta ra, Rathcrogan, and

Usneagh and famous monuments like the Boyne and Slieve-nacalliagh, prehisto ric burial-places, but far more important still is the fact that our ancient Ecclesiastical Province contains four most renowned associations with St. P a tric kSlemish where he spent his captivity, Saul where he is reputed to have built his first church, Slane where he li ghted the famous fire that foretold th e extinction of Paganism in Irel and, and Armagh the centre of his affection, the place he loved most" his dear t ho rpe and hill" .

Henry III

Edwa r d I

Edward II

Edward III

Richard II

Henry I V

Henry V

Henry VI

Edward IV

Richa r d III

Hen r y VII

Henry VIII

Edward VI

Mary Elizabeth

1 208 - J 1558 ..

King 121 6- 1272 . " 1274 -1 307 .

" 1308 but deposed 1327 . " 1327-1377.

" 1337 - deposed 1399 .

II 1399-1413.

II 1413 - 1422.

11 1429 - deposed 1461.

beginning of the York and Lancaster quarrels

King 1464-1483.

murdered with his brother soon after h is accession .

King 1483-1485.

" 1485-1509. The first of the Tudors . " 1509 -1 547.

II 1547-1553.

Queen 1553 - 1558.

II 1558-1603.

King John died in 1216 . His tyranny led to the signing of the Magna Charta. He was succeeded by Hen ry III whose folly and extravagance called for a demand for the representation of the people in Parliament - f rom which beginning the House of Commons developed . His successor Edward I was crowned in 1272. In his reign Wales was conquered and Scotland partly subdued. Edward II reigned from 1307 - 1327, in which year he was deposed, the English people having exercised for the fi rst time their right to depose a weak and worth less Sovereign .

Edward III became King in 1327 and was forced to reco gnize the independence of Scotland, but he laid claim to the throne of France, a demand that led. to "t he Hundred Years War His successor Richard II was crowned in 1377. His reign is chiefly renowned for the Peasants ' Revolt, the translation of the Bible into English by the eccentric John Wilclif, and the famous poet Geoffrey Chaucer.

Richard was forced to abdicate in 1399, a measure that brought about the disastrous Wars of the Roses . In 1399 Henry IV became King, but his was an uneasy reign, steeped in opposition and conspiracy . Things were indeed difficult when in 1413 Henry V ascended. the throne, but he made friends with the opposing parties and ac t ually conquered France . He left a baby son who succeeded him

as Henry VI in 1422 . His was not a successful reign . Hi s long mi nority made it impossible to hold the French throne and in his reign the Wars of' the Roses began. He was deposed in 1461 and Edward I V became the new king. He was , however, soon compelled to flee the country and thus Henry VI returned to power . Edward regained the throne and thus began the re i gn in which printing was introduced in England by Caxton.

Richard III ascended the throne in 1483 and is specially remembe re d for the murder of the two young princes in the Tower, the elder of whom should indeed have been king . He secured the k i ngdom by usurpation and was not a fav ourite, so ther e was little grief when he fell at Bosworth Field in the last battle of the Wars of the Roses.

The rule of the Tudor Sovereigns then began . Henry VII becam e king in 1485 and if he had no t been so miserabl e with regard to money the honou r of the discovery of America would have fallen to England instead of Spai n . Though he failed Columbus he did encourage the Cabots, th e di scovere rs of Newfoundland .

His successo r was the celebrated Henry VIII , a popular and mu ch married king, who came to the th r one in 1509 wi th the avantage of an unquestioned ri ght and a full treasury. The Welsh were content and the Scotch subdued. At his death t h e crown was t o descend t o Edward, Mary and Elizabeth, in that order.

Edward VI was crowned in 1547. In his time the Book of Common Prayer was compiled and the Protestant faith became established. By his will he bequeathed the crown to the unfortunate Lady Jane Grey who actually rei gned fo r twelve days and was succeeded by Queen Ma ry . Queen Mary rei gned from 1553 until 1558 . She was a firm Roman Catholic. She married Philip of Spain and shortly afterwards the old laws for burning heretics were revived and enforced. I n he r reign England lost its las t g rip on France . Through he r wish to please her husband a war was entered that should neve r have been fought . Her reign was marked by so many persecutions that the people at her death in 1558 joyfully proclaimed a Protestant Queen.

Elizabeth's tenure of the throne was long and successful. She was fond of study and conversant with Latin and Gree k . Philip of Spain sought he r as a wife but the proposal s eems to have been distasteful though she t r eated it with courtesy . Between the Prote stants and the Roman Catholics she was indeed between the devil and the deep blue sea . She did , however, know how to choose reliab le men and there is no doubt but that much of her success was due to her advisors . She had many worries, chief amongst them her cousin Ma ry, Queen of Scotland, executed in 1587. Her reign saw the defea t

of Spa in's "Invincible Armad a" and England then in truth ru led the sea . Raleigh sailed to Vir gi nia an d Frobrisher visited La brado r and Greenland in search of a north west passage to England , literature flourished - Spencer and Shakespeare we re p r odu cts o f he r reign.

The Queen herself was a complex char acter. Sh e enjoyed t ra velling , was well educated and witty but so vain t ha t nobody ever succeeded in prais in g her as sh e thought herself de se rvi ng . She had a quick temper and he r wo rd was not always reliable . She did, however , love her c ountry and she was a gr eat ruler . With he r death i n 1603 the throne pass ed to the House of St ua rt in the person of James I of England and VI of Scotland, son o f Mary, Queen of Scots, in whose reign t h e Plantation of Ulster was carried out.

His mothe r was a dev out Roman Catholic but he h ad been brought up very strictly by the Scotch Presbyterians and they we re even more rigid in their ideas than the Puri tans . To him we owe the Plantation of Ulster by Scotch and English settlers in the opening years of the 17th centu r y.

The

County of Armagh

Taken at the Castle of the Moyrey, 2 August 1608

Qow Ardmagh

The Pres entmen t of the Jury for the Survey for th e Count y of Ardmagh t aken a t the Castle of Moyrey before His Majes t y 's Co mmi ss i o n e rs , the second day of Au gus t 1608 .

First We find and present that the whole County of Ardmagh is g ener al ly mea red and bounded as follo ws, viz.

Between Cla nb r assel and this c ounty and pa rt of Evagh n e a r the town of Kil laghy in Clan brass el afore s aid, the re is an old caus eway in a bog called Clo gha n nea r Lough Eaugh, which is a meare between t hi s county and the Coun t y of Down

and fro m the n c e to the foord o f Aghneha in a bog lying be t ween Dromenekeyrn in Clanb ra ss el and Ballymagin i n Ev ag h, and so t hrough the mid st of the b og called lfoonm oreballynickytire and fro m through the midst of a bog called Mo an Rine rt y and so to the ford of Aghev eghan, and fro m thence they refer the mselv es to the me a res of O Hanlon ' s Co un tr y fo r me rl y de liv e re d to the Co mmissioners at Mountnorris ; and fro m thence t o the fo rd called Bealaclo gha n lying between t he Fuighe s and Do,mgowle in the Count y of Louth, being the next meara to O Han lon; a nd from • thence to Carriclmeshioge near Dongale and so near to Lissecoonny a long by a ditch lyin g between Li s secoonny and Bedlowes land in the County of Louth and from thence to the ford of Carr igeterman and from thence to the ford of Belaghmackleynny; and so the ford of Aghknockecladdy; a nd so from thence to the ford of · Belaghreny, and so from thence to Sraghnenealan in the Fuighes and to the ford by the same in the River of Muchna and so up the same river to Loughross and so up the river to the ford of Ballyhinogerly and from thence through the bog Loughes hei ll, parcel o f' the Fiughes a nd so to the ford of[ land so to the sma ll stream running near Carrawaghroe in Henry Og e's l ands and so thr oug h t h e bog to Dromh e rny, leaving tha sam e to the County of Ardmagh and from thence to the sm a ll stream running between the Poullenagh in the County of Monaghan and Dirrinuse in this county and so to

the s mall stre am running between Ballagh g reen i n the County of Monaghan a nd Do ug h skeagh in t h e sai d c ount y and s o t o ano ther s mall bog d ivi ding bet ween Cr ossdallagh i n the Count y of' Ar dm agh an d Liss d r omgowll agh t in the Coun t y o f Mon ag han a nd s o fro m the nce t o the s ma ll bog l y i ng betwe en the Enowh in the Count y o f' Mon aghan and the Kno c kban in t hi s county and so t hro u gh a s ma ll bog down t o Owe n cogge ry wh ich is a me a re betwixt th e Cou nty of Mon ag ha n and t h i s c ounty a nd so up t h e s am e riv e r to t he Bla ckwa t e r t o Lough Eaugh af'ores a id.

And we f'ind further that there is within this count y f'ive baronies, viz.

Orier, Ardmagh, Fui ghes, Toa ghra n ie a nd o•Neil a n.

And t ouching the me ares of Ori e r we refe r our selves unto the book that was delivered unto the Commi s sione rs at Mountnorris.

And that the barony of Ardmagh is me a red viz.- on the north f'rom Bunetalla gh and so to Moy - g r avid in the west and so to Aghmago wan in the south a nd so to Bal lynehowen in the east.

And that the b a rony of Fu ighes a f'oresaid is meared , viz.- on the south f'ro m Shanmullagh a n d so to Ballyne g allagh in the west and so to Ba lline gr owb ana gh in t h e north, and so to Creiggan in the west.

And that the barony of Tuo ghr any a fore s a.1.d is meared, viz. on the north from Anaghlar y a nd so to Carranagh Roe in the south, and so to Ardgonnell in the west and so to Tollglashogowen in the east.

And that the barony of' O'Neilan af'oresaid is meared viz. on the south from Shankrekin and so to Ballymg1llmorrow in the west and so to Magherygreeny in the north and so to Killaghy in the east.

And that there is in the barony of Ardmagh aforesaid these several lesser countries or precincts of land, viz.

Tuoghaghie, Cossvoy, Collowre and the Lord Primate's land Duogh Slutmelaughl1n, Duogh Muntercullen.

And that tl1ere is in Tuoghaghie a foresaid , these several towns o r vil l ages or ballieboes ensuing vi z.

l. Bal lydownerona gb. ". n ,, r kley als Tiewfadda 3, 0 Tull ag hlish. 4 Kedu ff , ?· . Carri c kcloghe r , o Cros sda nedd , 7. Tull agh nemal l oge. 8 . Downelarge

9 , Cr ossmo re. 10. Lor ge cliegh.

1 1. Corre h ugh.

12 . Ca v agh . 13 . L aggan .

14. Di r thenne ll, 15 . Dromg rinagh . 16 . Maddane. 17. Farrinnemuyloig.

1 8. Dr omdeirg . 1 9 . Knockravan. 2 0 . Ki lly crew . 21. Moyvol lin. 22 . Uskemedy 23 . Roan. «4, Dr omhurke . 25 . Kilcriew .

26. Dromcolt er , 27. Dro mbr ough us. 28 . Brottelly. 29 . Lisglyn . 30 . Tawlau ght.

31. Drommcanvar.

3 2. Ca rric ke ne clough oge. 33 Cav an g arvan . 34: Dirrecahagh, 35 Balt ae ag h.

30 : Lissogally als Lissechrin, 37. Krewrinn.

3 8 . Gartan.

39. Moichuvony. 40. Can ant is.

41. Moiegrawid. 42 . Naule. 43 .. Killolah. 44 Ballyduff •

45. Corvin.

46. Tull aghg allody.

47. Drom ga r.

48. Goo ll agh .

49 . Di r rene li egh . di b.b . 51

Bal li n e ga r , 1 c ess i ogh. En a ghne a ncih, 1 cessiogh .

And a lso cert a in othe r t own s , v i l la ge s or b al l ieb oes ou t of whi ch t h e Lor d Arc hb i shop o f Ardmag h cl a i ms c e rtain y e a r l y r e n t t he c e rt a int y whe r eof we know not , viz .

50. 51. 52. ~:

55 . Maghe ry - Kil l ea n e a ls Li s d r oma.rd . Tuwnagh als Aghirfi ny .

Cu lli n t rag h a ls Bracktwnagh.

Ba ll y coh ie a ls Bo t te r a n.

Trewn a ls Bal l yagh y.

Li ss ed e li n a ls Ba lly s canill .

Ta wl a ghteboo , h a lf a ba llybo.

And that ther e i s ot he r ce r ta i n villiages or b a llibo e s in the sai d c ountry wh ich do pa y a ch ief r ent to the Abbey of Ar magh viz.

56. Grearnnore 6/8 .

57. Corcleigh 6/8.

58 . Ag hymagow regan 13/1+.

59. Tassagh 13/4.

60. Tirarl y a ls Crew Roe 13/4.

And tha t th ere is in Coswoy afo r esaid , thes e sev e r a l towns , village s or balliboes out of wh ich the s a i d Lor d Archbishop challen ge th certain rents, the certainty wh ereof we know not, viz.

l. 2. t l: 7, 8. ..9. Nav an . [ J rolly. Tirretrah. Tireskahan. Drombee. The two Ballyvartraws, Tullaghnicholl, Cloghfin. Tullaghgerran • 2 b a lliboes,

And tha t th er e is in Duogh-slut - ne- Melagh lin th e s e sev e ral towns, vill a g es o r balliboes out of which the sa i d Ar chbish op chal lengeth c e rtain ch ie f r en ts the c e rt a int y whe r eof we know no t , vi z . '

1, Kno cknec o onny , 2, Tullid on egan ,

3.• • Tal l aghs tah . Ii Dromshiel.

5. Killeloyn e. i'i Bealhugh .

7, Ann ag han- Rie .

8. Two Creaghans , 2 b a l li boos .

And tha t t here i s in Coswov aforesaid t h ese s eve r al t own s, v il l ages or ball ib oes which pa y to he Abbay o f Ard magh to ren t, v i z .

Grangagh 6/8 .

And a lso in Duogh-Slutm - Me l agh li n , the s e t owns viz.-

Grangag h 6/8 . ·

Cr oss Kr ien 6 / 8.

Mull ag h boy 13/4

And tha t there i s in Cowl oowr e afore s a i d , thes e s ev e ral b a llibo es e nsuing, vi z .

1. Do wnd a vally.

2 . Corr.

3 •• Ba llinbreagh. !i Aghmy lu gg , '5 •• Lyshlosh ty. i'i Mull ag hmore.

7. Tirm e ckrenan.

8. Chamegow.

whereof Downdav a lly and Corr are alloted to the town a: Charlemont.

And that there is Duogh-Muntercullen aforesaid, these several balliboes ensuing, viz.

l, Shanmu J.lagh ,

2 , Lisboyfin .

3 •• La g gan .

4 Tiremickbrie n,

5 Kilmore .

b • Mu ll aghana r y.

7. Mul l agh - eightragh ,

8. Dromar r an .

whe r eo f Shanmullagh aforesaid is assi gned to the Fo rt of Cha rle mon t , out of all which l ands the Archbisho p of Ar magh chall enga t h a ce rt ain year l y . rent, t he certain t y whereof we know no t.

And tha t there is in this ba r ony the Manor of Ar dmag h containing 24 b alliboes which l ands ar e re ported the Chur ch La n d s of Ardma gh, pa r tl y belonging t o the Archbishop of Ar dmag h 1 pa r tly to Religious Hou se s disso lv ed, part in dema i n e a n d pa rt in se r vices, the cer t ainty wher0of we know no t,

And t ha t the r e i s wi t hin this ba r ony in the Town o f Ar dma gh a s mal l Friery o f Fr anciscans di ss olved t o whi ch bel ong eth two t ownlands .

And the r e is al so a s ma ll Nunne r y in the t own of Ardmag h a for esai d.

And tha t a ll t h e Tiet he s within this b a r ony do belo ng t o the Bishop , the Dean, the Pr ior and the Ab bay of Ardmag h, but in wha t manne r we know not ,

And t here be l ori ge t h to t h e Abbay o f Ar dma gh one cessioe of land, viz.

Vicars Chorals o f Ar dmag h in d emai n e viz.

FuighesFews Barony,

And there i s in t he b a rony of Fuighes a foresaid these several lesser countries or precincts of land, viz.-

Clanconnoghy, Fuighes, Cla nca rny , Ballienemoyre a nd Ballym Owen

That there is is Clanconnoghy aforesaid, these several towns, villages or balliboes ensuing, viz.-

Dirr ycho r.

Bra n d rim .

Ley t ry.

Cabbragh .

Dro mne l o c k.

Moylurge .

Co r nec ri ew .

Maghe ry d ough er.

Magheryloughcowmor

Ballin-jrrew.

Magherymsr ough.

Mull aghbra c k .

Corr

Ar dgonne ll. Grooban a gh.

Dromin .

Ga r vagh.

Drom a r gin .

Kilrod an .

Dromanish .

Dir rmenag h.

Dromenaglog h.

Ra t a r naght.

Dro ms hewgysh.

Dr ewran.

Dro rnnec ro ss .

Lan elei g h.

Teydan.

Kna ppagh .

La rgeb oy .

Keil fad dy.

Bally-Ire.

Broghan.

Inishl ac e.

Dromch o n awle.

Vauran.

Lattmachallow, Utleckeh.

Dromgagh.

Kilnegappull.

Quillin.

Couloon

Ballinegalliogh 2 balliboes.

Drombeas, 2 ball iboes,

Eddeneveghes 2 balliboes

and also ce rta in other ball i boes viz . -

Ca rn e men e s cha r .

Ca vana g r o ogh

Out of which the Lord Arc h bisho p cla i me t h r en t, the certainty and a lso cert a in othe r b a lliboes out of which is pai d certain rents to the Abba y of Ard magh viz.

Dromenty 6 / 8 .

Dromn ech oy 6/ 8 .

Ballind a r r a gh 6/ 8.

Ba ll yma c ka lly 6/8 .

Lu r gowy 6/ 8 .

An d t hat there is i n Cl anca rny afores a i d t hese several balli boe s, viz.

Crun aght ( 2).

Coolma lishes ( 2 ).

Eddenecannowny

Carrickleaghan .

Kil brack .

Feighboggan .

Bra ck l y.

Cor domin 1 2 cessioes.

Lesnegatt.

Drom gem. Lur gyross.

Coro nagh . Li ssdrumcor . Dr omnehunchin.

Carrickgallo gly.

Corr omanin .

Lough-b al ly-Ikee.

Dromchony. Crewhillagh. two Creggans 2 balliboes.

Dirrlattygow y. Glassdromin.

Note. Capt ain Adderton is in possession of these three last towns of the two Cre gga ns, D1rrlattygowly and Glassdromin bf colour of a · lease made by the Earl of Tyrone for the earl's life and his son Hugh, but no livery or seizen.

An d a l so c e rt ain oth e r towns villages o r b a lliboes ou t of whi c h is paid c e r t ain rents to the Abbay of Ardmagh , vi z .- -

Ba l lytanmor e 6 / 8.

Ballyhyan be g 6 / 8 ,

Damwally 6 / 8.

Tawnagh 1 sess i ogh 2 /3,

And tha t there is in the Fuighes a foresaid, t he seve r al vil lages o r b all iboes - vi z.

Glassd r omin .

Lu rga c oolinboy .

To llyvoll in.

Nedorsagh .

Toll yvallo h.

Tul lydon ell .

Our r e iu.

Ca rr i c lc- mal ly .

Co r menon agh t.

Aghi hi rr eshe ll oghan.

Cr ei g gan .

Cl a rin agh ,

Dr omaghe valla.

Dr ommu c k .

Tru ghu r.

Cross mo gg lan .

Li s s e r agh.

Cl o ne li ck.

Drombee .

Eddenedony.

Manigillagh . Lis s awry. Dr omgawgh.

Cr ewekurin.

Crinkill

Cornelish.

Tullynecrossy. Tomerphrigh.

Anaghmerah. Kiltebanagh.

Reigh.

Shitrim.

Tullayhslagh • Cloghehennagh.

Cherrin,

Cav a nore.

Shanmullagh , Dowereggan, Carrig neg in. Teynisken

Lissdromgeir, Anaghebacky

Lyo l gh ,

And that there is in Ballynemoyre aforesa i d. , these sev e ral towns vill ages or bal lib oes out of whi ch the Archbishop of Armagh ch allenge th c er ta in chief rents the c er t ain t y wh e reof we know not, viz. -

Co rri lla , Larkan.

Lor g inah.

Ca van aki lly, Dromgeo rge,

Li ssdroma r d ,

Li s sue . Ma c kawe , Aghnecorke, Ballymi ckan, Sycaghan,

And t ha t there is in Ballymc Owen aforesaid, the s everal l ands, villa ge s and balliboes out of which the Archbishop chal l enge th c e rtain c hief rents, the certainty 1,Jhereof we know not, viz.-

Lisnedull, Li sse leigh, Drommoyle, Cavene g roagh, Corren, Ardmaghbreigy, Tonregugh, Tullybrone,

And that there is within this b a rony the Parish Chu rch of Mullaghbrack whe rein the Prior of Armagh is pa rson, a nd there 1s a vicar endowed to be p resented to His Majesty,

And also th e P a r ish Church of Kil c lona n whe rein the Tr ea surer of Ardmagh is p a rso n and vic a r.

And a l so the Ch appe l of Corleat t which bel onge th t o t he Chu rc h of Loughg i lly in 0rier .

And a lso the Pa r ish Church of Cr eig gan , the tythes 1oher eof as well as the p a rs onage a nd vicarage do belong t o t he Pri or a nd Vic a rs Chora ls o f Ard magh .

And th a t th e r e is within the ba r ony of Tuoghrany a fores a id t he several l esser countries o r p recincts of lan d viz. -

Tuo gh - Rany, Clina wl y, Te ynan, Derrinowes .

And that ther e i s in Tuogh - Rany a fores a id , these several towns vi llage s or balliboes ensuing, viz.l. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18 . 19. 20. 21. 22.

Balli meta gh - eeght ragh .

Ballimetagh - oughtragh.

Lisslony . Braghmoy

Kiltibored.

Mulli n .

Coolkill . Corf eighnagh .

Tullibrick- eightragh .

Tulli b ric k - oughtragh.

Tullaghleish .

Keill ycanan an . Cavandowgin .

Nu n cho ge. Ra trillis.

Dromgarn . Shantullagh. Fui ghdu ff. Ard go nnell. Sycoonny. Drumgows. Gortfaddah and Skirry, one balliboe, Rynn. Crann. Crossdallag h -eig h tragh. cro s sdallagh- oughtragh. Racomer.

Gl a s sd r omin, Kno ck and Dro mne morih

Do wrah , Banr a , Sy trim , Tolly g l u sh .

Cr e n chi er in .

Ly ss l anoghl i gh, Purtenelle g an , Dowge r r y , Mullaghnary

Kn oc ltcr a neskal l agh .

on e ba lli boe ,

a nd al so Ca rr any uhich c ontain e th eigh t ball i boes .

And th a t there is in Cl in a wl y a fo r esai d th es e s ev e ral towns villa g es or ba l liboes, viz,-

Enaghnen anagh , Pa wl a nagh . Foore.

Knoc k eneigh, Li s snefiddy , Ke il nemaddy , Co ol e c a rne. Corr.

Aghatarragha.

t wo Tullymores, 2 ballib o es . Tullaghneskin, Eddenedirry, Tull agh more. Be a lamoyg oole, Att y s ho oly.

Mullagh-Iloghan

Mullagh-eturr two Dromsallons, 2 balliboes, Dirren0ssey. Tawnaghewan. Leynabroagh. Dromharnaght.

all a£ which lands the said Archbishop 0£ Ardmagh claims as part of his demains.

And that there is in the said country these other towns or balliboes ensuing, v iz . -

Clontakeran. Agh emoy alt.t •

Turry.

Ta nnag h, Cavanb a lly aghie . Mullagh- I tynne. Knappag h, Down.

Li shn eshanr ad y. Garv ag hy . Shan mullagh . Cab bragh , Tulloghoseran and Kielb ot r y.

Anna ghmoieth, two Anaghlarowes . 2 bal liboes, Moiehdowne. ' Muntercar r .

Out o f which the said Archbisho p of Ard ma gh claimeth c er t ain ren ts the ce rt a inty whe reof we know not ,

And tha t there is in Tynan aforesaid, t hese s everal t owns, villages or balliboes ensuing viz. -

Quoy an d Tyn ag h, one balliboe, Annaghra ppe a nd Lyleigh, one balliboe . Cl on t y c a rt y and Le gmego rry, one bal liboe. Gort molieg and Mucklogh one balliboe . Bre agha and Dro mchonnoroe, one ball ib oe . Lisseag h , Loynevane and Mullaghbard, one balliboe.

Out of al l which lands the said Lord Archbishop of Ardmagh claims as par t of his demaine .

And that there is i n De rr ynowes a foresaid, thes e several to wns , villa ges o r balliboes en suing viz.-

1. Roughan, 2 , Feargort, 3 •• Dr oma r ge . It Tully hirrin , 5' •• Tullyfinn. Ii Drombarneh, 7. Tievnecrey. 8. La t ty garran . 9. Crossn emoy le. 10, Bracklin,

11. Dr om c oyle .

1 2 . Dr om ti e r ny .

13. Agh negl og h .

14 . Mall y a i d .

15. Ball in t a mp l e .

16. Dirreno wes .

Al l of which the sa id Lord Archbis hop cl a i ms a s pa rt of hi s de ma ine .

An d th at t he r e i s within this ba r ony t h e P a rish Chur ch of De r ren o wes , the Tit hes whereof a s well o f t h e Pa r s on ag e as t h e Vic a r a ge do bel on g to t he sa i d Pri o r and Vi c a r s Ch or a l s of Ardmagh.

O'Nealan Barony

And that there is within t he Ba rony o f O1 Nealan af or esaid these several less e r c ountrie s or pre c inc t s of la n d vi z .-

O'Neilan, Killmoore, Lough Ro r ka n , Cr anag ill , Ke ye r , Dirribrochus, Cl a ncan and Clanbra s sel, the Gran ge a nd Du oghSlu t t-Ed mond-Oge.

And that there is in o•Ne ala n a f o resai d t h e se se v e ral towns, villages or ballieboes, en suing viz .-

Dromna sweh . Mollaghnasaillagh • .Cloghan Radrom g rene. Dromi seies . Losc a burrin. Mollagheanayn. Raymolcrayne. Aghena. Raye, Lagacorieh. Corrycrivoy. Molla ghelittaragh. En ag hbooagh. Enaghchyny Rakineigha. Kenicon. Faghearte.

Dromi a rda.

Dromnihonsh en. Mo Keidy.laghedroy, Cl ondroett. Bayleantaggart. Dayr chi al l.

Bailenebreagh , Mol l aghea le a l i sh, Ba llenahense.

Baile an l oghea in. Aghio ri e r . Magherloughecows

Dro ma rt, Ena ghsawry .

Clo neru ei ggan .

Clonene - Edd en. Aghy tireloug hbrag h, Cawsanag h, Nacoroagha.

Tirene griew.

Downal agha n, Ballyma g ieray. Dromehcriffe, Lissa.

Lissesfill, Crienagh, Bally ke rovan. Ardrohy. Dromilly, Tirech a rry. Mullagh bane. Dromifogher, Killmackhugh, Ballineknock, Boliogasie, Dromard, Belly-ossowen. Leballyneglass. Killemanyn , one cessioe, Teemickmore, hal.f a balliboe, Tulloghmore two cessioes, Dromart one cessioe, Ferromilly half a balliboe,

nd also other towns or balliboes, viz.-

Tir nes c oa b, Mullaghlowharnagh K1llov11mey . Dr umad begg, Greenan , Ba llym a ckgillvooragh.

Out of a ll of which the Lor d Archbishop o f Armagh cl aimeth cert ai n chief rents, the certainty ,-,hereof we know not.

And also the b a lliboe of Granagh, belonging to the Abbey of Ar dmagh in demaine,

And that there is in Kilmore aforesaid , these several towns, villages or balliboes ensuing viz.-

Tireg a r den , Killma bkr a ine, Moynymoriertie Kilm keintykeinty. Baile-Ifegan, Baileanmo ll ay . Baletrea. Rowghan. Dr oma rd. Clonl arge .

all of which lan d the said Archbishop of Armagh claims as part of his demaine.

And that there is in Lough Rorkan aforesaid these several towns, villages or balliboes ensuing, viz.-

Marorkan. two Sancrackans, 2 balliboes. Dromenemeddar. Moiegh. Tawnaghmore, two ce ssioes .

And that there is in Cranagill aforesaid, these several towns, villages or balliboes ensuing viz.-

Moiegh, Cranagill als Dromard. Brouchus

Annaghmo re, Coppn ey a n d Di rr y ch ah r ah , on e ba ll ibo e . Ar d r i n s ke,

And tha t th er e is i n Ke ir afo r esaid thes e se v e r al t own s , v i ll ag e s or bal li boes ensuing , vi;, _

To l ly r oan . Tires cu llila, Kinne r y . Dirr y ch agh,

An d tha t t he r e i s i n Dirr eb r o chus afo r esa id thes e sever a l t o wn s , v i .ll ages o r ba l l i boes, vi z . -

Cl ont ycheagh , Cl onemore , Dir reb r oc hus, Dirr elaghy.

Out o f which the s a i d Arc hbishop of Ardmagh cl aim et h cert a i .n r e nts the ce rt ai nt y whe r eof we know no t.

And th a t t h er e is i n Clan c an aforesaid these sev e r a l town s, vill a ges o r b a l l ib oe s ensuing, viz .-

Ballene go an-o wg ht r ag h. Bro ugh us. Raha rr a gh. Ann ag o a r. Cooshenew. Lisser a e. Aghavellan. Tawnaght-Ivinigh. Ba llifedryn. Lag gana. Corkynegerriff. Corneamucklagh. Annaghkeerah , Drominallagb, Solleshane. Corcullyntraghbegg. Corcullyntraghmore. Cornelekegh. Dromgoos.

Ki l le magawishe , Cr iegh n esk ri ney . Corbrackogie, Muckhurey

Derr a nle, Dro menaugh . Dirrehanmoyle Dro mm alis . May a ghm ore , Mayaghbeg . Dirr echinr in . Dirrel agha rd. Dirrenreagh . Clan oe r, Droml ellan.

Dir rele tt i ew. Tagmc Ichie ll. Farrah.

Br eagh - owtragh . Dro mher iff.

Dr om c hew . Aghen e Regell, Cl oonmar ti n , Dirr ekarne . Dr o my newyn . Rowaghan . Tyamulka nny, Canonea lle.

Can ogo lag h , Dr omru anmo rehie, Cl ont elie w. Kana ghgoln agh, Bre ag h-eightragh, Daghkereaghan . Tag h lo ag hogie, Clo anameke sh-owghtragh . Dirre k orra.

Dyrr ea gh, Clonamekeat, Dyrrehynnea. Dyrrelaagh, Cloanekesh-eightragh sh- eigh tragh. Cloonkagh, Dromraekally, Aghbrackoeg. Mehan

Cl oanagh .

Tawnaghmore

Dromyn a ssoh .

Corra lcryn.

Eydenaderry . Garv agh i e.

Lis sba l l ygowroin.

Boyl e elum .

Killemc murriertagh murr

Mullagheteaniertagh. .

Dromanan .

Dirrelosteh .

Ballinegoan-eightra . and also the balliboe o f Mag hery g rena be l ong ing t o the Abbay of Ar dmagh in de mai ne.

And th a t there is in Cla nbr assell afore sai d t hese sever a l towns, villages and balliboes ens uing vi z .-

Kill ag hy.

Clonerolagh.

Li sschor an.

Tawnaghmore

Lur ge .

Dou gh c orr.

Dromen emore, Clongille woo rriff.

Cor rekeni ge ir.

Doimegreagh . Dromenekarne, Tull a ghconnelly. Tullaghdagoin. Kynegowe. Dromnecally, Dirryh. Shankill, Aghnecloigh. Tobberhevench.

Taghnewan, Killinargitt. Tyremoyry. Boghannel. Knockrawer, Ballinemone

Aghacanan.

Tawna ghmore . Ki nverrigan , Balto - f ag h .

Tawna gh tne gla ssan .

Dr omne g owe n .

Syg o o - ei gh tragh .

Sygoo - owght r agh , Tassan . Carn e , Tawnaghcarbitt

Co r r, Dirrinn aragh ,

Dirrit ag h . Dirrytr asn ey, Dirrinevir r, Na r d ,

Dirad d eh.

Dirin a kei sh, Knockb a llyb rie nboy , Laned a rr a h .

Maghern a , Knocknemuckle y , Ballyyargan . Dr om yn, Bal l ymickcran nell . Carrick , Dromlishnegrillah. Br eagh . Kilb ian . Lev aghe ry, Lis se nusky, Keyrnan, Loylucke , Bocomerah.

Honagh a n.

Lyssd r ommoynt ry, Clandroll, Cros smu ckcahully , Drumgorr, Marevery, Leggecorr, Tull ygal lih, Moybreck, Lurgemackoin

Ballyblagh, Knoclmeshane,

Tawnaghmore.

Bo s allag h .

And t ha t there is in the Gr ange a for esa id , th e se seve r al towns vi llages or balli boes ensuing, viz.-

Lis g re nan . Tawnaghmore

Dr ombenny.

Aghec os s c oragh.

Ce r o whumog e .

Don g en en . Ta wnaghb egg.

All o f which a r e in the p o ssession o f the Coll ege of t h e New r y an d in possessi on of the heirs of Ni cho la s Bagnall .

And that there is in Duogh-Slutt-Edmond-Oge aforesa id these several towns vi lla g es or balllboes ens u in g , viz.-

Mad d . Br oghe is.

Dr oma r d .

Annagh emo re.

Ardi a ste .

An d tha t there is within this barony th e Pa ri s h Church of Kilmore \olhe re in t he Dean of Ardmagh is pa rson and the Chan cellor is vic a r.

And a lso the chu rc h o f Agh ekilltara n , where i n the sa id Dean is pa rs on and the vic a r ag e bel on ge t h to the Prior and Vicars Corr a lls of Ard mag h a foresaid.

And also the P a rish Chur ch of Dr omcrew wherein the said Dean is parson and the Chancellor, vicar.

And al so the ch a pel of Magh er agrene which belon ge th to the aforesaid Abbay of Ardmagh .

And also the Chappell of Tartir ag han \olhi ch belongeth to the aforesaid Abbay of Ardmagh.

And also the Parish Church of Sigoo, wherein there is a parson and vicar, the parson has two par ts of the tythes and the vicar the third.

An d a lso the chapel f Shankill. Chu rc h o f Ki l mulc h n ' d O anl<i;1-l belo ng i n g to th e be l on ge t h to t h e church 3 ;' ]i! 8 0 rt o f tn e t y thes th e r eo f rc ,1 0 1 Donacloney c loney .

A.ll d we furth e r fin d t ha t t he sev e r al b a r on i e s o f Ardmagh t ~ h e Fuighes Tuoghrany a nd O ONeialan a fores a id

an 1 a . 1 8 s e v e ra l _ 1:3 s s er c ountrie s o r 1:- r e c i nct s of la nd s , t~ -1;:~l v il l a g e s, bal lib oes o r pa r c el s of l a nd s a bov e written is present a.r e a nd a t th e t ime or ..'.la ki n g of the St a tut e 7n t ,1e llt ,1 yaa r of th e l ate Qu e en a nd be for e ti me out of 1!1 1nd , iv e r e always lyin g and b e i n g wi t hi n t h e Coun t ry o r ! 0 r r:i.to r y of Tyr on e a n d posses s ed b y t he o Nealle s a nd th~ ir fo ll o we r s a nd tha t by fo rc e of the s a id s t a t u te th e s ~ i d l a t ? Que en ' s Ma jes t y was e nti tl ed t o a ll and. sin g ul a r t n e p r e m:i. s ;i ,s, ex c e p t s:u c ~ p ar c el s t here o f a s o f r i gh t d i d b elo ng t o v ,19 Lor d Archbishop of Ar dmagh or t o an y Abb ay Pri o r y o r o t he r Rel i gi ous Hous e s . '

And we fur t h er find th a t aft erwar d s t h e said Queen ' s Ma je s t y a bout t he 28 t h yea r of he r reign g ran te d un t o Hugh , late Ea r l of Ty rone, by Letters P a t ent , a J. 1 an d si n gu l a r t he p re mises ( e xce p t b efo re e x c e p t ed) , t o h a v e a n d t o h o l d t o the sa i d Hu g h for life, t h e re maind er t o Hugh hi s r e put e d s on and th e h e i r s ma l e s o f h is body lawfully be go t te n a n d for th e want o f s u ch is sue to Hen r y anot her r e pu te d so n of t h e l a t e Ea rl a n d the he ir s ma l e s o f h i s bo dy la wf u lly b ego tte n a n d f or want of s u c h issue t o Cormock O Ne a le , brother t o the sa i d l a t e Ea rl , for lii' e, the r emai n d e r t o Art Og e, son to t h e s ai d Cormock and t he h ei rs ma l es o f his body l awf u ll y b egott en, a nd f or t h e wa nt o f su ch i ssu e the Rev e rsi on to th e sa i d l a te Queen's s Majes t y h e r h eir s a nd successors for ever.

By f orce whereof the said Hugh , la t e Ea rl, was of a ll and singul a r t he p re mises, exc e p t t h e Mano r of Ardmag h a f o re s a i d seized fo r ter m of hi s li fe, with the r em ainder as afor e s~id a nd bein g so s e ized was a fterwards a ttainted of Hi g h Treason by outlawry, the tim e a n d p l a ce a nd othe r circumstances of which a tt a ind er we ref e r t o be s et d o,m ac cor di ng t o the records thereof.

By force whe reof t he said late Queen • s Majesty was of all singul a r the premise s ( e xce pt the l a ~~ befo r e ex ce pted) seized for t e r m of the li fe of the sai d Hugh late Ea rl a nd th e reof afterwards died seiz ed , on whose a eath th e sam e descended to the King's Majesty tha t now is.

thereof

force t he re o f the said King'ss Majesty sty 1·1a s a lso 0 seized, and in the 3rd yea r o f His Hi ghn ess 's r e i gn , g r an t ed the s am e by L et t e rs Patent unto the sa id Hugh late Earl of Ty r one fo r lif e with the same re ma inders continued i n the former Letters P atent ( ex c e p ting a nd alwaysreserving out _of the s aid P a t ent , the coun t rie s o f Tuogthrany and the F u ig hes abo ve me ntioned and th e lands o f Ch a r .Lemont . ·

And that the said Ki ng ' s Ma jesty af t e rwa r ds the [ ye a r o f his rei gn g rante d by Le t te r s P ate nt un to Sir Hen ry Oge O Neale, Kni g h t, de c eased and his heirs fo r ever, the abo ve written coun t ry of Tuoghr a ny and a l l the lands , t eneme n t s a nd he redita men t s there in.

And a l so in the [ )yea r o f his reig n , g r an t ed by Le tt er s Paten t un t o Sir Ti r logh McHenry , Knigh t and his he irs for e v e r a ll the above writt en count ry o f the Fu ighes and a ll th e lands t enements and her e ditaments the re i n.

By f orce whereo f the s a id Sir He nry and Sir Tir lo gh we r e and the he irs of the sai d Si r Henry a re, sev erall y sei zed of the seve r a l c ountr ies l ast above written as the law requi ret h .

And we f u rt he r find th a t th e said Hug h late Earl, and Hugh his son and Ar t Og e afo re sa i d and d ivers others we re a ft e r wards by p roce ss of outlawr y att ai n ted o f High Treason , t h e ti me p l ace a nd oth er circumst an ce s of whi ch these said attainders we refe r to be s et down acc o r d ing to the Records thereof.

And we find fur t he r tha t t he said Hugh, l ate Earl of Tyrone was a t the ti me of his sai d attaind er seized by force of bis sa id Letters P a tent , for te r m o f his life o f an d in all and singu l ar the p re mises exce p t the Mano r of Ar dma gh, the c oun tries of Tuog h r any and the F uighes an d the la nds of Ch a rlemont a f o resaid,

And that the several es t a tes in remainder o f the said Hugh sup posed so n to the sa i d Hu gh, l a t e Earl o f Ty rone a nd Art og e McCormack were in them at the ti me of these sa id attainders by force of the said Lett ers P aten t. And that as well the p o ss ession as a ll the said re ma inders by fo rce of t he said several attainders are c om e to Hi s Majesty's h a nds,

And touching the clai ms of the said Lo rd Archbishop of Ardma gh abo':e me ntio ned, if he shall befo r e All Hallowtide next.? befo r e Majesty s said .Commissioners p ro duc e any sufficient e':i oe~ c e or proof to!. J his said clai ms therein, then we require His ajesty • s Co mm i ss ioners to in ser t in this. I nquisition a ll !:is title t h erein • othe rw ays t h is our v e r dict to stand for h is Ma jesty in ev ~r y p oint .

An d t ouching the barony of' Ori re and a ll the la nds and tene me nts t hereof and the Kin g 's ti tl e t h ereunto , we refer th e same t o be set down in . this I nquisi ti on a ccoruing t o the late Survey taken be fore His Ma j es ty • s Surve yo r and oth e r Co mm issioners and the Offic e t aken b ufore the Esche a tor' s De put y and other Co mmissio ners in that behalf .

And we further find tha t ev e r y of' the to wn l a nds or ba lliboes above written except in Clanbrassil and Clan c an do co n ta in in them severally abo ut 1 00 ac r es le piec e o f a rable l and and pasture bes i des bog and wood and are wo rth by the yea r ea ch of' them above a ll repriza l s 13/4 Irish ex ce pt i t be foun d the Lord Pri mate had right t o any re nt out of them and then the said land is to be v a lue d ac cordingly if t h is rent exceed no t 13/4 Irish.

And tha t the sev er al towns or balliboes of Clancan and Clanbr asse l aforesaid, being but small meas ure c ontain each of them about 60 acres a rable a nd past ure an d wood a nd wor t h by the year le p i ece ultra re p rises , 6 / 8 Ir is h .

All of which we do present t o His Ma jesty ' s Commissioners as our abso lut e ver d ict and do hereby p r ay a nd authorize the m or an y of the m a cc or d ing t o this commission to draw u p this our verdict into one or more Inquisitions in aue fo r m of l aw and to affix our seals thereunt o and to return t h e same for us an d in our names into His Majesty's High Court of Ch anc e r y .

In witness wh ereof we ha~e he reunt o put our hands t h is day and y ea r first abo ve written.

Briann McDonell. Donaldus Casaus. Cormock McTirlagh. M. Whit echurch.

Carbry Mcca n . Xoffe r Fleming. Donagh Murchy.

Hu gh McGilledu f f .

Owe n Hu ghes. Ne a le O Callaghan . P a trie Mri P atri ck Oge O Co r . Ro r y McPat r ick .

Hugh O La p pa n. Do nell O Nea l.

To r la gh McTey re . Nee c e o Quin . Ca lleigh McDonell.

Se e Vo lu me E.3 . 13 a nd No . 58 2 . T . C, D. pp .1 7 7-196.

All the jurors s i gned by ma r k exce p tin g Wh itechu rch, Casaus , McTey r e, Fl eming, Mu rchy, a n d Mri.

t..,;··

OLD Counrty CUSTOMS, CRAFTS AND Industries

In County Armagh many ancient customs survive.

Rushes are gathered on St. Brigid I s Eve and woven into Brigid's Crosses, a custom with roots in the dim past. At Eastertide children still trundle hard-boiled eggs that have been gaily coloured by spri ng time blossoms, On St, Patrick's day sh am rock is worn in honour of our patron saint.

May-flowers (marsh marigolds) are even yet collected on May-Eve and strewn around the doors and windows, but May Eve bonfires no longer light our hills on that pa rticular evening. May Queens, however, still go forth in state escorted by their maids and pages of honour, The Queen is usually the youngest and prettiest of the _party and her crown is always a wreath of blossoms. In past days the May Boys made a similar parade, but that form of May Day observance, like the driving of the cattle through the May Eve fires, has quite died out.

Less than half-a-century ago on Mid-Summer Eve bonfires blazed from practically every hill, now the custom is almost extinct. At Hallow's Eve nuts are burned and apples 'ducked' for in tubs of icy water. Old games are

played and maidens still tr y t h e Hallow E 'e n charms. It is, and was , an evening of tric k s, a night on which ghostly f igures migh t b e about and moveab l e objects li ke carts an d p l ough s stroll abroad witho ut the a id of a horse a t al l, In the harvest-time in certain a reas the Calliag h is still cut but now th a t re aping ma chines have rep l a c ed the simple sic kl e, the cere mony is sho rn o f mu ch of its ritual.

"H a rvest Bows" a nd "Knots", however, a r e still fashioned to a limited extent in a lmost every pari sh i n the county and s po rt ed during harvesting operations.

As Christ mas app ro a ch e s the "Christ mas Rhyme rs" ma ke t he ir a nnual appea r a nce, They were once very gen er a l through out the county but now, a l as , they only app ear in a couple of parishes, They a re a sur vival of various forms of d rama that wer e pr actised in ea rli e r ti me s at s p ecial se a s ons, In South Armagh on the Louth-Ar magh border " Wren Boys" still circul a te on St, Stephen I s Day but they no longer operate in other parts of the c ounty.

On t he ro ad s a round the city the old game of "Long Bullets" is still in being, It is a form of bowls a nd the game goes to the person who covers the agreed number of miles on the least number of throws. It h a s been played in the vicinity for centuries but it is a mere baby

in po int of age, in comparison with for instance, the cutting o f the Calliagh, or t he making of St. Brigid • s Crosses.

One of the most interesting , as we ll as one of the mo st a nc ient customs surviving in the c ounty , is the pi l gri mage to the summit of Carricka tu ke on the last Sunday in Jul y and first Sunday in Augus t of each yea r. A century ago the re were si milar pi l grimages elsewhe re in the c ount y . On tho se days t here was g r eat festivity in t h e way of dancing , mu s i c and game s and muc h eating of bilberri es , f ro m whi ch the festi v als derived t he name of Bilberry Sundays to t he gradual effa c ement of the older name of Gar land Sunday. Now- a -d ays the dancing , mus ic and game s have a lmo s t disappeared , but the pilg ri mag e continue s in so far as Ca rrick a tu ke is conc erned . Ma ny a ha pp y ma rriage has h ad its beginning on such a hill on such a day.

The rin g ing of the nightly curfe w in t h e an c ien t city of Armagh a nd elsewhere in t h e county wa s a custom that came down to us from medieval tim es and c on tinued to th e beginning of the recent war. It is to be regretted that it has not been revived, for it was one of the old associations that lingered in the minds of our visitors,

t o lle d

long afte r stories of kings and saints were quite forgotten. Down the long centuries it had p ealed forth every e vening , fires we re no longe r c overed or ext ingui shed wh en it - t ha t pa rt o f curf ew observance ended lo ng since. th ou gh

I h a v e not by an y mea ns named a ll our county custo ms nor h ave I spoken of the exl.st ing pi l g ri mages to Ho l y Wells. I f I am to deal with o ld crafts and indus tr ie s I must leave such thin g s behind me .

Old crafts unfortunately a re de caying. Countr y carts are becoming rarities on our ro ad s, wheelwrights a re disa pp ea r ing, and wheels shod by bla cksmiths are no longer to be s een ar ound the forges . The ol de r slide -c a rs or carts have vanished but in the hilly dist rict s o f South Armagh creel tr an s p ort may yet occasionally be s een .

Handloom weavi ng a nd the manufac t ur e of such lo oms is a th ing of t h e pa st; th a tc h ing is still, however a living art, though mud -wall cot t ag es and farm-h ous e s are no longer being e rected. They were inexpensive to bui ld and when kept in good re p air p roved excellent habit a tions, cool in summer and war m in winter. Thous ands of t hem yet remain thr oughou t the c ounty. Many cont a in fe atu res of gr eat interest such as op en hearths designed for the burning of turf and a few still re main surmounted by the old-fashioned canopy-type chimney flue extending over the hearth for

sever a l feet, p rovidin g an enc l osed s pace for seats of various kinds ranging from pe rhaps a settle - bed aga inst the in ne r Side of the jamb-wall, to little t h ree - le gg ed creepy stoo ls for chi l d ren. In such houses cooking methods are much as they have been for centuries. A kit c hen -cr an e of iron - s ome specimens in wood ye t survive - with a moveable arm th at lies against the ba c k of the hearth gives suppo rt to i mp lements c alled crooks from which hang whatever cooking utensils t ha t are in immedi a te use - pot, gridd l e or ke ttle. If a p ot probab l y something is being boiled th ough tha t par ticul a r vessel may be used fo r ro asting also. If the latter form of coo k ery is in p r og r ess , the lid of the p ot wi ll have a cove rin g of lighted turf. Cakes a re sometimes baked in the flatter p ots c ommon ly called ovens but mu oh of the bread used in country dis tricts is still baked on the old-f a shioned gri ddle and by-the-way County Armagh p eople are famous for their griddle-baked apple cakes, but alas home baking has largely g iven way to supplies from bread carts.

The older kitchen implements such as rush-li ght candle-sticks, toasters for hardening oat-cakes, etc. are now seldom seen and churns and wooden milk-bowls of

v a rious t ype s only surv ive on f a r ms t hat are no t ti e d u p wi th cre ame ri es ,

The o l de r co t tages are now in many instance s being slat e d or c ove r ed wi th wha t is locally known a s a "tinr oo f 11 • Straw, unfortunately, has becom e an expensi ve

r oo f i ng material and requires f a irly frequent r enewa l. It is, howe v e r, a wa rm cove ri ng, and a we ll-thatched and nicely ke p t cott age is a re a lly a ttr a cti ve dwelling, The use of straw for such a pur pose dates back to quite earl y times but reeds a nd r ushes were a ls o us e d for roofin g p ur p oses and a re me ntioned in th a t c onne ct ion in

r e c ords of the Early Ch risti a n Period .

Half-a-century ago a census re port r eve a led the following c ountry occupations in our c ounty - blacksmiths, wheel wr ights, millers, weavers, tins miths, carpenters, reed- makers, tailors, s add lers, can dle- make rs , rope-makers, nai l- make rs, sp a de ma nufacturers, th a tc he rs, basketmakers, ma s ons , l a ce- mak ers, coo p ers and bro gue -ma ke rs, In those days the brogue- make rs a nd tailors went from house to house and sometimes if a particular f amily required much wo rk done they spent a week or more in the service of the household. In those cases the f amilies concerned p rovided the cloth, leather and other

inci d entals, besides bo a rd and lo dg ing .

Of a ll t h e occup a ti ons that I have me nti one d t he blacksmith's craft is pr ob a bly the oldest. In a st a te of soci e ty when wa r wa s re g ard e d a s the mo st no bl e of al l p rofessi ons a nd be fore the in v ent i on of gun - powde r, those who manufactured swords were n a turally lo ok ed u pon as important peo p le . Forges in p ast ti mes were c onsi d ered the chief centres of their pa rticul a r districts a nd smiths occupied a much hi gher ran k in the community than they do to-day. The forge was then, an d still is, a cle a ringhouse for the gossip o r news of the ar ea that it serves.

Forge-equipment i s to some ext ent much a s it was centuries ago . Th e anvil bellows , ton g s, sledg es, etc. remain and have quite a res p ectable antiquity behind the m. The s mith's a cti vi ti es now, however, a re mostly c onfined to the re pai ri ng of farm ma c hinery a nd th e occasional shoeing of horses. Gone are the days when they fo r ged the weapons of war for t he heroes that st ill live in our c ounty folk-tales, but there wa s a revival of the old art, in the troubles of 1798 and 1840, wh en pikes were made in thousands. They no longer prod uce rushlight candlesticks or toasters. Some of these were mo st artistic, They yet, however, from time to time, produce well-pr opo rtioned

and nicely de si gne d garden gates . That, howe v e r, is a feature th a t is a lso pas sing quickly I ndividual it y in ironwo r k ha s been utt e rl y d e stroyed by mass - p roduction f ro m the foundries bu t examp l es of ga tes of local cr aft smansh ip may s till be seen in countr y ga r dens and in g rille- wo r k pill a rs and lam p standards in Arm ag h city, where by the way a n old fashioned foot ope r a ted pole- lathe survived until a few years a go - in all p robability the last of its ty pe in the north. On it wood en bowls and other utensils were manufac t ured in the same p rimitive ma nne r as they were fas h ioned centur ie s ago and all t h e working tools hand- made in t h e old traditional way, Fortunat ely t h is par ticul a r lathe and its equipment are being p res e rved in the Ulst e r Folk Museum.

In passing from crafts to industries I should like to mention the Crossmaglen lace- making , though it is not an oldish county craft, having been introduced into that area just over a century ago. It is beautiful work and has still a steady demand. County Armagh peo ple should see that it is better known and there should be depots for it in the various towns of the county, It is distinctive and comparatively inexpensive so should be of great interest to visitors to Armagh.

As r ega r ds ol d industries I shall discuss three only, li me-burni ng , turf-cutting and t h e manuf a c t ure of linen. The burn ing of lim es tone fo r t he making of mo rt ar a nd for the wh it e - washing of buildin gs is one of the ol des t industri e s i n the count y . Th e earliest loc a l r efe rence to lime-burning occu rs in 1145 in which yea r a huge kiln wi th sides 60 fee t ea ch way wa s built by the t h en Ar chb is ho p of Ar ma gh to p rovide li me fo r the re pai r o f the Cathed r al and ot h er buildings in the cit y . Pres en t d ay kiln s are quite small in comp a ri son and p rob ab l y fa r more akin to the reall ¥ e a rly t ypes . Lime is s till in ge ne r al use throughout the county fo r whi te wa shi n g c ountr y h ou ses. It is al so in us e fo r agricultural pu r poses, an d th e re a re still some lime-kilns in wo r king order in the i mmedia t e neig hbourhood.

Ecclesi a s tical buildings were lime- was hed i n ear ly days - the tr a dition still survives in certain c ountry churches - and th e re is an old poem ext an t, rel a ting to Armagh Cathedral, writte n by an Ulster poe t who flourished in the p e rio d 1 220 -1250, which states that" We ll hath its p oli sh ed s ides been warmed With lime as wh ite as the plumes of s wans ." The cutting of turf is another industry of some antiquity. The use of peat as a fuel seems to have been known from the earliest recorded times. In the 7th

century there is a reference in Irish Ann a ls to one of our Provincial kin g s having exa sp erated s om e men cutting turf in a bog with the result th a t they fell u pon hi m a nd killed him with their s pa d e s. Such entri e s shows that peat h a s been a common fuel in Ireland fro m at least the begin ni ng of the hist o ric pe riod. T'n e cutting of the turf begins in Ma y an d for a couple of months the peat-bogs are scenes of great activity. peat cut by the spade is called a turf. The brick-shaped A s ma ll heap of piled turf is commonly k nown as a "rickle" whilst larger quantities built into a sort of long stack are called "clamps" The various oper a ti ons in the cutti ng, drying and stacking of turf have e a ch their particu l a r name.

The great peat district in Coun ·ty Armagh is known as the Montiaghs and natives of that district are jokingly termed "moss-cheepers" while those inhabit ants who come to the towns to sell the fuel itself are s poken of as "turfbummers". Armagh as a county is plentifully endowed with such bogs though many have been completely cut out and are now often mere waste-land. It see ms a pity that all such areas are not converted into meadows or planted with timber where conditions are favourable. The making of turf figures in an old county folk-tale

handed down from generation to generation. It is said that the "wee people" first told the inhabitants of our county of its usefulness and that originally the common fuel then was wood. Later wh en Patrick came to Ireland, the "wee people" hoped because of that an d o ther t hings in the way of kindnes ses shown to his flock, 5 1::,_,\the sa int would intercede on their beh a lf so that they mig ht again have God's favour. Patrick, however, felt otherwise - and t ha t's the end of that story!

As to linen - ther e is no doubt but that it has been manufactured in Ireland from earliest historic times though there is little detailed evidence re ga rding its actua l pro duct ion until 1185, in which year t he p ro motion of the industry became a State concern. It is referred to as a staple pro duct by a travel le r in Ireland in 1430. It was certain ly very abundant in the 16th ce n tury for at that period the Irish gentry were wearing shirts containing thirteen to f ourt e en yards each. Later an Ac t of Parliament was passed limiting this extravagant use of linen to seven yards each for shirts. Notwithstanding that particular enactment it is recorded in 1571 that shirts with wide hanging sleeves were still in use and that thirty yards were little enough for one of them!

In th e late 17th century th 1 e i nen trade of I reland was en c oura g ed at the e xpe ns e of its wo ol l en bus i ne s s,

t h e l a tter becoming by Act of Parli am ent the s pe cial p rero g ative of En g land, to the very gre a t h a r d shi p of Ir e l a nd as a whole.

Early in the next century certain Hugenot fu g itives i d -;, arr ve and settled in v a ri ous parts of the country, They we r e assisted by the Governmen t in the development of the linen man ufa cture and were successful in establishin g it as the maj or industry of Ulster. It is well, howe ver, to re member that t he linen f or whi ch Ulst e r is now so fam ous is the growth of an ar t whos e history is lost in the mists of I rish antiqu ity .

Time does not perm it me to go into the many f a ctors of the modern history of linen de v elopment o r deal wi th t he story of the many emp t y mill s and de serted bleachgreens of our county.

I h a ve dealt with cu s to ms , cr af ts and industries in a very general wa y inde ed and it may seem to you th a t my interests lie more in the country s i de t ha n in towns. I make no apology f or th a t. Personal ly I consider f a rming one of the most esse n tial occupa tions and I feel that the farming community is ver.Y worthy of appreci a tion.

Though I like old customs and value old crafts, I would

not wish t o see i agriculture a g r c ure de p rived of me ch aniz ed help, The sickle, fo r instance , as a cutting i mp l emen t is of g reat an tiquity and was once the only method of re ap ing whea t and corn. Wo o den plou ghs , gr ubbe r s and harrow s we re c ommon . Co rn and wheat were thrashed in mud- f l oo red barns by the wooden - flail, a t ru l y ancient implement now to be f ound i n use only on tin y mount ai n-side farm s .

Half-a - century ago on l y three tools were needed in the s e rvic e of haymaking, the scythe, fo r k an d rake . All three a re s til l used t o a li mited extent - but the scythe has a lmost been c omplete ly re pl a ced by the me chani c a l

rea pe r a n d the o l d hand -r ake h as now develo p ed into a ho rse or pet rol d riven imp l e me nt. In t hose day s the fields were scenes of gr ea t a cti vit y du ri ng h a rvesting

ope r ation s. Meals we r e carried to the f ields and ser ved pi cnic fashion. Women were then mu ch in evidence and were the ma in source of help in the li ft ing and tying of corn. Earlier still when the sic kl e was in c ommo n use they shared in t he wo rk of reaping . They did no t, however, ever quite mas ter the s cy the, but now tha t they h a ve taken t o trous e rs and le arned to drive tr a ctors t h ey can gi ve an ex cellent a ccoun t of t hem selves in the harvestfields as indeed in wo rk of any kind that c apt ures their interest.

In conclusion I would like to enlist the sympathies of my audience in the aims of the recently founded society for the pres e rvation of Ulster Folk Life and Traditions , a body well wo rthy of support and in the still more recent Ul ster Folk Museum . Much ma terial has p erished but there is still a mass of information available and volunt a ry workers can be of great assistance to both bodies.

SOME COUNTY ARMAGH OUTLAWS OF THE 17th and 18th CENTURIES.

In the days following the Plantation of Ulster, property in County Armagh was very insecure and trave l somewhat unsafe . In 1612, fo r instance, there was a complaint by Sir James Douglas and other undertakers of land within the county, that they were discouraged in their plantat i ons by robberies committed mpon them by the natives . The Lord Deputy, in his reply to their r ep r esenta tion of the matter , excused or rather blamed the state of the county on the fact that its wooded lands offered shelter to such offenders, whom he insinuated "to be mischievous knaves implicated in the l ate rebellion and as yet unpardoned" . Thos e who had already been acquitted he hoped would r emain honest men. What t he Deputy and the undertakers seem to have quite forgotten was that they th emselves were occupying l ands that had been but a few years previous possessed by native landowners

In a shor t time, howeve r, law and the new order became fairly well estab li shed , with judges go ing upon ci r cuit and holding assizes in th e different county towns. A few of the assize records of those days have been p r ese r ved , but most of them were lost in 1922 in the wanton destruction of t h e Four Courts in that year by a small group of "p a triots" who failed to realize that the building contained one of the fi nes t National collections in Europe,

The ear li est Assiz e Rolls that I know of relating to Arm agh a r e those r egarding prisone r s in gaols throughout the Provin ce of Ulster in the years 1613 - 1618 . The original Rolls were in the Four Courts and fortunately were copied many yea r s ago . An Assize held at Armagh in 1615 shows tha t most of the then crimes were thefts , and that the steal i ng of hors e s , cows , oxen , sheep and p i gs wa s very prevalent . From a social history point of view such records y i e ld much inf ormation . Names a r e given , verdicts noted , and pa r ti cula r s recorded as to the value of th e stolen chatte l s . Horses we r e then wo rt h fr om 40s. to 8 0s.; pigs 3s .; s heep 4s . ; and cows 40 s . Per so ns found guilty of such robberi es were condemned to deat h by han gin g on the Public Gallows , then situate on a hill now partly within the Pa l ace Demesne a nd still well known as Gallows Hill, a spot that r emained the p l ace of pub l ic executi on s for quite two centuries, and may indeed hav e been of some antiquity as such in pre -P lantation days. The death sentence wa s then not confined to the theft of animals alone . People sentenced for stea ling a firkin of butter suffered exactly the same penal ty.

In 1623 th e city and c ounty were shocked by the dramati c capture outside the town boundary of Sir Benjamin

Thornborough, by four of the o•Neills, who carried him off to the woods where they prevailed upon him to write the Lord Deputy saying that they would execute him unless he secured for them the Deputy•s protection until such time as they themselves procured pardons for certain offences. This roused the Deputy to act i on and he promptly caused the parents and near relatives of the kidnappers to be arrested, made known the fact that they would all die if harm came to Thornborough and that if the O•Neills did not deliver him u p immediately and with halters round their necks, the consequences would be serious. That had the desired effect. The four 0 1 Neills quickly came to Arma gh with halters about their necks, made public submission on their knees and were pa rdoned on the understanding that they embarked upon foreign service for seven years.

Six years later Neale boy Milnatella, a notorious County Armagh robber and outlaw, was killed r es i st ing capture near Clady some eight miles south of the city. Many such instances of lawlessness might be quoted. Down to the Civil War of 1641, through the Cromwellian period and the Williamite War, conditions were much the same. About the time of the battle of the Boyne the designation became

changed to "rapparee" and the term "outlaw" fell into disuse. The new description crops up in the journals of John Steen and George Story, the former an adher e nt of King James, the latter one of King William's chaplains. In County Arm a gh it was in use at least as early as 1 697, in which year a gentleman in Armagh writing to his friend in Dublin mentioned that "yesterday, about six of the clock in the afternoon, there came into this town a country fellow stripped to his shirt, with an account that Captain Macanally and the re s t of the Rapparees that had so long infested this road were in a lit t le house within four miles of the place and were there asle e p". The letter goes on to say that a Captain Macklin and twelve of his company with some townsmen made haste to capture the m, but that Macanally had a guard posted, with the result that he was able to get away with his men before the surprise party actually came ui\,on them. In the resulting pursuit Macanally and one of his subordinates, called McShane1 were killed, whereupon their heads were brought into the city and displayed in the customary nanner on the wall of the prison - then situate in Market Street. they were part of a gang of rogues that robbed some fifteen people a few days previously and who had murdered a Captain droves who had been their prisoner for some time. They had also :onsumed a quantity of wine that was being conveyed to Armagh

for the use of "Dean Drelincourt•s visitors".

Shortly after that episode it was decided to erect a b a rr ack on Black Bank to keep such gentr y in order. At t he s ame ti me an effort was made to induce families to sett le there. Pa tent s for quarterly fairs were issued and every effort was made to found a small town around the barrack. The barrack was built in 1700 but was deserted at some date prior to 1733 for a new site in the townland of Camly, a point of equal distance between Arma gh and Dundalk.

The first ref e rence to the new barrack at Camly occurs in Quarters of the Army in the year 1733, when a company of Major General Bissett•s Regiment was in occupation. It was, of course, a larger edifice than its predecessor on Bla ck Bank. A village later grew u p around it and was named Johnston's Fews in honour of John Johnston, one of the Tory hunters of those days. Harris, writing of the village in 1740, states it was "in the middle of wild country called the Fews, not many years ago notorious for robbers, but now civilized and free from them". An account of a journey from Armagh to Dublin in 1750 gives a somewhat different impression. It suggests that the trip from Armagh to Dublin in those days was a hazardous undertaking. The journey from Armagh to the south we are told "was a perilous achievement and that when love of gain stimulated any man to so desperate a venture, he first made his will and piously commended his soul to God, then

having collected his friends around him, he proceeded under their protection through the dreaded defiles of Armaghbreag ue and Black Bank. Even thus he was alarmed at every breath of wind that whistled through the heather, and started with terror, when he casually heard the whirring of the grouses ' wings or the bleating of the vagrant snipe, le st the me rcile ss Tories should be upon him. In this state of trepidation he proceeded unti l he arrived at the residence of Johnston of the Fews".

The Johnston's were conservators who p reserved the mountainous districts of the county f rom the incursions of Tories and other robbers. In the Fews they were said to have possessed the power and name of sovereigns, and indeed there are almost as many stories of their exploits as t here are tales of notable rapparees or highwaymen. In th e district t hey still recite an old rhyme, or invocation -

Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, Protect us from Johnston, King of the Fews".

Local folklore links up the famous Tory hunter with the equally renowned Redmond 0 1 Hanlon. There is another old jingle still repeated in that area which says -

Johnston beyond in the Fues Has wasted eight barrels of powder Upon him and all to no use" but like many other ballads it cannot be entirely relied upon ·or Johnston came to Ireland about the year 1700 as agent to his :insfolk, the Graham's of Ballyheridan, whilst the ill-fated

Redmond perished in 1681.

Of the many Tories and Rapparees connected with the county, O'Hanlon is by far the most f amous and best remembered of them a ll. A pamphlet published in Dublin in 1682 informs us that he was the son of Loghlin 0 1 Ha nlon and that he was born near Poyntzpass in the year 1640. That cou p led with the fact that Turlough Grome 0 1 Hanlon was in 1 620 the tenant of the townland of Aghatara gh an in th e vicinity of the village, strengthened by ·the local tradition of his birth in a house whose site is now occupied by Iveagh Lodge, seems to me conclusive proof of his close associati on with that neighbourhood. It has often, of course, been stated that he was born at the base of Slieve Gulli o n but no support fo r the assertion has so far been found. He had, however, many hiding places in that district including a t least one souterrain • subordinates ..x,i.,.

With his gang of ro:bbe.rs he Kept the counties of Armagh, Down, and Tyrone in such subjection that none dare travel except in convoy, or armed with his personal pass. The farmers of the countryside were also subject to his exactions. He levied from each and all of them 2/6d. per year but molested guaranteed that they would not be by any of his followers. Petty robbers under him were actually supplied with lists of all the people in his guardianship with strict orders not to meddle with such persons or their goods. He was a favourite with the very poor and folk memory has been

kind to his memory in that respect, He had, however, a keen sense of his own importance and did not greatly care for jokes made at his expense . On one occasion he deliberately forwarded a man to Armagh Jail who had robbed a pedlar in his name, a gri m sort of return joke on Redmond's part, knowing as he did that following the next assizes the unfortunate man would swing on Gallows Hill and his head . l ater decorate the Sessions House.

By 1674 the autho rities h ad become so incensed by his many exploits that they circulated a proclamation for his apprehension, In 1676 he was again proclaimed and a reward offered for the bringing in of his body dead or alive .

About that date he met h is match in a simple lad whom he thou gh t to rob, He had learned from the boy that he was on his way to a nearby town to bring home a large sum of money for his master. The lad, however, was not so foolish as he looked. Before starting upon the expedition he obtained a most vicious horse and p rovided himself with forty shi llings in halfpence which he divided into two parcels and tied in a wallet. His mount was accustomed to kick and bite by which the rider was usually able to keep inquisitive strangers at a distance. When Redmond put in an appearance he demanded the money he knew to be in the lad's possession. The boy, of course, demurred about parting with it and Remond being unable to do much about taking it by force owing to attempted

kicks and bites, at length thr eatene d to shoot him unless he handed it over at once . The boy then threw the wallet of halfpennies into a deep and well -b riared sheugh and told the bold Redmond that if he wanted his maste r's money he might follow it . 0 1 Hanlon soon alighted from his ho rse and went in search of the wallet. Whilst he was looking for it the boy dismounted also and exchanging his wicked steed for Redmond's fine ho rse speedily rode to safety with the larger sum intact and an excellent horse as well.

Ab out that time 0 1 Hanlon appeared in Armagh one morning in the ga rb of a country gentleman and requested an officer in charge of the milita r y then stationed in the city to s u pply him with an escort through the Fews, his excuse being that he had a large sum of money on his person and was af r aid he might be met by that great villain Redmond 0 1 Hanlon. The r equest was granted but at a certain point on the journey Redmond ' s followers who had been apprised of the plot beforehand fell upon the soldiers, de prived them of their arms, money, and mos t of th e ir clothes, sending them back into the city in an almost naked condition.

The stories about Redmond would fill a b ook. There was a certain Cormack O'Murphy who began h is career under Redmond but becoming puffed up with success forsook him

and st arted a gang of his own . After the break O'Murphy plundered three men under the wing of O'Hanlon who immed iately compelled O'Murphy to make restitution. That rankled in O'Murphy's mind but he was quite powerless to resist. Later he rob bed a David Mulligan of Leggacorry (now Richhi ll) who also had a pass from O'Hanlon. Again he had to restore the stolen goods. This was followed by a continued quarrel between the two and ultim ately terminated with fatal results to O'Murphy.

In September 1679 a party of O'Hanlon's followers murdered Henry St. John the then owner of the Tanderagee estate an event that compelled the authorities to set about his capture in grim earnest. Not for some years, however, did they succeed in runni ng the bold Redmond to earth, and even then the deed was only accompl ished by the treachery of Arthur O'Hanlon, his companion and kinsman, who fired a blunder·buss into his breast while he lay asleep. Art then ran off for assistance but before help arrived Redmond was dead and his head had been cut off by his friends to protect it from falling into the hands of the authorities. The affair took place at Hilltown, Co. Down, in April 1681. His head, however, was discovered some days later and taken to Downpatrick Prison there to adorn a spike on the wall. In the meantime the body had been brought back to Relicarn, an old

graveyar d in Ba llymor e Parish and there laid to rest in the anc estral plot . So ended the career of one of the mos t celebrated of our local r apparees .

Redmond's broth e rs, Edmond and Loughli n, were members of h is band. Loughlin was later k ill ed by John Mullin who got a re wa rd of £50, but Edmond a cquired a safe conduct. It is no t n ow clear wh at rela tion Art hur O'Hanlon was to Redmond. State documents disc l ose that he received £100 for the betrayal o f h is chief. At that pe rio d the county was in a most lawles s state. Indeed it was not unusual for th e . head of a decent law-abiding countryman to be sent into Armagh, Dund a lk or Ne wry, as the head of a Tory so that the substantial a ward available for apprehending such characters might be claimed. Strangers passing thr ough the county in those days did so at much ri sk to their lives.

Redmond a ppealed so strongly to Sir Walter Scott that he intended to introduce him into a historical novel on seventeenth century Irish aff a irs. Unfortunately he never carried his intention into effect and the material collected regarding him by Lady Olivia Sparrow of Tandera gee is now lost. Tradition credits Redmond with a descent fro m Sir Oghie O'Hanlon, Lord of Orior, but the claim has no confirmation in fact.

The e i ghteenth century produced a like crop of r appa re es or highwaymen . Some specialized in cattle, sheep and horses, others in money alone, At the summer assizes of 1 735, Macklin , a famous ho rse-thi ef , suffered the death penalty for cow- stealing . At that time it was the custom for the High Sheriff and a guard of military to accompany the convicted p erson to the Gallows . Immense crowd s armed with staves and clubs a t tended and as they ma rched along r a ttled t heir staves in a most terrific manner . When Mackl in made his a ppe arance he viewed t he crowd with great satisfaction, The d a y before he had sent out noti ces inf o rming all and sundry that it would be worth th eir while to come ten miles t o see him upon t he ga llows and hea r what he had t o say, If the a cc ount given in the Gent l emen ' s Magazine of that year is a tru e r epo rt of the procee dings, the spectators ha d good value for any lo ss of time t heir attendance may have entailed, He began his speech by assuring them that he had p er pe trated every c rime excepting murder, that he had received absolution for a ll of them and was ready to die. The y then questioned him ab out his many exploits, and he returned witty answers by the score, His poor mother was present and the crowd was so pleased with her son's behaviour that a collection was ma de for her so that sh~ might purchase sheets for his burial.

The old prison in which he had spent his last night had just then been renovated following a fire . It was a gruesome p lace, a series of underground apartments directly under the Sessions House. A flight of stairs led down to them, a nd fro m that arose the old Armagh prove rb "they will go down the nine ste p s" appl ie d to persons likely to come to "bad endings". The walls of the building were seven feet thick and the cells almost devoid of li gh t. Whilst it was in use, and indeed for some time afterwards , all the hangings or executions took p lace on Gallows Hill, and, as death was the punishment then for simp le crimes like horse and sheep-stealing or the theft of linen, it was not unusual to see several ghastly figures swinging t he re afte r the business of the assizes had been concluded.

Macklin had a contemporary named Caraher - better known as Big Charley Caraher. He began life as the keeper of the Dorsey found, an enclosure that yet survives just within the northern rampart of the famous Dorsey entrenchment. Cattle were in t he habit of disappearing from the Pound without satisfactory explanati o n whilst the p lace was in his charge, so he was watched • and finally caught in the act of ki lling a cow which caused his dismissal from the post . Later he became a general robber and progressed from one crime to another until he became a murderer. He was assisted by a

gang of undesirables each as cruel and relentless as himsel f. He was at last taken p ri soner and brought to Armagh where he was sentenced to be hanged, beheaded and quartered . One of his quarters was gibbeted at Ball ' s Mills, the r emaining quarters and head in other places where he had engaged in murde r and crime .

Desp it e the thickness of the walls of the old 17th century jail of Arma gh , prisone r s sometimes made their escape . Usually they were r ecaptur e d. Ac counts of such episodes appear in the early files of t he Belfast Newsletter fro m 1 739 onwards and make in~eresting r eading . Stocks were s til l to the fore in Armagh as l ate as the early 1 9th century and a " sco l d ' s bridle " used in the c ity to punish evil - tongued or quarrelsome wome n has been preserved.

The most i nt e r e st ing local outlaw of the 1 8th c entury was a man of old Iri s h family, a Seamus MacMurphy of Creggan Pari s h in South Armagh. ·Hi s ancestors were the earliest chieft ains of the Fews that we have any r eco rd of. They had settled originally near Caledon in the district now known as minterburn from which they were later pushed int o the Fews by the 0 1 Ne ill 1 s a bout the end of the 13th century. From th e Annals we know that the MacMurphy's were still at Minterburn as late as 1172 when the then chieftain was killed in battle by the Clan Magennis raiding from the Armagh-Down border. The MacMurphy's soon became supreme in the Fews, but as the O'Neill's grew stronger in

Tyrone, they in turn spread int County o Armagh and so by the end of the 15th century th e MacMurphy s wer e supplan te d in that area als o, becoming vass als of the more powerful O'Neill's.

Seamus the ou tlaw was born at Carnally in 1 720 . He was, therefore, a young man at the time of the rumour of the Young Pretender's proposed vi si t to Ir eland . He was a poet of no mean order and one of the handsomest men of his day. Loc ally he is said to have been present at a famous bardic meet ing on Slieve Gullion in the summer of 1744, an assembly also said to have been attended by the great Tory hunter, J ohnston of the Fews . It is difficult, however, to reco n cile the presence of such opposite parties of that particular gathe ri ng .

MacMurphy had two besetting sins , drinki ngs and p romiscuous love -making. He was often to be found in a shebeen at the Flagstaff, that beautiful view-point of mountain, lake and sea, in the hills of Sou th Ar magh. The keeper of the shebeen was a certain Paddy Daker, commonly called "Paddy of the Mounta in" who found illicit distilling an easy way of making money . His shebeen was an excellent meeting-place for rob bers . It was difficult to approach, yet commanded a clear view of the main highways of the district, the roads upon which MacMurphy and his friends made their living by raiding tr ave llers, or stealing stock from the more well-to-do inhabitants.

Tradition records that the shebeen •s greatest attraction for MacMurphy was the owner's handsome daughter Molly, who

later betrayed him. It is clear now that she was encouraged in her infamous conduct by Art Fearon , one of his lieutenants, himself anxious to marry her and who, to further his own cause, told her tales of MacMurphy •s love aff a irs in various parts of the county . At that period there was a price of fifty pounds on his head, but to g iv e Mollie her due she was less interested in the mo ne y than in revenge . Her father, however, thou ght only of the r eward and was able to persuade her to assist in the plans for the capture of her sweetheart on a certain Sunday by conveying a message to the authorities that he would s pend the Saturday night in her father's house and ta k e her on pi lgrima ge t o St. Bl ine •s Well at Killevy on the next morning . Arrangements were made by her father and Art Fearon to make MacMurphy hopelessly drunk and whilst in that state deliver him up for transportation to Armagh. The plans were carried out with the full knowledge of Fearon, his trusted friend, a sad commentary on a phase of character whereby nearest friends often proved the most treacherous. Similar disloyalty cost Redmond 0 1 Hanlon his life a lso.

On the morning of his capture MacMurphy woke from his drunken sleep to find himself under heavy guard. According to a poem written whilst awaiting examination in Armagh, h e was apprehended in August. His trial and execution did not take place, however, until the following March. The actual crime of 'Which he was accused - there were, of course, plenty of

other offences - was the stealing . of sheep eep, an act in those days punishable by death,

In his last poem we have a glimpse of the grim interior of the prison, In it he r ecounted the various events leading up to his betrayal - "To- day I am im prisoned in Arma gh like hundreds before me and my fate will be settled on the Public Gallows, I'll rise to-morrow at the first break of day, I'll have to walk through the streets, guarded on all sides. Guns will be held high over me without counting smaller arm~ and death will await me at the end of the road", On the morning of St, Patrick's Day 1758 came the execution. The usua l crowd was there armed with staves and with them mingled many a man of MacMurphy 1 s band, resentful and sorrowing. The procession was accompanied by the Sheriff, the officers of law, and the guard. It quickly passed out of town via Market, Castle and Irish Streets (Thomas and Ogle Streets had not then been opened) to Gallows Hill, where he met death without fear, for giving all who had _injured him especially his beloved Mollie. After the body had swung in the passing breeze for three days it was taken down and waked and keened for two nights in his mother's barn at carnally. His burial took place in Creggan, that historic parish in the Fews, last home of aany another poet as well.

Though MacMurphy died so courageously he would rather have lived. His "prison lam ent " for his native hills is sad reading"If I could only exist as a fern leaf in the sunshine on Ardaghy Hill or on the top of Fathom, or be a·blackbird flying through Dunreavy Wood".

"Paddy of the Mountain" attended the execution and later revisited Armagh to collect the blood money . Tradition says that the authorities were so disgusted with his behaviour that they paid him the fifty pounds in copper coin which they forced him to count and take away with him in a bag. There were no banks in the city then so the unfortunate man had to carry the money from Armagh to the Flagstaff, a distance of twenty Irish miles. To avoid being molested he was compelled to travel by night, and hide by day. When, within sight of his home , he collapsed and died. Poor Mollie was thus left alone to repent of her share in her lover's death. Despite the fact that MacMurphy had forgiven her the people of the countryside taunted her and at every opportunity forced her to listen to the prison poem. Finally her reason gave way and she drowned herself. It was a tragic ending to a pitifully sad tale.

Some people say that nothing in life so well became the handsome MacMurphy as his manner of leaving it, but I have always thought him a much more interesting character than Redmond O'Hanlon The two of them, however, were the stars of their particular centuries and both live still in the oral traditions of the county.

In conclusion I shall content myself with saying that hours could be spent on the smaller fry who specialized in li fting cattle and horses or in relieving coach-passengers of jewellry and cash, In many ways they were just as interesting as the celebrated characters we have so lightly dealt with but their story is one that must wait until you come again and may that be in the very near future,

Re dm ona O'Hanlon - Ulster Outlaws

1674, Decembe r 14 Council Cham b e r, Dub lin .

•Es s e x whereas Redm ond O Hanlon of Tonderegeeee in the county of Ar magh , yeoman , Laugh li n MacRedmondO'Hanlon of Killenay, yeoman, Daniel MacMurphy Mac Thorlagh Roe o Mu r phy ,,eom an; Hugh Turr O' they same yeomanBrian Moyle 0 O'Nealeof the same , yeoman; Ja mes Roe of Balli n te gga r t in the s ai d c ounty, yeoman ; J ames Ma c Ni cho l a s O Mu r phy of' the s am e, ye oman; Hu gh Ma c Shane of t he same yeoman · Peter Pill o f _~ he same , yeo an; Thomas Will son o f Mullaghglass of t h e said co unty , yeoman; and Tho rl agh MacPatrick Go am o O'Hanlon of Aghynecloghmullen i n the sa i d c ounty, yeoman; ••••••••

ha ve o f late committed seve r al bur gl a ries, ro b ber i es an d s te a lths i n t h e s ai d s eve ral counti es of Armagh ••••••

and e l sewhe r e within t his Ki ngdom, besides dive r s othe r outr age s, to th e t e rror and annoynnc e of hi s Majesty s l oy al an~ g o od Su b j ec t s 1 and t o the d isturban c e of t he pea c e of t he Kingdom , upon whi c h misde meanou r s and cr imes being pur sued b y some of his Ma j es t y ' s good sub j ects they the s a id Redmo nd O Hanlo n , Laug hli n Mac Redmond O O'Hanlonet c. are fled t o t h e wood s and mount ains, whe r e t h ey stand u p on t h eir k ee p in g , so a s t hey are no t answe r ab l e or amenabl e to law, but wil f ul contemners of t he same .

And forasmuch as t he a ct ors of t he se di so r de r s a n d o f fen c es cannot a s y et be a pp r ehe nded, ,-,he r eby t hey may b e punished by t h e or d inary cour se of l aw , whe nce we mi gh t justly be moved, a cc o r ding t o the f orme r usage and c us t om in t hi s Kin g dom i n c ases of like nature to cau se the m t o be fo rthwit h proclai me d rebels and traitors, y e t , in me rcy to the m, we t h ink fit h e reby to cha r g e and co mmand th em upon their duty and alle g iance to his Ma j e sty tha t t hey and every of the m do be f ore t h e fir s t day of Fe bruary n ext, render their persons to any o f his Majesty ' s ju s tic e s of the p e ace , and submit the ms e lves to his Majest y 's ju s tice t o be tried for their offenc e s a ccording to t he l aw s of t h e lan d , wherein if the y o r any of th em do f ai l, we do he r eby publish and declare that he or they so failin g , a r e fro m and immediately' a fter the said fir s t day of Februa ry next, to b e cal l ed re puted and taken for notorious re bels and tra itors a gainst his Majesty and accordingl y to be pr o secuted by all his Majes t y ' s loving and good subj e cts in all hosti l e manner.

"And we declare furthe r tl t h pe r so n s sha l l comfor t re li e ' r ~tsoeve r per s on o r th em , they ar e and s h ~ l l be ve o r 11 e t t h em, o r a n ~ of t rait o rs in li ke d . _ r e put e d, de e med and adJ u dged r e bels t h e mse l ves eg r e e u i t h t he forenamed tr a i ta r s and to l aw • , an d to be p r oc eede d ag ain s t a cc ordi ng

"And we do i n his_Ma jesty • s n am e st r aitly ch a r ge and comm and all his Ma j e stie • s loyal subj e cts, up on t hei r du ty ~f a ll e g iance ~o his Ma jestie, not on ly to forb ea r to Ie c eive o r r e li eve t h e p e r sons afore said or any o f them but a l so to make dilige n t s earch a n d enquire in wha t place or p l a ces the said persons sha ll fro m ti me to ti me lurk o r be r e l ieved, and by a ll means po ss i bl e to or o secute ap p rehend and t a ke t h e bodies of t hem an d- the m t o bri n g or c a use to be brou ght under saf e cust ody, unt o the Hi gh Sheriffs of the res p ective counti es whe re any of th em sha ll be a p pr ehended, to be by s uch Sh eriffs k e p t in strict and safe custody, till we, up on not i c e t he r e of slia ~l give further_ direc ti on c oncer ning the m, o r ' r esis t ing o r r efusing to be t aken, to ki ll the m or any of the m. And we do h e r eby decl a re, that whos oever s hall a ft er t he said first day of Fe brua ry next, bring unto any Sheriff the body of the said Redmo n d O Hanlo n , Laughlin Mac Redmond O Ha nlon ( e t c . ) or any of the m ali ve, or k ill any of the m, and bring his head t o the Sh e r iff of the county whe re he shall be killed, to be by such Sheriff set up in some public p l a ce in that c ounty, shal l have fo r his reward for each p erson so brou gh t in , or h i s head, ten po unds, for pay,n ent whe reof we will gi v e wa r rant as occ asio n shall requi r e ,

"And whosoeve r of the said proc l aim ed pe r sons , or any other, sha ll after t he said fi r st day of February nex t, app r ehend and b ring unt o the High She r if f of the county whe r e such pe rs on sha ll be app r ehended , o r resisting, shall kill any of the said r ebels and tr a itors particula rl y nam ed a s aforesaid eh s hal l, toget her wi t h his said re wa r d, receive his pa rdon,

"And to wa rds t he s peedy effecting of t his se rvice, all co mm anders of horse and foot, and a ll o the r his Ma jest y 's officers and loving s ubjects a re to be a id ing and a s s isting, as t hey and every of the m will answer the contrary a t their perils,

"James Armachanus - Michael Dublin, Cane. - ClanbrasillConway and Kiltta - Massereen Kingston - Carey DillonJohn Povey - William Stewart - Theophilus J ones - Charles Meredith,"

THE ORCHARDS

C OUNTY

Armagh

In t'.ie "Brehon Laws" t'.1e apple is shown as one of the seven c hieftain trees , the other . b ash, pine , and hazel. six eing oak , yew holly,

The date of those ancient regulations can no t be definitel" fi" xea' , ., They are bel ieved to have been in being in pagan times but t /:' we re no codified o r committed to writing until after the arrival of st . P atrick .

T e wo rd "Abhall" ( fem.) is used in ancient manuscripts to denote the apple tree and "Ubhall" ( male) its fruit , a distinc ti on that seems to indicate that apples may have b ee n i mpo rted fo r a ti me pr evi ous to be c oming na tur alized , There is some eviden ce that apples have be e n cu ltivated in England fro m at least the ti me of the Ro man o cc upa ti on , a theory assum ing their introduction to I reland about the same period .

\l e know that the crab - apple in its wild state is wi dely distributed throughout Europe and Western Asia and is actually found in high latitudes in Norway . It is , however, a somewhat differen t type of tr ee to the apple . Its branches spring upwards whilst t hos e of the apple spread outwards . One o f the old legends relating to the app l etr e e states that i t s shape is due to it having been g iven long br a nches be c ause it bowed with its fruit to the Blessed Vi r g i n .

Un fort una tel y there i s li ttle informa t ion in old

Irish lit erature relating t' to the care of fruit trees . the first local record that I know o f relates to the planting of an apple tree in the neighbourh oo d of Armagh and the s t o ry dates back to the days of St . Patric k who is credited with having planted it at Cean go ba east o f the city. Later , in the Annals of the Culdees, (t h e mona stic o r d er respo n sible in early days for the ch oral services a t Ar magh) we learn that during the great festivals the brethren , though no t permitted to increase the quantity of brea d a t meals, 1·1ere allowed certain condimen ts as an indulgence - among them apples. In those days a pp les when p lucke d were hoarded up as long as possible and so far as is known were eaten uncooked . The next local reference cro p s up in 1155, in which year the head of the ,lacans, later the ruling se p t of O' lleiland, but then still on the other side of the Blackwater, died . His obituary has been preserved and in it he is praised for the st r ong drink made for the use of bis tribe fro m apples g ro wn in bis orchards . That by the way is the first actual historical evidence we have for apples in Oneilland Records are silent fro m then down to the days of Elizabeth the First . In the closi ng yea rs of her reign her contemporary,. Aenghus O Daly, a Cork poet, was induced to write a satire on "The Tribes of Ireland ". In this the MacCann of Dun Mansion

appear and He are told

Compare no one t o Do nnell the apple tree th · t

o • Donovan

And all are not tired 1 d blossoms betray him - e o is accomodation in his annotations to Mangan s translation of the poem in question assume d that the ,-.•ant - of fertility in :the apple tree denoted that MacCann was um1orthy of being chieftain, but elsewhere states that o Daly "had not the sto ma c h to satirize MacCann of Clan Breasail be c ause he did: not de serve it''.

O Daly lost his life in 1617 by the hand of a Tippera r y O O'Meagher to whom the knife and the sword were e qu ally fam ili ar .

In the 17th century there are notices in the Ulster Pla ntation settlemen t papers regarding "the setting of fruit trees in orchards and gardens ' circa 1611, but such plantings we re v e r y likely co nfin ed to the free-holding tenants o f whom there Here a very l i mited number on ea ch estate .

Unfortunately we h ave no early rentals for the estates -gran t ed by J am es I to undertakers in 0 1 Neiland . Such docume nts would have g iven particulars a s to p roperti e s on which the apple - cult ure was being encoura g ed. We do not know, f o r in stance, wh et her in the destruction cause d by the Civil War of 1641 - 4 2 apple - trees escaped felling wh en farm -

houses and property were being dest r oyed . :nc fa ct, '.)oH ev e r, emerges anc:1 t :1a t :i.s the abundance o f apples s om e for t y years later .

Tl1e ea rliest c oun t y le ase s that ue are auare of compelling te nants to plant fr uit trees, are preserved in t h e records of the Brownlow es t ate . they da t e from 1666 and the largest orchards c onsis t ed of 20 apple 12 plum , 12 c herry, and 6 pea r tr e es. The lease s cove nan t ed tl;at the fru i t - trees shou l d be en closed by a ditch and quick setts of white t e - tho r n. S,:c aller leaseholdersnlanted a lesse r numbe r. La t er in the early 18th c entury on th e sam e estate or c hard clause s we r e still in being and new tenan t s of the larger farms were being required in some instan c es t o plan t for t y trees .

Whether Cr omwell ' s tr oops samppledth e apples of Oneilland I kn o w not , but Oliv e r ' s Hill and Bat t l e Hill

a r e l a ndma r k s in t he apple - g r o1·1i ng parish of Ki lmore.

Th e Rev. William Br ook e who wa s r e ct or of Dr um cr ee f r om 1679 u n til h is dea t h in 1700 , wr o t e an a cc oun t of the b a r o n y in 16 8 2, f r om wh ic h we lea r n t ha t good c ider wa s t h e n a vailable in P o r t ado wn a t 30/- pe r h o g s head . Som e p eo p le were manu f a ct u rin g from 20 t o 30 hog s heac' s per

s e ason , an d lar ge r quantities mi gh t be expe ct ed wh e n th e ir

orchards and new plantations . s came to perfection 1.•'r o:..:1 the sa~e s ou~ c e we ga t1 10r that t~e farmers of tjat district were compelled by their leases t ., .f~ v plant apple trees rroportion at1.·e to t h e quantity of t ~1e·ir land Seven year s later he uas at tainted by James I '... e s , nnd in t'.1 e following yea r King William s cider maker a cert a1· n Paul le Harper a rr i v ed in Portadown · ·h th Wl'G e necessa r y equipment to make ci de r f o r the army

Lor d Drogheda who commanded a regiment stationed a t Tanderagee , pa rt o f 1J1i c h see:,s to !i a v e been quarte r ed in Portadown a n d its neighbou r hood , has re c orded that there was mu c h ci der the r e in the spring of 1690 . I hesitate

t o as c rib e the v ict ory at th e Boyne to Portadown c ider or t he app les of 0 ' Ne il a n d, but those are fa c ts !

Th e b e g i nn i ng of th e 1 8 t h ce ntury was rec1arkable fo r

t he i n trod u cti on of l ine n we av ing an d the consequent ne g lect of ag ric u lt ur e, a fe a t ur e o f lo ca l li fe tha t d id not prop e rl y righ t itself un til wo re t han a ce n tur y afterwar d s when t h e major pa rt of th a t pa rtic ul ar industry mov e d fr om ho use ho l d s to facto r ies . Le a ses for t h e year 1700

show new tenants o n the Cha rle mon t es tate c ove nan ti ng t o enclose a plantat i o n acre and plant it with fruit t ·r ees and sim ilar leases were being executed on properties in t h e pa rish of Tullylish in County Do wn at a bout t h e s ame time .

i. survey of the See Lands 0 ,, Armagh ..made in the year 1703 by Thomas Ashe provides us 1-rl t,1 a detailed account of v apple culture on farms ~~elL. b the Ar c hbishop ' s tenants

BallygowanforOughtrainstanc0 , ( · a. townland in Drumcree Parishnow known as Ballynagowan t,1cre ··,·as to 11 the west of ti1e John Atkinson's s farm stead a good or chard of his own planting and east of the house and stabl e a very pretty young orchard of above one hundred trees p lante d by him sin ce the late 11ars, and t o the nor t h of t h e house a ver y pret t y young nursery of crab - trees". His brother, Edwa r d, i n the same to,mland had two orchards , one old a,1d the ot,1e r you ng . The reference to the "late wars" is soweuha t pu zzling as trees planted following the Civil War of 1641 - lf2 c ould no t very well b e described as "young" in 1703. , le mus t, therefore, assume that the orchards in question arose af ter the Revo l u ti on of 16 88 - 90. At that time and according t o tbe same a u thority there ,rnre orchards attached to farms in "C avan, Ballytrue , Ballyossone, Money Ballywilly

Ballyhagan , Roghan Kill make nte", et c. in Oneilland Barony and at various places around Armagh city such as "Drumsallan, Ballyrath, Farmacaffley, Dromard , Bally re a , Tyra, Cabragh , Tyross , Ballybroll , Drumbeebee , Balli teren, Kno c ka cone, Ballyher c lan", et c.

The latter townland now commonly called

Ballyheridan was then h eld by , · cne Graham family and it is re c orded that " there had been a good or c hard, near an acre of g r ound , but it -., as destroyed ' n , the wars and the tenant has a ga i n planted it wt th nea r one h hundredtrees but they don 't th riv e well though all care i mag i nable be taken to prese rve them ". Tha t par t i c ular reference is of s p e c ial l o cal in t e r es t . The Graham s were se t t l ed ther e before t h e Ci vil War of 1641 - 4 2 and thei r homestead ( since several t ime s r ebuilt ) s t i ll sport s a n orch a rd, w'1i c h de s p it e many re - plru1ting s r efu ses t o p ro du ce an average qua lit y o r quan tit y . It is a p it y tha t t h e su rve y i n ques t lon should only de al with the Archiepiscopal lan d s , fo r apa rt f ro m i nforma ti on on orchards it provi d es d escri p tio n s of farm ho uses b esi d es certain traditio n al mat e rial. For i n s tan ce it p in - p o i nt s t h e b irth - place of t h e cele b rated Re dm o n d O Hanlon .

In the beginning of the next century, i n t h e y ea r 1804, Co ote publis h ed h is "Surve y of County Armagh". I n his report on the county he su gg ested t h e planting of crab - apple trees .in fences and the use of t h e fruit for cider. Th is was quite good advice as crabs when mellowed are excelle n t when used wi t h sweet apples . We are infor med by t h e sa me a u thority that "in the centre of the county the houses were remarkably comfo rta b l e and surrounded with orchards and neat enclosures" .

• Recently whilst wo rking on Place Name Books in Dublin I noted that in 1835 there were 1 r a largeorchards at Derrycrew Ballytyrone and Li sshef field and that .. ,. , house had five or · six a cres of or c hard . t o1m l and s were Dresoga, Bo c ombra, Knock I 1.·as not, how ever t h e n mak i ng a sea rc h in Kincon eve ry Other apple and Ballynaghy . t_-v agains t or c hard s, but su ch a list would no w be interesting for c omparative pur p oses .

Tha c ke ra y , the novelist, visited Ar magh in 1 843 and drove from t he cit y to Portadown there t o joi n a train a t the newly o pened rail way sta tion. He p aints a very pleasant pi cture of the co un tr yside and me ntions a g rou p und er the trees of an orchard which " p retty adjunct to a fa r m wa s very co mon" in t he district through whi c h h e passed . A few yea rs later Mrs. Hall an d he r hu s band (t h e authors of a t h r ee vo l ume acc ount of "Ireland, its scenery, char a cter , et c . •~ , when visiting in the same area , found t he farmhouses nea t, cl ean ly and co mfortable and few o f them without orch a rds . Th e y also allude to t h e c on ti nual click-clack of the shuttle as betokening industry and affording humb l e luxuries to those within . They were not as observant, however, as other travellers in re ga rd t o the neglect of tillage by farmers who with their sons

and daughters made mo ney a1 ore easily sitting <·ti · n " at • _ t h eir l oo'll s . Ba ssett in h is "C oun ty Armagh published i n 1888 , s tates t h at f r uit - g r o wing Ha s an · exte n s ive feat u r e in the d istri c t s o f Portadown Loughgall and Ri chhill, and t ha t Scotch and

English bu y er s c a \il e ove r ever y s e as o n . Th at 1·1a s ju s t before

I was born but w'.1 en I 11as a boy I rememberthe g reat ap ple markets i n Portadown wi t h linesof c ar ts on bo t h sides of t h e str e et fr om t h e c h urc h down almos t t o t h e Post Of fice.

The re we re t h e n c onsider a b le quan titi e s o f e a t ing a pp les avail a ble a n d b y ·th e a i d o f fri ends o f my own par t icula r

vinta g e I can supply a list o f th e mo r e 11 1-1o rt h wh ile" a pp les of those d a ys: -

Widows whelps

Cane s

Re d Russ etts

Ba r n Hi lls

White te Ann ett s

Su gar Sweet

Gill y flower s

Beauty of Bath

Strawberr y Ch eek s

Ha lf- p l um s

Honey Comb s

Codling s Doc lm eys

Lily fi nge rs Wi n ter Glori e s

Quince

Foxe s whelp s Red Str okes

Green Rus se tts

Golden Pi pp it s

Black Ann e tts

Marygolds

Ange l s Bites

A f ew apple cust om s li nge red u p to ab out ha l f - a-c en tury ago , s u c h as drinking a toast to the a pp le tr ee s, a p ractice usuall y carried out under t h e best b e a rin g tree o f the year . It does not seem to have been of native origin and is now quite obsolete . At Hallow Eneen, for i n stance, apples are ). . n other words you extract an a pp le from still " dipped " for ,

a tub o r crock of water by the use o f the mouth on l y and by the sa .ne ..1c ti1 od appless suspended by a st r ing frow The hands mu st no t be used to sec a .... re the apple in Ano ther apple custo m i n u I Oneillandwas the 1 i saving the ceiling ei t he r case/ . o f apples for the last night :i.n Janua r y , commonly :rno i-m as St. Brigid's which o ccasio n o ld - fas b io n ed griddle apple cake formed the feast follo1-r.Lng the fashioni ng of the Brigid's Eve, on part of crosses. Apple dumplings were so,,etimes c2a0. e for t ha t. festival also but they as a rule appeared on Hallow Een en on uhich ev e ning the man of the house was usu a lly allowed a flavou r ing of whiskey So:.ieti mes the apples we re roa s ted, sweetened wi t h sugar, flavoured with nutmeg, and served wi t h the same beverage in the form of a sauce. On tha t night apple - peelings were thrown over the shoulder by boys and girls desirous of discovering the initials of tlle person t hey uere li kely to marry .

There was, and still is , a superstition t o the effect that if at th e time of the pulling of tile apples tilere is a tree bearing fruit and flowers together t'.,ere will be a dea t h in the family before the next gath ering of the fruit, and , o f cou rs e , there is the old belief that a wet St . Swithin ' s Da y indicated bumper crops of really large apples . There are various apple cures . For instance a ripe

apple is part of an old and well known treatment .en t for an ulcerated wound . Sorrel was gathered and crusi.1ed ; then mixed Hi th apple juice and u_ laced 011 - Che wound It ..1'.J.S usually most effe ctive, so also \-iere b er a - apple poult ices fo r certain injuries .

Abhall o r "U bhal l" · now signified both an a pp le nnd an apple - tree and the u ord ent e rs l a rgel y into townland names . In Wic klow there is a p l ace called Aghowle o r th e field o f the apples, in Fermanagh Aghyowle and in Leitrim Aghowla - meaning the same t hing . I n the north generally houever, 11 Abhall is used in the sens e of orchard anci t hu s we have Av elreagh, Count y Monaghan, the grey or chard, Annahavel Coun ty Tyrone , the mar s h o f the orchard, and i n County Armag h, Derr yl is nahavil , and Drumnahavil the oakwood of th e fort of the apples and the ridge of the orchard or a pple tree . The more p roper form of the wo rd for an o rc ha rd is Oulart wh ic h al so appears i n Coun ty Armagh as a name for a house outside the city.

It has been said that the baronies of Oneiland owe the introduction of the apple to English plan ters of the reign of James the First, but t h ere is the earlier evidence of · d and also the fact that the apple cult ur e links to co nsi er, undertakers of those lands were not from th e orchard c ount ies

of England, It is true !1owe ver' that the then settlers i n those t·.·m baronies f' d - OlU1 an apple tradition and. a suitable soil. l 1~~i s induced 1 , landowners to encourage thei r te nants to p lant fruit tree s, nt r 1 · rsr · r "' in ences o.nt , t~1en i n t h e s :al l p lots that ha ve dev elo ped into the la r g e orchards of to - day.

To i llus trate th e p resent situation ,-,i th regarG to orchards, acreages, and vari e ties of cookin g and ea ti ng app l es I append a se ries of tables c ompiled fro :n da t a made available to me by t h e Coun ty Agr ic ultural Executiv e Officer. A survey of the fruit holdings in County Araa gh Ha s carried out in 1958 /59. Actual acrea ge s ,-,e re r e ckone d by t he officer carrying out the survey, but orchards of less than 0 . 5 acres were omitted. The ce n sus showed that the re are 2,156 h oldi ng s 1-;i th a total fruit a crea g e o f 5 , 745 . 8. The figure is broken down as follo1-,s: -

Dessert Vareties (C oo t

Bramley Seedlin g has been t', . · , .e :nainstay of t he fruit indus tr y s i·s ce apple p r oc1uction be c 3 ·,, e an intregal part of far :n policy in th e coun ty ,

The a c reage/ag e r ela t ions hip shown by t•1n ccnsu · ,. .... · s nroves that about 80;.; of the Bramley acreage is ove r 40 year s old and a lar ge ])roportion of this r;roup is over 50 years o f age an d is showing si gn s of de c line in fruit size anc' quality 1-n. t h t he c o11s equence of une c ononi c r eturns .

The c on clusion on e must draw fro1:1 the c ensus f i gure s is t hat unless fruit- growers em bark upon an extensive ]) la n ting p r ogramme in th e next f ew years a ,:ap in p r oduction 1-n.ll r esult . Such a situat i on would irr e::,arabl:,1 da mag e market links 1-lh ich have bee n built u p du ri n g t h e pas t 60 years .

There a re 30.5 a cres of plums in Co . Armagh and 11 . 5 acres of pea rs .

In t he late 17th. ce ntury cider makingwas the one apple indust r y i n the county, but by the beg inning of the present c en tury our cider out - pu t bac a:ne neg li g ible. Since then can ning has t ak en its p lace and is an expanding busine ss . Th e p resent year res ulted in the virtual f ail ure of the Bramley Seedling cro p due to early frosts and the l ater continuous r -ains . This set a p roblem for the county c anning c ompanies who have 5,000 workers normally engaged in packing

3 nd processin(:. - ath er t 11an let t '.1 e canning i ndust ry close down the ir::is concerned went into conferen ce . This r esulted in the pu rc hase of mo ~e than z~oo,ooo uorth of apples from Northern It aly :rnd now pouring into the county in successive ship~ents to supple~ent our meag re home supplies.

Arma gh was of g r ea t im po rt a nce in Pr e - Chris ti an d a ys and its tr a dition a l si gn i f ic a nce n o do u b t influ en ce d St. Patrick in his choice of it a s t h e p lace of supr em e consequence in his mission . Havin g s ecu red sites f or churches he imme di a tely b e gan p re p ar a ti on s fo r t h e educ a tion of the youn g p e op le of t he d istrict, a n d so about the year 450 A .D., the first school of the new regime was opened . Its g rowth as an education influence was gradual. It was, of c ourse, one of the earliest in foundation of the monastic schools of Ireland, but it was not by any means the most outstanding in the si xt h and seventh centuries. By the end of the l atter centu r y it was, however, becoming better known and we have a pen picture of the City as it was then in Pr in ce Al df r id ' s "I tinerary of Ireland", a poem attribu ted t o the year 684, wherein the royal poet states he "found in Ardmagh the splendid, meekness , wisdom, circumspection; fasting in obedience t o the Son of God and noble prosperous sages", a tribute s ugges tive of a progressive community. By the succeeding cen tury it had acquired an enviable position. Its eventual

fame as a scholastic centre has so metimes be en attributed to its historical associations. They were undoubtedly an important fact o r in its develop me nt but t h ere were other g ood reasons for its hi gh re pute, the calibre of its teachers and the quality of its pupils. I do not, however, propose to deal in detail with the many famous names associated with Arma gh , masters like Gildas Albanius, the historian of Britain who died in 512 and pupils such as John Scotus Eri g ena who went to France in 845 there to prove himself a scholar of the hi ghest rank.

During the ninth and tenth centuries the schools of Armagh suffered greatly through attacks on the City by the Norsemen, whose repeated incursions resulted in the destruction of the scholastic establishments and their books, and so alarmed foreign students that they no longer came to study in the same numbers . In those two centuries the town was plundered in 830, 839, 850 867, 890, 893, 919 and 946 The only local manuscript to survive those tragic days is the so-called Book of Armagh, a relic of the year 807 • Compiled from earlier sources it is one of the most precious of manuscripts, the only one indeed of early can with abso lut p certainty be dated . our Irish o r igin that

Education in the City d ma e st eady progress in the following century and gained a fresh impetus in the twelfth century when an amendment of the Ir ish Church was inspired by St . Mala chy, an Armachian chi an and a pupil of Ar magh . Born in the Cit y in 1095 h e was Archbishop f r om 1134 until 1137 and studied as a youth under the famous Imar O' Hagan, head of the School of the Abbey of St. P ete r and St . Paul. No doubt Malachy looked to Armagh and its schools for priests capable of putting his reforms i nto effect . In those two centuries Armagh maintained its supremacy and its schools their national importance. That they were so considered is apparent from the fact that they received assistance at various times from the Kings of P rovinces othe r than Ulster, for instance, the King of Munster about the year 907 don ated twenty ounces of gold towards their upkeep. Again centuries later, Roderick O'C onno r, the l ast High King of Ir eland augmented their income by an annual pension. That was in 116 9 and was the l ast grant made to the schools by a King of Irelan d. It was not , however, the last assistance given by a native prince , for in 1387, Ni al O' Ne ill, King of Ulster, built a hostel on the outskirts of the Cit y to further learning f th many scholars who and provide accommodation or e

then found in Armagh a spiritual home , The site of the hostel is well - known locally and the spot is still spoken of as "The Kin g , s House", but owin g to its pr oximity to Emain Mac h a t h - e Asse mbly Place of the Kings o f Ulster of the p eriod 352 B. C. _ 332 A. D. _ local t r adition is no · 1 w inc ine d to link it with earlier kings .

An o l d topographical poem written by John o •Dug an (histo r ian and poet to 0 O'Kelly of Hy Many ) who die d in 1372 states that"Head of Erin is g reat Ardmacha, The men of the world have their knowledge there" . About tha t date the Abbey of Mullynure, one of the la r ges t of the schools of Armagh, was destroyed by fire.

It occupied over an acre of ground and was about 320 feet long with a courtyard and cloisters . In 1830 the ruin st ill stood i n its entirety but by 1861 its nine fee t t hic k wal l s had been completely used up as road metal and bui ld i ng mat e ria l. I t was, of course, also known as Bishop's Co urt. A tr adition survives i n Ashe ' s "Acc ount of th e l ands o f the Ar chbishopric " which •shows that its i mp or tan ce as a schoo l was st i l l fresh i n 1 7 0 3 . Ashe states t ha t an o ld man t o ld him " tha t i t wa s i n ol d

ti mes a famous sch ool and its schol a rs were s o nume r ou s they handed their master's book f r om the sc ho o l t o t he

Cat he dral Church of Arm agh which is a lo ng mile distant , without cha nging t hei r pla ces".

But let us retrace our steps a little . I n 1162 at an ecc l e siastical Synod it was decreed that no pe rso n should be perm itted to teach or publicly le ct ure on theology who had not studied at Ar magh, a fact that ha s led many writers to a ssume for its sch ools a highly honourable pre - eminence over the other then functioning scholas t ic establishments of Ire land . It seems probable, however, that t he de cree had its o ri gin in an effo r t to promote un ifo r mity of do ctrine and di scipline throu ghout the island at l a r g e by means of lecturers who had studied a t Armagh previous to exercising their offices else,-,here . That was but a f ew years previous to t he An g l o - Norman conquest of Ireland after which the r eformation of the Church passed into other hands .

The monastic schoo l s were at fi r st little di sturbed but the i r usefu l ness became g r adually impaired, through con fl ic t between English and Ir ish opinion on matters of e duc a ti on. Th ey di d no t suffe r actual ext inction, howeve r, un t i l the di s so l u ti on o f monasteries by Hen r y VIII in 1537

By t ha t dec r ee Ir eland was lef t for a ti me without any educ at i on facil it ies whatever . Armagh may not have be e n so quickly a f f e ct e d as o t he r pl a ces

more directly under Eng lis h · i n flue n ce, bu t j ust ,m en t h e last of t h e City's monastic h sc o o ls fi na l l y c l o se d do,m is not easily ascertai nab le n ow. It s eem s possib l e t ha t the school att a c he d t o t h e Pri · ory 1 ands r em ain e d in t h e

possession of t h e Ch u rc h an d mea n s h ad be e n t aken t o

evade the o p e r ation of the Act f o r the Supp r e s s i on o f

Reli gious Houses b y a n n e xin g t h e o ffice of Prior to t h at of Dean, thus brin g ing the revenues under th e c on tr ol o f the Archbishop.

In 1558 Archbisho p Dowdall advised Queen Ma ry of the necessity of a univ e rsity and free schools in such places as should be thou ght meet, and in 1583 a p roposal was made , which amongst other designs, laid plans for the foundation of Universities at Arma gh and Limerick. Both cities had excellen t backgrounds, but Ar magh had sp e cial clai ms. It was t h en, as now, the eccl e siastical capital of Ireland. It had long been a seat of learning, an d li fe and t hough t in many countries had been influenced throu gh the teachings of its students . Thou gh the proposition was ne ver per fec ted , it is interesting to note that i f it had been i mplemented, those two cities would have taken precedence of Dublin as Trinity College was not f oun ded until 1592.

In 1599 the Earl of Tyrone pro po sed that a university should be erected nwherein the sciences might be taught according to the Catholic Ro man Church" but that fell

through al so . Elizab e th was then on t' ne thr one and exertion was bein g made to establish schools in the pri n cipal shire towns of such Irish diocese - an almost si milar scheme had been proposed in t h e rei gn of he r father - but so far as Ar magh is c oncern ed there is no evidenc!J that any sc ho ols were f ounded under those Acts.

Ar magh was still definitely Irish in mind and outlook and such schools would have been unacceptable to the native popu lati on who would have strongly rese n ted t h e necessity to speak English or study under English maste rs. A more successful effo rt to found schools on English models took place in Ulst e r at the Plantation of that Province . In 160 8 lands were set apa rt for the upkeep of free schools in the various northern counties affected . In County Armagh 720 acres were allotted for the ma intenance of a free school to be erected at Ar magh. The site chosen for it was the old Collegiate Church of St. Columba , one of the Cit y ' s many ecclesiastical foundations. Like the other Royal Sc hools founded at the same ti me it must ha ve had a modes t beginning . From its ince ption i t was probably more English in cha racte r than its sister institutions in c ounties whe re Sc otch settlers predominated . It was probably badly damaged in 1642 in which year its headmaster was murde red. quickly repaired an d remained in use unt il If so, it was

1708 when a n e w school was bui l t u pon the sa me s ite that c on tinued unt i l 1774 in h ' h ' w i c Yea r it wa s removed t o its p re sen t fi n e s i t uatio n.

In t he c l os ing ye a r s of t ha t c entu r y the ques t i on of t he foundation o f a Un ivers i t y t Armagh . a r'.Il a g was a ga in br ought to publ i c no tice by Tho mas Or d e t h e t h en Chief

Secr e t a r y fo r I reland, who on the 12t h Ap ril, 17 87, i n tr o du c ed in t o the Ir ish House of Commons a scheme o f edu ca t ion al l the proposals of which pas s ed t he Hou se with t he exce p t ion o f the clause relatin g to t he founding of a second university wh ich wa s bl o ck ed by opp osi ti on fro m Trinity Colle g e, who no doubt f e ared that pa r t of its la r ge estates in Armag h a nd o t h e r ·

Ul s te r c ounties migh t be diver t ed to t h e p ro posed new un i v e r si t y .

Unfortuna t ely a change of Gov er nm ent took place sho rt ly af t e r wa r ds t ha t r esu l ted in Orde ' s retire -

ment s o t he ma tt e r wa s d r op p ed fo r the time being . It is cl ea r, how ev e r, tha t it was intended to raise it again for Arc h b i s hop Robi n s on ' s wil l contained a beques t of £5,000 t owar d s its e st ab lis hmen t as also £1 , 0 00 for a chapel th a t mig ht serve t he pro po s ed col l ege . St r ong efforts were made to induce t h e Br iti sh Gove r nm en t to agree to the foundation. Lord Cornwal l is, t he t h en Lord Lieutenant, was a keen supporter of the mov em ent to

put the Archbishop's wishes int . o operation, but the Duke of Portland, the then British Pri me Minister refuse d to commend t he applicati·on t o the Ki.n g with the result that the le ga cy la psed ,

The matter, however, was not allowed to drop .

In 18 26 , a few years after his a ppo int men t to the Archbishopric, Lord John Geor ge Beresford, approached Henry Goulbourne, Chief Secretary for I reland 1821 - 1828 and M.P . for the Borough of Ar magh 1826 -1 836, who promised to bring the matter before Lord Liver pool the th en Prime Minister. Liverpool, however, died s ho rtly afterwards so nothing was accomplished then . As a matter of fact Goulbourne felt that the question of detriment to Trinity was likely to deprive Arma gh of such an institution.

Armagh was not again troubled by educational problems until the year 1845. When the foundation of Queen's Colle ges was proposed the town was once more in the limelight.

A meeting of the chief citizens took place on August 7th at which Arc hbishop Crolly was present and supported the City's desire for the College. The Archbishop was a broadminded prelate beloved by all sections of the community and six years earlier had founded St. Patrick' s seminary, now one of the mo st

important educa t ional institutions

St. Pat ric k 's Da y 1 84 0 he l aid the of th e Cit y. On foundation stone of t he New Ca t hed ral, so to hi m our Cit y owes a deb t of g ratitude for a beautiful chur ch a nd a very go od school . Arc hbis hop Lord John Ge B or g e e res for d was unab le to be present at that na rt ic 1 t · u ar mee ing but he offered £1,000 towards the establishment of a Divinity Chair Like Arc hbishop Crolly he was equally po pula r and a g enerous benefactor to the town but neither archbishop foresaw the reli g ious difficulties that were so quickly to arise and shatter their hopes for a revival of higher education in Arma gh .

Later Archbishop Crolly accompanied a local deputation to interview Lord Heytesbury, the then Lord Lieute nant, but that gen tle man thought the building of a new college for Ulster in the City of Ar magh might offend t he Presbyterians. In Ulster generally the matter was one of interest and speculation but the contest was chiefly between Armagh and Belfast.

Parti zan s in t ho se towns engaged in a newsp aper correspondence in which hard things were written by both parties. One correspondent replying in the "Armagh Guardian" t o a statement in the "Northern Whig" prophesied t hat Armagh would get the college and that the Rev. Dr. P. S. Henry,

Minister of First Armagh Congregation would be the first pr esi de nt. He was soon p r oved wrong as regards location but he had certainly picked a winner in Dr . Henry, for he wa s offered the presidency by th 1 e ord Lieutenant on Novembe r 29, 1 8 45, and thus one of the k eenest supporter s of the effort . to establish the institution in Ar magh became the head of the new colle ge in Be lfast.

Opini on was very much divided as to the usefulness of such colleges. Some were alarmed by the idea tha t young peop le of t he various faiths mi gh t have to mix with ea c h other. On the whole, however , the p roposed colleges we r e considered a valuable contribution to Iri sh Educa ti on , and Queen 's College, Belfast, has certainly vindicated its foundation. From the beginning it has pu rsued a pro gr essive and enli ghtene d policy , that clearly justifies its intellectual leadership of the Province of Ulster. It is now, of c ourse, a university and we in Armagh wish it well, t hough we strongly disa pp rove of the tendency to enrich Belfast at the expens e of the rest of the Province.

The more modern Armagh foundations like Drelinc our t and other 18th century schools endowed and supported by public subscription or private indivi du als must of necessity be omitted. Time is too limited on this occasion to allow them to be studied, or to discuss their

re- birth a s Nationa l Sc hool s in the early days of the next century, o r their later development as the Public Elementary Schools of the pr t esen century.

The schools of the 18th and 19 th . cen uries often tau ght subjects that are now only available in Secondary Schools. Such subjects were indeed pa rt of the curriculum of many of the hedge-schools that were such a feature of Irish education in t hose centuries. Education has made great strides since then and the schola rs of to - day a r e blessed vdth many amenities. I am not sure , however, that they are as appreciative of their good fortune as they migh t be . Their treatment of books supplied by the Count y Librar y Service, for instance, leaves much to be desired and suggests a carel essness that is equally apparent in their attitud e to property in genera l. I have no wish to crit icise present day education but I strongly feel, that so long as boys and girls are left in total ignorance of local geography and civic hi st o r y , we shall have chalkdisfi gu red public buildings and mutilated trees t o r em ind us of our failure to i nspire the children with a patri o t i s m alive to the beauty and interest that is their heritage in this most pleasant city o f Arm agh .

CITY CHARTERS, CORPORATIO N Records

AND INCIDENTAL Matters

(George Leyburn, Esq., M.B.E., J .P •, in the chai r ) .

Early historical sources are far from i nfor mative regarding the social history of Arm ag h and the life of the ordinary inhabitants of the town. In those times our population was largely scholastic - augmented, of course, by ecclesiastical dignitaries and learned men, whose labours placed them here. In such a communit y there was little scope for organized industry, and barter or exchange was undoubtedly the method by which necessaries were obtained.

In the Middle Ages, however, a new class of town-society began to arise and charters were granted by which the inhabitants were incorporated. Under those patents merchants prospered exceedingly in the great trading centres but such prosperity could not have ever been of any consequence in Armagh. We know practically nothing of the business life of the city in those days excepting that its proceedings were often interrupted by strife and tragedy and that such happenings were of frequent occurrence. Apart from spoilationof citizens• property, town charters were also lost, so that now Yt possess no local material other than the Archiepiscopal Registers_ beginning about 1350 - wherein to seek for knowledge on 1uch .subjects. They unfortunately, are almost

entirely devoted to ecclesiastical affairs, but it is in one of them that we find the g rant of a charter from Edward the Fourth to Archbishop Bole on 9 th February, 1467 , a document pre -supp os ing an earlier patent, being in fact but a confirmation of the Archbishop, s legal rights. By it Armagh was g ranted a weekly market and the Archbishop the feudal privileges of the period. The Ch a rter was attested and inspected again on 1st June, 1558 . Whether that market was held on a Tuesday as at present, we may nev er discover. In those day s the a ffairs of the city were in the hands of a Seneschal, an officer ap po inted by the Archbishop and to wom there are many references in the Reg isters. He was always a pers o n of some so cial standing and on occasion represented the Archbishop in Parliament.

The first actual reference to a Tuesday market occurs in 1587, in which year on the petition of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, a grant was passed to the citizens for a market on that day, and in 1609 an Inquisition was taken in the city at which it wes found that a weekly market had been held in Armagh "time -out of mind".

Following the Plantation of Ulster with English and Scotch settlers in the opening years of t~t century, King JIIJlies the First granted the city a further charter by which it became Borough in 1613. The new patent placed the · ·· th h ' a·nds of a Sovereign and twelve government of the "city "in e

Burgesses, assisted by an assembly or jury of free citizens. By virtue of that arrangement two parliamentary representatives were elected from time to time to serve in Parliament, a form of representation that continued to the Union of Great Britain with Ireland in 1800, after which one member only was allowed.

The Tuesday market was confirmed to Archbishop Hampton and his successors in 1614, with two fairs to be held on 17th of March and 1st of August and the day after each. That patent vested certain curious powers in the Primate such as causing troublesome women to be placed in trebuchets or .l cucking-stools · , confining fraudulent bakers in pillories, and the plunging of brewers who made bad ale into well-filled dung-carts , Such was life in those days.

A further patent , was issued for fairs and markets in 1620. In 1634 a Saturday market was granted to Archbishop Ussher with an additional fair on St. Peter' s Day and the day following. In 1753 the Corporation obtained leave to hold extra fairs on 20th May and 20th November respectively. that brought the total up to -what was then considered a good working average.

The 17th centurY fairs and markets were held in the MarketSquare, a space ·then -quite adequata, for the purpose. 'l'b .. 4 . ntinued t1rthe closing days of• the 18th a • . proce ur• co , century about; wllicb "Unl rtbe ·inhabitants of. Market Street

successfully petitioned th S e overeign and Burgesses regarding the removal of the fair to a more convenient eventually agreed that it should be site. It was transferred to the t nor hern end of the Mall. In those days that district was not a residential area and Barrack Hill and Victoria Street did not exist. The arrangement, though fairly suitable then, is again becoming a problem for which the only reasonable solution seems to be a properly constructed and enclosed Fair Green.

In the early 19th century individual markets like the Flax, Shamble and Linen Hall were built, some of >hich later became devoted to other uses. The Linen Market, for instance, became the Egg and Butter Market, but is now derelict owing to the fact that eggs, and such butter as is now farm produced, are collected direct from the farms and brought to town by motor transport.

Armagh is somewhat unlucky as regards its Corporation records. Those for the 17th century are missing. Those previous to 1642 were probably lost in the destruction of the town in the Civil War of that year. Whether the Corporation :runctioned fully again before 1657 is doubtful. It was, however, working in 1688, in October of which year King James the Second, excluded the then Sovereign and Burgesses from office; and -appointed a new Sovereign, at the same time increasing the Burgesses to twenty-four

instead of the original twelve. James again stayed a few days in the city on his way back f rom Derry in 16 89, and when departing took with him th Bo e rough Seal and Re cords. In the following year the Duk f e O Schomberg assumed possession of the town and later fought at the Battle of the Boyne, an action that cost the unfortunate James his crown and placed a Dutch prince on the throne.

strangely enough despi ta the peace tha.t followed the Williamite Wars, there are no Borough Records available for the period 1690-1732. Lists of Sovereigns and Burgesses of the City are very incomplete for the 17th century, but there is a detailed sequence from 1713. Rolls of Freemen are, unfortunately, only available from 1737. Surviving records begin in the year 1732 and continue without a break until 1833 in which year the form of administration was altered and the duties of the Sovereign and Burgesses taken over by a Board of City Commissioners, consisting of Chairman, Treasurer, Clerk and twenty-one members, a form of government that continued until 1872, during which time the City continued to send a representative to the Imperial Parliament. Though it was rather a waste having towns like Armagh ,send representatives to Parliament it iS a fact that the citymembers were nearly always notable political figures, remarkable for ability and eloquence.

Unfortunately the Armagh Rolls for that

The Lists of Freemen of th e city end in 1 802 . They are of great local interest but their more general appeal lies in their use as a census f o occupations for the period 1737-1802. Freemen were sworn t i 0 ass st the Sovereign and other officers of the town and "to them be obedient and attendant concerning such things as th i h ey mg t reasonably be required to do". At the same time they were "to observe, perform and fulfil all orders and rules made by the Common Council of the town, besides maintaining to the best of their skill, cunning, wit, and power all the liberties, customs, orders and use ages of the Corporation. 11 Tbe Freemen were drawn from all ranks of society but the great majority of them were merchants or tradesmen of the city. The socially important were shown as " gent s" and the lesser fry distinguished by their occupation. Local tradition states that the famous Dean Swift was complimented with the freedom of the city whilst the guest of Robert Cope of Loughgall through whom he was introduced to a member of the Caulfeild family and made a Freeman of Charlemont 29th September, 1728, date are missing.

The extant Corporation records provide much information as to city affairs.

The lighting of the streets by oillamps was 1n operation as early as 1776. Tanning was at that time one of the chief industries of the town and an

Overseer of the Leather Market appears amongst Corporation officials of that date.

Twelve Years earlier t h e first local newspaper was published, but no copies of it exist to-day. It was printed by William Dickie. He was admitted a Freeman 1 8 th April, 1740 .

Lists of Corporation Constables are available from 1777 - they continued down to comparatively recent times. New bye-laws had been drawn up the year before and further bye-laws were printed in 1795 forbidding, amongst other things, the playing of Ball in the Market House, the placing of obstructions in the streets or roadways by which the public might be annoyed. Publicans were no longer allowed to permit horses to be fastened to their premises on Market Days. Pigs were denied the freedom of the streets and might be shot on sight. Bull-baiting and cock-fighting were forbidden within the Corporation, and lewd and disorderly women found in the Borough were . to be promptly placed in the House of Correction to remain there until it pleased the Sovereign to release them.

A fire-engine is first mentioned in 1787. The accounts of the following year show ~hat it was provided with leather hose pipes 32 feet long. A new engine was purchased in 1815 from Hadly and Simpson of London at a cost of £142,13,l~. It w~s beught for the town by private aub~artption, the individual sums ranging from 5/- to £5.

of which appear in records.

The first water supply was from wells and pumps, both An actual pipe -water supply becaine available in 179 5, and secti ons of t h e old wooden pipes of those days are still f ound f rom time to time during excavations in the streets.

The Corporation Staff was under the control of the Constable of the city who with the Town Sergeants mi ght High only wear his livery, great coat, and laced hat when on actual business.

The most valuable and most important Corporation relics are a pair of beautiful seventeenth century silver Maces, and the extant Corporation Records. They ar e prese r ve d in the Armagh Public Library. -Other Corporatio n Relics may be seen in the County Museum - they include City Watchman's Pike and Crake, Corporation Seal, and Journal of the Pi pe Water Commissioners for the period 1795-1 863 , an interesting manuscript containing signatures of Sovereigns, Burgesses, and other inhabitants of the city. Another Corporation relic, a Scold's Bridle'' may be found in t he Belfast Museum. It was formerly in use in the old Sessions House, and though a rather inhuman sort of implement was really effective in curbing evil tongued women. .!

The extant Corporation Records under date 13th October, 1738, show 8 presentment for ~a sufficient pair of stocks and ordered ~ tbat theY should be joined and fixed in the Pillory.

They were made of oak d , an less than 50 years ago still survived in the basement f 0 the Market House to which place removed when they fell into disuse. they had been

I should like tom k a ea few supplementary remarks on Charters. You all know th t b a a out the year 1171, in the reign of Henry II Ireland ' was annexed by England in which country government by Charter was then in force. In reality such control was a $urvival of the Roman occupation of Britain. Being a long-established custom it was a natural sequence that similar Charters should come into existence in Ireland shortly afte.r the arrival of the Anglo-Normans anq in actual . fact they were soon issued to the more important towns especially those on navigable rivers or situate on the coast, as well as to new townsin the conquered areas . . 1 , Suc;h Charters gave most of the townsa lik,e fo ,rm . of cgovernm.ent but, of course, in certain ,, places there were . slight variations of form due to local .J requirement and usage. Such patents or grants conveye~ to ,the citizens the lands ·on ·'ilh:l:ch the townswere built with some additional property outside the actual townproper, which lands were s~etim.es known as Commons, In Armagh, t :l\or ustaxice, the Mall was a part ot the Commons apd may still 11• c01:11-i••~•d. sa, · as that plot 11 :enjoyed · in common ~97-1:be :l.llh&bi,.t.allt..J"'

officers, levy tolls, collect customs and control crafts and trades within the town limits.

It was an interesting form of town management but in so far as the smaller t owns were concerned ve r y liable to abuse, owing to au thority eventually becoming vested in a few influential families rather than in the inhabitants generally. There was also the fact that the chief offici a ls were mo st1Y drawn from the former class and consequently less sympathetic towards reform or improvement excepting where such things were of advantage to themselves personally. That aspect in the end brought the old borough system into disrepute, so in 1835 a Royal Commission was appointed to study conditions in Ireland. The findings of that body resulted in the Municipal Corporations Act of 1 840 being ' passed whereby certain Corporations like Belfast, Dublin, Cork and Limerick were preserved whilst 58 others, including Armagh, were dissolved. The Act strangely enough reserved the right to the Crown to re-grant or incorporate boroughs on the petition of the inhabitants of such towns as hadpopulations exceeding 3,000 citizens. And now may I generalize somewhat. Our ancient city has had many misfortunes. It has been sacked by armed band• from the neighbouring provinces, harried by cruel and lerciless Scandinavian warriors, and often pillaged by the "lli.gbty Anglo-Norman has never been utterly subdued.

phoenix-like it has always arisen again ,

Hours could bes t pen on details relatin g to the tow•s grovth since the mid-fifth century, on its develo pment to University status, and the tale of events connected with it, records of kings, saints and warriorsors _ a tale of centuries and of raids and burnings down the years.

I would, however, stress the fact that when the first half-legendary tales began to throw some light on Ireland, Armagh was already in t he forefront. Many of th e incidents recorded of Cuchulinn, and other great figures of the Irish Sagas took place at the Royal Seat of Emania, about two miles west of the present town. Th e heroic exploits of the champions of those days were accomplished in defence of Ulster in general and against invaders from t he south. That there is a historic basis for t hose stories is evident from the existence of travelling earthworks in the county, one near Emania itself, the other on the Armagh-Down border, constructed when Emania was lost in 332 A. D. - and its defenders driven into a district now comprising the counties of Antrim and Down. 1'nat, however, is not the earliest record of local occupation and settlement_ our prehistoric burial places carry the story back to about 2,000 B. C~ · ,,

In the Early Christian period Armaghcontinued its preaainence. It is true it had s bY then lost its proud position 11 the seat of the Ultonian , kings, but to 1 ts hill-top

settlement had cometh e greatest figure i history - the saintly Pat _ k n its chequered ric - under whose mission it was later to become the 1 . _ cc ecclesiasticalcapital.

I have a pleasant dut t Y o perform before we dine. I -wish to exhibit to you the 17th century Mace of the Sovereign of Armagh. This I am enabled to do by the courtesy of the Librarian of , the Public Library, the Very Reverend the Dean of Armagh, who has with characteristic kindness permitted me to have it on loan for this particular occasion.

An earlier Mace was lost in 1642. This beautiful specimen was made by Nathaniel Stoughton, a well-known Dublin silversmith, in 1657, the actual year in which Cromwell's Commissioners sat in Armagh and drafted an Inquisition for our county that forunately never came into operation.

The Mace was then devoid of the plate bearing the Royal Arms of the Stuarts - that was added at the Restoration - otherwise it is in its original condition.

We have no information as to how the Mace was hidden during the visits of King James to the City in 1688 and He managed to secure the Borough Seal and Records and actually installed a new Sovereign and Burgesses, but the ceremony must have been shorn of much of its dignity by the absence of the Maces.

Following the dissolution of Irish Boroughs this Mace,

with a smaller one of equal age, fell into the custody of William Paton, the last Sovereign of the old order, and in l887 was presented by his daughter to Armagh Library.

To-night I propose placing the Mace before your Chairman for the duration of the present meeting . By virtue of his office he is the successor of the Sovereigns of our town, and by merit a true representative of that long line of Seneschals and Sovereigns, who in adversity and prosperity, gave of their best to our ancient city.

Armagh City

Charters Fairs, Markets and Corporation

eel 1

In Great Britain and Ireland the term city is, strictly speaking, an honorary dist inction appli'ed tot owns which, by virtue of some particular pre -eminence, such as being episcopal Sees or g reat industrial centres, have, by traditional usage or royal ch a rter, acquired t ha t designation.

Armagh belongs t o the first gro up, and its official style of "city" does not necessarily involve the possession of municipal powers greater than those of ordinary boroughs, nor indeed actual corporate possessions. In other words, Armagh is a city by piescriptive right and has been so for many more centuries than is necessary to give legal effect to the description.

The Medieval Registers of the Archbishops of Armagh begin about the year 1350 and are the first local documentary evidence that we possess for the term "city" in connection With Armagh. They show references to -

"The Archbishop I s rents of his city of Armagh,

The revenues of Armagh city.

The tythes of Armagh city.

Visitations of Armagh city and. diocese", etc.

State Papers of Ireland, howe.ver, produce earlier entries. Armagh 1,s so described in a demand of Henry III,

January 18, 1226-12 27 , requiring th th make available , e en Archbishop to a site for a c castleproposed to be erected which castle was built for the better s ecurity of the city, in 1236 and gave name to the present Castle Street where a portion of the structure still remains embodied in the basement of a house, Charters, Fairs and Markets.

The first city charter of which we are aware is the grant from Edward IV to Archbishop John Bole. This appears to have been a confirmation of privileges then in existence and mentions among other m tt a ers a weekly market at Armagh. It was ratified at Drogheda February 9, 1467, and again formally inspected and attested at Drogheda' June 1, 1558, some few months after the accession of Queen Elizabeth I, and during the Primacy of Archbishop George Dowdall who died on August 15 following.

At that date, as had been the custom in previous centuries and down to the beginning of the 17th century, tbe business of the city was managed by a seneschal. He was usually a per son of some social standing and capable of acting as proxY for the Archbishop in Parliament when ecclesiastical matters prevented His Grace's attendance. For instance, Sir Toby Caulfeild, founder of the frunily fortunes of the Earls and Viscounts Charlemont, filled the ,,. . post in the open1~g- ·ie.ars· of the 17th century and was Member

of P a rliament for the county of Armagh i·n 1613when James I incorp o rated the cit y under a burgesses. The cha rt er sovereign and twelve was co nfer red pursuant to Lette r s Patent of Sept ember 26 1612 d ' , an issued March 26, 161 3 . By it Ar magh was created a body cor pora te to be denominated the Bo rou gh of Ar magh - that, however, did no t alter its standing as a city, a su bJ·ect th t a will crop up again i n my remarks.

But to return to the question of markets _ Hugh O' Ne ill, Earl of Tyrone, petitioned the Crown on b ehalf of the citizens of Arma gh for a g r ant of a Tuesday marke t , a request acceded to by Queen Elizabeth I May 10, 1587; tha t, by the way, being the earliest indication of a Tu esday market.

On August 12, 1609, the Commissioners for the Plantation of Ulster, by an Inquisitio n t aken in the city on that date, found that a weekly mar ke t ha d be en h eld in Armagh "time out of mind". That verdict coul d no t very well refer to the O'Neill market as it had only been in being twenty years. The 16o9 jury included twenty-t-wo jurors, members of the chief native families of the county , people whom we must assume to have been conversant with Armagh affairs. It may, however, be that Tyrone's .application was for an extra market or change of day.

In 1611 Archbishop. Christopher Hampton surrendered the t c11if with all the ancient e'state of the See of Armagh, and '

25 of that had a new patent pass ed February him and his successors Tu a Tuesdaymarket and Yea r confirming two fairs on March 1 7 and Au gus t 1 respectively, wi t h the city and manor, customs, t olls, etc . t he Lo rds hip of Th i s g r ant o r and re newed with further clauses charter was con firmed July 3, 1620.

In the reign of Charles1 I ar es there was a confirmation or regr an t on May 23 , 1634, t o Archbishop James Ushe r by which a Satur day market and a fair on St . Peter's Day were added to t hose already existi ng · , and on October 5 2, 1 753 , King Geo r ge II g ra nt ed t he Corporation a patent for two addi t ional fairs on May 20 and Novembe r 20 . Now we have one per month. In t he l at e 1 8th and early 19th centur y individual markets li ke t h e flax, linen , etc. came i n t o being, some of which were l at er utilized f o r other pu r po ses. The linen, for examp le, developed into an egg and but te r market that in its turn became redundant.

Fairs in the 17t h century were hel d in the Market Squ are, a space then quite adequate for the purpose and so continued to the closing days of the 1 8th century, about which time the inhabitants of that area successfully pe r su aded the sovereign and burgesses regar d ing its removal t o a more convenient site. It was eventually agreed that they should be transferred to the northern end of the Mall. In those days that district was not built upon and Barrack Hill and Victoria Street did not exist. The a.djustment though fairly suitable then is

again becoming a problem, f or which the only reasonable solution seems to be a properly constructed Fair Green on a planned space that might also Auction Mart for cattle, t the outskirts of the city, hereby improving be used as an the amenities of Victoria Street, Gaol Square and Barrack Street and, more pa rticularl y so, those of Edward Street and Cathedral Road.

The Break Up of the Borough

In 1 833 two Government Commissions exami n ed the various city charters from the reign of James I onwards . The result of their survey was published in the "Report on Municipal Corporations of 1 835" . In it the two commissioners res ponsible entitled their survey "The Repor t for the City of Armagh" and mentioned therein that the principal town in the county was the "c ity of Armagh" and that it "was recognized as a city in several statutes", thus emphasizing the fact that the State then accepted Armagh a.s such.

The Report coming, as it did, before the dissolution of the Borough is of consequence, and the commissioners' findings as regards corporation levies state that the monie~ obtained were "beneficially and honestly applied", two factors "attested by the appearance of the town". The Report~~ Belfast of same date shows th a t it was then J ,.1 5 , ()''

simply a Borough,but now it al so 1 . s a city, Its present rank though is recent an.d derives from industry and population rather than ancient lineage, Its growth and importance to-day is, however, something that t h e Province may well be proud of,

You may feel that I have t was ed time unduly on Armagh's position as a city. Visitors often ask why city matters are here transacted by an Urban Council which meets in a City Hall. They also enquire as to the city I s armorial be a rings, There is now no record of matriculati on of arms in Ulster's Office, but that is likely due to a fire which took place there during James II's campaign in Ireland, in which period he dissolved t h e Corporation of Armagh in 1688 and issued a new charter, besides dismissing the then sovereign and burgesses and appointing a new and enlarged corporate body and two new members to represent the city in the Irish House of Commons. His Acts were, however, declared null and void an 1690, and the working of the charter of 1613 was resumed.

But to return to the coat of arms - the current exemplification has been long enough in use to warrant a confirmation and it is imperative that something should be done to remedy the defect, In the last twenty years we h tim:e, heard rumours that the City (alias ave, from time -uo Urban) Council is about . to attempt the revival of the

dormant charter of 1613, but whether . t 1 will ever take effective action remains to be seen. As long ago as 1854 the subject of restoring the charter was considered by the Town Commissioners who were then qUi te satisfied to accept a body composed of Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors. The meeting took place in October 1 854 and an editorial in the "Armagh Guardian" of October 10 of that year states that the "proposal was being opposed from a political angle". The longing for borough status, however, continues and may yet be achieved. After all the Act dissolving the boroughs in 1840 provided that the inhabit an ts of such boroughs as exceeded 3 ,500 inhabitants could, at any ti me, upon petition of the majority of the reside nts , be given a fresh g r ant of incorporation • Under those circumstances there is no reason .by Armagh should not have its first charter restored.

Corporation Relics

In conclusion I shall discuss certain corporation miscellanea.

Lists of sovereigns occur in partial form for the 17th century and more fully from the 1 8th century to the passing of the borough in 1840.

I rish silver marks of 1657, Two silver maces, bearing are preserved in the Armagh Public Li b rary - they were made war of 1641-42. to replace those destroyed in the Civil 1 P roceedings are housed in the Minutes of corporat on

same building and cover the period from 173 8 until the termination of borough status.

Earlier municipal documents were destroyed in 1642 and those of the Commonwealth and Restoration era in the war between James II and William III.

Corporation miscellanea on exhibition in the County Museum includes -

1. A seal of the borough - late 17th or early 18th century,

2, 3, 4. 5. 6.

Journal of the Pipe Water Commissionersperiod 1792-1863.

Printed Corporation Bye Laws 1795.

Valuation of houses in the city and borough 1833-34.

7. City watchman's pike and crake. or early 19th century. Late 18th

A . t f th Members of Parliament complete lis O e 6l until the Act of for the borough periodtwo representatives Union, ~~rigid IrishpHouse of Commons. From fs~oi~o 1886 the city ]was represented the Imperial parliiament hical particulars of all roll contains d ?gr~ important source of the members an is them information regarding .

Maps Of the city, 1602, 1760, etc. 1

APPENDIX I

Armagh

The Corporation Maces

The city was incorporated by James I in 1613 and had a sovereign, twelve burgesses and commons, who returned two members to Parliament. They were empowered to have a seal and to appoint serjeants-at-mace. In the year 1799 we find that John Hill, mace-bearer, received £1 lOs. per annum for the d isch a rge of his office.

When the Corporation was suppressed, under the Municipal Corporation Act, in 1 8 32 , the two maces fell into the custody of Mr. William P aton , survivor of the old sovereigns. At his death they were p resented by his daughter, in 1887, for preservation to the Public Library of Armagh, founded by Primate Lord Rokeby, where they are exhibited.

They are in length and greatest circumference, respectiv"ely, 21¼ and 11¼ in.; and 10 and 8¼ in." They are almost alike, and much resemble the Carlow maces, one of wich was made in the saiqe year. . They are ;of silver with plain stems, a centraJ. plain knop, and a base, round the bottom of 'Which is engraved:- . For the Burrough of Ardmagh. ' th are divided into four panels, The heads of bo _ • . ,

separated in the large one by Caryatid figures, and in the smaller by engraved oak-leaves, In the panels are the "States arms", viz.' the Cross of St. George for England and the Harp for Ireland, both alternately repeated. there ever was a cresting round the top it has gone.

Each bears on the head three clear Dublin hall-marks, the same on both, viz.:- (1) the date letter T (of which presently); (2) the harp crowned; and (3) the mark N. s., under a star or mullet, in a quatrefoil. These initials I can identify, from my MS lists extracted from the Dublin Goldsmiths' Registers, as those of Nathanael Stoughton.

Two of the name appear. One was in the Charter, 16 37; the other was admitted in 1647, and entered much plate from 1645 on.

On the flat cover of the top are the Royal Arms of the Stuarts (with France and England quarterly in the first and fourth quarters), but as the date-letter, as shown in the case of Carlow, represents 1656-7, the mace must have been made during the interregnum.

Perhaps the arms were added after the Restoration.

Certain it is that these maces must be Commonwealth "baubles", and not as old as the Corporation of Armagh.

in the Public Library, Armagh. (1) Preserved i • of Irish Corporations", (Extract from "Maces and Ins InsigniaArts and crafts Society Crafts Society of p.6O). Reprint, Journal of the Ireland • . Vol 1 No.2 1898 o. '

Data as to the of James I proposed revival of Charter - incidental matters -in 1953

The Medieval Registe r s of the Archbishops of Armagh begin about the Year 1350 and are th e earlie st local documentary evid en ce that we possess f or the ter m " city " in connection with Armagh. They show references to _ " Th e Archbishop's rents of his city

The revenues of Armagh city . of Armagh .

The tythes of Armagh city .

Hos tile entry into Armagh city.

Visitations of Armagh city and diocese", etc .

State Pap ers of Ireland, however, show earlier entries _ for instance, Ar magh is so described in a demand of Henry III, Jan. 1 8 , 12 26-27 , requiring the then Archbishop to make available a site for a castle proposed to be erected fo r t he be tter security of the city, which castle was built and ga ve name to t h e present Castle Street where a po rt ion of the structure still remains embodied in the basemen t of a ho use. Still earlier notices may be found in Ir ish Annals.

The first actual Charter o f whic h we are aware is t he grant from Edward IV to Archbishop John Bole. This seems to have been a confirmation of privileges the n in existence and mentions among other matters a weekly market at Armagh. The document wa• ratified at Drogheda 9th February, 1467.

The above Charter was again formally inspected and

attested at Drogheda 1st J une, 1558, some few months after during the Primacy of George Dowdall who died on the accession of Queen Elizabeth and Archbishop 15t h August in same year.

At that time as had been the custom in earlier centuries and down to the beginning of the 17th century, the affairs of the city were managed by a Senesch al, who was usually a person of some social standing and capable of acting as proxy for the Archbishop in parliament when ecclesiastical matters prevented His Grace's attendance.

Later Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, petitioned the Crown on behalf of the citizens of Armagh for the grant of a Tuesday Market, a request acceded to by Queen Elizabeth 10th May, 1587.

On 12th August, 1609, the Commissioners for the . Plantation of Ulster, by an Inquisition taken in the city on that date found that a weekly market had been held in Armagh "time out of mind". That verdict could not, however, refer to the O'Neill market has it had only been granted twenty years before_ the jury responsible included twenty-two jurors, members of the chief native families of the county, people whom we must assume to have been conversant with local affairs. It may be that Tyrone's petition for an extra market or change of daY. ' . '

King James I by a Charter dated 26th March , 1613 (pursuant to Letters Patent of 26 th September, 1612) created Armagh a body t corpora e to be denominated "The Borough of Ardma gh" . In the following year Archbishop Christopher Hampton surrendered all the ancient estate of the See of Armagh includin g the city and had a new patent passed 25 th February, 1 614, granting him and his successors a Tuesday market and two fairs on 17th March and 1st August res pec tivel y with the Lordship of the city and manor, customs, tolls, etc. This grant or Charter was confirmed and renewed with furthe r clauses 3rd July, 1620. Arma gh was one of the Cor porations dissolved by King_ James in 168 8 and to which new Charters were issued by that monarch, but his Acts of Parliament, etc. were declared null and void in 1690.

In the reign of Charles I a confirmation or regrant was issued 23rd May, 1634, to Archbishop James Usher by which a Saturday market and a fair on St. Peter' s Day were added to the existing amenities, and on 25th October, 1753, King George II granted the Corporation two further fairs on 20th May and 20th November.

The original Corporation Maces were lost in the Civil War of 1641-42 but in 1657 during the Common wealth new they are Irish silver and survive in maces were procuredgood condition. ( See Appe ndi x I)·

In passing we may mention that the dates of the earlier Armagh fairs suggest a descent from the older assemblies. st. Patrick's festival · is a day t hat heralds the end of winter and the approach of better weather - it is in fac t the day on which, according to 1 1 oca t r ad itio n, "the warm side of the stone turns up".

The Lammas Fair held on 1st Augu st was of equal importance from the "folk" point of view. It marked the beginning of Autumn and was a holiday whose roots are lost in the mists of antiquity - the annual pilgrimage to Carrickatuke, a hill some miles south of the City, is indeed a direct link with pre-Christian times.

The St. Peter' s Day Fair raises similar thoughts, Its nearness to the mid-summer festival makes one wonder whether it was not also an inheritance from Pagan Days especially as both celebrations followed the same ritual.

The oldest local fair seems to have been the great annual gathering outside the city at Emain Macha, founded to commemorate the memory of Queen Macha who is reputed to have died about 360 B.C.

Appendix III

The Act of 1840 empowered th e Queen upon pe tition received f r om the inhabitants of any town in Ireland, the population of which at the date of the last census exceeded 3 ,500 , and signed by a majority of such inhabitants as should be rated t o the relief of the destitute poor, to gran t a Ch arter of Incorpor a tion t o such towns, extending t o the inhabitants the reof within the district set forth i n such Charter the powers and provisions in such Act contained. See ''Municipal Gove r nment in Irel an d" by Webb, page 240.

l'!o..t.11: Only Wexfo r d petit i oned for Re-incorporation under above Act.

2nd October, 1953,

Dear Professor Newark,

Re our conversation f o yesterday. I was sorry that I had to leave for the t coun ry without dealing with the subject we were discussing .

The Medieval Registers of the A h re bishops of Armagh begin, as you know, abou t the year 1350 and are the earliest local documentary evidence that we possess for the term "city" in connection with Armagh . They show references t o -

The Archbishop's Rentals of his city of Armagh . The revenues of Armagh city . The t ythes of Armagh . city . Hos tile entries into Armagh city. Visitations of Armagh city and diocese, etc . State Papers of Ireland, however, show earlier ent rie s - for ins t ance , Armagh is so desc ri bed in a document of Henry III 18th Janu ary , 1226-27, requirin g the then Archbishop to make avai lable a site for a castle proposed to be erected for the better security of the city, which castle was built and gave name to t he present Castle Street.

Still earlier notices may be found in Iris h Annals, The first actual Charter of which I aJD aware was in the nature of a grant from Edward IV to Archbisho p John Bole. This seems to have been a _confirmat,ion of privil e ge s then in enstence and mentions -~ong other matters a weekly market

at Armagh. The document was rati fied at Drogheda 9th February, 1467. The above Charter was again formally inspected and attested at Drogheda 1st June, 1558, some few months during the after the accession of Qu E1· een izabeth and Primacy of Archbishop George Dowdall who died 15th August of same year.

La ter Hugh O Neill, Earl of Tyrone, petitioned the Crown on behalf of the citizens of Armagh for the grant of a Tuesday market, a request acceded to by Queen Elizabeth 10th May, 1 587 .

King James I by a Charter dated 26th March, 161 3 (pursuant to Let ters Patent of 26th September, 1612) created Arm agh a .t body corporate to be denominated the Borough of Armagh. Archbishop Christopher Hampton had a new paten t passed to him gran tin g him and his successors a Tuesday market and two fairs on 17th March and 1st August re spectively with the Lordship of the c ity and manor, customs, tolls, etc. This grant or charter was confirmed and renewed with furthe r clauses 3rd July, 1620.

In the reign of Charles I a confirmation or re grant was issued 23rd May, 1634, to Archbishop Jame s Ussher, by which a Saturday market and a fair on St. Pater's Day were added to the existing aJDenities, and on 25th October, 1753, George II granted the corporation two further fairs on 20th May and 20th November.

Armagh was one of the corporations dissolved by James II in 168 8 and to i,,hich new charters were issued by that monarch but his Acts of Parliament , etc., were declared null and void in 1690 and Armagh ret urned to its former status.

Apart from recent attempts to revive Borough status in Armagh there was a rather determined effort made in 1854 to take advantage of the Act of 1840 empowering the Queen upon petition to grant charters of incorporation to towns which at the date of the previous census had a population of 3,500 people. At that time Armagh was prepared to accept a Mayor, Alderman and Councillors . I do not know very much as to why the matter then failed but I think it was due to the proposal being blocked from a political angle. Now almost 100 years later it is being revived and I hope that we may have better luck this time.

Very kindest regards.

Yours sincerely,

T. G. F. Paterson.

Professor F. H. Newark, 52 MalonePark,

P. S • . f the word city has it not As regards the use o turies for the towns in the custom down the ~ante to be so designated? Bishops' Sees are si ua been which

Jlxtract from "Arthur QuillerCouch

F Brittain, MA, pages 70 71

A Biographical Study

Cambridge UNiversity

In the autumn they t k 00 part in the festivities that were held when Fow ey be c ame a bor ough for th e se con d time in its history. The town had kep t its ancient charter of incorporation until the nineteenth century but had ceased to exercise its privileges af ter the Ref or m Act of 1 832 and had been formally deprived of them in 1883 . Th e revival of the charter was mainly d ue to the efforts of Q and Cha r le s Treffry. Q, as President of the Fowey Me rc ant ile Association, drafted a petition asking the Crown to make Fowey a borough again. A Local Government Board inquiry was h eld early in 1912 and the petition was granted in the au tumn of that year. In October 1913 the Member of Parliament for South-East Cornwall, Sir Reginald Pole-Carew, formally handed over a new charter to Charles Treffry, t he first mayor of the revived borough. The ceremony took place under a chestnut tree at Place; and Q made a speech in which he said "Although our streets are narrow, our minds may be broad enough to keep our sense of proportion, and to remember that our borough is too small to allow of quarrellings, whether religious or political, or to admit any other rivalry save \ in the service of Fowey".

" h Guardian" Nov. 5, 1854 Meeting to claim . to have its borough status renewed.

roWEY. Borough, seaport, market town , and wate r ing place of Cornwall. It is on the west shore of Fowey estuary, 10 miles S. E. of Bodm in on the Great Western Railway and bas a fine ha r bour. Indus tries - pilcha rd fish in g and t he pr oduc tion of china clay. Fowey Wood and headland a re t h e property of the town. Market Day Saturday . Population (1931) 2,382 .

See Cassell' s "Gazetteer".

APPENDIX YI.

The Act of 1840 empowered the Queen upon petition received from the inhabitants of any town in Ireland, the population of which at the date of the last census exceeded 3,500, and signed by a majority of such inhabitants as should be rated to the relief of the destitute poor, to grant a Charter of Incorporation to such towns, extending to the inhabitants thereof within the district set forth in such Charter the powers and provisions in such Act contained.

See "Municipal Government in Ireland" by Webb, page 240.

Note: Only Wexford petitioned for Re-incorporation under above Act.

been

Armagh is a city by ll]'escrjptian - that is it has i t time to give legal right so called for suffic en to the description.

City_ a great town.

City _ a town having a royal charter.

City - a cathedral town.

The earliest Railways in County Armagh 1841 1957 t o provid e a railway in County Armagh was :nade in the cl . osin g days of t l1 e 1 8th centu ry and the f i rst printed ref e re nce to the undertaking tha t I hav e so far found an. pears · :t.n Coote'ss "Statistical Survey of Count y Armagh a wo rk published in 1804 wherein \•!e are told that "a n iron road had been talked about but 110 decision had been mad e". This pa rt i cu lar line was inte nded to link the por t of New r y with the city of Armagh

No furth e r no tice of the proposed railway crops up until William Ed ge worth ' s< 2 ) "Rep ort on the proposed Railway from Ar magh to Newry" was p ublished in 1828 wi th a map attach ed s howin g that the Surve y had been comp leted two years previously . The pa mph let in question is addressed "To William Blacker Esq. and was printed by " N. Kelly and Son".

From the introductory paragraph it is clear that the above "Survey and Report" was carried out unde r Mr Blacker ' s instructi ons . (1) (~) ( 3) p )80 The same authority states that a canal or an iron road from Castlebla yney to Dundalk was also determined . c Longford Son of Richard Lo vell Of Edgeworthtown write ; on education and Edgeworth, the ce ,, 7 Ja n . 179 4 , died 1829 . See B .L. G. inventions , born~ k Co Ar magh , born 1776 , died 20 Oct . 1 85 0 . Of Elmpark P a r, d . Blacker- Douglas of Elm Park . See B .L. G . , un er

On t,1e f'irs t day of March 1948 I addressed t h e Rotary Club on tile centenary of t h e coming of t he r ailway to Ar magh , and :n e n tio n ed that on t h at da y one hundred years earlier there was :nu c h excitement and spe cul at ion in the city.

awaited by some of the inhabitants bu t hea r tily d is appro ved of by others. The railway ha d , howe ver, at last re a ched Ste a '.11 a s a method of trans p o rt was ea g er l y

Armag h and was t h reateni ng to d ispla ce the ho rs e - dra,m stage coaches and lon g dist an ce carriers Nou the r o le has been reverse d . The ho rse has practically disa ppeared and the roads are a ga in crowded with freight and passenge r traffic 1./nilst one by one in dividual lines of railway are closing do,m . Such is progress. A hundred years he nce I suppose the roads will b e deserted an d pass e nge rs a nd freight will have taken to the air.

I little thou g ht that by 1957 the St udy group would be discussin g t h e history of an undertaking that served our city long and faithful l y but, alas, is now no more .

The earliest railways were fairly primitive, horse1 f the purpose of conveying coal operated, and primari Y or and minerals from the mines to the ports, an objective not so necessary in Ireland where such industries were an a lmost negligible quantity . This feature was some,;hat of an en c ou r agemen t in the development of passenger traffic · t· n of rail amenities he r e . and res u lt e d i n a quicker apprecia io

I S-q

ln 1 825 in the sa,ne year as t he opening of the firs t railway in E n gland, an Irish company kno, ,m as the Leinster and Ulster Rail Company " was prom oted for the establishing of a railway between Dublin and Belfa st, a p roposal that f ailed to then ,na t e rialise . A li ne from Dublin to Kin gsto ,m was , liowc ver, opened i n 1834 . . - 'i, ana, i n the fo l lowing year the "Ulster Rail Com pany " was formed to construct a li ne from "the town of Belfas t to th e city of Armagh ".

In 1836 an Act was passed fo r the building of the Dub linDr ogh eda Rail way , a . work c ompleted in 181.i!.i, and now also part of t he Gre at Northern, like t he "Ulster" with ,-ih ich we are more particularly concerned.

Construction began on the Ulst e r Railway in 18 37 and on t he a ppo i nted day in 1 8 39 the line wa s opened fo r traffic to Lisburn . In Nove mbe r 1841 Lur g an was reached and in Ja nuary 1842 the rail - head had go t a s far as Sea g oe where, owin g to the marshy nature of the g round from th ere to Port a down , considerable delay was encounte red res ulting in the firs t train not re a c hing t h at station until Se p tember 12th of that year . Th e advent of the Ulster Railway was well received until certain persons in Belfast learned t h at the Com pany intended to run trains on Sundays . One clerical g entleman alar med his c ongr eg ation by declaring " that every sound of St e am wh istle was answered by a shout in hell ", the railway

at t:1e sac.1e ti me acc using the Com pany ti c ke t - pri c es ". of nse nding souls

This was soon c ounte red to the devil at by an assertion fro:u a r . _ a11.way su pporte r that "si n aboun ded less amongst travelle r s by rail as trains did no t stop at publi c houses" .

:.rn e Armagh Extension Ac t wa s passed This in 1845 . addition wa s very difficult to construct ana' the bridg e over the Bann proved a sour ce of great worry to the c ontractors' who believed stone or iron impossible owi ng t o the bog g y foundation on wi1i c h it had to rest The p roble JJ was e ve ntually solved by a ti mbe r structure i n five spans o f t h irt y - n ine feet ea c h , the finished bridg e b e ing de clared " a gre at orna:uent to the town its elegant li ghtness g ivin g but an in ad equate idea of its solidity

a n d st r eng t h ", a fact well bo r n e ou t by its survival until 187 9 , in which yea r it was re p laced by the present br id ge to which alterations and renovations wer e made in 1 908 . Accordi ng to the "Armagh Guardian " a Gove r nment

I nspector arrived in the city on Thursday, J anuary 27th , 1848, by rail. Rumour asserted that a favourable report would be mad e and the line soon opened to traffic . On February 7th, at half - pa st two o ' clock, a full t rain wi t h fourteen of the Di r ect ors arrived in t he city . Having dined at the Beresford Arms they returned by rail to Belfast after h aving arr a nge d for the opening to take

place on ? e bruary 28th ·, or March 1st . I should :,1e n tion tha t fr tl D 'll 1 e so c ial

I n passing, perhaps p oint of view t h e Beresfordord Arms was then the chief hotel in the town and lists of arrivals at that est a blis hm e n t in c luded the Marquess and l- ar c hiones s of Downshire L ord and Lady Sandys' t h e Earl of Enniskillen, Lord and Lady = Erne Lord Caledon, etc. , all of i:Jhom were set out in the c olu:nns of the Guardian in :nuch the sa:ae way a s dist i n guished visito rs to Du b lin now appear in t h e 11 I rish Times 11 •

On F eb r uary 28 t h the fi r st list of trains and fares between Ar ma gh and Belfast was published with the information that the line would be opened on March 1 st . On week- da ys the r e were six trains up from Belfast and six doi,m from Armagh a nd on Sund ays three each way , fares 3s 9d Js .O d and 2 s.ld. according to class . It is i ntere sti ng to no te t h at des p ite the s p eeding - up of trains the ti me s taken by a j ou r ney f r om Ar magh to Belfast is mu c h the sa :n e as it was in 1848

Th is was, of course, due t o the fa ct that trains then proceeding to Belfast were spared the waits tha t in the closi ng day s o f the railway 1<ere so annoy in g a feature at Portadown There is also the fact that s tatio n s between here an d Belfast were less numerous - increased halting places have left us pretty well as we were in the days of the slower trains . Despite the im portanc e of the opening ceremony th e _

"Gua r d i an " t o ok th e :i:a tt e r c a l ml y . I t l s comment u a s" Th e lon g loo [ ed fo r e v ent took p la c e on Wednes da y las t first t r ai n · a rr i ve d h e r e a t t · en o , c lo c k an d Has welco med by The cr owds o f o u r fel l ow citizen s Hh o had con g re ga t e d to Hitness th e n ove lt y . Th e re g u l ar traffic i s no1 •1 op en ed ,,,i t h every p roba b ilit y of r emun era t i on ".

from At the s a me ti me this newspaper c a rri e d advertisments the p r op rietors o f th e Ar ma g h - Mona ghan - Clones Day Coa ch s e tting o ut l ink-u p s f r om Mona ghan and Clon e s wit h t h e r a il exte n sion fro m Armagh to Belfas t. Th e coa c h le f t th e

Ch arlemont Arm s d aily and t h is e s ta bl i sh men t h ad an ad v e rtisement re mindin g t he p ublic t h at it was th e n e a r e st h otel to the Ulster Railway St a ti o n and t h a t it had p ro vided a n omnibus to carry pa s senge rs g r a tis t o an d fr om t h e st a ti on . This omnibus, however, failed to i mp ress on e tr a veller who complained that h e ca me up by the first trai n from Belf a st a few da y s after the openin g and was put into a veh i cle made in Edi nburgh . That he considered an affront to t h e coachbuilders of Ar ma g h who we re indeed famous fo r ,mrk:nanshi p and de sign

From th e " Guardian" of March lJth we l earn that on the Sunday followin g the opening the crowds were so great that on the succeedin g Sunday the non - travelling publ ic " we re ex c luded fro m entering t h e station enclosure " a pro c eeding llhich earned t h e approval of the then edito r who feared tha t

tlle \'l'a c t ice had con t inued acciden t s :lligh t have occurred. The sa:1 e i ssue co nta i n ed a let ter f ro:11 a t

t r ied tbe ·rave ll er who had new ~e thod of tr a vel , f ound it satisfa c tory and plea san t, besides approv i ng of t h e o~n ibuses beloneing to

Another :i.. te~ of in'cerest at this

p e r iod was a co rr es pond e n ce between cert a ·1 · n readers of the

t h e d i ffe r e n t hotel s . paper relative to ~he t· " s ea io n at Ri c hh il l sug ges ting that Sto ne b ridge uould be tt e r serve th e area and be a :11 ore

convenien t stop .

Two yea rs later (A r :nag h Gua r dian, J une 1850 Mr Wiltshire t h en p r oprietor of the Beresford Ar ms ho t el C ( in c o - ope r ation wi t h Mr J ones o f Enniskillen) announ j ed that a f ou r - horse coach would run betwe en th e recently

op e n ed s ta tion a t Armagh an d Enniskillen , leav i ng Armagh

on a r ri v al o f th e 9 : 15' a . m. t ra in fr om Be l fa st an d rea c h i ng

Enn i s k illen at 4: 30 p . m. - a sim i lar coac h leavi ng Enniskillen

killen daily at-9 a . m., e n terin g Ar ma gh at 4 : 5' p .m . a nd linking up with the afternoon train for Belfast, an amenity resulting in a shortening of the journey from Belfast to Enniskille n by two hours.

The construction of the line to Armagh co:11pleted the original scheme of the Ulster Railway Company , but the line was l ate r continued to Monaghan in 1858 and to Clones in 1 8 63.

Ti1e trains O t· ho se d ays were ve r y t ra ins of to - day . T' d iffe r ent to the n e earli est Ulst er ran on four wheels n d Railway carria ge s a were divi d ed into t t bodies or cou pa r "wn s, first - class bodies holci i nr e · h t b ig passengers ~i lst s e c ond - class a cco:mnodated I n March of that third - cl ass c a r . t,.-,el vc . 1840 the company atve rt ised would b e available in April - r 1ages Th ese 1.-rere si :nply op en waggon s into wh ich peop le were pa c ked standing .

The line was t i1en a sin c le track • an d as it was bu ilt nor t h o f the various towns all its station - ent ra nce s uere on t l1e s ou th side of t h e railway. At Armaghthe first was a g oomy affair li gh ted by platform roof or shelter 1 a few sky - ligh ts, a nd t he first station - master, a l•ir . Mullholland 1-Jho live d in the Char le mon t Arms a nd was a fav ourite soci al ly . At that ti me there was also a "goods - master", a well - kno1,m bird fan ci er, famou s for his pen s of phe asants and partridges which he kep t in one end of the g oods store .

The tick et office was a littl e roun d canist e r- like e n closure in t h e mai n hall that in times of stress or excitemen t was liable to overturn , an accident from which t h e small boys of the neighbourhood often reaped a profi t, Railway Str ee t had not then been opened or developed - that Banbrook Hill was, of c ours e, then in being ca me later. and was the only entrance to the city from that s ide .

I n 1842 the Company dec i ded to , , i·un go ods trucks and tnird - class p assenge rs on a sep a rate train but i n 1848 owing to i n creased goo ds traffi c ... . ' third class carriages were a g ain attached t 0 o passenger trains and we re f i tted up \,i t h rou g h seats .

About this ti me th n· e ire ct ors were pa ined to discover tha t Jlany of the p eople \,ho for 11e rl y travelled fi r st -c lass had dropped down to second. At this p erio d third - class ca rri ages be c aJl e fitted wi t h roofs des p ite some oppos i tion on t h e pa rt of certain d irectors and sha r eholders . Si milar co nd it ions existed in England and indeed the re is a r e c ord of one c ompany employing a swee p to f requent third - c lass c arr i age s and rub u p a g a i ns t we l l - d ressed people travelling therein, t hus r em i nding the m of their station i n life and t h e ne cessit y of journeying in the ir prope r class . The se early carria g es had, of course, no interior ligh ti ng o r heating . Later o i l lamps were int ro du c ed and various for ms of hea t ing tried out such as warm i ng - pan s filled \n t h hot water, etc . When the railway first came to Armagh there \,as grea t consternation in the country district . It was alle g ed, and indeed widely believed , that ' s u ch speedy transit would h ave a bad effect on health g e ne rally, that the smoke of the engines would kill all the birds, that cows would cease that th e race of horses would be c ome extinct, to give milk,

that fac t ories an d h ouses

d t ha t wou l d b e set on fire fro '.ll sparks an e v en tually I reland as from a 1mole I ld Th e f ·IOU go Up in o r ma tion of the line from Belfas t to Ar:,,agh Dublin t o Dr ogheda , led to s mo lce. and an Act be i ng obta i ned the fo llowi ng y ear to establ. h in is the Dubl i n and Belfas t Junction Railwa y by whi c h approval wa s g ive n fo r a line from Dro gheda top t d o r a o1m . This reached Dunda l k on Fe b ru a ry 15th, 1849 t he Dundalk -C a stleblayney li ne b ei ng opened on the sa me d th ay, so at with road transport f r om ' Blayney to Armaghgh · h .. a an ei g t-h our jour ney bet,.;een Dub li n and Be lfast became pos sible . Pr e viousl y there ha d bee n a si milar service fro m Drogheda station to Ar magh via Ar dee and Castle blayney as well as one to Dungannon by Newry and Armagh .

The next section opened was that between Dundalk and the Wellington Inn near Newry , which came into use on July 31st, 1 850 , whereupon an omnibus was pressed into service for the conveyance of passengers between that point and Portadown following which most of the Belfast traffic wen t that way instead of by •Blayney and Armagh.

The next portion was a section starting from Portadown which was opened to Mullaghglass near Goraghwood on January 6 t h , 1852 . This left only a short distance of some six mile s t o be comple~ed , but it included the building of the Bes s b r ook Vi a duct and intensive rock - cutting . Work was

I b 'iL

quiclcly pusned ahead and on June 10th, 1852, the gap wa s closed.

At this ti me passengers passing"through Drogheda had to drive from a st ation south of the river to one on its northern side or t h e other way round if travelling in an opposite d irection . To remedy t h is it Has decided to erec t a bridge to car ry the railway over the Boyne, accordingly a wooden structure Has built and opened to traffic on June 22nd, 1853. Th is was replaced by an iron bridge in 1855 . 1 and practically rebuilt in 1930 - 32.

Various efforts were ma de towards uniting the "Du blin and Dro gheda Railway" wi t h the "B elfast and Dublin Junction Company " and in 1875 they ceased their separate existences and became the Northern Railway of Ireland. This brought about further amalgamations and resulted in the acquisition of the " Irish North Western" and "Ul ster " with their subsidiary lines in 1876 and the regrouping of the four companies under the revised title of " Great Northern Railway of I reland " .

In 1879 the new Comp any pur ch as ed "The Newry - Armagh Railway", a local line with an interesting histo ry. It h Newry - Enniskillen Railway to incorpora te d in 1845 as t e was

. pro vid e a link between those t own s via Armagh and Clones, but reta rded by the Famine events of 1846 - 47. the scheme was greatly

Th e op e n i ng fro m Newry to Gor ag h wo od t o ok P lace i n 1 8 54. Three y ears later its n a :n e was c h an g ed t o t he Newry Ar ma gh " with ,A1 ic h t owo it ua s li n ked up at th e Uls t er Railway Station in 1 8 65 . It was a d i f fic u lt li n e to construct a n d included st . ee p g radients a n d two t unn els. This line ' s relations wit h t h N e ewr y -War r e np oint Ra ilwa y

opened in 18 4 9 wer e at first un friendl y bu t . a uni on took p lace in 1861 foll o wing wh ich rails were l aid be t we en t h e two Newr y statio n s and a throu gh service t hu s b ecame available between Arma g h an d Warre n point .

The " Newr y -A r magh " line is fa mo u s in Irish Railway an n als as the scene of I reland's worst rail disast e r in 1·Jhicl1 eighty people lost their lives and close on two hundred were injured, wh en on the 1 2th June, 1889, an e xcursi on train came to grief at Killuney, less t h an two mil es from the city. ( 4 ) A detailed account of t h e events leading up to t his tragic accident would take up too much time , but in passing I should pe r haps mention that the investi ga tion that followed the disaster produ ce d the long ove rdue Act enforcing auto matic braking, block signal lin g and t he interlockin g of all signals

Wnen the c onstruct io n of the Ar magh - Ne.wry line re.ac hed Drummondmore a t empo rary balt or s tation ca me into being a n d was in use whilst- th e ·dee p .cuttin g b etwee n that po int and Ar magh was excav a ted.

La ter when the line was

co:ipleted to t :1e cit y th e train n ran into on t lrn p latfo r m lmo 1,m t 0 old inhabitants

t h e presen t station as t: 1 e Warrenpoint terminus

I t was ori g inally in t ended tl1at t ,1 e Armagh - Newry l~ne should c on t::. nue to Enn iskillen . Th e cutting of th e tunnels at L oughgilly, however ' cost 11ore th a n ,-•a s esti~ated and as a r esult the c apital the line to Armagh subs cri bed was only sufficient to bring

The Ulster Railway by then had brough t its line to Clones and the Dundalk and Enniskillen Company was ope ra ting via Clones as also the line between Enniskillen and Derry

The latest line to reach Armagh was the " Ca stleblayn eyArmagh " , begun in 19 03, of i;hi ch the Armagh - Keady se ction was opened i n 1 909 . It reached ' Blayney in 1910 and in the follow i ng year be ca me vested in the Great No rthern . A p artial clos ure took pla c e in 1924 , and in 1935 the tra ck b etween Keady and ' Blayn e y was lifted .

The Keady - Castleblayney se ctio n was a c onsiderable ti me c om ing i n t o being due to the o ppo si tion of the Great No rthern who were alar med by t h e p as si bili t y of alternative travel fa cilities f r om Dubli n to Belfast by Navan, Kin gs c our t and Armagh . The link-up between Kingsc o urt and Cast leblayney, however, never came int o b ei ng.

The line was unsuccessful t and cut ti ngs , mos t financially and, owing to gradian s eicpensiva to construct.

The '.ll ost recent po rtion of the Great Northern . aff ected is t h e line fr Du ern to oe om Dundalkto Clo n e s . On Saturday ni g h t, October 12 1 9 57 th , , . e last passenge r train move d out from Dundalk on its final ru n . Inny peop le mad e t h e journey to Cl ones - indeed the train was pa c ke d . L ea ving Dun da lk the noise was terrific . I n the ya rds t h e sirens

o f t h e e ng ines wailed mournfully whilst fog signal s added to the tmmlt

That portion is no t, hollever, yet closed to freight and a si:n ila r c on ce ssion is operat i ng between Dundalk- Cava n a nd Dun dalk - Nona g han v ia Clones . It see:ns a p it y tha t a

. like arran g e :n ent c ould not have been adopted on the Enniski llenPortadown stretch .

The pa ssi ng o f ou r rai lways h as mos t certai nl y evoked regre t and :n any peop l e wonder whe t h e r th ey c ou ld not h ave been r etained. P erh aps I a m some1iaat sentime n tal but wh en

I think b ac k upon their contribution as pio neers of co mfo rtab le tra vellin g co nd itions I d o wor r y a littl e over the ,Jho lesale closi ng doi•m o f lin e s in recent years - and I must c onfes s that I shall be sur pr ised if an omnibus monopoly solves our transport prob l ems . on my last ride from Armagh to Portadown a few week s ago

I could not help recall i ng to my mind t h e many oc casions I ha d tra v el led between those two towns. It se"emed sa d to me that afte r more than a ce n tur y ' s active service no bett er

us e fo r a railway c ou ld b e foun d, t· d 1 . t ·,1an to leave the tracks e re 1 c · ond useless . •

On t l1 e fi nal ru.11 , rro '.!l Ar ::1agh the station ty local ::eopla who c.:=r d \·ra s crm -,<ied ..ie O\m t o say go odb ye. De S1.)i te t he fog signals and the ex ci -1. . gene rall y it ,,ms a s a d occasion . photographers' flashes , 1 . _ igh ts bl in ked at us as we cro wded into the tra i n . The timec a.Je t o '.ilO v e off but so:ne body p ulled t he c · om 1un1 c a tio n c ord bringing tile br ake s i n to a cti on . Thi s was c arr ied out a second ti:ne bu t at last we :nov e d out .

The train was :n anned by William Du d ley ( dr iv e r),

W. Moore fireman an d Liam Kil pat rick guard We soon reached the R etreat Halt wbe re we found a cro wd awaiting us an d were beld up fo r a considerable tim e . Ev entua ll y we :uo ved on wa rds in a battery of cheers to Richhill Station wh ere 1-1e found an even lar ge r c oncourse o f peop le ac1ai tin g

us . Th e r El we we re g iven a Royal welcome and aga i n to the accompani men t of fog signals and :nor e c heers,p roceeded to Portadown There we found a pra ctic ally empty s tation . Evidently the inhabitants of the Borough were quite uninterested i n the fact that no more trains would pas s throug h Portadown on th eir way to Arma'gh . We emerge d fro:n the carriages quickly and at the barrier were allowed t o retain our tickets.

Thus ended our farewell journey .

Th is was no t the f " first railway accident in I n 188 6 a· trag ic accident on the Belfast Dublin ' - asti1e county. line in Brackagh i-,os s, r esultin g i n · six peop le being ki ll ed and for t y inju re d, too k p lace This was d ue to the negle ct of the pe r manen t way by which th e tra c k g ave way and the trai n ran off t h e li ne

Th e building of the Bessb r ook or Cr aigmore Viaduct was earl ier the· scene of a n a cci d ent wherein L aurence Ha lfpenny, whilst engage d on the erection of sc affolding, f e ll f r om a height of six t y feet a nd was kil le d on the s p ot. ( 5) I n the same year a second accident occurred at the sas1 e pla ce resulting in _the death of Jo hn Hollywood, ,,ho Has pre ci pitate d from a heigh t of sixty four feet and died half an hour later. ( 6 )

In the fol lo win g mo n th a third accident at the Viaduct deprived a man named Ferrigan of h is life ( ? ) ( 5) (6) (7) Newry I Ibid, I bid, Tele g raph, Oct. 6, 1851. No ve mbe r 16, 1 8 51 . December 18, 1 8 51 .

Portadown

Li ke Armagh the firs t rail

tra ck to arrive a t that town was ti1 e Uls te r Railway on its way to Armagh fro:n

Belfa st. It reac h ed Seagoe i n J anua r)' 8 ,. 1 1842and arrived at \/atso n Str e e t in Se pte:nber of t h at y ear .

Before co ntinuing to Armag h it beca :n e involved i n t h e "battle of the gau g es".

The Ulste r u p t o then ha d been using a "six foot two in c h " and other l i n es the ir own

gau g es . A Boar d o f Tr ad e enquiry was eve ntu ally h eld whi c h resulted in a sta nda rd g au ge of " f iv e foot three i nch" . This c ame i nto being be fore the track rea c hed Armagh in March 1 848 abou t which ti:ne the POrtadown St a tion 1·e:noved to Woodhouse Stre et. There was, of c ou rs e , a level

cr ossing tl1ere whi ch was a source of :nu c h inco n ve n ience .

This ,-ms, however, re med ied in 1 8 59 when the co ,npan y was granted per,n is sion to lower the roadway so that traffic mi gh t cross benea th a b ridge . Com:nonly called the "cut ti ng " and now bette r known as the "tunnel" it was opened in 1861.

However , by 1 8 63 the Woodhouse Str e et statio n was in so tha t a return wa s made to the Eden derry congested a situation side of the river .

The story of Armagh for most of us begins with the arrival of St. P atrick, but b e fore we d eal with its foundation as the ecclesiastic a l ca p _ital of our island, let us briefly co n si d er the pre -c hristian hist o ry of the district because of its bearing on later events . Chief in importance amon g st the royal sites of the old mythology and le g end of Ireland, stands Emain Macha now known as Navan Rath , an extensive eart h work some two miles west of our city, stated to have received its na me from Queen Macha, who is reputed to have caused it to be e r ected about the year 352 B. C. For nearly seven centuries it was the home of the kin g s of Ulster and in its immediate vicinity were housed the Red Branch Knights, Ulster ' s famous and Erin's most notable order of chivalry, foun ded by Connor MacNessa, one of the most illustrious kings of Ulster •

Situate on a hill not quite three hundred feet area of some twelve high the so - called rath, encloses an ,..,~,_,., -..,, th n a g reat mound.are now acres but no structures other a

Visible within its earthen ramparts· Despite this, . still survive in the however its bygone glories ' joy to all who traditions of the countryside a nd are a t 1 t 1s so noted . wh ich the dis r c l ove the folklore for

Within, or nea r it somewhere, lies the body of Fe r gu s Fo gha , t he l ast King of Ulster to be crowned upon its asse mbly - mound. He was buried there following his d isa strous defeat by the "Three Coll as " in 332 A. D. , a nd th ere, p r obably >dthin the actual mound, li es t he grea t Queen Macha herself .

At Navan Rath was ;dtnessed the tragedy of Deir dr e and the Sons of Usna, and a hundred other tragedie s besides . There on its g rassy slopes Cuchullain exc el l e d in manly arts, and the old people of th e district still tell the story of how he carried up the hill each day a bull - calf and as the calf grew so his strength increased until at last he carried the fullgr own bull to t he summit . Fro m there also , we may be sure, evolved the epics that make t he "Tain" the greatest cycle of I rish story - telling. Thirty - five r ulers in succession were crowned upon this ol d assembly or crownin g p lace of the kin g s of Ulster ere it fell upon evil days and for close on seven hundred years it and learning for all the was the centre of power, law

Prov 1 · nce _ yet when Patrick c ame he fai r lands of the and for saken and the seat of power found i t deso l ate n which we are now standing , t ra nsfe rr ed t o t he hill O • .••. been~ . place of importance a h ill t ha t s eems t o h ave

long before the Navan Rath . came into being t r aditionally de rivin g i t s name of Ard Ma c h ' a, no t from Macha of Emain Mach a, but f r o:n an earlier Macha who is Said to ha ve led hithe r a lit tle 1 co ony "some six hundred years after the Flood 11 • Sh e is said to have been buried. on the hill , wi t h in what are now the precincts of the Cathedral

g r ound s but the a c tual site of the grave is, of course, unlrnown .

It is very probabl e tha .t the Cathedra l Hi ll was a pla ce of P agan worship in the days before Navan Rath wa s raised. No doubt some fact of tha t nature, c oupled with it s nearness to Emain Macha, was the deciding inf l uence in St P atrick ' s determin ati on to secure tha t eminence as a site whereon to foun d the c h ief church of

ou r la nd . The last P agan monumen t on the hili of 1-ihi ch

we have any record was a stone cir cle on its southweste r n slope . It was destroyed in 1830 bu t as no sc ien tific examination was made of the site at the time we have now no clue as to its probable date . We ma y, howeve r, assume that it belonged to the late Neolit h ic or early Br onz e Age and may have dated back to about

A ser ies of similar monument s existed around 2 ,0 00 B. C. the city bu t the y have all disappea red, with the exce p tion near the Railway Station , o f whic h one o f the mon umen t

stone only re11a ins, locally called the giving n a me to Lon gs tone House . Lon g St one and Such monuments, howeve r, are fairly com1i on tl 1roughout the county especially in the Slieve Gullion area . Tara, though in the heyday of its i mportance when Patrick came to Ireland, was considered secondary to Emain cha in po · nt f 1 0 antiquity · :&nain ·,a cha had fallen but its memory was still v'v 'd. The g reatest tales and figures in Ir ish folklore had their being there and it had a pla c e in the hear ts of the peop le , not on l y of Ulster but of Irela nd as a whole .

We will now leave P a ga n relics behind us and continue to St. Patrick's ar ri val in our city and h is reception on th i s hill by Daire, the chieftain of the district whose entrenched abode then occupied the summit .

From the Book of Ar ma gh we learn that Patrick requested a site for a church on this hill but met with a decided r efusal . Dai re, however, gave him a place on the lower g round and there upon . the s pot now covered by the Bank of Ire land and its garden in Scotch Street, the Saint , s fi r st church in Armagh was erected within the bounds of an ancient P agan cemetery · That church we shall discuss later. It was known as "Na Ferta ".

The same Book tells the story of the famous bronze

cauldron whose adventures t o and fro between Daire and Pa trick bro ug h t about the g reater frien d ship t hat r esulted in Daire g rantin g the saint t h e wh ole ri ght in tha t p or t ion of g round that he fi r st desired, following whi c h within Daire' s Ra th, P atri c k ' s second church aros e , destined in later days to be the chief church of All Ireland .

Before pas sin g on let us visu alize Daire's Rath.

Some authorities as sume that it was treble - rin g ed but it see,n s !llor e probable that it was double -r in g ed and tha t the inner rin g fo llo wed t he curve of the gardens a t t h e ba ck of Vicar's Hill and after l eavin g Callan Street crossed Abbe y Stre e t be low t he County I nf ir ma r y . }"'rom the r e it conti n ued into Ma rket Str ee t and then ce by Castle Street to our o r iginal startin g - po int . From the top of the Cathe d ral tower the line of this particu lar ring is !llost distinc t.

Between the first and second rings there was a space o f f r om 60 to 70 fe et • The latter rin g followed fairly closely the curve of th e noti . ceable be l ow the Method ist inne r r ing and is very Church in Ab b ey S treet in the for m of a depression acros s at the Technical School . the r oadway and in Ma r ket Square confirmed, St. Patrick The g r an t of the h il l being . d amongst hiS converts was began t he new f ounda t ion an . who fe ll i n love wi t h Eranait, t h e da u g ht e r o f Da ire,

Benen, P at rick ' s favourite d" . isciple upon their affecti on and fir ml y but the saint fro,med insisted upon he r entering upon a life of religious devotion . Benen and she loved each othe r deeply but they unselfishly chose to labour for the conversion of thei·r c ountry men rather than to live unto the 21 selves, so she is still remembered as the foundress of the pa rish of Eglish near by, and he as the saint • s successor in Armagh.

Within the rat h and its enclosing rings all the edifices were ecclesiastical. Shortly after its conversion to reli g ious purposes, pil gri ms be gan to arrive, so me of whom remained in Ar magh or settled in the immediate nei gh bourhood , such as Crumtheris, who took up her abode on a hill above Kildarton Lough and built a cell, the foundations of which yet remain withi n the little circular graveyard, a field length south of the present modern church .

Outside the rath in St. Patrick ' s day there was but one church, that known as "Na Ferta" . In its little the S aint's sister, Lu pita, whose burial ground was laid f her brother I s chariot is sad ending under the wheels o • of old Armagh• There one of the man y tragic stories th great old saint too · , his g rave unm arke d, lies e him self.

Of the two fa:nous personal relics connected with that daunt l ess :nissiona r y b t u one remains, the well - kno,-m

Patrick's s Bel l no w in the National Collection in Dublin Be li e v ed to ha ve b e en used by th e saint himself, it may therefore be da ted to the 5th century . It had a shrine made fo r it by co :nmand of Don n el l O'Lochlain, King of I reland, during the Primacy of Donnell McAuley Archbishop of Ar magh , by whi ch inscription the shrine can be definitely p lace d as having been made between the years 1091 and 110 5 . with the Bell It fortunately survives and i s preser v ed The second relic, the equally well - kno1-m

Patrick ' s Staff unfortunately no longer exists . It was originally a wood en st aff wit h an iron spike, but fol lowing Patric k ' s death , it was adorned wi t h a precious coverin g by St . Tassach , f r om who m it is said the delightful li tt le valley of Tassagh outs i de the cit y takes its na me.

The staff is f irst ment i oned in an old Irish poem written in the year 844 and ther e are many sub s equ en t references to it in the Irish Annals. It re mained in 1179 but was then forcibly safety in Armagh until the year . Fit Alde m Chief Governo r of carried away by William z '

Pillaged and burne d the city . Ireland, who at the same time ·t remained until the He r emoved it to Dublin where i . it was in the year 1538, Reforma t ion , follo wi ng which

blicl y bu r n t wit h othe r reli g io us re l i c s in t ha t city .

ca r e wa s ta lrn n , howeve r, t o re :n ove the go l d wit h whi ch it was en c a sed and th e :n a n " " g e ms tha t ado r ned i t . It

\-/a s a r a t h e r s o r ry bus in e ss _ the g r ea t c ons o l a t ion t o

we Ar ma c h ians is tha t it d id n o t hap p en i n St. Patr ic k ' s

o,m o ld cit y .

An o t h er g r ea t tr ea s ur e of the Se e of Ar magh but o f

lat er date i s the f a mous Boo k of Armagh one o f the most p recious of ou r I rish manuscri p ts , t h e on l y on e i ndeed , of ea rl y ori g in to \•Jh ic h we c an wi t h a b s ol ute c er t a i n t y

attac h a date . Fr om internal e vi d e n ce we kno w t h a t it was co mpleted in the ye a r 807. On e hun d red and t h i r t y y ears l ater it was e n close d i n a be a u tiful s h r in e by Donough, son o f Fl a nn , Ki ng of Ire l a nd . The sh r i ne , however, is now lost but a leat h er sa tc h el o r ca se in whi ch it wa s carried still survives .

Owin g t o its situa t ion outside the r amparts of the ci t y and it s distance fr om t h e t hen more d ensely p op ulated

ce nt r al p ortion of t h e t o, m , Temp lena fe rtag h o r Na Fe rta destru ction by the f ires t h at s o so me t i mes es c aped f . the ci · ty prope r - fo r i nstance, th e re quen tly ra ged in t al l Armagh was bu rne d Annal s fo r t he yea r 117 9 re c o r d th a Afte r the disso l u ti on exc ep ti ng Na F e r ta a nd St · Bri gid ' s · hi st o r Y b e c omes somewhat obscure of reli g i ou s ho u s e s i t s

th ough , of c ou rs e , t he I nquis it ions of the p eriod give pa rt i c u l ars a s t o suc c e · ssive lay owners of the land at ta che d t o it . Sco tc h St r eet · 1.n i.-lii i ch it was situate

1-ias ti1 e n known as Templefertagh St ree t - its presen t

na11 e i nd e ed on l y da t e s ba c k to the late 17 th c entury .

In p r o c e ss of ti me the to 1-n1 wh i c h nestled a r ound t h e hill began t o g r ow . Ch r is ti anity beca :rr e more attractive s o , as t he c e le brit y of Armagh extended , new churche s aros e. An i mmens e quantity of mater i al r el a tive to t hose founda t ions occu rs in ou r an c ient

Annal s , fro m wh ich s u cceedi ng ev e nt s may be compi l ed as f r om a di a ry . Tim e, ho1-1 ev e r, will on l y per01it :ne to men tion a f e w of t h e en tries. Fr om the,i we learn that t h e town wa s co n s umed by acci dental f i re in the years

670 , 678 a n d 770. Te n year s later t h e Dane s arr iv e d and pilla g ed it t h rice in on e mo n t h . I n 83 9 we read that t h e Great Ch urc h of Arma gh was bu r n e d by th e Da nes of Lough Neagh, who a g ain in 890 carri ed of f 7 0 0 p ris one rs from the city, destr o yin g at th e s ame ti me part of the churc h a nd breaking d own its orat o ry . For l on g centuries t here was repeated destr u ction t ~mare common ly by t ho se f i e rce old warriors O wuo those hundreds of attributed - wrongly so, of courset hat still dot our countryside . earthen-ringed forts

Ti1ere is' howe v e r' i n t h e i ,1\Jle diate neighbou r hood one tra gic a ll y au t hen t i c lin k ·th Hl th o s e s t o r my days , th e old ce n ota p h on the bank of the Calla n , j us t ou t s i de the town, t h at ma r k s the s o . ot \,_,__u e re Ki ng Ni a ll pe rished in a drowning accident in the year 846a fter ha vi ng defeated the Danish forces then in occ upa t i on of t h e city. His body was carried into the city and buri e d in t h e

Regal P lot on the south side of the old Cathedral, a s pot where many othe r kin g s and princes lie interred .

The Danes are credited with g reat cruelt ie s for wh i c h t he r e seems a mple foundat io n . As far as records g o I can only t hink of one local instance of an opp osit e n a turethat was in the year 920 when t h ey a g ain s a c k ed Armagh but " spared the houses of prayer with the Cul d ees and th e sick 11

• The year 1004 pro vides another li nk with those cruel

• i· t was then that Brian Boru, High King of invaders, fo r I r eland, pa id his memo rable visit to our city a nd befo re leaving de pos ited a coll a r of gold upon th e altar of th e ti me re- affirming to Ar magh the Great Church , at t he same

The entry relating ecclesiastical supremacy of Ireland survives i n the Book of Ar magh. to that particular episode

Ten years later Brian fell in the hour of victory after t and a r outing the Danes at Clontarf wended its way northwa rd5 to Armagh sad funeral p rocession where the gallant old

ldn g was lai d t o r e st, nea r t h e s p ot :n a r ked by t a blet in t h e no rt h tra n s ep t o f t h e Ca Cathedral a memorial

In 8 22 and 9 55, Armagh \•,as burned b y " t h e fire of God", its houses, bell - towers and . . g rove p e ris h in g , t he latter destr u ction being in t h e words of the Annalists "a complete dest r uction such as occurred not before in Erin and will not a g ain occur until Doomsday". La ter in 989 there was a further burnin g of "ch u rc h hou s es and steeple so that there was not such a s p ectacle in Ir e land ".

I n 1020 there was yet another burning in which no house was saved but the library. Again ruin envelo p ed the town in 1112. In 1121 two streets of the to,m were consumed by fi re and in a great storm the cap was blown off the bell-tower . Forty - five years l a ter there was a similar burning. Hours c ould be s p ent on such details for from the day s of our town's foundation by St . P atrick , down to the 17th century , our history consists of a series of sie g es and burnin gs unequ al led by any to,-m in Irel an d . I s ha ll now try and dea l briefly with the various buildings that arose within the ancient rath and its enclosing ramp a rts. though possibly not in actual First in importance, eat Stone Church, an edifice date o f erection, was the Gr

An n als i n the year 789 . Unfortunately first mentioned in the of that particular church. no thin g now exists above g round

Its roof seems t o have been constructed of ti mbe r , t h e l a r ge size o f th e c hur c h not allowing o f a stone r oof as was usua l on most Irish c hur c he s of that pe r io d 1-A1 ic h

ue r e, of c ourse, of mu ch smaller d i mensi·ons . The ti mbe r r oof of this bu ildin g was pa rt ially dest r oyed by fire in 995 an d not renewed until 11 25 in which year it was covered by shin g les and tiles . I t was a ga i n an d again

bu rned an d re pair ed so tha t when Arc hb ishop 0 ' Scanlon succeede d to the P r i macy in 1261 it was in such a state of decay as t o require rebuil d ing. The arc hbish op add ed transepts and a c han c e l and t he s h ell of his c hu rc h remains en case d in t he s andstone facin g s of the so - c alled rest o rat ion o f 1 8 34 .

In t h e in ner rin g of the rath with the Great St one Chu rc h stood t h e Sa hhall or " Barn " a P at rican ere ctio n mentioned in the An nals as early as 839 an d as late as 10 20 . It was a s mall oratory and stood on a spo t now covered by the no rth transept of the cathed ra l . Close by stood the "Chu rc h of the Elections" a buildin g th a t 6 10 20 rts· po sition is suffered in the fires of 91 an d · the c athe dral and until now occupied by the chancel of rectors of Ar magh were comparatively recent times the that proje cted f rom inducted within a portion of its walls yet incorporated in the the chancel, pa.rt of which is south-east aisle wall of th e crypt.

Li ke othe r old f d oun ations Ar ma gh had its Round Tower to which t he re are references i·n tl19 An nal s - the earliest note being that for~ n e year 995'. We do not know whether it eventually de d caye away or was deliberately pulled do1-m like that of Down pat rick . Accordin g to Friar O'Mellan's "Narrative" 1·t was still standing in 1642 but injured, as were all the other buildin g s in the city in that unhappy period - it stood on the north si d e of the Great Stone Churc h .

Within the ramp a rts also were the Libr ary, the Cul de e Priory, the Abbey of St . Peter and St . Paul anc st. Br igid I s Churc h . The Library called by the Annalists, "the House of Writings " was the only building within the r ath that escaped destruction i n the fire of 1020 at which date the scholars of the fa mou s school of Armagh lost al l their books in their houses . This buildin g was situat e somewhere near the present l i brary and may have been the actua l li b r ary mentioned by o •Mellan as amon gs t t he plac es dest r oyed in 1642 t O n the south east of The Culde e Pr io r y was s itua e a series of ga r den s in Castle t he c a t hed r a l in wha t is now Stre e t - so n ame d because of the castle erected in that The ea rli es t Fitzgerald Gera l d i n 1 236 . street by Maurice reference to the Pri o r y occur s in 92 0 " The s t ructu re waa of con s ider a ble e xte n t a s i s a ppa r en t f r om an it It wa s in use at Inquisition of 1 625' r ela tin g to •

times as a resi d ence fo r the Archbishops of Ar mag h a s may date 1462 . be seen in the Pri ma tial R Registers under previ ous to tha t t h e Archbishop , s chief resi d ence see ~ s to ha ve been at Bishop I s Cou rt t . ' o herwi se t he Abb ey of Mullynure, on the outskir ts of t h e c'ty whic h the befo regen ti oned Registers dis close th as e Arc hie piscopal seat as late a s 1373. They had, however , a still earlie r residen ce within the Rat h itself th a t cr ops up in th e

Annals in 822 .

The Abbey of St. Peter and St . P aul was situat e on gr oun d s tretc hi n g from the old Pres byterian Churc h in Abbey Str ee t t o the Arch bishop Alexander Memorial Hall opposite the Armagh Li b rar y . Tr ad iti onally it is said to have been the site of the famous school of Armagh of which later , but that is an honour to be sha re d with t h e

Abbey of Mullynure . As an abbey it owed its erection to Ivor O' Hegan in 1126 , and the na mes of man y of its abbots survive in the Annals . It eventually passe d to the Charlemont family . There is an excellent account of its Possessions in an I nquisition of 1614 . St . Bri gid ' s Church is said to have been founded by the saint herself . It occupied a plot of g r ound between Ca stle and Thoma s St r ee t s quite cl o se to st . Malachy ' s d o es not appear in the Anna l s Chap el. St r a n g e to s ay it

until 10 8 5 but it was an ancient church even then . It has completely d isa pp eared but t he site is well lmo,m .

The entrance to all these churches was by a structure called "t he Gate " whi ch appea r s from t< '"e to time in t h e Annals and outside which stood an ancient sculptured stone cross . It is first mentioned in the year 1121.

In pass in g I ma y mention that Ar magh was formerly rich in such crosses . I n the middle of the 1 2th century there were four, and a fifth is re p uted to have been brought f r om Raphoe by Bishop Pr ene when he was appointed Archbishop of Armagh in 1439 . It seems more probab le, howe v e r, that the Raphoe Cross was an alta r cross .

Outside the ramparts there we r e four churches, the Ab b ey of Mullynure - already mentioned - the church of ''Na Ferta", St. P a tric k ' s first church - dealt wi th earlier - the Church of St. Columba and the Franciscan Friary .

The Chu rch of St . Columba was situate in a space bet we en the Unionist Club and the Pr ovincial Bank at the It does not seem to have ssessed little endownents . attained t o any i mportance a nd po

Annals in 1010. I n the botto!ll of Abbe y Stre e t.

It is first me ntioned in th e t t h e newly s ite was given o rei gn of James the First its h until f Arma gh and occupied as sue formed Royal S chool o . t os i tion 1n 1773·ts p r e sen P the school's removal to 1

The Franciscan Friary o f wh ich fai 1 . r Y extensive ruins re JJ ain ,ms bm.l t between the " • ears 1264 and 1268 . The Francisc ans r eached Armagh in 1 24 1 but th e site of their first house is unknown It was p ro bably in the to,m Tne Fri a r y was amongst t' pr ope r . nose sup p ressed by Henry the Ei gh th in 1 542. It was orig inall y surr ound ed by a str ong rampa rt and deep trench _ th ·ey are men tion ed in the An na ls in 1 266 but there a re no traces of the earthwork now . demesne . The Friary ruins a re in the Archbishop ' s

Also outside the rath there was a hospice or Fort of the Guests which from its position es caped the :nany burnings that were such a feature of the early days of ou r city . It is men tioned in the Anna l s a numb e r o f times dur in g the 11th and 12th centuries but its site is now quite lost.

And now may I devote a few minutes to the ancient schools of Armagh . Education in our city is said to ha ve had its beginning with St. Patrick but the first Of in the town, is that of school that we have any record which St. Ben en was head about th e year 450 · t · n foundation On e of the earlies i Though Ar magh was tian period it was by no of ou r Irish schools of the chris 6 th and 7th centuries• mea ns the most important in th e

However, by the 8 th century it had acquired th e p r ou d Position . That the school h ac i e ved p t . ar of its envi able scholastic status fro m its h -. ist o rical associations seems eviden t, but after al l that was only a seco nda ry feature its g reat prosperity . The na me s of many of t h e heads of its fa mous school or college are kno,m to u s and from true secret of its gr eatness. famous Gildas Albanius, the those lists we l e arn the One of its heads was the histo rian of Britain who died in 512. As one scans the list do,m the ce n turies other g r eat names arise and so down to the celebrated Ivor O' Hegan, who had amongst his pupils here, Ma l achy O'Morgair who beca,ne Archbishop of Armagh in 1134 and is now venerated as a saint .

From this school many learned men, not only of the Irish nation but of students from every part of Christendom issued fo rt h t o instruct their respective countrymen and diffu se knowledge throughout Europe.

Those were the days \/hen our student population rose to over 7,000, almoS t as many students as we have now citizens. N invasions of the 9th and Duri ng the Danish and orse were often expelled and their 10th centuries the scholars b t lways they arose again schools and books destroyed - u a native p ri nces - for those UDder the fostering care of th e _ bard was moved to writeWe re the days when a visiting

"H e ad of Erin is g reat Ardmach,

The men of t h e world have their kn owl ed g e there". That the sch o ol of Ar:n a gh was importance we lmow fro m t h e f t t

co n si d ered of national ac ha t it was so of ten helped by t h e Kin g s of the different P ro vinces _ fo r instance, by t h e king of Munster in 709 . Ag ain lon g centuries l a ter we find Ro d erick O'Co n nor the last High King of Ireland augmenting its inco :n e by an annual pension, and that was not the last as s istance g iven by a native prince for in 1387, Niall O1 Neill built a house on the outskirts of the city for the entertain ment of the learned men of Ireland who i n thos e days found at Armagh a spiri t ual home .

I n 1162 , at an ecclesiastical synod, it was d ecreed that n o per son should be permitted to teach or publicly l ectu r e on theology who had not studied at Armagh, th us we find the Sc hoo l o r University - as it was juS t as f - Of Armagh holding a high l y honourable requently c alled t h e Othe r scho l as t ic establishments of pr e- emin ence ove r Ireland.

By 1 513, h owe ve r, Armagh had become greatly reduced between the Chur ch by va rious causes, c h i e f ly quar r els d t i ve ch i eftains . Th e and State and t h e Ch urc h an na . Queen El i z abe t h ' s pr omi si ng i n ad vised He r Majesty to Prospect loo k ed more wh en Sydne y , the Lord Dep u t y reign, hav e a

Un iversi ty at Armagh and another . at Limerick - but l i ke Arc hbishop Robi n so n • s att alas , emp t to found such an institution here about three t . cen ur1.es later, it came to gr ief .

Many notable people were d e ucated at this a n cient scho ol. Agi l ber t, the first Bishop 1.s op of the \fostern

Saxons , was a pupil h e re as also P rince Aldfrid later King of the No rthumbrian Saxons , who in a poem written about the y ear 684 states he _

"Found in Ardmach the s plendid, Meekness, wisdom and p ru d ence blended " , Willibrod, Archbis h op o f Utrecht, was another p upil whos e nam e br ough t much honour t o the ro ll of o l d Armachians bu t the mo st fa mous perhaps of a ll its sons wa s the gre at ph il osophe r, J ohn Sc o t us Er i gen a, who went from he re to

Fr ance in 845 .

Our ancient ci t y lac ks the clois ter ed austerity of cathedra l cities like Canterbury and Yo r k, but it has a subtle charm a ll its own . I ts appeal lies not so much Seen a s is in a myst ic feeling in what is act ually to be of communion with the pas t .

We who love our ancient city like to re member that Armagh was t h e mos t distin guish ed of all Ireland's schools QU een s in its golden of l ea r ning , the throne of Kin g s a nd

nd t h e r e st ing p lace of warri o rs and saints ,,mos e age a

" So l o n g a s the sea gir de t h our isle,

Sh a ll hang i n splendour o 'er i t ".

The Observatory owes its o ri gi n to Ri chard, Lord Roke by, Archbishop of Armagh In establishing the Armagh Li b r ary and Observatory' tbat distin gu ished an d gene r ous pr elate had in his 11 ind t h e ho pe tha t Ar 11a ~h ~ight a ga in beco:ue a university to,m . The Arch bishop was, no doubt, fa 11i liar with the pas t history of the town and of t h e efforts :nad e in the 16th and 17th centuri e s to revive it as an educational c entre .

The earliest atte'.llpt was in 1558 by Archb i shop Dowdall, but the times were too unsettled. I n 15 83 a State propo s al was made that laid p lans for universities at Ar magh and Li merick which, if effected, wou ld have resulted in those two cities taking precedence of Dublin in Irish scholastic affairs . In 1599, seven years afte r Trinity came into bein g, the subject was raised by the Earl of Tyrone and was again conveniently shelved. Two

2 th Ap ril, 1787, Thomas Orde, centuries later, on the 1 d · t the Irish House the then Chief Secretary, introduce J.n ° of Commons a scheme of education, all the proposals of •·n.· th the exception of the clause Which uassed the House • • nd university . The rela t ing t o the foundin g of a second came from Trinity who opposition , I a'.ll sor r y to say, Po s sib l y f e ared that part of its large estates in Ar:uagh

und in c e r ta in other Ulster c oun ties m· ht · lg be diverted

A change f o gove r m 1en t res ulted in Qrde ' s retire j1 2nt and the :natter drou ped for

t o that pur p ose . the time

It is cl ear that it was intended to renew the being . pro po sal, for Arc hbishop Robinson in hi · s ,rill left a bequest of £5,000 t owa r ds it , ano a n additional sum of £1 ,000 fo r the erection of a Co lle ge Chap el. Strong exertions ,-,ere ,ia de to induce the British Govern'.l! ent to ag r ee but t he Du ke of Portland , the t h en Pri me Ministe r , refused to co11mend the p ro posi tio n to th e king and consequently the le ga cy lapsed.

The ma tter was raised once :ao re in 1836, but there was still a feeling t hat its foundation would be de tri:nenta l t o Trinity. We were not again troubled by education problems until 184·5 in ,-,b ich year we were defeated by Belfast in the str ugg le for a Queen ' s Colle ge, an institution that has since developed into Queen ' s University . t have lit t le to do Those events may seem to you 0

Tl y re how e ver , Wit h th e hist o ry o f the Observatory . 18 a ' R Robinsonto supplement th e fa c tor s that induced Archbishop O 1 both were rounde d with th e Li bra r y by an Ob se r vatory a nd a centre of edu c at i onal to e ob j ec t of making Armagh a g ain

ac t 1v1. t y .

TI1e ere ct ion of th

e Observ at ory be 3an in 17 89 " nd the Archbishop c l1os e Francis " J ohnston as his rt is, as you wi ll so ar chi t e ct. ee, a pleasant "l of t he perioo. 1·1 i th it t

t. three - storeyed hou se

J e r e stin g in ter ior details . It

wa s co'.llp l e ted touards the end of 1789 as :.iay be

ve r ifie d by the v ery rare Mossop medal of that year ,

bearin g on one si de the h e ad of t h e founder an d on the

othe r a re p resentation of the south fr on t ,.Jith 'he , very

app r opriate motto - "The Hea v ens Declare the Glory of God ".

In t he follo1,rlng year James Arc h i bald Hamilton Dean of Cloyne and P re benda ry of Mullabrack in Armagh an "o l d

boy " o f the Ro yal Sc hoo l o f Ar :nagh , became the first

Di rec t or . He Has a skilled a astronomerand the author o f

s ev e r al scientifi c pa pe r s published in the " Trans a c tions "

of t he Ac ad e:u y . Dr . Hamilton had a private obs e rvatory

at Der r y lo ran a s early as 1780 and in pas sin g it :n ay

intere s t you to know that Samuel Molyneux the founde r o f

th ' an i· nst1 · tut ·_ i on l i nked wi tlJ Ar :n a gh by e Kew Observato r y, the p r operty of King

th e g ift o f c e rt ain ins tr u:nents once

Geor g e III, i s cr ed it ed by t r adition with having had a

privat e obse r vatory on the a ncest r al estate he r e on th e be th a t the dome - l i ke I t may we ll outs kirt s of th e cit y • ago Roub il l ac's

s tructure t h at h ou sed about a century t was in fact t h at

statue o f Sir Tho ma s Molyneux Bart. · '

building Molyneux was the son of WilliamMolyneux autho r of the "C a se of Ireland ' rel and St ated " and a ~1e :n ber of a family 1-1ell kno ,-m in Dublin in t he 1 6th , 17th an d 1 3 th

He ',ias bo r n in 1 689 and d ied 1 72 8 . centuries .

Dr. Hamilton the f irst D·directorof th e Armagh Ob servat o ry, died in 1 8 15. His pe ri od at the Obse r vato r y is covere d fro 11 the social histor y point of view by an interestin g d i a r y k e p t by Alexan der Hamilton so n of Hugh Hamilton a former Dean of Ar:nagh, and later Bi shop of Ossory .

At that ti me Dr . Ha:nilton had an un married daugh ter , J ane, and two wards , Catherine and Juli ana Ti sdale , livin g with him to who'.ll he al lo we d the use of th e large dome as a place whe rein to ente rt ain their friends.

Out of that fa vour g rew the nam i ng of that particular dome as "heaven'\ the reason g iven being that it was a pleasant p lace wherein they only met those ,-,ham t h ey loved and wished to me et .

A selfish conceptio n of heaven perhaps bu t not so ver y diffe re n t to what we l ·n similar ci r cumstan c es . Lord lllight thi nk ourse l ves

P resident of the Royal Iris h Caulfi eld, son of the first t · n h is attentions to Academy was t h en ve r y con st an 1 ther strin g s to her bow . J an e Hami l ton - but sh e had O • 1798 occurs in the d iary in . A rath e r amusing incident

Lord Caulfield and Alexande r Hamil ton had be en up to the Obse rv ato r y t o p a ss t he evening with t he 1 d . a 1. es , and on their way home found t' o e lodge ga tes locked with t he r e s ul t t ha t they we re fo rced to climb "' t h e'.11 . Th e diary tells us th a t Lord Caulfield from p r actice go t over i:mn ediately but Hamilton found t'ne first atte mp t difficult and in the second tore his breeches . r should li ke to quote freely f ro :n that pa rtic u l a r manu scri p t but ti me doe s not pe r mit us t o st u dy it further t o - n i gh t.

Hamilton ' s successo r in th e Direct or s h ip was the Rev. WilliamDa ven p ort, D. D., Senior Fel l ow o f Tri nity, who died in 1 82 3, and was succeeded by the Rev . Tho mas Romney Robinson , D. D., a for mer Fellow of Tri nity and in many ways t he most versatile of all the Directors. Un de r his care t he Obse r vatory was enlarged in 1827 by the buil d ing of some extra roo ms and a second dome, a work made pos sible through the gene ros ity of Archbishop Lord Jo hn

George Beresford . W as Pr esident of the Acade my . In 1 851 Dr . Rob inson the Directorshi p of the He died in 1 881 after having hel d

In his ter m of office, Obs e rv ato r y fo r over 58 years . M authoress, ,ras from time to time a MariaEdgeworth , the second wife . the Doctor ' s gues t - her step - sister was Drey er , a by Dr . J ohn L . E. Robi n so n was succeeded the 1914-1918 who resigned du ring distingui she d astronomer,

His successor was Dr H • Hardcastle, man and the g reat - g randson 1 , tl 0 1 e famous war . Herschell. He did good service during a very brilliant Sir Wiliam the war of 19141918 in c onne cti on vrl t h the k ' wor ing out of tides at Gallipoli, without wh ich the dise mb a r km ent of troo p s there mi g ht never have been accomplished, but he did not live to take up duty at Armagh .

The next in succession was Canon H. E . A. Ellison whose death in 1936 caused deep sorrow locally. He was a well - kn01-m lens - maker and the author of "The Amateur Telescope 11 • The present Direct o r, Dr. E. H. Li ndsay, is the first native of the county to hold the post and under his c a re the Observatory is progressing in no uncertain manner .

I n conclusion I shou l d like to emphasize the fact that th r ee of the establishments on our list were built in the li fetime of o ne archbishop and that it was h is intentio n to found a museum also - that wa s actually th Observatorypro vided fo r in t h e Act establishing e object was not achieved. but unfo r tunately that particul ar

The tr aditiona l s i g nificance of Armagh . , o in preChristian days n o doubt influenced St . P a tri ck in his it as the pla c e of supreme i mportance in h is choice of mission . Acco rd in g to the Anna ls he r eached Armagh in the year 444 A.D . He soon s ecured sites for churc h es and i mmed iately beg an prepara ti ons fo r the in struction of the young p eo ple of the area, and so abou t the yea r 450 t he first school of the new regi me was open ed. Cultural g r owt h was gradual in the sixth and seventh centuries but by the end of the l atte r century t h e schools of Ar mag h were widely reco gn ized .

The city and its amenities fi gu re favourably in a poem written in 684 by P rince Aldfrid, later King o f the No rthum brian S axons, who is re puted to have been for a p eriod a pup il in one of its schools . By t h e

Ar magh bad acquired an enviabl e succeeding cen t ury position. During t he ninth an d tenth centu r ies the Ch u rc hes suffered greatly city a n d its schools an d h repeated No rse men , w ose throu gh the raids of the . f the scholastic . h destruc ti on o incursions resulted in t 0 foreign bo oks and so alar me d establishme nts a nd their the same came to study in students that they no longer

numbers In those t cen uri e s Ar ma g h wa s u . 667, 890, 919 and 946 Th • lun a ered in · e only local 830, s p eci men of penmanship to survive those tragic d a y s is t h e so -c alled

Book of Ar:n a gh ' co mpile d in o ne o f the monastic houses of the cit y in the year 807' a nd one of t h e most precious of our Iris h manuscripts, the only one indeed of early ori g in that can with certainty be dated . It is our source for the story of the c o ntacts between Patrick and Daire, the then Prince of the d istrict, the enclosin g ri ng s of whose entrenched abode are still traceable, a visible re:ninder of Patric k ' s arrival in the mid - fifth century, to 1-,hich period belon g s the celebrated P atrick 's Bell, one of two famous persona l momentos of the saint, both linked fo r ever with Armagh. Centuries later the Bell had a shrine made for it by Don nell O'L ochlan, King of Ireland, during the Primacy of Donnell Mac Au le y, Archbishop of Ar:nagh, by which inscription it can be dated as having been fashioned between the years 1091 and 1105.

The second, the t 1 longer exists. venerated Bachal I sa, unfortuna e Y no

1 · in Ireland It was the most reno,med ecclesiastical re ic . . n Ar magh until 1179' in and r emained in safe keeping 1 off to Dubli n by a force of the Reformation llhich yea r it was carried An t ined until Anglo Normans th e re to be re a llhen it was public l y burned in 1538 "

Lea r n i ng made steady p r o g r es s in the tenth century , In 102 0 the Li bra r y of Armagh is '.llen tioned i n the Annals, Ireland. the first r e f e re nc e to such an in sti tut ion in an y city in

Education ga ined a fresh i mpetus in th e 12th century when the a::nend:n en t of the Iris h chur ch wa s inspired by St. 1-l alachy, a fa ,n ous Ar :nachian , the traditional s i te of whose birthplace bears a co:nme:no rative tablet . He was born in 10 9 5 and died 114 8 . Two othe r Arc hbisho p s of Armagh, St. Celsus and St. Concord, were also of local extraction and educated like St . 11alachy in our city schools. In those centuries the schools of Ar magh maintained their national impo r tance and were fostered by the kings of other provinces besides Ulster - for instance, by the King of Munster in 907 and Roderick O'Connor , High King of Ireland, in 1169, the latter benefaction being the last grant made by a king o f Ireland towards education in the city • It was not, however, the last assistance given by a local prince for in 1387 Nia l built a hostel on the outskirts O'Neill king of Ulster, y learned men of the city for the accommodation of th e man llho found in Armagh a spiritual home · an ecclesiastical Synod In 1162 it was decreed at to teach or publicly th rrni tted at no perso n should be pe h thus studied at Armag , lecture on theology who had not

confe r rin g on the schools of A Armagh pre - e:n inence the ot he r sc h ools of Ireland and ov e r all c onfir mi n g t h e city i n it s clai m to uni ver Si ty status .

Th at Has but a f An l N e1•1 Years before t h e g o - Normanscon quest , by which the Irish , 0 nastic schools were at fir t 1 • s· ittle disturbed . Th eir us efu lness , ho wever, b e c ame gradually i. mpaired through conflict between English and Irish o pini on on matters of education . Suc h schools did not suffer actual ext i nc ti on until the di ssol ution of :n onasteries in 1537 . By tha t decree I re l and was left for a time without any educational facilities wha t e v e r .

In 15 58 Dr . Geor g e Dowdall , Arc hbishop o f Armagh, pe tit ioned Queen Mary as to the nece s sity for a university and schools and i n 1583 a pro posa l was :n ade to establi sh universities at Armagh and Li me rick bu t Du blin eventually acquired the prize .

The Earl of Tyrone made a further effor t in 1599 but that was likewise unsucces s ful.

During Queen Eliza be th ' s r . to set up schools in the shire ei gn efforts were !llad e to llll s but nothin g see ms to have until th e P lantation of Ulste r · by K.i ng Ja me s a n d s et apa r t fo r

d · Ar magh b ee n accomp lis he in .

In 160 8 lands were granted f free schools the upkee p 0 the Royal School 1n counties by which the var iou s no r the r n t came i nto ot Ar ma gh, an i mpor t a nt edu c ational establishmen ' bt1ng and s till flourishe s ·

The closi ng years of th . e ei ght eenth the question of a university ve r ty at , century brought Ar na gh ag ain to . no tice. Lord Rokeby the t h A pub lic • ' en Archbishop,later b a le gacy towar a s its foun da tion h . equeathed aving du rin g his lifetime founded a libr a r y an d observatory d' as a Juncts Th e s chem e na tl, however, to various sources. be dropped b ecause of opposition f ro m

An effo rt was made in 1845 t o obta in a Queen ' s Coll e g e fo r t he city, but des pite the g eneral favourable opinion towa r ds the p roposal for a college at Arnagh it was e rect ed in Be lfast whe re it has since becom e th e university of the pro vince,

Those even ts may seem to you to have little to do ,ith the histo r y of the Observatory. They are , however , the facto r s that induced Archbishop Robinson to supplement the Libra r y by an Observatory and both were founded wi th the object of making Ar magh again a place of educational importanc e.

The erection of the Observatory began in 1789 a nd in tha t yea r a fine bronze medal was st ruck by William Mossop, th The medal, examples are rare e grea t I rish medallist . an d diffi cu lt to p r ocure, bears on one side the head of the r d a representation of oun er and on the other t mottoof t he bu ilding wi t h the app r opria e the south front " The heavens de clare t he g lory o f Go d " ·

Arc h i ba l d Hamilton, Dean

In the foll o win g ye a r James

of Cloy n e an d Preb en dar y of Mullaghbrack in Armagh an old boy'' o f the Roy a l Sc h ool of A

Di rec t o r.

Armagh beca :n e the first

He was a skil l ed astrono mer an d t h e author of

several s c ientific p a p ers p ublis h ed i n t h e "Transactions" of the Ro y al Irish Academy

Dr . Ha m i l ton had a p rivate obse rv atory at Derr y loran as ea rl y as 17 80 a nd in pa ssin g it may intere st you to know that Sa muel Molyneux is credited by t r adition with having had a p rivate ob s e r vat ory on th e an cestra l estate here on the outskirts of the city and it is bel i e v ed that the d omelike structure that ab out a century ago housed Roubillac' s statue of Si r Thomas Molyneux Bart., was in fact that buildin g .

Dr. Hamil ton, the first Director of the Ar magh

Obse r va t o ry , died in 1815 . His p erio d at t h e Obs e rvatory is covered from t he s ocial h i sto r y point of view by an interesting d iary kept by Alexander Hamil t on , son of Hugh f Ar magh, lat er Bishop of Ossory, Hamilton, a former De an o

f th e Royal Irish Aca demy . and one of the founders o

Publ ished in 1758, es ta bl is he d His wor k on "Conic Secti on s",

lat e r publications on his fa me as a mathematicianllY well received. astronomical subjects were equa h first Dir ecto r oft is Armagh be

To return to Dr . institution . At the Hamilton, th e . of b iS appointment to t~e dtw daug ht er, Jane, an who following the had living with him an unmarried and Juliana Ti s d ale, wards, Cathe rine

raisin g of t h e lar ge dome in 1 793 were 11 a owed the use of it at ti ~ies 1-1 herein to t en er t a in their friends

Out of that fa v our g rew the naming f t · o hat pa rticular dom e as "hea ven", the reason g iven be i ng th t . a it was a pleasant Place wherein they ~1 et only th ose whom they loved and wished to mee t. A selfish conception f o heaven perhaps but not so very different to what we might think ourse lv es in similar circums tances . Lord Caulfeild was then very constant in his attentions to Jane Hamilton - but she had other strings to her bow . A rather amu sing incident occurs in the dia ry of 1798 . L ord Caulfeild and Alexander Hamil ton had been up to the Observatory to pass the evening with the ladies and on their way home found the lodge gates locked w:i. th the result that they were forced to climb them . The diary tells us that Lord Caulfeild from practi ce go t ove r immediately but Hamilton found th e firS t at tempt difficul t and in the second tore his breeches ·

Hami lto n 's successor in the Directorship was the Rev.

William Davenpo rt, D. D., Senior Fellow of Trinity who by the Rev . Thomas Romney died in 1823 and was succeeded Tr inity, and in many Robinson, D. D. , a former Fellow of Under b is . 11 the directors • vays the mo st versat i le of a th building lar ged in 1827 by e care the Observatory was en k mad e possible d me a war of some extra r oom s and a secon d o '

t hr ough t h e g enerosity of Ar chbishop L ord Jo hn George Beresford .

In 1851 Dr. Robinson was elected Pre sident of the Royal Irish Ac ad e my . He di ed in 1 88 1 afte r the Direct o rs hip of the Obse r vatory for In his ter m of office, Maria Edgeworth, having held over 58 years. the authoress , was from time to time a guest - her step - sister was the Doctor's 1 s second wife.

Robinson was succeeded by Dr . John L. E. Dreyer, a distinguished ast r onomer , who resi gned during the 19141918 war . His successor was Dr . Hardcastle, a very brilliant man and the great - grandson of t h e famous Sir William Her s hcell. He did g ood service during the war of 1914 -1 9 18 in c onnection with the working out of tides at Gallipoli, without ,Jhich the dise mb ar km ent of troops the re might never have been accomplished, but did not live to take up duty at Armagh . '·•as Canon W . E.A , Ellison whose The next in succession " death in 19 36 caused deep so rr ow locally· O f "The Amateur Telescope ". He was a wellknown lens :nake r and the autho r Lindsay, is a native of lhe p resent Dir ec t o r, Dr. E. M. University . He has . t he count y and a graduate of Queen ' s American and African had practical observatories · experience in this observatory d irect orship and under his

sin" in no uncertain :nanne r . Unfortunately ;, r og res.,

t be wit h us this afternoon but we are lucky in can no

. D,. Opi k and Dr . Armstrong to take care of us . wnng - •

The inv e n tion of pr i nt i n g in t h e mi d 1 5th c en ' u ry made liter atu re t h e p ro pe rt y o f many pe o p l e to wh om it had p r e vio usly been in a cc ee s i ble, t h us brin g ing a bo ut inc reased vi g our am o ng s t 111110 of sci e nce, part icul a rl y in r egar d to a strono illic a l .,.__.;

By the begi nni n g of the 1 6 t h c ent u r y the cu ltura l

dev elop men t d u e to t he new metho d of diffusing k n owl edg e wa s

,ery ap pu r en t i n Europe gene r a lly . The s i't ua tion wa s, howe v e r , ao mewha t diff erent he r e ow in g to t he t h en unse ttle d stat e o.t· the co un t r y i n t .:1a t and t h e follo wing c entu r y , Despite th os e drawbac k s, t h e 17 th c ent ury pr o d uce d two men wl1 oee obser v at i ons on a str o nomy a nd k i ndr ed s ubj e c ts link Ar magh wit h t h e gr ea t

acienti f ic f i g uree , of t he pe rio d c overed by the Res tor ati on ,

t he Williamite te wars t h e more peac efu l day s of queen Anne " n d the fir st t wo Ge o rge o , I r e fer to t he t wo Molyneux William r esp e ctively of Samu el Molyneux or end Samu e l, son .a nd g r ands on

Castledillon C o. Ar ma gh , fam ily to co me to _ Ireland wa s

The first me mb e r of th e

Thomas Molyneux d escendant of en ol d French femilY wJ;lo c ame to i ntr oducti on of t h e first Dublin in 1576, si x years af ter th • E lizabeth 's nominee for the Printing preee in t ha t city aTi d a s He had with other Exchequer, King at

Chancellors hip of t he Irish

Issue an e lder e on, Daniel, . in 158 6 beo arne Ulster \ffl 0 f Iriab fe.milY ool 1 eotion o Arms an accurat e antiquarY who se with oth er important

Trinitycollege

manuscripts co mp iled by c e rt a i n

lie died i n of h is d es c end an ts, 1632 8Dd was su cce eded by h ie third, but eld es t

Samuel Ch i e f :c'.ngineer su rviv in g s on , of Ir e lan d , an exper t i n ordnan c e , wh o purcha sed t he Ca stl e Dillo n est ate a nd dying i n 16 92 l eft tw o

nrY brilli a nt sons , William a nd Thomas, Bot h we r e g r a duat e s of Du bli n Un i v er ei t y and gr ea t grandson s of one of its chi ef

benef a ctors.

Acco rding to Alumn i Du blinen s i e , William Molyneux entere d

Trinity Coll e ge in 1 6 71 aged fifte en yea rs, lie obtain ed h ie

B,A, degree in 1 6 74 and en t e red t h e Middle Te mp l e where h e

studied l aw for th ree years . He ir to a v e ry con si derable

estate h e had no p arti c u l a r lean ings towards le gal practice,

10 devoted most of h i s t,ime t o ph iloso phy and ap p li ed mathemati c s ,

Hh inter e st in optics and as trono my was s ti mul a ted by a friendship and corres p o n d en ce wi th John Flamsteed t he Astronomer

Royal, an i n tercourse that began in 1681 and continued until 1692, • for a nn eacri pt ion of In 1 6 82 he collected t h e material

He ·wa s one of t h e founders Ireland•, un f ortuna tely unpublished. · S oc i e ty and it• uret secretary. of the Dublin P h ilosophical appointed s ociety, he wa• later ailected a F ellow of the Roya l · Ireland. Chie f En gineer o! Surveyor or the Kings buildings and •as ·erected ~nder his 4 IODeider able part of Dublin Castle romoved of JIIJllee · II be••• supervision but after the trea office and o,;.ing to to tab refuge in England aoeessiol'l of 1688 n• .! oroed th• . disturbance ;In t l 1e following year be began ,rorl<

ID Chester o n hi s book o n Optics in h

w i c h he was assist e d by Flamsteed The wor k wa e p ublished in London ndon i n 1 69 2 , the sheets being revised by h ie fri e nd Ha lley, d an it was for ·a long time u,a ,tand ard wor k o n that subje ct,

,After the b a ttle of the Boyne he re tu rned to Ireland to rlait his fat he r wh o had persisted in r emain i ng in Dub lin.

Parliament, the f iret, with t h e exce ption of Tyrconnell s

Convention that h a d me t f or 26 years, b eing s umm oned f or

October 1 6 92, he wa s returned as one of the members for Du blin University, I n 1 69 5 he wa s aga in c h osen as re p r esenta tive.

Hie wri tinge a re co n s i d erable i n qu anti ty and of fine

quality, He tr an sl a t ed a wo r k o f E v angeli sta Torricellio

entitled "The motion o f Heavy Bo die s" notable for 1ta c a r efu lly

dne diagrams, a n d wa s auth or of "A ne w c ont riv an ce of a dapting • telescope to a h orizont a l dia l"• Tl! e di a l n ev e r c ame into u se 10 far n • I kn ow and wa s disap p r o ved of b y Flamsteed Of hi. li fe• however• and in d eed the on e '!'he great eve n t . hi n ame •as the p ubl i cation lhioh aanferrad historic int e r e st on s ' 'The Case of Ir e land Being Bound ot hi • famoue tr ea tise in 1 6 98 , '1 Actsok P arlia men t 1n Eng l a nd ,, ,.th work of a c etateaman »tated • sua • tve and lat metaphysician Calm, per honeet it has none of b man of euch A book Y a !be 'bltterne •• of Swift wrttinge, · tU'ic ac h i e ve mente •a• 4 an d 11c!en . 1• tlnot1cm ln moral quali ti•• ht before • to attract notio e , ' It•••

broug

Collllli tte e of t h e English e h Ho us e of C Commons who. r epo rted the bo ok

England I t i s comr..only ae dangerous to t h e Cro wn a nd pe op le of

)OlleVe d tha t t :1e book

hangman and t he r e i a a

t r n di. ti on i n

wa s .o r de red t o be bu r ned by th e c omt,o n the f am il y th at Williamliam

Molyneuxwa s i n co nside r a b l e dange r f , 0 impeachment b ut owi ng to

tbe exerti on s of h is fr i e nd , Locke , the philo soph er , h e wa s

eare d t ha t ind i gnity . He did not t ak e mu ch pa rt i n the verba l

an d pri n t ed w r t h at fo l o we d p ubli e2tion owin g to h ie deat h in

th e autumr. o f the y ear i n whi c ' , ti1e wo r k wa s publish ed , Bur i ed

at St, Audoen's s i n Dub lin , a s ta t ue wa s er e cted whi c ·1 I nte r met with an odd f a te, b e ing r~ move d f o r r epai r b y his g r a nd - ne phew ,

Sir Cape l Molyneux in co nse q u en ce of who s e early dea th it was unfortunately lo st .

li e wa s succe e ded in the e state by h is son, Samu e l , a man or great d isti n ction, founder of th e Kew Observatory, an

!n1t1t u tio n link e d wi t h Ar ma gh by th e gi ft of certai n ast r onomical f Ki ng Geor g e III. ln1truments, onc e t he p rop e rt y 0

graduated B. A, J\ t Du bli n

Af t e r leavi ng

Samuel Molyneux wa s born in 1 689 ' ' U A in 1710, university i n 1708, and took his . • • t Ca stle Dillo n , t o i mpr ove ment• a Trinity he devoted tw o ye,. rs h , an observatory t ere. 1114 tradition c;re d 1 ta ht:m ,ri th having ng h a d 1 l a t e r h oused ke struct ur e wh io , lt -.y well be th a t the dome like it1 fsCt thi e Molyneux ,ra s Roubillac's• statue of s ir Thomas 1,ater be quitted. t be certain 'buil d lng, but of that " 8 c~ n o 0 ,:rord; a11d Cambridge at1d

eftntu s llY r e a ohi ng An t werp, I n 1714 he wa a Ben t on a politic a l ,,i ,sion to t ;i e C ourt o f Ha nove r b y hi s fr i end the Du ke of Marlborough and J ate r b e c ame S e e r t e ary to t he P ri nce of Wales

In 1717 he ma rri ed Lady E liz a beth Capel • d a ughter of t l, e t hen

,a11 of Essex fr o m whi c h un i on t he Ch ri st i an name of Capel came Into use by later generat i ons or the famiJ.y ,

Af t er his ma rri age the e tudy of astronomy and opti cs engaged hie atte n tion more full y arid he soo n made the a c quaint an c e of James Bradl e y, a fterw a r de Astronomer Royal but t he n Vic a r of Bridstow i n He re f or d shire. In 17 1 9 , Molyneux whi1st Secretary to the Prince of Wales p rocure d for Bradl e y a bette r living in Pembrokeshire, and n o doubt wr.e a lso i nterested i n s e cu ring h i s ap point rn e r, t as astro n ome r a t Oxf ord in t h e fo llo 17 i ng yea r. I n 1725 Molyneux and Br a dley c a r rie d out i r.lJl ortant experiments wit h a e pe ci e lly buil t 2 4½ foot telescope, Th ie . Molyneux e r es olv e to re pea t llllion of forces c ame about thr ough . nu a l para llBX, The Booke•s atte mp t s to determine stell a r an observ a tory at Kew instrumentswas mounted on Molyneux • private ••• made upon it by him and by Bradley i n the .... the o bservations lad to th e latter'• 111 setting up Bradley's period December 1725 to December 1727 4t•o0Tery or the aberration or ·light, In August 1727 Molyneux auieted appointme n t•• one 81etor at Wanstead

but bY bi • of the Lords ~r

tner duti '3 s, i n c lu d in g h i s r e tu r n to t he frish one of t i1 0 r ap r " s en t u t iv ee of the

1n t h e Pn r 1 11.me ut t. e

Uni v ersity or Dublin , i He d i e d fo llo w n g Ye a r and in 1 7 3 0 h i s , rederick, P ri n c e o r ' demoli she d i n 1804. wi d ow sol d %e w Hou ue t o I a l e s , f a the r of Ge or g e III , - -:;:;:;;;- 1, o ua e wa s A sund i a l e r e ct e d b y Willi am IV no w

oommemor a t e s t h e a strono mic a l ob ser v at i on s mad e th e r e bu t , ,othi ng is now kn own of t he f a te of t h e ·rolyn e ux S e ctor,

Accordi ng to h is co rlte r:Ip o r ar i e s , Samuel :tol yne ux wa e a man of win n i ng mc,. nn e r ' n d o b li g i ng tel!l,p¥r who unit ed I r i sh wit wit h

social and sci e ntific a cco mp lish men t s of a hi gh or d er, His deo. t h at the e arly age of 39 y ea rs wa s uru ch re g r et ted in t h e wo rl d of sci ence wh ere it wu s gen erally as sume d t ha t he wo ul d add f ur th er honour to th e f aru ily n rune . He d ie d "! it ho ut is s u e an d wa s ·

succe eded at Ca s t le DiJ l on by his uncle, Th oma • -1oly naux,

Physician-Gener a l to t h e F orces in Ir·eland , wh o ,va s cr eat ed a b t . perha ps tl1e most distingui sh ed of a ll arone in 1730, a n d was the earlier l!lilmbere of the f amily, His activities, ho weve r , d id cannot be de a lt with here. not lnolude a stro n omy so his care e r of s ir :.l rnest ea th a t he wa s the an cestor 1 mention i n p a ssing baronotoy beoame llol u ~o whereupon th • YDeux wbo died a few ye11,ra ..., 11\lnct, bind it \o . in t h e o, 1&1n • that •---'- ' has many such links Uehor, i tan••• Henry tr••• For na llbono11110 0. l study in other cen Ueh81' kill B11l sn of Helll'Y ·

tlat flr • t Director of Dunsink "'a• a her (>.rollbieh•'P I 3) and ef J'ame• U• -boh\lebop of Armagh

0! Arma!!h, 1 6 25 - 16 5 6 , the g r t ea est sc h ol a r of h is daaoe nd an t o f Jo hn Us Le r b age) a nd dl r ect o r n 1 6 46 , d ied 173 0 , Uaster of ( ) Chanc e ry in Jr el and 1 698 -1 ? 2 1 whose \V i f e / li . ' ' ce' wa a a da ugh ter of Jan t e l ~oJyneux, Ulster Ki ng - a t - Ar ms b y h i s wi f e , J a ne ' daugh ter of S ir ,i lli alll Usher wh o s e mot h e r wn e Ts ob e ll d - c;. a, a u g h ter of /, dam .Lof t u s (A rc hbishop o f' Arm agh 1 562 -1 5 6 7 ) l a

of J

aust erities of Ar t ag h . Bu t to re t u rn to n en r y Us h e r , t h e first

Director of Dunsink, he wa e born i n 1 74 1 and di e d in 1 79 0 , t h e

yaer follo win g the f oun d a tio n · of t

reeearc i e s hav e , added lu stre t .o t h e annals of Armagh 1bse rv at o r y ,

wa , for a pe rio d a ss i stun t- a strono me r a t Dun sink • wh i cll

obee?Tator y p re-d e. tee An ua g h by a fe w ye

! t Ar lllll g h Obs e r v a t ory g re w ou t of t h e 0 aot its ju ni or, for t h e i n 1?80 by { h e Very !l evd, Dr , J .A, Prlnte _ obs erv a tory found ed

a..-tlton, , an ol d boy. o f t h e Roy al

Sc ho ol of Armagh, wh o in 17 90 , ineti tution fo unded in .Aru;agh . bea1111e th e first Dir e ctor of t h e , t h e provision f a sob.em• for Ci ty 'by Archbi sho p Ro binson !' 8 part O . of Ir e la nd , , nort h ern c ountie • or I lln1Ters1 ty her e to serve t i,e itli aetronomioal link• • On, or Al'lllagh 1 B mos t intere sting l t he Royal .SahoO ofllll9 to the 0Uta14e w;orld was a small boY who or ar1d find ini an a bo.ut the year 1.BlO • ,trualc up ltbto1 Dlreotor or

t orY' old boy of tllat a fri e ndalliP whiob

)atsr reeuH, ed in him b e comin g 0 wel l -kn own f i gu re

l b oth a t h o in us t r o riorJic c.... l elrc es me an d a br oad , It i a s a i d t :1 a t Joshun

cooper deriv e d h is f i rs t notions -~dw1;.t r d of a stro n omy f ro m ',1 i s h,other • but it is fr eel y a d mi tt e d t h at he , ., wa e ca m i rme d i n h i s v oc a t i on

bY rep eated v is i t s to f,r 1,,ag ,1 Ob se rv a tory wh il .Eft a pupil a t t he

Royal Sc h ool.

Coop e r l at e r l e ft Armagh for E ton and from th e nc e we n t to

Oxford, He wu e a g r e a t tr a vell er a nd we e p os s es s e d of suff i ci en t

means to enable him to in d ulge in as tro nom ic a l re searc h . In 1830

he suoceeded to th e :Ja rkree p r ope rt y i r, Co, S ligo and de ci ded to

er ect an ob ee rv a t o ry t h ere, wh ic h b y l 8b l h ad b e co me on e of th e

best known priv a te obe r, rvatories and i n ci den t a ll y by f a r t he bes t

furnished, In t h i s he work ed d iJi gen tl y h i mse l f , but f ro m 184 2

he had u s an assi stant a ver y o a pable obs e rve r , k, And r ew Gr aham ,

J.letrolo g ic a l obs e rv a tions we re continu a lly ke pt at :Ia r k r ee from 1833, In 1 844 -4 5 he made an a strono mical tour t h ro llfh ]>' r anee

Germany an d It al y, t a kin g w i. t h him as lug gag e t be great :.!a r k ree

refraotor, .,; ith its woo d en stand, wit h wh ich he an d hi.s a solstant In that year Cooper did eome v a luabl e work a t Naples in 1 8 45 • then in progreeli in Berlin so as decided to extend t he star-maps thirteenth mngnitude, to include stare of the twelf th or reeultins

O'oetrTation• for that p ur p ose were begun in 1848 e,nd the G ver nm erit •orl,: ••• l at er p ublished at 0

He ob • srved and sketched Halley'• e,cpense in four volume•• comet in 1835 , and th• orbit calculated bJ ~.. observed and it• •h Comet of 1844

bi~ durin g a vi oi t to In nabruck , In 1852 he b d f h PU li s h ed nco1net i c orbits" an or i s notabJ e servicee to aotron omy h e r e c eived in 1858 t he Cun ninghom !edal of th e Roy e l Iri sh Academy ,

l!e s a t i n P a rli ani~ nt ao a me l'lber for t he Cou n ty of S l lgo f ro m 1830 to 184) and _ fr o m 1 85 7 to 185 9 and died at lfarkre e on 2 3r d

Ap ril, 1 863 • . J\ rt e r lli s death hio ob se rv a t.ory b ~c ame n e glected but was restor ed i n 18?4 w~i en u. v ;r . Dob e rck .,.,as Rppo inted Dir e ctor, and t he great r efractor c ame again into use fo r t l.c s ,udy of do uble stars, a ccor ding t o Coo pe r' s origin 1 de si gn ,

Coop e r was n. con t ributor of pa pers to ninn y con tirk nta.1 soc i eties, ·i n c luding the PEr ris Ac ;i derny of Science. So f ar· a s is known mo s t of his a stro no mical mate r ial was p r e s ented to Car..bri d ge

Un lverei ty by hi s daughter'B, f ollo wing h is death,

And n ow for a g rou p of loc a l ast ro n ome r s ,

ID t h e early 19th d ' !a ter of t he Armagh centurr, Hu gh B reen, a na t1 ve of the Ci ty a n · s figu re in the v ari ous llec han ics Ineti t1:1te, wa e a we ll- kn own

t was then not a ble, .A cultura ~ societies for wh ich t h e own an aas is tant c.t t h e lathema t1 .ci an of n o mean order, be b ecame in ·•here in 18 40 be first appears Roral Ob ij erva t ory of Gr eenwi c h

00 nneotion with t h e " Reduction of ! Plan ets•• a work Obse rv a tions o eventuallY brin ging it to a .he took over fro m :.ir, I, W, Th omas, younger ,on Join•d .bim 1840 bie •uoce• atul cone 1 ue,1 on iJJ 1845 • In • ,.,re n ot part of t he Red uctioD• •t Gre enwich, Thes e •p1an e tarY . utigat1on. bUt 8 · 1 peoial 111'1' ro11t1n1 '1'01•k the obeerYaitorY

carried out on b eha l f of t h e Br t ti eh Aeeoc iat i on of s ci ence , fund s be i ng p r ov i d e d by for th e Ad va.n cemen t . .

g r a nt a tnad e f r om t . 1, the Lor ds Co mm 1 ss1on c r o of t · 1 :n c to t i me , u e Treasury , G• .1: . Airy, the th en As trono mer - Roy a l, b e i ng r es po nsibl e f o r the investi gat lon nml st a ff . »reen di ed on t he Jst April , 1848 , i n t he 5 7t h year o f h ie Hg e an d at that t ime was a r eg ul a r memb er o f th e Gre e n wic h s taf f • lie l e f t t hre~ sor,s keen astro11ome rs ' a. 11 o f wholtl were emp loyed at so me time or ot h er in Grdemd c h Obs e rv ht ory. The eldest son , Hugh , wae f o r nea rly t we nty year s an e. e sietan t a t Gr eenwi c h , but owing to po oc health res ig ned bet'ore h e was pensio nnb l e . Ha vi ng bee n bor n in Ar mag.1-i he de cided t o return und in 1860 he mn de plane to est ab lish an Ac ademy here, but a ner vo·us breakd own preven t• the pl a n succ eeding , He wa s t h e a u tho r of seve r a l s ci •s n t ifi c 1ork1, i n con·se q ue n c e of wh ich , aml of h ie se r v ices to ast r onomy , he 11111 g r a nted a p e n e i on of £5 0 p e r ann um, London whe re hie wire and fam i ly re mai ne d, He l n ter re t urned t o .Jamee Breen' the se c ond son ' wa s appointed Aseist rm t at C1111bridge Obs er v at ory in 1 1)46 a nd re s i gn ed in 18 58 , jie wa s a

Pel101r of' the Roy a l As tron om ic a l s ocie t Y• Th e youn ge st son, tTr eenwich and wa s als o •ohn i 1111am Breen, · wne an "Observer " at record or (eth er a11d ! or a ti me at Camb ri dg e, The Bree n f81l1i1Y lb and all born in the s ame to wn mus t '" lone, a l 1 aatro n o mere • tb• son• or 's uch be Ae a rul e Ullique in n etrono mioal a nn als , inh e rit a lov e ,or Th•Y e eld om en ough ·eo lll8 of tbe Pto,i, ohoae other ., rof e e e ion•• , .. though curiouelY "''Ollo.,. from t he ir parent•,

t br il 1 i G. Dt io • st r o no , e rs of t h e P es t se en.1 to hnv e c au :1 ht t h e infecti on from uncles or oth e r relat i ves, Hugh Br een, t h • e lder , llet reslde n t i n Ar ma gh, co mp iled · a "TfJ reE!. t ise o n t )i e Summ a tion of series", Th i 8 wn a p ri nted i n 1 22 7 b b y su s cr i u t ion , n nd w:-. a

ilgb lY oomrJe nded,

I have not by a ny means exh a ust e d . my "li n k s" , b ut

na n exceede d t he tim e at my d is p os a l, In co nclusio n fear I oh . ul d

Jlie to me ntion t ha t w'.1 e n Arc h bishop Robin s o n , ov er a. c en t ur y a go ,

1ppo\nted a e first D ir e ctor of t h e /, rmagh 0 bservatory , an old b oy of t he Roy al S c h ool of Ar magh , his ch oice gav e g reat p le a sure to

th e inhabitants o f t h i:s city, They felt t hat being an ol d b o y of

th e famous S chool of Ar magh wa s t he ne xt b P at t hing to b e ing a

oat in of the county, Th e pd si tion is n ow reversed and we have 11Director for the first time, a n ati ve of our county , of wh om '

IBJ lay wi.thout f l atte ry, that he has do ~ more for a a t ron oll\Y in .

l?D8&h than all hie p redecessors _together, .,

The stor y o f Dunsi n k be g in s wtth t h e dea t h i n 1774 of Fra n cis And re ws , P ro v o st o f Tr ini • - i; y, 1·/rl o be quea t hed a sum o f £ 3,0 0 0 to the Uni ver si ty for th e er e at i on a nd furnishing of an observatory wi t h £250 p er y ear t owa rds the cost of staffin g , L ike the f ounder of Ar magh Observatory, the Pr ovost was a wealthy man a nd sufficiently aware o f his p osition in li fe to feel t h e necessity of a suitable residence, so one of his im mediate undertakin g s after assuming office was to build the present P r ovost ' s · House, a mansion still in use for the purpose for which it was constructed, need not re mind you that Archbishop Robi n son felt exactly the same way abou t the old a rchiepiscopal as a consequence erected domicile in Armagh city and the home since then of all the present P alace in 1770 , Both dwellings have , of his successors in office, d to them but on course, had some sli gh t alterations ma e t their original state. the whole t hey r emain in almos An d rews . f Al exande r and heir o . Andr ew s was the son he was born 1n

Some author iti es saY or County Antrim.

oerr Y• Edu c a ted a t the FTee G ramm ar Scho ol citY , he en t ered Tr inity of that in 1733, aged 15 b , . A 1740 F 1 ' ec ame B A 17 37, 1 • 1 • • ' e low 1740 LL B ' . vas c alled to t he I rish for Midl e t on 17 5'8 . ' .. 1743, LL.D. 174 5 Ba r · 4 ' in 17 6 and served a s 11 ,p.

His eleva ti o n to the p rovostship of Trinity in 1758, whilst still a junior Fello w, was strongly resented also disapproved of by his seniors in the university ,-no the fact that he was a layman, which was contrary to the college statutes, a disability quickly amended by a King ' s Letter exempting him from taking Holy Orders, As a scholar he was chiefly noted for his wide clas sical knowledge . He sat for Derry in P arliament from 1761 until 1774, in .llich year the representation devolved upon James Alexander, subsequently Earl of Cal edon , 1-hose nephew the Rev. Nathaniel Alexand er was Precentor of Ar magh . ession Bishop of from 1796 unt il 1802, was later in succ Clonfe rt, of Killaloe, of Down, and finallY of Mea th ' Fo rkhill House , Co. Armagh, an ce sto r of the Al exande r' s of and of William Ale xa n der, D.D., 1896-1911, Ar chbishop of Armagh He was tbe only Bu Fr an cis Andrews. t to return to t obtain had managed o ProVoat of Trinity up to th0 n wbo the incidentallY,

88 at in the House of Commons and,

first hol d er of the Provostship to be adv an ced t councillor ship . 0 a Privy

Tradition credits h im Hi th bein g a man of taste and fashion , fond of g oo d compa ny an d ' g oo d li Vin g ' With a keen appreciation of the arts as well as the fair sex to On e of whom, the famous beauty Dorothy Monroe, l a ter Mrs. William Richardson of Richhill, he wille d his fine collection of coloured p rints st a tin g they were fitter ornaments for he r d ressing room than his library .

During his ter m as Provost the west front of t h e college and part of Parliament Square was built, but his greatest monument a r chitecturally is the Provost I s House commenced about 1760 and based on a design by the Ea rl of Burlington and Cork , the architect being a Dublin man named S:ny t h .

Tbe P r o vost ' s House can best be desc r ibed as dignified, a t erm that may also be applied to th e Palace at Ar magh . The interior of the former is, however, much supe r io r.

Th i s may be partly due to new ceilings having added h d an extra storey been n ece ssar y wh e n the P alace a Beresford's tenur e o f about 1 825 du r ing Lo r d J ohn George . ' h contain t u r iou s lY enoug ' he Primacy. Bot h h o u se s , c · h (l562 -1 567) h of Ar mag Por traits of Adam L of t us, Arc hb i S op .zld Primal Pr o vost o f Trinit y .

Despite the dissatisfaction folloWing his An drews was perhaps the most appointment popular p ever possessed . rovost that Tr. . He was cert . 1n1 ty a1n1y one of its out . . social succ esses and when he d . d . stanarng le in 1774 there was real re gre t in Dublin and throughout th _ ve ry e provinces ge nerally• result t ha t Unfortunately his Will . was disputed with the the sum total for t ' ne proposed observatory was somewhat reduced; but the Board of Tr inity College gen erously augmented the bequest so in reality the scheme was carried to a satisfactory conclusion .

The various lawsuits held up the foundation of the College Observatory considerably and not until late in 1782 was the contract placed with Mr . Graham Myers, the ultimate builder, son of an En glish architect who seems to have come to Ireland about 1782 to carry out work at Trinity unde r Sir William Chambers' directions. Authorities differ as to the year in which th e work was bl . t seems to have fini shed, but on the evidence availa e 1 been 17 85. At any rate it is clear that it was functionobservations at Dunsink ing by 17 88 , a s mate ri al based on Vas distributed in that year .

I n Armagh t he site for th e Upon by its founder who was also decided observatory was . ble for finding responsi a director , an architect and appointing

ThiS was not

possible in Dunsink owing t o a different circ umstances , consequentl set of y the selection was left to the Rev . Hen r y u ssher of a site Who chose Dunsink He belonged to and was it s f ir st director .

t b a family tha gav e a num er of re ct o rs t . o parishes in Armagh Di ocese in t h e 17th and 1 8th t . cen uries and was a kinsman of Ma rc u s Usshe r, first Soverei gn of Armagh under the Cha rt e r of J ames I in l6l 3 and Me mber of Pa rlia men t for the Borough; of Hen r y Usshe r (Archbishop of Ar ma gh 1596 - 1613; and of James Us sher (Archbishop o f Ar magh 1625 - 1656), one of the great est scholars of his age wbo, besides other better !mown literary achievements, published in 1648 an erudite dissertation on the Solar Year, to which an Ephemer is for the wbole year was anne xed, s aid to have been the first attempt in the s e countries to frame a true astronomical calendar . The Usshers had strong links llith Dublin and the Ar chbishop ' s wife, Ali ce Mo lyneux, t K'ng of Ar ms , came daughter of Daniel Molyne ux , Uls er 1 als o associated wi th of another family in that citY C tle Dillon estate by Armagh through the purchase of as her broth er Samuel who, dying in 1692 ' lef t two f "The Case for author 0 and brill ian t so n s, William, the 1 papers, astronomica and correspondent of Ireland St a t e d" a nd various A. f r iend '.rhomas of wh om l a te r,

namsteed, the Astrono me r R OYal , he was f th f d ather of Samuel Mo l yneux e oun er of Ke u w niversity, issue in 172 8 , whereupon Castl e uncle Thomas ( created a who died without Dillon passed to his baronet two Years later) ,ihose statue by Roubilliac is one of the finest sculptures in Armagh Cathed r al .

So far as we know Ussher himself planned Dunsink and it is of interest that the earli es t paper p rinted in the Tr ansactions of the Royal Irish Acade my (of i,,hich institution the Volunteer Earl of Ch a rle mont was then President) should have b een a co nt ri bution compiled by him in 1787, embellished by drawings of the proposed building - a main block with win gs - the latter were not, howeve r , bui lt. Ussher was a personal friend of Dr . Hamilton and d i ed in 1790 , the year in which Hamilton began du t ies at Armagh Observ a tory . Ussher • s services wer e much appreciated , but he was neve r Andrews Professor Those two of Astronomy or Astronomer Royal for IrelaJld. dis t inct ion s we r e not conferred until 1791 when Letters · ·nt title . Pa te nt we r e issued authorizing the Joi Br inkley , a nom i nee of Ussher was suc c eeded by John The custom II Ast r onomer Royal · a•kiilyne, t he En g l i s h ent with church p r eferm then was to suppl emen t such posts and •o Brinkley took Ho l y Or d ers t hu s i ncreased his to nunsink and 1nc0111e. man -wti an h a came He was a y oun g

the observatory was very short of equipment himself to ma t he matical research in so he confined which he achieved valuable results . L a ter he became an authority on gcc1esiastical L aw and was mad B· e lshop of Cloyne in at which time he had been Archdeac on 1826 , o f Clo gh er from 1808 ' 1 806 whic h , with and a Pre bend of El p hin Diocese from othe r pickin g s, left him comfortably p rovi ded for,

Cloghe r indeed see ms to have specialized in helpin g lame astronomers over stiles ; Rob i nson , for instance, was

Precentor of Clo gher and Recto r of Enniskillen in 1823

i1!eD be became astronomer at Armagh, Two years later he resigned the P recentorship and Rectorship for the Vica rage of Carrickm ac r os s wh i ch he held until his death ,

'lith the addition of a canonry of the United Diocese of Armagh and Clo gher , and a corresponding dignity in St, Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.

Brinkley was the only Irish Astronomer Royal to acquire a bishopric.

Hamil ton of Armagh was made an wa s only a matter of ar chbishop but that, of course,

Proxy and for a t erm of some months.

cele brated William whom the years' upon Bri nk ley I s successor was the ~wan Ha milton, then aged twenty-one well - merited degree .

Un1vers1ty hastened t o bestow a d essor of bis pre ec

Ila t d assistance lllilton had the whole-hear e

and of Robinson of Ar:nagh . As Profes sor be was no t particularly successful of Astronomy especially in the partly due no d b practica l part of his dut i es, wan t of p r evious training in OU t , to instrumental d an technical \/Ork; but he was one of the finest mathematicians that Ireland has ye t produ ced and · t :i. was to that study that he devoted mos t of his time - indeed hi b . s a sorption in the subject on his honeymoon was such a worry to hi s wife that she left him for a period . He did not enter Holy Orders so wa s obliged to act as a private tutor to au gment his income , a method mu ch disa pp roved of by the College Board who compromised by raisin g his salary from £250 to £580 and banning the pupils. We are told that he d isli lrnd observational wrk and s o entrusted mos t of it to his sisters and Charles Tho mpson , a v e r y competent understudy . Dr. Robinson, you may als o remember, was not averse to female aid at Arma gh . His first wife was a Miss Elizabeth d w H Rambau t, Rambaut, member of a family that produce · · 1850 until 1864 an d private as sistant at Armagh from 1864 - 1868 - of the same afterwa r ds Assist a nt Astronomer Andr ews Pr ofesso r sto ck as Arthur Alcock Rambaut, sometime of whom mer Royal, of As t ronomy and Irish Astrononomer in hiS second uallY lucky Presentl y . Dr . Robinson was eq d the renown• nter of 'life, Luc y J an e Edgewo rt h , daug

eaucatio nali st, Richard Lovell Edgeworth

After she settled at Ar :,1agl1 he r stepsiste r th . . , e famous novelist was fro:n ti me t o ti me a gues t and later ' s t ill her sister Harr i ett , widow of Richa r d Bu tler, D ean of Trim , took up her abode at the Observatory . Mrs Robinson and Mrs .

Butle r were both highly edu c ated bu t the former was less " loved astronomy only

On the other hand interested in the observatory _ she as impers onated in t i1 e a astronomer

Mrs Butler p roved an effici ent he lp and many duties devolved u pon he r when Dr . Robinson ' s sigh t began to fail.

Both Robi n so n an d. Ham ilto n dabbled in poet ry. It was an early craze wi t h Robinson but in Hamilton 's case a mor e mature d evelo pm e n t. They wer e each fond of

l iterary s o ci e t y and Ma r ia Ed ge wort h among st o t he r such notabilities wa s just as warmly appreciated at Dunsink as at Ar magh .

Ha milton was the ch ief actor in an astronomical drama of 1818 Was det ermined to discover the At that t im e it establishments of Dunsink .exact geo graphi cal pos iti on s of th e chrono me ters were and Armagh and no less th an fifteen i n ti me between the required t o measure the difference some months later by two Pla ces, The findin gs were v er ified observatories an d observing roc ke ts fired from th e two y He was, of course, ver from positions half - way between,

,,, fortun ate in a l a t e r i nci d ent a t "" Armagh Observatory d ser v atory and P ersonallY conc e r ns in the ac . d ci ental destruction of a "o st delicate micrometer o f ext • r elle tenuity ma de f rom platinum wire spe ci a ll y treated, a pe t invention of Dr . Robinson ' s and po ssibly the only one of its kind that was eve r put to ge th e r .

When Ham i lton d ied in 1865 t he apparatus a t Dunsink ias somewhat out of date . He had been i n charge fo r almost for t y years bu t in that ti me no new instrumen ts had been procured and little o ther than repairs had been 1ade t o those o r dered b y Us sher . In other wo rds Hamilton lef t the Obse r vatory in much th e same c ond ition as he found it . Things worked out differently at Ar magh where Rob inson had the active support of that most generous prelate, Archbishop L ord John George Beresford, who be tween 1827 and 1862 expended almost £2,500 on the provision of a new v.i.ng and necessary astronomical fit tin gs .

Robinson and Hamilton were each third i n sequence of th e di r e ct o rs of the ir res p ective observatori e s a nd that roll, st 1ang el y enough their immedia t e pr edecessors on tb t i k and Armagh, are a i s t he se c ond d i rectors at Dunsink ghosts but that rtp uted to haun t the t wo inst itu t ions as kin se arate study• d of phen om e n a must b e l eft fo r p " . k by Francis Brunnow , Hamilton was s u c c e ed e d a t Dunsink a t the Ann Ar bor Germanwho rec e ived h i s trai n i ng

ob servator y ijthdrew to in Mic hig an, f ro m Whence his homeland . he even t ua lly He was h . ' , owever , persuad ed t o accept DunsinK and in t he ninet e en Years he was i n charg e he not only installed new instrumen ts but made He relinquished hi s nos t excellent use of them . 0 through ill-health in 1874 at which ti:n e the observatory was de finitely well-equi p ped for i ts si ze.

Br\inow was followed by Rober t Sta well Ball _ the second Dublin- born holder of t h e office - Wi lliam Rowan Hamilton being th e first . Ball belon ged to a Devon family and was des ce nded from a Robert Ball who came to Ireland as an officer in the army of Ch ar les II and established himself at You gha l, Co . Cork . He was not, howe ver, related in any way to the Balls of Ballsmill , Co . Armagh, who were of No rf olk extr a cti on and descendants of Thomas Ball, a captain in Fleetwods Horse, said to have reached Ireland with the Cromwellian army , later obtaining lands in Ar magh , Louth and Kilkenny•

Ball of Dunsink was mu ch in demand as a lecturer a nd astronomy but he vai the author of many popular works on '· k · 1 t rainin g . His "'c 8d the advanta g es of professiona ! b based on his work 'PUtation must, therefore, rather e a, 1 mathematician, in which he ranked 0 ' three greatest British exponents of bi, gtneration, as one o f the two that subject in

,rter leaving Trinity he t "' spen two years at P a rsonss tutor to Lord Rosse ' s younger 0 tollll 8 son, · Lord Rosse friend of Robinson of Armagh and va s a O died in 1867 , )llereupon his son, Laurence, inherited the title and estates, and in 1869 in a debate in the House of Lords on ac lause in the Irish Church Act was one of th e supporters of a motion designed to assist the finances of Ar magh Obse rvator y, to which his father had presented a duplicate ;irro r in 1843 for use in the east dome, and in 1 850 induced the Royal Society to di vert portion of a Gove rnmen t 1ran t towards pr i nt in g observations at Ar :nagh . Ball took over as Andrews Professor of Astronomy and Ast ronomer Royal in 1874 and during his pe riod of residence Dunsinkwas a p lac e of much hospitality. His two elder sons, Robert St ee le Ball and William Valentine Ball (later Sir Valentine Bal l and author of a biography of his fathe r) were both pupils a t the Royal School of Armagh , ibere they had as a schoolfellow, Oliver Murphy, son of Isaac James Murphy of Arm agh, who took up law, be c ame a bai r1ster and married their c o usin Nina Ball , daughter of 811 Bent Ball, Honorary Surgeon to the King and Regius Professor of Surgery at Trinity, youngest brother of R.S. !uJ., the astronomer. Sir Bent was cre ated a b arone t in l9lJ.,

There was a fu r ther Ball alliance l ·li th Cou..rity Armagh . 1903 when Mary Agnetta Ba ll the Youn t in ' g es dau gh ter of

astr onomer, 'llarried J oseph Bar c roft ( ft the a erwards Sir Joseph one of the :nost b rilliant , f men o hi s day , son of Henry Barcroft, D . L ., of The Glen , Co . Armagh

By 1883 Ball ' s eye s ight was beginning to trouble him . in 1886 he was knighted in reco g nition of his services t o science and education . S ix years later he moved to Cambridge to take over P rofessorship of Astronomy the re, tb us ca us in g the promot i on of his assistant Arthur Alcoc k Rambaut a very ta lented old boy of the Roya l Sch ool o f Armagh who then became the sixth guardian o f Dunsin k . His rei gn, unfo r tunately, was of s ho rt du ration. Aft e r ho lding the pos t fo r five y ear s he transfer re d t o Radclif fe

Ob servatory at Oxford . 1923 Ball di ed in 1913 and Rambaut in Charles Jaspe r J o l y , a d istin guished Fell ow of Trinity, took over Dunsin k in 1 89 7 and died there in 190 6 . ~, next occupant was Edm und Taylor Whit taker, one of the grea t mathematic i ans of the present century who he ld th e ~st fo r si x yea r s . His suc c essor in 1912 was Henry Crozier Plumme r, a ver y live personality and much more of an 5 He was astronomer than a n y of his ei gh t predecessor . . lh1 •on of t he s eni o r ass ist an t at Oxford and had be e n

trained there . Upon his arrival a t Dunsink h e t ri ed t o ,btaiP better equi pmen t b ut wa s v e ry d i s app oi n ted b y

' f sup port in h is efforts t owa r d s t ha t end . 11ck o I n t h e oille years that he re tain ed t h e off ice he wa s th e autho r of maPY astrono mical p a p ers . He re s i g ne d i n 1 921 t o

take up a mathe matical po s t at Woo l wi c h , 1,h ic h he ga v e u p in1940 and die d at Oxford fo u r years later .

A t the date of Plum:n er ' s retire me n t c ondit ion s were ,.11 unsettled in the sout h an d the observator y I s i n c om e ,•icb decreased. The Dir e ct orship la p sed but Charles Martin , the assistant-astronomer, re mained and kept cer tai n services going until his d eath in 1936, fro m which ,at e the observatory yearly grew more derelict .

In 1947, twenty-six years after the resi g nation of Plumme r the last Irish Astronomer Royal, Dunsink was land ed over to the School of Cosmic Physics of the Dublin Inst itute of Adva nced Stud ies and Dr. H. A . Bruck, an eilnen t astronomer, installed .

Once in its history Dun sink supplied Armagh with a dire ctor, that wa s in 1882 when John Louis Dreyer who had ~en been an assistant there for four years came north to lllcceed Dr, Ro bi n son .

i1gbt years later, i n 1890, he published a biography or Tycho Brahe the preface of which was date d from Arma gh Obaer Observatory in September of that year .

Dreyer who was the t hird - son of Lie ut . Ge Jc F. Dre ye r of t he Dan ish Ar n era1 , • :ny came to I rel" d t th ' an as ast r onomer o e Earl of Rosse ; n 1 - 87 4, and in 1878 reached Dunsink He took out British natur alization

Apa rt fr om his in 1885, whilst resj_ den t at Ar magh, monograph on Ty c ho Brahe he also eng a ged i·n other simila r studies . Fo r instance, he was a membe r of a committee

organized by the Royal So ciety and th e Roy al Ast r onomi c al Society to pr e pa re an ed iti on o f the collected wo r ks o f

Si r William Herschel and acce p ted the tas k of writin g a biographical introducti on for 1-.hich pu r pose he wa s entrusted by the He rschel fa mily with a grea t mass of autobi ogra phi cal memoranda . The Royal Soci e ty also deposited at Ar magh Herschel ' s original observation books and other miscellanea connected with them so that Dreye r migh t revise He r schel' s recordin g s on nebulae.

At the Bra he for which manuscripts 5~e time he was busy on Tycho had been sent acro ss. from th e Roya l L ibrary at Copenhagen

A. Ha r dcas tle, great Ha was s uc c eeded at Armagh by Dr . J . of the pl an et Uranus . grand s on o f He r s c hel , the d i scove r e r lean t im e s btlt

Dunsink , li k e Ar magh , ha s had its we ha ve . ng steadi l Y• for t una tely bo t h a r e now p r ogressi s t ant wo rTY f the co n no t dealt in deta i l with the st0 rY O we b av e tn and requ i s ites , each r e gar,din g fi nan ce

d confined our se lves t o a sli gh t survey of Dunsink ~st ea and dire ct o r s , wi t h occasio na l re f e rences t o its rounder

lt:agh

It is a curious fa ct that bo t h obse r vator i es ow e

weir origin to two very eligible bachelors . An drews ,

oo ieve r, did not have t he p leas ur e of seein g his observatorybuilt nor had he any pa rt i n the selection ,r alocation, choice of arc h i te ct, or d irector . Archbis hop Robinson had pe r hap s less nec e ssity to conserve M s wealth. At anyrate he ha d t he satisfaction of selecting the a r chitect and the site, s ee in g his observatory oipleted and appo inting th e primary astr onome r.

The first and second d irect o rs of each o bservatory ~rein Holy Orders . Both obse rv atories are cr edited

uth a ghost and in each case the re puted spirit is sa id to the second astronomer. P e rsonally I have not seen the illagh ghost nor do I know of any person who has had that IUticuJ.ar eXperience . I f the spirit is s til l around when ~•Planeta r ium is buil t it may prove an additional ·tti ' action especially if by mathemati cal calcul a tions it I;! be Zad 8 to appear a t stat e d tim es . Tr adit ion tells lbat . it has always been a quiet kind of ghost - it has "111 been known t o clan k c h ains, emit blood-curdling 'or carry its head in its arms - it walks inst ea d in

Sober attire gazing a t t h e heavens a nd refusing to ta l k to anybody . Th e Dunsink gh ost, I am told, behaves in a similar ag r eeable f a shion.

The t h ird astronomers at Dunsink and Arm a gh we re both ad dicted t o verse but neithe r were li ke ly t o have set the wo rld on fire as p oet s. Wordswo rt h is credited with persuading Hamilton tha t there was li t tle li kel i ho od of hi s making g ood in p oetr y a nd t here fo re he had bette r stick t o science. Ro bins on evidentl y found that out fo r himself for he c eased to write poetic effusions befo re he en tered Trinity.

The fou rt h directors at e a ch place were of fore ign pare nta ge _ a German and a Dane - Brunow at Dunsink and

Dreyer at Arma gh .

dl.·rectors have so far ach i eve d Non e of Arma gh I s k ' superint enden ts had knighthoods, but two of Dunsink s Rowan Hamilton in th at honour thrust upon them - William Bal l in 1886. 1835 and Robert Stawell f s the continuity 0 Dunsink does not, however, posses is a blank from 19 21 to Armagh. It s list of directors hi new governors P· 1 i. • t passed into d d 1947 in which year i Armagh was in ee "" . the roll here. . l.·n Ireland, •11ere is .no such gap in runctiomng observatorY well be proud. 1n t hose years the onlY a distinction of ;ihich we ma.Y

In the one hundred and sixty-six 66 foundation Dunsink h x years since its as had a total f Ar h O eleven d" mag has been in eXistence for irectors . one years and in that period has one hundred and sixtyhad only seven one of whom died directors, shortly after being appointed, Dunsink ' s record for a director is thirty-six 36 years; Armagh's best effort is fifty-nine 59years .

Dun sink ' s first holder of the off ice director was a parson and the took Holy Orders immediately his nomination. Such cle ric al assistance was an sec ond after o erwise the astronomership essential in those days, th . would not have furnished the necessaries of life. The same conditions prevailed in Armagh and continued longer.

At Dunsink the practice was broken by William Rowan Hamilton, but at Armagh the custom remained and its directors were supplied with church livings down until 1882, in which year Dr. Dreyer became Director. At his resignation in 1916 he was re placed by a layman, Dr . J . A. Hardcastle, who d ied 10th November, 1917, and was followed in 1918 by the Rev . Willi am Frederick Archdall Ellison, M. A . , B.D., father of Mervyn Archdall Ellison, now Director of Dunsink - the second old boy of Armagh hold the important post - who I am sure Royal School to astrono mical studies in the ancient sometimes re c alls hiS father and his wonderful city just a.s we remember

gift for makin g difficult d an abstrusive subjects

interesting . Mr . Ellison, as all old b mem ers of this Society will know, was · g iven charge of the Parish of Kildarton on comin g to Armagh . Afterwards he was Prebendship of Ar magh Cathed 1 ra, a honoured with a token of regard th at gave great satisfacti·on to his :nany friends, clerical and otherwise .

I would like to again digress for a few moments on the subject of the founders of the two observatories.

Archbishop Robinson and the Provost of Trinity were contemporaries and must frequently have met on social and official occasions . We may assume that the Archbishop ' s plans for the revival of university status in Armagh had by then become kno,m in Trinity circles, as he built and endowed a justly celebrated Library in 1771 , just three yea r s previo u s to Andrews' death - the first step towa rd s the proposed universi t y .

I n 1777 the Archbishop was riased to the peerage as the history of the Baron Rokeby of Armagh, fully aware of d 1 acquainted with c i ty as an early seat of learning an a so of Elizabeth the First , the fact tha t in 1583 in the reign , . founda t ion of universities d been mad e for the p r oposa l s ha rurther conside r ation , a t Ar mag h an d L i me ric k. Upon a mo r e conveni ent d t ha t Dublin was h owev e r, it wa s decid e

situation a nd thus Trin i ty came into being in 159 2 , Li me ric k see ms t h o ave accepted the de c ision but in Ar :nagh t he subject cropped up a g ain in 1787 when Th oma s Orde (cr eat ed Baron Bolton 1797) , the then Ch ief

Se c re t a r y , broug h t an educational scheme before the Irish Hous e of Commons . All the p ro posa ls passed exce p tin g the cl ause relating to the foundin g of a second univ e rsi ty, The on l y opposition arose from Trinity ;.hose r epresentative bel ieved that such an institution in Armagh was likely to dep ri ve Dublin of students from Northern c ounties Eviden tl y Trin i ty had doubts abou t whether some of the huge areas of land i n Ulste r that had bee n g ranted in the rei gn of J ames I toward s it s

upkeep mi gh t n o t be d iv erted to some exten t to an establis h ment within that P rovince , Ar magh a l on e supplying some 2 2,000 a cres.

A change of Government took p lace sh ortly afterwards so the ma tter dr opped fo r resulting in Orde 1 s retirement

1 howeve r, that it was t h e time being . It is c ear, intended to re-raise the matter, for following Lord d that his will Rokeby , s death in 179 4 it was foun tow a rds the project with a embodied a handsome bequest towards a College Ch ape l. further legacy t in hiS founded t h e ObservatoryorY of the university in He had, of course, the possibility own lifetime, with intentions were warmlY though hiS his mind btit alas,

supported by Lord Cornwallis they were eventually blocked by the Duke of Po rtland, the then British Pri me Hinister, who refused to recom'.li end t he plan to the King .

The question was afterwards revived in 1826 by Arc hbishop Lord J ohn George Beresford but again the cry of possib le detriment to Trinity arose . Subsequently, in 1845 when Queen's Colle ge ca me into being Be lfast was chosen thou gh Armagh would indeed have been the more ideal situation . Perso na lly I feel sorry that Archbishop Robinson's plans miscarried . Had they materialized the founder of Armagh Observatory would have been responsible for a university as well.

t · ·th Dun sink is Yet another interesting connec ion WJ.

t Andr ev' s mothe r was the sister of the fact that Provos , l and owner , the Very Rev . John an Armagh clergyman and

C Ar magh 1765-1770, Averell, D.D., Prebendary of

the head of a fami ly holding Tynan, o . ' a considerable property in builder of a very fine the city and vicinity a nd th e . f .Armachians earlier generations o group of houses known to as the Seven Sisters but ted the seven Housesnow designa . 1 of brotherly a memoria that remains as the nephew of a . ding us that the besides re min t of TrinitY, t d provos a ter r ace affection was a celebra e eldest of the seven the son of t he rector of Tynan founder of Dunsink and

Averell sisters, each of whom had a ho me , n e re in this ancient city whose lin k s with Ireland g enerally are so

Pleasing a feature of its heri·tage as 1 ecc esiastical capita l.

I n conclusion I must apologize for these rather gossipy re marks r egardi n g Ireland ' s two observatories . They are the outcome of a talk with Brigadier Pap worth in which we discussed the affinities and contrasts of the two observatories and are certainly not as comprehensive as they might be, but they do illustr a te the old assertion that no matter where we travel in Ireland we will find associations with Armagh should be and long may it continue so. That is as it

Directors 1. Rev . Henry Ussher 17 85 - 1790 . 2. Rev . John Brinkl ey 17 90 - 1 8 26 .

William R. Ham ilton 1 826 - 1 86 5.

Francis Brunow 1865 - 1 87 4 .

Robert S. Ba ll 1 874-1 89 2 .

A. R. Rambau t 1 892 - 1897,

Cha rles J. Joly 1 897 - 1906.

E.T . Whittaker 1906 - 1 912 .

H. C. P lumme r 1 91 2 - 1921 .

. H.A. Bruck 1947 - 1957 .

M.A . Ellison 1 955 .,.196 3.

Dr. P. A. Wa ym an 1 9 63-

Rev . J.A . Hamil ton 1790 - 1 815 .

. Rev . w . Daven por t 1815 - 1823 .

. Rev . T.R . Robinson 182 3-1 88 2 .

. J . L. E. Dreyer 1882 -1916 .

J . A. Hardcastle 1917 .

. Rev . W . F. A. Ellison 191 8- 1936 .

E. M. Lin dsay 1937 ,