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The estate of Cú Chonnacht Maguire of Tempo: a case history from the Williamite land settlement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

W.A. Maguire
W.A. Maguire*
Affiliation:
Ulster Museum, Belfast
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Extract

As J.G. Simms remarked more than thirty years ago in the introduction to his notable book on the subject, ‘the Williamite confiscation was the last of a series which in the course of a century and a half changed the ownership of the greater part of Ireland’. The Williamite confiscation in Ireland, 1690–1703 was a landmark in the complicated and, till then, much misunderstood history of the subject. In fact, and rather oddly considering the importance of the war of 1689–91 and its consequences, there was no earlier detailed account of the confiscation of Irish land that followed the defeat of the Jacobites at the Boyne, Aughrim, and Limerick; and most references to it were based upon the printed report of the parliamentary commissioners of 1699, in some important respects a highly tendentious and misleading document. Simms based his work upon manuscript sources not previously used: the detailed records of the 1699 commissioners; the records of the forfeiture trustees who succeeded them; and the Books of Survey and Distribution that recorded the ownership of Irish land and its redistribution during the years after 1641. His main general conclusions —

that the treaty of Limerick and the dispute between William and his English commons made the confiscation much less comprehensive than it would otherwise have been; but that many of the catholics who thus succeeded in retaining their estates were induced to change their faith in the course of the eighteenth century by the pressure of the penal laws

— have provided all later students of the subject with a firm frame of reference within which to examine the details of the settlement.

Type
Articles
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 106 , November 1990 , pp. 130 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1990

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References

1 Simms, J.G., The Williamite confiscation in Ireland, 1690–1703 (London, 1956; reprint, Westport, Conn., 1976)Google Scholar.

2 Report of the commissioners appointed by parliament to enquire into the Irish forfeitures (London and Dublin, 1700).

3 Simms, Williamite confiscation, p. 10.

4 Ibid., p. 21.

5 Ibid., p. 22.

6 Ibid., p. 22, quoting a proclamation of 30 July 1689.

7 Ibid., p. 23.

8 What follows is largely based on Simms, Williamite confiscation, but see also my article ‘The land settlement’ in Kings in conflict: the revolutionary war in Ireland and its aftermath, 1689–1750, ed. Maguire, W.A. (Belfast, 1990), pp 139-56Google Scholar.

9 Quoted in Lenox-Conyngham, Mina, An old Ulster house (Dundalk, 1946), p. 18 Google Scholar.

10 A list of the claims as they are entered with the trustees at Chichester House (Dublin, 1701).

11 See Maguire, W.A., ‘The lands of the Maguires of Tempo in the seventeenth century’ in Clogher Ree, xii (1985-7), pp 305–19 Google Scholar.

12 Exchequer inquisition, Co. Fermanagh, no. 1 Wm & Mary (P.R.O.N.I, transcript T808/15061).

13 For the career of Brian Maguire see Gallachair, Pádraig Ó, ‘The first Maguire of Tempo’ in Clogher Rec., ii (1957-9), pp 469–89 Google Scholar.

14 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1660–62, p. 268.

15 Earl of Belmore, , ‘Gleanings for former Fermanagh articles’ in U.J.A., 2nd ser., iii (1896-7), p. 216 Google Scholar.

16 A list of the claims, no. 2974, in the name of Mary Maguire, a rent charge of £80 ‘in lieu of joynture’.

17 King, William, The state of the protestants of Ireland under the late King James’s government (3rd ed., London, 1692), p. 322 Google Scholar.

18 O’Neill’s wife was saved from being robbed in February 1689 by the protection of the presbyterian minister of Broughshane, who escorted her to safety at Shane’s Castle ( Witherow, Thomas, Derry and Enniskillen in the year 1689 (2nd ed., Belfast, 1879), p. 25 Google Scholar n., quoting a story by Leslie.)

20 King, State of the protestants, p. 337.

21 The passage in the poem describing the battle of Aughrim, in which Maguire appears under the name Guevarrus, is printed in A Jacobite narrative of the war in Ireland, 1688–1691, ed. Gilbert, J.T. (Dublin, 1891; reprint, Shannon, 1971), pp 275-82Google Scholar.

21 Memoirs of Brian Maguire, Esq. (Dublin, 1811), p. 64 Google Scholar.

22 Cal. S.P. dom., 1689–90, p. 570.

23 Hamilton, Andrew, A true relation of the actions of the Iniskilling-men (London, 1690)Google Scholar. The other main source, also Williamite but written from a presbyterián point of view, is MacCarmick’s, William A farther impartial account (London, 1691)Google Scholar. There is also, however, a curious third source, namely The inner history of Enniskillen during the revolution, published in 1927 by W.C. Trimble, owner-editor of the Impartial Reporter newspaper. In his introduction Trimble writes: ‘Having become what is known as “sensitive”, I tried to get into communication, by means known to me, with those who had been leaders in the defence of Enniskillen, and the result is the pages hereafter, which supply a quantity of information not hitherto revealed, and yet in keeping with the written narratives. This connected story supplied to me (during a series of sittings) from the Beyond has been transmitted by (presumably) the following, on my request — the Rev. Robert Kelso, Colonel Thos Lloyd, Dr William Ross, the duke of Berwick, Lord Mountcashel.’ Unfortunately, CÚ Chonnacht Maguire was not among Trimble’s ghostly informants.

24 See Earl of Belmore, , The history of the two Ulster manors of Finagh ... and Coole ... (London and Dublin, 1881), p. 131 Google Scholar.

25 Ibid., pp 132–4 and 350 (where the contents of the grant are listed). Belmore mistakenly gives 3 May 1694 as the date of Sydney’s letter to Nottingham; the year should be 1693, for Sydney ceased to be lord lieutenant in July ofthat year and Nottingham was replaced as secretary of state in November.

26 See Maguire, ‘The lands of the Maguires of Tempo’, pp 316–18, for the acreage of the estate and a summary of its history during this period.

27 Report of the commissioners, p. 13.

28 Annesley MSS, P.R.O.N.I., D1854/2/2, p. 21.

29 Ibid., p. 33.

30 Earl of Belmore, , ‘Governor Hamilton and Captain Corry’ in U.J.A., 2nd ser., ii (1895-6), p. 169 nGoogle Scholar.

31 A list of the claims, no. 2699.

32 Belmore, ‘Gleanings for former Fermanagh articles’, pp 216–17.

33 King to Southwell, 28 Mar. 1702, quoted in Simms, Williamite confiscation, p. 147.

34 Annesley MSS, P.R.O.N.I., D1854/2/33, p. 144.

35 Ibid., D1854/2/32.

36 Ibid., D1854/2/1 (Minutes of the commissioners, 3 June-25 Oct. 1699). The commissioners’ estimate of the estate’s annual value was £389, its capital value £5,057.

37 Dundas, W.H., Enniskilłen parish and town (Dundalk, 1913), pp 84–5 Google Scholar.

38 Faulkner, Fr Anselm, ‘The right of patronage of the Maguires of Tempo’ in Clogher Rec., ix (1976-8), pp 167–86 Google Scholar.