Portmuck and Bryan O'Neill in 1572

In this detail of a map prepared for Sir Thomas Smith's Plantation of the Ards in 1572, "Belfurst" (Belfast) is shown at the head of the "baye of Knokfergus" (Carrickfergus Bay, as Belfast Lough was once known). But just north of Knokfergus (west is at the top of this map), on the barely distinguishable peninsula of Islandmagee, is marked "Portmuk" (Portmuck).

Mark Thompson has just posted this illustration on his "Bloggin fae the Burn" blog site (as a follow-up to his recent publication Sir Thomas Smith's Forgotten English Colony of the Ards and North Down in 1572). In earlier postings of my own I talked about the cattle raids of Bryan McPhelim O'Neill on the Commons of Carrickfergus and the Smith colonists in county Down as a prelude to the arrival of John Dalway with the Earl of Essex in 1573.

Of course, John Dalway eventually married into the Clandeboy O'Neill dynasty and obtained massive estates from the O'Neills between Whitehead and Ballynure in east Antrim. This land grant was confirmed by Queen Elizabeth and James I before Dalway's Bawn was built in the early 1600s.

But this map (of 1572) shows "Bryan Ferty" between Belfast and "Glanyboy" (Clandeboy) in the back country between Ballynure and Antrim town. Trouble is, Bryan Fertagh O'Neill, who had been Lord of Clandeboy before Sir Bryan McPhelim O'Neill, was killed in 1548, nearly a generation earlier than the Smith plantation.

Bryan Fachartach (also Ferty, or Fertagh) O'Neill, was great, great grandson of Aodh Buidhe (Hugh Boy) O'Neill, the progenitor of the whole Clandeboy (Clann Aodh Buidhe) O'Neill dynasty in east Ulster in the late 14th century.

However, this is ground I have covered before, so what is new? Well, we know that before John Dalway "established" the cattle trail from the lands behind Carrick to Scotland via Portmuck and Whitehead, it was the O'Neill's who were in control of the cattle-based economy in the hinterland of the medieval English colony of Carrickfergus. The trade from Carrick was with England although in the 1590s Elizabethan tower-houses or castles were also built at Whitehead and Portmuck to defend these "new" trading ports. But this map suggests that Portmuck was operating as a port (and a strategic one at that) at a time when the O'Neills controlled Islandmagee and east Antrim. Was there a cattle trade with Scotland in Bryan O'Neill's day? I think it is possible, and it could mean that our cattle trail is of even greater antiquity than from the days of Dalway's Bawn.

Postscript: I had just finished this post when Mark Thompson e-mailed me the short message: "Here's another"! This map is what was attached - it must be about the same date as the 1572 one as it has "Smites" castle marked on the Ards peninsula. But here again is "Karregfergus" and "Port Muk" (and perhaps Muck Isle marked as "The Kowe").


Another postscript: I mentioned before that Adrian McKinty's three fantasy novels (The Lighthouse Trilogy) set on Muck Isle at Portmuck involved a fictional American boy, Jamie O'Neill, who inherited the island and a "Laird of Muck" title from the ancient Ui Neill owners of the area. Well for those with local knowledge that think such a connection with the O'Neills is impossible - well, think again!

Portmuck - the end of the Cattle Trail

Sailing into Portmuck harbour from Scotland takes you past the small Isle of Muck - seen here with the north end of the Gobbins Cliffs in Islandmagee behind.






The only landing place on the island is on the landward side, and it was here that smuggled horses from Scotland were landed out of sight of any patrolling customs and excise boats. On the Gobbins coast almost opposite is a cave known as 'horse cave' where the smuggled horses were also hidden. The inward horse trade was the counterbalance to the outgoing cattle boats destined for the great drove roads of Scotland.

Looking down on the island from the high ground in the middle of the peninsula, the small harbour of Portmuck can be seen to the left, hidden from the isle by a small headland with farm buildings on top.

This scene has hardly changed in 100 years since the old photograph below was taken.













The ruins of Portmuck Castle are only the base walls of a stone tower built in the 1590s (see earlier posts "The Big Picture: Eslers and the 'Scotch' Cattle Drove Roads of mid Antrim", and "Dalways Bawn: The Earl of Essex's Plantation in east Antrim). It sits among and behind the farm buildings on the headland, so that it could overlook both the harbour and the 'sound' of water between the headland and Muck Isle. The large building down at the harbour was the Coastguards Building, which in the 1800s replaced the castle as the customs control center for the control of livestock imports and exports.












This was the end of the cattle trail as far as the old drove road from Ballynure, across the Commons of Carrickfergus and past Dalway's Bawn, but it was the beginning of the horse trail in the opposite direction, for Ballynure's horse fair was one of the biggest in the county.
When I was a boy, the shore opposite Muck Isle could only be accessed by climbing over the limestone rocks at the headland (there is a footpath now).


From this headland, where the castle ruins are, the shore is a limestone platform of white rocks which contrast completely with the black basalt rocks of the Gobbins cliffs. The castle wall rises straight from this headland on the Isle of Muck side, so that it had a clear view of the 'sound' and the causeway that linked the island. This natural causeway can be waded across at low tide, and of course, livestock could be driven across at this point too.



There is a very interesting account of how (because of the smuggling trade) the locals were unwilling to admit, even to Scots 'plantation' landlords, that there were any horses 'to be had' in the district in the early 1600s. The source is a letter of 1631 from J. Montgomery of Newton (Lord Montgomery of the Ards in County Down) to Archibald Edmonston of Red Hall, Ballycarry. Of course there were plenty of horses about, but the fact that they were all busy working sounds like a typical Ulster-Scots bargaining tool to effect a sale at an extortionate price.

"J. Montgomerie to Archibald Edmonstone of Duntreath. Requesting the loan of some horses.

1631, April 21st, Knockfergus [Carrickfergus]. - 'Worshipfull and loving coosen, It hathe so falne out that in my passage from Dunstey I have been forced to land far doun in Iyeland McGhie [Portmuck, Islandmagee] so as I ame forced to employ my freinds for supplie of horses, and in regarde the countrey is upoun the heate of there labour, I must intreate yow for the laine of some three or four garreins [small work horses] for the transporting of myself and company to the Newtoun [Newtownards] ... Signed, Montgomerie

[Reply on same page] Right honourable my, I sent your Lordship thrie garreins and for this present I have non els exept my gray hors that rane ane cours yeisterday, and I dar nott ventur him so schoune efter the race. My Lord, I tak very unkindly that ye suld have gone by this cottage, always I hop your Lordship vill mak ane amends. Thus in quhat I am able I remain ... Signed, Ar. Edmonstoun. "

Of course, I should have repeated in this post that the names of Portmuck and of Muck Isle are both derived from the Irish Gaelic word for 'pig' (muc) and the names have nothing to do with the state of cleanliness of the place! But it also shows that the so-called 'cattle trail' was frequented by other livestock as well - particularly horses and swine.

Dalway's Bawn Revisited

Since my first blog postings about Dalway's Bawn in June and July 2010, a lot more information has come to light on this 17th century cattle-fort, and the people associated with it in the 19th century - for in 1860 it was still playing an important role in the cattle trade between east Antrim and Scotland.


A view of the bawn from the air is interesting because it shows a third (unroofed) corner turret at the back left-hand corner of the bawn. Originally there were four turrets, one in each corner of the bawn, but the interior space is now a mass of agricultural buildings. In 1858 the bawn was surveyed, and it was recorded that the front turrets had been converted into living accommodation as early as 1632. It was also noted that "in its original state it was capable of affording shelter for 200 head of cattle".

The bawn is in the townland of Bellahill (or Ballyhill), and was occupied in 1860 by Marriott Dalway. On the map of Bellahill I have marked the location of four tenants of Marriott Dalway on his 'home' townland (click on map to enlarge). These four families each have their own stories that help us understand the bigger picture.

First of these is the original homestead of the parents of Andrew Jackson, 7th President of the United States. This (and not their temporary home in Boneybefore where the Andrew Jackson museum is), was the real 'ancestral homestead', and other members of the Jackson family farmed in this area right up to recent times. The ruins of the original house still stand along an overgrown trackway known as "Bullock's Walk" that accessed directly onto the old cattle drove road near Dalway's Bawn.

The next Bellahill farm is that of Alexander Harte. In 1860 Alexander Hart (as the family now spell the name) also had farms leased from Marriott Dalway in the North East Division of Carrickfergus, and in the nearby townland of Crossmary. These Harts appear to be the same family that came to Ulster with John Dalway in the late 16th Century (see earlier postings). The connection with Boneybefore is their surviving farm at 'Newseat' up Hart's Loanen from Boneybefore. In another earlier posting ('An uncanny gathering at Bellahill farm, near Dalway's Bawn, in 1953') there is a photo and explanation of the Hart family connection that I had when at Primary School in Eden, and of couse, Hart's Loanen from Boneybefore to the Commons was our gateway to that world.

James Esler of Bellahill was a cattle-hand at Dalway's Bawn in 1860, and his small cottage was on Alexander Hart's farm. His son James Esler (junior) lived a few fields away, in the townland of Dobbsland, and was a 'byresman'. This family was distantly related to me on my mother's side of the family, and all of the Eslers in Antrim at that time were involved with the cattle drove trade to Scotland. I still want to tease out a few things relating to these Eslers in future blogs: a) The Eslers of Islandmagee were a critical link in the final stretch of the cattle drove trail from Ballynure, past Dalway's Bawn, to Portmuck and thence to Scotland. b) The younger James Esler's marriage about 1855 to a Mary Drummond resulted in a fascinating legacy. James and Mary are both buried in Carrickfergus's Roman Catholic Graveyard, so I also want to explore this unexpected thread along with other aspects of the 'Old Irish Catholic dimension' of the Commons and Carrickfergus.

Finally, the farm of Alexander Hoey (later also Hay, Hoy and Hoye) in Bellahill in 1860 was right on the cattle drove trail coming down from the Commons, past the 'resting slap' and on down to Dalway's Bawn. (A 'slap' is an Ulster-Scots word for "a gap in a hedge or dyke allowing the passage of cattle"). This family would not have meant anything to me had I not recently received a fascinating family history from a member of this family in Canada with a detailed account of this particular farm - including this fascinating item:

"There is a tradition among the Hoys in County Antrim that their ancestor came from Scotland as groom in charge of John Dalway's horses, sometime between 1578 and 1606. As a groom, most of his duties were at the castle and bawn. But in time he leased from Dalway a farm about a half mile northeast of the castle overlooking the Muttonburn valley. This farm, or part of it, now belongs to his descendant Isaac Hoy, and the present Hoy home here was probably built by the original Scotch settler."

These four families living in Bellahill give us just a glimpse of the depth of history behind the thing that links them all - Dalway's Bawn.

The Big Picture: Eslers and the 'Scotch' Cattle Drove Roads of mid Antrim

The old cattle drove routes across county Antrim run east-west (across the grain to the north-south direction of most of the main lines of communication). This is because they were heading to the main ports (especially Larne) connecting them to the Scottish drove roads that have been so well documented already on the other side of the 'sheuch'. One Scottish drove road in south-west Scotland is described as 'starting in Portpatrick' where 20,000 cattle a year were being landed from Donaghadee in county Down in 1800. (The parallel story of the county Down drove roads is one I'll leave for another day!)

For Ulster-Scots, these routes were the main arterial connection between the Scottish mainland and the Ulster-Scots settlers of the 17th century and later. This on-going connection is what shaped the very core of the Ulster-Scots heartland in terms of language, culture and religion. Along these routes are the broadest Ulster-Scots speaking areas, and the most dominantly Presbyterian communities in Ireland.

But my efforts at retracing the main drove road from Portglenone to Larne came about as a spin-off from researching the family history of my mother's grandfather - James Esler - whose family came from the cluster of small Esler hill-farms on the 'Long Mountain' between Portglenone and Ahoghill in the 1860s.

Esler is a lowland Scots name (originally German, I understand, meaning 'donkey dealer', or 'hosteler'), and 95% of all Eslers in Ireland were living in County Antrim in the early 19th century. Family tradition has it that three brothers came over from Scotland in the 1600s and settled in three areas - Kilwaughter (on the mountain slopes behind Larne), Eslertown (at the Cross between the Glenwhirry and Braid valleys, east of Ballymena), and Ballynafie (between Portglenone and Ahoghill on the Long Mountain). The map shows these three clusters, and it seems the Eslers' control of the hill pastures was strategically placed at points on upland pasture between market towns where the drovers and their beasts could stop off for the night.

So, that's where I was with my 'historical exploration' when I discovered that two James Eslers (father and son) were also living in 1860 beside Dalway's Bawn, east of Eden in Carrickfergus.

Two things seemed to confirm that this was connected to a cattle trail from Ballynure to Whitehead and Islandmagee. In the first place, both James Esler and his son from Bellahill were 'Agricultural labourers' rather than full farmers, and James Esler Senior was a 'byresman' for Dalway's Bawn itself! (A 'byre' is a cattleshed). Secondly, there were other Esler farms in the immediate vicinity. A 90-acre farm right on the coast at Whitehead was shared in ownership between two Esler brothers in 1860. These brothers were also joint landlords for the newly-erected Coastguard Station and houses in Whitehead. What an opportunity to keep an eye on the Customs and Excise men! Yet another two Esler farms were located in the townland of Balloo, in Islandmagee. These were on the Gobbins Road from Whitehead to Portmuck, which had a small harbour where pigs were exported to Scotland and horses brought in. The Gobbins cliffs between Whitehead and Portmuck had a few hidden coves and 'smugglers caves' - and one of these was on the Esler farm at Balloo! A 'horse cave' at Portmuck was where horses smuggled in were supposed to have been hidden, and I like to think that the Eslers were not only bringing cattle and pigs from Ballynure to send to Scotland, but were bringing horses in the other direction - to Ballynure Fair Hill which was renowned for its annual horse fair.

Going back to the Elizabethan history of this part of the world, Portmuck Castle and Castle Chichester at Whitehead were important outposts of Chichester at Carrickfergus, but they were also linked in terms of strategic defense to Dalway's Bawn.

Castle Chichester was excluded from the Esler farm land which surrounded it at Whitehead, as it was owned by the Chichester family, but the adjacent port was where regular postal packages from Scotland were landed in the 18th century. Of course, as I observed before, 'muc' in Irish is 'pig' - so 'Portmuck' means 'swine port' (nothing to do with the cleanliness of the harbour!)

The Commons Cattle Trail before the break-up

Up till now, I've only been able to show glimpses of the Cattle trail across the Commons of Carrickfergus as it survived after the Commons was broken up into farms after 1860.

It has taken me weeks to get hold of it, but at last I have a copy of the 1st Ordnance Survey map of the area in 1832. To my delight, it shows the whole townland of 2,730 acres without any farms, fields, fences or buildings. And right across it is an unfenced trackway which I have highlighted in green. It is exactly where it was anticipated.

Another thing that springs out (click on the map to enlarge it and see for yourself), is that the boundary of the Commons has a multitude of small houses lined right along the boundary. Before the 1860 enclosure, permanent dwellings were prohibited, so these were herds' houses, squatters' cabins, or shelters used by drovers and peat diggers.


The same thing is shown on the 1832 map further west, towards the middle of the Commons - small cabins or houses lined along the boundary, and the trail cutting across north of the source of the Woodburn River which flows down into Belfast Lough on the West side of Carrickfergus.

The source of the Woodburn River is marked on this (and later maps) as "BRYAN O'NEILL'S WELL".

The Rise of John Dalway's Cattle 'Empire' in East Antrim

Take these ingredients:

1. Dalway's Bawn;
2. The Cattle Trail across the Commons from Ballynure to the coastal ports linked to Scotland;
3. Dalway Manor - the large tracts of land acquired in east Antrim by Dalway (and his tenants and partners).

Put them together and what comes out of the mix? They reveal the big picture of a cattle trading 'empire' that began in the 1500s and was still going strong in 1850.

The map of these combined ingredients is worth a close look (click on it to see it properly), for it tells the whole story:
Note the lands to the north west around Ballynure and its Fair Hill which was the Ballynure part of 'Dalway Manor';
Note the lands to the east around Dalway's Bawn that made up the other half of Dalway Manor;
Note the 'Aldermans' land in the North-East Division of the County of Carrickfergus that was controlled by Dalway and his tenant-farmers (and which gave his bigger operation the right of access to the Commons and grazing rights across it).
When the Cattle trail is shown linking all these, the pattern suddenly leaps out in a way that no written history has yet recorded, and the true purpose of Dalway's Bawn is revealed.

The earliest known date of a grant of the Broadisland and Kilroot lands to John Dalway was in 1591 from his wife's cousin, Shane McBryan O'Neill. But when Shane as chief of north Clandeboy died in 1596, the country was in turmoil. The MacDonnells had overrun the district by 1597, and after the death of Sir John Chichester at Battle of Pin Well (on Dalway's lands at Ballcarry), John Dalway, John Dobbs, Lieutenant Hart and Sir Moses Hill - all with an interest in these lands, had to flee and wait for quieter times.

The end of the Elizabethan war in Ireland was marked by the surrender of Hugh O'Neill on the very eve of Elizabeth's death in 1603. The new monarch was James I of England and Scotland, who had formerly been James VI of Scotland and a kinsman of the Scottish MacDonnells of the Glens. But John Dalway did get a re-grant of 'such lands as he held in right of his contract with Shane O'Neill'.

A few years later, in 1608, came the definitive 're-grant' of these lands to John Dalway from James I, 'with the consent of the commissioners' for the Ulster Plantation. It was probably the plantation commissioners that introduced what was for them a standard clause requiring Dalway to build:

'within the next seven years, a castle or house of stone or brick ... with a strong court or bawne about the same, in any convenient place, within the territory of Ballinowre'.

The lands of this grant are described in great detail, not only listing the individual townlands of the two separated territories of Ballynure and Broadisland, but also giving a precise description of the boundaries of these two estates (see the above map for the general locations).

There are a few more interesting details in the 1608 grant to John Dalway. He was

'to hold at Thomastowne, within the cinament of Ballynowre, a friday market, and a fair on the feast of St Bartholomew, and two days after; unless the fair-day fall on a Saturday or the Lord's day'.

Another part of the grant confirmed Dalway's holdings as a freeman within the County of Carrickfergus as:

'the half burgage ... on the E. side of High street, in the town of Carrickfergus ...
two parcels of ground near the E. end of said town ... one extending to the commons of the said town, northwards ...
lately assigned to said John Dalway for his Aldermans share of said townlands of Carrickfergus.'

The grant then goes on to mention that Dalway could in turn grant any part of the estate, apart from 600 acres for his own demesne, to any English or (lowland) Scottish subjects without needing 'the king's license' to do so. Some breakup of the estate did occur, but nothing that interfered with the basic economic thrust of the cattle trail. A Scottish noble man, Sir Archibald Edmonston, took a large section of the estate at Red Hall around Ballycarry in 1609, but this only served as a catlyst for thousands of lowland Scots settlers to overwhelm the district and secure the northern approaches that had been so vulnerable to incursions from the Glens. John Dobbs of Castle Dobbs married Margaret Dalway, the daughter of John Dalway and Jane McBryan O'Neill, and so the Dobbs family eventually owned much of the Kilroot and Ballynure lands.

When these lands are mapped, the whole thing suddenly makes sense. But it is also clear that the Dalway control of this cattle trail from the Sixmilewater Valley through to the ports for Scotland at Whitehead and Islandmagee could not have happened without the important central link in the chain - the Commons of Carrickfergus.

It was the old cattle drove trail across the Commons of Carrickfergus that connected Dalway's Ballynure and Broadisland estates. The townland of Castletown just east of Ballynure not only includes the site of the 'old castle' and bawn at the river crossing of the Castle Water, but also the 'Ballynure Fair Hill' which held fairs for cattle and pigs in May, September and October, with a large horse fair also held on nearby Reagh Hill in May, November and Christmas Day. Many of the pigs and cattle sold at Ballynure Fair ended up on boats leaving Portmuck (muc is Irish Gaelic for 'pig') or Whitehead for the drove roads in south-west Scotland. Dalway's Bawn was their last stopping place before the 'end of the trail'.

Dalway's Bawn: The Early Scotch Dimension

(This is the fifth of a series exploring the history of the Dalway cattle drove trail)

Although the Earl of Essex had died in 1576, the remains of his Elizabethan English colony settled in the town of Carrickfergus.

John Dalway was one of those who came to the fore in the town by the 1590s, along with John Dobbs and a Lieutenant Harte, and these three men were to play a critical role in the story of Dalway's Bawn and the later cattle trail.

By the late 1600s, Carrickfergus had entrenched its 'English only' policy within the walls of the town, so the suburbs shown to the west remain to this day as 'Irish Quarter' (where the town's Catholic Church is located). 'English' meant 'Established Church', and the town's freemen were required all to attend the old Anglo-Norman church of St Nicholas in the town. The suburb to the east (also shown in the foreground of the inset illustation) is 'Scotch Quarter' along a road leading east - to Boneybefore and Kilroot.

The 'big' church all of us in Boneybefore used to attend for special occasions was Joymount Presbyterian Church in Scotch Quarter. The name 'Joymount' comes from the large mansion shown in the inset. Joymount House (called after Lord Mountjoy, the Lord Deputy in Dublin) was built in 1610 by Sir Arthur Chichester, Governor of Carrickfergus and Ulster, and brother of Sir John Chichester who had been Governor of Carrickfergus until he was killed by the Antrim (Highland) Scots at Ballycarry in 1597, with Dalway, Dobbs and Harte fleeing the scene. But the 'Scotch' of the Scotch Quarter - and most of east Antrim and Islandmagee - were not 'Highland Scots', but were lowland Scots that had settled after 1603 when James VI of Scotland took over from Elizabeth I as James I of England and Scotland.

The early 'Scotchmen' that were threatening Carrickfergus in the 1590s were Highland, Catholic and Gaelic-speaking Scots in the glens of north-east Antrim known as the 'MacDonnells of the Glens'. Their main stronghold was Dunluce Castle at the far end of County Antrim, and the seeds of conflict had already been sown by Essex with his raid on Rathlin Island in 1574.

In 1594, twenty years after John Dalway first settled in Carrickfergus, he was still living there in a tower-house with his wife Jane McBryan O'Neill (a close relative of Shane McBryan) and their daughter Margaret (who later married John Dobbs of Castle Dobbs). By this time John Dalway had been appointed 'Sheriff of Antrim' and was writing regular intelligence reports to the Lord Deputy in Dublin and Sir Henry Bagenal in Newry. The theme of these letters was always the same - the loyalty of the Clandeboy O'Neill's (particularly Shane McBryan O'Neill, his wife's cousin) was solid, but they were under intolerable pressure from Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and James McSorley Boy MacDonnell of the Route (north Antrim).

John Dalway had got a grant from Shane McBryan O'Neill of the lands at Broadisland (Ballycarry) and Kilroot in 1591, paying in cattle rather than money yearly to Shane and his heirs. In 1594, as Sheriff of Antrim, John Dalway 'examined' Shane McBryan and wrote to the Lord Deputy that

"the Earl of Tyrone sent O'Hagan to Belfast to have the said Shane become his man and run against the Queen."

But Shane had resisted and provided Dalway with 'promises and slanty'.

A year earlier, in 1593, Dalway had reported from the 'Camp at Comber' that

"Owen McHugh, that killed Neal McBryan Ferta's son, has drawn a large force to assail the great Ardes."

A 'great prey' of cattle had been taken fron Neale McBryan O'Neill of north Clandeboy, and 500 men were beseiging him.

As 1594 progressed, Dalway's reports concentrated more and more on the threat posed by the Antrim Scots.

"James Oge McSorley Boy MacDonnell took from Neale McBryan Ferta the number of 200 cows besides garrans (horses) and other spoil, and doth threaten to make his repair thither again."

He urged the Lord Deputy to send some men to help defend Shanes Castle at Antrim, for "if it should be lost the whole country will be thrown open". In July 1594 Ensign John Dalway wrote again to the Lord Deputy that the cattle belonging to the townsmen of Carrickfergus had been taken prey by James MacSorley Boy MacDonnell. He feared that "the town will be overthrown if more force is not speedily sent." In October the same year he reported that £300 worth of lead and powder had been landed in the Glens of Antrim from Scotland.

The reinforcements that arrived in Carrickfergus in 1595 were under John Chichester from Devon who was Sergeant-Major of the Elizabethan army in Ireland. As Shane McBryan had apparently joined the Earl of Tyrone in rebellion, Chichester captured Shanes 'bawn' at Antrim, and took Shane to Carrickfergus Castle where he again pledged support for the Queen. However, Shane died while still at Carrickfergus and his estates were forfeited to the Crown. Dalway later received a re-grant from the Crown of the east Antrim estates that he had previously been renting from Shane. Sir John Chichester was then appointed Governor of Carrickfergus and John Dalway made 'Deputy Victualler in Ireland'.

But the threat of the Antrim Scots came to a dramatic head on Dalway's lands at the 'Battle of Pin Well' in Aldfracken Glen (near Ballycarry) in 1597 .

James McSorley Boy MacDonnell had brought a large force down from the north of the county into east Antrim. Having plundered Islandmagee he concealed the most of his men in Aldfracken Glen near Ballycarry, and approached the North Gate of Carrickfergus Town in a provocative show of defiance. Sir John Chichester took the bait, and pursued him with about 20 of his horsemen, including John Dalway, John Dobbs and a Lieutenant Harte who later provided an eye-witness account.

When Chichester and his men reached Aldfracken Glen, they were set upon by the larger force of Antrim Scots, and a complete rout occurred. Sir John Chichester was captured, and MacDonnell cut his head off on a nearby rock, tossing it to his men to play football with. About ten of Chichester's men were also killed, but several others escaped by swimming across Larne Lough and hiding in the caves near the Gobbins in Islandmagee. Although he was injured, Lieutenant Harte escaped to Islandmagee as well, "and so by swimming over saved my lief." Among the other runners was Lieutenant Dobbs who "retreated under a bridge until the danger had passed." Another runaway was Lieutenant John Dalway, who concealed himself for a time in the dry flow or ooze left by the shallow water that had once separated Islandmagee from the mainland.

Sir John Chichester was replaced as Governor of Carrickfergus by his brother, Sir Arthur Chichester. It was Sir Arthur who built the mansion house of Joymount in the town in 1610, and who had led the Elizabethan forces across into Tyrone to finally put down the rebellion of the Earl of Tyrone in 1603.

In St Nicholas's Church in Carrickfergus, in a side-aisle reserved for the Chichesters, is a monument to Sir Arthur and his wife. Beneath them is an effigy of Sir John. When James MacSorley Boy MacDonnell as an old man visited the monument, he is reported to have pointed to the effigy of Sir John and said,

"How the deil did he come to get his head back, for anes I taen it frae him".

Underneath the Chichester Aisle in St Nicholas Church is the Chichester's family burial vault with lead coffins of various early Chichesters. The skull of Sir John sits on a stone shelf at the back.

Once the Elizabethan war in Ulster was ended in 1603, three of the men lucky to escape with their lives at Ballycarry, (John Dalway, John Dobbs and Lieutenant Harte), were soon to play a central role in the next stage of the story of Dalway's Bawn and the cattle trail it controlled.




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Dalway's Bawn and Cowboy Trail: The Irish Dimension

Right in the heart of the Commons, just alongside the old cattle trail, is a spring-well marked on the Ordnance Survey map as ‘Bryan O’Neill’s Well’. This was named after Bryan McPhelim O’Neill who was the Gaelic lord of Clandeboy (south Antrim and north Down) in the 1570s. What makes this surprising is that the Commons were contained within the ‘County’ of Carrickfergus, and for 350 years the Old English of the town had owned and controlled this area continuously.

(This is the third of a series exploring the history of the Dalway cattle drove trail)

Carrickfergus Castle was built in the 1190s, and within 20 years the new settlement had become the Anglo-Norman ‘capital’ and main sea-port of the Earldom of Ulster. When King John arrived in Carrickfergus in 1210, the Earldom of Ulster then extended over the whole of east Ulster, that is, the present counties of Antrim and Down. Until the Vikings raided and then settled on parts of the coast before 1150, the native Irish ‘Ulidians’ were a loose confederation of petty kingdoms that had actually fought on the side of the Vikings when they were defeated by Brian Boru at the Battle of Clontarf near Dublin in 1014.

In the early days of medieval Carrickfergus, the Ui Neill were nowhere to be seen in Antrim. They were the ruling dynasty in west Ulster only, having moved into Tyrone and Armagh from the south and west. But as the Earldom of Ulster weakened in the 14th century, a branch of the O’Neill’s took the opportunity to push east across the Bann, and by 1400 had effectively split the Earldom in two. These incursive O’Neills were called the Clandeboy O’Neills after the Clann Aodh Buidhe Ui Neill (clan of Hugh Boy O’Neill) which had first entered the territory about 1380. In county Antrim it was only the town and ‘county’ of Carrickfergus that survived intact. In fact, it was a mutually advantageous arrangement. The town continued to prosper with an international sea-trade by paying ‘black-rent’ (protection money) to O’Neill, and the vast cattle-wealth of the interior of the county was able to continue to feed in as the true hinterland of the port.

The chief of the Clandeboy O’Neills was Sir Bryan McPhelim O’Neill when John Dalway arrived in Ulster with the Earl of Essex in 1573. Sir Bryan had just brought 10,000 head of cattle to the vicinity of Carrickfergus as a pretended sign of his support and loyalty, but when he learnt that Essex wanted to use him to attack the Highland Scottish MacDonnells that occupied the ‘Glens’ of north-east Antrim north of Larne, he removed his cattle (along with some he had rounded up from the Commons) back towards the ‘ford’ of Belfast. Then, in 1574, he invited Essex to a feast near Belfast.

When the hospitality was over, Essex and his men arrested Bryan O’Neill and put 200 of his supporters to the sword when they tried to resist. The Earl then took 3,000 cattle and a great number of mares from Sir Bryan’s enclosures near Belfast, and had Sir Bryan taken to Dublin and executed on the grounds that he had taken a “prey of cattle” from the Commons of Carrickfergus that had belonged to the freemen of the town.

The two sons of Bryan McPhelim O’Neill, Shane and Con, were content to receive their late father’s title to the south Antrim estate of Lower Clandeboy. Con became lord of a territory on the north shore of Lough Neagh between Toome and Randalstown, while Shane Mac Bryan O’Neill inherited the bulk of his father’s lands at Shane’s Castle, beside Antrim town. Shane’s undisputed lands extended from the eastern shores of Lough Neagh and up the Sixmilewater valley towards Larne. It included the less certain northern margins of Carrickfergus, and the Parishes of Templecorran, Kilroot and Islandmagee to the east. But this area in the east was vulnerable to incursions from the English at Carrickfergus and from the MacDonnells of the Glens north of Larne. With Essex’s plan to settle his followers along the coast between Belfast and Carrickfergus, Shane McBryan O’Neill had only one way to get his cattle to the coastal ports of Larne, Whitehead and Islandmagee - round or across the Commons.

There was a stark contrast between the character of the English settlement at Carrickfergus and the Irish peasants working the lands under the Clandeboy O’Neills. More than differences of religion, language and ethnicity, the Irish cattle farmers practiced a Gaelic system rather than a money-based weekly market economy. Under the Gaelic system, the Irish peasant bondsmen did not ‘rent’ land or own their own property, but provided rent ‘in kind’ to the clan leaders, and the bulk of the cattle they minded were ultimately the property of the Gaelic lord.

By 1573, the Town and County of Carrickfergus had declined to a perilous state. It was on the verge of collapse and in imminent danger of being over-run. Within a few years, John Dalway was living in a tower-house in High Street in the town with rights to graze cattle on the Commons, had married Jane McBryan O’Neill (a close relative of Shane McBryan O'Neill) and had struck a deal with Shane for lands at Ballynure and Ballycarry, at both ends of the cattle drove trail from the Sixmilewater to Whitehead.

One of the townlands beside Ballynure is Bryantang which is a tongue of land between the two rivers that meet up at Ballynure to feed the Sixmilewater to Antrim. Like 'Bryan O'Neill's Well', this is also a reference to Bryan McPhelim O’Neill ('Bryan’s Tongue of Land'). The County of Carrickfergus did not have any ‘Irish’ townland divisions in the Elizabethan period, so the place-names surviving from that time are English (The Commons, North-East Division, West Division, Middle Division). In the Commons, however, some Gaelic names still survive for local features such as the Craignabraher ('Friar's Rock') Burn which almost runs into Lough Mourne before disappearing into a collapsed cavern called Lignaca ('hollow' or 'hole of the mist'). In Kilroot parish, where Dalway’s Bawn was built, the original Gaelic townland names have also been altered, but the road from Kilroot up to Dalway’s Bawn between the Kilroot River and Copeland Water (in the townland of Dobbsland) is called ‘Tongue Loanen’ – a tantalising reflection of ‘Bryantang’ at the far end of the Dalway cattle trail.