Walking the Cassie cattle trail: 5. The final stretch - to Dalway's Bawn

Leaving  Poag's Hill on the last section of my walk with Ray Cowan along the old cattle trail from the Commons to Dalway's Bawn, the 'Cassie' develops a different feel. The final stretch is more wooded as we come near to the edge of the Dalway's Bawn home farm, but at the start, after Poag's Hill, the Cassie becomes obviously well-used - with some new houses behind the occasional 'modern' garden hedge!

 

Thinking we were about to arrive at the end of the Cassie, I was soon disabused of that idea, as Ray explained that these houses were still only accessible from the old lane way - and that the 'road junction' ahead was nothing other than a side lane leading to the old Caldwell and Hay farms among others, including the original Andrew Jackson Homestead (no longer accessible).

Soon we leave this strange,  cluster of side lanes and drives to dispersed isolated houses, and - straight ahead in the above photo - the Cassie reverts to its country lane character.

As we walk down this stretch of the Cassie, it once again feels like a lost, ancient world.

On the left, great views appear of the Bella hill countryside, with another last glimpse of the Irish Sea.

 

The next photographs take us down through a beautiful, wooded stretch signalling that we are now not only down into the 'lowlands' but also on the edge of the wooded margins of the Dalway and Dobbs landscaped demesnes.

   

 

At the last bend in the lane, a view to the right confirms that we have reached the demesnes of Dalway's Bawn (below the middle horizon) and Castle Dobb's (middle horizon).

And so down the final 100 yards or so of the Cassie down to Dalway's Bawn Road.

 

Out on the road, a last look back up the Cassie

 

- before the photographic evidence that Ray and I have indeed reached the road outside Dalway's Bawn.

Thanks again Ray for the conducted tour. We have reached the end of the Cassie, but not the end of the story! 

An uncanny reunion at Bellahill - to walk the 'Cassie' cattle trail to Dalway's Bawn.

Saturday 17 September 2011 was a big day for these 'East of Eden' chronicles (and for me), as I met up with Ray Cowan after almost 60 years at his childhood home farm in Bellahill - for my long-awaited exploration of the last unaltered stretch of the old cattle drove road from the Commons to Dalway's Bawn.

Ray now lives near Dublin with his wife Helen (uncanny again, as my own wife is called Helen too). We recently re-established contact after our early years at Eden Primary School in the 1950s, when he stumbled on this blog and an old photo taken at his 7th birthday party at his farm in Bellahill.


The detail shows Ray and myself in the middle - Ray sporting his birthday present of a toy gun.








I had posted this old photo in July 2010 in 'An uncanny gathering at Bellahill farm, near Dalway's Bawn, in 1953' and since then we have been in frequent email and telephone contact.

But our reunion had, of course, to be back at his scene of this 'uncanny gathering' - now his brother's farm, and a walk together down the 'Cassie' (the local name given to the old cattle drove track from Beltoy to Dalway's Bawn).

Both these farm photographs show something I didn't know in 1953 - that the trees behind the farm house mark the line of the old cattle drove road from Beltoy to Dalway's Bawn.

The following map shows the line of the 'Cassie' (Ulster-Scots for 'causeway') in blue, and the present Cowan farm is marked on this map as belonging to John Davison in 1860. As followers of this blog may recall, John Davison bought Dalway's Bawn at the end of the 19th century when Marriott Dalway emigrated to Australia, and the Cowans moved to this farm about the same time - from the one immediately to the north, marked 'John Cowan, 1860'.


The walk with Ray down the Cassie was a walk 'down memory lane' in more ways than one, and as there is too much to report in one posting, the next few will be photo-journeys and commentary on this 2-mile dander. It started where the Cassie crosses the Beltoy Road, behind the Cowan farm (to the right in this photo). Another previous post (29 September 2010) had covered the journey I made with my wife from Lough Mourne to the Beltoy Road: 'Along the Cattle Trail - In sight of Scotland'.





Well, just to prove we did finish it, here is Ray at the bottom end of the Cassie, where it comes onto the Dalway's Bawn. It was a great and memorable day - full of nostalgia and new information gleaned from Ray's encyclopaedic knowledge of every farm and field along the way.













To be continued ....

Cattle men from Scotland? The Eslers at Dalways Bawn

In 1860, two James Eslers (father and son) were living beside each other a few fields away from Dalways Bawn. James Esler, senior, was in the home-townland of the Dalways at Bellahill as a byresman. He held his small thatched cottage from one of Marriott Dalway's main tenants - Alexander Hart. James Esler, junior, was similarly stationed nearby, but as he was in the townland of Dobbsland, and a Dobbs' tenant, he may have been a cattle hand at Castle Dobbs.

These Eslers were part of an extended family group (all spelled Essler in the 1860 Land Valuation) that were involved as cattle drovers, dealers and steaders at the Whitehead and Islandmagee end of the Commons cattle trail between Ballynure and Scotland. My earlier post "The Big Picture: Eslers and the 'Scotch' Cattle Drove Roads of mid Antrim", August, 2010, has the details of these Eslers and the more numerous group in mid Antrim that handled the Portglenone to Scotland cattle trail via Ahoghill and the port of Larne.

But where did these Eslers come from? They were all lowland Scots, arriving in east Antrim in the 17th century as horse and cattle drovers, and small hill farmers 'servicing' the cattle trails, according to family tradition. (My own great-grandfather was another James Esler from a hill-farm in Ballybeg, near Ahoghill).

In 1666 we get our first glimpse of the Antrim Eslers in the Hearth Money Rolls, prepared as a tax on all householders with a fixed chimney in their house. They then spelled their name Assler, Asslar or Ashler, but appear to be absent from the small Parish of Kilroot, which includes the townlands of Dobbsland and Bellahill. In practice, the names on this list don't include the landless, labouring classes, only farmers and landowners, and so although we do have a Mr Richard Dobb, a Mrs Dalway, a Mr Alex Dallway and a David Hart (an ancestor of Alexander Hart in 1860, and a descendant of the Capt. Hart who first settled here with John Dalway in the reign of Elizabeth I) the absence of an Assler/Esler from the 1666 Hearth money roles is not significant. But in the adjacent Parish of Templecorran, we find a James Asslar in 1666. This Parish covers the land between Ballycarry, Dalway's Bawn and Whitehead (where the 100 acre farm of William and David Essler controlled the land behind the port of Whitehead in 1860). There were no other Asslers in east Antrim in 1666, not even in Islandmagee where the farms of Patrick and Andrew Essler were in 1860.

Apart from this 'Whitehead' James Asslar, there are only 4 other Eslers recorded in the Hearth Money rolls for 1666 for Antrim. Three of these were living near the port of Larne: In the Parish of Kilwaughter we have John Ashler in Ballyhampton townland on the Agnew estate close to the port, and William Ashler on the nearby Agnew demesne. These names were both spelled 'Asler' on a repeat listing of 1669. A Thomas Ashler was living somewhere south of Larne, in either Inver or Glynn Parish in 1666. Family tradition has it that three Esler brothers came from Scotland in the 1600s and settled in three different parts of mid and east Antrim, giving rise to all the Antrim Eslers. If this is correct, then the main original settlement seems to have been at Kilwaughter near Larne, on the estate of the Agnews of Kilwaughter Castle and Lochnaw Castle near Stranraer in Scotland. The only other Esler in the 1666 Hearth Money Rolls is John Ashler at Rathkeen in the Parish of Rathcavan. This is on the upland between where the Braid and Glenwhirry river valleys run down to Ballymena, and where 'Eslertown' and the main concentration of Eslers survive along the Portglenone to Larne cattle trail.

So, if the '3 brothers' story is true, it seems that the first and main settlement of Eslers was at Larne, and the secondary settlements were at Rathkeen near Broughshane in mid-Antrim, and Whitehead/Ballycarry in east Antrim.

This gives us a real clue to the Scottish roots of our Eslers, for the Agnews of Kilwaughter Castle were from immediately across the North Channel at Lochnaw - between Portpatrick and Stranraer. And Portpatrick was the port of entry for the enormous cattle trade from Donaghadee in county Down, and the beginning of the major Galloway Cattle Drove road to Carlisle. In A.R.B. Haldane's book, "The Drove Roads of Scotland", he states that between 1786 and 1790, over 55,000 head of Irish cattle were imported into Portpatrick, and in 1812 as many as 20,000 were landed. His map of the drove roads of Scotland shows the sea link for this trade between Donaghadee in county Down and Portpatrick.


Here then is a short abstract about the Agnews of Lochnaw and Larne (Kilwaughter):

Lochnaw Castle
In 1375 "The Agnew", Lord of Larne, went to Ireland with Edward Bruce, younger brother of King Robert the Bruce where he had been invited by the Irish Lords to help rid them of the English and rule in their place. Agnew stayed with Edward in Ulster for three years while he attempted to establish his power.

Andrew Agnew of Lochnaw was granted the lands and constableship of Lochnaw Castle in 1426. In 1451 he was appointed Sheriff of Wigtown, an honour still held by direct descendants today.
During the 15th century the Clan Agnew rose to power however this was under the powerful Clan Douglas. When the Douglases fell from the Kings favour the Agnews in Galloway in fact benefited. However this then brought them into many conflicts with the Clan MacKie and the Clan MacLellan.
16th century
In the 16th century during the Anglo-Scottish Wars Andrew Agnew of Lochnaw, was killed at the Battle of Pinkie in 1547 in fighting against the English.

Sir Patrick was MP for Wigtownshire from 1628 to 1633, and again from 1643 to 1647. He was created a Baronet of Nova Scotia on 28 July 1629. He died in 1661 and was succeeded by his eldest son, Andrew, who had been knighted in his father’s lifetime and who was also returned as MP for Wigtownshire. He was created Sheriff of Kirkcudbright as well as Wigtown in the 1650s, when Scotland was part of the Protectorate with England. He married Anne Stewart, daughter of the first Earl of Galloway.
The fifth Baronet, another Andrew, married a kinswoman, Eleanor Agnew of Lochryan, the union producing no fewer than twenty one children.

So the Agnews were known as "Lords of Larne" from the 14th century when they first visited east Antrim with Edward the Bruce! Their Kilwaughter estate was granted in the 17th century as part of the Ulster Plantation of lowland Scots, and by 1659 Kilwaughter Parish had the highest proportion of "Scotch" inhabitants of any Parish in Ireland (over 90%). It may well be that the first Eslers came with the Agnews from their Lochnaw estate near Portpatrick - or maybe they were continually moving west, "sourcing" cattle back along the drove routes from Dumfries and pioneering the western extension of this deep into county Antrim. This is well worth somebody chasing up on the ground in Scotland! But certainly our Eslers at Dalway's Bawn were part of something bigger as far as the cattle trade with Scotland is concerned. One thing is sure - the Esler story is the classic Ulster-Scot story.

Mark Twain - descended from the Dalways of Dalway's Bawn?

When I first read 'Tom Sawyer' by Mark Twain as a boy it gripped me like no other book I had ever read. The stories in my other books were very 'English public school' in their setting and dialogue, but Tom Sawyer's world (actually much further away - in Missouri), seemed just like my own. I can still remember the story when Tom couldn't go out to play with his friends on a Saturday because Aunt Polly had told him to whitewash the garden fence first. When his chums called for him, Tom pretended that he would rather paint the fence as he just loved doing it. So his puzzled friends asked to watch. Then, they asked to have a try with the paintbrush, but Tom said he wanted to do it himself. I think his friends ended up paying Tom to let them paint the fence while he sat and watched. This was a rouse I tried out on my own friends one Saturday, and it almost worked, but not quite!

'Mark Twain' was the pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), a name he took from the leadsman’s call on the Mississippi river. In 1876 he published "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" followed in 1882 by his story of Tudor England "The Prince and the Pauper". However the popularity of Tom Sawyer had readers demanding more, and in 1885 he wrote "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "Life on the Mississippi". Huckleberry Finn has been hailed the first ‘Great American Novel’, a concept meaning a novel which most perfectly represents the spirit of life in the United States at the time of its writing. He wrote more than 30 books and hundreds of short stories and essays.

Apparently, Samuel Langhorne Clemens was of Scotch-Irish descent on both his father's and his mother's side of the family. His mother was Jane Lampton who
married John Marshall Clemens in 1823. Jane Lampton's grandfather was Col. William Casey, an early Kentucky pioneer who, in 1789, established the Casey/Butler Fort. This was the first permanent settlement in what is now Adair County and he settled there with his wife (Jane Montgomery) and about 30 other families. The Casey family had migrated to America from Ulster earlier in the century.


















On his father's side of the family, the Clemens (originally Clements) were also of 'Scotch-Irish' descent, but this time they came from a more aristocratic Ulster background in east Antrim that had an association with an English army tradition before the American Revolution. Samuel Langhorne Clemens' grandfather was a Samuel B. Clemens, the first of Mark Twain's father's family to make an appearance in the historical record in America. The occasion was in October 1797, with his marriage to Pamela Goggin in Virginia.

Here I jump to the Clements (or 'Clemence') family of 'Clements Hill' between Straid and Ballynure. This district is right at the start of the Dalway's Bawn cattle trail, and in an earlier post ("The Rise of John Dalway's Cattle Empire in East Antrim", 10 July 2010) I described how this area around Ballynure - although quite distant from Dalway's Bawn - was a key part of the Dalway land grants from the early 1600s.

I have re-posted the map here, adding in the location of Clements Hill, south-west of Ballynure (click on the map to enlarge).


Every local history book and tourist guide for Ballynure in east Antrim claims Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) as a 'famous son' of the district. Here is a typical entry:

Mark Twain, as he was known to his worldwide readers was christened Samuel Langhorne Clemens. His family roots were on the edge of Ballyclare and the oldest gravetone in the nearby churchyard in Ballynure is his ancestor Elenor Clemens - 1628. A favourite walk in this part of County Antrim is from the Green Road to the Ballynure Road. It is known as the Back Walks and crosses an area called Clements Hill from whose height there were splendid views across the valley of the Six Mile Water. This was the Clemens family home for many years - the 't' being added at a later date. They were an important family and there are records of their contribution to the town of Carrickfergus where some served on the governing bodies. Samuel himself refers to the family living in this County Antrim valley.

These Clements were not ordinary tenant farmers, but they belonged to the same old-established, English landlord class as the Dalways - and indeed they married into the Dalways in the 1600s.
In the old graveyard of Ballynure Parish Church are two large family vaults belonging to the Dobbs family of Castle Dobbs (who by also marrying into the Dalway family, came to be in possession of much of the former Dalway estate at Ballynure). But the oldest gravestone in the burying ground is that of Ellinor Clements, dated 1698. Here is the full inscription (with the Dalway connection highlighted):

Clements
Here lyeth the body of Ellinor,
the wife of Edward Clements of Mvlligan-Hill gent.
and eldest daughter of Alexander Dallvay of Bally Hill Esqr.,
who departed this life
03 Mar 1698 aged 35 years.

The historical connections between Ballynure and Dalway's Bawn at Ballycarry - although they were at opposite ends of east Antrim and separated by the County of Carrickfergus - were extremely close because of the Dalway cattle trail. It is a bit like the close connections between two trading ports at opposite sides of a sea. This came home to me when I visited the graveyard at Ballynure Parish Church last week. On a ruined stone wall near the Dobbs' family vault, is a blue plaque erected by the Ulster History Circle to "JONATHAN SWIFT author of Gulliver's Travels, Prebendary here 1695-97".













Jonathan Swift's period as Church of Ireland Prebend of Kilroot is described in another earlier post ("The original Yahoos at Kilroot", 28 May 2010), but I was unaware then that his ecclesiastical duties extended beyond the 'East of Eden' parishes of Templecorran and Kilroot, to include this distant parish of Ballynure. Swift's literary importance is enormous as he has been described as the greatest satirist of English literature. So it is interesting to speculate about the possible closeness of Swift's friendship, not only with the Dalways and Dobbs at Kilroot (as they were the leading Episcopalian families in a district which was otherwise almost wholly Presbyterian), but also in Ballynure with Alexander Dalway's daughter Ellinor and her husband Edward Clements of Clements Hill (from whom 'Mark Twain' is believed to be descended).

THE CLEMENTS OF CLEMENTS HILL
King John in 1210 granted a charter to Henry Clemens and Roger de Preston to lands near the present town of Larne in County Antrim. By the 1600s, the family (sometimes spelled 'Clemence' and sometimes 'Clements') were living in the Ballynure area of the Six-Mile-Water valley.
In 1609, Edward and John Clements settled at Straid, which was then called Thomastown because it had been possessed under Elizabeth I by Thomas Stevenson of Carrickfergus. Edward Clements had just obtained a deed from John Dalway of the townlands of Ballythomas, Straidballythomas, and Ballymenagh. At the same time his brother John Clements is noticed as also holding lands near Straid.

About 1640, Henry Clements of Straid, who is believed to have been son of the above Edward, was deputy recorder of Carrickfergus. In 1648, we find him a captain in Sir John Clotworthy's regiment of foot, and in the following year in garrison at Carrickfergus, of which town he had been chosen an alderman. He died soon after.

Henry Clements (Junior) and his brother Edward, were among those who signed the Antrim Association in 1688. In 1692, Henry was one of the representatives in parliament for Carrickfergus. On the death of Henry, his brother Edward succeeded to the family estates. In 1707, he resided at Clements-hill, in which year he served the office of high sheriff of the county of Antrim, and in 1715 he was appointed major of a regiment of militia dragoons belonging to the same county, commanded by the Hon. John I. Chichester.

Edward Clements married Ellinor, daughter of Alexander Dalway, Ballyhill who died March, 1696, and by her had seven sons, and two daughters: Edward, Henry, Hercules, Francis, John, Dalway, Anne and Millicent. In 1716, Edward Clements was high sheriff of the county of Antrim. He died 1733.

The children of Edward Clements and Ellinor Dalway included several that had distinguished military careers. Francis was appointed major of dragoons on the decease of his father, and in 1721, served the office of high sheriff of the county of Antrim. Both John and Dalway Clements were officers in Colonel Skeffington's regiment when it served during the 1689 Siege of Derry. This tradition continued into the 18th century with several of the next generation of the family serving with their regiments in North America.

I have to admit that, swamped under a tide of genealogical information about the early migration of these Clements to America in the wake of Arthur Dobbs' first contingent from this area in 1751, I have not even attempted to trace the direct line of descent to Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain). But it is well worth somebody researching it - if only to justify another blue plaque in Ballynure graveyard. And, of course, also a similar one on Dalway's Bawn!

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 CUP and other antiquities

The Commons of Carrickfergus appears on the 1832 map (see last post) as a vast, featureless upland moor, devoid of any evidence of human activity apart from the cattle trail across it. But around the edge was a string of stone-built herds' houses which all seemed to look onto the commons just in the same way as a lough-shore fishing community might be strung around a large lough.

It was only when the revelation came that there was a 'necklace' of old houses around the commons did I realise that the only ruined house 'in' the Commons that I remember discovering as a boy was one of these - right on the boundary of the Commons, near Lough Mourne. Back then (50 years ago) it was roofless and overgrown, and when we pushed our way inside through nettles and brambles, I found a glass sitting on a remains of a window sill.

That glass was badly made, with a crooked stem, an air bubble in the base, and an uneven rim. It went with me in later years to student flats and anywhere else I called home as a sort of token of the many local mysteries and childhood wonders that, one day, I would resolve.

I wrote it into a novel, The Man Frae the Ministry, in a different setting altogether (a fictional Ulster-Scots settlement in Canada), where it became the proof of a former visit by Sam and Joel to old Sawney's house:

'His eyes went from the spot where Sawney had been sitting and spitting into the fire, to where the window was above the table - a table that was now a pale anaemic nettle. There was a small glass, half-full of dirt, on the sill of the glass-less window frame. It was the only piece of furniture to be seen. Sam lifted the glass, emptied it, and ran his finger round the inside to clean it out. "Not broken - nice", he said replacing it by its short stem. It had a slight tilt and a bubble flaw in the base.'

I think life is full of little 'coincidences' and events that only have meaning later. As the gospel song says, "Further along, we'll understand why".

Of course there are other antiquities in this 'barren' land of the Commons. Although permanent buildings weren't allowed until about 1870, seasonal huts made of sods and branches called 'booley huts' were numerous and in parts of the commons their circular pattern can still be traced on the ground. 'Booleying' was the summer grazing of cattle on the mountains and often the children and women lived they for the summer months in these temporary shelters, leaving the men to work the arable strips of 'infield' around the lowland hamlets or 'clachans' of stone-built cottages.

During the time when only Freemen of the town of Carrickfergus had grazing rights on the Commons, the booleying may well have been something that was practiced unofficially by remnants of the 'Old Irish' population living to the back of the Commons in places like 'Ardboley' and 'Milky Knowes'. The huts were always near a fresh water supply, and indeed they are found near 'Bryan O'Neill's Well' and down along the sides of the Woodburn river and the Craignabraher Burn. The Craignabraher Burn gets its name from the 'Friar's Rock' in the Commons which was once both a 'Mass Rock' for Irish Catholics and a 'Field Conventicle' site for Scotch Covenanters in the Penal days. In the 1800s, once the Penal Laws and the Test Acts were repealed, a 'Mass House' (Catholic Chapel) was built to the north-west, and a 'Meeting House' for Covenanter Presbyterians was built to the north-east. These Covenanters were known in Ulster as 'Mountain Men', and I often wondered was there a connection with their American kinsmen, the 'Hill-Billys', for 'billie' is the Scots word for 'friend ' or 'comrade'.

Lough Mourne itself was temporarily drained in the 1920s while it was being converted into a reservoir, and pre-historic dug-out boats were found, along with two artificial islands (crannogs) that were used 1000 years ago as defensive Irish homesteads.

A host of Irish place-names in the Commons testify to the survival of the language into more recent times, along with a smattering of Scots and hybrid Irish and Scots place-names as well. But unlike townland names which have often survived because they were written into land-leases, these local names are a real clue to language and culture of the 'commons' folk.

Craignabraher (Irish: Rock of the Friar or Priest)
Slimero (Irish: Red mountain plain)
Toppin (Scots: Cairn or peak of a mountain)
Isle of Glass (Irish and Scots: Green hill in the bog)
Duncrue (Irish: Fort of the cattle payment)
Munney Braddy Moss (Irish and Scots: Stolen peat bog)
Carnwhissock (Irish and Scots: Cairn of the severe blow)
Lignaca (Irish: Hollow of the mist)

For the final antiquity, we must go down the Cattle trail off the Commons to Dalway's Bawn. Here, East of Eden, an old Irish Harp was found in a bog beside the Bawn in the 1700s . This is the famous 'Dalway Harp', so named because it was kept by the Dalway family for years and is now one of the most treasured possessions of the Irish National Museum in Dublin. Dated to 1621, its image is used by the Irish state as its logo, and the name 'Dalway Harp' has become the generic name for this type of classic Irish harp.

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'.

An uncanny gathering at Bellahill farm, near Dalway's Bawn, in 1953

This is the second time the East of Eden Chronicles have taken a strange twist with the discovery of another old photograph taken about 1953 (see the 'year of the crowning' post). The event was a birthday party for Raymond Cowan - the boy in shorts pointing a toy gun across my face at the sheep. It was held on the Cowan farm at Bellahill beside Dalway's Bawn, and behind Raymond is my mum. Mrs Cowan is beside my mum on the left of the picture. In front of Mrs Cowan is Eric Glynn (of Davy Crockett hat fame in previous posts) . Mrs Glynn (with the round glasses second from the right) came from the area between Dalway's Bawn and Ballycarry before she was married.

But on this occasion I want to introduce another classmate from Eden Primary School - Alexander (Victor) Hart on the extreme left. His brother Ian is feeding the lamb on the extreme right, and my younger brother is in the middle at the front. Mrs Hart is the tall lady in the center.

This uncanny gathering is relevant to the Dalway story not just because it places us on a farm at Dalway's Bawn, but because the Harts play an important part in that story.

Jumping forward from 1597 when Lieutenant Harte was with John Dalway at the Battle of Pin Well at Ballycarry, to the mid-1800s, we find an Alexander Hart (sometimes spelled Harte) as the principal tenant farmer on the Dalway home farm at the Bawn in Bellahill townland.

Victor Hart (who I have just renewed contact with after 55 years) tells me that he is the 5th Alexander Hart from his home farm at Newseat, near Boneybefore. His brother Ian is still 'feeding the sheep', as he is now a Presbyterian minister of a large Belfast congregation.

But back in 1860, Alexander Hart was Dalway's main tenant farmer at Bellahill, and he had a network of other farms in the nearby townland of Crossmary and in the 'County of Carrickfergus' (which was divided into Alderman's Shares between 1576 - 1601). These Hart farms were mostly in the North-East Division of Carrickfergus, although one holding was a 'Burgers' plot in the center of the medieval town. The Aldermans Shares in North-East Division ran in parallel strips up to the Commons, and they brought with them rights of access to and grazing on the Commons. Up alongside each strip was a lane or 'loanen', and Hart's loanen ran up beside Victor's farm at Newseat and gave us Boneybefore boys a gateway - a straight walk - up to what was the magical world of Lough Mourne and the upland moors and bogs of the Commons.

Like Eric Glynn, Victor Hart was in my class at school and the three of us walked the mile or so from Boneybefore to Eden twice a day. On the way home (so Victor reminds me) I often went past my own house and walked with him back to his farm up Hart's Loanen until dark. The memories of this and of another parallel laneway on the next Aldermans strip (Davy Jack's Loanen) to Davy Jack's farm are legion, but I must stick to the story after one digression. Davy Jack's farm had a waterwheel, open-hearth cooking and he only used horses in the fields. His only road transport was a horse and farm-cart, and many times I rode in it even as far as Carrickfergus. On the side of the cart was 'Hugh Jack, Bluefield' painted in small white letters. I now know that Davy's grandfather was a Hugh Hart Jack, that his great-grandmother was an Alexandrina Hart who married a Hugh Jack, and that her father was the Hugh Hart of Bluefield farm that is marked on the map 0f 1860.

The fields on all these farms were always stocked with cattle when I was young, with a multitude of small thorn-hedged fields climbing up like ladders towards the foothills that marked the beginning of the Commons. The lanes were literally cart-tracks, but straight and not regarded as private.

When I re-trace my steps up Hart's Loanen (in my minds eye, for the fields are all housing developments now), I force myself not to divert into Victor's farm at Newseat. A bit further and the 'ruins' appear (the earlier Hart farm of Alexander Hart Senior in 1860). Then over a hump-back bridge, past Smiley's farm (John Smiley had joined the Star of Eden Pipe Band), straight across the Middle Road and on up a steep rise until the blue, wild waters of Lough Mourne were reached. Carrickfergus Castle used to house some prehistoric dug-out wooden boats found here, and the surrounding 'mosses' had wild plants and birds we never saw down in the lower fields.

I allow myself this apparently meaningless nostalgic ramble for three very good reasons:

a) I didn't know before now that there was a Hart family connection with John Dalway, or with Dalway's Bawn;

b) I didn't know before now that Hart's lane had originally been a secondary cattle drove route to and from the Commons; and,

c) I didn't know before now that a James Esler was a tenant of Alexander Hart at Dalway's Bawn in 1860 - sharing a double cottage with another 'byresman' called William Close. A 'byre' is, of course, a cattle-house and it appears these men were actually 'cow-boys' in Dalways Bawn itself. But my maternal grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather were all cattle farmers along the cattle drove routes of mid-Antrim, and had the same name: James Esler.

Now if it turns out that I am related to this James Esler, I will be just as excited as Victor Hart was to learn that he was descended from Dalway's comrade, Lieutenant Hart of Carrickfergus in 1597.

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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