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The O'Neills of the FewsAuthor(s): Tomás Ó FiaichSource: Seanchas Ardmhacha: Journal of the Armagh Diocesan Historical Society, Vol. 8, No. 2(1977), pp. 386-413Published by: Cumann Seanchais Ard Mhacha/Armagh Diocesan Historical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/29740892 .Accessed: 19/03/2013 13:54

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The O'Neills of the Fews

By Tom?s ? Fiaich

Part III: Survival at Homk

I. Under Charles II and James II

The Hearth Money Rolls of 1664 provide the earliest surviving list of the heads of households living in the Fews in the post-Cromwellian period.

While non-taxpayers are excluded from the list and several townlands have been omitted, they still give a good picture of the strength of native families in the area even after a decade of upheaval. Yet one surprising feature of the native surnames is that the name O'Neill has disappeared almost completely from Glassdrummond, Creggan and the surrounding area.

The 1602 Pardon to Turlough mac Henry had included eighteen males of the name1; the 1659-60 'Census' showed twelve in the whole barony of

Fews2; the 1664 Hearth Money Rolls listed seven O'Neill names in the

Barony of Lower Fews but only four in the Barony of Upper Fews i.e. the

barony containing Creggan parish3. Phelim O'Neill and Brian O'Neill were in the townland of Ballyeimagh and Turlough O'Neill in the neigh? bouring Conerayalling and Corammony. None of these townlands was in the Parish of Creggan and some of them are unidentifiable. The only

O'Neill left in the Glassdrummond area was the individual whom the enumerator wrote down as Bryan McGowbi. a poor attempt to render

phonetically the name Brian mac Aodha Bui. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that a deliberate attempt had been

made to exclude the former ruling family by their new masters. Other Irishmen might take leases on land from the new landlords but any

O'Neills who remained must have been literally "hewers of wood and drawers of water" since they were not reckoned liable to the annual 2/ tax on fireplaces.

This scarcity of O'Neills in the parish of Creggan after the Cromwellian era is also borne out by the long list of parishioners whose names are

appended to a document in support of the Franciscans in 16704. Though one of Creggan's four spokesmen elected for the occasion was a Hugh O'Neill, he is the only O'Neill among nearly two hundred names.

In view of the shattering losses which the O'Neills suffered in the Cromwellian confiscations, it is not surprising that several of the name took to the hills as Tories and Raparees. We have several long lists of

1 L. P. Murray, Historv of the Parish of Crcggan, p. 20.

iid.,p. 36. 5 id., pp.

36-7. 4 Killiney, Franciscan House of Studies, Ms. D2, p. 85.

386


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O'Neills of the Fews 387

Tories from the year 1670 when St Oliver Plunkett secured a pardon for them on condition that they would go abroad. The group of Tories with

whom he was immediately concerned included at least two O'Neills?? Con and Henry. Neither of these, however, seems to have belonged to the Fews line, Con being described as the son of Niall ?g mac Airt mac Aodh

Meirgeach of the parish of Longfield, Co. Tyrone, and Henry being the son of Niall ?g of the parish of Dromore, Co. Tyrone1.

Another O'Neill in whom the Archbishop took a personal interest was

young Niall O'Neill whom he sent to Rome in the winter of 1671 along with William Plunkett and James O'Meara to study for the priesthood. This was the young man whom John MacMoyer later claimed to have

brought treasonable letters from the Archbishop to Secretary Baldeschi. In his evidence in court Mac Moyer said that O'Neill had been the Arch?

bishop's page but Oliver stoutly denied this. It is not unlikely, however, that the Archbishop would have kept the three young men for a short

period in his own house to give them some training in liturgical ceremonies, Latin and perhaps even in Italian before sending them abroad.

Mac Moyer claimed that O'Neill, Fr Thomas Crawley and himself were all from the same area2. This points to Co. Armagh as O'Neill's birthplace.

We know otherwise that Hugh O'Hanlon of Sturgan, Co. Armagh, who also gave evidence against the Archbishop in London, was married to Niall O'Neill's sister3. It is not unlikely, therefore, that Niall O'Neill was a native of South Armagh and may have belonged to the Fews line.

O'Neill's career in Rome was an unhappy one. According to St Oliver he arrived there begging and destitute and was ill for three months. He wandered around the city. There is no indication that he ever became a student of the Irish College Rome, but he did become a student of Propa? ganda Fide College along with William Plunkett. He died before the summer of 1674, while still a student4. When sending him to Rome Oliver calls him Nelanus Salt O'Neill, but I do not know what the epithet signifies. In his first report on the diocese of Armagh5 the Archbishop

mentioned two youths of the house of O'Neill who had a vocation to the

priesthood. One was the son of Sir Phelim O'Neill [the future Gordon?] and the other was "the son of Terence O'Neill, a gentleman accomplished in both peace and war", both of whom he wished to send to Propaganda. If the latter is identical with Niall O'Neill, he may have been a son of

Turlough mac Airt ?ig of Tassagh who died c. 1673. One further group of O'Neills which was brought into close association

with Oliver Plunkett was the family group of Henry O'Neill and his two sons, Phelim and Owen, who were in London from the spring of 1681 to

give evidence about the Popish Plot. Only one of the sons gave evidence at Oliver Plunkett's trial and I have argued elsewhere that this wa> Phelim6.

There is nothing to indicate that these O'Neills belonged to the Fevs

1 CSP1 1666-1669, p. 608 and CSPI 1669-1670, p. 145. 2 A. CurtaYNE, The Trial of Oliver Plunkett, p. 148. 3 S.A.M., Vol. I, No. 2 (1955), p. 66. 4 Letter of St. Oliver from Armagh to Rome, 13 August 1674. 5 Published in Co. Loath Arch, jnl., Vol. 14, No. 1 (1957). 6 "The Son of Sir Phelim O'Neill/' in S.A.M., Vol. I, No. 2 (1955).



The O'Neills of the Fews 389

Co Antrim, but it may equally be Creggan. What is clear, in any case, is that the three confiscations and plantations of the 17th century left few of the O'Neills of the Fews in their ancestral territory by the end of that

century.

II. Creggan O'Neills of the i8th Century

When some of the children of Art ?g O'Neill settled in Creggan parish after their father's death in Spain in 1663, they were thus coming to an area which, although their father's birthplace, had been denuded of nearly all their relatives. It is no surprise therefore that all later O'Neills of

Creggan whose ancestry can be traced with any degree of certainty go back to a son of Art ?g's.

We have already treated in the previous section of some of Art ?g's children and grandchildren and have covered the spectacular military career abroad of his great-grandson, General Felix O'Neill. Here it may not be out of place to investigate the more humdrum lives of some of the General's relatives who remained at home in Ireland. Reduced to the status of tenants-at-will on a corner of the lands which they formerly possessed it is not surprising that they have proved very elusive in historical sources and that many questions concerning them still remain unanswered.

The most notable O'Neill in the Creggan area in the 1750s and 1760s was

undoubtedly Domhnall (Daniel) O'Neill1. In the 1766 List of the Families in the Parish of Creggan he heads the names for the townland of Anaghgad, situated in the south-west of the parish along the Fane River. His name is followed in the same townland bv those of Owen O'Neill and Francis

O'Neill.2 All the indications are that Daniel O'Neill was a brother of General

Felix. Daniel was certainly the grandfather of the two young O'Toole

boys who entered the Spanish army and the family tradition of the latter has always maintained that they were able to secure commissions

' 'through

the influence of their uncle General O'Neill".3 The difference in age between the young cadets and the General suggests that the latter was

really their granduncle (i.e. their mother's uncle) and this implies that the General was a brother of either Daniel or Daniel's wife. While the latter

possibility cannot be entirely ruled out, it will be shown later that Daniel's wife was probably a Magennis. and this leads to the inevitable conclusion that Daniel himself and the General were brothers.

At the time of his death Daniel O'Neill is described as a " Yarn merchant

or manufacturer".4 During the second half of the 18th century the "yarn

1 Domhnall was presumably called after his grand-uncle, the son of Art ?g who remained on in Spain in 1663. The latter Domhnall became a Colonel in the Spanish army in the Low Countries where he was still serving in 1680; cf. Jennings, Wild Geese, pp. 469, 475. 2

Murray, op. cit., p. 43. The only other O'Neills listed in 1766 are Francis O'Neill in Glassdrummond and Conn O'Neill (with another unnamed one) in Tully vallen.

3 Information from the late Bishop Quinn of Kilmore. 4 Dublin G.O., Ms. 259; Administrations to Intestates in the Prerogative Office Dublin from earliest times to 1802, Vol. III.



390 Seanchas Ard Mhacha

merchant" in the linen trade was a dealer who travelled around the small towns and villages and brought linen and yarn by pack-horse or cart to the larger linen markets. The "manufacturer" was a man who rented out

cottages with small plots of potato ground to the cottier weavers or

journeymen and often received his "rent" in linen1. Both descriptions imply that he was a man of some substance in the locality. It is a measure of the tenacity of local tradition that when Father Murray was collecting information about Glassdrummond Castle in the early twenties of the

present century, he was told that the O'Neills had erected a cottage there for the linen weavers employed by them.2

Daniel O'Neill was able to lease the townlands of Coolkey and Coriagan (164 acres) on the Bath estate in Co Monaghan in 1756.3 The lease was for twenty-one years and the annual rent payable by him was ?60. Most of the leaseholders on the estate belonged to planter stock and were Protestants but they included a sprinkling of Irish Catholics like the Plunketts of Rocksavage and the O'Callaghans of Culloville. In this way O'Neill entered the class of middlemen who re-let at high rents to under? tenants the land which they had leased from the landlord. Such people in

general made themselves obnoxious to the Irish peasantry of the 18th

century. His position as a middleman in the land structure of the era is in keeping with his position as a middleman in the linen industry. On 20 April 1767 he was appointed one of the four petty constables for the

parish of Creggan.4 From the lament written by Art Mac Cooey on the death of Art ?g

O'Neill, son of Daniel, in 1769, it is evident that Daniel's wife was named

Brigid. In one reference the poet calls Art ?g "Dalta Bhr?de, croi na f?ile" and in another he calls him "mo Ghuaire, mac Bhr?de."5 A few lines in the poem imply that one of Art ?g's ancestors was a Magennis of

Iveagh and perhaps this was his mother Brigid.6 A close relationship between this family of O'Neills and the Magennises is also implied in

Teeling's narrative of 1798 which will be referred to later. The marriage of Daniel and Brigid produced, in addition to Art ?g, a

number of other children who are referred to by Mac Cooey, when he addresses Art ?g, as follows:

T? clann d'athar faoi ghruaim ? d'fhuaraigh t? i gcr? uathu,

Mailsigh ar uaigneas, 's ? 'cruaidh-ghreadadh mear lag, Br?d i dt?r Dh?in 's gan d?? aici i bpl?isi?r, Neill?, an na? is ?ige, thug r?-shearc a cl?ibh duit, ?inr? gan chualla? 'n-am suaircis na dtr?anfhear

Is n?on Fheilimidh Ruaidh naoi n-uaire n?os buartha.7

This verse makes it clear that Art ?g had three sisters, Molly, Brigid

1 W. H. Crawford, Domestic Industry in Ireland, pp. 5-6. 2 Murray, op. cit., p. 73.

3 Clogher Record, 1967, p. 356. The townlands had previously been held by

William Tomalty for 23? (1714-45) and ?31. 12s. (1735 on) per annum. 4 Vestry Records of Creggan, 1738-1813, kindly placed at my disposal by Rev.

Maurice Noel, Rector. 5 Art Mac Cumhaigh: Danta (ed. T. ? Fiaich), pp. 119, 122.

?id., p. 124 (lines 175-92). 7 id., p. 125.




and Nelly; but who were the two persons mentioned in the last two lines ?

The fact that Henry would be left by Art ?g's death without a companion to share his merry-making suggests that he was Art ?g's brother and

perhaps "n?on Fheilimidh Ruaidh" was Henry's wife. This however is mere conjecture.

The only one of Daniel O'Neill's daughters on whom I have obtained further information is Nelly, the youngest. A document in the Dublin

Registry of Deeds indicates that on 5 January 1769, a Deed Poll was executed "between Daniel O'Neil of Anaghad in the Parish of Cregan and

County of Armagh of the one part and John Toole of Aghnagurgan in the

parish of Derrynoose and County of Armagh aforesaid, Linen Draper, of the other part."1 By this agreement it was laid down that in view of the

forthcoming marriage "between John Toole and Elinor O'Neil, daughter to said Daniel O'Neil," John Toole would, on Daniel O'Neill's death receive a full child's share of O'Neill's property. This marriage must have taken place shortly afterwards, as the eldest son, Daniel O'Toole (called after his two grandfathers), was born in 1770. Although the marriage took place two centuries ago, traditions concerning the children born of it have come down among their descendants to the present day. This was facilitated by the fact that one of the thirteen children of the marriage,

Henry O'Toole (1773-1875), lived for over a century. One of the children of the marriage became a priest of the archdiocese of Armagh, and the line has produced priests in every generation since then down to the late

Bishop Quinn of Kilmore. As mentioned in the previous section two other sons of the marriage?Daniel and James O'Toole?became officers in the

Regiment of Hibernia in the Spanish army. Daniel fought a duel with an Austrian officer and ultimately retired to Ballymacnab, while James died abroad.2

One of the witnesses of the Deed Poll of 1769 was Daniel O'Neill's son Art ?g, called in the document "Arthur O'Neill of Cross." His death in July 1769 at the early age of twenty-six was the subject of Art Mac

Cooey's longest and most poignant elegy. From the poem we gather that he was a most popular young man, generous and hospitable as a host, who rode a fine horse and frequented the races and the patterns. In July 1763, at the early age of twenty, he took part in the famous Oakboy demonstra? tion in Armagh and was elected one of the leaders of the movement.3 The poem mentions his "mansion" in Crossmaglen, but he died unmarried and intestate and was brought to the family grave in Creggan. Administra? tion of his property was granted on 7 August 1771.4 His name is still

barely legible on his father's gravestone in Creggan cemetery?Here lieth the body of Arthur O'Neill .... (it may not have been inscribed until after his father's death) but unfortunately the date is now illegible. For Mac Cooey the young man's death meant the end of all his hopes:

1 Registry of Deeds Bk 269, p. 600 (No. 182,003). 2 Records of Daniel and James O'Toole in the Spanish army are in Overseas

Archives, U.C.D., from Simancas 2593. Other family information from the late Bishop Quinn of Kilmore (d. 1974), a great-grandson of Henry O'Toole (1773-1875). 3 Mac Cooey says: "Nuair a chruinneadar each go hArdmhach' na cl?ire,

Is goireadh de caipt?n i dtoiseach ar ch?adaibh." 4 Betham notebook in Dublin PRO.




A liag na mbua, is buan do shaibhreas, Is iomai cloch ata anocht ag ?ad leat,

Mar chuir t? glas ar chaiptin na laochrai, An croi 1er thit fuil cheart tT? N?ill ann, Deireadh na F?inne chun maitheas a dh?anamh, Art, mac Domhnaill, is leon an t-?ag ?.1

Daniel O'Neill himself must have died by 1773. He is listed under this

year?Daniel O'Neill, Anaghad, yarn merchant?in the Dublin PRO Administrations Index. In the Dublin Genealogical Office Ms.?Ad? ministrations to Intestates in the Prerogative Office Dublin from earliest times to 1802?he is described as "Daniel O'Neill. Anagad, Co. Armagh,

yarn merchant or manufacturer," and the manuscript indicates that administration of his property was granted to his widow, Bridget O'Neill on 6 October 1773.2 Daniel's tombstone is still preserved, though broken in two pieces, in Creggan graveyard, a flat reclining slab of composite

material beside the O'Neill vault. An open hand (the Red Hand of Ulster ?) is carved on the top left corner of the stone and the inscription begins: "Here lieth the Body of Daniel O'Neill

. . . ." Unfortunately the remainder of the inscription is now indecipherable. The bottom of the stone contains the inscription in memory of his son Art ?g.

Daniel O'Neill was survived for a quarter of a century by his wife

Brigid. The only record of her death which I have found so far is in the Dublin PRO Index to Armagh and Drogheda Wills, which notes 1798 as

the year of probate of the will of "Bridget O'Neill of Annaghgad." Presum?

ably it was she who had erected the stone over the grave of her husband and son in Creggan, but when she came to die herself no friendly hand added her own name in the space left vacant between the other two

inscriptions. 1798, as we shall see. was not a year when friends of the O'Neills of the Fews could afford to be too bold.

While Daniel O'Neill was in residence in Anagad we find other O'Neills

occasionally figuring in contemporary sources. One was Charles O'Neill who was appointed overseer of the road from. Crossmaglen to Castle?

blayney in October 1763. Those appointed overseers of the roads were

usually men of substance in the area, a Johnston, an Eastwood or one of

the Protestant clergy. Thus on 4 October 1757 Charles O'Neill had been

appointed, along with John Johnston, as overseers of the road to Drum

muckewall; on 3 October 1758 the same two were appointed overseers of

the road from Crossmaglen to where it met the road from Castleblayney to Dundalk (now Culloville).3 Again the implication seems to be that this

O'Neill wras more than one of the peasantry. He does not figure in the

population List of 1766 and may have been dead by then. A Charles O'Neill who was brother of Niall O'Neill of Toprass and who had leased lands in the Lough Ross area about the middle of the 18th century is

probably the same man.

III. The O'Neills of Toprass

Before proceeding to deal with the descendants of the Anagad and

1 Art Mac Cumhaigh: Ddnta, p. 126. 2 In 1776 the tenant of the two townlands formerly leased by Daniel O'Neill is

described in the Bath Estate Rent roll as 'Widow O'Neill' (Information kindly

supplied bv Fr L. ? Mear?in). 3 Vestry"Records of Creggan, 1738-1813.




Drumbee families during the 19th century, it may be well at this stage to retrace our steps a little in order to treat of other O'Neill families in the area about which some information can be gleaned during the second half of the 18th century. One such family was the O'Neills of Toprass, near

Kilkerley, Co. Louth. We first meet Niall O'Neill of Toprass in a Corn Census of Co. Louth

compiled about 1740.x Later he held a large farm in Toprass on a thirty one year lease dated 27 December 1751 from William Forster.2 He also held lands in Lower Maghereagh and Lisdrumsinot for the same period. He is sometimes called Niall O'Neill of Barronstown, the name of the

parish in which he resided. His house was a notable haunt of the Irish

poets and musicians of the era and Nicholas O'Kearney states that Art Mac Cooey was family bard to the O'Neills of Toprass.3 Perhaps his house's attraction for visitors was no great surprise, as his wife Mary (maiden name unknown to me) bore him ?ve or six daughters?Judy, Sally, Ally, Rose, Elizabeth (Betty) and Anne. One of them became the

wife of Hugh Craven.4 Niall O'Neill's eldest son was named Owen?he also seems to have had a

younger son called Brian. We can date the father's death by reference to two documents. His will was made on 7 March 17695 and he was certainly dead before 25 August 1771, on which date a land document describes him as "deceased."6

Niall O'Neill was succeeded in Toprass by his son Owen. The document of 25 August 1771, already referred to, describes him as "Owen O'Neill of Baronstown, Co. Louth, Gent." It is a triple indenture made with a view to the impending marriage between Owen and Elinor Dillon, daughter of

Robert Dillon of Milltown, Co. Louth, Gent. Owen had inherited his father's farm in Toprass together with the lands in Maghereagh and

Drumsinnot, subject to some legacies. He had also been given by his uncle Charles O'Neill two holdings in Loughross on which the leases had still twenty-three years to run but these were also subject to certain

legacies. Finally he possessed long leases of twenty-eight or twenty-nine years on lands in Corliss in the Co. Armagh part of the parish of Creggan and in Lacknagreagh and Carrickrobin, beside Toprass, in Co. Louth.

Owen O'Neill and his young wife cannot have enjoyed their prosperity for more than a decade. He was certainly dead before the end of 1781, for on 10th January 1782 administration of his property was granted to his brother Brian.7 In fact he was probably dead by 1780, because in that year the 1771 indenture was registered in Dublin8 and this may have

1 Co. Louth Arch. Jnl., 1948, p. 282: he had 60 barrels of oats and 61 of barley, which indicates a larger than average area under tillage. 2

Registry of Deeds, Bk 333, p. 124 (No. 222,770). 3 RIA. Ms. 23E 12, p. 58b. A Hugh (O) Neale who figures in Dunbin in the 1664 Hearth Money Rolls (CLAJ, 1932, p. 512) might possibly be the ancestor of the O'Neills of Toprass, but a closer relationship with the main Creggan line of the 18th

century seems more likely. 4 Betham notebooks in Dublin PRO. One reference gives five daughters, another six. The daughter who married Hugh Craven is variously described as Alice or Anne. 5 Betham notebook. But another reference gives 7 March 1764. 6

Reg. of Deeds, Bk 333, p. 124 (No. 222,770). 7 Dublin G.O. 259, Vol. III. 8 Reg. of Deeds, Bk 333, p. 124 (No. 222,770).




been part of the process of settling his estate. Art O'Neill, the itinerant

harper, mentions in his Memoirs that when returning north from the third

Harpers' Festival at Granard in 1785, he stopped at Carolan's of Carrick macross and Plunket's of Rocksavage and came "from thence to Dundalk,

County Louth, to see my relations Owen O'Neill . . . ."l It is very likely

that the man in question here is Owen of Toprass, but as Art O'Neill did not dictate his Memoirs until more than twenty years later, he is probably confusing the 1785 visit to Toprass with many earlier visits there when

Owren was still alive.

Nicholas 0'Kearney refers to a lament composed in Irish on the death of Owen O'Neill entitled Mac N?ill Ui N?ill d? ng?illeann na t?inte and attributes it to Art Mac Cooey.2 I have not come across a copy of this

poem in any Irish manuscript so far, and the attribution to Mac Cooey gives rise to chronological difficulties which need not concern us here. But there can be no doubt that such a poem was composed, a further clear indication of the esteem in which the O'Neills of Toprass were held by the 18th century Gaelic literati. From the point of view of linking the

Toprass family with the main line of the O'Neills of the Fews it is par?

ticularly unfortunate that this poem should have disappeared, as it would no doubt have provided genealogical information on Owen's ancestors for at least a few generations.

IV. The O'Neills of Derrynoose

Before passing on to the 19th century it is appropriate to say a word here also about another distinguished O'Neill family of South Armagh which added lustre to the name before the 18th century had ended. The

family in question is the O'Neill family of Derrynoose, several of whom had outstanding careers in France. Although not descended from the Fews line, their link with the parent stock was even closer than the Sliocht Aodha's, going back as they did to a brother of Conn Bacach, the first Earl of Tyrone.

We have already noticed that Charles O'Neill of Derrynoose was out? lawed after the Williamite Wars. O'Farrell's Linea Antiqua preserves a

genealogical tree of these O'Neills of Derrynoose.3 It shows that Harry

?g O'Neill, the chieftain of the Caledon-Tynan area at the end of Elizabeth's reign, not only had a son named Turlough ?g (slain with his

father when assisting the government forces to put down O'Doherty's Rising in 1608), who was the father of Sir Phelim, but had another son named Brian. The latter's grandson, another Brian,

was killed at Aughrim, but his (Brian's) son Turlough. married Mabel, daughter of Hugh ?g O'Reilly. One of the sons of this marriage was Fr. Charles O'Neill, President of the Irish College, Paris; another was General John O'Neill whose military career stretched

as far as the Napoleonic wars.

Fr. Charles, however, was not the first O'Neill to preside over the Irish clerics in Paris during the 18th century. That honour belongs to Fr. John

1 D. O'Su u.i van, Car o?an, Vol. II, p. 171. 2 Amhrdin Airt MJtic Chubhthaigh (ed. E. ? Muirgheasa), Vol. I, p. viii. 3 Linea Antiqua, I, p. 347. See also G.O. Ms. 610, p. 29.




O'Neill who was born in 1697-8, ordained in Paris during the 1720s and

shortly afterwards appointed titular Dean and Parish Priest of Armagh.1 There is no evidence that he ever took up the care of souls in Ireland and all his priestly life seems to have been spent in France. A letter written

by the Vicar General of x\rmagh (Nicholas Devine, P.P., Dundalk) in

1743 contains the sarcastic statement: "We have a Dean and an Arch? deacon in Armagh, one in France and one in London, who have not taken

up possession per se vel per alium." Three years later Fr. John O'Neill was appointed "Prefect of the

Clerics" of the Lombard College i.e. President of one of the two com? munities which made up the Irish College, Paris. Since the 1670s the old Lombard College in the Rue des Carmes had been the headquarters of Irish students in Paris. With the great increase in numbers during the

early 18th century it was necessary to introduce a more acceptable system of government for them, and from 1728 on those who were already ordained priests usually occupied the Lombard College proper under four

pro visors elected by themselves, while the younger students, whether lay or clerical, often occupied some houses in a neighbouring street. In 1775 the latter group moved into more commodious premises in the Rue du Cheval Vert (now the Rue des Irlandais). A decree of 1737 had placed the nomination of provisors of the Lombard College in the hands of the Arch?

bishop of Paris, but while one provisor continued to be selected from each of the four provinces, the Archbishop normally nominated one of these four as "Principal."2

The group of younger students was also governed by a superior ap?

pointed by the Archbishop of Paris who was usually given the title of "Prefect of the Clerics." This was the post to which Fr. John O'Neill was

appointed in 1746. In this position he succeeded Fr. Andrew Donleavy. the compiler of the well-known catechism. Yet it is remarkable that when Fr. Donleavy's work was being printed in Paris, he received approbations of it in 1741 and 1742 from several Irish priests there (whose declarations and signatures are printed in the first edition) but there is no mention of

John O'Neill among them.3 His name does figure, however, in a letter dated Paris 6 December 1748 addressed to the Old Pretender recommend?

ing Bishop Michae.1 O'Reilly of Derry for the see of Armagh.4 By that time a small number of priests on the staff of the Paris college

were urging the need for widespread reforms in the training of Irish

priests and they advised that entry to the Paris college should be restricted to those not yet ordained. It would seem that Fr. John O'Neill was one of these 'reformers'?his position as 'prefect of the clerical students' was

almost a guarantee that he would take the side of the unordained clerics in the controversy with the ordained priests which occasionally flared up during the first half of the 18th century. But many of the Irish bishops

1 T. ? Fiaich, 'Parish Priests of Armagh since the Reformation/ in Armagh Cathedral Year Book, 1954, pp. 20-27 (based on notes of the late Rev. L. P. Murray). 2 P. Boyle, The Irish College in Paris from 1578 to 1901; M. O'Riordan (Sr Anselm), The Irish Colleges in Paris and the French Revolution (Unpublished Ph.D.

Thesis, ?.C.G., 1973). 3 An Teagasc Criosduidhe do v?ir ceasda agus freagartha (Paris, 1742), pp. xl?-xlv. 4 H. Fenning, The Undoing of the Friars of Ireland, p. 157.




had taken the opposite side when this controversy had broken out earlier,

claiming that the student priests normally returned to the Irish mission whereas very few of the unordained students ever returned to Ireland. The two communities had therefore been permitted to continue side by side.

In 1751 Archbishop O'Reilly of Armagh recommended Fr. John O'Neill

along with two other Irish priests on the continent for promotion to

bishoprics.1 He said he knew no one who would do greater good in Ireland than James Brady, provisor of the Lombard College "for a notable period" and John O'Neill who had "presided for many years over the education of Irish boys in Paris." Fr. O'Neill was not promoted. ?n 1758 John O'Neill claimed and was granted naturalisation as a French citizen. In the documents connected with his application he is stated to be a native of

Armagh.2 A fuller examination of John O'Neill's work as Superior of the clerics

of the Irish College, Paris must await the cataloguing of the College's archives, which, we understand, will be completed shortly. Having ruled the clerics for more than fourteen years he died on 6 March 1761. as recorded on his tomb in the old Lombard college:

Hie jacet M. Joannes O Neill Communitatis Clericorum Hibcrno-rum per 14 annos

lit 1res menses Praefectus ac Andreae Donleavy Successor vigilantissimus Obht die titf

Martii Anno 1761 Actatis 63 Requiescaf in Pace*

A fortnight before his death John O'Neill made his will in the Lombard

College on 22 February 1761. A summary of the will is still preserved in the archives of the Irish College, Paris and the notary who attended on the occasion recorded that the sick man lay in bed in a room on the second floor with a view on to the courtyard. The document indicates that most of what was in John O'Neill's room was not personal property but belonged to the community. He had, however, certain monies which he had received for Fr. Henry O'Neill, one of the O'Neills of Fintona, who was cur? of the

parish of Fontaine-la-riviere, near ?tampes, about thirty miles south of Paris. He had also some possessions of Fr. Charles O'Neill who was

superior of the ordained priests in the Lombard College. Fr. John O'Neill's most notable legacy was one of 650 francs to

Bartholomew Murry, Doctor of Medicine of the Faculty of Paris,

"my intimate friend for forty years." Dr. Murry was also made executor of Fr. John O'Neill's will. He later bequeathed all his property to the Irish students and purchased a house to provide extra accommodation for the clerics.

In 1761, the year of Fr John O'Neill's death, we find Fr Charles O'Neill

already well established as Principal of the Irish priests in the Lombard

College.4 He was born in Derrynoose perhaps as early as 1715 and educated in Paris where, according to the regulations laid down for the election of provisors. he should have taken at least the degree of Master of Arts at the Sorbonne. Until the Paris archives are carefully examined it

1 H. Penning, op. cit., pp. 177-8. 2 O'Riordan, op. cit.. Appendix No. 3. 3 P. Boyle, op. cit., p. 228.

4 id., p. 216.



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The O'Neills of the Fe 397

will be impossible to say how long he served as Principal of the Irish

College, as he may well have been appointed long before 1761. A document written in the early 19th century claims that he filled the position for over forty years, and as he did not vacate it until 1786. this would put his

appointment back as early as the 1740s. In 1773 he was a member of a committee set up in Paris, in reply to an

invitation from the Dublin Society, to provide assistance in the investiga? tion of Irish antiquities. A meeting was held in the Lombard College on

n February 1773 and resolved to have a copy made of the Book of Lecan. "the only old manuscript in the possession of the College of the Lombard." The meeting also decided to correspond with colleges, religious houses and libraries in France and adjacent countries in search of further Irish

materials. The letter conveying this information was published in the Hibernian Journal of 28 June 1773 and was signed by, inter alia, "Ch. O'Neill, Principal of the College of the Lombards."1 He still occupied that position in 1779 when he signed a testimonial letter for another Irish

priest.2 In fact Fr. Charles O'Neill more or less specialised in writing testimonial letters and the Archives du Minist?re de la Guerre in Paris contain a great number written by him for Irish exiles between 1763 and

1786.3 In 1786 Fr. O'Neill ceased to be President of the Lombard College. A

commission presided over by the Archbishop of Paris decided, after consultation with the Irish Bishops, that the system of rule by four

provisors should be abolished and a single superior should be appointed by the Archbishop. Two undated memoirs stated that the four provisors 'could not get on together,' but these may have been part of the campaign to have the system changed. Accordingly Dr. John Baptist Walsh, President of the Irish College. Nantes, was appointed superior of the Irish

College, Paris. The students considered this an interference with their rights and six

of them (including a medical student named O'Neill) drew up a protest which stated that the four superiors?respectable old men without any means of support?had been expelled and a usurper put in their place. But the Irish Bishops came out strongly in favour of the new system. The replacement of O'Neill by Walsh rankled for a long time and even as late as 1813-4 it was referred to by Dr Richard Ferris who claimed that

O'Neill was informed of it only on the day when he was forced to leave the college and that after more than forty years as Superior he was allowed to die in poverty in a hospice for old people without any assistance from the new superior and without a penny as pension.

Fr Charles O'Neill was an old man in his seventies when the Revolution broke out in 1789. Having escaped in the early stages the two Irish

colleges attracted the attentions of the mob in September and October 1791 as places where disloyal Catholics gathered to hear Mass. The attacks

were repeated during 1792, the students gradually dispersed, the new

superiors of the priests and clerical students (Drs. Walsh and Kearney)

1 J. Brady, Catholics and Catholicism in the eighteenth century press, pp. 152-3. 2 Arch. Mb., XIX (1056), p. 140. 3 S.A.M., Vol. VIII, No. 1 (1975-76). p. 68 4 Document in the Archives of the Irish College, Paris.



398 Se anchas Ard M hacha

imprisoned and the college in the Rue du Cheval Vert finally confiscated in May 1793. Both Irish Colleges had proved a haven of refuge for many

French priests during the persecutions of 1792 and 1793. I have failed to discover any mention of Fr Charles O'Neill's name in

connection with the Lombard College during these troubled years. This seems to bear out the truth of what the students' protest had hinted at in 1786 and what the Ferris document stated in 1813 i.e. that he was no

longer in residence in the college after the appointment of Fr Walsh in

1786. Yet he survived the September massacres and the Reign of Terror. A decree of April 1795 laid down that those Irish administrators and students in France who had no position would be included with refugees from the colonies in order to obtain means of subsistence. This was in answer to a plea from twenty-two Irish exiles, of whom, the Committee of Public Safety pointed out, four needed immediate help because of their

poverty, infirmity and age. The first name on the list was Charles O'Neill

aged 80 years.1 I do not know exactly when this veteran Armagh priest died, but it

cannot have been long after this date. According to early 19th century documents he died in the Hospice des Vieillards (or in the Hotel Dieu, which may refer to the same institution). I cannot say where he was

buried, as the College which he had served so long was no longer in Irish hands. There does not seem to be any monument to his memory either in the surviving church in the Rue des Carmes or in the existing college in the Rue des Irlandais.

Fr Charles O'Neill's brother. John, was born in Derrynoose on 20

January 1737.a He left Ireland for Paris when young and studied at the

College de Plessis, the college attached to the University of Paris where

many of the unordained Irish students took their lectures in the Human? ities and Philosophy. While still under 17 he joined the Regiment of Clare in the French army in December 1753 as a cadet, and transferred to the

Regiment of Roth in 1759. From that stage on, his record was remarkable ?2nd Lieutenant in 1761. Ensign in 1763, ist Lieutenant in 1769, Capt.

Commandant in 1774 (when the Regiment was that of Walsh). In 1779 he was created a Chevalier of St Louis, in 1788 was promoted Major and in 1791 was appointed Lieut-Colonel of the Regiment. In 1792 he became

Colonel of the corps and in the following year was appointed Chef de

Brigade and Mar?chal de Camp. Much of General O'Neill's army career had been passed abroad in the

service of France. He had fought in the campaigns in Germany in 1759-62 during the Seven Years War, those of Corsica in 1769-70 and had taken

part in three naval engagements against Admiral Rodney of Great Britain

during the American War of Independence. After the French Revolution he served in six campaigns on behalf of the French Republic between

1793 and 1798.3 1 O'RioRDAN, op. cit., Appendix No. 14.

2 John O'Neill's career is based on the material in J. C. O'Callaghan, History of

the Irish Brigades in the service of France, pp. 131-2. A third brother, James, remain?

ed in Derrynoose and was father o? Rev. Charles Terence O'Neill (d.1823), still

remembered as the Br?thair Ban. 3 R. Hayes, Ireland and Irishmen in the Trench Revolution, passim, lists General

John O'Neill and his son Charles among the officers of the Irish Brigade who remained

loyal to France after the Revolution.



The O'Neills of the Feivs 399

This veteran soldier of France was given leave to retire in 1799 and was

granted a pension of 3,000 francs in 1801. He settled down in Paris, where Miles Byrne, the associate of Robert Emmet, got to know him on his

escape from Ireland in 1803. Byrne's Memoirs provide some further details on the man from Derrynoose:

.... he was a small man, rather handsome, with fine features and nearly eighty years old. Having been born and brought up in Ireland, he spoke English. He had the

reputation of being a just chief, though a severe disciplinarian, and a strict observer

of military rules and honours. Though proud and haughty, as one of the descendants

of the great O'Neill of the North, still he was much liked by his officers .... they used to call their Colonel 'the Monarch' in their chat among themselves.1

Byrne thought the General somewhat older than he really was. General O'Neill died in his 75th year in the spring of 1811.

General O'Neill's son, Charles, had a military career which was little less distinguished than that of his father.2 He was born in Bapeaume (d?pt Pas de Calais) in September 1779 and joined the Regiment of Walsh as

' 'Enfant de troupe" at the beginning of 1790 when little more than ten

years of age. He was appointed Corporal in 1796, Sergeant in 1797 and

Sergeant-Major in 1798. In 1798 his father, then lodging in the Maison d'Irlande in the Rue de

Beaune in Paris appeared before two public notaries and made a declara? tion that the child who had been born out of wedlock to a certain Marie Fran?oise Le Brun, native of Abbeville, and baptised Jean Charles

Gaspard by the then curate of Bapeaume on 28 September 1779 was indeed his son and would henceforward bear the name of O'Neill and inherit from his father. He produced various documents in support of this

assertion.

Twenty year old Charles O'Neill was promoted Sous-Lieutenant in

1799, Lieutenant in 1800, Captain in 1803, Chef de bataillon in 1811,

Major in 1813, Lieutenant-Colonel in 1816 and Colonel in 1821. Three

years later, on retirement from active service, he was appointed to the

headquarters staff of the Ministry of War (Head of the Bureau of Infantry). He had come safely through some of the greatest campaigns of the

revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. In 1792-4 he was attached to the

Army of the Moselle and in 1795-7 to the Army being prepared for the invasion of England. When the latter became the nucleus of the force

despatched against the Austrians, O'Neill found himself taking part in the

Alpine campaign of 1797 and the Italian campaign of 1798. He was made a prisoner of war on 4 November 1799 at the battle of Fossano and released the following year.

From June 1804 until November 1807 he served at sea. He fought in

Spain and Portugal throughout the Peninsular War from 1808 until 1812. He was captured by the English on 22 July 1812 and was a prisoner of war until April 1813. In the following year he served in Napoleon's last

desperate campaign to hold France against the invading allied armies at

1 Memoirs of Miles Byrne, new ed., I.U.P., Shannon, 1972, pp. 105-6. 2 O'Callaghan, op. cit., pp. 131-2, gives a summary of the military career of

Col. Charles O'Neill, but I have been able to expand it considerably and add the information concerning his birth through the researches of Mrs. Micheline Walsh, to whom I am deeply indebted for several documents on John and Charles O'Neill.



40O Seanchas Ard M hacha

the defence of Meaux and Paris. When peace was restored he continued his military career and was with the French forces which put down the anti-Bourbon revolt in Spain in 1823, his last campaign.

Col. Charles O'Neill received both high honours and grievous wounds in the service of France. He was admitted to the Legion of Honour in

June 1808. An exploding shell injured his right hand at the first siege of

Saragossa in July 1808. He was shot through the left leg near Salamanca on 22 July 1812, the day on which he was taken prisoner. He was made a Chevalier of the Order of St Louis in 1817. He received a citation during the Spanish campaign of 1823 and was decorated with the Order of St Ferdinand later in the same year.

Micheline Walsh has collected together the comments made on him by the various Inspectors-General who reported on him and they are invari?

ably complimentary. It will be sufficient to quote here the report sub? mitted in 1823 by Count O'Mahony. whose surname indicates that he would be unlikely to be too severe on an O'Neill:

Colonel of the greatest merit by his military knowledge, his method of serving and

giving orders to his subordinates. The order and teaching which one observes in his

regiment do him credit. He is an excellent administrator, full of delicacy, he is a

slave to his duties and gives only the best example in all circumstances. His manners

are those of a well-bred man. ? serious injury to his left foot brings him to request leave to retire. His departure will be a great loss for the regiment, by which he is

loved and highly esteemed.

Col. Charles O'Neill died in Paris on 17 July 1844. Around the same time

J. C. O'Callaghan was beginning to collect material for his History of the Irish Brigades in ths service of France, even though the book was not

finally published until 1870. O'Callaghan ends his note on Col. O'Neiirs

military career with a few sentences on the man's character:

He appears to have been an honour even to the honourable name he bore; a good comrade and friend; ever willing, while employed in the War Office, to oblige his

father's countrymen. He was very fond of music, and both sang well and played on

several instruments.1

Miles Byrne, in his Memoirs, devotes several pages to Colonel O'Neill.2 The Colonel, according to Byrne, spent his last years collecting material for a history of the Irish Brigade in France and copied many deeds, in?

scriptions on tombs etc. He also went to great expense to obtain material from foreign archives, but he died before the work was published. He last visited Byrne in mid-July 1844 and in the course of a pleasant evening "sang several airs, Mrs. Byrne accompanying him on the piano." A few

days later he died suddenly, leaving as his executor a young cousin, also O'Neill, who was professor of mathematics at the College of Sainte Barbe. He was buried in the cemetery of Montparnasse, where a "hand? some monument" was erected over his grave.3

1 O'Callaghan, op. cit., p. 132. 2 Memoirs of Miles Byrne, new ed., 1.1,P., Shannon, 1972, pp. 268-274. 3 Charles O'Neill died aged 65 in the llth arrondissement and was buried in

plot 492, a plot obtained by his cousin Eugene O'Neill. The cemetery had been first

used in 1824, hence his father John O'Neill cannot have been buried in the same grave

(Information kindlv supplied bv M. ). Durand, Conservateur of the Cimeti?re du

Sud).



The O'Xeills of the Fews 401

In August 1976 I searched for this monument in the historic graveyard which contains the remains of writers like Baudelaire, Maupassant and Sainte-Beuve, sculptors like Rude and Zadkine and the illustrious com?

poser Cesar Franck. It wras a shattering disappointment to be informed

by the Direction that I had come two years too late. On 2 May 1974, as the family to which the grave belonged had died out. the surviving remains were taken from it, as also from another O'Neill grave in the same

cemetery and the ''handsome monument" was broken up and removed in accordance with current French law and practice. This w7ould properly be considered desecration in Ireland, and the fact that the vandalism was

legal makes it no less deserving of condemnation. It entailed in addition the deliberate destruction of an important historical record?-the in?

scription on the tomb, which might have provided useful information on the O'Neill family.

The bones were removed to the vast underground ossuaire in the centre of Montmartre (Pere Lachaise) cemetery in the north of Paris. I was told that the practice is to encase the bones in a small wooden box which is then built into the wall of the ossuaire with the family name on a plate on the outside. I followed the bones to their new resting-place but was refused permission to go down into the ossuaire. I cannot say therefore

what has been done in the case of the O'Neill grave. But it would seem that somewhere under that grassy plot, just below the gigantic monument erected to the memory of Adolphe Thiers, in a plain wooden box marked

with the name O'Neill, is the last resting-place of this illustrious soldier of France who was proud to claim Derrynoose as his ancestral home.

One last descendant of the Derrynoose O'Neills must be mentioned in conclusion for the sake of completeness. This study has been immeasur?

ably complicated at times by the repetition of the same Christian names? Art and Turlough and Henry and so on?from one generation to the next. It is almost a relief therefore to meet one of the family bearing the unique name of Gustave Adolphe. Called after the great soldier-king of Sweden he could hardly be expected to follow any career except a military one.

Gustave Adolphe O'Neill was the grandson of the man born in Derry? noose in 1737 (General John). The latter's son Francois married Anne Marie Ropert and the son of that marriage was born at Josselin (dept. du

Morbihan) in Brittany on 1 February 1792. He enrolled as a volunteer in the 15th Regiment de Ligne in 1807 at the age of 15 and was immediately sent off with the French invading army to Spain. He served for almost

21 years in Spain as fourrier in the regiment and was promoted Sergent from 1 January 1810 and S er gent-Major from 10 December of the same

year. After service in both Spain and Portugal during the Peninsular war he was taken prisoner as a member of the garrison of Salamanca Fort on 27 June 1812. After his release he was promoted Sous-Lieutenant of the 47th Regiment on 13 March 1814.

A report on Gustave Adolphe O'Neill, compiled in 1815, after the Bourbon Restoration, states that he is of good principles and devoted to the King, and points out that Lt. Col. (Charles) O'Neill, a very dis?

tinguished officer, is his uncle. He retired from the army as from 1 May 1822 in rather peculiar circumstances. On 10 April previously the Colonel of the 46th Regiment reported that O'Neill had gone to Josselin on four



402 Seanchas Arel M hacha

months leave on i December 1821 but had not returned to the Regiment when the period was up. The Colonel feared that he had accumulated debts and was afraid to re-appear.

After his retirement, whether forced or voluntary, he remained on in

Brittany. In July 1830, when the liberal monarchy of Louis Philippe was inaugurated, he was the first to raise the tricolour in Redon, a fairly large town in the d?partement of Morbihan and joined the National Guard

as a volunteer. Tn 1833 we find him writing from Vannes, the largest town in the d?partement, seeking a post in the Gendarmerie of Morbihan. I have

no further reference to him, but as befitted one who bore the name of Gustave Adolphe, not to mention the surname O'Neill, he was militarily minded even in his retirement.

V. The end of an Era

At the time when their kinsmen from Derrynoose were making such a name for themselves in the French army, the O'Neills of Creggan were

gradually reduced to comparative poverty in contrast to their former

power and wealth?-mere tenants at will on a few small holdings of the lands once possessed by their forefathers. It is necessary now to seek to follow them through the obscurity which was to be their lot during the

early 19th century. The turn of the i8th-i9th centuries carried off several members of the

family in Creggan parish. The indexes in the Dublin PRO indicate that in the following years O'Neill wills from Creggan were admitted to

probate:1 Henry O'Neill of Annagad

? 1792

Francis O'Neill of Drumbee ? 1805 Margaret O'Neill of Drumbee

? 1808

Unfortunately we cannot identify these individuals with absolute certainty, but it seems likely that Henry was the brother of Art Og mentioned in Mac Cooey's poem and that Francis and Margaret were husband and wife, the ancestors of the O'Neill family of Drumbee which survives to the

present day. A lease on a holding in Drumbee from 1 November 1790 was secured on ist April 1791 for three lives or 31 years.2 Perhaps this lease of 1791 marked the movement of Francis O'Neill of Anagad (where

we found him in 1766) into the neighbouring farm in Drumbee. Even as late as the fatal year 1798 the name O'Neill was still one which

won the highest esteem from the native families of Creggan and attracted the ire of the yeomanry. When Charles H. Teeling escaped from Co.

Down after the battle of Ballinahinch, he received shelter at the residence of Iver Magenis, "in a secluded and romantic situation, between the dark lake of Camlagh and the heathy mountain of Belleek." After receiving

help from Fr. Campbell of Ballyargan, Teeling and Magenis headed

through the night for Lough Ross. They had an encounter with a

yeoman (?) "going home from the night guard at Cross" and passed by Ballymoyer.

1 Dublin PRO, Ms. G.3.22: Index to Armagh and Drogheda Wills. * Document in possession of the late Mr. Anthony Murphy, Crossmaglen.




The sun was up when they reached another Magenis homestead near

Lough Ross, a "neat and well-trimmed cottage." Immediately Rose

Magenis, the young girl of the family, told them the latest news: "we were all up last night

.... There were bad doings here .... The Cross and

Creggan men were out. Old O'Neill's house was wrecked and young Felix was carried off a prisoner; but father says they can't harm him."

While Teeling was resting in the house, I ver "stepped down to old O'Neill's." A party of yeomanry passed the house but did not intrude and "in that immediate quarter of the country no regular troops had been stationed." Later Teeling discovered what the yeomanry were after:

"During the outrage of the preceding night, some young fellows of the

neighbourhood, of bolder spirit than the rest, had attempted to rescue O'Neill's little property from destruction and his son from the hand of

midnight ruffians. Blows were exchanged in the struggle, and some casualties occurred on either side, though not of a serious nature." Some arms and accoutrements had been lost and the yeomen were seeking to recover them.1

This interesting passage indicates that in 1798 the O'Neill homestead which was wrecked was not far from Lough Ross and was near the residence of "Magenis More." Although I have not been able to discover

where the latter was situated, it is likely the O'Neill residence in question was in either Anagad or Drumbee, only about two miles from Lough Ross, and "old O'Neill" may have been the old man Francis O'Neill who in

1766 was listed as residing in the townland of Anagad. In 1801 "Felix O'Neill of Anagad, Co. Armagh, Farmer" who some years earlier had leased the townland of Anagad at an annual rent of ?91.35 surrendered the remaining term of his lease to Francis McVeagh of Culloville, shop? keeper.2 The transaction suggests that O'Neill had been in good circum? stances when he had leased the whole townland, but had got into pecuniary difficulties by 1801 and was perhaps even in debt to the local shopkeeper.

In the same year that Felix O'Neill disposed of his lease on Anagad (1801), a Felix and Con O'Neill secured a lease on a holding in the town land of Carran on the other side of Crossmaglen.3 It is not possible to

prove that it was the same Felix who took part in both transactions but there is every likelihood that it was. There are traditions in various

O'Neill families about their ancestors having been burned out in Anagad about 1798 and this is in harmony with Teeling's narrative. A possible reconstruction of the events would therefore be that Felix of Anagad, after his release from imprisonment, decided to settle down in the town land of Carran. With his brother (?) Con he obtained a holding on lease there in 1801, but because of straitened circumstances, partly caused no doubt by the family losses around 1798, he had to dispose of his interest in the townland of Anagad in order to pay for his new holding and perhaps build a house thereon. His descendants have remained in Carran until the present day.

1 C. H. Teeling, Personal Narrative of the Irish Rebellion, Sequel, Ch. III. John Magennis, the well-known Co. Down United Irish leader was married to Teeling's sister.

2 Reg. of Deeds, Bk. 539, p. 173 (No. 354, 602). 3 Lease in PRONI, Belfast.



404 Seanchas Ard M hacha

It is not easy to follow Felix O'Neill with certainty after 1801. On ist

May 1812 a certain Felix O'Neill bought the tenancy of a house in Cross

maglen from Patrick Conlon for a term of thirty-one years or three lives,

subject to a yearly rent of ?1.5s. It is called, in the deed of conveyance.1 House No. 1 and the whole property was 54 feet wide in the front and

174 feet in the rear. Two things are noteworthy about this deed: (1) O'Neill

signed it by "his mark" and (2) he is called Felix O'Neill of Dandalk. I do not know if he was the Felix O'Neill who had been arrested in 1798.

We learn a little more about this house in a later deed.2 The original lease of it had been granted by the landlord Thomas Ball to Patrick, Peter and Michael Conlon of the town of Crossmaglen. dealers. After holding the lease of it for nearly six years, O'Neill disposed of it on 9 January 1818 to Johnston Hamilton of Crossmaglen, farmer.3 In the document

registering the latter transaction O'Neill is called "Felix O'Neill of Aneen. Co. Louth. farmer." I cannot say what place is meant by Aneen, possibly Aghmeen

near Ravensdale.

While the Felix O'Neill who bought and sold the tenancy of the house in Crossmaglen may or may not have been identical with Felix of Carran.

various references to a Felix O'Neill in the Crossmaglen Parochial

Registers4 almost certainly apply to the latter. Nothing in the Registers implies that there was more than one Felix O'Neill living in the parish.

He was already married to Margaret McParland in the 1790s and had children baptised as follows: John in March 1799. Sarah in August 1801 and Rose in July 1813 (the register for 1803-12 is missing). He acted as

sponsor at baptisms in January 1797, August 1799 and May 1801. He

himself (or possibly a younger namesake) witnessed a marriage in February 1820. The absence of the parochial register for 1810 removes the one source which would have clinched the identification of Felix of Carran

with the Felix who married Margaret McParland. We know from other sources that in that year Con O'Neill of Carran was born. Everything

points to his having been the son of Felix O'Neill and Margaret McParland

but the documentary proof of this is now lost. A final reference to Felix O'Neill of Carran occurs in a list of registered

freeholders of ?20 and 40s in Co. Armagh between 1 January 1813 and

1 January 1820.5 According to this list he became a 40/- freeholder on

the estate of Miss Kelly of Carran in 1818 and was thenceforward entitled

to vote at parliamentary elections. Only one other O'Neill in the Barony of Upper Fews had this right?the O'Neills left in Anagad and Drumbee

were without it. By the middle of the century not a single O'Neill appeared on the Voters' lists for the whole Barony of Upper Fews.6 It was a clear

indication that the long drawn out struggle to subdue the O'Neills of the

Fews had finally succeeded?the family that had once ruled the Fews had

1 Reg. of Deeds, Bk. TOT, p. 373, (No. 484,508). s ibid., Bk. 817, p. 433. (No. 550,568).

3 The grave of Johnston Hamilton is in Creggan churchvard. He died 18 February

1848 (?) aged 78. 4 1 wish to thank Very He v. Joseph Canon Kelly, P.P., for making these available

to me. ?", NLl. Printed by W. Pooler, Armagh. 0

See, for instance, Parliamentary Voters of Co. Armagh, 1851-52, in NLI.



The O'Neills of the Few s 405

now no longer a voice in the selection of their rulers; those who had once owned the Fews did not now possess sufficient property to be put on the

parliamentary register.

VI. Creggan O'Neills of the 19TH-20TH Centuries

It is tantalizing to be able to follow the fortunes of the O'Neills of the Fews down to the end of the iSth century and to trace the present O'Neill families of the area back to the early 19th century and yet not be able to

bridge completely the narrow gap between the two. This is the position in which we find ourselves at the present moment. For this reason it is better to take each of the 19th century families in turn, leaving open for the present the question of their link with each other and with the parent stock.

The Baptismal and Marriage Registers of the Parish of Creggan Upper (Crossmaglen) which survive, with some gaps, from 1796, indicate how

plentiful the surname was in the parish at the end of the 18th century. From these registers it is clear that there were at least fifteen and perhaps as many as seventeen males of the surname who were either married themselves or were sufficiently grown up to act as sponsors at baptisms and witnesses at marriages in the parish around the year 1800. Unfortun?

ately the registers do not indicate the townland to which each belonged and it is therefore all the more difficult to identify their ancestry and to

separate two or more individuals bearing the same Christian name. The

following adult O'Neills figure in the earliest register around the year 1800: 1. Terence O'Neill I: father of John who was born in November 1796. 2. Brian O'Neill: sponsor at baptism of above; probably identical with

one of three Brians below.

3. Terence O'Neill II: husband of Catherine Magoogen. Their daughter Catherine was baptised in August 1797.

4. Felix O'Neill: sponsor at baptism in January 1797 and on various other occasions.

5. Art O'Neill: sponsor at baptism of Thos. Burns in December 1797; this would indicate that he probably belonged to Anagad, where several Burns families resided.

6. Brian O'Neill I: husband of Brigid Connolly; their son Daniel was

baptised in April 1798. 7. Charles O'Neill I: husband of Mary Hearty; their son Richard was

baptised in May 1798. 8. John O'Neill: sponsor at baptism in June 1798. 9. Patrick O'Neill: sponsor at baptism in August 1798.

10. Thomas O'Neill: sponsor at baptism in October 1798. 11. Brian O'Neill II: husband of Jane Hargrave. Their daughter Anne

was baptised in November 1799. 12. Con O'Neill: sponsor at baptisms in April and November 1799. 13. Hugh O'Neill I: sponsor at baptism in July 1799. 14. Brian O'Neill III: husband of Catherine O'Neill; their daughter Anne

was baptised in July 1800.



4o6 S canchas A rd M hacha

15. Hugh O'Xcill II: husband of Catherine Kieran ? the marriage took

place on 12/5/1800. He may be identical with Hugh O'Neill I above. 16. Francis O'Xcill: witness at the aforesaid marriage on 12/5/1800. 17. Charles O'Xcill II: husband of Anne Harvessy; their daughter Brigid

was baptised in April 1801. There is a gap in the records from February 181*3 to December 1812 but

the registers from 1812 to 1829 show that during the latter period there were, in addition to many of the names listed above, further adult O'Neills

bearing the names Ow:-n (1812. 1823), Henry (1818), James (1822), two Daniels in 1824 and 1828. another John in 1826 and three or four other

Hughs. In the middle of the last century there were seventeen O'Neill house?

holds in the parish of Creggan. This is the figure provided by the index based on Griffith's Valuation (c. i860).1 Yet the Famine (and the heavy emigration which followed it) had disastrous effects on their numbers.

The following table shows clearly its impact on the numbers of O'Neills

baptised in the parish of Upper Creggan during successive decades of the

19th century; only in very recent times has the name begun to recover lost ground again:

1820 - 29 ? 16 (Reg. incomplete)

*$33 -

39 ?

15 (Reg. incomplete) 1840

-- 49

? 26

1850 -

59 ?

13 i860 -- 69

? 8

1870 -

79 ? 8

1880 - 89 ? 6

1890 -

90 ? 2 (5 O'Neill deaths during

the same decade) 1900

- 09

? 4 (all one family)

1910 -

19 ? o

1920 -

29 ?

3

I93? -

39 ?

9 (2 families) 1940

- 49

? 6 (2 families) 1950

- 59

? 1

i960 -

69 ? 22

We shall now turn our attention to the principal O'Neill families to which many of the above individuals belonged:

(1) The O'Xcills of Drumbee As we have seen already, Francis and Margaret O'Neill of Drumbee

died at the beginning of the 19th century. The will of the former was admitted to probate in 1805 and of the latter in 1808. I have not succeed? ed in discovering the names of their children. One descendant of theirs,

whether son or grandson, was Terence O'Neill of Drumbee. born about

1790, who married Ann McGeeney in 1816. Their son Francis, born in

1 Surname Index in NLI. In addition to the 17 families in Creggan parish, Newtownhamilton parish had 3 O'Neill families. 8

Figures based on a count of names in the Baptismal Registers and Index, Crossmaglen.




1828 married Brigid Lennon. Another descendant of the original Francis and Margaret was Charles O'Neill, born about 1820 who married Nelly

Harvessy.1 In the Tithe Composition Book for Creggan parish2 compiled in 1828

four different O'Neill holdings are listed in the townland of Drumbee.

Hugh O'Neill held 9 acres 3 roods and 5 perches for which he paid 6s. nd

tithe, Charles held 7 acres and was assessed for 5s. 5d tithe, Terence held

3a. ir. and had only to pay is. 4|-d tithe, and John had only ir. iop. for which he was required to pay 3-id. None of these survived the Famine

period in the townland and was still there in the 1850s as occupier of a

holding. In the middle of the 1850s another Charles and a Francis O'Neill jointly

held a lease on 22a ir 32p in Drumbee. Their rent was ?3.13s.iod. and

the valuation of the property was ?c).i3s.iod. It is stated in the docu? ment3 that the original lease went back to 1 November 1700 and was drawn up on 1 April 1791 for three lives. With Edward Magill they were the only tenants in the townland who had a lease on their holdings?all the rest were yearly tenants.

By the time of Griffith's Valuation compiled in the early 1860s Charles and Francis O'Neill jointly held 21a ir 38p from the landlord Denis Kelly. The slight reduction in acreage may be due simply to more accurate measurement in connection with the valuation?the holding

was presum?

ably the same one as was originally leased in 1790. Both Charles and Francis had a house each, and when houses and land were taken together and half of the annual valuation assigned to the two, each man was

assessed to possess rateable property of an annual valuation of ?6.10.

The descendants of Charles and Francis O'Neill during the past century ??some of whom still happily reside in Drumbee and in neighbouring townlands?can be shown more clearly in tabulated form and are included in Table A below.

(2) The O'Neills of Anagad We have already

seen three O'Neills?-Daniel. Owen and Francis?listed

in Anagad in 1766. The will of 'Henry O'Neill of Annagad,' who may have been Daniel's son. was admitted to probate in 1792 and that of

'Bridget O'Neill of Annaghgad', who was almost certainly Daniel's wife, in 1798. But that historic year brought, as we have noticed above,

personal and property losses to the Anagad family, and in 1801 'Felix O'Neill of Anagad' surrendered the remaining term of his lease on the

townland to a neighbouring shopkeeper. It is perhaps not a complete surprise, therefore, that we find no O'Neills

listed among the eighteen occupiers of holdings in Anagad in the Tithe

Composition Book of 1828.4 By the 185cs. however. Art O'Neill had a

1 Baptismal and Marriage Registers, Crossmaglen. 2 The Creggan Tithe Composition Rook is not with the books for other Co. Armagh

parishes in the PRONI (Belfast), as one would expect, but is included along with the books for Co. Louth in the PRO, Dublin.

3 Formerly in the possession of the late Anthony Murphy of Crossmaglen. 4 It is remarkable that not a single surname listed in Anagad in the 1766 List is

still there in the Tithe Composition Book in 1828.



4o8 Seanchas Ard M hacha

small holding there of 4a. 2r. 28p. for which he paid an annual rent of

?2.3s.4d. Hugh O'Neill held 2 acres for which he was charged 15/iod rent.1 In Griffith's Valuation (1864) Arthur O'Neill held a house, office and land (13a. ir. iop.) from the landlord Denis Kelly?his total annual valuation was reckoned to be ?3.10s. Michael O'Neill held 2a. 31*. 30p. together with a house and office and his rateable property was valued at ?2 per annum.

These two O'Neills, Art and Hugh, who were in Anagad in the 1850s, were possibly brothers, but unfortunately I have not discovered who their father was. The family must have moved back into Anagad sub?

sequent to 1828?perhaps around the time o? the famine wrhen there wras considerable emigration from the townland. This Art O'Neill was a well known 'character' and figures in a local ballad which is still well re?

membered:2

Press round the fire, folks, awhile Till I relate a tale

Concerning what of late befell A chap called Art ? N?ill.

A jovial soul this Arthur is And loves a jolly spree,

His dwelling-place, you all well know, The famous sweet Drumbee.

So one and all come join with me From Derry to Kinsale,

And raise a hearty cheer and cry: Long life to Art ? N?ill.

His brother Hugh must have been dead before the time of Griffith's

Valuation, as that document lists the latter's son Michael (1830-1916) as occupier of the second O'Neill holding. There was later some sub? division of the other holding after the death of Art, and the approximate sites of four different O'Neill homesteads are still pointed out near the shore of Anagad lake.

No descendant of this branch of the family lives in Anagad today but Table B at the end of this section indicates the various lines which derive from the two O'Neills who resided in Anagad in the 1850s.

(3) The O'Neills of Carran It has been mentioned above that a lease on a holding in the townland

of Carran was granted to a certain Felix and Con O'Neill in 1801. The

1 From documents formerly in the possession of the late Anthony Murphy of

Crossmaglen. 2 Words taken from The Dalin Men from Crossmaglen, a collection of local ballads issued in 1973 by Con Short and Seamus Mallon.




holding was by no means large. Presumably this Felix and Con were brothers and the former was the 'y01111^ Felix' who had been carried o? as a prisoner in 1798. Another Con, probably the son of Felix, was born in 1810 and this Con's descendants have remained in occupation of the

holding ever since. In 1828 Con O'Neill (brother of Felix) held 7a. 2r. in the townland of

Carran for which he paid a half-yearly rectorial tithe of 5s. 6Ad. Another O'Neill (Brian) had a holding of 2 acres in the same townland for which he

paid is 8d. tithe every half-year. By 1864 Con O'Neill (son of Felix) had a house, offices and land (12a. ir. 5p.) in the townland and his valua? tion for the lot was ?7.15s. In the same townland Owen O'Neill held 6a. or. 5p. of bog for which the valuation was fixed at 5 shillings.

The descent of the family to the present generation is shown in Table C below.

(4) The O'Neills of Dorsey and Ummericam No family of O'Neills is listed in Dorsey in the 1766 List. The earliest

record that I have found of an O'Neill in the townland is of a certain Art O'Neill who lived there in the early 19th century. He was admitted to the list of 40/- freeholders of Co. Armagh in 1817.1 He may have moved to

Dorsey from the Anagad area around 1800. Art was probably the father of Neal O'Neill who held 6a. 2r. 8p. in the

townland in 1828, for which he paid 4s.4d. half-yearly tithe. At the same date John O'Neill held 2a. 2r. 24p. in the townland and was assessed for

is.9d.half-yearly tithe. Neal married Hanna Muckian (1770-1825) and on her death in 1825 erected a monument over her grave in Creggan which is still to be seen there.2

There were four boys in Neal's family, Charles, Francis, John and Hugh and all figure in the townland of Dorsey, in Griffith's Valuation in the 1860s. Hugh had a house, office and 6a. 3r. 25p., Charles had a house and 2a. or. 20p, John had a house, offices and 4a. ir. 12p. while Francis had about the same amount of land as Hugh but is not listed as occupier of a house in the townland.

Hugh's son Francis, who was born in 1849, survived as late as 1933. When Creggan graveyard was being mapped out in 1909, Francis was the O'Neill who claimed the historic vault there as next-of-kin.3 There can be no doubt, therefore, that this family is directly descended from one of the 18th century families who still buried their dead in the vault, but I have not yet succeeded in tracing the relationship of Art O'Neill of

Dorsey with one of the 18th century individuals already mentioned. For the sake of completeness we provide in Table D below the genealogy

of this branch of the family.

1 Printed List in NLI, Dublin.

*S.A.M., 1972, p. 327. 8 From Map and List of names in possession of Rev. Maurice Noel, Rector of

Creggan.



410 Se anchas Ard M hacha

TABLE A

O'NEILLS OF DRUMBEE

Francis O'Neill d. i\ 1805

Margaret d. c. 1808

Terence b. c. 1790 m. Ann McGeeney 1816

Charles

b. c. 1820 m. Nelly Harvessv ri. before 1889 Brigid

b. 1819 John b. 1822

Owen

b. 1824 Francis b. 1828 m. Lennon

I 1

Ann Big Owen b. 1845 b. 1849

Mary b. 1852

John 1854-1938

m. Margt. Cunningham (d. 1922)

Terence

b. 1857

d. in U.S.A.

Brigid b. 1849

Mary b. 1853

m. Duffy

Charles b. 1898 m. Alice Cunningham (d. 1940)

Wee Owen

1851-1933 m. Brigid mcCreesh

d.s.p. (Her nephew

Mick McCreesh inherited the

holding and lives there todav)

John Terence I

Owen Patk. Charles Tom

(Based on Parochial Registers of Drumbee).

and information supplied by Charles O'Neill and Michael McCreesh




TABLE B

O'NEILLS OF ANAGAD

Hugh m. Sara Connollv 1816

Art m. (1) Casey

(2) Boyle

Hugh b. 1826 Michael

(drowned in 1830-1916 R. Fane) m. Nancy

Finnegan

4 sisters

Hugh, Kate Brigid Sara shoemaker m. Fee m. Ward to

1861-1939 U.S.A.

Francis Owen 1838? c. 1911 shoemaker

m. Liza Woods

Art Hugh James 3 sisters shoemaker

Hugh Doranta

1885

3 brothers 2 sisters

James b. 1867

Owen

b. 1870

Art 4 sisters

To U.S.A.

Peter Owen

1897-1970 I Pat Hugh Edward

Chicago Police

Michael To

Belfast

Hugh b. 1924

Thos. Pat

b. 1931 Teacher in

Knockbridge

Annie

b. 1875 m. Owen

Carragher of

Cappy

Lizzie

b. 1876 in. Morris

Rose Eliz. m. Feeney

Michael Joe Carragher

(Cappy)

Thos.

Carragher (Belfast) d. 1977

Feeney family of Cappy

(Based on Parochial Registers and information supplied by P?draig ? N?ill of Knockbridge, Michael McCreesh and Charles O'Neill of Drumbee, Mrs. Feeney of Cappy and Mrs. Joe Quigley of Crossmaglen).



412 Seanchas Ard M hacha

TABLE C

O'NEILLS OF CARRAN

Felix fl. 1780s-1820s

(got lease in Carran 1801 Freeholder there 1818) m. Margt. McParland

Con

John b. 1799

Sara

b. 1801 Con 1810-92

m. Nellie McNultv

Rose

b. 1813

2 Johns 2 Pats Brian Peter

Hugh

b. 1840 b. 1844 b. 1847 b. 1855 b. 1857

& 1842 & 1852

Frank 1860-1937

Taxi-man in

Crossmaglen

Charles 1864-1906

m. Cath. Feehan

and 3 sisters

Catherine m. James McShane

Catherine McShane m. Bernard McNulty

James McNulty m. Brigid Hearty

Ellen b. 1899 d. U.S.A.

Mary b. 1901 d. U.S.A.

Frank 1903-72

m. Margt. Lavelle

Brigid b. 1904

Went to

U.S.A.

Charles

b. 1907 d. U.S.A.

James McNulty & 2 sisters

Mary Brigid

Hugh Cath. James F. Con Ellen P. Bernd Ol. John Anne Teresa

(Based on Parochial Registers and information supplied by O'Neill Family, Carran, Patrick

McAnulty, Sheetrim and John Bennett, Gateshead, England).




TABLE D

O'NEILLS OF DORSEY AND UMMERICAM

Art O'Neill

(in Dorsey 1817)

I Neal

(in Dorsey 1828) m. Hannah Muckian

1770-1825

Charles

(carpenter)

John (carpenter,

moved to Dundalk d. 1918)

John (in Dorsey 1828)

| I I (All 4 in Dorsey in

I I I 1860s) Francis John Hugh

d. 1903 m. Miss Revnolds

Art John Con Francis

d. 1918 d. 1904 d. a. 24 1849-1933 m. Brigid Johnson

Mary Anne James John Hugh Thos Brigid m. Patk. of Ummericam Larkin b. 1891

Canon John | P.P. Kilsaran |

d. 1971 O'Neill family of Ummericam

(Based on information supplied by Tom O'Neill, Ummericam)



Article Contentsp. 386p. 387p. 388p. 389p. 390p. 391p. 392p. 393p. 394p. 395p. 396[unnumbered][unnumbered][unnumbered][unnumbered]p. 397p. 398p. 399p. 400p. 401p. 402p. 403p. 404p. 405p. 406p. 407p. 408p. 409p. 410p. 411p. 412p. 413

Issue Table of ContentsSeanchas Ardmhacha: Journal of the Armagh Diocesan Historical Society, Vol. 8, No. 2 (1977), pp. i-viii, 229-458Front MatterRéamhrá [pp. 229-230]Tomaltach Ua Conchobair Coarb of Patrick (1181-1201): His Life and Times [pp. 231-274]Recent Archæological Excavations in Armagh City: An Interim Summary [pp. 275-280]The Two Viking-Age Coins Recently Found at Abbey Street, Armagh [pp. 281-283]Bishops and Ministers in Ulster during the Primacy of Ussher, 1625-1656 [pp. 284-298]The Methodist Baptismal Register of the Newry Circuit 1830-1865 [pp. 299-307]Gravestone Inscriptions in Tullyallen: With a Short History of the Parish [pp. 308-343]Some Aspects of the Great Famine in County Armagh [pp. 344-359]The Armagh Elections of 1885-6 [pp. 360-385]The O'Neills of the Fews [pp. 386-413]Chronicle for 1976 [pp. 414-441]ReviewsReview: untitled [p. 442-442]Review: untitled [p. 443-443]Review: untitled [pp. 444-445]Review: untitled [pp. 445-446]Review: untitled [p. 446-446]

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