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From Ireland Home Page>>Co. Monaghan>>History of Monaghan for 200 years, Chap 1>>Chap 2>>Chap 3>>Chap 4 >>Chap 5 History of Monaghan for 200 Years 1660-1860
The bigots of both England and Ireland insisted on crushing out the Catholic religion, and the Penal Laws against Catholics were enacted. No doubt some of those in power in Ireland believed they were doing right in persecuting the Catholics, but there were many others who used the penal laws for the purpose of taking from the Catholics whatever remnants of property they still possessed. When any efforts were made to draw public attention to the manner in which the country was being robbed, the government excited the bigotry of the Protestants and enacted additional penal laws. The anti-Irish feeling was kept alive amongst the landlords by the fear that in the event of a foreign invasion the Stuarts would be replaced on the throne of these countries and the confiscated estates returned to their former owners. Thus little was done by the resident gentry to improve their properties or benefit their country, while many of the larger landowners were absentees and consumed “above one-half the rents of the nation abroad.” It is not therefore, to be wondered at that there are so few records from which any knowledge of the inner life of the country can be gathered. The
records of the inland counties consist of letters about proclamations about Peace
and War, of the enactment of the Penal Laws against Catholics, and proclamations
against Rapparees. There are a few documents of national importance which contain
references to Monaghan. One of the first of these occurs in the year 1704 under
the following circumstances: - The Monaghan registered priests, all of whom appear to have refused to take the oath of abjuration, continued their ministrations in their respective parishes, but there are few records of their after lives. In County Cavan some of the Protestant landlords became sureties for the priests in their parishes, and when the Act of 1710 was passed the bigots of that county sent up a presentment to the Grand Jury to have the priests outlawed for refusing to abjure and their recognizances estreated. The Grand Jury, which contained many of the Bailsmen, were very indignant and rejected it. The bigots then sent up bills to the quarter sessions Grand Jury to have the recognizances estreated, but the gentry brought the proceedings into Superior Courts where the magnitude of the bills of law-costs put an end to the ardour of the bigots. Monaghan Registered Priests 1710
“Parra Glass’s” father was said to have married a peasant’s daughter and settled down as a farmer in Cornaglare. There is no record or tradition to account for why Patrick and his family left their farm, but it is probable that he may have served in the Jacobite army, and that after its defeat he became an outlaw. He was described as a tall, powerfully built man of strange appearance ; instead of a hat he wore a mass of shock hair and an unkempt beard, both of a greenish grey colour, from which his cognomen was derived. He kept the country for miles around Monaghan in terror. All his family became outlaws and lived by plundering all the well-to-do people within a day’s journey of Monaghan. He lived in a cave near Tullygillen, where the mill now stands, and one of his women had a hut in the Glen near Monaghan, from which information as to the movements of the authorities in the town was regularly dispatched to Tullygillen. It was necessary to proclaim him an outlaw and to put aprice upon his head, so that anyone could kill him. At the Summer Assizes, held on 24th August, 1711, the following proclamation was read in open court: PROCLAMATION Parra
Glass was such a formidable outlaw to have roving about the country that seventeen
Grand Jurors – a large number for those times – assembled at the Assizes
at which this Proclamation was “presented”. They seemed determined to
have him captured, and the following signed the Presentment: There were three Catholics on this Grand Jury, but by the operation of the Penal Laws they were gradually deprived of their property and their social position. There is a tradition that Parra Glass was captured, but the story of his arrest exactly corresponds to the story of similar arrests of other Raparees in other parts of the country, so there is considerable doubt on the point, and there is no evidence of such in any record, although there is evidence of the capture of some of his gang. There were many old songs and ballads recounting his prowess and deeds of daring. His strange appearance while he lived, alarmed many, both young and old, and for many a long year after he died, the mention of his name was used to frighten children to sleep. The
other proclamations of Raparees at that time were: The attempts to colonise the Barony of Farney with English or Scotch planters had failed, and except in the town of Carrickmacross there was no element of the population favourably affected towards the government. The landlords were absentees, and consequently the Reparees had a very friendly people to quarter themselves amongst. The
inhabitants of the town at that time were Protestants, and the Catholics who carried
on business there during the day were obliged to lie outside the walls at night.
The following petition, dated 17th December, 1717, was forwarded to the Government
by some inhabitants of Carrickmacross : - The
following endorsement appears on the Petition: No
appeal was made to the local gentry, for the larger landowners about Carrickmacross
took little interest in the country, and did nothing to improve it. Many of them
were absentees, and only a few of them bothered about local affairs. They seldom
attended the Assizes, and left the work of the Grand Jury principally to middlemen,
agents and the smaller holders. The Grand Jury did scarcely any but criminal business
and “present” proclamations for outlaws. The Monaghan Grand Jury in
1718 was as follows: - Channen Rock, between Carrickmacross and Dundalk, for some centuries was looked on as the boundary of the Pale at that point ; the country about it being very wild and formed good shelter for outlaws from the Pale. In after years it became the shelter of the Raparees and robbers who infested North Louth and South Monaghan. At that period, two infamous Rapparees held sway from the fastnesses about Channen Rock. They were Neil McShane, alias Johnston, nicknamed ‘Forty Rags,’ and Bryan Byrne, called ‘Bryan na Poreen.’ They were both proclaimed at Dundalk in 1718. There appears to have been a fight in January 1718, near Carrickmacross between the Rapparees and the Tory Hunters, at which, one of the former, named Richard Gainshenan, and one of the latter, James Boyle, were killed. Soon after ‘Bryan-na-Poreen was captured by one Edward Lucas, of Moynalty, and two others of the gang ; Ever Roe McMahon and Edmond McKenna were captured by James Hughes (a Tory Hunter) and his assistants. Amongst those of the gang who escaped were John Reilly and Charles Carraher. The last Rapparree captured in the County was Bryan McKenna, on 14th February 1722, except those mentioned in Bashford’s petition, referred to below. The greatest Raparee, Edmond O’Hanlon, infested North Monaghan. O’Hanlon’s Walk is still shewn in the old wod at Glaslough. Carleton heard about him when schooling at Donagh, and wrote a book of that name. But, whether or not the Sergeant and the eight Dragoons to whom Messrs. Dobbs and Dixie promised to sell cheap provisions became their customers there appears to have been little improvement in the state of the country for some years after. It therefore became necessary to admit Catholics to reside in Carrickmacross, and soon afterwards they began to live in the town. A very remarkable fact is that many of the Catholic business men were educated, although the Penal Laws enacted that Catholics should be illiterate. At Carrickmacrosss, in 1723, on a Coroner’s Jury – the only sort of Jury Catholics could serve on, and then only when there were not enough Protestants available – there were six Catholics – viz., Art O’Neill, Edmond Carrollan, James Carrolan, and Randal McDonnell. The handwriting of the four literates is exceedingly good and shows evidence of great care in their schoolmaster’s teaching. The signatures of the last three are very neat, and bear a marked contrast to the scribble in which these pages were originally written by their last descendant in Monaghan. It
must be remembered that it was against the law to educate a Catholic, and that
those who taught such persons to write did so at risk of their liberty first and
the peril of their lives afterwards. This produced the class of educationalists
known as ‘Hedge Schoolmasters,’ truly depicted in the old ballad as
Although in after years many of their successors deteriorated into Carleton’s “Philomath,” their existence added a glorious chapter to the history of education in Ireland, and a worthy tribute was paid to them by Dr. Douglas Hyde, when he recognised their public services in his short and terse dedication of ‘Beside the Fire’ to the memory of the Hedge Schoolmaster.
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