A.D. 493, or 496. The abbot St. Mochays died the 23rd of June.e

638. Cridan died at Indroim in Ulster.f

642. The bishop of St. Cronan died on the 6th of January.s 658. St. Cumineus, bishop of Endrom, died on the 1st of July.h

679. Died the abbot Maney.i

746. Died St. Moelimarchar, bishop of Ectrumensis.6k 766. Died St. Failbeus, abbot of Erdamensis.1

Ardmacnasca, on Lough-Laoigh. 7m Laisrean, the son of Neasca, and abbot of Hy, was founder and abbot of this abbey; he died the 25th of October, about the year 650, and is patron of the place."

Ballycastle stands on the sea-coast in the barony of Carye; to the east of this castle is an ancient building, called the Abbey, of which we cannot find any account. In a chapel in this abbey is the following inscription:

In Dei Deiparæque Virginis honorem, illustrissimus ac nobilissimus dominus Randolphus M'Donnell comes de Antrim, hoc sacellum fieri curavit. An. Dom. 1612.°

Boithbolcain, a church near Connor, founded by St. Bolcain' a disciple of St. Patrick.

1

Act. SS. p. 189, M Geogh. annals. M'Geogh. "Act. SS. p. 17, M'Geogh. 1Vard. p.159, Act. SS. p. 59, M'Geog. 'M'Geog. Act. SS. index chron. Id. p. 576. Called now Lough Neagh. Vard. p. 353, Act. SS. p. 631. ° Bishop Pocoke's Journal. Act. SS. p. 378. Tr. Th. p. 377.

'SS. Mochaoi, Critan, Cronan, and Cuimmein, will be mentioned hereafter at Nendrum, in County Down, to which monastery they belonged.

66

The "Annals of the Four Masters," in the year 746, mention the death of this holy bishop, Moelimarchar. He had nothing to do, however, with Antrim, being Bishop of Eachdruim," i.e., Aughrim, as O'Donovan explains it. (An. of F. M. p. 349.) The "Annals of Clonmacnoise" commemorate the same saint as "Moyle-Imorchor, Bishop of Achroym O'Mayne," i.e., Aughrim, in the Omany country.

'Archdall is sadly misled by a similarity of name when he confounds LoughLaoig with Lough-Neagh. Lough-laoigh was the old Irish name for the modern Belfast Lough, and was sometimes also called "Lough Bannchor" and "Bay of Knockfergus." The Feliré of Angus sufficiently identifies the name when it places the Church of Kilroot on the banks of Lough-laoigh. See Reeves, loc. cit. p. 272. The site of Ardmacnasca was not on the Antrim Coast of Lough-laoigh, but on the opposite coast, in the County Down, where Holywood now stands. "The Martyrology of Donegal," on 25th of October, gives the feast of "St. Laisren, son of Nasc, of Ard-mic-nasga, on the brink of Lough Laoigh, in Ulster." The church or monastery took its name from its founder, St. Laisrean, who was called "Mac Nasca to distinguish him from the other saints of the same name. He was one of those to whom the Letter on the Paschal Controversy was addressed from Rome in the year 640. Usher, "Sylloge Epp." epist. ix. We will again speak of “Ardmic-nasca" at Holywood, in County Down.

יי

This church gave name to the present townland of Bovolcan, near Stoneyford, in the parish of Derryaghy. Its patron and founder was St. Olcan, or Bolcan, disciple of St. Patrick, whose life is given by Colgan, " Acta SS." p. 375, seqq.

66

Bonamargy, a small monastery, was built here, in the fifteenth century, for Franciscan friars of the third order. This monastery is said to have been founded by M'Donnell,s whose family settled in this county in the fifteenth century, and were afterwards ennobled. This monastery and its possessions were granted to the founder's family; and the abbey became the burial place of the M'Donnells.

Carrickfergus,10 on the remarkable bay of the same name, is a corporate town sending members to Parliament.

1232. The foundation of a monastery here, for Franciscan friars, is fixed on this year, but it is a matter of doubt who was the founder; some say the famous Hugh de Lacie, Earl of Ulster," according to others O'Neal. We are inclined to the former.

9

War. Mon.

Allemande.

War. Mon. 'Allemande. Lodge v. 1, p. 104. Bonamargey, i.e., "Bun-na-Mairge, takes its name from the river Mairge, being situated at the spot where in former times the river Mairge entered the sea. The ruins of the monastery still mark the spot, but the bed of the stream was changed in the year 1738, when the harbour of Ballycastle was constructed. The Bay of Ballycastle was formerly known as Marketon Bay, which was a corruption of the earlier name Mairge-town. A MS. list of the Franciscan_convents, which is preserved in the British Museum (No. 4,814, Plut. cxx. G. p. 2), states that the Convent of Bunamargy in the Reuta was founded in the year 1500 by Rory Mac Quillin, Lord of the Reute. Others refer this foundation to Sorley Buidhe Mac Donnell, about the middle of the sixteenth century; he, however, seems only to have restored or repaired the convent. The chapel of the convent was re-built by the Earl of Antrim, in 1621, and the inscription given above under Ballycastle is still preserved on an old tablet in the eastern gable:"In Dei Deiparæque Virginis honorem, illustrissimus ac nobilissimus Dominus Randulphus Mac Donnell, comes de Antrim, hoc Sacellum fieri curavit. An. Dom. 1621."

In the year 1820, whilst some repairs were being made in the Antrim family vault of this chapel, an oaken chest was discovered containing four manuscripts which belonged to the old monastery, and which were in a state of good preservation. One of these, extending to about 600 quarto pages, contains the chief theological works of St. Thomas of Aquin, and an entry in the volume_shows that it originally belonged to the monastery of St. Anthony, of Amiens, in France. Another volume contained an English translation of St. Bonaventure's "Life of Christ," made in the fourteenth century. In the winter of 1859 another curious discovery was made in a sand heap immediately adjoining the ruins. Heavy rains had washed away a portion of the sand from one side of this heap, and thus were laid bare a small silver Reliquary, some fragments of old silver crosses, and the remains of very ancient book-covers. At a short distance was found, some years ago, a rod of twisted gold thirty-eight inches in length, now in R.I.A., also a clasp of gold, and other ornaments.

It is the tradition that the religious, despite the terrors of persecution, clung to their cherished monastery till about the year 1720, when they retired to a place called Ardagh, on the adjoining slope of Knocklade.

It was in the neighbourhood of this monastery, at a spot called Duncarbit, that Shane O'Neill, in Elizabeth's reign, inflicted so severe a defeat on the Scots that the battle-field is still known as Slaught, the place of slaughter. See Ulster Journal of Archæology, vol. viii. p. 14, seqq.

10 McSkimin, in Hist. Carrickfergus, mentions an ancient monastic foundation called "the Hospital of St. Brigid," which adjoined the east suburb of the town. "Some remains of the chapel (he adds) attached to this hospital remained within

1243. This year the Earl of Ulster," and Gerald Fitzmaurice, and Richard de Burgh were interred here.<

1408. Hugh M'Adam M'Gilmore, the fell destroyer of forty sacred edifices, fled for refuge to an oratory of this church, in which he was soon after massacred by the English colony of the name of Savage. As the windows of this building had been formerly robbed of their iron bars by his sacrilegious hands, his pursuers found a ready admission to him.y

1497. Neile M'Caine O'Neill reformed this friary to the order of the strict observance.2

* Pembridge's Ann. Hanmer's Chron. Marlboro's Annals. War. Mss. the last forty years, and persons were interred in it within memory. The lands adjoining are still called the Spittall Parks, and were, till the year 1823, free of tythe. There is no record when this hospital was founded, or by whom. In the 36th year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, this hospital and the lands attached were granted by the Crown to Richard Harding for thirty years. Some silver coins

have been found here of Edward the Third," p. 127. The same writer tells us that there is also, a little north of the town, a well, called "St. Bride's Well," adjoining which was "the Spittall House," and which was granted, together with the hospital, to Mr. Harding as above. In the deed of grant it is called parcell antique hereditament," and is said to comprise a small plot called "The Friars' Garden," ib. 128.

66

A round tower is supposed to have formerly adorned this town. A survey in State Papers, 21st July, 1588, mentions "a watchhouse, or turret, sometimes called a steeple," as then standing in need of repairs. An old map of the town, published in Ulster Journal of Arch. vol. 3rd, presents a building close to the wall next the sea which may perhaps have been intended to represent a round tower.

Hugh de Lacy was interred in 1243, "Apud Cnockfergus in conventu Fratrum."—" Grace's annals." Publications of I.A.S., 1842, p. 35. A long account of the doings of Robert and Edward Bruce before Carrickfergus will be found in the same annals. We may add that the town sustained other memorable sieges from King John, Shane O'Neil, and Schomberg. The English troops under Sir John Chichester sustained a memorable defeat here in 1597.

12 The following entry occurs in the " Annals of the Four Masters," at the year 1497: "The monastery of the Friars in Carrickfergus was obtained for the Friars Minor de Observantia by Rescript from Rome, at the instance of Niall, the son of Con, son of Hugh Boy O'Neill, and sixteen brothers of the convent of Donegal took possession of it on the vigil of the first festival of the B. V. Mary in autumn, having obtained authority for that purpose." O'Conor, in his Stowe Catalogue, vol. i. p. 158, mentions as extant in that library a MS. of 52 pages in the Irish language, containing the lives of sixteen saints, with the subscription at the end: "Fr. Bonaventura Mac Dool, Guardianus de Carrickfergus, theologiæ lector." These lives were transcribed from a more ancient MS. belonging to this convent.

As regards the first founder of this Franciscan convent, some have referred it to De Lacy, others to a chieftain of the Magennis family; but Luke Wadding assigns the honour of its foundation to an O'Neill of the Clan-Aodh-Buidhe branch of that family, for, he adds "that convent belonged to the O'Neils, and they used it as their burial place" (Annales Min. ad an. 1242). Hugh de Lacy, as we have seen, and also Richard de Burgh and Gerald Fitzmaurice, were interred there soon after its foundation. A sacrilegious deed connected with this convent, and marked in our annals at A.D. 1408, reveals the lawlessness that prevailed in Ireland in the beginning of the fifteenth century. A chieftain named Mac Gilmore, after plundering and destroying sixty religious edifices and murdering two of the clan Savage, took sanctuary in the Franciscan Church of Cnockfergus. Even this church, however, had been already plundered by him, and he had even carried away the iron bars which originally guarded its windows; thus, his assailants were now

1510. This monastery was in such high repute, that a general chapter of the order was held in it this year.a

At the suppression of religious houses this monastery and its possessions were granted to Sir Edmund Fitzgerald, who assigned the same to Sir Arthur Chichester, ancestor to the Earl of Donegall. This nobleman, who was several times. Lord Deputy of Ireland, erected a noble castle on the site of this monastery, about the year 1610.c

Cluain, or Kilcluain, was an abbey built by St. Olcan13 in

C

War. Mss. Harris's tabl. War. Mss. v. 34.

able to penetrate through these windows, and he was murdered at the foot of the altar.

The Franciscans of Carrickfergus seem to have shared the suppression of religious houses of 1537, for among the State Papers of Edward the Sixth's reign, there is a petition of Hugh Mac Neill Oge, in which, after professing his allegiance as a faithful subject, he prays, "to have, by a lease from the King's Majesty, certain late monasteries, with the lands thereunto belonging, lying waste in his country, and the late friar-house in Knockfergus granted unto him, that therein he may place two secular Priests for ministration of divine service, alledging that his ancestors were buried there, and that in all his country there is not so meet a place for burial as that is." This petition was granted, but it is probable that O'Neill at once restored the Convent to its old proprietors. In the Harleian Collection of MSS., there is a petition from the " Freres Observants" of Ireland to Queen Mary, dated November, 1557, in which they pray, that “it would please Her Majesty to grant and confirm unto them and their religious order," certain monasteries. In reply, Her Majesty instructed the Lord Deputy, the Earl of Sussex, to grant their petition to them. During Elizabeth's reign, however, this convent felt the full fury of the storm of irreligious persecution which raged throughout our island. Wadding tells us that the religious inmates were expelled, and the English governor, after seizing on all the sacred properties of the convent, cast five of the friars into prison, keeping them there till all hope of further plunder was extinguished. The names of these confessors of the faith are happily registered by the same illustrious annalist, they are-Robert M'Conghaill, Eugene Mac-an-Tsaire, Donough Molan, Charles O'Hanvill, and Patrick Mac Teige.

In the State Papers of the following years, the convent appears as "The Palace, of late the Friars House." In a paper, dated 1st April, 1574, the memorable year in which Essex set out on his fruitless attempt to conquer Ulster, the convent is mentioned as a store-house for the English troops. As one of the results of Essex's failure, it is also stated, that the town of Carrickfergus was destroyed; all its churches and dwellings being burned, and all its inhabitants having fled away. In 1583, the Lords Justices, in a letter to Walsingham, write: "The Palace is a place very necessary to be safely kept, having in it the fairest and largest rooms for storage and brewing that are in this land, besides sundry good lodgings."

The Palace, soon after the accession of King James, became the property of the greedy and grasping Chichester, who levelled it to the ground, and erected on its site his family mansion called Joymount. This proud monument of Chichester's ill-gotten wealth is now the County gaol.

The ancient plans of Carrickfergus show a large stone cross, called "Great Patrick's Cross," standing in the main street; the pedestal of a broken cross is also seen standing in the churchyard attached to the Franciscan convent.

The Franciscan, Edmund MacCana, in his "Itinerary" (A. D. 1640), remarks, regarding this town-"I have nothing to tell about it, except that it has been the abode of false doctrine ever since the commencement of the Anglican heresy."(Ulster Journal of Arch. ii. 59; vii. 6, seqq.)

Colgan refers the foundation, not to St. Olcan, but to St. Patrick himself, who subsequently placed Olcan as bishop there. Speaking of a church in the territory of Dalaradia, which was begun by St. Patrick, Colgan says, "existimo Cluin sen

the early ages of Christianity; it is now (according to Colgan) a parish church near Connor.d

Connor, 14 é a small town in the barony of Antrim, and a bishop's see united to Down.

506. The bishop Enos M'Nessa died on the 3rd of September, on which day his festival is held. Others place his death in the year 513,8

The feast of St. Mainend of Cluain-Connor is observed on the 16th of September,h but we are not informed at what time he lived.

537. Died the Bishop Lugadius.i

Act. SS. p. 377. Our ancient ecclesiastical writers name it Cluain-Connor, Coinre, Condere, Condoire, Connery, and Conry. 'Annal Inisfal. Act. SS. p. 190. Vard. vita Rumoldi. Act. SS. p. 191. rectius Cluain legendum, ut sit Ecclesia de Cluain sen Kill-Cluanensis quæ est parochia in Baronia et Diæcesi Connorensi in regione Dalaradiæ."-Acta SS., P. 377). In the notes to Vita Tripartita (part 2, chap. 133), referring to the Church of "Imlech-Cluana in agro Semne," he says, "puto esse quæ hodie KillChluana appellatur." O'Donovan tells us that the plain of Semne, which is here referred to, 66 was situated in the territory of Dalaraidhe, in the south of the present County of Antrim."-(Battle of Magh Rath, p. 211.)

The name Connor generally appears in the form Condeire in Irish records. Its etymology is thus given in a marginal gloss to the Feliré of Angus at the 3rd of September-"Chonderib, i.e., Daire-na-con, i.e., the oak-wood in which were wild dogs formerly, and she-wolves used to dwell therein." Colgan remarks that this etymology per metathesim was common with the Irish; he hence conjectures that Derechon or Dorechon, the site of St. Olcan's Church, was no other than the Condeire of which we speak.—(Acta SS. p. 377, n. 9.) The See of Connor was founded by St. Patrick, who constituted St. Angus Mac Nisse, its first Bishop and Abbot. The Feliré of Ængus marks the feast of St. Mac Nisse on the 3rd ofS eptember :

"Mac Nisse with thousands

From the great Condere."

The Annals of Ulster and the Four Masters place his death in the year 513. The Martyr. of Donegal, on 3rd September, has the entry-"Mac Neissi, Bp. of Coindere. Cnes, daughter of Comhcaidhi, of Dal-Ceithirn, was his mother. Enghus was his first name; he was also called Caemhan Breac." The Annals of Tighernach also state, "Mac Nissi, i.e., Aenghus, Bishop of Connor, rested; whose father was called Fobrach; and whose mother was called Cness, was daughter of Comchaide of the Dal Ceteren, from whom he was named Mac Cneisse." Dr. Todd places his death in 514 (Introd. to Obits of Xt. Church, p. 73); but this is refuted in notes to Martyr. of Donegal, Public. of I. A.S., p. 232. St. Mac Nisse was buried in Connor-“Sanctus Mac Cneisi Episcopus, qui jacet in civitate Connyre, quæ est in regione Dalnaraidhe."-(Vit. S. Comgalli, in lib. Kilken. fol. 90, b. col. 2, and Fleming, Collectan, p. 304). His life is published by the Bollandists in vol. 1st for September, p. 664. He made a pilgrimage to Rome and the holy places of Jerusalem. He foretold the birth of the great St. Comgall, founder of Bangor; his monastery was visited by St. Brigid; and he trained to virtue St. Colman, the patron and first Bishop of Dromore. Ward writes, that the Church of Annatrim, at the foot of Slieve Bloom, in the Parish of Offarlane, Diocese of Ossory, was dedicated to him. In notes to Martyr. of Donegal (loc. cit.), this church is said to be dedicated to another St. Caemham Breac, whose feast was kept on 4th November. Probably, however, the same saint was honoured on various days in different churches, especially as in some records the 4th of November was precisely marked as the day of St. Mac Nisse's death.-See Ann. of Four M., ad an. 513. The original notes to O'Clery's Genealogies mention his