MONAGHAN TOWN

MONAGHAN, an incorporated market-town and parish, the chief town of the county, and formerly a parliamentary borough, in the barony and county of MONAGHAN, and province of ULSTER, 12 ¼ miles, (W. S. W.) from Armagh, and 60 (N. N. W.) from Dublin, on the mail coach road to Londonderry; containing 11,875 inhabitants, of which number, 3848 are in the town. This place, till within a comparatively modern period, was distinguished only by a monastery, of which St. Moclodius, the son of Aedh, was abbot; and which, according to the Annals of the Four Masters, was plundered in 830 and again in 931. It appears from the same authority to have flourished for more than two centuries, and the names of its abbots, deans, and archdeacons (among the former of whom was Elias, the principal of all the monks of Ireland, who died in Cologne in 1042) are regularly preserved till the year 1161, after which date no further mention of it occurs. Phelim Mac Mahon, in 1462, founded on the site of the ancient abbey a monastery for Conventual Franciscans, which at the dissolution was granted to Edward Withe; but even at that time no place deserving the name of a village had arisen near the monastery, and the whole of this part of the country, under its native chief's, the Mac Mahons, still retained the ancient customs.

About the commencement of the 17th century, Sir Edward Blayney, who had been appointed seneschal of the county, erected a small fort here, which he garrisoned with one company of foot; and on the approaching settlement of Ulster, when the Lord-Deputy came to this place to make some arrangements respecting the forfeited lands, it was so destitute of requisite habitations, that he was under the necessity of pitching tents for his accommodation. On this occasion the Lord-Deputy was attended by the Lord-Chancellor and judges of assize, and by the attorney-general, the celebrated Sir John Davies, who describes the place as consisting only of a few scattered cabins, occupied chiefly by the retired soldiers of Sir Edward Blayney's garrison. Besides that fort, which was on the north side of the village, he notices another in the centre of it, which had been raised only 10 or 12 feet above the ground, and was then lying in a neglected state, although £1200 had been expended on it by the king as a means of retaining the native inhabitants of the district in subjection.

The Lord-Deputy divided several neighbouring "ballibetaghs" among the soldiers residing in the town; and as the fort at this time depended on Newry for its supplies, which, from the hostility of the intervening country, were frequently precarious, he granted to Sir Edward Blayney a portion of land on which he erected the fortress of Castle Blayney. In 1611, Sir Edward obtained the grant of a market and fair; and the town, which now began to increase in population and extent, was, in 1613, made a parliamentary borough, and the inhabitants were incorporated by a charter of James I., under the designation of the "Provost, Free Burgesses, and Commonalty of the Borough of Monaghan."

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