You have gotten used to the placid view of Creggan Churchyard. Still used today as the burial place of those of both faiths in the neighbourhood, it is celebrated rightly as the final home of the last bards of the twilight age of the old Gaelic order in the Kingdom of the Fews.
Pre 1800
Abbey Newry History
Scanning the Down & Conor Historical Society Journal of 1938 recently I found the following entry which I now include as it opens a few new pieces of information (well, new to me!). The transcription below is not exact.
Ballymoyer House: National Trust
The Synnot family soon after arrived in the parish of Ballymoyer and leased eight townlands from the See of Armagh. In 1778 Sir Walter Synnot [High Sheriff of County Armagh 1783] built the original Ballymoyer House in the townland of Ballintemple. The family was involved not only in the linen trade but also owned lead mines in the vicinity.
‘The lands were healthy and barren previous to 1778, when Sir Walter Synnot erected a house and became a resident landlord; scarcely a tree or shrub was to be seen and the agricultural implements were of the rudest kind. He constructed good roads in the vicinity and planted forest trees [Lewis S. 1837].’
The Ballymoyer House Demesne Was Extensive and Ornate
‘The mansion built by Sir Walter Synnot and the demesne attached to it is laid out and planted in a tasteful style. Three mountain streams after debouching from the glens of their upper course, unite in the lawn and form a scene both beautiful and romantic.'[Parliamentary Gazetter 1844].
By 1838 the family had bought the eight townlands and continued to improve the estate. By the latter part of the 1870s they owned 7,321 acres. In 1901 the demesne had passed through marriage to the Hart-Synnot family who presented it to the National trust in 1937.
Today Ballymoyer (estate and woodland walk) is still a National Trust property and is well worth a visit. It is located close to Whitecross, nine kilometres from Newry and four kilometres from Newtownhamilton.
… Abbey Newry History …
Book of Armagh
Only a few early manuscripts from ancient Ireland survive and they are among our most valued antiquaries. The Book of Kells dating from the eighth to ninth centuries is a Latin copy of the four gospels. The original Book of Kells is kept at Trinity College Dublin where a different page is displayed each day for the public. About ten per cent of the original is thought to have been lost over the centuries. Its association is with the monastery of Colm Cille at Kells, County Meath, founded in 807 A.D. following Viking raids on Iona. Indeed the Book may have been compiled on the island and brought to Ireland. It is considered the high point of Celtic monastic art.
The Book of Durrow [650 A.D.] is an even earlier illuminated manuscript of the Gospels and is associated with the Columban monastery of Durrow in County Offaly. Less ornate than the Book of Kells, it too is held by Trinity College Dublin.
The Book of Dun Cow [Leabhar na Huidhre] contains an early version of the Cattle Raid of Cooley and several other well-known stories. Lost for several centuries it turned up unexpectedly in a Dublin bookshop in 1837. It was bought in 1844 by the Royal Irish Academy.
The Book of Armagh 807-808 A.D. is also known as Liber Armachanus [and an Can
Cormac Keenan/Johnson of The Fews
‘Cormac Keenan was heads’ man for Johnston of the Fews [that Priest, Tory and Raparee hunter, of whom the famous couplet was written,
O’Hanlon of South Armagh
O’Hanlon is a famous and illustrious name in South Armagh and the Newry area. The O’Hanlons were the most notable Catholic family in Newry in the eighteenth century when Hugh O’Hanlon settled in Mill Street.
He was a direct descendant of the ancient ‘lords’ of Orior and the son of Hugh Ruabh O’Hanlon of Killeavy and also a nephew of the celebrated Bard of Armagh, Dr Patrick Donnelly [D.D. Bishop of Dromore 1679-1716].
St Patrick
St Patrick was born a Roman-Briton and lived his early life near Bannaven Tabernia – which may have been in what today we call Wales, or Scotland or England. His name was Maewyn Succat but he took Patricius upon becoming a priest – a name signifying leader or elder of Roman society. He was the son of a civil servant and grandson of a Christian priest.
Cal Mor Caraher
The 18th century had its own crop of rapparees or highwaymen.
At the Summer Assizes of 1735 one Macklin, a famous horse-thief ‘went down the nine steps’, as was said in Armagh of those on whom the death penalty was passed. These led to the condemned cells below the Sessions House in Market Street.
Oliver Plunkett
Before he was himself raised to the Archbishopric of Armagh, Thomas O’Fiaich wrote about his illustrious predecessor Oliver Plunkett – one of only two Irishmen raised to sainthood by the Vatican [the other being Laurence O’Toole, church reformer of the late twelfth century].