Historic town in Kilnacloy,mullaghmonaghan,roosky (monaghan By., Monaghan Par.),tirkeenan

Monaghan town (Muineacháin – hilly place) is situated on a hill or low ridge between Peter’s Lake to the N and Convent Lake to the S. There are references to a McMahon ‘caislean’ or castle at Monaghan in 1492 (AFM, AU), which is described as a ‘house’ in 1496 (AU). It is probably the crannog in Convent Lake (MO009-037----), which is described on a map of c. 1590 as ‘McMahon’s house’. The foundation of a Franciscan friary (MO009-060002-) nearby in 1462 would have added to the developing nucleus of a settlement, and this has been demonstrated through excavation (MO009-06010-). Monaghan was incorporated as a county with five baronies in 1585, and this location where there was already a friary and a strongpoint of the MacMahons as well as a small settlement may have been selected then for future development as the county town. In 1589-91 the lord deputy, Sir William Fitzwilliam, took advantage of a Mac Mahon dispute to establish a garrison here at the friary. This was part of a political and land settlement that effectively abolished the Mac Mahon chieftainship and the use of Brehon law in the territory. The land settlement was generally accepted by the larger Gaelic magnates as it secured their personal estates, and it also ensured that the county escaped plantation with the other Ulster counties after 1603. However, the infiltration of settlers through the foreclosure of debt and land purchase continued apace. (Moore 1955, 34-7; MacDuinnshleibhe 1955, 49-50; Duffy 1981, 2) Although the garrison at Monaghan was successfully re-supplied after the government defeat at the battle of Clontibret in May 1595, it was probably abandoned soon afterwards and it was not re-established until 1602 when its commander John Berkley built the small fort (MO009-060007-) N of the settlement (Hayes-McCoy 1960, 16; Livingstone 1982, 90-4). In 1604 Sir Edward Blayney was appointed seneschal or governor of the county and the garrison, and two years later he received extensive grants of land around the town and around what would become Castleblayney (Duffy 1981. 14, fig. 5). These were confirmed in 1612, although the castle at Monaghan was specifically excluded (Coyle 1980). In 1606 Sir John Davies, the attorney general, described the town as ‘consisting of divers scattered cabins or cottages, whereof the most part was possessed by the cast soldiers of that garrison. In the northmost part thereof there is a little fort, which is kept by the foot company of Sir Edward Blayney, who is seneschal or governor of the county by patent. In the midst of this village there is a foundation of a new castle, which being raised ten or twelve feet from the ground, and so left neglected for the space of two years, is now ready to fall into ruin again’ (quoted in Shirley 1879, 113; Livingstone 1980, 98). The town was incorporated in 1613, and had up to 100 houses in 1640. In the census of c. 1659 Monaghan town had an adult male population of 32 English and Scots and 101 Irish (Pender 1939, 149). The map by Richard Bartlett of c. 1602 shows a fortified enclosure with fourteen thatched houses and eight bastions. This is a fanciful idealised fortified town, which did not exist at Monaghan then, but the plan does show the ruins of the friary in the foreground and the little fort that was mentioned by Davies in the background. The town is represented on a slightly later map prepared for Sir Edward Blayney, probably c. 1611-13 and now held in Trinity College Dublin (Ms 1209 (32)), which was illustrated by Ó Gallachair (1962, 145). It depicts the town as a fortified rectangular area which was defended by walls or ramparts and outer fosses. It is situated between the two lakes, but both of these would have been larger than at present. There were five bastions in all and a gate on each side. At the centre the castle being built by Blayney is represented as a rectangular structure that has large rectangular corner towers at the angles and a small enclosed court on its N side in the style of fortified houses. This is within a rectangular bawn with corner bastions at the NW and SE angles. Gardens and fishponds lay to its S but in its curtilage, and the market place, now the Diamond, was immediately to the N. Three streets are represented running from the Diamond, that are now called Glasslough, Dublin and Mill Streets, with Market Street / Park Street running S from Mill Street W of the Diamond also represented on the map rather than Dawson Street, which appears to be a late eighteenth century creation (Bradley and Dunne 1989, 19-21). The town would have been a large rectangle (dims c. 500m E-W; c. 400m N-S), but it would not have been as regular as depicted on the Trinity map. The rear of properties on the identified streets provide the best indication of where the perimeter of the town lay, notably the straight lines formed by the backs of properties on the NE side of Dublin St. and the W side of Park St. Excavation (02E1147; 03E0027) on the N side of the Diamond uncovered evidence of a fosse where it might be expected on the N side of the town as well as evidence of floor levels inside it dating to 1550-1590 (O’Connor 2002, 2006). The sites of the friary (MO009-060002-), the original fort (MO009-060007-), the parish church (MO009-060012-), and Blayney’s castle (MO009-06003-) can be identified with some certainty but the only surviving monument from the era of the town’s foundation is the market cross (MO009-060006-), which is intact but no longer in its original location. See the attached images of Bartlett's map (MO009-060_1copy) and the Trinity plan (MO009-060_2-copy) Date of upload: 14 April 2011 Compiled by: Michael Moore