Newry News and Irish Fun
The eighteenth century saw some of the earliest emigration from Ireland to the new American colonies. Here in Ireland this century saw the greatest confiscation of land from the majority Catholics and its re-allocation to Protestants.
The penal laws remained very much in force and the future looked anything but bright for Catholics or Dissenters [Presbyterians, mainly]. There was a greater fraction of the latter which looked to the new Colonies and indeed for the next eighty years they constituted the larger part of Irish emigrants.
Early in July 1916 some Volunteers from both North and South Camps were taken under escort to a nearby railway station. About 10.30 am some one hundred men were boarded, bound for London.
The Children of Lir legend is of particular interest to the people of South Armagh since the Palace of Lir was located hereabouts, South Armagh, in the townland of Armaghbrague and reputedly about a mile from the present day Newtownhamilton.
We mentioned again recently Newry’s Arch-Traitor Samuel Turner (The Glen on Newry’s
There was another notable in the Forkhill area – besides the often mentioned Squire Jackson – one Captain Alexander, whose original Forkhill House home endured well into the twentieth century.
A large body of Scottish troops under Major-General Robert Munroe landed in Carrickfergus on 15 April 1642 to assist in repressing the insurrection.
It was not unusual for gentlemen of means, compelled to travel through that countryside, to seek a military escort.