DRUMBEG 1800-1860

Eileen Black

Drumbeg during the first sixty years of the nineteenth century was in a state of change, as owners of the three large estates around Drumbridge-Ballydrain, Wilmont and Drum-came and went. In this period, the houses at Ballydrain and Wilmont were knocked down and rebuilt in the style (with some modifications) in which we know them today: Ballydrain in 1837-8, Wilmont in 1859. Both estates have been dealt with by the author in previous volumes of this journal.¹ At the time of writing the Ballydrain article, however, the architect of the rebuilt house was unknown to the author. Further reading has since revealed that the building was in fact designed by Edward Blore (1787-1879), an English architect whose reputation for cheapness brought him a government contract in 1832 to complete Buckingham Palace, after John Nash, the original architect, had been dismissed for extravagance.² Blore also carried out other work in Ulster: in 1836-7 he enlarged Castle Upton, at Templepatrick, for the  1st Lord Templemore and in 1838-41 designed Crom Castle, Co. Fermanagh for the 3rd Earl of Erne.

Blore specialized in the Tudor and Elizabethan styles and used them to effect in his numerous country houses, of which Ballydrain is Tudor Revival. In October 1836 he visited the estate `to examine the House and advise with Mr. Montgomery [the new owner] as to the expediency of building on the site of the old House or to change the site. ³ (In the event, the new house was not erected on the original spot but some distance northeast of it). In January of the following year he spent a further two days at Ballydrain and submitted a complete set of plans, elevations, sections and working details, for a fee of £180. A drawing of the elevations is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (fig. 1) and is doubly interesting when compared with a photograph of the entrance front of the house, taken during the 1860s (fig.2).In February and October 1838 Blore again visited the estate, probably to supervise on-going building. Four years later he undertook further work for Montgomery, when he designed a gate lodge, gates and a chimney piece for the dining room.⁴ The house, robust but with an unimposing entrance front, was considerably improved by W. H. Lynn's alterations of 1876, which created the building as it is today, with the exception of a few changes carried out by the current owner, Malone Golf Club.⁵
 
Across Ballydrain lake, in marked contrast to Hugh Montgomery's Tudor edifice, stood Lakefield (fig.3), a plain Georgian-style house, owned by Thomas Alexander Stewart (of the Ballydrain Stewarts) in 1819 and by a Catherine Richardson twenty years later. Lakefield remains something of an enigma: that it was gone by 1858 seems certain, as it no longer appears on the Ordnance Survey map of that year. It was still in existence in 1843, as evidenced by the Guide Through Ireland (p.601), which described this pocket of the Lagan valley in glowing terms:

Although some of these houses have now gone, most remain; the area still has an 'improved, romantic' appearance and remnants of its nineteenth century picturesqueness, despite Belfast's encroachment.

In addition to the changes to the various family seats near Drumbridge, there was another, perhaps more important, alteration to the local landscape: the opening of a new road and the closing of an old one. Until 1837 the road across  Drum bridge swung sharply left before it reached Drum church, after which it wound along the side of the church grounds, past Drum House demesne. It then continued through Ballygowan townland to Gardner's Lane, or Loan, Ends at Ballyaughlis (where the Homestead Inn stands). This erstwhile route is clearly visible on the 1834 Ordnance Survey map (fig.4). A more graphic depiction of it, showing its curve to the left, can be seen in an illustration which appeared in the supplement to the Dublin Penny Journal of I835-6 (fig.5). The road's remains, with its arched bridge over the stream from the mill (the latter is shown on fig. 4), can still be seen in the field beside the old graveyard.

The proposal to establish the new road, which by-passed Drum House and the church, (shown on fig.6), was first placed before the Grand Jury⁶ (a form of parliament of county gentlemen who acted as a highway authority and received applications - presentments - to undertake new work or repairs) at the Summer Assizes of 1836.⁷ William Hamilton Smyth, owner of Drum House at that tune (fig. 7) and a member of the Grand Jury of Co. Down, appears to have initiated the road, as records show that he was to be financially responsible for its upkeep.⁸ (Most presentment roads were built by landowners, clergy or tenants with large holdings). Though the reason for the road's formation is uncertain, it is possible that Smyth proposed it because of a growing volume of traffic on the old route, so close to his demesne. This latter road-officially the Belfast to Ballynahinch route-had become increasingly important as a major trunk line out of town by the mid 18308. In the absentee of a concrete explanation for the re-routing of the road. an increasing flow of traffic close to Drum House may perhaps have been the cause. The old road, though still marked on the 1860 map, was officially closed in 1845⁹


Besides being picturesque, the land around Drumbeg was highly fertile, with wheat grown extensively and also corn and potatoes. Farms were generally small, on average between fifteen and thirty Irish acres, with sheep and cattle kept on a small scale; large flocks were normally to be seen only on gentlemen's demesnes.¹⁰ In an attempt to raise agricultural standards in the district, a number of leading farmers established the Drumbo and Drumbeg Farming Society in I818, which awarded prizes for farm management, draining and cattle breeding. The society's first ploughing match, held on John Cunningham's fields on 27 February of the following year, ¹¹ attracted twenty-three ploughs and large crowds of spectators. After the judging, some forty to fifty persons, mostly members of the society, repaired to James Gardner's inn at Drum bridge for supper. Among the numerous toasts drunk were 'Our noble patron, the Marquis of Downshire,' 'Miss Maxwell, the Lady of the Soil' (Letitia Maxwell, then owner of Drum estate) and 'Our President, Andrew Durham Esq.' (of Belvidere). The closing toast struck a universal note: 'God speed the Plough, and success to the Farming Societies of Ireland.'

The society thrived for many years; in 1843 it had one hundred and thirty-two members, mostly 'practical farmers and resident gentry'.¹² Its efforts to raise the standard of ploughing in the district were evidently (and finally) successful, judging from a report of a ploughing of Drumbeg glebe lands in 1847 by the parish inhabitants, as a token of regard for the rector: 'In one of the fields ... there were several places of ploughing executed in a creditable mariner. The improvement, during the last few years, in this department, is strikingly apparent. Formerly, there was a difficulty in procuring a competent workman in this business; but now, owing to our Farming Society, it is rare to find a bad hand.'¹³

The prosperity of the district and the industrious habits of its population were considered noteworthy in a number of contemporary accounts of the area¹⁴ including Philip Dixon Hardy's Northern Tourist of 1830:

Housing conditions were also good. According to the ^{Ordnance Survey Memoirs} of 1837, about a quarter of the houses in Drumbeg parish were slated and about one seventh two-storied. 'The Majority of the Farm houses [the Memoirs record] are whitewashed with lime outside, well lit with handsome sash windows ... and the interiors in every respect neat and comfortable, and almost all furnished with handsome clocks, the farm yards tollerably [sic] large, well enclosed ... The cottiers' houses too are with very few exceptions, whitewashed outside and inside, well lit with small glass windows and in other respects tollerably [sic] comfortable.' Emigration from the area was almost negligible, there being sufficient work for all in the local bleach greens, flour and corn mills.

The population of the area was generally law-abiding. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs record that there was no smuggling or illicit distillation in the parish nor any Orange or Ribbon (nationalist) lodges to be round. Crime in the district appears to have been rare and elicited widespread condemnation whenever it occurred. In October 1811 a turf stack belonging to James Cunningham of Drumbridge was maliciously set alight, 'the first instance of such an atrocious crime having been committed in the neighbourhood ...' In an effort to catch the culprit (s), a number of local inhabitants raised £65 19s 6d as a reward.¹⁵ Generally, however, good neighbourliness seems to have prevailed. In February 1819 Alexander Williamson, a linen merchant and bleacher of Lambeg House, thanked, via the News-Letter, the residents of the district between Drumbridge and Lambeg, who helped save linens worth £600, swept off his bleach green by a flood. ¹⁶ His gratitude was heartfelt: 'The circumstance reflects credit to the inhabitants of this neighbourhood, and is a greater significance to his mind than the saving of his property. He has the pleasure of informing them, that out of 216 Pieces of fine Linens, carried away that night, he has, by their exertions and assistance, received them all but Six Pieces.'

There appears to have been little amusement for the youth of the area, apart from bullet matches (road bowls).¹⁷ For those with literary inclinations, the Dunmurry Reading Society, established in 1823, was highly popular. The society, one of the most prosperous in the parish, met regularly in Dunmurry School House and had a membership of over eighty in 1837, from all classes and creeds. Their library, at that time, was extremely well-stocked, with over seven hundred volumes.¹⁸

The opening of the Ulster Railway line between Belfast and Lisburn in August 1839 undoubtedly had a' considerable impact on the district-and on Drumbeg-especially as an intermediate stop was provided at Dunmurry.¹⁹ Belfast and Lisburn, hitherto a sluggish journey by horsedrawn vehicle, became immediately more accessible. By the mid 1850s, passenger demand had grown by almost fifty percent, with ten trains making the trip daily. Given this shortening of journeys, it is perhaps not surprising that the owners of Ballydrain and Wilmont, Hugh Montgomery and James Bristow, were business men with commercial lives centred upon Belfast; both were Directors of the Northern Bank and Presidents of the Chamber of Commerce. Drumbeg as surburbia, it might be said, had its beginnings in these years of change.

References

Eileen Black is an Assistant Keeper in the Ulster Museum's Art Department, with curatorial responsibility for
the pre-twentieth century oil painting collection. She has published articles on art and on local historical
subjects in numerous journals and was responsible for editing the Museum's major exhibition catalogue, Kings in Conflict: Ireland in the 1690s, published in 1990.

THE LISBURN WORKHOUSE
DURING THE FAMINE

Dr. Christine Kinealy

Nineteenth century lreland was a highly regionalised country about which it is difficult to make generalisations. This diversity is apparent in the administration of the Poor Law between 1838 and 1948 which, although intended to be a uniform system throughout the country, in fact varied from Poor Law Union to Poor Law Union. During the Famine years of 1845-51, when the Poor Law was an important agency for providing relief, this regional diversity was even more marked. This was mainly because the causes and the impact of distress varied over time and geographic area. At the same time, the response to the distress in the local unions depended both on the interest of the individual Board of Guardians and upon the financial resources which they had at their disposal at any particular period. As a result of this, it is not surprising that during the Famine the regional discrepancies in levels of distress and provision of relief were significant.

The impact of the Famine in the province of Ulster has sometimes been over-shadowed by the distress which occurred in the west of the country. Even within Ulster, however, there were considerable differences in the impact of the distress on the various Poor Law Unions. This ranged from the officially declared 'distressed' Union of Glentics in Co. Donegal which was-albeit reluctantly-financed by the government, to the highly regarded 'model' unions of Belfast and Newtownards which, throughout the Famine years, were able to remain self-financing. The following examination of the role of the Lisburn Workhouse during the Famine is intended to show how one Ulster Board of Guardians responded to these years of distress and to what extent their reactions were determined by particular local, economic and social conditions.

The 1838 Poor Law Act divided the country into 130 new administrative units known as Poor Law Unions. Each union had its own workhouse which was usually situated in or near a market town and which was administered by a Board of Guardians. Each Poor Law Union was to be financially self-supporting, the workhouse being maintained by poor rates which were raised locally. The size of the Poor Law Unions varied considerably, the largest ones being in the west of Ireland and the smallest ones i n the eastern part of Ulster, where the population was most dense.¹ The Lisburn Union comprised the town of Lisburn and its twenty-six surrounding townlands. It covered 119, 300 statute acres and in 1841 had a population of 75,444. This compares with the neighbouring unions of Antrim, Belfast, Newtownards, Downpatrick, Banbridge and Lugan which respectively had populations of 49,168; 100,992; 60,165; 74,938; 87,323, and 71,128.²

Each Poor Law Union was administered by a Board of Guardians, two thirds of whom were elected locally, the remainder being ex-officio Guardians. The elected Guardians were usually successful local business men or large farmers, although the executive of each committee was generally drawn from ex-officio membership. At their first meeting on 20 February 1839, the Lisburn Guardians elected James Watson of Brookhill as Chairman, William Caldbeck as Vice-Chairman and William Graham as deputy Vice-Chairman. The Guardians decided to hold their weekly meetings on Tuesdays, which coincided with local marketday,³ The practice of meeting on Tuesdays continued until the final meeting of the Lisburn Guardians in September 1948.

The Irish Poor Law made no provision for outdoor relief, relief only being given to those who became residents of the workhouses. This meant that the Poor law was inoperative until the workhouses were opened. One of the first tasks of the newly-elected Guardians therefore was to oversee the valuation of the union and to superintend the building of the  workhouse. The Lisburn Guardians asked the Marquis of Hertford to provide six acres of land for use as a site for the workhouse and requested the Marquis of Downshire to supply free stone from his quarry near Moira  for the building.⁴ Despite strong local competition, the contract for erecting it was given to Arthur Williams and Sons of Dublin who submitted the lowest tender at £6,200, which compared favourably with the estimate of £8,500 proposed by John Linn of Lisburn. The firm of Williams also built the workhouses in Lurgan and Belfast.⁵

In keeping with the government's desire to make the Poor Law system uniform the majority of Irish workhouses, including those built by Williams, conformed to a standard design (fig. 1.) proposed by George Wilkinson, the Poor Law's official architect. Wilkinson's advice that each workhouse was to be 'uniform and cheap, durable and unattractive' strongly emphasised the deterrent aspect of Poor Law relief which strove to ensure that only the really destitute would apply.⁶ The building of Lisburn's workhouse on its site on the Hillsborough Road was carried out quickly in accordance with the instructions of the government. It opened on 11 February 1841.⁷


The size of the workhouses in Ireland varied to accommodate between 400 and 2.000 paupers, the Lisburn workhouse being built to hold 800 initiates. Within a week of its opening 250 paupers had applied for and been granted workhouse relief.⁸ The majority of these people were old, young or infirm, and not the able-bodied males so feared by the administrators of the Poor Law. In January 1845, on the eve of the potato blight, there were only 341 inmates in the Lisburn workhouse, many of whom were sick. This established a pattern which, with the exception of the Famine years, continued throughout the history of the Poor Law-that is, that in many ways, workhouses took on the role of community hospitals rather that refuges for large numbers of able-bodied adults, described by the government as the 'undeserving poor.'

The potato blight, which was the immediate cause of the Famine, was first noticed in Co. Cork in September 1845 although the full extent of the damage it had caused was not realised until general digging took place it October. By this time it was obvious that blight had affected the potato crop primarily in the south and west of the country with only isolated instances appearing in Ulster.¹⁰ Consequently, there was no discernable increase in the demand for relief in Ulster in the latter part of 1845, a pattern which also held true for the Lisburn workhouse. At the end of October 1845, after a visit, the Marquis of Hertford and Captain Henry Marvell RN, MP for the town, commented in the Visitors' Book that they believed Lisburn's establishment was not excelled by any similar institution in England. The Marquis's approval even extended to providing, at his own expense a special dinner for the paupers, which consisted of beef, carrots and soup, followed by tea and currant buns.¹¹

In order to meet the increase in distress which was expected in some parts of the country following the appearance of blight, the government introduced various temporary relief measures. Local relief committees were established which could receive grants for the provision of relief, grain was imported into the country, and the public works were given additional funds in order to provide employment. By providing these additions relief measures, the government hoped that they would be able to avoid extending the permanent system of Pool Law relief. Due to these policies, the demand for workhouse relief showed little change in the winter of 1845-6. In fact, the main change in the administration of the Poor Law was in regard to workhouse diet. As early as October 1845, the Poor Law Commissioners (the central governing body) informed all Poor Law Guardians it Ireland that they would allow potatoes - a stable part of the workhouse diet - to be replaced by other foodstuffs, such as bread, rice or soup. In the Lisburn Union, the guardians felt this to be unnecessary as they were still able to obtain good quality potatoes at the same price. By January 1846, however, the situation had changed and the local contractor was no longer able to obtain sound potatoes. In consequence, the Guardian: decided that instead of potatoes, the paupers should have soup four days a week, stirabout two days and potatoes only one day a week.¹³

In 1846 the potato harvest failed for the second time. In 1845 the impact of the blight had been localised but in 1846, the crop in every part of the country was affected.¹⁴ In the Lisburn Union, the crop failed totally.¹⁵ This had two major consequences: firstly, some of the rate payers, particularly the small farmers, found a difficult to pay their rates, and secondly, there was an increase in demand for workhouse relief. The Guardian responded to the hardship felt by smaller rate-payers by allowing them an additional two months to settle their accounts. They warned, however, that if rates were not then paid, they would take legal action against them.¹⁶

The increase in the number of workhouse inmates was a more immediate problem as, by November 1846 there were more people in the workhouse than it could accommodate (see fig. 2). This increase in demand to workhouse relief was repeated in practically every Poor Law Union in the country and was partly due to a change In policy by the government in the second year of distress. The relief measures introduced in 1845 were intended lobe temporary measures only. Following the reappearance of blight, however, the government determined to force the local landlords to play a larger role in the provision of relief. To facilitate this, public works were now extended throughout the country, although the unprecedented demand for relief meant that they were unable to provide sufficient employment for the distressed population.

One of the consequences of the inability of the public works to provide sufficient relief was that an increasing number of people turned to local workhouses for support. The regional contrasts in this demand to relief are marked; in Co. Antrim, for example, the average number of people employed daily on the public work was 270-the lowest number in the whole of Ireland. This compares with a daily average of 335 in Co. Down 2,329 in Co. Tyrone, 4,065 in Co. Fermanagh and 9,002 in Co. Donegal. Even within Ulster, therefore, there were considerable regional contrasts which were even more marked when compared to the situation in the rest of the country: in Co. Clare, for example, 31,310 were employed daily on the public works, in Co. Galway there were 33,325 and in Co. Cork 42, 134.¹⁷ To a large extent, these regional variations reflect the levels of dependence of the local population on the potato as a stable crop. In many parts of Ulster, however, notably in the north eastern part, income derived from weaving provided a safely net against the worst effects of the blight.

In the winter of 1846-7 the demand for admittance to the Lisburn workhouse began to increase. Although there was little sickness in the institution, the Guardians were aware that infectious diseases might break out if overcrowding occurred They therefore responded to the demand by building additional sleeping galleries in the dormitories, to accommodate a further two hundred inmates. This accorded with the recommendations to the Poor Law Commissioners who under no circumstances wanted the Guardians to provide relief to people why were not residents of the workhouse.¹⁸ The reaction of the Lisburn Guardians is in sharp contrast to that of Guardians in many other parts of the country, particularly those where the public works were unable to provide sufficient relief. In these areas, many of the Guardians reacted to the second year of distress by introducing an ad hoc system of outdoor relief, even though it was absolutely forbidden under the terms of the Poor Law Act. Although this was most prevalent in the south and west of the country, in Co. Down both the Kilkeel and Banbridge Guardians intermittently provided illicit relief, despite repeated orders from the Poor Law Commissioner to desist.¹⁹ In Banbridge in April 1847, for example, the Guardians refused 1,271 persons workhouse relie because of overcrowding and instead gave each applicant food to take home.²⁰

The inability of the government to provide sufficient relief through the public works, which resulted in a growing demand for workhouse relief, made a further change of policy inevitable. The government therefore decided that after August 1847 the Poor Law was to be the main provider of relief. To make this possible, outdoor relief was for the first tune to be officially permitted. Twenty-two unions along the western seaboard were officially declared `distressed' and were to receive external financial assistance, although the other unions were to remain self-supporting as far as possible. To facilitate the change from public works to Poor Law relief, soup kitchens were established throughout Ireland during the summer of 1847, which, as their name suggests, provided relief in the form of soup. At its peak, over three million people in Ireland (almost half the population) availed themselves of this form of relief. Again, the regional variations are marked, the percentage of the population which received daily rations of soup in the Lisburn Union being 3 per cent, in Banbridge 17 per cent and in Larne 20 per cent. By contrast, in the Belfast, Newtownards and Antrim unions, soup kitchens proved to be unnecessary. The daily average in other parts of the country, particularly the west, was much higher than in Ulster. In the Gort Union 86 per cent of the population was in daily receipt of soup, in the Swineford Union the figure was 84 per cent and in the Clifden Union it was 87 per cent.²¹

The transfer to Poor Law relief in August 1847 coincided with a temporary depression in the linen industry which affected the small weavers of Cos. Antrim and Down. This had a short-term but significant impact on the number of people requiring relief in these areas. In the Lisburn union, the distress amongst the weavers made the provision of outdoor relief necessary. It was provided, however, subject to very stringent controls. For example, it was given only to the old or sick and was in the form of cooked food -stirabout and not in cash. Simultaneously, relief provided within the workhouse was to be subject to tighter control in an effort to deter all but the really destitute from applying. Corn mills were to be erected in the workhouse, in which the able-bodied men were to be employed, whilst the female inmates were to be employed in oakum picking.²²

Although blight reappeared in some parts of Ireland in the harvest of 1848, its impact on the Lisburn union was counter-balanced by a revival in the linen industry. As a result, the number of people seeking relief began to decline. The harvest of 1848, in fact, in many ways marked a watershed in the Famine. In the eastern part of Ulster, the worst was over; however, in other parts of the country, particularly along the western seaboard, the effect of a fourth year of distress was devastating. In the Lisburn union, there was an obvious reduction in the number of people seeking Poor Law relief. The return to 'normality' in the workhouse is perhaps indicated by the fact that in November 1848 the Marquis of Downshire, following a visit to the establishment, made a donation of one pound which he directed should be spent on the purchase of catechisms for the education of the pauper scholars. ²³ There was, however, a temporary increase in mortality in the union when, in early 1849, a number of cases of asiatic cholera were reported in Lisburn. Similar outbreaks occurred in other parts of Ireland at this time, brought in from Britain through ports such as Londonderry, Dublin and Belfast. This cholera epidemic had a short-term impact on mortality rates throughout Ireland.

The continuation and, in some instances, increase in distress in some parts of Ireland in 1849, resulted in a shift of policy by the government. At the beginning of 1849, they introduced the Rate-in-Aid Act which imposed an additional rate on the more prosperous unions in Ulster and Leinster, which was then to be redistributed to the poorer unions in the west of Ireland.²⁴ The purpose of this was to make poor relief a national rather than a local responsibility. The unions in Ulster primarily liable for this tax held meetings throughout the Province to protest at its introduction. The Lisburn Guardians described it as a tax on `the industrious population of Ulster for the support of the improvident and indigent poor of the south of Ireland' and ordered that placards be posted throughout the union to this effect. Advertisements were also to be placed in the Northern Whig, Belfast Commercial Chronicle and the Belfast News-Letter. They also convened a public meeting of all rate payers, to be held in the corn market in Lisburn on 3 March.¹⁵ However, in spite of the widespread unpopularity of the Rate-in-Aid Act amongst the Ulster Guardians it was generally paid although not as promptly as the usual poor rate.²⁶

The potato crop in 1849 was relatively free from blight, which marked the start of a series of good harvests in Ireland. The exception to this was in parts of the west, particularly in a number of unions in Cos. Clare, Kerry and Galway, where the number of people seeking relief continued to grow .²⁷ In the Lisburn union by June 1850, the number of inmates in the workhouse had returned to its pre-1845 level. In fact, the number of able-bodied men in the workhouse had dropped so drastically that the Guardians were forced to purchase an ass to work on the institution's farm." By August, the Guardians were sufficiently confident in the prospects of the local potato crop to re-introduce potatoes into the workhouse diet - three lbs a day to be given to all paupers over the age of nine.²⁹

In 1852 a visitor from Scotland visited some of the Poor Law unions in the north of Ireland and recorded his findings in the Glasgow Herald. He described the Lisburn workhouse thus: `Tire house is of very tasteful architecture with long avenues and spaces of ground on all sides blooming with vegetation. Nothing could exceed the milk-white cleanliness of the floors, walls, doors and other furniture of the establishment. There are 15 acres of ground attached to it, which are kept in an excellent state of cultivation by the master, without any assistants but the paupers.;³⁰ He also pointed to the fact that despite an increase in poor rates during the Famine and the fact that the union had paid £50,000 in rate-in-aid to the distressed unions, the Lisburn union now, had £3,500 in the bank." Again, this is in sharp contrast to unions in the west of Ireland, which were only beginning to emerge from the effects of seven consecutive years of distress. The Lisburn Poor Law Union, therefore, had survived the Famine years with relatively little hardship. Furthermore, due to the relatively buoyant economic situation, conditions within the union by the early 1850s were able to return to their pre-Famine condition within a very short space of time.


References

Dr. Kinealy was Administrator of the Ulster Historical Foundation for some years and is now employed by the
Institute of Irish Studies al Liverpool University. Her speciality is the Famine in Ireland, on which she is publishing a major work in 1991.

GEORGE RAWDON'S LISBURN

Dr. Raymond Gillespie

On Sunday 20 August 1707, in the space of three hours, Lisburn was razed to the ground by an accidental fire. It was the fate most feared by urban dwellers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who inhabited towns often constructed mainly of timber and plasterwork which burnt easily. It was not an uncommon occurance. Newry was partly destroyed in 1600 as a result of a fire caused by an accident when distilling whiskey, and Bangor almost suffered the same sad end in 1623, when one of its inhabitants fell asleep while reading by candle light. The corporation of Belfast, fearing fire, ordered in 1638 that inhabitants of the town who did not replace their wooden chimneys with brick ones would be fined forty-eight shillings while at Lurgan, the landlord, Arthur Brownlow, took care to include in his leases the stipulation that chimneys should be built of stone or brick. In some ways the burning of Lisburn was a blessing in disguise, for within a few years it was rebuilt as one of the most modern towns in Ulster, largely due to the initiative of the landlord, Lord Conway.¹

The town which had been destroyed in 1707 was largely the creation of one man, George Rawdon, who served as Lord Conway's agent in Ireland from the 1630s until his death in the 1680s.² During this period the Conways were absentee landlords attending to their English estates at Ragley in Warwickshire or fulfilling the duties required by their offices at Court in London. The result was a voluminous correspondence between Rawdon and his master, most of which has been preserved and is accessible through the Calendar of State Papers, Ireland and the Calendar of State Papers, Domestic. These records provide an almost unique view of the seventeenth century development not only of the town of Lisburn but also of the surrounding estate.

There had been a town on the site of Lisburn before the rebellion in 1641 but it was destroyed in the early weeks of the rising. So complete was the destruction that Lord Conway, the commander of the settler forces in east Ulster, claimed that it was not possible to find billets for the support of his soldiers and up to 300 had died as a result of the harsh conditions.³ That early seventeenth century town had been a small affair. The first landlord, Sir Fulke Conway, had done little to develop the estate mainly because the English and Scottish immigrants were slow to move so far inland. They tended to settle near the main ports where they landed, at Larne, Carrickfergus and Donaghadee. As the areas nearest the coast became settled, migrants began to move inland. In 1627 Lisburn was granted a patent for a market and fair and became the administrative centre for the estate. Shortly after the grant was made, however, Sir Fulke died in a fire caused by smoking his pipe in bed. The estate then passed to his nephew, Sir Edward Conway, who installed George Rawdon as his agent in 1632. The town which Rawdon found was not inspiring. Sir William Brereton, travelling through Ireland in 1635, described Lisburn, then known by its old name of Lisnegarvey, as `well scaled but neither the town nor the country thereabouts well planted being almost all woods and moorish until you come m Dromore.' Brereton was, however, optimislic about the future, noting 'though the land hereabouts be the poorest and barrenest I have yet seen yet it may be made good land with labour and charge. '⁴

An early seventeenth century sketch map of Lisburn recorded fifty-three tenements, possibly representing a population of about 260 people. By 1659 the number had grown, 357 people being recorded on the poll tax for that year. This may represent a population of about 700. Of these 357 persons, 217 were settlers and 140 were Irish. The town was then the sixth largest in Ulster after Belfast, Armagh, Coleraine, Derry and Canickfergus.⁵ The 1650s had seen a dramatic recovery of Lisburn's fortunes. This was in no small measure due to the large influx of Scots but more especially English settlers from the north of England, anxious to take advantage of the cheap land available in Ireland following the Cromwellian war. By 1658 a school had been established and the fairs were again operating. Rawdon was instrumental in the town's revival, attempting to encourage new industries such as soap and potash making, as well as improving agriculture.⁶ However, the real growth in Lisburn came in the later part of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries: by 1725 there were 787 houses representing a population of about 4,000 souls.

The restoration of Charles II in 1660 brought the Court back to London and with it came Conway, who had been in exile with the king during the 1650s. Together with his agent, Bowdon, he began to develop his town. This they did by establishing it as the premier centre in the county of Antrim. In 1662 it was incorporated and, given the right to send two MPs to the Dublin parliament. In addition, the church was transformed into the cathedral for the united dioceses of Down and Connor. The status value of these developments was clear to the bishop, Jeremy Taylor, who urged that two MPs should be selected immediately for the parliament already sitting, since `it would add reputation to us and give solemnity to the new erection of the cathedral.'⁷

Two other measures were also taken to add to the town's prestige. The first involved an attempt to upgrade the school which had been established in the 1650s and rebuilt in 1666. A further reconstruction was planned in 1683. This second rebuilding was part of a scheme to have the school declared the diocesan school, which hitherto had been located at Carrickfergus. Lord Longford, then governor of Carrickfergus, objected and the move seems never to have taken place. By the 1680s the Lisburn school had become the foremost centre for education east of the Bann and rivalled the Royal Schools at Armagh and Enniskillen for quality of education.⁸ In the 1680s it had some forty students of whom twenty-seven were boarders in the town. Between 1660 and 1700 about a quarter of all the Ulster entrants to Trinity College, Dublin had been educated in it. Part of its success was due to the master, Robert Harvey, who remained in post from 1675 until the early eighteenth century. Such long periods in one school were unusual in seventeenth century Ulster but the salary of £30 a year provided by Conway was an attractive incentive to stay. Harvey's eventual parting from Lisburn came as a result of a dispute over salary.⁹

The third area of prestige which was developed for the town was the location of Rawdon's army troop there. This made Lisburn the military capital of the county, with the result that in 1689 Schomberg chose to make the town his headquarters rather than Belfast. It also had other benefits; most importantly the troop provided protection from bands of raiders (known as tories) who plundered the surrounding countryside. Many of the soldiers evidently settled in the town. Quarter-master Wright and Sergeant Rogers, for example, are noted in one of Rawdon's letters as building houses in Lisburn in 1676.¹⁰ Moreover, as the local military centre, the town attracted numerous soldiers and formed a local centre for manoeuvres. In 1672, for instance, a rendezvous of forces at Lambeg brought soldiers to Lisburn which, Rawdon noted, `will be a particular advantage to the town of Lisburn, who ought to have directions given to them in every house to provide meat and drink for this little army.' In all, Rawdon estimated his troop was worth between £1,400 and £1,500 a year to the town in the 1670s.¹¹

Thus under Rawdon's guidance Lisburn became the ecclesiastical, educational and military capital of the county. To fulfil these roles properly, the town also had to have the physical appearance to match its new-found status. As neither Rawdon nor Conway had the kind of money required to build the town themselves, they relied on a device known as a building lease, whereby they leased plots of land in the town at nominal rents and in return the occupier built on them. However, such building was not to be at random. Major Stroud, who had a tenement outside the Belfast gate, was required to build his houses `all the length streetwards before two years and to level and pave the street before them and to move his pales near his house in a direct line with Coronet Rogers house and to lake away all the trees before his house except the nearest row.<sup>12</sup> Such town planning brought favourable comment from many late-seventeenth century visitors such as George Storey, who, arriving in 1690, found Lisburn `one of the prettiest inland towns in the north of Ireland and one of the most English-like places in the kingdom.' Earlier in 1677 Richard Mildmay, the receiver of rents on the estate, had written to Conway that `the town is abundantly finer than when you saw it last, many of the houses being whited and new rough cast.'¹³

However, improvements did not stop with the physical appearance of the town. The very dry summer of 1676 led Rawdon and a number of tenants to explore the possibility of a piped water system. Rawdon, together with a carpenter called Colson, proposed to bring water from some `limestone springs' for a distance of some 360perches,using ditches, and then by means of a wooden pipe, to carry it a further seventy perches, to a source near the market house. He calculated the cost to be £100 but the fate of the scheme is not known. In Ulster, only Moneymore in Co. Londonderry could boast a piped water supply at the time, which however had fallen into disuse because of frequent splitting of the pipes.''

Rawdon not only wanted Lisburn to have a planned and pleasing appearance, he also desired to develop in the town a sense of community and urban pride and condemned those who were not prepared to help in his improvements. `Richard Close' he noted acidly in 1677 `forgets his father's rise here and will lay out nothing to beautify the town.¹⁵ In particular, he did not wish to have any disruptive elements in the vicinity. Chief among these, in his opinion, were the Presbyterians who refused to acknowledge the king as head of the church. Rawdon saw them as detracting from the king's royal authority. He refused to permit a Presbyterian congregation to be set up in the town and it was not until 1687, after his death, that a congregation was organised. As a rule he also refused leases to Presbyterians but he had little control over the sub-leases and it was as sub-lessees that members of the church came into Lisburn. In March 1681, on his way to church, be noticed a man preaching in Bow Lane but only later realised that it had been a Presbyterian preacher, brought in by a number of under-tenants who were dealers in butter. A request for a site to establish a church came shortly after, to which he replied that a petition should be sent to Lord Conway on the matter. He subsequently confided to Conway that his reason for adopting this approach was to elicit the names of Presbyterians in the town.16

Under Rawdon,  therefore, Lisburn in the late seventeenth century became one of the socially most significant towns in Ulster. It was only able to support that position, however, because of the dramatic economic growth of south Antrim and north Down. The early seventeenth century town had been largely based on the surrounding agricultural economy which was still concerned with producing unprocessed raw materials, mainly live cattle, for export. With the rapid expansion of population in the late seventeenth century, it became clear that such activity could not support the growth in the urban population. New sources of employment were required. New urban industries began to appear in the late seventeenth century town, the most important being linen weaving.

The production of linen yarn had always been a feature of the Ulster rural economy but relatively little was turned into cloth. That which was woven (mainly in the countryside) was made into coarse twelve-inch wide linens known as handle linen. Rawdon was keen to improve the quality of the yarn and accordingly imported both flax and hemp from Ostend. Town-based weavers making their own living almost entirely from weaving (although most also had small farms outside the town, one contemporary estimating ten acres to be sufficient) were a new development. Moreover the type of linens which they wove were not for local use but were large pieces of fine linen-not yet cambrics or lawns but nevertheless fine-for sale outside Ireland. According to a statute of 1710, pieces of linen one yard by twenty yards were known as Lisburns. Other pieces were known as Lurgans and Coleraines. The trade for most or this linen passed through Dublin, where weavers brought their goods for sale. In 1671, for instance, Phelim O'Neill wrote to Conway from Dublin that 'I expect our Lisburn weavers here this week. ¹⁷ Lisburn was only one of many towns in the area in which linen was to become one of the most important elements in the urban economy. The way was led by Lurgan, where the landlord, Arthur Brownlow, encouraged a market for linen by buying up all that was brought to the market.¹⁸ Whatever the importance of the Huguenots to the later development of the Lisburn linen trade, it is clear that before their arrival, linen weaving was already a flourishing business in the town.

It was not as a cloth town specialising in linen that Lisburn was to achieve fame and wealth in the late seventeenth century, however, but rather as a commercial centre. The trend of diversification which was clear in Lisburn's urban economy was even more pronounced in the rural economy. The prohibition of export of live Irish cattle to England in 1665 destroyed one of the main elements of the east Ulster trade and forced the economy to diversify. This reinforced a trend already present as the population grew by immigration after 1660. New types of activity were encouraged to provide incomes for the newcomers¹⁹, with the result that the area around Lisburn moved increasingly to butter production and export of hides. Much of this trade was channelled through the fast growing port of Belfast, which traded mainly with continental Europe.

Belfast grew from being the eighth largest port in Ireland in the 1660s to the fourth largest in the 1680s. By the 1690s some commentators regarded it as the second largest port in the kingdom. While this was not true, the fact that some believed it possible is indicative of the scale of the town's trade. This bad a considerable effect on the towns in the hinterland of Belfast. As one of the main merchants in the town, George MacCartney, wrote to Rawdon in the 1680s: 'if our town prosper your town of Lisburn certainly must, for one depends on the welfare of the other.'²⁰ What Lisburn became was an outport of Belfast and a trading centre for the products of the newer market towns of north Down, such as Lurgan, Hillsborough, Moira and Dromore. The importance of this in Lisburn's life was stressed by Rawdon's expression of fear in November 1679 that the Belfast merchants would by-pass Lisburn and establish agents for the butter trade at the smaller inland towns: Lurgan and Moira for the Armagh trade and Hillsborough and Dromore for the Down trade.21

Thus it was as a trading centre for the rapidly rising port of Belfast that Lisburn grew. One index of the importance of trade in the life of the town was the number of tokens issued by the Lisburn merchants and traders in the late seventeenth century. Such tokens functioned as a substitute for small change which was in short supply. Fourteen individuals issued them in Lisburn, making it the third biggest issuing centre after Belfast and Derry, which had twenty-six and eighteen issuers respectively.²² Market tolls also provide an index of growth. Initially the Lisburn market tolls had been leased at £10 but by 1677 the yield was about £30, by which time the tolls of Lurgan were bringing in £10 a year. To encourage this scale of growth, better facilities for merchants were offered as an incentive. In the late 1670s the abolition of tolls was under consideration as the existing lease on them had run out. This abolition would, it was thought, encourage more merchants to come to the town and hence boost overall prosperity, which would eventually compensate for the loss of toll income. Conway, however, seems to have been unwilling to forego the income from the tolls.²³ Instead, Rawdon concentrated on improving the facilities in the market place, to encourage merchants. In 1677 he demolished a ruined tenement in the town and levelled the ground, with a view to moving the butchers' stalls from the main market place, which he felt could be enlarged as a corn market. He also considered setting up a timber market which would direct some of the timber trade from Belfast. The scheme, he argued, would be profitable since the butchers would pay £10 a year for the new stalls. In the event, the plan took some time to materialise and it was not until 1680 that the new shambles-described as 'very noble'-was completed. Rawdon's optimism for income was more than justified, as all the new shops were let in two days and the butchers paid double the amount (that is, £20 a year) for their stalls. Further improvements were carried out in 1683, when the market place was paved.²⁴

One other area of investment was required to attract merchants: easy communications. There had been a plan in the early seventeenth century to make the river Lagan into a canal but this had been abandoned for fear that it would drain the water out of Lough Neagh. In the later part of the century Rawdon put much energy into road building in the Lisburn area. In 1683 Richard Dobbs, Mayor of Carrickfergus and author of A Briefe Description of the County of Antrim, noted that 'all the highways within 8 or 10 miles of Lisburn are very good-not only from the nature of the soil ...but from Sir Geo. Rawden's [sic] care (who is, I believe, the Best High Way man in the kingdom) and the Industry of the Inhabitants.'²⁵ Thus Lisburn became part of a complex network of markets and fairs throughout north Down. This type of investment to attract merchants is a powerful indicator of how commercial activity had become the core of the Lisburn economy in the late seventeenth century.

The centrality of commerce to the life of Lisburn could only be maintained by attracting merchants to the town. Part of this was achieved by providing them with suitable facilities but the landlord also played a key role. In the 1630s Conway offered to purchase cattle from a large number of tenants, which would then be brought to Lisburn where they could be sold to merchants. ²⁶ In this way the market was guaranteed for the merchant who would not have a wasted journey. Landlords would also fulfil the role of bankers in making loans to merchants, since there were no banks in Lisburn until the early eighteenth century, when the Dublin banks established agents there. (At that lime, tbe banks were more interested in providing bills of exchange than in making loans). The workings of the landlord are shown in the case of Thomas Taylor, a Lisburn merchant who traded with London in the 1670s and 1680s. In December 1679 Taylor wrote to Conway stressing the problems of Lisburn's trade which, he claimed, was being destroyed by Scottish merchants from Belfast, who had commissions from London merchants to buy up local tallow and butter and ship it to London. He asked Conway to intervene with the Londoners to obtain commissions for him. As the main trading season approached, he wrote to Conway again in June 1680, informing him that he had commissions from London merchants but that he lacked the working capital to carry them out He asked for a loan of £400 or £500 for six months which he would use to encourage the Lisburn trade, the money to be repaid in London al the end of that time. His case was further strengthened by his claim that Conway had dealt with his father, Oliver, in this way. Such support was not unusual; Arthur Brownlow had supported the linen market at Lurgan with his own funds until it became established.²⁷

The years between the restoration of Charles II and the burning of the town in 1707 had thus seen a dramatic rise in the fortunes of Lisburn. The small estate town of the early seventeenth century had become unrecognisable. Tenants still came to the town to pay their rents to the agent on market days or to attend the manorial courts which resolved minor problems between tenants on the estate but Lisburn now had important ecclesiastical, educational, political and commercial functions as well.²⁸ The transformation of the town into a centre of status had been planned by George Rawdon, who had created a neat, smart-looking town much admired by visitors. It had only been possible to realise this because of the important commercial function which Lisburn had achieved as an outport of a rapidly growing Belfast. As with so many other small towns in seventeenth century Ulster, Lisburn's success was due not to landlord or merchant alone but to a combination of both, working together.


References

Dr. Gillespie is the author of a number of books and articles on early modern Ireland, including Colonial Ulster the settlement of east Ulster, 1600-41, 1985 and Conspiracy: Ulster plots and plotters in 1615, 1987. In 1986 he edited Settlement and survival on an Ulster estate: the Brown low leasebook,1667-1711, published by PROM.