furnishes an instructive chapter in the history
of the land war. The whole barony of Farney was granted by Queen
Elizabeth to Walter Earl of Essex in the year 1576, in reward for the
massacres already recorded. It was then an almost unenclosed plain,
consisting chiefly of coarse pasturage, interspersed with low
alder-scrub. When the primitive woods were cut down for fuel,
charcoal, or other purposes, the stumps remained in the ground, and
from these fresh shoots sprang up thickly. The clearing out of these
stumps was difficult and laborious; but it had to be done before
anything, but food for goats, could be got out of the land. This was
'the M'Mahons' country,' and the tribe was not wholly subdued till
1606, when the power of the Ulster chiefs was finally broken. The
lord deputy, the chancellor, and the lord chief justice passed through
Farney on their way to hold assizes for the first time in Derry and
Donegal. They were protected by a guard of 'seven score foot, and
fifty or three score horse, which,' wrote Sir John Davis, 'is an
argument of a good time and a confident deputy; for in former times
(when the state enjoyed the best peace and security) no lord deputy
did ever venture himself into those parts, without an army of 800 or
1000 men.' At this time Lord Essex had leased the barony of Farney
to Evor M'Mahon for a yearly rent of 250 l. payable in Dublin. After
fourteen years the same territory was let to Brian M'Mahon for 1,500
l. In the year 1636, the property yielded a yearly rent of 2022 l.
18 s. 4 d. paid by thirty-eight tenants. A map then taken gives the
several townlands and denominations nearly as they are at present.
Robert Earl of Essex, dying in 1646, his estates devolved on his
sisters, Lady Frances and Lady Dorothy Devereux, the former of whom
married Sir W. Seymour, afterwards Marquis of Hertfort, and the latter
Sir Henry Shirley, Bart., ancestor of the present proprietor of half
the barony. Ultimately the other half became the property of the
Marquis of Bath. At the division in 1690, each moiety was valued at
1313 l. 14 s. 4-1/2 d. Gradually as the lands were reclaimed by the
tenants, the rental rose. In 1769 the Bath estate produced 3,000 l.,
and the Shirley estate 5,000 l. The total of 8,000 l. per annum, from
this once wild and barren tract, was paid by middlemen. The natives
had not been rooted out, and during the eighteenth century these
sub-tenants multiplied rapidly. According to the census