Brief History

Note: The summary below describes the activities of the Corporation as reported in the Town Book within the context of major contemporary national events and local economic developments. As such it is limited in scope. A comprehensive history would include the on-going impact of powerful institutions in the borough, such as the Church of Ireland, the Masonic Order (of which Humphrey Butler, descendant of Stephen Butler was Deputy Grand Master in 1725), the Orange Order, the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches, and the Catholic Church which, after years of struggle and controversy was permitted to build a chapel within the borough boundary in 1838. The Sources page attempts to collect surviving relevant documentation

1613-1641-1656 There are no surviving Town Book records for the period 1613-1656. From other sources it is known that the town was incorporated in 1613 under a Charter from King James I. Stephen Butler, who had been granted an estate of (nominally) 2000 acres including the town site and who was the Corporation’s first Provost, established an exclusively British-born population along what is now Church Street, Main Street and Holborn Hill. By 1622, the town consisted of 34 houses, while on the Butler estate there were two corn mills and a fulling mill. The Church, on the site of the present Church of Ireland, was built between 1622 and 1634. On October 23, 1641, the first day of the Rebellion, the town was taken by Philip McHugh O’Reilly, causing Corporation rule to be discontinued for sixteen years. According to the 1641 Depositions parts of the town, including the Church were burned on Easter Sunday, 1642 and probably with them the records of the Corporation up to that time. The town remained under Confederacy control until 1652 when it was retaken for Dublin Castle by Colonel Venables. It is not known (to me) when the church was rebuilt.

Local Economy

The market economy which the Plantation was designed to introduce into Ulster developed only slowly after the Restoration. Replacing the settlers who fled during the 1641Rebellion proved difficult at first, even though land was less expensive in Ulster than elsewhere. Tariffs imposed against import of Irish cattle to England in 1666 did nothing to help.

Petty, writing in 1672, estimated that the population of Ireland was 300,000 English and Scottish and 800,000 Irish. He thought the English and the Scottish and one quarter of the Irish lived ‘above the meanest level’ Labourer wages was 4d/day. Cloth-making was widely practiced, freize being a major export. There was a ten fold increase in cloth exports between 1665 and 1685. The main product of the area was cattle but murrain was a constant threat. The linen industry was small and undeveloped. However, the framework for the market economy had been laid. By 1680, a vigourous recovery was underway. Land prices increased and Scottish immigrants flooded into Ulster. Exports particularly to France boomed. Expansion was interrupted by the threat of war in 1687 when the foreign markets closed and remained so for the next ten years.

The Corporation

The first surviving entry in the Town Book of the Corporation is a set of bye-laws dated 1657, entitled

‘ACTS made and enacted by the Provost, Free Burgesses and Common Council of Belturbet at the Clark of the Market there held on the fourth day of December 1657 before Richard West deputy-provost as followeth . . . ’. (BC/1 p.1) These bye-laws governed grazing on the commons, turf-cutting allocations, controlling pigs and buying and selling in the market. The Corporation quickly restored the exclusively British and Protestant character which had marked it before the 1641 Rebellion and the bigotry and intolerance of the Cromwellian era was much in evidence as ‘quagners’, ‘papists’, ‘Sabbath-breakers’, those implicated in gaming and ‘disparaging the government of the town’ (BC/2) and such pursuits were subject to punitive bye-laws. But it was also a time of hope when there was an excess of resources and a growing unity of purpose among the inhabitants. The Common Council appointed by the Provost proved an effective advisory and executive body which approached the task of recreating the community with great energy. As well, the democratic leanings of the members were apparent in its dealings with the provost and burgesses. In 1661 the Jury of the Clerk of the Market Court summoned seven burgesses for not having styles through their burgess acres and ordered them to set them up within a month. In 1663, the inhabitants presented a petition which charged that the Corporation had used the revenue of the Corporation to ‘their own private uses’ and asked that some be laid aside for the future defense of the town. The Provost accepted the petition and agreed that for the future five pounds be lodged in the bank each year for this purpose. In the same year, the freemen of the Corporation requested that the provost’s custom of swearing-in freemen in ‘alehouses and taverns’ without the consent of the body of the Corporation be stopped. This too was agreed by the Provost and Burgesses.

The first major crisis to confront the Corporation was the demand from the Lord Lieutenant that the Town Charter be renewed at the expense of the Corporation. This potentially enormous imposition was accepted by the Corporation with little show of resistance – an indication of the submission which even unpalatable royal decrees engendered. The Corporation spent some one hundred and forty four pounds and sixpence on this account between 1666 and 1671before the matter was temporarily dropped.

An entry, dated 1685 showing fees charged by the Corporation Officers for their legal, law-enforcement and crier services, and for management of the market provides an insight into the Corporation’s business. The Provost, Town Clerk and Attorney each exacted costs for their Court appearances while the Marshall charged for every arrest, every oath taken in court and even ‘for holding the book for every freeman sworn’. The entry lists fees exacted on a remarkably wide range of produce coming to market. Besides cattle, sheep, pigs, goats and linen and woolen clothe and yarn, and grain such as wheat, rye, oats, beans and peas by the barrel, there was malt for beer-making, poles (staves) for barrels and bark by the horse load for tanning as well as butter, tallow for candles, eels and herrings. Transportation was by boat (for which a wharfage charge was levied) or horse-car (also levied), horse load or ‘carried in arms’ Strangely, iron came by the horse load, though the most convenient iron furnace was down-river on Lower Lough Erne[1] The Corporation also charged for stands set up in the market by ‘grey merchants, that is , traders who were not freemen of the Corporation, whether the stands were provided by the Corporation or by the peddler. To the north, the river was easily navigable as far as Ballyshannon, except for the falls of Asseroe near the estuary. There, goods for export to England or Scotland or import up-river had to be portaged. The ‘cott’ a flat-bottomed square-prowed vessel peculiar to the Erne basin was the preferred means of water transport as it allowed access to the many shallow tributaries, inlets, islands and marshes. The cott had one or two sets of rowlocks and was not suitable for sail. To the south of Belturbet there was fast-flowing turbulent sections suitable only small shallow-draft craft. There is indication that while water transport was the preferred mode, wheelcarts, which required roads with hard surfaces were also in some limited use at this time. Suitable roads joining towns and settlements were not widely available until the second quarter of the 18^th century.

Tolls and Customs derived from the market provide a measure of the growth of the local economy. An idea of the returns from the Tolls and Customs is afforded by the arrangement agreed in 1668 whereby management of these revenues was farmed out to Richard French, brother of the Provost, for seven years, for thirty two pounds sterling per year. From this the Provost received a salary of ten pounds, leaving twenty-two pounds for the town treasury, a much more satisfactory arrangement for the town than agreed in 1663. Richard French retained the difference between the Tolls and Customs income and that paid for the farm. This gross income is not revealed in the accounts. The Tolls and Customs were again farmed out when the seven year term expired, but the entry is difficult to read. Items of interest listed in the meagre surviving accounts of this period include ‘ a gudgeon for the ducking stool’ for 5 shillings and ‘attorney’s fees for mason (?) (BC/1 p 47) for taking Sarah Dunne off the town charge’ at two shillings.

The Wardell family appears in the records for the first time in July 1671 when John Wardell was one of thirty four at a town meeting, who approved the construction of a wharf 'adjoining to Mr. Samuel Cottnam and Thomas Gumley’s houses' (BC/1 p.28). Wardell was an attorney. and probably owned land locally. He is referred to as 'gentleman', a social rank somewhat lower than that of ‘Esquire’. The location of the wharf appears to be at the river bend at Willow Avenue along which Brockwell Cottnam had a homestead (see Madden Map 1725) and the Gumley family still owned land in 1857. The lane to the wharf (the present Water Lane) was to be paved up to the main road in the town. In September 1671, William Wardell (the relationship to John is not known) was admitted to follow his trade (unspecified) at one shilling per quarter, a rate at the lower end of the quarteridge[2] scale at the time. In October he was entrusted with digging a well and maintaining it for as long as he lived in the Corporation in return for 15 shillings and exemption from quarteridge payments. The burgesses of the corporation were pleased with the well and in 1673 William was commended and admitted free of the Corporation. Subsequently his name appears frequently in relation to debates on corporation business and investment. By 1675 he was appointed appraiser, a position that recognized his entrepreneurial abilities and well as his loyalty.

In 1675 he was granted forty yards of ground near the Creeny bridge in exchange for constructing a bleaching green for Corporation use on land close to the river, probably on part of the site on which the Military Barracks was later built (this to be further investigated). At this time the linen market was in its infancy and William and the Corporation exhibited considerable foresight in this respect.

By 1679/80 the town’s turf resources were under pressure, probably due to population increase as well as overcutting. A survey was conducted which allocated or more likely, confirmed, previously allocated areas of the Red and Black Bogs to the town’s homestead-owners and recorded them in annexes to the Town Book[3] .(The annexes did not survive but the 1857 Griffith Valuation for plots in these bogs reflect the number of plots in the Survey and in a few cases, the names.

Between 1660 and 1685 there was a gradual improvement in the Irish economy and even though Belturbet was not in the immediate centre of economic activity it is probable that the standard of living of the town's inhabitants improved accordingly. Valuable raw materials and products in the immediate vicinity of the town included timber, fish, wool and the products and by-products of cattle farming.

Wool and linen were bought and sold in the market A list of charges for services provided by the Corporation, dated 1685 lists the 'Priser's' fee 'for every piece of linen or woolen cloth carried in men's or woman's arms' and for 'every 6 lbs. of yearn'.(BC/1 p 106) (Rate is unreadable due to deterioration of the record).

By 1685, however, the expansion of the linen market was beginning and while linen had not yet achieved the significance in the economy it would do in the next century the entry was indicative of its growing local importance

The second major crisis to confront the Corporation was again due to the resolve of the Stuart King to modify charters of all towns in England and Ireland, which they felt were inimical to the monarchy. This, in conjunction with sustained efforts by Tyrconnnell, the Lord Deputy, to allow Catholics into the Army and corporate life in Ireland caused concern among the settler population. At first the attitude of Belturbet Corporation, and of others such as Belfast and Enniskillen, was cautiously co-operative. Then, with the accession of James II the Protestant population felt itself seriously threatened. In September, 1687 Matthew French Sen., Provost, signed an order empowering him to present to Matthew French, Jun. and others the deeds for the Town and authority to insert in them certain clauses, presumably a legal manoeuvre to keep the town and its privileges out of control of King James II[4] These were the last entries made by Matthew French, Provost, before the town was taken by Galmoy for King James in the Spring of 1688:

1687 September 13 ‘ borough charter surrendered into His majesty’s Hands . . . ‘ and then on September 27 transferred deeds for town to four burgesses, (BC/1 p.116)

Attempts were made to fortify the town along a line from the Church through the Fair Green to Deanery Banks, where some of the mounds and trenches are still visible. In January/February 1688, many Protestants fled County Cavan for Enniskillen, among them Matthew French and his family who then went on to England. Matthew French was attainted by the parliament of King James in Dublin in 1689 on grounds of 'having absented himself from this Kingdom . . .' Daniel French, also prominent in the Town Book was High Sheriff of County Cavan in 1690 was also attainted. According to Some Account he was a Major supporting William of Orange and . . ' in the spring of 1690 he set out from Belturbet with sixty horse, captured Sir Gerard Irvine and sent him a prisoner to Lord Blaney. . . . ' (The actions here are somewhat confusing. Another source, History of Ulster p42 states that in February 1690 Wolseley left Belturbet with a force of 300 horse and 700 foot to attack the the Jacobites in Cavan. It is not clear if this is the same action ).I can find no other reference to the French action except that in Some Account . . . (Note: The Town Book includes none of the numerous orders from Dublin Castle demanding leniency towards Catholics and admission of Catholic garrisons featured in other Town Books, such as that of Belfast. These and others may have been in a separate book, now lost)

This period ended with the occupation of Belturbet by Galmoy (for King James) in the early days of the Williamite Wars, a minor Battle of Belturbet around the Churchyard and re-establishment of the Corporation in 1693.

It is ironic that the major threats to the corporation during this period were not from the native Irish but from the institutions on which it depended – the government in Dublin and the Monarchy.

The leading families in this period were French, Wardell, Clarke, Vause and Auchinson while others, such as Jones and Knipe, who were to become prominent in the next century began to emerge.

Local Economy - Immigration and Emigration

The Williamite Wars caused much less general devastation in the country than did the 1641-1652 War. There was no plague or Famine, though livestock numbers were seriously depleted. As much action took place in the vicinity of Belturbet/Enniskillen/Newtownbutler this area suffered accordingly. Despite lack of foreign demand for beef and cloth, the internal economy recovered quickly and the influx of immigrants from Scotland continued sporadically but strongly. An estimated 30,000 Scots entered Ulster between 1680-1690. Another 20,000, entered in 1698/99. The vast majority were Presbyterians and were viewed with the same suspicion as were Catholics and were subject to equally repressive laws. Dissenter repression was directly responsible for the beginnings of emigration - the Scots-Irish- to North America around 1705 and for setting the stage for the massive trans-Atlantic movements of the next century. Harvests were good in Ireland and poor in parts of Europe at the end of the 1600's aiding export of food produce but England imposed tariffs against the import of woolen goods in 1699 forcing Ulster industry to re-deploy at least part of its capacity to the linen trade. Investment of resources in the linen industry accelerated in the next several decades providing a solid return for all levels of the community. By 1720 Ulster was better off than other parts of rural Ireland. By 1739 a network of roads criss-crossed the province many originating in Fermanagh. The ancient track between Enniskillen and Belturbet via Aughalane was upgraded to become a road for wheeled vehicles and Belturbet became an important centre for the linen trade. At this point, the ‘Market Economy’ might be said to have arrived. Coincident with these developments in Ulster and in Ireland, the Industrial Revolution in England, still in its embryo stage, began to get under way.

The Corporation

The Corporation flourished in these years, confident that it could ignore the native Irish outside the town limits. The new generation of burgesses quickly established control over the Corporation’s accounts and began to issue financial reports, more or less regularly, reports which were careful not to reveal the Corporation gross income. The Tolls and Customs were farmed out to Robert Rosse in 1699 for fifty four pounds ten shillings, an increase of twenty two pound or about 70% over that of 1671. This was further increased to fifty-seven pounds a year later and in 1708 to sixty pounds. An entry in 1709 states that ‘by a major vote of the Provost, burgesses and commonalty’(BC/1 p.193), the Provost was allowed the benefit of the Customs, he to pay the treasurer twenty pounds annually. By 1720 James Parker, Customs Master paid seventy pounds for the Customs, presumably the arrangement was that the Customs master paid the Provost the seventy pounds and the Provost then paid the Corporation twenty pounds in accordance with the 1709 entry.

The economy of the area was obviously gathering strength and funds were provided for repairing Creeny Bridge, roads, for prizes for the annual horse race on the Common, for parties such as that held at the accession of Queen Anne when forty shillings was spent on wine. In 1704 a Town clock was bought and a replica of the Kings Arms installed in the market House. In 1727 the Corporation paid £12 10s 4d for a seat in the Church for the provost and the Burgesses. The town was no longer solely reliant on local bogs as a source of fuel; coal was being imported probably transported up the Erne. In 1714 Capt Stanford's coal house was found to encroach on Corporation property and, much to his dismay, he was asked to remove it. He agreed to pay sixpence and to remove it if the Corporation still found fault with it in nine months. The impasse was finally resolved six years later when the Corporation tore down the coal house at a cost of eight shillings. The Army was a large part of town life and there are numerous references to officers being granted freeman-of-the-town status without fine. The drastic treatment handed to Stanford for his coal house encroachment is puzzling particularly as the Stanfords were a well respected family in the town, Luke Stanford being a burgess since 1702

Organizational changes were implemented. In 1708 the Burgesses eliminated the Common Council, a body with independent tendencies that had played a major role in town government in the previous century. The Provost was appointed Captain of an Independent Company of Militia Foot of ‘sixty private men’ for service ‘in and about the town’ He conferred freedom of the Corporation on all who would join - in times when the status-quo seemed threatened, as in 1708, 1715 and 1745, the loyalty of the town’s inhabitants was never in doubt. In 1721 there were about 115 living freemen.

Typical charges to the town in this period included ‘ treating the town company at a bonfire’ , ‘treating the town on the King’s Birthday’, salary of the Clock-keeper, and charges for ‘scowering the ditch in the bog’ More ominously, the constables were paid 1s each for whipping wrong-doers, McKenny and Mc Patrick and others. (BC/1 p. 240)

In 1721, the inhabitants of the town conducted a successful revolt causing suspension of rumoured tax increases. The setback was short-lived; the economy recovered and continued to expand.

The Market House had always been a major drain on the Corporation revenue. In the late 1730 and early 1740 there is reference to repairs on the ‘steeple’. In 1742 the Corporation felt that the existing Market House was inadequate and decided to farm out the Commons for a period of three years to raise the money for a new one and for a Sessions House. The records indicate the farm was for six years for £ 30/year for a total of £ 180 during which time those entitled to graze their cattle on the Commons were deprived of this privilege. There is no entry in the Town Book indicating that the buildings were indeed constructed. Evidence from other sources indicates that the Market House was rebuilt in the 1780-90. Forty years seems a poor life span for a major municipal building so it is probable that the proposed extensive reconstruction of 1742 was never carried out.

Several charities were established - for poor widows, indigent freemen - while in several cases money was provided for clothes for needy children. In 1733, the Corporation donated a plot of land for 'a house for poor widdows and the gardens thereto' (BC/2p.339 Widows' Row near the Church), in accordance with the will of Mary Maunsell of Dublin. The Corporation also paid or provided facilities for schooling – for a time there was a ‘Lattin’ school there under the supervision of Reverend Mr. John Richardson[6], a remarkable man who was appointed Rector of the parish in 1693. The Military barracks was built in the early part of the century and Belturbet firmly established as a cavalry base[7] In 1736, the Barracks land was leased to the trustees of the barracks in this kingdom for 999 years at a yearly rent of ‘one peppercorn’ (BC/1 p 206) Potatoes are mentioned for the first time in the Town Book in a 1705 customs list.

In 1739 Belturbet was considered to be ‘the principal mart for the linen manufacture in the counties of Fermanagh and Cavan’[8]. Sometime in the same time frame the enclave known as the Weavers’ Row incorporating twenty-two mud-walled slated houses was built. It is most probable that construction was initiated by Lanesborough at the same time (1733) as a deal between him and the Corporation was struck to establish a bleach green in exchange for a lane close to the ducking stool. (see Forum). In 1857 the Immediate Lessor of this land and houses was Sir St. George Gore though there is no mention of such a land transfer in the Town Book The town’s fortunes declined as the linen trade reoriented itself and then slumped towards the end of the 18^th century.

The manuscript of the Town Book contains little relating to the Court of Record, which dealt with debts and minor civil cases, until 1740. This court provided the Provost with an opportunity to display his authority and from this time until 1823 successive Provosts conducted court hearings initially with regularity and dedication The provost and other officers of the Court received the Court costs. The records recite the plaintiff, defendant, attorney and bailiffs names but little on the suits. They are of interest in that they indicate an increasing participation of those with native Irish names. In mid to late century Irish names begin to appear also in the grazing records, an indication that some with native Irish had sufficient resources to procure or at least rent homesteads in the town In 1770 Arthur Young visited Fermanagh, skirting Belturbet on his way to Lord Farnham’s estate in Cavan and writing valuable comments on the land and people of the area. His statistics on farm sizes, crops, animals, and on land, rents and people, many of which are applicable to the lands around Belturbet are quoted in the notes. The dominant families in the town during this period were the Jones's, Stanford’s, Johnson’s, Ellis’s

Local Economy

The early years of this period coincided with a number of momentous events including the debate within the Ascendancy on the independence of the Irish Parliament, the Rebellion of 1798, and the Act of Union which resulted in the end of the Parliament in Dublin (1800) and the beginning of direct rule from Westminster. The Act of Union precipitated a drastic change in the attitude of the borough patrons to their Corporations eliminating as it did an important source of their power and influence – automatic Parliamentary membership. Local Lords of the Ascendancy - Belmore, Farnham, and Saunderson, saw Union as the end of their Ascendancy and fought bitterly against it.

It was a time of war with France, of social strife, of unprecedented population growth as well as great urban expansion and agricultural prosperity. When the war ended (1815), the economy which depended primarily on agricultural produce collapsed and remained in a depressed condition for the next five years.

The Corporation

In the late 1770’s Laneborough (Butler) was in financial difficulties and was forced to sell the patronage of the borough to Dublin Banker Latouche for £8700. He later recovered it as his son and heir married Latouche’s daughter. The son sold it again, this time for £11,000 to Lord Belmore, an ardent anti-unionist who held it until 1800; he got £15,000 for it to recompense him for the loss of his ‘patronage’ !!! Superficially, buying ‘patronage’ conferred the right to replace burgesses with others friendly to the owner, thus ensuring election to the parliamentary seat but provost continuity and access to the profits of the market were also at stake in such a sale. These considerations were at the root of the spate of burgess resignations and replacements and the election of clergy to the office of Provost in the period 1770 to 1790. Election of clergy was indeed an anomaly as it took control of the Corporation out of the hands of the ‘gentlemen’ class with experience in corporation management and a strong stake in the town’s prosperity and placed it in hands with other priorities. The move further reflected the general uncertainty and insecurity which gripped the Ascendancy at that time when its internal alignment was not yet clearly defined.

Then, in 1792 a new name appeared - John Moultray Jones - son of John Jones, who had held the provostship intermittently in previous years. John Moultray was clear on where his allegiance lay and would dominate the politics of the town until the dissolution of the Corporation in 1840. He approached the task of governing the corporation with energy but with the recognition that the institution was in an advanced state of decay. His first concern must be his own well-being and the second, that of loyal inhabitants who had supported the corporation over the years. He attended a meeting in Dublin on February 25^th 1790 at which it was agreed that the ‘acting Provost get 30 guineas a year, he paying the Corporation dinner June 24^th that he is to pay out of the remaining issues and profits, all charges for repairing the Court House and every other charge usually paid by the Corporation and then pay the overplus to the burgess whose turn it is to be provost, to be disposed of in such a manner as he pleases[9] And a further entry in 1800 ordering that Humphrey Withers, Richard Dane and John Moultray Jones shall act alternately as Provost of the Corporation, paying the usual amount out of the customs to the other burgesses . . . Thus was the sacred Charter of the Borough circumvented; it was not an unusual course - other boroughs, such as Cavan, had imposed arrangements which achieved similar results nearly a century before. Such legal contraventions and the secrecy in which they were conducted indicate the changing attitude of the town’s elite who began at this time to see the town’s resources less as a responsibility to conserve and develop and more as a cash source to be exploited. There is no hint in the Town books that the period 1790 to 1815 was one of exceptional town growth all over Ireland. In that time, the Barracks were expanded and the houses in the Lawn were built to accommodate, it is said, the commissioned Officers of the British Army stationed there. Coote, in his 1802 Statistical Survey of the County of Cavan states that ‘some new and very handsome slated houses’ were recently erected on property belonging to Lord Farnham – probably a reference to the Lawn – and goes on to say that ‘in general the town’s houses are mean and thatched’ Coote further critisizes the operation of the Belturbet market ‘. . . .there is a very glaring imposition which materially injures the town . . . they take their customs in kind for which they have not any lawful standard or measure. . . ‘ He goes on to complain about the monopoly of power between ‘two families’, and how ‘ benevolent and public-spirited exertions have been perverted’.

As administration of the town continued to deteriorate activities previously of great importance such as granting of freedom to worthy inhabitants ceased and a ‘siege’ mentality emerged among the remaining burgesses. The last freeman of the town, (other than the burgesses), one Charles Ruttledge, died in 1810 (1819?). The Town Court of Record, where the town’s officers once laid down the law, was held no more. Meaningful business in the interests of the inhabitants was no longer practiced and entries in the Town Book became repetitive and self-serving. Catholics had long ago begun to take up residence in the town and to live in the ‘homesteads’ entitling them to graze their cows on the Common with all the others. When the Napoleonic War ended in 1815, agricultural prices on which the standard of living of the community depended, fell sharply and by 1820 the country was in a deep economic depression. However, the Provost continued to exert his influence in the limited but important areas still remaining to him. Land within the town limits was given or sold at very reasonable rates to chosen inhabitants in a flurry of actions anticipating future changes in authority. Corruption and cronyism reigned. Meanwhile, resistance by farmers to payment of tolls and customs stiffened until, by 1830, efforts to collect them were abandoned.

In 1834, in response to the Reform movement in England the Commissioners for Municipal Corporations visited Belturbet as part of their examination of municipal corporations in Ireland . Their report repeated many of the complaints of the Coote report, thirty years before. It was especially critical of the way in which the Corporation had attended to its business and had dissipated its assets over the years and it questioned the present Provost’s honesty and dedication to his office.

The Commissioners commented on the fact that the population of this once exclusively Protestant town was now half Catholic, but that, in all its existence, it had never had a Catholic freeman.

In the final years the Town Book records the paralysed state of the corporation in a series of plaintive repetitive entries stating that ‘. . . June 24^th being Charter Day for electing a Provost for said borr and a sufficient number of burgesses not being in attendance the court and appointment was postponed for three weeks next ensuing. . . .'

John Moultray Jones, Richard Dane and Humphrey Withers were confronted with the collapse of an institution, which they and their ancestors had vigorously preserved - albeit with some interruptions - for over two hundred years.

In 1840, the Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act dissolved the Corporation of Belturbet as well as 58 others in Ireland. As F.S.L. Lyons would comment ' . . . (this) cleansing of the Augean stables did not result in a process of democratization. On the contrary . . . ' (Ireland since the famine p 75). But there was much more to come in the years to come.

Note: It is reflection of the attitude of the burgesses and Town Clerk that most of the major events and activities affecting the town as outlined above were not reported in the Town Book. This goes so far beyond negligence that unauthorised removal of entries is suspected. Review of the original manuscript sequence/page numbering might shed some light on this. It is possible that removed sections may still survive.)

[1] Noticeably absent from the list is building materials, timber, slates (from Wales) and bricks. Timber appears on a later list (1705). Some houses in the Londonderry plantation were slated but in Belturbet it appears all were detached, and thatched or shingled.

[2] In the Corporation of Belturbet, quarteridge was a tax levied on inhabitants who were earning their living in the town but were not ‘homestead-owners’ or ‘freemen of the Corporation’. The rate was decided by the Provost and the money was sometimes paid directly to him. In towns in which Catholics were permitted to live, quarteridge was often imposed as a tax on them. See ‘Catholics of the towns and the Quarterage dispute in 18^th century Ireland’ Irish Hist Studies. Last recorded payment of quarterage in Belturbet was in June 1747

[3] A homestead owner was allowed to cut twelve clamps from the Red and Black bogs, for a total of about 400 clamps/year for the town’s 34 homesteads. The volume of a clamp was XXX cubic feet. The total area of these bogs was approximately 160 statute acres so it is likely that they were beginning to be depleted. By 1705 inhabitants were cutting turf in Kilduff bag, outside the Corporation borders. It was forbidden to transport this turf along the direct overhill track from Kilduff across the Commons as carts damaged the grass. It is probable that it was at this time the road was re-routed to skirt Bunn lake as it is at present. The ancient track across the hill is shown on the 1911 Ordnance Survey Map (Fig. 7) and still exists.

[4] While the Corporation was authorized to lease and sell corporation lands, it is not clear what the Corporation sought to gain by this manoeuvre. It may have been nothing more than a gesture of defiance as in the limit, the King as owner of all land could confiscate it.

[5] deleted

[6] See Note 9, Charities, Churches and Education in Volume II for brief biography.

[7] See Chapter XXXX

[8] Lodge Mss Cavan; quoted in ‘Economy and Society in South Ulster in the 18^th Century’ Crawford; Clogher Record

[9] This entry is not included in the Microfilm copy of the Town Book. It is quoted in Report on the Municipal Corporations of Ireland 1834, nor is there any formal statement in the Book about rotation of Provosts