Ordnance Survey Memoirs for the parish of Coleraine (County Londonderry).
Published by Coleraine Historical Society in association with the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. 1986 Hardback £7.95 Paperback £5.00
The great project of mapping Ireland on a scale of six inches to the mile involved a total of 1906 maps, yet the team of surveyors still found time to compile statistics, make sketches and write memoirs which require in the Royal Irish Academy today 52 boxes to contain them. This veritable quarry of information is particularly valuable for the north. The survey began here and this area was treated in greater depth than any other as later on, time and money ran out for the surveyors. In recent years, local history societies, spurred on by the enthusiasm of the officers of the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, have made inroads into this store, and to blow the trumpet of the Glens of Antrim Historical Society, it was, I think, first in the field, with the memoir for the Parish of Layd and the Grange of Layd and Innispollan, published under the title “Life in the Glens of Antrim in the 1830’s.” Since then, memoirs for other parishes have been published in THE GLYNNS. In general these have been brief, ranging from 26 pages for Armoy to 154 pages for Ramoan, so Coleraine Historical Society took on a massive task in undertaking the editing and reprinting of the 287 sheets which treat of Coleraine parish. The result reflects great credit on all who took part in it. The text is well laid out and the notes are never intrusive. The book is beautifully printed and bound and has an attractive cover showing one of the houses of 17th century Coleraine. I wonder is it still standing.
There is a comprehensive and wide-ranging introduction by Angelique Day, who has made a special study of the Ordnance Survey. She sets the concept of the Survey in its period; it was a time when the idea of scientific improvement in every field was fashionable and Progress and Reform were the catch phrases of the day. She explains the workings of the project, how the army engineers made their statistical reports, and how they were followed by the ‘civil assistants’ who made further reports on a wide range of topics laid down for them.
In the 1830’s Coleraine was a substantial town of over 5000 inhabitants, and the memoir begins with an account of the town’s buildings. It goes on to the municipality and gives tables of the duties and salaries of the mayor and other officials, tables of the customs charges at the markets and tables of the rents from Corporation property. Poles apart from the mayor and corporation were the poor, for them there was the Mendicity Institute, the gaol or the emigrant ship at Derry. The Poor House was founded to keep beggars off the streets; once inside they were employed at spinning or stone breaking. The gaol was being rebuilt at the time of the Survey; when finished there would be two storeys, one for criminals, the other for debtors. Between 1833 — 34, 142 emigrants left Coleraine; their names, home townlands, religion and destination are given here.
A vast number of subjects is treated and it is impossible to mention them all but here are a few; the change in voters made by the Reform Act of 1832, the tanning industry, salmon fishing on the Bann, the improvements at Portrush Harbour (which acted as port for Coleraine for many years), the periodicals and newspapers on sale and the number of subscribers to each, the length of time it took to travel by coach from Coleraine to Ballymena (3 hours). And the Coleraine Farming Society had a measure to prevent cheating in the cheese-making competition; “any member” it said, “trying the taste of the Mayor’s palate will be disqualified.”
History students obviously will be very grateful for this book but the general reader will find it of interest as well, there is a useful general index and an index of surnames. The Coleraine Historical Society deserves to be congratulated on its work. I hope this will be the forerunner of a series of publications.
ANNE MAGEEAN.
A DECADE AT BROCKLAMONT.
Edited by Eull Dunlop. Available from the School, Cambridge Avenue, Ballymena. This paper-back records the living history of Cambridge House Boys’ Grammar School from 1974 to 1984. At first sight that may seem a very recent period of history but it has been said that there is nothing as boring as last week’s newspapers and nothing so fascinating as last year’s. Eull Dunlop does not confine himself to the history of the school but includes a considerable amount of local history and this adds to the fascination. The photographs and lists of the nine hundred and thirty-one boys who have been enrolled in the school over the past ten years as well as the records of the teaching, administrative and ancillary staff form a veritable treasure-house for future genealogists.
The placename Brocklamont is given as in the O. S. Fieldname Book for the parish of Aghoghill as meaning “the hill of the badgers” and it could probably be now changed to the hill of the beavering judging from the amount of activity that has been going on at this campus. The Editor is to be congratulated for the manner in which he has inter-woven the school records with so much of the local history of Ballymena and some not so local such as the history of Timothy Eaton; Mid-Antrim’s Canadian Explorer.
CAHAL DALLAT