These notes are a summary of a lecture delivered by Mr Ian Montgomery, archivist at the Public Record Office, on 9th February 2006 in the Londonderry Arms, Carnlough. In the lecture Mr Montgomery discussed the Antrim Estate papers and used the example of the clachan of Coolnagoppoge to illustrate how estate papers might be used to trace the evolution of a clachan.
These notes cover only the section of the lecture relevant to Coolnagoppoge clachan. If you would like to find out more about the Antrim papers you can listen to the full recording of this lecture which you will find on the ‘Audio Lectures’ section of the website.
The thumbnails at the bottom of the page are the estate maps of John O’Hara produced in 1782(D/2977/35/6) and a map produced in 1849 (D/2977/36/20/6). These maps are reproduced here with the permission of the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.
We are very indebted to Mr Montgomery for giving this excellent lecture and for the invaluable support provided by the Public Record Office throughout the Clachan Project.
Case Study: Coolnagoppoge
Two map sources were used by Mr Ian Montgomery as the basis for this case study; surveys and maps and leases. Mr Montgomery used these documents to chart the development of Coolnagoppoge clachan from 1780s to 1860s.
Surveys and Maps
The earliest map of the area available is Archibald Steward’s map of 1734, however this shows very little in the townland itself.
A later map produced in 1782 by John O’Hara shows the townland of Coolnagoppoge divided roughly into arable and pasture and mountain and heathland. Notes with the map indicate that there was 82 acres arable and pasture and 394 acres of mountain and heath (N.B. plantation acres rather than statutory acres). The map also shows the clachan; seven buildings surrounding by a belt of trees on three sides. Of course there may well have been more buildings which were not deemed sufficiently permanent or valuable to be included in the map. There is no sign of a road connecting the clachan to the county road.
A written survey of 1812 notes that since O’Hara’s survey of 1782 there has been some land reclaimed from mountain to tillage and comments that the improvement is great when it is considered that this was achieved without manure and ‘under a course of incessant cropping’ (i.e. without allowing the land to lie fallow). The survey also notes that the earth of Coolnagoppoge is naturally rich in limestone which contributes to its fertility.
In statutory acres the land use is estimated at 110 acres arable and pasture and 557 acres of ‘brown mountain and bog’. The survey suggests that increasing population pressure was bringing increasingly marginal land under tillage and that the area of cultivated land was spreading up the mountain without the help of fertiliser.
A map dated 1849 shows this trend continuing with the field system spilling up into the mountain under the pressure of a growing population. This map also shows a road going up through the middle of the townland to a quarry up the mountain and down to a limekiln. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs around this time refer to a ‘large group of cabins’ at Coolnagoppoge. The clachan is not referred to as a village which is consistent with our understanding of Coolnagoppoge as a fairly unstructured settlement.
Leases
The earliest leases for Coolnagoppoge tell us very little about the settlement itself as the whole townland was let out as a single unit to a landlord. The first of these leases available is dated 1710, when John McDonnell held the lease. In 1742 Randall McDonnell took the lease which was renewed again in 1746. In 1781 the townland came under the direct control of the McDonnell family along with the rest of the estate. From our point of view this is fortunate as from 1781 on we can learn something about the actual tenants of Coolnagoppoge, at least those who paid their rents directly to the Earl.
The townland was leased in quarters. There are three leases in the archive, each granting the holders a quarter of the townland, so presumably there is one lease missing. Each of these leases were made out to a group of individuals. The first was made out to Archibald Black, Dennis O’Hara and John Robinson, the second lease to William O’Shale and Duncan O’Hara and the third lease was made out to Robert Duncan, John Duncan and John Duncan Jr.
In 1821 the number of tenants had increased to include 12 people sharing 7 leases. Among these were Archibald Black, Dennis Black, Archibald McLaughlin, James O’Shale and James McKay who shared 29 acres. These leases are described as ‘being one forth part of field number 17, 18, 19, 20, 12, 22, 26’. These tenants then held patches of land scattered all over the townland, as well as mountain grazing in proportion to the amount of land they held.
Decrees for non payment of rent issued for the whole townland in 1847 indicate that the tenants of Coolnagoppoge had fallen into an arrears of 2 ½ years by this time and a court order was issued instructing the tenants to return their lands and dwellings to the landlord. However, outright eviction was not necessarily in the landlord’s interests and the problem of replacing his tenants with others who could pay, especially on the marginal lands of North Antrim, tended to mitigate recourse to such methods. The court order was a way for the landlord to obtain some leverage over his tenants.
An agreement made in 1849 between the landlord and his tenants seems to have been the direct result of this pressure. The agreement proposes that on receipt of arrears (including court fees as well as rent) the tenants would be issued with new farms and leases by ‘redividing the whole of the lands in Coolnagoppoge…in order to make small and compact farms’. In the event of non-payment of the arrears the tenants would become ‘tenants of will’, remaining on the land in the short term but holding no legal claim or lease to it.
Despite this settlement the 1860 Griffith’s valuation lists Coolnagoppoge as a single holding divided amongst the tenants. So what happened?
It is likely that the tenants could not pay their arrears but that they were given ‘small and compact farms’ anyway but only as tenants of will. The population figures in Coolnagoppoge for the mid to late 19th Century show quite a dramatic decline in population (a small decline from 1841 -51 and a more significant decline from 1851-1860 when numbers fell by about a third). Without legal rights to the land, the landlord would have been able to remove tenants much more easily and reduce the population of the townland to a sustainable level.
It seems likely that this is what happened. The landlord would have accepted that he would never receive the arrears owed in the expectation that a smaller number of tenants with larger holdings would be able to pay their rent. Looking at the population figures for Coolnagoppoge before the famine, it seems clear that the townland was overcrowded and that reducing the number of tenants in Coolnagoppoge was the only long term solution, at least from the point of view of the landlord.