Browme — Ethnography of Inishbofin and Inishsharli. 367 



The recommendation was not carried out, however, for in 1656, 

 the fort was repaired and provided with larger guns, instead of some 

 of those formerly in use, of which there were twenty-two. In the 

 same year it was resolved to appoint an "able pious and orthodox 

 ininister of the gospell to be settled in Bofin and paid by the com- 

 pany" also "that Sir Charles Coote do consider of ordering that Colonel 

 John Honnor, the governor there shall suffer no Irish to keepe any 

 boats upon any part of that coast of Ir-conaght the co. of Mayo, or ad- 

 jacent islands " also to exclude all " ill affected Irish " from the island, 

 and to remove from the same all dangerous persons, to appoint a magis- 

 trate and make good highways towards the islands. 



During the Commonwealth the island, as well as the Aran Islands, 

 was used as a prison for priests and monks deported thither from the 

 mainland, and allowed sixpence a-day for their maintenance. The 

 garrison is said to have been kept up for protection against the Dutch, 

 who had formerly made use of the fisheries there, and for whose ships 

 the hai'bour would have offered a safe place of retreat. Richard 

 O'Plaherty, writing in the reign of Charles II. (1684), makes no 

 mention of the history of the islands beyond stating that they had 

 formerly belonged to "this countrey of Conmacny-mara (Connemara) 

 in old times," but had for three hundred years belonged to " the 

 Owles," the Anglicized form of Umhall, or TJmhall Di Maille, the 

 ancient territory of the O'Malleys, which comprised the modem 

 baronies of Murrisk and Burrishoole, in the County Mayo, which 

 were formerly named Umhall uachtrach, and Umhall iochtrach, or 

 Upper and Lower Umhall. 



In the reign of James II. the island gave the title of Baron 

 Bophin to Jolm, ninth Earl of Clanricarde. 



Whether the garrison was regularly kept up after the restoration 

 is uncertain, but it was so during the war in the reign of James II., 

 for we learn that Colonel O'Riordan, who held the place for that mon- 

 arch, surrendered to a detachment of the Williamite troops after the 

 capitulation of Galway. The victorious party now garrisoned the 

 place for a while to keep off the French privateers, who would other- 

 wise have made use of Bofin Harbour, as a secure station. 



The islands are but seldom mentioned after this, indeed they seem 

 hardly to have been knovm to the outer world. In Seward's " Topo- 

 graphica Hibernia" (1795), Inishbofin is barely mentioned, and Car- 

 lisle's " Topograpliical Dictionary of Ireland" (1810) speaks of it as 

 supposed to contain 1200 acres, and to be situated at the distance of 

 about a mile and a-half from the mainland ; its valuation in the King's 



