Browne — Ethnography of Bally crop, Co. Mayo. 109 



Erris was anciently inhabited by the Damhnanns, or Damnonii, a 

 Firbolg tribe, who held the territory for some centuries. They were 

 conquered by Tuathal Teachtmar, a Milesian king, some time in the 

 second century. The family of O'Caithniadh (O'Kane) now held sway 

 until about the beginning of the 14th century, when the Anglo- 

 ]S"orman and Welsh families of Burke, Barret, Lynnot, and others 

 obtained a foothold in Erris, and eventually became the rulers of it. 

 In or about the middle of the 17th century the district was colonized 

 by the ancestors of most of the principal families now in existence 

 there. The exact date of this immigration does not seem to be clearly 

 known, but, from some pedigrees collected by O'Donovan in 1838, the 

 families he mentions would seem to have been in the district for six 

 or seven generations. He notes that the people '^ have no other 

 chronology but the number of generations since their emigration, a 

 very primitive mode of calculating time." Counting a generation as 

 thirty years, eight or nine must have now elapsed, giving the colony 

 the probable age of 240 to 270 years, O'Donovan also states that 

 " Ballycroy and Ballymonnelly (an adjacent district) were colonized 

 by tribes from Tirconnell about two centuries ago " ; " Ballycroy was 

 colonized by several families from the same county, who settled under 

 O'Donnell " ; and adds, ''the principal surnames among them are 

 M' Sweeny, O'Clery, 0' Gallagher, Conway, MacManamon, and O'Friel. 

 These still speak the TJltonian dialect of the Irish, and are called by 

 their neighbours na hUUaigh, i.e. the Ulstermen." The colonists are 

 said, by tradition, to have come to the district by sea, and to have 

 landed at Fahy, near Doona Castle. 



In the Appendix to the " Genealogies, Tribes, and Customs of Hy 

 Eiachrach," in the notes on the O'Clery family, the following mention 

 is made of the movement of this family into Ballycroy from Donegal : — 

 " CucoigcricTie, or Peregrine 0' Clery, the eldest son of Lughaidh. — He 

 married one of the Mac S weeny s, of the county of Donegal, by whom 

 he had two sons, Diarmaid and John. It appears from an inquisition 

 taken at LifEord on the 25th of May, 1632, that he held the half 

 quarter of the lands of Coobeg and Doughill, in the proportion of 

 Monargane, in the barony of Boylagh and Bannagh, in the county of 

 Donegal, from Hollantide, 1631, until May, 1632, for which he paid 

 eight pounds sterling per annum to William Earrell, Esq., assignee 

 to the Earl of Annandale ; but, as the document states, being ' a 

 meere Irishman, and not of English or British discent or sirname,' he 

 was dispossessed, and the lands became forfeited to the king. Shortly 

 after this period he removed, with many other families of Tirconnell, 



