2 70 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



condition that he would undertake to block the harbour. The Common- 

 wealth, in the struggle with the Dutch, naturally feared lest the daring 

 sea captains of the sister republic might use so convenient a haven. The 

 task was clearly too difficult and unprofitable, and no one accepted the offer. 

 Half measures, so usual in English rulers towards Ireland, were not a vice 

 of the Cromwellian Government ; if the harbour cannot be destroyed, it 

 must be held strongly, was their decision, and the next year, June 3rd, 1656, 

 the works were resumed. 



They replaced the twenty-two small guns by larger artillery, and, the 

 garrison having " come to stay," they appointed as chaplain " an able, pious, 

 and orthodox minister of the Gospel." Sir Charles Coote was directed to con- 

 sider whether Colonel John Honnour, the Governor of Boffin, should take steps 

 to prevent the natives from keeping boats on the islands or on the adjacent 

 coasts of Ir-Connaght and Mayo. This impracticable scheme was probably 

 rejected. He, however, was ordered to remove all dangerous persons and 

 ill-affected Irish, to appoint a magistrate, and make good highways towards the 

 island, I presume through the trackless mountains and moors of the opposite 

 mainland. 1 



" Bophin," like Aran, was made a penal settlement for priests and monks 

 deported from all parts of Ireland. Bosco's Castle, like Arkin in Inishmore, 

 controlled the unhappy settlement, sixpence a day being allowed for the support 

 of each priest. The Cromwellians, once armed resistance ended, were harsh 

 and stern, not wantonly cruel ; nevertheless, the situation must have been one 

 of misery, even for the garrison. A curious too-true picture might be drawn 

 in a romance of the two strongly convinced parties holding such contrasted 

 forms of Christianity, each person ready to die for the faith that was in him, 

 and regarding the other side as a servant of Antichrist. Behind all rankled 

 the unhealed wounds of a cruel civil war, and the sense of exile and separation 

 from the persons, places, and pursuits most valued in the past, with intolerance 

 whetted by the presence of the other party. Little else is to be told ; the 

 owner, John, the ninth Earl of Clanricard, in the reign of James II, was created 

 Baron of Bophin. I know of no record during the reigns of Charles and 

 James; but in 1691, after the surrender of Galway, a division was sent to 

 Boffin to receive the surrender of Colonel Biordan, who held it for the lattei 

 monarch. The Dutch were now the allies of England, but the French 

 privateers were still to be dreaded, so the garrison was maintained. After 

 1700 the place is rarely mentioned. The Clanrickards held it clown to the 

 nineteenth century ; then it was owned successively by the Wilberforces ami 



1 Council Books of Dublin Castle. See James Hardiman's notes in " hlar Connaught." 



