44 Gossipings about the Parish of Saul. 



direction, between Saul and Gore's Island, in a pretty little 

 recess or estuary, you come to the mouth of a small river, 

 having the high foreland of Ringbane (Rin-Ban, the white 

 promontory) to the east, and Ballintougher (Bailean-tochair, 

 the town of the causeway) to the west, which townland forms 

 the extreme land boundary of Strangford Lough. This river 

 rises in Lough money, about two miles to the South, and was 

 formerly a tidal river, for upwards of a mile, nigh to the little 

 village of Raholp. Ballintougher was a Government port, 

 included in the Ardglass collection, in the time of Elizabeth, 

 and of James the First. Latterly a battery and flood-gates 

 have been erected at its mouth, for the purpose of keeping out 

 the tide and reclaiming the broad expanse of land at the 

 embouchure. In the taxation of Pope Nicholas, made in 1306, 

 under the deanery of "Lechayll" in the diocese of Down, we 

 find between the church of " Knockengarre," now Walshestown, 

 and the church of Saul — the church of " Balibren." The late 

 Dr. Reeves, in his "antiquities," has been fully able to identify 

 the church with Ballintougher, previously mentioned, on the 

 authority of an inquisition 3, Edward VI., which found Balibren, 

 alias Ballmtougher, as being of the annual value of £<^ 7s zd, 

 and, as then, appropriated to the Cistercian nunnery of Down. 

 No reasonable doubt can exist that the name Brennese is the 

 Latinised form of Brena, entering into the composition of the 

 name Balibren, instances of which frequently occur in the 

 taxation — nor can there be any doubt that the land of Brena, 

 stated to have been overflowed, and the Ballybren of the 

 taxation were identical, and imparted the name to the " Fretum 

 Brennese." The river Slainge, or Slan, the mouth of which 

 lies between Ballintougher or Ringbane, has from the earliest 

 times been called the Slaney River. There is no difficulty 

 whatever in tracing it out. It wends its way like a silvery 

 streak from its original source to-day as it did centuries ago. 

 This river can be no other than the Slain, referred to in the 

 " Book of Armagh," at the end of the Brena. It is only one 

 and a half miles from the church at Saul, and, to those who 



