TOWNLANDS. 
enaci, Corbani, or Terrnoners, and are all for the most part, sehollers, and speake latin and an¬ 
ciently the chiefe tenents were the determiners of all civill questions and controversies among their 
nyghbours, whence they had their names of Eirennacs cnra tu; from making peace 
or of terrnoners, a terminctndis, litibus from ending of controversies, and the lands of the church 
being anciently sanctuary lands within which no man was followed further by the pursuer in those 
tymes were thence also called Termons, a termino, because there ended the persuite. Theise te¬ 
nents were first placed in those lands by the bishops and the possession thereof contynuecl 
unto them by new grants from the succeeding bishops, after the death of every Eirenagh, &c. 
Neyther was it lawful for the sonne of any Eirenagh, &c. to meddle with the lands his father possess¬ 
ed till the byshop made him a grant of the Eirenacy. And yf the Eirenagh, his sonne, came not 
within a certayne tyme lymited to receave his graunt, the byshop might give the land to another, 
whereof I have seen som presidents, [precedents.] And if the bishop did see the sonne or next 
kynnesman that demanded the Eirenacy, to be unhable, in regard of his poverty, or otherwise, in¬ 
sufficient to performe the dueties of that place, the bishop gave the land to another whom he would 
chuse, whereof I have also seen some presidents [precedents.] The bishops altered the rents of 
these lands, accordingly as they were disposed to take more or lesse rejection from their tenents. 
These lands did never paye rent, nor any other duetye, or acknowledgement unto any other person,but 
onely to the bishop, untill the rebellion of Shane O’Neell, who for the mayntenance of his rebellion, 
ymposed and exacted cuttings, out of the church lands, as well as the temporall, the byshops being 
not then hable to resist him, nor redresse the wrong, otherwyse than by petition, to the deputye 
and councell, wch they did after the war ended; the temporall lords contynuing the sayd oppres¬ 
sion of the church begon by Shane O’Neell, and obtayned an act of councell, against all the tem¬ 
porall lords that oppressed the church, whereby they were adiudged to restore unto the church ten 
for one, and this act, made by Sir Henry Sidney when he was deputye, and the counsell then was 
contynued in severell deputies’ tymes successively.” 
These notices are curious, as illustrating the state of the termons in the time of the 
writer, and his derivations are very ingenious ; but he is in error respecting their ancient 
history, and the meaning of the word. Erenachs were first appointed by abbots—not by 
bishops—and in the ecclesiastical stile, the word terminus as well as finis (both which also 
mean end or boundary) signifies a district or territory.—See Ducange at “ Terminus.'” The 
truth seems to he, that the Irish word cectpmann, which is now used by the peasantry to 
signify refuge or protection, was originally borrowed, as Usher says, from the Latin terminus , 
which was used by ecclesiastical writers to signify church land,—that, when these lands were 
afterwards consecrated and erected into sanctuaries, the word terminus was taken to imply a 
sanctuary,—and that, as termons were among the ancient Irish places of retreat from danger, 
the word came in later times to signify asylum, shelter, refuge, or protection. It appears from 
an act of parliament of the 4th Anne, that the termon of Derry was popularlycalled “the fifteen 
hundred acres,” and that it comprised this townland of Termonbacca, as well as Mullennan, 
Hallygoman , Ballougry , Creevagh, and Killea. 
Why this townland, in particular, has retained the appellation termon, and received the 
additional epithet of bacca, or of the cripple, it would be now vain to conjecture, as after 
careful research no historical elucidation has been discovered. This was in the possession of 
Sir Thomas Phillips in 1609. (See County History and the inquisitions.) 
23. TVhitehouse. This is a part of the ancient denomination of Ballymagrorty , of 
which we have spoken above. The name Whitehouse is said to have been derived from an 
old English habitation, the ruins of which still remain. 
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