1421. Cathal O’Rourke and his sons made a nocturnal attack on Mac Clanchy on Iniskeen, an island of Lough Melvin, and the guards of the lake delivered up the boats of the lake to them. They took young Mac Clanchy prisoner, and possessed themselves of Lough Melvin and its castle. Five of the sons of Mac Clanchy, and a great number of the men of Dartree, were slain by them, and the remainder of the sons of Mac Clanchy went after that into Carbury.
1532. Turlogh, the son of Mac Clanchy, was slain by his own two brothers in the doorway of the mansion of Mac Clanchy. In revenge of this murder, Brien O’Rourke destroyed a great portion of Dartree.
1536. Mac Clanchy (Feradach, the son of William, the son of Teige), chief of Dartree, died. He was a charitable and humane man.
1578. Mac Clanchy (Cathal Duff, the son of Feradach), chief of Dartree, died, and his son Cathal Oge assumed his place.
1582. Mac Clanchy (Cathal Oge), chief of Dartree, was slain by his own kinsman Teige Oge.
It appears from an inquisition taken at the Abbey of Creevelea, on the 24th September 1603, that Cathal Oge Mac Clanchy died on the 3d of January 1582, seized of the castle and manor of Dun-carbry, and of the whole country called Mac Clanchy’s country, leaving a son and heir, Cathal Duff, then aged twenty-eight years.
It appears, however, that in accordance with the Brehon law, the chieftainship of Dartree passed at his death not to his son, but to the eldest surviving representative of the name, as an inquisition taken at Rossclogher on the 3d of October in the same year, finds that the greater part of the country, including the Castle of Dun-carbry, and the castle and chief town of Rossclogher, &c., were in the possession of Malaghlin Mac Clanchy, who died so seized on the 13th of August 1603, leaving a son and heir, Cahir Mac Clanchy, three years and ten months old at the time of his father’s death; and it is stated that all these castles, lands, &c., were held of the king by knights’ service in capite, but the quantity of the service was not ascertained by the inquisitors. By the will of this Malaghlin Mac Clanchy he bequeathed to his son and heir, Cahir, all his lands except such as were nominated wife’s jointure; and to his wife, Katherine Ny Rourke, who was found to have been his legitimate consort, he bequeathed his Castle of Dun-garbry, as also his chief town called Rossclogher, in pawn of her marriage goods, until his heir should redeem it.
The property of the Mac Clanchys was confiscated after the rebellion of 1641, but their name is the prevailing one in the barony of Dartree, or Rossclogher, to the present day.
P.