Who were the Allisons that preceded John Allison (1652-1736)? The Allison headstone in Ireland starts with John and he is the last confirmed relative on our family tree. The Saint Aidan’s Mixed Graveyard inscription for the Allison family gravestone reads:
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| Allison tombstone photo by James Allison |
Family historians have observed that all three generations listed on the headstone are carved uniformly, making it unlikely they were added at the time of the deaths of each separate ancestor. Perhaps they were carved by a future generation who was unfamiliar with Allison family prior to John and in memory of their own ancestors? We know that a few of these generations had other children besides those listed, so these appear to be the sons who inherited the leasehold for the Allison farm. It’s worth understanding a little about the farm in order to see if we can glean some further information about John’s origins.
While there may be primary sources available to further study the history of the farm at Drumnaha and the Allison family, there are very few available electronically. Also, many such primary sources stretching back to John’s birth and before no longer exist. In 2008, Bobby Forrest published an overview of remaining primary documents from Magilligan in the first volume of his account Scots-Irish Origins 1600-1800 A.D. Genealogical Gleanings of the Scots-Irish in County Londonderry, Ireland. This particular work has been enormously helpful in testing theories about John’s origins. Between this and the very helpful book by Winthrop Pickard Bell (A Genealogical Study), some conclusions can be drawn about the Allison family farm at Drumnaha.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, England moved to further their violent colonization of Ireland by taking over land and transplanting friendly protestant populations, displacing the native Irish. British landowners were given the job of ‘civilizing’ Ulster. This was as unpleasant as it sounds. British landowners were not permitted to rent to the Irish. The Irish were moved off their land and only a quarter of the area was set aside for them (predictably resulting in poverty). Wealthy British landowners brought over English-speaking protestant tenants of their own British properties.
For British landowners, plantation costs were quite high. Landowners who received plantation land had a number of financial and other obligations that went along with it. They had to bring in families, including a specified number of men, to work the land. They had to set up shop, create and manage the villages, and undertake other costs in exchange for the land. As a result of these onerous requirements, a number of London guilds subsidized the venture. The area around Magilligan, the parish in which we find the Allison family farm, was likely supported by the Haberdashers’ Company.
Drumnahay - in Irish is Druim-na-h-aiithe, meaning ridge of the kiln – in the 16th century was one of 43 townlands in the parish of Magilligan. The farm at Drumnaha within this parish appears to have been developed as a result of the Ulster Plantation. The parish was originally named Mhicgiollagain after the original Irish hereditary landholders. When the British seized the land in Magilligan, they found it sparsely populated as a result of previous conflicts. Most Irish had been killed, moved or imprisoned. The “plantation” of British interests in Magilligan was therefore more peaceful for the new tenants than some other parts of Ireland (not to say that the Irish thought it so, but there were so few native Irish left that there was no violent confrontation between them and the new tenants - mostly Scots in origin).
The British Gage family owned much of the land, inclusive of Drumnaha. Documents describe John Gage’s estate in the parish of Magilligan, leased from the Sea of Derry beginning July 1634 for a term of 60 years. The boundaries were described in the 1654/55 civil survey:
One the East side with the Clothiers proporcon or parrish of Drumboe upon the South lieth the Habberdashers proporcon, one the South west the Roe water, and one the Northwest lieth Logh Foyle, one the North and Northeast lieth the Ocean or Maine Sea.
Listed in this same survey is Dromnaheigh: including one “towne”, paying 50 pounds, and the area consisting of 20 acres of arable land, 4 acres of meadow and ten acres of pasture, with 16 acres of unprofitable land.
In 1658, John Gage had control over this property, and in “Ortaghmore and Drumnacagh” together there were 19 people, 17 of whom were English and Scots and only two were Irish. The map of County Derry was drawn in 1662 and clearly shows Drumnaha.
So we know that the map of County Derry, including Drumnaha, was drawn in 1662. Prior to that, beginning in the 1630s, the Gage family had control over this property as part of the Ulster Plantation. There is no record of any Allisons associated with this property that could be found in the early years up to and including the year of John Allison’s birth in 1652. As a ten year old, it’s unlikely John would have been granted land anywhere as part of the plantation in 1662. Therefore he either arrived much later and took on tenancy of the Drumnaha property, or else he inherited the tenancy from his father. If the latter, then we may be able to find records of ownership of this property belonging to an Allison forebear (or Alison, Alyson, Ellison or other name variant) in the Forrest collection. I could find nothing there or in the PRONI database (Northern Ireland’s archives online).
This calendar of wills is the most interesting piece of evidence. Our John is listed here. William, his son, and the death year jive with the cemetery monument as well. If you consider typical naming conventions of the period, the first born of any male will often (even likely) be the grand-father’s name. This could mean that John’s father’s name may have been William. There is a William Allison in the calendar of wills who died in 1661, and he was listed as a soldier.
In 1642, a number of Scots came to Ireland as part of Monro’s Scottish Presbyterian Army (10,000 strong) to defend the land after the Irish uprising of 1641. Monro was ruthless and laid waste to much of Antrim in brutal fashion. Many thousands of Scots arrived in Ireland in this fashion, taking the place of Scots who were in Ireland before them and who fled or died in the uprising.
In Kevin Forkan’s compilation Army List of the Ulster British Forces, 1642-1646 (Archivium Hibernicum. Vol. 59 (2005), pp. 51-65), there are lists of names of the officers associated with Monroe’s Army, but no digital lists that I can find with soldiers’ names. Given that the William Allison in the records was listed as a soldier, with no identified rank, it is possible he was one of the thousands who came to Ulster with Monroe’s army and stayed to settle there. This is conjecture of course, but the timelines and records accord with it. Our John would have been nine years old at the time of his father’s death (1661) if William was indeed his father.
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| Calendar of Wills |
There is some evidence that perhaps there were no Allisons living in Drumnaha prior to John. The hearth taxes (a charge on each hearth in a home - a sort of tax on the rich as only the wealthy would have more than one hearth) had no recording of any hearths in Drumnaha, let alone to anyone named Allison in 1663. Interestingly, the Gage family home had eight hearths at their homestead in Ballerena (where the train station now stands). They were wealthy indeed.
In 1666 there were no Allisons on the muster roll. Young John would have been 14 and too young to be enlisted. For whatever reason, no other Allisons are listed either. Perhaps the Allison family was not yet fully situated in Ireland. The William Allison in the calendar of wills had already died (1661) by the time of this muster roll.
It is certainly possible that William, listed as a soldier, came to Ireland either married already or married once he arrived. He had a son and died nine years later. His son grew up in Ireland and eventually was given land to work on behalf of the Gage family in Drumnaha. The theory that William, a soldier, came to Ireland, met a Scots-Irish woman, had a child and died when the child was nine years old makes the most sense to me. William Allison on the calendar of wills has no affiliated town, but is listed in the Magilligan parish records - so he died there. He was listed as a soldier, so not formally a tenant in the plantation at the time of his death. At that time there was no one apparently working the land at Drumnaha, while later records show the Allisons consistently on that property. If John grew up in Magilligan, perhaps the enterprising young man sought out Gage and offered to work that property once he was of age. Given that Magilligan was so sparsely populated, this is a possible logical conclusion.
Another possibility is that John was born in Scotland or England. No evidence has been uncovered to support that theory. While other information may turn up, the working theory right now is that John is the child of William, his father was a soldier, and John himself started the Allison farming tradition in Ireland at Drumnaha.
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| Magilligan Point - Photo by James Allison |
