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extracted from the Appletree Press title Hiring Fairs and Market Places by May Blair.
COUNTY ARMAGHCOUNTY ARMAGHWell ’twas gettin’ on past the heat o’ the yearArmagh has many claims to fame. Queen Macha was born within its borders. Saint Patrick began his labours there in the year 445. Brian Boru visited it and liked it so much that he chose it as his burial place in the eleventh century. It has also been acclaimed for its orchards and its linen. Markets and fairs were held for centuries in almost every town and village in the county. Armagh, Portadown and Lurgan were good for the sale of produce and livestock. Newtownhamilton (Newtown) was best for hiring. Tandragee, Lurgan and Armagh had excellent brown linen markets. These were attended by linen drapers who bought the unbleached cloth for their bleach greens. The cloth was woven in their homes by tenant farmers and their families. Landlords encouraged this, seeing in it a good way of making the rent: although the work had a high labour content it had a high value end product. Rents fell due on the first day of November. Tenants were also expected to work a certain number of duty days during the year. This ended when tenants bought out their holdings so that landlords lost their hold on the farming community. Under the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870, the Government paid the landlord a fixed sum for each holding and the tenant made good the debt to the Government in the form of land annuities which were paid twice a year. The fair in Armagh City was perhaps the oldest in the county. Hugh Roe O’Neill petitioned Queen Elizabeth in 1587 and was granted permission to hold a market there every Tuesday. When the Plantation of Ulster began in the seventeenth century a patent was granted to the archbishop ‘for a market where a fair has been held since time out of mind’. He was also granted permission to hold two additional fairs (Bishop’s fairs) – one on Saint Patrick’s Day (17 March) and the other on Lammas Day (1 August). He was at the same time granted two fairs at Carnteele (County Tyrone), one on 15 August and the following day and the other on 8 September (the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary) and the following day. In 1634 another fair was established in Armagh, to be held on 29 June and there was a fourth held in September. These weren’t the only privileges granted to the archbishop. He had the right of pillory, tumbrell and thewr; i.e. he could decide the punishment meted out to offenders. He could appoint coroners, clerks of the market and masters of assay as well as establishing Courts of Piepowder, and he could collect tolls. At a later date he was allowed to hold two fairs at Tinan (Tynan) one on 13 April and the other on 15 June; also a Friday market. In 1821 the market rights were leased to a group of local inhabitants for the sum of £1700 on the understanding that any surplus profit would be used for the improvement of the city and its market places. Tolls ranged from a half-penny for a lump of butter under 10lb weight to sixpence for a nurseryman’s cart with flowers or plants. There was no charge for a hand-basket of eggs or fowl. Each commodity had its own selling place. Flax was sold in Irish Street and linen in Dobbin Street. When the linen market declined, Dobbin Street became the market place for poultry, eggs and butter. The weighbridge and the markets for pork, grain, grass seed, hay and straw were at the Shambles in Mill Street. Live pigs were sold in Gaol Square. The four fairs granted in the seventeenth century were held regularly throughout that century and the next. In the nineteenth century they increased to twelve and were held on the first Thursday of every month for the sale of horses, cattle, sheep and pigs. Horses that didn’t sell in Armagh were taken to the next fair in Moy. If they didn’t sell in Moy they were walked to Kilrea. Of the little group of villages to the north of Armagh City, the best known were Charlemont, Loughgall and Blackwatertown. Charlemont, which takes its name from its founder Charles Mountjoy, was incorporated as a borough by James I in 1613 and held two fairs from then until the 1830s. Cattle, provisions and yarn were the main commodities sold. However they were badly attended because of their proximity to Moy, where large monthly fairs were held. They ceased in the mid-nineteenth century. Fairs once held in Loughgall suffered the same fate. Blackwatertown had a weekly market every Monday during the grain season when merchants bought grain (and potatoes) for export through Belfast and Newry. The usual route was via the River Blackwater, Lough Neagh and the Lagan and Newry canals. The lighters carried timber, slates and coal in the opposite direction. During this time monthly fairs were held but they were badly attended, and like those in Loughgall and Charlemont they died out around the middle of the nineteenth century. Killylea(gh), Tynan (Tinan) and Middletown all had fairs. Killylea had none until around 1800 when monthly cattle fairs began. Although the cattle were described as inferior, fairs survived well into the twentieth century. Tynan and Middletown, on the other hand, had much older fairs. In the seventeenth century the archbishop of Armagh was given a Friday market at Tynan and the two fairs mentioned earlier. On the last Friday in the month a so-called Great Market was held: it was very large, almost assuming the proportions of a fair. These markets were probably held near the old cross which at that time stood in the churchyard, like that in Dromore. The cross fell into ruin at some stage, but was rescued, restored and moved to its present position in 1844. A second cross was moved to Tynan Abbey. There were two other crosses in the abbey grounds. The cross in the village is thought to have been a termon or boundary cross but may have been used also as a market cross. The Surveyor of 1835 certainly thought so for he stated: The remains of an old stone cross formerly used as a market cross are still visible. The inscription is defaced but two hideous little figures resembling idols may be discerned.
Extracted from the Appletree Press title Hiring Fairs and Market Places by May Blair. |
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