The Allingham Family of Ballyshannon and Sligo

It is likely that the name Allingham is derived from the village now known as Ellingham in Hampshire which was listed in the 11th century Domesday book as Adelingham.[1] In an atlas of 1738 there is a reference to the village by the name of Allingham:

‘Ptolemy calls the Avon the Alaun: Mr. Camden is of Opinion, that that is the true Name, because there are several Villages lying upon it, that bear some similitude to it, as Allinton and Allingham, or Ellingham; for he thinks it not probable that so many Rivers in England should be called by the general Name Avon’ [2]

Ireland was not a very peaceful province during the last years of the reign of Elizabeth I. Her army was fighting the forces of Gaelic Irish chieftains Hugh O'Neill (Earl of Tyrone), Hugh Roe O'Donnell and their allies who were opposed to the Elizabethan English government of Ireland. The war (which became known as The Nine Years War, or Tyrone's Rebellion) took place between 1594 and 1603, the year of Elizabeth’s death. It was fought in all parts of the country, but primarily in the northern province of Ulster. The war ended in defeat for the Irish chieftains, which led ultimately to their exile in the ‘Flight of the Earls’ and to the Plantation of Ulster. The term Plantation is used to describe groups of English who moved to Ireland as part of a settlement programme.

William Allingham (1824 – 1889) recorded in his diary that the Irish Allinghams originated from Hampshire in England (which ties in with the origins of the name explained above) and had settled in Donegal during the reign of Elizabeth I.[3] It is possible however that the first Allingham did not arrive in Donegal until shortly after Elizabeth’s death in 1603 as it was only at the end of the Nine Years War that Donegal was finally subdued by the English and the settlement into the area of English Protestants began.

At the end of the Nine Years War the Lord Deputy, Arthur Chichester, seized the opportunity to colonise the province of Ulster and declared the lands of O’Neill, O’Donnell and their followers forfeit. Initially, Chichester planned a fairly modest plantation, including large grants to native Irish lords who had sided with the English during the war. However, this plan was interrupted by the rebellion of Cahir O’Doherty of Donegal in 1608, a former ally of the English, who felt that he had not been fairly rewarded for his role in the war. The rebellion was swiftly put down and O’Doherty hanged but it gave Chichester the justification for expropriating the holdings of all native landowners in the province.

There had been earlier Plantations of Ireland from England, including a failed one in Ulster in the 1570s, when the east of the province (occupied by the MacDonnells and Clandeboye O’Neills) was to be colonised with English Planters. This was to put a barrier between the Gaels of Ireland and Scotland and to stop the flow of Scottish mercenaries into Ireland. This conquest of east Ulster was contracted out to the Earl of Essex and Sir Thomas Smith. The O’Neill chieftain, Turlough Luineach O'Neill, fearing an English bridgehead in Ulster, helped his O’Neill kinsmen of Clandeboye. The MacDonnells in Antrim, led by Sorley Boy MacDonnell, were also able to call on reinforcements from their kinsmen in the Western Isles and Highlands of Scotland. The plantation eventually degenerated into a series of atrocities against the local civilian population before finally being abandoned. Brian MacPhelim O’Neill of Clandeboye, his wife and 200 clansmen were murdered at a feast organised by Essex in 1574. In 1575, Francis Drake (later victor over the Spanish Armada, then in the pay of the Earl of Essex) massacred 600 MacDonnell clans-people in a surprise raid on Rathlin Island. The following year Elizabeth I, disturbed by the killing of civilians, called a halt to the plantation. It is possible that the first Allingham arrived in Ireland as part of this earlier Elizabethan settlement programme and may have taken part in the Nine Years War, but there is no evidence to support this.

In Elizabethan times there were Allinghams in Hampshire and the county archives contain wills of some of them.[4] However a search for an Allingham who left the county for Ireland has proved fruitless, though there is evidence that soldiers were sent from Hampshire to serve in Ireland in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.[5] Later in the 17th century in 1665 at the time of the Hearth Tax Returns only two Allinghams are named in Hampshire, Philip with three hearths and Geoffrey with one.[6] The Hearth Tax was introduced in 1662 as a means of raising additional revenue. Householders were required to pay two shillings for each fire-hearth, one shilling at Michaelmas and one at Ladyday (25 March). Only those whose house was worth more than 20 shillings a year and who paid church and poor rates were liable for hearth tax. These Tax Rolls therefore do not of course mention many of the ordinary people living at that time, as having a hearth was regarded as very much a luxury.

The earliest reference to an Allingham in Ballyshannon is in a document of 1612, when a Hugh Allingham was one of the petitioners requesting that Ballyshannon be allowed to send a representative to Parliament.[7] It has to be assumed that this petition was one of the factors which led to King James I granting a Royal Charter to Ballyshannon in 1613, the first Irish town to receive one. The charter states:

“To the intent that in future times, it may appear that this new incorporation is now composed of good and honest men, we make constitute and ordain; Bennet Payne, to be the first modern provost of the said Borough. And similarly we make, constitute and name;

Henry Ffolliott William Rastell

Richard Bennett Stephen Michael Richard Orme

John Foster Hugh Allingham

Francis Edmunds John Stephenson

To be the first and modern free Burgesses of the aforesaid Borough”

The next reference to an Allingham is in January 1621 when a “Hugh Alleghan (sic), gent” was appointed as one of the “good and lawful men” of Ballyshannon to be examined by the Commissioners investigating the disposition of lands escheated from O’Donnell and the monasteries.[8] He was named again in March 1621 when a Hugh Allingham was one of the jurors at an Inquisition regarding a salmon fishery on the Erne. The evidence was given:

"by the oaths of the good and lawful men of the said county Donnygall”. Those giving evidence: "do find and present upon their Oaths that there is a Royal salmon fishing with in a small river that



leith south west of the river of Ballyshannon towards the county of Leitrim into which the sea doth ebb and flow and the same is called Bundowse and leith within the said County of Donigall; and the said fishing leith close upon the sea where it is navigable with the barks ,lighter and small boats ; and that the same fishing is in the possession of Henry, Lord Ffolliott or his assign ; and that he hath taken up profits thereof for the space of these 12 years now last part and the said fishing is worth by the year above all reprises 6 shillings sterling". [9]

It is presumed that Hugh the petitioner in 1612 is the same person who was a juror in 1621. The fact that Hugh was summonsed to give evidence about ownership of rights that had been enjoyed by Ffolliott since 1609 suggests that he had been in Donegal since that year, if not earlier.

The fisheries on the River Erne were the subject of a case in the Supreme Court of Ireland in 1930,[10] the judgement makes references to a number of grants to Henry Ffolliott in the early 1600’s (including that mentioned in the 1621 Inquisition) and states that grants of property were not made under the Ulster plantation as early as 1600 though Ffolliott obtained from the King in 1612 a grant ‘of the castle and town of Ballyshannon with about 1,000 acres of lands appertaining thereto’.[11]

Ffolliott had been based around Ballyshannon since around 1594,[12] presumably in the service of the crown during the Nine Years War.It may have been that Hugh Allingham had been one of the soldiers or officers serving under him. It has been recorded elsewhere though that Hugh was born in 1588[13] which would make him too young to have fought in the Nine Years War. One possible reason for Hugh leaving Hampshire and joining the plantation in the early years of the 1600’s, when he came of age, would be that it was seen as a way of acquiring land and status. It is possible that he had no property to inherit in Hampshire, maybe because he was not the eldest son in his family and therefore had to make his own way in life.

The descendants of Hugh Allingham established themselves in County Donegal during the 17th century and by the time of the Hearth Money Roll[14] in 1665 there was a John Allingham living at Ballym'groerty in Drumhome Parish,[15] as well as an Edward resident at Forecossy in Kilbaron Parish.[16] They each are recorded as having one hearth. They must have been at least 21 years old in 1665 to be included on the Hearth Money Roll and therefore they may be either the sons or grandsons of Hugh. On the other hand, it's possible that Hugh had more than two sons but they, or their children, would then be expected to appear in the Hearth Money Rolls, which they do not. As Hugh himself is not recorded in 1665 it is probable that he had died earlier. For the purpose of the genealogical charts in this book they are assumed to be his sons, and to have been born about 1620. It is even possible that John and Edward were father and son rather than brothers. It is of course possible, though unlikely, that they are not directly descended from Hugh but in this genealogy it has been presumed that Hugh, the petitioner and juror, was the one and only progenitor of the line and had two sons.

Allinghams subsequently found around Ballyshannon may generally be connected through deeds, wills, marriage contracts, etc. to Hugh's son Edward, and those who are from North Donegal are thought to be descended from Hugh’s son John and have been assigned as descendants of these in the genealogy charts. Those family members who later settled in the adjacent counties of Sligo, Leitrim and Fermanagh, may well be descendants of Edward.

Appendix 1 has an extensive list, with summarised contents, of the Deeds which make reference to Allinghams held in the National Archives of Ireland in Dublin. Many of these documents have been signed by assorted family members over the years, a comparison of signatures has enabled deeds signed by the same person to be identified.

Ballyshannon itself was a prosperous town in the 1600’s with its growth and importance based upon the natural harbour and castle. The town acquired a military focus during 1689-90 after the “Patriot Parliament” of 1689 attainted Sir James Caldwell of Castle Caldwell near Belleek which is only 4 miles from Ballyshannon. Caldwell, an ardent supporter of King William, provided his son Hugh with a troop of horse, which assisted in repulsing the Duke of Berwick’s attack on the town of Donegal. When the Jacobite General Sarsfield came north from Connaught to force the passage of the Erne at Belleek and Ballyshannon, he was opposed at Belleek by the forces of Sir James Caldwell as well as by Colonel Lloyd’s Inniskilleners who together had fortified the fords there. The two sides prepared for battle across a little stream called the Drumavanty River close to Belleek in a narrow pass between the River Erne and an extensive area of bog, which was thought impassable to the Williamite cavalry. This was a strategic misjudgement on the part of the Jacobites as, with the help of a local informant, the Williamites could be seen moving through the bog and outflanking their opponents. Panic quickly set in and Sarsfield’s poorly trained and equipped army was soon in full flight. Many escaped through marsh and forest but the rest were cut down by the cavalry. Between one and two hundred were killed and a further 60 or so sought refuge on Inis Saimer Island in Ballyshannon Harbour.

Ballyshannon, County Donegal, drawn circa 1840[17]

In June of 1689 Sir James Caldwell and others set out for Derry to acquaint Major General Kirk of the situation around Ballyshannon and along the Erne as well as to seek arms and reinforcements. Kirk was engaged in relieving the Siege of Derry so, despite having shown little enthusiasm for that task, it took him about a month to agree to reinforce the Williamite forces about the Erne. Eventually he sent professional military officers to command some largely amateur forces, including 1,600 muskets and firelocks plus eight fieldpieces and a plentiful supply of powder and shot, all of which were landed at Ballyshannon. Many of these officers later had prominent positions in the final defeat of King James in Ireland. A large number of Kirk’s Williamite troops over wintered in the area around Ballyshannon and Belleek before taking part in the following year’s decisive campaign (the Battle of the Boyne took place on July 1st 1690). They were the cause of much complaint since they “plundered” the locality of food, timber, iron, horses etc. to support themselves. The Allinghams are likely to have been involved in this ‘support’.

In the early 18th century a Francis Allingham, thought to be Edward’s son and Hugh’s grandson, served at various times as a Churchwarden at St. Anne's Church in Ballyshannon.[18] This is the earliest known use of the name Francis which was to occur in subsequent generations. His younger brother, Edward, also served as a Churchwarden in the 1730’s.[19] The Ballyshannon estate, which included the town itself, was purchased by the Hon. William Conolly, the Speaker of the Irish Parliament, in 1719. Conolly died in 1729 but his heirs continued to own and improve the lands around the town. In July 1748 the estate demised Ballyshannon to Edward Allingham.[20] Also in July 1748 a Francis was named as the second son of Francis Allingham of Ballyshannon in a lease from the Conolly estate to William Ross of a tenement in Ballyshannon.[21] The same deed names William as the third son of Francis. No deeds or other documents have been found which make any reference to the first son of Francis the elder of Ballyshannon. This may be because he died young, or it could be because he was unable to take part in land transactions, maybe due to him adopting the Catholic faith. In a census of 1749 there is a John Aligam, a taylor, listed as living in Sligo,[22] and it is possible, though not proven, that he is the missing first son of Francis. As John is identified in the census as a ‘papist’ it would explain why he was not named on any deeds, as in Ireland at that time the Penal Laws prohibited all but minor property ownership by catholics.[23] The genealogical charts that follow assume that John Aligam, the ‘papist’, is the missing first son of Francis of Ballyshannon.