CREAGHTS

Irish herdsmen had always led their cattle around the cound the open countryside in the middle ages, looking for fresh pasture. In the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries, herds of cattle, or 'creaghts', became even more vital to feed a displaced Irish population and rebel forces on the move.

The Calendars of State Papers Relating to Ireland contain many mentions of Ulster 'creaghts' which were such a common-place that the term began to be used to describe also a type of social organisation. Native Irish would have moved their cattle in creaghts through the area around Markethill before Planter settlers became firmly established. In his deposition to the 1641 Rebellion commission, James Shaw, innkeeper at Markethill, mentioned creaghts in and around the parish of Mullaghbrack.


In the accompanying audio recording, Dr. Neil McGleenon, retired headmaster and local historian, talks about the local area known as Tyrones Ditches, Hugh O'Neill and Creaghts in the period of the Nine Years War at the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

Photo of Neil McGleenon in 2003.

Use the audio controller to listen to this talk, given in 2003.


Cattle graziing. Creaghts.

Creaghts. Creaghts.

Creaghts. Creaghts.

Creaghts. Creaghts.

Creaghts.