Cleggan Notes

LORD RATHCAVAN TELLS ME ABOUT CLEGGAN LODGE, COUNTY ANTRIM

"I BELIEVE Fisher was a Manchester merchant who was involved in the iron ore mining in North Antrim above the Glens."

"Hence Fisher's Pond and the scutch mill which he also constructed, powered by the water from the Pond." 

"I presume he rented from O'Hara and that, when he left after the iron ore mining failed, O'Hara sold."

"I have a copy of the offer for sale in 1897 when my great-grandfather bought it, not for the Shane's Castle Estate but as a personal asset."

"My great-grandmother née Cochrane considered living there and they added a top floor (very badly) and I think the double staircase."

"But the idea was dropped with World War I and the death of their son in World War I."

"It fell into disrepair until my grandfather bought Cleggan from his father in 1927."

"Cleggan was always part of the medieval O'Neill Estate and was mortgaged to Lord Mount Cashel and became part of the disputed Estates Office in Dublin from whom the 1st and last Earl O'Neill rented it in 1820 after Shane's Castle was burnt in 1816."

"It was he who built this thatched Cottage Orné with eyebrow windows."

"At the same time he built architecturally similar houses on Ram's Island."

"Lough Beg and in the Shane's Castle deer park, where he and his brother (both bachelors) entertained women and gambled.'

"They also owned Tullymore Lodge near Broughshane and had a private racecourse there which is now the Ballymena Golf Club, whose freehold, I believe, is still owned by The Shane's Castle Estate."

First published in June,2010.