Biographies: Notable Individuals and Families

Patrick Montgomery of Creboy or Craigboy near Donaghadee Brother-in-law of Sir Hugh Montgomery

Patrick Montgomery was originally from Blackhouse near Largs, in north Ayrshire. The family estate was at Skelmorlie-Cunningham - Skelmorlie Castle is still inhabited today. His father was John Montgomery of Braidstane - so Patrick was possibly a cousin of Sir Hugh Montgomery, the 1st Viscount of the Great Ardes. The two men married two sisters - Hugh married Elizabeth Shaw of Greenock and Patrick married her younger sister Christian/Christina - so they were also brothers-in-law. 

When Con O’Neill was sprung from Carrickfergus Castle, Thomas Montgomery of Blackstown (a farm adjacent to Braidstane Castle) whisked him across the North Channel in ‘a small bark’. They landed at Largs where they were greeted by a welcoming party led by Patrick Montgomery. From Largs they travelled to Hugh 
Montgomery’s castle at Braidstane to finalise the O’Neill/Montgomery deal before continuing to London to seek the approval of Montgomery’s friend, the new King 
James I.

Life in Ulster 
After the deal was completed, and the O’Neill estate was divided three ways between Con O’Neill, Hugh Montgomery and James Hamilton, Patrick Montgomery received a grant from Hugh Montgomery for Creboy/Craigboy, just south of Donaghadee. This included the old church, well and graveyard of Templepatrick, which the local Irish told the incoming Scots had been the place where St Patrick originally landed. Patrick Montgomery was granted the townlands of Ballyhannode and Ballogortevil in 1616. These names are now extinct. 

Patrick died in 1629 leaving three sons: Hugh, who died in 1630, John, a lieutenant-colonel in the army who was killed in the Battle of Dunbar on 2 September 1650 and Patrick, who sold two-thirds of the family’s Scottish estate in 1663. This Patrick’s son John sold all of Creboy on 27 December 1716 and returned to live on the remaining one third of Skelmorlie. 

In 1683 William Montgomery recorded this description of the house at Creboy: ‘about a mile and a half from the Town Southward is Patrick Montgomery Esq., his house of Creboy slated, seen far at sea, having Orchards and inclosures about it, and within a mile an a half are quarries of slate, which are used at Belfast, Carrickfergus, and elsewhere’.

Associated sites: 
Craigboy, south of Donaghadee 
Coat of arms from original house, now on the wall of a 
new house on the Craigboy Road
Templepatrick graveyard

The Shaws
Related by marriage to the Montgomerys and major tenants of theirs in Ulster

Background in Scotland
The earliest records of the Shaws are from the late 1200s, in the troubled period which saw the rise of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce. In 1284 a John 
de Shaw is recorded in the register of Paisley Abbey. The ‘Ragman Roll’ of opponents of Bruce, dated 1296, includes Fergus del Shawe, Symund del Shawe and William de Shaw. The Shaw estate was near Greenock, a coastal town on the west side of Glasgow, along the mouth of the River Clyde. The Shaws had owned the lordship of Wester Greenock since the time of King Richard III (1337-1406) and from the early 1400s were known as the ‘Shaws of Sauchie’.
William Schaw (1550-1602) was grandson of Sir James Schaw of Sauchie. On 21 December 1583 King James I of Scotland appointed him his ‘Master of Works’ for all 
of the royal palaces and castles in Scotland and he was involved in major refurbishment works at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh, Dunfermline Abbey and Stirling Castle. He accompanied the King to Denmark to meet his new wife Anne of Denmark. Schaw was highly influential in the development of Scottish Freemasonry 
and wrote The Schaw Statutes, published around 1598. He has an impressive memorial at Dunfermline Abbey. The site of the original Shaw castle is today the public park, Well Park, in Greenock, which includes John Shaw’s well, dated 1629. Wester Greenock remained as the Shaw family seat (later the Shaw-Stewarts’) until 1754 when they moved five miles south to Ardgowan, a magnificent country estate. The Shaw-Stewarts still own Ardgowan which offers a range of corporate hospitality services. In 1851 the Shaw-Stewarts donated Well Park to the people of Greenock. 

The Shaws in Ulster 
In the early 1600s the head of the family was James Shaw of Greenock. On 7 November 1605 James’ son John Shaw (who is also called James Shaw in some of the early records) and Patrick Montgomery were appointed as attorneys to act on behalf of Hugh Montgomery in the division of Con O’Neill’s estate. John Shaw is described in The Montgomery Manuscripts as one of Hugh Montgomery’s ‘prime friends’. In May 1606 one of the first group members who accompanied Sir Hugh to Ulster was his wife’s uncle, Patrick Shaw, who later became laird of Kelseland. Kelseland or Kelsoland was an estate which dated back to Hugh de Kelso in 1296 - the Shaws of Greenock acquired it in 1624. 

The Montgomerys and Shaws were closely related through marriage: Sir Hugh Montgomery married James Shaw’s eldest daughter Elizabeth; Sir Hugh’s sister Jean Montgomery married Patrick Shaw, second son of John Shaw of Greenock (they were buried at Skelmorlie near Largs, Scotland, with an impressive memorial); a third sister, called either Christian or Christina, married Patrick Montgomery (originally of 23 Blackhouse near Largs, who later moved to Creboy or Craigboy near Donaghadee).

On 19 July 1616 Sir Hugh conveyed to John Shaw two townlands called Ballycheskeve (Ballywhiskin?) and Ballingamoye (now Ganaway, just south of Millisle), which the 1623 Inquisition found Shaw ‘in peaceable possession of’. A 1718 Donaghadee rent roll records a John Shaw still at Ganaway. In 1617 a Patrick Shaw 
of Ballywalter and a William Shaw of Ballykilconan received letters of denization. 

The market cross in Newtownards (replacing the original which burned down) was built and included the Shaw coat of arms which was (and still may be) on one face of the market cross in Newtownards. John Shaw of Greenock took part in Hugh Montgomery’s funeral procession. At the service Newtownards Priory was dressed with the coats of arms of the Shaws and the Maxwells (in memory of Sir Hugh’s two wives and their families).

The move to Ballygally
As the Scots settlement in east Ulster expanded, some of the original Montgomery tenants moved to County Antrim. James Shaw (who may have been the John Shaw mentioned above) and his wife Isabella Brisbane moved to County Antrim, to Ballygally/Ballygelly and Ballytweedie. In 1613 a ‘John Shaw of Ballygally, Gent.’ is 
recorded on a County Antrim jury. They built Ballygally Castle, north of Larne, in 1625. Some of the cut stoneused in the building is said to have been brought from Scotland. 

Back in Scotland
Hugh Montgomery III sold the family’s Braidstane lands to Sir John Shaw of Greenock in 1650. The Shaws ‘continued occasionally to reside at the old castle here till after 1700’. In 1657 the Shaws expanded their estates - James Shaw, the son of James Shaw of Ballygally, married his cousin Elizabeth Brisbane and so acquired the Brisbane estate. The same James Shaw acquired the estate of Over Kelsoland in 1671. On 26 Feb 1686 King James II wrote to James Shaw to collect fines which he had been charged due to ‘his wife’s persistent attendance at Presbyterian conventicles’.

The 1700s and 1800s 
William Shaw was Provost of Newtown. In his will of 1707 he left the lands of Ballyganoway, Ballywhisker and Carradorn (Ganaway, Ballywhiskin and Carrowdore?) and Ballymacravanny and Cahard to his son John. In 1744 there was still a house near the market cross in Newtownards with the Shaw coat of arms on the front - ‘a star in the middle with three cups, and the crest a phoenix’ - believed to have been built originally by John Shaw. The last of the Ganaway Shaws, Henry William 
Shaw, died at Glen-Ebor (off the Old Holywood Road, Belfast) in November 1867. 

Associated sites: 
Site of original farm at Ganaway
Market cross in Newtownards

The Coopers 
One of the first families to arrive from Scotland

Background in Scotland 
Cooper is a common name throughout Scotland and the specific origins of these Coopers is unknown. However it is likely that they had come from Galloway or Ayrshire. 

Life in Ulster 
A grave at Whitechurch outside Ballywalter, tucked in at the side of the surrounding hedge of the old part of the graveyard, marks the grave of a William Cooper, son of 
John Cooper of Ballywalter, who died in 1805 aged 27. At the top of the headstone are a Masonic square and compass symbol and other decorative carvings. At the bottom is a later, remarkable, inscription: ‘The Burying Ground of John Cooper, died 1608 Age 92’. This grave was rediscovered recently by local men Ian Larkin and Michael Birch.

Early records show that in 1617 a James Cooper was recorded as a tenant of Hugh Montgomery at Ballyhaskin (just a few miles from Whitechurch graveyard) and presumably they were related - possibly father and son, or perhaps grandfather and grandson. It is likely that an entire Cooper family had been among the first settlers to accompany Hugh Montgomery to the Ards.

John Cooper was therefore born in 1516, lived through the Scottish Reformation and the preaching of John Knox and the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. He probably came to Ulster with his family around 1606 as an elderly man of 90 years! 

Associated sites:
Headstone to John Cooper (d. 1608) in Whitechurch 

James Traill (1595 - 1663) 
Renowned soldier and tutor of Sir James Hamilton’s only son

Background in Scotland
James Traill was born in Scotland (probably Blebo in Fife, just five miles from St Andrews) on 15 October 1595. His brother Robert Traill (1603-1676) was the famous minister at Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh. James had a degree in theology from Leiden University in the Netherlands and spent time with the Ambassador to Paris. Robert Traill also spent time in France, joining James there in 1625 and staying until around 1630; he was later described as a ‘Grim Geneva Minister’. 

Life in Ulster
Around 1610 a James Traill (possibly Robert and James’ father) acquired 1000 acres in Knockninny in Co Fermanagh during the Plantation, though he subsequently sold these lands to an Englishman, Sir Stephen Butler. The other major grantees in Knockninny were the Balfours - second cousins of the Traills - who founded Lisnaskea. Around 1633 Sir James Hamilton appointed Traill tutor for Hamilton’s only son - ‘He choosed for him a very learned, discreet, and religious master, one Mr. James Traill’. 

Life on the Continent
The son was ‘to travel some years for his improvement, which he did the length of Rome, very safely and successfully, and returned with great improvements in such things whereunto his genius allowed’. So James Traill showed young Hamilton the ways of continental life. Traill wrote to Hamilton senior from Paris in October 1633, summarising their trek around France. The letter says that young Hamilton started his day at 7am with two hours study of French or Latin, then classes in dancing and fencing, then oral French followed by an hour of translation. Once he had a grasp of French he was going to move on to study ‘logic and mathematics’. At the start and end of the day were his ‘duties of piety’. Traill went on to outline a proposed ‘circuit of France’, plus a trip to Geneva and Italy - Florence and Rome in particular. 

The return to Ulster - and exile in Scotland
When they came back Traill joined Oliver Cromwell’s army and rose to Lieutenant-Colonel. Cromwell said of him ‘If only I had 10,000 James Traills, I would drive the 
Pope out of Italy’ - a country that Traill was already very familiar with! Traill married Mary Hamilton (daughter of James Hamilton’s brother John) in 1647.

However in 1649 James Traill had to leave Ulster ‘on account of malignants’ and went to stay with his brother Robert in Edinburgh. Robert also knew the Hamiltons well - he and Rev. James Hamilton (another cousin of Hamilton junior) were both ministers in 
Edinburgh at this time and signed the Solemn League and Covenant together on 11 April that same year. 

They also both accompanied their friend and colleague James Guthrie to the gallows in 1661 when he was executed by order of King Charles II.

Retirement in Ulster
Some time in the 1650s, James Traill’s payment for his military service was said to be ‘land in lieu of his back pay and this land near Killyleagh he named Tullochin’. The last portion of this property was sold in 1770, by his great-grandson, the Rev. Hamilton Traill, who died in1795, aged 75. The land was part of the Killyleagh estate which was by now owned by his former protégé, James Hamilton, now Earl of Clanbrassil. Hamilton wrote his will on 18 June 1659, naming Lieutentant-Col.onel Traill as one of his executors, and died just two days later on 20 June 1659. He was buried at Bangor Abbey.

Death and Burial 
Traill himself died nearly four years later on 18th May 1663 and was buried at Killyleagh. There is a large memorial to him inside Killyleagh Church of Ireland, just down the hill from James Hamilton’s castle - and where the Rowan Hamiltons still live today. The inscription on the memorial reads:

‘Heere lyeth the body of Lef. Col. Jam(es) Traille who having severall years faithfully served his mast. in ye warr against ye Irish Rebells departed th(is) life at Tollachin 18 May 1663, haveing had issue by his wife Mary Traille als Hamilton, daughter to John Hamilton of Hamiltons Baun in ye county of Ardmagh, Esqr., broth(er) to ye Right Honl. ye Lord Viscount Claneboys; 4 sons & 8 daughters, James, John, Hans, James, Jane, Ann, Mar(y), Mathelda, Sarah, Ellenor, Magdalen, Margaret. Here lieth the body of Elizabeth Trail alias Read of Hollypark who departed this life 10 Jan 1818. 
And also near to this lies the remains of her husband, the Revd. Archibald Hamilton Trail of Hollypark, Killinchy, who departed this life 16 Apr 1844 in the 89th year of his age.’

James Traill is a perfect example of a sophisticated, driven Ulster-Scot who was as comfortable in his youth with the Ambassador in Paris as he was in later life in his 
townland outside Killyleagh in County Down.

Associated sites: 
Tullykin townland near Killyleagh
Memorial inside Killyleagh Church of Ireland

Colonel David Boyd
Soldier in Holland and settler in County Down

One of the men who came from Scotland to Ulster with Hugh Montgomery in 1606 was David Boyd. To give him his full title, Colonel David Boyd of Tourgill (also spelled Tourgil or Tuyirgill) was the youngest son of Robert Boyd, the 5th Lord of Kilmarnock. The Boyds lived at the original Dean Castle outside Kilmarnock, on an estate which had been granted to them by King Robert the Bruce for their service at Bannockburn in 1314.

Military Service in Holland 
David Boyd is known to have served in a Scottish regiment in the wars in Holland in the 1580s. Hugh Montgomery also fought in Holland at the same time. Boyd of Tourgill He had letters of legitimation under the Great Seal on 11 July 1582 and a grant of the lands of Tourgill (a region to the north-east of Largs in north Ayrshire) on 
8 August 1598. Boyd, named as David Boyd of Tourgill, also appears among a list of 12 Scottish nobles who were witnesses to the ‘Contract between King James VI, Ludovick Duke of Lennox and Hugh fifth Earl of Eglingtoun for the marriage of the Earl and Gabriela Steuart, Sister of the Duke’ dated 10 and 13 April 1598.

His niece Marion Boyd was the wife of another major Ulster landholder, James Hamilton, the 1st Earl of Abercorn. Colonel Boyd’s sister, Egidia or Giles, was the 
wife of the head of the Montgomery family, Sir Hugh Montgomery, the 4th Earl of Eglinton.

Family Feud 
Boyd was twice the victim of attempted murder. In April 1599 he was ‘set upon and wounded … in the High Street of Glasgow’ by his cousin Adam Boyd, who on 31 July later the same year also attempted to murder him at Kilmarnock. 

Marriage and the Ross family of Kilmarnock 
He married a wealthy widow, Margaret Wallace. Her former husband, George Ross, had the title of Hayning/Hanyng/Haining, an estate along the Cessnock River near today’s Riccarton and Hurlford villages. She was known as the ‘Dame of Hayning’ and had one daughter, Maria Ross, to her first husband.

Life in Ulster
Boyd arrived with Montgomery in 1606 and soon was granted lands. Con O’Neill directly granted him Ballymacarrett, another parcel of land near Glenmachan at the old church of Knockcolumbkille and a townland called ‘Ballymurty’. Boyd also secured seven townlands from Montgomery, totalling 1000 acres, just to the north of Greyabbey. 

The family residence was built in the townland of Ballycastle, possibly where Ballycastle House is today, on the Mount Stewart Road. Boyd is also said to have had lands near Glastry. Despite his estates in Ulster, Colonel Boyd was Provost of Edinburgh in 1613. The precise date of his death is unknown but is thought to 
have been some time before 1623.

Children 
He is known to have had one son, Robert Boyd, who after his father’s death continued to occupy the lands Montgomery had granted. A John Boyd, possibly Robert’s son, was in possession of land at Drumfad near Millisle in 1676. Colonel David Boyd may also have had a daughter, Jane, and another son, Thomas. A Thomas Boyd was elected Member of Parliament for Bangor in 1651; another died at Portavogie in 1660. 

Boyd’s seal
David Boyd’s seal is in the collection of the National Museum of Scotland. The inscription reads ‘S’ COLON DAVIDIS BOYD DE TOURGIL’ and is believed to date 
from 1599.

Associated sites:
Ballycastle near Greyabbey

The Ross family
Early settlers who survived the upheavals of the 17th century

Background in Scotland
The links between towns on the west coast of Scotland and County Down were strong in the early 17th century and many of the settlers on the Hamilton and Montgomery estates came from ports such as Irvine, Largs and Ayr. Among them were two brothers, James and Robert, sons of Alexander Ross, a wright/carpenter and Burgess of Irvine. 

Life in Ireland
In 1617 these brothers received grants of denization so they could enjoy the same rights as English subjects in Ireland. Sir James Hamilton leased Portavo, Ballyfotherly and the Copeland Isles to Robert Ross, and Ballyminetragh to his brother James. Like a number of other families who took advantage of the opportunities presented to them by the settlements in north-east County Down, the Rosses prospered and built up a 
substantial landholding of their own. It is thought they brought other Scottish families with them such as the Kyles and the Stevensons, who also settled at Ballyminetragh. When Alexander Ross died in 1620 the family sold their Ayrshire property and focused their energies on north Down. Robert Ross quickly became a close ally of Sir James Hamilton, who described him as ‘our welbeloved Robert Rosse’.

The Rosses also survived the upheavals of the 1640s and 1650s. In 1644 Robert Ross signed the Solemn League and Covenant at Holywood indicating his support for Presbyterianism. In 1653 Robert ‘Rosse’ was among those Scots in the ‘Little Ardes, Gray Abbey, and Lisborough Quarters’ identified by Oliver Cromwell’s troops for transplantation to Connacht, though this scheme was never put into effect.

In 1659 the following occurrences of the name Ross 
appear in the list of poll tax payers in County Down:
• George Ross, Ballow, Bangor
• James Ross, Portavo, Bangor
• John Ross, Ballylishbredan, Dundonald
• Robert Ross, Lismore, Slanes
• Robert Ross, Portavo, Bangor

Portavo and the Ross family
In 1671 James Ross of Portavo was High Sheriff of County Down. Several letters written by him, either singly or jointly, in relation to different aspects of the management of the Hamilton estate in the late 1670s, were published in The Hamilton Manuscripts. In the 1681 rental record of the Clanbrassil estate the following lands were in the possession of James Ross: Portavo, Ballow, Ballyknocknegowney, Kileene, Ballylisnaskeagh, Ballyregan and Ballykeele.

William Montgomery included Portavo, then in the possession of James Ross, in his description of the Ards from 1701: ‘his great house called Portavo, and large office houses - all of stone, brick, and lime, slated; gardens walled in and fenced orchards and pastures - all his own erection since K. Ch. Ye 2nd’s the happy restoration’. The Copeland Islands also formed part of the Ross estate and Montgomery noted that it was a convenient place for a deer park. As James Ross had no heirs of his own, he had the property conveyed to his cousin George Ross.

In the 1720s the property was in the possession of Captain James Ross. A colourful character, he was something of a spendthrift and ran up major debts forcing him to sell off parts of the estates in the 1740s. He died in 1755 and three years later Portavo and what remained of the estate was sold. Not long afterwards the Ker family came into possession of Portavo.

(For more on the Ross family and Portavo read Peter Carr’s excellent volume Portavo, an Irish Townland and Its Peoples. Part One: Earliest Times to 1844 (2003).)

Associated sites:
Portavo