The Laggan Valley has close connections with the Hugh Kingship of Ireland. Niall of the Nine Hostages's three sons, Conall Gulban, Enda and Eoghan conquered the region in the 5th century. Eoghan received the portion north of Kennagan River which flows into the Swilly at Manorcunningham, and Enda received the portion south of the river. From Enda came the race and name of the Cineal Conaill, afterwards called the O'Donnells while Eoghan became the father of the Cineal Eoghan, afterwards the O'Niells.

The Annals of Ulster and the Annals of Lough Ce tell of the friction between the two tribes which lasted until the end of the 16th century. The rivers Swilly and Foyle served as boundaries depending on which tribe was in ascendancy. All this came to an end in 1607 when the O'Donnell rule in the Laggan finally terminated. On 3rd September 1607, the Earls of Tir Eoghain and Tir Conaill sailed from Rathmullan to the continent, giving King James the opportunity to plant Ulster with Scottish and English settlers.

Grianan Ailligh, as with any ancient place in Ireland, has many folktales and legends associated with it. An impressive stone ringfort perched on the summit of Greenan Mountain commanding views of the counties of Donegal, Londonderry and Tyrone. Legend says it was built by the ancient gods; the ring fort was known as the Sun Palace and was held sacred. The fort itself was probably built in the early centuries of the Christian era. The Griánan is marked on Ptolemy's 2nd century map of the world. From the 5th to the 12th century AD it served as the royal seat of the northern Ui Neill; it was destroyed by Murtogh O Brien, king of Munster in 1101. To make the demolition complete, the king ordered each of his soldiers to take away a stone from the fort. The fort's remarkable state of preservation is due to restoration from 1874 to 1879 by Dr. Walter Bernard.

The O’Dohertys were the Gaelic rulers of Inishowen and the remains of many of their fortifications are scattered throughout the peninsula. Burt Castle was a 16th-century fortress of the O’Doherty clan, one of four guarding the south-west approaches to Inishowen, and in its day was a place of great strategic importance. Further on at Inch Island is Inch Castle, built in the early part of the 15th century and another stronghold of the once powerful O’Dohertys. Both Burt and Inch castles fell into the hands of the English after the failure of Sir Cahir O’Doherty’s short-lived rebellion in 1608.

The walls are built of rough rubble and the keep is three storeys. There are two circular watch towers which offer superb views of the surrounding countryside. They both have openings for muskets. The original walls and outer defenses are no longer visible.

One of the most seminal events in Irish history was undoubtedly the Flight of the Earls. On 14 th September 1607, Hugh O'Neill, the Earl of Tyrone, and Rory O'Donnell, the Earl of Tyrconnell, along with a small party of their family and followers, boarded a small ship at Rathmullen and sailed for Spain. Whatever their intention at the time, they never returned and this left the way clear for King James I to seize their land and inaugurate the most ambitious plantation ever undertaken in Ireland. Hundreds of thousands of lowland Scottish planters arrived over the next hundred years and changed the character of Ulster forever. The departure of the Earls was a surprise at the time and the reasons for it are still shrouded in mystery.

After centuries of relatively unsuccessful attempts to subdue Ireland by his ancestors, Henry VIII adopted a policy of 'Surrender and Regrant', whereby Irish Lords submitted to English control and received English titles in return. This was a considerable success and created a relatively loyal aristocracy in the kingdom of Ireland. On the other hand, Henry's policy of imposing the English Protestant Reformation had considerably less success when he attempted extend it to Ireland and only served to exacerbate the situation there. Henry's daughter, Elizabeth I pursued her father's policies with determination and by 1585 English rule had been accepted in most of Ireland.   Ulster was the exception.   In 1595, the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell joined forces with Hugh Maguire of Fermanagh to resist English incursion in the Nine Years War. O'Neill in particular proved to be an excellent defensive general, inflicting a severe defeat on English forces at the Battle of the Yellow Ford in 1598.

If he had sued for peace at this point, history might have taken a very different course. Instead, O'Neill decided to extend the conflict beyond his own territory and accepted assistance from the Spanish. This was only 12 years after the attempted invasion of England by the Spanish Armada.   Galvanised by the fear of another Spanish invasion, Elizabeth reorganised her forces in Dublin and sent an army to Ulster under General Dowcra who fortified the small settlement of Derry with a massive fort. O'Neil had marched south to join up with the Spanish and suffered a disastrous defeat at the battle of Kinsale. Dowcra secured Ulster and threatened the Earl from the rear. Although the war was clearly lost, O'Neill had won the respect of Elizabeth and succeeded in negotiating a settlement whereby both earls kept their lands and titles. Elizabeth died in 1603 before the ink on the Treaty of Mellifont was dry but her successor, James I, was anxious to maintain O'Neil's renewed loyalty.

The reason for the earls' flight only four years later is hard to determine. There is some suggestion that O'Neill believed the new Lord Deputy of Ireland, Sir Arthur Chichester was attempting to usurp him. But King James had reassured O'Neill in 1606 that his fears were unfounded. There are also suggestions that in fact James was on the verge of arresting the earls for treason but no proof of this has ever been found. Some historians argue that O'Donnell and Maguire were intent upon joining the Spanish forces in their war in the Netherlands. Whatever the reason, the Flight of the Earls from Rathmullen in Donegal in 1607, and the subsequent Plantation of Ulster, was to change the face of Ireland until the present day.        

Cavanacor House is one of the earliest Plantation houses in Donegal and has been in continuous occupation since the 17th century. Protestant armies amassed on the flat plains at Cavanacor prior to the Siege of Derry and on 20th of April, 1689 James II dined at Cavanacor House during the Siege. Due to his protection the House survived his retreat from Derry. In the 1690's Magdalene Tasker, (who was born at Cavanacor in 1634) married Capt. Robert Bruce Pollock. They and their children emigrated to America and settled in Somerset County in Maryland. In America the family shortened their name to Polk. James Knox Polk (born 1795), great, great, great grandson of Magdalene Tasker Polk, became the 11th American President in 1845 and held the Presidency until his death in 1849.

Cavanacor Gallery is located in the grounds of Cavanacor House and was established in 1999 as a venue for exhibiting emerging and established national and international artists.

Contact: Cavanacor Gallery, Ballindrait, Lifford, County: Donegal, tel: +353 74 9141143, fax: +353 74 9141143 W: www.cavanacorgallery.ie Email: art@cavanacorgallery.ie

Raphoe Castle, or the Bishop's Palace, was built in 1636 by John Leslie, Bishop of Raphoe. In 1633 John Leslie, a soldier of fortune from Scotland, who had as a reward for his services to the Crown on the continent been made Bishop of the Western Isles, was transferred to Raphoe where he succeeded Bishop Knox. It is a square four-storey block with salient-angled towers at the corners. There are gun-loops at the lower storey. Almost immediately after it was completed the palace was besieged by Cromwellian forces. Bishop Leslie, a fierce Royalist, had taken an active part in the siege of La Rochelle, the capital of protestant France, as part of Buckingham's army. The ruins of his headquarters can be seen to this day on the Île de Ré off the French Atlantic coast. The palace was captured but he was spared and allowed to remain until 1660 when he moved to Clogher. He was paid an annuity during the Republic by Cromwell on condition of remaining peaceably in the palace, the Church of Ireland having been suppressed at that time. Indeed he was the only Episcopalian Bishop allowed to remain during the Commonwealth period in Ireland, having his own private army. The castle was extensively restored in the 1820s but destroyed by fire in 1838.

The Old Meetinghouse is the first permanent structure erected by the Presbyterian congregation in Ramelton. Later it was extended and enlarged. The precise date of its foundation is not known, but a recent archaeological survey has uncovered C17 features. It was the building in which Rev Francis Makemie worshipped as a youth. The meetinghouse remained the place of worship for the small, austere outlying planter settlement, lasting on into the relative prosperity of the later C18 and early C19.

In 1811, it was extended, using timber from the shipwrecked "Saldhana" for supporting pillars. By the turn of the C19, the congregation had built a fine new Gothic edifice with money raised both locally and from the descendants of Makemie's congregations in America. After 1907, the Old Meetinghouse was left empty, then rented as a workshop. During the Francis Makemie tercentenary commemoration, a fundraising drive began for the restoration of the building. For more than 20 years it has been the home of Ramelton Library.

The remains of the keep of Mongavlin Castle can still be seen on the banks of the River Foyle about 7 miles upstream from Derry City and a mile or so south of the town of St Johnston. This was once the home of Ineen Dubh, mother of the famous Red Hugh O'Donnell, Chief of Tirconaill. There is a fascinating local tradition that following her marriage to Red Hugh's father, Princess Ineen brought her own bodyguard of 100 soldiers over from Scotland. It is claimed that 80 of these men were called Crawford and that this explains why almost everyone in the adjoining townlands was called Crawford for many generations and why the name is still so prevalent there today! In the early 17 th century disputes arose within the O'Donnell family and in 1610, at the time of the Plantation of Ulster, the manor of Mongavlin was granted to the Second Duke of Lennox.  
Both the Duke of Lennox and his brother, who inherited the property from him, died under suspicious circumstances, reputedly of poisoning, but no-one was ever charged with any wrongdoing and the manor passed by marriage to James Hamilton, the Second Earl of Abercorn who had a seat at Baronscourt, just outside Newtonstewart in County Tyrone. A stone which was placed in the wall of the castle in 1704 by the Earl of Abercorn, states inaccurately that his mother, "The Hon. Elizabeth Hamilton.... purchased this manor and annexed it to the opposite estate of the family". The earl goes on to praise his mother for the way in which she had "given every one of her numerous offspring descended from both branches, some considerable mark of her maternal care". Unfortunately, Baronscourt remained the Hamilton family seat in Ulster, and Mongavlin fell into disrepair.   Abercorn's agent, John McClintock, writes as early as 1745 that, "the roof of the castle is greatly out of repair" and recommends selling the timber. It was thereafter allowed to decay, much of the stone being used for surrounding walls and buildings, but nevertheless, a small portion of the keep can still be seen today, testifying to grandeurs long past on the banks of the Foyle.

In 1725, the Reverend William Boyd was appointed by the Derry Presbytery as the minister of Monreagh Presbyterian Church, near St Johnston, in County Donegal. There may be a connection with the fact that a Sir Thomas Boyd had acquired 1500 acres of land in the nearby Barony of Strabane. The Reverend Boyd had been ordained minister of Macosquin Presbyterian Church near Coleraine in 1710. He was probably the son of the Reverend Thomas Boyd, who was an Episcopalian minister in neighbouring Aghadowey.
Before taking up his appointment at Monreagh, William Boyd arrived in Boston, Massachussetts on board the "William and Mary" on 25 th July 1718. Acting as their agent, he presented a petition signed by 319 people, including nine other Presbyterian ministers, from the Bann Valley area of Counties Londonderry and Antrim, to Governor Shute of Massachussetts, requesting his support for a mass emigration to New England. These Ulster Scots Presbyterians were eager to leave their homes because of the high rents charged by the local landowner, the collapse of the linen trade around Coleraine and increasing persecution by the Established Church after the death of King William III.
The petition reads, " We whose names are underwritten, Inhabitants of ye North of Ireland, Doe in our own names, and in the names of many others, our Neighbors, Gentlemen, Ministers, Farmers, and Tradesmen, Commissionate and appoint our trusty and well beloved friend, the Reverend Mr. William Boyd, of Macasky, to His Excellency, the Right Honorable Collonel Samuel Suitte, Governour of New England, and to assure His Excellency of our sincere and hearty Inclination to Transport ourselves to that very excellant and renowned Plantation upon our obtaining from His Excellency suitable incouragement. Given under our hands this 26th day of March, Anno Dom. 1718.
"The Petition of Ulstermen", as it has become known, is now hanging in the rooms of the New Hampshire Historical Society in Concord, New Hampshire. On 4 th August 1718, 600 to 800 Scotch-Irish arrived in Boston in the famous "Five Ships", led by the Reverend James McGregor of Aghadowey. This was the very first of four massive waves of emigration from Ulster to America during the 18 th century, which has resulted in one in every seven Americans being able to trace her or his ancestry to the Scotch-Irish of Ulster.
The Reverend William Boyd however did not himself stay in America. He returned to Ulster and served for 47 years as the minister of Monreagh Presbyterian Church, dying in service on 2nd May 1772. As Presbyterians were forbidden from burying their own dead at this time, he is buried at nearby Taughboyne Parish Church where his gravestone may be seen at the rear of the building.

Taughboyne Parish Church takes its name from the Irish, Tigh Baithin, or House of Baithin. St. Baithin, a cousin of St. Columba of Iona, founded a monastery here in the Laggan Valley in about 560AD. The old monastery church, in a state of near ruin, was restored in 1627 after an attempt was made to build a new church in the nearby town of St Johnston. This failed because many of the most influential parishioners lived near the old monastery church at Churchtown.
The remains of the half finished new church can still be seen within the grounds of the old graveyard in St Johnston. Instrumental in the restoration of the old church was the incumbent vicar, Mr.Thomas Bruce, a memorial to whom was discovered above the door during further restoration in 1887. The Latin inscription reads, "Thomas Bruce aedificavit restoramus 1627". In 1638, the local landowner, the Duke of Lennox, replaced Mr. Bruce with a fellow Scot, the Reverend James Galbraith, who was a Covenanting Presbyterian. Such a move was not uncommon in the Plantation period. However, Bruce petitioned Archbishop Laud in England claiming Galbraith was not only a "dissenting traitor" but "had hasted out of Scotland for killing a man there".
He managed to have himself reinstated. A regular five bay hall, with a bellcote over the porch, Taughboyne church has a fine stained glass window in the sanctuary, illustrating the 23 rd Psalm and dedicated to William and Susan Baird.   On the south wall are memorials to the Reverend Edward Bowen, Rector of Taughboyne from 1819 until his death 48 years later in 1867. The Reverend Bowen kept a meticulous Vestry Minute Book which records the work of the Vestry Committee in the running of the parish. This was not confined to church affairs.   The committee raised militias to resist a Napoleonic invasion, built schools, sought out illicit poteen distillers, fought cholera, provided coffins for the poor and pursued the mothers of foundling children left abandoned on doorsteps! Surprisingly perhaps, many churchwardens and other members of this Church of Ireland Vestry Committee were local Scotch-Irish Presbyterian tenant farmers who saw it as their duty to participate in the running of their communities.    

According to the Reverend Alexander Lecky in his authoritative book on the Laggan Valley and its Presbyterianism, when the Church of Scotland first sent a commission over to Ulster in response to a request from the early planters for ministers, "the whole district was void of ministers, except Mr. Robert Cunningham of Taboin". Taboin, or Taughboyne, is the old name for Monreagh. Mr. Cunningham would therefore appear to be the first Presbyterian minister to hold regular services in the Laggan, and Monreagh the first Presbyterian congregation to be established in West Ulster. The date 1645 is still proudly displayed above the present church door.
It was not an easy life being a Presbyterian minister in those days. Cunningham's successor, the Reverend John Hart, was imprisoned in Lifford gaol for almost seven years during the 1660s by Bishop Leslie of Raphoe for refusing to accept the bishop's authority or even to meet with the bishop to explain his actions. In May 1682, he failed to attend a meeting of the Laggan Presbytery because he was "detained in Dublin", as the minutes delicately explained his imprisonment there for having ordained a day of prayer the previous February. This was soon followed by the Williamite wars, with Royalist soldiers pillaging and burning the area around St. Johnston to support their siege at Derry.   Hart's successor, the Reverend Neil Gray fled to Scotland in 1688. For almost 12 years, services were rarely held at Monreagh.
Some of the ministers' troubles at Monreagh were brought on by their own behaviour however. The Reverend Gray was followed by his son, the Reverend William Gray, who was suspended for several years in the 1720s accused of "notorious scandalous practises". At first it seemed he was living "in sin" with a Miss Eliza Patterson but it later transpired that he had married her in secret because she was an Episcopalean! The Reverend Gray was then called to a congregation in Dublin to be replaced by the Reverend William Boyd in 1725. However, the Reverend Gray must have missed his Laggan flock because he returned soon after and set up a rival congregation in an old kiln in St Johnston, much to the annoyance of the Reverend Boyd who lost much of his stipend when many of his flock defected to the Reverend Gray. "The Taboin Affair", as it was called at meetings of the Laggan Presbytery, raged for several years and only ended with the death of the Reverend Gray. It resulted in the creation of St Johnston Presbyterian Church and both men can now be found lying peacefully, one assumes, within a few yards of each other in the graveyard at Taughboyne Parish church.

At least 15 presidents of the United States of America can trace their ancestry to the Scotch-Irish of Ulster. President Woodrow Wilson's grandfather, James Wilson, learned the printing trade in Strabane before emigrating from this family home there in 1807, aged just 20. James' son Joseph was a Presbyterian minister and served as a pastor in the American Civil War. Joseph's son Woodrow was born in 1856 and went on to graduate from Princeton and the University of Virginia Law School . Woodrow married Ellen Louise Axson in 1885 and became president of Princeton in 1902.
A decade later he was elected 28th President of the USA . Wilson served two terms and was instrumental in pushing through major financial and social reforms. As the leader of a multinational country, including a large German minority, and as a virtual pacifist, Wilson was very reluctant to take America into the First World War. This stance became impossible to maintain however after the sinking of the Lusitania off Cork by a German submarine in 1915. In 1917, Wilson reluctantly led his country to war declaring it a "war to end all wars".
Following Germany's surrender, Wilson insisted on including the idea of a " League of Nations" at the Versailles Settlement. This was the precursor of the modern United Nations. It was for this work that Wilson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919. Unfortunately, Wilson's dream of a third term effectively ended when US German voters, and an Irish electorate disillusioned by his wartime alliance with Britain, turned their backs on the Democratic Party in their droves. Worse was to come. Congress refused to take America into the League of Nations and instead retreated into its old policy of isolationism. Campaigning for the League ruined Wilson's health. A stroke in 1919 left him partially paralysed and he died a disappointed man in 1924. Wilson is the only American president buried in Washington DC - at the National Cathedral.
The Wilson House outside Strabane is a  thatched white-washed building sitting on the slopes of the Sperrins. Inside, you can see some of the original furnishings including the tiny bed in the kitchen sleeping nook and  pots and kettles hanging from the fireplace. There is also a selection of farmyard equipment from the era. A much larger selection of Ulster architecture can be seen at the nearby Ulster American Folk Park, along with a wide selection of pioneer buildings from the United States.

The Dunlaps were well established inhabitants of the town of Strabane, which in the 18th century had a considerable reputation as a publishing and printing centre. It is likely they were Scottish Planters in the 17th century, for in 1700 Jean Dunlap, the daughter of 'Widow Dunlap', won a spinning machine at a linen fair in Strabane. In 1709, Gabriel Dunlap, grandfather of John, the printer of the Declaration of Independence, who was a saddler, leased premises in what is now Meetinghouse Street.
John Dunlap was born in Strabane in 1746. Although tradition has it that he served his apprenticeship in Gray's Printery in Strabane, it has now been clearly established that Gray's Printery was not established until 1793. In 1756 he migrated to Philadelphia to join his uncle William, who was already established there as a printer and bookseller. In 1766 Uncle William became a Minister and transferred the printing business to John, who developed it and in 1771 began the publication of a weekly newspaper, The Pennsylvania Packet or The General Advertiser . In 1784, he began publication as a daily- the first daily newspaper in the United States.
In 1773 John Dunlap was appointed printer to the Continental Congress, whose members drafted the Declaration of Independence, and the Declaration itself was printed in 1776 in John Dunlap's office from Thomas Jefferson's manuscript, and circulated to the colonial assemblies. Until 1789, when the Federal Government was founded, Dunlap continued as printer to the Congress, and the Constitution of the United States was printed in the office of Dunlap and first published in his paper.
John Dunlap's is a typical life story of many who 'went west' from Ulster in the 18th century to make a new life and create a new country to which they then encouraged and assisted others to migrate. By the time he died, on 27 November 1812, aged 66, John Dunlap had amassed a large fortune and held 98,000 acres in Virginia and the adjoining counties of Kentucky.   He played his part in military affairs during the War of Independence, as a founder in 1774 of the 1st Troop of Philadelphia City Cavalry; as a cornet he accompanied this command in the campaign of 1776-1777, taking part in actions at Princeton and Trenton.   In 1812 he was buried at Christ Church, Philadelphia.
The site of his birth at Meetinghouse Street, Strabane, is marked by a plaque erected by Strabane Urban District Council in 1965.

Some would argue that the Reverend James Porter of Tamnawood, near Ballindrait, was not only one of the most tragic historical figures to hail from East Donegal but also one of the most significant.   Just before midday on 2nd July 1798, the Reverend Porter kissed his wife goodbye and climbed the gallows which had been erected in front of his own church in Greyabbey, County Down, where he was then hanged for treason. The excuse for this execution was a military letter brought to the Reverend Porter by some of the conspirators in the 1798 Rebellion, which he claimed he had merely read for them. The reason was not just his sympathy for the United Irishmen's cause, but also the fact that he had made a deadly enemy in Lord Londonderry, the local landlord, whose son, Lord Castlereagh, was Home Secretary at the time. A visit by James' wife Anne and her eight children to Lord Londonderry's home at Mount Stewart to plead for mercy was cruelly rebuffed.
The Reverend Porter, like many Presbyterians in the late 18th century felt aggrieved that the government in London was not only unsympathetic to their religion, but also ignored the economic interests of every class of person other than the landed aristocracy. Until 1832, only landowners, in the main, had the right to vote. This didn't just affect the poor and the underprivileged. During the Napoleonic wars especially, crippling duties were imposed on the goods produced by the middle class Presbyterian merchants, factory owners and farmers of Ulster, threatening to bankrupt them.   Many therefore supported the cause of the United Irishmen. In an open letter to King George III, published and widely distributed in 1797, Porter claimed that "three fourths of the people are excluded from participating in the benefits of the constitution and that 800,000 Northerners are insulted and reviled because they talk of emancipation". Throughout the 1790s, the Reverend Porter had been a spirited orator and satirist whose "Billy Bluff" articles in the Northern Star pilloried the landowners and, in recent years, Lord Londonderry, whom he called "Lord Mount Mumble", in particular. So, notwithstanding the fact that the Reverend Porter had spoken out against the armed uprising, when Lord Londonderry joined the jury at his court-martial in June 1798, Porter's fate was sealed!
Some Ballindrait folk like to believe that, for a short time before his execution, the Reverend Porter had fled the authorities and was hidden by locals in the area. This is unlikely as the good reverend made no secret of his beliefs and considered that he had done no wrong. The story probably refers to his son, Alexander, who, aged 14, had carried the United Irishmen's flag at the Battle of Ballynahinch and who fled to Donegal after the rebels were routed. However, there is a more connection with Ballindrait. Porter's great great great grandson, the Reverend Dr. J. H. Bewglass, served as minister at Ballindrait Presbyterian church for many years and, in 1969, unveiled a plaque to his illustrious ancestor, which can still be seen on the gable wall of the old Porter home at Tamnawood.