Category:Manor of Knockballymore

During the plantation of the early 17th century, County Fermanagh was carved up into 40 parcels of land.^[1] In a document entitled 'The Ulster Plantation in the year 1610.' the following can be read

In 1629, a re-grant was made to Edward Hatton and this became the Manor of Knockballymore. Edward Hatton died in 1630 and his son, James, was appointed successor to his father as Rector of Galloon in 1631. James died in 1637 leaving a son Edward and daughter Jane. Edward was only 6 years old when his father died.^[2]

In April 1642, a Deposition was made by Patrick O’Brene, servant to Edward Hatton of Knockballimore, in which it was claimed that Edward (then 15) was “robbed of and lost his castle, towne and lands … about the 23 of Octob: last…”. His sister Jane at lost “one house and a tate and halfe of land … the blackwater medow … one other house … one house in Armagh & 20 acres of land…” during the 1641 Irish rebellion. ^[3]

Jane Hatton married William Davys^[2] and their daughter, another Jane, married Bernard Ward. Jane inherited Knockballymore when her brother Edward died childless, sometime after 1697.3 Bernard and Jane’s son, Nicholas Ward, succeeded to Knockballymore in 1718. Nicholas married Meliora Creighton, sister of the 1st Lord Erne, Abraham Creighton in 1742. They had one son, Bernard Smith Ward, who died in 1770. Under the terms of his will, Bernard’s widowed mother was to retain the Ward lands during her life time and they were then to pass to the 1st Earl Erne, on her death.^[4] Meliora died in 1792 and Knockballymore (along with the Ward lands in Sligo and Mayo) came into the Erne Estate.

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