Magennis Clan
The clan ruled in west County Down before the Norman invasion of 1169 and allied itself to the Earldom of Ulster from 1177 until the death of William Donn de Burgh, 3rd Earl of Ulster in 1333. By 1500 the chief's family had 12 branches, with the strongest two based in Rathfriland and Kilwarlin. On the losing side at the Battle of Bellahoe (1539), in 1543 the chief travelled to Greenwich and accepted terms of surrender and regrant, and was knighted as Sir Arthur Guinez. In 1584-85 his son Sir Hugh was again regranted his lands, then about 100,000 acres. Though uninvolved in the Nine Years' War (1594-1603), about half of the clan's lands were sold in the 1610s and 1620s during the Plantation of Ulster. The chief was created a viscount in 1623 and he and some cousins were members of the Irish parliament. They supported Confederate Ireland in the 1640s; two of the six Ulster delegates on the Confederate Supreme Council were Magennises. In 1689 the Viscount and three other Magennises sat in the Patriot Parliament.
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