History
Mountsandel in Coleraine is "perhaps the oldest recorded settlement within Ireland".
Unlike the town, governmentally there was not a preceding administrative area called County Derry. Rather County Londonderry was created by James I when he gave a charter to the Irish Society to undertake the new county's plantation – the London prefix being added in reference to the London Livery Companies of the Irish Society. This charter is dated 29 March 1613, and declared that the "City of Londonderry" and everything contained within:
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shall be united, consolidated, and from hence-forth for ever be one entire County of itself, distinct and separate from all our Counties whatsoever within our Kingdom of Ireland-and from henceforth for ever be named, accounted and called, the County of Londonderry. |
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This new county would comprise the then County Coleraine, which consisted of the baronies of Tirkeeran, Coleraine, and Keenaght; all but the south-west corner of the barony of Loughinsholin, which was then a part of County Tyrone; the North East Liberties of Coleraine, which was part of County Antrim; and the City of Londonderry and the Liberties, which were in County Donegal. The Liberties of Coleraine and Londonderry were requested by the Irish society so that they could control both banks of the mouths of the River Foyle and the River Bann, and Loughinsholin to have access to sufficient wood for construction.
As a result of the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898, the city was detached from the county for administrative purposes, becoming a separate county borough from 1899. The county town of County Londonderry, and seat of the Londonderry County Council until its abolition in 1973, was therefore moved to the town of Coleraine.
From Harris's Hibernica, and also from Captain Pynnar's Survey, Anno 1618:
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The county of Coleraine,* otherwise called O'Cahan's country, is divided, as Tyrone, by ballyboes and doth contain, as appeareth by the survey, 547 ballyboes, or 34,187 acres, every ballyboe containing 60 acres or thereabouts. |
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English control of the territory remained nominal. Following the Flight of the Earls (1607) the Crown confiscated almost the entire county from its Irish aristocratic feudal owners. In 1609 the territory was given to the City of London Corporation and its livery companies, who received instructions to undertake its plantation.
The area for planting included:
- the entirety of County Coleraine
- the barony of Loughinsholin which comprised the then north of County Tyrone and the environs of Coleraine in County Antrim, together called O'Cahan's Country
- a small area of County Donegal around Lough Foyle
In 1613, this larger area became incorporated into the newly-founded County Londonderry, with its county town in the new walled city of Derry (also founded in 1613) on the west bank of the Foyle, opposite the destroyed town of Derry.
Read more about this topic: County Londonderry
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