and 2 feet deep was found enclosed by a stone wall. It contained a quantity of rich black earth. O.S. Memoirs.r This is the only remnants of the Neolithic Age which we have in Cavanreagh. In fact this grave may be from the Bronze Age. One way or another, it is fairly clear that the first settlers in this townland were from the latter age. On the top of Cavanreagh mountain there is an area which has been designated as a Bronze Age settlement of some sort. The next evidence of settlement recorded in Cavanreagh would be closely conected with the . In days when was ruled by the Gaelic clans this area would have come under the jurisdiction of the O`Neills and it was their custom to grant to churches pieces of land which were called erenaghs or churchlands. The tenants on the erenaghs would pay rents and the renenue from this would go towards the upkeep of that church. It that whichever religious order was occupying a particular church, they would bring their own tenants with them which meant that these groups of tenants would have been a closeknit community who all originated from the same place. This might go some way to explain in the Hearth Monies Rolls in 1664, the presence of such surnames as McDevitt, O`Doherty, McColgan, O`Conaughan, O`Deeney, McFadden and O`Harkin which are all strictly Innishowen surnames. These tenants must have followed their order from Donegal to Cavanreagh. Of course these names were gone by the end of the 1700`s and this would show that there had been quite a turnover in surnames over the centuries in Cavanreagh, especially when you look at the census lists from 1825 onwards. After the Hearth Rolls, the next and first proper attempt to record a census of the population was done in 1825. The had brought more change and a wide range of new surnames as the landlord and new owner of the Sixtowns set out the land to his tenants. Some of the tenants in Cavanreagh were occupying fairly substantial parcels of land but many others had small holdings or even just a house. As the population of was growing rapidly at that time so did the population of Cavanreagh eventually peaking around the middle of the 19th century. In 1832 there were 15 different surnames in Cavanreagh compared to 4
and 2 feet deep was found enclosed by a stone wall. It contained a quantity of rich black earth. O.S. Memoirs.r This is the only remnants of the Neolithic Age which we have in Cavanreagh. In fact this grave may be from the Bronze Age. One way or another, it is fairly clear that the first settlers in this townland were from the latter age. On the top of Cavanreagh mountain there is an area which has been designated as a Bronze Age settlement of some sort. The next evidence of settlement recorded in Cavanreagh would be closely conected with the . In days when was ruled by the Gaelic clans this area would have come under the jurisdiction of the O`Neills and it was their custom to grant to churches pieces of land which were called erenaghs or churchlands. The tenants on the erenaghs would pay rents and the renenue from this would go towards the upkeep of that church. It that whichever religious order was occupying a particular church, they would bring their own tenants with them which meant that these groups of tenants would have been a closeknit community who all originated from the same place. This might go some way to explain in the Hearth Monies Rolls in 1664, the presence of such surnames as McDevitt, O`Doherty, McColgan, O`Conaughan, O`Deeney, McFadden and O`Harkin which are all strictly Innishowen surnames. These tenants must have followed their order from Donegal to Cavanreagh. Of course these names were gone by the end of the 1700`s and this would show that there had been quite a turnover in surnames over the centuries in Cavanreagh, especially when you look at the census lists from 1825 onwards. After the Hearth Rolls, the next and first proper attempt to record a census of the population was done in 1825. The had brought more change and a wide range of new surnames as the landlord and new owner of the Sixtowns set out the land to his tenants. Some of the tenants in Cavanreagh were occupying fairly substantial parcels of land but many others had small holdings or even just a house. As the population of was growing rapidly at that time so did the population of Cavanreagh eventually peaking around the middle of the 19th century. In 1832 there were 15 different surnames in Cavanreagh compared to 4
Cavanreagh.docx