Three centuries of life in a Tyrone parish. A history of Donagheady from 1600 to 1900

by William J. Roulston

This book tells the story of the parish of Donagheady and its families over three centuries. Donagheady occupies the most northerly portion of County Tyrone. It is a large parish, stretching from the River Foyle to the Sperrins. In the period covered by this study Donagheady experienced massive changes with the result that the parish in 1900 was a very different place from the one it had been in 1600. Through the Plantation and subsequent waves of migration in the seventeenth century, especially from Scotland, the character of much of the parish was transformed.

The creation and disintegration of the estate system in Donagheady is also charted in this volume and the fate and fortunes of the landowning families and their tenants is explored. The histories of the main religious denominations are covered, as well as the nature of rural society itself. Other chapters in this book examine the impact of the Great Famine on the parish, the development of the village of Dunnamanagh, attempts to improve educational provision, the rise and decline of rural industries, and the relationship between Donagheady and the wider world.

William Roulston is from the townland of Gortavea in the parish of Donagheady, and was raised on a farm that has been in his family’s possession since 1830. He is the Research Director of the Ulster Historical Foundation. His other books include The parishes of Leckpatrick and Dunnalong: their place in history (2000), Researching Scots-Irish Ancestors (2005), and Restoration Strabane, 1660-1714 (2007).

400 pages

First published December 1, 2010

About the author

Dr William Roulston has been Research Director of the Ulster Historical Foundation since 2006. He has written and edited a number of publications on different aspects of Irish and in particular Ulster history.

These include: Abercorn: The Hamiltons of Barons Court (2014), Foyle Valley Covenanters (2015), Researching Scots-Irish Ancestors (2nd edition, 2018), Researching Presbyterian Ancestors in Ireland, (co-author) Exiles of ’98: Ulster Presbyterians and the United States (2018), ‘The Insolence of Dissenters’? Religious Controversy in Ballintoy in 1716 (2018), and (co-editor) Transatlantic Lives: The Irish Experience in Colonial America (2019).