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Evidence of Neolithic peoples from as early as six thousand
years ago are scattered about the region in the form of
court cairn tombs, but they're hard to find unless you
know what you're looking for. Similarly invisible are the
lakes' crannógs - artificial islands built as early
as the Stone Age, but more typically developed as secure
settlements from the first century AD and now melted back
into the general landscape, indistinguishable from natural
islands. The Celts had their principal pagan shrine
at Magh Sleacht near present-day Ballyconnell.
Several Celtic stone idols bearing bold representations of
the human head have been found in the lake areas of Cavan
and Fermanagh, particularly potent pagan symbols. Some of
them were found in circumstances suggesting that they were
deliberately hidden in more recent times to deny them their
power, a sign of their continuing folkloric importance.
Sadly, though, none of these idols can be seen in their
original setting; most now form part of the collections of
The National Museum in Dublin and the Fermanagh County
Museum at Enniskillen. Replicas of them are on display at
Cavan County Museum, Ballyjamesduff.
When St Patrick established his seat at Armagh, he
also set up a monastery at Kilnavert. Rather than crudely
asserting a new dogma, the proselytizing Christians allowed
pagan and folkloric traditions to continue, mingling them
with the new creed. The filtering through of the new faith
was fairly rapid; but more brutal invaders found the area
far harder to penetrate. The network of lakes and waterways
proved difficult to negotiate, and foreign invaders arrived
with neither knowledge of the terrain nor the apparatus
needed for conquest. The O'Reilly family, who
dominated Cavan from the beginning of recorded history to
the seventeenth century, continually blocked Anglo-Norman
attempts to take control, and this explains the lack of
Norman developments in the region.
Despite Elizabeth I's attempts to divide and rule by
creating the County of Cavan (more a piece of
propaganda than a sign of real political strength) and
playing one Irish barony off against another, it was only
after the failure of the Irish cause at the Battle of
Kinsale that Cavan received the stamp of foreign invaders.
Ancient Gaelic ways were crushed by the Jacobite plantation,
and the county was divided up between English and Scottish
settlers. Every parish was to have a Protestant church, and
the new town of Virginia was built in memory of Elizabeth.
As usual, the best land was given to the English and
Scottish newcomers, leaving the Irish population to face
poverty and the loss of religious freedom. The rebellion of
1641 was a direct result, and Owen Roe O'Neill , the
Ulster Confederate leader based at Cavan, played an
important part, defeating the British General Munro at
Benburb to the north of the county in 1646. However, O'Neill
failed to follow his victory through, and the Irish
Confederates were eventually defeated. After O'Neill's death
in 1649, Cromwell quickly took control of Cavan and the
resulting confiscation of land and property from the Irish
guaranteed the Protestant domination of the county.
Until Partition, Cavan's subsequent history was much in line
with the rest of Ulster. In the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries the linen and woollen industries ensured a measure
of economic growth - though Cavan was always one of the
poorer parts of the province because of the difficulties of
the land; and the Famine of 1845 to 1849 brought large-scale
emigration. At Partition, Cavan was included in the
Republic, thus retaining its Irishness; but it shared the
fate of Monaghan and Donegal in being torn from its historic
and cultural Ulster identity.
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