The Big Houses around Clogher Jack Johnston MBE
Jack Johnston, Local Historian
Location of recording: CLogher
Date: 2 October 2026
Favour Roya gets its name because it was a Royal Favour. It was granted as a Royal Favour by Charles the 1st to the Erskine’s.
Sir James Erkine got the estate about 1620 something from the previous grantees who were called Ridgeway and then one of Erskine’s daughters married the first Moutray around about 1660 and the other daughter, he had two daughters, the other one married a Richardson of Augher Castle.
So that’s why the estate was divided in two. One half became Augher and the other half became the Manor of Port Clare.
The Moutrays were in it for about 300 years, until Mrs Moutray died in1976.
They had the rental of about 30 townlands all together which ran to something like 6400 acres statute measure. They probably had the best land of the Clogher Valley in terms of rental.
They weren’t the largest land owners in the Clogher Valley by any means, the largest land owners were the Stewards of Ballygawley who had 27,000 acres altogether but a lot of that was rough ground you know, the Millix and Bockets, away up and the hills above Ballygawley.
And then the next biggest estate would have been Knox Brown’s which was over 10,000 acres, and then you had Cecil Manor which was nearly 8,000 acres. This is tenanted land now that the tenants would have paid the rent for.
And then Blessingbourne would have come in next, Nick is here, he’ll be able to (Nick Lowry, Blessingbourne) he’ll be able to correct me, 4,500 acres in Tyrone and about 8,000 and Fermanagh. About 12,500 acres all togetherbetween Tyrone and Fermanagh but most of it in Fermanagh.
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and then the next one down after that would have been what do we see now or dross had had 3000 acres in Tyrone and another 1100 acres at mcguire’s bridge so the gladstone’s had about 4000 acres and then there were a lot of smaller estates like i want to put 2000 acres each you know california and about 2200 acres and corick was rounded by
Corick was round about the same so Jack 2 questions here right where did #1 port Claire name come from are we any idea what’s association because it’s not the name they’re running it out of associated around the snag of the woods I don’t know right man of the Manor of port Claire and the churches St Marys Aragon Porte Claire because that was all Erigal parish you know Eric gilkey on ballygoli or Errigal Kieran and erigal truth and erigal shanko they were all one massive parish at one time and in that Chapel of ease was built by John Curry moutre in 1835 for the convenience of the family and the tenants the house the old house which was built about 1670 was burnt in a fire in 1823 and then two years later the the current house which is fired there as you said in 2011 sorry I think there’s going to be Wikipedia on the side of the entrance welcome to Co to come in as welcome to go by uh which was a general welcome to travellers uh because the the coach Rd went very close to it you know the coach Rd to Dublin when past the back of favour oil it didn’t it didn’t go the front of it until the new road was made in 1812 when favour royal bridge was built so the old road went in there at the Weybridge corner straight on down past Clara and then out onto the Mon lane there and on straight into Monaghan that was the main road to Dublin but it went to the back of favour oil in in the early days and there was a back gate Lloyds there where there’s a curved wall John a bit beyond my forest where my forest on on around the corner from mine forest near this side you know near near that near the car end would favourite oil have strayed across what we we’d know now as the boy dragged into the Clara side too not really but they had about when I said they had 4600 acres I think they had another 4 or 500 acres in in Monaghan right because there’s a Thailand called cabin moutri for example across the border uh they they had uh Uptown land where the the Millennium walk is was theirs too derigauri and would it be affordable most of the time not in north London are quite small because there were there were tapes you know there were roughly 60 Irish acres so they had a small part of their estate in in north Monaghan the mood trees were I suppose that they pioneered farmers in in many ways and introducing Shorthorn cats and a lot of the Clara valley shorthorns descended from their bulls the reverend William moutre who was the curiton port Clare was a great Shorthorn breeder and showed regularly in Dublin show taken his bulls to Glasgow station loading among mengrade northern and sending them up to the show in Dublin umm he was a pioneer Shorthorn reader and bought a lot of his stock from the booths in in annand the two great Shorthorn breeders in England wear booths and Bates it was booth for the pale and bits for the for the beef you see very the dairy short or the beef short hard but they specialised in the booth booth blood so they were pioneer Shorthorn breeders but in later years I suppose favourite whenever either grown up I always thought a lot of forestry yes well major mutteries sold in Ottoman off to the forestry when he was getting short of money in the 30s and 40s one thing I have and I ordered at the auction was an account book for the staff begins about 1896 and Romans St till about 1910 and the wages of all the men who were working at the time and the 24 men working in round about 1900 and they were paid roughly one in six a day and the the man who got the best pay was the estate Carpenter Carpenter David ray who got 3 shillings a day so that was that that was twice the labouring man’s wage but sometimes you’d see in that book where he was docked maybe six months because he got his Co served by the Shorthorn bull or or or sometimes he was given a bit of firewood and and he was docked a little bit for the the load of fire really got so there was the accounts were quite well kept in terms of how the neighbours fared and come back 60s that was a lot of at that time was all one club but there was a lot of people was associated with football club that would have worked in the forestry about favourite oil and like maybe come from I can’t even the guys name come from County Down to work about there but then was playing sport up here so like it it was bringing labour into the area too like yeah well a lot of the locals like France suspension the laws work there and there were other local families like mcvickers a lot of mcvickers in the account books and rays as I mentioned the sacrificing after the port Claire one is again whenever we’re doing some of the stuff and chasing up the ancient study stuff was that whenever the lands was divided up around cloher you’re going to correct me and all this here because I might be spot on was it was divided up into sort of 20 estates and and and that’s what we were trying to go through here tab right so we’re we’re trying to figure out what the Tamil was right so the policy Rd when probably won the ashfields if it ruses the bishops estate and then eventually you know these were carved out of it like Ashfield was carved out of it and for dross was carved out of it I mean the Bishop had a had a vast estate here in the middle and then the Bruce had one and the then there was one of doctor Chloe with him the Moors had a big estate there garvend into al mccloy Sir John Stuart well it wasn’t Stewart originally it was the gorgeous family from kilgrew in in county Meath who originally had the the baloria estate and then you had Savile who had the Cecil estate new tone solo of course uh and of course it’s misspelt ever since he was Savile but the blumen Rd signs have got 2 LS uh so it’s incorrect all that should have 1L because Sir George Saville who founded the estate had one L so So what would have been the the 10 estates then that would have been divided up at the start so you’re talking favourite we’ve started the five month town you have 10 on the north right two moving uh next to entertain would be the manner of cope which was divided between caliphate and Revere or escrow and then you had the next one the north side was Cecil uh which was the biggest state of nearly 1000 acres reached away up to the rocking burn from from the money and right up to the rightenberg and then you had the 9 town lands of erigal which belonged to the Archbishop of Armagh that’s in round area go fernamina gort you know in round the old aragal church yeah yeah and then you had the ballygoli estate which was eventually became stuart’s was originally gorgeous when following the South side blessing barn on the 5 moon tight end and then you had the bishops large estate joining it which of course later was divided up and included for draws and uh Ashfield and corick was all carved out of the Bishop’s estate and then you had the offer estate which stretched up to the border almost and it was sold then to the richest and bestbrook who were Quakers and they eventually sold some of it then to Mrs Porter and that was they to our park people who bought some of it is that the same Porter that’s names associated here with with the home and all out there so if any has ever been in the home up here anthrons hall into your left the ceiling is a painting of the Porter family and all the children on the ceiling and the six heads they’re supposed to be cherubs but they’re they’re modelled on the six children of Thomas S Porter it’s fabulous fabulous painting up in the scenery who was an amazing man actually Thomas S Porter I mean he he uh he brought the 1st dentist into the Clara valley because he thought the children hadn’t good uh teeth teeth care you know and he he got a dentist to go around the schools the primary schools umm he he was also one of the founders of the clower valley railway I’m the first patron of Clover show DS Porter uh he was involved in a lot of good causes it was Porter who got the War Memorial erected because he lost his son in the Great War and he did various things and he was a great basically he ruled penny Farthing often road to Dublin on the penny Farthing he was keen he was keen I met him in many cars but he was keen but TSP you know where Charlie McGarry I think somebody told me that man I noticed it whenever it was originally pat Bailey’s when pat Bailey was the last you were there an inch Charlie mcgarthy came in and lived in that house whenever we’re doing other research on the the city thing and how how established Clara was from ecclesiastical side like we were staying down druids Glen down in county Wicklow and we’re walking around the golf course in the clubhouse not like I’m going to see us water stone or water Vale or something but it was owned as in the entrance it tells you about it was owned by the Bishop of cloher a Bishop Tottenham at a time so like you can see where the clock hours name spread far and wide and the importance of it like Tottenham didn’t live much in flowery just an absentee he drew the stipend but he didn’t do the work which was quite common you know in in uh part of the 19th century I was going to tell you something else about Porter uh another thing he he built a model farmyard down there at clower park where Maliki has all the sheds in Maliki Connolly yeah so farmyard as we know it now farmyard Maliki has now that was a model farm in its day and he got an architect called wait to design it uh and I mean it was much ahead of its time and pervaded housing for cattle in the winter time which was on herd of really stall fed cattle uh so he he’s an amazing man Porter you know and I don’t think he gets enough credit uh so it’s up to the forum to give him a bit more yeah we’ll we’ll we’ll make it and there’s nice housing all down in that direction see this goes back to the Bishop’s time put the stuff like that there that people don’t realise is about and and not familiar with it’s pretty that walk around the lake isn’t still available it was a lovely walk for the people of Clark it’s totally overgrown now I’m conscious of time and I sort of said that we’re going to run it to 9:00 and we’re sitting at 5 past 9 and uh to tie the thing up I I suppose here number one I hope you have got something out of it and enjoyed it based on what people think of it we’ll see if there’s another shot in the dark or well because you can see there’s so many stories and so many angles and so many tangents that you can go off on here and there’s a couple there’s some forms here which heller’ Satan hopefully easel Fallon is is their feedback forms but on that feedback forms if if you if somebody just take the time to fill them in as maybe you know somebody else that has stories to tell tell the story about a different topic a different place all based around Claire or that they are and even what you thought of how today went the sort of the venue because here I am very very thankful for the venue give us feedback tell us what you thought of it if it’s good spread the word if it’s not we’ll we’ll see what happens