Ebook An Historical Account of the Diocese of Down and Connor

Having written a Preface to each of the three preceding volumes I feel that, in that respect at least, I have sufficiently discharged my duty to the public; there may, however, be some of my readers who are not aware, that it was only in the intervals of a busy professional life, that I found time to write and to have printed this book, sheet by sheet, as leisure permitted. For such, this explanation may be necessary to enable them to understand, that it is only the efflux of time that has rendered innacurate, in some cases, such expressions as: the present proprietor; the present parish I priest; when, during the three years that these sheets were passing through the press, the present, in several instances, has become the past. This volume, treating of the parishes in the territory once named Dalrieda, which, first by conquest and afterwards by patent, was conferred on the MacDonnells - whose history has been so faithfully written by Rev. George Hill - is largely indebted to that valuable book. The MacDonnells of Antrim. I have also availed myself of the Antiquarian Memoirs written by the officers of the Ordnance Survey. These contain descriptions and measurements of objects of antiquarian interest, many of which have now ceased to exist.