Ulster Genealogy and Local History Blog

Local newspapers can provide a wealth of information on local and family history.


The Northern Constitution was a Coleraine newspaper that had weekly sections covering many local towns and villages including Limavady. No newspaper was printed in Limavady so the Constitution bought into the Limavady market by providing regional coverage through a dedicated column called Roeside Echoes.


The local Limavady news appears to have been compiled by a local correspondent (not named) who often provided a fascinating insight into local news and characters. There is excellent coverage in Roeside Echoes, for example, of Limavady men who fought during the First World War, 1914-1918. Coverage was given to soldiers who were killed or injured and also of men who had travelled home for respite.

In the Roeside Echoes column in the Northern Constitution dated 28 September 1918 was an interesting article on the discovery of a headstone in Balteagh Parish Church graveyard dating back to the seventeenth cen…

The Siege of Derry/Londonderry

The walls of Derry were completed by 1619, eight metres high and nine metres wide and 1.5 km in circumference. By the time of the siege the population inside the walls was estimated as 2500. Four gates allowed access to traffic going in and out of the city. The river Foyle came up close to the walls on the waterside an effective barrier from attack.

he Siege of Derry was the first major event of the Williamite Wars in Ireland. The Gates of Derry were initially closed in December 1688 by 13 apprentice boys who seized the keys and locked the gates upon the approach of the Earl of Antrim's forces. The real action did not begin until April 1869 when the Jacobite forces arrived in substantial numbers. It is estimated that during the siege the population inside the walls swelled to over 30,000 people. Over 7000 of these were troops and the rest civilians who had fled to the safety of the walled city.

The Jacobite force was estimated at some 15,000 and were…

1813 CENSUS IRELAND

The first reliable statutory census of the population of Ireland was taken in 1821. An earlier census authorised by statute had been taken between 1813 and 1815. The results, however, were defective and neither printed nor presented to parliament. The census was a substantial failure.

The census was to be statistical in nature only, although in a few baronies heads of households names were recorded (the returns for the six completed baronies of Dublin county, and the half-barony of Upper Lecale, Co. Down).

A bill for a census of Ireland became law on 18 July 1812 and the enumeration was to start on 1 May 1813 and continue without delay until completion. The data to be collected for each enumeration district were the number of inhabited houses, families, houses under construction, uninhabited houses, families engaged in agriculture, in trade, manufacture, handicrafts, and other occupations, persons of each sex exclusive of soldiers, militia, and naval personne…

The last wolf in Ulster
Wolves were numerous in Ireland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. So numerous indeed that they posed a threat to the livelihood of farmers.
A letter from Gabriel Whistler, agent of the Salters’ company 11 April 1699 speaking of the devastation brought about by the 1641 rebellion in the region stated 'your lands and most of the others continued in this condition without inhabitants (but wolves and wild beasts) until the year 1656’ (D4108/1/12A)
At various times generous bounties were given for the destruction of wolves, particularly during the Cromwellian period. In 1652 the Commissioners of the Revenue of Cromwell's Irish Government set substantial bounties on wolves, £6 for a female, £5 for a male, £2 for a sub-adult and 10 shillings for a cub.
In 1677 a proclamation by Gabriel Whistler at the manor court on the Salters’ estate, ‘ordered that the summe of one shilling bee raysed and payed by the tenants of every towne land within the said Manor t…