Long anterior to the arrival of the English in Ireland, the beautiful district on each side of Lough Erne, now constituting the county of Fermanagh, was chiefly possessed by the powerful family of Maguire, from the senior branch of which the chiefs of the territory were elected. This territory, which was anciently known as “Maguire’s country,” was made shire ground in the 11th of Elizabeth, by the name which it still bears; but the family of its ancient chiefs still remained in possession till the plantation of Ulster by James I., when the lands were transferred to the English and Scottish undertakers, as they were called, with the exception of two thousand acres, left as a support to Brian Maguire, chief representative of the family. It is not for us to express any opinion on the justice or expediency of this great confiscation, but we may venture to remark, that it was a measure that could hardly have appeared proper to those who were so deprived of their patrimony, or that would have led to any other feeling than one of revenge and desire of retaliation, however reckless, if opportunity ever offered. Unhappily such opportunity did offer, by the breaking out of the great rebellion of 1641, a rebellion originating chiefly with the families of the disinherited Irish lords of the confiscated northern counties, and having for its paramount object the repossession of their estates.
Amongst the English and Scottish settlers in Fermanagh, the most largely endowed with lands was Sir John Humes, or Hume, the founder of Tully Castle, the subject of our prefixed wood-cut, and who was the second son of Patrick, the fifth Baron of Polwarth, in Scotland. The property thus obtained, consisting of four thousand five hundred acres, remained in the possession of his male descendants till the death of Sir Gustavus Hume, who dying without surviving male issue in 1731, it passed through the female line into the possession of the Loftus family, in which it now remains.
The Castle of Tully was for a time the principal residence of the Hume family; and on the breaking out of the rebellion in October 1641, it became the refuge of a considerable number of the English and Scottish settlers in the country. The discontented Irish of the county having, however, collected themselves together under the command of Rory, the brother of the Lord Maguire, they proceeded to the castle on the 24th of December, and having commanded the Lady Hume and the other persons within it to surrender, it was given up to them on a promise of quarter for their lives, protection for their goods, and free liberty and safe conduct to proceed either to Monea or Enniskillen, as they might choose. But what trust can be placed in the promises of men engaged in civil war, and excited by the demoniac feelings of revenge? With the exception of the Lady Hume, and the individuals immediately belonging to her family, the whole of the persons who had so surrendered, amounting to fifteen men, and, as it is said, sixty women and children, were on the following day stripped and deprived of their goods, and inhumanly massacred, when also the castle was pillaged, burnt, and left in ruins. Let us pray that Ireland may never again witness such frightful scenes!