Blackwatertown: The Parliamentary Gazetteer of Ireland 1846

Note: Refer to Source footnotes, below.

" BLACKWATERTOWN, a village in the parish of Clonfeacle, barony and county of Armagh, Ulster. It stands on the north-west margin of the county, on the right bank of the Blackwater river, and on the road from Armagh to Dungannon, 2-1/4 miles south by west of Moy. The junction of the Blackwater and the Ulster Canal navigations, at a little distance from the village, gives it the advantage of an extensive and ramified water-communication with a great part of Ulster. A dispensary in the village is within the Armagh Poor-law union, and serves for a district of 12,600 acres, with a population of 6,000; and in 1839-40, it received £133 7s., expended £124 11s., and administered to 1,228 patients. Area of the village, 28 acres. Pop., in 1831, 528; in 1841, 369. Houses 71.--In 1584, a fort was built by Sir John Perrot, at Blackwatertown, or in its immediate vicinity, for commanding the pass from O'Niell's country into Armagh, and overawing that chieftain's fortalices of Benburb and Dungannon. O'Neill complained of outrages committed by the garrison placed in the fort, and alleged them as reasons for justifying insubordination, and inciting him to measures of retaliation and inroad. During a series of skirmishes and petty wars between him and the English, the fort was repeatedly taken and retaken; and eventually it so annoyed him as to incite the great rebellion in which upwards of 30,000 armed men rose, in the course of three months, against Queen Elizabeth's authority. In 1598, Captain Williams, the warden of the fort, being severely pressed by the forces of O'Niell, O'Donnel, and Maguire, Marshal Bagnal marched at the head of a considerable force, from Armagh to his relief. The marshal's army contained a number of the young native nobility, with their Irish followers, and was inferior to that of the insurgent chiefs in at once number, equipment, and discipline. They left Armagh before day-break; arrived early in the morning at the fort; found O'Niell ensconced behind woods, narrow passes, and a marsh; and were, for half-an-hour, galled by firing from the ensconcements, and thrown into confusion by the effect of concealed pits which had been dug in the ground; yet they forced their way through every obstruction, crossed the ford of Athbury, and drove back the insurgents; but they suffered the loss of their general in the heat of the action, and sustained a decided and even disastrous defeat. The English next day evacuated both the fort of Blackwatertown and the city of Armagh, and retired to Newry, with the loss of from 1,500 to 2,000 men, and of their baggage, ammunition, and artillery. The plantation or Protestant colonization of Tyrone was a consequence of O'Niell's rebellion, and occasioned the fort to be neglected, and become the prey of the elements."