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Caption 1. The surviving ruins of Newton Manor Court. Caption 3. |
William Sinclair of Roslin arrived in Ireland in 1620 as one of three principal undertakers for the plantation of Ely O'Carroll country. He had received 1000 acres of pasture and woodland on the lower slopes of the Slieve Bloom mountains, close to the Sli Dala. This was an ancient route from Tara to Cashel. A few years earlier, after his defeat at Kinsale in 1601, O'Neill and his troops used this route as Carew and the English forces followed them back to Ulster.
All plantation undertakers were given strict instructions by the Crown in return for their land. William had to build a house, live on his property, and populate it with Scottish or English settlers. The ruins of his house, Newton Manor Court, were discovered not far from the town of Birr in Co. Offaly, previously known as Parsonstown, several years ago. The building followed the prescribed plan set down by James I:
every undertaker and native of 1000 acres, should be bound within three years to build a castle, of 30 foot in length, and 20 ft in breadth, and 25 feet in ht of stones or brick with lime, and encompassed with a baune of ston, or brick, with lime ... And every proportion of 1000 acres to have a Manor with Court Baron and Leet...
It is unlikely that William and his wife and family lived at Netwon Manor Court for long periods. Conditions were tough enough in Scotland if you were moderately wealthy, but it would have been much more difficult on the Slieve Bloom mountains, many hours away from the relative comfort and safety of Dublin. It is more likely that he employed an agent to build the house and look after the land.
In 1627 he sold his land to Thomas Roper, Knight, Viscount Baltinglas. The Crown had made it clear that it would not allow undertakers to sell their plantations to other undertakers to prevent the ownership of land being consolidated in a few hands. Still, a year later, in 1628, Roper sold William's estate to Sir Lawrence Parsons, who was one of the other three principal undertakers. Newton remained in the hands of the Parsons family from that time until 1922.
What happened to William and his family after 1627 is, as yet, unclear. If they were living in Dublin at that time, it is quite likely that his children remained there after he died. There were certainly several Sinclair families in Dublin during the later 1600s and well into the middle 1700s. An Alexander Sinclare was a master goldsmith at Skinners Row in 1687, and a member of the Company of Goldsmiths of Dublin. Patrick Sinclair was a Freeman of the Dublin Guild of Merchants in 1714. But, towards the end of that century, there were few references to Sinclairs in Dublin.
Some 400 years after William Sinclair built Newton Manor Court, Brendan Parsons, the current Earl of Ross, and Peter Sinclair, the great great grandson of William Sinclair of Newry, are forming the Newton Manor Court Trust to preserve the ruins of this unique plantation house. Over the coming years, the Trust will undertake work to ensure that it survives for future generations.