cehhity Bishop l>ooocke Wrote of Doe Castle as .a curiosity observed while on b s way to the and comfortab:e homes of Wray ·Of Ards and Stewart of Horn He.ad. By the year 1786 guide books, such as The Post Chaise Companion described it as "a magnificent ruin." 'It was, however, destined to obtain a new lease oI life. Some eighty years ago Lord Leitrim and the then owner of Doe Castle took their dispuk ove:· the Lackagh Fishery to the House of Lords and the Law Lords commented on the fact that neither party could or did p:-Oduce any documentary evidence of title derived P·om the µ;rants made by James I to the Bingle.i's and other grantees or U'l·eir assignees, Captain John Sandford and liis family. Apart from these early seventeenth century parchments the earliest document of title which Stewart of Ards could produce was a copy of a Chancery Dec·ree of 1750 which showed that Doc Ca~.tle and lands \vere, in the opening decades of the eighteenth century, the property of one Francis Ha!'rison, a partne: in the pl'ivate bnnk ·:>f ll arriwn and Burto·n.. Dublin. · fr.formation kindly supplied hy the Chi.cf Herald for Ireland now reveals that the banker was the g~· andson of Quarter Master Michael lla~·rison, who claimed Doe Castle as his home. in 1649, and, that ~Iichael Harrison's wife was the daughter of Captain Theophilus Sandford. an- <'estor of the Lords Mountsan<lford of County Roscommon. Th<' Civil Survcv. as we now know, 391. .. showed that ~lulrooheY · (0) CarroH. an Irish Pa1Jist, was recognise<l as the legal representative of the daughte·:s of Caplain .lohn S~ndfor<l of Due Ca5tle some ten 1·ea:·~. after J 1 arris- ~n first laid to Doe, a fact which rather tends tu lead us to b·::- lieve that the Qua!'ter Master was, like his father-in-law, a '·claim jumper" (O:mond Mss. new series RH.C.) whose only legal title became .iia~ed on "lieing long in possession". The void in documentary evidences of title was, I believe, an a~.tutc suppression of gui It! ;Francis Harrison, the ba·!1ker, died on the 5th July, ins, leaving a spend-th!'ift brother, Mars l1 a~. his heir; a·nd within ty;o years he died but not before encumheing the large JJar rison estates with heavy debts as part of the legacy to his surviving sisters. A greater h1:1rden was added when in 1733 the banking fi ~m. which Francis Il arri~cn had estabJjshe~, failed with very g:-eat liabilities on the estate!> of tht! living and deceased p artners. It took four Acts of the Irish Pa"·- lfament to wind up tl1e Bank's affair!'; and coupled with ihcm were Chancery proceedings by Marsh Harrison's e·editors. In 1759 the Cou:"ts orde!·ed the sale of the Har"·isc.n estate in County Donegal and Doe Castle and lands were purchased by William Wray of Ards in trust for George Vaughan of · Buncrana. Its · pu:·chase was confirmed· to Vaughan lly decree of the Ceurt of Chance~·y in 1761 and ...somc two yea1·s later it flllSsed by hb death into Uw
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NzQxNzU3