Kilnavert
Kilnavert (or Kilnavart) (from Irish Cill na bhFeart, meaning 'The Church of the Tumuli') is a townland in the civil parish of Templeport, County Cavan, Ireland.
[4] For example- Poem 21, stanza 18, written c.1338 refers to Saint Patrick at Kilnavert- One day when Patrick lay to rest at fair soft-grassed Chill Fhearta, this vision, so consoling to us, was given to his prophetic eye...... Poem 2, Stanza 36 written c.1291 Achadh Fearta, home of stout heroes, where the tombs of our forebears lie side by side.
In the 16th century these ecclesiastical lands in Templeport were seized in the course of the Reformation in Ireland and kept first by the English monarch and then in 1609 granted to the Anglican Bishop of Kilmore.
On 26 October 1579 Pope Gregory XIII asked Richard Brady, the Bishop of Ardagh to settle a dispute where the parish priest of Templeport, Fergal Magauran, claimed the chapel of Cillfert was usurped by nobles.
By grant dated 10 August 1607, along with other lands, King James VI and I granted a lease of the lands of Kilfearte containing 2 pulls for 21 years at an annual rent of £0-6s-6d to the aforesaid Sir Garret Moore, 1st Viscount Moore of Mellifont Abbey, County Louth.
By a deed dated 6 April 1612, Robert Draper, the Anglican Bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh granted a joint lease of 60 years over the termons or herenachs of, inter alia, 2 polls in Kilfert to Oliver Lambart, 1st Lord Lambart, Baron of Cavan, of Kilbeggan, County Westmeath and Sir Garret Moore, 1st Viscount Moore, of Mellifont Abbey, County Louth.
By deed dated 17 July 1639, William Bedell, the Anglican Bishop of Kilmore, extended the above lease of Killfert to Oliver Lambert's son, Charles Lambart, 1st Earl of Cavan.
[9] Bryan Dolan came with his two sons Cormac and Charles to the neighbourhood of Ballymagauran, near the end of the sixteenth century.
A bad time it was for priests and papists; yet, notwithstanding, Cormac and Charles rode on Sunday mornings to Killnavart, to hear Mass, a distance of some ten or twelve miles; and, having come there, they attached their horses by their bridle-reins to the branches of trees near the chapel.
Almost immediately afterwards Cormac Dolan, the elder son, married a near relative of the Baron,—the daughter of Terence MacGauran, who was better known as Trealach Caoch or "Blind Terry," in consequence of his being squint-eyed.
In due time after the marriage a son was born to Cormac Dolan; about the same time another child was born for Baron MacGauran, who claimed that his relative Cormac Dolan's wife and daughter of Blind Terry should nurse his (the Baron's) child.
Bryan Dolan took this demand as a great insult: he instructed his daughter-in-law to say that he had not come so low that she should become a "hippin-washer" to any man.
This message enraged the Baron to madness; he at once rode to Dolan's house, called for the old man, whom he seized by the hair of the head and dragged him by the horse's side at full gallop, and threw him dead on the road.
The Baron MacGauran referred to was probably the chief of the McGovern Clan, Tomas Óg Mág Samhradháin, who lived in Ballymagauran and who received a pardon on 19 January 1586 from Queen Elizabeth I of England, Thomas oge m'Brien m'Thomas Magawran, of Magawranstowne, for fighting against the Queen's forces.
