St.Dúbhthach and early Templecrone: It was during these years that he established an erenagh community of monks at Termon as the principal church of the Rosses and his community cared for the spiritual needs of the people of the Rosses for at least two hundred years until the seventeenty century. His feast day was celebrated on 5th.February and until recently there was a turas to holy wells and a penitential bed associated with him in Calhame.
The Rosses were royalists in the civil war, and David, the twelfth chief, led almost a thousand of his clansmen against the forces of Oliver Cromwell at the Battle of Worcester in 1651. The royalists were defeated, and Ross and many were captured and transported to the colonies in New England. The chief was imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1653, while many of his clansmen were transported to the colonies in New England. His son, another David, succeeded to the chiefship when he was only nine years of age. Even before William of Orange accepted the crown in England, a group of apprentice boys took matters into their own hands, shutting the gates of Londonderry to stop the Earl of Antrim's Catholic troops entering the city. The siege started in April 1689, when Jacobite troops blockaded the city to try to starve the garrison into submission. After 105 days, following many deaths from starvation and disease, the merchant ship Mountjoy broke the boom across the Foyle to bring supplies to the city. The garrison at Enniskillen also refused to surrender to the Jacobites, and won a notable victory at Newtownbutler.
In 1685, the Roman Catholic James II came to the throne of England. His agent Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnell, started to dismiss Protestant officers from the army in Ireland, replacing them with Roman Catholics. William of Orange sailed to England with a formidable army of 15,000 men, and landed at Torbay in November 1688. James fled to France, but then came to Ireland in March 1689. In December 1688, the people of the city of Londonderry had been faced with a dilemma. Tyrconnell had ordered a Catholic regiment (Lord Antrim's Redshanks) to take over the garrison, replacing Mountjoy's regiment which had been sent to Dublin. Protestant fears of a repetition of the 1641 massacres appeared to be confirmed by a hoax letter, discovered in a street in Comber, Co. Down. On 7th December 1688, when the first companies of Redshanks had crossed the Foyle by ferry, and a group of young apprentices took matters into their own hands by closing the gates of the city. A compromise was eventually reached, allowing two Protestant companies of Mountjoy's regiment to return to Londonderry, to supplement six companies raised by the citizens themselves.
In the early eighteenth century, non-conformists were very unhappy about being treated as second class citizens after helping to defend the city - the test act in 1704 meant that 10 aldermen, including 6 former mayors, were forced to resign. The Rev. George Walker, who became the civil governor of the city and later was killed at the Battle of the Boyne, was not popular with non-conformists since he did not give them much credit for their part in the defence. For example, he listed the names of the 18 Anglican clergymen in the garrison, but claimed that he was unable to learn the names of any of the 7 nonconformist ministers. This type of attitude to non-conformists led Rev. James McGregor of Aghadowey (who, it is claimed, was at the Siege as a boy) to lead some of his congregation across the Atlantic "to avoid oppression and cruel bondage" and to establish the town of Londonderry in New Hampshire.
David died, without an heir, in 1711, and the chiefship passed to his kinsman, Malcolm Ross of Pitcalnie. Balnagowan was eventually purchased by General Charles Ross, brother of Lord Ross of Hawkhead, whose family were from the Lowlands and were truly ‘de Roos’ of Norman descent. In June 1690, William III landed in Carrickfergus, and started to move his army towards Dublin. He won a significant victory at the Battle of the Boyne, although the Jacobites were able to retreat in good order towards Limerick. A daring raid on the Williamite siege train frustrated attempts to take Limerick, and William himself had to return to London. It was not until 1691, after heavy Jacobite losses at the Battle of Aughrim, that Limerick finally surrendered. After the Treaty of Limerick, many Irish soldiers, who later became known as the "wild geese", were allowed to sail away to fight for Louis XIV of France.
The Celtic Earls of Ross but nevertheless managed to obtain a matriculation in the Court of the Lord Lyon of the undifferenced arms of Ross. Pitcalnie continued to be regarded as the chief by the clan. In the risings of 1715 and 1745 the clan as a whole avoided Jacobite intrigues, although Malcolm, the Younger of Pitcalnie, joined the ‘Old Pretender’. Concern about the threat from Jacobites and possible war with France had led to the Act of Union in 1707, joining the parliament of Scotland to the parliament of England and Wales. Between about 1717 and 1775, large numbers of people, mostly Protestants, left Ulster to settle in America.
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