Caledon Conservation Area Booklet September 2003

The settlement of Caledon started
Iie in late medieval times. Then,it
was known as Kinatd (orKinafrd),
meaning 'high head' or 'topof the
hill'.
"The Annals of the Four Masters"
records a settlement at Kinard,
during the 150s. This probably
amounted to a small collection of
timber and thatched dwellings,
close to the castle, possibly on the
site of the present village. In 1514,
this small settlement appears to
have been 'put to the torch' and, In
1531, the castle itself was largely
dismantled during a siege. A later
map (by SirJosiasBodley and
dating from c.1609) indicates that
the settlement also pssessed a
church.
In 1614, as part of rhe Plantation of
Ulster, the 'Manor of Kinnard was
granted "to Catherine Ny Neale, (sic),
w'fi of the late T ~ Cor TirIagh P Oge
Oweale and now wife of ROM
Hmden, gent.# A litany of
townland names follows... The
Grant concludeswith reference to
its being for Catherhe's life and
passing to "...Felimy Roe O'Neale,
her son and his heirs forever ...the
whlepremises are created into the
Manor of Kinard, with 500 a m ir~
demesne..."Philip Robinson records
that Catherhe's grant amounted to
2,620 a m in the baronies of
Dungannon and 'ITrannywhich
extended into county Armagh. By
1618119 and the time of the report
of Captain Nicholas Pynnar on the
progress of the Plantation, for
Caledon nothing is recorded. This
may have been an oversighton
Pynaax's part or-because it was
occupiedby nativepnms rather
thanpianted with English, Welsh or
Scots Undertakm-perhaps it did
not interest him...
Following the 1641Rebellion and
the Restoration, after a long time
with no owner, by letters patentdated
2P February and lSmJuly
16Gthe encumberedKinard
Estate of Su Phelirn OtNeill,
executed in Dubltn in 1653 for his
leading role in the RebellionIwas
granted to Captain William
Hamilton, "furhis sw'ces to the
Royalist came, during the Civil W&.
It may we11be that Hamilton
named thie estate "Caldon",after
his native Scotland, (which the
Romans had named Caledonia), it
could be a corruption of the word
'Culligan', a townland within the
demesne, or--according to an old
Church of Ireland direct0ry for the
Armagh Diocese-it could mean
'Fort in the marshy meadow"...
There Is little mrce material
concerning Caledon during this
period. The village is indicated on
Herman Moll's 1714 map of
Ireland, howewr, in which it is
marked (as 'Kimzardat Csllidmt,
the village adjoining the estate)
aIong the road from Monaghan to
Dungannon, suggesting that the
axis of the village was north-south
at that time, as it is now.
Herman Moll map, 1714.