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| DUNGANNON, COUNTY TYRONE.-Dungannon-Gaelic, Dun-Geanainn-(Geanan's Fort) was the ancient seat of the great family of O'Niall, or O'Neill, Chiefs of Tyr-Owen and Princes of Ulster, from the days of Niall of the Hostages, before the Christian era in Ireland, to the reign to James I. The ruins of O'Neill's castle are still shown within the precincts of the town. Within that castle Shane O'Neill "the Proud," Who raised aloft the Bloody Hand until it paled the sun, And shed such glory on Tyrowen as chief had never done, often held high carnival, and planned his fierce campaigns against the hated "Saxons," to whose treachery he finally fell a victim. It was this superb warrior who visited the court of Elizabeth, at the head of 300 gallowglasses-all giants in stature, like himself-and produced a sensation in London society never equalled before or since. In Dungannon, too, Hugh O'Neill, the Great, raised the "Red Hand" flag in revolt against Elizabeth, A.D. 1595. Here also stands the old Parish Church, where the delegates of the Irish Volunteers-exclusively non-Catholic-met February 15, 1782, and declared, unanimously, "that a claim of any body of men, other than the King, Lords and Commons of Ireland, to make laws to bind this Kingdom, is unconstitutional, illegal and a grievance." |
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