Industry, Trade and People in Ireland, 1650-1950: Essays in honour of W.H. Crawford

31–3.

1

The world of Andrew Rowan

Economy and society in Restoration Antrim

RAYMOND GILLESPIE

The study of seventeenth-century Ulster has been dominated by examinations of the fate of the formal plantation scheme. There is no doubt that the plantation was highly significant. It established a legal framework for the operation of society; set out a matrix of property ownership; laid the foundations for a commercial marketing structure; and introduced new settlers with a variety of skills into the province. However it is possible to overstate its impact. The wars of the 1640s, for instance, destroyed many of the improvements effected in the landscape and caused many of the settlers responsible for the introduction of those innovations to flee to England or Scotland. Structural problems in estate management and the impact of war mired many Ulster landlords in long leases and left them with such a heavy burden of debt that their ability to effect long-term changes on their estates was severely impaired.¹ In reality much of the enduring legacy of seventeenth-century Ulster was forged not in the first half of the century but in the second. In the years after 1660 the demographic regime of modern Ulster was established with, in some areas, very little continuity of the early seventeenth-century population.² The distinctively Scottish tinge to Ulster, together with the creation of its Presbyterian organisation, was a product of significant Scottish migrations into the province in the years after 1660.³ Moreover, the development of the linen trade, together with that of butter and of beef, on which Ulster’s prosperity depended, was a feature of the late seventeenth century.

The main problem in appreciating the achievement of late seventeenth-century Ulster society lies in the nature of the surviving evidence. While the government surveys of the plantation, muster rolls, and some estate papers provide a good framework for reconstructing the early seventeenth-century province, the late seventeenth century has no such guides. Apart from the hearth money rolls of the 1660s, the government showed little interest in recording local developments on a systematic basis and estate archives, with a few notable exceptions, are thinner and of poorer quality than for the succeeding century. There are, however, a number of important sources that help to illuminate the regional evolution of late seventeenth-century Ulster. The lease book of the Lurgan landlord Arthur Brownlow, to which W.H. Crawford drew attention many years ago, provides one avenue into the rapidly expanding world of the Lagan valley at this key period in its development.⁴ One other document has, at least, the potential to shed equal illumination on another part of Ulster: the account book of Andrew Rowan of Dunaghy in County Antrim.⁵

Andrew Rowan was born probably in 1634 or 1635, the second son of John Rowan from Greinhead in the parish of Gowan in Lanarkshire whose family were substantial, though not large, tenants of the archbishop of Glasgow. In the course of the sixteenth century they seem to have been consolidating their position by acquiring small pieces of land in the parish and when Andrew’s grandfather died in 1623 his estate was worth £613 14s 4d Scots (about £51 stg).⁶ In 1655 Andrew and his brother, John, graduated from the University of Glasgow and soon after came to Ulster where they were ordained as Presbyterian ministers. There were existing family connections with Ireland for in Andrew’s mother’s testament, made in 1648, she left money to a James Paterson ‘in Ireland’, probably a relation.⁷ Andrew seems to have been called to the congregation at Clogh that was recorded as vacant in 1657 by the Cromwellian inquisition on the state of the church.⁸ In 1661 ‘in the hour of temptation’, according to the contemporary historian of the Presbyterian church, Patrick Adair, he with six others ‘renounced the Covenant publicly and their ordination by the presbytery and were re-ordained by the bishop’.⁹ Andrew was ordained deacon in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, on 20 July 1661 and priest on 8 September.¹⁰ He was instituted into the rectory of Dunaghy where he remained until his death in 1717. Andrew Rowan never received any preferment in the Church of Ireland. He remained resident in his parish living, according to the hearth money roll of 1666, in the townland of Doonbought in a house with two hearths. In the 1670s he built himself a new, larger house in the town of Clogh on which, according to the account book, he paid tax for four hearths, placing him above all but one of his parishioners.¹¹ He does not seem to have been a pluralist although his account book does have some references to the collection of tithes in nearby Loughguile parish. He may have served there briefly or alternatively, and more probably, he was part of a small syndicate that farmed the tithes of Loughguile parish.¹² His promotional prospects in the Restoration Church of Ireland were no doubt damaged by his Presbyterian back-ground.

In his period as rector of Clogh Andrew Rowan grew rich. An early nineteenth-century anecdote recorded by Rev. William Mayne, then rector of the parish, told that:

on the west side of the street in the village [of Clogh] there were standing until within these four years [1809] the ruins of an old house said to have been the residence of the rector Rev Mr Rowan, deceased, once rector of Dunaghy … Mr Rowan was robbed, as tradition says, when a very old man, the inhabitants of Clogh pointed out to me the window in the upper story through which the banditti who robbed him entered, he was heard to say afterwards that no two horses in the parish could have carried his money from which I am led to conjecture that all the horses must have been ponies and his money brass.¹³

Mayne’s scepticism was, in this case, unwarranted. Andrew Rowan’s will suggests a modestly wealthy man. He left £200 to one of his daughters and £150 each to three others. According to the will he held land in the parish on lease from the earl of Antrim and Simon Hillman of Coleraine, as well as tenements and houses in the town of Clogh.¹⁴ His account book for 1674 to 1678 reveals his average expenditure was about £187 a year, not including the expense of household provisioning. Unfortunately no corresponding estimates were provided for income but even if income merely equalled expenditure this placed Rowan among the wealthiest clergy in the country, and certainly a great deal better off than his dissenting counterparts.¹⁵

Much of Andrew Rowan’s income came from his ecclesiastical dues. As the economy of mid-Antrim expanded in the late seventeenth century so the value of his tithes rose. In the 1640s the tithes of Dunaghy were valued at £35 or £40 a year but by 1720 this had risen to £200 a year.¹⁶ Rowan may also have had some income from other arrangements over tithes. His accounts for 1678 note an account with William McPhedris, his brother-in-law, about a share of £8 14s 0d from the tithes of Loughguile where his brother was parish clerk. He also seems to have had an arrangement with Rev. George Lovell of the parish of Skerry, who was probably chancellor or registrar of the diocese of Connor, to hold church courts in the Clogh area as Lovell’s deputy. This almost certainly brought some profit to Rowan.¹⁷

Rowan’s most important source of income, apart from the parish tithes, was the profits of land that he held on lease from others. In the 1670s he leased property in Clogh, together with the townland of Creggs, from the Coleraine merchant Simon Hillman.¹⁸ Later in the same decade he leased a number of townlands from the marquess of Antrim.¹⁹ In addition he leased the townlands of Ballywatt and Carnglass in the parish of Ballyrashane, to the north of Clogh, from Antrim.²⁰ In the 1690s he also leased from others the land of Eglish and, according to his will, he held Rosedermott on lease from the marquess of Antrim.²¹ Some of this land Rowan certainly sublet. In 1673, for instance, his accounts record receipts of £9 9s 11d for the All Saints rent from six tenants on his land in the parish of Ballyrashane.²² This property was some distance from the parish of Dunaghy and this may explain why he sublet it.

Rowan himself worked most of the land he held. His will refers to the ‘horses, mares, oxen, ewes, sheep, calves etc’ which he owned.²³ Moreover there are references in the account book to the hire of labourers, usually for a half year, presumably for agricultural tasks. In addition tithes were sometimes paid in the form of days’ labour on Rowan’s land.²⁴ The quality of the land in the parish of Dunaghy was poor. The Books of Survey and Distribution, compiled in the 1660s, reckoned that only 17% of the parish was profitable. Much of the western part of the parish was given over to cattle grazing. Here cattle may have been brought in from other parts of the county for fattening since the will of William Andrews, one of the farmers of the fair at Clogh, in 1711 referred to cattle owned by him but grazing on another farm in Glenleslie, which lay to the north of Clogh.²⁵ Rowan devoted most of his agricultural endeavours towards livestock, but in his case it was sheep that were the mainstay of his local economy. In 1678 he counted 129 sheep on his lands. The following year he bought another 17 sheep. There are also payments for shearing suggesting that wool was either sold or worked up locally.²⁶ In addition Rowan began to expand his cattle holdings. In 1679 he bought 42 steers and later he spent over £50 buying 61 cows, most of which were between three and four years old.²⁷ This suggests that they were not being brought in to be fattened but that some at least were intended for the dairy trade rather than for beef. While nature may have dictated that the parish of Dunaghy was more suited for livestock than grain cultivation, arable could not be ignored and Rowan exploited such land as could be ploughed. The account book records payments made for ploughing, usually of small areas and payments to people binding corn at harvest.²⁸ The crop is not specified but is most likely to have been oats for local consumption. As Richard Dobbs in his 1683 description of County Antrim commented of Glenarm, to the east of Dunaghy, ‘this place affords small cattle, flax, yarn, beef, tallow, butter … take this for a general rule where the Scotch or Irish make the market no grain is brought to the market, only oatmeal’.²⁹ Other grains, such as wheat, had to be imported into the area and there are a number of references in Rowan’s accounts to the purchase of wheaten bread at the nearby town of Ballymena, suggesting that it was something of a luxury.³⁰ Much of the provisioning of Rowan’s household appears to have been done from the produce of his land since there are almost no references to buying foodstuffs apart from those which could not be obtained locally. These include fish, such as ling or herring that were bought at Portrush, and fruit, such as apples, bought at local fairs.³¹

Rowan’s combination of modest wealth and the social status conveyed by his position as a rector of the Established Church drew him into the social world of county Antrim. He was on visiting terms with the marquess and marchioness of Antrim and in September 1676 a son was named Randal, after the marquess. He also visited the O’Neills at Shane’s Castle, the family of the marchioness, and in 1677 a child was duly named Neal. Neither child survived.³² He also spent time with another local landlord, Charles O’Hara.³³ Presumably he was on friendly terms with Robert Adair of Ballymena since Rowan’s copy of a newsletter from London appears among Adair’s papers suggesting Rowan lent it to him.³⁴ According to his account book he also attended the manor court at Galgorm, presumably as a tenant of Adair.

These social contacts, together with his wealth, placed Andrew Rowan in a unique position within the community around Clogh. He acted as a broker linking Clogh and its region to a wider world. While the landlord of Clogh, the marquess of Antrim, was an absentee from this part of his estate for most of the late seventeenth century, Rowan might represent his interests informally. There are frequent references in the account book to Rowan’s attendance at the marquess’s manorial courts at Clogh. While formal transactions were carried out on these occasions there was also opportunity for informal business exchange. At court days at Galgorm and Clogh rents were paid, loans were made and repaid and legal agreements were entered into about access to property.³⁵ A modest level of sociability might also be expected. Rowan records the expenditure of a shilling at a court in Clogh in 1675, three shillings at Ballymoney, 11d ‘on liquor’ at Clogh and in 1676 at courts bought two bottles of wine in ‘several companies’ which may suggest, as in other cases, that a certain amount of entertainment can be assumed.³⁶ Rowan was also aware of developments on a regional level, travelling regularly to Carrickfergus, Belfast, Glenarm and Coleraine, for business as well as social obligations such as funerals, and also to local fairs at Ahoghill, Ballymena and Ballymoney.³⁷ On some occasions he was even accompanied to the fairs by his wife.³⁸ He attended the episcopal visitations at Lisburn every year and he was present at the quarter sessions and on at least one occasion at the assizes.³⁹ There were also more general links between Clough and the regional world. Rowan’s grandson, Andrew Stewart, was apprenticed to a Belfast merchant in 1708 according to Rowan’s will and Belfast was also a market for local farm produce, including butter.⁴⁰ Rowan, however, had access to even wider worlds. In the 1680s he received manuscript newsletters detailing events in London and despite his apparently very local profile he was well enough known politically to be included in the Jacobite Act of Attainder of 1689.⁴¹

Perhaps most importantly Rowan was an active participant in the world of print. Protestant clergy in seventeenth-century Ireland were literate in, at least, English and used books on a daily basis. They comprised about half those who listed books among their losses after the rising of 1641. The quantities they owned were usually larger than those of gentry or merchants.⁴² Rowan was no exception. He bought and owned books. It is a reasonable conjecture that he owned at least one bible since he gave presents of bibles to his children and in 1677 he bought two copies of the Book of Common Prayer, although these may have been for the church.⁴³ His will mentions ‘preaching books’ that he left to his wife. He also bought other religious works as part of his profession. Some, such as his copy of Eusebius’s Church History that had been bought in London, were clearly special purchases acquired through friends.⁴⁴ However he also acquired works more locally including a pamphlet on tithes, probably William Sheppard’s A Parson’s Guide to the Law of Tithes (London, 1654). He also owned a copy of the Catechism of the Westminster Assembly and a book on the Sabbath by a Mr Crawford, possibly Exercitatio apologetica by Matthew Crawford (Utrecht?, 1669), that he described as a ‘little piece’ although it cost him 10 shillings. More interesting he bought Alexander Petrie’s A Compendious History of the Catholick Church from the Year 600 Until the Year 1600 Shewing her Deformation and Reformation.⁴⁵ Petrie was the Presbyterian minister of the Scots Church in Amsterdam where the book was published. It was probably imported directly from Amsterdam to Belfast since there was a book trade between the two places.⁴⁶ The work employed a wide-spread Protestant argument, articulated in an Irish context by Archbishop Ussher in the early seventeenth century, which saw the Reformation as a return to the purity of the early church rather than a separation from the true church. Its importance in this context is the specifically Presbyterian slant that Petrie applied to it, suggesting that Rowan was still sympathetic to that position. Certainly a fragment of a sermon in the account book seems decidedly evangelical in its tone.⁴⁷ However this should not detract from Andrew’s loyalty to the institutional Church of Ireland. His brother, Robert, who was also a re-ordained Presbyterian minister and rector of Maghera, happily informed the archbishop of Armagh of the meeting places and ministers of those who were ‘in opposition to the constitution of the church established by the laws of the kingdom’.⁴⁸

Other of Rowan’s books are less directly related to the clerical state. He had a collection of classical texts, including works by Ovid, Terence, Caesar and Quintus Curtius. Among more recent authors there was Erasmus’s Colloquies.⁴⁹ At least some of these were standard schoolbook titles and Rowan may have owned them for some time. He gave his young son a copy of ‘Robert Bruce’s book’ which may be a children’s book or one of Bruce’s large volumes on Holy Communion, which would seem inappropriate for a child. He paid the substantial sum of 18 shillings for a map on a visit to Carrickfergus in 1677 and in 1675 he purchased a copy of Nicholas Culpeper’s Midwife for 2s 6d.⁵⁰ Culpeper’s work was popular among those in Ireland. Henry Jones, bishop of Clogher, and later bishop of Meath, had a copy of his English Physic in 1660 and in 1664 John Perceval of Cork bought a copy of the same book in London, using a friend as agent.⁵¹ Such works may have been for self-medication but equally they may have been to teach Rowan and his wife the basic principles of medicine. Skills thus acquired could be practised as an act of charity on the parishioners who were not rich enough to afford the services of the apothecary in Ballymena.⁵² In 1679 Rowan expended the enormous sum of £1 9s 0d on a set of the Irish Statutes, probably the edition which appeared the previous year in Dublin.⁵³ This may indicate he had become a justice of the peace. Before this if he wanted a copy of a statute he had to borrow a printed copy and transcribe sections into his notebook as he did with the 1662 Hearth Money Act.⁵⁴ As a book owner in mid Antrim Rowan was probably not unique. That a bookbinder could establish a business at Ballymena by the 1670s suggests that there were others like him who bought books to read or to decorate their houses.⁵⁵

The mechanisms by which Rowan acquired his books were diverse. Since Ulster did not have a printing press until one was established at Belfast in 1694, books had to be imported. Rowan’s small collection of classical works had been obtained from Scotland and he had, presumably, brought them to Ireland himself. However similar classical works could be purchased in Coleraine in the 1690s.⁵⁶ Special purchases, such as Rowan’s copy of Eusebius, could be made through friends in London or elsewhere. However, there was also a thriving book trade from Bristol into the ports of Belfast and Derry. Bristol also shipped ‘pictures’ to Derry while from Chester to Carrickfergus in 1681 came 2,000 ‘leaves for homes’, presumably printed sheets to be pasted up on walls to attract the illiterate.⁵⁷ More significant than the English trade were book imports from Scotland. Ships from Glasgow, for instance, brought bibles, catechisms and psalters as well as ‘small books’, ‘storie books’ and pamphlets to Belfast and Derry throughout the late seventeenth century.⁵⁸ By 1700 the value of Scottish books entering Belfast, Coleraine and Derry, all places to which Rowan had access, was double the value of imports from English ports.⁵⁹ This, of course, accounted only for the legal trade. There was also a thriving smuggling trade in printed works of a politically or religiously sensitive character, the evidence for which only surfaces on rare occasions when cargoes were intercepted.⁶⁰

In Ireland Rowan might have acquired books from general merchants in Belfast or Coleraine but he also bought some from the packs of travelling chapmen. The bible for his daughter and ‘Robert Bruce’s book’ came from Alexander Caderwood, ‘chapman’.⁶¹ This was not unusual. William Tisdall, the vicar of Belfast, noted in 1712: ‘I have for above twenty years past observed that the Scotch strollers and pedlars, who go from house to house all over the country selling small ware, have generally a Scotch Directory and Solemn League and Covenant along with them which they still expose for sale among their toys’.⁶² Others, too, noted that pedlars carried such small books and the Convocation of 1712 complained that seditious books were ‘handed through the kingdom … by pedlars and vagabonds’.⁶³ By the eighteenth century such pedlars were the main means of distribution of printed material in rural Ulster.⁶⁴ In this manner a range of ideas was brought from a wider world into the local community of Clogh. However the printed word was not divorced from the gossip and news which the pedlars of printed sheets and small books brought with them. In this way the spoken words of the pedlar and the printed words of his goods blended into each other, sometimes reinforcing and sometimes contradicting each other but always connecting an illiterate community with the printed word.⁶⁵

Evidence of another practical innovation that Rowan introduced into his local world features prominently in his account book: the development of his garden. In 1673 he improved his garden by ditching it and purchased 20 apple trees, four plum trees and 60 ash trees from a merchant in Ballymena. His neighbour, Adair of Ballymena, gave him a present of some apple trees and he also received ‘things for the garden’ from another local landlord, Colville of Galgorm. He subsequently bought garden seeds in Ballymena, Broughshane, Carrickfergus, Cloghmills, and other unspecified places. He also bought plants as well as a garden spade and other things for the garden.⁶⁶ He briefly employed a gardener and paid for days’ labour specifically in the garden.⁶⁷ In terms of plants there is little that was spectacular. Plum, ash and apple trees could be found in many parts of Ulster in the late seventeenth century. Around Lurgan, for instance, the landlord, Arthur Brownlow, required his tenants to plant trees and enclose their land.⁶⁸ However Rowan’s creation of his own garden suggests that he was keen to introduce new varieties of plants and, possibly, vegetables on a small scale from outside and so improve the range of crops available in the locality. The garden was not merely functional. His produce would add variety to his household’s diet and could also be used to impress visitors with the more exotic varieties of vegetable. As well as producing vegetables and fruit in his own garden he also bought potatoes, turnips, onions and apples locally.⁶⁹ The garden points to his desire to import ideas and goods from outside the locality to impose order on a chaotic landscape which, up to this point, had been little settled. In this case a garden could be seen as a symbol of civility and the benefits brought to the region by Protestantism, personified by the local rector.⁷⁰

If Rowan was a broker in introducing ideas from an outside world into the local society at Clogh he was perhaps even more important as an agent of economic change in the community. In the early seventeenth century the region was one of the most underdeveloped parts of the county. In the late 1630s Robert Adair, the landlord of Ballymena to the west of Dunaghy, described the area as ‘a most barbarous place and a receptacle of rebels’.⁷¹ Throughout the 1640s the two main landlords in the area, Adair and the earl of Antrim, had little interest in the area. Adair spent most of the time in Scotland and the earl of Antrim was absorbed in the politics of the Kilkenny administration. The town of Clogh, or Oldstone, was the scene of some of the worst fighting in the 1640s, the castle being seized by the insurgents and a massacre ensued.⁷² There may have been some resettlement in the 1650s with the migration of Scots into Antrim but by 1660 the parish was thinly settled with 118 settlers out of a total number of 258 paying poll tax in 1660.⁷³ Much of that population was clustered in the south and west of the parish with large areas of bog to the north and east remaining undivided among townlands according to the Book of Survey and Distribution.⁷⁴ Even in the eastern part of the parish, pressure of population on land was slight and boundaries of townlands poorly recorded. As late as 1678 the boundary of the townland of Rosedermott was poorly defined.⁷⁵ Moreover the commercial economy had only penetrated the area to a limited degree. In the 1650s, for instance, tithes were paid in kind.⁷⁶ By the time of Rowan’s account book in the 1670s that had begun to change with tithes being paid partly in kind and partly in cash. Some of this was in agricultural labour but other work was undertaken. In 1675, for example, Rowan noted receiving from Henry McCoy ‘52 ells weaving at 2d an ell’ of which 6 shillings was for tithes and the balance against his rent.⁷⁷ Again in 1677 he paid money to William Hume for weaving an unspecified amount of linen and to another man for weaving serge. In 1678 he paid one woman for bleaching, bought indigo for dying and paid another man for weaving.⁷⁸ He also bought wool and linen yarn from a number of women, who were in charge of spinning.⁷⁹ Most of this was certainly for household use but it is possible that he may have arranged for some of it to have been sold locally in markets, thus encouraging the development of a cloth trade.

In the late seventeenth century this pattern of limited commercialisation began to change. To the east of Dunaghy at Glenarm the marquess of Antrim attempted to attract new tradesmen to the town. In the 1670s there was a shoemaker, two smiths, a tailor, a joiner and a miller in the town and new building leases suggest that the settlement was expanding.⁸⁰ To the south of Dunaghy the Adair family began to develop the much larger town of Ballymena and encourage a wide range of tradesmen to settle there. The leases made in the 1680s included shoemakers, butchers, carpenters, tailors, glovers, a school-master, a turner, masons, smiths, an innkeeper and a weaver. Tanhouses and a tuckmill existed near the town and in 1686 a new gaol, sessions house and market house were built in the town.⁸¹ Although Ballymena had a market and fair since the 1620s other towns began to create their own as the possibilities for trade grew. On the evidence of the almanacs, between 1665 and 1685 Broughshane, Edenduffcarrick and Portglenone had all established fairs.⁸² Rowan also mentions Ahoghill, Crebilly and Ballymoney fairs in his account book for 1675. Such fairs were probably rather disorganised affairs. As Richard Dobbs commented of Glenarm in 1685 ‘there are two fine fairs and a market town but no market kept, everyone buying and selling as they find their opportunity’.⁸³

Much of this opportunistic trade was in the hands of chapmen, referred to above, who travelled around the countryside with packs of small wares. By the late seventeenth century they were a familiar sight in Antrim. As early as the 1630s it was reported in the context of the organisation of the customs that:

the merchants and pedlars discharge at Glenarm where there is no waiter and fill the country full of commodities whereof none appear in the book. The pedlars out of Scotland take advantage of such creeks unguarded and swarm about the country in great numbers and sell all manner of wares which they may afford at easier rates than poor shopkeepers that live in corporations … we are beggared by these renegados who have no residence or place of abode in this kingdom but bring over wares, steal the customs and convey the money over in specie and that to no small value.⁸⁴

Clogh was not to be left behind in the development of trade. By 1665, although it had no patent, a fair was being held there on 25 July. Clearly the fair prospered and by 1685 it had extended to two days. In 1696 the fair was leased to a group of local merchants.⁸⁵ By 1696 there was enough trade passing through the town to encourage at least one innkeeper to base himself there and accumulate enough money to lease land locally.⁸⁶ These developments are hardly surprising given Clogh’s central location. As early as the 1630s the earl of Antrim attempted to have the Antrim quarter sessions moved to Clogh from Carrickfergus because of its position. In the 1640s a number of rebel officers had based themselves there because of its location.⁸⁷ It lay on the main road northward from Ballymena to Ballymoney but it also had an east-west link through Broughshane to Glenarm. By 1699 it was agreed that a new road was to be built between Red Bay and Clogh, although this was not finished until 1715.⁸⁸ In the late seventeenth century the road network was greatly improved. In 1685 Dobbs observed that the road from Ballymena to Clogh was a ‘bad way’ but the road to Broughshane was rather better.⁸⁹ By the early part of the eighteenth century the County Antrim Grand Jury had spent a good deal of money on the road network around Clogh, including a bridge on the Clogh-Ballymena road and a new bridge at Clogh in 1715.⁹⁰

The rise of these fairs was of central importance in spreading commercial activity in late seventeenth-century Antrim. Rowan continually purchased small items from chapmen and at fairs. At Clogh fair in 1679, for instance, he purchased an ell of holland, 4 yards of cambric, a hood of black taffeta, scarlet ribbons, a sheet of pins. A few years earlier he had purchased a hat, gloves and wine at the same fair. At Ballymoney fair he also purchased hats and ribbons, at Ballymena he bought hats, spoons and tobacco at the fair and at Ahoghill fair he acquired a horn ring, a hat and some silk as well as apples.⁹¹ In addition he purchased items from chapmen including calico, linen cloth, holland, pins, ribbons, tobacco, gloves, spoons, pepper, stockings and thread.⁹² Alexander Caderwood, from whom Rowan acquired books, also sold him pins, holland, taffeta, ribbons and cambric at Clogh fair.⁹³ Such chapmen, whom we have already encountered in connection with the trade in printed books, were significant figures who travelled to their market rather than waiting for the market to come to them.⁹⁴ They operated on a wide scale. One chapman from Connor in County Antrim, Andrew Elliot, died at Tenbury in Gloucestershire in 1695 where he was presumably buying goods that would be brought to Ireland.⁹⁵ Such men traded in small, often high value, goods that were readily transported and could be carried to fairs, or into local communities. A number of pedlars travelling to the fair at Antrim in 1680 were said to have been robbed of goods of ‘considerable value’.⁹⁶ Moreover, these were goods that were exchangeable not for other goods but for cash and as such they were important in spreading commercialisation into rural Ulster.

Chapmen were not the only figures who were responsible for introducing commercial goods into the mid Antrim region in the late seventeenth century. By the 1650s local merchant communities had become established in many of the County Antrim towns. Most of these merchants are shadowy figures although something is known of them through the tokens that they issued to combat the shortage of small change in the late seventeenth century. Rowan often gave his wife ‘tokens and halfpennies’ for small domestic transactions or, as he described them, for ‘the use of the house’.⁹⁷ The surviving tokens suggest that merchant communities reflected the size of towns. Outside Belfast, Antrim and Lisburn were the largest trading centres with eleven and fourteen token issuers. Below this level Ballymena and Ballymoney formed the next level of trade with five and six token issuers respectively. Finally, there were smaller settlements, such as Broughshane and Glenarm that had one or two merchants issuing tokens.⁹⁸ Where the names of the token issuers can be matched with entries on the hearth money roll it seems that these local merchant communities were diverse. Some dominated their town in houses of two or three hearths but most had a house with only one hearth. Rowan had accounts with a number of such merchants from whom he purchased a wide range of