History
Evidence of Neolithic peoples from as early as six thousand years ago are scattered about the region in the form of court cairn tombs , but they're hard to find unless you know what you're looking for. Similarly invisible are the lakes' crannogs - artificial islands built as early as the Stone Age, but more typically developed as secure settlements from the first century AD and now melted back into the general landscape, indistinguishable from natural islands. The Celts had their principal pagan shrine at Magh Sleacht near present-day Ballyconnell. Several Celtic stone idols bearing bold representations of the human head have been found in the lake areas of Cavan and Fermanagh, particularly potent pagan symbols. Some of them were found in circumstances suggesting that they were deliberately hidden in more recent times to deny them their power, a sign of their continuing folkloric importance. Sadly, though, none of these idols can be seen in their original setting; most now form part of the collections of The National Museum in Dublin and the Fermanagh County Museum at Enniskillen. Replicas of them are on display at Cavan County Museum, Ballyjamesduff. When St Patrick established his seat at Armagh, he also set up a monastery at Kilnavert. Rather than crudely asserting a new dogma, the proselytizing Christians allowed pagan and folkloric traditions to continue, mingling them with the new creed. The filtering through of the new faith was fairly rapid; but more brutal invaders found the area far harder to penetrate. The network of lakes and waterways proved difficult to negotiate, and foreign invaders arrived with neither knowledge of the terrain nor the apparatus needed for conquest. The O'Reilly family, who dominated Cavan from the beginning of recorded history to the seventeenth century, continually blocked Anglo-Norman attempts to take control, and this explains the lack of Norman developments in the region. Despite Elizabeth I's attempts to divide and rule by creating the County of Cavan (more a piece of propaganda than a sign of real political strength) and playing one Irish barony off against another, it was only after the failure of the Irish cause at the Battle of Kinsale that Cavan received the stamp of foreign invaders. Ancient Gaelic ways were crushed by the Jacobite plantation, and the county was divided up between English and Scottish settlers. Every parish was to have a Protestant church, and the new town of Virginia was built in memory of Elizabeth. As usual, the best land was given to the English and Scottish newcomers, leaving the Irish population to face poverty and the loss of religious freedom. The rebellion of 1641 was a direct result, and Owen Roe O'Neill , the Ulster Confederate leader based at Cavan, played an important part, defeating the British General Munro at Benburb to the north of the county in 1646. However, O'Neill failed to follow his victory through, and the Irish Confederates were eventually defeated. After O'Neill's death in 1649, Cromwell quickly took control of Cavan and the resulting confiscation of land and property from the Irish guaranteed the Protestant domination of the county. Until Partition, Cavan's subsequent history was much in line with the rest of Ulster. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the linen and woollen industries ensured a measure of economic growth - though Cavan was always one of the poorer parts of the province because of the difficulties of the land; and the Famine of 1845 to 1849 brought large-scale emigration. At Partition , Cavan was included in the Republic, thus retaining its Irishness; but it shared the fate of Monaghan and Donegal in being torn from its historic and cultural Ulster identity.
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