County Tyrone

“ Tyrone (171) , a central county of Ulster, Ireland; is hilly, picturesque, and fertile in the lower districts; a considerable portion is taken up by barren mountain slopes and bogland, and agriculture is backward; coal and marble are wrought; Omagh is the capital, and Strabane and Dungannon are prosperous towns.
Tyrone, Hugh O'Neil, Earl of, a notable Irish rebel; assumed the title of “The O'Neil,” and offered open rebellion to Queen Elizabeth's authority, but, despite assistance from Spain, was subdued by Essex and Mountjoy ”

“ TYRONE
Is completely an inland county, presenting nothing very grand or majestic; but the lands being divided into small parcels, an increased population gives much cheerfulness to its general aspect. The northern part towards Strabane is mountainous, other parts are rugged and uneven, but none very high. Bounded by Derry on the N.; E. by Armagh and Lough Neagh; S. by Fermanagh and Monaghan; W. by Donnegal.
Aughnacloy, 20 m. S.E. of Omagh, is a neat village, on the banks of the Blackwater, where the sportsman will find good trout-fishing. Near it are the ruins of Lismore Fort. ”

“ By law the present counties of Derry, Donegal, Tyrone, and Armagh were, except for the Church lands, practically owned in fee simple by five individuals, viz., the earls of Tirconnell and Tyrone, O'Dogherty, O'Hanlon, and O'Neill of the Fews. [7] In these four counties then. Royal grants together with the greed of the chiefs had combined to deprive the clansmen of all legal titles to land. Rory O'Donnell had no sooner obtained a grant in general terms of Tirconnell than he induced all his subject chiefs to make surrenders to him, and to acknowledge him as owner in fee of the whole county. ”

“ The lofty dome of its State-house, and the numerous spires and towers of its churches, rising between two and three hundred feet above the surrounding level of either land or sea, combine to produce a coup d'œil more imposing than is presented by either New York or Philadelphia.
The streets of the city generally are narrow and irregular, following the windings of the lofty hills over which it is spread, and having more the air of an old English county-town than any place I have yet seen in the country. ”

“ The eye was charmed and the heart elevated by these unequivocal evidences of thriving commerce sweeping towards the city; which rises gradually, as it spreads over the face of the irregular hill it occupies. Several domes of considerable magnitude, a tall column or two, with various towers and spires, rendered conspicuous from the nature of the site, invest it with an air of much importance, and have gained for it the title of the City of Monuments.
The main street, like that of Boston, has very much the look of an English county-town; and the air of the shops is wholly English. ”

“ They strove by colour of law and by illegal force to stamp out in Tryon County the last spark of liberty, of manhood among us. God knows what we have endured these last few years from the landed gentry of Tryon!—what we have put up with and stomached since the first shot was fired at Lexington!
"And what has become of our natural protectors and leaders! Where is the landed gentry of County Tryon at this very hour? Except you, John Drogue, where are our gentlemen of the Northland?" ”

“ At the eastern base of the main Allegheny range a long mountain valley stretches broadly from the far northeast to the southwest, and here is Tyrone, a settlement of extensive iron works, and the outlet of the greatest bituminous coal-fields of Central Pennsylvania, the Clearfield district, the town of Clearfield being about forty miles to the northwest. Northeast of Tyrone, this valley is called the Bald Eagle Valley, a picturesque and fertile region ”

“ In Ulster Tirlogh Luineach was getting old, while Hugh O’Neill, representing the bastard Dungannon branch, grew daily stronger. Hugh was now Earl of Tyrone, with a title to all he held in his country or district, reserving 240 acres to the Crown for the fort at Blackwater, and with a grant of markets and fairs. The new Earl covenanted to let Tirlogh enjoy the chiefry during his life, to abide by the decision of a royal commission as to boundaries, rents, and services, and not to make estates to any of the smaller chiefs called urraughts, without consent of the State. ”

“ Descendants of the 1st earl in Spain continued to style themselves earls of Tyrone till the death early in the 18th century of Owen O'Neill, grandson of Owen Roe O'Neill. In 1673 Richard Power, 6th Baron Le Power and Coroghmore, governor of Waterford, was created viscount of Decies and earl of Tyrone, being succeeded in these titles by his two sons successively, on the death of the younger of whom in 1704 they became extinct. ”

“ He was brought over when very young to England, and we learn that even in the brilliant court of Queen Elizabeth he was distinguished for gifts and graces of body and mind. For a long time Tyrone seemed a loyal supporter of English rule. He commanded a troop in the Queen's service, and even took part in the suppression of risings in his own country, cooperating with the Earl of Essex in the Ulster wars and the settlement of Antrim. One romantic incident of his life brought him into personal antagonism with Sir Henry Bagnal, the Lord Marshal of Ireland. ”

“ If we could leave this Poor Farm, having seen so [Pg 267] much and no more, we could think of it again only with feelings of pleasure that the county’s unfortunates were provided for so comfortably; but standing alone is an old brick building in which the insane are kept and this must be visited too. It is a gloomy place, coming out of the bright October sun, but when your eyes become accustomed to the shadows, you see what this county has provided for the insane who are neglected by the great mother state. ”

“ Instead of working as now through alien instruments in the person of independent officials, it will control the operating mechanism of the county, which will be of its own selection. Shall we take away from the people the power to choose the sheriffs, the county clerk, the surveyor, the superintendent of the poor? Yes, take away the selection, but reinforce their control. Abandon the separation of powers? Yes, do away with the three-ring (or perhaps twelve- or twenty-ring) circus, and get down to the serious business of government. ”

“ Administration apart from fiscal supervision in other departments, such as charities, prisons and public health, has advanced much more slowly than reform in the fields which have been mentioned. But every indication for the future is toward greater control through accounting and supervision. The county acts locally in the enforcement of state obligations. The real trouble comes when one undertakes, arbitrarily, to place any given county activity in the local or state category. ”

“ Nowhere does the record state that because the people elected long strings of officers, the people therefore controlled those officers. All the while the services which government could render have become more and more numerous and the public needs of the people more pressing. And all the while too, the filling and holding of office for office sake has been vested with exaggerated importance, so that the county more perhaps than any other civil division has been the home of fictitious political “issues.” ”

“ And when, in the absence of a powerful executive head, these written laws, which constitute most important connecting link, between the various county officers, are broken, the directing hand of the state is perforce withdrawn.
The failures of government in these counties were due in no small measure at least to the system, rather than to the individual men. No mere “good” man would necessarily have been better qualified or more inclined to look up the law and follow it implicitly. For it is not of such qualities that political “goodness,” from the voters’ standpoint, consists! ”

“ Conover alone sat calm through the din. Bourke again did rapid figuring.
“Hooray!” he yelled. “That brings it 285up all right. Pompton County and the city of Granite together give you enough plurality to stall all the jay counties except——”
“It hangs on the one city of Grafton now,” interposed Caleb, who had as usual gripped the whole situation before his lieutenant had jotted down the first line of figures. “We’ve got enough reports to bring it up to that. We know where we stand everywhere else, except in a few places too small to count. As Grafton goes, the State will go. That’s a cinch.” ”

“ Clarendon remonstrated, telling the King that the judges were the proper persons to suggest names, and that many of those now proposed were obviously and scandalously unfit for positions of trust. When the appointments were at last made, Tyrconnel was Deputy, and every county was committed to the charge of a Roman Catholic except Donegal, where one Hamilton was pricked by mistake for another. It is easy to believe that many of these sheriffs were unfit men. Protestants were also turned out of all the minor offices connected with the law. ”

“ Taylor supports the democratic party at the polls but he has never held office, with the exception of serving on the school board. He belongs to the Grange and to the Farmers' Union and believes that much can be accomplished for the advancement of country life through cooperation on the part of the farmers. He is an honored pioneer of the county and his accounts of early day conditions are of great interest to the younger generation. ”

“ In 1584 he was one of the commissioners who established the agreement that tanistry and the law of partible succession should be abolished in Connaught, and a tax of ten shillings a quarter be paid on land. Next year he attended the parliament held at Dublin in April. In 1589 he was active in subduing the rebellious Irishry in the mountains; and when Tyrone's rebellion broke out in 1595, he played a considerable part in its suppression. ”

“ The commissioners court, as found by the Texas Supreme Court, performs more functions in the area of the county outside Midland City than it does within the city limits. Therefore, each rural resident has a greater interest in its activities than each city dweller. Yet under the majority's formula the urban residents are to have a dominant voice in the county government, precisely proportional to their numbers, and little or no allowance may be made for the greater stake of the rural inhabitants in the county government. ”

“ Always they are the product either of some personal initiative or some organized effort. Does any county clearly lack that element of citizen leadership? Then the obvious need of the county is to bridge that gap. The rural population of America suffers (the word is all too weak) for the lack of a public community sense. Every “average” rural citizen is a unit, he does not travel in droves—so much for his independence. ”

“ The system enthrones petty rural sectionalism and narrowness and condones a form of graft which is without doubt as vicious in principle as the stealing of a street railway franchise. Where the township supervisor is the responsible official the case is at its worst for it means just so many more executive units to be watched, just so many more standards of road construction, just so many more independent road plans.
The “business” end of county road administration [Pg 98] is often weighted down to earth with the same sublime faith in the wisdom of the average citizen. ”

“ The laws underlying the organization of the county government have not been changed; but there has grown up, quite outside the statute books and outside the court house itself, a second government that has supplied the great lack in the official, legal one, the lack of a definite head. The new factor in the county’s affairs has come to exercise the powers of an executive. Theoretically the people have elected his heads of departments; practically he has chosen them himself. The people have retained the forms while he has arrogated to himself the substance of political power. ”

“ By leaving Ireland he played into his enemies’ hands. Rory O’Donnell, created earl of Tyrconnel, accompanied him. Cuconnaught Maguire had already gone. The “flight of the earls,” as it is called, completed the ruin of the Celtic cause. Reasons or pretexts for declaring forfeitures against O’Cahan were easily found. O’Dogherty, chief of Inishowen, and foreman of the grand jury which found a bill for treason against the earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel, was insulted by Sir George Paulet, the governor of Derry. ”

“ This remark may be made relative to all districts, which become more salubrious in proportion as they are more cultivated; and more friendly to human life, in proportion as the means of supporting human life are increased in productiveness. The centre of the County and the district of the Trent is very healthy: the air on the coast is very salubrious, and numbers flock to it every summer in search of health and relaxation. ”

“ Tyrone did not raise the standard of revolt. But in 1592-3, Tyrone, his brother in law Hugh Roe O'Donnell, [Footnote: Hugh O'Donnell had been trapped and held prisoner in Dublin as a hostage for Tyrconnell's good behaviour; but succeeded in making his escape.] Tyrconnell's son, his neighbours Maguire and O'Rourke, and the McWilliams or Burkes of Connaught—dwellers in the parts furthest from the Pale—were in active defiance of the Government. Tyrone was engaged in officially placating or repressing or remonstrating with them, ostensibly doing his best to serve the Queen ”

“ The present multiplicity of governing bodies, with a lack of centralized control and the long ballot, results in confusing complexity and makes gross inefficiency and waste on a large scale inevitable.”
The city too has proven itself an altogether unfavorable environment for clean, active county citizenship. A thousand and one preoccupations and distractions in the city have strongly tended to drive the populace to forget that it even lives in a county. ”