Series 15 - Robert McNaire transfer certificate and letter

13pp

Kerby A. Miller created his transcripts from the original manuscripts held in PRONI [reference number T1315].

Transcripts of a good conduct certificate issued to Thomas McNaire in 1762 upon his emigration, and of a letter to Thomas in Pennsylvania from his brother Robert in County Armagh. Also included is an article by David N. Doyle discussing the McNaires.
Per Doyle: ‘…since the plantation colonies, Delaware and New York were officially Anglican, and since the Established Church was so throughout areas of Presbyterian predominance in northern Ireland, Presbyterians may have sought and received letters from their local Anglican minister, or parish clerk. This may explain the studied ambiguity of the following pass for Thomas McNaire. It was issued at Donaghmore, the Anglican parish church for the town of Castlefin (where the main Presbyterian church was); the valley of the river Finn, settled by Presbyterians and enclosed by Irish-speaking hill farms, ran down to the Foyle basin, a heartland of Scottish settlement on both its Donegal and Derry sides. Castlefin was only ten miles from Strabane. The McNaires would indeed have been ""an Antient Protestant family"" and like many Presbyterians of Scots descent, might well have sought [Anglican] ""Church Priviledge"" for civic reasons, without ever becoming committed church members. An official certificate would have been especially useful in wartime (the Peace of Paris lay ahead). Almost thirty years later, McNaire's brother Robert wrote to him from Ballynacor (probably the family farm) a few miles from Castlefin. Thomas by then felt himself ""in decline"" and had written to ask what age he was (a common ignorance of the time), from his home in Hanover township, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, a township of slate and shale based soils, just below the Blue Ridge, whose Scots Irish settlers - due to poor techniques there-had among the lowest incomes of those who settled the otherwise prosperous county. Thus his envy that Robert and other tenants were making money subleasing their land. Robert fended him off: he too felt in decline, he was lonely, the dearth of [good] land was causing many of their community to ship for Philadelphia.’