JAMESTOWN, a market-town (small), formerly a
parliamentary borough, in the parish of KILTOGHART,
barony and county of LEITRIM, and province of CONNAUGHT;
containing 311 inhabitants. This place, though
said to have been anciently the site of a Franciscan
monastery, was of very little importance prior to the
settlement of Leitrim in the reign of Jas. I. In 1621
that monarch granted divers lands, containing together
200 acres of arable and pasture and 12 acres of woodland
and moor, to the inhabitants, whom he incorporated
under the designation of the sovereign, burgesses, and
free commons of the borough and town of Jamestown, enjoining
them by his charter to build a new town of that
name in some convenient situation near the Shannon.
In 1623, Sir Charles Coote, to whom the king in reward
of his services had granted the town with several extensive
landed estates in the county, surrounded the
town with walls and erected a castle on the banks of the
Shannon, which in 1645 was besieged and taken by the
Earl of Carlingford, after a few discharges of cannon.
The R. C. prelates and clergy held a meeting in the
friary of this town in 1650, and nominated commissioners
to treat with any foreign power to aid them in opposing
the parliamentary army, which was then everywhere
triumphant; the result was the inconclusive treaty with
the Duke of Lorraine. In 1689, Col. Lloyd with a party
of the Enniskillen forces attacked, and, after a sharp
resistance, took possession of the town; but the native
Irish under Gen. Sarsfield marching against it, the garrison
that had been left for its defence abandoned it and
retired to Sligo. The town is pleasantly situated on the
navigable course of the Shannon, and contains about
48 houses; the chief vestige of its former importance
is an ancient gateway through which the mail coach road
passes, and which has been castellated by the present proprietor,
Francis O'Beirne, Esq., who has built a handsome
residence contiguous to it. There is a large flour-mill
on the Shannon, which here has a considerable fall.
The market is on Saturday. By the charter of Jas. I. the
corporation consisted of a sovereign, 12 burgesses, and
an indefinite number of free commoners, assisted by a
recorder, town-clerk, coroner, serjeants-at-mace, and
inferior officers. The sovereign, who with his deputy
was justice of the peace, and also coroner and clerk of
the market, was annually elected by the corporation from
the burgesses, by whom all vacancies in their own body
were filled, all officers appointed, and the free commoners
admitted solely by favour. The charter also conferred
the right of sending two members to the Irish parliament,
which was exercised till the Union, when the
borough was disfranchised. The corporation had power
to hold a court of record, with jurisdiction extending to
£20; but for some time previously to the Union they exercised
few of their municipal functions, except that of
returning members to parliament, and since that period
the body has become extinct. Towards the close of the
last century, the Earl of Mountrath built a school-house
here free to the poor of the neighbourhood, and endowed
it with £40 per ann., but the endowment has been lost;
and here is a national school, for which a handsome
school-house has been built at an expense of £600 by
Francis O'Beirne, Esq.; in the upper part of the building
is a small establishment of lay monks. There are
some slight vestiges of the ancient abbey on the banks
of the Shannon, and also of the castle; and there were
formerly in the town a prison and barracks, both of
which have been destroyed.