The Seventeenth-Century Tokens of County Louth

County Louth Archaeological and History Society

The Seventeenth-Century Tokens of County LouthAuthor(s): Gerard RiceSource: Journal of the County Louth Archaeological and Historical Society, Vol. 20, No. 4(1984), pp. 297-313Published by: County Louth Archaeological and History SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27729585 .

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The Seventeenth-Century

Tokens of County Louth

By Gerard Rice

The circumstances of issue, the issuers, the tokens

From 1550 until 1700 the major means of pacifying and controlling Ireland adopted by the

government of England was the process of Plantation. Substantial parts of property controlled

by the Gaelic natives, or "Irish enemies" as they were called, were confiscated to the loyal

subjects of the Crown, either English civil servants who had come penniless to Ireland to make

their fortunes, or the descendants of the first Norman settlers, called the Old English, who lived

in the good lands chiefly in the east and south of the country and in the towns. After the Reformation the Old English persevered in loyalty to the Catholic faith and to the Crown. For so

doing they were looked on with some suspicion both in Rome and in London; and eventually in

1641 when the northern Irish rose to undo the Ulster plantation of 1609, the Old English

reluctantly joined them. In 1642 the English parliament decided to finance the reconquest of

Ireland and its civil war with the king by extending the Plantation policy to the Old English now

in rebellion who owned the richest lands of Ireland and by offering the confiscated property as

surety to those who adventured money to parliament. The policy was, of course, also a means of

ensuring the complete pacification of Ireland in the English interest for a long time to come. The

Old English controlled not only most of the best lands in Ireland, they also controlled the towns

and had done so since the Norman conquest. The plantation called Cromwellian, after the

general who implemented it, took place in the years 1654-8. It brought about a major change not only in the ownership of land throughout the country but also in the government, trade and

life of the Irish towns.

Heretofore, the Irish towns had been populated and controlled by the Old English, who

indeed, had founded most of them. In 1649, with the exception of Dublin and the plantation towns recently founded in Ulster, they still controlled both the town government and trade as

fully as their ancestors had done before them.

By 1700 a new body of people had taken their place. They were New English in origin,

Anglican in religion, and were to control the corporation, much of the trade, and form a majority of the population of most of the Irish towns until the end of the eighteenth century.

That this change began in 1650 and was complete by 1700 is obvious from the surviving records of the time, but the pace at which it happened, the areas of town life it first affected, the

efforts made against it, the varying degrees of success of such efforts, differed from town to town.

It can be difficult to trace these changes because of the partial or total destruction of national,

municipal and local records; in a few towns, the brass tokens issued by local merchants in the

twenty-five years from 1653 to 1679 can be a major, and in some cases the only, source of

information on what in fact did happen in the towns during those years. It is hoped, in this paper, through a study of the circumstances in which the tokens were

issued, the issuers, and the tokens themselves, to explore what happened between 1649 and

1679 in the three towns of County Louth, Drogheda, Dundalk and Ardee. Because the changes took place in different circumstances in each, an examination of the changes in all three may

297



298 County Louth Archaeological and Historical Journal

throw some light on what happened in the other Irish towns having related circumstances.

In each account of town life there will be three sections. The first will attempt to trace what, in fact, happened there in the second half of the seventeenth century. This can be done

adequately only for Drogheda where municipal and local records have survived in a surprisingly

complete way; the few municipal records to have survived of Dundalk and Ardee are meagre and scrappy. Dealt with for each town will be the changes in charters, by-laws, the composition of the corporation and other influential groups, the reasons for these changes, whether they be

pressure from Dublin, London or from other groups inside or outside the corporations them

selves.

The second section will contain biographies of the token issuers; there were twenty-two of

these in Drogheda, five in Dundalk (a sixth Dundalk token was issued by the corporation of the

town), and four in Ardee. The third section will concern the types and descriptions of the tokens themselves. This will

consist of information from collections of tokens, the comprehensive catalogue of the National

Museum of Ireland as written by Macalister in the 1930s which is supplemented by information

from the classic volume on the seventeenth-century tokens of the British Isles by Williamson, and from the collections of the British and Ulster Museums.

PART 1 : DROGHEDA

A : Corporation Affairs

The most noteworthy feature of Drogheda municipal history between 1650 and 1700 was

the continuous struggle, between two distinct groups of people, for control over three areas of

corporate life. The first of the two groups was made up of the Old English Catholic merchant

families who had dominated the corporate life of Drogheda for centuries, were wealthy because

of their control of urban corporation property, and of the town's trade with its hinterland, Great

Britain and Europe, and were connected by blood with the minor gentry of the surrounding

countryside.l The second group was made up of two sub-groups : one, of New English merchants

who had come to Drogheda in the first half of the seventeenth century and, through official

favour, had substantial representation on the corporation by 165 0;2 and the other, Cromwellian

soldiers and adventurers ? those who had given loans to the English Parliament in the 1640s, whose arrears and debts Parliament was to settle in Irish property.

The first area of corporate life over which these two groups struggled was the corporation itself. In the 1650s the second, or New English and Cromwellian, group acquired exclusive

control of the corporation which, except for a brief interlude in the later years of the reign of

James II, it never lost. The second area of struggle concerned a matter of much more consequ ence than the control of the corporation itself; it concerned the right to enjoy the freedom of the

town, enabling its possessors to trade on equal terms with members of the corporation without

paying the customs or taxes levied on outsiders (or foreigners as they were called). In this matter

the descendants of the Old English merchants by a clever anticipation of events, and a timely use

of influences in London and Dublin, succeeded in 1660 in asserting their right to enjoy the

freedom of the town and to succeed their fathers and masters in freedom, except for the years

1679-85, until the victory of William III in 1690.

1 See the biographies of Thomas Pippard, John Bellew and John Brennan below.

2 Rev. T. Gogarty (ed.), Council Book of the Corporation of Drogheda, Vol. I., from the year ? 649 to 1734 (Drogheda,

1915), 26-8. (Henceforth cited as Council Book).



The Seventeenth-Century Tokens of County Louth 299

Success in the second area of struggle was guaranteed by success in the third. This

concerned the right to possess and to have renewed leases on corporation property and land

which seems to have made up most of the freehold land of the town. In this the Old English succeeded in holding on to corporation leases on substantial amounts of important property until, in some cases, well into the second half of the eighteenth century.

In 1641 those who controlled the corporation of Drogheda with its mayor, aldermen and

common council, and its freemen elected or hereditary, were the Pippards who traced their

ancestry to Gilbert le Peppard, second son of Jocelyn de ?ngulo, named first baron of Navan by

Hugh de Lacy at the Norman conquest; and the Hamlins, Conlys, Tyrrels and Birds who had

been associated with Drogheda municipal affairs far back into the previous century and in some

cases into the Middle Ages.3 When the rebellion broke out in October 1641, almost to a man they supported the royalist

army of Sir Henry Tichbourne. One exception was John Stanley, M.P. for Drogheda in the 1640

parliament, who became a rebel captain.4 The leading merchant of the town, the senior Pippard alderman, George, freely provided the army with over ?850 in food and clothes and, with his

brother and cousins, continued to support the royalist army which held the town until 1647 and

then the parliamentary authorities who controlled it until June 1649.5 In the ensuing three

months of royalist control before Cromwell took the town in September 1649, when the

parliamentary troops turned royalist, the attitude of the Catholic Pippards is not known, but

after Cromwell's siege and sack they, with the other Old English merchants, were still in the

corporation (two Old English merchants refused the office of mayor in 165 0, leading to a change in the method of choosing the mayor which lasted until 1662 from succession by some form of

seniority to election).6 As some corporation leases fell in, formerly in the Old English hands of

Aldermen Bellings, Pippard and Deece, they were given to the military governor, Col. John

Fowkes. The corporation was abolished and commissioners for administration of justice were

chosen to rule the town for three years. The very people chosen to rule the town by the military authorities, with two exceptions

? a Major Fox and Edward Martin ? had been in the

corporation before 1649. They were prepared to testify so effectively to the constant affection

shown towards Parliament by a number of Catholic aldermen7 that far from being expelled from

town as the law seemed to demand, some of them were actually given confiscated land in the

county taken from prominent Confederate landowners. These they held on to even after the

restoration of Charles II.8 Though no Catholic names appear among the Commissioners or, after

June 1656 when the old corporation was back in action again, in the corporation itself, the

Catholic merchants did and were to play for the next thirty years a substantial but secondary role

in municipal government. In 1655 they appear as constables of franchises; after 1659 they were

overseers of the highway, presumably to ensure maximum co-operation in this work from the

ordinary Catholic inhabitants of the town.

In 1656 there was a block admission of thirty-three freemen all with non-native or

non-Catholic names and, on 10 October 1656, a by-law was passed (erased in 1672) forbidding all papists to be henceforth free of the corporation and reserving grazing rights on the town's

commons to Protestant freemen only.

3 Maeve Garrett, "Municipal and Central Government in Ireland under Charles II", (unpub. M.A. thesis, Univ.

College, Dublin, 1972), 130. 4 Ibid; Nicholas Bernard, The Whole Proceedings of the Siege of Drogheda (London, 1642), 10.

5 N.L.I., Peppard papers, D.16,195. 6 Garrett, thesis, 130.

7 N.L.I., Peppard papers, D.16,185. 8 P.R.O.I., Books of Survey and Distribution for parishes of Termonfeckin, Co Louth and Colpe, Co Meath.




In January 1657 three new by-laws were introduced. The first forbade papists to be free of the fraternities or guilds and forbade freemen from taking on papist apprentices. The second

enabled the sheriff or guild master to shut up the shop of anyone not a freeman, and the third

finally disfranchised all the papists who were henceforth to be treated as foreigners. (These

by-laws were struck through on 4 May 1660).9 At this time too began a campaign to hunt out corporation property still controlled by the

Catholics whose leases had been forfeited under the recent plantations. The discoverer was to be

rewarded with a reversion of the lease. A corporation committee was set up to examine all

corporate property so that any still illegally in Catholic hands could be discovered and confis cated. The reversion of discovered leases was granted to people such as Captain Cockayne who,

with Captain Newcomen, was commissioned to make a map of Drogheda showing corporation property there (the map is still in the possession of Drogheda Corporation), and Edward

Singleton and Thomas Leigh whose families were to be prominent in corporation affairs until the nineteenth century.

In spite of this, the supervisors of highways were still the old inhabitants such as Thomas

Pippard and Batholomew Hamlin. In 1659, when the wind of change was bringing about a call

for a free parliament and the shaky regime of the Cromwells was tottering to a fall, Pippards and

Deeces were refusing to pay dues or customs at the town gates, challenging the right of the

corporation to treat Catholic freemen as foreigners. In contrast with such hostility and as a

corrective of too extreme a view of it, an example of commercial co-operation has survived from

1661 when Ignatius Pippard of the prominent Old English family is found in joint ownership of the good ship "Thomas of Drogheda", of sixty tons, with.Alderman Thomas Leigh, one of the

leading Protestant merchants of the town.10

The restoration of Charles II, of course, changed the context of the conflict of interests in

the towns of Ireland. In May 1660, in spite of corporation opposition, the Catholic inhabitants of

Drogheda petitioned the king successfully for restoration of their possessions and privileges, their rights to have priority over all the occupying tenants and their successors.11 Further, in July 1661, George Pippard and his sister-in-law, Ismay, got decrees for the moneys expended in

defence of Drogheda in 1641 to be satisfied out of confiscated lands available, which were also to settle the claims of the army officers who, before 1649, had fought for the king.12 Of course

both these decrees took time to implement, and as late as 1670 Pippard was complaining of the

corporation leasing to others, properties on which his lease had run out.13 In 1661 the original decree of 1660 in favour of Catholics was modified to exclude them from the corporation itself

by enforcing the oath of supremacy on those who would be mayors, sheriffs, aldermen or, after

1662, members of the common council.14 In the next few years however, the prominent Old English merchants, Pippard, Hamlin, De

La Hoyde, were admitted free of the corporation with all privileges save that of actual member

ship of the corporation itself; and the newcomers to the corporation who had taken over

confiscated leases in the 1650s had to give them back to the old owners; there are even records of

leases of new property being granted in the 1660s to Catholics in return for services rendered or

for fines stiffer than usual.15

9 Council Book, 42-3.

10 Council Book, 71 and 9.

11 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1660-2, 353.

12 Ibid, 380.

13 Council Book, 148.

14 John D'Alton, The History of Drogheda (2 vols, Dublin, 1844), i, 190; Garrett, thesis, 130.

15 Council Book, 183-4; see biographies of Thomas Pippard and Richard Tirrell below; N.L.I., Peppard papers,

D.16,228LandD.16,218.




In 1668, while the so-called Irish aldermen, i.e. Catholic aldermen who had been aldermen

before 1649 or who held the title by inheritance, were refused membership of the corporation

assembly itself, a committee of fourteen was set up, drawn from both groups in the community of

freemen to investigate and advise on the leasing of corporate property.16 When new rules were sent to Drogheda by the earl of Ossory to implement at local level the

national policy agreed in Parliament a few years earlier to exclude Catholic traders from

freedom in towns, the successful protest of Catholic merchants of Drogheda to the Lord

Lieutenant ensured that, as in the years since 1661, they were to be excluded only from the

corporation assembly itself and not from freedom to trade. This was the state of affairs until the

increase in anti-Catholic feeling at the end of the next decade caused the taking of the oath of

supremacy to be imposed as a condition of taking out freedom of the corporation guilds.17

Drogheda itself had changed since 1650. In 1641 it had been a town of perhaps three

thousand inhabitants where Catholics outnumbered Protestants by five to one.18 By 1657 when the Newcomen-Cockayne map19 was drawn up it had not fully recovered from the assault of

1649 and the plantation of 1654. This map may be taken as accurate as it was commissioned by the corporation from two ex-army captains who had lived in the town for some time and had

acquired the skills of mapmaking in the recent Cromwellian land surveys. There were very many

empty spaces within the town wall on both sides of the river and only 211 houses altogether. If one allows for say eight inhabitants per house one gets an estimated population of 1,688. This of course may be a record only of those houses on land of which the corporation owned the

freehold; other houses may well have been omitted. The 1659 poll-tax record returned a

population of 1605, made up of 958 English and 647 Irish inhabitants, of which all the esquires

(44), nearly all the soldiers (356 against 18) and the vast majority of gentlemen (87 against 26) were English. This census does not seem to have included women and children and so indicates a

population of about 3,500. Some growth had taken place since 1657. Most of the population was

Protestant and Protestants possessed almost all the positions of influence in the town.20 In 1663 the hearth roll returns show that in the town there were 342 houses with at least one

hearth which, if one allows again for an average of eight inhabitants per house, indicates a

population of 2,736 living in houses with hearths and perhaps a town population approaching 4,000, if one allows for the conservative nature of all tax returns and the existence of cabins with no hearths at all.21 By 1671, a well-informed, meticulous observer, the Catholic primate Dr

Oliver Plunkett, in his first account of his diocese to Rome, called Drogheda the finest city in

Ireland after Dublin and stated that it had about 6,000 inhabitants the maj ority of whom were of

English origin and Protestant.22 Its proportion of Irish trade however, had gone down from sixth to tenth place between 1663 and 1669, yet its export and import trade was still at the heart of its

life; the main streets of the town, where the most prosperous and influential merchants lived, were the North Key, Shop Street and Dyer Street.23

From 1679 on no one was to be admitted free of the corporation without taking the oath of

supremacy. Yet just one year previously, George Peppard, admittedly for a stiffer fine than

16 Council Book, 139, 143.

17 Council Book, 187; Report on the manuscripts of the Marquess of Ormonde, Vol. II (London, 1899), 256 and 357.

18 Garrett, thesis, 130.

19 The Newcomen-Cockayne map is among the archives of Drogheda Corporation, Corporation Offices, Fair Street,

Drogheda. 20 Seamus Pender (ed.), A Census of Ireland, Circa 1659 (Dublin, 1939), 474.

21 J. R. Garstin, "County Louth (and Drogheda) Hearth Money Rolls", C.L.A.J., VI, 2, (1926), 83-7.

22 John Hanly (ed.), The Letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett 1625-1681 (Dublin, 1979), 73.

23 J. T. Dolan, "Drogheda Trade and Customs, 1683", C.L.A.J., III, 1, (1912), 83-103; Cal. S.P. Ire., 1663-5, 460; Cal. S.P. Ire., 1666-9, 672-3; Cal. S.P. Ire., 1669-70, 683.




normal, was given a sixty-one years renewal of at least one lease of corporation property and in

1680 Luke Conly, a prominent Catholic merchant, was overseer of the highways in St Peter's

parish.24

Sensing the winds of change in 1684, a number of Catholic Drogheda merchants petitioned the king to be admitted free into the corporation without taking the oath of supremacy. This was

done by July 1685 when over thirty-seven new freemen were admitted. By 1686 the first

Catholic recorder for years, Henry Dowdall, was appointed and when the corporation, still

Protestant dominated, refused to elect a Catholic, Ignatius Peppard, mayor in 1687 despite a

government order to do so, it was suppressed and the town got a new charter by which the old

families regained their dominance of town affairs. In fact, when the Protestant minority on the

new corporation refused to take the oath of loyalty to the king, they were excluded from the

corporation altogether.25

Sensing the likelihood, or at least the possibility of more and unfavourable change, the

Catholic members made certain of control of corporation property for as long as possible by

taking out mortgages on one another's property and above all, by granting themselves rever

sions of their leases for small fines, to begin from the time the lease ran out. In one instance, which may be taken as typical, Luke Conly bought a lease from Thomas Peppard which had

thirty-seven years to run and obtained a sixty-one year lease from the corporation on the

property to date from 1724 when Peppard's lease was due to expire.26 Some of the chief

merchants were outlawed after the Williamite victory, but others successfully pleaded the

articles of Limerick or the generous terms on which Drogheda capitulated after the battle of the

Boyne (1 July 1690). In fact, during the reign of William III three Catholic aldermen remained

on the corporation, Christopher and Thomas, sons of George Peppard, and Anthony, son of

Oliver Bird. It was only at the beginning of the reign of Queen Anne that these were required to

pass the sacramental test and, having refused, were finally excluded from the civil government of

the town.27

One senses that it was the Williamite victory that finally deprived old families of their share

in the town trade, the primary source of their wealth and influence. A document surviving in the

Peppard papers from some source in the Williamite corporation clearly describes the state of

affairs about 1691. After the outlawries that followed the Williamite victory "

not above seven or

so provided for (as freemen) remained in Drogheda, and Christopher Peppard alone makes

much use or benefit of the freedom". The old families were not impoverished, of course : the

wills of Luke Conly (1694), Thomas Peppard (1714) and Anthony Bird (1717) testify to their

wealth and influence in the town, but it was a static wealth. It was only towards the end of the

eighteenth century that the last of the leases granted in reversion in 1687 and 1688 fell in, giving the Leighs, Hardmans, Ogles and Singletons a monopoly of corporation property which they

were to possess until the nineteenth century. One senses as well that as the old families were

squeezed out of the trade, the Drogheda links with the Continent weakened and were broken, and the centre of the town shifted to the West Street area, indicating that the foreign trade which

hitherto had been the main source of the town's wealth, became less so after 1690.28

24 Council Book, 183-4 and 189; N.L.I., Peppard papers D.16,218. 25 Council Book, 224-5.

26 Council Book, 234.

27 Inside back cover of parish register, St Peter's, Drogheda, 1654 to 1704 (as in this instance the register contains not

only births, marriages and deaths but also general comments and pieces of information usually relating to church

affairs). Henceforth cited as Register; Council Book, 275.

28 N.L.I., Peppard papers ? deeds D.16,254, D.16,418 and D.16,403; G. Rice, "Four Wills of the Old English

Merchants of Drogheda, 1654-1717', C.L.A.H.J., XX, 2, (1982), 96-105.




When in the middle and latter half of the eighteenth century Catholic merchants came to

control again a substantial portion of the trade of Drogheda, as they did the foreign trade in

many of the Irish towns, it seems to have been a new breed of merchants of obscure origin, who

with the younger children of surviving Catholic gentry moved into the urban trade, not the

surviving representatives of families who had dominated trade in the seventeenth century. Out of forty-six "respectable Roman Catholics" of Drogheda who pledged support to the govern ment in 1779 there were two Birds and two Bellews; the other Catholic names prominent in the

latter half of the seventeenth century do not appear.

B : Biographies of Token Issuers

Study of the tokens and token issuers, twenty-two in all for Drogheda, reveals three

patterns of relationship based on chronology, religion and wealth. The first token issued at

Drogheda, among the first issued in Ireland, was by Samuel Stanbridge in 1653. He issued another one in 1657 when those of Thomas Cockayne (1656), Henry Coker (1656), Francis

Poole (1656) and John Ley (1657) were already in circulation. The issuers of these tokens were

either Cromwellian army people recently settled in the town, like Captain Cockayne, or

Protestants, settled in the town since the thirties or forties of the century, like Stanbridge. It is not clear into which category Francis Poole fits, but probably a newcomer to the town as he was, it is more than likely that he was an associate of the Cromwellian army faction.

The majority of the tokens issued in the 1660s were issued by Catholics who had success

fully asserted their rights to be freemen of the town such as Bellew, Bird, Andrew Hamlin, Thomas Peppard and Richard Tyrell. It is also likely that it was at this time that Bartholomew Hamlin issued his token because he was admitted to freedom of the corporation in 1664. The other issuers in the early 1660s, John Braye (1663), Edward Bythell, Samuel Fenton, Edmond

Graves (1664), Hugh Fowkes and John Killogh were Protestants. The tokens which do not

carry dates are related to each other stylistically, like those of Edward Bythell, Samuel Fenton

and Hugh Fowkes. It seems less likely, but probable, that the Killogh tokens were issued in the 1660s. Later than the rest, and stylistically different from them is the halfpenny token of

Lebbeus Lownd, dated 1667. The tokens of Edward Martin, two pennies and a halfpenny, could have been issued at this time or in the 1650s when Martin was more prominent in corporation affairs (he was mayor in 1655 and in 1660), in the mid-1660s he seems to have been in some

financial trouble. If one is guided by Milne's distinction between early and late tokens then nos.

35 and 36 were probably struck in the 1650s and nos 33 and 34 (the halfpenny) in the 1660s.29

The third and final group of tokens was issued by merchants who had come into prominence in the late 1660s and early 1670s, all from already established Drogheda families. Two of these

families were established in the 1650s ? those of John Rookes (1671) and Richard Jackson (a device on his token, a rosette with a flaw on one leaf, connects it with a London workshop of

tokens active in the years 1667-72 ).30 Another issuer, Luke Conly (1671), was a member of an

old Catholic merchant family established in Drogheda as far back as the previous century. Another pattern of relationship between the issuers of tokens is based on religion. There

were two main groups; one, the Catholic one, established for centuries, with its members related to each other by blood, marriage, and by apprenticeship. The members of the other, Protestant,

group were also related to each other in the same way, though it does seem as if the issuers of the

1650s from a military background like Cockayne, Martin and perhaps Coker stood apart from

29 Information on which this paragraph and the succeeding ones are based comes from the tokens themselves and from the biographies of the issuers.

30 George Boon, Welsh Tokens of the Seventeenth Century (Cardiff, 1973), 52.




the others in the Protestant group, and did not put down roots in the town. In fact, none of the

Protestant issuers, except Richard Jackson and John Ley, seems to have founded a dynasty in

Drogheda as the ancestors of the Catholic issuers had done and the Catholic issuers themselves were doing. Some of the Protestant families who dominated Drogheda Corporation until its

abolition in 1840 do appear in the town's records in the 1650s and 1660s but were not token

issuers; most of them, however, (the Ogles, Hardmans, Faircloughs) appeared only at the end of

the century.

The other pattern of relationship is based on wealth. The token issuers in Drogheda seem to

have been of two kinds, those who were traders specialising in one branch of trade, like Fowkes ? a glazier, Lownds

? a grocer, Rookes ? a tailor; and those who were general merchants with

fingers in many pies, business in the town, property in the town and surrounding countryside, and an interest in foreign trade; among these were people such as Luke Conly, Richard Jackson,

Thomas Pippard, Samuel Stanbridge; no real evidence survives about others, but their place in

town affairs and the quality of their houses would put one of the Hamlins at least, Cockayne, Martin and Bythell in this category also. It seems reasonable to categorize the other issuers as

merchants in a modest way of business because evidence of diverse commercial activities would

be more likely to have survived.

Recently, Colm Gallagher has suggested that in some cases in Ireland, token issuing was

indulged in as a minor form of banking. In Drogheda this may have been one reason for general merchants, involved in international trade, like Conly, Jackson etc., issuing their tokens.31 It is

possible, of course, that the tokens were issued by these people merely to provide a minor

service in the retail end of their complex businesses. The Catholic issuers emphasised their

traditional respectability by using the family coat of arms. Some Protestants did so as well

(Bythell and Fowkes) but most of them used devices which indicated their trade or occupation ? the arms of the relevant London guilds of merchants ? or a device which was a rebus or visual

pun on their names (a cock's head on Cockayne's), or perhaps a shop or tavern sign (the angel on

the token of Richard Jackson). Ten different tokens have three initials on the reverse, one of the Christian and one of the

surname of the issuer and what is definitely in five cases the initial of the Christian name of his

wife; it is probably so of the other five as well.

BELLE W, JOHN : Not much is known of John Bellew. A John Bellew had 300 acres of land and

lived in Stameen, two miles south of Drogheda in 1641. He was enrolled in the Decree of

Innocents in 1661. In January 1663 Bellew, with another Catholic, Alderman Deece, owned

corporation property consisting of three houses in Harpes Lane. He lived in a modest house of

two hearths in the Shop Street/Dyer Street area in 1663 and was made free of the corporation in

April 1664, having served his apprenticeship with Thomas Pippard. His name does not occur in

the document signed by the Catholics of the town in 1668 against the new rules of Lord Ossory which excluded them from the freedom of the town; he was either dead or had gone from the

town by then. Among the Drogheda citizens outlawed in 1691 was James Bellew, perhaps a son

or relation. The three known dies of his token indicate that he issued quite a few tokens; the fact

that they are similar in design indicates that they were issued more or less at the same time. Of the

three tokens in the National Museum, the first and second are die duplicates and share a

common reverse with the third. The main device, the arms of Bellew, emphasises his relation

ship with the Bellews who, headed by the baron of Duleek, owned much land in east County Meath and in the south of Co Louth. Since Bellew was admitted a freeman in 1664, it is likely

31 Colm Gallagher, "Post-Restoration Irish Tokens", British and Irish Tokens Journal, I, 1, (1980), 15.




that his tokens were struck after that date, though some cases of Catholic issuers of tokens are

known in Ireland who were not freemen of the town (information from Colm Gallagher). His

token stylistically resembles that of John Lea which would give some support to the theory, advanced below, that John Lea issued his tokens in the 1660s and was of the Catholic family of

that name.32

BIRD, OLIVER : There are references to the Birds of Drogheda for generations before the

1660s. Oliver Bird forfeited his property in Drogheda under Cromwell and, like all the other Catholic merchants of the town (except Alderman Thomas Nugent), his name is not on the lists

of those receiving lands in Connaught yet he appears to have left Drogheda until after the

restoration of Charles II in 1661 when he got his property back again. He was not admitted a

freeman in the 1660s, a fact indicating that he had been a freeman before 1649. He was an

overseer of the highway on the Louth side of the town in 1662 ? a position usually occupied by Catholics to ensure maximum co-operation of Catholic townspeople in the preservation of the town roads. In 1663 he lived in a modest enough house of three hearths in the Tholsel Ward,

probably in Stockwell Lane where, with some others, he was charged in 1678 with seeing that it was paved properly by the inhabitants. He appeared on the list of Catholics in 1668 protesting against their threatened exclusion from the freedom of the town. He died in 1683. His son was

admitted freeman of the guild of chandlers in 1669, but two other sons, Anthony and James, were founders of the family fortunes and were burgesses in James II corporation of 1687

(Anthony had been made free in 1672). Anthony, probably benefiting from the generous terms

offered by William III to the citizens of Drogheda after the battle of the Boyne, remained an

alderman in the Williamite corporation until he refused the sacramental test in the first year of

the reign of Queen Anne. His will of 1717 testifies to his success in accumulating property and to

his dexterous use of the few months of Catholic control of the corporation in 1687-8 to gain

corporation leases which would last almost to the end of the eighteenth century. James and John

Bird were among "the respectable Roman Catholics" of Drogheda in 1779, and Bartholomew Bird was a merchant of Drogheda in 1789. Two dies of the tokens are known, indicating a

relatively small issue; they have the Bird coat of arms and stylistically relate to the 1660s when

all the tokens issued by the Catholic families appear to have been struck.33 It is possible, of

course, that, as in other cities and towns, Catholics issued tokens who were not freemen of the town or city of striking.

BRAYE, JOHN : John Braye first appears in the records as a tenant of Alderman Toxteth in

1653, a long-established Protestant member of Drogheda Corporation, living near "ye Durty batter" on the Meath side of the Boyne "in or about the Blinde Butts". In 1663 he had a modest

house of two hearths and, incidently, was the only token issuer recorded as living in the Meath or

south side of the town. He had been admitted a free commoner in 1656 when the number of

Protestant freemen was substantially increased as the corporate life of the town returned to

normal, and was entitled a gentleman in the census of 1659. His children were born between

1656 and 1665. He was chosen treasurer twice, once in 1657 and also in 1663 when he issued his

token. He is last heard of at the burial of his daughter in 1667. No one else of this name is

mentioned in the surviving records except one "ffrancis Bray" admitted free of the corporation

32 R. C. Simington (ed.), The Civil Survey, J 654-6, County of Meath (Dublin, 1940); Council Book, 105; Garstin, loe.

cit., 85; D'Alton, op. cit., ii, 348 and i, 192; John O'Hart, The Irish and Anglo-Irish Landed Gentry when Cromwell

came to Ireland (Dublin, 1884, reptd. Shannon, 1969), 424-31.

33 Council Book, 98, 147, 158, 180, 221 and 275; Garstin, loc. cit., 85; D'Alton, op. cit. ii, 348; O'Hart, op. cit., 252;

N.L.I., Peppard papers, deed D.16,418; Arthur Vicars, Index to the Prerogative Wills of Ireland, 1536-1810 (Dublin,

1897), 36; Rice, loc. cit., 104-5.




with a number of Catholics, among them Anthony Bird and three Peppards, in 1672, and his

family must have died out or receded into obscurity; he himself may have been an ex-army man

who had got some property in the town. Only two pairs of dies of the token are known. They differ only in minor details which indicates a small issue, perhaps one confined to his year as

town treasurer in 1663.34

BRENNAN, JOHN : Nothing is known of the issuer of this token. Unlike all the other token

issuers, except Henry Coker whose token is sometimes found muled with another token of

Dublin (cf. his biography), Brennan's name does not appear in the records of the corporation from 1649 on. His name would place him with the Old English merchants of the town (Brennans held land at Dromin and Drumcashel, Co Louth before the Cromwellian plantation) yet I have

not been able to trace the specimen given in Williamson who quoted Boyne as his source. It is

perhaps significant that from 1649 on another Drogheda token is recorded and known from at

least two specimens, that of John Braye, which has the same date, 1663, and the same spelling, Droheda, of the town's name (with one exception, that of John Killogh, all other spellings on

Drogheda tokens are different) as that mentioned by Williamson as being on the Brennan one. It seems not unlikely that the token given to Brennan was a worn example of that known now to

have been issued by Braye.35

BYTHELL, EDWARD : Edward Bythell, having served his apprenticeship with a Cromwellian

soldier, Alderman Martin, was admitted free of the corporation in 1657. He lived in the Shop

Street/Dyer Street area and had a house of five hearths in 1663. By 1665 he was elected one of

the two sheriffs of the town by the mayor and aldermen, an indication of prominence and

moderate wealth. He died in 1667 and, after a few references to children of his son Thomas

being born in 1670-6, the name Bythell disappears from corporation and local records. His

token is stylistically related to those of the mid-1660s and was perhaps issued when he was

sheriff. It bears the arms of Bythell, an indication of some claim to gentle status.36 (There were

Bythells on the corporation in the sixteenth century, and an Edward Bythell made a will in

Drogheda in 1602, but they do not seem to have been relations of this man unless he or his family became Protestant).

COCKAYNE, THOMAS : Thomas Cockayne was a captain who served in the Cromwellian

army before 1649. He first appears as an auditor with the corporation in 1656 and with Captain Newcomen, was commissioned to draw up the map of Drogheda which still survives today in the

possession of the corporation. This commission was part of a campaign to discover property

subject to confiscation which was still in Catholic hands. By this means he got property owned by the Drogheda Corporation in Dundalk and in the town and outskirts of Drogheda. He was town

treasurer in 1658 when he had to put up a bond of ?500, and he was entitled an esquire in the

1659 poll tax return. In 1660 there are indications that he was in some trouble over town funds but he got the gate customs of the town for the year 1661 at a rent of 40s. per week. He was in more financial trouble in 1664 partly caused by the fact that after 1661 he had to return

corporation leases to the Catholics, from whom they had been confiscated in the 1650s. In 1663 a Thomas Cockayne was elected a freeman of the corporation of Ardee. From 1670

on he seems to have transferred his chief activities to that town of which he became town clerk at a salary of eight pounds per annum in January of that year.

It seems likely that this was the token issuer of Drogheda who cut his losses and began again

34 Council Book, 29, 39, 50 and 106; Register for 1656-65 and 1667; Garstin, loc. cit., 86.

35 N.L.I., Brennan family of Dromin and Drumcashel, deeds 10,516-23. 36 Council Book, 47 and 122; Register for 1667 and 1670-6; Garstin, loc. cit., 85.




in a town where there was a strong representation of ex-army men in control of the corporation. He was dead by 1675. His family born 1662 left no mark on corporation affairs. His token

issued in 1656 has, as a device, a cock's head, a rebus on his name. Two closely-related dies are

known indicating a short and small striking.37

COKER, HENRY : Nothing whatsoever is known of this issuer except what the token itself

tells. With the tokens of John Haynes and James Goggins, both of Dublin, it has the interesting feature of a cruciform plug of copper inserted in a token struck, as is normal, in brass. The absence of information, with the date (1656) and name indicate that Coker was probably a

soldier turned merchant, whose stay in Drogheda was brief. He was not a member of the

corporation and was probably in a small way of business. Some tokens are known with the

obverse of Coker's token and a reverse which is the obverse of the token of John Haynes of

Dublin.

CONLY, LUKE : Luke Conly was one of the Drogheda merchants who had come to influence and wealth in the 1670s. He came from a family prominent in Drogheda affairs before the end of the sixteenth century. He was admitted freeman to the fraternity of merchants in 1666, and in 1678 and 1680 was an overseer of St Peter's parish. He was not named in the hearth rolls as

having a house with more than one hearth, nor in the census of 1659; perhaps he was out of the

country at that time, for by the early 1680s he was very prominent in the import and export trade. From July to September 1683 he was importing Norway deal from Drondheim ; salt and earthen

mugs and Spanish iron from Liverpool; and he exported butter to Dover, frieze, hide, tallow, soap and groats to Liverpool, and beef hides and tallow, and butter to Nantes. He was appointed an alderman in the Jacobite corporation of 1687 and prudently declined the nomination as

Drogheda's member of parliament in the Patriot Parliament of 1689. He fully benefited from the complicated activities of the Catholic corporation members who took out mortgages on one another's property in the years 1688-9. Though his son Robert was outlawed in 1691, Luke benefited from the easy terms on which Drogheda surrendered after the battle of the Boyne; he died in 1694 and his will shows that he controlled substantial interests in Drogheda, held

mortgages on other people's properties, and had large loans out to people such as the baron of

Slane; it also shows that as well as some in Drogheda, he had a son who was a merchant in London and had trading interests in Scotland as well. His tokens, all struck in the 1670s, are known in only one variety indicating a small issue. The device is the Conly coat of arms.38

FENTON, SAMUEL : Little enough is known of this issuer. He applied to be admitted a freeman of the corporation in 1657 and was therefore a Protestant. Other references to the

family name occur in 1659 when a certain William Fenton died, whose wife was administrator of his estate; and in 1678 when William Fenton, son of William Fenton died. Samuel Fenton's token bears the Fenton coat of arms and stylistically belongs to the group of tokens issued in the

mid 1660s. One example of the token is known, an indication that very few tokens were struck.39

37 O'Hart, op. cit., 379; Council Book, 39, 47-8, 58, 79, 81-2 and 115; Pender, op. cit., 474; Register for 1656-62 and

1671; Minute book of Ardee Corporation for 1663 and 1670. The original minute books covering the period 1690 to 1841 together with the Ruxton transcripts (1661 to 1768) are at present in the County Reference Library,

Dundalk. Photostats of the Ruxton transcripts are in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. The minutes for the years 1661-4 have been published in this Journal, Vol. Ill, 4, (1915), 357-62 and Vol. IV, 1, (1916), 35-41.

38 N.L.I., Peppard papers, deeds 404-6 and 16,254; Council Book, 104,180, 189, 221, 226, 230 and 235; J. T. Dolan,

"Exports from Drogheda in 1682", C.L.A.J., III, 3, (1914), 250-8; Dolan, C.L.A.J., III, 1, (1912), 83-103;

D'Alton, op. cit., ii, 348; Rice, loc. cit., 101-2.

39 Council Book, 46; Register for 1659 and 1678.




FOWKES, HUGH : Hugh Fowkes was admitted a freeman of the fraternity of smiths in 1658.

He was a glazier by trade. He acquired property in West Street (by 1666) and near the Guild

Hall by 1678 but in 1663 was living in a one-hearth house in an unknown part of the town. His

wife's name was Charity. His family was born between 1665 and 1677. He was one of the overseers of St Peter's parish in 1678. He died in 1687 and there is no further mention of him or

of his family in the Drogheda records. His token is known from two different but closely related

dies which have the Fowkes coat of arms, a claim perhaps to relationship with Col John Fowkes

military governor of Drogheda in 1650 whose funeral entry contains a related coat of arms. Dr

T?te, the vicar of St Peters, who died in 1660 was married to a Fowkes, perhaps a sister of Hugh for she had the same arms as appear on the token.40

GRAVES, EDMUND : Edmund Graves seems to have come from a Protestant family settled in

Drogheda before the coming of Cromwell. Other references to his family include that to Thomas

Graves who died in 1655, a William Graves who had children baptized in the 1650s; in 1659

Alderman Thomas Leigh was married to Charitye Graves by John Ford, "minister of God's word". Edmund was admitted free of the corporation in May 1660. He lived in the Shop

Street/Dyer Street area in a three-hearth house in 1663. By 1665 he was auditor for the

corporation and in 1666 was elected sheriff by the board of aldermen. His family was born after

1661 ; one daughter was born after he died in 1669. The name survived in Drogheda for at least

two more generations. One Francis Graves, gentleman, of Drogheda died in 1722. At least one

token of Edmund Graves exists but not in the Irish national collection and is dated 1663; another mentioned in Williamson's book on seventeenth century tokens is not in any of the

major public collections today and perhaps exists only through a mistake in proof reading by Williamson.41

HAMLIN, ANDREW : Andrew Hamlin came from one of the old Catholic families which had

long dominated the Drogheda Corporation. He was the son of a Hamlin who had been an

alderman before 1650 perhaps one William Hamlin who was a forfeiting proprietor in

Drogheda in the 1650s. Andrew was admitted free in 1665 by virtue of his father's position. In

1660 he had been appointed an overseer of the highway on the Louth side of the Boyne. He does

not seem to have been a merchant of much substance for he is not mentioned in the hearth tax

references as owning a house of more than one hearth, nor in the poll tax returns of 1659 as a

titulado, gentleman or esquire. He was, however, one of the signatories of the Catholic protest of

1668 against a new rule excluding Catholics from freedom of the corporation. He seems a likely candidate in the matter of the complaint of 1674 when several unnamed token issuers were

accused of avoiding redemption of tokens by claiming that they were counterfeited because by 1687 he had fallen on hard times and the Catholic-controlled corporation in that year granted him a pension during the assembly's pleasure of twelve pounds per annum. His tokens, with the

family arms, seem to be related in style to the tokens of the mid-1660s. There are tokens extant

from at least three dies indicating a fair size of issue.42

HAMLIN, BARTHOLOMEW : A token not in the national collection of which both examples in public collections (B.M. & U.M.) are badly worn, carries the Hamlin coat of arms and what

seems to be the initials of the issuer, B.H. Prominent in Drogheda civic life from 1660 to 1688

40 Council Book, 57, 133 and 180; O'Hart, op. cit., 414; D'Alton, i, 132; Register for 1664-77; Vicars, op. cit., 180.

41 Register for 1655, 1659, 1661 and 1669; Council Book, 78, 126 and 131; Garstin, loc. cit., 85; Vicars, op. cit. 202;

Garrett, thesis 130.

42 Garrett, thesis, 130; O'Hart, op. cit., 252; Council Book, 120, 77, 161 and 224; D'Alton, op. cit., i, 192.




was one, Batholomew Hamlin, who is the most likely issuer of this token. He was described as a

gentleman in the 1659 returns and in 1663 had a house of seven hearths in the Tholsel ward. He

was admitted free of the corporation in 1664 with other prominent Catholic merchants. He was

one of the signers of the protest in 1668 and was in 1671 and 1679 an overseer of the highway on

the Louth side of the river. One Bartholomew Hamlin was an alderman of the Catholic

corporation of 1687-8 and does not seem to have benefited from the complicated manoeuvres

concerning corporation leases that went on at those times. He was dead by 1707; the latest

reference to a Hamlin in Drogheda is to a widow, Mary Hamlin, who died in 1749. The token

must have been struck in the 1660s for he was admitted a freeman and so entitled to trade only in

1664. It is known from one die only, indicating a small issue.43

JACKSON, RICHARD : Richard Jackson issued his token at the end of the 1660s or early in

the 1670s (though not dated it carries a stop in the form of a rosette with a flawed leaf, identified

with a London workshop production of the years 1667-72).44 His father, a carpenter, also

Richard, was prominent in the corporation in the 1650s. He got some corporation property

formerly in Catholic hands in 1657 ? one presumes from discovering it. He was sheriff in 1658

and 1659, lived in the Garr Ward in a seven-hearth house in 1664, retired from active

involvement in corporation affairs and died in 1685. His son Richard, the token issuer, was

apprenticed to Edmund Graves and admitted freeman 23 February 1666; he was sheriff in

1672, constable of the staple and a coroner in 1673, warden of the Company of Merchants in

1674, treasurer in 1675 and 1677, and mayor in 1678. He was involved in the export business;

there are records of him sending wheat, rye, malt and hides to Dover in 1683. Though nominated alderman on the Catholic-dominated corporation of 1687-90 with the four other

Protestant members he refused to take the required oath and was excluded. He was prominent in corporation affairs after 1690, being auditor and viewer in 1698. His family was born from

1672 to 1685 ; in 1699 one Richard Jackson ? it could have been this man now a widower or his

son ? was arranging a marriage between himself and Eleanor Conly, alias Peppard. This is the

only marriage between the merchant families across the religious divide that I have been able to

trace. Jackson's token, which has the device of an angel, is known from two related dies

indicating a small issue.45

KILLOGH, JOHN : John Killogh (or Kellogh) was a soldier of the Commonwealth who was

admitted free of the corporation in October 1649. He never became prominent in corporation affairs except once in July 1659, when he was fined five pounds for "several oppobrious words

and uncivil expressions by him spoken at the sayd assembly, tending to a mutiny and distur

bance" . It was a time when many were foreseeing the restoration of Charles II which took place in 1660 and becoming lukewarm in their support of the regime of Henry Cromwell. Killogh, it

appears, objected strenuously to such time-serving. He got a lease of some minor corporation

property in 1659 and was employed as overseer of the corporation (1658) and the erection of a

crane on the North Key (1661 ). On 29 September 1662 John Killogh was admitted a member of

Ardee Corporation and in April 1664 got a sixty-one year lease of property in Ardee at four

shillings per annum. He died in 1671 ; his wife Elizabeth, whose initial appears on the token, died

in 1672. His daughter Elizabeth married in 1669 the son of a token issuer whose name Libbeus

Lownd, indicates he was probably of the growing Presbyterian faction in the town. Killogh's

43 Council Book, 111, 153, 185, 221 and 230; D'Alton, op. cit., i, 192; Garstin, loc. cit., 85; Vicars, op. cit., 214.

44 See footnote 30.

45 Council Book, 48, 55, 64, 131, 156, 160-1, 177, 179, 224 and 263; Garstin, loc. cit., 86; Dolan, C.L.A.J., III, 3,

(1914), 252; Register for 1672-85; N.L.I., Peppard papers, deed D.16,258; D'Alton, op. cit., ii, 351.




token could have been issued either in the 50s or 60s; it has no date but stylistically it seems

likely to have been struck in the 1660s. In size and design it has an affinity with the Peppard token.46

LEA, LEY, LEIGH, JOHN : There are three different tokens issued in Drogheda by John Lea,

Ley or Leigh. One has no date, one is dated 1657 and the third 1664. They all bear the device of

the Leas, a lion, in the case of the first two statant and on the last token of 1664, rampant. It is

difficult to attribute these tokens because there were two families of Lea in Drogheda, one with

roots extending back before 1649 (a Father John Lea, of Drogheda, parish priest of St Severin in

Paris, was the founder of the Irish College in Paris about 1579), and another, of recent origin and

Protestant, which was to be very prominent in municipal affairs for another century ? a John

Leigh was mayor in 1700 and M.P. for Drogheda in 1717, and a Francis Leigh was sheriff in

1729 and M.P. in 1761,1768, and 1773. The problem is worsened by the existence of two John

Leas or Leys involved in corporation affairs, one from each family, in the 1650s and 60s. One

can be certain only that John Ley issuing in the 1650s was admitted to the fraternity of

merchants in 1656 and was granted small areas of discovered corporation property in 1657,

1658, and 1659. He was collector of the gate customs in 1661, 1664 and 1671. Better known

than he among Protestant Leys was Alderman Thomas Leigh; it was John's son born in 1668, who seems to have been the John Leigh prominent in the Williamite corporation at the end of

the century. The token issuer of the 1650s was accidentally drowned in 1683. The other Catholic

Lea is mentioned as being a baker who in 1654 was deprived of some land near the Blinde Butts,

i.e. near the Duleek Gate on the south side of the River Boyne. With a number of prominent Catholics, John Leigh was appointed overseer of highways"to view the wayes, and summon the

inhabitants to work and mend the highwayes" in 1664 and in the same year with Bartholomew

Hamlin, and two other Catholic merchants, Christopher and Patrick Chenin, John Lea was

summoned before the corporation to answer some unspecified objections. When the Catholic

merchants protested in 1668 against the proposal to deny them freedom in the town, John Lea

was one of the signatories of the protest. That there were two Leas, or Leys, cannot be doubted; that the Protestant Ley issued the tokens of 1657 seems very probable (he was admitted free of

the corporation in 1656); that he also issued the token dated 1664 seems likely (the initial A

appears on it where the wife's initial normally appears and he married Ann Sheenan in 1657 ) but

who was the issuer of the token bearing the name John Lea ? It is difficult to determine, but could

well have been Catholic John Lea who would have issued sometime in the 1660s. As there is no

mention of him being admitted free of the corporation he was probably free before 1649 and in

theory at least could have issued the tokens before 1657. Its stylistic resemblance to the Bellew

token issued in 1664 and the absence of evidence for even one Catholic issuing tokens in the

years 1656-7 indicates that if the token was his, it was issued in the next decade.47

LOWND, LIBBEUS : Libbeus Lownd who issued his token in 1667 was a grocer. The

denomination, a halfpenny, was unusual in Ireland (there is one other from Drogheda, that of

Edward Martin). He was admitted free of the corporation after 1657. He lived in a two-hearth

house in the Tholsel Ward in 1663; his wife's name was Alice. His son, also Libbeus, was

admitted to the Company of Chandlers in 1669, married Elizabeth Killogh in the same year and

46 Council Book, 25, 68, 55 and 87; O'Hart, op. cit., 41 7; Register for 1671 and 1689; J. T. Dolan,"The Minute Book

of the Corporation of Ardee \C.L.A.J., 111,4, (1915), 361 (where kellogh is given as Relliough) and IV, 1, (1916), 38.

47 John Lynch, De Praesulihus Hibemiae, ed. J. F. ODoherty (2 vols, Dublin, 1944), i, 167; Council Book, 268, 392,

48, 61, 69-70, 91, 116, 150, 30, 11 0 and 112; DAlton,'op. cit., i, 37, 192 and 245.




was elected by his company as a common council man on the corporation in 1672. There is no

other record of the family in Drogheda. There are at least two dies of the token and one

specimen which could be a counterfeit. The device is a cheese knife.48

MARTIN, EDWARD : Edward Martin was a Cromwellian soldier who settled in Drogheda after 1650; one of his tokens carries the arms of the London Guild of Grocers, and indicates his

main commercial interests. When the corporation of Drogheda was abolished, he was one of the

commissioners appointed by the military commander to govern the town. He was a justice in

1655 and in 1659, alderman of the revived corporation in 1657, and got corporation leases on

some parcels of land including some formerly possessed by the most prominent of the Catholic

merchants, George Pippard. His house in the Shop Street/Dyer Street area had six hearths in

1663, a sign of moderate wealth. He was in dispute with George Pippard over corporation

property in 1666, the year of his death; the name disappears from the records after 1669 when

his son Edward was on a committee fixing porters' wages for carrying goods from the quays and was elected sheriff. His family does not seem to have achieved any prominence in corporation affairs. His three tokens seem to have been issued in the 1660s, though the pennies could have

been struck in the 1650s.49 In design they seem to relate to the Bellew token which was probably issued after 1664. Though Martin was at his most prosperous and influential in the 1650s, he fell

on evil days in the 1660s perhaps because he had to return confiscated property to their Catholic

former owners. He probably ended as a retailer in a modest way, (though in his funeral entry, the

Martin coat of arms is sketched ? a claim to gentle status) and in the years 1660-6 issued his

tokens. His wife's name was Jane Pierce and her initial appears on the two penny tokens.50

PIPPARD, THOMAS : Thomas Pippard was eldest surviving son of Christopher Pippard who died in 1635, second son of Alderman George Pippard, head of the family in Drogheda. Though their claim to be descended from the justiciar of Henry II in Ireland, Gilbert Pippard, can be taken as doubtful, the family was very prominent in the commercial life of the town for many years. The first Pippard with Drogheda connections seems to have been Thomas, fourth son of Patrick Pippard of Balrothery, a place half-way between Drogheda and Dublin. His will was

proved in 1557. The uncle of the token issuer also called Thomas, married to a Hamlin, died in 1640 and was M.P. for Drogheda in 1634 and 1639. Thomas Pippard, with his brother Ignatius and the senior members of his family, his cousins George and Robert, seems to have supported both royalist army in Drogheda 1641-7 and parliamentary authorities in 1647-9 because with his cousin George and his brother Ignatius, he got in the Cromwellian plantation, land in Louth which had been confiscated from Lord Gormanston and Robert Plunkett of Bewley. Presum

ably this was to compensate him for his aid to the various armies which had occupied Drogheda in the 1640s. He was confirmed in these lands in the 1660s and was restored to his property in the town with the other Catholic landowners in Drogheda who had not supported the Irish rebels during the Confederate wars. He was refused freedom of the town in 1660 but was

granted it with the other Catholic merchants in 1664. He lived in a house with eight hearths in 1663 in the North Quay area. In return for services rendered to the corporation in 1667 he was leased property in the Shop Street/Dyer Street area. By trade he was a tailor. He was one of the

Catholic merchants who protested in 1668. In 1671 he was an overseer of the highway in the north side of the town and also in 1679. In 1669 his daughter married a son of Lady Bedlowe

48 Council Book, 46, 147 and 158; Garstin, loc. cit., 85; Register for 1669 and 1676. 49 See footnote 29.

50 O'Hart, op. eh., 391 \ Council Book, 63,43, 131 and 145; Register for 1655; Garstin, loc. cit., 85; N.L.I., Peppard papers, deed D. 16,210.




from Bedlowestown (Castletown Bellew) near Dundalk. He was an alderman in the Jacobite

corporation 1687-90, mayor in 1688 and was one of those who benefited from the few months of

Catholic control to gain a few reversions of leases (including one with Luke Conly, Andrew

Moore and his second cousin, Christopher Pippard, of the lands in Killineer to the north of the town then possessed by William Tichbourne). He was not outlawed in 1691 presumably because

of the terms on which Drogheda surrendered to William III after the battle of the Boyne. He was

in dispute with the corporation in 1692 but evidently the leases granted in the years 1687-8

could not be broken and he and his family enjoyed the use of corporation lands until well into the

eighteenth century. He seems to have died in 1701. The will of Thomas Pippard, 1714, seems to

be of a cousin, son of Alderman George Pippard. The Pippards used the same set of Christian

names, Thomas, George, Christopher and Ignatius making identification of the various

branches difficult. Pippard's token bears the Pippard arms and does not appear to have been struck in great abundance. Since he became a freeman in 1664 it was most likely struck after that

date.51

POOLE, FRANCIS : Francis Poole, a chandler, seems to have been a Cromwellian soldier who

settled in Drogheda early in the 1650s. His family was born between 1656 and 1664. He was

sheriff in 1656 and got a few small grants of discovered corporation property before 1660. He was able to go surety of ?500 for the treasurer in 1661, and had a three-hearth house in the Shop

Street/Dyer Street area in 1663, was on a number of corporation committees in the 1660s, an

alderman in 1664 and died as mayor in 1667. As seems the case with nearly all the ex

Cromwellian soldiers, there is no further reference to his family in Drogheda records. His tokens issued in 1656 seem to have been struck from one die only indicating that the issue was a small

one.52

ROOKES, JOHN : Though the Rookes family was in Drogheda in the 1650s the name does not

appear in the Hearth Roll returns in 1663, making it likely that they lived in a house of one

hearth. John Rookes' first wife, Mercy, died in February 1669 and he was admitted a freeman of

the fraternity of tailors in April of that year. The initial of his second wife, Mary Hunt, appears on his tokens, and his last child was baptized in 1679. Nothing more is known of him and we may assume he was never a merchant of influence. The token, dated 1671, has on it the arms of the

London Guild of Merchant Tailors and is known from one die only.53

STANBRIDGE, SAMUEL : Samuel Stanbridge was in Drogheda in 1644, elected sheriff in

April 1649 and auditor of the corporation accounts for the year 1649-50. He had loaned money or given goods to the army before 1649, and loaned thirty pounds to the corporation for the

military authorities in 1650. His is the only Drogheda name on the petition to Henry Cromwell in 1654 by the Dublin merchants against the restrictions imposed from London on Irish trade.

He was chosen a commissioner for administering justice when the corporation was suppressed and was mayor in 1656 when the corporation was revived. Like many other Protestant mem

bers, he collected a few leases in the late 1650s having been one of those charged with examining these in 1657. He was one of the eight charged with raising money to finance a representative to

51 John O'Hart, Irish Pedigrees (2 vols, New York, 1915), ii, 342-3; N.L.I., Peppard papers, deeds, 16,403 and

D. 16,228L; D' Alton, op. cit., i, 192,199 and 244, ii, 295; P.R.O.I., Books of Surveys and Distribution for parish of

Termonfeckin;Cfl/.5.P. Ire., 1660-2, 353; Garstin, loc. cit., 84; Council Book, 81, 111, 153,185, 221, 226 and 235;

Register for 1669, 1660 and 1655; N.L.I., Peppard papers, deeds D.16,403, D.16,421, D.16,247 and D.16,397;

O'Hart, Landed Gentry, 402 and 322; Cal. S.P. Ire., I?60-2, 380; Rice, loc. cit., 102-3.

52 O'Hart, Landed Gentry, 402 and 420; Council Book, 36, 90, 111 and 138; Garstin, loc. cit., 85; Register for 1656-64.

53 Register for 1655, 1669-79; Council Book, 145.




go to the king in England in order to prevent, which he failed to do, the Catholics from getting back their confiscated leases and property. This, and a fire in his house in 1665 (it was in the

Shop Street/Dyer Street area and had six hearths in 1663) helped to impoverish him; he died in

1668. Again there is no further mention of his name in the municipal records. He issued two

tokens; one, in 1653, was one of the earliest in the country and had on it the arms of the London

Guild of Merchant Tailors; the other, issued in 1657, had the arms of the London Guild of

Grocers.54

TIRRELL, RICHARD : One, Alderman Andrew Tyrrell died in 1635. He was second son of

Richard Tyrrell of Brinoxtown, Co Westmeath, whose two wives, Ismay Brett and Mary Moore came from prominent merchant families of Drogheda and Athboy. His heir, a nephew

Gerard, was probably father of the token issuer, Richard.

Tirrell was one of the Old English merchants free of the corporation before 1649. In April of that year he was elected sheriff; his successor, Patrick Tracie, being elected sheriff at

Michaelmas refused the office and was replaced ?

presumably because after the Cromwellian

armies took the town some anti-Catholic affirmation was required of office holders. In 1644 he had been cited by the Irish Parliament for not paying taxes. He lived in the town in the 1650s

losing land by confiscation as late as 1659. He was restored by the king in 1660 and is found in

the same year among the overseers of the highways on the south side of the river. He had a house

of two hearths in the Garr Ward in 1663, and was one of the protestors against Catholics being excluded from freedom in 1668. In 1669 he got leases on corporation property for sixty-one years. The name disappears from the corporation records except for a reference to his son, born

in 1656, being outlawed in 1691. The token, with the Tirrell coat of arms, is known from one die

only, and by style seems to date from the mid-1660s.55

(To be continued)

54 Cal.S.P.Ire., 1647-60, 572-3; Council Book, 24, 26,35,49,79and 120; Registerfor 1668; O'Hart, Landed Gentry, 406; Garstin, loc. cit., 85.

55 Council Book, 24, 74, 77 and 143; D'Alton, op. cit., i, 192 and 24, ii, 349 and 260; Register for 1656 and 1662; O'Hart, Landed Gentry, 326.



The Seventeenth-Century Tokens of County Louth

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Transcript of The Seventeenth-Century Tokens of County Louth