History of Inniskeen, County Monaghan

                              The Norman knights, led by John De Courcy, realised the strategic                               importance of the area and the Monastic site. They constructed a                               motte on top of and around the stone-age burial chamber. The                               motte was crowned by a stockade, with a fortified bailey or                               courtyard at the base.At the date 1178 AD the Annals of the Four                               Masters records the devastation by the Normans, of Machaire       Norman Knight       Conaill - the plain in which Inis-Caoin stands.

Through the middle ages and down to the suppression of the monasteries, the Augustinians of St. Mary's Abbey at Louth, were the pastors of the new parish of Inis-Caoin. The people lived in scattered towns or cabins built in formless clusters, namely, Candlefort, Drumass, Mullaghinsha, Blackshanquogh (Shancoduff) and Blackstaff.

In 1509 AD copies of English Maps and surveys Inis-Caoin was anglicised as "Enniskeen or Iniskene" and the are noted as church land, belonging to the primate of Armagh, who at that time was in dispute with the Earl of Essex as to the ownership of townlands south west of the river Fane. The territory was then called Clancarroll, part of the Barony of Farney.

In the late 17th century these lands became the property of Viscount Weymouth, Lord Bath. Thus they remained until the Bath Estate was sold to the tenants in the 1880's.