The traditional story is that the father of Armour Curry Lowery Sproule of Mullaghabane is John Sproule of Grennan. This John of Grennan lived in the 1700s, so do we know anything about him? Yes we do, but only a little. We knew even less about him until the last few years when Jamie Reid and I did a trawl through the Registry of Deeds on Familysearch.org. The deeds that we found concerning John of Grennan gave us some key information about his family history, and some snippets of interesting insight into his life. I can definitely tell you now that this John Sproule of Grennan seems to have been a bit of a character.
We first see this when we meet John Sproule on Jack Elder’s family tree of the 'Upper Grennan' branch, where Elder asks;
"Is this the John Sproule whom John Inch calls, ‘Long Jack of Dullaghan’, who was a Lieutenant in the Irish volunteers of 1782, and an expert swordsman who fought a duel at Strabane with a military officer and cut off the latter’s right hand? Long Jack had a son Oliver and a daughter?”
No, Jack Elder, you have the wrong one. That John Sproule that you have on that Upper Grennan tree
wasn’t ‘Long Jack of Dullaghan’,
but we have the right one! We have the John
Sproule who John Inch says was in the 1782 Irish Volunteers, and who cut off
the military officer’s right hand in a duel. We are certain that we have the right one because the
deeds that we found connect him tightly to Dullaghan, and to being, therefore, the person who warrants the nickname, ‘Long
Jack of Dullaghan’. The deeds actually connect
John Sproule to three different townlands, to Grennan, to Dullaghan and to the townland
of our current story, to Mullaghabane, where Armour Sproule lived.
Elder did not know where to place John Sproule of Grennan on
the family tree, but Jamie Reid came to the rescue only recently. Jamie uncovered a key
deed for this Grennan family that actually tells us when John Sproule was born
and who his father is. (1747 Deed)
 |
| Grennan, Dullaghan and Mullaghabane in the Parish of Dromore |
This deed is dated 11 June 1747, and in it, James Sproule of Grennan is leasing a farm in Dullaghan, from an Andrew Crawford. The date of this deed suggests that this James Sproule of Grennan is likely to be James, the son of Cornet Andrew Spreull,although he could also be a grandson. On the deed, as is usual in those days, James Sproule names two ‘lives’, and these are two of his two sons:*
“Charles Sproul aged then five years and John Sproul aged then three yrs both sons to ye said James Sproul”
So we know that Charles Sproule, son of James of Grennan, was born in 1742 and that John Sproule of Grennan, son of James, was born in 1744.
What else did we discover in the deeds? Well, another significant one was the marriage Mary Sproule, daughter of John Sproule of Grennan, to Chadwaladar
Blayney of Oughterard in 1792, a deed that was also in the Registry of Deeds on
Familysearch.org. I found this deed fascinating. It was a marriage settlement
deed, a normal procedure at those times. The idea of the settlement was
financial, to create a fund, or a trust, in case the husband should die. This,
then, would provide for the wife and any children.
Normally it names the couple, like Chadwaladar Blayney and Mary Sproule. It also typically names the father of each of the couple, John Sproule and Ambrose Blayney in this case. Sometimes there are trustees, who will look after the trust for the wife, usually two people, one from each side. This isn’t done this time, the money was small. Then there are witnesses to the settlement, again usually one from each side.
When I transcribed this marriage settlement, I wrote a note at the bottom,in bold red;
It was very striking. There were 3 witnesses, none of them are
Sproules. I have never seen that before or since. Only later did I realise,
there were no Blayneys either! There is something very odd going on here. There
is no brother of either of the couple standing as a witness, nor anyone else baring
either of their names. Did Mary Sproule,
daughter of John Sproule, have no brothers old enough to be witnesses in 1792? What
about her father's brothers or other Grennan Sproules– were there no male Sproules
there who would be witnesses? There are plenty of Blayneys in the neighbourhood,
Chadwaladar Blayney definitely had a brother Ambrose, if not others. But no
Blayney witnesses. Odd.
We’ll move on to see what the other deeds reveal about John Sproule of Grennan. I'll give you a very quick summary which I have arranged to give you a timeline. The year of each deed is on the left, and the note on each on the right shows something that stands out a mile!
|
1744 |
John Sproule of Grennan is born. |
|
1782 |
John Sproule is a Lieutenant the
Irish Volunteers (From Elder) |
|
1784 |
John Sproule of
Grennan is borrowing money
from Oliver Sproule the Apothecary in Omagh. For this he mortgages land in Grennan, Dullaghan and Mullaghbane |
|
1790 |
John of
Grennan is borrowing money
from Oliver Sproule the Apothecary mortgaging just the Dullaghan land. |
|
1792 |
Marriage
of Chadwallader Blayney, son of Ambrose Blayney and Mary Sproule, daughter of
John Sproule of Grennan |
|
1792 |
John of
Grennan is borrowing money
from William Stephenson - mortgaging the
land in Dullaghan. |
|
1798 |
John is
now called John Sproule of Dullaghan. He is borrowing money this time from his son-in-law, Chadwalader
Blayney. He is mortgaging land in Mullaghabane
and Dullaghan ‘formerly held by James Sproule father of the said John’ |
There is a lot of money borrowing going on there! Between the money and the duel we learnt about earlier, this John Sproule comes across as what my mother would call ‘a profligate’. (She loved regency novels!) We will never know why John Sproule borrows money or what he does with his money. What we do know is that this man does need money.
Now, we have looked at Lord Belmore, Armar Lowry-Corry, and
we have looked at John Sproule of Grennan. What, if anything,
connects the two? Why would this John Sproule of Grennan call one of his sons after
one of the highest Lords in Ireland? Why would he call him Armour Curry Lowery Sproule?
The Deeds
1784 John Sproule of Grennan borrowing from Oliver Sproule the Apothecary in Omagh
Grenan, mortgaging Dullaghan and Mullaghbane. 354 540 240500, Registry of DeedsDublin, Familysearch.org
1790 John Sproule of Grennan mortgaging Dullaghan to Oliver Sproule the Apothecary, 1 January 1790, 451 218 289682, Registry of Deeds Dublin, Familysearch.org
1792 Marriage of Chadwallader Blayney, son of Ambrose Blayney and Mary Sproule, daughter of John Sproule of Grennan, 11 Apr 1792, 478 553 311812, Registry of Deeds Dublin, Familysearch.org
** The ‘lives’ in a deed provided a measure of time. Some deeds last for a period of years, e.g. 40 years. Other deeds last for the length of time someone lives, a named person on the deed. When that person dies the deed expires. Usually, the names on the deeds were the youngest possible people, for obvious reasons. Two or three names were usually given and the deed expired when the last one died. A third type of deed were ‘perpetual’ deeds. These had named ‘lives’ in the same way, but the names could be replaced. So when the last one dies, 2 or three new names go on to the deed. This can go on forever.
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