County Coleraine

dublincc2

As many will know, before County Derry was formed it 1613 it was know as County Coleraine, however the territory of this county was not the same as the current county. The city of Derry west of the Foyle was part of Co Donegal and Coleraine east of the Bann was part of Co Antrim. Also the barony of Loughinsholin in the southeast around Magherafelt was part of Co Tyrone. 

Co Coleraine was founded in 1585, but the current town of Coleraine which is east of the Bann was in Co Antrim at this time. I believe the town of Coleraine wasn’t actually founded until Co Derry was in 1613.

So why was the county named after Coleraine when the location of today’s Coleraine was in Co Antrim at the time? Did Coleraine exist west of the Bann prior to the 17th century?

Peregrinus

When the county was formed in 1585 nobody was excessively concerned about where exactly its boundaries lay. The area was not under government control and the establishment of the county was more an aspiration to bring it under control and a mechanism for actually controlling it. Coleraine as a town didn't really exist; it wasn't established until the London Company's plantation got under way properly nearly 20 years later. Colerain as a place-name did exist; it probably referred to both banks of the river. My guess is that the county was called "'Coleraine" because that was the principal point of entry for a government that (more or less) controlled Antrim.

In so far as the county had a centre of government, it was at first in Desertmartin which was (then) in Tyrone. Which, again, points to nobody being massively bothered about boundaries.

dublincc2

I agree that the boundaries didn’t really mean much but the eastern boundary of Co Coleraine was the Bann and I always thought Coleraine lay east of that river. So why name the county after a town that firstly didn’t exist and secondly wasn’t even in the boundaries of said county?

I don’t understand the Desertmartin link, there is no record of the courthouse and gaol ever existing there beyond the Wikipedia article and it was in a separate county.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120598030#Comment_120598030

The town of Coleraine didn't exist in 1585 but the placename certainly did, and had for a long time. And I'm guessing that the area named Coleraine included both banks of the river.

Mullinabreena

I realise that boundaries kept changing over the years but would there be any map of Ireland from the mid 1500s showing the Tuatha borders or the equivalent before the counties were formed?

Peregrinus

The Irish church dioceses were established in the 12th century, three or four centuries before the counties were, and (outside the pale) they are thought to to correspond to social/political divisions that already existed. So you could check out a map of Irish dioceses, like this one.

But dioceses are much larger territorial units than túatha would have been. Each diocese must encompass a number of túatha. A better option might be a map of baronies. These also date from the Tudor period but they are thought in many cases to have adopted much older territorial divisions, and there is archaeological evidence that the boundaries of many of them were marked as boundaries long before the Tudor period.

But it's important to remember that the túath was first and foremost a group of people, and only secondarily the land they occupied. Thus boundaries were probably somewhat malleable; as settlement patterns changed and developed, the túath boundaries would have shifted with them. Some boundaries might have been very well-estaglished and never changed, while others, in less settled areas with less productive land, or in land contested between different groups, might have changed quite a lot. A map could only ever capture the boundaries at a point in time.