1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cavan (town)

CAVAN, a market-town and the county town of Co. Cavan, Ireland, near the centre of the county, in the west parliamentary division, 851/2 m. N.W. of Dublin by the Midland Great Western railway, and the terminus of a branch of the Great Northern railway from Clones. Pop. of urban district (1901), 2822. It is on one of the tributary streams of the Annalee river, in a broad valley surrounded on every side by elevated ground, with picturesque environs, notably the demesnes of Farnham and of Kilmore, which belongs to the bishops of that diocese. Cavan has no buildings of antiquarian interest, but the principal county institutions are here, and the most conspicuous building is the grammar school, founded by Charles I. It was rebuilt in 1819 on an eminence overlooking one of the main entrances into the town, and is capable of accommodating 100 resident pupils. The college of St Patrick is near the town. Cavan has some linen trade, and a considerable retail business is transacted in the town. A monastery of Dominican friars, founded by O’Reilly, chieftain of the Brenny, formerly existed here, and became the burial-place of the celebrated Irish general, Owen O’Neill, who died as is supposed by poison, in 1649, at Cloughoughter. There was also the castle of the O’Reillys, but this and all other antiquities of the town were swept away during the violent and continuous feuds to which the country was subjected. In 1690 the chief portion of the town was burned by the Enniskilleners under General Wolseley, when they routed a body of James II.’s troops under the duke of Berwick.