The Sixtowns Community History and Heritage Group aims to gather and save as much of our history and heritage as possible and to preserve it so that it will be there for our children in the years to come. The Sixtowns gets its name from the six townlands of which it is comprised, namely Moyard, Glenviggan, Moneyconey, Tullybrick, Owenreagh and Cavanreagh.The Sixtowns owes its origins to the Old Church of Ballinascreen, in the townland of Moneyconey which dates back at least 1,000 years and is believed in local folklore to have been founded by St. Originally, in the reign of the O`Neills it was traditional that all churches were allotted a piece of agricultural land on which tennants leased plots and the rents would go towards the upkeep of the church. These churchlands were called erenaghs and the tenants would elect a person to be in charge of it who was also called the erenagh. The erenagh`s job was to collect rents and allot land as it was deemed necessary to tenants.There is a record in the Annals of the Four Masters of the erenagh of the church of Scrine having been murdered in 1183 AD. After the Flight of Earls when all their lands were confiscated these churchlands were handed over to the Church of Ireland. The Sixtowns then became the property of the Church of Ireland Bishop of Raphoe. At this stage the erenagh lands of the Sixtowns took up a much smaller area than they do now. This was because the population was much smaller, there was a lot of surrounding mountain pastures which were not designated to any particular owner and which was wild and unused. The townland names would not have been used so much as that of smaller division names like Dunarnon, Strannahinch, Altaeskey, Bouley , Evishceannavaddy and Crockmoran. This changed when the church sold the Sixtowns to James Stevenson of Tobermore whose intention was to make a buisiness out of it as its landlord. He proceeded to break up the old Rundale farm system and move tenants out of the clachans to maximise the area of land on which he could pick up rent. As the perimeters of the new areas of settlement spread out further into the mountains it was then necessary to designate more clearly the boundaries of the six townlands. As a result the smaller place names became incorporated into the bigger townlands and gradually fell out of use. We can see examples of this in the 1832 census and the Griffiths Evaluation 30 odd years later. The older placenames have disappeared by the time the Griffiths Evaluation was carried out. There is also a record of a land dispute between Stevenson and the land lord who owned part of Davagh, over where the boundary of Tullybrick extended to.
