McCLURES IN IRELAND.
When and why did members of the family emigrate from Scotland to Ireland? There are two answers to this question.
First, in the Planting of Ulster. Following the accession of James VI of Scotland to the throne of England, 1603, the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell inaugurated a general rebellion against the King. The effort failed, resulting ultimately in 511,465 acres of land, six counties in the province of Ulster, being forfeited to the crown.
James sought to settle upon these lands a Protestant population. Grants of land and numerous privileges were held out as inducements. Thousands availed themselves of the advantageous offer, and settled with their families upon these forfeited estates.
Among these emigrants were three McClures from Ayrshire, Scotland, supposedly brothers, who crossed over the channel to Ireland in 1608.
One settled at Saintfield, County Down. In this branch of the family the name Anthony frequently occurs, as it does also in an Ayrshire family of McClures "represented now as sole survivor by Mr. William McClure, Solicitor, of Hill Crest, Wigton, Scotland."
From him descended the late William Waugh-McClure, Justice of the Peace, Windsor Terrace, Lurgan, Ireland; also Thomas McClure born 1716, married in 1750 Elizabeth Ralston, the ancestor of John Wilfrid McClure, the author of several articles on The McClure Family published in the Belfast Witness, 1904, and from which the facts here stated are taken. He was connected for a number of years with the Munster and Leinster Bank, Dublin. This couple, Thomas and Elizabeth McClure, were weavers, the latter being famously deft in the use of the distaff. They died aged 101 and 102, respectively.
The most distinguished of the McClures of Down was Rev. Robert McClure, for sixty-three years pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Annahilt, ordained and installed
