ence between the present standard of ministerial propriety and that current a century ago. Near Hillsborough, at a place called The Maze, there is a race-course, once very famous, and I believe still of considerable repute. Riding to it one morning during the race week with some of the local gentry, he overheard an altercation between a woman and her son, whom she was endeavoring to persuade to stay away from the races. To the final declaration of the youth, 'I will go; there is our minister going,' Mr. McClure merely remarked, 'No one will ever say that again,' turned his horse round and despite the exhortations of his friends for being so needlessly scrupulous, rode home and was never seen on a race course again."
The second brother settled at Crumlin, County Antrim, ancestor of the late Sir Thomas McClure, (1806-1893), M. P. from Belmont, son of William McClure and Elizabeth Thomson and grandson of Thomas McClure and Anne Swan, of Summer Hill, County Antrim; whose remote ancestor was an officer under William III, at the Battle of the Boyne.
The third brother settled in Armagh, ancestor of James McClure, of Armagh "attained 1688 in the reign of James II, along with quite a number of other Protestant landowners in Ireland." He is referred to as "James McClure, gentleman."
Dr. David Miller, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Armagh, writes under date of January 28, 1913: "My records of the 18th century, baptisms and marriages, are very defective, covering only the period 1707-28. I can find only one entry with the name McClure; it is a marriage—John McClure and Margaret Martin, June 13, 1723. The name does not seem to have been common about Armagh, nor is it yet. In the records of the Synod of Ulster I notice that an Elder, James McClure, attended the Synod at Antrim in 1705. His minister's name was Archibald Maclane, who could not have been the minister of the Armagh church, for his name was John Hutcheson, but his congregation was in the Presbytery of Armagh.
The second distinct emigration of McClures to Ireland
