most southern barony in Antrim. They are now all over Ulster, and those in one village or town are generally unconscious of any connection with those of another.
It is said of the descendants of the McClure who settled first at Knockbreda, near Belfast in Co. Down, 1608, that some of them settled in Belfast, some in Lisburn, Ballymena and other places in Co. Antrim. Some went further afield into Derry, which has several monuments of them. There are tombstones in the old burying ground at Knockbreda going back to the early years of the 18th century. In Carmany churchyard, Co. Antrim, there is the grave of Isabella McClure, daughter of Archibald McClure of Belfast, who died February, 1788, aged seven years.
At the Tercentenary Celebration of Presbyterianism in Ireland, held in Belfast June, 1913, J. W. Kernohan, M. A., in his address on Irish Presbyterianism, said in conclusion: "Indeed, in the commercial and professional annals of Belfast, it would be found on inquiry that if the names of the outstanding Presbyterians were eliminated, * * * it would be robbed of much of its moral, material and intellectual strength." In the list, which he gives in this paragraph, we find the name McClure.
Several of the Ireland McClures claim a coat of arms as do those of Scotland, generally similar to that of the late Sir Thomas McClure, of Belfast, namely, a domed tower and pennant, but while his motto was Spectemur agendo, theirs is Paratus sum, which is also the motto of the McClures of Lancashire, though their coat of arms and crest are different.
In addition to the arma, crests, &c., of the McLeods, which belong equally to the McClures, we find in Robson's Heraldry, Vol. II, and Fairbairn's Crests, Vol. I, under McLure, (or MacLure,) Scotland:
ARMS—Argent on a cheveron engrailed azure between three roses, gules, a martlet of the field.
CREST—An eagle's head, erased, proper.
MOTTO—Paratus sum.
