Virginia, County Cavan

Virginia was founded in the early 17th century,[3] at Aghanure (Irish: Achadh an Iúir, meaning 'field of the yew'),[2] during the Plantation of Ulster and was named Virginia after Queen Elizabeth I of England, the "Virgin Queen."

The settlement was started when an English adventurer named John Ridgeway was granted the Crown patent in August 1612 to build a new town, situated upon the Great Road, approximately midway between the towns of Kells and Cavan.[4] The chosen site was, according to tradition, where a ruined Ó Raghallaigh (O'Reilly) castle stood, and was then described as Aghaler, a location once set within the ancient Lurgan parish townland of Ballaghanea. The patented conditions of the settlement were to introduce English settlers to the area and build the town to incorporate borough status. Ridgeway had difficulty in attracting sufficient English tradespeople and settler families into what was then regarded as a hostile territory outside of the protection of the Pale, so he only managed to build a few wooden cabins and a corn mill near to the castle. His new town was situated close to the shores of Lough Ramor.

Ridgeway passed the patent on to another Englishman, Captain Hugh Culme, who already possessed lands beside Lough Oughter in County Cavan and had access to building timber. Culme persuaded the Plantation Commission to move the location of Virginia to its present site close to the Blackwater tributary river, whereupon he built a number of cabins for the settlers but still failed to meet the commission's time frame for developing the town further before giving up on the task, probably for the same reasons as his predecessor.

During November 1622, the Virginia estate came into the possession of the 10th Baron Killeen (who was created the 1st Earl of Fingall in 1628), who also held extensive lands around County Meath. Lord Killeen, who was a Catholic Anglo-Irish peer of Norman descent, whose family had come to Ireland in the twelfth century, undertook to complete the patented project. Complaints from the Virginia inhabitants about the lack of development progress reached the commission by 1638 whereupon Christopher Plunkett, 2nd Earl of Fingall (who had succeeded his father in the earldom in 1637) was ordered to submit a substantial bond with the commission's court, and to build the church in Virginia or face forfeiture of his County Cavan lands. The Anglican Bishop of Kilmore, William Bedell, undertook to lay out the town in accordance with the commission's requirement. However, events which led to the Irish Rebellion of 1641 and Irish Confederate Wars enveloped Virginia causing widespread destruction and depopulation. The summer of 1642 saw the outright destruction by government forces of the castle along with the burning of stocks of hay, corn and turf in a bid to punish the outlawed Lord Fingall for his role in the Siege of Drogheda (1641).

What remained of Virginia after the wars can be assessed through hearth tax records from the 1660s, indicating a small resident community. During the following century estate surveys were undertaken for the absentee landlord (exiled since the Williamite wars of 1688–91) which tell of a wayside Inn that existed since the earliest times (exact location unknown), operated then in 1727 by a Cornelius Donnellan and was frequented around that time by Jonathan Swift during his several excursions to County Cavan.

The Virginia estate was eventually sold around the year 1750, on behalf of the Plunketts, to pay off mounting debts, with a new landlord family, the Taylors (later spelt as Taylour), taking over. Virginia and its surrounding estate were particularly developed by Thomas Taylor (1724-1795), who built up the town and succeeded where others had failed. Taylor (who changed the spelling of the family surname to Taylour) succeeded his father in the baronetcy in 1757. The then Sir Thomas Taylour, 3rd Bt., was created 1st Baron Headfort in 1760, and 1st Viscount Headfort in 1762. Lord Headfort was further advanced in the peerage to become The 1st Earl of Bective in 1766. It is recorded that Lord Bective's great-grandfather, also a Thomas Taylor, was a cartographer who assisted Sir William Petty with the Down Survey during the previous century.

The Taylor (later Taylour) family had built a substantial mansion, Headfort House (now a school), beside Kells in the north of County Meath. The family (who were granted the title Marquis of Headfort in 1800) now turned their attention to making the unproductive lands around Virginia into profitable farms through land drainage and afforestation of low-lying areas, also resulting in increases in rent paid by the farm tenants. While this in itself was not unique among Irish landlords, an acre of land at twenty old pennies (20>240) became fifteen shillings (180>240) per acre before the end of the century with a premium paid by flax growers. The results of which brought employment and management to the Headfort estates and quickly led to the setting up of markets and fairs in Virginia where local produce including flax yarn and linen was traded on the streets. Virginia's population doubled between the census years of 1821 to 1841, and there was rapid construction in the town, leading to the Main Street as it is seen today. Successive Marquesses of Headfort created their own private demesne and a hunting lodge (now Park Hotel) overlooking Lough Ramor.

The Great Famine, caused by successive failures in the potato crop and the export of other foodstuffs outside of Ireland, brought with it extreme hardship for the poorer classes, with death due to diseases like typhus and cholera, prevalent due to poor sanitation, contaminated drinking water and other poor living conditions. Starvation, which impacted many parts of the country, was averted in Virginia due to the efforts of the local Famine Relief Committee, who made extra rations of Indian meal available in return for hard labour, this included women and children breaking stones for making roads and the building of the local Catholic church which took place during 1845 on lands donated by the landlord.

In subsequent years Virginia prospered with the introduction of a butter market in 1856, followed by the opening of the Great Northern Railway (GNR) line between Kells and Oldcastle in March 1863. Cattle and livestock could then be moved for export, however, this also meant that products such as coal and beer could be transported from the larger towns into rural areas which led to the closure of the local malt brewery and several bakeries in the town.

Perhaps the most famous Virginia emigrant was General Philip H. Sheridan (1831-1888), whose parents came from nearby Killinkere, left Ireland around 1830 and settled in America. Sheridan achieved success, and notoriety, through a military career, particularly during the American Civil War. President Lincoln stated, "this Sheridan is a little Irishman, but a big fighter", he eventually became commanding General of the US Army and had many honours bestowed upon him.

The closure of the Virginia Roads railway station, and GNR line, in 1958, came about as Ireland's population fell to its lowest levels - the 1951 census lists Virginia with a population of just 297 persons.

In 2007 the local Development Association submitted a proposal to have a new Regional Hospital built near Virginia, on a site owned by Cavan County Council. Although widely supported by the community and the region's political representatives, the bid was abandoned with a government announcement that there was not a 'red penny' available for such a project. Road transport links to Virginia have seen some improvement since the opening in 2010 of the M3 motorway linking Virginia to Dublin. This has led to a continued rise in local developments, with many new houses and commercial businesses being built.