Prehen

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Prehen is a townland in Northern Ireland about 1 mile from Derry/Londonderry. The name 'Prehen' is derived from the Gaelic word Preachan meaning 'place of the crows'.
Before the Plantation of Ulster in the early seventeenth century, Prehen was in the freehold of Captain Manus O'Cahan but was taken over by the Goldsmiths' Company of London.
The first settlers arrived in the 1620's but it was not until 1664 when the land was granted by charter to Alexander Tomkins, who established the main house, that it became truly habitable.
Later, in 1738, the Prehen heiress Honoria Tomkins, great grand-daughter of the said Alexander, married Andrew Knox of Rathmullan and Moneymore, great, great grandson of Andrew Knox, Bishop Of The Isles who first arrived in Ireland in 1609 from Scotland to establish the Protestant faith. In this way, Andrew Knox of Rathmullan and Moneymore acquired Prehen as his third property in 1740 after which he set about building Prehen House which stands in Prehen to this day.
It was to this house that John, (later to be known as 'Half-Hanged' McNaghten came, originally as a guest and friend of Andrew Knox, whose only daughter Mary Ann he tricked into an arranged marriage so that he could win her dowry as her legal husband. But Mr Knox objected to his deceit and had him thrown out of Prehen, refusing to hand over the girl's fortune, and had the marriage eventually declared void on the grounds of the girl's age. (McNaghten was aged 34, Mary Ann, 16). McNaghten, infuriated (but believing himself entitled to Mary Ann's £5000 marriage dowry), cursed the girl's father and swore bloody revenge on Andrew Knox and all his family in front of several witnesses and set in motion a plan to abduct the girl, in the time honoured fashion and then 'consummate' the marriage after which he believed Mr Knox would have no choice but to hand over the money. Over the next two years, McNaghten literally stalked the girl around the country in his attempts to kidnap her but did not get a good enough opportunity until November of 1761, when the Knox family were making their way by coach to Dublin for the opening of Parliament (Andrew Knox was M.P. for Donegal). It was during this ill-fated trip that McNaghten ambushed the coach at gunpoint, with the help of accomplices, at Cloghcor Wood near Strabane but kick-started a shooting match with the Knox servants in the process, during which he accidentally shot Mary Ann while aiming at her father who was sitting next to her in the coach. At this, McNaghten, though wounded, fled the scene on seeing what he had done but was later caught hiding in a hay-loft not far from the scene. Mary Ann died from her wounds about four hours later and was returned to Prehen. The following day, she was taken to Rathmullan for burial in the family ancestral tomb. McNaghten was found guilty of murder at Lifford courthouse and was sentenced to hang by the neck until dead along with one of the captured accomplices, John Dunlap. The hanging rope broke at the first attempt to hang him, then again a second time, to the amazement of the gathered crowd. Under the law of the time, McNaghten was entitled to freedom as no man could be hung three times for any crime and the crowd encouraged him to make good his escape. McNaghten however, famously refused, saying (according to legend) that he could not go about the country and be pointed at as the half-hanged man, preferring instead his own execution after which he was successfully hanged a third time. He and his servant were both beheaded after execution and were buried in an unmarked grave at St. Patrick's Graveyard in Strabane.
Life at Prehen House continued and each year, on the anniversary of Mary Ann's death, her mother would retire to her room to lament her daughter's fate and would not come out until the next day. She eventually recovered from her grief with the marriage of Mary Ann's brother George to Jane Mahon of Strokestown, Co. Roscommon, and this girl became like a second daughter to her. For 170 years the Knox family lived at Prehen during which the house and estate were passed down the generations from father to eldest son, until in 1910, with the death of Colonel George Knox (b. 1832), Prehen passed to Baron George Von Scheffler, the Colonel's German born grandson, who became Baron Von Scheffler-Knox of Prehen. The Baron resided at Prehen only until 1914 when the Great War began, at which, as an officer in the Prussian Guards, the Baron was forced to leave Prehen as an enemy of the state. Prehen and all its holdings were confiscated by the British Government as enemy property. After the war, the estate was liquidated at public auction under the terms of the Trading With The Enemy Amendment Act of 1914.
The house changed hands during the decades that followed and was converted into apartments while many of Prehen's fine old trees were cut down by a timber merchant to build newer houses. Prehen Park, a nearby private housing estate in Brickkilns was built on Prehen's borders in the 1960's and much of the rest of the old estate has also since been swallowed up by housing, a phenomenon which marches on today. Fortunately, Prehen House was acquired in 1971 by its current owners, the Peck family, formerly of Rathbeale Hall, Swords, Co.Dublin, whose dedication to an old decaying house restored & revived it, officially opening it to the public in September of 2004.

Prehen Park, Prehen Playing Fields and Prehen Wood have all since taken their names from the Knox Prehen Estate of old but are actually situated outside of Prehen in the neighbouring townlands of Brickkilns and Bolies.