Of these sons, the eldest, Lughaidh, was the most distinguished of the Irish literati of the northern half of Ireland in his time, and the principal poetical combatant on the part of the northern bards in the contest with those of the southern division, which took place about the commencement of the seventeenth century, respecting the claims of the rival dynasties of the northern and southern divisions of Ireland to supremacy and renown. The poems written on this occasion are usually collected into a volume, entitled “_Iomarbadh_,” or, Contention of the Bards, and were long popular among the Irish people. He was also the compiler of Annals of his Own Times, which the Four Masters used in their great compilations. As chief of his sept, this Lughaidh, or Lewis O’Clery, held the entire of the lands bestowed on his ancestors, as well as the herenach lands of the parish of Kilbarron, as hereditary herenach, till the flight of the northern earls in 1607, when they were lost to him and his family in the general confiscation which followed, and became the property of the Lord Folliott and the Bishop of Raphoe. He held those lands, however, till the close of the year 1609, and was selected as one of the “good and lawful men” of the county, appointed in obedience to a commission to inquire into the king’s title to the several escheated and forfeited lands in Ulster, and which held an inquisition for this purpose at Lifford, on the 12th of September 1609. In this inquisition, which furnishes the most valuable information upon the nature of ancient Irish tenures, it is stated that “the parish of Kilbarron contains five quarters in all, whereof one quarter is herenach land possessed by the sept of the Cleries as herenaches, paying thereout yearlie to the lord busshopp of Raphoe thirteen shillings four pence Irish per annum, six meathers of butter, and thirty-four meathers of meale; and that there is one quarter named Kildoned, in the tenure of the said sept of the Cleries, free from any tithes to the busshopp,” &c. And again, “That there are in the said parishe three quarters of Collumbkillies land, everie quarter conteyninge sixe balliboes in the tenure of Lewe O’Cleerie, to whom the said lands were sithence mortgaged for fortie pounds, by the said late Earle of Tirconnell unto the said Lewe, who hath paid thereout yearly unto his Majestie, since the late earl’s departure, four poundes, two muttons, and a pair of gloves, but nothing to the said busshopp.”