166
RIDDELLS OF GLASSLOUGH, IRELAND.
present known what influence attracted him to that place, or what was
his exact condition there; it is probable, however, that he was induced to
settle there by the influence of the Leslie family, who were, and are still,
the principal landed proprietors of the district, and who were from Scot-
land. Mr. Riddell is known to have enjoyed a good social position, as
became his own origin, from the marriage-connections of himself and son,
and from the fact that he was possessed of considerable land-estates, part
of which were situated near Blackwatertown, on the borders of the County
of Armagh, where a field is still pointed out and known as Riddell's Moor."
He married a Miss Burgess, a member of a well-known county family, or
of a branch thereof, now represented at Parkmaur, County of Tyrone,
but formerly of Wood Park, County of Armagh. He is described as hav-
ing been a very godly man, a member of the Church of Scotland, and
strongly imbued with Calvinistic principles. He died 1775, having had
issue one son, who appears to have been their only child. I append the
following note, to show the grounds upon which the family base their claim
to relationship with the baronial family of Scotland; the matter in the
note was furnished the author by the Rev. Walter Riddall, M. A., who
compiled his family pedigree for this work.*
SECOND GENERATION.
Robert Riddell (1), son of Walter' (1), was born, it is supposed,
about 1745-50. He grew up a very different character from his father,
* Rev. Walter Riddall says, "I am quite aware that it is stated and assumed that
the Glen-Riddell family failed in the direct male line, and that it is supposed to be
now represented by the descendants of John Riddell, a younger son of Walter, the
first laird of Glen-Riddell. But this assumption is directly contradicted by the tra-
dition of my branch family, and the facts of the case are such as both to confirm
the tradition, and at the same time to account for the contradictory assumption; so
that the common statement concerning the failure of the direct male line of the
Glen-Riddell family will require to be amended, or at least modified, even if I shall
not succeed in giving absolute demonstrations of the truth of the tradition of my
branch family, for I shall claim to be a or the direct representative of Glen-Riddell
in the male line, unless and until the tradition of my family is proved to be false,
which I am sure it never can. The facts on which I rest are the following, which
I beg to commend to the careful consideration of the reader. (1.) The tradi-
tion itself, which is constant and undoubted, and exists as clearly amongst the
"Riddells of Richhill " (which see) as it does amongst my cousins; and I can bring
many witnesses to vouch for it. Now, the tradition is a fact which requires to be
accounted for. I myself often heard it as a child from a sister of my father, a godly
woman, who had no knowledge on the subject but what she had received from her
father and mother, a pious pair, who cared nothing about the world's rank or honor.
It is every way inconceivable and impossible that such a tradition could have sprung
from imagination or invention; a hundred circumstances negative such an idea.
How, then, is it to be accounted for? Simply and only by accounting it to be the
truth. And the tradition has not had so very far to travel down the stream of time.
The first person concerned in it died in 1775, and when I first heard it there were
people still living who could have discredited it if recently invented. The tradition
is that old Walter,' my first ancestor who came to Ireland, came from Glen-Riddell,
in Scotland, having separated from his family, and dropped all connections with
them, owing to a dispute about politics or religion (probably both). This is my
first main fact. (2.) The leading Christian names in my family precisely agree
with the tradition. The first laird of Glen-Riddell was Walter, and the second was
Robert; and in my family these two names have followed each other in the succes-
sive generations without any deviation from strict regularity; so that there have
been at the head of each generation, successively, Walter, Robert, Walter (2), Rob-
ert (2), Walter (3), Robert (3); including my son as the last. Walter and Robert
are emphatically the Glen-Riddell names. And it would seem from this that 'old
