A quick survey of 1608 found the Tathe to be only half the extent assigned to it by the Irish which was 60 native Irish acres.
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He was bred by horseman Noel Hickey's Irish Acres Farm of Ocala, Florida who sold him to George Bunn of Quarter B Farm in Pleasant Plains, Illinois. Out of Noel Hickey's mare Molly's Colleen, by multiple stakes winner, Verbatim, his grandsire was U.S. Racing Hall of Fame inductee and U.S. Horse of the Year, Buckpasser.
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He left his entire unsettled estate to his wife. This consisted of at least 2,500 Irish acres, bringing in a large income. The fortune was passed down to his wife's children by her second marriage to Abraham Boyd. The eldest son and heir was George Augustus Boyd-Rochfort, he assumed the arms and surname of Rochfort.
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A tathe or tate is a unit of area which was used in Fermanagh and Monaghan, equivalent to 60 Irish acres. Four tathes make a quarter of land, four quarters make a ballibetagh and, in Fermanagh, seven ballibetaghs make a barony, of which there were seven. However, the measure of a ballibetagh is far larger in Fermanagh than in Monaghan. In total at this period in time (1609), it was estimated that Fermanagh which had 51 ballibetaghs and a half of "chargeable lands" contained the same area as Monaghan which had 100 ballibetaghs.
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He made his fortune from land transfers, following the confiscations by the Crown of lands belonging to supporters of King James II, in the wake of the Glorious Revolution and the accession of William III and Mary II in 1688-91, known as the "Williamite War in Ireland". About 600,000 Irish acres were confiscated to be sold to pay for the costs of the war, (equivalent to 972,000 statute acres), nearly 5% of the land area of Ireland. Conolly was the largest individual buyer, in particular buying 3,300 acres in County Meath that had been assigned to the Earl of Albemarle.
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In 1642 the Adventurers' Act, to compensate those who funded the army that put down the 1641 rebellion with land confiscated from rebels, specified amounts in "English measure", but was quickly amended to "Plantation measure". The "mile line" of the 1652 Cromwellian settlement, prohibiting Catholics settling within a mile of the Connacht coast or River Shannon, was an English statute mile. A 1653 survey of lands of the Countess of Ormonde in County Kilkenny used statute acres, whereas the 1654–5 Civil Survey and 1655–6 Down Survey used plantation acres. Irish acres were used in the 1823–37 applotments made under the Composition for Tithes (Ireland) Act 1823.
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The Ordnance Survey of Ireland, from its establishment in 1824, used English miles. Thomas Telford's Howth–Dublin Post Office extension of the London–Holyhead turnpike had its mileposts in English miles. Irish measure was formally abolished by the 1824 Weights and Measures Act but the Irish Post Office continued to use the measure until 1856. An 1800 act fixed the maximum penalty for burning land at 10 pounds per "Irish plantation acre"; in 1846 a fine of 70 pounds was overturned in Queen's Bench as exceeding this limit: although the evidence related to seven Irish acres, the form of conviction "seven acres" must legally have referred to statute acres.
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About 450AD Magheracross Parish is said to have been founded by St Patrick and about 550 St Columba passed thorough Ballinamallard. The first records of the parish itself were in 1492 with Terence Macgillacossgli (Cosgrave) is recorded as vicar of Magheracross and Derrybrusk, Maghercross was at that time part of Derryvullen parish. In 1500 two Maguire princes were ambushed by the O'Neills at Ballinamallard in their conflict and in 1539 the Original Magheracross church destroyed by fire 1593 saw the start of Hugh O'Neill's war that resulted in the Flight of the Earls in 1611. Following which Henry Folliot of Pyrton in Wiltshire, was granted the Manor of Drumchine (later Newporton) including 1,500 Irish acres through Magheracross parish.
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The Irish Free State standardised its roads using English statute miles, leading to some nationalist complaints. In 1937, a man being prosecuted for driving outside the 15-mile limit of his licence offered the unsuccessful defence that, since Ireland was independent, the limit should be reckoned by Irish miles "just as no one would ever think of selling land other than as Irish acres". In 1965, two deputies proposed an amendment to the Road Transport Act to replace the English statute miles with Irish ones; it was rejected. Such complaints—and the traditional distance itself—are now considered obsolete following Irish metrication from the 1970s; however, "an Irish mile" is still used colloquially to express a vague but long distance akin to a "country mile".
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