On a selected list of "Historic Monuments not in State Care" (Historic Monuments of Northern Ireland: 1987) is Vicar's Cairn in the townland of Carnavanaghan in the Co Armagh parish of Kilclooney.
Markethill is a town divided between the parishes of Kilclooney and Mullaghbrack, and Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) informs us that two miles from it is Vicar's Cairn, or Carricktole, "commanding a most extensive and beautiful view".
Under Mullaghbreack, this dictionary informs us that on the estate of Lord Charlemont "is a cairn, called Cairnamnhanaghan, or `the monk's cairn', a conical heap of stones still covering more than five acres, though much reduced by the peasantry, who have carried away many of the stones for building, a practice now prohibited by the proprietor".
In 1795 this was reported to have been 20 ft high and 132 ft in diameter and enclosed by a circle of standing stones. Fifty of those stones were reported to be still in place in 1815.
There are 13 holdings by persons bearing the surname Small in Owners of Land of One Acre and Upwards (1876), being in counties Down (six), Cavan (two) and Armagh (five). Those in the latter county are mainly in the Markethill area, with the 188 acres of Alexander Small, Mar ket hill, being the largest in that county. he also had 672 acres in Co Down.
Current telephone directories south of the Border list 87 of this surname, most numerous in the 09 area, while north of the Border there are around 150 entries, mainly in counties Antrim, Armagh and Down. It derives from Old English, meaning "small, slender, thin." In Ulster it has been used as a synonym of the names Begg (beag, small), and Kielty, derived from the Irish O Caoilte. This arose through a mistranslation - the Irish name was supposed to derive from caol, meaning "slender".
At the beginning of this century it was also used interchangeably with Keeltagh, Kieltogh and with Gilkie around Ballykelly, near Limavady in Co Derry.
Though confused betimes with Small, Smale was a separate surname, deriving from "narrow (stream)", and it is probable that William de Smale bore this surname. Some time between 1257 and 1263 an inquisition at Ballimore (? Co Kilkenny) heard that this man "killed William de Stiwer and absconded; afterwards being called from court to court, etc., he did not come etc., resulting in his land being taken into the hand of the archbishop as his escheat .. ."
There was but a single Small in the 1814 Directory - H. Small, Esq., Belview Lodge, Keady, Co Armagh, and none at all featured on Taylor & Skinner's 1778 Maps of the Roads of Ireland.
Some time early in the first decade of the 19th century, Tony Small died in London, leaving his wife Julie and children. It was said that this was of a broken heart, and if such be the case it was not because he was black, nor indeed an American black, but because of the death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald in 1798.
In September 1781 the advancing American troops caused the owners of the plantation at Eutaw Creek in south Carolina to take flight, but Tony Small, one of their slaves, had escaped and stayed on. By early evening when the English had put the Americans to flight, Tony Small and others emerged on to the battlefield and began to search for plunder.
Moving from man to man, Tony came across Lord Edward Fitzgerald lying injured in his blood-soaked uniform of the 19th Regiment of Foot. Carrying him to his room, Tony washed and bandaged Lord Edward's wound, and when the regiment was departing a few months later, Lord Edward offered Tony his liberty and a new life working as his servant, receiving wages.
Thereafter, Tony travelled wherever Lord Edward went. In 1788 they returned to the continent of Tony's birth, travelling to Nova Scotia, where they spent two years before returning to London. No longer "my black", someone to look after his horses, he became Tony, Lord Edward's personal servant.
Less than two months after Lord Edward's death in June 1798, his wife Pamela departed England with all but one of her children, along with Tony and Julie and their children. When Pamela remarried in 1800, Tony and Julie and family left for London, where Julie planned to set up as a seamstress.
A town built by Sir Archibald Acheson around his castle of Cloncarney some time after the Plantation of Ulster is the origin "of the present flourishing town of Markethill", according to Lewis. It has been gaelicised Cnoc an Mhargaidh, a direct translation to Irish.