and to build the church in Virginia or face forfeiture of his County Cavan lands. The Anglican Bishop of Kilmore, William Bedell, undertook to lay out the town in accordance with the Commission's requirement. However, events which led to the Irish Rebellion of 1641 and Irish Confederate Wars enveloped Virginia causing widespread destruction and depopulation. The summer of 1642 saw the outright destruction by government forces of the castle along with the burning of stocks of hay, corn and turf in a bid to punish the outlawed Lord Fingall for his role in the Siege of Drogheda (1641). What remained of Virginia after the wars can be assessed through hearth tax records from the 1660s, indicating a small resident community. During the following century estate surveys were undertaken for the absentee landlord (exiled since the Williamite wars of 1688-91) which tell of a wayside Inn that existed since the earliest times (exact location unknown), operated then in 1727 by a Cornelius Donnellan and was frequented around that time by Jonathan Swift during his several excursions to Co. Cavan. The Taylours The Virginia estate was eventually sold around the year 1750, on behalf of the Plunketts, to pay off mounting debts, with a new landlord family, the Taylors (later spelt as Taylour), taking over. Virginia and its surrounding estate were particularly developed by Thomas Taylor (1724-1795), who built up the town and succeeded where others had failed. Taylor (who changed the spelling of the family surname to Taylour) succeeded his father in the baronetcy in 1757. The then Sir Thomas Taylour, 3rd Bt., was created 1st Baron Headfort in 1760, and 1st Viscount Headfort in 1762. Lord Headfort was further advanced in the peerage to become The 1st Earl of Bective in 1766. It is recorded that Lord Bective's great-grandfather, also a Thomas Taylor, was a cartographer who assisted Sir William Petty with the Down Survey during the previous century. The Taylor (later Taylour) family had built a substantial mansion, Headfort House (now a school), beside Kells in the north of County Meath. The family (who were granted the title Marquis of Headfort in 1800) now turned their attention to making the unproductive lands around Virginia into profitable farms through land drainage and afforestation of low-lying areas, also resulting in increases in rent paid by the farm tenants. While this in itself was not unique among Irish landlords, an acre of