the O'Neill clan living there during the Nine Years' War. That sept had protected them as babies when their father had been killed nearby and had since been referred to as the Clan Shanes. The Clan Shanes were a boundary sept between the Clannaboy and Tyrone O'Neill lords. In 1593, the Earl of Tyrone had their chief, Phelim mac Cormac Toole O'Neill, killed along the river Bann and seized the lordship away from the Clannaboy estate. The family turned to Hugh MacShane as their new leader and elected him as their chief. From that date forward, that O'Neill branch has used the "MacShane" surname as an honorific for their loyalty to Shane O'Neill and to his battling sons. Hugh MacShane reigned as Chief until 1620 and his sons and grandsons (Brian & Brian Og) were active in the wars and politics of Ulster, Ireland, and Spain for the next two centuries. In spite of the Plantation of Ulster, and more specifically the newly created (1613) county of Londonderry, the McShanes felt little encroachment. This stemmed from two aspects that both worked toward their favor. The first was that the Livery Company from London assigned the land the McShanes lived on were the Drapers and the Skinners companies. Both of these companies were primarily concerned with money making and not in colonization. Thus, as long as the native Irish were willing to pay their rents, very few outsiders were moved onto the Livery Company lands, keeping the Glenconkeyne valley in the barony of Loughinsholin virtually Irish. Secondly, the fierce reputation and historical strength of the McShane family combined with the dense forest kept most planters from venturing into the forest. There are two proofs to this phenomenon. Fifty years after the plantation began, there were only six Protestant families living in the entire region. Secondly, Gaelic was spoken as the primary language until the mid-18th century and was still being taught in the local school as late as 1838. Virtually no other regions in Ulster maintained that level of native autonomy with regards to religion and language. When the family was attainted as Irish Jacobites in the 1690s, the heir, Owen McShane, completely dropped any association with the O'Neill name in an attempt to hold his father's small estate. Though they had little effect in Glenconkeyne, the penal laws (1695–1745) and the influx of Scottish and English settlers into greater Ulster