The Doris Family in Mayo

The Doris family first arrived in Mayo at the end of the 18th. century, when thousands of people, mostly Catholics from Armagh and Tyrone, were driven out of their homes by marauding gangs of Loyalist terrorists, supported by the local Protestant landowners and the magistrates. Because they came from areas where weaving was practiced, they had the necessary skills to establish the linen weaving industry in the west. For this reason some of the landlords in Mayo and Sligo welcomed them onto their estates, and Lord Altamont built a new town under the shadow of Croagh Patrick called Louisburg. It was in this town that the Doris family settled. By the mid-19th. century, they had moved closer to Westport. Several of the Doris family in Westport became prominent in the late 19th. century and the early twentieth century. William and PJ Doris founded the Mayo News. William was a founder member of the Land League, served time in prison for his political activities and later became an MP for the Nationalist Party. His brother PJ became a radical republican, a supporter of Sinn Féin. The two brothers fell out over politics and were never reconciled.

A fuller account of the Mayo Doris family can be found in the book The Doris Family Of Lettermacaward, which should be available around the beginning of April from Amazon.