The Murrays were said to have come to Scotland from Moravia in the first century; and a pretty bulky history of the clan reveals as much truth about them as the author cared to put in when tired of inventing less probable facts.  Sir Walter Murray, Lord of Drumshegrat, came to Ireland with Edward de Bruce and was killed in battle, leaving three sons, one of whom, christened Andrew, settled in County Down.  Some of his descendants migrated to Bantry, where, in 1670, William Murray married Ann Hornswell, and was succeeded by his third son George, who was in turn succeeded by his eldest son William, who married Anne Grainger.  Of the marriage, there was only one daughter Judith, who married Robert Hickson, heir to the property.

They had five sons and two daughters, the younger of whom married Sir William Cox, and the elder my father.

The superior of my dear mother never drew the breath of life.  She lived until I was twenty-five, and I never met any man who could say more than I could for my mother, though equalled by what my own sons could say of theirs, and she too came of the same stock, for I married my first cousin, Julia Agnes Hickson.  It is said no man is thoroughly happy until he is suitably married, an opinion I absolutely endorse; but happiness so great as my married life is not of public interest, and if it were, I should not wear my heart on my sleeve for general inspection.  Any tribute from me to my dear wife would be superfluous; the devoted love of our children has been the endorsement by the next generation of the feelings which I have always felt towards her.

She was the daughter of my mother’s eldest brother, John Hickson, called the Sovereign of Dingle.  He had powers to collect customs, to hold a court, and to try cases in much the same way that a lord provost had.

On one occasion when a case was to be tried, two attorneys appeared from the town of Tralee, about thirty miles off.  Now John Hickson had his own ideas about the attorneys of those days—­ideas such as all honest men had, but dared not express.  So he sent a crier through the town to say that the court was adjourned for a fortnight.  When the appointed day arrived, the attorneys arrived also, so again the melodious tones of the crier proclaimed through the town that the court was adjourned for yet another fortnight, Captain Hickson remarking to his wife that he was not going to be helped to administer justice by those who earned their living on injustice.  The attorneys gave it up in despair, leaving Captain Hickson to lay down the law as he liked, and to do him justice, his ideas were more conducive to peace and order than the arguments of Irish attorneys generally are.

He was loved and revered by the people, so that when the cholera raged in 1833 and 1834, and the constabulary were ordered to go into the houses to remove the corpses (this to prevent the people ‘waking’ the dead, and so spreading the contagion), they dared not enter the cabins unless Captain Hickson went with them, as the people were so enraged at their dead being molested that they would have killed the police.  Fortunately Captain Hickson had enough moral influence to make the people obey the law.