The application for a barracks was successful and a barracks was erected at Belmont in Shanroe townland by the spring of 1795. An indenture ⁽¹⁵⁾dated April 15th 1795, transferred "two roods and twenty perches Irish measure" from the Trustees of the Charitable Donations of Richard Jackson Esq. deceased, and Susanna Barton (Jackson's widowed sister) to the Commissioners and Overseers of the Barracks of the Kingdom of Ireland. The price paid for the plot of land was £291 12s. 1 Id. sterling and the indenture was signed by the Archbishop of Armagh, the Bishop of Dromore, the Earl of Gosford, Percy Jocelyn, Walter Synnot (of Ballymoyer), Edward Hudson, James Montgomery and Susanna Barton.

The Forkhill Yeomanry was formed when the barracks was opened and was under the command of Colonel John Ogle ⁽¹⁶⁾, Susanna Barton's son-in-law. He was a native of Eglingham, Northumberland, and had married on April 23rd. 1791. He lived at Carrickemond ⁽¹⁷⁾ between Forkhill and Kilcurry and seems to have been more partial to drinking than he was to his military duties. Once he had four yeomen flogged at Belmont for burning the house of his loyal tenant Patrick Burns "during the absence of their Commander". On another occasion he got into trouble with Dublin Castle for ordering his yeomen to stand down for a month, contrary to official orders.

The notorious General Lake who was military Commander for Ireland during the 1798 Rebellion resided at Belmont for a short period after the opening of the barracks ⁽¹⁸⁾.

We do not know when the Society of United Irishmen was established in the district, but on February 3rd 1795 Rev. Edward Hudson in a letter ⁽¹⁹⁾ to Dublin Castle stated that it was firmly established in the parish. Hudson thought that the meeting place for the United men was the house of a dissenter called John Small Balmer of Shean, Forkhill. Balmer was a linen draper and was very popular with the Roman Catholics of the District. He appears on a "List of persons in the County of Armagh suspected of disaffection", dated July 6th 1798.

The United Irishmen of the Forkhill area often met at the market stone in the townland of Quilly. This is a large boulder which has a yard measure roughly chiselled on its face. The locals brought woven linen from their homes in order to pretend that a sale was taking place, as the site of the stone is barely a half mile from Belmont. Prior to 1798 Jemmy Hope came up from Mallusk in County Antrim and met the people at such gaterings in order to instruct them in the ideals of the United Irishmen⁽²⁰⁾.

In the period leading up to the rebellion the South Armagh area was in a state of continuous unrest. In the spring of 1797 an Ensign Thomas Goodwin of the Royal Dublin Militia stationed at Newtownhamilton wrote ⁽²¹⁾ that South Armagh was in a ,'very ugly and dangerous situation". In March 1797 a United Irishman called Thomas Birch was being escorted under guard from Newtownhamilton in Armagh jail⁽²²⁾. There was an attempt to rescue Birch and in order to prevent his escape Sergeant Kirkus of the Dublin Militia, who was in charge of the escort, hacked the prisoner to death with his sword. Birch lived long enough to make a statement. Kirkus was arrested but later released and General Lake wrote ⁽²³⁾ in a letter of March 25th 1797 that Kirkus should be decorated and that his prompt action would deter any further attempts to rescue prisoners.

There is some evidence of the Parish of Forkhill being active in the lead-up to the rebellion. On March 28th 1797 Colonel John Ogle wrote⁽²⁴⁾ from Belmont to a Captain Nicholson, aide-de-campe to General Lake, to say that he had an informer in Forkhill who had information about arms, particularly pikes, hidden in caves on Cave Hill, Belfast. This information was acted upon and the pikes seized. Unfortunately the informer's name has been deliberately scratched out in the original letter.

A party of North Britons, fencible Infantry, was at Belmont during the rebellion of 1798. In an anonymous ballad, "The Market Stone", they were probably confused with the Sutherland Fencibles who arrived at Belmont on June 29th 1798. The ballad ⁽²⁵⁾states:

"Though the Scotch Horse were at Belmont
And Roden's Riders too
We forged good steel in Quilly
Beside the old Creg-dubh".

Captain Lloyd in a letter from Belmont ⁽²⁶⁾ on June 22nd 1798 to General Lake, gives us an eye-witness account of the situation around the barracks:

"I have to inform you that at ten by the clock last evening I duly received information that a rebelforce was in the act of assembly on a mountain near here called Slieve Guilion, under their Commander Shaun O'Neial, ⁽²⁷⁾ well known for his seditious activities in these parts. Having been so informed I immediately ordered the call to arms and turned out the guard and had a beacon lit to give the alarm to the yeomanry outposts. By the first cock-crow Lieutenant John Duff of the Killeavy yeomanry and twenty troopers arrived at the outworks (here), but he had no sight of rebels to report to the north. At this hour Slieve Gullion was ablaze and there was much horn-blowing".

The military, with colonel Ogle and his yeomen, went to attack Slieve Gullion and they arrived at the top of the mountain about noon. They found no men, only a few pikes, signs of a camp and two powder flasks. Lloyd reports that reinforcements had been sent for and that by the evening of the same day a large military force was converging on the district from Newry and Dundalk.

The United Irishmen of Forkhill seem to have had connections with both North Down and Dublin in the immediate lead-up to the rebellion, if two local ballads are to be believed. One ballad mentions that the word for the rebellion came from Dublin ⁽²⁸⁾

"For word had come from Dublin
That the hour was near at hand".

Another ballad ⁽²⁹⁾ states that the local company was awaiting a man from Sheelagh

"Whose word would carry weight".

But

"No man came from Sheelagh,
Though we did get news from Down,
Brought by a linen-weaver
From Carrickfergus town".

The latter ballad mentions the making of pikes and that they were hidden in caves on Slieve Gullion, Slieve More, Slieve Brack and Carricknagavna "as in forty-one before". When the linen weaver came he seems to have brought bad news "for traitors they were busy as in the long ago". The ballad also says that the pikes which had been made in the local forge were never used and "still at Carn-na-Gishen the ashen handles lie".

The evidence in the ballad is substantiated to some extent by the historial evidence. We have already seen reference to an informer in the letter of Colonel Ogle and we do know that the blacksmith, Tommy Lappin, who made pikes and bayonets in his forge at Carrive, was arrested by the Forkhill yeomanry and taken to Belmont in 1797.

At Belmont, Lappin was scourged to death because he would not tell the names of his comrades. The local tradition says that the informer who betrayed Lappin was set upon by his neighbours and burned to death in his own kitchen fire at Tullydonnell. The officer at Belmont who was responsible for Lappin's torture was a Captain Farnan⁽³⁰⁾..

There was a reign of terror in the area around 1798 and the centre for this cruelty was Belmont Barracks. When suspected insurgents were arrested they were taken there for "interrogation". The usual method of torture was that the suspect was tied behind a cart and scourged. The overgrown laneway to the east of the Barracks is still known as "Whipping Lane" ⁽³¹⁾.

After the rebellion was crushed Belmont declined as a centre for military activity. In December 1803 we find that Colonel Ogle was still in charge of the yeomanry at the barracks ⁽³²⁾. The Forkhill yeomanry had now been re-organised and were known as the Upper Orier Yeomanry and consisted of four officers, three sergeants, one drummer, twelve mounted men and forty yeomanry. The last surviving yeoman of this period, Michael Locke, died in the 1880's aged 114 years.

By 1821 Belmont Barracks had, according to the Commissionaire of Barracks in Ireland, become obsolete and a decision was taken to sell it. It was sold to Rev. James Campbell, Rector of Forkhill, for £70.00 on October 10th 1821. It was now to be known as Belmont House, Forkhill⁽³³⁾.

Belmont remained in the possession of Rev. Campbell until his death on August 3Ist 1858. By his will, dated March 6th 1855, Rev. Dr. Campbell left Belmont to his two nephews, Rev. John Campbell Quinn of Beechill, Co. Down, and Peter Quinn of The Agency, Newry ⁽³⁴⁾. Rev. John Campbell Quinn died on November 15th 1882 and on September 3rd 1891 Peter Quinn, then sole owner of the property, entered into an agreement to sell to the Catholic Church, represented by Most Rev. Michael Logue, Archbishop of Armagh and Catholic Primate of Ireland, Rev. John Markey, Parish Priest of Forkhill and Peter McDermott a farmer of Tate (part of Carricknagavna townland in the parish of Forkhlll)⁽³⁵⁾.

The sum agreed for the purchase of Belmont was £300.00 and the sale also included the tenancy of the adjoining farm of 9 acres 1 rood and 18 perches statute measure. This farm was held by Peter Quinn from the landlord Captain Granvill Henry Jackson Alexander of Forkhill House on a yearly rent of £6.00. The sale was finally completed on January 20th 1892.

The farm which accompanied Belmont House was subsequently purchased by Rev. Peter McCartney, P. P., after the Irish Land Purchase Act of 1903, when the Alexander estate was offered for sale. Rev. McCartney died on August 7th 1909 and an assignment of October 20th 1915 established Rev. Eugene Clarke, P.P., as owner as long as he remained Parish Priest of Forkhill. The entire property has passed to the Parish Priests of the parish since that date.

In December 1984 the west house was sold to Gerry and Rita O'Hanlon and the east house to Len Graham and Pddraigin Ni Uallachdin.