In 1683, following the Covenanter insurrection in Scotland, Patrick Heron's son Andrew Heron (c.1617–1695) was fined 5000 Scottish merks by the Privy Council of Scotland for "being at house and field conventicles, and intercommuning with, and resetting his son Patrick Heron a ring leader at (the battle of) Bothwell Bridge, and his son in law who had been likewise there". Andrew Heron was, however, allowed to keep both his life and his estate because, it seems, he had voluntarily admitted to the contact and pleaded ignorance of the law. Conventicles were held around a stone called the Preacher's Stone in a field to the northeast of Kirroughtree House. The persecutions of nonconformists during this period, called 'the Killing Time', may have been a reason why many of the Heron family emigrated to Ireland around this time.