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vtJ^U^ ^'a4 SSJ^ ^
P
L
I
JOUENAL
OF THE
CO. KILDARE ARCHilOLOGICAL SOCIETY
AND
SURROUNDING DISTRICTS.
The Council of the County Eiu>are Abgh^ologioal Society
do not hold themselves answerable for statements put
forward in this Joubnal ; the responsibility rests entirely
with the writers of the Papers.
• • • •
• « •'
/••.
A reduced Facalmlle of the OPiginftl Funer&l Entry
or Gernld, 14th Earl at KUdare.
JOUEN AL
CO. KILDARE ARCHJIOLOGICAL SOCIETY
SIIREOUNDING DI8TEI0TS.
VOL. in.
JULY, 1899-1903.
DUBLIN:
BDWABD PONSONBY, 116 GRAFTON STREET.
•
DUBLUr :
PBIITTBI) BY C. W. GIBBS AlTD fiOlft
WICI^LOW HTKEKT.
• »* , • • •
. ...
» • • « ,
CONTENTS.
VOLUME in, (July Number) 1899-1902.
PASB.
Pboceedinos, and Repobts of Council, .... 65, 185, 271, 403
Lists of Honobary Officbbs and Membkbs, and Bulbs, 72, 141, 277, 410
ExcuBsiON Mebtinos: —
1898. Old EilcuUen, Knockaulin, New Abbey, and Caetlemartin, 69
1899. GelbridgO) Ardrass, BathcofiFy, Glongowes Wood College,
and Clane, • 138
1900. Coghlanstown, Ballymore Eastaoe, The Piper's SCones, and
Poulaphooka 274
1901. Eerdiffstown, Johnstown Inn^ Bathmore, Punohestown,
Tipper, and Fumess, 407
The Hon. Tbeasurbb's Account: —
Up to December,' 1898; . 71
„ „ 1899 140
1900 276
1901, 409
Bbyiews of Books: —
Handcook's *' History and Antiquities of Tallaght, County Dublin,'* 198
Bairs^Historyof the County Dublin," Part I, .... 492
Notice of Book: —
Miss Margaret Stokes's " High Crosses of Ireland," Part II, 402
Obituabt: —
Miss Margaret Stokes, Honorary Member, 201
Papbbs: —
The Gurragh : its History and Traditions. By Lord Walter
FitsGerald, 1
The Holed High Cross at Moone. By Miss Margaret Stokes, 33
John Lye, ot Clonaugh. By the^Bev. E. O'Leary, p.p. Part lU, 39
331704
vi CONTENTS.
Papebs — continued : pagk.
The Carpenter Tomb Slab in St. David's Gharch, Naas. By Miss
A. F. Long and Lord Walter FitzOerald, . . 51
Bathooffy. By the Bev. M. Devitt« s.j., Vice-President, 79
The Wogan Monument at Glane. By T. Cooke-Trenoh, d.l., 99
Clane Abbey. By the late Bev. Professor George Stokes, d.d., 101
The Moat of Glane. By T. Gooke-Trenoh, d.l., .... 107
TheBt. Hon. William GonoUy, p.c, Speaker of the Irish House
of Gommons. By the Bev. G. I. Graham, b.d., 118
The Principal Gentry of the Gounty Eildare in the year 1600.
By Lord Walter FitzGerald, 118
The Song of the Sword of Gerball. Translated by Prof. Euno Meyer, 123
Killeen Gormac. By Lord Walter FitzGerald, .... 149
On the Different Deposits of the Biver Liffey at Millicent. By T.
Gooke- Trench, d.l., 164
Donadea and the Aylmer Family. By the Bev. Ganon Sherlock, u.a., 169
Gounty Kildare Folk-lore about Animals, Beptiles, and Birds.
By " Omurethi," 179
The Lattin and Mansfield Families in the Gounty Eildare. By
the Bev. Ganon Sherlock, m.a., 186
In Memoriam : — Miss Margaret Stokes, 201
Glongowes Wood. By the Bev. M. Devitt, s.j., . . . 207
The Birthplace and Life of St. Brigld of Kildare. By Major-
General F. W. Stubbs, 217
William FitzGerald, of Gastleroe, and his Tomb in the Eilkea
Ghurchyard. By Lord Walter FitzGerald, .... 229
Gounty Kildare Folk-tales. Gollected by Miss Greene, of Mill-
brook 254, 368
The Bampart of the Pale at Glongowes Wood. By the Bev. M.
Devitt, 8. J., 284
The Original Anglo-Norman Settlers in the Gounty Eildare.
By the Bev. Ganon Sherlock, M.A. , 290
New Abbey of Kilcullen. By Lord Walter FitzGerald, ... 301
Gastlemartin. By *' Omurethi," 319
Notes on the Collection of Irish Antiquities lately at Edenderry.
By the Bev. E. O'Leary, p.p., 325
Ballymore Eustace and its neighbouring Antiquities. By Lord
Walter FitzGerald, ••.•.... 343
The Wolfe Family of the Gounty Kildare. By George Wolfe, . 361
Hathmore. By Lord Walter FitzGerald, 372
Notes on Grange Con, Gounty Wicklow. By Sir Arthur Vicars, . 382
The Henry Family in Kildare. By the liev. Ganon Sherlock, m.a., 386
Notes on the Sweetman Family. By the Bev. Ganon Sherlock, m.a., 389
Lettice, Baroness of Offaly, and the Siege of her Castle of Geashill,
1642. By Lord Frederick FitzGerald, .... 419
The FitzGeralds of Ballyshannon (Co. Eildare), and their Successors
thereat. By Lord W^alter FitzGerald, .... 425
Notes on Furness, or Great Forenaghts. By Nicholas J. Synnott, 453
CONTENTS. Vll
Papebs — continued: PAok.
John FitzGerald, of Narraghbeg. By *' Omurethi/' . 471
Notes on Mural Graves found in the Foundations of the Chancel
of St. Brigid's Cathedral Church, Kildare, in 1891. By the
Very Rev. the Dean of Kildare 479
Miscellanea akd Notes: —
Fnmess, or Forenaghts Great, .57
An Ancient Foot-track of Wooden Planks across the Monavullagh
Bog, 61
Additions to the List of County Kildare High Sheriffs, 63, 265, 898
Calverstown, near Eilcullen, 64
A Constable of Dublin Castle in 1474 64
The Shrule Castle (Queen's Co.) Lettered Stone 129
A Bronze Celt, . 132
Three disused Townland Names in the south of the County Kildare : —
Bahdroo, Dun-fin-yeen, Corally 132
Sixteenth-century Tombstones in the Ballynadrumny Churchyard, 183
The Core-ally Rath, 191
Irish Pearls 192
A Pagan Sepulchral Kist in the Dublin Science and Art Museum, 194
Additional Oil-Paintings of Lord Edward FitzGerald, . 194, 399
Davidstown, near Castledermot, 195
Bases of Crosses at Carragh 195
Philip Flatisbury, a Kildare Historian, 196
Antiquities at Kilkea Castle, 196, 265
The Browne Mausoleum at Mainham, 261
A seventeenth-century Skillet and Bronze Sword at Kilkea Castle, 265
" The Carbrie/' a Dublin Residence of the Earls of Kildare, 267
The Wayside Cross Bases formerly at Little Rath and Prospect, . 268
Gerald Aylmer, son of Sir Andrew, of Donadea, .... 268
St. Brigid and Clane, 269
Old Road Names near Athy and near Dunmanoge, . . . 269
The County Ghilway ArohsBologioal Society, 270
Thomas FitzGerald, Prior of Kilmainham, 884
The Baronies of the County Kildare in 1850, . . 336
The Wife of Sir John Wogan, Knt., of Rathcoffy, who died about
the year 1420, 387
The Extinct Family of Young, of Newtown O'More, County Kildare, 338
David O'Buge, a native of Kildare, and a learned Carmelite of the
fourteenth century, . . » 339
Exhibits by Mr. Cooke-Trench at the Annual Meeting in Naas, 1901, 339
Poul-a-phooka» 391
Notes on a Crozier in the Clongowes Wood College Museum, . 398
The Inauguration of a new portion of the Grand Canal in the
County Kildare, 395
Dr. Daniel Neylan, Bishop of Kildare, 1583-1603, ... 397
viil CONTENTS.
MiBOBLLANKA AND NOTBS — COnHuued : PAOE.
Antiqaities in the BtfaBeom at CloDgowes Wood College, . 398
The Seals of the Athy Corporation, and of the Eildare County
Council, 399
Note on two ancient Carved Stones now at Sherlockstown, . . 401
Tornings, 482
The three Sir Itfaarioe EuBtaoes of the latter end of the seventeenth
century, 484
Irish Warriors and Peasants, a.d. 1521, 486
The Castle of Eildare 489
QUBBZEB AND AnBWEBS TO QUERIBS : —
Derivation of the name " Millioent " ? 131
Who was the father of the Bight Hon. William Conolly, Speaker
of the Irish House of Commons ? 194
A Sherlock Coat-of-Arms Stone. What family are impaled with
the Sherlock Coat? 341
The situation of '* the Black Castle " in Leixlip, .... 341
The father of the Bight Hon. William Conolly, p.c, of Castletown, 342
The Delahyde Family, whose Arms are on the Tipper cross-shaft, 396
Whereabouts is '* Bichard FitzGerald's Cross " ? . .396
Where is the Church of St. Abban, near Leixlip ? . . . 489
Where is Castle Doghenay, near Dunmurry, situated ? 489
The situation of the " Busshopps Courte juxta le Liffe," , 489
The Castles at Leixlip 490
cobrigenda, 493
Dbboription of thb Fbontibpiecb, 494
Index, 496
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PA.OK.
Facsimile of the original " Funeral Entry" of Oerald, 14tb Earl of Kildare,
ob. 11th Febroary, 1611, {FrantUpieee.)
Map showing the antiqnarian remains on the Curragh in ISS?^ . . 1
Plan of the Garragh Camp in 1868 16
The Curragh Camp from the Chapel, looking east, .... 17
The " Wart-stone" at the Rathbride side of the Curragh, ... 21
The Gibbet Bath from the Polo Ground 22
The Obelisk erected in Donnelly's Hollow in 1888 28
William Robert, 2nd Duke of Leinster 80
Fragments of the Holed Cross of Moone (back and front), . . 34, 36
„ ,, „ „ (sculpturing on the shaft frag-
ment), 88
The Echlin Coat-of-Arms, 44
Kilshanroe Chapel, from a drawing by the Bev. E. 0*Leary, p.p., . 60
The Carpenter Slab in St. David's Church at Naas, .... 62
A gold ring dug up in the garden at Furness, 67
Interior of Furness Church, from a drawing by the Hon. Gerald Ponsonby, 58
The Long-stone inside the Bath at Furness, 59
Section and plan of the situation of the wooden foot-track across the
Monavullagh Bog, , .... 61
The Gateway into the Bawn of Bathooffy Castle, 81
Sir Charles Wogan, Ent., 82
Bathcoffy House in ruins, 86
The Wogan Coat-of-Arms, 87
The Wogan Altar-Tomb, 1616, in the churchyard at Clane, ... 98
Portions of the Franciscan Abbey at Clane, 102
Map of Clane, showing its antiquarian remains, 108
A Bullaun at Clane, known as "the Wart-stone," 110
The ConoUy Monument in the old churchyard at Celbridge, . .112
The Inscription on a Chimney-piece in Shrule Castle, Queen's County, . 129
The Eilleen Cormao Ogham Stones, from drawings by the late Father
J. F. Shearman . . 148
Map of Eilleen Cormac and its neighbourhood, 151
The **Decedda Stone" at Eilleen Cormac, 156
The Bilingual Ogham Stone at Eilleen Cormac, 156
Bobbing of the Latin Inscription on the Bilingual Ogham Stone, . 157
Bubbing of the human figure, cut on a pillar-stone at Eilleen Cormac, . 158
John Whelan's name, in Hebrew, on a stone at Eillelan Churchyard, . 159
Itqbbing from a cross-inscribed slab at Eilleen Cormac, .... 16Q
X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
FAQS.
Plan of the Eilleen Gormao Churohyard, 161
Donadea Castle, from a drawing by the Bey. Canon Sherlock, . 168
The Aylmer Coat-of-Arms, 169
Portions of Donadea Castle, from drawings by the Bev. Canon Sherlock, 173, 176
The Lattin Arms, 186
The Mansfield Arms, 188
Antiquities at Eilkea Castle, 197
.The late Miss Margaret Stokes sketching the High Cross at Moone, . 201
Clongowes Wood College (the hall-door side), 206
The Badge of Loyola, 207
The Quadrangle, Clongowes Wood College, from a drawing by A. C.
Michelmore, 208
The Coat-of-Arms, and Inscription over the hall-door, at Clongowes Wood
College 215
St. Brigid's Well at Faughart, Co. Louth, from a photograph by the late
Miss Margaret Stokes, . . . , 216
Map of the ancient territories in the present County Louth, . . 219
Map of Faughart and its neighbourhood, 223
Faughart Church Buins, north side, 224
Two Views of the ruins of Gastleroe, 230
Bubbings from William FitzGerald's Tomb in the Kilkea Churchyard, 236, 238
The FitzGerald Altar-Tomb in the Mortuary Chapel, Kilkea Church Buins, 239
Sculptured Stones in connection with William FitzGerald, of Castleroe,
Eilkea Church Buins 241
Bubbing of the inscription on the Mural Slab, Eilkea Church Buins, . 243
Plan of the Eilkea Church Buins 244
Two Views of the east end of the Eilkea Church Buins, .... 246
The West End of the Eilkea Church Buins, 246
Shape of a Window (in fragments) at Eilkea Castle, .... 247
A Sculptured Slab in the Chancel of the Eilkea Church Buins, . . 248
Ground-plan of Castleroe, 250
Map of the Castleroe District, 253
The Monument in the Browne Mausoleum at Mainham, from a drawing
by A. C. Michelmore, 260
Bubbings of the Crests and Coat-of-Arms on the Browne Monument, 262
The Castledermot Sword, and a Bronze Pot, at Kilkea Castle, . 266
Map of the Bampart of the Pale at Clongowes Wood, .... 284
Comparison of churches in the County Eildare with those in Wales, 297, 298
The Effigies on the Portlester Tomb at New Abbey, KilcuUen, drawn by
Thomas J. Westropp, 300
The same from a photograph, 302
The sides of the Portlester Altar-Tomb, drawn by Thos. J. Westropp, . 304
Bubbing of portions of the Inscription on the Tomb, .... 306
New Abbey as it was in 1782, 307
The Effigies on the Portlester Cenotaph in St. Audoen's Church, Dublin, 308
Bubbing of the Inscription on the Portlester Cenotaph in St. Audoen's, . 310
EUcullen Brid^^e, drawn by Petrie, 314
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xi
The upside-down portion of the Inscription on the Portlester Cenotaph in
St. Aadoen's, 316
Portions of the Eustaoe Altar-Tomb in the Castlemartin Chapel, . 818
Plan of the Castlemartin Chapel Bains, 822
The Tower of the Castlemartin Chapel Bains, 828
Antiqaities in the Edenderry Maseam, .... 826, 827, 329, 832
Back and front view of the tall Cross in the Ballymore Eastace Church.
yard, 351
Sketch of the Inscription on the head of the tall Cross, . . 352
Gk>oleen-a-waatha Cataract, at Ballymore Eastace, .... 858
The Piper's Stones near Ballymore Eustace, 855
The prostrate Long-stone near Ballymore Eastace 357
Map of Ballymore Eastace and its neighboarhood, .... 359
Portrait of Arthur Wolfe, Ist Viscount Eilwarden, 363
Portrait of the Bev. Charles Wolfe, mjl 366
The Wolfe Coat-of- Arms, 367
An Irish War-piper, carved on a stone formerly at Woodstock Castle,
near Athy, 878
Two Views of the Moat at Bathmore, 381
Bubbings from two Coats-of-Arms (Harrington) Stones at Grange Con, . 384
The Henry Arms, 386
The Sweetman Arms, 389
Poul-a-phooka, 398
A Crozier in the Clongowes Wood College Museum, .... 394
Antiquities in the Museum at Clongowes Wood College, . . 398
Seals of the Borough and of the Town Commissioners of Athy, and of the
Eildare County Council, 400
A Stone, bearing the Sherlock Coat-of-Arms 401
A Sculptured Stone, now at Sherlockstown 402
Lettice, Baroness of Oflaly, ob. 1658, 418
A Miniature of Lettice, Baroness of Offaly, 423
Plan of Ballyshannon Castle in 1650 447
The Long-stone in the Bath at Fumess, 454
Fumess Church from the East, 457
The Chancel- Arch in Fnrness Church, 458
Portion of the FitzGterald of Narraghbeg Cross, 474
Bemains of the Inscription on the FitzGerald of Narraghbeg Cross, 475
Carvings on the FitzGerald of Narraghbeg Cross, .... 476, 477
The position of the Mural Graves, St. Brigid's Cathedral, Eildare, . . 479
Bnbbing of a Window-head, and the Inscriptions on two Tablets, at
Turnings House, 482
Irish Warriors and Peasantry, from a sixteenth-century drawing by
Albrecht Durer, 487
/
Pollu fiUs^^ THE
POLUARD^TOV^ C URRAGH
-^ A^tA 4^665 d J Statu re MiASyitg.
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KILCULUEM PARISH
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i* ■i»»««-^/l»
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JOURNAL
OF THE
JIw|»oIogical jSwietD of i\t C^wtfi of FJilbart
AND
jSfurronnbing Distnds.
+♦
77^£ CURRAGH: ITS HISTORY AND
TRADITIONS.
By lord WALTER FITZGERALD.
[Read on the 24th February, 1807.]
**Marid Cuirrech oona li,
Ni mair nach Ri ro boi foir.**
**The Curraffh, with its beauty, remains,
But there lives no king who was over it." —
From **The Book of Leinster," a twelfth-century MS. [Hennessy.]
THE Gurragh at the present time contains 4,885 acres; as the
crow flies it is six miles in length, and two miles in
breadth at its broadest portion ; its longest axis lies N.-W. and
S.-E. ; a walk round its mearin would be a distance of fifteen
miles; all these measurements are calculated in statute, or
English, mileage.
As to the meaning of the name, Dr. Joyce says it is used in
two senses : (1) Gnirreach, or Gurragh, means *' a marshy place,*'
and as such is generally used all over Ireland in place-names ;
(2) it means '' a racecourse," and in this sense it applies to the
Gurragh of Kildare, which was never a marsh.
In an ancient tract known as '' Gormac's Glossary,*' which
was written by Gormac MacGnillenan, King of Munster and
Bishop of Gashel (who was slain in the Battle of Ballachmoon,
^ : : /THE -GURRACiU : tTS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS.
in the sontb end of the County Eildare, in 908), the word
** Gairrech " occurs twice, and is thus explained : —
** * Cuirrech * is applied to a sheskin or morass, from the corra,
or cranes, which frequent it.
" * Cuirrech,* i.e., a curribus, i,e,,Jich carpait (in Irish), which
means ' a contest of chariots.'"
From the earliest times the Curragh has been a great
common, or unenclosed plain. Its ancient name of *' Cuirrech
Life,^' or the Curragh of the Liffey, shows that long ago it
reached that river's banks; but since the Anglo-Norman invasion
it has gradually been encroached upon from all sides, as is
proved by such names along its borders as Pollardstown,
Crotanstown, Walshestown, Brownstown, Maddenstown, and
others.
The Curragh lay in the ancient district of Magh Life, or
Life's plain, so called from Life, daughter of Ganann ^'curchach,"
and wife of Deltbanna mac Druchta, cup-bearer of Conaire Mor,
King of Lreland ;^ from the plain, the river which flows through
it was named ; hence Avon Life (distorted to Anna Liffey), or
*' the River Liffey," which previous to that time was named
** Ruirtach " — ^i.e., " the chief or noble river.''* Magh Life itself
was situated in the O'Byrne territory of Offelan.
There was a custom in pre-Christian times in ancient Erin to
hold *' aonechs " (pronounced *' eenaghs'*), or fairs, at the burial-
place, or moat, of a king or some noted warrior* Some aonechs
were celebrated annually, others triennially ; they originated in
the funeral games held in honour of the renowned dead ; and
according as the aonechs represented a province or a smaller
territory, they differed in size and importance. In connection
with the Curragh, the '^ Annals of Ireland** mention two
aonechs : —
(a) One was called " Aonech Cholmain," or " Cole-
man's Fair ; *'
(b) The other was known as *' Aonech Life," or " the
Fair of the Liffey." Neither their sites, nor the date of
their institution, are known ; though Dr. O'Donovan in
the " Ordnance Survey Letters *' says it is not im-
probable that one of them was established by Art
*' Mesdelmon,*' son of Setna, the founder of Dun Aillinn,
on the neighbouring hill of Enockaulin, or by some one
of his pagan successors.
> P. 530 of S. H. O'Grady's «' Silva Gadelica."
' P. 453, vol. X, ** Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy."
THE CURRAGH : ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS. 3
There is a twelfth-century vellam MS. in the Library of
Trinity CoUege,^ Dablin, which contains a poem said to have
been compost by Ossian, son of Finn Mac Cool^ in the third
century^ transcribed from a MS. of a mnch earlier date. In
this poem Ossian informs as that the then King of Leinster
inaugurated the Aonech Life, and that it was at the time of this
great assembly that Ossian composed the poem in commemora-
tion of the event.^
An aonech performed four functions : —
1st. It honoured the dead by funeral rites, feasts^ and
games ; and by raising the keen, or death-song, kept his
memory green.
The wake games are a survival of this ancient custom.
2nd. It was a combined parliament and school, at
which the people were taught the history of their country
and clan, the warlike deeds and pedigrees of their chiefs,
and the laws under which they were governed.
8rd. It was the occasion of merry-making and
friendly contests. Besides dancing, jugglery, and music,
there were horse and foot races, feats of arms, recitations
of poetry and long stories, athletic sports and games.
4th. And lastly, it was a great market for the ex-
change and barter of live-stock, gold ornaments, weapons
of o&nce and defence, embroidery, cloths, and all kinds
of home and foreign wares.^
The aonech was governed by strict laws, breaches of the
peace, insults to women, &c., being severely dealt with, and no
one could be arrested or his goods seized while going to, at, or
returning from the fair. It lasted for several days, and was pre-
sided over by the king in whose district it was held, who himself
distributed the rewards to the successful individuals in the
various competitions ; in attendance on him were his brehons,
bards, and other state officials.
As at the present day, fatal accidents occasionally occurred
at an aonech: thus in the year a.d. 940, "Faelan, son of
Muireadhach, King of Leinster, died of a fall at Aonech-
Colmaine." *
It is stated in " The Book of Munster,*' as preserved in
" The Book of Lecan," that Fiacha, second son of Daire Cearba,
ancestor of the O'Donovans, and King of Munster in the fourth
* p. 14, vol. i of the Oasianic Society's Publications.
• O'Ourry's *' Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish."
' '* Annals of the Four Masters."
4 THE CURRAGH: ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS.
century, obtained the nickname of " Fidb-gheinte/' i.e., wood-
maker, becanse he constructed a horse of wood at the fair of
Aonecb Gholmain.^
There were occasions, too, when a hostile chief would take a
mean advantage of his enemy, and attack him while presiding
at the peaceable aonech : in a.d. 825 occurred ** the destruction
of the Fair of Colman, by Muireadhach, against the South
Leinstermen, where many were slain.^
To hold a fair in another king's territory was an act of insult
to him, and done probably as a boast over his downfall. A case
of this sort occurred in the year 954, when there took place
" a hosting by Conghalach, son of Maelmithigh, King of
Ireland, into Leinster ; and after he had plundered Leinster,
and held the Aonech Life for three davs, information was sent
from Leinster to the foreigners of Ath-cliath (i.e., the Danes of
Dublin), and Awly, son of Godfrey, lord of foreigners, with his
forces went and laid an ambush for Conghalach, by means of
which stratagem he was taken, with his chieftains, at Tigh
Gighrainn (i.e., Tigeeran, a place not identified). Conghalach
himself was slain, and a great many others along with him."^
Dr. Joyce, in explaining the word "aonech,*' says: —
''In modem times, and in the present spoken language, this word is
always applied to a cattle fair. There is no doubt that in some cases the
present fairs are the representatives of the ancient popular assemblies,
which have continued uninterruptedly from age to age, gradually changing
their purposes to suit the requirements of each succeeding generation.
The word ''aenach" forms part of a great number of names, showing
that fairs were formerly held at the place, though in most instances they
have been discontinued or transferred to other localities." *
About the year 480 the great patron saint of the County
Kildare, St. Brigid, came and settled at '' Drumcree ** (i.e., " the
Ridge of Clay"), which was then on or at the edge of the
Curragh. This place is now Kildare.
There is a legend told, which I have heard from the mouths
of the older generation, of how St. Brigid acquired the Curragh
for her own use. It was to this effect : —
The King of Leinster who lived at the time that St. Brigid
first settled at Kildare, was an uncharitable and close-fisted man.
He had repeatedly refused to grant any gi-ound to St. Brigid on
which she might graze her few head of cattle. Now, this king
had a deformity in the shape of two ears like those of a horse,
* Hennessy's Paper on " The Curragh," p. 351, vol. ix of the
** Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy."
'^ " The Annals of the Four Masters." » Ibid.
* Page 204, First Series of ** Irish Names of Places."
THE CURRAGH : ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS. S
which he kept carefully concealed nnder his long hair; bat he
daily dreaded discovery, which wonld mean the loss of his throne,
as a king mnst be without personal blemish. At last he decided
to try what St. Brigid could do for him, and, going quietly to
Kildare, he had an interview with her ; the result was that the
saint agreed to remove the deformity on condition that she was
granted as much land as her mantle would cover. The king
willingly promised it, and congratulated himself on having to
part with so little of his territoiy. He was then put into a deep
sleep by St. Brigid, and when he awoke again, he found his head
was furnished with a pair of human ears. On that day week
the promised plot of ground was to be handed over. When the
day anived, a large crowd assembled to witness St. Brigid receive
over the first acquisition of land for her cell. Before removing
her mantle, St. Brigid explained to the people the nature of the
king's promise ; she then called seven of her nuns, and handing
them her mantle, told them to spread it on the ground as far as
it would stretch to the north, east, and south. They followed her
instructions, and^ to the amazement of the king and his people,
the mantle enlarged until it covered the whole of the present
Curragh, and more besides. To the east St. Brigid's nuns were
stopped close to the Biver Liffey by a smith issuing from a forge
with a red-hot iron in his hand ; northwards they met a red-
haired woman, and would proceed no further ; while to the
south a larger extent of the king's territory would have been
covered by the mantle had not the nuns in that direction seen a
hare cross their path, and so they put down the mantle, and
turned back. Thus it was St. Brigid acquired the Curragh from
the ungrateful and miserly king.
In Oiraldus Gambrensis'^ time (the latter end of the twelfth
century) the Curragh was also known as '' St. Brigid's Pastures,"
*' in which," he adds, '' no plough was suffered to turn a furrow ;
respecting these meadows, it is held as a miracle that, although
all the cattle in the province should graze the herbage from
morning till night, the next morning the grass would be as
luxuriant as ever."
The oldest written reference to the Curragh is to be found
in an ancient MS.^ called the ** Liber Hymnorum," preserved
in Trinity College, supposed to have been transcribed from an
older MS. in the tenth century. The reference occurs in the
celebrated hymn in praise of St Brigid, composed by St. Brogan
Claen from a prose narrative communicated to him by his
' That is, Gerald of Wales, the Norman chronicler of the invasion of
Ireland by Strongbow. He was the son of William de Barry, by his wife
Angareth, siBter of Maurice FitzGerald of Maynooth.
6 THE CURRAGH: ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS.
master St. Ultan^ of Ardbraccan, in Meath, whose death took
place in 656; in this hymn is the line, '^In Gaillech reidhed
Cuirrech," i.e., " the nun who drives over the Curragh."*
In the year 868 the Irish Annals record the death of Coffey,
son of Murray, Abbot of Eildare, in praise of whom they say : —
** Cobhthach of the Cuirreach of races, intended King of Lephthe of
tunics,
Alas ! for the great son of Muireadhach. Ah grief ! the descendant
of the comely fair Ceallach.
Chief of Scholastic Leinster, a perfect, comely, prudent sage,
A brilliant shining star, was Ooohthach, the successor of Oonnladh.'
»»»
The late W. M. Hennessy, who was an Irish scholar,
translates the Irish, '' Cobhthach cuirrigh cuirrithaigh," as
*' the racing Coffey of the Curragh ; " but Dr. O'Donovan
gives it as above.
Though the Curragh was probably the scene of many a
conflict, yet only one pitched battle on it is recorded in '* The
Annals of the Four Masters ;*' it is thus noticed : —
** The age of Christ 777 [recte, 782]. The battle of Cuirreach, by the
side of Cill-dara, was fought on the sixth of the Calends of September,
on Tuesday, between Ruadhri, son of Faelan, and Bran, son of Muread-
hach ; wherein Mughron, son of Flann, Lord of Ui-Failghe, and Dubh-
dachrich, son of I^idhgnen, were slain in a combat. The victory was
gained by Ruadhri."
Sixty-three years after the coming of the Anglo-Normans
into Ireland, the Curragh was the scene of an act of inexcusable
treachery on the part of some of the Anglo-Norman knights
towards one of their own compatriots. The late Sir John
Gilbert describes the circumstances of it as follows^ : —
* * William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke and nominal Lord of Leinster,
dying in 1231, bequeathed his offices and large possessions in Ireland,
Wales, and England, to his brother Richard. Henry III was influenced
to prohibit Earl Richard's admission to his inheritance, and, on a charge
of treason in Brittany, commanded him, without trial, to quit the king-
dom. The Earl Richard, however, sailed to Ireland, took possession of
the castles and lands of his family, and defied the king ; the result was
the king thought it best to conciliate him, and invested him with the
office of Mar^chal and his other hereditary rights.
*'At this time the king was greatly influenced by foreigners from
Poitou and Brittany, who laboured to suppress the nobility of England.
He sought to prevail against the English barons by the aid of mercenary
troops ; but Earl Richard combined with Prince Llewellin, and with
success opposed them.
' Venerated on the 4 th of September.
' Hennessy 's Paper in vol. ix of the ** Proceedings of the R. I. A.
* ** Annals of the Four Masters."
* P. 93 of his ** History of the Viceroys of Ireland."
>i
THE CURRAGH : ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS. /
" The foreign advisers of the king^ dreading that these successes might
eventuate in their own expulsion from England^ devised a plot to cut off
the Earl Richard. With this object they despatched letters to the viceroy
and Irish barons, requiring them to capture Earl Richard, dead or alive,
if he landed in Ireland, and to seize hia castles ; concluding with a promise
that his land9 should subsequently be divided amongst them. Having
obtained a charter relative to the distribution of the Earl's lands, to which
the king in ignorance had signed his name, and for which the Royal Seal
attached had been stolen for the occasion, the Irish barons took the oath
of confederation, and invaded the lands of the Earl, their feudal lord,
who, hearing of their doings, repaired to Ireland, and successfully held
his own against them. Disconcerted at their losses, the viceroy solicited
a truce, while he sent messengers to England to learn the king's will.
*^ In the meantime Earl Richard appointed a conference on the Curragh
of Kildare with the barons. On the Ist of April, 1234, Maurice FitzGerald,
the Viceroy, accompanied by Hugh de Lacy and Richard de Burgh, came
with a body of soloiery to the place of meeting, while the earl, with
Greoffi*ey de Marisco and a few attendants, took up a position some distance
away. The negotiations carried on between the parties by Templars,
ended by the barons refusing to comply with the ean's demands for the
restoration of some of his castles still m their possession ; and,, drawing
their swords, they threatened to attack him at once unless he consented to
the truce.
'* The earl, at this juncture, was basely deserted by his false friend
Geofirev de Marisco ; but, undaunted by superior numbers, and accom-
panied by only fifteen followers who remained faithful to him, he charged
into the midst of the barons' troops, and for a long time fought bravely,
doing great execution on his foes. At last his horse fell under him, and
while the earl lay on the ground he received a mortal wound in the back ;
he was carried off to one of his own castles, and on Palm Sunday, sixteen
days after receiving the wounds, he breathed his last. His body was
taken to Eilkenny, and buried in the Dominican Abbey, where the
founder, his brother William, had been laid three years before.
*' The death of Strongbow*s grandson ' in this fashion caused great
alarm among the Anglo-Norman settlers in Ireland ; but Henry III
denied all knowledge of the plot, and by his future conduct soon reassured
them."
In ** Marlborongh's Chronicle " it is stated that in the year
1406^ the prior of Great Connell Abbey^ at the head of only twenty
English soldiers, pnt to flight two hundred well-armed Irish
on the Gan'agh of Eildare. This may be taken cam grano salts.
For the next two or three centuries there is nothing of any
importance recorded aboat the Garragh. This is not surprising,
when one remembers that the Curragh was only an extensive
common. But, at the same time, it was in the hands of the
Crown, which kept a jealous eye on its grazing rights thereon ;
and when it leased a manor adjacent to the Curragh to any one of
its prominent adherents, a careful mention is made in the grant
* Hifl mother was Isabel de Clare, Strongbow's only child, who had
married William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke.
8 THE CURRAGH : ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS.
of the privilege to enjoy the common: pasture on the Garragh.
The following are instances in illustration of this : —
(a) In 1592, a new lease for sixty years, of the manor
of Bathbride ^ (which lies at the north-western end of the
Curragh), late the possession of David Sutton' of Gonnell
and Castletown-Kildroughty attainted of high treason,
was granted to John Lye^ of Glonaugh, in the Gounty
Eildare. Bathbride is described as '* containing sixty
acres of great measure, according to the custom of the
country, making 180 acres of standard measure, lying
towards the batter or lane of Rollickstone, on the east,
leading to the king*s way, betwixt the lands of Bathbride
and Priortown on the west, and so from Bichard
FitzOerralde's Gross, on the west' side of Gookesland,
to the Gurraghe of Eildare, and- to the river Boure on the
north, and the Gurraghe of Kildare on the south, with
carnmon of pasture on the Curraghe^ and liberty to cut
turf on the moor near the west side of the Ghannon*s
Wood. John Lye must also maintain one English horse-
man, archer, or arquebusier ; he must not levy coyne
and livery ; and must not alienate any portions of his
lands without licence, except to persons of English
parentage, or bom in the English Pale."*
(h) On the southern side of the Gurragh lies Ballysax
(i.e., the sedgy or barren townland, vide Joyce). In the
year 1584, this manor was leased to Bobert Nangle, a
soldier who had served the Oovei*nment faithfully for
nearly thirty years, and who had been crippled for life
in the Desmond Bebellion, from a wound received in
March, 1580, at the assault and. capture of Garrig-a-foile
Gastle, in the Gounty Eerry. The Gastle and lands of
Ballysax were leased, together with " the common pasture
on the Curragh thereunto belonging;'* the said Nangle
undertaking to repair and fortify the ruinous Castle
of Ballysax, as shall be thought best by the Gouncil for
the Queen's service/
M.e., Brigid's Rath. The following extract states after whom it was
called: — '*St. Brigidia de Rathbrigde, juxta Curreach Kildarensi, filia
Muredacii cum Sancta Adamaria Virgine." [Keledeus and Ketin, Tri.
Th.,D. 611.]
^ Vide vol. ii, p. 367, of The Journal.
' Vide the Paper on John Lye of Clonaugh, by the Rev. E.
O'Leary, p.p. ; vol. ii, p. 133, of The Journal.
* Vide Elizabeth Fiant, No. 5,745.
* Vide Elizabeth Fiant, No. 4,348 ; and Russell's " Cal. of Docts. , Ire."
(1608-1010).
THE CURRAGH: ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS. 9
About the year 1682, a '' doBoriptive account of the County
of Kildare, by Thomas Monk/' was drawn up for Sir William
Petty, in which he gives the following quaintly worded account of
the Curragh^ :—
'* Nere the center of this County is the Curragh of Kildare, a large
BiMtious plaine and common to all the adjacent neighbourhood, whoe find
it a rich and commodious as well as a healthful pasturage, especially for
sheep that beare a fine staple and the sweetest flesh of any m the king-
dom, it being thronged with flocks all the yeare round. It is about nine
miles in compasse, and together with the adjoyneinge grounds, is
reckoned one of the most pleasant sytes these kingdoms anywhere can
shew. The easie assents, yieldinge noble and various prospects, and the
gentle declinings give content to the wearied traveller as well as recreate
and please the gentiele horseman and keeper, it being a place naturally
addapted to pleasure, and its vicinity to Dublin, being but 17 miles
distance, occasions, that hither repaires the Lord Lievt., or Chief e
Gk>vemor, when his Majesties important affairs will admitt leasure to
imbend and slacken from tyreing cares ; hither are also seen to come all
the nobility and geutrie of the kingdome that either pretend to love, or
delight in, hawking, hunting, or raceing. For in this clearer and finer
aire the falcon goes to a l^gher pitch or mount, so as often to be scarce
visible ; the hounds enjoy the scent more freely, and the courser in his
swift carreare is lesse sencible of pressure or opposition than other where.
And upon any gonerall meetinge or rendavouse of the Army or Militia
this is the place, and indeed it is noe unacceptable sight, upon such
oocations to see what numbers of gentlemen with faire equipage, good
mien and port, appeare there to accompany and attend his Excellency."
At this time, the property of John, the 18th Earl of Kildare,
was in a very bad way^ owing to the civil war of 1640-50,
and there is a seventeenth-century manuscript at Carton, on
which suggestions are made for its benefit during the minority of
tha Earl, who came of age in 1682. It is undated and unsigned.
There is one reference to the Curragh Races in it, which is as
follows : —
'* The Lordship of Kildare^ being now out of lease, where there is an
excellent course, it may be worth considering that by my Lord giving a
plate of about 40 pounds a yeare, which would bring a vast concourse and
expence among his tenants, the lands, on this account, will rise at least
twelve pence an acre on that hopes, so that, tho* this seems a matter of
pleasure, it will really be of great profitt to many acres of my Lord's lands
that lye adjacent to the Curragh of Kildare, and will improve the towne
and the rents of the land contiguous to it."
Horse-racing on the Curragh appears to have been of long
standing ; but it was not until the year 1696 that the Oovern-
* A copy of this short work was made in 1849 by Dr. George Petrie
for the Marquis of Kildare, and is now at Kilkea Castle.
*0f which the townlands of Pollardstown, Miller Hill, Black Hill,
and Maddenstown, border on the Curragh.
lO THE CURRAGH: ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS.
ment encouraged liorse-breeJiug iu Ireland by giving two Plates
of £100 each to be run for annually at the Curragh Races. In
the Record Office there are many manuscript volumes containing
'' the Receit and Payments of the Receiver-General of his
Majesties Revenue in Ireland ; " in which, among other items,
the names of owners of the winners of the Government Plates,
run for at the GuiTagh Races/ are given }'early from 1696 to
1820. The following three extracts will be sufficient to illustrate
the general run of these entries : —
**Paid to John Philips for a Piece of Plate run for on
ye Curragh of Kildare the 16th inst., and of his
Majesties bounty, given yearely for encouragement
to breed horses, as by warrant dated the 13th of
September, 1697, and acquittance appears ... £103 16 0
'^ Paid to Lord Mazareen, as of his Majesties bounty,
for the yearly Plate run for by Horses, Mares, and «
Geldings ; won by his Horse on the Curragh of
Kildare, the 26th of July, 1710, as by warrant
dated the 21st August, 1710, and acquittance
appears ... ... ... ... ... £115 0 0
**Paid the Earl of Rosse for his Majesties Plate, run
for on the Curragh of Kildare, by Mares only, on
the 12th September, 1718, as by warrant dated the
27th September^ 1718, and acquittance appears £119 5 0 "
In 1795, Lord Edward FitzOerald and his wife (Pamela)
were living in a small house (now demolished) near the Castle in
the town of Kildare, which he rented from Mr. Thomas Gonolly
of Castletown. With him was staying, for the races, his friend^
Mr. Arthur O'Connor, m.p. for Philipstown. In connection with
this year's Curragh Races, Moore, in his '' Life of Lord Edward/'
relates the following sensational incident : —
* * It was about this time (1795) that there took place, on the Curragh of
Kildare, a well-known rencontre between Lord Edward and some dragoon
officers. The following are, as nearly as possible, the real circumstances
of the transaction. Mr. Arthur O'Connor, being at that time on a visit
to his friend, they rode together on one of the days of the races to the
Curragh, Lord Edward having a green silk handkerchief round his neck.
It was indeed his practice at all times (contrary to the usual custom of
that day) to wear a coloured silk neckcloth, and on the present occasion
lie chose to wear the national, and at that time obnoxious, colour — ^green.
^ Lord Mayo has in his possession at Palnierstown three or four
curious old prints, dating about the first half of the last century, in
connection with racing on the Curragh. Noble and Keenan's Map of the
County Kildare (1752) has on it a sketch of a match for 1,000 guineas
between Sir Ralph Gore's ^' Black and all Black," and the Earl of
March's ^^ Bajazet," which was run on the 5th of September, 1751, and
won easily by the former.
THE CURRAGH: ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS. II
** At the end of the race, having left the stand-house in a canter to
return home, the two friends had not proceeded far before they found
themselves overtaken by a party of from ten to a dozen officers, who,
riding past them at full gsJlop, wheeled round so as to obstruct their
passage, and demanded that Lord Edward should take off his green
cravat. Thus accosted. Lord Edward answered coolly : — ' Your cloth
would speak you to be gentlemen, but this conduct conveys a very
different impression . As to this neckcloth that so offends you, all I can
say is. Here I stand ; let any man among you, who dares, come forward
and take it off.' This speech, pronounced calmly and deliberately, took
his pursuers by surprise, and for a moment they looked puzzled at each
other, doubtful how to proceed ; when Mr. O'Connor, interposing, said
that if the officers chose to appoint two out of their number. Lord Edward
and himself would be found ready to attend their summons at Kildare.
'^The parties then separated, and during the two following days. Lord
Edward and his friend waited the expected message. But no further
steps were taken by these military gentlemen, on whose conduct rather a
significant verdict was passed at a Curragh ball shortly after, when it was
agreed, as I have heard, by all the ladies in the room not to accept any of
them as partners."'
Darinf( the troables of '98, the country surronnding the
Curragh suffered greatly, both from the maddened peasantry
alEid from the revengeful and ill-disciplined soldiery, who were
generally allowed to follow their own will unrestrained and un-
punished. Even the Cun*agh itself was the scene of a brutal
carnage. It occurred on the 29th May, 1798 : the Rebellion had
biroken out six days previously. The ofScer in command of the
forces near Kildare at the time was General Dundas, an upright
and humane officer, then quartered at Castlemartin. A day or
two previously he had issued a proclamation offering a free
pardon to all rebels who would assemble at the Gibbet Rath on
the Curragh on the 29th of May, and deliver up their arms. In
answer to this appeal, several hundreds of United Irishmen
assembled at the place named. Unfoi*tunately, early on that
morning Major-General Sir James Duff arrived at Kildare with
600 men from Limerick, and received information that a
large force of the rebels were to surrender and deliver up their
arms, for which they had been promised a free pardon. General
Duff thereupon proceeded at once to the Gibbet Rath. His force
included a yeomanry regiment known as ^' Lord Roden's' fox-
hunters." On approaching the place where the rebels had
assembled, one man in the crowd, saying he would not hand
over his fire-lock loaded, blazed it off in the air. General Duff's
force immediately opened fire on the unfortunate men, who
threw down their arms, and fled in all directions, hotly pursued
'Moore's "Life of Lord Edward FitzGerald," vol. i, pp. 276-8, of the
1831 edition.
* Robert Jooelyn, Earl of Roden.
12 THE CURRAGH: ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS.
by Lord Roden's fox-bantersy who rigbt and left cnt down tbe
defenceless peasants, and before the firing could be stopped, and
the yeomanry recalled^ some 850 of them lay dead, scattered
over the Gurragh; the loss in General Daff's force was nil.
Some historians of the Bebellion state that the troops were
attacked on this occasion, which led to their returning the fire ;
but this is a deliberate lie, concocted to hush up a yast military
murder.
In 1804, William Robert, 2nd Duke of Leinster, died at
Carton, and was buried in the family vault in the south transept
of St. Brigid's Cathedral. The funeral^ was so numerously
attended by the gentry and his tenants that, it is said, the pro-
cession reached across the Curragh. A legend in connection
with the Duke's ancestor — the Wizard Earl — Gerald, the
11th Earl of Eildare, who died in 1585, is related as having
occurred on the Curragh : —
It is said that he and his knights lie in an enchanted sleep in
a cave under the Rath of MuUaghmast, and that once in seven
years, for a short time, the enchanted sleep is lifted, and they
have then to issue forth, gallop round the Curragh, visit Kilkea
Castle, and then return to MullaghmasL' On one occasion, in
the heel of the evening, shortly before '98, a blacksmith named
Martin Murphy was driving an ass-cart from Athgarvan to
Eildare. On the way across the Curragh be overtook a travelling
tinker, and gave him a lift. As they jogged along, collogueing
together, their conversation was interrupted by the sound of
horses galloping behind them ; they both looked round, and were
terrified at seeing approaching them a troop of men clothed from
head to foot in armour, led by a knight on a white charger. The
leader then halted his troop, and rode forward to where the two
terrified men had pulled up by the side of the road. On reaching
them, he asked the blacksmith to inspect the state of his charger's
shoes. Martin Murphy, plucking up courage, dismounted from
the cart and examined each shoe, which, he was astonished to
notice, were of silver, and as thin as a cat's ear ; however, the
nails were sound, and so he informed the knight, who, after
thanking him, rejoined his men and galloped on. When they
were alone again, Martin Murphy did not let the grass grow under
his ass's hoofs, and soon reached Kildare, where he related
his recent adventure, and was corroborated by the tinker. An
old man, who was listening in the wonder-struck crowd, suddenly
^ For the expenses incurred by this funeral, see the note at the end of
the Paper.
^For the legend, see p. 389, vol. i, and p. 29, vol. ii, of The Journal.
THE CURRAOH : ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS. 1 3
exclaimed: "Be the bokey faimer, boyB, it was Gerod-Eeria
himself was in it ; ** and he spoke the trnth.
Another version of the tradition is that ** Gerod-Eerla "
(Earl Oerald) rides with a chalice in his hand, and that when he
appears without it his race will become extinct ; in the former,
when the charger's silver shoes are worn ont, the enchantment
will be broken, and he will be free.
One of the most popular of the '98 songs is the one called
" The Shan Van Vogh" (in English," the poor old woman"), and
many are the ballads that have been pat to this air in subsequent
times. One verse of the *' Shan Van Vogh " introduces the
Curragh thus : —
*' Where will they pitch their camp ? says the Shan Van Vogh,
Where will they pitch their camp ? says the Shan Van Vogh,
On the Curragh of ICildare,
And the boys will all be there
With their pikes in good repair.
Says the ^han Van Vogh.
(Chorus,)
To the Curragh of Kildare
The boys all will repair.
And Lord Edward will be there,
Says the Shan Van Vogh."
I remember on one occasion, close on twenty-one years ago,
getting into conversation with an old herd whom I overtook
on the Curragh, and hearing from him (among other remi-
niscences of old times) that he and his neighbours were firmly
convinced that the time would come when Lord Edward himself
would re-appear, and make Ireland a nation once more. In
other parts of Ireland, too, the belief in the re-appearance of
some long dead chief is prevalent, and this idea is embodied
in the following verse, taken from Davis's ballad on " The
Oeraldines " : —
*' True Geraldines, brave Geraldines! — as torrents mould the earth,
You channelled deep old Ireland's heart by constancy and worth.
When Giuckle 'leaguered Limerick, the Irish soldiers gazed
To see if in the setting sun dead Desmond's banner blazed.*
*The Siege of Limerick took place in 1691. The Earl of Desmond
referred to here was Garrett fitzJames FitzGerald, the 15th Earl, who
was slain in 1538. It is said that he and his knights sleep in a cave
under the hill of Knocki'idoon, which, stands over Lough Gur, in the
County Limerick, and that once in seven years they are to be seen
galloping over the surface of the Lough, to return to Rnockadoon again
at dawn. Like his kinsman, the Earl of Kildare, his charger's shoes are
also of silver, and when they are worn out he, too, will return and claim
his own again. (Vide the Ilev. James Dowd's ** County of Limerick,"
p. 86.) \Thvi Note is contimiecl on the next p<tge.^
14 THE CURRAGH : ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS.
And still it is the peasants' hope upon the Curragh's mere,
' They 11 live, who 1l see ten thousand men with good Lord Edward
here;*
So let them dream till brighter days, when not by Edward's shade.
But by some leader true as he, their lines shall be arrayed."
For most of the information giyen below, on the history of
the Corragh, since the establishment of a military camp on the
Long Hilly my thanks are dae to Major Edmnnd Mansfield, of
Yeomanstown House. He informed me that when the Crimean
War broke out in 1854, the military authorities established
a Gamp of Instvuction on the Curragh without asking the
permission of anyone, the idea being that it was only a
temporary arrangement; it was designed by Captain (now
Colonel) Riche, of the Royal Engineers. This camp proTed
so successful that it became a permanent one.
In 1865 the military authorities caused a great deal of
discontent in the neighbourhood by stopping, or threatening to
stop, certain roads, and by informing the public that they were
permitted to cross the CuiTagh through the Camp on sufferance
only.
Indignation meetings were held, and it was decided to have
the question settled as to the ownership of the Curragh ; for
this purpose Parliament granted a Commission. The members
on it were Oeneral Gordon, then in command of the Cun*agh
forces, and Major Edmund Mansfield, with a Mr. Hallowes,
solicitor to the Woods and Forests Department, who watched
Similar traditions are told of other Irish heroes and chiefs, for
instance : —
1. Manannan mac Lir (i.e., ^^the son of the sea"), a great navigator, of
the Tuatha de Danann colony, who formerly peopled Ireland, made the
Isle of Man his principal port, and from him it takes its name. A
County of Londonderry tradition relates that this celebrated mariner
now lives in a castle below the waves of Magilligan, opposite Inishowen,
and that his magical ship is seen there once every seventh year. (^^ Annals
of the Four Masters," p. 532, note, vol. lii.)
2. Ivor Gillareagh ("the swarthy youth") macCathal (TDonovan, of
Myross, in the County Cork, who lived in the fourteenth century, was
also a famous navigator as well as a necromancer. It is believed that he
is enchanted in a lough called Lough Cluhir, in the townland of Listarkin,
County Cork, and that his magical ship, with sails set, and standard flying,
is to be seen once in seven years on the Lough. (^' Annals of the Four
Masters," note on p. 353 of vol. iii.)
3. One of the O'Donoghues of the Lakes, who dabbled in the ** black
art," and on one occasion showed his power to his wife, was taken from
her because she became terrified while he was so doing. He lies enchanted
with his followers in a cave below the waters of Lough Leano at Killarney,
and they are to be seen every May morning riding across the waters
of the Lough.
l6 THE CURRAGH : ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS.
the proceedings on the part of the Government. All parties
were invited to lay their claims to the " ownership in fee/' but
the resnlt left no doubt the Curragh belonged to the Crown. It
was equally apparent (continues Major Mansfield) that the Crown
had granted from a very early period to various monasteries and
properties the right of commonage on the Curragh.^ Most of
the properties adjoining the Curragh had been granted the
same privilege ; and it appeared that the Crown, though it had
prevented people from encroaching by building on the Curragh,
had not questioned anybody's rights to put sheep to graze
on it.
The consequence was that it was clear that, outside these
charter rights, a number of people had acquired rights by pre-
scription. The actual occupiers of the pasturage in 1865 were
principally mountain shepherds from the County Wicklow/ to
the exclusion of the rightful participators.
After the 1865 Commission had furnished their Report to
Parliament, a second Commission was appointed in 1869, to
settle who were entitled to the pasturage of the Curragh ; what
number of sheep they were to put on ; and what portions of the
Curragh, discharged of the rights of commonage, should be set
apart for the use of the military ; what roads belonged to the
county, &c., &c. On this Commission were appointed Henry
H. Joy, Alexander Stewart (formerly solicitor to the Board of
Works), and Major Mansfield. They decided that the tenants
on the townlands^ in the vicinity of the Curragh should be
allowed pasturage for as many sheep as they held acres ; that
^ Mr. Hennessy, in his Paper on the Curragh, read before the Royal
Irish Academy about the year 1865, states that in 1657 the CommiBsioners
appointed to carry out the Act of Settlement returned the Curragh as a
pasturage common to various towns, although in the reign of James I
and Charies I the right of pasturage thereon was granted to certain
l>atentee8 ; but it would seem that these grants were re-grants of rights
previously forfeited.
* (Generally called " Rawgorrah men " by the County Kildare farmers.
' Viz. : — Athgarvan, Blackrath, Ballysax, Brownstow^n, Collicknock
(including Gorteen and Glanbrettas), Carna, Bishops land, Rahilla,
Crockanure, Grey and White Abbey, Gornelscourt, Clongounagh, Hawk-
field, Piercotown, Rickardstown, Rossberry, Scarlestown, Moorefield,
Ballymanny, Ballyshanuon, Great, Little, and Old Connell, Friarstown,
Clogarrett, Crotanstown, Kilmeague, Bally teague, Newtown-Suncroft,
Morristown-Biller, Loughbrowne, Kinneagh, Knockawlin, Rathbride
(and Newtown and Rolickstown), Walshestown, Blackditch, Tully or
French Furze, Sunny Hill, North and South Glebe, Knockbounce,
Old Kilcullen, Maddenstown, Walterstown, Red Hills, Dunmurry,
Blackmiller*s Hill, Kildare and its adjoinings (Loughminane, Loughloin,
&c.), Mooretown, Milltown, Killenagoruane, Knocknagalliagh or Whiter-
land, and PoUardstowi).
i8 THE CURRAGH : ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS.
the sheep manure Bhonld not be removed from the Gurragh
(otherwise the grazing would deteriorate) ; that no animals but
sheep should be grazed upon it ; and that the public should not
cart or driye across the Curragh except on the roads alone, &c.
(From the decision of the Commissioners^ who in many cases
disallowed claims, there was not a single appeal.)
The result of the Commission was the Curragh Act of
1870.*
The Banger of the Curragh is an ofScial appointed by the
Lord Lieutenant ; how long this post has been instituted I am
unable to say ; but the earliest mention of one that I can dis-
coyer, is in 1687. His duties were principally to guard the
grazing rights, to preyent encroachments, and to mind the game
(hares, partridges, &c.). The Crown gave him, to start with,
£20 a year and his livery. About the middle of the eighteenth
century this salary was increased to £820, and £5 17s. for livery,
per annum, besides fees he was entitled to from the Jockey
Club, such as a guinea for every horse entered for the Royal or
Viceregal Plate ran for on the Curragh, and five guineas for a
horse winning that race ; but this has all been abolished by the
Curragh Act of 1870, and now the Banger gets nothing. At the
present day his livery is a green morning coat with brass buttons,
and a buff waistcoat.^
The source from which I have gathered the names of the
Bangers,^ given below, is a series of manuscript volumes (four
for each year), containing an account of ''the Beceits and
Payments of the Beceiver-General of His Majesty's Bevenue in
the Kingdom of Ireland ;" they commence about the middle
of the seventeenth century, and continue down to the year 1822.
They are to be found in the Becord Office, Dublin. The earliest
notice of a Banger is in the year 1687; the entry runs as
follows : —
** Paid to Simon Allen, as of His Majestie's bounty, for his caro and
attention in preserving His Majestie's game in and about the Currah of
Kildare, as by concordatum, dated the 0th of June, 1687, with acquittance
appears, £10 (for half-year)."
* To be obtained at Thom's, Government Printer, Middle Abbey
Street.
^ Canon Sherlock informs me that, according to a miniature he has of
his great-grandfather, William Sherlock, of Sherlockstown, who was
Ranger of the Curragh from 1765 to 1788, the livery was then white and
gold, with green collar and cuffs.
• My thanks are due to Mr. J. McEneiy, of the Record Office, for his
assistance to me, as without his help I could not have compiled the List
of the Rangers.
THE CUKRAGH: ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS. I9
(Two years previously Simon Allen is entered as being paid
£10, but what for is not stated.)
The next entry occurs in the following year : —
** Paid to Ed. Woogan, as of His Maj**^ bounty, 6n account of services
as ranger at y* Currah of Kildare, -as by concordatum, dated y* 31'* of
October, 1688, £10 llB6d."
About the year 1697 John Bates's hame'^ appears, and he is
described as '' His Majesty's Game Keeper and Ranger of the
Curragh of Kildare.'' From this period the payments to the
rangers are entered regularly, whereas previously only an odd
entry is made.
List of Rai^gbrs.
In and previous to the year 1687 he was a Simon Allen.
In 1688 Ed. Woogan.
From To
Circa 1697-1780 John Bates.
1780-1752 Thomas Carter, Esq.
1752-1756 Thomas Church, Gent.
1756-1760 Sir Ralph Gore, Bart., of Manor Gore, Co. Donegal.
He was created Baron Gore in 1764, Viscount
Belleisle in 1768, Earl of Ross in 1771, and
died in 1802.
1760-1765 Charles O'Hara, Esq.
1765-1788 William Sherlock, Esq., of Sherlockstown, Sallins.
1788-1789 Denis Bowes Daly, Esq., of Athgarvan Lodge,
Co. Kildare, and Dalystown, Co. Gal way. He
was the son of Hyacynth, second son of William
Daly, of Raford, Co. Galway. He was a P. C.
of Ireland, and died on the 17th December, 1821.
1789-1799 Lorenzo Moore, Esq.
1799-1818 James Knox, Esq., of Broadlands Park, Co. Mayo.
He was the third son of Francis Knox, Rappa
Castle, Co. Mayo. He died on the 21st of
October, 1818.
1818-1868 Robert Browne, Esq., of Mooreiield, Newbridge,
Co. Kildare, and Kilskeagh, Co. Galway. He
was the eldest son of Dominick Browne, of
Kilskeagh, a branch of the Coolarn and Moyne
family. He died in 1868.
1868-1892 Henry Moore, 8rd Marquis of Drogheda, of Moore
Abbey, Monasterevin. He died 29th June, 1892.
1892- The Baron De Robeck, of Gowran Grange (formerly
Swordwalstown), Naas.
20 THE CURRAGH : ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS.
There appears to haye been no depnty-ranger of the Corragh
prior to the Cnrragh Act of 1870. The first Deputy was
Lieat.-Gol. Richard Wellesley Bernard, fourth son of Col.
Thomas Bernard, of Castle Bernard, in the King's County;
on his death, in September, 1877, he was succeeded by
Lieut.-CoL F. R. Foster, the present Master of the Horse to the
Lord Lieutenant.
We will now describe the antiquarian remains
still existing on the Curragh : —
Holinshed in his ** Chronicles of Ireland " states, on the
authority of the Anglo-Norman historian, Giraldus Cambrensis
(who wrote in the twelfth century), that the Curragh was the
plain on which stupendous upright stones stood ages ago, and
which Aurelius Ambrosius, King of Britain, caused to be
transported to Salisbury Plain by the enchantments of the wizard
Merlin. This is an error on his part, as Giraldus' statement
is: —
'* In ancient times there was in Ireland a remarkable pile of stones
called *Hhe Giants' Dance," because the giants brought it from the
furthest parts of Africa into Ireland, and sot it up, partly by main
strength, partly by artificial contrivances, in an extraordinary way, on the
plains of Kildare, not far from the fortress of Nass (in Kildarensi planitie
non procxU a castro Naseiisi),^
Giraldus probably referred to the Longstones of Punches-
town, Craddockstown, Newtown (Tipper), and Fumess, which
are still standing near Naas. There are no monoliths, as far as
I know, near the Cnrragh.
Dr. O'Donovan, while engaged on the Ordnance Surrey in
1837, inspected the Curragh, and noted down the i*emains of
•antiquity on it (this, of course, was before the Curragh Camp
came into existence). Writing on the 9th of December, he
says *: —
** I visited the Curragh to-day with a view to ascertain what features
upon it I consider ancient. There are countless tracks of modem
encampments, and also several flat raths, and also two little mounds or
tumuli, similar to those called *'Dumhas," in Connaught. I give a rude
sketch of all the features, mounds, raths, &c., which I consider ancient.'
** Setting out from Kildare, in the direction of Rathbride, you reach
the Curragh after having walked a mile. The road then runs, unfenced,
* Vide Dimock's ** Works of Giraldus Cambrensis," vol. r, and
Wright's edition of Forester's Translation of Giraldus' Historical Works,
p. 78.
" Vide vol. ii of **The Ordnance Survey Letters," Co. Kildare, at the
Koyal Irish Academy.
' These are all marked down on the six-inch Ordnance Survey Map
^OB. 22, 23, and ?8.
THE CURRAGH : ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS. 21
■croeB the N.-W. Bide of the Ciirmgh for about s mile. On the left ude
of this road, about a quarter o( a mile from its entrBDCe on the Curragh,
" 1, A riuie limt'$t<nie, with several hollows, two of which are sup-
posed by the natiTOB to be the impressions of two naked feet ; but upon
examining the nature of the atone, one must corae to the »)nolu9ion that
they are natural, not artificial, holloffa.
"2. The Wart Stone. About half a mile to the north of this and at
the N.-W. extremity of the CuiTagh, where the road entere the townland
of R»thbride, there is a Btjuare atone raised on a very small nwund. It
is about 33 inches by 44, and about 3 feet in height. It was evidently
hammered, and on the top there is a hollow about I foot square, but
very shallow, and evidently formed by the chisel. This hollow generally
contains some water, which is used for curing warts, and hence the stone
" Tub Wabt Stone," thb bme of a Cbobb.
received the name of " the Wart Stone." Judging by analogy, I should
■uppoee this stone to be the pedestal of a cross, which St. Bridget perhaps
erected as a limit of her swred pasturage, for there is no tradition that
the Curraijh ever extended farther in this direction, while there is a
vivid tradition that it extended southwards as far ae the town of Kildare,
and it is said it was on the landti lying between the Curragh and the town
that St. Bridget fed her own cow, and that they were her favourite part
of the Curragh. There is, however, no tradition of the penton or persona
by whom, or period at which, these fields were cut off the sacred
paetuiage. If the exact ancient limits of the Curragh could be ascer-
tained, it is possible that three other titones of this description would bo
found in opposite directions.
" These are the only remarkable stones at present to be seen on the
Curragh. Proceeding south- eastwards from this stone, one soon meets a
rath with a flat mound and a shallow ditch called
"3. Kahteii-an-airij (Itathin-an-aodhaire), i.e., the little Rath of the
She[^erd. It is about thirty-three paces in diameter.
22 THE CURRAGH : ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS.
"4. CluB« to the lost ntth there is another similar to it inform and of
the same extent ; as well as a eroall
"5. Rath fifteen pacen in diameter. Theee two raths have no
distinguish ing epitheta, being called simply the Baheem. Aroimd these
raths, in every direction, there are traces of modeiii encampments,' which
do not come under the head of antiquity.
" South-east of the Raheen-an-airy there is a —
"C. 8tnall Tiimuliu, now much defaced, perhaps by people dif^ing
for money. South-east of this tumulus there is another^
"7- Satk of the same size as Baheen-an-airy, but with a higher
rampart ant) deeper ditch.
" South-east of No. 7, at the distance of one mile lies —
Trk O I duet Bath, :
' The two following items copied from the manuscript volumes in the
Record Office, Dublin, entitled " The Receipts and Payments of the
Receiver-GeDenil of his Majesty's Revenue in the Kingdom of Ireland,"
show that in 1G88 the Curragh was used as a camping-ground : —
"Paid to Wm. Mullineux, 'Enq,, upon account for utensills
and necessaries had from Caleb Warren to the camp at the Currah
of Kildare, as by concordatum of the 10th October, 1688,
£5 13s. 7d."
" Paid to Wm. Spike for straw for the use of the camp at the
Currah of Kildare, as by concordatum of the 10th October, 1688,
£38 lis. lOd."
And earlier still, during the Civil War of 1641, the Confederate Catholics
encamped on the Curragh. The E]arl of Custlohaveii was in command of
them, and in his Memoirs he wrote that " having taken this castle [i.e.,
Tully, near Kildare], and left a garrison to secure it, 1 encamped on a
heath called the Curragh of Kildare, from whence I summoned all the
castles thereabouts, and had them yielded."
'It has been suggested that the great Rath of the Curragh was given
its present name Ijecause probably a gallows was erected on it, where
criminals and highwaymen were left hanginK as a warning to others.
The old turnpike road from Dublin to Limerick pasHod near it.
THE CURRAGH: ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS. 23
appear that its present name is not ancient. Some modem graves
are shown near it..
'* Within about fifty perches of the Curragh stand-house there is a
rath called
'* 9. The Flat Baih, which in re et iiomiiief flat ; and about the same
distance to the west from this rath is another called —
"10. Walsh's Bath,
" In the south-east extremity of the Curragh, near the townland of
Ballysax, there is
"11. A Moat called Moteei^-an-mc (Moitin^an-eabha) — i.e., the little
moat of the aspen tree, or perhaps Eva*s Moat (?)w The people used
formerly to carry on sports and races here three times a year, like those
carried on formerly at Finglas, near Dublin. It is twenty-five feet high.
" But the most remarkable feature on the Curragh is —
"12. The Bace of the Black Pig, which is evidently the track of an
ancient road running across the Curragh from Raheen-an-airy in the direc-
tion of the great Rath of Dun Aillean, which crowns the hill of Knock-
aulin. It runs through a vale of the Curragh, and it would be now
difficult to form an idea of its original breadth, as the rains have much
altered the surface by washing down its banks and disfiguring it by its
deposits. Modem cars, however, are still brought over it.
" I am now inclined to think that tradition generally gives the name
of * the Race of the Black Pig '* (Oleann na muce duibhe) to any remark-
able trench or dyke of which the true name or history hais been lost."
Besides the above-noticed raths and moats, there are many
other small circular earth-works marked on the Ordnance Maps,
as well as an ancient track running across the south-eastern end
of the Curragh called '' the Black Ditch/' beside which is a pond
called Loughbane (the white lake) ; and another called '' Lough-
minaun," or the Kid's Pond.
The Gamp is situated on the rising ground called '' the Long
Hill ; '^ between it and the stand-house lies a yallej known as
" St. Leger's Bottoms."
At the southern end of the Curragh is a portion distinguished
by the name of '' French Furze," which is famous for the horse
fair held on the 26th of July.' In Gough's edition of '^ Camden's
* Certain dykes, ancient roads, and valleys in Ireland are locally called
"the Race or Glen of the Black Pig," and "the Dane's Cast." The
former name, as in the case in point, very probably obtained the name
from an ancient legend which describes how a tutor to a king's sons in the
North of Ireland, reading out of a certain book in a strange tongue during
the king*s absence, accidentally transformed the youths into great hounds.
The king, on his return home, seeing how matters stood, changed the
tutor into a black boar, drove him out of the bawn, and set the hounds
in pursuit ; they eventually, after hunting the boar over a great part of
Ireland, killed it, returned home, and regained their human forms.
Thus the course the boar took in its race for life, at the present day, in
certain localities, is known as the Race, Road, or Glen of the Black Pig.
See also vol. ii, p. 383, of The Journal.
* Can it l)e that this date was that of an Aonech centuries ago ?
24 THE CURRAGH : ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS.
Britannia/' it is stated that the name " French Furze "
is a corrnption of the Irish name, faranta foras^ meaning
''ancient tombs." Dr. P. W. Jojce, on being consulted as to the
probability of the i^bove explanation being correct, remarked that
it was, in his opinion, very doubtful. He stated that he could
not find anywhere that the word faranta signified tombs,
except in " O'Reilly's Dictionary,'' and he may have taken it
from Camden's work ; also that foraaa, or fows, does mean
ancient, and in the plural it should be forasa ; so that if the
name was eyer really used by the peasantry, it should have been
Jarania fora%a.
There is a portion of an old road still in use at the northern
side of the town of Kildare, called '^ Bohereen-na-goor," or the
little roads of the turns or circuits — a name derived, according to
Mr. Hennessy, from an ancient custom which necessitated any
celebrated stranger visiting the Currag^ to perform '' a cor " or
circuit round it.^
In the last century the Gurragh must have been a favourite
place for coursing hares, as, for their protection, there were
formerly three hare-parks on it. One is now the Bathbride
fox covert ; the Gamp Hospital is built where the second one
was; and the third was at the Ballysax end of the Gurragh.
Their sites are marked on the 1887 six-inch Ordnance Survey
Maps.
In the '^ Transactions of the Boyal Irish Academy" for 1788,
is a statement (for which W. Beauford, a.b., is responsible),
that : —
'* A short time since some small earthen tumuli were opened on the
Gurragh of Kildare, under which skeletons were found standing upright
on their feet, and in their hands, or near them, spears with iron heads."*
Further excavations among the raths and moats on the Gurragh
took place about the year 1856, the result of which was reported
in the '' Joumar' of the Kilkenny Archasological Society' (now
the Boyal Society of Antiquaries, Ireland.) The following is a
verbatim account from the above-named Journal : —
** The Rev. James Graves read a communication from Captain A
Montgomery Moore, a.d.c. to Lord Beaton, commanding the troops in
Ireland, giving an account of some explorations conducted by Lieutenant-
Colonel Sir T. Alexander, k.c.b., and himself, at the Curragh of Kildare.
The letter was accompanied by the objects of antiquity discovered, which
' Page 349, vol. ix of the **R. I. Academy's Proceedings."
' V^dt vol. ii, p. 53 (Antiquity Section).
* Vida vol. V, p. 443.
THE CURRAGH: IIS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS. 25
were kiudly lent for exhibition to the Society* These conaisted of ;—
Fird^ a quadrangular iron spear, with a square socket, found in the
Gibbet RaUi ; secondly, a large horse's tooth, found at a depth of six feet
in the same locality, together with a number of pieces of iron ; thirdly, a
silver coin of Edgar, found about one foot beneath the soil in the centre of
the rath, in wlMt seemed to be the foundation of the Chief's house ;
fourth, a piece of cinerary urn of black, half-burned pottery, which, when
entire, had measured about two feet in diameter, found in a tumulus near
the rath ; fifth, a bone gouge, found close to the urn just mentioned :
sixth, a large portion of an iron spear-head, found a little beneath the soil
in the fosse of the tumulus.
*' These antiques had been discovered early in the summer, when
several shafts were sunk in the rath.
*^The antlers of deer, horses' teeth, quantities of bones, and fragments
of swords and arrows, were found in abundance.
*' In exploring the tumulus already mentioned, which was close to the
Gibbet Rath, the digging party (at about eight feet from the surface),
came upon a kist of large stones, which contained the vessel of pottery
(of which fragments were sent), within which were deposited portions of
a human skeleton, comprising fragments of the skuli and some of the
teeth of a man. The urn was, unfortunately, broken by the blow of the
pick-axe.
"Captain Moore further stated that, in the course of subsequent
explorations, another cinerary urn was discovered, but in a fractured
stifte ; also about three feet beneath the surface of one of the tumuli with
which the Curragh is studded, a kist, comp>osed of five or six long flat
slabs, forming an oblong coffin, about seven feet seven inches in length,
in which. lay four or five skeletons, unaccompanied by anv relics of
ornaments or arms. The stones which formed the kist are still preserved
at the headquarters' garden at the Curragh.
'* Captain Moore opened about a dozen of the Carragh tumuli, and
found, in every instance, large quantities of bones, in most cases giving
one the idea of legs, arms, and skulls having been thrown in promis-
cuously, either after a battle or a wholesale massacre. The group of
tumuli lay in a small compass.
" Mr. Graves remarked that, in consequence of the slaughter of the
insurgents in 1798, on or about the great Rat}i on the Curragh, greiit
caution shonld be used to distinguish the pikes used by them from
ancient remains. He thought the square-socketed spear-head found in
the Gibbet Rath might possibly have been on the insurgents' pike, as
it seemed in too good preservation to have belonged to a remote period.
The portion of a spear-head found in the tumulus was, however, un-
doubtedly ancient, though not belonging to so remote a period as the
urn found in the same spot.
*^He hoped Captain Moore had preserved some of the skulls found in
the tumuli which he had opened, as their value would be considerable for
ethnological purposes.
'* On the motion of the Rev. James Graves, seconded by Mr. Duffy,
a special vote of thanks was passed to Captain Moore for kindly forward-
ing these objects for exhibition."
These notes on the Cnrragh will close with a short account
of the famons Daniel Donnelly, the champion prize-fighter of
his day. The year 1816 will always be remembered in Ireland
for two famoas victories : one was gained by the British over
26 THE CURRAGH: ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS.
the French at Waterlbo, on the 18th of Jane, and the other
was won by Dan Donnelly oyer George Cooper, the English
champion boxer, on the Gurra^, on the 18th of December.
The latter, probably — anyhow in this county— -K^used as mnch
interest and rejoicing as the former did. The scene of this
prize-fight is at the Athgarvan end of the Curragh ; close beside
the public road there is a hollow, on three sides of which the
ground rises abruptly to a considerable height, and so forms a
naturally perfect amphitheatre (it is, however, likely to .be
obliterated in course of time, as the Royal Engineers are
working a gravel pit into it on the outside). This hollow,
from the above event, has since been known as '^ Donnelly's
Hollow."
Dan Donnelly has been described to me as being over six
feet in height, and of enormous strength ; but he was ungainly
in appearance, as he was loosely built ; and his arms were so
extraordinarily long, that he could button the knees of his
breeches without stooping to it.
He was bom in Townsend Street, Dublin, in 1770. A
Captain Eelly,^ who kept a racing establishment at Maddens-
town, on the edge of the Curragh, first brought him into notice.
Being in a Dublin cofiee-hoose on one occasion when a ruction
occurred in it, Captain Kelly saw Donnelly knock down, with
his fists, three men who had set upon him ; afterwards, when
peace was restored, he had a conversation with Donnelly, And
ofiered to take him in hands and teach him the art of self-
defence. Donnelly jumped at the ofier, and accompanied
Captain Kelly back to Maddenstown ; as it turned out, the
latter had no reason to regret his choice. Such was Donnelly's
start in his profession.
The crowning event of Donnelly's life was his victory over
the English champion, George Cooper, as stated before, on the
Curragh, on the 18th of December, 1815. Thousands of the
gentry and country-people gathered at Donnelly's Hollow on
that day to witness the fight. So far, I have come across no
sporting magazine with an account of the match (though
** Boxiana " and " The Pugilistic " are sure to describe it) ; but
* Captain Kelly, of Maddenstown, was a splendid performer on 'the
Irish bagpipes ; so fond of them was he, that he is said to have named
his horses after different portions of them. After his death, his widow
gave this set of bagpipes to a Mrs. Bailey, of Newtown Bert (near Athy),
whose son, Samuel, was also a famous player. Samuel Bailey, after
playing on them for years, died in August, 1895 ; in 1897 they were
obtained from his daughter Mary, and are now at Kilkea Castle. Bound
the stock is engraved : "^ William Kelly, Esq., 1809," The pipes are of
ebony, tipped with ivory, and have silver-plated mountings.
THE CURRAGH : ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS. 2/
I give below a few verses copied from a coutemporary street-
ballad, which is now very hard to get : —
' ' The challenge was accepted, and those heroes did prepare
To meet brave Captain Kelly on the Cun*agh of Kildare.
The Englishmen bet ten to one that day against poor Dan ;
But such odds as these could ne'er dismay the blood of an Irishman.
** When Donnelly and Cooper had stepped into the ring,
* Shake hands,' says Dan to Cooper, * before we do begin.'
From six to nine they parried on, till Donnelly knocked him down ;
Old Grania cried, * Well done, my child ! that's worth ten thousand
pound.*
" The second round that Cooper fought he knocked down Donnelly ;
But Dan had steel, likewise true pluck, and rose most manfully.
Right active then was Cooper, and knocked Donnelly down once more.
The Englishmen they all cried out, * The battle he may give o'er.'
•* Long life unto Miss Keljy ; she's recorded on the plain ;
She boldly stepped into the ring, saying, * Dan, what do ye mean ? '
Saying * i)an, my boy, what do ye mean ? Hibernia's son,' says she,
' All my estate I have bet on you, brave Daniel Donnelly.'
'* ' Dan,' says she, * that you're an Irishman the gentry all do know,
So on the Curragh of Kildare this day your valour shew.
Be sure you die before you fly, Hibernia's son,' says she,
* My coach and horses I have bet on you, Dan Donnelly.'
'* Donnelly rose up again, and meeting with great might.
For, to surprise the nobles all, continued at the fight.
Cooper stood on his own defence ; exertion proved in vain.
He soon received a temple blow which stretched him on the plain.
** You sons of proud Britannia, your boasting now recall.
Since Cooper thus by Donnelly has met his sad downfall.
Out of eleven rounds he got nine knock-downs, besides a broke
jaw-bone ;
Says Miss Kelly, * Shake hands, brave Donnelly, the victory is all
your own.' "
Donnelly died in Dublin in 1820, aged 50, and was buried
in an ancient little burial ground near Eilmainham, called
** Bully's Acre;'^ over his grave a table-tomb was erected, on
which was a long epitaph recording his virtues and victories.
Not long afterwards this tomb was one night maliciously
destroyed; and as it was suspected to be the handiwork of some
Guardsman on guard at the Royal Hospital, the regiment
became so unpopular with the people that it had to be moved
from Dublin. " Bully's Acre " itself has been obliterated, and
I believe its site alone is now known.
28 THE CORRAGH: ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS.
t DoNiiiuj.Y't) Hollow i
In the centre of Donnelly's Hollow there now stands a small
Limestone obelisk, which was erected by means of pablic snb-
BcriptioDB collected by the admirers of the Ring. On the faces
of the monnment, in raised letters, are cat the following
names : —
Front face :-
" DONNEU-V
Cooper
On this Spot,
18th Dec.,
1815."
Below this on two shields :—
"Dan
" Geo.
DONNELLV
COOPKR,
BOBN
Born in
In Dublin,
STATFOBDSUraE
1770,
1791,
Died 1820."
Died 1834,"
Rear face :—
Public
scbsoriptions,
THE CURRAGH : ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS. 29
Right face :— Left face : —
•* Cooper " Donnelly
Fought Fought
Lancaster Tom Hall
Joy Tom Oliver. "
molineaux
bobinson
Kendrick.*'
This obelisk, nnfortunately, is being malicioasly injared by
stones thrown at it by George Cooper's disappointed countrymen
in the camp.
Maps of the Cubragh.
Probably the oldest map of the Curragh was Sir William
Petty's, the aathor of " The Down Survey," taken in the years
1655-6 ; these hand-painted maps were unfortunately almost
totally destroyed by fire in 1711, at the time they were kept in
a house in Essex Street, where the Surveyor-General then lived.
Fragments of the more or less charred remains are preserved in
the Record Office, Four Courts, Dublin.
I have in my possession a map of the Curragh published by
Henry Walker in 1807| and engraved by Eersting : it is dedi-
cated to the 8rd Duke of Leinster. On it are shown the race-
courses, and the seats of the gentry and trainers along the
edge of the Curragh. In the left-hand top comer is a view of
the grand stand, which did not then occupy the place it does
at present This map measures 3ft. 7 in. by 2 ft. 1 in.
In 1837 the first issue of the six-inch-to-a-mile Ordnance
Survey Maps came out, followed, in 1874, by the new survey to
the same scale. On them are marked all the antiquarian
remains mentioned by O'Donovan.
The Curragh occupies portions of sheets numbered 22, 23,
and 28 of the County Eildare.
There were two Ordnance Maps on the six-inch-to-a-mile
scale issued in 1868, which contain the Carragh only — one is a
shaded contour, and the other shows the contours in outline.
Both give a plan of the camp as it then was.
NOTES.
The 2nd Duke of Leinster's Funeral Expenses.
On page 12 mention is made of the gi'eat numbers which
attended William Robert, the 2nd Duke of Leinster's, funeral,
from Carton to St Brigid's Cathedral, Eildare, in 1804. Sir
r FitObuui. 2kd Dukk o
0€l at Curlon, WU> Oct., iwu.
THE CURRAGH: ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS. 31
• •<
Arthur Vicars, Ulstep King-of-ArmSy has kindly lent me a copy
of the Undertaker's account, which • amounted to £1,688 Ss. 7d.
This large sum was made up ifrom the following items, viz. : —
** Undertaker to Carton to take orders
To a horse for Do.
To a Pillory Horse ... ...
Sedar Coffin and Lead Do.
Convevanoe to Carton ...
Outside coffin trebly gilt
Breast-plate trebly gut ...
Conveyance for (iUegible)
Two Plumbers two days at Carton
Carriage and Turnpike for Do. ...
Postboy
Horse cloths for 6 Horses
Making and trimming Do.
Scutchmgs for Do. and Herse
Wands richly ornamented
Coats, Vests & Breeches for Pages & Conductors
x^xacK x^rape ••* ... ••. •••
A suit of Velvet for the Duke's Horse
Two suits of black for each man & page ...
• 24 black cloaks for livery Ser** 4days
6 black cloaks for coachmen
8 pairs of cloves at 3/9| a pair
Herse ana 6 black Horses 4 days ■ ...
G mourning coaches 4 days
8 drivers board wages at 5/5 eadh for 4 days
Undertaker 4 days at £1 2s. ^. each day ...
^ Horse 4 days at 11/4^ . ...
2 pages 4 days at £1 2s. 9di
Conductor 4 days
2 Painters painting Scutchin 2 days
Post chaise for Painters
12 dozen pair gloves at £2 5s. 6d. a dozen
24 sheets of Pins
Carriage to take women to town
Postillion
A Pannel Coach broke at Kildare
3 Hoods for women * ...
3 scarfs for Do.
3 Pair Gloves for Do.
Turnpike from Carton to Dublin
100 scarfs and bands of quality ...
300 Do. second quality ...
600 Do. for tenantry
• 4.
£ s.
d.
1 2
9
0 11
4
3 8
3
26 0
0
1 4
Cf
60 0
0
12 0
0
7 6
0
2 5
6
1 14
6
0 4
4
19 16
n
1 8
0
62 11
3
4 18
0
28 0
0
0 15
2
28 0
0
8 17
6
5 4
0
0 11
0
1 10
4
20 0
0
96 0
0
8 13
4
4 11
0
2 5
6
9 2
0
9 2
0
4 11
0
1 14
8
27 6
0
0 18
0
0 17
4
0 2
2
5 13
9
2 17
0
3 0
0
0 16
3
1 11
5
150 0
0
300 0
0
525 0
0
Total, £1,538 3 7"
It is a pity that the Undertaker's name has not been left on
record.
32 THE CUKRAGH : ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS.
Sincd this Paper went to press I have come across two
allasioDS to the Garragh in Sir John Gilbert's *' Register of
the Abbey of St. Thomas the Martyr, in Dublin," which was
foanded in 1177. The first reference is particularly interesting,
as it shows that in the thirteenth century the grazing rights of
the Curragh were at that early period carefully taken into con-
sideration ; this o^urs in an Agreement dated the 8th Sep-
tember, 1205, between the Abbot of St. Thomas's and William
Marshal, Earl of Pembroke (eldest son of the William le
Marecbal who married Strongbow's daughter Isabel, heiress
of the LordiBhip of Leinster), who died in 1231. In this Agree-
ment it is stated that : —
William Marescall gaye in 1205 to the Canons of
St. Thomas, of Dublin, in free and perpetual gift, one
■ carrucate and a half of land near the Curach, on the
east side, as well as free pasture of the Curach, that is
to say, all the land which Drin formerly held, which is
called Baliobothelan, and all the land which Bobert
Carpenter formerly held^ which is called Belansacse
'i.e., Ballysax), with the tithes belonging to them ; and
all the tithes of Keneth (i.e., Einneagh).
The second allusion occurs in an agreement between
Cornelius (i.e., Conor) MacGealan, Bishop of Kildare from the
year 1206 to 1222, and the Abbot of St. Thomas's, wherein the
Bishop and community of Kildare : —
Grant for ever to the Canons of St. Thomas of Dublin
the land which William de Stakepol formerly held from
the Bishop, that is to say, all the land which lies between
Baliboderan. and the great road which leads from the riyer
{ah ampne) of Annelifii (now the LifFey) to the Korrah,
by name Adgaruan (Athgarvan), at the same rent which
the said William paid to them.
( 33 )
THE HOLED'STONE CROSS AT MOONE.
By miss MARGARET STOKES.
ONE of the most striking examples of the combiDation of pagan
forms with Christian that has been found in Ireland is the
npper portion of a High Cross now lying in fragmeiits in the
churchyard of Moone — anciently, Maein-Choluim-Chille^ i.e.,
'' St. Columbkill's Property."
These fragments all belonged originally to one block of
granite. They are three in number, and consist of the lower
portion of the head, the upper portion of the shaft, and one
arm of the cross. Both faces are sculptured. They measure
when joined 2 fb. 6 in. in length, by 1 ft. 2 in. in breadth, and
6 in. in thickness. The arm is 1 ft. 8^ in. across, by 1 ft. 1 in.
wide. Three different animals are represented on one of the
faces, and in one of them we recognise a strange beast, which
is also to be seen on the south side of the shaft of the High
Cross, which stands in perfect condition close by. In both
instances this animal seems in the act of drinking or of grazing,
and his long flapping ears reach the ground, or the surface of the
water, as the case may be. Beneath him is a winged lion, and a
cable moulding separates it from the next panel, which appears to
have been filled with a human figure on a hoi-se (?), of which an
ear and the upper portion of the body are visible. A homed
animal, with a human figure standing behind it, fills the surface
of the arm. There is a strange, though accidental, resemblance
in two of these beasts to figures on two archaic intaglios, from
the '' Greek Archipelago," published by F. B. Lenormant, which
date from the sixth or seventh century before the Christian era —
a resemblance partly due to the same cause, the sculptors in
both instances having been guided in the engraving by the
accident of the form of the space and surface of the stone,
which induced them to represent their animals in these strange
and most contorted attitudes.
The points where the ring of the cross started are quite
visible in the edges of these fragments ; but the fact of deepest
interest in the monument is that at the centre-the point of
junction of the arms and shaft, where the form of the Saviour,
either crucified or in triumph, is generally found — there is a great
round hole open to the sky, with the edges of the circle we.l
rounded and polished, and four serpents twining their long tails
about it.
Flt*n«F,NTS oy thb Hoi.kh CnoHS of Moose.
THE HOLED-STONE CROSS AT MOONE. 35
Thus we see that this monament belonged to the class called
by French writers on dolmens *^ pierres percees " — perforated or
holed-stones. From what I can learn, such stones in eyery
country, except Ireland and the western islapds of Scotland, are
clearly pre-Christian and prehistoric in their origin; but we
have in Ireland more than one instance where the pierced stone is
associated with the cross. At the Monastery of Inis Caltra, on
Lough Derg, at Beask and Ballyferritur in DeiTy, at Mainister
Kieran in Aran, County Oalway, at Innismurray in Sligo, and
St. Finian's Cross at Moville, County Down — the perforated
monolith has a cross incised upon it. Hitherto it has been taken
for granted that the stone was originally a pagan monument, and
that some early Christian missiotiairy had the cross marked on it.
This perforated cross of Moone Abbey tells a different story; the
perforation and the cross were originally wroaght together, were
coincident, and the work probably dates from the tenth century of
our era.
This is an extraordinary instance of the lingering of pagan
traditions in Irish Christian art One is almost tempted to
regard such a monument^ — with the strange antediluvian-looking
monsters carved on each side — as a signof reversion to paganism.
It calls to mind the practice? of the ancient Jews condemned by
the prophets Jeremiah^ and Ezekiel,^ when they placed animal
emblems on their temple walls. '' Every form of creeping thing
and abominable beast was pouiiirayed upon the walls round
about.''
St. Bernard of Clairvaux has been accused of a distaste for
fine art, because he had little sympathy with, or admiration for^
the grotesque ; but if this very pagan-looking cross of Moone at
all resembles the works he saw and was alluding to, we can
hardly wonder that he should ask : '' What is the meaning
of these ridiculous monsters, of that deformed beauty, and
beautiful deformity, before the very eyes of the brethren when
reading ? What are disgusting iponkeys there for, or ferocious
lions, or monstrous centaurs, or spotted tigers, or fighting soldiers,
or huntsmen sounding the bugle ? Here is a quadruped with
a serpent's head, there a fish with a beasfs head. And it is
[thought] pleasanter to spend the day wondering at these
oddities than meditating on the law of God."
This cross was probably sculptured half a century before
St Bernard wrote these words, and may give some idea of the
then prevailing style of grotesque.
^ Jeremiah xxiii. 11, * Eajekiel viii, 10,
Fhaomentw ok tub HOI.KI. Cl
THE HOLED-STONE CROSS AT MOONE. 37
Dr. SigersoD, aud Mr. Larminie, Mr. O'Grady^ Mr. Douglas
Hyde, and other students of historic legend, ought to feel a
peculiar interest in these holed-stones, for some are even now
standing in situ in the places indicated in the histories of heroes
with which they are making us familiar. The holed-stone is
still standing near the Slaney River to which the young Prince of
Leinster was chained when he was delivered up by his father
to the indignant bard of Niall, whose son he had slain. The
stone to which the Celtic hero Fiugal was wont to tie his
dog Bran is still shown in the Orkneys ; and during the reigns
of Con, of Art, of Cormac, and of Cairbre Lifechair, there
was a ceremony performed as the best test of peace, which
was to bring an arm-ring of red gold, such as we may see in our
museum, to one of these perforated stones, and pass it through the
same. The closing words of the story would seem to convey
that the gold ring was left in the circle in the stone ; " for," it is
added, '' so excellent was the rule of these kings, that no one
durst take it away." Our students of ancient superstition and
folklore will remember what a mass of such beliefs is recorded
throughout the old world, from India to the western islands of
Ireland and Scotland, in connection with these stones. In Cork
and Aranmore women pass their clothes through the hole for
luck. The ceremony at Odin's stone in Orkney, which was
tantamount to an appeal to Odin, was the joining of hands
through this circular opening, in ratification of a vow.
Propitiatory libations were also, in Orkney, poured through
such holes, to propitiate the brownies or demons who presided in
their dairies. However, the most universal belief in such pierced
stones was in their healing attributes. In the County Carlow,
delicate infants passed through this hole are strengthened. In
Comwall, children afflicted with rickets or spinal disease are
cured in like manner. In Orkney, a child, if passed through,
will never shake with palsy. In Cornwall, men afflicted with
rheumatism crawl through the hole. And in Ardmore, sufferers
from the same disease come to the holed-stone of Declan for
this purpose.
To healing, the notion of regeneration connected with these
stones may be added. The idea of a new birth obtainable by
passing through an artificial orifice is prevalent among the
Hindoos. Indeed, throughout all India these pierced stones are
common, and devout people pass through them when the opening
will admit of it, in order to be regenerated. If the hole be too
small, they put either the hand or foot through it. This was
symbolical of passing through the sacred Yoni, being born again,
regenerated.
38 THE HOLED-STONE CROSS AT MOONE.
Id our own coauty of Kildare w« find two such holed-BtonoB,
one atanding in Laragbbryaii churchyard (nenr Majuooth). It
meaBures 4 ft. 4 in. in height, 2 ft 6 in. iu breadth ; and the hole
is 8 inches in diameter, and 6 inches through the thickness of the
stone. This stone is of granite, which, not heing the stone of the
district, would indicate that it was imported. The second is in
the churchyard at Castledermot, and is called " the Swearing
Stone." It is '2 ft. 6 in. high, 1 ft. 2 in. broad, and 6 in. thick,
while the bole is 5 in. in diameter. This stone is also of granite.
Withont rasbly venturing on any theory whatever, it seems
to be noteworthy, when refening to the grafting of this pagan
form of monument on tho symbol of the Gbristiau faith, tiiat
all the practices and superstitions connected with these pierced
stones are bearing on covenants, propitiation, healing, and
regeneration .
[ U NOW UIMIjINu) or THE HoLED CflOtU) OF UoO^E.
" Scuriilureil l.'riigi«B uf Irelmid, laS7."j
Authorities qcotbd.— Lubbock, " Pre-Historio Times," p. 133;
"TraiiB. R. 1. Ac«d.," xxiv, p. 329; Fouquet, "Monts. Celtiquee,"
1). 72; " Goiitluman's Magfiaiiie," Dec., 1804, p. 689; Wood-Martin,
"Rude Stone Monuments of Irelniid," pp. 107-229; Brehon Law
Tracts, vol. iv, p. 143 ; Blight, " Ancient Cniases in West Cornwall,"
p. 07; Borlnee, " Dulmeiie of Ireland," pp. 76, 174, 1)411; Sir Walter
Soiitt, "Pirate;" Wilson, " Pre-Hiatorio An«BU,"p. 99 ; G. H. O'Oradr,
" Silva Gadelica," p. 209; " Proc. R. L Soc. Antiqs.," vi, p. 168.
( 39 )
JOHN LYE, OF CLONAUGH, CO. KILDARE.
By thb rev. E. O^LEARY, P.P.
PART III
[Continued from p. 359, Vol. II, of The Journal.]
IN former Papers in our Journal it has been shown that John
Lye acquired Clonaugh in the year 1571| and that his
descendants held it until the end of the following century^ when
they lost it through the Williamite wars. In 1691, his grand-
son, Francis Lee, was attainted of high treason; all his estates
were forfeited to the Grown, and were sold by the trustees of the
Lrish Forfeited Estates.
The next owner was Judge Echlin. He purchased 200 acres
of Clonaugh, including its castle, at the beginning of the last
century, from the trustees of the Forfeited Estates; and by his
will, made in 1721, he bequeathed the same to his second son,
the Rev. Henry Echlin, d.d.. Vicar of St. Catherine's, Dublin,
and V.-G. also of the Diocese of Tuam, and afterwards Dean of
Tuam.
The Echlins held possession of Clonaugh during the pre-
ceding and half of the present century. In the present paper,
therefore, I purpose to give a short history of the Echlin family,
derived from a reliable source — ''The Echlin Memoirs," compiled
by the Bey. John Echlin, M.A., and kindly presented to me
by Sir Thomas Echlin, the present baronet.
The Echlins were a Scotch family who came to Ireland in
the reign of James I. This king promoted Dr. Robert Echlin,
the son of a Scottish laird, to be Bishop Of Down and Connor,
in the year 1613, in succession to Dr. James Dundass, another
Scotchman. The history of the Echlin family, therefore, divides
itself naturally into three sections. The first section takes us
to Scotland, the second to the North of Ireland, and the third
to Clonaugh in the County Eildare.
Of the Echlins there is mention for the first time in the year
1296, in the twenty-fourth year of the reign of Edward L This
king had invaded Scotland against the Bruce, and during his
military progress through the country, and afterwards at a par-
liament held"'^! Berwick, he received feafty and homage from a
number of the Scotch nobility and gentry. Such acts of loyalty,
of course, were highly prized, and the names of these adherents
to the kingt\^re inscribed on a roll of honour. To Irish ears
the name given to this roll of honour has an amusing sound.
40 JOHN LYE, OF CLONAUGH, CO. KILbARE.
It was called ''The Ragmau Koll.'* In Scotland, 600 years ago^
this is surmised to have been the Scotch for ''document" or
"indenture.*' At all events, it was the name given to the docu-
ments recording the acts of fealty and homage performed by the
Scotch nobles and gentry towards Edward I. On our first
introduction to the Echlins, we find them in company with the
other nobility and gentry who signed the "Bagman Boll;" thus
doing homage to the invader, and tarning traitors to their lawful
sovereign, the Bruce. Amongst the, signatories to the roll were
Bauf Eghlyn, of the County of Edinburgh ; Bobert de Eghlyn,
tenant of the king in same county; Bauf D'Eghlyn of Hadding-
ton, tenant of the king in the County of Edinburgh.
There are authentic records of the Echlin familv,a8 follows: ~
John De Eythlyn, 1342 ; Johannes De Echlyne,Vicarof Bynnef
in 1407 ; William Echlyng, Laird of Pittadro in Fyfeshire in
1457 ; Balph of Echline, Bailie of Haddington in 1466; James
Echline of Pittadro, grand- or great- gi*andson of the above
William. Of this William, we find that, in 1542, he and his
wife Alison Melvile, received from James Y a charter of the
lands of Pittadro. Two years latel* his name appears on a
document of a surprising nature, which throws a curious light
on the administration of the law in those days. A man named
Charles Lyall had been murdered, and the document I have
referred to states that "a. respite was made to William Echling of
Pittadro, James Echling, and David Echling, his brothers, and
James Craig, their servant, for being act and part in the slaughter
of the deceased Charles Lyall, committed in February, 1544, —
the respite to remain in force for nineteen years. Dated at Lin-
lithgow, 5th May, 1544." Surely this was giving them a long
day from the hangman's rope. We have no record of how they
fared when their nineteen years' lease had expired.
William was succeeded by his son Henry, who had three
sons — William; Bobert, Bishop Of Down and Connor; and David,
who became physician to Anne of Denmark, wife to James I.
There is a petition among the records of the House of Lords,
8rd February, 1642-3, of Dr. Echlyn, physician to the queen,
in great distress, because his pension of i^lOO had not been paid
for a year and a half. Henry was succeeded by his eldest son,
William, who married Margaret, daughter of James Henderson
of Fordell in the County of Fyfe. Of her we have the following
narrative in Sir James Balfour's "Ai^nals of Scotland," under
the year 1649, the same year Charles I was executed : —
** The ladey of Pitttirdo in Fytfeshire,* sister of the house of Fordell-
Henderson, being apprehendib for witchcraft, was imprissoned in the
Tolbuithe of Edinbrughe in the monthe of Julii this yeire, and a commis*
sione given by the parliament then sitting for her tryall, quher shoe
JOHN LYE, OF CLONAUGII, CO. KILDARE. 4I
*
remained until the monthe of December thereafter ; and being w^ill at
night was found dead on the morrow all swolnne, the symptomes of
poysone been seine on her. It was thought that shoe ather had taken
the poysone of herselve, being guilty of that hellish cryme, or tat it had
beine administrat to her by the adwysse of her friends and kinred quhom,
by her wickednesse (if shoe had been publickly burnt) , shoe had blotted
and stained thesse families shoe was descendid off of quhom wer discendit
many religious worshippfuU and worthey personages. — 1649."
This occurred in very troubled times, for.iu the same year
Charles I was executed. Fortunately for her brother-in-law, the
bishop, he had been called to his reward fourteen years before,
having died in 1635.
William Echlin was succeeded by his son Henry, the last of
the Scottish EchlinSi of whom little is known ; but it may be
assumed that, through shame and grief at his mother's disgrace,
he parted with the ancestral estates of Pittadro to Uis relatives
the Fordell-Hendersons, who have been ever since the proprietors
of Pittadro. He is stated to have gone into foreign service, and
to have attained the rank of captain. On his death, his uncle,
tlie Bishop of Down and Connor, became head of the family, and
was the founder of tlie Irish Echlins. He had received his
degree of m.a. at St. Andrew's in 1596, and in 1613 was pro-
moted by James I to the See of Down and Connor, on the death
of his countryman, Dr. James Dundass. We now come to treat
of the Irish Echlins.
The Bishop married Jane, daughter of James Seton of
Latrisse (Latrisk), Scotland. He had two sons, John and
Hagh, and four daughters. He died at Ardquin, County Down,
on 17th July, 1635, and was interred in the parish church of
Ballyphillipp, alias Tempte-crany, in said county. Hugh was
married twice, and had seventeen children, most of whom died
young. He was murdered at Caledon Bridge, with all his
faithful servants, by the rebels in 1641, as appears in Sir John
Temple's '' History of the Irish Kebellion." He had a son, also
Hugh of Tynan, who has lefc many interesting entries in his
family Bible, and amongst them the following, which describes
some of the climatic conditions of this country 200 years ago : —
''Memorandum that on Wednesday being the 3rd of Feb. '91-2,
coming from Dublin, betwixt Oorick McRosse and Castle Blayney, I, my
man, and one more with us, went astniy and out of our way by the
violence of a great storm of snow, and were wandering all that diiy, and
our selfes and horses almost cast away ; till by Providence we at last gott
to an ould create ' that was wast, and there we lived with great hardship
both without meate or any worldly reliefe for the space of 4 days and
* Cretite or Crefight, a booth made of boughs covered over with long
strips of turf. The Irish herdmen lived in such booths. — Note appended
by Mr. J. C. Stronge.
42 JOHN LYE, OK CLONAUGH, CO. KILDARE.
3 nights, except what we were supplied by could frosty water, which
through Providence wonderfully supported us ; soe create a delivery, I
hope whiles I live shall never be forgotten by me, and desires that all my
family may be mindf ull of the saiue, and all give glory to GUxl for all His
mercyes, and especially when they reed this to give Uim glory and praise,
in particular for the same, that soe the mercyes and goodness of God may
never be forgotten by us all which never shall be by him whoe subscribes
himself e Hugh Echlin/'
Bishop Bchlin was succeeded by his eldest son, John Echlin,
Esq., of Ardqnin, County Down. He bought the manor of
Gastleboy (for many subsequent years in the possession of the
Echlin family) from Sir Henry Piers, the 20th July, 1628. He
married Mary, third daughter of Sir Francis Stafford, in the
County Antrim, Ent., and had issue two sons and three
daughters. His second son, Francis, of Clonowen, County
Antrim, inherited the estate of his uncle, Sir Edmond Stafford,
of Mount Stafford, of '* the far-descended Staffords, Barons of
Stafford from the Conquest, and latterly Dukes of Buckingham,"
whose name he assumed. He married Sarah, daughter of
Randal, Earl of Antrim. The present representative of this
branch of the Echlin family is Arthur Willoughby Stafford, Esq.
On the death of John Echlin of Ardquin, he was succeeded
by his eldest son, Robert, also of Ardquin. He married Anne,
daughter of Rev. Alexander Cunningham, *' first Protestant
clergyman of Inver and Eillymard, afterwards promoted to the
Deanery of Raphoe, all in the County of Donegal." Mrs. Echlin
was sister of Sir Albert Coningham, first colonel of the
Inniskilling Dragoons, which regiment he himself raised at his
own expense. There were issue of the marriage, three sons and
one daughter — John Echlin, the heir; Heniy Echlin, the judge;
and Robert Echlin, who was general in the army, and greatly
distinguished himself both at the Siege of Derry and the Battle
of the Boyne. He was M.P. Cor County Monaghan in 1695, and
for Monaghan Borough in 170B. His sword, having his name
engraved thus : — " Lt.-Gl. Echlin,'' on either side of the blade,
was recently presented to Sir Thomas Echlin, Bart.
The second son of John Echlin was, as we have said, Henry
Echlin, the Judge, who purchased 200 acres of Clonaugh from
the trustees of the Irish Forfeited Estates.
We will now leave the main branch of the Echlin family,
which continues in an unbroken line down to the present time,
and direct our attention to the Eildare branch.
Henry, afterwards Judge Echlin, entered at Lincoln's Inn as
a law student in April, 1679. He was appointed Serjeant-at-
Law, 8rd August, 1683 ; one of the Barons of the Exchequer
(during pleasure), 20th October, 1690 ; and Justice of the King's
Bench, 18th March, 1692. He received the honour of knight-
JOHN LYE, OK CLONAUGH, CO. KILDARE. 43
hood, 5tb November, 1692; and was created a barouet, 17tb
October, 1721. We cannot forget that he was brother to
Lieat.-General Echlin, who stood very high with William III.
He was commissioner for hearing caused in Chancery in 1698,
and afterwards in 1710. Besides Gloiiaugh, County Kildare,
he had property at Bush, County Dublin^ and at Castle-Hacket,
County Mayo. He married Agnes, daughter of Bev. William
Mussen, of Belfast, and had issue, three sons and one daughter.
By his will, dated 29th January, 1721, he bequeathed Clonaugh
to his second son, Henry, who was a clergyman, and entailed the
same on his issue. His third son, William, became colonel in
the army, married Bachel, widow of Colonel Bobert M'Causland,
and had issue, two sons who died abroad, and three daughters,
the youngest of whom, Elizabeth, married T. Towneley Dawson,
Esq., and had issue, one daughter, Catherine ^Maria, who first
married James Tisdall, Esq., and secondly Charles William Bury,
Earl of Charleville. He settled his County Dublin property
on his eldest son^ Bobert, and entailed the same on his issue.
This Bobert Echliu was Barrister-at-Law, and M.P. for Down-
patrick in 1692, and for Newry from 1695 till his death. He
married Penelope, daughter of Sir Maurice Eustace, Knight,
sister of Lord Chancellor Eustace, and had issue, two sons,
Bobert and Henry, who were second and third baronets. He did
not live to inherit the baronetcy, as he died in 1706, and was
buried in St. John's Churchyard, Dublin. His father, the Judge,
died 29th November, 1725, and was succeeded in the baronetcy by
his grandson, Bobert Echlin, who married Elizabeth, daughter of
William Bellingham, of Levens, Westmoreland, and had issue, two
sons, who died young, dnd a daughter who married Francis Palmer,
of Palmerstown, Co. Mayo, Esq. A very considerable portion of
the Echliu property passed through this marriage to the Palmers.
Bobert the second, second baronet, dying without surviving
issue, on ISth May, 1757, he was succeeded by his brother,
Henry Echlin, the third baronet. He married Emily, daughter
of La Boche, Governor of Martinique, and died without
issue in 1799. The baronetcy then passed to the Bev.
Henry Echlin, d.d., head of the Clonaugh fbmily, who were
descendants of the Judge. He was Vicar of St. Catherine's,
Dublin, Vicar-General of the Diocese of Tuam, and afterwards
Dean of Tuam. He married Jane, daughter of the Hon. Brabazon
Moore, son of the Earl of Drogheda, and had issue, five sons and
one daughter. The eldest son, Henry, was father of the fourth
baronet. Sir James Echlin, who married his cousin Jane, daughter
of Chambre Echlin, of Tallow, County Dublin, and had issue,
three sons and three ^ughters. The three latter died unmarried ;
and the eldest son, James, an officer in the army, died in Spain
44 John lve. of clonau<;h, co. kildare.
in 1826. The fourth baronet died iu 1HJ6, uuil tvuci bucuoeded
by his second son, Frederick Henry EcLlin, the fifth barouet.
He died unmarried, at Ruthangau, County Kildare, on May
27th, 1871, aud was succeeded by his hroLber, Ferdinand Fenton
Ecblin, the sixth baronet. He married (10th March, 1840),
Mary, daughter of William J. Kavanagh, of Grange Beg, County
Westm^th, and had issue : James, who died an infant ; Thomas,
the present baronet; Henry, John, Bride, and Mary. Sir
Ferdinand F. Echlin died 4th July, 1877, at Leixlip, County
Kildare, and was snceeeded in the baronetcy by his son, Thomas
Echlin, the seventb and present baronet.'
Tnt EcKLiN Coat of Ahus.
The Abms op the Echlin Family.
'J'he Arms borne by the Scottish Echlins were : — Quarterly,
1st, or, a stag in chief gules ; 2nd, nzure, a hound in pursuit
' Note in " The Echliu Meniijira. "- -" It inny bo hore iiieiitioiied that,
uwing to the reckluNH extiavi^^nceiif soinu of the fiiniily (Ui wit, the third
and fourth baiiinuts anil thuir wivus), their pro pur ty, ulready couBiderably
diitiiaished by the feilitre of the male issue of Sit Robert Echlin, tlie
second baronet, uiid the marriage of his daugliter, Ehznbeth, with Francis
Palmer, was utterly miuandered and lost. Since that |)erii)d of fully and
JOHN LYE, OF CLONAUGH, CO. KILDAKE. 45
argent ; Srd, argent, a Ijmphad (or galley) sable, flag gules ;
4th9 or, a fess cbequy azure and argent (for Stewart). In 1683,
Sir James Balfour, Ljon King of Arms, granted to John Echlin,
resident in Ireland, whose father, Robert, Bishop of Down, was
a son of the laird of Pittadro, a crest, a talbot, passant argent,
spotted sable, langued gules, with the motto : ** Non sine
Praeda " (i.e., not without gain), and exemplified his arms in an
altered form : — 1 and 4, a lymphad (without sail or oars) sable, a
flag flying at the mast-head ; 2 and 3, or, fess cbequy, argent and
azure ; on a chief argent, a stag courant, pursued by a hound,
both gules. The following is an extract from the original
grant: —
*'To all and singularc persones to whom theas presentes shall cum,
Sir James Balfour of Kinnaird, Knight, Lyone King of Armes throughe all
the kingdome of Scotland and lands thereto adjacent, . . . doe fende
John Ethleine, es<|uyer, eldest lawf ull sone to Robert Ethleine, Bishop of
Doune, within the Province and Countie of Ulster and Down, in the kmg-
dome of Ireland, discendit of the Ethleines of Pittadro, a verrie worshipfull
familie, in the Countie of Fyiffe, in the kingdome of Scotland, hath
requeisted me, the said Lyone King of Armes, by vertow of my office, to
give and assigne to his auncient coat of armor a fitting creist and motto,
which he may lawfullie beare without wronge doeing or prejudice to others.
The which, according to his just requeyst, I have accomplished and
graunted. viz., on a ureath argent and gueuUes, a talbot passaunt, argent,
spotted sable, langued gueulles, with this motto in an estroll above the
creist: *' Non sine Praeda," helmed and manatled gueuUes, doubled
argent, as is depictured in the margen .... In witness whereof, I,
the said Lyon King of Armes, have to theas my letters patentes, af&xit
my hand and seal of office . . . .—22nd day of Julay, 1633.
** Jambs Balfour, Lyone," «&c.
Additional Note on John Lye.
Before concluding this Paper on Glonaagb, I must revert again
to the history of the Interpreter, because I am now enabled to
give additional and fuller information about the family of this
remarkable man. In the first Paper it is stated that the Inter-
preter was the son of Francis MacLysach; but I find he was the
grandson, his father being also John Lye. It may therefore be
taken that there were two Johns, father and son, and that
Emery, John, Arthur, Francis, Henry were grandchildren of
Francis MacLysach. John, senior, had a brother, Francis — of
whom more just now — but I can find no record of any other
ruin, the * Echlins, baronets,' have been reduced to a state of compara-
tive poverty. A short but interesting sketch of this 8*id portion of the
famity history will be found in Sir Bernard Burke's * Vicissitudes of
Families,' Third Series, p. 8. The present Baronet, Sir Thomas Echlin,
is endeavouring, by a life of honest industry in the R. I. C. Depot,
phoenix Park, Dublin, to obtain a respectable livelihood,"
46 JOHN LYE, OF CLONAUGH, CO. KILDARE.
brother or sister. It may also be taken that it was John, senior^
who became possessed Of the property of the religions house at
Glonaugh) and " being seized of divers lands in the said town-
land of Clonangh, levelled the tenements^ bounds, and limits of
the said religious house, threw down and destroyed the cross and
trees, anderected a tower, or small castle, with other buildings.*'
But as a set off, I am glad to say that John Lye, senior, had a
better claim on the lands of Balyna than I gave him credit for
in a former Paper,^ of which the following is proof : — On the 8th
March, 1587-8, a lease was granted to John Alee or Lye, of
Ballyna, Go. Eildare, yeoman ; the site of the castle of Ballyna,
alias Ballycadam, alias Adamstown, lands, Ballyna, Thomas-
town, Nurney, Ballymoon, County Kildare, possessions of
Walter Delahyd^, attainted, and leased to said Alee for twenty-
one years, to hold for ten years from 1558, at a rent of
£15 48. 8d.^ The site of Cadamstown Castle is half a mile west
of Clonaugh, and Balyna is at a point two miles north of both.
The following are important records of other properties
acquired by the father and uncle of the Interpreter, as well as by
himself : —
On March 18th, 1550-1, a lease was granted to Thomas
Padge and John Lye (also written in the lease " Alye**), of the
lands of Lyaghdi," .... Queen's County^ parcel of the
manor of Farrinylalor (parish of Eilcolmanbane), Pobleimkeff-
ragh, and Poblelysse, to hold for twenty-one years at a rent of
£4, provided that the lessee, and after his death his suiBcient
assignees, dwell upon the premises," &c., &c.^
On Februaty 18th, 1551, two leases were granted, one to
John, the other to Francis. Lease to John Ley, of Balyna,
gent., of the lands of Ardeneryn Bahin-Keiran, Kilmeneke,
Ballymacgillacrossa, and Batiytyrralaghe, parcel of the lordship
of Clanmalier in Offaly (King's County), to hold for twenty-one
years at the rent of £14 8s. 4d.'^
Same date. Lease to Francis Ley, soldier, of the site of the
nunnery of Killeagh, with the demesne lands and the titles of
the tenants ; and the site of the friary of Killeagh, with its
lands and the tithes of the tenants, to hold for twenty- one years,
at a rent of £9 13s. 4d.'
Francis Ley, or Lye, was killed in May or June, 1552, in an
expedition organized by Sir James Crofts, Lord Deputy, into
* See vol. ii, page 140, of this ' Undecipherable in the original.
Journal. * Fiants of Edward VI, No. 727.
* FiantB of Henry VIII, No. 443. * Fiants of Edward VI, No. 711.
- Fw,nts of Edward VI, No. 708.
JOHN LYE, OF CLONAUGH, CO. KILDARE. 47
Ulster, when a detachment was sent to Rathlin Island under Sir
Ralph Bagenal. Francis Ley wag among the slain. Bagenal
himself was taken prisoner hy the McDonnells, and afterwards
exchanged for Sorley Boy M'Donnell/ Among the Fiants of
Edward YI we find a pardon issued to '^ Sir Ralph Bagenal of
the army, especially for the death of Francis Lye. This pardon
was issued in 1552.'
In 1575 John Lye received a grant of some lands in addition
to Glonaugb, which came into his possession in 1571.'
On May 9th, 157B, a pardon was granted to John Lye of
Clonaugh, County Kildare.^ A pardon was issued on August
24th, 1578, to James Oge Walshe mac James, of Moyvalley,
gent, '' at the suit of John Lye."^
On May 6th, 1581, Sir Henry Harrington got the Rectory of
Rathbride."
December 1st, on payment of » fine of £100, pardon was
granted to John 0*Carroll, of Lemyvannon (in Ely O'CarrolI),
son of Sir William 0*Carroll, late of the same, and John and
Arthur Lye, of Clonaugh, County Meath, feoffees of the said
William.'
On August 9th, 1582, a pardon was granted to Arthur Lye^
of Clonaugh, Lawrence Walshe, of Moyvalley, and others/
On March 8rd, 158S-4, John Lye, of Eilleagh, gent., sur-
rendered the Priory of the Holy Cross of Eilleagh,^ and on
March 9th, was regranted said priory^ with all its appurtenances.
John Lye, father of the Interpreter, died in 1584, and it is
to his credit we may place the uprooting and levelling of the
religious house at Clonaugh, and the building of the castle on
its site in 1578. On June 2nd, of the same year, his son,
Emery Lee, got a lease of numerous lands in County Dublin,
also St. John's Grange, Clogher, Milltown, Johnstown, &c., the
Rectory of Eilcash, County Tipperary, &c,^^
On January 14th, 1584-5, Anthony Deering, one of the
Queen's pensioners, was given the reversion of the above lanis,
leased to Emery Lye.
On September 17th, 1586, Johanna Delahoyde, widow, of
Moyglare, was granted the reversion of the lands of Castle Gar-
bury (previously leased to Sir Henry CoUey), Clonaugh, &c.,
> See M. Geoghegan's '* History * Fiant No. 3,291*.
of Ireland." * Fiant No. 3,423.
* Undated, but signed by Sir Jas. • Fiant No. 3,710.
Crofts, who was superseded as Lord ^ Fiant No. 3,782.
Deputy on December 6th, 1552. * Fiant No. 3,949.
' Fiants of Elizabeth. • Fiant No. 4,328.
•" Fiant No. 4,334,
48 JOHN LYE, OF CLONAUGH, CO. KILDARE.
and Touragighe, parcel of the Manor of Balyna, County Eil-
dare.*
On January 9tby 1686-7| a lease was granted to John Lye, of
Clonanghi County Kildare, gent., of the lands of Rathbride,
with common of pasturage on the Curragh of Kildare, Morys-
townbiller, &c., to hold for sixty years at a rent of ;£26 4s.'
On September ISth, 1587, John Lye, junior, was appointed
State Interpreter; and on June 22nd, 1588, William Dunne was
granted the office of " Interpreter for the State,*' at 8d. a day,
'* as formerly allowed him ; *' but he was suspended, by a grant
of the office to Thomas Cahill on August 29th, 1588.' By
Queen's letter of August 9th, 1582, £mery Lye was leased the
Abbey of the B.Y.liI. of Eilbeggan, with its appurtenances, for
which a fiant was issued on April 17th, 1589/
On November 10th, 1590, a pardon was granted to Sir
Charles O'Carroll, orf Leamyvennan, Owen O'Carroll, and Teague
O'CarroU, brothers of Sir Charles, and John Lye, of Bathbride,
County Kildare/
By Queen's letter of February 21st, 1591-2, John Lye, in
consideration of surrendering the lands of fiathbride, &c. — which
he did on May the 13th — was granted a new lease of Kathbride
(180 acres), Morristownbiller, Croattanstown, &c., for sixty years
at a rent of £10 12s. a year.*^ And inasmuch as the lands had
been rented above their true value, he was leased anew these
lands and others equal to £50 a year. The fiant for the new
lease was issued on June 1st, 1592/
By Queen's letter of February 21st, 1591-2, and a letter of
the English Privy Council under date of March 22nd, 1591,
John Lye was leased the Bectory of Crevaghe (Cruagh) in
Harold's County, County Dublin, for sixty years at a rent of
20s., for which a fiaiit was issued on April 26th, 1593.^ He also
got a lease of lands in Counties Boscommon, Galway, Meath,
Longford, Westmeath, Cork, and Clare, also Little Morristown,
County Eildare, to bold for sixty years at a rent of 50s. ll^d.
In addition, he was given the lands, mill, and salmon-weir of
Castleknock, with other lands in County Dublin, and the
Counties of Sligo, Limerick, Clare, and Boscommon, ^nd the
Castle of Barrettstown, County Tipperary. Fiant issued March
26th, 1593.'* Subsequently he was leased a messuage and
garden in Athboy, County Meath, for sixty years at a rent of
» Fiftnt No. 4,926. • Fiant No. 6,739.
* Fiant No. 4,953. ' Fiant No. 6,745. The new
* Fiant No. 5,259. survey was taken by Fraa.
* Fiant No. 5,322. Capstock.
* Fiant No. 6,484. "^Fiant No. 6,810.
^ Fiant No. 5,803.
JOHN LYE, OF CLONAUGH, CO. KILDAKE. 49
ISs, 4d. Fiant issued January 20th, 1594.^ Also numerous
lands in the County Cavan, and one cartron of land in Walters-
town, County Westmeath, for sixty years at a rent of £3 48. 6d,
Fiant issued March Ist, 1594.^
On the loth August, 1594, John Lye was leased the lands of
Kilbelet and Donard, County Dublin, with lands in the Queen's
County, and the Counties of Gal way and Limerick, the Castle of
Kilbehenny, County Tipperary, the lands of Clogheen and
Whitestown, in the same county, the Rectory of Rathreagh,
County Longford, and various lands in the County Clare, for
sixty years at a rent of £1 5s. 8f d.^
He was also leased the site of St. Catherine's Abbey, Water-
ford, and other lands in the Counties of Waterford, Tipperary,
and Meath, for sixty years, at a rent of 57s. 4d. Fiant issued
January 29th, 1597.
Thus, up to a few years of his death, the Interpreter was
acquiring possession of land in every province of Ireland. But
in most instances these lands appear to have been of little value,
for the rents are merely nominal, and he makes no mention in
his will of any lands outside the Counties of Kildare, Meath, and
King's.
The following are interesting facts connected with Clonaugh
and its neighbourhood about the times we are treating of :
An inquisition was held at Naas on June 18th, 1595, which
found that Walter Birmingham, late of Mylerstown, County
Kildare, gent., was seised of Moylerstown, or Meylerstown,
Clonaugh, Muckland, Kilmore, Kilshangho, and Ballinamallagh,
County Kildare. This Walter Birmingham died November
27th, 1581, and was succeeded in his inheritance by his son and
heir, Thomas, who was also heir male to Sir William Birming-
ham, Baron, of Carbury, who died without issue.
On February 18th, 1597, Thomas Birmingham, of Dunfeirth,
County Kildare, got livery, on payment of a fine of £60.
Pardon was granted to Piers Walshe fitz Piers, of Moy valley.
County Kildare, gent., on April 18th, 1598, and again on April
6th, 1600. Pardon was granted to William Birmingham, of
Dunfeirth, County Kildare, gent., to Pierce Birmingham fitz
Meyler, of Clonaugh, and others, April 20th, 1600; and to
Owen Mac Art O'Dunne, of Clonaugh, County Kildare on
March 80th, 1601.
By Queen's letter of August 1st, 1585, a lease was granted to
Patrick CuUen, of Carne, Co. Kildare, of various lands " in con-
' Fiant No. 6,842.
« Fiant No. 5,894.
* Fiant No. 5,878, where all these lands are separately set forth.
E
50 JOHN LYE, OK CLONAUUH, CO. KILDARE.
sideration of his losses by building the bridge of Blackwater."
Fiaut issned Angnst 28th, 1601.
I cannot conclade withont expressing mj acknowledgments
and thanks to Sir Thomas Echlin, who in the kindest way has
supplied me with " The Echlin Memoirs," and other family
documents ; and also to William H. Qrattan Flood, Esq.,
Enniscorthy, who has placed at my disposal his copions and
interesting notes on Clooangb and its neighboarhood, &om
which I have derived the Tenable information given in the
concluding portion of this paper.
At present there is not a stone of the Castle of Glonangh at
or uear the site. Abont fifty years ago they were removed to
Ku,HHANnuE Chatbl, uuilt raou the hatekuls or Clomauoh Cahtle.
build the Roman Catholic church of Kilshanroe, situate abont
one mile S.-E. of Clonaugb. At that time the castle was a heap
of ruins, and the tenant, a Mr. Mooney, gave the stones of the
castle to build the church. And thus it came to pass, after the
lapse of 300 jDars, that the very stones which formed the fabric
of the religious house at Clonaugb, dedicated to St. Finian, were
restored to the same sacred use, and now form the walls of the
Church of Kilshanroe.
( SI )
THE CARPENTER TOMB-SLAB IN ST. DA VID'S
CHURCH, NAAS.
By lord WALTER FITZGERALD.
With a BioaBiPHiCAL Sketch op Joshua Cabpbntbr's Life.
By Miss A. F. Lonq.
THE Carpenter tomb-slub, a drawing of which is on the
page following, lies in the passage-way running down the
middle of St. David's Church in Naas ; it measures in length
6 ft. 8 in., and in breadth, 8 ft. 1 in. ; the material is of some
pink-coloured stone. The large lettering on it, as well as the
coat-of-arms and motto scroll, are in relief; the small lettering
was a later addition, and is incised. The inscription reads :
** HEBE LYETH THE BODY OF I08HVA CABPENTEB, ESQ. : BOENE AT
LYME, IS DEVONSHIRE, THE 12tH OF DEC, 1585,
AND DECEASED AT ELSINOBE THE 2nD OF
MARCH, 1655."
The incised part of the inscription is :^
"He married Ursula, daughter of Richard Vinegor, of Sackfcild Hall,
in Suffolke, Esq. , and had issue by her — John, Thoinas, Joshua, Philipp,
Cicilia, Ann, Arabella, Ursula, and Mary."
The coats-of-arms here depicted are the Carpenter and
Vinegor coats impaled, viz. : —
The Dexter Goat : Paly of six argent and gules, on a chevron
sable, three plates each, charged with a cross crosslet
of the second. For Carpenter.
The Sinister Coat : Argent^ on a bend azure, three birds of
paradise of the field. For Vinegor.
The motto^" Deus [? in] extremis mihi clipeum " — means
" Qod is my shield to the last.'*
The Joshua Carpenter to whose memory this slab was
placed here, lived at Sigginstown (or Jigginstown, as it is
now called), near Naas. This we learn from the following
inscription on a chalice belonging to the church of Aghaboe,
in the Queen's County: — "Ex dono Ursulae Carpenter viduae
lehoschwhsB Carpenter, nuper de Sigginstowne, in com. Eildare,
lYETHTffi
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ANN: ARABfitLAS VRSaLATAK)
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The Carpenter Sl^b in St. Pavip's Church at Naas.
THE CARPENTER TOMB-SLAB IN ST. DAVID's CHURCH. 53
armeg. ecclesiae parochiali de Aghaboe, 14 Mali, 1668. Daniele
Nilan, sac. Tbeologiae doctore, Bectore."^
The *' Funeral Entry/' quoted below^ is almost a duplicate
of the inscription on the tomb-slab : —
'' Josua Carpenter, Esq., was borne at Liaie in Devonshere ; hee tooke
to wife Ursula, daughter of Richard Vinegor of Sackfield Hall, in the
Nine Parishes, SufFolke, Esq., by whome hee had issue foure sonnes,
viz. John, Thomas, Josua, and Phillipp ; and five daughters, Cissillia,
Anne, Arabella, Ursula, and Mary ; of which issue there is now liveing
onely the youngest daughter, Mary.
'* The said first-mentioned Josua departed this mortall life the 2nd of
March, 1G55, aged 70 yeares and two monethes, and in the same moneth
was interred with funerall rights in St. David's church at the Naas, in
the Countie of Kildare. [On the tombstone his death is stated to have
taken place at Elsinore, which is in Denmark.]
''The truth of the premisses is testified by the subscription of John
Browne, whoe hath returned this Certificate into my office to bee ther
recorded. Taken by me Richard Carney, Esq., Principall Herauld of
Armes of the whole Dominion of Ireland, this 26th of March, 1056."
In the above Funeral Entry the statement that the daughter
Mary was the only living issue of Joshua Carpenter appears to
be wrong, as in a manuscript volume in the Record Office, called
*' The Receiver-General's receipt and payment Books " are the
following two entries :—
*' Paid to Philip Carpenter, "Esq., Chief e Sergeant at Armes, for his fee,
at £25 per annum " («&c. during the year 1675).
"Paid to Joshua Carpenter, Esq., Chief e Sergeant at Arms, for his
fee, at £100 per annum *' (&c. during 1676 and onwards).
In a Funeral Entry it is stated that Joshua Carpenter's
granddaughter Ursula, daughter of Thomas Carr (son of Sir
George Carr of Yorkshire) of Donore, in the County Kildare,
died on the 26th of May, 1675, "and was buried the 27th of
the same month in the towne [? tomb] of her grandfather, Josua
Carpenter, Esq., in the chancell of the Nase [church]. The truth
of the premisses is testified by the subscription of Capt. Phill.
Carpenter, His Majesties Principall Serjant at Armes of
Ireland."
This Captain Philip Carpenter's death took place on the
2l8t December^ 1676, and he was also interred '^ in the chancell
of the Nase." (Funeral entry.)
It is possible that Philip and Joshua, both in succession
chief sergeants-at-arms, were grandsons of the man who died in
1665.
' Vide vol. i, p. 475, of Col. Vigors's Reports on the Memorials of
the Dead, Ireland.
54 THE CARPENTER TOMB-SLAB IN ST. DAVID'S CHURCH.
Mary Browne (nee Carpenter) died on the 8rd May, 1676 ;
and her husband, John Browne, also mentioned above, died on
the 18th of December, 1680 ; both were buried in St. David^s
Church at Naas. (Funeral Entries.)
BIOGRA.PHICAL SKETCH.
Joshua Carpenter was steward of the household of the Lord
Deputy Wentworth. The deputy was in England in 1636, and,
writing to his wife, asks her to search for and send to him, as
speedily as possible, " my books of account," to assist him in
*' my business here, much and intricate ;'* and adds, *' I pray
you seek for them till you find them; then advise with Carpenter
bow they may be sent hither with all diligence. . . I desire
also that you would take Carpenter unto you, and look over all
the closet on side of the gallery, and if you find any amongst
them concerning Overton, to put them in the trunk with the
rest, for I shall need them in making up that account." ^
In 1639 the deputy was again in England, and in one of his
letters to his friend Sir George Kadcliffe, speaking of the letting
of some farms ^' in the Bernes country,'* that is, on Wentvvorth's
Wicklow estate, he appointed two servants to see after this
matter; but adds, '^ In any wise, speak with Cai*penter, and lot
not this be neglected.^' '
A week later, the deputy, writing again to Badcliffe about his
own expected return to Ireland, '' so as I shall desire you to give
order to Carpenter that both the pi nances may be ready at Beau-
maris by the fifteenth of the same month. In the meantime I
would have Carpenter to take course that my pinance be at
Beaumaris the 30th of this month, to transport my Lord Justice
Lowther back . . . both these appointments. Carpenter
must take special care that they punctually be complied with
and observed." '
After the arrest of Strafford, unfounded charges of high
treason were brought against five of the earl's adherents in
Ireland, viz., the Lord Chancellor Sir Richard Bolton, the Chief
Justice Sir Gerald Lowther, Sir George Badcliffe, Dr. Bramhall,
Bishop of Derry, and Joshua Carpenter. This false accusation
has been termed by Pym's biographer as " a master-stroke of
Pym's,"* because its object was to disqualify any of the five from
giving evidence for Strafford at his trial.
' Cooper's "Life of Wentworth," vol. i, pp. 403-404.
' ** RadclilFe Correspondence," p. 190.
' ** Radcliffe Correspondence," p. 193.
* ** Lives of British Statesmen, by J. Foster, vol. ii, p. 389.
THE CARPENTER TOMB-SLAB IN ST. DAVID'S CHURCH. S5
The Lord Chancellor Bolton and the Chief Justice Lowtber
** were at this time peculiarly necessary at the council board ''
in Dublin, so that, at the urgent request of the Lords Justices,
they were allowed to remain at liberty. ^
Badcliffe was sent to England, and committed a prisoner to
the Gatehouse in London ; Bishop Bramhall and Carpenter
were imprisoned in Dublin Castle. None of the five so-called
''traitors 'Were ever brought to trial. When Strafford's trial
was over, the charges against them were silently dropped ; but
three of them, Badcliffe, Bramhall, and Carpenter, were for two
years kept in prison and in uncertainty of their fate.
Strafford, a day or two before his death, solicited the king's
good offices for some of his adherents, and especially the three
prisoners. Charles promised he would aid them, and special
mention is made of '' Carpenter to be at liberty to look to his
[Strafford's] estate, or anyone he shall appoint to have care of
his children."'^
The king either forgot his promise, or could not fulfil it,
for Badcliffe and Bishop Bramhall remained in prison for over
two years. When they were released. Carpenter seems to have
been forgotten, for in 1644, the Earl of Ormond being appointed
Lord Deputy, Sir George Badcliffe, then at Oxford with King
Charles, wrote to the new viceroy : —
"That you will be pleaHed to take into your care and protection
George Carre and Joshua Carpenter. Your lordship knows them to be
honest and able men, nor do I need to recommend them to your lord-
ship. ... 1 was about to have been a suitor to the king for something
in the behalf of Mr. Carpenter, but I desire that he may acknowledge it
only to your lordship.""
George Carre was one of Strafford's private secretaries. It
was of him the Lord Deputy Wandesford wrote to his cousin.
Sir G. Badcliffe :—
*'What I write of Mr. Carre, I protest the man deserves, and a
thousand times more, for I hold him very worthy of great estimation and
encouragement." *
After receiving Radclifle's letter, Ormond did exert his in-
fluence in Carpenter's favour; for three months later Badclifi'e
writes again : —
** I am very much your lordship's servant for your favour shown to
Mr. Carpenter at the last meeting of Parliament, whereby ho is freed
from the occasion of much clamorous trouble."*
' Leland's *' History of Ireland," vol. iii, p. 73.
* ** Strafford Letters and Despatches," vol. ii, p. 418.
» Carte's " Life of Ormond,*' vol. iii, p. 206.
* '^Radcliffe Correspondence," p. 246.
j1.
* Carte's " Life of Ormond," vol. iii, page 268.
56 THE CARPENTER TOMB-SLAB IN ST. DAVID'S CHURCH.
This doubtless refers to getting the charge of treason with-
drawn, regarding which charge Radcli£fe had already on his own
behalf solicited Ormond — *^ Let Sir Q. Badcli£fe have yoar help
to take off his charge in Parliament."^
Carpenter seems then to have been released by the Lord
Deputy; for in May, 1644, Badcliffe writes gratefully to Ormond
of "your goodness," and "your noble favours now lately
received,'' and '' above all, to Mr. Carpenter, in whose imprison-
ment his late lord's honour suffered."^
In Radcliffe's subsequent letters to Ormond, the name of
Carpenter does not appear. He probably spent the last years of
his life at Jigginstown, in the service of his master's son.
A. F. Long.
' Carte's " Life of Ormond," vol. iii, p. 247.
^ Ibid., vol. iii, p 299.
( 57 )
^isceiiaiica.
A Gold Bimo duo up im the Garden at Furnesh, in May, 1898.
iT.a/^i^tiMt. J Inside :-- Wicklow Gold & Slaney Pearl.
iiiBcnpiuiu -j Outeide, in Irish characters :— Gaelic Beauty.
Furness, or Forenaghts Great.
From the back-door of Furness House can be seen the ruins of a
church, embosomed in a grove of beautiful ilex trees — as beautiful
specimens as exist anywhere. I remember Sir Edward Poynter,
the painter — now the President of the Royal Academy — being
taken to see this grove ; he remarked he wished he had had time
to make a sketch of them for one of his classical pictures.^
It is impossible to say when this church was built, but it must
have been erected after the coming of the Anglo-Normans, as may
be seen from the pointed doorway and windows.^ In a list of the
churches given by the Most Bev. Dr. MacGeoghegan, in 1624, it is
mentioned as belonging to the Deanery of Naas.
The stained-glass window already described on p. 452, vol ii of
The JouBNAii, and illustrated from a drawing by the Hon. Gerald
Ponsonby, could not have belonged to this church, as there is no
window large enough to hold it ; the style of ornament of the
glass, too, is such as to show that it belongs to a date later than
any at which the church was in use, being late seventeenth-century
work.
There is a remarkable pillar-stone, 17 ft. in height, and 9^ ft. in
girth, standing in the centre of a well-preserved rath, which is
situated on the crest of the high ground that rises to the east of
the house at Furness. This rath is 880 ft. above the level of the
sea, and from it a beautiful view is obtained ; the eye reaches far
over the plain of Kildare. Naas seems to be at one's feet, and
beyond it the Hill of Allen and the Bed Hills show up clearly in the
blue distance, that remarkable beauty of all Irish landscapes.
It is well known that pillar-stones, like the one at Furness,
were erected from earliest times to mark the graves of persons of
* To the west of the church ruins stands an English yew, which must be of
great age, as it measures in girth thirteen feet, about three feet from the
ground ; it is now quite hollow.
' About the year 1200, Kicardus de Lesse, an Anglo-Norman settler in the
neighbourhood of Kill, gave to the Abbey of St. Thomas the Church of Fornach,
with tithes, drc. His son or brother, John de Lisse, also gave to the Abbey all
his rights over the Church of Fomacbbeg. (Ei>.)
jr FUBNEUtl Chl'uch.
ly tllo Udd. UetuUI Ftnuonbi-.J
MISCELLANEA. 59
distinction. This we read Id " The Annals of tbe Four MftsterB"
under the year Anno Mundi 3502 {i.e., 1700 years before Christ) :—
" Tea, daughter of Lughaid, son oi Itb, whom Eremon married in Spun,
reqaeated him (her hnsband] lo give her a. choice hill, lu her dower, in what-
ever plitce aha should select, thut she iniffht be interred, and that har mound
and ber gravestone might he thareon raised, and where every prince ever to be
born ol her race nhoutd dwi-ll. The hill she selected was Druim Caein (CiLen's
ridge), i.e.. Teamhair (now Tara, derived (rom her name. "Ten" and " Mur,''
meaning a palace.)' It is from her it wan called, and in it she wai interred."
I quote this extract tu show clearly what these pillar-stones
were intended for ; what particular distinguished person this pillar-
stone was intended to lionour, Ijistory, alas, does not relate.
' According to Dr. Joyce, the real derivntion of the name Tsra is ■■ Teamh-
racb " (pronounced Taragfa), the genitive ol " Teambair," which Bignifies an
elevated spot oommandint; on extensive prospect.
6o MISCELLANEA.
In reference to the name Furness, or Forenaghts, I am aware that
Dr. Joyce, in his ** Irish Names of Places," says it means " a bare,
naked, or exposed hill; " our Irish writers, in ancient times, were,
however, very fond of seeking for the explanation of such names in
the facts of Irish history, and generally state the places were named
from some warrior or heroine of long ago ; in S. H. 0 'Grady's
*' Silva Gadelica," on page 526, is found a passage in which this
name, a very rare one in Irish topography, occurs.
In a very ancient tract called the ^^ Dindshenchas*' it is stated
that the four daughters of a Meath hero, named Dubthach Dub-
thaire, eloped, during their father's absence, with the four sons of a
Munster king, named Acher Cerr. The sons were named Fordub,
Fornocht, Romper, and Formu. On his return Dubthach went in
pursuit of the runaway couples, and, overtaking them in different
localities, slew them. Fordub was slain in the Blackford of Maistin
(i.e., a ford on the river Greese below Mullaghmast) ; Fornocht fell
at Forenaghts, or Furness ; Romper in Glas Romper ; and Formu
in Fomu. One of the daughters was killed at a ford on the Greese,
not far from Ballitore, called after her ** Ath Truisten,'' or
Truistins's Ford.^
In O'Grady's " Silva Gadelica" is the translation of an ancient
tract called ** The Boromean Tribute," which describes how
St. Moling (of Timolin in this county and of St. MuUin's, County
Carlow) obtained from Finnachta, " fledhach " (i.e., the festive). King
of Ireland in the seventh century, a remission of this onerous tribute ;
this occurred at Dun Aulin, the Rath on the Hill of Knockaulin
(where the excursion meeting of the Society took place in
September last). Having obtained the remission of the cow-tax,
St. Moling started back for his monastery at Rosbroc (i.e. the wood
of the Badger), now St. Mullins on the Barrow ; but the men of
Erin were by no means satisfied that the Leinster tribute should
be lost to them, for it was so vast that everyone used to get a share
of it : — " Thrice fifty times a hundred cows, thrice fifty hundred
swine, mantles as many, and chains of silver ; thrice fifty hundred
wethers, the same of copper cauldrons, and, to be set in Tara's
house itself, one great copper reservoir, in which should fit twelve
pigs and twelve kine ; thirty cows, red-eared, with calves of their
colour, with halters and spancels of bronze, and, over and above
that, with bosses of gold."^ The tract goes on to say that " the
men of Erin set out to pursue Moling : and where he was, when
they came up with him, was in Fornocht^ laying out the site of a
milL"3
Mayo.
» See Dr. Whitley Stokes's •• Translation of the Dlndshenchas, " at p. 322 of
vol. XV of the " Revue Celtique."
« O'Grady's " Silva Gadelioa," p. 403.
» Ibid., p. 423.
MISCELLANKA.
An Ancient Foot-track of Wooden Planks across the
Monavulla^h Bog.
MoHAvuLLAOH is a large isolated bog lying near and east of the
railway between Kildore and Athy, in the County Kildare. When
shooting on the Clogorrab portion of it on the 12th of August last
year, the bog-ranger informed me that a man named John Hyland,
while cutting turf on the neighbouring Killart part of the Bog
(of which Major Borrowea of Gilltown is the proprietor), had come
across planlis of oali deep down in the bog. After inspecting the
place, I got permission from Major Borrowes to excavate a plank
in full length. John Hyland and a couple of hands then set to
work to cut a deep trench Bome four perches into the bog, and
uncovered the foot-tracli which, according to my directions, was left
t'fi Kidr till my arrival.
On examining the timber I found it to consist of white oali
planks laid singly in a line, eight feet below the present level of the
bog, and having five more feet of black peat below them, before
reaching the clay.
62 MISCELLANEA.
The plank measured 21^ ft. in length, 2 ft. in breadth, and was
from 4 to 6 in. thick ; when a piece was cut off with a knife, the
wood was whiteish in colour. One end of the plank rested on the
stem of a small yew-tree, and the other on a stout oak bough, both
of which projected far beyond the sides of the plank.
On either side of the plank, stout stakes, gradually brought to a
point with some sharp instrument, were driven into the bog about
6 feet apart, some two feet being left above the level of the plank ;
and to further tighten the latter to them, long sticks or straight
branches were wedged between them lengthways. These stakes
were of yew and of oak, and were as sound as the day they were
placed in position ; the marks of the cuts, too, where the stakes
had been brought to a point, appearing quite fresh.
The planks had not been sawn at the ends, but were hacked
away ; the naturally rounded external side rested on the peat.
One strange feature in connection with them was that on either
side, close to the edge, and from 6 to 8 feet apart, there were holes
about 4 in. square. As there were no pegs of any description in
them, it is puzzling to know what they were intended for ; they
give one the idea that they were intended for the uprights of a
hand-rail, but this luxury would not be required except on a dark
night. Can they have been made use of in some way when
carrying or drawing the timber into position ?
John Hyland informed me that for years he and others cutting
turf here before him, had met in with these planks which, as soon
as a few feet projected from the turf-bank, they cut through and
carried off to repair the pig-sty with. The planks, he said, were
all on the one level and laid on the same principle ; all, too, were of
oak ; they were laid as if leading from tlie Kilberry direction,
and appeared to lead straight to " the Derry " (or DerryvuUagh, to
give it its full name), which is an island in the middle of the bog,
containing a farm-house and some twelve acres of good tillage
land ; a tocher or car-track connects the Derry with Killart on the
edge of the bog (a distance of just an English mile), and it is near
this that the ancient foot- track is situated.
DerryvuUagh, which slopes to the height of 15 ft. above
the level of the bog, means " the Oak-wood height,*' from it the
bog is called MonavuUagh, or ** the Bog of the height."
Kilberry (i.e., St. Berach's or Barry's Church) lies a mile and a
half to the west of Killart, and contains the ruins of a church, a
castle, and a nunnery.
"Killart" is the name of an obliterated churchyard in the
townland of Old Court. Some years back, a shopkeeper in Athy,
named Keating, took the farm on which the churchyard stood.
While it was in his possession he dug up this old, disused burial-
ground, and carted off human bones and all, for top-tressing his
fields. He had no luck afterwards ; his shop in Athy was twice
burned down, and though he was left a large sum of money by a
relative, he did not live nine weeks to enjoy it. The two hands he
NOTES. 63
employed in excavating the place, in a few years, met one another
in the Carlow Lunatic Asylum. The site of the burial-ground is
now a hollow, with two or three aged ash -trees standing by.
The only *'find** that I have heard of on this portion of the
Bog, was a wooden vessel containing "Bog-butter." For years
it was used to grease the wheels of an ass-cart.
Lying in the gallery of the Science and Art Museum, just
outside the doorway leading into the room containing the Boyal
Irish Academy's collection of antiquities, is a large oaken plank
closely resembling in appearance the MonavuUagh plank, except
that it is very much longer and broader, and that it also has a
double row of holes down the middle, in addition to those at the
sides. Some antiquaries are of the opinion that this huge plank
served for a a bridge, whose supports were fixed in the rows of
holes.
W. FiTzG.
Additions to the List of tlie High Sheriffs of the
County Kildare, given at p. 258 of the 2nd Volume
of the Journal.^
1811. David le Mazener.
1354. Maurice Roleg.'
1355. Richard de Penkeston.
1363. John Wogan (of Rathcoffy, Betham's MSS., Ulster's Office).
1372. David Nasshe.
1370. William Wellesley.
1377. Sir Maurice FitzEustace, Kt.
jggg' ' William Wellesley, of Baronrath (vol. xix of Pedigrees,
1399* I Ulster's Office).
1400. John fitzMaurice del Blakehall. (? A Wellesley or an
Eustace).
1408. William fitz Thomas. (Surname unknown).
1422. Thomas Hall.
1430. Sir Edward FitzEustace, Kt.
1448. Robert Flattesbury, Sheriff of Kildare, was slain in the
battle of '* Donerisk" on the 2nd of September (Grace's
Annals).
1505. W^illiam Eustace, of Newlands, near Naas (Betham*s MSS.).
1G29. Walter FitzCierald of WaUerstown, County Kildare; a
branch of the FitzGeralds of Tiniahoe, County Kildare,
died on the 7th August. [Funeral Entries, Ulster's
Office.]
The above-named sheriffs, except where already noted, are all
taken from a volume called *• Rotulorum lliberniie.**
W. FiTzG.
* Correction, p. 262.— Edward Sherlock, High Sheriff in 1090, was of
Landenstown, not of Sherlockstown. (Ed.)
64 NOTES.
Calverstown (near Kilcullen).
In vol. ii, p. 51, of the '< Transactions of the Boyal Irish
Academy/' is a communication read to the above Society by William
Beauford, a.b., on the Srd March, 1789, which is to the following
effect : —
As some peasants in February, 1788, were digging in a
garden at Calverstown, near Kilcullen, in the County of
Kildare, one of them dropped his fack, or spade, in a hole
under what was always deemed a large rockstone, which
just appeared above the ground. To recover the spade they
attempted to remove the stone ; this they completed by
breaking it into several pieces. Underneath was an oblong
cavity or tomb, the sides and ends composed of large flat
stones, about 5 ft long, 4 ft. deep, and 4 ft. wide. In this
tomb was found a skeleton in a sitting attitude, facing the
south, and by its side, near the head, a small urn of very
rude workmanship, made of earth, very hard baked, and of
a light-brown colour. This was a little broken when found,
by pieces of the covering stone falling on it ; but when
entire was 5^ in. in diameter at the top, and 2 in. at the
bottom, and 4^ in. deep ; the urn was ornamented with
car\dngs both in creux and relief.
An illustration of the kist, with the position of the skeleton in
it, and another of the urn, are given along with the description of
the find ; it is stated that the urn was deposited in the Museum of
the Eoyal Irish Academy.
W. FiTzG.
A Constable of Dublin Castle.
For the extra volume for 1896-97 issued by the Royal Society
of Antiquaries of Ireland, the subject selected for publication was
the ** Register of Wills and Inventories of the Diocese of Dublin,
1467-1488," which was edited by Henry F. Berry, of the Record
Oflice. On p. 92, mention is made of a Gerald FitzGerrot, who
in the year 1474 was Constable of Dublin Castle. Who was he?
W. FiTzG.
C. W. GiBDB & Sox, Printers, 16 Wicklow Slreet, Dublin.
JOURNAL
OF THE
jflw^^ological 0mt\} of i\t Gf^^^k ^^ I\iXii^tt
AND
jSurronnbing Dtstritts.
4-f
^rocccdUtgs.
The Annnal General Meeting of the Society was held on
Wednesday, the 18th of January, 1899, in the Court House,
Naas, which had been kindly lent by the High Sheriff of the
County.
The Earl of Mayo, President of the Society, in the Chair.
The following Members of the Council were present: —
Mr. Thomas Cooke-Trench, the Bev. E. O'Leary, Mr. T. J.
de Burgh, Mr. H. Hendrick-Aylmer, Hon. Treasurer; Sir
Arthur Vicars, Ulster, and Lord Walter FitzGerald, Hon.
Secretaries,
In addition, the following Members, and Visitors introduced
by Members, were present : —
The Dean of Kildare, the Countess of Mayo, Mr. and Mrs. Edmund
Sweetman, Canon Adams, Rev. T. Morrin, Rev. R. D. Skuse, the
Misses Sherlock, Mr. George Wolfe, Dr. F. Falkiner, Mr. C. J.
Engledow, m.p., Mr. W. Staples, Rev. J. F. Cole, &c.
The Minutes of the previous Meeting of January, 1898,
having been read and. confirmed, were signed by the Chairman.
Sir Arthur Vicars, Ulster, Hon. Secretary, then read the
Report, of the Council for the year 1898, which was adopted.
Some discussion took place, in which Mr. Engledow, Canon
Adams, and others took part, on the inconvenience occasioned at
the Excursion Meetings by reason of the encroachment of non-
Members and others, who attended from idle curiosity, thereby
preventing the Members of the Society and their friends from
hearing the Papers read, and inspecting the objects of interest ;
and the Council were reqaested to take the necessary steps to
66 PROCEEDINGS OF THE
remedy the evil, while not unduly encroaching on the privilege
of those, not Members of the Society, who were seriously
interested in the proceedings.
The Hon. Treasurer read his Report for the year 1898, which
showed a decided improvement on the previous year as regards
the financial condition of the Society. The Report was adopted,
with the best thanks of the Society to the Hon. Treasurer, on
the motion of Mr. T. Cooke-Trench, seconded by Lord Walter
FitzGerald, Hon. Secretary.
The Society received, with great regret, the intelligence of
the death of Mr. J. K Sutcliffe, who had acted as Auditor of
the Society since its foundation; and the following vote of
condolence was passed : —
" That the Members of the Kildare Archaeological Society desire to
express their sincere regret at the death of Mr. J. R. Sutcliffe, who
kindly undertook the duties of Hon. Auditor of the Society since its
foundation, besides evincing a keen interest in its welfare. They beg to
tender their condolences to his family.''
The following Resolution was proposed by Mr. T. J. de
Burgh, and seconded by Mr. Engledow, and passed : —
**That Mr. A. Warmington, Manager of the Leinster and Munster
Bank, Naas, having kindly consented to fill the place of the late Mr. J. R.
Sutcliffe as Auditor of the Society, he be appointed Auditor for the
ensuing session."
Lord Walter FitzGerald produced a circular which he and
his co-Hon. Secretary had issued to the Members in pursuance
of the Resolution passed at the last Meeting in January, 1898 —
that the Hon. Secretaries be requested to suggest to the Mem-
bers some subjects for Papers which would be of interest to the
Society.
Mr. Ambrose More O'Ferrall and Mr. Thomas Cooke-Trench,
being the Members of the Council retiring by rotation, were
re-elected.
The following was elected a Member of the Society : —
Mr. C. J. Hobson, U.S.A. In addition, the election of the
following at the Excursion Meeting in September last was con-
firmed : — Mr. Francis J. Freeman and Mr. J. A. Hannon.
The next business before the Meeting being the fixing of the
date and place for the Excursion Meeting, the Bev. E. O'Leary
suggested the visiting of Carbury and district by canal-boat from
Sallins; and the Hon. Secretaries were requested to make the
necessary inquiries, with a view to ascertain if such a course was
possible, and a Resolution to that efiect was passed ; and as an
alternative Blessington was suggested.
COUNTY KILDARE ARCH/EO LOGICAL SOCIETY. 67
The following Resolution, proposed by Mr. Edmund Sweet-
man. and seconded by Sir Arthur Vicars, was passed unani-
mouslj : —
*' That fche thanks of the Kildare Archasological Society are tendered
to Major Blacker for having facilitated the inspection of Castlemartin
Chapel by the Society on the occasion of the Excursion Meeting in
September last."
The following Papers were read : —
1. "John Lye's Descendants, and their Successors at
Clonaugh, County Kildare," Part III. Conclusion. By Bev. E.
O'Leary.
2. "Archaeological Notes." (a) "The Carpenter Tomb in St.
David's Church, Naas." (6) " John FitzGerald, of Narraghbeg,
County Kildare." By Lord Walter FitzGerald, Hon. Secretary.
3. " Notes on Furness or Forenaughts Great." By the Earl
of Mayo, President,
The Earl of Mayo exhibited a gold ring set with an Lrish
pearl, the property of Mr. N. Synnott, probably of the early part
of the century, and explained that this ring had been found
recently during excavations at Forenaughts Great. On the
outside of the ring was an inscription in Celtic characters
believed to mean "dear," and on the inside, " Wicklow Gold,"
and " Slaney Pearl." He also exhibited a picture showing the
gold mines in Wicklow in last century.
Sir Arthur Vicars, Ulster, exhibited a Spanish armorial tile
of the seventeenth century, which bore the inscription,
^'Fluminus impetus letificat civitatem Dei*" (Psalm xlvi. 4).
He also showed another fine green enamelled Spanish tile of the
sixteenth century, with coat of arms ; and a delicate drawing in
pen and ink on vellum of the Loftus atchievement, which was
drawn by the celebrated Matthew Buchinger, born without hands
or feet in Germany in 1674. This sketch was done at Drogheda
in 1722.
Votes of thanks having been passed to the gentlemen who
had kindly read Papers and lent exhibits for the Meeting, and to
the High Sheriff of the County for the use of the Court House^
the proceedings terminated.
Keport of Council for 1898.
The Council of the Kildare Archaeological Society are happy
to be able to report that the Society is in a flourishing condition^
and that a good deal of useful work was done in the past year.
They regret to have to chronicle the loss of a keen supporter
of the Society in Mr. J. B. Sutcliffe, whose death quite recently
68 PROCEEDINGS OF THE
will be felt by many outBide the ranks of the Society. Mr.
Sutcliffe had kindly acted as our Auditor ever since the founda-
tion of the Society — a post for which his excellent business
qualities eminently fitted him ; and we should be lacking in
respect for his memory if we did not acknowledge his kind help.
The Roll of Membership now amounts to 168^ of which
number fourteen are Life Members.
The financial condition of the Society is most satisfactory,
as our Hon. Treasurer will show.
The Annual General Meeting was held in the Court House,
Naas, kindly lent by the High Sheriff, Mr. Goates, on the 24th
January, at which Papers were read, and the usual business
of the Society for the year transacted.
In accordance with a resolution passed at the Meeting last
February, the Hon. Secretaries drew up a circular, which was
sent round to all the Members, pointing out subjects for Papers,
and matters of interest in an archsBological and historical sense
which might form the basis for Papers, and act as an incentive
to Members to aid the objects of the Society.
The Council regret that this step has so far not been pro-
ductive to any great extent ; but they hope for better results in
the forthcoming year.
The Excursion Meeting in September last took place at Old
KilcuUen and district, at which there was a good attendance,
notwithstanding that the weather in the earlier part of the day
was not very favourable.
Some Members have complained to the Council of the great
inconvenience that is occasioned at the Excursion Meetings to
the Members by the crowding in of people who do not belong to
the Society, and who only come from idle curiosity, preventing
the Members from viewing the objects of interest and hearing
the Papers read. The Council hope to take steps to avoid the
recurrence of any such inconvenience in the future, at the same
time not to encroach unduly upon the legitimate desire of the
residents of the localities visited from participating in the
archadological demonstrations.
In reference to the last Excursion Meeting, Major Blacker
has expressed his desire to have the fine Altar Tomb of the
Eustaces at Castlemartin restored, which is at present in frag-
ments in the chapel. The Society hope to be able to superintend
for Major Blacker the carrying out of this very desirable object
during the year.
In regard to the Excursions, the Council would welcome
suggestions from Members as to districts which might be
visited ; and they venture to seek the aid of the residents of
these localities in aiTanging for the visits of the Society.
COUNTY KILDARE ARCH^OLOGICAL SOCIETY. 69
They again appeal on behalf of the Hon, Editor for literary
eontribntions to The Journal.
Two Members of the Council, Mr. Ambrose More OTerrall
and Mr. Thomas Cooke-Trench, retire by rotation, and, being
eligible, offer themselves for re-election.
Adopted,
Mato, President
Arthur Vioars, Ulster,
W. FitzGbrald,
18th January, 1899.
Hon,
Secretaries^
Excursion Meeting, 1898.
The Eighth Annual Excursion Meeting took place on
Tuesday, the 12th September, 1898, at Old Kilcullen, Castle-
martin, and district.
Newbridge Station was the starting-point, where, by 10
o'clock, the up and down trains had brought their contingents
of Members and their friends from the various parts of the
county.
The first stopping-place was the Green of Old Kilcullen,
some four and a half miles distant, where close by lies Knock-
aulin Hill, which was ascended under rather trying circum-
stances, for some rain had fallen in the journey from Newbridge,
rendering the grass somewhat damp. Here a Paper was read
by Lord Walter FitzGerald, and a fine view obtained of the
points of interest referred to in the Paper. Descending by way
of the Fosse, where the fine ramparts were inspected, the
company proceeded to Old Kilcullen Churchyard, not far distant,
and here, after a short preliminary account of the various Bound
Towers of Ireland had been read. Lord Walter FitzGerald pro-
ceeded with his Paper on that one at Old Kilcullen, dealing also
with the sculptured cross-shaft, the history of the church not
now in existence, and the district generally.
The Members and those present then rejoined the carriages,
and drove to Kilcullen, where an excellent luncheon was served
at Bardon's hostelry. By this time the weather had changed,
and the snn shone out, which doubtless accounted for the large
numbers that joined the party here, somewhat severely taxing
the accommodation in the hotel.
After luncheon, many amused themselves in wandering over
the prettily situated village of Kilcullen, and the old-fashioned
garden of the hotel, until it was time to start for New Abbey,
^0 PROCEEDINGS OF THE
where Lord Walter FitzGerald again interested all present by a
description of the Eustace altar-tomb, and a detailed history of
the Monastery which formerly existed here, but of which, un-
forttinately, no traces are now visible.
Resuming their seats, the Members of the Society and their
visitors had a pleasant drive to Gastlemartin, passing through
the beautiful gates at the entrance to the park — a fine specimen
of wrought-iron work, with overhead grill and side wings, dating
from about the middle of last century. Through the kindness of
the owner. Major Blacker, permission was given to the Society
to drive up to the house, a good specimen of an early Georgian
mansion ; and from this, the company wended their way through
the grounds to the ruins of the Eustace Chapel, which lies at
the back of the house.
Here a Paper on the Mortuary Chapel was read by Sir
Arthur Vicars, Ulster, and the curiously formed tower described,
and the remains of the founder's monument inside the Chapel
inspected.
The party then returned to KilcuUen for tea at Bardon's
hotel, after which the company dispersed, many driving to New-
bridge for their respective trains.
Although the attendance was large, the numbers were not
quite up to the average of last year, which may be accounted for
in some measure by the inclemency of the weather in the
morning.
Amongst the Members and Visitors present were:— Lord
Frederick FitzGerald, Canon Sherlock, Hon. Editor, and the
Misses Sherlock, Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Synnott, Mr. Robert
Cochrane, f.s.a., Hon. Secretary R S. A, L-e.; Rev. E. OXeary,
Mr. C. E. A Roper, Mr. George Mansfield and Miss Mansfield,
Sir Arthur Vicars, Ulster, Hon. Secretary; Mr. and Mrs.
Edmund Sweetmau, Mr. and Mrs. Thos. Greene, Colonel and
Mrs. P. D. Vigors, Lord Walter FitzGerald, Hon. Secretary ;
Rev. M. Devitt, Vice-President ; Rev. L. Doyle, Rev. Thomas
Carberry, Rev. E. H. Waller, The Dean of Kildare and Mrs.
Cowell, Rev. J. L. Jesson, Rev. A. L. and Mrs. Rhind, Rev. W.
and Mi's. Morrison, Mr. O'Connell, Rev. J. J. Graham, Rev. E.
Jones, Miss Sampson, Mr. and Mrs, W. H. Vipond Barry, Mr.
K. H. Hallowes, Colonel R J. Greene, Rev. Mr. Harley, The
Misses Henry, Mr. Fredk. Franklin, Mrs. Cooke-Trench, Miss
Cornwall, Miss Armstrong, Mrs. Mannion, Mr. G. N. Roche,
Veiy Rev. M. Langan, Very Rev. Thomas Tynan, Mr. and Mrs.
and Miss F. M. Carroll, Mr. John Carroll, Major and Mrs.
Blacker, Mrs. Sutherland, Mrs. Murray, Miss M. Cogan, Rev.
J. H. Chapman, Mr. Archer, Miss Netterville, Mr. F. Freeman,
Mrs. Somers, &c.
COUNTY KILDARE ARCH/EOLOGICAL SOCIETY.
71
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72 PROCEEDINGS OF THE
LIST OF HONORARY OFFICERS AND MEMBERS.
{CORRECTED TO l^th SEPTEMBER, 1890.)
THE EARL OF MAYO.
9ict-'prt8ibent :
THE REV. MATTHEW DEVITT, S.J.
(in order of election.)
THOMAS COOKE-TRENCH, ESQ., D.L.
GEORGE MANSFIELD, ESQ., D.L.
THE REV. EDWARD O'LEARY, P.P.
THOMAS J. DE BURGH, ESQ., D.L.
AMBROSE MORE-0'FERR.iLL, ESQ., D.L.
THE EARL OF DROGHEDA.
^on. Creasartr :
HANS HENDRICK-AYLMER, ESQ., Kerdiffstown, Sallins.
I^Ott. ^ubttor:
ALFRED A. WARMINGTON, ESQ., Munster and Leinster Bank, Naas.
.f oir. Secretams :
SIR ARTHUR VICARS, F.S.A., UUter, 44 Wellington Road, Doblin.
LORD WALTER FITZGERALD, M.RLA., Kilkea Castle, Maganey.
IJOIT. fibitor :
THE REV. CANON SHERLOCK, M.A., SHERLOCsaTOWN, Sallins.
COUNTY KILDARE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 73
[Officers are indicated by heavy type j lAte Members by an asteriak(*').]
Adams, Rev. Canon, Kill Rectory, Straffan.
Arohbold, Miss, Davidstown, Castledermot.
Aylmer, Miss, Donadea Castle, Co. Kildare.
Aylmer, Algernon, Rathmore, Naas.
AYLMER, H. HENDRIGK-, Hon. Treamrer, Kerdiilstown. Sallins.
♦Barton, Hon. Mrs., Luttrellstown, Clonsilla.
♦Barton, Bertram, Straflfan House, Straflfan.
Beard, T., ild., Glebe Crescent, Stirling.
Bird, Rev. John T., 2 Connaught- terrace, Rathgar.
Blake, J. R., 22 Morehampton-road, Dublin.
Bonham, Colonel J., Ballintaggart, Colbinstown, Co. Kildare.
Bourke, The Hon. Algernon, White's Club, London, S.VV.
Brooke, J. T., Dungannon, Co. Tyrone.
Brown, Stephen J., Ardoaien. Naas.
Burke, Very Rev. E., p.p., Bagnalstown, Co. Carlow.
♦Burtchaell, G. D., m.a., 6 St. Stephen's-green, Dublin.
Byrne, Very Rev. M. J., o.?., College of St. Thomas of Aquin, Newbridge,
Co. Kildare.
Cane, Major Claude, St. Wolstan's, Celbridge.
Carberry, Rev. Thomas, p.p.. The Presbytery, Ballitore.
Carroll, Frederick, Moone Abbey, Moone.
Clarke, Mra, Athgoe Park, Hazlehatch, Co. Dublin,
♦(elements, Colonel, Killadoon, Celbridge.
♦Clements, Henry J. B., d.l., Killadoon, Celbridge.
Coady, D. P., m.d., Naas.
Cochrane, Robert, f.s.a., m.b.i.a., Hon. Secretary r.s.a.i., 17 Highfield-road,
Rathgar.
Cole, Rev. J. F., The Rectory, Portarlington.
Colley, G. P. A, Mount Temple, Clontarf, Co. Dublin.
Conmee, Rev. J. F., s.j., St. Francis Xavier'a, Upper Gardiner- street, Dublin.
Cooper, Austin Damer, Drumnigh House, Portmarnock, Co. Dublin.
Coote, Stanley, The Orchard House, Wargrave, Berks.
Cowell, Very Rev. G. Y., Dean of Kildare, The Deanery, Kildare.
Cruise, Francis, m.d., Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow.
CuUen, Rev. John, Adm., Carlow.
Cnlshaw, Miss, Johnstown, Straffan.
74 PROCEEDINGS OF THE
Daly, C, 25 Westmoreland-street, Dublin.
Dames, K. S. Longworth, 21 Herbert-street, Dublin.
Dane, J. Whiteside, Abbeyfield, Naas.
Darby, M., m.d.. West End, Monasterevan.
Day, Robert, f.8.a., m.r.i.a., 3 Sydney-place, Cork.
Dease, Colonel Sir Gerald, Celbridge Abbey, Celbridge.
DE BURGH, THOMAS J., d.l., Oldtown, Naas.
DEVITT, Rev. MATTHEW, s.j., Vice-President, Rector of Clongowes Wood
College, Sallins.
Doyle, Rev. J. J., p.p., Derrycappagh, Mountmellick, Queen's County.
Doyle, Rev. Laurence, c.c, Moone.
Doyle, Rev. Mark, c.c, Woodstock Cottage, Athy.
Doyle, Rev. Thomas, c.c, Caragh, Naas.
DROQHEDA, THE EARL OF, Moore Abbey, Monasterevin.
Drogheda, The Countess of, Moore Abbey, Monasterevin.
Duggan, Rev. William, c.c, Athy.
Dunne, Rev. John, c.c, Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow.
Dunne, Laurence, j.p., DoUardstown House, Athy.
Elliott, Rev. William, The Manse, Naas.
Engledow,Mrs., Burton Hall, Carlow.
Engledow, C. J., m.p.. Burton Hall, Carlow.
Field, John, Kilcock.
Srench, Rev. Canon, u.b.i.a., Ballyredmond House, Clonegal, Co. Carlow.
*FitzGerald, Lady Eva, Kilkea Castle, Maganey, Co. Eildare.
FitzGerald, Lady Mabel, Kilkea Castle, Maganey, Co. Kildare.
*FitzGkrald, Lady Nesta, Kilkea Castle, Maganey, Co. Kildare.
•FitzGerald, Lord Frederick, Carton, Maynooth, Co. Kildare.
*FitzGerald, Lord George, Kilkea Castle, Maganey, Co. Kildare.
FitzGerald, Lord Henry, 1 Sloane-court, London, S.W.
♦FITZGERALD, LORD WALTER, m.r.la., Hon. 6Vcrefari/, Kilkea Castle, Maganey,
Co. Kildare.
FitzGerald, Sir George, Bart., Killybegs, Sallins.
Fletcher, Rev. Lionel, The Rectory, Straflfan.
Fogarty, Rev. M., Professor, The College, Maynooth.
Foley, Most Rev.Patrick, d.d., Bishop of Kildare andLeighlin, Braganza, Carlow.
Freeman, Francis J., Calverstown, Kilcullen.
Ganly, Rev. C. W., The Rectory, Castledermot, Co. Kildare.
Gargan, Right Rev. Monsignor Denis, d.d.. President of St. Patrick's College,
Maynooth.
Garstin, J. Ribton, d.l., f.s.a., m.b.i.a., Braganstown, Castlebellingham,
Co. Louth.
Glover, Edward, 19 Prince Patrick-terrace, North Circular-road, Dublin.
Graham, Rev. C. I., Kildrought Parsonage, Celbridge.
Greene, Thomas, ll.d., Millbrook, Maganey.
COUNTY KILDARE ARCH/EOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 75
Hade, Arthur, &£., Car low.
Hannon, J. A. , Prumplestown, Garlow.
Higginson, Lady, Connellmore, Newbridge.
Hopkins. Mrs., Blackball Castle, EilouUen, Co. Elldare.
Hobson, C. J., 239 West One Hundred and Twenty-fifth-street, New York.
Jesson, Bev. J. L., The Bectory, Eilkea, Co. Kildare.
Johnson, Miss, Lancaster House, Ballinasloe.
Joyce, Patrick Weston, Lyre na Grena, Leinster-road, Rathmines, Dublin.
Kennedy, Kev. H., St. David's Rectory, Naas.
Keogh, Surgeon- Major T. B., Castleroe, Maganey, Co. Kildare.
Kilkelly, John, ll.d., 46 Upper Mount-street, Dublin.
Kirkpatrick, William, Donacomper, Celbridge.
La Toucbe, Mrs. John, Harristown, Brannoxtown.
Lentaigne, Bev. Victor, s.j., Ciongowes Wood College. Sallins.
Long, Miss A. F., Woodfield, Kilcavan, Geashill, King's County.
Longfield, Robert, 19 Harcourt-street, Dublin.
MacDonald, Rev. Walter, d.d., Librarian, The College, Maynooth.
MacDonald, J. R, m.d., Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow.
M'Gee, Bev. S. B., The Itectory, Dunlavin.
M'Sweeny, J. G., 18 Claremount-road, Sandymount, Dublin.
Maguire, P. A., 2 Oldtown-terrace, Naas.
Mahony, David, d.l., Grange Con, Co. Wicklow.
Mahony, George Gun, Grange Con, Co. Wicklow.
Manders, B. W., Castleslze, Sallins.
Manning. C. S., Bank House, Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow.
MANSFIELD, GEORGE, d.l., Morristown Lattin, Naas.
Mayo, Dowager Countess of, 20 Eaton-square, London, S.W.
MAYO, The EARL OF, President, Palmerstown, Straffan.
Minchin, F., j.p., Mooretown House, Kiltegan, Co. Wicklow.
Molloy, William B., m.r.i.a., 78 Kenilworth-square, Bathgar.
Mooney, William, j.p., The Castle, Leixlip.
*Moran, His Eminence Cardinal, Sydney, N. S. Wales, Australia.
Morrin, Bev. Thomas, p.p., Naas.
Murphy, The Bight Bev. Monsignor Michael, p.p., St. Brigid's, Kildare.
Murphy, W. A., Osberstown House, Naas.
Nolan, Rev. James, c.c, Kilmeade, Athy.
Norman, George, 12 Brock-street, Bath, England.
O'Brien, Bight Hon. Sir Peter, Bart., Lord Chief Justice, Castletown, Celbridge.
O'Dea, Very Bev. Thomas, d.d., Vice-President, The College, Maynooth.
•O'FERRALL, AMBROSE MORE-, d.l., Ballyna, Moyvally.
O'Hanlon, Very Bev. John Canon, p.p., 3 Leahy's-ter., Sandymount, Dublin.
76 PROCEEDINGS OF THE
O'Eelly, Robert, m.d., Landenstown, Sallins.
♦CyiEARY, Rev. E., p.p., Ballyna, MoyvaUy.
O'Leary, Bev. Patrick, The College, Maynooth.
Palmer, Charles Colley, d.l., Bahan, Edenderry.
Ponsonby, Hon. Qerald, 3 Stratford-place, London, W.
Ponsonby, Lady Maria, 3 Stratford-place, London, W.
Pratt, Mrs., Glenheste, Manor-Kilbride, Co. Dablin.
Qninn, ECev. Bichard, b.a., cc, Eilmeade House, Athy.
Bobinson, John, m.d., j.p., Johnstown-bridge, Co. Eildare.
Boper, C. E. A., b.l., 55 Leeson-park, Dublin.
Byan, Very Bev. John C, o.p., College of St. Thomas of Aqnin, Newbridge.
Bynd, Major B. F., Blackball, Sallins.
Saunders, Colonel B., d.l., Saunders' Grove, Stratford-on-Slaney, Co. Wicklow.
SHERLOCK, Rev. Canon, Hon. Editor, Sherlockstown, Sallins.
Skuse, Bev. Bichard D., Ballykean Bectory, Portarlington.
Somerville-Large, Bev. W., Carnalway Bectory, Kilcullen.
Staples, William, Naas.
Strangeway, W. N., Breiini Villa, Eglinton-road, Donnybrook, Dublin.
Supple, K., D.I.R.I.C., Dunlavin, Co. Wicklow.
Sweetman, E., Longtown, Sallins.
Sweetman, Mrs., Longtown, Sallins.
Swinton, The Hon. Mrs., 82 Cadogan-place, London, W.
Synnott, Nicholas, Furness, Naas.
Taylor, Mrs., Golden Fort, Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow.
Taylor, Mark, Golden Fort, Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow.
Thornhill, F. Evelyn, Bathangan House, Bathangan.
TRENCH, THOMAS COOKE-, d.l., Millioent, Sallins.
Trench, Mrs. Cooke-, Millicent, Sallins.
Tynan, The Bight Bev. Monsignor Thomas, p.p., Newbridge.
Tyrrell, Garrett C, Ballinderry House, Carbury, Co. Kildare.
VICARS, SIR ARTHUR, f.8.a., Ulster King-of-Arms, Hon. Secretary,
44 Wellington-road, Dublin.
Vigors, Colonel P. D., HoUoden, Bagnalstown, Co. Carlow.
Wall, Colonel J., Knockareagh, Grange Con, Co. Wicklow.
Wall, Mrs., Knockareagh, Grange Con, Co. Wicklow.
Walsh, Bev. Martin, p.p., Castledermot, Co. Kildare.
WARMINQTON, ALFRED A., Hon. Auditor, Munster and Leinster Bank, Naas.
Weldon, General, Forenaughts, Naas.
Weldon, Captain A. A., Kilmorony, Athy.
Weldon, Lady, Kilmorony, Athy.
COUNTY KILDARE ARCH/EOLOGICAL SOCIETY. JJ
Westropp, T. J., c.b., 77 Lower Leeson-atreet, Dablin.
Wheeler, W. I. De Gourcy, m.d., f.r.c.8.i., 32 Merrion-sqnare, N., Dablin.
White, W. Grove, 13 Upper Onuond-quay, Dublin.
Willis, G. de L., 4 Kildare-street, Dublin.
Wilson, Colonel W. F., The Vicarage, Clane.
Wilson, Mrs. B. M., Gooloarrigan, Kilcock.
Wilson, Miss B. DuprS, Ooolcarrigan, Kilcook.
Wolfe, George, Bishopsland, Ballymore-Eustace, Naas.
Woollcombe, Bobert L., ll.d., m.r.i.a., 14 Waterloo-road, Dublin.
♦Wright, E. Percival. m.a., m.d.. Secretary r.i.a., 6 Trinity College, Dublin.
|!oir."Pember:
Miss Margaret Stokes, Carrig Breac, Howth, Co. Dublin.
( 78 )
RULES.
I. That this Society be called " The Gonnty Eildare Archaeological Society."
II. That the purpose of the Society be the promotion of the study and
knowledge of the antiquities and objects of interest in the county and sur-
rounding districts.
III. That the Society consist of a President, Vice-President, Council,
Hon. Treasurer, two Hon. Secretaries, and Members, Ladies are eligible for
Membership.
IV. That the names of ladies and gentlemen desiring to become Members
of the Society shall be submitted, together with the names of their proposers
and seconders, to the Council, and, if approved by them, shall then be sub-
mitted to the next Meeting of the Society for Election.
V. That the affairs of the Society be managed by the President, Vice-
President, Hon. Treasurer, and Hon. Secretaries, together with a Council of
six Members. That for ordinary business two shall form a quorum ; but any
matter upon which a difference of opinion arises shall be reserved for another
meeting, in which three shall form a quorum.
VI. That two Members of the Council shall retire by rotation each year,
but shall be eligible for re-election.
VII. That Members pay an Annual Subscription of Ten Shillings (due
on the 1st oE January), and that the payment of £5 shall constitute a Life
Member.
VIII. That Meetings of the Society be held not less than twice in each
year, one Meeting being an excursion to some place of archaeological interest
in the district.
IX. That at the first Meeting of the Society in each year the Hon. Trea-
surer shall furnish a balance-sheet.
X. That a Journal of the Society be published annually, containing the
Proceedings and a column for local Notes and Queries, which shall be sub-
mitted to the Council for their approval.
XI. That the Meetings of the year be fixed by the Council, due notice of
the dates of the Meetings being given to Members.
XII. That Members be at liberty to introduce visitors at the Meetings of
the Society.
XIII. That no Member shall receive The Journal whose Subscription for
the previous year has not been paid.
( 78 )
RULES.
I. That this Society be called " The Coanty Kildare Archaeological Society.''
II. That the purpose of the Society be the promotion of the study and
knowledge of the antiquities and objects of interest in the county and sur-
rounding districts.
III. That the Society consist of a President, Vice-President, Council,
Hon. Treasurer, two Hon. Secretaries, and Members. Ladies are eligible for
Membership.
IV. That the names of ladies and gentlemen desiring to become Members
of the Society shall be submitted, together with the names of their proposers
and seconders, to the Council, and, if approved by them, shall then be sub-
mitted to the next Meeting of the Society for Election.
V. That the affairs of the Society be managed by the President, Vice-
President, Hon. Treasurer, and Hon. Secretaries, together with a Council of
six Members. That for ordinary business two shall form a quorum ; but any
matter upon which a difference of opinion arises shall be reserved for another
meeting, in which three shall form a quorum.
VI. That two Members of the Council shall retire by rotation each year,
but shall be eligible for re-election.
VII. That Members pay an Annual Subscription of Ten Shillings (due
on the 1st of January), and that the payment of £5 shall constitute a Life
Member.
VIII. That Meetings of the Society be held not less than twice in each
year, one Meeting being an excursion to some place of archasological interest
in the district.
IX. That at the first Meeting of the Society in each year the Hon. Trea-
surer shall furnish a balance-sheet.
X. That a Journal of the Society be published annually, containing the
Proceedings and a column for local Notes and Queries, which shall be sub-
mitted to the Council for their approval.
XI. That the Meetings of the year be fixed by the Council, due notice of
the dates of the Meetings being given to Members.
XII. That Members be at liberty to introduce visitors at the Meetings of
the Society.
Xin. That no Member shall receive The Journal whose Subscription for
the previous year has not been paid.
( 79 )
RATHCOFFY.
By the rev. MATTHEW DEVITT, S.J., Vice-Prbsidbnt.
EATHCOFFY— the Rath of Coflfy— is situated in the Parish
of Balraheen, in the Barony of Ikeathj, and Oughter-
anny. Go. Kildare.
Its castle was once the seat of three Irish Viceroys — Sir
John, Sir Thomas, and John De Wogan.
In the baronial charts of Petty there is a very good picture
of Rathcoffy Castle, which is represented as a qaadrangular pile,
with a tower at its four angles. These charts were, on their way
to England, captured by a French pirate, and are now in the
National Library of Paris.
When Strongbow by his marriage with Eva, daughter and
heiress of King Dermot MacMurrough, became Lord of the
ancient Kingdom of Leinster, he gave the greater portion of
North Kildare to his young fiiend, Adam de Hereford, who had
accompanied him on his expedition to Ireland.
Adam, unable to defend so large a territory, sent to England
for his brothers Richard and John to share his spoils and
responsibility.
To John he gave the lands of Kill, Kildrought (Celbridge),
Glonshanboe, Mainham and its dependencies, to wit, Rathcoffy.
His son, Thomas de Hereford, died without male issue, but
left two daughters, one of whom, Eva, married Walter de Roch-
ford, who thereby became Lord of Rathcoffy ; while the other,
Eleanora, married Milo de Rochford, and gave to him Kill and
Kildrought (Celbridge), with all their dependencies.
This Milo de Rochford, Lord of Kill, was the ancestor of the
Rochford Boyds, a well-known family in the County Westmeath.
In 1317 the estate reverted to the Crown, and was granted
by King Edward II to Sir John Wogan, then Viceroy of
Ireland.
The Wogans of Rathcoffy were a very ancient family. De
Burgo, in his ''Hibemia Dominicana," says they were descended
from a Roman patrician family.
The following extract from his celebrated work may prove
interesting : —
"When I was at Florence in Etruria, in the year 1742, I made the
acquaintance of a Knight, whose Italian name was Cavaglier Ughi. He
gave me a MS., historical, genealogical, and heraldic, which is still in my
possession, and which distinctly shows from historical and classical works
8o RATHCOFFY.
that his family was descended from a Roman patrician, named Ug^is,
who was sent with other nobles of equal rank to found the city of
Florence before the birth of Christ. From that place, later on, some of
his race migrated to Saxony, and from Saxony to England ; and are the
ancestors of the Anglo-Irish Hugans, Owgans, or Wogans."
It is certain that the family name was varionsly spelt and
pronounced. We have still proof of this in the place-names of
Hogan's Wood, near Properons, and Owgan's-rpronounced
Oogan's — Hole in the Liffey, between Glane and Straffan.
According to De Bargo, the Wogans came first to Ii-eland
with Henry II, but they retained large possessions in Wales.
To Sir John Wogan and his son, Sir Thomas, who were
Viceroys of Ireland from 1295 to 1309, the king entrasted the
odious mission of seizing the persons and property of the
Knight's Templars in Ireland in 1807.
In 1294 O'Connor, of Ofialy, wasted Eildare, and, accord-
ing to Dr. Leland, '* burned all the rolls and tallyes of that
countrie ;" and about the same time many of the English
adopted the manners and customs of the natives. '' They
afiiacted," says Leland, *' the garb and outward appearance of
Irishmen. To prevent or remedy such defects a Parliament was
summoned by Sir John Wogan at Kilkenny in 1296, and there
passed several laws by which the incursions of the Irish were for
a while repressed.'^
Cox, in his History, says that his government was one of the
wisest and most moderate Ireland had ever enjoyed.
He was succeeded in the Yiceroyalty by his son^ Sir Thomas,
in 1808.
Sir Thomas was not as successful as his father. He set out
at the head of the king's troops to invade the O'Tooles' and
O'Bymes' country, but was driven back with great slaughter.
In the same year another John Wogan was Viceroy, and
suffered an equally disgraceful defeat in Glenmalure.
He it was who held the Parliament at Kilkenny in 1309.
In 1417 Anastacia de Stanton, widow of Sir David fitz
Thomas Wogan, Knt., of Kathcoffy, was assigned her dower ;
a translation of the original assignment is given at the end of
this Paper.
In 1442 Richard Wogan was Chancellor of Ireland.
In 1454 the Castle of Kathcoffy was attacked by some of the
Wogans, probably on account of some family dispute.
In an address to Richard Duke of York from the nobles, &c.,
of Kildare, we read as follows : —
'* Also please your Highness to be advertised that the said William
Bottler, Nicholas Wogan, David W^ogan, and Richard Wogan came with
divers Irish enemies and English rebels to the Castle of Rathcoffy,
RATHCOFFY. 8l
there as Anne Wog»n, some time wife to Oliver Eiutaoe, then being the
King's widow, wai dwelling, and burnt the gfiteB of the said place, imd
took her with them, and Edward Eustace, son and heii to the said Oliver,
and Bon and heir apparent to the said Anne, and of the age of eight years,
and thev took goods and chatteln of the Mid Anne to the value of 600
The Gubwai of fUTScoFFV Oabtlx.
In the Elizabettun wars the Wogans wore generally on the
Irish side, and their DBmes frequently occnr in the lists of con-
fiscations and pardons.
In 1681 Richard Wogan nas execnted in Dablin, with thirty-
six otim knights of Leinster and Meath, for having joined in
the rising of Lord Baltinglass and the (VTooles.
In the war of 1641 they are found fighting under the same
banner.
When the celebrated Bory O'More raised the standard of
rarolt in the County Kildare, Nicholas Wogan, of Rathco%,
was a member of the Council of War.
.it GaLl^r}', Dablin,
RATHCOFFY. S3
Bathcofiy Castle was then fortified, and a quantity oi' powder
stored in its cellars. In 1642 it was besieged by General Monk,
and surrendered to him.
We read in O'Curry's "History of the Civil Wars" as fol-
lows : '* The soldiers of Bathcoffy and Clongowes Wood^ having
surrendered on terms^ were^ to the number of 120, conveyed to
Dublin and executed there, and such a massacre of women and
children took place that one-twentieth part of the harvest could
not be saved for want of hands." About sixty years ago a large
quantity of human bones was found buried on Bathcoffy Hill^
and removed to the neighbouring graveyard of Lady Chapel.
They were most likely the remains of the poor victims of that
ruthless massacre. Nicholas Wogan, of Bathcoffy^ seems to
have escaped the slaughter, as we find him a member of the
Confederation of Kilkenny in 1643. His lands were, of course,
confiscated ; but a portion, including Bathcoffy, was afterwards
restored to the family.
Through all the troubles of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries the Wogans remained loyal to the old faith, and were
ardent supporters of the Stuart line. Beaders of " Waverley " will
remember Captain Wogan^ Flora Maclvor's ideal hero. In 1655
he was with Charles YI in Paris ; but hearing that the Boyal
Standard had been raised in the Highlands, he passed over to
England, then completely under the dominion of Cromwell.
With a small body of horsemen, he rode north, and succeeded
in safely crossing the border, and joining the Highland army.
After the battle of Worcester he saved the king's life. At the
head of 800 horsemen, he turned on the pursuing army of
Cromwell, numbering about 80,000 men, and succeeded in
checking their career until the king had ridden out of their
reach.
But the most celebrated of the family was the famous
Sir Charles Wogan, the confidential friend of the '' Old Pre-
tender," James IIL He took part in the rising of 1716, was
arrested at Preston, and brought prisoner to London.
Having lain six mouths in durance vile, he and some of his
fellow-prisoners effected their escape. Nine grenadiers, with
fixed bayonets, attempted to stop them ; but the Jacobites,
though completely unarmed, broke through the line and forced
the gates of the prison. For an entire day Wogan lay on the
roof of a house, while the military, aided by the mob, were
searching every lodging-house in the city. In the darkness of
the night he made his way to the coast, and passed over to
France.
His greatest exploit, however, was his rescue of the Polish
84 RATHCOFFY.
Princess, Maria Clementina Sobieski, who was imprisoned by
the Emperor at Innsbruck, to prevent her marriage with James
m, the " Old Pretender.''
James confided to Sir Charles the delicate mission of
selecting a wife for him from the Catholic rojal families of
Europe. His choice fell on Clementina Sobieski, and she soon
set out to meet her betrothed at Rome. But, meanwhile, the
English Government took steps to prevent the perpetuation of
the Stuart line, and persuaded the Emperor to intercept her,
and keep her in close confinement at Innsbruck.
But Wogan was not to be outwitted. With three Kildare
men of Count Dillon's regiment — Major Gayden, of Irishtown ;
Captain Misset, of Dowdenstown ; and Captain O'Toole — he
rescued the fair prisoner, and conveyed her safely across the
frontier into Papal territory.
For this exploit he and his brave companions were raised to
the dignity of Roman Senators.
From James he received the title of Baron.
In 1719 Sir Charles entered the service of the Spanish King,
Philip y, and got a commission as colonel in his army.
He was sent on an expedition at the head of 1,300 Spaniards
to rescue the fortress of Santa Cruz ; defeated an army of
20,000 Moors.
For this he was raised to the rank of general, and made
Governor of Lamancha.
In 1732 and 1733 he was in correspondence with Dean Swift.
This correspondence shows that Wogan could wield the pen as
well as the sword.
He sent the Dean a cask of Spanish wine, and a packet con-
taining some of his literary efforts, in verse and prose, to be
corrected by him and his friends.
The Dean in his reply says that he —
*^ submitted them to the few judicious friends I have in this kingdom.
We all agreed that the writer was a scholar, a man of genius, and of
honour. We guessed him to have been bom in this country (Ireland)
from some passages, but not from the style, which we were surprised to
find so correct in an exile, a soldier, and a native of Ireland
In these kingdoms you would be a most unfashionable military man,
among troops, where the least pretension to learning or piety, or common
morals, would endanger the owner to be cashiered.
*' Altho' J have no great regard for your trade, from the judgment I
make of those who profess it in these kingdoms, yet I cannot but highly
esteem those gentlemen of Ireland, who, with all the disadvantages of
being exiles and strangers, have been able to distinguish themselves by
their valour and conduct in so many parts of Europe, I think above all
other nations ; which ought to make the English] ashamed of the
reproaches they cast on the ignorance, the dullness, and the want of
RathcoffV. 8 s
courage in the Irish natives ; these defects, wherever they happen,
arising only from the poverty and slavery they suffer from their inhuman
neighbours, and 'the base, corrupt spirits of too many of the chief
gentry, &c.
'*By such events as these the very Grecians are grown slavish,
ignorant, and superstitious.
*' I do assert that, from several experiments I have made in travelling
over both kingdoms, I have found tne poor cottagers here, who could
speak our language, to have a much better natural taste for good sense,
humour, and raillery, than ever I observed among people of the like sort
in England. But the millions of oppressions they lie under, the tyranny
of their landlords, the ridiculous zeal of their priests, and the general
misery of the whole nation, have been enough to damp the best spirits
under the sun."
Sir Charles died without issue at Barcelona in 1768.
There is in the Marquis of Ormonde's MSS. a Paper entitled,
*' An alphabetical list of the names of all such persons of the
Popish religion within the Kingdom of Ireland who have licences
to bear or cari^ arms." It is dated 30th March, 1705, and on
ihe list is Lieut.-Col. John Woogan, of Bathcoffy, who is allowed
to carry one sword, one case of pistols, and one gun.
In a similar list of 1713 the same quantity of arms,
respectively, are allowed to John Wogan and Nicholas Wogan, of
Rathcofify.
While Sir Charles was on the Continent, Bathcoffy was still
in possession of the Wogans, as the above citations prove, and as
is clear from the following extract of a letter from the Dean to
him : —
'^I have been often told that you have a brother and some near
relations in this country ; and have oftener employed my friends in vain
to learn when any of them came to this town. But, I suppose, on account
of their religion, they are so prudent as to live in privacy ; although the
court has thought it better in point of politicks (and, to keep the good
will of Cardinal Fleury, has thought it proper) to make the CathoUcks
here much more easy than their ill-willers of no religion approve of in
their hearts. And I can assure you that those wretches here, who call
themselves a parliament, abhor the clergy of our Church, more than those
of yours, and have made a universal association to defraud us of our
undoubted dues."
At the close of the last century, Bathcoffy Castle and demesne
was purchased by the famous Archibald Hamilton Bowan, who
levelled the castle, of which only the western barbican still
remains, and erected the mansion, at present in ruins.
This great Irishman had been a friend of Squire Browne, of
Castlebrowne, long before Clongowes College was established,
and in later years was on the most friendly terms with the
Fathers of Clongowes.
It is said that a party of soldiers was sent to Bathcoffy to
arrest him as a United Irishman, and the story of his escape
RATHCOFFV.
RaTBCOFPV HoUBE. built BI a. HAHn.TOH HOWAN.
from them has been often told. While the soldiers were
ascendiog the stairs' he jamped from the balcony to the lawn
below, and springing on the back of a horse that was grazing
hard by, rode straight for Clongowes. His parsners just
reached the hall-door of Clongowes to see him pass into
the " roand room," and immediately fired at him. Bnt he
had time to cIoBe the door against their sings, the marks
of which may still be seen. We cart well imagine with what
feelings be entered that room in later years, and with what
gratitude he looked on the door that shielded him from the
deadly volley. From the "ronnd room" he rnshed into the
library, and seeing that one of the windows was open, with
wonderful presence of mind, flung oat his hat, and hid himself
in a secret chamber that escaped the notice of his pnrsaers.
They, noting the open window and the hat lying derelict on the
" ha-ha," concluded that be again had risked a dangerous jnmp,
and was still in the open country. Down they sprang in hot
pursuit, and proceeded to scour the country for their quarry,
who, meanwhile, was well treated by Squire Browne, and
baffled every effort to capture him.
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The WoaAN Arub.
88 DAME ANASTACIA WOGAN'S DOWER.
Dame Anastacia Wogan's Doweb.
ON pages 222 or 223 of a volume titled, ''Botnloram
Patentinm et Clau8orum GancellarisB HibernisB Calen-
darinm'* is given, in contracted Latin, the Assignment of
Dower to Anastacia, the widow of Sir David Wogan, Knight,
of Rathcoffy. It is dated the 24tb of February, 1417, and is
valuable as showing the possessions of the Wogan family at this
early period, as well as for giving Place-names, many of which
are now obsolete.
When translated, this Assignment of Dower reads^ : —
<< The Assignment of Dower made to Anastacia, who was the
wife of David Wogan, knight, of the lands, &c,, which belonged to
the said David.
'' In the first place there is assigned to her in the manor
of Rathcoffy the gathous,^ the 'colthous' on the south side of
the said house ; further the ' torshous,' the ' logshephyn,' the
medylbarne, the great orchard on the north side of the gathous,
the third part of the haggard on the west side with free entry and
exit to the aforesaid parcels ; further the chapel, the kylf, the
bawn and the third part of the bakhous on the north side
together with the mill therein in common ; further there is
assigned to her the long scbephous in the town of Rathcoffy, one
messuage which Thomas Ternan holds therein, one messuage
which William Oshell (? O'Sheill) holds therein, one messuage
which William Omorgh (O'More) lately held therein ; further in
the demesne lands of the aforesaid manor, in the first place in the
field on the south side of the said town twenty acres of land by
estimation, in the east part of the said field ; &rther in the field
on the north side of the said town twenty acres of land by estima-
tion in the east part of the said field ; further in the field on the
west side of the said town twenty acres of land by estimation in
the north part of the said field ; further the third part of two acres
of meadow called the Nenaghmde, in the midst thereof ; further
the KeppagJUane in the Grages ; further the third part of the profits
of the court, mill, market and tolls of the town of Kylcoke ; Airther
at Maynan two acres and one stang and the third part of a stang of
meadow in the midst thereof ; further at the Parkmede of Courtown
three acres of meadow in the midst thereof ; further in the Cidver-
housemedde one acre and two thirds of an acre of meadow in the
midst thereof ; further in Croghesmede the third part of an acre in
the midst thereof ; further in Crolemede the third part of an acre of
» To Mr. McEnery and Mr. Radcliff, of the Record Office, Dublin,
thanks are due for the trouble they took in making the translation, and
comparing it with the original.
' See note at end for explanation of obscure words.
DAME ANASTACIA WOGAN'S DOWER. 89
meadow in the midst thereof ; farther the third p^rt of the Feigh
(i.e., wood) of Rathcoffy in common ; farther the third part of the
profits of ^ warren of Rathcoffy ; further in the demesne of Maynan
twenty two shillings and ten pence chief rent arising from all the
lands and tenements of Roger Penkeston in Eichurdstoun and the
services of the said Roger ; twelve pence chief rent arising from
two messaages of John Ultagh sergeant therein ; and the services
of the said John ; one penny and a halfpenny chief rent arising
from one messuage of Richard Howlot therein, and the services of
the said Richard ; further one penny chief rent arising from the
lands of John Rochford therein, and the services of the said John ;
the rented lands of Maynan [viz] one messuage and twenty one
and a half acres of land which Adam Omoghem hdds to farm and
renders yearly twenty one shillings and a penny ; hurther eighteen
liores of land therein which WiUiam Graunt holds to farm and
renders yearly seventeen shillings and four pence; farther one
messuage and fourteen and a half acres of land which Nicholas
Braynoke holds to farm therein and renders yearly fourteen
shillings and five pence ; further one messuage and two acres
which Thomas Smyth holds therein and renders yearly two
shillings and eight pence ; further two and a half acres of land
which John Oltagh holds therein and renders yearly two shillings
and sixpence; further three and a half acres of land which David
Andrewe holds therein and renders yearly three shillings and six-
pence ; further in Mortoun one messuage and nineteen and a half
acres of land and one stang of land therein which John Wisse
holds therein and renders yearly eighteen shillings and eight
pence ; further ten and a half acres of land which John Cam holds
and renders yearly ten shillings and sixpence ; further two acres
and three stangs of land which Philip Orewy holds therein and
renders yearly two shillings and nine pence ; further of waste land in
Maynan twenty three acres and one stang of land in the Mochfield ;
further nine shillings and eleven pence chief rent arising from the
lands of Richard Losthagh and the services of the said Richard :
further the rented lands of Balytarstyn, viz., one messuage and
fifteen acres and three stangs of land which John Tyrrell holds
therein and renders yearly fifteen shillings and two pence ; further
one messuage and four and a half acres of land which Thomas
Tyrrell holds therein and renders yearly four shillings and six
pence ; further one messuage and two acres of land which
John Lang and Robert Lang hold therein and render yearly two
shillings ; further two and a half acres of land which Nicholas
Goenys holds therein and renders yearly two shillings and six pence;
farther two and a half acres of land which Thomas Rochefort the
younger holds therein and renders yearly two shillings and six-
pence ; further one messuage and three and a half acres and half
a stang of land which Nicholas Sagyn holds therein and renders
yearly three shillings and eight pence ; further one and a hall acres
of land which Richard Roche holds therein and renders yearly
90 DAME ANASTACIA WOGAN'S DOWER.
eighteen pence ; farther half an acre of land which Kchard Barret
holds therein and renders yearly six pence ; farther in Sagynesplace
one messuage and nine acres of land which Dermicius Obean (Dermot
O'Behan) holds therein and renders yearly nine shillings ; BatayUs-
place one acre of land which Patrick Odoyng (O'Dunn) holds therein
and renders yearly twelve pence ; farther two acres which Walter
Herford holds therein and renders yearly two shillings ; farther
two acres of land which Maurice Herfort holds therein and renders
yearly two shillings ; further one messuage three stangs and the
third part of a stang of land which David Prendyrgast holds
therein and renders yearly ten pence ; further in JaUgrag one
messuage twenty-two and a half [acres] of land which John Folan
holds therein and renders yearly eleven shillings and six pence;
further three acres three stangs of land which Adoke McT^gyn
holds therein and renders yearly three shillings and eleven pence ;
further Clonferty one messuage seven and a half acres of land which
Gonchour McConcour holds therein and renders yearly seven
shillings and six pence ; farther half a messuage, ten acres and two
parts of an acre of land which John Manus holds therein and
renders yearly ten shillings and eight pence ; Amlrewysplace one
messuage, eleven acres, three stangs of land which Walter Boche-
fort holds therein and renders yearly eleven shillings and nine-
pence ; Bdrew one messuage three acres three and a half stangs of
land which Cowlam McCarty holds therein and renders yearly three
shillings and eleven pence ; further one messuage, eleven acres of
land which William Okenay holds therein and renders yearly eleven
shillings ; further of waste land three acres in Tymiggham ; further
two and a half acres of waste land in Haghyntrystyn ; further three
and a half acres of waste land in Hagherengan ; further half an
acre of waste land in Lotjhaii; further in Balyhroke one acre of
land ; further of waste land nine acres in Magandiesfeld ; further
one and a half acres of waste land in Couldow ; further one acre
three stangs of waste land in Batayleaheys ; further one acre one
stang of waste land in Costynesheys ; further three acres in Croghgo-
neletc of waste land ; further twenty-two shillings and a half penny
chief rent arising from the lands &c of Thomas Bermyngeham in
Boysestotcn and the services of the said Thomas ; ^the rented lands
of Kylcoke, one messuage, six acres of land which Patrick Smyth
holds therein and renders yearly eight shillings ; further one
messuage and eight acres of land which Richard McHugyn holds
therein and renders yearly ten shillings ; further one messuage and
one acre and a third which John Obygyn holds therein and renders
yearly three shillings and four pence ; further one messuage which
Thomas Russell, smyth, holds and renders yearly two shillings and
four pence ; further one waste messuage therein on the east side
towards Meath ; Courtoun one messuage, ten acres four stangs of
land which William Revagh holds therein and renders yearly ten
^ See note at end.
DAME ANASTACIA \VOGAN*S DOWER. 9I
shillings and nine pence ; farther one messuage, eight acres of land
which John Stantoun holds therein and renders yearly eight
shillings; further one messuage, ten acres of land which John
Ca [ ] holds therein and renders yearly ten shillings ; further
one messuage, nineteen acres of land which Peter Walsh holds
therein and renders yearly nineteen shillings ; further Godartesgrage
three acres of land which Thomas Garberagh holds therein and
renders yearly three shillings ; Foj'tgloriam one messuage, twenty-
three and a half acres and the third part of a stang which Thomas
Bretnagh holds therein and renders yearly twenty-three shillings
and seven pence halfpenny ; further thirteen and a half acres of
land which Edmund McCarty holds therein and renders yearly
twelve shillings and six pence ; further one messuage, eleven acres
three stangs of land which John Tayllour holds therein and renders
yearly eleven shillings and nine pence ; further three acres and one
stang of land which Nicholas Smyrte holds therein and renders
yearly three shillings and two pence; further eleven and a half acres
of land of the waste land in Godartesgrag ; further six acres of waste
land in Kyllyesfeld ; further two acres of land in Doncrewy ; further
one acre of land in Kephagtia of waste land ; Clonagh one messuage,
sixteen and a half acres of land which David Boygh holds therein
and renders yearly sixteen shillings and six pence ; further one
messuage, seven acres of land which William McLagh holds therein
and renders yearly seven shillings ; further the third part of the
orchard therein in the south part; Uie manor of Camalin;'^ two-
pence halfpenny chief rent arising from the lands &c of John
Eustace therein ; and the services of the said John ; further
eighteen pence chief rent arising from the lands &c of the Bishop of
Kildare therein and the services of the said bishop ; further six
shillings and eight pence chief rent arising from the lands &o of the
prior and convent of Conal in Balilog, and the services of the same ;
further six pence chief rent arising from the lands &c of Philip
Harbyster therein, and the services of the said Philip ; the rented
lands of CamaXwetjy one messuage, twenty- seven acres three stangs
of land which Henry Galle holds therein and renders yearly
eighteen shillings ; further one messuage, eleven acres of land
which William Eenay holds therein and renders yearly seven
shillings and fourpence ; further one messuage four acres and one
stang of land which John Obergy holds therein and renders yearly
two shillings ; further one acre of land which Thomas Hege holdjs
therein and renders yearly eightpence ; Miltoun, nine and a half
acres of land and one stang and the half part of a stang which
Henry son of Thomas holds therein and renders yearly six shillings
and five pence ; further eleven acres of land which Thomas Glaver-
ton holds therein and renders yearly eight shiUings and four pence ;
further four acres of land which James Whitehoud holds therein
and renders yearly two shillings and eight pence ; Ballylug three
1 {
i.e., Camalway.
^
92 DAME ANASTACIA WOGAN'S DOWER.
acres of land which John Goyke holds therein and renders yearly
two shillings; farther in Camalwey eleven acres of waste land
therein ; next in Lod-shspenlagh one acre next to Loghspenlagh,
further one acre to the dyke of Loghspenlagh ; further one
acre in Loghencaryke ; further one acre next to the dyke of
the aforesaid Logh: further one acre next to the aforesaid
dyke ; further of waste land in Miltoun ; two acres in Mote
of Henryestown; farther one acre of land next to the aforesaid
place; further two acres of land next to Aylmore; further one
acre at the Cnokys ; Balylog waste land two acres next to the bridge;
further four acres next to the Lotidineris therein ; further twenty
acres of land in Carmaneshyll^ in the north part : further the third
part of thswood of Rathcoffy, that is to say, two acres in the south
part ; further the third part of the wood of Jakesgrag, that is to say,
half an acre in the south part ; further the third part of the wood of
FernaUy that is to say four acres, in the west part ; further the
third part of the park of Courtoun, that is to say, one acre in the
north part ; further the third part of the orchard of Courtoun in the
north part ; further the third part of Loghmeanagh, that is to say,
one stang in the west part ; further the third part of the wood called
Lofflyoun, that is to say one stang, in the east part ; further the
third part of the wood called MorgKUmdesgrow, that is to say, one
stang in the west part ; further the third part of the wood caUed
Torraneswody that is to say, one stang, in the west part ; further the
third part of the wood called Glake, that is to say, one acre of
Belgrewe, in the west part ; further the third part of the xcood of
Loghdere and Loghgore, that is to say, ten acres in the west part ;
further the third part of the wood lying between Belgrewe and
LoghmoTy in the east part ; further the third part of Sagynesgrowe^
in the north part ; further the third part of the wood lying between
Sagynesplace and Balytarstyn^ in the north part ; further the third
part of Croleswod, in the north part thereof, that is to say, one
stang ; further the third part of the wood of Clonfjowe^ in the west
part tlierein, that is to say, forty acres ; further the third part of
the pasture called Poltgret : further the third part of the wood next
to Godartysgrag, that is to say, one stang, on the east side ; further
the third part of an acre of land and the third part of an acre of
meadow next to Kylcokey in the east part ; further the third part of
the meadow between Hogeston and Balmakeghyn ; further one acre
of pasture in tJie Gragys next to Eathcoffy, in the east part of the
said pasture ; further in Loghrmdyll one acre of pasture in the east
part thereof; further of the pasture of Avenagh seven acres, in the
north part thereof ; further seven acres of moore in tJie red moore of
Uathcoffy^ in the south part thereof ; further in Fynan, twenty acres
of moore and pasture therein, in the east part thereof; further
seven acres of moore and pasture in the cnaphit moore, in the south
part thereof ; further in the great pasture called Mochmore next to
Clomhanbowe twenty acres of pasture in the east part thereof;
further in the B'ort four acres of pasture, in the north part thereof;
DAME ANASTACIA WOGAN'S DOWER. 93
further in Donerewy three acres of pasture, in the north part
thereof; further in Garveys in Garhery thirty two acres of land, 01:1
the west side of the said town ; further four messuages of the new
town in Maynan in the midst of the said town on each side
thereof.
" Further in the manor ofKylka one chamber called the Enyghes-
chambre, the botery, with two small chambers in the Whitetour ;
the third part of the cellar therein, in the west part ; the Newe
Orchard therein ; the third part of sclatynbame, in the north part
therein ; the kitchen, the chapel, the prison, the kyll, the bakhous,
together with the mill therein ; the blynprisoun therein ; the
newewerke next to the bakhous therein and the gatys^ of Eilka in
common therein ; further the chamber of the vicar therein ; the
cowhous with the small chamber next to the longstable therein ;
the third part of one waste messuage lately called the longstable
in the south part of the said messuage therein ; one messuage in
which Shane Vale abides and renders yearly twenty pence ; further
one messuage in which Molaghlyn More abides therein ; further
one messuage in which John Bed abides therein and renders yearly
twenty pence ; further one messuage in which Henry Lowet abides
therein and renders yearly twelve pence ; eleven and two thirds
pence arising from one messuage in which Thomas Nit abides
therein; further the third part of the profits of the warren of
Molaghrery^ therein and the third part of the profits of the court
therein ; fiirther of the demesne land in Kilka in the Horistmfeld
twenty two and five sixths acres of land, in the midst of the said
field ; further in the field called Molaghrery, in the north part,
sixteen acres^next to the Bathyr on the east side of the said field ;
further in the field called Coulmoghan therein six acres, on the south
side of the said field ; further in tJte Kylfeld therein five and two third
acres, on the south side of the said field ; further in the field called
Tyrchane therein ten acres next to the Bathyr (road) of Belan;
further in the field called the Loghhrech therein fourteen and two
third acres, in the east part of the said field ; further in the field
called the Ileghhrech therein eleven and a third acres, in the south
part of the said field ; further in the LoghcotUe one acre therein of
the holding of Henry Ryan ; further in the field called Rathynbecam
one and two-thirds acres in the west part of the said field ; further
in the HegheouU three acres, in the south part of the said field ;
further in the east field of Molaghrery six and two-thirds acres in
the north part of the said field ; further in the Kyngesfeld seven
acres in the midst of the said field ; further in Foranesfeld eleven
and two-thirds acres in the south part of the said field ; further in
^ KUfeld three acres and three and a third stangs, in the north
part of the said field ; further in the field called Cdesewe ten acres
in the south part of the said field ; further next to the Motmede two
acres, on the north side of the said meadow ; further in tlie Stripis
* ? Mullachreelan.
94 DAME ANASTACIA WOGAN'S DOWER.
four and two-thirds acres in the south part of the said field; further
in the Carterisfeld two acres and one and a third stangs in the
south part of the said field ; further the Croftfdd three and two-
thirds acres» in the south part of the said field; further in ike
Cvlverhousheifi^ the third part thereof in the north part therein ;
further in the meadow between Eilka and Decaneston two acres
therein; further in the MotmM, one acre and one stang of
meadow, in the north part of the said meadow ; further one
acre of the meadow next to the Demeford, in the west part of the
said meadow ; further in Lateraghmore the third part thereof, in
the north part of the said moore ; further the third part of the
common pasture called liayncrogh^ in the west part of the said
pasture; further the third part of the common pasture called
Molaghrery, in the north part of the said pasture ; further the third
part of Halheys^ in the south part ; further one messuage in which
Donald Shevyn abides therein ; one messuage in which Nicholas
Kenslagh abides therein ; further one messuage in which Thomas
Dorane abides therein ; further one messuage in which Maurice
Corbet abides therein ; further one messuage in which Patrick
Walsh abides therein ; further fifty-three shillings and four pence
arising from the burgage of the town of TrystyUlermot ; further four
pence chief rent arising from the lands &c of Biohard Balymore in
Balycolan therein, together with the lordship and services of the
said Richard ; further thirty-eight shillings chief rent arising from
the lands &c in Coltoun near Trysteldermot: further four shillings and
five pence chief rent arising from the lands &c of John Gytley in
( 'orbaly therein, together with the lordship and services of the said
John ; further thirteen shillings and four pence chief rent arising
from the lands &c of John fitzEustace in Martynestouriy together
with the lordship and services of the said John ; further four pence
chief rent arising from the lands &c of the heir of Thomas Maghry
in Baihsolby^ together with the lordship and services of the said
Thomas ; further four shillings and five pence, rent of one caruoate
of land, arising from the lands &c in IveresUm; further sixteen
shillings and eight pence chief rent arising from the lands &c of
John Noryyn in the Neiietoun together with the lordship and
services of the said John ; further six shillings and eight pence chief
rent arising from the lands &c of Sir Edward Ferrers knight in the
J3tdtoun therein, together with the lordship and services of the said
Edward ; further four pence halfpenny chief rent arising from lands
&c in Kynnegh therein ; further one clove of spicery for the lands
&c of Robert Woddeloke in Brynestoun therein ; further twenty
pence chief rent arising yearly from the lands &o of the heir of
Thomas Gytley in Whitestoun therein, together with the lordship
and services of the said Thomas ; further eleven shillings and one and
a third pence chief rent arising from the land of the heir of the said
Thomas in Dunfeny therein, together with the lordship and services
of the said Thomas ; further twelve pence yearly arising from the
lands &c of Kihneow therein^ and the services thereof ; further four
DAME ANASTACIA WOGAN'S DOWER. 95
shillings and five pence chief rent arising from the lands i&c of
Deyicodeston therein and the services thereof ; further twentypence
chief rent arising from the lands &c in LytylbaUicoyffe therein and
the services thereof ; further four shillings and six pence chief rent
arising from the lands &c in Mochylbalacoy/fe therein, and the
services thereof ; further four shillings and five pence chief rent
arising from the lands &c in Deranentoun therein and the services
thereof ; further thirteen shillings and four pence chief rent arising
from a burgaffe in Kilka and the services thereof; further seventeen
pence chief rent arising from the lands &c in Herhei-estoim, and the
services thereof ; further twenty pence chief rent arising from the
lands &c in the Stonyloun and the services thereof ; further seven
shillings and ten pence halfpenny chief rent arising from the lands
&c in Dorestoun and the services thereof ; further four shillings
and five pence chief rent arising from the lands &c in Carryk and
Talounestowiy and the services thereof ; further seven shillings and
tenpence halfpenny chief rent arising from the lands &c of John
Marchall, together with the lordship and services of the said John ;
further thirteen shillings chief rent arising from the lands &c in
Falmerestoun and the services thereof; further two shillings and
two pence halfpenny chief rent arising in Duneke and the services
thereof ; further thirteen shillings and four pence chief rent arising
from the lands, &c in Carrekyn and the services thereof ; further
four marks and thirteen and a third pence chief rent arising from
the burgage of Mone, and the services thereof ; further the third
part of the profits of the mill therein ; further twenty two shillings
and two pence three farthings chief rent arising from the lands,
&c in Giasthely, and the services thereof ; further four pence chief
rent arising in Stabolan, and the services thereof ; further thirteen
shillings and four pence chief rent arising from the lands, &c in
Ardy^ and the services thereof ; further in the manor of Berton four
and a half messuages in the south part thereof, as far as Irystoun ;
further two carucates therein on the south side of the said town
further nine acres of meadow in the south part therein, towards
Eilka ; further twenty six acres of pasture in the south part
therein ; further one stone house therein called Kyteshotu ; further
in Molamast sixty three acres of land, in the south part of the said
town ; further in Irystoun four messuages in the north and south
parts of the said town ; further forty three and a half acres of land
therein in the west part of the said town ; further ten and two
thirds acres of meadow therein in the south part of the said town,
and the third part of the moor therein in the north part of the said
town, and the third part of the pasture therein, in the north part
of the said pasture ; further in Balmathoghir one messuage, in the
north part of the said town ; further twenty acres of land therein,
in the south part of the said town ; further half an acre of meadow
and one sixth of an acre of meadow therein, in the north part ;
further two and two thirds acres of moore therein, in the south
part ; further in Kynnegh four messuages and the third part of a
96 DAME ANASTACIA WOGAN'S DOWER.
messuage, in the east part of the said town ; further one hundred
and forty acres of land therein in the east part ; further three and
a half acres of meadow in the east part therein ; further in the
Moretoun next to Eynnegh five and a half acres of land, in the east
part of the said town ; further one acre of meadow therein, in the
north part ; further three acres of moore therein, in the east part
of the said moore ; further the third part of the culvowson of the
church of Kynnegh ; further in the Gragebetagh forty five acres of
land, in the west part of the said town ; further five messuages
therein, in the east part of the said town ; further six and a half
acres of meadow in the north part of the said meadow ; further in
Simonestoun and Ramadoyng one carucate and seven and a half
acres of land, in the south part of the said town ; further iq
Melonesgrange one hundred and sixty acres of land in the west part
of the said town ; further six and a half acres of meadow in the
west part of the said meadow ; further one acre of moore therein
in the west side of the said meadow ; further one acre of moore
therein, in the west part of the said moore ; further the third part
of the weir therein ; further the third part of the profits of the
warren therein ; further the third part of a stone house therein,
in the south part ; further three messuages and the third part of a
messuage, in the west part; further in SimondesUm and Rama^
duyn ; further in Kylpican sixty acres, in the east part of the
said town ; further in Tancardsstoun next to CorhaUy forty acres, in
the east part of the said town ; further in the u:ood of Garvagh one
carucate of wood, in the south part of the said wood ; further in
the Justysesfdd six and two thii^s acres, in the north part of the
said field.
<< Further there is assigned to the said Anastatia the third part
of the castle or manor of Clonmor,^ in the east part, with free entry
and exit to the parcels aforesaid; further the third part of the
manor of Kylpype and Kylpole,^ in the west part ; further four
carucates of land in the west part therein, with free entry and exit
to the parcels aforesaid, &c. In witness whereof the seal of office
of the Eschaetry of Ireland is attached to these presents. Dated
the 24th day of February, 5 Henry V (1417)."
' The manor of Clonmore in the (?) County Garlow.
' The manor of Kylpype and Eylpole in the County Wicklow.
DAME ANASTACIA WOGAN'S DOWER. 97
Explanation of Tbbms used in the Assignment.
Qavelar, — Oavel or gabel is a Saxon word, meaning rent or tax. The
gavdariw appears to have been a tenant paying a money rent, not holding by
service. His holding differs from a burgage possibly by reason of its not being
situated in a corporate town. A paraphrase (" rented liuids ") has been adopted
above in three places to represent this word.
Clyth or clyt. — ^This word appears to represent cladh (Irish), a dyke or ditch,
Cnaphit is probably for cnapach (Irish), knobby or knotty, connected with
cnap (Irish), a hillock, and so signifies " rough," " hillocky."
CoUhous is probably a mistake in the enrolment for colvhous or colver-
house, a dovecote ; otherwise it must mean stable.
Torshoiu is probably a similar mistake for torehous, a tower-house.
Logahephyn is evidently intended for longshephyn, a long sheep-fold*
Bakhtms. — Bakehouse.
Blynpri8<mn,—B\iad, or dark prison.
Botery, — ^Buttery.
Oathous, — Gatehouse.
Qatyi, — Gates.
Knyghe^chambTc—l^i^i^^ chamber.
JTytt.— Kiln.
Medylbame, — Middle bam.
Sckephous. — Sheep house.
Sclatynbarne, — Slated bam.
Whitetour, — White tower.
Ttie Bathyr (boher).— The road.
The Feigh (fiodh).— A Wood.
H
The Wooan AIiTAR-toub, ICIG, in the CmntcHYABB at Clane,
( 9^ )
■ THE WOGAN MONUMENT.
Pap^r read by T. COOKE-TRENCH, D.L., at (Hane, September, 1899.
TN the observations which I am about to offer for your con-
-^ sideration, I wish it to be distinctly understood that I am
merely acting as the mouthpiece of others.- I shall freely quote
from the published works of the late Bishop Comerford, Father
Devitt, Canon Sherlock, and Lord Walter FitzGerald^ the last
two of whom have kindly placed their notes at my disposal.
I happened to have by me a Paper by the late Dr. George
Stokes on Clane Abbey ; and when I give you the name of the
author, I give you the best possible guarantee that what I shall
read to you is authentic as coming from him, and that it con-
tains pretty well all thtit is to be learned on the subject. The
MS. has been for a good many years in my possession ; but I do
not think that subsequent investigation has brought to light
much, if indeed anything, that is not contained in it.
The interesting Paper to which we have just listened from
Father Devitt on the Wogan family is the best possible prelude
to an inspection of the few memorials of this old and important
Rildare family that remain to us, and absolves me. from the
necessity of saying anything more about them.
If my conjecture is right, the bit of wall before us is not, as
has been suggested, a fragment of an old wall, but has been
built, probably by one of the family, for the purpose of gathering
together and preserving sundry memorials of the Wogans that
were in danger of being lost.
The upper tablet bears a plain shield, and the date 1618. I
see no reason beyond its present position, which I do not
apprehend to be its original one, for connecting it with the
Wogan or any other particular family.
The next slab bears date 1716, nearly a hundred years later ;
it contains the arms of Wogan, with those of O'Neill on an
escutcheon of pretence, implying that a Wogan had married an
O'Neill heiress ; and such was the case, for, at the date of the
slab, a Nicholas Wogan was living at Bathcoffy, who had
married Rose, daughter and heiress of Sir Neill O'Neill, Bart.,
of Eillileagh, in the Go. Antrim. Lord Walter, to whom I am
indebted for the above fact, thus blazons the arms of the two
families :
For Wogan : or, on a chief sable, three martlets of the
0rst.
lOO THE WOGAN MONUMENT.
For O'Neill: argent, two lions rampant combatant
snpporting a sinister hand conped at the wrist,
gnles ; in chief three mallets of the 2d ; in base a
salmon, maiant, proper.
The lowest tablet bears the inscription in raised letters :
HBAB • LIETH . INTOMBED
THE . BODY . OF . WILLIAM , WOG
AN . OF . RATHOOFFIE . ESQVR
WHO • DECEASED . THE . LAST
OF . DECEMBER . IN . ANN : DO
MINI . 1616 . BEING . OF . THE
ADOE . OF . XXVn . YEABS
The front of the altar-tomb nnderneath is divided into six
compartments, in three of which is a male, and in three a female
human figure, with the initials over —
NW . iw • WW . BW . MW . iw.
I am again indebted to Lord Walter for the identification of
the owners of these initials. He has nnearthed in Ulster's Office
a funeral entry, which reads — " William Wogan of Rathcoffie in
the County of Kildare Esq deceased the last day of December
1616. He was married to Anne [Plunkett] da. to Christopher
[9th] Lo : Baron of Eilline, by whom Shee had issue Nicholas
James Elizabeth Mary and Jane." These, therefore, are the
owners of the initials over the figures, and they are the children
of him whose death is recorded on the slab above. One is
omitted from the funeral entry — namely, w.w., having, perhaps,
died young. He was probably named after his father. On one
end of the tomb is a representation of the Crucifixion ; the other
and the covering slab are plain; and the whole is in a very
unfinished state, only one of the figures, a female, being
finished, the rest being only blocked out.
( loi )
CLANE ABBEY.
By thb. late REV. PROFESSOR GEORGE STOKES, D.D.
(bliORTLT HODiriBD.)
THE Abbeys and Church of Glane have been famous since the
first introduction of Christianity into Ireland, though the
existing ruins do not belong to the ancient Irish Church, but
rather to the Church of the Anglo-Norman period. Let us,
however, begin at the beginning. The connection of Clane with
Christianity goes back even beyond St. Patrick's time. The
Abbey or School of Clane was founded by St Ailbe, Bishop of
Ferns, who is said to have preached the Gospel in Ireland before
St, Patrick's time ; and among other buildings founded by him
in that year was the ancient Church of Kilroot on the shores of
Belfast Lough (Reeves's *^ Antiquities of Down and Connor,"
p. 245). This Kilroot Church was, by the way, afterwards the
scene of Dean Swift's earliest ministry, and while there he pro-
posed for Miss Waring, as told in his Life by Craik.
Considerable doubt, however, hangs over the actions and
labours of St. Ailbe ; and some seem to hold, with reason,
that the foundation of Clane by him cannot be placed much
earlier than about 520 a.d., which still, however, gives it a veiy
respectable antiquity. We can determine from very ancient
authorities what its name at that time was, as used by the
Celtic aborigines. The Felire, or Martyrology (i.e., Calendar),
of Genghus the Culdee was composed about the year 800 ; and
the Martyrology of the famous Monastery of Tallaght dates from
the same period. Now, the documents of the year 800 expressly
call Clane Cluain-Daimh, which the great Irish scholar, Golgan,
in his '^ Acts of the Irish Saints," translates, '' Pratum Bovum "
(i.e., " the meadow of the oxen ").
He did not, however, long continue to preside over his
disciples at Clane. St. Senchell, a famous saint of the sixth
century, belonging fo the royal family of Leinster, came along
one day looking for a location for himself. He was in all proba-
bility at that time an anchorite. The anchorite life seized on
the Iiish Church like a contagion in the fifth, sixth, and seventh
centuries. The great desire of all saintly pdople was to get
themselves to a desert, as it was called, like Simon Stylites at
the same period in the Eastern Church. Now, St. Senchell
probably desired a solitary place where he and, it may be, a few
A Becibs in Cuke A
Pamt ur THE FuNcisc-AN Abbi^v *t Cukb.
IPnm It photo([r»ph by tbe Hot. V. LentAigne, S.J ,
GLANE ABB£V. I03
companions might lead a contemplative life. So St. Senchell
came up to St. Ailbe, and asked for a location. And now I must
tell the story in the very words of the ancient MS. Life, as given
by Golgan : " On March 26th, St. Senchell came up to St. Ailbe
and asked for a dwelling, whereupon St. Ailbe said to his dis*
ciple, St Eyenan, *Qod has sent St. Senchell to as; let us
thereupon give him onr dwelling and all that we have, trusting
He will give us another place.' So he'^at once handed over
everything to him, and forbade his disciples to remove a single
thing. But one of them was covetous, and so he secreted a
small brass pot, and carried it away, not regarding the Abbot's
command. But when they arrived to a spot a long distance off,
the fact of the theft was revealed to the saint. So said he to the
boy, ' Why hast thou stolen the pot ? ' The boy being silent,
the saint commanded him at once to surrender the pot. But
how to return it was the question. The distance was great.
The saint placed the pot down on the ground and meditated.
But Heaven came to the holy man's relief, and he had the
supreme satisfaction of seeing the pot rising into the air by
supernatural power, and peacefully sailing away to its proper
owner ! " So far Golgan, p. 748. St. Ailbe was the first Abbot
of Glane, and St. Senchell the second. We must not, however,
confound these early Celtic abbeys with the solid building which
now stands before our eyes. The early Celtic abbeys were
simply collections of huts of earth, or mud and wattles, or built
of loose stones in a bee-hive shape, such as you can still see at
Innismurray, in Donegal Bay, or Arran, and along the west
coast of Kerry. The loss or change of a monastery did not,
therefore, mean any great expenditure of either time or capital.
But though the building before you does not represent the
ancient Abbey of Clane, the site of it is almost certainly the
same as that on which St Ailbe and St Senchell planted
their early colleges. St. Senchell did not spend all his life at
Glane. He moved on^ and founded another abbey at Killeigh, a
celebrated religious house and chapelry in the parish of Geashill,
in the King's County, where he presided over a monastery;
where, according to the Felire, he ruled over twelve bishops,
most of them Britons; 150 monks, and twelve foreigners,
Egyptians and Romans, who had sought the quiet and repose
and scholarship which Hibernia then^ as always, offered to
devout and contemplative souls.
St. Senchell died March 26th, 548. After St Senchell's
day historic darkness settles upon Clane till the eighth century
dawns upon us. Doubtless the fame of neighbouring abbeys
like Kildare and Clonard threw somewhat of a shadow over the
I04 CLANE ABBEY.
less preteutions Abbey of the Liffey« But we may be sore Clane
took its own share in the great missionary work of the sixth and
seventh centuries, and that some of its sons found their way to
lona with Golumba, and to Burgundy and North £taly with.
Golumbanus. If Senchell oould attract foreigners (as we know
he did) by his teaching, doubtless his disciplea would in return
seek out the pagan parts of Europe, that they might sow the
seed he had imparted to them.
The eighth century was also famous for its missionary
activity. Men like Virgil or Ferghal bore aloft the reputation
of the Irish Church for learning and sanctity. The learning he
gained at seminaries, humble in buildings, but rich in know-
ledge, like Clane, he carried as far as Salzburg and the Alps,
where bis memory is still famous. A few brief records, however,
are all that history tells of Clane at that time. The Four Masters
prove that the abbey continued to exist. A battle was fought
round it in 782. In 777, they tell of the death of its abbot,
Baubhan by name; in which year, too, a fierce battle was
fought on the neighbouring Curragh. But the times were
darkening for the Irish Church. The pagan Dane was on
the seas. About the year 790 the Danes made their first
ificursion upon Ireland. From that time date the round towers
of Ireland, made as places of security against those pirates.
Places like Clane would have been much exposed to their attacks
but for one circumstance. The Danes were sea-rovers ; they
were not equipped for long land journeys. Therefore, any place
far inland was safe from them ; while, on the other hand, abbeys
built on the sea or on navigable rivers, like the Shannon or Suir
ojr Boyne, were exposed to a visitation any night. Now, the
Danes sailed in very capacious, but very shallow, boats, almost,
though not quite, flat-bottomed. They, consequently, could sail
up very shallow riyers. They had ft settlement at Baldoyle.
They could sail up to the North Bull, but the Liffey was too
shallow for them, certainly any higher up than Dublin. Clane,
therefore, seems to have escaped their ravages till the year 1035,
when they plundered it, but were overtaken by the inhabitants
of the surrounding country, and slaughtered before they could
escape to their ships.
Clane again emerges in the twelfth century shortly before
the Anglo-Norman invasion. The Roman party were at that
time making, every effort to enforce conformity to their views
throughout Ireland. Gelasius, Archbishop of Armagh, was the
first archbishop who received a pall from the Pope in token of
his submission to papal authority. But once embarked on the
road, he pursued his way with diligence. He insisted on con-
CLANE ABBEY. lOS
formity to Armagh in every respect. Glonmacnoise, Glonard,
Lismore, Glend^ough were famons as schools of learning.
But Oelasius called a National Synod, attended by twenty-six
of the diocesan bishops, who were now introduced in place of
the old tribal and monastic bishops. This Synod met at Glane,
1162, and passed a decree that no one should be admitted a
Professor of Divinity in Ireland who had not graduated at
Armagh, thus giving the College of Armagh a monopoly in
Divinity Degrees, and striking a fatal blow at the old famous
schools of Ireland, where some of the old anti-papal spirit still
lingered. Then came the Anglo-Norman invasion. Glane, of
course, came rapidly within the sweep and scope of the Norman
party, situated as it was so close to Dublin. The Geltic abbey,
of course, rapidly declined. New men, and new fashions, and
new foreign orders became the order of the day. Soon the
Anglo-Norman Parliament would pass a law that no mere
Irishman should be admitted to any religious house or order.
The beginning of the thirteenth century was signalized by the
foundation of the two great mendicant orders, the Dominicans
and Franciscans, who rapidly became the trusted friends and
advisers of all the great nobles. About this year — 1260 — the
Franciscans arrived at Glane, when Gerald FitzMaurice, Lord of
Offaly, built there a stately abbey, the ruins of which we now
behold. But what, you may say, became of the old. abbey.?
Well, I reply, the .usual course in such cases Was that the old
abbey, and any remaining members thereof, were absorbed into
the new foundation, and so we may fairly suspect it happened at
Glane, if any of the old Irish monks survived ; while the poor
huts and slight timber buildings which filled the old site were
swept away to make room for the stately Franciscan pile.
Gerald FitzMaurice, the founder, died July 18th, 1287, and
was buried in this church, where his likeness remained on a
marble monument in the choir till the beginning of last century
(Archdall's *' Monasticon ").
The notices of this priory became rather scanty during the
period which intervenes between the thirteenth and sixteenth
century. The abbey shared the fortunes of the Franciscans, or
Grey Friars, as they were called. We can imagine them clad in
their grey cassocks, chanting their office, and celebrating their
solemnities. In the year 1845 a general chapter, and in the
following year a provincial chapter, of the same order were
held here. In the former it was ordained that the Franciscan
monasteries of Kilkenny and Ross should be assigned to the
wardenship of Dublin. The priory of Glane must, therefore,
have been one of considerable dignity, as otherwise there
lo6 CLANfi^ ABB^V.
wOQld not have been sufficient room to aceommodate such a
large number of guests as would necessarily assemble on such
occasions. This is not the only evidence that Glane was at an
early period a place of considerable importance.
From the Rolls we find that on the 14th March, 1891, the
King gi*anted to the Provost, Baili£fs, and Commonalty of the
town of Clane, that for seven years they may take custom of
goods coming to the town to build anew a certain bridge of
the said town over the water of the Analiffy. Whether this was
the bridge that was removed a few yeara ago to make place for
the present structure I do not know; but it was certainly of
very considerable antiquity.
The names of the Anglo-Norman Priors are, so far as I am
aware, quite unknown. But, judging from analogy, I should say
they were drawn from those of the neighbouring gentry. Thus
the Wesley s, of Dangan, furnished a Robert Wesley, last Prior
of Great Gonnell, in 1541 ; and he received a yearly pension of
£1Q 6s. 8d. as such. Walter Wellesley was Prior of Great
Connell, Master of the Rolls, and Bishop of Kildare till 1589 ;
while a John Wesley is mentioned as Prior of the same in
an inquisition of 1607. Others of the gentry whose names
we can still trace took an interest in this Abbey of Glane.
According to Wadding, in his " Annals of the Franciscan Order,"
V. iii, p. 531, the family of Hogan became patrons of this
priory in the fourteenth century, or thereabout Now, mark this
name Hogan; for we can connect them with Clane for long
enough. In 1253 the Hogans founded the Dominican Abbey of
Athy in conjunction with another family, the Boysels. The
Hogans and Boysels long continued to dwell together amid the
plains of Kildare. In a list of the gentlemen of Kildare, dated
1604, the names of the Hogans and Boysels occur.
But this same name, if I mistake not, occurs still later. At
the dissolution of the monasteries in Henry YIII's time, the
property of this priory was parted by the house to the following
persons: — R. Eustace, J. Nevon, Rd. Field, Rd. Roche, and
Ed. Browne. Now, Clongowes Wood College was purchased
from a Mr. Wogan Browne, who clearly represents the ancient
Hogans, quondam protectors and patrons of the Abbey of Clane.
These are the Wogans whose monuments we have just been
inspecting in the old churchyard of Clane.
( I07 )
THE MOAT AT CLANE,
[Read by T. COOKE-TRENCH, D.L., at Clane, September, 1899.]
I THINK that the hest thing I can do to give you what is
known or conjectured about the mound upon which we
stand is to read to you what Bishop Gomerford, quoting from
O'Curry, says about it in his " Collections/* pp. 98 and 99 : —
^' The Ford of Clane was in the first century the scene of the tragical
death of Mesgegra, King of Leinster, who fell here in single combat with
Conall Cemach, the champion of Ulster, who had pursued him hither
whilst flying from the siege of Howth. Aithim<5, the Ultonian poet,
Buniamed Ailghemich, or the Importunate — so called from the fact that
he never asked for a gift or preferred a request, but such as it was
especially difficult to give or dishonourable to grant — had been sent to
the Court of the King of Leinster at Naas, for the purpose of picking a
quarrel with the people of that province. He had been hospitably
received by Kine Mesgegra, and had many gifts bestowed on him ; but
this only made nim the more importunate, and at last he insisted on
getting 700 white cows with red ears, a countless number of sheep, and
150 of the wives and daughters of the Leinster nobles to be carried in
bondage into Ulster. To these tyrannical demands the Leinster men
apparently submitted ; but, having pursued Aithim^ to Howth, they
rescued their women. The Ulster men, however, having been reinforced,
the Leinster forces were routed. Conall Cearnach T^iV), the most distin-
guished of the heroes of the North, pursued Mesgegra, to take vengeance
for the death of his two brothers, who had been slain at Howth. He
overtook him at the Ford of Clane« where a combat ensued between them
in which Mesgegra was slain and beheaded. Conall placed the head
in his own chariot, and, ordering the charioteers to mount the Royal
chariot, they set out northwards. They had not, however, gone far,
when they met the Queen of Leinster, attended by fifty ladies of honour,
returning from a visit to Meath. * Who art thou, O woman i * said
Conall. ^I|am Mesgegra's wife,' said she. 'Thou art commanded to
come with me,' said Conall. 'Who has commanded me?' said the
Queen. 'Mesgegra has,' said Conall. 'Hast thou brought me my
token ? ' said the Queen. ' I have brought his chariot and horses,' said
Conall. 'He makes many presents,' said the Queen. 'His head is
here too,' said Conall. 'Then I am disengaged,' said she. 'Come
into my chariot,' said Conall. 'Grant me liberty to lament for my
husband,' said the Queen. And then she shrieked aloud her grief and
sorrow with such intensity that her heart burst, and she fell dead from
her chariot. The tierce Conall and his servant made there a grave and
mound on the spot, in which they buried her, together with her husband's
head, from which, however, he extracted the brain. This Queen's name
was Buan^ or the good (woman). After some time, according to a very
j)oetical tradition, a beautiful hazel tree sprung up from her grave, which
was for ages after called CoU Btutna, or Buana^ hazel. l%e Tumulus
beside the river at Clane is supposed to mark the grave of King Mesgegra
and his Queen."
THE MOAT AT CLANE. I09
Father Devitt, at p. 810 of your Joubnal, iias given his
reasons, which appear, satisfactory, for differing from this sup-
position as regards the tender-hearted Bnan ; and for believing
that while her hnsband lies beneath our feet, she is buried at
Mainham.
Within my memory, but, I am afraid I must add, some sixty
years ago, the top of the mound suddenly sank, caused, no
doubt, by the collapse of the supports of the sepulchral chamber
inside. Mr. M'Gracken, who was then tenant of the mill, began
to dig down ; but finding nothing better to reward his labours
than some skeletons, he soon desisted, and the secret of
eighteen hundred years still remains unrevealed. There used to
be a tradition of a secret passage from the monastery to the
moat ; but, apart from the absence of apparent motive for such,
I think that the fact that the Butterstream runs between the
two is prohibitive of such an idea, as, with the imperfect
masonry of those days, the water would quickly have found its
way into an underground passage, and flooded it.
Just below us is the so-called Sunday's Well. Of the origin
of this and similar names, Dr. Joyce, in his '* Irish Names of
Places Explained," says :
** In the case of some holy wells it was the custom to visit them and
perform devotions on particular days of the week ; and this has been
commemorated by such names as Toberaheena (the name of a well and
village in Tipperary), si^ifyins the Well of Friday.
** A great many weUs in different parts of the country are called
Tober-righ-an-domhnaigh, or Toberreendowney — literally, the Well of
the King of Sunday (i.e., of Grod). It is probable that these were
visited on Sundays, and they are generally called in English Sunday*s
WeU."
Some thirty or forty years ago the bushes about used to be
covered with o£ferings (not, it is true, such as to induce theft)
by those who believed that they had derived benefit from
drinking the waters.
A vague tradition connects this well with St. Patrick. One
cannot place much weight upon such unsupported traditions ;
but it is on record that he travelled from Co. Meath to Naas,
and as Clane would have been on his direct route, it is far from
improbable that he may have rested here, and perhaps baptized
converts in this very well.
There are in the immediate vicinity of Clane two so-called
'^ Wart-stones ;'' one on the roadside, going towards Aghpaudeen,
is obviously the base of a cross. Had the original intention of
building the new parish church there been carried out, I had
settled to restore it to its original use by putting up an Irish
si
II
5 i
THE MOAT AT CLANE. Ill
cross in it. To the other, which stands upon the bank of the
stream jnst opposite the Abbey, Canon Sherlock attributes a
pagan origin^ the bowl being intended to receive offerings of
milk and meal, perhaps for more sinister purposes as well or
instead. It was probably on this bulld.n that the head of
Mesgegra was placed after his death.
Canon Sherlock, in his Paper read before the Society in
1892, records the existence, some half-century ago, of what was
called St. Bridgid's Chair and Thimble, besides a stone said to
bear the impress of her feet. These stood in an old quarry, or
gravel-pit, a few hundred yards to the south. He suggests ^at
they may have been an old cromlech. They were ruthlessly
broken up and used for road-metal a couple of generations ago.
( ii3 )
THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM CO NOLLY,
SPEAKER OF THE IRISH HOUSE OF COMMONS.
[A Paper read at the Meeting of the Kildare Archaeological
Society, at Celbridge, September 12th, 1899.]
By rev. C. I. GRAHAM, B.D., Incumbbnt of Celbridgb.
WE are gathered to-day round the last resting-place of a
distinguished Irishman and true patriot. As we stand
here^ it is fitting that something should be said both about him
and about that monument to his memory which you have come
to inspect ; and Lord Walter FitzGerald, who is the heai*t and
soul of our Kildare ArchsBological Society, has asked me to say
it. It would haye been more fitting that he himself should have
said it, since he has contributed to the sixth number of the
second volume of our Journal an article on '' Castletown and its
Owners/' which is of the most thorough and exhaustive kind,
and is excellently illustrated, from which, with Lord Walter's
permission, I shall borrow some of my facts.
And first, about the monument. This beautiful work of art
was erected by the widow of the Right Hon. William ConoUy,
Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, over his vault in this
the old churchyard of Kildrought Parish. It is, as you see, of
large size, and in front of it there is some handsome iron grille
work, which elicited the most marked expressions of appreciation
from our eminent Dublin architect, Mr. Thomas Drew, when he
saw it for the first time. The monument, whose sculptor was
Thomas Carter, consists of a pediment supported by four pillars,
and on its base recline two life-size figures of the Speaker and
his wife. His wife's name was Catherine Conyngham, the eldest
daughter of Sir Albert Conyngham, sister of Henry, the first
Earl of Conyngham. Sir Albert Conyngham was a General of
Ordnance in Ireland under William III, and an ancestor of the
first Marquess of Conyngham, of Slane Castle in the County
Meath.
Hence, in front of the pediment is a coat-of-arms — ^those of
ConoUy impaled with those of Conyngham. On the slab in the
back of the monument is a long Latin inscription, of which
the following translation is given by Lord Walter FitzGerald,
taken from Colonel Yigors's Report on the Memorials of the
Dead: —
^'H.S. William Conolly, who attained as a reward of his merits the
highest honours, was for about twenty years a Commissioner of the
I
114 THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM CONOLLY,
Revenue in the reign of Queen Anne and George I, and was a Privy
Councillor in the reign of George II. He was twice unanimously elected
Speaker of the House of Commons in the Parliament of this realm, and
ten times held the office of Lord Justice of Ireland, being the first to
whom both the sovereign and the people entrusted at the same time
the protection of their privileges with the happiest result. As a subject
he was loyal ; as a citizen, patriotic.
** In perilous times he, not once or twice, proved that he served his
country without forgetting his duty to his king, and served his king
without forgetting what was due to his country. Firm, resolute, just,
wise, formed by nature for the life of a statesman, his administration of
affairs was crowned with success to the great advantage of the Common-
wealth. He made a modest though splendid use of the great riches he
had honestly acquired, distinguished as he was alike for the courtesy,
integrity, and munificence of his disposition. Kind-hearted to all men, he
was loyal to his friends, whom he bound to himself in great numbers,
and retained their friendship when once he had gained it. Wishing to
do good even after his death, he gave directions by his will that a
building should be erected on the adjacent lands for the maintenance
and education of the children of the poor, and he endowed it for ever
with large revenues. Having lived long enough to satisfy the claims of
nature and his fame, he died on the 29th of October in the year of our
Lord 1729, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. Catherine, of the
Conyngham family, has erected this monument to her most worthy
husband.*'
Speaker GonoUy rose to wealth and greatness, as so many other
Irishmen have done, through his work at the Bar, of which he
was a member. As he died at the age of sixty-seven, in 1729, he
must have been born in 1662. He lived, therefore, in the reigns
of Charles IE, James 11, William III and Mary, Queen Anne,
George I, and George II. I do not know that his birth-place has
been traced ; though I think I have heard it stated that he came
from Ballyshannon. His name, certainly, is Irish; but his
nephew, who inherited his property, was a William ConoUy, of
Stratton Hall in Sta£fordshire, who married Lady Anne Went-
worth, daughter of Thomas, Srd Earl of Strafford. The Speaker
seems to have sat in the Irish Parliament as member for
Ballyshannon for the first time in 1727, and previously to that
to have represented the County Londonderry from 1703. That
the family had a large property around Ballyshannon, and that
the Speaker himself represented the borough in Parliament, will
prove nothing, I fear, about his birth-place.
In 1661 Sir William Dongan, owner of the manor of Castle-
town-Kildrought, near Celbridge, was created Viscount Dongan
of Clane ; and in 1685 Earl of Limerick. This Earl of Limerick
fought at the battle of the Boyne in 1690 on the side of
King James; and his only son, Walter, was killed in the
battle. After the Treaty of Limerick (1691) the Earl and his
wife retired to France, forfeiting his great estates. The forfeited
SPEAKER OF THE IRISH HOUSE OF COMMONS. IIS
estate of Castletown was purchased by the Bight Hon. William
Conolljy and he built the present Castletown House in 1725.
He was Speaker of the Irish House of Commons from 1715 to
1729, and, as the inscription on his monument states, had been
sworn in ten times as Lord Justice of Ireland in the absence of
Viceroys.
He was evidently a man of great influence and great wealth
in his day. Primate Boulter, in one of his letters, written in
1728 — ^the year before the Speaker died — says : " Mr. ConoUy
is retired for some time into the country for his health. His
indisposition will prevent me visiting my diocese this summer ;
but as his absence will rob the bankers of one to whom they
formerly applied, and on whom they could make some impres-
sions, I believe we shall get the easier through this business for
his being out of the way."
In a letter written after the Speaker's death, Primate Boulter
observes : '* It will require time to bring the several clans which
united in Conolly to centre in one another. He left a great
fortune, some say £17,000 per annum."
Dean Swift also refers to the Speaker. In his Journal to
Stella the Speaker's name is three times mentioned. In
September, 1710, the Dean writes: "Conolly is out'' — that
is, as a Commissioner of Itevenue— '^and Mr. Boberts in his
place, who loses a better here [in London], but was formerly a
Commissioner in Ireland. That employment cost Conolly three
thousand pounds to Lord Wharton [the Lord Lieutenant] : so
he has made an ill bargain in his life" — a passage which throws
an unpleasantly lurid light on the capability of Lord Lieutenants
being bribed in those days for the bestowal of high Government
offices.
In the famous " Drapier Letters," Swift also mentions the
Speaker, pointing out the e£fect which would be caused by the
introduction of Wood's halfpence, thus: "They say Squire
Conolly has sixteen thousand pounds a year. Now, if he sends
for his rent to town, as it is likely he does, he must have two
hundred and fifty horses to bring up his half-year's rent, and
two or three great cellars in his house for the storage."
But perhaps I can best convey to you the impression which
the Speaker left on the Ireland of bis day by reading you extracts
from two documents which I came across in a collection of
pamphlets in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin.
The first is the published programme of the arrangements
made by Sir William Hawkins, Ulster King of Arms, for the
public funeral of the Speaker.
** AJl" this document states, " were to go afoot, if weather
Il6 THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM CONOLLY,
permitted, from his house in Capel Street — along Gapel Street
and the quays to the upper end of Arran Quay, and from thence
the corpse will be carried to be interred at Celbridge on Tuesday,
November 4, 1729, at 11 in the forenoon." Arrangements were,
of course, made for the order in the procession of those who took
part in it The fourth contingent was to consist of poor men in
black cloth serge gowns and hoods, in number sixty-seven, accord-
ing to his (the Speaker's) age, each carrying in his hand a pen-
noncil, with the letters of his name and years of his age. The
members of the Irish House of Commons were present with
their Speaker, Sir Ralph Gore, and Wm. ConoUy, the Speaker's
nephew and heir, as chief mourner. The programme concludes
with this remarkable order, which might well be imitated in
modern times : '' For a publick benefit to the kingdom, all
the scarves will be of Irish manufacture." The other document
is a funeral ode on the death of the Speaker ; and though we
cannot say much for its poetry, it shows how deeply the
Speaker had lived in the affections of the people. Dr. William
King, Archbishop of Dublin, had died in the same year as the
Speaker ; hence the reference in the second line of these lines :
" Now grave, thy conquest boast, now death thy sting,
Triumphant o'er a ConoUy and King.
Great spirit born o'er Senates to preside,
Who now shall stem Oppression's barbarous tide ?
Who 'gainst the torrent of Corruption stand,
Like thee, no alien to his native land —
Who shall bid famine cease and plenty smile,
When meagre want dispeoples half our Isle ?
How few like him shall sad Hibemia find.
With heart sincere and dignity of mind.
Where public and domestic virtues blend,
Humble and great, a statesman and a friend.
Self -raised, with independent worth he shone,
Immortalized by merits all his own ;
True to his King, and to his country just.
Are titles that outlive the marble bust."
There are at present portraits both of the Speaker and his wife
in Castletown House. A small bell formerly belonging to the old
church which was destroyed in 1798, and still in use in our new
church, bears the inscription: ''The gift of the Honble Catherine
Conolly to Celbridge, 1784." The obelisk which stands not far
from one of the gates of Carton, and which is a land-mark to
all the country round, was erected by the Speaker's widow as
relief works in the year 1740. She lived to be ninety years of
age, and died in 1752.
SPEAKER OF THE IRISH HOUSE OF COMMONS. II7
But perhaps the most pleasing memorial we have of the
Speaker is the school founded by money which he bequeathed for
the purpose, and originally intended for the reception of forty
orphans or other poor children for their maintenance and educa-
tion in the linen or hempen manufacture, or in husbandry. In
1809 this school was transferred by Lady Louisa Conolly to the
Incorporated Society for Promoting Protestant Schools in Ireland,
and the funds applicable to its support legally vested in its
Board, certain rights of nomination being retained by the
Conolly family, which still exist.
Within the last two or three years the buildings have been
greatly improved and enlarged by the Incorporated Society. But
you can still see carved in stone on the front of the school-
house which you will pass on your way to Ardrass the arms of
the Speaker, a silent memorial to his goodness in days gone by.
Let me, in conclusion, once more freely express my deep
regret that so beautiful a monument as this which you have
seen of a man so distinguished in Irish public life as was
Speaker Conolly should be hidden away in this graveyard, and
only seen by a few. In 1884, when there was a minority at
Castletown, an effort was made to induce the Conolly family to
allow it to be transferred to the new parish church consecrated in
that year, where it could be seen by everyone, and be properly
preserved. The proposed transference was then refused. But the
minority has now ceased, and the present owner of Castletown,
Mr. Thomas Conolly, is only too willing that it should be re-
moved to the new church at the other end of the village. The
undertaking, however, is more costly than might be imagined.
I hope, however, that such interest may be stirred up by our
present meeting about this matter, that it may soon be possible
to remove into the light of day the monument of one whose
memory should be dear not to the parish of Celbridge only, but
to all Irishmen of every creed.
( ii8 )
THE PRINCIPAL GENTRY OF THE COUNTY
KILDARE IN THE YEAR 1600.
By lord WALTER FITZGERALD.
THE following list of the gentry in the County Eildare, exactly
800 years ago, has been made up from various sources, though
principally from the Elizabethan Fiants, the Inquisitions and the
Funeral Entries. In looking through it, it will be at once remarked
how few of the old names are now to be found in the present
magistrate roll of the county. The Birminghams, the Eustaces,
the FitzGeralds (with the exception of the House of Leinster),
the Buttons, the Wellesleys or Weslys, and the Wogans — all
ancient Anglo-Norman families, who held great possessions in
the county — have altogether disappeared, and Elizabethans or
Cromwellians now reign in their stead. This extinction of the
old names was mainly caused by the Civil War of 1641, a religious
war in which the Roman Catholics, fighting for their faith, lost
everything. In this, history repeated itself, for, 500 years earlier,
these same Anglo-Norman families had overcome and driven
out the original lords of the soil— the O'Kearys of Carbury, the
O'Byrnes of Oflfelan, the O'Connors of Oflfaljr, and the OTooles of
Omurethi — septs whose territories all lay in the present County
Kildare, and whose possessions were divided among the families
named above— in addition to the Aylmers, the De Herefords, the
De Rochforts, De Stantons, De Vescis, De Mohuns, De Riddlesfords,
De la Poers or Powers (from whom the Eustaces or FitzEustaces
sprang in the fourteenth century), the Flattisburys, and others.
Of our present landed gentry the Archbolds, the Borroweses,
the Bourkes, the De Burghs, the Moores (of Moore Abbejr), the
Wolfes, and the Wogan-Brownes settled in this county durmg the
seventeenth century. The following century saw the arrival of the
CoUey-Palmers, the ConoUys, the Cramer-Robertses, the De
Robecks, the Henrys, the Horts, the La Touches, the Lawlesses,
the Mansfields, the Medlicotts, and the More-0'Ferralls.
The Principal Gentry of the County Eildare in the
YEAR 1600.
Alen : —
Edward fitz Thomas A. ... ... ... Kilteel.
John fitz Thomas A. (ob. 29th Sept., 1616) ... St. Wolstan'0.
Ashe : —
Edward Ashe ... ... ... ... Forenaghts.
Robert Ashe (ob. circa 1608) ... ... Naas.
PRINCIPAL GENTRY OF CO. KILDARE IN 160O. II9
Aylher : —
John fitz Thomas A. (ob. 2(>th June, 1632)
Sir Gerald fitz Richard A., Bart. (ob. 19th Aug.,
X vv% J ••• ••• ••■ ••• •••
Richard fitz Thoniaa A.
Thomas fitz Bartholomew A. (ob. 3rd Nov., 1639)
Bee : —
James Bee (ob. 20th May, 1026)
Bellinos (or Bealino) : —
Richard Bellings (ob. 3rd May, 1600)
Heniy Bellings ...
Be&minoham (or Brimikohah) : —
Edward Bermingham (ob. 20th Sept., 1608) ...
Edward Bermingham (ob. 20th Sept., 1619) ...
William fitz Walter B. (ob. 10th Feb., 1612) ...
WiUiam fitz Thomas B. (ob. 22nd April, 1601)
John Bermingham (ob. 20th Dec., 1600)
Garrett fitz lUdmond B. (ob. 1st Dec, 1636) ...
Edmund fitz John B. ... ...
Thomas fitz Walter B.
Richard fitz William B.
Meyler Bermingham (ob. 16th May, 1609)
Richard Bermingham
Cheverh : —
Christopher fitz John C. (ob. 7th Nov., 1640) ...
CoLLEY (or Cowly) : —
Sir Henry Colley ...
Da VIES : —
John Davies (ob. 22nd Sept., 1618) ...
Devbreux : —
Robert fitz Walter D., Earl of Essex and Ewe
(ob. 25th Feb. , 1601)
DoNGAN (or Dunoan) :—
Sir Walter fitz John D. , Bart. (ob. 21st July, 1626)
Thomas fitz John D.
Edward fitz John D.
William fitz John D. (ob. 11th Dec, 1622) ...
DURNINO : —
Richard Duming (ob. 10th Aug., 1618)
Eustace (or Fitz Eustace) :—
Oliver fitz William E. (ob. 17th March, 1618) ...
Richard Eustace (ob. 20th June, 1613)
William fitz John E. (ob. 25th June, 1636) ...
Maurice fitz James E. (ob. 24th Jan., 1624) ...
Maurice fitz Alexander E. (ob. 31st July, 1619)
Nicholas fitz John E. (ob. 1648)
Nicholas fitz Alexander E. (ob. 1633)
Courtown.
Donadea.
Hartwell.
Lyons.
Ballygoran.
Killashee.
Surdalstown.
Ballynad rumny .
Carrick.
Clonkeeran.
Dunfierth.
Garrisker.
Grange.
Irrey.
Longwood.
Mucklon.
Rahinelly.
Russel's Wood.
Rathmore.
Castle Cai'buiy.
Kill.
Monasterevin.
Castletown.
Grifienrath.
Kiltaghan.
Toberogan.
Castlekeely.
BlackhaU,
Near PunchcBtowii.
Blackrath.
Castlemartin.
Clongowes Wood.
Colbinstown.
Confey.
Cradockstown.
I20 THE PRINCIPAL GENTRY OF THE
John Eustace (ob. 18th Jan., 1612) ... ... Flemingtown.
Richard fitz James E. (ob. 29th June, 1637) ... Gorteenvacan.
John Eustace (ob. 1623) ... ... ... Harristown.
Christopher fitz John E. ... ... ... Kineagh.
Oliver ntz Thomas E. ... ... ... Mullaghcash.
John fitz James E. (ob. 18th Jan., 1617) ... Newluids.
Fay:—
Meiler, fitz Galfrey F. (ob. 20th Jan., 1629) ... Ballynure,
Near Bathaoffan.
FitzGebald : —
Gerald fitz Edward, 14th Earl of Kildare (ob. j I^^JI^.i,
nth Feb., 1612) • l&^^n.
Gerald fitz Philip FitzG. (ob. 29th Aug., 1611) Allen.
Sir James, son of Sir Pierce FitzG., Knt. (ob.
26th April, 1637) ... ... ... Ballyshannon.
Pierce fitz Oliver Fitz (ob. Ist Nov., 1616) ... Belan.
Maurice fitz Edmond FitzG. (ob. 20th June, 1610) Birtown.
John fitz Maurice FitzG. (ob. circa 1606) ... Blackball,
Near Clane.
Richard fitz James FitzG. (ob. 1622) ... Booleybeg.
Edward fitz Maurice FitzG. (ob. 10th April, 1636) Brownstown,
Near Kildare.
William fitz Garrett FitzG. (ob. ante 1640) ... Oastleroe.
William fitz James FitzG. (ob. 3()th April, 1612) Donore.
Garrett fitz Maurice FitzG. ... ... Duneany.
William fitz Maurice FitzG. (ob. 16th May, 1620) Glassealy.
Thomas fitz Nicholas FitzG. (ob. 1st April, 1628) Kilmeed.
James, son of Sir Maurice FitzG. , Knt. (ob. 20th
Aug., 1602) ... ... ... ... Kilrush.
Thomas, son of Sir Maurice FitzG., Knt. (ob.
20th June, 1611) ... ... ... Lackagh.
John, son of Sir James FitzG., Kt. ... ... Mullaghmoyne.
John fitz James FitzG. (ob. 11th April, 1620) Narraghbeg.
James fitz Gerald FitzG. ... ... ... Osberstown.
John fitz Thomas FitzG. ... ... ... Puncher's Grange.
Redmund oge fitz Thomas FitzG. (ob. 9th Aug.,
1624) ... ... ... ... ... Timahoe.
James fitz Redmund FitzG. (ob. 24th June, 1618) "JDrinanBtown.
Flatisbury (or Flatsbury) : —
Christopher fitz James F. (ob. 23rd Jan., 1612) f Palmerstown
(and Johnstown.
Gaydon (or Geidon) :—
Nicholas fitz John G . ... ... ... Irishto wn.
Near Straffan.
Graham (or Graeme) : —
Sir Richard Graham, Knt. (ob. 7th Nov., 1626) Grangebeg.
Herbert (or Ha rb arte) : —
John fitz Henry H. ... ... ... Coghlanstown.
Sir Edward fitz Nicholas H., Kt. (ob. 3rd Oct.,
1629) ... ... ... ... ... Jigginstown.
COUNTY KILDARE IN 160O.
I2t
Harringtox : —
Sir Heniy Harrington, Kt. (ob. Ist May, 1612) Gallmorestown.
Kerdiffe : —
Jamra Kerdiffe
Latun ; —
William fitz John L. (ob. 15Ui Jan.^ 1616)
Leigh (or Lye) : —
John fitz Francis L. (ob. 7th May, 1612)
Long: —
Bartholomew Long
Mackworth : —
Garrett fitz Humphrey Mackworth ...
Manering (or Mainwaring) : —
Richard Manering ...
Metres (or Meares) : —
William Meyres
M1S8ET : —
Gerald Misset (ob. 13th March, 1621)
Nangle : —
Robert fitz Garrett N. (ob. 15th Nov., 1615) ...
O'Kelly :—
? Ferdinand O'Kelly
O'MoRE : —
Calloghe (Charles) mac Rory **caech" 0*M
(ob. 1601)
Pepper (or Pepard) :—
William Pepper (ob. 24th Sept., 1617)
Plumket : —
Oliver Plonket, Baron of Louth (ob. 5th March,
M.\J\Jt f ... ... ... ... ...
Preston :—
Jenico fitz Christopher P., 6th Viscount Gor-
manston (ob. 14th March, 1630)
Roe:—
William Roe (ob. circa 1617)
St. Michael : —
Nicholas fitz Christopher St. M.
Kerdiffstown.
{Morristown-
Moynagh.
(Rathbride and
( Clonaugh.
Daars.
Bert.
Leixlip.
Tullaghgorey.
Dowdingstown.
Ballysax.
Cadamstown.
Balyna.
Usk.
KiUadoon.
Naas.
Branganstown.
Castle Rheban.
Sarsfield (or Sarsfeilde) : —
Patrick, son of Sir William S., Knt. (ob. 9th Jan.,
1630) ... ... ... ... ... TuUy.
John, son of Sir William S. , Knt. (ob. 24th Jan. ,
1615) ... ... ... ... ... Turnings.
122 PRINCIPAL GENTRY OF CO. KILDARE IN l6oa
Sherlock : —
Edward Sherlock ...
Sutton : —
Gilbert fitz Gerald S. (ob. 30th March, 1031) ...
Gerald fitz Oliver S. (ob. 19th June, 1016)
John fitz William S. (ob. 13th June, 1637)
Sir William fitz Robert T., Bart. (ob. 10th March,
X \#t/0 J •#• ••■ ••• ••• •••
Tipper : —
Patrick Tipper
Walsh : —
James Walsh (ob. Ist July, 1600)
Christopher Walsh
Welleslby (or Wesly) —
Christopher fitz John W.
Richard fitz Gerald W. (ob. 11th March, 1620)...
Walter fitz Richard W. (ob. 1st Feb., 1614) ...
Gerald fitz William W. (ob. 12th May, 1003) ...
White (or Whytb) : —
Sir Nicholas fitz Andrew W., Knt. (ob. 24th Feb.,
A\/VX7 J ••■ ••• ••• ••• •••
Walter White
WOGAN : —
Nicholas fitz David W. (ob. July, 1636)
Gerald Fitz Oliver W. (ob. circa 1601)
Thomas fitz David W. (ob. 20th May, 1014) ...
Nicholas fitz William W. (ob. 13th Jan., 1610)
Wolfe : —
Nicholas fitz Arnold W.
YOUNGE : —
Gerald fitz John Y. (ob. 23rd Aug., 1613)
Sherlockstown.
Ardrass.
Richardstown.
Tipper.
Carton.
Tipperstown.
Kilmorebrannagh .
Mooretown.
Bishop's Court.
BlackhalU
Near Calverstown.
Narraghmore.
Painstown.
Leixlip.
Pitchfordstown.
Blackball.
Downings.
Newhall.
Rathcoffy.
Kilcolman.
New town O' More,
Near Tipiier.
( 123 )
THE SONG OF THE SWORD OF CERBALLr
D ALLAN MAC MORE, to whom the following poem is
ascribed, was oUaw} or chief bard to King Cerball mac
Muirecain of Leinster, who reigned from about a.d. 885 to 909.^
Several other poems or fragments of poems ascribed to Dalian
have come down to ns, all of them relating to the affairs of his
royal master and the dynasty of Leinster. In a poem of twenty
stanzas he celebrates no less than forty battles fought by
Cerball. The beginning is (LL. 47 a) :
'* Cerball Currig ca)m-Life cl6d catha for Cond,
ra facsin a febdreche arbath Cnogba Corr."
** Cerball of the Curragh of the lovely Liffey^ victor in battle over
Beholding his beautiful fa^e Cnogba Corr did die,** ^ [Leih-Cuinny
A poem by him on the Battle of Belach Mugna is quoted
in LL. 52 b, in the Annals of the Four Masters (F.M.),
A.D. 903, and in Three Fragments of Irish Annals (T.F,),
p. 216. Lastly, a poem on the death of Cerball is ascribed to
him (F.M., a.d. 904, "Three Fragments," p. 220). It is
probable that the poem on Cell Chorbbain (LL. 201 b), from
which there are quotations in T.F., p. 224, and F.M., a.d. 904,
is also by him.
From these poems, as well as from the various Annals, we
are in a position to follow Cerball's career from the time of
his accession to the throne of Leinster to his death. He was
the son of Murican mac Diarmata, who was slain by Norsemen
in 868.^ His foster-mother was Oelserc,' the daughter of
Derell, a Frankish king, whom I cannot identify. Cormac mac
Cuilennain, the celebrated king-bishop of Cashel, was his
foster-brother.
*DallAn mac M6ire ollamh Cerbhaill rf[g] Laighen, T.F., p. 216, 4.
'According to the list of Leinster kings in LL., 39 c, he reigned
twenty-four years ; while in the poem on Cell Chorbbain (LL. 201 b 48)
twenty-one years are assigned to him (a secht fo thrf .... flathius
Cerbaill).
' As to Cnogba, cf . the 15th stanza of our poem.
* Lochlannac/i rosmarb, LL., 39 b, domarbadh la gentibh, T.F., p.
154, 3, do mharbadh la Nortmannaibh, F.M., 801.
**'Gel8earc inghen Deirill ri[g] Frangc ra ail iad maraoen," T.F.,
p. 220, 12.
♦ Reprinted from the Remie Cdtique by kind permission of the Author,
obtained through Miss Stokes. — Er>.
I 2
124 KUNO MEYER.
Gerball sncceeded his brother Domnall on the throne of
Leinster. He was a mighty warrior, and most of his life seems
to have been spent on the battle-field, though he was also
proficient in the arts of peace, if we may credit his eulogist, who
says of him (LL. 201 b 42) :
<* Ba hoUom b^rla F^ne, ba l^ignid Uiie mebra,
ba faid ba fili forba, ba sui solma na senma."
** He was an oUave in the old-Irish tongue^ he was a diligent reader
[q/* (good) memory^
He was a seer, a perfect poet, he was a ready master of music. ^'
At one time or another he was at war with all the neigh-
bouring kings, as well as with the Norse invaders, whom in
A.D. 897 he succeeded in driving from their stronghold in
Dublin.^ He was the last King of Leinster who held his resi-
dence at Naas.^ In 908 he took part in the Battle of Belach
Mugna, in which king Cormac was slain. This battle was
fought on Tuesday, the 17th September,^ and one year and a
day and a half after that battle, i.e., on the 19th September,
909, Cerball himself died,^ of the effects of a wound which he
had received in the following manner : —
After the Battle of Belach Mugna, Cerball with a large
number of prisoners proceeded to Eildare.^ There, while
riding on a spirited horse^ through the street called Srait in
Cheime Cloichey or of the Stone Step, and passing the workshop
of a fuller, his horse shied and flung him on to his own lance,
which his Norse gillie Ulfr' was carrying behind him. From
this wound he never recovered. During the year which he had
^ '^londarbadh Gall a H^rinn a longphort Atha Glfath la Gearbhall
mac Muiregein 7 la Laignibh," F.M., 897.
*See F.M. II, p. 572, note o. In Dalldn*s poems Cerball is styled
" ffaith N^is, H Alend, ri Laigen, rf Gall,"
^ **Hi septdecim Septimber cl6iset cath c^taib ilach,"
F.M., 903. LL., 52 b. T.F., p.
218, 5.
^'La Cerball dorochratar dia mairt ar Maig Ailbe," T.F., p.
216, 15.
* *' Nior bo cian a saoghal-somh a aithle Cormac rocuilledh :
la go leith, ni maoilriaghal, is aoinbliadhan gan fuilledh,'*
T.F., p. 220, 24.
*T.F., p. 214, 14.
^ Ha was a skilful horseman : *' marcach 6s echaib ^a," LL. 201 b 45.
' The Irish form of this Norse name is Ulbh (T.F., 222, 18), corrupted
into Uille (ib., p. 224, 3). Cf. LL., 39 c: *' A ga3 f^in rosmarb a Uim a
gillai f6in." Of this Ulbh O'Curry, ** MS. Mat.," p. 133, makes a leader
of the Danes of Dublin !
THE SWORD OF CERBALL. 12$
still to live, and which he spent at Naas {Gerhall i n-othrus in
tan sain in Nda, LL. 52 b 4), he married Gormflaith, the
widow of his foster-brother, Gormac, from whom, however, he
was soon separated in consequence of a gross insult which he
offered to her, (See LL. p. 52 b, and O'Curry, " MS. Materials,"
p. 132.)
He was buried in the cemetery of Naas, i.e., in Cell Nais or
Cell Ghorbbain (now Kill, Go. Kildare),^ " inter patres sues."
His successor was Finn, of whom, however, no mention is made
in the Annals.
LL. 47 a 60.
1. Mochen, achlaidib Cherbaill ! bdt menic i m6renglaim,'
bat menic ac cur chatha, ac dichennad ardflatha.
Hail, '^ sword of Cerhall ! Oft hast thou bee7i in the great woof (of
Oft giving battle, beheading high pnnces, [war),
2. Bapsat menic ac dul chrech il-lamaib rig na robreth,
bat menic ac raind tdna ac degrig do dingbala.
Oft hast thou gone a-raidingin the hands of kings of high judgments,
Oft hast tJiou divided the spoil when with a good king worthy of thee,
8. Bdt menic il-laim ragil bail [e] i mbitis Lagin,
bat menic etir rigraid, bat menic im-m6rdirmaib.
Oft hast thou been in a white band where Leinstennen were wont to be,
Oft hast thou been among kings, oft among great bands,
4. Mor de rigaib 'ca raba da rachuris chomrama, [chness.
m6r sciath roscaltis i tress, m6r cend, m6r cliath, m6r csem-
Many ice re the kings with whom thou hast been when thou madest
[fight,
Many a shield hast thou cleft in battle, many a liead, many a
[chest, many a fair skin.
* T.F., p. 224, note e. Cf. the poem on Cell-€horbMin in LL. , 201 b.
*0'Clery has eanglaim A. inneach, **woof ;" Lhuyd in his *' Archaeo-
logia Britannica," O'Brien, and O'Reilly have eanglaim, *'a lining."
The ace. pi. englemen (gl., licia) occurs twice in the Lauren tian glosses
on the Bucolics, Nos. 68 and 120. It is here used metaphorically for
what Gray in his ode, "The Fatal Sisters," calls " the crimson web of
war."
126 KUNO MEYEK.
5. Cethraclia hliadan can br6n rob4 oc Enna na n-ard8l6g
ni rabadais riam i n-argg, acht il-ldmaib rig rogarg.
Forty years without soitow Enna} of the noble hosts had thee,
Never wast thou in a strait, but in the hands of very fierce kings.
6. Datrat Enna, nir breth gand, da mac fadein do Dunlang,
tricha hliadan duit'na seilb. do Dunlan// tucais-[s]iu theidm.
Enna gave thee, Hwas no niggardly gift, to his own son, to Dunlanf/.*
Thirty years tlwu wast in his possession^ to thmlang thou
[broughtest ruin.
7. Mor rig rottecht ar eoch ard co Diarmait rigda rogarg :
hliadain ar a c6ic dec duit inn airet rob4 ac Diarmuit.
Many a king upon a high steed possessed thee unto Diarmait * tJie
Sixteen years was the time Diarmait had thee, [fdfigly, the fierce,
8. I n-oenuch Alend ra bed rattidnaic Diarmait dnrgen,
datrat Diarmait in ri ndr d'fir Mairge, do Murican.
At the/east of Allen upon a time Diarmait the hardy-born bestowed
\thee,
Diarmait, the noble Icings gave thee to tlie man of Mairge, to
\_Murican.
9. Cethraeha hliadan co tend robd il-ldim ardrig Alend,
ni raba hliadan can cbath ac Murican m6rglonnach.
Forty years stoxUly thou wast in the hand of the high-king of Allen,
Tlwu never wast a year uithout battle while with Mmican of
[mighty deeds,
10. Dotrat Muricdn ri Gall i Taig Carmain do Cberball :
nittuc Gerball do dune c^in robiii ar bitb bude.
In Wexford Murican^ the king of the Foreigtiers, gave thee to
[Cei'ball :
While he was upon the yellow earth CerbaU gave thee to none.
11. Bopo dias derg do dias glan i catb Odba na n-6iged :
da farg [b] ais Aed Findliatb f6en i catb Odba na n-ardroen.
Thy bright point was a crimson point in the battle of Odba^ of the
[Foreigners,'^
WJien thou leftest Aed Finnliath^ on his back in tlie battle of
[Odha of the noble routs.
1 i.e., Enna Nia.
' Dunlang mac Enna Niad, F.M., a.d. 241.
* The father of Murican.
* A mount near Navan, Co. Meath, ac Odba, LL. 39 c.
*Lit., **of the guests." The Norse invaders are meant.
* Overking of Ireland from 861-878.
The sword of cerball. 127
12. Bopo derg th' faebur, rofess, i mBeluch Mugna ratmess
[i] cathMaigeAilbeinnaig fa ndernad ind immarbdig.
Crimson was thy edge, it was seen, at Belach Mugna thou tvast
[proved.
In the valorous battle of Ailbe's Plain, throughout which the
[fighting raged.
18. Bomut romaid in cath cain dia darddin ac Dun Ochtair,
da darochair Aed garb gl^ isin leccaind 6s Liathmuine.
B^ore thee the goodly fwst broke on a Thursday at Dun Ochtair,
When Aed the fierce and brilliant fell on the hillside above
[Liathmuine.
14. I8 romut romaid in cath [in] U romarbad Cellach
mao Flannaodin, linib 8l6ig, i Temraig aird uasabnoir.
Before t/iee the host broke on the day when CeUach^ was slain,
Tfie son of Flannacan, with nutnbers of troops, in high lofty
[great Tara,
15. Is romut rothrdiged tess i cath Boinne na mborbchlesSi
dar'thuit Cnogba, cleth inn aig, immut f^gad ar th'orgrdin.
Before thee iliey fled southwards in iJie battle of the Boyne of the
[rough feuts,
WJien Cnogba fell, the lance of valour, ai seeing thee, for dread
[of tliee,
16. Bopsat fraBchda, nirbsat meirb, rapa laechda do luathfeidm,
dar* thuitt Ailill Frossach Fd.il i tossuch ind immforraind.
Thou wast furious,^ thou wast not weak, heroic was thy swift force,
Wlien Ailill Frossach^ of Folfell in the front of tlie onset,
17. Ni rabadais la madma ac Cerball na cdemgarda,
nir atluig lugi n-ethig, ni thanic dar a br^thir..
Thou never hadst a day of defeat with Cerball of the beautiful garths.
He swore no lying oath, he xcent not against his word,
18. Nocho rabadais la liuin, fuarais m6r n-aidchi n-aniuil,
fuarais m6r rig co rath dig, liiarais m6r cath it chomddil.
Thou never hadst a day of sorrow, many a night thou hadst abroad,
Thou hast found many a king with grace of valour, many a battle
[awaiting thee.
* Cellach mac Flannacdin tigema Breg do marbad la Fogartach mac
Tolairg i meabhail, F.M., 890.
^frdechda from frdech, ** a paroxysm of fury," atd. fraech ferci ar
Fergus, LU., 16 a 9. ca froech na figed fri feirg ? LL., 255 a 34. don treib
rochlecht fraech fergi, LB., 124 b 2, ib. 5.
' '' Ailill mac Eogain an t-airdegnaidh occ 7 an t-ardsaorchlann/' slain
in the battle of Mag Ailbe, T.F., p. 210.
128 KUNO MEYER.
19. A chlaidib rig na rolog,^ na sail bith for merugod,
fog^ba duit th*fer ddna, tigerna do dingbala.
0 sivord of the kings of tfie great conjioffrations, do not fear to he
[astray !
Thou shalt find thy man of skill, a lord worthy of thee,
20. Gia festa forsa mbia seilb,^ nd chia risa titre theidm ?
din 16 dochuaid Gerball ass cia 'ca mbia do lepthanas ?
Who shall henceforth possess thee / or to whom wilt thou deal ruin /
From the day that Cerball departed, with whom wilt thou be
[bedded ;»
21. Nichatl6iofider sech laiin co r6is Tech Ndis co nertbdig,
bail ita Find [in]na fled, atd^rthar ritt is mochen !
Thou sJudt not be neglected wntil thou coftie to Tech Ndis with
[strong fight,
Wliere Finn* of the feasts is they will say to thee Hail !
EuNO Meyer.
' ro-log, ** great fire.'* See Windisch, s. v. log,
^ In this construction bia is the second person, and for seilb, ^^ in the
possession'* = Welsh, ar helw. Of. Tochm. Emire 1. 1, Bev, Gdt,, XI,
p. 442, atiorsa ar seilb rig na crosSy LL. 199 a 33. See Windisch, s. v. selb,
* lepthanas J '* bed-fellowship," formed from lepaid, like comthaiujus,
*' companionship " (" Book of Feni^h," p. 180, 2), from comaid.
* Cerball's successor. The only other reference to him I can find is in
the poem on Cell Chorbbdin (LL. 201 b, 11), where he is mentioned as
being buried among the Kings of Leinster.
Miscellanea.
The Shrule Castle Lettered Stone.— On the Queen's
County side of the Barrow, oppoaite to the soath-weatem extremity
of the County Eildare, stand the rains' of the square Castle of
Shrule, which was built by the Hartpoles in Elizabeth's reign.
The ground-floor consists of a double row of vaulted cellars. A
narrow stone staircase leads from the main entrance to the first
floor, which contains large windows fnow built up), narrow spike-
holes, recesses, and small chambers m the thickness of the walls.
The principal fireplace on this floor is a flat arched one ; the upper
portion is of three blocks of limestone, the centre acting as a dove-
tailing key-stone. The left-hand stone has 'no 'inscription ; but the
right-hand one bears the following letters, cut in low relief, and in
a very unworkmanhbe fashion. 'Aiis reads : —
1576:— ROBABT HARPOL
GRAIN HARPOL
DONACH O'LALOR
This Bobert Hartpole was Constable of Carlow Castle, Sheriff of
the County Carlow and of the Queen's County. He was granted a
lease of the Manor of Catherlagb (or Carlow) in 1570 ; the lands
130 MISCELLANEA.
of Shroule (or Shrule) in 1575 ; and in the same year the Grange
of Eilmagobock, alias Monk's Grange, in the Queens County. He
died in September, 1594, and was buried in the Parish Church in
Carlow, which was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary ; a sketch
of his effigy and tomb is given at p. 184, vol. iii, of Colonel Vigors*
*< Eeports on the Memorials of the Dead, Ireland."
Eobert Hartpole's wife was Grany 0*Byrne. In a document,
dated 1574, it is stated that *' Hartpoole, constable of Carloe, is
matched with a Coltyonean. The Coltyoneans, alias Byrnes, are
notable rebels.''^ The Castle of Monk's Grange stands close to the
Barrow by the side of a small stream, called ** the Gaillig," a mile to
the north of Shrule ; it is now so modernized as to be unrecognisable
as an old castle. Formerly over the ancient doorway there was
(and may still be) a mural tablet with the date 1588, and below it
the initials, ** R. H.," and ** g. b." — standing for Robert Hartpole,
and his wife Grany O'Byme.
On the Shrule Stone the '' Donagh O'Lalor " may have been the
name of the mason employed in the erection of the castle.
The Hartpoles (also written Harpolls, HartpoUes, &c.) were a
Kentish family, the first of whom in Ireland appears to have been
the above-described Robert ; his descendants continued to possess
Shrule and Monk's Grange till they became extinct in the male
line during the first half of this century.
W. FiTzG.
Vide p. 447 of Brewer's *< Calendar of State Papers, Ireland, 1601-1603."
( 131 )
Correspondence.
l^o the Editor of the Journal E.A.S.
Sib, — I wonder whether any of your correspondents can throw
any light upon the name of ^< Millicent/' either as to derivation or
time of application ? In the ** Down Survey " it is named ** New-
town,*' and there are constant references to '* Newtown of Clane."
Thus in 1588 it is recorded that Walter Dalle was seized, inter aHa^
of 4a. in the Newtown of Clane. In 1642 Henry VIII granted to
Robert Eustace and others, to the use of Sir Thomas Luttrell, of
Luttrellstown, in consideration of £88 lis. 8d. paid, and a like
sum to be paid, the site of the Monastery of the Friars Minors or
Grey Friars of Clane, and the lands of Clane, Newtown of Clane^
Muchrath, Fleshtown, and Laugstown, and lands in Co. Dublin, to
hold by service of 20th part of a knight's fee and 9s. 4d. ; and in
1587 there is a grant to Thomas Challoner of lands of Newtown of
Clane, and a grove of ash there, part of the lands of Edmund
Eustace attainted, 40th part of a knight's fee, and rent £S 15s.
I believe that it was subsequently again confiscated, and granted
to the Duke of York, afterwards James II, and that on his abdica-
tion in 1689 it was once more confiscated, and granted to one
Harman, my predecessor in title. All this appears to have been
done under the name of Newtown. In 1768 the Bev. Cutts
Harman, Dean of Waterford, made a lease for ever of Millicent,
under this name, to Michael Keating, represented in 1798 by
Captain Griffith, who commanded the Clane Yeomanry, and did
good service to the Royalist cause in that year.
As my conveyances are all from the Landed Estates Court,
there are, of course, no recitals in them.
Newtown is, no doubt, an English name. Can anyone tell
what the old Irish name was, or when or how the name was
changed from Newtown to Millicent ? As shown above, it must
have been between 1689 and 1768 ; but further than that I have
been unable to obtain any information.
Thomas Cooke-Trench.
( 132 )
^OfC0.
A Bronze Celt. — ^Last year (1898), a good specimen of a
** Winged Celt " was discovered by John FitzGerald, in a square
rath on his farm at Stephenstown, near Naas ; it was sent up
to the Royal Irish Academy, who purchased it from the finder.
The sides of this Celt were ornamented with a broad herring-bone
pattern.
The term '< Celt " is used to designate those metal weapon-tools
in the shape of axes, hatchets, adzes, and chisels, which, fastened to
a wooden haft, were used as weapons of offence or for carpentering
and other purposes. The name is derived from the Latin '< celtis "
— a chisel. Though in size and form these Celts vary greatly, yet
they have been classed under three heads :
1. The Simple flat Celt; which was a plain hatchet-shaped piece
of metal which passed into, and probably through, its wooden
handle.
2. The Winged Celt ; which mutually received and was received
into the handle.
8. The Socketed Celt ; into which the handle was inserted.*
W. PiTzG.
Three disused Townland Names in the South of the
county «"<*^'-«-^^-;:^^j Barony of KUkea and Moone.
Corallfff Barony of Narragh aud Bheban West.
1. ^^Eahdrooy — This was the name of a small circular rath which
stood by the roadside between Birtown cross-roads and Malone's
cross-roads (in the Kilkea direction) on the present townland of
Nicholastown. The remnant of it stands on a farm of a man
named FitzPatrick ; a former tenant, John Butler, the last sovereign
of Athy, demolished it. According to Dr. Joyce, Rahdroo means
"The Druids' Rath/' A County Kildare Chancery Inquisition
mentions it at the end of the sixteenth century as belonging to the
Manor of Nicholastown, near Athy, then in the possession of Sir
Pierce FitzGerald, Knt., of Ballyshannon (Co. Kildare), who was
slain on St. Patrick's Day, 1598, by the O'Byrnes of Ballinacor in
the County Wicklow.
2. ^^ Dun-fin-yeen** (written as it is pronounced). — This rath is
shown on the six-inch Ordnance Survey Sheet, No. 87 of the
County Kildare, in the right-hand bottom corner, though it is not
named thereon ; it is situated on the large townland of Hallahoise.
* Vide Sir William Wilde's Catalogue of Irish Antiquities.
NOTES. 133
In an Inquisition taken in Athy on the 6th of September, 1621, it
was found that a portion of the Manor of Kilkea belonging to the
Earl of Eildare, consisted of '*Halleheise, Donfinnine, and Whits-
ton, 80 acres." A wide oval entrenchment, enclosing a small
artificial hillock (said to be chambered), is still traceable.
8. *^ Corally.'' — This was a square rath containing **a cave,*'
which was levelled years ago by a Scotchman named Maxwell. It
stood, on the townland of Glogorrah, which forms a portion of the
southern bounds of the Monavullagh Bog. Amongst the MSS. at
Carton there is a copy of two feoffments made between the Earl of
Kildare and the Wolfifes of Bewford (i.e., Bert), one dated 1506 and
the other 1518. In the former ** Corally " is written Corhaliagh,
and in the latter Coralyagh.
W. FiTzG.
Sixteenth-Century Tombstones in tlie Ballynadrumny
CFiurcliyard. — Two or three of the earliest unsculptured tomb-
slabs, with inscriptions in incised lettering, that I have so far met
with in the County Kildare, lie in the churchyard at Ballyna-
drumny, not far from the Moyvalley Railway Station, in the
Barony of Carbury.
The three inscriptions given below, copied from these slabs, are
all but illegible, and required fistfulls of young, juicy elder-leaves
rubbed into them to make the letters stand out at all decipherable.
The first inscription is on a slab lying inside the (now demo-
lished) walls of the old church, and reads as follows : —
SEPULCHRUM RICHdi FILIl
MALACHIE DALY DE
BALYNEDRIMNY GENE
ROSI RAPARATORIS—
HUIUS ECCLESIE —
ANNO DOMINI 1554
The late Father Denis Murphy, s.j., recovered the word "Bapa-
ratoris*' for me, as only a letter here and there in it could be
distinguished ; he also translated the Latin thus : — *' The bwial-place
of Bichard, son of Malachy Daly of Ballynadrumny^ the nohle-hom
restorer of this Church, in the year of the Lord 1564.*'
The next inscription is taken from a slab lying a short distance
to the south of the church ruins ; it is —
SEPULCHRUM DOMINI
PATRICIl SHERLOCK DE
BALINEDRUMNY
GENEROSl ET FAMILI>E
ANNO DOMINI 155*
1 34 NOTES.
Lying close beside the last-mentioned stone is a similar slab,
possibly of the seventeenth century (the date is gone), as the inscrip-
tion is in English, portions of which are quite worn away; the
remainder reads :—
THE BURIAL PLACE
OF THOMAS ASHE WHO
WAS MARRYED UNTO
DOROTHY WHYTE
DAUGHTER UNTO
lAMES WHYTE OF
T DSTOWNE
ESQ BY WHOM HE HAD
ONE S TERS
MARRYED CATHERIN
PLUNKET DAUGHTBR
UNTO PLUNKET
OF S BY
WHOM HE HAD 2
SONS DAUGHTERS
ANNO DOMINI —
I * * *
Also Thomas Ashe of Kilen
agh Disceased June the 4^*^
1792. Aged * * years.
The last three lines of the inscription are in a different lettering
from the remainder, and appear to be of a far later date ; in it the
name *' Ashe " formed a clue to the surname in the second line,
which was illegible. The firsfc-mentioned Thomas Ashe appears to
have been twice married ; his first wife may have belongeid to the
Whites of PiTCHFORDSTowNE (as I believe the place-name on the
stone was originally intended to read), in the Parish of Cloncurry,
and Barony of Ikeathy.
According to the County Kildare ** Book of Survey and Redis-
tribution," 1655, a Patrick Plunkett, of Longwood, owned, in the
Barony of Carbury, 848 acres in Ballynakill (granted to one
George FitzGerald), and 180 acres in Dsbrtlugqs (granted to one
Michael Plunkett) ; this may be the other missing place-name on
the above slab.
W. FiTzG.
C. W. QiBBR & SoK, Printers, Dublin.
JOURNAL
OF THE
jflwjaolagtcal pmts of t^e GoKntg of Ff ilbart
AND
j^urrottnbing Distnds.
4-f
^rocccMugs.
The ADDual General Meeting of the Society was held on
Wednesday, the 24th January, 1900, in the Court House,
Naas, which had been kindly lent by the High Sheriff.
The Earl of Mayo, President of the Society, in the Chair.
The following Members of the Council of the Society were
present : — Mr. Thomas Cooke-Trencb, Canon Sherlock, Hon.
Editor; Mr. H. Hendrick*Aylmer, Hon. Treasurer; Sir
Arthur Yicars^ Ulster, and Lord Walter FitzGerald, Hon.
Secretaries.
In addition, the following Members, and Visitors introduced
by Members, amongst others, were present : —
Mr. and Mrs. Sweotman, Miss SIherlock, Mr. and Mrs. George \Volfe,
Mr. Nwholas Synnott, Rey. W. Elliott, Miss Culshaw, Mr. and Mrs. S.
J. Brown, Rev. J. Gilmore) Mrs. Cooke-Trench, Rev. T. Morrin, Mr.
and Mrs. P. A. Maguire, Mr. Staples, &c.
The Minutes of the previous General Meeting in January,
1899, having been read and confirmed, were signed by the
Chairman.
Sir Arthur Vicars^ Ulster, Hon. Secretary, read the Report
of the Council for the past year, which was adopted, on the
motion of Mr. George Wolfe, seconded by Mr. N. J. Synnott
The Hon. Treasurer then read his Report for the year 1899,
and submitted th^ Balance Sheet of the Society, showing a
balance of nearly £28 ; and the thanks of the Member's were
voted to him, Qn the motion of Mr. Edmund Sweetman,
seconded by Sir Arthur Vicars.
Mr. George Mansfield and Rev. £. O'Leary, being the
Members of the Council retiring by rotation, were re-elected.
K
136 PROCEEDINGS OF THE
The following were elected Members of the Society : — Mr. G.
H. Elliott, Chief Librarian, Free Public Library, Belfast ; Mr.
Frank R. Shackleton, Colonel Richard Greene, and Mr. A.
Thunder. In addition, the elections at the September Meeting
of the following were confirmed : — Rev. Walter MacDonald, d.d.,
Librarian, Maynooth College; Mr. John Field, o.c, Mr. F.
Minchin, Mr. Bertram Barton, Mr. R W. Manders, Sir George
FitzGerald, Bart, Miss Calshaw, and Rev. Lionel Fletcher.
Some discassion ensued as to the most desirable place at
which to hold the Excursion Meeting in September, 1900 ; after
many places had been suggested by Members, it was ultimately
decided, on the motion of Canon Sherlock, seconded by Lord
Walter FitzGerald : —
"That the Excursion Meeting for the ensuing session of the Society
take place at BaUymore -Eustace and district in September.''
■
A programme of the places and objects of interest which
it was proposed should be visited was sketched out by the
President.
The following resolution was proposed by Sir Arthur Vicars,
seconded by the Earl of Mayo, and unanimously passed : —
" That the thanks of the Kildare Archteological Society are hereby
tendered to the Rev. M. Devitt, Vice-President of the ' Society, for his
hospitable reception of the Society at Clongowes Wood College ; to Mr.
CooKe-Trench, for his kind reception of the Members at Millicent ; like-
wise to Mr. Barton, for having faciUtated the inspection of Ardrass
Chapel, on his property, on the occasion of the Excursion Meeting in
September last.
The following Paper was read : —
"The FitzGeralds of Ballyshannon, County Kildare." By
Lord Walter FitzGerald, Hon. Secretary.
A considerable number of objects of antiquarian and his-
torical interest were exhibited.
The Earl of Mayo showed two prints of matches run off on
the Curragh of Kildare in September, 1751, and April, 1815,
the former between Sir Ralph Gore's ** Othello, or Black and
All Black," and the Earl of March's "Bajazet,'' for 1,000
guineas, and won by the former ; the latter between Captain
Gore's "Oak Stick" and Mr. Daly's "Narcissus," also for
1,000 guineas, and won by the former.
Lord Mayo also exhibited an Elizabethan farthing, dug up in
the garden at Palmerstown.
Sir Arthur Vicars exhibited, from the Office of Arms, a
finely emblazoned pedigree of the Duke of Ormonde of the
seventeenth century ; an emblazoned pedigree on yellum,' 1605,
COUNTY KILDARE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 1 37
of the Windesor family; and the original grant of arms to Sir
William Petty^ by Sir Richard Carney, Ulster, in 1656. He
also showed, from his private collections, the following: —
Original Roll of Arms, on yellum, of the sixteenth century;
original Faneral Roll of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper to
Queen Elizabeth, who died in 1578 ; the funeral procession of
William III, 1702, in a series of sixt^n engraved plates ; and a
MS. (circa 1485), entitled " Court Ceremonies of Henry VII."
Votes of thanks having been passed to those who had kindly
lent exhibits for the Meeting, to Lord Walter FitzGerald for his
Paper, and to the High Sheriff of the County for the use of the
Court House, the proceedings were brought to a close.
Report of CouNOHi fob Yeab 1899.
The Council of the Eildare Archaeological Society beg to
report to the Members that the progress of the Society has
been fully maintained in the past year. Although they cannot
claim that much practical work has been done in the way of
restoration of ancient monuments within the district, never-
theless they feel that a good deal of useful work has been
done, both in the literature supplied through the medium of
The Joubnal, and in the very enjoyable Summer Excursion
Meeting.
Although death has removed one or two Members this past
year, yet the Society has not so materially suffered as it has on
former occasions in the loss of any active Members.
The loss last year of our Auditor, Mr. Sutcliffe, has been
supplied by our Member Mr. Warmington having kindly offered
his services; and we think our Treasurer's Report will show
that the financial condition of the Society is satisfactory.
The Roll of Membership now amounts to 156, of which
number fourteen are Life Members, and one Hon. Member.
The Annual General Meeting was held in the Court House,
Naas, kindly lent by the High Sheriff, Major St. Leger Moore,
on the 18th of January, at which Papers were read, and the
usual routine business of the Society transacted.
The Excursion Meeting in September last took place at
Ardrass, Rathcoffy, Clongowes Wood College, Clane, and district,
which we think may be characterized as one of the most
successful and enjoyable Excursion Meetings we have had, both
in regard to the attendance and in the places of interest visited.
The Council feel that all the Members will join with them in
tendering the thanks of the Society especially to our Vice-
President (Rev. M. Devitt) and to Mr. Cooke-Trench, who
138 PROCEEDINGS OF -THE
entertained ns all with sach hospitality, besides coniribating
most interesting Papers on the district.
-While the popularity of the Annual Excursion Meetings
seems to be on the inci*ease^ it is a matter for regret that the
attendance at the January Meetings seems to be on the wane ;
and the Council would earnestly urge Members to assist them in
their endeavours to get every Member to contribute his quota to
The Journal, to make which a lasting depository of historical
and archsBological research connected with the district, is the
first aim and object of the Society.
We regret to report the death of Sir Thomas Deane,
Government Inspector of Ancient Monuments, who' did much
work in preserving the ancient monuments throughout Ireland.
Two Members of the Council, Mr. George Mansfield and
Bev. £. 0*Leary, retire by rotation, according to Bule YI, and,
being eligible, offer themselves for re-election.
Mayo, President.
Walter FitzGbrald, V , ^^„^
Arthur Vioars, Ulster,} Secretaries.
January 2ith, 1900.
Excursion Meeting, 1899.
The Annual Excursion Meeting took place on Tuesday, the
12th September, 1899, at Ardrass, Bathcoffy, Clongowes Wood
College, Glane, and the neighbouring district.
Owing to the different times at which the various trains
arrived at Hazlehatch Station — the starting-point of the excur-
sion-*-some difficulty was experienced by the organizers of the
excursion in the arrangements.
As the Dublin contingent anived earlier than the rest. Lord
Walter FitzGerald conducted that party to Celbridge, where an
opportunity was afforded them of seeing the handsome eighteenth-
century Gonolly Monument, and listening to an interesting dis-
course on the monument, and the ConoUy family, by Bev. C. I.
Graham, Bector of Celbridge. Thence they proceeded to the
Charter School, outside the village, where the rest of the
members and friends, forming the major portion of the excursion,
jdined the party, under the conductorship of Sir Arthur Vicars,
and a move was made for Ardrass Chapel, where a Paper was
read by Lord Walter FitzGerald.
COUNTY KILDARE ARCH/EOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 1 39
Mach interest was centred in this quaint little building, with
its stone roof, which bore evidence of careful restoration by the
late Major Hugh Barton, of Straffan, in 1888.
Passing St. Patrick's Holy Well, and the ruins of Barberstown
Castle, the Society e.ntered the park of Bathcoffy House in a long
string of yehicles, and formed an imposing assembly, to listen to
the interesting Paper on the Wogans, who formerly possessed
Bathcoffy Castle.
After an inspection of the buildings, the company drove, by
the now grass-grown avenue, to Clongowes Wood, to view a
portion of the ancient defence, called *' the Pale,^' situated just
outside the College grounds. Here the Bev. M. Devitt read a
Paper, giving a complete history of this historic earthwork from
its formation.
A short drive brought the members and their friends to
Clongowes Wood College, where they were received by the
Bector, Bev. M. Devitt, Vice-President, and where some 120
were hospitably entertained to luncheon by him. After luncheon,
the Bector and Masters conducted those present over the interior
of the College, the Library, with its MSS. and treasures, forming
a great attraction to the visitors. The members of the Society
and those present afterwards adjourned to the Lecture Hall to
listen to an exhaustive Paper on the history of Clongowes Wood
by the Bector of the College.
The next place on the programme was the site of the ancient
Church of Clane. Mr. Cooke-Trench here read an interesting
account of the history and antiquities of Clane, including the
Wogan altar-tomb in the churchyard, the Franciscan Abbey, the
Moat of Clane, and the Holy Well.
Two miles further on the beautiful modern Church of Clane,
built by Mr. Cooke-Trench, was reached. This church, although
not an object of antiquarian interest, yet affords one of the most
perfect modem specimens of interior Celtic ornamentation, which
was described by the Vicar, Canon Sherlock.
The last stage of a most enjoyable day was reached at Milli-
cent, the fine park of Mr. Cooke-Trench, where the Society was
received by Mrs. Cooke-Trench, and invited to tea. A collection
of antiquities and objects of archaeological and historical interest
was on view in the drawing-rooms ; and this, with the fine interior
of the house, much interested those present.
The members and their friends then drove to Sallins Station
on the return journey home, after having spent a most instruc-
tive archaeological day of excursion, in weather that left nothing
to be desired.
I40
PROCEEDINGS OF THE
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COUNTY KILDARE ARCH/EOLOGICAL SOCIETY. I4I
LIST OF HONORARY OFFICERS AND MEMBERS.
(COSSEOTED TO Ut JULY, 1900.)
THE EARL OF MAYO, P.O.
9Ue-^resiben( :
THE REV. MATTHEW DBVITT, S.J.
CoQlTcU :
(in ordeb of election.)
THOMAS COOKE-TRENCH, ESQ., D.L.
GEORGE MANSFIELD, ESQ., D.L.
THE REV. EDWARD O'LEARY, P.P.
THOMAS J. DE BURGH, CAPT., D.L.
AMBROSE MORE-0'FERRALL, ESQ., D.L.
THE EARL OF DROGHEDA.
$on. Crtsfittrer :
HANS HENDRIGK.AYLMER, ESQ., Kerdiffstown, Sallins.
^on. ^ubitor:
ALFRED A. WARMINGTON, ESQ., Munster and Leinster Bank, Naas.
^onr. Stcretams :
SIR ARTHUR VICARS, C.V.O., F.S.A., UUter, 44 Wellington Road, Dublin.
LORD WALTER FITZGERALD, M.RLA., Kilkea Castle, Maoanet.
%w, €bt!or :
THE REV. CANON SHERLOCK, M.A, Sherlock<?town, Sallinb.
142 PROCEEDINGS OF THE
" Ptmbers:
Offloera are indicated by heavy type ; Life Members by an aBteriak(*).]
Adams, Bev. Canon, Kill Rectory, Straffan.
Arohbold, Miss, Davidstown, Caatledermot.
Aylmer, Miss, Donadea Castle, Co. Eildare.
Aylmer, Algernon, Bathmore, Naas.
AYLMER, H. HENDRICK-, Hon. Treasurer, Kerdiffstown, SalUns.
*Barton, Hon. Mrs., Luttrellstown, Clonsilla.
'^Barton, Bertram, Strafifan House, Straffan.
Beard, T., m.d., Qlebe Cresoent, Stirling.
3ird, Bev. John T., 2 Connaught-terrace, Bath^ar.
Blake, J. R, 22 Morehampton-road, Dublin.
Bonham, Colonel J., Balllntaggart, Oolbinstown, Co. Eildare.
Brooke, J. T., Ballina, Co.' Mayo.
Brown, Stephen J., Ardcaien, Naas.
Burke, Very Bev. E., p,p., Bagnalstown, Co. Carlow.
'^Burtchaell, Q. D., M.A., 6 St. Stephen's-green, Dublin.
Byrne, Very fiev. M. J., o.p.. College of St. Thomas of Aqnin, Newbridge,
Co. Eildare.
Calie, Major Claude, St. Wolstah^, Celbridge.
Carroll, fVederlck, Moone Abbey, Moone.
'^Clarke, Mrs., Aihgoe Park, Hazlehatoh, Co. DubUn.
Clements, Colonel, KiUadoon, Celbridge.
^Clements, Henry J. B., D.L., EiUadoon, Celbridge.
Coady, D. P., u.d., Naas.
Cochrane, Robert, f.s.a., u.b.i.a., Hon. Secretary B.8.A.I., 17 Highfield-road,
Rathgar.
Colley, G. P. A., Mount Temple, Clontarf, Co. Dublin.
Conmee, Rev. J. F., s.j., St. Francis Xavier*s, Upper Gardiner-street, DubUn.
Cooper, Austin Darner, Drumnigh House,' Portmarnock, Co. Dublin.
Coote, Stanley, V., Carrowcoe Park, Roscommon.
Cowell, Very Rev. G. Y., Dean of Eildare, The Deanery, Eildare.
Cruise, Francis, m.d., Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow.
Cullen, Rev. John, Adm., Carlow.
Culshaw, Miss, Johnstown, Straffan.
COUNTY KILDARE ARCH^OLOGICAL SOCIETY. I43
Daly, C, 25 Westmoreland-street, Dublin.
Dames, R. S. Longworth, 21 Herbert-street, Dublin.
Dane, J. Whiteside, Abbeyfield, Naas.
Darby, M., mj>., West End, Monasterevan.
Day, Robert, f.s.a., af.B.i.A., 3 Sydney-place, Cork.
Dease, Ck>lonel Sir Gerald, c.v.o., Ceibridge Abbey, Celbridge.
DE BURGH, THOMAS J., Captain, d.l., Oldtown, Naas.
DEVITT, Rev. MATTHEW, 8.j., Vice- President, Rector of Clongowes Wood
College, Sallins.
DROQHEDA, THE EARL OF, Moore Abbey, Monasterevin.
Drogheda, The Countess of, Moore Abbey, Monasterevin.
Dnggan, Rev. William, c.c, Athy.
Dnnne, Rev. John, c.c, Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow.
Dunne, Laurence, DoUardstown House, Athy.
Elliott, George Hall, Chief Librarian, Free Public Library, Belfast.
Elliott, Rev. William, The Manse, Naas.
Engledow.Mrs., Burton Hall, Carlow.
Engledow, G. J., aLP., Burton Hall, Carlow.
Fi«Id, John, Eilcook.
flrenoh, Rev. Ganon, m.b.i.a., Ballyredmond House, Clonegal, Co. Carlow.
*FitzGerald, Lady Eva, Kilkea Castle, Maganey, Co. Eildare.
FitzGerald, Lady Mabel, Kilkea Castle, Maganey, Co. Kiidare.
'^FitzGerald, Lady Nesta, Kilkea Castle, Maganey, Co. Kiidare.
*FitzGerald, Lord Frederick, Carton, Maynooth, Co. Kiidare.
*FitzGerald, Lord George, Kilkea Castle, Maganey, Co. Kiidare.
FitzGerald, Lord Henry, 1 Sloane-court, London, S.W.
'^FITZGERALD, LOfiD WALTER, m.kla., Hon. Secretary, mLkeaCtaile, Maganey,
Co. Kiidare.
FitzGerald, Sir George, Bart., Killybegs, Sallins.
Fletcher, Rev. Lionel, The Rectory, Straffan.
Fogarty, Rev. M., Professor, The College, Maynooth.
Foley, Most Rev.Patrick, d.d., Bishop of Kiidare and Leighlin, Braganza, Carlow.
Freeman, Francis J., Calverstown, KilcuUen.
Gkbnly, Rev. C. W., The Rectory, Castledermot, Co. Kiidare.
Gargan, Right Rev. Monsignor Denis, d.d., President of St. Patrick's College,
Maynooth.
Garstin, J. Ribton, d.l., f.s.a., u.b.i.a., Braganstown, Castlebellingham,
Co. Louth.
Glover, Edward, 19 Prince Patrick-terrace, North Circular-road, Dublin.
Graham, Rev. C. I., Kildrought Parsonage, Celbridge.
Greene, Colonel Richard, Stoneylands, Dedham, Essex.
Greene, Thomas, ll.d., Millbrook, Maganey.
144 PROCEEDINGS OF THE
Hade, Arthur, c.e., Carlow.
Hannon, J. A., Prumplestown, Carlow.
Higginson, Lady, Gonnellmore, Newbridge.
Hopkins, Mrs., Blackball Castle, Eiloullen, Co. Kildare.
Hobson, C. J., 239 West One Hundred and Twenty- dfth-street, New York.
Jesson, Rev. J. L., The Beotory, Kilkea, Co. Kildare.
Johnson, Miss, Lancaster House, Ballinasloe.
Joyce, Patrick Weston, Lyre na Grena, Leinster-road, Rathmines, Dublin.
Kennedy, Rev. H., St. David's Rectory, Naas.
Keogh, Surgeon-Major T. R., Castleroe, Maganey, Co. Kildare.
Kilkelly, John, ll.d., 46 Upper Mount-street, Dublin.
Klrkpatrick, William, Donacomper, Celbridge.
La Touche, Mrs. John, Harristown, Brannoxtown.
Lentaigne, Rev. Victor, 8.J., Clongowes Wood College, Sallins.
Long, Miss A. F., Woodfield, Kilcavan, Oeashill, King's County.
Longfield, Robert, 19 Harcourt-street, Dublin.
MacDonald, Rev. Walter, d.d.. Librarian, The College, Maynootfa.
M'Gee, Rev. S. R., The liectory, Dunlavin.
Maguire, P. A., 2 Oldtown-terrace, Naas.
Mahony, David, d.l., Grange Con, Co. Wicklow.
Mahony, George Gun, Grange Con, Co. Wicklow.
Manders, R. W., Castlesize, Sallins.
Manning, C. S., Bank House, Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow.
MANSFIELD, GEORGE, d.l., Morristown Lattin, Naas.
Mayo, Dowager Countess of, 20 Eaton- square, London, S.W.
MAYO, The EARL OF, p.c, President^ Palmerstown, Strafifan.
Minchin, F., Mooretown House, Kiltegan, Co. Wicklow.
MoUoy, William R., h.r.i.a., 78 Kenilworth-square, Rathgar.
Mooney, William, The Castle, Leixlip.
*Moran, His Eminence Cardinal, Sydney, N. S. Wales, Australia.
Morrin, Rev. Thomas, p.p., Naas.
Murphy, The Right Rev. Monsignor Michael, p.p., St Brigid's, Kildare.
Murphy, W. A., Osberstown House, Naas.
Nolan, Rev. James, c.c, Kilmeade, Athy.
Norman, George, 12 Brock-street, Bath, England.
O'Brien, The Lord, Lord Chief Justice, Kildare Street Club, Dublin.
O'Dea, Very Rev. Thomas, d.d., Vice-President, The College, Maynootb.
*0'FERRALL, AMBROSE MORE-, d.l., Ballyna, Moyvally.
O'HanloD, Very Rev. John Canon, p.p., 3 Leahy's-ter., Sandymount, Dublin.
COUNTY KILDARE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. I45
O'Kelly, Koberti m.d., Landenstown, Sallins.
♦(yiEARY, Rev. E., p.p., Ballyna, MoyvaUy.
O'Leary, Bey. Patrick, The College, Maynootfa.
Palmer, Charles Colley, d.l., Bahan, Edenderry.
Ponsonby, Hon. Gerald, 3 Stratford-plaoe, London, W.
Ponsonby, Lady Maria, 3 Stratford-plaoe, London, W.
Pratt, Mrs., Glenheste, Manor-Ellbride, Co. Dablin.
Bobinson, John, m.d., Johnstown-bridge, Co. Eildare.
Boper, C. E. A., b.l., 55 Leeson-park, Dublin.
Byan, Very Bey. John C, o.p., College of St. Thomas of Aquin, Newbridge.
Bynd, Major B. F., Blaokhall, Sallins.
Shackleton, Frank B., Ulster's Office, Dablin Castle.
SHERLOCK, Rev. Canon, Hon. Editor, Sherlookstown, Sallins.
Skaae, Bey. Bichard D., Ballykean Bectory, Portarlington.
Somerville-Large, Bey. W., Carnalway Bectory, Kilcnllen.
Staples, William, Naas.
Strangeway, W. N., Breffni Villa, Eglinton-road, Donnybrook, Dublin.
Supple, K., D.I.B.I.C., Dunlavin, Co. Wioklow.
Sweetman, E.,'Longtown, Sallins.
Sweetman, Mrs., Longtown, Sallins.
Swinton, The Hon. Mrs., 82 Cadogan-plaoe, London, W.
Synnott, Nicholas, Furness, Naas.
Taylor, Mrs., Qolden Fort, Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow.
Taylor, Mark, Golden Fort, Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow.
Thunder, A., Hibernian Bank, Naas.
TRENCH, THOMAS COOKE-, d.l., MiUioent, Sallins.
Trench, Mrs. Cooke-, Millicent, Sallins.
Tynan, The Bight Bey. Monsignor Thomas, p.p., Newbridge.
Tyrrell, Garrett C, Ballinderry House, Carbury, Co. Kildare.
VICARS, SIR ARTHUR, c.v.o., f.s.a., Ulster King-of-Arms, Hon, Secretary,
44 Wellington-road, Dublin.
Vigors, Colonel P. D., Holloden, Bagnalstown, Co. Carlow.
Wall, Colonel J., Knockareagh, Grange Con, Co. Wicklow.
Wall, Mrs., Knockareagh, Grange Con, Co. Wioklow.
Walsh, Bey. Martin, p.p., Castledermot, Co. Kildare.
WARMINQTON, ALFRED A., Hon, Auditor, Munster and Leinster Bank, Naas.
Weldon, General, Forenaughts, Naas.
Weldon, Captain Sir Anthony A., Bart., Kilmorony, Athy.
Weldon, Lady, Kilmorony, Athy.
146 COUNTY KILDARE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY.
White, W. Grove, 13 Upper Ormond-quay, Dublin.
Willis, G. de L., 4 Eildare-street, Dublin.
Wilson, Colonel W. F., The Vicarage, Glane.
Wilson, Mrs. B. M., Coolcarrigan, Eiloock.
Wilson, Miss B. Dupr6, Coolcarrigan, Eilcock.
Wolfe, George, Bishopsland, Ballymore-Eustace, Naas.
WooUcombe, Bobert L., ll.d., m.r.i.a., 14 Waterloo-road, Dublin.
♦Wright, B. Percival, m.a.', m.d.. Secretary r.i.a., 6 Trinity College, Dublin.
Miss Margaret Stokes, Carrig Breac, Howth, Co. Dublin.
T?ie foUomng Lihrariet and Societies aUo receive The Joubnal : —
The Editor, <' Ulster Journal of Archaeology," Ardrie, Belfast
The Worcester Diocesan Architectural and Arohsological Society.
The Waterford and South-East of Ireland Archaoological Society.
The Society of Antiquaries of London.
The Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire.
Boyal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland.
Boyal Irish Academy, Da\^son Street, Dublin.
The Library, Trinity College, Dublin.
The National Library of Ireland, Kildare Street.
( 147 )
RULES*
I. That this Society be called " The County Kildare Archfeological Society."
IL That the purpose of the Society be the promotion of the study and
knowledge of the antiquities and objects of interest in the county and sur-
rounding districts.
m. That the Society consist of a President, Vice-President, Council,
Hon. Treasurer, two Hon. Secretaries, and Members. Ladies are eligible for
Membership.
IV. That the names of ladies and gentlemen desiring to become Members
of the Society shall be submitted, together with the names of their proposers
and seconders, to the Council, and, if approved by them, shall then be sub-
mitted to the next Meeting of the Society for Election.
V. That the affairs of the Society be managed by the President, Vice-
President, Hon. Treasurer, and Hon. Secretaries, together with a Council of
six Members. That for ordinary business two shall form a quorum ; but any
matter upon which a difference of opinion arises shall be reserved for another
meeting, in which three shall form a quorum.
VI. That two Members of the Council shall retire by rotation each year,
but shall be eligible for re-election.
Vn. That Members pay an Annual Subscription of Ten Shillings (due
on the 1st of January), and that the payment of £5 shall constitute a Life
Member.
Vni. That Meetings of the Society be held not less than twice in each
year, one Meeting being an excursion to some place of archisological interest
in the district.
IX. That at the first Meeting of the Society in each year the Hon. Trea-
surer shall furnish a balance-sheet.
X. That a Joubnal of the Society be published annually, containing the
Proceedings and a column for local Notes and Queries, which shall be sub-
mitted to the Council for their approval.
XI. That the Meetings of the year be fixed by the Council, due notice of
the dates of the Meetings being given to Members.
XII. That Members be at liberty to introduce visitors at the Meetings of
the Society.
XIIT. That no Member shall receive The Journal whose Subscription for
the previous year has liot been paid.
Thb Killkkn Coruac Oobjm B
.4
( 149 )
KILLEEN CORMAC,
By lord WALTER FITZGERALD.
[Read on the 16th September, 1897.]
KILLEEN COBMAC is the name of a barial-groand still in
nse, which is situated in the middle of a large field, a
quarter of a mile to the south-west of the railway station at
Colbinstown, in the townland of that name, and in the County
Kildare. It is remarkable for two reasons — 1st, because it is
a pagan cemetery adapted to a Christian use ; 2ndly, because it
is the only place in the County Kildare where Ogham-inscribed
stones are known to exist, though close by, in the Dunlavin
district in the County Wicklow, Oghamed stones have been
discovered.
The name ''Killeen Cormac" means '^Cormac's little
cemetery," or " keel."
Keel, Eilleen, Eilluragh, are all names originally applied to
those unconsecrated burial-grounds of pagan origin, in which at
the present time still-born or unbaptized children and suicides
alone are buried, as none such are admitted into consecrated
ground owing to the belief that they are beyond the pale of
ftiture bliss.
The late noted Oghamist, Richard R. Brash, did not consider
that the present Irish word for church, ''cili,'' was derived,
as is supposed, from the Latin word '' cella,^' a monk's cell, but
from the Celtic word ''ceal," meaning a concealment, a death;
hence the pagan Irish called their graves and cemeteries ''keels; "
later on, when Christianity was introduced, the converts forsook
the pagan cemeteries, and were buried in consecrated ground ;
thus ''God's Acre," together with the primitive church, became
known under the one term, " kill"
The preservation of the numerous keels after they were
abandoned in .Christian times is due probably to the supersti-
tious reverence of the peasantry for the mysterious dead.
A tradition, still told in the neighbourhood, accounts for the
man's name, Cormac, in connection with this Eilleen. He is
said to have been a king of Munst.er, on whose death a great
dispute arose as to the place of his burial, as two powerful clans
each wished to inter the body in its own territory. At last, to
prevent bloodshed, it was agreed that the bier containing the
body should be placed on a waggon, yoked to a team of seven
150 KILLEEN CORMAC.
unbroken bnllocks, which was allowed to follow its own instincts
in conveying the body to a cemetery. After travelling a long
distance^ the team came nigh to the Doon of Ballynare, from the
Timolin direction. Here the bullocks became exhausted from
thirst ; but^ on pawing the ground, a spring of water gushed forth,
which is to be seen to this day by the roadside, to the south-west
of Ballynure Church, and which is said to cure colds. After
slaking their thirst, the team proceeded a little further, and,
descending the high ground, came to what is now called '^Bullock-
hilL'' Here a hound that lay on its master's bier made a. leap
forward, and landed on the Eilleen, leaving the impression of
one of his paws on a standing stone. The team. of bullocks,
proceeding on, crossed the river Greese, reached the Killeen»
and refused to go further. Thus was the spot for the burial
of King Cor mac decided on. When the body was removed
from the waggon, the team commenced its return journey ; and
in crossing the boggy ground by the river near Enockbauniah it
became engulfed, and waggon and all disappeared for. ever from
view.
Killeen Gormac and its Oghamed stones were fir^t brought
to public notice in the year 1860, by Father Shearman, then
C.G. of Dunlavin. He thus describes the Killeen as it then
was: —
'*The site of this old cemetery [he writes] is in a valley of the most
picturesque character : the river Greese flows through it, separating at
Killeen Cormac the Counties of Kildare and Wicklow, and the Dioceses of
Leighlin and Glendalough. In this valley also are many isolated mounds
and eskars, retaining names connected with the legends and history of
the locality. On the left bank of the Greese is a long cskar, called
* BiiUockJvUl.* On the opposite bank of the stream is another eskar, called
*Knockbauniah ' ( ? i.e., the hill of the cow or heifer). To the west of this
is another elevation : the highest of the group, on its summit, is a rath of
large proportions ; at its base flows a small rivulet, known as the * Scnuj-
haun' (i.e. , a streamlet^, which joins the Greese west of Killeen. This hill
is called ' Rathownbeg (i,e,, the rath of the little river). ^
*^ Between this and Knockbauniah is another eskar of oval shape,
measuring in circumference 230 paces ; its major axis lies nearly east and
west ; the western end is the highest, and is fashioned into a tumulus,
the sides of which show the remains of three terraces. The first terrace
on the ground-line was carried round the whole eskar $»the second and
third can be traced on the south-western side of the mound ; the whole
enclosure is occupied with graves ; and on the summit is an oblong depres-
Sjion— the site of the primitive church. A. quantity of large stones lying
scattered about plainly indicate the former existence of some structure of
primitive design and architecture. This is Killeen Cormac. The'terraces
are now in a very ruinous state; but sufficient indications remain to
' This rath-crowned eskar is at the present time being demolished
by road contractors for the sake of its material.
o
O
152 KILLEEN CORMAC
discover their original design and mode of construction. On the south-east
side, the middle terrace is better preserved: it is faced with cyclopian slabs,
set ligainst the bank forming the terrace, so that before the effects of time,
and the still more destructive agency of the gravediggers, caused their
dilapidation, the entire structure, triple-terraced, and crowned by a
primitive church, must have presented an imposing appearance. . . .
Between the cemetery and Knockbauniah there are some indications of
a square structure, in the centre of which are the remains of a circular
building ; there is no appearance of stones above the surface. A slight
grassy elevation marks most distinctly the ground-plan of the building. *
. . . On the east side of the middle terrace a stone remains in
sUai. It is about three feet high, and it appears to have been one of the
jambs of a door, or opening, leading to a central cave under the tumulus ;
the side of the stone is grooved, and its opposite jamb was made in
the same manner, so as to let in a thin slab to close the external en-
trance
^' About 1830, Killeen Cormac was enclosed with a stone wall, and trees
were planted about the mound (by John Bonham, Esq., of Ballintaggart,
who died in 1844). Within the enclosures, lying on the terraces, are some
inscribed pillar-stones with Ogham inscriptions ; one of these is bi-lingual,
with a Latin epigraph and Ogham inscription. A companion mllar-stone
has at its top extremity a very antique incised bust of the Kedeemer.
A third has a well-defined Ogham inscription carried around its top and
sides. There are also some other piUar-stones with short cryptic Ogham
inscriptions, and some of the slabs in the terraces have unde&ied Ogham
scores on the edges. On the lowest side of the mound there is another
piUar-stone. In its top surface there is a mark supposed to represent a
nound*s paw. Excavations were made around this stone to seek for Ogham
digits, but none appear to have been inscribed on it. Local tradition,
with a view, perhaps, to account for the name of this cemetery, tells that
this stone marks the grave of ' Cormac, King of Munster/ "
In November, 1870, Mr. Bichard Bolt Brash, the author of
*' The Ogham Inscribed Monuments of the Gaedhil in the
British Islands/* paid a visit to Killeen Cormac, and was greatly
struck with the terraced appearance of this Killeen; but he
differed from Father Shearman altogether in his supposition that
the tumulus had once been the site of a primitive church. He
writes : —
'* There is at present no evidence of there ever having been a church
on this site ; the confined and irregular space at the top would be
singularly unfavourable for that purpose : there are no squared stones,
no trace of a wall or foundation, no pieces of mouldings, mullions, or
carvings ; neither any of those certain indications which we so constantly
find when all traces of the original walls have disappeared. An artificial
mound would be a very unsafe site for a church ; and if Father Shear-
man's surmise is correct — that there are chambers in the tumulus — the
mound would be a still more unsafe site. I have ^en a great number of
^According to Butterfield, the herd, these earthworks are the site of a
castle which was thrown down years ago for the sake of the stones ; but
according to the Ordnance Survey Maps, the castle formerly stood near
Colbinstown railway station.
KILLEEN CORMAC.
IS3
an<nent.chu]CQhes,.o{ nSi. d^ites, throughout Ireland, but never met with on^
built on an artificial tumulus like that of Killeen Cormac.^.If ^ver
there was a churoh in this locality-r-and it is quite possible that such may
have been the (iase^t must have been erected somewhere at the foot of
this keel, which at the same time was consecrated, and probably a cross
set up to entourage its use as a Christian cemetery. It is quite evident
that it has been so used, as traces of many modem interments ai^d
gravestones are to be found there."
Before describing the Oghamed stones (one of which is
destroyed), a few words on the Ogham character may not be out
of place here.
The term *^ Ogham '* is used to describe a species of writing
in use in very early ages^ the letters of which were formed by a
combination of short lines and points, on or at both sides of a
middle or stem line. These strokes, which vary in namber
from one to five, according to the letter they represent, are of
Four different kinds: (1) Groaps of lines to the right; (2) others
to the left ; (3) another group obliquely ; and (4) small notches
on the stem-line itself. The letter they correspond with is
shown in the table given below : —
1 stroke ^
2 Strokes
3 Strokes -represent ]
4 Strokes 1
5 StrokesJ I
To Right. To Left.
Obliquely.
On Stem
line.
B
L
F
S
N
H
D
T
C
QorCU
M
G
NG
ST
ZR
A
O
U
E
I
Besides these twenty characters, there are five others, which
occur very seldom, and are used to denote diphthongs. Each
letter was named after a tree in Irish, and the Ogham alphabet
itself was known in old Irish as ^' Beth-luis-nion,"^ being so
called from the first three letters — B L N — which it formerly
commenced with. The word *' alphabet " itself is formed in the
same way, being composed of the first two Greek letters — Alpha
and Beta.
The Ogham writing has no divisions between the words;
it is read, when found on a pillar-stone, from the base upwards —
that is, from left to right ; the edge of the stone forms an
imaginary stem line for the strokes. The inscription almost
. * Which he describes as * a low, irregularly shaped oval mound, about
70 ft. by 55 ft., the longer axis lying east and west ; its greatest height
above the level of the surrounding field is about 18 feet. '
'I.e., Beth — a birch-tree; Luis — the mountain ash ; and Nion — an
ash-tree.
154 KILLEEN CORMAC.
invariably consists of proper names^ the sentence nsnally running
thns : '* So-and-so» son of so-and-so." The first name is always
in the genitive case, as the words *^ the stone of " were supposed
to be nnderstood.
In a fonrteenth-centnry mannscript, known as ** The Book
of Ballymote/' is an ancient treatise on Ogham. This MS.,
there is reason to believe, was originally written in the ninth
centnry, and copied into this book from some older volume ; yet^
in spite of this guide, the early attempts made to decipher
Ogham inscriptions made no progress ; and it was not until
Dr. Graves, the late Bishop of Limerick, worked out a theory
of his own, by which he discovered that in most Ogham inscrip-
tions a group of strokes occurred which he identified as reading
'^Macqui" (the ancient genitive form of Mac — a son), that a
clue was found which made sense of the translated Ogham. It
was not long after this discovery of Dr. Graves that some bi-
lingual Ogham inscriptions were brought to light in Wales,
which proved the correctness of his reading ; these bi-lingual
inscriptions were in the Ogham and Roman characters, the one
being a translation of the other.
Experts in Ogham are still gi*eatly divided as to the use and
age of this class of writing. Some have proved to their satisfac-
tion that it was only intended to be read by the initiated, and
belonged to a distant pre-Christian age ; others, again, argue that
the writing is not cryptic^ and that tide lettering was invented by
persons having a grammatical knowledge, and acquainted with
alphabets of the ordinary kind, and» consequently. Ogham is no
older than the period of the earliest introduction of Christianity
into Ireland. I myself believe that the Ogham alphabet was
in use in Ireland long before the Roman alphabet (on which the
Irish lettei*s are founded) was introduced by St. Patrick, that it
overlapped the Christian period, and that it was no more in-
tended to be cryptic than the contracted ** black-lettered "
Latin inscriptions on the tombs of the middle ages. Oghamed
pillar-stones as a rule were of a sepulchral nature. Some may
have been used as boundary stones in the same way as, at a
later period, crosses were set up to define the mearins of church
property. Many Oghamed stones have been, even in ancient
times, put to a use they were never intended for: they have been
discovered among the roofing-stones of rath-caves; they have
been found acting as lintels in primitive churches ; and in recent
times they have been used as gate-posts and cattle scratching*
posts by farmers on whose land they stood. Some, too^ stand
in situ, with the Christian symbol carved on them, showing
that they have been adapted to a Christian pui*pose ; this, and
KILLEEN CORMAC.
155
the fact that their inscriptions bear no pioas formula, such as
*^ pray for/' bo much used on Irish inscribed slabs, tend to prove
the very early and pagan character of this class of monument.
The name " Ogham " itself, according to " The Book of
Ballymote/' is derived from the inventor, Ogma mac Elthan,
brother of Breas, King of Ireland, who reigned close on 1,900
years before the Christian era, as estimated by *' The Annals of
the Four Masters."
• too •
■^—M
»••»•
imr
•
The Oghamed stone known as " the Decedda Stone,^' from a
name on it, has for several years disappeared ; and it has been
ascertained ^ that it was broken np by a mason to repair the
wall surrounding this churchyard.^
Mr. K Brash, who examined it in 1870, thus describes it : —
"Its length is 4 ft. 9 in.; dimensions towards the bottom, 16 in. by
9 in. ; at the top, 13 in. by 6 in. It is an undressed pillar of hard, com-
pact greenstone, and lies on the ground just inside the gate at the base
of the Killeen, a few yards from another Oghamed stone. The inscrip-
tion commences at 2 ft. IJin. from the lower end, as usual, on the left-
hand angle, runs across the head and down the right-hand angle of the
same face ; it is boldly cut ; the consonantal scores are long ; and, with
one or two exceptions, the characters are quite distinct and legible, and
read as follows : —
/,m^ttii^ iiii mi.^, II . /, HHf .... / ./^0,m,
f X 9 ■ *^ f 6 y * 9 ^9 M f9 tA nt tS /^
M A
9
^ 6
2>I>
E
e
?
c
M /9 /S nt
DAMA
a
I M A H
nnr
IV4
'*The twelfth character, A, is scarcely traceable ; the two last dots of
the sixteenth are missing, owing to an injury at the angle ; all the rest
are in good condition, and the reading is obvious : — ' (The stone of) the
son of IMecced, son of Marin.'"
' Vide p. 206, vol. ii, of The Journal.
* Vide p. 380 of the 1895 volume, R.S.A. of Ireland.
156
KILLEEN CORMAa
The late Sir Samael Fergason also gives the same reading.
A' cast of ** the Decedda Stone," which formerly belodged to Sir
Samnely is in the possession of R A. Stewart MacAlister^ M.A*y
St. John's College, GambridgiB.
\\\\,>.
WW
The second Oghamed stone is very remarkable, as bearing
two inscriptions, one in Ogham and the other in Roman
characters, both apparently of the same age. Mr. Brash gives
the following description of it : —
''This is a rough pillar of hard, compact greenstone, 6ft. 4 in. in
length, 12 in. by 11 in. at the bottom, and 11 in. by 10 in. at the top.
The inscription is, as usual, on the left-hand angle of one of the broader
faces, commencing at 2 ft. 4 in. from the lower end, runnipg across the
front angle of the head and down the opposite angle of the same face.
The arris upon which the characters are cut is very rough and irregular,
particularly towards the top, where' there is a large flake off ; this^ how-
ever, must have been an original injury, as the inscription follows the
present course of the angle. The characters were originally broadly and
deeply cut, the scores being of unusual length ; they have an appearance
of long weather- wear, but, with few exceptions, are quite legible.
• • . . The Ogham inscription I propose to read as follows :—
•>■■■■■ $$
iiii $§m
. Mttlii M
iniiiniii'm m nnr
ixrANosAre i s ah A r re 5
i.e., 'Ufano, Safei, Sah, Attos.*
" I apprehend we have here the * Four true Druids ' of the Roman
legend, which is in fair preservation ; the letters are from 4^ to 5 in.
high, and appear to have been originally well cut, both broad and deep ; but
the weather-wear of ages has worn down the surface of the stone, though
we can still trace the letters ; one only is Injured, the R in VERE. 1 think
that there are no grounds for asserting that the legends were cut at
different periods ; certainly there is nothing in their appearance that
158 KILLEEN CORMAC,
wtiuld justify it. The mode of fonning the characters appears to be the
BaiDo ; and they have the aame appearance of age and weather-wear. This
monument was evidently erected in the pagan age ; the absence of any
sacred emblem or pious formula— such as we find on the earliest of our
Christian niemoriala — all evidence to its pagan character. It is a monu-
ment to its four membeiH of the Druidic order, probably priestA, whose
names are given in the Ogham legend, whose profession— uiat of True or
Just Druids— is given in the Roman letters : IV VERB DRWIDES."
In coDclusiOD, Brash snms np thus : —
"The inscribed monuments at Killeen Cormac are of exceeding
interest. Firstly, as having been found in a part of our island hitherto
supposed to have been destitute of this class of our national antiquities;
secondly, an having heen found tn aitn in what was evidently a pagan
cemeleiy of the prehistoric period ; thirdly, as presenting us wiui the
only Irish example of an Ogham- inscribed stone bearing also an inscrip-
tion in Roman letters probably of the same date."
Sir Samnel Ferguson wiitea :—
"There can be no doubt that the word 'Druids' forms part of the
Roman epigraph ; and this being the only instance of the mention of
Drnids on any known lapidary monument anywhere, the double inscrip-
tion cannot but be regarded with extraordinary interest."
Close beside the last described pillar-Btoue is BDOtber bearing
no inscriptioD, bat having ao iDcised oatline of a bnet of onr
Jjord {?), yery rndely carved, which Father Shearman describes
KILLEEN CORMAC. 1 59
in' 1860 &B bsTing been ciit very slightly ; it now appears fresh
and sharp, and differs dightly &om FaUier Shearman's illastra-
tion of it. This I believe to be the handiwork of an old man
named John Whelan (locally known as " WheUn the Poet "), of
Ballinroan, Kiltegan, who used to go about renewing inscrip-
tions, traces of whom I hare come across In neighboariDg
chnrchyards.* This pillar-stoue is of the same class as the other
two ; it measures 6^ ft. in length, from 7 to 10 in. in breadth,
and 14 in. at ita thickest part.
The Killeen in every direction is dotted over with modern
head-stonoB, as well as ancient green-flag slabs (removed from
the terraces to be nsed as head -stones) and pillar-stones of granite
and green-flag, some square and others round, all deep sunk in
the gronnd.
Among the ancient monnments that are well worthy of
notice are two cross-inscribed sUbs, one grooved pillar-stone,
two socketed cross-shafts, and fonr or five rongh pillar-stones ;
these will be described, and the measurements given of each : —
The cross-inscribed slabs. — Both of these slabs are of green-
flag. One stands at the head of a grave on the east summit of
the Killeen; on it, in relief, is a pUin cross, 23 in. long and
' Fur instance, on the slab for resting the coffin in the boundary wall
(there is qo gateway) ot the Killelan Churchyard, are cut some hieni-
flyphics, which I ascertitinod from John Wboian, "the poot," wore cut
^ him, and represent his n»me in Hebrew letters; some professor at
his request liad supplied him with the information. As Whelan may
have cut his name ia like mannei' in other loualities, and hh they may
be mistaken for Irish by the ignorant, I annex a rubbing of these
hireoglyphics.
l6o ■ KILLEEN CORMAC.
18 ID. acroas the arms. - The elab Btands 4 ft. above the grotmd,
is 2 ft. in breadth, and about 5 in. in thickness.
The other slab lies flat on the west slope of the Killeen ; a
cross ia relief, 16^ in. long and the same across the arms, with
a ring or circle joining them, occupies the upper end. Its
fall length is 5 ft., and it is 2 ft. 4 in. at the broadest part.
In both cases the workmanship is very mde.
The socketed cross- nhafts. — Both these cross-shafts are of
granite. One stands 21 in. above the gronnd, on the west
sammit of the Killeen, a short distance above the ringed cross
slab : it has a socket at the upper end 7 in. ky 9^ in., and 5 in.
deep for the insertion of the missing portion.
The second cross-shaft stands on the soatb-east slope of the
Killeen : it is 2 ft. 8 in. above the gronnd, and the socket
measures 7 in. b; 8 in., in depth 5 in.
In both cases one side of the socket is broken away. The
cross-shafts are ronghly squared pillar-stones.
The grooved pillar-stone. — This pillar-stone is of granite : it
stands upright on the south-east slope of the Killeen, 32 in.
above the ground; in breadth it is 15 in., and 11 in. in
thickness. It has two grooves, one on either side ; one
£
Si^^/iU.fCu^L^
M.JC
^U^r,
1 62 KILLEEN CORMAC.
measures 10^ in. in length, 2i in. in widths and about 2 in« in
depth ; the other groove is 11 ^in. long, 2 in. wide, and 2 in.
deep.
Though I cannot explain the object of these grooves, 1 do
not believe Father Shearman's theory, that this is a door-jamb,
and that a slab slid into the grooves of this and an opposite
jamb, to close an entrance into a cave. The grooves are not
long or wide enough, besides which they only commence 7 in.
and 2 in. from the top of the pillar-stone.
The pUlar-stones. — Of the granite boulders, one lies flat at
the west base of the Eilleen, near the ringed-cross slab: it
measures 4 ft in length, with sides of 15 in. and 18 in. Another
lies flat near the thorn-tree, at the east end of the Eilleen ; in
length it is 6 ft., with sides 18 in. and 19 in. broad, A third
rounded boulder stands 3 ft. 8 in« above the ground, also at the
eastern end of the burial-ground.
Of the green-flag pillar-stones, one stands at the foot of the
Eilleen on the south side: it is 4 ft. above the ground, with sides
of 18 in. and 14 in. at the broadest part. A second pillar-stone,
2 ft. 9 in. in height above the ground, 11 in. thick, and 18 in.
wide, stands at the east end of the Eilleen, near the thorn-tree.
This is the pillar-stone alluded to in the legend as the one on
which the hound lit when it leaped from '* BuUock-hill.'^ On
the top of the stone is a deep indenture shaped like a dog's paw.
The water that lodges in it is said to cure warts.
About the centre of the summit of the Eilleen lie two
flat inscribed slabs: they mark the burial-place of the Eustaces of
Colbinstown Castle, which stood a short distance to north-east,
but which many years ago was demolished, and a farm-house
was erected from the stones thus supplied.
^One of the slabs is quite undecipherable in places; but what
can be read of the inscription is as follows : —
Pray For v' Soul of M" lane
Eustace Wife of Christopher (?)
Eustace of Gr(angeCon ?) Esq'. Who Was
Here Interred y* Nineteenth Day
Of July 1729 Aged 42 (?) years.
The other slab is legible, and the inscription runs thus : —
Here lies the Body of Bow
land Eustace Esq' who departed
this life the 23"" September 1761 '
Aged 68
Also Nicholas Eustace, Esq. his father
And Margaret Eustace, alias Wicombe,
his Mother.
KILLEEN CORMAC. 1 63
The Colbiustown Eastaces were descended from Alex^uder, a
Yoanger son of Sir Thomas Eastace, 1st Viscount Baltinglass.
A Coanty Eildare Exchequer Inquisition, taken at Naas in
1591 9 found that : —
<«
Janet Eustace, widow of Alexander Eustace of Colbinstown, died on
the 1 9th April, 1 586. That Sir Thomas Eustace of Kilcullen, late Viscount
Baltinglass, enfeoffed Patrick White of Naas, and Edmund Eustace of
Ballymore in the lands of Oolbinstown ^Ad Crokestown, to the use of the
said Janet and Maurice her son. That the said Maurice Eustace, son and
heir of the said Alexander and Janet, was aged 30 years and married at
the time of his mother's death. That the said Sir Thomas Eustace at the
time of his death on the 30th of July, 1549, was seised of the town and
lands of Oolbinstown/'
( i64 )
ON THE DIFFERENT DEPOSITS OF THE
RIVER LIFFEY.
By THOMAS COOKE-TRENCH, D.L.
THE rhododendrons did it.
I remember as a boy watching, with that mild interest
that belongs to an onlooker, the efforts that were made to grow
rhododendrons at Millicent Beds were dag oat and filled with
tarf-moald, in which the shrabs were planted. For a year or
two they throve ; bat the moment their roots got to the bottom
of the tarf-moald, and touched the native soil, they turned yellow,
refused to blossom, and were thrown out as failures. It became
an acknowledged axiom that rhododendrons could not be grown
at Millicent.
When I became owner, and from an onlooker was converted
into the responsible person, I long acquiesced in this verdict
At length, having ascertained that it was only to the presence of
lime in the soil that they objected, I resolved to try the place
round, and see if I could not find some spot that was free from
lime.
The test of lime is probably familiar to most members of
this learned Society ; but, in case there should be any who are
ignorant of it, I may state that if a few drops of muriatic acid
are let fall on a soil containing lime, or on a bit of limestone
rock, it will at once boil up vigorously. If it behaves as so
much water would, you may then be sure that the soil is free
from lime.
I, accordingly, issued forth one morning, accompanied by a
man with a spade, and armed myself with a bottle of muriatic
acid. All about the house, and right away up to the church, the
acid, dropped upon an upturned sod, boiled like mad.
Now, there is to the south-east of the place an alluvial -look-
ing, triangular flat of perhaps twenty acres, bounded on two
sides by the river, and on the other by a bank of rapidly rising
ground. The general lie of the ground conveys the impression
that the river had originally run at the foot of this rising ground,
and that it had, after its fashion, gradually shifted further and
further away, depositing soil as it shifted. To my no small
surprise, this flat proved free from lime. I planted my rhododen-
drons there; and they are now vigorous bushes of ten feet high,
requiring constant cutting back to keep them in any sort of
order.
DEPOSITS OF THE RIVER LIFFEY. 165
I say to my surprise, for> if anyone will e:2(:aminet one 4)f those
beds of gravel that the river now forms, they will find it llargely^
if not mainly, composed of limestone. The flat I speak of was
evidently an aqueous deposit. If it was deposited by the rivei*, ho\^
came it that its deposit at that time was so different from what it
is now rolling down ? My surprise was a good deal increeis^d
by the following circumstances : I lately enlarged the rhododen-
dron ground, and, wishing to make assurance doubly sure, I
excavated beds to four feet deep, and filled in with turfr mould;
but at one spot, and one only, at that depth I came upon a bed
of limestone gravel, much such as the river is now bringini^
down. Wanting the gravel, I followed it till all was exhailsled*
In the thickest it was only two feet thick, and extended ov6r an
area perhaps twelve feet square. I should suppbse it. to have
been a glacial deposit.' It had evidently never been disturbed,
lying in layers slightly differing from one another. It contained
bones', which must have been deposited with the grayel. These
I have, and will be glad to submit them to anyone conlpeteot
and willing to examine them. I wrote a history of the case, and
submitted it to the best authority I could think of. He wrote
hurriedly, as he was just on the point of starting on a scientific
expedition to the South Pacific. He suggested that in som6
prehistoric time the drainage of the Wicklow Hills may have
come by a much more direct course, thus avoiding much of the
limestone district through which it at present runs. This was
not satisfactory, because there is no course by which it could
have avoided some miles of limestone, sufficient to add a cod*
siderable amount of this to its gravel, I then prepared a Paper,
setting foi*th' the facts for this Society, in hopes that some
member might be able to. offer an explanation; but, before
-reading it, I thought it only respectful to you to make quite sure
of my facts ; so I travelled over the same ground again with the
muriatic acid. Now it happened that in one spot, where a back
eddy had collected some fine sand (not gravel), the gardener had
raised this to the high bank for potting purposes. This I tested,
expecting to find it foil of lime ; but, to my surprise, there was
no reaction. I then went to an island which has grown up
entirely by deposits from floods within my memory, and found it
free from lime. The whole mystery was solved; I had no longer
any doubt as to what had taken place.
If anyone will look at a geological map of the district through
which the Liffey flows, they will find that it passes through three
distinct geological formations. The Wicklow Hills, in which it
rises, are altogether granite. The soil, where it is not turf, is
nothing but powdered granite. There is an idea that granite is
l66 ON THE DIFFERENT DEPOSITS OF
a very hard and durable stone. The granite that comes from
deep down in the quarry is a hard stone, though not really so
much so as limestone. This will be seen in ancient buildings',
both here and abroad. The sharp edges of the granite (I speak
of the ordinary grey granite) are weathered and rounded off,
while the limestone shows the mark of the chisel to this day.
The sculptures on the temples of Egypt, which are limestone,
are as sharp and clear to-day — where they have not been purposely
'defaced — as when they were cut, three thousand years ago ; but
the surface* gi*anite is extremely friable, and utterly useless for
building purposes. Hence, it results that when the rain or
melting snow is of sufficient volume to run off the surface, it
carries with it much of the powdered granite which constitutes
the soil. This, being in the form of a fine powder, remains
suspended in the water while the latter is agitated ; but, being
mostly quartz, rapidly subsides anywhere that the water is com-
paratively stilly especially if there be any soii; of vegetation to
catch it.
If anyone will take a tumblerful of the turbid water of the
Liffey in flood, and allow it to settle, which it will very quickly
do, examining the sediment under the microscope, he will find
it to consist of quartz, mica, and, less apparently, felspar, the
three constituents of granite.
When the Liffey leaves the granite country between Blessing-
ton and Three Castles, it enters a lower silurian district, and
leaves this again just below Castlemartin, where it enters the
limestone, through which it flows for the remainder of its
Course. The limestone and silurian are both hard stones.
They get rubbed and rounded as they roll along, but do
not get powdered up like the other. The slight amount which
the limestone loses by abrasion is not sufficient to enable either
the muriatic acid or the rhododendrons to detect it in the deposit.'
The consequence is, that the pebbles of all three formations are
rolled along the bottom of the river, forming the gravel-banks so
frequent in its course ; but the two are not held in suspension
like the finely powdered granite. When the river overflows its
banks, it deposits this powdered granite, sometimes to the extent
of several inches deep in a single flood, on the overflowed meadows,
where the water is comparatively still.
' Indeed, if there be a sufficiency of carbonic acid gas in the water,
as there usually is in such water, a large part, if not the whole, of the
lime would pass from a state of mechanical mixture to one of chemical
combination with the water, and so would necessarily pass away with the
subsiding water, leaving no trace behind.
THE RIVER LIFFEY 167
We now know why the deposits on the banks of the river
differ in composition from those in its bed.
It is not in Millicent alone that this is the case. Mr.
Mansfield found many years ago that rhododendrons would grow
freely along the river banks at Morristown Lattin, and in many
places bricks are or have been burned — a process to which the
presence of lime would be fatal. A specimen which I took from
about ten feet deep showed considerable cohesion, and had
apparently made some progress towards re-conversion into
sandstone.
M
( 169 )
D0t7ADEA AND THE AYLMER FAMILY.^
DONADEA CASTLE is sitaated in the parish of the eame
name, which lies in the Barony of Ikeathy and Ougbtar-
aoj, in North Kitdare, on the western aide of the Bog of Allen.
Donadea is vationsly spelled — Donadea, Donada, Donagheaha,
DoD^hdea. The Irish word "Domnadi," which signifies "a
church," and also "Sunday," is from the Latin Dominica, " the
Lord's Day." It is said that all the chnrches that bear the
name of " Domnach," or, in the Anglicised form, " Donagh,"
were originally founded by St. Patrick, and were so oalled
becanse he marked out their foundations on a Sunday. Shear-
man, in hie "Loca Fatriciana," gives the name of the place
as " Donagh Caoide," "the Church of Cadoc, or Catanns," who
was called " St Patrick's Chaplain."' Donadea lies in the route
that St. Patrick would take from Meath by Eilcock to CUne ;
80 that there is no improbability in the supposition that he may
have founded the church.
' For the gonoral history uf the Aylmei family see Vol. I of the
Society's Jot']iNA.L, Tho preaeDt Paper contains some notes on Donadea,
with tho history of the AylmerB connected with that place, mainly taken
from an account drawn up by Hana Uendrick Aylmer, Esq., of Eerdifiu-
town, and kindly placed at my disposal. This has been supplemented by
information given me by Miss Aylmcr, of Donadea Caatle. —
W. Sheblock, Ed.
* St. Cadoc is said to have been bimed in Killeen Corroac; but his
relics were removed, and preserved for some time in Inoiafoil, County
Wenford-
I70 DONADEA AND THE AYLMER FAMILY.
Of the early history of Donadea there is do record. Even
when we come down to the English invasion, little is known of
it, except that it seems to have been part of the possessions of
the Berminghams. Of this family Peter de Bermingham is
the first recorded member. He was steward to Gervase Pagenal,
Baron of Sndley, of whom he held nine knights' fees in the reign
of Henry L His son owned the town of Bermingham, from
which the family was called, and which they held as late as the
reign of Henry YIII. Robert de Bermingham attended Strong-
bow in his invasion of Ireland, and received from him Ofialey,
part of " O'Connor's country." ^ Sir John de Bermingham, of
*' Donaghdea," Ent., was possessed of the place in 1356, and
twenty years later Meiler, his son, was styled of Donaghdea ; but
in 1892 the Berminghams forfeited it.
A patent of 1892 discloses the connection of the Crown with
this locality, and of John Bermingham's title herein, as the same
had been held in capite of James le Botiller, then late Earl of
Ormonde, on knight's service, and was forfeited for treason by
him 6ommitted ; " whereupon the King granted the whole
manor to James, the present Earl of Ormonde, for life, with
liberty to aliene the same, saving and excepting the church
there, which was specially reserved to the Crown." *
'^ Foster's Baronetage " (1881) says that Donadea came to
the Aylmers by the marriage of John Aylmer with Helen Tyrrell,
it being originally the property of the de Herefords, with whom
the Tyrrells were connected.' This marriage occuiTed about
the year 1470. Richard Aylmer, of Lyons, owned it before 1553.
Donadea was bestowed by Richard Aylmer, of Lyons, on his
third son, Gerald.'* He was a lawyer, and took a prominent part
in the aiOfairs of his time. His first wife was Mary, daughter
and co-heiress of Sir Henry Travers, of Monkstown Castle,
County Dublin, Master of the Ordnance, by his wife Genet
Preston. This marriage was one unlikely to bring hini favour
with the Government ; for this lady was widow of that James
* For the history of the Bermingham family in Ireland see Vol. II of
the Society's Journal. Their arms were, per pale, indented, or and gules.
At Dunfierth, near Donadea, is the effigy of Sir W. Bermingham, on the
slab of an altar-tomb. Ob. 1548.
« Burke's ** Visit, of Seats and Arms," second series.
* This appears doubtful, in view of the fact that the Berminghams
held in capite from the Butler family. No doubt, a considerable part
of the Aylmer property belonged at one time to the Herefords ; but I
have nowhere found that they held lands at Donadea : and it is probable
that it came to the Aylmers in some way from the Butlers.
* The Donadea Aylmers are the third branch of the family in point of
seniority.
DONADEA AND THE AYLMER FAMILY. 171
Eustace, 8rd Visconnt BaltinglaBS, who was attainted for
heading a formidable rebellion against Queen Elizabeth; and
Gerald Aylmer spent his life in seeking to obtain for his fellow-
subjects the abolition of arbitrary taxation, and freedom of
conscience.
Lord Baltinglass was attainted in 1585, and in 1589 his
widow petitioned the Privy Council for some, grant or annuity to
relieve her necessities, caused by loss of position and dower by
the attainder ; and Gerald Aylmer is recorded as offering to give
a bond for the truth of the statements in her petition. Perhaps
his intervention was attended with success ; but, whether from
love or from gratitude, certain it is that the lady subsequently
married him. Gerald Aylmer's first appearance in London was
in 1582, when he went over as the bearer of a letter from
Sir H. Wallop (Lord Treasurer of Ireland) to Walsingham, the
Queen's Secretary of State. The letter commended him for his
deportment in the ''Pale Rebellion'' — whence it appears that
he had not taken any active part in that movement. The
following year (1583) he "went over again, this time without
licence of the Lord Deputy. The reason of his journey to
England appears in a Commission given March 81st, 1583, by
the noblemen and gentlemen of Meath to Patrick Bermingham
to levy 4s. on every ploughland to give to Mr. Aylmer to be
their solicitor to Her Majesty for redress from the intolerable
charge of '' Cess.^'^ From this it is evident that the chiefs of
the Pale determined to send an agent to the Court of Elizabeth
to lay before her the grievances for wiiich they could obtain
no hearing at home. For this Gerald Aylmer was their
accredited agent, and with him were afterwards associated Sir
Patrick Barnewall and Burnell, all three being lawyers.
The imperious Tudor Queen was not likely to receive with
much favour arguments that taxation without representation
was unconstitutional; and accordingly Gerald Aylmer was
committed to prison. There is a petition' of his, dated June
14, 1688, from the Marshalsea, and addressed to the Lord
Treasurer, setting forth his grievous imprisonment for ninety
days, and praying that he may be referred over to Ireland for
further punishment if it be needful that he suffer further. In
' Cess was a right which the Crown asserted as part of its prerogative
to impose on the country a certain proportion of victuals and provisions
of all kinds to be, delivered at what was commonly called ''the Queen's
price." It was objected to as (1) unconstitutional, being taxation without
the consent of Parliament; and (2) oppressive, because the ''Queen's
price " was far below the ordinary market price.
' State iPapers, Ireland, 1586-8.
172 BONADEA AND THE AYLMER FAMILY.
another petition he seeks .licence to return home^ and offers to
take many oaths of dntifulness to Her Majesty.
Notwithstanding this imprisonment^ Aylmer was not deterred
from a second political mission to England, and this time also
without leave. The occasion of this mission was aa endeavour
to obtain a removal of the grievances under which the Roman
Catholics laboured.
On June 14, 1591, the Lord Deputy and Council wrote to
the Privy Council of England, dwelling on the great contempt of
Mr. Garrett Aylmer in departing without licence, and that when
he was under a bond of d£40 to hear a sermon to be preached by
Archbishop Loftus on June 13. There is a general revolt of
the Irish to Popery. Aylmer has gone over to solicit their
cause.
It appears from a letter of Burnaby Ryche to Secretary
Burghley that Aylmer had given the Lord Chancellor's son a
horse, in order to get leave for his going to England. It is
remarked, as an aggravation of his offence, that '' two years since
Her Majesty bestowed gifts on him worth 1,000 marks, but that
he has never said Amen when he has heard Her Majesty pi*ayed
for."
Gerald Aylmer could not have been many days in London
before he was arrested. Sir George Carew, writing to Lord
Deputy Fitzwilliam, on July 20, 1591, says: "Gerald Aylmer,
my landlord, is close prisoner in the Marshalsea. I think
that the rest of that stubborn crew that are enjoined as he is
will shortly be sent for."
"Her Majesty's gift** to Gerald Aylmer is explained by
Mr. Hans H. Aylmer as consisting of a lease in reversion to
him of lands to the value of dS40 English, in consideration of a
sum of dE758 8s. BJd. due by Her Majesty to Sir Richard Aylmer,
his father, who was victualler of the forts of Leix and Offaley,
which, as he remarks, was rather " the payment of a debt than
a gift."
Nothing is known of the part taken by Aylmer in the trans-
actions of the next seven years ; but in 1598 he was knighted by
the Queen. At this time, and probably previously, be was
resident at Donadea.
Under James I, Sir Gerald Aylmer continued the long contro-
versy which had lasted for over twenty years regarding the Cess ;
and he appears, as agent for the chiefs of the Pale» at last to have
come to some arrangement with the Government. A compromise
was effected^ by which a lump sum was to be paid as Cess by
each of the counties of the Pale.
In 1608, Sir Gerald Aylmer was again committed to prison
DONADEA AND THE AVLMER FAMILY. .173
wiih " two other IriBh laner [lawyers] abont the petition they
'presented to the Council aboat tolleratioD of religioQ and other
matterB." Notwithstanding this, £ing James created . him a
Baronet, Jan. 25, 1621.
FABT or DONADBA CUTLB OS THE MoBTII BlDK.
Vrom a drtunng hj CitnDn SberloclC
Sir Gerald's first wife, the Dowager Lady Baltinglass, dying
without issae in 1610, he married, secondly, Jnlia, daughter of
Christopher Nngent, 14th Lord DeWin, by Mary, danghter of
Gerald, 11th Earl of Eildare. She also predeceased him in 1617,
leaving one son, Andrew, and two dangnters, Mabel and Julia,
the one afterwards married to Sir Oliver Tuite, Bart, of Sonnagh,
Westmeath, and the other to Sir Christopher Bamewall, Bart.,
of Crickstown Castle. Sir Gerald himself died in 1694, his son,
Andrew, being then a minor under the gaardianship of Thomasj
Earl of Ossory,
Sir Andrew married, just before his father's death. Lady
Ellen Bntler, sister of the first, or great, Duke of Ormonde.
This lady was a person of great energy and courage, and
174 .DONADEA AND THE AYLMER FAMILY.
defended the Castle of Donadea, 1641, when it' was besieged at
this time her linsbandy ' Sir Andrew, was prisoner in Dublin
Castle. Sir Andrew was one of a number of well-known gentle-
men who were suspected by the Government, and had been
arrested, confined as prisoners in Dublin for twelve or fourteen
months, tortured, and indicted for high treason. In this he
fared no worse than others of the family, notably Gerald Aylmer,
of Balrath, whose house was sacked and pillaged, and he himself
imprisoned and tortured.
Sir Andrew Aylmer probably thought he had had enough of
politics, for after his release from prison he took no active part
in public life, in spite of the following appeal made to him by
the Supreme Council of the Confederate Catholics:^ — ''His
Majestic being brought to a sadd condition by the rebells of
England, and their knowen resolution being such to extirpate
the Boman Catholique Religion and the professors of it out of
His Mejestie's dominions as their oath of covenant doth manifest,
and now that the Lord Lieutenant either doth intend to join
actually with the said malignants or to surrender the Citty of
Dublin and the other seaports and holts in his Lordship's
power to their hands, we cannot imagine that you will hould it
fitt or consistent with your safety to keepe yrselfe any longer at
the accustomed distance as hitherto from the rest of the nation,
and therefore wee, who are intrusted by the Confederate Catho-
liques for the government of their affairs, wishing well to your
preservation, and assuring ourselves you are involved in the same
danger with the Confederate Catholiques, have thought it con-
venient by these to invite you to the union of the Confederate
Catholiques, and to lett you know that wee will not be wanting
on your application to us, and uppon your taking of the Oath of
Union, to give all furtherance to your preservation. We shall
be glad this timely admonition take place with you, and if not,
wee shall have this comfort hereby that wee have expressed our
affections to the preservation of all Catholiques indifferently, and
declared how much we desired to be found your loving friends.'*
In any case, it is plain that Sir Andrew was recognised as a
friend to the Royal cause, for in the Act of Settlement, 1662, his
manor, castles, towns, villages, messuages, lands, tenements, or
hereditaments, in the County of Kildare, were confirmed to him,
with such title therein as he had in 1641. At the outbreak
of the Rebellion, Elizabeth, Sir Andrew's daughter, married
her cousin, Thomas Aylmer, of Lyons. Sir Andrew outlived
* Gilbert*8 ** History of the Confederation and War in Ireland," yol.
vi, 1646-8. , ^
1
DONADEA AND THE AYLMER FAMILY. 175
his eldest son, Gerald, who died on the 20th of D^cembel^ 1668/
having married Jane, daughter and. heiress of Philip FitzGdrald,
of AUobne (Allen) and Oalduffe, in the County Xildare.
By a Patent of February 9, 1662, "All the Estate of Jane
FitzGerald, of Alloone, and that of her ancle, Maurice Fit^sGerald,
were granted in fee simple to Sir Gerald in consideration of the
especial favour and regard the King had of the many good an;d
faithful services, as well at home as abroad, performed by him,
his relations and kindred, and pursuant to an agreement made
upon his marriage with his Father-in-law.*'
In addition to this, the next Baronet, Sir FitzGerald Aylmer,
received in 1666 (being then a minor about three }*ears of age) a
further grant of lands from the Grown ; and in 1670 '' a specific
grant of 9,000 acres of land, in Kildare, and 1,600 in Sligo/'
Sir FitzGerald studied and travelled on the Continent till
1681, when, at the age of seventeen, he married Lady Ellen
Plunkett, daughter of Luke, 8rd Earl of Fingall. He only lived
till 1685, dying of smallpox at the early age of twenty-two, and
leaving a son. Sir Justin, the 4th Baronet, then very young.
When the Revolution of 1689 broke out, his mother, Lady Ellen,
being a strong Jacobite, was attainted. She fied to France
with her son, who was also outlawed for high treason; but
the outlawry was reversed the next year. In 1702, he married
Ellen, daughter of Sir Gerald Aylmer, 2nd Baronet, of Balrath,
and died in 1711, aged thirty. During his lifetime, a consider-
able portion of the Aylmer property in the County Eildare was
sold in order to pay off debts. His son, Sir Gerald, the 5th
Baronet, was only eight years old when he succeeded his father.
He married Lucy, daughter of Admiral Sir John Norris,' of
Hempstead, Kent, and Deal Castle, and died, aged thirty-four^
1736, at his house in Jervis Street, Dublin.
His only son, Sir FitzGerald Aylmer, 6th Baronet, was born
the year of his father's death. Being brought up under the sole
care of his mother and her relations, who were all Protestants,
and sti'ong supporters of the House of Hanover, .he naturally
followed them in his religious views. He was High Sheriff of
Eildare in 1761, and sat in the Irish House of Commons for
Old Leighlin, County Carlow, from 1769 to 1775 ; he was also
M.P. for Harristown in Grattan's Pariiament, 1790-98. He died
in 1794. His wife was Elizabeth, daughter of Fenton Cole, of
Silverhill, County Fermanagh, of the noble house of Enniskillen.
* Vide vol. X, p. 87, of the Funeral Entries.
' For an account of this distinguished officer see Campbell's ''Naval
History," vol. iv.
176 DONADEA AND THE AYLMER FAMILY.
B; her he left, beBides three sons, one daaghter, Margaret, who
marned Sir John Hort, Bart.
The three sodb were: Sir Feoton Ayliner, and hie twin
brother, Lient.- General John A;lmer, and Lieat. -General Arthur
Ajlmer.^
It is a singnlar coincidence that the twin brothers, Sir
Fenton and Lient. -General John Ajrlmer, married, one a lad;
called Jane Grace, the other a lady Grace Jane ; and the ladies
Gateway, Donadka Cabtul
From a dianlng by Canon SlierliKk.
were consine. The wife of Sir Fenton was Jane Grace, daughter
of Sir John Evans Freke, Bart., and sister of the 6th Lord
Carbery. The wife of General John Aylmer was Grace Jane,
' Lieut. -GcQ. Arthur Aylmer ra. in 1807 Anne, d. and heiress of JtAn
Hnrrison, ot Walworth Castle, County Durham, and was the first of that
branch. His son, John, who uiBmed Rusumund, d. of Admiral Sir Joaiah
Cogbill, Bart., was killed in a t«rri1)Ie niilwaj accident, at Abergele, in
Wales in 18C8, t<%ether witli his oldest son, Arthur. His tiro younger
Bona— Gerald Percy Aylmer, now of Walworth Castle (High Sheriff of
County Durham, 1&B7), and Edmund Aylmer, of 19th Huasars— represent
thisfunily.
X)ONADEA AND THE AYLMER FAMILY. 1 77
daughter of William Evans, brother of Sir John Evans Fl^eke,
Bart. He died without issue.
Sir Fenton, the 7th Baronet, was High Sheriff of Eildare in
1795. The part he took against the rebels in 1798 is noticed in
Mnsgrave's History of the Bebellion« It is said the rebels who
burnt Courtown woald have done the same to Donadea if they
had not known that their friends had lodged many valuable
articles in it for safe custody. Sir Fenton, with a body of
fourteen dragoons, had, a month later, a narrow escape of being
cut off by an ambush of the rebels near Clane under William
Aylmer, of Painstown, the ^'Bebel General.'' In 1804 he
purchased from Squire ConoUy, of Castletown, the pack of
foxhounds which the latter had been the first to introduce into
Eildare. He hunted them till 1814. It was during his
mastership that the catastrophe so well known to foxhunters
occurred whereby the pack was destroyed in pursuing a fox down
the Poulaphouca Waterfall.
Sir Fenton died in 1816. He was succeeded by his second
son, Gerald George, the 8bh Baronet, born in 1798, a lieutenant
in the 1st Eing^s Dragoon Guards. Ho married, in 1826,
.Maria, daughter and co-heiress of Col. Hodson of the E.I.G.'s
service, and granddaughter of Sir Richard Hodson, of Carlisle.
Owing to the extravagance of his predecessors. Sir Gerald
succeeded to a much-encumbered property. He made it his
first duty to free the estate of heavy mortgages, and gave up his
commission in the army, that he might live on his property, and
devote himself entirely to his duty as a landlord. It may be
mentioned that he, in conjunction with the 3rd Duke of
Leinster, was mainly responsible for the drainage-works which
have done much to reclaim the tracts of land in the Rathangan
district of the County Eildare. His interests were entirely
centred in his property ; and he built the first stone cottages for
labourers in his immediate district, and made part of the road
from Prosperous to Donadea at his own expense, and also the
first footpath in the neighbourhood. He had a great taste for
building, and modernized, not too wisely, much of the house at
Donadea. He was also considered a good sportsman. For his
last ten years he lived the life of a recluse, and died in 1878,
in his eightieth year.
He was succeeded by his only son, Gerald George, the 9th
Baronet, bom in 1820, who had been educated principally at
home and at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst In
deference to his father's wishes, however, he did not take his
commission in the regular army, but came back to reside at
Donadea, and married, in 1853, Alice Hester Caroline, daughter
178 DONADEA AND THE AYLNfER FAMILY.
of Conway Dobbs, Esq., of Castle Dobbs, County AntrioL By
her he had issue, Caroline Maria, born in 1856, and Justin
Gerald, bom in 1863.
Sir Gerald only held the Baronetcy five years, during which
time his ill-health prevented his taking an active part in county
or other affairs. He died in June, 1888, and was succeeded by
his only son, Justin Gerald, the 10th Bart, who was educated
at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. Sir Justin died
suddenly, through an accident, while in residence at Cambridge,
only five months after attaining his majority.
Of him it may be truly said, all lay in a promise which was
not permitted to be fulfilled. He was working for the Mathe-
matical Tripos, and had done such good preliminary work that
it was expected by those at Cambridge who supervised it that he
would take a high place among the Wranglers. He was devoted
to his property, and was keenly anxious to fulfil his duties
regarding it.
He was succeeded in the Baronetcy by his great-uncle, who
thus became Sir Arthur Percy Aylmer, 11th Bart. ; but, being in
a dying condition when he succeeded, only held the title about
six weeks. Certain property settled by Sir Gerald Aylmer,
9th Bart, went with the title ; but the entailed estates, including
Donadea, passed to Maria, Sir Justin's only sister, who now
holds them.
Sir Arthur Percy Aylmer was succeeded by his grandson,
Arthur FitzGerald, who thus became the 12th Bart., and is still
alive. He is an invalid, and childless; and the heir presumptive
to the Baronetcy and the property held with it is his only
brother, Colonel Fenton John Aylmer, RE., V.C, born in 1862,
and lately D.A.A.G. at Bangalore. Colonel Aylmer's record is
that of a vei7 brave soldier ; and he is also credited with great
ability in the technical part of his profession.
I Ml l«
NTADEA.
m AylmeBi of Donadea Castle)
1. Sir Goral
2. Sir And4
2nd Bal
3. Sir Get
3rdB^
4. Sir FitK
ob
'4
7. SirFitzi
Ttl^BaTOi
Po8thum(
Sheriif of
ob.
(179 )
@ounfs ^xlbaxe gfolfe-lorc
ABOUT ANIMALS, REPTILES, AND BIRDS.
By OMURETHI.
I J NDER this heading it k to be hoped that some of
^ our members will contribute notes on this* and kindred
subjects. The old-world beliefs and sayings are being fast
forgotten, as, unfortunately, the younger generation have been
educated above such harmless and homely ideas ; so that before
it is too late, efforts should be made to collect from the old
people such stray fragments of folk-lore a^ still exist in this
county.
Legends and '^ enchanted tales/' that to the ignorant only
appear to be childish and worthless, to the learned in such
matters are greatly valued for comparison with the folk-tales of
other nations.
The attempt to collect folk-lore is well within the reach of
such of our members as have neither the time nor oppoiiunities
for consulting the scattered sources of information required for
putting together a Paper on the history of a place or family ;
their notes, too, in this line would be a welcome addition to our
Journal.
The scraps of folk-lore which follow form a part of a collec-
tion made by me at various times and places, the result of con-
versations held with old men in this county. Should any
member follow my example, it is very important that he should
only record what he picks up from hearsay, and not quote any
folk-lore that he has met with in books, or other printed sources.
Animals.
Horses. — ^A horse or mare foaled at Whitsuntide is sure to
turn out vicious ; if kept, it will cause the death of its owner.
If the exact spot in a field or paddock where a mare drops
her first foal be closely searched, a four-leafed shamrock will be
found ; and this, as is well known, is a sure charm to the wearer
against any witchcraft or " pisherogues.''
A horse or mare entirely of one colour is not lucky ; but if it
bears a splash of white on the face, or has a white stocking, it is
all right,
l8o COUNTY KILDARE FOLK-LORE.
A horse or an ass's shoe, foand accidentally, should be
brought home and nailed, heel upwards, above the doorway to a
dwelling on the outside ; this will prevent the ill-effects of witch-
craft or the evil eye. If the shoe is not brought home, it should
be spat on and thrown over the left shoulder for luck.*
• • •
The Ass, — Previous to our Lord's ride on one into Jerusalem
the ass had no stripe on its shoulders ; but, in commemoration
of that event, it has since been marked with a cross.
The GoaU — One of these animals being always allowed to
graze with cows or bullocks, will prevent the herd from taking
diseases.^
A black Sheep. — It is lucky to keep a black sheep with a
flock of white ones.
The Hare. — It is a bad. omen if a hare crosses your path
when proceeding on a journey or starting for a fair ; the only
thing to be done is to postpone your business, and remain at
home.
If a woman, who is enceinte sees a hare close to her, unless
she at once stoops down, and tears a rent in her skirt, her
child will be born with a '' hare-lip.'^ The sight of a dead hare
will have the same effect, unless its scut has been previously
intentionally cut off to prevent sach a deformity.
Witch- women are said to have the power of assuming the
form of hares for the purpose of sucking the milk from cows.
A story is told of how once on a time a man with a couple of
greyhounds at his heels while passing through some cows that
were lying down, put up a hare in the midst of them. After
giving it a fair start, he slipped the greyhounds at it ; after a
long course, one of the greyhounds, as the hare turned, gave it a
^ In connection with the number of white feet a horse or mare may
have, I have been told the following rhyme ; but I cannot aay for certain
if it is an Irish superstition or not : —
** With four white feet sell it if you can ;
With three white feet lend it to your nlan ;
With two white feet give it to your wife ;
With one white foot ride it all its life."
* A farmer's daughter (Co. Kildare), being asked if they used the milk
of the goat they kept, replied *'no," that they kept the goat " for luck."
They gave the kids away for the same reason. It would be unlucky to
sell them. Query : Does the goat eat plants which would be injurious to
other cattle ?
COUNTY KILDARE FOLK-LORE. l8l
wound in the shonldei^ ; however, by twisting and donbling^, the
hare ba£9ed the greyhounds, and, through a gap in the hedge,
was seen to jump through the window of a thatched .cabin
occupied by a lone woman long suspected of being a witch. The
man followed, and entering the cabin saw the old woman pant-
ing for breath as she crouched over the fire, and holding a
bloody rag to her shoulder ; but there was no sign of thQ hare.
The man immediately left the house, and told the neighbours
what he had seen; they went and reported what had occurred
to the parish priest, who was the means of making the witch-
woman quit the district.
The Hedgehog, or Gran-yeoge, — This harmless little animal
should never be hurt or molested, as on one occasion, over-
hearing the Blessed Virgin Mary express a wish for some apples,
it at once went hotfoot off to a neighbour's orchard, rolled itself
among some fallen apples, and bore them away sticking to its
quills to the Virgin's house, where, having entered it shook
them off at . her feet. During the night, however, a Deel, or
devil's coach-horse, took a bite out of each one that was uncon-
sumed, and tainted them so that they were unfit to be eaten, for
which mean act it is killed whenever met with, both by the
Grauyeoge and by human beings.
The Weasel. — It is said to be unlucky to molest or kill a
weasel, as its relatives will assemble, and either decimate his
hen-roost, or will cut and suck the throat of' the person that
has injured them. The following incident will also show their
revengeful nature. A man who was ploughing along a head-
land saw an old weasel bolt from a hole in the ditch : he stopped
the horses, and with a bit of iron tore open and followed up the
hole, till he came to a nest of young weasels, which he destroyed.
At midday his dinner, consisting of slices of buttered bread and
a can of buttermilk, was brought by one of his children, and
placed on the ditch ; whilst it was waiting there for him, another
labouring hand saw a full-grown weasel go up to the little can,
dislodge the lid, and spit into it. When the ploughman even-
tually came up, he was about to take a drink of the buttermilk,
when the other man advised him to leave it down, and related
what he had seen happen. The ploughman took his advice,
and put down the can, thinking to throw the milk to the pig oti
his return home. In the evening, when his day's work was
over, he took up the can to proceed home, and then noticed tha^
the buttermilk had turned as blue as a thrushes egg. Con-
cluding that this was the bandywork of the weasel, he thanked
i8^ COUNTY KILDARE FOLK-LORE.
the Almighty for his escape from a death hy pbisohing, threw
ean and all into the gripe, and never meddled with a weasel
again.
Reptiles and Insects.
The Lizard, or Dartlookar. — It is the common belief that it
is possible for a Dartlookar to slip down the .throat of a person
who falls asleep in the open, and, unless it is evicted, it will in
time be the cause of death. I have been told more than once of
a case in point, and in each instance the cure was the same :—
During harvesting operations pne of the labourers after his mid-
day meal fell asleep against a stook of oats ; presently he awoke
with a start, feeling far from comfortable, but continued at work
till evening ; that night and the following day he was no better,
and thought he had caught a chill, but as days went on he grew
worse, and the internal pains increased ; at last he consulted the
dispensaiy doctor, who prescribed for him, but brought ' no
relief; his appetite increased, but his food did him no good,
and he got thinner and thinner, his strength failed, the pains
were unabated, and he was wasting away. As a last resource
he went to a local bone-setter, and explained his symptoms ; the
bone-setter ordered him to eat nothing but salted fish, and not
to touch a drop of fluid of any description^ in order to create a
great thirst ; and when that had taken place, he was to return to
him. In a couple of days the poor man came back more dead
than alive, and in great agony. The bone-setter then filled a
gallon full of water, and instructed the sufferer to kneel beside
it, and keep his head open-mouthed over it, but on no account to
move a muscle, no matter what spasms might seize him, until
[permission was granted. This he did, and before long a Dart-
ookar, after almost showing itself two or three times, at last
issued from the man's throat, and planged into the gallon ; it
swam for a bit, and then uttered a few chirrups, on which a
couple of young ones speedily followed it ; the bone-setter then
told the man to rise, and with careful treatment he soon was
restored to health.
Frog-spawn.-^Dnnng the winter months one will occasionally^
when out partridge- or snipe-shooting, come across a heap of
white, jelly-like substance lying in a field, or in boggy bottoms ;
this, the country people invariably tell one, is the remains 6fst
fallen star. It is in reality the half-formed spawn of a frog
which had been trampled on by cattle.
COUNTY KILDARE FOLK-LORE. 1 83
The Clock and the Deel. — These two insects, the Clock or
black beetle, and the Deel (Daw-deel and Damga-deel) or
devirs coach-horse, are always killed when met with, for the
following reason : — When our Lord was being parsned by the
Jews and Roman soldiery, He passed along a road by the side of
which a farmer was sowing some black oats in a field. On the
following morning, when the farmer went out early to scare the
crows and woodquests from his freshly sown oats, he was
amazed to find that the crop had sprung up, and was in full ear.
Whilst standing stupified at this miracle, a band of armed men
hurried down the road, and inquired of him if he had seen such-
and-such a man (describing our Lord) pass that way. The
farmer replied that the man they wanted had passed along at
the time he was sowing the oats; the soldiery on hearing that
were about to turn back, and give up the pursuit, when a Clock
and a Deel crawled out from under a stone beside the farmer,
and called out " neeay " (which is the Irish for " yesterday ") ;
but before they could say any more the farmer had rubbed his
foot through the two of them ; however, the soldiery had heard
enough to determine them to continue the pursuit in this direc-
tion ; and hurrying on they overtook our Lord, and brought Him
back with them a prisoner. This occun*ed on Spy Wednesday.
It is said to be all the more creditable to kill a Deel before
it has time to cock its tail over its back, as it immediately does
when alarmed, for defensive purposes.^
BiBDS.
Barn-door Fowl. — A crowing hen is very unlucky; it should
be at once caught, decapitated, and the head and the body buried.
On St. Martin's Day (11th November) a cock used to be
killed in an out-house, and while bleeding the body was brought
into the dwelling-house, and the blood allowed to fall in the four
corners of the building, so as to ensure a prosperous year. It
was then cooked and partaken of by the whole household.
On old box- or altar-tombs a cock standing up in a three-
legged pot is often represented, the idea being that when our
Lord was under examination before Pilate, St. Peter was warm-
ing himself over a fire at the other end of the hall ; and, on his
third denial of our Lord, a cock that was being boiled in a
skillet, stood up in the pot and crowed, thereby fulfilling our
Lord's prophecy.*
* See alao the tradition in connection with the Hedgehog.
^ An instance of this occurs on the Eustace tomb in the New Abbey
Churchyard, near Kilcullen.
N
1 84 COUNTY KILDARE FOLK-LORE.
The Magpie. — To see one magpie is unlncky; bat two or
more there is no harm in meeting. Ob seeing the first magpie,
yon shonld cross and bless yourself/ and touch your hat (or
curtsey) to it, before it is out of sight. It is said to be unlucky to
destroy their nests, as in revenge the relatives will assemble, suck
the chickens' eggs, or carry off their chicks.
The Swallow. — On no account should the swallow or its
nest be molested ; if the one was intentionally killed or the other
robbed, the owner's cows would either run dry or milk blood.
The Water-wagtail. — The " willy- wagtail '' is said to have
three drops of the devil's blood in its tail ; for each one you kill
with stick or stone you break three of the devil's ribs.
The Robin. — It is the height of ill-luck to kill a robin, and
anyone who wilfully does so will sup sorrow. It is said that
previous to the time of the Crucifixion the robin was a plain little
brown bird, with no red plumage on the breast ; but that when our
Lord's side was pierced with the spear, a pair of robins tried to
plaster up the wound with leaves, and their breasts became
stained with His blood, in commemoration of which they bear
the honourable traces to this day.
The Cro9s-bilL — Of this little bird, too, it is said that on the
same occasion with its then straight beak it struggled to draw away
the thorns from our Lord's brow, and in striving to do so its
beak became dislocated, and would not close as it used. This,
too, was in consequence destined to become an honourable
distinction for ever.
The Gratioch (or Creeper?). — One of the oldest breeds of
birds in the world is the little ** Gratioch," whose long wing-
feathers cross themselves over the back. One day when our
Lord, then a boy, was accompanying His parents, St. Joseph
remarked as they walked along how strange it was that wherever
they went a flock of little Gratiochs always preceded them.
" That 's because," replied our Lord, " they are birds of my
feather." ^^ How is that," asked His mother, '^ when you have
no feathers?" '^ Wait, and in time you shall see," replied our
Lord. Years then passed ; the Crucifixion had taken place ;
our Lord had risen ; and on next meeting His mother He
reminded her of the little Gratiochs of His childhood, and
explained how their crossed wing-feathers formed a symbol of
His martyrdom.
j ,
•f.
1
COUNTY KILDARE FOLK-LORE. 1 85 J!
The Phillapeen (Pee-wit^ or Oreen Plover), — Phillapeens
are the wariest birds in the world ; they were strangers to this
oonntry till Brian Boru introduced them from abroad ; he then
tamed and trained them to give the alarm if an enemy
approached his camp.
The Woodquest or Wood-pigeon. — There is no more con- \
ceited or ignorant bird than the woodquest. It is well known on i
what few twigs it will lay its two eggs. The magpie, on one 1
occasion, is said to have taken pity on it, and commenced to show
it how to build a proper nest ; but as each stick was placed, the
woodquest would say, ** Shure, I know how to do that myself/'
so that at last the magpie called it an ungrateful omadhaun, and
flew off in a rage. From that day to this the woodquest has
never learnt to make more than the foundation for a nest.
The Wren. — In the verse repeated by the wren-boys on
St. Stephen's Day, this wee bird is called ''the king of all birds,"
for the following reason : — ^Long ago, at a meeting of all the
birds for the election of a king, it was decided that whichever
bird flew the highest should be chosen king. The eagle, of
course, soon outdistanced them all, and when he could soar no
higher, he proclaimed himself the winner ; but a wren, which had
hid itself in the eagle's crest, now flew out, and went a few feet
higher stiU; on claiming the kingship, its appeal was granted by
the other birds.
( i86 )
THE LATTIN AND MANSFIELD FAMILIES, IN
THE CO. KILDARE.
The Lattin Abms.
1. The Lattin Family.^
THE family of Latton — ^variously spelled Latin, Latyn,
Latoun, and .Lattin — is said to have sprung from the House
of Estouteville, of Upper Normandy. After the Conquest the
Stutvilles were Barons of Lydedale, in Cumberland. One of
them — Walter — is said to have taken the name of Latton,
retaining the Stutville arms. The principal families of the
Lattons were settled in Berkshire at least as early as 1325 ; but
Wilts seems to have been their original home in that district,
and from the North Wiltshire Lattons of Latton it is probable
that the Irish branch came : at least such is the statement of
Ashmole,^ according to whom they settled in Ireland in the
reign of King John, and obtained from him grants of land at
Morristown Lattin, in Eildare.
William Latoun's name appears in the Irish Records in
1886. John Lattin, h. 1469, m. Alson Eustace, of the Castle-
martin family. John Latton was a merchant in Naas at the
close of the sixteenth century. He married Alson Ash,
daughter of another Naas family. Among the petitioners of the
gentry of the Pale to the Lord Deputy in 1605 was N. N.
Latyn ; and Stephen Latyn was a member of the Naas Corpora-
tion at the same period. In 1590 William Lattin, of Morris-
town, son of the above John, and his wife, Anne Luttrell, of
^ From ** Notices of the Family of Lattin," by John M. Thunder,
*' Journal of the Royal Historical and Archaeological Association of
Ireland," Nos. 71, 72 (1887).
* '* Antiquities of Berkshire."
THE LATTIN AND MANSFIELD FAMILIES. 1 87
Lnttrellsiown, foanded at I^aas an alms-house for poor women.
Several members of the Lattin family bequeathed small sums in
perpetuity for the support of its inmates; and there is at present
a charge on the Lattin property of £20 per annum for that
purpose. According to the author of the Paper on the Lattin
family^ from which these notes are taken, *^ this alms-house was
twice pulled down [sic] — ^first in 1787, to widen the street, and
again in 1798, during the Rebellion, to enable the artillery to
put their gun in position/' The original inscribed stones were,
however, preserved and placed in the new alms-house. In
vol. ii of our Journal, at p. 270, is given the inscription.
William Lattin was M.P. for Naas in 1613, and Nicholas Lattin
in 1689. At St. David's Church, Naas, there is a Lattin tomb-
stone, with the following inscription : — *' Gulielmus Lattin de
Morristown, Anna Luttrell de Luttrellstown, quorum miserere
Deus — me fiere fecerunt — 8. P. Q. 8. Domum eternam. The
former stone, erected by W. Lattin and Anne Luttrell, of
Morristown, in the year 1660, being broken, this was fixt by
Patrick Lattin, and Jane Alcoek of the same place. Anno 1719.
Here lyeth the body of John Lattin,^ eldest son of the above
Patrick Lattin, who departed this life the 19th day of June,
1732, in the 64th year of his age. Also the body of his son
George Lattin, L. Lattin, £sq., who died 8th July, 1773, aged
59. Also the body of his wife, Catherine O'Ferrall, of Ballyna,
who died November 1.2th, 1800, aged 66 years.''
John Lattin in 1641 was seized of Morrishtown, Moynagh,
400 acres ; Lowstown, 30 acres and 4 tenements ; Westowne,
80 acres; the Castle of Molestown and 30 a(5res ; Rathash, 22
acres; the grazing of 12 cows and bull upon the Common of
Newtown, in the Barony of Naas, with a castle and 4 tenements
in Craddockstown, and 1 castle and 8 tenements ; also house
and backside in the town of Naas.
Patrick, the last .male of the Morristown Lattins, was born
in 1762. He was educated at the College Henry IV^ Paris, and
at the University of Turin ; was a captain in the Irish Brigade,
and A.D.C. to General Count Dillon. He married, 1792,
Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Robert Snow, of Drnm-
downey. County Kilkenny, and had issue — Paulina, who
married, 1817, Alexander Mansfield, of Yeomanstown, County
Kildare. He was a man of high intellectual attainments and
* Known as Jack Lattin, of whom the old rhyme said —
" Jack Lattin, dressed in satin.
Broke his heart of dancing :
He danced from Morristown
To Castle-Brown " [Clongowes Wood].
1 88 THE LATTIN AND MANSFIELD FAMILIES.
brilli&Dt wit. Lady Moi^n, who knew him nell, declared that
in his presence " Sheil was silent, and Carran dnll." Thomas
Moore, the poet, and Lord Cloncnrry bear equally strong
testimony to his wonderfol social talents. He died in Paris in
1886.
The Mansfield A&ms.
2. The Mansfield Fahilt.'
The Mansfield family — a branch of which is now settled in
the County Kildare at Morristown-Lattin — belong to the County
Waterford. The first of the family who came into Ireland from
Nottinghamshire, in the reign of Henry n of England, was
Sir Bodtilphns Mansfield, Knt. and Banneret. He had an estate
granted to him in the Gonnties of Armagh and Derry, and
also in Waterford, Cork, and Limerick. He himself lived at
Killongford and Ballinamoltina, in County Waterford, where
his descendant, Richard Mansfield (bom 1642-3), was living
in 1707. The Irish form of the name is Monvile.' . There
is reason to suppose that Manderill is another form of the
name, for we find in the Pipe Roll of King Edward HI, abont
1878-9, a process issned against a Sir Walter Manderill, of
' From notes kindly supplied by Colonel Eustace Muiefield, of
Landacape, County Waterford.
' The name of Mtuulield in Co . WaUirford is still oallod Monvih, or
Moonreel, and MoonveeUgh (plumi), by the Irish -speoking InhabitAnte of
the county; pronounced Moonveal,
1
THE LATTIN AND MANSFIELD FAMILIES; 1 89
Ballymaltyn, and other lands; and the name Mandevill was
fairly common in those parts of Waterford in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, but seems to have disappeared in the
following century, when the Mansfield name again becomes
frequent in the records.
The senior or Eillongford house of Mansfield became extinct
for want of male issue. Margaret,* the heiress of that house, was
married to —
1. Walter Mansfield, of Ballinamultina, in 1599.
2. His son Edmund^ b. 1600, m., 1621, Elenor Nugent, and
was succeeded by —
8. His son Walter,^ 6. 1622, m. d. of Nicholas Power. He
was transplanted to Connaught in 1658-4. He was one of the
** '49 " Officers, and his son Bichard received £250 on that
account. His Waterford property was confiscated when he was
transplanted, but part was recovered after the Bestoration.
4. His son Bichard m., 1681, Dorothea Hore. He held a
commission as Captain in Colonel BagnoU's Begiment of
Infantry in the army of King James IE, and was present at the
Battles of Boyne and Aughrim.
5. His son John m, Jane Eustace, d. of James Eustace^ of
Yeomanstown, County Kildare ; b. 1688 ; m. 1722 ; vivens 1752.
6. His son, Alexander Mansfield, m. Anne Power.
7. His eldest son John^ m. Elizabeth Woulfe, and obtained
half of the Eustace property in County Eildare.^
^ Margaret's only sister, Katherine, m. Nicholas D'Alton, brother of
Sir Roger D'Alton, of Knockmoan.
' In the register of persons transplanted he is described : — *' The said
Walter Mansfield, freeholder, aged 24 years [an error], being of low
stature, browne haire, hath six cows, ffortie sheepe, eighteene garrons
and mares, twelve acres of wheate and beare."
' The cUkughters of James Eustace* being co-heiresses of the Yeomans-
town property, on the death of their brother Alexander in 1783, the
representatives of Jane Eustace and her sister, Catherine Byrne, were
Jonn Mansfield and George Bryan, who divided that property between
them about 1800. The house, offices, and demesne of Yeomanstown feU
to B^an, but John Mansfield rented them from him.
* Walter Henry Mansfield, second son of John Mansfield and
Elizabeth Woulfe ; b, 1788 ; served in 18th Hussars tiU marriage, in
1813 ; inherited the Woulfe property ; m. Frances MacDermott. He
had issue — 1. John Alexander, a.s.p,, 1860; 2. Walter, d.5.|?., 1873;
3. Owen ; 4. Octavian, d,8.p,, 1890 ; 5. Edward ; 6. Eustace ; 6. 1829 ;
of Landsoipe, Kilsheelan, Co. Waterford ; Colonel of the Kildare Militia,
from whose notes this Paper has been compiled ; and several daughters.
* James Eustace was Captain in Sir Maurice Eustace's Begiment, King
James H. There is a portrait of him at Morristown-Lattin. In the Rebellion of
1798 some rebels broke into the house at Yeomanstown, and, seeing the red
coat in the picture, took it to represent an English soldier, and drove a pike
through it.
I90 THE LATTIN AND MANSFIELD FAMILIES.
8. His eldest son Alexander m. Pauline, only d. and heiress
of Patrick Lattin, of Morristown-Lattin ;^ b. 1786 ; m. 1817 ;
died 1842.
9. He was succeeded by his eldest son, George Patrick Lattin
Mansfield, j.p., d.l., High Sheriff, 1851, who m. Mary Frances
Gonstantia, d. of George Bourke O'Eelly ; b. 19th December,
1820; m. 30th November, 1843; succeeded by his son ; d. January
12, 1889.
10. George Mansfield, j.p., d.l,, High Sheriff, 1874 ; b.
February 19, 1845; m., 2nd August, 1877, Alice d'Audebard
de Ferussac, eldest d. of the Count d'Audebard de F6russac, of
Paris, and has issue—
(1) Eustace Lattin Mansfield ; b. 1879.
(2) Henry Marie Lattin ; b, 1881.
(3) Alexander Lattin ; b. 1882.
(4) Bertrand Lattin, b. 1885 ; d. 1887.
(5) Tirso Louis Mark Lattin ; b, 1888.
(1) Mary Alice.
(2) Marguerite Cecilia.
The Mansfields thus settled in Eildare in possession of the
Eustace property about 1783 ; and in possession of the Lattin
property, 1817 : in each cietse by marriage.
* Issue of the marriage of Alexander Mansfield and Pauline Lattin, d.
and heiress of Patrick lattin, of Morristown Lattin. Date of marriage,
1817. A son, John ; 1. George Patrick Lattin Mansfield ; 2. Alexander
John, of the English Bar, m., 14th July, 1863, Maria, eldest d. of Sir
John Howley, q.c, H.M. First Sergeant in Ireland; 3. William Henry,
Captain 44th Regt. , d. of wounds received before Sebastopol, 1855 ;
4. Richard Walter, late Major Kildare Rifles, d. 1893 ; 5. Edmund
Alexander, late Major Co. Dublin Militia ; 1. Eliza Pauline, m., 1837,
George, youngest son of Patrick Thunder, of Lagore> Co. Meath.
Mr. George Thunder d, in 1877 ; Mrs. Thunder d, in 1878— leaving issue.
( 191 )
^i^ceiianea.
The Core-ally. — The name, as given in The Co. Kildare
JouBNALyi was never ased without the definite article. It was
invariably called **tbe Coreally.'* It was about an Irish acre in
extent, not a perfect square, as the northern and southern sides
were somewhat longer than the eastern and western. An embank-
ment, thickly covered by bushes and trees, surrounded it. Outside
this was a fosse, from ten to twelve yards wide, always fall of
water, and well stocked with eels, although there was not a stream
within half a mile of it. The only entrance gap was on the south
side ; and in spring and summer time the place presented as pretty
a sight as anything of the sort in Ireland. The green, smooth
sward was then thickly studded with primroses, violets, cowslips,
and other wild flowers; while the blossoms of the blackthorn,
hawthorn, quicken-tree, wild cherry, and crab formed a pleasing
back-ground. The cave ran diagonally across it from the south-
east comer. Only one end was, to my knowledge, opened. This
was composed of stonework, but was very much defaced and
obliterated by searchers after crocks of gold. There were a few
gold pieces found there from time to time ; when a child, I saw one
of them. The diggers always worked in daylight, as no one had
the courage to enter the place after dark. I also saw some spear-
heads which were found in an adjacent field. Tradition says that
the Coreally was used as a place of retreat or refuge by the monks
of Kilart and Eilberry. Eilart lies near the bog edge, midway
between the Coreally and Eilberry. I once asked the late Professor
Hennessy what was the meaning of the word "coreally,** and, witli-
out knowing anything whatever of the place, he said the word was
Norman-French {courdU), meaning an underground fortification.
K this be correct, some of the monks must have visited Normandy,
and, on their return home, carried the name to the confines of
Monavullagh bog. It may, perhaps, also be derived firom '*corr,**
an enclosure or dwelling, and "Rally, or "Rahilly,** a name still
common in the South of Ireland. The trees which formed the old
forest here are said to have grown so close together, and the
branches to have so interlaced, that the monks used to travel from
place to place by paths formed on the boughs. The old story of
the betrayal of the monks by the woman who supplied them
with provisions in their retreat has been referred to this place.
This woman (by the way, she was red-haired) agreed with the
priest-hunters to drop peas on her path to the hiding-place,
» Vid€ p. 133, vol. iii.
192 MISCELLANEA.
but the birds were so numerous that they devoured all the peas
before the track could be followed. She then made a trail of
flummery, which could not be so easily removed ; and by this means
the last of the monks here were discovered and exterminated.
Maxwell, the Scotch vandal who levelled the Goreally, did not live
long to enjoy the fruits of his labour, as he died a few months
afterwards; from which event the people about drew their own
conclusions. Many years ago, an old man named Redmond, a
basket-maker, told me that one day, when getting materials for his
trade in the Goreally, he noticed in one corner some fresh clay
lying about, and the surface cut in the shape of a grave. Raising
the loose sod, he saw the dead body of a respectably dressed man,
'4n top-boots, riding-breeches, and blue body-coat," lying under-
neath. He replaced the sod, and discreetly held his tongue. Some
days afterwards he examined the place again, and found the grave
empty. This was in the reign of the Whitefeet. Another old man
told me that he heard from his father that the latter, when a young
man, often saw a woman who lived in a wild state for some years
in the Goreally. She wore scarcely any clothing, and her body was
covered with a large crop of hair. She lived in the autumn on
wheat and wild fruit, and in winter and spring on food left for her
in convenient places by the neighbours. I do not remember what
her ultimate fate was.
M. Dabbt«
Irish Pearls. — It may be of interest to give some account of
Irish pearls, a specimen of which was found, set in an old gold ring,
in the garden at Furness in May, 1898, and afterwards exhibited at
a meeting of the Society (see Journal, vol. iii, No. 1, p. 67).
This pearl (as appears from the inscription on the ring) came
from the Slaney ; but the Slaney was only one of the many Irish
rivers in which the pearl-mussel was found. Harris, in his notes
to ** Ware's Antiquities," ^ speaks of them as found in the River
Bann, in the Gounty of Down, and in several rivers in the counties
of Tyrone and Donegal ; and he adds that in 1094 a present of an
Irish pearl was made to Anselm, Archbishop of Ganterbury, by
Gilbert, Bishop of Limerick.
Golonel Solomon Richards, of Wexford, writing in 1682,^ says
that the Slaney '< oaught to preecede all the rivers in Ireland for its
pearle fishing, .... for muscles are daily taken out of itt
about fowre, Ave, and six inches long, in which are often fouud
pearles for lustre, magnitude, and rotundity, not inferior to orientall,
or any other in the world. They have lately been sold by a mer-
chant that dined this day with me for 20s., 30s., 40s., and three
»Vol. ii, p. 172.
« "Kilkenny Arch. Journal," 1862-63, p. 91.
MISCELLANEA, 193
pound a pearle, to the goldsmiths or jewellers of London. He sonld
twenty lately for twenty broad pieces of gould, and a parcel of small
ones for 40 pounds/'
A writer in the ** Dublin Penny Journal " (vol. i, p. 889),
speaks of a sum of forty guineas being offered for a Donegal pearl
in 1882.
Thomas Dineley, who visited Carlow about 1680 (see <* Kilkenny
Archaeological Journal," vol. iv, N.8., p. 46), writing of the Biver
Burren, near Ballynunnery Castle, says : — '< There are also found
quantity of good Pearle, not unlike Scotch Pearle, which y* Lady of
the Castle hath to shew."
Coming to later times, it is stated that the Duchess of Ormonde
offered £80 for an Irish pearl ; and P. L. Simmonds, in his work on
** The Commercial Products of the Seas," further states (I know not
on whose authority) that Her reigning Majesty paid 40 guineas for
a Scotch pearl.
There is no doubt that for many centuries the Scotch river pearl
fishery was an extensive and lucrative industry, especially in the
Spey, Tay, and Esk rivers.
British pearls are mentioned by Pliny and Tacitus ; but from
the first the Bomans seem to have recognised that they lacked the
lustre and <* water " of the oriental pearls.
An early ordinance of the Parliament of Paris prescribed that
British pearls were not to be set in conjunction with oriental pearls^
except in certain specified cases, as " in a bishop's mitre " — a choice
example of paternal legislation.
An attempt was made to revive the Scotch pearl fisheries in
1860 by a German ; but the success was spasmodic, and over*
dredging seems to have brought it to an early end.
^e industry still flourishes in Bavaria and Saxony, where
German thoroughness has provided a code of regulations, and,
needless to add, the best books on the subject.
Dublin jewellers still exhibit specimens of the Irish pearl ; but
such as I have seen are very small, and hardly deserve the patriotic
commendation (quoted above^ of Solomon Bichards of Wexford*
Though there is not anytning like a systematic fishing industry,
pearls are still found in the Slaney. From information I have pro-
cured through residents, it appears that the pearl mussel is chiefly
found in the northern parts of the river, above the tidal waters, in
the neighbourhood of Newtownbarry^ where many fine specimens of
pearls have been found in recent years.
Nicholas Synnott.
( 194 )
^otcs and Queries,
Who was the father of the Right Hon. William
Conolly, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons? —
Neither the Paper on ** Castletown House," which appeared in our
Second Volume, nor the Rev. C. I. Graham's Paper on this cele-
brated man, in the last number of The Joubn^il, gives us any
information as to William Conolly's parentage; nor have I come
across any work that does. I have seen it stated in that interesting
little bools Handcock's " History and Antiquities of Tallaght,*'
that—
" William Conolly, who rose to be ' the first gentleman ' in this kingdom,
was a self-made man. His father was an innkeeper in the North of Ireland,
probably in the County Donegal, Of his education nothing is known ; but
the profession which he adopted was that of an attorney."
If the above extract is true, it is a puzzle to know how he acquired
his enormous wealth. His nationality is doubtful. If he was one
of the Irish Connollys, one would not have expected to find him a
Protestant ; that fact favours his being an Englishman, as well
as the difference in the spelling of his surname; and his heir,
too (another William Conolly), hailed from Stratton Hall, in
Staffordshire.
W. FiTzG.
Miss Stokes's •* Higli Crosses of Ireland." — Our
readers will be glad to hear that the Koyal Irish Academy have
in hands the publication of the second number of this valuable
work. The coming part will contain our Moone Cross ; the Cross
at Killamery, in the County Kilkenny; the Drumcliff Cross, County
Sligo ; and the Cross at Termonfeckin, in the County Louth.
Oil Paintings of Lord Edward FitzGerald.— On p. 382
of the Second Volume of our Journal appears a list of portraits of
Lord Edward. One more replica by Hamilton, similar to those
numbered 2, d, 4, and 5, has come to my notice ; it belongs to Sir
Guy Campbell, Bart.
W. FiTzG.
A Pagan Sepulcliral Kist in the Dublin Science
and Art Museum. — There is deposited on view in the Eoyal
Irish Academy's Collection of Antiquities, an antiquarian object of
the greatest possible interest. This consists of a case containing a
NOTES AND QUERIES. 1 95
Eist, or pagan slab-lined grave, with its accompanying Bepulchral
urns. The Kist has been raised, with some feet of the nataral
surrounding clay, bodily from the ground. The whole mass
measures 8^ by 8 feet, and weighs about three tons. One side of
the Kist is removed, to show the formation of its slab-lined sides,
top, and bottom ; roughly speaking, it is 2 feet in length, 18 inches
in width, and about 20 inches in height ; the depth of the covering
slab below the surface was about 2 feet.
The Kist contained three burial urns of various sizes, and orna-
merited with different designs ; the largest urn covered the smallest,
which rested on a heap of burnt human bones ; the remaining urn
was placed alongside, mouth upwards.
The find took place in the month of August, 1898, at Greenhills,
near Tallaght, in the County Dublin.
As this is the only example in the British Isles of the removal
of a Kist in its entirety, great credit is due to Colonel G. T. Plunkett,
the Director of the Dublin Science and Art Museum, and his
staff, for having undertaken the excavation, and for having so
successfully carried out a most difficult task.
W. FrrzG.
Davidstown, near Castled er mot. — This name, through
course of time, has undergone a peculiar change. In a Carton
manuscript volume of copies of leases, &c., is mentioned a feoff-
ment made on the 6th of February, 1643, by Anthony St. Leger to
David Sutton of TuUy and of Kildrought, of, amongst other lands,
the townland of Daviestown, alias Davies Vennocke, alias Ballyday-
Vennocke, near Tristelldermot." In an Inquisition taken in Athy in
1621, it is called Ballidavisenocke, and foritied part of the Earl
of Kildare's Manor of *< Castledermot, alias Tristelldermot, alias
Disertdermod.*' This townland is situated to the south of Castle-
dermot, and is now divided into two; — Davidstown Lower, and
Davidstown Upper.
W. FiTzG.
Bases of Crosses at Carragh. — At the cross-roads just
above the village of Carragh is a rough granite base of a cross,
known as ** the Wart Stone ; " it is almost invisible, as it is sunk
deep in the ground by the roadside near the ditch facing the road
leading to Barretstown.
Furthef along the last -mentioned road, about a quarter of
a mile from the cross-roads, is another large rough granite cross-
base, which lies near the road, but on the other side of the hedge,
looking north. A small farmer of the name of M'Cabe lives near
it. When I visited the place in 1896, an old man belonging to
Carragh, named Kane, informed me that he remembered seeing the
196 NOTES AND QUERIES.
cross standing^ on the base ; bat that some fifteen years ago it was
dislodged by treasure-seekers, who excavated under the base, and so
overturned it : a heavy storm of thunder and lightning came up
while they were at work, and they fled in terror from the spot.
The cross itself is now either lost or removed; but a portion of
the finctured dowel still remains in the socket, which is 16 inches
long and 9 wide.
The first-mentioned cross-base is marked down on the 6-ineh
Ordnance Survey Map ; but the second is unrecorded.
W. PiTzG.
Philip Flatsbury, a Kildare Hlstorlan.—In the vil-
lage of Johnstown, near Naas, lived Philip Flatsbury. At the
request of Gerald, Earl of Eildare, he wrote a History of Ireland,
wluch he brought down to a.d. 1517. However, it was never
printed, and the manuscript is still preserved in the Library of
Trinity College, Dublin, and classed B 55. It is little better than a
transcript of Pembridge's and Marlborough's Annals, published by
William Camden in his '< Britannia." Holinshed's '' Chronicles of
Ireland '* are taken from Flatsbury's History and from Henry of
Marlborough.
John Canon O'Hanlon.
Antiquities at Kilkea Castle. — The antiquarian objects
shown on the opposite page were all found at or near the castle a
good many years ago ; they consist of : —
Fig. 1. — A flint arrow-head dug up in Eilkea churchyard in
1871.
Fig. 2. — A portion of a stone celt, or battle-axe, found on the
hill of Mullachreelan in 1854.
Fig. 8. — ^A small ring-brooch found in the bed of the river
Greese when sinking for the foundations of '* Eildare bridge *' near
the castle, in 1854.
Fig. 4. — A sword found in the bed of the Greese, below the
weir at Kilkea bridge, in 1846. (Length, 17} inches.)
Fig. 5. — A bronze celt (6^ inches long, and four inches broad
at the cutting edge) found in the Greese at Kilkea in 1846.
Fig. 6. — ^A bronze pin found near the pagan burial-moat at
Kilkea in 1854.
W. FiTzG.
1^11 ly^M
AmiQtnTiBs iT KiLRU Cuiuc.
( 198 )
'Review,
"The History and Antiquities op Tallaght, in the County op
Dublin," by W. Domville Handoooe, m.a, 2nd Edition,
revised and enlarged. Hodges, Figgis, & Co., Ltd., 8s. net.
Miss Mary Butler White has published a second edition of her
uncle's excellent little History of Tallaght. In this revised and
enlarged edition she has been assisted by Mr. F. Ebington Ball ;
the Bev. W. Beynell, b.d. ; Mr. Edward Blackburne, q.c. ; and
Mr. M' Sweeny of the Boyal Irish Academy.
The work is an excellent example of the good work that may be
done by an educated man, even though he may have no special
archaeological knowledge, in preserving and recording all that can
be gathered of the history and antiquities of the neighbourhood
in which he lives.
The name "Tallaght," otherwise " Taindeacht," is said to mean
" the plague monument," or the place where a number of persons
cut off by pestilence were interred together. In the year 769 A.D.y
according to Bishop Beeves, a monastery was erected on this spot
by St. Maelruain. The ancient Martyrology of Tallaght, written
in Irish, was compiled at the Monastery by SS. Maelruain and
Aengus the Culdee. In this monastery was also preserved the
Bell of St. Tigeamach, used when solemn oaths were administered.
In 1179 Pope Alexander III confirmed Tallaght with its appur-
tenances to the See of Dublin; and from 1840 to 1821 Tallaght was
a country residence of the Archbishops of Dublin. In 1578, during
an incursion of the Irish from the mountains, a nephew and some
servants of Archbishop Adam Loftus were slain at the gates of
the Palace.
What became of the ancient Palace does not appear ; but in
1729 Archbishop Hoadly pulled down great part of the Castle of
Tallaght, and with the materials built another Archiepiscopal
Palace for the See of Dublin. Within less than a century this
building had fallen into such a state of decay, that in 1821 an Act
of Parliament was passed divesting the Archbishop of Dublin of
Tallaght as a Palace ; and shortly after it was demolished.
Besides this history, the little book contains an interesting
account of the Castle of Tallaght, and of various seats in the
neighbourhood, with particulars of former inhabitants — the Grier-
sons (well-known printers), the Lundy Foots, Speaker Conolly,
and others. There is an illustration of the ancient Castle, and also
one of the Palace built by Archbishop Hoadly.
o
JOURNAL
OF THE
j^r^plogicsl jSfwietg of % Goantg of FJilbare
AND
jSurronnbing Distrids.
4-f
2ftt ^emoxiam.
MISS MARGARET STOKES,
Hon. Member of the Royal Irish Academy ; the Royal Society of Anti-
quaries, Ireland ; the Oount^^ Kildare Archceological Society ; and
Associate of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries.
THE 20th of September, 1900, was a black day in the annals
of Celtic Art. Oil that date, Miss Margaret Stokes passed
peacefnlly away in her picturesque home on the Hill of Howth ;
and two days later she was laid to rest in the old churchyard of
St. Fintan's, a spot endeared to her as being the last resting-
place of those relatives she loved so well.
Not only will she be mourned by her kinsfolk and friends,
but her loss is a national one ; and many European savants will
deeply regret that her labours in the cause of Celtic Art have
ceased for evermore.
Her long life was devoted to the Ireland of the past. Never
again will ancient Irish Art have a truer or more painstaking
historian ; and never again can any other pen so faithfully
illustrate the glorious remains of pre-Norman Ireland.
Miss Stokes was unrivalled in her knowledge of Christian
Ireland's former greatness. She was untiring in copying from
the originals the beautiful and intricate Celtic designs to be
found in the famous Book of Kells. She made facsimile draw-
ings of the Processional Cross of Cong, the unmatched Ardagh
Chalice, the Shrine of St. Moedog, and several other. interesting
relics of the Irish saints.
Many ancient cross-bearing sepulchral slabs, with Irish in-
scriptions, were carefully drawn by her. The primitive churches,
562 IN MEMORIAM.
with their accompanying holy wells, together with the qaaint
legends of their patron saints, had for her a pecoliar charm ;
and not only did she search the historic localities in Ireland,
hut she went far afield into the moantains and plains of France
and Italy, in order to find traces of and pat on record the lahonrs
of those holy Celts who became voluntary exiles from their native
land in order to spread the light where, till then, the darkness
of Paganism alone prevailed.
The great work of Miss Stokes's life, which unfortanatelj
was never finished, was her description and drawing of the
scalptared High Crosses of Ireland. No one, except those who
actually lent her their aid, can conceive the amount of time and
trouble she took to reproduce on paper faithfully, panel by
panel, the Celtic patterns, and the religious subjects and symbols
sculptured on those wonderful memorials of a long by-gone age.
Before her end came, she had the satisfaction of knowing that
the second part of her grand work was in process of being
brought out ; but is there anyone to take her place, or capable of
continuing this, the great scheme of her later years ?
Some idea of the variety and extent of her labours in Ireland's
cause can be gathered from the list of her works which is
appended below — works that have made for her a name that
will place her in the forefront of that devoted band of Irish
scholars whose aim has been to prove to the world that there
existed in ancient Erin a civilization, and a skill in working
metals, unequalled at that age in Europe.
Would Uiat we had more like her, for though *'the harvest
truly is great| the labourers are few."
WORKS WRITTEN BY HER.
1878. Early Christian Architecture in Ireland.— Imp. B^o.
George Bell, London. With many illustrations.
1887. Early Christian Art in Ireland. — Crown 8vo. Chapman
& Hall, London. With 106 wood-cuts. Another cheaper
Edition was published without date.
1892. Six Months in the Apennines : A Pilgrimage in Search
of Vestiges of the Irish Saints in Italy. — Sm. 4to. George
Bell, London. With many illustrations.
1895. Three Months in the Forests of France : A
Pilgrimage in Search of Vestiges of the Irish Saints in
France. — Sm« 4to. George Bell, London. With many
illustrations.
MISS MARGARET STOKES. 203
1895. Notes on the Cross of Cong: — Illustrated with wood-
blocks, and two large coloured drawings. Chromo-litho-
graphed by Werner & Winter, of Prankfort-on-Main. Imp.
4to. Dublin University Press. Privately printed (224
copies only).
HER PAPERS PUBLISHED BY LEARNED
SOCIETIES AND IN ARCH^OLOGICAL
JOURNALS.
The Royal Irish Academy.
1888. Proceedings, Vol. II (second series), p. 461. 8vo.
^' Inquiry as to the probable date of the Tara Brooch
and the Ardagh Chalice." With a chart, but no illus-
trations. (Read 1886.)
1896. Transactions, Vol. XXX. p. 281. 4to.
" Observations on the use of red enamel in Irish orna-
ments.*' With a coloured plate containing six Celtic
objects. (Bead 1892.)
The High Crosses [of Ireland]: A Publication of the
Royal Irish Academy. Imp. 4to. Dublin University Press.
1898. Part I.— The two Crosses of Castledermot (County Kildare),
and the Durrow Cross (King's County).
190,.. Pakt II.— The Cross at Moone (County Kildare), at Kil-
lamery (County Kilkenny), at Drumcliff (County Sligo), and
at Termonfeckin (County Louth).
The Society op Antiquaries, London.
The Archaeologia. 4to. London.
1871. Vol. XLIII, p. 181.—" The Shrine of St. Moedog (Mogue
of Ferns), and the Gospel of St. Molaise (Molash of
Devenish)." With several careful facsimile drawings.
(Read 1867.)
1888. Vol. XLVII, p. 473. — " On two bronze fragments, supposed
to be a portion of an Irish radiated crown." Illustrated.
(Read 1881.)
The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of
Ireland. — Royal 8vo. Dublin.
1871. Vol. XI, p. 852.—" Irish Art in Bavaria." Illustrated.
1898. Vol. XXII, p. 380.—" St. Beoc of Wexford, and of Lan Veoc
in Brittany." Illustrated.
1894. Vol. XXIII, p. 380. — " A funeral custom in the Baronies
of Forth and Bargy, County Wexford." Illustrated.
1898. Vol. XXVII, p. 137.—" The Instruments of the Passion "
(as sculptured on William FitzGerald's altar-tomb, 1623,
in the Kilkea churchyard, County Kildare). Illustrated.
204 IN MEMORIAL.
The Journal of the County Kildare Arch880logical
Society. 8yo. Dublin.
1894. Vol. I, p. 281.— << The Celtic Crosses of Castledennot."
Illustrated.
1898. Vol. H, p. 431.— *' Old Kilcullen."
1899. Vol. m, p. 88.— "The holed High Cross at Moone."
Illustrated.
The Antiquary. 4to. London.
1891. Vol. XXIII, p. 209.— << Stone Markings ; Hand-prints and
Foot-prints." Illustrated.
The Reliquary. 4to. London.
1899. Vol. V, p. 110. — ** On a bas-relief on the Muiredach Grpss at
Monasterboice." [Subject : the condemned being cast
into hell.] Illustrated.
MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS.
A Key to the Panels on the Muiredach Cross at
Monasterbolce. — This was a broadsheet printed in 1899
by the Department, to accompany the cast of this cross in
the Science and Art Museum.
The Signs of the Zodiac on the Base of Mulredach's
Cross at Monasterbolce. — This Paper was read at the
Boyal Irish Academy House on the 2drd July, 1900, at an
evening meeting of the Boyal Archaaological Institute of
Great Britain and Ireland, on the occasion of its first visit
to Ireland.
[This was Miss Stokes's last work.]
AN UNFINISHED WORK.
An Illustrated Life of St. MalachI O'MorgaIr,
of Armagh.
WORKS SHE ILLUSTRATED.
1861. Sir Samuel Ferguson's Poem on ** The Cromlech on Howth.**
With numerous coloured drawings of Letters from the Book
of Eells, and other Celtic designs.
1868. Vetusta Monumenta, Vol. VI. Elephant folio.— [A
Publication of the Society of Antiquaries, London.] The
Bev. James Henthom Todd's ** Descriptive Remarks on
Illuminations in certain Ancient Irish Manuscripts." This
includes five plates, lithographed in colours, by Storch and
Kramer, under the direction of L. Gruner. Of these, all
but the last two are from drawings by Miss Stokes. The
first (14 by 11 in.) shows the Chi-rho Monogram from the
Book of Kells (St. Matthew i. 18). This is probably the
finest production of its kind. The other two, which are
smaller, are reproductions of illustrations from the Gospels
of St. Mark and St. Matthew, taken from the manuscript
known as '' The Garland of Howth,"
BmHMB^^r"
MISS MARGARET STOKES. 20$
167B. Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. Vol.
XXIV, p. 488. — Lord Dunraven's *' Descriptions of the
Ardagh Chalice and Brooches," with coloured illustrations.
WORKS SHE EDITED.
Christian Inscriptions in the Irish Language, chiefly
collected and drawn by George Petrie, ll.d. 4to. Dublin
University Press. — This great work was issued in eight
parts, forming two volumes, by the Eoyal Historical and
Archaeological Association of Ireland (now the Boyal Society
of Antiquaries of Ireland) during the years 1870 to 1878,
and each part formed its extra '* annual volume."
1872. Vol. I. — Contains inscriptions on slabs at Clonmacnoise,
King's County.
1878. Vol. II. — Inscriptions on slabs in other places ; as well as
on crosses, shrines, croziers, church doorways, and chalices,
&c. [The ^' concluding notices'' in this volume are wholly
the work of Miss Stokes.]
Notes on Irish Architecture. — By Edwin, 2nd Eai4
of Dunraven. Imp. 4to. George Bell, London. With
numerous photographic illustrations and wood engravings.
1876. Vol. I. — Pagan forts, oratories, and churches.
1877. Vol. II. — Bound Towers and churches.
1891. Christian Iconography : A History of Christian Art in
the Middle Ages. By Adolphe N. Didron. 2 vols. Sm. post
8vo. George Bell, London. Translated from the French
by E. J. Millington, and completed, with additions and
appendices, by Miss Stokes. Numerously illustrated.
HER LECTURES ON THE HIGH CROSSES OF
IRELAND.
12th April, 1897. Delivered to the Boyal Irish Academy. (This
lecture dealt with the crosses of Castledermot, County
Kildare, and of Durrow, King's County, forming the first
part of her work on the High Crosses.)
9th June, 1898. Delivered to the Society of Antiquaries, at
Burlington House, London.
14th January, 1899. Delivered to the National Literary Society, in
the Leinster Hall, Dublin.
80th November, 1899. Delivered to the Boyal Irish Academy.
(This lecture dealt with the crosses of Moone, County
Kildare ; Drumcliflf, County Sligo ; Killamery, County
Kilkenny ; and Termonfeckin, County Louth — forming the
second part of her work on the High Crosses.)
W. FiTzG.
I
( 207 )
Tbk Baimb or Lovou.
CLONGOWES WOOD.
By thb rev. MATTHEW DEVITT, S.J., ViCB-PBBaiDBirr.
CLONQOWES WOOD lies aboat midway between the town
ofNaasandEiloook, and on the road conaeotiBg the ancient
capital of North LeinBter with Tara of the Kings. The name
" Clongowes " is derived by Dr. Joyce from the Irieh words
Cham, " a lawn," and gobka (prononnced gow), " a smith," and
thus cornea to signify " The lawn of the smith." The name does
not appear in any record before the fifteenth centnry. Its previoas
history seems to have been covered by that of Mainham, of which
parish it is still a townland. It would thus at the time of the
Conqaest have fallen to the lot first of Strongbow ; from him
it passed through the hands of the De Herefords, and Bocb-
forts, and then was granted by Edward 11 to the Wogans of
Rathcoffey in 1317.'
This theory is confirmed by a Boll of Henry IV, dated
24th Febmary, 1417, assigning the dower of Anastacia Wogan,
widow of Sir David Wogan of Rathcofiy.* Among other lands
assigned to her was ■' " farther the third part of the tylva de
Clongow (Clongowe's Wood), in the western part therein, that
is to say, forty acres."
We next find Mainham and Clongowes Wood in possession
of the Enstaoes. Thin celebrated Anglo-Norman family held
vast estates in the counties of Dublin, Carlow, Wioklow, Kildare,
and Meath. The following account of their origin is from a
' See JoDBNAi^ County Kildare Arch. Soc, vol, iii, No. 2, p. 79.
^Ibidem, pp. 79, 92.
CLONGOWES WOOD. 209
MS. of Brother Vincent Enstace, ex-Prior of the convent of
Naas in the Ust century^: —
' * The illu8t<rious family of Eustace is lineally descended from Placidus,
General of Horse in the Roman army at the siege of Jerusalem under
Titus and Vespasian. He was of the tirst rank amongst the Koman
Nobility, commonly called Patricians ; having been converted to the
Christian faith at a stag-hunt by Jesus Christ Himself, hanging on the
cross. Our Lord ordered him to take the name of Eustachius at his
baptism, which name signifies *' valiant, or firm, in the faith of Christ."
And it is in memory of this occurrence at the hunt that the family bears
for crest in the court armour a stag's head and crucifix, with the image of
our Saviour hanging on the cross. The family came from Italy to Nor-
mandy, and from thence into England, in the time of the Saxon kings.
Some of the family came over into Ireland with Henry 11, in the year
1172."
De Bnrgo in the '* Hibernia Dominicana/* says this account
is confirmed by ancient history, by books of genealogy^ and by a
sepulchral inscription in the Dominican Church of St. Sixtus in
Bome.' The following is the epitaph (translated) : " Here lies
the Beverend Sir James Eustace, alias FitzEustace, priest of the
family of St. Eustachius, the Roman martyr, settled in Ireland
for the last six hundred years. He died 5th February, 1712."
The Dominican priory of Naas was founded by the Fitz-
Eustaces in 1356 ; and they indicated their claim to this high
ancestry by dedicating the Church to St. Eustachius.' From
this it would appear that from the fourteenth to the eighteenth
century they looked back to the Roman martyr as the founder
of their line.
It is but fair, however, to record other views on this subject.
The author of the ''Book of Howth/'^in a list of noble
English families settled in Ireland, wrote as follows : — ** Eustace,
alias Powar, Viscount of Baltinglass, Lord of Eilcullen, to him
and to his heirs male A"" H. 8 SS"" (83rd yeai* of Hen. VIII).
Their ancestor, Robert Le Powar, was sent into Ireland with
commission, and in his offspring hath rested here, a.d. 1176."
Again, under date of 1303 : *' Richard Bourke, Earl of Ulster,
and Lord Eustace Le Power, entered into Scotland with a great
power of men Mark that the Eustacys [sic]
descended lineally of the second son of the aforesaid Lord Eustas,
which were very noble men in those days of knighthood and
ability."'^ This theory would make the Eustaces a junior
branch of the Powers, afterwards Earls of Waterford. It is
' Copy of MS. kindly lent to me by Mrs. WiUdnson, 4 Hume Street,
Dublin.
• ** Hib. Dominic," cap. ix, par. 28, n. ii, and cap. xii — i — n. xv.
" Ibid, * Record, Series, p. 22. * " Book of Howth," p. 126.
2IO CLONGOWES WOOD.
remarkable that the arms of both families are the same, viz.,
a stag's head with a crncifix between the antlers. The motto,
however, of the Powers is " Per crucem ad coronam," while
that of the Enstaces is '' Cnr me perseqaeris ? "
D' Alton ^ makes them a branch of the FitzGeralds. '' With-
out/' he writes, '' any heraldic effoi*t to antedate the existence of
this noble house, its Irish branch may be traced to that adven-
turer of the first water, Maurice FitzGerald, to whom Henry II
gave the barony of Naas. His relative, Eustace, the founder of
this line, inherited the northern parts thereof with the barony
of KilcuUen."
To reconcile, or decide between, these apparently conflicting
views is a task altogether beyond me, which must be left in the
hands of expert genealogists. I fear I should not be an impar-
tial judge : '^ Cum Platone errare malo, quam rectd cum istis
sentire.*' But we shall all, I think, admit that the noble
Roman, impetuous in war and in the chase, a lion in the field, a
lamb in the presence of the Crucified, fearlessly facing the wild
beasts in the amphitheatre, and finally dying by fire for his
faith,^ would be a meet progenitor and patron of the typical
Norman knight, of whom Newman has written : '^ His very
worship was to do battle ; his rite was a passage of arms. He
couched his lance to prove the matter of fact that his lady was
the beautifuUest of all conceivable women ; he drew his sword
on the blasphemer to convince him of the sanctity of the Gospel ;
and he passed abruptly from demolishing churches and burning
towns to the rescue of the holy sepulchre from the unclean
infidel.'' »
The Eustaces flourished for many generations after the Con-
quest on the borders of Wicklow and Eildare. In 1462, Sir
Kowland, of Harristown, County Eildare, was created Baron of
Portlester, County Meath. He was Lord Chancellor and
Treasurer of Ireland, and founder of the Franciscan Abbey of
Eilcullen. In 1541, Thomas Eustace, of Xilcullen, was created
Viscount of Baltinglass.
James, 3rd Viscount of Baltinglass, having risen with Irish
against Elizabeth, was attainted, and died without issue in
Spain in 1585. His estates were forfeited to the Crown, and
his title is still extinct The family produced five Lord Chan-
cellors of Ireland, viz., Richard FitzEustace in 1426 ; Sir
Edward FitzEustace in 1453; Robert FitzEustace, Baron of
» "Hist, of County Dublin," *' Bally more-Eustace," p. 745.
' Bollandists, Sept. 6*^. Roman Breviary, Sept. 20.
* " Historical Sketches," vol. iii, p. 295,
I
CLONGOWES WOOD. 211
PorUester in 1472, who was also Lord Treasurer of Ireland ; Sir
Rowland FitzEastace, in 1474 ; and Rowland FitzEustace,
Baron of Portlester, in 1496.^
The extent of their property in the County of Elildare may
be seen in the frequent mention of their names and places in
the State Papers. In these we find them residing in many
places still well known and of some importance. They are
referred to as Eustaces of Castlemartin, of KilcuUen, of Harris-
town, of Moon, of Newlands, of Craddockstown, of Yeomans-
town, of Caragh, of Eerdiifstown, of Blackhall (near Punches-
town), of Blackrath (near Ballitore), of MuUacash, of Mainham,
of Clongowes Wood, and of Confey.
From the genealogies and references extant it would appear
that the Mainham branch coalesced with or was the same as
that of Clongowes Wood. In the MS. account of the family by
Brother Vincent Eustace, already referred to, this branch is
derived from the house of Castlemartin, and this is confirmed
by the '^ Inquisitiones LagenisB," in which we find John Eustace
of Castlemartin in receipt of a rent out of Clongowes Wood in the
reign of Elizabeth.^ In the year 1400, Alexander Eustace, son
of Alexander Eustace, Castlemartin, founded the house of Main-
ham, which, from a reference to the pedigree, will be practically
identified with that of Clongowes Wood.
The Eustaces of Clongowes Wood seem to be first alluded to
in the State Papers in 1688. Under this date we have a letter
ordering the Lord Deputy to make reparation to the Earl of
Ormonde for " preys and spoils " made in the Earl's property in
the barony of Oughteranny, the owners of which are to prove the
amount of damage before William Etistace of the Wood and
Davy Sutton. As no place-name, part of which is ** wood,** is
connected with Eustace, except Clongowes Wood, also in the
barony of Oughteranny, we may take it for granted that Clon-
gowes is here referred to. The Eustaces of Clongowes are very
frequently mentioned in commissions, &c, of Elizabeth and
James I, and in the Inquisitions of those times.
Their castle, situated close to the rampart of the Pale^ was
one of the links in the long chain of border strongholds stretch-
ing from Maynooth to Blackhall, near Clane, and running
parallel to the Liffey, southwards to Harristown. But though
nominally posted on the frontier line to repel and overawe the
" Wilde Inshe ** beyond it, the Eustaces of Mainham soon
became connected by marriage with families of the native race.
' ^'Hibomia Dom.," loc. ci^, and Harris.
'Inquisitiones xvi, Elizabeth.
212 CLONGOWES WOOD.
Alexander Eustace, the founder of the Mainham and Glongowes
branch, was married to Mary 0*Bjme ; James, his son, to
Margaret O'Toole; and Maurice, his grandson, to Mary
O'Eavanagh.^
From such fusion of Norman and Celtic blood sprung the
''rebels " of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Though the
Eustaces of Glongowes escaped the confiscations of Elizabeth,
their hour was to come when the Irish rose in 1641. In that
year, or the year preceding, James Eustace, of Glongowes, mort-
gaged his lands to Sir James Dixon,^ and drew his sword for
what he deemed to be the cause of faith and fatherland ; and
Glongowes was, like BathcoffiBy, the scene of strife and bloodshed.
At that time the Puritan commander in the neighbourhood was
a certain Gaptain Hues, a Welshman. '' The said Hues murdered
Mrs. Eustace, aunt to Sir Robert Talbot, ninety years old, after
she had entertained him friendly in her house. The soldiera of
Glongowes Wood and Bathcoffey, yielding upon quarter, were
conveyed to Dublin, and hanged there ; and upwards of 150
women and children were found in the said places murdered. It
is well known that the commons of that country were for the
most part destroyed and slaughtered by the English, insomuch
that there were not so many left living as could gather the
twentieth part of the harvest."^
Tradition tells that the Mrs. Eustace then living at Glongowes
refused to surrender the key of some secret chamber or strong-
hold in the castle, and that she kept it in her mouth until her
jaws were broken by the soldiers.
Such ai*e the stories told of those wild times, and of the
men and women who lived in them. In all wars, but especially
in civil strife, deeds are done on both sides that the historian
shudders to recount. In that same year (1641) at Donadea,
quite close to Glongowes, the Protestant clergyman was seized
by the Irish, and led to the gibbet. The rope was already round
his neck, when he was rescued by a priest, who was completely
unknown to him.^ At all events, the property of the Eustaces of
Glongowes was forfeited, and among the names of the Papist
proprietors forfeiting in the Gouuty of Eildare, appears that of
James Eustace, of Glongowes Wood, with those of his neighbours.
Sir Andrew Aylmer, Knight, of Donadea, Nicholas Wogan, of
Bathcoffy, Garret Sutton, of Bichardstown, Nicholas Sutton, of
Barberstown, and John Gaydon, of Irishtown (Straffan).
* Brother Eustace's MS. Account.
* Title-deeds of Clongowes Wood.
» O'Curry's " CivU Wars," Appendix VI, Co. Kildare.
* Cotton's " Fasti Eccles. Hib.^'
.CLONGOWES WOOD. 213
, The Eustaces did not regiEtin their estiates after the restora-
tion of Charles, bnt were declared by the Commissioners
appointed under that A.ct to be *' Irish Papists, not innocent/'
^nd Clongowes passed from their hands for ever. They were
•banished from the kingdom ; but their descendants fought again
under James II, and obtained distinguished positions in the
army of the French king.
Clongowes Wood was then purchased by Sir Richard Reynell,
afterwards Chief Justice of the Common Pleas ; and by him
sold in 1667 to the Brownes, who changed the name to Castle-
browne. This family intermarried with the Fitzwilliams and
Wogans of Rathcoffy, and has been known for many genera-
tions as the Wogan-Brownes. Their present representative is
Colonel Wogan-Browne, of the 3rd Hussars, now commanding
his regiment in India. He has inherited the military tastes of
his ancestors, some of whom were distinguished soldiers on the
Continent. One of them reached the rank of Marshal in the
Austrian service, and was killed at the battle of Prague, 1767.
Another General, Michael Browne, of the Saxon army, served
under Napoleon before Moscow, and was the last proprietor of
Clongowes Wood. Concerning the Marshal's death a curious
story is found recorded in the family papers.
While he was fighting abroad, Clongowes was occupied by
his sisters, two Misses Browne. At that time one of the rooms
opening into the hall of the mansion was used as an ironing
room, and in ironing days, the necessary fire made it an attractive
resort for the servants of the house. On one such day the door
of this room, as well as the hall-door, happened to be open, and
the servants gathered together were astonished to see an officer
in white uniform enter the hall, and ascend the stairs. They
noted that his hands were pressed to his breast, from which
blood was flowing ; and when they had sufficiently recovered their
presence of mind, they hurried upstairs to a room where the
Misses Browne were occupied with some needlework. The ladies,
however, on being questioned, replied that they had seen nothing;
but on hearing a full description of the apparition, unhesitat-
ingly said that it must have been their brother, and that he must
have met his death on the field of battle.
Their moumiug was at once ordered, Masses were celebrated
for the repose of his soul, and a wake was held with .the prodigal
hospitality usual in those days. In a fortnight the despatch
came announcing the Marshal's deatii on the very day, at the
time of the apparition.
The late General Bjrowne was once asked if he believed this
story. He i^lied that he found it hard to do so, and that it
might have originated in the desire of the servants to profit
214 CLONGOWES WOOD.
by the celebration of a wake. But one thing he could not| he
said, explain — ^how County Eoldare peasants could have de-
scribed in detail an Austrian Marshal's uniform.
His own experience, however, might have taught him not to
undervalue a Kildare yeoman's fertility of resource, as another
story told by himself to Lady Morgan^ will exemplify.
*' Mr. Brown, who was in Germany, wrote to have some fine English
horses which were in his own stables at Castle Brown sent over to him.
The Irish groom who attended them, and who was known to the family
by the name of Ned Byrne, proposed taking them over to his master,
though he had never been a dozen miles from Castle Brown in his life ;
this was at last afipreed to, and Mr. Brown's agent in London had orders
to provide him when he arrived there with an interpreter and guide to
accompany him ; but on hearing the immense sum this person was to
receive, he would not hear of his master being put to svih an expense^
and * e^vganed ' he would deliver the hastes safe into his master's oum
IwmdsJ* When expostulated with, and the distance represented to him,
he replied : ' Why, sure, a 'nt I come to the world's end already ? meaning
London ; *• devil a much farther lean eo, any how.* He set off therefore
for Vienna^ with the ' bastes ;' reached it perfectly safe, and on his
arrival, found his master had gone to Florence. As Italy and Grermany
were quite equal to Ned Byrne, he set forth again on his travels. As he
passed through some garrison town on the frontiers of Germany, Colonel
Count Dalton happened to be looking out of a window, and offered to lay
a wager with some German officers, that was an Irish groom riding by.
'' On addressing Ned in English, he found he was servant to his friend,
Mr. Brown. Much amused with his adventures, he gave him several
letters to post-masters on the route, to facilitate his Italian journey,
every one of which Ned delivered to his master, unopened^ when he
reached Florence. ' What rise was there in them, your honour ? ' he
observed : ^ sure what better could I do than I done f ' Ned returned,
extremely delighted with his travels to Castle Brown, without having
understood a word of any language he had heard, from the time he left
England.
*' A few years afterwards, Mr. Brown sent over some horses from
Ireland to his brother, the present General Brown, Aide-de-camp to the
King of Saxony. General Brown was then at the Court of Dresden,
where Ned Byrne had an opportunity of seeing several of his fair country-
men, who were in attendance on the Electors. His account of lus
residence at Dresden was extremely amusing. 'And there was the giniral
in his rigimerUals goins to pray&rs with the Royal Family ; and there was
Countess 0*Kelly, and Countess O'Callaghan, mighty glad to see me, and
no wise proud ; troth, not a bit of pride among them.' "
Had Ned Byrne lived in the marshal's time, we coald easily
account for the servant's accarate description of the Austrian
regimentals. As a matter of fact, he belonged to a much better
, generation : but " Fuere fortes ante Agamemnona"
Of Ned the following story is told by his grandson, now
living at Mainham, where there is a very remarkable moat, referred
to in a previous number of this Journal. He is also, of course,
^ '* O'Donnell," a Novel, by Lady Morgan. Notes,
CLONGOWES WOOD. 21 S
scoording to local belief, built by the Danes, and is nov the
abode of the " Qood People," and of their treasntes. Now, Ned,
in hie continental wanderinf;;B, had met a Dane, and hanng a keen
eye to bneinesa, consulted him aa to the best and safest method
of ftaining access to the moat and its contents. The Dane was
obliging and eqaal to the occasion. He gave Ned a small
cane, and told him if he strnck the moat three times at a certain
spot indicated by him, its mysterions doors would open, and he
slionld have friendly reception.
Two conditions, however, were absolutely essential : he'
shonld be absolntelj alone. On his return Ned proceeded to
cany oat his instrnctions. Alone and at midnight be sallied
forth, cane in hand. But as he approached the moat his conr~
age began to fail. He went back for reinforcements, and, as be
thns neglected one of the conditions imposed, he struck in vain.
The marrellouB escape of Archibald Hamilton-Rowan, ot
Bathcoffy, from capture by the soldiery in 1798, occurred at the
then Castle Browne, and is described on p. 86 of the Third
Tolnme of our Joubnai..
The subsequent history of Clongowes Wood is outside the
sphere of Archieology. In 1813 it was sold by G-eneral Michael
Browne to the Jesuit Fathers, and was by them opened as &
Catholic College in 1814.
Inwription over tho hftll-door of Ulon joiroB Wood Collone.
St, Bbioii'b Weu. at Facqhabt, Co. Lohth.
(rmm s photognph br tba lata Hlaa Uargftret BtokM.)
( 217 )
THE BIRTHPLACE AND LIFE OF ST. BRIGIT
OF KILDARE}
By MAJOR-GENERAL P. W. 8TUBBS, FeUow Royal Society
of Antiquaries of Ireluid.
COLGAN, in the ''Trias Thanmaturga/' gives six tracts,
called '' Lives of Saint Brigit." Except the second and
third, and they only slightly, none of them contain anything like
a biography. They are mainly records of miracles attributed to
her ; plainly legends of a later date, or amplifications of tradition,
devoid of any sequence. Dr. Lanigan, who has carefdlly investi-
gated all the sources of information then open to him, speaks of
the first and sixth Lives as mere poems ; of the second, as a
panegyric, rather than a Life ; of the third, as a hodge-podge^
made up at a late period, from which it is difficult to extract
the truth ; and the fifth, as well written, but taken from the
fourth, a production, he thinks, of the eleventh or twelfth
century. Subsequent writers have found the same difficulties
Dr. Whitley Stokes, in his Life, taken from ** The Book of
Lismore,'' with his valuable notes showing corresponding events
in ''The Lobar Brecc," and the Franciscan "Liber Hymnorum,''
&c., has thrown important light on what we are ever likely to
know of one who in her time was perhaps the brightest light of
Christianity in Lreland,
The Life in " The Book of Lismore," Dr* Stokes says, cor-
responds generally with Golgan's third Life by St. Ultan. From
these, and the second, by Cogitosus — ^Dr. Lanigan notwith*
standiing — ^we may learn something of St. Brigit's earlier years.
It is possible to extract from legend and tradition a fair idea of
the underlying truth. We, therefore, can only take the main
events of her life as they have been handed down to us, with
such light as local circumstances, or contemporary customs and
habits, as critical aids can afford. We cannot but greatly regret the
darkness which covers Brigit's life subsequent to the establish-
ment of her monastery at Eildare. There were not so many
scribes in Lrish as in English abbeys, who were content to spend
their lives within their walls, procuring and copying all the MSS.
they could get. Whatever records they kept of their own
establishments, none have come down to us.
^ This Paper was prepared at the request, some time ago, of the late
Miss Murgaret Stokes, wno wished to have illustrated it from photographs
%aken by herself; but this has been unfortunately prevented by her death.
2l8 THE BIRTHPLACE AND LIFE OF
The Life given in '' The Book of Lismore " aptly commences
with the fourth verse of the fourteenth chapter of the Apocalypse,
^* Hi sunt qui sequuntur Agnum quocunque ierit/' as applicable
to multitudes of holy men and women, among whom was Brigit,
daughter of Dubthach, son of Demre, son of Bresal, of the sept
of Echaid Find Fuathnairt.
Dubthach, a chieftain of the Offaly country, now partly repre-
sented by two baronies in the County of Eildare, was descended, in
the eighth generation,^ from Echaid Find Fuathnairt, a younger
brother of Con of the Hundred Fights (overking, a.d. 177).
Besides his wife, he had bought a bondmaid, Broicsech, by
whom he became the father of Brigit She was daughter of
Dallbronach, of Dalconchobair, in the south of Bregia/ and was
therefore of good descent. ^'Haec erat formosa formi, et
moribus bona" (third Life, chap. i). Dr. Lanigan tries to
prove from the second and sixth Lives that this is a fable, as
throwing discredit on the birth of a holy saint. But such facts
are not to be measured by modem standards, though the
children of a concubine at that time ranked after those of the
legitimate mother. The weight of evidence shows clearly that
Brigit's mother was a bondmaid, and not the '* propria conjux,"
as the prologue to the sixth Life says. It is also clear that
she must have been a Christian, and a good one; and that it
was owing to her care and influence during Brigit's early years
that the girl grew up as she did : '^ A snk pueritia bonarum
litterarum studiis inolevit" (second Life, chap. i). Dubthach
is not actually termed one of the faithful, but certainly favoured
them; though, had he been '^nobilis atque humilis, mitis^
pietate repletus " (prologue to the sixth Life), he ought to have
been content with one wife. Another fact we can gather is
that, although idolatry had not died out, and *' Druids" ('OfU)),
magicians, or wizards were numerous and influential, Christians
were not let nor hindered in the duties of their religion.
It is not always easy to fix the date of birth of historical
characters ; but in this case the discrepancies are small, chiefly
ranging between 451 and 458. Dr. Olden agrees with Dr.
Lanigan in choosing 453, following Usher's computation.
^ *' Book of Leinster.^' St. Columba descended directly from Con of
the Hundred Fights, but was two generations later.
^ Usually termed Magh Breag ('* Plain of Breag "), the eastern part
of Meath ; but at one time described as extending &om the River Liffey
to Slieve Fuaid, in Ulster, on the borders of Louth. — ** Book of Rights,'*
note, p. 11. **The Annals of Clonmacnoise " distinguish it from Aleltth,
sub ann. 760 and 837, '* Meath and Moybrey." Sometimes it seems to be
confused with Ciannachta, which lay in Bregia. See M'Geough, **^iBtoi7
of Ireland," chap, viii, part 1.
ST. BRIGIT OF KILDARE.
219
Brigit was not bom in her father's house. ; Dubthach's wife
objected to the liking he showed for the bondmaid, and urged
her dismissal or sale. Here two personages of note are first
mentioned. Bishops Mel and Melchu came from Scotland (" ex
Britannia/' third Life ; Bretnaib, Book of Lismore). The wife
complained of her husband's preference for the bondmaid. They
told her that her seed would serve the bondmaid's, and that the
bondmaid's seed would be profitable to hers, which did not mend
matters; and Broicsech was sold to a poet of Hui MeicUais, who
opportunely had come to the house, with a condition, however,
laid down by the Bishops: ** Sell the bondmaid; do not sell the
ofifspring."
Broicsech is taken to the poet's house and is again sold^ still
under the same conditions, to a certain wizard from Conaille,^
*Knifti«ib«(M«:gti)
PER ROSS
^c€bU of MUes^
Ancient Tebbitobies in the' present Ck>. Louth.
[Map No. 1.]
• eitiAile b^Al A ciifc CooAtU. Dr. Stokes translates this name " Tir-
connell," which is usually associated with the more northerly part
i20 THE BIRTHPLACE AND LIFE OF
who brings her to his home. This must have been to Fanghart,
in the County of Lonth, which has always been described in
legend and in history as the birthplace of Brigii^ Shortly after
coming there^ the wizard or Dmid invited the King of Gonailie
and his queen to a feast. The queen and the bondmaid were, on
the same morning, each delivered of a child. The maidservants
(Book of Lismore — third Life) washed Broicsech's daughter in
milk.^ The miracle by which the queen's dead son arose out of
death when the other infant was laid beside it^ may be passed
by.
We are next told that the wizard took Broicsech and the
child into Gonnaught, '' for her mother was of Connaught, but
her father of Munster." ^ He soon, however^ left Connaught, and
returned " to his own patrimony." *
The baptism of the child, and the manner of it, are mentioned
to have taken place in Connaught; but in the form of a
miraculous vision, in which the wizard saw three angels as clerics.
of Ulster. The * * Book of Rights *' connects Conaille most frequently
with the level portion of the extensive territory of the Oirghialla, from
Dundalk to Monasterboice. When the words *' Magh " or ** Muir-
theimhne are added, it is always so.
* Local legend is very strong both as to the birthplace and the
endeavours to persuade Brigit to marriage. No other place disputes the
former. Dr. Lanigan quotes from the fourth Life : '' Villa ilia in qua
sancta Brigida nata est Fochart Muirthemne vocatur ; quae est in pro-
vincia Ultorum, scilicet in regione quae dicitur Conaille Muirthemne."
Likewise St. Bernard, in his *' Life of St. Malachy."
^ Dr. Stokes (note on line 1201) says : *' The bathing of the new-bom
Brigit in milk may perhaps be the origin of the Irish practice mentioned
by Benedictus Abl^. — * Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi,' ed. Stubbs, at
1171. The babe was thrice dipped in milk, which was then thrown into
a drain or some other unclean place."
' In the Franciscan version, this passage seems to have been interpo-
lated from another place : ^* The angel once came to Brigit, and sent ner
to release her mother (who was) with the wizard, Mac Midrui was he.
Of Cormomght uxis her mother, and of the Munstei'^neii toas her father ; and
in Mag Fenamna in Arad Cliach was he at that time." The omission of
the wordd in italics seems to render the sense clearer.
* 3tt u-becA|6 r\nn} bocunj a acaxVoa fciij. (Lismore, 1224.) This is said
in the third life to be in Munster. It is not easy to reconcile the
accounts of the different parts of Ireland in which Dubthach and the
wizard are placed at different times. Dr. Lanigan (chap, vi, note 61)
tells us that Mag Fenamna or Magh Femin was between Gashel and
OlonmeL To shift the wizard from north of Dundalk to the south of
Cashel, and assign him patrimony in both places, is more than improbable.
Brigit's subsequent fame made all parts of Ireland desirous to share in
the events of her life ; and we must expect to meet with fiuch diffi-
culties.
* Book of Lismore, 1215-19 ; two in the third life, app. vii.
ZXTisti-sSTt ^T3C^- _v
ST. BRIGIT OF KILDARE. 221
who poured oil on the girl's head^^ and named her SanctaBrigita.
From this it woald appear either that the actual rite was not
recorded in the original documents from which this was taken,
or that the natural fact has become merged in the supematurol^
It must be recollected that the wizard had not as yet become
professedly a Christian^ and been baptized.
The next fact recorded is that the infant rejected the wizard's
food, and that he selected a cow which was entrusted to a faith-
ful woman> who milked her for Brigit's use. It is hardly straining
a point to give this a spiritual meaning in the bringing up of
the child ; and the virtues which were a prominent feature of
her character were thus developed. '* Everything to which her
hand was set used to increase. She tended the sheep ; she
satisfied the birds; she fed the poor."
Although the narrative after this runs on, there is a break of
several years, and we come to a distinct epoch in Brigit's life.
'' When courage, and strength, and size came to Brigit, she
desired to go and visit her fatherland." It is abundandy clear
that this decision was her own. It is not likely to have been
proposed by the mother, who had been sold away from Dubthach's
house, or by the master, to whom she was a profitable hand-
maid, and always treated her well. The Irish words *' courage,
strength/' &c., are strong, so we may fairly conclude that she was
then labout sixteen years old. The strength of character, of
which we see more as the story proceeds, enabled her to over-
come any opposition that might have been offered. Her master
even sent a message to Dubthach to inform him. He willingly
came, was hospitably welcomed, and received his daughter as a
free woman. . Certainly the wizard had learned more than his
Druidic religion had taught him. So Brigit with her nurse
accompanied her father to Offaly.
While there, she attended, on the invitation of a certain
faithful woman, a meeting of the Synod of Leinster, in Moy
Liffey ('' Plain of the Liffey "), in Kildare. Bishop Ibbair, who was
there, had received intimation in a vision that '^Mary the
Virgin'' waa coming, and recognised her on her entrance.
"Wherefore," says the Lismore Lif0, '^Brigit is henceforth
called the Mary of the Gael."
How long she remained with her father this time we have
no means of knowing. After a time she returned to her mother.
' Unction of the head seema to have been part of the baptismal rite,
as well as of the rite of Confirmation." — Note, Stokes's '^ Life of Brigit,'*
p. 184. The third Life, chap, vii, says : '^ Ordinem complentea baptis-
matiB oonsaeto more."
S22 THE LIFE OF ST. BRIGIT OF KILDARE.
•who Wad ill. ^ There is no use in reconnting the miracles which
follow. All are of the same character^ showing unboonded
charity to all in poverty or distress. The wizard was baptized^
•and Broicsech was set free. He is described as fall of faith ; and
remained in Brigit's company till his death. Note must be
taken of time during these movements.
The life of Brigit^ after her return to Offaly with her mother,
as it was before, is summed up in the words, ^' Whatsoever her
hands would find or would get, she used to give to the poor and
needy of the Lord.'' ' And the climax is when her fiatiier, dis-
pleased with this charity at his expense, takes her to Dunlaing,
son of Enna, King of Leinster, to sell her to him; and she gives
a Id^er, asking for alms, her father's sword. The general and
not the literal meaning is to be taken throughout. Her reply to
the king saves her from bondage : '^ The Virgin's Son knoweth
•if I had thy power, with all thy wealth, and with all thy
Leinster, I would give them all to the Lord of the elements.*' '
'^ Her merit before God is higher than ours," is the king's
verdict.
The next circumstance in the Lismore Life seems to come
in its natural place, but is earlier in the third Life. And, as
it takes us back to the County of Louth, it will detain us a little.
Dubthach and his sons are anxious to give her in marriage to a
certain man of good kin. They are urgent. Saith Brigit : — ** It
is not lively for us if it bring harm upon us." Then she put
her finger under the eye, and plucked it out of her head, so tiiat
it lay on her cheeL When Dubthach and her brethren beheld
that, they promised that she should never be told to go to a
husband save the husband whom she should like. Then Brigit
put her palm to her eye, and it was healed at once.
Now, local tradition has preserved the same story in three
places in the County Louth, with the slight exception that it
was owing to the persistence of her suitor or suitors that she so
disfigured herself The three places are Faughart, Clonkeehan,
andDunleer; and the legends are noticed in the ordnance letters
• to Sir Thomas Larcom, by Messrs. O'Keefie and O'Connor,
regarding these parishes.
^ Th& Rawlinson MS. says: *' And. her father and her foster-mother
almost refused to let her go. However, she went" T*' Stokes's Lives,"
p. 321). This is quite in accordance with her strengtn of character.
' The third lofe here makes the Saint not quite honest in her
.dealingB— ''Quia multa furta faciebat — omnia quae videbat pauperibus
. oocultS dabat " (chap. xvi). * .
' This epithet applied to the supreme Creator i^ very ancient.
H
M
O
M
H
QQ
H
H
3
H
n
I
224 THE BIRTHPLACE AND LIFE OF
In the parifili of Faagbart, and townland of Monaecteeba,! s
small mountain stream, &om its source on Slieve na bolea, aboat
half a mile off, passes tbrongli the gronnds of a honse called
Highlands, near which a bnsh, hnng with rags — snch as may be
seen at many s ziarat in India — marks the first station where the
occurrence took place. About 200 yards farther on, two more
stations, close together, show where the eye was healed. The
first Sunday in each qnarter is the special day for pilgrims to
make their devotions here. Matthew MacDermott, living in a
house close by, is present cnstodian of the stations. Tradition
is not nnchangeable ; and the visitor will learn, perhaps to his
Borprise, that St. Bri^t's suitor, as well as her hther and
brothers, were commisBioned officers in the army.
The illustration opposite p. 217, from a photograph beaati-
foUy painted by the late Miss Margaret Stokes, will give a better
idea than any description of St. Brigit's Well, a few yards from
the old church of which she is patron. It is very anoient.* Its
Favohabt Chubcb BtmfB.
(North Side.)
' See map,
' Tho buUding over St. John's Well in the townbnd of Castletown,
aor Dundalk, ^ougb also very ancient, ia not as old as this one.
ST. BRIGIT OF KILDARE. 225
exterior dimensione are : — Height^ 11 feet 1 inch, 4 feet wide,
and 8 feet long. The doorway is 8 feet 2 inches high ; 2 feet
2 inches wide at the bottom ; 1 foot 7^ inches wide at top. The
church, as will be seen from the photograph of the north wall,
though ancient, is of later date than the Saint herself. It is an
oblong, of 70 feet by 22, without a chancel, like all the older
churches. A little over 200 years after Brigit's death, a battle
was fought here (Ann. F.M., a.d. 782) between Aedh Allan, head
of the Clanna Neill^ and Aedh Boin^ King of Ulster, in reyenge
for the profanation by the latter of the Church of Gill Gunna
(Kilcoony, Parish of Ballycloy, Gounty Tyrone). Aedh Boin
was defeated, and his head was struck off on the Glochan
Ghommaigh (^^ stone of decapitation ")» i^ ^^ doorway of the
Ghurch of Faughart. Whether this was the same as the existing
building it is not easy to say.
The next place in Louth connected with St. Brigit is the
ancient parish (always impropriate) of Glonkeehan, in the parish
of Gharlestown. The legend here (see Ordnance letter) is that
she prayed to God to make her blind. The name in Irish is
cliujD C40d4|i), " meadow of the blind one."
In Dunleer, the legend is that the suitors were many, and
she blinded herself, but was healed by praying at a well, called
in the Ordnance letters '' Brigit's Well,'* five perches east of the
road to Drogheda. The writer of the letter derives the name
Dunleer from this circumstance ; and the late Bishop of Down,
Dr. Reeves, has shown it to have been Utit) leitte« '' the house of
austerity." The first map will show how. these places lay with
respect to Faugbart and the Abbey at Louth.
The question naturally arises. If the occurrence be true, and
took place in Offaly, how. was it that the tradition has such deep
root in Louth, but not there ? The natural and perhaps more
probable, reply, is that, leaving out the eye as evident fable, it is
impossible not to think that so remarkable a personality^ endowed
with unusual gifts of mind, and, we may well believe, of person
also, had not many suitors, wherever she lived. Her steady
adherence to the purpose of her life must have given her a
reputation which followed her, and laid the foundation for many
a romantic story. In the girl herself, that determination may
not unnaturally have arisen from, and been strengthened by, her
knowledge of the circumstances attending her own birth, causing
her to look on the married life with dislike^ . . ;
While she was growing up in the wizard's house atFaughart,
and the idea of a religious life was developing itself in her mind,
she must have sought advice and instruction from those best able
to afford it The Abbey of Drumiskin was near ; but if its first
?26 THE BIRTHPLACE AND LIFE OF
Abbot, LugadiuSy son of Oengns, Eiog of Munster, was then
alive, a young girl may naturally have shrank from consulting
one so superior in station. The Monastery of Louth, only a
mile further off, was within easy distance of Faughart* The
name of Mochta, who then presided over it, is nowhere men-
tioned in any of the Lives ; but he was the friend of St Patrick ;
and it is natural to suppose that his counsel was asked and
obtained, and that Brigit took the Abbey of Louth in her journeys
to and from Eildare. From thence both Clonkeehan andDunleer
were on the direct road, and hence the traditions that have fixed
themselves at those places.^
The next step in Brigit's life was the formal dedication of
herself to the service of God. The ceremony, called in later
years '^ taking the veil," was performed, according to the third Life,
by Bishop Mel ; but this is disputed by Dr. Lanigan^ who says
it was done by MacGaille, of Uisnech (Usney, in Westmeath).
*' The Liber Uymnorum " joins the two, saying that Bishop
MacCaiJle guided her and seven nuns, her companions, over the
Bog of Fai^nech ; and that when they drew nigh to Mel's abode,
Brigit desired him to place a caille (veil) over her bead before she
entered into Mel's presence. Also, that MacCaille introduced
her — *' This is the famous nun out of Leinster, even Brigit"
So the orders were read out by Bishop Mel ; and it is further
related by the same authority that the Bishop confen'ed on her
4Bpiscopal orders, instead of the ''order of repentance.'* The
explanation of this, as a mistake occasioned by inebriation
(BAwlinson, quoted p. 328, Stokes), is hardly worth notice were it
not for the sake of showing how apt writers of that age were to
rush, to a conclusion.
^Brigit's age when she took the veil seems to have been
strangely miscalculated. Usher puts it at fourteen years; Lanigan
supposes that it was when she was sixteen (chap, viii, § iii), the
earliest age according to canonical rules. But, unless the state-
ments in all the Lives which bear upon this point are untrue, and
unless the periods of her life spent — the second time at Faughart,
and twice with her father in Offaly — can be compressed into a few
months, she must have been considerably older.
How long it was after taking the veil that she became the
head of the monastic establishment we have no certain means of
4etermining. It was fixed at Kill darra, the '' Church of the Oak "
(fourth Life — Lan. viii, note 119). Ware and Harris say it was
^ — — ' .
^ ^ See map No. 1. The road from Dandalk to Drogheda^ which went
' along by the sea to Casan Linne (Annagassan)^ was in ancient times the
nulin road. - - t , i ■ . .
mr^raVR
ST. BRIGIT OF. KILDARE. 22)^
fbtinded a.d. 480 ; Lanigan (cL yiii^ § 10), ten years later, when
Brigit was thirty-seven. It finally consisted of a monastery as well
as a conventy which was nnnsnal; and its development may have
taken some time. The fact that she ruled over monks as well as
nnns may have given rise to the idea that she had episcopal
orders conferred upon her. But, like all monasteries where the
abhot had not • episcopal orders, it was necessary that there
should be one bishop at least, to perform the necessary ecclesias-
tical functions. Gonlaeth is, by general assent, named as the
bishop of the monastery, and first Bishop of Eildare.
The second Life, cap. xxxv, contains a description of the
church of this monastery long afterwards, mainly, it would seem,
for the purpose of recounting a miracle performed by the Saint's
power, when it was being repaired, and difficulty was met within
placing the gate of the doorway, by which Brigit and her nuns
had been wont to enter the church, on its hinges ; and this was
overcome after a night spent in prayer by her tomb. According to
this, the tombs of Brigit and Gonlaeth were on the right and left
of the altar, in monuments adorned with various designs in gold,
silver, and gems, and with crowns of gold and silver hanging over
them. The building was lofty and spacious to accomm^ate the
number of the faithful worshipping there. There were three
oratories under the one roof, divided from each other by wooden
walls, the exact position of which is not mentioned ; they may
have been behind the altar.
Across the church an ornamented partition, painted with
figures, and covered with linen hangings, extended from wall to
wall By an entrance on the right side, the Chief Pontiff with
his attendants, and those who performed the sacred offices, and
offered the sacrifice of the Lord, entered into the sanctuary at
the altar. By an entrance on the left side, placed transversely,
the abbess, her nuns, and the faithful widows only entered. The
rest of the church, answering to the nave, was divided along its
centre by a partition, the right side being allotted to priests and
the faithful of the male sex, and the left to the women and virgins
of the faithful.
Such in its later years was the Cathedral Church of Eildare ;
but, as before has been said, we are entirely without records of the
history of the abbey from its foundation in the end of the sixth
century till the beginning of the ninth, after which the frequent
incursions of Danes plundered it of any wealth it may have
become possessed of, and destroyed all the written records and
copies of the sacred books it contained.
We thus may trace how the life of St Brigit wore on. Her
strength of mind and will and intellectual ability enabled her
228 THE LIFE OF ST. BRIGIT OF KILDARE,
to gOTem well the imporiatit establishment oyer which she was
{daoed. And if ther records of her in this position are nothing*
bnt a series of miracles, underneath all we see the same pare-
minded charity that had distingaished her earliest years. Li tho
words ' of the Lismore Life (line 1696), ** she was fii^m, she was
humble, she was forgiving, she was loving." She died in the
seventieth or seventy-second year of her age, a.d. 625 (Lanigan,
chap, ix, s. vi). Some writers put it two years later. Her
festival is the 1st of February.
• f
-^
( 229 )
WILLIAM FITZGERALD OF CASTLEROE, AND
HIS TOMB IN THE KILKEA CHURCHYARD.
By lord WALTER FITZGERALD.
[Read at the Naas Meeting, 1898.]
HALF-WAY between Eilkea Castle and Moganey station,
picturesquely standing in an old apple-orchard, are the
ruins of an ancient square '' pile " or castle, on which a more
modem addition, also in ruins, has been built. This is Gastleroe
{/OaisUn ruadh), or, as the name implies, *' the red castle."
It was not an uncommon practice long ago to call a
building after its predominating colour, whether caused by the
class of stone used in its construction, or for some other
reason. Hence we have a townland adjoining that of Castleroe
to the south, called Blackcastle ; the castles at Leixlip and at
Leighlin Bridge were each known as the Black Castle ; there
is also the White Castle in Athy (erroneously called White's
Castle by some authorities); in the Queen's County we find
another Bed Castle ; and in the County Antrim a Green Castle.
Abbeys and churches, too, were in like manner distinguished :
the Grey Abbey, Black Abbey, White Church, &c.^ are common
name&
For centuries Castleroe has formed a part of the manor of
Kilkea, belonging to the Earls of Eildare. It must origin-
ally have been not so much a castle (as we understand the
word) as a fortified dwelling, in which its soldier-farmer tenants
could defy the attacks of their wild Irish neighbours from
Offaly, Leix, and the Wicklow Mountains.
There is no history attached to the place ; but when we read
of the frequent incursions of the native septs into the Pale or
English territory, we may be sure that, if walls could speak,
Castleroe could tell a tale of fire and sword, brought about, not
only by the hostile clans, but also by rival Anglo-Norman
barons, causing civil war, famine, and death, inconceivable to
us who live in peaceful times.
Who it was that built the castle is unknown ; and until the
end of the sixteenth century there appears to be no mention of
its occupiers. One of the first notices of a resident that I have
80 far been able to come across, occurs in a Chancery Inquisition
of the County £ildare, taken in Athy, on the 6th September,
1621, wherein it is stated that Gerald, the 15tb £arl of
WILLIAM FITZGERALD OF CASTLEROE. 23 1
Eildare (who died on the 11th November, 1620), granted a new
lea^ of the town and lands of " Gi^stlerow-moygany to one
William FitzGerald and his heirs.*' This William I have
been able to identify as belonging to the FitzGeralds of
Blackball, near Clane, who were outlawed in 1641. The source
of my information is a MS. volume at Carton, which, among
other items, contains a copy of a feoffment made to William
Talbot of Carton and others, by Gerald, the 14th Earl of
Kildare, on the 81st July, 1608, of the lands of Ballyyounge,
alias Yongston, and Ardenegrosse, in the County Kildare, to Uie
use of Thomas FitzGerald (? the Earl's only brother), of Eilkea,
and his lawful heirs male, and, in default of such issuC) to the
use of '* William FitzGerald of Castleroe, within the Countie of
Eildare, gent, now servant to the said Earl, and sonne to
Gerrot fitzJames FitzGerald, sometyme of Blackhalle, by
dane, deceased, and the heires male of his boddy lawfully
begotten."
This William FitzGerald was twice married: his first wife
was Joan Keating, and his second Cisly Gaydon; the former
died on the 21st of February, 1628. I cannot discover the
names of more than three of his children. One was a daughter
named Mary, married to William, son of James Bochford.^
Another was a son named Garrett, who joined the ranks of the
Confederate Catholics in the Rebellion of 1641, and was slain at
the Battle of Kilrush (Co. Kildare) in the following year. A
contemporary History thus mentions his death : — " A gentleman
of the FitzGeralds — Gerrott mac William of Castlerowe — was
there killed, a hopeful! young man, an excellent scholar, an
exceeding good antiquarist in both Latin, English, and Irish,
a traveller, a courtier, and a brave horseman."' In the con-
temporary History the scene of the principal part of the fight is
called *' Gnocatarife," of which the present name of the place —
Bull-hill — is a translation.
The third child was also a son, and christened " Gerald ;"
he, on the 9th of May, 1655, was appointed her attorney
by Joan, Countess of Kildare, for the supervision of her son,
Wentworth, Earl of Kildare's (a minor), possessions in the
County of Roscommon. In the letter of Attorney the Countess
writes : — ^that she '' appoints her well-beloved friend, Gerald
FitzGerald, of Castlerow, in the County of Kildare, her true
and lawfuU attorney, in her name to take possession and
* Vide O'Hart.
*Vide Sir John Gilbert's *' Contemporary History of Iriah Afhirs,"
VoL i, p. 31.
232 WILLIAM FITZGERALD OF CASTLEROE,
agree with the seyeial person or persons now inhabiting, or
hath formerly inhabited, the townes and lands of Clone-
murry, Bathmore, Bathvegly, and Gorticetrigaghy in the County
Boscommon*"
In a MS. volume at Carton, labelled " Letters to George,
16th Earl of Eildare,'' are the copies of two letters in reference
to William FitzGerald, which show him to have been a bit of a
horse-coper as well as a keen sportsman. The first letter is
written by William himself, and is dated from Castleroe, the
29th of January, 1682. It reads as follows : —
** Right hon^" my humble services allwayes remembered to your
lordship aud my lady, and my younse lord your sonne, whom I pray
God preserve, and that you both may be the father and mother of many
more ; and God be praysed that hee has come as a hopef ull heyre
unto you. ^
**The blacke mare stayes for your lordship, and the gentleman says
your lordship shall have her as cheape as any man and before any ; the
Frise hee conceales until he meetes me himse&e ; I assure your lordship
Drill deale as cheape for your lordship as for myself, else I were
unworthy to Uve.
*' Soe humbly takinge leave, ever resting and remayninge.
Your honorable's most humble servant to be commanded,
" Will- fitzGerald."
The second letter was written by Maurice FitzGerald,' of
Allen, in the County of Kildare (probably from his castle theroj
called Eilmeage), on the 25th of September, 1682^ He writes : —
** Eight hon"*' I have sent you two brace of Partridges being y* first
fruits of my hawkes labour. I assure your lordship you have, though I
bee noe fiiEiulkner, y* best hawke in y* kingdom, and if it please your
honor and my very good lady to doe me y* honor one week to come to
us, both your honor and her ladyship by seeinge y* hawke fly within y*
Hand of Allen shall confirme, I hope what I report of him to bee true.
My lord, lette mee know by this bearer y^ tyme certayne that I may pro-
vide some venison against my ladyes cominge.
**I killed a brace of Partridges uppon my cosen W" fitzGerald's land of
Castlerowes farme, where there is a good store of game. I shall therefore
entreate your lordship's letter unto him that noe fiaulkners shall hawke
in that liberty but such as your honor shall appoynt or licence.
**I hear of some neighbours towards y* lordship of Maynooth that
destroyes y* small store of Partridge that ly that way, they ought to be
^Greorge, the 16th Earl of Kildare, married Lady Joan Boyle,
daughter of Richard, the 1st and ''Great" Earl of Cork. The son
mentioned in the above letter was Richard, Lord OfiBsdy, who died an
infant ; the Earl eventually had two more sons and six daughters.
'He was outlawed in 1641 ; his father was Cterald fitzPhilip Fitz-
Gerald of Allen ; they were descended from the Knights of Kerry, of the
great house of Desmond* . .
AND HIS TOMB IN THE KILKEA CHURCHYARD. 233
preserved pretiously for your owne use, game thereftbouts beinge very
scarce.
** I beseech your honor blame your servants, and lett them have
special] direction to bee more caref ull. I could name y* ffiiulkners but
that they are my spedall friends.
*' Soe my lord I humbly take leave, and wiU ever live and dy,
* * Your lordship's true servant,
'' Maurice fitzGerald."
In this same year (1682) there was living at Ballyadams
Castle, in the Queen's Goanty, near Athy, a certain John Bowen,
a descendant of the notorious Shaun-a-feeka Bowen, who was
implicated in the treacherous massacre at Mullaghmast fifty-five
years before. This John Bowen rented a piece of land near
Athy called '' Boshbranghe " (Bosbran) ; but a neighbour gave
him much trouble in a dispute about its mearin. In consequence,
John Bowen wrote to the Earl of Eildare, and stated he was
willing to leave it to arbitration. ^' I will nominate," he wrote,
'' Sir James FitzPeers, K^ ; ^ Mr. Gerald fitzMaurice of Glas-
healy ; * or Mr. Will™ fitzGerald of Gastleroe ; which in regard
they live all neere, is my reason."'
In another letter written from Ballyadams Castle, on the
21st April, 1688, to the Earl of Kildare, John Bowen says : —
'^ Right Hon^'*' my humblest service attend you. I have sent you as
many pheasants as I could gett ; as for Partridges, hawkinge tyme beeinge
past, and having neyther settinge dogge nor netts, I could not answer
your honorable's expectations, beeinge sorry thereof." ^
The use of the '^ settinge dogge and netts " is explained in an
old sporting publication called '' The Gentleman's Becreation,"
by Nicholas Cox, first published in 1674 (with a sixth edition
issued in 1721). After a treatise on falconry, and the method
of killing pheasants, partridge, cranes, &c., with hawks, there
is an article about netting game with the use of decoy birds and
calls, almost identically in the same way as is practised by the
^ This was Sir James FitzClerald, Knt., of Ballyshannon, Co. Kildare,
whose father, Sir Pierce FitzGerald, Knt., with his wife Ellinor (daughter
of Sir Maurice FitzGerald of Lackagh), and two of his daughters, Anne
and Catherine, were slain in an attack by the O'Bjrrnes on his Castle of
Ardreigh, near Athy, on St. Patrick's Day, 1593. Sir James died on the
26th April, 1637.
* Gerald FitzGerald, of Glassealy (near Narraghmore), was the son
of Maurice (by his wife Honora OToole), son of Walter FitzGerald, son
of the 8th Earl of Kildare. Gerald died on the 10th of September, 1637.
' Carton MS. Vol., '' Letters to George, 16th Earl of Kildare."
^Carton MS. Volume, called ''Letters of George, 16th Earl of
Kildare. '•
234 WILLIAM FITZGERALD OF CASTLEROE,
Phillabeen-oatchers of the present day. This is follbwed by nn
account of: —
^'how to take pabtbidobs with a sbttino-doo.
" There is no art of taking Partridges so excellent and pleasant as by
the help of a Setting-Dog ; wherefore, before we proceed to the sport
we shall give you an account what this Setting-I>(>g is.
'* Tou are to understand, then, that a Setting-Dog is a certain lusty
Land-Spaniel. Spaniels are of two sorts : the first findeth Game on the
land, the other on the water. Such as delight on the land play their
parts either by Swiftness of Foot, or by often Quesbing, to search out and
to spring the bird for further hope of reward, or else by some secret sign
and privy token discover the place where they fall ; ' the first kind of
such serve the Hawk, the second the Net or TVain. The Land-Spaniels
have no peculiar names assigned to them, except thev are named after
the Bird, which by natural appointment they are alloted to take, for
which consideration some are called Dogs for the Falcon, the Pheasant,
the Partridge, and such like ; they are commonly called by one name —
viz. Spaniek, as if they originally came from Spain.
*' The Setting-Dog is taught by nature to hunt the Partridge more than
any chace whatever, running the fields over with such Alacrity and
Nimbleness, as if there was no limit to his fury and desire, and yet by
Art under such excellent command, that in the very heigth of his career
by a Hem or sound of his Master's voice he shall stand, gaze about him,
look in his Master's face, and observe his directions, whether to proceed,
stand still or retire ; nay, when he is even just upon his prey, that he
may -even take it up in his mouth, yet his obedience is so framed by Art,
that presently he shall either stand still or fall down flat on his belly,
without daring either to make any noise or motion till his master comes
to him, and then he will proceed in all things to follow his directions:
'* Having a dog thus qualified by Art and Nature, take him with you
where the Partridges do haunt, there cast off your dog and by some word
of encouragement with which he is acquainted, engage him to range, but
never too far from you, and see that he beat his ground justly and even,
without casting about, or flying now here now there, which the mettle of
some will do if not corrected or reproved.
'* If in your Dog's ranging, you perceive him to stop on the sudden, or
stand still, you must make in to him, for without doubt he hath set the
Partridge, and as soon as you come to him, command him to go nearer
them, but if he goes not, but either lies still or stands shaking of his Tail,
(as who would say — ' Here they are under my nose ') and withal now
and then looks back, then cease from urging him further, and take your
circumference, walking fast with a careless eye, looking straight before
the nose of the Dog, and thereby see how the covey lie, whether close or
strag^ing.
'^hen commanding the Dog to lie still, draw forth your net [the nets
wherewith you ensnare Partridges must be of double twined brown thread
died blue or green, let the mesh be reasonably large or square, almost
an inch between knot and knot, let the length of it be about three fathom
and the breadth about seven foot, and verge it on each side with strong
small cord, and let the ends be also so, that it may lie compass wide ana
hollow] ; having drawn forth your net prick one end to the ground, and
spread your net all open, and to cover as many of the Partridges as you
'I.e., where they alight.
AND HIS TOMB IN THE KILKEA CHURCHYARD. 235
can, which done make in with a noise, and spring up the Partridges,
which shall no sooner rise but they will be entangled in the Net.
'* And if you shall let go the old cock and Hen, it will not be only an
act like a gentleman, but a means to increase your Pastime."
Partridge^ quail, snipe, wdodcook^ and other birds were also
snared, or canght in gins and traps, probably with the help of
decoy birds.
When it was that pheasants and partridges were introduced
into Ireland, is unceiiain. According to Giraldus Cambrensis, the
historian of the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland, they were
unknown in this country in the twelfth century. In the follow-
ing century, when the Anglo-Normans had settled down a bit,
and were on friendlier terms with their Irish neighbours, they
were probably introduced, owing to the sport they afforded to
the possessors of hawks. In the year 1887 Grace's *^ Annals of
Ireland " record a curious incident that occurred in the vicinity
of Dublin. He states that : —
*' On the eve of St. CaUxtus (Oct. 14th) seven Partridges flying from
the fields, lighted on the roof of the hall of the Canons of the Holy
Trinity ; the boys caught two of them alive, and killed three, the others
flew away ; this thing caused much wonder to all persons."
In Henry VIU's reign there were statutes passed strictly
forbidding anyone under the degree of a baron to shoot with a
hand-gun and hail-shot at any deer, hare, heron, shovelard,
pheasant, partridge, or wild swan, on pain of a fine of ten pounds
and three months' imprisonment This was enacted to encourage
falconry.
Two hundred and fifty years ago — that is, in William Fitz-
Gerald of Castleroe's time — ^game must have been very abundant,
as the fire-lock and small shot were too expensive for general
use in fowling; those pests the jay and the magpie were
unknown; foxes were not preserved; and the scald-crow was
either destroyed with the hawks or by bird-lime. In those days
game of all sorts was just as much appreciated for the table
as it is at present, and probably more so, as it was much more
difficult to obtain than in these days of big battues, and the
*' driving " system. Hollinshed, in his " Chronicles of Ire-
land," describing the character of Gerald, the 11th Earl of
Eildare (''the wizard Earl"), whose death took place in the year
1585, relates that, though he was short-tempered, yet his anger
did not last long. In illustration of this, he tells how on one
occasion '' the Earl being in a chafe for tiie wrong saucing of a
partridge, rose suddenly from the table, meaning to have rea-
soned the matter with hys cooke ; having entered into the kitchen,
drownyng in oblivion hys challenge, bee began to commende
236 WILLIAM FITZGfeRALD OF CASTLEROE,
the bnjlding of the roome vberein bee was at do tyme before,
and HO leaving tbe cooke uncontrolled, be returned to hys
gneBts meryly."
Whether William FitzGerald of Gastleroe took part in the
rebellion of 1641 or not is donbtfal. It, however, aeems more
than likely that be bad died previons to its oatbreak, as in a list
of pereonB oatlawed for complicity in it about this time, his
name doea not appear, though bis son Garrett's name is
included.
Tbe barial-place of the family, einoe settling down at Caetle-
roe, was \he old chorchyard of Kilkea. Attached to tbe west
end of tbe Ghorch rains, is a Mortuary Chapel, now ^so in
rains, oontaining a vault above which stands a tbree-sided
altar-tomb bearing representatiouB of our Lord's Passion and
Tbb Dtrsa balf of the FirzaEUUi Auub-Tomb Slab, 163S.
' Vide toI. iii of Gilbert's " History of the Confederation and War
of 1641."
AND HIS TOMB IN THE KILKEA CHURCHYARD. 237
Gmcifixion. The eovering elab ia ornameiited mth a ofobb ran-
Ding dowD the centre; while roand the edge is the following
iuBoriptioD : —
BaS UBTH WTLLIAHB FITZaEOAIrD AND HIS FIBST WIFB. IVi
, rSBKVABI. IN THE YBAK. C
Of the sideB of the altar-tomb one end is misHiDg, the other
hag the CnioiGxioD oarred on it. The front portion is divided
OsK or THE stsB BNSB Or TBI FitzQebau) Altab-Toxb.
into three panels ; oommenoing from the left, the first panel
eontaioB acnlptnrings representing —
The flogging-post, with ropes attached for tying np
the culprit ; on the top of the post or pillar is the cock
which reminded St. Peter of his denial of om Lord ; on
either side of the piUsr is a knotted, three-thonged aconite
au4 a birch-rod.
IWILLIAM FITZGKRALD OF CASTLEROE. 239
The next panel haa —
The St. Yeronics handk^chief ; the pnrple robe and
reed; a aword and the right ear of Malohns, servant of the
High Priest; a hand; an ewer and basin in which Fontins
Pilate literally washed his hands of amy respOQBibility in
oar Lord's death ; three dice ; and the thirty pieces of
silver.
240 WILLIAM FITZGERALD OF CASTLEROE.
In the last panel are —
A cross and a orown of thorns: on one side of it is a
hammer (including a nail-extractor); a mallet (? with
which the prisoner's legs were broken); a pincers and
three nails ; and the spear. On the other side of the
cross : a ladder ; i^ chalice at the end of a long pole ; a
barred lanthom; and an instrument like an extinguisher,
also at the end of a long pole (which may be intended
for a sponge).
The original position of this tomb was against the east wail
of the Mortuary Chapel ; some forty years ago it was discovered
hid under fallen debris in a state of collapse. When re-erected
by the Duke of Leinster, it was placed against the south wall,
possibly because the loss of the missing end is not so noticeable
in that position. The entrance to the vault is reached by a
short flight of steps two or three paces inside the doorway. In
the last century this vault was appropriated by the St. Leger
family of Grangemellon, as we learn from the Castledermot
Parish Register, one entry stating that on the 20th of March^
1769^ John St. Leger, Esq., was buried in the Kilkea vault
In connection with William FitzGerald there are some sculp-
tured stoneS; which are now built into the west wall of the nave
of the Church ruins ; one represents his crest, a monkey
carrying a knight's helmet; another a mermaid holding a comb
in one hand, and a lock of hair in the other, seated on, or
reclining against, a sea-horse (?); this may have been the crest
of one of his wives. The two remaining stones formed a
mural monument : the upper stone bears the FitzGerald crest
and coat-of-arms (on a shield argent, a saltire gules with a
crescent for difierence) ; in each of the bottom comers is a small
shield bearing arms impaled, viz. —
On the dexter side the FitzGerald and Keating
coats (the latter being '' argent, a saltire gules between
four nettle-leaves vert,'' with a crescent for difference),
below which are the letters I and E, the initials of his
first wife.
On the sinister side the FitzGerald and Gaydon
coats ('* gules, a chevron between three roses or," for
Gaydon); below them S and G, the initials of his second
wife.
Exactly below the large centre shield is the date 1680. This
must be the date of the erection of the monument, as from his
letter, quoted above^ we know that William FitzGerald was alive
...ii.^rflu,,,,^-"
SculptubBd Stokxb is ooKKionoN WITH WUiiiUH FmGBKiU) o:
CUTLRBOB, ElLIE* CBOBCB RmNB.
242 WILLIAM FITZGERALD OF CASTLEROE.
in 1682. The lower portion of the mural monument bears the
following Latin ineMsription : —
VIVO EOO, lAM MORIOR MIRABIS VSRBVLA, LSCTOB
IN TEBKIS MORIOB VITA SEGYNDA POLO EST '
VITA NIHILL • PBIA ' EST ' ESTET BUHI^POPA SEGVNDA '
VITA PBIOB DOLVS EST, VITA SECVDA DEGVS '
EOCE OEBALDIKO FVEBA OOIVNCTA GVLIELMO
ECCB KEATmOA FIO IVNCTA lOANNA VIBO
VJSGILIM CONIVX CLABA DE BTIBFB GEIDON
IVNCTV8 EBAT, QVI TBES CONDIMVB HOC TVMVLO.
It is not unlikely that William's son, Garrett, was the author
of this epitaph, as in the notice of him already given he is
described as a good Latin scholar. The following translation of
the Latin was made in 1868 by W. E. Coghlan, then a tutor in
Eilkea Castle : —
'* I dead still live : the words create surprise !
I died on earth to live again in heaven.
My former life was nought but tears and sighs ;
But now to me are pomp and glory given —
A second life, all happiness in heaven.
*' Lo ! I Joanna Keating, who did join
With William — he, a pious Geraldine,
Was first Ceecilia's consort,^ she who came
Straight from Geidon's stock of famous name,
We three to death's sharp sting at last succumbed;
And ^neath this stone together lie entombed/'
' These sculptured stones were formerly built into the boundary-
wall of the churchyard, on the north-west side, and were placed
for safety in their present position by the 4th Duke of
Leinster. The mortuary chapel must have been their original
site ; the proper place, too, of the coat*of-arms stone would be
resting on the slab bearing the inscription, and .in that position
built into the wall over the altar-tomb. There is said to have
been one, if not two, more sculptured FitzGerald stones, which,
being in a fractured state, got buried, or were lost
Of the existing ruins of Kilkea Church, which consist of
Nave, Chancel, Lady Chapel, and Mortuary Chapel, there is but
little now above ground, except the east gable-ends of the Chancel
and Lady Chapel, the west gable of the Mortuary Chapel, and
portion of the west gable of the Nave.
^ This does not agree with the inacription on the altar-tomb, which
states that Joan was William's first wife. The tomb itself appears to have
been made in William's lifetime, and the inscription recording his death,
and that of his second wife, was never completed.
^wiri^VB*
244
WILLIAM FITZGERALD OF CASTLEROE.
The Nave is the oldest portion of the rnins, and had no
oat-stone work at the qnoins; it is built, too, of large boulders of
a different class of stone to the additions, which, though built on
to, were not bonded into it The Levittstown stone was used for
the Nave, and the Clochar^ and Mullachreelan^ stone for the
other portions, whose quoins, doors, and windows were of dressed
limestone, l^e east windows of the Chancel and of the Lady
Chapel are round-headed. The former is of three» and the latter
Gboumb-plan of Eilkea Chubch Buims.
of two lights ; both have a square *' eyebrow '^ above them, as
well as the little window (also round-headed) on the north side
of the ChanceL These are the only windows in situ.
The two north windows of the Lady Chapel were re-erected
in 1892, the cut-stone portions having been dug up just below
where they now stand ; between them is a niche, or recess, 4fk.
wide and 2ft. deep ; nearly opposite to it is a hagioscope, or
" squint,'' which gave a view of the High Altar in the ChanceL
The doorways had a pointed arch ; portions of them, as well
as the cut-stone work of various windows, &c., are now collected
in the west end of the Nave, together with many little perforated
slate-like stones used for the roofing.
The font, now standing near the footpath through the ruins, is
of limestone, and in shape like an octagonal barrel : the per-
foration is at the side.
^ Quarries in t}ie neighbourhood^
1 CaUBCH (iKTBRtOR).
Tbb Eabt GkI) of Eilkka Chcboh (Eitsbiob).
246 WILLIAM FITZGERALD OF CASTLEROE,
The Mortuary Chapel was probably bnilt by William Fits-
Gerald, of Castieroe, early in the Beventeenth oootory. The aide-
walle ore nearly level with the gronnd ; bat the west gable is
standing : it contains a round-headed door-way (the lintel being
of a sinf^e stone), above which is a sqnare window of oat
stone closely reaembling those in the more modem portion of
Castieroe. During some repairs in 1692 a cut limestone Hotel
of a window was discovered below the ground-level, acting as a
qaoin stone'; it was extraoted, and placed with similar portions
The West End of the Kileea CBtntca Butm
(Shovine tbe poailioa of tbe Font, PitiQenId Scalptured Btonw, iDdBablasiulof Uie
Mortnarr Chapslf .
lying in the castle close by. This window had a flst-arched
head ; bnt, straoge to say, resembled no existing window in
the church or the castle, though to the latter it may formerly
have belonged.
Daring the summer of 1892 a large growth of ivy which was
damaging the rains was removed, and the existing walls were
repoiuted. Though there were no headstones or graves visible
in the Nave or Lady Chapel, yet traces of interments were
noticeable when levelling the ground in those portions of the j
ruins. At the Bame time the opportunity was taken of plaoing
' See iUuatiAtioD on the opposite page.
AND HIS TOMB IN THE KILKEA CHURCHYARD. 247
new mnllions in the east windows, whieh were in perfect condi-
tion, except for the loss of those portions.
The Churchyard is dosed, except to three or four families
in the locality who still nse it. . One of them is named Toole,
descendants of the ancient clan O'Toole, who formerly owned
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the territory, of Omnrethi, in which Eilkea lies; one of their
headstones (which, though nndated, belongs to the eighteenth
centnry) bears the following inscription : —
LH.S.
This tl st^e is erected by
lohn Tool in memory, of his
Posterity,
R
248 WILLIAM FITZGERALD OF CASTLEROE,
We Qow return to Caetleroe.
After the outbreak of the rebellion of 1641, the FitzCter^dfi
of Castleroe disappear. On being ontlawed for participation in it,
ihey most have left the conntrj. .
The next tenant of the place was an officer in the service of
the GoTemment, a Major Thomas Harman, third son of Henry
Harman, of Dablia. In 1651 Thomas Harman obtained a lease
from Joan, Conntess of Kildare, of Milettstown, near Naae, at a
An DMFiNisHEii Boclptuhed Sub in tbb Chancel of En.KBi OHOitOH.
{In the right hand boCtom eomsr of the slab it carved ui au-Uke anlmaL)
rent of £6, and a yearly "fatt weather-motten at GhriBtmas."
To thia lease his m&l is attached, which bears the following
ooab-of-arms : — Aznre, a chevron between three rams passant
argent.
According to a mannsoript at Carton called " The Bent Boll of
the Earl of Kildare's Estate in 1656," it therein appears that
Major Harman had obtained a lease for thirty-one years of
*' Castleroe and Croket at a rent of £75.*' In 1664 he was
fcnighted by the Lord Deputy ; he had been M.P. for Gaxlow in
1659, and for the Borongh of Kildare in 1661. His vrife was
Anne Jones, who died in 1683, by whom be had a son, Went-
worth, and a daughter Mary, who was first married to Sir
Arthur Jones, Knt., of OsberstowD, Go. Kildare (son of Sir Theo-
AND HIS TOMB IN THE KILKEA CHURCHYARD. 249
philas Jones, Ent, by his wife Alice, daughter of Arthur Usher),
and secondly to William Moreton, d.d., Bishop of Meath. Sir
Thomas Harman died on the 11th December, 1667, and was
buried in Christ Church Cathedral, Dablin. He was sacceeded
at CasUeroe by his son Wentwor^, who was a captain in the
Battle Axe Graards. Wentworth was twice married: first, to
Margaret, daughter of Qarrett Wellesley, of Dangan, Gonnty
Meath ; and second, to Frances, sister and heir of Anthony
Sheppard, of Newcastle, County Longford, by both of whom he
had issue. Wentworth Harman ^ died on the 8rd of May, 1714 ;
and his sons do not appear to have continued on at Gastleroe,
as at this time a family of the name of McBoberts held it on
lease.
This family of McBoberts, buried in the neighbouring
Churchyard of Dunmanoge.'
According to the CasUedermot Parish Begister:—
1. ''James M'Roberts, sen', was buried in Dunmanoge Chuicb, June
y- 5* 1711."
2. '* Mr. James M'Roberts, of Castleroe, buried inDumminoge Chancel,
27 March, 1743."
[A large slab lying flat marks the grave. On it is inscribed : —
HEBB LYBS THB BODY OF | JAMES M^'BOBBKTS WHO | PBPABTED THIS
LIFE Y* 25''" OF I MABCH 1743 IN THE 50™ YEAB | OF HIS AGE.
Though many members of the family are buried here, this is the only
tombstone in connection with them.]
3. **June 19'" 176B, James M*Roberts of Castleroe, Esq'* after a fort-
night's confinement from a slight contusion of his right leg, died suddenly,
and was buried by his own particular desire in a Rath near Castleroe
House."
This peculiar wish to be buried in the Rath has been thus
explained by an old man named Simon Gleeson, who lives close
by the place : — This James McBoberts had a land dispute with
his landlord^ who was then James, Earl of Eildare (afterwards
> He was the ancestor of the King-Harmans of Rockingham {alias
''Port-na-Carrick-McDermott), Co. Roscommon, whose pedigree is
given in Burke's '* Landed Gentry.*'
' The Churchyard of Dunmanoge lies near the public road to Carlow,
li mile to the south of Castleroe ; it contains the ruins of the old church,
which are featureless. The oldest lettered stone i^ the place stands
inside the ruins, and has in relief on it : —
BICHABD . TBEVES
OVNY . OOANE
1640.
The flue of the " Cabinet."
Windows.
PositioQ of the attaohed reaidsDCie.
An arched leoesa.
The boles !oi the beam barrioading the di
A pointed oiohed doorwaj.
Nbitov staircase.
. The original entrtuiae (now built up).
The modem entranoe.
Portion of the wftll ot the bawn.
WILLIAM FITZGERALD OF CASTLEROE. 251
Itt Dake of Leinster), and won his cftse, on which he swore
that, dead or alive, he woald never be got rid of from Gastleroe ;
hence his interment on the farm in a Bath lying to the east of
the house.
James MoBoberts was a member of that scandalous insti-
tution known as " the Hell-fire Club/' whose uniform was a red
coat, waistcoat, and breeches, with white stockings. Together
with Henry Dixon, of Eilkea Castle, Robert Harpole, of Shrule
Castle, Ghaorge Bagenal of Dunleckny, John St Leger of
Grangemellon, and others, they met for their orgies in the latter
place^ and never failed to keep a seat vacant, in case His Satanic
Majesty chose to join them in person.
It is said in the locality that James M cBoberts was buried
in the Bath with his favourite horse and two hounds, and that
they have several times been met and recognised on the road
close by. A large tombstone, measuring 7 ft. 10 in. in length,
and 8 ft, 10 in* in breadth, lies, smashed into five pieces, over
his grave in the middle of the Bath. On it can be read : —
Here lieth the Body of la' M'Roberts
E^q' deceased luno the 20*^ 1*768
Aged 50.
In 1788 the McBobertses disappear from Castleroe, as in
this year this large farm was broken up and divided among four
or five tenants :— James Lawler, of the town of Garlow, black-
smith, was leased the mill portion ; Walter FitzOerald, of Bally-
raggan. County ICildare, Gentn., took a lease of the Bath portion
for three lives (viz. — the lives of Thomas FitzGerald, of
Geraldine, and Walter's sons, James and Allen). This family was
a branch of the FitzGeralds of Nurney, County Eildare. Patk.
Dowling, farmer, took the Knockroe portion ; and to Anthony
Eehoe, of the County* Carlow, was leased the Castle porticm.
By him the present house was built in the year 1825, about the
same time as the Levittstown chapel,^ close by, repl&ced the
former thatched one.
During the summer of 1898 the trustees of the Leinster
estate expended a sum of money in securing a dangerous breach
above the modem entrance in the Castle ruins. At the same time
the walls were repaired internally. A large growth of ivy was
cut away, and some two or three feet pf mortar, brick, and stones
removed from o£f the floor of the first storey.
* This is dedicated to St. Laurence OToole, who was a native of this
locality.
252 WILLIAM FITZGERALD OF CASTLEROE.
The old Castle, and probably the more modem addition to it,
were occupied by the FitzGeralds. Their succesdors, probably
the McBobertses, altered the old bnilding greatly, as during the
recent repairs it was noticed that the original staircase had been
built up, and the floor over it cemented right across, a new en-
trance being made in the west wall from some attached building
not now existing. The fireplace in the south wall, as well as the
walls themselves, were plastered all round, as was apparent when
the rubbish was removed. This large accumulation of debris must
have been caused by pulling down Uie upper storeys of the Castle,
to obtain stones for the building of the present house. A
" cabinet " or " garde-robe '' occupies the thickness of the wall
at the south-east end ; it had another above it.
The height of the old Castle, as it stands now, is about 26 feet;
the walls are eight feet thick in the basement, which has a vaulted
ceiling, and was lit by very narrow, round-headed windows of cut
stone. During the repairs a curious feature was noticed in the
walls, and that was, that the original thickness of the walls was
only four feet all through, but that, at some remote period, an
additional four feet had been added, causing the windows to be
changed from a Y- to an X-shaped aperture ; this additional
thickness is also noticeable in the breaches (formerly windows)
on the first floor. Another strange fact was, that the small
window which lighted the loft under the vaulted ceiling, and
another which lighted the original staircase, were not carried on
through the added four feet of wall, so that during the repairs
openings had to be made to let the daylight through. The door-
ways on the ground-floor have pointed arches of cut limestone.
The more modern portion of the Castle was built on to the
south-west comer of the old square ^' pile." It is of small dimen-
sions, and two storeys in height, each floor being lighted by
square-headed windows of cut limestone. High up on the east
wall are the remains of a projecting chimney supported on
brackets.
As is shown on the map opposite, several of the fields
around still bear Irish names.
H
O
i
o
CO
s
s
Pm
( 254 )
COUNTY KILDARE FOLK-TALES.
[Oollected by Miss Gi«ene from the namtion of Tom Daly, gaidener
at MiUbrook.]
How the Mahert of Kilrush got the money. — ^The Maliers
were herds at Eilrash, Go. Eildare. Old Maber was the herd ; and
he had a couple of sons nsed to the work. One day a gossoon
came in about the honse, and he couldn't tell his name, or where
he came from ; he appeared to be about seven or eight years of
age. One of the sons said to the father, " You may as well keep
the chap. He will do a turn for you by-and-by, when you get old
and he gets hardy." So he kept him ; and the chap used to
mind the cattle, and keep them out of the com, and help him.
After a time the chap was minding the cattle one di^, and
there was a lone-bush in the field, and he fell asleep under it.
When he awoke, the cattle were all in the com. So old Maher
was ''going to kill him," and send him away; but the chap
begged him, and said, " Forgive me for this time, and I won't
ever let them break in again." So he forgave him. But on &B
next day he fell asleep in the same way, and the cattle trampled
on the corn again. Old Maber again was going to send him
away ; but he begged him, and^ said, " Only forgive me this
time, and I surely will never let them break in again." So he
forgave him the second time. On the next day he fell asleep again,
and the cattle trampled the com the third time. So Maher came
and found him asleep, and said surely he would have to send
him away this time, as go he should, when he let the cattle
trample the com the third time. " Well, before I go," says the
chap, ** do you go and fetch down the fack." But Maher did
not see what that was for ; and he was not up for going ; but at
all events the boy persuaded him. in the latter end to go for the
facL So he brought it, and they dug under the bush ; and not
more than a couple of spits under the sod they got a big milk-
pan full of gold — one of those great, big earthenware creaming-
pans or crocks — full to the very edge ; there wasn't room in it
for another piece of money. Old Maher, of course, did not
want to send the boy away after that. He would give him any
of the money he would have, or do anything he liked for him ;
but the boy would not take any of the money. He said, '' Maybe
I won't be with you very long." So he died in short after that.
And that 's how the Mahers of Kilrush were made up. [Written
down in January, 1898.]
. COUNTY KILDARE FOLK-TALES. 255
The Keniyman^s Dream. — There wAb a man, and he lived in
Kerry. He had a bit of a garden, and a.Iittle thatched cabin ; but
he was a very poor man. One night he dreamed that *' if he was
on London Bridge, he would make his fortune ; " but he did not
mind it much ; and after a bit he dreamed again if he was on
London Bridge^ he would make his fortune. Well^ he did
not mind it lliat time either ; but, begor, he dreamt it a third
time ; so he thought it must be the truth. He had no way of
^getting to London ; so he scraped up all he had himself, and
begged and borrowed more* He tramped oS, and by hook or
crook he got there. The next morning he went on to London
Bridge, and stayed there all day without seeing any signs of a
'fortune coming to him. He went the next day, and the next, and
a good many other days, till at last one day a man came up and
asked him was he looking for anyone, or what was he always
walking up and down the bridge for. So the Eerryman he up
and he told him how he had dreamed three times that if he was
on London Bridge, he would make his fortune. ** Och, you
foolish man," savs the stranger, *' shui*e I dreamed three times
that if I was in Kerry, I would make my fortune ; I dreamt of
the very spot," says he, ''in a poor man's cabbage-garden,
under a big sally-tree, that there was a heap of money buried.*'
Then he gave the Kerryman a description of the place, and the
sort of little garden it was, with a little thatched house, and
all ; and when he had told him all about it, where was it but
his own place entirely? As soon as the Kerryman parted
from the stranger, he made back to Kerry as fast as he could,
and home to his little house and garden, and there, sure enough,
in the very spot the stranger told him of, he dug up a big pot of
money that made him up for ever. [Written down February,
1898.]
Hotv Tom Daly's grandmother got back the bewitched
btdter. — They say there used to be witches in ould times. I
often hard my grandmother telling how the butter was took
on her. She was for a long time churning ; but the divil a bit of
the butter would come at idl ; all she could do wouldnH bring it.
Well, one day she was within in the house spinning, or carding,
or doing something that way, when a strange woman that she
never saw before came in and asked her could she give her a
drink. My grandmother, of course, said '* Yes," and asked her
would she take some new milk, or would she rather have water.
The woman said she did not mind which ; but she would rather
have a drink of butter-milk than either^ *' Oh, then," says my
grandmother, '' I can't give you that, for I have none. I have
plenty of new milk if you care for it ; but I have no butter-milk."
2S6 COUNTY KILDARE FOLK-TALES.
'^It's a shame on yon/' says the woman, '^to see a fine yoxing
woman like jon too lazy to chum and make butter, for I see yon
own a cow." My grandmother was a fine^ able slip of a girl ; and
she was not then long married at the time. '* Well/' says she,-'* to
tell you the truth, it ^s not idleness that has me without it, for/'
says she, '^I churn often enough, but save the grain of butter lean
bring at all this while back, whatever has come over it." ^* I'll
tell you what ails it," says the strange woman : ^' your butter is
bewitched ; there is some one taking it, whoever she may be, and
may be she does not live very far o£f ; and it 's for to tell you how
to get it back that I come here; for I hard about your butter being
bewitched," says she ; ** and on account of your being a young,
decent, married woman, I didn't like to see you at the loss of it"
"Musha, where do you come from?" says my grandmother;
'^ and who is after telling you about the butter being taken on
me ? " " Never mind, now," says she, " how I hard, or where I
come from ; only do as I am going to tell you, and you will get
back your butter." So my grandmother said she would do
whatever she bid her if she could ; for she was scalded churning
and going to bother with the milk, and getting no produce. The
strange woman then told her to throw out every sup of milk she
had out of all the vessels, and to give them a good scouring
and washing and scalding, and rinse them in spring-water ; and
she told her when she had them all cleaned to gatiier her milk
the same as she always did ; and when she put it in the chum
she was to tie a plough-chain round it ; and she told her to go
out straight foreninst the door and gather a handful of grass,
and tie it in a bundle and hang it up over the door ; and she told
her then whatever day she was going to chum to put a tub on the
'floor, and fill it with spring- water, and if anyone came in for a sod
of fire while she was churning (in them times if the fire went out
they used to go to a neighbour's house for a sod of turf with the
fire in it), she was to wait till they went out of the house with the
live coal ; and then she was to take another sod of fire off the
hearth, and put it down in the tub of water ; and she was to do
that as often as anyone took fire out of the house while she was
churning. My grandmother said she would do what she told her,
and thanked her for her goodness. ^^ What will you give me naw, "
asked the strange woman, *' for telling you how to get back your
butter ? " " Shure, it 's little the likes of me can give to anyone/'
says she, ''for money I have none ; but if you will take a dish of
meal, or a thing that way, shure you're welcome." '' Amdi, never
mind," says the woman ; ''but I '11 tell you what you '11 do the next
time I come this way — ^if I ever come this way again — give me a
pat of fresh butter, and a drink of butter-milk ; you will do that
COUNTY KILDARE FOLK-TALES. 257
for me anyhow/' My grandmother said she would, of course/
and said she was very thankfiil to her. The strange woman'
went away then; but before she went, begob, she told her if tbiore'^
was more batter on her chaming than what she ought to have,
that IB, more than a natural quantity of butter for the comple-
ment of milk, she was not to mind, as it would only be her own
bntfar that she lost coming back again (they were in the same
way in the Castle of Inch at Ihe time ; they could not get the
butter, and this same woman told them what to do ; and she
charged them five pounds). Well, my grandmother did all she
bid her : she scoured and cleaned the ohum and the milk-pans;
and she pulled a bunch of grass from foreninst the door, and
hung it up over the lintel ; and she gathered the milk the same
as she always did, and put it in the churn, and tied a plough-
chain round it ; and when she was going to start churning, she
put a tub full of spring- water on the floor. Well, she churned
away for a while — there was no one with her only a sister-in-law,
a girl about the same age as herself — when incomes a woman, a
neighbour, that kept a couple of cows, and always had plenty of
butter, a power of which she used to sell in Athy and elsewhere ;
the woman said her fire was out ; and, going to the hearth, she
took up a live coal, and went out with it. My grandmother got
into such a fright, she didn't know what to do. She ^as afraid to
put a sod of fire in the tub ; but her sister-in-law was not so
(she was after telling her what the strange woman told her to
do), for she whipped out a sod of fire on the minute, and put it
domvk in the tub of water ; and, begor, the fire went out in the turf
in the neighbour woman's hand before she was out at the bawn
gap. So she came back again, and said it was after going out on
her, and took up another sod; and the very minute she went out
of the house the sister-in-law took up another and put it down in
the tub ; and again the fire went out before the woman reached the
bawn gap. And she came back the third time, and the sister-in-
law did the same again ; and when the fire went out on her the
third time, the woman saw she was tricked, and she came back
no more. They got plenty of butter on the churning — twice the
complement they should have; but my grandmother did. not
mind it, on account of the strange woman telling her she would
get back her own. When my grandfather came home that
night, she said to him, '' Well, Jim, I have plenty of butter for
your supper to-night. You won't have to say again that you got
no butter for your supper, and that the cow is no good," and
she told him all that had happened. '* Och, to the divil," says
he, ''with you and your bewitched butter ; I wouldn't eat a bit of
it for all I ever saw." He was always very fearful of pisher^
2*58 .COUNTY KILr>ARE FOLK-TALES,
ogaes. > He wouldn't go datside the door at night withont some
one with him, for all Eildare. He made her pat the butter oat
of the hoane, as, as long as it was in it he would not stop there.
So my grandmother had to put the bewitched butter in tiie eow^
house till morning, when she took it off to Athy, and sold it.
But she never saw the strange woman after ; and no one around
there knew who she was. Where my grandparents lived was at
Moatfield, near the Moat of ArdsouU. [Written down 28rd
March, 1898.]
Tommy Johnson. — ^I was after telling Tom some yam ; and
'* I '11 tell you a curiouser thing than that," says he. '* It was my
Uncle Jim, that 's in the hospital now, if he is alive. I don't
know whether he is or no, I didn't go see him this long time.
I wasn't able, begob* I must go see him this or next week, please
God. At all events, there was a chap of the name of Tommy
Johnson. He was about six years of age ; and the divil a step he
ever walked. He used to sit by the fire ; and he never put a foot
under him to walk up to that time. My undo was a tricking
chap. He was about the one age of Johnson. Well, this day
Tommy's mother was out somewhere, and he was by himself in
the liousoj sitting at the fire, same as he always did, when in
ran my uncle, with a shovel in his two hands, and shouted,
'' Come, be the mortial shoot ! " says he, '* I '11 cut the feet off of
you if you don't get up out of that," at the same time chopping
all ai'ound poor Johnson's feet with the shovel, and cursing by
this and by that, he would chop his feet off. Begob, with the
fright, Johnson lepped up, and out with him through the door,
and out with my uncle after him with the shovel ; and, begor,
he could walk as well as anyone ever after. That 's as tru0 as
the fork is in my hand. So you see there are curious things that
way, too, terrible curious things itself* I often hard the ould
people going over it, and laughing at it." [Written down 27th
April, 1898.]
CahiU and Mtddowney. — ^As curious a story nearly was about
Cahill and Muldowney. Poor Muldowney, when he 'd go say any-
thing, you might be at the haggard-gate agen he would have it
said. Well, Cahill used to be always at him, making game of
him, and stuttering and imitating him. They were both young
men, and lived next door to one another. . Well, Cahill went
to bed all right one night, and in the morning be had the same
stutter as Muldowney, only, bad as Muldowney was, you might
go seven, aye, ten times as far agen. Cahill would have a thing
said. WasnH that nearly as curious as about Johnson ? and
that 's as true as you 're there. I remember them both. So yoa
see. a pecson should not make game of anyone with any com-
COUNTY KILDARE FOLK-TALES. 259
plaint that way either, glory be to God ! [Written down 27th
April, 1898.]
What Dan DonneUy said to the king, — ^* Did you overhear tell
what Donnelly said to the king ? " " No." " Well 1 11 tell yon :—
The king sent for Donnelly after he baitin' Cooper on the Curragh,
and he says, * So you 're the best man in Ireland ? ' says he.
'I am not, my liege,' says Donnelly. Tm the taorst man
in Ireland,' says he; ^bnt I'm the best man in England
to-day.' So yon see he did not sell his country either," said
Tom Daly.
( j6o )
The B&on-NE MoNt)iit»T aku Altak-Tomk in thk Mavso
Co. KiLDlHE.
(From a dntwing t7 A. 0. yichelmore.)
( 26l )
Miscellanea.
THE BROWNE MAUSOLEUM AT MAINHAM.
JUST outside the wall enclosing the churchyard of Mainham,
on the Moat side, is a small slated building containing a
vault and tomb belonging to the family of Browne of Castle
Browne (alias Glongowes Wood), ancestors of the Wogan-
Brownes.
The erection of this Mausoleum outside the churchyard
precincts was due to a quarrel in 1748 between Stephen Browne
and the Protestant Rector of Clane — the Rev. John Daniel —
as is explained on a slab built into the wall over the entrance
outside the building, the inscription on which reads :—
The within Monument was prepared
By y* directio" of Stephen Browne, Esq"*
y* day it bears date, w*^ he designed —
puting up in y* opposite- church, or ad-
-ioyning to it ; 4& a** Browne applyd sever-
*al times to his parishminister y* Rev^ lohn
Daniel for his consent w*** he refused —
him unles s' Browne would give him
Five Guineas for soe doing. A Gentlema*
whose character is remarkably well kno-
wn as well as his behaviour on several —
occasions to s* Browne, & y* onely —
Clergyman in y* diocese whose passi-
-on would prevent their church to —
be Imbelisned or Enlarged, & to de-
-pr*ve themselves and their successors
from y* burial fees ; & he has been
ye occasion of oblidging s' Browne
to erect s' Monument here on
his own Estate of Enheritance
w* 8* Browne thinks proper
to insert here to shew it was
not by choyce he did it.
May y* P« 1743.
On entering the Mausoleum a limestone altar faces one. In
the centre of the flat slab are cut five little crosses, with a
cherub above and below them ; a male and a female figure
kneel on either side of a crucifix on the front of the altar, over
the man are the initials ** S.B." (i.e., Stephen Browne), and over
the lady *' L B., ob W" (Le., Judith Browne, alias Wogan),
262 MISCELLANEA.
JoBt inside the doorway is a Holy-water trough, on wUch
are the iQitials " S. B,,
1748."
The eutrance to the vaolt is to the left, and beyond it stand*
a large mnral monament above a bot-tomb, as ia seen in the
illastration on page 260.
On the upper portion of this monament is cat in relief a coat-
of-arms, helmet, crest, and motto ; with four medallions, three
of which contain a different crest, viz. : —
1. "A lion's jamb, oonped and erect, gales," the Wogan
Crest.
2. A wolf-like animal's head, with a anake between its jaws.
(The family this belongs to has not been, ascertained.)
8. " Ont of a ducal coronet or, a triple plame of ostrich
feathers argent," the FitzWilliam crest
4. The fourth medallion is ansoalptared.
The crest above the helmet is a wcuMike animal.
C
Si "'
«
MISCELLANEA. 263
The shield below it bears several ooats-of-arms : to describe it
heraldically would be to state that it is *' quarterly of five/' i.e.,
in the upper half are three, and in the lower two coats-of^arms,
which will be described in turn : —
1. '^ Argent, a chevron between three cranes sable;" the
Browne coat-of-arms.
2. ''Or, on a chief sable, three martlets of the first;" the
Wogan coat.
8. " semi of cross-crosslets and a lion rampant ; '*
for an unidentified family.
4. Quarterly, first and fourth, Lozengy argent and gules;
second and third gules, on a bend, cotised argent, three popin-
jays vert, beaked and legged gules ; " for Fitz William.
6. [This compartment is plain, like the crest medallion
below it.]
The motto on a scroll below the shield is qvi non ciconia
TiOBis («ic), i.e., " Who will not the crane defend ? "
The inscription on the monument is incised, and reads : —
D. O. M.
Here lye interred y* Bones of Tho' Browne
of Castle Browne in y* County of Kildare, Esq',
CouncU & Barrester at Law who deceas'd Ap*
ye 2^ 1693— And of Begnet his Wife onely daug^»*
and heiress of Nicholas Stephens of y* City of Dub-
lin, Esq', who deceased Decern' y* 22^ 1665
& of lohn Browne, Esq', onely son & heir of s'
Tho' & Begnet who deceased Jan. y* 27"^ 1693 Aged
42, & of Mmtv his Wife Eldest daughter of y* R» Hon"*
Will" FitzwiUiam Lord Viscount Fitzw" of Merion
who deceased May y* 19, 1693. Which Bones w* several
others of s"* Browne's Family were removed from thei'
burial place in S* Audeon's Church, Dublin, by y* di-
rection of Stephen Fitzw" Browne, Esq', S** lohn
& Mary's Eldest son, who w*^ ludith his Wife daugh'
to John Wogan of RathcofEy in s' County Esq'
Erected this Monument Anno Dom. 1739.
On the slab of the box-tomb portion of the monument is
deeply cut the outline of a coffin with ornamental clasps, and a
skull and cross*bones at the lower end ; in the upper portion is
seen the head and shoulders of a clad human figure ; while on
the breast-plate is inscribed : —
Christopher
Browne Esq*
died decern'
y* 23^ 1736
s
264 MISCELLANEA.
That portion of the slab not occupied with the cofSn has an
inscription running parallel with it : it reads as follows : —
Here lyes Interred y* Body of Christopher Browne, Euq*, 2^ son of y*
above-nam'd lohn & Mary
Who deceased decern' y* 23^ 1796, aged 53 ; who left a aumm of money
at y* request of his Brother
Stephen Fitzw" Browne of Castle Browne in y* County of Elildare, Esq',
for y* erecting y* Monument
In Memory of whom his s** Brother hath caused this his figure to be
here placed
& also y* Body of Anne Browne, youngest daughter of s' lohn & Mary,
who deceased 2 days before
her brother the s' Christopher, aged 55. B. I. P. Here also lyes the
body of the
above named ludith who deceased Feb*^ y*17*^ 1746 7, aged 66.
The Stephen Fitz William Browne so frequently mentioned
in the ahove inscriptions died on the 8rd of July, 1767.
Bnrke, in his " Landed Gentry," under Wogan-Browne,
traces the family down to the present time.
W. FiTzG.
( 26s )
WotcB.
Additions to the List of High Sheriffs of the County
Kildare.
These additional names of High Sherifiis are taken from a
znanuscript volmne in the Record Office, Dublin, called " An Index
to Exchequer Records ; " they supplement the lists which have
already appeared in vol. ii, pp. 258-266, and vol. iii, p. 68, of
The Gountt Kit.darf. Abgh^ological Joubnal.
1808. Hugh Canon (vide Bobt. Cane, Hib. Ool.)
1875 (circa), Robert FitzEustace, of Oradockstown.
1898. John fitz Maurice ( surname unknown).
1401. Sir William Wellesley, Kt.
1417. Sir Richard Wellesley, Et.
1421. Sir Edward FitzEustace, Et.
1429. Sir William fitz Thomas, Et. (surname unknown).
1432. Sir Richard Wellesley, Et.
1484. John FitzEustace, of Newland.
1445. Oliver, son of Sir Edward FitzEustace, Et.
1452. Sir Robert FitzEustace, Et., of Ballycutland (Goghlanstown).
1465. Christopher FitzEustace (late of Eillussy), of Eerdiffstown.
1466-9. Philip FitzEustace, of Newland.
1470. Sir Robert FitzEustace, Et., of Ballycutland (Goghlans-
town).
1474-5. Christopher FitzEustace, of Eerdiffstown.
1479. Nicholas Wogan.
1485. Richard Eustace, of Eylgon (? Eilgowan).
W. FiTzG.
A Seventeenth-Century Skillet and Bronze Sword
at Kilkea Castle. — On the next page are shown these two
antiquarian objects. The skillet was obtained in December, 1899,
from Simon Gleeson, of Gastleroe, who some months before
bought it for half-a-crown at a kant, or auction, on the Misses
FitzGerald*s fiarm at Gastleroe, where for years it had been used as
a pitch-pot for branding sheep. Its earUer history is unknown.
Between the leg divisions are the initials, date, and small cross, as
shown in the dLrawing. The pot is a very heavy one, and the metal
is brass or bronze.
In connection with the discovery of the bronze sword, an old
man named Pat Doolan, of Gastledermot, since dead, told me a
266 NOTES.
ouriouB ator; a few jeua ago. He said that in the year 1847 a
man from Uie Qneeo'B County side of the Barrow, who was a
Btranger to Caetledermot, except for occasionallj attending a hoise
fair, dieamt for three nights running that treasiire was hid in a
certain spot in the ruins of the Francieoan Abbey. When he waa
next in Gastledemiot, he confided his dream to three or four friends ;
and between them they decided to search the place that very night.
The names of the men were Brennan, Booney, EinsheUa, and Doolan,
one of whom was a schoolmaster. After dark, accompanied by the
WA
Tim Castlidibuqt Bwoim, and i Bbonze Pot, at Kn.vr.i CiBTUt.
Queen's County man, they started out with a oouple of facks, a
shovel, and crowbar, and immediately set to work excavating at the
place pointed out to them. Presently they struck a stone, which they
raised, and found beneath, in a sort of small grave-like reoeptade,
a skull with a deep cut into the crown, and near it the sword in ques-
tion, resting on a stone slab. This slab they quiokly laid bare, and
prising it np with the crowbar, they discovered below it a silver
chalice (said to be in use in the chapel at the present time), and a
NOTES. 267
pair of oandlesticks, each with three branches, and apparently of
brass. Though they searched farther, nothing else was found ; so,
re-interring the skull, they shovelled back ther clay, and returned to
the house. Before parting company, they decided on handing over
the candlesticks to the schoolmaster, who was to take them up to
Dublin and try and sell them, the proceeds to be divided amongst
them. The schoolmaster was seen off to Dublin right enough ; but
as from that day to this his friends never again laid an eye on
him, it is supposed that the candlesticks were of gold, for which he
got '' the full of an ass's car of money," and then decamped to
America. This sword, which is very ancient, measures 22^ inches
in length in its present condition, and is two inches wide at the
broadest part of the blade, which has still a very sharp edge.
" The Carbrle," a Dublin Residence of the Earls of
Kildare.
The ancient residence of the Earls of Eildare in Dublin was
''the Garbrie." The origin of this name is unknown. It was
built in what was called the cage-work fashion, like all the
ancient houses in Dublin, the walls being intersected by a frame-
work of oak, and the interstices filled up with niiimrj. The
mansion formed a massive centre and two wings, whose extremities
were completed by tall, narrow square towers. On the timber
were cut Latin texts, family mottoes, crests, initials, and dates.
The whole was surmounted by tall pointed gables, fanciful chimney-
stacks, and iron vanes.
The house stood in Skinner Bow, now Ghristchurch Place.
In 1582, the Deputy, Sir William Skeffington, being succeeded in
. his office by the Earl of Eildare, HolUnshed says : —
*' Kildftre, having reoeyved the aworde, wonlde permit Skeffiington, who ww
late govemonre, now, like a meane private person to dawnoe attendance among
other saitors at his house in Dnblyn named the Carbry."
In 1584, after the rebellion of the Silken Thomas, the Garbrie
was inhabited by the Earl of Ormonde until it was restored to the
11th Earl of EUdare.
In 1689, the Garbrie had been divided into three houses, of
which the centre, still caUed the Garbrie, was converted into an
inn, or tavern, and was of great resort, as it stood in the principal
street leading to the castle &om the western and southern gates of
the city.
Harris, in his '* History of Dublin," in 1766, mentions that the
oldest house of cage-work then existing was '' that in Skinner Bow,
near the Tholsel, in a part whereof Dick's coffee-house was for a
2S8 NOTES.
long time kept ' It was eaJled * the Oarbde/ and appears by histozy
to have been inhabited by the Earl of Eildare two hundred and
thirty-two years ago ; and how much longer we know not . . .
This house is called ' the Oarbrie ' in ancient leases of that noble
family still subsisting."
The Garbrie appears to have been taken down soon after that
period.
The Wayside Cross-bases formerly at Little Rath and
Prospect.
The two cross-bases mentioned on p. 40, voL i, of The Journal^
were^ in the year 1898, removed by Canon Sherlock to the small
ancient burial-ground situated in his demesne near the entrance
gate.
They are very similar in shape and material ; both are square
blocks of limestone, with a sloping top. The Little Bath stone is,
roughly, 82 inches high, with sides of 27 inches, and a socket
18 X 5 inches. The Prospect stone, is, roughly, 24 inches high,
40 inches at the sides, and the socket 17 X 9 inches.
The latter cross-base, in sixteenth-century lettering, has the
following incised on one of its sloping surfaces : —
PBTRVS :
WELS :
ME : FECET :
Peter Wels (? or Walsh) was the stone-cutter.
Though these cross-bases are rough and unsculptured, yet, like
the Cross-Morris wayside cross {vide p. 250, vol. i, of The Joubkal),
they may have had finely carved shafts. The latter was erected to
mark the spot where Sir Maurice FitzGerald, Et., of Lackagh, was
slain in an encounter with a party of the O'Mores of Leix in 1520.
There is no evidence, nor any clue, as to whose memory these first-
named crosses were erected.
Gerald Aylmer, son of Sir Andrew of Donadea.
In the Aylmer Pedigree, attached to the Donadea Paper (vol. iii,
p. 178, of The Journal), the compiler has made a mistake in calling
Sir Andrew's eldest son ** Sir Gerald Aylmer, 8rd Baronet," as he
died before his father. This will alter the number of baronets on
the pedigree by making them one less, and they will then coincide
with the letterpress, which is correct. Burke's Peerage makes the
same error.
W. FiTzG-
NOTES. 26^
St. Brlgid and Clane. — Perhaps some of our readers will be
able to say whether there is any written account of a connection
between St Brigid and Clane, where St. Ailba, Bishop of Ferns,
founded a monastery in the sixth century.
My reason for asking is, that a few years ago a man living
about a quarter of a mile above Clane, on the north side of the
river, and close to the spot where the ancient ford crossed the
Liffey, pointed out a spring of water, which he said was called
*' St. Brigid's Well." He also said that some forty or fifty years ago
there were two curious stones standing near the well, the larger of
which was called '' St. Brigid's Chair," and the other '< St. Brigid's
Thimble." These stones, situated near an outcrop of limestone
rock which was quarried for road-making, were, he said, both broken
up to mend roads with by a man named Tyrrell, who never had any
luck afterwards. Not more than half-a-mile from this, on the road
from Clane to Betaghstown, and just before you reach the doctor's
house, is a lane running in the direction of Surmount Cross Boads.
This lane also bears St. Brigid's name, being called '<Boher-na-Brid.''
It is possible that St. Brigid,. if she ever made a journey into
Meath from Eildare, may have rested at Clane, and that these
names originated from that fact.
Ed.
Old Road Names. — {a) Near Athy ; (6) Near Dunmanoge.
(a) Near Athy. The road leading from Athy eastwards to
Ctallows-hill is called Boher-hwee^ or << the yellow road."
A narrow winding road to the north-east of Athy, which runs
from the Moat of Ardscull Boad at Gallowshill, through the town-
land of Prussellstown, goes by the name of Boher-an-oochra^ or << the
road of the Fuller."
To the south of Athy, at Chanterlands, there is a bohereen off
the Carlow Boad called Ougkra-boura.
About a mile from the town, a public road connects the Carlow
road with the Castledermot road at Bray Old Pond. This is named
Boher-na-worragah, or " the road of the Pedlars," because, I was
informed, in the old days, when Athy was a Corporation, vendors of
goods sold their wares along this road without paying a toll, as it
was just outside the bounds of the Borough.
(b) Near Dunmanoge. Dunmanoge lies half way between
Eilkea Castle and the town of Carlow. The name of this place is
a good instance of how impossible it is to arrive at a correct deriva-
tion and meaning of a place-name without knowing its original
form, so distorted and corrupted by the English tongue have very
many Irish names become. The original of Dunmanoge was
<* Moghna-Moshenoc." In 1552 this had changed to '' Donahe-
270 NOTES*
mocke, alias ".Moimahemocke/'^ and in 1621 il hftd become " Donne-
monooke."^ Of the original form of the name, O'Ddnovan, the great
Irish scholar, wrote that '^ the word ' Moghna,' or, < Mughna,'
appeared to be a topographical term peculiar to this part of Ire-
land;" bat he does not give its meaning. The latter part of the
name — Moshenoc — is the name of a saint, Shenan, which takei
the endeared form of Mo (my) Shenan Oge (young) contracted to
Moshenoc, whose festival was held on the 11th of December.
Close to the churchyard of Dunmanoge is the junction of five
roads, three of which have Irish names :—
1. Boher-coyle (or the wood road) leads to Maganey.
2. Tochar-gar (the rough causeway) leads to Garlow across the
Dunmanoge snipe-bog.
8. Boher-a-vuttha (the road of the . . . . ?) is the continua-
tion of the above two roads for a quarter of a mile eastwards.
Not one of these names appears on the 6-inch Ordnance Survey
Maps.
W. FiTzG.
The County Galway Arohadological Society.
We are very glad to see that the County Galway has commenced
the good work that our Society has been engaged in for the last
ten years. In the month of March, 1900, a meeting was held in
<* the City of the Fourteen Tribes," at which it was decided to
found an Archfeological Society, the inaugural address bdng
delivered by the Most Bev. Dr. Healy, Bishop of Clonfert.
The Hon. Bobert E. Dillon was elected President, and the
Bishop of Clonfert Vice-President.
Before the end of the year the first number of their Journal was
issued ; it contains three interesting Papers : —
1. << The Aims and Methods of the Society," by the Most Bev.
Dr. Healy.
2. " The Thirty-four De Burgo Castles in the Barony of Clare,"
by Colonel J. P. Nolan, m.p.
8. ** Pre-Norman Galway," by the Very Rev. J. Fahey, p,p,, d.d.
We wish our sister society a *' cead mille failthe " and a long
existence, as there is no more interesting county in Ireland than
that of the ancient septs of O'Daly, O'Flaherty, O'Eelly, O'Madden,
and O'Shaughnessy.
* Morrin's Calendar of Patent and doae BoHs^ kaland.
^ Co. Kildare Chancery Inquisition of James I.
JOURNAL
OF THE
jlrt|»(il(igtcal J^ormtif of t|e GonntB of FJilkre
AND
i^ttrrfliinbing Districts.
4-f
^rocccMngs.
Thb Annual General Meeting of the Society was held on
Wednesday, the 20tli February, 1901, in the Court House,
Naas, by permission of the High Sheriff.
It had been originally intended to hold the meeting on the
23rd of January — ^the programme for that date having been
issued ; but owing to the serious illness and subsequent death
of Her late Majesty the Queen, the President and Council post-
poned the meeting to the following month.
The Earl of Mayo, P.O., President of the Society, occupied
the chair.
The following Members of the Council of the Society were
present: — The Rev. Matthew Devitt, Vice-President; Mr. Thomas
Cooke-Trench, Mr. H. Hendrick-Aylmer, Hon. Treasurer,- and
Lord Walter FitzGerald, Hon, Secretary.
Sir Arthur Vicars, Ulster, Hon. Secretary, sent an apology
for non-attendance, owing to indisposition.
In addition, the following Members and visitors introduced
by Members, amongst others, were present : —
The Dean of Kildare and Mrs. Cowell, Mr. C. M. Drury, Mr. Robert
Oochrane, Han. Secreta/nff R.8.A., Ire. ; Mr. R. W. Manders, Mr. Arthur
Fitzmaurice, Miss M. Culshaw, Mr. Algernon Aylmer, Rev. J. Brennan,
Bfr. A. 0. Michelmore, Mr. W. Weldon, Mr. Edmund Sweetman,
Mrs. Sweetman, Dr. O'Kelly, Mr. Wm. Staples.
The Minutes of the previous Oeneral Meeting, in January,
1900, having been read and confirmed, were signed by the
Chairman.
The President read the Report of the Council for the past
year, which was adopted on the motion of Mr. Thomas Cooke-
Trench, seconded by Mr. Algernon Aylmer.
T
272 PROCEEDINGS OF THE
The Hon. Treasurer read his Beport for the year 1900,
showing a balance in favour of the Society of some £10 better
than the previons year.
A vote of thanks to the Hon. Treasurer for his Beport was
proposed by Mr. R W« Manders, and seconded by the Bev. M.
Devitt, and was unanimously passed.
Lt.-Col. Thomas J. De Burgh, and Mr. A. More O'Ferrally
being the Members of the Council retiring by rotation, were
re-elected.
The following were elected Members of the Society : —
Mrs. Betham, Mrs. Geoghegan^ the Bev. Joseph O'Eelly, the
Bev. James Brennan, Bector of Clongowes Wood College ; the
Bev. F. Boyd Johnston, and Mr. Thomas Kelly. In addition,
the elections at the September meeting of the following were
confirmed : — The Bev. P. McCarthy, Dr. Thomas More Madden,
Bev. F. W. Gason, Bev. S. B. J. Chaplin, Mr. Arthur
FitzMaurice, Mr. J. C. Murphy, Mr. E. P. O'Kelly, Bev. Michael
Browne, St. Stanislaus' College, TuUamore; Mr. John G«
Eustace, Lady Albreda Bourke, Bev. W. Beynell, and Mr. A. C.
Michelmore.
The President sketched an interesting tour which the Council
suggested should be taken as the Excursion in September,
following which suggestion the Bev. M. Devitt proposed, and
Lord Walter FitzGerald seconded, the following resolution,
which was passed unanimously : —
** That the Excursion Meeting for the ensuing Session of the Society
take place at Rathmore, Fumess, and district in September next."
The following Papers were then read: —
" Notes on the Ksh Wolf-dog." By the Earl of Mayo.
" The Original Anglo-Norman Settlers in County Kildare."
By Canon Sherlock; read by Bev. M. Devitt in the writer's
absence.
"Patrick Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan." By Lord Walter
FitzGerald.
Some objects of antiquarian interest were exhibited, includ-
ing an old sketch, by Petrie, of Kildare Cathedral, by Mr.
Thomas Cooke-Trench, for which a vote of thanks to the
exhibitors was passed.^
Mr. Thomas Cooke-Trench proposed, and the Dean of
Kildare seconded, a vote of thanks to the High Sheriff (Mr.
Wm. T. Kirkpatrick) for the use of the Court House, and to
the £arl of Mayo for presiding, after which the proceedings
terminated.
* For a description of these exhibits see ** Notes."
COUNTY KILDARE ARCH^OLOGICAL SOCIETY. 273
Report of Council for Year 1900.
The Council feel that the course they took in postponing the
meeting of the Society from the 23rd January, owing to the
serious illness and subsequent death of Her late Majesty the
QueeUi will meet with the approval of all the Members.
They come before the Members this time able to report
decided improvement in all departments.
The Hon. Treasurer will show you that the balance has
increased from last year, and there are now 161 Members on the
roll, of which number seventeen are Life Members.
This is all the gi*eater source of satisfaction when it is con-
sidered that the Eildare Archsdological Society has now been in
existence ten years, although there were many at the time of
its foundation who gave it a life of three years, and foretold that
it would die from sheer want of archseological and antiquarian
food ! If this occasion should arise, the Society, at any rate,
will be able to show a good amount of work done, and some
valuable additions to the history of the county and district.
Foremost among the Members who have died during the year
must be mentioned our only Honorary Member, Miss Margaret
Stokes, whose death is a national loss, and makes a gap very
difficult to fill in the literary world of Celtic art. A short
memoir of her appears in the cuiTcnt number of The Journal.
They have also to chronicle the loss, since the last meeting,
of Mr. David Mahony, of Orange Con.
The Annual Oeneral Meeting was held, as heretofore, in
Naas, on the 24th January, 1900, at which the usual business
was transacted ; but the Council regret that the attendance was
not better, and they hope that the Members will make a greater
effort to attend the January meetings in future.
Whatever may be said of the falling-off in the attendance at
the January meetings, this cannot be said with regard to the
Excursion meetings, which are becoming increasingly popular ;
and this Society has always taken credit to itself for having been
the pioneer in popularizing Irish archaBological research in this
special way. The Excursion last September was held at Bally*
more-Eustace and district, and was generally voted a most
enjoyable one, although extending over a considerable area.
The Council hope that this year's Excursion may be made
somewhat a special one, to celebrate the tenth year of the
existence of the Society.
Since the Meeting last year the Society have had the pleasure
of welcoming another addition to the ranks of Archseological
Societies — namely, that of the County Galway,
274 PROCEEDINGS OF THE
Your Secretaries were applied to by the promoters of that
Society for copies of the rules and particulars of the working of
the Eildare ArchaBological Society and its Journal; and it is
some compliment to the Society to know that the Galway Society
adopted the rules and arrangement of the Journal almost
en bloc.
With your permission, it is proposed to exchange Journals
with this new sister Society.
Two Members of the Council, Lt.-Col. T. J. de Burgh (now
on active service in South Africa), and Mr. A. More-0'Ferrall,
retire from the Council by rotation, and, being eligible, offer
themselves for re-election.
Signed on behalf of the Council,
Mayo, President.
Arthur Vicars, Ulster,) Hon.
W. FitzGbrALD, ) Secretaries.
Excursion Meeting, 1900.
The tenth Annual Excursion Meeting took place on Wed-
nesday, the 12th September, 1900, at Ballymore-Eustace and
surrounding district.
The Members of the Society, and visitors introduced by
Members, assembled at Harristown Station, which was the
rendezvous for the occasion.
The first place on the progi'amme was Coghlanstown Church-
yard, where the remains of the old church, and the shaft of the
Eustace Cross, and other monuments were inspected. A Paper
on the history of the locality was read by Lord Walter FitzGerald.
The party then drove to Ballymore-Eustace, passing a small
ancient cross near the roadside in the Park of Stonebrook. In
the churchyard Sir Arthur Vicars read a Paper for Lord Walter
FitzGerald on the history of the place ; and some discussion
followed as to the antiquity of a huge old gi*anite cross situated
in the churchyard, the general opinion being that it was not
entitled to be ranked amongst early Celtic crosses.
After a visit to the interior of the church — which, however,
does not contain anything of archaBological interest — the Members
and their friends drove to the " Pipers' Stones,^' alighting on
the way to take a view of the beautiful waterfall called
Gooleenawautha. An interesting Paper on the Pagan Circle of
Stones was read by Lord Walter FitzGerald.
}lr. Hendrick-Aylmer also read an account descriptive of an
COUNTY KILDARE ARCIL^ilOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 275
extraordinary calamity which occurred in 1813| when the best
portion of the pack of the Eildare Hounds was lost in the Falls
of Poul-a-phooka in its endeavour to pursue its quarry.
A drive of two miles brought the party to Poul-a-phooka
Hotel, where an excellent luncheon was served, the Members
of the Society present having become so numerous as to neces-
sitate their lunching in two contingents.
At this stage what may be called the more serious duties of
the day were ended, as Poul-a-phooka, beautiful as it is, contains
nothing of archsological interest. But the Society already had
had a hard day's work of archsdological study; and the refreshing
shades and walks around the renowned waterfall formed a very
welcome sequel to a late luncheon.
Towards evening those present returned to Naas Station on
their homeward journeys.
In regard to weather the Eildare Archaaological Society
seems to have been specially lucky in being favoured with
propitious weather for its Excursions ; and this day was no
exception to the rule.
It was, however, a matter of some regret to the Members
that the President of the Society was unavoidably prevented from
attending the meeting; but his official duties were ably performed
by the Vice-President.
Amongst the Members and visitors present were : —
The Rev. M. Devitt, Vice-President ; The Dean of Eildare
and Mrs. Cowell, Rev. S. B. and Mrs. M'Gee, Mr. H. Hendrick-
Aylmer, Hon, Treasurer; Canon Sherlock, Hon, Editor^ and
the Misses Sherlock, the Countess of Mayo, Mr. George
Mansfield, Lord Walter FitzGerald, Hon. Secretary; Lord
George FitzGerald, Hon. Gerald and Lady Maria Ponsonby,
Rev. C. L Graham, Sir Arthur Vicars, Ulster, Hon. Secretary ;
Mr. and Mrs. Vipond Barry, Lady Mabel FitzGerald, Lady
Nesta FitzGerald, Hon. Mrs. Nugent, Mr. K Supple, d.l, b.i.c.,
Mr. and Mrs. Cooke-Trench, Mr. and Mrs. W. R. MoUoy, Miss
L. Russell, Mr. and Mrs. N. J. Synnott, Mr. W. Grove White,
Rev. C. W. Ganly, Rev. E. O'Leary, Mr., Mrs., and Miss Minchin,
Mr. and Mrs. P. Hopkins, Rev. J. Cullen, Rev. J. Dunne, His
Honor Judge Dane, Mr. J. Whiteside Dane, Mr. Martyn,
Mr. Algernon Aylmer, Miss Culshaw, Rev. Canon James Adams,
Major and Mrs. Maurice 0*Connell, Mr. John G. Eustace, Rev.
P. M'Carthy, Judge Law, Mrs. Urquhart, Mrs. Honour, Miss B.
Langrishe, Mr. Michelmore, Mr. Nugent, Miss D. Netterville,
Mrs. Hopkins, Miss Cornwall, Miss Medlicott, Miss Aylmer,
Rev. M. Conroy, Rev. G. A. Cullen, Mr. T. F. Bacon, Miss
Edwards, &c.
276
PROCEEDINGS OF THE
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COUNTY KILDARE ARCHi*:OLOGlCAL SOCIETY. 2J7
LIST OF HONORARY OFFICERS AND MEMBERS.
{COnnBQTED TO lit JULY, 1001.)
THE EABL OF MAYO, P.O.
9ut-]prt8tbtnt :
THE REV. MATTHEW DEVITT, S.J.
tf Ottncxl :
(in okdeb of election.)
THOMAS COOKE-TRENCH, ESQ., D.L.
GEORGE MANSFIELD, ESQ., D.L.
THE REV. EDWARD O'LEARY, P.P.
LT.-COL. THOMAS J. DE BURGH, D.L.
AMBROSE MORE>0'F£RRALL, ESQ., D.L.
THE EARL OF DROGHEDA.
$on* C»a»xrtr :
HANS HENDRICK-AYLMER, ESQ., Kerdufstown, Sallins.
Pon. ^ubtlor:
ALFRED A. WARMINGTON, ESQ., Munsteb and Leinbteb Bank, Naas.
{on. ^ecrtlarits :
SIR ARTHUR VICARS, C.V.O., F.S.A., Ulster, 44 Wellington Road, Dublin.
LORD WALTER FITZGERALD, M.RLA, Kilkea Castle, Maqaney.
^oiT. Cbttor :
THE REV. CANON SHERLOCK, M.A., Sheblockstown, Sallins.
2/8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE
^embers:
[O/flcers are indicated by heavy type ; Life Members bj* an asterisk (*).]
Adams, Rev. Canon, Kill Rectory^ Straffan.
Arohbold, Miss, Davidstown, Gastledermot.
Aylmer, Miss, Donadea Castle, Co. Kildare.
Aylmer, Algernon, Bathmore, Naas.
AYLMER, H. HENDRIGK-, Hon. Treasurer, Kerdififstown, SalUns.
^Barton, Hon. Mrs., Lattr«llstown, Clonsilla.
*Barton, Bertram, Strafifan House, Straffan.
Beard, T., ald., Olebe Crescant, Stirling.
Betham, Mrs., 9 Belgrave-square, Monkstown.
Blake, J. R, 22 Morehampton-road, Dablin.
Bonham, Colonel J., Balliataggart, Colbinstown, Co. Kildare.
Bourke, Lady Albreda, Roseboro', Straffan.
Brennau, Rev. James, s.j., Rector, Ciongowes Wood College, Sallins.
Brooke, J. T.. Ardnaree, Ballina, Co. Mayo.
Brown, Stephen J., Ardoaien, Naas.
Browne, Rev. Michael, s.j., St. Stanislaus' College, Tullamore.
Burke, Very Rev. E., p.p., Bagenalstown, Co. Carlow.
*Burtohaell, G. D., m.a., 6 St. Stephen's-green, Dablin.
Cane, Major Claude, St. Wolstan's, Celbridge.
Carroll, Frederick, Moone Abbey, Moone.
Chaplin, Rev. S. R. J., Leinster Lodge, Kildare.
"^Clarke, Mrs., Athgoe Park, Hazlehatch, Co. Dublin,
"^(/lements, Colonel, KiUadoon, Celbridge.
^Clements, Henry J. B., d.l., KiUadoon, Celbridge.
Coady, D. P., m.d., Naas. ,
Cochrane, Robert, f.s.a., h.b.i.a., Hon. Secretary r.s.a.i., 17 Highfield-road,
Rathgar.
OoUey, G. P. A, Mount Temple, Clontarf, Co. Dublin.
Conmee, Rev. J. F., s.j., St. Francis Xavier^s, Upper Gardiner- street, DubUn.
Cooper, Austin Darner, Drumnigh House, Portmarnock, Co. Dublin.
Coote, Stanley, V., Oarrowcoe Park, Roscommon. ^ .
Cowell, Very Rev. G. Y., Dean of Kildare, The Deanery, Kildare.
Cruise, Francis, m.d., Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow.
Cullen, Rev. John, Adm., Carlow.
Culsbaw, Miss, Johnstown, Straffan.
COUNTY KILDARE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 279
Daly, Cm 25 Weatmoreland-Btreet, Dublin.
Dames, B. S. Long^orth, 21 Herbert-street, Dablin.
Dane, J. Whiteside, Abbeyfield, Naas.
Darby, M., m.d.. West End, Monasterevan.
Day, Bobert, f.s.a., u.b.i.a.. Myrtle Hill House, Cork.
Dease, Colonel Sir Gkrald, c.v.o., Celbridge Abbey, Gelbridge.
DE BURGH, THOMAS J., Lt.-Gol., d.l., Oldtown, Naas.
DEVITT, Rev. MATTHEW, 8.J., Milltown Park, Milltown, Co. DubUn.
DROGHEDA, THE EARL OF, Moore Abbey, Monasterevan.
Drogheda, The Countess of, Moore Abbey, Monasterevan.
Drury, Charles M., Ballinolea House, Baltinglass.
Duggan, Bev. William, c.c, Athy.
Dunne, Bev. John, c.c, Baltinglass, Co. Wioklow.
Dunne, Laurence, DoUardstown House, Athy.
Elliott, George Hall, Chief Librarian, Free Public Library, Belfast.
Elliott, Bev. William, The Manse, Naas.
Eustace, John G., Fern Bank, Stow-on- the- Wold, Gloucestershire.
Field, John, Eilcook.
ffrench, Bev. Canon, m.b.i.a., Ballyredmond House, Clonegal, Co. Carlo w.
*FitzGerald, Lady Eva, Eilkea Castle, Maganey, Co. Kildare.
*FitzGerald, Lady Mabel, Kilkea Castle, Maganey, Co. Kildare.
*FitzGerald, Lady Nesta, Kilkea Castle, Maganey, Co. Kildare.
*FitzGerald, Lord Frederick, Carton, Maynooth, Co. Kildare.
^FitzGerald, Lord George, Kilkea Castle, Maganey, Co. Kildare.
FitzGerald, Lord Henry, 1 Sloane-court, London, S.W.
* FITZGERALD, LORD WALTER, m.r.la., Hon, Secretary^ Kilkea Castle, Maganey,
Co. Kildare.
FitzGterald, Sir George, Bart., Killybegs, Sallins.
'^FitzMaurice, Arthur, Johnstown House, Carlow.
Fletcher, Bev. Lionel, The Bectory, Straffan.
Fogarty, Bev. M., Professor, The College, Maynooth.
Foley, Most Bev.Patrick, d.d.. Bishop of Kildare andLeighlin, Braganza, Carlow.
Freeman, Francis J., Calverstown, Kilcullen.
Ganly, Bev. C. W., The Bectory, Castledermot, Co. Kildare.
Gargan, Bight Bev. Monsignor Denis, d.d., President of St. Patrick's College,
Maynooth.
Garstin, J. Bibton, d.l., f.s.a., M.11.1.A., Braganstown, Castlebellingham,
Co. Louth.
Gason, Bev. F. W., The Bectory, Maynooth.
Glover, Edward, 19 Prince Patrick-terrace, North Circular-road, Dublin.
Geoghegan, Mrs., Bert, Athy.
28o PROCEEDINGS OF THE
Graham, Bey. C. I., Eildronght Parsonage, Gelbridge.
Greene, Colonel Biohard, Stoneylands, Dedham, Essex.
Greene, Thomas, ll.d., Millbrook, Maganey.
Hade, Arthur, as., Garlow.
Hannon, J. A. , Prumplestown, Garlow.
Higginson, Lady, Gonnellmore, Newbridge.
Hopkins, Mrs., Blackball Gastle, Eilcullen, Go. Eildare.
Hobson, C. J., 239 West One Hundred and Twenty-fifth-street, New York.
Jesson, Bey. J. L., The Beotory, Bathangan.
Johnston, Bev. F. Boyd, The Beotory, Eilkea, Maganey.
Joyce, Patrick Weston, Lyre na Grena, Leinster-road, Bathmines, Dublin.
Kelly, Thomas, Gastletown, Celbridge.
Eeogh, Surgeon-Major T. B., Gastleroe, Maganey, Go. Kildare.
Kilkelly, John, ll.d., 46 Upper Mount-street, Dublin.
Eirkpatrick, William, Donaoomper, Gelbridge.
La Touohe, Mrs. John, Harristown, Brannoxtown.
Long, Miss A. F., Woodfield, Eiloavan, Geashill, King's County.
Longfield, Bobert, 25 Glare-street, Dublin.
M*Garthy, Bey. P., p.p., Ballymore-Eustace.
MacDonald, Bev. Walter, d.d., Librarian, The College, Maynooth.
M'Gee, Bev. S. B., The Rectory, Dunlavin.
Madden, Thos. More, m.d., f.b.c.s., Tinode, Blessington.
Maguire, P. A., 2 Oldtown-terrace, Naas.
Mahony, George Gun, Eilmorna, Go. Kerry, via Limerick.
Manders, B. W., Gastlesize, Sallins.
Manning, A. S., Bank House, Baltinglass, Go. Wicklow.
MANSFIELD, GEORGE, d.l., Morristown Lattin, Naas.
Mayo, Dowager Countess of, 20 Eaton-square, London, S.W.
MAYO, The EARL OF, p.c, President^ Palmerstown, Straffan.
Michelmore, A G., Glongowes Wood College, Sallins.
Minchin, F., Mooretown House, Kiltegan, Go. Wicklow.
MoUoy, William B., h.r.i.a., 78 Kenilworth-square, Bathgar.
Mooney, William, The Gastle, Leixlip.
'^Moran, His Eminence Cardinal, Sydney, N. S. Wales, Australia.
Morrin, Bev. Thomas, p.p., Naas.
Murphy, The Bight Bey. Monsignor Michael, p.p., Maryborough.
Murphy, J. G., Osberstown House, Naas.
Murphy, W. A., Osberstown House, Naas
Nolan, Bey. James, c.o., Kilmeade, Athy.
Norman, George, 12 Brock.street, Bath, England
COUNTY KILDARE ARCH^OLOGICAL SOCIETY. 28 1
O'Brien, The Lord, Lord Chief Justice, Kildare-street Club, Dublin.
0*Dea, Very Bev. Thomas, d.d., Vice-President, The College, Maynootb.
•OTERRALL, AMBROSE MORE-, d.l., Ballyna, Moyvally.
O'Hanlon, Very Bev. John Canon, p.p., 3 Leahy's-terrace, Sandy mount, Dublin.
O'Eelly, £. P., Baltlnglass, Co. Wicklow.
O'Kelly, Bev. Joseph, o.p.. College of St. Thomas, Newbridge.
0*Kelly, Bobert, h.d., Landenstown, Sallins.
•CLEARY, Rev. E., p.p., Ballyna, Moyvally.
O'Leary, Bev. Patrick, The College, Maynootb.
Palmer, Charles Colley, d.l., Bahan, Edenderry.
Ponsonby, Hon. Gerald, 3 Stratford-place, London, W.
Ponsonby, Lady Maria, 3 Stratford-place, London, W.
Pratt, Mrs., Glenheste, Manor-Kilbride, Co. Dublin.
Beynell, Bev. W., b.d., m.».i.a., 22 Ecoles-street, Dublin.
Bobinson, John, h.d., Johnstown-bridge, Co. Kildare.
Boper, C. E. A., b.l., 55 Leeson-park, Dublin.
Byan, Very Bev. John C, o.p., College of St. Thomas of Aquin, Newbridge.
Bynd, Major B. P., Blackhall, Sallins.
Shackleton, Frank B., Ulster's Office, Dublin Castle.
SHERLOCK, Rev. Canon, Hon, Editor^ Sherlookstown, Sallins.
Skuse, Bev. Bichard D., Ballykean Bectory, Portarlington.
SomerviUe-Large, Bev. W., Camalway Bectory, Kilcullen.
Staples, William, Naas.
Strangeway, W. N., BrefiFni Villa, EgUnton-road, Donnybrook, Dublin.
Supple, K., D.I., R.I.C., Dunlaviu, Co. Wicklow.
Sweetman, E., Longtown, Sallins.
Sweetman, Mrs., Longtown, Sallins.
Swinton, The Hon. Mrs., 82 Cadogau-plaoe, London, W.
Synnott, Nicholas, Furness, Naas.
Taylor, Mark, Golden Fort, Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow.
Thunder, A., Hibernian Bank, Naas.
TRENCH, THOMAS COOKE-, d.i>., Millicent, Sallins.
Trench, Mrs. Cooke-, Millicent, Sallins.
Tynan, The Bight Bev. Monsignor Thomas, p.p., Newbridge.
Tyrrell, Garrett C, Ballinderry House, Car bury, Co. Kildare.
VICARS, SIR ARTHUR, c.v.o., f.s.a., Ulster King-of-Arms, Hon, Secretary^
44 Wellington-road, Dublin.
Vigors, Colonel P. D., Holloden, Bagenalstown, Co. Carlow.
Wall, Colonel J., Enockareagh, Grange Con, Co. Wicklow.
Wall, Mrs., Enockareagh, Grange Con, Co. Wicklow.
Walsh, Bev. Martin, p.p., Castledermot, Co. Kildare.
282 PROCEEDINGS OF THE
WARMINQTON, ALFRED A., Hon, Auditor, Munster and Leinster Bank, Naas.
Weldon, General, Forenaughts, Naas.
Weldon, Captain Sir Anthony A., Bart., Kilmorony, Athy.
Weldon, Lady, Kilmorony, Athy.
White, W. Grove, 13 Upper Ormond-quay, Dublin.
Willis, G. de L., 4 Kildare-street, Dublin.
Wilson, Colonel W. F., The Vicarage, Clane.
Wilson, Miss R. Dupr6, Coolcarrigan, Eilcock.
Wolfe, George, Bishopsland, Ballymore-Eustace, Naas.
Woollcombe, Kobert L., li..d., m.r.i.a., 14 Waterloo-road, Dublin.
♦Wright, E. Perclval. m.a., m.d., 5 Trinity College, Dublin.
The following Libraries and Societies also receive The Journal : —
The Editor, " Ulster Journal of Archeology,'* Ardrie, Belfast
The Worcester Diocesan Architectural and Archaeological Society.
The Waterford and South- East of Ireland Archteological Society.
The Society of Antiquaries of London.
The Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire.
The Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 6 St. Stephen's-green, Dublin.
The Royal Irish Academy, 19 Dawson-street, Dublin.
The Library, Trinity College, Dublin.
The National Library of Ireland, Kildare-street, Dublin.
The Galway Archaeological and Historical Society.
Le Biblioth^calre, Soci^t^ des Bollandistes, 14 Rue des Ursulines, Bruxelles,
Belgium.
COUNTY KILDARE ARCH^OLOGICAL SOCIETY. 283
RULES.
I. Thai this Society be oalled " The Coanty Kildare Archsologioal Society."
II. That the purpose of the Society be the promotion of the study and
knowledge ol the antiquities and objects of interest in the county and sur-
rounding districts.
III. That the Society consist of a President, Vice-President, Council,
Hon. Treasurer, two Hon. Secretaries, and Members, Ladies are eligible for
Membership.
IV. That the names of ladies and gentlemen desiring to become Members
of the Society shall be submitted, together with the names of their proposers
and seconders, to the Council, and, if approved by them, shall then be sub-
mitted to the next Meeting of the Society for Election.
V. That the affairs of the Society be managed by the President, Vice-
President, Hon. Treasurer, and Hon. Secretaries, together with a Council of
six Members. That for ordinary business two shall form a quorum ; but any
matter upon which a difference of opinion arises shall be reserved for anothe
meeting, in which three shall form a quorum.
VI. That two Members of the Council shall retire by rotation each year,
but shall be eligible for re-election.
VU. That Members pay an Annual Subscription of Ten Shillings (due
on the Ist of January), and that the payment of £5 shall constitute a Life
Member.
VIII. That Meetings of the Society be held not less than twice in each
year, one Meeting being an excursion to some place of archadological interest
in the district.
IX. That at the first Meeting of the Society in each year the Hon. Trea-
surer shall furnish a balance-sheet.
X. That a Journal of the Society be published annually, containing the
Proceedings and a column for local Notes and Queries, which shall be sub-
mitted to the Council for their approval.
XI. That the Meetings of the year be fixed by the Council, due notice of
the dates of the Meetings being given to Members.
XII. That Members be at liberty to introduce visitors at the Meetings of
the Society.
XUI. That no Member shall receive The Journal whose Subscription for
the previous year has not been paid.
( 284 )
THE RAMPART OF THE PALE.
By the rev. M. DEVITT, S.J.
[Read at Clongowes Wood, 12th September, 1899.]
THE rampart, though apparently nothing more than an
ordinary " doable ditch/' with a bridle-path on its summit,
is, nevertheless, not the least interesting of the many historic
remains in which our neighbourhood abounds. What is left of
it may be divided into three sections. The first, beginning at
the commons of Glane, runs north for about half a mile until it
is lost in the level lawn of Clongowes Wood. The second
section becomes visible at the eastern gate of the present farm-
yard, and can be traced, over a length of about ninety perches,
to the lane now leading to Bathcoffey. To reach the third
section, we must go about three miles further north, on the
Eilcock road ; and here we find it reappearing on the right or
eastern side of that road, and, for a length of about eighty
perches, separating the civil parishes of Balraheen and Clon-
shambo, and the present ecclesiastical parishes of Glane and
Eilcock.
It seems strange — almost incredible — that in the fifteenth
century this not very formidable fence was raised to mark and
to defend the western limit of the British Empire. West of it
the king's writ did not run, nor English law bind ; while on the
east lay the English Pale, organized completely on the mode of
feudal England, and designated by the writers of the time the
'' English land." Hence it is that the structure is nowadays
spoken of as '' the rampart of the Pale.''
To understand its origin, we must remember that but a very
small portion of our island was permanently and completely
conquered until the end of Elizabeth's reign. The wave of the
Anglo-Norman invasion, that at first seemed destined to cover
the whole island, and submerge every trace of Celtic nationality,
was soon seen to recoil before obstacles which four hundred years
of contest could not efface. One of the chief of those obstacles
was found in the physical features of the country. The gi'eat
strength of the invaders lay in their heavy and mail-clad cavalry
— an arm of which the Irish were utterly destitute. On the
level, or gently undulating, plains of Dublin, Meath, Louth, and
Eildare, the charge of the Norman horsemen was irresistible ;
3^
w
I ^
r>.
THE RAMPART OF THE PALE. 285
the Irish were rapidly hunted from those fair and fertile lands,
and compelled to take refuge in the highlands and other fast-
nesses that nature had provided for them. But in the mountains,
forests, and morasses, the old race held their own. There the
heavy cavalry was baffled by the nature of the ground.
Entangled in thickets, and floundering in bogs, they were no
match for the light-armed Kerne, trained in all the devices of
guerilla warfare, and as much at home in the densest forest and
most treacherous morass as the woodcock and the snipe.^
Hence we find the English Land gradually and naturally
limited by the Wicklow Mountains on the south, and on the
north by the Carlingford Mountains and the hilly or boggy land
that runs west from them through Monaghan, Gavan, and Long-
ford, to the Shannon. The Westmeath shore of the Shannon
would be its western limit as far as Athlone. But here the
border-line was turned eastward again as far as Edenderry,
receding before the impassable woods and bogs of the present
King's County and WestEildare — both then parts of the ancient
Kingdom of Ofifaly. In the time of Edward I the western border
in these parts stretched from Monasteroris, near Edenderry,
through Rathangan, Kildare, and Kilrush, to the Barrow, and
roughly followed the course of the Barrow to the sea.^ Richard II
proposed to force all the Irish to the west of the rivers Boyne
and Barrow, and make all the countiy eastwards an exclusively
English settlement.^
But two great obstacles baffled him and his successors. In
the first place, the country between the head waters of the two
rivers, from the Hill of Carbeiy to Monasterevan, was covered
with woods and impassable bogs, that spread eastwards well into
the County Kildare. The woods have long since disappeared;
but the Bog of Allen still remains, within half an hour's walk of
Clongowes. This wild and dangerous region was held by the
O'Connors, princes of Offaly, and was known to the Irish as the
" door " of the Pale, while the chief of the O'Connors was called
its '^ key." This latter sept made continual inroads on the
English of Meath and Kildare. In 1294 O'Connor ravaged the
whole of Kildare, and ^' burnt all the rolls and tallyes of that
country." *
In 1298 he burnt the village of Mainham, and put the
' See Giraldus Cambrensis, ** De Exp. Hib.," and " Ulster Journal of
Archaeology," vol. vi, p. 147.
» " Calendar of State Doc, Ireland," vol. iii, pp. 265-268.
* Prendergast, ** Cromwellian Settlement,'' p. 171.
Hardiman on ^' Statute of Kilkenny,*' p. 24.
286 THE RAMPART OF THE PALE.
inhabitants to the sword.^ At last the English of Meath con-
sented to pay him tribate, or " blackmail," to the amount of
£800 per annum, and those of Kildare £20 per annum — in
all, about £10,000 per annum of our present coinage.^
Again, on the east of the Barrow rose the south-eastern
highlands, stretching from the centre of Wexford close to the
capital itself. This tract of mountainous country, measuring
about forty-four miles north and south, and twenty-five miles
east and west, remained completely independent up to the reign
of James I. Sir G. Garew, writing in 1590, indignantly com-
plains that ^' those that dwell even in sight of the smoke of
Dublin are not subject to the laws." The chief terror of the
Pale at that time was Fiach MacHugh O'Byme. Garew calls
him '^the firebrand, the gall of Ireland, the ancient traitor of
Leinster;" and Spenser writes of him that ''he hath of his
own hardinesse lifted himself up to the height that he dare now
front princes, and make tearmes with great potentates." '
These facts help us to appreciate Campion's account of the
origin of the word " pale." "An old distinction,^' he writes,
" there is of Ireland into the Irishry and the English part, for
when the Irish rebels had raised continual tumults against the
English planted here with the Gonquest, at last they coursed
them into a narrow circuit of certain shires in Leinster, which
the English did choose as the fattest soil, most defensible, their
proper right, and most open to receive help from England.
Hereupon it was termed their pale, as whereout they durst not
peep."^ ''Pale" is derived from the Latin palm, a stake. As
stakes were used to mark boundaries and make fences, the word
was extended in the fifteenth century to fenced enclosures (see
Du Gauge, sub voce) ; and hence the area into which the English
were " coursed " came to be called the Pale.
The limits of this pale were thus defined at different periods.
By an Act of the Parliament of Drogheda in 1488, the bounds
were thus traced : '' From Merrion, inclasive, to the water of the
Dodder, by the new ditch to Saggard, Rathcoole, Kilhell'(Eilbeel),
Bathmore, and Ballymore (-Eustace). Thence to the County of
Kildare into Ballycutlan, Hamstown, and Naas ; and so thence
to Glane, Eilboyne, and Eilcock. From Kilcock it ran to
Athboy, and so ended at Dundalk." ^
» Gilbert, **Hi8t. and Municip. Doc, Ireland," p. 445.
Book of Howth," p. 257, Rolls Series.
2 tk
■ Hogan's " Ireland," pp. 40, 41.
* '* Hist, of Ireland," ed. 1809.
*D'Alton*8 " Hist, of Dublin," p. 34.
THE RAMPART OF THE PALE. 287
In 1516 the border ran from Dandalk through Derver, Ardee,
Syddan, Eells, Dangan^ Eilcock, Naas, Kilcullen-bridge, Bally-
more-Eustace, Bathmore, Rathcoole, Tallaght, to Dalkey.^
In 1587, according to Justice Luttrell, the Pale ran " from
Dublin to Tallaght, and so by the mountain foot into Onghterard,
and thence into St. Wolstan's (near Gelbridge), and to Leixlip,
and thence to the Barony of Dunboyne, Bathangan, and as the
highway extendeth thence into Trim, Athboy, Ardbraccan, Slane,
Mellifont, Drogheda — which little precinct is not much above
twenty miles in length or breadth/' ^
The above-mentioned places are mostly well known, and by
tracing them on the map a vivid idea can be formed of the
immense decline of the English power in Ireland from the time
of Edward I to that of Henry VIIL
Our rampart, which marks the western border of 1488 and
1515, was built by order of the Parliament of Drogheda, a.d. 1494.
It was to be '' a double ditch of six feet high above ground on
one side, or part which mireth [meareth] next unto Irishmen/' "
''Every inhabitant, earth-tiller, and occupier, within the Pale
was bound to assist in its construction, and was to be remitted
one year's rent for his pains." *
The lands immediately to the west of it were called March
lands, or the Marches, and were occupied sometimes by the
English, sometimes by the friendly L'ish, but were generally the
arena of unceasing war, and consequently uninhabitable.
Further west lay the land of the '* Irish enemy." The marches
were called the '' land of war," and correspond to the " debatable
land " on the Scottish border. The chain of castles, close to the
line of the rampart at Maynooth, Bathcoffey, Clongowes Wood,
Blackball, Naas, &c., stood like sentinels keeping watch and
ward against the Irish borderers. The great Lord Marcher, of
Leinster, was the Earl of Eildare, who, from his castle at May-
nooth, was expected to defend this portion of the Pale from the
inroads of the O'Connors on the west, and of the O'Byrnes and
O'Tooles on the east and south-east.
In 1524, Garret, Earl of Kildare, was appointed Lord Deputy
of Ireland, but was soon summoned to London to answer various
charges against him. His chief accuser in the King's Council
was Cardinal Wolsey ; and his spirited reply to the latter gives
us some idea of the life of a Warden of the Irish Marches in the
* " State Papers," i)art iii, vol. ii, p. 22.
2 D*Alton*8 *' Hist, of Dublin," p. 38.
* Hardiman's ** Statute of Kilkenny," p. 4, note.
U
288 THE RAMPART OF THE PALE.
sixteenth centary. We quote it from Campion — '' As touching
my kingdom, my Lord, I would that you and I had exchanged
kingdoms for one month. I would trust to gather up more
crumbs in that space than twice the revenue of my earldom.
But you are well and warm ; and so hold you : and upbraid not
me with such an odious storm. I sleep in a cabin, when you lie
soft in your bed of down. I serve under the cope of heaven,
when you are served under a canopy. I drink water out of a
skull, when you drink out of golden 4$ups. My courser is
trained to the field, when your jennet is taught to amble. When
you are begraced, and belorded, and crouched, and kneeled unto,
then I find small grace with our Irish borderers unless I cut
them off by the knees." ^
The rampart was soon broken down by the Irish enemy, but
subsequently repaired, ''to the great succour, comfort, and
defence of the County Dublin." Penalties were enacted against
any subject who broke a tract or made a road over it ; and " all
hogs, goats, cows, or cattle " injuring it by '' rooting, grazing, or
otherwise," were to be confiscated.^ How long it remained a
'' succour, comfort, and defence" we cannot precisely determine;
but it is clear from Justice Luttrell, quoted above, that within
less than fifty years after its erection, the English Pale had
receded far from it, and that Clongowes for some period stood,
as the phrase then went, '* west of the law."
ReFEBENCBS to THE MaP.
Toheradormin. — The well of the little stream (?).
The An-annia Road (this name is written phonetically) runs from the
north back gate of Clongowes to Rathcoffey. The second part of the
name seems to be Eanach or Annagh, meaning a marsh or watery place.
The road runs mostly through land of this description. In the document
on Anastacia Wogan*s dower, p. 92, vol. iii, of The Journal, occurs ** the
pasture of Avenagh ;" this may be the same name.
Baheens, — Little forts.
Skeagh, — White thorn-bushes.
Shandoon. — ^The old meadow.
Oappclis. — Pronounced with the o long, as in '* stole." The meaning
is doubtful ; but I think it is an abbreviation for ''Gappagh-polis" —
1 *' Hist, of Ireland," p. 170.
« Richey's *' Hist, of the Irish People," p. 229.
THE RAMPART OF THE PALE. 289
*' Cappagh"= a plot of land, and ** polis":= ** [Milas" or ** pailis," signify-
ing a fairy lis or rath. There is a similar name in the County Kilkenny —
'^Cappafaulish" = the '* garden-plot of the fairy fort." This field or
division runs along the back avenue to Clongowes, at the junction of
which with the main road to Glane is Butter !mll, on which a *' lis" may
have stood. At all events, it is said to be occupied by fairies still. I know
that one familv left the house at the foot of tnis hillock a few years ago,
owing, they alleged, to their slumbers being disturbed by the fairies.
They now live on the Capdoo commons of Clane ; their name is Bracken.
OoUy-mocky River. — The meaning of this name is not known ; the first
portion of it possibly is the Irish word, " gola" (gabhala), meaning *^ river
forks."
Boher Breedge. — St. Brigid's road.
M. D.
( 290 )
THE ORIGINAL ANGLO-NORMAN SETTLERS IN
COUNTY KILDARE.
By rev. canon SHERLOCK/
f^ EOLOGISTS examining the crnst of the earth have fonnd
vX different strata, the age of which can he fixed by their
position relatively to one another. It is possible to do this with
the names in any country or district. They will generally be
found to consist of several layers or strata, so to speak, and from
examining them we may learn a good deal of the history of the
district. In the present Paper I propose to apply this method
to illustrate part of the history of the County Kildare.
I pointed out in a former Paper the existence of a number of
Irish names in this neighbourhood. Being Irish, they belong
to the most ancient period of its history, though the Irish Celts
themselves were invaders and conquerors of the country. If you
take a good map, or, better still, acquaint yourselves in a more
minute way with the Irish names that survive, you will find that
for the most part they are either names of ancient Irish towns,
churches, and monasteries, or they are descriptive names of
localities and naturnl features — bogs, wells, rivers, hills. This
sort of name is nearly always very ancient, and often tells a
story of the original natives who have been swept away by
repeated invasions of other tribes and nations.
One thing is clear from the study of the remaining Celtic
names, and that is that the Irish inhabitants were neither all
massacred, nor even all driven from the plains of Kildare into
the bogs and mountains. A large proportion, no doubt, were ;
but in many cases the new settlers, looking about for wives, as
they brought no women over with them, mamed the daughters
of Irish chiefs, as their ancestors had married the daughters of
Welsh chieftains. Besides this, it was absolutely necessary that
they should have men to look after their cattle, and to till their
lands. The result was that a considerable Celtic population
remained dependent on the new settlers, and it was through
these that the Celtic names of natural features — wells, streams,
hills, bogs, and forests — as well as of churches, monasteries,
and holy places, were preserved and handed down.
The Celtic names are thus the most ancient, and form as it
were the first stratum in the nomenclature of the country. Bat
' Bead for him by the Rev. M. Devitt, b.j., at the meeting of the
Society in Naas, February, 1903 ,
ANGLO-NORMAN SETTLERS IN CO. KILDARE. 29I
there are besides them a great number of other names scattered
through the district of the English Pale, and these have been
given by those who have settled in the country since. For
instance, there are Danish names which mark the period of the
Danish occupation ; and there are names derived from English,
Norman, and even Welsh sources. These are not all of the
same antiquity. Some of them were given by the first Anglo-
Norman settlers who received grants of land ; others by later
settlers in the times of Queen Elizabeth and of Cromwell, and
even more recently still. My present object is to deal with the
names that come next to the Celtic in age — those given by the
first Anglo-Norman settlers. At the same time, we must
remember that not all of these adventurers kept their grants.
Many never settled permanently here, because they had more
important interests in England or Wales, or because they found
a better opening to their ambition elsewhere. Sometimes they
retained their lands here, making them over to sub-tenants, and
contenting themselves with occasional visits when their interests
were endangered. In some instances they speedily parted with
their grants. For instance, Robert de Miler held land in capite
from the king near Waterford ; but in 1246 he obtained a royal
licence to make an exchange for land in England with Geofirey
le Botiler, and the place was thenceforth known as Butlerstown.
Another thing to be remembered is that many of the first
grantees were either childless or had only daughters, and so
their lands soon passed away into other families.
Still, after making all these allowances, when we open the
map of Eildare, we can easily make out a list of names which
will give us a fair idea of families whose members came over under
Strongbow, and were companions in arms, and settled down as
neighbouring proprietors, more especially in the plain of the
Liffey.
I do not pretend that we can make out a complete list,
because, no doubt, a good many obtained grants of lands which
had already names in Irish, and they retained these names when
they took possession. But still there were a considerable number
whose lands had not been named, and had not been private
property before ; and when they took possession of these grants,
they had not only to settle there, but to give theii* local habita-
tion a name. And so it came to pass that in most instances the
property became known by the name of the man who had
received it as a grant In nearly all these cases the names of
the properties thus named end in the syllable '' town." For
instance, Kerdiffstcm;n, Johnstcm^n, ArtiiuiBtown, Bodenstown.
Now, this has a peculiar significance, because it tells us that the
292 ORIGINAL ANGLO-NORMAN SETTLERS
men who received these grants of land settled there and made
the place their home. They were not very big men, who received
grants of large districts, and had to divide them among their
followers, and who had to move about from one place to another
to defend their extensive territories, or to follow the king, and
press their interests at court ; they were the poorer knights and
esquires and men-at-arms who came over to seek a home and
land, and who when they received grants settled, and called their
lands after their own names. When we come upon a name ending
in the syllable ''town," it generally means that in that spot one
of the adventurers who followed Strongbow had made himself a
home, and rooted himself in the country; that it was thenceforth
to be his adopted country ; and that meant more than an inva-
sion, more than a conquest^it meant a revolution in the whole
condition of the country. For before this there were no
individual hereditary properties: the land belonged to the tribe ;
at the death of the occupier it reverted to the tribe. In that
condition there was no fixity of tenure, no right of sale, and
certainly no improvements ; for who would make improvements
which the mere fact of his death confiscated ?
Where are the descendants of these first adventurers now ?
Many of the families are extinct; others have been scattered and
impoverished by misfortune, war, rebellion, confiscation, and
attainder. Others have acquired property in distant places.
In most cases the old families have disappeared from what was
their first home in Kildare, and only the names of the places
remain to tell us who first made there a settled abode in the
days of the vanished past
Well, when by an examination of the names of places we
have restored, at least in part, the list of Anglo-Norman adven-
turers, who obtained land, and made their homes in the County
Kildare in the twelfth and thii*teenth centuries, can we do any
more ? Can we trace these knights, esquires, and men-at-arms,
back to the place where they lived before they enlisted, and took
up arms to follow Strongbow, FitzStephen, and de Lacy across
to Ireland ? This is the next point I wish to bring before you.
Whence came the early landowners in Kildare ? At first sight
it seems that this question could only be answered by a long and
laborious investigation, taking each name separately, and trying
to trace it in its migrations before it came over here. What
makes such an investigation almost hopeless is the absence of
fixed surnames in those early days. Of course, there would not
be much difficulty in tracing the movements of the great men
who received large grants of territories ; but, as I said before,
the men whose families we want to trace were not very great
IN COUNTY KILDARE. 293
men ; they were younger sons, poor knights, esqoires, and men-
at-arms, who came over here from love of adventure, or because
they had no adequate inheritance at home, and who were glad
to get grants here, and settle on them. It is obviously much
harder to trace such men back^ and yet, by a very curious coinci-
dence, it is comparatively easy to do so. I came upon the clue
to this in the following way : — One day I opened an atlas in the
National Library of Ireland, and in one of the maps I noted the
following names of places, all within a comparatively short
distance of one another— Castlemartin, Johnstown, Whitechurch,
Newcastle, Hodgestown, Nicholastown, Sherlockstown, Bishops-
town, Morristown, Punchestown, Gilestown, Flemingstown,
Bobestown (or Bobertstown), Lovestown, Golbinstown, Siggins-
town, Samonstown, CardifTstown, Barristown, Haroldstown,
Habberstown (or Halverstown). Now I should like to ask
whether any of you can tell me the county or district in which
these names occur. I have little doubt that you will say they
are taken from the County Eildare. Tet, I assure you, they are
not taken from the map of Eildare, but from the map of
Pembrokeshire and Glamorganshire in South Wales.^ We have
thus only to compare the maps of Eildare and South Wales to
satisfy ourselves that a large number of the adventurers who
followed Strongbow had their homes in South Wales pre-
viously, and a considerable number of these came from the com-
paratively small district of Gower in Glamorganshire. We are
able to assert this, because they have left their names recorded
in the properties that they held in South Wales, where by a
curious coincidence they had done what they did in Eildare,
but did not do in England, called their lands after their own
names. That both in Wales and Ireland they gave their
names to their land, which they had not done in England, is
accounted for by the fact, that in England they found places
which had for the most part already been owned and named,
while in Wales and Ireland the land had been owned by tribes,
and had not been portioned out into properties, and had, there-
fore, had no special names.
If we extend our observations from the map of South Wales
to names recorded in the ancient legal deeds connected with
Glamorganshire, we can add a good many more Eildare names
to the list. For instance, Osbertstown was called after Osbert, a
Gowerman ; Paynstown, after Payn ; Harristown, after Harris,
*The only liberty I have taken has been to put Kerdiffs^ot&n for
Cardiff, and Sherlocks^oton for Scurlog, or Sherlock Castle, I have also
substituted ** town " for ** ton," these being really identical.
294: ORIGINAL ANGLO-NORMAN SETTLERS
or Henry; Boycestown, after Boyce; BarrettBtown, after Barrett;
HerbertstowD, after Herbert ; Palmerstown, after Palmer ;
Cradockstown, after Cradock ; HumphreystowD, after Hum-
phreys ; DavidstowD) after David. All these were names of men
belonging to the little district of Gower.^ The two Brannoxtowns
in Eildare were called after two Welshmen ; and I believe that
Camalway was held by one of the Aliens who came from Corn-
wall, but had settled in Gower, for there was an Allan de
Cornalia in Gower; and the old form of Carnal waj' was Carnalaa,
or Carnalwa. If I were free to refer to Meath, I could produce
names of Anglo-Norman settlers who came from Glamorganshire,
such as the Flemings, Barons of Slane, and the de la Meres and
Gonstantines. But my subject confines me to Kildare.
I have said that, as a rule, the names in Eildare indicate
that the adventurers who settled here from South Wales were
not rich men, and did not receive large grants of land ; but
there were^ of course, exceptions. Thus we find Maurice Fitz-
Gerald, to whom Strongbow granted Naas and Ofifelan. He was
connected with Pembrokeshire, where his father^ Gerald, had been
Constable of Pembroke Castle, and afterwards President of the
County of Pembroke. His brother David was Bishop of
St. David's from 1147 to 1176. His granddaughter mairied
David Laundres, or de Londres, a cadet of one of the great
families of Glamorganshire, where in 1262 they still held four
knights' fees. De Londres by this marriage became Lord of
Naas. Another of this family was Archbishop of Dublin in
1214. The de Burghs were another family connected with
^ Moreover, as in Glamorgan and Gower, so in Kildare, the places
were not only named after the new owners, but the termination *'town,"
meaning an enclosure, or residence, was added to the name.
With regard to the termination "town," Professor Veitch (*' History
and Poetry of the Scottish Border," vol. i, pp. 62, 63) remarks that
there is very commonly in the Tweed and adjomiug valleys — indeed, all
over the Lowlands— the generic affix "ton," "tun," "toun," or "town."
Not only is a congeries of dwellings a "toun," but every farmstead is so
called. . . . The " touns" were, indeed, the family possessions of the
early clearers of the land, and show the original numerous subdivisions of
property. "Tun" means originally a town, or fence; hence a fenced
place, or an enclosure; and thus yard, farm, dwelling, and town is
described as "a territory lying within the bounds of a tun."
I. Taylor says that the " primary meaning of the suffix *ton' is to be
sought in the Gothic 'tains,' the old Norse Henin,* and Frisian 'tene,' all of
which mean a twig. . . . Hence, a *tun,' or 'ton,' was a place sur-
rounded by a hedge, or rudely fortified by a palisade — cf. the English
Tpale,'' Wickliife translates Matt. xxii. 5, " Oon to his town." In Iceland
the homestead with its girding wall is called a "tun." (Yet cf. I. Taylor,
" Words and Places," p. 118.)
IN COUNTY KILDARE. 295
Glamorganshire and Ealdare, Habei*t de Bargh having a grant
of homage And service for the Honour of Gower in the year 1280.
The family of Brewses, or Braoses, were Lords of Gower, and
William de Braose married Eva, daughter of William le Marshal,
Earl of Pembroke, by Isabel, Strongbow's daughter. This family
was given the Kingdom of Thomond by Henry II. I mention
them here because they were specially connected with the district
of Gower, from which so many of Strongbow's adventurers came.
Another very distinguished family was connected both with
Glamorgan and Kildare. The Yeeles, originally called Yalle,
from their residence in Normandy, had settled in Somerset;
thence they moved to Glamorganshire, where Robert le Veal was
Lord of St. Fagan's, Llandaff. Coming to Ireland with Strong-
bow, he was granted lands near Timolin. Walter le Yeele, or
Calf, was Bishop of Kildare from 1300 to 1832. Calverstown
was probably named after a cadet of this family. In 1200
Robert FitzRichard de Yeele was Lord of Norvagh, where he
founded a nunnery, which his granddaughter entered. His
descendants continued to be Lords of the Manor till about the
end of the fourteenth century. In the churchyard at Timolin
under a yew-tree is a twelfth- or thirteenth-century effigy of a
knight, supposed to be Robert de Yalle. If this supposition be
correct, the effigy is a representation of one of the original
Anglo-Norman adventurers.
The next thing you will ask is, How had all these Pembroke
and Glamorganshire adventurers who came to Kildare come to
be settled in South Wales? and how long had they been there
before they started for L*eland ? Mr. Clarke's *' History of the
Land of Morgan" enables us to answer this question. He tells
us that the Osberts, Martins, Cardiffs, Payns, Barretts, Sherlocks,
Pierces, Maunsells, Sigginses, Walters, Cradocks^ Yeeles,
Allans, and others had been settled in Pembroke and Glamorgan
about eighty years before they sent their descendants over here.
They had come into South Wales with or shortly after Robert
FitzHamon crossed the Severn in 1098 ; and most of them came
from the Counties of Wiltshire, Somerset, Gloucester, Devon,
and Dorset, which formed the Honour of Gloucester, of which
FitzHamon was Lord. In fact, Mr. Clarke says that in ancient
deeds connected with various parts of the Honour of Gloucester
may be found scores of names which occur in Glamorganshire.
It is evident that the men who readily enlisted under
Strongbow must have been, for the most paii, younger sons, and
poor men, who had no special inducements to remain at home.
And it is rather interesting to ask why such a large proportion
of them came from the little district of Gower. Clarke suggests
296 ORIGINAL ANGLO-NORMAN SETTLERS
that it was becanse they lay near Sti'DngboVs territory, and
were on the line of his march to embark for Ireland. I think
there was a more nrgent reason than this. The district of
Gower and Glamorganshire seems to have been settled by
Anglo-Normans who had not got lands in the richer districts of
the Honour of Gloucester, from which they came ; and the
properties which they were granted in South Wales were, for
the most part, yery moderate in size. They were evidently
granted for the purpose of settling them as a sort of garrison in
the newly acquired district ; and they did so. But where the
properties were so small, it followed that there was little pro-
vision for younger sons. Mr. Clarke says that in parts of
Glamorgan the castles stood so close that it is difficult to under-
stand whence their owners derived their revenues. And he
mentions that in one place, within a radius of six miles from
Barry, half the circle being occupied by the sea, there were
twelve castles ; and in the county, mainly in its southern part,
there were from thirty to forty. Many of these were the
residences of private persons, and were built for the defence of
the estate and its tenants. These owners of small properties,
with fortified houses or castles in the lowlands of Gower, were
continually exposed to incursions of the native Welsh who
inhabited the mountains.' What better recruiting-ground could
Strongbow have found than this poor but populous and warlike
district? And does not this sufficiently account for the large
proportion of Gower men among his adventurers ?
And when the younger sons of these hardy men of Gower
settled in Kildare, they found themselves in richer land, indeed,
but otherwise in similar circumstances to the fathers and
brothers they had left at home. They held small grants of
land in the plain of the Lifiey ; but they held them under the
necessity of continual watch and ward against the native Irish
from the mountains of Wicklow or the Bog of Allen. Hence,
here as in Gower they had to fortify their houses. And their
dwellings became in some cases castles, but most frequently
square towers several storeys in height, with a walled yard, into
which cattle could be driven for safety. Round the castle were
built the wattled huts of the labourers and herdsmen. The old
* Clarke (** Land of Morgan," Part I, p. 24) says : ** The position of
the English in Wales during the two centuries following the Conquest
was such as to make a castle a necessity ; so much so, that there is no
trace of a licentia crendlare having been thought necessary under the
Marchers* rule. Every landowner's house was his castle.' The same
words might be used to express the state of things in Co. Kildare for a
considerable time after the Conquest.
IN COUNTY KILDARE.
297
to were of Onghterard and Kilteel are typical of the original
dwellings of the adventurers. How numerous they were is
declared by the many ruins of such towers still existing. But
of many of them no trace is now left. Thus in Heni7 VU's
reign there remained a castle, or tower, at Sherlockstown ; and,
later still, there was one at Firmont, part of its walls being
incorporated in Mr. Henry's new mansion-house there. There
was also a strong castle at Blackball, built to protect the ford
over the Biver Liffey at Clane. There are still some small
remains of a tower at Blackwood, and part of the old castle at
Hartwell ; and probably many of you know of others.
But the adventurers from Glamorganshire were not only com-
pelled by similar stress of circumstances to house themselves in
Kildare in fortified dwellings like those they had left in South
Wales ; they also found themselves in many instances obliged to
provide themselves with churches. No doubt, in a good many
instances, they availed themselves of the Celtic churches exist-
ing on, or near to, their new possessions, and, in process of
time, restored or rebuilt them, as at Eill, Glane, and Eillashee.
But frequently they had to erect totally new churches for
themselves and their dependants. We should naturally expect
that in doing so they would follow the type of church-building
that they had been accustomed to in their old home ; and,
indeed, we have proof that they did so. To tell the truth,
there was probably not much to attract them in the common
run of native churches ; rude as the ancient stone churches
of Gower were, they were, in all likelihood, a considerable
advance upon most of the little churches of timber, or wattle-
work, that they found in country
districts here. They accordingly set
themselves to build churches after
the Glamorganshire model, as they
had built their houses. Indeed,
there seems to have been a curious ^
rivalry among them in this respect ;'i^/J^v^
and they appear to have made it a
point of honour that each landholder
should have his own little church on
his estate. It is scarcely possible in
any other way to account for the
immense number and small size of
the churches built by the adventurers.
The remains of these churches amply
confirm my assertion that they fol-
lowed the type of the churches in
<3«»W J. WaU^
.f t^/
« S'
ago ORIGINAL ANGLO-NORMAN SETTLERS
Gower. 'She old Oower cfaarcheawere small and rade bnildingB.
Where the; had a chancal, the entrance from the nave was
small, with a semi-circular arch. The windows were small, and
the window-head often cut oat of one stone.
How similar the Anglo-Norman churches in Kildare were to
those of Oower may be seen by comparing the remains of
Bodenstown Chnrcb with the aucient Church of Nioholastown in
Gower. It is impossible not to be struck by the likeness. Aud
the churches at Sherlockstown aud Kerdiffstown of the same
date were similar.
We are sometimes tempted to set down all the remains of
village end wayside crosses in this
country as Celtic iu their origin, or,
at least, as having been adopted by
the Anglo-NormaiiB from the Celtic
Church. But this is a mistake. The
same sort of crosses as existed in
Kildare existed also in Oower; and I
am not at all sure that the basket-
work decoration of some of them was
not the Bame in both districts.
Another point of resemblance is to
be fonnd in the old fouts. Both iu
Oower aud in Kildare the fonts seem
to have been very rude rectangular or
circular blocks of native stone, with
basins oat in them ; and they had on
the rim two stoat iron rivets, leaded
IN COUNTY KILDARE. 299
into the stone, for the cover and look, required by the Constitu-
tion of Edward, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1286. There
is in Oxwich Church, in Gower, an ancient font of this kind.
Comparing a drawing of this with one of the old font still
preserved at Sherlockstown, it is plain how similar in character
they were — (1) in their extreme rudeness ; (2) in not being
lined with lead ; (8) in standing on the ground, or, at most,
on a low pedestal ; (4) in each having had a cover and lock.
A further curious correspondence may be found in the fact
that the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem had considerable
interests both in Gower and in Eildare. They are said to have
held at one time nearly all the churches in Gower, and a con-
siderable portion of the land. I cannot say what possessions
they held over here. But Sherlockstown Church once belonged
to the Order, and they had commanderies at Eillibegs and at
KilteeL
But it is time to bring this Paper to a close. I have
endeavoured to show that the original Anglo-Norman settlers in
Eildare belonged to families which, after coming from Normandy
in 1066 to 1080, settled in the Counties of Wilts, Gloucester,
Somerset, Devon, and Dorset, which formed the Honour of
Gloucester ; that shortly afterwards (in 1092) they joined in the
invasion of South Wales, where they received gi*ants of lands,
settled, built castles, and erected churches ; that about eighty
years later, upon the invasion of Ireland in 1170, they sent forth
their cadets and younger sons to follow the foiiunes of Strong-
bow and de Lacy* I have shown that a considerable number of
those adventurers who settled in Eildare came from Glamorgan-
shire and Pembrokeshire, and in particular from the small district
of Gower; that they gave their lands the old Gower family
names, introduced the feudal tenure^ built the same sort of forti-
fied houses on their properties ; erected churches of the same
style, with the same fashion of fonts and crosses.
So that a Pembroke or Glamorganshire man coming to
Eildare now would find himself amid places bearing names
familiar to him, and ruins similar in character to those which
remain in his own district. And, on the other hand, a Eildare
man going now to Pembroke and Glamorgan would be surprised
by many a name identical with those he had left behind, and
would, in fact, find himself in the cradle of the ancient Anglo-
Norman adventurers who took possession of the plains of the
Liffey.
The Portlistbb (FiTEEcaTACE) Toxb, 1496, it New Abbkt.
( 30I )
NEW ABBEY OF KILCULLEISf,
With a sketch of the life of the founder, Sir Rolaj^d FitzEcjsti.cb,
Baron Portlester.
By lord WALTER FITZGERALD.
[Read on the 12th September, 1898.]
HALF a mile from Eilcnllen Bridge, near the banks of the
Liifey, is situated the churchyard of New Abbey; but of
this Franciscan establishment hardly a trace now exists: the
only portion at present standing forms part of the wall which
bounds the churchyard on the west side.
In 1782 considerable portions of the Abbey, though in a very
ruinous state, were still standing; they were demolished to
provide building material for the chapel which was erected on its
site about 1786. There still exists a low wall showing the
cruciform shape of the chapel, which was itself pulled down in
the year 1878, on the completion of the present magnificent
Roman Catholic church, which stands near the town, and whose
erection is due to the exertions of the present Parish Priest,
Canon Langan*
^^The Annals of the Four Masters" thus record the foundation
of New Abbey: —
"The Age of Christ 1486. The Monastery of Kilcullen,for Friars
Minor de Observantia, was commenced on the bank of the Liffey, by
Roland, son of Sir Edward Eustace."
This Roland Eustace, or FitzEustace, was in 1462 created
Baron of Portlester; a sketch of his life is given at the end of
this Paper. His death took place on the 19th of December,
1496, and he was buried beside his wife, who predeceased him,
in this Abbey, which he had founded. Portions of his altar-
tomb still exist ; they consist of a slab, bearing effigies of him-
self and his wife, round the edge of which runs an inscription in
Gothic characters, now so weather-worn that only a few words
here and there are decipherabl& What are left of the sides of the
tomb are now built into the old chapel wall for safety. This good
act was carried out by Canon Langan about the years 1878-4.
302 NEW ABBEY OF KILCULLEN.
The effigied slab itself is placed on six little Btone pillars aboat
the oenti-e of the btirial-groand.
The PoHTiiESTEB (FiizEusTACE) TouB, 1496, AT New Adbby.
The followiDg is a desoription of this tomb, and of the
subjects in the panels on the sides : —
The effigy slab measures 7ft. 4in. id length, and
8ft. 7in. in breadth. The heads of both figures rest on
square cusbionB, with tassels at the corners ; between the
heads are two angels, each supporting one of the
cushions.
The arms of both are doubled up from the elbows,
so as to enable the hands to lie flat on the chest, palms
downwards. The features of both are entirely worn
away.
NEW ABBEY OF KILCULLEN. 303
The lady lies on the right of the knight ; on her
head she wears a high-horned bonnet, divided at the
crown like a ball's hoof, from the back of which drapery
falls to the neck. Her dress, open at the throat, falls in
straight folds to her feet ; at the waist she wears a belt,
ornamented with ronnd bosses, shaped like heraldic roses;
her feet rest on a square cushion, also with tassels at the
corners.
The knight is covered from head to foot in plate
armour ; over the hips and feet it is pliant, on the same
principle as the shell on a cray-fish's tail. He wears a
high conical helmet, called a '* bascinet,'* the sides of
which reach to below the ears ; the ^' visor " is thrown
up. Bound the neck and over the shoulders is worn a
" Camail '* of chain-mail, like a tippet. The sword
hangs well to the front ; its guard-ends both turn down-
wards. The feet rest on an animal represented with a
curly coat; the head, which was placed near the left foot,
is broken off ; the animal's tail resembles the scut of a
rabbit, unless it is that it is tucked in between the legs.
The sides of the tomb measure 28in. in height ; the
descriptions of the subjects in the different panels will be
given in the order that they are built into the old chapel
wall. The panels vary in style ; some have plain ogee-
shaped arches, and others are large ovals. The spaces
between the panels overhead are filled in with floral
devices and dragons. There are still traces of the panels
having at one time been coloured.
The first panel contains a female figure, crowned,
and standing ; in the right band is held a sword, with
the point up ; in the left, a small spiked wheel. This
represents St. Catherine.
The second panel has a seated crowned female
figure, bearing on her right arm a babe in long clothes ;
in her left hand she holds a sceptre, with a highly
ornamented floral top. This is the Blessed Virgin Mary
and Child.
In the third panel there is also a crowned female
figure, standing. She holds a book in her right hand. At
her feet lies a dragon, whose mouth is pierced by the
butt of a cross-topped staff that she holds in her left
hand. This is probably St. Margaret.
In these first three figures the hair is shown long,
and hanging down the back; the crowns are all of an
elaborate design.
X
Pahblb on tre b
R POBTLABTEH ToUB AT NeW AbBBT.
NEW ABBEY OF KILCULLEN. 305
In the fourth panel is the fignre of a nun, standing;
she has her left hand up at her left cheek, and the right
rests in front.
The next subject is a shield, on which are carved
the emblems of our Lord's Passion and Crucifixion ;
they include a sponge on a pole ; three scourges (one
with three, another with four, and the third with five,
knotted lashes) ; the flogging-post (resembling a spiral-
stemmed candlestick) ; the cross, on an arm of which
hangs the crown of thorns; the spear; a ladder; three
nails; a hammer (with a nail-exti*actor) ; a pair of
pincers, holding a fourth nail ; and lastly, a skillet, or
three-legged pot, in which stands a crowing cock in full
plumage (the tradition is that the cock was being boiled
at the other end of the Judgment Hall during our Lord's
examination by Pontius Pilate, and that, on the third
denial of Him by St. Peter, it stood up and crowed, in
fulfilment of our Lord's prophecy). The above shield is
supported at the top and sides by angels ; the whole
device being in a circular panel.
Then comes another small panel containing a
Franciscan monk, with his knotted girdle. His hands
are in the blessing-giving position.
The next subject is like the last panel but one,
above described, except that the shield bears two coats-of-
arms — the Eustace and the D'Artois (?) coats quartered.
The Eustace coat is '^Or, a saltire gules.'' It bears
an annulet (or plain ring) for difference, denoting a fifth
son. The other coat is '' Barry of Six." (This coat
may be intended for the D'Artois Arms, which were
** Barry wavy of six argent and gules.") This coat-of-
arms panel is incomplete, and a portion of the missing
part is now being used as a headstone to a grave on the
south-eastern side of the burial-ground, having un-
fortunately escaped Canon Langan's notice when he
collected the tomb together.
The last panel is greatly damaged; but enough of it
remains to enable one to distinguish a winged figure, at
whose feet lies a dragon, with a portion of a sword-blade,
or other instrument, thrust down its throat. This, of
coursCji is St. Michael the Archangel.
A very misleading and imaginary description of this tomb
appeared in the third volume of '' The Anthologia Hibemica
Magazine" for 1794, and was (juoted at p. 121, vol. i, of our
; A
li
Mi
1^1
NEW ABKKV of KILCULLEN. 307
JouRMAli. Archeeological works of the last century are often
very inaccarate, and not to be trasted.
Ad inBtance of the extraordinary errore made in " The
Antbologia Hibemica" is that it describes the nan as a keener
in the Connanght cloak ; and the figures of St. Catherine and
8t. Margaret are represented as being two heralds in the livery
of their office. Snch statements, aerioasly given, show astound-
ing ignorance of the subject. The article is initialed "B.," whiob,
I believe, stands for an individual named William Beaufort, 11.A.,
Athy, whose drawings, equally untruthfol, illustrate the
magazine.
The inscription roand the tomb is also given in the
magaiiine ; but it is evidently pure fiction, and so erroneous
that I will not repeat it here. Unfortunately, too, it has already
appeared in our Joubnal (vol. i, p. 121). Not a word of it
there given can be identified in what remains legible of the
inscription.
New Abbey, is Adodbt, 1782.
From B akstch )iy AusUd Cooper.
Austin Cooper, the antiquary, in his Diary, under the date
August the 151^, 1782, has the following entry : —
"About A mile from Old Kilcullen, near the river Liffey, are the ruina
of New Abbey, which has been very much destroyed. At pteeent the
choir, refectory, and confeBsional chapel only remain entire. In Uie
centre formerly stood a beautiful steeple, which fell dowu about eighteen
1 1
f fc
NEW ABBEY OF KILCULLEN. 309
years ago.' In the choir is the raised tomb of the founder ; on it the
figure of a man, a sword by his side and a dog at his feet ; on his right
side his wife, with a hiah head-dress and flowing lappets; round it an
inscription, now so deraced as to have only a letter here and there
intelligible. The side stones are ornamented, but now sunk in the
ruins.
The rain-water which collects on the slab in the deep hollow
formed by the knight's legs, is a care for warts ; bat, to be
effective, nine pins should be first dropped into the water, and a
tenth thrown over the left shoulder.
Ware, in his '' Annals of Ireland" (published in 1664), gives
the two following entries : —
* * ANNO CHRISTI MCCCCXOV.
''Hoc etiam anno, dum Kildarius in Anglia haoreret, a criminibns
objectis, se purgaro fatagens (an vero in carcere hue usque detentus
nescio) Alisona uxor ejus filia Rolandi Eustacii Baronis Portlesterii
mortem obiit in Hibemia, ex dolore (ut putatur) quem in mariti (erumnis
& periculis hauserat, et sepulta est in coenobio fratrum minorum de
observantia juxta pontem de Kilcullen, quod pater ejus extruxerat."
(Vide p. 48.) (Alison FitzEustace was the first wife of Grerald, 8th Earl
of Kildare, known as '' Garrett more," or Gerald the Great. She died on
the 22nd of November, 1495.)
**ANN0 CURISTI MCCCCXCVI.
"Nunc ut jpergamus, Decembris 19, fatis concessit admodnm senex
Rolandus Fitz£u8tace, Baro de Portlester (quem Edwardus lY ad eam
dignitatem evexerat Martii 4 1462) & in coenobio fratrum minorum de
observantia, propre pontem de Kilcullen, in agro Kildariensi, quod ipse a
fundamentis excitarat, tumultus est. Monumentum tamen speciosum
sibi et Margaretse Jenico defunctce uxori sus8 extruxerat anno 1455,
Dublinii, in ecclesia S. Audoeni, in capella nempe B. Maria) Yirginis,
a se itidem construxta ut ex inscriptione sepulchri constat. Reciprocos
ille fortunes asstus expertus est. Deputatus fuit aliquandiu Georgii Ducis
ClarentisB Locum-tenentis Hibemiae, deinde Cancellarius Hibemite, &per
annos plusquam 38, summus Quaestor sive Thesaurarius, eaque dum oburet
munia, magnas sibi comparavit opes. Ecce vero rerum humanarum
vicissitudinem : Faucis ante obitum annis, Thesaurarii munere exactus,
alias, easque non leves, prout antea retulimus, passus est molestias.
Filius is erat (ut id etiam hie adnotem) Edwardi FitzEustace Esquitis
Aurati, quem Henricus Sextus Deputatum constituerat Richardi Ducis
Eboracensis, Hibemiae Locum-tenentis, anno 1454." (Vide p. 51.)
The monument in St. Audoen's mentioned by Ware in the
above extinct was a cenotaph erected hy Sir Roland Eustace, of
Portlester, during his lifetime, and (judging by the inscription
which is given below) subsequent to the- death of his wife,
' According to Gough*s edition of Camden's ** Britannia," the steeple
fell in the year 1764.
3IO NEW ABBEY OF KILCULLEN.
Margaret D'Artois, or, as she is called on the monament,
'* Margarete Jenico nuper axoris sue.'' Of this cenotaph, the
top slab, bearing two effigies, is still in existence, and is now
placed inside the entrance of the church tower. The effigies
closely resemble those on the New Abbey tomb, and lie in the
same position, with the hands in the same attitude.^ The
inscription, however, faces inwards, unlike the New Abbey
inscription, which is cat in the usual fashion. On the cenotaph
it is quite legible, with the exception of the date and a word or
two in the second line (which reads in the opposite direction to
the remainder) by the left side of the knight's head. Com-
mencing near the peak of the helmet, and continuing along the
knight's side, it reads : —
Orate p | aia Holandi tffits £u0ta [ce two words iUegibie] ^e
pottleer auf buc locu eivc capelfa dedit in bonore I beate
Aacie IDdS Si etia I p a^ Aatdatete ?enfco nup uiocte sue.
Si p aia'Bs omTtlDeliuDefuctoC aiio Do", m I cccc mi:ii v • '
As can be seen in the rubbing of the inscription, most of the
<* m's" and " n's" are left out ; and if the edge of the stone was
in a better state of preservation, the contraction equivalents
( — , or «^) would be visible. The " p," with a stroke through
the tail, is a contraction for *' pro," and in the case of " nup "
for " nuper." The z-like contraction mark at the end of " aiab "
denotes the omission of the '' us ; " while the comma-like
marks (') at the end of " Portlest' " and of " defuctor," are
contractions for " er " and " um " respectively.
There is a very puzzling similarity, it will be noticed,
between the letters " c," " e," and the long " s ; " and the con-
fusion is added to by several of the letters being conjoined, i.e.,
the final stroke of one letter also forms a part of the next
ifittfip
The date appears to read "M.(C.C.)C.C.XXX.n;" but this is
impossible, so the two "C's" must be " X's" and the two " II's,"
intended for a " U " or " V " ( = 6), which would make it read
* Between the heads is a hole through the slab to wliich several little
grooves run, as if with the intention of preventing the accumulation of
rain-water.
'Translation : —
'* Pray for the soul of Roland FitzEustace [ ] of Portlester,
who granted this place or chapel in honour of the Blessed Virgin Marv ;
and lUso for the soul of Margaret Jenico, formerly his wife ; and for the
souls of all the faithful Dead. A.D. 1455."
NEW ABBEY OF KILCULLEN. 311
MCCCCXXXXXV, i.e., 1455, which is the date given by Ware
in his Annals, published in 1664.
In the inscription the words '^nuper nxoris sue" would
denote that Sir Roland's wife, Margaret D'Artois, was then dead.
Sir Roland Eustace's wife was Margaret, widow of John,
third son of Sir John Dowdall, of Newtown, Knight, and
daughter of John, or Jenico, D'Artois (or Dartas). The latter
had a sister, Joan, who mamed, first, Christopher Preston,
father of Robert, Ist Viscount Gormanstown ; and, secondly,
Giles Thomdon, Treasurer of Ireland. Their father was
Sir Jenico D'Artois, Knight, a native of Gascony, who accom-
panied Richard 11 into Ireland in 1894, and for his faithful
services to him and his successor was in 1401 appointed
Constable of Dublin Castle. He had the custody of the manor
and lordship of Trim, and was granted the manor of Ardglass,
in the County Down, which, through his descendant Alison
Eustace, Lord Portlester's daughter, passed to the Earls of
Kildare. Sir Jenico was twice married, first, to Joan Taaffe,
daughter of Sir Nicholas Taafie, Knight, of Liscarton, in the
County Meath, and widow of Peter Rowe, Chief Justice;
secondly, to Elizabeth • . . . , who survived him. His
death took place on the 20th November, 1426, and he left
issue the son and daughter above mentioned.
Sir Roland Eustace, who was created Baron of Portlester,^
in Meath, by Edward IV, on the 4tb March, 1462, died on the
19th of December, 1496, leaving no male heirs to succeed him.
His children were : —
1. Oliver Eustace, ''filus Roulandi FitzEustace,
militis domini de Portlester." He was appointed Chief
Baron of the King's Bench on the 24th October, 1482,^
and died in his father's lifetime.
2. (?) Richard Eustace, ''filius Roulandi Fitz-
Eustace, militis," vivens 1493 ; ob. vita patris.^
' Portlestor was a manor in the Parish of Killaconnigan, and Barony
of Lune, County Meath. It previously belonged to the Norman family of
Mortimer, Earls of March, till the death of Edmond, the 5th Earl, without
issue, in 1424, when it passed to his next heir, his nephew, Richard
Plantagenet, Duke of York (son of Edmond Mortimer's sister Anne,
Countess of Cambridge), whose son Edward was afterwards King Edward
lY of England. In 1455, this manor, according to the inscription on the
cenotaph in St. Audoen's Church, was then in Sir Roland FitzEustace's
possession.
' Rot. Cane. Hib. Cal., p. 270b.
>Ib., p. 271.
312 NEW ABBEY OF KILCULLEN.
1. Alison, who was the first wife of Gerald, 8th Earl
of Kildare, who died on the 8rd September, 1618. Her
death took place on the 22nd November, 1495^ and
she was buried at New Abbey.
2. Joan married (1) Sir Maurice Eustace, Ent., of
Ballycotland (i.e., Coghlanstown), County Eildare ;
(2) Richard Plunket, 2nd Baron of Dunsany, County
Meath.
8. Maud (or Margaret) married (1) Thomas Mar-
ward, Baron of Skreen, County Meath; (2) Sir John
Plunket, Knt., of Bewley (Beaulieu), County Louth, ob.
2nd June, 1501.
4. Jenet^ wife of Sir Walter Delahyde, Knt, of
Moyglare, County Meath.
Before proceeding to give a sketch of Lord Portlester's life,
the few remaining items of New Abbey history will be given.
On the 9th of October, 1517, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir
John Zouche, and wife of Gerald, the 9th Earl of Eildare, died
suddenly at Lucan, and was buried at New Abbey ;' she was
the mother of Thomas, the 10th Earl, known as ''the Silken
Thomas," or " Thomas-an-Teeda."
On the 2l6t of May, 1638, George Brown, Archbishop of
Dublin, wrote to Thomas Cromwell, the Lord I^ivy Seal, to use
his influence in obtaining for him the about-to-be-dissolved
New Abbey and its appurtenances, which he wanted to convert
into a private residence for himself. He wrote : —
^^ And where as I wrote unto your Lordship for obteynement of a very
poure house of friers, named the New Abbey, an house of the obstynates
religion, which lay very commodious for me by Balymore,^ to repaire
into in tymes of nede ; I am clene dispatched of any pleasures there,
and the profecte theireof gy ven to an Irish man ; so that I am compted
an unworthie parson. Whereof to you, my especiall good Lorde, I
make my mone, having none other refuge."
It is not recorded whether the Archbishop was successful in
his petition.
^ With the exception of his daughter Alison, Lord Portlester*s
children are not given in Burke*s ** Extinct Peerage."
The daughters, Joan, Margaret, and Jenet, with their husbands, are
mentioned in Morrin's ** Calendar of Patent Rolls," vol. i, page 97.
According to Archdall's edition of ** Lodge's Peerage," vol. vi, page
176, Lord Portlester's wife was Jenet BeUew, widow of John Plunket,
2nd Lord of Killeen.
^ Ware's Annals, page 95.
^ I.e., Ballymore-Eustace, a manor then belonging to the Archbishops
of Dublin.
OF PORTLESTER.
t., = Alice
.30.
(Ind. Ex. Rec.)
REFERENCES.
An. 4 M. =» Tbe Axmalii of the Four Masten.
i^rctadall ^ His Bditlon of Lodce'g Peerage.
Borke. « His Extinct Peerage.
Bx. Inq. = Kxebeqner Inquisitions in the Record Office.
Ind. Ex. Bec.=The Index of Bxeheqner Records, Record Office.
lforrIn= Calendar of Chancery Rolls, Ireland.
Rot. Cane. Hib. CaL = Rotnlomm Caneellarin HibemiR Calendsriam.
Ware = 8ir James Ware's Annals of Ireland, 148&-16e8.
I
Richard PItzEustaco,
Nfimed in An. 4 M.,
HTino 1579.
(herald FitzGemld,
8th Earl of Kildare.
oh. 3 Sept., 1613.
(Archdall.)
Sir Man rice FitzEnstace, Kt.,
of IMlycotlaud (Cojfhlau8town),Co.
Kildaro.
(Archdall, Vol. IV, p. 300.)
Sir Thomas PltzEu8tac«, Kt.,
Bnron of Kilcnlleu, Co. Kildare.
Viscount Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow.
ob. 27 June, 1610.
Ex. Inq., Co. Dublin,
No. 6 of Ed. VI.
)
Mar^ret Talbot,
d. of Sir Peter Talbot, Kt.,
of Malahide, Co. Dublin.
(Ex. Infj., Co. Dublin, \
No. 6 of Ed. VI. )
Sir John Plunket, Kt.,
of Beaulieu, Co. Louth.
ob. 2 June, 1601.
(Archdall, Vol. VI, p. 161.)
Sir Walter Delahyde, Kt.,
of Moy^lare, Co. Meath.
(Morrin.)
NEW ABBEY OF KILCULLEN. 313
According to a County Kildare Exchequer Inquisition
(No. 21 of Henry VIII), New Abbey was suppressed on the
80th of April, 1539. It is mentioned as follows : —
"That the Monastery of New Abbey, in County of Ealdare,
commonly called the Grey Friars of New Abbey, was founded at a time
out of memory.
'* That this monastery, name, dignity, and order of Friars, with its
dependencies, was suppressed on the 30th of April, anno Regis Henry
VIII, 31(i.e., 1539), by order of the Kin^.
'* That the said monastery contains within its precincts the walls of a
church, a belfry, a dormitory, a hall (atcZa), two rooms, and a kitchen,
which are in ruins ; a burial-ground ; an orchard ; a garden ; a small
paddock for pasture, containing eight acres, all of which the late Prior
was seised of in fee in right of his monastery, previous to the said 30th
of April."
In course of time the site of this Abbey was leased to various
persons, generally for twenty-one years, on the condition of not
alienating any portion except to men of English name and
nation.
On the 27th of January, 1560, Roland Eustace, 2nd Viscount
Baltinglass, had a lease of the place; but it was gi*anted to
Edmund Spenser, the poet, on the 24th of August, 1582, as well
as an old waste town adjoining, which were in the Queen's
hands, owing to the rebellion of James Eustace, the 8rd Viscount.
At the commencement of the seventeenth century Sir Henry
Hari'ington, Knt., was in possession of the site of New Abbey
and its appurtenances ; on his death on the 1st May, 1612, he
was succeeded by his son, Sir John. (County Kildare Chancery
Inquisition.)
From this period nothing remarkable is recorded in connec-
tion with the place.
The caretaker of this church-yard, Michael Hannigan,
informed me that an old man (since dead), named Peter Keenan,
dreamed that the bells of the Monastery lie buried in the boggy
ground a short distance to the north of the church-yard, opposite
to an ash-tree now growing on the ditch which runs in the
direction of the river,
A couple of perches to the east of the effigied slab is a large
grave ; it is said to mark the spot where the soldiery who fell in
1798 at Old EilcuUen were buried.
Between this churchyard and the town there is a well, which
goes by the name of Tubber-molin (pronounced with the accent
laid on the last syllable), or St. Moling's Well. Its waters are
used as a cure for sore eyes. Can this be the same saint who is
the Patron of Timolin, and of St. MuUin's in the County
Carlow ?
314 NEW ABBEY OF KILCULLEN.
HolliDshed in his " Chronicles of Ireland " states that a
bridge was bailt over the Liffe; at Kilcalleii, in the year 1319,
KiLCDLLBK BtODOE. DBAWN E
(From Cromwell'a " Bicnreioni throujjli Im
by a Manrice Jakis, who vaa Canon in the Cathedral Church of
Kildare. " Dowling's Annals " add that he bnilt it at his own
coat. A drawing of his seal is in the atcbirea of Christ Cbnrcb,
Dublin.
Sketch of Lobd Portlester's Life, taken fboh the
"Dictionary op National BioaftAPHT."
Roland FitzEuEtace, Lord Portlester (died 1496), Chancellor
and Treasurer of Ireland, was the eldest son of Sir Edward
FitzEastace, bead of an important Anglo-Norman family, which
acquired extensive estates in Eildare and Meatb, in Ireland.
The FitzEuBtaces, with the Earls of Kildare and the Geraldines,
were among the chief and most active supporters in Ireland of
the Yorkiat Party, the head of which was Duke Richard, father
of Edward IV. By descent the Duke had claims to large
demesnes in Ireland, of which kingdom he was appointed
Viceroy in 1449 for Henry VL Sir Edward FitzEustace acted
as Deputy in Ireland in 1464 for the Duke of York, and in the
NEW ABBEY OF KILCULLEN. 315
game year his son, Sir Roland, received the appointment of Lord
Treasurer there. Sir Roland married Marguerite, relict of Sir
John Dowdall, and daughter of Jenico d'Artois, a Gascon
officer, who had been employed in military affairs in Ireland by
Richard II and Henry lY. A chapel under the patronage of the
Blessed Virgin was erected by Sir Roland in the Parochial
Church of St. Audoen, Dublin, in 1465.
Edward IV, on his accession to the throne in 1461, confirmed
Sir Roland in the Treasurership of Ireland ; and by a patent
dated at Westminster, 4th March in the same year, created him
Baron of Portlester, in the County of Meath.
He was also appointed temporary Deputy-Governor in
Ireland for the Viceroy, George, Duke of Clarence, and took
the oath of office on the 12th June, 1462. In that year he
presided as Lord Deputy at a Parliament held in Dublin.
About this time Portlester was accused of treasonable designs in
collusion with the Earl of Desmond. Portlester repudiated the
charge, offered trial by wager of battle, and was subsequently
exonerated by Act of Parliament.
Another charge of treason made against him at Dublin in
1470, does not appear to have been prosecuted. His daughter,
Alison, became the wife of Gerald, 8th Earl of Kildare, Lord
Deputy of Ireland. In 1472 the Chancellorship was conferred
on Portlester and John Taxton during their lives. Portlester
was one of the chief supporters of the Earl of Kildare in his
contest in 1478 with Henry Lord Grey, in relation to the office
of Deputy in Ireland for Edward IV.
The name of Portlester stands next to that of the Earl of
Kildare on the roll of those appointed in 1479 as chief members
of the Fraternity of St. George for the defence of the English
territories in Ireland.
Under the arrangements made by Edward IV for the adminis-
tration of his affairs in Ireland, Portlester was superseded in the
Chancellorship, but retained in the office as Lord Treasurer, and
the post of Chief Baron of the Exchequer was conferred on his
son, Oliver Eustace, in 1482.
Portlester-was reputed to have acquired considerable wealth
through his employments under the Crown. In 1486 he
established at Kilcullen, on the bank of the Liffey, County
Kildare, a convent for Observantine Franciscans, subsequently
known as the ** New Abbey."
With the Earl of Kildare and other leaders of the Anglo-
Irish, Portlester in 1487 took part in the movement of the
Yorkists in favour of Lambert Simnel. In 1488 Portlester
again became Chancellor of Ireland, when that office wi^s
3l6 NEW ABBEV OF KILCULLEN.
vacated by Sir ThomaB FitzGerald,' who took command of the
Irish soldiers who fooght in the battle of Stoke in 1488.
Through the interrention of the Royal Commissioner, Sir
Richard Edgecombe, a pardon was issned to Portleater by
Henry YII, ander date of 25th May, 1488.
He died at an advanced age in 1496, and was interred in the
Franciscan Abbey which he had founded at Kilcollen.
The remains of a stone moDament with recumbent effigies of
Portlester and his wife are preserved on the site of the chapel
which, as mentioned above, he erected in the Church of St.
Andoen, Dnblio.
J. T. G.
(i.t)., the late Sir John Thomas Gilbert, Ent.).
Note.
Since writing the Paper on New Abbey, Z again tried my
hand at reading the two words which are shown as illegible in
the inscription on tbe Eustace cenotaph in St Andoen's Chnrch,
Dublin. After Dnsuccesafully endeavouring to decipher the
letters in various positions, I at last took up the paper on which
I had made tbe rubbing, and holding it to the light with the
back towards me, I looked through it at the letters ; I then had
the eatisfactioD of reading the word HlLrns, and possibly the
' Second son of Tbomaa, 7th Earl of Kildare, and anceator of the
Ijaclcagh brancb of the FitzGeralde.
NEW ABBEY OF KILCULLEN. 317
other word is nunc ; if so, the beginning of the inscription
(when translated) would read : —
** Pray for the soul of Sir Roland FitzEustace, Knight, now
of Portlester/' &c
What had made the word melitis illegible in the rubbing is
that the stone-cutter had cut the letters upside down, though in
the correct order. One could have understood the mistake if he
had accidentally cut the word backwards ; but how it was he
commenced and finished the extraordinary error of cutting the
letters upside down is quite beyond me to explain.
">.
( 319 )
CASTLEMARTIN,
By OMURETHI.
CASTLE MARTIN is a name of Anglo-Norman origin ; bnt
whether the latter portion of it is a surname or a Christian
name, no record exists to inform us ; consequently, the name
of the family which originally built a castle here is unknown. As
there is another Castlemartin in the Barony of Navan Lower,
in the County Meath, it makes the identification of a family
impossible when one comes across such vague mention as
'^ Henricus filius Philipi de Castlemartyn/' or " Nicholus filius
Nicholi de Castromartun/* &c., in early documents.
Holinshed, in his '^ Chronicles of Ireland '* (p. 68), mentions
that in 1818 '' Hugh Canon, the King's Justice of his Bench,
was slain by Andrew Bermingham between the town of Naas
and Castellmarten ; *' these two places, however, lie six miles
apart as the crow flies. Andrew Bermingham, who was a son
of Richard^ 4th Baron of Athenry, was himself slain by the
O'Nolans on the 29th of September, 1822. (Clyn's ''Annals.")
The earliest mention of this place is in the year 1894, when
on the 4th of June one '' Malmore Ocoigne de Castelmartin in
co' Eyld' *' was pardoned for treason.^
So far as can be gathered, the once powerful family of Fitz-
Eustace, or Eustace, was seated here as early as the fourteenth
century. This family was sprung from the Le Poers ; and it is
not till the latter half of the fourteenth century that the Fitz-
Eustace surname was adopted. The Castlemartin family of the
Eustaces appears to have been the main stock from which the
Eustaces of Newland, Ballycotland (now Coghlanstown),
Cradockstown, Clongowes Wood, Confey, &c., spi-ang ; several of
which families, and their branches, used Castlemartin church-
yard as their place of interment, as one learns from " the Funeral
Entries " in Ulster's Office.
In 1448 Castlemartin was the scene of a conflict between the
' P. 161 b, Rot. Cane. Hib. Cal.
320 CASTLEMARTIN.
Irish of Leinster and the men of the Pale, MacFirbis states (in
the quaint language of the chronicler) that : —
'* A great army made by O'Connor Faly,* and by the IrLsh of Leinster,
marched to Kilcullind and to Castlemartine, wherein Calvaffh O'Connor
fell down (wounded) at the door of Castlemartine, so that his sword and
helmet were taken from him. Cahir O'Connor and Cathal O'Connor^s son,
hearing that O'Connor was taken, they returned towards him courageously,
and rescued him forcibly, Calvagh saying that his leg was broken, and the
English horsemen were about to bring him into the castle."'
The Bebellion known as the Baltinglass Rebellion (from the
fact that James Eustace^ 8rd Viscount Baltinglass, was the
principal Leinster nobleman concerned in it) broke out in 1579 ;
Maurice, the eldest son of John Eustace, of Castlemartin, threw
in his lot with the rebels, was captured and executed in the
following year. His father, John, also died in 1680, and by his
will left the Manor of Castlemartin, &c., to his second son,
William Eustace, as if foreseeing the forfeiture that would ensue
if his eldest son succeeded to his property.
On the breaking out of the Bebellion of 1641, Maurice fitz-
William fitzJohn Eustace was in possession of Castlemartin.
His name appears in the list of persons outlawed for high
treason at this time.^ On the 2nd of March, 1648, James^
Marquis of Ormonde, in command of the Parliamentary Army,
having lodged in Naas, crossed the Liffey two miles below
Castlemartin (? at Athgarvan), and finding this castle was
garrisoned by the rebels ''under the command of one Fitz-
Gerald," he determined to take the place. But on sending a
summons, the garrison of 400 men surrendered, and were
allowed to march away. From Castlemartin the Parliamentary
forces dispersed, to lodge in the villages about the Curragh,
while Lord Ormonde's regiment was quartered in the town and
castle of Kildare.*^
In this same year (1643) the Commissioners of Forfeited
* Cathal O'Connor Faly was the son of *' Murrough-na-madhmann,** or
Murrough of the Defeats, chief captain of his nation, whose territory
was Offaly. Cathal O^Connor Faly was married to Margaret **the
hospitable," daughter of Teige O'Carroll, chief of Ely-O'CarroU in the
King's County ; she died in 1451. Calvagh died in 1458, and was buried
in KiUeigh Abbey, King's County ; his son Con was elected to succeed
him as head of the clan.
' MacFirbis'a ** Annals of Ireland," edited by 0*Donovan.
' P. 359, vol. iii, of Gilbert's ** History of the Confederation and
War."
* P. 249, vol. ii, Gilbert's ** History of the Confederation and War/'
CASTLEMARTIN. 321
Estates first met at CastlemartiD, bat adjourned to SiggiDstowu,
or Jigginstown, near Naas, where was concluded a cessation of
hostilities between the Parliament and the Confederate Catholics.
In 1647 the castle was taken and burned by the Parliamentarians
under Colonel Michael Jones.
On the 8th of February, 1642, the Lords Justices and
Council offered a reward of £400 and a free pardon to anyone
who would bring in the head of any one of the following County
Kildare gentlemen, who were in arms against them : —
Pierce FitzOerald, of Ballyshannon.
Maurice Eustace, of Castlemartin.
Nicholas Sutton, of Tipper.
Rory O'More, of Balyna.
William FitzGerald, of Blackball, near Clane.^
The last of the Eustaces of Castlemartin was Sir Maurice
Eustace, Bart, (son of John, son of Maurice Eustace of 1642),
who followed James II into exile in France after the Siege of
Limerick in 1690, after which all trace of this ancient family
disappears. His wife was Margaret, daughter of Brigadier Sir
Thomas Newcomen, Knight, by his wife Frances Talbot, sister of
the Duke of Tyrconnell.
No trace of the old castle now exists. Having been dis-
mantled in 1647> it was probably, like Maynooth Castle, too
dilapidated to be worth restoring, and the remains may have
been thrown down for material when the present house was
erected about the beginning of the eighteenth century by a
Mr, Harrison, a Dublin banker.' Over the hall-door is cut the
following quotation from Horace : —
**80LICIT-fi lUCUNDA OBLIVIA VITiE,"
I.e., *' the forgetfulnesses of an anxioufi life are pleasant.*'
About the middle of the eighteenth century Castlemartin
passed by purchase to Captain Henry Boyle Carter, of Colonel
Irwin's Regiment. He was the second son of the Right
Honourable Thomas Carter, Master of the Rolls, and a Privy
Councillor, of Robertstown and Rathnally, in the County Meath.
His son, Thomas Carter, and his grandson, William Henry
Carter, D.L., and High Sheriff of the County in 1817, also
resided here till the middle of the last century, when Castle-
» P. 388, vol. i, Gilbert's *' History of Affairs in Ireland."
* Prewer*8 ** Ireland," vol. iij p. 64,
322 CASTLEMARTIN.
martin passed to the father of the present owner, Major William
Blacker/
A short distance to the rear of the hoase are the rains of
Castlemartin chapel,' which was dedicated to the Vir^^n ; it was
dependent on the Chnroh of Old KilcuUen.
S.m-m^'jii.^ ^Ci*££„ma'/&wx.Ci^C.
These rnins are of small dimensionB ; the ohapel internally
measnres 42rt. by 16|-ft. ; the walls are 4ft. in thickness. There
is no cut-stone work now remaining in the doors and windows ;
the former are pointed arched, and the latter ronnd-headed, with
wide splays. A very peculiar feature is the tower at the west
end ; it consists of two parallel walls, eighteen inches thick, with
a staircase two feet wide between them ; they extend the fall
width of the chapel. This tower was an after-addition, as there
' Ctde " Burke's Landed Gentry " tor Carter, ot Shaea fiCanor j and
for Blacker. Douglas, of Elm Park, County Armagh.
'"The Anthologia Hibarnica Magazine," vol. i, p. 351, for Hay,
1793, and "Tho London Review" for November, 1794-, have each an
article in them on Castlemartin, both apparently written by the same
pen (William Beautord, m.a., Athy), They are illuBtrated with the same
plates, showing a plan and sketch of the chapel ruins ; but the drawings
and description vie with one another in inaccuracy.
CASTLEMARTIN. 323
are traces of a little donble belf^, now built up, visible in the
inner wall; and the bonding of the masonry shows that the
tower was sabseqaently bailt. The narrow staircase leads from
a doorway inside the chapel to another doorway lending ont on
to the top of the side walls.'
J*^
s*.^ ^UtoC^^m^A, 4S^4u:.
^ In the centre of the body of the chapel are the foundations of
sn altar-tomb ; portions of the efGgy of a knight in armour, and
the remains of the sides, divided into panels containing saints,
are collected together in the e^t end of the chapel. They are in
a very fragmentary and broken condition. One piece, less
fractured t£an the rest, contains an angel, with an uplifted
sword in one hand, and a pair of scales, with a diminntive
human figure iu each scale, in the other hand, representing St.
Michael the Archangel weighing souls.
There is no doubt that this was a Eustace monument of the
fifteenth or sixteenth century ; and though several branches of
the family were interred here, there is no appearance of any
other monumeut to them. As late as the year 1665 Sir Maurice J
Eustace, of Harristown, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, died,f|
and was buried at Ciistlemaitin ; but even to him there is now
' Buttresses were built by Major Blacker io 1898, againet tho chapel
walls, to prop them against falling.
324 CASTLEMARTIN.
no trace of a monument. A funeral entry in Ulster's Office
states that he died on the 22nd of June, and was buried on the
7th of July, 1665, in St. Patrick's Cathedral; but this state-
ment seems to conflict with that of his widow, Charity, daughter
of Sir Robert Dixon, Ent., who expressly states in her will
that if she dies in Dublin, she is to be buried near her father
in St. Werburgh's, but if she dies in the country (at Harris-
town, County Kildare), she is to he buried near her husband at
Castlemartm. Her will is dated the 25th June, 1678, and was
proved on the 25th July, 1679.
Mention should be made of the fine entrance gates to Castle-
martin demesne, which form one of the finest specimens of
wrought-iron work of which we are aware in Ireland. Their
style would suggest that they are of about the period of 1740.
( 325 )
NOTES ON THE COLLECTION OF
IRISH ANTIQUITIES LA TEL Y AT EDEN D ERR Y.
By the Rev. E. OXbaky, P.P.
The Members of the Kildare ArchsBological Society will learn with
regret that the Edenderry Museum of Irish Antiquities has
become a thing of the past. It was sold by the owner last year
to a professor of Cambridge University. The collector of the
Museum was Mr. Thomas B. Murray, g.e., land-agent at Edenderry
to Lord Downshire. Mr. Murray commenced life as a civil engineer,
and worked with Dargan at the Kingstown pier and railway, at
Belfast, and also at other places. In the course of the extensive
excavations which these works entailed, he made many antiquarian
finds, which he carefully collected and preserved. He thus acquired
a love for antiquarian objects, and a taste for archsBological studies,
which were the joy of his leisure moments during the remainder of
his life. He did not, however, devote all his spare time to anti-
quities, for he was an ardent sportsman, was well known in the
Irish coursing world, and was the successful competitor for many
of its trophies.
He lived to a patriarchal age ; and, in the last year of his life,
he sold his archaeological collection away from Ireland. It is much
to be regretted that he did not give his countrymen an opportunity
to buy it. It was a great surprise to the public when it became
known that, by private sale, Mr. Murray had disposed of this fine
collection to an English professor at Cambridge. Had he only
advertised the fact that it was for sale, he would have certainly
found willing purchasers at home, and would have made a better
bargain. It is gone, however ; and a well-known saying reminds
us that ''there is no use crying over spilt milk.'' It only
remains for us to secure and retain some record of the collec-
tion while it can be done. This is the purpose of the present
Paper. I have collected all the information available ; and I now
give it to our readers. The Bev. E. L. Murray, m.a., nephew of
the collector, has kindly presented me with photographs which he
took of some of the museum cases, from which I have made a few
sketches of the most important antiquities for the purpose of illus-
tration ; and I have got the catalogue of the collection, and much
valuable information, from Mr. B. Magill, who was curator of the
museum. To these gentlemen I wish to express my acknowledg-
ments and thanks. In preparing the catalogue for the printer, and
the Notes which accompany it, I have been in doubt as to whether
the Notes should be given at the bottom of the page, or introduced
326
EDENDERRY COLLECTION OF ANTIQUITIES.
after the item in the catalogue to which they referred ; and I have
decided that the latter arrangement ^yill have the balance of con-
venience for our readers.
Museum Book. — T. B. Murray, Edbnderrt.
Case No. 1. Axe-heads, all stone, found in different counties.
Number of articles, 22. Most of them were found at Einnefad
and Kennedy's Wood, Bahan, both places being in the neighbour-
hood of Edenderry.
No. 2. Axe-heads, 1 oval tool stone, or thug gersteer, and
a pattoo, the principal weapon of the New Zealanders. All stone.
Number of articles, 24.
No. 8. 4 spear-heads, 4 axe-heads, 2 pairs of spurs, I horse-bit,
8 pieces of manacles and pincers; all iron. Number of articles, 17.
They were all found in the Biver Boyne, during the progress of the
drainage works which were carried out and completed on that river
about forty years ago.
No. 4. Manacles, horses* shoes, axes, reaping-hooks, curb-
chaiu, stirrup-lock, and 2 '98 pikes ; all iron. Number of articles,
15. One pike was found in the neighbourhood of Edenderry ; the
other in Connaught or Donegal.
No. 6. Spear-heads, daggers, swords, and some ring-money ; all
bronze. See Figures 1, 2, 8, 4, 6, Plate I. These were picked up
Plate /.
5:denderry collection of antiquities.
327
bv Mr. Murray in different parts of Ireland. The ring-money was
about 1 in. in diameter. The spear-heads were bright, flat, and
secured to the handles with rivets. The rivet-holes and some, of the
rivets were still in their places. The bronze bit was greatly worn.
No. 6. 4 articles found near the Boyne at Eisavanna, in the
County of Eildare, in the year 1851. 15 articles in one find, under
Drumcooley Hill, on William Morris's farm, near Edenderry, in
the year 1854 ; all bronze. Two of these are shown at Figures 6
and 7, Plate 1. 6 is a bronze necklet for a horse, and 7 a small
bell supposed to have been attached to the necklet.
No. 7. 48 rings, ring-money, 1 bronze article, 2 spear-heads,
found at Grange, in the County of Eildare, 1 foot 8 inches below
the surface, in the year 1862. One of the spear-heads was above
12 inches long. Number of articles, 50. See Plate II. One
Pfatt t
Cfttbury f^d.
SO
goo
o O O
o o O
\«mu>a^\imiifl^
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
O
O
O
O
O
O
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
J
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Or»nK« find.
lf»rybore find.
spear-head only appears in the photograph. Grange is a town-
land beside Einnefad, on the Dublin side of the Boyne, and about
one mile east from Edenderry. The illustration has been made
from the existing photograph. The find consists entirely of
bronze articles — 4 large rings, with a small ring running loose on
each of two ; 48 small rings, supposed to have been money ; a
328 EDENDERRY COLLECTION OF ANTIQUITIES.
fibula, or cloak clasp ; a bronze seal ; a socketed spear. This find
is supposed to have belonged to a warrior.
No. 8. 1 stirrup, 8 spurs, and 2 other articles, taken from the
Boyne near Drogheda many years since, adjacent to the place
where Prince William of Orange crossed ; got from Quirk ; iron
and brass. Number of articles, 6. These were all found at the
site of the Battle of the Boyne. There is no photograph of them.
No. 9. A number of spears and axe-heads ; aJso knives and
part of a gun ; all iron. Number of articles, 48.
No. 10. 1 string of amber beads, very large (114); 60 rings
(ring-money) ; also 7 other bronze articles, found in one lump of
clay, about three miles from Maryborough, Queen's County, in
February, 1872 — a large find of bronze and amber. Number of
articles, 58. (See Maryborough find, Plate II.) This find was all
bronze, except the amber beads and the sandstone seal. The
latter was beautifully finished, with markings on the seal-end, the
meaning of which was unknown. The amber beads (shown on the
string at the top of the illustration) were supposed to have been
money ; but no two were of the same weight, or gave any indica-
tion of a standard of value. The large hollow ring, concave on
the inside, was supposed to be a badge of authority. The two
small rings beneath this were hollow and tubular, with openings
across each ring, as shown in the illustration. The bronze cloak-
pin was neatly finished. From the absence of any warlike weapon,
this find is supposed to have been the property of some religious
dignitary, and the large ring to have been his badge of authority.
They were originally in a wooden box ; but through the lapse of
tima, daring which it had been buried in the damp earth, it had
mouldered into a lump of clay.
No. 11. 1 pair of ear-rings, 1 bronze adze, found on Garbury
Hill, on the east side, in the year 1862, one find ; also 6 articles,
one find, under Drumcooley Hill, west side, in the year 1859.
Number of articles, 9. The Drumcooley find were 2 bits of broken
bronze spears, and 4 rings (money). The Garbury find was
unearthed by James Smyth (at present an inmate of Edenderry
workhouse), whilst sowing potatoes on the side of the hill, in 1862.
The axe-head was used without any handle, by holding the rounded
back in the hand. It showed signs of having been ground, and is
the only instance of a bronze adze having been sharpened in this
manner. With the adze were found the 2 ear-rings shown in the
illustration. These rings are the size of a man's finger, and the 3
balls attached are of solid copper. At Garbury there were 2 small
crucibles for melting bronze, and 4 bronze pins also found, but not
by Smyth, or in the same place.
No. 12. 81 bone articles, found near a small lake in the County
Westmeath, in the year 1840; all bone and stone. Number of
articles, 81. These were supposed to have been tallies for counting
sheep and cattle. Some of the bits of bone had holes, the others
EDENDERRY COLLECTION OF ANTIQUITIES.
329
had notches. The latter are supposed to have represented the sheep,
the former the cattle.
No. 18. Ancient Irish bronze hunting-spears. Number of
articles, 86. These were found at Drumoooley and Ballinkillen ;
both places are near Edenderry. There were no human bones
with them, or any indication of the place having been a battlefield ;
and hence they are supposed to have been used for the chase.
No. 14. A number of spear-heads and keys, &c. ; all iron.
Number of articles, 20. One was the key of Bahan Castle, GouDty
Westmeath.
No. 16. A pike and some spear-heads, including 2 of Smith
O'Brien's, the cabbage-garden hero. Number of articles, 11. One
was a plain pike, the other had a hook and battle-axe.
No. 16. 49 old Irish bronze axe-heads. J^umber of articles, 49.
No. 17. Old spades, reaping-hooks, horses' shoes. And a horse-
bit ; all iron. Number of articles, 88. One horse-shoe had very
pecuUar fastenings. Five clips came from the shoe up the sides of
the hoof, grasping it tightly, and there were holes at the end of
the shoe behind, where a bolt had evidently passed through to
tighten it on the hoof.
330 EDENDERRY COLLECTION OF ANTIQUITIES.
No. 18. 48 old Irish pins or brooches, 2 harp-keys, and 4
amulets ; bronze. Number of articles, 49. 4 of these were of the
Tara pattern, but 1 was supposed to be a modern imitation.
Another had a flat, circular head, in the same plane as the pin,
ornamented with concentric circles. It was of very bright bronze,
and supposed to be modem. 1, with a highly ornamented stem
18 inches long.
No. 19. Old bronze adzes, varying very much in size and shape.
Number of articles, 26.
No. 20. 1 earthen bowl, found in the County Galway, in the
year 1858. Also one from Derry. An urn, with skull and bones,
found with a small human skeleton, in a stone chamber at Eilriney,
County Kildare, in the ^ear 1864. One find. Number of articles, 4.
The Galway urn contamed the remains of calcined bones like bits
of white lime. Plato III, Fig. 1. The Derry urn is shown, Fig. 2.
The Eilriney urn, Fig. 8. This townland is at the Dublin side of
the Boyne, 4 miles east from Edenderry. The urn was found in
a stone chamber, in a sunny upland field sloping south, by a
ploughman, in 1854. His plough struck upon the covering stone,
and he opened the cist in the hope of finding hidden treasure.
Besides the urn, containing ashes, he found in the cist a small
human skeleton, that of a girl about eleven years old. The skull was
one of remarkable beauty. The museum contained another Eilriney
find— a peculiar bronze box, about two inches in diameter. A strong
strap of bronze crossed the top of the lid, and, bending round to
the side, formed a hinge with the box. It contained two smaller
boxes, which fitted into each other. It was supposed to have been
used for ecclesiastical purposes.
No. 21. Old Irish bank-notes. Number of articles, 71.
No. 22. Old Irish bronze axes, bronze bowls, a bronze dagger,
&c. An Irish bronze axe, found in the Eiver Boyne at Einnefad ;
a beautiful specimen of a sword and spur. Number of articles,
10. The bronze axe found in the Boyne at Einnefad is shown
on Plate III, Fig. 4. It was the most interesting object in the
whole collection, and was the only specimen of its kind existing,
having the original handle in position; this was black as ink,
and supposed to be briar- wood. If gossip can be trusted, the
present owner has refused the sum of d61,200 for it, though the
same authority states that a very much smaller sum bought the
whole collection from Mr. Murray. The beautiful specimen of
a short sword, same Plate, Fig. 5, was found at Ballykillian.
The handle had hollows for inlaying work, and one of these
cavities contained a bit of amber. Axes Nos. 6 and 7 were of a
bright bronze, the colour of gold. No. 6 was brought to a very
sharp edge. No. 7 was found at Einnefad. No. 8 is not mentioned
in the catalogue. It is supposed to have been a censer. The
material is brass ; it stands on four legs ; the lid is pei'forated, and
hinged to the side ; and there is a movable bowl inside, like the
modem censer.
EDENDERRY COLLECTION OF ANTIQUITIES. 33 1
No. 28. A lot of flint arrow-heads, also a horn axe-head, made
from large deer-horn. Number of articles, 51. One of these arrow-
heads was a very rare specimen. It had a portion of the original
shaft still attached to it, tied on by a string of gut. It is shown at
Fig. 9) Plate lU, reduced to one-fourth the natural size. It was
found 7 feet deep on an ancient wooden togher or road in Ballin-
killen Bog, near Edenderry. With it was found the bone axe or
pick shown at Fig. 9, same plate. It is 8 inches long, and is one
of the most remarkable of the Irish bone axes. Note the sharp
cutting edge at the small end, made by cutting or grinding the
bone obliquely.
No. 24. A lot of silver coins of different countries. Number of
articles, 97.
No. 25. Swords, daggers, and sheaths, Scotch dirks, Malay
creases, Thug knife. Presented b^ Bev. James Oolgan, p.p., of
Edenderry, the sword of Tippoo Samb, taken by a British soldier at
the battle of Seringapatam, and brought to this country concealed
in the baggage of an ofiScer. After the battle a large reward was
offered for it ; but the soldier was afraid to produce it. However,
on his death-bed he gave it to Father James Colgan, who, of course,
did not reveal the name of the donor. The scabbard of the sword
was sold for £40. The regiment came to England in 1808. The
soldier was discharged in 1810. Number of articles, 11. The sword
of Tippoo Sahib is shown at Fig. 8, Plate I ; the Malay creases,
which are supposed to be poisoned, at Fig. 9 ; and the Thug knife
at Fig. 10.
No. 26. A variety of stones. Number of articles 180. These
include the '< evil eye " stone of Carrick Castle, near Einnefad, a
mill or quern, and some fonts.
No. 27. Different formation of fossils. Number of articles, 180.
No. 28. Fossil, cut and uncut, also a hard clay or stone, found
at the bottom of a stream in the Slieve Bloom mountains, and
presented by Mrs. Dames, of Green Hill. Beautiful specimen of
fossil.
No. 29. Miscellaneous collection. Number of articles, 100.
No. 80. Fossils and marbles from the limestone formation.
Number of articles, 49.
No. 81. Taken from the stomachs of a sheep and heifer.
Number of articles, 49.
No. 82. Minerals &om Glonmullen Quarry, Edenderry. Num-
ber of articles, 52.
No. 88. Old shoe-buckles. Number of articles, 19.
No. 84. A silver fruit-knife and fork, silver hair-comb, 6 patch-
boxes, and Indian case. Number of articles, 8.
No. 85. A lot of copper coins. Number of articles, 461.
No. 86. Old shoes. Number of articles, 17.
No. 87. Collection of bones and teeth. Number of articles, 8.
No. 88. A firkin containing 22 lb. of tallow, found in Bockfield
332
EDENDERRY COLLECTION OF ANTIQUITIES.
Bog, County Eildare ; also forks, spoons, candlesticks, &c. Number
of articles, 28.
No. 89. A porcupine fish, a big pike, and a jack perch.
No. 40. A great variety of shells. Number of articles, 250.
No. 41. Turkish pistols, 8 blunderbusses, 1 Waterloo musket,
1 American rifle, taken at Fort William, and brought by Lieut.
Edward Murray. Number of articles, 17.
No. 42. Mostly found around the garden wall of Blundell
Castle— a marble slab to memory of Christian Forster, Prince Albert
of Brandenburg, who came over in the year 1689 ; also a stone
communion table from Monasteroris, only two in Ireland. Number
of articles, 16.
PlatM I
No. 48. A lot of shells, bronze caldron, width, 2 feet, depth,
over 6 inches ; a large bronze pot, height, over 15 inches, width,
over 16 inches ; a bronze pot, height, over 12 inches, width,
over 12 inches. Number of articles, about 400. The bronze
caldron, Plate IV, Fig. 1, was found at the mouth of th^ River
Shannon, was of haminered bronze, and when struck^ had a deep,
EDENDERRY COLLECTION OF ANTIQUITIES. 333
sweet sound like a dinner-gong. It is given on its edge as in photo.
Fig. 2 is the bronze pot over 12 inches in width and height. It
was found at the edge of the Biver Boyne, at the old bridge of
Kinnefad, by a man cutting sedge. He thought it was gold, it had
such a bright colour. Fig. 3 is the large bronze pot first mentioned
in the catalogue. It was found in the bog of Goolcarrigan, near
Eobertstown. Figs. 4, 6, and 6 are iron pots not mentioned in
the catalogue. Fig. 4 is a pot with a history. It belonged to a
family named Stanton, who were blacksmiths, in the time of
James U, and who worked as farriers in his armv, following his
fortunes as far as Londonderry. After the war they returned to
Edenderry, where some of their descendants are living at the present
day. This iron pot accompanied them through the campaign.
Fig. 5 pot is rimless, and Fig. 6 is the oldest type of the iron pot,
and seems to mark the transition from the bronze shape. The
Goolcarrigan pot was a well-finished piece of workmanship, and
appeared to have been very little used.
On the waU — 4 enormous deer-skulls, with brow antlers and
other palmated portions, circumference under antlers, 18 inches ;
25 of the old red deer-heads, 20 or 80 swords of different periods,
the bust of the Duke of Wellington when a young man, and one of
Tom Moore, the poet, by Eirke ; ancient Irish boar's skull, present
Berkshire boar's skull, ancient Irish ox skull, modern ox skull,
8 baptismal fonts, one engraved with '*M.B,C., 1472;" 8 stones,
which, from their proportions, are evidently weights ; large hpm of
4 coils; William Carlyle, Dublin, /mh^. One of the deer-skulls was a
fine specimen of the extinct Irish elk, and measured 18 feet across
the antlers. It was found in the river Garr, a tributary of the
Boyne, which enters it from the County Eildare at Ballyboggan.
I have copied two of the illustrations from Sir William Wilde's
catalogue of the Boyal Irish Academy^-one of the flint arrow-head,
with the bit of shaft attached, the other is the bone axe. The rest
of the iUustrations are copied from Bev. Mr. Murray's photographs.
I regret that the foregoing notes are not much fuller and more
complete ; but they include sJl the information I could collect. It
is also a matter of regret that our Society was not able to arrange
a visit to the Edenderry Museum before its disappearance.
( 334 )
^i&cellanea.
Thomas PitzGerald, Prior of Kiimainham, 1438-47. —
Archdall in his ^* Monasticon Hibemicum " states that in 1488
Thomas FitzGerald succeeded William fitz Thomas as Prior of
Eilmainham in Dublin, which was a Hospital of the Knights of
St. John of Jerusalem, and their chief establishment in Ireland.
Who the father of this Thomas was is not recorded. Duald
Mac Firbis, in his ** Annals of Ireland," gives his pedigree very
vaguely thus : —
1444. The Prior of Eilmainham, i.e., the son's son of Thomas,
son to the Earl of Eildare.
This Earl of Eildare was probably Maurice, the 4th Earl, who
died on the 25th August, 1890, leaving issue the following sons : —
1. Gerald, 5th Earl, died in 1410.
2. John, 6th Earl, died 17 October, 1427.
8. Maurice.
4. Bichard of Ballyshannon, Co. Eildare.
5. Thomas.
This last-named son is, I believe, the << Thomas, son of the
Earl of Eildare," mentioned by Mac Firbis. In 1402 he was
appointed Sheriff of the County Limerick during the Eing*s
pleasure ; and in 1408 he was given the custody of the manor of
Any, County Limerick, formerly held by Sir Thomas Clifford, Ent.
His death occurred in 1412, if he is the son of the Earl of H^ldare
mentioned in thefollowing extract from " The Annals of the Four
Masters'': —
Eda Leis (i.e., Eda de Lacy) and the son of the Earl of Eildare
fell by each other at Eilmallock (Co. Limerick).
According to Lodge's '* Peerage of Ireland *' (the rare edition of
1745), this Thomas FitzGerald was the father of Gerald from whom
sprang the FitzGeralds of Pallice (Pallas) in the County Limerick,
and who also had a natural son, William, from whom descended
the family of FitzThomas, or MacThomas.
We will now return to his grandson, the Prior of Eilmainham.
Gilbert, in his ** History of the Viceroys of Ireland," gives the
following incident in connection with the Prior's brothers as
illustrating the lawlessness of the times during the first half of the
fifteenth century. During the time Sir Leon de Welles was
Viceroy, the Prior's two brothers, William and James FitzGerald,
MISCELLANEA. 335
in 1441, kidnapped the Viceroy's brother, William de Welles, ia
the following manner: accompanied by their Irish and English
soldiery, they lay in ambush at Eilcock, on the borders of Meath,
and as William de Welles passed they attacked his escort, slew
several of them, and took him prisoner; he was kept in their
dungeon until they had obtained the hostages they demanded.
While in their hands the Viceroy and Council directed a writ to be
issued requiring the Prior, who was an accomplice in the capture,
to present himself on a fixed day in Chancery; and, as he did not
appear, the Crown seized all the preceptories and manors belonging
to the Hospital, except the chief house at Eilmainham ; but this
proceeding was annulled when, some time after, the Prior came
into court, and produced a royal pardon.
Two years later, Mac Firbis's Annals state that the Prior's
brother, William FitzGerald, was slain by the Butlers when
engaged with the MacGillapatricks in a preying excursion into
Slievardagh, in the County Tipperary ; and in the following year
(1444), they state that the Prior himself was rescued by Walter
Bermingham's son, when he was confined a prisoner in New
Castle.
In 1445, the gentry of the Pale were split into hostile factions
owing to the jealousies and quarrels between James, 4th Earl of
Ormonde, Deputy to Sir Leon de Welles, and Richard Talbot,^ the
English Archbishop of Dublin; the former was summoned to
London to answer charges of high treason brought against him by
the Prelate. The Prior of Kilmainham was a strong supporter
of the Archbishop, and also crossed to London to give his evidence
against Ormonde, whom he even challenged to a combat, or duel.
Ormonde accepted the challenge, and a day was fixed for them to
meet in 8mithfield, the then usual place for judicial duels.
Gilbert, in his ** Viceroys," describes what then followed: —
'* The Earl, placed in charge of the Duke of Exeter, Constable of the Tower,
waa sworn to appear when summoned before the Ck>uncil, and not to go more than
forty miles beyond London, except on a pilgrimage to the shrine of his family
saint— Thomas of Canterbury. The Constable of the Tower was subsequently
authorized to allow Ormonde to be surely and safely brought to any place
nigher Smithiield, * for his breathing and ease against the day of battle.*
"Prior FitzGerald, in the custody of the Treasurer, Giles Thorndon, at
London, was by the King's order furnished with money, attendants, and
armour, and also, at the royal cost, instructed ' in certain points of arms, by
Philip Trehere, fishmonger, a professional swordsman.*
'* On the appointed day the lists were prepared, and the field in readiness ; but
the King, at the instance of some London preachers and divines, prohibited the
combat, and took the quarrel into his own hands. A number of the chief
ecclesiastics and laymen of the settlement (Pale) certified under their seals to
the King that they never knew or heard of the treason against his royal person
imputed to Ormonde, and that the accusation was maliciously imagined.
Having summoned them to Westminster, and investigated the articles, Henry
' Brother to John, Earl of Shrewsbury.
336 MISCELLANEA.
acquitted Ormonde; declared that the charges had originated in envy and
malice ; and issued letters patent setting forth that the Earl was faithful in his
allegiance, meritorious in his services, whole and unspotted in his fame ; that
none should, on pain of royal indignation, revive the accusations or reproach
his conduct; and that his arraigners were men of no credit, nor should
their testimony be admitted in any case. The EarPs opponent, Richard Talbot,
Archbishop of Dublin, Lord Deputy, was commanded by the Grown to attest
officially writs to this effect, and to despatch them for public proclamation in
the towns of the settlement.
" Prior FitzGerald was soon afterwards ejected from his office at Kilmainham
by Friar Hugh Middleton, the Visitor-General of the Hospitallers, for dilapida-
tions ascribed to his avarice. FitzQerald's successor (Friar Thomas Talbot)
represented to Parliament that when deposed (in 1447) Prior FitzGerald had
broken open the box containing the Hospital seal, which he carried off and
affixed to many illegal grants, which were consequently annulled."
From this time no farther mention is made of Prior Thomas
FitzGerald, and the date of his death is unknown.
W. FiTzG.
The Baronies of the County Kildare in 1350.
Formerly the baronies were more numerous than at the present
time ; the following is a list of them in the reign of Edward III ^: —
Babony de Norbagh I ^^^ ^j^^ ^^^ Baronies of Narragh and Rheban
K^sT I E^«^ ^^ West.
Okathy \
OuGHTRYN f ^^^ *^® Barony of Ikeathy and Oughterany.
Offaly, now the two Baronies of West and East Offaly-
MoNE f" ^^^ *^® Barony of Eilkea and Moone.
„ . CoNAiii, now Connell.
Carbery, now Carbury.
Otymy, now the Barony of Clane.
KiLcoLYN, now KilcuUen.
„ „ Maynotheslee (^ now the two Baronies of North and
,, DEL Sant I South Salt.
del Naas [ now the two Baronies of North and South
DE Bathmore ) Naas.
>» »»
}) ft
»» »>
I have not been able to identify the ancient Barony of
''Donlost;'' this place-name is now obsolete. The only other
work in which 1 have met with the name is Archbishop Alen's
** Crede Mihi " * (a Register in which are copied documents
mainly dealing with the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries). In
the list of churches included in the then Deanery of Athy appear,
among others, the ** Ecclesia de Donbren, Capella de Dunloste ;"
' Bot. Cane. Hib. Cal., pp. 74 and 161.
' Edited by Sir John Gilbert, and published in 1897.
MISCELLANEA. 337
SO that the Barony of Donlost may have been that portion of the
Barony of Narragh and Bheban West which lies on the Queen's
County side of the Barrow, and adjoining which are the townlands
of Dunbrin Upper and Lower.
As to the Barony of ** Otymy," this name is also obsolete, but it
corresponds with the present Barony of Clane. A County Kildare
Chancery Inquisition makes mention of '* the Manor of Clane, alias
Otmany," in 1617.^ In **Otymy*' was situated a district called
**Ar8t,** in which lay " Donnyng," i.e., Downings ; and in 1899
James de Ponkeston was given the custody of the Manor of Bally-
keppagh, the lands of Cloughgan, Stableriston, Blackball in Arst,
and a watermill in Clane.' Some years previously, i.e., in 1875,
Maurice fitzThomas FitzGerald, 4th Earl of Kildare, was com-
manded by the King to see that the inhabitants of Arst, Alon (Allen),
and the marches of Kildare were able to resist the incursions of the
Irish enemy into that part of the Pale.^ In the thirteenth century
** Otymy " was a lordship belonging to Adam de Hereford.*
The old barony called ** Maynotheslee '' was in the FitzGerald
territory. After the rebellion of the Silken Thomas, John and
Thomas Alen (of St. Wolstan's and Kilteel) were appointed for life
Constables and Keepers of the King's Castle of Maynoth, seneschals
of the Court, surveyors and keepers of the Manor of Maynoth and
Maynothesley and of the woods and forests there, as well as Bangers
and Keepers of the Park of Maynoth.^ The name Maynotheslee
means the leas or fields of Maynooth ; the latter portion of the
name is to be found in Broad-leas and White-leas, formerly portions
of the Ballymore-Eustace commons.
The Barony " del Sant '* is now called Salt, a contraction of the
Latin Saltus Salmonum, alias Leixlip, or the Salmon Leap.
W. FiTzG.
The Wife of Sir John Wogan, Knt., of Rathcoffy, who
died about the year 1420.— In the Wogan Pedigree, which
faces p. 79 of the Third Volume of our Journal, Sir John's wife is
given as "Margaret . . . ." Holinshed, in his "History of
Ireland " (Chronicles section, p. 76), supplies her surname ; he
writes that : —
'* In the yeare 1411 marriages were oelebrated among the nobilitie in Ireland.
William Preston married the daughter of Edward Pares; and John Wogan
matched with the eldest daughter of Christopher Preston ; and Walter de la Hide
with the second daughter of the same Christopher."
* No. 17 of James I.
* Rot. Cane. Hib. Cal., p. 166.
» lb., p. 97.
* Register of St. Thomas's Abbey, Dublin.
* Morrin's Cal. of Patent Rolls, Vol. I, p. 67.
338 MISCELLANEA.
On p. 78 he states that Edmund {recte, Roger), Earl of March,
Lord Deputy of Ireland, having invaded the country of an '* Irish
lord called Obren [O'Byrne] at the winning of his chief house," he
rewarded several of his captains by making them knights. Among
the number were the above-named 8ir John Wogan, of Bathcoffy,
Sir Christopher Preston, of Gormanstown, and Sir Walter
Delahyde, of Moyglare, the latter two belonging to the County
Meath. This occurred in 1397.
In the following year *' The Annals of the Four Masters " state
that : — *' A battle was given to the English by O'Byme and O'Toole,
in which the Earl of March was slain, and the English were
slaughtered/' This occurred at Eellistown in the County Carlow.
W. FiTzG.
The extinct family of Young, of Newtown-O'More,
County Kildare. — The following account of this family has been
copied from a manuscript volume in Ulster's Office called ''A
Visitation of the City of Dublin, commenced in 1607," by Daniel
Molyneux, Ulster King of Arms. At the head of the article is a
coloured shield bearing the fiamily arms, viz. : —
Bendy of six argent and gules, a lion rampant sable, armed and
langued azure.
Newtown-O'More is now Newtown near Tipper.
*' John Toange sonne of Patericke Tounge of Newtown-a-more in ye Ck>anty
of Kildare, had to wife Katerin Weston sister of the priour of S^ Wolstanes, by
whome he had issae Walter, Gerrotte a Prist, and Thomas.
"It is said that this Paterickes Predecessours sometime were owners <^
Toongston* in Com. Kildare, and that thev were driven thence by the Irish.
** Walter Younge eldest sonne of John, had to wife Margaret daughter of
Hely, by whome he had issue John, James, Nicholas, and Margaret who was
first wife to Edmond Wale of Bathmore, and after to Maurice Hickie of
Thristledermot.
" John Tounge of Newtown-a-more eldest sonne, had to wife Katerin d' of
Bobart Hasquin of the Litle Bath in y* Ck>m. of Kildare, by whome he had issue
Patericke, Gerrotte, Thomas, and Anne now a widow.
** Patericke had to wife Katerin d^ of Eustace of Cradokeston in
y« Com. of Kildare, by whome he had issue Ismay, married Thomas Heyvy of
Dublin, and Margaret.
" Gerrotte Tounge second sonne of John was Mayor of Dublin in ano 1599,
and had to his first wife Isold Kenan, by whome he hath issue Nicholas his
only sonne, Joan wife to Henry Locke of Dublin merchant, and Katerin wife to
Michaell Segrave. Gerrotte's second wife was Maud d' of Bichard Mainwaringe
of Leixlip, widow of James Bian, by whome he hath noe issue.
** Nicholas Tounge had to wife Annice d' of James Bian above-named (which
James Bian a litle before his death was chosen to be one of y« Masters of y*
Ghauncery) by whome he had issue his only child James, v y" old now 1607.
** Nicholas deceased the xxv of August 1607."
W. FiTzG.
^ Between the Moat of Ardscull and Glassealy.
( 339 )
^otcs.
David O'Buge, a native of Klidare, and a learned
Carmelite of the fourteenth century.
{Taken from Holinshed's " Chronicles of Ireland," p. 42 of the Description of
Ireland section of the edition ptibUshed in 1586.)
David Obuge, borne in the towne of Kildare, for his learned
lectures, and subtile disputations openlie published in Oxford and
Trevers in Germanie, he was taken for the gem and lanterne of his
countrie.
In his time Giraldus Bononiensis, being Maister Generall of
the Carmelits, was at jar with William Lidlington, the provinciall
of all the English Carmelites. Wherupon tenne of the wisest and
leamedest Carmelits that were then resiant in England, being fuUie
elected to resist their Generall— Obuge was chosen to be the for-
man of all the said crew. Giraldus Bononiensis understanding that
he being an Irishman, was so hot in the controversies was egerly
bent against Obuge, because he assured himselfe to have had favour
at his hands, by reason Obuge was borne in that countrie where
the Giraldines his kinsmen were planted ; and thereupon he was
banished to Italic.
The storme in processe of time being appeased, the outcast
Carmelite was made the generall gardian of all his fraternitie in
Ireland : which countrie by his continuall teaching and preaching
was greatlie edified. Over this he was so politike a councellor, that
the nobilitie and estates, in causes of weight, would have recourse
to him as to an oracle.
He was in philosophic an Aristotle, m eloquence a Tnllie, in
divinitie an Augustine, in the civill law a Justinian, in the canon a
Panormitane ; he flourished in the yeare 1820, he deceased at
Kildare, leaving these learned workes insueng to Posteritie—
Sermones ad clerum, lib. 1.
EpistolaB 82 ad diversos, lib. 1.
Propositiones disputatas, lib. 1.
Lectiones Treverenses, lib. 1.
Eegulie Juris, lib. 1.
Contra Giraldum Bononiensem.
W. FrrzG.
The following is a description of exhibits shown by Mr. Cooke-
Trench at the Annual Meeting in 1901 : —
1. Copy of a water-colour drawing, by Petrie, of Kildare
340 NOTES.
Cathedral in ruins. Tlie original was lent to be copied by the late
Miss Margaret Stokes.
2. Rubbing from a carved stone window of two lights let in to
the back wall of Turnings House. It had obviously belonged to
some earlier building, very possibly to the neighbouring Castle of
Whitechurch ; but there is neither history nor tradition as to
whence it came.
8. Some curious old tiles with Scripture subjects. There is a
tradition that amongst the numerous industrial centres established
in Ireland by the refugee Huguenots was a considerable tanning
industry in Watling Street. Certainly within living memory nearly
every house on the east side of that street, and several on the west,
were tanneries. These have now almost altogether been abandoned,
one of the last to go being that of Messrs. Kelly & Dunne, whose
premises are now absorbed in Guinnesses Brewery. When the
tannery was about to be demolished, exhibitor, who is the ground
landlord, received a letter from a gentleman well acquainted with
the premises to say that in a certain room there were inserted
in the wall a number of old tiles, concerning which the tradition
was that they had been brought over by the Huguenots, who
established the tannery. Upon investigation, about fifty tiles were
found sufficiently preserved to make their removal possible ; and,
with the consent of the Messrs. Guinness, this was done. The tiles
exhibited were some of these.
( 341 )
A Sherlock Coat-of-Arms Stone. — Opposite to the
junction of the Osberstown Road with the one from Naas to
8allins, and close to the latter railway station, is a thatched farm-
hoase (now in the possession of a man named Eealy), into the
stables of which is built, upside down, a block of limestone measur-
ing some 18 x 12 inches, on which is carved, in high relief, a
shield bearing the Sherlock coat-of-arms (three fleurs-de-lys),
impaling on the sinister side a coat resembling "on a chief, a
spur." Elaborat emantling falls to either side of the shield, above
which is a helmet, and over that again was a crest, now chiselled
off (apparently intentionally). No date or initials are visible. A
former occupant of the place, named Doyle, is said, years ago, to
have brought this stone from 8herlockstown to its present resting-
place.
Can anyone of our Members identify the unknown coat-of-arms?
W. FiTzG.
Leixllp Castles. — For some weeks past *' The Weekly Irish
Times " has been publishing historical articles on <* The Castles of
Ireland," from the pen of Miss C. L. Adams. Leixlip Castle formed
the article in the issue of the 8th June, 1901. This notice of the
place drew the attention of a resident of Leixlip, who contradicted
the statement (which also appears in our Joubnal, vol. ii, p. 898)
that the Black Castle of Leixlip was the same as ** The Castle,"
now the residence of our Member, Mr. William Mooney. The
Leixlip informant states that the Black Castle stood at the opposite
end of the town to 'Hhe Castle;" that it was occupied by the
military in '98, who, as usual, erected a gallows near it ; and that
now it is a residence so modernised as to be indistinguishable
except to one well acquainted with the locality.
Can any of our readers throw any light on this subject ?
W. FiTzG.
( 342 )
JlnsTDcr to &uerg^
Th6 Father of the Right Hon. William Conolly, P.C.,
of Castletown.
The following communication has been received from Mr.
F. Elrington Ball, in answer to the Query which appeared on p. 194,
vol. iii, of our Journal : —
Source of information. — British Museum Add. MS, 750 and 244
(Stowe Papers).
Letter from Sir John St. Leger, Baron of the Exchequer in
Ireland (1715-1741), to Lord Chief Justice Parker, afterwards Lord
Chancellor of England, and Earl of Macclesfield, dated Dublin,
February 21st, 1716-17 :—
/' We expect daily a letter for swearing the new intended Justices,
that is, the Archbishop of Dublin, the Chancellor, and Mr. Conolly ;
many people here, especially our quality and old gentry, are much
offended at Mr. Conolly's being one of them ; this gentleman was
lately an attorney, his father keeping an ale-house in the North of
Ireland, this being too notorious to be stiffled, but by making
long bills and good bargains he is now reported to be worth eight
thousand a year, and by a generous way of living, and adhering to the
honest cause in the bad times, was chosen Speaker of the House of
Commons this Parliament, but has shown himself very unequal to
that post, but had still a considerable interest in the house, and gave
his assistance to the late Justices in this last Session. This is a true
report of him, which I write to your lordship under caution, and
only for your own information, and shall add further that Colonel
Bladen, our late Secretary, and who I hear is again to be Secretary
to my Lord Townshend, was very intimate with Mr. Conolly, and
its supposed may have recommended Mr. Conolly to his lordship,
as a person very capable to make his government easy. But it's not
unlikely that this promotion of Mr. Conolly will make him be so
envyed that instead of increasing it may lessen his interest, and
that he'd now find opposition everywhere as an ambitious man, and a
creature of the government, who before was popular, always appear-
ing at the head of the country's interest. I hope it will relish better,
when it's done, than while it's doing, for abundance of people are
disgusted at it, and others condemn it with silence, tho' visible
enough in their faces,"
JOURNAL
OP THE
Jlrt^olagtcal j^acietg of % Gountg of Ffilbare
AND
jSurrounbing Districts.
-i-f
BALLYMORE EUSTACE
AND ITS NEIGHBOURING ANTIQUITIES.^
By lord WALTER FITZGERALD.
BALLTMORE EUSTACE is a small town situated on the
northern bank of the Liffey, a mile and a half from the
famous Ponlaphooka Waterfall. The name '^ Ballymore " means
"the great town." The other portion of the name is derived from
the once powerful family of Eustace, which sprang from the Peer
or Power family, in the fourteenth century, and which owned
such extensive possessions between this place, KilcuUen, and
Naas, that the district was at one time called by the Annalists
'' Griche Instasach," or the Eustace territory.^
Very shortly after the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland,
Ballymore became one of the principal Manors belonging to the
Archbishops of Dublin, who erected a Castle here for tiie pro-
tection of their tenants and property. It must have seen its full
share of war and rapine, as it stood on the edge of the Pale, or
English land, close to the mountainous country that for centuries
sheltered the brave and turbulent septs O'Toole and O'Byrne,
who never lost an opportunity of harassing the new settlers on
their ancient patrimony in Kildare, out of which they had been
driven by the Normans, who came over at the request of Dermot-
na-gall MacMurrough, King of Leinster, in the twelfth century.
Of Ballymore Castle not a trace now remains ; its very site
even is forgotten, though tradition says it stood on what is now
known as " Garrison Hill." In the middle of the fourteenth
^Read by Sir Arthur Vioars at the Ezcursion Meeting on the
12th September, 1900.
' ** Annals of the Four Masters," anno 1547*
A A
344 BALLYMORE EUSTACE
century it is described as containing a minous hall^ a chamber
for the Archbishop, a chapel, a little chamber for clerks, a
kitchen roofed with shingles, and a stable and grange, which
were both thatched.^
In 1203 King John commanded the Justiciary of Ireland
that, notwithstanding the prohibition regarding diminution of
the King's demesnes, he should cause John Comyn, Archbishop
of Dublin, or his messenger, to have the seisin of the Castle of
Ballymore, and of the lands whereof he was disseised by the
King's order, as well as so much of the Forest of Goillach as he
ought to have by the King's charter.^
About this period a controversy existed between the Arch-
bishop and William fitzMaurice FitzGerald, Baron of Naas, in
reference to their respective boundaries. However, it was decided
between them that the road from Bedmoor, near the Castle of
Donard, to the river Liffey should be their mearin, the Prelate's
portion being to the south, and the Baron's to the north, of the
road.^
In 1227 a taxation was made of the dignities of St Patrick's
Cathedral, with the object of levying from each non-resident
prebendary one-fifth of the revenue of the prebend, for the use of
the working clergy. The valuation of the Prebendary of Bally-
more on this occasion was twenty marks.^
In 1234 Henry III confirmed the Archbishop's right of
holding an eight-day fair here, to commence on the Eve of the
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin (to whom Ballymore Church
was dedicated).^ About this time Archbishop Luke, an English-
man, granted Ballymore to St. Patrick's Cathedral, in exchange
for Clonkeen (Kill o' the Grange), granted to Christ Church.^
In 1284 King Edward granted to John de Sanford, Arch-
bishop of Dublin, free warren in his lordships and manors, so
that none should hunt therein without license from the
Archbishop or his successors/
The Annals state that in 1306 Ballymore, in Leinster, was
burned by the Irishmen, who killed there one Henry Calff, and
that thereupon war was made between the Englishmen and the
Irish of Leinster.^ This Henry Calfe may have been the Arch-
bishop's Constable of the Castle.
In 1317 Moriartagh McMurrough, William McConyn, and
other rebels, who were prisoners in the Castle of Ballymore, were
'Men's *' Liber Niger.*'
'^Swoetman's ** Calendar of Documents, Ireland," p. 28.
« D' Alton's " Dublin County." * D' Alton's "Archbishops of Dublin."
' D' Alton's ' ' Dublin County. " ""Ibid. ' Ibid.
^ James Grace's and Thady Dowling's '* Annals of Ireland."
AND ITS NEIGHBOURING ANTIQUITIES. 345
lemoYod in the custody of Geoffrey Brandewode, Sheriff of
Dnblin, to the castle there, for greater securityy and to stand
their trial.^
In 1855 Geoffrey fitz Eustace and Richard de Penkestown,
Sheriff of Eildare^ were directed to see that the garrisons of
Kilteel, Bathmore, Ballymore, and Graney, in the County Kildare,
were all up to their full strength,^ so as to resist the incursions
of the O'TooleSy O'Bymes, and MacMurroughs. In the follow-
ing year the sum of £10 was granted by the King to Ade Dodyng,
of Ballymore, and his friends, in reward for haying captured or
slain Ravenyld macLorcan O'Byme, Murtagh mac Connor
O'Byme, and Shaun mac Donnell more O'Byrne.^
In the following year the King caused Maurice FitzGerald,
Earl of Kildare, to be severely censured for not having the gar-
rison of Ballymore of sufficient strength to guard the marches.
The Earl was ordered, at his own expense, to at once personally
see that five mounted officers, twelve well-armed ^' hobelers " (or
horsemen), and forty bowmen fully equipped, were quartered in
the place.^ Thirty years later (i.6., 1386) Maurice FitzGerald,
Earl of Kildare ; Sir WUliam Wellesley, Sheriff of Kildare ; Sir
David Wogan, Sir Thomas FitzEustace, and Patrick Flattisbmy
were appointed to select trusty men to collect a tax, called
*' smoke silver," at the rate of a halfpenny a house where a fire
was burned, in the Barony of Ballymore, and to spend the money
in defraying the cost of the wards guarding the marches/
In 1378 Thomas Minot, Archbishop of Dublin, appointed
Thomas fitzOliver FitzEustace as Constable of the Castle of
BaUymore, with a salary of £10 per annum, provided he should
reside there with his family, and govern the tenants without
extortion, and guard and maintain the fortress. This was con-
firmed by King Bichard when in Dublin in 1395.^
In 1393 Bobert Waldby, Archbishop of Dublin, was petitioned
to lay before the King the grievances which existed in his Manor
at Ballymore. One complaint was that the Earl of Kildare had,
contrary to the liberties and franchises of Holy Church, quartered
100 kern on his seigniory of Ballymore, and on his tenants there,
thereby causing unheard-of devastation. In consequence, the
Earl was ordered to remove his kern, and make amends for the
damage inflicted.'^
» " Rot. Cane Hib. Cal.," p. 27. ^Ibid,, p. 56.
'Ibid,, p. 59 b. * JWd., p. 60. *iWrf., p. 136.
•D' Alton's "County Dublin;" and Alen's ** Liber Niger," p. 176 of
the Journal for 1897 of the R.S.A. of Ireland.
' Graves's *' Roll of the Proceedings of the King's Council in Ireland,
1393."
346 BALLYMORE EUSTACE
Some time between the years 1417 and 1449, daring the
time he was Archbishop, Richard Butler appointed Sir Richard
FitzEustace, Knt., his Constable at Ballymore ; and at his death
he was succeeded in the constableship by his son and heir, Robert
FitzEustace, in connection with whom the following Act was
passed by a Parliament held at Drogheda in 1468 : —
**The Archbishop of Dublin being seized in right of his See of the
Manor of Ballymore, lying between the counties of Dublin and Kildare,
among the O'Byrnes and OTooles, Irish enemies, did of ancient times
make constables thereof for life, or at will, which constables kept their
residence there continually, and especially in time of war, and Richard
Talbot, brother of Lord Fumival, Archbishop of Dublin, predecessor to
Michael (Tregury), by the assent of his chapter, constituted Sir Richard
FitzEustace Constable thereof, to him and the heirs male of his body,
and granted him to receive in the said office the profits of the Mill to the
annual sum of £10, and £10 a year rent-charge on the said lands. That
the said Sir Richard FitzEustace died, and Robert, his son and heir,
occupied the said office, but did not make his residence there, but made
a sub-constable, one La%vrence O'Rogan, an Irishman both by father and
mother, who by nature would discover the secrets of the En^i^lish ; also
the said Robert FitzEustace lodged his sheep in the vaults of the said
Castle, and wasted the same, and distrained the frank tenants and bur-
gesses of the same, under colour of the said rent-charge. Therefore at
the petition of Michael (Tregury), Archbishop of Dublin, it is enacted
that the said Robert be compelled to keep a sufficient company of
Englishmen and no Irish to guard the said Castle ; and if the said
Robert put any Irishman, not having his charter of liberty, to ward the
said Castle, then it should be lawful for the said Archbishop and his
successors to turn the said Robert out of the constableship, and give the
said office to any other for life or years.'* '
About the year 1524, the grant of constftbleship, which
appears to have become a hereditary ofBce in the Eustace family^
if they chose to claim it, was annulled by the Commissioners
sent by Henry YIII, and decided in favour of Archbishop Hugh
Inge.^ On the 80th of April, 1540, George Browne, Archbishop
of Dublin, and the Chapter of Christ Church and St. Patrick's,
sent a letter concerning the Constableship of Ballymore to £jng
Henry VHI, of which the following were the contents : —
^ * Received your letters dated Westminster 13th of March [1540] in
favour of your servant Patrick Bamewall, to whom and his heirs male
you direct us to confirm our right to the Constableship of Ballymore with
the mill of the same, which, as it seems by your letters, will presently be
void and in your gift by the attainder of Christopher Eustace. I, the
Archbishop, whom this request principally touches, was not privy to the
finding of any office whereby your Grace should be entitled in this behalf,
if any such be taken. Eustace had no estate in the Constableship ; nor
*Page 41, vol. ii, of the old series of '*The Ulster Journal of
Archaeology.**
* Page 408, in the 1897 vol. of the ** R. S. A. of Irebind Journal."
AND ITS NEIGHBOURING ANTIQUITIES. 347
have his ancestors held ifc since 1478, in Edward lY's reign'; and in that
of Henry YIII Parliament repealed the grant to the Eustaces, and all
other such grants made by the Archbishops of Dublin. The Lord of
Trymlettiston, your Chancellor, who had the custody of the body and
lands of the said Christopher during his nonage, claimed the Constable-
ship, and the matter was brought before the Dean of Lichfield, Sir Ralph
Egerton, and Sir Anthony FitzHerbert, then your commissioners here,
who decreed that the Archbishop and his successors ought to enjoy it,
notwithstanding the said grant. The mill, moreover, is not compre-
hended in the grant. Before the grant was repealed, it was considered
that the revenues of the Archbishop lying in the heart of the English
Pale were not sufficient for the Archbishop to defend the residue of his
lands lying in the marches and borders of Irishmen, as the said manor
doth, joining the O'Tooles, O'Bymes, and E^avanaghs. At present the
lands appertaining thereunto are almost made waste, and the rent of
assize thereof yearly not leviable above £20 sterling, where in times past
it was 340 marks yearly. The rent cannot be increased, or the poor
tenants there defended, but by the personal residence of an active person.
We think Master Bamewall, who is your Serjeant at law, would not
attend thereto, but substitute some other gentleman there of the country
under him, who would oppress the poor tenants there, under pretence of
their defence, as the Geraldines and Eustaces used to do in times past ;
and thus both your lands and revenues and the poor living of the ministers
of the Church have decreased there. Sometimes, I, the Archbishop,
must resort thither and lie there, as my predecessors have done, for the
stay of the country ; and lacking the use as then of the Castle and room
of my house, which is very small, with the profits of the mill there, I
should not have provision nor lodging in all those parts. We beseech
you to have us excused for not conforming ourselves herein."
The Christopher Eastace mentioned in the above letter was
of Ballycatlane, alias Cotlandstown, alias Goghlanstown (of which
Mr. O'Connor Henchy's demesne of Stonebrook forms a portion).
He took part in the Rebellion of the Silken Thomas, for which
he was outlawed, taken prisoner, and hanged in 1535. He had
married Elizabeth, daughter of John Bamewall, 3rd Baron of
Trimlestown. She died on the 11th February, 1549^ leaving
issue an only child, Joan Eustace, who married Nicholas Taaffe,
of Atholare, in the County Louth.^ The following extracts from
an Inquisition taken in Naas in June, 1597, mention some of
Christopher Eustace's relatives ; it found that^
*' Sir Robert FitzEustace, Knt. [the Constable of Ballymore mentioned
in the Archbishop's letter (quoted above], by his deed dated Edward IV,
19th [i.e., 1479], enfeoffed to certain uses, John Stokes and William Body,
Priests, in the undermentioned lands, viz. : — Jagogeston, Baredore, and
Rocheston, in the County Kildare, and Bertramston and Roweston in the
County Meath.
** That John Stokes, the surviving feoffee, in March, 1486, delivered up
these lands to James FitzEustace, son and heir of Sir Robert, who had
left them in remainder to his other sons, Oliver, Richard, an^ Maurice.
' Elizabeth Fiant, No. 6,273.
348 BALLYMORE EUSTACE
" That James FitzEustace died on the 12th December, 1522.
'* That his son and heir Nicholas died without issue in 1577.
'* That Oliver and Richard FitzEustace died without issue.
**And that by reason of the attainder of Christopher Eustace of
Cutlandstown, son and heir of Maurice Eustace, brother of the above-said
James, father of the said Nicholas, the above-named premises had
reverted to the Crown."*
We will now hark back to the few remaining items of
Ballymore history that are recorded in the State Papers, &c.
In 1419, according to Henry Marlebarrongh's " Chronicle,"
O'Toole took 400 cows belonging to Balimore, breaking the
peace, contrary to his oath.
At a chapter held at St. Patrick^s Cathedral by Michael
Tregury, Archbishop of Dublin, John Alen, the Dean (after-
wards Archbishop), reported that, owing to the unsettled state
of the Irish septs in the County Wicklow, he had been unable
in 1468 to visit the Prebends of Tipperkevin, Tipper, Bally-
more, Dnnlavan, Yago, Donoughmore in Imaal, Stagonil, and
Monahemock (i.e., Dunmanoge, near Maganey), as they all lay
near the Irish enemy.^
On the resignation of John Walton, Archbishop of Dublin,
in 1484, Gerald " more,'' the 8th Earl of Kildare, then Lord
Deputy, forcibly entered into and took possession of twenty-four
townlands in the lordships of Ballymore and Castlekevin belong-
ing to the See, and held them to the time of his death. After
being dispossessed of them for thirty-two years, the then
Archbishop recovered them from Gerald "oge,'* 9th Earl of
Eildare, on the matter being referred to Patrick Bermingham
and Richard Delahyde, Justices, and Bartholomew Dillon, Chief
Baron, who decided in his favour.'
The following list of the County Kildare possessions of the
Holy Trinity Church (or Christ Church), Dublin, is interesting,
as it informs us of the saints to whom some of the county
churches were dedicated. Besides Ballymore, they were :—
Tenements in Rathmore. The town and lands of
Punchestown, near Naas. The Church of EilcuUen,
together with the annexed Chapels of the Blessed Yii'gin
Mary, of Castlemartin, and of St. Canice of Kinneagh^
near Athgarvan.
The tithes of Blackrath, alias Canonrath, in the
parish of Eilcullen. The Chapels of St. Mary of Gal-
moleston (? Calverstown), St. David of Birdynchapel,
^ Co. Kildare Ex. Inquisition, No. 41 of Elizabeth.
'Mason's "History of St. Patrick's," p. 136.
»D' Alton's ** Archbishops of Dublm," p. 169.
AND ITS NEIGHBOURING ANTIQUITIES. 349
and of Si John of Eilgone (Eilgowan), together with
their tithes, the gift of Thomas fitz John FitzGerald,
Earl of Eildare. A tenement and castle in EilcuUen ;
lands in that lordship, with their tithes, the gift of
Thomas Walleys.^
In 1524 the immediate neighbourhood of Balljmore was the
scene of the tragic death of Bobert Talbot, of Belgard,^ in the
County Dublin. The Geraldines and the Butlers were, as usual,
at daggers drawn ; but the latter at this time were favoured by
fortune, and Pierce, 8th Earl of Ormond, was now Lord Deputy.
Bobert Talbot was a great favourite with him, and was equally
well hated by the Geraldines, who suspected him of spying on
them^ and of giving information about their doings to Ormond.
Consequently, as he was on his way to spend Christmas in
that year at Kilkenny Castle, he was met near Ballymore by a
party of the Geraldines under one James FitzGerald, who set
upon him, dispersed his followers, and left him dead on the
road.' So incensed was the Earl of Ormond when the news
reached him, that he brought an impeachment against the Earl
of Eildare in England. The James FitzGerald above mentioned
is called " Chief of the Earl of Kildare's followers." He, I
believe, was identical with James FitzGerald of Osberstown, who
is said to have married an Eustace of the Ballycutland family,
and who was Constable of the Earl of Eildare's Castle of Lea
in the Queen's County at the time of the Silken Thomas's
Rebellion.
About the year 1587 Bobert Cowley (Master of the Bolls)
wrote to Thomas Cromwell (Secretary of State), making sug-
gestions for the better management of the Pale, one of which
was that: — ''As Ballymore and Tallaght, belonging to the
Archbishop of Dublin, stand most for the defence of the counties
of Eildare and Dublin against the O'Tooles and O'Byrnes,
therefore it should be ordered that the Commissioners shall see
» "Calendar of Chriat Church Deeds." No. 379.
^According to a County Dublin Exchequer Inquisition, tfiken in
Dublin in 1525, it was found that Robert Talbot, of Belgard, died on the
20th November, 1523, and that his wife was Margaret Eustace, of the
house of Ballycotland ; that their son and heir, John Talbot, died on the
19th November, 1519, having been twice married — (1) to Ismay Sutton,
by whom he had a daughter, Margaret ; and (2) to Elinor Eustace, by
whom he had a daughter, Anne ; that these two daughters were next heirs
to their grandfather, Bobert.
(The next Talbot of Belgard was Reginald Talbot—? John's brother.)
' Ware's and Thady Dowling's ** Annals of Ireland."
350 BALLYMORE EUSTACE
that the farmers and tenants there shaU be sach Marchers as
shall be able to defend those Marches."^
The County Kildare, after the Bebellion of the Silken
Thomas, remained for years in a very disturbed state, as many
of those who participated in it and were outlawed were forced to
lire a " rapparee " existence until they were either captured or
had fled the country. It is at this time that '' The A.nnals of
the Four Masters" make their only mention of Ballymore
Eustace. Under the year 1546 they state that : —
'^Many disaffected persons of the Geraldines rose up against the
Saxons, in revenge of their expulsion from their patrimony, namely,
William and Maurice-an-fheadha [i.e., of the wood], sons of James
*'meirgeach" [i.e., the wrinkled], son of the Earl of Kildare, and many
other young men besides these. They did indescribable danuu^s, among
which were the plundering of Baile-mor-na-n lustasach [Ballymore
Eustace], and the plundering of Rath- bile [Rathvilly, Co. Carlo wj, and
of all the country around them ; and the plundering and burning of Rath-
lomdhain [Rathangan]. from which they carried away on that occasion
many thousands of cows — a number, in fact, that could not be enumerated
or reckoned."
In the following year these Annals further state that Maurice
and his brother Henry, sons of James '^ meirgach," were put to
death and quartered in Dublin ; also that : —
** An irruption was made by 0*More and the sons of Cahir O^Connor
into the County of Kildare, and they burned and plundered the greater
part of the territory of the Eustaces, where they remained until the Lord
Justice overtook them. These Irish were defeated on this occasion, with
the loss of two hundred foot-soldiers."
In 1572 it was reported to the Lord Deputy that the Irish
rebels had burned all Ballymore, except Mr. Le Strange's house
and castle, which was saved through the exertions of a rebel
leader, James fitz Maurice FitzGerald,^ a cousin of the Earl of
Desmond. The two principal Leinster leaders were Feagh mac
Hugh O'Byrne, of Glenmalure, and Rory " oge " O'More, of
Leix. •
In July, 1597, John Hoey, His Majesty's Sergeant-at-Arms,
had a grant of the town of Ballymore, with a thatched castle and
100 acres, as also common of pasture in the Braddly (i.e.,
Broadleas), and Bishop^s Hill, near Ballymore,' late in the
tenure of Tirloch O'Farrell, parcel of the possessions of James
Eustace, late Viscount Baltinglass.
In 1608 the King revivedy in favour of Thomas Jones, Arch-
bishop of Dublin, the rights of holding markets and fairs h^e.
* State Papers of Henry VIII, vol. ii, p. 461.
'Hamilton's *' Calendar of State Papers, Ireland."
» ** Rot. Pat. Cane. Hib." and vol. ii of Morrin.
t t
352
BALLYMORE EUSTACE
At the time of the Rebellion of 1641^ a Richard Sellings was
in possession of 200 acres in Ballymore ; and Walter fitz
Nicholas fitz Edmund Eustace of Elverstown, in the Parish of
Tipperkeyin, was seised of one castle and sixty acres, called Castle-
Ban'j^ in the townland of Ballymore Eustace, as well as of two
farms there, called Talbot's land and Bennetts land, which were
held of the Archbishop of Dublin. These lands they forfeited,
and were outlawed for participation in the Rebellion.^
From this period nothing worthy of note is recorded of Bally-
more Eustace. Like most of the other towns in the County
Kildare, it suffered greatly during the troubles in '98 ; several
of the houses and the Protestant church were burnt; and
many of the rebels were slain in the streets, as at this time
it was garrisoned by detachments of the Tyrone, Antrim, and
Armagh Militia, and some yeomanry under the command of
a Captain Beevor.
The place, as we have already said, now contains no trace
of the Castle; nor are there any other remains of antiquity,
except a couple of granite crosses, which, though ringed, are
not perforated.
The smaller cross of the two is now only 6 feet in height ; it
is fixed in a base, and most of the head is broken off and lost ;
it stands among the graves to the south-east of the church.
The other cross is 11 feet in height above ground ; without
excavating at the foot, it cannot be ascertained whether it, too,
stands in a base or not. On either side of the shaft, near the
head, is a large boss ; another projects from the centre of the
head on one side only. In 1689 some incised lettering was cut
on the arms outside the double ring on the head ; as far as is
legible, it reads :-—
NO^ THE 9 I 1689 I ERECTED BY | BY | AM WALL.
* Ck)unty Dublin Chancery Inquisitions of Charles 11.
AND ITS NEIGHBOURING ANTIQUITIES. 353
Probably it was re-ereoted at this time, aB tlie " cut " of the cross
is, in my opinion, of a far earlier date.
Over the boss, too, is an I H S; and over this again are
traces of lettering, novr nndecipherable, but possibly reading,
" THIS CROSS WAS."
This cross stands close to the cbnrch on the north-west side.
At the east end of the chorch the fonndationa, overgrovn
with briars, of the old charch — perhaps the one dedicated to the
Blessed Virgin Mary — are traceable.
Inside the chnroh tower is placed an ancient unsculptared
Font
On the opposite side of the Liffey to Ballymore Enstace, close
to the National Schoolhonse, near the entrance-gate to Monnt
Cashel demesne, is what is considered a Holy Well, thongh the
Pattern- day is forgotten : it is called " Tober'na-grass." As to
the meaning of the name. Father M'Carthy, the P.P. of BaUy
more Enstace, explains it as meaning " the Well of Favonr or
Blessing; " and, in Dr. Joyce's opinion, it means " the Well of
the Crosses."
A quarter of a mile aboTC Ballymore Enstace Bridge is a
very pictaresque cataract, formed by the Liffey tambling oTer
a ridge of rocks; it is called "Gooleen-a-waatha;" and to
Dr. Joyce I am again indebted for the meaning of the name.
Ci.1ilii.CT, HBAB BlLLYVOaS EDSTACE.
354
BALLYMORE EUSTACE
It is derived, he Bays, from the Irish words '' Gabhailin-a-
bhaidhte/' meaniog literally, '^ the little river-fork of the drown-
ing" (i.e., flooding). By some this Irish name has been
distorted to '' Golden Water,'* from its resemblance in soand.
It is well to rectify mistakes of this sort, and recover, where
possible, the true pronunciation of the old Irish names in oar
county.
Fisher, in his "Views in Ireland,*' 1795, gives an illustration
of this cataract, but calls it '^ Gulna-water Waterfall."
Note.
Archbishop Alen, in his pre-Beformation Register book,
called the '' Crede Mihi," gives the following list of churches
in the Deanery of Ballymore ; —
NOW CALLED.
Ecclesia de Rathsalach
...
RathsaUagh, Co.
Wicklow.
,, Donlouan
...
Dunlaviii,
f }
„ Tobyr
...
Tober,
»»
,, Donard ...
...
Donard,
«)
Capelia de Creuelpy ...
,, Villa Walensifl
...
Crehelp,
9)
...
Walshstown,
99
Ecclesia de Sancto Bosco
...
Hollv Wood,
Danboyke,
99
,, Donboke ...
...
H
Villa Yago
• . .
Gaganstown, Co
. Kildare.
Capelia de Inchebrislan
...
Gilltowii,
9)
,, Villa Brethennoch
i ...
Brannockstown,
99
Ecclesia de Balicudlan
...
Coghlanstown,
99
,, Balimor
* . •
Ballymore Eustace,
99
,, Typerkeivin
Capelia de Balibothe
...
Tipperkevin,
Btulybought,
99
...
>»
,, Lechohan
...
(Formerly on Broadleas)
9»
Ecclesia de Kilkeyvin
...
Tipper,
»
Capelia de Tacwarech
...
Athgarrett,
J>
Ecclesia de Kathmor cum capellis
Rathmore,
99
KilheUe
Kilteel
99
,, Downachyonelach
Donoughmore in Imaal, Co.
Wicklow.
Capelia de Villa Cumyn
Cumminstown,
»9
Ecclesia de Tulachfergus
Tulfarris,
»>
,, Kilpatrick
Kilpatrick,
>♦
Capelia de Villa Haroll
Haroldstown,
99
Ecclesia de Kilbride
Kilbride,
91
„ Villa Raysin
1
91
„ Kilbodan
?
fl
Pagan Antiquities neab Ballymore Eustace.
The existing objects of antiquarian interest, lying a short
distance to the south of Ballymore Eustace, are three in
number: —
I'he Piper*8 Stones.
1. Large boulders of granite placed in a circle,
81 yards in diameter, on the townland of Broadleas
3S6 BALLYMORE EUSTACE
Commons, called '' The Piper's Stones." They are now
29 in number, and originally formed a complete circle of
closely placed bonlders, though now there are large gaps
in the ring, showing where, in times past, many have
been broken up and carted off for building purposes.
At a place called Athgraney there is a similar circle
of stones; and in the Deerpark near Blessington was
another, both also called '^ The Piper's Stones;" but this
last was entirely demolished years ago for building pur-
poses. Though these stone circles are by some thought
to be connected with Druidical worship, they are probably
sepulchral monuments ; though they may have answered
both purposes.
The name of '' Piper's Stones," so often applied to
this class of monument, must have had its origin in some
now forgotten legend. The only explanation the old
people give for the name is that Bag-pipe music, played
by the ^'good people," or fairies, is still occasionally
heard at the spot.
Colonel Wood-Martin, in his " Pagan Ireland "
(p. 268), says that ^^ cromleacs are, when undisturbed,
almost invariably surrounded by a circle of large stones."
It is possible that a cromleac formerly existed here too,
particularly as the County Wicklow Ordnance Survey
Letters, written in 1889, mention two large stones as
then lying inside the circle, which are not now in
existence.
Knockshee Moat
2. A quarter of a mile to the noi*th-east of the
Piper's Stones are the remains of a pagan sepulchral
Moat, called '^ Knockshee," a name meaning " The Fairy
Hill." It, too, is on the townland of Broadleas Com-
mons. Unfortunately but little is now left, as some three-
fourths of it appear to have been demolished long ago,
probably for top-dressing the farm it stands on. An
underground passage is said to run from it to '^The
Piper's Stones;" but this is not at all likely. What
may have given rise to this tradition is, that during the
demolition of the Moat, the men employed may have
discovered the kist or slab-lined chamber in the middle
of it, and mistook it for the entrance to '^ a cave " or
passage, of which there is now no trace.
In pagan times annual or triennial fairs took place
at these Moats in honour of the dead chief ; they were
partly commercial and partly religious gatherings. On
AND ITS NEIGHBOURING ANTIQUITIES. 3S7
the introdQction of Christianity, it ia very remarkable
how many of the primitive chnrches were bnilt in close
proximity to a Moat ; it was clearly intended that tho
power of the Charch sbonld gradaall; attract the aseem-
bled crowd from the Moat with ite pagan asaooiations.
In our county instances of this proximity are to be found
at KJlkea, Birtown, Clane, Mainham, Naas, Bathmore,
Old Connell, Glonourry, &c.
Though at the present time there is no trace
of a church near thiB Moat, yet Mason, in his "His-
tory of St. Patrick's Cathedral " (p. 41), states that
Archbishop Alen, who died in 1684, mentions the
chapel of "Lechohan " as being situated near a stream
called the Sigin, and then in ruins. Mason adds that
" Lechohan " was probably situated on that portion of
the Commons of Ballymore now called Broadleas.
LoNo Stonr, seab Balltmobe Ecbtace.
(From a Photograph by W. FitiG.)
The Long Stone.
3. Half a mile to the north-west of " The Piper's
Stones" is a prostrate monolith of granite, known as
358 BALLYMORE EUSTACE
'VTbe Long Stone/' from which the townland takes
its name. It formerly stood in a small rath-like endosare,
now levelled, bat was thrown down about the year 1836 ;
since its fall a coaple of small Latin crosses have been
cut on its upper side. In its present condition it measures
18^ ft. in length and 10 ft. in circumference at the butt.
There are fractures at both ends, so that its original
length was probably much greater. In appearance it
closely resembles the Long Stones of Fumess (or
Fornaghts Great), Gradockstown, Punchestown, Newtown
(Tipper)/ Kilgowan, and MuUaghmast, which are all of
granite, and all in this county.
These Long Stones were sepulchral monuments,
though, at the same time, they may have been objects of
pagan worship, as we are told, in '' The Annals of the
Four Masters," that a stone called ^'Crom Gruach," which
stood on Magh Sleacht (i.e., the plain of the worshipping)^
in the Gounty Gavan, was the chief idol of the pagan
Irish, till it was overthrown by St. Patrick.
Some Long Stones, like the one at Kilgowan, for
instance, have a cross cut on them. It is supposed
that this was done by the early saints, who, instead of
irritating the people by the destruction of the object of
their worship, chose a more peaceful and wiser course in
turning it to a Ghristian use, and thus gradually weaned
them from pagan practices. The upper portion of the
Long Stone of Newtown (Tipper), in like manner, has
been rudely fashioned into a cross-head. The stone
mentioned in '^ The Annals of the Four Masters,^^ under
the year a.d. 998: — "The stone of Lia Alive fell in
Moynalvy [Gounty Meath] and four mill-stones were
made of it by Maelseachlainn, Monarch of Ireland," was
probably a " Long Stone.^'
By Irish-speaking people the standing stone is called
" Gallaun."
I know of no existing cromleach (or dolman, as it is called
by English antiquaries) in the Gounty Eildare. The name
'^ cromleach" is said to mean '^ the sloping stone." It consists of
a vast rook, or huge boulder, placed on some upright stones in
the form of a small oblong chamber. The finest specimen in all
Leinster is one that stands on Browne's Hill (or Kernanstown),
near Carlow, just two miles from our county's bounds. The
' Called '* Newtown-O'More " in the Inquisitions
AND ITS NEIGHBOURING ANTIQUITIES. 359
coTering-Btone is computed to weigh 110 tons. How it was
raiBed to its present position, over 1,S00 years ago, no man can
tell. In the WeBt of Ireland these cromleachs go bj the general
name of " Labba Dearmaid agas Orania," or Dermot and
Granis's Bed, in allasion to the occupation of them in the second
E Antiquarun Odjgcts Sooth o
centnry by Dermot O'Dyiia and Grania, who had eloped with him
to avoid marrying Finn MacCoole,
The sepulchral monument known as a "cam," which con-
sists of an immense heap of stones piled over a kist containing
360 BALLYMORE EUSTACE.
skeletons, or burial-urns, is not found in the County Eildare.
The reason of this; is that the moat takes its place; as^ according
to the material that was handiest^ of such was the monument
composed. In the same way the old style of mud-cabin in our
county is represented by the stone hovel in the County Galway.
Only two townlands in the County Eildare, judging by their
names^ possibly had a earn on them : one is '' Carn/' and the
other "Carnal way," both in the Poor Law Union of Naas.
( 36i )
THE WOLFE FAMILY OF COUNTY KILD ARE.
By GEORGE WOLFE.
THE name ''Wolfe" was probably adopted as a patronymic
when samames became customary. The name is of Saxon
or Danish origin, probably the former. The present fiamily
settled in Eildare aboat 1650. The first place of residence seems
to have been Huttonrede, in the parish of Kill. Before that time
there had been a family, who spelt their name in the same way,
settled for many centuries in the county, seised of considerable
property at Eilcolman, Oldcourt, and ArdscuU, all of which was
forfeited by the attainder of Nicholas Wolfe, in 1641 ; and, at
the same time, three others of the family were outlawed. The
probability is that Richard Wolfe, the first of the present family
who settled in Kildare, was descended from this older branch,
as he seems to have taken up his residence quietly, considering
the disturbed state of the country, and more like a wanderer
returning to his native soil than a foreigner settling in a strange
knd. There is, however, a theory that the Wolfes of Forenaughts
are descended from Randolphus de Rode, alxm Le Wolfe, of
Church Lawton, in the county of Chester. The arms borne by
this family are exactly the same as those of the Wolfes of Kildare.
Colour is given to this view by an article published in the
-' Encyclopsedia Londonensis," 1806, page 671, in an account of
John, 2nd Viscount Eilwarden.
Richard Wolfe, of Huttonrede, was accompanied to Ireland
by one son and four daughters, viz., John, Jane (wife of Hugh
Banner, of Punchestown, County Kildare), Dorothy (wife of
William Brunton, of Bishopscourt, County Kildare), Anne
Katherine, and Eleanor (wife of William Burgoyne). He died
about 1678, and was buried in the church at Oughterard.
John, son of the said Richard, seems to have been settled at
the date of the Revolution at Baronrath, which he held by a
lease from Sir William Sandys, Bart., who was an extensive land-
owner in Kildare. In 1693 he obtained a new lease from Sir W.
Sandys; and his son shortly afterwards married a niece of
that gentleman. John Wolfe appears to have served annually
for many years on the Grand Juries of the county. He died in
1715, and was interred at Oughterard. He was succeeded by
362 THE WOLFE FAMILY OF COUNTY KILDARE.
his eldest son, Richard, who married Lydia, daughter of Patrick
Page, of Forenanghts, by his wife, Mary, daughter of Sir William
Sandys, Bart. From this Richard Wolfe the family spread into
three branches — first, that of Forenaughts; second, that of Black-
hall ; and third, that of Baronrath. John succeeded his father
at Forenaughts, which is now the property of the head of the
family. Thomas, the second son, obtained a lease of Blackball
from his uncle, John Page. He afterwards purchased the place,
along with other property in King's County. Blackball is now
owned by Major R. F. Rynd, the eldest son of Helena, daughter
and heiress of Peter Wolfe, High Sheriff of County Eildare, 1805,
and wife of Christopher Rynd, of Mount Armstrong. Thomas
Wolfe married Margaret Lombard, and died in 1787, leaving
a son, Theobald (the third son, Theobald, was the eminent
counsellor afterwards referred to), and a daughter, Mary. The
fourth son, Richard, inherited Baronrath, which remained in the
hands of the Wolfe family of that brunch until William Standish
Wolfe, who died in 1869, disposed of it I am not aware who
purchased it at that time, but it is now in the occupation of
Mr. Robert Kennedy, H.M.L.
Richard Wolfe, father of the said brothers, John, Thomas, and
Richard, died in 1782, and was buried in the Church of St
David's, Naas. His successor at Forenaughts, John, was bom
1700. He was a Captain in the Eildare Militia, High Sheriff,
1755, married Mary, only child of Williams Philpott, and died,
1760. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Philpott, Captain
in the Eildare Militia, and High Sheriff of the County Eildare.
He married Mary, daughter of Thomas Burgh, of Dromkeen,
County Limerick, and died, 1775, and was buried with his wife
in St Mary's Church, Dublin. His eldest son and heir was John,
Colonel in the Eildare Militia, High Sheriff, 1779, M.P. for
Eildare, and afterwards for Wicklow. He raised and commanded
a troop of yeomanry, called the Forenaughts Cavalry, the badges
and some of the accoutrements of which are now in the posses-
sion of the head of the family. He was appointed Governor of
County Eildare, in conjunction with William Robert, Duke of
Leinster, March 12th, 1803. He married his cousin Charlotte,
daughter of his granduncle, Theobald Wolfe, the eminent coun-
sellor, and died April 18th, 1816. He was succeeded by his
eldest son, John, Captain in the Forenaughts Cavalry, and Deputy
Governor, County Eildare, who only survived his father three
months, dying in June, 1816. His successor was the Rev.
Richard Wolfe, who married, in 1881, Lady Charlotte Sophia
Hely Hutchinson, sister of John, 2nd Earl of Donoughmore.
Richard Wolfe died 1841, leaving the reversion of his estates to
Ahtuub Woi.re, IsT Vihtocnt Kii.waiidkk.
(P»lnled by Humllion.)
agreving iu Vul. 1 of lt»rrin)tloii'ii " Uleionn Meuiuim of Irelnnd.'
364 THE WOLFE FAMILY OF COUNTY KILDARE.
his cousin, Theobald George Samuel Wolfe, eldest son of James
Wolfe, Major in the Eildare Militia, who succeeded thereto in 1870,
on the death of Lady Charlotte Wolfe. Theobald G. S. Wolfe
married Elizabeth Henrietta, daughter of Henry Moreland Ball,
of Eersiebank House, Stirlingshire, and Tipperkevin, County
Kildare, and great-granddaughter of Sir Edward Lovett Pearce,
M.P. for Batoath in the Irish Parliament, from whose designs
the General Post Office in Dublin and the Irish Houses of Par-
liament were built. The Ball family trace their pedigree down
to Edward I, being descended from Humphrey de Bohun and
the Lady Elizabeth, daughter of that Sovereign. One of that
family afforded protection to Prince Charles Edward at Eersie-
bank House during the rising of 1745. The Duke of Cumber-
land's party searched the house for the Prince, and left behind
them a claymore, now in the possession of the family.
Theobald George Wolfe died in 1872, and was succeeded by
his eldest son, Bichard, LL.B., M.A., T.C.D., Lieutenant, Boyal
Scots Greys. He was killed in the attempt to relieve General
Gordon in 1885, at Abu Klea, Soudan, aged twenty-nine, and
was buried on the battle-field. He was succeeded by his brother
George, born 1859, Lieutenant, Boyal Irish Fusiliers, 1882,
8th Hussars, 1885 to 1890, married, 1888, Emily Maud Mary,
only child of Bichard Smethurst, EUerbeck Hall, Chorley,
J.P., D.L., High Sheriff for Lancashire, 1874, and widow of
J. J. Leeman, D.L., M.P. for York. He has an only child and
heiress presumptive, Emily Maud Charlotte.
Many members of the family have served their country with
distinction in the army and navy, including Major-General James
Wolfe, the hero of Quebec ; with whom kinship is claimed by
the Wolfes of Forenaughts, and also on his side, as shown by
an autograph letter from him, in the possession of a member
of the family living in Canada. Major Edward Wolfe, bom
1781, served all through the Peninsular War, and was wounded
slightly at Talavera and Nevelle, and dangerously at the siege
of Badajoz. He died in 1875, aged ninety-four. His medal,
with six clasps, is now in the possession of the family. Williams
Wolfe, B.N., served with distinction in the American War, and
was killed in a night attack.
The legal element is also strongly marked in the family —
first, in the person of Theobald Wolfe, born 1710, a most distin-
guished counsellor in his day, of whom many portraits and
engravings by Bartolozzi are in existence. He was twice married,
and had five daughters, of whom one, Charlotte, married her
cousin. Colonel John Wolfe, of Forenaughts. Theobald Wolfe
built the family vault at Oughterard, died 1784, and was buried
in it.
THE WOLFE FAMILY OF COUNTY KILDARE. 365
The second great legal personality was Arthur, 1st Viscount
Eilwarden, distinguished for his great humanity and love of
justice, as well as for his great ability. He served the offices of
Attorney- and Solicitor-General, and was appointed Lord Chief
Justice in 1796. He represented the borough of Coleraine, and
afterwards Jamestown, in the Irish Parliament. He married
Anne, daughter of William Buxton, of Ardee. She was created
a peeress, August, 1795, with the title of Baroness Kilwarden of
Eilteel ; and he, on his elevation to the Bench, was created a
peer, with the title of Baron Eilwarden of Newlands ; and after-
wards he was created a viscount. On the death of Lord Clare,
the Lord Lieutenant, Lord Hardwicke, was desirous of appoint-
ing him Lord Chancellor ; but the English Government would
not consent, owing, it is believed, to the strenuous efforts
which he made to secure Theobald Wolfe Tone a fair trial.
He was murdered, along with his nephew, the Rev. Richard
Straubengie Wolfe, in Thomas Street, Dublin, in mistake, it is
believed, for Lord Carleton, on the night of July 28rd, 1803,
and was buried in the vault at Onghterard. He was succeeded
by his eldest son, John, 2nd Viscount Kilwarden, who died in
1830. He never married, and, his brothers having died un-
married during his lifetime, the title became extinct.
The literary element is represented by the Rev. Charles
Wolfe, born 1791. He was the author of " The Burial of Sir
John Moore," '' Jugurtha in Prison/' and many other poems and
lyrics, which are to be found in the memoir of him written by the
late Archdeacon Russell. He died in 1831, was buried in the old
ruined church of Clonmell, Cove, Cork, and there is a monu-
ment erected to his memory in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.
The late Archdeacon John Wolfe, D.D., was also a writer of
some repute, and was highly thought of by men of letters in the
ecclesiastical world. He was on the eve of promotion to a
bishopric when death cut short his career. He was born 1817^
being the second son of Major James Wolfe, and brother
of Theobald George Wolfe, of Forenaughts. He died in August,
1871.
In the line of politics, Colonel John Wolfe, of Forenaughts,
was M.P. for Eildare, and afterwards for Wicklow, in the
Irish Parliament. He was a well-known and most determined
anti-Unionist. He was offered a peerage by Lord Clare, if
he would vote for the Union, which he declined to do, and in
consequence the command of the Eildare Militia was taken from
him, and also an appointment he held in the Custom House.
He was^ however, some years after the Union, appointed
Governor of Eildare, in conjunction with William Robert, Duke
The Rfcv. Ciuhles Wolfe, M.A.,
Author ol " The Burial of Sir John Moore.
ion in Archdeacon RubsoIIV "MeraoirMtf the Bev.CI
THE WOLFE FAMILY OF COUNTY KILDARE. 367
of Leinster. In "The lUse and Fall of the Irish Nation," by
Sir Jonah Barrington, he is described in the Bed List as "incor-
raptible ; not to be purchased."
Theobald Wolfe Tone, the founder of "The United Irish-
men," was godson of Theobald Wolfe, of Blackball, after whom
he was named.
The arms of the Wolfes of Forenanghte are : —
Argent, three wolves' heads erased sable, dnoally gorged. Or.
Crest, a wolf's head, sa. dncally gorged, Or.
Motto, Pro Patria Mori.
For many of the above facts, dates, &c., I am indelited to the
of my cousin. Colonel Robert Wolfe.
( 368 )
COUNTY KILDARE FOLK-TALES.
[Collected by Miss Greene from the narration of Tom Daly, gardener
at Millbrook.]
(Oontinued from pcige 259.)
How Tom Daly saw the Dead Coach coming down " Sal's
HilV^ — I was going home one night, when I lived in Bashfield,
and it was late — ^I ^m sure it was up to twelve o'clock or after.
Well, I was just at the top of the hill, when I heard the quarest
kind of a buzzing nise ever you saw; and I seen something
coming towards me along inside of the hedge at MuUachreelan
side ; it was a good piece up — about forninst where Matty Kirvan
used to live. When I heerd it first, I thought it was a car
coming, and I stepped in on the path to let it pass ; but, begor,
when I seen it coming inside of the hedge, I stepped out on the
road again, and it came on down the drive inside the hedge ; it
was buzzing like a thresher ; there was no lights nor nothing,
and I couldn't see the shape of it behind the hedge, but it was
like a coach. Well, I stood on the road and looked at it, and it
went on fair and aisy down to the quarry lane, and I seen it no
more. I didn't know whether to wake them at the gate lodge
or not, for I was partly afeard I would meet it going down
through Bushfield Wood ; but I didn't wake them. I wasn't a
bit afeard either, only I didn't like to meet it the second time.
I never seen it afther^ and I told my mother when I got in what
I seen^ and she said : ''Will nothing keep you from rambling at
night, till you get a good fright ? "
They say it is the dead coach, and the men and horses has
no heads ; but I never seen it only that once ; but I heard it
often when I would be coming home late^ if I was off anywhere.
[Told by T. Daly, 1900.]
Mowing the Rath, — I'll tell you a quare thing, too. My
grandfather's brother, when he was a young lad, was going out
mowing with two ould men that was mowers. Well, they were
to mow a rath^ and the two ould fellows was pretty knacky, so
they made a bet, which of them would cut the first stroke ; but
they let my grandfather's brother get there first, and begor, the
first stroke of the scythe he gave on the rath, his thigh broke !
So that shows it isn't right to do them things. I wouldn't mow
a rath to-day, for all ever I seen. [T. Daly, 1900.]
How the Boy got the better of the Pooka. — I believe the
fairies spit on the blackberries on All Hallow E'en ? It 's the
COUNTY KILDARE FOLK-TALES. 369
Pooka^ they s^y, spits on them, said Daly, and makes them
bad on All Hallow E'en. He 's like a mule, and he has his bed
over beyant Athy, at Kilberry. They say that if he meets anyr
one at dusk, he puts his head between their legs, and carries
them through the country all night — through hedges and ditches
and trees and everywhere — so they get all scratched and torn.
And he always leaves them back in the same spot he got
them. There was a boy putting out horses one evening, and
begor, the Pooka met him and put his head between his legs,
and put him up on his back, and carried him all through the
country the whole night, and left him back in the same spot he
got him, and he was all torn and desthroyed with thorns.
"Will you ride again to-morrow night?" says the Pooka.
" I will," says the boy. Well, the boy brought a saddle and
bridle and spurs to the place he was to meet the Pooka at, and
said he would ride if the Pooka would let him put them on.
" All right," said the Pooka, '^ put them on." So he put them
on, and the Pooka carried him through the country as before,
and every lep he'd give, the boy would give him a prod with the
spurs, and had him as torn and bruised as the boy was the
night before. The Pooka brought him back to the place they
started from, and asked him would he ride again the next night.
*^ I will," said the boy. Begor, when they met the next night,
the Pooka asked: '^ Have you got the pillyeen paul ? " (meaning
the bridle). " I have," said the boy. " Have you the two
legs across?^' (meaning the saddle). ''I have," said the boy%
** Have you the diggers?" (spurs). " I have," repeated the boy.
"Well, the divil a bit 1*11 carry you to-night," said the Pooka.
So that boy was able for the Pooka. [Told by Tom Daly,
1900.]
The Pooka and the silk dress, — I often hard the ould people
talking of the Pooka's hole at Kilberry. They never showed me
where it was. There was a housemaid at Lord Downes's, and
she had a terrible lot of work to do in the evening?. Well, she
used to go and lie down and go to sleep, and still the work used
to be always done, and done well too. So Lady Downes gave
her a silk dress. But, begor, it was the Pooka done the work
all the time. One evenin' she was asleep, and the silk dress
was lyin' beside her, and the Pooka came and saw it, and took
it, and put it on, and said he didn't see why she should be
going about in silks, and he doing all the work. So he went
off with the silk dress, and would never do another stroke of
work for her after. [Told by Tom Daly, November 8th, 1900.]
The Murrain Animal. — I saw a Murrain once. I was
lookin' for burds' nests in that low-lying bit of ground there
'3^0 COUNTY KILDARE FOLK-TALES.
next Moaifieldy belongin' to Deegan of Inch Castle. I was only
a little chap, not as big — no, not half — as that little chap of
FitzPatrick's there below. It was in an ould drain ; it was the
size of a young cat, and it had a head just like a cat, and it sat
np and looked at me — it had no hair. It was a greenish colour,
shining all over, and it was the colour of one of them great big
slugs that you see. It was streaked with brown, it had a streak
down its back, and then it had streaks going from that on its
sides. I ran for an ould man — Tom Flannigan — that lived next
to us ; his garden was next to ours, and he came with a stick,
and when he saw it, he said it was a Murrain. It was sitting
up just the same way when we came back. He tould me it goes
along in the dew in the early morning, and the cattle smell it,
and follow it and lick it, and the minute they lick it they get
the Murrain. He didn't kill it, but I thought be had a right to
kill it, and I was afraid to go there for many a day. I never
heard tell of one, nor seen one, before or since ; but I remember
it well. [T. Daly, 1900.]
HoK) the dead cock showed who stole the silver. — It was an
ould man by the name of John Lannigan tould me about it ; I
donH remember it meself. He lived in a cottage — ^you might see
the remains of it beyond the stream — ^below at George Alcock's.
It happened at Grangemellon House, when Mr. Le Glerc lived
there. He kep three sarvent girls in it ; and there was silver
spoons and one thing and another going, and no one could tell
anything about them. So Mr. Le Clerc got a cock killed, and
put it in a basin of water in the hall, and he called in the girls
one after the other, and tould them to tip the cock with their
hand. The first of them didn't mind]: they knew nothing of the
silver; and they came in and tipped the cock, and went out again ;
but this girl — I think her name was Mary Dunne — was afeard,
because she had taken the things, and stayed to the last, and,
begor o' war, the very minute she tipped the cock, it lepped up
and flapped its wings in her face, and spatthered her all over
with blood. So she had to give up the things she tooL It was
the quarest thing ever I heerd, and it ^s pai*fectly thrue. I often
heerd the ould people at the Park Wall talkin' about it. [Told
by T. Daly, 1901.]
The Leprechaun and the Boy. — I heard a boy caught a
Leprechaun once, and he held him and bet him, and made him
say he'd tell where there was money. So the Leprechaun tould
him to get a bit of a stick, and showed him where to stick it
down, and said : " There now, if you go and get a fack, and
dig there, you'll get money." So he let the Leprechaun go
then, and went and got the fack ; but when he came back with
COUNTY KILDARE FOLK-TALES. 37 1
it, the field was stuck all over with hundreds of sticks ; and so
that 's the way the Leprechaun thricked him. [Told by Tom
Daly, 1900.]
In ould times when they wanted to keep the childher in,
they used to tell them when they heard a thrash cracking snails
on a stone, that that was the Leprechaun mending his brogues.
[Told by T. Daly, 1900.]
The money buried at Inch Cairtle. — They say there is mon^y^
buried in an iron chest in the Castle of Inch. I often heerd tell
that different and different people went to dig it up ; and always
as soon as they hit the top of the chest with the fack, they
would have to leave it and go, with the storm and nise of all
sorts that would rise up. The stoutest man would have to go ;
and I suppose the chest is there yet. My grandmother often
tould me about it. [T. Daly, 1900.']
There is another quare thing about the Castle of Inch.
There was a draw-well in the castle yard, and they wanted to fill
it up, and they were near a week drawing loads of clay and
stones before it was filled up; and then they were drawing loads
over it for a week, and one morning they found it was open
bigger nor ever it was. [T. Daly, 190O.]
Wells. — I heard of a patthern at Toberara (Well) and at
Glassealy Well (that *s St Patrick's Well ; it has a big ash-tree
over it). I often heard tell, but I couldn't say if it's true, that
the water from Glassealy Well, no matter how long you boil it,
it won't boil up. [T. Daly, 1900.]
There was a man called Keating, a rich man, lived near the
Toberara holy well, and there was a spring-well on his place'
the people used to come to for water. He wanted to stop them
coming, but he couldn't, so he put some dirty stuff into the well,
BO they had to stop. Well, in two year he was bruck out of it
htirely. I always heard tell it 's onlucky to stop people from
spring water.— [T. Daly, 1900.]
Deil and Apple. — It is said that our Lord was eating an
apple, and there was a deil in it, ever since which the deil has,
when crushed/ the smell of an apple.
( 372 )
RA THMORE.
Read by Mr. HANS HENDRICK-AYLMER, at the Society's Meeting,
on the 25th September, 1901.
T^HE meaning of the name "Bathmore" is ^* the great Rath or
- Fort," as the circular entrenched strongholds of the Irish
were called,: and are still called at the present day. The
name, applied to them by the peasantry, of '^ Dane's Forts/'
is quite erroneous, and- given in ignorance ;•. but the erection of
any such works which puzzle them is attributed to the Danes,
in the same way as the destruction of all castles and churches
is by them laid to Cromwell's charge.
As was stated on p. 457 of the Second Volume of our Journal,
the great artificial mound at Rathmore, which is, unfortunately^
being, demolished by road contractors, is not a mth or fort, bat
a Pagan sepulchral Moat ; and, if the name Rathmore is taken
from it, it is altogether misapplied.
Shortly after the Anglo-Normans arrived in Ireland, Rath-
more appears to have been granted to the Barons of Offaly, as,
in a-gi*ant dated 1229, defining the mearing of the forest lands
of Luke, Archbishop of Dublin, it is stated that on the west
side they were bounded by the land of Naas, and thence to
Rathmore, the land of Maurice FitzGerald.^. One. of the
witnesses to the deed is a Stephen de Segrave, from whom
'' Segrave's Castle ^' in the locality may have been called.
. In 1286 Gerald fitz Maurice oge FitzGerald, 4th Baron of
Offaly, was wounded in battle by the O'Briens of Tbomond
(Co. Clare), and shortly after died at Rathmore, and was buried
at Kildare.^
In July, 1310, John fitz Thomas FitzGerald^ afterwards
created Earl of. Kildare, in consideration . of his services to
Edward I. during the wars in , Scotland and Flanders, and to
Edward 11 in Ireland, was granted, a pardon .for intrusion upon
certain lands without licence from the Crown. It appears that
a certain John de Verdon during the reign of Henry III
(1216-1272) enfeoffed Maurice FitzGerald (5th Baron of
Offaly), and Agnes Valentia, or de Valence, his wife, of the
Manors of Adare, Croom, Athlackagh, '^ Wrigeda, Grene, and
Esgrene,'' all in the County Limerick, to hold to the said
^ Page 262, Sweetman's ''Calendar of Documents, Ireland."
* Cox*8 ** History of Ireland," vol. i, p. 77.
RATHMORE 373
Maurice and Agnes and their heirs; and after the said Ma^jrice's
death (ante 1274), his son and heir, Gerald, enfeoffed his cousin,
John fitz. Thomas FitzGerald, of the Manors of Maynooth and
Bathangan, in the County Kildare, and Legh (Lea, Queen's
County), with the reversion of the Manors of Geashill in the
King's County, and Rathrnore in the County Eildare, and the
Limerick Manors. After the death of the said Gerald, without
an heir, a certain Juliana de Cogan, aunt of the said Gerald,
and sister of the said Maurice, entered upon the said Manors
of Rathrnore, Adare, &c., but soon after enfeoffed the said John
fitz Thomas thereof, who continued his seizin for a year and
more, and then demised them to the said Agnes for life, on
whose death he entered into the same without the king's
licence. Hence his pardon.^
In 1317 Thomas fitz John* FitzGerald, 2nd Earl of Kildare,
obtained the king's permission to enfeoff Brother Roger Outlawe,
Prior of Eilmainham in Dublin, in one messuage and fifteen
acres of land in Rathmore, together with the advocation of the
church there, and all the chapels appertaining to it. Among
the number, the churches of Kilbride and of the '' Villa Reysin "
were subservient to the church of Rathrnore,^ which was dedi-
cated to St. Columbe [? Columbkill, whose festival falls on the
9th of June] .
In 1866 the king sent letters of censure to those persons
who had charge of Rathmore, Kylhele (Kilteel), Ballymore-
Eustace, and Graney, in the County Kildare, for neglecting to
keep up the garrisons in those castles to their proper strength.
In particular he blamed Maurice FitzGerald, 4th Earl of
Kildare, for neglecting his Manor of Rathmore, which had been
granted to the EarFs grandfather by the king's grandfather.
The Earl, under pain of forfeiting this Manor, is ordered to go
in person to Rathmore, accompanied by five esquires, twelve
*' hobelars," or horsemen, and forty bowmen, with other foot-
soldiers,, all fully armed and accoutred, and there to take steps
to resist the incursions of the O'Byrnes and their confederates,
all at the Earl's own expense/
In 1415 Gerald FitzGerald, 5 th Earl of Kildare, received a
pardon from the king for all intrusions in the Castle and Manor
of Kildare, and in his Manors of Maynooth and Rathmore.^
•Page 364, Brewer's *' Calendar of Carew MSS." (Book of Howth).
*"Rot. Cane. Hib. Cal."
»Alen'8**Credemilii."
* " Rot. Cane. Hib. Cal. ," p. 60a.
^Ibid.
374 RATHMORE.
< In the sixteenth century the Manor of Rathmore contained
seven castles, ninety-eight messuages, two mills, and 1^990 acres
6f land. It was composed of the following townlands, many of
whose names are now obsolete : —
Rathmore, alias Radmore, alias Ramore.
Rathnakill, alias Rathturkill.
Monefyne, alias Monfyn.
Boueston, alias Boyeston.
Ponceston, alias Poncheston.
Olde Poncheston.
Phillipeston.
Edeston.
Ballitas.
CoUenshill, alias Clonshill.
Ballica, alias Ballecane, alias Plowland.
Fyrhill.
Skeyoke.
Much Grange.
Lytle Grange.
Gilton, alias Giltons.
Rathnargit.
Moygan, alias Myganne.
Rathargid.
Iweliston.
Godamende.
BuUeston.
^Heineston.
^Agret, alias Agarret.
^Lytle Newton.
^Rathowll, alias Rathtoolc, alias RathtoU.
^And Ballore, alias Balligore, alias Ballicore.
" The County Kildare Exchequer Inquisition " (No. 42 of
Elizabeth), from which the above names are taken, also
mentions the ** Rectory Church of St. Boyan of Gilton," and the
" Vicarage Church of St. Columbe of Rathmore."
The Manor of Rathmore was forfeited to the Crown by the
rebellion of the Silken Thomas, 10th Earl of Kildare, in 1684 ;
and it does not appear to have been regranted to the family
when Gerald, the 11th Earl^ in 1554, was restored to his
honours and possessions by Queen Mary.
' These last-named townlands were held by John Sutton of Tipper,
in trust for James FitzGerald, one of the Silken Thomas's ancles, who
forfeited them through rebellion.
RATHMORE. 375
About the year 1536 the King commanded the Deputy^
Lord Leonard Gray, to appoint Martin Pelles as Constable of
Athy, and Thomas Alen as Constable of Bathmore. ('' Morrin's
CaL," vol i.)
At the latter end of May, or beginning of June, 1588,
a Government officer named John Eel way was *^ Constable
of the King's Castell of Bathmor/^ Some little time previously
he had come upon " two of Tirrelagh Otoly's^ servauntes in the
Englishe borders next joynyng to the Tolys cuntre, eting of
meat, and for the same did immediately hang them.'' On this
reaching Tirlagh O'Toole's ears, he demanded an explanation of
this outrageous act during a time when he was at peace with the
Government. Kelway appointed a meeting for explanations^
and, assembling the neighbouring gentry, as well as '' certeyn
husbondmen and freholders of Rathmore, Newton, and the
parishe of Sail," he proceeded to the appointed place, where he
met Tirlagh O'Toole and his brother Art Oge. A letter written
from Dublin Castle, on the 4th of June, by the Deputy, Lord
Leonard Gray, to the King, describes what took place. He states
that (the spelling in the letter has not been adhered to) :—
"John Kelway, Constable of your Grace's Manor of Rathmore
(which Manor bordereth upon the Tooles'), of his own mind, raised
certain gentlemen, poor husbandmen, and labourers, and went to parley
with one Tirlagh OToole, with whom I was at peace ; and in the parley-
ing they differed, and the said Kelway chased the said Tirlagh, who took
to flight to a certain place, where he had ambushed his kern, and so
suddenly turned, and set upon the said Kelway with all his ambushment,
so that the said Kelway, and certain gentlemen of the country who were
in his company, were constrained to take (refuge in) a small pile called
the Three Castles, beins upon the borders of the said Tirlagh's country.
At which time they slew certain husbandmen and labourers, and a
thatched house joining to the same pile put afire, so that the head of the
same pile, being covered with thatch, lacking battlement, took fire, and
so all burned, so that the said Kelway, and such of the gentlemen as
then were with him, were constrained to yield themselves prisoners ; and
he being in hand with the said Tirlagh O'Toole, him slew cruelly.
Assuring Your Excellent Majesty that divers and sundry times I gave
monition to all your Constables joining upon the marches, to beware the
train of their borderers, and specially to the said Kelway, who, I assure
Your Grace, was as hardy a gentleman as any could be."'^
Richard Aylmer was taken prisoner by the O'Tooles of
Wicklow, the Irish sept whose territory lay along the confines of
Kildare, in this border fray, an account of which is given in two
» *» State Papers of Henry VIII," vol. iii, pp. 18 and 27. Tirlagh
OToole was of Feracullen, and Art Oge of CasUekevin, both in the
County Wicklow.
Hbid,, p. 16.
c g
376 RATHMORE.
letters to Sir Gerald Aylmer, Chief Justice of Ireland, bis undo.
The first letter (printed in the Oarew MSS., 1515-74, No. 121,
dated June 5, 1688), from Sir William Brabazon, the Lord
Treasurer, and addressed to Gerald Aylmer, and John Alen,
Lord Chancellor, is as follows : —
** Your bedfellows are in health. As to occurrences they be nothing
so fruitful as they were at your departure. A great part of Uriell [i.e..
County Louth] is destroyed, preyed, and burnt by them of Femey.
. . . . At that time O'Railey was somewhat busy for the death of
Kaer Modder, i.e., his brother, who now is at good stay; and as on
Friday last past Mr. Kelwey had parliament with Tirloch O'ThoyU
[0*Toole] and Art besides the Three Castles ; who had assembled to him
certain husbandmen and freeholders of Ilathmore, Newtown, the parish
of Kill, and others, and would needs chase Tirloch and Art up to the
high mountains, who there had their kerne ready, and turned back and
set upon Kelwey, and drove him to the Three Castles, and others with
him, and set fire on the top of the Castle, so that they yielded ; wherein
was taken Kelwey and your youn^ kinsman Mr. trustice Richard Aybner,
young Flattesbury, Lang, and divers others ; and such husbandmen as
the kerne met with they slew them, for they had no horses to flee, and as
I am informed there was slaia sixty householders. Thomas Lang is let
forth, and Mr. Aylmer remaineth with them and some others ; and after
that they had Mr. Kelwey within a while they kiUed him and such of the
soldiers as was with him I was never in despair in Ireland
until now."
The second letter (in " State Papers, Henry VIII, Ireland,"
vol. iii, p. 19, No. 230), from Luttrell to Chief Justice Aylmer,
runs thus : —
^* Brother Justice, I oomend me unto you Your nevue
Richard Aylmer, it fer me Mc], shall not come forth, onles he pay his
raunson, for so this last day Tirlagh said playnly to mv Lord of Ossery is
messenger, and also to my servunt Dogherty, which chauncyed to be at
Glendalach, when the discomfortur was made, and durst not cum from
thens til this. Al the faut of the same mysaventur is put in Kelwey,
both by them of the counte Kildar, that was ther present, and also by
the Tolis [O'Tooles] as Pluncket may schow you. Your son Bartholemew
scape them hapy, for he was there with Aylmer." ....
According to another account of this fight, the O'Tooles
slew Kelway and sixty or seventy of his men. The prisoners
they took were Bicbard Aylmer of Lyons,^ young Flatisbury of
Johnstown, and Thomas Lang. The latter was released, and
the others were detained till the ransom demanded for them was
paid. The Lord Deputy wrote to the King that he intended
obtaining their release without ransom, and making O^Toole
abide by the orders of him and the Council, though it is
^ Nephew of Gerald Aylmer, Chief Justice of Ireland, who was of
DoUardstown, in the County Meath.
RATHMORE, 377
acknowledged that Eelway was in fault Bartholomew Aylmer,
^'son to Gerald Aylmer Chef Jastice at the King's pleis in
Ireland," was present at the fight, bat made his escape. On
the 22nd of August, 1588, Sir William Brabazon, a Privy
Councillor, wrote to Thomas Cromwell, Secretary of State : —
*' Toching the garrison of JRAthmore, which Eelway had ; f orasmuche
as it is one of the chief keys of defence against the Tholes [O'Tooles] ,
and that the cuntrie is greatly depopulate in thois quarters, we beseeche
your good Lordship, that none be appointed therunto, but sooche one as
shalbe an honest man, that wolbe resident ther, having some experience
to goveme and defende a cuntrie."
Later on the Council was ordered by the King to put
Rathmore in such hands as they consider most fit.^
In 1541 a lease was made of this Castle and Manor, for
twenty-one years, to Walter Trott, Vicar of Rathmore ; but, for
some reason or other, four years later (1545), the Manor, Castle,
and Mill were gi'anted to John Travers of Monkstown (alias
Carrickbrennan), County Dublin, Groome of the Chamber, to
hold in tail male by the service of a twentieth part of a
Knight's fee.^
During the latter half of the sixteenth century this Manor
passed by marriage to the Chevers family. John Chevers, of
Macetown, County Meath, married Catherine, daughter and
co-heiress of Henry Travers of Monkstown, and, dying on the
24th of April, 1599, was succeeded by his son, Christopher
Chevers,' grandfather of Edward Chevers, created by James II
in 1689 Viscount Mount Leinster ; but on his death, in exile,
without male issue by his wife, Anne Sarsfield, sister of the
Earl of Lucan, the title became extinct.
According to Friar Clyn's '' Annals of Ireland," Bory oge
O'More, who was slain in 1577 by Brian oge MacGillapatrick (a
name now changed to FitzPatrick) of Ossory, had for eighteen
years ravaged the Pale, during which time he burned Naas,
Athy, Carlow, Leighlin Bridge, Rathcoole, Tassagard, Kilbride,
Ballymore-Eustace, Killy [? Kill, or Kilteel], and Rathmore.
So bold had Rory oge O'More become, that the Lord Deputy,
writing to the Queen in 1572, stated that the manner of his
coming was by day with bag-pipes, and by night with torch-
lights.^ On the occasion of the burning of Naas by him on the
8rd March, 1577, he appears to have taken advantage of the
» " State Papers of Henry VIII," pp. 86 and 335.
« The Fiants of Henry VIII.
' Co. Kildare Ex. Inquisition, No. 42 of Elizabeth.
* Page 490, HamQton's Collection of State Papers, 1509-73.
I ImifB Wab Bao-f.
riy in WoiKtatock Ciutl
RATHMORE. 379
Pattern-weeky as the Lord Deputy wrote that, though there were
600 men in the town at the time, yet no resistance had been
made, as they had done themselves, not wisely bnt too well,
in honour of their Patron, St Dayid, \^ose Festival is on the
1st of March.^
On the 18th of September, 1680, Sir Henry Wallop,
Treasurer at Wars, wrote to Sir Francis Walsyngham, Secretary
of State, that on the previous day an encounter took place near
Rathmore between a party of horse belonging to the Earl of
Eildare and Sir Henry Harrington, then quartered at Belgard,
in the County Dublin, and a body of the rebels, under the
leadership of a brother of the famous Feagh mac Hugh O'Byme
of Glenmalure. The latter had partly burned Rathmore, and
were returning towards the mountains, with a herd of cattle,
when they were overtaken by the cavalry.^ An account of the
fight is thus given in a letter written by the Earl of Kildare on
the 19th of September to the Secretary of State : —
'' On the 16th of September I went furthe carying my horsemen and
Sir Heniy Harryngton*8 band, and having placed them whear I thought
likely est to prevent the rebells coxnyng into the contrey, I retomed to
Dublin that night, leaving Georse FitzGerald' my Liewtennant with the
Boaldiera. On the morrow at about six of the. clock in the momynge,
having with hym Sir Henry Harryngton's Liewtennant, and with them
both not past fourtie horsemen, the reste beyng abroade seking victuailles,
they hard the crye and saw a towne (Rathmore) fired by the rebells ;
wheareuppon they galloped that waie upon the spoore and persued the
space of SIX or seven myles, before they could overtake them ; at which
tyme the rebells, espying their comyng, lefte the pray which they had, and
gathered themselves together, and putt themselves in order for their
defence. Whearwith my Liewtennant requyred Sir Henry Harryngton's
Leiwtennant to kepe the rereward and to push on the horsemen to hym
and he would give the chardge ; and so did, and at leingth goynge over
a foorde, brake uppon them and slewe a nomber of them ; after which
certaine of the rest that were left alive to the nomber of 24 gott againe
together, uppon whom my Liewtennant and Gwydon-berrer [i.e., standard-
bearer], with six horsemen more, gave a new chardge, while Sir Henry
Harryngton's men and the others were chasyng of the rest; in which
chardge my Liewtennant and his horse were slayne and my Gwydon-berrer
runnynge him through with his Gwydon-staffe that slew my Lieutennant,
was overthrowen hymselfe and his horse ; at which tyme the rest of the
horsemen came through them and putt them all to the sworde savinge
two which escaped, one of them beyng runne through with a horseman's
staffe, after that they had fought a longe tyme very valyantly. Amongs
them there were slayne a sonn and two bretheme of Feagh McHew
' Page 259, Dr. Comerford's ** Diocese of Kildare."
< Page 253, HamUton's Calendar of State Papers, 1574-85.
' George FitzG^rald was of Tecroghan, in the Co. Meath. His father
was Gkrald oge FitzGerald, of Corbetstown, Co. Westmeath.
ThR UOIT AT RaIHUORB.
(Sbowjng the nndiBtiirbed portloti on tbe ^eat Bide-)
The MoiT iT RiTHUOBE.
(Bhowing vb«rG it hu Iwen gicsTMed bj' road contnolon.)
RATIIMORE. 381
(Feagh mac Hugh O'Byme), and to the number of fiftie or three score
more."*
In 1608 Tirlagh Doyne (or 0*Dunne) was Provost of the
town of Bathmore. (Brewer's *' Gal. of Garew MSS.")
From this period there is hut little mention made of this
place. Where the Earl of Eildare's Gastle stood is unknown.
That known as *' Segrave's Gastle " is now converted into a
farmhouse, occupied by a man named Grosby. Except for its
thick walls and vaulted lower chamber, it has externally no
features to attract the attention of an archsBologist.
Neither the modem Protestant church, nor the ancient
burial-ground attached to it, contains any monuments worth
describing, with the exception of a fractured portion of a small
limestone cross, bearing the Grucifixion in high relief, which is
now stuck at the head of a grave on the south side of the
churchyard.
As has already been described in our Journal (vol. ii,
pp. 112-116) by Lord Mayo, the great Moat, which is 26 yards
in diameter at the summit, is being every year more and
more destroyed by the road contractors. Many years ago
they started excavating material from the eskar or gravel-ridge
on which the Moat was raised, and have crept on until they
passed through the encircling entrenchment on the north-west
side, and attacked the Moat itself, so that one side of it is
completely destroyed, and it will unfortunately be only a matter
of time before this splendid specimen of a pre-historic sepulchral
mound becomes an object of the past. In the year 1894 a kist,
or slab-lined grave, was exposed to view about the centre of the
Moat, and 20 feet below the sui*face. It contained a skeleton, and
it is much to be regretted that at the time the skull was not
preserved, as it would have given a clue to experts to decide the
probable period to which this renowned hero belonged.
An effort on behalf of this Society was recently made to
prevent the further demolition of the Moat; but the Gounty
Surveyor said that until another gravel-pit was opened for the
road contractors handy to their work, the course of destruction
would have to continue.
> Page 201, '' The Earls of Kildare and their Ancestors " (Addenda).
( 382 )
NOTES ON GRANGE CON, COUNTY WICKLOW.
By sir ARTHUR VICARS.
THE name ** Grange Con " is supposed to be of Celtic origin,
and to mean " The Grange or Granary of the Hound " —
" Con " in Irish being the genitive case of Cu. Grange Con,
and Ballynare, and nearly the entire parish of Baltinglass,
belonged to the great Abbey of Baltinglass, the rnins of which
may still be seen.
After the dissolution of the Abbey, Thomas Eustace, Lord of
EilcuUen, was in 1541 created Viscount Baltinglass, and granted
the site of the Abbey and lands of Baltinglass, Grangegodley^
Eylmoreth (Eilmoory), Sheltoneston (Haitoneston or Bally-
halton), Sleorath (Slerotbie), Newgrange, Gargyn (Cargin),
Taghnewran (Teighnoran), Rayhen (Baughen), Branaughton,
Newton, Eillemanaghe (Mounkeswood), the chapel and grange
of Newhouse (Ballynure), the castle and grange of Grangcon,
Grockurrike (Enockoricke or Enockarrig), Baronston (Borane-
ston), Gryffynston (Balligriffen), Rodton (Readetowne), Rathbrene
(Rathbran), Ballehoke (Hokiston), Newheise (Neweheyes), Tuck-
myll, Milleston, and Mangertorlaght (Manger Tirrelaghe). These
possessions were forfeited by James, the 8rd Viscount's, rebellion
in 1580.
By a letter from Wallop to Walsyngham, dated 17th March,
1583, we learn that ^' Her Majesty is moved to bestow Baltin-
glass on Sir Henry Harrington, in respect of his hurts," thereby
alluding to his losses as a military servant of the Crown engaged
in quelling disturbances of the time.
In October of 1588 Lord Justice Chancellor, writing to
Burghley, asks for Sir Henry Harrington to have allowance for
the wastes of the house and lands of Baltinglass, lately granted
to him at a high rent.
Two years later, Chancellor Archbishop Loftus, writing to
Burghley, 24th November, 1585, asks for a better interest in the
possession of Baltinglass for Sir Henry Harrington, who had
already planted twenty able horse and eighty foot there ; and in
the same month we find a petition from Sir Henry to the Queen
for an estate in reversion for sixty-one years of the abbey and
manor of Baltinglass, and of the towns and lands of Eilbro-
derie, in the barony of Bathdown, ancl of Eilpoole, in the
0*Byrnes' country, which is followed by a memorial of Sir Henry
Harrington's service in the O'Byrnes' and OTooles' country.
In a letter addressed to Burghley, dated from Grange
Gorman, 14th November, 1588, where Sir Henry Harrington
^-1
NOTES ON GRANGE CON, CO. WICKLOW. 383
then lived, he begs that he may have a better survey taken of
Baltinglass, and the fee-farm of it or a lease for eighty years.
He goes on to say that he has brought in the septs of the
O'Tooles, under Shane mac Feagh O'Toole, Cahir O'Toole, and
Feagh O'Crosso O'Toole. Has good hope that Feagh mac Hugh
0*Byrne will be honest " There is no tyme I send for him but
he will come without protection, and any man in his country that
I call for he will delyver, but with condycion not to be hanged,
but to geve right for any thinge that shall be proved." He goes
on to say that he has drawn to the town of Baltinglass a dozen
horsemen, that have no pay of Her Majesty, who shall be there
resident continually, to answer all events that shall happen. His
band is to be employed as need shall require. Knows that their
defence being removed, all shall be spoiled the next day after.
Makes more reckoning of twenty such as sit down to live by the
soil than of 100 who are to be removed upon every occasion ;
and finally ends by a prayer for a further interest in two other
parcels — Kilrothery and Kilpoole.
In 1587 we gather from a letter of Sir Henry Wallop to
Burghley that Sir Henry Harrington was in England, and he
appears to have taken the opportunity to obtain from the Queen
a grant of Baltinglass for ever ; for Wallop mentions the fact in
his letter.
I have gone into the details of the descent of the abbey
lands of Baltinglass, because they included Grange Con, about
which we are immediately interested.
In 1691 Sir Henry Harrington is mentioned as being then
in England.
In 1608 Sir Henry Harrington is included in a list of captains
discharged since 1603. Sir Henry appears to have got into
trouble in 1599, for we read that the Earl of Essex marched
towards Wicklow, right against the place where Sir Henry Har-
rington was ovei'thrown ; and in his report to the Privy Council,
Lord Essex says : — '^ On Monday last I called a martial court
upon the captains and ofiicers who were with Sir Henry Har-
rington when our troops, having advantage of number and no
disadvantage of ground, were put to rout, and many cut in pieces
without striking a blow. . . .'* The verdict of the court-
martial seems to have been a very summary one, for the officers
were cashiered, and every tenth private executed !
Sir Henry Harrington escaped by reason of his being a Privy
Councillor.
Through a recommendation, in 1611, by the Commissioners
for Irish Causes, the patent of the captaincy of the O'Byrnes'
country in the County Wicklow was surrendered by Sir Henry
A . . .1°
ScuiiPTDBSD Stones now buu^t into thc Cabtle buihe at Qbinob Con.
(FraiD itubbiujiB IskiD b/ Sir Anhui^Vicin,}
NOTES ON GRANGE CON, CO. WICKLOW. 385
Harrington and hiB son, they getting a pension daring their lives
as a recompense, and their heirs £40 yearly.
In a Chancery Inquisition, taken at Wicklow, 28th October,
1618, it is stated that William Harrington alienated the lands
to Sir James CarroU, Knt., of Dublin.
In the year 1641, according to the '* Book of Survey and
Distribution of Forfeited Estates," Grange Con was in the
possession of a Henry Harrington, a Protestant This Henry
was, doubtless, the younger son of Sir Henry, and the one
whom the stone (1621) now in the Castle wall commemorates.
I may here mention that the fret carved on the stone is
really the Harrington knot or badge, which, in this case, is
taken from the Harrington Arms : *' Sable, a fret argent.'*
In 1839 this stone, according to the *' Ordnance Survey
Letters,'* was in the garden at Grange Con. It was some thirty
years ago given to the late Judge Wall, of Knockareagh (formerly
Enockarrig), who, some few years back, returned it to Mr. David
Mahony, who had it fixed in its present position when doing
some repairs to the old ruin.
Sir Henry Harrington, who took such a prominent part in
the government of the country in this district, was a son of
Sir James Harrington and his wife, Lucy, daughter of Sir
William Sydney, of Penshurst (who was father of Henry Sydney,
Lord Deputy of Ireland, and grandfather of the celebrated
Sir Philip Sydney).
After the death of Sir Henry Harrington, in 1612, in
England, we hear of very little of Uie family in these parts ; in
fact, their name almost died out, and it was only after tracing
them over to Lincolnshire, and a search amongst the Parochitd
Begisters and tombstones of Thornton, County Lincoln, that I
could find the missing link in a pedigree of the family which I
have compiled.
The existing ruins of the Castle are not very ancient ; but it
certainly is on the site (if it does not foim a portion) of the
original building— probably coeval with Sir Henry Harrington's
time or circa 1590 — for in the garden adjoining, and the ground
around, have been discovered remains of masoni7. Of course,
there are all sorts of stories current concerning underground
passages from the Castle in all directions; but I always disregard
these legends until I find the passages: and so far, although
excavations have been made, none have been discovered.
The present ruin consists of three separate portions. The
centre would seem to have been the largest; and I think it
probable that at one time all three were connected. That on the
right hand must have been a kitchen of some sort, for the
remains of the brick oven are still visible.
( 386 )
THE HENRY FAMILY IN KILDARE}
rpHIS family is said to be of French origia, bnt the date of
-L its BtittlemeDt in Ireland is not known. The immediate
anceBtor of the Kildare family of this name waa the Bev. Robert
Henry, a Presbyterian minister, said to have been of Garrick-
fergQB, bnt well known in Belfast and Dublin, in which latter
place he died in 1699.
I. Thb Stbaffan Fahilt.
In the next generation the &mily settled in Kildare, his son
Hugh Henry, a Dublin banker, having purchased the Straffaa
House estate, in addition to his property in Antrim. He was
M.P. for Limavady in 1713, and for the Borough of Antrim from
1727 to 1748. In 1717 he married Anne, daughter of Joseph
Leeaon, Esq., and sister of the Ist Eari of Milltowa, by whom
be had five daughters and a son, Joseph Henry, of Straffan, who
married, in 1764, Lady Catherine Bawdon, co^heiress of her
mother, and daughter of the 7th Earl of Moira. This Joseph
Henry was Bucceeded by bis sou John Joseph Henry, who mar-
ried (1801) Lady Emily FitzGerald, daughter of William, Duke
of Leinster. Owing to his extravagance, from one of the richest
commoners in Ireland, he became so embarrassed that he was
obliged to sell Straffan, and live abroad. Among many other
foolish things, be built an underground passage from Stra&n
House to the stables. The house, since thrown down, was
situated somewhat higher up the river than the present mansioD,
which was built by Hugh Barton, Esq., after his purobase of the
THE HENRY FAMILY IN KILDARE. 387
property, but the old stables and offices are those still in use.
His eldest son, William, predeceased him, and his second son,
Charles, who succeeded nim, had only three daughters. The
third son, Sir Hastings Reginald Henry, G.G.B., Admiral, B.N.,
married the Marchioness of Hastings, in her own right Baroness
Ghray de Ruthven, and took the name of Telverton. He had
only one daughter, Barbara, who married Lord Ghunfton.
The fourth and last son was Gli£ford Henry, who married
Miss Mason. Their son, Frederick Clifford Henry, succeeded
his uncle Charles in 1879, and his son, Joseph Henry, bom
1882, and now a volunteer in South Africa, represents the direct
line of the Straffan family.
n. The Lodge Pabe Family.
Hugh Henry, brother of John Joseph Henry, of Straffan,
built Lodge Park about 1770. It was supposed to be a small
copy of Rusborough, as his wife was Anne, daughter of the Earl
of Milltown.
His eldest son, Joseph, died young, before his father, and
unmarried. There are two portraits of him in Lodge Park — one
by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the other by Sir Thomas Lawrence.
His second son, Arthur Henry, who succeeded him, was in the old
18th Light Dragoons, but left the service on his marriage (1812)
with Eliza, daughter of George Gun Cuninghame, Esq., of
Mount Kennedy, County Wicklow. Of his sons, six were in the
army, and one in the Royal Navy. He lived at Lodge Park, and
was the second master of the Kildare Hounds. He died in 1856,
and was succeeded by his son, Frederick Hugh Henry, High
Sheriff of County Antrim, 1862, and of County Eildare, 1868.
He married Adolphina F. Gun Cuninghame; and his son,
Frederick Robert Henry, born 1862, is the present owner of
Lodge Park.
III. The Togheb and Fibmont Family.
Hugh Henry, of Togher, son of the first Hugh Henry, of
Lodge Park, was left the property of Toghermore, County
Galway, but did not reside there, as there was no house on the
estate at that time. He married, in 1816, Elizabeth, daughter
of Sir Robert Langrishe, Bart, by whom he had eight children —
four sons and four daughters. Of these, the eldest, Hugh Henry,
bom 1818, married his cousin, Emily Henry, daughter of
Arthur Henry, of Lodge ParL In 1865 he bought Firmont, in
County Kildare, and built the present mansion. He died in 1888,
and was succeeded by his eldest son, Captain Hugh A. Henry.
4?
1 1
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389 )
NOTES ON THE SWEETMAN FAMILY >
THE name of this f&milf is believed to be of Saxon origia,
though, according to some, it is eqnivaleat to " The
Swedeman." It occurs in connection with Oxford and North-
amptonshire several times about a.d. 1086. It occurs later in
Norfolk and StaSbrdBhire, In 1308 a Robert Sweteman took
out a Chancery Writ in Ireland.
In 1360 Milo Sweetman, " a man of wisdom and learning,"
was Treasurer of Kilkenny. He was elected Bishop of that See ;
but the Pope had previously given it to another person. To
compensate him, the Pope promoted him to the Archbishopric of
Armagh in 1361. He ruled Armagh nineteen years, dying
August 11, 1380.
In 187'i there was a Sir Robert Sweetman, whose son and
heir was John Sweetman.
In 1385 Maurice Sweteman was Archdeacon of Armagh.
In 1388 Thomas Swetman was Justice in the County
Kilkenny.
In 1391 the King granted to John Swetman, Sheriff of
CoQuty Kilkenny, half the fines accruing before the Justices of
the county, as it was so full of rebels that the Sheriff could not
discharge his dnties unless supported by force.
In 1681 pardon of all treasons was granted to John Swet-
man, son and heir of Nicholas Swetman, of Castle-yfe, County
Kilkenny. He was accused of having joined the rebelliou of
James fitzMauriee FitzOerald, of Desmond. His brother Qeorge
was executed.
"The material for theao notea has been supplied by Edmund Sweet-
man, Esq., of LoQgtown, County Kildare. — Ep.
390 NOTES ON THE SWEETMAN FAMILY.
There is a monament in the ruins of Newtown Church,
County Kilkenny, with the inscription : —
" Hie jacent Wilmus Swefcman Baro de Erley et Joha Tobyn ejs.
uxor, q obiit A.D. MCOOOCLIII quor animabus ppeiet deus.
Ame."
''Here lie William Sweetman, Baron of Erley, & Johanna
Tobjni his wife, who died in the year of the Lord 1553. On
their souls may Grod have mercy. Amen.**
The principal seat of the Sweetmans was at Castle Eife, and
Newtown de Erley, which they held of the King in capite by
knight's service. The family, like many others, suffered at the
hands of Cromwell, who granted Newtown de Erley to one of bis
officers. The story is that this officer, falling ill at Waterford,
requested one Baker, a friend, to visit and report on it. The
report was so unfavourable, that he parted with it to Baker for
money in hand. Castle Eve (or Eife) was plundered and
dismantled by the Cromwellians.
In 1770 Patrick Sweetman (brewer) was of St. Stephen's Green,
Dublin. He bad no son^ but left two daughters, of whom one
married Y. Browne, by whom she had a daughter, Margaret, mar-
ried to Edward Lawless, created 1st Lord Cloncurry. The
second daughter married her cousin, John Sweetman, died 1784.
Their second son, born 1752, was banished in 1796. The eldest
son, Patrick, married Eleanor Thunder, of Lagore, County Meath,
whose son, Michael Joseph Sweetman (born 1779, died 1852),
married Alicia Taaffe, of Smarmore Castle, County Louth. Id
1882 he purchased Captain Burdett's interest in a moiety of
Longtown, County Eildare. His son, Patrick Sweetman (born
1803, died 1885), married Mary Cathin, of Waterford, by whom
he had five sons — Edmund, Patrick, John, Roger, and Hugh ;
and three daughters — Mary Ann, Catherine Mary, and Alicia.
He purchased the head-rent of Killibegs, Longtown, and Carry-
hills, all in the County Eildare. The eldest son, and present
owner of these properties, is Edmund Sweetman, Esq. (bom
1831), married Alice Butler, sister of General Sir Wm. Butler.
On the jamb of a window in Sweetman's Castle, Erley, near
Callan, Co. Kilkenny, is a shield bearing the Sweetman Arms,
with the letters I. S. and the date 1580. There is a book-plate
of Heni7 Sweetman (circa 1745) figured in Egerton Castle's
'' English Book-plates," which differs from the above, and also
from the Arms given at the head of this notice, the drawing for
which last was supplied by Edmund Sweetman, Esq., and cor-
responds with the Arms given in a desi^ for a book-plate by
Agnes Castle,
( 391 )
Poul-a-p hooka. — This pictaresque and well-known water-
fall in the Liffey is situated two miles (by road) to the south-east
of Ballymore Eustace.
The name means '' the Pooka*s hole or pool ; " this deep pool
lies at the bottom of the waterfall to which it gives its name. The
Pooka,* in Irish Fairy mythology, is classed as an animal of a very
malignant type, whose one aim is to induce an unwary, benighted
person to get on to its back ; having succeeded, it gallops off at a
great pace straight across country, passing over hills and glens,
fields end bogs, through knocks of furze and briars, till at last it
bucks its rider ofif, tattered and torn, more dead than alive from
fright and fatigue, into a wet gripe not far from his own home.
The old people will tell one that, as far as can be seen, the
Pooka resembles a homed bullock-like animal, or*a great black pig,
and that at All- holland- tide it is particularly vicious, and certain to
be met with by the thoughtless.
Many lonesome and wild places in Ireland are associated with
and called after the Pooka. In our own county there are anyhow
two other instances, one is ** Knockaphooka,'* or ** the Pooka's Hill,"
which is a small hill of peculiar shape, just outside of Castle-
dermot ; and the other is " Ploopluck," near Naas, which, accord-
ing to Joyce's " Irish Names of Places Explained," is a very vile
corruption of the name ** Cloghpook," meaning " the Pooka's stone
or stone fort."
The Biver Liffey, for a mile and a half above, and half a mile
below, Poul-a-phooka, forms the mearin between this county and the
County Wicklow.
In the year 1818 Poul-a-phooka was the scene of a desperate
disaster to the Eildare Hounds, then under the mastership of Sir
Fenton Aylmer, of Donadea. The following account of it has been
kindly copied out for me by Mr. Hans Hendrick-Aylmer, of Kerdiffs-
town, from ** The Sporting Magazine " for 1832 (vol. v, p. 882) : —
*'A Letter from Shamhocksuibe.
'*It was in the last year of Sir Fenton's management and Grennon's
hunting of these hounds, that a calamity befell them which almost extermi-
nated them, and which altogether is so singular an occurrence, though it is not
without a parallel,^ that I shall take the liberty to narrate it.
' "Fnckawn," or a he-goat, appears to be a diminutive of the word " Fiica,''
or ** Pooka." The country people call a snail a '* Snail-a-pooka,'* which may
have some connection with the same word.
' A similar accident happened to Mr. Hay's Hounds, of Danse Castle, in
Berwiokshiie.
D D
a. PhoCognph b; W. Lawrenoe, DabKn.)
MISCELLANEA. 393
" The hoonds met in the month of November, 1818, at the crossroads of
Tipper, and, after drawing a neighbouring gorse blank, were trotting on throagh
Glending to Troopersfields, when, from a small unenclosed scrub of hazel, a
large greyhound fox jumped up almost among the hounds. He proved a
mountaineer from Wioklow, for, discarding the adjacent earths and coverts, he
made straight for the Wicklow Hills, over such a country and at such a pace as
flung the whole field, with the exception of two, who being on that day best
mounted, and having fortunately been riding in advance of the hounds, got
such a start as enabled them to keep in sight Indeed, though the country
was, for Ireland, open, the hills were so severe that nothing but blood could
live through it; and one of these nags was thorough, the other better than
three-parts bred.
** He passed Liffey Head, and without a check gained the romantic rocks,
plantation, and Waterfall of Pole Ovoca [Poul-a-phooka], County Wicklow,
where the river Ovoca [! I], so celebrated by Anacreon Moore, is precipitated
over a high and rugged ridge of rocks, and which was then unusually swollen
by a succession of rainy weather. In this plantation, on the other side of the
Ovoca, was the villain's den, and as it came in view the hounds were close at its
brush — a distance of twelve miles, all nearly against the hill, having been done
in fifty-five minutes.
" To reach this * Highland Home,* he had to cross the river, and no other
but the desperate alternative of passing it above the fall, where, being narrowly
enclosed by two rocks, it was diminished to the width of a wide brook. This he
attempted, and was swept down the fall with twelve couple and a-half of the
leading hounds, which had thrown themselves after him with the same head-
long and desperate resolution.
'* When Jack Grennon and the writer of this, who were the two next that got
up to those two already mentioned, they were all in one mdl6e, fox and hounds,
in the foaming eddies under the fall — some killed in the descent, others
maimed, but yet living ; among whom was the caitiff and some one or two, who
almost exhausted reached land. I do not just recollect, nor do I pretend to
pointed accuracy, but I think Skylark, a young bitch, a daughter of Kilkenny
Harbinger, and afterwards celebrated in the Kildares, was the sole one who
escaped.
*' When Grennon saw the elite of his pack thus swept from before his eyes,
he stood (for assistance was impossible) for some time like a statue ; but when
he was assured by their lifeless remains floating in the pool below the fall of
the loss of two particular veterans, whose names I have forgotten, he could
stand it no longer, but burst into tears, and wept long and bitterly."
The Gothic bridge which spans the chasm was built in 1820,
from a design by Nimmo. Previous to this the river was crossed
half a mile further up by what was called " The Horsepass Bridge,"
which is not now in existence.
There is an illustration of this waterfall given in Fisher's
** Views in Ireland," which were published in 1795.
W. FiTzG.
Notes on the Crozier in the Clongowes Wood
College Museum. — It was found in the Bog of Allen. No
other particulars known here.
Fig. 1 shows a sketch of the whole crozier ; it is 4 feet 6 inches
high, and apparently of brass. See next page.
The various parts are kept together by small pins driven into
the staff.
I MnaEUH OF Clonqoweb Wood Oollmox.
7 A. C. Miohelmoie.)
MISCELLANEA. 395
It has firsts like many other Irish croziers, a wooden staff (pro-
bably the original, encased in metal to preserve it). This is covered
with thin metal, and has ornamental ends (figs. 2 and 4).
A narrow strip of metal, | of an inch at its widest part, runs
up the whole length of shaft and part of upper end. This is
enriched with minute interlaced ornament, arranged in panels.
There are about twenty of these, and nearly all have different
designs.
Fig. 8 shows a view of the end, looking in the direction of the
-<- in Pig. 2.
This was originally enriched with champleve enamel, a blue
cross, which is more of a mosaic than an enamel, and three stones.
The cross and the upper stone remain, the two side ones are
missing. The empty cells are all that remain of the enamel work.
Professor Sullivan states that '* fusible enamels are easily
decomposed by water containing carbonic acid.'* No doubt, the
damp soil has caused these to perish.
A. G. MiOHELMOBE.
The Inauguration of a new portion of the Grand
Canal In the Co. Klldare.
[Taken from *' Greshaw's Magazine," p. 162, Naas, March 6th, 1787-78.]
'' This day was opened the new County of Kildare Canal. His
Grace the Duke of Leinster and the other gentlemen of the
company assembled this morning on board of the Milecent packet,
where an excellent breakfast, music, &c., were provided. They
proceeded, with streamers flying, and the discharge of several pieces,
from Sallins, up their own line through the Company's bridge, the
Leinster and Wolfe Locks, &c. On entering the new line, they were
received with loud and repeated acclamations ; €md as soon as they
entered the Leinster Lock, the populace seized the track line, and
drew them in triumph to the excavation of the third lock at Old
Town. They passed through each of the locks in less than three
minutes. The perfect execution of the works, the curving line of
the canal, the variety and beauty of the adjacent country, inter-
spersed with ancient and modem buildings and improvements, all
embellished by the fineness of the day, and enhanced by the con-
sideration of the utility of the work to the comfort and industry of
the inhabitants of the large tract of country through which it is to
pass, filled every breast with a glow of satisfaction."
. ( 396 )
JinstDcr to ©uerg.
The Tipper Monumental Cross, 1616.
In the 2iid volume of our Journal, at p. 215, information as to
the owners of the Delahyde and Walsh initials [I. D : M. W] on the
cross in the churchyard at Tipper was asked for. I am now able to
identify these individuals, and to prove that they stand for John
-Delahyde and Margery Walsh, his wife, daughter of John Walsh
of Shanganagh, County Dublin. This John Delahyde was the eldest
son of Michael Delahyde, of Ballantry (or Ballandry) in the County
Meath, who was a younger son of Richard Delahyde, of Lough-
shinny, County Dublin, a branch of the Delahydes, who were for
centuries seated at Moyglare in the County Meath, and two miles
from Maynooth»
According to a County Dublin Exchequer Inquisition (No. 145
of Elizabeth), Michael Delahyde, of Ballandry, died on the
20th September, 1598, leaving by his wife, Marione Plunket,
three sons : —
1. The above-named John Delahyde.
2. Eiohard.
8. Peter Delahyde, of Punchestown, County Eildare, and
of Corbally, County Dublin.
Peter Delahyde, of Punchestown, died without issue on
20th November, 1625 ; and his heir was his nephew, Michael, son
of the above-named John Delahyde, by his wife, Margery Walsh.
A Chancery Inquisition of the County Dublin (No. 20 of Charles I)
states that John died on the 18th of January, 1616, which is the
date of the year carved on the cross in the Tipper churchyard.
W. FiTzG.
Whereabouts is " Richard FitzGerald's Cross " ?
In an Elizabethan Fiant (No. 5,745), granting a lease for sixty
years to John Lye, of Clonaugh, in 1591, of Bathbride, mention is
made of a Kichard FitzGerald's Cross in defining the mearing of
the lands of Bathbride. According to the Fiant, these huids
<< contained 60 acres great measure according to the custom of the
country, making 180 acres of standard measure, lying towards the
hater or lane of BoUickstown on the East ; leading to the King's
NOTES. 397
way betwixt the lands of Bathebride and Priortone on the West ;
and so from Richard FitzOeralcPt cross on the west side of Cookes-
land to the Garraghe of Eildare, and to the river Boure on the
NoBTH ; and the Gurraghe of Eildare on the South ; with common
of pasture on the Gurraghe, and liberty to cut turf on the moor near
the west side of the Ghannon's Wood.*' Several of the names
used in this Fiant are now obsolete. The townlands bordering on
that of Bathbride at the present time .are — on the East, Pollards-
town, Scarletstown, and Milltown ; on the West, Friarstown and
Newtown (near Cannonstown) ; on the North, Wheelam (a Fiant of
Edward YI calls this place ''the town of Fitz Williams, alias
Whitelam, alias Whillam"); on the South, the Gurragh.
On the very edge of the Gurragh, and at the south-west corner
of Bathbride townland, there is the socketed base of a cross now
known as the ** wart-stone** {vide vol. iii, p. 21, of Thb Journal).
Gan this be " Bichard FitzGerald's Gross *' ?
W. FiTzG.
Dr. Daniel Neylan, Bishop of Kildare, 1583--1603.
In July, 1588, Dr. Daniel Neylan, a Connaught or Munster
man, succeeded Dr. Bobert Daly as the Protestant Bishop of
Kildare.
He had previously been Bector of Iniscathy (Scattery Island),
in the Diocese of Killaloe.
On the 2drd of September, 1698, owing to the poverty of his
See, Queen Elizabeth granted to him the Bectory and Vicarage of
Game, in the Diocese of Eilfenora. (Ware*s *' Bishops.**)
His will is among those of the Dublin Diocese in the Becord
Office, Dublin, and is dated the 6th of June, 1608. It is written in
Latin, and commences — ** In Dei nomine Amen. Ego Donaldus
Nelland, dns epus Killdaren.*' In the will he mentions his wife,
EUice Linche (? daughter of Ambrose Linche, of Oalway), his
eldest son, William Neylan (or Nelland), and his daughter <<Elicia
og ny Nelland,** thus giving the Irish form of her name, and mean-
ing— " EUice the younger, daughter of Neylan" (the ** ny ** being a
shortened form of " ingen *' == a daughter). It is strange finding the
Irish name used in a Latin will. The bishop*s signature appears
as — ** Da : Daren ;** it was witnessed by the following : —
Danyell Neyllan, Archydeacon (? of Kildare).
William Nelland.
John Nelane.
Derby Nellan.
Flanon (?) Neyllane.
Thomas Ochonchewer (? O'Connor).
It 18 cnriouB' to remark that not one of these five Neylftns spelt
tbeii Buraame alike. The will was proved on the SI9tb at Jane,
1608. According to Ware's "Bishops," Dr. Neylan died on the
18th Alay (a. mistake for June), 1003, at Disert. He had been
bishop for close on tvent; years, and was succeeded by a Iiondoner,
William Pilsworth, formerly Vicar of Carbury and of St. David's,
Naas. Cotton's "Fasti" makes the same mistake as to the
month of the bishop's death.
W. FiTzG.
Antiquities in the Mobeoh at CiiONoowEa Wood Cou-eoe.
(Prom Drnwinipi bj- A. V. Michelmore.)
Addition to the List of County Kildare Htgh Sheriffs.
1646. Oliver Sutton, of Ricbardstown.
[Befer to the Lists in vol ii, pp. 258-266 ; voL iii, p. 68 and p. 266.]
W. FiTzG.
NOTES. 399
Additional Oil Paintings of Lord Edward FitzGerald.
Sir Arthur Vicars has kindly brought to my notice that there is
a replica by Hamilton, similar to the Carton picture, of Lord
Edward in the possession of Mrs. Paley (sister of Lord Bayleigh),
of St. Catherine's Court, Bath. Mrs. Paley is a descendant of
Lady Charlotte FitzGerald — daughter of James, 1st Duke of
Leinster — who was created Baroness Bayleigh in 1821, and whose
portrait is also in Mrs. Paley's possession.
Another similar oil painting of Lord Edward is at Holland
House, London, and belongs to the Earl of Ilchester ; it has been
reproduced in a recently published work called " The Life and
Letters of Lady Sarah Lennox" (Lord Edward's aunt), by Lady
Ilchester.
These two additional replicas by Hamilton bring the list of
Lord Edward's portraits in oils up to eight in number.
W. FiTzG.
The Seals of the Corporation of Athy and of the
Klldare County Council.
On the following page are shown the Seal of the County Council
and (for comparison) the Seals of the Borough and of the Town
Commissioners of Athy.
When in 1899 County Councils were introduced into this
country, the County Surveyor, Mr. Edward Glover, with the
assistance of Mr. Bobert Cochrane, the Hon. Secretary of the
Boyal Society of Antiquaries of Lreland, designed a seal on heraldic
lines, which was submitted to, and approved of by, the County
Council. {Vide Fig. 8.)
The device is intended to represent, on three shields, the arms of
Leinster, and those of Naas and Athy (the present and former
capitals of the county).
The upper shield bears the Province of Leinster arms — a harp.
One of the lower shields bears a snake, representing Naas ; and the
other is intended for a tower on a bridge, for Athy. The latter
would have been better represented according to the original design,
as shown in Figs. 1 and 2.
Fig. 2 is the seal used by the Town Commissioners of Athy
since the year 1875.
Fig. 1 was the ancient Seal of the Corporation of Athy as used
in and before the year 1788. The earliest existing Borough Book
of Athy commences with that year, and is now preserved at Carton.
In it are impressed many prints of this seal.
E E
FIG 3.
! AtHY IND or THE KlIiDAItB CODNTT OoTTSCH^
NOTES. 40 1
The brasB matrix of this seal is also at Carton ; it was presented
to the Doke of Leineter by the Town Conunissioners in 1876. As
showu in Fig, 1, a tower ia placed on what is meant for a bridge,
at) each end of which the FitzGerald flag: flies. The dexter shield
bears the Earl of Eildare'a arms, and the sinister shield those of
the Fieldings, Earls of Denbigh (viz. — argent, on a fesse azure,
three lozenges or) who were the proprietors of the Manor of
St. John's, on the right, or Queen's County, side of the Barrow.
W. FiTzG,
Note on two ancient Carved Stones now at
Sherlockstown.
1. — The stone here represented is that mentioned by Lord Walter
FitzGerald in the last number of the Joubnai.. Mr. Keely, c.o.,
of Sallins, who kindly presented it to me, together with the other
stone represented below, informs me that both stones were bought
by his uncle, the late Mr. Doyle, at on auction in the neighbourhood
of Ballymore Eustace. Unfortunately, it is now impossible to
trace farther where they came from. The three fienrs-de-lys on
No. 1 are the arms of the Sherlocks of the County Kildare ; but
Bir Arthur Vicars (Ulster) tells me that be has searched in vain
for the arms on the sinister impalement. According to him, the
oarving dates about early in the seventeenth century. He says :
"The sinister coat loois hke: — 'Per less .... and . .
. . in chief, a spur and leather . . , , (tinctures not
described).'" The spur is a very rare charge. It occurs in the
coat-of-amis of the Dalbiac family, London and Franoe, but with
" an olive-tree eradicated and fnicted proper " in the base.
2. — Of the second Btoae Sir Artliur bb^s: — "As to the other
coat, the cross is that of the Knights Hospitallers of Malta."
The Sculptured High Crosses of Ireland, Part II.
In the month of December last {1901) the Royal Irish Academy
isaned, in their "Transactions" series of publications, the second
part of the late Miss Margaret Stokes's great work on the
sculptured High Crosses of Ireland.
This Number contains the Crosses of —
Moone, County Eildare,
DrumcIifF, County Sligo,
Termonfechin, County Louth, and
EiDamery, County Kilkenny.
This Part is an improvement on the former one, as, in addition
to illustrations of Miss Stokes's worked-np aides of the Crosses, the
same views, for comparison, are reproduced from untouched-up
photographs. Whether this work will in time be continued is
doubtful, as, though Miss Stokes left behind her plenty of finished
material for illustrating other Crosses, yet her descriptions of, and
remarks on, them are only fragmentary ; and it would be hard to
name a single person who has the great experience and knowledge
that she possessed for identifying and recognising the very puzzling
subjects sculptured in many of the panels on the High Crosses.
The price of this Part is half a guinea, and it can be obtained
from Hodges, Figgis, & Co., of Grafton Street.
JOURNAL
OF THE
Jlrclplogical jSacwtn of % Gountu of Ffilbart
AND
iSurrannbinji Distrids.
4-f
proceedings^
The Annual General Meeting of the Society was held on
Wednesday, the 22nd January, 1902, in the Court House,
Naas, kindly lent for the occasion by the High Sheriff of the
County.
The Earl of Mayo, President of the Society, in the chair.
The following Members of the Council were present : —
Rev. M. Devitt, Vice-President; Mr. Cooke-Trench, Canon
Sherlock, Hon. Editor ; Mr. H. Hendrick-Aylmer, Hon.
Treamrer; and Sir Arthur Vicars, Ulster, and Lord Walter
FitzGerald, Hon. Secretaries.
In addition, the following Members, and Visitors introduced
by Members, were present : —
Mr. Henry Morton Odium, Mrs. Cooke-Trench, Miss Oulshaw, Mr.
and Mrs. George Wolfe, Mr. R. West Manders, Mr. and Mrs. Edmund
Sweetman, The Dean of Kildare and Mrs. Cowell, Mr. J. Whiteside
Dane, Lord Frederick FitzGerald, Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Synnott,
General and Mrs. Weldon, Kev. William Elliott, Mr. and Mrs. S. J.
Brown, Mr. P. A. Maguire, Mr. W. Staples, The Misses Sherlock, Rev.
J. L. Jesson, Rev. S. Stewart, Mrs. Thunder, Mrs. Crelock, Mrs. O'Kelly,
Mrs. Gaussen, Miss Manders, &c.
The Minutes of the previous General Meeting in February,
1901^ were read and confirmed, and signed by the Chairman.
Sir Arthur Vicars read the Beport of the Council for the year
1901, which was adopted on the motion of Mr. Nicholas J.
Synnott, seconded by Mr. B. W. Manders.
F F
404 PROCEEDINGS OF THE
The Hon. Treasurer then read his Report on the financial
condition of the Society, which was most satisfactory^ and it
was adopted on the motion of Mr. Wolfe, seconded by
Mr. Cooke-Trench.
The Earl of Drogheda and Mr. Cooke- Trench, being the
retiring Members of the Council according to Bule YI, were
re-elected.
The following were elected Members of the Society : — Major
F. Carroll, The Archdeacon of Eildare, Mr. Henry M. Odlnm,
Mr. Thomas W. Brooke, and Mr. A. A. Sbortt In addition,
the following elections at the September Meeting were con-
firmed : —Mr. Cecil Boche-Borrowes, Mr. Marmaduke Cramer
Boberts, and Mr. Peirce G'Mahony,
Mr. B. W. Manders proposed, and Canon Sherlock seconded,
the following resolution, which was passed : —
*' That in Bule V the word * six ' be omitted, and the word * seven '
be substituted for it."
Mr. Nicholas Synnott was unanimously elected to the
Council of the Society, on the motion of the Bev. M. Devitt, v.p.,
seconded by Lord Walter FitzGerald.
The question of the locality of the next Excursion Meeting
of the Society, and the date upon which it should be held,
formed the subject of some discussion, and it was finally agreed
upon in the following resolution, proposed by Lord Frederick
FitzGerald, and seconded by Mr. Cooke-Trench, which was
passed : —
**That the Excursion Meeting for the ensuing Session of the Society
take place at Oughterard, Newcastle, Lyons, and district, early in
September next.'*
Sir Arthur Vicars proposed the following resolution, which
was seconded by Lord Walter FitzGerald, and carried by
acclamation : —
*' The Members of the Kildare ArchsBoIogical Society beg to tender
their thanks to the Kildare Hunt Club for kindly sanctioning, through
its representative, the use by the Society of the Stand-house and pre-
mises at Punchestown, on the occasion of the Excursion Meeting of the
Society on 26th September, 1901."
A vote of thanks was proposed by the Dean of Eildare to
Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Synnott for having kindly entertained the
Society on the occasion of its recent visit to Fumess, and to Mr.
Synnott for his interesting Paper on the locality, which was
seconded by Sir Arthur Vicars, and unanimously passed.
COUNTY KILDARE ARCH/EOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 4OS
The followiDg Papers were read : —
"Notes on Kildare." By the Very Rev. the Dean of
Eildare.
** Lettice, Baroness of Offaly, and her defence of Geashill
Castle in 1642." By Lord Frederick FitzGerald.
''Some Further Notes on the Parish of Clane.*' By the
Bey. Canon Sherlock.
" Carton." By Lord Walter FitzGerald.
A vote of thanksy proposed by Uev. William Elliott, and
seconded by Mr. H. Hendrick-Aylmer, was unanimously passed
to those who had kindly contributed Papers, and to the High
Sheriff for the use of the Court House for the purposes of the
Meeting.
Various objects of antiquarian interest were exhibited,
among which may be mentioned the following, shown by Sir
Arthur Vicars : — Two Irish armorial pavement tiles of the four-
teenth century; illuminated initial letters on vellum, from a
Psalter of the thirteenth century ; an old leather '' bottel " of
the seventeenth century ; some specimens of old lipware of the
sixteenth century, found during excavations connected with the
Dublin Main Drainage Works; a wine-bottle of the seventeenth
century, found in the vaults of Pierstown Castle in 1880, which
was destroyed by Cromwell in 1650 ; quaint brass snuffers
and stand of the seventeenth century ; two old clay wig-curlers
of the seventeenth century; and a pair of spurs used for
cock-fighting in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Mr. Synnott exhibited a wood engraving of the north front
of Blessington House, now in ruins, dedicated to Lord Viscount
Mountjoy, Baron Bamelton, which showed the huntsmen un-
coupling the hounds for hunting, and which attracted much
interest, as proof of the existence of a Hunt in the county, if not
the Kildare Hunt Club itself, at so early a date as circa 1741-46.
The proceedings then terminated.
Report of Council for the Year 1901.
The Council of the Eildare ArchaBological Society have again
to report to the Members that the progress of the Society
hitherto has been fully maintained this past year. . There are
now 160 Members on the Roll, of whom seventeen are Life
Members.
Looking back over the ten years that the Society has now
been in existence, they feel considerable satisfaction in the
amount of work that the Eildare ArchaDological Society has
406 PROCEEDINGS OF THE
been able to do towards ^e elucidation of the history and
antiquities of tl^e district over which the Society holds sway.
They regret to have to chronicle the death during the past
year of some well-known Members and supporters of the
Society. Dr. Darby, of Monastereyan, from time to time seht
his quota of contributions to The Journal. One Paper on
^* Irish Place-Names and Local Folk-Lore/! another on '^Archaeo-
logical Jottings/' and another on *' Core-alley Bath/' may be
mentioned. Mr. Thoijaas Greene, of Millbrook^ was a keen
supporter of the Society^ and hardly oyer, missed a Meeting.
He contributed to The Journal in yerse " The Legend of
Eilkea Castle." And, lastly, Mr. Frederick M. CaiToU, whose
Paper on '* Moone Cross " most of us must remember. The
Council feel specially indebted to him for the kind assistance
they receiyed when carrying out the yery successful restoration
of the fine Celtic cross situated at Moone Abbey.
The Annual General Meeting was held in Naas on the
20th February, 1901. They regret that this Meeting was not
so well attended as usual ; but this fact was doubtless due to the
necessity of postponing the original fixture by reason of the
death of Her late Majesty, which sad eyent took place on the
yery eye of the original date fixed for our Meeting.
The Excursion Meeting was held in September, Rathmore,
Fumess, and district being the localities chosen. An excellent
programme was proyided; but, unfortunately, for almost the first
time since the foundation of the Society, our proyerbial luck
of fine weather deserted us, and had it not been for the
welcome shelter afforded by the Eildare Hunt Stand-house at
. Punchestown, and the hospitable roof of our Member, Mr.
Nicholas Synnott, those attending the Meeting would haye fared
badly towiurds the latter part of the day. This was the first year,
too, that the Excursion Meeting was fixed for late in September;
and it may be a question for consideration whether we should
not return to our former custom of holding the Excursion
Meeting in future about the middle of the month of September.
Putting the weather out of consideration, the Meeting was a
decided success.
The Council feel sure that all Members will recognise the
courtesy of the Eildare Hunt Club in permitting us to use the
Stand-house at Punchestown on this occasion ; and in this
connection they may mention that the President of the Society
is engaged in collecting material illustratiye of the history of
the Eildare Hunt; and they hope that all Members haying
material of yalue for this purpose will place it at his disposal
The Eildare Hunt is one of the oldest in the United Eingdom,
COUNTY KILDARE ARCH/EOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 407
and, fortunately, still flourishing; its history may, therefore,
be considered to come within the scope of antiquarian re-
search, for with its history is bound up much of the social
life of the county in the past.
It is hoped that before long Pedigrees from the Inquisitions
of the County Kildare, and that portion of Wicklow included in
the scope of the Society, which are deposited in the Public
Becord Office, Dublin, may appear in The Journal. These
records contain invaluable information concerning the genea-
logical history of the more ancient families of the cx)unty.
Two Members of the Council, the Earl of Drogheda and
Mr. Cooke- Trench, retire from the Council by rotation, and,
being eligible, offer themselves for re-election.
Signed on behalf of the Council,
Mayo, President.
Arthur Vicars, Ulster, \ Hon.
Walter FitzGerald, J ^^r^aries.
Excursion Meeting, 1901.
The Annual Excursion Meeting took place on Wednesday,
25th September, 1901, at Rathmore, Furness, and district.
Sallius Station was the starting-point, to which the Members
and their friends journeyed from the various points of the county
and from Dublin. A short drive brought the party to Kerdiffs-
town House, where portions of a sixteenth-century window lying
in the yard and collected from two different portions of the
property by the owner, were first inspected ; after which a short
walk brought the party to the ruins of the church, which were
described by Mr. Hendrick-Aylmer.
Proceeding to Johnstown Churchvard, a Paper on the Flatis-
bury Monument, and the history of that family, was read by
Sir Arthur Vicars.
Rathmore, the next place on the day's programme to be
visited, occasioned a drive of some three miles; and here the
attendance was considerably augmented. Most of those present
clambered up the sides of the Moat, on the top of which Mr.
Hendrick-Aylmer read an interesting Paper on the history of
the Moat, which is considered one of the finest in Leinster.
408 PROCEEDINGS OF TFIE
Attention was drawn to the fact that the Society had made
efforts to prevent the further demolition of this fine moat by
reason of its being used for some years as a gravel-pit, and that
the County Surveyor had informed the Society that he was
powerless to prevent the course of destruction unless another
gravel-pit, convenient for the road contractor's work, was allowed
to be opened. Segrave's Castle, close by, was pointed out, and
then the company descended, glad to escape the cold winds at
such an elevation.
Another drive of some four miles brought the party to
Punchestown Racecourse, where a luncheon was prepared in the
Stand-house, kindly placed at the service of the Society by the
Eildare Hunt Club.
The weather, which up to this point had been fair, though
somewhat overcast, changed, and rain descended just when the
company had fortunately reached the shelter of the luncheon-
room. It had been arranged that a visit should be paid after
luncheon to the Longstones of Punchestown, and to the church-
yard of Tipper ; but, in consequence of the inclement weather,
this part of the programme was abandoned, and all those present
betook themselves to the Viceregal Stand, where, under shelter,
they listened to an address by Lord Walter FitzGerald on the
Longstones in the neighbourhood, and the history of the
immediate district.
As the weather showed little signs of brightening, a drive
had to be taken in the rain to Furness House, where all assem-
bled in the spacious hall while Mr. Nicholas Synnott read a most
interesting and emdite Paper on the history of the place, after
which they were entertained at tea at the kind invitation of Mr.
and Mrs. Synnott.
Some of the more courageous members of the company in-
spected the ruins of Furness Church in the grounds, and all
finally left for their respective trains at Naas, thus bringing to a
close a most successful Excursion, in point of archsdological
interest, although it was much marred by the adverse climatic
conditions.
As the Eildare Archseological Society has always been ex-
tremely fortunate in enjoying good weather for its excursions,
which hitherto have always been held earlier in September, a
general consensus of opinion was expressed that in future the
Excursion Meetings should be fixed earlier in the month*
CraUNTY KILDARE A RCH/EO LOGICAL SOCIETY.
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4IO PROCEEDINGS OF THE
LIST OF HONORARY OFFICERS AND MEMBERS.
{CORRECTED TO Ut JULY, 1002.)
Ijrcstbtnt :
THE EARL OF MAYO, P.O.
)9ic(-^rtdtbfnt :
THE REV. MATTHEW DEVITT, S.J.
Council :
(in order of election.)
THOMAS COOKE-TRENCH, ESQ., D.L.
GEORGE MANSFIELD, ESQ., D.L.
THE REV. EDWARD O'LEARY, P.P.
LT.-COL. THOMAS J. DE BURGH, D.L.
AMBROSE MORE-0'FERRALL, ESQ., D.L.
THE EARL OF DROGHEDA.
NICHOLAS J. SYNNOTT. ESQ.
Don. Srtasnrcr :
HANS HENDRICK-AYLMER, ESQ., Kerdiffstown, Sallins,
^on. ^ubitor:
ALFRED A. WARMINGTON, ESQ., Munster and Leinbter Bank, Naas.
Don. Secrttarus :
SIR ARTHUR VICARS, C.V.O., F.S.A., UUUr, 44 Wellington Road, Dublin.
LORD WALTER FITZGERALD, M.RLA., Kilkea Castle, Maganey.
Don. ®bitor :
THE REV. CANON SHERLOCK, M.A., Sheki^ckstown, Sallins.
COUNTY KILDARE ARCII/EOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 4II
ggtjembcrs:
[Officers are indicated by heavy type ; Life Members by an asterisk (*).]
Adams, Bev. Canon, Kill Rectory, Strafifan.
Archbold, Miss, Davidstown, Gastledermot.
Aylmer, Miss, Donadea Castle, Go. Kildare.
Aylmer, Algernon, Bathmore, Naas.
AYLMER, H. HENDRICK-, Hon, Trecunirer, Kerdiflfstown, SalUns.
^Barton, Hon. Mrs., Luttrellstown, Glonsilla.
^Barton, Bertram, Straffan House, Skraffan.
Beard, T., m.d., Glebe Crescent, Stirling.
Betham, Mrs., 9 Belgrave-square, Monkstown.
Blake, J. B., Loui Villa, Belmont-avenue, Donnybrook.
Bonham, Colonel J., Ballintaggart, Colbinstown, Co. Kildare.
Bourke, Lady Albreda, Boseboro*, Straffan.
Brennan, Bev. James, s.j., Beotor, Glongowes Wood College, Sallins.
Brooke, J. T.. Ardnaree, Ballina, Co. Mayo.
Brooke, Thomas W., Ardnaree, Ballina, Co. Mayo.
Brown, Stephen J., Ardoaien, Naas.
Burke, Very Bev. E., p.p., Bagenalstown, Co. Carlow.
'^'Burtchaell, G. D., m.a., 6 St. Stephen's-green, Dublin.
Cane, Colonel Claude, St. Wolstan's, Celbridge.
Carroll, Major Frederick, Moone Abbey, Moone.
Chaplin, Bev. S. B. J., Leinster Lodge, Kildare.
^Clarke, Mrs., Athgoe Park, Hazlehatoh, Co. Dublin.
* (elements, Colonel, Killadoon, Celbridge.
* Clements, Henry J. B., D.L., Killadoon, Celbridge.
Coady, D. P., m.d., Naas.
Cochrane, Robert, f.s.a., h.b.i.a., Hon. Secretary b.8.a.i., 17 Highiield-road,
Bathgar.
CoUey, G. P. A, Mount Temple, Clontarf, Co. Dublin.
Conmee, Rev. J. F., s.j., St. Francis Xavier*s, Upper Gardiner-street, Dublin.
Coote, Stanley, V., Carrowcoe Park, Roscommon.
Cowell, Very Bev. G. Y., Dean of Kildare, The Deanery, Kildare.
Cruise, Francis, m.d., Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow.
CuUen, Bev. John, Adm., Carlow.
Culshaw, Miss, Johnstown, Straffan.
412 PROCEEDINGS OF THE
Daly, C, 25 Westmoreland-street, Dublin.
Dames, B. S. Longworth, 21 Herbert-street, Dublin.
Dane, J. Whiteside, Abbejfield, Naas.
Day, Bobert, F.8.A., h.r.i.a., Myrtle Hill House, Cork.
Dease, Colonel Sir Gerald, c.v.o., Celbridge Abbey, Celbridge.
DE BURGH, THOMAS J., Lt.-Col., d.l., Oldtown, Naas.
DEVITT, Rev. MATTHEW, s.j., MiUtown Park, Milltown, Co. Dublin.
DROQHEDA, THE EARL OF, Moore Abbey, Monasterevan.
Drogheda, The Countess of, Moore Abbey, Monasterevan.
Drury, Charles M., Ballinolea House, Baltinglass.
Dunne, Be v. John, c.o., Baltinglass, Co. Wioklow.
Dunne, Laurence, Dollardstown House, Athy.
Elliott, George Hall, Chief Librarian, Free Public Library, Belfast.
Elliott, Bev. William, The Manse, Naas.
Eustace, John G., Fern Bank, Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire.
Field, John, Eilcock.
fifrench, Bev. Canon, m.r.i.a., Ballyredmond House, Clonegal, Co. Carlow.
*FitzGerald, Lady Eva, Kilkea Castle, Maganey, Co. Eildare.
*FitzGerald, Lady Mabel, Kilkea Castle, Maganey, Co. Eildare.
^FitzGerald, Lady Nesta, Kilkea Castle, Maganey, Co. Kildare.
*FitzGerald, Lord Frederick, Carton, Maynooth, Co. Kildare.
*FitzGerald, Lord George, Kilkea Castle, Maganey, Co. Kildare.
FitzGerald, Lord Henry, 1 Sloane-court, London, S.W.
^FITZGERALD, LORD WALTER, m.b.la., Hon, Secretary^ Kilkea Castle, Maganey,
Co. Kildare.
FitzGerald, Sir George, Bart., Killybegs, Sallins.
*FitzMaurice, Arthur, Johnstown House, Carlow.
Fletcher, Bev. Lionel, The Bectory, Straffan.
Fogarty, Bev. M., Professor, The College, Maynooth.
Foley, Most Bev.Patrick, d.d., Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, Braganza, Carlow.
Freeman, Francis J., Calverstown, KilcuUen.
Ghtnly, Bev. C. W., The Bectory, Castledermot, Co. Kildare.
Ghtrgan, Bight Bev. Monsignor Denis, d.d.. President of St. Patrick's College,
Maynooth.
Garstin, J. Bibton, d.l.. f.s.a., m.r.i.a., Braganstown, Castlebellingham,
Co. Louth.
Gkison, Bev. F. W., The Bectory, Maynooth.
Glover, Edward, 19 Prince Patrick-terrace, North Circular-road, Dublin.
Geoghegan, Mrs., Bert, Athy.
Graham, Bev. C. I., Kildrought Parsonage, Celbridge.
Greene, Colonel Bichard. Stoneylands, Dedham, Essex.
Greene, Thomas W., Millbrook, Maganey.
COUNTY KILDARE ARCHiEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 413
Hade, Arthur, c.e., Carlow.
Hannon, J. A. , Prumplestown, Carlow.
Higginson, Lady, Connellmore, Newbridge.
Hopkins, Mrs., Blackball Castle, KilouUen, Co. Kildare.
Hobson, C. J., 323 West One Hundred and Twenty-fourth-street, New York.
Jesson, Bev. J. L., The Rectory, Bathangan.
Johnston, Bev. F. Boyd, The Beotory, Eilkea, Maganey.
Joyce, Patrick Weston, Lyre na Ghrena, Leinster-road, Rathmlnes, Dublin.
Kelly, Thomas, Castletown, Celbridge.
Eeogh, Surgeon-Major T. B., Castleroe, Maganey, Co. Kildare.
Kilkelly, John, ll.d., 46 Upper Mount-street, Dublin.
Kirkpatrick, William, Donaoomper, Celbridge.
La Touohe, Mrs. John, Harristown, Brannoztown.
Long, Miss A F., Woodfield, KUcavan, Geashill, King's County.
Longfield, Bobert, 25 Clare-street, Dublin.
McCarthy, Bev. P., p.p., Ballymore-Eustace.
MacDonald, Rev. Walter, d.d., Librarian, The College, Maynooth.
M^Gee, Bev. S. B., The Rectory, Dunlavin.
Maguire, P. A., 2 Oldtown- terrace, Naas.
Mahony, George Gun, Kilmoma, b.s.o., Co. Kerry.
Manders, R. W., Castlesize, Sallins.
Manning, A. S., Bank House, Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow.
MANSFIELD, GEORGE, d.l., Morristown Lattin, Naas.
Mayo, Dowager Countess of, 20 Eaton-square, London, S.W.
MAYO, The EARL OF, p.c, Prmdent, Pahnerstown, Straffan.
Michelmore, A C, Clongowes Wood College, Sallins.
Minohin, F., Mooretown House, Kiltegan, Co. Wicklow.
MoUoy, William B., m.b.i.a.. Commissioner of National Education, 78 Kenil-
worth-square, Bathgar.
Mooney, William, The Castle, Leizlip.
*Moran, His Eminence Cardinal, Sydney, N. S. Wales, Australia.
Morrin, Bev. Thomas, p.p., Naas.
Murphy, The Right Rev. Monsignor Michael, p.p., Maryborough.
Murphy, J. C, Osberstown House, Naas.
Murphy, W. A., Osberstown House, Naas
Nolan, Rev. James, o.c, Kilmeade. Athy.
Norman, G^rge, 12 Brock-street, Bath, England
414 PROCEEDINGS OF THE
O'Brien, The Lord, Lord Chief jQstice, Newlands, ClondaUdn.
O'Dea, Very Bev. Thomas, d.d., Vice-Presidezit, The College, Maynootb.
Odium, Henry M, Kllmoney, Bathangan.
♦O'FERRALL, AMBROSE MORE-, d.l., Ballyna, MoyvaUy.
O'Hanlon, Very Bev. John Canon, p.p., St. Mary's Church, Star of the Sea,
Irishtown, Dublin.
O'Kelly, E. P., Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow.
O'Kelly, Bev. Joseph, o.p.. College of St. Thomas, Newbridge.
O'Kelly, Bobert, h.»., Landenstown, Sallins.
♦CLEARY, Rev. E., p.p., Ballyna, Moyvally.
O'Leary, Bev. Patrick, d.d. , The College, Maynooth.
O'Mahony, Peirce, Grange Con, Co. Wicklow.
Palmer, Charles Colley, d.l., Bahan, Edenderry.
Ponsonby, Hon. Gerald, 3 Stratford-place, London, W.
Ponsonby, Lady Maria, 3 Stratford-place, London, W.
Pratt, Mrs., Glenheste, Manor-Eilbride, Co. Dublin.
Beynell, Bev. W., b.d., m.b.ijl., 22 Eccles- street, Dublin.
Boberts, Marmaduke Cramer, Sallymount, Brannoxtown.
Bobinson, John, m.d., Johnstown -bridge, Co. Kildare.
Boper, C. E. A., B.ii., 55 Leeson-park, Dublin.
Byan, Very Bev. John C, o.p., College of St. Thomas of Aquin, Newbridge.
Bynd, Major B. F., Blackball, Sallins.
Shackleton, Frank B., Ulster's Office, Dublin Castle.
SHERLOCK, Rev. Canon, Hon, Editor ^ Sherlockstown, Sallins.
Shortt, A. A., Main Street, ^aas.
Skuse, Bev. Bichard D., Ballykean Beotory, Portarlington.
Somerville-Large, Bev. W., CarnalwayBectory, Eilcullen.
Staples, William, Naas.
Sweetman, E., Longtown, Sallins.
Sweetman, Mrs., Longtown, Sallins.
Swinton, The Hon. Mrs., 82 Cadogan -place, London, W.
SYNNOTT, NICHOLAS J., Furness, Naas.
Taylor, Mark, Golden Fort, Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow.
Torrens, The Ven. Joseph, Archdeacon of Kildarct St. David's Bectory, Naas.
TRENCH, THOMAS COOKE-, i).l., Millicent, Sallins.
Trench, Mrs. Cooke-, Millicent, Sallins.
Tynan, The Bight Bev. Monsignor Thomas, p.p., Newbridge.
Tyrrell, Garrett C, Ballinderry House, Carbury, Co. Eildare.
VICARS, SIR ARTHUR, c.v.o., f.8.a., Ulster King-of-Arms, Hon, Secretary
44 Wellington -road, Dublin.
•
Vigors, Colonel P. D., HoUoden, Bagenalstown, Co. Carlow.
COUNTY KILDARE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 4IS
Wall, Gk>lonel J., Knockareagh, Grange Con, Co. Wioklow.
Wall, Mrs., Knockareagh, Grange Con, Ck). Wioklow.
Walsh, Rev. Martin, p.p., Castledermot, Co. Eildare.
WARMINQTON, ALFRED A., Hon. Auditor, Monster and Leinster Bank, Naas.
Weldon, General, Forenaughts, Naas.
Weldon, Captain Sir Anthony A., Bart., Kilmorony, Athy.
Weldon, Dowager Lady, Kilmorony, Athy.
White, W. Grove, 18 Upper Ormond-quay, Dublin.
Wilson, Colonel W. F., Sanningwell, Temple Gardens, Palmerston-road,
Dublin.
Wilson, Miss B. Dupr6, Coolcarrigan, Kilcook.
Wolfe, G^rge, Bishopsland, Ballympre-rEustace, Naas. .
WooUcombe, Robert L., lud., m.r.i.a., 14 Waterloo-road, Dublin.
*Wright, E. Percival, m.a., u.d., 5 Trinity College, Dublin.
4l6 PROCEEDINGS OF THE
The following Librariet and Societiet alto receive The Journal : —
The Editor, *' Ulster Journal of ArohaBology," Ardrie, Belfast
The Worcester Diocesan Architectural and Aroheological Society.
The Waterford and South-East of Ireland Archieologioal Society.
The Society of Antiquaries of London.
The Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire.
The Koyal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 6 St. Stephen*s-green, Dublin.
The Royal Irish Academy, 19 Dawson-street, Dublin.
The Library, Trinity College, Dublin.
The National Library of Ireland, Kildare-street, Dublin.
The Galway Archeological and Historical Society.
Le Biblioth6caire, Soci6t4 des Bollandlstes, 14 Bue des Ursulines, Bruxelles,
Belgium.
The British Museum, London.
The Advocates' Library, Edinburgh.
The Bodleian Library, Oxford.
The University Library, Cambridge.
COUNTY KILDARE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 417
RULES.
I. That this Society be called *' The Coanty Kildare Arohsologlcal Society."
XL That the purpose of the Society be the promotion of the study and
knowledge of the antiquities and objects of interest in the county and sur-
rounding districts.
in. That the Society consist of a President, Vice-President, Council,
Hon. Treasurer, two Hon. Secretaries, and Members. Ladies are eligible for
Membership.
IV. That the names of ladies and gentlemen desiring to become Members
of the Society shall be submitted, together with the names of their proposers
and seconders, to the Council, and, if approved by them, shall then be sub-
mitted to the next Meeting of the Society for Election.
V. That the affairs of the Society be managed by the President, Vice-
President, Hon. Treasurer, and Hon. Secretaries, together with a Council of
seven Members. That for ordinary business two shall form a quorum ; but any
matter upon which a difference of opinion arises shall be reserved for another
meeting, in which three shall form a quorum.
VI. That two Members of the Council shall retire by rotation each year,
but shall be eligible for re-election.
VII. That Members pay an Annual Subscription of Ten Shillings (due
on the Ist of January), and that the payment of £5 shall constitute a Life
Member.
Vni. That Meetings of the Society be held not less than twice in each
year, one Meeting being an excursion to some place of archieological interest
in the district.
IX. That at the first Meeting of the Society in each year the Hon. Trea-
surer shall furnish a balance-sheet.
X. That a Journal of the Society be published annually, containing the
Proceedings and a column for local Notes and Queries, which shall be sub-
mitted to the Council for their approval.
XL That the Meetings of the year be fixed by the Council, due notice of
the dates of the Meetings being given to Members.
XII. That Members be at liberty to introduce visitors at the Meetings of
the Society.
XIU. That no Member shall receive The Joubnal whose Subscription for
the previous year has not been paid.
LeTTICE, BlHONES
C 419 )
LETTICE, BARONESS OF OFFAL Y, AND THE
SIEGE OF HER CASTLE OF GEASHILL, 1642.^
By lord FREDERICK FITZGERALD.
[Read at the January Meeting, 1902.]
MOST of the following acoonnt has been taken from the
" Earls of Kildare/' a History of the FitzGeralds, by
Charles William, 4th Duke of Leinster.
Gerald, Lord Offaly, was the eldest son of Gerald, 11th Earl
of Kildare. He died daring the lifetime of his father. He had
an only daughter, Lettioe, who married Sir Robert Digby, of
Coles Hill, Warwickshire. Lady Digby laid claim to the Barony
of 0£faly, and the estates of her grandfather, the 11th Earl, as
heir-general. This was decided against her, and, in order to
settle the differences, James I created her Baroness of Offaly for
life, and awarded her and her heirs the manor of Geashill and
the lands of the monastery of Killeigh, comprising the whole
Barony of Geashill in the King's County, under the Great Seal
of England, dated 11th July, 1619. Sir Robert Digby died
in 1618.
At the outbreak of the Rebellion of 1641 she was residing
at her Castle of Geashill, and was besieged there by the
0*Dempseys and others in 1642. The casUe was difficult of
access, being surrounded by bogs and woods.
Before making the assault^ Henry O'Dempsey, who was the
brother of Lord Clanmalier, and other leaders, sent her the
following summons : —
'* Honourable,
** We, His Maiesty^s loyal subjects, at the present employed in his
Highness' service for the sacking of this your castle, you are therefore to
deliver unto us the free possession of the said castle, promise faithfully
that your ladyship together with the rest within your said castle 'resiant'
shall have a reasonable composition ; otherwise, upon the non-yielding
of the castle, we do assure you, that we will bum the whole town, kill
all the Protestants, and spare neither man, woman, nor child, upon the
taking of the castle by compulsion. Consider, Madam, of this our offer,
and impute not the blame of your own folly unto us. Think not that we
brag. Your Ladyship, upon submission, shall have a safe convoy to
' The illustrations to this Paper have been presented to The Journal
by Lord Frederick FitsGerald .
a a
420 LETTICE, BARONESS OF OFFALY, AND THE
secure you from the hands of your enemies, and to lead you whither yon
please. A speedy reply is desired, with all expedition, and thus we
surcease.
*' (Signed) Henry Dempsie. Charles Dempsie.
Andrew FitzlPatrick. Conn Dempsie.
Phelim Dempsie. James McDonnell.
John Vicars.
**To the Honourable and thrice virtuous Lady, the Lady Digby,
these give.''
To this summons Lady Offaly returned the foUowiDg
answer : —
*' I received your letter, wherein you threaten to sack this my caatle,
by his Majesty's authority. I have ever been a loyal subject, and a good
neighbour among you, and therefore cannot but wonder at such an
assault. I thank you for your offer of a convoy, wherein I hold little
safety, and therefore my resolution is, that, being free from offending his
Majesty, or doing wrong to any of you, I will live and die innocently, and
will do the best to defend mv own, leaving the issue to God. And
though I have been and still am desirous to avoid the shedding of
Christian blood, yet, being provoked, your threats shall no wit
dismay me.
** (Signed) Lbtticb Offaly.
'* To my cousin Henry Dempsie, and the rest."
Not being able to take the castle by assault, they retired*
They then collected, it is said, 140 pots and pans, which an
Irishman from Athboy cast into a cannon, having smelted it
three times before he succeeded in bringing it to perfection.
After two months Lord Glanmalier brought this great gun to
Geashill, and then sent the following summons to Lady
Oflfaly :—
** Noble Madam,
*' It was never my intention to offer you any injury before you were
E leased to begin with me, for it is well known if I were so disposed, you
ad not been by this time at Geashill ; as I find you are not sensible of
the courtesies I always expressed unto you, since the beginning of this
commotion. However, I did not thirst after revenge, but out of my
loving and wonted respect still towards you, I am pleased and desirous
to give you fair quarter, if you please to accept thereof, both for yourself,
children, and grandchildren, and likewise for your goods. And I will
undertake to send a safe convoy with you and them, either to Dublin or
to any other of the next adjoinmg garrisons, either of which to be at your
own election. And if you be not pleased to accept of this offer, I hope
you will not impute the blame unto me, if you be not fairly dealt withal,
for I expect to have the command of your house, before I stir from
■ ^^m^
•^•^m
I.
■^^
:!LANMALIERR
Kf^dia or Giles. =
(?) Ellinor.
Ross McGeogbepT&n,
Bon of Conly McGeoghe-
gan, of MoycasheU Co. West-
meath.
SI. 10 Oct., 1680.
Peter Sarsfleld,
of Tally, Co. KUdare.
ob. ante 1661.
1 I
Luiie.
11 April,
1033.
(8)
Gerald " Oge " FitaGerald,
of Timoge, Queeu'8 Coanty.
Outlawed in 1611.
lary.
SIEGE OF HEK CASTLE OF GEASHILL, 1642. 42 1
hence. And if you please to send any of your gentlemen of your house
to me, I am desirous to confer thereof at large. And so expecting your
speedy answer, I rest your loving cousin,
"(Signed) Lewis Glanmalbboe.
' ' P.S. — Madam, There are other gentlemen now in this town whose
names are hereunto subscribed, who do join and unite themselves in this
mine offer unto you.
(Signed) '^ Lewis Glanmaleroe. Art 0*Molloy.
Henry Dempsie. Edward Connor.
Charles Connor. Daniel Doyle."
John M*Wmiam.
To this letter she sent the following answer : —
" My Lord,
''I little expected such a salute from a kinsman, whom I have ever
respected, you oeing not ignorant of the great damages I have received
from your followers of Glanmaleroe, so as you can't but know in your
own conscience, that I am innocent of doing you any injury, unless you
count it an injury for my people to bring back a small quantity of mv
own goods, when they found tnem, and with them some others of such
men, as have done me all the injury they can devise, as may appear by
their own letter. I was offered a convoy by those that formerly besieged
me, and I hope you have more honour than to follow their example, by
seeking her ruin, who never wronged you. However I am still of the
same mind, and can think no place safer than my own house, wherein if
I perish by your means, the guilt will light on you, and I doubt not, but
I shall receive a crown of martyrdom, dying innocently. God, I trust, will
take a poor widow into his protection from all those which without cause
are risen up against me.
** Your poor kinswoman,
''(Signed) Lettick Offaly.
"P.S. —If the conference you desire do but concern the contents of
this letter, I think this answer will give you full satisfaction, and I hope
you will withdraw your hand, and show your power in more noble
actions."
On receiving this answer. Lord Clanmalier discharged the
cannon against the castle ; but at the first shot it burst. His
men, however, continued the attack with their mnskets until
evening. As the Baroness was looking out of a window, a shot
happened tp strike the wall beside her. She immediately wiped
the spot with her handkerchief, showing bow little she cared for
the attempts of the assailants. As soon as it was dark the
besiegers retreated^ carrying off the burst gun,
422 LETTICE, BARONESS OF OFFALY, AND THE
Before bis departure, Lord Clanmalier wrote the foUowiDg
letter : —
" Madam,
'* I received your letter, and am still tender of your good and welfare,
though you give no credit thereunto. And whereas, you do understand
by relation, that my piece of ordnance did not prosper ; I believe you
will be sensible of the loss and hazard you are likely to sustain thereby,
unless you will be better advised to accept the kind offer which I men-
tioned in my last letter unto you in the morning ; if not, expect no
further favour at my hands, and so I rest your Ladyship*s loving cousin,
'* (Signed) Lewis Glanmalesoe.
'*To my noble cousin the Lady Lettice,
** Baroness of Offaly."
To this letter she returned answer by one of her men, who
was kept as a prisoner by the enemy : —
** My Lord,
*^ Your second summons I have received, and shall be glad to find you
tender of my good. For the piece of ordnance, I never disputed how it
prospered, presuming you would rather make use of it for your own
defence or against enemies, than to try your strength against a poor
widow of your own blood. But since you have bent it against me, let
the blood which shall be shed, be required at their hands that seek it
For my part, my conscience tells me that I am innocent ; and wishing
you so too, I rest your cousin,
"(Signed) Lettice Opfaly."
When threatened with this second attack, she wrote to the
Earl of Ormonde as follows, on the 19th January, 1641-2 : —
** My very good Lo.
** In my extremity I have formerly made known to your Lordship by
my leters the miserable condition, wherein I then was, being besieged by
the Dempsis 16 days togeather, so as if God of his mercy Imd not sent a
great glut of rayn we had perished for want of water, at which time they
sent me this leter, the copy whereof I send your lordship hearwith,
wherby you may see ther insolency and blody resolution which heatherto
only God hath prevented (they hav taken all my sheep cateU and horses
and set fier of all my winter provision for fiering) and now I remayn as a
prisner within thes walles which they threten to bater about my ears, all
which extremitys God willing I am resolved to sufer rather than to fall
into ther hands that have no sence ether of honner or honesty. Hoping
you Lo, and the Lord Justices (to whom I have writen severall times but
I fear my leters have bin intersepted) will be pleased to take into your
noble considerations my miserable estate, and to send relief in time (for to
whom should I make my complaynt if not to your Lordship whos^ inat^
SIEGE OF HER CASTLE OF GEASHILL, 1642. 423
noblenea I know oannot but pity a, lady in diatroa, and in charity send
releef to a poor widow eapetiaUy hnveing forces at your ooinmand) which
makes me implore your ayd, pardon uiy importunity which is enforced by
the necenaity of
"MyLo.
" Your Lo^ affectionat and humble aervant
(Signed) "Lbticb Off*ly.
" Goashill this 10 of January 1B41
" For the Earla of Ormond
" My yerie good Lord these
" humbly."
LeTTICE, BiROMBSS 0? OrriLI.
(FTom a Miuiature M CarUin.)
At this time Sidney, Viscount Lisle, LienL-General of the
Horse in Ireland, and son of the Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of
Leicester, landed in Ireland, and, hearing that Lady Offaly was
besieged undertook to relieve her. He was accompftnied by
Sir Charles Coole, with 120 foot and 300 horse. He accom-
plished the relief without much difficulty, the enemy not danug
to oppose his approach in force, and only Bkirmiahmg from the
bocs as they adyanced. The Castle being supplied with provi-
- „ A -itTnn r.a/lv OFTniv chose to remain in it. Beins.
DOCS as mev aaYBnucu. -i"° v-»^..- r. — rr_- . - r .
sions and ammunition, Lady Offaiy choae to remain in it. Bemg,
however further menaced by Charles 0 Dempaey, she was relieved
bv Sir Richard GreenviUe in October, 1642 ; after which she
retired to England to Coles HiU, where she died on 1st December,
Bntke, in his " Dormant and Extinct Peerage," states that
424 LETTICE, BARONESS OF OFFAL Y.
Lewis 0*Demp867 ^^^ ^^^ Viscount Clanmalier; his mother
was of the house of FitzGerald of Lackagh, of whioh there is an
account in Vol. i of our Journal. This Lord Clanmalier was
attainted for the part he took in the Rebellion of 1641, and his
son Maximilian became the 8rd and last Viscount; and there
being no issue, the title became extinct
Burke adds: — " Dr. O'Donovan ('Annals of the Four Masters')
states that the O'Dempseys have fsillen altogether from their
high estate, and can now only be traced among the fanners and
peasantry of L*eland.*' A portion of the old Castle of Geashill
still exists.
Lord Walter FitzGerald, in his Paper in Vol. i of Thb
Journal, on '' The Ancient Territories out of which the present
County Eildare was formed,*' under the title of Offaly, states
that it comprises the present Baronies of East and West Offaly,
in the County Eildare ; those of Upper and Lower Philipstown,
Geashill, Warrenstown, and Goolestown, in the King's County ;
Portnahinch and Tinnahinch, in the Queen's County.
This territory belonged to the O'Gonors Faly (so called to
distinguish them from the O'Conors of Gonnaught). The
portion now East and West Offaly was taken from them soon
after the Norman invasion by t^e FitzGeralds.
The O'Conors remained in great strength on their portion
until the reign of Philip and Mary, when they were dispossessed,
and the O'Dempseys (a sub-tribe of the O'Conors) became the
more powerful, and remained so until the Revolution of 1688.
In the ancient " Ui Failghe " one of the sub-districts was
Clann Maolughra, or Clanmaliere, the O'Dempsey territory,
from which they took the titte of Viscount. The sub-district
extended on both sides of the River Barrow, and comprised the
present Barony of Upper Philipstown, in the King's County,
and that of Portnahinch, in the Queen's County.
NoTB. — Richard S. Reeves, of Rosedale, Shankill, County
Dublin, informed me that his family is descended in the female
line from Sir Terence O'Dempsey, 1st Viscount Clanmalier, whose
eldest son. Colonel Owen O'Dempsey, married Mary Nugent,
daughter of Lord Delvin. Their daughter Elinor married
Robert Reeves, the ancestor of fiichard S. Reeves. This marriage
is mentioned in Burke's '^ Dormant and Extinct Peerage," and
Burke's " Landed Gentry." R S. Reeves has a fine Pedigree
showing the descent of the chiefs of the O'Dempseys, until the
line bcKDame extinct
C 425 )
THE FITZGERALDS OF BALLYSHANNON
{CO. KILDARE), AND THEIR SUCCESSORS
THERE A T.
By lord WALTER FITZGERALD.
[Read at Naas, on the 24th January, 1900.]
BALLYSHANNON lies five miles to the south-east of the
Town of Kildare, in the Barony of West 0£faly.
The original form of the name, as given in '^ The Annals of
the Four Masters/' was '^ Bel-atha-Seanaigh/' meaning '^ the
moath of Shannagh's^ ford'' (Joyce). A far more ancient name of
the place was Ocha orUcha (O'Donovan). Until quite recent times
the name was written '' Ballysonan/' The County Donegal, too,
can boast of a Ballyshannon, in which lay a fort of great strategic
importance in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and which
largely figures in the wars of those times.
The earliest mention of our Ballyshannon is given in '^ The
Annals of the Four Masters " thus : —
*^ The age of the World 3579 (= b.c. 1621). Conmael, son of Emer,
having been thirty years in the Sovereignty of Ireland, fell in the battle
of Emania (now the Navan fort near Armagh) ; by him was fought the
battle of Ucha."
The only other mention of the place in the Annals is in
A.D. 7S8 ; it reads as follows : —
*'The age of Christ 733. The fourth year of Aedh Allan,' son of
Fearghal, son of Maelduin, in the Sovereignty of Ireland. Aedh Allan,
Kinff of Ireland, assembled the forces of the Leath Chuinn (i.e., the
northern half of Ireland) to proceed into Leinster, and he arrived at
Ath-Seanaith.' The Leinstermen collected the greatest number they
were able, to defend their risht against him. A fierce battle was fought
between them. The King, Aedh Allan himself, went into the battle ;
and bloodily and heroically was the battle fousht between them both.
Heroes were slaughtered, and bodies were mutilated. Aedh Allan and
Aedh, son of Colgan, King of Leinster, met each other in single combat;
and Aedh, son of Colgan, was slain by Aedh Allan. The Leinstermen
were killed, slaughtered, cut off, and dreadfully exterminated in this
battle, so that there escaped of them but a small remnant and a few
'A man's name.
'Pronounced "Ay" and Anglicised to "Hugh.** He was slain in
battle near Kells, in the County Meath, in 738.
' AlvM Bally atha Seanaigh, Ballyshannon, Co. Kildare.
426 FITZGERALDS OF BALLYSHANNON (KILDARE),
fugitives. The following were the leaders and chieftains of the Leinster-
men who fell, namely : Aedh, son of Colgan, King of Ui-Ceinnsealaigh ; '
Bran Bog, son of Morchadh, the second f ing who was over the Leinster-
men ; Feaighus, son of Maenach, and Dubhdacrich, two lords of Fotharta ;*
the son of Ua Ceallaigh ; the son of Train ; Fiangalach Ua Maeleaith-gin ;
Conall Ua Aithechdai ; the four sons of Flann Ua Gonehaile ; Eladhach
Ua Maeluidhir;' and many others, whom it would be tedious to
enumerate."
" The people of Leath-Chuinn were joyous after this victozy, for they
had wreaked their vengeance and their animosity on the Leinstermen.
Nine thousand was the number of them that were slain, as is said in these
verses : —
** From the battle of Uchbadh the Great, in which a havoc of the Fir Feine
[i.e., the farmers] was made,
There is not known on the fair sandy soil the posterity of any Leinster-
man in Ireland.
Nine thousand there fell in the battle of Uchbhadh with vehemence.
Of the Army of Leinster, sharp wounding, great carnage of the Fir-
Feini.
Aedh Allan sang : —
The Aedh in the clay, the King in the churchyard.
The beloved pure dove, with Ciaran at Cluain.^
Samhthann^ sang— before the battle: —
If the two Aedhs meet, it will be very difficult to separate them,
To me it will be grievous if Aedh, son of Colgan, fall by Aedh, son of
Fearghal.**
From this time till long after the Anglo-Norman invasion of
Ireland^ no farther mention of Ballyshannon occurs in the Annals
or Histories of this country.
At what period it came into the possession of the Earls of
Eildare is not known ; but it belonged to them at any rate in the
latter half of the fourteenth century, as is proved by a copy of a
grant in a manuscript volume at Carton called ''Leinster Papers^"
wherein it is stated that John Route, priest, handed over to
Gerald fitzMaurice FitzGerald, 6th Eari of Eildare, all the
^ A territory formerly comprising the Co. Wexford and portions of the
Counties Carlow and Wicklow.
' The two Fotharta were at this period Fotharta-Ua-Nuallain (or Forth
O'Nolan), in the Co. Carlow ; and Fotharta-an-chaim, now the Barony of
Forth, in the County Wexford.
* Ua Maeluidhir, i.e., O'Moyleer, was probably the chief of Sil
Maeluidhir, now the Barony of Shelmalier, in the County Wexford.
* St. Kieran was the Patron Saint of Clonmacnoise ; his festival is on
the 9th of September.
'She was the Virgin- Saint of Clonbroney, Co. Longford, and died
on the 19th of December, 739.
I.
^ FITZG.J
Continned from
Sir GeraUl mac Shaim FitzG«rald, Knt.,
of Cloncnrry, Blackwood, and Ballyshannon^
on Pedifinree I.
James PitzCeraid, =
of Ballyshannon and
Blaokwood.
'Died between 1661 & 1668.
raid,
Idare.
.427.
= M4
I. Genet Plnnket,
d. of Robert, 6th Baron
of Dunsany.
2. Catherine Eufitace,
d. of Thomas, 1st Viscount
Baltinglass.
Sbann ]
of Laragh,
i
I
Sir Pierce PltzCerald, Knt.,
of Ballyshannon and Blackwood.
Slain in Aidreigh Oastle,
17th March, 1688.
Ellinor FitzGerald,
d, of Sir Maurice FitzGerald, Knt.
(ob. 1676), of Laokagh,
Go. Kildare.
Slain at Ardreigh Castle,
17th March, 1603.
James FitzGer
Sir James PltzCerald, Knt.,
of Ballyshannon and Blaokwood.
ob. Mth April, 1637, rot 74.
Burd. at Ballyshannon.
= Ellinor Luttrell,
d. of Thomas Luttrell
of Luttrellstown,
Co. Dublin.
Garrett PltzCerald =
ob. ▼. p.
ante 1627.
k.
d. (
ofDri
SOD of I
of
Col. Pierce PitzGer
of Ballyshannon ;
also called '^ Mac Thon
Outlawed in 1641.
Burd. in
iiiiiii
Cathenne =
Richard Butler,
of Ballyoile
EUen
EUioe
I
James Wogan,
of Raihcoffey,
Go. Kildare.
Toite.
Grany =: John Uussey,
of Inch.
tierine O'Dtinne,
ige**oge" O'Dunne,
^gan, Queen's Co.,
3f of hJs Nation.
Garrett.
Rose = Sir William Bermingham,
I of DuDfierth, Go. Kildare.
Ob. ante 1546. f 1st Baron of Garbury.
Ob. 17th July, 1548.
I
EUinor
s Bamaby Sherlock.
Anne
= Murrongh O'Melaghlin.
AND THEIR SUCCESSORS THEREAT. 427
towns, lands, and tenements, &c., in BaUysonan, Miltown, Danene,
Grages, and Walterston. This grant is dated the 31st March, 1395.
These lands at that time were probably held in tmst by Father
Ronte for the Earl.
On the 24th June, 1428, Thomas, Bishop of Ossory and
Treasurer of Ireland, was ordered by the King to appoint
John Drew and John Crone receivers over Ballysonane, which
was then in the King's hands, owing to the debts of Gerald, the
5th Earl, deceased.^
Amongst the Exchequer Rolls* is a grant of Ballyshannon in
1498 by Gerald, 8th Earl of Kildare, to Gerald fitzJohn fitzWilliam
fitzThomas FitzGerald (which last-named Thomas I believe to
have been a son of Thomas, a younger son of Maurice, 4th Earl of
Kildare), in whose family it remained till forfeited by Colonel
Peirce FitzGerald (also called *' MacThomas " in contemporary
Histories), who joined the Confederates in the Bebellion of 1641.
Sir Gerald fitzJohn FitzGerald, Knt, to whom Ballyshannon
was granted in 1498, had four years previously obtained a lease
of three messuages and 180 acres in Croboy, County Meath, from
Christopher Linch of the Knock' (now Summer-hill, Co. Meath).
He succeeded his father at Cloncurry, in the County Kildare.
To distinguish him from other Geraldines with the same Christian
name, he is styled in various documents as — " Gerald Gerott,
Shane ys sonne," " Sir Gerald Shaneson,*' or " Sir Gerald
macShane, K\/* and '* Sir Gerald macShaun FitzGerald, K^, of
Cloncurry."
In 1532 a pardon for intinision was, on the 10th of November,
granted to him, wherein he is called "Sir Gerald fitzJohn,
otherwise McShane, of the Geraldines of Cloncurry.*' His wife
Margaret is included in the pardon, because, after the death of
her husband, Simon Petit, the King's tenant of MuUingar and
Irishtown, she married Edmund Tuite, tenant of the King's
manor of Molenly, and after his death she married a third time
with the said Sir Gerald fitzJohn, not having obtained the neces-
sary licence from the Crown.^ Sir Gerald appears to have been
twice previously married : — First, to Grania, daughter of Garrett
Kavanagh, of Garryhill, Co. Carlow ; second, to Catherine,
daughter of Oliver Plunket, of Ballylogher, Co. Meath.
His death took place in either 1533 or 1534, and, among a
' P. 264 b, '*Cal. Caiic. Rot Hib."
« ** Index of Ex. Rolls, Record Office, Dublin."
' Co. Dublin Ex. Inqn.
^ Morrin's ** Calendar of Close Rolls," vol. i, p. 4.
428 FITZGERALDS OF BALLYSHANNON (KILDARE),
numerous issue, he had a son James FitzGerald who succeeded
him at Ballyshannon.
The first mention of this James FitzGerald that I have
come across is in 1584. In that year Dayid Sutton, of Conall
and of Castletown-Eildroght (Celbridge), brought charges against
Oerald 9th Earl of Eildare of misgovemment while Lord Depaty
of Ireland. One complaint was that he did not punish his
kinsmen —
*' James FitzGerald, of Ballysonnan, and his brother, who are gpreat
suocourers of the thieves of Leix [i.e., the O'Mores], and his brother Piers,
who leadeth them through the country to steal ; and the theft to be taken
the first night to the E^ackwood, and in the second night to Ballysonnan,
and the third night to Leze (? Lea Castle, in the Queen's County), and so
from place to plfM3e of their own.** '
In 1688 he, together with Peter or Pierce FitzGerald, late
of the Great Grrange by Gloncurry ; Maurice '* baccagh " (i.e.,
the lame) FitzGerald ; and Edmond Asbold of Maynooth, servant
of Lord Leonard Gray, were all indicted for instigating Eedagh
O'More, of Stradbally, Shaun McGoyn, of Eildare, and Neal
O'Lalor, of Dysart, Gent., to steal cows and horses from the Earl
of Ormond and Alexander fitzTurlough, of the Great Grange.'
In the list of those who were examined and gave evidence
in 1540 against Lord Leonard Grey, late Lord Deputy of Ireland,
appears the name of James FitzGerald of Ballisonan.'
In 1549 his name, together with '^Oliver fitzPiers, of Ballisonan,
Richard oge fitzRichanl [? FitzGerald], of Gurduffe,*' County
Eildare, are included in a pardon ; but what their crime was is
not stated.^
In 1557 and 1560 he was commissioned to the Peace ; and
in 1561 Sir Roland Eustace, Viscount of Baltinglass ; Alexander
Graik, Bishop of Eildare ; Sir John Alen, Ent., of Alen's Court
(St. Wolstan's) ; Sir Francis Harbert, of Ballincutland (Coghlans-
town), Ent.; Francis Cosby, Sheriff of the County ; Sir Maurice
FitzGerald, Ent., of Lackagh ; Henry CoUey, of Castle Carbury ;
Nicholas Wogan, of Rathcoffy ; Thomas Alen,of Eilheele (Eilteel);
and James FitzGerald, of Ballisonan, Esquires, were Commis-
sioned to be Justices of the Peace for the County Eildare, during
the absence of the Lord Deputy in the North, against Shawn
* P. 166 of the 1870 Annuazy of the Royal Society of Antiquaries,
Ireland.
' HamQton*8 '* Calendar of State Papers.^*
■Brewer's ** Calendar of Carew ManuscriptB," p. 171.
^Morrin's <* Calendar of Patent Rolls,*' vol. i, p. 174.
AND THEIR SUCCESSORS THEREAT. 429
O'Neill. Their duties were to take masters and arrays of the
inhabitants, to cess them for the defence of the country, to punish
the law-breakers with fines and imprisonments, to treat with
enemies and rebels, and to make terms with them which would
be effective during the continuance of the Commission, which
itself would terminate on the return of the Lord Deputy/
As this is the latest mention made of James FitzGerald, his
death may have taken place about this time. According to
Archdall's Lodge, he was twice married: — first, to Genet Plunket,
daughter of Robert, 6th Baron of Dnnsany ; ^ secondly, to Cathe-
rine Eustace, daughter of Thomas, 1st Viscount of Baltinglass.'
His eldest son was Sir Pierce FitzGerald, Knt., of Bally-
shannon and Blackwood (near Downings, Co. Eildare).
Sir Pierce was High Sheriff of the County Eildare in the
years 1578, 1674, 1678, and 1681. In 1668 and 1670 he was
pardoned for offences which are not given ; in the former he is
styled Piers fitz James of Ballisonane, ^ent., and in the latter as
of Grangemellon (near Athy). Further pardons of him appear in
the years 1674, 1676, 1678, and 1691.^ Pardons in these times
were generally bought from the Crown ; the most common crimes
were rebellion, .intercourse with the Irish, alienations of land,
marrying an heiress or widow without sanction from the
Crown, &c., &c.
In 1671 Gerald, Earl of Eildare, and Sir Pierce had Commis-
sions to execute martial law in the county, with power to search
out all disorders committed in it, and on finding any persons to
be rebels, felons, enemies, or notorious evil-doers, to punish them
with death or otherwise. In the same category were included
harpers, rhymers, bards, idlemen or '' stokers,'' vagabonds, and
such horse-boys as had not their master's bill to show whose men
they were.*
Further Commissions to him either to execute martial law,
or to array and muster the inhabitants of the county, were issued
in 1676, 1681, 1683, and 1684.
In addition to his manors of Bally shannon, Blackwood,
Nicholastown, &c., he was in 1686 granted a lease for twenty-one
years of several plough-lands called martelands (containing each
forty acres arable and eighteen acres pasture, wood, and moun-
tain), in districts called Farran O'Neill and Leverocke, in the
County Garlow, which formerly belonged to Murrough mac Cahir
' The Fiants of Elizabeth, No. 381.
' Arohdall, vol. vi, p. 203. ' Ih.
* The FiantB of Elizabeth. * lb.
430 FITZGERALDS OF BALLYSHANNON (KILDARE),
Kavanagh, of TinDahinch^ attainted ; the proyiso being that Sir
Pierce should not alien to any except of English parents ; that he
should not levy taxes called Coyne and Livery; and that he would
maintain two English horsemen.^
Shortly before this period he either built or restored the
Castle of Blackwood, the ruins of which now stand on the
northern bank of the Grand Canal two miles due west of the town
of Prosperous. This ruin is at present a low, square block
(with rounded corners), in which can be traced the remains of
its vaulted first floor, a few arrow-slits, and breaches in the
walls, which were formerly the larger windows ; but the whole
place is in a very dilapidated condition.
The original entrance was in the western wall. It is now hid-
den under a shed attached to that side of the Castle. Portions of
its cut stone- work still remain, showing that it had a pointed arch.
Inserted in the wall over this doorway is a small oblong slab,
measuring about 2| feet in height, by 2 feet in breadth. On
the upper portion of this slab is an incised inscription of five
lines, in small rude capitals, while below it is a plain shield in
relief, bearing the FitzGerald arms : — Argent, a saltire gules.
The inscription runs : —
THIS : CASTLE = WAS : MADE ' BY
PYERS : FITZGERALD - DF
8DNAN : AND - ELINDR
GERALD : HIS = WIFE
BALY
FITZ
THE
DF : AVGVST : 1584
The above-named Elinor was the daughter of the Sir Maurice
FitzGerald, Ent., of Lackagh, whose efiQgy lies in St Brigid's
Cathedral, Eildare.
Sir Pierce, by acting strenuously in the service of the Govern-
ment, in his capacity as a commander of a troop of horse in
Leinster, made himself greatly disliked. He on one occasion,
when serving against the famous rebel Feagh mac Hugh O'Byme,
of Ballinacor, in Banelagh, County Wicklow, was taken prisoner
by him, and detained until a substantial ransom was forthcoming.
Even against his own sept, probably in the execution of his
duty as Sheriff, he acted equally sternly, as by his energy a
noted outlaw named Walter " reagh " (i.e., the swarthy) Fitz-
Gerald was forced to leave his native County of Eildare, and
Elizabeth Fiant No. 4918.
AND THEIR SUCCESSORS THEREAT. 43 1
take refuge in the mountains of Wicklow. This Walter '^reagh "
was one of the sons of Maurice FitzGerald, of Glassealy, near
Narraghmore, and grandson of Walter, one of the uncles of the
Silken Thomas, after whom he was christened. As will he shown
later on, Walter ** reagh " took a terrible revenge on Sir Pierce
for his treatment at his hands ; this was foretold ten years
before it took place by Sir Henry Wallop, Treasurer at Wars, in
a letter to the Secretary of State, wherein, after describing Sir
Pierce's good services to the Government, he adds that ''he
will be killed by the Geraldines whensoever he is without
horsemen." ^
On Si Patrick's Day, 1693, the blow feU. Sir Pierce, his
wife, Elinor, and two daughters, Anne and Catherine, were at
this time residing in one of his castles on his manor of
Nicholastown, called Ardreigh, which lies a mile to the south of
Athy. This castle is not now in existence; but it is described as
then being " a little castle that was but thatched with straw or
sedge."* Walter " reagh," on this 17th of March, accompanied
by his two brothers-in-law, Felim and Redmond, sons of Feagh
mac Hugh 0*Byme (whose daughter, Margery, he had married),
with their followers, made an attack on the castle, and succeeded
in setting it on fire, and, temble to relate, its inmates, men and
women, sJl perished in the flames. One can only hope that such
a fearful death to his foe, and his wife and daughters, was due to
the inability of the attacking party to rescue them in time.
Besides his eldest son, James, a daughter named Elizabeth,
appears to have escaped the fate of their parents and sisters, as
in a note under the year 144S, O'Donovan gives a pedigree of
the O'Doynes, or O'Dunnes, Chiefs of I Began, in the Queen's
County, in which he states that Teige mac Teige O'Doyne
married Elizabeth, daughter of Piers FitzGerald, of the County
Eildare, by whom he had four sons and four daughters' (one of
the latter married James FitzGerald, of Eilrush, County Eildare,
who died in 1602 ; while their eldest son, also named Teige,
married as his second wife a daughter of Redmond ''oge"
FitzGerald of Timahoe, County Eildare, who died in 1580).
At the time of his death Sir Pierce was in possession of the
following lands :* —
The Manor of Ballyshannon ; consisting of two
castles, twenty messuageg, a mill, and 800 acres in
' HAmilton'fl " Calendar of State Papers" (1574-1686), p. 424.
* Gilbert's '* History of the Confederation," vol. i, p. 205.
» Vide vol. iv^. 959.
* Vide " Co. Kildare Chanc. Inquis.," Nos. 1 and 69 of Charles I,
432 FITZGERALDS OF BALLYSHANNON (KILDARE),
Ballyshannon : the lands of ShannistowD, alias Thomas-
town; ten acres in Tippeenan; and fifteen acres in
Mullaghmoyne.
The Manor of Nicholastowv} (near Athy); containing
the lands of Nicholastown, Bathdrne/ Brimoye, alias
Breagh (Bray), Grangemellon, and both the Ardrees
(Ardreigh).
Besides these two manors, he held the lands of Adamstown,
Gaydonstown, and Kilbride, Blackwood, Brocken, Courtdaffe
alias Gordaff, Wyesland, Eillnecallagh, GowUcargin alias Gool-
carrigan, and Eillcolman, all in the Gonnty Eildture.
Sir Pierce was sncceeded by his eldest son, Sir James
FitzGerald, Ent, who was thirty years of age, and married, at
the time of his father's death in 1598.
Sir James appears as High Sheriff of the Gonnty Eildare in
the years 1696, 1698, and 1606. In 1697, he was Sheriff of
Gatherlongh, or Garlow; and as such accompanied the Lord
Deputy, Sir William Russell, on his expedition against the
O'Byrnes of Banelagh, who were up in arms against the Govern-
ment under their famous chief, Feagh mac Hugh O'Byme.^
In a description of the state of Ireland at the arrival of the
Earl of Essex, in April, 1699, in which an account of the Irish
forces then in rebellion is given, we read that : —
'* In the County Kildare, James iitz Peirs, a Qeraldine, Sheriff of the
Shire ; bastard Geraldines, being two base brothers of the [12th] Earl of
Kildare ; one of the Delahides ; the O'Dempsys ; and certain of the
Eustaces, kinsmen of the late Viscount Baltinglass, attainted ; numbering
230 foot-soldiers and 20 horse, are rebels."^
The two bastard Geraldines above mentioned were Gerald
FitzGerald, of Timogue and Morett, in the Queen's County, and
his brother, Edward. They were the natural sons of Gerald,
the 11th Earl of Eildare.
According to a portion of a manuscript History of this
period :^ —
'* James fitz Piers, of the County of Kildare, was the son of an honest
gentleman and true servitor of Her Majesty — Sir Piers fitz James
> Called in Archbishop Alen's '' Repertorium Viride" *' villa Nicholai
Wallen,"
* Rathdrue is not now the name of a townland, as it is incorporated
in the large townland of Irishtown ; a portion of the Bath from which
the name was taken is still so called, as a field name.
» Brewer's *' Calendar of Carew MSS.," pp. 257, 258. *Ib,, p. 2»8.
*May, 1599, p. 62 of Atkinson's ''Calendar of State Papers of
Ireland," 1699-1600, ^
AND THEIR SUCCESSORS THEREAT. 433
(FitsBGemld), having his father with his whole family burned to ashes by
W^ter ' reogh ' (FitzGerald) and his rebellious associates, who, wanting
grace, and forgetting his father's injuir, and villan^ of traitors, went into
open action, and be<^une a malicious rebel. Immediately after the burning
of his father, he went into England, and delivered his grief and great
losses. Her Majesty, according to her wonted clemency, graced him in
divers ways, and gave him ten horses in pay. After his return, he
behaved himself civilly, and was made Sheriff of that county, kept much
company with Captain Thomas Lee, who was a great favourer of the
Earl of Tyrone (O'Neill), and then in question and disgrace therefore ;
and as it may be gathered, infected with that company, underhand this
James practised a long time with the Earl of Tyrone, but at length
broke out, and his practices were revealed to the Lord Justices. Captain
Lee and he making merry together, said Lee, * James, thou and I will be
shortly MacRustclyns (that is to say, Robin Hoods), for we can get
nothing as we are. These words were brought to the Lord Justices, so
that they were both sent for by a pursuivant. Lee appeared, was
charged with treason, and was committed to the Castle ; but James
would not show himself. He practised to betray the Fort of Leix (i.e.,
Maryborough), but failed of his purpose. He made claim to the
Lordship of Cloncurry, which was the jointure of the Lady Baltinglass,'
and, because he could not prevail, he practised with the ward there to
betray the same, and so it came to pass. He complained unjustly, as
traitors did, of the Earl of Ormonae, Lord Lieutenant-General ; the
which compliunt Sir Garrett Aylmer (in the absence of the Earl)
answered, and satisfied the Lords Justices, delivering upon his credit
and certain knowledge, that the Earl did him no wrong, and that he
was void of any gall towards him. James FitzPiers feared the Lord
Archbishop of Dublin, for that he in England was examined whether the
said Bishop had kept prisoner Rose O'Toole, wife to Feagh Mac Hugh
(O'Byme), as malefactors fearing everybody, and dare not trust them-
selves. After many mischiefs by him done, when both the Earls of
Essex and Ormonde met at Athy, the 12th May anno 1599, with their
forces, to pass into Leix for the victualling of the new fort (i.e., Mary-
borough), he pulled down the bridge of Athy upon the river of the
Barrow, manned the Castle at the bridge foot, and trenched the fords on
the river side, to hinder the passage of the horsemen. But when there
was a passage found, and horsemen conveyed over to compass the town,
the ward ran away, and he, seeing himself in distress, came to the Earl
of Essex upon his knees, and desired mercy, and so he was received into
favour."
Thus on the 14th of August, 1600, we again find Sir James
FitzGerald serving the Government, as he, together with Sir
Henry Talbot, with 400 men, were at this time ordered by
the Lord Deputy to proceed again into Leix to harass Owny
mac Bory O'More.^
' She was Mary, daughter of Sir Henry Travers, of Monkstown,
Co. Dublin ; she married : —first, James Eustace, Viscount of Baltinglass,
whu died on the 25th November, 1585 ; secondly. Sir Gerald Aylmer,
Bart., of Donadea, who died on the 19th August, 1634. Her own death
occurred on the 28th of November, 1610.
' Prewer's **Caleqdar of Carew MSS.," p. 431,
34 FITZGERALDS OF BALLYSHANNON (KILDARE),
On the 10th Mareh, 1609, the King instracted the Lord
Deputy and Lord Chancellor, at the suit of Sir James (and in
consideration of his faithful services in the late wars, the spoiling
of his lands, and also the murder of his father and mother by
the rebels), to accept surrender of his castle, house, and town of
Ballysonan, and to regrant the same, as well as Coshogoowllie/
for ever in fee-simple, to be holden of His Majesty's Castle of
Dublin in free and common soccage.^
In April of the same year Sir James was over in England,
endeavouring to obtain from the Lords of the Council an allot-
ment of the escheated lands in Ulster.' In July, being still in
England, and anxious to return to Ireland, he offered to convey
the treasure which was about to be sent over/
In 1616 Sir James set Gaydonstown for forty-four years to
Richard FitzGerald, of Booleybegg (a younger son of James
FitzGerald, of Eilrush, a branch of the Lackagh family) ; and in
1627 he set other portions of his property (to the use of himself
and his heir) to Walter FitzGerald of Walterstown, an offshoot
from the FitzGeralds of Timahoe, County Kildare.'^
Previous to the year 1628 Sir James endeavoured to obtain
some of the lands in the County Wicklow forfeited by the
O'Byrnes, of Banelagh. Felim, the son of Feagh mac Hugh
O'Byme (who was slain in Glenmalure in 1597), at this time a
close prisoner in Dublin Castle, petitioned the Government, on
behalf of himself and his five sons, for a regrant of their ancient
inheritance ; he, on being allowed an inquiry into his case,
proved that the Grand Jury of the County Wicklow, who
assembled in 1627, was carefully packed to deprive him and his
sons of their lives and estates, the Foreman on this occasion
being Sir James FitzGerald, of Ballyshannon, whose parents had
been slain by Felim's brothers. He also proved that persons had
been bribed, or tortured on the rack, to make them give false
evidence against him, while the lives of certain malefactors were
spared on condition of doing the same. On the 6th of December,
1628, one of the witnesses who gave evidence at the inquiry in
Felim's defence was William Eustace, of Castlemartin, who
*' Beinge duely sworne to sett down in writeing^under his hand what he
can say or hath heard or knowne concerning Fhelim mac Pheagh and
^ According to an Elizabethan Fiant, ** Cosogowlie" was in the County
Kiidare.
' Russell's *' Calendar of State Papers, Ireland,*' p. 162.
' lb., p. 198. * B., p. 239.
* ** Co. Kiidare Chancery Inquisitions," No. 69 of Charles J.
AND, THEIR SUCCESSORS THEREAT. 435
his sons now prisoners and others, doth declare his knowledge as
foUoweth :—
** First, I doe well remember and know that Sir Piers FitsGerrald of
Ballysonan in the County of Kildare, Knight^ was taken prisoner by
Pheagh mac Hugh Bime, father to this Phelim now prisoner, and some
of their followers killed of both sides, as also that he kept him prisoner
until such time as there was a cohsideracion given for his enlargement.
*' Secondly, I doe well remember and know that the said Pheagh
married one of his daughters to Walter reogh FitzGerrald, when he was
banished by the sayd Sir Piers's meanes out of the County of Kildare.
"Thirdly, I doe well remember and know for that banishment and
other occasions, that the said Walter reogh FitzGerrald, accompanied
with his brothers-in-lawe, this Phelim, now prisoner, and Redmond mac
Pheagh now ly ving, and divers others of theire adherents, went &fter to a
place in the County of Kildare called Ardrie, w^ere finding the sayd
Sir Piers FitzGerrald in a little castle that was but thatched with straw
or 8e<^e, sett fire to the same, and burned him, his wife, his daughters,
and others there.
" Fourthly, I doe well remember and know that after these occasions,
and after the death of the sayd Pheagh mac Hugh, that Sir James fitz
Piers FitzGerrald, now living, did goe into England to procure letters
for passing the sayd Phelim's lands of Ranelagh, or part thereof, as
alsoe that he did prosecute and endeavour all he could to passe the savd
lands according to the effect of his sayd letters untill he was crossed by
reason of a general instruocion sent soone after by the State of England,
after the last great rebellion, for setlins of divers of the Irish of the
province of Leinster, and this Phelim and his brother Redmond were by
speciall name inserted therein for their antient estate and lands.
*' Fifthly, I doe well remember and know after the settler^ont of the
said Phelim and his brother Redmond in theire owne r^^dsessions, it
happened, upon theire goeing homewards from Dublii' tliat they and
theire company mett with the aforesayd Sir James fit2 Piers FitzGerrald,
and others in his company, in the County of Wicklow, takeing away
certain stood mares by force from them or from some of theire fiends,
and then did take the sayd Sir James prisoner, and killed one of his
horsemen, and tooke him then home along to his house (O'Byme's) at
Ballynecorre.
'* Sixthly, I doe well remember and know that the sayd Sir James
his neere kinswoman, Mary Dempsey, was supposed to be prosecuted by
Phelim and his sons, and theire means, for her life ; which was ill taken
by the said Sir James and Sir Terence Dempsey, Elnight, father to the
said Mary.^
'* Seventhly, I doe well remember and know that now lately by reason
of the late plantacion there, Ballymoroghroe and other lands which the
sayd Sir James gott into his possession, being taken from him, that he
peticioned soone after to the Right Honorable the Lord Deputy for
' Sir Terence O'Dempsy, Ent., Ist Viscount Clanmalier, was married
to Mary, daughter of Sir loaurice FitzGerald, Ent., of Lackagh ; her sister
Ellinor was Sir James's mother ; so that Mary O'Dempsy was first cousin
to 9ir James,
H H
436 FITZQERALDS OF BALLYSHANNON (KILDARE),
recompdnce for the same of some other lands of the plantation there
in regard he had been one of the first that moved for a plantation in
Ranelagh.
'* Eighthly," 4fco., &a., &c.*
William Eustace's evidence continues for a considerable
lengthy but does not further touch upon the BallyshannoD
family.
Sir James inherited from his father some 120 acres at
Bathtrone, in the County Meath ; it passed into the possession
of the family in the following manner: — Rathtrone in the
sixteenth century belonged to James, Earl of Ormonde, by whom
it was granted to one Rory or Roderick O'Dogherty, who after-
wards sold it to Sir Pierce FitzGerald. Sir James^ without
obtaining the required permission from the Crown, on the
15th May, 1622, granted Rathtrone to one Walter FitzGerald,
of Castletown-Moylagh, in the County Meath, and to one
Teige O'Connor, of Ardenowe, in the same county, to the use of
James (? son of Walter) FitzGerald, of Castletown-Moylagh,
with remainder to the latter's son^ William fitz James Fitz-
Gerald.' For this alienation of land Sir James was pardoned in
1629/ In the following year he was again pardoned for an
alienation to his second son, Gerald/
In 1682, on the 10th of November, Sir James appointed
Walter Weldon, of St John's Boure, County Eildare, Gerald
Wall, of Prumplestown, same county, and Nicholas Wogan, of
Blackhall, also in the same county, as trustees over his Eildare
possessions, to the use of himself during his life, then to the nse
of his grandson and heir, Pierce and his heirs^ with remainder
to the following and their heirs : — namely^ his other grandson,
James, and his sons John, Edward, and Thomas/
In the original of the above Inquisition mention is made of
^^ Sisell fitz Gerrald " (wife of his eldest son, Garrett), who was
a widow anyhow in the year 1627, with three children. Pierce,
James, and a daughter mai'ried to Christopher Archbold of
Timolin ; she was the daughter of James FitzGerald (ob. 1618),
of Drinanstown, County Kildare, a branch of the Timahoe family.
Sir James died a widower on the 26th of April, 16879 aged
» Vide "The Case of the O'Bynies of the County of Wicklow,"
in voL i of Gilbert's '* History of the Confederation and War in Ireland,
1641-1643."
* ** County Meath Chanc. Inquisition," No. 44 of Charles I.
» Morrin's ** Calendar of Patent Rolls," vol. iii, p. 510.
* Ih., p. 549.
* '* Co. Kildare Chanc Inquis.," No, 69 of Charles I,
(i
I
I
AND THEIR SUCCESSORS THEREAT. 437
seventy-four years. His will^ is dated five days previously ; it
commences in the following manner : —
'* In nomine Dei, Amen. *
*'I S" James ffitzGbrald of Ballisonan, in the County of Kildare, K*
beinge weake and feeble in boddy yet sounde and perfect of mynde
and memorie, doe make this my last will and testament in manner and
forme following.
** Inprimis, I bequeath my soul to Almighty God my creator and
redeemer, and my boddy to be buried in the parish Churche of Bally -
sonan in the sepulcher of my ancestors.
*' Item, I will and bequeathe and leave unto my grandson Pierce ffitz
Gerald all my lands and inheritance within the Kyngdom of Irland, and
to the heires males of his body lawfully begotten or to be begotten,
reserving to those there joyntures and leases that may or doth appeare
by deed ; and for want of such heires males of the said Pierce" (<&c.).
His possessions are left in remainder to those mentioned in
the inquisition quoted above, and finally, for want of direct heirs,
to Sir Luke FitzGerald, Knight, of Ticroohan, County Meath,
and his heirs.
He leaves to his daughter, Catherine, £100, and ten cows
(five milch cows, and five dry cows) ; to his daughter, Margaret,
£80, and a like number of cows; to his daughter (?), Grany,
ten pounds of his ^' cattell ; *' and to his '' coosen," Bichard fitz
Oliver ffitz Gerald, £20 sterling.
He mentions, too, a lease of Ballimorchoroe, which he holds
from Lord £smonde.^
The following '^ Funeral Entry,*' copied from a volume in
Ulster's Office, refers to Sir James's death, and to some of the
members of his family : —
*' Sir James fitz Peirce,' of Ballysonan, in fche County of Kildare,
Knight,' did marry Eleanor, daughter of (Thomas) Luttrell of Luttrells-
towu in the County of Dublin, Esq'* by whome he had issue —
Qarrett fitz Peirce, who did marry Cicely daughter of James fitz
Redmond (FitzQerald) of Drynanstown in the County of
Kildare, Gent"-
Gerrald fitz Peirce, who did marry Margaret dai^hter of Edmond
Wellesley of the Norragh, in the County of Kildare, Esquire.
' Vide the Prerogative Wills in the Record Office, Dublin.
' Sir Laurence Esmonde served in Ireland under Elizabeth, and was
knighted by Sir Henry Sydney, the Viceroy. In 1622 he was raised to
the Peerage as Lord Esmonde, Baron of Limerick, County Wexford.
His death took place 1G46, and from him are descended the Esmondes
now of Ballynastra, County Wexford, Baronets of Ireland (Burke's
Extinct Peerage " ).
' It will be noticed that this Funeral Entry is in error in making the
name ** fitz Peirce " the surname ; and that it only gives the names of
Sir «]ram^*8 two eldest spns — i^n unusual proceeding.
438 FITZGERALDS OF BALLYSHANNON (KILDARE),
''The aforesaid Sir James fitz Feirce departed this mortalllife the
26'^ of Aprill, and is to be interred in the church of Ballysonan, the
26*^ of June 1637. The truth of the premises is testified by the subscrip-
tion of John FitzGarrett of MuUaghmoyny.*
Colonel Pierce FitzGerald succeeded to the Ballyshannon
property, owing to his father, Garrett fitz James, dying during
the lifetime of Sir James. He was brought up a staunch
Roman Catholic, though his grandfather had died a Protestant.
Early in life he adopted a soldier's profession, and both he and
his brother, James, saw active service in Flanders under Owen
roe O'Neill.
On the breaking out of the Rebellion of 1641, Pierce Fitz-
Gerald was appointed Commander of the Garrison at Castle-
dermott, by George, the 16th Earl of Eildare, Governor of the
County. For that purpose, he was furnished out of the royal
stores with arms and ammuniton for a hundred men. Having
procured a warrant from the Earl to the Rev. John Walsh, the
Vicar, to deliver the castle to him, he in December seized all
Mr. Walsh's property which was within or outside the castle,
and carrying it off as booty joined the army of the Catholic
Confederation at Kilkenny^ and entered heart and soul into the
Rebellion.
In the list of the names of the Confederates who signed and
took the oath,^ appear the following Leinster Geraldines : —
Edmund and Thomas FitzGerald, of Brownesford, County
Kilkenny.
Gerald FitzGerald, of Timoge and Morett in Queen's County.
Luke and Henry FitzGerald, of Ticroghan, County Meath.
Christopher FitzGerald, of Clonlunan, County Meath.
Maurice FitzGerald, of Allen.
Pierce FitzGerald, of Ballyshannon.
Besides Pierce FitzGerald (who appears to have assumed the
Irish patronymic of McThomas, and as such is described in con-
temporary documents), other noted leaders^ of the name were : —
Francis FitzGerald (son of Edward fitzJohn FitzGerald,
of Blackball, near Clane), '^ a Franciscan frier^ but noe
priest."
* He was also a son of Sir James's, and is mentioned in his will.
* Gilbert's ** History of the Confederation and War," vol. ii, p. 215.
' They are all mentioned in Gilbert's ** History of Affairs in Ireknd.
1941-1653," ^ '
AND THEIR SUCCESSORS THEREAT. 439
Lieut. -Col. FitzGerald, slain in the battle of Linch's
Knock/ County Meath, on the 8th of August, 1647.
Captain Garrett " garrough " (? the rough) FitzGerald,
who commanded Lord Castlehaven's body-guard of
horse.
Gerald macWilliam FitzGerald, of Castleroe, Co. Eildare,
slain in the battle of Eilrush (near Ballyshannon),
Co. Eildare, on the 15th April, 1642.
Captain Gerald ''chrone " (the swarthy) FitzGerald, of the
Leinster Horse, who had seen much service under Owen
'' roe " (the ruddy) O'Neill in Flanders ; he was slain in
the battle of Linch's Knock in 1647.
On the 8th of Febraary, 1642, the Lords Justices and
Council issued a Proclamation from Dublin Castle offering
rewards of from £1,000 to £800 for the heads of certain leaders
of the Confederates, between the 8th of February and the 25th
of March ; a free pardon and £800 was offered for the death, in
the time stated, of the following County Kildare Gentry —
Pierce FitzGerald, of Ballysonan.
Maurice Eustace, of Castle Martin.
Nicholas Sutton, of Tipper.
Roger, alias Rory O'More, of Ballynah ; and
William FitzGerald, of Blackball (near Clane).''
Pierce FitzGerald himself was appointed Commander of the
Leinster Horse, and saw service wherever knocks were going ;
he was present at the disastrous defeat of the Confederates at
Kilrush in April, 1642 ; in the same year he took part in the
battle of Ballybeg, near Old Boss, where he was nearly made a
prisoner, and only escaped by his presence of mind in the
following manner : — All the Irish that day, to distinguish them-
selves, wore a sugaun or straw rope round the waist ; Pierce, in
the cavalry charge, finding that he had outdistanced his men,
turned back, and saw that his return was cut off by the enemy ;
he immediately untied and dropped his sugaun, and galloped
back, shouting, *^ Let us follow the Rogues " — a ruse which
'succeeded with the Parliamentary forces, till they saw Pierce cut
down one of his own comrades, as they thought ; but by that
' Now called Summer-hill.
'P. 31, Appendix of Borlace's ** History of the Irish Rebellion of
1641."
440 FITZGERALDS OF BALLYSHANNON (KILDARE),
time he was ont of their' reach, and Tejoined his side in
safety.^
In 1648 Pierce was present at Timolin, then held by the
enemy, whom he summoned to surrender ; they capitulated) and
were allowed to march away with their arms and baggage. Pierce
then handed over the place to its rightful owner, his brother-
in-law, Christopher Archbold.' The former Irish garrison of
Timolin had becQ massacred to a man by the Parliamentarians
on the 15th of March, 1642.
On the 8th of August, 1647, Pierce was present at the great
defeat of the Confederates at Dungan's Hill, near Linch's Knock*
(now Summer HjU), in the County Meath, where his brother
oflBcer, Captain Gerald " chrone " FitzGerald, was slain.
In 1649 Pierce was at Athy previous to the march of the
Confederates on Dublin. He had his residence in Woodstock
Castle, and along with him were Captain Maurice FitzGerald, of
Allen; Sir John Dongan; Sir Robert Talbot; Dr. Terence
Coghlan, a physician of Kilkenny; William Garan, Vicar of
Ballysbannon ; and others.^
About this time Pierce's Castle of Ballysbannon was in the
hands of the enemy, and he was ordered to invest the place.
After a time one of the enemy's spies fell into his hands, and
he threatened to hang him, but consented to spare his life, if,
on being set free, he would return and inform the garrison that
the Parliamentary force in Dublin had been defeated. The
promise was given, and the man returned to the Castle. On the
following day Pierce sent a trumpeter to summon the Castle, and
offer quarter to the garrison ; this was accepted, as, believing
their spy's information, they reckoned that no relief could be
sent to them. Thus the Castle was given up, and when too late
the truth was known.'
In the year 1660, Pierce had to demolish the Castle and
Dominican Monastery of Athy, to prevent their falling into the
enemy's hands.^
When Pierce's death took place I have not been able to
discover ; he may have fled abroad after this period, and died
thera By his wife Mary, daughter of Walter FitzGerald, of
Walterstown, Co. Kildare, who was living a widow at Gay-
donstown in 1687, he had a son Gerald, and two daughters^
Ellice and Cisly.
» Gilbert's •* History of Affairs in Ireland, 1641," vol. i, p. 62.
» ib., p. 68. » lb, , p. 166. ' lb., vol. ii, p. 28.
•J6., p. 47. "Jfe., p. 67.
AND THEIR SUCCESSORS THEREAT.
441
According to the Croinwellian redistribution of forfeited
estates, as will be seen in the following schedule/ the FitzGeralds
of Ballyshannon lost that Manor and the Manor of Nicholastown,
retaining only a very small proportion of their former property :—
1655.
Old Proprietor.
Pierce flitzGerald,
Irish Papist
Do.
Do.
Do.
Do.
Do.
Do.
Do.
Do.
Do.
Do.
Do.
Townlonds.
Ballysonnane and
Monfilbeene
Mulloghmoyn ...
Half of Tippenan
Nicholastowne .
and Rathdrue
Brea ...
Ardrey
Grangemellon ...
Part of Blackwood
Cowlachorogan ...
Abbeyland
Gourtduffe
Guidenstowne ...
Acreage,
834
190
209
656
348
497
Unsur-
veyed.
176
164
273
211
297
To whom granted.
( Thady Linch and Dame
\ Anne Baker.
( Earl of Anglesey (i.e.,
\ Sir Arthur A nn^edey ) .
( Robert Moore, the Duke
< of York, Fra^cia An-
( nesley.
\ Andrew Linch and Dame
( Ann Baker.
I Thady Linch and Dame
( Ann Baker.
( Duke of York (afterr
< wards to the Hollow
( Blades Company).
Garrett ffitzGerrald and
Cicisly ffitzGerrald.
According to a County Eildare Chancery Inquisition taken in
the year 1668, the townlands mentioned above, from that of
Blackwood to that of Guidenstown, are stated to be in the hands
of Sisly Dungan (or Dongan), widow, by a decree of the Court of
Claims.
Gan-ett or Gerald FitzGerald, Pierce's son, in bis will styles
himself as of Blackwood^ in the County of Eildare. His wife
was Mary, only child of George (ob. 1669), eldest son of Sir
' Gilbert's '' History of Afiaira in L-eland, 1641," vol. ii, p. 156.
442 FITZGERALDS OF BALLYSHANNON (KILDARE),
Lake FitzGerald, Ent, of Ticroghan, in the County Meath. They
had several children, of whom the eldest son was named Lake.
After Gerald FitzGerald's death, abont the year 1682, his
widow Mary remarried with Henry FitzGerald, of Ballinderry,
County Westmeath, who was the second son of Richard Fitz-
Gerald, of Bathtrone, in the County Meath, and who inherited,
through his wife, the Ticroghan estates,
Gerald FitzGerald's will is dated the SOth of January, 1681
(i.6., 1682),^ and was prdved on the 1st of May, 1684. His wish
is impressed in it '^ to be interred in the ffranciscan Monestery
att Kildare.*' One of the overseers of the will is a " Thady Linch
of the Citty of Dublin, Gent," whose name occurs repeatedly
in the schedule given above of the redistribution of forfeited
lands.
I have not succeeded in tracing the history of this family
further.
We now return to relate a few incidents in connection with
the Castle of Ballyshannon itself.
A contemporary official account of the doings of the Parlia-
mentarians during the years 1642-8 states that the army,
under James, Marquis of Ormonde, left Dublin on the 1st of
March, 1642; that night he lodgfed at Newlands, between Dublin
and Naas ; on the 2nd they lodged in Naas ; from thence they
crossed the Liffey two miles below Castlemai*tin, in which there
was a garrison of the rebels, under the command of one Fitz-
Gerald ; from Castlemartin, which was surrendered to them, the
army was dispersed to lodge in the villages about the Curragh,
Lord Ormonde himself taking up his quarters in the Castle
of Kildare. On the 4tb they encamped at '* Downarrowmore "
(? Nari*aghmore), and ^' in the way they passed by a place called
Ballisonnan, from whence some of the robels came forth as
willing to fight, and one in red clothes at a great distance shott
at us manie times, that wee might see they had powder to spend
in vain/' This night Lord Ormonde Went three miles further,
and lodged in the village of Moone.'
On the 8th of June, 1643, the Lords Justices wrote to Sir
Michaell Eameley, Ejit., and Colonel Richard Gibson^ stating that
on the 19th of May last, for spabial state reasons, orders were
given that the force under their command was to forbear to
besiege Ballysonan until further orders. Since that time false
^ The legal year ended in March till 1752, when it ended with
December, as at present.
'Vol ii, p. 249, of Gilbert's ** History of the Confederation and War,
1641."
AND THEIR SUCCESSORS THEREAT. 443
ramours had been started as to the cause of not attacking that
place, whereas : —
'* Concerning Ballysonan, the beseeging of that place was at this
Board resolved to be for come, partly in respect of the then scarcitie of
pouder in his Majestie's store, which could not without danger to the
wholle Kingdome admitt the expense of soe much pouder as the taking
of that place by se^e would require, and partly in regard there was then
noe possibilitie for Ceding of the horses to bee used in that service. Since
which time those two difficidties beeing in part removed, that of the
pouder beeing supplyed by the arrivall of a late supply of pouder heere,
and that of feeding the horses beeing in part holpen [helped! by the
season of the yeare, wherein grass may now be had, which formerly could
not be and soe the inhibition is now taken off, and you are left at libertie
for endeavouring to take in Ballysonan, as well as Kilka and Castle
Dermott, or soe many of the places as you may.
*' (P08TSCBIFT. ) Wee must declare that it is our pleasure, and wee accor-
dingly expressly command you, that you lay seege to Ballvsonan, Kilka,
or Castle Dermott, before you return hither, and that, although you bee
in your march hither, you retourne back for effecting this higmy needful
service/' '
The reason for this neglect of capturing Ballyshannon sooner
was, according to a letter written on the 16th June, 1648, from
Dublin, that : —
" The army that was sent forth under the command of Sir Michael
Emley is returned, soe as we have at least five if not six thousand men,
soldiers, to feed, besides the inhabitants, and have not money to sett
them forth to seeke againe their living abroad. Sir Michael, when he
was sent forth, was by speciall words in his commission inhibited to sett
downe before Ballisonan being the onely garrison that hath annoyed our
convoyes betweene this and Athy. The pretended reason was the scarcity
of munition, though there want not those, even amongst the commanders
who say that Pierce FitzGarret, the owner thereof, hath too many cosins
about the State, l^me may diiscover what is nowe but suspected." '
Another letter, however, dated the 28rd of June, 1648, states
that Ballyshannon was not then attacked- because Sir Michael
Emely at the time the despatch from the Lords Justices reached
him was only one day's march from Dublin, that his forces were
footsore, knocked up from exposure, and had only two days'
provisions left.^
We have already seen that in 1649 the Parliamentarian
garrison of Ballyshannon delivered up the Castle to Pierce
FitzGerald on false information. We will now relate its fate
» P. 269, Vol. ii, of GObert's " History of the Confederation and War."
* Ibid,^ Appendix, p. xlvii.
* Ibid.^ Appendix, p. Ixiv.
444 FITZGERALDS OF BALLYSHANNON (KILbARE),
in 1650 by meana of correspondence which passed between
Colonel John Hewson, Governor of Dablin, William Lenthall,
Speaker of the English Parliament, and Donough O'Kelly,
Governor or Constable of Ballj'shannon.^
The first letter is addressed by Colonel Hewson to '' the
Honourable William Lenthall/' and is dated from Ballyshannon
on the 8rd March, 1649 (old style). It reads as follows : —
*' To the Honourable William Lenthall, Esquire, Speaker of the Parlia-
ment of England.
*' Sir, ~ When his Excellency' marched from Dublin towards Munster,
he left me intrusted with that garrison, myselfe and those lefte with me
at that time being sicke. The first party that recovered were sent after
the army ; to wit, about .800 foot and 200 horse, which fought and beat
the enemy upon their march, some more of those sicke men that were
left recovering, and some recruits coinming ov'er. Aftet I had surprised
the strong fort ' upon the Bos of Allin, and taken Castle Martin in the
County of Kildare, and placed a garrison therein, about the latter end of
December. I marched along with a party of 1,000 horse and foot into the
Island of Allin, and summoned Killmaog therein, but finding it not feaz-
able to storme without jicuns, I marched tx) Rabride and Ponsers Grange
and tooke them, and placed two strong garrisons there, which did give
me good footing in the County of Kildare ; then I sent a party and took
Kildare, Hertwell, and Cotlingstowne,* three useful garrisons in the said
county ; and provisions being spent I returned back to Dublin, there
endeavouring to get guns, mortar pieces, and other necessaries, ready
to draw forth againe with all possible speed ; in the interim I received
propositions from the Grovemour and officers in the strong garrison and
fort of Ballisonan, the originall whereof, I here inclosed present you
with all under their owne hands, which being by me utterly rejected.
*' I marched upon Tuesday, the 26th of Februaiy, with a party of
2,000 foot and 1,000 horse, towards the County of Kildare, and tooke
with me one culverin, one demi-culverin, and one mortar piece.
**The enemy fired their Garrisons of the Fort of Lease,' Blackrath,
and the forementioned Castle of Kilmaog, in the Island of Allin, but I
shall easily make it tenable againe, it being very usefull for your service ;
they also did blow up the Castle of Athy, where they had a strong
garrison, and broke up the Bridge.
** Upon the 28th of February, I marched from the Naas, and about
four o'clock, with the van of the party, I came to Ballisonan, a strong
garrison, double works and moted, full of water one within another,
and a mount with a fort upon it. Most of the officers with me esteem-
ing the taking of it to be unfeazable, it being late, and I unwilling to
» Vol. ii, pp. 369 and 372, of Gilbert's " History of Affairs in Ireland,
1641-1652."
' The Lord Lieutenant, Oliver Cromwell.
'Blackditch (parish of Nuniey) in another place is mentioned as
being captured before Castle Martin.
* Coghlanstown.
* The Fort of Leiz was Maryborough, in the Queen*8 County, called
*' Campa " by the Irish.
AND THEIR SUCCESSORS THEREAT. 445
lose time, did send in a summons a copy whereof is here inclosed, and
the inclosed answer under the Govemour's hand was presently returned,
and the town which was without [i.e., outside of] his works by him was
burned that night.
'* I caused a battery to be made, and planted the artillery, and made a
fort for the security thereof, having intelligence that the Ix>rd of Castle-
haven ^ with 4,000 horse and foot would come to raise me within two
dayes, in which fort I could secure the guns and batter their works, whilst
I drew off to fight the enemy if need were.
** We played our guns and mortar pieces at the fort upon the mount,
intending before night to storme it ; having ladders and all necessaries
ready, but before any breach was made, the Govemour did send me paper,
which is here inclosed, whereunto the inclosed answer was returned,
and he treated with me about the surrender, which was concluded
accordingly. The articles signed with both our hands herewith is
represented unto you.
'*And now, Sir, you have without the losse of one man this strong
place,- and thereby most of the County of Kildare. Those garrisons in
this county yet remaining as Castle Dormont, with others I hope' you
shall have a good account thereof speedily, from
'* Your humble servant,
** Joh. Hewson.
<« Ballisonan, March 3, 1649 (-50).'*
The enclosures mentioned above are given as follows : —
'^ Sir, — I am now marching the Army to reduce that place which you
possesse unto the obedience of the Parliament of England, and it being
-apparent to the world that God is making inquisition in Ireland for
innocent blood, how farre you and those with you may be concerned
therein, I shall observe by your answer hereunto.
** These are to require you to deliver that place you now possesse
unto me for the end aforesaid ; whatsoever your return hereunto may
be, and the effect thereof, my summons will justifie the future
proceedings of
•* Your servant,
**28th Feb. 1649 (-60) *« J. Hewson.
^' For the Grovemour of Ballisonan."
** Sir, — I am now in possession of this place by authority from my King,
how you may demand it by authority from the Parliament of England, I
know not ; England denying their King, therefore I disobey. And for
God, my King, and Country, will defend this place to the uttermost in
my power.
" Sir, your servant,
*'Donno(gh)0'li:eUy.«
''Col. Hewson, Commander-in-chief e of the Parliament part now at
the field of Ballisonan."
* James Touchet, 3rd Earl of Castlehaven, then of Maddenstown,
County Ejldare.
' Col. Donough O'Kelly belonged to Connaught, and was a relative
of Sir JamBs Dillon, of the CosteUo Gallen family, County Sligo.
446 FITZGERALDS OF BALLYSHANNON (KILDARE),
'^Sir, — To avoyd the confasion of Chrifltian blood, we send out a
drum to demand parley, my desire for the reasons aforesaid is, that you
send in a Captaine of yours to treat with us, and we shall send forth a
Captaine of ours, who shall demand no more but what is honourable and
just, and so Sir, I conclude,
**Your servant.
** March 1,1649 (-50)."
**Donno(gh)0'KeUy.
''Sir, — Blood I doe not thirst after, yet so far a souldier as not to
neglect present opportunity, I shall for the end in your letter mentioned
send Captaine Hewson according to vour desire, provided you send one
or two fully authorised to treate and conclude, and all to be concluded
within halfe an houre, provided also you doe not worke at all to repaire
what my guns and mortar pieces have demolished, and to that end that
Cap^ Hewson may remaine in the mount during Uiat halfe houre.
" Sir, — I shall be glad if your wisdom prevent what otherwise
unavoidably will fall out, though not desired oy
'*Your servant,
^'J. Hewson.
•* March 1, 1649 (-50)."
The result of the siege and parley was^ that as no assistance
coald be expected from Lord Castlehaven, the garrison capitn-
lated on the following terms : —
'*!. That the said Garrison and Fort of Ballisonan, shall be
immediately delivered with all the ammunition and provisions therein,
except as in the insuing article is agreed upon.
**II. That the said Govemour, Officers, and the souldiers shall continue
in the Castle untill to-morrow morning at ten of the clock if they please,
and then they are to march out of the said Castle and Fort, with a
Trumpeter for convoy tenne miles if they desire it, or to any of the next
Irish garrisons within tenne miles as aforesaid, the trumpeter remaining
without any prejudice. And the said Officers are to march with their
Worses and pistolls, and with their colours flying, and drums beating,
and the souldiers with their armes, and matches lighted^ and each
musketeer one pound of powder, with bullet and match proportionable.
**IIl. Whatsoever Gates and Peas shall apper to be in the Castle
belonging to Mistress FitzGerald' shall be restored to her.
** lY. And lastly, for the due performance of the aforesaid articles,
we have hereunto set our hands the day and yeare first above written
[i.e, the 1* of March 1649 (-50)].
'*John Hewson.
Donno(gh) O'Kelly."
On the following day a certain William Basils Attorney*
^ I.e., Mary, the wife of Col. Pierce FitzGerald (Mac Thomas).
^1
AND THEIR SUCCESSORS THEREAT. 447
Oeneral of Ireland, in a letter to the Speaker of the English
Parliament, writes: —
**It hath pleased God exceedingly to bless our forces in this place, in
their late march into the County of Kildare, where they have taken in
the Fort and Castle of Ballisonan by surrender ; surprized Athy, being a
passe upon the Barrow and a place of very great concernment, both for
the enlarginff of our quarters, investing the enemy, and securing a passe
to joyne with my Lord if occasion re<][uire. In all which the ffovemour
hath placed garrisons ; as also at Kilmaocke, being the Casue of the
Bogge of AUen, which the enemy had burnt, and indeavoured to have
sleighted, upon the rumour of his advance from hence ; but the workes
are now repaired and made tenable by ours/"
111
The accompanying illustration, showing the Fort of Bally-
shannon, is reproduced from vol. iv of '' The Journal of the
Kilkenny Archffiological Society"^ (1866-57); the original
dravring was then in the possession of J. Y. Akerman, F.S.A.,
and from it the sketch was made by H. W. King, in 1868,
which illustrates '' The Kilkenny Journal."
The following lettered references to the plate corresponc}
with the letters given on the plan.
'* A description of the strong Fort of Ballisanon, in Leinster (l(i50).
A. The first place of our Battery of the Blacke Castle.
B. The Black Castle.
C. The workes of the Towne.
D. The Grates of the Outworkes.
E. Another Outworke.
F. A Qnte where one of our Pieces stood.
Q. The high mount fortified which wee stormed.
H. The Church. On the other side stood our Mortter-piece.
I. The Battery and Pieces.
K. The Counter-scarpe.
L. Covert way 12 foot broad, his breastwork 9 foot broad at top.
M. The paft 25 foot in five places and 12 foot deep.
N. The Rampire and Parapett 30 foot thicke ana in some places 25
foot high.
O. The inner Moate in some places 40 foot broad.
P. The Draw-bridges in number 5.
Q. Bm^s or Dames to keep in Water.
R. A House and Bulworke batered.
S. A Bulworke batered.
T. The Walls about the Castle.
W. The Castle.
V. Houses that flankers the Walls.
X. The Tower whereon their CoUer [standard] stood.
Y. A new Worke.
Z. A Toume-pike.
» Page 367, vol. ii, of Gilbert's ** History of Aflairs in Ireknd."
These letters were also published in pamphlet form in London in 1649.
' ITow cajlod the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland,
448 FITZGERALDS OF BALLYSHANNON (KILDARE),
The late Sir Erasmas D. Borrowes, Bart., of Barretstown
Castle, visited Ballysbannon in 1857| and has left the following
description of the place^ : —
"Last autumn I visited 'the strong fort of Ballysanon' referred to
in the last volume of the Journal. No remains of the Castle exist ;
whatever of it remained at the beginning of the last century was pulled
down by the Annesley family, with which they helped to build a
castellated mansion quite close. The immediate defences of the old
Castle of the unfortunate Pierce FitzGerald still exist, though somewhat
smoothed off by time ; the moat is still there, covered with trees of
some forty years' growth, but, strange to say, the remains of the old
ashtree so conspicuous in the drawing, can still be traced. I found two
lusty scions growing vigorously from, the same old hollow root, right in
the centre of the moat (mound). There was no rival near the throne of
that old . stock ; it spoke eloquently of the siege of Cromwell and his
mortars ; but the mortar practice reminded one of a child and his
pop-gun, who brings his little weapon close up to the mark. The spot
where the Greneral placeid his mortars was not more than some fifty or
sixty yards from the Castle. I found ' Hartwell ' exhibiting the remains
of a strong fortress, with one or two large halls, the stone arches yet
remaining ; and Kilteel Castle (also, I think, mentioned in the despatch)
is quite perfect."
. As mentioned above, daring the latter half of the seventeenth
century Ballysbannon passed into the hands of a member of the
Annesley family, who were seated at Newport-Pagnel, in
Buckinghamshire. According to Archdall's edition of '' Lodge's
Peerage/'* the first of this family in Ireland was Sir Francis
Annesley, who for nearly forty years faithfully served Kings
James I and Charles I in offices and employments of high trust
and importance. Early in the seventeenth century he was
granted the Manor of Annesley, in the County Tyrone,' the
Manor of Mountnorris, in Armagh, the Manor of Cloghmahericat,
in Down, the Manor of Sampton^ in the County Wexford, the
Manor of Mullagh, in Cavan, and the Castle and Lordship of
Roscommon. On the 30th September, 1619, King James
instituted the order of Baronets in Ireland, and created Sir
Dominick Sarsfield, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, the
first Baronet, and Sir Francis Annesley the second. In 1621
he was created Viscount Valentia, and in 1628 Baron Mount-
norris of Mountnorris. His death took place in 1660, and he
was buried in Thorganby Church, in Yorkshire, By his. wife,
Dorothy, daughter of Sir John Philips, Bart., of Picton Castle,
in Pembrokeshire, he had several children ; the eldest* son,
* Page 41, vol. v, of **The Jouma of the Kilkenny Archaeological
Society."
• Vol. iv, pp. 109-121,
AND THEIR SUCCESSORS THEREAT. 449
Sir Arthnry 2ild Yisconnt Valentia, was created Earl of Anglesey;
bnt it is with his second brother, John, that we have now to
deal.
John Annesley was born in Dublin on the 11th of September,
1616, and became the possessor of Ballyshannon. Of him
Charles II wrote in 1660 : —
** Whereat Captain John Annesley, having the command of a Troop
of Horse in the service of our late dear Father of blessed memory, in
Ireland, in detestation of that most execrable murder upon our late most
royal father, did give up his commission, and refused to act under that
usurped power, although in those times he had no other subsistence for
himself, his wife and family, but what he had by his Troop, and hath
ever since kept himself out of all employment under that power, which
was a signal proof of his loyalty to our father and to us. And for that
we were engaged for the troops and commands now settled in our realm
of Ireland, l^fore application was made to us in his behalf; we do
therefore by these our letters, will and require you to settle upon him
the command of Captain of such Troop of Horse as shall first become
void, and be in our gift in our Army in Ireland, and therefore you may
not fail, but see this our letter served in the first place."
Accordingly he had a grant, 9th- of February, 1661, of the
first Troop that should become void. He died in the year 1695.
By his wife, Charity, daughter of Henry Warren, of Grangebeg,
in the County Eildare, he had the following sons (as well as
three daughters): —
1. Francis, of Ballyshannon.
2. Maurice, of Little Rath (near Sherlockstown), who married
Sarah, second daughter of Richard, 4th Lord of Blaney. He
died in London on the 17th of February, 1718. Thiis is the
Maurice Annesley referred to on pages 477-8 of the 2nd volume
of the Journal.
3. John, of Ballysax, who married Eleanor, daughter of
Bishop, of Bishop Hall, Esq. He died on the 18th April,
1720. Among other issue, he had a son, Francis, of Ballysax,
who married Margaret, daughter of Edward Eyre, of Oalway,
but died without issue on the 5th of March, 1750, and was
buried at Ballyshannon.
4. Oeorge, died unmarried.
5. Robert, also died unmarried.
The eldest son, Francis, of Ballyshannon, married Deborah,
sister of Jeffrey Paul, and died in 1707, leaving by her (who
died on the 24th December, 1761) four daughters : —
1. Charity, died, unmarried, in 1741, aged 48.
2 Deborah, married to Robert Doyne, of Wells.
450 FITZGERALDS OF BALLYSHANNON (KILDARE),
8. Elizabeth, married to Thomas Haghes, of Aroherstown,
Co. Tipperary.
4. Hannah, married to Thomas Spring, Esq., Connsellor-at*
Law.
Archdall gives no further particulars in connection with
Ballyshannon. If any of our members could throw light on the
later history of this place, it would be a welcome addition to our
Journal.
A modem Protestant church now stands on the site of the
old building, which was dedicated to St. James the Apostle.
Notices of the Vicarage of Ballyshannon, at an early date, are
few and far between. On the 18th October, 1272, the Justiciary
of Ireland was commanded by the King to present Geoffrey, of
Kilkenny, cleric, to the vacant Vicarage of ** Balisuthnan."^ In
1302-6, the Church of '' Balythosenan," in the Deanery of
Kildare, was valued at 5 marks, and the Vicarage of the same at
80s.' In 1817 the King ordered Walter de Valle, or Calfe,
Bishop of Kildare, to present Walter de Kynefare, cleric, to the
Church of " Balysothenan."'
In 1536 Philip O'MoUaghan was Vicar.^
In 1616 Roger Danby was '* minister/'^
In 1649 William Oaran was Vicar.^
There is among the MSS. preserved at Carton a folio sheet
entitled : — ** A naration Relating to the Advowsom, or Presen-
tacion to the Prebendarie of Ballisonan, and Vicaradg of Castel-
dermott.^' It is dated the 18th of March, 1678, and reads as
follows: —
**S'' James titz Gerrald of Ballisonan in the Countie of E^ildare, K"**,
being patrone of y* Prebendarie of Ballisonan affores', did in y* yeere
1634 give unto John Welsh, then Vicar of Castledermott, the advowsom
or power of presenting to y* s' Prebendarie of Ballisonan in y* Diooes of
Kildare in consideracion of monie lent unto y* s** S'* James by y* s'* John
Welsh.
" S'* James deceased in ye yeere 1636 a protestant.
^Mohn Welsh, Vicar of Castledermott, deceased in Skynner-row in
Dublin, in Mr. Rob^ Arddagh's house, August, 1646, a minister; and
before his decease, by his last will and testam**, left Rob*' Sypthorpe,
Lord Bishope of Limericke, overseer of his Will, and William Bulkely,
Archdecon of Dublin, and Edmond Welsh,' nephew to y* s*- John Welsh,
> Sweetman's '* Calendar of Documents, Ireland."
'Sweetman's *' Calendar of Documents, Ireland."
•Rot. Cane. Cal. Hib., p. 24.
* Co. Dublin Ex. Inquisition.
» '* Regal Visitation Book."
• Dr. Comerford's *' Diocese of Kildare."
^ Of Birtown, between Athy and BaUitore,
AND THEIR SUCCESSORS THEREAT. 45 1
executors of his last Will and Testam*' ; Archdecon Bulkely did not
administer, but put Edmond Welsh uppon y* Administeraoon in y*
Consistorie Court, Doct'* Ryves then being Judge ; Edmond Welsh did
administer, prove the Will, and gott out Ar^ of Administracion in his
own name, and returned an Inventorie by y* directions of y* Lord Bishope
of Limericke and Archdecon Bulkely well knowing that the presentacion
to y* Prebendarie of Ballisonan was in Edmond Welsh after the decease of
John Welsh, adviced y* s*^ Edmond Welsh as soone as any quietness was
after the Rebellion, to present to the s*** Prebendarie, w**^ Edmond Welsh
did, and first gave his presentacion to Henery Usher late Archdecon of
Kildare for the s** Prebendarie of Ballisonan in the diocess of Kildare,
William Goulbume, then Lord Bishope of Kildare, who well kneew the
presentacion to bee in Edmond Welsh after the decease of John Welsh,
gave y^ s"*- Henery Usher his induction, and Henery Usher was installed
in y* 8**' Prebendarie, and injoyed it during his life.
** And after the decease of Henery Usher, Edmond Welsh did present
Richard Phylypps to the s**' prebendarie of Ballisonan, Thomas Price
(now Lord Archbishopp of Casshell but then Lord Bishoppe of Kildare)
being sattisfied w'*** the s** Edmond Welsh his right of presentacion, gave
the said Richard Phylypps his Induction, and was instaled and enjoyed
the 8*^ Prebendarie of Ballisonan during his life ; and Edmond Welsh
doth suppose that M'* Deane Goulbume, son to William Goulbume, late
Lord Bishoppe of Kildare, might at lest heer, if not know, the truth of
this naration, for Bishoppe Goulbume and John Welsh were maried to
tow sisters, daughters to William Pilsworth* Lord Bishoppe of Kildare,
«and were Intimate in eatch others concerns.
"Peeter Sarsfield of Tully* in the Counttie of Kildare, Esq'-, Patron
of the Yicaradge of Oasteldermott in the dioces of Dublin in the yeere
1635 or therabouts, did in consideracion of som monie lent, give unto
John Welsh then Vicar of Castledermott, the advowsome or presen-
tacion to the said Yicaradge of Oasteldermott ; John Welsh deceasing
as in the naration before expressed concerning the prebendarie of
Bnllisonan, William Gk)ulburn late Lord Bishoppe of Kildare requested
Esmond Welsh to present Mr. John Goulbume, son to the s"* Lord
Bishoppe, to that Vicaradge, w***' y* s* Edmond did, and M' John
Goulbume enjoyed the same for a season untill he got other livings,
* According to the ** Funeral Entries :** — *' Elizabeth, daughter of the
Right Reverend Father in God, William Pillsworth, Lord Bishop of
KUdare, married the Right Reverend Father in God, William Golbome,
Lord Bishop of Kildare, who was sonn of Ralph Golbome of Crestleton,
in Cheshire, Esq'*, by whom he had issue seven sons and eight daughters."
[Bishop Golboum died of the plague in Dublin in 1650.]
"Ann, daughter of the Right Reverend Father in God, William
Pilesworth, Lord Bishop of Kildare sometyme ; shee was married to John
Walsh, Clerk of Castle Dermott, by whom shee had issue William Walsh
and Mary Walsh ; shee departed this mortall life the 2"' of February,
1640, and was interred in the Church of Castle Dermott aforesaid."
SAs mentioned in the narrative, her husband, John Walsh, died in
)ublin in August, 1646.]
' Peter Sarsfield was the son and heir of Patrick Sarsfield of TuUy,
near Kildare, second son of Sir William Sarsfield, Knt., of Lucan.
Peter Sarsfield died previous to the year 1061, he was the grandfather of
the famous Jacobite General, Patrick Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan.
n
452 FITZGERALDS OF BALLYSHANNON (KILDARE).
but the place being vacant for 6 months the Lord Archbishoppe of
Dublin gave it Doct'* Austine for this tume, but the right of presenta-
cion is in Edmond Welsh for y* future, or his assigns ; And I suppose
Deane Goulbume doth remember, at lest .... the truth of this
nara^n.
''/Die evidences for those presentacions, and much more were lost at
Casteldermott, when we were oetrayed in the Castle of Casteldermott the
7*^ of December 1641, but my right of presentacion and our ussadge
here was so well knowen to persons of qualitie that all the presentacions
I gave passed to this last (to M'' Brereton) w*^out dispute.
"Birtowne IS"" of March 1673.
Edm : Wblsh."
NOTE.
There is not a single trace now existing of the Ballyshannon Castle
walls, though the square entrenchment it was surrounded by is distinctly
visible, without, however, the projecting bastions at the comers, as
shown in the plan of 1650.
The centre of the square entrenchment is now occupied by a ruinous
octagonal-shaped building of mason-work, in ruins, which is known as
the '* Pidgeon-house."
The outer works shown on the Plan are not now noticeable ; but as
the place is thickly planted up with old timber, this helps to hide the lie
of the land. The *' Black Castle," too, has disappeared.
The Moat is covered with trees ; it is artificial, and is probably a
pagan sepulchral mound, similar to those which are dotted here and
there over this county ; near it, too, as so often occurs, is the old burial-
ground, in which stands the Protestant church, occupying the site of the
ancient building dedicated to St. James the Apostle.
The house, built by the Annesley famUy out of the material supplied
by the Castle, is a plain, square, featureless building, covered with
dashing, and battlemented in recent times. In an angle of the wall on
the south-east side, placed upside do^m, is a limestone slab, some 2 feet
long by 18 inches in height, on which are cut in relief the following
initials and date : —
MOM
(a horse)
1620
On the left-hand side of the slab is carved a horse-like animal ; a
rose-bush, which covers the stone, prevented " a rubbing " being taken
of it. Probably this stone came out of the old Castle. I cannot explain
the initials,* as at this date Ballyshannon Castle was occupied by Sir
James FitzGerald, Knt., who died a Protestant (the only one of the
family) in 1637, and was buried in Ballyshannon Church. ^No monument
to him, or to any member of his family, exists there ; nor is there one
to the Annesley family, who were interred in a vault under the church.
Over the hall-door of the house a small human face in stone is built
into the wall. It is said to have been brought from an inn, not now in
existence, that stood on the public road close by, called 'Hhe Black
Moor."
* The initials here remind one of those on the FitzGerald of Narraghbeg
cross-shaft {vide pp. 474-478 of this Volume), viz. : mah; o . mo. ; the year on
both bein^ the ver^ same,
^ 453 )
NOTES ON FURNESS, OR GREAT FORENAGHTS.
By NICHOLAS J, SYNNOTT.
THE church, rath, and long-stone at Fumess have already
been referred to, or have been the subject of articles or
notes in the Journal of this Society, by the Earl of Mayo, the
late Bey. Denis Murphy, S.J., Canon Sherlock, and Colonel
T. De Burgh. I find also that Lord Walter FitzOerald has
already described the churchyard in another periodical ;^ so that
this paper is necessarily supplemental to what has been
previously published.
The name Forenaghts (of which Furness, or Furnace, is a
comparatively modem corruption) signifies, as Joyce points out,
''a bare or exposed hill" (fomocht). Other townlands of the
same name are to be found in Cork, Waterford, and Fermanagh.
In the Kildare name the plural form has prevailed, probably in
consequence of the early subdivision of the townland into two—
Forenaghts Great (now Fumess), and Forenaghts Little (now
Forenaghts),^ the division being recognised, as will be seen
hereafter, as early as the beginning of the thirteenth century.
I am unable to ascertain exactly when and why the modem
appellation of Fumess first made its appearance. Richard
Nevill, the first of his name who lived here, in his will, dated
1673, and proved 1st of March, 1682, speaks of himself as of
** Great Phomaghts ; " whilst his son, Richard, by his will,
proved 27th September, 1720, directed his body to be privately
buried in the Church of Furnace. But the modem name took
long to crystallize into common use. Though Dr. Pococke, in
his '* Irish Tour," styles the place Fumace, when he refers to
his visit to the house in 1762, and Arthur Young who stayed
here in 1777 ("Tour in Ireland," vol. ii, p. 209), calls it
Fumess, I find that Arthur Jones Nevill, who lived here, and
was Sheriff of the County Kildare in 1762, is recorded in the
official list as of " Fomaghts ;" and, stranger still, according to
the list of sheriffs compiled by Mr. Garstin from Lodge's MSS.,^
Philpot Wolfe, and John Wolfe, High Sheriffs in 1756 and
1799, though they certainly lived at Forenaghts, are referred to
as of Fumace, and Fumese.
^ ** Journal of the Association for the Preservation of the Memorials
of the Dead," vol. ui, No. 2, p. 297.
* Joyce, ** Names of Places," vol. i, pp. 400-401.
' ^iLDJkKE ARGHi^L00iCA.L Jou&NAL, vol. ii, p. 253 et seq,
The Loko-Stohe ih thb Bitr of Fubness [Porenaobts Obb^t), vith Una. Btmkott
NOTES ON FURNESS, OR GREAT FORENAGHTS. 455
With the natural conservatism of their race, the majority of
the local carmen still cling to the use of the old name, instead
of Fumess.
The Parish of Forenaghts contains, according to Lewis,
765 statute acres, the boundaries, as they appear on the six-
inch Ordnance Map, comprising nearly the whole of the town-
lands of Forenaghts Great, the whole of Morristown, and also
part of the townland of Little Forenaghts, i.e., practically the
whole of the modem Fumess, and part of Forenaghts demesnes.
The small portion of Great Forenaghts townland that is
excluded is bounded on the south by the back road. Forenaghts
and the neighbouring (and still smaller) Parish of Haynestown
were two chapelries, or perpetual curacies, forming one benefice
in the Deanery of Naas, and in the patronage of the bishop.
According to Erck's ''Ecclesiastical Register,'' James Slater
was admitted Incumbent of this joint benefice in 1787, though
Erck remarks that there was no church for the benefice. In
MacGeoghegan's list of the ancient parish churches of the
diocese, ** Ecclesia de Fornoghts *' is mentioned as a parish
church in the middle of the seventeenth centurj', and it is
probable that it ceased to be used for religious service after the
rebellion of 1641, and the change of proprietors which took place
shortly afterwards.^
Though there is a widespread tradition in the neighbom*-
hood that '' monks " lived at Fumess, I can find no ground for
this belief. Neither Dugdale, Ware, AUemand, nor the anony-
mous compiler of '* The Monasticon *' based on Allemand
(Stevens), mention any monastery or cell at Furness.
The old church was monastic only in this sense, that in
1210 it was granted, with the tithes, by Richard de Lesse to
the Abbey of St. Thomas, in Dublin ; and then there appears to
have been a re-grant, incorporating a condition that William de
Lesse, the son of the original donor, described as a '* persona,''
or clergyman, should remain in possession of the church and
tithes as long as he lived. It appears that in the same year
John de Lesse granted to the same abbey the Church of
" Fornathbeg," or Little Forenaghts.' I cannot find any further
mention of this church at Little Forenaghts.
It is not mentioned, as we have seen, by MacGeoghegan,
though he does mention the ''Capella de Hi gginstown,^
f}
» Dr. Oomerford, ''Collections," vol. i, Appendix, p. 259.
« Archdall, " Monasticon," p. 186 ; Harrises " Ware," vol. ii, p. 262 ;
" Chartularies of the Abbey of St. Thomas the Martyr, in Dublin,"
edited by J. T. Gilbert.
4S6 NOTES ON FURNESS, OR GREAT FORENAGHTS.
probably Haynestown. No trace of the bnilding, or even the
site of the Little Forenaghts Ghorch, can now be found, and it
is not mentioned in the Ordnance Map.^ The Haynestown
Church has also disappeared ; it may have been on or near the
site now marked '' Castle/' in that townland, on the Ordnance
Sheet.'
These de Lesses were probably Anglo-Norman settlers,
followers of Strongbow or De Lacy, of whom Canon Sherlock
has given such an interesting account in this Society's Journal.
As in the case of the examples he refers to, the donor was
probably also the builder. Each settler seemed to have been
anxious to have a separate church for his own estate ; and
to judge by the number of such churches in the immediate
neighbourhood, the number of the followers and dependants
of these feudal proprietors must have been very large. There
were close by, the Churches of Johnstown, Eerdiffstown, Kill,
Haynestown, Tipper, and the now demolished Church of Little
Forenaghts — five churches in an area two miles in length by
half a mile in breadth.
It may be of interest to say something here about the
Regular Canons of St. Augustine, whose Abbey of St. Thomas
held not only the church at Fnrness, but also the churches at Kill
and (Wochtred) Oughterard, and who were, moreover, consider-
able landowners in the neighbourhood, including Eerdiffstown
and Arthurstown.^ These Regular Canons were of a particular
branch styled '' of St. Victor," and are to be distinguished from
the much larger and more important Order of Augustinian
Canons, who had priories at Naas, Eildare, Connell, and
Killashee, in this county, and had, according to Orose
C Antiquities of Ireland,'* p. xvii), 220 houses in Ireland. The
Canons of St. Victor, according to the same authority, had bat
seven monastic houses in Ireland, and appear to have had bat
* Since writing the above, with the assistance of Qeneial Weldon, I
have discovered what greatly resembles the south and west walls of the
old church on the west of the stable-yard; the west wall abuttins on
the pond. About twelve feet from the top of the west gable wall are
two narrow square-headed windows.
^ By a Patent Roll, dated May 18th, 1550, licence was given to Sir
John Travers, of Moncton, otherwise Oarrickbrennan, in the County of
Dublin, to alienate to Luke Netterville, of Douth, and others, amongst
other lands, *' the castle and 80 acres of land in Heynestown." Thla
Luke Netterville, of Douth, was a Justice of the Queen's Bench in
Ireland in 1559.
* " Early Landowners in Kill," by Rev. Canon Sherlock, Kildare
Society's Journal, vol. ii, p. 183.
NOTES ON FURNESS, OR GREAT KORENAGHTS. 457
one in this coanty, namely, at St. Wolstan's, near Gelbridge,
fonnerl; Scala Coeli, founded by Adam de Hereford in 1206.'
The site of the Abbey of St. Tliomas may be seen in Speed's
Map, made in 1610 (see Gilbert's " History of Dublin," vol. i),
west of the Coombe, and north of the present James's Street.
The church at Furnesa can be described in a few words, for
the design is simplicity itself, and it is almost altogether devoid
of omsment.
FuHN'EKH CncncR from the E>hi.
The church consieta of a nave and chancel, separated by a
semicircalar arch 8 feet 10 inches in height, and of 7 feet
5 inches width at the spring of the arch. The total interior
length is S4 feet 7 inches, of which 19 feet 4 inches is the
length of the chancel, whilst the nave is 18 feet 9 inches, and
the chancel IS feet 5 inches wide. The three long and narrow
windows at the west end, of which the centre one is higher and
broader than the others, are in a ruinous condition, and seem
to have been round-arched, as the other windows of the church,
bat the splay is very slight The two windows on each side of
' Harris's " Ware," vol. ii, p. 270. la the Appeodix to " Hibemia
DominicatM," the total number of houms of RegulAr Cancins ia put as 231 .
45^ NOTES ON FURNESS, OR GREAT FORENAGHTS.
the chancel and nave are deeply splayed, the splay being roond-
arched internally ; that on the south side of the nave is in a
good state of preBervation, the stone of the sides of the estemal
opening being cnt and chiselled, with a square top in the cose
of the nave window. iDternally the south window in the nave
measures 7 feet 4 inches by 4 feet 11 inches, that in the chancel
6 feet 1 inch by S feet 9 inches. At the east end there is a double-
light semicircular window of out stone, with a deep interior
splay. The masonry over this window on the inside is eridently
modem, and probably it was originally arched with a deep
splay, as seen in the windows on the south side. The two
recessed doorways, one on each side of the nave, have semi-
circniar arches, with arched drip-stones over, in the exterior of
NOTES ON FURNESS, OR GREAT FORENAGHTS. 459
the wall. Internally the masonry of the arch is squared,
evidently to let in the door, which probably was rectangular.
On the eastern jamb of the south doorway, about two feet from
the ground, a piece of wood (now all but fossilized) let into the
masonry was evidently used to hold the door-bolt.
Some old coloured glazed tiles were found recently in
cleaning out the chancel floor ; the glazing of some is still quite
perfect. It will be noticed from the appearance of the masonry
that probably the floor of the chancel sloped down from the
altar — a common practice, I believe. A number of old slates,
very rough and uneven, were found buried in the clay about. I
leave it to experts to determine their probable date ; the usual
books of reference inform us that slates were very little used
before the sixteenth century. Whilst there is not any particular
feature of the church that is absolutely inconsistent with its
being of pre-Norman construction,^ the combination of the long
triple west window, the double doorway north and south,
instead of a single entrance on the west, and the double-lighted
east window, point to the date of the church being after the
Norman settlement. Probably the donor in 1210 was also the
builder.
The square granite font, with a hole in the centre, now in
the church was found buried outside the north of the church.
There do not appear to be any traces of recess or fastener for
the lid-cover, which Canon Sherlock has observed in the fonts
of the South Welsh churches of this date.
It will be noticed that there are eleven scaffolding putlock
holes in the masonry of the walls at various heights above the
gi'onnd, some going right through the walL
I am unable to trace the origin or use of the various cut-
stone pillars and scallop-pattern stone urns, of various kinds,
that are scattered about in or near the church. It is not
impossible that they formed part of an ornamental sepulchral
monument round the vault in the centre of the church. There
can be little doubt that this vault was formerly the burial-place of
the Nevill family, who settled in Fumess some time in the last
half of the seventeenth century. In the wills of three members of
the family, Richard Nevill, of Great Phornaghts (will dated 1st
March, 1682), Richard Nevill (will proved 27th September, 1720),
and Arthur Jones Neville (will proved 15th March, 1771), direc-
* E.g., the low chancel arch was a characteristic of early Irish
churches, and the deep-splayed semicircular windows were also common
before the Norman Invasion.
Petrie, '* Round Towers and Ancient Architecture," pp. 183, 315.
460 NOTES ON FURNESS, OR GREAT FORENAGHTS.
tions are given by the testators to have their bodies buried in
the chnrch at Fnmess. At Rathmore Ghnrch, beside and under
the east wall, there is also a vault, with covering stone inscribed
as being the ** vault and burial-place of the Nevills of Furnace; "
but, from the lettering of the inscription, I should judge this vault
to be not older than the last (nineteenth) century; in &ct, I doubt
whether Bathmore Church now standing is more than a century
old. Of the number of headstones in the Fumess Churchyard
there are only two with inscriptions. One lying outside the west
wall of the church bears the letters and date M.D. 1717. Possibly
the Nevills slated the church when they made the vault and
monument at the end of the seventeenth century.
The other tombstone, outside the south wall, has been
deciphered by the Earl of Mayo, and the result recorded in
'' The Journal of the Society for the Preservation of the
Memorials of the Dead,'* vol. i, p. 409.
An old granite tombstone, outside the south-west corner of
the church, bears incised marks, in the form of a cross ; query,
to form the quarterings of a shield ?
Seward, in his '' Topographia," published in 1795, refers to
'' a ruin of an old church " at Fumess, ** which has a painted
glass of great antiquity, and not inferior in colour and beauty to
any in Europe." This must be a mistake. The writer (taking
his information at second-hand) probably referred to the semi-
circular stained-glass window (still preserved) which until
recently was in a room built out on the south side of the house,
and was described in this Society's Journal by the late
Rev. Denis Murphy, S.J. (vol. ii, p. 452).
The yew-tree on the north-west corner of the churchyard is
mentioned by Lowe, in his work on '' The Yew-trees of Oreat
Britain,'' as one of the thirty-four trees in Ireland with a girth
of over ten feet.
If Mr. Lowe is right in his observations on the age and
growth of yew-trees, this specimen cannot be above the age of
860 years.
The Abbey of St Thomas shared the fate of other monastic
institutions, and its possessions were parcelled out in the
middle of the sixteenth century. In 1545 William Brabazon,
ancestor of the present Earl of Meath, got a grant of the site
and lands of the abbey, in the City of Dublin, still held, I
believe, by the Meath family.
I have been unable to ascertain who were the owners of the
lands of Great Forenaghts from the thirteenth to the sixteenth
century, and, in particular, whether the Regular Canons owned
the lands of the parish as well as the church and tithes.
NOTES ON FURNESS, OR GREAT FORENAGHTS. 461
According to an Exchequer return for 1802-18079 the
Churches of St. Molyng and of the Yill de Fornach were valued
at 608. per annum, of which the tenth, 6s.^ At the end of the
sixteenth century, a family of the name of Ash, or Ayshe, some
of whom resided at Naas, and were merchants there, appear as
owners of Forenaghts. In 1676 a Lawrence Asshe, of Little
Forenoght, was pardoned (Elizabeth, Fiant, No. 2,674;; in 1608
Edward Ayshe, of Furnaghts, appears as one of the Jurors for
the County Kildare, and in the same year one Nicholas Ashe is
stated to be the Provost of the town of Naas (Cal. Carew MSS.,
James I, p. 24). William Eustace, brother and heir to Lord
Baltinglass, married Margaret, daughter of Ashe, of Great
Furnaghts, but did not succeed to the title or lands of bis
brother, as they were forfeited for his brother's participation in
the rebellion in 1586. I cannot trace any connection between
this family of Ashe and that of Ashe, of Moone, in this county,
referred to in a former volume of this Journal (vol. i, pp. 40
and 150), nor, again, between them and the Ashes, of Ashfield,
County Meath, who at various times from 1585 were M.P.s for
Trim (see " Dictionary of National Biography," sul) tit. " Ashe,"
and Burke's *' Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland," edition
of 1834, vol. iii, p. 578). In 1698 one Thomas Ashe appears as a
grantee of lands in Kildare from King William and Mary ; and
in 1701 Thomas Ashe appears to have his lands in Kildare
restored to him as an Innocent ("Hardinge Surveys, 1688-1864,"
pp. 28-32), qiury, Ashe of Moone ? John Lattin, of Naas, who
died circa 1600, married Alson Ash, sister of Robert Ash, of
Naas, and from them by this marriage are descended the family
of Mansfield, of Morristown Lattin,^ who, I believe, still hold
lands belonging to the Ash family in the neighbourhood of
Johnstown Inn.
It will thud be seen that the Ashes, Eustaces, and Lattins
were connected by marriage, and that in troublous times. This
fact may seem to explain the real meaning of some dealings
with the Furness property which I shall refer to later on.
We shall see presently that the Ash family continued to own
Great Fomaghts down to the period of the Hebellion of 1641 ;
although a part of the fcownland, i.e., 1 toft and 20 acres in
Great Fomaghts, as described in the Chancery Inquisitions
(4th September, 1638), seems to have belonged to Christopher
Flattisbury, who also owned Palmerstown and Johnstown.
There is in this entry a curious phrase, the explanation of
* ** Calendar of Documents relating to Ireland " (Sweetman), p. 246.
' See Society*B Jouknal, vol. iii, p. 191.
462 NOTES ON FURNESS, OR GREAT FORENAGHTS.
which I should be glad to discover. It declares that " premissa
in Great Fomaghes tenentr de Nic White mil/ nt de maner'
suo de Leixlep." Why was Great Fornaghts held of the
Manor of Leixlip? We know that Adam de Hereford, the
original grantee from Strongbow of Leixlip, had also large
gi*ant8 of land at Oughterard, and at Kill and its neighbour-
hood; and if Great Fornaghts was included in this grant, the
mention of the Manor of Leixlip in 1688 may be simply a
restatement of the original condition on which all the lands
were held when in possession of one person. No manor could
be created in the feudal times except by the Crown or by the
authority of the Crown ; and once created the original conditions
had to be preseiTed.^
It is probable that the Ashe Family were involved in the
rising of 1641 (or so suspected), for Thomas Ash^ of the Barony
of Salt (in which Great Forenaghts is situate), and William Ash,
of Naas, appear in the list prepared in 1656 of proprietors whose
lands were forfeited "by the late horrid rebellion."* We find,
however, that Thomas Ash and William Ash had already, before
the rebellion, mortgaged the lands of ''The Great Forenaghts " to
Alexander Eustace of Dowdingstown, in the Parish of Tipper-
kevin, and (then) County of Dublin, as appear by the Decrees
of Innocents, 15 Charles II (17th Feb., 1668), and, as the
Decree finds, Alexander Eustace^ an '* innocent Papist," was on
the 22nd October, 1641, seized and possessed of the said lands
subject to a mortgage for £160 ; and so Walter Eustace, the son
and heir of Alexander Eustace, was granted a decree for posses-
sion by the Commissioners under the Act of Settlement and
Explanation.
Now we have seen that the Ashes and Eustaces were kinsmen
and trusted friends, so that it is not at all impossible that this
mortgage (for a small sum) was a friendly transaction designed
to preserve the property from confiscation. However that may
be, the lands soon changed hands and passed into the possession
of a family named Nevill or Neville, for Richard Neville was
Sherifi' of Co. Eildare in 1678. The Nevills must therefore have
acquired the lands some time between 1668 (the date of the
Decrees of Innocents), and 1678, and not in 1649, as Burke
seems to suggest (''Dictionary of Landed Gentry/' 4th edn., 8vl>
* See Statute De Donis^ 13 Edw. I, c. i ; Williams on Real Property,
sixth edition, pp. 59 and 107'
^ See List prepared by Ohristophei- Gough, 27th January, 1656, by
order of the Lords Protectors, quoted by Hart, '' Irish Landed Gentry,"
pp. 247, 266.
NOTES ON FURNESS, OR GREAT FORENAGHTS. 463
tit ** Neville of Borrismore/' and ** Landed Gentry of Ireland^
1900," $uh tit. " Neville of Moyfin.")
From this date until the '^forties " of the nineteenth century,
the Nevilles lived at Fumess, and appear to have been persons
of consequence.
The first Richard Nevill of Fumess married, before 1654^
Margaret, eldest daughter of Sir William Ussher (who was
knighted 20th May, 1686, and died April, 1671), by his first
wife, Elizabeth, third daughter of Sir William Parsons, Knight
and Bart., Lord Justice of Ireland in 1641. According to his
funeral entry, he died 13th September, and was buried 16th
September, 1682, in the country.
Richard Nevill, the son of the first B. Nevill of Furness, was
Sheriff of Eildare in 1692, and was Sovereign of Naas in the
same year. He then appears as Recorder of Naas, and M.P.
for Naas in 1695, and again in 1708 ; but he was unseated on
petition in 1718. (Kildare Society's Journal, vol. i, pp. 200 and
269.) Mary Nevill, the daughter and eventually the heir of this
Richard Nevill, married Colonel Richard Edward Jones, who
took the name of Nevill, and was father of Arthur Jones Nevill,
who was Sheriff of Eildare in 1762 and in 1744, was Surveyor and
Director- General of Fortifications. (" Liber Public. Mun. Hib.,"
part ii, p. 106.) In this position he appears to have got into
trouble ; at any rate, he was violently attacked by Flood and the
Opposition Party, for defects in barrack works under his super-
vision, and finally (No. 1,758) was expelled the House of Commons
(where he sat as M.P. for Wexford), for disobeying the order of
the House in not making good such defects.^
This did not prevent his eldest son, Richard Nevill (b. 1745),
being M.P. for Wexford Borough from October, 1771, to the
Union, and afterwards with intervals to 1819 in the United
Parliament.
This Richard Nevill was Teller of the Exchequer under the
Irish Parliament — a remarkably pleasant office to hold, as,
according to the '^ Liber Munerum Publicorum Hiberniffi** (vol. ii,
pp. 17, 229) the salary of £2,835 per annum was attached to it,
of which £885 went to a Deputy, leaving a net £2,000 for a
sinecure office. He appears to have held this office until his
death in 1822.'
1 ((
History of City of Dublin," by Gilbert, vol. iii, p. 100 ; Historical
Manuscripts Commission; 12th Report, MSS. of Earl of Charlemont,
Appendix, p. x, and pp. 188, 279.
**' Anthologia Hibomica," vol. ii, p. 271. Comwallis Correspondence,
vol. iii, p. 45, note.
464 NOTES ON FURNESS, OR GREAT FORENAGHTS.
According to the ** Anthologia Hibemioa/' toI. ii, p. 471» a
Richard Neville of Farness died at Hot Wells, Bristol, Nov. 80,
1793. I cannot identify this individual ; he is not mentioned
by Barke, and there is no will of his in the Record Office.
Arthur Jones Nevill, of Furnace, whose will was proved
15th March, 1771, mentioned, besides his eldest son, Richard,
another surviving son, Thomas, who, as we shall see hereafter,
must have married and had issue. B. Nevill, M.P., who died
1822, and whose will was proved 22nd June, 1822, there
mentions only his two daughters, Henrietta and Marianne. It
is possible that he had a son, Richard, who predeceased him
in 1798.
The eldest daughter and co-heir of R. Neville, M.P., who
died 1822, Henrietta, married firstly (25th January, 1805),
Edward Dering, eldest son of Sir Edward Dering, 7th Baronet ;
and secondly (15th January, 1810, Burke wrongly says 1840) to
Sir William Geary, 2nd Baronet.^
The present Sir Henry Nevill Dering, Baronet, and also
Sir William Nevill Montgomerie Geary, Baronet, are both
descended from this Henrietta Neville, the heiress of Furness.
The last Richard Nevill of Furness by his will (proved 22nd June,
1822) divided his property equally between his two daughters,
leaving, however, '' Furnace, house, offices, garden, front lawn,
and back lawn to the river, cottage, and thirty acres," to his
daughter Marianne, with an option to take over the demesne at a
valuation. He mentions also in his will a nephew, Dane Draper
Nevill, who must have been a son of his younger brother, Thomas,
referred to above, but not mentioned by Burke.
The representative in the male line of the first Richard
Nevill, of Great Forenaghts, would appear, according to Burke's
*' Landed Gentry,*' to be descended from Garrett, the third son
of this Richard Nevill, now represented by the Nevilles of Moyfin,
County Meath.
I am indebted to G. D. Burtchaell, Esq., M.RI.A., for some
notes on the Neville family, which seem to prove conclusively
that the tradition (incorporated in many books of reference) that
the first Richard Neville, of Furness, was a son of Edward
Neville, a cadet of the Abergavenny family, and that, having
killed one Sir Samuel Luke in a duel, he fled to Ireland in 1649,
has no foundation in fact.
Sir Samuel Luke, who was knighted 20th July, 1624, and
was M.P. for Bedford in 1610 and 1659, did not die till August,
1670. In the last edition of Burke's '^ Landed Gentry," the
' Foster's ** Baronetage," tit. '' Dering " and «* Geary.
»»
NOTES ON FURNESS, OR GREAT FORENAGHTS. 465
di£Sculty about Sir Samuel Luke is got oyer by suggesting ** or
Lake ; " but there was no *' Sir Samuel Lake " in existence at
the time.
Further^ Edward Neville, son of the Hon. Franois Neville, of
Eyner, had no sons. He married Margaret, daughter of Sir
Francis Palmer, and had four daughters, as appears from a
pedigree, dated 1650, in Ulster's Office : —
1. Anne, m. 1st, Sir Richard Southwell; 2nd, John
Trenchard.
2. Frances, m. Lord Ghrey de Ruthyn.
8. Douglas, m. Thomas Pooley.
4. Eatherine.
Moreover, the Arms entered for this Richard Neville in his
funeral entry in Ulster's Office are Barry of four, argent and
azure, on a chief of the first a saltire gules ; i.e., the arms of the
family of Neville, of County Wexford, styled Barons of Rose-
garland, settled in the County Wesford since the time of
Strongbow.
According to Burke, the arms of Neville, of Moyfin, County
Meath, are gules, on a saltire argent, a rose of the field, i.e., the
arms of the Abergavenny Nevilles; and, as the pedigree set out in
Burke makes the Nevilles of Moyfin to be the male representa-
tives of the first Richard Neville, of Fumess, some explanation
is needed, in view of the facts we have stated.
An account of the Nevilles of Rosegarland is to be found in
the recently published " History of Wexford," by Mr. Philip
Herbert Hore.
From the appended pedigree, which has been principally
compiled by Mr. G. D. Burtchaell^ it would appear that the
Colonel Edward Jones (wrongly called Richard by Archdall,
Burke, and other authorities), who married, circa 1717, Mary,
daughter, and eventually heiress, of Richard Neville, of Furnace
(will proved 27th September, 1720), was of a Welsh family
that had been for some time settled in the County Wexford.
The Fumess estate appears to have been settled on Arthur
Jones Nevill, son of Colonel Edward Jones and Mary Nevill, on
his marriage with Elinor Reeves (see will of Captain Richard
Nevill, of Furnace, proved 18th April, 1760). Whether this
family of Jones was allied to the Joneses who were Sovereigns
of Naas and persons of importance in Eildare in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, I leave to the investigation of others.
Nicholas Jones was executor to the will of the first Richard
Nevill, of Great Forenaghts (March, 1682), and a Nicholas
466 NOTES ON FURNESS, OK GREAT FORENAGHTS.
Jones was M.P. for Naas in 1692 ; and a Thomas Jones was of
Osberstown, and Sheriff of Eildare in 1704.^
I have already mentioned that Arthur Young visited Fnmess
in his Irish tour, in 1777, as the gnest of R. Neville, M.P. ;
and he records^ at considerable extent, the result of his inquiries
into the mode of life of the inhabitants, and their methods of
farming. He was struck in his journey from Dublin with the large
population of the country ; that it was generally corn-producing ;
that the practice prevailed of ploughing with oxen; and that
many of the cottiers found employment in spinning. In his
various tours throughout Ireland he made careful observations
of the wages of labour, and notes that at Fumess the rate
for labourers was 8d. a day in the hay and harvest season, and
7d. in winter; whilst a carpenter earned 2s.y and a thatcher
Is. 6d,, per day.*
I have little to say of the long-stone in the centre of the rath,
or of the rath itself, inasmuch as the long-stones and raths in
the neighbourhood of Naas have already formed the subject of an
article by Colonel T. de Burgh, in the Society's Journal. (And
see drawings vol. iii, p. 59.) I only note that the stone is about
17 feet above the ground, and is rectangular for about 12 feet
from the ground (the side dimensions being 2 feet 10 inches by
2 feet 6 inches), and then is jagged, and gradually narrows.
It is to be noticed that the six-inch Ordnance Sheet is wrong in
marking the long-stone as outside the rath. It has been stated
that there is no granite to be found nearer than Ballyknocken,
in the County Wicklow, nine miles away, I am not sure that
this is quite correct There are no granite quarries ; but on the
site of the old pond near Fumess House is a large granite
boulder, evidently laid bare after the excavations for making the
pond. This seems to be a glacial deposit ; and probably further
delving would show that it was not a solitary specimen. The
Furness long-stone, and also the Punchestown and Craddocks-
town long-stones, visited at the Society's excursion in September,
1901, have no inscriptions} Ogham or otherwise; and they do
not, therefore, tell their own story. Tradition also fails us.
O'Donovan, in his "Ordnance Survey Letters" (vol. ii, p. 165),
records the general tradition as to long-stones — ^that they were
either "thrown by the giants from Uisneath Hill, or left in
1 I add here the following query : — How is it that Samuel MUls is
descrihed as of Fumess, and Sheriff of Kildare in 1621, although the last
Richard NevUl, of Fumess, describes himself as of that place in his will
proved 22nd June, 1822 ?
' '* Tour in Ireland," vol. ii, p. 216, and App, ^.
NOTES ON FURNESS, OR GREAT FORENAGHTS. 467
their present position by a witch, or used by the Druids." We
need not discuss the ** Deus ex maohina " theories ; and^ as for
the third, almost all unexplained Celtic customs and relics are
referred to Dmidism, with scanty or no evidence. A writer
(Mr. Hitchcock) in ''The Kilkenny Archsaological Journal"
(yoL i, 1864-66, pp. 280, 281), speculates that these pillar-stones
were originally landmarks dividing the territories of the old
chieftains, as lands were then divided in Roman times.^ But a
link in the chain of proof is wanting. It has not, that I am
aware of, been ever proved that the line of these or other pillar-
stones corresponds with known ancient territorial divisions.
Another theory, that they had a monumental or sepulchral use,
equally lacks corroboration ; and certainly there is none in this
case. Probably the theory that best fits in with the known
hds, and the surviving practices in pagan countries, is that
these rude monuments were the object of a particular form of
heathen worship. I have had a precise account of these
practices and rites now in vogue in Persia and Afghanistan,
Northern India (where these long-stones are also common), from
a friend long resident in the East.
The Fumess Rath, which, according to the Ordnance Map,
is 648 feet above sea-level, is circular in shape, with an interior
diameter of 67 yards. The rampart has a width at the bottom
of from 20 to 26 feet The exterior foss is deepest at the
northern side, i.e., 20 feet from the top of the rampart, and
probably there was originally a lower exterior rampart outside
the foss, traces of which are seen on the western side. The
rampart is formed of mixed earth and stones, and I cannot find
trace of masonry or of '* revetted stonework,'' which Colonel de
Burgh states is peculiar to the Furness Rath. (Vol. ii, TCTrnAHTg
AnoHiBOLoaiOAL SooiBTY^s Journal, p. 818.) On the east and
west sides the earthwork is cut away; but whether these
entrances are modem or not it would be difficult to say. The
common belief that these raths are inhabited by fairies, accounts
for the wild natural growth of trees and shrubs about, as it is
considered unlucky to lay violent hands upon them; and I
may say the same prevalent belief is apt to baulk the
investigations of the inquisitive antiquarian.
I had long been of opinion, judging by the marks in the
field adjoining, that there was once a road leading to the south
side of the rath, and going towards Brognestown, forming a
^ Of the worship of boundaiy marks in Roman times, under the
iignation of the god ** Terminus,** compare Ovid's wdl-known ode.
designatic
^' Tennine sive lapis, sive es defossus in agro, stipes."
JCK
468 NOTES ON FURNESS, OR GREAT FORENAGHTS.
prolongation of the road leading from Johnstown Inn past Lady
Garden's house, at Westown ; and this opinion was confirmed by
Noble and Eeenan's map of the County Eildare, published in
1762, which shows such a road. Local tradition also speaks of
a public road coming from the north, past the old church, And
leading towards Haynestown and Newtown Mill.
I cannot ascertain the name of the architect (if there was
one), or the date of the present house at Furness, and I can
find no trace or tradition of the site of the house inhabited by
the Ashes and by the Nevilles when they first came here.
The granite pillar of a sun-dial in the garden bears the
incised inscription: —
"RN. 178L"
On the south side of the south wing are the following letters
and figures : —
" L A, 1788/'
" L A" possibly means " In Anno."
But probably the centre part of the house is older. If the
house was begun about 1781, the builder was Richard Nevill,
whose will was proved 18th April, 1760, and who, having been
never married, and being about thirty years in the possession of
the estates, had the opportunity to save the wherewithal to
begin building on a large scale ; for there are many signs that
the present structure falls far short of tl^e original plan.
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( 470 )
JOHN FITZGERALD, OF NARRAGHBEG,
By OMURETHI.
NABRAGHBEG is a low hill, lying a mile and a half to the
North-east of Gastledermot. It was so called in distinc-
tion to Narraghmore, which lies seven miles to the North of it.
According to Father Shearman's '^Loca Patriciana/' the fall
name of the latter in Irish was '' An forrac mor Patraic," meaning
St Patrick's great seat or meeting-place; in the Inquisitions
and Fiants it is called '' the Norraghe/' which gives the name to
the baronies of East and West Narragh. Hence Narraghbeg ^
means the lesser meeting-place.
Previous to the sixteenth century Narraghbeg and the sur-
rounding townlands formed a portion of the manor of Eilkea,
belonging to the Earls of Eildare.'
During the sixteenth century the FitzGeralds of Lackagh had
possession of it, and paid a head-rent to the Earls of Eildare.
By an Inquisition held at '^Lytyl Norraghe'' on the 2nd of
January, 1687, it was found that Thomas fitzMorish FitzGerald,
late of Balfeaghan, in the County Meath, and of Lackagh, at the
time of his death, on the 4th of August, 1588, was seised of 2
messuages and 200 acres in Lytyl Norraghe, 4 messuages and
200 acres in Wassiston, 2 messuages and 90 acres in Rath-
scolbyn, and 1 messuage and 140 acres in Hoberston, all held
of the King as of his manor of Eilkea/ Owing to the rebellion
of the Silken Thomas, the Earl of Eildare's property was at this
time forfeited to the Crown.
* In August, 1569, Sir Edmond Butler, of Clogrennan, in the County
Carlow, who was then in rebellion, was reported to the Council as having
burned "Lyttle Norroth," in the County KUdare. (Hamilton's ^^ Calendar
of State Papers, Ireland.")
'In a manuscript volume at Carton, labelled **Leinster Papers,"
mention is made of a feoffment by Patrick Bedfort, son and heir of
John Bedfort, son and heir of Eline Maghery, daughter and heir of
Thomas Mashery, late of Rathsculbey, County Kildare, to Gerald, 8th
Earl of Kildare, on the 16th January, 1488, of all his lands in Rath-
sculbey, Torraght (i.e., Narraghbeg), Molyndreyn, and Testildermot ;
besides lands in the County Carlow, viz., Knockefaight, Great and Little
Rathbille, and Spureoneston aliai Lisneva.
' County Carlow Exchequer Inquisitions of Henry VIII.
JOHN FITZGERALD, OF NARRAGHBEG. 47 1
At the commencement of the seventeenth century a John
FitzGerald was seated at Narraghbeg. He, I believe, was a
younger son of James FitsGerald, of Eilrush, who died on the
20th August, 1602, by his wife, a daughter of Teige oge mac
Teige O'Doyne, Chief of I Regan, in the Queen's County. There
was another John FitzGerald, brother of the Sir Maurice Fitz-
Gerald, Ent.y whose effigy lies in St. Brigid's Cathedral at
Eildare, and who in his will made the following bequest : —
** Itesc. — I bequiet to my brother John FitzGerald XX** in money, and
two good yong horses." *
But as their father, Thomas FitzGerald, of Lackagh, died on the
4th of August, 1688, it is very improbable that this can have
been the John FitzGerald, of Narraghbeg ; as, according to the
following funeral entry, the latter died in 1620 : —
' ' John FitzGerald, of Noraghbeg, in the Oountie of Kildare deceased
the ll*** April 1620 ; he had to wife Elenor [recU, Ellen] d' of Oliver
Tidlone of Boylough in the Oountie of Catherlough, by whome he had
issue — Elenor, Mary, Mien, and Elizabeth."
[This correction should be noted in the FitzGerald of Lackagh
Pedigree at p. 247, Vol. i of The Journal.]
Three of John FitzGerald 's daughters were married : —
Elenor married Teige oge O'Byme, of Ballinvalley,
Goulity Wicklow, and had issue. She died in 1684.
Her will is in the Record Office, and is dated the
4th of June in that year.
Maj'y was also married, according to her father's will
. (? to Patrick O'Hickey).
Ellen mkrried William Weisley, of Hobbardstown, Co.
Kildare^ and had issue.
According to a County Eildare Chanceiy Inquisition^ taken
in Naas on the 18th of May, 1688, Maurice FitzGerald, of
Lackagh, was at the time of his death, in 1687> in possession of
the manor, towns, and lands of Norraghbeg, Rathscolbin^ Tal-
lonston, Hobbardston,^ and Bally vasse alias Waston, held of
the Earl of Eildare. By indenture dated the 20th of March,
1682, he granted the premises in Hobbardston, and the water-
' Sir Maurice FitzGerald died on the 26th December, 1575. His will
is in the Record Office, Dublin.
'Rathaoolbin is now Roocolvin. There is now no townland called
Tallonstown ; it may have been a part of the present large townland of
Hobbardstown.
4^2 JOHN FITZGERALD, OF NARRAGHBEG.
mill there, to Ellen Tallon, her heirs and assigns, for which
reason she was then (in May, 1688) in possession.
In 1640 John FitzOerald's wife, Ellen Tallon, died intestate,
and administration was subsequently granted on the 21 at of
November to her son-in-law, William Weisley.*
On the 28rd of October, 1641 , James FitzGerald, of Lackagh,
was outlawed for high treason, thus forfeiting his right and title
to the manor of Narraghbeg, which, according to ** The Book of
Survey and Distribution," passed into the hands of the Duke of
York, and then to a John Asgill. Hobbardstown, however,
remained in the possession of William Weisley and his wife.
According to the List of Claims entered with the Trustees
at Chichester House, Dublin, in 1700, the lordship, castle, town,
and lands of Narrabegg, Tallonstown, and Rathcolvin were
claimed by Oliver Pleydell, executor of Edmond Pleydell, who
had obtained a lease of them for thirty-one years in 1670.
The last family that inhabited Narraghbeg House, long since
a ruin, appears to have been that of Slack, as in the west end of
the Castledermot Churchyard is a broken and chipped headstone,
with the following incised inscription : —
'*THIS BURIEL FLAG BELONG TO Y
FAMILY OF Y SLACKS ft HEERE LIBS
Y BODY OF RANDOLL SLAOK OF [NA£
RAGH] BEGG QUAN WHO DECEASED
Y . . OF FE 1723 & IN Y 66 YEA OF
HIS AGE.
In a manuscript volume at Carton, labelled '^Leinster
Papers,'* mention is made of a lease, dated the 6th July, 1682, for
sixty-one years, to a Captain Edward Blunt, of the towns, and lands
of Narraghbegge, Boultowne (Bolton), Newtowne, and other town-
lands, at a rent of £100 and two couple of fat capons yearly, to
be paid at the Castle or House of Maynooth ; conditions are
added that he should repair Bolton Castle, and maintain two
horsemen and four footmen fully armed.
This Captain Blunt may have become the tenant of Narragh-
beg on the death of John FitzGerald in 1620.
We now return to John FitzGerald, who, according to the
funeral entry, died on the 11th April, 1620. His will was signed
on the 22nd of February, 1619 (i.e., 1620), and was proved on the
* Prerogative Grant, Record Office.
JOHN FITZGERALD, OF NARRAGHBfiG. 47^
following 12th of May. The copy given here was made from the
original in the Record Office : —
In Dei nomine, Amen.
*' I, John FitzGerald of Narrebege in the Countie of Kildare^ Gentle-
man, of perfect health and memory, God be thanked, doe make my last
will and testament in manner and forme following, the 22 day of Feb. 1619.
'* First, I bequiet my sole to Almightie Grod, my Saviour and Redemer,
and my bodie to be buryed in the parrish church of Kilcake.
*' item, I make, constitute, and appoint my well-beloved wife Ellen
FitzGerrald, als. Tallon, my sole executrixe of this my last will and testa-
ment.
^' Item^ I devise and bequiet to my said wife and executrixe all that
my fearme of Narrebegge, Hobberstowne, Bally wase, and Rathskolbine,
and alsoe my mortegadge of Dowganstowne, and alsoe a paroell of lande
which I holde of Sir Bamaby fitzBrien, Knight, fur tearme of yeares to
have and to hold the said fearme of Narrebege, Hobberstowne, Ballywase,
and Rathskolbine, and the saide parcell of lande in Dowganstowne to the
said Ellin Tallon my wife, her executors and assignes for ever, and
alsoe the said towne and lands of Dowganstowne, and my mortegadge
thereof to the said Ellen her heires and assignes; the said Ellen my
wife preferinge my twoe daughters Ellen and Elizabeth FitzGerrald, to
good and hon**^ preferment accordinge that she in her discretion shall
seeme good.
*^Item, I leave to her alsoe all mv flock of catle, come, and house-
hold stuffe, in the said fearmes and landes for the consideration afore-
said ; and my further meaning is that such part or porcion of my said
fearmes and goods as the said Ellen my wife shall have undisposed that
she shall leave the same to the children begotten betwixt her selfe and
me, and to none other.
'^Iterrij I beauiet and devise to my twoe daughters Ellinor and Mary
allreddy marriea, my mortegadge of half e the parsonadge of Ardristin in
the countie of Catherlagh, and the towne and lands of Knockeneran, in
the said countie, with theire appurtenances thereof, and my mortegadge
thereof, to have and to hold the said moiety of the parsonadge of
Ardristin, and the said towne and landes of Knockerran, to my twoe
said daughters EUinor and Mary, theire heires and assignes, joyntly and
equally to be divided betwixt them.
^^Item, I will and ordayne that my said wife shall dischardge and
paye all lawfuU debts due uppon me to any person or persons what-
soever.
* * liemf 1 doe will and appoint that my son Patricke O'Hickey shall
receave and have of my goods so much as his mother and his foster-father,
Dermod O'Banan shall sweare to have come to my hands of his porcion
of his father's goods, and 1 appoint that my said wife shall deliver unto
him soe mutch more of my owne goods.
'* In witness wherof, 1, the said John FitzGerrald, hereunto my last will
and testament, put my hande and seale, the said day and yere first
above written.
"-f- John FitzGen*ald's make.
''Being present at the sealing and publishing therof by the said John
FitzGerrakl, as his last wiU and testament, those persons whose names
are hereunder written.
" Mich. Cowley.
"EdmondO'Kelly,
'« Ellinor Bime, als. FitzGerald.
''James Walsh."
474 JOHN FITZGERALD, OF NARRAGHBEG.
The townlanda named in the third paragraph of the will are
DOW : — Narraghbeg, Hobbartstovn, Ballyvase, and Roacolvin ;
and are sitaated between Kilkea Castle and GaBtlederniot.
Dowganstown is probublj intended for Donganstown, near
Carlow ; and Ardristan is iu the Baronj of Bathrill;.
Kilcake is probably the " Killcocke in Kilmsh parish, cod-
taining 180 acres," mentioned in " the Snrrey and Distribation
Book," as having been granted to Lord Ely after the 1641 period.
Neither Kilcake nor Kilcock is the name of a townland in the
parish of Kilmsh (Coanty Kildare) at the present time.
John FltzGerald's wish, as expressed in his will, to be buried
at " Kilcake " does not seem to have been carried ont, as two
portions of a memorial cross erected by his wife were, antU a
few years ago, lying about in the charohyard at Castledermot
(which is one mile from Narraj;[hbeg), and where it is presamed
he was aotnally bnried. Three other portions of the same cross
have been identified as belonging to it ; they were found, as
described below, scattered some miles apart ; and all were for
safety collected together and deposited in Kilkea Castle in 1894.
Fig. I was brought from Mr. Patrick Faroan's garden at
Bolton Castle, three miles from Castledermot, where it was being
used for a flower-stand. Its position in the cross was probably
between the shaft and the upper portion ; it has a socket both
above and below.
Fig. II was for years lying at Eilkea Castle ; the opposite
face is completely broken off.
Fig. in was discovered lying inside the Bound Tower of
Castledermot.
Fig. IT was lying used as a headstone at the west end of
Castledermot churchyard. Below the emblems of the Crucifixion
is a crowned figure, probably intended for the Blessed Virgin
Mary. The upper portion of the opposite side is blank ; but in
the lower part is what is intended for the Tallon coat-of-arme,
riz. : —
"Or, four bars sable, a canton ai^ent."
w^^
ft
«
I
JOHN FITZGERALD, OF NARBAGHBEG. 477
Fig. V IB B small fragment, one face of which is smooth
and plain, while the other is completely broken off; at the
sideB are portions of the figures of saiuts. The lower end of
this fragment is redaced as if to form a dowel to fit into a
socket. It was discovered while repairing a haggard wall in
Castledermot
The ooraera of this cross were ornamented with a twisted
rope-like border, with the exceptions of Figs I and IV, which
have a bevelled edge ; the existing portions of the shaft are
7 inches thick and 91 inches in width ; the carving is in low
FtottacB or thi Bumts b .
JoHH FitzQesala's Monvmbmtui Csoee.
St. Juu Uuoi Si. Aiduw. St. Tboium.
relief, except at the sides where the effigies of the saints are
deeply cut under ogee-headed niches. Each saint ia similar in
4/8 JOHN FITZGERALD, OF NARRAGHBEG.
appearance^ and only to be distingnished by the emblem or
weapon, typical of his martyrdom, which he holds in his hand.
The inscriptions on the different portions are very frag-
mentary ; what remain read as follows : —
On portion in Fig. I : —
THIS CBOSS WAS EBiEOTBD BE [sic] ELLEN TA
On Fig. II :—
FOB HEB HY8BAND JOHN FITZQ
And on the portion in Figure III : —
HIS SOVLE WHO DIED XI APE. | 162[0 d]eSIBINO
YOU ALL TO PBAI FOB THB[m ].
At the back of this piece appears : —
THIS WORLD IS VANITIE.
And below the foliage device which comes next are the
letters — mah : o. m., which I am unable to interpret, unless they
are the initials of the stone-mason, and possibly may stand for
Mahon O'More.
When the inscription was complete, it must have run some-
thing in this manner : —
THIS CBOSS WAS EBBOTBD BE ELLEN Ta[lLON FOB
HEBSELF and] FOB HEB HVSBAND lOHN FITZ-
o[erald of nabbebeqe, gent., may god have
MERCY on] his SOVLE, WHO DIED XI APB. 162[0
d]eSIRING YOW all to PBAI FOB THEM * * * *
This John FitzGerald, being descended from the FitzGeralds
of Lackagh, who sprang from the 7th Earl of Kildare, bore for
bis coat-of-arms ''a saltire gules," had a monkey for his crest,
and used " Crom-a-boo *' for his motto.
( 479 )
NOTES ON MURAL GRAVES FOUND IN THE
FOUNDATIONS OF THE CHANCEL OF ST.
BRIG ins CA THEDRA L CHURCH, KILDA RE,
IN 1891.
By the very REV. GEORGE YOUNG CO WELL, M.A.,
Dean of Kildare.
[Read, 22nd January, 1902.]
IT has been thoaght desirable that a short record should be
preserved of two mnral interments in the foundations of the
chancel (south side) of the Cathedral Church of St. Brigid,
Kildare, discovered during the progress of rebuilding in 1891.
When the committee of restoration found themselves in a
position to commence rebuilding the ruined chancel, thej resolved
to do so as nearly as possible on the lines of the old one, which
had been indicated in the plans of the late George Edmund
Street, R.A., and were worked out in detail by J. F. Fuller,
F.S.A., the Diocesan Architect, under whose careful and skilled
direction the work of restoration was so satisfactorily completed.
The contractor was accordingly directed to follow and remove
the remains of the old walls, in order to obtain an exact and
sure foundation. When the workme^ had removed a small
portion of the old walls on the south side, parts of which were
exceedingly hard and well bonded, they came one evening unex-
pectedly on a grave in the foundation itself, some foot and a half
or two feet below the level of the ground, and at a distance of
about twenty-four feet from th6 east wall of the south transept.
The grave or cist was formed of ordinary masonry, the stones
were not specially cut or shaped, and the opening was covered
with rough green flags. The interior edge of the cist was
straight, and ran parallel to the wall of the chancel. The
exterior edge, on the other hand, was roughly shaped, like an
ordinary coffin, somewhat like the accompanying sketch. The
'/////////
cist contained a skeleton, perfect apparently to the smallest bones,
and the arms were crossed on the breast. I was sent for; but
|i crowd had gathered in the meantime, and some of the teeth
480 MURAL GRAVES IN
had been taken as relics, and at least one woman had pat one in
her mouth, apparently as a charm for toothache. This skeleton
was doubtless regarded as that of an ancient saint ; but as the
head was towards the west, the person interred was probably it
layman, if the distinction between lay and clerical burials was
observed at that time. The hour was late, and it was getting
dark, so I had the churchyard cleared, the gate closed, and told
the foreman that I would be up in the morning to decide what
should be done ; but the hope, I presume, of getting some coins
or other relics in the cist, led him to neglect my orders, and
when I came next morning, the grave had been cleared, and the
bones removed and buried. The foreman declared that nothing
beyond the skeleton itself was found in the grave, not even a
portion of a coffin.
When the workmen proceeded a few feet further in excavat-
ing the foundation, another cist was discovered of a similar
character, also containing a large skeleton, but apparently not
covered with green flags.
The person buried must have been an immense man. My
son, the late C. F. Lloyd Gowell, L.RG.S.L, measured some of
the bones, and calculated the height as at least 6 feet 8 inches.
He tested his calculations by some personal comparisons, and
concluded that the man was considerably taller than he was, and
his height was 6 feet 8i inches ; so that the calculation was pro-
bably correct. Since writing the above, I have been making
inquiries, and am informed by his brothers, who were present,
that my son afterwards arranged the bones of the skeleton in
order, and measured the length with a tape, which gave the
height as 7 feet 6 inches, and that the length of the cist was
8 feet
So fietr as I could find out, nothing else was discovered in this
grave. The peculiarity of the second grave was that the narrow
end of the cist was towards the west, as if intended for the burial
of an ecclesiastic, but that the person actually buried was a
layman. At all events, contrary to the shape of the grave, the
head and shoulders were placed in the narrow end of the cist
The sketch above alluded to is intended to represent not only
the shape, but the relative positions, of the two graves in the
wall
If you took an ordinary coffin of very large size, and cut it
vertically down the middle from end to end, and then placed the
two portions in line with the narrow ends towards each other,
a few feet apart, you have the most exact illustration that I can
give of the graves.
It was positively stated, as I have said^ that nothing was
CHANCEL OF ST BRIGID'S CATHEDRAL, KILDARE. 48 1
found in the grayes^ so that no eiLtraneons indications have been
preserved of the period of the interments, or of the quality of
the persons interred. These questions must be answered, so
far as they can, by the place and nature of the interments
themselves.
The place, in the south foundation of the chancel, indicates
the distinfifuished position of the persons buried, whether lay or
clerical. The nature indicates, I am inclined to believe, a period
coeval with the building of the chancel, probably 1229 A.D.,
when the Cathedral was restored and beautified by Ralph of
Bristol, probably the first English, or perhaps Norman, Bishop
of Eildare. Mr. Street, in his report on the state of the fabric
in October, 1871, says : — ''This ancient Cathedral appears to have
been built in the early part of the thirteenth century.''
The interments could not have taken place subsequently
to the erection of the chancel without very great difficulty, and
tearing down a large portion of the chancel wall and its founda-
tion, unless these " loculi " were originally formed in the
foundation, covered with flags, the wall of the chancel built over
them, and some indications left to point out where the face of
chancel wall could be broken down to admit the bodies of the
dead. This provisional arrangement does not seem very pro-
bable. On the other hand, of course, the death of two distin-
guished persons, just at the time of laying the foundations of the
chancel, seems singular. I leave the decision to the learned
guesses of the wise.
( 482 )
^tsccllanca.
Turnings. — The illustration given above is from a rubbing,
taken by Mr. Cooke- Trench, of a sculptured window-bead of two
lights, which is in use at the back of Turnings House. The original
rubbing was exhibited at the Annual General Meeting of the Society
in Naas, which waa postponed to the 20th February, 1901, owing
to the deatli of Her Majesty. Whether this window la in n'tu, or
whether it was brought here from another tocahty, is not known ;
its mobable date is tiie fifteenth or sixteenth century.
There is said to be another sculptured stone close to the back-
door, on which is cut in relief an object like a full-sized cricket-
bat ; but it is not now visible, as daring the recent repairs to the
house by the present occupant, Mr. Mills, the mason covered the
stone with a coat of dashing.
In addition to these stones, there are two others, of small size,
i^'ffaojrs
• w-
t^B-^^-Si
ff-^E
jyif^
with lettering on them. Fig. £ is built into the base of gate-pier,
attached to the house, leading into the stable-yard ; apparently it
reads : " Thomas Par 1711." Fig. II is built into the pier of the
gate on the farm-road.
^me of the fields around the house still bear Irish niunes : for
MISCELLANEA. 483
instance, the rocky field facing the hall-door is called '< Clocheraun ; "
to thesonth are ''Parkanoss," or ^'Parkanaughy/' and ''Gloonavoy;'*
to the north is <^ Gortshannick." Where the Turnings Boad joins
the Sallins Boad is a stretch of it called '' Grookaun," and a gate
known as the ** Gallows Gate.**
«..^ As to the history of this place very little is known; in the
^ / Inquisitions it goes by the name of '< Surning/' as well as ''Turning "
^.» ^ — a name I cannot explain the meaning of .^
'^ In 1406 the custody of the lands in the town of ** Surnyng "
i' was granted by the king to Thomas Hall, who on the 18th June,
. \ 1422, was appointed Sheriff of the County Eildare.^
S^ In the following century it formed a part of the Manor of
Whitechurch, which belonged to the Viscounts Gormanstown. As
^ early as 1508 Sir William Preston, 2nd Viscount Gormanstown,
enfeoffed Archdeacon Robert Sutton and Thomas Gomwalshe, Vicar
of Stamullen, in the Manor of Whitechurch,^ alias TuUaghtipper,
containing the towns and lands of le Turnyng, alias Surnyng,
Glonyng, Eillenmore, Kilbregaghe, Killussy, Bathmore, near Glane,
Gollenblakeston, Ardress, Gloghle, Osbertiston, and Glanwhiche,
which were held of the King.^ Sir William died on the 22nd
September, 1582, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Jenico
Preston, 8rd Viscount, who leased the Manor of Whitechurch, on
'^ the 16th February, 1560, to Patrick Sarsfield, merchant, of Dublin,^
and brother of Sir William Sarsfield, Knt., of Lucan, Gounty Dublin,
to whom it passed, and in whose family it remained till it was
forfeited by his grandson, William (son of John) Sarsfield, of Lucan,
who joined in the Bebellion of 1641.
There was one parcel of three acres in Turnings on Sir William's
death in 1616, cfdled '< Gortmuck,'* or *'Monemuck** (i.e., the
Garden of the Pig, or Bog of the Pig), which was claimed by Martin
Long, of Derry (Daars), as belonging to him.®
After being forfeited by the last-named William Sarsfield,
Turnings was granted to Sir Theophilus Jones, Knt., of Osbertstown,
in the Gounty Meath. He was the second son of Doctor Lewis Jones,
Bishop of Killaloe; he died on the 2nd January, 1684, and was
buried in Naas. By his wife, Alicia, daughter of Arthur, son of Sir
William Usher, Knt., he left an eldest son, Sir Arthur Jones, Knt.,
who succeeded him in Osbertstown/
About the year 1582 is recorded a pardon for rebellion of
* In one map of the oounty the name is given as " Twinings."— Ed.
' Bot. Hih. Cane. Cal., p. 1856, and p. 227.
» ArohdalPs " Peerage," vol. iii, p. 77.
* Co. Dnblin Ex. Inqn«
* lb., No. 188 of Eliz.
* Co. Kiidare Chanc. Inqn. No. 17 of James L
' Archdall's *' Peerage," vol. ii, p. 895, and Co. Kiidare Chano.Inqn., No. 5 of
Charles II.
L L
484 MISCELLANEA.
Edmond reogh (the swarthy) O'Lalor, of Turnings, gent. ; Margaret,
his wife ; Biohard, his son ; Elis, his daughter ; and Murrough
O'Dufify, his servant.*
W. FiTzG.
The Three Sir Maurice Eustaces of the latter end of
the seventeenth century.
Tlie existence of as many as three Sir Maurice Eustaces, all of
the House of Gastlemartin, at this period, is apt to puzzle
genealogists, and to cause confusion when writing of them and their
wives. The following notes about each of them are given in the
order in which they died : —
1. Sir Maurice Eu$ta4SSy Knt., Lord Chancellor of Ireland, lived at
Harristown, in the County Kildare, and at his house in
Damask (now Eustace) Street, Dublin. He was knighted
about the year 1640.
His father was John Eustace, of Harristown (ob. 1628),
a younger son of William Eustace, of Castlemartin.
His wife was Charity, daughter of Sir Robert Dixon,
Knt., of Dublin, by whom he had no issue. In his will Sir
Maurice mentions his illegitimate son, Maurice Eustace, of
Portlester, County Meath.
He died on the 22nd of June, 1665, and, according to a
'* Funeral Entry," was buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral,
Dublin; but his widow's will contradicts this, as she
expressly desires in it to be buried near her husband at
Castlemartin, if she dies in the country (i.e., at Harris-
town), and near her father in St. Werburgh's Church, if
she dies in Dublin ; her death took place in June, 1678,
when she was aged seventy-two.
2. Sir Maurice Eustace, Bart,, of Castlemartin, was a first cousin
once removed of the Lord Chancellor's.
His father was John Eustace (son of Maurice, eldest
son of the William Eustace, of Castlemartin, mentioned
above), of Castlemartin ; and his mother was Margaret,
daughter of Edmond Keating, of Narraghmore, in the
County Kildare.
Sir Maurice was created a Baronet on the 28rd
December, 1685 ; and in 1690 he was attainted for fighting
for James II.
His wife was Margaret, daughter of Brigadier Sir
Thomas Newcomen, Knt., of Sutton, County Dublin, by
' Eliz. Fiant, No. 4,038.
MISCELLANEA. 485
whom be had two daughters, Frances and Maria Henrietta,
who both died unmarried.
After his attainder, Sir Maurice served in France,
where be died in 1698. His widow survived him, and died
in January, 1788.
8. Sir Maurice Eustace, Knt., of Harristoum, was second cousin of
his namesake, the Baronet, and nephew of the Lord
Chancellor.
He was the second son of William Eustace, the Lord
Chancellor's younger brother, by his wife Ann, daughter
of James Netterville, of Castletown Kilpatrick, in the
County Meath.
Sir Maurice was knighted in November, 1662, and was
Member of Parliament for Enocktopher, County Kilkenny,
in 1665-6, and for Harristown in 1692-5.
He was twice married, first to Ann, daughter of Sir
Robert Colville, Knt., of Newtown, County Down. Her
death took place on the 26th of August, 1685, and she was
buried at Coghlanstown, County Kildare. The second
wife was Clotilda, daughter and heir of Michael Parsons,
of Tomduff, County Wexford. She died about the year
1752. By his wives Sir Maurice had one son, who died
young, and seven daughters.
His death occurred on the 18th April, 1708, and it is
not at all unlikely that he, too, was buried near his first
wife, in the Cogbianstown Churchyard, which lies close to
Harristown.
My thanks are due to Mr. O. D. Burtchaell, of Ulster's Office,
for much assistance he kindly gave me in the above notes.
Of Harristown Castle, which stood in the field opposite to the
railway station, a very small fragment now remains. In 1884
Mr. John La Touche, of Harristown, gave permission to his agent
to throw down the castle in order to build a schoolhouse, &c., with
the materials. In this way many a historic relic of the past has
been destroyed by those who should have thought less of their
pocket and more of their country's history.
W. FiTzG.
( 486 )
^ofcs.
Irish Warriors and Peasants, a.d. 1521.
Facsimile, actual size, of a drawing by Albreoht Ddrer, dated
1521, now in cabinet of engravings, Berlin.
; A pen-drawing, washed with colour. Over the two figures on
the left is written by Diirer himself : —
*' Also gand dy Krigs man In Irlandia hindr engeland."
I (Here go the Warriors in Ireland beyond England.)
Over the three figures on the right is similarly written : —
I '* Allso gand dij paivem In Irlandyen."
(Here go the Peasants in Ireland.)
On top, in space between the two groups, Diirer's monogram
and date, 1521.
The drawing was reproduced in facsimile in Dr. F. Lippmann's
" Drawings of Albrecht Diirer," Berlin, 1888.
Also reproduced in *' Kilkenny Archaeological Journal," 1877,
p. 296.
W. G. S.
This drawing is reduced from a photograph procured by the
Earl of Mayo from W. O. Strickland, Esq., of the National Oallerj
of Ireland, who has also supplied the notes on the drawing which
are printed above. Lord Mayo suggests that these figures would
make a splendid subject for treatment in tapestry, if separated a
little, and trees and verdure put in by a competent artist.
The Castle of Kildare.
On p. 297 of the 2nd volume of our Journal it is stated that the
Castle of Kildare '* may have been built by William de Vesci." As a
matter of fact, it was not built by him, but by William le Marechal,
or Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, who was, in right of his wife, Isabel
de Clare, daughter of Strongbow, Lord of Leinster, and whose death
took place in 1219.
This is proved by an Inquisition taken before Sir John Wogan,
Knt., Justiciary of Ireland, at Castledermot, on the 26th of February,
1802, when the jurors, upon their oath, found that : —
''William, formerly Earl Marshall, senior, built originaUy the Castle of
Kildare on the soil of the Church of Kildare, without the consent of the Bishop
and Chapter thereof; that afterwards Ralph (de Bristol), formerly Bishop of
Kildare, impleaded the Earl of the site of the Castle, and the Earl, in order to
I
I!
488 NOTES,
make peace, gave to the Bishop and his suooessors 10 marks a year, receivable
from the Castle; that Nicholas iCusaok) and his predecessors, Bishops of Eildare,
were from that time seised of tne 10 marks a year by the hands of William de
Vescy, late Lord of Eildare, and his antecessors, as of the right of their Churoh,
until the said William, when he was Justiciary of Irehmd (1290-98), on account
of a contention between him and Nicholas, withdrew the rent ; that the rent was
detained from Nicholas and his church for nine years, as well after the lands
and tenements of William de Yescy came to the king's hands as bciore ; that the
lent is wont to be levied in this way, to wit, the bailiff of the Bishop of Kildare
goes to the Castle, and demands it from the bailiff of the Castle at the consti-
tuted terms; and if he won't pay, the Bishop there is wont to excommunicate the
bailiff from day to day until the rent is fully paid.*'*
The De Vesoys inherited the Lordship of Kildare by marriage,
thus : — William fitz Eustace de Vescy (ob. 1258) married to his
second wife Agnes de Ferrars, heiress to Kildare through her
mother, Sibell, one of the daughters of William Marshall, Earl of
Pembroke (mentioned above), who had married William de Ferrars,
7th Earl of Derby.
The Castle and Manor of Kildare remained in the possession of
the De Vescy family till the death of Sir William de Vescy in 1297,
when they reverted to (he Grown. ^
In 1809 William de Wellesley was appointed Constable of the
Castle for life ; but ^ in 1816 the Castle and Manor were granted
by Edward II to John fitz Thomas FitzOerald, 6th Baron of
Offaly, created at the same time Earl of Kildare, in recognition
of his services to the Crown during Bruce's invasion of Ireland.
It was declared in Parliament that this grant to the Baron of
Offaly, together with a three days' siege of the Castle by Edward
Bruce, during which William de Wellesley lost many of his kindred,
and other circumstances, caused the latter a loss of £500 — in those
days a very large sum/
At this period the Castle of Kildare was one of the strongest
fortresses in the English districts ; one tower of it alone now
remains in existence.
The Earl of Kildare's "Bed Book" states that Richard
fitz Thomas FitzGerald, 8rd Earl of Kildare, died on the 7th July,
1881 ; and, according to a post-rfwrtem Inquisition, he held of the
king in capite a castle in Kildare, which had four towers, a chapel,
and a kitchen ; and that he paid yearly for the site it was built on
ten marks to the Bishop of Kildare, at Easter and at Michaelmas.
W. FrrzG.
> Page 54, vol. for 1302-7, of Sweetman*s Calendar of Documents.
•^ Vide p. 200, vol. for 1293-1301. of Sweetman's Cal. of Docs., Ire,
' Lynch's *' Feudal Dignities in Ireland," p. 96,
*Jb,p.97,
( 489 )
Where Is the Church of St. Abban, near Leixlip?
By a County Kildare Exchequer Inquisition (No. 8 of James I),
taken at Oughterard on the 10th August, 1604, it was found that
James Cottrell, late Ahbot of the Monastery of St. Thomas the
Martyr, in Dublin (also known as Thomas Court), on the 8th
October, 1585, with the consent of his convent, had granted the
tithes of a moiety of Leixlip to " John Dee, Vicar of the Church or
Chapel of St. Abban, lying within the Manor of Leixlip."
W. PiTzG.
Is ''Castle Doghenay," near Dunmurry, in existence?
In a manuscript volume at Carton, called *< Leinster Papers," is
a copy of a feoffment to Gerald, Earl of Kildare, of Dunmurry, by
James fitz Bobert Creefe, Robert fitz Oliver Greefe, and Walter
fitz Theobald Creefe, on the 16th January, 1488. In it '* Castle
Doghenay " is mentioned as being situated on the lands of Dun-
murry.
W. FiTzG.
The Two Bishop's Courts in the County Kildare.
According to a County Kildare Exchequer Inquisition (No. 2 of
Edward VI), William Miagh (Meagh or Meade), Bishop of Kildare,
at the time of his death on the 16th of December, 1548, was, in
right of his Bishopric, seised of 1 castle, 1 ruined hall, 10 mes-
suages, and 120 acres in *' Busahopps Courte juxta le Idfe^'' in the
County Kildare, as well as 10 messuages and 200 acres in Busshopps
Courte in the Parish of Oughterard, The former Bishop's Court
(together with the lands of Ballyvey, alias Be-is-ton, Corbally,
Kildare, and Athgarvan) was in after years let to John Wellesley,
of Bishop's Court, who died in 1598, and was buried in the Church
of Connall (? Great Connell).
The other Bishop's Court was, in 1548, let for eighty-one years
to Sir John Alen, Knt., of St. Wolstan's, who, dying without issue,
left it to his nephew, Edward Alen, of Kilteel ; this is the Bishop's
Court now owned by the Earls of Clonmell, and the only one now
giving a name to a townland in the County Kildare.
Where was the Bishop's Court near the Liffey situated ?
W. PiTzG.
( 490 )
The Castles at Leixlip.
The following extract from **The Civil Survey,*' made by James
Peisley and Henry ^f akepeace, by virtue of a Commission from the
Lord Deputy and Council, bearing date the 21st September, 1654,
certainly mentions two castles as then existing in the town of Leixlip,
one being known as " the Black Castle," which was not the one
now occupied by our Member, Mr. William Mooney. "The Civil
Survey " gives the following account of Leixlip : —
Yalae of the
said lands
Nnmber of
as they
Name of the Proprietor and Qualification.
Acres by
Estimate of
weere lett.
or worth to
the Cnntry.
be lett in
the yeare
1640.
George ffitEGerrald, Earle of Eildare, \
40
£10
Protestant.
Lady Allen, of St. WoUston's,
54
£10
Irish Papist.
Simon Luttrell, of Luttrelstowne,
45
£6
Irish Papist.
In Leixlip.
Pattrick Long and Thomas Germaine,
23
£5
both of Kildone,
Irish Papists.
Sir Nycholas White, of LeizUp, Knight,
360
£115
Irish Papist.
John Gierke, of Dublin, /
4
£1
Irish Papist. / ' 1
** There is one Castle called the Black Castle upon the Earle of Kildare his
lands in Leixlip aforesaid.
** There is one Come Mill and one Cloth Mill upon the Lady Allen her lands
in Leixlip aforesaid, which said Mills were worth to be lett in the yeare 1640 Uie
summe of thirty pounds per Ann.
'< There is one ruined Castle with other stone houses of Office, with one
garden and orchard upon Sir Nyoholas White his lands in Leixlip aforesaid.
*' There is one Dove-house upon the landb of Sir Nycholas White his land in
Leixlip alsoe.
ANSWER TO QUERY. 49 1
" There is one Salmon Leape neare unto the Castle belonging to Sir Nycholas^
White aforesaid.
" There is in Leizlip belonging to Sir Nyoholas White aforesaid twenty aore&
of wood fitt for timber, which is valued to be worth ....
'* There is one Little Stone House in Leixlip aforesaid, which was built for
the Poore, butt noe other maintenance allowed than the charity of the
neighbours.
• '•
'* There is one small bridge over the Bye Water which runneth through the
aforesaid town of Leixlip and meteth the river Liffie.
** There is in Leixlip aforesaid one Parrish Church.
" There is alsoe one Quarrie of Stone, and one Slate Quarrie upon the said
lands of Leixlip.
" Gerrald White of Dublin, Proprietour of the Great Tythes of Leixlip afore-
said, which said Tythes were sett in the yeare 1640 att the Bent of ffourty
pounds per Ann.
''The Castle Tythes of Leixlip being possessed in the yeare 1640 by the
Lady White were then sett for ffive pounds per Ann.
*' The Smalle Tvthes of the aforesaid Towne and Parrish of Leixlip belonged
unto the clerke in the yeare 1640 and were then sett for ffoure pounds per Ann.
W. FiTzG.
»>
M M
( 492 )
Review.
** A. History of the County of Dubun." By Francis Elbinoton
Ball. Part I. The Parishes of Monkstown, Eill-of -the-Grange,
Dalkey, Eilliney, Tally, Stillorgan, and KilmacucL Dablin :
Alex, Thorn & Co.
The author states that he has undertaken this work chiefly
because of the quantity of fresh material which has become avail-
able since John D'Alton's well-known " History of the County of
Dublin " was written. One hundred and thirty-four pages are
devoted to the history of the seven parishes dealt with in this first
instalment. The volume is handsomely got up, and well illustrated,
and an excellent map of the district is given. The treatment is by
no means purely antiquarian ; and probably the general reader will
be all the better pleased with it for that reason. The specialist will,
however, find ample references, should he desire to consult the
original authorities. A considerable space is given to the history of
the localities during the eighteenth century, with which period Mr.
Ball practically concludes his work ; and probably most people will
thank him for the very copious .information he has collected about
the various places of residence with which the district abounds, witli
the gossip (if we may so irreverently term it) about their respective
owners and occupants. At the same time, there are vivid sketches
of the events of an earlier age, when the neighbourhood was subject
to plundering inroads of the Irish from the Wicklow territory, and
the country was studded with strong castles for defence.
As there was once a time when Kinsale was a more famous port
than Cork or Queenstown, so there was a time when passengers
and merchandise intended for Dublin were landed at the port of
Dalkey, which was then a walled town, containing seven strong
castles. In its prosperous days, in the fifteenth and sixteenth cen-
turies, Dalkey was able to send 200 men at arms to the County
Levy ; but when Ringsend became the port of Dublin, its glory
faded. Of its numerous castles only two remain, one of which
forms part of the present Town Hall. In passing, we should like
to ask what Mr. Ball means by speaking of the other as '^a fairly
complete ruin " ?
Sporting men may not all be aware that the famous racecourse
and the adjoining demesne of Leopardstown were known until the
eighteenth century as '^ Leperstown," and belonged to the Leper
REVIEW. 493
Hospital of St. Stephen, which stood where Mercer's Hospital is
now built
It is strange to read that so late as 1754 Donleary (now Kings-
town) '' was an inconsiderable and dirty village, the abode of a few
fishermen ; and the country between it and Bullock was a sterile
tract, covered with furze and heath, and traversed by a few foot-
paths." Equally strange, to be told that Lord Banelagh, who died
in 1797 at Monkstown, found it necessary to establish an association
for the repression of the footpads with whom the roads then
swarmed.
©orrigcnba.
Page 17. The view of the Curragh Camp is looking East not
West.
Page 88. The so-called Laraghbryan *' holed stone " has been
ascertained to be a mill-stone converted into a head-
stone, and so is not to be classed with those interesting
relics of pagan times.
Page 106. In the lower half of this page every ** Hogan *' should
be read Wogan.
Page 178. In the Aylmer of Donadea Pedigree, Sir Gerald Ayhner
is stated to be the drd Baronet, which is wrong, as he
died before his father, the 2nd Baronet (as is correctly
stated on pp. 174, 175). This will make the present
Baronet the 12th, and not the ISth, as is stated in the
Pedigree.
Page 211. In the 11th line from the top, Blackrath should be
given as ^lear Kile alien, and not near Ballitore. The
latter belonged to the Wellesleys, Barons of Norragh
(i.e., Narraghmore).
Page 248. In the bottom line read '' of Osberstown, Go. Meath."
Page 890. In the 18th line from the bottom of the page, " Carry-
hills " should be Curry liiUs.
( 494 )
Jl ^escnpHon of t^e ^ronfts)>tcce.
By sir ARTHUR VICARS.
Some explanatory remarks may be acceptable on tbe Frontispiece ^
to this volume of The Journal.
It is a fac-simile of the Funeral Entry' of Gerald, 14th £arl
of Eildare, who died on the 11th of February, 1611 (old style), and,
according to the custom of the time, was buried with all the panoply
of state befitting his rank, the funeral being marshalled by Ulster
King of Arms.
In the centre appears the Earl's Surcoat, in form the same as
the Tabard worn by Heralds of the present day, emblazoned with
the red Saltire of the FitzGeralds. Above it, the EarPs Coronet,
surmounted by the Helm and Lambraquin with Crest ; his Sword
being on one side and the Targe, ensigned by his coronet, on the
other.
■■ At the top of the page appears the great Banner with the Fitz-
Gerald Arms, impaling the Arms of his wife (Elizabeth, daughter
of Sir Christopher Nugent, Baron of Delvin), together with all the
quarterings to which she was entitled. This, like all the banners,
standards, and pennons, is edged with a fringe of the livery colours —
white and red.
To the left hand of the Surcoat is shown the great Standard.
This flag varied in length according to the degree of the owner ; an
Earl's was six yards long, and indented at the fly. Next to the
Staff was always the Cross gules of St. George, and the crest of the
flag was divided ^* per fesse," and fringed of the livery colours. The
rest of the field always had the badge or crest dispersed over it, and
the motto, or war-cry, was depicted diagonally across the field.
The pointed flag on the other side is the Pennon, and the small
Bannerols show the alliances of the family.
According to custom, the deceased always lay in state in his
l^ouse on a Catafalque, with a hearse or canopy over it ; and at the
head of the coflin was placed a Chair of State for the Chief Mourner,
who was assisted in her lamentations by hired weepers.
The banners, standards, and insignia were all carried in the
funeral procession, at which Ulst-er King of Arms officiated in his
Tabard, and proclaimed the titles of the deceased at the grave-side.
This beautifully illuminated page forms only one of the many
entries of a similar nature of the fltzGerald family that adorn the
folios of the Funeral Entries in Ulster's Office.
The Shield at the foot of the page refers only to the Funeral
Entry, and did not figure at the burial.
' The fac-simile of the Earl of Kildare's Funeral Entry has been presented
to The Journal by Lord Walter FltzGerald.
« Volume m, fol. 33,
INDEX.
Adamstown, 432.
Alen, Family of. See List of High
Sheriffs; and Kildare Gentry,
118.
Ed ward, 489.
Sir John, 376, 428, 489.
Thomas, 428.
Lady Alen, 490.
AUen, district of, 175, 282, 488.
. Bog of, 444.
• Island of, 444.
Almshouse at Naas, 187.
Altar-tombs :—
Browne, 260.
Eustace, 302.
FitzGerald, 239.
Wogan, 99.
An-annia Road, the, 288.
Annesley, family of, 448-460. See
High Sheriffs.
Antiquities at : —
Glongowes Wood College, 394, 898.
Edenderry Museum, 825-383.
Kilkea Castle, 196, 265.
Aoneohs (Eenaghs). See Fairs.
Arohbold, Christopher, 486, 440.
Ardglass, 311.
Ardrass, 483.
Ardreigh, 431, 432, 435, 441.
Ardristan, 456.
Arthurstown, 456.
Ashe, family of, 461, 462.
Thomas, 134.
Margaret, 461.
Athy, 269, 377, 399, 483, 440, 444, 447.
Avon Life (tee Lifley), 2.
Aylmer, family of. See High Sheriffs ;
and Kildare Gentry, 119.
of Balrath, Co. Meath, Sir
Gerald, 175.
of Donadea, Sir Andrew, 173,
174, 212, 268; Bartholomew,
877; Sir FitzGerald, 175;
Sir Gerald, 170, 171, 172,
176, 268, 876, 433, 493.
Aylmer, Sir Justin, 175.
Elizabeth, 174.
JuUa, 173.
Mabel, 173.
of Lyons, Sir Richard, 170, 172,
876, 376; Thomas, 174.
Bagenal, George, 251.
Bagpipes, 26, 377, 378.
Balfeaghan, 470.
Ballachmoon, 124.
Ballads : —
Burial of Sir John Moore, 365.
Donnelly and Cooper, 27.
The Geraldines, 13.
The Shan- van -vogh, 13.
Ballinacor, 430, 435.
Ballmderry, 442.
Ballyadams, Queen's Co., 283.
Ballybeg, 489.
Ballycutland(Goghlanstown), 266,847.
348, 428, 444.
Ballylogher, 427.
Ballymore Eustace, 848-854, 378.
Constables of, 344,
345, 346.
Deanery of, 354.
Ballymoroghroe, 486, 437.
Ballynadrumny, 133.
Ballynure, Doon of, 160.
Ballysax, 8, 32, 449.
Ballyshannon, Go. Donegal, 426.
Ballyshannon, Co. Kildare, 425-462.
Manor of, 431, 440.
Prebendary of, 460-452.
Vicar of, 440, 450.
Ballysonan. See Ballyshannon.
Bally vass, 471, 473.
Baltinglass, 382.
Abbey possessions, 382.
Balyna, 46, 321 , 439.
Bamewall, Sir Christopher, 173.
John, 3rd Baron of Trim-
lestown, 347.
Elizabeth, 847.
N N
496
INDEX.
Baronrath, 862.
Bealaoh Mughna. See Ballaohmoon.
Bedford, family of, 470.
BelliiigB, Biohard, 852.
Bermingham, family of. See High
Sheriffs ; and Kildare
Gentry, 119.
otAthenrVt Andrew, 319;
Richard, 319.
of Donadea, Sir John,
170 ; Meiler, 170.
of Duf\fierih, Thomas,
49 ; Sir WiUiam, 49.
of Meylerstown^ Thomas,
49 -, Walter, 49.
Bilingual (Latin and Ogham) ineorip-
tion at Eilleen Cormac, 156, 157.
Birtown, 95.
Bishopscourt, 489.
Blaokcastle of Ballyshannon, 447, 452.
of Leixlip, 341, 490.
Black Ditch, the, 23, 444.
Blackhall, near Clane, 287, 321, 862,
367, 438, 489, 441.
Black Pig, Bace of, 28.
Blackrath. near KilouUen, 348, 444, 493.
Blackwood, 428, 429, 430, 482.
Blessed Wells, Ballymore Eustace, 353.
Clane, 109.
Faughart. 216. 224.
Glassealy, 371.
KilouUen, 313.
Toberara, 371.
Blunt, Captain Edward, 472.
Bodenstown, 298.
Bog, ancient wooden foot-path on a, 61.
Bog-butter, 62.
Boher-an-oochra, 269.
Boher-a-vuttha, 270.
Boher-Breedge, 289.
Boher-bwee, 269.
Boher-coyle, 270.
Boher-na-Brid, 269.
Boher-na-worragah, 269.
Bolton Castle, 472.
Booleybeg, 434.
Bowen, John, 233.
Shaun-a-Feeka, 233.
Boylough, 434.
Braose de, family of, 295.
Bray, near Athy, 432, 441.
Bridge of Clane, 106.
Kilcullen, 314.
Broadleas, 350.
Browne, family of, 261-264. {See High
Sheriffs.)
— . — General Mionael, 213.
Squire B, 85, 86.
Browne's Ford, 438.
Browne's Hill (Kernanstown) Crom-
lech, 358.
Bruce, Edward, 488.
Buan, Queen of Leinster, 107.
Bull Hill, 231.
Bullaun at Clane, 110.
Bully's Acre burial-ground, 27.
Butler, Sir Edmond, of Cloghrennan,
470.
- James, 3rd Earl of Ormonde,
170.
James, 1st Duke of Ormonde,
and 12th Earl, 178, 422, 442.
Ellen, 178.
Cadamstown, 46.
Cal£f, Henry, 344.
Calverstown, 64.
Campa (Maryborough), 444.
Canal, opening of the Grand, 395.
CJEinnon, manufacture of, 420, 421.
Cappolis, 288.
Carbrie, house called the, 267.
Carlow, 129, 377.
Cam, a, 359.
Camalway, 91, 92, 294, 360.
Carpenter, family of, 51-56.
Carragh, 195.
Carre, family of, 53, 55.
Carroll, Sir James, 385.
Carter, family of, 321.
Castle Barry, 352.
Castle Browne, 85, 213, 261.
Castle Carbury, 47, 428.
Castledermot, 38, 94, 488, 474.
Governor of, 438.
Vicar of, 438, 442.
Vicarage of, 450-452.
Castle Doghenay, 489.
Castle Eife, 390.
Castlehaven, Earl of, 445.
Castlemartin, 11, 319-824, 348, 434.
442, 444, 484.
Castleroe, 229-252.
Castletown (Kildroght), 114, 115, 428.
Celt, a bronze, 132.
Cerball, King of Leinster, sword of, 123.
Cess, the tax called, 171.
Chalice of Aghaboe, 51.
Charter School (Celbridge), 117.
Chevers, family of, 877.
Cill Chorbhain, 125.
Clane Abbey, 101- 106.
Bridge, 106.
Moat, 107-111.
Si Brigid*s thimble, chair, road,
well, 269.
Clanmalier, district of, 424.
Viscounts of. Sir Terence,
1st Vise., 424; Lewis,
2nd Vise, 421, 422,
424; Maximilian, 8rd
Vise., 424.
. INDEX.
497
Clogrennan, 470.
Clonangh, 8, 39-50.
Cloncurry, 427, 433.
Clongowes Wood, 85, 211-215.
College, 215.
Antiquities at, 398.
Crozier at, 393-395.
Clonkeehan, 225.
Clonlunan, 438.
Clonmel, near Cork, 365.
Glonmore, Go. Garlow, 96.
Goats-of-Annd : —
Aylmer, 169.
Bermlngham, 170.
Browne, 215, 262.
Garpenter, 51. 52.
Conolly, 113.
Conjngham, 113.
D'Artois, 305.
Echlin, 44.
Eustace, 188, 305.
FitzGerald, 241,478.
Fitz William. 262.
Gaydon, 241.
Harrington, 385.
Henry, .386.
Keating, 241.
Knights Hospitallers of Malta,
402.
Lattin, 186.
Mansfield, 188.
Neville, 465.
O'NeUl, 100.
Power, 188.
Sherlock, 341, 401.
Sweetman, 389.
Tallon, 474.
Vinegor, 51, 52.
Wogan. 87, 99, 216, 262.
Wolfe, 367.
Woulfe, 188.
Cobhthach, Bishop of Kildare, 6.
Coghlanstown, 444, 485. (See Bally-
cutland.)
Colbinstown, 162, 163.
Goles Hill, 423.
Golley, family of. Su High Sheriffs ;
and Kildare Gentry, 119.
Henry, 428.
Colville, Sir Robert, 485.
Anne, 486.
Gonall Gearnach, an Ulster hero, 107.
Gonnell, Great, 7, 489.
Gonolly, family of. See High Sheriffs.
Right Hon. William, 113-117,
194, 342.
William, 114, 194.
Constable, or Governor, of Castles : —
Athy, 375.
Ballymore Eustace, 344, 345, 346.
Constable of Castles — continued,
Ballyshannon, 445.
Carlow, 129.
Gastledermot, 488.
Dublin, 64.
Kildare, 488.
Lea, 349.
Rathmore, 375 (hu).
Conyngham, Sir Albert, 113.
Catherine, 113, 116.
Coolcarrigan, 432, 441.
Coote, Sir Charles, 423.
Corally Rath, the, 133, 191.
Comiao mac Gullenan, King and
Bishop, 123, 124.
Cosby, Francis, 428.
CoshogcowUie, 434.
Cotlingstown, 444.
Coyne and Livery Tax, the, 430.
Cradockstown, 265.
Creefe, family of, 489.
Croboy. 427.
Crom cruach, an Idol, 358.
Cromlech, a, 358.
• on Browne's Hill, 358.
Crosses : —
High, Moone, 33, 38.
Churchyard, Ballymore Eustace,
351.
Gastledermot, 474.
Rathmore, 381.
Tipper, 396.
Wayside, Carragh, 195.
Clane, 108, 109.
Curragh, 21.
Little Rath, 268.
Prospect, 268.
Richard FitzGerald's (?), 396.
Crozier at Clongowes Wood College,
393-395.
Culduffe, 175.
Curduffe, 428, 432. 441.
Currach Life. See the Curragh.
Curragh, the, 1-32, 397, 442.
Antiquities on, 20-25.
Battles on, 6, 7.
Races, 10. .
Rangers, 18, 19.
CurryhUls, 390, 493.
CuUandstown. See Ballycutland.
Daly, Richard, son of Malachy, 133.
Dane's Cast, the, 23.
Dane's Forts, the so-called, 372.
D'Artois, family of, 311.
Jenico, 310, 311.
Joan, 310.
Margaret, 311.
Davidstown near Gastledermot, 195.
Deanery of Ballymore Eustace, 854.
498
INDEX.
Dee, John,Yiear of St. Abban's, Leixlip,
489.
Delahyde of Ballantry, Michael, 396.
of Loughshinny, Riohard,396.
of Moyglarey Sir Walter,
46, 312, 338; Richard,
348 ; Johanna, 47.
of Punchestowfiy John, 396;
Michael, 396; Peter, 396;
Dering, family of, 464.
Derryvullagh, a bog island, G2.
Digby, Sir Robert, 419.
Dixon, Henry, 251.
Sir Robert. 324, 484.
Charity, 324, 484.
Donadea, 169-178.
Dongan, the family of. See Kildare
Gentry, 119.
Sir John, 440.
Sir William, 114.
Walter, 114.
Sisly, 441.
Donlost, old Barony of, 336.
Donnelly, Daniel, 25-28, 259.
his hollow on the Gurragh,
26, 28.
Donore, Co. Kildare, 53.
Dowdall, Sir John, 311.
Drinanstown, 436, 437.
Druids, the foar just, 158.
Dun Aulin, 23, 60.
Duneany, 427.
Dunfinyeen, 132.
Dungan's Hill, 440.
Dunleary, 493.
Dunleer, 225.
Dunlost, old Barony of, 336.
Dunmanoge, 249, 269.
Dunmurry, 489.
Dunsany, 429.
Diirer, Albrecht, drawing by, 486.
Echlin, family of, 39, 45.
Edenderry, Museum of Antiquities.
325-333.
Effigy slabs :—
ConoUy, 112.
Eustace. 300, 809, 323.
FitzGerald, 105.
" English land, the," 284.
Ernley, Sir Michael, 442, 443.
Esmonde, family of, 437.
Sir Lawrence, 437.
Eustace or FitzEustace, family of.
See High Sheriffs ; and Kildare
Gentry, 119 ; 207, 209, 319.
Sir Edward, 63, 814.
Edward, 81.
Sir Maurice, 63.
Oliver, 81, 345.
Eustace, family of — continued.
Sir Thomas, 346.
Thomas fitz Oliver, 346.
William, 461.
Catherine, 429.
Elinor, 349.
ot Bally euUand (Ooghlanstown-),
347, 348.
Christopher, 346, 347, 348;
Sir Maurice, 312 ; Sir Rich-
ard, 346 ; Robert, 346 ; Joan,
347 ; Margaret, 349.
BaUingUus, Viscounts : —
Sir Thomas, 1st Vise., 163,
429; Sir Roland, 2nd Vise,
313, 428; James, 3rd Vise.,
171, 320, 382, 433.
otCastlemartint family of, 320.
John, 320, 484 ; Maurice fitz
WiUiam fitz John, 320, 439 ;
Sir Maurice, 321, 484 ; Wil-
liam, 434, 484.
of Clangowes Wood. See Pedi-
gree, 210.
James, 212; William, 211;
Mrs. Eustace, 212.
of Colbinstown : —
Alexander, 163 ; Christopher,
162 ; Maurice, 163 ; Nicholas,
162; Rowland, 162; Jane,
162; Janet, 163; Margaret
(Wicombe), 162.
of Dowdingstoxcn : —
Alexander, 462 ; Walter, 462.
of Elverttown :—
Walter fitz Nicholas, 362.
of Uarristown :
■ Sir Maurice, the Lord Chan-
cellor, 323, 484 ; Sir Maurice,
485.
of Newlands : —
William. 63.
of Portlester, family of, 311,312.
Sir Roland, 300, 301, 809,
311, 314-316.
of Yeoniangtown : —
James, 189 ; Jane, 189.
Fairs or Aonachs, 2, 3, 4, 23.
of Colman, 2, 3, 4.
of Lif^, 2, 3. 4.
Farran O'Neill. 429.
Faughart, 220.
FitzEustace. See Eustaoe.
Firmount, 387.
FitzGerald. See High Sheriffs ; and
Kildare Gentry, 120.
Gerald, Constable of DuUin
Castle, 64.
Gerald ohrone, 439, 440.
INDEX.
499
FitzGerald — continued.
Gerald garrough, 439.
Maurice, Lord of Maynooth,
372.
Richard, 396, 397.
Richard fitz Oliver, 437.
Thomas, Prior of Eilmain-
ham, 334-336.
Barons of Offaly : —
Gerald, Ist Baron, 105 ;
Gerald, 4th Baron ; John,
6th Baron, 488.
Baroness of Offaly ^
Lettioe, 419-424.
—— Earls of Kildare : —
John, IstEarl, 372, 373;
Thomas, 2nd Earl, 349 ;
Richard, 3rd Earl, 488 ;
Maurice, 4th Earl, 334,
346, 873, 427; Gerald,
5th Earl, 373, 426 ; Ger-
ald, 8th Earl, 348, 427,
470; Gerald, 9th Earl,
287. 312, 348, 374;
Thomas, 10th Earl. 374;
Gerald, 11th Earl, 12.
285, 419, 429; Gerald,
14th Earl, frontispiece,
and page 494 ; George.
16th Earl, 232,438,490;
John, 18th Earl, 9.
Duke of Leinster,
William Robert, 2nd
Duke, 12, 30, 31, 386.
Lord Edward, 10, 11, 194,
399.
of Allen : —
Maurice, 232, 438, 440 ;
Philip, 176 ; Jane, 175.
of BaXlinderryt Henry, 442.
of BaUyraggan : —
Allen, 251 ; James, 251 ;
Walter, 251.
of Ballyshannon, 233, 426-
448. Pedigrees, 426, 427 ;
3ir Gerald mac Shann,
427; Sir James, 233;
Sir Pierce, 132, 321.
of Blackhall {Clane) ;—
Gerrot fitz James. 231 ;
WilUam, 321.
of Booleyheg, Richard, 434.
of Browne's Ford : —
Edward, 438 ; Thomas,
438.
of Gastleroe, family of, 231-
243 ; William, 231, 232.
236, 237, 240, 242, 243 ;
Gerald mac William,
281, 439.
FitzGerald — continued.
of Castletown Moylagh : —
James, 486; Walter, 436 ;
William, 436.
of dofUunan, Christopher,
438.
of fJrinanstownj James,
436.
of GeraXdine ( TuUagh-
gorey)t Thomas, 251.
of Qlassealy, family of, 238.
Gerald, 233 ; Maurice,
431 ; Walter reagh, 430,
431,436.
of Kilrush, family of, 471 ;
James, 431, 434, 471.
of Laekagh : —
James. 472 ; John, 471 ;
Sir Maurice, 428, 435,
471; Sir Thomas, 316,
470 ; Elenor, 480. 435 ;
Mary, 435.
of Leixlip, family of, 350.
James "meirgeach," 350,
374.
of Narraghheg^ family of,
470-478 ; John, 470-478.
of Osherstown, James, 349.
of Rathirone, Richard, 442.
of Ticroghan : —
George, 379, 441 ; Henry,
438 ; Sir Luke, 437, 438.
442.
of Timahoe, Redmond oge,
431.
of Timogue .-—Gerald, 432,
438 ; Edward, 482.
of Walterstown: —
Walter, 63, 434, 440;
Mary, 440, 446.
FitzGerrot. See FitzGerald.
Flatisbury. See High SherifiFs; and
Kildare Gentry, 120.
Christopher, 461.
Patrick, 346.
Robert, 68.
Folklore (Co. Kildare), Animals, Birds,
and Insects, 179-185, 369, 371.
Folktales (Co. Kildare), 254-259, 368-
371.
Foot- track of oak timber in a bog, 61.
Forenoghts, 362-367, 453.
Cavalry, 362.f
Fort of Leix. See Maryborough.
Forth, Co. Carlow, 426.
Forth, Co. Wexford, 426.
French Furze (Curragh), 24.
Funeral Expenses, Duke of Leinster's,
31.
Procession (Conolly), 116.
N N 2
500
INDEX.
Furness (or Forenaghts Qreat), 57-60,
453-469.
Gallauns or Long-stones, 358.
Gal way ArohfiBologioal Society, 270.
Garan, William. Vicar of Bally -
shannon, 440, 450.
Garryhill, 427.
Gay don, John, 212.
Cisly, 231, 237.
Gaydonstown, 432, 434, 440.
Geashili. 373, 419, 424.
Gibbet liath (Carragh), 11, 22, 25.
Glassealy. 95, 233, 371, 431.
Golly-mocky River, 289.
Gooleen-a-wautha Cataract, 353.
Grangebeg, 449.
Grange Con, 382-3^5.
Grangemellon. 96, 251, 432, 441.
Graney, 345, 373.
Great Grange. 428.
Greenville, Sir Kichard, 423.
Greese, the Biver, 60, 150.
Grey, Lord Leonard, 428.
Hall, Thomas, 63, 483.
Hare parks, 24.
Harbert, Sir Francis, 428.
Harman, family of, 248.
Sir Thomas, 248, 249.
Wentworth, 249.
Harrington, Sir Henry, 121, 313, 379,
381.
Sir John, 313.
Harristown. 323, 324, 485.
Hartpole, Sir Robert, 129.
Robert of Shrule. 251.
Graney, 129.
Hartwell, 444, 448.
Haynestown, 455, 456.
Hell-fire Club, the. 251.
Henry, family of, 386-388. See High
Sheriffs ; Pedigree, 388.
Hereford de, family of, 79.
Adam, 457. 462.
Hewson. Col. John, 444, 446.
High Sheriffs of Kildare (continued
from vol. ii, pp. 258-267), 63, 265,
398.
Hobbardstown, 470, 471.
Hogan (recte, Wogan), 106, 493.
Hogan's Wood, 80.
Holed Stones, 35, 37.
of Castledermot, 38.
of Moone, 33-38.
Holy Wells. See Blessed Well.
Hounds, disaster to the Kildare, 391,
392.
Huttonrede, 361.
Inch Castle, 371.
Inscriptions : ^
On the Obelisk erected in Donnelly's
Hollow on the Curragh, 28, 29.
On Bell of Celbridge, 116.
Bilingual, on an Ogham Stone at
Killeen Cormac, 155, 156.
On Chalice (of Aghaboe), 51.
On a Chimney-piece (Shrule Castle),
129.
On Cro&s-base (Prospect), 268.
head (Ballymore Eustace),
352.
shaft (Tipper), 396.
(Castledermot), 478.
Over a Doorway at Blackwood
Castle, 430; Castle Erly, 390;
Castlemartin, 321 ; Clongowes
Wood College, 215; Mainham
Mortuary Chapel, 261; Monk's
Grange Castle, 130.
On mural tablets (Grange Con), 384,
385 ; Bally shannon House. 452 ;
Furness, 468 ; Turnings, 482.
Ogham (Killeen Cormac), 155, 156.
On Seals of Athy borough, 401.
On Seal of Kildiare County Council,
401.
On Sepulchral Monuments. See
Tombstones.
On a Sundial at Furness, 468.
Irish Warriors and Peasants, 486.
Jakis, Maurice, 314.
Jigginstown, 51. 56, 321.
Jones of Osberstown, Co. Meath. family
of. 483; Sir Arthur, 248;
Sir Theophilus, 249, 483 ;
Anne, 248.
of Wexford, family of, 465, 466;
Pedigree, 469 ; Col. Edward,
463, 465.
Kavanagh. Garrett, 427.
Murrough, 430.
Grana, 427.
Mary, 212.
Keating, Edmond, 484.
Joan, 231, 237.
Margaret, 484.
Keels or Burial-grounds, 149.
Kellistown, Co. Carlow, 338.
Kelly, Capt. William, 26, 27.
Kelway, John, Constable of Bathniore,
375. 376.
Kerdiffstown, 456.
Kerne, or light-armed foot-soldiery,
285.
Kilberry, Co. Kildare, 62.
Kilcake. 473, 474.
INDEX.
5PI
KUcock, 286, 335.
near Kilrush, 474.
Kilcullen, Old, 348.
Kildare, County, the ; Anglo-Norman
settlers in,
290-299.
Baronies of,
336, 337.
— Bishops of,
32, 227, 397.
. Castle of, 442,
444,486,487,
488.
Cathedral,479.
, Carragh of,
1-32.
^ Earls of. See
FitzGerald.
__^ - Folk-lore of,
179-186.
Folk-tales of,
254-259, 368-
371.
Gentry in 1600,
of, 118-122.
High Sheriffs
of, 63, 265,
898.
Houndd, 391.
- Place - names
compared
with Wales,
293.
. Street in town
of, 124.
Kildroght, 428.
Kilheale. See Kilteel.
Kilkea, Castle and Manor of, 93, 442,
470, 474.
Church of, 236-248.
Kill, 456.
Killart, 62.
Killeen Cormac, 149-163.
Killeigh, 46, 47, 103, 419.
Killibegs, 299, 390.
Kilmeage, 232, 444, 447.
Kilmainham, Prior of, 334-336.
Kilpipe, 96.
KUpole, 96, 382.
Kilroot, 101.
Kilrush, 231, 285, 431, 439.
Kilshanroe, 50.
KUteel, 299, 346, 373, 377, 428, 489.
Kilwarden, Viscounts, 366.
Kinneagh, Co. Carlow, 95, 96.
Co. Kildare, 32, 348.
Kist, sepulchral. 64, 194, 381.
Knights Hospitallers of Malta, 402.
Knock, Co. Meath, 427.
Knockaphooka, 39.
Knookaulin. 23, 60.
Knookeneran, 473.
Knookshee Moat, 356.
" Labba Diarmaid agus Grania," 359.
Laraghbryan, 38, 493.
Lattin, Family of, 186-188. See High
Sheriffs ; and Kildare Gentry,
121.
Pedigree, 190.
Lea, 373, 428.
Lechohan, Chapel of, 357.
Lee, Capt. Thomas, 433.
Legends of : —
The Black Pig, 23.
Castledermot treasure, 266.
Castleroe, 249-251.
Clane Moat, 107.
Clongowes Wood, 213, 214.
The Cor-ally Rath, 191.
The Curragh, 4, 5, 12, 13.
Killeen Cormac, 149.
Lough Gur, 13.
Mainham Moat, 215.
Manannan mac Lir, 14.
Mullaghmast, 12.
The 0*Donoghues, 14.
The O'Donovans, 14.
St. Brigid, 221, 222, 225.
Leixlip Castle, 341, 490.
Manor, 462, 489.
Leopardstown, 492.
Less, de, Family of, 456.
Leveroke, 429.
Levitstown Chapel, 251.
Liffey, The River, 2.
. Deposits at Millicent, 164-167.
Limerick, Earl of (Dongan), 114.
Linch, Christopher, of the Knock, 427.
Linch, Thady, of Dublin, 441, 442.
Linch's Knock, Co. Meath, 427, 439.
Lisle, Viscount, 423.
Little Rath, 268, 338, 449.
Little Narragh. See Narraghbeg.
Lodge Park, 387.
Long-stones, or Gallauns, 20, 858.
_ Furness, 57, 454, 466.
— — Ballymore Eustace, 357.
Longtown, 390.
Luttrell, Simon, 490.
Anne, 186.
Elinor, 437.
Lye, Family of, 45-60. See High
Sheriffs ; and Kildare Gentry,
121.
Arthur, 47.
Francis, 46.
John, 8, 45-50, 396.
Mao Gealan, Conor, 82.
502
INDEX.
Mac QillaPatriok, Brian oge, 877.
Mao Bustoljns (i.e., Robin Hoods),
483.
Mac Thomas, alias Peiroe FitzGerald,
427, 438, 446.
M'Goyn, Shaan. 428.
M'Hoberts, family of, 249-251.
Maddenstown, 26.
Magh Breagh, 218.
Magh Lif^, 2, 221.
Mainham, 261, 285.
Mansfield, family of, 188-190. See
High SherifiPs.
Maps: —
Ballymore Eustace district, 359.
Of Castleroe townland, 253.
Of Glane, 108.
Of Clongowes Wood district, 284.
Of the Carragh, 1, 29 ; (Gamp) 15.
Of Faaghart townland, 228.
Of Killeen Gormac district, 151.
Of the Gounty Louth, 219.
Kampart of the Pale, 284.
March or Marches, the, 287, 350.
Marshal, le, family of, 6, 7, 82.
■ William, 486, 488.
Sibell, 488.
Maryborough, 433, 444.
Mausoleum, the Browne, 261, 264.
Maynooth, 287.
Maynotheslee, Barony of, 337.
Mesgegra, King of Leinster, 107.
Millicent, 131, 164.
Moat or tumulus, meetings at, 2, 356.
of Ballymore Eustace, 356.
Ballyshannon, 452.
Clane, 107-111.
The Gurragh, 23.
Faughart, 223.
Killeen Gormac, 150.
Mainham, 215.
Bathmore, 380, 381.
Moghna Moshenoc, 269.
Monascreebe, 224.
Monavxillagh Bog, 61, 62.
Monk's Grange Gastle, Queen's Go.,
130.
Monkstown, alias Carrickbrennan,
433.
Moone, 422 ; (Gross), 33, 38.
" Moore, the Burial of Sir John," 365.
Morett, Queen's Go.. 432.
Morris town (Moynagh) Lattin, 186-
188.
Moteen-an-ou (Moat), 23.
Mount Armstrong, 362.
Mount Leinster, Viscount, 377.
Moyglare, 312, 396.
Mullaghmast, 12, 60, 95, 233.
Mnllaghmoyne, 432, 487, 488, 441.
Mural graves, 479-481.
Mural Monuments at :— Gelbridge, 112
Glane, 100; Kilkea, 241, 243;
Mainham, 260.
Murrain worm, the, 369.
Naas, 125, 377, 442, 444.
Nangle, Robert, 8.
Narraghbeg, 470, 472, 473.
NaTraghmore, 442, 470, 484.
Netterville, James, 485.
Luke, 456.
Anne, 485.
NeviUe, family of, 453-469. See High
Sheriffs.
New Abbey (KUcuUen), 301, 314.
Newcomen, family of, 821.
Sir Thomas, 484.
Margaret, 484.
Newlands, Go. Dublin, 442.
Newlands, Go. Kildare, 68, 265, 365.
Newtown, of Glane, 131.
de Brley, 390.
O'More (Tipper), 338, 858.
Neylan, Daniel, Bishop of Kildare,
397, 398.
Nicholastown, near Athy, 429.
Manor of, 432, 441.
Norragh, the, 295, 437, 470.
Nugent, family of, 173.
Mary. 424.
Obituary, Miss Margaret Stokes, 201-
205.
O'Banan, Dermot, 473.
0*Buge, Friar David, 339.
O'Byme of Banelagh, Go. Wioklow,
members of the sept, 845.
Feagh mac Hugh, 286, 850,
379, 888, 480, 488, 434,
435.
Phelim, 431, 484, 435.
Redmond, 431, 485.
Teige oge, 471.
Grany, 130.
Margery, 431.
Mary, 212.
O'CarroU of Ely O'GarroU, King's Co.,
members of the sept, 47,
48.
Teigue, 48, 820.
Sir William, 47.
-^ Margaret, 320.
Ooha or Ucha (Ballyshannon), 425.
O'Gonnor Faly of Ofifaly, members
of the sept, 320, 421, 424.
Gahir. 320, 360.
Teigue, 486.
Arthur, m.p. for Philips-
town, 10, 11.
INDEX.
503
O'Dempeey of Clanmalier; See Vis-
oonnts Clanmalier ; Pedigree,
421 ; memberB of the sept,
419, 424.
Charles, 420, 423.
Conn, 420.
Henry, 419, 420, 421.
Lewis, 420-424.
Col. Owen, 424.
Phelim, 420.
Sir Terence, 435.
Elinor, 424.
0*Dogherty, Rory, 436.
O'Danne, or O'Doyne of Hy Began,
Queen's Co.
Teige, 431.
Teige oge, 431, 470.
Tirlagh, Provost of Rath-
more, 379.
O'Dyna, Dermot, one of the Feena
Erin, 359.
Offaly, Baroness of, 419-424.
District, 424.
OTarrell, Tirlogh, 850.
O'Gane, Onny, 249.
Ogham writing, 153.
Stones, 155, 156.
O'Hiokey, Patrick, 471, 473.
O'Kelly, Donough, 445, 446.
Edmond, 473.
George Bonrke, 190.
O'Lalor, Donagh, 129.
Edmond reagh, of Tnrnings,
and his family, 484.
Neal, 428.
0*Mollaghan. Philip, Vicar of Bally-
shannon, 450.
O'More of Leix, Queen's Co., and
Balyna, Co. Kildare.
Kedagh, 428.
Mahon (?), 478.
Owny mac Rory, 483.
Col. Rory, 321, 439.
Rory Oge, 360, 877.
O'Mnlloy, Art, 421.
O'NeUl, Sir Neill, 99.
Owen Roe, 438.
Ormonde, Earls of. See Butler.
O'Rogan, Laurence, Constable of
Ballymore Eustace Castle,
346.
Osberstown, Co. Kildare, 349, 483.
Co. Meath, 248. 483, 493.
O'Toole, of Feracullen, and of Castle-
kevin, Co. Wicklow.
Art oge, 375.
Cahir. 383.
Feagh Crosdb, 383.
Tirlagh, 376.
Honora, 983.
OToole — continued.
Margaret, 212.
Rose, 433.
Ofcymy, old Barony ot 337.
Oughrabowra, 269.
Oughterard, 361, 364, 456.
Page, Patrick, of Forenaghts, 362.
Pale, The, 211, 284-288.
Derivation of, 286.
Rampart of, 284-287.
Parsons, Michael, 485.
Clotilda. 486.
Partridge in Ireland, 232-285.
Pearls, Irish. 192.
Pedigrees of the :—
Aylmers of Donadea, 178.
Eustaces of Clongowes Wood, 210.
FitzGeralds of Ballyshannon, 426,
427.
Henrys, 888.
Joneses of Wexford, 469.
Lattins, 190.
Baroness of OfiFaly and the O'Demp-
seys, 421.
Wogans of Blackball, Newhall, and
Downings, 87 ; of Rathooffy, 79.
Pelles, Martin, Constable of Athy, 875.
Pictures of Lord Edward FitzGerald,
194. 399.
Pilsworth, William, Bishop of Kildare,
451 ; Ann, 451 ; Elizabeth, 461.
Piper's Stones, The, 354-356.
Plans of : —
Ballyshannon Castle, 447.
Castlemartin Chapel, 322.
Castleroe Castle, 250.
Kilkea Church, 244.
Killeen Cormac Churchyard, 161.
Pleydell, Edmond, 472 ; Oliver, 472.
Ploopluck, ^91.
Plnnket, Luke, 3rd Earl of Fingall,
176.
Oliver, of Ballylogher, 427.
Patrick, of Longwood, 134.
Robert, 5th Baron of Dun-
sany, 429.
Catherine, 427.
Genet, 429.
Poer, le, or Power, Family, 209.
Pooka, the, 368, 369, 891.
Portlester, Co. Meath, 300, 301, 311,
314-316, 484.
Baron of, 314-817.
Poul-aPhooka, 391-393.
Preston of Gormanstown : —
Chifetopher, 811, 337, d3&
Jenico, 483.
Robert, 311.
Sir William, 488.
504
INDEX.
Preston — continued,
Margaret, 337.
Pramplestown, 436.
Punohers Grange, 444.
Punchestown, near Naas, 348.
Baoe of the Black Pig, 23.
Baheen-an-airy, 21.
Bampart of the Pale, the, 284-288.
Bangers of the Gurragh, List of, 18, 19.
Bath at Fumess, 467.
Bathangan, 285, 287, 350, 373.
Bathbride, 8, 48, 444.
: — old townland's mearin,
396, 397.
Bathooffy, 79-92.
Bathcoole, 377.
Bathdroo, or Bathdrue, 132, 432, 441.
Bathmore, 345, 372-381, 460.
Cronstable of, 375 (his).
Provost of, 381.
.Townlands in the Manor of,
373.
Vioarof, 377.
Bathscalbey, 470, 471, 472, 473.
Bathtrone, 436, 442.
Bathvilly, Go. Garlow, 350.
Beview of Books : —
Bairs "History of the Gounty of
Dublin," 492.
Handcock's *' History and Antiquities
of Tallaght, Co. Dublin," 198.
Boad-names, old,. 269, 270.
Boobford, de, family of, 79.
.James, 231.
Bosbran, J233.
Boscoivin townland, 471.
Bowan, Archibald Hamilton, 85, 215.
ByeiWater, the, 491.
Bytid, family of, 362.
Saints: —
Abban (of Leixlip), 489.
Ailbe (of Glane). 101, 102, 269.
Andrew, 474.
Audoen's Church, 309, 315.
Augustine, Order of, 456.
Bernard of Clairvaux, 35.
Boyan (of Gilltown), 374.
Brigid of Kildare, 4, 5.
Her birth-place and life, 217-228.
Traces of her in Clane, 111, 269.
of Bathbride, 8.
Brogan Claen, 5.
Cadoc, 169.
Ganioe (of Kinneagh), 348.
Catherine, 303.
Columbe (of Bathmore), 373.
David (of '* Birdynohapel "}. 348.
(of Naas), 379
- Saints — continued.
Finian.(of Clonaugh), 50.
James, 450, 474.
John (of Kilgowan?), 349.
Mac Gaille (of Usney), 226.
Margaret, 303.
The Blessed Virgin Mary, 303, 322,
374.
Michael the Archangel, 305, 323.
Moling, 60, 461.
Moshenog, 270.
Lawrence O'Toole, 251.
Patrick, 109, 169. 470.
Senchell (of Clane), 101, 102.
Shenan (of Dunmanoge), 270.
Thomas, 474.
Ultan. (of Ardbraccan), 6.
Veronica's handkerchief, 239.
Victor, Order of, 456.
Salmon Leap, the, 491.
Sandys, Sir William, 361, 362.
Sarsfield, family of. See High SherifiFs ;
and Eildare Gentry, 121.
of Djahlin, Patrick, 483.
of LucaUy Sir William, 451,
483.
of TuUy, Peter, 451.
Anne, 377.
Seals : — Athy Borough, 400.
Kildare County Council, 400.
Segrave's Castle (Bathmore), 372, 381.
Shan van Vogh, verse from the, 13.
Sherlock, family of. See High Sheriffs ;
and Eildare Gentry, 122.
Edward, 63.
Patrick, 133.
WilUam. 18, 19.
Sherlockstown, 299, 341.
Shrule Castle, 129, 130.
Sigin stream, the, 357.
Slab, sculptured, at Kilkea, 248.
Slack of Narraghbetg, family of, 472.
" Smoke silver," the tax. of, 345.
Sobieski, Princess Clementina, 84.
Spenser, Edmund, 313.
St. John's Bower, Athy, 436.
St. Leger, John, 251.
St. Thomas's Abbey, DubUn, 456, 457,
460, 489.
St. Wolstan's, 457.
Stanton, Anastacia de. 80.
Her dower, 88-96.
Stokes, Miss Margaret, list of her
writings, 201-205.
Straffan, 38a
Summerhill (Xiinch's Knock), 427.
Sunday's Well, Clane, 109.
Surnings. . See Turnings.
Sutton, family oft See High Sheriffs ;
and Kildare Gentry, 122.
INDEX.
505
Sutton, family of — continued,
David, 8, 428.
Garret, 212.
John, 374.
Nicholas, 212, 321, 439
Ismay, 349.
Sweetman, family of, 389, 390.
Swift, Dean. 84, 85, 101, 115.
Sydney, family of, 385.
Taafle, Nicholas, 347.
Alicia, 390.
Talbot, Sir Henry, 433.
Richard, Duke of Tyrconnell,
321.
Sir Robert, 212, 440.
Robert, of Belgard, 349.
Family of, 349.
Frances, 321.
Tallon, Oliver, 471.
Ellen, 471-473, 478.
Tallonstown, 471.
Tara, 59.
Tassagard (Saggart), 377.
Three Castles, 376.
Ticroghan, Co. Meath, 437, 438.
Tiles, foreign wall, 340.
pavement, 459.
Tigh Gighrainn (Tigeeran), 4.
Timahoe, Go. Kildare, 431.
Timogue, Queen's Co., 432, 438.
Timolin, 295, 440.
Tinnahinch, 430.
Tipper, 321.
Toberadoraun, 288.
Toberaheena, 109.
Toberara, 371.
Tobereendowney, 109.
Tobermolin, 313.
Tober-na-grasB, 353.
Tochar-gar, 270.
Togher, 387.
Tombstone, Inscriptions on : —
Browne, 263, 264.
Carpenter, 51.
Conolly, 113.
Daly, 133.
Eustace, 162, 209, 306, 310.
FitzGerald, 237, 242.
Lattin, 187.
McRoberts, 249, 251.
Sherlock, 133.
Sweetman, 390.
Toole, 247.
Treves, 249.
Wogan, 100.
Tone, Theobald Wolfe, 367.
Townland names, disused, 132, 133.
Travers, Sir Henry, 170, 171, 377, 433.
Travers — continued .
Sir John, 456.
Catherine, 377.
Mary, 433.
Treves, Richard, 249.
Trysteldermot. See Castledermot.
Tuite, Edmond, 427.
Sir Oliver, 173.
Tullaghtipper, 483.
TuUy, 451.
Turnings, 340, 482-484.
Ussher, Arthur, 483.
Sir WUliam, 463, 488.
Alicia, 483.
Veal (or Yeele), le, family of, 295.
Vescy, Sir William de, 488.
Vinegor, Richard, 52, 53.
Ursula, 52, 53.
Wall, Gerald, of Prumplestown, 436.
Walsh of Shanganagh, John, 396.
Margery, 396.
famUy of. See Kildare Gentry,
122.
Edmond, of Birtown, 451, 452.
Rev. John, of Castledermot, 438,
450 451.
Walterstown', 63,427, 434.
Warren, Henry, of Grangebeg, 449.
Wart-stone, the (Curragh), 195.
(Clane), 109.
— ■ (Curragh), 21.
Weisley, William, of Hobbardstown,
471, 472.
Weldon, Walter, 486.
Wellesley, family of. See High
Sheriffs ; and Kildare Gen-
try, 122.
Edmond, 437.
John, 489.
William, 63, 345.
Wheelam, 397.
White (or Whyte). Su High Sheriffs ;
and Kildare Gentry, 122.
of Leixlip, Nicholas, 462, 490.
of PitchfoTdttotcn^ James, 134.
Dorothy, 134.
Whitechuroh, Manor of, 483.
Wills of :—
FitzGerald, 437, 471, 478.
Daniel Neylan, Bishop of Kildare,
397.
Wogan, family of, 70-100. See High
Sheriffs ; and Kildare Gentry,
122.
Edward, 19*
5o6
INDEX.
Wogan, family of — eonUnued.
Sir John, 486.
Nicholas, 99, 428.
William, 100.
of Rathcoffy, family of, 79-88;
Pedigree, 79, 86; Sir Charles,
83-85 ; Sir David. 80, 88, 207»
345; Sir John, 263, 337,
388 ; Nicholas, 38, 99, 100,
212; William, 100; Anas-
iaoia, 88-96, 207; Judith,
268.
of Dovmings, Pedigree, 87.
of NewhaU and BlackhaUt
Pedigree, 87 ; Nicholas, 486. i
Wogan-Browne, 218. 261, 264.
Wolfe, famUy of, 361-367. See High
SheriiTs; and Kildare Gentry,
122.
Rev. Charles, 365.
General James, 864.
John, 463.
PhUpot, 463.
Woodstock Castle, 440.
Yeomanstown, 187, 189.
Young, funily of, 888.
Gentry, 122.
Youngstown, 888.
See Kildare
END OF VOLUME III.
C. W. GiHDS & Son, Printers, Publin.
/"'•
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
BERKELEY
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