An Irish Village

New novel based on the life of Michael Dwyer.

2011-12-10T14:20:00.000-08:00

Citizen Dwyer is a recently-published novel by Sean McCarthy, which follows the adventurous and torturous life of the renowned rebel leader Michael Dwyer. Sean McCarthy, the author of works such as When Jolie met Christie, is a playwright and novelist, who has also written for television, and his new novel has all the ingredients necessary to make it a historical blockbuster. McCarthy evidently did much research into the period spanning the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He skilfully recreates the atmosphere of the time, capturing both the worlds of the powerful elite and the downtrodden masses very well. He paints excellent pictures in words of Ireland and Australia – both of which are utterly believable and neither of which is easily forgotten.

McCarthy’s writing skills do not stop there however, as he has successfully endowed his characters with credible traits and motives for their actions – in short, he has breathed life into characters who lived two centuries ago. The story of Michael Dwyer is gradually revealed, starting in Wicklow and taking the reader through the turbulent years of the 1798 rebellion and its aftermath, when Dwyer and his band of rebels successfully resisted Crown forces in the Wicklow Mountains for over five years. The dialogue between the principal characters, such as Dwyer and Hugh Vesty Byrne, is pithy, earthy and plausible, adding tremendously to the pleasure of reading a good story well told.

The storyline moves on and the action switches to Australia, a raw and vibrant penal colony, following Dwyer’s cessation of military operations and his transportation to the new land. This part of the novel follows Dwyer’s many Australian adventures, and his battle with his increasing reliance on alcohol. Dwyer’s inner demons are laid bare as the plot unfolds, and perhaps McCarthy’s greatest triumph is his depiction of Dwyer as a man at war with himself; a man who has sought and eventually gained freedom – from everybody but himself. There is no doubt that this novel works very well at the human as well as the historical level. Dwyer’s story becomes part of a greater literary mechanism – the struggle of man against his own weakness and his inability to escape from himself – and Citizen Dwyer portrays this aspect of the human condition every bit as skilfully as it places Michael Dwyer in the context of the historical backdrop of his times.
The book is published in Dublin by New Island books, with support from the Arts Council. It is an attractive paperback of 354 pages, which captures the imagination of the reader, and should be under the Christmas tree of anyone with an interest in the period, in Irish history generally, in County Wicklow – or just with an interest in the pleasure of reading a good book with a fine storyline and a depth of insight into the human condition. I heartily recommend it to everyone, and wish it every success.

AN IRISH VILLAGE: DUNLAVIN, COUNTY WICKLOW

2011-10-06T08:19:00.000-07:00

NEW BOOK NOW AVAILABLE

2011-10-06T08:11:00.000-07:00

Copies of my new book An Irish village: Dunlavin, County Wicklow are now available. If you'd like a signed copy, please contact me directly at lawlorcm@hotmail.com and don't forget to fill in the subject line, as untitled emails will not be opened. Prices (inclusive of postage and packing) are €30 (Ireland and Britain) and €35 (rest of the world).

Book details below.

Title: An Irish village: Dunlavin, County Wicklow
Author: Chris Lawlor
Published: September 2011
RRP: €29.99
Market: Irish history, Irish lives, local history – both general and specialist readership
ISBN 0-9532947-3-0
Binding: Paperback
Extent: 488 pp [B5 size]

NEW BOOK LAUNCHING 23 SEPTEMBER 2011

2011-09-05T12:23:00.000-07:00

Professor James Kelly, the head of the history department in Saint Patrick’s College, Drumcondra (a college of DCU), will launch Chris Lawlor’s new book entitled An Irish village: Dunlavin, County Wicklow in Rathsallagh Golf Club at 8 p.m. on Friday 23 September.

The new book traces the history of the Dunlavin region from earliest times to the present day, but this groundbreaking study is more than the history of a single County Wicklow village and its communities over time. It is, in fact, the history of a whole nation in microcosm. This book explores the impact of national events on a specific locality. In its pages you will read of Celtic warriors, Viking raiders, Norman conquerors, English settlers, improving landlords, liberal loyalists, subversive radicals, rebellions, mass political movements, the Tithe War, the Great Famine, the Land War, political upheavals, social change and economic developments – all viewed through the prism of one village and its environs. The book locates the Dunlavin region within the larger framework of Irish history. It is both an invaluable case study and a work of reference with wider significance, which will appeal to all Irish history enthusiasts, particularly those with an interest in the Wicklow-Kildare region, and will also be of interest to professional Irish historians. Chris’s work has already drawn praise from the Irish academic community, with three history professors speaking very highly of the new book on Dunlavin.

Local people and everyone with a Dunlavin connection may find references to their ancestors in the appendices in the book, which will include all Church of Ireland baptisms in Dunlavin during the 18th century, all households subject to the payment of tithe in Dunlavin parish in 1823, all landholders in Dunlavin parish in 1854 and all householders in Dunlavin from both the 1901 and 1911 censuses, in addition to many other appendices. There is a limited print run, so people should attend the launch night in Rathsallagh Golf Club in order to avoid disappointment later! Books will be on sale at the launch at a specially reduced rate and everybody is welcome on the night. Everybody welcome... hope to see you there on the night!

Made it! Now for the next book...

2011-03-04T08:20:00.000-08:00

My thesis on Dunlavin is finished and I was awarded a doctorate by DCU in November. I am currently modifying the thesis and should have a book to publish later this year (2011), so watch this space!

This book will trace the history of the village community of Dunlavin in west Wicklow over many centuries. The Dunlavin region straddles both counties Wicklow and Kildare. A lengthy prologue will treat of the early history of the Dunlavin area. The main study follows the evolution of the village in its regional setting, examining the long and formative impact of Anglophone settlers during the era of ‘Protestant Ascendancy’, positing a model, possibly applicable nationally, of their rise in the seventeenth century, through their zenith in the eighteenth, to their decline in the nineteenth, and replacement by the emerging Catholic interest in the twentieth.
Sir Richard Bulkeley erected the new village of Dunlavin on a greenfield site after the 1641 rebellion. In 1710, Sir James Worth Tynte inherited the village. Tynte and his eighteenth-century successors pursued a model of paternalistic landlordism, but the 1798 rebellion, and the Dunlavin massacre, fractured the relationship between the elite and the masses. The paternalistic model of landlordism failed in the early nineteenth century, and the severe experience of the area during the Great Famine was testament to this. In the post-Famine era, Joseph Pratt Tynte never regained the levels of deference he and his fellow landlords had previously enjoyed. Tynte’s influence was challenged by invigorated nationalism and resurgent Catholicism. The Catholic middle class took control of local politics, and Dunlavin entered the twentieth century with middle-class Catholicism in the ascendancy. The irreversible eclipse of the elite was already advanced, and the process was completed during the twentieth century. A lengthy epilogue will treat of Dunlavin's history during the past century, 1910-2010. This study locates the Dunlavin region in the larger tapestry of Irish history. Dunlavin’s past is as integral to national history as the past in any other part of the island. This case study illuminates an individual section of a complex network of past local experiences, and reveals one part of the range of past behaviours in Ireland.

Pre-Famine Dunlavin

2010-07-08T11:29:00.000-07:00

The following description of Dunlavin on the eve of the Famine is taken from The parliamentary gazetteer of Ireland, adapted to the new poor-law, franchise, municipal and ecclesiastical arrangements, and compiled with a special reference to the lines of railroad and canal communication, as existing in 1844-45; illustrated by a series of maps and other plates and presenting the results, in detail, of the census of 1841, compared with that of 1831, ii, (3 vols, Dublin, 1846) p. 146.

Dunlavan, a market and post town in the above parish, stands at the intersection of the road from Ballymore Eustace to Castledermot with that from Kilcullenbridge to Donard, 5 miles south by east of Kilcullenbridge and 26.5 south-southwest of Dublin. The Tynte family are still proprietors of a large circumjacent estate that belonged to their ancestors; and they have of late years very much improved the town. The market house, constructed of neatly cut mountain granite, and occupying a commanding site, is remarkable for the classical elegance of its architecture, and for being surmounted by a fine dome: it was built at the close of the16th century [sic] by Robert Tynte Esq. [sic], and restored in 1836 at a cost of £500, and under the superintendence of Mr. Cross of Athy, by Lady Tynte. Fairs are held on May 20, the first Friday of July, old style, August 21 and the third Tuesday of October. The Dunlavin dispensary is within the Baltinglass poor law union, and serves a district of 38,000 acres, with a population in 1831 of 7,911, and in 1839-40 it expended £109 12s 10d, and administered to 2,318 patients. On the road to Ballytore, and about two miles from Dunlavin, is the demesne of Rathsallagh; and in the vicinity is the seat of Lady Tynte. Area of the town 41 acres. Population in 1831 1,069; in 1841, 990. Houses 143. Families employed chiefly in agriculture 56, in manufacturing and trade 87 and in other pursuits 54. Families dependant chiefly on property and professions 15; on the directing of labour 85; on their own manual labour 81 and on means not specified 16.

Journal of the West Wicklow Historical Society 5

2009-12-05T13:49:00.000-08:00

The society's new journal was launched on 4 December 2009. Copies cost €10. Postage €3 within Ireland and €5 to other countries. To order copies, phone 00353 [0]45 401204 or email lawlorcm@hotmail.com

Dunlavin’s first Tynte landlord.

2008-05-31T09:11:00.000-07:00

Dunlavin village was founded by the Bulkeley family in the late 1650s. By the time the second Sir Richard Bulkeley died in 1710, the village of Dunlavin was already well established as one of the principal settlements in west Wicklow. In fact, as early as 1668, Dunlavin recorded more hearth taxpayers than any other settlement in the west of the county. [i] The village was flourishing, but the physical growth of the village is difficult to reconstruct, particularly as no detailed maps are available from this period. However, some attempt may be made to plot the spatial pattern and morphology of the village as it was in the early eighteenth century.

L. M. Cullen has suggested that the fairgreen in Dunlavin constituted the original settlement and is underneath the planned village of the mid-eighteenth century dominated by a square with a market house. [ii] The market house did not exist in 1710, but was built beside the seventeenth-century Church of Ireland church in the late 1730s. However, if we assume that the fair green was laid out shortly after the first Sir Richard Bulkeley’s successful petition to hold markets and fairs in Dunlavin in 1661, both the church, for which permission was granted in 1664, and the fairgreen date from the same period. These features marked the extremities of the settlement and, given the evidence of later maps, oral tradition and the present layout of the village, the area between them formed the nucleus of Dunlavin, with buildings along a very wide and right-angled main street running from the church to the fairgreen. Thus the fairgreen did not constitute the original settlement, but acted as its south-eastern boundary. The triangular shape of the fairgreen was common to many Irish villages and small towns during this period. It has been described as ‘the hallmark of early seventeenth-century settlement’. [iii] Such greens have been identified in approximately one hundred and twenty Irish villages. [iv] It has further been suggested that triangular greens were a focus of defence in many villages. [v] Malin in County Donegal is a good example of such a defensive function, where the green is at the centre of a triangle formed by three streets. However, the fairgreen in Dunlavin was on the periphery of the settlement and was not surrounded by buildings. Thus it had no defensive function. It is probably the case that the triangular green in Dunlavin was merely following the fashion of the time, when such triangular fairgreens provided an instantly recognisable symbol for an equally recognisable function. It is also the case that the apex of the triangle occurred at a point where two roads meet, so the physical road pattern favoured the use of the land between as a triangular fairgreen at the entrance to the urban space of the village.

Below the fairgreen, the village formed a linear L-shaped pattern, with two main streets joining at a right angle at the centre. The strict linear pattern was a feature of many Irish villages and small towns at this time. Formal planning – the creation of regularly structured space in accordance with some preconceived ideal – [vi] was evident in the rigid street pattern of Dunlavin. Linear streets and straight axes created a sense of spatial conformity in many villages. [vii] Dunlavin was one such place, where small scale but extreme formalism replicated the baroque planning ideas characteristic of the great European cities. [viii] This formalism in the planning of even the smallest settlements such as Dunlavin derived ultimately from sixteenth-century Renaissance principles [ix] and aspired to civilise society and townscapes through the medium of polite culture. [x] In practice, townscapes and town plans such as the one in Dunlavin reflected the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century mindsets of the landholding elite. Much debate about the term ‘landlord town’ has taken place [xi] but this debate is not central to this article. In all respects, Dunlavin was a landlord town, the creation of the Bulkeley family and it owed its existence to their decision to build a new village on a green field site. In building the new village, the Bulkeleys conformed to the town planning norms of the time and Dunlavin featured a linear street plan with wide streets. In fact, Dunlavin’s streets were extremely wide for such a small settlement. The present street from the old Church of Ireland site to the angle of the L is approximately fifty-one feet wide and the street from the angle of the L to the fairgreen is approximately seventy-five feet wide. There is no record of these parts of the village streets ever being widened, so it is logical to assume that these were the original widths. The buildings were probably lower in the early eighteenth century, as most of the present houses in Dunlavin are two-storey slated buildings dating from the nineteenth century. Even today, the width of Dunlavin’s streets actually detracts from the importance of the buildings on either side. This was case in many Irish villages and small towns, such as, for example, Strokestown in County Roscommon. [xii] The wider street leading from Dunlavin’s fairgreen may be explained by the fact that the markets and fairs overflowed from the green into the village and the wide street provided a suitable arena for the sale of livestock and for other market stalls, as was the case in nearby Baltinglass. [xiii] In addition, the wide streets and the emphatic linear planning of Dunlavin [xiv] added a sense of spaciousness, so characteristic of the early eighteenth century.

This was the village that James Worth Tynte inherited on the death of the second Sir Richard Bulkeley. Tynte had married Hesther Bulkeley, the daughter of John Bulkeley of Old Bawn, County Dublin (to which Tynte also succeeded) and the niece of Bulkeley, the second baronet Dunlavin, on 15 April 1702. [xv] Tynte was born in 1682, the son of William Worth and his second wife, Mabella Tynte, a daughter of Sir Henry Tynte. The young James assumed the surname Tynte in 1692 when he became the heir of his uncle, Henry Tynte of Ballycrenane in County Cork. [xvi] The Tyntes were a Somerset family and Sir Robert Tynte was the first family member to receive a grant of land in Ireland. He died in 1643 and it was this man’s great grandson Henry who bequeathed his estate to James Worth on the condition that he assumed the surname Tynte. Henry Tynte’s will was proved on 22 October 1692 and James Worth became James Worth Tynte. [xvii] He was educated at Kilkenny College and later studied at the Middle Temple. [xviii] He served as the High Sheriff of County Cork in 1711. [xix] His Bulkeley inheritance, which included both the Old Bawn and the Dunlavin lands and which he received via his wife Hesther, confirmed him as a major player with lands in many parts of Ireland.

Not everything went smoothly with the transfer of the Bulkeley estates to Tynte however. Bulkeley was declared non compos mentis by the Court of Chancery and various relatives hotly contested his will. A series of letters has survived in which tensions between Tynte and his mother-in-law Jane Bulkeley are revealed. In the absence of any Tynte papers, letters such as these are of vital significance as they shed some light on the character of James Worth Tynte. On 24 February 1718 Jane Bulkeley wrote to her cousin Mrs. Bonnell and stated ‘I have not got one penny from him [Tynte] yet. He is a sad dog. I pray God mend him’. [xx] Evidently Jane Bulkeley, the widow of John Bulkeley of Old Bawn and mother of Tynte’s wife Hesther, had a very low opinion of Tynte. This was not helped by the fact that Tynte was slow to pay her the money she expected to receive in connection with his inheriting the Bulkeley lands, including those at Dunlavin. On 25 July in the following year, Jane Bulkeley confided to Mrs. Bonnell: ‘I have taken courage and prest Mr. Tynte for money, but to very little purpose. He has at last promised me to let me have [a] sum next month. I question it very much; it makes me very uneasy, but what will I do? It is death to me to think of going to law with him and I fear I shall get little without it’. [xxi] Evidently the monetary impasse was worsening, and Jane Bulkeley was allowing the matter of Tynte’s lack of payment to prey on her mind.

The financial standoff continued into the 1720s, and may have been one reason why Tynte was reported to be ‘in a cloudy humour’ in November 1726. [xxii] On 2 March 1727 Jane Bulkeley wrote again to Mrs. Bonnell, revealing that she was not alone in having difficulties dealing with Tynte. She stated: ‘Mr. Sanders has had no answer of his letters though they writ three times’. [xxiii] Nearly a year later, Jane Bulkeley again made scathing references to Tynte in another epistle, saying ‘Mr. Tynte is… come to town and I fear that he is much the same man’. [xxiv] The situation between Tynte and his mother in law was eventually settled in 1733. In October that year, Jane Bulkeley wrote to Mrs. Bonnell and enclosed a letter that she had received from Tynte himself. Tynte’s letter is undated, but it suggests conflict between his wife’s interests and those of a Mr. Bulkeley, probably a cousin of Sir Richard as his only brother predeceased him, and he had neither sons nor nephews. Tynte stated that ‘the difficulties that frequently arose during a long and uncertain treaty with Mr. Bulkeley was the reason why I could not possibly give you any account before this time how my wife’s affairs stood in relation to him’. Tynte went on to state that ‘after many uneasynesses and very great expences on my part, I have brought all differences between her and him to a conclusion… executed on both parts’. He continued: ‘I have paid him three thousand pounds down and have given bonds to pay him one hundred pounds a year till one thousand pounds is paid, if I enjoy the estate of Sir Richard Bulkeley so long’. However, Tynte had no doubt that his investment was worthwhile as he wrote: ‘the rents of the estate which are now due will pay more than that money’. He also reported that ‘I secure My Lady Bulkeley’s claim, which is mine’. In summation, Tynte concluded: ‘I judged most prudent to comply with terms by which I could not possibly lose, but by which I may most certainly be a gainer’ before signing off as ‘Your most dutifull and obedient son, James Tynte’. [xxv] A month later, Jane Bulkeley was ‘seized with a violent fit and died’. [xxvi] Evidently she did not enjoy her new-found peace of mind for very long.

By the 1730s James Worth Tynte was firmly in possession of Dunlavin village and the neighbouring lands. Jane Bulkeley had noted that his failure to repay his debts did not stop him from spending huge sums to support a lavish lifestyle. In one of her letters she wrote: ‘I am sure it is very hard on me and I have a great deal of vexation to see the extravagant way they live, and, I fear, take little care to pay debts, but they are too great and too wise to be spoke to, especially by me. I wish they had more prudence and goodness in all their conduct, but I think they grow worse rather than better. I wish I could say otherwise’. [xxvii] Jane Bulkeley’s writings reveal a pattern of conspicuous consumption on the part of Tynte and his wife. Such conspicuous consumption was a hallmark of many members of the Irish aristocracy and gentry – the landholding elite – and it has been argued that this type of lifestyle was not unique to the Irish elite, but was entirely normative behaviour indulged in by similar ancien regime landed elites throughout eighteenth-century Europe. [xxviii] Such behaviour on the part of the elite was one reason for the traditional hostility accorded to Irish landlords in the popular historical imagination. [xxix] Certainly Tynte’s lifestyle was ostentatious and this ostentation was reflected in his impact on the village of Dunlavin. Tynte extensively remodelled the whole village during the 1730s and 1740s, making the market house the centrepiece of the improved village. However, those improvements are another story and cannot be addressed in this short article.

[i] N.L.I., Hearth Money Roll, County Wicklow 1669, Ms. 8818: G.O. 667. Dunlavin had thirty-nine taxpayers; Baltinglass had thirty-eight and Donard thirty.
[ii] L. M. Cullen, The emergence of modern Ireland 1600-1900 (London, 1981), p. 63.
[iii] Cullen, The emergence of modern Ireland 1600-1900, p. 62.
[iv] Cullen, The emergence of modern Ireland 1600-1900, p. 64.
[v] L. J. Proudfoot, ‘Spatial Transformation and social agency: Property, Society and improvement, c. 1700 to c. 1900’ in B. J. Graham and L. J. Proudfoot (eds), An Historical Geography of Ireland (London, 1993), p. 235.
[vi] L. J. Proudfoot and B. J. Graham, ‘The nature and extent of urban and village foundation and improvement in eighteenth and early nineteenth century Ireland’, in Planning Perspectives, 8, (Dublin 1993), p. 260.
[vii] Susan Hood, ‘The significance of the villages and small towns in rural Ireland during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries’ in Proceedings of the British Academy, 108, (London 2002), p. 253.
[viii] Hood, ‘The significance of the villages and small towns’, p. 251.
[ix] B. J. Graham and L. J. Proudfoot, Urban improvement in provincial Ireland, (Athlone 1994), p. 3.
[x] Graham and Proudfoot, Urban improvement, p. 3.
[xi] See for example Graham and Proudfoot, Urban improvement, p. 2; Hood, ‘The significance of the villages and small towns’, p. 247; B. J. Graham, ‘The processes of urban improvement in provincial Ireland’ in T. E. Eliasson and G. A. Ersland, Power, profit and urban land: Landownership in medieval and early modern Northern European towns, (Aldershot 1996), pp. 218-219.
[xii] Hood, ‘The significance of the villages and small towns’, p. 256.
[xiii] Stanley Jackson, ‘Baltinglass cattle fairs’ in Journal of the West Wicklow Historical Society, iv, (2007) p. 86. Strokestown’s wide streets also provided space for trading on the market and fair days. Hood, ‘The significance of the villages and small towns’, p. 251.
[xiv] Proudfoot, ‘Spatial Transformation and social agency’, p. 236.
[xv] History of the Irish Parliament, v, p. 446.
[xvi] History of the Irish Parliament, v, p. 446.. Also Fitzgerald, ‘Dunlavin, Tornant and Tober, p.221.
[xvii] Fitzgerald, ‘Dunlavin, Tornant and Tober’, p.222 v.
[xviii] T. U. Sadlier, The register of Kilkenny School 1685-1800, unpaginated, entry for 18 August 1695. Also H. A. C. Sturgess, Register of admissions to the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple (London, 1949), i. p. 244.
[xix] History of the Irish Parliament, v, p. 446.
[xx] Jane Bulkeley to Mrs. Bonnell, 24 Feb1718, (N.L.I., Papers of the family of Smythe of Barbavilla, Ms. 41,580/4)
[xxi] Jane Bulkeley to Mrs. Bonnell, 25 July 1718, (N.L.I., Papers of the family of Smythe of Barbavilla, Ms. 41,580/4)
[xxii] Ann Worth to Mrs. Bonnell, 26 November 1726, (N.L.I., Papers of the family of Smythe of Barbavilla, Ms. 41,580/27)
[xxiii]Jane Bulkeley to Mrs. Bonnell 2 March 1727 (N.L.I., Papers of the family of Smythe of Barbavilla, Ms. 41,580/4). Tynte is not actually named in this letter, but the content of the letter makes it likely that he is the man to which Jane Bulkeley was referring. The Mr. Sanders mentioned was probably from the landowning Saunders family of Saunders Grove near Dunlavin.
[xxiv] Jane Bulkeley to Mrs. Bonnell, 14 January 1728 (N.L.I., Papers of the family of Smythe of Barbavilla, Ms. 41,580/4)
[xxv] James Tynte to Jane Bulkeley, undated, (N.L.I., Papers of the family of Smythe of Barbavilla, Ms. 41,580/4)
[xxvi] Thomas Curtis to Mrs. Bonnell, 6 November 1733 (N.L.I., Papers of the family of Smythe of Barbavilla, Ms. 41,580/4)
[xxvii] Jane Bulkeley to Mrs. Bonnell, 25 July 1719 (N.L.I., Papers of the family of Smythe of Barbavilla, Ms. 41,580/4)
[xxviii] J. Black, Eighteenth century Europe 1700-1789 (London, 1990), pp 208-230.
[xxix] E. R. Hooker, Readjustments of agricultural tenure in Ireland, (Chapel Hill N.C. 1938) and J. E. Pomfret, The struggle for land in Ireland, (Princeton 1930) cited in Lindsay Proudfoot, ‘Land ownership and improvement ca. 1700-1845’, in Lindsay Proudfoot (ed) and William Nolan (series ed), Down History and Society: Interdisciplinary essays on the history of an Irish county, (Dublin 1997), pp. 204 and 234.

A chronicler of Dunlavin – Fr. John Francis Shearman

2008-02-04T11:27:00.000-08:00

John Francis Shearman was born in 1831 at 19 High Street, Kilkenny. He was ordained at Maynooth in 1862 and took up his first curacy at Dunlavin. Fr. Shearman remained in Dunlavin for five years (1862-1867) before moving to Howth. He became parish priest of Moone in 1883, where he died two years later in 1885. He is buried under the floor of the chapel in Moone.
Shearman’s “magnum opus” was “Loca Patriciana” which was published in 1879. Much of his earlier work was never published however, and Fr. John O’Hanlon meticulously pasted Shearman’s handwritten manuscripts into volumes that were then bound. Volume 7 deals exclusively with Dunlavin, and much of Volume 17 also relates to Shearman’s time in Dunlavin. Much of Shearman’s work relates to early Christian relics around Dunlavin, but his wide ranging interests made him record all kinds of things varying from the site of the battle of Gleann Mama to the executions on Dunlavin green in 1798.
Apart from antiquarian and historical writing, the Shearman Papers also give us a picture of the Dunlavin area during his own time there. Shearman went out among the people and collected many stories about folklore, ghosts, popular religion (the Holy Well at Tornant) etc. He also gives townland by townland statistical breakdowns of farms, landholdings, valuations etc. during the 1860’s. The source is so vast that I have barely scratched the surface.
Writing in 1862, Fr. Shearman gives what he calls a “statistical memoir” of Dunlavin parish. He tells us that the parish comprises over forty thousand acres and contains a Roman Catholic population of about 4,000. He mentions the events of 1798 and continues “Since then, the systematic persecutions and evictions of hostile proprietors and Orange agents have depopulated Imaile [Imaal] and introduced Protestants from the obscure nooks and corners of neighbouring counties to usurp the places of the Irish Catholics who were themselves, a little more than a century before, the proprietors in fee, while the few who were tolerated were driven up the mountainsides”.
Shearman mentions the cross-county boundary links that existed in Dunlavin village, telling us that many people from Gormanstown and Kilcullen parish [both in Co. Kildare] attended Mass in Dunlavin church. He says that the district of Dunlavin has been “scarcely more fortunate” than Imaal with regard to Catholic depopulation. He mentions many townlands where Catholic tenants have been driven out, among them Rathsallagh, where the only Catholic to hold land was Mr. John Norton. Incidentally, this Mr. John Norton was among the witnesses who gave evidence to the Devon Commission in 1845 (witness 964). Although he seemed to “sit on the fence” with regard to some answers – he probably did not want to give too much information to the commissioners – this examination does give us a good insight of life and landholding in Rathsallagh and around Dunlavin in the 1840’s. Many of Norton’s points regarding leases and improvements made to the farm by tenants were reiterated by Mr. Edward Fenlon to the Besborough Commission in 1881, indicating that the situation had not improved a lot despite the 1870 Land Act.
However, back to the 1860’s. Despite the evictions, Fr. Shearman tells us that “On the whole in the Dunlavin part [of the parish] they [Catholics] are holding their own and even advancing apace, while in Donoghmore and Donard they aren’t so well circumstanced, as farms when vacated, as a general rule are given to Protestant adventurers which has had a demoralising effect on the Catholics”. Shearman contrasts this with “the uncompromising spirit by which they were animated during the struggle for emancipation, the abrogation of the tithes and the repeal movement”.
The inhabitants of the Glen of Imaal seem to have suffered a lot at the hands of Michael Fenton of Ballinclay whom Shearman describes as “a man actuated by a steady determination to uproot every Catholic”. Fenton seems to have been a target of Daniel O’Connell as Shearman says that he was “abused from great obscurity into great notoriety by the late Liberator.” I do not know what the O’Connell-Fenton incident was, but it merits further investigation at a later date.
Shearman’s observations on the evictions of Catholics and their general position in the upland part of Dunlavin parish ends on a gloomy note as he writes: “All this done in a remote glen of Wicklow in this year of grace 1862 – too remote to be reached by public opinion – a feeling well-nigh strangled in this region of serfdom. Should there be a man so daring as to raise his voice above the common herd he is set down as a turbulent spirit and entails on himself a persecution of the lowest and meanest character unworthy of the noble proprietors whose only excuse is that they act thus led only by the invidious whisperings of avaricious agents and their cowardly myrmidons.”
This passage shows us some of both the strengths and weaknesses of the Shearman Papers as a source. On the one hand, Shearman, the Catholic priest is obviously sympathetic towards the plight of the Catholics and we must beware of bias. I do not suggest that there was no plight for these Catholics, but Shearman’s language is very emotive. On the other hand, because these writings were never meant for publication Shearman felt free to use such emotive language and to write with a frankness that would not have been possible if the material was to be published. This frankness contrasts with the restrained erudite language used by Shearman in other parts of the Shearman Papers, notably the manuscript text of “Loca Patriciana” and later articles in Volume 17.
One intriguing reference to the local gentry made by Shearman concerns Lady Synge Hutcheson (a landowner in Imaal) who “essayed to establish a new religion and entailed on herself the ire of the parson as well as the priest. She kept a milk-white stud to carry the Messiah who she still expects to establish the millenium”.
Shearman gives an outline of the schools in the district. It is interesting to note that Cryhelpe school was built by the late Baron De Röbeck partly at his own expense but “principally with the free labour of his tenants.” The teacher, a mistress, in Tynte Park school (supported by Joseph P. Tynte for the children of his workers) is a Protestant and the children here are “remarkable for their negligence and apathy in the attention to their religious duties.” A Protestant school and an Orange lodge were established at Knockanagrigan.
Dunlavin village contained about 95 Catholic families in 1862, and about 25 Protestant families, according to Shearman. John Harrington, who was father of ten children had property valued at £136.10.0. Indeed, large families were very much the norm as one can see by looking at the townland by townland breakdown of Catholic inhabitants given by Shearman. In the “valuation” column of his stastical memoir, Shearman gives evidence that the cottiers were not quite totally wiped out by the famine. John Carroll and James Cleary are described as “cottiers”. Charles Ennis is a “workman” (no valuation) while John Doyle has a “cabin”.
Volume 7 of the Shearman papers gives an even more detailed townland by townland account of the local area. Much of the ancient history, legends and archaeological features of the area are noted, but much of the information relates to Shearman’s time in Dunlavin too. I have not had time to read through the two hundred plus pages of close Victorian handwriting but I will just take a few instances from volume 7.
Shearman’s love of archaeology caused him to become quite excited when a dig was made in 1863 on the farm of one Corney Kooney (Rooney?).Shearman described how “a moat was excavated and levelled.” The finds included “Kists [cists?], Urns and Bones (human).”
Locals would not go near the hollow in the road (called “Byrne’s Hollow”) which was located in the townland of Cowpasture on the road from Dunlavin to the house which was owned by Councillor Fisher but was burned to the ground by insurgents in 1798, because it “has a bad reputation for spirits after dark”. This is only one of a number of stories of the supernatural recounted by Shearman. Despite the presence of the church and the clergy, there was obviously a folk-belief and a folk-culture still alive in Dunlavin in the 1860’s. Fr. Shearman hardly preached about spirits, but the people believed in them! No doubt there was a gap between the official beliefs and the actual beliefs of many of the local people in the 1860’s.
Shearman mentions the building and enclosing of Tynte Park House and demesne. He describes Tynte Park as a “smiling paradise, its picturesque plantations and well-cultivated fields contrasting strongly with the nakedness of the adjacent country”. Obviously the chasm between landlord and tenant was very wide and land reform would remain an issue till the end of the century, though Tynte Park remained splendid in the 1890’s, as Rector Samuel Russell McGee’s description of one event in 1897 attests: ‘In the afternoon Colonel and Mrs. Tynte held a reception at Tynte Park, at which a large number of the surrounding gentry as well as the immediate parishioners were present. Tea was provided in a marquee in front of the house. During the afternoon a military band discoursed sweet music, and Tynte Park looked its gayest, the natural beauty of itself and the magnificent view of the Wicklow mountains being enhanced by the presence of a fashionable gathering’.
Shearman tells us that there were slate quarries in the townland of Plezica which were “extensively worked at the beginning of this century... they are now superseded by the Welsh Slate.” This confirms the information given by Liam Price who tells us that “Slatequarry” was an old name for the Plezica area. This is only one of a number of instances where the information provided by Shearman has served to confirm and elaborate on other sources of Dunlavin’s history. Another instance of this is Shearman’s account of the Holy Well near Dunlavin, St. Nicholas’s Holy Well. Shearman writes “Fifty years ago [this well at Tornant] was the scene of one of the most famed Mid-Leinster patterns. St. John’s eve was the day on which the pattern began and it lasted for three days. Tents and booths were erected and crowds came from Carlow, Athy and from the farthest parts of the King’s County. It was one of the leading patterns in the whole country but owing to the great abuses and riots consequent on these gatherings, the owner of the land Mr. Ennis and the P.P. Fr. John Hyland ultimately abolished it twenty five years ago.” Shearman gives more information on how the curative powers of the well were much sought after. Once again the gap between teachings (and actions) of the priests and the folk-beliefs of the people seems to be quite wide!
Obviously volume 7 of the Shearman Papers is a cornucopia of information for the local historian of Dunlavin. I have not even looked at the townland information for the sub-divisions of Dunlavin parish yet. (These sub-divisions are: Tober, Crehelp, Donard, Rathsallagh and Freynestown). Hopefully the snippets of information I have given in this article help to throw some light on life in Dunlavin during the decade, and also serve to show the variety and detail of the information recorded in the writings of Fr. John Francis Shearman, a man whom the local historian of Dunlavin, as well as of Kilkenny, certainly owes a debt of gratitude!

NEW BOOK LAUNCHING 16 NOVEMBER 2007

2007-10-28T06:28:00.000-07:00

Title:The Longest Rebellion : West Wicklow, the Dunlavin Massacre and Michael Dwyer, 1798-1803

Author:Chris Lawlor

ISBN:0955463424 : 9780955463426

Format:Paperback

Size:140x210mm

Pages:204

Published:Small World Media - November 2007

List Price:€12.99

Availability:Not yet published

Subjects:British & Irish history: c1700 to c1900: Ireland (including the Republic)

The 1798 Rebellion was a decisive moment in Irish history. It shaped Loyalist and Republican attitudes for generations afterwards. Although the enormity of the rebellion and its legacy cannot be overstated, the event itself was short-lived. The savagery of the fighting lasted through one fateful summer. By its end the insurrection was totally subdued. Yet there was one area in the west of County Wicklow where the rebellion was not subdued. The violence here lasted five and a half years and only ended when the rebels freely laid down their arms in December 1803. It was centred on Dunlavin parish, which stretches from the County Kildare border to the summit of Lugnaquilla, Leinster's highest mountain. The picturesque village of Dunlavin was the scene of a horrific massacre on the very first day of the 1798 Rebellion. Thirty six unarmed and defenceless prisoners, arrested before the rebellion broke out, who had played no part in the hostilities were shot on the village green. Other prisoners were hanged from the pillars of the village market house. This book explores the tensions that existed in the area before the massacre. It provides an account of the causes of the massacre and a study of the key personalities involved. The events of the fateful day are examined and the consequences of the event are analysed. One of the principal consequences was the guerrilla campaign waged by Michael Dwyer and his rebel band in the Wicklow Mountains. This book also follows the activities of Dwyer, born in the Glen of Imaal, who fought in Wexford during the 1798 Rebellion. Following the defeat of the rebel armies, Dwyer retreated into the wilderness of the Wicklow Mountains. From here he waged a relentless guerrilla campaign for more than five years. Eventually, with no hope of help from Napoleonic France, Dwyer arranged terms with the authorities and ended his resistance in December 1803. The rebel leader expected to be given safe passage to America, but he was held in Kilmainham Jail and transported to Australia in 1805, where further adventures awaited him. This book makes extensive use of many primary sources including archival material and folk ballads. Numerous contemporary documents and poems are reproduced in the text. It is an excellent work of reference and a welcome addition to the literature covering the 1798 Rebellion and its aftermath, as well as a treasured memento for future generations.

A study of census material to examine a single household in Dunlavin, Co. Wicklow in 1901.

2007-10-26T10:56:00.000-07:00

Outline Plan:
This research study will examine a specific household in Dunlavin, Co. Wicklow at a particular point in time. The lives of ordinary people are now studied as part of our social history. Local history is becoming ever more important and more popular, and is contributing significantly to our knowledge of national history. The 1901 census was a very detailed survey of every part of Ireland and provides an excellent primary source for a local research study. This study will use primary source material from that census and will examine data regarding one household. The research study has been written from primary source information and will add to the body of historical knowledge about Dunlavin and about the local history of Co. Wicklow.

Evaluation of sources:

The principal source used for this study was the Census of 1901. This census information is available in the National Archive of Ireland in Bishop St., Dublin. Both household and street return forms (forms A and B) were examined. They are accurate primary sources. The main disadvantage of the censuses is that they contain a huge amount of information. The study will only concentrate on information regarding one household. One of the skills that I learned while doing this research study was to use only the information that I needed and interpret it in a historical way, in light of the general situation in Ireland at this time, which I found out about from the secondary sources listed at the end. The secondary sources gave a good overview, but were very general for a local study such as this one.
Extended Essay

This research study looks at one household at a moment in time. The census of 1901 was a very detailed survey of all of Ireland and every single household in the country had to answer questions and fill out a form. The answers to the questions were filled in on a form called ‘Form B’ and the head of each household had to fill in a different form called ‘Form A’, which contained information about all the people who were in the house on that census night in 1901. This study will focus on one household in the village of Dunlavin in the west of County Wicklow and will try to build up a picture of the household and its inhabitants on the night that the census was taken.

The household at the centre of this study is that of a lady called Sarah Lawler. Sarah was fifty four years old in 1901 and her house was quite large, containing eight rooms. She ran a public house in Dunlavin village and she described herself as a ‘merchant’, so the pub may have sold some other things as well as alcohol. The size of the house meant that Sarah’s house was described as a ‘first class’ house. This meant that it was the best type of house. Sarah’s position as a merchant and publican probably meant that she was fairly wealthy, so she would be able to afford to live in a good house like this. She may not have owned the house, as many houses at this time belonged to local landlords, but she could still afford to pay rent on a first class house because of her position among the business community of Dunlavin village.

Sarah Lawler had a large family. The census form B states that there were ten people in her family. There may have been, and census form A certainly shows that there were ten people staying in her house that night. However, not all of these people were members of her family. Some of them only worked for Sarah, but she still had three of her own children and two grandchildren in the house that night. Her eldest son, James, was twenty nine years old and was also described as a merchant. He may have been a partner in the business or even run the pub, because he is the only one of Sarah’s children described as a ‘merchant’ like herself. James was married, but there was no mention of Sarah’s daughter-in-law on the census form. James’s wife was not in the house that night – for whatever reason; she may have been elsewhere or even dead.

Sarah also had two daughters staying in the house that night. Marie and Agnes were both in their twenties. Marie was twenty four and married; Agnes was twenty six and single. There was no mention of Marie’s husband. Once again, he may have been elsewhere. The form A definitely states that Marie is Sarah’s daughter, but in some ways the structure of this household would be easier to understand if she were a daughter-in-law and married to James. However this study can only work from the information given in the primary source document.

The two children, Sarah’s grandsons, were both very young. Nicholas was two and John was only nine months. The Lawlers were an example of three generations of the one family living in the same house. Such arrangements were quite common in Ireland at this time. The Lawler family were typical in another respect too. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw the development of a strong and wealthy Catholic middle class. In the countryside, strong farmers emerged, but in the villages and towns the wealthy Catholic middle class was represented by the business people.

The Lawlers were a Catholic family who were wealthy enough to employ four people. The size of the house and the nature of their business and family meant that these four people ‘lived in’ on the premises. Sarah Mapes was described as a domestic servant. She was twenty three years old and a single girl who probably acted as a housekeeper and perhaps a cook for the Lawler family. Maggie Fay was a seventeen-year-old girl who was employed as a nurse, so she probably looked after the two young children. At that time, very few seventeen year olds went on to secondary school, so Maggie was typical of many young girls who went into service for wealthy families. John McGough was also seventeen, but he worked in the pub. He was described as a shop assistant, and this may be further evidence that the Lawlers sold more than alcohol. The final servant was twenty-year-old Eddie Whittle. He was described as a porter, so he probably did a lot of fetching and carrying for the business and for the wealthy Lawler family in general.

The Lawler family of Dunlavin were Catholics and so were all the servants that they employed. This may not show religious discrimination in their hiring however, as there was a large majority of Catholics in the village at this time. All the servants were local as they were all born in County Wicklow, as were the Lawlers themselves. In those days, many local businesses were self-sufficient and took on local employees. The wealthy Lawler family were among those self-sufficient villagers in 1901.

This research study has used the census returns of 1901 to build a picture of a Dunlavin household at a particular point in time. The census provides an excellent source of information for a local research study. History is not just about the famous, powerful and rich. It is about ordinary people too. Studying one household in depth can add to our overall knowledge of history. This study has examined a Dunlavin household, and added to our knowledge of the local history of Co. Wicklow in 1901.

Sources:
Census of Ireland 1901, County Wicklow, (Dunlavin), Form A files.
Census of Ireland 1901, County Wicklow, (Dunlavin), Form B files.
F.S.L. Lyons, Ireland since the famine, London 1971.
R. F. Foster, Modern Ireland 1600-1972, London 1988.

Michael Dwyer Statue in the Glen of Imaal

2007-06-14T14:05:00.000-07:00

'Invictus' means 'Undefeated'.

Michael Dwyer

2007-06-14T10:35:00.002-07:00

Michael Dwyer, the Wicklow Chief

A paper delivered at the University of Melbourne on 1 August 2006

By
Chris Lawlor

Let me begin by thanking you for allowing me to deliver this paper here in the beautiful surroundings of Newman College in the University of Melbourne. I am very honoured to be here to mark the bicentenary of the arrival of Michael Dwyer with this talk, which, as you will know, is part of the University’s prestigious series of ‘Irish Studies Seminars’. I am especially grateful to Dr Elizabeth Malcolm and Mr Philip Bull as they have organised this seminar on the life and significance of Michael Dwyer, the man known as the ‘Wicklow Chief’, a man, indeed, whose exploits have almost assumed the proportions of myth in his native county.

The mythic quality of Michael Dwyer is something that I have grown up with in West Wicklow. The name of Michael Dwyer was “up there with the best of them”. A nineteenth century traditional ballad called “The Three Flowers” compares Dwyer with Wolfe Tone and Robert Emmet. This ballad is merely one example of how Dwyer, who was not a major United Irish leader before the 1798 rebellion (although he worked his way up the chain of command somewhat during the conflict) was posthumously elevated to a status of leadership which he did not enjoy during his lifetime. Dwyer probably never saw Wolfe Tone, let alone met him. They moved in different circles. Unlike many of the leading figures within the United Irish organisation, Dwyer did not come from a well-to-do background. While planning the abortive rising of 1803, Emmet and Dwyer met only twice. Yet the guerrilla leader of a tiny band of freedom fighters in the Wicklow Mountains is mentioned as an equal in the same breath as Tone, the “Father of Irish Republicanism” and Emmet, the “Darling of Erin”. In the folklore of Ireland, the myth of Michael Dwyer has transcended his own time and place. No doubt Dwyer, the politically aware freedom fighter, would have been pleased. The legend lives on. This article will attempt to separate legend from fact… though an account of the facts of Dwyer’s life makes it easy to see how the legend developed!

Michael Dwyer was born in the Glen of Imaal in 1772. Making a living, especially from farming was difficult in this remote glen, deep in the Wicklow Mountains. Nevertheless, Michael Dwyer was the son of a small tenant farmer and he grew up among the people of this glen. The Dwyers were not rich – Michael’s parents, John and Mary, were ordinary people. His father, John Dwyer had married Mary Byrne of Cullentragh. Michael was their eldest son. The family moved from the townland of Camara to the townland of Eadstown in 1784, when Michael was about twelve years old. Eadstown was not quite as remote as Camara, but it was still situated well within the Glen of Imaal. The Dwyers were Roman Catholic, so Michael was educated at a hedge school. His teacher was Peter Burr. Burr was a remarkable figure. He was a graduate of the strictly protestant Trinity College, Dublin, but he was also a progressive thinker, who kept up with political changes at the time. Burr made sure that Michael Dwyer and his other pupils also knew about these changes.

And what changes they were! The late seventeenth century witnessed the American Revolution and French Revolution. Both of these events brought about huge changes and established two independent republics. The American War of Independence threatened the very concepts of "Empire" and British "superiority" in an age of imperialism. The loss of the American colonies was the first real blow suffered by the British Empire, and it cut deeply. The colonies were gone, but at least they were three thousand miles away. The French Revolution did not affect Britain as directly as the American one, in that they lost no land as a result of it. However, in its own way, the French revolution had an even more profound effect on British Loyalists because it threatened the very concept of Monarchy. Europe's Ancien Regime and the idea of the "Divine Right" of Monarchs were swept aside. The French were guilty of possibly the worst possible crime in Loyalist eyes -regicide. After all, who were Loyalists loyal to, if not the Monarch?

The establishment of the United Irishmen in Belfast in 1791fuelled Loyalist fears. Now Ireland, the island on Britain's doorstep, was showing separatist tendencies. In the Glen of Imaal, Peter Burr was among the first to join the new organisation of United Irishmen. Burr’s action probably influenced his old pupil, who became even more politically aware as new ideas infiltrated the Glen. Michael Dwyer also joined the United Irishmen in 1797.

At this stage, the government moved to quell the United Irishmen. Terror was employed as a tactic and this terror spread through Ulster and into Leinster during late 1797 and early 1798. A new part time force, the yeoman were founded in 1797 to assist the militia and regular army in tackling the United Irish threat. A reign of terror swept through Leinster and into County Wicklow. The United Irishmen were strong in Wicklow, where they had 14,000 sworn members. The United Irishmen’s second strongest Leinster county was Kildare with 11,919 members. Michael Dwyer lived in an area of Wicklow close to the Kildare border. The Glen of Imaal is in Dunlavin parish and Dunlavin village was a place that Dwyer visited often. The Roman Catholic parish was centred on Dunlavin, and Dwyer’s family worshipped there. Dunlavin was also the local market town, so as farmers the Dwyer family also had reason to attend Dunlavin’s markets and fairs. Dunlavin held a pivotal position between the principal towns of Kildare and West Wicklow, such as Naas, Kilcullen, Blessington and Baltinglass. In 1798, Dunlavin was also a garrison town for West Wicklow. The West Wicklow area saw harsh methods employed in the hunt for United Irishmen. The flogging triangle was used, as was half-hanging. Arrests of United Irish suspects followed. Dunlavin market house became a temporary jail. A kinsman of Michael Dwyer, John Dwyer of Seskin, was arrested in April 1798. His house in Imaal was burned and he was incarcerated in Dunlavin. Michael Dwyer was also wanted by the authorities, so he left his home and was lying low in the remote wilderness area at the head of the Glen of Imaal.

While Dwyer was evading the authorities, the rebellion broke out in West Wicklow (and Kildare). On the opening day of the rebellion, 24 May 1798, a horrendous massacre of prisoners occurred in Dunlavin. The authorities had good information from spies, such as John Smith, who had learned that many Dunlavin yeomen were also sworn United Irishmen. The Dunlavin yeomanry was divided into Dunlavin cavalry corps, which was led by William Ryves of Rathsallagh and the infantry corps, which was led by Morley Saunders of Saundersgrove. Another spy Joe Hawkins had uncovered a plot to kill Morley Saunders. On Monday 21 May 1798 Corporal James Dunn of the Saundersgrove corps had been arrested. On Tuesday 22 May eighteen more of Saunders’s men were arrested on the parade ground, and prisoners from Narraghmore and elsewhere joined local suspects in Dunlavin market house. On the morning of the 24 May, with rumours of rebel victories sweeping through a tense and volatile Dunlavin, some prisoners were hanged at the market house. The exact number is unclear, but between five and eleven men seem to have been hanged. Shortly afterwards, many of the remaining prisoners were paraded through the town – and thirty-six of them were shot at the corner of the fair green beside the Roman Catholic chapel. The sectarian nature of the massacre was overtly displayed. The wounded were finished off by pistol shots in the ear, but one man, David Prendergast, feigned death and was rescued. State terror had reached its zenith in the Dunlavin massacre.

The effects of the Dunlavin massacre were far reaching. News of the massacre was one factor that prompted Fr John Murphy to rebel and so the Wexford rebellion commenced. News of the massacre also had a profound effect on Michael Dwyer. Dwyer still lying low in the remote Glen of Imaal when the news reached him, but after Dunlavin, Dwyer went to Wexford, where he joined the rebels. At this stage, Dwyer was a captain in the United Irishmen. He was not, however, a principal leader. There is no record of his movements or journey to Wexford… this in itself indicated that he was not as yet very well known. Once in County Wexford, Dwyer joined the United army of North Wexford. The North Wexford campaign eventually led the rebels across the border into Wicklow, and the town of Arklow was to be the scene of the next battle. Dwyer’s bravery was noted at the Battle of Arklow. Despite the courage shown by Dwyer and others, the Battle of Arklow was a major defeat for the rebels, who had to retreat into Wexford once again.

Following an action at Kilcavan Hill, Dwyer and his comrades reached Vinegar Hill on 20 June. This was the eve of what was to prove to be the decisive government victory of the campaign in the southeast. Vinegar Hill was another major defeat for the insurgents, and marked the beginning of the end of the rising. On 21 June, the rebel forces broke and the main body retreated towards Wexford town. Dwyer, however, did not go with them. Instead, he retreated northwards, rejoining some of his comrades on the way. They spent that night at Peppard’s Castle and reached the sacked settlement of Aughrim on 24 June. The survivors of Vinegar Hill began to regroup. Their commander, Garret Byrne of Ballymanus, now decided to attack on Hacketstown, just over the Carlow border on 25 June.

At Hacketstown Michael Dwyer was given his first significant command as he led one of the rebel flanking parties. However, a determined loyalist resistance meant that the attackers’ losses were high as the defenders picked them off from within stone buildings. Solid resistance from well armed forces within well-fortified positions amply demonstrated that, without cannon, the rebels could not hope to take such positions. Once again, Dwyer’s courage was noted at Hacketstown. With two brothers named Laffan (Laphen) from Kilmuckridge, he managed to climb the barracks wall using scaling ladders. Despite this gallant effort, the barracks proved too tough a nut to crack and the rebels eventually had to withdraw.

The tide of war had firmly turned in favour of the government forces. Retreat into the fastnesses of the Wicklow Mountains was now the only sensible option for the beleaguered rebel forces, but Michael Dwyer could scarcely have imagined just how long his resistance would last in these fastnesses as he and his comrades trekked towards Glenmalure in the first week of July 1798. For a while, Dwyer defended the secluded valley at this time and he was referred to as “the Governor of Glenmalure”. However, Michael Dwyer evacuated Glenmalure with the remainder of the insurgents on 6 August and on the next day they arrived in the Glen of Imaal. Dwyer was home! The Glen of Imaal was geographically remote and the community within it was a close-knit one, which meant that Dwyer had many friends ready to shelter him locally. Even some elements of the yeomanry in this area were prepared to harbour Dwyer. Here, in Imaal he also had an extended web of kinship on which he could rely. Such support and shelter influenced Dwyer’s decision not to avail of a protection, which was offered to him in August. He feared becoming the target of a Loyalist reprisal attack. A protection might be all very well, but with the memory of the Dunlavin massacre and other incidents fresh in Dwyer's mind, no doubt he may have felt that such a protection might not be worth the paper that it was written on.

Dwyer considered the option of taking a protection, but ignored it and September saw him involved in the Battle of Keadeen. Dwyer and his men had decided to continue the fight. This battle was the first is a series of indecisive skirmishes, which harried and harassed the Crown forces. In fact, this was the beginning of a guerrilla campaign in the Wicklow Mountains that was on a par with the mountain campaign waged by the Austrian Andreas Hofer against Napoleon in the Alps. Dwyer, who realised that pitched battles had been disastrous, was probably the first Irish rebel leader to employ such ‘hit and run tactics’ and both Michael Collins and Dan Breen cited Dwyer as an inspiration for their own guerrilla campaigns during the War of Independence a hundred and twenty years or so later. While small-scale operations were Dwyer’s principal modus operandi during the protracted guerrilla campaign, there was always the element of hitting out against the crown forces. Dwyer’s operations were of necessity small-scale due to the dearth of numbers within his following. Moreover, any larger scale operations would have attracted the attention of the authorities and the very nature of guerrilla warfare involves small bands that hit both hard and fast before moving on rapidly. Such a campaign suited Dwyer, who was on home territory and who was a fieldcraft expert with finely-honed survival skills.

As the campaign progressed Dwyer became a household name. He was actually far better known than many of the now more famous United Irishmen whose roles were re-appraised during the post-famine era. Dwyer’s exploits were well known during his own lifetime and news of his daring escapades only served to fuel the growth of his legend. He became a Romantic figure, regarded as a criminal by the state, but considered a hero and champion by the people who sheltered him. A “social bandit” in the mould of Robin Hood, Michael Dwyer was idealised and turned into a myth who supposedly never killed but in self-defence or just revenge. The reality was however, that Dwyer was ruthless when he needed to be. Children, women, invalids – Dwyer either shot them or had them shot if he thought they posed a threat or would inform on him. So while affection for Dwyer was one factor in the aid given to Dwyer by the local populace, fear was definitely another. Of course, had Dwyer not had such a ruthless streak, it is probable that he would not have survived so long.

Dwyer’s guerrilla campaign continued into 1799. There is no doubt that many of Michael Dwyer’s exploits were hair-raising – the real stuff of which ballads were made. Narrow escapes such as the evasion of detection by assuming the disguise of a beggar man and boldly passing by the soldiers who were seeking him or lying across the rafters of Mangan’s house while the yeomen searched the building at ground level rank right up there with the legendary Robin Hood’s entry into a hostile Nottingham in the garb of a butcher or his hiding in the branches of a tree as the sheriff’s men passed beneath! Dwyer’s most famous exploit during his guerrilla campaign was probably also his narrowest escape. This occurred at the cottage of Miley Connell in Derrynamuck (also referred to as Dernamuck and Doire na Muc) on the night of 15 February 1799. For once, Dwyer’s lookout system had failed to alert him of approaching danger. Information received from a spy had led the military to the very door of Dwyer’s refuge. Connell’s cottage was the third in a clachan of three, situated at the end of an isolated boreen. The rebel occupants of the other two cottages had already been taken. Ned Lennon and Thomas Clerk surrendered at Hoxey’s house and Wat McDonnell (McDaniel), Patrick Toole, John Ashe, John Mickle, Hugh Byrne and Darby Dunn were captured at the home of the Toole family. The military, a detachment of Scottish Highlanders led by Captain Roderick McDonald, surrounded Connell’s cottage and called on the men inside – Michael Dwyer, Sam McAllister, Patrick Costello and John Savage – to surrender. They refused and Costello and Savage were killed in the ensuing battle of Derrynamuck. Sam McAllister also lost his life, which he sacrificed in order to give Dwyer himself a chance to escape. Dwyer emerged from the cottage and barefoot fled and in his underclothes before he burst through the Scottish line and ran to freedom. The whole sense of the dramatic was enhanced because this event happened in the middle of a very cold winter with deep snow covering the ground. During his flight he was lucky to slip on an icy patch as the bullets from a second volley whizzed past overhead. Dwyer was the only member of the rebel band to escape that night. The others were all either killed or captured.

Following his escape from Derrynamuck, Dwyer made for the house of Thaddeus Dwyer, who was a brother of the John Dwyer shot on Dunlavin green, and then went into hiding again. It is said that it took six weeks or so for his feet to recover after his barefoot flight. The prisoners taken at Derrynamuck were taken to Baltinglass, court-martialled and executed (except for Hugh Byrne who turned "Kings Evidence").

Dwyer’s mountain campaign of guerrilla warfare would continue long after his escape from Derrynamuck in February 1799. Indeed, when Lord Cornwallis stated in a letter of 13 July 1798: “Our war is reduced to a predatory system in the mountains of Wicklow and the bogs of Kildare” he surely could not have foreseen just how long Michael Dwyer and his followers would continue to hold out in the Wicklow mountains. Dwyer was involved in many dangerous escapades, near misses and scary moments. Tales such as the “sea whistle” incident, Dwyer’s shooting of the disabled informer “Danny the Bowl”, Dwyer’s narrow escape by impersonating the mad Augustus Fitzgerald, the escape from Rathdangan chapel and many more have come down through the generations. However, this article cannot record all of Dwyer’s perilous incidents! News of such exploits endeared him to the public at large both during his lifetime and after his death, and ensured that he became the subject of many ballads.

These ballads were vital because they ingrained Dwyer and his memory into popular culture. As noted already, Dwyer is synonymous with Wicklow in the minds of many people. He is also synonymous with the United Irish leadership. The fact that he was not one of the principal leaders during the main action of the rebellion in Wexford has been obscured by a nineteenth century revision of his role. The Romantic account of his resistance written by John Thomas Campion and the numerous ballads about his time in the Wicklow Mountains have helped to etch the figure of Michael Dwyer into folk-memory far and wide. Dwyer’s legend had been growing throughout his guerrilla campaign and posthumous literary works would later elevate Dwyer to hero status. His prolonged resistance in the Wicklow Mountains had touched a communal nerve. Dwyer was more than an outlaw, more than a rebel, more than a guerrilla leader to many people. He was a symbol of hope at a time and in a place of oppression. As he continued to elude capture, that symbol became brighter and the hope, instead of being dashed, grew in the breasts of an admiring public. Dwyer was a cause célebre in his day. To Republicans who had tasted defeat in the main rebellion, Dwyer’s continued defiance burned like an inspirational beacon. As long as there was any hope, however slight, of another revolution or another French invasion, Dwyer would remain in his mountain lair and await developments.

However, as the years passed, hope of such developments faded. By 1803, the Treaty of Amiens of the previous year, though short-lived, had shattered any remaining hope of French intervention in Ireland. In July of that year, Robert Emmet’s attempted revolution had petered out. Meanwhile the net was tightening on Dwyer and his followers. The completion of the Military Road through the mountains was a major boost to the Crown forces. This was possibly the first purpose-built road in Ireland – the purpose being to capture Dwyer and his band. Military barracks were occupied at strategic points along this road. There were garrisons stationed at Leitrim, Glencree, Seven Churches (Glendalough), Glenmalure and Aughavanna. This new reality considerably hindered Dwyer’s capacity for movement within the heart of the mountains. Coupled with this was the fact that the military had unleashed a campaign of arrests against known or suspected friends and relations of Dwyer. This strained Dwyer’s kinship network almost to breaking point. The situation was very bleak for the remnants of Dwyer’s pitifully small force as the winter of 1803 drew in. Without the kinship contacts, there was a lack of safe houses. Caves and other outdoor places of refuge such as abandoned mine workings were not suitable during a winter when snow lay several feet deep on the mountains. In this season cold, damp and dreary conditions awaited the Dwyer faction as they faced into their sixth winter “on the run”. With the changed political situation in France, the debacle that was Emmet’s abortive rising, the large garrisons stationed along the new Military Road, a renewed military campaign against him which began on 10 December and the absence of many of the arrested kin, Michael Dwyer’s thoughts turned to ending his guerrilla campaign and the drawing up of terms which would allow him to lay down his arms.

Dwyer made overtures via his wife to the liberal landlord and MP, William Hume of Humewood. The commander of the military, General Beresford, wanted Dwyer to surrender “upon the mercy of government” (i.e. unconditionally) but Hume, while informing Dwyer that the actual surrender would have to be unconditional, certainly gave some assurances to Mary Dwyer. The exact nature of these assurances, or at least of Hume’s ability to honour them, is unclear. Certainly Dwyer’s life was to be spared and safe passage to America for four of his leading followers and himself was possibly agreed upon. Dwyer may have been led to believe that he would obtain a full pardon on surrendering himself. Whatever the truth of the situation, there is no doubt that the United Irish Captain Michael Dwyer laid down his arms on what he believed were his own terms when he walked though the gates of Humewood and into the custody of the Yeoman Captain and M.P. for County Wicklow William Hoare Hume on 14 December 1803, thus bringing to an end the brilliant guerrilla campaign which had elevated him to the status of myth.

However, once the authorities had their man, they did not adhere to the terms that had been outlined by Dwyer. Dwyer wanted to be shipped to the fledgling United States of America. Instead, he was brought to Dublin under armed escort and imprisoned in Kilmainham Gaol. Michael Dwyer remained a prisoner in Kilmainham from December 1803 to August 1805, as did some of his men. Dwyer and his followers were committed to Kilmainham on a charge of high treason. As state prisoners, they were not always satisfied with their treatment there. Dwyer had a long-running battle with the sadistic gaol doctor, Dr Edward Trevor. Eventually Dwyer’s fate was decided upon and Dwyer found out that he was bound for the penal colony of Australia. Michael Dwyer's captivity in Ireland finished in August 1805, when, in company with his wife Mary, his cousin Hugh “Vesty” Byrne, Byrne’s wife Sarah and their children, Arthur Devlin, Martin Burke and John Mernagh, the leader from the Glen of Imaal boarded the Tellicherry at Cobh, bound for Botany Bay.

The voyage on the Tellicherry took Dwyer and his comrades across vast, undreamt of expanses of ocean but it finally ended when the ship arrived at the entrance to Port Jackson on St. Valentine’s Day 1806. Despite initial confusion regarding the Wicklow rebels, they were each given a hundred acres of land at Cabramatta. The Dwyer group may have travelled to Australia on a convict ship, but they went as free men and it seemed that a new and peaceful life awaited them in the Southern hemisphere. However, when William Bligh (famous, or rather infamous, for his role during the affair of the “Mutiny on the Bounty”) succeeded Gidley King as Governor of New South Wales later in 1806, the peaceable new lives of Dwyer and his comrades were threatened. Bligh was paranoid about the possibility of an uprising in the colony and, considering their background, he perceived the Wicklow settlers as a huge threat. Dwyer was arrested as a possible ringleader of a rebellion that had not taken place and kept in solitary confinement on board the H.M.S. Porpoise. Following an elaborate show trial, Dwyer was found guilty of “conspiracy in order to raise a rebellion” and in May 1807 he was sent to the convict depot on Norfolk Island.

Dwyer was once again a prisoner, just as he had been in Kilmainham. He was moved from Norfolk Island to Van Dieman’s Land in January 1808. However, moves to oust Governor Bligh were afoot in Sydney and following the so-called “Rum Rebellion” he was removed from office. With the departure of Bligh, Michael Dwyer and his companions were pardoned and released from captivity. Under the more enlightened Governor Lachlan Macquarie, on 25 August 1810, Dwyer was appointed as a constable at George’s River. By 1819 Dwyer owned six hundred and twenty acres and the solid expansion of his land holding was further proof of his acumen and ability. In May 1820 Dwyer was appointed Chief Constable of Liverpool. Dwyer now served the King that he had rebelled against, but in a place where, by doing so, he could make a difference and help fellow Irishmen and their families.

However, Dwyer had also invested in a tavern called the “Harrow Inn”. This was perhaps not a good move on the part of a man who was well known to have a fondness for alcohol. The public house brought financial problems and Dwyer was removed from his position as chief constable due to misconduct. To boost his finances, Dwyer had illegally set land belonging to a woman named Ann Stroud. On Christmas Eve 1822 he was found guilty of “having broken the colonial regulations” and was fined £20. More serious however, he lost his spirit licence and was unable to pay his creditors. Many of his possessions and some of his lands were sold, and in 1824 he was incarcerated in the debtors’ prison in Sydney. He was released in May 1825, but was in poor health when he returned to one of his few possessions that had not been sold – his house at Cabramatta. Weak and suffering from dysentery, he lived only another three months and the Legend died on 23 August 1825.

Or did it? The death of Michael Dwyer in Australia only strengthened the legend of the wronged leader who was shamefully exiled by a deceitful establishment. It was now certain that this “Exile from Erin” was never to return. Dwyer’s acceptance of the positions of constable and later chief constable was either kept hidden or worked into the myth by portraying Dwyer as a dispenser of justice for other Irish exiles. Dwyer had been so well known during his guerrilla campaign and at the time of his transportation against his negotiated terms of surrender that he had achieved celebrity status. In those pre mass media days, the press had made him into a superstar. The longevity and Romantic nature of his mountain war had captured the imagination. Posthumously also, he became a valuable symbol – an icon – for Nationalists to aspire to and for Nationalist historians to incorporate into their corpus of literature. Although his guerrilla campaign was always peripheral to the bigger picture, the never-say-die attitude that it embodied was inspirational to a Nationalist Ireland that was crying out for heroes in the wake of the disheartening defeats of 1798.

On 14 December 2003, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern unveiled a statue of Michael Dwyer in his native Glen of Imaal. This is part of a process of remembrance. It is important to remember. This is not to say that Dwyer and his followers should become role models… but remembrance helps us to understand them, their motives and their sacrifice. With Dwyer we remember a man of the people – the son of a small tenant farmer. Dwyer was also a man of action and was personally involved in many battles.
With Dwyer, we remember what was, not what might have been. Here he differs from Emmet, Tone and Fitzgerald, who were all visionaries and who came from a privileged background. These visionaries did not have the practical survival skills of Dwyer, who held out for over five years and was excellent in the field. He was much more than a mere bandit and always had a United Irish agenda – Burr had taught him well! The visionaries were either executed or died in gaol. As a realist, Dwyer knew that his best – and only – option was Australia. The fact that he did not die for his cause does not belittle him. His mountain war gave inspiration and hope at a hard time and he became an icon to post famine nineteenth century nationalists. However, his later life was written out of nineteenth and early twentieth century histories and there was a tendency not to mention anything about his life in Australia. Perhaps this is wrong, especially as Michael Dwyer spent twenty of his fifty-three years in Australia. Following his death on 23 August 1825, Michael Dwyer was buried in Devonshire Street Cemetery, but in 1898 his remains were re-interred in Waverly Cemetery. A crowd of over 200,000 attended the re-interment and his memorial stone is the largest of all the monuments over any Irish patriot and still the highest headstone in Sydney. However, Dwyer is not a significant figure in Irish history because of his life in Australia. He is significant, rather, for his campaign of 1798-1803; a campaign that also inspired later Irish rebels. Without such men, we might not enjoy the freedom that we do today, and we do well to remember them and study the times in which they lived.

The Dunlavin area 1881-1901.

2006-06-21T18:04:00.000-07:00

By its very nature, local history involves at least two variables – time and place. In this article therefore I hope to give an idea of what the village of Dunlavin and its hinterland was like in the late 19th century. I also hope to give the reader some idea of what life was like in the village during the study period of 1881 to 1901. This latter idea involves the third variable of local history – people. No study of Dunlavin at any period during its history would be complete without at least some mention of all three variables.

Let us begin by looking at place. A parish priest once gave an accurate description of his domain when he wrote: “Geographically then, the parish of Dunlavin, entirely within West Wicklow, touches upon Hollywood, Ballymore-Eustace, Kilcullen and Narraghmore, and forms to a great extent and for many miles the North-Western boundary of Wicklow. We run along the frontier from Tober to Colbinstown station”. While this description is very accurate, it does not give us the full picture. The parish really may be quite neatly divided into two halves, upland and lowland.

The inland part of the parish, with the village of Donard acting as a lower order services centre, comprises the Donard- Davidstown- Glen of Imaal region. An idea of just how mountainous this area is can be got by a glance at a map which shows the boundaries of Dunlavin Roman Catholic parish. This side of the parish goes right up to the summit of Lugnaquilla itself. Despite this, however, the Wicklow mountains act as a barrier and the distant East Wicklow towns of Bray, Wicklow and Arklow have little bearing on life in West Wicklow. Apart from the obstacle of the Wicklow mountains, there is also the question of distance. Each town in the East of the county is forty or more miles away, and in the winter Wicklow’s climate is another factor which hinders communications between the East and West of the county. Snow and freezing conditions made the mountain route ways treacherous. The mountains themselves were also more exposed in the late 19th century than they are today, as the coniferous forests that dot the mountains nowadays are quite recent in origin.

Given that the physical division of Co. Wicklow into East and West exists even today, it is likely to have been much more pronounced in the study period of 1881 – 1901. While late 19th century people were probably a lot more mobile than we sometimes imagine, there is no doubt that inferior transport meant that the physical presence of the mountains combined with the distance and climate limited travel between the East and West of the county a century or so ago much more than is the case in these more mobile times.

Below the mountains, nestling in the foothills, lies the other, lowland, half of Dunlavin parish. This area is centred on the village of Dunlavin itself. The village serves the area as a services centre, and dates from the late 17th century. Dunlavin is not mentioned in the Down Survey, and does not appear on the 1655 map. Two areas just outside the village – Rathsallagh and Fraynestowne - are marked in but the village itself was obviously not in existence in 1655 at all. This is obviously still the case in 1683, as Dunlavin does not appear on Petty’s map of county Wicklow from that year. Once again, some neighbouring areas( including Rathsalagh and fraynestowne) are marked in, but Dunlavin, itself is still conspicious by its absence.

The present town of Dunlavin was founded, therefore, some time after 1683. Lord Walter Fitzgerald tells us that the town dates from the late 17th century and owes its origins to the Bulkely family. This family came from Cheshire (via North Wales ) and in 1702 Heather Bulkely married James Worth – Tynte, thus beginning the long association of the Tynte family with Dunlavin. The village of Dunlavin may have been founded with the idea of its becoming an ivory tower of education, as the following extract written in 1709 shows : “ Dunlavin, a dirty village, but prettily situated on a hill belonging to Sir Richard Buckley[sic] who talked of establishing a university and building a college here; nay, went so far as to have the bricks burnt for this purpose, but I think that project is now at an end….”

While it did not become a university town, the village of Dunlavin, once established, seems to have grown quite quickly during the 18th century. It became a landlord village, built to Georgian architectural concepts. Some of these architectural concepts are still evident in the village – wide streets, a market square and a fairly uniform roof-line, for example. The most obvious sign of the improving spirit in 18th century Dunlavin was the building of a fine market house. This was erected in 1737 by Robert Tynte at a cost of 2,000, 1,700 of which was advanced by Tynte’s cousin Buckeley. Dunlavin market house was the scene of hangings on 24th May 1798, and it was from this building that thirty-six prisoners were taken to be executed on the fairgreen in Dunlavin on that same day.

As the 18th century gave way to the 19th the village of Dunlavin continued to grow. The census of 1821, the first real census of Ireland (however unreliable it might have been), shows us that the village of Dunlavin, which did not exist 150 years or so before, now had a population of 897 people, while the surrounding area supported even more people – 1,495 according to the census. The village was on one of the main roads to Wexford then – before 1829 the Tullow and Wexford road diverged at Blessington and went through Ballymore- Eustace, Dunlavin and Stratford-on- Slaney, before rejoining the present road again near Baltinglass.

Despite the loss of its main road status, the population fo the village continued to grow, and by the 1840s the population had reached the 1,000 mark. A Relief Commission letter, dated January 17th 1847 refers to “ Dunlavin , population 990 (a figure taken from the 1841 census), a comparatively good market town, the capital of a great district…. It is chiefly supplied from Naas.” This letter brings us to another aspect regarding the location of Dunlavin village. As we have already seen, East Wicklow wit its larger towns of Bray, Wicklow and Arklow was a world away from Dunlavin. However, though the village of Dunlavin lies within Co. Wicklow, it is only a mile from the Kildare border. This has numerous implications for life in the village. Even today Dunlaviners are much more likely to work in ( or move into) neighbouring Kildare than any other part of Co. Wicklow- including the Donard centered upland portion of Dunlavin parish itself. The lowland part of the parish, including Dunlavin village, has a hinterland that includes a large Co. Kildare percentage.

Thus we see that Dunlavin, founded in the late seventeenth century grew up as a landlord village on the Wicklow-Kildare border and had a population of about 1,000 people when the famine struck. However, all of this is by way of introduction and we now move on to the second variable in local history – time. This study begins in the 1880s and some idea of the post famine decline of the Dunlavin region may be gleaned from reading one of the first entries in the diary kept by Fr. Frederick Augustine Donovan, who became P.P of Dunlavin in 1884. Fr. Donovan wrote: “ The Roman Catholic parish of Dunlavin comprises the civil parishes of Dunlavin, Crehelp, Tober, Rathsallagh, Freynestown, Donaghmore and Donard. The total population of this parish, according to the statistics furnished by the census commissioners was as follows:

In 1841 - 9,599 people.

In 1881 - 4,386 people.

Obviously the village of Dunlavin was no longer the pre-famine boomtown of yore, but by the early 1880s some stabilisation of the post-famine decline had taken place. In 1881 the village, which had a population of 615 (down from 651 in the 1871 census) was included among the post towns of Ireland. Dunlavin post office was also listed as a telegraph office, a money order office and a savings bank. The village was also a market town and Wednesday was market day , while the fair days in Dunlavin were on 1st March, 10th May, 16th July, 21st August, 12th October and 30th November.

As a market town, Dunlavin served quite a large hinterland. We must remember that transportation was slower in 1881 than it is today, so the village of Dunlavin would have functioned as a higher order central place. Basically a central place, in geographical terms, is a place that serves an area larger than itself, and there is no doubt that a wide variety of goods and services was available in the village in 1881. In addition to basic lower order goods and services – grocery shops, public houses, R.I.C station, post office e.t.c – the village had all the hallmarks of a stable developed settlement. There was a resident doctor, George . E. Howes M.D., who had studied in Edinburgh. Petty sessions were held once a fortnight and the local magistrates were Joseph Pratt Tynte and Edward Pennefather of Rathsallagh House (an Oxford graduate). The clerk of the court was W.R Douglas.

As a village with a large hinterland and thus with a large catchment area of population, Dunlavin had its own national school. The national school is a symbol of the importance of any rural settlement, and there were six schools under Catholic management in the Dunlavin parish in the 1880s. Dunlavin village had both male and female nationals schools and there were mixed schools in Donard, Merginstown, Davidstown and Seskin. The master of the boys’ national school was Thomas Grace, while the girls school was under the charge of a Miss Toomey. There was also a protestant school in Dunlavin (with Charles O, Connor as master) in 1881.

The village of Dunlavin was also large enough to provide permanent banking facilities, a services which every community needs and values. The Munster Bank Ltd. Opened a new branch in Dunlavin in February 1874. The bank was described as “ a neat stone building” and in 1881 the manager was Robert Crilley. By 1890 this had changed to a branch of the Munster and Leinster Bank Ltd., open daily under the managership of A. Warmington. Nowadays the bank in Dunlavin is only open two days a week, which is probably an indicator of the villages decline as a central place, partly due to better and faster transport in the 20th Century.

Dunlavin had two churches in 1881. The protestant church was described as “a neat, plain building with a square tower”, while the catholic building was “ a plain but large and commodious structure”. The prodestant minister was Rev. J.C. Carmichael, while the catholic parish priest, Canon James Whittle also held the Diaconal Prebend of Tassagard, again probably an indication of the status of Dunlavin parish (and village) at the time. Dunlavin village did not have the advantage of a railway station in 1881. This came in 1885 but even before the coming of the railway, a village like Dunlavin, which had enough shops and businesses to ensure keen competition between similar establishments, had links both within and beyond its hinterland. One businessman in Dunlavin in 1881 was Martin Kelly “ Grocer, Draper, Seedsman and Tallow Chandler”. I have in my possession a number of Kelly’s business documents, mainly dating from the 1870s, which show that Kelly traded with many Dublin firms, including Thomas Crotty, 57 William St., Keating and Moorhead, 17 Andrew St. and James Crotty, Hibernia Buildings, Victoria Quay. Dunlavin’s cross-border links to Co. Kildare meant that Kelly supplied candles to the army in the Curragh camp. Dunlavin'’ hinterland was indeed quite large!

Martin Kelly is only one of a number of businessmen who were making a living in Dunlavin in 1881. Slater’s directory for that year lists the shopkeepers, tradesmen, farmers and other “people of importance” in the village. The full extract from Slater’s directory can be read in Newbridge library.

The picture of Dunlavin in 1881 that emerges then is one of a multi – functional market town which served a large rural hinterland. The town supplied the surrounding area with tradesmen and craftsmen and with goods and services. The surrounding area in turn concentrated mainly on agriculture and brought its produce to the market in the town. In fact, later, Slater’s Directory for 1881 paints a picture of a community practically self sufficient in many trades and crafts. Nicholas Byrne was a sadler, as was Richard Fisher. John Mullally had a coach-building business while the Byrnes, John and Patrick, worked as a tailor and a shoemaker respectively. Samuel Rawson also made shoes, while Matthew Hanley and John kelly made nails – trades now extinct in Dunlavin.

The list in Slater’s directory goes on (see Newbridge library), but I do not intend to go through each individual entry here. The business people listed by Slater’s directory – shopkeepers, manufacturers, publicans, e.t.c - acted as brokers between Dunlavin and its hinterland, between the village and the wider world. Their need to buy supplies, raw materials e.t.c probably brought them into contact with people from beyond Dunlavin’s immediate hinterland quite often. Indeed, Martin Kelly’s business documents prove as much. As well as business people, the larger farmers like John Harrington, Thomas Molyneaux and James Norton would have had dealings beyond the immediate hinterland of the village. Both shopkeepers and farmers(or, at least, larger shopkeepers and larger farmers) have traditionally been seen as leading citizens within their own localities in rural Ireland, and leaders of the people too.

Certainly both farmers and shopkeepers, as they had links outside the area, would have been more likely to come into contact with new people and new ideas. Mainstream political ideas like land reform and Home Rule were probably introduced and nurtured in the Dunlavin area by these leading citizens. One organisation that aspired to both Home Rule and land reform was the National League, a branch of which was established in Dunlavin in the 1880’s.

A study of the names of those involved in the League is quite interesting. The local papers printed the names of the peole that attended League meetings, and certain names recur quite often. However, I think it is fair to say that larger farmers were much better represented than larger shopkeepers or business people in the Dunlavin branch of the National league. In fact, I think it is fair to say that while the National League lasted in Dunlavin(during the 1880’s), “ larger farmers monopolized control and the expression of opinion”. This would concur exactly with the findings of P.H Gulliver in relation to Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny. Names like Harrington, Molyneaux and Norton appear many a time and oft in the local press and it is quite obvious that the leading local farmers were deeply involved in the local politics and issues of the day.

Local shopkeepers, publicans and business people, on the other hand, are not as well represented in the pages of the local press. It would seem that they were not as deeply involved in local politics, and more particularly in the National League. Whether large shopkeepers were more conservative than large farmers, or whether they were simply not as interested in land reform, the avowed secondary aim of the National League(the league’s primary aim was Home Rule) is hard to gauge. As they did business with all shades of political opinion, perhaps it was harder for shopkeepers to be openly Nationalist. Would Martin Kelly have supplied candles to the army, for example, if the authorities on the Curragh saw him as a leading local nationalist?

While we will never know the answer to this question, there is no doubt that the lists in Slater’s Directory for 1881 show the existance of a resurgent Catholic middle class in Dunlavin which probably emerged in the post-famine decades. This is interesting, as Fr. John Francis Shearmen had noted that anti-catholic discrimination was the norn in Dunlavin during the 1860s. He writes about the evictions of catholic families in the Glen of Imaal, and goes on to say that “the district of Dunlavin has been scarcely more fortunate”. The evictions of Catholic tenants were not new in the area in the 1860s either. In the aftermath of the 1798 rebellion, William Ryves of Rathsallagh had evicted many catholic families. Father Shearman goes on to say that in Dunlavin village at the time of writing (1862), Catholics were “a proscribed race”. This would hardly indicate that there was a prosperous Catholic middle class in the village in the 1860s. Indeed, Shearman goes on to tell us that “Catholics in general few exceptions aren’t wealthy, being severely tried by the ordeal of the three past inclement seasons”. Apart from telling us that most Catholics were quite poor, this extract also shows that dependance on the weather was a feature of life in rural areas at this time. Bad weather could mean hunger, and bad weather was at least partly responsible for the agricultural depression of the 1870s and the founding of the Land League in 1879.

Despite Father Shearman’s observations regarding Catholics in the Dunlavin area in the 1860s, Slater’s directory for 1881 shows us that many Catholic were included in the middle class of business people and farmers. This could indicate a “Catholic recovery” during the 1860s and 1870s. It is also possible that Shearman , A Catholic curate in Dunlavin painted a deliberately bleak picture in his writings, but as they were not intended for publication, I think this is quite unlikely. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that there was a fairly small but prosperous Catholic middle class within the population of Dunlavin by 1881.

Mention of population brings us on to the third variable in local history – people. What makes the third variable so interesting is their behaviour and in recreating the past the local historian must become a story-teller as well. Anecdotal evidence is vital – but of course must be put into context if possible. One anecdote about the Dunlavin area at this time concerns the collection of the poor law rate.

Dunlavin was in Baltinglass poor law union district and in 1890 a local scandal erupted. The man at the centre of the scandal was from Crehelp townland. He was the collector for the Dunlavin area and he managed to misappropriate between one hundred and twenty and one hundred and thirty pounds of the ratepayers’ money. He even collected the rates before they had actually been struck in most cases. The Board of Guardians prosecuted this man, who would have been liable to pay three times the amount that he had embezzled and serve a prison sentence had he been found guilty. However, he was actually acquitted at Dunlavin Petty Sessions, so the guardians brought the collector’s case before the Baltinglass Quarter Sessions. However, the situation had changed before the man appeared at Baltinglass.

There had been a delay with serving him with the appropriate “civil bill”, so he had had time to sign over his farm and all his possessions to his wife and son. When his case came up, he was declared a bankrupt and his promissory notes could not be honoured. His guarantors had to try to pay up and one of them was financially ruined by having to do so. Even with the guarantors monies paid up, there was still over one hundred pounds outstanding in May 1890.

One of the most interesting things about the rate collector’s episode was the way that it was reported in the “Leinster Leader” at the time. The “Leader” was founded in 1880 as a rival to the unionist newspaper “The Kildare Observer’. Thus the “Leader” had a Nationalist agenda, and was looked on with suspicion by the authorities during the 1880s and 1890s , when the land reform and the Home Rule movements were very strong. Indeed, in the same year as the rate collector’s episode happened the “Leader” speaks of a campaign of vengeance against our staff. Four printers had been imprisoned, a reporter ad been arrested and the proprietors of the newspaper had only recently got out of jail(in poorer health than when he was arrested).

Given the nationalist aspirations of the “Leinster Leader”, it was only natural that they should make hay over the rate collection affair. In 1890, the Baltinglass Board of guardians was predominately protestant and unionist. The collector was a protestant and the “Leader” states that his brethren on the board simply allowed him to do what he liked until the day of reckoning came”. The collector’s acquittal at Dunlavin petty sessions is described thus: “This man was brought before that congenial court, the Dunlavin petty sessions and allowed to go scot free”. In fact, the “Leader” tells us that “The doings of the Tory deadheads who rule the roost in Baltinglass often afford interesting reading on the law as it is administered by them, but for a paralell to the case [of the ex-collector of rates], Ireland would be searched in vain.”

The “Leinster Leader”, then , reported the rates debacle with glee, butsuch an approach was only only to be expected from a newspaper whose weekly column about the events in Westminster was entitled “In the Enemy’s Camp”! There is no doubt, of course, that unionists did control Baltinglass Poor Law Union in 1890. Joseph Pratt-Tynte, the mani landlord around Dunlavin village, was an ex-officio member of the board. While he may not have attended many meetings (two in 1889 as against sixteen attended by Edward Fay, the local elected Dunlavin representative on the board), Tynte’s ex-officio status on the board was never threatened. Tynte had 2,532 acres in Co. Wicklow with a gross annual valuation of two thousand one hundred and eighty six in 1883, while other holdings in counties Dublin , Cork, Kilkenny and Leitrim brought his total estate to 5,013 acres with a valuation of four thousand six hundred and seventy seven pounds.

Fay, on the other hand, was a member of a leading Catholic family in Dunlavin. The post-famine era saw the emergence of an admittedly small but steadily growing, Catholic middle class in the village. In the 1860s the Fays were among the nine leading Catholic families in Dunlavin village. The leading Catholic family , the harringtons, had a valuation of one hundred and thirty six pounds and ten schillings. Obviously, the gulf between the protestant landlord class and the Catholic middle class was wide in late nineteenth century Dunlavin. Edward Fay, a butcher and spirit dealer, was elected as Poor Law Guardian in March 1888. He was the first Catholic to represent Dunlavin in this position. However, it must be said that Fay was one of only a few shopkeepers who seemed to be involved in local politics, which was more the domain of strong tenant farmers, as already noted.

Strong tenant farmers, in their turn were well below the local landlords on the social ladder. Joseph Pratt Tynte, who was born in 1815 and married to Geraldine Northey of Cheltenham in 1840 was a resident landlord living at Tynte Park House, about two miles from Dunlavin village. Tynte was also a local magistrate and landlord control in Dunlavin was quite strong. There is no evidence of a small clique or cartel of local landowners below Tynte, despite some subletting by strong tenant farmers, a practice which went back at least as far as the mid 19th century.

Tynte, of course, was a leading figure in Dunlavin Church of Ireland circles. Indeed, he is buried in the local Church of Ireland cemetry. In 1881, protestants made up 21% of the population of Dunlavin parish. Protestant children were better educated (or at least more literate) than Catholic children in Dunlavin at this time, indicating that protestants generally were not to be found in the lower social strata of the area. Both a Catholic parish priest (Frederick Augustine Donovan ) and a protestant rector(Samuel Russel McGee) have left unique written records of their time in Dunlavin.
Donovan served there from 1884 to 1896, while McGee was in Dunlavin from !894 to 1905. McGee’s account of his time was published retrospectively in 1935 but Donovan’s diary was never published, though it has survived through the last 100 years or so. Both documents provide a wonderful insight into the ecclesiastical life of Dunlavin during the study period. The late 19th century was a period of change and consolidation for both the Catholic church – in the wake of the post-famine “devotional revolution” – and the protestant church – in the wake of the 1869 Disestablishment Act.

Crehelp crossed pillar. Three beliefs come together here. The pagan pillar, the Christian cross, and the horseshoe of superstition in one place.

2006-06-11T11:12:00.000-07:00

Fiach Mac Hugh O'Byrne 2. 1597-1997 – The Firebrand and the Wicklow Legend that’s still burning!

2006-06-11T04:30:00.001-07:00

This year [1997] marks the four hundredth anniversary of the death of Fiach Mac Hugh O’Byrne. This Wicklow chieftain is associated mainly with Glenmalure and this year many events have been organised in East Wicklow to commemorate his passing. Let us not forget, though, that Glenmalure more or less backs onto our own Glen of Imaal and that the name Fiach Mac Hugh O’Byrne was once very well known in the area that now composes our Parish.
Indeed, the O’Byrnes had control over almost all of highland Wicklow (which was not actually shired into a county until 1606), to such extent that the whole area was known as “O’Byrnes Country” or even “Fiach Mac Hugh’s Country” in the late 16th Century. Before 1997 ends, then, I thought this small article might be an appropriate way of remembering that this chieftain – “The Firebrand of the Wicklow Mountains” – once held sway in this area.
Fiach Mac Hugh, then, was born in or about the year 1544. He was the son of Hugh Mac Shane O’Byrne, who was chieftain of the O’Byrne clan. The young Fiach seems to have been a dashing and daring “devil may care” figure. He was involved in Sir Edmund Butler’s escape from Dublin Castle in 1569 and was implicated in the murder of Robert Browne in Wexford in 1572. The English poet Edward Spenser described how Hugh Mac Shane “got unto himself a great name” and goes on to say that Fiach Mac Hugh “increased that name . . . and is now become a dangerous enemy to deal with”
Indeed Fiach Mac Hugh proved to be a continuous thorn in the side of the Dublin Authorities. In 1580, he supported Viscount Baltinglass (James Eustace) in a rebellion against the forces of Queen Elizabeth I.
There was a Dunlavin connection here too, as Edmund of Tubber (our own Tober), who was a brother of Viscount Baltinglass, also joined with O’Byrne and Baltinglass in the revolt.
The action ended in failure for the rebels. Edmund of Tubber fled to Portugal, where he died in 1594. However, Fiach Mac Hugh and his men defeated Lord Grey at a battle in Glenmalure in 1580. The overall rebellion might have failed but the Wicklow Mountains were still firmly in O’Byrne hands! The battle of Glenmalure is referred to in the song “Follow me on to Carlow”.

Follow Me Up To Carlow

Lift MacCahir Óg your face,
Brooding o’er the old disgrace,
Black Fitzwilliam stormed your place
And drove you to the fern.
Grey said victory was sure,
Soon the firebrand he’d secure;
Until he met at Glenmalure
Fiach MacHugh O Byrne.

CHORUS:
Curse and swear Lord Kildare,
Fiach will do what Fiach will dare,
Now Fitzwilliam, have a care,
Fallen is your star, low.
Up with halberd, out with sword,
On we go for by the Lord,
Fiach Mac Hugh has given his word,
Follow me up to Carlow.

See the words of Glen Imayle,
Flashing o’er the English Pale,
See all the children of the Gael
Beneath O’Byrne’s banners.
Rooster of the fighting stock,
Would you let a Saxon cock,
Crow out upon an Irish rock?
Fly up and teach him manners!

CHORUS

From Tassagart to Clonmore,
There flows a stream of Saxon gore,
Och, great is Rory Óg O’More,
At sending loons to Hades.
White is sick and Grey is dead
Now for black Fitzwilliam’s head,
We’ll send it over, dripping red,
To Liza and her ladies.

CHORUS

Note that the song mentions the “Swords of Glen Imayle”. The Glen of Imaal was a natural pass through the mountains, allowing O’Byrne to threaten the western margins of the pale, and to link up with other (Midland) raiding Irish clans. As early as 1572, Fiach Mac Hugh joined with Rory Og O’More to launch an attack in the pale. (Rory Og O’More was the chieftain involved in the burning of Naas in 1577).
When Red Hugh O’Donnell was captured at Lough Swilly in Donegal by one of Sir John Perrott’s ships, Fiach Mac Hugh was still lording it in highland Wicklow. Red Hugh escaped from Dublin Castle in 1591 and after great hardships in the Wicklow Mountains (then in the depths of winter) he reached O’Byrne’s country. Fiach Mac Hugh nursed the young chieftain back to health and provided a strong body of horsemen to safeguard Red Hugh out of the mountains and past Dublin. It was January 5th – “Little Christmas Eve” and the lords of the pale were not keeping a good watch on that night. By morning, the party, led by Fiach’s son in law, Brown Walter of Ballygloran, had reached Co. Meath. Red Hugh was heading for Drogheda and the northward road home.
The 1590’s saw Ireland in the throes of the nine years war. Fiach’s guerrilla tactics were still successful in the Wicklow highlands, but the Crown forces were inexorably closing in. In 1595 Fiach was declared a traitor and a large reward offered if he were captured (the reward was even larger for his head!). From a crown point of view, Fiach was indeed “now a dangerous enemy”. In 1594, his audacious attack in Piers Fitzgerald’s lands near Athy had brought home to the Dublin officials the fact that the Wicklow mountains had to be pacified, or else a large area was under threat of attack.
In 1596, O’Byrne made an alliance with Hugh O’Neill the ‘commander in chief’ of the Gaelic Irish forces in the nine years war.
In 1597, Sir William Russell led a large force into highland Wicklow. As with the nine years war and its end at Kinsale in 1601, weight of numbers did not favour the Irish chieftains. Russell’s force moved onward and Fiach MacHugh O’Byrne was killed in a skirmish with them on the 7th May 1597.Fiach’s head was impaled on a spike in Dublin Castle and even though his son Phelim succeeded him as chief of the O’Byrne’s, Fiach’s death really marks the end of Gaelic Wicklow. (Fiach had three sons, Turlough, Phelim and Redmond, and was twice married). His life had been tempestuous and violent, his long resistance to Dublin forces had been remarkable, but by 1606, Wicklow had subdued and shired, and the Gaelic way of life would die out during the 17th Century.

Fiach Mac Hugh O'Byrne 1. Some Wicklow history – originally recorded

2006-06-11T04:30:00.000-07:00

This article translates and publishes a piece of Wicklow history which really belongs to the old Gaelic tradition of oral history. However due to the diligence and foresight of a west Wicklow woman, this tract about Fiach Mac Hugh O’Byrne has been written down for posterity. Originally from Donard, Rose Byrne (nee Walshe) carefully wrote the following piece by hand into a hard cover copy. Rose was a national school teacher in Rathcoyle School, Rathdangan, Co. Wicklow for many years. Rose married Hugh Byrne (who was president of the G.A.A. from 1961 to 1964 and their son Seán currently teaches in Newbridge). Rose’s hardcover copy is now in the possession of Mrs. Sandra Cleary of Blackhill, Dunlavin, and I am indebted to her for allowing me to publish this material. Rose wrote in the Irish language, using the old Irish alphabet and I am also indebted to Mrs. Eileen Maguire of Clondalkin for providing me with a literal translation of the original.

Sixty years ago, on St. Patrick’s Day 1943, Éamon de Valera broadcast a famous speech outlining his vision for a “noble” Ireland. The speech included the following extract about the Irish language:

It is for us what no other language can be. It is our very own. It is more than a symbol; it is an essential part of our nationhood. It has been moulded by the thought of a hundred generations of our forebears. In it is stored the accumulated experience of a people, our people who, even before Christianity was brought to them, were already cultured and living in a well ordered society.
The Irish language spoken in Ireland today is the direct descendant without break of the language our ancestors spoke in those far-off days.
As a vehicle of 3,000 years of our history, the language is for us precious beyond measure. As the bearer to us of a philosophy, of an outlook on life deeply Christian and rich in practical wisdom, the language today is worth far too much to dream of letting it go.
To part with it would be to abandon a great part of ourselves, to lose the key to our past, to cut away the roots from the tree. With the language gone we could never aspire again to being more than half a nation.

Much has changed in the past sixty years and while I personally do not agree with all of Dev’s arguments, I do think that the following extract gains a lot from being left in its literal translated form. It is obviously not quite the same as reading the original Gaelic tract, but to put it into more modern and more “correct” phraseology would only serve to lose some of the zest of the original Irish. The Irish have a colourful interpretation of the English language – as valid an interpretation as any dialect found in England – not more valid or less valid – but as valid. One can just imagine Rose and other members of her generation actually telling the story of Fiach in this way. What is written here is his story (as opposed to history) and it is obviously a biased interpretation of events in late sixteenth century Wicklow. However it is not a primary source from that time. Rather it is a primary source from the early twentieth century and it provides a window into how history was viewed, discussed and taught at that time. Hence, this piece provides us with a little insight into how the psyche of the ordinary people was influenced by the absorption of historical information in a format such as this during this period. This psyche is deeply ingrained and much of the material that has developed the psyche has been lost, as older guardians of the oral tradition have died over the years. We are all indebted to Rose Byrne for recording this piece so meticulously during her lifetime. It is, in fact, a gem of both history and folklore and it reads as follows:

Fiach Mac Hugh O’Byrne and his Exploits

It is not possible to think of Glenmalure without thinking of the destruction that was wrought on the clans of Wicklow, the O’Byrne clan and the O’Toole clan who fought so long and so bravely against the incoming of the English, until they were attacked from every side in this isolated glen in the middle of Fertíre, from which the Vartry gets its name.
It was in Glenmalure that the clans made their last fight and it was there that destruction and murder was done on them in spite of the great victory they had over the English in 1580, when their fame went from one end of the country to the other, and in spite of the bravery of Fiach Mac Hugh O’Byrne, their last chieftain, a man to whom the other chieftains submitted and went under his protection, even though they had a greater claim to that position. It was only right that all the other chieftains helped Fiach because, apart from his own qualities, there were ties between himself and the most important people in the county. His mother was Sabina O’Toole, first cousin of Turlough of Powerscourt and his first wife was a first cousin of Phelim, son of Turlough. His second wife was Rose, a sister of Phelim, the woman who was burnt in Dublin. Phelim’s brother was Brian of the Battles and it was said at that time that he would succeed Brian in Powerscourt.
Before the year 1580 there was no doubt that the English boundary was spread out beyond Bray and that the English had founded a small settlement in Phelim O’Toole’s land.
Ormond settled down to live in Arklow and Wicklow. It was clear that Glenmalure was the most obvious place where troop movements from Bray and the South would meet each other. It was there that the independent remnant of the clan, the followers of Fiach, were to be found. Therefore, it was no wonder that the infantry and the cavalry came into this glen against him. There is no part of the country as beautiful or as interesting as that part which lies between the Dublin Mountains and Glenmalure and it is easier to access it from the Bray direction than from any other direction.
Going west through that beautiful glen – Glencree – where there was a royal forest situated long ago, we would meet the road that Red Hugh O’ Donnell took when he escaped from Dublin. It was probably the same route Dermot MacMurrough took when he guided the Normans to Dublin for the first time. The road comes from Rathfarnam and it goes past the two lakes, Tay and Dan and near to Glenmacnass waterfall to Rathdrum and there are a lot of fine glens on each side of it. But the English did not take this road when they tried to conquer Wicklow. They sent out their troops from Bray, Oldcourt and Newcastle and it was from the Rathfarnam direction that attacks used to be made on the Galltacht of the Englishry. [Area of English language and influence].
When the clans went for the Englishry in 1595 it was Fiach and his son in law Walter Reagh who were their chieftains and they set Crumlin on fire.
This shows the courage and spirit that was awakened in these men with the victory they won in 1580. This victory was only minor in comparison with what was in the minds of Desmond and O’Neill, who intended to rout the English out of the country altogether. There was a close relationship between the causes of O’Neill and the Munster chiefs and the cause of Fiach because we even know the names of the messengers that used to go between them.
In Elizabethan times this beautiful glen, Glenmalure, gave shelter and protection to to this chieftain, Fiach, who was renowned and famous throughout Ireland. Even his fiercest enemies gave testimony to his power and courage, even though they were very much against him. He had so much power and there was so much anger by the English against the clans who lived in these mountains that Lord Justice Sir James Crofts was specially ordered, when he went to Ireland, to defeat and annihilate the O’Byrnes and O’Tooles if he could at all.
In the middle of the sixteenth century, Fiach Mac Hugh was the strongest chieftain of the O’Byrne clan and it was he who struck terror into the hearts of the English.
The poet Spenser, a person who had unbounded hatred for the Irish, has only the worst account that he could write about this man. After making arguments to show that Fiach’s land belonged to the queen, he continues his account thus:
Even if it were the case that Fiach’s land didn’t belong to the queen, he would still have no right to it as it belonged to the old chieftain Brian, the man who used to rule this country, because Fiach and his followers were only followers of Brian. His grandfather was a miserable man, a man who had neither money nor power, but his son Hugh, the son of Seán, father of Fiach, rose out of the mud. Thieves and outlaws came to him to get protection, because they knew well the strength and impenetrable nature of Glenmalure, which surrounded the house of Hugh, son of Seán. They gave a lot of their booty to Fiach as they were under his protection. After a while he became very strong because of this money and because of the number of people who were under his protection and his fame went throughout all the Gaeltacht of the Irishry.
Fiach continued to receive the tribute of his father and he became more powerful and stronger by the day due to the number of victories he achieved over us and because of his personal courage. His reputation is so great now that he is a dangerous enemy to us. Everyone agrees that he did not keep the public peace very well, but that he always kept some fight or other going on. Even the most critical examiner cannot but admit that Fiach was one of the bravest and cleverest of the enemies that Elizabeth had. He was a hospitable generous man and he had a lot of good qualities, which reduced the fierceness that he inherited from his kind, and they show us the savage majesty of this nobleman. It is at Ballinacor the famous chieftain lived, on the edge of Glenmalure.
When Lord Grey de Wilton came to Dublin as the king’s viceroy, he was very anxious to do something to show his earnestness and bravery to everybody. And – hadn’t he a great chance now to do this? Wasn’t the felons’ camp only a day’s journey from Dublin? He would put the rout on these thieves, the bold chieftains of Wicklow! I suppose he was delighted that he had a chance to show the queen that he didn’t make much delay in putting the instructions she gave him into effect. But, according to him the victory would be too easy to get and he thought it would look better for him if his enemies were stronger than they were, so that there would be more respect for the victory when he had achieved it. But, although Grey did not win, he had more than enough fighting before that day was spent for him! It never ran through his mind that everyone who had preceded him in that office had failed to do the task which he thought would be too easy. He should have been warned by the things that had happened in this glen before now, especially when he knew it was the clan O’Byrne and clan O’Toole that were defending the glen. Forty years before in this glen, another Lord Grey was routed and he was seized with such dread that he didn’t stop till he was back inside Dublin Castle with the door closed after him, there was that much terror on him before the O’Byrnes. But maybe this present man was more courageous and more valiant. He had only, according to himself, to attack them and clear them out with one blow. He would put St. George’s flag up on the castles of the chieftains of Imaal and Ballinacor in place of “the lion” and “the firebrand”. He had it in mind to put the kerns and the Irish soldiers under subjugation so that they would remember the battle of Glenmalure until their dying day. And they did remember that day – but it was not the memory that Grey would have wished!
The officers of the English army came together before the battle to ponder on what was the right course of action. At this council were James Wingfield and the Earl of Kildare. The viceroy intended, by going into that glen, to have his name much talked of throughout the country because of the big victory that was waiting for him, and his plan to do this was to erect outworks at the mouth of the glen so that the Irish could not escape out of it. But he was too sure that he would be victorious and he did not provide a way for his own soldiers to return back. It is said that every general thinks of a way of escape even if a certain victory is in store for him but grey did not do this. Everything was now ready for the battle. The English were ordered forward and nine companies went into the glen to put a start to the defeat. But where was Grey himself? He was on top of a hill far from the place where the battle was to be going on and he had a very good view from that position of the glen and all that was going on there. There wasn’t a sound to be heard or a thing to be seen on the going in of the English to that glen. You would think that no living thing was to be found there. Grey and his companions were mocking the Irish when they did not see a stir out of them. They thought they were gone altogether when they heard talk of the forthcoming pursuit. But after a while they saw that the soldiers were going slower, because the glen was three miles long and there were very high mountains on either side and rivers running between them. For all this time there was not the sign of an enemy to be seen. The only opposition against the soldiers at this time was the territory itself. At last, Fiach Mac Hugh saw that the time had come to attack.
He gave them the sign and they let one yell only out of them “Faire” [Watch Out!] that put Grey and his followers shaking with fear. Then they attacked the soldiers and as for them they did not know where the shots were coming from. The English ranks were broken and then Grey ordered the reserves to help the other companies. Then the loud voice of Fiach was heard, telling the clans to attack the English. There was that much vigour and energy in that voice and its echo that all the soldiers were seized with terror, especially those people who were far away from danger at the top of the hill and who didn’t expect to see a sight like that. Like a flood going with the slope, the Irish attacked the English who were confused in the glen below. In vain did the English try to put a stop to that onslaught.
It was a rout from the beginning. The only thing in the minds of the English was to find some way to escape from the glen. That was what was troubling the soldiers and the officers as well. Grey himself and his personal friends fled early and with the help of swift horses they reached the city before they were captured. There returned to Dublin only a couple of broken companies out of all the fine army which had set out from the city only two days before.
It was a sorrowful story that was to be told by the people who had survived that terrible battle and the terror of the English increased along with the fame of the O’Byrnes and the O’Tooles. Maybe it is better to let an officer who came safely out of the battle give us an account because there are people who would like to do down the bravery and valour of the Irish. They are always trying to hide their ignorance of the history of this country by mocking talk. They say that it is impossible to put proper credibility in the history of Ireland with the amount of romantic fables there are there! All the same, they would not have that excuse with the account of Sir Liam Stanley – a man who was very much against the Irish. This is his account:
We went into the glen on the 25th day of August. We had to slither down the slope before we could stand at all. The glen was a mile in depth in the place we went into and full of stones, rocks, bog and woods. A river ran at the bottom of the glen and it was full of loose stones and we had to cross the river three or four times. So as long as we stayed at the bottom of the glen, we were all right, but the officer who was over us was a big fat man and he was unable to suffer any great hardship. The glen was four miles long, but before we had walked half the way, he ordered us up the hill. The side of the glen was so steep that we had to crawl to make any progress. The vanguard of the army was gone up the hill and so we had to follow them.
Our enemies made a fierce attack on us. There were soldiers on every side that day who helped those who had once been their enemies. Captain green was there with his company and they gave service in Connacht, but that day they were all under Captain Garrett and fighting against the viceroy. It was one of the fiercest battles I ever saw, even though it didn’t last very long. As I said before, myself and twenty eight soldiers were at the rear of the column. Eight of them were killed and ten were wounded. There was a drummer with us to give a signal to the soldiers and we put a stop to the attack eventually but a lot of my friends were dead.
Fiach’s army were hidden in the woods at the mouth of the glen, on the two sides, in the bogs and behind the rocks. As long as we stayed at the bottom of the glen, we did not lose as much as one man but the leader ordered us to go up the hill and the order of the ranks was broken with the climbing. We couldn’t see our enemies and therefore we could only go in the direction of the place where we saw smoke rising. But, all the same, we defended the rest of the army from the felons. I know and I admit that it was the hand of God that brought me safe. The place was that dangerous that a lot of soldiers were left on the side of the mountain even though they were not badly wounded, because it was so steep that no one could help them when they fell. Some of them died even though they were not badly hurt at all. All in a flutter, shortness of breath came on them and they were left lying on the glen side.
But O’Sullivan Beare tells us a lot of things that Stanley omitted and they are to be found in the “Catholic History”;
Eight hundred of the ordinary soldiers were killed in the glen, and on both sides, because they had to carry heavy baggage up the hill. It is clear to the person who examines this glen that the English were in a fix when they were attacked and when they tried to escape out of it. The Gaels had great knowledge of every twist and turn in this beautiful glen and of the whole neighbourhood. Besides the ordinary soldiers, Cosby, a Laois chieftain, was killed, also Colonel Moore, Peter Carew, Captain Audley and a lot of the other noblemen who came to Ireland with the viceroy, Lord Grey. The flight was that quick that the English had to leave all their baggage behind them. The Irish later found all the baggage, and the ammunition also.
In the account by the Abbé MacGeoghan it is stated:
In the year 1580 when the Lord [Grey] was sent over to Ireland as viceroy – at that time a secret plot was established to get relief from the persecution that was going on and to get satisfaction because of the insult that was given to their clergy and to their religion. They all joined together under Fiach Mac Hugh and Lord Baltinglass. But the conspiracy was discovered shortly after it was founded and the most important people in the society were captured and put to death. Grey got the position of viceroy in 1580 and it was said to him when he came to Ireland that Fiach’s camp and his auxiliaries were in Glenmalure. Lord Baltinglass was with them also. Grey put his mind to chasing them out of the glen and to that object he collected the soldiers of Leinster and went to Glendalough. His enemies were ready to go against him. The battle started in a wood, with Grey’s cavalry on each side of it. The battle went on for about four hours but neither side yielded for a long time. In the end, Fiach and his brave followers won and they inflicted destruction and terrible murder on the English soldiers. They had to beat a shameful retreat. Eight hundred soldiers and most of the principal officers were killed.
In the year 1594 Fiach helped Red Hugh O’Donnell to escape from Dublin Castle, after having spent seven years inside there. O’Donnell, McSweeney, O’Gallagher, Henry and Art O’Neill were rescued and also Philip O’Reilly. Fiach coaxed the people who were guarding him onto his side and they did not interfere with the escape. He sent some linen to the prisoners for their personal use, mar dhea! O’Donnell cut the linen into strips and he tied them together and they came down from the prison where they were with the help of the rope that was made from the linen.
There was a big difference between the Battle of Glenmalure and the battles that went before. In the previous battles there was no comparison between the Irish and the English armies. There were big differences between them as regards size, wealth and arms. The English used to have a big army, well equipped and well trained in the use of arms. But this time Fiach had a good army too and they were well practiced in the methods of warfare of the time. The commander had great practice in every kind of war for he had spent most of his life in England and many of the soldiers had spent some time in the English army also, because arms were often brought in from the continent and we know now that O’Neill intended to send an army to Wicklow in ships to help Fiach. It is plain that a lot of the soldiers came from the south to help because we hear of the Fitzgerald clan [of Desmond] in the account of the battle; after the Battle of Glenmalure Fiach and O’Toole rose up against the government because that victory gave them courage and spirit. They attacked Castle Ormond in Wicklow and set in on fire. The ruin is still to be seen and it now goes by the name of the “Black Castle”.
After that deed Lord Baltinglass went as far as Clondalkin plundering the surrounding countryside around the mountains and nobody opposed him. The viceroy had had more than enough of fighting and as well as that Desmond had rebelled in Munster. But the victory in Clondalkin was never followed up and nothing worth mentioning came out of it.
There is an account to be got in the “State Papers” between 1594 and 1597 of the things that happened before the rebels were crushed. It was Lord Russell, secretary to the viceroy, who wrote the account. It is written in the form of a diary.
But they were not able to withstand the continued attacks that were made on them after that. The English were victorious over them by degrees and in the end Fiach and the other chieftains had to promise that they would keep the law of the queen. But that was only a clever trick to get promises from the Irish. It was part of their tribute system always and it was exactly like the Roman system of tribute. The Irish chieftains were compelled to send their sons to England to be educated.
Young Art O’Toole, the son of Brian of the Battles, and grandson of Turlough was sent to England and he was educated there and spent most of this life in England. It is certain that he did not have a very happy life there because the English and the Irish did not mix very well together and Art’s presence was a constant reminder of the tribute as long as he remained in England. But he was very useful to the English because they threatened Phelim that they would send Art’s body back to Ireland if he did not stay quiet and that was how they kept Phelim under foot.
Something happened at that time that shows us the kind of man Fiach was in his own home. There was a lot of talk about his happening at the time and Fiach was faulted for it in exactly the same way as Phelim O’Toole was blamed for what he did when Hugh O’Donnell went to him asking for help. His first and second family did not get on very well with one another and there was jealousy between them and they mistrusted one another. Rose, Fiach’s wife was in prison at this time and it was said to her that Fiach’s son was about to betray him. That was not true; it was a plan the English thought of to try to separate the Irish chiefs from each other. But, all the same, Rose thought the story was true and she sent a message to Fiach to say that his son was going to betray him. When Fiach heard this story he was very angry and he seized his son and gave him to the English. The English were overjoyed to get him as he was wanted by them because of his part in a rising that happened before that.
For a good while from 1594-1597 the English were tightening their grip on Glenmalure until Fiach and his followers were without space to walk on there and with no hope of any improvement. His wealth and his followers decreased day by day. On the 16th January 1595 the viceroy went right up to Ballinacor and he put Fiach out of his house. He went to the house to catch Fiach, but when they were near to the house, one of the soldiers beat on a drum and that was how a warning was given to Fiach and Fiach and his people stole away before any of them were caught. They went under the woods of Glenmalure and his son-in-law, Walter Reagh, came to help him. Russell remained in Ballinacor for ten days and then he returned to Dublin, leaving a garrison in Fiach’s house. The next day Fiach and his wife and his son-in-law were proclaimed as outlaws.
On the 21st January Captain Chichester was sent to Ballinacor with gunpowder and bullets. On 30th January the O’Tooles and O’Byrnes raided Crumlin and set it on fire. They brought the lead roof of the church with them to make bullets out of it. The fire was even seen in Dublin but Fiach and his people escaped before the viceroy’s soldiers came. Because of this attack the Star Chamber convened and it was decided to send another army to Ballinacor. The army came and they made an encampment near Ballinacor. Fiach sent them a message looking for a parley and permission was given to O’Hannactain to have discussions with him, but nothing came of it. The English started making outworks and fortifying Ballinacor.
Now when Ormond thought that Fiach was thrown out by him, he helped Russell to oppose Fiach, but the Ballinacor garrison had to return to Dublin. So that is how the second raid on Ballinacor ended and Fiach had the victory again, even though the viceroy and Ormond were united against him. Ballinacor fell into the hands of the English again on the 10th August 1596. The leader of the garrison sent a message to Dublin to say that Fiach had received letters from O’Neill and that he was afraid that he would burn him. He had good cause to be afraid because he had plundered and murdered Fiach’s people and their property. Russell thought now that he would make a big name for himself by annihilating Fiach altogether, or as he said himself, to chase the old fox out of his cave. For that purpose, he sent a company of troops to Ballinacor and had five hundred men fit for service in the fort of Rathdrum.
Fiach’s troops attacked them and they killed the most of them and the others went back at their best, as fast as they could to Dublin. Captain Tucker sent some of his troops to meet the gunpowder that was coming, but when they were gone Fiach attacked Ballinacor and took Tucker prisoner and set the fort on fire. When the viceroy heard what had happened in Rathdrum he sent two hundred kerns and four hundred cavalry to Ballinacor, but at Newcastle they heard of the fall of Ballinacor and they returned to Dublin.
Something happened at the invasion of Ballinacor that shows us the nobility of Fiach. Tucker surrendered on condition that not one of his men be put to death and when he was brought before Fiach he did not kill him even though he was the cause of the murder and destruction that the English were inflicting on the Irish.
In the middle of September Russell moved against Ballinacor once again. He and two hundred infantry and fifty cavalry went off in the direction of the fort. Nearing the fort they heard a big cry and saw about one hundred and sixty of the Irish on the side of the hill. They came down to the bridge to fight with the English. But the viceroy’s soldiers beat the Irish and they took the bridge without much trouble. Russell sent the officers Lee and Street to a place where there was another entrance to the glen and they set Farranceran [possibly Farrenci near Hacketstown, but geography is against this?], a town belonging to Fiach, on fire. They continued fighting with Fiach for an hour or so and Russell remained on the side of the hill looking at them with a large detachment beside him to protect him.
We have to give praise and honour to Fiach for the way he went against Russell, when his own people were leaving him and all the chieftains were against him. Only for the help he got from the O’Toole family he would have been finished long ago. There were a lot of people there at that time and instead of giving him help as they ought to have done they went very much against him because they thought they would be able to get the reward of his estates when every thing was quiet; that is, when Fiach was dead or a prisoner of the government. But they had another think coming when Fiach was dead, for the greedy people in charge of the government didn’t care whether they were partial to Fiach or against him – they took their lands from them.
But Russell failed to completely defeat Fiach, even though he had enough soldiers and even though he employed every sort of cruelty against him. Fiach had but a very few soldiers in comparison to those against him, but all the same he kept the flag of the Gaels swinging in Glenmalure. Therefore, in the month of October, Russell asked Ormond to help him and he came to Russell’s camp with a hundred cavalry and two hundred kerns. Around midnight Russell sent John Chichester and Captain Lee to the glen, but they were to enter it through special little passes. At the break of the day the viceroy himself went into the glen and Chichester and his company met him. They saw about one hundred men of the O’Byrnes’ people at the other side of the glen, but they were afraid to attack them. Then they went to the camp. Russell spent a fortnight in this neighbourhood making raids on the O’Byrnes and enforcing the law and then he went back to Dublin, leaving the garrison under Chichester. Chichester continued to fortify Ballinacor.
When Russell returned to Dublin the Star Chamber convened and they were in favour of making peace with Fiach because they were afraid he would get help from O’Neill, but Russell and his friends’ desire for the property of the Wicklow clans would not let them make any peace with Fiach. So he returned to the encampment; Sir John North and Sir John Bowles were with him. They brought two hundred men with them. The brought these soldiers with them for fear that O’Neill would succeed in sending help to Fiach Mac Hugh. Chichester and Lee went into the glen again on the 15th day of November and the viceroy himself went in on the North side. But they had to return out of this because of the heavy rain. The lord viceroy went to Baile an droichead [Place unknown – possibly Bridgeland which was part of Farnees, but geography suggests some bridging point in west Wicklow?] and from there to Naas and then back to Dublin. He failed for the third time to defeat the Wicklow clans and take their lands from them and catch Fiach.
Twelve days after the return of the lord viceroy Fiach attacked the guard who were bringing ammunition from Wicklow to Ballinacor. Maybe you are wondering why Fiach let the viceroy go free when he paid his last visit to the glen. Well, there was a reason for it. He knew that O’Neill was trying to get peace terms from the man that had the armies and if he succeeded in getting those peace terms there would be no interference with Fiach and his lands from then on. Fiach’s power and following decreased every day until they were almost beaten by the English. Fiach was about seventy years of age at this time. The viceroy could go anywhere he liked, from Dublin to Baile an droichead and from Baile an droichead to the sea. But he couldn’t go into the glen where Fiach was yet. O’Neill would have liked to help Fiach but he couldn’t. Ballinacor, Rathdrum, Wicklow and Naas were in the hands of the English, so the English were in power all around Glenmalure.
In the end it was discovered where the old chieftain was hiding and the rest of the story is told like this:
On Sunday, early in the morning, the soldiers came into the place where he was. They came in at him from every direction and he had to flee into a cave. A man called Millburm [Millbum?] and the soldiers were that angry that he could not make a prisoner of him that he killed him with his sword. He took the head with him and he gave it to the viceroy. Most of his followers were killed and two hundred cows were taken and great plunder and all the booty was divided amongst the soldiers.
Fiach did not get his proper place in the history of his country yet. He remained independent of England during his lifetime and he kept his followers and his people independent of England even though he was living on the border of the Galltacht [Pale]. He could have had wealth and title like a lot of other chieftains but he did not do the likes. He was a man who had only one object and that was to acquire the freedom of Ireland. He put this before anything else. He didn’t care if he lost everything if he had but to achieve that object. There was no wealth to come to him for his thankless work but that was not what he wanted – he was satisfied with a little. He was the first man to unite these clans, who were so different in customs and traits, under one banner and he made a good army of them as well as that. He kept them fighting against an army that was stronger and more powerful than themselves for years. There was no going against authority in Wicklow after his death. His death was a heavy blow to all the chieftains, but especially to those of both the South and the North. A stone monument should be erected in Glenmalure in his honour.

Famous Dunlaviners – Remembered Elsewhere; Forgotten at Home

2006-06-10T13:56:00.001-07:00

Like many small villages in a rural Irish setting, Dunlavin has experienced a predominant trend of out-migration over the last two centuries. Perhaps the most famous migrant from our parish was the rebel leader Michael Dwyer, who left Ireland with his wife Mary from the port of Cobh in August 1805. Dwyer was one of five well-known rebels who sailed on the ‘Tellicherry’, which reached Port Jackson in New South Wales on St. Valentine’s Day 1806. Dwyer’s companions were Arthur Devlin, John Mernagh, Martin Burke and Hugh ‘Vesty’ Byrne, who travelled with his wife Rachael and their children. Dwyer’s life in Australia, and the lives of his companions have been researched and the findings published by Kieran Sheedy in his excellent book entitled ‘The Tellicherry Five’ (Dublin 1997).

However, there were also many less famous emigrants from the Dunlavin area, and it is on a few of these that this article is focussed. Emigration was an ever-present reality here during the nineteenth century. Passenger lists from some of the ships that bore our greatest resource – our people – from this area to a new life abroad still exist. While Michael Dwyer still awaited his fate in Kilmainham Gaol, for example, the emigrant ship ‘Susan’ sailed from Dublin on 28 March 1804, bound for New York. Among those on board was Anne Matland, aged fifty six. Anne was a widow and she was accompanied on the voyage by her son, Thomas Matland, who was twenty one years of age and was described as a ‘labourer’. Thomas’s sister Mary Ann also sailed on the ‘Susan’. She was a twenty year old ‘spinster’. The Matlands settled in the New York area, where their new life began, and where the spelling of their name somehow became ‘Maitland’. Many emigrants at this time were unable to spell, and many immigration officials simply spelt phonetically what they heard, so such a change of spelling was actually quite a common occurrence. The family settled in, survived and prospered and they still have descendants in the North-Eastern United States today.

The case of the Matlands is given as an example as it possesses some interesting features. Firstly, unlike Dwyer and his fellow rebels, the Matlands’ migration was voluntary rather than forced. Indeed, most of the nineteenth century emigration from this area was voluntary and was induced by the lure of a better lifestyle away from the agrarian poverty that existed here throughout the period in question. This poverty was accentuated by the impact of the Great Famine of 1845-1850, but it would be wrong to assume that out-migration from this area was a purely post-famine phenomenon. Again, the Matlands are a case in point, as they emigrated long before the famine struck.

A more famous pre-famine emigrant was James Fenton, who arrived in Tasmania in 1832, aged 12, from the village of Dunlavin in the County of Wicklow, with his mother, three brothers and three sisters (his father had died during the voyage).
In 1840, when he was only 20, he was the first settler to take up land west of the Mersey River where he selected large areas of heavily forested land between the Don and Forth Rivers. His first dwelling was a paling and bark hut on the river flats at the Forth Estuary. James Fenton's first permanent home at the Forth was called "Norwood". Then, after he began farming on the eastern side of the Forth, he made his home there in a house, which is still occupied, which he called by the aboriginal name ‘Lenna’.
In 1879 James Fenton retired from farming and settled in Launceston, where he built a house (also called ‘Lenna’) at 41 Brisbane Street. It was here that he created the literary works that are perhaps his most notable contribution to our heritage. In 1884 his ‘History of Tasmania’ was published by Macmillan’s of London. In 1886 his biography of the Reverend Charles Price was published by George Robertson in Melbourne and in 1891 he completed his widely read ‘Bush Life in Tasmania’, which is still in print. He also completed a large lithograph depicting the Progress of Tasmania, for which he was awarded a Diploma at the Melbourne International Exhibition of 1880-81. This work is now held by the Queen Victoria Museum in Launceston. James Fenton died in Launceston on 24th June 1901, aged 81, and there is now a very prestigious ‘James Fenton Memorial Scholarship’ in his honour.
James Fenton never stood for Parliament, though he was keenly interested in local Government. He was a member of the various Devon Road Trusts for many years and Chairman of the Local Board of Works. He was a member of the Mersey Marine Board and in 1856 was appointed a local Justice of the Peace. However, James’s son, Charles also took a keen interest in politics and he did become an M.P.
Charles Benjamin Monds Fenton, settled and developed land at Table Cape and later established Tasmania's first Co-operative Dairy Factory at Wynyard which, nearly 100 years later, lead to the creation of United Milk Tasmania, the State's largest dairy producer. Charles Benjamin Monds Fenton was a member of the Tasmanian House of Assembly between 1886 and 1897. In turn, his son, Arthur Benjamin Fenton, represented the Division of Russell in the Tasmanian Legislative Council for 24 years from 1933 to 1957.
Another grandson, Charles Balfour Marcus Fenton, and his wife Flora (a member of the well-known North-West Tasmania Anthony family) conducted a dairy farm on their property, named ‘Dunlavin’ on the Irishtown Road near Smithton. He was involved in the administration of the State's dairy industry for many years and has been Chairman of the Board of Directors of both the Duck River Co-operative and United Milk Tasmania. Charles Balfour Marcus Fenton was also the member for Russell in the Tasmanian Parliament for 24 years from 1957 to 1981 and President of the Legislative Council for 9 years from 1972 until his retirement in 1981. After his retirement he was awarded the nation's highest honour, Companion of the Order of Australia - the A.C.
Incidentally, another member of the Fenton family who emigrated from Dunlavin and became a member of the Tasmanian Parliament was Captain Michael Fenton who arrived there in the early 1820s and obtained a large grant of land above New Norfolk which he called Fenton Forest. Michael Fenton was the cousin of James Fenton's father, who died on the voyage to Tasmania. When the old Legislative Council was established in the mid-1820s Michael Fenton was one of the nominated members. When the first elected ‘bi-cameral’ Parliament began in 1856 Michael Fenton was elected to the House of Assembly and became its first Speaker.
The Fenton family of Dunlavin certainly came a long way from their origins in a rural Irish village before the famine. However, while Dunlavin experienced a certain level of pre-famine emigration, it is also true that the levels of emigration increased during the second half of the nineteenth century. The presence of an emigration agent in Dunlavin village testifies to the fact that emigration was a harsh reality and an ever-present threat to many families in this area after the famine and right into the twentieth century also. For example, in 1881, ‘Slater’s Directory’ listed Patrick McDonough as the local emigration agent. One Dunlaviner who would become famous in his chosen field, and who probably passed through McDonough’s office was John Lawler.

John Lawler went to America, where he furthered his education to such an extent that he became a leading figure in the famous University of Notre Dame in Indiana. He became a priest and took the name of Brother Albeus. His obituary appeared in the University magazine, ‘The Scholastic’ (Volume 47, Issue 11) in 1913, and it makes impressive reading indeed:
‘Albeus, Brother (Lawler, John)
The closing days of the last school year at Notre Dame were saddened by the death of Brother Albeus, the treasurer of the University, on the 14th of June. The deceased has been troubled for some years by a weak heart, and hence, while his death was sudden, it was not unexpected. He had been dangerously ill during the first week of June, but soon recovered sufficiently to return to his post of duty, where he died a few days later.
Brother Albeus, known to the world as John Lawler, was born in Dunlavin, Ireland, in 1857. At an early age he came to this country and in 1883 he joined the Congregation of Holy Cross. After his profession in 1886 he was for many years, prefect in Carroll Hall and teacher in the preparatory department of the University. He was made treasurer of the University in 1901, in which office he remained until his death. In addition he was for many years a councillor of the Provincial of the United States Province and a member of the General Chapter of the Congregation.
In business ability, Brother Albeus was well qualified for the burdensome office with which he was entrusted for so long a time. He is fondly remembered by the students of many school years for his unselfish devotion to their interests during their days at Notre Dame. Among members of his community, he was always esteemed for his fine spirit of charity, his quiet but tense devotion to duty, and by the exemplary quality of his religious life.
The ‘Scholastic’ may readily presume to represent all the Notre Dame students who have known the lamented Brother in extending to the University their sincere sympathy in the loss of its esteemed treasurer and in praying that the departed may speedily enjoy the reward for which he lived and laboured.’
John Lawler from Dunlavin was another who had left his native place and who had worked his way into an eminent position. He is remembered with fondness and pride in the university in which he taught for nearly thirty years. Another emigrant from this area, who also was to become famous within his own sphere and beyond, was Thomas Ambrose Butler.
Thomas Butler served as a curate in Dunlavin during the early1860s. However, he yearned for a more difficult position and resigned his position in Dunlavin to take up a position in Kansas, sometime about the middle of that decade. Kansas has only joined the Union in 1861 and the new state was real frontier territory, which was opening up to settlers in the aftermath of the American Civil War. This raw, new, vigorous, exciting but dangerous land attracted all kinds of homesteaders. These included Irish Catholics, and Fr. Thomas Butler went with them to minister to their religious needs. Butler wrote a book entitled ‘The State of Kansas and Irish Immigration’, which was published by McGlashan and Gill of Upper Sackville Street, Dublin, in 1871. This work, which went on sale for the sum of six pence, became the ‘bible’ on Irish Catholic emigration to the American West. It was a almost a necessity for any prospective emigrant on this side of the Atlantic to purchase the book, but it was also widely sold in the East of the United States, where many immigrants who had arrived there were thinking of making their way further west.
A few excerpts from chapter one of Butler’s book helps us to get an idea of his aims, objectives and his stance on certain subjects. He begins by telling us that: ‘It is now nearly five years since I resigned my curacy in the diocese of Dublin, and came out to this country in order to lend my humble aid in the sacred cause of our holy religion. I was well aware that amidst the crowd of immigrants flocking out upon the prairies of the new State of Kansas many Catholics were to be found and I also felt convinced that sons and daughters of Old Ireland would never be happy and contented while wanting the consolation Catholicity affords’.
He goes on to inform us that: ‘My missionary duties have been performed in the rising cities and amidst the young settlements upon the prairies for nearly five years; I therefore presume to think I can afford some useful information to persons intending to emigrate, and some interesting reading to all my countrymen at home who take an interest in the adopted country of millions of their race’.

Butler then made his intentions clear, when he wrote: ‘It is on account of so many misstatements appearing in Irish journals, and because I dread the injurious consequences to my countrymen, I undertake the task of writing on the subject of Irish emigration, especially to Kansas; and as I feel convinced that my sacerdotal character will be a pledge to the reader of my sincerity, and that more reliance will be placed in the statement of one who has been engaged in the duties of the priesthood amidst the people in the young cities and rising settlements of the Great West than in the words of land-jobbers and their agents’.
Emigration was a fact of life, in Dunlavin as elsewhere in Ireland at this time, but Butler did not see this as the ideal situation. He wrote: ‘I begin by assuring the reader that I am not an advocate of Irish emigration; I would rather a million of times that ‘the old race’ could hold every inch of ‘the old land’. I believe that the pang of separation, and the subsequent sad feeling of exile from friends and country, leave an impress upon the heart that can never be removed. Let those, then, who can live at home in Ireland remain there – unless, indeed, the future prospects of their family are very dark’. However, Butler saw one type of emigrant as having no choice: ‘There is one class in Ireland which, I am well aware, has no other resource left but emigration; I allude, of course, to the unhappy farmers who become the victims of eviction’.
Having established his background and beliefs, Butler went on to give a detailed and very interesting account of life in Kansas at this time. Among other things, he tells us that: ‘About the year 1854 the first small stream of immigration came in on the eastern borderlands of Kansas. Brave pioneers came up the muddy Missouri in boats from Saint-Louis, and pitched their tents in a pleasant place near the protecting guns of Fort Leavenworth, having a semi-circle of wooded hills beside them, and the great river as an arc to the chord of sylvan bluffs. Here some speculators soon built up frame houses and small ‘shanties’, and store-houses, trusting for trade to the officers and soldiers of the fort, and to the freighters who transported goods across the plains.’
At another point in the book he writes: On the second and fourth Sunday of every month I celebrate mass at St. Joseph's Church, eight miles distant from Leavenworth. When I enter my buggy, at six o'clock in the morning of the above days, to drive out to St. Joseph's, I feel as if about to go to a country chapel in dear old Ireland. The journey up and down the rugged hills, and through the lonely woods, and over the rippling streams, does not seem a long one, for memory is travelling all the time amidst the green valleys of the Emerald Isle, through the glens of lovely Wicklow, and amidst the giant mountains of the North. And when at length I catch a view of St. Joseph's Church from the summit of some hill, how like an Irish scene is the appearance presented’.
Moreover, Butler also noticed some differences from home and he went on to record: ‘The scene around the prairie church differs much in one point from that around an Irish chapel. Long lines of horses and wagons are seen standing on the roadside near the church, or coming over the prairies. The farmers and their families come in wagons or on horseback to Mass – none walk along the country road, as they were wont to do olden times in Ireland. In winter, when the mud is very deep upon the roads, young women travel to church on horseback, and at such season the long cavalcades of men and women present a picturesque appearance crossing the prairies or emerging from the woods’. The content of his narrative is actually very varied, but space does not permit any further quotation of his work here.
However, the conclusion of Butler’s book is quite strongly worded, and makes interesting reading: ‘We hear our people boasting oftentimes of the blessings diffused through America by Irish immigration. I gladly acknowledge that Ireland has been, and is, ‘a Missionary nation’, and that Catholicity would be hardly known on this continent had not the scattered Celts sailed over and planted the cross on many a prairie. But, then, if we seriously consider the loss of thousands of sons of Irishmen gone away from the fold of Christ, we will be inclined to wish that ‘the old race’ would remain at home beside their Irish chapels until their bodies are placed to sleep in holy ground, in the shadows of ruined abbeys, than come here to see their children growing up in infidelity. But in the country the sons of Irish farmers grow up as good and faithful as if they lived all their time in ‘the Isle of Saints’. For this reason, as well as for many others, which I have already stated, I am a strong advocate for farming life for the exiled Irish. While treating of the sons of Irishmen I must not fail to remark that the great mass of them possess an extraordinary love for the land of their fathers. They have learned many of the traditions of ‘the old land’ from their Irish mothers, and their American love of Liberty fills them with enthusiasm for the welfare of Ireland. I feel now that I am drawing to an end in the treatment of my subject. I have endeavoured to fulfil a promise made to many friends, and a duty I owed to my fellow-countrymen at home. I have described things as they really are in Kansas, having no object in life to gain by doing so. I do not seek notoriety through the Press, but I struggle for that which urged me out here from my quiet curacy in Dunlavin – the good of the Irish people. My patriotism is the broad national Irish one – ‘for Faith and County’. In conclusion, and as a last advice, I say to all the Irish people – Do not come out to America if you can live at home. If you cannot live in Ireland, come out and till the fertile prairies, and you will be happy. ‘Uncle Sam has lands enough to give us all a farm!’

Today, Thomas Ambrose Butler is a famous man in academic circles. His book, ‘The State of Kansas and Irish Immigration’, now known simply as ‘Fr. Butler’s Kansas’, is widely studied in universities throughout the U.S.A. and beyond. The book contains a wealth of information for students of the pioneering days of the American Mid-West, and is an important primary source for Kansas historians, as well as scholars of American history generally.
However, the book also works at other levels. It is also studied by students of the nineteenth century ‘Devotional Revolution’ within Irish Catholicism. Butler lamented the situation regarding state education in Kansas – he had come from an Irish national education system where church and state were intertwined. At one point he wrote: ‘But what we have to contend with the school tax. The school tax is an injustice in this free country. Catholics are obliged to pay this tax for the support of schools to which they are opposed, and even although they send their children to other schools not supported by the State. It is difficult for Catholic parents to pay the tax and pay for their children's education at Catholic schools. If we could get a share of the school tax funds for the support of our Catholic schools, then we would have every chance of educating the rising generation of Catholic children free from evil influence, and under the protection of those safeguards which Almighty God has given to His Church’. The Catholic agenda again shone through when, for example, Butler wrote: ‘It is true that the Catholic Church is gaining great numbers of converts every year in America, but if we consider all the children of Catholic parents who are being lost in the meshes of infidelity, we will probably cease to rejoice’.
Butler’s work is also studied by anthropologists and students of Irish ethnicity. The picture of Irish emigrant life contains much detail regarding their gradual cultural assimilation, and (in some instances) their contribution to acculturation within the melting pot that was nineteenth century Kansas. At one point Butler wrote: ‘The majority of our countrymen in Leavenworth belong to the labouring class, and are obliged to work hard on railways and streets for small wages. Four years ago the pay given to labouring men was two dollars per day; and if you take into account many inclement days during the year, when the labourer cannot work, it will be seen that such men have hard times here. The stern truth of the case is this – Irishmen must not hope to make much money as labourers in the towns and cities in the future. Since the emancipation of the Negroes the labour market has been glutted, and, undoubtedly, in a few years more Sambo and John Chinaman will be the only labourers on the highways’. By today’s politically correct standards, such references are seen as racist, but they must be taken in the context of the time and place of writing, as well as the cultural background of the writer himself.
That writer was a nineteenth century emigrant from Dunlavin. He was one of a number of emigrants from our area who had made good in a new life overseas. This article has only scratched the surface of the subject of emigration from this place. For every Matland, Dwyer, Fenton, Lawler and Butler who left this village and its environs, there are thousands who left, never to return, and whose names, lives and achievements were never recorded. Many have faded into obscurity and oblivion over time. Many more have lived full and varied lives and have descendants who still come to visit this area. However, it is pleasing to note, I think, that some of our emigrants from this place became very successful immigrants in faraway places, and this article has told a few of their stories.

St Nicholas of Myra RC Church, Dunlavin c. 1930

2006-06-10T04:59:00.000-07:00

Precensus Dunlavin. Townland ghosts and some reflections

2006-06-10T04:38:00.000-07:00

The year 1815 was undoubtedly a watershed in Dunlavin parish, as parish records begin on October 1st of that year.
This beginning of a new parish register probably indicates that a new church was erected on the present site at or about this time. The penal laws were still in force – Catholic emancipation didn’t happen until 1829 – but they were becoming more lax during the late 18th and early 19th century, with the exception of a short ‘backlash’ period after the rebellions of 1798 and 1803.
However, the years after 1810 saw the building of many new Catholic Churches – including the one in Dunlavin, which was built on land donated by the Tynte family. Whether the Church was a permanent structure or a temporary one in 1815 is uncertain, but the fact remains that the first parish register – to have survived, at least – came into being during this year.
Three infants – Michael Brien, Hannah Healy and Michael Magarr were baptised on October 1st 1815. Perhaps this event was not as far – reaching as Wellington’s victory at Waterloo in the same year, but for our parish these three baptisms are the beginning of our own unique social record. There were twenty one baptisms recorded for October 1815 and a total of 100 is mentioned for the year of 1815. This latter figure is a strange one, as there are only 59 entries from October to December in the book for 1815.
Subsequent years show totals in excess of 200, so perhaps the priest simply guessed that there were about 100 baptisms for the year, since records only began in the month of October.
The parish register provides us with lists of names and areas, but reading between the lines it also provides us with some clues about the social history of the time.
Before we move on to the lists of family names, some observations about the register should be made.
The first point to note is that these records do not give the complete picture. They refer only to the Catholic families. Anglicans and/or dissenters who were living in these townlands are not mentioned in the records. Also, by implication, because these are baptismal records, the register will only show young to middle-aged Catholic family names. Older couples, childless or with more mature children by 1815, will not appear on these pages.
The accuracy of townland boundaries is questionable too: For example, certain areas like Tubber seem to be very populous, while other areas like Sandy Hills do not appear at all. I suspect that the term “Tubber” refers to all the townlands in the old parish of Tubber. Hence “Kelly’s of Tubber” for example could refer to “Kelly’s of Man of War”, but there is no way to ascertain this.

FAMILY NAMES
Many family names were very common too, occurring in various different townlands. The old Wicklow names of “Toole” and “Byrne” are widespread, while “Kavanah”, once very prevalent in South Wicklow is also a popular name.
The spelling of Kavanah – without the ‘g’ – brings us another point. All the spellings in the register are as per the priest of the day. No doubt many of the ordinary people were uneducated – National Schools were not established until Lord Stanley’s Education Act of 1831, so, if there were variants of the surname unknown to the priest, they did not appear in the book. (My own name, for example has variants of Lawlor, Lawler and Lalor). Hence, for example, there are no Keogh’s listed, only Kehoe’s. This however, does not mean that some present Keogh’s may not be descended from the Kehoe’s listed. Many names changed spelling at the latter end of the 19th century, during the Cultural Revival. The work of organisations like the Gaelic League “gaelicised” the spelling of many family names. An example of this in the register is that no surname is preceded by ‘O’. Names like “Neile”, “Reily” and “Toole” would surely now have ancestors called O’Neill, O’Reilly and O’Toole. Pronunciation may have changed over the years too, for example, would “Cassin” then become “Cashin” in modem times?
Place names also show pregaelic League spellings in the register. The revived interest in the Irish language taught people the meaning of many old names. Thus the Irish word “Cnoc” (Hill) became “Knock” when it was Anglicised. The English “K” represented the Irish “C”. No such niceties applied in 1815 though, hence we got the spellings “Nockaderry”, “Nockbawn” etc.
Another weakness of the records, is that, due to erratic spelling, the same family may have been recorded twice in certain townlands. Thus, in Ballinabarny, for example, we get both “Connel” and Connell”.
In an effort to avoid repetition, I have not included the same surname twice in the townland lists if it is spelt the same way for more than one family within that townland. This is not to imply that families with the same surname did not inhabit the same townland. They very often did – and I mean very often! There were quite a few families of Rogers in Merginstown, Nowlans in Tubber and Byrnes in Frianstown, to name but three. This would definitely indicate the sub-division of family holdings – a practice common locally and all over prefamine rural Ireland. This practice was mostly brought to an end after the famine when primogeniture (eldest son inherits) became common.

THE FAMINE
Mention of the famine brings me to another point evident if one browses through the parish registers for 1815-1820 – the high birth rate. The total number of baptisms per annum for these precensus years consistently exceeds 200 – put another way there was a rough average of two baptisms every three days. The actual figures are: – 1815 (part of) 100 (possibly a guess – see above) 1816 - 273; 1817 - 201; 1818 - 215; 1819 - 224; and 1820 - 226. There is no doubt that these figures are high for a parish of this size – but high birth rates were a usual feature of rural Ireland at this time. Three and even four baptisms per day in Dunlavin Church was quite a common occurrence. Many parents return during this five-year period – again and again – with three, four and even five children to be baptised. The period 1815 – 1820 saw a “Baby Boom” in Dunlavin, as in the country as a whole.
The infants listed in this register would be in the 25-30 year old age group when the great famine struck – therefore, they would be having their own families and there is no doubt that overpopulation exacerbated an already serious situation in the 1840’s. Large families were the norm. Without going into the moral arguments about family planning, the attitude of the Catholic Church to large families was that they were generally desirable. Families like the Finns of Eadestown, the Balfes of Dunlavin and the Ryders of Loughmogue – to name but three – returned again and again to the baptismal font.
In an interview to mark his 70th birthday, the recently deceased Dr. Noel Brown referred to woman bearing many more children than their body could manage. He blamed his own mothers ill-health and death on this fact. A similar trend is to be found in our own precensus parish records. The low life expectancy, the poverty, the overpopulation are all there if you read between the lines. Dunlavin – and Ireland in general – during this period obviously had some traits in common with many Third World Countries today.
Other trends may also come to light by studying the old registers. Some anthropologists and social historians, for example, have suggested that there was a seasonal nature to childbirths in pre-famine Ireland. Of course, babies were born all year round, but they would expect the figures to peak in the late summer and autumn. The reasoning behind their theory is that both men and women were tired from working on the land during the summer months when dusk could be as late as 11 p.m., with an early dawn to follow. The long winter nights, on the other hand were the time to make babies, hence the expected high in the figure for births should occur in the autumn. The figures for August 1818, for example, saw eighteen baptisms (with sixteen for the previous month of July). However the figures for January of 1819 show only twelve baptisms. Could the ‘Seasonal’ model be true? Further scrutiny of the overall figures tend to cast doubts over it though. January of 1818, for example, recorded a very high number of baptisms indeed – and so did other winter months while many summer and autumn months show low totals. No real evidence here, then, of ‘seasonal childbirths’.

YOUNG FAMILIES
Another trend which can be perceived is that certain areas had large numbers of young families – young parents, while other areas record low totals. Once one allows for difference in actual population, there is still some evidence of differing birth rates in different townlands. One example, here in Milltown – quite a populous townland according to pre-famine census information, and yet an area with quite a low birth rate – and a low number of young parents of childbearing age. One possible reason for this is that Milltown was quite heavily settled with older families and so would show a more mature population pyramid than certain other areas.
A modern comparison might involve a new housing estate with many young families moving in as opposed to an older estate, where the families are older and have settled there for some time, so they would not figure as often in a baptismal register.
There is no doubt that prefamine society was more geographic static than our own well-travelled society. Certain families appear in areas where the surname is still to be found (in or close to the same place) today. Some examples here include Metcalf’s of Crehelp, Moore’s of Tubber and Dwyers of Seskin, to name but three. The question “are they the same families as their modem namesakes”? Could be probably answered by a careful scrutiny of parish records through about 175 years. Generally after the collapse of the Landlord system (c 1880 - 1910) some tenant farmers did survive and buy out neighbouring land to become strong farmers. It is quite probable that there are modern “survivors” still living in the same townlands as their ancestors of 1815 - 20.
The lists published here do have one advantage over the later Census figures. They cover a five year period and so build a fuller picture of any in – migrants during such a five year period – provided they had children to baptise, into the Catholic faith! People living in a townland during any five years between census taking, often left no official trace of their movements.
Judging by the number of baptisms recorded at Dunlavin for families from the “other side” of the parish, it is probable that Donard did not have a Church at this time. One disadvantage of this involves the comparison of contemporary and modem statistics. Any such comparison would have to include modern statistics for all three Churches in the parish to be truly comparable. Even allowing for this, the baptismal rate of two hundred plus, per year seems high. The average rate also rose as one went through the 1820’s and 1830’s – in 1828, for example, Fr. Hyland, the new Parish Priest recorded two hundred and seventy two (272) baptisms while the 1835 figure was three hundred and two (302).
Just to stay in the 1830’s for a moment in order to further illustrate the booming population in those prefamine years, Fr. Hyland records that Archbishop Murray Confirmed four hundred and sixty (460) children in Dunlavin chapel on 5th August 1833, while on the 12th June 1837 the number Confirmed in Dunlavin by Dr. Murray was seven hundred and twenty two (722). This must represent phenomena growth during the 1830’s (c.f. my article in the 1994 Arts Festival Brochure). Modern Confirmation numbers even for the whole Parish, hardly come anywhere near these figures.
But to return to the precensus era. One interesting aspect of the baptismal register for these years is that all parents of children baptised seem to have been married. Indeed, I could not find an exception to this anywhere in the first Parish register book, which covers the years 1815 to 1839. But an interesting footnote for the year 1833 might shed some light on this situation. It states that there were two hundred and ninety four (294) baptisms in 1833. But, “About ten (10) baptisms have not been registered from March to August in consequence of the right of one of the clergymen”. Might these children be ones whose parents were not married (at least not at the time of birth/baptism)? We must remember that we are dealing with a time when Church attitudes were much more hardline, and social stigma was an ever-present reality for anyone that the people chose to reject.

POVERTY
Poverty was quite widespread during these years too. A Mallen family who had a baby Christened in Dunlavin Church in 1816 are recorded as being ‘vagabonds’. The travelling rural labourer, or spalpin, was a common figure in prefamine Ireland. The famine did much to wipe them out, but some survived right up to the time of the First World War. Once again though, the pages of our parish register highlights a local and a national problem.

Footnote 1: Only one mixed marriage seems to be recorded in the first book – Thomas (Protestant) and Briget Moody, Whitestown.
Footnote 2: The marriage register starts in 1831, with Maurice Whelan and Margaret Kavanagh being the first wedding on St. Valentine’s Day of that year. Marriage total from 1831 - 1838 averaged about fifty, the most per annum being sixty six; the least being thirty nine.
Footnote 3: One interesting baptism in 1818 was that of James Whittle, son of Joseph and Margaret, sponsored by Joseph Byrne and Briget Conlon. James Whittle was Parish Priest of Dunlavin from 1862 to 1884 and is buried outside the side aisle and commemorated by a wall plaque inside.
Footnote 4: Two early Curates of Dunlavin were Fr. A. Reynolds and Fr. P. Mulaney both of whom served here in 1833, when Fr. J. Hyland was Parish Priest.
Footnote: 5: The townland of Eadstown contains a family of Dwyers. Michael Dwyer, the famous Wicklow rebel was born in this place and as these records pertain to a time only about 15 years after his campaign and eventual capture, it is probably his family that is registered here.

Catholic Surnames in Townlands
There follows a list of the Catholic Surname for each Townland named in the Parish register during the period from 1st October 1815 to 31st December 1820. (The first Census dates from 1821 and so can be used to get family names after 1820).
I have given the spelling of place names as they appear in Liam Price’s book. These are in bold type. I have also given any deviant form of the spellings which appear in the parish register in brackets after the name.
If only one form of the name appears, the parish register concurs with Price’s spelling. Where possible, I have also briefly given Prices explanation of the origin of the place names (italics). In some cases, names not in Price’s book appear. Where this occurs, I have stated that the name is not mentioned by Price and any explanation is, of course, not applicable.
BALLENARAY (Ballenara) (not in Price): Brien, Kinsella.
BALLINARD (Ballenard) (High Town): Kavanagh, Brien, Lambe, Kinsella, Headen, Butler, Toole, Bulger.
BALLINABARNY (Ballinabarnie, Ballinabarna, Ballabarna) (Cattle Enclosure at the gap road): Connell Kearney, Connel, Shiel, Finn.
Parish Records also show this name with “Bally” instead of Ballinabarny.
The following family names are listed under the corrupted spellings given beside them: Conoly – Ballybarnie. Hoxy, Duffy – Ballibarna. Shiel – Ballybarny. Connell Kearney – Ballybarna.
BALLINCLEA (Ballinaclay) (Mountain Settlement): Kenny, Conran, Kelly, Canavan, Doyle, Crowley, Farrel, Brien, Timmins.
BALLINEBO (not in Price) (Town of the Cows?): Wade.
BALLINEDDAN (Ballineddin) (Town of the Drained Land): Byrne, Shell, Kerwin, Carty, Rourke, Kirwan, Brien.
BALLINFOYLE (Ballinfile) (Booley House of the two Pools): Burke.
BALLINTRUER (Ballintruin, Ballintrure) (Homestead of three people): Webb, Pendergast, Duff, Cullen.
BALLYHOOK (Family Name – Hookes Town): Gavan.
BALLYHUBBOCK (Ballyhubue, Ballyhubbur, Ballyhubut) (Robert’s Town): Pendergast, Mooney, Kavanah, Sheridan, Brien, Valentine, Donahue, Kearns, Murphy, Byrne, Germain.
BALLYHURLEY (not in Price): Mooney.
BALLYLEA (Family Name – Ely’s Town): Dowling.
BALLYLION (Ballyline) (Family Name – Leynagh’s Town): Nowlan, Metcalf, Lewis, Pendergast, Daly.
BALLYMOONEY (Ballymoony) (Mooney’s Town): Toole, Gardly, Flood, Neale, Lennan, Dwyer, Tyrrel, McLoughlin, Lennon.
BALLYMOOR (not in Price) (Could this refer to Ballymore-Eustace?): Kane.
BALLYREASK (Ballyreesh) (Marshy Town): Kenny, Donahoe, Donoghoe.
BALLYTOOLE (O’Toole’s Town) – part of Coolmoney and not to be confused with Toolestown: Butler, Daly, Lennon, Sheridan, Byrne, Lindsay.
BALLYVOHAN (Ballyurahan, Ballyrocan, Ballyoran, Ballyvoran, Ballyorahan) (see below) (O’Mohan’s Town and O’Braghan’s Town): Kelly, Reynolds, Cullen, Byrne, Brien, Brady, Miller, Nowlan.
Price names two separate townlands, Ballyvoghan and Ballyvraghan. The multiplicity of spellings in the parish register make it almost impossible to separate them.
BARRACK (not in Price) (Could the name refer to the police barracks in the village?): Kennedy.
BLACKMOOR (Blackamore): Nugent, Byrne, Kehoe, Ellis, Kinsella, Mullen, Heyden, Reed, Carrol, Daly, Lamb.
BLACKHILL: Traynor, Tracy, Keating, Byrne, Ward, Heade, Reddy, Dunn, Judge, Copeland, Hegarty.
BOWRY (Brothel): Mitchel, Kealy.
BRITTAS (Fortified Dwelling): Case, Butler, Byrne, Flood, Kelly, Kavanagh, Whelan, Darcy.
RUSSELSTOWN (Family Name?): Hayden, Lynch, Smyth, Lennon, Maher, Healy, Smith, Heyden, Donohoe, Fitzpatrick.
BUSHFIELD: Larkin.
CAMARA (Camera) (Drained Area): Doyle, Kelly, Connel.
CASTLERUDDERY (Castlerudry) (Knights Castle or Roderick’s Castle): Hickey, Finn, Donohoe, Duff, Doyle, McEvoy, Brien, Plant, Mackay, Toole, Byrne, Conron, Mulhall, Metcalf, Marlay, Maher, Flood, Boyne, Butler, Brown, Maley, Murray, Daly, Synott, Connor.
CASTLESALLAGH (Castlesalla) (Dirty Castle): Donohoe.
COAN (Cowen) (River Bend): Murphy, Toole, Connel.
COLLIGA (Colloga, Colaga) (Thorny Place): Broughal, Karney, Murphy, Kearney, Moore, Mahon, Kavanah.
COOLAMADDRA (Coolamadra) (Den of the dog or wolf): Kelly, Delaney, Conran, Heney, Brien, Donnelly, Germain, Valentine, Heany.
COOLMONEY (Sheltered Shrubbery): Byrne, Hanlon.
COONANSTOWN (Family Name): Somers, Whittle.
CREHELP (Creehelp, Cryhelp) (A branch of the clan Elpi): Murray, Walsh, Kane, Byrne, Kehoe, Manwaring, Hobart, Metcalf, Heyden, Perry, Galbally, Noon, Quin, Toole, Dempsy, Barden, Maneron, Kelly, Flood, Brad, Mulally, Cunningham, Murphy, Mangan, Cassin, Donohoe, Nowlan, Grattan.
CLONSHANNON (Crosshannon) (Meadow of the old one): Donohoe, Murphy, Martin.
CROSSKEYS (Probably the name of an Inn): Doyle, Connor, Murphy, McEvoy, Byrne x 2, Waddy, Nowlan.
CURTRA (not in Price): Higgins.
DAVIDSTOWN (Area was held by David Donn in the 13th Century): Kenny, Brien.
DERRYNAMUCK (Dernamuck) (Wood of the pigs): Martin, Ryan, Hoxy.
DRUMREAGH (Drumreed) (Striped Hill): Donaghan, Reily.
DONARD (Dunard) (High Fort): Mulhall, Lennon, Fitzpatrick, Byrne, Murray, Farrel, Doyle, Lambe, Grehan, Claxton, Nerale, Coogan, Lewis, Fitzgerald, Tenison, Brady, Russel, Case, Murphy, Lawler, Artry, Conway, Boylan, Eardly, Nowlan, Headen, McEvoy, Donohoe, Harrington, Morgan, Leviston, Ivery, Maneron, Reddin, Stokes, Curren, Fullam.
DUNLAVIN (Fort of Liamhan?): Kehoe, Gavan, Fitzgerald, Gorman, Mahon, Balfe, Morgan, Christy, Martin, Neile, Cullen, Fahy, Murphy, Kavanagh, Donohoe, Hoxy, Dempsy, Fox, Roche, Cahill, Whelan, Molyneaux, Byrne, Doyle, Kenedy, Kealy, Gafney, McEvoy, Elliott, Walsh, Toole, Doran, Power, Connors, Ryder, Whittle, Corrigan, Jiven, Donovan, Neale, Leeson, Chamney, Gyves, Barret, Kearns, Conran, Kelly, Couse, Nowlan, Irwin, Heyden, Wall.
EADSTOWN (Eadestown) (Named for the Ede Family): Donely, Martin, Dwyer, Rice, Farrel, Anderson, Doody, Breen, Brien, Heyden, Finn, Boyce, Weary, Murphy, Cavan, Byrne, Conway, Doran.
FAUNA (Fiawana, Fawna, Faronah) (Sloping Land): Doyle, Kelly, Kehoe.
FRIARHILL (Fryarhill) (Named for Monks in the Rectory of Tober): Byrne, Reilly, Murphy, Flood, Judge, Doyle, Mangan, Meade, Kelly, McEvoy, Heade, Walsh.
GIBSTOWN (origin unknown): Kelly, Dowling, Mackey, Byrne, Hanlon, Lambe.
IRISHTOWN (Area where Norman Fitzgeralds put local settlers?): Bolland.
KELSHA (Wooded Area): Kehoe, Halpin, Toomey, Flyn.
KENOW ( Kennours) (not in Price): Toole, Connel, Kehoe, Marnah.
KILBAYLET (Kilbealet, Kilbeleth, Kilbelet, Kilbalet, Kilbelim) (Church at the Pass): Murphy, Burke, Rourke, Murray, Dowden, Farrell, Coogan, Whittle, Bulger, Foley, Lennon.
KILBREFFY (Kilbruffy, Kilbruffey) (Church of the Wolf-plain): Kerry.
KILCOAGH (Kilcough, Kilcooke) (Church of St. Cuach): Fitzpatrick, Lennon, Byrne, Kelly.
KILLYBEG (Killabegs, Killibeg, Killybeggs) (Little Wood): Heyden, Byrne, Roche, Lennon, Neale.
KINSELLASTOWN (Kinselastown) (Family Name): Cunningham, Keily, Kehoe, Heade.
LEITRIM (Grey Hillock): Kelly, Darcy.
LEMONSTOWN (St. Loman’s Town): Coogan, Mooney, Metcalf, Costeloe, Cullen, Murray, McAtee, Davis, Mulaly, Conoly, Mulally, McDonnel, Gallaher, Coleman, Ayres, Dalton, Donnelly, Murphy.
LOGATRINA (Corncrake’s Hollow): Donovan, Fay, Brien, Fahy.
LOUGEMOGUE (Pool of St. Maodhog): Mahon, Brien, Loughran, Burke, Rowley, Barden, Broughan, Corrigan, Dalton, Henry, Doyle, McEvoy, Wright, Ryder, Dunn, Carroll, Smith, Valentine, Johnson, Deegan, Byrne, Conway, Kealy, Behan, Brady, Connor, Kenedy, Deering, Sleator, Dempsy, Cullen, Maglinn, Smyth, Tyrrel.
MERGINSTOWN (Family name of 15th Century settlers): Rogers, Heyden, Doyle, Dowling, Dempsy, Toole, Nolan, Redmond, Byrne, Fitzgerald, Kavanah, Sleator, Kehoe, Kealy, Walsh, Kane, Murphy, Smyth, Lynch, Myley, Carroll, Brien.
MILLTOWN: Flood, Coleman, Owens, Hede, Byrne, Foley, Duff, Traynor, Toole, Neale, Conway.
MONROE (Monrue) (Red Bog): Headen, Grace.
MOORSPARK (Moorparke) (Family Name): Conran.
NEWPARK: Heyden.
NEWTOWN: Connor, Toole.
KNOCKADERRY (Nockaderry) (Hill of the Copse): Kavanagh, Lenhan, Dowling, Doyle, Kananah, Kehoe, Mackey, Donohoe, Brien, Case, Murray, Higgins.
KNOCKANARRIGAN (Nockanargin) (O’Regan’s Hill): Conoly, Donelan, Benson, Doyle, Byrne, Manwaring, Mahon, Kelly, Donely, Kerwin.
KNOCKBAWN ( Nockbawn) (White Hill): Cassin, Whelan.
KNOCKANDARRAGH (Nockendara) (Little Hill of Oak Tree): Heyden, Dolle, Conran, Butler, Reily, Grace, Byrne, Bulger, Lynch.
KNOCKNAMUNNION (Nocknamunga, Nocknamunion) (Hill of Little Torrents): Doyle, Benson.
OLDMILL: Toole, Metcalf.
PLEZICA (Plessica, Placika) (Shelly Place): Whittle, Nowlan, Byrne, Hagarty, Cunningham, Timins, Dunn, Moran, Copeland, Somers, Grace.
RANDALSTOWN (Family Name): Byrne, Brien, Ennis, Dunn, Kearney.
RATHSALLAGH (Rathsalla) (Dirty Fort): Fay, Byrne, Pigeon, Healy, Wilson, Kavanah, Toole, Brien, Drumm, Fahy, Headen, Norton, Murphy, Kenedy, Nowlan, Darcy, Bowe, Magennis, Dunn, Kelly, Cullen, Doyle, Dowling, Heade, Cooke, Dunlaley, Harrington.
ROSTYDUFF (Rustyduff) (Headland of Black Houses): Geoghan, Lynch, Duffy, Tone, Murphy, Keefe, Flood, Doyle, Rorke.
SESKIN (Marshy Place): Kenedy, Cullen, Dowling, Curran, Rogers, Sullivan, Connor, Lynch, Dwyer, Byrne, Doyle, Kavanagh, Jessop.
STRANAHELY (Shranahely) (Bank of the River Hely): Cullen, Wade, Kinsella.
SLATEQUARRY (Slatequarries) (Old Name for Plezica Area): Nowlan, Whittle, Mangan, Mulally.
SPINANS (Spinings) (Place of the Gooseberry Bush): Cambel, Conway, Doody, Valentine, Ennis, Kavanagh, Kehoe, Doyle, Grady, Byrne, Ryan, Finn.
STUDFIELD (Dating from the 18th Century-Area for Horses): Lennon, Tyrrel, Murray, Kearney, Daly, Quinahan, Flood, Kane, Walsh.
TOOLESTOWN (Toolstown) (Family Name): Cullen, Toole, Byrne.
TOURNANT (Mound of Nettles): Heyden, Coonan, Mackey.
TOBER (Tubber) (Well or Spring): Magarr, Nowlan, Byrne, Harney, Magrath, Moore, Dunn, Fahy, Fay, Doyle, Dowden, Kelly, Judge, Creighton, Ryder, Hyland, Molloy, Rourke, Brien, Donohoe, Moran, Whelan, Waters, Kearney, Murray, Delaney, Ross, Hartigan, Redmond, White, Foster, Hickey, Butterfield, Murphy, Stuart, Kehoe, Neale.
TOBERBEG (Tubberbeg) (The Little Well): Healy, Miley, Kelly, Dalton, Johnson, Whittle. WHITESTOWN (Named for the White Family. Also spelled Fottestown. The Irish form of White was Fait.): Brofy, Byrne, Roche, Doyle, Dunn, Valentine, Brady, Geoghan, Duff, Tracy, Germain, Pendergast.

Dunlavin RC church, parochial house and fairgreen c. 1902

2006-06-04T05:49:00.000-07:00

A Vignette of Dunlavin in 1902

2006-06-03T17:30:00.001-07:00

THIS ARTICLE concerns some events that took place in our village exactly one hundred years ago. In 1902, the village of Dunlavin was administered as part of Baltinglass Number One District and meetings of the council were reported in an in-depth way, often verbatim, in the local newspapers. This article contains two extracts from the 'Kildare Observer' (a Unionist newspaper and a rival to the Nationalist 'Leinster Leader' at the time, although the 'Observer' was later bought out by the 'Leader') and both articles refer to an episode in the everyday life of the village. To fully understand the newspaper articles and to place them in their proper context, we must know that Fr Maxwell, the parish priest of Dunlavin, had written to the council expressing concern at the general state of cleanliness (or, rather, uncleanliness) in the village. Maxwell had succeeded Canon Frederick Donovan as parish priest of Dunlavin in 1896 and perhaps may have been something of a perfectionist, as he told parishioners in 1898 that he "was surprised and grieved when he came to Dunlavin and saw such a miserable, poor and dangerous church. It was nothing short of a disgrace to religion and altogether unfit for divine worship". Maxwell was obviously not a man to mince his words! The main thrust of Maxwell's letter was the poor and dirty condition of the village and he homed in on a number of areas to confirm his claims. These areas included:

· The condition of the village slaughterhouses.
· The disposal of many types of waste, notably manure and offal.
· The keeping of pigs in back yards.
· The lack of adequate toilet facilities.
· The scarcity and poor quality of drinking water.
· The open cesspools in parts of the village.
· The overcrowding of many of the village houses.
· The unhealthy conditions caused by all of the above.

Maxwell's letter to the council obviously caused a stir in the area and one man who was affected perhaps more than most by Maxwell's allegations was Dr Edward Lyons. In addition to being Dunlavin's medical doctor, Lyons was also the 'medical officer' for the area and, as such, it was within his remit to report to the council regarding the 'sanitary condition' of the village. Lyons composed a letter which refuted some of Maxwell's claims, defended his own record as medical officer, made recommendations for improvements in the village and pointed out the healthy state of Dunlavin's inhabitants. Lyons sent his letter to the local council and it was published, along with a brief report of the meeting, in the Kildare Observer of 12 July 1902. The newspaper article read thus:

THE CONDITION OF DUNLAVIN
Mr James H. Coleman J.P. (chairman) presided.
The Local Government Board, writing with reference to the sanitary state of Dunlavin, asked the council to be good enough to furnish them with the report of Dr Lyons of the unsanitary condition of the piggeries in the Dunlavin Dispensary district. The Local Government Board also enclosed the following report from their medical inspector, Dr Edgar Flynn, who recently visited Dunlavin. The following is his report:

'I visited Dunlavin recently and in the course of my inspections of the town with the medical officer of health, I visited several localities where pigs were kept in the immediate vicinity of the dwelling house. In fact, adjoining the houses and in many back yards, there were also accumulated organic and vegetable dirt and filth, which had evidently not been removed for a long time, and these conditions constitute a grave danger to the public health of any town, and the council should take steps to improve the sanitary condition of the town in reference to these two important matters. Pigs should not, in any circumstances, be kept in places that adjoin a dwelling house'.
With reference to the above, the board desire to draw attention to section 108 of the Public Health (Ireland) Act 1878, the provisions of which are mandatory and to state that they trust the council will take prompt steps to carry out the necessary improvements. The following report was read from Dr Lyons:

'Dear Sir, I have made careful enquiries into the subject of the letter sent by Fr Maxwell to your board on the occasion of its last meeting. The letter came on me as a surprise as for the past three years I have heard no complaints from the Rev. gentleman about the sanitary condition of Dunlavin. There are certainly some few instances of overcrowding in the town, due to the scarcity of house accommodation. On one occasion I spoke to the landlord's agent about the advantage financially as well as morally of building a few extra houses in Dunlavin, and also mentioned that a rent of 2s or 2s 6d a week could be secured from thoroughly reliable tenants; but it was useless, as he would not entertain the proposal at all. In the few instances where "married and single people, grown up boys and girls etc., are huddled together", they are all members of the same family and not strangers, as one might be inclined to infer from the Rev. gentleman's letter. So limited is the house accommodation that I have once known three sound and reliable applicants to interview the landlord to obtain a house within one hour after the occupier's death. The next point dealt with in the letter is the want of proper sanitary accommodation in a great many of the houses. I enclose a report of the houses without such, and also of two where a privy has been provided and not used. I think each house should have a closet of some sort, preferably an earth closet, as the old fashioned privy and cesspool attached requires very careful attention and cleaning, so that it may not become a plague spot instead of a boon. Where the houses have proper yards they are, as a rule, kept very clean, but along the green there are a row of houses with no back yards attached. At the rear of these houses there is a kind of common, which has to serve as a back yard and a passage to the ball-alley. This passage has been lately kept very dirtily, there being manure strewn here and there carelessly, giving the whole place a very dirty appearance. The local government board inspector found fault with this on the occasion of his last visit. It would be very easy to provide yards for these houses, and also form a special passage for those frequenting the ball alley. There ought to be more labourers' cottages in the vicinity of the town. Undoubtedly, the labourers are to a certain extent to blame for this dearth of cottages, as it is almost impossible to persuade them that all that is required for an inquiry under the Labourers ' Cottage Act is to have a certain number of applications before the board. I have many times called the attention of the board to the scarcity of the supply of drinking water for the upper half of the town. The work of erecting the new pump is proceeding very slowly, but I understand the contractor has until November to finish the job, and declares he will have it completed within the time. This is urgently needed, as there are about one hundred and sixty children attending the Roman Catholic school close by daily.

The slaughterhouses are described by Fr Maxwell as being "filthy". The three butchers declare to me that the Rev. gentleman has never been inside their slaughterhouses. I am of opinion that the latter are kept clean, but I am not altogether satisfied with the disposal of the offal. I think this should be either burned or sent to some kennel. I am sure in a country like this, where there are packs of hounds kept, the owners of such would be glad to get the offal for the feeding of hounds. Perhaps Fr Maxwell means the disposal of offal when he speaks of 'filthy slaughterhouses'. The inspector found fault with a few places where piggeries were up against the back wall of dwelling houses. I reported these two to your board at their last meeting and the resolution I see is "No Order". In the interests of the inhabitants themselves, as well as the community at large, these piggeries should be removed from their present position. The "filthy cesspool" complained of is caused by the outflow from the closets attached to the Roman Catholic school being stopped, in a place called the 'Grove', by the tenant thereof. The exit from the 'Grove' is not sufficiently large to carry off the flow quickly. As a result of this, there is sometimes backward leakage towards the tenant's house, and it is to prevent this that he occasionally stops the outflow. Of course, he only does this occasionally. In fact, on the occasion of a previous visit, there was no pool at all. I recommend that the exit from the 'Grove' be at once enlarged and repaired so as to ensure a rapid discharge of the sewerage from the 'Grove'. This can be easily done. For the past year the health of Dunlavin has been exceedingly good. During that time I cannot recall an infectious case having occurred within the town. I think we may justly feel proud of this, at all events, as such a condition is very satisfactory. I may add that Dr Edgar Flynn, the local government board inspector, examined the town on the occasion of his last visit.
Your obedient servant, Edward Lyons, Medical Officer.
Mr Rochford: Regarding these reports, I have to say that Fr Maxwell was in the
slaughterhouses. This whole question wants to be thrashed out. It is proved that there is not proper house accommodation and if there was proper sewerage accommodation there would be no complaint about outflow or anything else. The landlords who are drawing rent for these holdings should be made remedy those defects, and this would meet the requirements of the case both from a moral and sanitary point of view. It is in the power of the council to compel landlords to provide proper sanitary accommodation.
Chairman: Have we that power, Mr Dagg?
Clerk: We have power to compel the landlord. He must provide proper sanitary accommodation for his tenants. I have been preaching that to you since I came here.
Mr Rochford: There are other matters to which your attention might be drawn. Some of those people who have no back yard throw slops into the cesspits and an offensive smell arises from them in the summer time. Would it not be better to have them closed up?
The clerk quoted section 178 of the Public Health (Ireland) Act to show that the council had power to compel landlords to provide proper sanitary accommodation.

The council meeting ended on this note and, no doubt, the councillors - including Rochford, who lived in Dunlavin - returned to their various homes. However, the matter did not end there. If Maxwell's original letter had rankled Lyons, there is no doubt that Lyons’ letter had now set the cat among the pigeons! Maxwell saw the doctor's letter as a personal attack and the priest would not take this lying down. Moves were evidently made within village circles and, following the next council meeting a month later, the Kildare Observer's report included two letters - one from a severely chastened Dr Lyons, who obviously had to eat humble pie and one from a triumphant Fr Maxwell, who definitely saw himself as vindicated and whose letter was just a little patronising and perhaps even bordering on smugness; readers may judge for themselves! The article, from the Kildare Observer of 9 August 1902 read thus:

THE STATE OF DUNLAVIN

Mr James H. Coleman J.P. (chairman) presided.
Following the appointment of Mr Timothy O'Toole as cottage rent collector in the district [The procedure of this election is described in great detail in the extract, but I have omitted it as irrelevant to the substance of this article] the meeting went on to discuss "the sanitary state of Dunlavin".

Dr Lyons, Dunlavin, wrote:
In my letter to the board on the occasion of its last meeting, I mentioned that the butchers of Dunlavin declared to me that Fr Maxwell was never in their slaughterhouses. What I meant to convey was that the butchers were not aware of his visit, but this, of course, does not mean that the Rev. gentleman did not visit them. I did not understand from his first letter that he had visited any of them. I visited him lately, on which occasion he told me he had been in Mr Fay's slaughterhouse. The local government board inspector, Dr Flynn, visited the latter place also and made no complaint. The date of his visit was 9 May 1902. I regret very much any annoyance that Fr Maxwell has been caused. I had no intention of making little of his letter in any way. I would respectfully suggest that the board appoint six or more of its members to meet in Dunlavin and examine the yards, and confer with me as to the best means of disposal of manure, so as to prevent its accumulation to any extent in the yards of the town, and also on the removal of the piggeries, which are too close to dwelling houses. These are two difficult problems to solve. The labourer says he must keep a pig to live, and wishes to accumulate manure to sow potatoes in the spring. Some of them even say that they could not get on without keeping pigs. A carman, too, must necessarily have manure accumulated within his yard, as at times of the year it is not easy to dispose of it. I will meet any gentlemen the board will appoint at their convenience in Dunlavin.

Rev. T. Maxwell P.P., Dunlavin also wrote:
Dr Lyons' report on my letter of 7 June ult. contained several erroneous and misleading statements which demand notice, as my character for truthfulness is questioned. The doctor asserts that for the past three years he heard no complaints from me about the sanitary condition of Dunlavin. I can candidly declare I rarely allowed a favourable opportunity to pass without directing attention to the filthy surroundings of the church, schools and presbytery -to the foul condition of the channels and catch drains in the street. Above all, to the inhuman manner in which many families were housed and deprived of decent sanitary accommodation. On one or two occasions his reply implied that if he reported these nuisances he might leave the town, as his private practice would be destroyed. I answered that being the case, the dispensary and sanitary duties ought not to be entrusted to the one person. He added that it would be greatly to his benefit were they separated. This may account for the modus operandi of the doctor as sanitary officer. In the second paragraph of his report, the doctor writes, partly quoting my words:

'In the few instances where "married and single people, grown up boys and girls etc., are huddled together", they are all members of the same family and not strangers, as one might be inclined to infer from the rev. gentleman's letter'.

Strangers were not before my mind when I penned these words. There was no need to mention them, for surely is it not bad enough, degrading and revolting to morality to have members of the same family, single and married, grown up brothers and sisters, indecently huddled together for want of proper home accommodation! "To err is human". However, this is too delicate a subject to dilate on minutely and profusely. The lack of house accommodation in Dunlavin is truly lamentable. Last week I was called to attend a dying man living with his father on the green. The fetid hole the agonising creature lay in was so small that I had to administer the last rites of our Church on my knees. When he expired, for want of space for a coffin a kind neighbour gave the use of a room. A scene like that does not redound to the credit of the much-vaunted refinement of the present day. Notwithstanding the assurances which the butchers gave Dr Lyons that I had never been inside of their slaughterhouses, I could bring forward many witnesses to testify that I have inspected them very frequently. These buildings could not be kept clean, owing to their enclosed position, and the difficulty experienced in the disposal of the offal. No wonder that the stench is often times fearful, and that the neighbours suffered in health. This nuisance will account for the town being infested with rats. Church, schools and presbytery suffer very much from these rodents. Slaughterhouses should be located far away from dwelling houses and then the offal could be more easily got rid of. I am pleased to learn that Dr Lyons has reported a number of houses destitute of proper sanitary accommodation, which by law they are bound to have, and which could be supplied by a small outlay. Mothers, with tears, have frequently pointed out to me the gross insult offered to themselves and their modest daughters by their deprived of decent conveniences and sanitary requirements, and so reducing them to the level of savages and the brute creation.
Not to prolong this letter, I will conclude with begging to be allowed to bear testimony to the very efficient and charitable manner in which Dr Lyons has discharged his duties as a dispensary doctor, and to his much valued skill in private practice. We both, I am sure, have the same objective in view -the welfare of those committed to our charge. Misunderstandings will sometimes arise, which ultimately will not lessen mutual friendship. I hope that our labour for the good of the community will meet the sanction and co-operation of your respected board and shield us from the opprobrious and disheartening decision of "No Order".
{Following the reading of these letters] Mr Rochford stated in the course of a long address that both Fr Maxwell and Dr Lyons were eager to have the town in a proper sanitary state. He (speaker) could say that Dunlavin was the cleanest little town in all Leinster. If they (the council) were to do away with the poor man's pigs, they might go and condemn all the farmers' houses in the whole country. He knew Dr Lyons to have to take his luncheon in a farmer's house in the same room as was the sow and a litter of bonhams. Dr Howes was also attending a woman in a house where there was another pig, who, Dr Howes stated, was far better covered and more comfortable than the patient herself. To his own knowledge, all the piggeries into Dunlavin were kept clean, and he himself had piggeries which were also kept clean.
Both letters were marked "Read".

Dr Edward Lyons, Dunlavin, also wrote calling attention to the difficulty of getting urgent cases removed from Dunlavin district to the union infirmary:
Not long ago I was called to see a man who was homeless, and in a dying condition in a shed in Dunlavin. I forget the date, but it was on a Saturday night at about 8.30 p.m. I had the greatest difficulty in getting him removed, owing to the fact that all the carmen had been busy in the early part of the day. Eventually a car was procured and the patient set off. There should be a covered ambulance, in which a patient could be put lying down, accessible for Dunlavin district, at any time of day or night.
Your obedient servant,
Dr. Edward Lyons, Medical Officer.

The reading of this letter was the last business of the meeting and once again, no doubt, the worthy councillors returned to their respective homes. I did not find any further mention of the matter in subsequent issues of the Kildare Observer and it would appear that the uneasy truce between the medic and the cleric continued to hold. This clash of two of the leading citizens of the village was over. Nonetheless, the clash and the very public way that it was reported in the newspapers throws some interesting light on life within Dunlavin in 1902. The letters written by Lyons and Maxwell during this unsavoury little incident provide some evidence of how things stood in the village a hundred years ago. They allude to a number of significant matters and give us some indication of what people in the Dunlavin area saw as important in 1902. Some of these things were probably unique to the Dunlavin area at the time and some were manifestations at village level of wider problems. We must remember that the village existed within a wider framework of the county, the nation and the United Kingdom. The list of issues perceived as important, raised (directly or indirectly) by these letters, does not make pretty reading and it includes the following:

· Concern regarding the disposal of certain types of waste.
· The keeping of pigs within the village proper.
· The dirty image of the village gained by tourists and travellers.
· Concern regarding sewerage disposal within the village.
· A reference to possible incest within the village
· The disproportionate power of the landlord and his agent.
· Public feuding between leading citizens of the village
· The lack of affordable housing in the area.
· Concern regarding the village water supply.
· Inaction by the local council in addressing a wide variety of issues.
· A patronising attitude from the village priest.
· Concern regarding the poor state of the parish school.
· A two-tiered health system, with the doctor's private practice uppermost.
· An extremely heavy workload for the doctor, who had various duties.
· A stench pervading the village, with possible health risks.
· Destitute houses within the village.
· Landlords flouting the laws regarding the entitlements of their tenants.
· A very large gap between the rich and poor of the area.

The list above, as I have stated, does not make pretty reading. Some historians and sociologists believe that village life is a microcosm of the larger society of which it forms a part. Indeed, Agatha Christie used just this hypothesis when she created the character of Miss Jane Marple and set her to work in the fictitious village of Saint Mary Mead. Like Miss Marple, the local historian is also a detective of sorts. The pages of the hundred year old local newspaper provide the data, and by reading between the lines, we begin to get some idea, not only of the everyday conditions in the village at the time, but also of some of the complex and, at times, nasty issues which were pertinent to the village back then. Rochford may have attempted to paper over the cracks with his address, in which he claimed that "Dunlavin is the cleanest little town in all Leinster", but the letters published in the Kildare Observer one hundred years ago tell a different story. Reviewing the above list once again, one can see just how much progress the Dunlavin area has made in the past century!

Grave of Irish high king Cormac Mac Art in Cillin Cormac (See article on St Palladius)

2006-06-03T12:05:00.001-07:00

Church Mountain, site of St Palladius's second church

2006-06-03T12:05:00.000-07:00

Saint Palladius and the Dunlavin area.

2006-06-03T09:17:00.005-07:00

Christianity arrived in Ireland during the fifth century A.D. Tradition has it that the new religion was introduced into this island by St. Patrick, who arrived on these shores in 432 A.D. There is no doubt that St Patrick, a citizen of the Roman Empire who probably hailed from Britain, preached with enormous zeal and did much to establish the Christian religion throughout much of Ireland. There is also no doubt that he was not the first Christian missionary either to land on the Irish coast or to work within Ireland’s complex mix of Celtic kingdoms. That honour fell to St. Palladius, a man who focussed much of his work in what is now County Wicklow and who established two churches near the site of the modern village of Dunlavin.

Very little is known about Palladius. He was born in Britain, probably c 400 A.D. However, the Palladii, were among the noblest families of France and several of them held high rank about this time in the Church of Gaul. The move from Gaul to Britain probably occurred under Julius the Apostate, when there was a Palladius holding prominent rank in the army of Gaul, who, for his fearless profession of the Christian faith, was exiled into Britain. It is reasonable to assume that a descendent of this Palladius, and a member of such a privileged Gaulo-British family, would attain the position of Deacon of Rome, would take much interest in the Church in Britain, and, would by his familiarity with the Celtic languages, be a natural choice to undertake the mission of becoming the first bishop of the Irish people.

Palladius became a deacon of the Church. He first came to prominence at the time of the Pelagian Heresy. Based on the teachings of the British monk and theologian Pelagius (d. 420 A.D.?), Pelagianism involved the denial of the doctrine of original sin. Pelagians believed that all individuals could choose not to sin and could move toward salvation of the soul without the assistance of God. According to the Chronicle of Prosper of Aquitaine, in 429 A.D:

Agricola, a Pelagian, son of Severianus, a Pelagian bishop, corrupted the churches of Britain by the insinuation of his doctrine; but at the insistence of the Deacon Palladius, [Pope] Celestine sends Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre as his representative to root out heresy and direct the Britons to the Christian Faith.

The move against Agricola and the Pelagians was successful, and in 431 A.D. the teachings of Pelagius were officially condemned as heresy. Deacon Palladius had been a leading figure in the struggle against the heretics. Some writers suggest that Palladius was a deacon of St. Germanus of Auxerre, but it is more probable that he held the higher rank of Deacon of Rome. Palladius obviously had significant influence in Rome, as he would soon become a bishop. It is unlikely that a deacon of Auxerre would rise to such heights. The Chronicle of St. Prosper uses the word diaconus [which invariably refers to the deacons of Rome] to denote Palladius, and the Book of Armagh expressly styles Palladius ‘ archdeacon of Pope Celestine, bishop of the city of Rome’.

The year 431 A.D. was an important one for Palladius. Not alone were the followers of Agricola and Pelagius declared heretics, Palladius himself was ordained a bishop by Pope Celestine and given his first mission. Palladius was sent to the edge of the known world – the island of Ireland. According to Prosper’s Chronicle in 431 A.D. In the consulship of Bassus and Antiocus [431] Palladius was consecrated by Pope Celestine and sent to the Irish believing in Christ, as their first bishop. When Prosper was writing the Chronicle in 447 A.D., he noted that By ordaining a bishop for the Irish, whilst he [Pope Celestine] laboured to keep the Roman island Christian, he made also the barbarous island Christian. The Annals of Ulster also state that To the Irish believing in Christ, Palladius ordained by Pope Celestine, was sent as their first bishop.

The wording of these sources is interesting, as it confirms that there were some Irish Christians who predated St. Patrick. Despite the fact that the Romans had never conquered Ireland, there was a flourishing trade between some of the Roman provinces, such as Gaul, and Ireland. Contacts with Britain were even closer, and as early as the fourth century, Britain was a Christian country with an advanced ecclesiastical organisation. Commerce and Christianity probably passed back and forth between Ireland and the continent, and Christianity infiltrated and penetrated slowly. Moreover, the lives of some of the Irish saints, such as Ciaran of Saigir and Declan of Ardmore, even indicate that they predated St Patrick. However, these lives were not written earlier than the twelfth century (or much later in some cases), and they cannot be taken as accurate evidence of a pre-Patrician church in Ireland. Despite this, some pockets of Christianity were established in Ireland long before the 430s.
In 431 A.D. Palladius and some clerical companions set out for Ireland, in search of one of these pockets of Christianity. They landed at Inbher De, in the territory of the Hy-Garchon, where Wicklow harbour now stands. At this time the area was occupied by the tribe of Cualann. This tribe gave their name to the territory of Cualu, which covered much of what is now east and central County Wicklow. The chieftain of the district had no welcome for the missionaries, and Palladius encountered initial problems with the natives. One source informs us that: Palladius, entering the land of the Irish, arrived at the territory of the men of Leinster where Nathi Mac Garchon was chief, who was opposed to him.

However, some of the tribe seem to have welcomed the newcomers and Palladius and his followers established their first church at a place called Teach na Romain. This site was located in the Vale of Avoca, about half a mile from the famous Meeting of the Waters at the confluence of the Avonmore and the Avonbeg rivers. Having built a church at Teach na Romain (the townland of Tigroney in the parish of Castle Mac Adam near Avoca), Palladius and his missionaries moved inland, crossing the mountains and arriving in West Wicklow.

The second church founded by Palladius was at Domnacha Arda. Domnacha Arda is reputed to be the burial place of the holy men and companions of Palladius, Sylvester and Sallonius. Indeed, some sources suggest that it was actually St. Sylvester, a disciple of Palladius, who founded this church. This name translates as ‘the church of the high field’ and is recognisable as an early form of the placename Donard. However, the church was probably not located in Donard village; the reference is likely to refer to the old church atop nearby Church Mountain. The church that has given the mountain its name was built within and on top of an existing cairn. Cairns were prehistoric burial places and were often placed at the summits of high mountains or in other places with a commanding view of the landscape. There is no doubt that Church Mountain was a sacred place and may have had a ritual significance long before the church was built there.

The cairn on Church Mountain is approximately a hundred feet in diameter and about ten feet high at its highest point. The church within the cairn is ruined now, but it was rectangular in shape with internal measurements of about thirty feet by twenty feet. This church dates from a much later time than that of Saint Palladius, but it may have been built on the same site as Palladius’ earlier church. Any church built by Palladius and his helpers would have probably been constructed from wood or wattle and daub. The stones of the church on Church Mountain have been dated to the twelfth century, and there was a long tradition of Christian pilgrimage associated with the site. In fact, George Petrie noted in 1808 that hundreds of people ascended the mountain on their knees and a priest read prayers from the altar on St. Lammas’ Day every year, but the practice stopped after the 1798 rebellion. The real symbolism of building a church on the pre-existing cairn was that the Christian religion supplanted the older pagan traditions, and the site of the church remained a place of pilgrimage for centuries.
The third church that St Palladius founded was called Cill Fine. The name means ‘the church of the septs’ and this site has been identified as either Glendalough or the old burial place of Cillin Cormac, located at Colbinstown near Dunlavin. This article takes Cillin Cormac as the correct location. Once again, the site was a significant one. Cillin Cormac was known to be the burial place of Cormac Mac Art, who is reputed to have been high king of Ireland from 254 to 277 A.D. Legend has it that Cormac died in battle and his body was placed on a cart drawn by two oxen. The king would be buried wherever the oxen stopped – and they stopped at Cillin Cormac. The story goes that the king’s men had taken his faithful hound away and placed him in a kennel in County Kildare. Different versions of the story place the kennel in Punchestown, on the Hill of Allen and at ‘Cnoc a Dubh’. Anyhow, during the burial, the anxious hound broke free and with a gigantic leap he descended right onto the king’s headstone, leaving the imprint of his paw, which can be seen to this day.

Palladius chose this important pagan burial place as the site of his third church, and again the symbolism is that of the Christian religion supplanting the older pagan traditions. The very name of the place indicates its Christianisation, as the pagan Cormac now rests in the Christian burial place, the Cillin or little churchyard. Today, Cillin Cormac contains both pre-Christian and Christian headstones. Among the headstones of interest are an ogham stone, a stone with a carving of a monk and the ‘dog’s paw’ stone marking the grave of Cormac Mac Art mentioned above.

While Palladius was building his churches in this locality, another event was also taking place. St. Patrick arrived on these shores in 432 A.D. and his Christian mission was becoming established. Where Palladius ran into problems, Patrick met with unrivalled success and has become recognised as the man who converted Ireland to Christianity and as the patron saint of Ireland. The seventh century ‘Life of St. Patrick’ by Muircu Maccumachthenus in the Book of Armagh actually refers to the failure of Palladius’ mission:
Palladius was ordained and sent to covert this land lying under wintry cold, but God hindered him, for no man can receive anything from earth unless it be given to him from heaven; and neither did those fierce and cruel men receive his doctrine readily.
The later life of Palladius is shrouded in mystery. The Book of Armagh tells us
Nor did he himself wish to spend time in a strange land, but returned to him who sent him. On his return hence, however, having crossed the first sea and commenced his land journey, he died in the territory of the Britons. According to the Liber Hymnorum [Palladius] was not well received, but was forced to go round the coast of Ireland towards the north, until driven by a tempest he reached the extreme part of Mohaidh towards the south, where he founded the church of Fordun, and ‘Pledi’ is his name there. The Vita Secunda, another Life of St. Patrick, tells us that After a short time Palladius died in the plain of Girgin in a place which is now called Fordun. but others say that he was crowned with martyrdom there.
The Vita Quinta maintains that St. Palladius, seeing that he could not do much good there, wishing to return to Rome, migrated to the Lord in the region of the Picts. Others, however, say that he was crowned with martyrdom in Ireland.

It is possible that Palladius ended up in Scotland, but the Irish documents are the only sources to substantiate this claim, and they were written a long time after the events. Scottish manuscripts, including Fordun's Chronicle and later writings, are regarded as purely mythical. One states that Palladius served in Scotland for twenty-three years; another makes him the tutor of St. Sevanus, and a contemporary of St. Adamnan, and of Brude, king of the Picts. However Brude’s reign was c 697-706 A.D., so this certainly does not fit the Palladius who arrived in Ireland in 431 A.D. Nonetheless, St. Palladius is honoured with a feast day on 6 July in the Scottish calendar. The Aberdeen Breviary describes him as ‘both apostle and doctor’. In some ancient records he is styled a martyr, but it is uncertain whether he was actually killed for his faith. It is possible that the word martyr here is used in the sense of ‘white martyrdom’, probably because of the hardships he endured during his missionary career in Ireland. What is certain is that he encountered opposition during his Irish mission, and was never as successful as St. Patrick. He and Patrick probably overlapped in their missionary work for a while, as (given the political structure of Celtic Ireland), there is every reason for believing that missionaries could have worked in different parts of the island without having contact.

Despite this, Palladius did achieve some success in his own right. He founded three churches, in the face of stiff opposition. He consolidated a fledgling Christian Church in the County Wicklow area and he paved the way for others, including Patrick (who also landed in Wicklow when he arrived in Ireland) to follow. Ironically the success of Patrick as a missionary has meant that much of the groundwork done by Palladius has been forgotten, even in this area where he operated during his lifetime. Ultimately perhaps, Palladius’ life should not be measured by the success or failure of his mission, but by how much he endured and what he gave for his cause and his God.

Thornton Lace

2004-10-25T17:54:00.000-07:00

IT IS not perhaps widely known, but Thornton, a townland just outside Dunlavin, holds an esteemed position in the world of lace making. There was a period during the mid-nineteenth century when Thornton lace was a much sought after commodity and it was to be found in the homes of the rich and famous, not alone in Ireland, but also in Britain, Continental Europe and even further afield.
The Dunlavin area experienced something of a population boom during the 1830s . However, that boom included the creation of an 'under- class' of landless farm labourers and cottiers and a decade later it was this under-class who were most devastated by the Great Famine. The famine impacted heavily on the Dunlavin area during the years 1845-50 and losses through death and emigration here were comparable to many parts of the West of Ireland. Indeed, the area lost about a quarter of its inhabitants. The role of the landlord class during the famine has been much debated and Elizabeth Smith of Baltiboys House was particularly scathing in her comments about the landlords of west Wicklow at that time. However, there were exceptions -the Smiths themselves, for example, did try to alleviate the horrendous poverty surrounding them. Another such example of attempted famine relief was the project instigated by Mrs. W.C. Roberts of Thornton and it was from this project that Thornton lace was born.
However the story really began much earlier and on the continent. In the late 1820s a certain Mademoiselle Riego de la Blanchardaire discovered that a particular type of Spanish needlepoint could very effectively be adapted to Irish materials. In 1836 she published a book of patterns -a magnum opus which had taken her five years to compile. This book led to the establishment of many 'Crochet Centres' in Ireland, the first one being at the Ursuline Convent in Blackrock, Co. Cork. Indeed, Irish crochet was often referred to as 'Nuns' Work' and that was certainly the case until the Famine struck the country in 1845.
Crochet is often regarded as allied to, rather than as ‘real’, lace. It reputedly originated in the East and spread westwards through Europe. It was certainly popular in convents in France long before the 1789 revolution. Its introduction to the Ursulines of Blackrock probably was through a 'French Connection' but the real expansion of the craft occurred during the famine and immediate post-famine period.
At the height of the famine, in 1847, Mrs. W. C. Roberts of Thornton, Co. Kildare provided the initiative and drive to start up crochet in this area as a means of creating some employment for the famine-smitten poor of the district. The crochet industry in Cork gave employment to many girls whom the mayor described as being 'in a state of the most helpless and hopeless idleness, a burden upon their humble parents and of little use to the community'. Mrs. Roberts may have visited Cork in 1846 or 1847 and in a letter of hers, which survives, she refers to the first crochet classes at Thornton. The classes were started at a time when polka [wool] knitting done in the district could no longer be marketed. Finding a piece of crochet that her sister-in-law had brought from Dover, she set five women to copy it. The piece was 'poorly designed, not unlike crabs and spiders in succession 'but she lent the women 'bits of handsome old lace to study as well and of their own ingenuity they brought it [crochet] to its present perfection'. The knitting carried out in the other polka enterprise must, she observed, have given the workers some training in accuracy and speed.
So began a cottage industry which was to thrive over the next decade or so. In the middle of the nineteenth century simple crochet was not only saleable, but also easy to make and launder as well as being cheap to produce. It needed no equipment except thread and a home made hook and the rise of the middle classes in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century prior to the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 created a demand for a cheap form of 'lace'.
The Thornton Lace industry flourished quickly and at its height in the early 1850s it employed about seven hundred workers. Although Thornton was actually just across the border in Co. Kildare, Dunlavin was the nearest village and a large proportion of the females employed by Mrs. Roberts came from the village and its immediate hinterland. Indeed, the industry was so successful that it generated payments of between one hundred and three hundred pounds during every month between the years of 1852-1859 inclusive. As the workforce expanded, the level of skill improved and it was during the 1850s that specialized pieces of Thornton Lace became prized possessions in many upper-class homes within the British Isles and far beyond their shores.
However factors which would eventually cause the demise of the Thornton Lace industry were now at work. As 'Crochet-Centres' spread throughout the country, the Thornton industry faced stiff competition. It has been suggested that the Thornton industry lost out 'for the want of strictness in compelling the workers to do perfect work'. The poor working conditions and uneducated workforce probably were factors in the refusal of some of the girls to take instruction from their teachers. 'They were supported in this independence by people who bought up their uncultivated work'. Poverty meant that the girls were more interested in producing quantity than quality and many of them sold their work as quickly as they could, as this speed of production generated a steady, if small, income from the lower middle-class market.
Coupled with the independent spirit of many workers was a suspicion of the intentions of their teachers and patrons such as Mrs. W. C. Roberts if they belonged to the established Church of Ireland -which was not the Church of most of the girls employed. The girls were often ignorant of changing fashions abroad and, although Mrs. Roberts kept up sales for as long as possible, the difficulty of getting good designs made by workers who wanted to 'do their own thing' finally killed off the industry. By the 1860s crochet had degenerated into a cottage craft and the output was bought by unscrupulous commercial agents who were no longer motivated by any spirit of Famine relief in Ireland. Mrs. Roberts now reported that the total earnings of her school of Thornton Lace were reduced to two pounds ten shillings per month.
Moreover, the post-famine years saw the large-scale production of machine embroidery and lace so crochet became an uncertain occupation. There was still a demand for really fine crochet work, but the Thornton standards had slipped and there was more competition around ...notably the new Clones Lace industry. The demise of Thornton lace was, in fact, inextricably linked with the rise of Clones Lace -and therein lies a tale of the pupil surpassing the master!
Shortly after the establishment of the Thornton Lace industry in 1847, a Mrs. Cassandra Hand, wife of Rev. Thomas Hand of Clones, Co. Monaghan, asked Mrs, W. C. Roberts to send a teacher of crochet making to Clones in an effort to provide famine relief similar to the Thornton model. In fact, in the years following 1847, Mrs. Roberts' school of Thornton Lace sent no less than twenty-eight teachers of crochet to various distressed districts of Ireland. Cassandra Hand had been in contact with a Mrs. J. Maclean from Tynan in Co. Armagh, who, in turn, had visited Col. and Mrs. Tottenham of New Ross in Co. Wexford. Both the Tottenhams and the Macleans had received crochet teachers from Mrs. Roberts in Thornton. The diffusion of crochet teachers from Thornton to Clones thus went via Wexford and Armagh. There is no doubt that Mrs. Cassandra Hand was a remarkable woman. She threw herself into the new venture with great energy and she had considerable business acumen. A cottage industry took root in Clones and it thrived. Within a few years, one thousand five hundred people were employed in making Clones lace. Of course, Clones was a much larger settlement than Dunlavin with its Thornton lace industry, but it was not the larger size of the Clones workforce (at one stage Mrs. Hand was actually worried that her creation was getting too big!) that spelt the death-knell for the Thornton product. It was, rather, the superior quality of the Clones material which ensured its survival in a post-famine world of increased competition and new methods of mass production. In an ironic twist, the crochet teacher sent by Mrs. Roberts to Mrs. Hand was actually too good, and her higher standards established the fineness of Clones lace as a by-word for quality. By the 1860s, Clones had totally outstripped the now almost defunct Thornton as a lace-making centre. The lessons learned in Thornton bore fruit in Clones and the high standards established in the Monaghan town, where careless and inferior work was rejected out of hand by Mrs. Hand (no pun intended!), meant that just as Mrs. Roberts' teachers had spread from her centre in Thornton, Mrs. Hand and her successors sent teachers into neighbouring counties to teach the Clones type of crochet. Lace from these Northern counties became famous in its own right - none more so than the original Clones lace - and formed a specialised part of a wider Northern textile industry, which became best- known for the production of linen. However, the seed that spawned this Northern lace industry originated right here in the townland of Thornton, only a mile or so from the village of Dunlavin. In yet another twist to the tale, Thornton lace became very collectable as the years rolled on. The short duration of the Thornton industry meant that surviving samples of Thornton lace work are quite rare and they now command a high price at sales and auctions. The name 'Thornton' is well known and widely respected in the world of lace collectors, and much of the earlier work in particular is among the best examples of its kind anywhere. As Dunlavin is now renowned for its annual Festival of Arts, we recall a time when the village and its environs contained many artists who were recognised - on this island and far beyond - as being among the best in their field; for lace making is truly an art in itself!

Historical, Mythical, Mystical Dunlavin

2004-10-23T13:20:00.000-07:00

Dunlavin, an Irish village in west Wicklow, has a long history of settlement. The name Dunlavin has two explanations. Firstly it refers to the Fort of Liamhán, who was a legendary princess of North Leinster, supposedly slain for eloping with a prince from South Leinster. The scene of her death was Tournant Moat, a Celtic mound or fort about a mile from the present village. The other explanation of the name is the Fort of the Elms, surely a reference to the well-wooded appearance of these parts in Celtic times. The whole area surrounding Dunlavin was settled even before the arrival of the Celts. Stone circles like those at Castleruddery and Brewel could date from c.2,000B.C. There was an Iron Age Hill Fort on Spinan’s Hill, between Dunlavin and Baltinglass.The Celts established themselves here during the bronze Age, and they were quick to embrace Christianity when it arrived in Ireland during the fifth century A.D. Traditionally, St. Patrick is the man credited with the genesis of the new religion in Ireland, but there were already some pockets of Christianity existing before St. Patrick’s arrival. One such pocket existed in the Dunlavin area and was due to the work of St. Palladius. Palladius was born in Britain and was the son of a high-ranking Byzantine official of the Roman Empire. The ‘Annals of Ulster’ state that: ‘To the Irish believing in Christ, Palladius, ordained by Pope Celestine, was sent as their first bishop’. In the year 431 Palladius and a group of companions landed at Wicklow harbour and moved inland, establishing three religious settlements: one in Tigroney near Avoca, one on the summit of Church mountain near Donard and one near Cillín Cormac to the Northeast of which is Dunlavin. The name Donard, it has been suggested, is a shortened form of Domnacha Arda ‘the church of the high field’ and refers to the Church mountain site established by St. Sylvester, a disciple of Palladius. The first Dunlavin Christian settlement was called Cell Fine ‘the church of the septs’.The early work of Palladius was strengthened by the arrival of St. Patrick, and the centuries following the establishment of Christianity in this area witnessed the growth of the monastic way of life. Glendalough was the great Wicklow monastery, but there was also one at Tober, near Dunlavin, and the fishpond on the river Griese was first constructed by the Tober monks. The Irish monasteries provided a place of refuge in a violent world. Many local placenames hint at this violence; names that include Dun and Rath for example refer to defensive sites. Dunlavin and Rathsallagh were violent places caught in a cockpit of wars between the old Celtic kingdoms of North Leinster and South Leinster. Two large battles were fought at Dun Bolg in 598A.D. and in 870A.D. The final years of the first millennium also saw the threat of Viking raids and the end of the monastic ‘golden age’. The Dunlavin area bade farewell to the first millennium with the Battle of Glen Mama in 999 or 1000 A.D., when Brian Boru defeated the Vikings and Leinstermen, as he would do once again at Clontarf in 1014 - but this time at the cost of his own life.The second thousand years after the birth of Christ began with a move to reform the Celtic church. However, reform was not fast enough for Pope Adrian IV and a papal bull in 1155 granted permission for a Norman invasion of Ireland. This happened in 1169 and by about 1200 the O’Toole and O’Byrne families had been driven into the Wicklow Mountains, including the Donard and Davidstown areas, just above Dunlavin. Normans had settled the lowlands of neighbouring Kildare and the Dunlavin area once again became a cockpit of war. The year 1275 saw this area being fortified against attacks from the Irish mountain-dwellers. These continued into the fourteenth century and one of the worst incidents happened in 1332.When the Normans arrived they re-organised the structure of the Irish church. Many Irish chieftains did not accept these changes and Norman churches were often burnt by the marauding Irish. In 1332 Fryanstown church (near Dunlavin) was burnt, along with 80 people who had fled to the church for sanctuary from the violence. Records state that ‘when a certain chaplain of the said church, clothed in sacred vestments wished to leave the building with the body of the Lord, they drove him back with their lances and burnt him with the others’. This incident resulted in the excommunication of ‘O’Toole and his accomplices, enemies and rebels of the King’. This area remained a dangerous place into the fifteenth century. Archbishop Tregury of Dublin would not visit Dunlavin in 1468 because ‘it lay in the Irish territory on the marches of the Pale so he dared not visit on account of the war in those parts’.

To be continued…

Dunlavin from Early Modern Times to the Present

2004-10-13T13:12:00.000-07:00

The sixteenth century witnessed the Reformation. The activities of Martin Luther affected mainland Europe, but King Henry VIII’s Anglican Reformation had a more immediate effect in this area. The Anglican Reformation was much more successful in England than it was in Ireland, where it met with resistance almost from the outset. In 1580 Edmund of Tober supported Viscount Baltinglass and Fiach Mac Hugh O’Byrne when they threw in their lot with the Earl of Desmond, who had rebelled against Queen Elizabeth I. Edmund ended on the losing side, fled and died in Portugal in 1594. Fiach Mac Hugh was killed in 1597 and the upland Donard and Davidstown areas were finally subjugated, resulting in the shiring of Wicklow as a separate county in 1606. The 1640s witnessed another rebellion, after which the local landowner Peter Sarsfield lost his lands hereabouts for having supported the rebels. These lands were acquired by the Church of Ireland archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Launcelot Bulkeley, and the village of Dunlavin was established by Sir Richard Bulkeley in the late seventeenth century. Sir Richard intended building a university here, but due to obstacles, including opposition from the Church of Ireland’s see of Dublin, this plan came to naught.

As well as the establishment of the new village of Dunlavin on its present site, the 1680s and 1690s saw the triumph of the Williamites over the Jacobites, and with it came a wave of anti-Catholic sentiment. The parish priest of the Glen of Imaal, Fr. Laurence O’Toole, hid his vestments and altar vessels in 1692 and went into hiding. The first penal laws were passed in 1695, and penal measures continued to be passed until 1728, mainly aimed at landholding Catholics at first but ultimately threatening the practice of the Catholic religion itself. Catholic services were held in secret and one local site of such services was the Mass Rock in the Glen of Imaal. One local tradition tells of how, when the authorities arrived in the Glen, a member of the congregation took the place of the priest and was hanged at the Mass Rock in an act of self-sacrifice similar to that of Fr. Max Kolbe in Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II.

The penal laws continued into the eighteenth century, but did not stop the development of Dunlavin village, which became a market town for the parish. The fine market house was commissioned in 1737 by Robert Tynte, and it remains a landmark building in the village to this day. The Tyntes had arrived in the area in 1702 when James Worth-Tynte married into the Bulkeley family and they still own some local properties. The unequal division of wealth within eighteenth-century society was one reason behind the United Irish movement of the 1790s. The rebellion of 1798 saw 36 men executed on the fair green of Dunlavin, and more hanged from the pillars of the market house. The fair green executions were beside the site used for Catholic worship, so the scene of the executions was well chosen! Many of those executed came from the Donard area and they included John Dwyer of Seskin. It was another Dwyer, the famous rebel leader Michael, who continued the resistance until December 1803, holding out in the Glen of Imaal long after the rebellion had ceased in the rest of the country. Michael Dwyer was transported to Australia in 1805 and the Dunlavin area quietened down and continued to increase in population as the nineteenth century progressed.

One result of the relative peace and prosperity – and the relaxation of the penal laws – was the building of the new Protestant church the present Catholic church, which both date from c.1815. The first parish priest here was Fr. John Hyland and the earliest parish registers record a continuing growth in population in the early nineteenth century. However this increase was abruptly halted when famine stalked the region in the 1840s. This region was badly hit by the famine. The upland portions of Donard and Davidstown had more in common with the West of Ireland than with lowland Leinster. The small upland farms on the sides of the Glen of Imaal were wiped out and the whole parish suffered terribly during the period from 1845 to 1850. Dunlavin village lost about 25% of its people and the whole parish lost nearly 40% of its inhabitants during these years. The post-famine years witnessed continuing emigration and many people - especially young people - left this area never to return. It was a trend that would continue right up to the 1950s.

After the famine, life changed for those left behind in this parish. Land was no longer subdivided and marriage rates and birth rates dropped as a result. The Catholic ‘devotional revolution’ changed the way that they worshipped and the pattern to St. Nicholas’s holy well in Tornant, for example, became less popular in the later nineteenth century. The emphasis was now heavily on formal devotional practice and Canon James Whittle (a native of Dunlavin who succeeded Canon Hyland on 8 November 1862) was responsible for the building of the Church of Our Lady of Dolours and St. Patrick in Davidstown, which opened its doors on 16 September 1875. The Catholic parish now had three churches for three faith-communities and people in remoter areas of the Glen were closer to a centre of worship. The next parish priest, Fr. Frederick Donovan, was a champion of the land reform and home rule movements of the late nineteenth century. His involvement in the National League and, after the Parnell scandal, the National Federation meant that by the time of his death in 1896 the local farmers of our parish were well on the way to becoming the owners of their own properties.

Dunlavin church was renovated in 1898, during Fr. Maxwell’s tenure as parish priest. As the twentieth century dawned both Dunlavin and the new Davidstown church were in pristine condition, but Donard Church was a cause for concern. The foundation stone for the new church in Donard was eventually laid by archbishop Edward J. Byrne on Sunday 12 July 1925, but before that event took place much had already happened in the first quarter of the present century. The Dunlavin area lost many young men in the First World War, and in its aftermath came the War of Independence. This place was again touched by violence and Donard experienced the Black and Tan tactics, while Dunlavin witnessed the murder of Robert Dixon at his house in Milltown on 2 February 1921. After the treaty came bitter Civil War, when brother turned against brother and families were divided. Peace was eventually restored, but times remained hard and emigration continued to haunt our parish through the hungry thirties, the years of the Emergency in the forties and the stagnant fifties. The 1960s saw the beginning of better times.

The last three decades of our present century have been a time of affluence, despite the recessions of the 70s and 80s. Our overall standard of living in the Dunlavin is probably the highest it has ever been. Over the centuries, our own place has seen terrible events, but is now peaceful and prosperous and we face the future with confidence. We cannot, and should not forget our past, but we can consign it to its proper place and look to a better future and let the early 21st century be remembered by future generations as a time of peace, of growth and of renewal due to the efforts of the present inhabitants of Dunlavin village and its hinterland.