The Little Book of Kildare E-Book

Chris Lawlor

• Herausgeber: THP Ireland
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 211

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Did You Know? - Kildare's highest point is Cupidstown Hill near Kilteel. - St Brigid, the patroness of Ireland, was buried in Kildare. - When built, the magnificent Castletown House near Celbridge was the largest private residence in Ireland. - The origins of Guinness can actually be traced to County Kildare, not Dublin. The Little Book of Kildare is a compendium of fascinating, obscure, strange and entertaining facts about this historic county. Here you will find out about Kildare's great houses and historic towns, its monastic heritage, its literary traditions and its famous (and occasionally infamous) men and women. Through quaint villages and bustling towns, this book takes the reader on a journey through County Kildare and its and colourful vibrant past. A reliable reference and a quirky guide, this book can be dipped into time and again to reveal something new about the people, the heritage and the secrets of this ancient country.

Leseprobe

For my fantastic daughters-in-law, Maryand Orla. Thank you for everything andI hope you both enjoy the book.

First published 2015

This paperback edition published 2024

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Chris Lawlor, 2015, 2024

The right of Chris Lawlor to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9780750963817

Typesetting and origination by The History Press.

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

CONTENTS

Introduction

1. Monastic Kildare

2. Kildare’s Great Houses

3. Kildare Rebels

4. Success and Failure: Industrial Kildare

5. Kildare’s Literary Ladies

6. A County in Chaos: Kildare in 1798

7. Kildare’s Earls: A Noble Tradition

8. Troubled Times: Kildare 1914-24

9. Breeders and Bloodstock: Kildare and Horses

10. Kildare’s Historic Towns

About the Author

The towns of County Kildare.

INTRODUCTION

Kildare, a medium-sized Irish inland county, is unique, scenic and historic. Much of the east of the county is covered in glacial boulder clay soils, while the west is composed of peaty soils and contains part of the great Bog of Allen. The bogs were created by decaying ancient vegetation and they form a vital natural resource and a very important wildlife habitat. Kildare has a folk museum and bog interpretative centre at Lullymore.

Kildare’s highest point is at Cupidstown Hill near Kilteel, but the county is generally flat. The most famous hill in the west of the county is the Hill of Allen, which commands a breathtaking view over the surrounding landscape. The plains of Kildare provide rich agricultural land, but the best-known plain in the county is the Curragh. This is a large undulating glacial outwash plain and, though dotted with freely wandering sheep, it is better known for its association with horse racing, an activity with which the county is synonymous. All parts of County Kildare provide attractive walking and cycling routes, and both are popular pastimes for many inhabitants and visitors.

While the natural beauty of Kildare attracts many visitors, the county’s heritage is also a significant factor for many tourists. Historic sites such as Moone High Cross, Castletown House and Maynooth College abound throughout the county. This book takes a look at some aspects of Kildare’s colourful history. It focuses both on what happened in the county and on the exploits of some of Kildare’s sons and daughters, many of whom excelled and were influential in various fields of human endeavour. Hard-nosed industrialists, sentimental poets, Unionists and Republicans all feature in these pages. The stories included in this book range from the lives of lords to the deaths of rebels. From saintly nuns to bloody battles, County Kildare has seen it all over the centuries. Kildare people have made history in many different fields and The Little Book of Kildare tries to capture some of that astonishing history. I am indebted to Mario Corrigan of the local studies section of Kildare County Library, Newbridge, for the illustrations used in the text. I hope you enjoy delving into the past of fascinating Kildare!

Chris Lawlor, 2015

1

MONASTICKILDARE

County Kildare has a long and proud monastic tradition, dating back to the fifth century, when St Palladius founded a church at Cillín Cormac near Kilcullen.

ST PALLADIUS

Very little is known about Palladius. He was born in Britain, probably around AD 400. The Palladii were among the noblest families of France and several of them held high rank about this time in the Gallic Church. Their 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 to Britain. It is reasonable to assume that a descendent of this Palladius – and a member of such a privileged Gallic-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 was already a deacon of St Germanus of Auxerre, but it is more probable that he attained the higher rank of Deacon of Rome. Palladius evidently had significant influence in Rome, as he would soon become a bishop. Prosper’s Chronicle 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 AD 431 was a significant one for Palladius, as he was ordained as a bishop by Pope Celestine. Bishop Palladius was sent to the edge of the known world – the island of Ireland. According to Prosper’s Chronicle in AD 431: ‘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.’

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 significant, as it confirms that there were some Irish Christians who pre-dated 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 Ciarán of Saigir and Declan of Ardmore, indicate that they pre-dated St Patrick. Despite this, some pockets of Christianity were established in Ireland long before the 430s. In AD 431, Palladius and some clerical companions set out for Ireland, in search of one of these pockets of Christianity. They landed in County Wicklow, where Palladius and his followers established two churches, before crossing into County Kildare.

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 the old burial place of Cillín Cormac, located at Colbinstown, near Kilcullen. The site was significant, as it was a pre-existing cemetery and probably already used for religious ritual. Cillín Cormac was known to have been a sacred site from pre-Christian times. Legend has it that, centuries later, a saintly Irish king named 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 Cillín Cormac. The myth 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 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 the symbolism of the legend is that of the Christian religion supplanting the older pagan traditions. The very name of the place indicates its Christianisation, as the saintly Cormac now rests in the Christian burial place, the Cillín, or little churchyard. Today, the site contains both pre-Christian and Christian headstones. Among the headstones of interest is an ogham (a type of ancient carved Irish writing) stone, another with a carving of a monk and the aforementioned ‘dog’s paw’ stone marking the grave of King Cormac.

While Palladius was at work in County Kildare, St Patrick arrived on Irish shores in AD 432. Where Palladius’s mission ran into problems, Patrick’s met with success and he 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 convert 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 those fierce and cruel men did not receive his doctrine readily.’

Palladius encountered opposition during his Irish mission, and was never as successful as Patrick. He and Patrick probably overlapped in their missionary work for a while, as (given the fragmented political structure of Celtic Ireland) there is every reason for believing that missionaries could have worked in different parts of the island without contact. According to tradition, Patrick also worked in County Kildare, converting people and performing baptisms such as those at Naas of Oilhill and Illann, the sons of Dubhlang, the King of Leinster. Ironically the success of Patrick as a missionary has meant that much of the groundwork done by Palladius has been forgotten, even in the Kildare region in which he operated. However, as a result of the introduction of Christianity, many monasteries flourished in Ireland, which by the end of the sixth century had entered the monastic golden age, and County Kildare was no exception.

ST BRIGID

One name stands above all others in relation to the establishment of a monastic tradition in Kildare, and unusually it is that of a woman – St Brigid, the patron saint of County Kildare and patroness of Ireland. Brigid built on the groundwork done by Palladius and Patrick and the Brigidine tradition in Kildare established the foundations of later devotion in the county. Not a lot of verifiable facts exist about Brigid’s life and we are dependent on oral tradition and medieval hagiographies for the little information we have. According to folklore, she was born about eight years prior to Patrick’s death in AD 453. Her father was a Celtic chieftain named Dubhtach, who hailed from what is today County Offaly, and her Christian mother, Broicseach, was his concubine, but Dubhtach sold the pregnant Broicseach to a druid from Faughart, County Louth, and this is where Brigid was born. The young Brigid was gentle and kind to all, and many tales are told of her loving and charitable acts for those less fortunate than herself. She was taught Christianity by her mother and eventually the child’s holiness persuaded the druid and all his family to convert to Christianity as well. He granted Brigid and her mother their freedom and they returned to Dubhtach in Offaly, where her generous and charitable actions continued, causing the chief to observe that she would turn him into a pauper with her donations to the poor and needy! He tried to arrange a marriage for Brigid with his kinsman, but the young girl made her opposition to this plan very clear, choosing instead to become a nun and devote her life wholly to God.

At that time many converted Christian Celtic young men were flocking to the newly established monasteries to partake of the monastic life. Large numbers of women also joined convents and Brigid and seven other novices professed their vows at Croghan, County Offaly, c. AD 470, receiving the veil from St Mac Caille. The nuns founded two convents at Ushnagh (County Westmeath) and Elphin (County Roscommon), before going on to establish Brigid’s famous house in County Kildare. Brigid’s new convent was located in the shade of a huge oak tree, so it was known as Cill Dara, the church of the oak tree, and it is from this place that County Kildare got its name.

The new religious community would have lived in small huts, probably constructed from wattle and daub. Wattle was the name given to small saplings, usually of willow or hazel wood, interwoven horizontally around a series of vertical wooden stakes driven into postholes in the ground. Daub was a wet mud used as plaster, which covered the wattle, filled the cracks and kept out the draughts. When the mud dried, it hardened and created a weatherproof wall. The use of this construction method by early Irish monasteries and convents explains why so little remains of them. Typically, ruined ecclesiastical sites today contain stone buildings, but these were introduced at a later stage.

The community of nuns in Kildare included women from all backgrounds and, as their fame spread, a monastery was also founded there. This meant that a bishop was needed to rule over the establishments, and Brigid was instrumental in choosing Conleth, who hailed from Old Connell, beside the modern town of Newbridge, to ‘govern the church with her in Episcopal dignity that nothing of the sacerdotal order might be wanting in her churches’. Stories of Brigid’s enormous generosity such as her giving a leper the jewelled chain which she had received from the Queen of Leinster, her use of Conleth’s fine new vestments to clothe the poor and her feeding the hungry with a special feast that had been prepared for a visiting bishop continued to emerge. Many other stories about Brigid attributed miraculous cures to her intercession. One such story concerns Brigid and the blind nun, Sister Dara.

According to this tale, Brigid was sitting with Dara on a splendid summer evening, describing to her the beauty of God’s creation. Brigid was enraptured by the natural beauty around her, but her happiness was tinged with sadness due to the realisation that Dara could not see it. Wishing to share her joy on that beautiful evening, Brigid laid her hands on Dara and prayed to God to give Dara the gift of sight. Dara’s blindness was cured and she could suddenly see. As Dara gazed around at the landscape with its trees, grass and flowers, she grew troubled and turned to Brigid. She thanked Brigid for what she had done, but then made a most unusual and unexpected request. She asked Brigid to pray again, this time that her blindness would be restored, saying, ‘Please close my eyes again, for when I see the beauty of this world I forget the beauty of the next, and the image of God glows less brightly in my soul’. The surprised Brigid did as she requested, and Dara’s world became dark again, leaving Brigid to realise that Dara believed that God had given her a gift more precious and more lasting than sight. The story illustrates not only the power attributed to Brigid, but also the spirit of asceticism and self-sacrifice among the early Irish converts to Christianity.

Miracle stories such as this enhanced the cult of St Brigid, which was very strong throughout all of Ireland in the Middle Ages. In Irish tradition, she was known as the ‘Mary of the Gael’. She controlled about thirty convents during her lifetime, and, following her death, her feast day was marked all over medieval Europe. Many of the stories told about Brigid portray her as not only saintly, but also a superhuman being. She turns water into beer for an important visitor; she controls the behaviour of animals; she can even hang her gown on one of the sun’s rays. These events suggest that Brigid was perceived in the light of an older pagan goddess – and the Celts did have such a goddess, also named Brigid (or Brigit), before the arrival of Christianity. Brigit has been loosely identified with the Roman Minerva (Greek Artemis) and her feast day, known as Imbolg, marked the beginning of spring. St Brigid’s feast day falls on 1 February, which suggests that the Christian saint supplanted the pagan goddess in the belief systems of the Irish. In these circumstances, it is unsurprising that Brigid became not only the patron saint of County Kildare, but also the patroness of the whole of Ireland.

Brigid died around AD 523 and was buried in Kildare. Her tomb became a place of pilgrimage and attracted huge crowds annually on 1 February. She left a very impressive legacy to her adopted county, and she, more than anyone else, played a huge role in consolidating the Christian faith in both the county and the town of Kildare. Her foundation flourished, and the monastery in particular grew in size and importance as the centuries progressed. A famous scriptorium was active in Kildare during the seventh century. The church, which contained the remains of both Brigid and Conleth, was described in glowing terms by the monk Cogitosis, and later, following the Norman invasion of 1169, when Giraldus Cambrensis (also known as Gerald of Wales) visited Ireland in 1185, he recorded the fact that he had seen a fantastic manuscript, the Book of Kildare, which he described as containing the gospel texts and many beautifully coloured illustrations and designs. The Book of Kildare seems to have been a rival to the famous Book of Kells, but sadly this Kildare treasure is no longer in existence, having been lost or destroyed at some time over the turbulent centuries. However, despite the loss of this written relic of Kildare’s Christian past, the growth of the religious tradition during the centuries following the death of St Brigid ensured that the county contains many monastic archaeological sites. One of the finest of these is located in south Kildare, near its border with County Carlow, in the village of Castledermot.

Church and Tower at Castledermot in 1792 by Shuman.

CASTLEDERMOT

The Irish name for Castledermot is Diseart Diarmada, which literally means Dermot’s desert. The idea of meeting God in a wilderness, a spiritual desert, is strongly embedded in the Christian biblical tradition, and in Irish monasticism it is particularly associated with the Céili Dé movement. As the larger monasteries grew wealthier and became embroiled in worldliness, a new dynamic began to emerge in monastic Ireland, one in which monks wished to return to the simpler way of life in the earliest monasteries. In AD 774, Máel Ruain of Tallaght instituted a new rule for his monks, stressing the importance of prayer over everything else. These monks made regular daily visits to the church for communal prayer, and recited all 150 psalms between these visits. They were encouraged to mortify themselves by praying the psalms while kneeling with arms outstretched, or even while standing in a river or stream. They partook of only one daily meal, abstaining from meat even on feast days and drank water rather than alcohol, which Máel Ruain viewed as the ‘liquor that causes men to forget God’. Céili Dé monasteries began to appear in many parts of Ireland, and St Dermot founded one such establishment in Castledermot in approximately AD 812. Dermot would remain there until his death in around AD 825, but the monasteries faced a new threat from the ninth century onwards – Viking raiders. The first Viking attack was on Lambay Island, off the coast of County Dublin, in AD 795. Over the next two centuries or so, the Vikings raided and plundered throughout Ireland, settling down, building towns, intermarrying with local clans and vying for power with those clans until their power was finally broken by the Munster chieftain and Irish high king Brian Boru at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014. Monasteries, with their wealth, provided prime targets for Viking raids, and the ever-vigilant monks used round towers as watchtowers. These towers were also places of safety, and the monks and their treasures could retreat into them, pulling up the ladders behind them as they entered the building through the inordinately high door. Inside the door a steep stairwell, where the defenders literally had the upper hand, made an uninviting prospect for any attacker who did manage to break through the stout door. The monastic site at Castledermot boasts a fine example of a round tower, on the north side of the church. However, the tower today is smaller than it was originally and it is probable that the tower was actually restored in the Middle Ages and that the top section is, in fact, medieval. It was constructed from rounded granite blocks bound with mortar, and the doorway, slightly above the ground level, has dressed blocks of granite for its lintel, jambs and sill. Castledermot also contains ruins dating from after the twelfth-century Norman invasion, including the tower of the ‘Crouched Friary’, which belonged to the Fratres Cruciferi who came to the walled Norman town of Castledermot in 1210 to work with the sick, and the shell of a Franciscan abbey dating from 1302.

Castledermot Abbey in 1793 by Sparrow.

The churchyard at Castledermot contains many interesting stones, some of which suggest Viking influence. The hogback recumbent stone is the only one of its type in Ireland. This elongated oval stone lies on four flat support stones and it has been suggested that it follows the shape of a Viking house of about the tenth century. The decorations on the ends of the stone are also attributable to this Viking period. The site also contains an upright granite high stone, on the east face of which is carved a rough cross, and it is holed through the centre. This is known as the swearing stone because bargains were sealed by shaking hands through the hole in the cross. This swearing stone was used to solemnise deals of all kinds, including marriage vows. Standing stones were perceived as pagan sites and part of the logic of this ceremony involved the Christianisation of the standing stone site, as bargains made on holy ground dared not be broken. In the case of Castledermot, the holed stone stands within the consecrated site. Such Viking holed stones are also associated with Killaloe and the island of Inishkeltra in County Clare, both of which were raided by the Norsemen. A similar holed stone exists in County Antrim, again near the scene of a Viking raid.

The Castledermot site also contains two fine granite high crosses; the high crosses of Celtic Ireland are famed for their fine stonemasonry work. It has been suggested that the round arms around the junction of the vertical and horizontal pieces on Celtic crosses are a throwback to ancient Celtic solar pagan rituals, with the arms representing the sun. However, the circular design may simply have been round buttresses to strengthen the stone crosses, many of which were tall and slim in their execution. Many, such as the crosses at Clonmacnoise, County Offaly and Monasterboice, County Louth, are intricately carved and show scenes from the Bible, which the monks used to illustrate Bible stories to an illiterate laity. In the case of Castledermot, the northern high cross has panels showing Isaac, the temptation of St Anthony, Adam and Eve, King David playing the harp, Daniel in the lions’ den, the miracle of the loaves and fishes and the crucifixion of St Peter. The panels of the southern high cross are similar, and include sections depicting the arrest of Christ and his crucifixion.

MOONE

As impressive as the high crosses at Castledermot are, however, the most impressive high cross in Kildare, and one of the best-preserved examples in Ireland, is a few miles northward along the N9, in the village of Moone. This granite cross is 5.32 metres (nearly 18ft) tall and was known in the past as St Colmcille’s Cross. St Colmcille was a father of the early Irish Church and is associated primarily with his last foundation on the Scottish island of Iona, but traditionally he also established many monasteries in Ireland, including the one at Moone. The image of the crucified Christ adorns one side of the head and animal carvings and geometric designs, including intricate interlacing, decorate the shaft. Below the slim shaft, the base of the cross widens out and is divided into panelled sections on all sides. The north face shows Saints Paul and Anthony, the temptation of St Anthony and a monster from the Book of the Apocalypse; the south side portrays the three children in the fiery furnace, the flight into Egypt and the miracle of the loaves and fishes; the east side contains panels showing Adam and Eve, the sacrifice of Isaac and Daniel in the lions’ den, and the west side depicts the crucifixion and the twelve apostles. Though the scenes on the high cross of Moone are similar to those on the crosses at nearby Castledermot, and originate from the same school of sculpture, the carving at Moone is much more impressive and the detail is much finer. Stonemasons such as those who worked on the Moone high cross were skilled sculptors, and they decorated their crosses with circular and cruciform designs and patterns similar to those carved on rocks in pre-Christian Ireland, as far back as the Bronze Age.