Saggart, Rathcoole, Newcastle and Celbridge

CHAPTER XXII

Pedestrians desirous of following the route described herein, should take the tram to Terenure, proceeding thence in the steam tram to Tallaght, and walking *via *Celbridge to Lucan, a distance of 15 miles. Cyclists, except perhaps those from the western portions of the city and suburbs, will also find the route by Terenure the best, the road therefrom to Tallaght being usually maintained in excellent order.

Leaving Terenure by the long straight tram road, we presently pass the village of Templeogue, about half a mile beyond which, on the right, is Templeogue House, and a few paces farther, the ancient church and churchyard of Templeogue, with the old city watercourse beside it.

In front will now be seen some remains of the high ridge called Balrothery Hill, where formerly stood the old, dilapidated village of Balrothery, now entirely cleared away by the levelling of this end of the road to Tymon Castle. For many years prior to its removal it was an unsightly and conspicuous object along this road, scarcely one of the houses having been fit for habitation, besides which its exposed position must have rendered it a very uncomfortable place of residence, so that it is not surprising that its inhabitants gradually abandoned it as other accommodation became available in the neighbourhood.

It is probable that from early times a village stood here in connection with the ancient city watercourse originating at the adjoining weir on the Dodder, and the old road to this place from Green Hills village and Tymon Castle, existed for hundreds of years before the modern road from Templeogue to Tallaght was constructed.

It is worthy of note that on Duncan’s *Map of the County Dublin *(1820) this hill is called “Patruddery Hill.”

We next enter Tallaght, and continuing along the tram road for about a mile and a half we turn to the right, following the telegraph wires along a narrow road leading up to Fortunestown lane - the first turn on the left. Although Saggart can be reached by the main road, this route is recommended in preference, being more secluded, and affording rather prettier and more varied views of the hills and slade of Saggart, with occasional glimpses through the hedges of the country to the northward. Turning to the left at the end of this pretty lane, we enter the little village of Saggart, the most noticeable object in which is the fine Catholic Church, visible for a considerable distance around, while on the opposite side of the road is the burial ground marking the site of the ancient church of the locality.

In the Martyrology of Tallaght, under date of March 3rd, we find mentioned St. Moshacra of Teach Sacra; and in the Calendar of the O’Clerys, the same Saint is referred to as ‘Moshacra, Abbot of Clonenagh and of Teach Sacra, in the vicinity of Tallaght.” About the close of the seventh century he founded a monastery in this place, thereafter known as Teach-Sacra (the house of the saint or priest), a name which in time became corrupted into Tassaggard, and was subsequently abbreviated to the modern form of Saggart.

Saggart was one of the four royal manors in the County Dublin, and lying so far out from the city, on the very border of a wild mountainous region, suffered greatly during the centuries of guerrilla warfare between the hardy colonists of the Pale and their resolute opponents in the hills. In 1312 the O’Byrnes and O’Tooles invaded all this district and struck terror among the inhabitants, no less by their numbers than by their skill in adapting the arts of warfare to the nature of the country.

In 1359 William and George Harold (of Harold’s Grange) were granted a reward of a hundred shillings for “manfully rescuing” some spoils which the “mountain enemie” were carrying off, and for slaying five of these unwelcome visitors. The reward would represent about £50 or £60 at the present day.

In 1387 there was dug up at a place called Hogtherne, between Saggart and Rathcoole, a ring of pure gold, which must have been of considerable size, as its value was then estimated at £40, and its finders, who secreted it, narrowly escaped punishment. It was, probably, one of the gold torcs so frequently found through the country, specimens of which are preserved in the various museums.

Adjoining the village are the well-known Saggart Paper Mills, giving considerable employment in the neighbourhood; and, nearly opposite, on the roadside, is the ruin of a small castle, the sole memorial here of the troublous times of colonisation.

Saggart was at one time famed for its blackberries, and there was an old saying current in the district, “To go to Saggart to pick blackberries.”

Taking either of the turns to the right in Saggart, the road descends nearly the whole way to the Naas road, on reaching which we turn to the left, up the hill into Rathcoole, a village consisting of one long street, with a number of its houses in ruinous condition. Situated on the great southern highway, and a midway stage between Dublin and Naas, Rathcoole was for centuries after the English invasion, reckoned a place of considerable importance, ruled by a portreeve or governor, and maintained in a condition of defence as an outpost position of the Pale. These defences, however, availed little against the overwhelming numbers of the mountaineers, and except on the occasions when a garrison was maintained in the village, the inhabitants had an anxious time protecting their lives and property.

On 26th January, 1642, Sir Thomas Armstrong was sent out from Dublin to dislodge the insurgents from Rathcoole, but, as it was held by a strong force, he was repulsed and forced to retire eastward to more open ground where the Irish again attacked him. The tide of battle then turned, but though routed, the Irish succeeded in escaping with the loss of one officer and fifty men. This engagement took place on the Naas road at its junction with the Saggart road, and where it crosses the Slade river half a mile north-east of Rathcoole village.

A horrible occurrence took place here in the following April, as described in a letter from Colonel Mervyn Touchet to his brother, the Earl of Castlehaven, published in the Castlehaven Memoirs. It appears that in consequence of the disturbed state of the country, a number of English had taken refuge in Lord Castlehaven’s house at Maddenstown, near the Curragh of Kildare, until it being considered unsafe for them to remain there any longer, Col. Touchet was directed to convey them to Dublin. This he apparently attempted without any escort, for when the party were driving in carts along the road near Rathcoole, to use the narrator’s own words, “the rebels fell upon them, barbarously killed some, and wounded others, myself and one more escaping by the goodness of our horses. But a servant of mine governing the carts, and being an Englishman, they took, and whilst they were preparing to hang him, Sir John Dougan’s eldest son, Walter Dougan, came forth from his father’s house with a party, and rescued him with the rest of those that were left alive, and brought them safe to Dublin, where I was got. In a few days afterwards the Marquess of Ormonde sent out a party towards the place where this murder had been committed. I went with them, and coming near, we met Sir Arthur Loftus, Governor of the Naas, with a party of horse and dragoons, having killed such of the Irish as they met. But the most considerable slaughter was in a great straight of furze, seated on a hill, where the people of several villages taking the alarm had sheltered themselves. Now Sir Arthur having invested the hill, set the furze on fire on all sides, where the people being in considerable number, were all burned or killed - men, women, and children; I saw the bodies and furze still burning.”

On the 2nd July, 1644, a small body of English were attacked and robbed of £200 by twenty Irish horsemen. The incident is referred to in a letter from the Marquess of Ormonde to Colonel Hugh Byrne.

Felix Rourke, a well-known member of the United Irishmen, was born in Rathcoole in 1765. His father was a farmer who kept the turnpike gate and a posting stage on the Naas road where Blackchurch Inn now stands. The son, Felix, fought in a number of engagements during the Rebellion of 1798, and also took part in Emmet’s abortive rising of 1803, for which he was hanged on the 10th Sept. in that year, from one of the rafters of the house of the Rev. James Harold, parish priest of Rathcoole, who a short time previously had been transported for supposed complicity in the rising.

Rathcoole must have reached a low ebb in the 18th century, according to the description given by Campbell in his *Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland *(1777):

“The first village I passed through, about seven miles from Dublin, Rathcoole I think they call it, was mostly composed of clay huts, which are sometimes you know, both warm and neat; but these were so awkwardly built and so irregularly arranged, that even Wales would have been ashamed of them. It hurt me to see them so near the capital, where the landscape was so prettily chequered by abundance of little white villas, spangling the country all round, and rendering it upon the whole very delightiful.”

Rathcoole at no very distant period employed a number of skilled tradesmen, and within living memory could boast of a working cutler, at a time when such a craftsman might have been vainly sought in many a more populous place.

Turning to the right, either immediately before entering Rathcoole or at the far end of it, an unfrequented road, about two miles in length, conducts us to the scattered hamlet of Newcastle, properly Newcastle of Lyons, now consisting of about a dozen houses, but formerly much more extensive. Adjoining the rectory are the remains of an ancient building of considerable strength and solidity, and within the grounds is an old yew tree, under which it is said that Dean Swift often sat and conversed with his friends. In the reign of Henry II. the lands of Newcastle were constituted into a royal manor, which in common with the adjacent districts of Saggart and Rathcoole, suffered much from the incursions of the mountain tribes. In 1535 Sir William Brereton with a strong body of troops** **encamped here while on the way to besiege the castle of Lord Thomas Fitzgerald (Silken Thomas) at Maynooth; and at this period of its history, Newcastle maintained a castle and garrison, and was reckoned among the “good and walled towns” of the county.

In February, 1641, the Government sent the Earl of Ormonde with a powerful army to subjugate the insurgents in the Co. Kildare, where he burned Newcastle and Lyons, plundered Naas, and devastated the greater portion of the county.

Leaving Newcastle, we take the second turn to the right at the end of the village, to reach Celbridge, and presently pass on our left Colganstown House, a quaint old residence, in the grounds of which are the ivied ruins of a castle. From here a straight, uninteresting road leads to Hazlehatch, on the Grand Canal, a station of some importance in former years when the traffic on these waterways was greater than it is at the present time. The name of this place appears on the maps of the Down Survey as “Hazelhurst,” meaning a hurst or wood of hazel trees.

A short distance further, the road, by a high bridge, crosses the Great Southern and Western Railway at the pretty station of Hazlehatch and Celbridge, from which a wide road conducts us into Celbridge, formerly known as Kildrought, celebrated as the scene of the romance which has inseparably linked together the names of Swift and Vanessa. It may not be out of place briefly to re-tell here this strange and sad story. About 1709 the widow of Bartholomew Van Homrigh, a Dutch merchant, who had been Commissary of Stores for King William III in Ireland, settled in London with her two sons and two daughters, and there made the acquaintance of Swift. The elder daughter, Esther, the “Vanessa” of Swift’s romance, who was then twenty-three years of age, read and studied with Swift, and at length on the eve of his departure for Ireland in 1713, to take up the Deanery of St. Patrick’s, confessed her love for her teacher. Swift, expressing his surprise at her avowal, writes: -

“Vanessa not in years a score,

Dreams of a gown of forty-four,

Imaginary charms can find,

In eyes with reading almost blind.”

A few years afterwards, Vanessa’s mother and two brothers having died, she and her sister came over to Ireland to reside at Celbridge on their estate, then known as Marlay Abbey, and now called The Abbey. Meanwhile Swift was paying his addresses to Esther Johnston, better known as “Stella,” to whom, there is reason to believe, he was secretly married in 1716; but apparently tiring of her, he resumed his attentions to his former pupil, Vanessa, going constantly out to Celbridge to visit her at her house. This continued for about three years, when Vanessa, hearing rumours about her rival, “Stella,” wrote to her to inquire the precise nature of her claims upon the dean. This letter Stella showed to Swift, who was so much exasperated thereat that he straightway rode out to Celbridge, and in a furious passion strode into the presence of the hapless Vanessa, flung down her own letter to Stella on the table before her, and walked out of the house without exchanging a word with her. Poor Vanessa never recovered from the shock, and three weeks after the occurrence died of a broken heart, in the thirty-seventh year of her age. She was buried in St. Andrew’s Church, Dublin, in June, 1723.

Vanessa’s bower, where she and Swift used to sit and read together, is still shown in the grounds of the Abbey, as well as an old foot bridge also associated by tradition with their memory.

In Swift’s time Celbridge was called Kildrohid or Kildrought, but it is difficult now to ascertain at what precise date this name was superseded by the modern one The name Kildrought, meaning the church of the bridge, and still the designation of the parish, was converted into the present name by the alteration of the first syllable to “Cel” and by the translation of the second into its English equivalent.

At the southern end of the village is a narrow, secluded road on the right, leading to Rathcoffey and Donadea, which is said to have acquired the curious name of Tea Lane in the following manner:- When the mill was started here, one of the owners brought over a number of mill hands from England, for whom he built a row of superior cottages, still called “English Row.” The backs of these cottages adjoined this lane, then known as “Church Lane,” and the Irish inhabitants were so impressed by the extravagant quantity of tea used by the occupants, as evidenced by the tea leaves thrown out on the road, that they gave it the name of “Tea Lane.”

Adjoining Celbridge is Castletown, built by the Right Hon. William Conolly, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons about 180 years ago. From Celbridge the road should be taken to Lucan, where pedestrians can avail themselves of the Electric Railway to town.

Distances from Terenure-Tallaght, 4; Saggart, 8; Rathcoole, 9; Newcastle, 11½**; **Celbridge, 15; return by Lucan, 19; and back to town, about 28 miles. If desired, cyclists can reach town from Lucan *via *Esker and Clondalkin, which is somewhat shorter for those residing at the southern side of the city.

The following authorities were consulted in preparing this chapter:- An Article on Celbridge, by the Rev. Charles J Graham, in the *Journal of the Kildare Archaeological Society, *1896; An Article on Rathcoole and Saggart, by John Sheil O’Grady, in the Journal of the same Society for 1906-8; Dalton’s *History of the County Dublin, *and Joyce’s Irish Names of Places.

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