The evolution of Baggotrath

Chapter II.

The Evolution of Baggotrath.

The pastoral condition of the lands of the Rath in the early part of the 13nth century is emphasised in such deeds of that period as relate to them. Their owners were then the mayor, citizens, and commonalty of Dublin, and the great anxiety of the civic fathers of that time, who little dreamed what the future had in store, was to prevent the development of any property lying outside the walls of the city. Dublin was then only a small mediaeval town, emerging from the twilight of its existence, and even the erection of a few houses so near as Baggotrath might have had a serious effect on its prosperity.

The first tenants under the city - Radulph de Mora and William de Flamstead - had probably only slight fixity of tenure, but later on it was thought that with proper safeguards the property might be granted for a longer term, and utilized as a cheap means of gratifying persons in high position who had shown friendship to the city. The legal adviser of the mayor set to work, and produced a deed which, so far as was possible for a document of the kind, assured for all time the supremacy of the city, and the continuance of the lands of the Rath in a state of impotence. After setting out the ditches by which the lands were bounded, and excepting from the grant a rabbit warren which lay in their midst, the deed provided that no buildings likely to result in injury to the citizens were to be erected, and that all legal proceedings in regard to the lands were to be determined in the court of the city. Lest by transfer of ownership the city might lose any of its rights there was a further covenant that the grantee should not sell, mortgage, or exchange his interest, nor even confer it upon a religious house.

The transient effect of such provisions soon became apparent in the case of the lands of the Rath. Within comparatively few years the last grantee under the city, Maurice Fitzgerald, sometime justiciary of Ireland, had parted with all his interest, except a nominal one, and Philip de Hyndeberge, a prominent upholder of Anglo-Norman rule in Munster, had become the real owner. Without hindrance the building of houses and erection of fences began. For that purpose the Fitzgeralds’ somewhat distant woods at Maynooth were at first laid under contribution, but afterwards more substantial material in the shape of stone raised from quarries on the adjacent lands of Clonskeagh, was procured. The opening years of the 14th century saw the lands occupied by a feudal castle, and by a village necessary for the accommodation of those to whom the lord of the Rath gave employment. Manorial rights, which must have diminished the amount of business for the city court, were assumed by him, and a mill, whose motive power was a channel fed from the Dodder, increased the independence of his property.

The owners were then the family of Bagod whose name has since remained inalienably connected with the lands of the Rath. The first one of that family to own them was Sir Robert Bagod, a chief member of the judiciary of Ireland in his time. By him the manor of the Rath had been purchased from a grandson of Philip de Hyndeberge, and was held subject to rendering to the latter at Easter a penny or a pair of white gloves, and to the heirs of Maurice Fitzgerald at Pentecost a pound of cummin or two pence, as well as by the payment of a rent of 20 marks reserved to the city. After the death of their father, Sir Robert Bagod’s sons, the eldest being another Sir Robert Bagod and also a member of the judiciary, found it to their advantage to remember the privileges of the city, and appealed to its court in a suit “taken against them by the owner of the adjoining lands of the Steyne. The latter was the head of the Butler family, now represented by the Marquis of Ormonde, and claimed the lands of the Rath as having been given to his ancestor at the time of the Anglo-Norman settlement, The right of the city court to adjudicate was upheld, and after legal proceedings, which lasted for twenty years, a decision in favour of the Bagods was given.

There were few residences in the neighbourhood of Dublin in the 14th century comparable to the castle of Baggotrath, which occupied the ground now covered by Upper Baggot Street. As is evidenced by a list of their furniture and plate the Bagods lived in a style suited to their rank, and required not only a strongly fortified dwelling but also one of large size for the period. In addition to their fine castle the Bagods enjoyed comparative security for their crops and live stock, in days when every inhabitant of the county Dublin lived in apprehension of an incursion from the hillmen. Although in their raids the walls of Dublin Castle were sometimes approached, the O’Byrnes and O’Tooles did not often venture so far from their own territory as Baggotrath, and when other parts of the county Dublin lay waste and uncultivated there were on the Bagod’s lands crops of wheat and oats covering upwards of 150 acres, and a flock of sheep numbering over 500, besides a large herd of cattle and drove of pigs. When, therefore, in the latter half of the 14th century, the Bagods moved their headquarters to Limerick, where their principal property lay, Baggotrath became a coveted possession. After a period of some doubt and difficulty it was secured as a residence by William Fitzwilliam, for many years sheriff of the county Dublin, and constable of what was then its southern outpost - the castle of Wicklow. He was one of those on whom the Government of his time placed chief reliance for the preservation of law and order, and for the protection of property in the neighbourhood of the metropolis. At first his name appears frequently amongst those proceeding in command of armed men against the Irish tribes, and in later life the responsibility rested upon him of seeing that others did “not fail in that duty.

As an ancestor of the Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery William Fitzwilliam connects Baggotrath with the present lord of the soil. But after his death there was an interregnum in the Fitzwilliams’ ownership of Baggotrath, and during the greater part of the 15th century the seat of that family was at Dundrum, which “is also portion of the Earl of Pembroke’s estate, and had been acquired by the Fitzwilliams before that time. At Baggotrath William Fitzwilliam’s successor was Sir Edward Perrers, a much favoured servant of the Crown, whose title to the castle and lands was obtained more by might than right. His name proclaims his relationship to the historic beauty of Edward the Third’s court, “the lovely lady of the sun,” Alice Perrers, and his association with this country had probably its origin in the fact that her husband, Sir William Windsor, had been sometime its chief governor. As Sir Edward Perrers’ daughter had married the head of the Fitzwilliam family of that day, another William Fitzwilliam, Sir Edward Perrers’ occupation of Baggotrath was unchallenged, as was also that of his widow, who died there.

But after her death when one of her executors, the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, James Cornwalsh, an overbearing and truculent official, had taken up his residence in the castle, William Fitzwilliam, confident in the justness of his cause, as the descendant of one owner and the son-in-law of another, determined to regain Baggotrath by force. He descended, as a legal document relates, from Dundrum one Michaelmas Eve on the castle, accompanied by a multitude of men in warlike array armed with swords, bows, lances, and clubs, and entered the castle hall where, in the peace and quiet of his Lord the King, the Chief Baron was according to his usual custom sitting at supper with his servants. He had come that day from Dunboyne, where he had another residence, for the purpose of holding the Michaelmas sittings of his court, and when William Fitzwilliam and his followers burst upon him his mind was doubtless occupied with the business of the morrow. Resistance, was, however, offered to the intruders, and in the melée the Chief Baron was killed. Of his death William Fitzwilliam was held blameless. A full and free pardon was granted to him, and Baggotrath, as well as his other property, was confirmed to him.

The castle of Baggotrath was kept in good repair by Sir Edward Perrers, and for its improvement stone was brought to him by sea from Wicklow, of which, like his predecessor at Baggotrath, he had the custody. But after his time, in consequence perhaps of the tragedy which had been enacted within its walls, and of the impoverishment of Ireland by the Wars of the Roses, the castle was left derelict, and fell into a ruinous state. Towards the close of the 15th century steps were taken for its restoration, and the Fitzwilliams used it again as their chief residence. But the castle only continued to occupy that position for two generations, and in about 50 years the seat of the Fitzwilliam family was again moved, this time to Merrion, which had also become portion of their property. At the beginning of the 16th century Baggotrath appears in the occupation of Thomas Fitzwilliam, a man of parts, as well as of noble birth, who had studied the king’s laws in London, and of his son, Richard Fitzwilliam, sometime one of Henry the Eighth’s household, who desired to be buried after the manner of England under a tomb bearing representations of himself and his family. To the court of Baggotrath in their time we find the tenants at Merrion bringing a custom offering of herrings and other fish, and tenants from Bray a fresh salmon every Sunday in Lent. By the latter tenants the Fitzwilliams were also supplied with means to enjoy the sport that lay round the door of the castle, and a nest of falcons which bred in the lordship of Bray was preserved for the landlord “in the lovingest manner” possible.

After the Fitzwilliams moved to Merrion, Baggotrath Castle had a number of temporary occupants. The first of those, Robert Jans and Patrick Sarsfield, a collateral ancestor of James the Second’s brave general, brought the castle into contact with city life. The fame and renown for hospitality of Patrick Sarsfield, who filled the mayoral chair, has survived the lapse of three centuries. During his year of office never a frown or a wrinkle marked the brow of himself or his wife, who was a daughter of the Fitzwilliam house, and three barns well stored and packed with corn, and twenty tuns of claret, as well as white wine, sack, malmsey, and muscadel were scarce sufficient to provide for the guests who thronged his buttery and cellars from five in the morning until 10 at night. Good cheer in his house did not end with office, and in his retirement at Baggotrath it seemed as if he had surrendered “the Prince’s sword” to other mayors while he reserved “the port and hospitality” to himself. After his death the castle continued to be the home of his wife, a buxom lady of unbounded charity, who had been previously married to a Drogheda merchant called Cashell. The Master of the Rolls at the beginning of the 17th century, Sir Anthony St. Leger, found in the castle a country retreat, as did subsequently Sir John King, an ancestor of the Earls of Kingston, and Thomas Madden, the Comptroller of the Earl of Strafford’s household. During Sir John King’s occupation, the fair prospect of sea and land, which Baggotrath then commanded, may, perchance, have helped to mould the mind of his younger son, the much-loved friend of Milton, whose loss by shipwreck off the coast of Wales the poet laments in his “Lycidas.”

But troublous times were then coming for Ireland, and the days of the castle were numbered. During the long conflict between the forces of the Crown and those of the Irish Confederation which succeeded the great rebellion, Baggotrath was used by the Government as the station for their ordnance and transport. Although the pasturage did not always prove a safe one, owing to its being so exposed to the raids of the hillmen, hundreds of horses were collected at Baggotrath, with the result that the lands were laid waste, and the castle doubtless dismantled. When the conflict changed to one between the King and the Parliament the last stage of the castle was reached. In Dublin the army of the Parliament, under Michael Jones, lay besieged. At Rathmines, where Palmerston Park is now situated, the besieging general, the gallant Ormonde, had established his headquarters. To both, Baggotrath Castle was the chief objective, in the case of Jones to destroy, in the case of Ormonde to fortify and garrison. It was the one strong shelter on the southern side outside the range of Jones’ artillery, and once possessed of it Ormonde could have had an easy approach to the mouth of the Liffey, where Jones was expecting each day reinforcements to land.

Jones first partly demolished the castle. Then Ormonde proceeded to occupy it. For this purpose troops were despatched by night from Rathmines, but, owing to the treachery of the guides, day was breaking when Baggotrath, a short mile away, was reached. All was hurry and confusion when Ormonde rode down in the morning, and from the high ground, where the canal now runs, Ormonde perceived that Jones was drawing out his army under the protection of earthworks below Trinity College. Before Ormonde thought it possible, Jones, whose army had been previously strengthened by the arrival of reinforcements, had sallied out, had attacked the workers at Baggotrath, and had driven back such as escaped the sword on Ormonde’s main army at Rathmines. Then occurred what is known as the Battle of Rathmines, ending, in spite of Ormonde’s personal bravery, in a shameful rout of the royalist forces, and a triumphant victory for the Parliament.

After these dire events there remained but a small part of the Castle of Baggotrath. As will be seen from the picture, which is taken from a drawing by a famous Irish artist of the 18th century called Barralet, this fragment comprised the vaulted entrance of the original castle, the gateway although built up being plainly visible in the front or southern side of the ruins. Until the 19th century had for some time opened these gaunt walls stood in a field, alone and bare, by the highway, and, as the names of the adjacent roads record, it was not until after the success of British arms under Wellington on the plain of Waterloo that the Baggotrath district began to lose its rural appearance.

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