Thomas Smothe's Court and Ball's Bridge

Chapter III.

Thomas Smothe’s Court, with some notice of Ball’s Bridge.

With what astonishment would the first owner of this court view the form which his name assumes in the townland appellation of Simmonscourt. In the Dublin of Edward the Third’s reign Thomas Smothe, who held the office of remembrancer of the Exchequer, was a person of no small importance, a man of letters, and full of good works. As a member of a fraternity attached to the Priory of the Holy Trinity he was held in high esteem. It is recorded that nine service books were presented by him to the Lady chapel of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity commonly called Christ Church, a gift to which his son added one of stained glass for four of the chapel windows, and after his death his body rested in the Cathedral precincts, and his memory was kept alive in the prayers of the clergy. [See “The Book of Obits and Martyrology of Christ church,” edited by Rev, J. H. Todd, pp. xxvii., xxxvi, 44, 106.]

His possession of the Simmonscourt lands Thomas Smothe owed to a family called Morville, whose name was held in equal veneration with that of Smothe by the Christ Church congregation. By means of a liberal bequest from John Morville a gilt chalice was added to the Cathedral plate, and the great west window filled with glass, while Margery Morville was numbered amongst the Priory’s most generous friends. She was a daughter of Richard Olof, already mentioned as owner of a meadow on the western side of the Dodder, and it was through her that the Morvilles became owners of the Simmonscourt lands, which had been conveyed to her father by the son of Frambald Fitz Boydekyn, to whom Walter de Rideleford gave them.

It was probably by Thomas Smothe that the castle gateway, of which remains are still to be seen, was built, and together with it there was doubtless constructed a walled-in enclosure or court for the safe keeping of cattle at night. But the name Smothescourt had its origin in a place for recreation, where doubtless bowls were played and archery was practised. At a later period “the keeping and profits of the courts” were assigned to the tenants of the Simmonscourt lands, and Dublin citizens were wont to resort on gala days to “the green of Smothescourt.” Before that time Simmonscourt had become the property of Thomas Smothe’s much loved Priory of the Holy Trinity. The donor, one John Drake was, like Thomas Smothe, a member of the fraternity attached to the Priory, and served in the early part of the 15th century as mayor of Dublin. While holding that office he performed, as leader of the city levies, prodigious deeds of valour against the O’Byrnes, and his name lives in history as the commander in an engagement near Bray, when according to one authority, 4,000 of the sept were killed, although possibly another author is more accurate in estimating their loss at four hundred. In addition to “the lands of Smothescourt” John Drake’s gift to the Priory included the lands of Colecote, which had belonged in Thomas Smothe’s time to one of the judiciary, Sir Elias de Ashbourne, and part of the lands of Scallet Hill.

The existence of an antecedent to the present Ball’s Bridge made the Simmonscourt lands easy of approach from Dublin. The primitive wooden structure had given place to a bridge of stone, and the unceasing traffic to the port of Dalkey made its preservation a matter of necessity. About the middle of the 16th century the decayed condition of “the bridge of Smothescourt” was brought before the Corporation of Dublin, and it was agreed that a voluntary contribution should be raised for its repair. The aldermen undertook to give 2s. each, and those who had filled the office of sheriff and members of the Trinity guild Is. each, and “the Corporation of the Craftsmen” were invited to join either by providing labour or money. But these “benevolences” proved insufficient, and two years later the repair of the bridge was not completed. The Corporation then put their powers in force, and ordered every householder in the city and sururbs to supply a man “for the ending of the work of the bridge of Smothescourt.” To the mayor was left the task of “appointing and disposing” this unskilled assistance.

At that period - the latter part of the 16th century - the Simmonscourt lands were held under the Cathedral of Christ Church by the Fitzwilliam family. According to the custom of that time the authorities of the Cathedral received from their tenant, in addition to a money rent, all manner of offerings and perquisites. Twelve couple of fowl were presented to them each year, the best beast fell to their lot on the death of the tenant, and the rabbits in a warren which lay on the Simmonscourt lands amidst a grove of ash and aspen trees, and half the pigeons in a dovecote, which the tenant was to build, were reserved to them. In the castle, which then stood upon the lands, the ceiled room was to be at the disposal of the chapter, or if this was not convenient the gate tower was to be substituted, and the occupant of the castle, one Gerald Long, was bound to entertain the Dean and his servants when they came to Simmonscourt on Easter Monday for an outing similar to one then taken on that day by the Corporation at Cullenswood.

Towards the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign ships bound for Dublin began to lie off Ringsend instead of Dalkey, but this did not much lessen the traffic across the bridge now represented by Ball’s Bridge. There was no other bridge nearer than one at Clonskeagh, and the fords in the Dodder had too often been the cause of loss of life to be attempted in times of flood. Shortly before the great rebellion in the 17th century the Corporation of Dublin contributed again to the repair of “the bridge of Smothescourt,” on that occasion by means of a vote of £10 from the city funds, and in maps made in the latter half of that century the bridge is shown as being in use. Although inhabited for a time after the Restoration by one of the Fitzwilliams, Simmonscourt Castle is described, at the close of that century, as old and ruinous, and the principal residence in the neighbourhood was then a house which stood where the Ball’s Bridge bakery now lies. On a map of that time it is marked as Ball’s House, and from its occupant the bridge doubtless obtained the name which still survives.

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