Parish of Taney

Parish of Taney.

(Commonly called Dundrum~i.e., Dundroma, or the Fort on the Ridge.)

The Parish of Taney is shown on the Down Survey Map, which was made in 1657, as-consisting of the Townlands of Dondrom, Ballintery, Rabuck, Ownenstown, Kilmacudd, Ballowley, Tyberstowne, Moltanstowne, and Militowne..

Dondrom and Ballintery are represented by the modern Townlands of Ballinteer *(i.e., *Baile-an-tsaeir, or the Town of the Carpenter), Drummartin, and Dundrum.

Rabuck is represented by Friarsiand, part of Roebuck, Mount Anville, and Trimlestown or Owenstown.

Ownenstown now forms part of Mount Merrion or Callary.

Ballowley is represented by Balally *(i.e., *Bally-Ainhlaibh, or the Town of Olave).

Militowne by Churchtown Lower and Upper, Farranboley *(i.e., *Dairy Land) and part of Roebuck

Tyberstowne and Moltanstowne are now included in the Parish of Kill-of-the-Grange, and Kilmacudd is a separate Parish.

The modern Townlands of Rathmines Great and Little were formerly included in the Parish of Rathfarnham, Mount Merrion South formed part of Kilmacud, and the lands included in Kingstown and Tiknock *(i.e., *Tigh-cnuic, or the House of the Hill), do not appear in the Down Survey.

The only object of archaeological interest in the Parish is Dundrum Castle.

Dundrum and its Castle.

Dundrum, or the Fort on the Ridge, which lies to the west of Stillorgan and south-west of Donnybrook, still possesses remains of a castle, occupying, possibly, the site of the dun or fort from which the place derives its name. These remains are in the grounds of the modern house known as Dundrum Castle, overhanging the river which flows through the village, and besides being of considerable extent are of great strength, one of the walls being nearly six feet thick. The castle, which was built in two portions, one much larger than the other is now an empty shell, but still possesses several others, passages and small chambers constructed in the thickness of the walls, a garderobe, and fireplaces, one of these being of remark-ably large size.

The names Dundrum and Taney denoted in the century immediately succeeding the Anglo-Norman conquest separate and distinct lands, those of Dundrum being the property of lay owners, and those of Taney, now represented by the modern townlands of Churchtown, being the property of the Church.

After the Conquest the lands of Dundrum and Taney were assigned to the family of de Clahull - a family whose possessions extended to Kerry, where its members ultimately settled-and at the beginning of the thirteenth century Sir John de Clahull, who was Marshal of the Lordship of Leinster, was the owner. To his generosity and piety the Church, under a grant from him to the Priory of the Holy Trinity and the Archbishop of Dublin, owed the lands of Taney, to some portion of which the Priory appears to have had previously a claim under a grant from an Irish chieftain called by the Norman scribe Marmacrudin, and these lands afterwards became solely vested in the Archbishop, and were included in his manor of St. Sepulchre.

The lands of Dundrum were constituted a manor in themselves, with all rights and privileges appertaining thereto, and under Sir John de Clahull’s successor, Sir Hugh de Clahull, were fanned by free tenants, including John do Roebuck, David Basset and Elye, Geoffrey, and Neininus de Dundrum, excepting some portion of the lands with a tenement, which was part of the jointure of Sir Hugh do Clahull’s wife, the Lady Nichola.

From de Hugh do Clahull the manor of Dundrum, after passing through the hands of his son-in-law, Sir Walter Purcell, who held judicial office, and of Hugh de Tachmun, Bishop of Meath, came about 1268 into the possession of Sir Robert Bagod of Baggotrath.

The lands of Dundrum were similarly situated to those of Carrickmines, on the very extremity of the lands to the south of Dublin, afterwards enclosed within the Pale, and suffered severely by the raids of the Irish enemies of the Crown.

At the beginning of the fourteenth century, when the invasion of Edward Bruce took place, a state of utter lawlessness prevailed, and the lands lying between Dundrum and Dublin, then composing the manor of St. Sepulchre, were completely devastated.

On the lands of Farranboley, near Militown, then part of that manor, the native Irish, had become serfs under the episcopal owner, and who had to submit to depredations from settlers like the Walshes, the Harolds, and the Archbolds, as well as from their own countrymen, were driven off, and the Archbishop of Dublin was subsequently forced to lease these lands, together with the adjoining lands of Taney, or Churchtown, at a reduced profitt to free tenants, amongst whom were Edmund Hackett, Richard Chamberlain, and John Locumbe.

It was at this time that the Fitzwillianis appear as resident on lands of Dundrum, which had, doubtless, undergone a similar experience to that of the lands within the manor of St. Sepulchre.

Their coming there was probably due to that great ecclesiastical statesman, Alexander de Bicknor, then Archbishop of Dublin, into whose possession the manor of Dundrum, after it had been transferred from the Bagods to Sir Eustace de la Poer in exchange for lands in Limerick, had passed, and to whom the Fitzwilliams must have been known as residents near his great feudal castle at Swords, where they had been previously settled.

At Dundrum the Fitzwilliams erected a castle, probably similar to one which a successor of John Locumbe undertook to build on the lands of Churchtown, described as a sufficient stone house, walled and battlemented, eighteen feet in breadth by twenty-six feet in length within the walls, and forty feet in height and in addition to the lands of Dundrum they acquired those of Ballinteer, anciently called Cheeverstown, from a family of that name.

Although another member of the Fitzwilliam family, Thomas Fitzwilliam, is mentioned as being in possession in 1332 of lands near Dundrum, the first of the name in possession of the manor of Dundrum was William, son of Richard Fitzwilliam, to whom in 1365 a conveyance of the manor was made, and who had rendered a few years before valiant service against the O’Byrnes and O’Tooles at Saggard in rescuing, after a battle in which five of the enemy were killed, prey which those tribes had carried off.

William Fitzwilliam was succeeded by his son, John Fitzwilliam, and John Fitzwilliam by his son, William Fitzwilliam, who married Ismaia, daughter of Sir Edward Perrers, of Baggotrath, and who has been already mentioned in connection with the assault on that castle, in which Chief Baron Cornwalsh lost his life.

The last named William Fitzwilliam was a person of importance; he had a crowd of retainers who resided together with the tradesmen of Dundrum, the tailor and the cloth dresser, in the village under the protection of his castle, and he served for sometime as sheriff of the metropolitan county.

His eldest son, Thomas Fitzwilliam, who married Rosia, daughter of Sir John Bellew, pre-deceased him, and on his death about 1452 he was succeeded by Thomas Fitzwilliam’s son, Richard Fitzwilliam, who married Margery Holywood, and who was succeeded about 1465 in his turn by his son, Thomas Fitzwilliam, husband of Eleanor Dowdall, of whom we have seen, both under Merrion and Baggotrath.

After transferring the seat of their branch of the family first to Baggotrath, and subsequently to Merrion, the Fitzwilliams of Dundrum appear to have allowed the Castle of Dundrum to fall into disrepair.

It was, however, rebuilt by Richard, son and successor of Sir Thomas Fitzwilliam, who in his will made in 1596 desires that all his tenants dwelling at Dundrum at the time of his building there and giving him assistance should be forgiven the rents due after his death. One of his younger sons, William Fitzwilliam, who married the widow of Primate Henry Ussher, subsequently resided in the castle, and there in 1616, on his death-bed, he declared his will by word of mouth, leaving “all he was worth in this world” to his wife and infant daughter.

At the time of the outbreak of the Rebellion in October, 1641, it was the residence of a nephew and namesake of its former occupant Lieutenant-Colonel William Fitzwilliam, the younger son of the first Viscount Fitzwilliam, and afterwards holder of the titles as the third Viscount but was taken possession of by the rebels, who were driven out of it by a body of troops in the following January.

Lieutenant-Colonel Fitzwilliam with his family afterwards returned to live there, but found him-self a sufferer from pillage on the part of the English soldiers. To defend himself from the latter he obtained in 1646 from the Duke of Ormade a protection for his house, his lands, and goods, as well as for his family and servants, but a few weeks after he had received it he accompanied his father into neutral quarters.

During the period of the Rebellion Dundrum was a centre of disaffection. A resident at Churchtown, Richard Leech by name, who, although one of the churchwardens of the parish, is stated to have been a Roman Catholic, was murdered by the rebels there, and at the time Lieutenant-Colonel Fitzwilliam obtained protection for his property from the English soldiers, a travelling clothier, called Robert Turner, as he was coming through Old Rathmines, then the high road from Dublin to Dundrum, was robbed by one, Donagh Cahere, of the latter place. In a letter to Cahere, the Duke of Ormonde states that he has been informed that Cahere, with his nephew and thirteen horse and foot had taken Turner prisoner and had seized his horses, bridles, saddles, pistols, and a quantity of cloth, and, after warning Cahere that if any harm befel Turner, whom Cahere had threatened to hang unless a ransom was .paid, twenty Irish, then in the Duke’s custody, should suffer for it, demands that Turner, with all his goods, should be delivered up safely.

The Castle of Dundrum during these troublous times fell into disrepair, but was restored by Lieutenan-Colonel Isaac Dobson, one of the officers of the Parliament Army, to whom it was leased in 1653, together with the lands of Dundrum and part of those of Kilmacud and Balally, by the Parliament.

It is described shortly afterwards as being a slated castle in good repair, with three hearths, and having attached to it a; barn and a garden. At the time of the Restoration, Dundrum is returned as containing fourteen persons of English and thirty-three of Irish extraction, inhabiting twenty-three houses, but on the neighbouring lands the population was very small.

On the lands of Churchtown, which were then held by Sir William Ussher the younger, of Donnybrook, and by a Mr. Owen Jones, there were two English and five Irish inhabitants, only two of whom paid hearth tax, and in the mountainous district of Ticknock there were fifteen inhabitants with only four houses paying tax.

Lieutenant-Colonel Dobson was a leading man amongst the rulers of Ireland under the Commonwealth. He was one of those who took evidence against the participators in the Rebellion, and was also a Commissioner for Revenue and Transplantation, for the Civil Survey of Ireland, and for the letting of lands.

In recognition of his position he was admitted to the freedom of Dublin by special grace on payment of a pair of gloves to the Mayoress. After the Restoration he came to terms with the Fitzwilliams, on their regaining possession of their property, and continued to occupy the castle, with a short interval during James II.’s rule, when he sought safety beyond the seas, until his death. This took place at Dundrum in 1700, when he had attained a patriarchal age, and he passed away surrounded by his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.

His only surviving son, Alderman Eliphal Dobson, the most wealthy Dublin publisher and bookseller of his day, succeeded to the occupation of the castle. Like his father, he was a Nonconformist, a member of the congregation worshipping at New Row, in Dublin, but we are told that “he valued no man for his starched looks or supercilious gravity, or for being a Churchman, Presbyterian or Independent provided he was sound in the main points wherein all good men are agreed.”

He had the misfortune to lose one of his legs, and was remarkable for the possession of a wooden substitute, which creaked horribly. The first Bible printed in Ireland was one which bears his name in the imprint, and in his will he bequeaths to Trinity College near Dublin one of the best folio Bibles printed by him to be preserved in the Library, as well as a legacy of ten pounds to buy other books.

The castle grounds in his time wore greatly improved, and the castle must have presented quite an attractive appearance standing in a flower garden laid out with trim box borders and neatly-cut yew trees, with a pleasure ground and kitchen garden adjacent all of these being surrounded by a grove of ash trees and sloping down to the river, which then was a more picturesque object than it is in the present day.

As the owner of the surrounding lands, Alderman Dobson was an important person, and, as one who could afford such luxuries as well-furnished houses, plate, books, horses and carriages, was regarded, no doubt with great awe by the villagers as he proceeded to and from the castle in his heavy cumbersome coach.

The castle and grounds were left ‘by Alderman Dobson (who was buried on St. Patrick’s Day, 1720, in St. Werburgh’s Church, Dublin), to his widow, with remainder to his eldest son, Isaac Dobson, of whom we have seen under Donnybrook, and after her death they were leased by Isaac Dobson to “an eminent silk weaver and a man of unspotted character,” Thomas Reynolds, whose descendant and namesake bore an infamous part in the Rebellion of 1798.

Although the castle was partly inhabited until the close of the eighteenth century, it was gradually falling into decay, and Austin Cooper, who visited it in 1780, found it in possession of an owner whose object was profit rather than beauty, and who was then cutting down the grove of ash trees. Several sketches of the castle were made by Gabriel Beranger, who describes it as having been very picturesque, with a grand entrance by stone stairs from the courtyard.

The principal resident at Dundrum in the latter half of the eighteenth century was the brother of the first Earl of Lanesborough, the Hon. John Butler, M.P. for Newcastle, who resided in Wickham, then called Primrose Hill. During his representation of Newcastle, which extended over a period of forty years, he displayed a most zealous attachment to the King’s government and person, and received on more than one occasion the thanks of public bodies for his efforts in the public weal. His death took place at Dundrum in the year 1790, when he had attained the age of eighty-three years, and Wickham passed from his family into the possession of Mr. John White, a barrister of eminence, whose claim to a baronetcy led to his being sometimes styled Sir John White and was subsequently the residence successively of the late Sir Robert Kane and of the late Sir Edward Hudson-Kinahan. In the middle of the eighteenth century, in 1766, there were only seven residents besides Mr. Butler of importance in the whole parish of Taney, namely, Lord Fitzwilliam, at Mount Merrion; Anthony Foster, afterwards Chief Baron of the Exchequer, at Merville; Hugh Carmichael, Dudley Rogers, James Crowe, John Hunt, and Richard Thwaites, and the total number of dwellings was only sixty-six. Amongst the other inhabitants: we find names which are still familiar, including those of Moulds, Messit, and Rinkle.

Dundrum was then a small village chiefly remarkable for being on the high road to Powerscourt. It had a reputation, though not in an equal degree with Carrickmines, as a health resort - a reputation which it regained at the beginning of the nineteenth century

• and lodgings where goats’ milk could be obtained were advertised. Some of the deaths announced as taking place at Dundrum are possibly those of persons who sought benefit from the mild climate; amongst these we find, in 1756, the wife of Anthony Perry, master of Lucas’s Coffee House; in 1757, Lieutenant John Kellie, of Lord George Forbes’ Regiment of Foot; in 1760, Mr. William Litton, a silk weaver; and in 1771, the wife of Mr Shea, a linen draper.

Some years later in 1787 the discovery of a mineral spring near Ticknock was announced, but, in spite of a strong recommendation of its efficacious qualities, it had only a short-lived popularity. A few houses near the old churchyard formed a separate village known as Churchtown, and the only other neighbouring village of any importance was Windy Arbour, on the road to Dublin, where there was a lodging house in which the first Lord Cloncurry stayed in early life.

The lawless and defenceless state of the vicinity of Dublin is indicated by more than one outrage near Dundrum. A house at Churchtown was in 1780 broken into by four masked robbers armed with swords and pistols; a gentleman returning on horseback from the fair at Donnybrook was in 1788 stopped near the castle by two highwaymen; a coffin containing the body of a man supposed to have been murdered was in 1790 left on a false pretext with the grave-digger; the house of Mr. Valentine Dunne, whose business premises were in Castle Street DuNin, was in 1798 broken into and plundered; and a farmer called Ennis in the same year of rebellion was forced to leave his house near the Three Rock Mountain after it had been three times robbed.

Towards the close of the eighteenth century Dundrum was the home of Mr. John Giffard, who took a prominent part in the political affairs of his time as a strong supporter of the Union, and who has the distinction of being the grandfather of the present Lord Chancellor of England, the Earl of Halsbury. There Mr. Giffard’s sons, Sir Ambrose Hardinge Giffard, Chief Justice of Ceylon, and Stanley Lees Giffard, many years editor of *The Standard, *and father of Lord Halsbury, passed their early life.

At Churchtown the Hon. William Tankerville Chamberlaine, a Justice of the King’s Bench, one of the most eminent members of the judiciary of his day, and Mr. Edward Mayne, who subsequently became a judge of the same court, were at that time residing, and amongst other inhabitants in the immediate vicinity of Dundrum were Mr. Stephen Stock, a brother. of the Bishop of that name, and a man of exemplary charity; Mr. Daniel Kinahan, ancestor of a family still identified with the parish; and Alderman Nathaniel Hone, sometime Lord Mayor of Dublin.

Balally

These lands, which lie between those of Dundrum and the parish of Kilgobbin, were the site of a castle, and of a church, remains of which were until recently to be seen in the grounds of Moreen. In the opinion of the late Professor Stokes the name is a derivation of Irish words meaning the town of Olave, a famous Danish saint and had its origin in a Danish settlement represented afterwards by the Harolds, a clan rivalling the Walshes in the extent of their mountain lands.

A tradition existed in the neighbourhood a century ago that the church had been erected by two families which had engaged in desperate conflict near its site, and which had agreed, on their revenge being satiated, to erect a church there, known a hundred years ago as the Cross Church of Moreen.

The lands of Balally were given in 1279 to John de Walhope, an old and valued servant of the Crown, and twenty years later were in the occupation of John Othyr.

After having been, about 1334, in the possession of Maurice Howell and Gregory Taunton, already mentioned as tenants to the Priory of the Holy Trinity for the lands of Cabinteely and Brenanstown, the lands of Balally, came into the possession of the Walshes of Carrickmines.

Like other lands bordering on the mountains, those of Balally suffered much from “wars and casualties of fortune,” and in a grant from the Crown in 1407 to William Walsh it was conditioned that he should build a small castle upon them. Although a considerable time elapsed before its completion, this castle was ultimately erected, and became the residence of a branch of the Walsh family.

In 1546 Thomas Walsh, who was then in possession of three houses and eighty-one acres in Balally, besides the castle, died there, and was succeeded by his son, John, then a minor; in 1597 William Walsh was in possession, and in 1641 James Walsh was seized of the castle and lands, as well as of those of Edmondstown, near Rathfarnham.

The Walshes of Balally, as adherents of the Roman Catholic Church, had its services regularly performed, possibly in the ancient church, and in 1630 the Rev. John Cahill, mentioned as parish priest of Donnybrook, was commonly the celebrant.

After James Walsh’s death in 1646 his son, Henry, disposed of Balally for £700 to Mr. John Borr, of Dublin, but during the Commonwealth, when there was a population of seven persons of English and eleven of Irish descent inhabiting eight houses, the Parliament seized upon the lands and leased them to Lieutenant-Colonel Isaac Dobson, of Dundrum.

After the Restoration Mr. John Borr was successful in establishing his right to the lands before the Commissioners of Settlement, and subsequently occupied the castle, which contained three hearths, as his country residence. He was the son of Christian Borr, a naturalised German, who having come to Ireland early in the seventeenth century, had amassed a large fortune as a merchant, trading principally in the export of beef and import of corn, wine, and salt, and in whose will piety and business are quaintly mingled in the direction that his body should be buried in “a comely but not costly manner” near his pew door in St. Kevin’s Church, Dublin, and in closing a long list of debtors with the prayer that Providence may direct them to discharge their considerations.

Mr. John Borr, who built a great house known as “Borr’s Court,” near Christ Church Cathedral, added to the wealth which he had inherited from his father, and his son, Mr. Christian Borr, father of several sons who met with sad and untimely ends, occupied a good social position in Dublin.

In the latter part of the eighteenth century the villas which border the high road through Balally began to be erected. Moreen, then described as a neat, compact house, was built, and its grounds laid out with much trouble and expense on the rocky land, by Mr. William M’Kay, a legal official, whose descendants are still recollected for their prowess in the hunting field in days when hares and foxes abounded in the wilds of Carrickmines and Foxrock

Amongst other residents were Mr. Faithful William Fortescue, M.P. for Monaghan; Mr. Robert Turbett, ancestor of the family still identified with Dundrum; and Mr. William Ridgeway, an eminent lawyer, whose name will be found as counsel for the Crown in many of the leading prosecutions of the period, particularly in that of Robert Emmet, and whose reports of cases are still of value to lawyers.

Roebuck

The lands of Roebuck, or Rabo as they were anciently called, which lie between Donnybrook and Dundrum, were the site of a castle, which stood from very early times on the ground now occupied by the modern Roebuck Castle, the handsome seat of Mr. Francis Vandeleur Westby, D.L.

Soon after the Anglo-Norman Conquest the lands, which were originally of greater extent than at present became a manor with a chief residence, and at the beginning of the fourteenth century permission was given to the owner to keep game in his demesne on them. They were then estimated to contain three carucates, valued at £9, being at the rate of *6d. *an acre, and the owner had sixty acres under corn and twelve plough teams.

Clonskeagh, or the meadow of the white thorn bushes, now a village on the Dodder known for its iron works, is mentioned in 1316 as belonging to the owners of Roebuck, and then contained a mill. By Henry II. the lands of Roebuck were granted, together with the somewhat distant manor of Cruagh, to Thomas de St. Michael, and after passing through the hands of David Basset, a member of a great Norman family, came in 1261 into the possession of Fromund le Brun, then Chancellor of Ireland, from whom they descended to Sir Nigel le Brun, who was given in 1304 the right of free warren. Under these owners the lands were held by a family which took its cognomen from the place, and a member of which, Otho de Rabo, acted as bailiff in legal proceedings for Sir Nigel le Brun.

The succession of owners for the next two centuries is almost complete. In 1315 Fromund, son of Sir Nigel le Brun, was in possession; in 1377 Sir Thomas, son of Sir Fromund le Brun; in 1382 Francis, son of Sir Thomas le Brun; and in 1420 Sir John, son of Francis le Brun.

Sir John le Brun had two sons, Christopher and Richard; Christopher died before his father, leaving two children, a son, Christopher, who died shortly after his grandfather, and a daughter, Elizabeth.

For a time the lands appear to have been in possession of Sir John’s second son, Richard le Brun, but ultimately they became vested in his granddaughter, Elizabeth, and by her marriage to Robert Barnewall, first Baron of Trimlestown, passed into possession of the latter family, which continued to own Roebuck until the beginning of the nineteenth century.

It has been stated that the Castle of Roebuck, now partly incorporated in the modern house, was the residence of John, third Baron of Trimlestown, who was Chancellor of Ireland in the reign of Henry VIII., but it seems probable that it owed its construction to Robert, fifth Baron of Trim]estown - ” a rare nobleman, endowed with sundry good gifts ” - whose initials, with those of his wife, Anne Fyan, it bore.

During the rebellion of 1641 the castle, then in possession of Matthew, eighth Baron Trimlestown, who served as an officer in the Confederate Army, was destroyed, and in the time of the Commonwealth the lands and manor of Roebuck, together with Clonskeagh and a mill, were held by one Edward Barry, whom Colonel Arthur Hill sought to dispossess. The principal occupant of the lands at that time was Mr. William Nally - said to have been an ancestor of the notorious Leonard MacNally, the lawyer-whose death in 1669 is recorded on one of the oldest tombstones in Donnybrook Churchyard. In 1652 Nally was ordered to attend a perambulation of lands in the neighbourhood of Dublin taken under the protection of the Commonwealth, and in 1664 he was occupying a house rated as containing two hearths, which was probably portion of the castle. Besides the lands of Roebuck, Nally held, under the Fitzwilliams, the adjoining lands of Owenstown, now forming part of Mount Merrion.

The population of Roebuck and Owenstown is returned about that time as seven persons of English and forty-two persons of Irish extraction.

The castle was in a ruinous condition in the eighteenth century, which renders it improbable that James II. lodged there, as has been stated, after his arrival in 1689 in Ireland. Austin Cooper, on visiting it in 1781, found only a small portion roofed, which was used as a storehouse by a farmer who resided in a small house close by.

In Cooper’s opinion the castle was originally a large one, forming two sides of a square, and upon it, he mentions, were engraved in stone the arms of the Barnewalls, as well as the letters R. B. A. F. and the name Robert.

At the beginning of that century a bleach yard existed on the lands of Roebuck as well as mills at Clonskeagh, and advertisements appeared from time to time of the castle farm as affording excellent accommodation for a dairyman, proposals for which were to be made to Lord Trimlestown at his seat near Trim or at his Dublin house in Mary Street.

The Dubhn Volunteers in 1784 selected Roebuck as one of their camping grounds, and in 1789, when there was a great uproar about an attempt to close the footpath from Milltown to Clonskeagh, the vicinity of Roebuck Castle was chosen as a retired place to fight a duel, which was happily amicably adjusted, not, however, before shots had been exchanged.

Of the. country seats which adorn the neighbourhood, the first in date was Merville, in Foster’s Avenue, now the residence of Mr. J. Hume Dudgeon. This fine old house, which forms three sides of a square, and has out-offices of a most extensive kind, was built about the middle of the eighteenth century by the Right Hon. Anthony Foster, Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer, and father of the last Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, whose connection with the place is commemorated in the name of the magnificent avenue in which it stands.

Chief Baron Foster, whose ability and social gifts in early life attracted the attention of that acute observer, Mrs. Delany, was one of the first persons of position in Ireland to interest himself in a practical manner in the improvement of agriculture and in the development of her industries. He has been styled by Arthur Younig, who visited him on his estate at Collon in the County Louth, where his operations exceeded anything Young could have imagined, as a prince of improvers, but few would dare to put in practice his theory that raising rents tended to improve the condition of the tenantry by quickening their industry, setting them to search for manures, and making them better farmers.

While a practising barrister, when he occupied a seat in Parliament, first as member for the borough of Dunleer and afterwards for the County Louth, Foster rendered services to the linen manufacture by amending the laws affecting it. For this he was rewarded by the presentation of an address in a gold box and a magnificent piece of plate. He manifested throughout his life the utmost interest in the trade of Ulster.

After his death in 1778 his son, the Speaker, occupied Merville for some years, but ultimately sold it to Sir Thomas Lighton, on whom a baronetcy, still held by his descendant, was conferred. Sir Thomas Lighton, who is buried in Taney graveyard, had in early life a career of extraordinary adventure in India, which resulted in his making a large fortune, and after returning to his native land, he settled down in Dublin as a banker, and obtained a seat in Parliament first as a member for Tuam and afterwards for Carlingford.

He was succeeded soon after his death in 1805, at Merville, then said to have one of the best gardens in Ireland, by the Right Hon. William Baron Downes, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, a lawyer of the first distinction, and a great friend of Judge Chamberlaine, already mentioned as a resident at Dundrum, with whom he was buried by his own desire in St. Ann’s Church, Dublin. Subsequently Merville passed into the possession of Lieutenant-General Henry Hall, *C.B., *a distinguished Indian military officer and administrator.

Other villas began to be built towards the close of the eighteenth century, and amongst their first occupants were Alderman John Exshaw, publisher of the magazine called by his name, whose mayoralty was attended with much splendour, and who covered himself with military glory during the Rebellion; James Potts, the proprietor of *Saunder’s News Letter, *who resided at Richview, and had an encounter with Mr. John Giffard, the owner of a rival organ, outside the door of Taney Church; Mr. Alexander Jaffray, one of the first directors of the Bank of Ireland; Dr. Robert Emmet, father of Thomas Addis Emmet and Robert Emmet who resided at Casino; and Mr. Henry Jackson, who started the iron works at Clonskeagh, and had to flee from Ireland on account of his complicity in the Rebellion.

Before the close of that century the Castle of Roebuck was rebuilt by Thomas, thirteenth Baron of Trimleistown, and was subsequently occupied successively by Mr. James Crofton, an official of the Irish Treasury, and his son, Mr. Arthur Burgh Crofton, who were both Commissioners for the construction of Kingstown Harbour.

After the death of the latter the castle was taken by Mr. Edward Perceval Westhy, D.L., father of the present owner, on his marriage to a daughter of the Right Hon. Francis Blackburne, sometime Lord Chancellor of Ireland, who maintained by a lengthened residence at Roebuck Hall the connection of Roebuck, begun in the thirteenth century, with the holders of the Great Seal.

Mount Merrion

Mount Merrion, the Irish seat of the Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, can compare in the beauty of its demesne with many of the great places in England, and has few rivals in Ireland. Entering by the high gates on the road from Dublin to Stillorgan, which face the broad avenue from Blackrock, a straight drive with wide borders of closely cut grass, and rows of lofty elms on either side, leads to the house, which is covered with creepers. Across the gravel sweep before the hall door, which faces the south, stand the great stables forming three sides of a square, and behind them lie the gardens entered through gates which recall the father of the present owner, the lamented Lord Herbert of Lea, whose monogram they bear.

Beyond the house to the west across a smooth lawn, is a thick wood, intersected with walks and adorned with temples and rural structures of various kinds, while through the park stretch away two drives, one disused and grass-grown leading under an archway of noble trees to Foster’s Avenue, and the other, commanding lovely views of Dublin and its bay, leading to Mount Anville and Dundrum.

A modern front of singularly poor design disfigures the original house, which was three storeys in height, while the front as it stands on higher ground, is only of two, but through the verdure one sees peeping out tiers of quaint old-fashioned windows and a tiny belfry surmounting the western wall. In its style of architecture the original house resembled the existing stables, which bear the date 1711, and although of small extent it contained one or two fine rooms, now divided, with deep window seats, curious door frames, and moulded cornices, which show it to have been internally a handsome dwelling.

To Richard, fifth Viscount Fitzwilliam, who had succeeded in 1704 his father, Thomas, fourth Viscount Fitzwilliam, the last holder of the title mentioned in connection with Merrion Castle, the ancient home of the family, Mount Merrion House owed its construction, and the selection of the site, one of the most beautiful on his property, indicates that he was not insensible to the charms of scenery. The lands had been in the possession of his family front the fourteenth century.

At the time of the Anglo-Norman Invasion, as has been mentioned in the history of Booterstown, they had formed portion of lands called Cnocro, or the Red Hill, which were assigned to Walter de Rideleford, Lord of Bray, but it was probably under the name of Owenstown that the greater portion of them came into possession of the Fitzwilliams of Dundrum about the same time as the latter place.

In the sixteenth century the hill of Owenstown was selected as the place of assembly for a hosting or review of the levies of the Pale and there, on at least one occasion, the proprietors, who held their lands by military tenure, drew out their followers in martial array. The fifth Viscount Fitzwilliam, who had found a wife - a daughter of Sir John Shelley, of Michelgrove, in Sussex, the family to which the poet Shelley belonged - in England, was a man of considerable ability, although of unattractive manners. He was inspired with an ardent desire to take an active part in public life, and with that object, having conformed to the Established Church, took his seat in 1710 in the Irish House of Lords. It was then his intention to make Ireland his home and as the Castle of Merrion had become uninhabitable, he commenced the erection of Mount Merrion House as a country seat.

From that time, for many years, with the exception of one session, he continued to attend assiduously in Parliament, and from references to him in connection with a rivalry which existed between him and his near neighbours, the Allens of Stillorgan, it is evident that he was one of the most prominent of the Irish peers in the politics 0f his day.

Amongst Fitzwilliam’s friends was the learned and good Archbishop of Dublin, William King, and on more than one occasion the Archbishop availed himself of the calm and repose which Mount Merrion afforded for literary work. At the time of Queen Anne’s death the Archbishop was staying there and seeking relief in the revision of his book, on *The Inventions of Men in the Worship of God, *from the annoyance to which he was subjected as a supporter of the succession of the House of Hanover, and from his other cares, the non-residence of the clergy, the want of churches and of money

to pay incumbents - as in the case of the neighbouring Church of Stillorgan-and – in a less degree, the management of the choir which then served both the Dublin Cathedrals, and gave the Archbishop and the Deans great ado to keep in order. He was not long left undisturbed however, for on the accession of George I. he was appointed, with the Earl of Kildare, then staying with his brother-in-law, Colonel Allen of Stillorgan, a Lord Justice.

One of the first uses which they made of their power was to obtain the admission of their hosts to the Privy Council board, with, in the case of Lord Fitzwilliam, the further honour of appointment as Vice-Admiral of the Province of Leinster.

At Mount Merrion the fifth Viscount Fitzwilliam’s children, who were baptized in St. Andrew’s Church, Dublin, passed their early life, and in a large picture preserved there his three sons are depicted as boys playing in the grounds.

The eldest, Richard, succeeded him; the second, William, who appears to have been a man of great social charm, passed his life in London, where he died at the close of the eighteenth century;** **and the third, John, who made a most extraordinary disposition of his property, amounting to £100,000, a great part of which he left to his servant, was a distinguished officer, who attained to the rank of General, and represented Windsor for some’ years in Parliament.

Besides his three sons, the Viscount had two daughters, of whom the elder married first Henry, ninth Earl of Pembroke, an alliance to which the Earls of Pembroke owe their Irish estate, and secondly, although accounted one of the proudest dames of quality of her day, a commoner, Major North Ludlow Bernar; and the younger married George, second Baron Carbery.

About the year 1726*, *when as an Irish peer he succeeded in obtaining a seat in the English House of Commons as member for Fowey, in Cornwall, the fifth Viscount Fitzwilliam went to reside permanently in England, probably attracted thither by the wider field for a political life, and possibly in some degree influenced by his wife’s desire to live in her own country.

In England he became one of the *entourage *of the Prince of Wales, shortly afterwards to ascend the throne as George II., and his family became favourites at Court. His third son, John, was appointed a page of honour, and his eldest daughter, afterwards the Countess of Pembroke, a maid of honour, in which capacity she is mentioned by Lady Hervey in describing the ladies of the Court under the guise of books, as a volume neatly bound and well worth perusing, called *The Lady’s Guide or the Whole Art of Dress. *A few years later Lady Fitzwilliam, who was a Roman Catholic, separated from her husband and entered a convent abroad, where she remained for twenty years, until after her husband’s death.

Soon after the fifth Viscount Fitzwilliam had settled in England Mount Merrion House was let to one of the Barons of the Irish Exchequer, the Honorable John Wainwright, a judge who is remarkable for having lost his life in discharging his official duties. He was an Englishman promoted in 1732 direct from the Bar of that country to the Irish Bench. In character he was discerning and discreet, with an even temper, attractive manners, and a most charitable disposition, and although he was advised to let his attempts at English verse cool, he was a scholar of no mean attamments.

His friends included many persons of note in that day - Pelham Holles, Duke of Newcastle, whose schoolfellow he had been at Westminster School, and in whose correspondence a number of letters from Wainwright written in a fine bold hand are preserved; Mrs. Clayton, the confidential friend of Queen Caroline, whom he styles his guardian angel; Bishop Berkeley, whom he thought of accompanying to the Bermudas, and by whom the inscription on a monument which Wainwright erected in Chester Cathedral to his father and grandfather, both Chancellors of that diocese, is composed; the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Dorset who was very civil and attentive to him; the Lord Lieutenant’s Secretary, Bubb Dodington, who sought his advice; the unorthodox Bishop Clayton, who was his constant companion; and Dr. Stone, afterwards Primate of Ireland, who was another old Westminster boy.

Not long after his arrival in Ireland Wainwright had narrowly escaped being shot in his town house in William Street by a Sheriff’s officer, and was only spared to fall a victim to the famine fever of 1741, which he contracted while on the spring circuit in the crowded courts of Munster, where the pestilence raged with especial severity.

He was hurried up to Mount Merrion House, but died there a few days later, when only fifty-two years of age, his body being taken to Chester, where it was received with marks of the ‘most extraordinary respect for interment beside his father’s in Holy Trinity Church.

Almost immediately after Wainwright’s death Mount Merrion was taken by the Lord Chancellor, Robert Jocelyn, who two years later was raised to the peerage as Baron Newport of Newport in the County of Tipperary, a place in which he had acquired considerable property.

Of Jocelyn’s early history something has been already told in connection with his residence at Donnybrook. For seventeen years he occupied the woolsack, earning amongst his contemporaries the reputation of being a great and good Chancellor. During the protracted absences of the Lords Lieutenants Jocelyn acted invariably as one of the Lord Justices, who, owing to the difficulty of communication, were the real rulers of Ireland while in office, and were treated with all the state and ceremony accorded to the Viceroy. He was much interested in historical research and Irish antiquities; and for a time filled the President’s chair of the “Physico-Historical Society,” which numbered amongst its active members, Dr. Samuel Madden, the philanthropist; Thomas Prior, the founder of the Dublin Society; the curious Dr. Rutty; John Lodge, of genealogical fame; Charles Smith, the county historian, who speaks in the preface to his “History of Kerry” of Jocelyn’s noble collection of manuscripts relative to Ireland; and Walter Harris, the editor of Ware’s works, to whom Jocelyn was a most generous patron, and who left Jocelyn, “out of perfect gratitude,” all his papers to dispose of at his discretion.

To Mount Merrion, whenever official duties permitted, it was Jocelyn’s delight to’ retire from his mansion in St. Stephen’s Green, and in his rural retreat he contrived to spend no small portion of his time. There, attended by his friend and chaplain, Dr. Mann, afterwards Bishop of Cork, who resided constantly with him, and by his favourite servant, Mr. Wilde, his house steward, it was to Jocelyn the most agreeable relaxation to’ pass the’ day overseeing the haymakers or watching his horses, his catfle, and his dogs, as they wandered over the wide pastures Lord Fitzwilliam must have found him an improving tenant; when a well was being sunk in the demesne, Lady Newport wrote to him that if the moles, as he called the workmen, failed to find water it would not be the first money thrown away; and after Jocelyn’s death, when Mount Merrion was surrendered to its owner, difficulty was found in dividing his property from that of Lord Fitzwilliam. At Mount Merrion on Sunday evening Jocelyn kept open house for his friends - his Sunday Club, as it was named by him - chief amongst those thus received being Henry Singleton, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, one of the first lawyers of his day; John Bowes, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, who succeeded Jocelyn as Chancellor, and was remarkable for his oratorical powers; Richard Mountney, no less distinguished as a scholar than as a Baron of the Exchequer; and William Yorke, one of the puisne judges, and afterwards Singleton’s successor as Chief of the Common Pleas., who was a kinsman of Jocelyn’s early friend, Lord Chancellor Hardwicke. Besides these, Robert Downes, Bishop of Ferns and Leighlin, was a constant guest, and Lord Harrington, while Lord Lieutenant, on at least one occasion stayed at Mount Merrion.

While living at Mount Merrion in 1748 Jocelyn had the misfortune to lose his first wife, the sister-in-law of Bishop Goodwyn, a truly amiable and charitable lady, who was interred in Irishtown Church, of which Dr. Mann was then the chaplain. his only son, afterwards the first Earl of Roden, who in the words of Mrs. Delany, was a very pretty man,” and all a father could desire, and who, as part owner of a pack of hounds which was kennelled at Kilgobbin, enjoyed much popularity, was married some years later in 1752 to a daughter of Lord Limerick, afterwards Earl of Clanbrassil, a lady who was then supposed to have no great portion, but who eventually brought to her children a large estate.

After his son’s marriage, Jocelyn took to himself a second wife, the handsome widow of the Earl of Rosse, of facetious fame, who on his death-bed, caused a letter of good advice from his rector to be redirected and sent to one of the most upright noblemen of his day. This alliance Mrs:. Delany considered in every way calculated to put the Chancellor in good humour. He continued to make Mount Merrion his home; in 1754 he joined in the fund to repair the neighbouring Church of Stillorgan, and in July of the next year he entertained there the Lord Lieutenant, the fourth Duke of Devonshire.

A few months later he was raised to the dignity of a Viscounty as Viscount Jocelyn, but only lived a short time to enjoy this honour and his domestic felicity, as the gout, to which he had long been subject, assumed a more acute form, and having gone to London for medical advice, he died there in December, 1756, in the sixty-eighth year of his age, as recorded on a monument to his memory in Sawbridgeworth Church, in Hertfordshire, where he was buried with his ancestors.

Mount Merrion House was now once more in the hands of its owner. The fifth Viscount Fitzwilliam, who had never returned to Ireland, had died in 1743 in Surrey, and had been succeeded by his eldest son, Richard, sixth Viscount Fitzwilliam. The latter had served in the army under his brother-in-law, the Earl of Pembroke, and although not on friendly terms with his father, is spoken of by Lord Chesterfield as an unexceptionable person.

During his father’s lifetime he had succeeded him in the office of Vice-Admiral of Leinster, and after his death he was made a Knight of the Bath and appointed a Privy Councillor. He married a daughter of a Dutch merchant, Sir Matthew Decker, Bart., who is best known as having feasted George I. on a pine apple [A picture of this pine apple painted by H. Watkins and dated 1720, hangs in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge; underneath is the following inscription: “Perenni Memoriae Matthaei Decker Baronetti et Theordori Netscher Armigeri strobilus hic regio convivio dignatus istius impensis Richmondiae crevit hujus arto etiamnum crescere videtur.”]** **in his grand house in Richmond Green, and for his piety and benevolence, which were so great that a foolish scion of a noble house is related to have been persuaded by some wag that Decker was the author of St. Matthew’s Gospel, and to have left him a large legacy on account of that excellent work.

Although not forgetful “that property has its duties as well as its rights;” the sixth Viscount Fitzwilliam was for many years returned as one of the absentees from Ireland, and it was not until the close of his life that he formed an intention of occupying Mount Merrion, which on more than one occasion had been suggested as a country residence for the Lord Lieutenant. Then, possibly attracted by the beauty of the place, which had excited the admiration of Bishop Pococke and of a friend of Horace Walpole, and had been extolled by a poetical writer to the disparagement; of Richmond, where the sixth Viscount had found a home in his father-in-law’s house, he began to make alterations at Mount Morrien, including the building of the front of the house, which does little credit to the Irish workmen whom alone he employed, and the construction of the avenue to Mount Anville and of the present deer park, and there in 1776 he died.

Mount Morrion Houso was then again let, and after having been occupied for a time by Mr. Peter La Touche, M.P. for the County Leitrim, it was taken by the Right Hon. John Fitzgibbon, then Attorney-General for Ireland, and afterwards Lord Chancellor, with the well-known title of Lord Clare, on his marriage to the sister of the renowned Jerusalem Whaley-a lady no less distinguished for her beauty, which attracted the attention of George IV., then Prince of Wales, than for her qualities of heart.

Fitzgibbon’s appointment to the custody of the Great Seal in 1789 was, on the ground of his being an Irishman, the occasion of great rejoicings, and addreses and freedoms of cities were showered upon him. His position gave occasion for the stately magnificence which was congenial to his character.

Preparations for the celebration of the Prince of Wales’s birthday at Mount Merrion were made in the most superb style, and great dinners and balls, at which the Lord Lieutenant was a constant guest, were given by FitzGibbon and his wife.

On his appointment as a Lord Justice his nephew was appointed as his Aide-de-Camp, and when visiting Limerick ho was received with a guard of soldiers and general illuminations, and offered to knight the Mayor and Sheriffs

One of his possessions, which attracted much observation, was his state coach, which is now preserved in the National Museum of Ireland-a vehicle unparalleled for its splendour. Crowds flocked to see it as it lay in Fitzgibbon’s stables in Baggot Street, at the back of his town house in Ely Place, whore it was freely shown to all, the servants being forbidden to accept any gratuity for its exhibition. The panels are decorated with paintings executed by William Hamilton, a Royal Academician, at a fee of 500 guineas, and the total cost of the coach, which was built in London, is stated to’ have been 2,000 guineas.

About the year 1793, when Fitzgibbon leased Blackrock House, Mount Merrion was again in the hands of its owners, Richard, seventh Viscount Fitzwilliam, who had succeeded to the titles in 1776 on his father’s death. As founder of the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, he is the best known member of his family. This princely gift to his *alma mater, *with which a romantic story has been connected of an unsuccessful attachment for a Cambridge lady, formed while he was a student in the quiet courts of Trinity Hall, and of undying affection for the place-a story to which his continuance in the single state lends some probability was one of almost unexampled munificence, including, as it did, both his vast collections of rare books and pictures, and a bequest of £100,000 for the erection and endowment of a museum.

During part of his life he courted privacy, but he represented for a number of years, through the influence of his cousin, the Earl of Pembroke, the borough of Wilton in the English Parliament, and had the reputation of being not only a man of enlarged and liberal mind, but also of being one of a kind and compassionate disposition, who was easy of access to all. His home was at Richmond, in Sir Matthew Decker’s house, but he was constantly on the move, earning from his uncle William, the character of being as unfixed as Mercury.

His visits to Ireland were generally of short duration; on one occasion he accomplished the feat, a remarkable one in his time, of performing the journey there and back in fourteen days, but he found time on his visits to this country to extend his patronage to William Ashford, the first President of the Royal Hibernian Academy, by whom a number of paintings and drawings of Mount Merrion were executed. Those are now preserved in the Fitzwilliam Museum, and from them the accompanying views of the place are taken.

During the seventh Viscount’s lifetime Mount Merrion House was occupied by Mr. Richard Verschoyle and by his wife, Miss Barbara Fagan, who was, as her mother had been before her, agent to Lord Fitzwilliam, and the seat is still shown in Mount Merrion where that lady used to sit and watch for her husband coming up the straight drive. To Mr. Verschoyle succeeded, as agent and as occupier of Mount Merrion, Mr. Cornelius Sullivan, of whose sporting proclivities old inhabitants’ have still recollections, and subsequently Mr. John Edward Vernon, to whom the Pembroke estate owes so much, and whose abilities were recognised in his appointment as one of the original Commissioners under the Irish Land Acts’.

After the death of the seventh Viscount Fitzwilliam in. 1816 his estate passed to his cousin, George Augustus, eleventh Earl of Pembroke and eighth Earl of Montgomery, the descendant of Queen Caroline’s maid of honour, and the titles, after being held for a few years successively by his two brothers, became extinct. The e1eventh Earl of Pembroke left his Irish estate to his second son, the great and good Sidney, Lord Herbert of Lea, whose sons, the thirteenth and fourteenth Earls of Pembroke, have since successively held the property.

Ecclesiastical History

The great diversity in the spelling of the name Taney in ancient records must ever leave its origin a matter of speculation, and it is a subject for regret that the dedication of its first church is also lost in the obscurity of past ages.

But it is established beyond question that before the Anglo-Norman Conquest a church stood at Dundrum on the site of what is now known as the old church-an eighteenth century structure-and that under the Celtic ecclesiastical arrangement the place was one of religious importance. It is said that it was the seat of one of the rural bishops, or chorepiscopi, and that the extensive rural deanery attached to Taney in the thirteenth century, which embraced such distant parishes as Coolock, Chapelizod, and Clonsilla, represented the limits of his authority.

After the Anglo-Norman Conquest the Church of Taney, together with the portion of the lands of Churchtown, or Taney, assigned to the See of Dublin, was given to the Archbishop, and towards the close of the twelfth century Taney became a prebend in the newly-founded collegiate church of St. Patrick, which was soon afterwards created a cathedral establishment.

Subsequently, in exchange for the Church of Lusk, the Church of Taney, then a mother church, with the chapels of Donnybrook, Rathfarnham, and Kilgobbin dependent on it, was granted to the Archdeacon of Dublin, and the prebend of Taney, which has been revived since the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, became merged in that dignity. From that time until 1851 the parish of Taney continued to be portion of the Archdeacon’s corps, and was served, like Donnybrook, by curates appointed by him.

During the temporary dissolution of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in the sixteenth century, William Power, the Archdeacon of Dublin, was given a pension as prebendary of Taney and Rathfarnham, and the revenue from those parishes was leased to Sir Richard Rede, and subsequently to Sir John Allen, who successively filled the office of Lord Chancellor, with the condition that fit chaplains should be found for the churches.

The tithes which were levied on the town-lands of Taney, Dundrum, Balally, Ballinteer, Roebuck, “the Chantrell Ferme,” and Callary, were valued at £19 per annum, and the glebe, on which there was a house, and which, with the fees and oblations, were assigned to the curate, was valued at 9s.

Early in the seventeenth century the church was returned as in good repair and provided with books, but some years later it was stated to be in ruin. The parish was served generally by the Curate of Donnybrook. In 1615 the Rev. Robert Pont was in charge of the cure; in 1630 the Rev. Richard Prescott; in 1639 the Rev. Thomas Naylor, afterwards a prebendary of Ferns Cathedral; and in 1641 the Rev. George Hudson. The cure in 1647 was returned as vacant, and probably the church became quite unfit for use during the Commonwealth.

Under the Roman Catholic Church the parish, as we have seen, was within the Union of Donnybrook, and the Rev.. John Cahill, who had charge of the union in the beginning of the seventeenth century, held services at Dundrum and at Balally. Nearly all the parishioners belonged to that faith - in 1630 there were only two Protestant householders and under the protection of the chief residents, the Fitwilliams and the Walshes, Mr. Cahill was able to perform the services of his church without interference.

After the Restoration Taney parish was generally placed in charge of the curate appointed to Donnybrook, and the church, in which at that time the Archbolds of Kilmacud found a burying place**, **was allowed to remain in a state of dilapidation.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century a church, now a ruin, was built at Kilgobbin, and curates were appointed at the liberal stipend of £35 a year and book money to the joint charge of Kilgobbin and Taney, amongst them being, in 1753, the author of the” Monasticon Hibernicum,” and editor of Lodge’s “Peerage of Ireland,” the Rev. Mervyn Archdall, who became subsequently a prebendary in the Ossory diocese.

It was not until the middle of the eighteenth century that the structure now known as the old church of Taney, which stands in the graveyard, and serves as a mortuary chapel, was erected through the exertions of Lord Chancellor Jocelyn’s friend, Dr. Isaac Mann, who was in 1757 appointed Archdeacon of Dublin, and of his curate, the Rev. Jeremy Walsh, whom Dr. Mann nominated in 1758 to the charge of his parishes of Kilgobbin and Taney.

It is externally, a singularly plain building, more resembling a barn than a church, and, internally, the original reading desk and pulpit, which still remain, rising above the Communion Table, show that it was equally devoid of ornament. It had, however, the distinction of being consecrated by the munificent Dr. Richard Robinson, then Bishop of Ferns and Leighlin, and afterwards Primate, and a peer, with the title of Lord Rokeby, who performed the ceremony on Sunday, June 8, 1760, and a year later was used by the Bishop of Limerick, Dr. James Leslie, for an ordination, at which the Rev. Edward Ledwich, the antiquary, and the Rev. Beather King, afterwards Curate of Stillorgan, were admitted to the Order of Priest.

But perhaps the most remarkable scene its walls ever witnessed was in July, 1787, when that famous orator, the Rev. Walter Blake Kirwan, not long after his reception into the Established Church, delivered one of his great sermons in support of the schools then lately founded in the parish, and when the congregation, in addition to their edification by “a finished piece of execution,” were delighted by the “heavenly psalmody” of a choir brought from Dublin.

After the erection of Taney Church the parish of Kilgobbin was given to another curate, and the Rev. Jeremy Walsh, who lived in the house now known as Whitehall, near Rathfarnham, where he married in 1778 the widow of Thomas Eyre, a member of the Irish Parliament, devoted his whole time to Taney parish.

His successors continued to do the same, the appointments to the cure being as follows: -in 1787, the Rev. William Dwyer, who only remained a few months, and then went to Cork; and the Rev. Matthew Campbell, who served the parishioners faithfully for twenty-five years; in 1814 the Rev. Richard Ryan, a son-in-law of Mr. John Giffard, in whose time the present church of Taney was built; in 1820 the Rev. Henry Hunt who was thanked, on the motion of Lord Downes, for his zeal in the parish, and was afterwards Vicar-General of the Elphin diocese; in 1821 the Rev. William Forde Vance and the Rev. James Bulwer, who was a most accomplished artist and writer, and who was subsequently beneficed in Norfolk, where he had charge of the Library at Blickling Hall; in 1824 the Rev. Henry Hamilton; in 1825 the Rev. Alexander Burrowes Campbell; in 1828 the Rev. John Prior, who was presented with a piece of plate in recognition of his activity and Christian benevolence; in 1834 the Rev. Samuel Henry Mason; in 1836 the Rev. Clement Archer Schoales; and in 1837 the Rev. William Henry Stanford, whose labours during his ministry of fifteen years was the subject of an eulogistic address. On his resignation the parish of Taney was severed from the Archdeaconry, and the subsequent appointments as rector have been - in 1851, the Rev. Andrew Noble Bredin; in 1857, the Rev. Edward Busteed Moeran; in 1867, the Rev. William Alfred Hamilton; in 1895, the Rev. John Joseph Robinson; and in 1900, the Rev. William Monk Gibbon.

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