Introduction to Volume 3.

Introduction To The Third Part.**

**The parishes included in this part of the history form the southern border of the metropolitan county. They are situated in the baronies of Rathdown, Uppercross, and Newcastle, and are bounded to the east by the sea, to the south and west by the Counties of Wicklow and Kildare, and to the north by the parishes of Killiney, Tully, Taney, Rathfarnham, Crumlin, Drimnagh, Clondalkin, Kilbride and Kilmactalway.

Within their limits lies the range of hills known as the Dublin mountains, and owing to their situation they differ in their circumstances from the parishes already treated of in this history.

A great extent of the lands which they contain is unprofitable or of little value. In the remainder, instead of a vast increase of population, there has been a diminution in the number of the inhabitants, and, instead of advancing prosperity, a loss of importance in the villages and country residences.

When our history opens this district, then portion of the country of the people of Cualann, was held in much veneration and was chosen as the burial place of chiefs and warriors whose deeds were commemorated by the cromlechs, cairns and pillar stones which are still to he found in exceptional numbers in the Dublin mountains.

Later, under the Celtic Church, sacred edifices began to be built and monastic establishments, like that of Tallaght, were founded. The Scandinavian invasions with their devastating effects next ensued, arid left their traces on a large tract in the south-eastern portion of the district, which became the possession of Scandinavian proprietors known as the sons of Thorkil.

Then came the Anglo-Norman Conquest with its far-reaching settlement. It found the district under the rule of a Celtic chief called MacGillamocholmog, to whom and whose descendants some portion of the lands was left for a time, but with this comparatively unimportant exception the district was then divided between the Crown, the Archbishop of Dublin as representing the Church, and an Anglo-Norman Walter magnate, Walter de Rideleford, whose castle at Bray - for more than a century the principal dwelling to the south of Dublin - bespoke his power.

At first the lands divided into manors were worked after the custom of England by the owners, by tree tenants, and servile occupiers, and notwithstanding difference of race comparative concord reigned amongst the inhabitants. But before long the Irish tribes rebelled and the days of the Pale began.

Then the castle of Tallaght was erected as a house of defence, and the villages of Saggart, Rathcoole and Newcastle were enclosed with walls and fortified; and afterwards castles were built at Tymon, at Belgard, at Shanganagh, at Shankill, and in many other places. The opening of the seventeenth century saw these castles converted into country residences, and houses like Old Bawn, in which comfort was more consulted, designed.

The rebellion of 1641, and the ensuing disturbances greatly affected the district and left terrible traces; but 100 years later the parishes under review had recovered in some measure from its effect and attained to prosperity which in the course of the last century has continuously waned. Especially was this the case in Tallaght, where the Archbishop of Dublin’s palace, the spa and residence of the Domvile family at Templeogue, and various shooting lodges in the mountains contributed to the welfare of the inhabitants.

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