Parish of Clonsilla

Parish of Clonsilla

*(i.e., Cluam-saileach or the meadow of sallows). *

The Parish of Clonsilla in the seventeenth century is stated to have comprised the townlands of Ballstown, Barberstown, Blackstaheney, Barnageeth, Clonsillagh, Coolmine, Cusanstown, Hartstown, Ininstown, Killiestown, Luttrellstown, Pibblestown, Ringwellstown, and Little Stackheney.

 

It now contains the townlands of Astagob, Barberstown, Barnhill, Blakestown, Broomfield, Castaheany [*i.e. *Heany’s House], Clonsilla, Coolmine [*i.e. *the smooth hill back], Hansfield or Phibblestown, Hartstown, Kellystown, Sheepmoor, and Woodlands. **

Luttrellstown and its Castle**

Luttrellstown, now the seat of Lord Annaly, but from the middle ages until the nineteenth century the home of the Irish branch of the Luttrell family, is situated about eight miles to the west of Dublin between the Phoenix Park, and the county boundary on its Meath and Kildare borders. The castle of Luttrellstown, although it comprises portion of a fortified building so ancient that tradition even asserts that one of its apartments was occupied by King John, is now in its most important features no more than a handsome house of the last century, whose large and well-proportioned reception rooms contain little to interest the antiquary.

But the demesne excites universal admiration. Besides the natural advantages of its proximity to the river Liffey and its possession of a fine sheet of water and of old timber, it exhibits all that art can accomplish, and its beauty led to its being visited by Queen Victoria on more than one occasion.

(An obelisk composed of six blocks of granite in the demesne bears the following inscription: -“Victoria R. et I., 1819-1901, in commemoration of Her Majesty’s visits to Luttrellstown, 1849-1900.”)

The record of the Irish branch of the Luttrell family can hardly be said to stand high in the page of history, and the selection of their home as the chief subject of the present part of this work, may perhaps cause some surprise. But the selection has been made deliberately because the continuity of ownership which the annals of Luttrellstown display, and for which the place is pre-eminent among the seats to be mentioned in the western portion of the county, is a feature only too seldom characteristic of Irish local history, to the interest of which it adds greatly.

Its existence has been the reason that Monkstown, Merrion and Tallaght have been given first place in the parts of this work already published, and that Howth and Malahide are to be given the same prominence in the parts yet to be issued.

The first member of the Luttrell family to come to Ireland was Sir Geoffrey Luttrell, who had been an attached follower of King John when Earl of Mortain, and became one of the favourite ministers of that monarch after his accession to the throne. Sir Geoffrey Luttrell attained to the position of a great magnate through his marriage to a daughter of the house of Paganel, a connection which brought to his family in more than one generation estates in various parts of England.

From him descends the noble family of Luttrell of Dunster Castle, in Somersetshire. Luttrell’s connection with Ireland appears to have begun in the year 1204. In the beginning of that year he was appointed on a commission to settle the disputes then existing in Ireland between the justiciary and the Anglo-Norman magnates of this country, and before its close he was named as a member of an advisory commission sent to this country with an injunction to the authorities to place undoubted reliance on all that the commissioners might expound concerning the King’s Irish affairs.

Six years later, in the summer of 1210, he accompanied King John on that monarch’s visit to Ireland, when we find him acting as one of the paymasters of the mariners and galleymen employed in the large fleet required for the expedition, and forming one of the King’s train at Kells, Carlingford, and Holywood, as well as at Dublin.

Hardly had the King returned to England when Sir Geoffrey Luttrell was once more sent to this country on a mission of state, and during the next few years we find him corresponding from this country with the King by means of a trusty messenger whom the King rewarded with liberality for his arduous services.

In 1215 he was again in England in attendance on the King’s person, advising King John in all matters relating to his Irish kingdom and witnessing many acts of the fling concerning this country. Luttrell received several marks of royal favour, including the honour of knighthood, and as a culminating proof of the trust reposed in him was sent on an embassy to the Pope. While on this mission his death took place.

There is little doubt that from Sir Geoffrey Luttrell the Irish, as well as the Somersetshire Luttrells are descended either in a direct or collateral line. His only son is said to have succeeded to his English estates, and in connection with his Irish property a daughter, who was given by the King in marriage to Philip Marc, is mentioned as his heir, but he purchased in Ireland shortly before his death the marriage of the second daughter of Hugh de Tuit, whose. hand he probably conferred on some male representative of his family in this country.

From his time there is mention of persons of his name as resident in Ireland, the most important of these in the thirteenth century being Robert Luttrell, an ecclesiastic, who was Treasurer of the Cathedral Church of St. Patrick, and filled from 1235 to 1246 the office of Chancellor of Ireland.

The only reference to Sir Geoffrey Luttrell’s estates in Ireland relates to land in Thomond, but Robert Luttrell appears to have had some connection with the Luttrellstown neighbourhood. Subsequently a ford near Lucan belonging to Michael Luttrell is mentioned, and in 1287 that member of the family paid a fine for John de Kerdiff, whose family gave name to Cardiffsbridge in the parish of Finglas.

In the middle of the next century, in 1349, some land and a mill at the Salmon Leap near St. Wolstan’s were released to Simon Luttrell amongst others, and in little more than half a century we find Robert, son of John Luttrell, dealing with this property.

From this John Luttrell, who had, besides his son Robert, a daughter who married one of the Plunketts, the descent of the owners of Luttrellstown can be traced in unbroken succession. His son Robert, who succeeded him, was a man of substance, and was employed by the Crown in the responsible position of collector of the subsidy in the Castleknock district. He inherited property, including Kindlestown, in the County Wicklow, from Sir Elias de Ashbourne, who has been mentioned in connection with Knocklyon in the parish of Tallaght, and who appears as a witness of the transfer of the Salmon Leap property to Simon Luttrell.

He was succeeded by his son Christopher Luttrell, who died in 1454, and the latter by his son Thomas Luttrell, who was stated at the time of his father’s death, although only nineteen years of age, to be married to Ellen, daughter of Philip Bellew. In 1486 we find him filling the office of sheriff of his native county, and a reference to the rejoicings on the occasion of the marriage of a daughter of the house of Luttrellstown (when more than forty archers attended to support the bridegroom, and many citizens came from Dublin), shows the esteem in which the family was held by the other inhabitants of the English Pale.

The bridegroom was one Nicholas Travers, than whom amongst all the multitude at that wedding we are told, there was not a taller or better bowman, and it is probable from this alliance between the house of Travers and of Luttrell that Sir John Travers of Monkstown, who is frequently mentioned in connection with their affairs, was a near relative of the Luttrells.

Thomas Luttrell was succeeded at Luttrellstown by his son Richard Luttrell, who married Margaret, daughter of Patrick FitzLyon; and the latter in his turn by his son Thomas, who adopted the profession of the law and was one of the most distinguished members of the family.

The Right Hon. Sir Thomas Luttrell, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in Ireland, as he became, was a typical example of a gentleman of the English Pale of his time. In spite of the centuries which had elapsed since his family first settled in Ireland and of constant intercourse in his youth with the Irish, which is shown by his knowledge of the Irish language, he remained ever true to the interests of England, and looked upon Ireland, outside the small extent embraced in the Pale, as a foreign country.

At the same time the long separation of his family from England caused him to have little in common with the inhabitants of that country, and to take what may perhaps be described as a parochial view of English policy. Notwithstanding the residence in England necessary for his admission to the legal profession, during which he must have made acquaintance with many of English birth, his relatives and more intimate friends all belonged to the small community within the Pale.

One of his sisters was married to Sir Patrick Barnewall of Turvey, who, like himself, was a lawyer and became Master of the Rolls, and another married as her first husband Nicholas Barnewall of Drimnagh, and as her second Sir John Plunkett of Dunsoghly, who was also a lawyer and became Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench.

Of his two brothers, Robert, who was Archdeacon of Meath, never married, but the other, Simon, a merchant and alderman of Dublin, took as his wife a daughter of the house of Bathe. Both Chief Justice Luttrell’s own wives-for he was twice married-were also taken from old Pale families, one being the daughter of Bartholomew Aylmer of Lyons, and the other the daughter of Sir William Bathe, of Rathfeigh.

Of Luttrell’s early life little is known. His first marriage appears to have taken place in 1506, when he can have been little more than a youth, and in 1527 he appears as plaintiff in a suit in the Common Pleas in connection with the property inherited from Sir Elias de Ashbourne.

In 1532 his talents first received recognition from the Crown in his appointment as Solicitor-General and King’s Serjeant in Ireland, and in 1534 he was promoted to the Bench as Chief Justice of the Common Pleas a position he filled until his death twenty years later.

He was an active member of the Council, in which capacity we find him accompanying Lord Deputy Grey on his expedition to meet Tirlagh O”Poole, and on another occasion taking charge of Dublin in the Lord Deputy’s absence; and it has been stated that he was instrumental in securing the preservation of the public records in a place of safety.

When the Commission presided over by Sir Anthony St. Leger was sent to Ireland in 1537 by Henry VIII., Chief Justice Luttrell was one of those called upon to give evidence. He urged the desirability of restraining the defenders of the Pale in their exactions, which he feared would soon reduce the Pale to the same condition as the rest of Ireland, where obedience to their Prince was only feigned; the necessity of subduing their nearest enemies, the Kavanaghs, O’Tooles and O’Byrnes; the danger of employing Irish soldiers; the advantage of a Lord Deputy of English birth but with long tenure of office; and, with reference to the inhabitants of the Pale, the benefit of making the English dress and language, as well as knowledge of the use of the bow, compulsory, of expelling Irish bards and musicians, of preventing the return of Englishmen to their own country, and finally, of printing the statutes, a work only now about to be accomplished.

Some letters from Chief Justice Luttrell written about this time are still extant; in one of these he refers to the capture of his relative Aylmer of Lyons, by the O’Tooles, and says that a ransom will have to be paid for his release; and in another he mentions the recent “ruffling time” with O’Neill, and says that rents will be slowly paid, as the farmers, whose services saved the Pale from utter destruction, are all lying out in camps.

In the latter letter the Chief Justice also mentions the dissolution of the religious houses, by which he profited. St. Mary’s Abbey had owned from the time of its foundation the lands of Coolmine, in Clonsilla parish, and in addition had obtained in the fifteenth century lands in that parish which had belonged to the Priory of Little Malvern in England.

Of the latter lands Chief Justice Luttrell was tenant at the time of the dissolution, and doubtless then became owner. In addition he received grants of other monastic property, including some of the possessions of the Hospital of St. John the Baptist, to which he had acted as legal adviser.

The estate which he had inherited from his father was no inconsiderable one, and must have been of material assistance to him in professional advancement. Of this we catch a glimpse in the rare and much. prized goshawk sent by him as a present to Mr. Secretary Cromwell.

At the time of his death Chief Justice Luttrell was possessed of much personal as well as real property, and shortly after his death the Crown applied to his executors for the loan of what was then a very large amount of money.

He kept open house in the castle of Luttrellstown, and entailed on the future owners certain property for the maintenance of hospitality there, together with the use of a basin and ewer of silver, a silver gilt salt cellar and cover, a dozen spoons, and a chain of fine gold of twenty links - articles of no small value as is shown by their weight in ounces, which the Chief Justice sets forth in his will.

His death took place in 1554, and he was, doubtless, buried according to his directions, “honestly but without pomp,” in Clonsilla Church, which he directed should be extended sufficiently to admit of a sepulchre being made for him on the north side of the new part.

He must have, at any rate outwardly, adopted the reformed faith, but his belief in its creed did not prevent his leaving money for the preferment in marriage of maidens of his kin in the hope of obtaining salvation for himself and his brother Simon.

Besides providing for the extension of Clonsilla Church he left money for the repair of the chancel and also for rebuilding the bridge at Mulhuddart. He left six sons and three daughters, one of whom was married to Luke Netterville of Dowth, who became one of the Justices of the Queen’s Bench, and another to Thomas Dillon of Riverston. Another son, Richard, had predeceased him, leaving a daughter, for whom the Chief Justice made provision.

The Chief Justice was succeeded by his eldest son Christopher, who however survived him only a short time, and two years after the Chief Justice’s death, in 1556, his second son, James, was in possession of Luttrellstown.

In that year the latter was Sheriff of the County Dublin, and in the expedition against the Scottish invaders was ordered to serve in person as well as to contribute four mounted archers His death, which took place in 1557, was, like that of his brother, premature. In his will he appears in a very pleasing light as a landlord, leaving legacies to those who had taken pains in the cultivation of the Luttrellstown lands, and mentioning that he had given leases in one case because the tenant had long served his family, and in another because the tenant’s house and goods had been burned.

He married, the year before his death, a sister of one of his neighbours, Sir William Sarsfleld, of Lucan - a lady remarkable for having no less than five husbands, of whom Luttrell was the second. By her he had a posthumous son, who only lived three years.

On the death of this infant Luttrellstown passed to the Chief Justice’s third son, Simon Luttrell, from whom the subsequent owners were descended. Of his three younger brothers the eldest, Robert, settled at Tankardstown, in the County Meath; the second, John, who died in 1620 and was buried at Clonsilla, resided at a place called Killeigh; and the third, Walter, matriculated in 1572 at Oxford University.

Simon Luttrell was only a youth at the time of his father’s death, and six years after he succeeded to Luttrellstown, in 1566, he entered Lincoln’s Inn as a student. He soon settled down to the duties of his position, and we find him acting as a Commissioner for the muster of the militia and sending two archers to the hosting against Shane O’Neill, and three to the hosting at Tara Hill.

He was twice married, his first wife being a Miss Gaydon, and his second, who survived him, being Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Finglas. Besides his eldest son Thomas, he left several children, including a daughter, who married Nicholas FitzSimons of Baldoyle, and a son Nicholas, who died in 1610.

In the previous year the latter made a will in which he mentioned that he had intended “to apply his study towards Oxford, then after to the Inns of Court,” but that through want of means “he had altered his course” and intended to go into other countries “where he might attain the faculty of physic”.

Luttrellstown was then considered one of the principal castles in the County Dublin. It had been, no doubt, enlarged several times, and in his will Simon Luttrell, when directing that for some years the timber at Luttrellstown should not be cut, excepts such as should be required for the building, as well as the expense of the house.

In his son’s time we read of the great gallery furnished with cupboards and iron-bound chests in which the family papers were kept, and of the dining room with its tapestry hangings. There was then a mill in full working order on the lands, and at least one other house of considerable size besides the castle, within the parish of Clonsilla.

This house was occupied by a first cousin of the Chief Justice’s, Nicholas Luttrell, who appears from his will, made in 1568, to have been a man of good position, possessed of flocks and herds and much household goods, including plate, which he divided amongst a somewhat numerous family.

The next owner of Luttrellstown, Thomas Luttrell, the eldest son of Simon Luttrell, was returned in 1613, with his relative Sir Christopher Plunkett of Dunsoghly, as Knight of the shire for the County Dublin, and took a prominent part in public affairs as one of the leaders of the Roman Catholic party in the House of Commons.

He was one of those who in 1605 signed the petition from the Roman Catholic lords and gentlemen of the Pale, and his action at that time led to his confinement in Dublin Castle, and to a recommendation from the Lord Deputy that on account of his obstinacy in refusing to make any acknowledgement of wrong doings he should be sent into England.

He was foremost in the contest for the Speaker’s Chair in 1613, and was one of those who weut on the Roman Catholic deputation to James I. He had incurred the bitter enmity of Lord Deputy Chichester, and owing to the allegations which the Lord Deputy made against him was thrown into the Fleet Prison in London and kept a prisoner for eleven weeks.

The rapid changes of that time soon brought him into favour again. In 1627 he was returned as one of the men of fair estate in the English Pale who were fit to be placed in command of a troop of horse, and in 1634 he was again elected as one of the representative’s of the County Dublin, and was present at the opening of Strafford’s first parliament.

A few months after that event, in November 1634, he departed this mortal life, as a funeral entry informs us, and after a considerable interval necessary for the preparation of a stately funeral was interred in Clonsilla Church.

Thomas Luttrell was twice married, his first wife being Eleanor, daughter of John Cheevers, by whom he had two sons, Simon and Stephen; and his second wife being Alison, daughter of Nicholas, twenty-first Baron of Howth, by whom he had also two sons, John and Thomas.

Besides sons he had a number of daughters, one of whom married William, third Viscount Fitzwilliam, of Merrion. Another married Walter Goulding. His provision for his second wife, who survived him, and for his children, indicates that the wealth of the Luttrells had not decreased in his hands. To his widow he left, in addition to her jointure, Diswellstown, in the parish of Castleknock, as a dower house; and besides much plate and household stuff he bequeathed to her twenty great cows with their calves, three hundred sheep, six rams of the English breed, and fifteen farm horses, as well as her riding horse and three horses to carry the servants in attendance upon her.

His eldest son, to whom lie bequeathed his signet ring and gold chain, besides his furniture and the greater portion of his plate, succeeded under settlement to all his lands, but in consideration of the fatherly love and affection which he bore to his younger children he had laid up for them in the iron-bound chests in the gallery of Luttrellstown a great store of silver and gold, out of which they were to be paid substantial legacies in current English money.

Troublous times fell to the lot of his eldest son, Simon Luttrell, who succeeded him, and who lived to see Ireland under the rule of the Parliament. He was thirty-four years of age when his father died, and had maintained the traditions of his family by his marriage to Mary, daughter of Jenico, fifth Viscount Gormanston, the widow of one of the Luttrell’s near neighbours, Sir Thomas Allen of St. Wolstan’s.

In 1643 he was returned to the dying Irish parliament at a by-election as member for the borough of Navan, and in the following year he waited upon Charles I. at Oxford. Two years later, in 1646, he entertained the Marquis of Clanricarde at Luttrellstown, while the Marquis was carrying on the negotiations between Ormonde and General Preston, who had advanced as far as Lucan with the army of the Confederates.

His death took place about 1650, and he left several children, including his heir, Thomas Luttrell, but it was some time before the latter enjoyed the estates to which he had succeeded.

Luttrellstown was too attractive a possession to escape the eyes of the new rulers of Ireland, and was quickly seized upon as a country residence, like Monkstown by Edmund Ludlow, by one of the authorities of the Parliament, Colonel John Hewson, who had been appointed Governor of Dublin. Hewson, once an honest shoemaker in Westminster, had served in the Parliament army from the beginning of the Civil War, and was one of the most unrelenting of the regicides.

He had come to Ireland with Cromwell, under whom he commanded a foot regiment, and was subsequently employed in the civil government of this country. He occupied a seat in the House of Commons, for some time as representative of Dublin, and was called by Cromwell, who conferred on him knighthood, to his House of Lords.

Hewson was at first given Luttrellstown on lease, but in 1659 he was granted it in fee farm, together with an immense extent of lands in the County Dublin, estimated to comprise nearly 7,000 acres. He spent much of that year in England, and at the time of the Restoration, when Hewson was obliged to fly to the Continent, Sir William Bury appears to have been in temporary occupation of Luttrellstown.

Sir William Bury, who belonged to a Lincolnshire family of that name, came over to Ireland as a member of Henry Cromwell’s privy council, but continued to serve after the Restoration for a time, and is remarkable for having received the honour of knighthood both from Henry Cromwell and from the Lords Justices appointed by Charles II.

At that time Luttrellstown is described as a great mansion house with twelve chimneys, surrounded by offices, and having near it a malt house, a barn, and two stables. All the buildings were slated, and the exceptional value of £1,000 placed upon them shows their large extent.

Besides pleasure-grounds and ornamental plantations there were in the demesne a garden and no less than three orchards for the provision of the house, and two quarries for the supply of stone. There were also attached to the house a corn mill and a cloth mill, as well as a weir for catching salmon on the Liffey.

In the grange of Clonsilla there were a thatched house with offices, and another mill surrounded by an orchard and grove of ash trees, and upon the other lands belonging to the Luttrells a second thatched house of smaller size and about twelve cottages.

The only lands in the parish of Clonsilla which did not belong to the Luttrells were those of Coolmine, and Hartstown and Castaheany. The lands of Coolmine, which after the dissolution of St. Mary’s Abbey, had been successively granted to Walter Peppard and the Earl of Thomond, had before 1641 come into the possession of Sir Edward Bolton, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and on them were stated to be a thatched house with two stone chimneys, besides a barn, a stable, and several small cottages.

The lands of Hartstown and Castaheany belonged to the Barnewall family, and on them there was no building. Shortly before the Restoration the population of the parish was returned as forty-two persons of English birth and eighty-seven of Irish, the principal inhabitants besides Sir William Bury being Richard Broughall, who lived in the Grange, and James Russell, who lived on the lands of Coolmine.

During the Commonwealth the Luttrells resided in Dublin, and before the Restoration Thomas Luttrell married a lady belonging to a very old Dublin family, Barbara, daughter of Henry Sedgrave, of Cabra, by whom he had three sons, Simon, Henry, and Thomas.

Owing to the influence of the Duke of Ormonde, whose friendship the Luttrells enjoyed, Thomas Luttrell was one of those mentioned by name in the Act of Settlement as deserving of restoration to his estates, and in 1663 the Commissioners of Settlement directed that he should be placed in possession of them.

At the same time the widow of his grandfather, Thomas Luttrell, the Knight of the shire for the County Dublin, who stated that she had been a great sufferer by the Rebellion, and that she had maintained her husband’s younger children with motherly care, proved herself an innocent Roman Catholic, as did also her son Thomas, the only surviving son of her husband, who mentioned that he had been partly educated in England, and who settled in the County Westmeath.

Some years later the owner of Luttrellstown took part in a remarkable duel, in which the principals escaped without hurt but the seconds sustained serious injury. Not long before his death, which took place in 1673, his son Simon was in the matrimonial market, and an agent of the Legge family, who was on terms of intimacy with the elder Thomas Luttrell, the uncle of the owner of Luttrellstown, tried to arrange a match between Simon Luttrell and a Miss Legge-the only blot on the Luttrell escutcheon, in the opinion of this match-maker, being the religion of the family.

Colonel Simon Luttrell was a man of handsome stature at the time he entered into possession of his ancestral estates, and although the match with Miss Legge had not taken place he had found a wife in Catherine, daughter of Sir Thomas Newcomen of Sutton. Her mother was a sister of Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnel (A tombstone in Clonsilla Churchyard bears the following inscription: - “Here Lyeth ye Body of Frances Lady Newcomen, Wife to Sr. Thomas Newcomen of Sutton & Daughter to Sir William Talbot of Cartown Barronet, who deceased Feb. ye 17 1687.”), but Miss Newcomen had been brought up as a Protestant, and the marriage was celebrated first by a clergyman of the Established Church, although subsequently by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin.

Colonel Simon Luttrell appears for many years to have suffered from ill health. In a letter written by him in London on Christmas Eve, 1688, to the young Duke of Ormonde, he states that he had been sick for ten years, and had symptoms of paralysis.

He had not been in Ireland for eighteen months, and on the strength of the friendship shown his father by the Duke’s father and grandfather, begged the Duke to obtain license for him to go abroad, where he said he desired to be out of the way until things should come to a settlement, and where, if his health permitted, he would seek military employment.

Not many months later he threw in his lot with James II., and in September, 1689, we find him in Dublin, of which he had been appointed Governor, busily preparing the city against the danger of invasion, and “chaining up the streets and making breastworks in order to secure that naked place.”

He raised a regiment of dragoons for James, and was appointed by the latter Lord Lieutenant of the County Dublin, which he represented in James’ parliament, as well as a privy councillor. He appears to have gone to France before the battle of the Boyne, but returned to Ireland for a short time during the siege of Limerick. He died abroad in 1698. His widow survived him until 1704, and the year before her death married as his second wife the father of the eccentric Thomas Armory, the author of the “Life of John Buncle, Esq.”

To Colonel Simon Luttrell’s confiscated estates and possessions his brother, Colonel Henry Luttrell, whose life, both public and private, brought his family into great disrepute, succeeded. Colonel Henry Luttrell appears to have passed his early life in France, where in 1684 we find him taking part in a quarrel, resulting in no less than three duels, in which he was wounded, and another of the combatants, Lord Purbecke, was killed.

He returned to Ireland in the service of James II., bringing back to his native country, in the words of Lord Macaulay, a sharpened intellect and polished manners, a flattering tongue, some skill in war, and much more skill in intrigue. At first his efforts for James II., in whose army he commanded a troop of horse, are said to have been whole hearted, but with that monarch’s falling fortunes his skill in intrigue began to assert itself. At Aughrim his defection is said to have contributed to the defeat of James’s army, and during the siege of Limerick he was discovered in correspondence with the besiegers, and is said to have been condemned to be shot.

On the surrender of Limerick he went over openly to King William, and was active in inducing Irish soldiers to join the winning side or to enlist in foreign service. Besides his ancestral estates a pension is said to have been given him, and he was made a major-general in the Dutch service.

He did not behave well with regard to the jointure to which his brother’s widow was entitled. A letter from him written in 1699 to a Minister of State is still extant, in which, after mentioning that his sister-in-law had come to England, he begs that steps may be taken to prevent her going into Ireland, and that in case she should give him trouble by her attorney he may be permitted to put in force the Act of Attainder against her.

Subsequently she was enabled to take legal proceedings against him, and in a statement of her case by her second husband, Thomas Amory, there were allegations of conduct on the part of her brother-in-law not at all to his credit.

Colonel Henry Luttrell seems still to have professed to be a Roman Catholic, and a quarrel between him and Lady Eustace, a sister of Colonel Simon Luttrell’s wife, is said, by Archbishop King writing in 1699, to have created two very furious parties amongst Roman Catholics.

Intrigue on his part was not confined to public affairs, and whether the assassin to whom his death was due was actuated by political or private motives is open to doubt, although the Irish parliament and the publisher of an elegy on his death attributed his murder to the former.

The deed was done at night in October, 1717, near Colonel Henry Luttrell’s town house in Stafford Street, while he was sitting in a hackney chair in which he had returned from a coffee house on Cork Hill, and although enormous rewards were offered and two persons were arrested the assassin was never discovered.

Colonel Henry Luttrell had married late in life a Welsh lady, Elizabeth, daughter of Charles Jones, of Halkin, in Flintshire, and granddaughter of Sir Simon Clarke, a friend of Dugdale the historian. He left two sons, Robert and Simon.

In a will made on his deathbed, for he survived the fatal shot a few hours, he committed the care of his sons to his widow and Lord Cadogan, Lord Gowran, and Sir William Strickland, and mentions an unmarried sister, a married sister Mrs. Slingsby (A stone at the east end of Clonsilla Church bears this inscription -“I.H.S. This Stone & Burial Place belong to Mr. Simon Slingsby of the City of Dublin Merchant & his Posterity. Here lieth the Body of the above Simon Slingsby who departed this life the 29 of December 1747 aged 57. Here also lyeth the Body of his Mother Alice Slingsby alias Finglas who departed this life December the 19th 1717 aged 70. Here also lieth the Body of his Father Francis Slingsby Esq. who departed this life February the 9th 1719 aged 71.” Colonel Henry Luttrell mentions in his will, besides his sister Mrs. Slingsby (who apparently had been previously married to a Mr. Finglas, and only survived her brother two mouths), his nephew Simon Slingsby.), and a niece Mrs. Delamar. He appears to have died a Protestant, and his sons were educated in England in that faith. The eldest, Robert, went to travel abroad in 1727, and owing to his premature death a short time afterwards, the second, Simon, succeeded to the estates of the Luttrell family.

From Colonel Henry Luttrell’s time a cloud of evil tradition and unpopularity has hung over the Luttrells, and probably the frailties of no family have ever been more fully chronicled than those of the Luttrells in the eighteenth century.

This arose not only from the detestation in which Colonel Henry Luttrell’s memory was held by the Jacobites, but also from the famous contest between his grandson and Wilkes for the representation of Middlesex, which brought the family under the lash of the terrible author of the Letters of Junius.

The hatred felt towards them in Ireland is shown by legends which linger round a place at Luttrellstown called the Devil’s Mill. According to some of these the name commemorates a mill which was erected by Satanic agency for Colonel Henry Luttrell, who invoked the aid of Satan, but by outwitting him was successful in escaping with his life; while another legend attributes the name to the opposition offered by Satan to the erection of a mill in the place.

The part taken by Colonel Henry Luttrell’s grandson, the second Lord Carhampton, in suppressing the rebellion of 1798, occasioned a fresh outbreak of hostility against the family, and it is said that at that time the grave of Colonel Henry Luttrell in Clonsilla Churchyard was opened and his skull smashed.

Simon Luttrell, who was created Baron Irnham and Earl of Carhampton, titles which he took from property belonging to the English Luttrells, and who became father-in-law of George the Third’s brother the Duke of Cumberland, attained to a great position, but his public life was passed in England, and relates to the history of that country.

His establishing his principal residence in England is said to have been due to a desire to escape from his unpopularity in this country, but it is probable that it was in part due to the wider field for political life and to his marriage to an English lady, a daughter of Sir Nicholas Lawes, sometime Governor of Jamaica. This lady brought to him additional wealth, including property in the country of which her father had been Governor, and it was not long after his marriage to her that he purchased, in 1744, a handsome seat in Warwickshire known as Four Oaks.

Ten years later he was returned to Parliament as member for the borough of Michael, in Cornwall, and became a strenuous supporter of the Duke of Newcastle, and subsequently of the Earl of Bute.

While sitting for Michael he entered upon a long and arduous contest for the borough of Wigan, in Lancashire. In a number of letters written from Four Oaks, and his London house in South Audley Street, to the Duke of Newcastle, Luttrell describes the efforts made by him and his brother candidate to secure the corporation of Wigan, with whom the result rested, and the Duke of Newcastle, in, reply to one of these letters, acknowledged the great obligations the Government were under to Mr. Luttrell for the part he had taken, and expressed a high sense of the value of his friendship.

Luttrell’s candidature was crowned with success, and he was returned in 1761 for Wigan, which he represented until 1768, when he was returned for Weobley, in Hereford. In the latter year he was created Baron Irnham, but as an Irish peer, and thus was not deprived of his seat in the English House of Commons.

A year later the contest between Wilkes and his eldest son took place, but the vituperation to which he and his son were exposed only stimulated Lord Irnham to further political exertion, and at the General Election of 1774 he was returned to Parliament (as member for the borough of Stockbridge, in Hampshire), together with no less than three of his sons.

A viscounty in 1780 and an earldom in 1785 under the title of Carhampton were only fitting rewards for such devotion to his party. Towards the close of his life Lord Carhampton resumed his residence at Luttrellstown.

He became then a constant attendant in the Irish House of Lords, of which his contemporary, Francis Hardy, Lord Charlemont’s biographer, says he was for many years a distinguished member. In the opinion of Hardy the accounts which political writers of that day published with regard to Lord Carhampton ought to be regarded, almost without exception, as the mere fabrications of party, and in the social relations of life Hardy speaks of him as an agreeable companion, brilliant conversationalist and excellent scholar.

Lord Carhampton, who died in 1787, and was buried at Kingsbury, in Warwickshire, was succeeded by his eldest son, the well-known Henry Lawes, second Earl of Carhampton, who exhibited in his life many of the failings of his grandfather, Colonel Henry Luttrell .

Luttrellstown was visited by Arthur Young on his visit to Ireland in 1776, and that indefatigable inquirer gives a long account of the system of cultivation pursued under the direction of the first Lord Carhampton and his eldest son, which, he says, had added greatly to the beauties of the place.

During the second Lord Carhampton’s time, in 1790, a race for a sweepstakes of £500 was run in Luttrellstown Park, in the presence of the Lord Lieutenant and the Lord Chancellor, and was won by a horse belonging to the Chancellor’s brother-in-law, Thomas Whaley, better known as Jerusalem Whaley.

Soon after the Rebellion the second Lord Carhampton sold Luttrellstown to Mr. Luke White, ancestor of the present owner, Lord Annaly. Mr. White changed the name to that of Woodlands, which the place bore until a few years ago, when the name of Luttrellstown began to be again used. In the beginning of the last century it was considered one of the principal show places in the neighbourhood of Dublin, and was visited by the writers of many of the tours in Ireland published during that period. **

Ecclesiastical History**

The church of Coolmine, which had disappeared before the sixteenth century, appears to have been originally the most important place of worship in the parish of Clonsilla. It was founded by St. Machutus, and is mentioned in the time of Archbishop Henry de Loundres, who held the see of Dublin from 1212 to 1228, as one or the churches in his gift. That prelate, however, consecrated for the Priory of Little Malvern, already mentioned as owning land in this parish, another church, the site of which is now occupied by the present church of Clonsilla. It completely superseded the church of Coolmine, and we find, in 1419, the Prior of Little Malvern, who pleaded royal license for absence, sued as its rector for non-residence.

It was made over in 1486 to St. Mary’s Abbey, under the name of the White Chapel of St. Machutus of Clonsilla, and, after the dissolution of the religious houses, in a lease to Sir Thomas Cusack of the tithe corn belonging to the church of Coolmine, two couples for the curate of Clonsilla are excepted. At that time the Luttrells had a chaplain of their own, Thomas Fleming, whom they presented to the living of Donabate, of which they held the advowson.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century we find contradictory accounts of the condition of the church; in 1615 it is stated to have been in good repair, but in 1630 to have been ruinous. Archbishop Bulkeley mentions at the latter time that Mr. Luttrell held the tithes,, and that under his protection there was a Roman Catholic schoolmaster teaching in the parish.

Clonsilla was then served by the curate of Castleknock parish, to which it continued to be united until the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland.

Towards the close of the eighteenth century Austin Cooper visited Clonsilla. He describes the church as a small, plain, but neat building, and says there was an old building, low and arched over, adjoining it, which was entered by a door from the chancel. Although he found no inscription upon it he thought it must have been the burial place of some family, and it was doubtless the building erected in compliance with the direction in Chief Justice Luttrell’s will.

Besides the tomb - a raised one-to the Slingsby family, Cooper mentions a flat stone to the memory of Richard FitzSimons of Clonsilla, who died 5 October, 1736, aged 77, and of his son the Most Rev. Patrick FitzSimons, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, who died 25 November, 1769, aged 74; as well as a flat stone to the memory of Anthony Flanagan, of Clonsilla.

The church then in existence is said to have been erected by the first Lord Carhampton, and tradition says that the chancel was surrounded by four square pews, which were used by the principal members of the congregation. The present church was built in the time of Archbishop Whately. It is a substantial building with a small chancel, and a tower in which hangs a bell formerly belonging to St. Werburgh’s Church in Dublin. (The bell bears the following inscription: - “St. Werburg, Dublin, the gift of James Southwell; John Blachford, D.D., Rec.; R. Dalton, Wm. Braddall, Ch. Wardens; 1747.”)

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