Parish of Kilmactalway

*(i.e., Kilmactalewi, the Church of Mactalewi, a Leinster chieftain, or Kilmactalmach, the Church of the son of Talmach). *

This Parish is returned in the seventeenth century as containing the townlands of Brownstown, Galderstown, Galbrettstown, Grange, Jordanstown, Kumactalway, Loughtown, and Salles.

It now contains the townlands of Aungierstown and Ballybane *(i.e., *the whitish town), Ballymakaily *(i.e., *Mac Haly’s town), Brownstown, Clutterland *(i.e., *shelter land), Coolscuddan *(i.e., *the corner of herrings), Collierstown, Grange, Jordanstown, Kilmactalway, Loughtown Upper and Lowe; Militown, and Mullauns *(i.e., *the little flat summits).

The objects of antiquarian interest are the ruined church, and castle of Grange.

There is a graveyard with a well, known as the relickan or little graveyard well, in the townland of Lower Loughtown. **

Castle Bagot**

The parish of Kilmactalway, which lies between the parishes of Aderrig and Newcastle, on the border of the County Kildare, and is intersected by the Grand Canal and the Great Southern and Western Railway, contains as its most important feature the house and demesne known as Castle Bagot.

Some seventy years ago this place, then the seat of the late Mr. James John Bagot, D.L., greatly excited the admiration of John D’Alton, who speaks with enthusiasm of its broad pastures, on which a herd of Durham cattle grazed, and of its gardens and shrubberies, in which there were a willow brought from Napoleon’s grave and a design in box exhibiting a political watchword of that day, “Reform and Mulgrave.” Of ancient buildings the parish has none except the church and an unimportant castle called Grange, now incorporated in a modern house .

At the time of the Anglo-Norman Conquest, as already stated in the history of Newcastle Lyons, the lands of Kilmactalway, which were included in a district known as Lymerhin, were given to the Irish chief MacGillamocholmog, but in 1215 possession of them was resumed by the Crown in order to enlarge the royal manor of Newcastle.

This extension gave opportunity for the erection of a mill for the use of the King’s tenants on the River Griffeen, which has been already noticed at Lucan, and which flows through Kilmactalway parish, and round this mill there sprang up a village which became known as the King’s Milltown, in order to distinguish it from another village of the same name which stood close to it.

The latter belonged to the Church, which owned some of the lands within the limits of the present parish of Kilmactalway. At the close of the thirteenth century a monastic establishment had a settlement there, which in 1294 was returned as unable to pay any taxation, and at the time of the dissolution of St. Patrick’s Cathedral the lands of Aungierstown and Ballybane and the village of Milltown appear as part of the Dean’s corps.

There was then in the village a tenement known as Clogher’s Park, and the tenant of it, as well as the Dean’s other tenants, was under obligation to do sundry service for his landlord, which was sometimes commuted for a little pig sent to him in autumn.

The beginning of the seventeenth century saw a considerable amount of the King’s lands in Kilmactalway in possession of the Russell family, already mentioned in connection with Newcastle Lyons, and on this holding there was a small hamlet consisting of a castle, a house and three cottages, as well as another house which lay near the churchyard.

Under John Russell, the Prior of the Petty Canons of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, these premises were occupied by Richard Walse and John Mey, who appear to have married two of his sisters; and on his death in 1546 his nephew, William Mey, succeeded to them.

fter prolonged litigation with John, son of Patrick Russell, described as late of Newcastle, and with Christopher Bassenet, a nephew of Dean Bassenet, who appears to have then held these premises as well as the Dean’s village of Milltown, William Mey established his title to the property. Subsequently, in 1561, he assigned it to John, son of Patrick Mey, a namesake of whom, resident at Kilmactalway, had shortly before met his death by violence.

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a holding described as “a water mill in the King’s Milltown and the windmill-land in the manor of Newcastle of the Queen’s old inheritance,” was leased to various persons.

In the middle of the seventeenth century, at the time of the establishment of the Commonwealth, the lands of Kilmactalway were still owned by the Mey family, and were occupied by some seventeen persons, of whom the chief was “the widow Harte,” alias Elinor Archbold.

The lands of Milltown, on which there was a castle as well as other dwellings, were owned by Thomas Taylor, and were occupied by about a hundred persons, including James Barnewall, a gentleman with a large farm establishment, Nicholas Harford a miller, a patriarch called Tirlagh Byrne, described as “a gentleman of a hundred or thereabouts,” with a household of some thirty in number, and some descendants of William Rolles, already mentioned as one of the first representatives in parliament for Newcastle Lyons.

Loughtown, on which there was a castle, and which had before the rebellion belonged to the Scurlocks of Rathcreedan, was then in possession of the Percevals; Galderstown and Galbrettstown (which belonged to the Vicars Choral of St. Patrick’s Cathedral), of Lord Ranelagh; the Grange of the Fagans of Feltrim; and Jordanstown of the Aylmers of Lyons.

After the Restoration the representative of the Mey family, Matthew Mey, who is described as of Dublin, and whose father, James, son of Matthew Mey, had died in 1643, was successful in proving himself under the Act of Settlement an innocent Roman Catholic, and entitled to the Kilmactalway property, from which he had been dispossessed; but he does not appear to have become a resident in the parish, in which the principal inhabitants in 1664 were Richard Eustace at Milltown, James Harte. at Jordanstown, and Patrick Thunder at the Grange.

It is not until the later part of the eighteenth century that the Bagots appear as resident at Kilmactalway. The first of them to settle there was John Bagot, who was a son of Mark Bagot, of Newtown Omone, in the County Kildare, and grandson of another Mark Bagot who represented the borough of Carlow in James the Second’s parliament.

John Bagot was twice married, first to a Miss Walsh, and secondly to a Miss Dease, and it was on his marriage to the latter lady that in 1779 he came to Kilmactalway. He left, on his death in 1792, besides other children by his second wife, James John Bagot, the owner of Castle Bagot, in the first half of the nineteenth century.

(In Newcastle Churchyard there is a tomb with the following inscription:- “Pray for the Souls of those Members of the Bagot family who are interred herein; the last of whom, James John Bagot Esq. D.L. of Castle Bagot, County of Dublin, died aged 76 years on the 19th of June 1860; Pray also for the soul of Ellen Maria Bagot, his Widow, interred herein, who died at Rathgar on 19 Sept. 1871. 11.1. P.”) **

Ecclesiastical History**

Kilmactalway Church which stands in the grounds of Castle Bagot, although of late date is much defaced. It was of considerable dimensions, measuring fifty-four feet by seventeen feet two inches, but does not appear to have been divided into nave and chancel. The north wall is now gone, and the east window is built up and covered with ivy. In the south wall, as one goes westward, there are a late window with two oblong lights, the shaft of which is gone, another plain oblong window, a pointed window and a slightly pointed door. The west end has a trefoil headed light, and apparently a bell chamber on the top of the gable.

The history of the church gains interest from the fact that it gives name to a prebendal stall in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It is said by Monck Mason to have been dedicated to St. Magnanus, and was one of the churches reserved after the Anglo-Norman Conquest to the Archbishop of Dublin.

About 1220, when the church was valued at twenty marks, Master J. de Lucumbe was the rector, and in 1296, during a vacancy in the see of Dublin, Richard de Manton was appointed to the rectory by the Crown (3). In 1366 the church was annexed to the precentorship of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and in 1466 was made the corps of a distinct prebend, which was placed second in rank.

The church was served some years later, in 1481, by a priest known as Sir Henry of Kilmactalway, and amongst the early prebendaries we find, in 1495 Richard Mylyne, in 1524 John Triguran, who was also Archdeacon of Kells and Custos of St. Stephen’s Hospital in Dublin, and in 1570 Robert Commander, rector of Tarporley and Chaplain to Sir Henry Sidney while Lord Deputy of Ireland, who left some interesting historical manuscripts now in the British Museum.

At the time of the dissolution of St. Patrick’s Cathedral the prebendary had, besides the tithes, a small glebe consisting of an old orchard and two small parks or gardens; and the church was served by a curate, who was allowed twenty-six shillings and eight pence, besides the altarages. This payment James Walsh, of London, to whom the rectory was then leased by the Crown, was supposed to continue, but after the re-establishment of the Cathedral we find the church derelict and the rector proceeded against for non-residence.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, in 1615, the nave and chancel were returned as in good repair, but in 1630 Archbishop Bulkeley, who then held the prebend in *commendam, *stated that he was rebuilding the church.

There were only twelve persons then attending the church, but it had an endowment, as the curate reported of some forty acres, the profit of which, he alleged, was withheld through the wrongdoing of Mr. William Rolles in taking away the deeds. Amongst the curates we find, in 1615 Richard Wiborow, afterwards vicar of Santry, and in 1630 Robert Jones, in 1639 Christopher Cardiffe, and in 1646 Henry Birch, who have been already mentioned in Connection with Saggard and Newcastle.

After the Restoration the church does not appear to have been again used, and in the eighteenth century the glebe was reported to have been lost.

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