Parish of Esker

*(i.e., Eiscir, or the sandy ridge). *

This Parish is returned in the seventeenth century as containing the Townlands of Ballydowd, Ballyowen, Coldcut, Finnstown, Kishoge, and Rowlagh.

It now contains the Townlands of Ballydowd *(i.e., *O’Dowd’s town), Ballyowen *(i.e., *the town of Owen), Coldcut, Esker North and South, Finnstown (or the town of Fyan, a family name), Glebe, Hermitage, Kishoge *(i.e., *the little wicker causeway), Rowlagh *(i.e., *the red land), St. Edmondsbury, and Woodville.

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

Esker, with Hermitage and its Neighbourhood.

The parish of Esker, with the exception of an isolated portion enclosed in the adjoining parishes of Clondalkin and Palmerston, lies between the parish of Kilmactalway and the river Liffey, and is bounded to the west by the parishes of Aderrig and Lucan, and to the east by the parishes in which the isolated portion, consisting of the townlands of Rowlagh and Coldcut, is situated. Two large demesnes known as Hermitage and Woodville lie to the north of the road from Dublin to Lucan which intersects the parish, and another demesne known as Finnstown lies within its limits to the west of a road leading from Lucan to Newcastle Lyons. Besides the modern houses which these demesnes contain, there are in the parish the remains of a castle known as Ballyowen, and the ruins of another castle formerly stood on the Finnstown lands.

The lands of Esker, which are so called from their being the commencement of a ridge of sand hills which have been traced across Ireland from that point to the County Galway, formed one of the four royal manors in the County Dublin, two of which, Saggart and Newcastle, have been already noticed in this history.

At the beginning of the thirteenth century there was a manor house close to the church of Esker, and one of the lessees of the manor was granted by the Crown land called Liscaillah near to it for the purpose of making enclosures for cattle. The manor was then generally leased to middlemen, and amongst these appears William FitzGuido, the first Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, who held Esker church in right of his deanery.

About the close of that century we find the names of many persons connected with Esker, including William le White, Thomas de Coventry, Nicholas de Berkeley, Henry Kissok, whose family doubtless obtained its name from the townland of Kishoge, Adam of Esker and Dermot of Ballydowd.

Dermot of Ballydowd was possibly a descendant of the Irish chieftain more than once mentioned in this history, who held the title of MacGillamocholmog at the time of the Anglo-Norman invasion. The latter was married to a daughter of Dermot Mac Murrough, King of Leinster, and under the influence of his father-in-law, as the- present Deputy Keeper of the Records in Ireland has told us in his paper on “The Norman Settlement in Leinster”, tacitly acquiesced for a time in the establishment of the Anglo-Norman power.

But later on, after Dermot Mac Murrough’s death, MacGillamocholmog thought of joining the Danes in their attack on the Anglo-Norman garrison in Dublin, and it was only with difficulty that Miles Cogan, the Anglo-Norman commander, induced him to stand neutral.

The wisdom of this diplomacy was proved in the result, for when MacGillamocholmog saw the Anglo-Normans gaining the day he attached himself to their side and completed the rout of the Danes.

For his services he was rewarded by grants of land, including, as we have seen under Newcastle Lyons, the district of Lymerhin near Esker, and a large tract of land near Greystones, in the County Wicklow. At the latter place his descendants, who ceased to use the title of MacGillamocholmog, and were called John son of Dermot or Ralph son of John, as the case might be, had their principal residence. But in the opinion of Mr. Mills they had also a residence near Esker, and it is not impossible that it was situated on the lands of Ballydowd, and that Dermot of Ballydowd was a descendant of the last MacGillamocholmog.

A list of the tenants who held the lands of Esker from the Crown during the next three centuries would be of little interest.

At first the whole manor was held from the Crown by one person, but in the sixteenth century the lands had become divided, and rent was paid by a number of tenants. In both cases the lessees’ knowledge of Esker was only slight, and confined in many cases to receiving the revenues.

Several religious establishments acquired property in the parish, either under the Crown or independent of it, and amongst these we find St. Mary’s Abbey, whose possessions on its dissolution became merged in the lands belonging to the Crown; the Priory of the Holy Trinity, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the Hospital of St. John the Baptist without New Gate, the Guild of St. Anne in St. Audoen’s Church, the College of Killeen, and the Church of Esker.

Of the inhabitants and their holdings it is difficult to obtain information (A court book used by the scuesehal of the manors of Esker and Crumlin is preserved in Marsh’s Library, but it only covers a period of five years, from 1592-1597).

Of the former Gregory Tweddell, who resided about the middle of the sixteenth century at Ballydowd, and is described as a yeoman and soldier, and Alderman Patrick Browne, who resided about the end of that century at Kishoge, and is described as a merchant, may perhaps be taken as typical examples; and as some indication of their surroundings, the King’s meadow in Ballydowd, the King’s mill in Esker, a garden called after St. Finian, the patron saint of Esker, St. Mary’s half-acre, and the Ash park may be mentioned.

Members of the Browne family were still resident in the parish in the beginning of the seventeenth century; in 1622 Joseph Browne was living at Finnstown, and in 1633 William Browne at Rowlagh. At the same time the castle of Ballyowen appears as a residence of importance occupied in 1620 by Christopher Taylor, to whom the rank of gentleman is given, and in 1630 by Lamerick Nottingham, whose rank was that of an esquire. The latter is stated by Archbishop Bulkeley to have been a zealous Roman Catholic, and to have shown much hospitality to the clergy of his church. At the time he made his will, in 1648, he held, besides his possessions at Ballyowen, lands and a castle at Finnstown, the mill of Esker, and the lands and castle of Nangor in Clondalkin parish.

He had been twice married, first to a sister of William Sarsfield of Lucan, and secondly to a sister of Robert Ussher of Crumlin. In his will he makes special provision for the latter lady on account of “her great charge of children.” In all he left fourteen, but some of them, including his eldest son William Nottingham, whom we find residing at Ballyowen in 1650, had already arrived at man’s estate.

At Ballydowd there was then also a castle occupied by George Forster, a member of an old Dublin mercantile family connected with St. Audoen’s parish, and his children. His establishment was a large one, and amongst the forty inhabitants of the Ballydowd lands there appear a maltster, a weaver, “a knitter,” and several farm servants, including “a hayward”

But the most important person connected with Esker parish at that time was Robert Kennedy, Chief Remembrancer of the Exchequer, and member of parliament for the borough of Kildare, who was created after the Restoration a baronet as Sir Robert Kennedy of Newtownmount-Kennedy, in the County Wicklow.

That place, which had been previously known as Ballygarney, was his principal country residence, but he had also a small house on the lands of Kishoge, which he owned as well as other lands in Esker parish.

At the time of the rebellion in 1641 Kennedy’s agricultural operations at Ballygarney were on an extensive scale and much in advance of the time; but his lands in Esker parish do not appear to have been in his own hands, and in 1650 we find Kishoge occupied by Gerrard Archbold and some eighty other inhabitants.

At the latter time Finnstown was occupied by a brother of Sir Robert Kennedy’s, Alderman Walter Kennedy, whose relations with his brother, possibly owing to their being of different religions, do not seem to have been always of a friendly character. On the remaining lands in the parish there was no resident of importance; at Rowlagh the chief inhabitant was a weaver and at Esker a basket-maker.

After the Restoration the lands of Ballyowen, which during the Commonwealth had been leased by the State to Captain Francis Peasley, appear in possession of their former owners, the Nottinghams; and the castle, which contained five hearths, was occupied by Peter Nottingham, a younger son of Lamerick Nottingham.

Ballydowd was likewise in possession of its former owners, the Forsters, and the castle, which contained like Ballyowen five hearths, was occupied by John Forster, the eldest son of its previous inhabitant.

At Finnstown there was a house, with seven hearths, occupied by Mrs. Drape, and subsequently by the Countess of Fingal, and at Kishoge two houses, with four heartlis each, occupied respectively by a Mr. Burton and a Mr. Harborne.

The Kennedys still retained a connection with Esker as owners of a considerable portion of the lands in the parish. Sir Robert Kennedy, who died in 1668, was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, Sir Richard Kennedy, who, after a successful career at the Irish Bar, had been appointed second baron of the Irish Exchequer, and Alderman Walter Kennedy, who died in 1672, was succeeded by his eldest son, Christopher Kennedy. Sir Richard Kennedy, whose male line became extinct in 1710 on the death of his grandson, appears to have had a residence in Esker parish, as he mentions in his will, which was made in 1680, goods and chattels at Ballydowd; but Newtownmount Kennedy was his constant country residence, and Esker saw probably little if anything of him.

The Nottinghams forfeited their property after the Revolution, and Ballyowen passed into the possession of Colonel Thomas Bellew, who was member of Parliament for Mullingar in the reign of George I.

Colonel Bellew seems to have made much use of Ballyowen as a residence, and in his will, which was executed in 1733, describes his possessions there, including the contents of a certain yellow room, in great detail. He left two daughters, one married to William Sheppard and the other to Henry White, through the latter of whom he became an ancestor of the Earls of Westmeath. In case of any dispute about his property, he referred the settlement to his brother-in-law, Boleyn Whitney, a leading barrister of that time, and to Prime Serjeant Singleton, whom he thoughtfully prepared for possible developments by leaving him his sword and best case of pistols. Subsequently Ballyowen passed into the possession of a family called Rochfort.

Hermitage had been built before that time, residence of Major-General Robert Naper, one of the representatives of the borough of Athboy. He was a son of Colonel James Naper of Loughcrew, who married a sister of Sir William Petty, and was brother-in-law of Lieutenant-General Richard

Ingoldsby, sometime a Lord Justice of Ireland, and the Right Hon. Thomas Bligh, an ancestor of the Earls of Darnley.

After his death in 1739 Hermitage passed into the possession of the Hon. Robert Butler, who was a brother of the first Earl of Lanesborough, and of the Hon. John Butler, mentioned in connection with Dundrum.

At an early age Robert Butler had been appointed captain of the Battle-Axe Guards, and subsequently was elected member of parliament for Belturbet.

While he was living at Hermitage in 175S the smallpox broke out in the house, and the wife of his nephew, Oliver Coghill Cramer, fell a victim there to that disease three months after her marriage.

Through his wife, who was a daughter of the Right Rev. Robert Howard, Bishop of Elphin, an ancestor of the Earls of Wicklow, and widow of John Stoyte of Rosanna, Robert Butler became connected with the County Wicklow, and desired if he died in that county to be buried in Delgany Church. His death took place in 1763.

Later on in that century we find Hermitage occupied by the Right Hon. Sir Lucius Henry O’Brien, Bart., a prominent politician of his day, whose title is now merged in the Inchiquin peerage, and subsequently by the Right Hon. James FitzGerald, the silver-tongued Prime Serjeant, who has been already mentioned under Booterstown, where his death took place.

Near Hermitage a spring of tepid water, as well as springs with a petrifying tendency, was discovered about the middle of the eighteenth century by Dr. Rutty , and a very picturesque bridge made of rustic timber was at a later period thrown across the Liffey at that point by Lord Carhampton in order to connect Luttrellstown with the southern side of the river.

Ballydowd Castle, the home of the Forster family, lay on the northern side of the Dublin road like Hermitage, to the west of which it stood, and in the middle of the eighteenth century it appears to have been occupied by the then Ulster King of Arms, John Hawkins.

In the later part of that century Woodville was erected on its site, and became the residence of the Right Hon. Henry Theophilus Clements, brother of the first Earl of Leitrim. A contemporary writer, who describes the seat as ” deserving the attention of the curious,” says that the house was a superb structure, and that the grounds, in which there was a cottage decorated with stained glass close to the river side, were spacious and well laid out.

Clements, who had served in the army and had attained to the rank of a Lieutenant-Colonel, succeeded his father, the well-known Nathaniel Clements, as Deputy Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, and in that capacity we find him in 1783 entertaining the Lord Lieutenant at Woodville.

Ecclesiastical History

Of the church of Esker, which lies about a mile to the south-east of Lucan, only some fragments remain, but there are sufficient to indicate that it was, like the neighbouring one of Newcastle, a large building dating from mediaeval times. The most striking features of the ruins, as shown in the picture, are the belfry gable and a window in the north wall.

The church, as appears from an entry in the Guild Book of the Carpenters, Masons, and Heliers of Dublin,** **underwent extensive repair, if not rebuilding, in the early part of the sixteenth century, and it is interesting to find that the church was roofed with wood. The method of roofing churches in Ireland in mediaeval times has been a subject of doubt, but this record determines the question so far as Esker church is concerned.

It states that in 1537 discord arose between two carpenters, Patrick Boshell and William Trasse, as to making the roof of Esker church. The work had been executed by the latter, and the discord arose from the fact that Boshell had been promised the contract, and that Trasse had obtained it by some unfair practice, for which he had to pay a fine both to the Guild and to his adversary.

The church of Esker, which was dedicated like Newcastle to St. Finian, was given by King John to the Church of St. Patrick, and on the establishment of the latter as a cathedral was assigned to the Dean as part of his corps.

The church was served by a curate, who in the sixteenth century received the altarages, then valued at five pounds, as his stipend, and was probably allowed the use of a house belonging to the Dean, to which a park and a garden, as well as agricultural land, were attached.

In the latter part of that century the church appears to have been served by the curate of Lucan, and was probably allowed to fall into disrepair.

In the early part of the seventeenth century it was returned as unroofed and altogether ruinous. The parish was at that time joined to Kilmactalway and subsequently to Clondalkin, but in the eighteenth century it was united to Leixlip and Lucan, and the vicars of the Union resided in a house which had been erected on the glebe lands of Esker.

To Chapter 9 To Ball Index. Home.