Introduction to Volume 6

Preface

The Council has the pleasure to issue the second instalment of the completion of Dr. Ball’s “History of County Dublin.”

When “Howth and its Owners” was published by the Society as an extra volume in 1917, the Council stated in the Preface that Dr. Ball had intimated his intention of completing his History in two more volumes, with a general review and index, and of bearing himself the whole cost.

Last year he informed the Council that he had found, to his great regret, that he was unable to fulfil his promise. The reason that he was unable to do so was twofold, namely, because the purchasing power of money had greatly diminished, while the expense of printing and paper had increased, and because the material for a history of the northern part of the county greatly exceeded his anticipation, and would require, instead of two, three or four volumes.

When Dr. Ball made this communication the printing of the present volume was far advanced, and, in order to prevent the expenditure on it being lost, the Council decided to defray part of the cost.

The present volume is, therefore, issued at the expense jointly of Dr. Ball and the Society, and the completion of the History depends on some arrangement being made to share the cost of its publication with him.

In issuing this volume Dr. Ball has asked the Council to convey his thanks to those who have assisted him, and especially to the ex-President, Mr. T. J. Westropp; the Hon. Treasurer, Mr. E. C. R. Armstrong; and the late Hon. Secretary, Mr. Charles M’Neill, without whose aid the volume could not have been completed.

Foreward

The following pages give the history of ten parishes to the north of the river Liffey, in Dublin county. These parishes border upon the city of Dublin, and adjoin an area north of the Liffey, of which it was necessary to treat in the history of the south-western part of the county. Within that area there lie the parishes of Clonsilla and Chapelizod, such part of Leixlip parish as is in Dublin county, and the Phoenix Park.

To the northern part of Dublin county the designation of Fingal has been attached for 900 years. This name has been interpreted variously as “the white foreigner” and the “tribe of the foreigner,” and is also used to denote the territory which the foreigner occupied. In one place the Four Masters refer to the church of Lusk being burned upon the Fine Gall by the men of Meath; but generally the name Fine Gall is used to denote the district into which predatory excursions were made.

When the name Fingal appears first in the Annals, the Northmen were in occupation of the district. During their dominion it seems to have denoted all, or the greater part of, county Dublin north of the river Liffey. Before the battle of Clontarf King Brian is said to have burned Fingal and the district of Howth, and some years later, during a predatory excursion into Fingal, that country is said to have been burned from Dublin to the river Delvin, the northern boundary of Dublin county.

Before the Anglo-Norman invasion, according to the poet John O’Dugan, Fingal came under the rule of MacGillamocholmog, who held sway over the lands south of Dublin. What extent the name then denoted there is no indication, but in the century succeeding the invasion there is evidence to show that it denoted the whole of county Dublin north of the Liffey.

For the county four officials, known as serjeants, were then appointed. Two of these were assigned to the southern part, the district of one including Bray, and of the other Newcastle Lyons and Saggart; the other two were assigned Fingal, their districts being divided by the Malahide river.

During the reigns of the Tudor sovereigns the name Fingal also denoted the whole of the northern part of Dublin county. In his “Description of Ireland,” Richard Stanyhurst refers to Fingal as an important part of the Pale, which he says was “cramperned and coucht” into “an odd corner of the country named Fingal,” the king’s land (i.e. the royal manors to the south of Dublin), Meath, Kildare, and Louth. Of these districts Fingal had the highest reputation for good husbandry; and “for their continual drudgery “the inhabitants bore the name of colones,” whereunto,” says Stanyhurst, “the clipt English word clown seemeth to be answerable.”

In the 17th century, according to the author of “A Geographical Description of the Kingdom of Ireland,” published in 1642, the name Fingal indicated the more arable portion of the lands north of Dublin.

He says: “Where Liffy dyeth in the Ocean, Houth standeth encompassed in a manner round with the sea, of which those nobles Saint Lawrence hold the Barony. Not farre off is Malehide, or Molachid, belonging to the Talbots. More within the countrey is Fingall, a little place, but very well husbanded, even the garner and store-house of this Kingdome, so great store of come it yieldeth every yeare. This place discovers the idlenesse of other Counties, which could equally answer the industry of the labourer, if it were imployed.”

During more recent times the extent of Fingal has been defined by some writers as stretching from the river Tolka to the river Delvin ; but for this limitation of its extent no authority has been found.

To Chapter 1. To Ball Index. Home.