Ballygall
| Ballygall Irish: Baile na nGall | |
| County Dublin | |
|---|---|
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | O148384 |
| Location: | 53°23’1"N, 6°16’30"W |
| Data | |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Dublin |
| Dáil constituency: |
Dublin North-West |
Ballygall is a small suburban area located between Glasnevin and Finglas on the northside of the city of Dublin, Ireland. It is also a townland of County Dublin. Ballygall was settled by Norsemen in the 11th century, and later by Welsh-Norman settlers.
The area is largely residential, with St Kevins College, some shops, and a church and school.
Name
The early Welsh-Norman settlers called this village Fyngallestoun, but the indigenous Gaels called it the 'Town of the Foreigners', which gives us in Gaelic Baile na nGall. The 'foreigners' in Irish names are usually the Norsemen of Dublin. Later the name is found abbreviated in old charters as Gallstoun. It seems to have been originally settled by a man called Arthur, hence it appears also as Arthurstoun. The name seems to have changed from Gallstoun to Ballygall at some time in the 16th century. There are many similarly-named denominations in the archives of the Registry of Deeds.
History
A place called Arthureston is mentioned explicitly as a manor in the Chancery Rolls of Ireland in several places under several entries during the reign of King Edward III in the 14th century.[1] A very specific reference to Fyngaleston relates to Cristofor de Preston.[2] It is also mentioned in the Calendar of the Gormanstown Register as a manor, and was the original seat of the Prestons, the principal landholders of Fingal, before they moved to and became lords and later Viscounts of Gormanston.[3] It was granted in 1318 as a Manor to William de Prestoun:
Charter. Edward (II), King of England, lord of Ireland, Duke of Aquitaine, in consideration of his good and laudable service, has granted to William de Prestoun, burgess of Drogheda, a messuage and a carucate and a half of land, with appurtenances, in Arthurestoun, which belonged to Hugh de Lacy, knight, of the gift of Henry de Fyngal and which came to the king’s hands, as his escheat for the felony and forfeiture of said Hugh, who with the Scotch enemies of the king, with standard displayed, rose against the king with an armed force in Ireland, for which felony and forfeiture he was disinherited by judgement of the king’s court. To hold to William and his heirs for ever, of the King and his heirs, by service of rendering a rose yearly at the feast of St. John the Baptist. Witness, Roger de Mortuo mari [Mortimer], lieutenant of the King in Ireland, at Drogheda, 31 March a.r.xj. Edward [II] (1318).
A quit-claim of 1334 in the Gormanston Register also refers: Quit-claim of Arthurestoun, which is called Fyngallestoun. Hugh de Lacy, knight, has for ever released to William de Prestoun, burgess of Drogheda, all his right and claim.
Fyngalleston was the first royal grant made to the Prestons in Ireland, for laudable services, an honour. It was previously a knight’s property, with associated demesnes and lordships. It may in fact be the only manorial title which the Prestons held originally directly from the Crown (as distinct from those to which they succeeded from others). It was therefore held as tenants-in-chief, and as their initial principal manor. Although the Prestons later disposed of the lands, the Lord of the Manor|lordship of the manor was not alienated, and remained with the Prestons under reversion, and passed eventually to a resident of Ballygall. At the time in 1363 when the lands were being disposed, Robert de Prestoun was deeply involved in the acquisition of the more substantial Manor of Gormanston. In fact Gormanston was acquired in the same year as the lands at Fyngallestoun were disposed. It is not known exactly when the manor of Fyngallestoun ceased to function as a manor (with courts leet and baron), but it is likely that it ceased when the Prestons moved from Fyngallestoun to Gormanston c. 1363, which then became their chief manor (and for which extensive records of manorial courts exist still in the ownership and custody of Viscount Gormanston). The shift in nomenclature of Fyngallestoun/Gallstoun to Ballygall probably occurred in the 16th century.
Historically, a large part of the original townland of Ballygall belonged to the Ball family. Margaret Bermingham (1515-1584) married Bartholomew Ball, a prosperous merchant who held houses in Ballygall and Merchants’ Quay. Their manor house Ballygall House was built in the early 16th century, most likely on the site of the old Manor of Fyngallestoun, and was located where the modern housing estate now called Hillcrest Park is located. Ballygall House was located between the present houses numbered 10-60 in Hillcrest Park, its demesne extending to Glasnevin Avenue. The Ballygall estate which belonged to the Ball family in the 16th century was used for agricultural purposes right up to 1964 when the last owners, the Craigie family of Merville Dairy in Finglas, sold it for housing development.
Margaret Ball (the former Margaret Bermingham) maintained a Roman Catholic household at Ballygall House where she gave refuge to their clergy and provided education to the children of Roman Catholic families despite being prohibited to do so by Penal Laws. She was imprisoned by her own son, Walter Ball (d. 1598), who conformed to the established (Anglican) church and who became Mayor of Dublin in 1577, and she died in 1584 in Dublin Castle.
Location
Ballygall lies within the southern part of ancient 'Fingal', the north of County Dublin. It is divided between two baronies: Castleknock to the west and Coolock to the east. It is to be found lies between the villages of Finglas and Glasnevin, and the old parish, now large suburban district, of Ballymun.
Within the area of Fingal, a location identified as “Gallenstown” appears in the map of County Dublin drawn by Sir William Petty in the 17th century. t is referred to as Ballygals or Ballygales in the Civil Survey of 1654. The Civil Survey relates properties in very close proximity in the Finglas-Santry axis: Finglas (p. 143); Barnewall’s farm "south with ye lane leading from Ffinglas to Ballygals, west to Arthur’s land, north to Jamestown', [etc.]”. This area comprising Finglas, Ballygall, and through Santry to the coast near Howth, just north of Dublin would have been the original heartland of Fingal, “land of the foreigners” from which they gradually spread north along the coast and inland, hence the original denomination of Fyngallestoun. The neighbouring Manor of Glasnevin is now the Holy Faith Convent.
The modern townland has an area of 134 acres, of which 85 acres are in the Barony of Castleknock, Civil Parish of Finglas, and 49 acres in the Barony of Coolock, Civil Parish of Glasnevin.
References
- ↑ Rotulorum Cancellariae Hiberniae Calendarium for the following specific page/paragraph references to Arthureston: page 45/paragraph 72; 47/137; 48/170; 55/205.
- ↑ Rotulorum Cancellariae Hiberniae Calendarium, paragraph 80, page 91, for Fyngaleston 12, anno 49 Edward III (Rotulus Patens)
- ↑ Calendar of the Gormanston Register circa 1175-1397, being an extra volume of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, prepared and edited by James Mills, and M. J. McEnery, University Press, Dublin, 1916. See pages xvii, 2, 53-55.