Rathmore, County Kildare

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Rathmore
Irish: An Ráth Mhór / An Ráith Mór
County Kildare

A row of houses in the village
Location
Grid reference: N960195
Location: 53°13’2"N, 6°33’49"W
Data
Population: 1,045  (2011)
Local Government

Rathmore is a village in County Kildare, located at the western edge of the Wicklow Mountains in the barony of Naas North, close by the border of County Wicklow. The original settlement was at the south-west corner of the Pale, serving an important function as a border fortress during the Middle Ages.

The name of the village is rendered in Irish as An Ráth Mhór or An Ráith Mór, meaning in either case 'The big fort',[1]

Rathmore village is in two townlands: Rathmore East and West. It is to be found three miles north-west of Blessington.

History

Prehistory

Cist burials of possible Bronze Age date were excavated within the motte in 1893-1894; the mound may contain an early Bronze Age tumulus.[2] A bronze bracelet was recovered near the motte in 1905.[3] Newtownpark contains a ring-barrow of Bronze Age date, a Bronze Age cist burial was excavated in Hempstown Commons in 1950, and a cinerary urn burial of Late Bronze Age date was excavated in Athgarrett in 1983.[4]

Iron Age cremated remains were recovered within a pit-burial a short distance west of the motte in 1998.[5]

Early Mediæval

In the Early Mediæval period, Rathmore was a stronghold of the Meic Bráenáin, a branch of the Fothairt Airthir Life, within the territory of Uí Máel Ruba or Uí Maíleruba. Their principal church was Kilteel.[6] The Book of Leinster records the killing of Donnchad mac Domnaill Remair, King of Leinster in 1089 at Ráith Mór.

Middle Ages

After the Norman invasion, Maurice FitzGerald was granted the cantred of Offelan or Ophelan with the manor of Rathmore. His son William FitzMaurice granted the manors of Rathmore and Maynooth to his brother Gerald FitzMaurice, 1st Lord of Offaly, ancestor of the Earls of Kildare.. Maurice FitzGerald, 3rd Lord of Offaly, died at Rathmore in 1286.

Rathmore served as a border fortress on the marches of the Pale, under attack from the Gaelic O'Byrne and O'Toole lordships of the Wicklow uplands. On 5 January 1356, King Edward III issued an order to the Earl of Kildare, noting that 'the more noble and powerful persons' of Leinster had failed to remain at the wards of 'Kylhele, Rathmore and Ballymore in co. Kildare...for the salvation of the marches against Obryn and his accomplices' and issued orders requiring the Earl of Kildare to:

“ go in person with 5 men-at-arms with horses, 12 hobelars well armed, and 40 archers and other foot, well provided, to Rathmore on Monday after the Octaves of Trinity, or on Tuesday at the latest, to hold the said wards at his expenses, for the defence of the said lands...by the allegiance that he owes the King and under pain of forfeiture of those lands to be present with the said men-at-arms...on the said day, to remain there...and he is to defend those parts against the malice of the enemy.[7] ”

In 1453-54 title to the manors of Rathmore and Maynooth were disputed between the Butlers of Ormond and the FitzGeralds; a time when the Earl of Ormond was Lord Lieutenant. A letter from the chief persons in Kildare to the Duke of York complained that the dispute: "hath caused more destructionne in the said counte of Kildare and liberte of Mith within short time now late passed and dayly doth, then was done by Irish enemys and English rebelles of long tyme before." The Butlers were later driven out.[8][9][10]

The manor was forfeit to the Crown after the revolt of Thomas FitzGerald, 10th Earl of Kildare, known as 'Silken Thomas', in 1534.

In 1536 Thomas Alen was appointed constable of Rathmore.[11] In 1538, Turlough O'Toole attacked John Kelway, "Constable of the King's Castell of Rathmore", after Kelway hanged two of O'Toole's kerns. O'Toole withdrew to the mountains, where his men ambushed Kelway and his men in pursuit. O'Toole set fire to the tower house at Threecastles in which Kelway's party took refuge, driving them out and slaying Kelway and up to sixty of his men.

In 1541 the "manor and castle of Rathemore" was leased to Walter Trott, Vicar of Rathmore.[12] In 1545 the manor with the "castle and watermill there" and lands in Wicklow and Kildare were granted to John Travers of Monkstown, an usher of the King's chamber, for his services "especially in the wars in Ireland".[13] The manor passed to the Chevers family by marriage at the end of the 16th century.[14]

A battle on 17 September 1580 was described in a letter from the Earl of Kildare to Francis Walsingham. Sixty to eighty kerns and gallowglass, led by two brothers of Fiach McHugh O'Byrne, having burnt the "towne" of Rathmore were retreating into the mountains with a herd of cattle when they met with a party of horse under the Earl and Sir Henry Harrington at a ford. A series of charges broke the O'Byrne force and despite fighting "a long tyme very valyantly" the Palesmen eventually "putt them all to the sword savinge two which escaped". Among those slain were Fiach McHugh O'Byrne's brothers, his son and Kildare's Lieutenant, George FitzGerald.[15]

The Civil Survey of 1654 lists John Chevers as holding 402 plantation acres in the parish with a manor house or castle and a mill, 'then waste'.

Historic sites about the village

Motte and bailey castle

The rath

By the village are the remains of a motte-and-bailey castle from the late 12th or 13th century: earthworks thirty feet high and 150 feet in diameter at base (and 55 feet at the top). There was an inner and outer fosse. The earthworks were badly damaged by gravel extraction for roadworks in the 19th century. An adjoining bailey to the north was destroyed before 1955. The castle recorded in the 16th century and depicted on the Down Survey was likely a later stone building.[16]

Deserted mediæval settlement

Rathmore was granted a borough charter before 1203. In a charter of 1220 Maurice FitzGerald granted the burgesses 96 burgages at an annual rent of 12d with the "liberties of Breteuil". Traces of burgage plots may survive as earthworks immediately north of the village. The absence of references after about 1400 points to the settlement's decline, though the borough still had a provost in 1608.

Mediæval Church

A church is mentioned in a record of 1270. This is likely to have been located close to the site of the Church of Ireland church of today. The 2nd Earl of Kildare granted the advowson to the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem in 1318.[17] The church was among the possessions of the Hospitaller preceptory of Kilteel transferred to the Allen family after the dissolution of the monasteries. The church was in repair in 1615 but a survey of 1630 recorded the "church and chauncell" as "downe".[18][19]

The church dates from 1766. Possible traces of the earlier church were identified during archaeological monitoring in 2008.[20]

About the village

The Church of Ireland parish church is St Columbcille's Church. Samuel Lewis described St. Columbcille's Church in 1837: "a small plain structure, with a square tower, erected by aid of a grant of £450, in 1766, from the Board of First Fruits, which also granted for it, in 1824, £375, as a gift: it has lately been repaired by a grant of £187 from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners".[21]

The Roman Catholic church for the village is the Church of the Immaculate Conception, in Eadestown. This is a five-bay single storey Gothic-style church, builgt between 1820 and 1860.

Society

Rathmore Hall, the village hall, opened in 1992 as a focal point for the community. The funds to build the hall were raised almost entirely by the local community. The Hall provides facilities for a wide range of activities.

A community café takes place on the second Wednesday morning for senior citizens.

References

  1. ↑ An Ráth Mhór/Rathmore: Placenames Database of Ireland
  2. ↑ Record of Monuments and Places No. KD020-009009
  3. ↑ 'Notes' in Journal of the County Kildare Archaeological Society, Volume IV, p. 498.
  4. ↑ Hartnett, P.J. 1950, 'A Crouched Burial at Hempstown Commons, Co. Kildare' in The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Vol. 80, No. 2 (Jul., 1950), pp. 193-198
  5. ↑ RMP No. KD020-009015
  6. ↑ Flanagan, Marie Therese 1998, 'Strategies of Lordship in Pre-Norman and Post-Norman Leinster' in Anglo-Norman Studies: Proceedings of the Battle Conference 1997 pp. 107-126, p. 123-124.
  7. ↑ Chancel Records, Edward III
  8. ↑ Wood, Herbert 1928 'Two Chief Governors of Ireland at the Same Time' in The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Sixth Series, Vol. 18, No. 2 (31 Dec. 1928), pp. 156-157.
  9. ↑ Curtis, Edmund 1932 'Richard, Duke of York, as Viceroy of Ireland. 1447-1460; With Unpublished Materials for His Relations with Native Chiefs' in The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Seventh Series, Vol. 2, No. 2 (31 Dec. 1932), pp. 158-186, pp. 176-177.
  10. ↑ Ellis, Henry 1827. Original Letters Illustrative of British History. Second Series, Volume I. London. pp. 117-122.
  11. ↑ Morrin, James 1861. Calendar of the Patent and Close Rolls of Chancery of Ireland of the Reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth. Volume I. Dublin, p. 34
  12. ↑ "Enhanced British Parliamentary Papers On Ireland". http://www.dippam.ac.uk/eppi/documents/16052/page/423946. 
  13. ↑ Gilbert, Sir John T. 1864. On the History, Position and Treatment of the Public Records of Ireland by an Irish Archivist. London, p. 144.
  14. ↑ Aylmer, Hans Hendrick 1902, 'Rathmore' In Journal of the County Kildare Archaeological Society, Vol.III (1899-1902), pp. 372-381, p. 377.
  15. ↑ Aylmer, Hans Hendrick 1902, 'Rathmore' In Journal of the County Kildare Archaeological Society, Vol.III (1899-1902), pp. 372-381, p. 379.
  16. ↑ "Down Survey Maps - The Down Survey Project". http://downsurvey.tcd.ie/down-survey-maps.php#bm=Naas&c=Kildare&indexOfObjectValue=-1&indexOfObjectValueSubstring=-1. 
  17. ↑ "Patent Roll 11 Edward II - CIRCLE". http://chancery.tcd.ie/document/patent/11-edward-ii/116?view=chancery_advanced_search&display=free_text_page&path=search-documents&search=Jerusalem+rathmore&regnal_year=All&roll=All&field_year_value%5Bvalue%5D%5Bdate%5D=&field_year_value2%5Bvalue%5D%5Bdate%5D=. 
  18. ↑ Record of Monuments and Places KD020-009005-
  19. ↑ Ronan, M.V. 1941, 'Archbishop Bulkeley's Visitation of Dublin in Archivium Hibernicum, Vol. 8 pp. 56-98, p. 79
  20. ↑ "19697 « Excavations". http://www.excavations.ie/report/2008/Kildare/0019697/. 
  21. ↑ "Rathmore (Kildare)". http://www.libraryireland.com/topog/R/Rathmore-North-Naas-Kildare.php. 
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