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Carlow County - Ireland Genealogical Projects (IGP TM) TEMPLECRONEY & Castle Hill. Carlow |
TEMPLECRONEY This
Article was compiled by Mr. Harry Fennell and Miss Alice Treacy
VERY little has come
down to us concerning Carlow prior to the Norman Invasion. Croine, a
recluse, who established her cell here in the sixth century, is
mentioned. From this date and from a reference to Carlow in the Four
Masters we see that Cormac, King of the Hy Bairache, resigned his throne
to his son, Domhnall, and entered St. Comghall's Monastery at Bangor. On
doing so he presented three cahers’ in his domain to Comghall, viz.,
Ceatherlach, Foibren and Arderena, and a strip of land named Eimleach u
Eich. The date given is 555 A.D. Comghall subsequently built a Monastic
Church at Ceatherlach on the site of the Virgin Croine's cell.
THE CELL This cell, the
late Dr. Comerford held, was somewhere about the spot where the Town
Hall now stands. If it did, and Comghall erected a substantial Church
and Monastery on the same spot, there may be some proof forthcoming in
the near future when the foundations of the new Vocational School are
being dug in the Bank Field. Croine's name is perpetuated in the name
Templecroney, which applies to the further side of Haymarket. This house
was the Rectory until bought by Mrs. McDonnell, Tullow St., who set up a
licensed premises there. Archdeacon Jamieson lived here, and founded a
Grammar School a little lower down which flourished for many years. It
probably stood near to where the Cuncil house now is. The building was
demolished when the ground was being cleared to make room for Haymarket.
DEAN SWIFT It was possibly
in this Rectory that Dean Swift was housed on his visit to Carlow. His
famous reference to the "high Church and low steeple, a poor town and
proud people" is very apt when one looks at the picture of the Church as
it was in his day. It is said that the furniture from the old Abbey
Refectory, notably presses of -antique pattern in Irish oak, were in use
in the rectory. Sometime in the 1890's the Rector moved to the Kilkenny
Road. In 1903, during Mrs. McDonnell's occupation, a severe storm
unroofed the house and it was reconstructed as a two storied building.
THE HAYMARKET. Haymarket, up to
the 1880's, was a very congested area. What is now Centaur Street (I
wonder can anyone throw light on this unusual name?) ran from a narrow
entry into Dublin Street down to "The Strand " where the Canal Co's
Store is now. Up to the 1830's, when it was widened, it was known as
Labour in Vain Lane, from an Inn, sporting on its sign a black-a-moor
being scrubbed-presumably with the intention of washing him white.
Church Lane ran from Centaur Street out to Castle Street and between the
portion of it that lay behind the Provincial Bank and adjoining houses
was the meat market. School Lane ran diagonally from the Rectory towards
The Strand.
THE BREWERY Many people
carried on business in these lanes. There was the brewery, which was
cleared away to make room for the Town Hall. It has been derelict for
some time, but in 1840 Mr. Robert Farrell of Fruithill applied for
registration as a voter in respect of a brewery, dwellinghouse and
premises in Centaur Street, and Mr. John Farrell, Fruithill, described
as a maltster, applied for registration in respect of a warehouse and
store. Between 1836 and 1842, the following applied for registration in
Centaur Street: John Smith, engineer and maker of farm implements;
Garret Doyle, a machine maker; Francis Tims, carpenter and boat builder;
Scott and Howard, wire makers and bolting machine workers; Benjamin
Lahee (who may have been a Huguenot), brazier and tin plate worker;
Holton and Davin, ginger-beer manufacturers. There were several tailors,
turf dealers, corn dealers and a couple of blacksmiths, and two
publicans, Michael Byrne and Michael Leech. The Swan Inn (now Mr.
Collier's) was available for entertainment and Messrs. Murphy Bros.
carried on tea, grocery and I wine business; B. Furney had his saddlery
and harness shop, and P. Miller was in demand as a plumber and gas
fitter.
TOWN HALL.
The Town Hall was built between 1884 and 1886. The contractors were
Messrs. Connolly of Upper Dominic Street, Dublin, and Mr. William Hade,
whose name is still remembered in Carlow, was the Architect. The total
cost of the hall and new market adjoining amounted to nearly £4,000
which included a sum in dispute for extra work. The hall was described
in the local press as being very commodious and modern and heated by
patent gas stoves, with a public market adjoining for the sale of fowl,
butter, eggs and fish, and the cleared square in front for the sale of
hay and straw. Well, not so very long ago Carlovians felt that their
Town Hall had lost its claim to modernity and it is pleasing to be able
to record that it has now been rejuvenated and has once more earned the
plaudits of people and press as a modern amenity. Ballymanus Terrace was
built about 1870 by Matt Byrne of Castle Street, who named it as a
tribute to Billy Byrne of '98 fame, from Ballymanus. At the end of this
terrace, the unsightly debris of a building marks what was, in the palmy
days of the Barrow Navigation Company, a flour store and despatch office
of the Milford Flour Mills. When the railway superseded the barge. Mr.
Byrne rented the place as a wine store. Around Haymarket there are a
number of old buildings, which were used as stores during the heyday of
river traffic.
FIRST TOWN Meanwhile Carlow
was making history as the first town in Ireland to be illuminated by
electricity. It was introduced by Messrs. J. H. Gordon of London in the
1890's. They had their generating station in Burrin Street and a
transformer station in Haymarket. in a small triangular yard alongside
what is now Mr. Oliver's Wood Store. Mr. S. A. Hooper tells me that up
to comparatively recent times the name was still over the door. In 1898,
Major Alexander bought out Messrs. Gordon's interest and used the water
power at Milford to generate the electricity and Mr. Byrne's store was
fitted up as a storage plant to distribute the current to the town. In
1913, during Mr. Hooper's managership, owing to the difficulty
experienced in keeping up a steady supply, due to the fluctuations of
the water level in the river, the generating plant was transferred to
the store in Carlow, and the town was supplied from there until the
E.S.B. took over in 1929.
ST. MARY'S CHURCH.
The original St. Mary's Church was built in 1651, and seventy-five years
later (1726) being in a decayed and ruinous condition it was pulled down
and rebuilt. The late Ven. Archdeacon Ridgeway in his paper- ' J on St.
Mary's published in the 1949 number of Carloviana gives interesting
details culled from the vestry Minute Books. These Minute Books are
unique, as they date from 1669, being by many years the oldest Church
records in Ireland. The Baptismal Register and those of the Marriages
and Deaths commenced in 1695, and like the Minute Books are complete to
the present day. In 1727, St. Mary's was completed and according to the
accounts in the vestry-at a cost of £1,163-18-6. This was the building
which had the squat tower, and after another century had elapsed, we
find Thomas Cobden, the noted Architect, commissioned to design a new
steeple.
CANAL BUILDINGS. "The Strand,"
marked on old maps, is really the wharf built by the Grand Canal.
Company at the end of the 18th or the beginning of the 19th century. The
tall building facing up river, and now used as a leather store, was
erected about the same period and was intended as a hotel for passengers
travelling by canal. Whether it was actually in use as a hotel I cannot
say, as the scheme for extending the passenger traffic further from
Dublin than Athy did not materialise. Later, however, it served a useful
purpose in being the first home of the Carlow Rowing Club. On this wharf
stands the canal store outside which the barges tie up. On the opposite
side of the street there are a few dwelling-houses, a business house and
some specimens of the cooper's art on the kerb proclaim that a member of
this ancient and well-nigh forgotten craft still plies his trade here.
Joshua Watson's malt store is also situated here, and the “Quay," as it
is now popularly named, opens out into Governey Square, where there are
several shops.
OLD FOUNDATION One of these
deserves special mention, that of the late Mr. McWey, which was founded
in 1808. The house next door where Mr. Johnson carries on the tailoring
business founded by his father, is an equally old building, as it is
shown in a drawing of the bridge, which dates from about 1810.This
drawing, by the way, purports to be the only picture of the old bridge
in existence. It shows the bridge and the Castle complete with its four
towers, and carrying three tall chimneys, standing high over the river,
the ground sloping rather steeply down to the bank. A number of houses
are shown on the Carlow bank, with the squat tower of St. Mary's in the
background. On the Graigue side portion of what is now Miss Foley's
house is shown, and the bridge itself is buttressed towards the centre.
The Journal of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society for 1868-'69 in which
the picture is reproduced says: - "The view presents the south-eastern
aspect, and was probably taken from or near the spot in Carlow-Graigue,
where the house of Mr. Wilson now stands. · The house appearing on the
right-hand side of the picture has been re-edified (sic) and is now
occupied by Mr. Edward Clarke, and its site which forms a peninsula in
-the river, from the southern battlement of the bridge, is denominated
in ancient title deeds, and leases, as the White Castle, of which,
however, no traces now exist: it probably constituted an outpost to
guard the bridge on the Queen's County side of the River Barrow.
THE BRIDGE
(Of the era of the erection of the bridge we have no historical record,
nor is the name of the builder known).
THE BOUNDARY. There follows a
description of the bridge built in 1815 with its inscription:
"Wellington Bridge, 1815," and on a shield underneath, Queens - County-
Carlow, the word county indicating the imaginary line in the river,
forming the boundary of the two counties, and on a corresponding tablet
on the opposite side of the bridge, a bust in profile of the Iron Duke,
cut in relief with the classic inscription underneath: "Patria lnvicto
Wellington Grata!" A member remarked on the conclusion of the reading of
this notice to the meeting that although there could be little doubt of
the early date of this bridge, he would not refer to it as a 12th
Century erection. As represented in the drawing, it resembled the old
bridge of Kilcullen, which was erected in the 14th century by that noted
bridgebuilder, Canon Maurice Jakis of Kildare Cathedral. The notice was
communicated, as the Journal quaintly words it, by Robert Malcolmson,
the Society's local Secretary for Carlow. Mr. Wilson's house, mentioned
in the text, is the one now occupied by Mrs. Begley in Maryboro' Street,
and, of course, Miss Foley's house is that which Mr. Clarke occupied.
The history of the Castle has been dealt with in a monumental paper read
to the Society in early 1955 by Mr. W. V. Hadden.
OLD RESIDENTS. Mr. John
Sweeney has given me an amount of information regarding old residents in
Castle Hill, some of whom he remembers and others whose names have been
handed on down the years. He gives pride of place to Mr. Thomas Finn,
who kept a very nice Confectioner's shop, which was a centre of
attraction for all the young fellows of the town. Down from Pollerton
and Clash they would come, bowling their hoops, as well as over from
Graigue and from the Quarries, but they all cried "halt" at Finn's,
where they bought Chester cake and apple tart and in season their
"glasses," i.e., coloured glass marbles, to play three-hole span.
BIRD FANCIER. Mr. Finn was a
man of powerful physique and a noted bird fancier. He would discourse to
the boys about old times when he felt in the mood, and he told them of a
thatched public house that stood where Mrs. McSwayde has her premises,
which bore on the facia-board the legend: "Mr. Daniel Moore, Porter and
Punch House." The Bolger family were prominent in the commercial life of
the town, and Mr. William Bolger's large Corn and Coal Stores were in
Coal Market, as was the family residence, happily still tenanted by a
member of the family.
BALL COURT. Behind these
stores there was a ballcourt-was it the same that William Farrell
mentions in his diary of '98? According to him, sports of all kinds were
popular in Carlow, and being an expert at any one of them was a sure
passport to a good wife and fortune. The handball-court he refers to as
one of the best in Ireland, and he proceeds to name a number of
first-rate exponents of the game, keeping to the last, one Jack Fogarty,
who certainly played in the Court in Coal Market.
WEALTHY AND RESPECTABLE.
He mentions that Fogarty's friends were wealthy and respectable and kept
two mills, the Castle Mill and the Town Mill, and in addition they had a
flourishing bakery, near to the ball-court, which was kept by Bob
Rankin, who was known far and near for his prowess at the game. He took
a keen interest in the promising young Fogarty, so that at length he
achieved such skill that his play was exactly like sleight of hand. Here
he gives details of his style, his coolness in play, etc., at some
length, but I have quoted enough from Farrell. Another source writes: "
Fogarty's playing was something that had to be seen to be believed. He
had complete mastery of the ball; and. could play equally well with
either hand. Naturally he had a large following and he specialised in
playing a swift low ball. When he brought this stroke into operation,
his friends would shout with glee to his opponent, "Put your name under
that one, if you can!”
SKULL AND BOAT. Mr. James Ryan,
a landowner and Corn and Coal Merchant, had his premises where Mr.
Broughan has his shop. Mr. Broughin dug up a skull in his garden last
year, and Mr. Ryan in his time uncovered the framework of an old boat.
In days gone past this portion of Coal Market was covered with water,
and probably formed one of the four lakes from which Carlow got its
name. This most likely formed the Moat of the Castle. Unfortunately, we
have seen Coal Market flooded many a time, much to the discomfort of its
residents. Other people who lived here in the past were: - Miss
Hendrick, who had a furniture store where Mr. Flynn now has his garage;
Mr. Richard Rodgers whose family are still there) was a founder-member
of the Carpenters' and Joiners' Society; Mr. Martin Kelly had a bakery
and was also a butter buyer; Dr. John Ryan was a Professor of Economics,
and was a Graduate of Edinburgh University. He lived next to the Boot
Factory. The Finn family, who owned extensive property in the town, are
represented by Messrs. Finn, who retain many memories of bygone days.
Members of the Mangan family still occupy the family house. They had
extensive commercial interests in the town, and were closely associated
with the Canal Company.
COAL MARKET. Fortunately
there stood in Coalmarket a large tripod scales for weighing coal, but
in 1888 this was upset by a drove of cows, and was not re-erected. There
was a coal market held here twice weekly. Laden carts from the
collieries passed through the town to deliver coal to distant parts of
the county. Empty carts returned late at night when the horse (and
attendant donkey brought along to help in pulling the load up steep
parts of the road) would bring their master, asleep in the cart, safely
home. Mrs. Farrell's meal shop, formerly Miss Kearney's, was known as
the Frenchman's. Ven. Archdeacon Ridgeway suggested this term might
refer to a refugee, the Rev. Benjamin Daillion, who died in 1709 and is
buried in the churchyard.
WATER LANE. Water Lane was
widened early this century, the wing of the Deighton Memorial Hall,
which formerly housed the Crown Court being sacrificed in the process.
At one time water from the Burrin swirled through the narrow entry to
re-enter its source a little distance down. Where Miss O'Meara's house
and that of the late Mr. Haughton are built was originally an island,
and it was on this that the first Haughton to settle in Carlow built his
house and mill.
THE GEESE. In doing so, he
dispossessed the geese who gave it the name of Goose Island. In those
days the thrifty townspeople went in for livestock-fowl, pigs and cows
and geese flocked on the banks of the Burrin to graze, swim and bask on
the island. The cows probably sought their own pastures also, but they
had a rendezvous at Water Lane morning and evening to slake their
thirst.
CASTLE HILL. The name Castle
Hill is applied nowadays to the short street running from the Market
Cross to Coal Market. Its name is really Castle Street and it is one of
the busiest in the town as it is the main thoroughfare from Leix and in
addition it is lined for its entire length by an array of shops catering
for a diversity of requirements. The Castle Hill we are dealing with is
of a more ancient date and in bygone days sloped from the Castle to the
banks of both rivers. The only eminence remaining here is the remnant of
a graveyard that stands behind Mrs. Doran's house.
ST. MARY'S ABBEY. During a recent
Tostal Mr. Mat Doyle, sculptor at Mr. Walsh's Monumental Works, told us
that this was the site of St. Mary's Abbey and he remembered seeing an
ancient door or window which he said was covered in. This was situated
behind the stonecutting yard. In the Ordnance Survey Book (Carlow, 1839)
the site of an Abbey is mentioned as "lying to the rear of Mr. Prout's
house in Castle Street about five or six perches from the old castle."
In "Additions to Gough's Cambden" occurs the following reference: "Here
(in Carlow) are also ruins of a fine Abbey founded about A.D. 634." No
authority is quoted. · The Abbey whose site is just mentioned. was,
according to local information, called Mary's Abbey: "it is said that
the churchyard wherein the Parish Church now stands was used as
burial-grounds before its erection. It is not remembered that there were
any ruins of an anterior date in it. "These foregoing references are
quoted from the O.S. book. There may have been a burial ground on the
site of St. Mary's Church, but if it existed, it was not connected with
the one on the Abbey site, as these two places were, in olden days,
separated by the water which flowed from both rivers, and formed a lake
here. There is a theory that when the hill was lowered and the present
street leading out to the bridge was formed, the debris was thrown into
the swamp or moneen in order to fill it up. Then, when the rivers were
confined to their banks this portion now known as Coal Market became
habitable. I have been told that a tinsmith's workshop occupied the site
prior to the Monumental Works. During the building of Governey's Boot
Factory and other houses hereabouts, quantities of human bones were
unearthed, and re-interred in the graveyard at St. Mary's Church.
A FIND The interesting
remnant of the once extensive, ancient burial ground is the family tomb
of the Galbraith family, who once resided in Old Derrig. A daughter of
Samuel Galbraith, Mary, married the Rev. John Falkiner in 1780, three
years after he became Rector of Carlow, were buried in the family vault
on Castle Hill. The most interesting find on this spot was that of the
effigy of Robert Hartpole. who was appointed Constable of Carlow in
1577. He was buried in the Church of St. Mary (Abbey) when he died in
1594. His effigy and tomb were identified by the Latin inscription when
they were unearthed in the early years of last century. Robert was said
to have been present at the massacre of Mullaghmast. The effigy lay
exposed for quite a while and Mary Leadbeater's daughter, on a visit
from Ballitore to some Quaker friends in (Carlow wrote a description of
it to her mother and told of the crowds that came to view it ("gratis,"
she naively remarks).
DECLARATION. A workman,
probably remembering Mullaghmast, knocked off the head, which was thrown
into the Barrow. The late Col. Henry Bruen, with a view to saving it
from further mutilation, had it removed to Oak Park, offering at the
same time a reward for the recovery of the head, which was soon claimed.
Sometime in the late 1870's a descendant
of Hartpole in the female line obtained permission to remove the effigy
to his residence at Kilnacourt, Portarlington. The head once more
disappeared, and was not this time recovered. In the Kildare
Archaeological Journal of 1911, it is mentioned that a fragment of the
sides of the tomb, -showing four members of Hartpole's family, was lying
on a heap of debris, against the garden wall in Oak Park at that time.
Robert Hartpole was granted lands in Queens County and Carlow, and lived
in Shurle Castle. Now a last reference culled from the -same volume
(1911 K.A. Journal): "St. Comghall was the saint to whom St. Mary's
Church in Carlow was originally dedicated."(Gilbert's Mihi). That leaves
us just where we began looking for the site of Croine's cell! Where was
it? Source of
this material: Carloviana; Vol. 1.
No. 4, New Series, Dec. 1955 Pages 12 to 17 & 35. NEXT: Centaur Street
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