Motto Translated: "Ready to accomplish"

Spelling variations include: Talbot, Talbott, Talbut, Talbart, Talbert and many more.
First found in Shropshire where they were seated from early times

The Talbot Story Continues

Most of the information on this page has been sourced from other web pages and resources. The work is not a product of my writings or individual research. I do not claim any rights over the information shown below. (30th. June 2003)

Some extracts from : http://indigo.ie/~kfinlay/Handcock/tallaghtindex.htm

"The History and Antiquities of Tallaght In The County of Dublin" By William Domville Handcock, M.A.

 Second Edition Revised and Enlarged. Dublin, 1899
 

The Parish of Tallaght

(i.e., Taimhleacht, or the Plague Monument)

The Parish of Tallaght appears in the seventeenth century as containing the townlands of Friarstown, Ballinascorney, Templeogue, Killinarden, Jobstown, Whitestown, Belgard, Cookstown, Tallaght, Knocklyon, Oldcourt, Killininny, Oldbawn, Kiltalown, Corballis, Newlhall, Newlands, Gibbons, Carranstown, Glassamucky, Tymon, Brittas, Aghfarrell, and Kilnamanagh.

It now contains the townlands of

Aghfarrell (i.e., Farrell's field),
Allagour (i.e. the cliff of the goat),
Balhnascorney (i.e., the town of the gorge)
Lower and Upper, Ballycragh (i.e., the town of the preys),
Ballycullen (i.e., Cullen'stown),
Ballymaice (i.e., the town of the hill),
Ballyimana (i.e., the middle town),
Ballymorefinn (i.e., Finn's great town),
Ballyroan (i.e., Rowan's town),
Belgard,
Belgard Deerpark,
Bohernabreena (i.e., the road of the court),
Brittas (i.e., the speckled lands) Big and Little,
Castlekelly,
Cookstown,
Corbally (i.e., the odd town),
Corrageen (i.e., the little rock),
Cunard (i.e., the high head?),
Friarstown Lower and Upper,
Garranstown (i.e., the town of the horses) or Kingswood, Gibbons (i.e., the town of Gibbon),
Glassamucky (i.e., the stream of the swineherd),
Glassamucky Brakes and Mountain,
Glassavullaun (i.e., the stream of the little summit),
Gortlum (i.e., the bare field), Jobstown, Killinardan (i.e., the church of the little height),
Killininny (i.e., the church of the daughters),
Kilnamanagh (i.e., the church of the monks),
Kiltalown (i.e., the church of the elm woods),
Kiltipper (i.e., the church of the well),
Knocklyon (i.e., Leinster hill),
Lugmore (i.e., the great hollow),
Mountpelier,
Mountseskin (i.e., the bog of the marsh),
Newland's Demesne,
Oldbawn (i.e., the old cattle enclosure),
Oldeourt,
Piperstown,
Tallaght,
Templeogue (i.e., St. Malog's or Molagga's house),
Tymon (derived from Erachtomothan or the O'Mothans' inheritance) North and South,
Whitehall,
Whitestown.

The mountains and hills in the parish are :- Mountpelier; Slievenabawnoge, or the mountain of the lea; the hill of Ballymorefinn, or Finn's great town; Slievebane, or the white mountain; the mountain of Glassavullaun, or the stream of the little summit; Kippure, or the trunk of the yew tree; the Black hill; Seeghane, or the seat; Carrig (i.e., the rock); and Bryan's hill.
Amongst objects of archaeological interest dating from primeval times there are in the townland of Ballinascorney a rath called Raheendhu, or the black fort, and two stone circles enclosing the remains of a cromlech called the cairn of the second rock or the red hero?; in the townland of Ballymana a place of sepulture called Knockanvinidee, or the rennet hill?; in the town -land of Mountseskin a place of sepulture called Knockannavea, or the ravens' hill, and a mound called the Bakinghouse hill; and in the townland of Glassamucky a place of sepulture called, Knockanteedan, or the little hill of the blasts or gusts; while in the townland of Castlekelly there are a number of sepulchral mounds including three known respectively as Meave's hill, the hill of the rowan tree, and the red hill, as well as a cromlech and some stone circles; and on the hill called Seeghane, or the seat, there are a cairn and two cromlechs.

Amongst the wells in the parish are the following: - St. Paul's well, in the town-land of Kiltalown; Moling's well or the Piper's well in- the townland of Corbally; the Fairy well, near Tymon Castle; the Lime Kiln well at Balrothery; the Chapel well, on the brink of the Dodder near Tallaght village; and St. Columkille’s well in the townland of Oldcourt.
Other objects of antiquarian interest are the belfry of the Church, a font in the churchyard, a tower near the Dominican Monastery, and a seventeenth century house called Old Bawn.

The Village of Tallaght
The village of Tallaght lies about seven miles to the south-west of the City of Dublin on the high road, now traversed by a steam tramway, from the metropolis to the town of Blessington in the County Wicklow, and forms the centre of the largest parish in the County Dublin. This parish, which bears the same name as the village, extends from the parish of .Rathfarnham to the boundary of the County Wicklow, and embraces a considerable extent of mountainous country. In this portion of the parish the River Dodder has its source. It flows down to the low lands through the valley of Glenasmole, or the glen of the thrushes, where the township of Rathmines now draws from the river its water supply; and, passing not far from the village of Tallaght, takes its course through the parishes of Rathfarnham and Donnybrook to the sea.

The village, which is still recollected as the site of the country house of the Archbishops of Dublin, although nearly a century has elapsed since they ceased to reside there, has been dominated in turn by a Celtic monastery, by a mediaeval castle, by an eighteenth century house called the Palace of Tallaght, and by a monastery belonging to the Dominican Order which is the chief feature of the place in the present day.

Of the mediaeval buildings the only relic is a small rectangular tower which stands in the grounds of the modern monastery.
Near the tower there is a walnut tree of most remarkable size, which must be the growth of many centuries, and in its vicinity there have been found such relics of the past as old coins, a papal seal, a font, and a stone cross. In addition to the tower near the monastery there is at the entrance to the village, coming from Dublin, the base of a small fortified dwelling known. Bancroft’s Castle; and. Mr. Eugene O'Curry, when making an examination of the district for the Ordnance Survey, discovered on a stream which flows by the village an ancient mill so small as to be only capable of grinding four barrels of wheat in twenty-four hours.

The name Tallaght means the plague grave, and from numerous places of sepulture which have been found within the parish it is evident that the neighborhood was extensively used in pre-historic times as a burial place. Tallaght is spoken of by a Celtic writer as one of the chief cemeteries of ancient Erin, and the origin of the name has been attributed to the interment there of a number of the descendants of the first colonists of Ireland. These colonists are said to have come not long after the Flood to the Irish shores from Migdonia, in Greece, under the leadership of a hero called Partholon, and their descendants, who according to tradition were carried off a few centuries later by plague in one week, are stated to have numbered nine thousand.

In the eighth century of the Christian dispensation, or about 350 years after the time of St. Patrick, Tallaght became the site of a Celtic monastery which was founded by an Irish saint called Maelruain. This monastery consisted, doubtless, like other religious establishments of the time, of some small round huts grouped round a primitive church and enclosed by a high bank. But so great was its influence in the year 811 that the monks, as a protest against some infringement of their privileges, were able to prevent the celebration of a national assembly at Teltown in the County Meath.

During the two succeeding centuries, notwithstanding the periods of anarchy resulting from the Danish invasions, the monastery maintained its importance, and it is not until the beginning of the twelfth century that the deaths of its chief members ceased to be recorded. To this monastery Cellach son of Dunchadh, a chief of the same line as the founder of St. Mary's Abbey, mentioned in the history of Monkstown, gave the lands surrounding the village of Tallaght as an offering "to God and St. Michael and St. Maelruain in perpetual freedom."

After the Anglo-Norman conquest these lands were confirmed by King John to the Church. They were granted by that monarch to the Archbishop of Dublin, and in the thirteenth century Tallaght gave name to one of the manors into which his estate was divided. This manor was farmed after the custom of that time, in part by the Archbishop himself, in part by tenants known as free tenants who paid their rent in money, and in part by tenants known as betaghs who discharged their obligations partly by money and partly by work done for the Archbishop on the lands retained in his own hands. It was then one of the least valuable of the Archbishop's manors, the chief being Swords on the northern, and Ballymore Eustace on the southern side of Dublin, and the buildings at Tallaght, which were in charge of a Bailiff, were small and unimportant.

In an account rendered during a vacancy in the See of Dublin from 1271 to 1277 it is stated that the receipts included rent from freeholders, Betaghs, Householders and Cottagers, and profit from demesne, meadow and pasture land, from the work of the betaghs and cottagers and from tribute beer and hens given in lieu of rent. Only one tenant, Thomas de Monte Alto, is mentioned by name. Although in these accounts there is no mention of its existence the monastery seems to have still survived. About that time we find letters of protection granted for Brother Simon, Abbot of Tallaght, and later on the title of Abbot is sometimes applied to Richard White, whose family, then the most important in the district, has left its name impressed on the townland in the vicinity of Tallaght village.
Although many of the free tenants, as well as all the betaghs and cottagers were natives of this country, a state of comparative concord existed for a considerable time after the Anglo-Norman invasion between the original inhabitants and the new settlers; but in the latter part of the thirteenth century, as has been already mentioned, the Irish tribes, the O'Byrnes and O'T'ooles, who had retreated to the mountains, began to make serious incursions on lands situated like those of Tallaght, and were joined in their forays by many of their lowland brethren.

Before the year 1276 Manor of Tallaght had in consequence decreased in value more than a third, and in that year, when an attempt was made to subdue the enemy by sending an army to Glendalough, John de Alta Ripa, with three armed horsemen and the bailiff and posse of Clondalkin, then a walled town, were necessary to keep the peace in the Tallaght neighborhood. The fourteenth century is remarkable in the history of Tallaght for the erection of the Castle which for three centuries afforded a country residence for the Archbishops of Dublin. In an engraving executed long after its demolition, the Castle is represented as an edifice. of great magnificence, but the pile of buildings depicted by the artist was probably the result of his imagination. Contemporary records tend to show that the importance of the -Castle was due more to its superiority over other buildings as a house of defence than to its fitness for episcopal occupation. It originated in the state of continuous war between the Anglo-Norman settlers and the Irish. which had resulted from the Scottish invasion under Edward Bruce - an invasion which gave the Irish tribes fresh courage and led to their taking possession of much land which had from the time of the conquest by the Anglo-Normans.

In 1326 the Manor of Tallaght presented a pitiable spectacle. The Castle had been begun, but no more than the first storey had been erected, and of the original buildings there were only left to the Archbishop a chamber for himself and a small chamber for the clergy.The lands in the Archbishop's hands included 377 acres of tillage land of which less than a third was sown, and a large tract of carucates, or over 2,000 acres, of pasture land, for which, however poor it may have been in quality, fifty-nine head of cattle and horses can hardly have been an adequate stock.The description of the lands held by tenants is no less appalling. Only four of the betaghs remained, and, although some of the lands formerly held by them had been let to more independent but less profitable tenants, a number of holdings are described as waste for want of tenants, or valued at nothing because no tenants would stay on them owing to their proximity to the Irish. The population of the village was larger than might be expected in those distracted times, but we find the Seneschal's court for the manor then held at Clondalkin, and, although mentioned as sources of revenue, the receipts from a water mill and market tolls can only have been precarious. The Castle of Tallaght was completed some time before the death of its builder, Archbishop Bicknor, which occurred in 1349, and from the fact that nectar was sent to Tallaght for his use it may be presumed that he sometimes stayed there.

To what extent his successors for the next hundred years occupied the Castle is not apparent, but its utility as a house of defence must have been often tested. While it was being built enemies of English rule were found in the village of Tallaght itself, and a few years later, in 1331, on the eve of St. Mark's day, a raid by the O’Toole resulted in a scene of dreadful bloodshed there, during which one of the Whites and "other honest men" of the neighbourhood were killed. The severity of these incursions in the middle of the fourteenth century may be judged from the organised measures taken to resist them. Watchmen, for whose support the Constable of Tallaght Castle, one Walter Russell, was ordered to levy a rate on the inhabitants from Donnybrook to Newcastle Lyons, were kept on the mountains to give warning of the approach of the hillmen, and the frontier from Tallaght to Bray was regularly guarded by soldiers placed at set stations. Besides men supplied by John Hacket of Stillorgan, and militia whose  attendance the Sheriff enforced, we find, on the principle of setting a thief to catch another, an arrangement made with one of the O'Tooles to furnish light horsemen and infantry to defend "the English frontier and the English people between Tallaght and Windgates near Bray" from the incursions of the O'Byrnes.

The latter part of that century was not attended with any improvement in the condition of the district, and in 1381 the owners of lands near Tallaght were ordered to go armed to the frontier, as O'Toole, "Captain of his nation," was out in insurrection,In the fifteenth century, owing to the Wars of the Roses, English rule in Ireland became greatly relaxed, and Archbishop Tregury, on succeeding to the See of Dublin in 1449, just a hundred years after the death of Archbishop Bicknor, found the castles on the See lands much in need of restoration. The Castle of Tallaght, which stood close on the southern side to the barrier then erected round the Pale, was, owing to its position, one of the most important of these castles, and to it Archbishop Tregury devoted special attention.
It became his favourite residence, and two of the occurrences recorded during his rule as Archbishop relate to strife with his neighbours at Tallaght - one being his imprisonment by the Harolds, who shared with the Walshes and the Archbolds the southern border lands of the Pale, and the other an accusation of assault brought against him by one of his own tenants.

It was in his Castle of Tallaght that he died in 1471, and amongst the possessions mentioned in his will are a habit with a suitable hood in the keeping of the Constable of 'Tallaght and two stacks of corn in the haggard there.
During the sixteenth century, in spite of the advance of civilization, Tallaght did not always enjoy the blessings of peace At the time of the rebellion of Silken Thomas it was found necessary to place a regular garrison there to defend the neighborhood against the Geraldines, and some years later, when the Castle was represented as one of the best strongholds for restraining the O'Tooles and the O'Byrnes, the advantage of placing hardy marchers, capable of resisting those tribes, on the lands was strongly urged.

About the middle of that century the district was called upon to provide many men to take part in the expeditions into Ulster against Shane O'Neill and the Scottish invaders, and we find the Archbishop contributing no less than eight mounted archers, besides a share of the carts required for transport. In the latter part of the century the Irish tribes were, according to Archbishop Loftus, "never more insolent." Confirmation of the Archbishop's statement is found in the fact that in 1573 one of his nephews and many of his servants were slain at the gate of Tallaght Castle.

As a result of the improvements effected by Archbishop Tregury the Castle was frequently made use of by his successors as a residence. In 1514 Archbishop Rokeby dated a letter from it, and in 1539 the well-known Archbishop Browne for a time found it his only dwelling, as his enemy, Lord Deputy Gray, took possession of the Palace of St. Sepulchre "to the great hindrance and debilitating of the word of God." In compelling him to live at Tallaght Archbishop Browne suspected the Lord Deputy of a design to secure his destruction. He had made the O'Tooles "his mortal enemies," and four servants and a chaplain, all his household comprised, were, as he says, a slender company to oppose malefactors who could muster 200 fighting men.Subsequently he appears to have established on the Tallaght lands a number of his relatives, and towards the close of the reign of Edward VI. he leased the manor to Sir Ralph Bagenal. When Archbishop Loftus succeeded to the See of Dublin in 1567, a similar lease was in the hands of a Mr. Brereton, but, notwithstanding that fact, Archbishop Loftus took up his abode at once in the Castle, and for many years spent much of his time in it.His occupation of the Castle was not interrupted by the murder of his nephew; and shortly afterwards we find his friend Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex, the first colonizer of Ulster, supping and lodging with him at Tallaght. It was not until Viscount Baltinglas' rebellion broke out that Archbishop Loftus determined to remove his residence to Rathfarnham, leaving Tallaght to provide a home for some of the Purdons, his wife's relatives.

During the first half of the seventeenth century the Castle continued to be occupied by the Archbishops - by Thomas Jones, the ancestor of the Viscounts Ranelagh, who succeeded Archbishop Loftus both as Archbishop of Dublin and as- Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and by Lancelot Bulkeley, who was appointed to the See in 1619, on Archbishop Jones's death.

It is "to the Lord Archbishop of Dublin's house at Tallaght" that on a cold February day in the year 1634 we find the great Earl of Cork proceeding in his coach and four, accompanied by the good Primate Ussher and attended by his son-in-law, Lord Digby, to procure from Archbishop Bulkeley his letters and certificates touching that great subject of dissension, the Countess of Cork's tomb in St. Patrick's Cathedral, and it was while returning from Tallaght that the Earl of Cork had the misfortune to lose Grey Barry, one of his coach horses which fell dead at "the town's end ".

During the rebellion of 1641 this district suffered severely, and in the summer of 1642 the Council directed that twelve musketeers should be sent to Tallaght to protect the Archbishop's house. A year later, however, the inhabitants sustained great losses in cattle owing to raids made by the Irish forces, and while making a sally from the Castle to resist an attack of this kind, a Captain Bret, who was then in command of the garrison, was surprised in an ambuscade, in which nine of his men were killed and he himself mortally wounded. During the troubled times which preceded the establishment of the Commonwealth, Archbishop Bulkeley attended occasionally the meetings of the Council in Dublin Castle, and when the siege of Dublin by the Irish army was expected in 1647 lie was given licence to send cattle to Tallaght and to go there himself as he thought fit.

As soon as the rule of the Commonwealth began he retired altogether to Tallaght, with the permission of the Governor of Dublin, who was very gracious to him and to the poor, and "without whose aid he would have been shattered," and there his death, which occurred in 1650, is said to have taken place. When a survey of the parish of Tallaght was made a year or two later the Castle appears to have been unoccupied; but in the village there were over 200 inhabitants. The principal resident was Mr. John Jones, who is described as a cook and innkeeper; and amongst the other inhabitants we find two weavers, a smith, "a sneezing merchant," a tailor, a butcher, a maltster, a carpenter, and a beggar. The occupation of a mendicant; was then apparently considered a legitimate one.

On a map the village, which was then approached from Dublin through Crumlin by the road over the Greenhills, is represented figuratively as consisting of only seven houses and the church, and the soil in the parish is stated to have been considered generally of good quality, but in the southern part so mountainous and grown over with heather as to be useless for pasture.

Some eighty years appears to have elapsed before Tallaght could again count the Archbishop of Dublin amongst its residents. There is no mention of the occupation of the Castle, which was rated as containing eight hearths, by any of Archbishop Bulkeley's successors in the seventeenth century, and the Castle was probably allowed to fall into disrepair.During the first quarter of the eighteenth century it seems to have been uninhabitable. Archbishop King, who then held the See of Dublin, expresses regret that he had no convenience to indulge a taste for planting and gardening, and, as already stated, he made use occasionally of Mount
Merrion as a country retreat.

When Archbishop Hoadly, already referred to under Rathfarnham, succeeded to the Dublin See in 1729, on the death of Archbishop King, the Castle was in ruins. He lost no time, however, in providing himself with a country house, and within a year of his appointment built with the remains of the Castle what afterwards became known as the Palace of Tallaght. In spite of  his reputation as an improver he did not display much taste in the design, and the Palace was pronounced by Austin Cooper, the distinguished antiquary, to be the poorest thing of the kind which he had ever seen. It cost, however, £2,500, and contained some large apartments, including the hall, which was two storeys high, the dining room, in which there was a handsome chimneypiece bearing the arms of Archbishop Hoadly, and an inscription stating that the- house had been built by him in 1729, the drawing room, in which hung a portrait of the builder, and the library, which commanded a fine view of the surrounding country.

Until 1742, when he was promoted to the Archbishopric of Armagh and purchased Rathfarnham Castle, Archbishop Hoadly constantly resided at Tallaght. In its church his only child was married, and he was buried himself with his wife and his wife's mother, who had been previously interred there. His successor, Archbishop Cobbe, who possessed a fine residence of his own at Donabate, made little if any use of the Palace, and Archbishop Carmichael, who succeeded him, found it in need of repair.

His death within six months left little time for restoration, but the next holder of the See, Archbishop Smyth, although he only partly completed what his predecessors had begun, and owned a seat near the Phoenix Park, appears to have made the Palace habitable and to have sometimes resided there. Three years after his appointment his niece was married from it, and in his will, beside-s leaving money for the poor of Tallaght, he bequeathed to his successors the portraits and tapestry in the Palace.
During the episcopate of Archbishop Cobbe an English tourist who visited Tallaght describes the Palace gardens, which were intersected by a little river and several pleasant canals, as handsome, and, although he considered the situation low, the general effect led him to speak of the Palace as a fine old seat and an elegant retirement for the Archbishop of Dublin. But some years later a French tourist was not so favourably impressed, and dismissed the Palace with the observation that it was not worthy of remark. The village, the latter writer adds, was then very inconsiderable, consisting -of two tippling houses and about ten poor cabins.

Towards the close of that century Tallaght was spoken of as a large village or town. It then numbered amongst its residents a centenarian, a Mrs. Warren, who died in 1798 at the age of 112, leaving great-great-grandchildren nearly twenty years old. (Her brother is said to have died two years before at the age of 120. He is stated to have sown wheat where Grafton Street now stands, and to have then held some 700 acres at 2s. 6d. an acre. On the day of the Battle of the Boyne some of his father's carts which he was driving were impressed for the service of King William. - Newspaper Cuttings relating to Ireland in the British Museum.)

On his appointment to the See of Dublin in 1779 Archbishop Fowler made many so-called improvements in the Palace grounds, in which little reverence for antiquities was displayed, and the Palace itself received "a universal dashing and white-washing." In his time the gardens were brought to a high state of perfection, and he appears to have made Tallaght his constant residence until the death in 1793 of his wife, who was buried in Tallaght Church. In the autumn preceding the rebellion 0r 1798, during the absence of the Archbishop, the Palace was visited late at night by a party of men in hackney coaches accompanied by others on foot, and the porter was forced to give them five guns which had been lately brought to the house and some blunderbusses. Archbishop Fowler's successor, the well-known Charles Agar, Earl of Normanton, did not consider Tallaght Palace a dwelling worthy of his position, and in spite of his great wealth is said to have built up the windows and fireplaces in it, to avoid paying the tax then assessed on them.

Although Archbishop Cleaver, who was appointed to the See of Dublin in 1809 on the resignation of Archbishop Agar, is said to have opened the windows and hearths and to have dispensed in the Palace princely hospitality, his occupation of the place, owing to his ill health, cannot have been long, and his successor, Lord John George Beresford, found it in 1821 in such a state of decay as to be unfit for habitation. It was then sold, together with the demesne, to Major Palmer, who, in accordance with the conditions of sale, levelled the Palace with the ground, the only relic of it now known to exist being the dining-room chimneypiece. This adorns the church of Tubrid, in the diocese of Lismore, to which it was brought by the Palmer family. The demesne and a house built by Major Palmer were subsequently sold to Sir John Lentaigne, and passed from the latter into the possession of the Dominican Order.

Jobstown
The lands of Jobstown, which lie to the west of the village of Tallaght, formed portion of the manor of the Archbishop of Dublin, and were for centuries the site of the residence of a branch of the Fitzwilliam family already mentioned in connection wit3h the history of Merrion, Baggotrath, and Dundrum. Of the castle which in their time stood upon the lands no trace now remains.

So early as the year 1266 a member of the Fitzwilliam family, Joseph Fitzwilliam, took lands known as Ballyslatter, or Clonart, within the tenement of Tallaght, but the first mention of the family in connection with Jobstown, which was also known as Rathminton, is in the year 1326, when it is stated that Richard Fitzwilliam had acquired it from one Ralph Aubry.Amongst subsequent owners of Jobstown we find, in 1442, Stephen Fitzwilliam, who then committed its custody to his brother, John Fitzwilliam, and a chaplain called John Elliott; in 1463 Stephen Fitzwilliam, who in that year accused Archbishop Tregury of taking a halbert from him by force on the high road from Ratoath to Dublin; in 1514 John Fitzwilliam, who was then granted a reduction in his rent; in 1531 Stephen Fitzwilliam, who was an official in Dublin Castle; and in 1557 William Fitzwilliam, who married Margaret Goulding, and who in his will, made shortly before his death in 1578, mentions amongst his possessions a silver salt cellar of sixteen ounces weight and two riding horses, which he left to his cousins, the Fitzwilliams of Merrion.

Towards the close of the sixteenth century the Fitzwilliams of Jobstown were included amongst the men of name in the County Dublin; they acted as commissioners for the muster of the militia, and in 1593 they sent a mounted archer to the hosting at Tara.
Amongst those who succeeded William Fitzwilliam, we find, in 1583 his son Stephen Fitzwilliam; in 1605 William Fitzwilliam, who in that year, shortly after his marriage, died of the plague at Merrion and was buried at Tallaght; and in 1632 Stephen Fitzwilliam, in whose time a most minute survey of the boundaries of Jobstown and the adjacent lands was made under a writ of perambulation issued by the Court of Chancery.

The Fitzwilliams of Jobstown had then begun to decline in prosperity; an illegitimate branch had for some time existed, and several mortgages had been effected on the lands. Under these mortgages Jobstown came into the possession of Gerald Archbold, a grandson of Richard Archbold of Kilmacud, who in 1664 was residing in the Castle, which was then in good repair and rated as containing two hearths; the other inhabitants on the lands numbering twenty-six and occupying six cottages. Subsequently, before the close of Charles II.'s reign, the ownership of the lands passed to the Whitshed family, which retained it throughout the eighteenth century.Belgard

The house known as Belgard, the residence of the late Sir Henry Hayes Lawrence, Bart., is situated to the north of Jobstown and north-west of the village of Tallaght, on the road from the latter place to Clondalkin. The house, which is an eighteenth century structure, stands on a hill, and occupies the site of a castle which stood, like Tallaght Castle, close to the barrier of the Pale.

The castle of Belgard, which was built on lands belonging to the See of Dublin, was for several centuries the seat of a branch of the family of Talbot of Malahide. It is first mentioned at the close of the fifteenth century, and was then the residence of Robert Talbot, son and heir of John Talbot, of Feltrim, near Malahide. As the owner of much property in widely scattered parts of the County Dublin, Robert Talbot, who married Margaret Eustace, occupied a high position, and served, like many of his ancestors, as Sheriff of the metropolitan county. In the disputes between the Geraldines and the Butlers which then rent Ireland, he was prominent on the side of the latter, and was regarded with deadly hatred by the Geraldines, who surmised that he kept a calendar of all their doings and stirred the coals that incensed brother against brother." On one occasion, when the Earl of Kildare of that time had by craft and policy" induced Talbot, with a number of Dublin citizens, to meet him on Oxmantown Green, Talbot only escaped with his life through the spirit of his horse, which is said to have carried him over a wall twenty-five feet high.

Some historians add that his death, which took place in 1523, was due to the Geraldines, and that he was murdered by their followers near Ballymore Eustace, when on his way to spend Christmas with his friend, the Earl of Ossory. His successors in the ownership of Belgard, which was accounted one of the principal castles in the County Dublin, acted as commissioners for the muster of the militia, and served in person, besides contributing an archer, in the expeditions to Ulster. They included Robert Talbot's son, Reginald, who married in 1536 Rose, daughter of Richard Luttrell; his grandson Robert, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Walter Goulding; and his great grandson, Gilbert, who married the daughter of their kinsman and neighbour, Mr. Justice Talbot, of Templeogue.
Soon after Gilbert Talbot had succeeded to Belgard in 1580, we find a party of horse under the Earl of Kildare and Sir Henry Harrington assembling theire, before setting out to rescue the country around Rathmore, in the County Meath, from the depredations of the rebels: in the rising under Viscount Baltinglas, and thence some years later "the heir of Robert Talbot" sent an archer on horseback to the hosting at Tara. After Gilbert Talbot's death in 1626, Belgard came into the possession of his second son, Adam Talbot, who is mentioned by Archbishop Bulkeley as one of the chief Roman Catholics in the district. In the years that followed we find his son, John Talbot, active on the Irish side; and after the establishment of the Commonwealth he was tried and sentenced to death for shooting a man at Chapelizod.
He was successful in obtaining a remission of the sentence on the plea that the act was done in discharge of his duty as a soldier, and he is said to have subsequently distinguished himself in the war in Flanders. During his absence Belgard, then described as an old castle made habitable, was occupied by a grandson of Sir Dudley Loftus of Rathfarnham, Adam Loftus, a young gentleman of twenty-two years of age, who with his wife, Penelope Street, his wife's family, and his household of five servants, found in it a comfortable home. The other inhabitants on the lands, amongst whom were two shoemakers, numbered then some thirty persons.

After the return of Charles II. the Talbots, in the person of John Talbot, described as a lieutenant, were restored to Belgard "for reason known unto the King in an especial manner meriting his grace and favour." During the Revolution, Colonel John Talbot of Belgard was prominent in the service of James II., sitting in that monarch's Parliament as representative of Newcastle Lyons, and taking part as an officer of Tyrconnel's Horse in most of the important engagements. After the surrender of Limerick he was allowed to retire to Belgard, and while living there in 1693 gave security for his loyal behaviour. He died before the close of the seventeenth century, and was buried in Tallaght Churchyard, where there is a tombstone, now much broken, to his memory.(Under date 23rd April, 1780, Austin Cooper thus notices the tomb:- "Tomb in Tallaght Churchyard-The Honourable Colonel John Talbot, of Belgard, died 10th September, 1697, aged 73; his arms are on the tomb, viz., crest, a Talbot proper; arms, two Talbots rampant parted from pale.") By his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Henry Talbot, of Templeogue, he left three daughters - Margaret, who married first Sir Peter de Bathe, Bart., and secondly, a namesake of her father's, John Talbot; Catherine, who married, in 1694, Colonel Thomas Dillon, a great grandson of the first Viscount Dillon, of. Costello Gallen; and Marianne, who married in 1696, Christopher Dillon, of Lungmore, in the County of Mayo, a younger brother of Colonel Dillon.In the beginning of the eighteenth century Belgard was occupied by Colonel Thomas Dillon and his wife, and after his death in 1721, we find the latter living there with her family and her sister, Lady de Bathe. Subsequently it came into the possession of Colonel Dillon's eldest son, Henry Dillon, who married a Miss Moore. He was a man of very considerable wealth, and probably a tradition of unbounded charities, expenditure of a princely fortune, and great hospitality, which has been attributed to his father, should be applied to him. By him or his son the deer park and shooting lodge called after them, which are still to be seen in the Tallaght Hills, near Ballinascorney, were constructed.
After Henry Talbot's death, about 1772, Belgard, which is described then by Austin Cooper "as a small high square tower with a house and other improvements," passed successively to his eldest son Thomas, and his second son John. The latter went about the year 1796 to reside in London, and after his death a few years later, Belgard came into the possession of the descendants of Mr. Dominick Trant, who had married a daughter of Mr. Henry Dillon. Subsequently it passed to Dr. Evory Kennedy, a distinguished Dublin physician, and, through the marriage of his daughter to Sir Alexander Lawrence, became the property of its late owner,.Newlands The residence known as Newlands, which adjoins Belgard to the north, is still recollected as the home of Lord Kilwarden, the Chief. Justice of Ireland, who fell a victim to Robert Emmet's rebellion, and is now occupied by his present -successor, Lord O'Brien. The demesne is partly in the parish of Clondalkin, and the entrance is on the coach road to the south of Ireland, which intersects that parish.

About the time of the Restoration the lands now comprised within the demesne of Newlands came into the possession of Sir John Cole, a baronet, and a collateral ancestor of the Earls of Enniskillen, who, although he had served in the army of the Parliament, was one of those most anxious for the return of Charles II. On these lands he erected a residence for himself. In this house, which was rated as containing nine hearths, he continued to reside until his death, some thirty years later, and in its ownership he was succeeded by his eldest son, Arthur Cole.
Through his mother, Arthur Cole was related to the notorious Earl of Ranelagh, and after the death of that nobleman he was created a peer, with the title of Baron Ranelagh a peerage which became extinct, together with the baronetcy inherited from his father, on his death in 1754. It was towards the close of the eighteenth century, about the year 1782, that Newlands became the residence of the ill-fated Arthur Wolfe, Lord Kilwarden, then an eminent King's counsel, who was probably induced to settle there owing to its being situated on the same road as the seat of his family in the County Kildare. After a distinguished career in Parliament and as a law officer, Wolfe was appointed, on the death of Lord Clonmell in 1798, to the Chief Justiceship of Ireland. While he was Attorney-General, his wife, a daughter of Mr. William Ruxton, of Ardee, had been created a peeress in her own right as Baroness Kilwarden, and after his elevation to the bench he was himself first created a baron and subsequently a viscount, with the same title.At the time of the Emmet rebellion he was residing at Newlands, and it was when driving from there to the Castle on the evening of July 23rd, 1803, that he was murdered in Thomas Street. Lord Kilwarden was succeeded in his titles by his eldest son, but the latter never married, and on his death in 1830 the titles became extinct.

After the death of the first Lord Kilwarden, Newlands was for a time occupied by the Right Hon. George Ponsonby, who was for a short period Chancellor of Ireland in Fox's Ministry, and who became leader of the Liberal party in the House of Commons in succession to that statesman. Kilnamanagh The lands of Kilnamanagh, which lie to the east of Belgard, and north of the village of Tallaght, were the site of a religious establishment, and it has been suggested that this establishment was a monastery with which St. Eugene, patron of the diocese of Derry, was connected. Remains of ancient buildings have been found on the lands, and traces of a- burial place.
A building known as the cell of Kilnamanagh, as well as a castle, existed on the lands in the seventeenth century, but long before that time the lands were in lay hands, and before the death of Robert Talbot, in 1523, they had come into the possession of the Belgard family, by whom they were held under the Crown in capite by Knight's service. Subsequently they appear to have reverted to the Crown, and early in the seventeenth century they were granted by James I. to Sir William Parsons, well known as one of the Lords Justices of Ireland at the time of the Rebellion, and a collateral ancestor of the present Earl of Rosse, who then acquired much property in the neighborhood.

Under his descendants we find the lands held about the time of the establishment of the Commonwealth by Gerald Fitzwilliam; but before the Restoration Fitzwilliam, who was allied to the Irish side in the rebellion, had given place to one Robert Hawkins. The latter occupied a house rated as containing three hearths, and the other inhabitants numbered some thirty persons occupying eight houses .

Tymon
The ruined castle of Tymon, which lies to the south-east of Kilnamanagh and north-west of the village of Tallaght, stands on rising ground. It was built for the protection of the surrounding lands, which formed the corps of the Prebend of Timothan in St. Patrick's Cathedral, and was a small rectangular building with a projection on the western side containing the staircase and the entrance, which was guarded by a machicolation. Before the Anglo-Norman Conquest the lands of Tymon were possessed by a tribe known as the O'Mothans, and the name Tymon, or Timothan, is a corruption of the words Erachtomothan, or the inheritance of the O'Mothans. At the beginning of the thirteenth century the lands were included amongst the property of the Crown in the Vale of Dublin, the rent being assigned to the Archbishop of Dublin, to recoup his losses through the erection of Dublin Castle; but soon afterwards the lands were granted for the endowment of a stall in the newly founded cathedral of St. Patrick. At the close of that century the lands, which were valued at £10, were returned as worth nothing on account of war, and probably the castle was erected not long afterwards. A tradition that a church existed near it does not appear to be well founded. On the suppression of St. Patrick's Cathedral, towards the close of the reign of Henry VIII., when the castle is mentioned as being in a ruinous state the lands passed into lay hands, being leased by the Crown in 1550 to Bartholomew Cusack, and in 1553 to James Segrave, the tenant of Rathgar.In the seventeenth century the lands were in the possession of the descendants of Archbishop Loftus; the castle, which was then rated as containing two hearths, being occupied by a family called Relly.

 In 1638 Barnaby Relly, a devout Roman Catholic, died there, directing in his will that he should be buried at Tallaght, and leaving a silver cup to one of the younger sons of his landlord, Sir Dudley Loftus; and at the time of the Commonwealth Nicholas Relly was living there with a household of fourteen persons, including ploughmen, cowherds, and gardeners. The other inhabitants numbered some thirty-five persons, and amongst them were carmen, furze cutters, and a swine herd.In the eighteenth century the lands were sold, together with Rathfarnham, by Archbishop Loftus' descendant, the Duke of Wharton, to Speaker Conolly, and before the close of that century the castle had become a ruin; the observant Austin Cooper records that in 1779 he found it partly occupied, but that in 1783 he noted it was waste and uninhabited.Templeogue The lands of Templeogue, which lie to the south-east of Kilnamanagh and north-east of the village of Tallaght, are intersected by the modern road from Dublin to the latter place, but in past ages were approached from the metropolis by a road which branched off from the great southern high road at Crumlin.On the lands there are a village, and two handsome seats, Templeogue. House, the residence of Mr. William Alexander, and Cypress Grove, the residence of Mr. Charles King, besides a ruined church. The church is nearly destroyed, and now only featureless fragments of the western half of the south wall and portion of the end walls remain. Within a century after the Anglo-Norman invasion Templeogue had become well known. Its church, which is said to have been erected after that event in place of the mountain church of Kilnasantan, which became useless owing to the incursions of the Irish tribes, was built before 1294. But a work which attracted more attention to Templeogue was the diversion from the River D-odder, at a point not far from the village, of the original water supply to the City of Dublin, the construction of which was undertaken about the middle of the thirteenth century. The course of this supply, on which Dublin relied for the next five centuries, is still to be seen; it starts at a place known as Balrothery, between Templeogue and  Tallaght, flows beneath the Tallaght Road to Templeogue, skirts the wall of the churchyard, and passing through the grounds of Templeogue House pursues its way to Harold's Cross. The channel was tended with great care, and husbandmen and yeomen living in its neighborhood were appointed to keep it clean.

The lands of Templeogue, which were part of the Archbishop's Manor of Tallaght, and were held at the beginning of the fourteenth century by some of the Harold clan, appear not to have been occupied by any one of importance until the sixteenth century.They became then the site of the residence of Richard Talbot, who, during portion of the reigns of Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, was second Justice of the Common Bench, a position to which he had been promoted from the office of Justice of the liberty of Wexford. He was the founder of the family now seated at Mount Talbot, in the County Roscommon. At Templeogue we find the judge discharging the ordinary duties of a landowner of that time, acting as a commissioner of the muster and contributing a mounted archer to the militia, and in addition, undertaking for the citizens of Dublin the care of the water course, for which he was granted as recompense a tribute of corn paid by mills drawing their power from the course. Judge Talbot, who was a son of William Talbot of Dublin, and who married one of the Burnells of Balgriffin, was succeeded at Templeogue by his son, John Talbot, who died about the year 1580. John Talbot was in turn succeeded by his son Robert, who married Eleanor Colley, and who died in 1616.

Robert Talbot was one of the men of name in the county, and in 1601 his house afforded a home to the Earl of Thomond's son. After his death Templeogue passed successively to his eldest son, John, who died in 1627, and to his second son, Henry. The Talbots belonged to the Roman Catholic Church; both Henry Talbot and his mother, who occupied separate dwellings, had its services celebrated in their houses; and Templeogue Church, as there was no one to attend the services of the Established Church, had fallen into a ruinous state. The payment of the corn dues which had been granted to the judge was the subject of constant contention between his successors and the citizens, and in 1635 the King directed Strafford, who was then Lord Deputy, to settle the dispute, as Henry Talbot had represented that the Corporation were too strong for him to coerce in the ordinary way.

In the years that followed, Henry Talbot, who in 1639 was returned to Parliament as a representative of Newcastle Lyons, but who was subsequently expelled for non-attendance, was an object of suspicion to the Government. It was stated that when the rebellion broke out, instead of offering his assistance against the rebels he left his house at Templeogue at their mercy and retired to the County Kildare to live with his brother-in-law, Sir John Dongan. Subsequently he proceeded to England, and there rendered services to the King for which he was knighted. After the Commonwealth was established he appears in the list of those ordered to transplant into Connaught. At the latter time there were about forty inhabitants in Templeogue, including Theobald Harold, who is described as steward of the town; and besides the castle, which was in good repair, and some cottages, there was a substantial dwelling which was out of repair, and a cloth mill.

After the Restoration the castle, which was rated as containing five hearths, and which for a time had been held by a Mr. Roger Brereton, was placed in charge of a caretaker, who was paid by the Crown; but a few years later Sir Henry Talbot was restored to his ancestral home - a favor which he owed probably to the fact that he was married to a sister of Dick Talbot, afterwards Earl of Tyrconnel..Through mortgages executed on the lands by Sir Henry Talbot's son, Colonel James Talbot, the castle of Templeogue passed at the close of the seventeenth century into the possession of Sir Thomas Domvile, the first baronet of his name, already mentioned in the history of Loughlinstown as second son of Charles 11.’s Attorney-General. On the site of the castle Sir Thomas Domvile erected a handsome mansion, in which he incorporated some portion of the ancient building, and which is said to have been built of red brick with a gable roof. Sir Thomas Domvile, who represented Mullingar in Parliament for some years, was married three times; first, to a cousin of his own, Miss Lake, by whom he had a daughter, who married Henry Barry, third Baron of Santry; secondly, to a daughter of his neighbour, Lord Ranelagh of Newlands, by whom he had no issue; and thirdly, to a granddaughter of Spencer Compton, second Earl of Northampton, by whom he had a son Compton, and a daughter Elizabeth, who married Christopher Pocklington. On his death in 1721, Sir Thomas was succeeded by his son, Sir Compton Domvile, who represented the County Dublin in Parliament for over forty years and was created a Privy Councillor. At Templeogue the latter made further improvements, adorning the house, it is said, with a representation of himself, and laying out the grounds with great magnificence. In his time the gardens excited the admiration of John O'Keeffe, the actor, and are described by that writer as intersected with artificial cascades in the Marlay style, with statues and urns arranged on either side of the water falls.

It was after the Domviles came to Templeogue that the virtues of the mineral spa, which enjoyed a short celebrity in the first half of the eighteenth century, were discovered. The discovery cannot have taken place long before 1712, for in that year Swift asks Stella, who intended to drink the waters, where the place is. The name Templeogue excited the Dean's ridicule, and he expressed the opinion that its being so near to Dublin was a disadvantage, as he thought a journey to a spa contributed towards the cure.
A few years later good lodgings near the well were advertised, and about the year 1730 the spa had attained the summit of its fame. 'The well was open from April to September, and those unable to come to it could obtain the waters fresh every day in Dublin. The doings of the gay crowd that resorted to its healing waters were in 1728 chronicled in the pages of a journal called The Templeogue Intelligencer, which made its appearance each week; and from The Templeogue Ballad, which was printed at the Cherry Tree, Rathfarnham, it appears that in 1730 dances attended by the Dublin fashionable world took place each Monday at Templeogue. Subsequently. assembly rooms, in which "a band of city music" performed under the direction of a master of the ceremonies, were advertised in connection with an inn called "The Domvile Arms and Three Tuns." Before long, however, fashion deserted the spa, which before the middle of the century had lost its reputation, and Templeogue was left as a place of resort for votaries of boxing matches and cock fighting. At the time when the spa enjoyed its greatest fame an announcement appeared that coal had been found at Templeogue, but the colliery, in which men were then stated to be at work, was probably soon abandoned.
As owners of Templeogue the Domviles claimed the same rights over the watercourse as the Talbots. Rents payable in respect of it by the Chapter of St. Patrick's Cathedral and the Earl of Meath, as well as the yearly tribute of corn from the mills, had been bequeathed to Sir Compton Domvile by his father, and it is said that by a threat of cutting off the water supply from Dublin Sir Compton obtained a. pardon for his nephew, the last Lord Santry, who was sentenced to death for murder.

In Sir Compton Domvile's time the house which is now known as Cypress Grove, and which was built by a man called Paine, became the residence of Sir William Cooper, a Master in Chancery and Member of Parliament for Hillsborough, who, a few years before his death in 1761, was created a baronet. After his death the house was taken by the then Dowager Countess of Clanbrassil, widow of the first Earl of Clanbrassil and daughter of the first Earl of Portland. During her occupation Austin Cooper describes the house as an old irregular building, and the grounds as small, but laid out in exquisite taste with gardens, shrubberies, and ponds. The house contained some good paintings, as well as urns and other ornaments of marble, ivory, and amber, which the Countess had made herself.  On her death the house passed to her grandson, then Viscount Jocelyn and afterwards second Earl of Roden, and in an attack made upon it by some burglars, one of his sons, a lieutenant in the navy, displayed great valor.

Sir Compton Domvile succeeded in 1751 to Santry Court, on the death of his nephew, the last Lord Santry, but he continued to use Templeogue House as one of his residences. He never married, and on his death in 1768, he was succeeded by his nephew, Mr. Charles Pocklington, who took the name of Domvile, and was afterwards created a baronet. The latter appears at first to have constantly occupied Templeogue House, and it was not until about the year 1780, when Austin Cooper mentions that scarcely sufficient was done to prevent Templeogue House falling into ruins, that he went to reside at Santry Court. Subsequently everything that it was possible to take from Templeogue, including a temple of great beauty, was removed to Santry, and in the early part of the nineteenth century Templeogue House was pulled down. Some of the walls of the ancient castle, however, resisted the house-breakers, and were again incorporated in the present residence, which was built in the first half of the last century. All trace of the appurtenances of the Queen Anne mansion has now disappeared, but when the present house was occupied, about 1843, by Charles Lever the novelist (tradition states some of Lever’s novels were written in the tower which appears on the left side of the picture of Templeogue House), it is said that the former magnificence of the place was attested by a great courtyard with impregnably high walls, Dutch waterfalls, terraced walks, gigantic grottoes, extensive gardens, and a sweeping avenue with massive iron gates.

Knocklyon
To the south of the lands of Templeogue and south-east of the village of Tallaght lie the lands of Knocklyon, on which, in addition to a castle now converted into a modern dwelling, are situated a village called Fir House and several country houses, including Sally Park, the residence of the late Mr. William Domville Handcock, author of "The History and Antiquities of Tallaght."

After the Anglo-Norman conquest the lands of Knocklyon, together with a great quantity of the adjoining lands now comprised in the south-eastern portion of the parish of Tallaght, were granted to Walter de Rideleford, already mentioned as owner of Merrion and Donnybrook, but seem to have before long reverted to the Crown. Amongst the subsequent owners we find the Burnells of Balgriffin, the Bathes of Drumcondra, the Nugents of Westmeath, the Talbots of Belgard, Anthony Deering, and Sir Dudley Loftus Dr Rathfarnham. The castle of Knocklyon, which in the sixteenth century was stated to be in a ruinous condition, was occupied in the early part of the seventeenth century by Piers Archbold, son of Richard Archbold, of Kilmacud, and father of Gerald Archbold, of Jobstown. He married a daughter of Barnaby Relly, of Tymon, and like his father-in-law, was in religion a Roman Catholic, and maintained on his lands a schoolmaster of that faith to teach his children. He died in 1644, and in accordance with a direction in. his will was doubtless interred with his family in the churchyard of Taney. About the time of the Restoration the residents on the lands of Knocklyon are stated to have numbered nine persons of English, and ten persons of Irish descent, occupying seven houses.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century the name of Fir House, then written Fur House, first appears as the residence of a family called Fieragh, some of whom were employed in the timber trade with Norway. It has been suggested that the name Fir House is a corruption of their name, and also that it had its origin in an inn, bearing the sign of a tree, which formerly stood in the village, but it seems more probable that the name arose from the connection of the Fieragh family with the timber trade.

Killininny
On the lands of Killininny, which lie to the west of Knocklyon and south-east of the village of Tallaght, stands an eighteenth century house called Allenstown, which is said to occupy the site of a Celtic religious establishment. It is suggested by Mr. Eugene O'Curry that this establishment owes its foundation to the four daughters of Michiar, Dairinnioll, Darlinog, Caelog, and Caemgeallog, whose festival falls on October 26th; but Canon O'Hanlon attributes its foundation to the five daughters of Leinin, already mentioned in connection with Killiney Church. These holy women had a sister called Bridget, and Canon O'Hanlon thinks the latter may have resided at one or the two places and her sisters at the other. Remains of ancient buildings are to he round adjoining Allenstown, and a walnut tree somewhat similar to the one at Tallaght formerly stood there, but these can have had no connection with a religious house, as Killininny has been in lay hands since the Anglo-Norman conquest.Like Knocklyon, it was then given to Walter de Rideleford, and towards the close of the thirteenth century was in the hands of his descendant, Christiana de Marisco. At that time a mill existed in the neighbourhood, known as the mill of Tachnanenny, and after Christiana de Marisco had transferred her Irish property to the Crown we find Thomas, son of Laurence Cosyn, Thomas of London, and Edusa Immaulouz paying rent for it.
 

In the next century the lands were in the possession of Walter de Islip, of whom we have seen as well as Walter de Rideleford under Merrion, and subsequently passed to Elias de Ashbourne, a Justice of the Common Bench and a leader of several expeditions against the Irish tribes, and to his son, Thomas de Ashbourne, and then to the various persons mentioned as owners of Knocklyon.
At the time of the Rebellion of 1641 Sir Thomas Newcomen, the third baronet of that name, had a residence at Killininny, and was farming these lands as well as an extensive tract in the County Wicklow. He was owner of a great flock of native sheep, which he was endeavoring to improve by the importation of English rams, and his losses during those troubled times were very considerable.

About the time of the Restoration the inhabitants on the lands numbered some fifty persons, the chief being Gabriel Briscoe, whose dwelling had four hearths; and the widow of Charles Cottle, whose dwelling had two. About the middle of the eighteenth century Sir Timothy Allen, Knight, who was Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1762, came to reside at Killininny, which henceforth became known as Allenstown. During his year of office as chief magistrate it is related by a Dublin journal that "our worthy Lord Mayor"  was upset out of his chaise while driving to town from his country seat with his wife, but although his lordship was very much cut and bruised an anxious public was informed that his wounds were not dangerous. Sir Timothy Allen was in his time one of the chief supporters of Tallaght Church, and there, on his death in 1771, he was buried.

Old Bawn
The most notable event in the history of the parish of Tallaght in the seventeenth century was the erection of Old Bawn House, one of the few remaining houses in the County Dublin which mark the transition from dwellings in which protection was the first consideration to those in which convenience and comfort were consulted. it was built on lands which adjoin, and originally formed part of, the Knocklyon and Killininny estate, and lies about a mile to the south of the village of Tallaght. It was erected during the Viceroyalty of the Earl of Strafford, at the same time as Sir George Radcliffe's stately mansion at Rathmines, and is said to have cost £3,000. The builder was a dignitary of the Church, a son of the Archbishop of Dublin of that time, the Venerable William Bulkeley, whom his father had appointed Archdeacon of his diocese. He is said to have been "a person of great virtue and piety, one who made it his employ only to serve the Church, and his diversion only to improve and adorn his estate with plantations which, from a desolate and wild land, he brought to a most delightful patrimonv." in the old house at Old Bawn there is ample evidence of his skill as a builder. The external appearance of the house, which forms three sides of a square, with its pointed gables and high fluted chimneys, at once attracts attention, and a curious plaster chimneypiece which adorns the dining room, has become widely known. This chimneypiece, which bears the date 1635, and which reaches to the ceiling of the low room, represents the building of a gateway or castle, and as some of those engaged in the work are armed it has been suggested that the subject is the building of the walls of Jerusalem under the direction of Nehemiah. In addition to this remarkable relic there is some handsome carved woodwork, and the staircase is a quaint Jacobean structure resembling those in the library of Trinity College. Old Bawn House was not long built when the rebellion of 1641 broke out, and Archdeacon Bulkeley's improvements not only there, but also art Dunlavan, in the County Wicklow, where his father had bought another estate for him, were laid waste. The depositions of the Bulkeleys'
servants and tenants, in most cases like themselves, of Welsh birth, give a deplorable picture of the damage. Old Bawn House, with its offices, garden, and orchard were stated to have been completely ravaged, and at Dunlavan, we are told, the destruction of a house only just completed and of a garden and orchard newly surrounded with quick-set hedges was lamentable to behold. At Tallaght cows and horses belonging to the orphan children of a brother of Archdeacon Bulkeley, and cattle and sheep belonging to the Archdeacon himself, were either stolen or sold at a sacrifice, and at Dunlavan great iron-bound carts, building materials, and a bell intended for the church were carried off. It is rather startling to find in these depositions a claim put forward for the entire cost of Old Bawn, although the damage does not appear to have been irreparable. A still more remarkable claim for compensation was suggested by the Archdeacon, who stated that his mother-in-law, having continued a widow for many years, had been forced to marry again against her will during the rebellion, and that "he firmly believed in his conscience" that his wife had lost thereby a legacy which her mother had intended to leave her. When the survey of the parish wars made after the establishment of the Commonwealth, Old Bawn, which appears before this to have completely recovered from the effects of the rebellion, was the only house within the parochial limits occupied by a family of position. The account of the household numbering no less than thirty persons is not a little curious. It included the widow of Archbishop Bulkeley, then an old lady of 83 years, who on account of her age was granted leave to eat lamb, then a penal offence; the Archdeacon, who, we are told, was 53 years old and a man of middle height and slender build, with brown hair and a grey beard; his wife, who was tall and slender, with a long visage and brown hair; her sister, Miss Mainwaring; the Archdeacon's son, then a youth of seventeen attending Trinity College; his daughter, his cousin german, Rowland Bulkeley, who was actively engaged in agriculture; a cookmaid, a dairymaid, a porter, a brewer, an under brewer, a cook boy, a scullion boy, two plough drivers, a stable or garren keeper, a horse boy, a footman, and boys to tend the cows, swine, sheep and lambs.Besides their domestic servants the Bulkeleys had in the village of Old Bawn, which contained more than 100 inhabitants, many other retainers, including a steward, a gardener, and a sentry or foreman, and doubtless the tradespeople, who comprised a smith, a tailor, a brogue maker, a carpenter and miller, a carman, and a fowler, lived principally upon their custom.
For the remainder of the seventeenth century Old Bawn House, which was rated as containing twelve hearths, continued to be the chief residence in the parish. It was occupied by Archdeacon Bulkeley until his death in 1671, and afterwards by his son, Sir Richard Bulkeley, who was created a baronet and represented Baltinglass in Parliament. Sir Richard, who was a man of great worth and integrity of character, had travelled much in early life, but afterwards found congenial occupation in superintending a stud of horses of which he was the proud owner. He was twice married, first to a daughter of the Right Hon. John Bysse, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and secondly to a daughter of Mr. Henry Whitfield. On his death in 1685, he was succeeded at Old Bawn by his eldest son, who bore the same name. Sir Richard Bulkeley the second, who was deformed, was a man of learning, and graduated both at Dublin, where he was elected a Fellow of Trinity College, and at Oxford. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in its transactions there are papers by him on a self-propelling chariot which he invented, on the Giant's Causeway, and on a scheme for improving Ireland by the cultivation of maize. Amongst his friends we find John Evelyn and the antiquary, Humphrey Wanley, who was secretary to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Sir Richard was a man of deep religious feeling, and towards the close of his life was carried away by some religious enthusiasts known as French prophets, who he believed would cure him of his deformity. Although he represented the borough of Fethard in the Irish Parliament, he resided principally in England, where he had a handsome seat near Epsom. He was married to a daughter of Sir George Downing, but at his death, which occurred in 1710, left no children, and the baronetcy became extinct.

At that time Old Bawn was occupied by that much-married judge, the Hon. William Worth, already mentioned in connection with Rathfarnham, who married as his third wife the widow of the first Sir Richard Bulkeley, and who took as his fourth the widow of the second baronet. Baron Worth, who died in 1721, was succeeded at Old Bawn by a son of his second wife, who was a daughter of Sir Henry Tynte, of the County Cork. This son took the name of Tynte, and in addition to the connection with the Bulkeleys through his father, became related to them through his marriage to a daughter of a younger son of the first baronet. The Right Hon. James Tynte, as he became, was a prominent politician, and his son Robert, who succeeded him in 1758, and who died two years later, married a daughter of another great legislator of that time, John Stratford, first Earl of Aldborough.

Towards the close of the eighteenth century Old Bawn was considered a house "quite in the old style," but the offices were of later date, and probably had been built about the year 1727, the date which a clock in a cupola over the stable originally bore. The house, which was approached by a great avenue of trees and was surrounded with large plantations, orchards and gardens, was then occupied by the widow of Mr. Robert Tynte and her son, who was created a baronet. Sir James Stratford Tynte, as her son became, was active in the Volunteer movement, and on his death, which occurred in 1785, was interred in the family burial place at Donnybrook with military honors. His baronetcy, like that of his ancestors the Bulkeleys, became extinct on his death, and after the death of his mother Old Bawn does not appear to have been occupied by any one of importance.

The Tallaght Hills
The Tallaght Hills, amongst which the River Dodder gathers volume from various mountain streams, including those known as Mareen's brook, Allison's brook, and the cataract of the brown rowan tree, abound in remains of pre-historic ages The valley of Glenasmole is thought by some persons to have been identical with the place of that name mentioned in Ossianic or Fenian literature, where the giant Fionn Mac Cumhaill and Ossian, a hero of the Court of Tara, wandered, and the discovery there of huge ivy leaves now preserved amongst the Ordnance Survey papers in the Royal Irish Academy, such as Ossian showed to St. Patrick's emissary, have been taken as confirmation of this theory. The letters from Mr. Eugene O'Curry about this district, which are preserved in that collection, and which were written in the summer of 1837, are full of interest. He obtained much information from an old resident, William Rafter by name, who was then eighty-four years of age, but who possessed more activity and buoyancy than his son, a man of fifty. Rafter was born and lived in a house built on the site of an old castle which Mr. O'Curry thought was the original Castle Kelly. He spoke excellent Irish, as did also a sister of his called Una, and told Mr. O'Curry that forty years previously the carmen who went to Dublin were almost the only persons who spoke English in the Glen. Amongst the place-names obtained from him by Mr. O'Curry, and which have not been already given, may be mentioned the great wood, the fairy mound, the brakes? of the noble hound, the stony mountain, the narrow pass, the foot of the three streams, Mary's cliff, the black stream, and the ravens' hollow. Recollection of the supposed connection of Fionn Mac Cumhaill with the district is preserved by several large rocks called Finn's stones, on one of which an inscribed slab, recording that he carried it on his shoulder, was placed.) Bohernabreena, or the road of the court, has also been identified by other authorities as the site of the mansion of Da Derga, the demolition of which is recounted in the book of Lecan and the book of the Dun Cow, and it has been suggested that the Boher Cualann, or great road from Tara to the Country of Cualann, ran through these hills.

Near Glenasmole lies Kilnasantan, or the Church of St. Anne as it is misnamed, which is said to have been the site of a Celtic Monastery founded by Bishop Sanctan. The only record in connection with the monastery is the statement that in 952 one of its abbots, Caenchom-raic by name, died. Some remains of the church of Kilnasantan are still to be seen, but the church was returned in 1294 as waste, and has since so remained. Besides Kilnasantan the learned author of the "History of St. Patrick's Cathedral" says there were in this district two chapels called Kilbride, one dependent on Tallaght and the other on Kilnasantan. But all trace of these has disappeared.

After the Anglo-Norman conquest these mountain lands were divided between the Archbishop of Dublin and Walter de Rideleford, who was succeeded by the persons mentioned under Knocklyon and Killininny The Archbishop's portion of the lands was comprised in two manors, called, respectively, Kilnasantan and Brittas. Beside rents from freeholders, betaghs, and cottagers, and profits from demesne lands and work of the betaghs, the Archbishop received from Kilnasantan "a customary cow," and from Brittas tribute beer and meat. In addition to the church at Kilnasantan there was one at Brittas, which was possibly one of the chapels already mentioned, or the church of Kilbride, near Blessington, in the County Wicklow, and their advowsons were a source of revenue.

From the year 1270, owing to the incursions of the Irish tribes, there was no profit from these manors, and in 1276 it was necessary to employ John de St. Peter with five armed horsemen and fifteen followers, as well as the bailiff and posse of Clondalkin, to keep the peace in the mountains of Kilnasantan. Fifty years later the lands of Kilnasantan, on which there was a wood, and which had been partly held under the Archbishop by the Priory of St. John of Jerusalem, were returned as being in the Irish territory and worthless.

In the sixteenth century land in this district, which had belonged to the House of the Friars Minor of Dublin, was granted to the Luttrell family; and a large tract in it was also given to the Talbots of Belgard; while the lands of Kilnasantan were held from the Archbishop of Dublin by Patrick Barnewall. In the next century English residents were to be found there, and after the rebellion of 1641 two of them made depositions which show that they were substantial farmers.

After the Restoration, besides the Luttrells, the Talbots and the Archbishop of Dublin, the owners of these lands included Sir Adam Loftus, of Rathfarnham, Sir William Parsons, Archdeacon Bulkeley, and the Allens of St. Wolstans. At Oldcourt there were then some forty-six inhabitants, at Kiltalown sixteen, at Corbally fifty-eight, at Glassamucky sixty-nine, and at Ballinascorney twenty-eight - one of the latter, Henry Hackett, inhabiting a house containing four hearths.

The opening of the eighteenth century found this district still very wild and uncivilized, and the old coach road to Blessington, which passed over Tallaght Hill, was a great resort of highwaymen. At the foot of this hill, on the Blessington side, there stood an inn, called the Red Cow, which, in the month of December, 1717, was the scene of a sanguinary encounter between a party of rapparees, who seem to have had the surrounding country at their mercy, and the forces of the Crown. The raprarees, who are said to have been recruited from the descendants of the O'Byrnes, although their leader was known as Captain Fitzgerald, fortified themselves in the inn and for twelve hours set the soldiers at defiance, wounding many of the latter, and only surrendering on their ammunition running short.In a curious broadsheet issued at the time it is stated that crowds stood upon the road from Crumlin to Dublin, then the route from Tallaght, to see the prisoners brought to town. The writer adds that the rapparees were so bent on blood and mischief that they would take example by nothing until they were made an end of," and congratulates the hemp merchants on the trade which they had given them that year. To the hills of Tallaght, as is related in the newspapers of the day, in the year 1733, rode Dean Swift with his friends the Earl of Orrery and Dr. Sheridan, and there they found a stream which flowed into a subterraneous cavern from which there was no exit. Swift, with a milking pail, measured the flow of water, and made an elaborate mathematical calculation which showed that in three years time the accumulated waters must burst the mountain under which the stream disappeared, and that an inundation would take place which would endanger Dublin. The account of this discovery makes, as one of Swift's friends observed, a very fine figure in print, but as Sir Walter Scott says, it is difficult to know what credence is to be given to it.

In the early part of the eighteenth century the house on Mountpelier Hill, popularly called the Hell Fire Club-from the tradition that the members of the club often met there-was erected. It was a strongly-built residence with a vaulted roof, and contained two large reception rooms, besides some smaller apartments. It was built by the Conollys of Castletown (who then owned the surrounding land, and enclosed a considerable extent of it as a deer park), with the idea, it is said, of its being a point of view from Castletown. The only indication of its occupation is an announcement of the death at Mountpelier, in July, 1751, of Mr. Charles Cobbe, the elder son of the Archbishop of Dublin at that time. In 1779 the house was visited by Austin Cooper, who says that it had been built on the site of a cairn and stone circle, and was found by him out of repair.

Later on in the eighteenth century, as stated in the history of Belgard, the shooting box known as Dillon Lodge was built and the adjacent park enclosed. 'Towards the close of that century a large house was erected at the foot of Montpelier Hill, extensive ruins of which still remain, and in the construction of which stones taken from the lodge on the hill are said to have been used. It bears the arms of the Earls of Ely, and the name Dollymount, by which it has been sometimes known, suggests that it was intended for the occupation of the lovely Dolly Monroe.

Ecclesiastical History
The present church of Tallaght is a modern structure dating from the year 1829, but on its southern side, and connected with it by a passage, there is a picturesque belfry tower which belonged to a church erected in mediaeval times. The architectural features of the tower do little to fix its date, but it seems earlier than the fifteenth century. It is ten feet six inches square inside and seventeen feet outside. At the south-east angle is a boldly constructed stair turret corbelled out to a seemingly dangerous extent and buttressed by a later wall. The lower floor serves for a vestry and is modernised; the second is reached by a modern flight of steps outside the wall; the entrance is also modern. Ascending the spiral stairs (of which the steps are variant in height and usually made of several thin slabs) a lintelled door into the third storey is reached at the eighth step. This room has oblong windows, now closed, and, like the one above it, had a wooden floor resting on large beams let into the wall.

At the eighteenth step a door leads into the fourth storey: it has a domed vault of corbelling skillfully constructed. The windows are oblong and lintelled, save to the east, where are two round-headed lights, or, rather, bell opes. At the thirty-sixth step the stone roof of the main tower is reached, the staircase, as is often the case, making a half turn up to the blank south wall, as if it had been intended to continue it to the top of the side turret. Six more steps lead to the turret roof; it, like the tower, is fenced with stepped battlements, and overlooks a fine open view to the foot of the hills. There are three bell opes to the east. The height from the around to the roof of the tower is about fifty-nine feet to the roof of the turret six feet - in all, about sixty-five feet.

As has been proved by the discovery of ancient foundations, the mediaeval church occupied the site of a primitive Celtic church, and in the churchyard there are the remains of a stone cross and a huge font which doubtless date from Celtic times. They are known locally as St. Mollrooney's loaf and griddle and St. Mollrooney's losset - Mollrooney being the form into which the name of St. Maelruain has been corrupted by the country people under the idea that their patron saint was a female. St. Maelruain, "splendid sun of the Isle of Gael," the founder of the monastery of Tallaght, flourished, as has been already stated, in the eighth century. During his rule of the monastery St. Aengus the Guldee joined the community, and "The Martyrology of Tallaght" is said to have been originally compiled by them. In the "Annals of Ulster" it is stated that in 792, Maelruain of Tallaght, bishop and soldier of Christ, slept in peace. Until about thirty years ago his festival was celebrated each year on the 7th July, when it was the custom to carry about in procession a pole (which was preserved from year to year) decked with flowers called a garland.

Amongst the holy persons connected with Tallaght we find St. Joseph, a bishop; St. Croine, a virgin; St. Airfhindan, an Abbot, who died in 803; Aedhan, an Abbot, who died in 823; St. Eochiadh, a Bishop and Anchorite, who died in 812; Echtghus, an Abbot, who died in 825; Conmhal, a Prior, who died in 863; David, Abbot of Glendalough, as well as of Tallaght, who died in 866; Comhgan Foda, an Anchorite, who died in 868; Torpaidh, an Abbot, bishop, and excellent scribe, who died in 872; Macoige, an Abbot, who died in 873; Seachnasach, an Abbot, who died in 894; Scannlan, an Abbot and Bishop, who died in 913; Maeldomhnaigh, an Abbot, who died in 937; Martin, an Abbot and Anchorite, both of Glendalough and Tallaght, who died in 957; Cormac, a Bishop, who died in 962; Crunnmhael, Abbot and Lector, who was drowned in 964; Erc na Suailen, a Bishop and Abbot, who died in 966; and MacMaeilesuthain, Chief Lector of the west of Ireland, who died at Tallaght in 1126.

After the Anglo-Norman conquest the church of Tallaght was granted with the lands to the See of Dublin, and on the resignation of Lawrence, rector of Tallaght, was subsequently annexed to the Deanery of St. Patrick's - the holder of that dignity having the right of presentation to the vicarage. At the close of the thirteenth century the vicarage was returned as worth nothing on account of war. Amongst the vicars in the next three centuries we find, in 1302 John of Tallaght; in 1374 John Colton, afterwards Archbishop of Armagh, and author of the well-known Visitation published by the Irish Archaeological Society; in 1391 John Young; in 1428 Patrick Prene; in 1479 Simon Gower, who covenanted to pay the Dean of St. Patrick's eight silver pence yearly, to build on the glebe a house of four couples, which he was to keep stiff and staunch, and to make new ditches; in 1523 Simon White; in 1549 Simon Walter, and in 1567 Christopher Browne, who obtained a decree against the occupier of Belgard for six loads of furze due to him in right of his vicarage.

At the beginning of the fifteenth century, in 1402, the tithes of the parish were seized for the Crown by the corn keeper of the Lord
Lieutenant. Later on in that century we find Thomas Sueterby, and his wife Johanna St. Leger, bequeathing land to Tallaght Church; and a Tallaght  farmer, Patrick Lawless, directing that ho should be buried in the cemetery of St. Maelruain’s Church.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, when Thomas Drakeshaw was vicar, the church of Tallaght was in good repair and provided with books, and fifteen years later, when John Hogben was vicar, there were "between three and four score that frequented divine service and sermon." The value of the cure, which included Templeogue, was £25 a year. In 1637 Richard Ellis, who afterwards became Archdeacon of Ferns, was the vicar, and so remained until the establishment of the Commonwealth. In his time ordinations were frequently held in the church by Archbishop Bulkeley. During the Commonwealth, about the year 1651, when the church was in perfect order, having been recently furnished with convenient pews, font, pulpit, and other necessaries, as well as paved with hewn stones at a cost of £300," a Captain Aland came to Tallaght with a troop of horse, and during his stay there pillaged the church. It is stated that in addition to carrying away the timber and slates to the County Kildare, paving his house in Dublin with the flags and converting the pews to his own use, he committed the sacrilegious act of feeding his horses in the font.
During the next 150 years the succession of the Vicars was as follows -In 1679 John Cuff, in 1685 Edward Hinde, in 1690 Hugh Wilson, in 1727 Zachary Norton, in 1730 John Gill, in 1731 Zachary Norton (for the second time), in 1737 Robert Trotter, in 1738 John Gill (for the second time), in 1740 John Jones, in 1743 Owen Sheill, in 1769 John Elton, in 1784 William Bryan, and in 1790 Robert Cochrane.

Tallaght was one of the churches restored through the exertions of the good Archbishop King, who was successful in obtaining in the year 1708 handsome subscriptions towards the cost from two of his brethren, Edward Smyth, Bishop of Down, and Thomas Lindsay, Bishop of Killaloe, who had been connected with the parish as Deans of St. Patrick's.   About the middle of the century, in 1744, the ceiling was renewed, and other needful repairs were executed. About that time the annual merrymaking on the festival of St. Maelruain is referred to by the French tourist already mentioned, who says that it had taken the place of a custom, which existed before the Reformation, of offering turf on that day at the shrine of the patron saint. It is also recorded by the same writer that on a certain Ash Wednesday, apparently not long before his visit, a tall and slender woman appeared in the church, and having taken up her station in the aisle remained there, without altering her position or taking sustenance, as he was told, until the following Easter Sunday, when she went away as mysteriously as she had come. Thousands came from Dublin to see her, and the French tourist says that he does not know whether it was a deceit or not, but that there is no doubt the concourse she drew to the town "turned to the advantage of those that sold liquor".

Towards the close of the eighteenth century, in 1779, the church was visited by Austin Cooper and pronounced by him to be a handsome building. Besides the tombs to Colonel John Talbot of Belgard, and the Fieraghs of Fir House, he mentions tombs to Richard Reilly, of Saggard, who died in 1673; to Maurice Walsh, who died in 1685, and to a family called Brown, of Jobstown; and also one on the north side of the church to Timothy M'Dermott, of Merrion, a great sportsman, who died in 1759, and who desired to be buried on the north side of the church "in order that he might hear the hounds going out in the morning".

The succession of Roman Catholic clergy in charge of the parish of Tallaght has been already given under Rathfarnham. In the year 1731 it is mentioned in a parliamentary return that a chapel was erected at Tallaght during the reign of George I., and that there was a resident priest. Thirty years later, in a parliamentary return made in 1766, it is stated that there were three Roman Catholic clergymen connected with the parish, and that two of these were resident within its limits. The families professing the Roman 'Catholic faith numbered at that time 400, while those of the Protestant religion are returned as only numbering 60. An occurrence worthy of note in connection with the Roman Catholic church in the district took place in the year 1792, at the Easter Vestry of the parish, which was held in Tallaght church. At this Vestry it was almost unanimously decided that a tax of one penny an acre should be levied, in order to rebuild the Roman Catholic chapel. Whether this was done there is no record to show.

The Vicars of Tallaght during the last century have been, in order of their appointment, in 1813 Thomas Goff, in 1822 William Trocke, in 1830 William Robinson, and in 1887 Eugene Henry O'Meara.

 

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