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County Louth Archaeological and History Society Some Notes on Dundalk Author(s): J. B. Leslie Source: Journal of the County Louth Archaeological Society, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Dec., 1917), pp. 162-168 Published by: County Louth Archaeological and History Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27728109 . Accessed: 14/06/2014 05:45 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . County Louth Archaeological and History Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the County Louth Archaeological Society. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 185.2.32.121 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 05:45:31 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Some Notes on Dundalk

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Page 1: Some Notes on Dundalk

County Louth Archaeological and History Society

Some Notes on DundalkAuthor(s): J. B. LeslieSource: Journal of the County Louth Archaeological Society, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Dec., 1917), pp.162-168Published by: County Louth Archaeological and History SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27728109 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 05:45

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

County Louth Archaeological and History Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to Journal of the County Louth Archaeological Society.

http://www.jstor.org

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Page 2: Some Notes on Dundalk

I?2

g*omc floteo on gltmfcalk*

Lecture delivered by Rev. J. B. Leslie, M.A., at the Free Library, Dundalk, on

Wednesday, 2^th January, 1917.

[This lecture does not aim at dealing successively in order of time with the history of Dundalk. Its scheme is to give at random some comparatively unknown facts, from

materials which I had collected for a History of the Town.]

UNDALK or DUNDEALGAN was apparently named after

some ancient hero, Dealga, who lived before the time of

Cuchullain, the hero whose name and fame will ever be associ

ated with the district. Much legend has no doubt grown up about the latter, but underneath is a vast substratum of fact.

Few writers now would venture to assert that he was mythical.

But the subject of Cuchullain I shall leave to others, and shall

pass on.

Castletown ecclesiastically was the ancient parish, probably so called from a castle built at an early date on the Mound, for it was an

" old

" castle

in 1290. There was a church in Castletown wThen there was none in Dundalk.

It was called by the country people until recent times "

Relig Dundealgan." The time, however, came when there was practically little distinction between Dundalk and Castletown?the buildings occupying the site where the modern Dundalk stands

being known as the New town and Castletown as the "

old Castle town." By the the way, I noticed in some history of St. Leonard's the statement that a dispute arose between the Prior of St. Leonard's and Theobald de Verd?n in 1297 con

cerning the advowrson [i.e., ecclesiastical patronage] of "

Dundalk, Oldcastle and

Kells "

! The writer probably was a constant traveller on our railway, but he

read the record wrong. The words in the Plea Roll which I read myself are "

Dundalk, Oldcastleton and Kene "?the neighbouring parish in the north?and have no reference at all to Co. Meath.

Dundalk seems to have come early into the possession of the Anglo-Normans.

John de Courcey, who overran Ulster in 1177, used the place as a sort of head

quarters or jumping-off ground. It was evidently before then a place of much

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Page 3: Some Notes on Dundalk

SOME NOTES ON DUNDALK. 163

importance near the entrance to Ulster. Thus we hear that Gregory King of Scot land took it in 8yj. Sitric son of Turgesius King of Norway fought a great battle in the bay between Annagassan and Blackrock soon after, and in 1104 we read of a Ruler of Traighbaile [or Seatown] named O Condelan, who fell from his horse and

was killed. With the coming of De Courcey probably the town was fortified and the walls

and castles afterwards heard of, were built. The town lay on the direct route to Ulster through the Pass of Moyry, and became a strategic centre for armies.

The O'Hanlon sept at that time occupied the barony of Orior, Co. Armagh. They resolutely opposed De Courcey and joined the Irish of Louth in trying to cut off his supplies after he had established himself at Downpatrick. Dalton,

quoting from Hanmer's Chronicle, gives the story of the battle that took place, in

consequence, near Dundalk. Another version of the battle has since been published in the Book of Howth. We may piece both accounts together. The Book of Howth

says : "

It fortuned that A. O'Hanlon and those of Yryell finding a ship at Torsse "

[sic. : query =Tredath, Drogheda or = Clogher] in Euryell full of victuall and

" other things else coming to Sir John Coursi to the north, and was by tempest of

" weather driven within a creek or haven, which was devoured by them, and the

" mariners slain and other of Sir John's servants, the said Sir John coming towards

" the Neuery to be revenged for this shame did understand that these Irishmen

" were besouth of Dundalk on the north side of the water of Dondygen [i.e., River

" Fane at Lurgangreen]. De Courcey's army marched to within a mile and a half

" of the Irishmen's camp and made a stand against them. He did not think them

" so numerous till he saw them ; he then sent a friar beggar to delude them." The

Irish, however, were not so easily deluded. "

Sir John then mustered his men "

upon a hill as large and as far o? as with honesty he might ! "

and a council of war was held. His brother-in-law, Sir Armory Tristram, ancestor of the Barons

of Howth, advised that if the "

enemy offer to fight, our foot shall recover Dundalk "

afore them, and with our horses we will so handle the matter, that we shall sustain "

no great loss. If they fly and take the river, the sea comes in, and we shall over "

take them afore half pass. All were well pleased with this advice and followed "

the direction. Nicholas St. Laurence with his company wheels before, Sir John " De Courcy at once followeth after, and Sir Roger Poer takes the rereward ; the

" enemy having descried them take the river

" So Hanmer. The Book of Howth

says a horseman of the O'Hanlons sent to scout was slain and then O'Hanlon orders "

Let us go over the water for the sea is coming in apace and once we be beyond the "

river we are safe." . . . "

The English army gave a great shout and followed "

on their heels ; the Irish break their array ; they tumble one upon another in the "

water ; the current drowns some, the sea and the swiftness of the tide takes others "

away. Such as would not venture the water were overtaken by the English . . .

" The Irish seeing themselves in this strait turning their faces choose rather to die

" with the sword like men than to be drowned in the seas like beasts . . . the

" slaughter on both sides was great ; few of the Irish and fewer of the English were

" left alive. The Irish got them to the Fews and the English to Dundalk, but who

" got the best there is no boast made." The Book of Howth gives slightly fuller

particulars of the close of the battle. It says that after the struggle on the north of the river

" Sir John and his men followed the rest through a ford that the friar

learned them, and Sir Armoury with the horsemen did overtake the Irish footmen at the great water besouth the Lorgone

a mile . . . the sea water came so speedily that they could not pass over," and so they were defeated.

I may make two remarks on this story. 1. It is true to the topography of the

district, as the tide goes out a long distance from the shore between Blackrock and

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Page 4: Some Notes on Dundalk

164 COUNTY LOUTH ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL.

Seabank where the battle took place, and comes in rapidly at the flow. 2. Dundalk

appears then to have been capable of accomodating a large army, it was also a place where such was safe from attack, so that a beginning had probably been made with the building of the walls and fortifications on the arrival of the Normans ; and it is not perhaps far fetched to conjecture that the three so-called

" birds

" or martlets

on the seal of Dundalk were taken from the three "

birds "

or eagles which, according to Holinshed, were on John de Courcey's standard that was carried before him

through Ireland. It is the custom nowadays for some Irish people to speak and think slightingly

of anything that came from England. Mr. G. H. Orpen, in his book on Ireland under the Normans, has shown what fine characters some of these Norman knights

who settled in Ireland were. We owe much to them. No County Louth man can afford to disparage the Normans. Norman blood is everywhere, even among the Macs and the Os. Dundalk especially is indebted to the De Verd?n and Bellew families and the County to such families as the Taaffes, Clintons, Gernons, &c.

Thus, while early religious settlements must have taken place about Dundalk soon after St. Patrick's time, it was with the coming of the Normans that real advance

was made in church foundations here. At the end of the twelfth century there was established in the town the Augustinian Monastery of the Crossbearers called the

Priory of St. Leonard's, which was founded and endowed by Bertram de Verd?n, and which answered in that age the purpose of a hospital and modern poorhouse.

As you know, this building?the Free Library?is on the grounds of that Priory. Another of the family, John de Verd?n, founded some years later the Franciscan

Monastery at Seatown. Both of these institutions continued until Henry VIIFs

reign. Those who rightly venerate their memory, should remember that the founders and probably the early inmates were Anglo-Normans, not Irish.

I think it may be truly said that the De Verd?n family laid the foundations of modern Dundalk. King John, who visited Dundalk, granted to Bertram de Verd?n, one of the nobles who accompanied him,

" four and a half cantreds of land in County

Louth, being that part of it which lies towards the sea," to hold by the service of 20 knights. This must have included the town of Dundalk and what became known as

*' De Verdon's lands." The townland of Vardanstowne in the Down Survey

Map [modern Ballinurd, meaning the same thing] in Baronstown parish keeps the name in mind. It may have happened, as Mr. Orpen thinks, that Bertram built a Norman castle on the ancient mote of Dundealgan and changed its contour.

I shall not to-night enter into the History of the De Verd?n Family. All the materials in connection with it were collected a few years ago by Mr. De Verd?n Cooke of Liverpool, assisted by his uncle, Mr. Stephen M'Kenna of Dublin. Mr. Cooke lent me all the materials, and some day perhaps I may make an article for the

L.A.J. on the subject.

Turning to the subject of Dundalk as a Borough, it is clear that it was a very ancient Borough with-many charters and privileges. The earliest reference to the

Borough that I have yet found is in the Pipe Rolls of 31 Ed. I (1302/3), where Theobald De Verd?n accounts for ?45 for 22? services due out of Dundalk for unjust detention,

" 100 marks fine for its liberties and other trespasses." In a celebrated

law-suit, the King v. Page, tried in 1789 at Dundalk Summer Assizes, and finally decided by the House of Lords in 1792, it was pleaded that a Corporation had existed in Dundalk

" from the time whereof the memory of man is not to the contrary."

The date of the original incorporation is unknown, but the charter was undoubtedly obtained through the influence of the powerful De Verd?n family, probably as early as the time of Bertram de Verd?n, for an Inquisition, held at Drogheda in 1312, found that

" the borough of Dundalk was an ancient one, incorporated by the

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Page 5: Some Notes on Dundalk

SOME NOTES ON DUNDALK. 165

ancestors of Theobald de Verd?n soon after the acquisition of Ireland," who enfeoffed certain burgesses with burgages and bounds and with commons of pasture. We find a Royal Mandate, issued in 1304 to Roger Gernon, Sheriff of Louth, and to the Bailiffs of Dundalk to deliver up a certain ship. There were two Bailiffs?the

principal municipal officers at that time ; but later on there seems also to have been a Provost, as appears from a Writ of 1343 and a Fiant of 1350, so the title of the

Corporation was then "

the Provost, Bailiffs and Commonalty of Dundalk." The Provost, however, soon disappeared. The first charter of which we have a record was

granted by Richard II about 1390. We find an entry in Armagh Diocesan Register, 1409, where an acquittance was given by the Primate to Richard Chepman, Bailiff

[Dalton's Lists only go back to 1690] and the Commonalty of the town, who made an affidavit that the customs of saleable articles sent into or out of Dundalk were

faithfully expended on the fortifications, and pavement of the town and on the walls.

The History of the Borough and of the relations with it of the Earls of Roden is very interesting and would make a lecture by itself.

In this connection may I say that the Monday Market goes back to 1284?a grant to the De Verdons from the Crown; the Latin is "per diem lunae/' i.e., "

through the day of the moon," "on Monday," but some consummate ass trans

lated it for the Report on Municipal Corporations as "in the County of Luna ! "

Louth was a great corn-growing County in early times, and Dundalk had then as now its prosperous corn merchants, who contracted with the Crown to supply corn even for shipment to Scotland. Thomas of Dundalk and Richard Cotyn, Corn

Merchants, are paid ?200 for supplies of corn for the King's affairs (his wars with

Bruce) in 1306. Dundalk had also its prosperous wine merchants in those days. In 1303 the

Crown paid Richard Dover, Wine Merchant, Dundalk, ?100 for wines taken from him at Carlisle for supplies of castles in Scotland, and again in 1304 and in 1326 two

large jars of wine were granted to Arnold le Poer for supplies coming to Dundalk to fight Bruce. It is also well known that the abundance of wine in Dundalk in

1315 rendered it difficult for King Edward Bruce?slain at Faughart 1318?to control his soldiery. As I am at the drink question, may I quote a letter of Sir Henry

Wallop to Lord Burghley in 1595 ; he says, "

being grieved to think what an in '' tolerable charge and loss the only transportation of beer from England, and the

" place [Dublin] to the Newry will be to Her Majesty when winter cometh that the

" forces shall be in garrison and expend much beer . . . and understanding that

" there is an old copper [? for brewing] of Her Majesty's which may be removed

" to Newry;

" while Conor Oge Maguire, writing to the Lord Deputy in the same

year, urges him to direct letters to the Bailiffs of Dundalk and Mayor of Drogheda that there be no powder, lead nor aquavitae sold to any man in quantity except to those well known. As to the other manufactures for which Dundalk was notable.

Rev. John Skelton, Curate of Dundalk and Master of the Grammar School, in his

Will, 1766, mentions certain Sugar Works, and Salt Works in Seatown which he had an interest in.

Rev. William Woolsey?(ancestor of the Woolseys of Milestown and of your President, Sir Henry Bellingham)?who was Vicar of Dundalk 1709-28, bought some houses in Dundalk belonging to a Jer Patterson and to John Walker?whose

daughter he married and who was Collector of Customs here, and was I may remark a son of the celebrated Rev. George Walker of Derry renown. These houses had been used in connection with a bleachyard. He turned them into a damask weaving factory and brought 12 weavers from Portadown about 1730. Primate Boulter

was interested in this experiment. Through him, as Dalton tells, the celebrated

G

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Page 6: Some Notes on Dundalk

l66 COUNTY LOUTH ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL.

De Joncourt family were brought here about 1740, and conducted a most successful Cambric Factory for many years.

" Cambricville

" reminds us of this. Gabriel

Beranger, the antiquary, visited Dundalk in 1781 ; his account of his visit is in

teresting (see Jour. R.S.A.L, 1876, pp. 139 et seq.). He had been sent by Vallancey to draw and describe the then mysterious

" Fas na h-aon Oidhche or

' the growth of "

one night '[=the Ship Temple], He says, " Mr. Wrightson of Dundalk, one of my "

fellow travellers, conducted me to an inn kept by one Baile, which I believe to " be the handsomest in Ireland ; he also presented me to Zacharias Maxwell, Esq., " to whom I was recommended. We found him on the Parade, supervising the

" man uvres of the Artillery of the Volunteer Corps which he commanded. . . .

" He presented me to the Earl of Clanbrassil, Colonel of the Corps ..." He dined

with Mr. Maxwell at the Club. Supped with a Mr. Lester, and wTas next day invited to dine with Mr. Murphy. Taking a walk next day, he found himself stopped by a river. Enquiring for a crossing-place he

" met a person on horseback enveloped

in a large Scotch plaid

. . . who answered that higher up there were crossing stones, "

which if overflown he could carry me over. We entered into conversation and he "

apprised me that he was a Scotchman come over to conduct the buildings of manu

" factures and bleachyards in the taste of those in Holland, and as I had told him " that I was born there, he said that I should be a judge if they were right if I would " come and see them. I accepted his offer and went with him. Some of the build " ings I found finished, others began, others only marked out. We went through " the bleachyard, which I found very neat ; all the ditches which crossed them " being faced with stone and supplied with water from the river, having their sluices " to keep them filled at proper height ; he told me that several young women were

" arrived from Scotland . . .

every one of which was skilled in one of the branches "

of the knitting manufactory and were to teach it to the girls of Dundalk."

Turning to another subject ; in connection with the Confiscations of 1641, Lord Dungannon

was granted 1,200 acres of Corporation lands, including most of

Dundalk, except the houses of Sir John Bellew and Henry Draycott, a house for the

Vicar, and some houses for Patrick Levens. I took a summary of the Patent of Lord Dungannon as proved in the Court of Claims in 1660. Dalton gives only a

part of it. He was granted the following :

North Street, East side?52 houses tenements and gardens, including a house called Spurre Hall.

Market Hill Street?15 tenements and gardens. Corn Market Street?19 tenements, including a house called Wentworth Arms,

and 3 ruinous houses.

High Street West?29 tenements, including one castle called Reed's castle, one ruinous tenement, ruins of another and one castle.

High Street, East?52 tenements, including "

1 castle and garden," "

1 castle

and tenement garden," 1 castle, 1 tenement or ruinous old walls in Camp

Street, 1 ruinous cottage or smyth's forge, 4 craites or tenements.

Without Warr's Gate, in said Street?29 tenements, including 1 castle called Goale's Castle.

Upper End Street [i.e., Park Street]?81 tenements, several "

waste "

or "

empty," including the ruined walls of Aryoll's Castle, 2 ruins and 6 old tenements.

Camp Street, East side?29 tenements, including 1 new timber house, and 1 waste parcel of ground called the Orchard.

Lanstaffe Lane, without the Gate?8 tenements.

Lanstaffe Old Lane, within the Gate?10 tenements.

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Page 7: Some Notes on Dundalk

SOME NOTES ON DUNDALK. 167

Seatown, West side?10 tenements.

Seatown, North side?58 tenements, including one under shott corn mill, the

walls of a house called Ye WThite House, the ruined walls of St. Francis'

Abbey and of St. Leonard's Priory, and Moyel Castle.

Besides all bogs and commons belonging to said Corporation ; total, 53 acres

in Dundalk town and 1,147 acres in the liberties of Dundalk.

These streets and houses and castles may be easily identified from the map of

1655, reproduced in Dations History and in H. G. Tempest's Guide to Dundalk (where, however, its date is erroneously printed as 1566). Dalton also reproduces a map of 1675, now in Mr. Turner's Estate Office, and another of 1680. I show to-night the map of 1609 in connection with the Jacobite Confiscations and the Down Survey

Map of 1659. There is a map of Dundalk by Sir Henry Duke in 1594 among the

State papers, which has never been published. The Dungannon property passed through the Hamiltons to the Roden family.

Population.?The number of tenements in the above Patent is about 325, adding 30 for those not included in it and allowing four for each house would give nearly

1,500 of a population in 1660 ; but the Census of 1659, published in L.A.J., 1905,

gives but 631 people above 15 years of age in the town, while the Hearth Money Rolls of 1664 enumerate but 218 householders with hearths in the town of Dundalk

and 24 in Seatown. Some of these lists cannot therefore be relied on. In 1813 there were 8,600 people in the town. In 1841, 10,784 ; in 1911, 13,128.

Religious History.?A few notes on this may be interesting. Dalton gives the

name of the "

P.P. "

in 1704 as "

Dr. Matthews." It should be Manus Quin, who

was ordained in 1666 and was P.P. of Creggan in 1672. Mr. T. Murphy, in his Religious History, relates a tradition about the founding

of a R.C. Church in 1750, in which it is said that that religion was not allowed to

be publicly practised before that time. But there must be a mistake somewhere, for there seems to have been in Dundalk, at all events, considerable toleration of

religious opinion and practice. Thus in Brereton's travels, date circa 1664, he

says : "

the people went to Mass openly "

in Dundalk. The friars also had a com

munity, known to the Established Ecclesiastical Authorities, in Dundalk in 1672, when they were left a legacy in a Will proved at Armagh. The Bailiffs at that

period were often Roman Catholics, and a Parliamentary Return of 1731 tells us

that there was a R.C. Church here and a Friary in Seatown in which were seven

friars.

A few random notes not quite to the credit of the town may be here added :

According to the Grand Jury Records, in 1714 there were 28 Tories or Rapparees

prosecuted at the Assizes. In 1718, seven Tories including Neal McShane or "

Forty

Rags

" of Channelrock and Bryan Byrne, called Bryan

na Poreen.

In Faulkner's Dublin Journal, 1742, a correspondent writing from Dundalk,

says : "

Our Jayl abounds with rogues "

! Well, you know the County Jail was

recently closed, but whether it was from want of rogues to fill it, or because the

rogues abound and were too clever to be caught, I shall leave yourselves to decide.

In the Drogheda Journal, 1796, at Dundalk Assizes, Matthew McCann and

Bryan Fegan were found guilty of perjury in open court, condemned to be twice

pilloried and transported for seven years. They were pilloried during the sitting of the court. Michael Duggan, for manslaughter, was ordered to be burned in the

hand and discharged. Of the many rows, political, religious, etc., which occurred in the town, there

was one remarkable one which occurred in 1593. It was between a McxArdle and

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Page 8: Some Notes on Dundalk

l68 COUNTY LOUTH ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL.

an O'Neill. Colloe Lea McArdell meeting the Earl of Tyrone with the Dean of

Armagh one day in the streets of Dundalk a "

holy row "

took place, chiefly wordy, when McArdle called Tyrone a traitor, etc. The Lord Chancellor at the Council Board urged that he should be punished, but the chronicler adds,

" yet neverthe

less he went away, and was neither punished or reproved." We understand this when we know that he had assisted the forces of the Crown against Tyrone. The name and influence of the Macardles still flourish ; one being High Sheriff this year. I hope he will find, as was said in 1819, that

" County Louth is the smallest and

quietest County in Ireland."

Before I close may I point out that there is much material for family history to be found in the old Wills of residents preserved in the Public Record Office, Dublin. I have a list of over 250 of such. Some of the names have died out, some still remain

with us. Let me give a few of the earliest, with the date in which the Will was proved.

1672. Allen, Alice.

1715. Babe, James, Gent.

1638. Bellew, Sir Christopher, Knt.

1627. Bellew, Sir John, Knt.

1727. Blyke, Dudley, Kilcurley, Gent.

1654. Brown (alias Woods), Anne, widow.

1683. Brownlow, John, Gent., Corporal.

1759. Carroll, Patrick, Castletown.

1767. Coleman, Arthur.

1786. Concannon, Peter, Surgeon.

1796. Coulter, Jos., Dowdallshill, Gent.

1685. Cox, Walter, Gent.

1638. Deery, Abraham, Merchant.

1640. Dowdall, Christopher, Castle Dowdall, Esq.

1661. Dodson, Jane, widow of John D. Gent.

1652. Fifield, John. 1674. Fugill, Alice, widow. 1740. Greene, Ralph.

1745. Gyles, John, Gent. 1628. Locke, Patrick, Gent.

1656. Lynge, Michael.

1667. Mortimer, James, dyer. 1643. Pooley, Thos., Lieutenant.

1768. Twibill, Wm., Ballymascanlan. 1639. Vanwyeke, Allart Classen. 1660. Vesey, William, Gent.

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