Part 2

J. Dowd, “The County of Limerick.” The Countess and Earl of Dunraven, “Memorials of Adare.” Marquis of Kildare, “The Earls of Kildare.” M. Lenihan, “Limerick: Its History and Antiquities.” J. Ferrar, “History of Limerick.” Parliamentary Gazetteer. Calendar of State Documents. Calendar of Carew MSS.

_ANTRIM CASTLE_

“Brown in the rust of time--it stands sublime With overhanging battlements and towers, And works of old defence--a massy pile, And the broad river winds around its base In bright, unruffled course.”

Antrim town is situated in the county of the same name, on the right bank of Six-Mile-Water just before it enters Lough Neagh, a little more than thirteen miles north-west of Belfast.

The castle, sometimes erroneously called Massereene Castle, was erected in the reign of James I. by Sir Hugh Clotworthy, a gentleman of Somersetshire.

Hugh and Lewis Clotworthy were amongst those who accompanied the Earl of Essex in his expedition to Ulster in 1573, and in 1603 Captain Hugh Clotworthy was doing garrison duty at Carrickfergus under Sir Arthur Chichester. In 1605 he received a grant of the confiscated lands of “Massarine,” and erected a residence on the site of the present building. This consisted of a moated courtyard flanked by towers.

Shortly afterwards he was knighted, and married the beautiful Marion Langford “of the flowing tresses.”

In 1610 Sir Hugh Clotworthy commenced to erect a castle according to the undertaking of the grant, and it was completed in three years. It consisted of a quadrangular pile, three storeys in height, which enclosed a small courtyard, and was flanked at the angles by square towers. The walls measured 6 feet in thickness. A short flight of granite steps led to the entrance hall, which contained a great open fireplace. On the right of the hall was the “buttery,” where at about 3 feet from the floor was a small square door through which food was distributed to the poor. The townspeople had the privilege of passing through the hall by the buttery to a pathway leading to the lake.

The river protected the castle on the west, while on the other sides it was surrounded by a moat. The “Mount” to the east of the castle was furnished with ordnance. Two bastions commanded respectively the town on the south and the lake on the north. The whole fortress covered more than five acres of ground.

Extensive alterations were made in the castle in 1813 by Chichester, fourth Earl of Massereene. At present it consists of a square embattled building of three storeys with a long wing at the same elevation running northward, flanked by two castellated towers near the end. At its extremity rises a very high tower in Italian style, which gives a most picturesque appearance to the stables when viewed from the lough.

The grand entrance hall is square, and the wall which once divided it from the centre courtyard has been replaced by oak pillars leading to an inner vestibule and staircase which occupies the site of the former open space. From this a passage extends the whole length of the castle to the Italian tower. The oak room is a magnificent apartment, wainscotted in dark Irish oak, relieved with lighter shades and exquisitely carved. The panels are painted with armorial bearings. There is a beautiful carved chimney-piece at the lower end of the apartment set with the grate in one frame. Upon touching a secret spring this all swings out and discloses a recess large enough to hide in. The furniture of the room is also Irish oak. Here is preserved the “Speaker’s Chair” of the Irish House of Commons.

The drawing-room and library are both very handsome rooms, and with the oak room, breakfast-room, parlour, and dining-room, form a splendid suite of rooms, opening one off the other. There is a very valuable collection of family portraits in the castle.

The Italian tower contains the chapel, record-room, and a small study. The first of these is in Gothic style and beautifully proportioned. Among the treasures to be seen here are Cranmer’s New Testament and Queen Mary’s Bible.

Over the front entrance is a stone screen slightly raised from the wall and ending in a pointed arch under the parapet wall. It is about 8 feet in width, and is handsomely sculptured with arms, mottoes, and events connected with the castle and its owners. At the top is a carved head representing Charles I., supposed to have been placed there by the first Viscount when he added to the fortress in 1662. Lower down are the arms of the founder and his wife, with the date of erection (1613), &c. Immediately over the hall door is a carved shell supported by mermaids, which represents the Skeffyngton crest.

The two ancient bastions have been formed into terrace gardens, and the grounds of the whole castle are most beautifully laid out. A splendid view is obtained from the old “Mount,” the summit of which is reached by a winding path.

The demesne is entered from the town through a castellated entrance, surmounted by a turretted warder’s lodge, which upon state occasions in modern times has been sentinelled with warders garbed in antique costume, battle-axe in hand.

Near the gatehouse upon the angle of the southern bastion is the carved stone figure of “Lady Marion’s Wolfdog,” representing that splendid Irish breed now extinct. At one time this statue surmounted a turret of the castle, where the great animal appeared to be keeping a “look out” over the lough. Local superstition said that it had appeared there without human agency on the night after the incident occurred with which the legend connects it, and that as long as it keeps watch over the castle and grounds so long will the race of Lady Marion Clotworthy continue to live and thrive.

The story is as follows:--The lovely bride of Sir Hugh Clotworthy wandered one day in his absence outside the bawn walls along the shores of Lough Neagh. Hearing behind her a low growl, she turned round to find a wolf preparing to spring. In her terror she fell to the ground, and with the force of the animal’s leap he passed beyond her. Before he had time to return to his victim a large wolf-hound had seized him in mortal combat. The lady fainted at the sight, and when she recovered consciousness the dog was licking her hands, while the wolf lay dead. She bound up the noble animal’s wounds, and he followed her home, being her constant companion for many a day, until he suddenly disappeared and no trace of him could be found.

Shortly after this the castle was built, and one wild, stormy night the deep baying of a wolf-hound was heard passing round and round the walls of the fortress. The warders, scared by the unusual sound, kindled the beacon on the mount, and by its light discovered a band of natives making preparation for an attack. A few shots dispersed them, but before they left a howl of pain was heard near the entrance gate, where a few flattened bullets were found the next morning. Then upon the castle tower the affrighted warders perceived the stone figure of the dog.

It is probable that Sir Hugh had the figure carved to please his lady, and after the attack considered its mysterious appearance on the fortress the best protection against a superstitious enemy, who had most likely destroyed the beautiful original, which had come from the Abbey of Massarine to warn its former kind friend of danger.

Sir Hugh Clotworthy was succeeded by his son, Sir John, afterwards first Viscount Massereene. He sat in both the Irish and English Houses of Commons, and was one of Stafford’s chief accusers. He was in London when the rebellion of 1641 broke out. The insurrection was in part prevented by a retainer of his, one Owen O’Conally, called “the great informer.”

Sir John’s brother, James, secured the castle in his absence from attack, and the owner returned to it at the end of the year, and took command of the forces in the district. He was imprisoned in 1647 for three years for censuring (with other Members of Parliament) the seizing of the King. During this time his mother, the Lady Marion, occupied the castle. O’Conally commanded Sir John’s regiment in his absence, and in 1649 it was joined to General Monk’s forces. Oliver Cromwell made O’Conally commander of the regiment then at Antrim Castle, and Monro marched against it and killed its leader, but the castle still remained in possession of the troops.

Sir John was raised to the peerage by Charles II. in 1660 as Viscount Massereene. He had no son, and was succeeded in the title and estates by his son-in-law, Sir John Skeffyngton, and henceforward his surname was added to the family name of Clotworthy.

James II. conferred several honourable appointments on him, nevertheless the “Antrim Association” was formed in the castle upon the beginning of the revolution, and the Viscount’s eldest son, Colonel Clotworthy Skeffyngton, was appointed Commander-in-Chief.

The Jacobite General, Hamilton, pushed on to Antrim after his success at Dromore, and Lord Massereene fled from the castle at his approach. The family plate, valued at £3,000, which was hidden before the family left, was shown to the newcomers by a servant, and was seized by them.

Colonel Gordon O’Neill, son of the great Sir Phelim, occupied the fortress in 1688-89, but Lord Massereene recovered his property when William came to the throne.

His grandson was created an earl in 1756, but this title expired in 1816, when Harriet Viscountess of Massereene succeeded to the estates, and through her they passed to the present Viscount.

The last time that the castle figured in history was during the battle of Antrim in 1798. The yeomanry bravely held the castle gardens against all comers, while the great gun of the mount, “Roaring Tatty,” was drawn from its position and fired on the town. One, Ezekiel Vance, gave the signal to the military outside the town to advance by waving a woman’s red cloak from one of the towers of the fortress.

The present Lord Massereene is the 11th Viscount.

AUTHORITIES CONSULTED.

C. O’Neill, “Antrim Castle.” O’Laverty, “Diocese of Down and Connor.” Smith, “Memoirs of ’98,” in _Ulster Journal of Archæology_. Parliamentary Gazetteer.

_ARKLOW CASTLE_

The town of Arklow is thirty-nine miles and a half south by east of Dublin, in the County Wicklow.

Joyce thinks the name may have a Danish origin, but others believe it comes from the Irish word _Ardchoch_.

The ruins of the castle are situated on high ground on the south side of the Ovoca River, and consist of a ruined and now ivy-clad round tower, which protected the northern angle. This building is broken on the riverside to about 12 feet in height, but on the south side it measures some 46 feet.

About 10 feet from the ground is a pointed doorway, which leads to a stone floor formed by the arch of the lower chamber. Thirty-four stone steps in the thickness of the wall give access to the top of the tower from this platform.

This building is one of similar flanking towers which defended the walls still running south and west, the remains of some of the other turrets having only disappeared during the last century.

A barrack for two companies of soldiers was built near the former site of the castle, and the walls of the latter were incorporated with those enclosing the yard of the new building.

A monastery was founded at Arklow by Theobald FitzWalter, hereditary Lord Butler of Ireland, who also built the castle.

Lord Theobald Walter le Botiller died in the castle in 1285, and was buried in the convent of the Friars Preachers in Arklow, beneath a tomb ornamented with his effigy.

In 1331 the castle was attacked by the O’Tooles, but Lord de Bermingham came to its relief with a small party, and drove the enemy off with considerable loss. The same year, however, the Irish got possession of it by treachery.

The Lord Chief Justice again re-captured it in 1332, with the help of Dublin citizens and the English settlers in Wicklow, so that it was once more in the King’s hands, and at this time it was partly rebuilt.

In 1522-24 Sir Piers Butler was accused of being in league with the O’Mores, and of using the castle of Arklow to rob both by land and sea.

The following year the Earl of Kildare made a series of charges against the Earl of Ormond through Lord Leonard Grey, amongst which was that of keeping a ward of evil persons in Arklow Castle to rob the surrounding neighbourhood.

A few years later (1532) the Earl of Ossory and Ormond complained to Thomas Cromwell that the Earl of Kildare was trying to get some of his castles into his possession (amongst which he mentioned Arklow), under the plea of holding them by lease from the Earl of Wiltshire. He states these fortresses “bee the veray keyes of the cuntrey,” and that the King ought to prevent Kildare becoming too powerful. Sir Thomas Bullen had then been created Earl of Ormond and Wiltshire by Henry VIII.

During the rebellion of “the Silken Thomas” in 1536 the King had to send “an army royal” to get the castle of Arklow and others into his possession.

The following year the manor was re-granted to Peter Butler, Earl of Ossory and Ormond.

In 1578, when forming the county of “Wicklo or Arcklo,” the castle of the latter is mentioned as the chief place, and belonging to the Earl of Ormond, who was also Lord of Arklow.

The Lord Deputy placed a garrison there in 1581.

In March, 1589, Feagh M’Hugh O’Byrne seized the wife of Hugh Duff O’Donnell, uncle to Sir Hugh O’Donnell, who was a tenant of the Earl of Ormond in Arklow Castle. In the autumn of the same year O’Byrne tried to force an entrance into the castle “to execute his malice” upon Hugh O’Donnell.

The land was laid waste round the fortress in 1600, but the castle was held for the Queen by the Earl of Ormond at his own expense.

In the rebellion of 1641 the Irish surprised the fortress and killed the garrison. It remained in their possession until 1649, when it was captured by Cromwell’s forces, of which the following is the account:--

“The army marched through almost a desolate country until it came to a passage of the River Doro, about a mile above the Castle of Arklow, which was the first seat and honour of the Marquis of Ormond’s family, which he had strongly fortified; but it was upon the approach of the army quitted, wherein he (Cromwell) left another company of foot.”

AUTHORITIES CONSULTED.

MS. Ordnance Survey. Brewer, “Beauties of Ireland.” Grose, “Antiquities of Ireland.” Bagwell, “Ireland Under the Tudors.” Joyce, “Irish Names of Places.” Carew MSS. State Papers. Marquis of Kildare, “Earls of Kildare.” Griffiths, “Chronicles of County Wexford.” Murphy, “Cromwell in Ireland.” Parliamentary Gazetteer.

_ARTANE CASTLE_

The name was originally Tartain, and is probably derived from Tortan, meaning a diminutive _tor_, being a small knoll or high turf-bank. The site of the former castle is situated on the southern border of the Barony of Coolock, in the County of Dublin, about three miles from the city.

The Artane Industrial School now occupies the castle grounds, and the manor house is used as the residence of the Christian Brothers. Lewis states that this house was built of stones from the old castle, but, at any rate, the present dining-room is supported by beams taken from the fortress.

A hen-run belonging to the school is now on the site of the former stronghold not far from the present house.

The manor of Artane was acquired by the family of Hollywood, or “de Sacro Bosco,” in the fourteenth century, by Robert de Hollywood, one of the Remembrancers, and afterwards Baron of the Exchequer.

In 1416 and 1420 the King committed the custody of the lands to Philip Charles and Richard FitzEustace during the minority of Robert Hollywood, the King’s ward, son of the late Christopher Hollywood.

On the 27th of July, 1534, the rash Lord Offaly rose in rebellion, and threw the Sword of State on the Council table in Dublin, upon the rumour of his father, the Earl of Kildare, having been murdered in London. He left the presence of the assembly with armed men to muster fresh forces for the rising, and Dublin was at once seized with panic.

John Allen, Archbishop of Dublin, was then in Dublin Castle, and having been as bitter and relentless a foe of the Geraldines as his patron Wolsey, he decided to fly when news of the outbreak reached him. He had with him a trusted servant named Bartholomew FitzGerald, who urged him to sail to England, and offered to pilot him across. The Archbishop seems to have had implicit faith in his follower, although a Geraldine, and it has never been actually proved that it was misplaced.

The Prelate and his attendants embarked in the evening at Dames Gate, but owing, some say to adverse winds, and others to the design of the pilot, the little vessel stranded at Clontarf.

The Archbishop at once made his way to the house of his late friend, Thomas Hollywood, at Artane, whose hospitality he had commemorated in his “Repertorium Viride.”

At this time the wardship of the heir, Nicholas Hollywood, was in the hands of Richard Delahide and Thomas Howth.

It seems hardly possible that the Lord Thomas FitzGerald could have heard of the mishap so quickly unless treachery had been employed. Be that as it may, he and a band of armed followers arrived at Artane in the early morning, being the 28th of July, and surrounded the castle while the Archbishop still slept.

Among the party were the young Vice-Deputy’s uncles, Sir James and Oliver FitzGerald, James Delahide, and about forty men.

He sent two Dublin yeomen, John Teeling and Nicholas Wafer, into the house to bring out the Archbishop. They dragged him out of bed, and brought him before the Lord Thomas “feeble for age and sickness, kneeling in his shirt and mantle, bequeathing his soul to God, his body to the traitor’s mercy.” He “besought him not to remember former injuries, but to consider his present calamity, and whatever malice he might bear to his person to respect his calling.”

It seems that the “Silken Thomas” was touched by the appeal of his helpless foe, and turning his head aside, he said, “_Beir naim an bodach_,” meaning, “Take the churl away from me,” and, no doubt, as he afterwards said, he only intended them to imprison him. His followers, however, put a different interpretation upon his order, and immediately murdered the Archbishop, who was in the fifty-eighth year of his age.

Some say he was dragged within the castle hall, and there put to death, while others say that the spot on which he was slain was hedged in and shunned as an unholy place for many years.

Lord Thomas could not have been ignorant of what had occurred, as he sent Robert Reilly the same day to Maynooth with a casket which had belonged to the murdered prelate.

Lord Offaly was excommunicated for the crime in St. Patrick’s Cathedral with great solemnity.

Shortly after this Thomas Howth, _alias_ St. Laurence, one of young Hollywood’s guardians, went to live at Artane.

This Nicholas Hollywood also died while his son Christopher was a minor, and in 1570 the wardship and marriage of the boy was granted to John Bathe, of Drumcondra. In 1585 a Charles Hollywood is referred to as being of Tartaine.

Nicholas Hollywood possessed the manor and lands of Artane in 1587. They contained one castle, six messuages, and one hundred and ninety acres of land held of the King, _in capite_ by knight’s service. He died in 1629.

During the rebellion of 1641 Lord Netterville’s son, Luke, possessed himself of the castle, and established a body of Royalist troops in the stronghold. He met with no opposition, as one of the Hollywood family named Christopher was a partisan, who afterwards sat in the Council of Confederate Catholics at Kilkenny.

Nicholas Hollywood forfeited the estate at this time, and John Hollywood, one of the signers of the Roman Catholic Remonstrance, came into possession.

In 1680 the King granted the estate for one thousand years to Sir Arthur Forbes, one of the Commissioners of the Court of Claims.

Lewis says the old Castle was pulled down in 1825 by Mathew Boyle, Esq., who erected the present manor house with the material. He also says it belonged to the Callaghan family in 1837, while D’Alton states Lord Maryborough owned it in 1838. The Butler family resided there at a later date.

A tomb of Elizabeth, daughter of John Talbot of Malahide, and wife of Christopher Hollywood, is in the old churchyard adjacent. She died in 1711, and her husband in 1718.

AUTHORITIES CONSULTED.

Marquis of Kildare, “The Earls of Kildare.” J. D’Alton, “History of County Dublin.” J. D’Alton, “Memoirs of the Archbishops of Dublin.” S. Lewis, “Topographical Dictionary of Ireland.” Parliamentary Gazetteer. Fiants of Elizabeth.

_ATHLONE CASTLE_

The castle of Athlone is situated on the Connaught side of the river Shannon in the Barony of Athlone, County Roscommon, sixty miles west-by-north of Dublin.

The name is derived from _ath_, “a ford,” and _luain_, “the moon,” and signifies “the ford of the moon,” to which it is supposed to have been dedicated in pagan times. Some gold lunettes and crescents found in a neighbouring bog seem to bear out the statement.

The castle commands the bridge, and is built upon a spur of the hill upon which the town on the Connaught side is built. It is overlooked by the houses of the town, while on the river side it is supported by a great buttress of masonry.

The entrance is on the road which leads from the bridge up to the town, and is by a modern drawbridge.

The fortress consists of a strong curtain wall having circular towers mounted with cannon at irregular intervals. Most of them have been restored with fresh blue limestone.

The Connaught tower, which stands isolated in the courtyard, is considered the oldest part of the fortress, and usually supposed to have formed the keep of the first Norman castle built in King John’s reign. It is decagonal in form, but owing to having been pebble-dashed and whitened of late years, it does not retain an appearance of antiquity.

The English stronghold was erected on the site of an old Celtic fortress of the O’Connors. It is recorded that the castle and bridge of Athlone were built in 1129 by Turloch O’Connor, “in the summer of the drought.”

The following year they were demolished by Murogh O’Mleghlin and Feirnan O’Rorke, and in 1153 the castle was burned.

Between 1210 and 1213 the Norman fortress was erected by John de Grey, Bishop of Norwich, in his capacity of Lord Justiciary of Ireland. During its building a tower fell and killed Lord Richard Tuit, who founded the Cistercian Abbey of Granard, County Longford.

Athlone Castle was built on abbey land, and in 1214 King John commanded Henry, Archbishop of Dublin, to give the monks a tenth of the expenses of the castle in lieu of the land used, in accordance with the conditions agreed to by the Bishop of Norwich when he was fortifying it. After this there are several references in the State Documents to the tithes and other compensation due to the monks.

In 1221 the King instituted a fair to be held at the castle.

The fortress being situated on the border of Irish territory, its early history has an exceedingly stormy record. In 1226 Geoffrey de Marisco, who was then Justiciary of Ireland, complained that as the King of Connaught refused to come to Dublin, he had appointed to meet him at Athlone, although the castle was fortified against the Crown.

In 1232 an order was issued to Hubert de Burgh to deliver the castle to Peter de Rivall, and the next year one to Richard de Burgh, who was to surrender it to Maurice FitzGerald, Justiciary of Ireland.

Walter de Lacy received twenty marks for the custody of the fortress in 1240, and eleven years later a tax was levied for its repair.