Rathmore, County Kildare

Geography

Rathmore village is in the townlands of Rathmore East and West, 5 km northwest of Blessington. The civil parish of Rathmore is 7744 statute acres, containing the following townlands:

Rathmore borders with the parishes of Kilbride and Blessington in County Wicklow to northeast and southeast; the boundary extends along the N81 Road and the old coach road between Hempstown and Crosscoolharbour. To northwest, west and south it borders the Kildare parishes of Kilteel and Kill, Tipper and Tipperkevin.

Prehistory

Cist burials of possible Bronze Age date were excavated within the motte in 1893-1894; the mound may contain an early Bronze Age tumulus. A bronze bracelet was recovered near the motte in 1905. Newtownpark contains a ring-barrow of Bronze Age date, a Bronze Age cist burial was excavated in Hempstown Commons in 1950, and a cinerary urn burial of Late Bronze Age date was excavated in Athgarrett in 1983. Iron Age cremated remains were recovered within a pit-burial a short distance west of the motte in 1998.

Early Medieval

In the Early Medieval period Rathmore was a stronghold of the Meic Bráenáin, a branch of the Fothairt Airthir Life, within the territory of Uí Máel Ruba or Uí Maíleruba. Their principal church was Kilteel. The Book of Leinster records the killing of Donnchad mac Domnaill Remair, the Uí Ceinnselaig King of Leinster in 1089 at Ráith Mór in Uí Máel Ruba by the Uí Failghe King Conchobar Ua Conchobhair, illustrating Rathmore's importance as a high-status site. The description of Donnchad's death 'in unfair advantage' suggests he was being hosted by Conchobar.

The use of Rathmore as an Anglo-Norman manorial caput also indicates the importance of the pre-Norman settlement; the motte may incorporate both a Bronze Age tumulus and the rath. Evidence for an earlier occupation layer under the motte was identified in 1894.

Medieval

Following the Norman invasion, Maurice FitzGerald was granted the cantred of Offelan or Ophelan with the manor of Rathmore. His son William FitzMaurice granted half the territory, including the manors of Rathmore and Maynooth to his brother Gerald FitzMaurice, 1st Lord of Offaly and ancestor of the Earls of Kildare. The grant mentions both Rathmore and Omolrou; the latter interpreted by Kenneth Nicholls as a reference to Uí Maíleruba. Maurice FitzGerald, 3rd Lord of Offaly, died at Rathmore in 1286.

In 1453-54 title the manors of Rathmore and Maynooth were disputed between the Butlers of Ormond and the FitzGeralds. The 5th Earl of Ormond, then Lord Lieutenant, supported his family's claim. A memorial from the chief persons in Kildare to the Duke of York seeking a resolution complained that the dispute: 'hath caused more destructionne in the said counte of Kildare and liberte of Mith within short time now late passed and dayly doth, then was done by Irish enemys and English rebelles of long tyme before.' The Butlers were eventually driven out.

The manor of Rathmore was forfeited to the Crown following the revolt of Silken Thomas, 10th Earl of Kildare in 1534. In 1541 the 'manor and castle of Rathemore' was leased to Walter Trott, Vicar of Rathmore. In 1545 the manor with the 'castle and watermill there' and lands in Wicklow and Kildare were granted to John Travers of Monkstown, an usher of the King's chamber, in consideration of his services 'especially in the wars in Ireland'. The manor passed to the Chevers family by marriage at the end of the 16th century. At the time of the Civil Survey in 1654 John Chevers held 402 plantation acres in the parish with a manor house or castle and a mill, then waste.

Motte and bailey castle

The remains of a motte-and-bailey castle from the late 12th or early 13th century are located at the western edge of the village. Ten metres high, 46 metres in diameter at base and 17 metres at top, with an inner and an outer fosse, the earthworks were badly damaged by gravel extraction for roadworks in the late 19th century. An adjoining bailey to the north was destroyed before 1955. The 'castle' recorded in the 16th century and depicted on the Down Survey was likely a later stone building.

Deserted medieval settlement

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

Medieval Church

The medieval church, mentioned as early as 1270, was likely located on or close to the site of the current Church of Ireland building. The 2nd Earl of Kildare granted the advowson to the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem in 1318. The church was among the possessions of the Hospitaller preceptory of Kilteel transferred to the Allen family after the dissolution of the monasteries. The church was in repair in 1615 but a survey of 1630 recorded the 'church and chauncell' as 'downe'. The current building dates from 1766. Possible traces of the earlier church were identified during archaeological monitoring in 2008.

Border fortress

In the medieval period Rathmore served as a border fortress on the marches of the English Pale, under attack from the Gaelic O'Byrne and O'Toole lordships of the Wicklow uplands. On 5 January 1356, Edward III, noting that 'the more noble and powerful persons' of Leinster had failed to remain at the wards of 'Kylhele, Rathmore and Ballymore in co. Kildare...for the salvation of the marches against Obryn and his accomplices' issued orders requiring the 4th Earl of Kildare to:

An act of 1488 set out the boundaries of 'the four obedient shires' of Louth, Meath, Dublin and Kildare and described the Pale boundary passing through Kilteel and Rathmore. In 1536 Thomas Alen was appointed constable of Rathmore. In 1538 after John Kelway, 'Constable of the King's Castell of Rathmore', hung two of Turlough O'Toole's kern during a truce between O'Toole and the Crown, O'Toole demanded redress. Kelway called for a parley, raised 'certain husbandmen and freeholders of Rathmore, Newtown and the parish of Kill' and met with O'Toole and his followers. After a skirmish, O'Toole fled to the mountains, pursued by Kelway's men. However O'Toole laid an ambush, forcing Kelway's party to take refuge in the tower house at Threecastles. O'Toole's men set fire to the castle, forcing them out. Kelway and up to sixty others were slain and the remainder taken prisoner. Contemporary accounts, including that of Lord Deputy Grey, blamed Kelway. A letter of 22 August 1538 from Sir William Brabazon to Sir Thomas Cromwell describing the events stressed the importance of Rathmore:

Friar Clyn's Annals of Ireland names Rathmore among several settlements on the Pale border raided and burnt by Rory O'More before 1577.

A Letter from the Earl of Kildare to Francis Walsingham described a battle on 17 September 1580. A force of sixty to eighty kern and gallowglass, led by two brothers of Fiach McHugh O'Byrne, had burnt the 'towne' of Rathmore and were retreating into the mountains with a herd of cattle when they met with a party of horse under the Earl and Sir Henry Harrington at a ford. A series of charges broke the O'Byrne force and despite fighting 'a long tyme very valyantly' the Palesmen eventually 'putt them all to the sword savinge two which escaped'. Among those slain were Fiach McHugh O'Byrne's two brothers, his son and Kildare's Lieutenant, George FitzGerald. Alexander Taylor's map of 1783 marks a site on the road between Rathmore and Edestown as 'English Ford' a placename not used on the Ordnance Survey.

Tower houses

The castle of Rathmore recorded in 16th century sources was likely a tower house. The site is unclear. Remains of a separate tower house at Segravescastle survive, attached to a dwelling of possible 17th century date. The ruins of a tower house survive within a cluster of later farm buildings in Blackhall. While a ruined castle marked in Athgarrett on Alexander Taylor's map of 1783 is not marked on the Ordnance Survey, in 1983 a range of late medieval material was recovered from the 'castle field' in Athgarrett. All four sites are recorded in the Record of Monuments and Places. The Civil Survey records at least five additional castles in the parish whose sites are not clearly identifiable including castles in Edestown, Punchestown, and two 'stumps' of castles in Walshtown.

St. Columbcille's Church (Church of Ireland)

Samuel Lewis described St. Columbcille's Church in 1837: "a small plain structure, with a square tower, erected by aid of a grant of £450, in 1766, from the Board of First Fruits, which also granted for it, in 1824, £375, as a gift: it has lately been repaired by a grant of £187 from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners". The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage describes it as a Board of First Fruits-style Gothic-style church erected c. 1780.

Nineteenth Century

The 1831 Census records 1473 people in the parish, with 235 families inhabiting 222 houses. A parliamentary report of 1836 records three public houses in the parish. The First Edition Ordnance Survey map marks a corn mill on the Hartwell River, just north of the village.

A Royal Irish Constabulary Barracks marked on the southern edge of the village on the First Edition Ordnance Survey map is recorded in the Primary Valuations but not marked as a barracks on the 25 inch Ordnance Survey map. The building survives in ruined form.