Medieval settlement hierarchy in Carlow and the Carlow

Corridor 1200-1550.
Linda Doran
The significance of the region now covered by the modern county of Carlow1 in the
medieval period is indicated in the La geste de Engleis en Yrlande, traditionally
known as the Song of Dermot and the Earl.2 Diarmait Mac Murchadh, victorious in
battle, is advised by Robert fitz Stephen to pursue those who had fought against him.
Rejecting this council Diarmait says instead, shall we go to Leighlinbridge straight
along the direct route and take our wounded with us.3 These lines contain the key to
the regions importance; through this area passed the major route way going northsouth the Sligh Chualann as well as the navigable Barrow river (figure1).4 In
addition the territory formed the mid-section of the Carlow Corridor, a
communication channel starting from Ardscull Motte, Co. Kildare and terminating in
the town of New Ross. For any medieval leader hoping to hold sway over the
Lordship of Leinster control of this corridor was vital. When Prendergast and his
Flemings offered their services to Mac Gilla Patraic, after Mac Murchada prevented
them returning to Wales, the former agreed to meet then at St Mullins. This was also a
strategic fording place on the Barrow. The Song recounts how Mac Gilla Patraic
swore an oath with the Flemings on altar and reliquary. The latter would have
contained the relics of St Moling, whose veneration has continued in the area to the
present day.
Both of these places were significant in the pre-Norman period. Leighlinbridge is
located close to the early historic site of Dinn Rig, although the earliest evidence for
settlement is at Old Leighlin, just 1.6 km to the west.5 This Early Christian site
Molaise is likely to have been centred on St Lazarians Cathedral; a curve can be seen

For a discussion of area and composition of the medieval county of Carlow see Adrian Empey, The
liberty and counties of Carlow in the high middle ages, in this volume.
2
Evelyn Mullally (ed.), The deeds of the Normans in Ireland. La Geste des Engleis en Yrlande: a new
edition of the chronicle formerly known as The song of Dermot and the Earl (Dublin, 2001).
3
Ibid., 802-6, p. 73.
4
The routeways shown on this map follow those isolated by Colm O Lochalinn in his paper Roadways
of ancient Ireland in John Ryan (ed.), Fil-sgrbhinn Ein Mhic Nill: essays and studies presented to
Professor Ein MacNeill (Dublin, 1940, reprinted, 1995), pp 465-474.
5
For the early history of Leighlin see Colm Kenny New Leighlin: a forgotten Anglo-Norman
settlement, in this volume; A. Gwynn and R. Hadcock, Med. relig. houses, pp 89-90; AU.

in the south and east boundary wall of the churchyard reflected the line of the early
enclosure (plate i). In addition the base of an early cross lies in the graveyard, while a
small granite ringed cross is located within the modern enclosure of St Molaises well
to the west of the cathedral. The distinction of the monastery is indicated by the
notices of its abbots who are recorded from 737 to 1045. The monastery was
plundered by the Vikings in 916, using the navigable Barrow en route from Waterford
to refound Dublin.6 In 1060 the annals tell us that Lethglenn was burned entirely,
except the oratory, indicating that there was an established settlement at the site.7 In
1111 it was chosen at the Synod of Rathbresaill as one of the five bishoprics of
Leinster. Following the arrival of the Normans the seat was offered to Giraldus
Cambrensis, chronicler of the Norman adventure in Ireland, but he turned it down.8 A
borough may have been established here by Herlewin, the first Norman bishop. The
location was not ideal for such endeavours, however, as it was situated among a
wicked and perverse nations, at the far edge of the diocese, in a mountainous,
inconvenient and barren place.9 By the fourteenth century the settlement here appears
to have been gradually abandoned, overshadowed by the more successful borough at
Leighlinbridge established in the shadow of the motte, built by Hugh de Lacy as part
of a series of fortifications at strategic locations in Leinster that included Carlow and
Tullow.
St Mullins, a site of high strategic importance, occupied a prominent ridge that
commanded the first shallows on the River Barrow after the sea (figure 1, plate ii). All
traffic moving along the Carlow Corridor en route to New Ross or Waterford, whether
by land or water, passed through this narrow collar or the corresponding channel at
Inistioge, Co Kilkenny. This was certainly what attracked the Scandinavians, who had
a short-lived settlement there in the ninth century when the monks fled to Kildare and
established themselves at Timolin.10 The location would later draw the AngloNormans seeking the same strategic advantage. The monastery appears to have been

AFM.
AU.
8
In the interest of following a long established pattern this paper will use the terms Anglo-Norman or
Norman to describe those coming into Ireland initially as part of Diarmait Mac Murchadhas army in
1169. In the second section, 1350-1550, they will be referred to as Anglo-Irish.
9
Maurice Sheehy (ed.), Pontificia Hibernica: medieval Papal chancery documents concerning Ireland,
640-1261, 2 vols ( Dublin, 1965), p. 141. Quoted from a request to the archbishop of Dublin to have
the see transferred to a more convenient location.
10
John Bradley and Heather King, Urban Archaeology Survey: Carlow, (unpublished report, Dublin,
1990), p. 54.
7

founded as a refuge and hermitage; Moling was one of the first named Cl D and
while a number of nature poems are attributed to him very little is actually known of
his life.11 Although St Mullins was to grow into a sizeable settlement it never acquired
the importance of Leighlin. In c. 1160-2 the monastery was granted to the newly
founded Augustinian house at Ferns.12 The initial Anglo-Norman grant of St Mullins
was made in c. 1170 by Richard fitz Gilbert (Strongbow) to Peter Giffard.13 It was
subsequently granted to Raymond le Gros and passed from him to his nephew
William de Carew, who held it with Dunleckny. Sometime before 1207 he granted the
tithes of both St Mullins and Dunleckny to the nunnery of Graney, Co. Kildare. It is
not clear which of these grantees built the motte located to the north-west of the
monastery on a promontory overlooking the shallows in the Barrow.
A number of economic and social changes followed in the wake of these incoming
Anglo-Normans, particularly in areas, such as north Carlow, where there was
sufficient intensity of settlement. Some of these developments, for example the
establishment of a number of successful towns linked to the river and road network,
were genuinely revolutionary in an Irish context. Although some urbanization had
taken place in Ireland around major monastic settlements, such as Armagh, Kildare
and Clonmacnoise, within Carlow there is no evidence to suggest that either St
Mullins or Old Leighlin functioned as towns in the pre-Norman period. New
agricultural techniques and practices were also introduced allowing for expansion in
tillage production, there was also a growth in sheep farming. In other cases the
augmentation of the parish network or transformations within Gaelic Irish society
developments that were already underway were accelerated.
1200-1350
Let us turn first to look at the towns successful and otherwise founded in
Carlow by these entrepreneurs. A glance at figure 2 indicates the crucial role of the
river network in the establishment of a flourishing urban centre. In 1300 almost all the
inland towns of any significance in Ireland were situated on the larger rivers, which,
in addition to their historic role in the partition of territories, took on a new
importance as the main arteries of trade in a period of increased commercial activity.14
11

See ?, de Paor ., in this volume.

Gwynn and Hadcock Med. relig. houses,s p. 44.
13
St John Brooks, Knights fees, p. 61, n. 1.
14
H.B. Clarke, Decolonization and the dynamics of urban decline in Ireland, 1300-1550, in T.R. Slater
(ed.), Towns in decline, A.D. 100-1600 (Aldershoot, 2000). p. 175.
12

In addition smaller towns were established along lesser rivers, which, while not
navigable, provided water power for milling. In medieval Carlow towns of various
sizes and sophistication were associated with the river network, including Carlow
itself, Dunleckny and Leighlinbridge on the Barrow, while Forth and Tullow were
situated close to the Slaney.
Towns depended for their economic lifeblood on trade, both in the agricultural
produce of the manors in their hinterland and from further afield. Ease of transport as
well as freedom from outside interference was essential for such commercial activity
to flourish. The success of New Ross, the focus of this corridor, was based, not only
its location on the Barrow which allowed its traders to travel right up through the
lordship as far as Athy, but also because its founder, William Marshal, secured the
right for ships to by-pass the royal city of Waterford and sail directly into his lordship.
A recurring feature in the history of these towns was the granting of permission to
trade with the local Gaelic Irish population. Urban centres were supplied with
essentials, particularly food, from outside. Over time, as the colony receded in areas
such as Carlow, trade with their Gaelic Irish hinterlands was increasingly important to
the survival of these towns.
The lordship of Leinster was the first Anglo-Norman lordship established in
twelfth-century Ireland when Strongbow assumed the kingdom of Leinster in 1171 on
the death of his father-in-law Diarmait Mac Murchadh. Five years later Strongbow
himself was dead and the lordship passed into the custody of the king, Henry II, who
divided responsibility between various barons. It was re-united again in 1189 when
William Marshal, one of the most illustrious and well-connected courtiers of his time,
was given Isabel, Strongbows daughter and heir, in marriage. In 1247, following the
death of the last of Marshals four sons, all of whom failed to leave a male heir, the
lordship was divided among William Marshals daughters and their offsprings. Most
of the early colonial settlement assemblage in Carlow, however, was laid down during
the regime of Marshal the elder. Leinster was organised into administrative units
attached to their principal castles of Kildare, Kilkenny, Carlow and Wexford. The
lordship of Leinster owed 100 knights to the crown but the lords of Leinster created
181 knights fees there; underlining the economic advantage to whoever held the
lordship if he could settle the land. The figure that the lordship owed the crown
represents a knights fee for every 35 sq. mile, while the latter one every 20 miles. In
Normandy, for comparison, which had somewhere around 13,000 sq miles, there were
4

perhaps 2,500 knights fees in 1172, one for every 5 sq. mile. So by Angevin
standards the proposed settlement of the lordship of Leinster was sparse.15
Within the lordship of Leinster the town of Carlow was an important economic and
strategic asset. The most prominent reminder of the importance of the town of Carlow
in the Middle Ages is the surviving ruin of a thirteenth-century donjon. This form of
castle was common in northern France at this period and examples can be seen at
Alleuze, Montbrun and Aisey-le-Duc.16 The castle was built by William Marshal, who
spent much of his life in France. He also appears to have founded the town, some time
before 1210, since its earliest charter mentions that its burgess rent was fixed in the
time of Geoffrey fit Robert, Marshals seneschal, about 20 years before this date.17
There was an earlier earth and timber castle at the site built in all probability by John
de Clahull.18 During the excavations the western section of a half-moon ditch and
palisade were uncovered running across the low rise on which the stone castle was
later built. The form of this timber castle is unclear since the edges of the ridge were
quarried away in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The excavator suggests,
however, that it consisted of a partial ringwork with a bailey to the north and a service
area and farm buildings outside the defences of the castle. Alternatively it could have
been a low motte formed using the natural rise with its broad summit partitioned into
two sections by the palisade and ditch.19
While there is no independent date for the stone castle that succeeded this timber
fortification, OConor has suggested that it was begun shortly after the establishment
of the borough, between 1210 and 1215.20 The castle is sited a low natural rise at the
confluence of the Barrow and Burren rivers. Throughout the medieval period the
castle was in fact on an island separated from the town by an expanse of bog known
as Moneen an ideal defensive location. This bog was reclaimed in the eighteenth
century and built over thereby linking the castle and town.21 A bridge across the

15

Robert Bartlett, The making of Europe (London, 1993), p. 53.

Herv Mouillebouche, Les maisons forts en Bourgogne du nord du XIIIe au XVIe sicles (Dijon,
2002), p. 69, fig. 19; p. 138.
17
Gearid Mac Niocaill, Na Buirgeisi, xii-x aois, 2 vols (Dublin, 1964), ii p. 134; see also Empey
Liberty and county of Carlow, in this volume.
18
Kieran OConor, Castle of Carlow, in Carloviana (1998), pp 37-41; Brooks, Knights fees, p. 56.
19
OConor, Castle of Carlow, p 38; Kieran OConor, The origins of Carlow Castle, in
Archaeology Ireland, (Autumn, 1997), pp 14-15.
20
Ibid., p. 15.
21
This development can be traced cartographically see A.A. Horner, Two eighteen-century maps of
Carlow town, in RIA Proc., lxxviii C (1978), p 124; p. 127, Pl. 1.
16

Barrow stood close to the castle.22 Morphologically the stone castle at Carlow
belonged to a style popular throughout the Angevin Empire at the start of the
thirteenth century (plate iii). Towards the beginning of the 1230s these castle types
multiplied in Burgundy, they seem, however, to have been in existence over a long
period and numerous proto-types can be found in eleventh-century forms.23 Their
popularity coincided with the emergence of various social, economic and political
factors.24 There is little doubt that Carlow, and similar Irish castles such as Lea, Ferns
and Terryglass belong to this milieu that reached its peak in the 1230s.
First mention of the castle at Carlow occurs in a charter of c.1223.25 It was the seat
of administration for the liberty of Carlow during the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries. The town had 160 burgages and was valued at 24. 12s. 6d. in 1247 when it
passed into the hands of the earls of Norfolk following the death of Anselm Marshal.
In 1283 the treasurer of Carlow returned 23 6s. 8d. for the farm of the oven and mill
at Carlow, comparatively the mills at New Ross for the same period returned 33. 6s
8d. Roger, fifth earl of Norfolk made an arrangement with Edward I whereby he was
cleared of his debts by surrendering his estates and on his death in 1306 Carlow
returned to the crown.26 It was administered by the crown until 1312, when the lands
were granted by Edward II to his half-brother Thomas de Brotherton, reverting to the
crown on his execution in 1338. The fact that the town was in the hands of the crown
probably explains why the town was chosen by Lionel, duke of Clarence, as the seat
of government in Ireland between 1361 and 1394.27
The castle was the location of the government exchequer during this period.
Discussion of the role of the castle in the settlement hierarchy of the medieval world
often concentrates on defensive or architectural aspects. Yet, one of the most
important function of a castle is as the administrative core of a lordship. The survival
of account rolls of the Bigods, earls of Norfolk for the period 1279-1294 allow us to
appreciate the significance of this governmental role and to grasp the interdependence

22

This was in existence in 1569. Horner, Two eighteen-century maps of Carlow town, p. 125, fn 36.
Mouillebouche, Maisons fortes en Bourgogne , p. 445
24
Ibid.
25
Mac Niocaill, Na Buirgeisi, xii-xv aois, ii pp 131, 133.
26
For an intriguing discussion of the relationship between Roger and Edward I see Marc Morris, The
Bigod earls of Norfolk in the thirteenth century (Woodbridge, 2005). pp 153-171.
27
For the context and implications of this decision see Philomema Connolly, the head and comfort of
Leinster: Carlow as the administrative capital of Ireland, 1360-1394, in this volume.
23

between the caput and other manors in a lordship.28 Towns, such as Carlow with their
great castles, were frequently centres for the receipt of revenue and the holdings of
courts. One of the most important rooms in the castle was the great hall. Lordship was
a public function and the great hall of the lords castle was the principal setting. Here
the lords tenants and followers periodically assembled at the great feasts of the
Church and on judicial and fiscal occasions. As Coulson noted The banquets of
popular romances were but one of the uses of the great hall.29
In examining the history of settlement we are confined by the forms of evidence
available to us. In the case of documentary sources these are in the main fiscal
records, designed to record expenditure and obligations not social interaction.
Nevertheless accounts such as those maintained by the Bigod ministers provide a
route to understanding the multifaceted role of castles and offer a balance to a purely
military image. Within the accounts maintenance and upkeep were cited as a frequent
outlay, in Carlow, for example, extensive repairs were carried out to the great hall. It
was roofed with wooden shingles 12,000 of which came from the wood of
Dunleckny, at a cost to the exchequer of 8s per 1000.30 Timber, boards and laths were
also brought from Dunleckny and from Tullow for repairs to the hall and to the wall
of the kitchen, located in one of the towers and also to the prison. The exchequer
house of the castle was refurbished with 130 boards brought from Tullow. This office
may have been accommodated in one of the towers, where the lower part would form
the treasurers bureau and court and the upper floors contain the treasury and records
office. A chest was bought for 4s. 6d. to hold the rolls of assizes and county records.
Despite all this effort when the castle and hall passed into the hands of the crown in
1306 the castle is described as badly roofed and the castle had to be refurbished
again in order to accommodate the exchequer in the fourteenth century. The 1306
account also notes that opposite the castle is a hall in which pleas of the county and
of assize are hold; in the [castle and hall] there are many defects, as well in the roof

28

James Mills, Accounts of the earl of Norfolks estates in Ireland 1279-1294, in JRSAI, xxii (1892)
pp 50- 65; for a discussion of the general administration of the Bigod lordship of Carlow see Margaret
Murphy The profits of lordship: Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk and the lordship of Carlow, in Linda
Doran and James Lyttleton (eds), Lordship in medieval Ireland: image and reality (Dublin, 2007), pp
79-85; Connoly the head and comfort of Leinster, in this volume.
29
Charles Coulson, Castle in medieval society: fortresses in England, France and Ireland in the
central middle ages (Oxford, 2003), p. 85.
30
Mills, Accounts of the earl of Norfolks estates in Ireland 1279-1294, pp 52-3.

and as in the walls, so that they can be extended at no price; no one would rent
them.31
Two of the settlements supplying materials for the repair of the earls caput
Dunleckny and Tullow provide examples of different forms of rural boroughs
within the lordship of Carlow which enjoyed contrasting levels of success.
Dunleckny, now a deserted medieval borough, was originally granted by Strongbow
to Raymond le Gros.32 He in turn bestowed it to his nephew, William de Carew and it
remained in the hands of that family until 1324.33 We know that the borough was
established before 1207 since there was a grant of burgages there and at St Mullins to
the nunnery of Graney, Co. Kildare.34 Similar grants were made to St Marys Abbey,
Dublin at around the same time.35 Murphy has noted that there was an attempt at
Dunleckny in 1288 to emulate the success of the agricultural expansion at the manor
of Fennagh in the early 1280s.36 This was not a success since in 1306-7 a jury
examining the Bigod lands reported that There are at Dunlek and Leghlyn 55 acres of
land whereof 14 are worth 7s. a year; the residue lies waste for defect of tenants and
the poverty of the land.37 To the west of the graveyard at Dunleckny there is remains
of a large oval-shaped mound; this may be a motte marking the administrative centre.
Tullow like Old Leighlin was an important centre prior to the arrival of the AngloNormans.38 Situated in the east of the county, seven miles from the seat at Carlow,
surviving monuments and documentary sources suggest that Tullow was the site of an
early monastery founded by Fortchern, a disciple of St Patrick.39 The death of
Diarmuid Cele, erenagh of Tealach Foirtcheirn and Aghowle is recorded in 1050.40
The initial Norman grant at Tullow was to William de Angulo but he dones not
appear to have taken up the grant since in 1181 Hugh de Lacy built a castle there for
John de Hereford.41 The location of this castle has been a matter of debate; Bradley
has suggested that it was at the site of a castle which was illustrated in the seventeenth
31

Cal. doc. Ire., v, no. 617.

Mullally (ed.), The deeds of the Normans in Ireland, 3064-5, p. 131.
33
Brooks, Knights fees, pp 60-2.
34
Ibid., p. 61.
35
John T. Gilbert (ed.), Chartularies of St Marys Abbey, Dublin, 2 vols (1884), i, pp 112-3.
36
Murphy The profits of lordship: Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk and the lordship of Carlow, pp 8991.
37
Cal. doc. Ire. 1203-7, p. 175.
38
For a detailed study of the settlement see Margaret Murphy, Tullow from medieval manor to
market town, in this volume.
39
Gwynn and Hadcock, Med. relig. houses, pp 408, 390.
40
AFM.
41
Cambrensis, Expugnatio, p. 195.
32

century by Thomas Dineley, while OKeefe believes that it is marked by a mound in

the townland of Mountwolseley to the south of the town.42 There is a castle mentioned
at Tullow 1294, remnants of which OKeeffe suggests can be seen in the Dineley
drawing. Five years later while Carlow, as part of the fitz Gilbert de Clare lands, was
held by the crown, Tullowphelim (Tullow Ofelan) was grant by Prince John to
Theobald Walter, who had accompanied John to Ireland in 1185. He was part of a
group of advisers intended by Henry II to form a court around John. Theobald held
the office of Butler of Ireland, an office from which his descendants later took their
name.
The trail of the grants at Tullow illustrates the difficulties William Marshal had in
gaining possession of his Irish lands following his marriage to Isabel de Clare because
John had already granted them to his followers in a manner similar to the grant at
Tullow. Marshal appealed to Richard I, who insisted on seisin being given to him.
Nevertheless John obtained an exception for Theobald Walter, who would keep his
Irish lands but would hold them of William Marshal. A renewal of the grant to Walter
of Tullow in 1192 indicates that there was an earlier grantee, named Jordan,43 who
held Tullow from Strongbow the term of Walters grant were to be the same as
those of Jordan that is the service of four knights.44 Tullow remained in the hands of
the Butlers throughout the Middle Ages.45 There is no definite date for the foundation
of the borough but it was probably within Theobalds lifetime.46 In 1302 there were
around 93 burgesses accounting for 4.13s annually.47 In 1305 a tavern is recorded in
the town and an Augustinian friary was founded in 1314 indicating that there was a
level of prosperity in the settlement.48
One of the most successful of these market settlements was that at Leighlinbridge,
mentioned above. This was attributable in its location as an important crossing point
on the Barrow. The earliest direct reference to a borough at Leighlin is in 1292 when

42

Bradley and King, Urban Archaeology Survey: Carlow p. 69; Tadhg OKeeffe The castle of
Tullow, Co. Carlow, in Journal of the Kildare Archaeological Society, xvi (1985-6), pp 528-9; E.P.
Shirley, Extracts from the journal of Thomas Dineley, esquire, giving some account of his visit to
Ireland in the reign of Charles II, in JRSAI, vi (1862-3), pp 38-52.
43
Perhaps Jordan de Cantitune, a son of Mabilla a sister Raymond le Gros, see G.H. Orpen The castle
of Raymond de Gros at Fodredunolan, in JRSAI, xxxvi (1906), p. 369.
44
St John Brooks, Knights fees, p. 97.
45
James Mills Cal. justic.rolls Ire. 1305-1307, p. 344.
46
C.A. Empey, Theobald Walter, in The journal of the Butler society, iii (1986-7), pp 18-21.
47
Red Book of Ormond, p. 45.
48
Cal. justic. rolls Ire. 1305-1307, p. 36; Gwynn and Hadcock, Med. relig. houses, p. 302.

a Bibald Castiner, burgess of Leighlin is mentioned.49 A account of fracas involving

the burgesses of Leighlin and the bishop of Ossory in 1303 provides a picture of a
lively, if somewhat disorderly town. During the episode the bishop and his retinue
were attacked as they passed through the town on their way to Castledermot
Leighlinbridge in addition to its importance as a crossing point was the focus a
number of early routeways, including the Sligh Chualann.50 Among those accused are
Roger the smith, Ric. Le Tayllour and Adam le Tannere. The provost of the town, one
Thomas le Chapman, is also named. The settlement is called New Leghelyn,
presumably to distinguish it from Old Leighlin. The account mentions particularly the
house of Ralph le Tannere which was protected by a strong door, since it resisted the
attempts of the bishops servants to break it down. It had a yard behind which had
access to the street, indicating that the house occupied a burgage plot of the standard
form.51
The principal focus of the town appears to have been on the east bank of the river,
although streets are mentioned in the account cited above unfortunately none are
named. While it is likely that there was some form of settlement on the western side
of the Barrow it was probably too small to be regarded as a suburb in the true sense.52
It is an indication of the importance of the routeway along which Leighlinbridge stood
the highway from Dublin to Carlow and Kilkenny that it was among the first
towns to have a stone bridge in 1320.53 This would, of course have been a costly
exercise and a sign of a continuing prosperity in the region, despite the recent
devastation cause by the Bruce wars. It is also a mark of the importance of the Carlow
Corridor to the crown that investment in such expensive infrastructure was seen as
worthwhile at a time when the colony in general was in decline and revenue down.
Another signal of the prosperity of the town was the foundation of the earliest
Carmelite foundation in the country; the house was established sometime before 1272
by one the Carews.54 It was situated on the east bank of the river and, following its

49

Cal. doc. Ire. 1252-1284, no. 1087.

Kenny, New Leighlin, in this volume; O Lochalinn in his paper Roadways of ancient Ireland,
map.
51
John Bradley, Planned Anglo-Norman towns in Ireland, in H.B. Clarke and Anngret Simms (eds),
The comparative history of urban origins in non-Roman Europe (Oxford, 1985), pp 417-20; Kenny
suggests that the initial settlement may have been located close to the motte at Ballyknockan, New
Leighlin, in this volume.
52
Bradley and King, Urban Archaeology Survey: Carlow p. 34.
53
Orpen, Normans, iv, p. 209. New Ross, for example, still had a timber bridge in 1841.
54
Gwynn and Hadcock, Med. relig. houses, p. 291.
50

10

construction, the friars received a royal grant to maintain the bridge and its associated
castle.55
Another successful boroughs was that at Forth, today little remains, however, to note
this former importance. After Carlow it was the largest Anglo-Norman settlement in
the county but its location was unknown until Orpen succeeded in identifying it with
Castlemore in the early years of the twentieth century.56 Throughout the middles ages
it was know as Fothereth or Fodredunolan (Fotharta U Nuallain) rather by than the
modern name of Castlemore, which was derived from the castle of Raymond Gros; in
the Register of St Thomas, Dublin it is referred to as terra de villa Castri.57 In a grant
of land by Raymond le Gros and his wife Basilia to St Mary and St David at Forth the
church is described as de castello nostro de theud de Radcilla of our castle of the
tuath of Radcillan.58 This earlier name, sometimes given as Rathsilan or Radsalin,
may point to a pre-Norman settlement at the site.59 The fact that Lemanah graveyard,
which Orpen has identified with the church mentioned above, is at the confluence of a
number of roads enhances this possibility.
According to Giraldus Cambrensis the motte here was constructed in 1181 by Hugh
de Lacy for Raymond le Gros (plate iv).60 The remains are of a truncated mound
surrounded by a deep fosse some 4-5m in diameter.61 Orpen noted north-west of the
mound a roughly square raised platform enclosed by a ditch, this was probably the
bailey of the castle. He also observed indications of masonry, these, he was told, were
taken from a low mound north-east of the castle. This mound contained large blocks
of hammer-dressed granite which Orpen believed came from a later Bigod castle;
ODonovan thought that they were remains of a castle associated with the Eustace
family. An inquisition of 1306 on the death of the earl of Norfolk contains an account
of Forth including a descriptions of A stone chamber covered with shingles and
boards and valued at nothing, and no one will hire it, a grange of ten principal beams
(furcis), almost fallen, of no value except the beams.62 This building may be related
to the masonry seen by Orpen. Forth, an area larger than the modern barony, was
55

Chartae, privilegia et immunitates (Dublin, 1829), p. 92.

G.H. Orpen The castle of Raymond de Gros, pp 369-370 ; Empey is unconvinced by the
identifiction, Liberty and counties of Carlow, in this volume.
57
J.T. Gilbert, Register of the Abbey of St Thomas, Dublin (London, 1889), no cxxxviii, p. 119.
58
Ibid. no. cxxxi, p. 114.
59
Ibid. no. cxxxvi, p. 117; no. cxxxviii, p. 119.
60
Cambrensis, Expugnatio, p. 195.
61
Brindley and Kilfeather, Archaeological inventory of County Carlow, p. 78.
62
Cal. justic .rolls Ire. 1305-1307, p. 346.
56

11

granted by Strongbow to Raymond in 1174 following the latters marriage to Basilia,

who was Strongbows sister. Raymond died without leaving a male heir, sometime
after 1201, and Forth reverted to the Marshals as the legatees of Strongbow.63 It later
passed to the earls of Norfolk.
Most of our information on the early development of the manor at Forth is connected
with the generosity of Basilia, her husband and their family to the Abbey of St
Thomas in Dublin. In Carlow, in common with practices in general in the Corridor
and elsewhere, the revenues and advowsons of churches were granted to religious
houses outside the immediate area. This practice was popular because it achieved two
key objectives of the incoming Anglo-Norman lords: the creation of a functioning
parish system essential to their way of life by handing the day-to-day provision
of pastoral care over to the houses endowed with the tithes, and the economic
provision for newly founded religious houses. At a time of intense military activity
the system permitted lords to be about the business of making the revenue they were
granting available. The church of St Mary and St David at Forth was granted to St
Thomas, Dublin and over time various parcels of land were added to the bequest.64
Similarly St Thomas received grants of the ecclesiastical rights of Straboe from
Raymonds sister Mabilla, wife of Nicholas de Cantitune, from her son Raymond the
benefices with a carucate of land which he held of his uncle in Odrone, while Robert
de Cantitune granted the church at Barrack with a half carucate of land.65 The tenants
of Theobald Walter dealt with their benefices in a comparable manner: William de
Burc, who held land in Ardoyne, south of Tullow and Roger of Leicester, who had
lands at Kilmacart, near Hacketstown, were both patrons of St Thomas in Dublin.66
Hennessy has shown that in Tipperary, where a similar situation prevailed, that the
parish system was used, by religious houses as a basis for revenue collection to the
neglect of pastoral care.67
In the initial grant of land to the church of St Mary and St David it is noted that the
boundary of the castle, the fovea, was perambulated by Raymond publicly marking

63

A charter of Basilias after Raymonds death is confirmed by William Marshal the younger. Register
of the Abbey of St Thomas, no. cxxxvii, p. 118.
64
See for example Register of the Abbey of St Thomas, no. cxxvii, p. 110, no. cxviii, p. 111 and no.
cxxxvi, p. 117.
65
Ibid., nos cxxxii, cxxxiii, pp 115-6; nos cxxi, cxxii, p. 106.
66
Ibid., nos cxix; cxxv; cxxvi, p. 117.
67
Mark Hennessy, Manorial organisation in early thirteenth-century Tipperary, in Irish Geography,
xxix (1996), pp 116-125.

12

the defensive ditch of his castle from church land. In the early thirteenth century
Simon, Abbot of St Thomas, granted seven burgages with twelve acres of land in
abbeys land in the vill of Fothered, between the River Slaney and the said vill.68
This would suggest that the borough was located close to the castle and church. An
account of a fracas in the town in 1305 mentions William Cachepol, serjeant of the
town and the house of William Glannoc.69 The jury for the 1307 inquisition record
that there were 79 burgesses and 29 cottegers as well as a number of smiths and a
decayed mill.70
The first land grant of Basilia and Raymonds to St Mary and St David includes a
clause Reversing, nevertheless the site of a mill and of a fishery .in that part where
it [the land] slopes down to the Slaney.71 A corn mill site is marked on the Ordnance
Survey sheet and a weir was located close to Poolcaam, a place noted in description of
the boundaries of the parish of Villa Castri at Foorthynolan.72 In the 1307
inquisition the mill is described as decayed; in Fynnagh a similar situation existed
where the jury found that the mill was waste and prostrate. The value to an estate of
the the mill can be seen from the returns for the mill at Forth which had been very
profitable returning 9.8s.6d. in 1283 when the mill and oven at Carlow returned just
over 13 for the same period.73 Mills were a vital element in the economic
organization of any estate. The grinding of corn at the lords mill was a normal part of
tenancy arrangements. The fact that mills in two of the principal boroughs are in
decay by the early fourteenth century is a clear indication that the colony in Carlow
was under pressure before the major upheavals caused by the Bruce war and the Black
Death.
There are ten surviving or recorded mottes for Co. Carlow, however, if we look at the
motte distribution within the Carlow Corridor (figure 2) it can be seen that some sites
are on or very close to the modern county boundary. This is, of course, why countybased distribution pattern are so unsatisfactory. There are no recorded ringworks for
Carlow other than that which underlay Carlow castle. This lack of sites may, however,
be related to the difficulty of identifying these monuments in the field. Their
morphology an embanked circular enclosure with deep peripheral banks and
68

Register of the Abbey of St Thomas, no. cxxxiii, pp 115-6.

Cal. justic. rolls Ire. 1305-1307, p. 36.
70
Ibid., p. 36.
71
Register of the Abbey of St Thomas, no. cxxxvi, p. 117
72
Ibid., no. cxxxiii, pp 115-6.
73
Mills, Accounts of the earl of Norfolks estates in Ireland 1279-1294, pp 52-3.
69

13

ditches as well as a fortified gate tower resembles that of raths.74 While the
problems of identification in the field are not as acute as those connected to
ringworks, nevertheless, mottes, particularly the smaller and flatter examples, can
present difficulties. This is exacerbated by a lack of documentary records clearly
linked to individual mottes, although Carlow is better served than other areas of the
Corridor in this regard. Where sites are mentioned in the sources, however, it is
sometimes uncertain if the structure referred to is a motte.75 The available
archaeological evidence for motte construction is severely limited; very few have
been excavated, and most of the work has taken place in Ulster.76 Excavation
evidence dates construction in Ireland to the period 1170-1220, but these excavations
have usually concentrated on the summits, with the result that the current state of our
knowledge of the chronology and status of baileys and ancillary features is
rudimentary, and we know little of the construction techniques. Sweetman has noted
that some of the most important Marshal castles in Leinster in 1231 were
earthworks.77 This is a reminder to us that timber and earthen castles came in various
degrees of complexity and were not simply an expediency for the initial conquest.78
The reality was that timber fortification was an enduring element in castle
construction, being quicker to build and less costly than stone. This, however, is
obscured by the fact that the evidence for such monuments is only discernible by
excavation.
Mottes were not an exclusively Norman earthwork type: they are a feature of the
landscape of Europe as far east as Austria, and seem to be absent only in Iberia,
Norway and Sweden.79 Almost all examples were built between the end of the tenth
74

T.B.Barry, The archaeology of medieval Ireland (London, 1987), p. 45.

This can lead to problems in the identification of the precise location of a site mentioned in the
sources, for example, there are a variety of opinion as to the exact situation of the motte at
Leighlinbridge mentioned by Giraldus, Expugnatio, p.191; Kenny New Leighlin, in this volume. For
a discussion of the problems attached to the identification of particular site types in documentary
sources in France see Mouillebouche, Maisons fortes en Bourgogne , p. 95.
76
The list of excavated mottes in Ciln Drisceoil, Recycled ringforts: the evidence from
archaeological excavation for the conversion of pre-existing monuments to motte castles in medieval
Ireland, County Louth Archaeological and Historical Journal, 25: 2 (2002), pp199201 illustrates
how little solid information is available.
77
Sweetman, Medieval castles in Ireland, p. 26.
78
For the complexity possible in earth and timber fortifications see Robert Higham and Philip Barker,
Hen Domen, Montgomery: a timber castle on the English-Welsh border a final report (Exeter, 2000);
Jacques Le Maho, Un grand chteau de terre et de bois aux environs de lAn mil: lEnciente forte de
Notre-Dame de Gravenchon (Haute-Normandy), Chteau Gaillard 21: dudes de castellologie
mdivale (2004), 191-201.
79
Tadhg OKeeffe, The archaeology of Norman castles in Ireland, part 1, mottes and ringworks, in
Archaeology Ireland, iii (1990), p. 16.
75

14

century and the start of the thirteenth century by societies that could broadly be
termed feudal. In Ireland there was the development of indigenous settlement forms in
the second half of the twelfth century, perhaps inspired by the imported AngloNorman mottes. The majority of raised raths excavated, for example, provide some
evidence of use in the medieval period. There are a number of possible examples in
Carlow including, Ardristan, Ballymoon, Ballyryan and Bough.80 These sites are
usually more than 3m above the surrounding ground level and lack the fosse and bank
of the typical rath. They often incorporate a natural feature which raises the site; in
other instances the elevation is caused by successive layers of occupation. The
platform rath, another type yielding late occupation material, was usually deliberately
heightened by human labour. In Ulster many of these raths were raised in the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and are located in areas traditionally viewed as
being within the sphere of Anglo-Norman influence. In Carlow raised raths noted
above are all in the northern part of the county the area of greatest Anglo-Norman
settlement (figure 2). Carlow was used by McNeill as a test case to establish if an
alternative form of earthen castle might fill in the gaps left in the motte
distribution.81 During this exercise he considered all monuments of whatever date
listed as castles, documented manorial centres, and the sites of all parish churches. No
other type emerged and there was no evidence of ringworks that could be
distinguished from standard raths.
The recognition that the types of military earthwork introduced by the AngloNormans were more complex than mottes has changed the view that their presence is
key indication of Anglo-Norman settlement. In fact the existence of the ringwork and
the possibility of the Gaelic motte have rendered all deductions based on the
distribution of mottes of little value.82 In the southern and western foothills of the
Slieve Bloom Mountains, bordering the western Carlow Corridor, here are a number
of square mottes which OConor has suggested are late possibly midthirteenth
century.83 These could represent either an Anglo-Norman attempt to fortify the passes
leading into the Corridor or they may be of Gaelic construction. In a survey of
evidence for re-use of rath in the construction of mottes, Drisceoils found that 54
80

Brindley and Kilfeather, Archaeological inventory of County Carlow, pp 40 -3.

T.E. McNeill, Early castles in Leinster in Journal of Irish Archaeology, v (1990), p. 58.
82
K.W. Nicholls, Anglo-French Ireland and after, in Peritia, i (1982), p. 391.
83
Kieran OConor, The later construction and use of motte and bailey castles in Ireland: new evidence
from Leinster, JKAS, 17 (1991), pp 14-24.
81

15

per cent of fifteen excavated mottes had re-used existing raths as a foundation.84 Even
allowing for the north-eastern bias in motte excavations, the fact that over 50% of
mottes excavated have evidence for re-use and that there was a significant time-lag
between the sequential monuments in 25 per cent of the cases, suggested that this may
be more than the exploitation of an available sub-structure. The symbolic takeover of
sites may be a possible motivation, although, most motte locations in Carlow have
little previously recorded community significance.
A number of mottes in Carlow marked the caputs of the more successful rural market
settlements. Others, such as Castlegrace, Inchisland and Straboe were the centres of
manors. McNeill argued that these castle are the fruits of conquest not the means to
it.85 Mottes in Carlow, as elsewhere in the Corridor, tend to be large, astutely but not
especially strategically sited. They were off the bog and below the 150m contour and
are found on land that today supports arable farming or good grazing land. They are
sited at the end of ridges or the sides of small valley.86 The height of many of the
surviving mottes in the region is remarkable; in addition mottes were not associated
with holdings of more than a fee.87 There is, therefore, a clear correlation between the
status of the grantee and the size of the motte. The distribution of these castle sites in
Co. Carlow seems to be related to family and feudal connections rather than to
strategic considerations.
This is exemplified by the group of mottes clustered around Tullow. Castlegrace, 6
km east of Forth, was held by Robert de Cantitune of his uncle Raymond le Gros. As
noted above he granted the church of Barragh to St Thomas, Dublin; Barragh has
been identified with Castlegrace by Brooks.88 Today there are the remains of a large,
flat-topped mound (c 12m) sited in a commanding position in rolling countryside
(plate iv). The remains of the nearby parish church consist of a long, narrow structure
which is unenclosed. The base of a granite font as well as part of a rotary quern were

84

Drisceoil, Recycled ringfort, pp 1937, in particular fig. 1, p. 190; for a discussion of motte
substructures in Britain see M.W. Thompson, Motte substructures, Medieval Archaeology, 5 (1961),
3056.
85
McNeill, Early castles in Leinster, p. 60.
86
Ibid., p. 60.
87
A study of mottes in Wales revealed a similar preference among early examples impressive
structures. C.J. Spurgeon, Mottes and castle-ringworks in Wales in J.R. Kenyon and Richard Avent
(eds), Castles in Wales and the marches: essays in honour of D.J. Cathcart King (Cardiff, 1987), p.
32.
88
Brooks, Knights fees, p.71.

16

found outside the church.89 Robert de Cantitune died without heirs and the lands
reverted to the Marshal overlords. It was later granted to the le Gras family three of
whom had followed their uncle William Marshal the elder to Ireland and are frequent
witnesses to the charters of both William and his sons.90 In 1300-5 William le Gras
granted to Edmund Butler of Ireland and his heirs Castrum Gras which is called
Tollathynerth in Offothirith [Forth] by the service of a knights fee, as he hold said
lands of the gift of Edmund his father.91 In 1545 the lands are mentioned in the will
of James Butler, earl of Ormond.92
To Mabilla, the mother of Raymond and Robert, le Gros granted lands in the parish of
Straboe where the motte which marks the caput is known as Motabower. The site has
been largely quarried away but the motte appears to have been low c. 4-5m high. On
the wall of the nearby church, which is known as Templeboy church, is a medieval
graveslab with a double-edged cross in relief.93 At Inchisland or Motalusha, just 2 km
south-west of Forth, Raymond le Gros granted lands to William Danmartin. The
family may have been part of Raymonds retinue since a Stephen de Danmartin
witnessed a charter of Raymond and Basilia giving land to the church at Castlemore.94
Basilia and her second husband, Geoffrey fitz Robert purchased Motalusha from
William Danmartin c.1200.95 This castle distribution, as far as a pattern can be
discerned, was related firstly to the waterway of the Barrow, with Carlow,
Leighlinbridge and St Mullins and secondly with the exploitation of good agricultural
land in the south of the county. The early grants in this area in the main being to
family or followers of the chief grantees.
In the second half of the thirteenth century a second wave of settlers, perhaps drawn
by the profits to be made in supplying the royal army in Scotland, was marked on the
landscape by the moated site. That these sites mark an outreach of the colony into new
regions in response to the need for more land is borne out by the distribution of these
sites in Co. Carlow (figure 2).96 The pattern is focused along the eastern Barrow
valley and around the boroughs of Forth and Tullow in the north-east. Functionally
89

Edward OToole, The parish of Ballon, County Carlow, in JKAS, xi, (1933), p. 245.
Brooks, Knights fees, p.72.
91
Edmund Curtis (ed.), Calendar of Ormond Deeds, 6 vols (Dublin 1932-70), i, p. 340.
92
Ibid., iv, p. 289.
93
Brindley and Kilfeather, Archaeological inventory of County Carlow, p. 73.
94
Register of the Abbey of St Thomas no. cxxxi, p. 114.
95
Ibid., no cxxvii, p. 110; no cxxviii, pp 111-12.
96
T. B. Barry Medieval moated sites of south east Ireland, British Archaeological Reports, 35 (1977),
pp 126-175.
90

17

moated sites were the defended farmsteads of important tenants strong farmers
who did not command a castle but who were large landholders. Empey, examining the
manor of Knocktopher, found no relationship between moated sites and the centres of
military fiefs in the area.97 He therefore consigned moated sites to the secondary
settlement of the manor evidence from elsewhere in the county appears to support
this thesis.98 Excavated moated sites show evidence of occupation at the end of the
thirteenth century, lasting until the first half of the fourteenth century. At
Ballyloughan moated site the eastern moat is located within a few metres of the
western fosse of the late thirteenth-early fourteenth-century castle. It is possible that
the moated site may have been connected with the construction of the castle and
would date to the second half of the thirteenth century.99
In the landscape these sites can be recognised as rectangular earthworks,
approximately 500-4000m2 in area, generally around 2,000m2 with raised corners
where the internal banks have been formed from upcast from the digging of the
surrounding moat. The latter were usually between 2m and 10m in width with a Ushaped profile. The principal source of water for the moat was not usually rainwater;
in most cases water was diverted to and from the moat by channels or leats from
nearby streams or springs. In the field these leats, where they are visible, provide a
persuasive factor in the identification of moated sites. A site with both internal and
external banks as well as a moat of remarkable dimensions is that at Killeeshal
Located in the south-west of the county just 30m west of the Barrow the site was
prone to flooding.100 The raised platform has an areas of 1,558m2 and is enclosed by a
moat 5m wide and 1m in depth. There are internal banks of 5.5m wide and 50cm
high. An aerial photo of Killeeshal shows that the moated site was constructed on part
of an existing rath or large enclosure.101 This also appears to have been the case at the

97

C.A. Empey, Medieval Knocktopher, in Old Kilkenny Review (1984), i, pp 329-42; (1985), ii, pp
441-52.
98
Linda Doran, Role of the Carlow Corridor (Unpublished report, HCI, 2003), pp 39-47; Medieval
settlement in the Suir Valley(Unpublished report, HCI, 2004), pp 38-37. In regions with a continuous
and dominant Gaelic Irish presence and where Anglo-Norman settlement is later, moated sites occur as
part of the general sub-enfeudation and were built by both cultural groups. Linda Forde Doran,
Medieval settlement in Longford and Roscommon (PhD thesis, UCD, 2001), pp 182-191.
99
Barry Medieval moated sites of south east Ireland, p. 89.
100
Ibid., p. 58.
101
Barry Medieval moated sites of south east Ireland, plate 8, p. 65; J.K. St Joseph, Cambridge
University Collection (ALV 30).

18

moated site close to the thirteenth-century castle at Ballymoon and at Spahill.102 The
evidence noted above both for the re-use of raths in the construction of mottes and the
possibility that in Gaelic controlled areas where moated sites were built by native
lords, suggests that not all moated sites in Carlow are a result of the arrival of new
settlers.103 Barry has noted that rath such as Coolmanagh, which is almost rectangular
in shape and has an area of 4,761m2, may represent an Irish adaptation of elements of
the moated site.104 Whatever the cultural context of these moated site, however, within
a settlement hierarchy they represent agricultural activity on the landscape.
These square raths were initially recognised in the early nineteenth century, but it
was Orpen who first suggested that they were probably medieval in date and belonged
to a period immediately after mottes ceased to be constructed a remarkable
conclusion which has subsequently been borne out by archaeological research.
Carlow has fewer moated sites than other areas of the Carlow Corridor. This may be
related to the increasingly unsettled conditions in the region at the end of the
thirteenth century. A signal that the colony in Carlow was under pressure came in
1297 when the Mrdha moved into the Barrow valley and attacked Leighlinbridge.
Two years earlier in 1295 the seneschal of the liberty of Carlow was given permission
to treat with the Nuallin and William Talun.105 This permission probably
formalised what was already taking place. The naming of both Gaelic Irish and
Anglo-Irish families in this licence provides an insight of the complexity of
relationships in frontier regions such as Carlow in the second half of the twelfth
century. In 1305 An Calbhach Mrdha, and twenty-nine of the nobles of his people
were murdered by Sir Pier Bermingham in Caislen Ferais (Carbury Castle,
Kildare).106 This annihilation of the Mrdha facilitated the rise of Laoiseach
Conchobair. Under his leadership there was increased raiding on settlements in the
Liberties of Kilkenny and Carlow. The situation was not help by a feud between
Arnold le Poer and John de Boneville during January 1310 for control of the office of
seneschal of Kildare and Carlow, during which Carlow was laid waste. Leighlinbridge

102

Other examples of the re-use of raths occur elsewhere in the region and in other parts of the country.
These include: Garryrichard and Garnakill in Co. Wexford, Bral Boru, Co Clare and Lismahon, Co.
Down.
103
K.D. OConor, The archaeology of medieval rural settlement (Dublin, 1998), pp 87-9; Forde Doran,
Medieval settlement in Longford and Roscommon, pp 182191.
104
Barry Medieval moated sites of south east Ireland, p. 73.
105
Cal. justic.rolls Ire. 1295-1303, p. 73.
106
Samus hInnse (ed.) Miscellaneous Irish annals, 1114-1437 (Dublin, 1947), p.131.

19

received a murage grant in 1310 as did Tullow in 1343. At the same period the Mac
Murchadh occupied the barony of Idrone, thereby controlling the communication
routes between Carlow and Dublin.107
It is clear that in the conditions of lawlessness, which pervaded these border regions,
isolated farmers needed water-filled trenches and earthen banks with wooden
palisades to protect themselves, their cattle and their goods from cattle raiders and the
neighbours, both Gaelic Irish and Anglo-Norman. No moated sites in Co Carlow have
been excavated. As well as secular occupation some moated sites were the granges of
religious houses. At the appropriately named Friarstown, also known as Killerrig,
there were a moated site with an attached rectangular enclosure and tower house; with
extensive cropmarks in the area around the tower house. There was an abbey site to
the south of the complex. The remains here consist of a portion of a door jamb, quoin
and some dressed stone. A holy water stoop was found on the site but has now been
relocated.108 Between the abbey and the complex is a large irregular enclosure
which may have been part of the field system. This complex was associated with the
Knights Hospitallers preceptory of St John the Baptist.109 The house was founded by
Gilbert de Borard and was confirmed to the Hospitallers by Innocent III in 1212.
Ware believed that the preceptory was originally held by the Templars, however,
while Templars acquired land in this area in 1284, Killerrig is not mentioned in the
certificate of 1326-7.110 At the Dissolution the jury, who were all from the Friarstown
area, found that the complex contained a castle in ruins situated on the borders of
the Irish called the McMurroughes, the Mores, the Byrnes; and three messuages. At
the court of Kyllargan there were two messuages with (in great measure where each
acre equalled two acres) nine acres of arable, five acres of pasture and underwood.
This was held by Donald Moyne and others at a rent of 76s. with the traditional
ploughdays, cartdays, turfdays, weedingdays and hookdays.111
The ruling in 1255 that mass could be celebrated in outlying granges of religious
houses allowed these outfarms to be sited at some distance from the original abbeys.
In the fourteenth century, the Bruce wars in which wide-spread devastation was
caused by both side in Co Carlow, the famines which followed and the Black Death
107

For a general discussion of conditions and measures taken to address them see Connolly, Head
and comfort of Leinster, in this volume.
108
Now located at St Patricks College, Carlow.
109
Gwynn and Hadcock, Med. Relig. houses, pp 336-7.
110
ibid., p 336; Charles MacNeill (ed), Registrum de Kilmanham (Dublin, 1943), p. 152.
111
N. B. White (ed.), Extents of the Irish monastic possessions 1540-1541 (Dublin, 1943), p. 97-8.

20

increased the dependence of the religious orders hired labour to work their granges.
Progressively more unstable conditions saw the fortification of many of these granges
that were a valuable element in the colonial economy. At Knockroe which was a
grange for the Cistercian abbey of Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow, for example, there is a
motte located in a commanding position. Even before the tribulations of the
fourteenth century Stephen of Lexington proscribed the fortification of granges.
Addressing Jerpoint and Duiske, in Co. Kilkenny, in particular, he says No structure
shall be built in the granges, apart from a barn and shelter for animals.112 He also
prohibited the placing of buildings, either in the main monastery or at a grange in the
middle of the courtyard. They were to be built on the side within the confines on
account of thieves and other chance dangers, in addition only solid roofs were to be
constructed in the future.113 He also recommended the auditing of accounts for the
granges once a year to known whether their cost is greater than the produce.114 If
this precautions were necessary in the heady days of the early thirteenth century, it
must have become ever more pertinent as areas in which these granges were situated
passed into the march and granges were increasingly more isolated and vulnerable.
For beleaguered rural population these fortified granges were a protection. In its
account at the Dissolution of the former Templar house at Kilclogan the jury records
that there was a castle or fortilage, in good repair, very necessary for the defence of
the country and the protection of the goods of the kings tenants.115 It is possible that
just such a role was fulfilled by the Hospitallers at Killerrig.116
The most indefinite and the most intriguing classification of monument in Carlow is
that of early stone castle. Within the Corridor they are few in number, whether this
is an accident of survival or whether there was ever sufficient wealth to support a
castle-building programme in stone, it is difficult to establish. The majority of extant
examples in the Corridor, however, are located within the modern county of
Carlow.117 The most enigmatic of castles are those at Ballymoon and Ballyloughan;
both are substantial ruins with little documented history. They are part of a group of
four castle, also including Ballinree and Rathnageeragh, just south of Leighlinbridge.
112

B.W. ODwyer, Letters from Ireland 1228-1229 (Kalamazoo, 1982), p. 160.

Ibid.
114
Ibid, p. 159.
115
White (ed.), Extents of the Irish monastic possessions, p.100.
116
Connoly has noted that the master of the preceptory acted as keeper of the peace on a number of
occasions, Head and comfort of Leinster, p.20.
117
McNeill, Early castles in Leinster, p. 61.
113

21

They are on high ground commanding a pass leading south into the Corridor. A
limited archaeological investigation was carried out by Liam de Poer at Ballyloughan
in the early 1960s.118 The excavator concluded that the excavations were too limited
in area to provide much information on Ballyloughan as a whole.119 Evidence was
uncovered that the fosse had been filled in the fourteenth century and that the northeast tower, probably built as an addition to the walls, was abandoned at the end of the
medieval period. Most information for the medieval period came from this tower. The
finds in general were all from the period after c. 1300, with the exception of a shred of
white-paste ware imported from western France. This is usually dated to the late
thirteenth century, in Ireland it has been found at the Briain stronghold of Clonroad
and the Mellifont abbey.120 The alteration to the fortifications may have followed the
take over of the castle by the Mac Murchadh. A Bryan Mac Donagh Kavanagh was
still at Ballyloughan in 1603 when he was granted a pension for warders of castles.121
In 1997 archaeological testing took place in a field c. 100m west of Ballymoon castle,
in a field where shallow banks and ditches were visible. No evidence of medieval or
other activity was found.122
OKeefe has argued that a number of castles designated as tower houses in north and
central Carlow were in fact built before 1350 and are part of a push into central
Carlow possibly linked to the moated sites in the same area part of consolidation
following a retreat into the heartland area of the settlement. The situation is
complicated by the wealth of documentary sources in contrast to the paucity of the
remains on the ground. On the other hand substantial remains, such as Ballymoon,
lack records. The distribution of sites plotted on figure 2 is, therefore, a synthesis of
probable classifications augmented with discrete fieldwork. The available
documentary sources supports the distribution evidence that some of these stone
castles were part of a warding system. In 1365-6, for instance, both Clonmore and
Ballyloughlan are mentioned in exchequer payments. Michael White, the constable of
Clonmore, maintained a good company of hobelars and footsoldiers there, while
hobelars sturdy ponies for mounted troops which were essential for low level
warfare over rough terrain were brought to Ballyloughlan to resist Gerald
118

Liam de Paor, Excavation at Ballyloughlan castle, Co. Carlow, in JRSAI, xcii 1962), pp1-14.
Ibid., p. 9.
120
John Hunt, Clonroad More, Ennis, in JRSAI, lxxvi, (1946), pp 200-201.
121
J. P. Prendergast, The plantation of the barony of Idrone, in JRSAI, v (1859), p 420.
122
M.F. Hurley, Ballymoon, in Isabel Bennett (ed.), Excavations 1997 (Dublin, 1998), pp 3-4.
119

22

Kavanagh and his accomplices who were at war against the king123 Clonmore
appears be situated in a position to guard the roads leading north-east, along the
southern slopes of Lugnaquilla mountain, or, in particular, the road over the pass to
Tinahely.
Ballymoon was built sometime at the end of the thirteenth century or the beginning of
the fourteenth century (plate v).124 Although a date as early as 1300 has been
suggested for it, and the adjacent Ballyloughlan and Clonmore in the north-east of the
county. It was presumably part of the lands of Dunleckny, held in the mid-thirteenth
century with St Mullins by the Carew family.125 It remained in their hands, with their
lands in south Wales until the sixteenth century.126 Local tradition suggests that the
castle was abandoned and never finished and this would tally with the material
remains.127 No attempt was made to give the castle a high-level defence system this is
surprising given the remote, exposed and frontier location. Although castles in general
were not often required to withstand a substantial or well-mounted siege. It may have
been deserted through lack of resources or the sheer pressure of holding the land.
OKeeffe has suggested that the castle was built by Roger Bigod and included a
designed landscape.128 There are several difficulties with this proposition not least the
straitened circumstance of Bigod at this period.129 It is also hard to reconcile the
frontier nature of the site with an expensive project designed for pleasure. The extant
buildings are four ranges built around a courtyard with towers projecting from three
walls and one at the east angle.130 The layout recalls a monastic arrangement, for
example, that of the Carthusian priory of Mount Grace in north Yorkshire. The design
at Ballymoon does not evoke a grand seigniorial residence or an administrative centre
but a garrison.
Clonmore castle, 26km from Ballymoon has a similar layout (plate vi). This consists
of a rectangular enclosure with towers at the western angles and the domestic building
123

Philomena Connolly (ed), Irish exchequer payments 1270-1446 (Dublin, 1998), p.523.
Tadhg OKeeffe, Ballyloughlan, Ballymoon and Clonmore: three castles of c. 1300 in County
Carlow, in Anglo-Norman studies, 23 (2000), 168-170.
125
Brooks, Knights fees, pp 60-2. At the partition of the Marshal estate in 1247 the lands of St
Mullins, to which these may have been associated, were inherited by Maud Marshal and passed on her
death to the Bigod family.
126
Brooks, Knights fees, p. 62.
127
H. G. Leask. Irish castles and castellated houses (Dundalk, 1973), p. 74
128
Tadhg OKeeffe, Were there designed landscapes in medieval Ireland ?, Landscapes 5:2 (2004),
pp 52-68.
129
Morris, The Bigod earls of Norfolk in the thirteenth century, pp 157-161.
130
For a plan of Ballymoon see T.E. McNeill, Castles in Ireland: feudal power in a Gaelic world
(London, 1997), p. 112, fig. 66; Leask, Irish castles, p. 73, fig. 44.
124

23

in a block along the eastern wall. It probably replaced the motte and bailey to the east
and was part of the manor of Tullowphelim. Ballyloughan castle, like Ballymoon, was
almost certainly in the Carew manor of Dunleckny. The structure of the building is
less well preserved than at Ballymoon.131 The surviving remains at Ballyloughlan
consist of a courtyard 45m square with now square towers at the north-west and
south-east corners (plate vii). Midway along the south wall was a two-towered gate
house. The south-west tower has a fair-sized chamber on the first floor and had
window seats, a fireplace and latrines.
The remains of Rathnageeragh castle are comprised of a square gatehouse two
storeys high with an entrance through a central vaulted area and domed chamber on
each side of the passageway and parallel to it (plate viii ). There is a first floor hall
and a chamber block at the east side. A courtyard, in the form of a raised platform, is
traceable at the south east. Sweetman has argued a late thirteenth century date for this
gatehouse.132 In 1308 there is a reference to a fortalice in the manor of Rathnegeragh
which was attacked by Maurice de Rupeforte, deputy justiciar, who was campaigning
against the Nuallin and member of the Talon family.133 The entry is particularly
noteworthy as it indicates the diverse roles played by strongholds in frontier regions.
Following the encounter, in which Adam Talon was captured, goods and chattels
worth one hundred marks were stolen from Richard Talon, who held the manor, and
his hibernici presumably the Nuallin. Included in this haul were cattle that
had been sent to the fortalice for refuge. The word fortalice, which occurs
throughout the documentary record, appears to imply a fortified site without the
administrative attributions of a castle.
In the Carlow Corridor there is no evidence that earthworks were later re- fortified
with stone. Either repair was made in wood or the sites were abandoned quickly after
construction. The general lack of stone castles is in keeping with this pattern. The
great tower at Carlow illustrates that there was no shortage of skills or ability
therefore the missing component was resources. The earlier earthen and timber castles
were supported by the profits of estates outside Ireland being invested in the
enterprise of settlement. With the contraction of the colony and the growth in
absenteeism this died away. Ireland was not a place where, even if organised in a
131

For a plan see McNeill, Castles in Ireland, p. 115, fig. 68.

David Sweetman, Medieval castles of Ireland (Dublin, 1999), p 133.
133
Cal. justic. rolls. Ire., 1308-14, p. 20.
132

24

disciplined fashion, great fortunes could be made.134 The consequences of the internal
conflicts within the Anglo-Norman colony, allied to a deficiency in the political will
and resources to grapple with the question of the Gaelic Irish role in the new order,
are written in the landscape. The confidence seen in the broadly classical motte
distribution and the assurance needed to confine castle building above a particular
social strata, had gone by the time consolidation in stone was appropriate.
South and central Carlow at the start of the fourteenth century was part of what Smith
has called debatable land.135 In such lands power is almost as much a claim as a fact.
Marches were initially a feature of expansion not contraction and this is probably
what the castles of Ballymoon, Ballyloughan, Ballinree and Rathnageeragh, represent.
It is misleading to speak of castles blocking passes before long-range artillery yet
territoriality was always a prevailing imperative Norman fortresses, in contrast to
Gaelic Irish strongholds, were set prominently on the landscape.136 As Mc Neill has
noted The choice of site is strategically shrewd.137 At territorial borders, such as
here between the Mac Murchadh and the Ua Tuathail in the south and to the west and
the contracting colony to the north, castles were placed as markers or as element of
economic exploitation concentrated at passes, river-crossings and commanding
communication lines. The castle was vital as a base of operations; a castle was a static
feature but its garrison was mobile. If a castle was secure from large scale incursions
then a small force could control the surrounding countryside.138
In 1453 Thomas Stanley, writing to Henry VI, reported that
the countie of Catherlagh.is inhabyted with enemyes and rebelx,
save the castels of Catherlagh and Tillagh; and within this Lx yr were
in the said Countae of Catherlagh cxlviii castelx and pyles defensible
well voutyd, bataylled and inhabyted, that now ben destrued, and under
the subjection of the said enemies.139

134

Ibid., p. 231.
Brendan Smith, The concept of the march in medieval Ireland: the case of Uriel, in Proc R.I.A.
xviiiviii c (1988), p. 258.0
136
Coulson, Castle in medieval society, p. 215. An example of a fortress designed to hold the land by
stealth is that of Castel-y-Bere, north-east of Tywyn in Wales. For a discussion of Gaelic Irish castles
see OConor, The archaeology of rural settlement in Ireland, pp 87-89.
137
McNeill, Castles in Ireland, p. 59; Castles of ward and the changing pattern of border conflict on
Ireland, in Chteau Gaillard, xvii (1996), pp 127-33.
138
Seamus Taaffe, The role of the castle in Kildare 1169-1550, in JKAS, Vol. Xviii (Pt iv), 1998-99,
p. 518-9
139
Quoted in J.T. Gilbert History of the viceroys of Ireland (Dublin, 1865), pp 330 -1
135

25

This is often interpreted as there being 168 castles in the liberty of Carlow at the end
of the fourteenth century. The comparison between the number of castles on figure 3,
where all know castle sites are plotted and figure 2, with only extant or firmly
identified castle is striking, perhaps the key phrase in the quotation above is pyles
defensible. Castle as an attribution can apply to a wide variety of structures, not all
of them conforming to the traditional image. Even after a castle or fortified place has
fallen out of use the provenance of a castle will often still be attached to it. One only
has to look at the numerous castle site of marked on the first edition of the Ordnance
Survey many of which leave no traces in the landscape or documentary record.
The situation is further complicated by the longevity of use of earthen castles.140
There is sufficient historical and morphological evidence to suggest that mottes
continued to function as caputs throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. A
castle at St Mullins is referred to in 1306141 and there is a reference to the dilapidated
castle of Fothrted in the same year. While the citation suggests that it was no longer
regarded as a castle it retained its manorial and symbolic lordship functions, in
particular as the location of a court.142 This was also true elsewhere in the country; a
survey of the possessions of St Thomas Abbey, Dublin in 1540, mentions that in the
manor of Kill, Co. Kildare, there was a small mountain surrounded by a dry ditch, on
which the capital messuage was situated and where the court baron is still held.143 It
is likely that other motte and bailey castles of under tenants, for which we have little
evidence, also continued in use. In addition many of the sites plotted on figure 3 may
have been tower houses. All of these factors the lack of clear chronology of use, a
firm classification and the structural evolution of sites over time make any maps of
castle sites problematic. With these provisos in place, however, figure 3 provides an
impression of general distribution but in the case of Carlow alters the picture very
little.
By the start of the fourteenth-century the colony in Carlow was increasingly under
strain. When reading official records, the major source of historical evidence for
Carlow in the medieval period, one has to keep in mind the origins and context of
such information, nevertheless, a similar situation is depicted in the more impartial
accounts of the Bigod estate. The Gaelic Irish, when they appear in the records that
140

Kieran, Later construction and use of motte and bailey castles in Ireland, pp 13-29.
Cal. justic. rolls Ire., 1305-07, p. 346.
142
Cal. doc. Ire., 1302-07, no. 617, p. 174.
143
Extents of Irish monastic possessions, p. 39.
141

26

survive for the Carlow Corridor, do so surreptitiously. Yet, as OByrne has shown, the
Mac Murchadh especially were part of the political landscape and very conscious of
their familial relationship with the both the Marshals and the Bigods.144 Among items
of expenditure recorded in the Bigod accounts are cloth and furs for the ceremonial
gowns of officers of the liberty. Art Mac Murchadh is recorded as receiving a robe
with a fur-lined hood suggesting an official role within the liberty of Carlow. In early
1280s Roger Bigod met the Mac Murchadh on a visit to Carlow, giving Art a robe, a
cap, furs, money and a cask of wine, while Muirchertach received money.145 On
manors, such as Fennagh, most of the agricultural labour would have been carried out
by the original tillers of the soil, much of it on a part time basis.146 So essential are the
Hybernici that land value was given with their services.147 Further, the identity of the
tenants who paid the fixed rents is not specified in many extents; they could have
been either colonists or Gaelic farmers.148
Any population movement, such as that instigated by the Bruce wars or the Black
death, would have had a devastating effect on agricultural production particularly in a
labour intensive tillage economy. The effect of the endemic low-grade warfare that
marked this period could be seen on tenants and casual labourers who worked the
land. An account of 1311 detailing of the consequences of an attack on the manor of
John de Boneville during which he was killed. The Hibernici, who were tenants of de
Boneville, not daring to remain longer in his [de Boneville] mansions for fear of
these who slew the said John, taking all their goods and other chattels, with their
wives and their households went to Meiller le Kendale, who had been knighted by
John, at his manor of Mothyl in Co Carlow.149 On a pretext of moving them to shelter
on waste land in Co. Kildare, with a promise of safe conduct back to his manor at
Mothyl once conditions had settled, le Kendale killed and robbed them. The casual
level of violence, and the atmosphere of insecurity it engendered for a section of the
population who were essential to keep the economy prosperous, is neatly illustrated

144

Emmett OByrne, The MacMurroughs and the marches of Leinster 1170-1340, in Linda Doran
and James Lyttleton, Lordship in medieval Ireland: image and reality (Dublin, 2007), pp168-9.
Hore, A History of the town and county of Wexford, i, pp 1415, 18, 143, 146, 148.
146
For a discussion of the importance of Gaelic Irish tenants and labourers to manorial organisation see
Mark Hennessy, Manorial organisation in early thirteenth-century Tipperary, p. 121.
147
Ibid., p. 124. A extent of the manor of Kilsheelan in the Suir Valley accounts for the Hybernici
with their services, quoted in Mark Hennessy, Manorial organisation in early thirteenth-century
Tipperary, pp 122-3.
148
Murphy, Tullow, in this volume, pp 17-18.
149
Cal. justic. rolls Ire. 1308-1314, p. 230-1.

27

by the unhappy fate of this group. During the Bruce wars the Scots, as well as the
crown forces pursuing them, left a trail of destruction and desolation; the earl of
Norfolk complained of the loss suffered in his Liberty of Carlow, where stewards,
treasurers and many free tenants had been killed in successive raids.150
The incompleteness of the Norman settlement resulted in the creation of large Gaelic
enclaves, where the earlier landholders had been forced on to the land above the 600ft
contour and into the vast stretches of bog and densely forested areas, that hemmed the
Carlow Corridor.151 From the mountains in the east and the bog in the west the Gaelic
lords began to raid and devastate the rich manors, creating a situation which
successive governments were unable to solve permanently and which drained away
scant resources in fruitless military expeditions. In September 1288, for example, the
government lead by John de Sandford made the seneschal of Carlow, along with those
for Kildare, Kilkenny and Wexford, responsible for guarding the marchlands fringing
the Barrow valley.152 Those summoned were to remain as long as the service should
last as the area was very hostile. After 40 days service a considerable burden on
the local communities when no success had been achieved a new system of
warding the marches was organised, again a costly exercise.153 Finally a general
offensive was undertaken lasting twelve days and to which the Gaelic Irish of the
mountains as well as liege men were summoned. The account of this expedition,
perhaps because it was a claim for expenses, declares that the Irish as well of Offaly
as Leix came to the kings peace and were never hostile again. As we have seen
above the situation was more complex.
In addition to their ineffectiveness the greater part of the cost of these measures was
borne by a community already under stress. In 1306, for instance, it was agreed before
the justiciar at Carlow that if a man at arms lost his horse while fighting the Irish
felons of the mountains of Leinster the men of the liberties of Carlow, Kilkenny and
Wexford would give him the value of that horse up to 10.154

150

H.G. Richardson and G.O. Sayles (ed.), Parliaments and councils of medieval Ireland. i. (Dublin,
1947), p 202.
151
Robin Frame, War and peace in the medieval lordship of Ireland, in James Lydon (ed.), The
English in medieval Ireland (Dublin, 1984), pp 118-41.
152
This account is drawn from expenses of divers journies to divers parts of Ireland, Cal. doc. Ire.,
1285-92, no. 4.
153
James Lydon, A land of war, in, NHI, p. 266.
154
Cal. justic. rolls Ire., 1305-1307, p. 325.

28

A vital and constant concern was the control of the roads and the navigable Barrow
river which connected Dublin with the colony in the south. The liberty of Carlow, in
the hands of absentee lords from the mid-thirteenth century, was critical to that
domination. During the comparative peace of the thirteenth century the government
tried to improve communications by clearing rivers and making new roads.155 By the
start of the fourteenth century, however, the situation had deteriorated so badly that
the sheriff of Carlow in answer to the justiciar regarding payments said that he dare
not send moneybecause of the danger of the roads.156 In this situation the
importance of the river network to the medieval economy of Carlow cannot be
overestimated. Most of the heavy carrying for the estates of the earl of Norfolk was by
riverboat sand was transported from the coast up the Barrow to New Ross for
manure, wool from Ballysax was carried by boat to Ross, and millstones from the
Island to Carlow.157 By the mid-fourteenth century control of substantial stretches of
this waterway became tenuous. There are signs, however, that all was not totally
adrift. In the years 1284-90 well over 50% of the financing of the north Wales castles
came from Ireland, much of this provisioned in Carlow.158 The construction noted
earlier of a bridge over the Barrow at Leighlin in 1320 implies was significant traffic
on the main road from Dublin to Carlow and Kilkenny.159
1350-1500
Empey has called the period from 1350 to 1550 a tunnel period; it was the era in
much of the Corridor of the Gaelic revival, however, this resurgence was evident in
Co. Carlow well before the close of the thirteenth-century.160 By 1300 the Mac
Murchadh control of much of south and eastern Carlow was assured.161 The various
payments made to members of the MacMurrough throughout the fourteenth century
for keeping the roads between Carlow and Kilkenny safe, was merely the formal
recognition of the political reality.162 These payments are traditionally viewed as a
black rent, however, they were simply a tax extracted by those in control. Gaelic
recovery was most successful in areas where the colony was never particularly
155

J.F. Lydon, The lordship of Ireland (Dublin, 1973), p. 96.

Ibid., p. 393.
157
From the Bigod ministers accounts quoted in Kevin Down, Colonial society and economy in the
high middle ages, in, NHI, p. 483; see also Kevin Down, Agriculture and manorial economy, in this
volume.
158
J.G. Edwards, Edward Is castle building in Wales, in Proc. of the British Academy (1953), 32, p.
47.
159
Chartul. St Marys, Dubin, ii, 361.
156

29

strong regions, such as Carlow, that were conquered but not solidly colonised. In
these territories the Anglo-Irish lords remained what they had always been lords of a
cultural twilight zone163 In the absence of any significant colonial population from
which to draw military support, and who would share the burden of financing
military campaigns, Anglo-Irish lords were dependent on the support of surrounding
Gaelic Irish lineages and on their Irish tenant families.
From the mid-fourteenth to the mid-sixteenth century, much of Western Europe was
affected by war, dominated by the struggles between England and France that carried
other disputes, from Scotland to Spain, into their maelstrom.164 Although Ireland lay
on the outer fringes of these contests and felt their effects mainly in the haemorrhage
of colonial revenue, the Anglo-Scottish conflict intruded directly in the form of the
Bruce invasion of 1315-18, one of whose objectives was to ravage the Irish
countryside and disrupt supplies to the kings army in Scotland. In Ireland the main
consequences of these external conflicts was to delay and hinder English military
response to the erosion of royal authority.165 This draining of resources, combined
with the devastation caused by the Bruce wars and augmented by subsequent famines
and plagues starkly revealed the vulnerability of the settlers, illustrating how easily
their exposed situation could be exploited.166 This was especially true in an area, such
as the Carlow Corridor, where settlements were strung out along the river valleys
overlooked by the Gaelic Irish-controlled highlands and restricted in their access to
Dublin by the extensive areas of midland bogs. For must of this period the country
was a land of low-grade warfare.
The years 1350-1500 remain elusive in terms of our understanding of the
transformation of Irish society and economy.167 It is important to seek explanations of
political, economic and settlement development within the wider context of general
European decline and revival in the fourteenth century. One of the anomalies is that,
160

A.C. Empey, The Anglo-Norman community in Tipperary and Kilkenny in the middle
ages:continuity and change, in Gearid Mac Niocaill and P.F. Wallace (eds), Keimelia:studies in
medeival archaeology and history in memory of Tom Delaney (Galway, 1988), p. 459.
161
Sen Duffy (ed), Atlas of Irish history (Dublin, 1997), p. 39.
162
Connolly, the head and comfort of Leinster, in this volume; Edmund Curtis, Medieval Ireland
(London, 1938), p 242, fn.1.
163
Empey, The Anglo-Norman community in Tipperary and Kilkenny, p. 459.
164
Robin Frame, The defence of the English lordship, 1250-1450, in Thomas Bartlett and Keith
Jeffery (ed.), A Military history of Ireland (Cambridge, 1997), 76.
165
Frame, The defence of the English lordship, p. 76.
166
Clarke, Decolonisation, p. 171.
167
B.J. Graham and L.J. Proudfoot (ed.) An historical geography of Ireland (London, 1993), pp 99100.

30

given the tenacity and vibrancy of Gaelic culture during these years, its society is
largely invisible in the archaeological record. We knew from Jean Creton, the French
chronicler, who travelled with the army of Richard II on his campaigns in 1399, that
Art Mac Murchadh had an abode in the woods near Leighlin, a vital crossing point on
the Barrow. We do not know the form of this fortress but it was probably not
insubstantial since Creton says that it was where he is accustomed to dwell at all
seasons.168 Earlier, in 1394, this had been referred to as principal fortress, so even
while he dominated Carlow Corridor, Mac Murchadh chose to live within the security
of the forest.169
Letters written during Richard IIs campaign against Mac Murchadh in 1394 and 1399
give a fascinating picture of these Mac Murchadh compounds in the woods of
Garrowkill (Garryhill) or Garbh Choill lying on the Myshall to Bagenalstown road, a
mile and half from Rathnageeragh castle, and Leverough, close to Leighlin.170 The
significance of these locations is indicated by the fact that they are depicted on a map
of 1570 of the barony of Idrone (plate ix). This map also shows how much of Carlow
was still wooded 170 years later much of it fringing the main highway. These
accounts, of Richards attempts to capture and subdue Art Mac Murchadh, illustrate
the viciousness of the fighting and the extensive destruction of the countryside. At
Garrowkill
wherein our chief adversary M [acMurchadha] had his house and stood on his
defence not withstanding all the fortress and defences of the forest, we were
at last lodged in the said strong wood, our said enemy dislodges, and his
principal house burned in our presence.....171
Resistance seems to have rumbled on since the accounts says that there were several
skirmishes in the day and night that followed the taking of the stronghold.
The Earl Marshal, using men-at-arms and archers had several fine encounters during
which nine villages were burned and 8,000 head of cattle taken. Mac Murchadh and
his wife evaded capture, nevertheless, items taken from their house included a chest
belonging to Mac Murchadhs wife containing certain articles of feminine use, but of
168

J. Webb ,Translation of a French Metrical history of the deposition of King Richard the second, in
Archaeologia, xx (1812), p 27-8, 298; A.P. Smyth, Celtic Leinster: towards an historical geography of
early Irish civilization A.D. 500-1600 (Blackrock, 1982), p. 108.
169
Edmund Curtis, Unpublished letters from Richard II in Ireland, RIA Proc., xxxvii, C (1978), p
270-71.
170
Ibid., p. 279.
171
Ibid., p. 291.

31

no great value. Of more importance was the capture of Mac Murchadhs seal, which
had the inscription Sillum Arthurii MacMurgh Dei Gracia Regis Lagenie. This blend
of domestic and administrative elements underlines the role of fortresses as both
dwelling of the lord and his seat of his government private property but public
utility.172 The earl, sorely vexed by his failure to take Mac Murchadh had his
house burned, which was in the said wood of L[everough], as also some fourteen
villages round the said wood, and had four hundred cattle driven away from him.173
Later in the account the earl of Cork and Rutland attacked the strong country, in
which S [unidentified] had his dwelling. His army had great difficulty passing
through the area and had to make a great bridge of certain tress, cord and boughs
across the river of P [olmounty, south of St Mullins]And there he slew a great
number drove away with him more than 6,000 cattle and he sent 360 of them to the
King.
These accounts, as well as those of Creton, provide pictures of a buoyant economy;
Mac Murchadhs horse, Creton tells us, cost him 200 cows the calculation
reflecting the importance of pastoralism. These vast numbers of cattle over 14,000
if the figures are true suggest substantial wealth. These were probably the small
cattle described by Fynes Morrison, which would have provided meat for food and
hides for trade.174 These could be grazed on clearings within the forest and bogs. Pigs,
which thrived in similar conditions were also important; pork was a great delicacy in
fact it features in the Tale of Mac Dithos swine, a story reputed to be set in central
Carlow.175 The strongpoints and dwellings mentioned in these letters are clearly not
insubstantial structures and the fact that one was burned in our presence implies the
ritual destruction of a fortress held against the king.176
The 1570 map mentioned above has a section within the wood marked as Kyllarte,
suggesting Arts Wood. The archaeological inventory records a possible castle in the
area. According to tradition this stood close to Garryhill House; parts of the garden
wall and stable yard may contain sections of a castle while the garden suggests a

172

Coulson, Castle in medieval society, chapter title, p. 157.

Ibid., p. 293.
174
Quoted in Henry Morley (ed.), Ireland under Elizabeth and James the first (London, 1890), p. 421.
175
Smyth, Celtic Leinster, 108; John Dymmok, A treatise of Ireland, in Richard Butler (ed.), Tracts
relating to Ireland, Irish Archaeological Society, ii (Dublin, 1843), pp 5, 54.
176
For discussion of the concept of castles as points of resistance see Coulson, Castle in medieval
society pp 117-127.
173

32

possible bawn.177 Curtis noted the remains of an ancient wall and circular enclosure
in the area. The significance of the strongholds at Myshall and Garyhill can be seen
from entry the annals for 1399.178 When the Lord Lieutenant Roger Mortimer, earl of
March, was killed in 1398, near Kellistown, his mother sent two chalices, one to
Myshall and another to Garryhill, presumably to two churches there, in order to
facilitate the return of her sons body. It is likely that the body had been sent to one of
the Mac Murchadh fortresses in the area. There are the remains of an early
ecclesiastical site at Myshall, however, there is no recorded site at Garryhill, which
may have been a private chapel.
The official records depict medieval Irish society as divided between English rebels,
Irish of the mountains and loyal subjects, On the ground, however, community were
more inter-dependent and connected than these records imply.179 While inter-cultural
marriage was confined to the upper reaches of society, trade involved a broader
communal mix. In areas, such as that covered by the modern county of Carlow, the
medieval colony, marked on the landscape by mottes, manors and towns, was always
less than the medieval lordship. Similarly it is vital to distinguish between the
settlement and economic aspects of the frontier.180 From 1290, as we have seen, the
sign of a serious colonial reversal was present in the Carlow Corridor. Families, such
as the Talons, to the horror of Dublin officials, were forming themselves into lineages
and taking part in raids and reprisals with their Gaelic neighbours.181 One provision of
the Statutes of Kilkenny (1366) was the prohibition of trade with the Gaelic Irish.
Since more than half of the medieval liberty of Carlow was controlled by the Mac
Murchadh at this period, that a toll was paid to them for free passage on the highway
and that major towns, such as New Ross, paid for their protection, such provisions
were entirely irrelevant.182 In fact the Gaelic Irish hinterland had just the produce
hides, skins, wool and fish that were imported by places such as Bristol.183
177

Brindley and Kilfeather Archaeological inventory of County Carlow, p. 90.

From Dowlings annals quoted in Curtis, Unpublished letters from Richard II in Ireland, p. 300,
fn. 63.
179
Murphy, Tullow, in this volume.
180
H.B.Clarke, Decolonization and the dynamics of urban decline in Ireland, 1300-1550, in T.R.
Slater (ed.), Towns in decline, A.D. 100-1600 (Aldershot, 2000), p. 168; P.J. Duffy, The nature of the
medieval frontier in Ireland in Studia Hibernica, 22/23 (1982-3), pp 21-38.
181
Margaret Griffith (ed.), Cal. just rolls Irel., 1308-14, p. 20.
182
This is also true the rest of the country apart from the Pale and a small pockets of the surrounding
area.
183
A.K. Longfield, Anglo-Irish trade in the sixteenth-century (Dublin, 1929), pp 213-5: Wendy Childs
and Timothy ONeill Overseas trade, in, NHI, p. 501.
178

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Essentials, such as firewood, was imported into these towns; coming by riverboat
from the Gaelic Irish countryside.184 Bliss has suggested that inhabitants of the towns
used Irish as their preferred language, and knew English primarily as a school
language.185
Just as Gaelic society is often portrayed as inert, there is a tendency to see these
emerging Anglo-Irish lordships of the fifteenth century as possessing a static feudal
quality setting them apart from their Gaelic neighbours. This, however, is largely an
illusion.186 The emergent leading families of the fifteenth century were not heirs to the
feudal barons of the thirteenth century.187 During this period the face of Anglo-Irish
Ireland as it was to remain for the rest of the middle ages began to emerge. Power and
influence were in the hands of a small number of Anglo-Irish nobles who generally
had no land in England and whose families had been in Ireland since the
establishment of the settlement. The history of the Anglo-Irish lordship for the next
two centuries was fundamentally the history of the earldoms created during this
period: the Geraldine earls of Kildare and Desmond and the Butler earls of Ormond.
Kildare concentrated much of his military power on retaking lands in Carlow and
Kildare that had fallen into the hands of hostile, Gaelic Irish families. He invited the
absentee lords to return, and when they failed to do so he then had the lands
transferred to him. In the south-east the Butlers were wary of Kildares need, now that
he had consolidated his position in Carlow, to maintain some control over the
Corridor in order to access Waterford. The over-whelming importance of these was
rooted in the administrations dependence upon them to keep law and order in the
local areas. These men were to dominate the colony and the foundations of their
immense power were laid in this period. The principal loser in this process was the
royal government; the rise of the new lordships ushered in an era of decline in its
power. This loss of power meant the loss of revenue, which in turn meant a further
loss of power.188
The construction of tower houses has been interpreted as representing a degree of
economic recovery, through the moblilisation and concentration of resources by an
184

Timothy ONeill, Merchants and Mariners in medieval Ireland (Dublin, 1987), pp 99-100.
Alan Bliss Language and literature, in James Lydon (ed.), The English in medieval Ireland
(Dublin, 1984), p. 45.
186
K.W. Nicholls, Anglo-French Ireland and after in Peritia, i (1982), p. 393.
187
Ibid.
188
McNeill Castle in Ireland, p. 172.
185

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lite, within the Anglo-Irish and the Gaelic lordships.189 These multi-storied defended
residences emerged during the fourteenth century; their distribution ignoring cultural
boundaries. By the middle of the fifteenth century these private castles were being
built by Irish families, by English families who remained loyal to the crown and those
who did not. As Danachair noted, there are occasional references to tower houses in
descriptions of local wars, but they are regularly mentioned in wills, mortgages, leases
and family disputes.190 They are most plentiful in areas where settled conditions
prevailed rather than in the more difficult border regions. This is perhaps the
explanation for their scarcity in Carlow, however, it is possible that at least some of
the castle plotted on figure 2 may have been tower houses.
Evidence from elsewhere in the country suggests a radial distribution for tower houses
from certain centres, perhaps ports or other trading towns.191 The outlines of such a
pattern can be seen on figure 3 with a concentration in the northern half of the county
where towns such as Tullow and Leighlin. Both of which continued to function
despite the vicissitudes of the previous centuries.192 Leighlin retained its earlier
importance and for much of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries was
controlled by the Mac Murchadh, who as we saw above had an important fortress in
the area. Yet there appears to have been ongoing efforts to retain control of this
crucial crossing point, in 1358-9, for example, John Galbarry was granted assistance
for keeping two fortalices in Galbarristown and Rathalyn near Leighlin in defence of
the kings people.193 These may have been two of the three built to guard Leighlin.194
There is reference to the castle at Leighlin in 1348-9 the extant remains are of a
tower house Brother William Hulot, prior of the Carmelites of Leighlin was
granted aid for the repair of the tower built beside the bridge at Leighlin for the
defence of the faithful people.195 The town remained contested until a garrison was
189

Donnelly, C.J. Tower houses and late medieval secular settlement in County Limerick, in P.J.
Duffy, David Edwards, and Elizabeth FitzPatrick. Gaelic Ireland: land, lordship and settlement 12501650 (Dublin, 2001), pp. 315-2.
190
Caoimhn Danachair, Irish tower houses, in Bealoidas, xlv-xlvii (1977-8), pp 158-63.
191
K.W. Nicholls, Gaelic society and economy in the high middles ages, in New history of Ireland,
p. 406. The distribution pattern of moated sites in the lower Carlow Corridor shows a similar radiation
from the ports of New Ross and Wexford, Doran Role of the Carlow Corridor, Map 3.1.
192
Murphy Tullow, in this volume.
193
Irish exchequer payments 1270-1446, p. 493.
194
E. Tresham, Rotulorum Patentium et Clausorum Cancellaria Hibernia Calendarium (Dublin, 1828),
p. 66.
195
Ibid., p . 427. For an examination of the role of the Carmelites in the defence of this strategic
location see Kenny New Leighlin, in this volume.

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established there in 1549. This is the best-preserved tower house in Carlow, due no
doubt to the value of its location.
The main focus of tower house distribution in Carlow is focused on the Barrow. This
pattern is mirrored in the rest of the Corridor and is linked to the importance of the
movement of people and goods by water, in a era with poor and dangerous roads, as
well as to value of fishing, both as a food and for export. A number of these Carlow
tower houses are located at bends in the river and may have been placed to control
particular stretches of water. Tower houses could not have sustained an artillery
attack, or indeed any protracted assault, nor were they designed to do so. The extreme
difficulty and expense of moving heavy ordnance across country restricted its use to
major strong points and goes far to explaining the survival of the tower house. The
violence they were intended to withstand was a quick raid by a small group of men.
The moated manor house, suitably barricaded, was probably every bit as defensive.
While individual castles may have had little impact except on local defence, groups of
tower houses may have formed part of an integrated defence strategy. Garrisons based
at tower houses, whether permanent or formed in response to particular needs, could
act as a small mobile force.196 Two castles, for example, Graiguenaspiddoge and
Ballytarsna are to the north and south, close to the Tullow to Leighlinbridge road as it
enters an area of high ground. Graiguenaspiddoge has been levelled and the remains
at Ballytarsna are poor.
Donnelly in an analysis of Limerick tower houses discovered that, out of 359 sites
drawn from a variety of documentary and cartographic sources, 244 or 68% had
vanished. Between 1650 and 1840, 216 castles disappeared leaving no trace of their
exact location. Statistics such as these call into question the validity of distributional
patterns based on surviving remains alone, and certainly require caution in the
postulation of rigid developmental frameworks. In addition timber castle are referred
to in the Barrow Valley, it is likely that many of the outbuildings such as the hall
were of timber.197 Since this form of construction would leave little above ground
evidence tower houses appear today in the landscape as isolated remains. Only at
Friarstown, associated with the preceptory of Killerrig, are there remains associated
with the tower house, these include a moated site as well as field systems.
196

Frame, War and peace in the medieval lordship of Ireland, p. 519.

Ormond Deeds 1547-84, v, p. 27; for a discussion of tower houses distribution with the Carlow
Corridor see Doran Role of the Carlow Corridor, pp 85-99.

197

36

The resurgence of construction and refurbishment seen in Ireland the fifteenth- and
sixteenth-century appears to be related to the existence of a multiplicity of
autonomous and semi-autonomous lordships.198 Local lords with restricted resources
sought more secure and permanent fortifications to replace their more vulnerable and
largely earthen dwellings, whether raths or moated sites. The first tower houses may
have been built in districts, such as the Carlow Corridor, that had been held by the
Anglo-Normans in the thirteenth century with earlier keeps providing inspiration. The
spread of the moated site across the southern part of the country is matched by the
spread of tower houses, except that the heaviest concentration of the latter extends
further into land resettled by the Gaelic Irish.199 This connection between the
distribution of moated sites and tower house is seen in Co. Carlow when figures 2 and
3 are compared. With the exception of the strongly held Gaelic lands of the west and
north of the country, the tower house transcends social, cultural and economic
boundaries. Nationally, tower houses are found in areas covered by what Jones
Hughes called the hybrid zone200 These areas include central and southern Ireland
regions, characterised by a complicated and strained blending of Anglo-Irish and
Gaelic Irish cultural influences created by the ebb and flow of the late middle ages.201
The regions of greatest density of tower houses were those, such as the Carlow
Corridor, where the fourteenth century brought the greatest instability and change in
land ownership, where the three great fourteenth century earls carved out their
lordships of Desmond, Kildare and Ormond. Conversely tower houses are rare in
lands that remained under Gaelic control. In Carlow tower houses are missing from
the areas under the control for most of the middle ages of Gaelic Irish families. Given
the wealth and power of the Mac Murchadh and their client lineages particularly in
Idrone, in addition to the semi-official role of the Mac Murchadh in the government
of the Liberty of Carlow, it is surprising that there are no tower houses associated
directly with these families. If one compares, however, the spread of tower houses in
Carlow with that of Roscommon, where there was mixed settlement in the south

198

Barry, Late medieval Ireland: the debate on social and economic transformation, p.107.
See distribution map see Barry, The archaeology of medieval Ireland, fig. 38, p. 187.
200
Tom Jones Hughes, Town and baile in Irish placenames, in Nicholas Stephens and R.E. Glascock
(ed.), Irish geographical studies in favour of E. Estyn Evans (Belfast, 1970), pp 244-58.
201
Barry, Late medieval Ireland: the debate on social and economic transformation, p. 108.
199

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while the northern section was dominated by the U Chonchobair, the pattern is
replicated.202
Gaelic society in this region, as in the country as a whole, was not static. It was
intricate, complex and evolving. It is not easily understood. While there is more
information available on social matters following the arrival of the Anglo-Normans, it
is a particular arrangement of information. The picture presented was that constructed
by official sources. Gaelic society was not formed of the recognisable layers of
bureaucracy from which history is constructed, hence despite this new wealth of
information, Gaelic Ireland recedes further from view. In other areas, such as
Connacht and Munster, the annals provide a path to the evolution of the Gaelic Irish
community; here that is largely absent. There is conservatism in the built environment
in this region, seen in the description of Mac Murchadhs fortress. While the accounts
of the form these structures took is unclear they do not appear to have been stone.
This is in marked contrast to the evidence in the sources for innovations in social
organisation and material culture, which appeared in the decades before the arrival of
the Anglo-Normans. It is also in contrast to the Mac Murchadhs evolving attitude to
their legal and political role in the new order.203
The judgement of cattle as a value of worth as a currency was also extremely
potent. Cattle were effective political and military weapons. Cattle-raids, for example,
had a myriad of different functions, each with a code understood by all sides in a
conflict. The records for Carlow contain a number of raids conducted jointly by
Gaelic Irish and English lords. Richard IIs campaign against Mac Murchadh has
elements of the cattle-raid about it. This perception of warfare and the closeness to the
landscape that the predominance of cattle instilled may explain the lack of desire on
the part of Gaelic lords for stone castles. The stability linked to wealth that the
building of these tower houses indicates may simply not have existed in Gaelic-held
areas of the region.
Conclusions
The cornerstone to control of the lordship of Leinster was the domination of the area
now covered by the modern county of Carlow. Through this area ran not only the
202

Forde Doran, Medieval settlement in Longford and Roscommon, Map 5.

OByrne, The MacMurroughs and the marches of Leinster, , in Doran and Lyttleton, Lordship in
medieval Ireland (Dublin, 2007), 173-176.

203

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navigable River Barrow but the Slighe Chulann, the major highway linking Ossory
and Munster with Dublin. The decision to relocate the exchequer to Carlow in 1361 is
a consequence of the importance of the region to a Dublin government, attempting to
remain related to the colony in one of the richest parts of the lordship.204 The wealth
and beauty of the area is a recurring theme in the accounts. Richard II observed the
of all others the most famous, fair and fertilein woods, pastures, meadows, arable
lands and rivers the beautiful, pleasant, and delightful that one could find in all the
land of our rebels of Ireland
The Lordship of Leinster was the first Anglo-Norman lordship established, created
following Richard fitz Gilbert acquiring the kingdom of Leinster in 1171, on the death
of Diarmait Mac Murchadh. The quality of the land on the river valleys on which this
lordship was based was ideally suited to the tillage-based agriculture favoured by the
Anglo-Norman farmers. The creation of this lordship illustrates the point made by
Davies that military conquest, however, impressive and distracting for later historians,
was not the only route to domination in medieval Ireland. Conquest in the sense of a
military act is only one of the routes to the domination of one society over another and
not necessarily the most attractive, rewarding or important of such routes.205 These
aristocratic warriors, such Raymond le Gros and his nephews or their Marshal
overlords, took the world as they found it; they adapted to it and exploited it for their
own purpose. The marriage alliance was one of the most important channels of
integration and ultimately succession. Strongbows marriage to the Gaelic Irish
princess, Aoife, secured his, and untimely the Marshall succession, to the lordship.
They worked with the grain of native society where it fitted their ends. Political and
martial alliance created significant routes to domination, as did the commercial
dependence on and the economic entrepreneurship of the conqueror.206
Places in Carlow that were to become important Anglo-Norman towns are
encountered in the writings which record the initial Norman adventure in Ireland.
Among the most prominent of these locations is Leighlin, close to the major early
historic site of Dinn Rig. Domination of this key crossing point was to be a symbol of
control of the Corridor. An indication of the fragility of the settlement in south-west
204

Connolly, the head and comfort of Leinster, in this volume.

R.R. Davies, Domination and Conquest: the experience of Ireland, Scotland and Wales 1100-1300
(Cambridge, 1990), p. 3.
206
Marie Therese Flanagan, Warfare in Twelfth-century Ireland in Bartlett and Jeffrey (ed.) Military
History of Ireland, p. 73.
205

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Carlow was the burning of Leighlin and the settlements around in 1297 by the
Hibernicos de Slemergi207 the Irish of Laois moving into the Corridor from
the hills behind Old Leighlin. The building of a stone bridge and associated castle in
1320 was a clear signal of the importance of this location to the communications
between the settlements in the south and Dublin. Once the vulnerability of the colony
begins to be exposed by the tribulations of the early fourteenth century, the records
are filled with the dangers posed to these routeways by the advancing Gaelic Irish. As
soon as the settlement dynamic faltered and there was no resident magnet or
adequately funded government initiative to stand in the way, such attempts on the part
of former overlords to regain valuable lost territory were inevitable. As Smyth has
argued, for the Gaelic Irish the political centre of gravity of Leinster lay not at Dublin
but in the central Barrow valley.208 By the mid-fourteenth century years of absentee
lordship and over-production of the manors, to make quick profits feeding the royal
armies had taken their toll.209
Of course the impoverishment of the government does not mean that a general
economic failure.210 As we move into the fifteenth century the most buoyant urban
centres were the ports, which would suggest that the dynamic of the economy had
changed from grain-based marketing towards international trade. This was founded on
exports such as hides, skins, wools and fish produce of pastoral agriculture and
the importation of wine, salt iron and luxuries to cater to the tastes of the new elite,
both Gaelic Irish and Anglo-Irish.211 The small market settlements that dotted
northern Carlow in the thirteenth century had contracted or been deserted. The
importance of the Gaelic Irish aristocracy in the new economy is illustrated by the
number of cattle captured at the Mac Murchadh strongholds in the 1390s.
For Carlow this new wave of prosperity, based as ever on the navigable Barrow and
the ancient road network, has left little traces in the archaeological record. Maybe
because the greater part of the new wealth was held by those who saw no great need
to build in stone. The tower houses, which elsewhere in the country symbolise this
new commerce, are here simple and the surviving fabric appears poorly built. They
suggest a need for domestic security rather than a display of wealth. The documentary
207

Chartul. St Marys, Dubin, ii, 327.

Alfred Smyth, Celtic Leinster (Dublin, 1982), p. 106.
209
Down Agriculture and the manorial economy, in this volume.
210
Clarke, Decolonization, p. 180.
211
Ibid., p. 179.
208

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record is mainly that of an administration in retreat with the attendant narrative of

shock and doom. We lack Gaelic Irish annals which would give a voice to the potent
transformations of that society which we glimpse accidentally in the official accounts.
Undoubtedly Carlow, on the main passage between Dublin and the richest manors in
the country, was always a contested landscape. This is noted rather ruefully by one of
those fighting with Richard II who had been optimistically granted land
The King had granted me a parcel of land in the country of the rebels, which if
it were in the parts of London would be worth by the year fifty thousand
marks, but, by my faith, I have so much trouble holding on to it that I would
not like to lead such a life for a long time even for a quarter of the land.212
This quotation contains elements of naivety, ambition and resignation that was
probably echoed by many would-be conquers of this region.

212

Letter from Janico Artoye to the bishop of Salisbury quoted in Curtis, Unpublished letters from
Richard II in Ireland, p. 296. Artoye severed in Ireland under Henry IV, V, VI, holding various office
such as Guardian of the Peace, Commissioner for Assessments and Constable of royal castles.

41