John O' Donovan

O'Donovan's letter on Durrow to be found in the Westmeath O.S. letters is here reprinted. The letter was written in January 1838.

ANTIQUITIES OF COUNTY WESTMEATH

Tullamore,
January 1st 1838

Dear Sir

I visited Durrow and Killbeggan today and viewed their localities with anxious care - a care bordering upon pain- but was entirely disappointed in finding that the work of destruction has gone on to a lamentable extent !... At Durrow I could find nothing but St. Columbkille's Well and Cross which is most elaborately sculptured in the same style, as far as I am able to judge, as his crosses at Kells and Moone. But this Cross of Durrow exhibits a figure which I did not observe upon any of the others, viz, a man playing on a small six-stringed harp, which rests on his left knee; this perfectly agrees with the figure on Mr. Petrie's Shrine of Maidoc. There is also at Durrow a moat (lying opposite Lord Norbury's hall door) with small fragments of lime and stone masonry on the top.

Of the place at which Sir Hugo de Lacy murdered

I shall give the account of this tragic scene as preserved by tradition, as taken this day from the mouth of John Daly of Killbeggan, now in the 82nd year of his age and on his death bed. but retaining a remarkable vigour of memory and intellect.

He is the Ultimus Hibernorum in this part of Ireland and having been once in comfortable circumstances and given to antiquarian research , he procured all the local information on the subject which could be obtained from the old people.

"About 60 (or 62) years since, extensive ruins of the walls of a castle were extant at Durrow immediately to the north of the moat. These walls were levelled by the Stepeny family ( the then occupiers of Durrow ) to obtain materials for building a mansion house, which still remains, but much enlarged and modified by the present possessor, the Earl of Norbury. It was said that this castle was built before Sir Hugo de Lacy's time but that he obtained possession both of it and of another castle, of which the site is still traceable near Mr. Dudgeon's house in the Townland of Ros-Deala and about one and a quarter miles to the east of Durrow. Tradition says that when De Lacy obtained possession of these castles he commenced to carry a trench (road perhaps?) from the one to the other, and one day that he was looking over his men, who were composed of English and Irish labourers, O'Catharny, Lord of Teffia, and O'Breen of Brawney got him murdered as he was stooping down to give directions. Tradition says that De Lacy was at this time near the Castle of Ros-Deala and not at the Castle of Durrow.

Daly says that if he could get up (but he never will ) he could lay his finger on the spot which was always pointed out as the scene of this murder.

There is the ruin of a small little castle in the Townland of Ballybought called Shan-Court, which Mr. Fenwick sets down in the Name Book as Durrow Castle, thus:-

"Shancourrt or Meeanglish - so called by the country people;
De Lscy's Castle - Moorre's Hist. Ire.,V.2, p.321;
. Darmagh or Durrow Castle - Lanigan IV, 277.

"This Castle, of which scarce a vestige remains, was built by the celebrated Hugo De Lacy in 1186, upon a spot hallowed in the eyes of the natives, as being the site of a Monastery founded by St. Columba. Whilst inspecting the progress of the works, he was killed by a blow of an axe by a man named Hugh O'Chary (no, no) who escaped into the neighbouring woods. Archdall says the English built a castle here in 1214. See also Lanigan, Vol. IV, p.277, Note 73." - Durrow Field Name Book, p.44.

But this very small castle (which is scarcely ancient and was never famous) stands in an old fort and not upon a spot hallowed in the eyes of the natives, as being the site of a Monastery founded by St. Cloumba. The site of St. Columba's Monastery of Durrow is now, according to universal tradition, and as corroborated by the position of St. Columbkille's Cross occupied by the present Church and graveyard of Durrow, which lie within the Durrow Demesne. The celebrated Castle of Durrow stood, as I said before, to the north of the moat opposite Lord Norbury's Hall door and the considerable ruins of it were to be seen there about 60 or 62 years ago, when John Daly of Killbeggan was a young man.

Allthis I urge to prove that Mr. Fenwick's view of the castle cannot be correct. He states that he thought my view of it was wrong. Now, I never before wrote a word about Durrow and what I say now is in my own defence, which I deem necessary as I conside Mr. Fenwick a gentle man of sound judgement and remarkable research.

Tradition concerning De Lacy historically examined

I do not believe that tradition, unsupported by historical evidence, should be received in deciding upon this fact.Sir Henry Pierrs wrote in 1682 that it was then traditionally handed down that Sir Hugu de Lacy was murdered at the castle at Horseleap, but I find that that castle was not erected for some years after his death. I do not believe that he was murdered at Ros-Deala either, though tradition seems to be decided on that subject, as all our authentic Annals agree in making the castle of Durrow, lying immediately at St. Cloumbkille's Monastery, the scene of the murder. The Four Masters thus record(or rather, transcribe) the account of it:-

"A.D.1184 Hugo de Latii, the plunder and destroyer of many Churches, Lord of the English of Meath, Breifny and Oriel, to whom the rents of Connaught were paid; he who won the greter part of Ireland for the English and of those English castles all Meath, from the Shannon to the sea, was full, being offered (by some English friend) the Castle of Durrow, came forth, accompanied by three Englishmen to view it. But a youth named Gilla-gan-Inaher O'Meey, one of the men of Teffia, came up to him with a battle axe concealed under his garments (cloak ?). He struck Hugo and with a blow cut off his head, and he fell both head and body intothe trench (ditch, cladh) of the castle. This was in defence of Columbkille. Gilla-gan-Inaher, by swiftness of foot, escaped from the English and the Irish to Coill-an-Chlair* (the Wood of Clare) and afterwards proceeded to Fox and O'Breen, at whose instigation he had murdered the Earl,"

* So pronounced by Daly at this day, but it is Anglicised Kill-Clare. It is a Townland adjoining Foxe's Country, being divided from it by the Riverr Brosna.

This differs from Leland's very much to be suspected account of this occurrence, from which (if we believe him) we are to understand that the Earl was murdered as he was erecting a castle with materialsderived from the old Monastery of Columbkille, by one of his own labourers. This account Leland has manufactured from one sentence in Cambrensis ...

Perhaps O'Meey had been employed by De Lacy as a labourer and that Rox, his own Lord and relative, employed him to murder him.

Let me have the account of De Lacy's taking off , as given in the Annals of Clonmacnoise as translated by Mageogegan, in the Annals of Inishfallen and in the Book of Kilronan. Ithink Leland has manufactured this wrongly

Your obedient servant,
J. O'Donovan