Mocollop Castle, Co. Waterford:
A History of a Medieval Castle
Niall C.E.J. O'Brien
[Link to chapters one and two = chapters one and two]
[Link to chapters three and four = chapters three and four]
Chapter five
Sometime before 1420 major
changes occurred in the size and geographical location of the manor of
Mocollop. Documentary evidence from 1420 onwards indicates two manors within
the medieval parish of Mocollop. The manor of Mocollop occupied the western
side of the parish and was owned by the Barry family. The area east of present
Ballyduff village and directly south of the village towards Sheanmore tower
house was owned by the Fitzgerald family, Earls of Desmond. At what point in
time were the two manors created is as yet unknown.
Sheanmore tower house, Co. Waterford, north façade
Further geographical changes occurred
in the Mocollop area at other as yet unknown times. The manor of Mocollop acquired
the additional townlands of Inchinleamy, Countygate, RaspberryHill, Knockaunroe
and Cahergal in the civil parish of Leitrim. These were originally owned by the
Condon family of Kilworth. The tithes of Leitrim parish were granted by the
Condons to Glascarrig priory in Wexford which was founded by the family. At
same time or at some other time the Condons of Kilworth expanded their area of
ownerships from the present townland of Careysville eastwards along the south
bank of the Blackwater. In this expansion, or series of expansions, the Condons
acquired the townlands of Kilbarry, Ballydorgan, Modeligo, Kilcoran, Waterpark,
Glenagurteen, Garrynagoul and Marston.
How the Condons expanded their
area of ownership is unknown. The early expansion from Careysville to Kilbarry
and onto Modeligo, Kilcoran and Waterpark could have been by military means.
After that the Condon expansion would seem to be by purchase. If it was by
military action the present boundary between Cork
and Waterford
would be a near straight line. But the boundary follows a great curving
movement as Sheanbeg in County Waterford is surrounded on three sides by County Cork Cork while the Fitzgeralds lived in the medieval county of Waterford
and so they wanted all their land in the new County Waterford
Sometime between 1456 and 1460
Ellis, daughter of William de Barry, 8th Baron Barrymore married
Thomas Fitz James Fitzgerald, eldest son of James Fitzgerald, 7th
Earl of Desmond. William’s father John de Barry had married a daughter of a
previous Earl of Desmond.
By the terms of the marriage a
nice dowry came to the Fitzgeralds. The manors and property of Conna,
Cooldurragh, Ballytrasna and Mocollop came to the Fitzgeralds. William de Barry
reconfirmed the transfer in 1466 Thomas and Ellis.[1] By
a peace agreement in the 1356 the Fitzgeralds had all ready acquired the local
manors of the Barrys at Aghern, Knockmourne and Ballynoe.
The Fitzgerald hundred year
quest to acquire Mocollop was now a fact. James, 7th Earl of Desmond
lost no time in developing the castle. The chronicles tell us he rebuilt the
castle. During the Barry period of ownership the castle had declined since the
Black Death. Due to the isolated location of Mocollop, far from the centre of
the Barry lordship, meant that little money was spent on Mocollop for decades.
Some people think that the
rebuilding of James Fitzgerald was in fact the first building of the castle.
But this can be disproved by the structure of the central keep. If 1460 was the
first building then the keep would have had a stone vault over the ground floor
and may be another value over an upper floor. As the present structure shows no
such vault and instead shows the evidence of a flat timber floor proves the
c.1220 date for the first building.
James Fitzgerald was very
interested in the rebuilding of Mocollop and died there in 1462.[2] He
was then buried in the South Abbey at Youghal, site of the present Presentation
Convent.[3]
Thomas Fitzgerald, the eldest son, became the 8th Earl of Desmond while
his younger brother, Garret became ancestor of the Fitzgeralds of Dromana.[4] In
1463 Thomas Fitzgerald became deputy for the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland ,
George of Clarence. Thomas was now head of the Dublin government and embarked on a campaign
of castle building around the Leinster Pale. Meanwhile work at Mocollop
continued until 1464.
Thomas Fitzgerald continued
the family feud against the Butlers of Kilkenny and led campaigns against the
O’Briens of Thomond. But along the way Thomas gathered powerful enemies. One of
these was Queen Elizabeth Woodville. The Queen had recently married King Edward
IV but her low social status and the quality of her relations were considered
not fit for a king. Thomas Fitzgerald was against the marriage and the Queen
did not forget this opposition. She arranged for John Tiptoft, Earl of
Worcester to become deputy of Ireland
instead of Thomas. Tiptoft called a parliament at Drogheda
in February 1468 and these arrested Thomas on a trumped up charge of treason.
Before anybody could react to this charge Tiptoft had Thomas beheaded.[5] The
Earl was firstly buried in St. Peter’s Church, Drogheda but was later reburied
in Christ Church ,
Dublin .[6]
The five sons of Earl Thomas
were enraged and went into rebellion. They advanced with out of Munster and almost
levelled the Pale. Soon after a peace agreement was reached and compensation
was given. Thomas was succeeded as earl by the eldest four of his sons. The
fifth son, Gerald Oge was made Lord of Coshmore and Coshbride. This district
stretched along the west bank of the River Blackwater and east of the present
Cork/Waterford boundary. Places like Templemichael, Knockanore, Tallow,
Lisfinny, Lismore, Sheanmore and Mocollop are all within this district. Gerald
Oge made the castle
of Mocollop
For the first time since
Philip White in the late 13th century Mocollop had a resident lord. Gerald
Oge lived for the next fifty years and his impact upon the manor must have been
considerable, we just don’t have the documentary evidence to say what that
impact was. Gerald Oge Fitzgerald was killed in 1477 or peacefully died in 1520
depending on the source you wish to believe.[8]
Gerald left four sons. Each of these sons got a part of Coshmore and Coshbride
as their own place. Of course the earl of Desmond was still the owner of the
whole region and the local Fitzgeralds had the place on long term leases. This
fact would be of importance 65 years later when all the property of the then 15th
Earl of Desmond was seized after his rebellion including Coshmore/Coshbride.
James the eldest got Mocollop; Maurice the
second son got Sheanmore, while Thomas the next son got Kilmacow. The last son,
John, got Strancally and Lisfinny but when he died in 1550 leaving a twelve
year old son, the 15th Earl of Desmond seized the two manors and
carried young Thomas into prison where he died in 1554.[9]
Chapter six
The Fitzgeralds were like
other landlords and enjoyed the pleasures of their estate income. Other people
actually did the day to day working at Mocollop. The seneschal was the chief
estate officer while the chief officer of the castle was the constable. It
would appear that in the 16th century the one person held both
offices at Mocollop. The family of McGrath held the office of constable through
many generations. This family settled in Waterford
in the first half of the fifteenth century and made the area around Slieve Gua
(between Dungarvan and Clonmel). An altar tomb of Donal McGrath was built in
the Augustinian Abbey at Abbeyside in 1470.[10]
A descendent of Donal was John
McGrath who was constable of Mocollop in the 1530s. John had at least two sons
of which Donal McGrath of Mountain Castle was one. This man died in 1548 and
the altar tomb in St. Carthage’s cathedral, Lismore is his commission. The
other son was John McGrath and his wife was Ellen Prendergast, both of whom are
buried in the Lismore altar tomb.[11]
McGrath tomb in Lismore Cathedral of St. Carthage
John of Lismore had a son
called John Oge McGrath and he was constable of Mocollop in the 1560s. He was
removed after the battle of Affane in 1565 when forces of the Butlers of Ormond
were at Mocollop. They were shortly removed by the government as it tried to
gain control over Munster in the private war
between the Fitzgeralds and Butlers .
By 1568 the Fitzgeralds had
recovered Mocollop. Eleanor, Countess of Desmond managed the Fitzgerald
property when her husband the 15th Earl was in jail in England . On 18
November 1568 the Earl sent her a letter directing that “the bearer John Oge
McGrath was to be reinstated in the custody of the manor of Mokawllopoie in the
County of Waterford
It would appear that the Earl
of Desmond had assumed direct ownership of Mocollop around this time. An
inquisition taken in 1572 found the Earl had possession of Mocollop as early as
1565. Thomas Fitzgerald of Kilmacow
Castle
The detached portion of
Mocollop manor is of interest. Medieval estates were rarely co-terminus. Farm
fragmentation was a very common situation. The said townlands lying on the
navigable River Bride would suggest that they were used by Mocollop as the port
of that manor. This situation is reflected on a grander scale in Leinster . The liberty of Carlow held New Ross as its port
while the lordship of Dunamase in Laois had Bannow in Wexford as its port and
owned the port.
James Fitzgerald, eldest son
of Gerald Oge Fitzgerald had inherited Mocollop from his father in 1477 or more
possibly 1520. As the eldest son he also became Lord of Coshmore and Coshbride.
James of Mocollop died in 1557 leaving four sons. The eldest son, Maurice
Fitzgerald, inherited Mocollop and became Lord of Coshmore/Coshbride. His
brother, Gerald ‘Brack’ Fitz James served as Dean of Lismore (1564-1583)
without ever becoming a cleric and got the job when he was only a boy. Another
brother was Thomas ‘Brack’ Fitz James who was the father of John Mac Thomas
Brack. The fourth son of James of Mocollop was called John.[14]
The aforementioned 1572
inquisition tells us that James Fitzgerald of Mocollop had died. At first
impression it would seem his heir must have been under age and this was way the
Earl had assumed direct control. But Maurice, the eldest son must have been
over 40 in 1572 as his son James was of military age in the first Desmond
rebellion. The assumption of control by the Earl must have occurred for another
reason. This reason would seem to be because of disobedience.
In 1565 Gerald Fitzgerald of
Dromana wanted to throw off any feudal obligations to the Earl of Desmond. This
disobedience cause the Earl to into west Waterford
with an army in 1565 and a battle ensured at Affane. Maurice Fitzgerald as Lord
of Mocollop was in the pathway of Desmond’s army and may have refused the Earl
a right to pass through Mocollop. Maurice may also have sympathised with
Fitzgerald of Dromana and could have had ambitions to become more independent.
This independence was against the earl’s rights and was not acceptable; hence
the Earl assumed direct control of Mocollop.
Yet peaceful times were not restored for
long. The first Desmond rebellion started in the summer of 1569. The claim by
Sir Peter Carew to the land
of Coshbride
By 1571 English forces had
defeated the Irish in many parts of Ireland . The Earl of Ormond, Thomas
‘Black Tom’ Butler , cousin of Queen Elizabeth
and lifelong schemer against the Desmonds advanced into Munster . Moving through west Waterford and up the
Blackwater he was joined by Sir Thomas Roe Fitzgerald of Conna.[16]
Sir Thomas was a son of the 14th
Earl of Desmond by his first wife, Joan, daughter of Maurice Lord Roche,
Viscount Fermoy and should have become the next Earl on his father’s death. But
the 14th earl divorced his first wife and married Mór O’Carroll by
whom he had Gerald Fitzgerald among other children. The old Earl declared his
first marriage illegal and the children of same were declared illegitimate and
so Gerald became 15th earl of Desmond. In compensation Sir Thomas
Roe got the manor of Conna. He was knighted by the English in 1569.[17]
South façade of Conna tower house, County Cork
But Conna was of little
compensation and when rebellion broke out Thomas Roe fought on the English
side. As the Earl of Ormond advanced on Mocollop in 1571 Thomas Roe came to
help. Together they besieged the castle. Sir James Fitz Maurice Fitzgerald
defended the castle instead of his father. Many local lords adopted this
approach whereby the son went out in rebellion while the father stayed at
peace. This was to ensure the survival of the family estate. In was normal
practice for any person who rebelled against the crown to have their lands
forfeited to the crown as punishment. The later acquisition of land by Oliver
Cromwell from the defeated Irish in the 1650s was simply a continuation of
established practice.
James Fitz Maurice surrendered
Mocollop to the Earl of Ormond on 4 May 1571. The castle was then possibly
occupied by some of Ormond’s troops while the Earl moved on into County Cork
In 1573 Rory McShane McGrath,
constable of Lisfinny tower house and son of John McGrath, constable of
Mocollop, successfully attacked Conna tower house.[20]
It was August 1574 before Sir Thomas Roe recovered Conna after Rory’s defeat
near Clonmel.[21]
During the 1570s pardons were
given out by the Dublin
government in an attempt to restore some sort of peace. The political situation
was still uncertain. Intermittent military activity occurred across the
province followed by peace once a large English force had arrived at the flash
point. On 15 February 1577 Maurice Fitz James Fitzgerald and his two sons,
Gerald and James, received a pardon for fraternising with those causing unrest.[22]
Meanwhile the Earl of Desmond
had many enemies within the English government and many across the country who
sought to undo the Earl for their own gain. In September 1574 the Earl passed
his vast estates into the hands of trustees in an effort to secure his
inheritance should anything further go wrong. The trustees were James Butler,
Lord Dunboyne, John Power, Lord Curraghmore and John Fitz Edmund Fitzgerald of
Cloyne. The manor of Mocollop was one of the properties given to the trustees
by the Earl’s bailiffs. Over seeing the transfer of Mocollop was John Sinnott,
Maurice Fitzgerald, John Oge McGrath, Charles Boy and Nicholas Roche.[23]
For many years the 15th
Earl of Desmond was away from Munster
for too long in English jails and other people assumed leadership of the
province and would not give up their newly acquired power. Sir Maurice of
Desmond was one such person and in 1579 he brought Spanish troops into Kerry.
The Earl of Desmond was instructed to defeat these forces but could not muster
his troops to do so. The Dublin
government declared the Earl to be a rebel and the second Desmond War
began.
The war effectively ended with
the death of the 15th Earl of Desmond on a hill side near Tralee in November 1583 but military operations continued
for a few more weeks. There were still members of the Fitzgerald family who
could have assumed leadership of the Desmond Earldom but the English had had
enough of Desmond Earls. They had the entire Earldom seized as forfeited land
including Mocollop.
In the spring of 1584
surveyors travelled across Munster
mapping the province and establishing who owned what property.[24]
In 1586, Sir Walter Raleigh
got 42,000 acres stretching from Youghal to Cappoquin and onto Lismore with
land along the Bride
River
The manor of Mocollop was not
initially assigned to Raleigh
but if he could not find 42,000 in the initially area described above then Mocollop
along with the lands of Patrick Condon adjoining to the west (i.e. Waterpark,
Kilcoran, Marston, Garrynagoul, Modeligo, etc.).[26] Thomas
Fleetwood was to get Mocollop along with the Condon lands around Kilworth
instead and other lands around Kilwatermoy.[27] But
Fleetwood didn't have the court connections to secure possession.
The north-east tower of Mocollop castle showing the north façade (left) and the west façade (right)
On 28 February 1587 Sir Walter
Raleigh was granted Mocollop
Castle Raleigh
to get better title to Mocollop three members of the Fitzgerald family of
Mocollop were attained for rebellion. They were Gerald ‘Brack’ Fitz James (ex
dean of Lismore) and his brother Thomas ‘Brack’ Fitz James and Thomas’s son,
John Mac Thomas ‘Brack’ Fitzgerald.[28]
Mocollop was described as a
castle, a town and five ploughlands.[29]
The usual notion is that a ploughland corresponds to about 120 statute acres.
If this is so then Mocollop should be of 600 acres. But this is a wrong
assumption. A statute acre is s set geographical area without any room for
variation. A ploughland is not a measure of geographical area but a measure of
land quality for arable production. Other types of land such as pasture, meadow
and wood was regarded as extra ground to the arable land. A measure of five
ploughlands for Mocollop appears to be a good measure. This would suggest that
a good part of the manor was farmland despite a substantial part of the manor
been composed of high country.
Sir Walter Raleigh was
instructed to settle English people across his new lands. In 1592 he leased
Mocollop to George Conyers. A descendent of George was another George Conyers
of the 1690s who acquired land in County
Limerick
When George Conyers took Mocollop
it consisted of the castle, town and land. Also included was a mill. Since the
early Norman period a mill was in the manor of Mocollop as was the custom in
nearly every manor. In rare occasions a manor used the mill of a neighbouring
manor. The presence of a mill coupled with the high ploughland measure suggests
arable farming was carried on in a larges scale.
In 1595 Hugh O’Neill began
what became known as the Nine Years War. The war took off in Munster in 1597. Thomas Norris, the English
commander in Munster , wanted to advance
against the Irish in the Aherlow Valley in Tipperary
but he could only muster 700 poorly trained troops against an Irish army of
about 8,000 soldiers and 1,000 horse troops. Norris also got poor supported
from the new English settlers with only four lords bringing ten men. With
little prospect of reinforcements from England Norris distributed arms to the
settlers and left every man to take care of his own defence.
In 1598 O’Neill sent Captain
Richard Tyrrell into Munster with 2,000 horse
troops and they besieged the major towns like Kilmallock, Limerick, Cork and Waterford .
On 6 October Munster
arose in rebellion. The Earl of Desmond, James Fitz Thomas Fitzgerald (son of
Thomas Roe of Conna) attacked the settler homesteads and tower houses.
Hedgerows and mills were destroyed. Those settlers who made resistance were
killed. Most of the other settlers were sent naked to the port towns with their
property destroyed behind them.[31]
Mr. Duff lost Sheanmore tower house to the Shean Fitzgeralds while James Fitz
Maurice Fitzgerald recovered the ancestral home of Mocollop Castle
The Earl of Essex was sent
over to recover the situation but his army was destroyed in the series of small
engagements. After Essex left Ireland James Fitzthomas Fitzgerald, the Sugán
Earl and one of the chief rebels, met Henry Pyne of Mogeely Castle
In November 1600 Henry Pyne of
Mogeely Castle
Late in 1600 Charles Blount,
Lord Mountjoy, was sent over to Ireland
and the Irish had met their match. In September 1601 Spanish forces landed at
Kinsale and O’Neill marched south to meet his allies. But Lord Mountjoy slowed
his progress while building trenches around Kinsale to box in the Spanish. The
Battle of Kinsale lasted three months with victory for the English.
Famine, plague and lawlessness
spread across Munster
as the English recovered the captured castles. They gave pardons to many Irish
lords to speed up the process of recaptured. On 26 January 1602 a pardon was
granted to James Fitz Maurice Fitzgerald of Mocollop, Mór ny Brien his wife and
to Maurice Fitz Maurice his brother. His kinsman, Garret Fitz Maurice, grandson
of the former chancellor of Lismore also got a pardon.[35] A
further pardon was given to Garret Fitz James Fitzgerald for the surrender of
Sheanmore.[36]
On 7 December 1602 Sir Walter
Raleigh sold his entire Irish estate to Sir Richard Boyle for £1,500. Later in
November 1603 Raleigh was charged with treason
and so Boyle got further rights including the fishing on the Blackwater River
We mentioned earlier how
Mocollop was an extra piece of land given to Raleigh to make up the 42,000 acres of his
royal grant. Somebody, possibly James Fitz Maurice, had informed the government
that Raleigh
had more than enough land to make up 42,000 acres without the inclusion of
Mocollop. Sir Richard Boyle was good friends with Lord Deputy Chichester and
soon after Mocollop was restored to his ownership.
====================
To be continued
===================
[1] J.S. Brewer & William Bullen (eds.), Calendar
of Carew manuscripts at Lambeth (Liechtenstein,
1974 reprint), vol. 5, p. 398
[2] Maurice Geary, Ballyduff
G.A.A. History 1886-1989 (Litho, 1989), p. 13
[4] Ann Chambers, Eleanor
Countess of Desmond (Wolfhound, Dublin, 2000), pp. 238-9
[5] Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 7, p. 147
[6] George Edward Cokayne
(ed.), The Complete Peerage of England , Scotland ,
Ireland , Great Britain and the United Kingdom
[7] G. O’Connell-Redmond,
‘Castles of North-East Cork’, in Journal of the Cork Historical and archaeological Society, vol. 24, p. 2
[9] Kieran Heffernan and
Friedrich Billensteiner, The History of Strancally Castle
[11] Rev. Canon Power, Lismore-Mochuda: an historical sketch of
Lismore parish (Dublin ,
1946), p. 32
[12] Rev. Canon Power, Place-names of Decies (Cork , 1952), p. 52; G. O’Connell-Redmond,
‘Castles of North-East Cork’, in Journal
of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, vol. 24, p. 3
[13] J.S. Brewer & William Bullen (eds.), Calendar
of Carew manuscripts at Lambeth (Liechtenstein,
1974 reprint), vol. 1 (1515-1574), p. 417
[14] G. O’Connell-Redmond, ‘Castles of north-east Cork
[16] Tom Barry, ‘The Munster Geraldines’, in By Bride and Blackwater (Donal de Barra, Milton Malbay, 2003), p.
78
[17] Tom Barry, ‘The Munster
[18] G. O’Connell-Redmond, ‘Castles of north-east Cork
[19] G. O’Connell-Redmond, ‘Castles of north-east Cork
[20] Conna Community Council, Conna
in history and tradition (1998), p. 7
[21] Michael Desmond, Ballymacarbery
and Fourmilewater 1650-1850 (2004), pp. 5, 7
[22] G. O’Connell-Redmond, ‘Castles of north-east Cork
[23] J.S. Brewer & William Bullen (eds.), Calendar
of Carew manuscripts at Lambeth (Liechtenstein,
1974 reprint), vol. 1 (1515-1574), p. 482
[25] Robert Day (ed.), ‘Historical notes of the County and City of Cork
[26] J.S. Brewer & William Bullen (eds.), Calendar
of Carew manuscripts at Lambeth (Liechtenstein,
1974 reprint), vol. 2 (1575-1588), p. 452
[27] John T. Collins (ed.), ‘Fiants of Queen Elizabeth relating to the
City and County of Cork’, in Journal of
the Cork Archaeological and Historical Society, vol. 45, pp. 129-30, fiant
no. 5033; G. O’Connell-Redmond, ‘Castles of north-east Cork
[28] G. O’Connell-Redmond, ‘Castles of north-east Cork
[30] Burke’s Landed Gentry, 1904,
p. 159
[32] Maurice Geary, Ballyduff
G.A.A. History 1886-1989 (Litho, 1989), p. 13
[33] J.S. Brewer & William Bullen (eds.), Calendar
of Carew manuscripts at Lambeth (Liechtenstein,
1974 reprint), vol. 4 (1601-1603), p. 79
[34] J.S. Brewer & William Bullen (eds.), Calendar
of Carew manuscripts at Lambeth (Liechtenstein,
1974 reprint), vol. 3 (1589-1600), p. 477
[35] W.H. Grattan Flood, ‘Lismore During Reign of Elizabeth’, in Journal
of the Waterford and South-East of Ireland Archaeological Society, vol. 10 (1907), p. 138
[36] W.H. Grattan Flood, ‘Lismore During Reign of Elizabeth’, in Journal
of the Waterford and South-East of Ireland Archaeological Society, vol. 10 (1907), p. 136
[39] J.S. Brewer & William Bullen (eds.), Calendar
of Carew manuscripts at Lambeth (Liechtenstein,
1974 reprint), vol. 6 (1603-1624), p. 257
Very well put together keep up good work enjoying reading many more
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