Chartularies of St. Mary's Abbey, Dublin : with the Register of its house at Dunbrody, and Annals of Gilbert, John Thomas, Sir, 1829-1898
According to E H Lewis-Crosby*, onetime rector of this parish, before it was called Tig Lorcain circa 900, Stillorgan or Stacklorcan was known as Acrankill or Atnakill, which implies a church at the spot at a much earlier date. St Brigid founded the monastery in Kildare in the 5th or 6th century, which became one of the "Big Three" - with Iona and Armagh. It is supposed that emissaries from Kildare came to Stillorgan, and built their church on the site of the present Church of Ireland church, probably in the early 9th century. In the 13th century The clergyman in charge of Stillorgan was ex-officio treasurer of St Brigid's Cathedral. The original font from Stillorgan it thought to have been moved to Kildare during the renovations in the 18th century and it is possible that this is the one on display in St Brigid's Cathedral today.
As was the case all over Ireland, it would have been a monastic church. A typical early Irish monastery consisted of a small church, cells for the monks, a refectory and a school. These buildings were enclosed by a wall and a ditch. On average these churches were about 20-30 feet long and 15-20 feet wide, they were made from wood and roofed with thatch. The church at Stillorgan would most likely have resembled this model.
The first of the Rathdown slabs was discovered at Stillorgan on 2nd September 1781 by Austin Cooper and described as a headstone with “rude circles thereon”. These slabs are closely linked to church sites dating from the eleventh and twelfth century. The slabs have subsequently been found in various churches in the Rathdown area, their decoration is consistent with Viking art and although the slabs have not been dated, it is possible that they are from the early Viking era. Burials found at Waltersland, a townland in the parish may also relate to a much earlier period than first thought. Unfortunately this Rathdown slab has not been re-discovered to-date.
Originally a pastoral area, tillage lands reclaimed form the sea, its heyday it seems was when the Carysfort estate was sold off and plots were sold from 1790. Flooded my minor elite and wealthy merchants, its only industry was a brewery which closed in 1860, locals were mainly employed in agriculture and building. The population was made up of the wealthy elite and those dependant on them; the gardeners, coachmen, servants, grooms and stewards. This elite were in the main protestant, their employees tended to be Roman Catholic, the exceptions being the governesses and teachers.
The area of Stillorgan stretched to the sea and took in the Black Rock over as far as Seapoint according to The Chartuleries of St Mary's Abbey which has been transcribed as follows:-
Charter of Remundus de Karru of that land which is called Argortin -
Let it be known to all present and to come than I, Reimundus de Carru, have given and conceded, and now with this my charter have confirmed that gift to the church of the Blessed Mary and the White Monks therin serving God, for my soul, and for the souls of my father and mother, and my friends and ancestors as free alms, the furthermost part of my land of STACHLORCAN, beside the sea otherwise known as Argortin.
This area is then specified by F E Ball as "The land on which Seapoint and Templehill now stand formed at the time of the Norman conquest portion of those of Stillorgan, and were known as Argortin, or the tillage lands."
It started off as a small village “all on the left side just like Stillorgan”, now we have just a few remains of the old village, the shops on the hill once known as Grove view, the old school house and the church. How sad it is that so many of the old buildings were demolished to make way for housing estates, thankfully attitudes have changed in the last 20 years or so and we have more of an appreciation of the old structures and humble stone buildings, but a shame to think that over a hundred old houses in the area have been torn down.
The story of Stillorgan village as we know it today, started in 1695 when the Allen’s built Stillorgan Park house. It has been said time and time again that if the house had survived to present times along with its demesne that it would have been one of the largest and most important properties in the county. Most historians agree that its site was probably where Stillorgan House (Rehab Ireland)is now. It was said to have stretched all the way from Stillorgan village across as far as Newtown Park avenue down to Blackrock and as far as the Fitzwilliam property at Mount Merrion (Callery/Callary). The gates were reused and can now be seen on the Rock Road at the entrance to Willow Park. It would have covered all of what we know now, as Priory Park, Stillorgan Grove, Ulster Terrace, Glenart Avenue, Grove Avenue, Carysfort Avenue, right to the very border of Mount Merrion Avenue. The house was demolished in 1887. Most of the area called Stillorgan Grove was developed in Victorian time, houses like Talbot lodge, gone now, were built, most others have done well to be still with us.
Blackrock may claim ownership of the Obelisk, and the Grotto may be in private hands, but please take note these were part of Stillorgan House and so are very much a part of Stillorgan. The Grotto is now in someone’s back garden and very few people in Stillorgan would even be aware of it today. The original plans for the demesne which are on show in the National Library, show the grotto as part of formal walk through the elaborate garden and parklands. It originally was build as a series of seven domed structures made from brick, like arched chambers built underground but today they are in ruins, but perhaps this the way they were meant to be - Just a folly evoking ancient Roman or Greek Architecture. The garden of Stillorgan Park House on the map shows 3 fishponds, various walkways and carriage drives. In its early days the original gardens were said to be planted in the Dutch style (very square) with straight avenues, clipped box and yew with grassy slopes and lots of topiary work, but they moved with the fashions and hence we get the obelisk and the grotto, just another fashion trend. The house is depicted in a painting by Gabriele Ricciardelli as a house made up of 2 stories over a basement with an attic floor. On the north side it had 2 connecting wings and on the south side the house had a continuous façade of 21 windows. This same Allen family organised the rebuilding of St Brigid’s church between 1706 and 1712.
The grotto in more recent times was supposed to be the hiding place for arms of Sir Thomas Myles IRB gun runner and was also said to have been used as an armoury for the British army. There were also numerous granite quarry pits all around Stillorgan, we know there was one on the Brewery land and there was another one in Stillorgan Grove, but they filled that one in to make way for the golf course. It was founded in 1908 as a 9 hole course and was advertised as being only 15 minutes walk from Blackrock station. The back 9 were added later. The Orr Family were involved, their house at number 2 Ulster Terrace is listed as the Club house for one year and the course would have been just outside their front door. The Orr family were members of this parish, major benefactors and Donald Orr was founder of the Rover Scout Crew in Stillorgan in the 1921. The Golf course was disbanded in 1917, some say that there was in-house fighting and that a split occurred and some of the members went to Foxrock, Killiney and Castle Golf club which had all started around the same time, Elm park didn’t open until 1927. Others say it was a concerted effort by Major W F Bailey who had started up Castle park Golf Club, but the odd cry of four can still be heard from its surrounds as there is a small private pitch and put course still in Priory and the 9th hole of the Grove Golf course is still preserved in St John of Gods.
Look to Woodley, Kelston and Thornhill, grand mansions which once stood on their own grounds now completely smothered by housing estates making it virtually impossible to imagine their previous grandeur. What a place Stillorgan and Blackrock would have been in the 1700 and 1800’s, a playground for the rich, with separate bathing rocks for men and women in Blackrock where many of the bathers “went native”. Writers extolled the “air” as healthy, a pleasant place with commanding views. Redesdale was demolished in 1998 and Ardagh House (originally Bello Squardo) was demolished in 1940.
What was once a pretty village with the main coach road (Slighe Chualann – leading from Tara to Bray) from Dublin to Bray running through it, has been treated very badly by the 20th century, few villages have been treated worse or have lost so much of their identity.
That same coach road twisted in a detour around the church, graveyard and school and continued southward to cross the river which had been diverted though the centre of Darleys brewery plant to run the mill. Most of which is now under the N11. We also had the Kilmacud stream before its confluence with the Glaslower river which ran the length of the Kilmacud Road, which had many streams running into it and went out to the sea at Blackrock. Most of this was culverted in the 1960’s, but brings flooding problems to Stillorgan from time to time. This river would have been the main pathway to the mountains, used by the people who settled on Dalkey island, making forays onto the mainland in search of food. This same stream fed the fish ponds on the Allen estate and was used to power the Brewery. Most of Stillorgan was agricultural land in the 1700 and 1800’s. The workers living on the estates and the tradespeople living in what is now the main carpark of the shopping centre. The flourishing brewery which was just beside Dunstaffnagh Lodge, would have employed a lot of people, it had a mill, brew houses, malt stores, malt kiln and a mill pond. There were also 2 house with yards and stables. The Grange house was demolished in the 1960’s to make way for the Esso headquarters, which have since been demolished and now there are apartments and houses, renamed “The Grange”.
It is difficult to work out some of the old maps, but the fact that Brookvale was once known as Brewery house implies that it may have had something to do with the Darleys and possibly is one of the 2 dwellings listed as being there. In fact a lot of the houses are difficult to trace, mainly because the maps were not to scale but more often because of the similarity in names - Stillorgan House, Stillorgan Park House, Park House, Grove House, Stillorgan Grove House, Stillorgan Manor, Manor Lands.
The Protestant ascendancy may have been seen as self interested landlords, noted for their beautiful houses, magnificent demesnes and gardens and their extravagant lifestyles, but they were dependent on rents from tenants, the overwhelming Catholic population of the county never accepted the legitimacy of their dominant status, so rebellion was always afoot, but paradoxically this produced people like Theo Wolfe Tone, Henry Grattan, Robert Emmet, Countess Markiewicz and Roger Casement and paradoxically again we saw the acceptance of people like Oscar Wilde, Percy French, Jonathan Swift, Synge, Oliver Goldsmith, WB Yeats, GB Shaw, Lady Gregory to name but a few, taken into the bosoms of the Irish people and in Stillorgan we cannot forget our own William Orpen.
"He was born Ernest Henry Cornwall on 28/12/1864. After his brother's death he changed his name for inheritance reasons and became E H Lewis-Crosby (his mother was Harriet Elizabeth Crosby). He got a scholarship to Trinity College and gained first class honours. He was rector in Drumcondra and then Rathmines. He became rector of Stillorgan in 1924. He married Hilda Darley and had 3 sons and 2 daughters. Canon Ernest Henry Lewis-Crosby (1864-1961), the last chaplain to a Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, became the Rector of Stillorgan in 1924. He was a member of the Cornwall family of Rathmore House, Naas, Co Kildare, who are commemorated in windows and memorials in Saint Brigid's. He was later Dean of Christ Church Cathedral (1938-1961).
©2013- 2024 St Brigid's Church, Stillorgan Parish
content by June Bow & Karen Poff
Sponsored by Sureskills
As was the case all over Ireland, it would have been a monastic church. A typical early Irish monastery consisted of a small church, cells for the monks, a refectory and a school. These buildings were enclosed by a wall and a ditch. On average these churches were about 20-30 feet long and 15-20 feet wide, they were made from wood and roofed with thatch. The church at Stillorgan would most likely have resembled this model.
The first of the Rathdown slabs was discovered at Stillorgan on 2nd September 1781 by Austin Cooper and described as a headstone with “rude circles thereon”. These slabs are closely linked to church sites dating from the eleventh and twelfth century. The slabs have subsequently been found in various churches in the Rathdown area, their decoration is consistent with Viking art and although the slabs have not been dated, it is possible that they are from the early Viking era. Burials found at Waltersland, a townland in the parish may also relate to a much earlier period than first thought. Unfortunately this Rathdown slab has not been re-discovered to-date.
Originally a pastoral area, tillage lands reclaimed form the sea, its heyday it seems was when the Carysfort estate was sold off and plots were sold from 1790. Flooded my minor elite and wealthy merchants, its only industry was a brewery which closed in 1860, locals were mainly employed in agriculture and building. The population was made up of the wealthy elite and those dependant on them; the gardeners, coachmen, servants, grooms and stewards. This elite were in the main protestant, their employees tended to be Roman Catholic, the exceptions being the governesses and teachers.
The area of Stillorgan stretched to the sea and took in the Black Rock over as far as Seapoint according to The Chartuleries of St Mary's Abbey which has been transcribed as follows:-
Charter of Remundus de Karru of that land which is called Argortin -
Let it be known to all present and to come than I, Reimundus de Carru, have given and conceded, and now with this my charter have confirmed that gift to the church of the Blessed Mary and the White Monks therin serving God, for my soul, and for the souls of my father and mother, and my friends and ancestors as free alms, the furthermost part of my land of STACHLORCAN, beside the sea otherwise known as Argortin.
This area is then specified by F E Ball as "The land on which Seapoint and Templehill now stand formed at the time of the Norman conquest portion of those of Stillorgan, and were known as Argortin, or the tillage lands."
It started off as a small village “all on the left side just like Stillorgan”, now we have just a few remains of the old village, the shops on the hill once known as Grove view, the old school house and the church. How sad it is that so many of the old buildings were demolished to make way for housing estates, thankfully attitudes have changed in the last 20 years or so and we have more of an appreciation of the old structures and humble stone buildings, but a shame to think that over a hundred old houses in the area have been torn down.
The story of Stillorgan village as we know it today, started in 1695 when the Allen’s built Stillorgan Park house. It has been said time and time again that if the house had survived to present times along with its demesne that it would have been one of the largest and most important properties in the county. Most historians agree that its site was probably where Stillorgan House (Rehab Ireland)is now. It was said to have stretched all the way from Stillorgan village across as far as Newtown Park avenue down to Blackrock and as far as the Fitzwilliam property at Mount Merrion (Callery/Callary). The gates were reused and can now be seen on the Rock Road at the entrance to Willow Park. It would have covered all of what we know now, as Priory Park, Stillorgan Grove, Ulster Terrace, Glenart Avenue, Grove Avenue, Carysfort Avenue, right to the very border of Mount Merrion Avenue. The house was demolished in 1887. Most of the area called Stillorgan Grove was developed in Victorian time, houses like Talbot lodge, gone now, were built, most others have done well to be still with us.
Blackrock may claim ownership of the Obelisk, and the Grotto may be in private hands, but please take note these were part of Stillorgan House and so are very much a part of Stillorgan. The Grotto is now in someone’s back garden and very few people in Stillorgan would even be aware of it today. The original plans for the demesne which are on show in the National Library, show the grotto as part of formal walk through the elaborate garden and parklands. It originally was build as a series of seven domed structures made from brick, like arched chambers built underground but today they are in ruins, but perhaps this the way they were meant to be - Just a folly evoking ancient Roman or Greek Architecture. The garden of Stillorgan Park House on the map shows 3 fishponds, various walkways and carriage drives. In its early days the original gardens were said to be planted in the Dutch style (very square) with straight avenues, clipped box and yew with grassy slopes and lots of topiary work, but they moved with the fashions and hence we get the obelisk and the grotto, just another fashion trend. The house is depicted in a painting by Gabriele Ricciardelli as a house made up of 2 stories over a basement with an attic floor. On the north side it had 2 connecting wings and on the south side the house had a continuous façade of 21 windows. This same Allen family organised the rebuilding of St Brigid’s church between 1706 and 1712.
The grotto in more recent times was supposed to be the hiding place for arms of Sir Thomas Myles IRB gun runner and was also said to have been used as an armoury for the British army. There were also numerous granite quarry pits all around Stillorgan, we know there was one on the Brewery land and there was another one in Stillorgan Grove, but they filled that one in to make way for the golf course. It was founded in 1908 as a 9 hole course and was advertised as being only 15 minutes walk from Blackrock station. The back 9 were added later. The Orr Family were involved, their house at number 2 Ulster Terrace is listed as the Club house for one year and the course would have been just outside their front door. The Orr family were members of this parish, major benefactors and Donald Orr was founder of the Rover Scout Crew in Stillorgan in the 1921. The Golf course was disbanded in 1917, some say that there was in-house fighting and that a split occurred and some of the members went to Foxrock, Killiney and Castle Golf club which had all started around the same time, Elm park didn’t open until 1927. Others say it was a concerted effort by Major W F Bailey who had started up Castle park Golf Club, but the odd cry of four can still be heard from its surrounds as there is a small private pitch and put course still in Priory and the 9th hole of the Grove Golf course is still preserved in St John of Gods.
Look to Woodley, Kelston and Thornhill, grand mansions which once stood on their own grounds now completely smothered by housing estates making it virtually impossible to imagine their previous grandeur. What a place Stillorgan and Blackrock would have been in the 1700 and 1800’s, a playground for the rich, with separate bathing rocks for men and women in Blackrock where many of the bathers “went native”. Writers extolled the “air” as healthy, a pleasant place with commanding views. Redesdale was demolished in 1998 and Ardagh House (originally Bello Squardo) was demolished in 1940.
What was once a pretty village with the main coach road (Slighe Chualann – leading from Tara to Bray) from Dublin to Bray running through it, has been treated very badly by the 20th century, few villages have been treated worse or have lost so much of their identity.
That same coach road twisted in a detour around the church, graveyard and school and continued southward to cross the river which had been diverted though the centre of Darleys brewery plant to run the mill. Most of which is now under the N11. We also had the Kilmacud stream before its confluence with the Glaslower river which ran the length of the Kilmacud Road, which had many streams running into it and went out to the sea at Blackrock. Most of this was culverted in the 1960’s, but brings flooding problems to Stillorgan from time to time. This river would have been the main pathway to the mountains, used by the people who settled on Dalkey island, making forays onto the mainland in search of food. This same stream fed the fish ponds on the Allen estate and was used to power the Brewery. Most of Stillorgan was agricultural land in the 1700 and 1800’s. The workers living on the estates and the tradespeople living in what is now the main carpark of the shopping centre. The flourishing brewery which was just beside Dunstaffnagh Lodge, would have employed a lot of people, it had a mill, brew houses, malt stores, malt kiln and a mill pond. There were also 2 house with yards and stables. The Grange house was demolished in the 1960’s to make way for the Esso headquarters, which have since been demolished and now there are apartments and houses, renamed “The Grange”.
It is difficult to work out some of the old maps, but the fact that Brookvale was once known as Brewery house implies that it may have had something to do with the Darleys and possibly is one of the 2 dwellings listed as being there. In fact a lot of the houses are difficult to trace, mainly because the maps were not to scale but more often because of the similarity in names - Stillorgan House, Stillorgan Park House, Park House, Grove House, Stillorgan Grove House, Stillorgan Manor, Manor Lands.
The Protestant ascendancy may have been seen as self interested landlords, noted for their beautiful houses, magnificent demesnes and gardens and their extravagant lifestyles, but they were dependent on rents from tenants, the overwhelming Catholic population of the county never accepted the legitimacy of their dominant status, so rebellion was always afoot, but paradoxically this produced people like Theo Wolfe Tone, Henry Grattan, Robert Emmet, Countess Markiewicz and Roger Casement and paradoxically again we saw the acceptance of people like Oscar Wilde, Percy French, Jonathan Swift, Synge, Oliver Goldsmith, WB Yeats, GB Shaw, Lady Gregory to name but a few, taken into the bosoms of the Irish people and in Stillorgan we cannot forget our own William Orpen.
"He was born Ernest Henry Cornwall on 28/12/1864. After his brother's death he changed his name for inheritance reasons and became E H Lewis-Crosby (his mother was Harriet Elizabeth Crosby). He got a scholarship to Trinity College and gained first class honours. He was rector in Drumcondra and then Rathmines. He became rector of Stillorgan in 1924. He married Hilda Darley and had 3 sons and 2 daughters. Canon Ernest Henry Lewis-Crosby (1864-1961), the last chaplain to a Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, became the Rector of Stillorgan in 1924. He was a member of the Cornwall family of Rathmore House, Naas, Co Kildare, who are commemorated in windows and memorials in Saint Brigid's. He was later Dean of Christ Church Cathedral (1938-1961).
©2013- 2024 St Brigid's Church, Stillorgan Parish
content by June Bow & Karen Poff
Sponsored by Sureskills
