Kilkea Castle and the Earls of Kildare

Kilkea Castle, much altered over the centuries, is believed to be Ireland’s oldest habitable castle. Built in the latter end of the 12th century by the Anglo Norman Hugh de Lacy in what was later described as the Marches of Kildare, it formed part of the fortresses which provided protection for that part of the countryside centred around Dublin which was controlled by the early Anglo-Norman settlers. The Castle is within 4 miles of the village of Castledermot where the first gathering in Irish history to be called a Parliament was held in 1264. Twenty-six knights came together for that first parliamentary session and ten more Irish parliaments would be held in the rural village of Castledermot between 1269 and 1404. That first Irish parliament was held just 27 years after King Henry III’s Great Council met in the Great Chamber of the medieval palace of Westminster. That is generally accepted as the first gathering in English history to be called a Parliament. The Castle of Kilkea was once one of the homes of the most powerful family in Ireland, the Fitzgeralds, later Earls of Kildare and from the latter part of the 18th Century Dukes of Leinster. Several Earls of Kildare served as Lord Deputy of Ireland, a role which involved placating the rebellious Irish tribes who did not accept the King’s rule in Ireland. Gearoid Mór, the 8th Earl of Kildare and Governor of Ireland for over 30 years was wounded while leading his men against the Irish Tribe of the O’Mores at Leap Castle and he succumbed to his wounds in the town of Athy. His son, Gearoid Óg the 9th Earl of Kildare, succeeded as Lord Deputy, but Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII chief advisor and Chancellor of the Exchequer concerned by the usurpation of Royal power by the Irish Lords had the Earl called to London for alleged treason. He would die in the Tower of London while his son Thomas, known in Irish history as Silken Thomas, rebelled and marched on Dublin. He too ended up in the Tower of London with five of his uncles where they were all beheaded. This so called Kildare Rebellion prompted the Crown to take the governorship of Ireland out of the hands of the Earls of Kildare to be replaced by direct rule by an English governor. The title Earl of Kildare was forfeited and the family’s estates including Kilkea Castle confiscated, but were restored 15 years later when Silken Thomas’s half-brother, also called Thomas, a self-proclaimed loyal subject of the King was recognised as Earl of Kildare. He made his principle residence in Kilkea Castle. However, following the Desmond rebellion of 1569 which involved a related Fitzgerald family in the south of the country, Thomas, the 11th Earl, was arrested and brought to London. This time unlike his predecessors, he was not confined to the Tower of London, but spent long periods in the 1570s and 1580s under house arrest. He died in London in 1585. Subsequent Earls of Kildare continued to live in Kilkea Castle and were resident here during the Civil War which broke out in 1641 between the native Irish and Catholic gentry on the one side and Puritans on the other. Later it became a three sided conflict between the native Irish, the Catholic Royalists and the Puritans. The Catholic Confederate leaders Owen Roe O’Neill and Thomas Preston stayed in Kilkea Castle for a time, as did the Papal Nuncio Scarampo during the Civil War, commonly referred to as the Confederate War. Apart from playing hosts for a short while to some of the Catholic leaders involved in the war, Kilkea Castle did not figure hugely in the terrible events of the Confederate Wars or Cromwell’s reign of terror. If the 16th century Earls of Kildare were regarded as unfaithful to the English Crown, a very real rebel was found in Lord Edward Fitzgerald, one time Member of Parliament for Athy and brother of the first Duke of Leinster. He led the United Irishmen in his native county of Kildare in preparation for the 1798 rebellion. Lord Edward had served in the British forces in America during the American Revolution and was later an admirer of the French Revolution and an associate of Thomas Paine. He joined the United Irishmen on returning from America but was captured before the rebellion started and died as a result of a stab wound inflicted while being arrested. He is still remembered today as one of the most passionate Irish Revolutionaries of the 18th Century. Lord Edward and his wife Pamela had three children and their daughter Pamela married Sir Guy Campbell, a distinguished Scottish soldier who had played an active part in suppressing the Irish rebels during the 1798 Rebellion and who was later Lieutenant Governor of Gibraltar during the critical years of the Peninsular War. Their daughter Madeline married Percy Wyndham, son of the Earl of Egremont and their son, the great grandson of the Irish rebel, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, would become the Secretary of State for Ireland under Arthur Balfour’s premiership. George Wyndham was described as a hardened Tory and an indefatigable defender of the Union. He is remembered for the Wyndham Land Act of 1903 which effectively brought an end to the Irish Land War campaigns of the 1880s while his great grandfather Lord Edward, the most famous son of Kilkea Castle, is remembered as one of the most admired Irish radical revolutionaries of the past.

Kilkea Castle and some of its occupants

A few weeks ago I wrote of my visit with a west of Ireland friend to places in and around south Kildare which I claimed could make an interesting trip as part of Ireland’s Ancient East.  The recent announcement of the proposed re-opening of Kilkea Castle provides another reason to visit this area.  With Whites Castle and Woodstock Castle the Castle at Kilkea forms a unique trio of medieval buildings which at different times were in the ownership of the FitzGerald family, Earls of Kildare and Dukes of Leinster.

 

Kilkea Castle is often claimed as the oldest inhabited castle in Ireland and certainly its part in Irish history stretching back to the 12^th century brings us face to face with many of the great events of the past.  Silken Thomas’s rebellion following the imprisonment of his father Garret Óg, 9^th Earl of Kildare in the tower of London, resulted in the execution of the young man and five of his uncles and the confiscation of the Earl’s lands.  Thomas’s half-brother Gerald had the title and the land restored to him 15 years later and on his return to Ireland from the Continent Gerald took up residence in Kilkea Castle.  Because of his interest in the occult arts he was called the Wizard Earl of Kildare, of whom much has been written in terms of local folklore. 

 

What is perhaps little known is that a Jesuit community was in occupation of Kilkea Castle for 12 years up to 1646.  The widow of the 14^th Earl of Kildare, herself a devout catholic, permitted Fr. Robert Nugent, Superior of the Jesuit Order, to take over the castle and it was here that Cardinal Rinuccini, the papal nuncio, was entertained during the Confederate wars.

 

After the Confederate wars Kilkea Castle was home to many different families who for the most part were unconnected to the Earls of Kildare.  Perhaps the most interesting of those Kilkea residents was Thomas Reynolds whose wife’s sister was married to Wolfe Tone.  Reynolds, a Dublin silk merchant, was friendly with Lord Edward FitzGerald, the one-time member of parliament for the borough of Athy who was leader of the United Irishmen in County Kildare.  He brought Reynolds into the organisation and indeed Reynolds became a colonel in the Army of the United Irishmen.  Regrettably Reynolds turned out to be an informer, a claim which his son unsuccessful attempted to dispute in his biography of Thomas Reynolds, published in 1838.  Subsequent tenants of Kilkea Castle were the Caulfield family who were also occupiers of extensive lands in the Grangemellon area.  A member of the Caulfield family was one of those involved as trustees of Catholic church property for the parish of St. Michael’s Athy in the early post Catholic emancipation period.

 

Kilkea castle after almost 200 years without a FitzGerald in residence once again became a family residence for members of the Duke of Leinster’s family.  However, the once extensive Leinster estates passed into the ownership of an English financier, Sir Harry Mallaby-Deeley.  During the life of the 6^th Duke of Leinster his third son, Lord Edward, while his two older brothers were still alive, disposed of his reversionary rights for a relatively small sum to Mallaby-Deeley.  He did so believing that he had little prospect of succeeding to the title and to the Leinster estates.  However, Desmond FitzGerald, the eldest son of the Duke was killed while serving as an officer in World War 1 and the Duke’s second son Maurice died in February 1920.  When the sixth Duke of Leinster died in 1922 the former bankrupt Edward, described by many as a rakish womaniser, became the 7^th Duke of Leinster.  The tenanted lands belonging to the Leinster estates having been sold under the Wyndham Land Act to tenant farmers, the demesne lands at Carton and Kilkea were all that remained and they passed to Mallaby-Deeley.  He allowed members of the FitzGerald family, but not the improvident 7^th Duke, to live in Carton House until it was sold in 1948.

 

The 7^th Duke’s uncle, Lord Walter FitzGerald and Walter’s two sisters, lived in Kilkea Castle from 1889.  It was there that Lord Walter, one of the founders of the Kildare Archaeological Society, died in 1923.  The FitzGerald sisters continued living in Kilkea and after World War II the castle was occupied by the Marquess of Kildare.  In the mid-1960s he went to live in England and the castle was sold in 1965 to William Cade.  Edward the 7^th Duke who married four times, lived in England on an annual allowance from Mallaby-Deeley.  He died in 1976. 

 

The re-opening of Kilkea Castle as a hotel is to be applauded, bringing as it does the story of the great house of Leinster to our time.  It offers too a wonderful addition to the story of our neighbourhood, bringing with it the history of a great family, some of whose members are remembered today in the street names of our town.

The man who caused havoc among Athy’s rebels

One of the most infamous characters linked with the 1798 Rebellion is Thomas Reynolds, the one time resident of Kilkea Castle. Reynolds was a distant relation of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the Duke of Leinster’s son and one time Member of Parliament for the Borough of Athy. Colonel Thomas Fitzgerald of Geraldine House, Athy was Reynold’s uncle and both, unusually, for members of the gentry in 18th century Ireland, were members of the Catholic Church. Reynolds’ father Andrew was a silk merchant from Dublin and he married Rose Fitzgerald of Kilmead. Their son Thomas spent the first eight years of his life in the Kilmead home of his maternal grandfather Thomas Fitzgerald. Educated at Chiswick in England and later at Liege in Flanders he returned to Dublin in 1788, just a few weeks before the death of his father.

Thomas Reynolds son, in his father’s biography, published in 1838, claimed that his father was inveigled to become a member of the United Irishmen in January or February 1797 through the efforts of Richard Dillon, a Catholic and Oliver Bond, a Presbyterian. Some time previously Reynolds had agreed to take a lease of Kilkea Castle from the Duke of Leinster following the death of the previous tenant, a Mr. Dixon, an elderly man who passed away at the beginning of 1797.

Soon after Reynolds took up residence in Kilkea Castle he accepted Lord Edward’s invitation to take over from him as Colonel of the United Irishmen in the local barony of Kilkea and Moone. At the same time Reynolds was appointed as County Treasurer which entitled him to attend the Provincial Council meetings of the United Irishmen. Reynolds is believed to have passed on information to Dublin Castle regarding a planned meeting of the Provincial Council in Oliver Bond’s house in Bridge Street, Dublin. As a result members of the Leinster Directory including Peter Ivers from Carlow, Laurence Kelly from Laois, George Cummins from Kildare and Peter Bannan from Portarlington were arrested on 12th March.

Two days later Thomas Reynolds met Lord Edward Fitzgerald at the home of Dr. Kennedy in Aungier Street, Dublin when Lord Edward gave him a letter for the County Kildare rebels. On 17th March Reynolds left Dublin for Kilkea and stopped overnight in Naas. There he was met, to Reynolds’ surprise, by Matthew Kenna who told Reynolds of a meeting of the County Committee arranged for March 18th at the house of Reilly, a publican, near the Curragh of Kildare. Reynolds attended the meeting, although he must have been somewhat concerned that his colleagues would suspect his involvement in the Dublin arrests six days previously. However, nothing untoward happened to Reynolds and he afterwards arranged a meeting of local rebel captains in Athy for 20th March. The meeting, held in the back room of Peter Kelly’s shop in the main street of Athy, was arranged to coincide with the town’s monthly fair. Having read Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s letter to the meeting Reynolds then pressed the south Kildare captains to allow him to step down from the organisation, citing the earlier arrest in Oliver Bond’s house as his reason for wanting to do so. However, his unsuspecting colleagues decided that he should continue, but allowed him to share his position as Colonel of the United Irishmen with Dan Caulfield of Levitstown.

On 3rd April 1798 the Commander of the Government troops in Ireland issued a decree requiring all weapons to be handed up within ten days. At the same time Colonel Campbell of the 9th Dragoons stationed in the local barracks in Athy had notices distributed throughout the town, informing all and sundry of the military ultimatum. However, little or no attempt was made to comply with the military directive and so on 20th April soldiers were sent out from Athy’s military barracks to live at free quarters amongst the local people.

Rather surprisingly Colonel Campbell sent a troop of the 9th Dragoons and a company of the Cork Militia to Kilkea Castle, the home of Thomas Reynolds. Commanded by Captain Erskine they arrived on 20th April and used the famous Norman Castle as their base for the next eight days. Reynolds’ biographer was later to recount that ‘the friends and acquaintances of the officers, their wives and children and those of the soldiers came daily from Athy to see the Castle and feast at my father’s expense.’ As well as the free quartering of troops, searches for arms continued and no restrictions appeared to have been imposed on the soldiers. Contemporary accounts graphically recount the military’s plundering of goods which were brought to the Army Barracks in Athy. Erskine and his troops finally left Kilkea Castle on 28th April and moved into the Geraldine residence of Thomas Fitzgerald at Geraldine where they remained for the next thirty days.

On 3rd May Thomas Reynolds set off for Dublin to lodge a claim with the Dublin Castle authorities arising from the military occupation of Kilkea Castle. On the road out of Athy he met up with Wheeler Barrington from Fortbarrington House. Wheeler was the brother of Jonah Barrington who was later to be a judge of the Admiralty in Ireland and whose colourful career is recounted in his book ‘Personal Sketches of his Own Times’.

Just beyond Naas Barrington and Wheeler met Mr. Taylor, an attorney from Athy, who like Reynolds was a member of the Athy Yeomanry Cavalry. Taylor informed them of rumours circulating in Dublin concerning Reynolds’ arrest in Athy. As a consequence Reynolds changed his plans and stayed overnight in McDonnells Inn in Naas. Subsequently the Athy Yeomanry Cavalry of which Reynolds was a member were disbanded for suspected disloyalty to the Crown at a time when their captain Thomas Fitzgerald of Geraldine House was under arrest.

Quite a number of local men were arrested around this time and lodged in Whites Castle jail. Reynolds’ son claimed that the arrested men implicated his father in rebel activities and as a result Colonel Campbell sent a party of Dragoons to Kilkea Castle on Saturday, 5th May to arrest him. Marched back to Athy under escort early that Saturday morning, Reynolds informed on Peter Kelly and pointed out his shop as the place where local United Irishmen held meetings. Kelly was immediately arrested and his shop premises was burnt to the ground but not before the stock and furniture in it had been removed and taken to the local barracks.

Following his arrest Reynolds wrote to William Cope, a Dublin merchant and procurer of informers, informing him that he had been arrested and thrown into what he described as ‘the common jail’ in Athy. He asked Cope to send down an order for his release and in another letter Reynolds indicated that he had revealed to Colonel Campbell, the local army commander, ‘the situation I stand in with regard to our business’ and demanded that the Lord Lieutenant order his immediate release ‘for having done the great and essential services to the government’. Subsequently transferred to Dublin by the order of the Chief Secretary, Thomas Reynolds passed out of the life of Athy and its townspeople where his short-lived presence had created havoc amongst the United Irishmen of the locality.

The part played by Thomas Reynolds during the 1798 period must be contrasted with that of the many locals who, as members of the United Irishmen paid, in some cases, the ultimate penalty for their involvement in the planned Rebellion. Reynolds, despite the defence put up by his son 40 years later, is acknowledged to have been an informer. He was however not the only informer in the south Kildare area but undoubtedly he was the highest ranking member of the United Irishmen from this locality to cooperate with Dublin Castle.

As a community we have never commemorated in any permanent way the spirited bravery of our predecessors of ’98 or acknowledged their suffering in a cause which was intended to benefit the Irish people. I know that Athy Urban District Council ten years ago set about to remedy that omission, but unfortunately the current Council is unable to find amongst its €5.4 million annual budget a few thousand euro to erect in the centre of the town an already commissioned memorial to the people of ’98.

The tragedy of ’98 lives on!

Kilkea Castle

Kilkea Castle, built in 1181, remains the oldest continuously inhabited castle on this island. It was built for Sir Walter de Riddlesford, a Norman knight who arrived in Ireland as part of the Anglo Norman invasion of 1169. In those early medieval days a castle such as Kilkea was primarily a fortress. Located in the middle of occupied territory it housed a garrison and as such was the focal point for military rule of the south Kildare area. The first building at Kilkea was probably of the motte and bailey type. The motte was an earthen mound, conical in shape and the bailey was a level area around the motte, both of which would have had a wooden stockade surrounding. The original occupiers of Kilkea Castle, the Riddlesford family, died out in the third generation and when a grand-daughter of Sir Walter married Maurice FitzMaurice Fitzgerald, third Baron of Offaly, Kilkea passed to the Fitzgerald family. The castle was leased during the final years of the 17th century and for the entirety of the following century but was otherwise occupied by the Fitzgerald family until it was sold at auction in 1958.

The castle consists of a group of buildings which over time were added to. Two drawings from the early nineteenth century suggest the jumble of buildings that existed at the site. The three central buildings are the large central block stretching from the south-east tower to the north-west tower, the paired barrel vaults at the south-west, and the main gatehouse to the north. These individual buildings are more apparent in the drawing of the castle before its restoration in 1849. The chronology of construction at the site is difficult to gauge. The ‘keep’ like structure at the south-west appears to have been a distinct structure before it was linked to the central block by a chamber placed at its northern end. The general wall thickness of the north wall would suggest that it was a free standing structure. The gatehouse may have been an independent structure such as the ‘keep’ and it is likely that it was only in the fifteenth century when the site underwent large scale alteration that the three buildings were integrated.

The earliest reference to the site was when the King was in possession of the manor and castle of Kilkea in 1373. The first detailed record of buildings at the site appears in the dower of Anastacia Wogan in 1417 which refers to a variety of structures at the site including the ‘white tower’ a kitchen, bakehouse, prison, chapel and the gates of Kilkea. Despite the fourteenth century reference there are no features visible at the present day Kilkea Castle which can be dated before the fifteenth century.

The paired vaults in the south-western side of the site probably date to the fifteenth century. Similar paired vaults are found at Rheban Castle. The cross bow loops in the south wall are similar to an example in the west wall of Whites Castle and may be dated to the fifteenth century. The gunports in the south and east walls of the structure adjoining the later gatehouse suggest a late fifteen century date. The inverted key hole form of gunport first appeared in England in the mid 1370’s at Southampton. The Kilkea examples have the inverted key hole with a cross shape on the vertical slit for the use of a crossbow. There is no secure dating scheme for gun ports due to the stagnation of ideas in the fifteenth century in England which meant that these forms of gunports persisted from the late fourteenth to the late fifteenth century.

The late Hayes-McCoy indicates that the Earl of Kildare received a present of six hand guns from Germany in 1487. The refurbishment of the Castle which is supposed to have taken place in 1426 may have included the insertion of the gunports but only a general date in the fifteenth century can be suggested for them.

The carving on the south wall of the gatehouse is a representation of a human figure being assailed by three different animal type figures. A twelfth century date has been suggested for the carving, but it is more likely to date to the fifteenth century.

The buildings at Kilkea while they might be of an earlier date can only be confidently assigned to the fifteenth century by virtue of the features that are visible. Kilkea Castle was a sizable building to be built in the fifteenth century when the tower house was becoming the accepted form in the Irish countryside. Like Cahir Castle it may be an unusual example of large scale construction in the fifteenth century or alternatively it could be the result of a large scale alteration and renovation of earlier buildings.

Some of the more interesting occupants of Kilkea Castle included the 11th Earl of Kildare, commonly known as the Wizard Earl. He was the son of Silken Thomas and as a result of being educated in Italy he came to be reognised as a dabbler in the occult arts. Stories and legends developed around the Earl who lived at Kilkea Castle. The most commonly heard legend relates to how the Wizard Earl lies in a deep sleep in Mullaghmast from where every seven years he makes a midnight horseride to Kilkea Castle. If ever you meet him it is said that the Earl will be recognised by the silver shoes his horse will be wearing!

The other interesting tenant of Kilkea Castle was Thomas Reynolds who was reputedly a cousin of the famous English painter Joshua Reynolds. Reynolds was a Dublin-based silk merchant who took a lease of Kilkea Castle in 1797. His wife was Anne Witherington, the daughter of a wool merchant, another of whose daughters was married to Wolfe Tone, leader of the United Irishmen. Reynolds joined the movement and no doubt on account of his family connections with Tone, was appointed Colonel of the Kildare men. He attended a number of meetings of the United Irishmen in South Kildare and in the town of Athy and indeed was a familiar figure in the town, even at the events of 1798 were unfolding. What the local United Irishmen did not know was that Thomas Reynolds was a Government informer who was passing information on to Dublin Castle. Inevitably the information proved fatal insofar as the plans for an insurrection in South Kildare was concerned. Reynolds was later the subject of a two volume biography written by his son who sought to show, successfully it must be said, that his father was not an informer.

An ongoing controversy is that relating to the large cut stone table referred to as the ‘rent table’ which up to fifteen or so years ago stood in the grounds of Kilkea Castle. The then owner prior to the sale of the Castle sought to remove the ‘rent table’ which would seem to have originally come from the grounds of Maynooth Castle where it was used when collecting rents from the tenants of the Fitzgerald estates. The table bears the date 1533 but its authenticity is however still subject to verification. In any event the attempt to remove the table from the grounds of Kilkea Castle resulted in Court action and the partly dismantled stone table was seized by the Gardai. Strange to relate it remains to this day in the basement of the Garda Station in Carlow, no doubt waiting for the Wizard Earl to reclaim it on behalf of the Fitzgerald family!