church and community on the medieval irish frontier: county louth, 1170-1346

Church and Community on the Medieval Irish Frontier: County Louth, 1170-1346Author(s): Brendan SmithSource: Archivium Hibernicum, Vol. 45 (1990), pp. 38-45Published by: Catholic Historical Society of IrelandStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25487497 .

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Brendan Smith

Church and community on the medieval Irish frontier: County Louth, 1170-1346

The twelfth-century church reform movement was nowhere more successful than in the 6 Cearbaill kingdom of Oirghialla. In the 1130s Donnchadh 0

Cearbaill, king of Oirghialla, had supported the claims of Malachy 6 Morgair to the bishopric of Armagh and he in turn had appointed two reforming bishops to the diocese of Clogher/Oirghialla; first his brother Gilla Crist and

following the latter's death in 1138 the Leinsterman and 'spiritual confessor' of Diarmait Mac Murchadha, Aed 6 Caellaidhe.1 Under the auspices of O Caellaidhe and 6 Cearbaill new religious orders were introduced into

Oirghialla; the Arrouaisians at Louth, Knock and Termonfeckin and the Cistercians at Mellifont. The antiphony of Armagh contains an obit for Donn chadh 6 Cearbaill which states that 'in this time tithes were collected' and from another source we know that the system of episcopal quarters was in

operation in the diocese of Clogher at this time. Without wishing to suggest that a parochial system was in place in the diocese before the arrival of the

English it seems probable that Clogher had gone further down this road than other Irish dioceses.2

6 CearbailPs support for the church reformers was not entirely disinterested. He had recently added the present County Louth to his original land of Monaghan and wanted this conquest acknowledged by having the

authority of the bishop of Clogher/Oirghialla likewise extended to include his new territory. This involved a redrawing of the ecclesiastical boundaries laid down at the synod of Raith BressaU in 1111. In the first instance the southern

boundary of the province of Armagh would have to be moved from the Sliabh

Beagh hills, which run from Collon to Clogherhead, to the River Boyne and

secondly the present County Louth, from Carlingford Lough in the north to the Boyne in the south would have to be transferred from the control of the diocese of Armagh to that of Clogher.3

In 1142 Malachy agreed to this arrangement. The cathedral chapter of the diocese of Oirghialla was transferred from Clogher to Louth and Bishop Aed

6 Caellaidhe simultaneously became prior of the Arrouaisian community established there in that year. Donnchadh 6 Cearbaill had achieved his goal, but Malachy's acquiescence in his wishes was unpopular at Armagh and left a legacy of resentment between that diocese and Clogher which was to survive the arrival of the English and directly affected their policies there.4

There is no evidence of English settlement - as opposed to English raids -

in the modern County Louth before 1185, but contacts with local church had

certainly been established by that date. In 1177 King Henry confirmed to

38



CHURCH AND COMMUNITY ON THE MEDIEVAL IRISH FRONTIER:

Mellifont abbey ail the grants it had received before the coming of the English and further grants were made to the same house by Hugh de Lacy I and Robert Flandrensis before 1185, when they in turn were confirmed by Lord John. In 1181 the bishop of Oirghialla/Louth, Mael Isu Ua Cearbaill, a member of the local ruling dynasty, who had succeeded Aed Ua Caellaidhe as bishop in 1177, had contact while in England with the sheriff of Chester, Gilbert Pipard, who was later to be one of the major beneficiaries of English grants in Oirghialla.5

In 1185 Lord John, while in Ireland, divided the kingdom of Oirghialla between himself and two of his most trusted servants, Bertram de Verdun and Gilbert Pipard. An agreement appears to have been reached with the king of

Oirghialla, Murchadh Ua Cearbaill, who had succeeded to the kingdom on the death of his father Donnchadh in 1168, whereby this division was not to take effect until Murchadh's death. When Murchadh did die in 1189 John issued charters to Bertram de Verdun and Peter Pipard, who had taken over the interests of his brother Gilbert some time before. It is clear from Pipard's charter that English settlement in County Louth had begun since 1185 as refer ence is made to the existence of burgages in Carlingford and a castle at Ardee.6

From as early as 1187-8, in fact, Peter Pipard had been acquiring rights to ecclesiastical property in Oirghialla; namely the advowson to the churches of

Drumcar and Clonkeen, which lie at opposite ends of the barony of Ardee, the area formally granted to him in 1189. He received these from the bishop of Oirghialla/Louth and the prior of St Mary's, Louth, on condition that one third of the tithes of these churches should continue to be paid to St Mary's, presumably on account of its position as cathedral chapter of the diocese.

Again we have reference here to tithes associated with churches in County Louth before English settlement had properly begun.7

It was inevitable that the English should become involved in the dispute between Armagh and Oirghialla for control of County Louth; a dispute which had already in 1152 provoked a fist-fight between the archbishop of Armagh, Gille Mac Liac, and Donnchadh Ua Cearbaill, king of Oirghialla, at the synod of Kells. The crown backed the claims of Armagh and in 1192 County Louth returned to that diocese while the cathedral chapter of the bishopric of

Oirghialla returned after fifty years from the house of St Mary's, Louth, to

Clogher which by now also had an Arrouaisian house. The final victory of

Armagh in this dispute was not to be achieved until 1250 and the struggle pro vides a backdrop to the first seventy years of English settlement in County Louth.8 The transfer led almost immediately in 1193 to a dispute between Peter

Pipard and the bishop of Oirghialla/Clogher who seven years earlier had

granted him the churches of Drumcar and Clonkeen. Pipard was attempting to

build a castle at Donaghmoyne, within the diocese of Clogher, but the bishop, who probably felt he had lost enough land in the previous year, lay down in the ditch in his episcopal robes and had to be removed by force. He naturally placed a curse on Pipard for his impudence and strangely enough the latter disappears

entirely from our records in the following year having been taken prisoner by Walter de Lacy.9

The crown had supported Armagh's claims to County Louth in 1192 in part to ensure that English dominance of that area would influence future elections to the archbishopric. This did not imply an automatic exclusion of Irishmen

39



ARCHIVIUM HIBERNICUM

from consideration for the post -

although King John did argue in favour of such a policy for the Irish episcopate at a later date - and it was not until the middle

of the fourteenth century that Irishmen ceased to become archbishops of

Armagh.10 No Irish archbishop since the invasion showed the slightest resent

ment against English rule and any suspicion of ill-will which may have been

used to finally exclude them from the office is impossible to substantiate. The

archbishop of Armagh who received back County Louth from the diocese of

Oirghialla/Clogher in 1192, for instance, was Tomaltach Ua Conchobair, a

nephew of the High-King, Ruaidhrai Ua Conchobair. Far from being distraught at the ending of native rule it was Tomaltach who first moved from the cathedral

city of Armagh to live in an area controlled by the English at Mellifont abbey in 1196.11 In 1198 Ua Conchobair was granted the manors of Termonfeckin and Dromiskin which seem previously to have pertained to the house of St

Mary's, Louth, and the bishopric of Oirghialla, thus reinforcing the victory of Armagh over its rival.12

In the late thirteenth century Archbishop Nicholas Mac Maol Iosa was the

recipient of many land grants in County Louth and was involved, as a result, in endless litigation with the crown concerning its mortmain legislation. Mac

Maol fosa was at one point accused of harbouring the murderers of the sons of John de Verdun, who met their death in 1272. The accusation probably arose from the fact that the Irish clan who perpetrated this act, the Ua Feargaill, came from the same part of the country as did the archbishop; namely the modern

County Longford. No evidence seems to have been offered to support this accusation and in fact few Irish prelates were more enthusiastic in their adherence to English custom than Mac Maol Iosa. He has accurately been termed a shameless nepotist and he took advantage of his position to marry

members of his family into local English gentry families such as the de Repen tenys, with whom he also had land dealings. The acquisition of English law for his relatives and friends seem to have been a consistent policy on his part.13

With regard to the Irishclans living on the frontiers of County Louth, on the other hand, Mac Maol Iosa's attitude appears to have been one of unrelen

ting hostility. He urged Edward I to build a castle at the archiepiscopal manor of Iniskeen, for instance, first because it would increase the security of the

march, and second because the manor itself was situated in medio perverse gentis. The Irish referred to here were probably the Mac Mathghamhnas or

possibly the Ua Cearbaills and Mac Maol Iosa took the opportunity of preach ing the bull Clericis laicos in the modern County Monaghan in 1297 to threaten the Mac Mathghamhnas and their sub-chieftains with excommunication should

they neglect to obey its provisions.14 It was also Nicholas who first issued the ordinance against Irish jugglers, beggars and kerne within the diocese of

Armagh. This ordinance was renewed by the last Irish archbishop of Armagh in the middle ages, David 6 Hiraghty, who was so far from being regarded as a threat to the English that in 1338 he was regranted by the crown all the lands which had been confiscated from Nicholas Mac Maol fosa under the Statute of Mortmain.15 Indeed for criticism of English behaviour towards the Irish we must wait for the episcopate of David's successor, Richard Fitz

Ralph, who castigated in particular the townspeople of Drogheda and Dun dalk for their discriminatory attitude towards the Irish.1*

40




In a recent paper Dr Walsh has criticised Fitz Ralph for emphasising the racial divide within his diocese when preaching before the pope of Avignon.17

Enough has been said, I hope, to demonstrate that this divide was not reflected in the behaviour of individual archbishops in this period, but it would equally be a distortion to imagine that such a division had no reality. In 1227 the

Cistercian visitor, Stephen of Lexington, argued for the continued existence of a separate diocese of Clogher on the grounds that 'it is situated for the most

part among were Irish.'18 Fitz Ralph's lament in the 1340s about the racial strife in his diocese merely echoed the remark of his German predecessor

Albert of Suerbeer, who a century before had observed that 'the two nations

persecute each other with an insatiable hatred.'19 Turning to the church in

County Louth it is clear that racial divisions were of vital importance at this time.

A notable feature of the situation in County Louth in the two centuries after the invasion was the degree to which the Irish retained their influence in the local church. A famous clause in the treaty of Windsor of 1175 stated that those Irish who had fled from parts of the island conquered by the English should be forcibly returned, and it has been argued from this that native

migration accompanied the arrival of the invaders.20 Some such migration cer

tainly occurred in the kingdom of Oirghialla with the Ua Cearbailis, for

instance, moving westwards into the present County Monaghan following the demise of their kingship to become sub-chieftains of their Mac Mathghamhna cousins.21 It is highly likely that other local families whose lands were granted to English settlers also preferred migration to a diminution in their status after 1189.

It is clear, however, that not all native families of note in Oirghialla uprooted themselves on the arrival of the English. The O'Bragans of

Branganstown, for instance, were still in evidence in the early fourteenth cen

tury and the O'Kellys of Duleek, who did not lose their fee status until late in the thirteenth century, may have recovered it by moving to Drogheda and

becoming burgesses of the town.22 The clerical families of Oirghialla seem to have responded to the coming of

the English in the same manner as their secular counterparts. The families associated with churches such as Drumcar and Clonkeen, which were granted to men such as Peter Pipard, probably had little alternative but to seek native

patronage elsewhere, but the reference to a Brother Gilbert 6 Gorman of

Mellifont abbey in 1317 may suggest some continuity with the pre-invasion church. Was he perhaps a member of the same finally which had produced

Malcolm O'Gorman, master of St Mary's abbey, Louth, who died in 1164?23

Mellifont, indeed, retained its prestige among the Irish after the arrival of the English. The last Ua Cearbaill king of Oirghialla, Murchadh, ended his

days peacefully there in 1189, while four years later Derbogilla Ua Ruairc died in the abbey, having entered it in 1186.24 In 1227 when Stephen of Lexington

began his visitation of the monastery its monks were exclusively of Irish origin and Lexington makes the revealing observation that their kinsmen also lived

in the vicinity of the house.25 Little seems to have changed by the end of the

century when the abbot, Hugh O'Hessan, granted a charter of freedom to his

brother, Maurice, who was a betagh on the land of the abbey and also gave

41




gave him monastic lands in County Meath.26 It is not clear whether St Mary's

Abbey, Louth, continued to be staffed by. Irish canons, but it is likely that

native influence remained strong. The annal written by an Irish scribe, four

teenth century fragments of which are to be found in the register of Octavian, archbishop of Armagh, was probably kept at Louth and the fact that the Mac

Mathghamhna chiefs of Oirghialla chose to be buried there from the late four

teenth century suggests that its community was at least sympathetic to the Irish.27

There is some evidence to suggest that there was ill-will between the houses of Mellifont and Louth and the English of County Louth. The only inhabitant of the county convicted of collaboration with the Scots during the Bruce invasion was the prior of St Mary's, Louth, although his name, Robert, makes it difficult to say whether he was Irish or English.28 His treachery may not

necessarily have been inspired by enthusiasm for the Scottish cause. The chur ches of Dundalk and Ardee had been burnt by the invaders with a number of townsmen inside and the prior may have entered into negotiations with them as a means of preserving his own house from the same fate.29 The abbot of

Mellifont was similarly accused of collaboration with the Scots by his

neighbour, Nicholas de Netterville, lord of Dowth, but was acquitted of the

charge. The refusal of Nicholas to accept the court's verdict suggests some per sonal animosity between the two men, possibly as a result of land disputes in the area.30

The tensions between Mellifont and Louth and the local English, however, pre-dated the Bruce invasion. From the start the settlers had generally been reluctant to endow these houses with land. As discussed earlier Mellifont did receive grants and confirmation before English settlement began, but after 1189 it seems to have acquired no further large grants, with the exception of

Hugh de Lacy IPs gift of Ballymascanlon, given sometime between 1200 and 1205.31 No grants to St Mary's, Louth, are recorded and in the early thirteenth

century one of de Lacy's tenants argued that its lands should be confiscated on the grounds that any grants made to the church before the coming of the

English were null and void by right of conquest. The argument was not

accepted but the incident demonstrates the unsympathetic nature of settler attitudes to local houses of pre-invasion origin.32

The English of Louth chose instead to endow either Dublin houses whose

personnel were not Irish or else found their own houses in the county. The

largest beneficiary was the Cistercian house of St Mary's, Dublin, whose exten sive interests in Louth have been discussed by Fr Colmcille.33 We can see how St Mary's benefited directly at the expense of the Irish house of Louth in the case of the churches of Drumcar and Clonkeen. As mentioned earlier, these

were granted to Peter Pipard by the bishop and prior of Louth in 1187 on con dition that one-third of the tithes continue to be paid to St Mary's, Louth. Peter Pipard subsequently granted his rights in these churches to the de

Repenteny family and they in turn granted them to St Mary's, Dublin, in about 1213. St Mary's refused to pay the third to the house of Louth, presumably on the grounds that the latter no longer constituted the cathedral chapter of the diocese. In 1244 an agreement was reached whereby Clonkeen was granted back to Louth, Dublin kept Drumcar and Louth gave up all

42




claims to the third. Clonkeen, however, was in the western marches of the county and of less value than Drumcar.34

Other Dublin houses to be granted lands in Louth by the English were the Victorine house of St Thomas and the house of St John, which belonged to the Cruciferi. The priory of Holy Trinity also acquired property in the county

before 1258 but relinquished its holdings because of the distances involved. The English and Welsh house of Llanthony held tenements in Drogheda but their manors were situated south of the Boyne at Colp and Duleek,35

The English also founded houses of their own in the county, the earliest

being the house of the Cruciferi established at Dundalk by Bertram de Verdun in I189.36 Another house of the Cruciferi was founded at Ardee in 1207 by

Roger Pipard.37 Before 1260 the Dominicans and Franciscans were to be found in Drogheda and the latter also had a house at Dundalk.38 The Templars received the manors of Cooley and Kilsarin from Matilda Butler between 1267 and 1280.39 New foundations continued to a comparatively late date; the Carmelites were introduced into Ardee in the 1280s and in 1306 Richard de

Burgh, earl of Ulster, founded a house for the Dominicans at Carlingford.40 For the English of County Louth, of course, the church fulfilled a social as

well as a religious function. Members of local families, for instance, were

likely to staff local ecclesiastical office; in 1207 the parson of Ardee was Gilbert

Pipard while before 1227 Simon de Napton held the parsonage of Dunleer.41 These were both related to important settler families in the area. Soon after John de Bermingham became earl of Louth in 1319 the parsonage of Staban non was held by Master Raymond de Bermingham.42 When it came to choos

ing an executor for their wills the gentry of Louth were also likely to look to the heads of local religious houses with the priors of St John's of Ardee and St Leonard's of Dundalk being particularly popular choices.43 The prior of St Leonard's was also appointed to act as guardian of the lands of the de Verduns in County Louth on the death of the last male representative of that family,

Theobald II, in 1316.44 Advowsons to churches in County Louth which lay in the gift of the king

could be granted to Englishmen who might never actually come to Ireland. The case of Stabannon has been discussed by Professor Sayles while another

example comes from 1267 when Walter the parson of Manchester was given the church of Carlingford while he was in Devon and never seems to have visited Ireland.45 Officials of the Dublin administration could also be granted benefices in Louth as was the case with the chamberlain of the exchequer, Robert de Cotegrave, who received the vicarage of Termonfeckin in 1315.46

The extensive landed interests of the church in County Louth also offered

opportunities of patronage to the local gentry. On his journeys overseas, for

instance, the archbishop of Armagh would appoint leading local men to act as his attorneys.47 Because church property came into the hands of the crown

during vacancies the government could also bestow patronage in the form of custodies. In 1205 the lands of the archbishopric of Armagh were awarded to

Nicholas de Verdun while a century later the crown chose the prior of St Leonard's and a former sub-escheator, Simon Fitz Richard as guardians.48

When the lands of Mellifont abbey were confiscated in 1307 because of the dis

putes then raging among the monks about the abbatial succession they were

43




awarded to Roger Taaf, and the confiscation of the property of the Templars in the following year revealed that the local gentry farmed the churches held

by the order for a fixed rent.49

In short, the rise to political pre-eminence of the gentry in County Louth was due in no small measure to their investment in ecclesiastical property and

their links with the local church in general. Paul Brand has recently discussed the way in which the fortunes of the Plunket family were based on just such links and in this they were surely not unique.50 The interplay of church and

society in a frontier region in a period of conquest and settlement is a com

plicated and difficult subject but one which may reveal much about political realities on a local level.

1. M. T. Flanagan, *St Mary's Abbey, Louth, and the introduction of the Arrouais&n obser vance into Ireland' in Clogher Rec. x (1980), pp 223-34.

2. H. H. Lawlor, St Bernard of Ctairvaux's life of St Malachy of Armagh (S.P.C.K., London,

1920), p. 170; Cal. Carew Mss. v, p. 395; K. W. Nicholls, 'The register of Clogher' in Clogher Rec. vii, no. 3 (1971-2), p. 371 n. 2; idem., 'Vicarage and parish in the western Irish dioceses'

in R.S.A.I. Jn., ci (1971), pp. 53-84; C. A. Empey, 'The sacred and the secular; the Augusti nian priory of Kells in Ossory, 1193-1541' in LH.S. xxiv (1984-5), pp. 133-4. For the possible existence of parishes in Leinster prior to 1169 see M. T. Flanagan 'Henry II and the kingdom of Ui Faelain' in J. Bradley (ed.) Settlement Society in Medieval Ireland. Studies presented to F. X. Martin, O.S.A. (Kilkenny, 1988) pp. 229-40.

3. A. Gwynn, * Armagh and Louth in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries' in Seanchas Ard

mhacha, i no. 1 (1954), pp 6-7. 4. Flanagan, 'St Mary's Abbey, Louth', pp. 227-9; K. W. Nicholls, 'Medieval Irish cathedral

chapters' in Archivium Hib. xxxi (1973), pp. 102-11.

5. Cal. doc. Ire., 1171-1251, nos. 50, 175; C. Conway, (Fr Colmcille), 'Seven documents from the old abbey of Mellifont' in Louth Arch. Soc. Jn. xiii, no. 1 (1953), pp. 37, 47; A. Gwynn, 'A forgotten abbey of St Mary's, Drogheda' in Louth Arch. Soc. Jn. xiii no. 2 (1954), pp. 190-9; The great roll of the pipe. . . 1181-2 (Pipe roll soc, vol. xxxi, London, 1910), p. 148.

6. A. J. Otway-Ruthven, 'The partition of the de Verdon lands in Ireland in 1332' in R.LA. Proc

lxvi, C, (1968), pp. 402-6. Louth was not shired until the 1220s. I use the term 'County Louth' before that date to distinguish the later county from the town of Louth. A. J. Otway-Ruthven,

A History of Medieval Ireland, (London, 1968), p. 174. 7. H. J. Lawlor, 'A charter of Christian, bishop of Louth' in R.LA. Proc. xxxii, (1913-6), pp

28-40. 8. Gwynn, 'Armagh and Louth*, p. 23; J. Dalton, A History of Drogheda, vol. ii (Dublin, 1844),

p. 50. 9. A.L.C. 1193; Nicholls, 'Register of Clogher', p. 389. The register places the incident six years

after the castle was built. 10. J. Watt, The church in medieval Ireland (Dublin, 1972), pp. 99-101. 11. A. Gwynn, 'Tomaltach O Connor, coarb of Patrick' in Seanchas Ardmhacha vii, no. 2

(1977), pp. 272-3. 12. P. Brand, 'The formation of a parish: The case of Beaulieu, County Louth' in J. Bradley

(ed.), Settlement and society in medieval Ireland (Kilkenny, 1988), p. 273 n. 6. 13. A. Gwynn, 'Nicholas Mac Maol Iosa, Archbishop of Armagh, 1272-1303' in J. Ryan (ed.),

Feil-Sgribhinn Eoin Mhic Neill (Dublin, 1940), pp. 394-405; D. Mac Ivor, 'Primate Mac Maol Iosa and County Louth' in Seanchas Ardmhacha vi no. 1 (1971), pp. 70-93.

14. A. Gwynn, 'Documents relating to the medieval diocese of Armagh' in Archiv. Hib. xiii

(1947), p. 11; Nicholls, 'Register of Clogher', pp. 409-23. 15. Reg. Swayne, p. 11; Cal pat. rolls, 1338-1340, p. 85. 16. K. Walsh, A fourteenth century scholar and primate, Richard Fitz Ralph in Oxford, Avignon

and Armagh (Oxford, 1981), pp. 266, 285-7, 318-48. 17. K. Walsh, 'The clerical estate in late medieval Ireland, alien settlement or element of concilia

tion?' in Bradley (ed.) Settlement and society, pp. 371-3. 18. Stephen of Lexington, Letters from Ireland, (ed.) B, O'Dwyer (Kalimazoo, 1982), p. 113.

44




19. Ir. chartul. Lianthony, p. 25.

20. Curtis & McDowell, Ir. hist docs., p, 23; N.H.L, ii, pp. 444-5.

21. K. W. NichoIIs, Gaelic and Gaelicised Ireland in the middle ages (Dublin, 1972), 139-40.

22. Cal. justic. rolls Ire., 1305-07, pp. 486-7; Ir. chartul. Lianthony, pp. 230-1; K. W. NichoIIs,

'Anglo-French Ireland and after' in Peritia, i (1982), p. 378; Cal. pat. rolls, 1317-1321, p. 314; Rot. pat Hib., p. 12 no. 26.

23. P.R.O.I. K.B. 2/8, pp. 66-7; Reg. All Hallows, pp. 66-7; A.F.M., 1164.

24. A.U., 1186, 1189, 1193.

25. 'Registrum Epistolarum Stephani de Lexington' in (ed.) P. B. Greisser, Analecta Sacri Ordinis

Cisterciensis, ii (1948), pp. 45-8.

26. Cal. justic, rolls Ire., 1295-1303, pp. 321-3.

27. Reg. Octavian, (P.R.O.N.L, D 104) f. 241 b. AM, 1371, vol. ii, p. 557. There was a foreign

prior in Louth - an unusual event for it - and he died forthwith/ Misc. Ir. Annals, 1396.

28. P.R.O.I. K.B. 2/7, pp. 58-9.

29. Ann, Conn,, 1315; Chartul St Mary's Dublin, ii, p. 345; The annals of Ireland by Friar John

Clyn . , . (ed.) R. Butler (Dublin, 1849), p. 12.

30. P.R.O.I. K.B. 2/8, pp. 66-7.

31. C. Conway (Fr Colmcille), The story of Mellifont (Dublin, 1958), pp. 266-7; idem, Three

unpublished Cistercian documents' in Louth Arch. Soc. Jn., xiii no. 3 (1955), pp. 252-6; Fr

Colmcille misdates this grant to the 1230s. One of the witnesses, Roger Pipard, died in 1225:

Chartul. St Mary's, Dublin, ii, p. 314. A convincing case for a date before 1205 is to be found

in D. Mac Ivor, The lordship of Ballymacscanlon' in Louth Arch. Soc. Jn., xvii no. 2 (1970),

p. 79.

32. Cal. papal tetters, 1198-1304, p. 22; R. R. Davies, Domination and conquest, the experience

of Ireland, Scotland and Wales 1100-1300 (Cambridge, 1990), p. 117.

33. C. Conway (Fr Colmcille), The lands of St Mary's Abbey, Dublin' in R.I.A. Proc, Ixii, C,

(1961-3), pp. 21-84, esp. pp, 70-4.

34. Chartul. St Mary's, Dublin, i, nos. 14, 132, 281.

35. Reg, St Thomas, Dublin, nos. 3, 42, 44, 45, 55, 282, 314; Reg. St John, Dublin, nos, 240-5;

Reg, Archbishop Alen, p. 204. A list of the priory's holdings drawn up in 1504 mentions land

in a number of places in County Louth: ibid., p. 257.

36. Gwynn and Hadcock, Med. relig. houses, pp. 212-3.

37. Ibid., p. 210.

38. Ibid., pp. 224, 247-8; H. O'Sullivan, The Franciscans in Dundalk' in Seanchas Ardmhacha,

iv. no. 1 (1960-1), pp. 33-71. 39. Otway-Ruthven, 'Partition of the de Verdun lands', p. 405.

40. Gwynn and Hadcock, Med. relig. houses, pp. 286, 222-3.

41. Cal, pat. rolls, 1338-1340, pp. 444-5; Chartul. St Mary's, Dublin, i no. 29.

42. Cal. pat. rolls, 1330-1334, p. 110.

43. P.R.O.I. R.C. 7/3, p. 287; P.R.O.I. R.C. 7/5, pp. 55-6 P.R.O.I. R.C. 8/10, pp. 112-4;

P.R.O.I. R.C. 8/5, p. 250. 44. Hist. & Mun, doc. Ire., p. 385. 45. G. O. Sayles, 'Ecclesiastical process and the parsonage of Stabannon in 1351' in R.I.A. Proc,

lv (1952-3), pp. 7-8. Cal. inq. post mortem, ii, no. 734.

46. P.R.O.I. R.C. 8/10, 324-5; Richardson & Sayles, Admin. Ire., pp. 120-1. 47. Cal. pat, rolls, 1307-1313, p. 498; Cal. pat, rolls, 1317-1321, p. 503.

48. Cal. doc. Ire,, 1771-1251, no. 251; Cal. justic. roll Ire., 1305-1307, p. 178; P.R.I, rep. D.K.

42, p. 35; P.R.O.I. R.C. 8/10 pp. 86, 728, 789. 49. P.R.O.I. Ex. 2/2, p. 316; Cal. justic. rolls Ire., 1305-1307, pp. 350-1; G. Mac Niocaill,

'Documents relating to the suppression of the Templars in Ireland' in Anal. Hib., xxiv (1967),

pp. 183-226; D. Mac Ivor, The Knights Templar in County Louth' in Seanchas Ardmhacha

iv (1960-1), pp. 72-91. 50. Brand, 'Formation of a parish', pp. 261-73.

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