Ballyfermot - History

History

The place name Ballyfermot—rendered in Irish Baile Formaid and sometimes Baile Thormaid—is derived from the Middle Irish baile ("farmstead"), and the Old Norse personal name Þormundr.

The 12th century saw the Cambro-Normans expand west from Pembroke in South Wales into Leinster. The Papal Bull Laudabiliter of Adrian IV, and further encouragement by his successor, Pope Alexander III urged a Norman invasion of Ireland. An expeditionary force of knights led by Richard De Clare (Strongbow) and a retinue of six hundred were dispatched with the consent of Angevin King Henry II of England. They duly arrived at Wexford in 1169 by invitation from Dermot Mac Murrough Ri of Leinster who was at war with the Ard Ri, Ruari O'Conor and Tighernan O'Ruairc, Prince of Breffni who together had unseated him.

After the Treaty of Windsor in 1175, through feudal land grants and intermarriage, the Cambro Norman knights came into possession of land in south and west Dublin. Family names associated with the area at this time included O'Cathasaidhe, Fitzwilliam, Le Gros (Grace), O'Dualainghe, Tyrrell, O'Hennessy, O'Morchain, Dillon, O'Kelly, De Barneval (Barnewall), and Newcomyn (Newcomen).

Ballyfermot Castle, was located northwest of the intersection of Le Fanu and Raheen Roads, the centre of the west Upper and east Lower Ballyfermot townships. It was built in the mid-fourteenth century by Wolfram De Barneval as a stronghold against the formidable O'Byrnes and O'Tooles. These aboriginal Gaelic Irish families had been discommoded from their lush home territory around Naas. They were driven south into the wooded Dublin hills. Unlike their Mac Giolla Mocolmog relatives, (now called FitzDiarmuid, in Hiberno-Norman), they had not integrated into the evolving Norman-Irish society. They frequently raided, rustled and burned local bawn enclosures from their inaccessible hillside encampments.

Ballyfermot Castle was later inherited by the Newcomen family, who enhanced it and held it well into the mid-seventeenth century. It subsequently declined in importance, and became a school which was managed by headmaster William Prosser in the latter eighteenth century. Samuel Lewis (publisher) in his celebrated work A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland places a Captain Lamplin as living there in 1834, possibly the last resident. The castle is reputed to have been destroyed by fire. Ballyfermot House, known locally as the tiled house, possibly built by the Verveer family. It stood on the great park to the north of the castle's aquaculture pond. Built in the seventeenth century, the house had a quirky slated facade in the Dutch style. It was home to Lt. Joseph Lampier and his wife Bridget Cavanaugh of Goldenbridge around this time.

The nineteenth century newspaper publisher and writer Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, proprietor of the Dublin Evening Mail lived in nearby Chapelizod when not in residence his city townhouse at Merrion Square. Ballyfermot and Chapelizod feature in his novel The House by the Churchyard and some of his other works. This Georgian house still adjoins Church Lane next to St. Laurence's parish churchyard in Chapelizod. The eighteenth century church, alongside the original medieval bell tower, is still in use. It serves the united parish of Ballyfermot, Palmerstown, and Chapelizod in the Church of Ireland. Le Fanu Road is named after him, as is Le Fanu Park, referred to locally as The Lawns. Le Fanu was a mentor of the writer Bram Stoker author of Dracula, who did the theater reviews for his newspaper The Dublin Evening Mail.

A short distance from the Castle site at the south-east end of Le Fanu Park is a mound which covers the local historical site containing the ruins and chuchyard of the rectory church of St. Laurence. It is believed to have originated as a Culdee establishment of monastic Celtic Christianity, perhaps a minor branch of the Tallaght Maelruain or Kilnamanagh monasteries. It was connected later to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem at Kilmainham in the thirteenth century. The ruins survived into the nineteen sixties. This church served Ballyfermot and the surrounding townlands into the late seventeenth century.

Among the local people buried here are members of the Newcomen and Barnewall families. Sir Robert Newcomen who died in 1629 and his son Sir Beverley Newcomen, Admiral of Ireland, who died in 1637 while taking soundings at Waterford harbour were buried here. His mother Elizabeth (Barnewall of Drimnagh Castle) who died in 1643 is buried as is his widow Margaret (Usher of Donnybrook Castle). She subsequently married Sir Hubert Adrian-Verveer. The Newcomens, Barons of Newcastle Lyons were influential in Irish governance, military and legal circles. They resided at Ballyfermot Castle which stood in the nearby park. The great park lay to the north and west of the castle. This noble family intermarried with the Barnwalls of Drimnagh, the Plunketts of Malahide and the St. Lawrences of Howth. M.P's for the Westmeath constituency of Kilbeggan, they also married into the Fitzgeralds of Maynooth, and the Nugents, Husseys, Tuites and Nagles of east and west Meath.

Local manor houses of note include Johnstown House (St. John's College), Colepark House, Sarsfield House, Sevenoaks, Floraville, Auburn Villa and Gallanstown House. The Ballyfermot townlands were transferred from the Barony of Newcastle to the Barony of Uppercross in the late nineteenth century.

The dairy and stud farms in the townlands of Ballyfermot were acquired by the authorities in the 1930s. They were developed into suburban housing estates needed to alleviate the post war housing shortage. This development, along with estates at Drimnagh, Crumlin, Walkinstown in the south city, and Cabra, Finglas and Donnycarney in the north city also provided modern accommodation to facilitate the Dublin City Council public housing programs. The first estate was built in the late 1940s at Ballyfermot Lower (East) to the south of Sarsfield Road and Ballyfermot Road, and was originally called the Sarsfield Estate. The street names reflect this historical theme. Gradually, the adjacent townlands to the south of Ballyfermot Road and north of Grange Cross - Ballyfermot Upper (West), Blackditch, Cherry Orchard, Raheen, Gallanstown were developed. The eastern part of Johnstown, a townland of Palmerstown South Dublin County located to the north and west of Johnstown House, was developed residential, and incorporated into Ballyfermot postal area Dublin 10. It became the electoral district of Drumfin in Dublin City in 1993.