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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Religious house - Benedictine monks

Castleknock (Without Phoenix Park), County Dublin, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Religious house - Benedictine monks, Castleknock (Without Phoenix Park), County Dublin, with a pin at the register's coordinates
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915), covering this location. Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. The pin is ours, placed from the register's coordinates.

The record

Townland
Castleknock (Without Phoenix Park)
County
Dublin
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Not indicated
Latest-edition OS map
Not indicated
Coordinates
53.37305, -6.36375
SMR number
DU017-008003-

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

4 historical maps cover this location, the earliest the 1790 map "Composite: Ireland." (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).

Historical maps covering this location

  • 1790 · Composite: Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1799 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1811 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1891 · Ireland 16 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

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This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗

The National Monuments Service's description

St. Brigid's Church of Ireland church (built c. 1806) standing in the centre of a graveyard in the village of Castleknock stands on the site of a medieval priory church associated with the Benedictine Priory of Little Malvern, Worcestershire, England (Ball 1920, 33; De Varebeke 1950).  The priory church was dedicated to Saint Brigid.  St Bridget’s holy well (DU017-009----) stands 55m to the SSE of the church.  The Anglo-Norman masonry castle (DU017-012002-) built by Richard Tyrrel c. 1185 stands on a motte-and-bailey (DU017-012001-) 670m to the SSW of the church site.

Ronan (1941, 33; 1940, 184) recorded that Richard Tyrrell ‘granted certain lands of Castleknock (c. 1185) to endow a religious house there in honour of St. Brigid, the patroness of the church. The Benedictines of Little Malvern, Worcestershire, built their cill or priory beside the church and received a grant (1219) from Archbishop de Loundres of certain tithes of Castleknock for the purpose of adding five monks to the priory’. Archbishop de Loundres, built a church in the churchyard for the vicar of the parish, and erected it as a predend in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 1227 (ibid).

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of Compilation: 25 November 2025

References

De Varebeke, Dom. H.J. 1950 The Benedictines in medieval Ireland. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 80, 95.

Ball, E.F. 1902-20 (Reprint 1979) A history of the County Dublin, 6 vols. Dublin. Gill and Macmillan.

Ronan, Rev. M.V. 1940 Mulhuddart and Cloghran. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 70, 182-93. Ronan, M.V. 1941 Royal Visitation of Dublin, 1615. In Archivium Hibernicum 8, 1-55.

Nearby in the register

Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.

Sites and Monuments Record data: National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Record text is reproduced unchanged. National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland · CC BY 4.0
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