Historic town

The National Monuments Service's description

Saggart (Teach Sagard) is a small medieval borough located on an exposed position of the Dublin marches/borderlands in the late medieval period. After the English Conquest, the lands of Saggart along with Newcastle Lyons, Esker and Crumlin became royal manors (Bradley and King 1987, 290). In 1332, Thomas Bretnagh, Provost of Saggart, accounted for £32 3s. 4d. rent of the farm and burgage land of Saggart together with the rents of the demesne lands, one water mill and the pleas and perquisites of the court (ibid.). The borough of Saggart was on an exposed position of the march/borderlands in the later middle ages and it was regularly subjected to attack. In 1471—2 the Irish parliament enacted that Saggart should be enclosed by defences because it had been recently wasted and burned by the O' Byrnes, O' Tooles and "Goulranyles". The defences of the borough were to be built by eighty labourers drawn from Balrothery, a further eighty from Coolock, another eighty from Castleknock, and eight from Newcastle; all of these labourers were to bring with them their own food, barrows, spades and pickaxes (Berry 1914, 809-11).
Saggart was captured and burnt in 1580 by Fiach Mc Hugh O' Byrne. In the mid 17th century it was described as a village containing two castles in repair and the remains of another castle as well as some thatched houses and cabbins (Ball 1902-20, III, 115). According to D'Alton (1838, 724); 'In 1667 Sir Theophilus Jones, knight, had a grant of 14a plantation measure here; as had Thomas Den in 1682 , of 194a statute measure, a weekly market, and three yearly fairs here, with a court of pie poudre, tolls , &c.'. The layout of the settlement was linear, consisting of a single main street, intersected by a road running NW-SE. The marketplace was probably located at the intersection in the centre of the village where the plot pattern suggests that there may have been a triangular market place (Bradley and King 1987, 292). The Down Survey map of Newcastle Barony shows the settlement at Saggart clustered around two castles (DU021-034010-/014-) depicted as tower house type structures and a third ruinous castle annotated 'stump of a Castle' (DU021-034011- ) (Hibernia Reg.). The terrier of the Down Survey map of Saggart Parish recorded that in Saggart there are 'two Castles in repaire and one Stump of a Castle with some Thatcht Houses and Cabbins' (NLI Ms. 714).

NLI, Ms. 714 National Library of Ireland, The parish maps of the Down Survey for the County of Dublin by W. Petty (1657). Copied by Daniel O'Brien. A set of 42 maps with accompanying terriers, copied in 1786-7.

See attached Down Survey map of Newcastle Barony courtesy of The Library of Trinity College Dublin

Compiled by: Geraldine Stout

Revised by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of revised upload: 25 March 2023

References

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

D'Alton, J. 1838 (Reprint 1976) The history of the county of Dublin. Cork. Tower Books.

Berry, H. F. (ed.) 1914 Statute rolls of the parliament of Ireland 1-12 Edward IV. Dublin.

Hibernia Regnum: A set of 214 barony maps of Ireland dating to the period AD 1655-59. The original parish maps have been lost but the Hibernia Regnum maps are preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris (Goblet 1932, v-x). Photographic facsimiles of these maps were published by the Ordnance Survey, Southampton in 1908.

Bradley, J. & King, H. (1987) Urban Archaeological Survey, Dublin. A report commissioned by the Office of Public works (Unpublished).