Historic town

The National Monuments Service's description

The historic town of Tralee was described in the Urban Survey of Kerry as follows; 'Tralee, the county town of Kerry, is situated on fertile low-lying ground near the southern end of the north Kerry coastal plain. The placename is derived from Trá Lí, "the strand of the Lee". In fact, the town sits not on the Lee but on the Gyle or Big river, which is now largely covered over but which was an important topographical feature in the towns development (Hickson 1894, 257).
In 1121 the annals cord that Toirdhelbhach Ua Conchobhair plundered Des-Mumha "from Magh Feimhin to Traigh-Li, both church and territory(ALC, AU), there is no evidence or any settlement at Tralee before the foundation of the Anglo-Norman borough there in the thirteenth century. Hickson's (1879-89, 578) claim that 'Gwyar's burgage', which is mentioned in a late sixteenth century document, preserves the memory is very unlikely and must be regarded as unproven. Tralee was, apparently an Anglo-Norman foundation on virgin soil. Details of the initial foundation have not survived and it is not known whether it was Meiler FitzHenry, who was granted north Kerry by King John c. 1200 (Orpen 1911-20, iii,123) or John FitzThomas, ancestor of the earls of Desmond, who was the founder of the town. It may be assumed that some form of settlement was in existence by 1234 when "the defeat of Tralee was inflicted by the Galls on the Gaels" in an attack by the Mac Carthaigh and Ui hEidirsgeoil (AI; Ó hInnse 1947, 99; Orpen 1911-20,iiii, 137). An important Dominican friary was founded 1243 by John FitzThomas, and the settlement was clearly flourishing by 1286 when John FitzThomas' grandson Thomas FitzMaurie was granted customs on the sale of merchandise on the vill for seven years in order to pay for its enclosure (Sweetman 1875-86, iii, no. 226). The earliest definite evidence that Tralee had achieved borough status occurs in 1298 when an extent of the lands of Thomas FitzMaurice noted that the burgesses of Tralee paid 100s in rent annually, which suggests the existence of one hundred burgages (Sweetman 1875-86, iv, no 551, p. 255). The borough, however, is almost certainly of earlier origin. Records of Tralee in the Later Middle Ages are scarce. In 1346, the outlawry of the earl of Desmond, Maurice FitzDavid and William Stakepoll, knights, were appointed custodians of the vill (Tresham 1828, 51, no. 29), but Tralee remained in the hands of the earls of Desmond throughout the Middle Ages (Curtis 1933-43, iii,35). Evidence of trading activity in the town is provided by a record of 1375 which notes that Henry Peverell, a merchant of Bristol, was robbed of goods to the value of 100 marks at Tralee (Tresham 1828, 94, no. 168).
The upheavals in Munster caused by the struggle between the house of Desmond and the English government in the sixteenth century had a major impact on Tralee. This was foreshadowed in 1579 when two senior government officials, Arthur Carter and Henry Davells, while on their way to Dún an Óir were murdered in Tralee castle by brothers of the earl of Desmond (AFM) In 1580 the earl of Desmond, by now in open rebellion, was forced to abandon Tralee on the advance of the Lord Justice Sir William Pelham, but before leaving he burned the town so that Pelham found "all the houses at tralighe burnt and the castles razed, saving the abbey (Hamilton 1867, 223; Brewer and Bullen 1868, 237). The defeat and death of Desmond led to the establishment of English control in Tralee, and one of the first results of this was the preparation in 1584 of a Survey of Desmond 's property (PRO 1881) which provides valuable information on Tralee, and on the devastation in 1530. It is described as "a certain large towne or village called tralee, which was formerly a well-inhabited borough, with a castle and edifices in it, formerly well and fully repaired, but now ruined and broken", and it is noticeable that many of the buildings, burgages and tenements are described as "prostrated "waste" or "broken" (PRO 1881, 10-11). In the plantation of Munster that followed, Tralee was granted in 1587 to Edward Denny (16 RDKPRI 39, no. 5043) but any attempts at reconstruction were interrupted by the rebellion of the 'sugan' earl of Desmond in 1598-1600. In 1598 Tralee was abandoned by it's English garrison and settlers (Atkinson 1895, 326) and occupied by the rebels who were recorded as intending, on the advance of an English force, to "break down the Abbey of Tralee....with all other buildings fit to receive any garrisons (Atkinson 1895, 415). On his advance into Kerry in 1600 Sir Geore Carew noted that Denny's castle at Tralee was "utterly defaced" (Atkinson 1903, 367). Carew replaced a garrison in Tralee (AFM) and in the same year (1600) proposals for the government of Ireland recommended "a town to be builded at Castlemange or Traly; but at Tralie rather, for that is more open to the sea and land than the other, and more convenient for the whole shire" (Brewer and Bullen 1869, 505).
The early seventeenth century saw the gradual building up of Tralee by the Denny family. In 1612 Arthur Denny got government approval to wall the town although this proved to be abortive. In 1613 the towne was granted a new charter of incorporation by James I which, as well as regulating the functioning of the corporation etc., granted a weekly market and yearly fair (Cusack 1871, appendix vi, lii-lx; Weinbaum 1943, 223). Sir Edward Denny received another grant of a weekly market and yearly fair at Tralee in 1630 (Morrin 1863, 542). English colonists were attracted to Tralee and a survey of 1622 noted thirty two new English households had been established there (MacCarthy-Morrogh 1986, 174-5). This growth was interrupted in 1641, however, when the town was attacked by a large force of Confederate Catholics. The townspeople in two castles, where were besieged for six months before eventually surrendering (Smith 1756, 301-12; Rowan 1854, 161-5, 177-80). In 1642, one of the townspeople, Edward Voakley [Vauclier] testified that "the besiegers of Tralee burnt Sir Edward Denny's castle there, with the greater part of the town, to the number of one hundred houses at least" (Hickson 1872, 198). An English force under Bridges and Story reached Tralee in 1643, and found it burnt by the retreating confederate forces (Smith 1756, 313). Further destruction may have occurred in 1652, when the Dominican friary was apparently destroyed by Cromwellian forces (O'Sullivan 1971, 38), and in 1691 when the town and castle were burned by Jacobite forces (Smith 1756, 322, note b). The Census of Ireland 1659 returned a population of 277 for "Traly Burrough" (Pender 1939, 245).
Street Pattern:
It is difficult to determine the form of the medieval street pattern because of the substantial alterations which have occurred during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Smith provides a plan of the town in 1756 which shows that it had a long east-west axis running from the west side of High Street, via Bridge Street and the Mall to Castle Street. Much of this pattern may well be of eighteenth century date, however, a period which is characterised by linear extensions to urban cores. The concentration of small streets on the west side of the axis on Smith's map suggests that this is the old core of Tralee, despite the fact that the castle, parish church and Dominican friary are located outside it. It was a normal feature in medieval towns for the castle to be located on the edge of the town, while friaries were normally outside or on the periphery. The location of the parish church is more problematic, however, and can only be explained on the grounds that it began as a hospital and consequently it would have been located away from the main area of settlement.
Only one document provides any information on the early street plan, the 1584 survey of Desmond's property. This refers to "several other burgages and gardens there, being in the st

References

Tresham, E. 1828 Rotulorum patentium et clausorum cancellariae Hiberniae calendrium Hen II - Hen VII. Dublin.

Curtis, E. (ed.) 1935 Calendar of Ormond Deeds 1413-1509 A.D. Vol. 3. Dublin. The Stationery Office.

Smith, C. 1756 (Reprint 1969) The ancient and present state of the county of Kerry. Cork. The Mercier Press.

Bradley, J., Halpin, A., and King, H.A. 1987 Urban archaeological survey - county Kerry. Unpublished report commissioned by the Office of Public Works, Dublin.

Curtis, E. (ed.) 1932 Calendar of Ormond Deeds 1172-1350 A.D. Vol. 1. Dublin. The Stationery Office.

Cusack, M.F. 1871 A history of the kingdom of Kerry. London. Longmans, Green and Co.

Graham, B. 1977 The towns of medieval Ireland. In R.A. Butlin (ed.), The development of the Irish town, 28-59. London. Croom Helm.

AFM - Annals of the kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters from the earliest period to the year 1616, ed. and trans. John O'Donovan (7 vols., Dublin, 1851; reprint New York, 1966)

AU - Annála Uladh, The Annals of Ulster; otherwise Annála Senait, Annals of Senat; a chronicle of Irish affairs, 431-1131, 1155-1541, ed. W.M. Hennessy and B. MacCarthy, (4 vols., Dublin 1887-1901)

ALC - The Annals of Lough Cé: a chronicle of Irish affairs, 1014-1690, ed. W.M. Hennessy (2 vols., London, 1871; reflex facsimile, Irish Manuscripts Commission, Dublin, 1939)

Ó hInnse, S. (ed.) 1947 'Mac Carthaig's Book', Miscellaneous Irish Annals (AD 1114-1437). The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.

O'Sullivan, W. 1971 William Molynaux's geographic collections for Kerry. Journal of the Kerry Historical and Archaeological Society 4, 28-47.

Otway-Ruthven, A.J. 1968 A history of medieval Ireland. London. Ernest Benn.

Pender, S. (ed.) 1939 A census of Ireland, c. 1659. Dublin. Irish Manuscripts Commission.

Orpen, G.H. 1911-20 Ireland under the Normans (1169-1216), 4 vols. Oxford. Clarendon Press.

MacCarthy-Morrogh, M. 1986 The Munster plantation. Oxford. Clarendon Press.

Weinbaum, M. 1943 British Borough Charters 1307-1660. Cambridge.

Hickson, M.A. 1894 Old place-names and surnames, part 5. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 24, 256-63.

Rowan, A. B. 1854 The Antiquities of Tralee. Kerry Magazine 1, 2-6, 17-23, 33-6, 49-51, 65-74, 97-101, 129-32, 161-5, 177-80.

Mahaffy, R.P. (ed.) 1900 Calendar of State Papers relating to Ireland, of the Reign of Charles I. 1625-1633 in the possession of the Public Record Office. London, HMSO

Hickson, M.A. 1872 Selections from old Kerry records: historical and genealogical with introductory memoir, notes and appendix. London.

Sweetman, H.S. (ed.) 1875-86 Calendar of documents, relating to Ireland. Volumes 1-5, 1171-1251. Dublin.

Morrin, J. (ed.) 1863 Calendar of the patent and close rolls of the chancery in Ireland, of the reign of Charles the first, first to eight year, inclusive. Dublin. HMSO.

Brewer, J.S. and Bullen, W. (eds.) 1867-1873 Calendar of the Carew manuscripts preserved in the archiepiscopal library at Lambeth. 6 vols. London. HMSO

Atkinson, E.G. (ed.) 1903 Calendar of the state papers relating to Ireland, of the reign of Elizabeth, 1600. Vol. 207, pt 5. London.

Hamilton, H.C. (ed.) 1867 Calendar of the state papers relating to Ireland, of the reign of Elizabeth, 1574-1585. Vol. 2. London.

Atkinson, E.G. (ed.) 1895 Calendar of the state papers relating to Ireland, of the reign of Elizabeth, 1598. Vol. 202. London.