The Cross of Ballymore

During the past year I have visited places with ancient Irish High Crosses in order to learn more of our heritage from them.  However I never expected to hear about 17^th century Ireland from a 10^th century cross.

It happened at Ballymore Eustace, a hill town in south Kildare guarding bridges over the River Liffey. I had gone there to look at its High Crosses and found them in the COI cemetery in the upper town.

The north cross, two meters tall, comprises of the usual head, shaft and pyramidal base. It dates from the 10th century but an inscription was incised in it at a later date: ‘ERECTED BY AMWALL 9TH NOR 1689’. Deciphered this means: ‘Erected by Ambrose Wall 9^th November 1689’. It had been knocked over or buried in the disturbances at that time and was re-erected on 9 November, 1689. 

Ambrose Wall was the High Sheriff of Wicklow in 1689, a significant year. It was during the short ‘breathing space’ in Ireland between the downfall of Cromwell’s extremely anti-Catholic regime and the departure of James ll who had given hope that the religious and political rights of Irish Catholics would be restored.  

Ambrose was a landowner, probably not of old Irish stock but a Catholic The fact he had recently been made High Sheriff by James ll indicated he was a Royalist. In 1689 hopes were high that the ‘Old Religion’ was being revived and Ambrose’s re-instalment of the High Cross in Ballymore celebrated that fact (and hope).

The day, 9 November, is also importnt. It was a major Catholic feast day commemorating the consecration of the Lateran Basilica in 324. It was the first public Christian church in Rome and built on land contributed by the Emperor Constantine. It became the official ‘seat’ of the Popes. In 1687, for Ambrose and many others, the day expressed hope for a new age of collaboration between the Church and a new Constantine, James ll.   

As it happened, Ambrose was killed the following year at the Siege of Limerick and died an outlaw. The ‘breathing space’ was over.  Harsh Penal Laws followed.

If it were not for the High Crosses in the old graveyard, Ballymore would have been remember only as a Norman frontier town guarding the bridges over the Liffey.  The first reference to a church there is in 1192 but the crosses show an earlier Celtic heritage.

By the 12^th century Ballymore was firmly under Norman control. A manor and castle owned by the (Norman) archbishops of Dublin formed one of the chief defences of the Pale against the dispossessed Irish. For five generations branches of the Eustace family held the castle there, adding their name to An Baile Mór (in Irish, 'the Big Town’).

As to the crosses I had gone to see, they are less elaborate than I expected. The only decoration is a central boss with rounded moulding within a solid ring. There is a large collection of early grave slabs nearby but are difficult to find or read at present.

Today it is a quiet place, suited to remembering people like Ambrose Wall and the crushed hopes of many.