The Fort at Macreddin

In south Wicklow I came across ‘Plantation Towns’ that are more usually associated with Ulster.  Wicklow County Council recognised one, Macreddin, as the ‘site of one of the few 17th century Plantation Towns established in Leinster’.

When Wicklow was made a county in 1606. Dublin Castle sought to limit the threat from the mountain-based rebel O'Toole and O'Byrne clans by building a fort near the Glen of Imaal, a rugged parts of Leinster that was a base for resisters.  It was named ‘Cary’s Fort’ in honour of Henry Cary, Lord Deputy of Ireland, 1625-28.

Carysfort was made a ‘borough’ which gave it privileges to hold markets, establish guilds and elect members to parliament. It also granted the 13 members of the corporation ‘600 acres of arable land and pasture, and 276 acres of bog, mountain, wood, and underwood’ in free burgage, and three smaller parcels of land to fund a specific purpose: first the garrison, second a Protestant curate and glebe, and third a free school.’

However it did not flourish. An 1835 Report said the charter appeared ‘never to have been acted on for any corporate purpose, except that of returning Members to Parliament before the Union’. It described Carysfort as ‘a small village, containing a few houses of the humblest class’.

Before becoming ‘Carysfort’ the area was known as ‘Macreddin’ or  Magh Chrídáin, the  ‘Plain of Cridan‘.

This Credin, son  of Iollann, was a local chieftain who became a disciple of Saint Kevin of  nearby Glendalough. His church was a simple building, taken over in time by the COI, burnt in the 1798 rebellion, rebuilt in 1803 but closed and left in ruins by the 1970s. Today its unusually extensive walls, triangular shape and the views out it arched windows make it worth a visit. 

However, I went there just to see its gravestones, designed by the local ‘Aughrim School of Stone Cutters’. As happened in other churchyards where I had searched for them, the writing on the monuments are obscured by moss and it is impossible to distinguish anything on them.   

When I had started visiting the separts of Wicklow between the mountains and the sea I had one question in mind:  why are there so many forgotten graveyards in that area?

Once more I ended up with something different.

I got to know a part of Wicklow which, though near Dublin, was spared foreign occupation for longer than the rest of Leinster because of its granite heights and oak forests.   

Its ‘modern’ era began with ‘Planters’ rather than conquering armies and its ‘Planter Towns’ are the witnesses. They retain the characteristic elements: a central ‘diamond’ or market square, traces of defensive walls and a Protestant church. 

I also found that thanks to the county’s granite heartland, its stones, stonecutters and graveyards remain its most vocal storytellers and wait to be listened to.  

It was not what I had been asking but it was worth going there.  

Photos: The arch view, the remains of Cartsfort?  the graves of Macreddin.