2001:323 - BREMORE, Balbriggan, Dublin

Pre-development testing was undertaken in advance of a large-scale housing development adjacent to a medieval complex. The development is to take place to the north of Bremore Castle and the site of St Molaga’s Church and its churchyard (SMR 2:2(01), (02) and (03)). The site consists of a large open field covering approximately 4.5ha. The castle lies immediately to the south, surrounded by a number of modern farm buildings, and is currently being restored. The modern N1 road bounds the field to the west, and a lane running from this road to the castle forms the field’s southern boundary. The sea lies approximately 300m to the east.

The testing, carried out in April 2001, consisted of a series of fourteen parallel test-trenches, running east–west at intervals of 15m, extending up to 280m across the field. All trenches were excavated by mechanical digger. The first nine trenches, excavated in the northern half of the field, contained a small number of post-medieval agricultural features of limited archaeological significance, including field drains and furrows.

As anticipated, the density of archaeological features was far higher adjacent to the castle. Evidence for extensive cultivation and a number of deposits of brick and loose stone were exposed. Large amounts of medieval pottery were recovered, and a six-pound cannonball was also discovered. It was clear that further excavation would be required to resolve the nature and extent of the features exposed. A separate excavation licence for resolution was applied for and granted (see Excavations 2001, No. 324).

Historical sources indicate that there may have been a church here from the 7th century, which fell into disuse before the 15th century. ‘The church of the beekeeper in the territory of Brega’ is referred to in the 8th-century Martyrology of Oengus. St Molaga was reputed to have travelled to Ireland from Wales in the 7th century. The Annals of Inisfallen also make reference to the monastery in 1164, and it fell under the control of the Augustinian priory of Tristernagh in Westmeath shortly afterwards. The present structure would appear to have been a manorial chapel attached to the castle.

The castle appears to be of 16th- or 17th-century date, but may incorporate an earlier structure. In 1395 Bremore is described as a possession of the Barnewalls, a prominent family of Anglo-Norman landowners. The manor of Bremore appears to have become a seat of a cadet branch of the family in the late 15th or early 16th century. An inquisition from 1567 suggests that the manor was held in socage from the Barnewalls of Drimnagh, and mentions eight messuages and a dovecote. The Barnewalls of Bremore rose to prominence in the 16th and 17th centuries as office-holders, and controlled extensive lands in north County Dublin, eventually inheriting the Drimnagh holding. The family were closely linked with the Catholic cause during the confederate wars and suffered accordingly. The Civil Survey of 1654 gives us a contemporary description: ‘There is upon Breemore one Burnt Castle with a great Barne & eight tenements one orchard & parke with some small young Ashtrees & on Newhaven ten small cottages both valued by the Jury at one hundred & ten poundes (they being both as one)’. Newhaven appears to have been a small fishing-village to the north of the townland of Bremore.

The line of the Barnewalls of Bremore became extinct at the end of the 17th century; the castle of Bremore and its surrounding lands passed into the possession of the first earl of Shelburn, and no longer functioned as a manorial seat.

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