It Happened in September
Wicklow; the Youngest County Is Born
By Mattie Lennon
 When
you think of the Co. Wicklow (“The garden of Ireland”) it conjures up images
of Glendalough, the Sugar Loaf,Lacken and the Blessington Lakes. If you
are old enough, pictures of “The Battle of Baltinglass” and referees locked
in car-boots may spring to mind but do you ever think of the origins of
the county?
The first counties were “erected” in Ireland in 1210. The mountainous
area that is now Co. Wicklow (the last county to be formed) held out for
almost 400 years. This was due to two clans, the descendants of whom are
very much in evidence in the Co. Wicklow of today.
The Clan O'Byrne, it is said, are descended from Heremon, a leader of
a Spanish colony which established itself in Ireland about 1000 B.C. The
O'Byrnes and O'Tooles occupied large tracts of land in what is now Co.
Kildare. They were driven into the mountains as a result of the Norman
invasion.
The two clans forged alliances through intermarriage and soon declared
war on the new inhabitants, the Anglo-Normans. In 1173, Strongbow, as lieutenant
of Henry II in Ireland, attempted to grant to Abbot Thomas O'Toole of Glendalough;
“......the entire Abbacy and personalities of Glendalough with all their
appurtenances of lands and dignities in that perpetual free gift...” Historians
claim that the reason Abbot O'Toole declined the offer was that the area
was part of the unconquered lands of the O'Tooles and that by taking it
he would have been recognizing the authority of Strongbow. The clans stood
their ground through the 14th and 15th centuries.
In the 1390s, the Earl of Ormond and the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland,
Roger Mortimer, took the O'Byrne castle at Wicklow town, but the O'Tooles
stepped in, counter-attacked and spiked sixty English heads on the gates
of the O'Toole castle at Powerscourt.
In 1398, the two clans marched against the English and killed the Lord
Lieutenant. O¹Byrne country remained dangerous territory for the English
and in 1414 Lord Furnival was highly praised for marching an army through
the region without casualty.
By the 16th century, two branches of the O'Byrnes occupied what is now
east and west Wicklow. By the mid 1500s, a number of alliances had been
formed between Gaelic chieftains and English noblemen. The powers-that-were
saw this as a dangerous situation and Earl St. Ledger, the new Lord Deputy,
aimed to rectify it.
He sought to set up a system whereby the chieftains would take their
lands and hold them on letters patent from the English king, instead of
the Irish system where their clansmen elected the chieftains. Thadeus O
Byrne, chief of the clan, signed a treaty in 1535, in which he swore to
be a loyal subject and undertook not to support any Irishman against the
King.
He also requested that his territory be shired: “the Byrnes of the mountains,
in the thirty fourth of Henry the Eight (1542), desired that their country
might be shire-ground and called the County of Wicklow.” The clan rejected
the plans of Thadeus; and what did they do? They did what Wicklow people
always did when their representatives stepped out of line. They elected
a new clan leader.
It would appear that the clans quieted down for a while and in the 1550s
the authorities in Dublin remarked on the good behavior of the O'Byrnes.
By 1578, there were plans once again to shire Wicklow and Sir William
Drury, the Lord Justice, defined the county boundary but “ finding that
there were not sufficient, and fewer gent. To be shriffes, nor freeholders
to make a jury for her Majiestie' the matter was let drop.”
It was also in 1578 that Sir Henry Harrington was appointed seneschal.
(Amn't I glad I wasn't around at the time; because being a ballad-writer
or scribbler of any sort was almost as hazardous as playing football for
Rathnew, judging by the instructions given to Sir Henry for his rule of
the O'Byrnes and O'Tooles:
“Fyrst that you cause proclamacion to be made that no idele persone, vagabonde
or masterlesse man, barde rymoure, or any other notorious or detected malefactor
do haunte, remaine, or abyde within the limits and bondes of your authoritee.”
It goes on to give him permission to administer; “....sharp correction
as you shall in good discreation appoint” and that it would be lawful:
“ .....for you be vertue of this commission to execute him marshally”.)
I digress. Sir Henry Harrington got his come-uppance. He was defeated
in 1599 by Phelim and Redmond O'Byrne ( sons of Fiach MacHugh who was beheaded
in 1597) at Deputy's Pass, between Rathdrum and Wicklow.
The O' Byrnes didn't. Four years later in 1603, Wicklow was declared
a county.
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