Oughter Ard
Oughterard is an ecclesiastical hilltop site, graveyard, townland, civil parish, and formerly a borough and royal manor in County Kildare, Ireland. It lies close to the community of Ardclough and the border between County Kildare and Dublin. Oughterard is the burial place of Arthur Guinness.
Geography
The civil parish of Oughterard, in County Kildare, lies within the historical barony of South Salt. The Placenames Database of Ireland records 10 townlands within Oughterard civil parish, including Oughterard townland itself as well as the townlands of Bishopscourt Lower and Upper, Blackhill, Boston, Castlewarden North and South, Huttonread, Quinsborough, and Tuckmilltown.Oughterard also gives its name to an electoral division in the area. As of the 2011 census, the Oughterard ED had a population of 726, rising to 846 by the time of the 2022 census.
The village of Ardclough is nearby.
History
Foundation of monastery
The round tower and ancient monastery at Oughter Ard is associated with a nunnery established 5 AD by foundress Saint Briga.Bríga, daughter of Congall, who is also associated with Brideschurch near Sallins, and possibly with Kilbride in County Waterford, is not to be confused with Brigit of Kildare daughter of Dubhthach, the famous St Brigid whose feast day was 1 February; St Brigid, daughter of Doma, whose feast day was 7 February; or the earlier St Brigid, daughter of Neman, also associated with Kildare and said to have been veiled by St Patrick, whose feast day was 9 March. The Martyrology of Donegal lists Brighit daughter of Diomman, Brighit of Moin-miolain, and what may be five more: Brigid the daughter of Leinin, Brighit of Cillmuine, Brighe of Cairbre. and two other Brighits.
The pre-Christian site stands on a ley line between the Longstone Rath and running north to a ford over the River Liffey at Donaghcumper Church, Celbridge. The early Christian Church often built upon formerly druidic sites.
Derchairthinn
The site is also associated also with another sixth-century female saint, Saint Derchairthinn "of the race of Colla Uais, Monarch of Érinn." Colla was a son of Cairbre Lifechair and High King in 306–310.Political patronage
This monastery was under the patronage of a local branch of the Uí Dúnlainge dynasty which rotated the kingship of Leinster between 750–1050. In that period, a sub-dynasty known as Uí Fáeláin formed, which included ten Uí Dúnchada Kings of Leinster. They established their base at nearby Lyons Hill. Their cousins patronised the monastery of Kildare and Glendalough.Royal manor
Ougherard became a royal manor and borough in the 12th century and a ruined castle nearby dates to 1300. Plough headlands from medieval times can still be seen in fields adjoining the churchyard.Medieval landmarks
Research by archaeological historian Mike O'Neill has established the ruined church on the site dates to c. 1350 and not, as previously thought, 1609. The ruined church is now entered through one of the windows, as both original doorways serve as mausoleums. The 8th century round tower, one of five in County Kildare, is in a good state of repair, but it is topless and only the first 8 metres remain. A small ruined castle tower stands about 300 metres southeast of the graveyard.Destruction and restoration
The hilltop monastery and round tower were burned by the Dublin Vikings under Sigtrygg Silkbeard in 995. During the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169–71, the parish was a part of the large estates given as a dowry by Dermot McMurrough on the marriage of his daughter Eva (Aoife) to Strongbow in 1170. Next, it was owned by Adam de Hereford, who willed all his lands to St Thomas monastery in Thomas Street, Dublin, and died in 1210. For several centuries the monastery rented the land to tenant farmers until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536–41. The 1303 Papal taxation listed it as 'Outherard' and it was also spelt as 'Wochtred' before 1500. The parish of Oughterard was eventually united with Lyons in 1541. The calendar rolls reference 1609, which led to its mistakenly being cited as a foundation date by Walter Fitzgerald in 1898. This was followed by another which described the church as being "in ruins" by 1620. It is not clear when the church fell into disuse.Civil survey 1654–56
Sir Philip Perceval (d.1647) owned Castlewarden when listed in the Survey of 1640. Some of his estate papers were published in the "Egmont Manuscripts" in 1905.Following the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1649–53, land had to be surveyed and then often confiscated from Parliament's opponents to pay its debts under the Adventurers' Act 1640. The survey listed four townlands in Oughterard parish; Oughterard, Bishopscourt, Hutton Read and Castlewarden. Oughterard was valued at £82 p.a. rental value and it belonged to four men. Its 410 acres were under arable crops except for of pasture and meadow; today it is mostly grassland.
Arthur Guinness and other notable burials
Until the construction of the turnpike road in the adjoining valley in 1729, Oughterard was situated on the main road from Dublin to Limerick and Cork. According to Patrick Guinness's "Arthur's Round", Arthur Guinness's grandfather William Read, a local farmer, started selling home-brewed ale from a roadside stall in 1690 to troops en route to the battles in the Jacobite wars. Guinness was taken back to Oughterard to be buried in the Read family plot in January 1803. Local tradition holds that Guinness was born at the Read household, where his mother returned to her childhood home, in the tradition of the time, to give birth. Three prospective birth sites have been identified, most likely at Oughterard, but also possibly at Read homesteads the adjoining townlands of Boston, Castlewarden and Huttonread, which takes its name from the Read family, all within Oughterard parish.Later in 1803 Arthur Wolfe, Lord Kilwarden who lived at Newlands, County Dublin—the most famous victim of Robert Emmet's 1803 rebellion—was buried here in the Wolfe mausoleum, a grave that dates to 1650. James Phipps, "A Captain of Insurgents" who took part in the Battle of Ovidstown in 1798, and then moved to America where he died in 1826, is commemorated, as is William Kennedy from nearby Bishopscourt, who was posthumously decorated for bravery having died in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II.