Clongowes Before The Jesuits

The Eustaces and Coill Chluana Gabhann

The first mention of the name Clongowes Wood occurs in a Close Roll of King Henry IV, dated 24 February 1418. The reference is to the dowerlands of Anastasia Wogan, the widow of Sir David Wogan of Rathcoffey, as the the "third part of the Silva de Clongowes, in the western part therein, that is to say forty acres". Just a century earlier, the Rathcoffey estate had reverted to the Crown. It had first been held by Adam de Hereford, a young friend of Strongbow, who had come to Ireland with him. In 1317 Edward II granted these lands to Sir John Wogan, who was at that time a Lord Deputy in Ireland.

The name Clongowes Wood comes from a hybrid of Latin and Irish Silva de Clongowes: 'silva' (the wood), 'cluain' (the meadow) and 'gobha '( the smith). Therefore; 'the wood of the meadow of the smith' or 'Coill Chluana Gabhann'.

Succeeding generations of the Wogans make an interesting and picturesque study, but we must leave them aside until they become connected with Clongowes. We turn now to another Anglo-Norman family frequently mentioned in State papers, the Eustaces or, sometimes, FitzEustace. They are referred to as the Eustaces of Castle-martin, of Kilcullen, of Harristown, of Moone, of Newlands, of Blackhall, of Mainham and of Clongowes Wood. Whatever their origins, they made their mark by having five of their family named Lord Chancellor of Ireland. A junior branch of the Eustaces of Castlemartin settled at Mainham about 1450 and subsequently built the castle at Clongowes.

It was one of the links in the long chain of border strongholds guarding the Pale. The first definitive Pale was ordered to be built by Parliament in Drogheda, 1494, but earlier castles were built. Though nominally posted on the frontier line, to repel the wild Irish and to prevent them from rustling the English cattle, the Eustaces of Clongowes, soon became connected by marriage with Irish families: Alexander, the founder of the Mainham-Clongowes branch, was married to Mary O'Byrne; James, his son, to Margaret O'Toole; and Maurice, his grandson, to Mary O'Kavanagh.