The Wogan Brownes

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 Kilcuilen, 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.

Eustace's castle of Clongowes is mentioned in the State papers in 1538 in reference to the creation of Sir Thomas Eustace as Baron Kilcullen and Viscount Baltinglass. James Eustace, third Viscount Baltinglass, joined the Earl of Desmond in arms in the hope of placing Mary Queen of Scots on the English throne. The attempt failed and Baltinglass had to escape to Spain in 1583 where he died. One of his brothers was executed in Dublin, two others fled from the country and the family of Kilcullen lost its lands and titles.

The Eustaces of Clongowes remained undisturbed until the rebellion of 1641. In that year Nicholas Wogan, the head of the Rathcoffey family, became one of the Council of War of the Lords of the Pale who had allied themselves with Rory O'More. James Eustace mortgaged his property to Sir James Dixon and joined forces with Wogan, as did his friends and neighbours, Sir Andrew Aylmer of Donadea, Nicholas Sutton of Barberstown, John Gaydon of lrishtown (includes the present Straffan) and Garret Sutton of Richardstown. We know from a letter of the Lords Justices to Parliament in London that Lt. Colonel (afterwards General) Monck took both Clongowes and Rathcoffey in June 1642. He placed a garrison of 100 soldiers in Rathcoffey and made Clongowes uninhabitable. James Eustace continued to fight with the Confederates for another ten years but in 1652 he joined a French regiment.

The Eustaces did not regain their estates after the Restoration. Under the Caroline Act of Settlement the Commissioners declared them to be 'Irish papists, not innocent'. Charles II granted Clongowes to Sir Richard Reynell in 1667; within a short time Reynell sold the property, situated in about 1,000 acres, to Thomas Browne a Dublin barrister, for £2,100. Browne belonged to a Catholic family with considerable property situated in Back Lane, Church Street, confirmed by letters of Charles II, dated 20 July 1776.