Rathwood, Abington, County Limerick, Ireland
Civil Parish of Abington
The Civil Parish of Abington (not to be confused with the township of Abington), is located in the northeast corner of County Limerick with part of its northeastern reaches stretching into County Tipperary. The Parish centres on the town of Murroe with the township of Abington 2km to the south.
Abington to 1640
Prior to the Norman conquest of Ireland, the Abington Civil Parish region was populated with Gaelic clans. The Mulkear River follows a jagged path originating in mountains in the northeast and flowing westward through the Parish. The Mulkear is surrounded by fertile valleys suitable for mixed farming use. The township of Abington lies on the Mulkear River, although it would not become a township until the foundation of the Cisternian Abbey in 1189.
The Abbey received land grants, including from King John. This included the lands that would become the Rath and Rathwood townlands that are immediately to the southeast of the Abbey and border the Mulkear River. Abington became a typical medieval village. The Abbey and its abbot acted as a landlord, agricultural manager and created the local marketplace. The Abbey and its Estate appear to have remained in a stable state for the following 350 plus years.
During the Reformation, monasteries were dissolved and lands forfeited. In the fifth year (1562) of her reign, Elizabeth granted the Abbey and its Estate to Captain Peter Walsh. The Walsh family were an 'Old English' family descended from the Anglo-Norman conquerors. The grant of the Abbey and its Estate meant that Peter Walsh was able to establish his own landed family branch. Walsh built a Manor House using the stone of the now ruined Abbey. The Abington Abbey Estate would largely remain within the Walsh family inherited by his male heirs.
A Civil Survey into Limerick documents the land ownership position as at 1640. The Survey records the following:
Names of Propritor & his Qualification. Coll Piers Welsh Irish Papist of Abbieowghnie
Denomination of Lands and thire meets and bounds. Abbieowhnie seaven quarter meers beinge a Mannor Towne with the priviledge of a Courte Leete and Courte barron. Ye river of Muilcherne leadinge through the said Towne and a stone bridge thereupon one Mill two fishinge weares a Demolished stone house with two Orchards and a garden upon Rath...
Abbieowhnie is at this time an Estate encompassing 2400 acres of lands associated with the former Abbey. Rath is an area within that commences about 500 metres southeast of the former Abbey and consists of 650 acres bordering the Mulkear River on its western boundary. Rathwood was not separate from Rath at this stage; it was mostly woodlands forming the southern half of Rath. It is about 2.5km from the Abbey to where the townland of Rathwood commences. It is quite probable that there were no tenants of land within Rath to 1640.
Cromwellian Confiscations
The Walsh family integrated well with the native Irish clans and remained staunch Catholics. They sided with the Catholic Confederate in the Irish Rebellion of 1641. Nearly a decade of insurrection was brutally crushed by Cromwell's forces in 1649. This would begin the confiscation of lands held by 'Irish Papists' and the forced movement of Catholics from the north of Ireland southward.
Piers Walsh was dispossessed of his holdings in the Abington Estate. The pleasantly titled Down Survey of Ireland & Books of Survey and Distribution represents a first complete cartographic survey of much of Ireland. It records that the confiscated lands of Piers Walsh are largely assigned to Lord Kingston. This referred to Sir John King a military officer who was created Baron Kingston in 1660 by King Charles II. The map of the Owneybegg Barony is the earliest known to identify 'Raghe'. Note in the map that the southern part of Rath is shrubs and bog.
From the 1650s, the new Protestant landowners within Limerick (and other Counties in the south) were keen to increase their tenant numbers. Because these lands had been ravaged by a decade of war, the new owners desperately needed to make them economically viable. To do this, they offered long, highly attractive incentive leases on the "anchor" blocks (the most fertile, primary, or strategically central portion of a townland) to tenants who possessed the farming expertise to clear the thick native woodlands, drain the bogs, and establish commercial agriculture.
Emergence of Rathwood
Around 1670, Joseph Stepney purchased the Abington Abbey Estate from Lord Kingston. The Kingston Estate across Ireland was sizeable and parcels were progressively sold off. Joseph Stepney's son (also Joseph) took up residence in Abington from about 1670 to manage the Estate. A century later in the 1770s, the Stepney family experienced accumulating debts and had only modest rental income from the Abington Abbey Estate. A notice in the Dublin Journal from 26 December 1767 lists several townlands of the Stepney holdings listed for sale that include Rathwood. The Estate was ultimately sold to Nicholas Lawless about 1775 and he would become Baron Cloncurry in 1776.
Records are unclear as to when the Raghe region was formed into townlands and leased. It is likely this occurred by 1750. Around 1750 it appears that an O'Brien family settled in Rath on the Mulkear River and a branch emerged in land parcels within Rathwood on the border with Rath. A Patrick Ward may also have leased lands within Rathwood, the "anchor block" by the late 1700s. These are amongst the first families identified as leasing land in the former Raghe region, however it is possible their forebears arrived earlier. Records from the era are scant.
Although the transformation of the Abington Abbey Estate into defined townlands of profitable land parcels appears to have commenced during the 1700s, it is not until a survey undertaken by Lord Cloncurry in 1815 that we have strong evidence of the townland of Rathwood in a reasonably advanced stage of defined mixed-use farming and 'house and garden' blocks typically for tradesfolk.
In the Survey Map, note the O'Brien land parcels to the top left on the Mulkear River bordering Rath. Also note William Ward and partners on the central block.