ARTANE otherwise ARTAINE, a parish in the barony of COOLOCK, county of DUBLIN, and province of LEINSTER, 2 .50 miles (N.) from the General Post-office, Dublin city; containing 583 inhabitants. The parish is situated on the road from Dublin to Malahide, and has a penny post. Artane castle was long the property of the Donellans of Ravensdale, and is said to have been the scene of the death of John Alen or Alan, Archbishop of Dublin, who, in endeavouring to escape from the vengeance of the house of Kildare, which he had provoked by his adherence to the will and measures of Cardinal Wolsey, was shipwrecked near Clontarf: and being made prisoner by some followers of that family, was brought before Lord Thomas Fitzgerald, then posted here with the insurgent army, whom he earnestly entreated to spare his life; but, either failing in his supplications, or from the wilful misconstruction of a contemptuous expression by Fitzgerald into a sentence of death on the part of those around him, as variously alleged by different writers, he was instantly slain in the great hall of the castle on the 28th of July 1534. On the breaking out of hostilities in 1641, it was taken by Luke Netterville, one of the Roman Catholic leaders, and the head of a body of royalists, and garrisoned. The parish comprises 946 statute acres, of which 20, including roads are untitheable and of no value. The old castle was pulled down in 1825, and on its site and with its materials was erected, by the late Matthew Boyle, Esq., uncle of the present proprietor, M. Callaghan, Esq., a handsome house, which commands a splendid view of the islands of Lambay and Ireland's Eye, the hill of Howth and the Dublin and Wicklow mountains. The other seats are Elm Park, the residence of T. Hutton, Esq., Thorndale, of D. H. Sherrard, Esq., Woodville of J. Cornwall, Esq.; Artaine House, of T. Alley, Esq.; Mount Dillon, of H. Cooper, Esq.; Kilmore House, of H. Hutton, Esq.; Belfield, of Capt. Cottingham; Artaine Cottage, of J. Cusack, Esq; Pozzdigotto, of Mrs. Atkinson; and Stella Lodge, of M. Curwen, Esq. In its ecclesiastical concerns this is a chapelry in the diocese of Dublin, and one of the three which, with the rectory of Finglas and the curacy of St. Werburgh's, Dublin, constitute the corps of the chancellorship in the cathedral church of St. Patrick, Dublin, which is in the patronage of the Archbishop. The church is a picturesque ruin, partly covered with ivy: in the burial ground is a tombstone to the Hollywood family, to which the manor belonged for many ages, and of which John Hollywood, a distinguished mathematician and philosopher of the 13th century, was a member. In the Roman Catholic divisions, it is in the union or district of Clontarf, Coolock and Santry. A neat schoolhouse for boys and girls, with apartments for the master and mistress, was built near the old church by the late M. Boyle, Esq., in 1832, at an expense of more than £600, of which £150 was repaid by the National Board, which contributes £25 per annum towards the support of the school, and in 1833, Mr. Boyle bequeathed £10 per annum for the same purpose: the number of boys on the books is 116 and of girls, 107.
1st January 1837
A snapshot of pre-famine local history, as described in the "Topographical Dictionary of Ireland" by Samuel Lewis, 1837. (The information collected here was submitted by members of the local gentry and clergy of the time).
