Durrow

History

The earliest recorded church in the village was in 1155. Evidence from the Archaeological Survey carried out by the Office of Public Works in 1995 suggests that this area has been visited, if not inhabited, since as early as the Bronze Age. An urn-burial found on the lands of Moyne Estate dates roughly to the same period as those found at iron mills and Ballymartin (900–1400BC). Fulachta Fiadh (early cooking sites) have been identified at Aharney and near Ballacolla. The ringforts and other enclosures that dot the landscape indicate a more permanent, if dispersed, settlement of the land by the Celts (500BC–500AD). At some point, the land was part of the Kingdom of Ossory, and remained so as part of Upper Ossory into the seventeenth century. Numerous religious settlements in the area date back to the 6th century. While the monastery founded by St. Fintan on the banks of the Erkina is perhaps the best known, evidence exists for similar establishments at Dunmore, Clonageera, Dereen, the Course wood, Tinweir, Ballinaslee, Tubberboe and Newtown. The coming of the Anglo-Normans in the 12th century sounded the death knell for many of these early Christian settlements and the lands were subsumed into the Manor of Durrow, an Episcopal Manor for the Bishops of Ossory. This development sowed the seeds for the establishment of the town of Durrow. In 1245, Geoffrey de Turville, Bishop of Ossory from 1244 to 1250, was granted permission from the King of England to hold a yearly fair at Durrow manor for six days beginning on St. Swithin's Day and a weekly market on Thursdays. After the Reformation, the manor passed into the ownership of the Earl of Ormond. In 1600, when Upper Ossory was made part of Queen's County (now Laois), Ormond ensured that Durrow remained an enclave of…