When the new church at Powerscourt gates was built, Mervyn, 7th Viscount, “requested Mr William Buckley, the then innkeeper of the Powerscourt Arms Hotel Enniskerry, who was then churchwarden, to furnish me with a list of the parishioners…[so that] the burials in the old churchyard are restricted to those families who had rights prior to 1869.” – where the old [continue reading...]
In 1853, during the minority of the 7th Viscount Powerscourt, the firm Brassington and Gale (Bachelor’s Walk) were requested to carry out a valuation of all property on the Estate, to assist the Guardians of the estate in deciding on rents that should be charged for land. They produced a ledger of incredible detail, which is now in the National [continue reading...]
The pencil lead is hardly dry on this latest data collection! I’m interested in the change of ownership of land from Powerscourt to tenants, and have been looking at the Land Commission records. From my limited understanding so far the Land Commission was established in 1881 to effect the voluntary transfer of land from estate owners to tenants. The initial [continue reading...]
The National Library of Ireland has an important set of manuscripts relating to Powerscourt and Enniskerry in its Powerscourt Papers collection. There is a general index to the collection, which is available online (Collection List 124 PDF file). Having looked at many of the maps, some more detail from notes made are provided below. As well as being beautiful visual [continue reading...]
One of the earliest writings on placenames by the indefatigable Liam Price, historian, scholar and Wicklow judge, was his work on transcribing the Hearth Money Rolls of County Wicklow, which he published in 1931.* Price was a district justice in County Wicklow from the 1920s until the 1950s. His interest in history and antiquities apparently led him to take detours [continue reading...]
Excerpt from Porter’s Directory for Enniskerry, 1910 Some notes and information on commercial interests according to Porter’s Directory, 1910 mapped on a Google map. Locations are approximate based on placename given. Green pins = farmer, red pin = local business, yellow pin = doctor, purple pin = accomodation. Click on a pin to see the name in each case. The [continue reading...]