SENAN OF LARAGHBRYAN

Senan Of Laraghbryan.

Our thanks to Rita Edwards from Maynooth Local History Group for providing us with this text from a walk and a talk from Maynooth to Laraghbryan that took place during Heritage Week 2019.

SENAN OF LARAGHBRYAN The name Senan meaning ‘wise one’ is attributed to many Irish saints, the most well-known being Senan of Inis Cathaigh or Scattery Island in the Shannon Estuary in County Clare. Who was Senan of Laraghbryan? I’ll answer that question by first asking, what do we know about this place called Laraghbryan near Maynooth? Laraghbryan, an anglicised form of the place-name Láithreach Briúin, is described on www.logainm.ie as a ‘non-validated name’. I understand that ‘láithreach’ among other meanings, may be translated as a site, position or place.
Historically, north Kildare was part of the Uí Faéláin kingdom, occupied by the descendants of Faéláin, who included the O’Byrnes, hence the place-name Láithreach Briúin. Place-names change over time. The website also informs us that according to Kildare Rentals dating from c. 1518 this area was known as Larabyrne (clue here) and that the name Laraghbryan that we know today was first mentioned (according to their records) in a statistical survey of the area taken in 1837. The O’Byrnes were at one time ancient kings of Leinster. However, as was the norm at the time, kingship did not descend from father to son, which meant that they never held the kingship for any length of time.
There were Christians in Ireland prior to Patrick. In 431AD ‘Palladius, having been ordained by Pope Celestine, is sent as first bishop to the Scotti [Irish] believing in Christ’. He landed at Arklow. It is also recorded that not long after he landed he was banished by the King of Leinster – an O’Byrne? By the 6th century there were over 800 monasteries in Ireland.
This is where our Senan of Láithreach Briúin makes an entrance. What we know about him has been compiled By John O’Hanlon, from various sources such as the ‘Annals of the Four Masters’. O’Hanlon (1821-1905), MRIA was a Catholic priest, scholar and poet. He is best known as a folklorist and a hagiographer and in particular for his comprehensive ‘Lives of the Irish Saints’. The Annals, in which Laraghbryan is mentioned several times, were compiled between 1632 and 1636 by the Franciscans. Their purpose was to record and preserve the race memory of the Irish nation which was in danger of being lost forever through centuries of colonisation and religious persecution.
Senan founded a monastery at Laraghbryan in the 6th century. He was the son of Fintan and Deidi. And as is usual in ancient Irish genealogies, his genealogy is carried back for fifty generations or more. Apparently during his lifetime, he was considered to be a person of some importance and was praised for his ‘noble qualities’. He is named as one of the churchmen who attended ‘the great Synod held at Dromcreat in 580AD’. Today, the area around Drumcreat is dominated by Mullagh Hill overlooking Roe Park Golf Course at Limavady in Northern Ireland. The top of the hill is unnaturally flat and according to folklore the top was deliberately flattened for the sole purpose of holding the synod on its summit. In modern times a club member noted that ‘we were warned not to incorporate the hill into the golf layout’.
Early monasteries were built of clay and wood. Within these settlements crafts and trades developed and given their importance it is not surprising that close links developed between the monasteries and the local chieftains, in this case, the O’Byrnes. When Senan died, the monastery that he had founded in the short term continued to flourish. His memory lived on in Láithreach Briúin in Uí Faéláin and his Feast Day or Patron Day was commemorated annually on 2nd September.
In the middle ages, Laraghbryan was dangerously close to the Meath border which was then in a separate province. It suffered badly in cross-border skirmishes. The monastery was plundered and sacked in 1036 and again four years later in a vicious struggle for the Kingdom of Ireland. It never fully recovered from the last attack.
One hundred and thirty years later c. 1169 the O’Byrne’s of north Kildare were finally driven off their ancestral lands into the mountains of Wicklow by one known as the Anglo-Norman knight Maurice FitzGerald. What is interesting is that in 1606 Wicklow became the last county to be formed in Ireland when the area gradually came under the control of Dublin Castle. What is even more interesting is that the descendants of the O’Byrnes of Laraghbryan were among the last Gaelic chieftains to hold out. In 1641 their holdings in Wicklow which had previously covered 75,000 acres were reduced to 20,000. They finally lost everything under the Cromwellian regime in 1649.
In 1630 the church at Laraghbryan was ‘in good repair, but chancel [altar end] unroofed’. Ten years later it ‘had fallen into ruin.’ It is suggested that the tower and church were built between 1400 and 1500AD when there was a boom in church building and when many older churches were altered. However, both tower and church were allowed to fall into disrepair in the late 1700s, which coincided with the time that James Duke of Leinster decided to concentrate on a major renovation of St Mary’s Church of Ireland in Maynooth. Anything of value which still remained at Laraghbryan was then removed.
O’Hanlon visited Laraghbryan in July 1873 and left a record of his impressions at the time. ‘The medieval church ruins of Laraghbrien (sic) are to be seen embowered with stately lime trees, and within a squarely-formed grave-yard, surrounded by a quadrangular wall. A gravel walk runs parallel with the walls on the interior. The church ruins measure 87 feet in length, exteriorly: they are 19 feet, 8 inches in breadth. The walls are nearly 3 feet in thickness. There is a square tower, 13 feet by 15 feet, on the outside; and, it is entered by a low, arched door-way from the interior. Several square-headed opes [openings] are inside of it and a ruined spiral stairway occupies one angle. This leads to a broken part of the wall and showing that it ran much higher. There is a large breach in either side wall. Some ruined windows remain. Two of them have elegantly dressed heading and side stones, and in these formerly were iron bars. The building materials are of excellent limestone and mortar. There was a door in the north side-wall, parallel with the [then] Kilcock Road from Maynooth to Kilcock. Circularly-arched door-ways and windows splayed are still to be seen in the walls. Traces of plaster are inside and outside the building showing that it has been used for purposes of worship, and at no very remote date.’
Today the monastic site at Laraghbryan consists of the ruins of the medieval tower and church and three cemeteries known as the ancient, the old and the new. In spite of restoration work in 2002 the side walls of the church are leaning outwards and crumbling away in places. Unless further restoration takes place soon, what is left of the tower and church and decorative stonework that can still be seen in some places, especially around the windows and arches, will fall into further disrepair and may eventually collapse.
Laraghbryan is a site of historical, archaeological and architectural significance and deserves to be preserved. And perhaps in time the story of Senan of Láithreach Briúin will be restored to the collective memory.
Rita Edwards (Maynooth Local History Group) (Details from a Walk & Talk which took place from Maynooth to Laraghbryan during Heritage Week 2019)