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We are very grateful to Ristéard Ua Cróinín and Martin Breen for permission to use this extract from their 1986 article in the Other Clare on ‘Ballymarkahan Castle: A Mac Namara Residence of the Medieval Period.’

The 1986 article where the Mac Namara pedigree was attributed to Twigge was in fact constructed by Martin Breen, based on the Twigge manuscripts. The history of Ballymarkahan and information on G. U. Macnamara is in The Other Clare, vol 42. There is new data on Quin in the recent The Other Clare, vol. 48, which features Danganbrack.

Much is yet to be written about the huge wealth of castles near Quin village and the surrounding areas.

O’Dwyer, chief of Kilnamanach in County Tipperary, Maccon Mór had  three  sons,  and  from  the  eldest of these sons Cumheadha, the MacNamara Fionn branch descends. Their territory was the barony of Bunratty or  West  Clan Cuiléin.  The  MacNamara Fionn was responsible for the building of Bunratty castle, Knappogue Castle and the friary of Quin, as well as other castles and tower houses in county Clare. By his second marriage to Anne, the daughter of O’Kelly, chief  of  Ui  Maine  (an area which straddled parts of the present counties Galway and Roscommon), Maccon Mór also had three sons, Sean ‘an Gabhaltais’, descend the branch which became known as MacNamara Riabhach, whose territory was the barony of Tulla, or East Clan Cuilein.8

The MacNamara Riabhach were also responsible for the building of several castles or tower houses in east Clare, the castle of Ballymarkahan is one of these constructions. The castle, although badly ruined, still remains many well executed features of late medieval castles.  Over sixty castles or tower were constructed in east Clare by the various branches of the MacNamara clan in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Many of these structures

have broadly   similar designs. Ballymarkahan castle is a typical example of one of these fortified late medieval buildings, in its construction, its history, and its destruction. The history of this tower house and the description of its remaining features are discussed below.

Description:

Ballymarkahan Castle (Baile Ui Mharcachain – Home of O’Markahan)

CL042-03702-, 042-/08/2. 14359/17280 O.D. O’-lOO’. Tower House and Bawn.

Ballymarkahan tower house stands almost 16m. high to its full height. Only the north, west and portion of the south wall remain as the comer containing the circular staircase no longer stands. The building was constructed of dressed limestone rubble set in erratic courses on a base batter resting on a crude plinth of flat stones. The dressings around windows and doors are particularly well carved. The tower house was built in one section unlike many County Clare examples, which were constructed in two sections. The building is vaulted over the ground floor and second floor with corbels set in the lateral walls to carry intermittent wooden floors and also to support vault centring forms.

Pedigree of the MacNamara Riabhach, showing descent to the MacNamaras of Ballymarkahan

Floorplan of Ballymarkahan Castle

Ballymarkahan Castle from south (2017), showing main and smaller chambers

The ground floor contains a small porter’s lodge to the right of the entrance door and embrasures for loops in the south, west and north walls. The remains of a garderobe-corridor, supporting arch can be seen inside the entrance lobby, while the remains of the upper floor vault can be seen near the west wall.

The narrow stairwell section, most of which has collapsed, shows stone vaults over the ground, first, third and fourth storey narrow rooms, while the solar or top floor was all one room. There are two garderobes at first and third floor levels, the upper one containing a secret chamber to the left that has no window, but has an external slop-stone. The top room contains ogee headed loops and a finely dressed arched and splayed embrasure over the north and west windows, which appear to have been glazed, double light windows with central mullions.

To the northwest of the castle can be seen the footings of a bawn wall stretching over 60m. from the west wall of the towerhouse. These footings are regular and appear to be about lm. wide. There is also a natural spring well to the west of the tower house, and the remains of a limekiln lie about 20m to the east. At the northwest comer of the bawn wall footings is a low burnt mound which is likely a fulacht fiadh, and there is evidence that others exist nearby, on the bank of the marsh.

At the rear of the farmyard, about 50m. southeast of the tower house, is the remains of what appears to be a seventeenth century house with a large stone fireplace, (with a modem concrete lintel), and a brick bread-oven with overhead flue to its left hand side.

Surveyed 12-02

Ua Croinin and Breen.

History:

According to the various castle lists available, several individuals are credited with the construction of the castle of Ballymarkahan, although all are agreed that it was built by the MacNamara clan. According to T.J. Westropp, the castle was built in the period 1430-1450 by Donall, son of Shane, (Sean), ‘an Gabhaltais’ MacNamara, who died in 1373. This concurs with Standish Hayes O’Grady, who was quoting from lists of County Clare castle builders in manuscript form in the British Library, O’Grady added that one of the lists   gives   the above Shane MacNamara himself as the builder. According to Dr G.U. MacNamara, the soubriquet ‘an Gabhaltais’ (‘of the Conquests’), only appears in the later manuscripts, and was given to Sean because of his alliance with Brian Catha an Aonaigh

What did the Anglo Normans ever do for us?

We are well aware of the impact of the Anglo-Norman invasion on our history, the undermining of Gaelic society and the replacement of our native structures. Poor old Diarmuid MacMurrough takes a lot of blame for all of this, despite the fact that Henry II in England had already sought and had been given approval by Pope Adrian to invade and civilise us. Henry was just waiting to finish his war in France before sorting us out!

Anyway, in they came, conquered, settled, married and eventually becoming more Irish than even ourselves, ‘níos gaelaí ná na Gaeil féin’! But besides building towns and castles, robbing our women (and probably taking our jobs!), what did the Anglo-Normans do for us – if anything?

Well, for one, they gave us a whole new suite of names, both forename and surname, to choose from.

The Norman influence on Irish surnames

Following the invasion of 1169, a large number of Anglo-French first and last names entered into Ireland. Many, such as Power, Browne, Fleming, Joyce, Burke, Barry, Costello, Nagle, Nugent, D’arcy, Roche and Walsh/Welsh/Wallace, are nowadays considered Irish and are commonly found in Clare. So, too, are those with the Fitz prefix such as Fitzmaurice, Fitzgerald, Fitzgibbon and Fitzpatrick which most people would regard as Irish as the shamrock. Fitz, meaning ‘son of’, can be considered the Norman version of Mac (it derives from the Latin/French ‘fils de’, meaning ‘son of’). Burke came from de Burgh, Roche from de Roiste, Power from de Paor.

In 1366, a law was passed that “Every Englishman do use the English language, and be named by an English name, leaving off entirely the manner of naming used by the Irish.” This was introduced to dissuade the settlers from adopting Celtic prefixes or forms of surname. It didn’t have much affect as many settler families added Mac or ‘O’ and Norman names evolved into an Irish form (eg McHenry, McArthur).

In 1465 a law was passed enacting “that every Irishman that dwells betwixt or amongst Englishmen in the County of Dublin, Myeth, Vriell, and Kildare … shall take to him an English Surname of one town, as Sutton, Chester, Trym, Skryne, Corke, Kinsale; or colour, as white, blacke, browne; or arte or science, as smith or carpenter; or office, as cooke, butler ….”

Many of the trades of the early medieval period such as Archer, Butler, Cooper, Carpenter, Draper, Skinner, Tanner found their way into our surnames. Other introductions from this period came from the mercenary soldiers who accompanied the Norman invasion: Walsh (meaning Welsh), Joyce and Fleming (from Flemish mercenaries) are examples.

Incidentally, the Normans usually took their surnames from the place of their family origins. So, D’arcy originates in Arcy in Normandy. De Clare originates in Clare in Suffolk where the Anglo-Norman family were based. While De indicated their place of origin, Le was used to describe them, eg Le Poer meant ‘a poor person’.

De Burgh – Burke – from a placename in Suffolk, France

Le Botilier – Butler – Occupation bottle steward

De Barra – Barry – from an estate in Wales

Le Waleys – Walsh – the Welshmen

De Angulo – Costello/Nangle – from Nangle Pembrokeshire

What of their influence on forenames?

 Many of the Normans forenames introduced here were of a biblical or European saintly origin.

 In 1922, Reverend Patrick Woulfe wrote extensively on the topic of Irish name origins as follows:

In the same manner Norman and English names became current in Irish families during the thirteenth and subsequent centuries. These have now almost completely supplanted the old Gaelic names. The names borne by the Normans and by them introduced into Ireland, were of three kinds :

 (1) names of Scandinavian origin which their ancestors had carried with them to Normandy ;

(2) names of Germanic origin which the Frankish conquerors had brought across the Rhine and which had ousted the old Celtic and Latin names from France ; and

(3) Biblical names and Latin and Greek names of saints,, which the Normans began to adopt about the beginning of the eleventh century.

Together with these came in a few Celtic names from Brittany, a small number of Anglo-Saxon names, some Danish and Norse names from England, and one or two British or Welsh names. These were nearly all very rare and most of them soon died out. Of the Anglo-Saxon names, only two, Edmund and Edward, survived. Alfred has been revived in recent times. At the period of the Invasion, Frankish names were by far the most popular among the Normans, but Biblical and saintly names were coming rapidly into favour.

The following is a list, in order of frequency, of the more common names borne by the early Anglo- Norman invaders, the Biblical and saintly names of Latin and Greek origin being printed in italics :

William, Robert, Richard, John, Walter, Roger, Ralph, Adam, Hugh, Henry, Thomas, Nicholas, Gilbert, Geoffrey, Elias, Peter (Piers), Osbert, Reginald, Jordan, Simon, Alan, Stephen, Philip, David, Arnold, Alexander, Laurence, Baldwin, Herbert, Martin, Maurice, Godfrey, Andrew, Alfred, James, Samson, Turstein, Warin, Ailward, Daniel, Edward, Gregory, Bernard, Benedict, Hamon, Matthias, Michael, Gerard, Gervase, Lambert, Wilkin, Patrick, Edmund, Edwin, Hubert, Ivor, Joseph, Oliver, Mark.

 The following in alphabetical order were rare :

 Abraham, Adelard, Ailmer, Antony, Augustine, Brian, Clement, Constantine, Estmund, Eustace, Everard, Gocelin, Isaac, Leonard, Luke, Matthew, Miles, Milo, Odo, Osbern, Osmund, Pagan, Ponce, Randulf, Redmund, Rodulf, Silvester, Turold, Ulf, Vincent.

 The following names only came in, or at least became popular, at a later period :

Bartholomew, Christopher, Francis, Gerald, George, Paul, Roland, Theobald.

 Women’s names among the Normans were nearly all of the Biblical or saintly class:

 Agnes, Alice, Amelina, Anastasia, Annabella, Catherine, Cecily, Christina, Dorothy, Egidia, Eleanor, Evelyn, Frances, Honora, Isabella, Johanna, Matilda, Margaret, Susanna.

 The name Mary does not seem to have come into use in Ireland before the end of the16th century. Brigid only began to be used about the same period.

 

Extracted from ‘Sloinnte Gaedheal is Gall’, Patrick Woulfe 1922

Out with the old, in with the new

The Anglo-Normans also brought with them new animal species such as the rabbit and fallow deer, new foods such as wheat, orchard fruits, mutton and farming practices such as hay-making. They introduced us to continental European religious saints and practices of the Roman Church. European religious orders soon followed such as the Franciscans, Augustinians, Cistercians, Dominicans etc. These replaced the structures of the native Irish Christian Church.

Up to then, the Irish natives did not adopt the name of saints as they considered this to be placing themselves on a par with the saint. Such naming convention was reserved for those of higher status in the monasteries. This was circumvented by use of the prefix Maol or Giolla meaning follower or servant. The Normans changed all of that and it was now acceptable to be called Peter, James, Michael, John, Mary, Brigid or Margaret.

Very few of us to this day do not have either a forename or surname that is not of Norman origin. Eventually, arising from the Gaelic Revival in the late 19th century, new Irish language versions of these forenames appeared such as Séan, Seamus, Peadar, Máire, Bríd, Mícheál, Cathal and many more appeared.

The Irish Church did not condemn the practice of slave-trading by the Irish until the invasion by the Anglo-Normans and the encroachment of the Roman Church. The story of Patrick (Patricius, son of a Roman administrator), which was introduced here after the Norman conquest, presents the native Irish as uncivilised pagan slavers who needed to be brought to heel. So the Normans inadvertently gave us our native saint and a forename for a good chunk of our population for generations following.

Out with the new, in with the old

Children are rarely given these European saint names today. Authentic Gaelic forenames are much more popular. We are nevertheless, unlikely to see the demise of the Anglo-Normans surnames that were introduced here. But all of us Mikes, Jimmies, Johnnys, Paddys, Kittys, Cathys, Maggies and Bridies can thank the Normans for what they brought us!