Introduction
As a Christian community, we remember our rich heritage and thank God for our faith and for the steadfast faith of our ancestors through the centuries. The history of our faith goes back to the beginning of the fifth century when St. Patrick brought the Christian message to our shores. Our patron saint left such an enduring legacy that every attempt to destroy the faith in the following centuries failed.
In 1172 the Welsh marcher lord, Hugh de Lacy, had been granted the Kingdom of Meath as a liberty – an area granted to ‘a subject to whom the king delegated a portion of his prerogative’ (Graham 1980, 39). Hugh de Lacy set about establishing Norman settlements in Meath by granting large areas of land to sub-tenants. These grants were further sub-divided into manors. After his murder in 1186, he was succeeded by his brother, Walter de Lacy. Drumcondra was incorporated by Walter de Lacy before 1241 (Graham 1974, 54).
The Anglo Normans arrived in Ireland in search of new lands at a time of improved climatic conditions and a greatly increased population in Europe. Their arrival brought political and territorial changes. Among those changes was the creation of the two counties which divide the Bog of Ardee. The county of Louth was created in the 1220’s. At the parliament of 1297, Meath became a county. Two medieval towns. With no church, the priest and his people took to the valleys and the hills to offer mass. According to Dean Cogan mass was said in a valley near Drumcondra.
In the 1937 National Schools’ Survey (Schoolchilden’s’ Notes 1937-U.C.D. Library, Béaloideas Vol 712) Monica Saul, aged 14, said that her grandfather told her that mass was said in the Cool (land from the village to DeValera Park). He also told her that his grand-uncle sheltered the candles from the wind with his overcoat. A protestant man kept watch for the priest hunters, Monica said.
In 1996, at a meeting of the Meath Archaeological Society in our Parish Community Centre, Dr Leo Swan U.C.D. drew our attention to the fact that a tall tree had been uprooted in St. Peter’s Graveyard beside the Church of Ireland (about 20 yards south of the eastern end of the Church). It exposed what seems to be part of the foundations of the previous Catholic Church built in 1389.
Researched and Compiled by Kathleen McArdle, “Brookville”, Drumconrath. Source: Faith History of Drumconrath – Meath Hill.