The Goodman Family of Loughlinstown

=== Introduction ===
The genesis of this article came about when a neighbour kindly gave us a folder of handwritten and typed notes relating to the history of Dalkey, Killiney, Loughlinstown and the surrounding areas. These notes dated back to the late 70’s and one faded typed document of 7 pages caught our attention. This piece was a history of the Goodman family from 1500-1652. There was no name attributed to this essay but it didn’t take us long to establish that it had been written by our old friend Pól Ó Duibhir who has previously contributed guest articles to this website, so thanks again Pól. The core of this article is Pól’s essay and we have supplemented this with transcriptions of some of the original references and other sources which we have come across.
Following Henry II’s conquest of Ireland in 1170 the lands around Loughlinstown were granted to the Anglo-Norman Talbot family. Later the lands were held under them by the Goodmans, who were also early English settlers. The Goodmans acted as “warden of the marches” protecting the southern border of the Pale from raids and incursions of the Wicklow Septs, the O’Byrnes and the O’Tooles. After the Norman arrival the area under their control was known as the Pale and the area outside it was known as the March. Laughanstown is located just outside the Pale and was a disputed marchland between the 13th and 16th centuries.
=== The Goodman Family in Ballybrack (c. 1500 – 1652) by Pól Ó Duibhir. ===
For over a century before Cromwell came to Ireland, Ballybrack in the County of Dublin belonged to the Goodman family. Although they were Catholics, they were first class brigands and plunderers. They were given a large expanse of land in Loughlinstown on the borders of the Pale on condition that they kept it out of the hands of the wild Irish tribes of O’Byrne and O’Toole – that is to say the native Irish who were the rightful owners of this land for some thousand years. (1)  
James Goodman is the first member of the family to appear in the records, and he may well have been the first member of the family to come to Ireland to impose the will of the English on the native population. By 1541 he had become Sheriff of the County Dublin, a job of considerable standing in the County. People like James were expected to maintain a buffer region outside the Pale and they would get short shrift from the citizens of Dublin if they failed to defend their holdings and left the capital city exposed to the vengeance-seeking Irish from the hills. James was sufficiently ambitious to accept a grant of further land in Castlekevyn in County Wicklow and surrounded by the native Irish. With the Government’s consent be gave up his job as Sheriff and took up fulltime residence in his new holding.(2)
According to the records both himself and his wife, Margaret Hyke, were granted a pardon in 1549. It is not clear what crime they had committed, but it is not unlikely that their main fault is that they were Catholics. (3) From the Reformation on, the Catholic colonists began to fall out of favour with the English monarchy one of whose aims, after all, was to stamp out the old faith. Nevertheless the King was depending on the “Old English” as these Catholic colonists were called, to keep down the Irish tribes, defend the capital city and see that the Royal writ ran as far as possible throughout the Irish countryside.
While James was in Castlekevyn he left his son James the younger in charge of Ballybrack and the surrounding area. This was mainly arable land as livestock would have been too vulnerable to the attacks of the Irish coming down from the hills.
In 1552 the Goodman family tried to take over the patronage of Kill of the Grange in order to enable them to appoint a minister who would not be too strongly opposed to the Catholic population and who would not therefore betray them to the Protestant authorities for practicing the old faith. The attempt failed, however, and we can be sure that the religious practice of the family was subject to very close scrutiny from then on.
In 1566, William Walsh who was related to a neighbour of James the younger, stole £4.10s.4d. worth of goods from Gormle O’Clondowill a widow from Glencullen in County Dublin. These consisted of one brass pan, worth 26s.4d., two gallons of butter, worth 18d. each, three sheep, worth 2s. each, one nightgown, worth 10s., two women’s gowns, worth 20s. each, and one cloak, worth 5s. The Sub-sheriff of County Dublin finally caught up with Walsh, and when he was bringing him under custody from Bray to Dublin, James the younger and a band of his friends attacked him on the main road near Shanganagh, where Loughlinstown Hospital now stands, and set Walsh free. Instead of being imprisoned, as one might expect, James and his friends were granted a pardon. Is it possible that James’s father, formerly Sheriff of the County, pulled a few strings on his son’s behalf. Whatever the reason, this little adventure doesn’t appear to have hindered the young man’s career in the slightest. (4)
In the same year he was given a commission to execute martial law “from the water of the Lyffye to the water of Arklowe, and as far as the Bernes country stretcheth, and in Cowlranell, the Ferter, Clencape, Fercollen and Imayle, and along the mountain side to Baltenglasse”. (5) He was given power to search out all disorders in the county, and on finding any persons to be felons, rebels, enemies, or notorious evil-doers, to punish them by death or otherwise. This power did not extend to anyone having 40s. a year freehold, of £10 in chattels, or any of honest name, unless taken in the act or duly convicted. Needless to say, these exceptions were of precious little help to the poor Irish peasants.(6)
This commission included a number of specific instructions to those entrusted with executing martial law and the more interesting of these are given below:
In 1568 part of James the younger’s land was freed of subsidy and he was made liable to be charged to hostings, in other words to feed the Queen’s army should he be called upon to do so. (7)  Five years later, along with the Archbishop of Dublin, the Lord of Howth, the Chief-Justice and others, James was given a commission to muster and array the inhabitants of the County Dublin. The more interesting parts of the instructions which accompanied this commission are reproduced below: (8)
We don’t know to what extent James the Younger succeeded in defending Ballybrack against the Irish. He died in 1575, and despite his being a Catholic, he was buried in the graveyard at Killiney, although the church there was now Protestant. (9)
His son Richard then took over Ballybrack and he must surely have been a quiet law-abiding person as he hardly appears at all in the records. In 1585 he was involved in a dispute with his neighbour John Walsh over his father’s will. The point at issue is not clear, but if we are to give any weight to the involvement of the Vicar General of Dublin it probably concerned part of the townland of Killiney which the Church of Ireland had leased to the Goodman family and which bordered on Walshe’s land. (10)
Richard died in 1589 and Ballybrack fell to his brother William. Although William lived in Loughlinstown for thirty years, little is known about him and his place in the history of the area is obscure. We do know that he signed the proclamation of loyalty to King James I in 1603. When he died in 1622 Ballybrack passed on to his nephew.
He was another James and the last of the Goodmans in Ballybrack. The effects of the Reformation was bearing more heavily on Catholics as time went on, and doubt was being cast on their right to hold land at all. The King had more faith in the new Protestant colonists, and these were posing an increasing threat to the “Old English”. Nevertheless the Goodman family stuck by the old faith and we know that in 1630 mass was regularly celebrated in James Goodman’s house, that he provided a schoolhouse in Loughlinstown for his own and neighbour’s children and paid a Catholic teacher to instruct them in the old ways. This information comes from Maurice Lloyd who was a Protestant minister in the area and who passed it on to the authorities. He had great interest in the activities of the local Catholics, as attendance at his church in Killiney was falling and along with it his own income. (12) Given this men’s spying activities it is quite clear why the Goodman family tried to take over the patronage of Kill of the Grange some hundred years before.
By 1640, just before the uprising, James had possession of almost all of Killiney parish. He owned 250 (Irish) acres himself and these included Ballybrack and the Loughlinstown estate. This land was divided evenly between arable and pasture. and contained:
James had a further 60 acres on lease from the Dean of Christ Church and this was all arable land. (13)
In the uprising of 1641 James sided with the Confederation Army, and was soon commissioned Provost Marshall. Early that year a Protestant minister accused James and his friends of stealing the following items from him: £40 worth of miscellaneous goods; £50 of hay; £10 of bonds; land and garden worth £5; fowl 18s., tithes and offerings £5. He also accused James of making his wife prisoner in her own house, of tearing her apron off her, and having pulled her from the house by her hair, of tieing her to the back of her own horse with her clothes all torn off her. He then drove the horse through the bogs to William Wolverston’s house in Stillorgan. William ordered the rebels to hang her, but not on his land, and according to Smithson, they took her with them for twenty miles, still tied to the back of her horse, and hanged her in a cruel and barbarous manner until she died, and her maidservant in the same way along with her. (14)
This is only one example of James’s activities during the rebellion. He earned fame and renown throughout the area on account of his multifarious activities. So much so that he had to flee Loughlinstown when the British army set up camp there. He took refuge in the rebel camp in Bray, but was nevertheless captured in 1652 and accused of murdering one of his own tenants in the Camp. He was brought before the High Court in Dublin, and evidence was given that the rebels had captured a man named Boatson near Baggotrath on the outskirts of the city and taken him to the camp in Bray. Goodman was in the camp when Boatson was brought in, and for some reason unknown to us, he was consumed with hatred for the man and swore he would not rest until he had him hanged. Boatson offered him £40 to spare him but he was hanged nonetheless.
In December 1652 James Goodman was found guilty of Boatson’s murder and was duly executed. (15) And that was the end of the Goodman family in Ballybrack.
The history of the village had been tied up with the history of this one family for over a hundred years, and although they were colonists, had expelled the Irish chieftains from the area and were promoting an alien way of life, they were Catholics and they kept the faith alive in the area despite the terrible persecutions that were carried out during the century following the Reformation. It is as a result of their efforts that some 85% of the people of the area were still Catholics when Sir William Petty took his census in 1659. (16)
== Loughlinstown. By F.E. Ball 1902. ==
Francis Elrington Ball. A History of the County of Dublin Part 1 (1902) pp. 87-90
The lands of Loughlinstown, which, as their name and formation indicate, formerly contained a small lake, belonged, in the middle ages, to the Talbots, the owners of Rochestown, and were held under them by the Goodmans, who were also early English settlers. The Goodmans were, doubtless, originally placed there as hardy warders of the Pale-men capable of guarding its barrier, which ran not far off, and of offering effective resistance to the incursions of the Irish tribes; but in the sixteenth century they had become men of note, and filled the offices of Sheriff and of Commissioner for the Muster of the Militia. As cattle afforded too tempting plunder to the marauders, the lands were devoted to tillage and, in addition to a castle for themselves, the Goodmans erected a large and strong barn for the storage of their corn, which was ground in a mill upon the river. In the first half of the sixteenth century, Loughlinstown was held by James Goodman, who, in 1547, was given a grant of land in the County Wicklow, which the Government then desired to colonise, and he was succeeded by his son, of the same name, already mentioned as tenant of the lands of Rochestown and Cornelscourt. The latter, whom we find in the same year rescuing a prisoner from the sub-sheriff, and given a commission to execute martial law, held also the lands of Danestown, at Castleknock, and, as a large tillage farmer and loyal subject, agreed, in 1572, to supply the garrison with corn, at a price to be fixed by the Council, and to forgive the Crown all money due to him for provisioning the army from “the beginning of the world” to that time.
After his death, in 1575, when, notwithstanding his being a Roman Catholic, he was buried, as were all his family, in the parish church of Killiney, Loughlinstown passed successively to his son, Richard, who died in 1589; to his son, William, who signed the assurance of loyalty from the Roman Catholics of the Pale, on the accession of James I., and who died in 1622; and to his grandson, James, whose father, Gilbert, had died in 1615. James Goodman was in possession of the lands when the Rebellion of 1641 broke out, and the English Government found in him a most active and determined enemy. In all the depositions made by his neighbours, he is mentioned as foremost in deeds of cruelty and rapine, and he was guilty of at least one murder, for which, under the Commonwealth, he was executed. His victim was a tenant of his own, called William Boatson, and the murder was committed in cold blood in a camp which the rebels had at Bray. On the rebel stronghold at Carrickmines being taken in the following March, a company of a regiment, commanded by the well-known General Monk, who was created, after the Restoration, Duke of Albemarle, was stationed at Loughlinstown, and Goodman, who served subsequently as Provost-Marshal in the army of the Confederates, was forced to flee (1).
Loughlinstown then became forfeited property, and was set forth in the surveys, made by direction of the Parliament, as a most desirable estate, with “a fair pleasant river” running through it, and with a substantial residence and offices, surrounded by a garden and orchard, in good repair. It was subsequently designated, in addition to Monkstown, for Edmund Ludlow, but, as his sister wrote to him, one had “to labour for resigned hearts” in those changing times, and “the rich mercy” of its settlement on him, for which she prayed, was not vouchsafed. During the Commonwealth a colony of its adherents settled in the neighbourhood, and had at times the advantage of the ministrations of the Provost of Trinity College, Dr. Samuel Winter, an active opponent of the doctrine of the Anabaptists, who records the names of several children baptised by him at Loughlinstown. On its lands there were then eight inhabitants of English and sixty-eight of Irish extraction, of whom the principal was Mr. John Lambert, who occupied Goodman’s house, and who was subsequently evicted (2).
== Extract from ‘Loughlinstown House’ by Kathleen Turner 1976 ==
This piece is reproduced here with thanks to Rathmichael Historical Society. The article first appeared in the Rathmichael Historical Record, The Journal of the Rathmichael Historical Society 1976.
For the origins of Loughlinstown House we must go back to the mid-13th century, when the land came into the possession of a family named Goodman – probably the same whose name occurs for the first time in connection with the trial for murder of his brother-in-law in the Archbishop’s Court of Shankill, during the episcopate of Archbishop Luke (1228-55). The family, English in origin as the name indicates, had come to Ireland with, or not long after, the Invasion of 1170 and had been granted land on condition that it was held for the Crown.
In course of time its members had come to hold positions of responsibility in the county. Despite this, however, over the centuries they had intermarried with their Irish neighbours and were frequently in trouble with the Government for lawless and irresponsible behaviour, often in company with the Walshs of Shanganagh Castle just across the river from them. They illustrate perfectly the well known phrase – “Ipsis Hibernis hiberniories”. At some stage – the date is not known – the Goodmans built a castle on the Loughlinstown (then and through out the Middle Ages known as Laughnanstown) property. Much later a Survey taken in 1654 under the Commonwealth regime valued the land at £l00-150 and noted “there is on the premises one Castle and a strong Bawne; one mill in use worth in the year 1640 ten pounds – an orchard and a garden”. Later again when forfeited the property was advertised as “a most desirable estate with a fair pleasant river running through it”.
After the Reformation the Goodmans remained staunch supporters of the old Faith. A century later on the outbreak of the 1641 Rebellion (which was to coincide with the Civil War in England between King and parliament) James Goodman and his son of the same name who were then in Loughlinstown Castle, were both deeply involved in all the attacks on their Protestant neighbours (whom they regarded as interlopers) and, in particular, the attack on the Rev. Simon Swayne in his Rathmichael Glebehouse, all of which may be read in the MSS known as the 1641 Depositions in the library of TCD.
James the elder joined the Confederate Army in which he had the title of Provost-Marshall; it was not for this, however, but for the murder of one of his tenants in Bray that he was finally executed during the Commonwealth, his property forfeited to the Crown. Eventually Loughlinstown was granted to General Edmund Ludlow, Cromwell’s Master of the Horse in Ireland, as part of his perquisites. Ludlow was living in Monkstown Castle, one of the many forfeited by the original owners who had played a prominent part in the Rebellion, for which they had been deported to Connaught leaving their castle homes to be taken over by the victors.
Ludlow gave Loughlinstown to a follower, John Lambert, who was only able to enjoy it for less than two years when, in 1660, King Charles 2nd returned to England and the whole situation changed almost overnight. In very many cases the original owners of the forfeited castles were permitted to return to them, the temporary owners having to relinquish them. The Goodman clan had all disappeared from the scene so Loughlinstown Castle was again without an occupant, but it was shortly to have one of a very different kind.
== Supplementary notes from ‘Killiney Surroundings’ by W.F. Figgis ==
p.14. KILLENY. ARCHBISHOP BULKELY’S VISITATION OF DUBLIN 1636.
It is worthy of note that all through this early period from the time of the old Celtic Monastic schools and through all the vicissitudes of Norman rule up to the time of the Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church was the dominant factor in Irish life. The invasion took place under papal auspices; the old abbeys and monasteries were confirmed in their possessions from Rome and were continued until Tudor or early Stuart times. When later under Protestant ascendancy these religious orders were dispossessed, the Roman Church still maintained its hold upon the people whose loyalty has never been shaken.
Such meagre records seem to be all that we can piece together to throw any light on these early days. They are just sufficient to enable us to picture a small but growing agricultural and pastoral community, still making use of the ancient church and already concentrating in a “town”.
p. 16. LOUGHLINSTOWN.
During the Stuart epoch great baronial residences were springing up rapidly all over England, conforming to the developing taste for spaciousness and luxury. Large parks, ornamental gardens and fine timber surrounded the seats of the noblemen and gentry.
The natural reaction in Ireland followed a little later, and many large and stately houses were built, which if less magnificent than the greater houses across the water, were nevertheless built on a generous scale in the same direction. The neighbourhood of Killiney produced four such houses; Loughlinstown House, Loftus Hill, Rochestown and Ballinclea. None of these was of palatial dimensions; none of them had any pretentions to architectural beauty, still they were significant of the epoch and formed more lasting landmarks than other contemporary buildings.
In the survey of 1654 already alluded to, it is stated that
James Goodman with many others of the Catholic families was driven out, dispossessed and transported to Connaught by Cromwell. At the time of the Restoration some of those injustices were redressed, but James Goodman had died in the interval and his family was never reinstated in Loughlinstown.
Sir William Domvile who was Attorney General in Ireland at the time of the Restoration, had a good deal to do with the readjustment of Irish estates under Chas. 11. In 1666 he obtained for himself a grant of
It was during his time that the present house at Loughlinstown was built.
From a petition of Edward, 2nd Earl of Meath to the King made in 1670, it is evident that the happy monarch had already granted the lands of Loughlinstown to him (the Earl of Meath), but by this time Domvile had acquired nine points of the law, and had no difficulty in settling the tenth. The Earl, who had suffered considerably in the interests of the Stuarts, amongst several other claims, petitioned for £3,000 in compensation for Loughlinstown:-
It would appear as if this sum was paid to the Earl of Meath.
On these lands the army of King James encamped and remained for 5 successive days after the Battle of the Boyne, and on one of the intervening nights the unfortunate monarch is said to have slept at Puck’s Castle on the slopes of Carrigolaghan. It was one of the frontier residences, which the state of society in the 15th and 16th centuries rendered necessary, especially on the marches of the territories of the O’Tooles, who ceased not to harass the palesmen of the vicinity down to the time of James 1.
The Lawless, Goodman and Walsh families were all of English military extraction. They seem to have held their lands and castles on condition of service, chiefly that of repressing the incursions of O’Byrnes and O’Tooles.
The Lawlesses were settled at Ballycorus in the 13th Century. In 1386 Sir Hugh Lawless became Constable of Bray. Tn 1408 Thomas Lawless undertook to build a castle upon his lands, and there is little doubt Shanganagh Castle was the result. In 1452, Richard Lawless was in possession of the Castle, but in 1447 Edmund Walsh was there, probably a joint occupation, as both were engaged in the same service as Wardens of the Pale.
The Goodmans had been in possession of Loughlinstown (where was probably another of the square fortified castles) from middle 15th Century to middle 17th century.
There was a commission to Daniel Bishop of Kildare, Richard Meredith A.M.S.T.B. Dean of St. Patrick’s and others to hear an appeal from Rd. Conway LL.D. Vicar General of Dublin, in a cause concerning the will of James Goodman of Loughlinstown, between Richard Goodman and John Welch of Shanganagh, gent. He, James Goodman, died in 1576, and was buried in the ruined church of Killiney, which he calls in his will his parish church. Fiants of Elizabeth 4820.
James Goodman, the younger had commission to execute martial law
in fact all the northern half of the present Co. Wicklow from east to west.
In 1574 James Goodman of Balloghan (Loughlinstown) and John Walsh of Shanganagh held commission
As will be seen from Fleetwood’s Survey below James Goodman was in possession of Loughlinstown and held the lease of Killiney at the outbreak of the Rebellion 1641.
FLEETWOOD’S SURVEY OF 1654.
PARISH OF KILLENY, WITH ITS BOUNDS ETC.
The said parish is bounded on the East with the sea, on the South with the Parish of Rathmichael, on the West with the parish of Tully and on the North with the parish of Monkstown.
Proprietor’s Name & Qualification: James Goodman, of Loughlinstown Irish Papist
Denomination of land: Loughnanstown, by estimate for ploughlands
No. of acres estimated by the Estimate of Country: 330 acres
Land Profitable and its quantity: Meadow 10, Arable 120, Pasture 120.
OBSERVATIONS
To the Proprietor: The Proprietor acted in the Irish Army as provost-Marshall, and was possessed of the premises as his inheritance, anno 1641.
To the Buildings: There is on the premises a strong barn, one mill in use worth in the year 1640, £10, an orchard and a garden; the building valued by the Jury at £20.
To the Bounds: The premises are bound on the East with the sea, on the South with Shanganagh, on the w. with Breynanstown, and on the North with Roukstown. (Rochestown)
== Oireachtas Library List of Outlaws, 1641-1647 ==
Analecta Hibernica, No. 23 (1966), p. 341
== The Ballinclea connection ==
M.R.L. Kelly. Dalkey, Co. Dublin (1952) p. 45
Ballinclea was owned by or the residence of Rowland Goodman in 1590 was held in 1641 by the Goodmans, who forfeited it during the Commonwealth.
Francis Elrington Ball. A History of the County of Dublin Part 1 (1902) p. 60
The lands of Ballinclea, or the Town of the Mountain, are first mentioned in the time of the Commonwealth. They were then forfeited lands, and had belonged to the owner of Loughlinstown, James Goodman, who had mortgaged them to his cousin, Rowland Goodman.
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