Tallaght Castle

Development

Tallaght village was first walled around 1310. Archbishop Alexander de Bicknor ordered the initial castle built between 1324 and the 1340s to defend the settlement; it is thought to have comprised high walls around a central courtyard. By a century later the castle was in bad condition. Archbishop Michael Tregury made improvements in the mid-1400s, leading to increased use by later archbishops. In the 1570s members of Archbishop Loftus's family were killed at the castle gates. Archbishop John Hoadly built a palace on the remains from 1727 to 1729 at a cost of £2,500, with grounds that included a brewery, granary, and stables. By 1760 some buildings had become dilapidated. An 1821 act of Parliament declared the property unfit for habitation, and in 1822 it was sold to Major Palmer, Inspector General of Prisons. He pulled down most of the palace, using the materials to build his mansion Tallaght House, a schoolhouse, and several cottages, while leaving a tower from the original castle untouched. That tower, once four storeys high but now internally two, was later incorporated into the current priory building. Palmer sold the mansion and lands to his successor as Inspector of Prisons, Mr Lentaigne. The Dominican friars took a lease on the property in the 1840s and converted one building into a chapel; they bought the property from Lentaigne in 1855. A purpose-built church dedicated to Fr. Tom Burke replaced the chapel in 1883. Part of the house burned down in the first decade of the 1900s.