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Newcastle Lyons: A Parish of the Pale
Newcastle-Lyons is the name both of a parish and a village in west county Dublin. Its fertile fields are girded on the southeast by the foothills of the Dublin-Wicklow
mountain range; the city of Dublin and its burgeoning satellite suburbs cast their shadow from the east; westward lie the great plains of Kildare and to the north the valley of the river Liffey. The book weaves together the many complex strands of history which have shaped Newcastle Lyons. At once it has been the proud resilient hearth land of the Pale and then again a timid borderland cowering under the threat of mountainy men. The book breathes life into long redundant sites. Lyons hill, one of
the great royal sites of the kings of Leinster, derives its name from Liamhan a princess of celtic mythology. The motte by the church is where the Anglo-Normans
erected their new castle about 1200 A.D. Durable buildings of church and state help us to trace the outlines, and sometimes the internal furnishings, of medieval society.
The more familiar fabric of contemporary Newcastle-Lyons took shape in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries presided over by men of property and the
institutions of church and state. It was very much a divided society: one hundred and ten of the two hundred and sixty families recorded in the parish in 1850 were
landless. Today a new landless society, completely freed from the rigour of the fields, dominates the parish population and the small farm society which appeared so
resilient in the nineteen forties and fifties has crumbled under the onslaught of the city and agricultural capitalism.
Parish of the Pale is the result of the combined work of professional academics and local historians. Their abiding interest in this important place has given Newcastle-Lyons another benchmark in its long history.
mountain range; the city of Dublin and its burgeoning satellite suburbs cast their shadow from the east; westward lie the great plains of Kildare and to the north the valley of the river Liffey. The book weaves together the many complex strands of history which have shaped Newcastle Lyons. At once it has been the proud resilient hearth land of the Pale and then again a timid borderland cowering under the threat of mountainy men. The book breathes life into long redundant sites. Lyons hill, one of
the great royal sites of the kings of Leinster, derives its name from Liamhan a princess of celtic mythology. The motte by the church is where the Anglo-Normans
erected their new castle about 1200 A.D. Durable buildings of church and state help us to trace the outlines, and sometimes the internal furnishings, of medieval society.
The more familiar fabric of contemporary Newcastle-Lyons took shape in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries presided over by men of property and the
institutions of church and state. It was very much a divided society: one hundred and ten of the two hundred and sixty families recorded in the parish in 1850 were
landless. Today a new landless society, completely freed from the rigour of the fields, dominates the parish population and the small farm society which appeared so
resilient in the nineteen forties and fifties has crumbled under the onslaught of the city and agricultural capitalism.
Parish of the Pale is the result of the combined work of professional academics and local historians. Their abiding interest in this important place has given Newcastle-Lyons another benchmark in its long history.
139 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1985
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