What is recorded here

Drumcondra was a modest village caught between drumlins where the Fleming family ran markets and fairs until people stopped arriving. Walter de Lacy may have planted it before 1241, but Thomas Fleming received the market licence in 1412, giving the place a legal pulse and a reason for carts to gather. By 1654 only a church and two waste castles remained, suggesting that the fair green emptied before the stones collapsed. The mottes still stand beside the old street like forgotten drums, waiting for a hand that never returns.

Situated in a relatively low-lying position between drumlins. Graham (1974, 54) suggests that it was founded by Walter de Lacy before 1241 but the first reference to its charter is in the early fourteenth century Dowdall Deeds. In 1412 Thomas Fleming, Baron of Slane, had a licence for a weekly market and an annual fair at Drumcondra (Cogan 1867, 294). The settlement had declined by the seventeenth century but in the Civil Survey (1654) the manor of Drumcondra is still held by the Flemings of Slane. The survey describes it as a church and two waste castles (Simington 1940, 365), undoubtedly the mottes (ME006-010----; ME006-011----) located c. 425m to the N and c. 200m SW of the church site respectively. The mottes testify to its former importance, but it is never likely to have been more than a village centred on its NW-SE Main Street that widened at its NW end and could have incorporated a fair green. (Bradley and King 1985 35; Bradley 1988-9, 44) Archaeological testing (98E0157) by Deirdre Murphy c. 60m NW of the graveyard produced no medieval material (excavations.ie 1998:506). Further archaeological testing (05E1296) by P. D. Sweetman on a plot (dims c. 100m N-S; c. 30m E-W) on the NE side of the Main Street had a similar result (excavations.ie 2005:1173). The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Meath' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1987). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of revision: 22 October 2018 Amended: 16 February 2021; 18 February 2021

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