Freshford — Freshford Lots

On the S bank of the Nuenna River and naturally terminated to the E by the Arigna River, which flows northward to join the Nuenna. There is a suggestion of an early ecclesiastical enclosure in the two concentric curving boundaries (c. 60m apart) which form the SE quadrant of the town. On the 1st (1839) ed. OS 6-inch map the area between these boundaries is indicated as ‘Glebe’ or church land. It seems likely that the Nuenna would have formed the northern boundary of the ecclesiastical enclosure, however, there are two concentric earthworks (c. 30m apart), curving southward, in the field immediately N of the Nuenna and E of New Bridge Street. These earthworks may indicate that the river, rather than forming a boundary, was actually incorporated into the monastic enclosure. The town is roughly quartered by the main crossroads. The church (KK013-023001-) with its Romanesque porch is roughly centrally placed within the town, at the junction of Kilkenny Street to the S and New Bridge Street to the W. In the N portion of the town long burgess plots run from Kilkenny Street to the Nuenna River. In the SE quarter the plots run southward from Kilkenny Street to the inner or outer line of the Glebe boundary. The SW quarter is dominated by a large and relatively late market square (c. 130m N-S x c. 80m E-W), possibly laid out in the late 17th/18th century, with the base of a cross (KK013-023004-) on its N side. Freshford owes it origins to a monastic foundation here by St Lachtain (died 622) in the late 6th/ early 7th century (Carrigan 1905, vol. 2, 247-50). In the Annals there are numerous references to Freshford or Achadu Úr, which translates as a ‘fresh green field’ but was anglicized into a ‘fresh ford’, with various spellings of the latter in historical documents (Carrigan 1905, vol. 2, 246). The Annals record that in 836 the ‘churches of St. Lachtain, Inis-Cealtra, and Cill-Finnche were burned by the foreigners’ and in 1018 ‘Ua Brodubhain, Abbot of Achadh ur, was killed’ (ibid. 250). It seems likely that Freshford was an Episcopal See which from 1218 was incorporated into the temporalities of the See of Ossory (ibid. 248). In 1245 the Calendar of State Papers (1171-1252) record that, ‘The King, (Henry III.), grants Geoffry de Turville, Bishop of Ossory, a yearly fair in his manor of Athethur…from the 8th to the 15th July’ (ibid.). In the 1250s, ‘Hugh Mapleton, Bishop of Ossory (1251-60), built the Episcopal Palace, or Court, at Aghore, subsequently called Uppercourt, and provided it with fish-ponds and other necessary adjuncts of a manorial residence’ (ibid. 250-1). Freshford appears to have remained an ecclesiastical manor until 1570 when Christopher Gaffney, Bishop of Ossory transferred the ownership to Richard Shee of Kilkenny (ibid. 252). It remained the property of the Shee family until it was forfeited under Cromwell in 1653 by Richard’s grandson, also Richard, and passed to Sir George Askew (ibid.). There was a general drive towards the commercialism of the agricultural economy in Kilkenny the late 17th century with the renewal and expansion of markets and fairs, from which Freshford benefited in 1675 (Smyth 1990, 154). Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 4 April 2020