Gowran — Clover,gowran,gowran Demesne,stangs

On a gentle W-facing slope, on the N side of a tributary of the River Barrow, which flows c. 5km to the E. Kilkenny city (KK019-026----) is located 12km to the WNW. The town is organised on an E-W axis with burgage plots running from the main street N and S to the town defences (KK020-060003-), though the length of the plots on the S side appear to have been less, possibly as they backed onto the castle demesne. A burgage boundary in the NE area of the town was excavated in 2005 (03E0863) in advance of the construction of the Abbeygrove housing estate and was found to consist of a fosse (Wth c. 1m; D c. 0.5m) (Stafford 2008, 196). The 13th-century parish church (KK020-060006-) is roughly centrally placed, though set back, on the S side of the main street. A 1710/11 map the town showing a cross towards the E end of the main street, suggests that the original market place was located in this area, S of the main street and probably infilled with a 'Malt House' (KK020-060018-) (White 1710/11). There is a triangular fair green at the W end of the town. According to Carrigan (1905, vol. 3, 399), before the arrival of the Anglo-Normans, the chief rulers of Ossory had a royal residence at Bealach Ghabhrain (Gowran Pass), which was a significant part of the routeway between Ossory (Munster) and Leinster. Between 1162 and 1165, Dermot O’Ryan’s grant of lands for the foundation of the Cistercian Abbey of Killenny was confirmed at ‘Belachgaurain’ by his overlord King Dermot Mac Murrough, in the presence of Laurence O’Toole, Archbishop of Dublin and many other nobles (ibid., 399-400). Following the acquisition of the Kingdom of Leinster by Richard de Clare (Strongbow) in 1172, his followers were rewarded with portions of the kingdom and Gowran went to Theobald fitz Walter, Chief Butler of Ireland (ibid., 400). It is likely that a motte and bailey castle (KK020-060005-) was probably erected in Gowran around this time. Before fitz Walter’s death in 1206, he granted a charter of incorporation to his ‘free burgesses of Balligaueran’ (ibid.). Carrigan suggests that it was also fitz Walter who appropriated the Rectory, or moiety of the Rectory of Gowran to the Knights Templars, of the Priory of Kilmainham, who are found in possession of same as early as the year 1254 (ibid.). Early in Edward II’s reign, c. 1307-10, oak trees from the Templars’ woods at Athkilton were given to repair the houses at ‘Ballygawran’ (Gwynn and Hadcock 1988, 329-30). Gowran was besieged and captured by Edward Bruce during the Bruce invasion in 1316 (ibid.). In 1321 Edmund Butler, Earl of Carrick, who had died in London following a pilgrimage to the shrine of St James at Compostella, was buried in the parish church (KK020-060006-) in Gowran, as was his son James, the 1st Earl of Ormond in 1337 (ibid.). In the 14th century Gowran was very much a frontier town, as is emphasised in a document of 1382 which gives, ‘licence to Thomas Derkyn and Walter Cantell, who are staying in the marches of Ballygarveran on the frontier of the Irish enemies, viz. McMurgh and Onolan and their accomplices, to treat and make concord for themselves, their tenants and for the men of others, and to give them provisions and cloth, for the defence of their tenants and others against the invasions of the Irish, provided that they should not give or sell them any victuals, horses or armour in time of war, and that this treat is not to the K[ing]’s prejudice nor that of this faithful people (chancery.tcd.ie/document/patent/https://chancery.tcd.ie/document/patent/5-richard-ii/192; accessed 9 March 2021). No doubt in response to this threat, and in keeping with the prestige of the Butler family, a new castle was erected c. 1385 by James Butler, the 3rd Earl of Ormond. This castle (KK020-060004-), which no longer survives, appears to have been built on a site close to that occupied by the later house built in 1816 by Viscount Clifden (Carrigan 1905, vol. 3, 400)). ‘Castle (Site of)’ is indicated on the 1900 revised 6-inch OS map c. 75m NE of the later ‘Gowran Castle’, though curiously is not indicated on the earlier 1839 edition. There is a reference to one Teige OCarroll being imprisoned in Gowran castle 1399 (ibid.). Carrigan quotes from the Patent Rolls, stating that in 1415, ‘The town of Balygaveran, in the county of Kilkenny, in the marshes of the said Co., being situated far from any English aid, and being surrounded by Irish enemies who have lately burned it and destroyed the lieges therein, and daily threaten to do so again, the King grants it burgesses and commons, to assist them in surrounding their town with a stone wall, paving their streets, and doing other necessary works, the privilege of taking, for the term of forty years, such tolls and customs as were taken in the town of Kilkenny by royal charter, rendering all accounts thereof before the Earl of Ormond and not to the Treasury’ (ibid.; chancery.tcd.ie/document/patent/https://chancery.tcd.ie/document/patent/5-henry-v/165; accessed 9 March 2021). In c. 1501 the portreeve (mayor) and ‘commons’ of Ballygrowran sent their town charter to the Earl of Ormond requesting it be reconfirmed and that, ‘we might be relewed [released] of Coyne and lewray [coyne and livery] as your fre burgeses acordynge our furst fundacion specified in our said old chartre’ (Curtis 1937, vol. 4, 347 (Appendum 3, 56)). The practice of coyne and livery, whereby the townsfolk had to billet, feed and sometimes pay the wages of troops, had been banned within the Pale in 1488 but continued in the march territories, obviously much to the annoyance of the townsfolk of Gowran. The Calendar of Ormond Deeds records an inquisition taken at Kilkenny after the death of James Butler, Earl of Ormond in 1546 which describes the manor of Ballygawran (Gowran) as containing, ‘appurtenances [rights pertaining to property], and one castle, thirty messuages [a house with outbuildings and a parcel of land or yard], eighty acres of arable land, four acres of meadow, twenty acres of pasture, with two acres of underwood and two water mills, with appurtenances, in Ballygawran, also 9l. 6s. 8d. chief rent due of the burgesses of said town each year, besides suit of court [obligation to attend and participate in the manorial court]’ (Curtis 1937, vol. 4, 301-02 (361)). A more detailed rental account of Gowran appears in the Calendar of Ormond Deeds c. 1550 (Curtis 1941, vol. 5, 44-7 (25)). This lists the burgesses according to where they are located in the town. A 1710/11 map of the town shows the town with its defences, gates, houses and property boundaries. Three town gates are indicated, the ‘Magdalan Gate’ at the E end of the town, the ‘West Gate’ at the W end and an internal ‘Gate’ at the E end of the market place. The earlier rental account however, mentions a total of seven town gates, referred to as ‘barr’ or ‘barre’ including, ‘Maugdelin barre’, ‘Castell barr’, ‘Tibirdowanis barr’, ‘West barre’, ‘Nywe gate’, ‘Tregis barr’ and ‘Gregisbarr’, which are possibly described following the town circuit from E to S and then W to N (though also probably including an inner gate). ‘Tibirdowanis’ is possibly a corruption of the Irish for Tobar an Domhnaigh (Sunday’s Well). The 1710/11 map names the main street, ‘The Street’ and the fair green, ‘The Green’. A ‘Haggerd Street’ is named running outside of, and parallel to, the S town wall. A cobbled surface excavated (06E0237) in 2006 in advance of a proposed development in Gowran demesne was identified as the possible remains of Haggerd Street (McLoughlin 2007, 18). There are three lanes on the S side of the town, one, ‘The Lane’ runs S from the E end of the main street towards the castle which probably terminated at Castle gate, one called ‘College Lane’ which provided access to the college immediately E of the parish church, and one called ‘St John’s Lane’ which ran S from ‘The Green’ and possibly terminated at ‘Tibirdowanis barr’. There was another lane/street whic