The Knights Templar and the origins of Temple House
a study by Michael Brabazon, an Irish historian.
A cursory glance at a map of Ireland showing the locations of Knights Templar foundations may well elicit the remark, ‘wait, what’s that one way out West?’
After the arrival of the Anglo-Normans in 1169/70, the Templars were given grants of lands, firstly by King Henry II and then leading nobles. The accumulation started from the south-east (Wexford) and then spread through the east and south, each foundation (commandery) being documented to greater or lesser degrees. But the glaring exception to both location and recorded history is that of Temple House, County Sligo, a few miles south of Ballysadare on the Owenmore River where a natural lake is formed.
Why Sligo?
The first record of Temple House is in the Annals of Loch Cé for the year 1271 when ‘the castle of Tech-Templa’ was ‘broken down’ by Hugh O’Connor during the Gaelic pushback against English control in Connacht. It appears as though out of nowhere, but obviously a known place and structure to contemporaries. The conquest of Connacht was led by Richard de Burgh, Lord of Connacht, in 1235, a ruthless affair and a huge land grab. De Burgh concentrated his own energies on what is now Galway and up into Mayo, gifting what is now County Sligo (six cantreds) to his in-lawed kinsman Hugh de Lacy II. Hugh in turn passed the territory to a number of knights, the northern part of (the barony of) Leyny in which is Temple House was given to Maurice FitzGerald who made his HQ at his new castle of Sligo in 1245.
Rise and Fall of the 1235 Thesis
Maurice’s edifice was his base for attacking further north into Donegal and became a prime target for the Gaelic forces of Hugh O’Connor who ‘broke it down’ at the same time as Temple House castle. It has been suggested that the Templars were part of the conquest of Connacht and that Temple House was their reward, the castle supposedly one of the military fortifications enforcing English rule. The thesis would place the foundation post-1235, perhaps as late as the construction of Sligo castle. This idea flies in the face of everything that is now known and agreed by historians, that the Knights Templar in Ireland were essentially estate managers, not engaged in military activity for which they had Papal dispensation. Part of this thesis is that it was Richard de Burgh who would have granted the Templars their estate reward, but he and then Hugh de Lacy both passed on the Sligo territory in fairly quick succession. How about Maurice FitzGerald? By that time, the idea of an immediate reward would have faded, and FitzGerald would surely not have fussed himself with the care of a handful of newly-arrived, non-military estate managers.
The contortions to place the foundation of Temple House post-1235 is the ‘need’ to hammer it into the macro-history of the Templars in Ireland. But the Black Swan of Sligo has resisted all attempts and remains a prime candidate for micro-historical treatment.
So, if the Templars of Sligo were not part of the English conquest of Connacht, logic dictates that Temple House pre-existed 1235 and therein regular history hits a problem. Although King Rory O’Connor of Connacht and last High King had bent the proverbial knee to Henry II, the province remained a Gaelic preserve. How could the Templars have established a settlement within Gaelic territory when the Order in Ireland was part and parcel of English colonisation? Increasingly, King Rory realised that his attempt to reverse the English tide into Ireland had failed, so decided to settle for a compromise in which he recognised the Pale and Henry II recognised Rory’s Gaelic kingship. This was formalised in the Treaty of Windsor (1175) which was signed for the Irish part by Archbishop Laurence O’Toole of Dublin and taken back to Ireland by Rory’s agent Archbishop Cadhla O’Duffy of Tuam. As was standard in medieval Europe, hostages were exchanged but are not named. Hostages would usually be relatives of the parties involved or socially well-placed personages and chosen by the givers not the receivers. Archbishop O’Toole co-signed a deed c.1177 with Matthew the Templar (and others), the first record of a Templar actually in Ireland. Could the English have given Templars as hostages to King Rory – knightly and religious in one package – which would have put them under his protection? Hostages could be useful in a number of ways, and the Templars’ expertise in husbandry and milling would have been a boon. Temple House is situated on the banks of Temple House Lake, previously known as Lough Awnally (Ath Angaile), with a main ford at the northern end of the lake on the Owenmore River.
The Six-Year Window of Opportunity Thesis
Although the Treaty of Windsor broke down within a few years, the powerful Norman magnate Hugh de Lacy I through personal one-to-one relationships with Irish chieftains maintained the status quo. Such was his personal power within Ireland that he is called ‘King of Ireland’ in the Annals. His relationship with King Rory was cemented with Hugh’s marriage to Rory’s daughter in 1181. Within a couple of years Rory was out of power in an internecine struggle and in 1186 Hugh was assassinated at Durrow. The period from 1175 to 1181, we can surmise, is the most likely time period for the establishment of the Templars at the Temple House site. Any earlier would be out of the question with the Irish and English at violent loggerheads; any later would be problematic due to lack of conducive diplomatic relations. It may be coincidence, but the territory allotted to Hugh’s son Hugh de Lacy II contained Temple House, and the family was undoubtedly Templar orientated due to the elder Hugh’s father, Gilbert, joining the Order (in c.1158) and leaving the de Lacy estates in England and France to his sons.
Exactly where are we?
Looking at the location of Temple House, at first glance it appears to be in the middle of nowhere in particular. However, a closer historical inspection soon shows the importance of the site. The Cistercian Abbey of Boyle is to the south of Temple House and its first abbot was one of the O’Duffy ecclesiastical sept that directed much of O’Connor church involvement. St Bernard of Clairvaux, the saintly luminary of the Cistercian Order drew up the Rule for the Templars making the two Orders particularly close. The monks who settled at Boyle had originally tried several locations at Ballysadare where there was an ancient silver-lead mine: the Cistercians mined lead as building material for their monasteries and the Templars were forever silver hungry. Boyle held granges (farms) on both sides of Ballysadare Bay giving them a widespread presence across the area and their monks held ecclesiastical positions. In 1180, Abbot Uí Máelruanaid of Boyle succeeded a grandson of King Turlough O’Connor as Bishop of Elphin, the local diocese.
The importance of boundaries
The Irish parochial system was modified by the Normans, with boundaries fixed, created or altered. As Temple House is in the parish of Kilvarnet, it has been assumed (and apparently never questioned) that Kilvarnet church was the Templar church leading to another assumption that the church of Kellecath in the ecclesiastic tax record 1302/7 ‘whose rectors are Templars’ must be Kilvarnet. There is actually a church a few lines up on the list named as Kellethratha which is close to the variant names of Kilvarnet and is taxed as usual, unlike Kellecath that is Templar exempt. There is also an oddity with Kellecath in that it only has the vicarage listed, not the actual church itself unlike every other entry in the diocese (of Achonry). The History of Sligo (1882) by Wood-Martin records that ‘tradition points to the Church of the Templars as standing near the shores of the lake’ and there is a suspected below-ground building ruin close to the remains of the Temple House castle.
I suggest that Kellecath could be kil-lec-ath, ‘the church of the stony ford’. And to confirm the Black Swan nature of the site, there is a cross-base which is dated stylistically pre-1200 (see photo below), contradicting the post-1235 thesis. The 1308 inventory of Irish Templar holdings gives the value of the Templar church of Temple House as £2 which is matched only by a Dominican monastery in what is now County Mayo, not far over the county boundary. That certainly suggests that Kellecath church was a substantial building, more than a standard affair, and an integral part of the Temple House complex.
Pre 1200 cross base in castle ruins
Templehouse Lake’s older name of Ath Angaile is confirmed by a castle of that name built there by Richard de Burgh in 1263 (and destroyed in 1270), the ford (ath) of angaile possibly meaning ‘the ford of the foreigners [English]’ (an gaill). On the opposite side of the ford is the townland of Kilbrattan/Cill Bhreatan which is guessed as meaning the church of a local saint ‘Breton’ of whom nothing is known.
However, by looking at other townlands of similar names, the most likely translation is ‘the Briton’s church’. The Crofton family estate, now owned by a descendant Roderick Perceval, acquired by William Crofton in 1605 originally comprised land on both sides of Templehouse Lake, including ‘Killbreaton’. In fact, the old name of the Templar estate was written as ‘Loghnehely’, indicating that the holdings were on both sides of the water.
Why does this matter? Well, the two parishes of Kilvarnet and Emlaghfad – either side of the lake – are divided by the Owenmore River and halfway through the lake, cutting the Templar estate in two. As Temple House itself is located on the Kilvarnet side, it has been assumed retrospectively that Kilvarnet was its parish and church. In fact, what this suggests is that the Templar estate must have preexisted boundary changes in the reformed parochial system, post-1235.
The dotted line along the river and down the middle of the lake is the parochial border between Kilvarnet and Emlaghfad, cutting the Templar estate in half.
If the 1175-1181 Temple House foundation thesis is correct then the Black Swan of Sligo may become the gold standard of Irish micro-historical research.
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