Lynch's Knock, Summerhill, Co.Meath

The sixteenth-century castle at Summerhill has a four-storey tower measuring 10m by 8m with the second storey vaulted. The spiral staircase in the NW corner has a newel and gunloops. The upper levels have fireplaces in the south wall and latrines on the north. There are fine upper windows with dished spandrels and hoodmoulds. Attached to the SW corner is a later range, possibly T-plan, bearing a plaque with the O'Neill arms commemorating the priest Luke Wye with the date 1636: PRAY FOR THE / SOULE of LUKE / [ ]WYE[ ] PRIEST / 1636. Contains mullioned windows, the projecting tower to the west contained the wooden staircase. It is now covered in dense ivy.This early Jacobean building is worthy of further study. Carefully stripped of ivy and vegetation it would provide an excellent eye-catcher within the walls of the demesne.

Dr. Henry Jones, dated to 1666, which refers to 'Knock, alias Summerhill'. The medieval Irish name for the area was either Drumsawry or Knocksawry, Cnoc-Samhruidh, the latter name used in an unpublished poem of a Franciscan friar in a manuscript dated 1626. In administrative documents of the medieval and early modern period the area was referred to as 'the Knock' or 'Lynch's Knock'.
The Lynch name associated with this area was that of an old Anglo-Norman family, the FitzLeons, tenants in chief of the De Lacy lordship of Meath. The name, variously spelt FitzLeon, de Leyns, transmogrified into Lynch over the centuries.
The earliest documentary evidence associating the Lynch's with Summerhill in particular is a document of 1485, which refers to Christopher Leynce of the Knock.'Peter Lynch of the Knock' was among the list of the 'Marchers' of the English Pale in 1524. He held his castle and lands at the Knock as tenant to his feudal chief, Wellesley, of Dangan Castle (due north of Summerhill). The Pale boundary here was defined along a line from Trim through Dangan demesne to Kilcock.

The substantial but ruined medieval castle within the demesne of Summerhill and the shaft of a wayside cross now located in the green in front of the demesne entrance gates are testimony to the Lynch presence at Summerhill for some two hundred years during the late medieval and early modern period.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• lynch
• castle
• meath
• summerhill
• historic
• ireland
• past
• irish

[lynchi33]

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[lynchi33]

@ballisticskull3 there are no other comments... Glad you liked it though :)

[ballisticskull3]

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[ballisticskull3]

come on the hill