Baldongan Church

About

Baldongan Church, also called Baldungan Castle (Irish: Baile Donnagáin), is an ancient ruined church and national monument near Skerries, County Dublin, Ireland.

Location: Baldongan Church lies in a rural part of north County Dublin (modern Fingal), halfway between Skerries and Lusk and 2.4 km (1.5 mi) from the seashore.

First church: An earlier church at the site was granted to the Priory of St Mary at Kilbixy in c.1190.

Castle: Baldongan was originally the site of a fortified church, rectangular in plan with towers on each corner, constructed by the Knights Templar in the 13th century on the site of an ancient dún. When the Templars were suppressed in 1313, the Archbishop of Dublin acquired Baldongan, and in 1350 Sir Reginald de Barnwall obtained it in trust from the Archbishop. Peter Trevers, a leading judge, owned it in the 1460s. It later passed to Richard of the de Bermingham family and then as a marriage settlement from his sister Anne to Christopher St Lawrence, 5th Baron Howth in 1508. During the 1640s rebellion, a Confederate force held the castle until June 1642, when the Irish Royal Army under a Colonel Trafford breached the walls using cannon...