Brackenstown House circa 1976. Courtesy of the Patrick Healy Collection

 

There have been many variations on the spelling of the house's name.  In the Eighteenth Century its owners, the Molesworths, always called it Breckdenstown (or Breckdenston).The earlier Down Survey of 1654 referred to the area as Bricknanstowne. The name is likely to have been derived from the Gaelic, Baile Ui Bhreacain, in the same way as the town of Balbriggan. 

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The house and lands were associated in early records with the Bysse family, who had settled in Dublin in Tudor times. Christopher Bysse was believed to have purchased Brackenstown House from the Nugent family in the reign of James I, (1 )although other accounts suggest the original owners were the Burnell family until 1611 (2). The Bysse family were involved in the legal profession with Christopher’s eldest son, John, becoming recorder of Dublin during the Protectorate(3). It was during this time that Oliver Cromwell stayed at Brackenstown, billeting his officers and horses there briefly and dining at the table of  John Bysse before bringing his military campaign north.​

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The Place of Spells



Brackenstown estate encompassed the lands of Knocksedan, which was made famous by the inclusion of its name in Sean O'Casey's play, Shadow of a Gunman. The name is thought to be from the Gaelic, Cnoc Seidean, loosely translated as “the hill of the blast” , “fairy hill” or “the place of spells” (4). Some local historians, for reasons unknown, also attribute the name to “the hill of the quicksand”. (5) An ancient ring fort on this hill overlooks both the Knocksedan crossroads and the Ward River Valley. It was the best known feature in the area. Scattered human remains were visible there up to the Seventeenth Century, including those reputed to be of an eight foot giant. Although it is possible that a battle was fought near the site, older historians suggested the remains may have come from the Battle of Clontarf. (6)  The antiquarian, Sir James Ware, (1594-1666) was one of the first to document the mound in a place he identified as Forrest, Barony of Coolock. He described it as a "valcoster burial", a practice associated with the Danes, which consisted of the laying of the dead from battle in a heap followed by coverage with a large earth mound. (7)  Ware also made note of the giant’s remains complete with a twenty inch-long tibia. It had been buried with its head to the north and its feet to the south. (8)



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Sharawadgi

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Brackenstown came into the possession of the Molesworth family through the marriage of John Bysse’s daughter, Judith, to Robert, first Earl of Molesworth. (1656-1725). The Molesworths were essentially a military family who had served with the parliamentary forces in Ireland and had subsequently done well in business and land acquisition around Dublin (9). Robert Molesworth had a great interest in gardening and devoted many years to improving the Brackenstown estate. His letters give clues about how the place looked in the early Eighteenth Century, and reveal how little was left to chance. The oriental principal of Sharawadgi, popular in gardening at the time because of the works of Sir William Temple, was much in evidence at Brackenstown . The sea, the nearby church steeples at Swords, the valley of the Ward or Swords River which meandered through the estate, the ancient fort at Knocksedan - all were used as pleasant backdrops to the man-made parts of the estate. Roque’s map of the area in 1760 shows that there was also a windmill , known as Swords Windmill, on the Brackenstown Road. (10) This too formed part of the all- important backdrop.  The walks about the estate were designed to be deliberately close and narrow to mimic nature and to contrast with the open vistas of its large meadows . Tree-lined avenues, straight as a dye, were laid out to radiate from the house like spokes of a wheel. (11)

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The garden was planned in part by Italian designer, Alessandro Galilei, whom Molesworth invited over to Ireland in 1716. Galilei was gifted at harnessing the power of water and this was his chief selling point to Molesworth . By the time of Robert Molesworth’s death in 1725, Brackenstown Demesne boasted the most elaborate set of artificial waterworks in Ireland(12). These included a forty yard -wide canal lined with lime trees, a water summerhouse, numerous basins and fish ponds, and water features on high ground designed to cascade down to ponds underneath. ​​

 

There was a great variety of plants there also. Elm trees were planted thirty or forty feet apart in double rows. There were an abundance of apple and pear trees and fruits such as melon. The grounds were also said to include a fine evergreen oak (13). The great variety of mushrooms in the Brackenstown valley, perhaps on account of its numerous weirs, attracted mycologists from all over the British Isles up to the end of the Nineteenth Century.​​

 

Jonathan Swift, a close friend of Robert Molesworth, was a regular visitor to Brackenstown, where he enjoyed the freedom and fresh air on horseback and the “holy solitude” as he called it of the Ward River Valley . In his letters he suggested that the air at Brackenstown may have been a little too fresh as he found it hard to hold his horse there (14), an experience which many riders at the recent riding school on the grounds might relate to.   

 

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​While much was written about the grounds, the same cannot be said about Brackenstown House itself. It was merely known as a three storey Dutch style country house, very much like Beaulieu House in Louth, which was built around the same time and occupied by Molesworth’s brother-in -law. Nothing is known of the original architect. Brackenstown House had twenty-five rooms and had an east -west orientation. The estate was beside the old turnpike stage coach route from Dublin to the north, with vehicles stopping for refreshments and a change of horse at the nearby Aungier Inn of Knockse​dan​. (No longer in existence)