Thursday, March 31, 2005

Segrave's in Finglas Ireland

In the Parish of Finglas is the remains of an Elizabethian house, and it bore the the arms of the Segrave family. It was built on the lands that had been granted in 1552 by Archbishop Hugh Curwen to James Segrave and Patrick Sarsfield.

In 1609 to John, son and heir of Walter Segrave, Walter Segrave had held the land and house some 15 years earlier.

For several generations the Segrave family had been very prominent on the Irish episcopal and judicial benches, and the commercial life of Dublin, where Walter Segrave and his father had both been Mayors of Dublin (Ireland folks). And Walter was also the sheriff of Dublin as well.

They both were alied to the Roman Cathlic church, but owing to thier "good and kindly dealings" with Englishmen, they enjoyed Archbishop Loftus's freindship, and through his wife, who was a sister of Walter Ball of Ballygall, Walter was closely allied to Protestants (in other words he had a foot in each camp).

Apparently this was quite a nice house! The chief apartments and the parlor, and the great bed-chamber were wainscoted, and some of the bed chambers were provided with cornices of wood from which tapestry was suspended. In the hall where the coat of arms of the Segrave impaled with those of those of Ball were carved, there was a high table at which the family took their meals seated on squar stools, and round the walls were ranged five court cup boards, on which plate and china were displayed.

Throughout the house much of the furnature included; 12 bedsteads, many coffers, one was bound with iron and locked with three keys for the keeping of deeds. And in many of the rooms were rugs, tapestries, canopies of silk or taffeta, curtains and valances of mockado or white stuff, and cushions covered with wrought-velvet or needlework.

On the walls were hung two calverts(paintings), head pieces, and halberts, as well as "the day of judgement in oil work" and "Christ and the twelve Apostles in tables," and in the palor a pair of virginals in a frame that bespoke the accomplishments of Walters Segrave's daughter.

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