Old map shows 'Aillin Cill Chuilin'

On the weekend when Kilcullen Heritage Group is organising a seminar and walk on Dun Ailline, it is interesting to find a document where the ancient royal fort is significantly mentioned, as Aillinn Cill Chuilin.



It is a section of a map showing the ancient territories from which the county of Kildare was formed and was compiled from the works of historian John O'Donovan in the early 1800s. The red lines represent the current county boundaries.

The Hy (Ui) Muireadhaigh designation is the original name of the family who are known today as the O'Tooles, who were based in southern and south-east Kildare around Moone, East and West Narragh and Kilcullen. Following the Anglo-Norman invasion they lost land to Baron Walter de Riddlesford, and settled in Wicklow. 'O'Toole' comes from Tuathal, a King of Leinster who died c960.

O'Donovan travelled through much of Ireland, 'collecting' and translating placenames, on behalf of the newly-founded Ordnance Survey Office in Dublin. His letters back to the office contain accounts of antiquities and traditions which amount to 103 volumes which at present deposited in the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin. They are popularly known as 'O'Donovan's Letters'.

The map is supplied courtesy of Mario Corrigan of Kildare County Library, who used it in a selection of illustrations from the Kildare Archeological Society's Journal for this week's meeting of the Society in the Riverbank Centre.

Brian Byrne.