Kilcooly Estate

(Dr. Willie Nolan)

 James, 9th. Earl of Ormond, 1540 -1546
Thomas, 10th. Earl of Ormond, 1456- 1614
Walter, 11th. Earl of Ormond, 1614- 1632
James, 1st. Duke of Ormond, 1632- 1637
Sir Jerome Alexander, by purchase, held by Cistercians and Parliamentary Commissioners,1640-1660
Elizabeth Alexander, 1670
1st. Sir William Barker, 1702
2nd. Sir William Barker, 1719
3rd. Sir William Barker, 1746
4th Sir William Barker, 1770
Chamber Brabazon Ponsonby-Barker, 1818
William Barker, 1834
Thomas Ponsonby, 1877
Chamber Brabazon Ponsonby, 1880
Thomas Ponsonby, 1884
George Ponsonby, 1943
From 1985 Peter Ponsonby has been owner of the Kilcooly estate, on which land the National Monument which is the Abbey lies.

The Book of Survey and Distribution leaves Kilcooly unaltered between 1641 and 1666.  The Alexander estate consisted of 2,500 acres and the surveyors only comment was "upon the land stood a great decayed Abbey and a mill".  At the end of the century around 1790, the Kilcooly mansion was built on raised ground east of the abbey.  Prior to this the Barker family and their agents resided at intervals in a re-edified portion of the ruined Abbey.  The plastered walls and slated roof of the dwelling chambers give evidence of this period.  The seven mile wall skirting the demense was also built then.   The wall is 12 feet high and encloses the entire demense with the exception of the south-east section where the wall becomes lower and is terminated for a mile.  This coincides with the boundary of the settlement of the Palatine community.

In 1757 the 4th William Barker who inherited the Kilcooly estate in that year set about creating an impressive family seat.  Successive embellishments such as the artificial lake, stocked with specially imported wild birds ornamented with a Gothic boat house at a cost of £400 which were added in 1789 and 1793 respectively.  The present big house is a Georgian type of house with two stories but originally had three stories before it was burnt down in 1840 over some kind of family trouble at the time.  The original church and grave yard of Kilcooly Church of Ireland community is situated between the house and the abbey just at the back of the walled garden.  It has in recent years been reclaimed having been overgrown with brambles and scrub since it fell into disuse.  Some of the ruins of the old church still stand.  A tall pyramid structure in within the ruined church is the old family crypt of the Barker-Ponsonby family.  Although the old churchyard can now be accessed readily from the side of the new church, the previous entrance to the church yard was through a small gate at the side of the walled garden.  Many of the Palatine families are buried here including the Vzell family.  

In 1826 it was resolved by the vestry that as the church was in a bad structural state, with graves too close to the walls and was anyway too small, a new church should be built.  A new site was taken across the public road- which incidentally was in medieval times the main road between Cashel and Kilkenny.  A farm occupied the new site but Mr. Ponsonby decided to demolish the house and farmyard for the church.  He used the brick and stone for a walled garden of a number of acres.  The garden and its wall is still in a good state of repair although the ‘greenhouses within it have fallen.  

The new church was completed in 1829 with a grant from the ‘Board of First Fruits’ and was consecrated in May 1830 by the Archbishop of Cashel.  Fifty-two names are listed in the pews for the church and of these fifty-two names, twenty-one are of Palatine origin, including Miller, Sparling, Delmege, Glazier.  The church is well kept and still used for regular services. It celeb rated its 150th anniversary in Nov. 1979.

Other monuments on the Ponsonby estate in Co. Tipperary is a tower that Sir William Barker ordered built in 1816 on a hill called the Crag, situated over the small village of Grange.  The tower is dedicated to the victory of the Duke of Wellington over Napoleon at Waterloo.  This land is now leased by Coillte and is planted with forestry.  A local development organization, Grange Development Group have constructed a walk from the village to the tower and later in 2001 it is intended to extend the walk from the tower to Kilcooly Abbey itself.  The stables at Kilcooly today are still in use and are of considerable architectural interest, the interiors were completed in 1908.  

There was a saw-mill enterprise in operation in the area down from the stables.  The mill operation started up in the 1920s and, at one time gave employment to 30 to 35 men in the area.  To serve the mill with timber there was a gravity-power rail-line and bucket delivery system that traveled the mile or more from Crag hill in Grange down to Kilcooly.  The system carried up to 20 tons of timber at a time up until the saw-mill closed in 1933.  A major proportion of the land outside the walls of the Kilcooly estate was acquired by the Land Commission and divided up in the 1930s.  Much of the land was made available to local farmers, the remainder of the land not farmed by the Kilcooly Estate, was let to the national forestry service on a long-term lease.  In the 1930's, Kilcooly, had a big farm of about 100 cows, employing many men from around the area.  The present owners of the estate retain the farm business, although on a more modest scale, but have expanded the estates activities and enterprises in equestrian activities, such as eventing and show jumping.  The abbey is maintained by the Duchas, the Irish Heritage Service.