County Kildare
Cill Dara
- IrishCill Dara
- ProvinceLeinster
- County townNaas
- Local governmentKildare County Council
- Area1,694 km²
- Population247,774 (2022)
- Highest pointCupidstown Hill, 378.6 m
The Curragh
By 1913 the government was asking whether the army would act against an armed rising in Ulster over home rule. It was agreed that officers who lived in Ulster could stand aside. Others who would not serve would be dismissed.
On the twentieth of March 1914 Sir Arthur Paget told the officers at the Curragh so, in an ill judged speech. Brigadier General Hubert Gough resigned rather than act in Ulster. Other officers followed.
Gough was called to London and got a written promise that the army would not be used to force home rule on Ulster. The government repudiated it, and the war secretary resigned.
It is remembered as the Curragh mutiny. The record shows resignations offered, not orders refused.
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Castletown House
Built about 1722 on the Liffey for William Conolly, speaker of the Irish House of Commons. It was meant to show his power and to entertain on a grand scale.
It flourished under his great nephew Thomas and Thomas's wife, Lady Louisa, who spent much of her life improving it.
It has three eighteenth century Murano glass chandeliers and the only fully intact eighteenth century print room in the country. The Office of Public Works calls it the earliest and finest Palladian house in Ireland.
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Theobald Mathew at Maynooth
In September 1807 Theobald Mathew, aged sixteen, entered Maynooth to train for the priesthood.
He did not last. Within a short time he left to avoid being expelled. The Capuchin archive describes the offence as what appears to have been a drunken party.
He went to the Capuchins in Dublin instead and was ordained in 1814 by Archbishop Daniel Murray. The future Apostle of Temperance had been put out of Maynooth for hospitality.
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Mathew entered Maynooth in September 1807 and left within a short time to avoid expulsion, for inviting fellow students to a gathering in his rooms.