Medieval church The first reference to a church is in 1192, but the existence of two granite
high crosses and early medieval grave slabs in
St. John's church graveyard indicates a pre-Norman church site. The larger of the two crosses dates to the 10th or 11th century. It is over two metres tall and consists of a solid ring with short arms on a narrow shaft on a large undecorated rectangular base. The head and shaft were carved from a single block of granite. There is an inscription commemorating the re-erection of the cross in 1689 by Ambrose Walls.
Early history {{Historical populations |state=collapsed Ballymore Eustace in the 13th century (at the time simply known as Ballymore) was the site of a castle, which in 1244 was granted an eight-day fair to be held on site by
Henry III. The parish and the town were part of a manor owned by the
Archbishop of Dublin. Thomas Fitzoliver FitzEustace was granted a salary of £10 by the Archbishop for his work as constable and the upkeep of the castle in 1373, and his family came to be associated with the town, lending it its present name. In 1487-8, Archbishop Alen's Register described the line of the Pale thus: And in the third yere of King Henrie the seventhe, by acte of Parliament in Drogheda holden the friday after the Epiphanie, the bundes if the iiij obedient shires within the Macre distinct from the Marches were limite with in the countie of Dublin from Miryonge (Merrion) (inclusive) to the
water of Dodor, by the neve diche (
ditch) to Tassagarde,
Rathcowle,
Kilhele,
Rathmor and Ballymor (
Ballymore), and so from thens to the
countie of Kildare etc.
Woolen trade Ballymore was a key location on the '
woolpack road', along which woolpacks from
the Curragh and from west Wicklow were transported to Dublin, via
Rathcoole, from a very early date. The Manor of Ballymore had been involved in this trade, including in that of wool weaving. The earliest tuck mill in Ireland that has been definitively dated lay on the lands of Ballymore Manor, at Ardenode, and is dated to 1276–7. Ballymore acted as a wool collection and trading centre for vast mountain areas to its east, including the King's River valley which fed into the Liffey.
Barony of Uppercross The town and surrounding lands formed for centuries one of three adjacent exclaves of the barony of Uppercross, County Dublin. These lands, originally part of Dublin because they belonged to religious foundations there, were among the last such exclaves in Ireland, being merged into Kildare only in 1836. This mill employed approximately 700 people with 150 machines in 1815. A row of single-storey houses were built nearby to accommodate a number of their families – this terrace today known as "Weaver's row", running alongside and down the hill from the local
Roman Catholic parish church. ==Surroundings==