Background In 1667,
Michael Boyle, then serving as the
Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, bought the old
Norman Lordship of the
Three Castles in west Wicklow (as well as an estate in
Monkstown, Dublin) for £1,000. Both estates had previously belonged to the Cheevers, a
County Meath Anglo-Norman family. Boyle chose to live in his newly acquired Wicklow estate and was granted a royal charter to establish a new town there on a
greenfield site, which he named Blessington - or
Blesinton as it was more commonly referred to during the 1600-1800s. Lucas is known to have remained in Boyle's employment during 1673 and 1674. According to Phibbs, the method of payment to the builder was agreed thus: "£100 in hand, £100 when the first storey was set, £100 when the walls were ready for the roof and the last payment made when the work was completely finished". The work was to be carried out "exactly according to the draught of the same house made by said Lucas" and the agreements made between Boyle and his contractors specified that the two-storied house, built of lime, stone, brick and sand, was to be 106 feet long, 61 feet wide, with walls at least 10 feet high and a cellar 60 feet long and 28 feet wide. The building had a recessed centre at the back, eight
dormers on the roof, and typical of many houses of the period was designed to have its principal rooms on the first floor, according to the
piano nobile architectural principle. In front of the house was a large circular pond. Lucas was also tasked with designing the interior of the house, while a Dublin mason named Thomas Browne was assigned with carrying out all masonry work. Lucas's contract was for £1,300 and Browne was to be paid £600, but additional expenses and furnishings ended up adding considerably to the cost. Construction of such a large building was a huge financial undertaking and consequently Boyle, as Chancellor, sought from
Thomas Osborne, the
Lord High Treasurer, an increase in his salary from £2,000 to £3,000 per annum. According to Trant, it is unclear what the result of this request was.
Landscaping The demesne and
deer park, luxuriously planted with a variety of trees, extended to over 440
Irish acres, with the deer park covering 340 acres of this. Boyle had to be personally granted a license by King
George II for the enclosed deer park. By 1684, the lands were described in an
Abstracts of Grants of Lands as "now inclosed with a wall about the deer park". On 20 May 1700, Murrough Boyle, son of Michael, granted Sarah Finnemore of the town of Blessington, a lease of the townland of Ballyward, demonstrating that Murrough was at least partly in control of affairs on the estate at that point, and not his father. The houses of the minor gentry, such as the Smiths at
Baltyboys House, the Hornidges at Tulfarris and Russelstown and the Finnemores at Ballyward, were on a more modest scale than Russborough, but still not insignificant. A lease from 1732, for 1,050 acres in the townland of Ballylow, a semi-mountainous area within the Blessington estate, demonstrates the conditions which tenants (in this case the Finnemores) were expected to satisfy. came to Blessington and fought against the yeomen to secure the death of a notorious informer known as the "Big Sweep" who had informed on men hiding out in the cave between Black Hill and Moanbane which became known as the 'Billy Byrnes Gap'. The informer was "cut to pieces most brutally" outside
St Mary's Church in the town, and the phrase "died the death of the Big Sweep" was used in local vernacular for years afterwards when describing an animal who had died painfully or brutally. Throughout the winter of 1797, tension in the town and country at large increased. In early May 1798, John Patrickson reported that Blessington House had been raided a few nights previously and that "seven guns, two cases of pistols and three swords" had been taken. The
1798 Rebellion proper broke out on 23 May that year with initial skirmishes in Counties Kildare, Meath and Wexford. Rebels escaping from engagements in
Kilcullen and
Ballymore Eustace, under the direction of rebel leader General
Joseph Holt, dispersed to the
Wicklow Mountains overlooking Blessington, where they formed a camp at Whelp Rock, close to Blackamore Hill, now known as Black Hill. According to academic Michael Fewer, at 'Whelp's Rock', Holt established a makeshift camp where he "shaped dejected rebels into an effective fighting force with the intention of continuing the rebellion by waging guerrilla war on the loyalists until the expected French invasion." At the time, the only north-south roads "of any worth" close to the uplands of the Wicklow Mountains were the Enniskerry-Togher-Laragh-Rathdrum road to the east of the hills, and the Dublin-Blessington-Donard-Hacketstown road to the west.
Destruction A week later, at the end of May 1798, Blessington itself came under attack. As John Patrickson reported to the marquis; "Blessington House and all its appendage and everything appertaining... are completely destroyed". Days later, the rebels returned to complete the destruction of the town, burning or destroying "every good house in it" except the Post Office and a house belonging to Mrs Farley, a sister of Roger Miley, the parish priest of the nearby Catholic church at Crosschapel. The original
Baltyboys House nearby was also burnt around the same time. Catholics as well as Protestants in the region were equally horrified by what had happened. In June 1798, Rev Miley wrote to
Dr John Troy, the Catholic
Archbishop of Dublin, describing what he had experienced: :'' "...For some days past we are totally convulsed both here and in the neighbouring parishes: every moral and religious sentiment has quit the country... nothing but anarchy, confusion, plunder and burning... the Marquis of Downshire's fine edifice at Blessinton (
sic) with its offices are razed, all the fine furniture of every kind carried away... the cottages and the poor and the... middling classes have shared the same fate".'' In September 1798, Blessington experienced another attack from the rebels who were holding out in the hills above the town and came into the town to
rustle animals for food, the object of attention being a herd of cattle in Downshire's demesne. By this stage, Blessington was heavily fortified by the yeomanry who had by now installed a gun placement on the spire of the church. A section of Joe Holt's men surrounded the church and occupied the yeomanry while the remainder herded cattle, sheep and horses from the demesne. Later that same month, a force of 2,000 soldiers from Dublin marched on Blessington, meeting up with a contingent of cavalry already posted in the town, assembling in Tooper's Field / Troopersfield where
General Lake had his headquarters. Together they raided Blackamore Hill but found the rebels had already left. By autumn 1798 the rebellion was over, with the rebels defeated, but still Blessington remained in a state of lawlessness. As John Patrickson wrote: "No day, no night passes without numerous robberies, murders and burnings... if something is not shortly done there will not be a Protestant left in our part of the country. The Papists are entirely in possession, for all those who have not been killed are banished". By the end of the rebellion, many Protestants tenants had left the Blessington estate out of fear. It is considered that the rebels left Russborough House, the other large house in the area, untouched, as John Leeson had been sympathetic to the United Irishmen's cause.
Compensation and decision not to rebuild A government commission was established almost immediately to consider the claims of the 'suffering loyalists'. In the Blessington area, many people submitted claims, but Downshire's - in excess of £10,000 for the destruction of his house and property - was by far the largest. The marquis eventually received £9,267. Only occasionally had Arthur, 2nd Marquess of Downshire, visited his Blessington estate, and after the burning of Blessington House visited even less often, staying at the administration building (Estate Office) of his agent whenever he did, next to St Mary's Church (in later years the 'Downshire Hotel'). Arthur died in Hillsborough on 7 September 1801, from suicide, leaving large debts, and his estates in poor condition. He was succeeded by his son,
Arthur Hill, 3rd Marquess of Downshire who took a more active interest in the running and reforming of the Blessington estate from afar in County Down, however, he, nor any further holder of the title decided that Blessington House was worth rebuilding. The Downshire estate became unusual from that point on, compared to other landed estates, as there was no big house attached to it. ==Remains==