Freynestown, County Kilkenny

Around this period Ossory was divided into the ancient divisions known as cantreds or baronies. The cantreds of Odogh and Oskelan were divided up between the Bishop of Ossory and the Norman knights: with knight Fitzwarin; later named de la Freyne, being granted or inheriting portions. These cantreds would later evolve into the barony of Fassadinin and Gowran respectively. In 1247 Geoffrey de Fraxino (de la Freyne) held a quarter Knight's fee at Kilmenan in the barony of Fassadinin held previously by a Walter Purcell. In 1306 Odo de Fraxineto [Freyne] held one and a half Knight's fees in the barony of Gowran. John son of Fulk, was granted lands in Rathcash, parish of Tiscoffin wherein is the townland of Freneystown, as well as land in Lavistown townland south east of Kilkenny town. From 1347 in Ireland: Maurice Fitz Thomas, Earl of Kildare, and Lord Fulk de la Freigne, having been called and invited by the King entered France for the Siege of Calais that lasted from the preceding feast of the nativity of blessed Mary right up to the feast of St. Laurence, martyr. And then after many attacks and dreadful and incredible famine the French were compelled to submit they keys of the city and themselves to the mercy of the King of England. Freynestown, like the whole of county Kilkenny, would from then on be included in the historical events of the period known as the Lordship of Ireland: before gradually slipping into a quiet rural existence. ==Early history==

The ancient kingdom of Ossory was formed around the 2nd century when the Osraighe, an Érainn Iverni tribe, led by their King Aengus Osrithe, established a semi-independent state within the territory of the Laigin (Leinster). Part of that territory now includes Freynestown and was in the early medieval period the Tuatha of the Ui Duach - the descendants of Duach who held these lands from the mid-6th century." Also in the "Feilire of Aengus the Culdee" - "Hui Scellain was in Sliabh Mairge, the mountain district which, extending into Kilkenny from Carlow and Queen's County, embraced the Castlewarren, Johnswell, and Kilmogar hills, in the north of the Barony of Gowran." The septs of Ua Braonáin (O'Brennan), Ua Donnchadha (Dunphy, O'Donoghue), Ua Cearbhaill (O'Carrowill, O'Carroll, MacCarroll) and Mac Giolla Phadraig (Fitzpatrick), were for many centuries dominant in this part of Ossory. Freynestown townland is the location of the old monastery of St. Scuithin a 6th- and 7th-century Irish saint with strong connections to Wales. Tiscoffin Monastery is noted in the List of monastic houses in Ireland. The neighbouring town of Castlewarren celebrates this ancient saint's memory with the church of St.Scuithin. There exists another Freynestown, near Dunlavin in County Wicklow which stems from the same family of "de la freyne" ==References==