GEASHILL CASTLE
“Oh, sweetly rural is the scene
Where Geashill Castle stands;
Beneath the line of green old hills
This lovely vale expands.”
E. Egan.
The village of Geashill is situated in the barony of the same name, about eight miles south-east of Tullamore, in the King’s County. On a long ridge near are the ruins of the castle, adjoining a modern lodge usually occupied by the agent of the Digby estate. The ancient fortress is three storeys high, and a spiral stairway still leads to the summit, where there is an iron chair. An underground passage is said to run to the ruined Abbey close by.
The date of the castle’s erection by the Fitzgeralds is ascribed to the twelfth century, and in 1203 or 1204 the King commanded it to be delivered to William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, as the guardian of Maurice, second Baron of Offaly, who was heir to Gerald FitzMaurice.
In 1305 the sept of the O’Dempseys slaughtered a great number of the O’Connors near the castle, and the following year the stronghold was destroyed by these native Irish. The Book of Howth says: “The Lord of Offalye builded the castle of Geschell” in 1307, so it was, no doubt, rebuilt this year by Thomas FitzMaurice, “the crooked heir,” who died in 1298, and who is supposed to have been prevented from inheriting as head of the family on account of some deformity. Juliana FitzGerald granted the castle to his son, who was her cousin, and afterwards 1st Earl of Kildare.
An inquisition was held at Kildare in 1282 upon the estate of the late John FitzThomas, when his heir, Thomas FitzMaurice, came of age. It was shown that the former had held lands from Maurice FitzGerald “for a moiety of the service of one knight whenever royal service should be summoned, rendering suit nevertheless at the court of the said Maurice FitzGerald at Geashill.”
Lord Leonard Gray and the chieftain O’Mulmoy seized the castle, and abbey of Killeigh in 1538. In both they found great stores of corn, part of which they burnt and part carried off.
On an ancient map of Leix, dated about 1563, both the castles of Lea and Geashill are marked as ruins, but in Sir Henry Sydney’s account of Ireland shortly afterwards he writes: “Geshell, in the King’s County, is very necessary to be had of the Earl of Kildare; it is a matter of consequence for her Majesty’s service in that county.”
James I. granted the barony of Geashill in 1619 and 1629 to Lady Lettice Digby, widow of Sir Robert Digby, of Warwickshire, as compensation for not inheriting as heir-general of the house of Kildare, she being the only child of the eldest son of the 11th Earl of Kildare. At the same time he created her Baroness of Offaly, and she lived quietly at Geashill from that date until 1642, when the great rebellion broke out and the Confederate Catholics laid siege to her stronghold.