LEIXLIP CASTLE.
Leixlip Castle was included in the list of those fortresses that were only to have Englishmen as constables by the statute passed in 1494.
Henry VII. granted the castle and lands to Gerald, 8th Earl of Kildare, upon his marriage with Dame Elizabeth Saint John, between the years 1485 and 1509, and they remained in the possession of the FitzGeralds until the rebellion of “The Silken Thomas” in 1534, in which the owner, Sir James “Meirgach” (i.e., the winkled) FitzGerald was concerned. In 1536 an Act was passed by which the Crown became possessed of the castle and manor.
Two years after Mathew King, of Dublin, surrendered the castle, which appears to have been granted to him for twenty-one years. In 1568 William Vernon, gentleman, was leased the manor of Leixlip, containing castles, &c., by the Crown. Nine years later Sir Nicholas Whyte, Master of the Rolls, came into possession. He was a son of James Whyte, of the County Waterford.
In 1570 he was granted the manor of Leixlip, two castles, a water-mill, a salmon-weir, two fishing-places called the Salmon Leap, on the River Anna Liffey, Priortown Meade, and other demesne lands. Two years later he was made Master of the Rolls.
Sir Nicholas Whyte was succeeded by his son Andrew, whose son was again Sir Nicholas Whyte, Knt.
This Sir Nicholas held the manor of Leixlip upon the breaking out of hostilities in 1641. In company with Lord Dunsany, Patrick Barnwall, Sir Andrew Aylmer, and other chief men of the Pale, he surrendered himself to the Lords Justices Parsons and Borlace. This was done in obedience to the King’s proclamation to show that they had no part in the rebellion, but they were imprisoned in Dublin Castle and most inhumanly treated.
In the diary of Captain William Tucker he records going from Dublin to Naas in 1641 with the Marquis of Ormond, and sleeping a night in Leixlip Castle. He mentions that the owner, Sir Nicholas Whyte, was at the time a prisoner in Dublin.