School: Davidstown (roll number 9682)
- Location:
- Davidstown, Co. Wexford
- Teacher: Marion G. Brennan
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0901, Page 317
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Davidstown
- XML Page 317
- XML “The Local Landlord”
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- Until the farms were bought out the local landlord was Captain Alcock who got the mansion in 1658 from Capt. Thornhill, who had it bestowed on him by Cromwell. It is three miles from Enniscorthy, and was situated on the Boro. The mansion was burned in March 1923, but the walls are still standing. It was sheltered from the S & E winds by Bree Hill, which was noted for game. The house was built in 1720 & tho' described by a local historian as a charming & rich looking building, was to my mind a most pretentious piece of vulgarity, with ramparts , turrets, square towers &c. Many bridges spanned the river, which with the trees & shrubs on its banks was really a thing of beauty.
The Alcocks were hard landlords. Evictions were carried out in the district & at least one widow took her six children to America. The 7th inherited his uncle's farm on the estate. I never heard of the Alcocks bestowing any benefit on school &c. Tenants were punished for trespass - even trespass of their dogs, or even for crossing the land.
The story is told of a local (Jim Brett, now dead) who was challenged by Capt. Alcock on crossing thro' the fields. Brett took him very coolly & gave him but little satisfaction. Finally the angry Capt. demanded "But do you know who I am? Do you know I'm Captain Alcock"?
"I" said the exasperating 'commoner' (who suffered from a stammer) "d-don't c-c-care what c-cock you are, I'll go where I l-like". The Alcock family now reside in England. He planted portion of Bree Hill.
