1 8 7 he h ish Naturalist January, 



to which was added a Scandinavian suffix. However this may 

 be, it is as Lambey that the island at the end of the twelfth 

 century became the property of the Archbishops of Dublin, in 

 whose hands it was to remain for the next 350 years. Except 

 for the authorization of the building of a chantry in 1337 and 

 of a fortress in 1467, no knowledge of what happened on the island 

 during that long period has come down to us. The chantry, if 

 built, must have been since built over or otherwise suppressed ; 

 the fortress, which the Earl of Worcester was commissioned to 

 build, may be the stone edifice now standing ; but in neither 

 case does the title to the island seem to have been disturbed, 

 for it passed in 155 1 (all except the hawks and falcons, which 

 were specially exempt) from the See of Dublin to John Chaloner, 

 an Englishman who held several official positions, and in par- 

 ticular that of Secretary of State in Ireland under Queen Elizabeth. 

 Chaloner was interested in several Irish mines ; on Lambay he 

 worked four, and hoped from the copper and silver produced 

 to enrich not only himself but the English Crown — an expec- 

 tation that was not fulfilled. Of interest in his correspondence 

 are the references to the Lambay marbles and to the falcons, 

 bred on the Lambay cliffs, which in 1579 and 1580 he sent as a 

 present to Sir F. Walsingham in London. In all likelihood the 

 fortified enclosure which can still be traced in a field south of 

 the castle, was made by Chaloner as a protection for the " colony ' 

 which there is teason to believe he introduced. Both before 

 and after his time Lambay must have been, from a seafaring 

 point of view, a well-known place ; pirates and privateers were 

 constantly using its convenient roadsteads, and from time to 

 time it was the station or rendezvous of a fleet. The statement 

 in D'Alton's history that there was at the end of the fifteenth 

 century a dry passage between Lambay and Skerries, is based 

 on a misunderstanding. There is no reason for believing in the 

 recent existence of such a land connection. After Chaloner's 

 death Lambay passed successively into the possession of the 

 Ussher family (1610-1805), Sir William Wolseley (1805-1841), 

 the family of Loid Talbot de Malahide (1841-1888), and Count 

 James Considine (1888-1904). The introduction of deer dates 

 from the last-named ownership. In Sir William Ussher's time 

 (1610) there was a village near the castle, and the island is 

 described as parti) ploughed and paitly pasture. About 1650 



