144 
nor indeed does its name occur in diocesan or legal records till the close 
of the fifteenth century. About the year 1400 Thomas Comyn, who was 
seised of the manor of Ballygriffin and its appendant advowson of the 
church of St. Sampson of Ballygriffin, with the approbation of the Pope 
and the license of the Crown, assigned the advowson of the church, with 
two acres of land, to the prior and convent of the church of the Holy 
Trinity for ever.* Subsequently, Mary, the widow of said Thomas, 
claimed the advowson, and on the death of William Norragh, the rector, 
presented one John White; but, on a hearing of the case, her claim was 
disallowed ; and towards the close of the century Walter Fitzsimon, 
Archbishop of Dublin, confirmed to the cathedral of the Holy Trinity 
the church of Ballygriffin with its glebe, and the Chapel of St. Dolachy in 
that parish, together with the tithes and oblations pertaining to the 
same.t This is the title of Christ Church to the appropriate rectory of 
Balgriffin and the advowson of St. Doulagh’s, which are enjoyed by the 
precentor of that cathedral.t 
Archbishop Alan’s parochial survey of the diocese, called the Reper- 
torium Viride, compiled in 1582, notices the parish church of Bally- 
griffin, with a glebe of two acres, called Cloghavagh, granted to the church 
of the Holy Trinity by Thomas Comyn, but, what is remarkable, he 
makes no mention at all of the chapel of St. Duilech. 
However, in the recasting of parochial relations in the diocese after 
the Reformation, the relative conditions of this church and chapel were 
inverted, and the Regal Visitation of 1615 represents St. Dowlocks as the 
parish church, and Ballygriffin as a ruined chapel pertaining to St. Dow- 
locks :§ and so it virtually continues to this day. 
The building which now serves as the parish church is a mean struc- 
ture, lying up to the north side of the ancient tower.|| The inhabitants. 
of the neighbourhood distinguish the two edifices by the names of the 
Church, and the Castle. On the present occasion I shall not attempt any 
architectural description of the old building, as its details have been very 
satisfactorily set out by Mr. John S. Sloane, in an excellent paper which 
he read, May, 1856, before St. Patrick’s Kcclesiological Society, and 
* Regist. Alani, pp. 47-49, Trin. Coll. Dub. copy, now wanting in the original. 
+ “ Ecclesiam de Ballygriffine una cum gleba ejusdem, et capellam Sti. Dolachy in 
eadem parochia cum decimis et oblationibus eidem pertinentibus.”—Reg. Alani, p. 42 
(copy in Marsh’s Library ; p. 33 of copy in Trin. Coll. Dublin—this part being now want- 
ing in the original). 
t See ‘Second Report on Ecclesiastical Revenue and Patronage in Ireland” (1834), 
pp. 42, 184, 185, 300. 
§ “Ecclesia St. Dowlocks.—Residens. Idem minister (sc. Patricius Beghan de Bal- 
doyle) legens. ecclesia et cancella, bene cum libris. Balgriffin.—Capella ruinata, spec- 
tans ad St. Dowlocks.” : 
|| It is reported to have been erected within the memory of a person still living. 
However, there must previously have been an edifice on the same site, as the structure of 
that part of the tower which is enclosed in the church proves. Indeed, we can hardly refer 
to any chamber in St. Doulagh’s proper the assertion in the Survey of 1747: ‘The steeple 
is still up, as is also the church, which is now much smaller than formerly. Divine ser- 
vice is performed there once a fortnight.”—Ledwich, Antiq., p. 146. 
FOV eae 
