The history of Fosterstown

The name Fosterstown has been written down for about seven hundred years, and the fields beneath today’s roads and estates hold traces of people who lived there long before. This page sets out what is firmly established, what is probable, and what we still don’t know.

EstablishedThe name is documented from at least 1326. Fosterstown North and South are two townlands in Swords parish. Fosterstown South holds recorded prehistoric and probable early-medieval archaeology.

ProbableThe name comes from a person or occupation, a forester or a family called Forester or Foster. The record does not state this outright.

Still to establishWho owned and farmed the land, which families lived there, and how the fields became streets, shops and business parks.

The name

The Placenames Database of Ireland (Logainm) lists spellings for Fosterstown South from 1326. The first is given as “Foresterestowne, Simon Forestere at”, from the Calendar of Archbishop Alen’s Register (edited by Charles McNeill, 1950, p. 176). In plain terms, a Simon Forestere is recorded at Foresterestowne in 1326. We have read only Logainm’s entry, not the register, so we make no claim that he founded, owned or named the place.

The spellings that follow run “Fosters” (about 1530), “Forsterastown” (1547), “ffosterstowne” (the Civil Survey, 1655), “Fosterstowne” (the Hearth Money Rolls, 1664), “Fosterston” (Petty, 1685), “Forsters T.” (Rocque’s map, 1760) and “Fosterstown” (Duncan’s map, 1821). The Irish forms, Baile an Fhoraistéaraigh Thuaidh and Theas, keep the “forester” element.

ProbableLogainm gives no meaning, and a 2023 heritage assessment says names like Fosterstown, Miltonsfields and Nevinstown “are likely to refer to family names”. So a personal or occupational name is the best reading, but the exact route from Forestere to Foster is not settled.

Before the name: archaeology in Fosterstown South

In October 2009, Headland Archaeology tested two fields in Fosterstown South for the earlier Metro North project (licence 09E466, report dated November 2009). Their 38 trenches found three areas of archaeological interest, which the report calls Fosterstown South 1, 2 and 3.

The report puts the enclosures in the early-medieval period, roughly AD 500–1200, and says comparable sites were most used between the 7th and 9th centuries. Of the second complex it says the findings point “to the otherwise unknown existence of large early medieval landscape within Fosterstown South”.

EstablishedThese features were found and recorded. ProbableTheir early-medieval date. No datable objects were found and nothing was radiocarbon dated, so the date rests on the shape of the ditches and on comparison with similar sites. The report notes that full excavation would be needed to understand the enclosures properly, and recommended it before construction. Still to establishWhether that excavation happened, and what it found.

A neighbouring survey, in Fosterstown South and Cloghran (licence 09E467), found only post-medieval features. Nothing here shows the same community lived on the site continuously.

The road and the boundary

The R132 follows the old Dublin to Swords mail road. Milestones were set along it in 1812, and a protected milestone survives near Pinnock Hill, the only piece of historic street furniture left on that stretch. Old maps also show a 19th-century house called Pennock Hill House in Fosterstown North and Nevinstown West. The road has since been widened over where it stood.

The boundary between Fosterstown South and Cloghran follows a stream, shown as the River Sluice on the first two editions of the Ordnance Survey map. It is recorded as a boundary from the OS survey of about 1840.

Timeline

  1. Bronze Age (typically)A burnt mound, a kind of outdoor cooking site, is recorded in Fosterstown South.
  2. Early medieval (probable)Enclosures, a field system and a corn-drying kiln in Fosterstown South, dated by their shape to about AD 500 to 1200.
  3. 1326The place is recorded as Foresterestowne in Archbishop Alen's Register.
  4. c.1530Recorded as Fosters.
  5. 1547Recorded as Forsterastown.
  6. 1655ffosterstowne in the Civil Survey.
  7. 1664Fosterstowne in the Hearth Money Rolls.
  8. 1685Fosterston on Petty's map.
  9. 1760Forsters T. on Rocque's map.
  10. 1812Milestones are placed along the Dublin to Swords mail road.
  11. 1821Fosterstown on Duncan's map of County Dublin.
  12. c.1840The Ordnance Survey records the boundary between Fosterstown South and Cloghran, a stream shown as the River Sluice.
  13. 2009Archaeological testing for the earlier Metro North project finds the Fosterstown South features. That scheme's route already included a Fosterstown stop.
  14. 2026The MetroLink project moves towards construction, with a Fosterstown station planned.

What we don’t know yet

Three different people can be tied to the same field: the occupier who farmed it, the immediate lessor they rented it from, and the owner of the estate. Nineteenth-century records name the first two, and rarely prove the third, so we won’t call anyone a landowner without evidence of title.

Household records are patchy too. Most census returns from 1821 to 1851 were destroyed in the 1922 Public Record Office fire, and none survive for 1861 to 1891. The full household returns that survive are for 1901 and 1911.

Still to establishThe next records to check are the Tithe Applotment Books, Griffith’s Valuation, the valuation revision books and the 1901 and 1911 census returns. Until those are read, we won’t list “owners of Fosterstown”, because occupiers, lessors and landlords are easily confused.

If you know about the area before the estates, that knowledge is part of the history too. We would like to hear from you, once we have a way for you to reach us.

Sources

Last checked 19 October 2026. See also about the area and MetroLink.