The county returns two members to the Imperial Parliament. It is in the Leinster circuit. The assize, are held in the town of Wicklow, where are the county jail and an infirmary. Quarter sessions are held there, and at Arklow, Bray, Baltinglass, and Tinahely, which last two towns have each a bridewell and Infirmary. Petty sessions are held in 14 places. The district lunatic asylum, which admits 27 patients from the county, is in Dublin. The fever hospitals are at Arklow, Bray, Delgany, Enniskerry, Newtown-llount-Kennedy, Stratford-on Slaney, and Wicklow. There are 20 dispensaries in the county. Arklow, Baltinglase, and Bray have savings banks, and there are loan funds at Baltinglass, Imail, Kiltegan, Moyne, and Wicklow. The union workhouses are at Baltinglass, Rathdrum, and Shillelagh. The county he in the military districts of Dublin and Kilkenny. The staff of the county militia is stationed at Arklow. The police force, num bering 232 men and officers, has its head-quarters at Wicklow, and is distributed over six districts, comprising 34 stations. In September, 1952, there were 71 National schools in operation in the county, attended by 3163 male and 3301 female children.
History and A county appear. to have been included in the dominion. of the Cauci of Ptelernmus. The Slaney was perhaps the Modenua of Ptolemaeus, and tho Ovoca may be safely identified with the Oboca of the same writer. In the Anglo-Norman invasion (1169) the city of Glendalongh was taken without resistance, and plundered and burned. In the division of lands among the invaders Wicklow was assigned to Maurice Fitzgerald. In the division of Lein Ater and Munster into shires by King John, what is now the county of Wicklow was included In that of Dublin, and was not formed into a separate county until the government of the lord-deputy Sir Arthur Chichester, in the reign of James I., 1605. The native septa appear to have preserved a precarious independence in the mountains ; of which the separate continuance of the bishopric of Glendalough for nearly 300 years after the attempt of the Anglo-Norman government, with the aid of the Pope'a legate, to suppress it, is an indication. Castles were built to restrain them, but with little effect. In the time of Elizabeth, Pheagh, or Feagh 3PlIngh, chief of the O'Byrnes, was in rebellion against the government, but In 1590 he was defeated, and in 1607 ale'n. The natives joined in the great insurrection of 1641, and were In the sequel subdued by Cromwell in his march toward the south.
In the insurrection of 1793 the Wexford insurgents entered the county from the south, but were beaten at Arklow by General Need ham and Colonel Skerrett: this was one of the most important actions of the war, as it prevented tho Insurgents from advancing upon Dublin.
The principal antiquities that have not been noticed in the localities where they occur, are those of Glendalough, or more properly the Seven Churches, as the former name is now applied to tho glen, which we have'already described.
In this valley St. Coemgene, Kelvin, or Kevin, a young man of noble bus's, born A.D. 493, took up his abode, and afterwards founded an abbey, under the invocation of St. Peter and St. Paul, over which he presided se abbot and bishop. St. Kelvin died in 618, aged 120, and his festival Ls kept on June 3rd. The abbey suffered much in mime.
(pent years. It was burned once or twice by accident, and repeatedly sacked or burned by the Danes or others. Notwithstanding these disasters the religious establishments in the glen went on increasing, and:the jurisdiction of its bishops extended even to the walls of Dublin. About the middle of the 12th century the ecclesiastics began to desert the place, and the see was united in 1214 to that of Dublin. The see however continued to exist either by usurpation or papal appointment, and the bishops were supported by the natives. Denis White, the last titular bishop, resigned his claims in 1491, and the see has been ever since united to that of Dublin. The ruins of many of the ecclesiastical buildings remain. The easternmost are the ruins of the priory of St. Peter and St. Paul, otherwise the priory of St. Saviour, on the south side of the united stream of the Glencalo and Gleodassan ; the priory has been a building of more elegant design and richer embellishment than any other building in the valley, but the remains are very imper fect. On the opposite or north side of the stream, a little more to the
west, are the rains of Trinity church, sometimes called Ivy church, from its being overgrown with ivy. A short distance west of Trinity church is a small paved area, said to have been the market-place of the city, with a base of masonry on which the market-cross is said to have stood. From this area a paved causeway, the remains of which may be traced In several places, formerly led up the valley of Glen dassan traces of a road leading up the valley of Glendalough may also be seen in one or two places. To both these roads the name of St. Kevin's Road is given. Close to the market-place the river Glen da.ssan is crossed by a ford and by stepping-atones; there was anciently a bridge; and opposite to the market-place, on tho south side of the Glendasean, on tho tongue of land between that and the Mewed°, are the rains of tho cathedral and of several other churches. The ruins of the cathedral, of what is called the Priest's Church, of a cleigtheach; or round tower, and of several crosses, are in an inclosed burial-ground, entered, immediately on crossing the Glenda:wan, by a gateway with a semicircular arch. The remains of the cathedral consist of parts of the nave and choir; the nave was 43 feet long by 30 feet wide, and was united to the choir by a semicircular arch, now fallen down. Tho semicircular east window of the choir, adorned with a chevron moulding, and having on its imposts sculptures of some of tho tra ditionary adventures of St. Kevin, and three windows on the south side of tho nave, remain. The crosses in the graveyard are mutilated; one of them, formed of a single block of granite and neatly sculptured, is supposed to be the market-cross, removed from its base in the market-place. The round tower is in the north-west corner of tho grave-yard ; it is 15 feet in diameter at the base, and tapers very gradually to the summit : it is 110 feet high. Originally it was crowned by &conical roof, but that is gone. Since the publication of Mr. Petrie's 'Essay on the Round Towers of Ireland,' there is a growing belief that these remarkable buildings were erected by the Christian ecclesiastics who were settled in Ireland at a very early period. Mr. Petrie thinks they were intended to serve at once for keeps, or places of security from marauders, and for belfries. In the incloaures which immediately adjoin the graveyard of the cathedral is a ohurch with a atone roof, commonly called St. Kevin's House, or Si. Kevin's Kitchen, by far the most perfect of all the ancient buildings in the valley. It is nearly 23 feet long and 15 feet wide inside, and has a semicircular vaulted roof, with an opening into a small round tower or belfry, covered in with a conical cap rising 45 feet from the ground, similar to those of the ancient round towers. Tho roof of the church is a high-ridged roof externally, riffling 30 feet from the ground ; at the west end of the church is a small chapel of somewhat later date, with a roof of lower pitch. The sites of two other churches may be traced in this and the adjoining incloaure. A short distance westward from the cathedral are the ruins of Our Lady's Church, a small building of more ornamental character than most of the others, and covered with ivy, from which circumstance it Is sometimes called Ivy Church. Scattered in the valley are the remains of atone crosses and two or three small earthen forts. On the bank of the Lugduff Brook, which flows into the upper lake, in the midst of a plantation, are the ruins of Itefeart or Rhefeart Church. On the south aide of the lake are the ruins of another church called Teinplenaskellig, or Teampall-na-Skellig, otherwise Dysart-Kevin. A small chapel or crypt near the abbey church, discovered in the latter part of the last century, is supposed to have been the tomb of St. Kevin. St. Kevin's.Keep and St. Kevin's Well, in the neighbourhood, are connected by tradition with the saint.