2013 marked the hundredth anniversary of the destruction of the original Brackenstown House by fire. Standing six and a half miles from Dublin city in the parish of Swords, barony of Nethercross, it gave hospitality in its day to Oliver Cromwell during his grim mission north. Jonathan Swift took the air on horseback there and a young Mary Molesworth ran free through its fields and quiet river valley before her domestic imprisonment after marriage.