During the ten years that he held the premier bishopric he planned, and
had built offices for, a new palace at Ardbraccan ; but, owing to his departure on
being appointed to Cashel, the design was not proceeded with.**

According to a tradition which long lingered in the county, the bishop used
to regale the Meath gentry with a delicious kind of black beer, ft which, since he

* He was born in Dublin, his father being the Rev. Samuel Price, of Straffan, Co. Kildare
(ms. Matriculation Book, Trin. Coll., Dublin).
f British Civil Correspondence in P. R. O., Dublin : Duke of Bolton to the Lords Justices,
21st April, 1720.
J Dictionary of National Biography.
§ Bishop Nicolson's Correspondence, p. 566.
|| Georgian Society's Publications, vol. v, p. 93.
^f In July, 1803, on the morning after the rising in Dublin under Robert Emmet, this house was
attacked by some fifty of his men, who forced the butler to give them the available firearms, and then
made off. (Colonel Napier to the Lord Lieutenant, dated Castletown, Sunday morning, 8 o'clock.)
** Healy's History of the Diocese of Meath, vol. ii, p. 93.
ft We owe the preservation of this tradition to the Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, whose
maternal ancestors owned an estate in the neighbourhood of Athboy.
