New Settlers in Hy-Kinselagh

The New Settlers who joined Strongbow in Ireland, and got large grants of lands, were:

In Wexford—Maurice Fitzgerald, ancestor of the earls of Kildare and Desmond; Harvey de Monte Morisco, and Robert Fitzstephen. The other families who settled in Wexford were those of Carew, Talbot, Devereux [1] Stafford, Sinnott, Sutton, Keating, Power, Walshe, Fitzharris, Fitzhenry, Derenzy, Masterson, Butler, Brown, Rositer,

Redmond, Esmond, Hore, Harvey, Hay, Hughes, Codd, Comerford, Colclough, Lambert, Boyce, Morgan, Tottenham, Ram, Furlong, etc. In the first volume of the Desiderata Curiosa Hiberniae, an account is given of various patentees and undertakers who, in the reigns of Elizabeth and King James the First, got extensive grants of forfeited lands which were confiscated in the county of Wexford. The following persons obtained lots of those lands:—

Sir Richard Cooke, Sir Laurence Esmond, Sir Edward Fisher, Francis Blundell, Nicholas Kenny, William Parsons, Sir Roger Jones, Sir James Carroll, Sir Richard Wingfield, Marshal of the Army; Sir Adam Loftus, Sir Robert Jacob, Captain Trevellian, Captain Fortescue; and Conway Brady, Queen Elizabeth's footman.

Several families of the Old proprietors in Wexford are enumerated, with the lands they possessed, and the re-grants of part of those lands which they obtained; as those of Masterson, MacMurrough, MacBrien, MacDowling, MacDermott, Malone, Cavanagh, Moore, O'Bulger, O'Doran, Sinnot, Walsh, Codd, etc.

In Carlow the following have been the chief old English families:—

De Bigod, earls of Norfolk, by intermarriage with the daughter of William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, became lords of Carlow in the thirteenth century; and, A.D. 1346, the county of Carlow was granted to Thomas Plantagenet or De Brotherton, Earl of Norfolk and Marshal of England: whose successors, the Mowbrays, and Howards, dukes of Norfolk, possessed the county of Carlow down to the reign of King Henry the Eighth, when they were deprived of it in consequence of the law against absentees being enforced; and after that time the Butlers, earls of Ormond, became possessed of a great part of Carlow. It may be here observed, that in the fourteenth century the Courts of Exchequer and Common Pleas were for a long period held at Carlow. The other chief families who settled in Carlow were the following:—

Butler, Brown, Burton, Bagnal, Carew, Cooke, Eustace, Rochfort, Cheever, Ponsonby, Astle or Astly, Bunbury, Blackney or Blackeney, Doyne, Bruen, etc.

In Wicklow, Maurice Fitzgerald and his descendants, in the reigns of Henry the Second and King John, got extensive grants of land about Arklow; and Walter de Riddlesford, who had the title of "Baron of Brey," got from King John a grant of the lands of Imaile in Wicklow, and of Castledermot in Kildare; both of which belonged to the ancient principality of O'Toole. The other chief families of Wicklow were Butler, Talbot, Eustace, and Howard.

Notes

[1] Devereux: This is the gallicised form of the Irish sirname Leimhearois ("leimhe:" Irish, simplicity, folly, silliness; "aros," a dwelling, a house, or habitation. Compare with it the French Vereux, "worm-eaten" "rotten," etc.); of which family Tomhas Leimhearois (or Thomas Devereux) was an Irish Catholic Bishop, temp. Queen Elizabeth.