Lawless family genealogy

Of the County Kilkenny

Arms: Ar. on a chief dancettée sa. three garbs or. Crest: A man’s head in an Esquire’s helmet, visor up all ppr. plumed ar. and sa.

Walter Lawless, descended from an old Kilkenny family, married into that of Rothe (or Rooth), and died in 1627, leaving issue:

2. Richard Lawless: son of Walter; was a member of the “Supreme Council of the Catholic Confederation,” in Kilkenny, in 1641. He mar. Margaret Denn, of the Denn family of Grenan, and, dying in 1670, left issue:

1. Walter, of whom presently.
2. Thomas, who married a Miss Butler, and had:
   1. James Lawless, who was a godson of King James II.; and ancestor of the Barons Cloncurry.[1]

3. Walter Lawless: son of Richard; was a Captain in Luttrell’s Horse in the Irish Army of James II. He married Anne Bryan of Jenkinstown, and had five sons, two of whom d. young:

1. Richard, who, fighting for James II., was killed at Limerick in 1691.
2. Patrick, who was also an officer in King James’s Army; and afterwards held high rank, and enjoyed high consideration, in Spain. He visited London as Spanish Ambassador in 1713-14.
3. John[2] Lawless.
4. and V. died young.

Notes

[1] Cloncurry: According to our modest research, Sir Nicholas Lawless, the first Baron of Cloncurry (b. 1735), would be son of this James Lawless. But, according to Burke’s Peerage, Sir Nicholas was son of Robert (of Abington, county Limerick), son of John Lawless, of Shank Hill, county Dublin.

Sir Nicholas, originally a Roman Catholic, sought in France, in early life, those rights from which, on account of his religion, he was debarred in Ireland. “Nettled,” we are told, “at religions partiality shown towards his titled neighbours by the French clergy, he sold his Rouen estate; returned home, and turned Protestant.” Engaging in trade, he became a woollen merchant and banker; was created a Baronet in 1776 ; and elevated to the peerage, as Baron Cloncurry, in 1789. He died in 1799.

Valentine Brown Lawless, his son, the second Baron Cloncurry, was born in Merrion Square, on the 19th August, 1773. He was educated at Portarlington, and at Dr. Burrowes’ school at Blackrock; and graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1791. He threw himself into the circle of which Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the Emmets, and Sampson, were leading spirits in his time. After a tour on the Continent, he entered at the Middle Temple in 1795 ; still keeping up the closest intimacy with the leaders of the United Irishmen, although not, overtly at least, entering into any of their revolutionary plans. In consequence of these relations he was arrested in London, in June, 1798, and committed to the Tower. The Duke of Leinster, Curran, and Grattan, who happened to be visiting him at the time of his arrest, were also taken into custody, but were immediately liberated. This imprisonment lasted about six weeks. Forbidden by his father to return to Ireland, then in the throes of the Insurrection, he made a tour of England, on horseback. On the 14th April, 1799, he was again arrested under the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act, and again committed to the Tower, where he remained until the expiration of the Act, in 1801. In the course of those two-and-twenty months, he lost his grandfather, his father, and the lady to whom he was engaged. “We are told,” says Webb, “that his father voted for the Union, against his conscience, in the hope of obtaining his son’s release; and, before his death, he left away from Valentine about £65,000, through fear of confiscation of his property by the Government.” He succeeded to the title on his father’s decease. He subsequently paid a lengthened visit to the Continent; in Rome, he was on intimate terms with the Pope, whose body-guard, strange to say, then consisted of a squadron of British hussars! He was created a Peer of the United Kingdom, and a Privy Councillor, in 1831. In 1849 he published an interesting volume of Personal Recollections: the summing up of that work shows that his hostility to the Act of Union continued unabated. Lord Cloncurry was twice married; he died on the 28th October, 1855, and was buried in the family mausoleum at Lyons, county Kildare. The present Lord Cloncurry (living in 1888), the 4th Baron, is his grandson.

[2] John: A grandson of this John, was John Lawless, an Irish politician, who was born about 1772. Educated for the Bar, he was refused admission by Lord Clare, on account of his well-known revolutionary sentiments, and his intimacy with Thomas Addis Emmet. He then became partner with his father in a brewery; but, business not suiting his tastes, he edited the Irishman, in Belfast, became a leading member of the Liberal party, and occupied a prominent position during the agitation for Catholic Emancipation. He was foremost in opposition to the “Veto” as well as the “wings” which Government attempted to attach to Emancipation; namely, the payment of the Catholic clergy, and the disfranchisement of the forty-shilling freeholders. His unflinching integrity gained for him the title of “Honest Jack Lawless.” He died in London, on the 8th of August, 1837.