Preston family genealogy

Viscount Gormanstown, County Meath

Arms: Or, on a chief sa. three crescents of the first. Crest: On a chapeau gu. turned up erm. a fox statant ppr. Supporters: Dexter, a fox ppr.; sinister, a lion or. Motto: Sans tache.

Roger de Preston was Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in Ireland, A.D. 1327. Fourth in descent from said Roger, was Sir Robert Preston, Lord Deputy of Ireland, A.D. 1478, who in that year was created “Viscount Gormanstown.”

Thomas Preston, son of the fourth Viscount Gormanstown, was born towards the close of the 16th century. He was educated in the Low Countries, where he entered the service of Spain. Supplied by Cardinal Richelieu with three frigates and a considerable store of arms and ammunition for the Irish Confederates, Preston sailed from Dunkirk, and anchored in Wexford harbour about the middle of September, 1642. He was accompanied by his son, a great number of engineers, and five hundred officers, including Colonels Sinnott, Cullen, Plunket, and Burke, who distinguished themselves in the Dutch war. General Preston was appointed by the Supreme Council of the Catholic Confederation of Kilkenny, to the command of the Leinster forces, and was a prime actor in the affairs of Ireland for the next few years; siding[1] on the whole with the Anglo-Irish rather than the Old Irish party. He was consequently often in opposition to Owen Roe O’Neill; but in August, 1646, he co-operated with O’Neill to intercept Ormond in his march on Kilkenny, and compel his subsequent disastrous retreat to Dublin. Preston ultimately sided with the Marquis of Ormond and the Anglo-Irish party, and was therefor excommunicated by the Nuncio, Rinuccini; but Preston replied: “I hold your censures to be invalid; and, as for O’Neill, I have pursued him to Maryborough, fully resolved that either he or I shall fall in mortal combat.” In the summer of 1650, Preston gallantly defended Waterford against Ireton’s army; in that year also he was at Ennis created “Viscount Tara.” Excluded by Cromwell from pardon for life and estate, Preston retired to the Continent, where he died before the 14th August, 1662. His grandson, the third viscount, died without issue in 1674; but John Preston, descended from his younger brother, was for his vote in favour of the “Union,” created “Baron Tara,” A.D. 1800.

Colonel Jenico Preston was the seventh Viscount Gormanstown. He was a member of the Privy Council of King James II.; Lord Lieutenant of the county Meath; and Member of Parliament for Dublin. He appears to have gone through the Irish War of the Revolution, and to have followed the fortunes of, and been shut up with, the Irish army in Limerick, where he died 17th March, 1691, leaving no male issue, though he was twice married. The line was carried on through the children of his brother Nicholas; his immediate successor being Jenico Preston, an officer in the Earl of Tyrone’s Regiment.—See Playfair: Vol 2 of Peerage; Article—“Gormanstown.”

Lieutenant Jenico Preston was the eldest son of the Honble. Nicholas Preston, brother to Colonel Jenico Preston, the seventh Viscount Gormanstown; and, on the death of his uncle, without male issue, succeeded to the title as the eighth viscount. He also died without issue; when the title fell to his next brother, Anthony, who continued the line, which exists to the present day.

Notes

[1] Siding: Clarendon sketches the differences of policy that divided Preston and Owen Roe O’Neill, as follows: “They of the more moderate party, and whose main end was to obtain liberty for the exercise of their religion, without any thought of declining their subjugation to the king, or of invading his prerogative, put themselves under the command of General Preston; the other party, who never meant to return to their obedience of the Crown of England, and looked upon all the estates which had ever been in the possession of any of their ancestors … as justly due to them, and ravished from them by the tyranny of the Crown, marched under the conduct of Owen Roe O’Neill; both generals of the Irish nation; the one descended of English extraction through many descents; the other purely Irish and of the family of Tyrone; both bred in the wars of Flanders, and both eminent commanders there, and of perpetual jealousy of each other; the one of the more frank and open nature; the other darker, less polite, and the wiser man; but both of them then at the head of more numerous armies apart, than all the king’s power could bring into the field against either of them.”