Castle Lyons, Fermoy, Co Cork – ‘lost’
Bence-Jones, Mark. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 72. “(Barry/IFR; Anderson, Bt, of Fermoy/PB1861) A C16 fortified mansion, built on the foundations of the castle of the O’Lenans, from whom the place too its name; principal seat of the Earls of Barrymore. …The house was burnt 1771, through the carelessness of a workman, and never rebuilt. The then Earl fo Barrymore died at an early age two years after the fire; his eldest son, 7th and penultimate Earl, was the notorious rake “Hellgate”, who squandered the family fortunes and sold Caslte Lyons and his other Cork estates to the enterprising army contractor John Anderson, of Buttevant Castle. The ruin of Castle Lyons now forms a prominent object in the surrounding countryside, with its numerous tall chimneys.”
The Buildings of Ireland. Cork City and County. Frank Keohane. Yale University Press: New Haven and London. 2020.
The fortified houses of the late C16 and early C17 constitute a bridge between the medieval tower house and the modern mansion. They were built by old Norman families, at Castle Lyons and Ightermurragh (Ladysbridge); by city merchants, such as the Archdeacons at Monkstown; by English settlers, at Baltimore, Coppinger’s Court (Rosscarbery) and Mallow; and by Gaelic chiefs, at Coolnalong (Durrus), Mount Long (Oysterhaven), Kanturk, Dromaneen (Mallow) and Reendiseart (Ballylickey). Twenty-two such houses survive in Cork.
In comparison to tower houses, these houses are better lit, have thinner walls, lack vaults, and feature timber floors and staircases as well as integral fireplaces. They are also notably symmetrical in plan and elevation, and some, such as Kanturk, incorporate proto-classical features. They generally retain some defensive features, such as door yetts, gunloops, bartizans and crenellated parapets, [p. 18] although their wall-walks were not all continuous, and in cases such as Mount Long and Monkstown were barely accessible. The other notable feature is the use of towers or turrets, influenced no doubt by the Elizabethan fashion for a quasi-military appearance derived from an earlier chivalric age. The arrangement of the towers gives rise to distinctive plan-forms: U plan (Coolnalong), Y-plan (Mallow and Coppinger’s court), L-plan (Dromaneen (Mallow) and Mossgrove (Templemartin), cross-plan (Kilmaclenine, Ightermurragh), X-plan (Kanturk, Monkstown, Mount Long, Aghadown), Z-plan (Ballyannan (Midleton), and T-Plan (Reendiseart). Baltimore, Carrigrohane, Castle Lyons, Myrtle Grove (Youghal) and Castlemartyr aer simple rectangular blocks. A number of Jacobean bawns with circular corner towers also survive, at Ballinterry (Rathcormac), Dromiscane (Millstreet), Dromagh, Clonmeen (Banteer) and Mossgrove.”
https://www.castles.nl/castlelyons-castle
Castlelyons Castle, also known as Barrymore, lies in a field next to the village of Castlelyons, in County Cork in Ireland.
The first fortification at this site may have been a royal seat of the petty kingdom of Uí Liatháin until the 12th century. Then the Anglo-Normans invaded Ireland and the Cambro-Norman knight Philip de Barry became lord of the Uí Liatháin lands. Later Barrys became Earls of Barrymore and in the early 13th century built Castlelyons Castle on this site.
By the early 17th century the Barrys resided in their medieval castle at Barryscourt. In 1631 the Earl of Barrymore; David Barry, married Alice Boyle, daughter of the Earl of Cork. He then commenced to built a new mansion on this site, incorporating remains of the old castle. After it was finished Barry moved in and Castlelyons Castle became his main seat.
In the 1640’s, during the Confederate’s War, the castle became an important English stronghold against the rebel Irish and the headquarters of Sir Charles Vavasour, 1st Baronet of Killingthorpe. After Vavasour had been defeated at Manning Ford Castlelyons Castle was captured by Lord Castlehaven.
In the late 18th century the Earls of Barrymore rarely used the castle as a residence anymore and in 1771 it was accidently destroyed by a fire caused by careless workmen. It was never rebuilt. Castlelyons Castle seems to be on private land, so it is not accessible. The remains are quite overgrown, so it is hard to get a good overview of the entire castle. I found a recent sleeping place of a vagabond in an old oven in the castle, so be careful when you do visit. An intriguing ruin.
https://theirishaesthete.com/2022/07/25/castlelyons/
Decline and Fall
When writing here last month about Fota, County Cork (see Saved for the Nation « The Irish Aesthete), mention was made of the Barrys, Earls of Barrymore. For many centuries, their main residence lay much further north, in Castlelyons. Although subject to dispute, this village’s name (Caisleán Ó Liatháin) is said to derive from having been an important centre in the ancient kingdom of Uí Liatháin. However, in the last quarter of the 12th century, the land in this part of the country came into the hands of the Anglo-Norman knight Philip de Barry; his son William’s ownership of this property was confirmed by King John in 1207. Some time thereafter, the family constructed a castle on a limestone outcrop at Castlelyons and this became one of their most important bases. A settlement grew up around the base of the castle, with a Carmelite priory established to the immediate north in the early 14th century.
https://theirishaesthete.com/2022/07/27/castlelyons-tombs/avid de Barry is thought to have become first Lord Barry in 1261, beginning the family’s ascent through the ranks of the peerage and indicating its increasing importance. In 1541 his descendant John fitz John Barry was created first Viscount Buttevant, and then in 1628 David Barry became the first Earl of Barrymore [6th Viscount Buttevant]. He was indirectly responsible for the construction of what can now be seen of the former castle at Castlelyons. The earl had been born in 1605, some months after the death of his father, so that he was raised by his grandfather, the fifth viscount who died in 1617. Young David then became a ward of the powerful Richard Boyle, the Great Earl of Cork. Seeing an opportunity to ally himself with a long-established dynasty in the region, the latter duly arranged a marriage in 1621 between his young charge and his eldest daughter Alice: the bride was aged 14, the groom 16. In the mid-1630s Boyle also decided to rebuild his son-in-law’s residence at Castlelyons, since the Barrys were already heavily in debt (the canny Great Earl had earlier taken on the Barry wardship in exchange for the redemption of substantial mortgages left by the fifth Viscount). A vast new house was erected on the site of the old one, but the Earl of Barrymore had little opportunity to enjoy it, since he died in September 1642, probably as a result of wounds received at the Battle of Liscarroll a couple of weeks’ earlier. His heir, once again a minor, became the second earl. Successive generations then followed, but increasingly the family spent their time in England and it appears that by the mid-18th century the great castle at Castlelyons was falling into disrepair. This probably explains why, in 1771, repair work was undertaken on the building’s roof. Unfortunately, careless workmen left a soldering iron against wooden beams and the place caught fire. The sixth earl – who would die two years later – was as debt-ridden as his forebears and so made no effort to repair the damage. Instead, the castle was abandoned, along with its surrounding gardens, and left to fall into the state of ruin that can be seen today.
Understanding the original layout of Castlelyons Castle can be challenging today, since what would have been the building’s central courtyard has long since been quarried away. In addition (and perhaps as a result of the quarrying), both the west and east ranges have disappeared, leaving just exposed sections of those to the south and north. What still stands on the south-west corner is considered to be the oldest part of the property, perhaps part of the original 13th century construction, with walls in some places 3.4 metres thick. Across what is today a deep ravine rises the north range, dating from the 17th century and dominated by three rectangular chimney stacks that rise above the three-storey block (with a basement at the east end). Beyond the exposed rubble walls, nothing survives of the interior and one must imagine what the house looked like when first built as it then included a great gallery, some 90 feet long and two storeys high, although it appears this may never have been finished (presumably due to the death of the first Earl of Barrymore and the chaos of the Confederate War). The castle was once surrounded by equally splendid grounds, with a large terrace to the immediate north and a series of enclosed gardens to the west and south, of which scant traces remain, serving as witness to the decline and fall of the once-might Barry family.
https://theirishaesthete.com/2022/07/27/castlelyons-tombs/
A Burst of Baroque
After Monday’s post about the remains of the once-splendid Barry residence in Castlelyons, County Cork, readers might be interested to see this: a mausoleum erected not far away in the graveyard of Kill St Anne Church. Dating from c.1753, it commemorates James Barry, fourth Earl of Barrymore who had died five years earlier. Born in 1667, the earl had enjoyed a distinguished military career, supporting William of Orange and then participating in the War of the Spanish Succession during which he rose to the rank of Lieutenant-General. However, late in life, he became a supporter of the Jacobite cause and in 1744 was arrested and imprisoned; following the failure of Prince Charles Edward Stuart’s attempted rebellion the following year, the elderly earl was released. He died in January 1748.
His mausoleum in the old village graveyard is constructed of rubble limestone, the eastern facade having an advanced and pedimented centre of red brick, the Serlian opening surrounded by red marble-limestone, its wrought-iron gates topped with an earl’s coronet. To the rear of the groin-vaulted interior is the deceased’s monument composed of different coloured marbles. Completed in 1753, it was the work of David Sheehan and John Houghton, the latter responsible for the angels and presumably the half-length figure of the earl inside a central medallion. Wonderfully unexpected, it is a little bit of Roman baroque in the middle of the Irish countryside.
https://landedfamilies.blogspot.com/search/label/Ireland
Barry family of Castle Lyons etc., Viscounts Buttevant and Earls of Barrymore
Barry, James. Eldest son of Richard Barry, feudal baron of Ibawne and 3rd Barry Roe (Red Barry) and his wife, [forename unknown] O’Driscoll. He succeeded his father as the 4th Barry Roe. He married 1st, Ellen [surname unknown], whom he repudiated and had the marriage annulled by the church, and 2nd, Eileen (to whom he had been betrothed prior to his first marriage), daughter of Finn MacDermot MacCarthy Reagh, Lord of Carberry (and sister of his first wife’s second husband!) and had issue:
(1.1) Richard Barry (q.v.)
(2.1) James Barry (d. 1507), feudal baron of Ibawne and 5th Barry Roe; died without issue at sea while returning from a pilgrimage to Rome, 1507;
(2.2) David Downe Barry; feudal baron of Ibawne and 6th Barry Roe; murdered his uncle Redmond Barry and his nephew Richard Barry; married Ellis, daughter of William Barry Oge, and had issue four sons (all of whom were killed by their cousin, James Barry (d. 1581), 4th Viscount Buttevant (q.v.), and two daughters; as well as an illegitimate son and daughter;
(2.3) A daughter; married as his first wife, Donal MacCarthy.
His date of death is unknown. His first wife married 2nd, Donal MacCarthy Reagh, daughter of Cormac McTeigh McCarthy, Lord of Muskerry; her date of death is unknown. His second wife’s date of death is unknown.
Barry, Richard. Only child of James Barry, 4th Barry Roe, and his first wife Ellen, whom he repudiated; following the annulment of their marriage, Richard was declared illegitimate, and therefore, although he claimed the feudal barony of Ibawne, the family estates descended to his half-brother. He married 1st, Isabel, daughter of Sir James Fitzgerald, a younger son of the 8th Earl of Kildare KG, and 2nd, Moryda, daughter of [forename unknown] McMahon of Corkabaskin in Thomond, and had issue:
(1.1) James Barry, 4th Viscount Buttevant (q.v.);
(2.1) Richard Barry; murdered by his half-uncle, David Downe Barry, 6th Barry Roe.
He was known as ‘of the Rath’.
His date of death is unknown. His first wife’s date of death is unknown. His second wife’s date of death is unknown.
Barry, James (d. 1581), 4th Viscount Buttevant. Only son of Richard Barry and his first wife, Isabel, daughter of Sir James Fitzgerald. He is said to have murdered the four sons of his half-uncle David Downe Barry, and seized the feudal barony of Ibawne to which his father had been entitled de jure as the eldest son of the 4th Barry Roe. On 28 April 1558 he was granted a pardon for these crimes as ‘James Barry of Barrescourt, Viscount Barrymore, otherwise James called Barrymore and Barryroe’, and he was summoned to Parliament on 12 January 1559/60 as ‘James le Barry D[omi]n[u]s de Buttevant’, and placed next after the earls in order of precedence. By a deed of 18 March 1560/1 he obtained from Edmond Barry of Rathgobbane (who was the rightful heir to the Barry peerages, to which he should have succeeded in 1558), a surrender of the family estates to him and his heirs for ever’, and he had livery of these estates from the Crown on the 27 April 1561 in a deed addressed to him as ‘James Barry, Viscount Buttevant, kinsman and heir of James late Lord’, which marks the Crown’s acquiescence in his succession to the estates as well as the title. He was knighted at Limerick, 30 March 1567, and on 5 April that year he had a commission to execute martial law which recognised him as Lord Barrymore as well as Viscount Buttevant. He married, by 1548, Eileen alias Ellen, illegitimate daughter of Cormac MacCarthy Reagh, and had issue:
(1) Richard Barry (d. 1622), de jure Viscount Buttevant; born deaf and dumb, and on that account (although not mentally impaired) was omitted from the succession to the peerage; he seems to have held a part of the family estates which passed on his death to his great-nephew, the 6th Viscount; he died unmarried and without issue at Liscarroll, 24 April 1622;
(2) David Barry (1550-1617), 5th Viscount Buttevant (q.v.);
(3) Hon. William Barry (d. 1584), of Timoleague; married Sheelagh (alias Julia) (fl. 1594), daughter of Sir Finn MacCarthy Reagh and had issue two sons; died about August 1584; inquisition post mortem held 4 November 1584;
(4) Hon. Edmund Barry (d. by 1602); died without issue before 1602;
(5) Hon. John Barry (d. 1627), of Liscarroll; high sheriff of Co. Cork, 1602-03; married 1st, Joan, daughter of Edmund Fitzgerald, The White Knight, but had no issue; married 2nd, Ellen, daughter of Sir Dermot McTeige McCarthy and had issue five sons and one daughter; died 31 January 1627;
(6) Hon. Joan Barry; married David Roche, 7th Viscount Roche of Fermoy (d. 1635) and had issue five sons and four daughters;
(7) Hon. Honora Barry; married Patrick Condon of Ballymacpatrick (Co. Cork);
(8) Hon. Eleanor Barry; married Sir Owen O’Sullivan;
(9) Hon. Ilane Barry; married Callaghan McTeige McCarthy of Muskerry.
He seized the barony of Ibawne on the south coast of County Cork from the cousins he murdered, and presumably extorted the Barrymore estates from his kinsman Edmond Barry by the implied threat of similar violence.
He died 10 April 1581; an inquisition post mortem was apparently not held until 31 March 1624. His wife’s date of death is unknown.
Barry, David (1550-1617), 5th Viscount Buttevant. Second son of James Barry (d. 1581), 4th Viscount Buttevant, and his wife Eileen alias Ellen, illegitimate daughter of Cormac MacCarthy Reagh, born 1550. He succeeded his father in at least some of the family estates and assumed the title of 5th Viscount Buttevant, 10 April 1581, as his elder brother was deaf and dumb; this was apparently accepted by the Crown as he was summoned to Parliament in 1585 as the ‘Viscount of Barry, alias Buttevant’, and placed next in precedence to the Earls. He joined the Earl of Desmond’s rebellion in 1593 but abandoned the rebel cause in 1599 and made his peace with the Crown by paying a fine of £500 in 1602. He thereafter remained faithful to the Crown and was granted 31-year leases by King James I on a great part of the McCarthy lands which had been forfeited to the Crown. By 1615 he was one of the Council of the province of Munster. He married 1st, Ellen (fl. 1599), younger daughter of David Roche, 5th Viscount Roche of Fermoy, and 2nd, Sheelagh (alias Julia), daughter of Cormac McCarthy of Muskerry, and had issue, perhaps with others*:
(1.1) Hon. David Barry (d. 1604/5) (q.v.);
(1.2) Hon. Honora Barry; married 1st, as his second wife, Gerald FitzGerald, of the Decies, and 2nd, Patrick Browne (d. 1637) of Mulrankin (Co. Wexford), and had issue two sons and several daughters;
(1.3) Hon. Helena Barry (d. 1642); married 1st, John Oge Le Poer (aka Power) (killed by Edmund Fitzgerald, the White Knight, before 1606), eldest son and heir of Richard Power, 4th Baron Power of Curraghmore, and had issue one son (the 5th Baron Power); married 2nd, by December 1606, as his third wife, Thomas Butler KG (d. 1614), 10th Earl of Ormonde, but had no issue; married 3rd, 15 August 1616, Sir Thomas Somerset KB (c.1579-c.1651), 1st and only Viscount Somerset of Cashel (Co. Tipp.) of Badminton House (Glos), third son of Edward Somerset, 4th Earl of Worcester, and had further issue one daughter; died in 1642 and was buried at Raglan (Monmouths.);
(1.4) Hon. Mary [name uncertain] Barry; married James Tobin of Kumpshinagh (otherwise Compsy, near Clonmel) (Co. Tipp.);
(1.5) Hon. Ellen Barry; married Sir Edmund (aka John) FitzGerald (d. 1640) of Ballymaloe (Co. Cork), and had issue one daughter (who died young);
(1.6) Hon. Catherine Barry; married Richard Burke of Derry Maclaghny (Co. Galway);
(1.7) Hon. Margaret Barry (d. c.1609?); married, c.1603, Rt. Hon. Robert Dillon, 2nd Earl of Roscommon (d. 1642) (who m2, Lady Dorothy (b. 1579), youngest daughter of George Hastings, 4th Earl of Huntingdon and widow of Sir James Stewart, and m3, c.1625, Anne, daughter of Sir William Stroud and widow of Lord Folliott, and had further issue by both of them), and had issue three sons; perhaps died about 1609;
(2.1) Hon. Joan (alias Margaret) Barry; married Sir Dermot O’Shaughnessy (d. 1673) of Gartinshegory (Co. Galway) and had issue two sons and three daughters.
He inherited Barryscourt Castle from his father in 1581.
He died at Barryscourt, 10 April 1617. His first wife’s date of death is unknown. His widow married 2nd, as his second wife, Sir Roger O’Shaughnessy (d. c.1650), but her date of death is unknown.
* The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says that the 5th Viscount and his second wife had three sons and four daughters.
Barry, Hon. David (d. 1604/5). Eldest son of David Barry (1550-1617), 5th Viscount Buttevant, and his first wife, Ellen, younger daughter of 5th Viscount Roche of Fermoy. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Power, 4th Lord Power, of Curraghmore (Co. Waterford), and had issue:
(1) James Barry (fl. 1600); elder son; died before 1605;
(2) David Barry (1605-42), 6th Viscount Buttevant and 1st Earl of Barrymore (q.v.).
He died in the lifetime of his father in 1604/5. His widow’s date of death is unknown.
Barry, David (1605-42), 6th Viscount Buttevant and 1st Earl of Barrymore. Only surviving child of the Hon. David Barry (d. 1604/5) and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Richard le Poer, 4th Lord le Power and Curraghmore, born after his father’s death, 10 March 1604/5, probably at Buttevant (Co. Cork). He was a ward of John Chichester, 1610-12 and then of Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork, and was brought up a Protestant. He succeeded his grandfather as 6th Viscount Buttevant, 10 April 1617. His guardian paid £3,000 for him to be created, 28 February 1627/8, 1st Earl of Barrymore, and he took his seat in the Irish parliament as such, 14 July 1634. He was commissioned in 1639 to raise a regiment of 1,000 men in Ireland for service in the first bishops’ war in Scotland, but he was only able to raise a small force because of lack of funds. He commanded a regiment again in 1640, and served as its Colonel. In 1641, with the start of the Irish rising, he garrisoned his castle at Shandon near Cork for the king, and in 1641-42 he led successful military operations against the Irish confederates which secured Co. Cork for the king. He was then joined with Lord Inchiquin in a commission for the civil government of Munster, but he was, however, wounded at the Battle of Liscarroll in July 1642, and died a couple of months later. A portrait at Fota House, normally described as being of the 1st Earl, is evidently of an unidentified man who was aged 66 in 1636, and no likeness of him seems to have survived. He married, 29 July 1621*, Lady Alice (1607-66), eldest daughter of his guardian, Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork, and had issue:
(1) Richard Barry (1630-94), 2nd Earl of Barrymore (q.v.);
(2) Lady Ellen Barry (1631-55), said to have been born 9 September 1631; married, before 1652, as his first wife, Sir Arthur Denny (1629-73) of Tralee Castle (Co. Kerry), and had issue one son; died 1655;
(3) Lady Catherine Barry (b. 1632?), said to have been born in 1632; married Edward Denny (1630-95) of Castle Lyons, son of Sir Edward Denny of Tralee Castle (Co. Kerry) and had issue three sons;
(4) Hon. James Barry (c.1635-64), born about 1635; an officer in the army; died without issue, 1664.
He inherited Barryscourt Castle and Castle Lyons from his grandfather in 1617 and the estates of his deaf-and-dumb great-uncle in 1622. He had livery of his lands, 13 May 1625; his guardian (who continued to exert much influence after Barry came of age, as he held mortgages on most of the Barry lands) paid for the remodelling of Castle Lyons from 1636.
He died 29 September 1642 and was buried in the Boyle vault at Youghal (Co. Cork). His widow married 2nd, by 1645, Col. John Barry of Liscarrol, who was a Roman Catholic, and died 23 March 1666, being buried at St. Patrick, Dublin (as ‘Mrs Barry’) on 25 March 1666.
* He was 16 and she was 14 at the time of this marriage.
Barry, Rt. Hon. Richard (1630-94), 2nd Earl of Barrymore. Elder son of David Barry (1605-42), 6th Viscount Buttevant and 1st Earl of Barrymore, and his wife Lady Alice, eldest daughter of Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork, born in Dublin, 16 October and baptised at St Werburgh, Dublin, 4 November 1630. He succeeded his father as 2nd Earl, 29 September 1642, at the age of 12, and was made a ward of his mother at the king’s command. He was educated privately, including a period in 1645-47 when he was in London and his tutor was the famous poet, John Milton: not an obvious choice for a young man with an ardently Royalist mother and a Catholic stepfather. In or before 1649 he went to France, where he married, against the wishes of his mother, one of Queen Henrietta Maria’s ladies in waiting and lived until after her death. His second marriage aligned him, by contrast, with the Commonwealth administration, and may be a reflection of his political astuteness in seeking advantageous alliances. At the Restoration he was included in a special pardon issued by Charles II to the family and friends of the Earl of Orrery (who was his uncle), and he became an officer in the army (Col., 1661). He sat in the Irish Parliament from 1661-94, including during King James II’s parliament of 1689, and was sworn of the Irish Privy Council, 1661 and again, 1687. He married 1st, before December 1649 in France, Susan (1629?-c.1655), daughter of Sir William Killigrew, 2nd, November 1656, Martha (d. 1664), daughter of Henry Lawrence of London, President of Cromwell’s Council, and 3rd, February 1666, Dorothy, daughter of John Ferrer of Dromore (Co. Down), and had issue:
(1.1) Lady Mary Barry (c.1650-1711); married 1st, Rev. Garrett Barry (d. 1685), Chancellor of Armagh Cathedral, and 2nd, Rev. Christopher Sheares (c.1662-1704), rector of Ballymore and Tandragee (Co. Armagh), and had issue ‘a numerous family’; died at Dun Laoghaire (Co. Dublin), 1711;
(1.2) Lady Catherine Barry (b. c.1651; fl. 1699); married 1st, 1666 (settlement), John Townsend (b. c.1646; fl. 1675), son of Col. Richard Townsend of Castletown (later Castle Townshend, Co. Cork), and had issue one son and two daughters; married 2nd, 1679 (licence), Capt. Charles Barclay of London, and had further issue one daughter; living at Skibbereen (Co. Cork) in 1699;
(1.3) Lady Susan Barry (b. c.1653); died unmarried;
(2.1) Lady Martha Barry (d. 1657); died young, 1657;
(2.2) Lawrence Barry (c.1657-99), 3rd Earl of Barrymore (q.v.);
(2.3) Hon. Richard Barry; died young;
(2.4) Hon. David Barry; died young;
(2.5) Lady Theodora Barry; married Charles May (d. 1724);
(3.1) James Barry (1667-1747), 4th Earl of Barrymore (q.v.);
(3.2) Hon. Richard Barry (c.1668-1754); educated at Trinity College, Dublin (admitted 1681; BA 1685; MA 1688); appointed joint second remembrancer of the Court of Exchequer (a sinecure), 1683; an officer in the army (Ensign, 1697; Lt-Col., 1706; retired about 1715), who was captured at the Battle of Almansa, 1707; burgess of Carlingford, c.1713; MP for Enniscorthy, 1692-93, 1695-99 and for Baltimore, 1713-14; died 1754;
(3.3) Lady Dorothy Barry (c.1670-1749); married Col. Sir John Jacob (c.1665-1740), 3rd bt. of West Wratting Park (Cambs), who sold his colonelcy of a regiment of foot to his brother-in-law, the 4th Earl, and had issue one son and three daughters; died 27 January 1748/9;
(3.4) Lady Anne Barry (d. by 1720); married, c.1700, Rt. Rev. Dr. Henry Maule (1676-1758), rector of Mourneabbey, Shandon etc. and later bishop of Cloyne, 1726-31, Dromore, 1731-44 and Meath, 1744-58 (who m2, c.1720, Catherine, daughter of Sir Richard Rooth or Ruth and widow of William Stawell (d. 1701) of Kinsale, and m3, 1725, Dorothy (d. 1743), daughter of Capt. Thomas Gookin of Bandon and widow of Rev. R. Roffen, without further issue), and had issue two sons and two daughters; died before 1720;
(3.5) Lady Margaret Barry; married, 1711, Thomas Crosbie (d. 1731) of Ballyheigue (Co. Kerry), MP for Dingle, 1713-14, 1715-31, and had issue one son and two daughters;
(3.6) Lady Elizabeth Barry; died young;
(3.7) Hon. David John Barry (c.1688-1744), of Mahon (Co. Cork); educated at Cork and Trinity College, Dublin (matriculated 1705); an officer in the army (Lt., 1708; Capt., 1712; retired 1716); sheriff of Cork, 1728; MP for Belfast, 1727-44; married Margaret, daughter of Frederick Crosbie and widow of John Blennerhassett of Ballyseedy; died October 1744;
(3.8) Hon. Ferdinando William Barry; died young.
He inherited Castle Lyons from his father in 1642.
He died November 1694. His first wife died before 1656. His second wife died in 1664 and was buried at St. Margarets (Herts). His widow married 2nd, as his third wife, Sir Matthew Deane (c.1626-1711), 1st bt., of Dromore; her date of death is unknown.
Barry, Lawrence (c.1657-99), 3rd Earl of Barrymore. Eldest son of Richard Barry (1630-94), 2nd Earl of Barrymore, and his second wife Martha, daughter of Henry Lawrence of London, born c.1657. He was attainted by the Parliament of King James II in 1689 for remaining in England, but restored soon afterwards. He succeeded his father as 3rd Earl of Barrymore, November 1694, and took his seat in the Irish parliament, 27 August 1695. He married, 1682, Hon. Catherine Barry (1663-1737), eldest daughter of Richard Barry, 2nd Baron Barry of Santry, but had no issue.
He inherited Castle Lyons from his father in 1694.
He died 17 April 1699. His widow married 2nd, 1699, Francis Gash, revenue collector, and 3rd, 8 December 1729, Sir Henry Piers (1678-1734), 3rd bt., of Tristernagh; she died 8 June and was buried at St Mary, Dublin, 10 June 1737; her will was proved 1744.
 |
| James Barry, 4th Earl of Barrymore |
Barry, Rt. Hon. James (1667-1748), 4th Earl of Barrymore. Eldest son of Richard Barry (1630-94), 2nd Earl of Barrymore, by his third wife, Dorothy, daughter of John Ferrer of Dromore (Co. Down), born 1667. He succeeded his half-brother as 4th Earl, 17 April 1699, but did not take his seat in the Irish parliament until 14 February 1703/4. He was an officer in the army, 1688-98 and 1702-15 (Capt., 1689-93, 1694-98; half-pay 1698-1702; Col., 1702; Brig-Gen. 1707; Maj-Gen. 1709; Lt-Gen. 1711), and was pardoned for an unspecified ‘crime or misdemeanour’ in 1700. He served under Lord Galway in Spain and was taken prisoner at Caya, 1709, being freed and returning to London in 1710; he was again in Spain in 1712 and 1713, where he was for a time second-in-command to the Duke of Argyll, but he was relieved of his command in 1715 at the time of the Jacobite uprising, presumably because of concerns about his loyalty. As an Irish peer he was allowed to sit in the British House of Commons, and he was Tory MP for Stockbridge, 1710-13, 1714-15 and for Wigan, 1715-27 and 1734-47 and was appointed to the Privy Council for Ireland, 1714; his adherence to the Tories was somewhat capricious, and he occasionally voted with the Whigs. He was made a freeman of Cork, 1700, Salisbury, 1712 and a burgess of Wigan, 1712 and served as Mayor of Wigan in 1725 and 1734, where he built a new Town Hall in 1720. He was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Oxford (DCL), 1735/6 at the time of his son’s graduation. He embraced the Jacobite cause in his later years, conspiring from about 1740 with English Tories for a Stuart restoration aided by a French invasion. In 1740, he visited Cardinal Fleury to persuade him to support it, and in 1743 Louis XV’s master of horse, the 2nd Duke of Ormonde, travelled to London to meet Barrymore and other Tory peers to conspire to French invasion. Barrymore was to be part of the Young Pretender’s council of regency should the invasion be successful. In February 1744 the British government discovered from a spy in their service in France the English members of the conspiracy and Barrymore was arrested. After the collapse of the Jacobite rising of 1745 the government decided not to prosecute Barrymore, perhaps partly on the grounds of his age. He married 1st (with £10,000), perhaps c.1693, Hon. Elizabeth Boyle (1662-1703), daughter of Charles Boyle, Lord Clifford of Londesborough and sister of the 3rd Earl of Cork, 2nd, June 1706 (without her father’s consent or knowledge), Lady Elizabeth (d. 1714), daughter and heiress of Richard Savage, 4th Earl Rivers, and 3rd, 12 July 1716 at St Anne, Soho, London, Lady Anne (d. 1753), youngest daughter of Arthur Chichester, 3rd Earl of Donegall, and had issue:
(1.1) A son (d. 1707), born before 1703; died 30 May 1707;
(1.2) Lady Charlotte Barry (d. 1708), born before 1703; died unmarried and was buried at St Michan, Dublin, 1 June 1708;
(1.3) Lady Anne Barry; married James Maule (d. 1749), son of Rt. Rev. Henry Maule, bishop of Cloyne and later of Dromore and of Meath, but died soon afterwards;
(2.1) Lady Penelope Barry (1708-86), born 18 April 1708; inherited Wardley (Lancs) from her father but sold it to the Duke of Bridgewater, 1760; married, 1730*, (div. for adultery, 1736) Maj-Gen. the Hon. James Cholmondeley (1708-75), youngest son of George Cholmondeley, 2nd Earl of Cholmondeley, but had no issue; died 1786;
(3.1) James Barry (1717-51), 5th Earl of Barrymore (q.v.);
(3.2) Lady Catherine Barry (1718-38), born 9 November and baptised at St James, Piccadilly, Westminster (Middx), 4 December 1718; died unmarried, 1738;
(3.3) Hon. Richard Barry (1721-87), born 4 September and baptised at St James Piccadilly, Westminster (Middx), 29 September 1721; an officer in the Royal Navy, 1733-46 (Lt., 1740; Cdr., 1745), but this did not stop him acting as his father’s secretary in negotiations between the English Jacobites and the French, and he was employed rallying Jacobite supporters ‘in London and Westminster’; in June 1744 he was sent by his father to join the French expedition against England which was being prepared at Dunkirk, with a view to using his experience as a naval officer to assist the French in effecting a landing on the English coast; at Dunkirk he formed a close friendship with the Young Pretender, with whom he remained in contact on his own behalf until at least 1750; his treasonable behaviour did not stop his promotion in 1745 but did terminate his active naval career, although he remained on half-pay for the rest of his life; he succeeded his father as MP for Wigan, 1747-61, but was an inactive member; he married, 4 May 1749, Jane (d. 1751), daughter and heiress of Arthur Hyde of Castle Hyde (Co. Cork) and had issue one son (who died young, of smallpox); died at Marbury (Ches.), 23 November 1787;
(3.4) Lady Anne Barry (c.1722-58); married, c.1750, Walter Taylor of Castle Taylor, Ardrahan (Co. Galway) (who m2, October 1766, Hester, daughter of Richard Trench MP of Garbally (Co. Galway), and had issue one son and four daughters); died without issue, 21 March 1758;
(3.5) Hon. Arthur Barry (1724-70), born 1724; educated at Westminster School, 1733-40, Brasenose College, Oxford (matriculated 1742) and Lincolns Inn (admitted 1742); admitted a burgess of Belfast, 1753; MP for Belfast in the Irish Parliament, 1757-60; portrait painted by Francis Cotes is now at Tabley House (Ches.); lived at Ruloe, Weaverham (Ches.); died unmarried in Dublin, 23 October 1770 and was buried at Great Budworth (Ches.); will proved in the PCC, 8 January 1771;
(3.6) Hon. John Barry (later Smith-Barry) (1725-84) of Marbury Hall (Ches.) [from whom descend the Smith-Barry family of Marbury Hall and Fota Island, who will be the subject of a future post].
He inherited Castle Lyons from his half-brother in 1699, and purchased Anngrove alias Ballinsperrig, where he lived when in Ireland. In 1712 he successfully challenged the will of Lord Rivers (which had left nothing to his second wife), and subsequently inherited the Brignall (Yorks NR), Rocksavage (Ches.) and Wardley (Lancs) estates, the latter giving him control of the Rivers family’s political interest at Wigan. He made some additions to the house at Rocksavage.
He died 5 January 1747/8 and was buried at Castlelyons, where he was commemorated by a monument. His first wife died in 1703; administration of her goods was granted to her husband, 10 October 1703. His second wife died in childbirth, 19 March 1714. His widow died in December 1753 and was buried at Castlelyons.
* By this marriage the Rocksavage estate passed to the Cholmondeleys, but it was abandoned soon afterwards.
Barry, James (1717-51), 5th Earl of Barrymore. Eldest son of James Barry (1667-1748), 4th Earl of Barrymore, and his third wife, Lady Anne, youngest daughter of Arthur Chichester, 3rd Earl of Donegall, born 25 April 1717. Educated at Brasenose College, Oxford (matriculated 1733; MA 1735/6). He succeeded his father as 5th Earl, 5 January 1747/8. He married, 8 June 1738 (with £30,000), Hon. Margaret (c.1710-88), younger daughter of Paul Davys, 1st Viscount Mount Cashell and sister and heiress of the 3rd Viscount (d. 1736), and had issue:
(1) James Barry (1739-40), born 27 January 1738/9; died in infancy, February 1739/40;
(2) Anne Barry (1740-42); died young, 12 July 1742;
(3) Lady Catherine Barry (b. 1741), baptised 23 December 1741; died young;
(4) Lady Margaret Barry (b. c.1743), born about 1743; died young;
(5) A son; died in infancy;
(6) Richard Barry (1745-73), 6th Earl of Barrymore (q.v.).
He inherited Anngrove and Castle Lyons from his father in 1747, but lived in Boulogne from 1748 until shortly before his death.
He died in Dublin, 19 December 1751*; his will was proved in 1752. His widow died in Dublin, 2 December 1788; her will was proved in March 1791.
*An earlier report, that he had died in Boulogne in August 1751, was later retracted.
Barry, Richard (1745-73), 6th Earl of Barrymore. Only surviving child of James Barry (1717-51), 5th Earl of Barrymorre, and his wife Hon. Margaret, daughter of Paul Davys, 1st Viscount Mount Cashell, born October 1745. Educated at Westminster and Eton, and is said to have been at Oxford, although he apparently never matriculated. He succeeded his father as 6th Earl, 19 December 1751, at the age of six. An officer in the 9th Dragoons (Capt., 1767). He was very fond of practical jokes and of gambling on horses and wagers, sometimes combining the two to ensure he was betting on a predetermined outcome. He married, 16 April 1767 at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster (Middx), Lady Amelia (aka Emily) (1749-80), third daughter of William Stanhope, 2nd Earl of Harrington, and had issue:
(1) Lady Carolina Barry (b. 1768), born 17 May 1768; known, from her language, as ‘Billingsgate’ by George, Prince of Wales; married, 23 July 1788 (annulled), Louis Pierre Francois Malcolm Drummond (d. c.1833), Comte de Melfort (who m2, Lady Caroline (d. 1846), daughter of Kenneth Mackenzie, 1st Earl of Seaforth, and had issue three sons and one daughter), and had issue one daughter (who died young in 1811); although she was assumed to be still living in press reports of the 8th Earl’s death in 1823, she may have died some years earlier;
(2) Richard Barry (1769-93), 7th Earl of Barrymore (q.v.);
(3) Henry Barry (1770-1823), 8th Earl of Barrymore (q.v.);
(4) Rev. the Hon. Augustus Barry (1773-1818), born 16 July and baptised at St. Marylebone, 14 August 1773; educated at Exeter College, Oxford (matriculated 1798; BA 1801); ordained deacon, 1803; like his brothers, a member of the Prince Regent’s circle, to whom he was known as ‘Newgate’ on account of being perennially at risk of arrest for debt; died unmarried at Molesey (Surrey), 27 November 1818.
He inherited Anngrove and Castle Lyons from his father in 1751, but let Anngrove. Castle Lyons was destroyed by fire in 1771. He probably lived chiefly in London, where he had a house in Portman Square.
He died at Dromana of a fever (or according to some reports, by his own hand, after losing heavily at cards), 1 August 1773, and was buried at Castlelyons. His widow died in France, 5 September 1780; her will was proved in April 1781.
Richard Barry, 7th Earl of Barrymore
Barry, Richard (1769-93), 7th Earl of Barrymore. Elder son of Richard Barry (1745-73), 6th Earl of Barrymore, and his wife Lady Amelia, third daughter of William Stanhope, 2nd Earl of Harrington, born 14 August and baptised at St Marylebone (Middx), 10 September 1769. Educated privately at Wargrave (Berks) and then at Eton, 1784-86. An officer in the Berkshire militia (Ensign, 1789; Lt., 1790; Capt., 1793); Whig MP for Heytesbury, 1791-93. He succeeded his father as 7th Earl, 1 August 1773 and came into possession of his estates, which were worth £10,000 a year, in 1788, although by then he had borrowed extensively on his expectations to enable him to gratify a taste for racing, gambling and amateur theatricals. Indeed, he is reputed to have squandered £300,000 during his short lifetime on these amusements and lavish entertainments for his friends. He maintained two private theatres (the one at his house in Berkshire is said to have cost £60,000 to build and equip in 1788 but the fittings were sold off to help meet his debts in 1792 and the building was then pulled down and replaced by a new stable and coach house; the other, which was a converted auction room in Savile Row, London, and had been a marionette theatre previously, required only £1,500 to make it ‘one of the prettiest theatres we have seen’). By 1791 he had to come to an arrangement with his bankers by which he was paid an allowance of £2,500 a year while the remainder of his income was put towards satisfying his debts; he entered parliament chiefly for the protection it offered him for arrest for debt. On account of his wild spirits and behaviour he was known as ‘Hellgate’ to his friend the Prince of Wales, to whom the Duke of York wrote after his death ‘Though he was a great rogue, yet to be sure it must be confessed that when he pleased he could be exceedingly good company’. He was a friend and patron of several of the greatest figures in theatre and the arts of his day, including David Garrick and Johann Zoffany. His life and death excited such public interest that a Life of the late Earl of Barrymore was rushed into print by his friend J.M. Williams (“Anthony Pasquin”) and reached a third and enlarged edition before the end of 1793*. In his person he was a tall, thin man over six feet in height, and he is said to have been personally abstemious despite his lavish entertainment of others. He married, 20 June 1792 at Gretna Green, Charlotte Goulding (c.1776-1866), ‘a lady of much personal beauty and adequately accomplish’d’, who was however the daughter of a sedan chairman; they had no issue. For some years before his marriage, he had a mistress, Mary Ann Pierce (d. 1832)**, who, after he abandoned her, took to drink and ”passed…to the lowest grade of prostitution”; she was handy with her fists and appeared more than 150 times at Bow St. magistrates court charged with affray or being drunk and disorderly. She is said to have spent seven of her last ten years in the Tothill Fields Bridewell, where once she had sobered up she was a model prisoner and was indeed employed as a matron for the other female prisoners.
He inherited 140,000 acres in Co. Cork from his father in 1773 but sold seven estates before his death. He lived at Barrymore, Wargrave (Berks) and in London, where he began building a house at 105 Piccadilly to the designs of Michael Novosielski (c.1747-95), which was unfinished at his death and later became an hotel. Since Novosielski was a specialist in the design of theatres, he may also have designed the theatre which Barrymore built his house in Wargrave.
He died as the result of the accidental discharge of a musket being jolted around in a curricle while he was escorting French prisoners of war from Rye (Sussex) to Deal (Kent), 6 March 1793. He was buried in the chancel at Wargrave, 17 March 1793; administration of his goods was granted 26 March 1794 (effects under £5,000)***. His widow married 2nd, 22 September 1794 at St George, Hanover Sq., London, Capt. John Matthew Williams of the 3rd Foot Guards, and had issue one daughter; her will was proved 18 October 1866. His former mistress was buried at St. Giles in the Fields, 23 October 1832.
* A further biography of the Earl and his brothers was written a century later by John Robert Robinson as The Last Earls of Barrymore (1894).
** She sometimes called herself ‘Lady Barrymore’ and on that account has sometimes been confused with the 7th Earl’s widow. She was also popularly known as ‘the Boxing baroness’.
*** A dispute between his widow and his brother about the right to administer his estate was adjusted by his widow giving up this right in return for payment of an annuity of £300 a year out of the estate.
Barry, Henry (1770-1823), 8th Earl of Barrymore. Younger son of Richard Barry (1745-73), 6th Earl of Barrymore, and his wife Lady Emily, third daughter of William Stanhope, 2nd Earl of Harrington, born 16 August and baptised at St Marylebone, 21 October 1770. Educated at Exeter College, Oxford (matriculated 1788). An officer in the First Barrymore Cavalry Volunteers (Capt., 1796) and the South Cork Militia (Lt-Col.). He was born with a club foot, which led to his being dubbed ‘Cripplegate’ by his friend George, Prince of Wales. In 1806 he fought a duel with a Mr Howarth near Brighton following a dispute at cards, in which neither party, fortunately, was injured. He married, 24 January 1795 at Cork, Anne (d. 1832), eldest daughter of Jeremiah Coghlan of Ardo (Co. Waterford) and sister of the 9th Duchess de Castries, but had no legitimate issue*.
He lived in Sackville St., Westminster (Middx). He sold his brother’s Wargrave house in 1795 and the remaining Irish estates in 1799 to John Anderson of Cork.
He died of a stroke at the house of the Duc de Castries in Paris, 20 December 1823, when the earldom became extinct and the viscountcy of Buttevant and barony of Barrymore became extinct or dormant*; administration of his goods was granted 1 December 1826. His widow died in Paris, 6 May 1832; her will was proved in July 1832.
* Near-contemporary sources all reiterate the statement that he had no legitimate issue, which implies that there were illegitimate children, but I have found no evidence of them.
** The Viscountcy of Buttevant was assumed by James Redmond Barry of Donoughmore (Co. Cork) as heir male of the body of the 4th Viscount. His claim to vote in the election of Irish representative peers was considered by the House of Lords in 1825, but not all the descent was capable of proof and the claim was not renewed.
Principal sources
Burke’s Irish Family Records, 1976, pp. 66-75; E. Barry, Barrymore : records of the Barrys of County Cork from the earliest to the present time, with pedigrees, 1902; G.E. C[okayne], The complete peerage, vol. 1, 1910, pp. 435-49; J.G. Taaffe, ‘John Milton’s student, Richard Barry: a biographical note’, Huntington Library Quarterly, August 1962, pp. 325-36; M. Bence-Jones, A guide to Irish country houses, 2nd edn., 1990, pp. 6, 34, 72; P. Little, ‘The Geraldine ambitions of the First Earl of Cork’, Irish Historical Studies, Nov. 2002, pp. 151-68; V. Costello, Irish demesne landscapes, 1660-1740, 2015, p. 160; ODNB entries on 3rd [sic] Viscount Buttevant, 1st Earl of Barrymore and 4th Earl of Barrymore.
Location of archives
Some records are included among the papers of the Smith-Barry family (who will be the subject of a future post) but no substantial archive is known.
Coat of arms
Argent, three bars genelle gules
Irish Historic Houses 