Converts to Catholicism in Clare/Limerick (Spaight Name)

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Mij
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Joined: Thu Jan 03, 2013 6:46 pm

Converts to Catholicism in Clare/Limerick (Spaight Name)

Post by Mij » Fri Jan 04, 2013 5:00 pm

How common would it have been in the 17th/18th century for members of the English Protestant descendry in Ireland to have converted to Catholism ?

Would any records of same be kept anywhere ?

I am trying to traces the origin of the Spaight family surname in Ireland.

There are several sources that state that the name originated from James Spaight of Woolich Kent who landed in Coleraine in the mid 17th century and then migrated to the East Clare and Limerick areas. This family were landed gentry and fairly staunchly Protestant.

http://landedestates.nuigalway.ie/Lande ... sp?id=1965


http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclar ... s/1697.htm

There are a number of Spaight families in the East Clare area who have been Catholic for as far back as can be traced by me (back to very early 1800's). So I am trying to establish if there is a link between these and the decendents of James Spaight , Woolich Kent.

Any help would be appreciated .

Polycarp
Posts: 80
Joined: Thu Dec 04, 2008 11:50 am

Re: Converts to Catholicism in Clare/Limerick (Spaight Name)

Post by Polycarp » Mon Jan 07, 2013 1:37 pm

Hello Mij,

You raise a very interesting point. Religious conversion (or perversion as it was known, and also apostasy) was a contentious topic in the Ireland of the nineteenth century during the 'Bible wars' in Ireland.

Catholics who converted to one of the Protestant denominations (typically, the Church of Ireland, the established church until 1869) were known as perverts, or to 'have taken the soup.'

Protestants who converted to Catholicism were also looked down upon within their reformed denominations.

As the Church of Ireland was Ireland's Established Church (or 'the Church') for most of the nineteenth century, records exist for Catholics converting to the Church of Ireland. See "The convert rolls. The calendar of the convert rolls, 1703 - 1838, edited by Eileen O'Byrne; with Fr. Wallace Clare's annotated list of converts, 1703 - 78, edited by Anne Chamney" (Dublin: Irish Manuscripts Commission, 2005 with an earlier edition published in 1981).

Records of Protestants (of whatever denomination) converting to Catholicism are much scarcer. There is an account of some Catholic converts from the 19th century published in the June and July editions of the periodical "The Irish Ecclesiastical Record" in 1949. I have looked at these articles in the IER, 1949, and I did not note the Spaight name listed though the journal only published a selection of names.

Note that the Spaight family is treated in Burke's "Landed gentry of Ireland" (various editions) where it is also associated with the Gartside surname.

Diana Hickie (daughter of John Hickie of Sixmilebridge, County Clare and Juliana Vale) married Samuel Spaight of Lodge (Annaly Lodge, near Broadford, County Clare) and certainly Diana's father, John Hickie, seemed to be a 'Papist' according to litigation (Henchy v. Spaight) dated 2 September 1795, where it is recorded of John Hickie: "Relapsed into Popery and received the sacrament according to the Church of Rome." (Cited in "The convert rolls", as above, page 366.) This clearly indicates a strain of Catholicism within the extended Spaight family.

It is unfortunate there do not appear to be more thorough and systematic records of Protestants who may have converted to Catholicism.

Polycarp.

mgallery
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Joined: Sat Jul 14, 2012 6:27 pm

Re: Converts to Catholicism in Clare/Limerick (Spaight Name)

Post by mgallery » Mon Jan 07, 2013 6:55 pm

The other possibliity is that there were Catholic Spaights already in Ireland before the protestant Spaights came. The protestants all at some point converted from Catholicism. Certainly some Spaights came over and got land grants in the late 1600s (mentioned in Frost) and it would seem likely it is the same family, but there are some families who were already there and never converted. Sampson would be one, they were always Catholic but there were protestant Sampsons in the North.

Mixed marriages were not unheard of. I know in the early 1800s my Catholic family married into protestant Davorens but seem to have kept their own religion(a gt gt gt aunt) and similarly her brother's second wife's first marriage was to a presbyterian though she herself always remained Catholic so his son's half brothers were presbyterian. I think there was more mingling than we think there was.

Mij
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Jan 03, 2013 6:46 pm

Re: Converts to Catholicism in Clare/Limerick (Spaight Name)

Post by Mij » Tue Jan 08, 2013 12:48 am

Thanks Polycarp and mgallery for your replies and information.


I think the Samuel Spaight you referenced, was a great great grandson of James Spaight (Woolich, Kent) who landed in Coleraine in the 1650's and later in East Clare. Samuel Spaight would have been very much protestant, so it is interesting to learn that he married a catholic, although I assume any children would have been protestant - although I do not think they had any off spring.

As mgallery mentioned, there is of course the possibility that there was another branch of Spaights in Ireland prior to James Spaight arriving in the 17th century. Spaight is included in the 'Irish and Anglo-Irish' listing in 'The Irish landed gentry when Cromwell came to Ireland', so does this mean that there were Spaights in Ireland prior to Cromwell ?

http://archive.org/stream/irishlandedge ... r_djvu.txt

I think it is probably too much of a coincidence that catholic Spaights are/were based around the East Clare / Limerick area and that the protestant Spaights settled here. In my mind, there must be a link of some sort, but I am finding it impossible to prove.

mgallery
Posts: 201
Joined: Sat Jul 14, 2012 6:27 pm

Re: Converts to Catholicism in Clare/Limerick (Spaight Name)

Post by mgallery » Wed Apr 10, 2013 7:22 pm

I just noted on Paddy Waldrons website a thomas Spaight collector in 1766 a godfather for one of catholic thady O'Hallorans children. He lived a Ballycunneen in Sixmilebridge so I think you have the same family as the Protestants.
They were possibly related (O'Halloran and Spaight) and thomas must have been Catholic so I think you can take it that if there was a Catholic marriage at least some of the children grew up Catholic
http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~pwaldron/ClareRoots/nmaj2.jpg

Thady was related the Hickies mentioned by Polycarp above so clearly some Spaights did convert
"Diana Hickie (daughter of John Hickie of Sixmilebridge, County Clare and Juliana Vale) married Samuel Spaight of Lodge (Annaly Lodge, near Broadford, County Clare) and certainly Diana's father, John Hickie, seemed to be a 'Papist' according to litigation (Henchy v. Spaight) dated 2 September 1795, where it is recorded of John Hickie: "Relapsed into Popery and received the sacrament according to the Church of Rome." (Cited in "The convert rolls", as above, page 366.) This clearly indicates a strain of Catholicism within the extended Spaight fami


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Declan Barron
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Joined: Wed Feb 20, 2008 12:13 am

Re: Converts to Catholicism in Clare/Limerick (Spaight Name)

Post by Declan Barron » Thu Apr 11, 2013 9:12 pm

You can find Catholic branches of most of the gentry families.
If a Protestant man married a catholic girl the Catholic church allowed the marriage but the children were to be raised as Catholics.
This was the most common way conversion to Catholicism occurred.

lenc
Posts: 78
Joined: Wed Mar 28, 2012 1:31 pm

Re: Converts to Catholicism in Clare/Limerick (Spaight Name)

Post by lenc » Fri Apr 12, 2013 4:10 pm

.


There is a short entry on the Spaight family in Clare in Sean Spellissy's book The Merchants Of Ennis p177

He says associations with Limerick and Clare go back to 1650's

If you haven't access to a copy PM me.

Lenc

Mij
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Jan 03, 2013 6:46 pm

Re: Converts to Catholicism in Clare/Limerick (Spaight Name)

Post by Mij » Sat Apr 13, 2013 12:30 am

Thanks to all for the very interesting information. And thanks to Lenc for the PM.

Declan makes an interesting point - it is possible/probable that the Catholic Spaights originated from the children bourne as a result of a marriage of a Protestant Spaight and a Catholic.

When I was searching for the Thomas Spaight that mgallery referenced, I came across a printed source called
"The Other Clare: O MURCHADHA, Ciaran. The unfaithful steward – Thomas Spaight of Bunratty Lodge (Cappagh). XI (1987), 20-21 "

It is referenced in this website
http://landedestates.nuigalway.ie/Lande ... sp?id=1965

By 'unfaithful', could it mean unfaithful to the crown or protestanism ?

The Samuel Spaight who married Diana Hickie referenced by Polycarp, did not have any children from what I can tell. So even if it was a mixed religion marriage, they left no heirs.

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