Very Rev. Lord Fitzgerald and Vesey listed in Griffiths 1855

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Paddy Casey
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Very Rev. Lord Fitzgerald and Vesey listed in Griffiths 1855

Post by Paddy Casey » Wed Jul 25, 2007 9:24 pm

In the 1855 Griffiths entries for various townlands in and around Tubber in Co.Clare the name "Very Rev. Lord Fitzgerald and Vesey" crops up as a landlord. He was listed as my great-grandparents' landlord in the village of Moyrhee in the townland of Shanballysallagh and he was the landlord of various neighbours. I thought that it might be interesting to read the Very Rev. Lord Fitzgerald and Vesey's rent books to find out some more about my great-grandparents. So I set about trying to find out who this individual was. However, it developed into a very substantial task because the landed gentry of England and Ireland is littered with people called Vesey (or Vesci) or Fitzgerald or Vesey-Fitzgerald or Fitzgerald-and-Vesey or various other combinations of these names. However, with direction from Sharon Carberry and Declan Barron, and with help from the Local Studies Centre at the Clare County Library, and by going through the Cancellation Books for my great-grandparents' property in the Valuation Office in Dublin, I think I have found the Very Rev. Lord Fitzgerald and Vesey. Eureka !!!

The story is as follows:

In Burke's Landed Gentry of Ireland p.285 is devoted to FOSTER-VESEY-FITZGERALD formerly OF MOYRHEA. The Rt.Hon.James Fitzgerald had a second child who is listed as follows:

"2. Henry, 3rd LORD FITZGERALD and VESCI (Very Rev.), Dean of Kilmore, m. Elizabeth, dau. Of Standish Grady, of Elton, Co. Limerick, and had issue, several daus. He s. his brother William in the Irish honours of the family, and d.s.p.m.1 1860, when the title became extinct."

His date of death (1860) very nearly matches the dates in the Valuation Office Cancellation Books (1862, 1863, 1864) at which the property in Shanballysallagh passed to John Foster Vesey Fitzgerald.

There are two listings for John Foster Vesey Fitzgerald, i.e.

The RT. HON. JOHN FOSTER-VESEY-FITZGERALD, P.C., Colonial Sec. of Victoria, Australia, Actg. Gov. of Victoria, b. 1818, m. 1850, Emily (d. 27 Nov 1898), dau. of Rev. John Joseph Fletcher, D.D., of Dunran, Co. Wicklow, and d. 3 Jan 1900, leaving issue,.......

The (his) only son,

JOHN FOSTER-VESEY-FITZGERALD, of Moyrhea, Co. Clare, Barrister-at-law, b. 1864, educ. Keble Coll. Oxford (M.A.), m. 20 Nov 1900, Mary Edith (d. 1 apr 1922), elder dau. Of Col. Farquhar Glennie, of Clammer Hill, Haslemere, Surrey, and d. 2 Jan 1932, leaving issue,........

There is also a listing for

Letitia, d. unm. 1908

who was the daughter of James Foster of Moyriesk, d. 10 Dec 1893, and the granddaughter of John Leslie Foster, d. 1842. According to the Valuation Office Cancellation Books the ownership of the farm where my great-grandparents were tenants passed to Miss Letitia Foster in Fee, 3 The Hill, Monkstown, Dublin. This could well be the "Letitia, d. unm. 1908" mentioned above.

So I have very probably identified the landlord and his heirs and have an address of the last member of the family, albeit deceased, who owned the property before it passed in fee to my great-grandparents under the Land Purchase Acts 1881-1923. So now I can have a shot at finding that address (if it has not been cleared to make way for a motorway or some other track left by the Celtic Tiger).

Why am I telling this long story ? Well,
- to flag to Sharon and Declan that their help lifted me onto the right track
- to show that combining the Cancellation Books with Burkes Landed Gentry may allow the landlord to be identified and might POSSIBLY lead from there to the rent books (watch this space)
- because this landlord figures in several places in the Griffiths this information might interest other Clare family historians.

Paddy
Last edited by Paddy Casey on Sat Jul 28, 2007 3:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

smcarberry
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The Foster-Vesey-Fitzgerald saga

Post by smcarberry » Thu Jul 26, 2007 12:47 am

Paddy,

It is great to hear that you made progress with this. Thank you for the
kind mention but all I did was throw material at you to sort out. Glad
that you found something out of it all.

Not to demean your mighty efforts to make sense of a very complicated
succession to the involved property and your generous sharing of the
tale so that others may benefit, I think most landlords are easier to
trace than this set. But, I know of another Clare descendant who is also
trying to find the exact location of her ancestors' home in Fortane,
near Kilgory. I hope that she can be encouraged by this, since that too
may have the complication of the combinations of surnames among the
generations of landlords, with a line dying out and the property passing
to yet another complicated lineage.

Sduddy
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Re: Very Rev. Lord Fitzgerald and Vesey listed in Griffiths

Post by Sduddy » Sun Jun 19, 2011 10:18 am

Paddy,

Yes, the Fitzgeralds crop up as landlords very often, but, as you say, there seems to be different families, or branches, of Fitzgeralds.

Thomas Coffey, in his book, "The Parish of Inchicronan (Crusheen)", devotes a chapter (p. 104 and 105) to The Fitzgeralds of Lahardan, Inchicronan, and, as you probably know, the ruins of their house is just three steps from Shanballysallagh - if you go to the south-west tip, into Castlequarter and across the river (south of the castle), you are at the northmost tip of Lahardan. At the end of his piece, Thomas Coffey says, "The Fitzgerald association with Inchicronan ended with the burning of Lahardan House, the ruin of which can still be seen and is known locally as 'An Cabhal Mor' ", but I see that Lord Fitzgerald appears in Griffith's as the lessor of plots in several townlands in the parish of Inchicronan: Derrynagleragh, Gortaniska, Drummanneen etc..

I've looked at the Landed Estates website (where Thomas Coffey is duly acknowledged as a source), but I am still not sure of the connection between this Lord Fitzgerald and the Rev. Henry Vesey Fitzgerald, if any. I note that a Baron Fitzgerald died unmarried in 1843 and that his executor sold his Clare lands to Rev. Henry Vesey Fitzgerald, who seems to have been his brother and successor (why, as the successor, he had to buy them I won't bother to ask). I wonder if this Baron is the Lord Fitzgerald still being listed as lessor in Inchicronan, although dead, while his successor, the Rev. Henry, is being listed as the lessor in Kilkeedy?

Sheila

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Re: Very Rev. Lord Fitzgerald and Vesey listed in Griffiths

Post by pwaldron » Sun Jun 19, 2011 11:39 pm

I checked Kenneth Ferguson's book King's Inns Barristers 1868-2004 for the barrister mentioned above, but he does not appear, so must have been called the English bar but not the Irish bar. However, I found an entry for what must be another member of the same family which might be of interest:

`FITZGERALD, JAMES JOHN FOSTER VESEY (b. 15 Nov. 1846) eld. s. of James Thomas Lester Vesey Fitzgerald of Moyriesk, Co. Clare, and Henrietta Mahon; B.A. (T.C.D.); E[aster] 1868, M[iddle]. T[emple]. H[ilary] 1870. [Called] 1871 ... Munster Circuit. K.C., March 1904. Author of A Practical Guide to the Valuation of Rent in Ireland (Dublin, 1881).'

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Re: Very Rev. Lord Fitzgerald and Vesey listed in Griffiths

Post by Paddy Casey » Mon Jun 20, 2011 10:37 am

Thank you very much, Sheila and Paddy, for these inputs.

I'd love to know what happened to the estate documents when Letitia Foster died unmarried in 1908. Possibly they landed in a rubbish skip or ended up in the rubble of solicitors' offices when they were demolished to make way for a hypermarket. However, they may also be in one of the family residences or some other archive in Ireland or England. The house at 3, The Hill, in Monkstown, Dun Laoghaire still exists (i.e. there is a large house there on Google Earth) but I don't know who lives there now. A search of the http://www.valoff.ie site for the present occupier didn't turn up anything corresponding to this address, possibly because the properties in that area are being re-valued. If I didn't live 800 miles away I'd go there and knock on the door to find out.

Anyway, I'm still curious - even if my last posting on the subject was 4 years ago - because these estate papers, if they still exist, could possibly be a cornucopia of information on the history of the townlands in that area.

Paddy

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Re: Very Rev. Lord Fitzgerald and Vesey listed in Griffiths

Post by Sduddy » Tue Jun 21, 2011 8:54 am

As Rent Books are mentioned by Paddy Casey in his initial posting, I think I am not straying too far from the point in asking if the estate records mentioned by Terence Dooley in “The Land for the People” are the same kind of estate records that people refer to on this forum?
In his introduction he speaks of the difficulty of gaining access to Land Commission records. His book was published in 2004, and at that stage the records had not been microfilmed, although researchers were already asking for records, such as estate records, to be extricated from the material that the commission considered too sensitive.
He says, “the records branch of the Land Commission contains an estimated eleven million records including title documents, maps and related papers ….. such as title deeds – dating at least to the fifteenth century”
He says “According to P.J. Sammon [who wrote “In the Land Commission: A Memoir, 1933 – 1978”] the suggestion of microfilming the documents was mooted from time to time ‘with a view to conserving storage space’ but this never happened; instead, Sammon tells us, ‘the pruning of estate files was authorised in the late 1960s’…. what was pruned? How much was pruned? Has there been further pruning? Will there be pruning in the future?”

I know that releasing all of the records would start World War III, but can it be that the Land Commission (officially disbanded) is still holding estate records? Maybe they not the same kind of estate records as those referred to on this forum.

Sheila

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Re: Very Rev. Lord Fitzgerald and Vesey listed in Griffiths

Post by Paddy Casey » Tue Jun 21, 2011 12:50 pm

Sduddy wrote:........can it be that the Land Commission (officially disbanded) is still holding estate records?....
The Irish Land Commission (Dissolution) Act, 1992 ( http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1992/en/ ... .html#sec6 ) says "All records, deeds and other documents which immediately before the commencement of this Act are lodged with the Commission, or which but for this Act would have been required to be so lodged, shall be transferred to and lodged with the Minister who shall make such arrangements as he thinks proper for the custody thereof." I understand that the records ended up with the Department of Agriculture.

See also the attached Powerpoint presentation which states "Records Branch in Dublin holds about 8 million documents stored in 26,000 boxes". I don't know when that was. Maybe they have all been "pruned" (I squirm at at the idea but that's the way things are going nowadays).

Paddy
Attachments
Irish Land Commission.ppt
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Sduddy
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Re: Very Rev. Lord Fitzgerald and Vesey listed in Griffiths

Post by Sduddy » Wed Jun 22, 2011 7:37 pm

I am back to the Vesey Fitzgeralds, and can report that I have now read a most interesting article on the Vesey Fitzgerald family, by Joe Power, in The Other Clare, Vol. 14. (another source acknowledged in the landed estates website).

Most of his article is easy reading because it dwells on the careers of James Fitzgerald 1742 - 1835, and his son, William Fitzgerald, 1783 -1843, both very colourful. William died without a legitimate heir and was succeeded by his brother Henry. Henry is the one who introduced the Vesey bit (his wife’s name); his career was fairly uneventful. After Henry died in 1860 things start to get knotty: he had no son so it is his sister who inherits and she is the one who introduces the Foster bit (her husbands name is John Leslie Foster), so the name becomes Foster-Vesey-Fitzgerald.

She had three sons: William, John and James. This James (Foster-Vesey-Fitzgerald) was sheriff of Clare in 1868; he died in 1893. Shortly afterwards, in 1875, Moyreisk House was burned. The article ends with “The direct male line of the Vesey-Fitzgeralds died out in 1910”.

To fill in the intervening bit, I go to Paddy Casey’s information (above) and I can see that this James (sheriff etc) is the father of Laetitia, who, as Paddy says, dies unmarried in 1908, and I think he must also be the man located by Paddy Waldron in Kenneth Ferguson’s book, Kings Inns Barristers 1868 – 2004. The law was in the blood, it seems.

Pleased as I am to have figured all that, I am still at a loss as to how Lord Fitzgerald, the lessor of plots in Inchicronan,in 1855, was related to Rev. Vesey Fitzgerald, the lessor of plots in Kilkeedy.

Sheila

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Re: Very Rev. Lord Fitzgerald and Vesey listed in Griffiths

Post by Paddy Casey » Wed Jun 22, 2011 8:13 pm

Thanks very much for adding this info to the puzzle, Sheila.

One of the bits that mystifies me is the entry in Burke's Landed Gentry of Ireland p.285 devoted to FOSTER-VESEY-FITZGERALD which describes him as "....formerly OF MOYRHEA". Assuming that Burke's really meant Moyrhea (syn. Moyhree, Myrhee, Moyree, etc. etc) and not Moyriesk, and knowing that the Moyhree in Shanballysallagh is a little (now uninhabited village) with no records (that I know of) of a gentleman's seat there, I can't understand how he could be described as being "...formerly of Moyrhea". The only reason that comes to my mind for thinking that Moyrhee in Shanballysallagh might have harboured a member of the horse-and-carriage set is that Moyhree was known in the early 19th century as Camel Park (see Register of Freeholders, 1841). I've searched high and low for the origin of that curious name without success.

Paddy

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Re: Very Rev. Lord Fitzgerald and Vesey listed in Griffiths

Post by Sduddy » Thu Jun 23, 2011 5:10 pm

First I must admit a mistake: it was James Fitzgerald, and not his son, the Rev. Henry, who added in the Vesey bit.

Secondly, about Moyrhee: My theory is that this was the old name for a shapeless area, dating from a time when areas did not have to have a shape.
It does not appear on maps – not in Downs Survey 1658/9 and County 1685 and not in the Grand Jury Map 1787 – only the castle is named as Mahre castle.
But then in Griffith’s the very naming of the river, for the most part, as Moyree river, and a lake as Moyree lake (quite distant from the river, though maybe the underground tributary mentioned by Frank Brew* flows into it), and a townland as Moyree Commons all suggest a more general area (tacitly) acknowledged as Moyree.

If there was such an area (let us call it “The Moyree Basin”), it would have included the village of Moyree in Shanballysallagh.

And (if there was such an area) I can see why the Fitzgeralds of Lahardan would have chosen this beautifully vague address to be part of their title, thereby making themselves sound quite ancient and very lordly indeed.

Is that not a good theory?

Sheila

* “The Parish of Kilkeedy, a local history” compiled by Frank Brew.

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Re: Very Rev. Lord Fitzgerald and Vesey listed in Griffiths

Post by Paddy Casey » Thu Jun 23, 2011 8:20 pm

Sduddy wrote:Secondly, about Moyrhee: My theory is that this was the old name for a shapeless area, dating from a time when areas did not have to have a shape.
It does not appear on maps – not in Downs Survey 1658/9 and County 1685 and not in the Grand Jury Map 1787 – only the castle is named as Mahre castle.
But then in Griffith’s the very naming of the river, for the most part, as Moyree river, and a lake as Moyree lake (quite distant from the river, though maybe the underground tributary mentioned by Frank Brew* flows into it), and a townland as Moyree Commons all suggest a more general area (tacitly) acknowledged as Moyree.
If there was such an area (let us call it “The Moyree Basin”), it would have included the village of Moyree in Shanballysallagh.
Thanks for this input, Sheila. See also my notes at http://www.ourlibrary.ca/phpbb2/viewtop ... rhee#p3003

Moyree/Moyrhee/Myrhee could be derived from má + rí (i.e. the king's plain). The King's Plain certainly sounds credible, especially as the Earl of Thomond was proprietor of a castle there in the 1580's. However,... James Frost translates it as Mágh righe, the field of plunder. O'Donovan spells it Maothraighe. Maigh/Moy/Maoth is a field or a plain. Dinneen's dictionary lists ráig as the word for a hurried journey, visit or attack while Lane translates the word plunder as creach. This word creach is also used to describe a foray or (cattle) raid. Mághcreach and Mághraighe sound quite similar. (dixit Frances O'Gorman of the Clare Local Studies Centre in 2005).

The 'field of plunder' interpretation rang a bell with me. The townland of Addergoole is more or less co-located with the plain of the Moyrhee river in that part of the country. Our family seat* is just across the Moyrhee river from Addergoole. At the eastern end of Addergoole - about 25 minutes walk from our house if it weren't for the brambles - is the Lughid/Lochid bridge which carries the Tubber.-Ennis road across the narrow Moyrhee river. The bridge is noted in history as being the place where the Dalcassians were checked in their incursions into Connacht 17 centuries ago (see Frank Brew's book, p.18). So maybe quite a bit of plundering went on there. Maybe that's the explanation.

* 'family seat' sounds grand, doesn't it. It is a small abandoned 3-room farmhouse in a muddy field next to the river. Its thatched roof is long gone and has been replaced by corrugated iron which, fortunately, has kept the house intact and prevented it ending up like all the cabhals roundabout.
.....(if there was such an area) I can see why the Fitzgeralds of Lahardan would have chosen this beautifully vague address to be part of their title, thereby making themselves sound quite ancient and very lordly indeed.
This reminds me of an acquaintance who had a rather grand house with portraits of grand-looking people on the walls. People in ruffs wearing swords or moustachioed gents in Cavalier dress or old military uniforms with lots of medals. I and everyone else assumed that they were his ancestors. It turned out that they were old paintings he had picked up at flea markets and junk shops and he, a person of humble upbringing and no ancestors worth talking about, was happy to have people assume that he came from a long line of celebrated scholars, leading legal lights and decorated military.

Paddy

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Re: Very Rev. Lord Fitzgerald and Vesey listed in Griffiths

Post by Sduddy » Fri Jun 24, 2011 8:39 am

I have no theory at all on what "Moyrhee" means. As for Camel Park, I have never heard of this place. Was this a rendering into English of “Knockmullen” (the old name for the Shanballysallagh townland, according to Frank Brew, p 20)?

This sounds very farfetched until you read the explanation given by Brian O’Dalaigh* of how Irish names were translated into English: there were three main ways, one of which was to go for a similar sounding existing English name (example: O’Maoilbhearaigh became Marlborough).

I gather O’Donovan is credited with helping to stop the trend towards such "translation".

Sheila

* “ ‘Poet of a Single Poem’, Brian Merriman (c. 1749 – 1805)" in County Clare Studies, edited by Ciaran O Murchadha.

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Re: Very Rev. Lord Fitzgerald and Vesey listed in Griffiths

Post by Paddy Casey » Fri Jun 24, 2011 11:36 am

Sduddy wrote:I have no theory at all on what "Moyrhee" means. As for Camel Park, I have never heard of this place. Was this a rendering into English of “Knockmullen” (the old name for the Shanballysallagh townland, according to Frank Brew, p 20)?..........

Sheila
Camel Park: my cousin Christina (aka Teenie) O'Grady née Casey, (1927-2005), was born and raised in the village of Moyrhee in Shanballysallagh and was a living encyclopaedia of local history and genealogy. Her accounts were accurate and reliable. Whenever I checked one of her accounts or leads in a library or archive it was substantiated by a historical record. Every time. Teenie told me around 10 years ago that Camel Park was a name given to the village of Moyrhee but that she had no idea where the name came from. Subsequently, I found my one of my great-great-grandfathers, Denis Howard, who lived in the village of Moyrhee, listed as living in "Moirhee, called Camelpark" in the 1841 list of freeholders (see (see http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclar ... y_1841.htm). I doubt that Camelpark could be a corruption or mispronunciation of Moyrhee or vice-versa but am ready to be corrected.

Knockavullen: from my reading of the various sources I have little doubt that Knockavullen is a corruption of the Gaelic, Cnoc a mhuillean, the hill of the mill. There was indeed a mill there - it is marked on the old OS map - and it was on a little hill. The name Knockavullen, rather than Shanballysallagh, was used for the area in the Tithe Applotments of 1824.

Paddy

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Re: Very Rev. Lord Fitzgerald and Vesey listed in Griffiths

Post by Sduddy » Sun Jun 26, 2011 9:27 am

Well, here’s another go at “Camel Park”:

The OS 6 inch map shows “Windmill Hill” and a site marked “windmill in ruins” – as being in Castlequarter, but I think that Knockavullen must have been the name of an area that covered the southern part of what (in the drawing of townland boundaries for that map) became the townland of Shanballysallagh plus some of what came within the boundary drawn for the townland of Castlequarter.

Probably you have read “Windmill Hill in Kilkeedy”, by Frank Brew, in the other Clare, Vol. 15, p 52, and, anyway, your research has yielded the same information. He says “The tithe survey spells it as Knockavullen, and in the assessments of 1824 we find the name of Thomas Bolton assessed on 30 acres in the townland of Windmill Hill”.

If this is the first instance of Knockavullen given as “Windmill Hill”, might it have been Thomas Bolton who made that translation? - and might he also be the person who called his house “Camel Park”?

Whoever named “Camel Park” may have had some fond association with an area in Cornwall: Camel river valley, estuary etc. (In the parish of Crusheen, a house built by the Castlecrine Butlers was called “Boscobel” - in honour, I presume, of Boscobel House in Staffordshire, the famous hiding-place of Charles II).

It would be interesting to see if “Camel Park” is mentioned in the Vesey Fitzgerald estate records.

Sheila.

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Re: Very Rev. Lord Fitzgerald and Vesey listed in Griffiths

Post by Paddy Casey » Sun Jun 26, 2011 12:13 pm

Sduddy wrote:It would be interesting to see if “Camel Park” is mentioned in the Vesey Fitzgerald estate records.
Indeed. I presume that those estate records would have passed through the hands of the executors of the estate of Laetitia/Letitia Foster of 3, The Hill, Monkstown, Dublin when she died unmarried in 1908. Unfortunately I'm not up to speed on wills, probate and the searching of the associated archives. Maybe someone in this forum would know where to look for Miss Laetitia/Letitia Foster's will.

Paddy

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