Grangemore House,

West Meath.

Documenting our Heritage

Research and write up by Mark Thomas:

Early history:

       The Grangemore estate at Ratharney extends to more than 800 hectares.  Historically it has been owned by a series of different families.  At the time of the 1641 rebellion, it was in the possession of Ulrick, 5th Earl of Clanricarde then one of the most important men in Ireland.  The premier Catholic Irish peer and head of the MacWilliam Burkes, his ancestors had first arrived in Ireland as the de Burgos, Anglo-Norman knights in 1185.  According to Michael MacMahon's "Portumna Castle and its Lords" (2000), Ulick was born sometime before 8th December 1604 at Clanricarde House in London's Queen St..  He had succeeded his father Richard, 4th Earl of Clanricarde in the family estates in 1635 and enjoyed a massive £29,000 a year rental, mostly from his large estates in co. Galway.  Ulick wrote in 1642: 

            "Can it be imagined that a stranger should come into this county of Galway and think to compass his ends, and draw the people to him, if he does not profess to love the house of Clanricarde?"

        When the rebellion broke out and the Catholic Confederacy was set up Ulick was in a serious dilemma.  As the King's Governor of the Town and County of Galway he attempted to keep the area neutral and to protect both Protestant and Catholic.  He garrisoned Clonfert, Meelick and Clontuskert and his own seat at Portumna.  But even some of his relatives joined the Confederacy.  People on both sides of the conflict questioned Ulick's loyalty.  Some maintained his stance was mainly to protect his own property and status.  However, in July 1644 he was made commander-in-chief of the forces of the English Crown in Connaught.

       When the Royalists were militarily defeated in England and King Charles I executed on 30th January 1649 it was only a matter of time before Ulick and his fractious allies experienced the full force of Cromwell's vindictiveness.  By this time the Royalists and the Catholic Confederacy were in military alliance against the Parliamentary forces.  Cromwell landed in Dublin on 15th August 1649 as Lord Lieutenant and General of a 20,000 strong Parliamentary army.  By the end of 1650 he had smashed resistance in the rest of Ireland though not in Connaught.  Here Ulick's weakness as a leader - that he was more of a diplomat than an inspired military commander was exposed.  On 6th December, when the Royalists' leader the Earl of Ormonde left Ireland, Ulick was made Charles II's Deputy.  He and his forces fought bravely but the loss of Portumna and then of Galway city in May 1652 forced them to retreat to Sligo town.  Eventually, Ulick was forced to surrender on co. Donegal's Isle of Carrick on 28 June 1652. 

      Ulick was now stripped of his post of Viceroy.  The cash-strapped Cromwellian authorities decided to try to break the power of the Catholic aristocracy and gentry while also paying off their own soldiers.  They did this through expropriating Royalists' land and property - and especially that of Catholics and granting it to their soldiers.  In 1850 the genealogist Sir Bernard Burke wrote that now: 

       "....the work of confiscation was rapidly going on in Ireland, and the political economists of that day no doubt argued as favourably of the introduction of a new proprietary into that country, by the summary means then in vogue, as do the state doctors of the present time of the same process now in progress through the slower but no less sure agency of the "Encumbered Estates Act".* 

 

Ulick could not hope to escape, and Cromwell's officials took away his grand Castle at Portumna and its 4,864 acre estate by an order of 2nd March 1657.  They were settled on Cromwell's younger son Henry.  The Earl now had to leave Ireland with six servants equipped with arms and ammunition for protection.  He went to his English estate at Somerhill in Kent and died there in July that year.

       In April 1662, the wheel of fortune turned for the Clanricarde family.  Charles II returned the confiscated Clanricarde estates to Ulick's cousin, Richard, 6th Earl of Clanricarde by a special declaration.  In co. Westmeath by an indenture of 2nd May 1670 William, 7th Earl of Clanricarde conveyed to Sir Patrick Mulledy and his heirs the manor of Rathweir.  The advowson of the church of Killucan was kept in the Earl's possession and that of 'heirs male of his body'.**  Sir Patrick Mulledy of Robertstown co. Meath (Charles II's Ambassador to Spain in 1666) was a member of an ancient Gaelic sept who had been long in the area.  After this the Catholic Mulledy (or O'Mulledy) family had more good fortune.  Sir Anthony Mulledy became resident for Spain's king Philip IV.  Sir Patrick's nephew Redmond Mulledy was made High Sheriff of Longford in James II's reign.  However when James II fled in 1688 after just three years as King bad times returned for them.  

      In 1691 Grangemore was seized from its holders Redmond Mulledy and his brother Hugh Mulledy of Rathwire.  As Catholics and supporters of James II they were natural targets for attainder and forfeiture.  They had held a large amount of land in the Barony of Farbill giving an income valued at £576 per annum in September 1697.  According to the 19th century historian James D'Alton the Commissioner for Forfeited Estates sold Redmond and Hugh's lands to two men.  They were Chichester Phillips of Drumcondra co. Dublin and Robert Pakenham of Bracklyn.  Packenham apparently got the larger part of these lands.     

       Grangemore, worth £71 per annum was assigned to Thomas Keightley (1650? - 1719).  He had originally come from Hertfordshire and was brother-in-law of the Earl of Clarendon.  An erstwhile supporter of James II whose gentleman-usher he had been, he had been deputy-treasurer of Ireland.  He now enjoyed the favour of the new Williamite regime.  An Irish privy councillor, he was made a Commissioner of the Irish Revenue in 1692.  He was also given Portlick Castle at Glasson, near Athlone.  The Calendar of Treasury Books* records that the Lords Justices of Ireland were ordered by Royal Warrant to 'remit and release' £529. 11s. 6d owed to the Crown by Keightley on April 27th 1696.  This was for his custodianship of a number of forfeited estates for three years from May 1st 1691 onwards.  A schedule of these lands included Grangemore.  Also on this list were the lands of Ballynegappagh and Kippoge in the Barony of Carbury in co. Kildare confiscated from the great soldier Sir Patrick Sarsfield.

       Keightley went on to become a Lord Justice of Ireland in 1702 and in 1713 received a £1000 per annum pension for services to the Revenue in Ireland.  However, it is clear from an indenture in the Killadoon Papers (in the National Library of Ireland) dated 3rd November 1717 that by this time there was a new holder of Grangemore.  This document was drawn up between Richard Geering, Alexander Nesbitt of Dublin and Thomas Nesbitt of Grangemore, co. Westmeath.  Thomas Nesbitt (d. 1750) had married Susan Lyons of Ladestown, Mullingar in 1701 and clearly had considerable interests in co. Westmeath.  However, despite Thomas' profusion of children - 8 sons and 9 daughters - all but three of them from his second marriage in 1713 to Jane Cosbie of Stradbally - none seem to have made a strong impression at Grangemore.  His family seem to have focussed on their lands in co. Cavan.  Instead the Fetherstons (who confusingly also called themselves Fetherstonhaugh or Fetherston Haugh) held Grangemore from at least 1749 onwards.   

      The new family at Grangemore were Catholics who had settled in Ireland after the head of their family, Sir Timothy Fetherstonhaugh, a Royalist had been executed at Chester by the Parliamentary forces after the Battle of Worcester in 1651.  The first of them to settle in Ireland was Cuthbert of Philipstown, co. Offaly (1621-1693).  He was the son of Ralph of Hethrage Cleugh in co. Durham.  According to www. bomford.net, Ch. 10.7:   'The Fetherston Family',  Cuthbert of Philipstown's eldest son was John (b. 1651) of Castlekeeran and Rath, co. Meath.  The eldest of  John's four sons was another Cuthbert Fetherston (1678-1744).  In 1726 Cuthbert settled at Dardistown in co. Meath and married Mary Magan, daughter of Richard Magan of Emoe, near Ballymoe, Westmeath.  Cuthbert and Mary had five sons and two daughters.  Two of his sons, Thomas and Richard had a part in the story of Grangemore. 

       Richard (still alive in 1762) was the third son of Cuthbert Fetherston.  He is mentioned in a notice in the 'General Advertiser' of July 18th 1749.  This says that in the previous week Richard Fetherston of Grangemore 'an eminent attorney of his Majesty's Court of Exchequer, was married to Miss Nancy Ledwith, Daughter of Edward Ledwith of Ledwithstown...'  His bride had a £1000 a year fortune and came from a well-off Catholic family from co. Longford.  The Ledwiths had built the beautiful small mansion of Ledwithstown (designed by Richard Castle) in 1746.  Richard and Anne's marriage produced two daughters, another Anne who never married and Frances who married Richard Allen of Clondallen in April 1776.  However, neither of these daughters seem to have held Grangemore.  It passed to a son of Richard's elder brother Thomas of Bracklyn co. Westmeath.  This Thomas Fetherston had married Mary Nugent (only child and heir of Oliver Nugent of Derrymore) and died in 1776.  Thomas and Mary had a son John Fetherston.  John now obtained Grangemore.  He was hunting in the area around it by 1800, according to Dease's History of the Westmeath Hunt (1898).

*  J. Bernard Burke:  'Anecdotes of the Aristocracy And Episodes of Ancestral Story'  2nd series Vol.1 (1850) pp.222-223   

** A long report on the case of the Bishop of Meath v. the Marquis of Winchester (1836) contains details of the Clanricarde estates in co. Westmeath.  This was reported in "New Reports of cases heard in the House of Lords, on Appeals and Writs of Error; and Decided During the Session 1836" vol. 10 by Richard Bligh, London (1838)pp.330-482.   

For later history of the Grangemore estate see < here >

Many thanks to Mark Thomas for his excellent research and write-up of Grangemore House.

Mark can be contacted through Mark@AbandonedIreland.com