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The Family of Turtle Bunbury
Turtle's paternal grandfather was Bill Rathdonnell, aka Major William McClintock Bunbury, 4th Baron Rathdonnell of Lisnavagh, Co. Carlow, a free-wheeling soldier-huntsman descended from the McClintocks of Scotland and the Bunburys of Cheshire.
His fathers' mother was the remarkable Pamela Drew, a calico printer's daughter from the English Lake District who became official war artist to the RAF in the 1950s.
His mothers' father was Kilkenny farmer Gilbert Butler, one of the last of the Anglo-Irish gentlemen, sometime President of the Royal Dublin Society and brother to the essayist Hubert Butler.
His mothers mother was Noreen Colley, born into a fun-loving dynasty, kinsfolk of the Duke of Wellington, who succeeded to Corkagh Park, Clondalkin, Co. Dublin, following the death in action of two sons in the First World War. Her uncle Eddie Colley went down on Titanic and her first cousins included the writer Elizabeth Bowen and the grandmother of actors Ralph and Joseph Fiennes.
In these pages, Turtle looks at his forbears and the families with whom they were inter-married and tries to work out just how genetically doomed he really is.
History Sub-sections
McClintock 1597 - Present
- The McClintcoks were a minor Scottish clan roaming
the banks of Lough Lomond in Argyll. In 1597, Alexander McClintock made his
way to Ireland and settled in Donegal where his sons and grandsons prospered.
A branch of his family moved to Drumcar in County Louth from where John McClintock,
MP, married Jane Bunbury, and set the McClintock Bunbury family in motion. Their
eldest son John was raised to the peerage as 1st Baron Rathdonnell in 1868.
The most celebrated McClintock was the 1st Baron's cousin, Admiral Sir Francis
Leopold McClintock, who became a well-known Arctic explorer in Victorian age.
Bunbury 1066 - Present
- The Bunbury family descend from the Norman baron de
St Pierre who came to England with William the Conqueror's armies in 1066. Granted
lands at St. Boniface's Borough (aka Bunbury) in Cheshire, his descendents prospered
under both Lancastrian and Yorkist. Henry Bunbury was knighted by King James
in 1603 but his son's loyalty to Charles I brought disaster to the family -
Sir Henry was imprisoned and stripped of his titles and lands. His children
began to look elsewhere for places to reside. One brother headed for Virginia
and another for Ireland. Turtle descends from the latter branch but it is his
intention to gradually include in these pages a potted history of the whole
Bunbury tree from root to leaf.
Lisnavagh 1669 - Present
- The Bunbury family have been settled at Lisnavagh
in County Carlow since1669. Nearly 340 years and eleven generations later, Lisnavagh
has evolved into a gorgeous 1,000 acre estate of extensive woodlands, parkland,
farmland, gardens and pleasure grounds, centred around a Gothic Revival mansion
and an early Victorian farmyard. The latter was built by Captain William McClintock
Bunbury, a man who had chased slave ships around South America in his youth
and met Charles Darwin in Brazil. His son Thomas succeeded as 2nd Baron Rathdonnell
in 1879.
Related Families
- Among the families to be reviewed here are those of
Butler, Drew, Stronge, Trench, Colley, Bruen, Watson, Ievers, Dalgety, Colvin
and Bramwell.
General Tales
- Random tales on the family clan from around and about.