Benjamin Bunbury, the first of the family to settle in County Carlow, was born in England in 1642. He was a grandson of Sir Henry Bunbury of Stanney. His father Thomas was the (only?) son of Sir Henry’s second marriage to Martha, daughter of Sir William Norris (Norreys) of Speke. Born in May 1606, the elder Thomas appears to have been just 14 years old when, on 2nd May 1620, he married Margaret Wilcocks, daughter of William Willcocks (sometimes Wilcox).[i] Margaret bore Thomas a son and four daughters before her death in October 1632 at the age of 37.[ii]
Benjamin’s mother was Thomas’s second wife, Eleanor, daughter of Henry Birkenhead, or Birkhead. The couple married in early 1634. Born on November 29th 1605, Eleanor was the fifth daughter of Henry Birkenhead of Huxley and Backford. Birkenhead seems to have been MP for Cheshire during the Commonwealth, indicating that he was favourable to Cromwell. He was also presumably father or at least a very close relative to the Henry Birkenhead (1617-1697), known as the Founder of the Oxford Chair of Poetry. There is mention of a Thomas Bunbury of Baliol College, D.D., who succeeded Dr. Joseph Denison in the vicarage of St.Mary's Church in Reading. However, he was driven out of Reading by the Presbyterians when that town came under their possession. Thomas fled to Oxford for protection, and was given a license under the public seal of the university to preach the word of God throughout England. There's a book called 'Henry Birkhead, Founder of the Oxford Chair of Poetry: Poetry and the Redemption of History' (Studies in British Literature) by Joan H. Pittock on Amazon that may explain more. Eleanor's sister Bridget Birkenhead married John Chetwode who was, I believe, a pal of Jonathan Swift, while another sister Mary Birkenhead married William Downes of Shrigley and Worth.
Thomas and Eleanor had four sons and six daughters. Their first son, Thomas, was born on 21st October 1634 and subsequently made his career as a tobacco baron in Virginia where he became ancestor to the Bumbreys, one of the oldest black families in the United States today. In 1636, Eleanor produced triplets, christened George, Susan and Alice, although all three died soon after birth.[i] Next was John Bunbury born 1637 who also died shortly after birth. Their eldest surviving daughter, Dulcibella, was born in 1638 and died aged 48 on 5th July 1686. Her will was proved by her only surviving sister, Diana, widow of Richard Bunbury.[ii] Dulcibella left her signet ring to her brother Benjamin Bunbury, later of Killerig, ancestor of the Bunbury family in Ireland. He was the elder twin of his brother Joseph, who also visited Ireland, marrying Hannah Desmineers of Dublin in 1666, but later returned to England. According to Ormerod, the twins were baptised at Stanney on 13th September 1642. The youngest child, Diana, was born on 23rd September 1644 and married her first cousin Richard Bunbury.[iii] Two more Bunburys, possibly Benjamin's brothers, who moved to Ireland at this point were William Bunbury who lived at Moyle, Co. Carlow, and John Bunbury (King's Inn, 18th May 1698) who lived at Mortarstown but these two need to be examined further. There is also talk of Benjamin's sister Diana settling in Ireland and marrying a Mr Berib, Esq, of Co. Carlow. We also find mention of a George Bunbury who married Ann Green in Dublin in 1668 and may have been father of Walter Bunbury, MP for Clonmines.
While Benjamin's elder brother Thomas Bunbury (1634 - 1680), made it to Virginia and became a prosperous tobacco baron, for Benjamin, it was a shorter voyage across the Irish Sea to County Carlow. He appears to have emigrated when he was in his early 20s. (1a) The Bunbury family have been connected to Ireland at least since Elizabethan times when Benjamin's great-grandfather Thomas Bunbury was appointed one of the executors of Sir Walter Raleigh's Lismore estate in 1585. In 1644, Benjamin's uncle, John Bunbury, grandson of Thomas of Lismore, went to Ireland as a chaplain, and was later registered as a Clerk of the Crown & Peace in Wexford. (1b). John's sisters, Elizabeth (b. 1595) and Anne, were married to John Richardson, Bishop of Ardagh, and Sir John Keningham, both key players in the new post-Elizabethan Ireland. (1c) John's elder brother Sir Henry Bunbury, was stripped of his title and lands for supporting the Royalist cause during Cromwell's Dictatorship in the 1650s. While his sons remained in England, Sir Henry's nephews followed a growing trend and emigrated.
In 1669, a year after the death of his father in England, Benjamin Bunbury obtained lands at Killerig in the parish of Nurney in County Carlow. He appears to have leased them from either Philip, Lord Wharton, or the Earl of Arran, younger brother of James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde.
In the patent rolls of Charles II enrolled on 15th November 1669, Killerig is described as ‘a castle, messuage, mill and lands [of Killerick, measuring 489 acres.’. Together with 81 acres at nearby Ardenhugh, that mad 923 acres, one rood and nine perches which seemingly belonged to Philip, Lord Wharton, and was rented for £11, 10 shillings and ten pence half-penny annually. Wharton was a Puritan and a favourite of Oliver Cromwell. In 1676 he was imprisoned in the Tower of London and later (in 1685) fled the country when King James II came to the throne. He spent his exile at the court of William of Orange and thus returned to favour after William seized the crown from James II. His son was created Marquess of Catherlogh (ie: Carlow) but a grandson Philip, 1st Duke of Wharton, allied to the Jacobite Butlers and bankrupted himself through his personal debauchery and other excesses, including the Hellfire Club which he is said to have founded. It is not yet know if or how Benjamin Bunbury was connected to the Wharton family.
According to Lewis, Killerig (aka Killarge, or Killerick) was 'a preceptory of Knights Templars' founded in the reign of King John by Sir Gilbert de Borard (or Bocard), one of Strongbow's allies. The name apparently translates as the Church of Urk, or St Tegra, and anyone so inclined can celebrate St Urk’s Day on October 27th. That said, Google has never heard of St Urk (Eric perhaps?) and St Tegra barely rates a mention either. In 1187 Sir Gilbert was entrusted with Waterford after its conquest and, by way of a reward, ‘The Song of Dermot’ says Strongbow gave him ‘Ofelmeth by the Sea’ which Orpen suggested was Southern Offeimy, the O’Murchada’s lands [1] Sir Gilbert founded the Commandery of St John at ‘Killergy’ on the River Slaney some 5 miles from Carlow Town; some remains still existed at Friarstown in the 1907 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. The same publication quotes Ware as maintaining it was a preceptory founded for Knights Hospitallers by Gilbert de Borard, while the Irish Architectural Society say it was ‘a Receptory for Knights Templar’ so who knows![2]
Writing in 1818, the Abbe de Vertot maintained it was founded ‘in the thirteenth century’ by Gilbert as a commandry of St John the Baptist – ‘first templars, since hospitallers’ and that it was then in the possession of Sir Gerard Aylmer.[3] The implication here is that it began as a Templar house but, after their ‘extinction; it was granted to the Knights of St John of Jerusalem. Once the wealthiest Order in Europe, the Knights Templar were rather controversially excommunicated by the Pope in 1308. Edward II duly issued instructions for the arrest of all such Knights and the seizure of their property. ‘The instructions given to the English sheriffs were that they should arrest all the Templars within their district, seize all their land, cattle and goods, and to cause an inventory of the same to be made in presence of the warden of the place, whether Templar or not, and of respectable persons in the neighbourhood; to place said goods and chattels in safe keeping; to keep the Templars in safe custody in some convenient place, without subjecting them to prison or irons, and to preserve the charge of the goods and chattels till they received instructions as to their final disposal’. [4] A writ was directed to John Wogan, Lord Justice of Ireland, commanding him to take similar action as soon as he had a chance to liaise with the exchequer and local sheriffs. He was urged to move quickly before the Templars of Ireland got wind of the fate befalling their brethren in England. The establishments of Killerig and Ballymoon were then suppressed. 'In 1331, the Irish burnt the church, with the priest and eighty persons who had assembled in it ; but the Pope ordered the Archbishop of Dublin to excommunicate all the persons engaged in the perpetration of this atrocious act, and to lay their lands under an interdict'. In 1837, 'the parish comprises 3841 statute acres, as applotted under the tithe act, and valued at £3405 per annum, which, with the exception of about 100 acres, is good arable and pasture land'. (Lewis). The preceptory was granted by Queen Elizabeth to Mary Aylmer, ’the wife of Gerard Aylmer’ on 12th December 1590.[5] One wonders did Benjamin acquire the property directly from the Aylmers.
Today there is only one wall of the monastery still standing, complete with the original slit window. It stands opposite the house where Seamus McGrath was born and raised which is now used as a cattle shed. It is clear that Seamus feels a strong connection with this location. He runs his hands along walls cemented with ox-blood and points out the narrow slits through which defenders let loose their deadly arrows a thousand years ago. Alongside the wall are a series of bins where his father Jim used to store meal for his cattle. During the Troubles, Jim kept his single barrels shotgun stashed in the monastery so that the IRA wouldn’t seize it. Jim took the chimney down because it was leaking and about to collapse. Seamus himself used some of the granite from the building to construct his own house. There is still no preservation order on the monastery despite the fact nobody has lived there since the Knight’s Hosiptallers left. Elsewhere there are the two wells down which ancient monks lowered buckets for fresh water. ‘They say there’s treasure down there but it’s a long way down to find out,’ laughs Seamus. An ambitious but aged priest arrived with a metal detector one day but was seemingly so hard of hearing that he failed to notice anytime his machine began bleeping. It is not so long since somebody sighted a ghost, clad in a hooded cassock, with a puck on his back, heading up the Friarstown Road. ‘One of the old stock’, smiles Seamus.
In 1669, the same year he aquired Killerig, Benjamin married Mary Sheppard, widow of Matthew Sheppard of Owles in Lancashire. (2a) The couple had five sons.
Their eldest son, Joseph Bunbury (d. 1731), settled at Johnstown, just outside Carlow town, married Hannah Hinton and was ancestor to the Bunburys of Johnstown.
Their second son Thomas Bunbury (d. 1743) married Rose Jackson and was ancestor to the Bunburys of Cloghna & Cranavonane.
Their third son William Bunbury (d. 1710) settled at Lisnavagh outside Rathvilly in County Carlow and was ancestor to the Bunburys and McClintock Bunburys of Lisnavagh. The original lease on Lisnavagh was granted by the Earl of Arran (brother of Lord Ormonde) to Benjamin Bunbury of Killerick in 1676. Benjamin also had the lease of Tobinstown which, on 16 June 1683, he leased to a Catholic soldier named John Baggott. Baggott was later attainted for serving the Catholic King James II. Many of Baggott's Carlow estates were acquired in 1702 by the Right Honourable Philip Savage, Chancellor of the Exchequer in Ireland. Meanwhile, on 20th December 1695, Benjamin Bunbury assigned the Lisnavagh lease to his son, William Bunbury. On 21st December 1695 - the Winter Solstice - Benjamin also assigned the lease of his Tobinstown lands to his 24-year-old son William. According to an inscription above the main staircase of Lisnavagh House (apparently etched on a relict of the original house), the first Lisnavagh House was built in 1696 - midway through the reign of William of Orange. The fee farm grant of Lisnavagh by the Duke of Ormonde was dated 22nd February 1708 with Benjamin named as the grantee; the annual rent was £105.5s.4d. I believe it was granted to William Bunbury I and his heirs in fee farm indentures of lease and release dated 21st and 28th February 1708 respectively.
Their fourth son Matthew Bunbury (d. 1733) moved to Tipperary and was ancestor to the Bunburys of Kilfeacle, including Lord Roberts.
Their fifth and youngest son Benjamin Bunbury inherited Killerig and married Hester Huband of Dublin. He died on 3rd January 1715, aged 39. (2b)
Benjamin and Mary's daughter Diana Bunbury (d. 1728) married Captain Thomas Barnes (d. 1710), one of the Duke of Ormonde's officers, and lived at Grange, Co. Kilkenny.
There may have been another daughter Deborah Bunbury who was married in 1685 to Matthew Humfrey, forebear of the Humfreys of Cavanacor. Deborah bore at least five sons, including Matthew (who died unmarried in 1744) and John Humfrey (who was married in 1747 to Elizabeth, daughter of John Geale of Mount Geale, Co. Kilkenny, and died in 1758). Deborah was married secondly to her cousin Thomas Bernard of Clonmulch. (2c)
The Bunburys in Ireland presumably benefited from the appointment of Benjamin's cousin Sir Henry Bunbury, head of the English branch, to be Commissioner of the Revenue for Ireland during the reign of Queen Anne. Sir Henry was a close colleague of the Duke of Ormonde, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, with whom he shared great apprehension at the prospect of the German House of Hanover occupying the British throne once Queen Anne had died. Like many of their contemporaries, they gave their support to the cause of the Old Pretender; like so many other Jacobites they discovered they had backed the wrong horse, and both men were summarily dismissed from their posts. The Bunbury allegiance to the Ormondes stood through until 1715 when, following the failure of the Jacobite Rebellion, the 2nd Duke fled into permanaent exile in France.
Captain Barnes service to the Ormonde's and Benjamin's rent of Killerig from the 1st Duke's son highlight the importance of the House of Butler to the Bunbury family at this time. The 1st Duke had been the first Irish magnate to move away from the concept of power deriving from sheer military might to something consideraly more intriuging. Sir Henry Bunbury's loyalty to the Stuarts during the English Civil War presumably stood them in good favour when the 1st Duke was appointed Viceroy of Ireland by Charles II following the Restoration of the Monarchy. By the 1690s, the Bunburys were part of the 2nd Duke of Ormonde’s extended cirle, men loyal to the House of Butler who could be installed as useful political allies in the new local governmnt system that folowed the Glorious Revolution. However, while he offered advancement, the 2nd Duke’s power base was simulatenously crumbling. His vast estate was being ‘devoured by debt’ (on account of his grandfather's expenses) and his inheritance ‘encumbered and mortgaged in every part, inefficentloy managed, top heavy with superfluous personnel'. (3). Renting land from the Duke was not a particularly costly business. Indeed, one of the reasons the Ormonde estates were so profitless was their common practice of ‘abatements of rent to be granted and arrears indulged’. Collection of rents was slow ‘on the pretext that the depridation of both sides in the Jacobite wars had destroyed stock, damaged agricultural production and made ready money more scarce’. The 2nd Duke and his wife were both lively Stuarts, love-making, gaming and spending money around the clock. In due course, their lifestyle and the costs of mainatining so many houses and castles obliged the Ormondes to sell off some of their property. One wonders were these the sort of men who apparently raised their glasses 'to the little gentleman in black velvet' after William III's horse slipped on a molehole and threw the King on the ground with such force that he broke his collarbone and died a few days later.
Benjamin Bunbury Senior died aged 64 on April 4th 1707. In 1916, the noted historian Lord Walter FitzGerlad found ‘a small fragment of a limestone slab, now placed on a Heap of stones' on which he could make out the words Killer[rig] and [Benja]min Bunbu[ry]. However, he said the remainder of the headstone had already 'quite disappeared'. It is believed the stone was moved from its original grave to make way for the building of the Frenchman's rectory for Reverend Benjamin Daillon at the western side of the churchyard. FitzGerald added that Benjamin's tomb-slab 'exists' in St. Mary’s churchyard, Castle Street, Carlow . According to the Bunbury Papers in the PPP, this is the oldest recorded tombstone at Saint Mary's. The inscription below, taken from Ryan, claims he was 44 but this is surely incorrect:
'IN : HOPE : OF : A : BLESSED : RESURRECTION : HERE : LIETH : THE : BODIES : OF : BENJAMIN : BUNBURY : THE : FATHER : AND : BENJAMIN : BUNBURY : THE : SON : BOTH : OF : KILLERIG : ESQRS : THE : FORMER : DEPARTED : THIS : LIFE : APRIL : YE : 4TH : 1707 : AGED : 44 : YEARS : THE : LATER : JANY : YE : 3 : 1715 - 16 : AGED : 39.' (2d)
With thanks to Michael Purcell, Jean Casey, Hilary Jarvis, Seamus & Fiona McGrath, William Bunbury and Peter Bunbury.
1. (a) There is a record of Benjamin and his twin brother Joseph being christened/baptised on 13.9.1642 at Stanney - this according to Ormerod.
1 (b) The name of John Bunbury's wife is unknown; they had two sons, Henry and Thomas. The elder son, Henry Bunbury, died unmarried in Dublin in 1682. The younger son, Thomas Bunbury (1628 – 1682) lived at Ballyseskin. In 1668, Thomas married Anne Codd, daughter of Nicholas Codd of Castletown. The marriage produced at least six sons. The eldest, John Bunbury, died unmarried. The third son Thomas married and had a daughter, Anne, who married Colonel Philip Savage of Kilgibbon. The sixth son, Henry Bunbury was father to Lettice Bunbury (who married Henry Archer of Ballyhoge), Anne Bunbury (who married Cadwallader Edwards of Ballyhire) and Sarah Bunbury (who married Benjamin Hughes of Hilltown). The names Hughes and Archer return again in the last paragraph below relating to the Lockwood marriage.
1 (d) As to John and Sir Henry's other sisters, Mary Bunbury married Thomas Draper of Walton and Martha Bunbury died in 1664.
2 (a) Mary is sometimes described as Elizabeth. She appears to have lived to a considerable age - according to Burke's Landed Gentry of Ireland 1912, her will was proven in 1741. There is a possibility that Mary has been confused with Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Philip Shepherd, Esq, who, according to Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry (1847), married secondly a Mr. Bunbury. This Elizabeth was previously married to Charles Bernard (b. 1615), a grandson of Francis Bernard Esq of Abington in Northamptonshire who accompanied Cromwell to Ireland and settled in Co. Carlow. Their son Thomas Bernard (1665-1720) of Oldtown and Clonmulsh Co. Carlow married his step-sister Deborah Bunbury and had three sons - Charles Bernard, Franks Bernard and Joseph Bernard [father of William Bernard, 1726- 1807] – and a daughter, Ann Bernard. Deborah is vatiously described as a daughter of Charles Franks, Esq, of Clapham, and as a daughter of Benjamin Bunbury of Killerig, so this area is riddled with inconsistences. It is possible that Elizabeth Bernard then married Benjamin Bunbury and bore his large family before his death in 1708. After the death of Mr Bunbury, Elizabeth (nee Shepherd) was married thirdly to Richard Humphreys Esq. Certainly there seems to have been much marital alliances between the Bunbury, Shepherd, Bernard and Humphreys families at this time.The Joseph Bunbury referred to as Thomas’s ‘brother’ would thus have been Thomas Bernard's stepbrother, Joseph Bunbury, who settled at Johnstown. Thomas Bernard died circa 1720.[1]
The prerogative will of Thomas Bernard of Clonmulsk, Co. Catherlogh, Esq. 25 Feb. 1720.: Narrate, 1 ¼ p., 19 May 1721. Wife Deborah Bernard. Eldest son Charles Bernard. Second son Franks Bernard. Third son Joseph Bernard. Daughter Ann Bernard. “His brothers Joseph Bunbury and Phillip Bernard, Esqrs." The will lists Harry Dungan, Redmond and Daniel Phelan, tenants. In terms of land it refers to:
"Ballypic[k]as, Clarbarracum, Bolybegg, Queen's Co.
Drumselig, Balliglishine, Queen's Co.
Demore Bog. Bellclogh. Queen's Co. Ballybar
Clonmulsk, Co. Catherlogh.
The witnesses were William Nesbitt, Catherlogh, clerk, Thomas Doyle, Garryhunden, Co. Catherlogh, mason, Bartholomew Newton, Bushellstowne, Co. Catherlogh, gent.
Memorial witnessed by: Robert Wallis, Dublin, notary public, Isaac Walsh.
On behalf of Franks Bernard (seal) Joseph Bernard (seal)
Ref Eustace, P. Beryl. Abstracts of wills / Govt document 1954
2 (b) Benjamin Bunbury II of Killerig, Co Carlow, was the youngest of the five sons born to Benjamin and Mary Bunbury, the first of the family to settle in Co. Carlow. He appears to have inherited Killerig upon the death of his father on April 4th 1707. His elder brothers were by then established at Johnstown, Cloghna, Lisnavagh and Kilfeacle which made sense. In 1702, Benjamin joined his brothers in signing the Act of Resumption. In April 1705 he was married to Hester Huband, daughter of Edmund Huband of Dublin. They had one son, Benjamin, and at least three daughters, Mary, Hester and Hannah. Benjamin II died ion January 3rd 1716 aged 39 and was buried alongside his father in Carlow. He was succeeded at Killerig by his only son, Benjamin. Benjamin III married Mary and had issue Benjamin, Anne and Mary before his death in 1747. At least one of these Benjamin's was a lawyer. There is now a Ramada Hotel at the Killerig, complete with Bunbury Suite and Sir Harry's Bar.
2c. For Humfrey family, see A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain, Bernard Burke, Harrison, 1862). It is possible that this Deborah who married Thomas Bernard was, in fact, Deborah Franks, referred to in 2(a) above.
2d. "Journals for the Preservation of the Memorials for the Dead", Vol, Issue 1916, CARLOW, page 18; John Ryan's "History & Antiquities of the County of Carlow" - Page 331.
3. D.W Hayton, Dependence, Clientage & Afiinity in ‘The Dukes of Ormonde’