The Warrens of Warrenscourt, County Cork: A look at a family’s social and political beliefs

Aidan O’Sullivan
 

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INTRODUCTION

Ireland was a country that for many centuries was a land in turmoil. It was a land which for two to three centuries was almost constantly at war. This was in no small part due to the actions of the English monarchy, which sought to exert its influence over its neighbour. It was the time of the plantations both north and south and the inevitable conflict this brought as planters tried to settle the land and the native Irish tried to either live alongside their new neighbours or rebelled and tried to resist the English crown. This led to confiscations, which were inevitably overturned as the fortunes of the native Irish leaders waxed and waned. This particular period in our history came to its violent climax with the wars of the seventeenth century and the campaigns of Oliver Cromwell in the 1640’s. It was after this that the final and most successful plan for confiscations and domination by the minority Protestant elite were put in place, a plan so successful that even with the returning of the Catholic monarchy it could not be unpicked.

This was the era of the adventurer, the soldier who was trying to advance in life. Ireland in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries was a land where a fortune could be acquired. There were vast swathes of land available and the local population had been sufficiently depleted by war and famine. It was at this time that the Warrens, like many other settler families, came to Ireland and established themselves as the landed elite. They became the Ascendancy and managed to maintain their position through careful marriage and harsh application of the rule of law through the penal laws. This position was maintained for over three hundred years, even with the reliefs that came for Catholics during the eighteenth century. This position of dominance only came to an end with the growing social development of successive governments of the late nineteenth century.  Its eventual collapse was brought about by a number of factors; these factors ranged from financial mismanagement, to loss of land due to government policy, to a growing nationalism within Ireland, which led to the establishment of a new country and the isolation of these once powerful figures.

This dissertation will try to explore how a family such as the Warrens set about establishing themselves in Ireland. It will look at the different generations of the family and set out how this family grew in power and influence as the centuries wore on. It will look at politics and marriages and try to demonstrate how a plantation family achieved its position of

 

Power, not only in its local sphere of influence, but also nationally. It will also try to explore how the family dealt with issues such as law and order and events such as the famine of the mid-nineteenth century. The final years of the family’s time in Ireland will be investigated, as also its eventual demise. It is hoped that this research will give a fair and balanced account of the Warren family and their time in Cork.

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LITERATURE REVIEW

The landed gentry or the Ascendancy as they were known played a large and pivotal role in Ireland’s history. Their influence stretches back through the mists of time to the Plantations of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and continued through to the early years of the twentieth century. There have been many books written on the subject and in this review I intend to see what has been written on this particular class. As stated earlier the Ascendancy ruled Ireland for themselves and in his book The Irish Country House[1] by Peter Somerville-Large, the author has a broad look at the landed class, their power, laws, houses and customs. The book shows how by the 1630’s the gentry are building large houses which are saddling them with huge debt.

Sir Arthur Brereton on visiting Janemount House in Carrick Fergus in 1635 states ‘it is a most stately building …  you may observe the inconveniences of a great building, which require an unreasonable charge to keep them in repair, so as they are a burden to the owners of them.’[2] This was to be a recurring theme throughout the next two and a half centuries as every new generation built or refurbished, thus loading debt onto existing debt.  He also discusses the gentry’s lifestyle which from the 1670’s becomes one of lavish meals, drinks and hunting. He also talks about the family charge. These charges arose out of marriage settlements. They provided portions for younger members of the family and a pension for the bride if she outlived her husband. These charges were secured on the estate thus adding debt with each generation.

In Twilight of the Ascendancy[3]  Mark Bence-Jones, the author looks at the Ascendancy from the 1870’s up to the middle of the twentieth century. In this book we see how the Ascendancy’s reputation has been damaged by the Famine and how the rising tide of nationalism through the Land War of the 1880’s starts to erode their power. Landlords were accused of rack-renting and hard-hearted evictions. However, evictions were low in general and it was only the absentee landlord where these rates tended to be high. Life in the big house despite this carried on pretty much as normal. Hunting and balls remained the staple entertainment. In politics, the elite set about trying to maintain the union by setting up Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union in 1885.[4] In summary, we see how the Ascendancy are slowly brought to their knees by debt and the Land Acts of the late nineteenth century. They are left with no land and so have no income. It reduced them down to ‘merely rich men who lived in the countryside’.[5]

In The British Aristocracy[6] by Mark Bence-Jones and Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, the authors explain how the different class of gentleman in the aristocracy and upper class came into being. They show how England dealt with the problem of trying to reward people without actually making them aristocracy. To this end, the title of baronet is created in 1611.[7] Its purpose was twofold, the first was to act as an incentive to colonise Ireland and secondly became a way to reward successful men of all walks of life for services to the government. A peerage or baronetage was an official confirmation that a person had arrived, you were now seen as a gentleman with all the honour and prestige that this brought. However, this brought responsibility. As a gentleman, you were expected to be fully involved in the running of the administration. They were made justices of the peace and magistrates.  In effect, the local gentleman or landlord had the tenant’s lives in their hands. The Ascendancy also supplied the priests for the state religion so in effect they had the administrative and religious control of the country. In summary, the authors show how class was dealt with in the world of Ascendancy and how the responsibilities of being a member were just as important as the prestige and power of being from this set.

Roy Foster in his book The Oxford History of Ireland[8] discusses the broad making of the Ascendancy, its politics and its relationship with England and union.  He shows how they came about as a result of the Cromwellian and Williamite plantations but as a result felt insecure in their position. They had witnessed how Catholicism had been reinstated in the late seventeenth century. It is his view that it is this insecurity that colours their dealings with Ireland with the setting up of the penal laws and the establishment of the Church of Ireland as the state religion. However, the penal laws were generally only used as a tool to prevent Catholics from landowning and politics. This ensured that the Protestant Ascendancy was in control of the country, thus cementing their position. He shows how the country was run on a management basis between the parliament and Dublin castle. Through the eighteenth century the system changed to jobs for the boys as families managed factions in return for plum jobs in administration.. This came to an end with the Act of Union in 1800 when parliament was abolished.  The author states that the legacy of the Ascendancy is the army barracks in most towns that came about as a result of a large standing army.[9]

Indeed it is this insecurity and fear of the Catholic and Dissenter population that can be seen in History of the origin of the Irish Yeomanry[10] by W. Richardson, writing just a few years after the 1798 rebellion. He states how in 1796 the Ascendancy are in fear of invasion and how Ireland is in a near constant state of rebellion due to the United Irish Revolutionary system. In response to this the author along with General Knox founded the Irish Yeomanry with the express intent of repressing domestic rebellion and providing security so that the army would not be needed. Lord Kilwarden states the Yeomanry was ‘for the formation of corps, to consist of the well affected only and to act with the Kings commission’.[11] It can be seen from this that the intention was to reinforce the Protestant landed class and keep in check the Catholic population.

S.J. Connolly’s book The making of Protestant Ireland[12] explores the consolidation of power of the Protestant landed class, the enactment of the penal laws and the constitutional conflicts that marked this period. In the first chapter he shows how by the 1660’s an elite has formed with the Protestant family’s pre-1641 and the recent Cromwellian settlers. The penal laws are only enforced in times of trouble as an economic reality exists that Catholics are needed for labour on the land. The Ascendancy also fear civil war if enforced too brutally. In the end the only threat came from Catholic gentry for whom ‘nothing but change and confusion can amend their case’.[13]  In the following chapters he talks about the benefits and who was in the Ascendancy. He states how three levels exist from the magnate to the county elite with the country seat through to minor landowner. The power that land ownership brought is shown in that you were eligible for office and had the chance to participate in national politics. It was also the chance to create your own dynasty. Indeed, a look at the parliament shows just how important land was as over half of the house came from the landed gentry. The other half being lawyers and soldiers also invariably came from this class as the penal laws forbade Catholics from holding office. The Ascendancy was not a rigid class in the sense that a self-made man was welcome. There was two reasons for this, the first was confiscations had created wealthy men and the second the elite was small and needed more people to run the country. In summary, we see that the Ascendancy were a pragmatic elite prepared to accept people as long as they all had the same vision more or less.

In A history of Ireland in the eighteenth century[14] the author looks at the religious aspect in society.  His view is that the Ascendancy had no real security and as such had no power to resist conditions imposed from England. He argues that the penal laws were necessary as a way to protect themselves and to keep Catholics in place.[15] He also argues that the effect was to try and convert as no career path lay open to Catholics. It is argued that the penal laws were not enforced as it suited to have an illiterate population for labour on the estates that the Ascendancy had.

In Studies in Irish History[16] an essay by Margaret McCurtain, she discusses the Cromwellian plantation and its effects and consequences for Ireland. She states how this plantation changes Ireland forever. It is the first to be seen as an enterprise with people coming to make money and attain status from confiscated land. It is this that creates a landed class structure in which a large and dependent peasantry are the base and manpower for the estates. We see how tenants with leases for lives are evicted. This gives the power to the new landowners to assign leases and their duration.[17] The author states how the countryside generally improves with new techniques in farming.  A new tenant class develops of Irish and Cromwellian settlers and landlords in general are benevolent as their survival depends on their rent. A structure of the Ascendancy appears by the time of King George and remains in place for two centuries.

In Lords of the Ascendancy[18] by Francis G. James he looks at the elite and the struggle for power between the two religions from the 1660’s onwards. He puts forward the theory that while ‘the land of Ireland changed hands’ and the Protestant elite took charge, it is fair to say that many of these had also changed religion.[19]  He also states that these elite go on to moderate the Penal laws.  It is here that we see how important it was to pick the winning side to stay in control. The Ascendancy now had the power and in The Making of the Irish Protestant Ascendancy[20] by Patrick Walsh he talks about how houses became status symbols. They were built to impress and overawe opponents. It was a statement that they were here to stay. It was also seen as economic patriotism in that it stimulated the local economy by using local materials and that it would be seen as ‘an ornament to the country’.[21] He also describes the custom of the heraldic funeral. It was a way for ‘those whose social position was recent … to demonstrate their place … and shake off all vestiges of their origin’.[22]

In the book At Arm’s Length[23] by Anne Chambers, the author looks at how the Penal Laws were enacted to keep Catholic uprisings at bay. The main aims were one of survival and advancement and also a policy of conversion. She states how the payment of tithes by the majority for the minority Anglican Church led to resentment and unrest. She also describes however that social formality was not strict in most big houses due to the lack of a middle class. On subdivision of land, she states how landlords who opposed it seeing the trouble that it would cause came to be reviled. This serves to show how far the landed elite and the tenant had become estranged.  An improving landlord was still seen as bad in some quarters even if he was trying to improve his estate. It is this subdivision of land, payment of church tithes and lack of political influence which led to unrest that is explored in James S. Donnelly Jr.’s book Captain Rock.[24] In it he discusses the agrarian wars of the 1820’s and the reaction of the gentry. They raised militias and put down brutally any resistance. This was an exceedingly violent time with twenty two murders alone in three Kilkenny baronies between 1822 to mid-1824.[25] What this book shows is how the land and religious policies pursued by the landed elite led to serious unrest from time to time.

In The Decline of the Landed Estates system in County Cork 1815-1914[26] the author looks at the reasons for their decline. He shows how the nature of their debt from house building and family charges, declining rents, parliamentary legislation, a rising middle class and the famine in the middle part of the century all helped to contribute to their downfall.[27] In Atlas of the Great Irish Famine.[28] an essay by David J. Butler, he discusses the actions and consequences of the landed gentry during this time. In it he shows how the responses varied from evictions possibly due to Poor Law taxation to the setting up of soup kitchens such as Lord Waterford on his estate.[29] What becomes evident is how the Famine accelerated an already precarious financial situation for some into bankruptcy. Also, the actions of some in evictions, he argues, seals the fate of all landlords in the generation to come as it leads to nationalism and land reform.

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Methodology

I plan to use many and varied sources for the three following chapters that will be written on the Warren family of Warrenscourt. The third chapter looks at Munster and Cork from the sixteenth century and in particular the arrival of the New English settlers after the wars of the mid-seventeenth century. I examine how the conditions were created for the Warren family to settle in Cork. To this end, I looked at A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Peerage and Baronetage[30] by Sir Bernard Burke to establish their pedigree. I accessed the Boole Library and Special Collections in U.C.C. to view material relating to this period. The Landed Estates Database online by N.U.I. Galway also provided invaluable information on the different settler families such as the Warrens. I travelled to the National Library of Ireland and viewed the Williamite Confiscation records, which were vital in establishing when the Warrens moved into the barony of Muskerry in Cork.

The fourth chapter deals exclusively with the head branch of the Warren family who established themselves in Warrenscourt, County Cork and their rise through society to gentry. The Radleys of Cork website was important in showing the early marriages of the Warrens. I travelled to the Registry of Deeds in Kings Inn Dublin and accessed their records. I accessed Special Collections in U.C.C. to view newspaper material from the period under review. I accessed various websites such as Corkpastandpresent.ie, igp-web.com along with Britishhistoryonline.com. I also used local historical journals. Religion also featured in the family so I used Cole’s Land and Church records online to find out where they administered. This chapter displays how the Warrens rose to prominence and maintained their position through the eighteenth century.

In the fifth chapter I examine the decline of the Warren family. It was debt and changing political times that led to the decline of the Warrens like so many of the landed families. In this regard I used the Courts of Chancery and the Encumbered Estates records to see how they were affected. I accessed the Chief Secretaries papers at the National Archives of Ireland. I visited the local Church of Ireland and viewed the graves of the Warren family. I accessed the local library in Macroom for material in relation to the Great Famine. I contacted the Kilmurry Historical Association for photographic material. I accessed the findmypast.ie website for the censuses of the early twentieth century to determine the size of the house and family. It was also the time of the various Land Acts and the rising tide of Home Rule and nationalism. A local historian has written extensively on the area at this time so I  used his various books to try and see what effect if any they were still having politically and socially at this stage. Overall, I hope that this dissertation demonstrates how the Warrens fitted into what was on one level a complex and politically difficult society but on another level was quite a simple and straightforward society where for two centuries or more the landed gentry ruled Ireland as they pleased.

Fig 3.1: Richard Boyle, the 1^st Earl of Cork c.1643.[1]

[1] Picture taken from en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Boyle,_1^st_Earl_of_Cork  [accessed 21 May 2014].

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CHAPTER THREE

Arrival of the Ascendancy

To fully understand how families like the Warrens came to prominence in Munster and Ireland from the seventeenth century onwards, it is first necessary to look at Cork and Munster in the preceding century. The conditions that allowed for the emergence of a landed class start to occur from the late sixteenth century. Cork city during the sixteenth century was a small city with little trade. Its existence and fortunes, as with most of the province of Munster, depended heavily on the stability of the Earldom of Desmond. In 1541 there had been a rebellion which devastated most of Munster. A ‘surrender and regrant’ policy by the Crown secured the support of the Earl. It was the hope of the Crown that this would achieve more influence outside the city. However, further rebellions occurred in 1569 and between 1579 and 1583, to which the English government responded by creating the conditions for a famine, to starve Munster into submission.[31] This, along with the Nine Years War of 1594 to 1603, demonstrate that Munster and Ireland as a whole was in a state of upheaval. By 1603 the whole region was battle weary and peaceful conditions prevailed for almost the next forty years.

During the early seventeenth century innovation in the regional and Dublin government authority started to gain influence in the countryside. A steady flow of English settlers came into the region and were even encouraged to settle by the local Irish aristocrats, such as Lord Muskerry. Richard Boyle acquired vast lands at this time by means of lending money and then foreclosing. He went on to become the dominant provincial force as the first Earl of Cork. The new order also took advantage of the historical enmities between the Ormondes and the Desmonds. It’s also about this time that the emergence of English common law and practise in provincial Ireland commenced. This would seem to be of benefit to all sides. In fact, the New English population rose from 4,000 in 1598 to 22,000 by 1641.[32] The major Munster achievement was the creation of Bandon by the Earl of Cork, which eventually contained one eighth of the Munster New English population.

It would also appear that religious toleration was at a very high level during those peaceful times. The region seemed set for stability and growth as Cork grew, but storm clouds were gathering in England. In 1641, with civil war imminent in England and the government losing control of Ireland, the conditions were put in place that would have profound repercussions for Cork and Munster throughout the following two centuries.

The 1640’s military campaigns were as close to a religious war as Munster endured throughout its history. Both churches were, indeed, involved but there was also another element at work through this time. It was used as a mechanism to grab land and, once and for all, to alienate and break up the native ownership of land. The New English saw an opportunity to increase their land holdings in times of rebellion and, to this end, set out to goad the Irish leaders into military action. Prominent here is in the case of Sir William St Leger of Doneraile who, in response to cattle rustling, killed over three hundred people through skirmishes and courts martial.[34] With the memories of bygone rebellions and their consequences still in living memory, this is possibly the reason why Cork and Kerry were the last areas to rebel. The Catholic leaders eventually took the bait and rose up in late 1641 as Viscount Muskerry explained in a letter to his friend the Earl of Barrymore as seen here

‘though I were resolved not to stir nor join with the country as I have done, I have [seen] such burning and killing of men and women and children, without regard of age or quality, that I expect no safety for myself, having observed as innocent men and well deservers as myself so used.’[35]

This time the settlers were prepared and, through the Earl of Cork, managed to hold their ground.  The campaign eventually ground to a standstill as neither side had the military might to overpower the other. It was only when the New English switched loyalties to the side of parliament in the late 1640’s, coupled with the two and a half year Cromwellian campaign from 1649 to subdue Munster that the decisive blow is struck. It is now that the New English through Lord Broghill set out to create an irreversible settling of the region. These men, rather than the Cromwellian settlers, set out to rid themselves of the Catholic gentry once and for all.

As the war came to an end in 1652, the inevitable clamour for the spoils of war began, and to this end, the Act of Settlement was passed in August of that year. This Act set out to identify the rebel leadership, a task made easier by the Earl of Cork, who had kept a list of all Confederate leaders. These men were to forfeit their lands and be banished or executed. In reality it was an anti- Catholic law and was used by Lord Broghill and his allies to clear out the Catholic gentry and their fighting men.

This time sees the commencement of land in County Cork being allocated to satisfy the pay claims of parliamentary soldiers. It is through this that the Warren family made their entry into Cork landed society, with Robert Warren, a soldier coming to live at Kinneigh in the barony of  Carbery.[37] The family would go on to have a connection and influence in Cork for over two hundred years, partly in Carbery but, to a larger extent, in Muskerry.

The 1650s transplantation of Catholics and some of the Protestant landowners continued apace until the Restoration of 1660 in England. Once again, a change in fortunes for Catholics starts to be promoted and, in 1662, the Act of Settlement was passed to partially restore lands to those dispossessed a decade earlier. In reality very little changed, with one notable cause: the Earl of Clancarty had his lands returned to him in Muskerry. This is notable as the Warren family were to benefit in time from this event.

Lord Broghill, who was now Earl of Orrery, died in 1679. He was an example of the gentry that would rule in the next century, a man that was constantly alert for the enemy, within and without, prepared to lift the sword at a moment’s notice; he also had a desire for spectacular material displays in buildings and hospitality.[38] In buildings, especially, the future gentry such as the Warrens wanted to remind the local Irish at all times just who was in control.

The last years of the eighteenth century, despite the interference of the Catholic interest in England, saw the consolidation of Protestant power in Munster. There had been setbacks in the 1660’s with the restoration of some land to Catholic peers but, in the main, they had managed to retain their holdings. There was just one stumbling block to their complete domination of Cork:  the estate of the Earl of Clancarty. Unsuccessful attempts to rid him of his lands were undermined through his being married to the Duke of Ormonde’s sister, which protected the Earl. Their chance came, however, with the return of war to the province in 1688 and the Williamite Wars. This war was the last throw of the dice for the Catholic gentry and the Earl of Clancarty threw in his lot with the Jacobites. This decision was to have huge consequences for him and his lands. The Earl was captured at Cork in 1690 and sent to London, thus ending his association with Muskerry.[39]

As this war ended, the Protestant victors set about putting in place a settlement that would be irreversible. To this end, the Earl of Clancarty’s lands were forfeit. The bulk of his lands were brought by local landlords who sought to vastly increase their holdings. Wallis, the youngest son of Robert Warren, purchased the lands of Kilbarry and Knockacary on November 27^th 1702. Kilbarry consisted of 450 acres; one third of it in pasture, the remainder arable, with one farmhouse and ten cabins. Knockacary, comprised of 150 acres, a mix of pasture and mountain along with two cabins on the land. Wallis Warren purchased these lands for £474 with a yearly rent of £50.[40] This significantly added to holdings he had already purchased in 1699 from the Earl of Romney at East and West Curryclogh[41] near Bandon, which is evident by his address at Laragh, Bandon on the book of forfeiture for the McCarthy estate. However, it was at Kilbarry he would make his home. Kilbarry went on to become Warrenscourt, the seat of family power for the next two hundred years.

The Warrens are just one of a number of families that either moved into or purchased lands in and around Macroom and the greater Muskerry region. Francis Bernard purchased lands at this time and went on to purchase Macroom Castle and the surrounding town in 1722 from Francis Woodley.[42]

Henry Baldwin of Cork also bought land in addition to a holding in Lissarda obtained from an earlier lease of 1669, which, in 1703, had a house and village on its lands.[44] These families, along with the Crookes of nearby Kilcondy, the Ryes of Ryecourt near present day Cloughduv, and the Hutchinson’s of Macroom, that went on to shape the land ownership of the region. They locked down the region through careful land purchase and marriage between their families and dominated the landscape of Muskerry for two centuries or more.

 

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CHAPTER FOUR

Rise To Gentry

Wallis Warren married Elizabeth Knolles in 1684 and had two sons and two daughters. The eldest son Robert, inherited Warrenscourt when Wallis died. Robert was very active in the buying up of land and the consolidation of local land power by careful marriage. He married an Anne Crooke who was the sister of William and Thomas Crooke, who lived nearby in Crookstown. Thomas was married to Ellen, the daughter of Teige McDermod MacCarthy who was Lord of Muskerry. The Crookes were descended from Sir Thomas Crooke who had founded Baltimore[45] and so by this marriage Robert was moving in the right social circles for advancement. His land dealings also showed the significant amounts of money that was already being made by the Warren family even at this early stage in their existence in Cork.

On the 19^th of December 1709, Robert Warren leased land in Bandon to Richard Gumbleton, his brother-in-law for three hundred pounds. On the 25^th June, he provided a mortgage of two hundred pounds to a John Youde for a house in Christchurch in the city of Cork and also for properties in the south east quarter of the city. On the 3^rd of July 1712, he bought a number of houses in the south suburbs of Cork city from his brother-in-law Thomas Crooke and sold them onto Richard Gumbleton again.[47] A Richard Daunt is listed as one of the tenants and it is his family that Daunt Square in Cork city is named after.

On the 2^nd of November 1730, Robert leased land in Durrus, near Bantry to a Samuel Hutchinson and on the 1^st of February 1737[48], he leased to a Reverend Richard Baldwin of Bandon the town and lands of Ardacrue, in the parish of Rathclaren, in the barony of Carbery for the sum of one thousand three hundred and thirty pounds.[49] It is evident by these transactions that Robert Warren had extensive land holdings through marriage around Baltimore in West Cork and, by his own right, in Cork City and county. He died in 1743 and left two sons and two daughters Robert, William, Elizabeth and Alice. Elizabeth married John Baldwin, who was Alderman of Cork city in 1737.[50] Anne married Henry Baldwin of Curravody, Bandon

Robert, the eldest son of Robert and Anne was born on 20^th August 1723 and he went on to become the real driving force of the family. It was during his life that the family truly arrived on the national scene. His brother, William, who died in 1761, moved to Holyhill in Cork and married Dorcas Perry, a sister of William Perry, who was a major landlord in Tipperary. William also had lands in the city as can be seen by a land transfer of the 31^st January 1756. William Crooke of Incharahilly, Crookstown, his first cousin, laid fine on him that the lands of the South Liberties should make up his wife’s annuity if she survived her husband and that William Warren would receive these lands upon her death.[51] His family were part of the Princes Street Presbyterian meeting house as can be seen by their church record. William’s son William and his nephew Robert from Kinsale were witnesses along with his widow Dorcas on the 5^th June 1789 to a marriage between Reverend Benjamin Kiddell and Elizabeth Perry.[52]

Robert Warren married Mary Carre in 1748. Mary was the daughter of Augustus Carre. Augustus was a member of parliament and had as a merchant of Cork in 1730 brought a bill to clean the canals and river and port of Cork. This showed that within two generations the Warren family had moved from being a Cromwellian military family to a family that were being readily accepted at the higher end in eighteenth century Cork society.  The marriages of this generation showed how their father, through careful positioning of his daughters, consolidated their position in society both locally and at county level. Robert and William married into the merchant class of Cork city and this only further underlined how the family had fitted into society in less than forty years. In fact, Wilson refers to Warrenscourt in 1750 as the ‘handsome house’ of Robert Warren.[54] Robert and Mary had ten children: six sons and four daughters. The sons were Augustus, William, Thomas, John, Robert and Edward; the daughters, Mary, Rose, Charlotte and Anne. It was a large family and this generation saw the beginning of new professions, as the younger brothers of Augustus had to provide for themselves.

Robert Warren, by the 1760’s, was a very wealthy man heavily involved in land business and this was strengthened even further in 1768, when Robert, along with Richard Tonson, Sir James St Jeffryes and James Bernard, set up Tonson’s bank, later known as Warren’s bank. The four gentlemen had a large bloc of wealth and pledged property of 80,000 pounds to the bank and subscribed a working capital of 20,000 pounds. They boasted its security was ‘greatly superior to that of any other bank in Cork’.[56] The bank, according to the Cork Chronicle paper on the 12^th May 1768, had a fortune of 500,000 pounds on its launch. The bank provided capital for elections and provided loans for contractors during the American War of Independence. Cork, at that time, was at the centre of trans-Atlantic trade.

Robert was also involved in the dispensing of law and order in Cork. Ireland at this time had no police force and it was the landed gentry that maintained law and order. These men were effectively judge, jury and executioner. They sat as magistrates in what was a voluntary role.  Robert was listed as a justice of the peace in 1773, a role he was first appointed to in 1750.[57] He also served as High Sheriff of Cork in 1752. The High Sherriff was the Sovereign’s judicial representative in the county, he organised the assizes and was responsible for law and order as well as the administration of the county. This was an especially prestigious role and was rotated between the landed gentry. It was the highest position in the county and Robert Warren had achieved it before he was thirty years of age. He was also instrumental in the setting up of the Muskerry militia in 1794[58] and actively pursued the Whiteboy movement. The next step for the Warren family was politics as they continued their rise up from soldiering to gentry. Robert’s children took this next step.

Augustus Louis Carre Warren was born in 1754 and went to Trinity College in Dublin graduating in 1771. In 1778 he married Mary Bernard, who was the daughter of James Bernard, the future first Earl of Bandon. This was a powerful marriage aligning the two families together, as can be seen by the marriage settlement dated the 3^rd June 1778 in which the lands of the Warrens are listed. They ran from the parishes of Coachford, Cannaway, Kilmurry and Moviddy in Muskerry through to the parishes of Enniskeane, Newcestown in Kinealmeaky as well as lands, houses and tenements in Cork City.[59] It was this marriage that truly allowed the Warrens to enter politics as they now had the backing of the Bernard family. It was also in 1778 that a map of the road from Cork to Macroom shows Warrenscourt along with the other big houses of the area. The Warrens had married into two of these families: the Crookes of Kilcondy and the Hutchinson’s of Mount Massey, Macroom.[60] This serves to underline how the landed gentry had consolidated their grip on land by the end of the seventeenth century.

Augustus, however, was not the first Warren to be elected to parliament. Thomas, the third son of Robert, a barrister at law in Kings Inn in 1776, was elected as M.P. for Charleville that same year; he was re-elected in 1784 as M.P. for Castlebar and in total served fourteen years.[62] Augustus ran for election in Cork City on August 13^th 1783 but finished last behind three other candidates that included J. Hely-Hutchinson and Richard Longfield who were elected. On July 29^th 1784, however, John Bagwell, who had been the other candidate, petitioned the House of Commons against the late return of members to represent Cork in Parliament. It was tried before a committee of the house and the election of Richard Longfield was set aside. An election was held on the 8^th of January 1875 and Augustus was elected unanimously as John Bagwell declined to run.[63] The Warrens had two members of the family in parliament and this, along with their powerful position in Cork, was recognised by the Crown when on the 7^th July 1784 Robert was made a baronet.

Augustus also became High Sherriff of Cork in 1796 thus following in his father’s footsteps. It was politics though that also brought about the collapse of their bank in this year as the heavy expenditure of campaigning, along with financing other politicians, led to it shutting its doors. It was this experience that led them to be more cautious with political spending in the future. The bank had only been in business for twenty four years but it took forty years for it to be wound up.

Politics was not the only profession in this generation. Robert, who was the fourth son of Robert the first baronet, entered the ordained ministry and was ordained in Cloyne on 29^th September 1786; he was curate of Cloyne in 1790. In 1791 he moved to Aglish and from 1797 until his death in 1829, he was in Kilmichael parish. He married Margaret Pennefather, who was the daughter of Kingsmill Pennefather, the M.P. for Cashel County Tipperary and they had two sons Robert, who became a minister and Richard, who became a doctor.[65] Robert was born in 1784 and entered Trinity College in 1812 and was ordained a deacon on the 3^rd of May 1819 in Cork. He went to Raphoe in Donegal where, in 1824, he married a Mary Crawford of Ballyshannon. He was in Cannaway Union by 1840 and lived in Crookstown. He died in 1879 and, upon his death, Cannaway was joined to Moviddy.[66]

Robert Warren, who had become the first baronet and was living in Crookstown by 1806,[67] died in 1811. He had lived a long and prosperous life and had truly cemented his family into the Ascendancy.  In just eighty years he, along with his father, had brought the Warren’s from provincial landlords to an accepted member of the ruling class. He had two sons who had been elected M.P.s and several important marriages by his other children into other local families. The marriage of his son John into the Massey Hutchinson family in Macroom, had placed the family in what seemed, at the time of his death, an unassailable position. They had seen off the 1798 rebellion through his family’s involvement with the militias and everything seemed set for his son Augustus and his heirs to be in control of their landscape for generations to come. Ireland at this time was truly in the hands of the landed gentry but change was coming slowly with the Relief Acts for Catholics and land agitation which was never far beneath the surface. This started to become more prevalent with a growing population and the economic recession that came with the ending of the Napoleonic Wars. It was these issues, along with the catastrophic effects of the Famine of the 1840’s, that greatly affected the Warren family, along with the rest of the Ascendancy in the nineteenth century and shaped their future in a much different way than could ever have been envisaged by the time of Robert’s death in 1811.

 

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Chapter Five

The Loosening Grip

Sir Augustus Louis Carre Warren succeeded to the baronetcy in 1811. He and his wife Mary had two sons and two daughters. They were Augustus, born on 17^th May 1791 and John Borlase, born on the 13^th September 1800. The daughters were Esther and Charlotte. Esther married James Colthurst of Dripsey Castle on the 30^th July 1808, which linked the family by marriage into two of the most powerful families in Cork: the Bernard’s and the Colthurst’s. Esther died on the 22^nd July 1872. Charlotte married Reverend Somers H. Payne of Upton House.[68] Sir Augustus Louis Carre Warren died on the 30^th January 1821.

The early nineteenth century was a violent time in most of Ireland with the continuing agrarian violence. Cork, in this regard, was no different with the Warrens heavily involved in supressing it. Captain Warren, who commanded the Muskerry Corps, arrested seven people in Inniscarra who had burned seven houses and a forge on September 4^th 1803.[69] Sir Augustus became High Sheriff of Cork in 1819. In a letter dated the 9^th July 1819, he requested that two female convicts be removed from gaol in Cork as they were too unwell for transportation.[70]

In the 1820’s the tithe war exploded, a conflict about religious tithes being paid to the Church of Ireland. Robert Warren, who was Sir Augustus’s uncle and rector of Kilmichael parish, was especially prominent in the suppression of Whiteboyism as it became known. Augustus was equally prepared to meet this violence as can be seen in 1822. There was a spate of big house burnings in December 1821 and January 1822. The houses of the Swete family and the Herrick family, along with the Rye family, were attacked and burned to varying degrees. There was a palpable sense of alarm in the countryside and some families retreated to the relative safety of the towns, as can be seen in correspondence from that time. Sir Augustus expressed this in a letter to Sir John Lambert on January 9^th 1822. In it he stated how both houses of Swete and Herrick had been attacked and that these outrages were becoming more daring due to the inaction of the government. He then went on to say that the army would have to be more dispersed and numerous than first imagined. Sir Augustus went on to offer his seat Warrenscourt

On the high road between Bandon and Macroom and in the centre of this disturbed district should appear to you a desirable situation for any troops either infantry or cavalry as there is good stabling, I shall feel the greatest pleasure in giving it for that purpose free at my expense.[72]

He also questioned whether the government would provide ammunition for those people who were trying to resist these outrages. This offer, which was accepted, had serious consequences when just a few weeks later at Deshure in Terelton there was a skirmish between a dragoon from Warrenscourt and a band of Whiteboys. This, along with another skirmish at Carriganimmy, outside Macroom, led to a crackdown by the gentry.[73] Nine men were executed, with five of those at a specially erected platform in Deshure on February 28^th 1822.[74] Sir Augustus was present with the Muskerry Cavalry. The area became quieter after this particularly brutal punishment.  Life returned to relative normality with an unexpected event leading to Sir Augustus running for parliament.

Catholics had been in receipt of many incentives under the Roman Catholic Relief Acts of 1778 to 1793 and when Catholic Emancipation was passed in 1829, this changed politics in Ireland. Sir Nicholas Colthurst, who had been M.P. for Cork, died on the 19^th May 1830 and Sir Augustus Warren consented to stand, provided the election entailed no expense. He was no doubt cautious after what had happened to the family’s bank only forty years earlier due to electioneering.  Charles Beamish had already been approached but had turned it down as when he had asked ‘is it your intention to bribe’ and the answer was no, he said ‘then you will lose the election’.[76] It was against this backdrop that Sir Augustus stood for the Cork Liberal club against Gerard O’Callaghan, a noted Brunswickian. Callaghan had been described as ‘a violent Protestant’ by Sir Nicholas Colthurst in 1826 and was against all types of Catholic reform and had stated that the ‘only Protestant security’ was ‘in Protestant Ascendancy.[77]’ Sir Augustus lost the election but O’Callaghan was unseated a few months later after it came to light that he had contracts with the government.[78]  Sir Augustus, however, did not stand in the re-election and O’Callaghan’s Catholic brother, Daniel, was elected unopposed. Sir Augustus Warren’s biggest test was now about to commence.

The 1830’s were largely peaceful, with Warrenscourt being described as ‘a large and lovely house set in an extensive and well planted demesne’.[79] Warrenscourt was licensed for divine service in 1840 for the parish of Kilmurry and remained so until 1847, with the building of a new church.[80]

There had been food shortages over the preceding years and the Tithe Wars of the previous decade had largely died away. Warrenscourt, along with the other estates, were promoting modern farming but when blight was discovered in 1845, it set in train an event that would change Ireland and the landlord’s circumstances forever. The Devon Commission, which had been set up to look into land tenure, heard from a Tim Murphy, a farmer from Dunisky, Macroom, that Sir Augustus Warren was the only landlord in the area who was making permanent improvements. Sir Augustus didn’t give leases but rather gave tenants timber and paid for lime; he also encouraged them to drain their land.[82] John Borlase Warren, his brother who lived at nearby Warrensgrove, stated that the only public work was the development of roads, which, in his opinion, was mutually beneficial to both tenant and landlord.[83]

By 1846, it was obvious with the failing of the potato crop that famine had arrived to Ireland and so, on April 22^nd of that year, a meeting took place in the Roman Catholic chapel in Kilmurry, where Sir Augustus proposed the setting up of a permanent relief committee. It was hoped that, with this committee, it would lessen the suffering for people in the area. Tensions were high, as people tried to find solutions, with farmers blaming landlords who were taking rent and not allowing them to employ labourers who were starving.  Massey Hutchinson Warren of Codrum, Macroom, a cousin of Sir Augustus’s maintained landlords would not survive if they forgave rent for any length of time. Benjamin Swete, a landlord in Greenville, Kilmichael, however did forgive rents for September of that year. It can be seen by this that no one initiative was taken as the Government, who, then mostly left it to the gentry to try and sort out the famine. The public works scheme of 1846 was abandoned as it became obvious that it was having no real effect and soup kitchens were introduced in 1847. Sir Augustus presided at a meeting on January 13^th 1847 to set up soup depots in the area. Sir Augustus also wrote to the Famine Relief Commission in 1847 asking why they received no reply to their request for assistance. He again wrote later that year about how the refusal of relief

Miserable as it is if indeed it can be called relief will lead to widespread starvation and death will have full liberty to move among its victims.[84]

At one point in 1848, Sir Augustus had sixty three paupers in one part of his estate alone.[85] He also said on the workhouse in Macroom ‘no matter what it may cost us, give the paupers what they are entitled to and give them something more.’[86] It can be seen by these events that Sir Augustus genuinely tried to help his tenants through this dreadful time in Ireland’s history.

The famine and its aftermath led to the downfall of landlords as debts strangled many of those who had tried to help as well as those who didn’t. The Encumbered Estates Act of 1848 set up a Commission which was designed to sell off estates of bankrupt landlords. The estate of Adrian Taylor, in which the Warrens had an interest, was sold off in 1855. The Colthursts of Dripsey Castle, cousins of the Warrens, had already sold parts of their estates in 1851. Sir Augustus Warren, however, managed in general to avoid this.  In 1860 he granted land for nine hundred years at a rent of one shilling for a Roman Catholic Church to be built in Kilmurry. He also contributed eighty pounds towards its construction, as well as timbers and materials for scaffolding. He was also instrumental in bringing the railway to Macroom. Sir Augustus died on April 29^th 1863, unmarried and so the baronetcy transferred to his brother, John Borlase.

Sir John Borlase had married his cousin Mary Warren of Crookstown in 1823. They had seven daughters and three sons. One son, John Borlase, went on to become a Vice-Admiral in the British navy.  Sir John had extensive land holdings in Sillahertane, Kilgarvan, County Kerry where he held up to three thousand acres. Sir John Borlase Warren died just a few months after his brother on the 4^th of December 1863. His son Augustus Riversdale succeeded him as the fifth Baronet.

Sir Augustus Riversdale Warren married Georgina Blennerhassett in Tralee on the 28^th of April 1864. She was the niece of Thomas Blennerhassett, an M.P. for Kerry. Sir Augustus served in the British army, both in the Crimea and the Indian mutiny. He had entered in 1852 and was awarded a medal at Sevastopol and was made Captain in 1855.[87] He was a justice of the peace in both Cork and Kerry and was also High Sherriff of Cork in 1867, thereby, being the fourth and last member of the Warren family who served in that position. He held extensive land holdings in Kerry of over eight thousand seven hundred acres.[88] He also held seven thousand seven hundred and eighty seven acres in Cork in 1878.[89]  Sir Augustus had managed to hold onto most of his land but land was again becoming an issue, along with Home Rule and these issues confronted him for the next thirty years.

Home Rule and the Land War were the dominant issues of the early 1880’s and this became evident in Sir Augustus’s estate. The Land League, which advocated withholding rent and boycotting, was very active in the area. In one case, Sir Augustus sold a tenant’s interest in his farm to realise rent arrears. This tenant, who wrote to The Cork Examiner, said how his landlord had never assisted him and had even sent him a present of a fish and then evicted him two weeks later.[91] Sir Augustus was also accused of not making land available for labourer’s cottages as required by the Labourers Dwellings Act of 1883. In October 1885, Sir Augustus was involved in the setting up of Cork Defence Union.  Sir Augustus said at this meeting ‘that we think it necessary that an association should be formed for the purpose of resisting the tyrannical operations of the National League’.[92] It was the landlord’s answer to boycotting. An effigy of Sir Augustus was burnt at the eviction of a farmer on his estate. Sir Augustus ran against Home Rule in 1885 but was defeated. These events showed how the times were changing but Sir Augustus and his family still commanded respect as can be seen by his son’s coming of age in 1886. There were bonfires lit throughout the parish and a large crowd attended. There were speeches from Mister Wheeler the butler and from Missus Watson the house keeper who had served at the house for many years[93]. This, however, was only residual loyalty as the Land Commission were involved in a number of his leases. Sir Augustus continued his loyalist traditions with the holding of a unionist meeting in Warrenscourt in 1893, but with the passing of the Balfour Act of 1891 two years earlier, his influence was fading. He offered his tenants twenty years purchase but they ignored it. It was the Wyndham Land Act of 1903 that finally ended the landlord system. Sir Augustus offered to sell his estate to his tenants at a fair price. He reserved his sporting rights as he intended to continue living in Warrenscourt[94]. This offer however was rejected. Warrenscourt at this time still comprised of 16,000 acres. Warrenscourt house was an imposing building as can be seen by the 1901 census.

The house consisted of forty rooms with sixteen windows to the front. There were thirty outhouses and buildings which encompassed seven stables, six cow houses and numerous other animal houses. There were nine servants in the house of which only two were Catholic. There were also a number of people in nearby houses working the house and estate such as a coachman and stable boy. They also had a head gardener and rabbit contractor along with a timber foreman.[96] The overwhelming nationality of servants and estate workers was Scottish. The house was valued at ninety six pounds in 1906.[97] The house by 1911 had fallen on slightly harder times with thirty two rooms and eighteen outbuildings. At this time, the Warrens had installed an English family as tenants.[98]  The estate however was sold off over the following years. Sir Augustus, the fifth baronet died on the 1^st April 1914.

He was succeeded by his son Sir Augustus Riversdale John Blennerhassett Warren, the man who bonfires had blazed for twenty years earlier.  He had married in 1898 to Agnes Georgina Ivers and they had one son Augustus George Digby. He was a justice of the peace and a lieutenant in the third Battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers.  Sir Augustus died only a few months after his father on the 28^th August 1914. Ireland had changed completely by this time and, with the onset of the War of Independence, Warrenscourt came under threat. Cork and the local area at this time were proving hard to subdue. The British army looked at big houses in the area and Warrenscourt which was strategically located between Macroom, Bandon, Dunmanway and Ballincollig with a train station nearby was mooted. The house also had large lakes and capacity for aircraft. This made it ideal in the army’s eyes. Lady Warren and Sam Hunter the estate steward opposed it on the grounds that the local Battalion would destroy the house. This was proven true when after a column of soldiers were spotted on the estate, Warrenscourt, which, had stood for perhaps two hundred years was burnt on the 17^th June 1921.[100]

Sir Augustus George Digby, who was now living in India, never returned to Ireland and sold the Warren estate to its present owners’ descendants round 1922, thereby ending an association of two centuries between the Warren family and Cork. Sir Augustus George Digby died in England unmarried on the 20^th January 1958. The baronetcy then transferred to his kinsman Sir Thomas Richard Pennefather Warren who died in 1961.[102] He lived in Alta Villa, Cahir, Co. Tipperary,[103] which he had bought from the Going family in the 1940’s. Sir Thomas’s son Sir Charles Pennefather Warren became the 9^th baronet upon his death and sold Alta Villa around 1962. He lived in Saffron Hill, Doneraile, Co. Cork until his death on the 24^th of June 2006.[104] The baronetcy is currently dormant.

 

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CONCLUSION

The Warrens were a family that came to Ireland as part of the military campaigns of the mid-seventeenth century. They were part of the new wave of English settlers that came to Ireland in search of land and improved social position. They benefited from the confiscations of the Cromwellian period as this allowed them to settle in Kenneigh in the barony of Carbery in Cork. It was the Williamite Confiscations and in particular the confiscation of the Lord Muskerry estate in the late 1690’s that truly helped to establish the family as landed gentry in Cork. The family then went on to become more prominent as the following century wore on, with their entry into politics and banking, the major powerhouses of the eighteenth century.  The Warren’s also chose wisely in their marriages with some shrewd positioning of sons and daughters. The family married into two of the biggest families in Cork: the Bernard’s and the Colthursts. The Warrens also married into the surrounding local families. This all contributed to the sewing up of land, position and power in Cork by the Protestant elite in the eighteenth century. This rise through the ranks of society was recognised by the granting of a baronetcy to the family in 1784. This was the zenith of their power and influence in Cork and Ireland.

The Warrens, like all other Ascendancy families of this period, were also involved in the application of law and order. The setting up of militias by the Warrens such as the Muskerry Cavalry played a big part in the suppression of the Catholic majority in Cork through the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Their application of the law was at times particularly harsh, as could be seen by the events at Deshure in 1822, but these must be put in the context of the times. Ireland, at that time, was a particularly violent country and the application of such harsh measures was seen not only as showing the native population the error of their ways but was also a way of enforcing the minority Protestant rule. This application of justice differed from the Warrens political views.

The Warren family came to Ireland as parliamentarian soldiers and through the generations were very much a unionist family. They had members first elected to parliament in the 1770’s and they espoused unionist views right up to the War of Independence in 1921. This is proven in the setting up of such clubs such as the Cork Loyalist Club and the running of Sir Augustus Warren against Home Rule in 1885. They also held large Unionist meetings at their seat in Warrenscourt in the early twentieth century. This Unionist view did not, however, prevent the Warrens from having a social conscience. The family had a liberal outlook on other issues as is demonstrated by the third baronet Sir Augustus who ran for the Liberal club in 1822 in support of the reliefs for Catholics.

The Warren’s as landlords were in general a benevolent and fair family. They did not always provide fixed leases but they encouraged improvements on their tenant’s lands with drainage and the provision of materials, as attested to the Devon Commission in the nineteenth century. Sir Augustus Warren was also heavily involved in trying to alleviate the suffering of his tenants during the famine, as was demonstrated by the letters to Dublin Castle and his working on the many local committees of that time. The family also provided lands for churches in the local village and were also instrumental in bringing the railway to Macroom. This demonstrated that the Warrens were interested in trying to improve the social fabric of the country and society around them in the Macroom area. This fairness and popularity for the family in the area was revealed when the burning of their house in 1921 was met with a sense of regret in the immediate landscape.

The Warrens had been a part of the landscape of Kilmurry for over two hundred years and had brought employment through their estate to the area but it was their position as the landed elite that brought their association with the area to an end. Ireland’s independence and the loss of their house led to the family selling off their estate in 1922 and moving to England. Their influence may now be long gone like other families but their name lives on in the area, with the local woods once at the heart of  their demesne, still called Warrenscourt, some three hundred years after they first arrived.

 

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Bibliography

Bence-Jones Mark, Twilight of the Ascendancy (London, 1987).

Bence-Jones Mark and Massingberd-Montgomery Hugh, The British Aristocracy (London, 1979).

Brocas John, The forfeiture of Donogh Earl of Clancarty in relation to Blarney and Macromp (Dublin, 1702).

Burke Sir Bernard,   A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Peerage and Baronetage, The Privy Council and Knight age (London, 1932).

Butler David J.,  ‘The landed classes during the Great Famine’ in Atlas of the Great Irish Famine, edited by John Crowley et al., ( Cork,2012).

Chambers Anne, At Arm’s Length Aristocrats in the Republic of Ireland (Dublin, 2004).

Clarke Aidan, The Old English in Ireland 1625-42 (London, 1966).

Connolly S.J., The making of Protestant Ireland 1660-1760 (Oxford, 1992).

Dixon David, Old World Colony: Cork and South Munster 1630-1830 (Cork, 2005)

Donnelly S. James, Captain Rock The Irish Agrarian Rebellion of 1821-1824 (Cork, 2009).

Edwards Anthony, Edwards Cork Remembrancer or tablet of memory (Cork, 1792).

Forsythe Richard Westley, The Decline of the Landed Estate system in County Cork 1815-1914 in U.C.C. Special Collections DP2005 Fors viewed 25 November 2013.

Foster R.F., ‘Ascendancy and Union’ in The Oxford History of Ireland, edited by R.F. Foster. (Oxford, 1989).

Galvin Michael, Black Blight The Great Famine 1845-1852 Kilmichael, Kilmurry, Newcestown, Enniskeane (Cork, 1995).

Galvin Michael, Kilmurry Volunteers 1915-1921 Climax on Road to Independence 1775-1915 (Cork, n.d.).

Galvin Michael, The Morning Star Land War-Labour-Home Rule in Mid Cork 1882-1891 (Cork, 1999).

Galvin Michael, The Soaring Eagle Land Reform Labour Home Rule in Mid Cork 1900-1903 (Cork, 2003).

Galvin Michael, To make a railway: Cork-Macroom railway, 1852-1856 (Cork, 1997).

Gibson C.B., The History of the County and City of Cork (London, 1861).

Hussey de Burgh U.H., The landowners of Ireland, an alphabetical list of the owners of estates of 500 acres or £500 valuation and upwards in Ireland (Dublin, 1878).

James G. Francis, Lords of the Ascendancy The Irish House of Lords and its members, 1600-1800   (Dublin, 1995).

Jefferies Henry Alan, Cork: Historical Perspectives with contributions from Gerard O’Brien and Ellis C. Stack (Dublin, 2004).

Lecky W.E.H., A history of Ireland in the eighteenth century (Chicago, 1972).

Mac Suibhne Maire. Famine in Muskerry: an outline of conditions in the sixteen parishes of Macroom Poor Law Union during the Great Famine, 1845-’51 (Cork, 1997).

Maziere-Brady W., Clerical and Parochial Records of Cork, Cloyne and Ross (Dublin, 1863).

McCurtain Margaret,  ‘Rural society in Post Cromwellian Ireland’ in Studies in Irish History, edited by Art Cosgrave and Donal McCartney  (Naas, 1979).

O’Kelly Eoin, The old private banks and bankers of Munster, pt. 1: bankers of Cork and Limerick cities (Cork, 1959).

O’Mahony Colman, In the Shadows: life in Cork 1750-1930 (Cork, 1997).

Perceval-Maxwell M., The outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641 (Dublin, 1994).

Richardson W., History of the origin of the Irish Yeomanry (Dublin, 1801).

Somerville-Large Peter, The Irish Country House- A Social History (London, 1995).

Taylor George and Skinner Andrew, Maps of the roads of Ireland (Cork, 1969).

Walsh Patrick, The Making of the Irish Protestant Ascendancy The Life of William Connolly, 1662-1729   (Chippenham and Eastbourne, 2010).

Archive Sources

Famine Relief Commission.

Chief Secretaries Office Papers.

Pake Sheehan Whiteboy Papers.

National Library of Ireland; Pedigree of Warren of Warrenscourt, Co Cork Barts 1723-c.1806.

Internet Sources

www.britishhistoryonline.com

www.corkgen.com

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www.cotterinchigeela.com

www.findmypast.ie

www.historyofparliament.org

www.igp-web.com

www.landedestatesdatabase.ie

www.libraryireland.com

www.radleysofCork.ie

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Acknowledgements

This dissertation would not have been possible without the help and assistance of many institutions and people. The author would like to thank the following institutions; The National Library of Ireland, National Archives of Ireland, Registry of Deeds at Kings Inn Dublin.

The following people were of great assistance; Brian Lucey at the Cork City and County Archives, the staff at Boole Library U.C.C., the staff at Special Collections U.C.C, Brigid Goulding from the Kilmurry Historical Association, Michael Galvin for his guidance and knowledge of the local area through his many books and Elenora Duggan.

Finally, the author would like to thank David J. Butler for his guidance and patience on this dissertation along with my wife Aileen whose eye to detail on grammar was appreciated.

 

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Notes

[1] Peter Somerville-Large, The Irish Country House- A Social History (London, 1995).

[2] Somerville-Large, The Irish Country House.

[3] Mark Bence-Jones, Twilight of the Ascendancy (London, 1987).

[4] Bence-Jones, Twilight of the Ascendancy.

[5] Bence-Jones, Twilight of the Ascendancy.

[6] Mark Bence-Jones and Hugh Massingberd-Montgomery, The British Aristocracy (London, 1979).

[7] Bence Jones and Massingberd-Montgomery, The British Aristocracy.

[8] Roy Foster, The Oxford History of Ireland (Oxford, 1989).

[9] Roy Foster, The Oxford History of Ireland (Oxford, 1989).

[10] W. Richardson, History of the origin of the Irish Yeomanry (Dublin, 1801).

[11] Richardson, History of the origin of the Irish Yeomanry.

[12] S.J. Connolly, The making of Protestant Ireland 1625-42 (Oxford, 1992).

[13] Connolly, The making of Protestant Ireland 1625-42.

[14] W.E.H. Lecky, A history of Ireland in the eighteenth century (Chicago, 1972).

[15] Lecky, A history of Ireland in the eighteenth century.

[16] Margaret McCurtain, ‘Rural society in Post Cromwellian Ireland’ in Studies in Irish History, ed. Art Cosgrave and Donal McCartney (Naas, 1979).

[17] McCurtain, Studies in Irish History.

[18] Francis G. James, Lords of the Ascendancy The Irish House of Lords and its members, 1600-1800 (Dublin, 1995).

[19] James, Lords of the Ascendancy.

[20] Patrick Walsh, The Making of the Irish Protestant Ascendancy The Life of William Connolly, 1662-1729 (Chippenham and Eastbourne, 2010).

[21] Walsh, The Making of the Irish Protestant Ascendancy.

[22] Walsh, The Making of the Irish Protestant Ascendancy.

[23] Anne Chambers, At Arm’s Length Aristocrats in the Republic of Ireland (Dublin, 2004).

[24] James S. Donnelly Jr., Captain Rock The Irish Agrarian Rebellion of 1821-1824 (Cork, 2009).

[25] Donnelly Jr., Captain Rock.

[26] Richard Westley Forsythe, The Decline of the Landed Estate system in County Cork 1815-1914 in U.C.C. Special Collections DP2005 Fors viewed 25 November 2013.

[27] Forsythe, The Decline of the Landed Estate system in County Cork.

[28] David J. Butler, ‘The landed classes during the Great Famine’ in Atlas of the Great Irish Famine, edited by John Crowley et. al. (Cork, 2012).

[29] Butler, Atlas of the Great Irish Famine.

[30] Sir Bernard Burke, A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Peerage and Baronetage, The Privy Council and Knightage (London, 1932).

[31] Henry Alan Jefferies, Cork Historical Perspectives (Dublin, 2004), p. 80.

[32] David Dickson, Old World Colony Cork and South Munster 1630-1830 (Cork, 2005), p. 25.

[33] Picture taken from en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Boyle,_1^st_Earl_of_Cork  [accessed 21 May 2014].

[34] C.F. Clarke, Old English, pp 195-6.

[35] Perceval-Maxwell, Outbreak of 1641, p .258.

[36] Picture taken from Old World Colony.

[37] Sir Bernard J. Burke, A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Peerage and Baronetage, The Privy Council and Knightage (London, 1932)

[38] David Dickson, Old World Colony, p. 51

[39] Dickson, Old World Colony, p.59.

[40] The forfeiture of Donogh Earl of Clancarty in relation to Blarney and Macromp, P72 viewed at the National Library of Ireland, Call No: LOLB 49(66).

[41] Accessed online at www.landedestatesdatabase.ie on 7^th March 2014.

[42] Viewed at the Registry of Deeds Kings Inn Dublin, Book 33, Page 527, and Number 21142.

[43] Photograph of Macroom Castle Entrance taken on the 3^rd of May 2013.

[44]  The forfeiture of Donogh Earl of Clancarty, p.71.

[45]  www.RadleysofCork.bigpondhosting.com [accessed on 31^st March 2014].

[46] Photograph of Crookstown House taken on the 03 May 2014.

[47] Viewed at the Registry of Deeds Kings Inn Dublin, Bk. 9, P. 39, No. 3178.

[48] Viewed at the Registry of Deeds Kings Inn Dublin, Bk. 69, P. 16, No. 46955.

[49] Viewed at the Registry of Deeds Kings Inn Dublin, Bk. 87, P. 510, No. 62873.

[50]  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Mayor_of_Cork#Mayors_of_Cork [accessed 31^st March 2014].

[51] Viewed at the Registry Of Deeds Kings Inn Dublin, Bk. 105, P. 285, No. 73916.

[52]  www.igp-web.com/IPGArchives/ire/cork/churches/princes-st-presby.htm [accessed 01 April 2014].

[53] Picture taken from www.corkheritageopenday.ie [accessed 21^st May 2014].

[54] www.landedestates.nuiggalway.ie [accessed 1^st April 2014].

[55] Photo of Robert Warren’s signature taken at Cork City Archives in Dunmarklin Deeds U190.

[56] Eoin O’Kelly, The Old Private Banks and Bankers of Munster, pt.1: bankers of Cork and Limerick cities. (Cork, 1959).

[57]  Anthony Edwards, Edward’s Cork Remembrancer, or tablet of memory  (Cork, 1792).

[58]  www.corkgen.org [accessed 4^th April 2014].

[59] Viewed at the Registry of Deeds, Kings Inn Dublin, Bk.327 P.305 No.217675.

[60]  George Taylor and Andrew Skinner, Maps of the roads of Ireland (Cork, 1969).

[61] Picture of Castle Bernard Bandon is taken from Twilight of the Ascendancy.

[62] Reverend C.B. Gibson, The History of the County and City of Cork (London, 1861).

[63]  Edward’s Cork Remembrancer.

[64] The Warren Family Crest taken from Burkes Peerage.

[65] W. Maziere Brady, Clerical and parochial records of Cork Cloyne and Ross.  (Dublin, 1863).

[66] www.corkpastandpresent.ie/history/coleschurchandparishrecords/ [accessed 5^th April 2014].

[67] National Library of Ireland: Pedigree of Warren of Warrenscourt, Co. Cork, Barts., 1723-c.1806. GO MS 112, p.122

[68] Burkes Peerage.

[69] Rev. C.B. Gibson, The history of the city and County of Cork (London, 1861).

[70] National Archives of Ireland CSO/RP/1819/833.

[71] Copy of letter by Sir Augustus Warren to Dublin Castle in the National Archives of Ireland CSO/RP/1819/833.

[72] Cork City and County Archives U121 Pake Sheehan Whiteboy Papers.

[73] www.turtlebunbury.com/history/history_irish/roadshow/whiteboys.html [accessed 20th April 2014].

[74] www.cotterinchigeela.com [accessed 20^th April 2014].

[75] Photograph taken in Tarelton County Cork on the 3^rd May 2014.

[76]  Rev. C. B. Gibson, The history of Cork city and County (London, 1861).

[77] www.historyofparlimentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/callaghan-general-1787-1833 [accessed 14th February 2014].

[78] www.british-history.ac.uk House of Commons Journal Volume 85 8 February 1830 [accessed 15^th February 2014].

[79] www.libraryireland.com/topog/K/kilmurry-west-muskerry-cork.php accessed 19th April 2014].

[80] Cole’s Church of Ireland Records.

[81] Photograph of St Andrews Church Kilmurry County Cork taken 3^rd May 2014.

[82]  Maire Mac Suibhe, Famine in Muskerry (Cork, 1997).

[83] Michael Galvin, Black Blight the Great Famine 1845-1852.

[84] National Archives of Ireland Famine Relief Commission Ref: RLFC/3/2/6/158.

[85]  Michael Galvin, Black Blight.

[86] Michael Galvin, To make a railway.

[87] The National Archive Ref: WO/76/141

[88] www.landedestatesdatabase.nuigalway [accessed 21^st March 2014].

[89] U.H. Hussey de Burgh, The Landowners of Ireland. An alphabetical list of the owners of estates of 500 acres or £500 valuation and upwards in Ireland. (Dublin, 1878).

[90] Photograph of tablet set into the wall of Warrenscourt House taken on the 9^th of May 2014.

[91] Michael Galvin, The Morning Star Land War – Labour- Home Rule in Mid Cork 1882-1891 Vol. 2. (Cork, 1999).

[92] Galvin, The Morning Star.

[93] Cork County and City Archive Box 9 The Gallery List 2006.

[94] Michael Galvin, The Soaring Eagle Land Reform- Labour-Home Rule in Mid Cork 1900-1903.

[95] Photograph of Warrenscourt House courtesy of the Duggan Family.

[96] www.findmypast.ie 1901 Census [accessed 01 may 2014].

[97] Landedestates.nuigalway.ie [accessed 01 may 2014].

[98]  www.findmypast.ie 1911 census [accessed 01 may 2014].

[99] Photograph taken at St Andrews, Church Kilmurry, County Cork on the 3^rd of May 2014.

[100] Michael Galvin, Kilmurry Volunteers 1915-1921.

[101]  Photograph of the house at that stands at Warrenscourt taken on the 10^th May 2013.

[102]  Burke, Burkes Peerage.

[103] www.landedestatesdatabase.ie [accessed 12^th May 2014].

[104] www.thepeerage.com [accessed 12^th May 2014].