Documents from the Thomond Papers at Petworth House Archive1 ...

Documents from Thomond Papers, Petworth House Archive
Miscellaneous Petitions at Petworth
Other documents not reproduced in full here are touched upon as they also
concern land proprietorship. For example, the letter missive from the Lord
Chancellor of Ireland concerns the complaint of Patrick O’Meere regarding
the possession of termon lands at Drumcliffe. 51 This document serves as
a reminder of the role that coarbial families such as the Uí Mhaoir played
in Co. Clare prior to the reformation. In the case of the Uí Mhaoir coarbs,
their presence at Drumcliffe can be identified from frequent references to
clerics of the family in the fifteenth century Papal Registers. 52
Many traditional clerical families remained in situ on church lands
after the establishment of the Church of Ireland, and actively petitioned
Protestant bishops concerning their hereditary right to proprietorship of
church lands. Consider the petition of Conor Kerroge recorded in Edward
Worth, Bishop of Killaloe’s c. 1661 account book. Conor claimed proprietorial
interest over church lands at Rath parish, noting that his ancestors
(the Uí Chiaróg) ‘for many years were tenants to ye Bishop…and y t his
ancestors were clerkes to ye parish of Rath ’ . 53
Interesting facts can be gathered from the 1634–5 letter missive of
Patrick O’Meere regarding the seven quarters of Drumcliffe. The termon
lands were leased by Mauritius (Murchadh) O’Brien, Bishop of Kilalloe,
to Daniel Neylan, Bishop of Kildare (d. 1603) for 99 years at a nominal
rent before it was assigned to the fourth earl of Thomond. 54 The lease
was proved invalid and surrendered to Lewis Jones, Bishop of Killaloe in
1634 who leased the lands to Boetius Clancy at £40 per annum. Patrick
51 See ‘Letter missive of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland to the Earl of Thomond concerning the
complaint of Patrick O’Meere; with answer’, c.1635–6 (PHA Ms 3915).
52 See, for example, the tussle over Drumcliffe rectory between a cleric of the secular
Uí Ghríobhtha lineage and the Uí Mhaoir coarbs in 1443. ‘Lateran Regesta, 403: 1443–1444’,
Calendar of Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Volume 9: 1431–1447 (1912),
p. 371. On the identifiable coarbial families of Co. Clare see Dermot Gleeson, ‘The Coarbs of
Killaloe Diocese’ in Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, lxxix (1949), pp 160–
169.
53 See Ms 1777, ‘Typescript copy of a survey of lands in the diocese of Killaloe made for Bishop
Worth, 1661’, transcribed by (Rev) James B. Leslie (National Library of Ireland, 1936), p. 24.
The original can be accessed at the library of the Representative Church Body, Dublin (Ms
D.14/1).
54 This is cited in the letter missive: ‘part of the inheritance and demesne lands anciently
belonging of the Bishopric of Killaloe, and that Daniel formerly Bishop of Kildare being
possessed of the same by lease…to him thereof past and made by Mauritius sometime
Bishop of Killaloe’. ‘Letter missive of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland to the Earl of Thomond
concerning the complaint of Patrick O’Meere; with answer’, c.1635–6, (PHA 3915). See also
Rev. Philip Dwyer, The Diocese of Killaloe from the Reformation to the Eighteenth Century,
(Dublin, 1878), p. 329. According to a 1625 Chancery Pleading the 7 quarters of ‘Dromcleiffe’
were the ‘ancient inheritance of the Earl of Thomond’ and that Henry O’Brien, fifth Earl
of Thomond, holds no lease to the lands by Bishop of Kildare to whom the lands were
initially demised by Mauritius Bishop of Killaloe. The fourth Earl of Thomond had thought
to surrender the lands and accept a re-grant by letters patent. Chancery Bills: Survivals from
pre-1922 Collection, No.131 [13 February 1625] (National Archives, Dublin).
15