Benjamin BUNBURY ¹

  General Notes:

http://www.turtlebunbury.com/family/bunburyfamily_bunburys/bunbury_family_bunburys_kilfeacle.html

The Bunburys of Kilfeacle, Co. Tipperary, descend from Mathew Bunbury (1675-1733), fourth son of Benjamin Bunbury (1642-1707) of Killerig, Co Carlow . His three elder brothers were Joseph Bunbury of Johnstown, Thomas Bunbury of Cloghna & Cranovonane and William Bunbury of Lisnavagh. Matthew's younger brother Benjamin succeeded to Killerig while his sister Diana married Captain Thomas Barnes of Grange, Co Kilkeny, a soldier in the Duke of Ormonde's army. The Kilfeacle branch are the one branch of the descendants of Benjamin of Killerig that has a straight male line descent direct from Mathew from eldest son to eldest son, without recourse to the distaff side, and this continues to this day.

http://www.turtlebunbury.com/family/bunburyfamily_lisnavagh/bunburyfamily_lisnavagh_benjaminI.html

BENJAMIN BUNBURY (1642-1707) of KILLERIG, COUNTY CARLOW
St. Mary's Church, Carlow, boasts the oldest burial-ground in the town. [1.a] The oldest existing tomb in the graveyard appears to be a slab dated 1707, erected in memory of Benjamin Bunbury, of Killerig, Co. Carlow, who died on 3rd April 1707, aged 54. He was the son of Thomas Bunbury, youngest son (?) of Sir Henry Bunbury, Knight, of Stanney, in Chershire. Benjamin and his wife Mary had five sons - Joseph, of Johnstown; Benjamin, of Killerrig; Thomas of Clogna; William, of Lisnevagh and Moyle; and Matthew, of Killfeacle, Co. Tipperary - and a daughter, Diana.

So who was Benjamin and where did he come from?
ROUNDHEADS VERSUS CAVALIERS

Aside from the connection to Sir William Stanley and Lismore Castle in the Elizabethan Age, I had always assumed that the Bunbury family did not take root in Ireland until the mid-1660s when Benjamin Bunbury (pictured) settled at Killerig, County Carlow. My theory was that some of the family took flight in the wake of the English Civil War in which Sir Henry Bunbury, Benjamin's grandfather, was thrown in prison and had his house burned down on account of his support for Charles I. Benjamin was thought to have arrived in Ireland at the time of the Restoration while his older brother Thomas headed to Virginia.

This theory has been somewhat tested since January 2014 when the Carlow historian Michael Purcell emailed me an extract of a Cromwellian land settlement indenture from 1652 which read:

"… lands on the south of the river Burren adjoining the town of Catherlough & nominated my wellbeloved friends and attorney Benjamin Bumbury and Thomas Bumbury with Copal Norris and heirs or assignees for ever to enter and take possession of all such lands, tentenments, hereditaments with appurtenances."

I am unsure who wrote these lines originally but they certainly shook my understanding of our family history a little. This suggests that the Bumbury [sic] family were not just in Carlow a decade before I previously thought, but also that they acquired their initial landholdings through the despised Cromwellian land settlement.

A similar document emerged in November 2014 suggesting that brothers George and Henry Bumbry purchased land in the Carlow-Wicklow area from John Richmond, an officer in Cromwell's Parliamentarian Army in the 1650s.

Another confusion arises over Thomas Barnes of Grange, Co. Kilkenny, who married Benjamin Bunbury's daughter Mary. He is traditionally said to have been one of the Duke of Ormonde's officers but elsewhere he is described as a Cromwellian.

FOOTNOTES

A digitial manuscript detailing whom lands were disposed in 1641 can be found at http://www.irishmanuscripts.ie/digital/surveydistributionv4/files/641.html

John Ryan's 1833 The History And Antiquities Of The County Of Carlow. CHAPTER XXI provides a detailed picture of the land ownership and other matters in the county from 1605 - 1625. Thanks to Paul Horan. See http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~irlcar2/Antiquities_1833_XXI.htm

Benjamin married Mary SHEPPERD in 1669. (Mary SHEPPERD was born about 1642.)