by P. Danenberg, M. Murtagh & R. Murtagh
Appendix: O'Grady History prior
to 1800
Introduction
Because Irish history is not commonly taught in New Zealand or Australian
schools, most of the writers' relatives in those two countries would
be quite unaware of the rich and often tragic history that Ireland has
endured. While some, nowadays, will have seen TV documentaries on the
Celtic origins and antiquities to be found there, and others will know
a little about the religious divisions between Northern Ireland and
the Republic of Ireland, they will not know much else about the many
strands of history that the centuries have woven into the Irish tapestry.
In that the O'Grady name has been prominent in parts of that tapestry,
it seems helpful to append a short narrative on the history of the O'Gradys
around Co. Clare to our speculata on Thomas O'Grady.
Most of this version of history has been taken from the variety of articles
stored on the Clare County Library
website, for which grateful acknowledgement is given. Because there
is so much and varied information on that site, the problem has been
to procure a short and readable account which is relevant to the personal
history of our O'Grady family in Clare. But it is hoped that the ensuing
paragraphs give some understanding of the circumstances which led to
the lives that our O'Gradys lived. The key revelation for we Kiwis is
that Irish history isn't just 250 years old like our recorded history
is, but goes back easily to the 1200's AD or even beyond to the years
before Kupe and his Maori adventurers arrived in NZ, from which days
we have only fables to tell us what happened.
In order to help our aim, we've hired a timeship which will allow us
to move easily between the centuries and the counties, giving us both
aerial and ground-level views of the events involved in this Irish history.
Circa 1810
It can be argued that the highest point for our branch of the O'Grady
family in Clare occurred in the 50-year period between 1780 and 1830.
So it is appropriate to hover in this zone for a little. It's then over
100 years since bitter religious fighting stopped in Co. Clare, and
80 years since the Courts stopped trying to disentangle who owned which
estates in the former battle zones. So peace and some prosperity are
reappearing on the ground. In the parish of Tulla, we have Thomas O'Grady
of Cooga marrying into the prominent Mahony family centred around the
estates of Kiltannon and Cragg, and taking over Newgrove Cottage as
part of his marriage settlement. Wealth and children are to follow,
of whom his dau Ann was to marry into the Burke family in 1812, and
thus into the Browne circle a little later when her husband Thomas Burke
took up the Browne crest to become the Burke-Browne family. Thomas's
O'Grady's lifestyle as Squire of a large estate on the outskirts of
Tulla must have been most pleasant.
In parallel with this, his younger brother, Daniel, married into the
eminent Finucane family around 1785 with his wife, Bridget coming from
the Tonlagee estates in Kildysart. She was a distant niece to The Rt
Hon Judge Mathias Finucane who became a judge at the Court of Common
Appeals in 1794. The relationships are shown in the Finucane pedigree
chart below A1 which starts around 1525. A number of prominent family
names may be noted in this chart apart from Judge Mathias Finucane,
with at least three marriages into the O'Brien family which contained
the Lords of Inchiquin and of Thomond - Judge Mathias married one, and
one of his grand-daughters, Louisa, became the second wife of the 13th
Lord Inchiquin. One of Louisa's older sisters married another O'Grady
who became an Admiral in the Royal Navy, while a younger sister, Alicia,
became the actual owner of the land in Kildysart that was to figure
significantly in the logic around the Walshes of Clondagad, some years
later.
Even closer to home, Daniel's youngest dau Frances was to marry Thomas
Ross-Lewin of the large Kildysart estate of Fort Fergus in 1830. We
think that the reason we've been able to ascertain much of the detail
in Daniel's part of the O'Keefe-Blake pedigree was that Daniel's was
seen to head a prominent family in the Kildysart area, and so his family's
records helped to sell newspapers. With his large estates of about 420
acres in total, he would have died as a wealthy man in 1829. He'd certainly
constructed a large family crypt just alongside the Kildysart parish
church in 1814, with an elaborate O'Grady crest inscribed onto its top
stone.
We also suspect that these two brothers are related to the branch that
became the Knight Guillamore strand. It's clear from actual records
in NZ that Guillamore 6 spent some time at Leithfield in Canterbury,
NZ with our Thomas O'Grady, and it also seems clear that the Cooga lands
grant made to Thomas Grady in 1712 has ended up in Squire Daniel's estates.
So in this period, our branch was moving in the higher circles of Clare
society, and had large estates, and contained quite wealthy people.
Click on image for larger version.
1543 & Henry the Eighth
As our timeship zooms into Eastern Clare further back in time to around
1543, we can land in the townland of Tuamgraney on the westernmost shores
of beautiful Lough Derg. The lands around here used to be the traditional
home of the O'Gradys, but further back in the early 1300s they were
attacked and badly defeated by a branch of the O'Brien clan. The remnants
fled in haste into Co. Limerick but were fortunate in being able to
arrange a marriage between the then leader, Hugh O'Grady, to a daughter
of the O'Kerwick clan, by which they became entitled to large tracts
of land around Kilballyowen. The principal members of the clan have
lived in that region ever since. But as we land in Tuamgraney in 1543,
we find that King Henry the Eighth of England has negotiated a peace
with some of the powerful and dominant clans in Clare, including our
O'Gradys, with benefits to both sides. On the one hand, Henry doesn't
have to pursue war with those Irish leaders in order to promote his
territorial aims, and those Irish leaders agree to pay appropriate taxes
to the English Crown, and generally to adopt English systems including
law, and the Anglican religion. In return, Henry agrees to protect those
leaders and their lands from marauding raids by other Irish chieftains,
and to grant them patent rights to their new titles as knights of his
crown,A2. The O'Grady chieftain becomes Sir Donagh O'Grady and becomes
entitled to his original lands around Tuamgraney, presumably with appropriate
approvals from the O'Briens who'd been occupying it for the previous
200-odd years.
In hindsight, this move into the Anglican realm can be seen either as
just a 'lucky break' or more likely a shrewd evaluation of the likely
future history of Ireland. It led to the subsequent record that:
"Unlike so many others of the native aristocracy, the O'Gradys
sided with the English in the sixteenth century, and intermarried with
a number of powerful English families, thus retaining their influence
and possessions through all the vicissitudes of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries."A3
But to understand this statement and its
importance in the survival of the O'Grady name, (and especially to our
own branch of it), it's necessary to view through the portal of our
timeship the broad movement of the next 150 years of Irish history,
particularly that of Co. Clare.
As part of his logic, Sir Dennis no doubt recognised the potential benefits
to the Irish people arising from strong trading ties with a powerful
neighbour, and the chance to modernize the antiquated feudal system
of land ownership. James Frost, a nineteenth century historian was to
write of this rather harshly as:A4
"Of all the political institutions ever devised by human ingenuity
the system of clanship, as it prevailed in Ireland, was the best contrived
for retarding the progress of civilisation and preventing the material
prosperity of a people. The perpetually recurring practice of the different
septs, invading the territories of their neighbours, on the slightest
provocation, and often without any reason at all, acted as an effectual
bar to the advancement of the inhabitants in worldly well-being. No
man would build a substantial house when he knew, that at any day, it
might be burned to the ground. No man would sow more corn than would
suffice for his indispensable wants when he knew, that at any time,
it might be trampled on, burned, and destroyed. War was the occupation
of the people; the maintenance of a crowd of idle retainers, the business
of the chiefs. Steady industry or trade was never thought of; nothing
was considered but the indulgence of empty pride and insolent bullying.
Their jealousies prevented the native rulers from combining to expel
the English."
And while a few of the other significant clan leaders joined the O'Gradys
at that time, notably the important Murrogh O'Brien, who, in his capacity
of Tanist, had succeeded to the chieftainship on the death of his brother
Conor O'Brien, and Sheeda MacNamara, the Lord of Clanculein, it took
the English authorities a further 42 years before all of the other major
chiefs of Thomond acceded to the English system.A5
It could be said that the history of Ireland in general and of Clare
in particular was forever changed from that time, but the dreadful pain
associated with such changes could not have been anticipated. James
FrostA6 clearly shows the pain and its causes. In the 56
years between 1585 (when the Thomond Grants were sealed with the English
Crown) until 1641, skirmishes broke out frequently between different
parties in Clare. Skirmishes between different clans still continued,
but now with not only territory as a cause but also religion. With changes
made in Ireland to comply with the English inheritance process, which
aimed to retain large estates for their better efficiency as against
the continual splitting up of Irish estates, junior sons found themselves
disinherited and without land. English immigrants who'd been encouraged
by the new Irish knights to settle on their lands as a start to their
anglification process were resented and often attacked by local Irish
natives. The growing frustration with the heavy-handed English administrators
saw the English Crown grab the lands of any of the earlier knights who
showed any antagonism towards the English. There was even a blatant
attempt to takeover all of the Irish lands of all of the knights involved
once they'd died, because of their failure to follow the full complicated
process of English Patent Law - but they didn't pursue that attempt.
Matters moved to a head in 1641!
Towards the end of 1641, the raids on English settlers' farming stock
increased dramatically, and many people were killed. The Earl of Thomond
attempted to intervene and calm things down but the senior catholic
landowners conspired to try to throw out all of the English settlers.
Catholic armies were formed and marched on the primary targets of English-held
castles, seeking to obtain provisions and firearms with which to pursue
their aims. The whole of County Clare became a war-zone, wherein the
much better organized Cromwellian forces gained a terrible reputation.A7
“Cromwell's generals were not content with slaughtering the
people. They seized upon hundreds, and putting them on board ships waiting
at Cork to receive them, transported them to Barbadoes. In an account
of Clare, written by Hugh Bridgall in 1680, he says "that the county
being populous enough before the rebellion, in 1651, 52, and 53, it
was so afflicted with sword, famine, pestilence, and banishment of the
natives as scarce left any inhabitants therein, but now it beginneth
again to be stored with people. . . . We here give instances of the
merciless harshness of Ingoldsby and other officers of Cromwell's army
in their treatment of the unfortunate natives of this county. His soldiers
are stated to have murdered one hundred of the Irish in the baronies
of Tulla and Bunratty, although they were under protection; and two
of his officers namely, Captains Stace and Apers put to death five hundred
families in the baronies of Islands, Ibrickan, Clonderalaw and Moyarta,
notwithstanding that they also had received protection."
However, it was not until 1651 that the superior Commonwealth forces
under Ireton and then Ludlow finally broke the rebel catholic forces.
Some of their major victories (at Limerick and Clare Castles) perhaps
resulted from their strategy of calling on the opposition to surrender
and allowing most of those rebels who did so to depart for their homes.
And within a short time after that, the catholic rebellion collapsed,
so that by 1653 the English could consider an Act of Settlement under
which Ireland could be re-populated. By that time, however, the living
conditions in Clare were very bad.A8
“A contemporary account of its condition in 1653 is here given:
They found the country a waste. In the summer of this year, the famine
was so sore that the natives had eaten up all the horses they could
get, and were feeding upon one another, the living eating the dead.
The county of Clare was totally ruined, and almost destitute of inhabitants.
Out of nine baronies, comprising 1,300 townlands, not above forty townlands
at the most, lying in the barony of Bunratty, were inhabited in the
month of June, 1653, except some few persons living for safety in garrisons.
Scarce a place to shelter in.”
With the back of the catholic resistance broken, but with most of Ireland
in a poor state, especially Clare, the British Government took steps
to get their style of civilisation going again in Ireland. They passed
an Act of Settlement in which they gave tracts of land either to English
soldiers who'd fought in Ireland, or to the English financiers of those
wars that had taken place, but such immigration was not allowed into
the counties of Clare or Connaught. In the main, the land that was granted
to such immigrants was either confiscated from catholics who'd taken
arms against the English or else it was just taken from ordinary catholic
families, and to recompense those latter families for this loss, they
were then granted some smaller quantity of land in Clare or in Connaught
which they were forced under penalty of death to move to. In turn, the
land to which these "transplanted" families were sent, was
land that had belonged to rebel catholic families and which had been
confiscated either during the wars or afterwards. In an attempt to dispense
rough justice to all such affected people, Courts were established to
hear claims from all "innocent papists" in these moves, i.e.
the families that had not taken up arms against the English, but who
had suffered loss as a consequence of all of the moves. The difficulties
that the Transplanted families suffered when moving into the derelict
areas of Clare and Connaught can only be imagined. As Frost writes in
adding to the above accounts of Clare at that time:A9
“In the interval between the time of the partition of the
lands of the county under Cromwell's settlement, and the arrival of
King James II. in Ireland, the materials remaining for giving a history
of Clare are scanty. Its inhabitants, for the greater part, had been
either slain or driven into exile; its priests proscribed and forced
to flee into mountains and woods for the performance of the divine offices;
its pastures were denuded of cattle; and poverty and sorrow reigned
throughout the land. After the taking of Limerick by Ireton's lieutenants,
an administrative body, consisting of three persons was formed there,
whose principal duties appear to have been the levying and collection
of a poll tax, or subsidy, on the neighbouring counties, and the settlement
of differences relating to the supply of food and forage to the several
garrisons scattered over the district.”
With the end of the Reformation in England and the eventual accession
of Charles 2nd, the higher catholic families in Ireland took hope that
their lands that had been taken from them might be returned to them.
However, it was only when catholic James 2nd took the throne in 1685
that any real action started to happen. However, James was supplanted
in 1688 by William of Orange, and after fleeing to France, he returned
to Ireland to try to regain his throne. Following a series of failed
battles, James then returned to the continent to leave his Irish catholic
supporters at the mercy of the English, as described by Brian O'Dalaigh,A10
“. . . the fate of the Jacobite land holders of Co. Clare
was fairly predictable. Any land owner who had supported James II was
attained for high treason and lost his estates. Lord Clare for example
one of the biggest land owners in Co. Clare lost all his property, over
80,000 statute acres. King William of Orange gave generous grants of
the confiscated lands to his many followers. Lord Clare's estates were
presented to the king's Dutch friend Joost Van Keppel (who) quickly
sold on the land for ^310,000 to three Protestants from Co. Clare .
. These Protestant families and others like them became the new land
owners in Co. Clare and largely controlled the wealth of the county
for the next century and a half.”
James Frost gave a longer-term view on this as:A11
“The lands of James' partisans were put up for sale by auction
without further inquiry as to the degree of culpability of their several
owners. The sale took place at Chichester House, Dublin, in 1703. All
hope was now abandoned by these unfortunate Irish gentry. Many of them
left their homes for foreign countries and there struggled to eke out
a miserable existence in the army or navy. Some few attained to eminence
as soldiers, statesmen, or diplomatists, but for the majority, the life
on the continent was one of privation and hardship. Of those who remained
at home the greater number sunk into the condition of peasants, and
for a hundred years, under the baneful operation of the penal laws,
led a life of slavery and degradation.”
So the question that arises is: "By what means do we find our two
wealthy Squire O'Gradys in 1800, of catholic religion and great prominence
in Tulla and Kildysart, living very comfortably in the centre of the
Clare battle-zone of the mid-1600s, when we might have expected that
that would be forever impossible?" To understand the answer to
that is to understand more of our O'Grady family history.
The Flight-Path to Cooga
The first clue to answering the above question comes from James Frost's
final comment on the terrible period of Clare history outlined above:
A12
“In perusing the lists of those to whom the lands of Clare
were granted under the Acts of Settlement and Explanation, it will be
noticed that the greater part of the county was given to the O'Briens
and to those whom we have previously described as innocent papists.”
The above comment can be easily demonstrated by referring to the "Book
of Forfeitures and Distributions" for the Clondagad and Killadysert
parishes in the Baronies of Islands and Clonderlaw resp.A13, A14 where
the Earls of Thomond and Inchiquin need to be recognised as O'Brien
family members, and noting that these two parishes were to be important
in our subsequent O'Grady history. The message is clear, in that the
noble families that remained loyal to the English throne were rewarded
with large tracts of land that they could lease or sell-off, thereby
generating a cash flow for those favoured few.
Because the Townland of Cooga in Killadysert parish is now the immediate
destination for this leg of our current time-flight, it is relevant
to record the entry made for Cooga from the above Book.
| Townland | Proprietors before 1641 | To Whom Disposed of |
| Cooga, alias Lacknagalone | Earl of Thomond; & Mahone MacMahon |
Donogh O'Brien; Teige MacMahon; (afterwards Robt. Harrison) & Earl of Thomond |
The second clue comes from recognizing
that through the above turmoil of that last 155 years of Irish history
(1547-1702), none of our O'Grady family were ever much mentioned in
any of that history. One Daniel O'Grady of Clonroad (near Ennis) was
cited for not paying a debt to George Waters, an English immigrant merchant,
in 1642A15. But in general, the O'Gradys stood mainly on
the sidelines watching the tragedies unfold from the relative safety
of Kilballyowen in Co. Limerick, to which they'd been driven back in
the early 1300s. So with this happy accident of geography, plus their
switching to the Anglican religion as part of the Agreement with Henry
8th in 1543, most of them had no reason whatsoever to get involved with
the old catholic families of Clare in their fight for survival against
the Cromwellian forces in the mid-1600s. As some "support"
for this, we can look at the 1659 Census taken by PettyA16
where apart from 11 O'Grady families living in the original O'Grady
Barony of Tulla, (ie around Tuamgraney) there were no other principal
Grady or O'Grady families among the total of 2620 families living in
the eight Baronies of Clare.
So we can send our timeship on a gentle arc from Tuamgraney in the 1540s,
keeping about 20 km south of the Shannon River around to Kilballyowen
in the first 15 years of the 1700s. We can fly over the O'Grady properties
in Co. Limerick at Elton and The Grange and Cappercullen and Belmont
occupied during this time, but in the distance to the north can see
through our telescopes such fighting as the massacre of 850 catholic
soldiers going on at Limerick Bridge in 1691, and other such atrocities
in even earlier times in Clare. As we sweep around on this arc, the
pedigree charts produced by our on-board databases also verify clearly
the 'anglification' of our O'Gradys, firstly through their choice of
marriage partners, and then in the names of their children which don't
include any of the catholic names of Patrick, Michael, or Daniel, nor
many of Bridget, Mary or Catherine. In addition to the Finucane chartA1
mentioned above for Thomas O'Grady's wedding, we see similar characteristics
in the Kilballyowen O'Gradys and their important descendants such as
the Guillamore O'GradysA17, as below. The chart originally
sketched up by Inchiquin 13 in 1860,A18 really just shows
the Brady family that "split" from the O'Grady line in the
mid-1500s, but the same characteristics are present.
And as an aside for the benefit of our timeship's Antipodean passengers
who gasp at the possibility of any family records being more than 250
years old, our on-line data shows interesting but elementary Irish pedigree
information going back to the early centuries AD, and even beyond that
from ancient writings to the times BC, as compiled by O'Hart.A19 Such
records are truly amazing to us.
“O'Hart used many sources to compile the information that
appears in his major work. His principal sources were Gaelic genealogies,
like those of O'Clery, MacFirbis and O'Farrell. Along with the Gaelic
annals, especially the Annals of the Four Masters, O'Hart was able to
'reconstruct' the medieval and ancient pedigrees that appear here. He
also used later sources, like the works of Burke, Collins, Harris, Lodge
and Ware to extend these lineages into the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. But arguably the most important information contained in
these genealogies came where O'Hart gathered the details directly from
the families concerned, often from private papers or family tradition.
These sections concern the later period, particularly post 1800, and
are good for many specific localities like western Co. Clare.”
Likewise, the pedigrees of early Irish Kings named O'Brien is available
and makes interesting perusal.A20
The third clue comes from recognizing that those land barons to whom
the lands had been gifted could not generate an ongoing cashflow unless
they had good tenants who could lease and farm their lands and sell
their produce. So once the courts had finished their deliberations in
1703, and thus created certainty about land ownership, it became feasible
and urgent to re-populate the county again so that organized agricultural
production could resume. As recorded by Lewis 1837A21 the lands along
the shore of the Fergus River and its estuary were the most fertile
in Clare and so became prime targets for purchase or for tenancy, even
back in the early 1700s. Cooga is in the middle of this area.
“Bunratty barony, which includes the tract between this and
the river Fergus, has in the north a large proportion of rocky ground,
which is nevertheless tolerably productive, very luxuriant herbage springing
up among the rocks, and affording pasturage for large flocks of sheep.
The southern portion of this barony, adjoining the rivers Fergus and
Shannon, contains some of the richest land in the county, both for tillage
and pasturage ; the uplands of this district are also of a superior
quality. . . .The barony of Islands, which joins Inchiquin on the south
and Bunratty on the west, is chiefly composed on the western side of
low moory mountain, but towards the east, approaching the town of Ennis
and the river Fergus, it greatly improves, partaking of the same qualities
of soil as Bunratty, and containing a portion of the corcasses.”
Click on image for larger version
The fourth clue, and perhaps the most
telling one for us, arises from note #70 appended by Frost to his reporting
on the "Book of Forfeitures and Distributions",A22
"About the year 1712, the Earl of Thomond made leases for ever
of the following lands:-- Cooga, Richd. Hearn, Thos. Grady, yearly rent,
£330; Killadysert, Angel Scott, £330; Crovraghan, Sam. Weakly,
£46."
As owner of the Cooga townlands in 1712, the Earl of Thomond could lease
his lands to whomever he wished, but clearly would have had an historical
incentive to avoid any query about whether or not they were made to
Catholic tenants. Richard Hearn is clearly recognizable as being of
English origins, but by making the second lease to Thomas Grady rather
than to Thomas O'Grady, such concerns would be avoided without causing
any ambiguity to Irishmen. However, we can be sure that the above two
listed lessees were important men who moved in the Earl's circle, and
could afford the rental. They would certainly have appreciated the boon
given to them of good land at a very good rental, and as leaders in
their community would have affirmed their loyalty to the Earl.
However, it becomes difficult to ascertain where the above Thomas O'Grady
fits into the nobility of these times. Perusal of the Guillamore pedigreeA17
above, shows a Thomas Grady as being born around 1670 to Thomas O'Grady
and Frances Anketell, with his father Thomas being the second son (probably)
of Darby O'Grady and his mother from a "staunch Catholic family"A23
in Limerick. They all lived in the O'Grady estates at Kilballyowen in
Limerick. The particular Thomas Grady (jun.) married Ellis Walsh in
1699, five years prior to his appointment in 1704 as Lord Thormond's
Chief Rent Collector in Clare, as determined by Gerard MaddenA23. So
this Thomas Grady (jun) is of the right generation, and in the right
place near Lord Thomond, and in high position as a grandson of Darby
O'Grady, to have been the lessee of the Cooga lands in 1712.
This is sufficiently close to the birthdate of Squire Daniel O'Grady
of Cooga to speculate that he (Daniel) was in fact a lesser and unrecorded
son of Thomas Grady (maybe even an extra-marital son) - noting that
in our speculation he died in 1800 "at an advanced age", normally
denoting above 85 years of age. It may also be noted from the pedigree
chart that Darby O'Grady's wife, Faith Standish, was the source of the
ongoing use of Standish in the naming of the Guillamore O'Gradys, AND
that her father was the Englishman, Sir Thomas StandishA24 , whence
seems to have come the first use of Thomas as a forename in the O'Grady
line, too. As for this speculated father of our Squire Daniel#1 of Cooga,
Madden's Chapter 13 records that this Thomas and his family went on
to establish the well-reported noble O'Gradys of Rahan and Grange in
co. Limerick, albeit with just two sons and "several daughters"A23.
Perhaps with the great wealth that he accumulated (according to Madden),
he had just enough economic space to recognize Daniel by giving him
the leasehold of his Cooga lands which were far enough away from Kilballyowen
as not to cause problems. This speculation is depicted in purple on
the left-hand sides of both the Guillamore and the O'Keefe-Blake charts.
Note that it can be seen from the Guillamore chart that our Thomas O'Grady
was nine years older than Frederick O'Grady (Guillamore 6) and with
the older ages of the two Daniel O'Gradys of Shorepark in having their
children, accounts for the apparent one-generation difference between
Thomas and Frederick.
The fifth and final clue comes from an inspection of the few available
early demographic records for this area of Clare as we start to fly
over the 1840's Fergus estuary and see the green pastures laid out on
either side of the water, narrowing into the distance to become the
silver ribbon of the Fergus river itself. Remembering from above that
only 11 O'Grady families were recorded in the 1659 census, and those
all concentrated in the Tulla barony, we find that in the 1826 TAB for
all of Clare, there are 82 registrations for Grady and 37 for O'Grady
(counting the minor variations around the use of an apostrophe), with
more than half of each of those situated in the prime lands around the
Fergus River. Then, in the 1855 GPV, there are 145 Grady and 26 O'Grady
entries with the latter again having over 50% of their numbers in the
Fergus-side regions. So clearly, a significant number of O'Grady people
flooded into Clare after the 1700s had begun and took over much good
land in the county - many of them dropping the O' prefix to their names
to help their acceptance into the county hierarchy. By the time of the
1901 census, the forward documents show that there were 210 registrations
for Grady people and 341 for O'Grady so seemingly many people will have
switched their names back to the latter version in that meantime.
So we can now see the answer to the earlier question. After emigrating
into Co.Clare and being given access to a large amount of prime land
in Clare, and enjoying successful marriages of a number of sons to wealthy
girls, and perhaps holding some ambivalence about their religion, these
O'Grady family members were able to advance their wealth and status
in co. Clare to become very prominent society members well into the
1830s. It does seem sad though, that within another 30 years, the main
survivors from Squire Daniel O'Grady's family of Shorepark were only
his de facto children, Thomas and Margaret who emigrated to NZ. And
further that of Squire Thomas O'Grady's family in Tulla, neither of
his sons married, and only his last daughter Ann had a family that survived.
In the 21st century, we can be thankful that those from both families
who did survive, evidently have survived well.
Appendix References
A1: Finucane Pedigree Chart, by Murtagh-Dannenberg-Murtagh 2013, after
Morgan G.Finucane in www.finucane.info and Lundy (NZ) in www.thepeerage.com
and NUI Galway in landedestates.nuigalway.ie:8080/LandedEstates/jsp/estate-list.jsp
A2: "Ancient Genealogy of O'Grady according to O'Hart", para
124, www.araltas.com/features/grady
A3: "O'Grady", para 1 www.tompaterson.co.uk/ogrady/ogrady2.htm#standishjames
A4: "Pernicious Political Institutions of the Irish", www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/frost/chap14_irish_political_institutions.htm
A5: "Principal gentry of Thomond, 1585" www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/frost/chap14_thomond_conversion.htm
A6 "The History & Topography of the County of Clare",
James Frost, www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/frost/frost.htm
A7: "Merciless Rigour of Cromwell's Lieutenants", www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/frost/chap21_cromwells_lieutenants.htm
A8: "Clare 1653", www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/frost/chap21_confederated_catholics_declaration.htm
A9: "Commissioners Orders", www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/frost/chap27_commissioners_appointed.htm
A10: "The Jacobite Era 1685-1702", B.O'Dalaigh www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/jacobite_era.htm
A11: "Reign of William and Mary", 30 , final para. www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/frost/chap30_earl_of_thomond.htm
A12: "Clare Grantees", www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/frost/chap22_survey_maps.htm
A13: "Clondagad Distributions", www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/genealogy/survey_distribution/islands/clondagad_parish.htm
A14: "Kildysart Distributions", www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/genealogy/survey_distribution/clonderlaw/killadysert_parish.htm
A15: "Depositions of Protestant Settlers, 1642 - Ennis", final
para, www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/frost/chap20_ennis_depositions.htm
A16: "Petty's Census 1659", www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/frost/chap21_census_1659.htm
A17: "Guillamore O'Grady Pedigree Chart",
A18: "Inchiquin 13 Pedigree for Bradys" MS14620, as in Brian
Kirby, "Inchiquin Papers", p 21-24, Accession List No.143,
NLI, 2009, (Accession 2395.) www.nli.ie/pdfs/mss%20lists/143_Inchiquin.pdf
A19: "Irish Pedigrees or the Origin and Stem of the Irish Nation"
John O'Hart, www.araltas.com/features/milesius.html
and in the lower half of: www.araltas.com/features/grady/
A20: "Irish Kings from 1023 to 1743 AD" www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/frost/appendix6_obriens.htm
A21: "County Clare - A description in 1837", Samuel Lewis,
www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/lewclare.htm
A22: Frost's Notes, para 70 of: www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/genealogy/survey_distribution/footnotes1.htm
A23: "History of the O'Gradys of Clare and Limerick", by G.Madden,
p 80 & 153
A24: From "The Peerage", by D.Lundy, www.thepeerage.com/p29713.htm#i297124
