Donough MacCarty, 1st Earl of Clancarty

Birth and origins

Donough MacCarty was born in 1594 in County Cork, most likely at Blarney Castle or Macroom Castle, residences of his parents. He was the second but eldest surviving son of Charles (alias Cormac Oge) MacCarthy and his first wife Margaret O'Brien. His father was at that time known as Sir Charles MacCarthy while his paternal grandfather, Cormac MacDermot MacCarthy, held the title as 16th Lord of Muskerry and owned the ancestral land covering large parts of central County Cork. His father's family were the MacCarthys of Muskerry, a Gaelic Irish dynasty that had branched from the MacCarthy-Mor line in the 14th century when a younger son received Muskerry as appanage.

Donough's mother was the eldest daughter of Donogh O'Brien, 4th Earl of Thomond. Donough was named for this grandfather (there were no Donoughs in the line of the MacCarthy of Muskerry). The name is an anglicised, shortened form of the Gaelic first name Donnchadh. Her family, the O'Briens, were another Gaelic Irish dynasty that descended from Brian Boru, medieval high king of Ireland.

His parents had married about 1590. He was one of seven siblings (two brothers and five sisters). See the list in his father's article.

Religion

Although most Irish remained Catholics under the Protestant monarchs Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth, both of MacCarty's grandfathers were Protestants. His paternal grandfather, Cormac MacDermot MacCarthy, had conformed to the established religion. MacCarty's maternal grandfather, Donogh O'Brien, 4th Earl of Thomond, had been brought up as Protestant at the English court. MacCarty's father seems to have been a Protestant in his youth but later became Catholic.

Early life, marriage, and children

When MacCarty's mother died, his father remarried to Ellen Roche. She was the eldest daughter of David Roche, 7th Viscount Fermoy and widow of Donal MacCarthy Reagh of Kilbrittain, who had died in 1636. None of the cited works mentions children from his father's second marriage. MacCarty's stepmother's father was a zealous Catholic but a loyal supporter of the government.

In 1616 MacCarty's father succeeded as the 17th Lord of Muskerry. In 1628 King Charles I created MacCarty's father Baron Blarney and Viscount Muskerry. The titles were probably purchased. They had a special remainder that designated Donough as successor, excluding his elder brother, who was alive at the time but probably had an intellectual disability.

MacCarty married Eleanor Butler some time before 1633 as their eldest son was born in 1633 or 1634. She was a Catholic, the eldest daughter of Thomas Butler, Viscount Thurles. The Butlers were an Old English family descending from Theobald Walter, who came to Ireland during the reign of King Henry II. MacCarty was already in his late thirties while she was about twenty. He had been married before and had a son Donall from this wife, but this earlier marriage seems to have been ignored by his family. His marriage to Eleanor made him a brother-in-law of James Butler, who succeeded as 12th Earl of Ormond in 1633, just before or just after MacCarty's marriage. Ormond was a Protestant, as he had been brought up in England.

Donough and Eleanor had three sons:

Charles (1633 or 1634 – 1665), also called Cormac, predeceased his father, being slain at sea in the Battle of Lowestoft

Callaghan (d. 1676), succeeded his elder brother's infant son, Charles James, as the 3rd Earl of Clancarty

Justin (c. 1643 – 1694), fought for the Jacobites and became Viscount Mountcashel

—and two daughters:

House of Commons

When Charles I summoned the Irish Parliament of 1634–1635, MacCarty, already in his forties, stood for County Cork and was elected as one of its two "knights of the shire" as county MPs were then called. He had been knighted in 1634. The Lord Deputy of Ireland, Thomas Wentworth (the future Lord Strafford) asked to vote taxes: six subsidies of £50,000 (equivalent to about £9,700,000 in 2025) were passed unanimously. The parliament also belatedly and incompletely ratified the Graces of 1628, in which the King conceded rights for money.

MacCarty was re-elected for County Cork to the Irish Parliament of 1640–1649. The parliamentary records list him as a knight, but about 1638 his father had bought him a baronetcy of Nova Scotia. The King sold these for 3,000 merk Scots each or £166 13s. 4d. sterling (equivalent to about £299,000 in 2025). Under Strafford's guidance, the parliament unanimously voted four subsidies of £45,000 (equivalent to about £9,500,000 in 2025) to raise an Irish army of 9,000 for use against the Scots in the Second Bishops' War.

In April Strafford left Ireland to advise the King during the Short Parliament at Westminster. The Irish Commons saw their chance to complain about Strafford's authoritarian regime. They formed a committee for grievances of which MacCarty was a member. The committee prepared a remonstrance, called the November Petition, which was signed by all its members. The petition was then voted and approved by the Commons. MacCarty also was part of the delegation of 13 MPs that went to London in November to submit the petition to the King. The Lords sent a separate delegation for their grievances. MacCarty's father was part of it.

Viscount Muskerry

In February 1641, MacCarty's father, aged about 70, died in London during his parliamentary mission. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. MacCarty succeeded as 2nd Viscount Muskerry. He lost his seat in the Commons where he was replaced by Redmond Roche, an uncle by his stepmother. As his ailing elder brother had died some time before, the title's special remainder did not need to be invoked. In March when Strafford was tried by the English House of Lords, Muskerry gave evidence that Strafford had prevented Irish people from seeing the King. When he came back to Dublin, Muskerry took his seat in the Irish House of Lords.

Irish wars

Ireland suffered 11 years of war from 1641 to 1652, which can be divided into the Rebellion of 1641, the Confederate Wars, and the Cromwellian Conquest. This Eleven Year War or Eleven Years War was a theatre of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, also known as the British Civil Wars.

Rebellion

Seeing the King weak and trying to oppose plantations, Sir Phelim O'Neill launched the Rebellion from the northern province of Ulster in October 1641. He pretended, in his Proclamation of Dungannon, to have a royal commission sanctioning his actions. In Munster Muskerry socialised with Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork, an English Protestant established in Ireland, with whom he had opposed Strafford. News of the rebellion reached Lord Cork at a dinner at Castlelyons where David Barry, 1st Earl of Barrymore entertained Muskerry and Cork's son Roger, Lord Broghill. Barrymore was an Irish Protestant and Cork's son-in-law. Muskerry would later oppose Barrymore and Broghill in battle, but in February 1642 Muskerry still sided with Sir William St Leger, Lord President of Munster, against the insurgents. Muskerry offered to raise an armed force of his tenants and dependants to maintain law and order. He and his wife tried to save Protestants fleeing from the insurgents. In January 1642 the Munster insurgents under Maurice Roche, 8th Viscount Fermoy besieged Lord Cork in Youghal.

However, the rebellion was gaining ground, and on 2 March, Muskerry changed sides, to defend the Catholic faith and the King as he explained on 17 March in a letter to Barrymore. Muskerry believed Phelim O'Neill acted under a royal warrant, but the King had already denounced the Irish insurgents as traitors in January. Hearing of his defection, the Irish Parliament declared Muskerry's estates forfeit. He lost the Dublin townhouse that his father had built about 1640, but the government could not seize his Munster estates.

Like many Catholic royalists, Muskerry imagined Charles could be convinced to accept Catholicism in Ireland as he accepted Presbyterianism in Scotland. He was also prompted to take up arms by the atrocities committed by William St Leger against the Catholic population and by the approach of Richard Butler, 3rd Viscount Mountgarret with his rebel army. Muskerry refused to serve under Mountgarret and competed for the leadership in Munster with Fermoy, an uncle by his stepmother. Fermoy had led the rebellion in Munster before Muskerry joined and outclassed him in terms of precedence, but Muskerry was richer. At a meeting of the leaders at Blarney, Garret Barry, a veteran of the Spanish Army of Flanders, was made general of the Munster insurgents' army as a compromise. Muskerry was his second-in-command.

In March and April, Muskerry and Fermoy with 4,000 men unsuccessfully besieged St Leger in Cork City. On 13 April Murrough O'Brien, 6th Baron Inchiquin, an Irish Protestant, lifted the siege by driving the insurgents from their base at Rochfordstown. Muskerry lost his armour, tent, and trunks in this action. He and his lady stayed nearby at Blarney Castle at the time. On 16 May, Muskerry and Fermoy captured Barrymore Castle at Castlelyons, Barrymore's seat. St Leger died on 2 July, and Inchiquin, the vice-president, took over the command of the government forces in Munster.

Confederation

In 1642 the insurgents organised themselves in the Irish Catholic Confederation. In May the Catholic Church declared the war lawful. An oath of association was dawn up. In October Muskerry attended the first Confederate General Assembly at Kilkenny where Mountgarret was elected president of the Confederation. Muskerry was not elected to the Supreme Council, but his rival Fermoy was. Garret Barry was made general of the Munster Army, despite his recent defeat and advanced age. Barry seems to have held the position until his death in March 1646 in Limerick, but others commanded in his stead. In 1643 Muskerry and Fermoy were both elected to the Supreme Council.

Muskerry commanded the infantry at the Battle of Cloughleagh on 4 June 1643 where the Irish cavalry under James Tuchet, 3rd Earl of Castlehaven, routed a detachment of Inchiquin's troops under Sir Charles Vavasour, 1st Baronet, of Killingthorpe, who had taken the Cloughleagh Tower House near Fermoy the day before. Muskerry with the infantry arrived only after the decisive cavalry charge. Castlehaven considered him slow and called him "the old general".

Later that year, Muskerry led the Munster Army in an offensive against Inchiquin in County Waterford. Lieutenant-Colonel, Patrick Purcell, unsuccessfully besieged Lismore Castle, the seat of the Earls of Cork. Muskerry was about to take Cappoquin but engaged in parleys and was outwitted by Inchiquin, who delayed the town's surrender until September when the cease-fire ended the war.

Muskerry, like most of the magnates among the Confederates, was afraid to lose title and land when the King regained control. He therefore adhered to a faction within the Confederates, called the peace party or the Ormondists, that sought an agreement that would protect against such a loss. The King, on the other hand, sought peace with the Confederates to be able to withdraw troops from Ireland for use in the English Civil War. In 1643, the King asked Ormond to open talks with the Confederates. On 15 September 1643 at Sigginstown, Strafford's unfinished house, the Confederates signed a cease-fire with Ormond, called the "Cessation". Muskerry was one of the signatories. The Confederates agreed to pay the King £30,000 (equivalent to about £6,000,000 in 2025) in several instalments. In return, the Confederates gained some degree of diplomatic recognition. The articles of the Cessation gave Lismore Castle and Cappoquin to Inchiquin.

Cromwellian conquest

On 15 August 1649, Oliver Cromwell landed in Dublin. He wanted to avenge the uprising of 1641, confiscate enough Irish Catholic-owned land to pay off the English Parliament's debts, and eliminate a dangerous outpost of royalism.

In April 1650, Muskerry lost Macroom Castle. An Irish force raised by Fermoy and Boetius MacEgan, Catholic Bishop of Ross, tried to relieve the Siege of Clonmel. Led by Colonel David Roche and the bishop, this force passed by Macroom and camped in the castle's park. Macroom's garrison burned the castle and joined Roche's force, Cromwell sent Broghill to intercept the Irish, which were routed in the Battle of Macroom on 10 April. Clonmel surrendered to Cromwell in May. Cromwell had to hurry away to counter a threat from Scotland and passed the Irish command to Henry Ireton on 19 May.

In April 1651 Ulick Burke, 1st Marquess of Clanricarde, appointed Muskerry supreme commander in Munster. Muskerry tried to relieve the Siege of Limerick, but Broghill intercepted and defeated him on 26 July 1651 at the Battle of Knocknaclashy (also called Knockbrack), near Dromagh Castle, west of Kanturk, the war's last pitched battle. Limerick surrendered in October.

Muskerry fell back into the mountains of Kerry and based himself at Ross Castle near Killarney, owned by Sir Valentine Browne, his nephew by his sister Mary. Browne, born in 1638, was a minor and had become Muskerry's ward after his father's untimely death. In 1652 the government put a bounty of £500

(about £90,000 in 2025) on Muskerry's head. Muskerry hoped that the Duke of Lorraine would intervene to save the Irish royalists.

Edmund Ludlow besieged Muskerry in Ross Castle, on the shore of Lough Leane. The defenders were supplied by boat over the lake. Ludlow brought boats of his own whereupon Muskerry surrendered on 27 June 1652 after a siege of three weeks. The terms took a possible prosecution into account. Muskerry gave two hostages to guarantee his compliance with the terms: one of his sons and "Daniel O'Brien".Daniel O'Brien. This son probably was Callaghan, whereas the Daniel O'Brien probably was the future 3rd Viscount Clare, about 30 at the time, rather than the future 1st Viscount, who was about 70. Muskerry disbanded his 5,000-strong army. He was excluded from pardon of life and estate in the Commonwealth's Act of Settlement on 12 August and therefore lost his estates. His surrender was one of the last, but Clanricarde, 28 June, and Philip O'Reilly, 27 April 1653, surrendered later.

Exile and prosecution

Muskerry was allowed to embark for Spain

where he was rejected as Ormondist.

He then sought employment with the Venetian Republic for himself and the Irish soldiers that he brought with him, but the project fell through. He returned to Ireland late in 1653 landing at Cork to recruit soldiers for service on the continent but was arrested for war crimes and detained until the opening of his trial on 1 December in Dublin. He was accused of having been an accessory to murders of English settlers on three occasions.

The first case was the murder of William Deane and others at Kilfinny, County Limerick, by soldiers of the Munster army on 29 July 1642. The victims died when Lady Dowdall surrendered Kilfinny Castle to Patrick Purcell, who commanded the besiegers. It had been agreed that the English would be allowed to leave escorted by a detachment sent by Inchiquin. The second case was the murder of Mrs Hussey and others near Blarney Castle, County Cork, by Irish soldiers on 1 August 1642. The victims were refugees that Muskerry had sheltered at Macroom and was sending to Cork in a guarded convoy so that they could leave the country. The third case was the murder of Roger Skinner and others at Inniskerry, County Cork, in August 1642. Muskerry was acquitted of these three charges.

In February 1654 he was tried for having participated in royalist conspiracies. Lady Ormond, who had been allowed to return to Ireland from her French exile, secretly visited Gerard Lowther, president of the High Court of Justice at the time, who gave her legal advice for Muskerry. This helped him convince the court of his innocence and he was acquitted.

In May 1654 he had to defend himself against another murder charge concerning the killing of an unnamed man and woman. He was acquitted.

Muskerry was again allowed to embark for Spain but went to France. Henrietta Maria, now the Queen Mother, still lived there, but in July 1654 Charles II and his exile court were about to leave France and start their wanderings in the Netherlands and Germany. Lady Muskerry lived in Paris. Muskerry's daughter Helen found shelter at the abbey of Port-Royal-des-Champs near Versailles. The abbess, La Mère Angélique, tried to help Muskerry and his Irish soldiers in their need. In November 1654 she wrote to Queen Marie Louise Gonzaga of Poland proposing to employ Muskerry and his followers – 5,000 men – in Polish service. In 1655 Muskerry and Bellings led them to the Polish King, who fought the Swedes in the Second Northern War. Muskerry and Bellings returned with £20,000 for Charles II. In 1657 the King sent Muskerry to Madrid to ask the Spanish to let the Irish exiles now in Spain invade Ireland. They stayed seven months but achieved nothing. Muskerry's eldest son fought the French and Cromwell's English at the Battle of the Dunes in June 1658 The King, in exile at Brussels, rewarded Muskerry in November 1658 with the title of Earl of Clancarty. His title of Viscount Muskerry, now subsidiary, passed to his eldest son Charles, his heir apparent, as courtesy title.

Restoration and death

At the Restoration of the Stuarts, Clancarty, as he now was, returned to Ireland. He used Ormond's influence to recover his estates, which Charles II confirmed to him in his "Gracious Declaration" of 30 November 1660. The Cromwellian occupiers had to leave at once. Now-Admiral William Penn, to whom Macroom had been granted in 1654, was compensated with land at Shanagarry (east of Cork). Broghill had to return Blarney and Kilcrea. The Clancartys repaired and enlarged Macroom Castle. Clancarty also recovered his townhouse, which now became Clancarty House. Clancarty found wealthy Irish spouses for his eldest son and his two daughters. This son married Margaret Bourke in 1660 or 1661. She was a rich heiress, the only child of Ulick Burke, 1st Marquess of Clanricarde. Clancarty's elder daughter Helen married twice. First, after 1660 Sir John FitzGerald of Dromana, a Protestant, as his second wife. The marriage was childless. After his death in 1664, Helen married secondly William Burke, 7th Earl of Clanricarde. Clancarty's younger daughter Margaret married Luke Plunket, 3rd Earl of Fingall, before 1666.

In the winter of 1661–1662, Clancarty signed the Catholic Remonstrance drawn up by Bellings and promoted by Peter Walsh. in an attempt to improve the Catholics' condition in Ireland by demonstrating their loyalty to the King. However, the remonstrance proved inefficient, mainly because too few of the clergy signed.

In August 1660, Charles II made George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle, lord lieutenant of Ireland. As Albemarle never went to Ireland, the King appointed three lords justices to govern in his stead. When the King summoned the Parliament of 1661–1666, it was opened by the lords justices on 8 May 1661. Clancarty joined the House of Lords on 20 May. On 11 June Clancarty became the proxy of Lord Inchiquin, therefore voting in his stead. The passing of the Act of Settlement was one of the main purposes of the parliament. Clancarty was absent on 30 May 1662 when the Lords finally passed it. Clancarty sat on the committee that organised the gift of £30,000 (about £4,700,000 in 2025) made to the Duke of Ormond. However, Clancarty's eldest son, Charles MacCarty, replaced him in that function on 19 August. On 11 December, the Lords passed the Irish version of the Tenures Abolition Act 1660. Clancarty attended parliament regularly until April 1663 when he moved to London. He visited his Irish estates in 1664 for a last time and returned to England.

On 3 June 1665, Charles, Viscount Muskerry, Clancarty's eldest son and heir apparent, was killed during the Second Anglo-Dutch War in the Battle of Lowestoft, a naval engagement with the Dutch and buried in Westminster Abbey as his grandfather, the 1st Viscount, had been. Charles left an infant son, called Charles James, who became the new heir apparent.

Notes and references

Sources

Subject matter monographs:

Click here. McGrath 1997a in A Biographical Dictionary of the Membership of the Irish House of Commons 1640 to 1641

Click here. Ohlmeyer 2004 in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Click here. Ó Siochrú in Dictionary of Irish Biography

Click here. Seccombe 1893 in Dictionary of National Biography—This is about the 4th earl but the 1st earl is treated as a co-subject

Click here. Webb 1878 in Compendium of Irish Biography