Burnell family

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The Burnell family were a Dublin family who were prominent in Irish public life and in the arts from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. They acquired substantial estates in County Dublin, and married into the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. They produced several judges and politicians, a leading playwright, and one of the first female Irish poets. They were staunch Roman Catholics, who opposed the Penal Laws, and supported the Irish Confederacy in the 1640s. They forfeited most of their lands after the failure of the Confederate cause, and never recovered them.

Family History

It is unclear when the Burnells arrived in Ireland: there are several English families of the same name. A London Burnell family in the sixteenth century clearly had links to the Irish Burnells, as Richard Burnell, lawyer and MP, who died in 1558, left a legacy to an Irish cousin.[1] Philip Burnell is recorded from County Meath in 1306, when he was one of the defendants in a case of serious assault brought by four members of the Netterville family (who were later one of the most prominent landowning families in Meath) and was ordered to pay heavy damages.[2] A Robert Burnell was Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1356-7, and the same or another Robert Burnell was Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1383-4.

The first Burnell of whom much is known was Robert, who was Lord of the Manor of Balgriffin in c.1388.[3] He may well have been the son of the Robert Burnell whose widow Margaret married Richard Plunkett, Lord Chancellor of Ireland (died 1393), and may also have been the Robert Burnell who was Mayor of Dublin a few years earlier. A royal writ survives from 1381 ordering him to grant to John Cruys (this was Sir John Cruys or Cruise of Booterstown and Mount Merrion, a prominent soldier and diplomat, who died in 1407) a two-thirds share in a watermill called Luttrell's Mill in County Dublin.[4] Robert married Matilda Tyrrell, heiress of the Irish feudal barony of Castleknock. The manor of Castleknock later became the principal Burnell residence. He was a Baron of the Court of Exchequer (Ireland) and thus began a long family tradition of serving as members of the Irish judiciary, particularly on the Exchequer.

His descendant John Burnell was Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer in the 1490s and another Burnell, Patrick, who died in 1491, was also a Baron of the Exchequer.[5]

In about 1490 Sir Robert Burnell was Lord of the Manor of Balgriffin: he married Margaret Holywood, daughter and co-heiress of Sir Robert Holywood of Artane (Tartaine was the older spelling), who brought him substantial lands at Swords, north of Dublin. Their daughter Anne married William Preston, 2nd Viscount Gormanston.[6]

A later John Burnell of Castleknock took part in the Rebellion of Silken Thomas and was executed for treason at Tyburn in 1537; but his cousin, yet another John, managed to retain the family estates, which later passed by inheritance to the Bathe family.[7]

In the second half of the sixteenth century Henry Burnell, son of the third John Burnell, was one of Ireland's foremost barristers, and served briefly as Recorder of Dublin and a judge of the Court of King's Bench (Ireland). He also sat in the Irish House of Commons as MP for Dublin, where he was a passionate advocate for the rights of Roman Catholics, and he was frequently in trouble with the English Crown as a result.[8]

His grandson, also named Henry, was a well-known playwright: his play Landgartha (1640) was one of the first Irish plays to be published and the last play performed in Werburgh Street Theatre, Dublin's first theatre, which closed shortly afterwards.[9] He was wealthy and influential enough to marry Lady Frances Dillon, a daughter of James Dillon, 1st Earl of Roscommon. Of his nine children, his daughter Eleanor is still remembered as one of the few Irish women poets of her time, although not much is known of her personal life, and only a few of her poems, all of which were written in Latin, survive.[10]

In the 1640s Henry became a leading member of the Irish Confederacy;[11] though little is known of his later years, it is known that most of the Burnell estates were forfeited for rebellion, while he himself was sentenced to transportation to Connaught, although he managed to obtain a stay on the sentence on the ground of ill-health.[12]

Through the marriage of Alice Burnell, a sister of Henry Burnell (the Elizabethan judge), to Richard Talbot of Templeogue, judge of the Court of Common Pleas (Ireland), in about 1550, the Burnells were ancestors of Sir Henry Talbot, founder of the prominent Talbot family of Mount Talbot.[13]

Notable family members

Places associated with Burnell family

  • Artane
  • Balgriffin
  • Castleknock

Notable works

  • Landgartha, a tragicomedy, a play by Henry Burnell (1640)
  • Patri suo Charissimo operis Encomium, a poem by Eleanor Burnell, daughter of the playwright Henry Burnell.

References

  1. ^ Bindoff, S.T. ed. The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558 Boydell and Brewer 1982
  2. ^ Calendar of Justiciary Rolls 1305-7
  3. ^ Ball, F. Elrington The Judges in Ireland 1221-1921 John Murray London 1926 Vol.1 p.167
  4. ^ Patent Roll 5 Richard II
  5. ^ Ball p.185
  6. ^ Cokayne, G.E. Complete Peerage Reprinted Gloucester 2000 Vol.VI p.22
  7. ^ Ball, F. Elrington History of Dublin Alexander Thom and Co Dublin 1920 Vol. 6 p.17
  8. ^ Crawford, Jon G. A Star Chamber Court in Ireland-the Court of Castle Chamber 1571-1641 Four Courts Press Dublin 2005 p.129
  9. ^ Laughton, J.K. "Henry Burnell" Dictionary of National Biography 1885-1900 Vol.7 (1886) p.386
  10. ^ Stevenson, Jane Women Latin Poets; Language, Gender and Authority from Ancient Times to the Eighteenth Century Oxford University Press 2005 p.384
  11. ^ Laughton p.386
  12. ^ Ball History of Dublin p.21
  13. ^ Burke's Irish Family Records London 1976 p.303
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