Family of Smythe of Barbavilla

Leabharlann Náisiúnta na hÉireann National Library of Ireland Collection List No. 120 PAPERS OF THE FAMILY OF SMYTHE OF BARBAVILLA (MSS 41,563–41,603) (Accession No. PC 434-450) The family and estate papers of the Smythe family of Barbavilla, Collinstown, Co. Westmeath 1621 - 1930. The papers relate to members of the Smythe family and the estates in Westmeath, Louth, Meath, Cavan, Roscommon, Limerick, Dublin city and Drogheda. Compiled by A.P.W. Malcomson 2006 TABLE OF CONTENTS CLASSIFICATION SCHEME...............................................................................................4 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................5 I TITLE DEEDS: COUNTY WESTMEATH.......................................................................9 II TITLE DEEDS: DUBLIN CITY AND COUNTY..........................................................11 III TITLE DEEDS: COS. ROSCOMMON AND TYRONE .............................................12 IV TITLE DEEDS: COS. LOUTH AND MEATH, AND DROGHEDA .........................13 V MEADE OGLE ESTATE .................................................................................................14 VI MARRIAGE SETTLEMENTS.......................................................................................15 VII WILLS AND TESTAMENTARY PAPERS ................................................................16 VIII LEASES: COUNTY WESTMEATH ..........................................................................20 IX LEASES: ELSEWHERE THAN WESTMEATH.........................................................21 X ESTATE RENTALS, ACCOUNTS AND ADMINISTRATION ..................................23 XI FORMAL DOCUMENTS AND WESTMEATH LOCAL GOVERNMENT ............25 XII MAPS AND ARCHITECTURAL PAPERS ................................................................29 XIII BISHOP WILLIAM SMYTH......................................................................................31 XIV ROBERT NELSON.......................................................................................................37 XV MRS JANE BONNELL..................................................................................................39 XV. i. LETTERS TO MRS JANE BONNELL FROM THE CONYNGHAMS .......................39 XV.ii OTHER LETTERS AND PAPERS OF MRS BONNELL ...............................................59 XVI THE INGOLDSBYS .....................................................................................................94 XVII CORRESPONDENCE OF WILLIAM SMYTH OF BARBAVILLA (1692–1769) WITH OTHER SMYTHS...................................................................................................103 XVIII WILLIAM SMYTH’S CORRESPONDENCE WITH HIS OTHER MAJOR CORRESPONDENTS – BURGHS, CLARKES, CROFTONS, ROBERT FRENCH AND THE LEDWIDGES....................................................................................................121 XIX LETTERS TO WILLIAM SMYTH FROM OTHER CORRESPONDENTS, ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED..................................................................................136 XX CORRESPONDENCE OF WILLIAM SMYTH FROM MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENTS, CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED ....................................146 XXI CORRESPONDENCE OF RALPH SMYTH WITH OTHER SMYTHS .............152 XXII CORRESPONDENCE OF RALPH SMYTH WITH HIS OTHER MAJOR CORRESPONDENTS.........................................................................................................163 XXIII RALPH SMYTH’S CORRESPONDENCE WITH OTHERS, ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED..................................................................................168 2 XXIV RALPH SMYTH’S MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE, CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED.............................................................................175 XXV CORRESPONDENCE OF THE LATER SMYTHS/SMYTHES .........................180 XXVI RECIPÉS AND MISCELLANEOUS .....................................................................183 3 CLASSIFICATION SCHEME MS 41,563 Title deeds: Co. Westmeath MS 41,564 Title deeds: Dublin city and county MS 41,565 Title deeds: Cos. Roscommon and Tyrone MS 41,566 Title deeds: Cos. Louth and Meath, and Drogheda MS 41,567 Deeds and case papers: Meade Ogle estate (Cos. Louth and Meath, and Drogheda) MS 41,568 Marriage settlements MS 41,569 Wills and testamentary papers MS 41,570 Leases: Co. Westmeath MS 41,571 Leases: elsewhere than Westmeath MS 41,572 Rentals, accounts, etc MS 41,573 Formal documents and Westmeath local government MS 41,574 Maps and architectural papers MS 41,575 Papers and correspondence of Bishop William Smyth MS 41,576 Papers and correspondence of Robert Nelson MS 41,577–9 Letters to Mrs Jane Bonnell from the Conynghams MS 41,580 Letters to Mrs Bonnell from other correspondents MS 41,581 Papers and correspondence about the Ingoldsbys MS 41,582–3 Correspondence of William Smyth of Barbavilla with other Smyths MS 41,584–8 Correspondence of William Smyth with his other major correspondents MS 41,589 Correspondence of William Smyth, alphabetically arranged MS 41,590 Correspondence of William Smyth, chronologically arranged MS 41,591–4 Correspondence of Ralph Smyth of Barbavilla with other Smyths MS 41,595–7 Correspondence of Ralph Smyth with his other major correspondents MS 41,598 Correspondence of Ralph Smyth with others, alphabetically arranged MS 41,599 Miscellaneous correspondence of Ralph Smyth, chronologically arranged MS 41,600–02 Correspondence of the later Smyths/Smythes MS 41,603 Recipés and miscellaneous 4 INTRODUCTION The papers of the Smythe family of Barbavilla, Collinstown, Co. Westmeath, are a large family and estate archive, 1621–c.1930, deriving from the Smyth/Smythe (the extra ‘e’ was added c.1810) and related families and to estates in Cos. Westmeath, Louth, Meath, Cavan, Roscommon, Limerick, etc, and to the city of Dublin and the town of Drogheda. The archive was deposited in NLI by the late Henry Ingoldsby Lyster Smythe in 1955. TCD also holds a much smaller deposit of Smythe Papers, made in 2003 by his late niece, Mrs Valerie Bunn of Upper Basildon, Reading. It bears reference TCD MS 11,198, and has been listed in detail and indexed. The single best source of information about Smythe family history is Stephen R. Penny, Smythe of Barbavilla: the History of an Anglo-Irish Family compiled by various Members of the Family (privately printed, 1974). Only 200 copies were printed, so this book is now extremely rare. I am grateful to Mr R.C. Guinness of Lodge Park, Straffan, Co. Kildare, whose father was a first cousin of H.I.L Smythe, for access to the Lodge Park copy of it. Another useful source is Elizabeth Batt, The Moncks and Charleville House (Dublin, 1979). William Barlow Smythe of Barbavilla (1809–86) married Lady Emily Monck, daughter of the Earl of Rathdowne of Charleville House, Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow, in 1837 and became a widower later in the same year, when she died in childbirth. The Moncks and Charleville House gives a good idea of the extreme evangelicism of life at Charleville and Barbavilla for much of the 19th century. The Smyth family came to Ireland c.1630 and settled in Cos. Down and Antrim. The founder of the Barbavilla line (and others) was the Rt Rev. William Smyth (1638–99), who was successively dean of Dromore, bishop of Killala (1681–2), bishop of Raphoe (1682–93) and bishop of Kilmore (1693–9). His episcopal papers are a major source for the study of the Restoration Church of Ireland, and particularly revealing on the subject of his battles with the Presbyterians of Co. Cavan in the 1690s. His papers as bishop of Kilmore also include material about the administration of the see estate back to 1621. Bishop William Smyth married in 1672 Mary, daughter of Sir John Povey, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in Ireland, by whom he had three sons and four daughters. In 1670, the Bishop, who purchased land in a variety of locations, bought the Ranaghan (later Barbavilla) estate at Collinstown and near Lough Lene, Co. Westmeath, which he subsequently gave to his third son, William Smyth, the founder of the Barbavilla line. The extremely complicated network of ‘cousins’ which dominates William Smyth of Barbavilla’s correspondence derives, obviously, from the different branches of the Smyth family, and also from his mother’s family, the Poveys, and the connections formed by his four sisters, the eldest of whom married another Smyth cousin, Edward Smyth, Bishop of Down and Connor, and the others into the Burgh, Clarke and Echlin families. Of William Smyth’s brothers, the eldest, Ralph Smyth (1676–1755), moved to London c.1707, and for that reason is known in the family as ‘Ralph Smyth of Gray’s Inn’ to distinguish him from the other Ralph Smyths who abound. Like William Smyth, he had been endowed by their father with lands in Co. Westmeath (Parcellstown, Slanemore, etc), which William Smyth managed for him during the long years of his absence. In archival terms, Ralph Smyth of Gray’s Inn is of crucial importance because he was executor to a distant 5 relation called Jane Bonnell, the widow of James Bonnell, Accountant-General of Ireland, and – much more important – one of the two sisters of the formidable Katherine Conolly, wife/widow of William Conolly of Castletown, Co. Kildare, Speaker of the House of Commons from 1715 to his death in 1729. The three sisters were daughters of General Sir Albert Conyngham, so their correspondence – which came into the Smythe of Barbavilla archive through the already-mentioned executorship – is highly informative

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