SECOND SERIES-VOL, XI, No. 67. [JULY-SEPTEMBER, 1905. Journal of the Cork Historical and Archæological Society. Some Account of the Family of O'Hurly. NE of the objects of the Cork Historical and Archæological Society is to give the history of Cork from its ancient castles and other antiquities. The castle of Ballinacarriga, built by Randal Hurly, which belonged to that family, attracted the attention of the Society, and I was invited to join the late Mr. Herbert Webb Gillman and others to give a description of this castle, which was evidently of great importance from its size and also from the curious stone carvings it contains. In August, 1896, Mr. Gillman, with his daughter, Miss Frances Gillman, now Mrs. Ievers, of Glenduff Castle, Co. Limerick, and I went to the castle and took measurements of it, and also took notes describing it, which were to be published jointly by Mr. Gillman and the writer of this article. Besides these notes, Mr. Gillman looked up the Fiants of Elizabeth and Charles I., from which he compiled, as he describes, much history. He finds that the O'Hurly family are originally from Limerick, where they were in possession of their tribal lands. In this sense, Limerick is the home or seat of the family, and to give a history of the castle, Mr. Gillman justly writes, we must begin first with the history of the family in the County Limerick. In my researches I discovered that Mr. J. C. D. Hurly, of Fenit, Tralee, had valuable documents connected with the history of the family. I put myself in communication with him, and he kindly lent me the materials at his disposal. The family of the late Mr. Gillman also gave me his notes, and in compiling this article it is almost entirely due to the notes and documents I have got from these two sources. The first portion of this article will deal with the County Limerick (Knocklong) branch, head of the family of Hurly or Hurley, the pedigree, distinguished members of the family, wills, confiscations, &c., relating to its history. One of the manuscript volumes now before me begins: Are like a morning vapour gone. My chief and great object has been to rescue, even in some degree, a once high and distinguished but fallen family from the state of degradation into which all the miseries of civil war have plunged its descendants, for I verily and conscientiously believe that no house or family in Ireland had suffered more severely, as the following pages will incontestably prove, than mine. In the cause of the Royal Martyr, Charles I., and of his weak and unfortunate son, James II., to adopt the language of Mr. O'Driscoll in his Views of Ireland, they were faithful to the religion of their ancestors, faithful to the house of Stuart, even in its despair. In both these instances they have been sufferers, and even ruined by their fidelity. The heads of most Irish families of rank either perished in the field, or found an honourable asylum in Spain and France and Austria, and found fame and honour far from the land of their nationality. Nothing remains in the land but a few ruined collateral branches of these once high and distinguished families and the mere peasantry. It is unhappily a matter of history that down to the close of the seventeenth century changes of property were great, violent, and irretrievable (Phelan's Remains, edited by Bishop Jebb). Some would say that the Hurley family was of English or Norman descent, but from the following pedigree made out and certified by O. Connellan, it is of Milesian origin. There are a few places in England called Hurley, one near London, where there was a Benedictine house, dependent on the Monastery of Westminster; another near Manchester; also 'families of the name. They may have come from Ireland and settled in England. It is indifferently written Murrilly, Imurrilly, Hurlee, Hurly, O'Hurley. I give here the pedigree made out and authenticated by O. Connellan. From several manuscripts in the collection of the Royal Irish Academy, as well as elsewhere, it appears that the family of O'Hurly is of very ancient and noble Milesian origin. The first MS. to which I shall refer is the celebrated Book of Leacan, so called from Leacan, the hereditary residence of the antiquarians of Sligo, whose castle was situated near the river Moy, in the barony of Tireragh, County of Sligo. This MS. is a compilation from many more ancient historical MSS., such as the Psalters of Cashel and Tara, Book of Glendalough, &c., &c., and was written about the close of the fourteenth century. (A copy of this MS. was made by the writer of this notice by order of his late Majesty for the Royal Library, and which he had the honour to lay before his present Majesty in the year 1830 at James's Palace). At folio 214, page B, of this MS. is the following account of the origin of the O'Hurly family as descended from the same stock with that of the Thomond family, viz: "Cormac Cas was son of Oilioll Olum, King of Munster (lineally descended from Milesius) about the year 230. This Cormac Cas had one son named Fearcorb, who had two sons, viz., Semne and Aengus Tireach. Aengus Tireach had four sons, Eogan, Dubros, Leascad, Luigdeach Meand, the last-named had two sons, viz., Conall Eachluath (i.e., Conall of the swift steeds) and Lisceand. Conall Eachluath had two sons, namely, Enna Airgtheach and Cas, surnamed Tal (i.e., Cas Mac Tail) and hence the Dal Cassians of Munster). Cas had thirteen sons, of whom Blod was the eldest. This Blod had four sons, viz., Cairthean Fionn (the fair), the ancestor of the O'Brien family, afterwards Earls of Thomond; Cairthand Dub (the black), Eacho, and Brenann Ban (the fair), from whom are descended the O'Hurlys." From this account we find that the O'Briens and O'Hurlys concentrated in Blod, from whom the district of Aoibh Bloid took its name, according to O'Huidhrin, the Munster topographer, who lived about the year 1400. Dr. O'Brien, in his Dictionary, under the word Aoibh, says it is now the barony of Lower Ormond, but from several passages in other MSS. it is plain that it was situated in Thomond, now County Clare. The foregoing account of the origin of the O'Hurly family is fully borne out by another MS. called the Book of Ballymote, which has, similarly with the Book of Leacan, derived its name from the place where it was compiled, namely, Ballymote, the ancient residence of the MacDonoughs, Princes of Caran, in the barony of Leyney, County of Sligo. This MS. was finished about the fourteenth century, and such was the estimation in which it was held, that in the year 1522 it was sold for 140 milch cows. The account of the O'Hurly family in this MS. is given under the heading of the "Dal Cas Race," at folio 102, page B. As it would be only a repetition of the foregoing, although evidently taken originally from different sources, it will not be necessary to insert it here. The account of the O'Hurly family in the two MSS. is supported by several modern writers, as, for instance, O'Flaherty in his Ogygia, published in 1685, chap. 82, p. 387, makes them a family of Thomond, as does Dr. O'Brien in his English-Irish Dictionary under U; see also the Abbé MacGeoghegan's History of Ireland, vol. i., page 304, note, and Gratianus Lucius, cap. 3. It now remains for me to trace the family of O'Hurly from Blod, their, common ancestor with that of the Thomond family, down to about the middle of the seventeenth century, which I shall extract from an Irish MS. by Dudley McFirbis, the last historiographer of Leacan, who was murdered in the year 1670. It was under his tuition that O'Flaherty, the author of Ogygia, studied; and McFirbis himself studied under McEgan, the last of the hereditary Brehons of Ireland, who, I believe, resided in the County Tipperary. |