Callaghan MacCarty, 3rd Earl of Clancarty

Callaghan was born in the late 1630s or the early 1640s[lower-alpha 1] in County Cork, most likely at Blarney Castle or Macroom Castle, residences of his parents.[3] He was the second son of Donough MacCarty and his wife Eleanor Butler.[4] At the time of his birth, Callaghan's father was the 2nd Viscount Muskerry, but he would be advanced to Earl of Clancarty in 1658. His father was a member of the MacCarthy of Muskerry dynasty, a Gaelic Irish family descended from the kings of Desmond.[5] Callaghan's mother was the eldest sister of James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond.[6] Her family, the Butler dynasty, was Old English and descended from Theobald Walter, who had been appointed Chief Butler of Ireland by King Henry II in 1177.[7] Callaghan's parents were both Catholic; they had married before 1641.[8]

While Callaghan was a child, his father, Lord Muskerry, in March 1642 joined the Confederates[19] to defend the Catholic faith and, as he thought, the King.[20] Muskerry commanded the Confederates' Munster army in the Irish Confederate Wars. In October 1645 Giovanni Battista Rinuccini, the papal nuncio arrived in Ireland and visited Macroom Castle where Callaghan and his family were living.[21] Muskerry disagreed with Rinuccini's policies and resigned early in August 1647 from his command.[22]

In May 1647 Muskerry sent Callaghan's elder brother, Cormac, with a regiment to France to serve Louis XIV.[23] After Rinuccini had left Ireland on 23 February 1649,[24] Muskerry took up arms again to resist the Cromwellian Conquest of Ireland. He fought to the bitter end and surrendered Ross Castle near Killarney to Edmund Ludlow on 27 June 1652, disbanding his 5000-strong army.[25][26]

To guarantee his compliance with the terms, Muskerry gave one of his sons to Ludlow as hostage.[27] This son must have been Callaghan, aged 14, as his eldest, Cormac, was with his regiment in France[23] and Justin, aged 9, was probably with is mother, also in France.

Muskerry was allowed to embark to Spain.[28] The family's estates were lost in the Act of Settlement of 1652,[29] passed by the English Rump Parliament on 12 August.[30]

Some time before the fall of Ross Castle, Muskerry had sent his wife, Callaghan's mother, to safety in France. She was probably accompanied by Callaghan's youngest brother, Justin, and his sisters. His mother lived with her sister Mary Butler, Lady Hamilton, in the convent of the Feuillantines in Paris.[31]

On 27 November 1658 his father was created Earl of Clancarty by Charles II in Brussels, where the King was then in exile.[32] By this advancement the title of Viscount of Muskerry became a subsidiary title of the family, which was given as a courtesy title to the Earl's heir apparent. Callaghan's elder brother Charles (or Cormac) was from there on styled Lord Muskerry. Charles predeceased his father and would therefore never accede to the earldom.[14]

At the Restoration Calleghan, aged about 13, and his elder brother, Cormac, stayed behind in France, while his parents, his younger brother, Justin, and his sisters returned to the British Isles. Callaghan was preparing for a religious career in a French monastery, whereas Cormac stayed behind in Dunkirk with his regiment.

According to authors Callaghan was either a monk[33] or a seminarist.[34][35]

His father, Earl Clancarty, recovered his estates in the Act of Settlement 1662.

On 4 March 1665, the Second Anglo-Dutch War broke out. Three months into the war, on 3 June 1665 O.S., his brother Charles, Lord Muskerry, was killed on the flagship, the Royal Charles, in the Battle of Lowestoft, the first major naval engagement of the war and an English victory.[14] His brother had an infant son, also named Charles, who succeeded him as heir apparent and Viscount of Muskerry. However, their father, the 1st Earl, died two months later, on 4 August 1665,[36] and the younger Charles succeeded as the 2nd Earl of Clancarty. The 2nd Earl died about a year later, on 22 September 1666, still an infant.[37][lower-alpha 3]

At this point Justin, the third son, expected to succeed as 3rd Earl, as Callaghan, being is holy orders, would be passed over, but Callaghan hearing of the opening of the succession decided to claim the title. He left the French religious institution and returned to Ireland, where he conformed to the established religion, leaving the Catholic Church and joining the Protestant Church of Ireland. He therefore succeeded as the 3rd Earl of Clancarty.[33]

Lord Clancarty, as he was now, married Elizabeth FitzGerald, sixth and youngest daughter of George FitzGerald, 16th Earl of Kildare and his wife Lady Joan Boyle.[39][40] The FitzGeralds were an Old English family whose ancestor came to Ireland during the Norman invasion of that country. His wife has been described as "a fierce Protestant isolated in a Catholic family".[41]

Callaghan and Elizabeth had five children, one son:

• Donough (1668–1734), became the 4th and last Earl of Clancarty[42]

—and four daughters of whom three are known by name:[43]

1. Catharine, married Paul Davys, 1st Viscount Mount Cashell[44]
2. Margaret, died childless[45]
3. Elizabeth, died childless[46]

Clancarty died on 21 November 1676, aged about 38.[47] He seemed to have returned to his original Catholic religion just before his death, probably by demanding or accepting a ceremony of last unction.[48] He was succeeded by his only son Donough, aged eight at the time. His widow remarried to Sir William Davys, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, and died in 1698.[40]

• Burke, Bernard (1866). A Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire (New ed.). London: Harrison. (for MacCarty)
• Burke, Bernard; Burke, Ashworth P. (1909). A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Peerage and Baronetage, the Privy Council, Knightage and Companionage (71st ed.). London: Harrison. – (for Ormond)
• Butler, William F. T. (1925). Gleanings from Irish History. London: Longmans, Green and Co.
• Carte, Thomas (1851). The Life of James Duke of Ormond. 3 (New ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. – 1643 to 1660
• Clark, Ruth (1921). Anthony Hamilton: his Life and Works and his Family. London: John Lane.
• Coffey, Diarmid (1914). O'Neill and Ormond – A Chapter of Irish History. Dublin: Maunsel & Company.
• Cokayne, George Edward (1893). The complete peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct, or dormant. 5 (1st ed.). London: George Bell and Sons. – L to M (for Mountcashel)
• Cokayne, George Edward (1913). Gibbs, Vicary (ed.). The complete peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct, or dormant. 3 (2nd ed.). London: St Catherine Press. – Canonteign to Cutts (for Clancarty)
• Cokayne, George Edward (1926). Gibbs, Vicary (ed.). The complete peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct, or dormant. 5 (2nd ed.). London: St Catherine Press. – Eardley of Spalding to Goojerat (for Fingall)
• D'Alton, Rev. Edward Alfred (1910). History of Ireland from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. 4. London: The Gresham Publishing Company. – 1649 to 1782
• Debrett, John (1828). Peerage of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 2 (17th ed.). London: F. C. and J. Rivington. – Scotland and Ireland
• Firth, Charles Harding (1894). The Memoirs of Henry Ludlow. 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Firth, Charles Harding; Rait, R. S. (1911), The Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 2, London: H. M. Stationery Office
• Kenyon, John Philipps (1958). Robert Spencer Earl of Sunderland (1641–1702). Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press Publishers. ISBN 083718150X.
• Lainé, P. Louis (1836). "Mac-Carthy". Archives généalogiques et historiques de la noblesse de France (in French). 5. Paris: Imprimerie de Bethune et Plon. pp. 1–102.
• Lodge, John (1789a). The Peerage of Ireland. 1. Dublin: James Moore. – Blood royal, dukes, earls (for Earl of Kildare)
• Lodge, John (1789b). The Peerage of Ireland. 4. Dublin: James Moore. – Viscounts (for Thurles)
• MacCarthy, Samuel Trant (1922). The MacCarthys of Munster. Dundalk: The Dundalgan Press.
• Meehan, Rev. Charles Patrick (1882). The Confederation of Kilkenny (New revised and enlarged ed.). Dublin: James Duffy.
• M'Enery, M. J. (1904). "A Diary of the Siege of Limerick Castle, 1642". The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland. 5th. 34 (2): 163–187. JSTOR 25507363.
• Murphy, John A. (1959). Justin MacCarthy, Lord Mountcashel, Commander of the First Irish Brigade in France. Cork: Cork University Press. – Snippet view
• O'Hart, John (1892). Irish Pedigrees: or, the Origin and Stem of the Irish Nation. 1 (5th ed.). Dublin: James Duffy & Co. – Irish stem
• Ohlmeyer, Jane (2004). "MacCarthy, Donough, first earl of Clancarty (1594–1665)". In Matthew, Colin; Harrison, Brian (eds.). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 35. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 107–108. ISBN 0-19-861385-7.
• O'Sullivan, Mary D. (1983) [1942]. Old Galway: the history of a Norman colony in Ireland. Galway: Kennys Bookshops and Art Galleries.
• Seccombe, Thomas (1893). "MacCarthy or MacCarty, Donough, fourth Earl of Clancarty". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. 34. London: Smith Elder & Co. pp. 436–438.
• Wauchope, Piers (2004). "MacCarthy, Justin, first Viscount Mountcashel (1643–1694)". In Matthew, Colin; Harrison, Brian (eds.). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 35. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 111–112. ISBN 0-19-861385-7.
• Webb, Alfred (1878). "MacCarty, Donough, Viscount Muskerry, Earl of Clancarty". Compendium of Irish Biography. Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son. p. 303, right column, line 35. (for his father)