Christopher Plunkett, 1st Baron of Dunsany

Christopher Plunkett, 1st Baron of Dunsany (c. 1410 – c. 1463) was an Irish peer. He was the second son of Sir Christopher Plunkett, 1st Baron Killeen.

The elder Christopher Plunkett (Baron Killeen) of Rathregan had married in 1399, Lady Joan de Cusack, heiress of Killeen and Dunsany; she was the daughter of Sir Lucas de Cusack, Lord of Killeen.[1]

Sir Christopher and Lady Joan's two oldest children were male. John, the elder, inherited Killeen Castle, Dunsany and Christopher, the younger, inherited Dunsany Castle and Demesne.[2]

A charter of 1439, a few years before his father's death, refers to the younger Sir Christopher as lord of the manor of Dunsany. (Dns. de Dunsany).

He is referred to by William Camden, in the next century, as being the first Baron of Dunsany, that is: an hereditary member of the Irish House of Lords. What year he became a peer is uncertain. The first reference to the Dunsanys as peers is in the roll of the two Irish earls and eleven Irish barons who met with Henry VII of England and Ireland at Greenwich in 1489; the third Lord Dunsany, Sir Christopher's grandson, is listed last of the eleven, after Lord Trimleston; other Irish parliaments use almost the same order of precedence. It so happens that we know the date of the patent of the Barony of Trimleston to be 4 March 1462; it is one of two baronial patents that survive. Cokayne concludes, in the Complete Peerage, that, if this precedence represents the date of creation, then, since Sir Christopher's will is dated 1 August 1462, probably shortly before his death, the Barony of Dunsany was created in that year. The Complete Peerage also notes, however, that the order of precedence was likely to reflect the relative importance of the lords, rather than the age of their titles.

Debrett's single sourceless sentence on the subject describes the charter of 1439 as a writ, although Cokayne denies that Ireland recognised the creation of peerages by writ; some websites have copied Debrett.

Christopher Plunkett was succeeded by his son Richard Plunkett, 2nd Baron of Dunsany.