Family Seats and Houses
Some of the principal houses and home-grounds of my family, each tagged by how it stands to me.
| House (and place) | Family | Built / held by | My connection |
|---|---|---|---|
| Damory Court, Blandford Forum, Dorset | Ryves (formerly (D’Amory) | By tradition, Sir Roger d'Amory's seat, bought in 1548 by Robert Ryves and held to the 18th century. | In-law / convergence: my Ryves ancestors' seat and the house that carries my own name |
| Ranston (Randleston), Iwerne Courtney, Dorset | Ryves | Bought 1545 by Robert Ryves; held by his descendants to 1781 | In-law: my Ryves ancestors' chief estate |
| Sarson, Amport, Hampshire | Swayne | Manor bought 1598 by Arthur Swayne; home of William & Anne Freke before Ireland | In-law: Anne Swayne's seat; my Frekes' last English home |
| Drombeg House, Glandore | Jones | Built in 1666, enlarged in 1703 and held into the 1940s (Richard William Jones died in the house in 1944); stands beside the Drombeg stone circle | Direct: my ancestral seat |
| The Castle, Castletownshend | Townsend | Founded by Col. Richard Townsend (1618–92); central block rebuilt c.1780; the family live there still | Direct: my 8× g-grandfather’s seat |
| Kilmoylan, Doon, Co. Limerick | White | Built mid-1700s by Newport White; held by my Whites; now demolished | Direct: my ancestral seat |
| Butlerstown / Timoleague House | Travers | Seat of Jonas Travers of Butlerstown and of the Travers of Timoleague | Direct: my ancestral seat |
| Castle Dooneen, Tullagh | Smyth | Seat of Richard Smyth and the Rev. John R. Smyth | Direct: my ancestral seat |
| Kilmalooda, Timoleague | Beamish | Garrisoned 1641 by Francis Beamish (my ancestor); the Georgian house of 1815 is the senior line’s | Direct ancestor; later house, cousins’ |
| Castle Bernard (formerly Castle Mahon), Bandon | Bernard, Earls of Bandon | Bought 1639 by Francis Bernard; renamed & enlarged by his descendants; burnt 1921 | Mixed: Francis is my 9× g-grandfather; the Earls are cousins |
| Castle Freke (formerly Rathbarry), Rosscarbery | Freke, Barons Carbery | Rathbarry bought 1641 by Sir Arthur Freke; new castle built 1780; Gothicised 1820 by R. Morrison | Cousin: I descend from Arthur’s sister Elizabeth |
| Palace Anne, Enniskeane | Beamish-Bernard | Built 1714 by Arthur Bernard; held by the Beamish-Bernards | Cousin: via Catherine Beamish’s brother |
| Caheragh House, Co. Cork | Webb | Seat of “Webb of Caheragh House”; Rev. R. F. Webb was Rector of Caheragh | Collateral: my Webbs were of Ringrone & Maryborough |
| Mount Ievers Court, Co. Clare | Ievers | Built 1733–37 by Col. Henry Ievers (my 6× great-grandfather) | Direct: my 5× great-grandmother's childhood home |
| Ballymodan · Tullyglass · Keelameely | Damery | Tenant farms around Bandon, no great house | Direct: my farming home ground |
| Shimpling · Lawshall · Glemsford | Channell, Wright & kin | Yeoman farms around Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk | Direct: my English yeoman home ground |
| Lanes Park, Killenaule, Co. Tipperary | Lane | Granted 1666 to William Lane, one of the "49 officers"; sold after the family's ruin, 1859 | Direct: my 6× great-grandfather's seat |
| Shippool, Innishannon, Co. Cork | Herrick | ome of Falkiner Herrick on the tidal Bandon; the later Herrick house burnt in the Troubles | Direct: my 4× great-grandmother Jane Herrick's home |
| Marlow, Goold's Cross, Co. Tipperary | Pennefather | Seat of the Marlow Pennefathers from William (d. 1772); still theirs in 1912 | Direct: my 4× great-grandmother Ellen Pennefather's home |
| Curragh Chase, Co. Limerick | Hunt (later de Vere) | Settled 1657 by Vere Hunt; the Hunts' seat for five generations, later the poet de Veres' | Direct: my Hunt ancestors' seat |
| Attyflin, Co. Limerick | Westropp | Purchased 1703 by Mountiford Westropp the second, the season the Joneses settled Drombeg | Direct: my Westropp ancestors' seat |
| Tristernagh Abbey, Co. Westmeath | Piers | The dissolved abbey granted to Capt. William Piers in the 1560s; seat of the Piers baronets | Direct: my Piers ancestors' seat |
| Askeaton Castle, Co. Limerick | Berkeley | Sir Francis Berkeley knighted there 1599, died there 1615 | Direct: his heiress Gertrude Berkeley is my ancestor |
| Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin | Loftus | Built by Archbishop Adam Loftus, Lord Chancellor and first Provost of Trinity | Direct: the Archbishop is my ancestor |
| Ballymaloe, Co. Cork | FitzGerald | Home of Honora FitzGerald, wife of the 17th Baron Kerry | Direct: on the Kerry ladder |
| Leeds Castle, Kent | de Clare (Badlesmere) | Margaret de Clare held it against Queen Isabella in 1321 and was sent to the Tower for it | Direct: my ancestress Margaret de Clare's castle |
| Chepstow & Pembroke | Marshal | The strongholds of William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke and Regent of England | Direct: via Isabel Marshal |
| Listowel Castle, Co. Kerry | FitzMaurice | Of the Barons Kerry; a descendant was smuggled out of it three centuries after the ancestress who brought it in | Direct: on the Kerry ladder |
| Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin | de Clare | Burial place of Strongbow, whose supposed effigy stands in the nave | Direct: via Isabel de Clare |
| Ferns, Co. Wexford | Mac Murchada | Royal seat of Diarmait Mac Murchada, King of Leinster, who died there in 1171 | Direct: the Leinster royal seat, via Aoife and Órlaith |
| Kincora, Killaloe, Co. Clare | O'Brien (Dál gCais) | The royal seat of Brian Boru, High King of Ireland, above the Shannon at Killaloe | Direct: Brian Boru's seat, via the O'Briens of Thomond |
| Cashel, Co. Tipperary | O'Brien | Donal Mór O'Brien, last King of North Munster, founded the cathedral on the Rock of Cashel in 1169 | Direct: via Donal Mór O'Brien and Órlaith |
| Naas (Nás na Ríogh), Co. Kildare | Uí Dúnlainge | Royal seat of the Uí Dúnlainge kings of Leinster, on the northern Liffey plain | Direct: the deep Leinster seat, via Sadb of the Uí Faeláin |
| Bunbury & Stanney, Cheshire | Bunbury (de Boneberi) | The family's Cheshire manors, held from Henry de Boneberi's day in King Stephen's reign; they took their surname from Bunbury | Direct: via the Lanes of Lanespark |
| Kilkenny Castle | Butler | Seat of the Butler Earls of Ormond for five centuries; the Plantagenet door into this family opened here | Direct: via Helen Butler, Countess of Thomond |
| Maynooth Castle, Co. Kildare | FitzGerald | Seat of the FitzGerald Earls of Kildare, the Great Earl's house; the Welsh royal line runs through it | Direct: via Margaret FitzGerald, the Great Countess |
| Westminster | Plantagenet | The palace and abbey of the Plantagenet kings; Edward I lies in the abbey under the plainest tomb in it | Direct: via Elizabeth Plantagenet and the de Bohuns |
| Dunfermline & Scone | Alpin & Dunkeld | The abbey Saint Margaret founded and the crowning place of the Kings of Scots | Direct: via Matilda of Scotland |
| Dinefwr, Deheubarth | The house of Rhodri Mawr | The chief seat of the Welsh kings of Deheubarth, Hywel Dda's line | Direct: via Nest ferch Rhys |
| Kiev (Kyiv) | Rurikid | St Sophia's cathedral and the Golden Gate, built under Yaroslav the Wise, Grand Prince of Kiev | Direct: via Anne of Kiev, Queen of France |
| Rouen & Falaise, Normandy | of Normandy | The ducal capital and birthplace of William the Conqueror | Direct: the Norman crown |
| Winchester, Wessex | of Wessex | Capital of Alfred the Great, King of Wessex | Direct: the West Saxon crown |
| Aachen | Carolingian | Charlemagne's palace and imperial seat | Direct: the Frankish crown |
| Longueville, Normandy | Giffard | Walter Giffard's lordship, the family's documented ground on the far side of the Channel | Direct: the table's first Norman seat |
| Clare Castle, Suffolk | de Clare | Caput of Richard FitzGilbert's Domesday honour of ~170 lordships; the house took its name from the place | Direct: my ancestors' seat, uncautioned to 1086 |
| Tonbridge Castle, Kent | de Clare | Richard FitzGilbert's second great castle, held by the Clares for generations | Direct: via Alice de Clare |
| Castle Hedingham, Essex | de Vere | The Earls of Oxford's great keep; Aubrey de Vere the Domesday tenant planted its vineyard | Direct: the deepest documented ground the family touches |
| Earls Colne, Essex | de Vere | The earls' burial place; the Agincourt earl and the 16th Earl (whose will proved Jane) lie there | Direct: via Jane Vere, m. Henry Hunte 1573 |
| Gosfield, Essex | Hunte / Hunt | The Huntes' parish from the early 1500s; William Hunte buried there 1552 | Direct: the Hunt line's origin |
The seats below the line arrived with the deep ancestral lines of July 2026; this table is kept current on the website, and the printed 2026 book holds its own snapshot.
Of the houses in West Cork, Drombeg (the Stone Circle and nearby villages of Glandore and Union Hall) and Castletownshend (the church, house, pier and wider village) best repay a visit. Castle Bernard and Castle Freke survive as romantic ruins. Castle Freke is under restoration by a Freke descendant. Kilmoylan and Palace Anne are largely gone.
The principal houses, a closer look
Drombeg House — a tall, five-bay stone house dating to 1666, distinctive for its dozen diagonally set ashlar-limestone chimney stacks. It was the Jones seat from the 1660s until the early 1920s. The line begins with Edward Jones of Drombeg (m. a Honner), and the documented founder, Henry Jones (active 1703–19), rebuilt or enlarged the house in 1703.
The Castle, Castletownshend — the fortified house at the head of its steep village street above the harbour, founded by Col. Richard Townsend after 1650 and still in Townsend hands. One of the very few Irish houses held by one family for over three centuries; this is Somerville-and-Ross country too.
Kilmalooda, Timoleague — the Beamishes' main West Cork seat from the 1600s, a fine four-square Georgian block, sadly gutted by an accidental fire in 2022.
Castle Bernard, Bandon — bought as Castle Mahon by Francis Bernard in 1639 and grown by his descendants, the Earls of Bandon, into a great house; the 4th Earl was kidnapped by the West Cork IRA and the house burned in 1921, leaving the ivied ruin that stands in its parkland today.
Castle Freke, Rosscarbery — the cousins' seat: Rathbarry taken by the Frekes in 1641, replaced by a battlemented Gothic castle above its lake, burned, rebuilt, and now under restoration by a Freke descendant.
Palace Anne, Enniskeane — built in 1714 by Arthur Bernard and named for his wife Anne; a tall red-brick, Dutch-gabled house, one of the show-houses of the county in its day, held by the Beamish-Bernards (our Beamish cousins); now largely gone.
Caheragh House, Co. Cork — the seat of the Webbs of Caheragh in the hills west of Skibbereen, home of the Rev. R. F. Webb, Rector of Caheragh; the Burke's-listed branch of our Cambridgeshire Webbs.
Mount Ievers Court, Co. Clare — one of the loveliest early-Georgian houses in Ireland, a tall house of the 1730s near Sixmilebridge with two near-identical fronts, one of faded Dutch pink-red brick, the other of silvery local limestone. It was built by my 6× great-grandfather, Col. Henry Ievers, and my 5× great-grandmother Mary Ievers grew up under its roof before she married Newport White of Kilmoylan (1728–1780), the builder of Kilmoylan.
Drombeg Stone Circle
Of the seats that joined the table in July 2026: Castle Hedingham is the family's deepest documented ground, the de Veres' great Norman keep in Essex, its vineyard planted by the Domesday Aubrey; Earls Colne holds the earls' tombs, among them the Agincourt commander and the sixteenth Earl whose will proved our Jane; Curragh Chase stands in its forest park in Limerick, the Hunts' ground for five generations before the poet de Veres; Tristernagh Abbey passed from monks to the Piers baronets in the 1560s; Askeaton keeps the castle where Sir Francis Berkeley was knighted and died; and Rathfarnham Castle, built by Archbishop Loftus, still stands in Dublin and admits visitors, who are entitled to feel proprietorial.