Earl of Cork Bound Volume: Home

Content: 

Contains the rental information for the Earl of Cork for specific lands mainly in counties Waterford, Cork, Dublin and Kilkenny. There are also a small number of rental entries for the Province of Connacht. The cover of this Rental was originally dated 1685. There are many entries for the 1680’s but there are also many for the 1670’s and earlier years in the 1660’s.   The second part of the volume is a catalogue of the books in the library of Dromana House, Villierstown, Co. Waterford. This was written by Rev. Harrys Oldfield in 1795 and he also wrote a catalogue of his own personal library.

Richard Boyle, Second Earl of Cork (1612-1698) was an Anglo-Irish Nobleman, Lord Treasurer of Ireland and Cavalier.  He was born in The College, Youghal, Co. Cork. He was the sixth child and second son of Richard Boyle, First Earl of Cork and Catherine Fenton. His brother was the Chemist, Robert Boyle. Thomas Wentwoth, Lord Deputy of Ireland, helped to arrange Boyle’s marriage to Elizabeth heiress of Henry, Lord Clifford and this helped Boyle gain influence at court. He was a supporter of the Royalist cause and in the Civil War he supported King Charles I in 1639 in providing him with 100 horses for the King’s expedition against the Scots. He was elected to Parliament in 1640 for Appleby and was appointed also to the Privy Council of England. In 1641 he defeated the Irish army at the Battle of Liscarroll. In 1643, on the death of his father, he succeeded him as the second Earl of Cork. King Charles I created him Baron Clifford of Lanesborough in 1644. After the Civil War, he returned to Ireland in 1651. In February 1660 he was made Custos Rotulorum of County Cork and Waterford. He was appointed Privy Counsellor and Lord Treasurer of Ireland in November 1660. He was created the Earl of Burlington in 1664 and he also held the title, Viscount Dungarvan. In 1666 he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Yorkshire and he purchased Burlington House and Estate in 1667 in an incomplete state and set about completing it in the ensuing years.  During the Restoration and the reign of King James II, the estates of Protestants seen as disloyal to the Catholic King were confiscated including the Earl of Burlington, Earl of Cork. In 1690, William of Orange became King and the estates returned to Richard Boyle, 2^nd Earl of Cork. He spent much of his time in Yorkshire and he sent his grandson Henry to oversee the estates in Ireland.  He died in 1698 in Londesborough, Yorkshire.

Rev. Harrys Oldfield [1754]-1818 Clergyman and Vicar, Diocese of Lismore.

Harrys Oldfield was the son of Robert Oldfield. He attended the school of Mr. William Jessop in Lismore. In 1773 he entered Trinity College Dublin and became a Scholar in 1777 and graduated with a B.A. in 1780. He graduated with an M.A. in 1792.  In his religious life, Oldfield first appears in 1781, as a Curate in the parishes of Whitechurch and Kilronan, Diocese of Waterford and Lismore. By 1796, he is recorded as the Chaplain in Villierstown. Rev. Oldfield is also recorded a being the Vicar of Seskinan in 1796. He appears to have remained the Vicar in the Parish of Seskinan until his death in 1818. He was married to Ann Greatrackes from Affane, Co. Tipperary. Their son John Orson Oldfield was Archdeacon of Elphin.

Cecil Crawford Woods (1847-1901) Cork Antiquarian.

Cecil Crawford Woods was a member of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society since its foundation in 1891. He was also a Council member of the Society. He was born in 1847 into the Woods family who were a long-established family of Coppersmiths in Cork city. His grandfather James Woods and his father John were both coppersmith and were also copper brewing manufacturers in the Mardyke and Wood’s Lane area of Cork city.  He seems to have had a lifelong interest in Cork history, antiquaries and their preservation. He was a friend of Richard Caulfield, (1823-1887) Antiquary, Librarian, Queen’s College Cork and Robert Day, (1836-1914) Cork Businessman, Antiquarian and Photographer. In 1874, he married Anna Neville Lindsay Maylor, daughter of Paul Lindsay Maylor of Chiplee House, Blackrock, Cork. The Lindsay family had interests in Cork archaeology, history and numismatics. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland. In 1895, in The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, he published an article on “The Goldsmiths of Cork”.  He also published an article in the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society Journal on Blarney Castle in 1896. Both Robert Day and Cecil Crawford Woods were active in the preservation of Cork antiquities including books and archival collections in Cork.  

Bibliographies:

Dictionary of Irish Biography (RIA)

Day, Robert “Obituary: Cecil C. Woods” Jn. Cork Hist. & Arch. Soc., Vol. 7 No. 5 (1901)

McCarthy, J.P. “Dr. Richard Caulfield : Antiquarian, Scholar and Academic Librarian” Jn. Cork Hit. & Arch. Soc. Ser. 2 Vol. 92 No. 251 (1987)

McCarthy, J.P. “Journeying to a Journal: the Society’s Predecessors”, Jn. Cork Hist. & Arch. Soc. Ser. 2 Vol 96 (1991)

Burtchaell, G. D.  & Sadleir, “T.U. Alumni Dublinenses” (TCD) 1935

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