The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent | Page 2

to be. But there can be
little doubt what type of men these ancient Irish sovereigns were, and I
regretfully confess I cannot trace my descent from them.
The family of Hussey was of English extraction, according to that
rather valuable book The Antient and Present State of the County of
Kerry, by Charles Smith, 1756--the companion volumes dealing with
Cork and Waterford are much less precious. Personally I always
understood that the Husseys hailed from Normandy, as will be seen a

few pages on, but tradition on such a point is not of much value.
Anyway the family of Hussey settled in very early times at Dingle, and
also had several lands and castles in the barony of Corkaquiny.
Dingle was the only town in this barony, and it was incorporated by
Queen Elizabeth in 1585, when she granted it the same privileges
which were enjoyed by Drogheda, with a superiority over the harbours
of Ventry and Smerwick. The Virgin Sovereign also presented the town
with £300 for the purpose of making a wall round it.
The Irish formerly called Dingle Daingean in Cushy, or the fastness of
the Husseys. One of the FitzGeralds, Earl of Desmond, had granted to
an ancestor of my own a considerable tract of land in these parts,
namely, from Castle-Drum to Dingle, or as others say, he gave him as
much as he could walk over in his jackboots in one day. That Hussey
built a castle, said to be the first erected at Dingle, the vaults of which
were afterwards used as the county gaol.
There is mention of this in the grant of a charter to Dingle by King
James I. in the fourth year of his reign: 'The house of John Hussey
granted for a gaol and common hall to the corporation.'
A grim interest lurks in the fact that the dedication of Smith's History to
Lord Newport, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, recites that 'this Kingdom,
my lord, is a kind of Terra Incognita to the greater part of Europe.'
Is it not so to this day?
Do I not meet scores of people who tell me they would love to go to
Kerry, but they have never been nearer than Killarney.
That is the sort of speech which makes me wonder how geography is
taught.
It is on a par with the remark of a prominent Arctic explorer, that he
had never been to Killarney because it was so far off.

People, however, who go there apparently like it.
The chief Elizabethan settlers in Kerry were William and Charles
Herbert, Valentine Brown, ancestor of the Kenmares, Edmund Denny,
and Captain Conway, whose daughter Avis married Robert
Blennerhasset, while a little later, in 1600, John Crosbie was made
Bishop of Ardfert and Aghadoe.
To-day the descendants of those settlers are still among the principal
folk in Kerry, though that is more due to their own selves than to the
support they had from any British Government.
This Valentine Brown, who was a worshipful and valiant knight, wrote
a discourse for settling Munster in 1584. His plan was to exterminate
the FitzGeralds and to protestantise Ireland; but by the irony of fate his
own son married a daughter of the Earl of Desmond and became a
Roman Catholic.
In the Carew Manuscript it is recorded that he estimated that one
constable and six men would suffice for Cork, but for Ventry, 'a large
harbour near Dingle,' one constable and fifty men were necessary; so he
evidently had a clear apprehension of the villainous capabilities of the
men of Kerry.
It is also recorded that in the parish of Killiney is a stronghold called
Castle Gregory, which before the wars of 1641 was possessed by
Walter Hussey, who was proprietor of the Magheries and Ballybeggan.
Having a considerable party under his command, he made a garrison of
his castle, whence having been long pressed by Cromwell's forces, he
escaped in the night with all his men, and got into Minard Castle, in
which he was closely beset by Colonels Lehunt and Sadler. After some
time had been spent, the English observing that the besieged were
making use of pewter bullets, powder was laid under the vaults of the
castle, and both Walter Hussey and his men were blown up.
Prior to this, 'on January 31, 1641, Walter Hussey, with Florence
MacCarthy and others, attacked Ballybeggan Castle, plundered and
burnt the house of Mr. Henry Huddleston, and did the same to the

house and haggards of Mr. Hore, where they built an engine called a
saw, having its three sides made musket-proof with boards. It was
drawn on four wheels, each a foot high, with folding doors to open
inwards and several loopholes to shoot through, without a floor, so that
ten or twelve men who