The Irish Bomfords
Chapter IV
Stephen of Gallow 1724 - 1738
4.1 Lease - Tyrrellstown 16th June 1724
4.1.1 Lease - Tyrrellstown 19th December 1739
4.2 Lease - Ferrans 28th October 1724
4.3 Lease - Gallow 3rd March 1731 / 2nd May 1735
4.4 Lease - Arodstown and Dirpatrick 17th March 1725
4.4.1 Lease - Dirpatrick 15th December 1726
4.6 Lease - Little Cabragh 10th April 1730
4.7 Lease - Gurteen 14th December 1738
4.1 Lease - Tyrrellstown 16th June 1724
John Stoytes of Eccles Grove Co Wicklow, Thomas Marley of Dublin, His Majesty’s Solicitor General, and Lewis Meares and Walter Burton, both of Dublin, lease to Stephen Bomford of Gallow the town and lands of Tyrrellstowne containing 214 plantation acres (347 statute) in the Parish of Moyleskar in the Barony of Fertullagh in which Stephen Bomford is now in possession, at a rent of £66 for ever. (Book 41 Page 378 No 26395)
1. Tyrrellstown is situated about l½ miles south of Gainstown and immediately south of Anneville. Anneville is one of the family homes of the Smith family, ‘in-laws’ of Stephen. Tyrrellstown remains a Bomford property until 1837 when Isaac Bomford bequeathed it to his nephew David North.
2. In 1711 (2.9) John Stoytes leased Gurteen and Gainstown to Stephen, and there is another deed about these two places in 1715. The Master of the High Court of Chancery witnesses the second deed. Now in this deed the Solicitor General is brought in with two others who together grant the lease; something odd happened to John Stoytes. It may be that there were two Johns, the father who died before 1715, and a son who may have been a minor and possibly a ward of court.
3. It is not known how long Stephen was ‘now in possession’. I have assumed a previous lease and, for lack of a better date, have made it 1700; but it might match up with the Gainstown and Gurteen lease of 1711. (Normal practice when land was being sold forever, as in this case, and as distinct from a lease for a fixed term or term of lives, was for the land to be leased on one day, putting the new owner 'in possession', and then 'released' the next day. So this may have been an original lease, not a renewal of an existing lease. That that was the case is confirmed in deed 1851 24 17, which states that the 1724 lease was 'the original lease thereof'.)
4.1.1 Lease - Tyrrellstown 19th December 1739
Stephen Bomford of Gallow leases to Samuel Gerrard of Donaghpatrick (of Clongill, Co Meath, died 1750) the lands of Tyrrellstown containing 212 plantation acres (343 statute) in the Barony of Fartullagh, Co Westmeath, for 41 years at £110. This was not the first lease; Samuel Gerrard had this land before. (Book 97 Page 221 No 68061)
4.2 Lease - Ferrans 28th October 1724
Thomas Bomford of Rahinstown makes over to Stephen Bomford of Gallow the lands of Ferns alias Fenners, containing 265 acres plantation measure (429 statute) forever for a payment of £95.3.0 plus 10 guineas in gold every 21 years. (Book 43 Page 186 No 27830)
1. The lease is now Holroide (£165 a year) to Thomas to Stephen (£95 a year), and Stephen pays Holroide ten guineas every 21 years. The £70 difference covers Oldtown and Little Ardrums which are not in this lease.
In 1731 Thomas mortgages this land to Francis North and in 1740 Ferrans is part of Thomas the younger’s marriage settlement. However Stephen appears to own Ferrans when these two Thomases die and there is no further mention of any Holroide.
Ferrans was sold in about 1965 so was the longest held of all the Bomford properties, 262 years.
2. Another parcel of land may have been made over by Thomas to Stephen because two years later the following appears.
6th December 1726. Stephen Bomford of Gallow agrees to refund to Thomas Bomford of Rahinstown the sum of £225 part of a payment of £475 belonging to another deed of the same date (which could not be found). (Book 51 Page 303 No 33790)
This entry must remain a mystery although there is a case that it is the balance of the Holroide lease consisting of Oldtown and the neighbouring Ardrums. They are linked with Ferrans in Thomas the younger’s marriage settlement and are also referred to in 1744 which states “The lease of 30th March 1740 in which Stephen Bomford, Thomas Bomford the elder and Thomas Bomford the younger leased the town and lands of Oldtown, Little Ardrums and that part of Ferrans occupied by Stephen Bomford at a rent of £95.3.0”.
3. The above quote of 1744 is the last mention of Oldtown (Meath) and Little Ardrums in the documents. They may have been sold to help pay the debts of Thomas the elder. They were not a Bomford property in 1836 according to that survey.
4.3 Lease - Gallow 3rd March 1731 / 2nd May 1735
These two leases are referred to in a lease by Isaac Bomford to Antony Cooper dated 31st December 1819 (23.1.2) and another dated 19th March 1863 (28.2) concerning the entail of Gallow.
3rd March 1731. Roger Jones of Dolanstown leases to Stephen Bomford of Gallow the land of Gallow containing 200 plantation acres (324 statute) at a rent of £88 during the life of Laurence Monaghan and then at a rent of £90.
2nd May 1735, Roger Jones leases to Stephen Bomford 60 plantation acres (97 statute) of Gallow at a rent of £20.10.0 during the life of Laurence Monaghan and then at £27 a year.
4.4 Lease - Arodstown and Dirpatrick 17th March 1725
William Palmer of Dublin leases to Stephen Bomford of Gallow the town and lands of Arradstown or Arrastowne 71 plantation acres (125 statute), and the town and lands of Dirpatrick 475 plantation acres (770 statute).
Signed: William Palmer
Witnessed: Francis North of Dublin (attorney); Andrew Caldwell of Dublin; and Richard Connell, clerk to Francis North. (Book 48 Page 179 No 31268)
4.4.1 Lease - Dirpatrick 15th December 1726
His Excellency William Conolly, Lord Justice General and General Governor of Ireland, leases to Stephen Bomford of Gallow the town and lands of Dirpatrick 475 plantation acres (770 statute) in the Barony of Deece forever at a fee farm rent of £200.
Signed: Stephen Bomford
Witnessed: Richard Connell, clerk to Francis North; Francis North; and Bruen Worthington of Dublin. (Book 50 Page 409 No 33578)
1. In 1722 William Conolly commenced building the largest of all the great Palladian houses in Ireland at Castletown near Celbridge, Co Kildare. By 1750, 28 years later, the outside was completed but the inside was not finished until 1772. William Conolly, who was the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, rose from modest beginnings to being the richest man in the Ireland of his day.
2. It looks wrong that two different people, William Palmer and William Conolly, should lease Dirpatrick. It is possible that William Conolly leased the land to William Palmer before 1725, and that Stephen bought out William Palmer in 1726 and leased direct from William Conolly. However in the marriage settlement of Stephen the younger of April 1745 (8.2) these lands are mentioned quite separately: -
7th February 1714 William Palmer granted 17 acres plantation measure in the lands of Arratstown, alias Arrodstown, in the Barony of Deece by Garrett Wesley of Dangan for three lives at a rent of £27.4.3; and
15th December 1726 Stephen Bomford of Gallow was granted by William Conolly, one of the Lord Justices and General Governors of Ireland, the lands of Dirpatrick 475 plantation acres in the Barony of Deece, at a yearly rent of £200.
The 1714 deed was repeated in the indenture of 1808 (18.8.3), which adds that ‘previous to 17th April 1745 the estate of William Palmer (i.e. Arodstown) passed to Stephen Bomford (the younger), father to Robert and George Bomford’.
It does look therefore as though there was a mistake in the March 1725 document that Arodstown was a Wesley property and Dirpatrick was a Conolly property, that they were leased to Stephen separately, and that Arodstown was leased by Wesley through a middleman, William Palmer, who died before 1745 when the land passed to Stephen.
In 1818, when the Wellesley estate in the Manor of Dangan was being sold, Lot 17 was described as “Part of Arrodstown, excellant meadow and pasture land, area 79 acres, leasee Stephen Bomford, three lives, rent £27.4.3 pa.” This substantially agrees with the above leasse of 1714; the same head rent, three lives and acreage, of course by 1818 the leasse was Stephen the younger of Rahinstown though actually he was dead and the lease should have read Robert George Bomford of Rahinstown.
3. There is a variety of spelling for both these places. Dirpatrick, meaning ‘Oakwood of Patrick’ after the oak forest, which covered the area in St Patrick’s time, is the modern spelling; though I see that the river is called Derrypatrick. It is situated 4 miles northeast of Summerhill on the road to Dunsany and is in the Parish of Dirpatrick.
Arodstown, alias Arrotstown, Arradstown, or Arrastowne, lies just south of Dirpatrick in the Parish of Kilmore. The 1836 survey comments “Arodstown House, a two storied thatched good farmhouse, first built by King Arod, a Dane, in 900 A.D.” Comments from the 1654 survey were Dirpatrick “on the premises an olde Ston house with a park of trees and som Thatch houses”, and Arodstown, “Arrotstowne and ye Calledge, on the premisses a castle and som cottages”. The introduction to the Parish of Kilmore refers to the “Collage of Arrottstowne”, and modern maps call the crossroads just west of Arodstown “Collegeland”.
Many historians now think that in the days of the Celtic Church in Ireland each Diocese had a Divinity College of its own, where students for the church were educated. After the coming of the Anglo-Normans to this country, these Divinity Colleges were swept away or confiscated by the invaders, but the Celtic Church still needed trained clergy and so they founded small Divinity Colleges in backward places where they were not likely to be interfered with, and these are represented by small tracts of land here and there through the country called ‘College Land’ or ‘Provost’s Land’. Such a College was at Arodstown.
4.5 Mortgages - Dirpatrick
These three deeds concern two mortgages on Dirpatrick, each for £500 at a cost of £50, or 10%. One wonders what Stephen did with this £1,000 over those seven years, perhaps he rebuilt or improved Gallow House, which soon becomes the ‘senior’ Bomford house.
Mortgage - Dirpatrick 20th December 1726
Stephen Bomford of Gallow leases for £500 sterling to Thomas Trotter Doctor at Law in Dublin (LL D, died 1745, probate), the land of Dirpatrick containing 475 acres plantation measure (770 statute). (Book 52 Page 76 No 33608)
Mortgage Memorial - Dirpatrick 20th November 1733
Stephen Bomford of Gallow took out a mortgage on Dirpatrick for the principal sum of £550. Stephen Bomford repaid this sum to Thomas Trotter of Dublin. This memorial states that Stephen Bomford never received or, if he did, has mislaid the lease of Dirpatrick and so now Thomas Trotter releases any claim to the lands as all debts have been paid. (Book 83 Page 101 No 57760)
2nd Mortgage - Dirpatrick 19th February 1735
Thomas Trotter of Dublin leases to Stephen Bomford of Gallow for a rent of £550 for ever the town and lands of Dirpatrick in the Barony of Deece containing 475 plantation acres (770 statute).
Signed: Thomas Trotter
Witnessed: John Trotter and Richard Nelson, both of Dublin. (Book 82 Page 258 No 57742)
4.6 Lease - Little Cabragh 10th April 1730
Stephen Bomford of Gallow leases for £46 to Richard Brewer of Dublin the lands of Little Cabragh for 31 years. (Book 64 Page 266 No 43767)
This property is not mentioned again and with so little information given it is not possible to place it. The only Cabragh, which has been found in Meath, is a townland of 146 plantation acres (231 statute) in the Parish of Tara, which takes its name from a well called Cabragh Cormaic. In 1654 this Townland of Cabragh had “on ye premisses a castle and a howse adjoineing with a few Ashe trees”; however it is unlikely to be this townland and is more likely to be a sub-division of one of Stephen’s other properties, perhaps of Dirpatrick.
4.7 Lease - Gurteen 14th December 1738
Stephen Bomford of Gallow leases to David Jones of Clonmoyle, Co Westmeath, the lands of Gurteen 353 plantation acres (572 statute) in the Parish of Lynn and bounded on the north by Clonmoyle, east by the Great Road (from Mullingar to the south, and beyond the Great Road by another of Stephen’s properties, Gainstown), west by Lynn and south by Tyrrellstown (another of Stephen’s properties) and Rathdriff, for 41 years at £169.4.9 a year. (Book 94 Page 10 No 65234)