Thomas Butler (abt. 1445 - bef. 1490)

Born about 1445 in Ireland

Ancestors

Descendants

Died before 1490 before about age 45 in Ireland

Biography

Death year of 1490 is estimate, as this is when his wife Ellen FitzGerald appears to be having children with her 2nd husband, Turlogh Mac-I-Brien-Ara, Bishop of Killaloe.

Edited excerpts from the Dictionary of Irish Biography profile for Thomas' father Piers:

• Piers Butler (d.1464), Lord of Cahir, son of James Gallda Butler, was head of the most gaelicised of the minor Butler clans in the mid-15th century. The Butlers of Cahir traced their decent from James Butler, 3rd Earl of Ormond, and his mistress Catherine of Desmond. Some time after 1433, Piers' father was granted the manor of Cahir, which became the family seat.

• Piers inherited the leadership of his family in the 1450s, and continued to pursue a policy of greater independence from the control of the Earls of Ormond. However, when John Butler, 6th Earl of Ormond, came to Ireland in 1462 to stage a pro-Lancastrian revolt, Piers rallied to his banner just like all the other leaders of the minor Butler clans. The revolt was a failure, and for his disloyalty to the Crown, Piers was attainted (January 1463). An indication of the independence of this minor lordship is that neither Piers nor his son Thomas seems to have made any attempt to have the attainder reversed; Clearly they were not concerned with the goodwill of the Dublin administration. Nor were they concerned with good relations with the other Butler clans.

• The most important bone of contention was the manor of Carrick-on-Suir, which Earl John had granted to Piers c.1462-64, and which became the site of open warfare between the Butlers of Cahir, led by Piers' son Thomas, and James Butler of Polestown, Kilkenny, who were 2nd cousins.

• From the 1450s onwards the Butlers of Cahir charted their own independent course in Munster, and were not fully returned to comital control till the 1520s.

Thomas Butler, of Cahir-dun-Eske, Esq., married Ellice, daughter of Thomas, [7th] Earl of Desmond, and was father of Edmund, who married Catherine, daughter of Sir Piers le Poer, Knight.^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ Burke, A Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire (1866), p.96:
   • https://archive.org/details/agenealogicalhi00burkgoog/page/96/mode/2up

• Dictionary of Irish Biography profile for Thomas' father, Piers Butler:
  • https://www.dib.ie/biography/butler-piers-a1275

• Wikipedia: Thomas FitzGerald, 7th Earl of Desmond (information on Ellen FitzGerald's husbands)

• The following article contains very interesting context on the conflict among the various Butler branches in the 1400s and early 1500s -- including the Dunboynes, the Polestowns, and the Cahirs:
  • C. A. Empey and Katharine Simms, "The Ordinances of the White Earl and the Problem of Coign in the Later Middle Ages", Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Vol. 75 (1975), pp.161-187:
    • https://www.jstor.org/stable/25506307

• History of Cahir Castle through the ages, from the blog entry (11 Sep 2020) of Rev. Patrick Comerford:
  • http://www.patrickcomerford.com/2020/09/cahir-castle-childhood-pit-stop-and.html

• Of undetermined relationship to Thomas Butler, Master of the Rolls in Ireland in 1492:
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Butler_(judge)