Patrick Condon (abt.1540-abt.1600) | WikiTree FREE Family Tree

Patrick "Chief of Condons" Condon

Born about 1540 in Cloghleigh Castle, County Cork, Ireland

Son of Patrick Condon and [mother unknown]

Brother of Ellen Condon

Husband of Honora (Barry) Condon — married [date unknown] [location unknown]

Descendants

Father of David Condon

Died about 1600 at about age 60 in Ireland

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Ireland Project WikiTree

[send private message]

Profile last modified 13 Jul 2023 | Created 4 May 2020

This page has been accessed 975 times.

Patrick Condon is a profile under management of the Ireland Project.
Join: Ireland Project
Discuss: irish_roots

1 Biography
2 Research Notes
3 Family Connections
4 Earl of Desmond's Rebellion
5 Sources

Biography

Patrick Condon was known as "Chief of Condons" on the "List of those who took up Arms for the Catholic Faith".^[1]

The ancient Condon family estate at Carriganeide was granted to English planter Arthur Hyde in 1588. This perceived injustice was the source of many suits brought by the Condons in the 1590s and early 1600s.^[2]

When consulting official documents of the last 3 decades of the 1500s, one gets the impression the name "Patrick Condon" was synonymous with "troublemaker". He participated in the Munster uprising along with his nephew and close ally (son of his sister Ellen Condon) Edmond FitzJohn FitzGibbon, 11th White Knight.^[3] There is hardly a mention of Patrick Condon in the Calendar of State Papers for Ireland without a reference to the White Knight in the same sentence.

Also a close ally of the Seneschal of Imokilly, John Fitzedmund Fitzgerald, he is recorded as "Gillpatrick Condon" in The Annals of the Four Masters (1582).^[4]

Various records from the "Calendar of State Papers: Ireland, Elizabeth, Years 1592-96:"^[5]

1583: Patrick Condon was a pro-Catholic leader who led 700 men into the town of Youghal and hoisted the Pope's banner. They ransacked property and murdered residents during 4 days until the arrival of Sir Henry Wallop from Waterford. (p.144)

1593: Evidence of his turbulent life in the "articles containing a brief recital of the molestations and vexations of Pat[rick] Condon, his imprisonment, travel, troubles, and suit sustained these 11 years." (p.194)

1594: Patrick Condon was a 2nd time attainted by outlawry "as a principal adherent to the archtraitor [Earl of] Desmond." (p.244) Letters from Sir Walter Raleigh to Sir William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, requesting that Mr. Patrick Condon be restored to his lands in Munster. (p.253) Condon's first attainder "for burning an old castle to apprehend malefactors that had committed sundry robberies upon his tenants". (p.265) Letter from Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormond, to Queen Elizabeth: "Certifies that he promised to pardon life and living to Patrick Condon when he came in from the rebellion of Desmond. His good service after that. To be graciously considered." (p.275)
- Patrick Condon ... was engaged in a bitter and prolonged legal action with an English planter, Arthur Hyde, for possession of large tracts of land. In return for Condon's assistance regarding his timber business and a favourable 101-year lease of some of the disputed land, [Henry] Pyne and [Sir Walter] Ralegh used their influence to help Condon's eventually successful bid to retain his property. Pyne's championing of Condon alienated many English settlers in the province as well as leading members of the royal administration. [Henry Pyne] also became close to David Barry (1550-1617)^[6] and even [the would-be 17th Earl of Desmond] James fitz Thomas Fitzgerald (d.1607).^[7]^[8]

1598: Letter from Arthur Hyde, Esquire, to the Privy Council, "with respect to his lands in Ireland, in the possession of which he is molested by Patrick Condon and by [Condon's nephew] Edmund Gibbon, called the White Knight."^[9]

1599: One unflattering report calls him "a foul great lubber" who was born when his mother was just 11 years old.^[10]

Patrick Condon renounced his rebellious ways and proclaimed loyalty to the English Crown. He died in the first few years of the 1600s:

"In consideration of the services performed to Queen Elizabeth by ... Patrick Condon, who was cruelly bound, and had his thigh bone broken in an expedition against the rebels, of which he afterwards died."^[11]

Research Notes

Excerpts on Cloghleigh Castle, the Condon family stronghold, from an unsourced history & photography blog (2003). Included here to provide leads for further research:^[12]

The ruins of Cloghleigh (‘grey-stone’) Castle stand on a commanding rock over a ford of the Funcheon river, near Kilworth village. It also overlooks the N7, which until relatively recently [2003] was the main road from Cork to Dublin. Rapidly growing tree plantations will soon conceal most if not the entire castle from the view of passing motorists who regard it as a landmark on the road.

Cloghleigh was probably built in the early 1500s and is notable for its rounded corners -- a defensive feature to prevent cannon balls from chipping bits off corners whenever the building might have come under attack. Until the late 1600s, this castle was a chief residence of the Condons who held extensive lands in the Kilworth, Araglin and Fermoy areas during that period.

Cloghleigh was at the cutting edge of warfare technology at the time of its construction. There is evidence to suggest that it was originally surrounded by an outer bawn wall (now gone). Recent pioneering research by Eamon Cotter on castles along the Blackwater valley has shown that some of this wall still survives on the nearby cliff face at Cloghleigh.

Other defensive features include its very thick external stone walls that get thinner as one rises higher in the building. Any assault on the castle would have met with one obstacle after the other. Presuming that one could smash in the front door, there were still two others to destroy before gaining entry to other areas of the castle. As if that wasn’t difficult enough, this closely confined area between the 3 doors, known as the ‘murder hole,’ is looked down upon by a ‘tunnel’ from which defenders could have fired arrows or boiling smelly substances.

Even if the door leading to the stairs was hammered down there were still more obstacles in the way. The immediate impression on entering the castle is its darkness and the confined nature of its stairs. A stranger (presumably right-handed) would have to take a stairs rising in a clockwise direction, thereby making it easy for another right-handed defender to use his sword to keep back the attacker. Then of course, there were the ‘trip-steps’ placed at uneven heights to cause anyone unfamiliar with the castle to stumble and fall as they attempted to dash up the steep stairs.

Comparatively speaking, taking a castle required a lot more men than defending it. Taking all of Cloghleigh’s 7 stories would have been an ordeal, but not, as history has shown, an impossibility. Sometimes, taking the castle had to be achieved with subterfuge. During the Desmond Rebellion in 1587, Patrick Condon had his lands seized by the English Crown, but these were restored to him in 1590, when he received a pardon from Queen Elizabeth I. However, most of his lands remained entangled in legal disputes until the 1620s, when Sir Arthur Hyde and the Fleetwoods took possession of Condon’s lands.

Prior to 1608, with the death of the last effective White Knight [married to Patrick Condon's sister Ellen] at Mitchelstown, the Condons regarded themselves as arch-enemies of the Roches of Fermoy. However, with the loss of the last White Knight and resulting from the increasing influence of English power, the Condons made an alliance with their former enemy, Lord Roche of Fermoy.

The most famous series of events associated with Cloghleigh took place during the Confederate War in 1642, when Lord Barrymore (from Castlelyons) took the castle. In that year, Condon sent a ‘half-witted brogue maker’ into Kilworth with a supply of drink. He was arrested by Lord Barrymore’s men who took him to the castle. The shoemaker plied the English with drink. In the dead of night, when everyone was drunk, the brogue-maker slipped open the doorway to a secret passage which allowed the Condons to enter the castle and kill all inside.

Later, in July 1642, Sir Charles Vavasour marched into Condon Country and with a much superior English army forced Cloghleigh Castle to surrender after a stout defence by a relatively small number of men. Afterwards, the English massacred twenty men, eleven women and seven children who were involved in the defence of Cloghleigh, in a form of scare tactic employed by most armies in most wars.

Later again in 1642, an Irish army under Lord Castlehaven, retook Cloghleigh. Richard Condon, Chief of the Condons, continued to resist English domination but his death in 1671, caused by a fall from his horse, ended the Condons’ claim on the property, which subsequently formed parts of the estates of the Earls of Mount Cashell, the Hydes and the Fleetwoods.

Cloghleigh Castle stands as a fine example of an Irish tower house. Many of its earlier features may have disappeared, but the main tower still stands to its full height of seven stories – a total height of 22 metres (72 feet).

Family Connections

In a pedigree from year 1615, the daughters of James FitzRichard Viscount Buttevant are recorded as Honora, wife of Patrick Condon ; Ellinor, wife of Sir Owen O' Sullivan, Knight; Johanna, wife of David Lord Roche; and Ilaine, wife of Callaghan MacTeige MacCarthy, of Muskerry.^[13]

Petition of 1610: David, son and heir of Patrick Condon, deceased...^[14]

The ancestor of Thomas Prendergast MP via Thomas' grandfather David Condon.

Earl of Desmond's Rebellion

Verbatim from the Journal of the Cork Historical & Archaeological Society:^[15]

"The following persons were, by an Inquisition held at Shandon Castle in Cork, September 9th, 1588, found to be concerned in the Earl of Desmond's rebellion, and were most of them attainted by Act of Parliament:"

Patrick Condon, Cloghleigh, esquire.
Sir John Desmond, knight.
Sir John Fitzgerald, knight.
Sir James Fitzgerald, knight.
John Pigott, esquire.
Edmond Fitzgerald Fitzgibbon, Currabehy, esquire.
Edmond Power, Ballyinn, esquire.
Donough MacCarthy Oge, Loughfilly, esquire.
Dermid Oge O'Leary, Carrigmuck Curragh, esquire.
Richard Fitzgarritt, Dromadda, esquire.
Dermond MacEdmond Oge, Bantry, esquire.
Teig MacEdmond Oge, Bantry, esquire.
Connagher MacDaniel MacRory, Bantry, esquire.
Teig Roe MacFineen, Bantry, esquire.
Eugene MacFineen, Bantry, esquire.
Daniel MacConnagher MacMahony, Rosebrin, esquire.
Maurice Fitzgerald, Carrigaline, esquire.
Ulric Barrett, Currabehy, esquire.
Cormac MacCarthy, esquire.
David MacGibbon, Cushankelly, esquire.
Maurice FitzEdmond Garrett, Rathcourcy, esquire.
John Fitzgarrett, MacShand Oge, Rathcourcy, esquire.
Connagher O'Mahony, Castlemahon, esquire.
Rory O'Donaghue, Ross Donaghue, esquire.
John Barry, Ballygownane, esquire.
James MacConagher, Droumbeg, esquire.
James Fitzjohn, Poulakerry, esquire.
John FitzDavid Condon, Kilbree, esquire [probably the nephew of Patrick Condon]
Richard FitzDavid, Rehinisky, esquire.
Fineen MacArth, Drumbullog, esquire.
Gerald FitzRichard, Ballinaclashy, esquire
Art MacDonnill MacArt, Glanphrican, esquire.
Thady O'Keeffe, Knockagaenan, esquire.
Edward Barry, Bragogue, esquire
Richard Magner, Castle Magner, esquire.
John FitzEdmond, Ballymarter, esquire.
John Fitzjames FitzEdmond, Tymacmagone, esquire.
Garrett FitzRichard FitzMaurice, Ballintemple, esquire.
John FitzGarrett, Dromadda, esquire, [possibly referring Sir John FitzGerald of Dromana, 7th Lord Decies]
Martin FitzRichard Fitzgibbon, Currabehy, esquire.
John FitzEdmond, Bailycrenane, esquire.
Patrick Callaghan, Clonmeen, esquire.
Richard Rynferk, Rynferk, esquire.
Garrett Fitzjohn, Ballymacody, esquire
John Supple, Intramurragh, esquire.
Firdorough MacWilliam MacBrien, Kilnatoragh, esquire.
William White, White Island, esquire
Edmond FitzWilliam Oge, Carranjames, esquire.
Richard MacMorris, Lisquinlan, esquire.
Thomas McCarthy, Kilbolane, esquire.
Thobald Roche, Creg, esquire.
James Gare, Inchidoney, esquire.
Teig Mulryan, Owney Mulryan, esquire.