Change over the Land

Sir Christopher Wandesford

Van Dyke Portrait of Sir Christopher Wandesford, later Lord Deputy of Ireland

Sir Christopher Wandesford

Sir Christopher Wandesford

Van Dyke Portrait of Sir Christopher Wandesford, later Lord Deputy of Ireland

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As the seventeenth century began, the Brennans title to the land of Idough became insecure. On August 15th 1617, James I granted extensive lands in Counties Kilkenny, Down, Louth, Sligo, and Offaly, to Francis Edgeworth to hold forever. 1,160 acres of the land of Idough was part of the lands he gained in Kilkenny.

However the Brennnans remained on the land, and by the 1630s the land of Idough had been sold by Francis Edgeworth to two parties. One-third was sold to the Earl of Londonderry Sir Robert Ridgeway and two thirds to James Earl of Ormond, although the third Viscount Mountgarret, Richard Butler, also claimed the land by right of heredity.

The confusion as to who held ownership of the land of Idough came to a head when the Defective Titles Commission was set up for the province of Leinster. This commission was created by the Lord Deputy of Ireland Thomas Wentworth.

The process began with an inquisition held in the Session's house in Kilkenny City on May 1st, 1635. The jury concluded that that from the time of the Norman invasion in 1169, the land of Leinster belonged to the Crown.

The Crown was now free to dispose of the land of Idough. By 1637 it was in the possession of Sir Christopher Wandesford who, along with his descendents, were to change the physical landscape of Castlecomer in ways not previously imagined.