Lewis (Galway)

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Estate(s)

Name	Description
Lewis (Galway)	An Aylward property from the 17th century, which passed by a marriage in 1824 to a branch of the Lewis family of county Cork. The representatives of John M.A. Lewis were recorded as the owners of over 6000 acres in county Galway in the 1870s. The address is given as Ballynagar, Loughrea. In 1906 the representatives of John M.A. Lewis owned over 500 acres of untenanted demesne land and a mansion house valued at £16 at Ballynagar. In 1915 over 500 acres of the Lewis estate was vested in the Congested Districts Board.
Aylward	A branch of the Aylward family of Faithlegg, county Waterford was transported to Connacht in the mid 17th century. Peter Aylward was confirmed in his possession of an estate of over 2,400 acres in the parish of Ballynakill, barony of Leitrim, county Galway by patent dated 1677. At the same time Nicholas Aylward was granted over 900 acres at Ardreny in the barony of Clonmacnowen. Peter Aylward married Elizabeth French of Tyrone, county Galway and their son, John Aylward, conformed to Protestantism in 1725. The male line of the Ballynagar family ended with the death of John Michael Aylward in 1867 and the estate passed to his nephew John Michael Aylward Lewis. The estate of James Kearney Aylward at Ardreany in the barony of Clonmacnowen, was offered for sale in the Encumbered Estates court in November 1854. The Freeman's Journal reported that it was purchased by Baron Greene for over £10,000. The estate was sold to the tenants following the Wyndham Land Act in the early twentieth century. Other branches of the family remained in county Waterford and were active in the commercial and political life of the city and county into the nineteenth century.