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Gunning (Horton)
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A family who came to Ireland in the early 17th century and settled in county Roscommon. From about the mid 18th century they were absentee landlords. Robert Gunning (1734-1816), a diplomat of the 1760s and 1770s, was rewarded with a baronetcy in 1778. In 1781 he bought the Horton estate in Northamptonshire, which remained in the possession of the Gunning family until 1888. In the mid 19th century the Gunnings owned land in the parishes of Killinvoy and Rahara, barony of Athlone, Kilteevan and Roscommon, barony of Ballintober South, county Roscommon. In the 1870s the Reverend Sir Henry John Gunning of Horton House owned 704 acres in county Roscommon and 2,033 acres in county Longford. At the time of Griffiths Valuation in the early 1850s, Sir Robert Gunning was among the principal lessors in the parish of Killashee, County Longford. Other members of the Gunning family such as the Reverend Hodson Gunning and Alexander Gunning held land in the parish of St Johns, barony of Athlone, in the 1850s and are recorded as owning respectively 185 acres and 215 acres in the county in the 1870s.
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