Coote

Family title

Barons Coote of Collooney, Earls of Bellamont

Estate(s)

Name	Description
Coote (Bellamont)	Richard Coote, 1st Baron Coote of Collooney and brother of Sir Charles Coote, 1st Earl of Mountrath, was granted extensive estates in counties Roscommon, Galway, Mayo and Sligo in the seventeenth century. Much of his Sligo land was eventually purchased by other Sligo landowners in the eighteenth century, notably the Coopers of Markree. The ''Extinct Peerage'' notes that Richard Coote, 4th Baron Collooney, sold Collooney and other lands to Joshua Cooper of Markree in March 1729. In 1689, the 1st Baron's eldest son Richard was created 1st Earl of Bellamont but this title became extinct following the death of the 3rd Earl in 1766, however, the title Baron of Collooney passed to his cousin Charles Coote of Coote Hill, who was created Earl of Bellamont in 1767. Charles was a grandson of Thomas Coote of Coote Hill, county Cavan, (fourth son of Richard 1st Baron Coote of Colloony, county Sligo), who had inherited Coote Hill from his uncle Thomas Coote, who was granted large estates in counties Cavan and Monaghan and smaller acreages in counties Meath and Queen’s County [Co Laois] in 1667. Charles married a daughter of the 1st Duke of Leinster but their only son died before his father and the earldom of Bellamont became extinct again in 1800. Charles Johnston Coote, illegitimate son of the last Earl of Bellamont, succeeded to the house Bellamont Forest and fee simple estates. In 1810, he married Louisa Dawson, sister of Richard 2nd Lord Cremorne and died in 1841. Their eldest son was Dawson Richard Coote, who died in 1850. By the time of Griffith’s Valuation in the mid-1850s Richard Coote, a minor, held an extensive estate in the parishes of Drumgoon and Kildrumsherdan, county Cavan. The estate was then administered by Colonel Charles George Henry Coote of H.M. Indian Service, who also had property in London. Over 7,500 acres were offered for sale in 1857, mainly in county Cavan. Again in 1859, portions of the the estate of Richard Coote in the counties of Cavan, Leitrim (600 acres in the barony of Carrigallen) and Monaghan were offered for sale in the Landed Estates Court. In 1876, Richard Coote of Bellamont Forest owned 5,321 acres in the county while his uncle, Colonel George Charles Henry Coote, owned 2,235 acres. In 1875, the house Bellamont Forest was sold to Edward Smith, a coal tycoon.
Mayne (Cootehill)	In 1800 John Mayne was appointed Clerk of the Peace for Cavan. He lived at 41 French Street, Dublin, and appears to be the son of Charles and Dorothea Mayne of Cootehill, county Cavan, so a close relative of the Maynes of Freame Mount and Glynch House, see https://www.scribd.com/doc/75988391/Sedborough-Mayne-of-Ireland# He married Charlotte, heiress of Edward Ellis of Rocklands, Stillorgan, county Dublin and they had a son Edward Ellis Mayne, born 1802. In the 1850s, the representatives of John Mayne held four townlands in the parish of Mullagh and one townland in the parish of Killinkere, county Cavan. Some of the lands left to Charles J. Coote under the will of [his father] Lord Bellamont in 1800 were sold to John Mayne in 1810. These lands were subject to an annuity to be paid to a Mrs Palmer and when this annuity was not paid a court case ensued, Coote v O’Reilly in June 1844, in the Court of Chancery as recorded in ‘Irish Equity Reports’ Volume 7, 356.
Smith (Bellamont)	In 1875, Bellamont Forest, county Cavan, was sold by George Coote to Edward Smith (K.V. Mulligan), who made a fortune out of coal. Edward Patrick Dorman Smith was the eldest son of Edward Smith and his wife Isabella Cullen and succeeded to Bellamont Forest in 1880. In 1906, he held about seven hundred acres of untenanted land in the Bellamont locality. The Smiths continued to own this property for another hundred years.