Thornhill (Mount Irvine & Castlekevin)
Estate(s)
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Thornhill (Mount Irvine & Castlekevin) | In 1666 William Thornhill, a Cromwellian soldier, was granted "Castlekiffin" [Castlekevin] and other land amounting to 2,209 acres in the the barony of Fermoy, county Cork. A descendant Richard Thornhill married a Miss Badham, a granddaughter of John King 3rd Lord Kingston. Their grandson Edward B. Thornhill appears to have purchased the Sherlock estate at Mount Irvine (Mount Irwin), in the barony of Coolavin, county Sligo in 1853. He is recorded as in possession of the 338 acres of the townland in Griffith's Valuation. He was residing in Rathgar, Dublin, in the 1870s when he still owned 337 acres in county Sligo. The Ordnance Survey Field Name Books for county Limerick record Edward B. Thornhill as the proprietor of 5 townlands in the parish of Kildimo, barony of Kenry. By the time of Griffith's Valuation these townlands were in the possession of the Court of Chancery. On 21 January 1851 the fee simple estates of Edward Badham Thornhill, Castlekevin, in the barony of Fermoy, county Cork and barony of Kenry, county Limerick, were advertised for sale. The county Limerick estate amounted to approximately 2,000 acres and the county Cork one to about 2,200 acres. Griffith's Valuation records Edward B. Thornhill's county Cork estate as located in the parishes of Clenor and Castletownroche, barony of Fermoy. The sale rental includes a small lithograph of Killuragh House close to Castlekevin and reference to a court case Thornhill v Reeves. The Reeves came to possess the Castlekevin estate. |
| Reeves (Castlekevin) | This family was a junior branch of the Reeves family of Besborough and Burrane, county Clare. Edward Hoare Reeves married, as his second wife, Dorothea, daughter of John Carleton of Cork and niece of Lord Carleton. He purchased Castlekevin from the Thornhills in the Encumbered Estates' Court. Their grandson, Edward Hoare Reeves, owned land in the parish of Kilcully, barony of Cork at the time of Griffith's Valuation. By the 1870s Edward Hoare Reeves of Castle Kevin, county Cork, owned 1,208 acres in county Limerick and 1,702 acres in county Cork. At the same time Robert and Thomas B. Reeves, also of Castlekevin, owned 842 and 541 acres respectively. A property belonging to Robert N. Reeves was sold in the Landed Estates Court in April 1864. The purchaser was Mr. Henry Paul of Cork. The life estates of Edward Hoare Reeves and that of his mother in the Castlekevin estate was advertised for sale in July 1879. |