Landed Estates
University of Galway

Conway (Kerry)


Estate(s)

Name Description
Conway (Kerry) The Conway family were the recipients of large estates under the Elizabethan settlement. Smith indicates that Captain Jenkin Conway received over 5000 acres after the Desmond rebellion. and afterwards was granted the seigniory of Killorglin. Burke indicates that he was descended from the Conway family of Clwyd, North Wales. The Conway estates eventually passed through the female line to the Blennerhassetts though the marriage of Avice Conway, great-granddaugher of Jenkin, to Robert Blennerhassett.
Colthurst In 1702 Nicholas Colthurst of Ballyally, county Cork, purchased over 1,000 acres from the trustees for the sale of forfeited estates, including Ardrum. Sir George Conway Colthurst owned over 31,000 acres in county Cork in the 1870s. In 1846 he married Louisa Jane Jefferyes of Blarney Castle and the Jefferyes estate was eventually inherited by the Colthursts. Some of the Colthurst estate was in the parishes of Dromtarriff, barony of Duhallow, Inishcarra, barony of East Muskerry, Grenagh, barony of Barretts but most of it was in the parish of Ballyvourney, barony of West Muskerry. The family had also previously held property in county Kerry owing to their descent from the Conway family, who had held large estates up to the nineteenth century. In 1856, over 3500 acres of the Colthurst estate in the barony of Trughanacmy, county Kerry, was offered for sale in the Encumbered Estates Court. The Ordnance Survey Name Books indicate that this included lands in the parish of Annagh. The Danesfort estate, leased to the Butcher family, was offered for sale in the Landed Estates Court, in 1874. In 2009 Sir Charles Colthurst of Blarney Castle donated the papers relating to the estate and the Colthurst family to the Cork City and County Archives, adding to a previous legal collection relating to this family already in the Archives.