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Vandeleur (Limerick)
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A junior branch of the Vandeleurs of Kilrush, county Clare, John Ormsby Vandeleur of Maddenstown, county Kildare and Ballinamona, county Limerick, had 5 sons. The eldest John Vandeleur of Mannister, county Limerick married his cousin Alice Vandeleur of Kilrush. Their son John Ormsby Vandeleur of Ballinacourty, parish of Stradbally, owned estates in the parishes of Killadysert, barony of Clonderalaw and Carran, barony of Burren, county Clare, and in the parish of Monasteranenagh, barony of Pubblebrien, county Limerick, amounting to 1435 acres and 614 acres in the 1870s. Their fourth son Thomas Pakenham Vandeleur lived at Cragbeg in the mid 19th century. George Vandeleur of Ballynamona was the fifth son of John of Maddenstown and he owned the 844 acre townland of Ballynamona, barony of Smallcounty.
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Vandeleur (Kilrush)
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The Vandeleur family are descended from Maxmilian Van Der Leur, a Dutch merchant, who had settled in Ireland by the early 17th century. His son established himself in county Clare at Sixmilebridge. His grandson, the Reverend John Vandeleur, was rector of Kilrush, barony of Moyarta, county Clare in the 1680s. In 1712 the Earl of Thomond leased the Kilrush estate to Boyle Vandeleur in trust for his brother the Reverend John, who married Elizabeth Crofton, an heiress from county Limerick. From their eldest son John, who purchased the estate in 1749, descends the Vandeleurs of Kilrush. By the mid 19th century the Vandeleur estate amounted to almost 20,000 acres in county Clare. A large portion of their estate was in the barony of Moyarta, where they held at least 17 townlands in the parish of Kilrush at the time of Griffith’s Valuation, with additional lands in the parishes of Kilmacduane and Kilfearagh and in the neighbouring barony of Clonderalaw, parishes of Kilfiddane, Killofin, Killimer, Kilmihil and Kilmurry. They also held six townlands in the parish of Clooney, barony of Corcomroe, and some land in the baronies of Bunratty Lower and Ibrickane. Over 400 acres in the parish of Mungret, barony of Pubblebrien, and land in the parish of Monasteranenagh, county Limerick, also belonged to the Vandeleurs of Kilrush. John Ormsby Vandeleur played a major role in the development of the town of Kilrush in the early 19th century and built Kilrush House in 1808. He died in 1828. His son Colonel Crofton Moore Vandeleur gave land for the building of the Catholic Church, convent, a fever hospital and the workhouse but he is principally associated with the large number of evictions that took place in the Kilrush Union during the Famine years. Hector Steward Vandeleur inherited the estate in 1881 but spent very little time in county Clare and large scale evictions again took place under his ownership in the late 1880s. Kilrush House was burned down accidentally in 1897 and the estate was taken over by the Land Commission in the 1910s.
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