Dawson/Massy-Dawson (Ballynacourte)

Name	Description
Dawson/Massy-Dawson (Ballynacourte)	In 1666 John Dawson was granted an estate of over 2,900 acres in county Tipperary including the castle of Ballinecourte. In 1703 James Dawson of Ballynecourty, county Tipperary, purchased land in the baronies of Coonagh and Clanwilliam, county Limerick and Clanwilliam, county Tipperary, part of the confiscated estate of King James II. The 1st Baron Massy married as his first wife, Mary Dawson, daughter and heiress of James Dawson of Ballynacourty. Their second son, James (born 1736), assumed the additional surname of Dawson and his family succeeded to Ballynacourty. The estate of Reverend John Massy Dawson, grandson of James, is recorded as the immediate lessor of at least 20 townlands in the parish of Clonbeg, barony of Clanwilliam, at the time of Griffith's Valuation, though he himself died in 1850. His estate also held land in the parishes of Clonbullogue and Killardry, barony of Clanwilliam and Ballybacon, barony of Iffa and Offa West. In the 1870s his brother, George Staunton King Massy Dawson of Ballinacourty, owned 19,093 acres in county Tipperary.