Barry

Family title

Earl of Barrymore

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Estate(s)

Name	Description
Barry	Burke's Extinct Peerage records the building of Barry's Court castle by Philip de Barry in 1206. This family was very prominent in county Cork in medieval times and held the titles Viscount Buttevant and Earl of Barrymore (from 1628). In 1668 Richard, Earl of Barrymore, was granted 9,698 acres mainly in the barony of Barrymore, county Cork. In the 17th century the Barrys built Castlelyons Castle on the site of an older castle and it was the main Irish residence of the Earls of Barrymore until accidentally burnt in 1771. James Barry (1667-1747) 4th Earl of Barrymore had four sons. The title eventually died out with the death of his great-randson, the 8th Earl of Barrymore, in 1824. The 4th Earl's fourth son John Smith Barry of Marbury in Cheshire married in 1746 Dorothy daughter and co heiress of Hugh Smith of Weald Hall, Essex and a granddaughter of Erasmus Smith. This couple inherited an estate in county Tipperary from the Smiths. They were the grandparents of John Smith Barry of Marbury and Fota, county Cork. The legal documents referred to in John T. Collins' article include reference to the sale of 10,000 acres of the Barrymore estate in 1806. An estate of 1,800 acres was leased to William O'Bryan by James Earl of Barrymore in 1703 and was advertised for sale in 1852 and 1855 as the estate of James Milner Barry.
Barry/Smith-Barry (Fota)	John Smith-Barry of Marbury Hall, Cheshire and Fota Island, county Cork, was a son of James Hugh Smith-Barry, a grandson of the 4th Earl of Barrymore. Through his grandmother, Lucy Smith, granddaughter of Erasmus Smith, the Barrys had inherited a large estate in county Tipperary. Thomas P. Power writes that in 1755 it amounted to 6,108 acres in the baronies of Clanwilliam and Middlethird. In 1814 John Smith Barry married a daughter of Robert Courtenay of Ballyedmond, county Cork and their fourth son inherited that estate. In the 1870s their grandson Arthur Hugh Smith-Barry owned an estate comprised of 12,890 acres in county Cork, 79 acres in Cork city, 8,620 acres in county Tipperary and 6,239 acres in county Louth. In 1902 Arthur Hugh Smith-Barry was created Baron Barrymore of Barrymore, county Cork. He died without surviving male heirs. The title became extinct and his estates passed to his nephew, Colonel Robert R. Smith-Barry, who passed Fota Island over to the Baron's daugher, the Honourable Dorothy Elizabeth, Mrs Bell. Mrs Bell's daughter, Rosemary Elizabeth Villiers, succeeded to Fota House in the 1970s. In the 1850s James H. Smith-Barry was one of the principal lessors in the parishes of Ardfield, Templeomaley and Timoleague, barony of Ibane & Barryroe, Liscleary, barony of Kerrycurrihy, Coole, Gortroe, Kilshanahan, Ballycurrany, Ballyspillane, Britway, Carrigtohill, Clonmel and Templerobinbarony of Barrymore, Rathcooney, St Annes Shandon and St Finbarrs, barony of Cork. The Smith Barry estate in county Tipperary was located in the parishes of Ballysheenan and St Patricksrock, barony of Middlethird, and Clonpet, Cordangan, Solloghodbeg and Tipperary, barony of Clanwilliam.