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Berry (Middleton and Ballynagall)
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This family are believed to have come from Wales in the 17th century. Members of this family were resident at Wardenstown, county Westmeath in the early 18th century. Thomas Berry purchased lands in county Westmeath and married Elizabeth Dames. Their son, John of Broadwood, county Westmeath married Hester Fleetwood and they had three sons, one of whom, James Middleton Berry (died 1823), married Mary, daughter and co-heir of Thomas Longworth Dames of Rathmoyle, King’s County (Offaly). In 1810, their son, John Middleton Berry (1787-1830) married Letita Catherine, daughter of William Smyth and his wife Frances Maxwell. At the time of Griffith’s Valuation (publ. 1854) their son James William Middleton Berry (1812-1855) was the lessor of many townlands in the parishes of Lacken, Leny, Portnashangan, Tyfarnham, Clonfad, Killucan, Rathconnell, Faughalstown and Mullingar, county Westmeath. In 1848, James W. M. Berry was High Sheriff of county Westmeath and in 1851 he married Caroline Augusta (Cusack-) Smith. He died suddenly while hunting in 1855. He had sold Middleton to Rochfort Boyd in 1846 and in 1850 appears to have purchased the Grangebeg estate of the D’Arcys. He was already leasing part of this estate at Corballis, Rathbrack and Clonakill (leased to James M Berry, 18 March 1788). Under the will of James Gibbons (who had married his maternal aunt) he succeeded to Ballynagall, which passed to Thomas James Smyth, son of Reverend Thomas Smyth and Mary Anne Gibbons following his own death. The representatives of Thomas Berry owned 528 acres in county Westmeath in the 1870s. See BLGGBI, 1858, 80-81 and https://sites.google.com/site/irishberrygenealogy/john-berry-i
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