Stepney (Durrow)

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Estate(s)

Name	Description
Stepney (Durrow)	About 1682 Philip Rawson married Martha Stepney heiress to her brother Joseph Stepney of Gowran, county Kilkenny. Their son Stepney Rawson assumed his mother’s surname and died about 1767. His son George Stepney of Durrow, county Laois married Letitia Champagne and had a son Hebert Rawson Stepney. George Stepney held land in counties Limerick, Cork, Westmeath, and King’s County (Offaly) which were heavily encumbered, as an 1803 act of Parliament vesting his estates in trustees for their sale was enacted after his death (Journal of the House of Commons, 58 (1803), 460). He is remembered for trying to take four carriage horses from Kedagh Geoghegan who under the Penal Laws as a Catholic was not entitled to own a horse worth more than £5. However, Kedagh shot the horses rather than give them to Stepney. Hebert Rawson Stepney (1768-1818) is recorded as ‘the last proprietor of Durrow’ on his gravestone in Durrow parish graveyard.
Geoghegan (Jamestown)	MacGeoghegan or Geoghegan were large landowners in county Westmeath until the confiscations of the late 17th century. One branch of the family continued to hold a large amount of land in the 18th century and were tenants of the Malones. Kedagh Mac Geoghegan was the son of Bryan Geoghegan of Carne and a Geoghegan of Donore. In 1736, Kedagh married Ann, daughter of Sir George Browne of The Neale, county Mayo and they lived at Jamestown. They had three sons who all died childless and one daughter Mary who married Thomas Nagle in 1763 and inherited Jamestown. One of their sons was the legendary ‘Jack the Buck’. See https://www.christiesrealestate.com/article/55559-a-truly-historic-irish-estate