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Blaquiere/Blacquiere/de Blaquiere
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This family descend from an émigré Hugenot merchant. John de Blaquiere of Ardkill, County Londonderry (1732-1812) who was Chief Secretary in Ireland and an MP. Woods writes that he purchased his county Westmeath estate from the Earls of Belvedere. He built the house Portloman and ‘also laid out and completed the gardens, amongst the finest, and most perfect and productive of the day’. (Woods, 80). At the time of Griffith’s Valuation (publ. 1854), his descendant John de Blaquiere was an immediate lessor in the County Westmeath parishes of Templeoran, Portloman and Mullingar. In June 1866 the de Blaquiere estate, comprised of 1,228 acres, was for sale in the Landed Estates Court. By the 1870s the de Blaquiere estate in the county was reduced to 8 acres.
The Blacquieres also owned an estate in county Galway, amounting to over 800 acres in the parish of Beagh, barony of Kiltartan, in the 1870s. James Blaquiere was the petitioner to a sale in the Encumbered estates court in January 1866 relating to property in the town of Gort, owned by the Nestor family. Later in the 1880s Thomas Blaquiere appears to have acquired an interest in the Derryowen estate of the Lopdell family, in the barony of Inchiquin, county Clare. He was advertising the sale of this estate in July 1889.
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Lopdell (Derryowen)
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An English family who settled in county Galway at the end of the 17th century. Christopher Lopdell of Raheen, county Galway and Derryowen, county Clare died unmarried in 1801 reputedly aged 104. He left his Derryowen property to the descendants of his granduncle John. At the time of Griffith's Valuation John Lopdell held 1276 acres at Turlough, parish of Oughtmama, barony of Burren and 263 at Derryowen, parish of Kilkeedy, barony of Inchiquin. Lands in the barony of Burren belonging to the trustees of Thomas Lopdell and his younger children were advertised for sale in June 1862. These lands were originally granted to the Miller family of Ballycasey. In June 1870 Derryowen Cottage, the residence of J.F. Lopdell and 263 acres were advertised for sale. The Lopdells are not recorded as owning any land in county Clare in 1876. Dominick Lopdell's interest in 724 acres at Cahirelly East, barony of Clanwilliam, county Limerick, was advertised for sale in March 1852. By the late 1880s the Derryowen property appears to have been in the ownership of the Blaquiere family. A notice announcing its forthcoming sale in the Land Judges' Court appeared in the Irish Times in July 1889.
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