Burnell family


The Burnell family were a Dublin family who were prominent in Irish public life and in the arts from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. They acquired substantial estates in County Dublin, and married into the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. They produced several noted judges and politicians, a famous playwright, and a poet. They were staunch Roman Catholics, and supported the Irish Confederacy in the 1640s.

Family History

The first Irish Burnell of note was Robert, who was Lord of the Manor of Balgriffin in c.1388. He may well have been the son of the Robert Burnell whose widow Margaret married Richard Plunkett, Lord Chancellor of Ireland.
He married Matilda Tyrrell, heiress of the Irish feudal barony of Castleknock. Castleknock later became the principal Burnell residence. He was a Baron of the Court of Exchequer and began a long family of serving as members of the Irish judiciary, particularly on the Court of Exchequer. His descendant John Burnell was Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer in the 1490s and another Burnell, Patrick, was also a Baron of the Exchequer.
At about the same time Sir Robert Burnell was Lord of the Manor of Balgriffin: he married Margaret Holywwod, who brought him substantial lands at Swords.
A later John Burnell of Casleknock took part in the Rebellion of Silken Thomas and was executed for treason at Tyburn in 1537; but his cousin, yet another John, managed to retain the family estates, which later passed by inheritance to the Bathe family.
In the second half of the sixteenth century Henry Burnell, son of the third John Burnell, was one of Ireland's foremost advocates, serving briefly as Recorder of Dublin and a judge of the Court of King's Bench. He was a passionate supporter of the rights of Roman Catholics and was frequently in trouble with the Crown as a result.
His grandson, also Henry, was a well-known playwright: his play Landgartha was one of the first Irish plays to be published and the last play performed in Werburgh Street Theatre, Dublin's first theatre. He was wealthy and influential enough to marry a daughter of James Dillon, 1st Earl of Roscommon. Of his nine children, most is known of Eleanor, one of the very few Irish women poets of her age. Later he became a leading member of the Irish Confederacy; though little is known of his later years, it is likely that most of the Burnell estates were forfeited for rebellion.
Through the marriage of Alice Burnell to Richard Talbot of Templeogue in about 1550 the Burnells were ancestors of the prominent Talbot family of Mount Talbot.

Notable family members