Helen MacCarty


Lady Helen MacCarty, also styled Helen FitzGerald or Helen Burke, Countess of Clanricarde, was brought to France when her family fled the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. She was educated at Port-Royal-des-Champs together with her cousin Elizabeth Hamilton. She married three times. All her children, among which Margaret, Viscountess Iveagh, and Honora Sarsfield, are by her second husband, William Burke, 7th Earl of Clanricarde.

Birth and origins

Helen was probably born in 1641, probably at Blarney Castle, County Cork, Ireland. She was the eldest daughter of Donough MacCarty and his wife Eleanor Butler. Her father belonged to the MacCarthy of Muskerry dynasty, an ancient Gaelic Irish family, that descended from the kings of Desmond. At the time of Helen's birth he was the Viscount Muskerry. He would later become an earl. Helen's mother was the eldest sister of James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond. The Butlers were an Old English family that played an important role in southern Ireland since the Norman invasion of that country. Helen's parents were both Catholic. They had married before 1641.


They had five children, three boys and two girls.

Irish wars

She was a child while her father, Lord Muskerry, commanded the Confederates' Munster army and fought the Parliamentarians in the Cromwellian Conquest of Ireland. He was defeated by Lord Broghill in the Battle of Knocknaclashy in June 1651, but fought to the bitter end, surrendering Ross Castle near Killarney to Edmund Ludlow and disbanding his 5000-strong army on 27 June 1652. He was allowed to embark to Spain. He lost his estates in the Act of Settlement of 1652, of the English Rump Parliament. He found that he was not welcome in Spain and returned to Ireland in 1653, where he was put on trial in Dublin for the murder of English settlers in 1641. He was, however, acquitted.

Exile

Helen, aged about ten, her mother, and her siblings had fled to France already some time before the capture of Ross Castle. Her mother lived with her sister Mary Butler, Lady Hamilton, in the convent of the Feuillantines in Paris, and Helen was sent to boarding school at the abbey of Cistercian nuns of Port-Royal-des-Champs, near Versailles, together with her cousin Elizabeth Hamilton. This school had an excellent reputation and was ahead of its time by teaching in French rather than in Latin. She attended this school for seven or eight years. The abbey also was a stronghold of Jansenism, a Catholic religious movement that insisted on earnestness and asceticism but which was later declared heretic for its position on grace and original sin. In 1658 her father was created Earl of Clancarty by Charles II in Brussels, where he was then in exile.

Restoration and first marriage

At the Restoration Helen returned to Ireland with her family. Her father recovered his estates in the Act of Settlement 1662. Her brother Charles, Viscount Muskerry, as he was now, lived at the court in Whitehall. She soon married Sir John FitzGerald of Dromana, who died after a marriage of one or two years in 1662. The marriage was childless. Dromana is near Villierstown in County Waterford.
In 1665 her brother Charles, Lord Muskerry, was killed during the Second Anglo-Dutch War in the Battle of Lowestoft, a naval engagement with the Dutch

Second marriage

Her second marriage was to William Burke, 7th Earl of Clanricarde, which brought her the title of Countess of Clanricarde in the Peerage of Ireland. Clanricarde already had sons from a previous marriage two of whom would succeed him as the 8th and the 9th earls.
Among her children with Clanricarde were:
  1. Ulick, created Viscount of Galway and slain at the Battle of Aughrim fighting for the Jacobites;
  2. Margaret, married first [Bryan Magennis, 5th Viscount Iveagh and then Thomas Butler of Garryricken;
  3. William, died childless; and
  4. Honora, married first Patrick Sarsfield and then the Duke of Berwick.
Her father, Lord Clancarty, died in London on 4 August 1665. Her husband Clanricarde died in 1687 and was succeeded by his son Richard of his first marriage as the 8th Earl of Clanricarde. She was now about 46 years old. In 1689 her brother Justin lost the Battle of Newtownbutler against the Inniskilleners and was taken prisoner.

Third marriage, death, and timeline

Helen married again, sometime between 1687 and 1700, to Colonel Thomas Burke. The marriage was childless. Her husband died in about 1719 and she died in 1722.