Justin McCarthy, Viscount Mountcashel
Justin MacCarthy Viscount Mountcashel, PC , was a Jacobite general in the Williamite War in Ireland and a personal friend of James II. He commanded Irish Army troops during the conflict, enjoying initial success when he seized Bandon in County Cork in 1689. However, he was defeated and captured at the Battle of Newtownbutler on the same year. He then led an Irish Brigade overseas for service in the French Army of Louis XIV. He died in French exile.
Birth and origins
Justin was born about 1643, probably at Blarney Castle, County Cork, Ireland. He was the fifth child and third son of Donough MacCarty and his wife Eleanor Butler. Justin's parents were both Catholic; they had married before 1641.Justin's father was the 1st Earl of Clancarty and belonged to the MacCarthy of Muskerry dynasty, a Gaelic Irish family that descended from the kings of Desmond.
Justin'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 south-eastern Ireland since the Norman invasion of that country.
Justin appears below at the bottom of the list of siblings as the youngest:
- Helen, became countess of Clanricarde;
- Margaret, became Countess of Fingall;
- Charles, predeceased his father being killed in the Battle of Lowestoft, a naval engagement;
- Callaghan, succeeded his brother's son as the 3rd Earl of Clancarty; and
- Justin, the subject of this article;
Irish wars
Justin was a child while his father, Lord Muskerry, commanded the Confederates' Munster army and fought the Parliamentarians in the Cromwellian Conquest of Ireland. Muskerry fought to the bitter end and surrendered Ross Castle near Killarney to Englishman Edmund Ludlow on 27 June 1652, disbanding his 5000-strong army.Exile
Justin, aged about eight, his mother and siblings except the eldest brother, Charles, fled to France already some time before the capture of Ross Castle. His mother lived with her sister Mary Butler, Lady Hamilton, in the convent of the Feuillantines in Paris. In 1658 his father was created Earl of Clancarty by Charles II in Brussels, where he was then in exile. By this advancement the title of viscount of Muskerry became a subsidiary title of the family, which was given as courtesy title to the Earl's heir apparent, at that time her brother Charles, who was therefore styled Viscount Muskerry thereafter.Restoration
The family had their property confiscated under the Cromwellian regime, but it was restored to them at the Restoration of Charles II. Justin seems to have grown up mainly in France. He became a professional soldier, and showed great skill in his profession, but poor eyesight hampered his career. He entered the French army in 1671, and then transferred to the Duke of Monmouth's regiment, then in French pay, and served against the Dutch.On 4 March 1665, the Second Anglo-Dutch War broke out. Three months into the war, on 3 June 1665 O.S., his brother Charles, Lord Muskerry, was killed on the flagship, the Royal Charles, in the Battle of Lowestoft, the first major naval engagement of the war and an English victory. His brother had an infant son, also named Charles, who succeeded him as heir apparent and Viscount of Muskerry. However, their father, the 1st Earl, died two months later, on 4 August 1665, and the younger Charles succeeded as the 2nd Earl of Clancarty. The 2nd Earl died about a year later, on 22 September 1666, still an infant.
Muskerry had an infant son, also called Charles, who succeeded him as heir apparent and Viscount of Muskerry. However, the 1st Earl died on 4 August 1665 surviving him by only two months, and the younger Charles became the 2nd Earl. The 2nd Earl died about a year later, on 22 September 1666, still an infant. Thereupon Callaghan, his uncle, succeeded as the 3rd Earl of Clancarty.
He came to England in 1678 and was befriended by the future James II, who generally chose soldiers, especially Irish soldiers, as his boon companions. Charles II decided to use his services in Ireland, and made him a colonel in Sir Thomas Dongan's regiment. On the outbreak of the Popish Plot, however, the discovery of MacCarthy's presence at Whitehall caused uproar: he fled the country, and the Secretary of State, Sir Joseph Williamson, who had issued his commission, was sent to the Tower of London.
Meddling in nephew's marriage
By 1683 MacCarthy was at Court again, where his growing influence was shown by the marriage he arranged for his immensely wealthy nephew Donough MacCarthy, 4th Earl of Clancarty. Callaghan, the 3rd Earl, had died in 1676, leaving his young son in the care of his widow, Lady Elizabeth FitzGerald, daughter of George FitzGerald, 16th Earl of Kildare: she has been described as "a fierce Protestant isolated in a Catholic family". She placed her son in the care of John Fell, Bishop of Oxford, for a Protestant education. Justin was determined to have the final word on the young earl's marriage and religion, and persuaded the King to invite him to Court for Christmas. He brought that letter in person to the bishop. Here Donough, at sixteen, was married to Elizabeth Spencer, daughter of Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of Sunderland, who was two years younger. The marriage, which went unconsummated for many years, was a failure, and Sunderland's biographer remarked that it left a stain on the reputation of all those who ruined the lives of these two young people, without gaining anything in return. Gilbert Burnet, however, wrote that in anything that did not directly concern his religion, MacCarthy was an honourable man.Under James II
Under the Catholic King James II, MacCarthy became both Major General and a member of the Privy Council of Ireland. He quarrelled with the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon, and probably intrigued to secure his recall.In 1688 or early in 1689 Tyrconnell appointed him Muster-Master General in the Irish Army and Lord Lieutenant of County Cork.
On 23 May 1689 James II created Justin McCarthy Viscount Mountcashel with the subsidiary title of Baron Castleinch.
In 1689 Lord Mountcashel, as he was now, took Castlemartyr and Bandon for James; at Bandon there was a massacre called "Bloody Monday", but MacCarthy persuaded the King to issue a general pardon to his defeated opponents. He met James II at his landing at Kinsale, and was commanded to raise seven regiments. He sat in the Irish House of Lords in the Parliament of 1689.
With 3,000 men he advanced from Dublin towards Enniskillen, which with Derry was the remaining resistance to James II. He was met by 2,000 Protestant 'Inniskillingers' at the Battle of Newtownbutler on 31 July 1689. Mountcashel's forces were routed; he was wounded, then captured. Allowed out on parole he broke parole and escaped to Dublin; Schomberg remarked that he had thought MacCarthy was a man of honour, but on the other hand he expected no better from an Irishman.
He went into exile in France and commanded the first Irish Brigade of Louis XIV. His later career was hampered by his near-blindness. On 21 July 1694 he died at Barèges and was buried there.