Documents relating to the Lynch family (later Lynch Blosse), originally of Galway and later of Castlecarra and Athavallie in County Mayo. The papers consist of wills, rentals and accounts, leases, correspondence and associated material.
The basis for the landed property of this branch of the Lynch family of Galway was Nicholas fitzNicholas fitzStephen fitzArthur Lynch, who was created a baronet in 1622. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Martyn and widow of James D’Arcy around 1603, and he operated as a lawyer and land agent. They had three sons and three daughters who married into other “Tribes of Galway” families and he was a mentor to his step-son Sir Patrick Darcy and his nephew Sir Richard Martyn. He was recorder to the town of Galway from 1625 to 1635, acting as lawyer and land-agent.
His eldest son Robuck (or Robert) Lynch succeeded to the baronetcy in 1635 on his death, and was mayor of Galway from 1638-9, serving as a member of parliament for the town from 1637 until he was expelled from the house in 1642. The family had a house and land at Mace near Annaghdown as well as property within the city of Galway and the Aran Islands, which he lost when transplanted under the Cromwellian Confiscations, however they retained their house at Mace as well as receiving land in Castlecarra in County Mayo where the majority of their landed interests were retained through to the nineteenth century. He married Ellen, daughter of Sir Peter French.
He was succeeded in 1667 by his son Sir Henry Lynch, 3rd Baronet, who was a landowner, barrister and judge. He entered Middle Temple in 1664 and the King’s Inn in 1674. Appointed to the High Court in 1687 under James II’s attempts to get the judiciary under the control of Catholics, he had previously been recorder of Galway and a baron of the Exchequer Court, and was the subject of many complaints of alleged bias against protestant defendants. He died in exile at Brest in 1691 where his remains were venerated as a saint. His son Robert, 4th baronet, succeeded to his baronetcy and lands without any problems, being covered by the articles of Galway. He married firstly Margaret Bourke, daughter of Theobald Bourke, 3rd Viscount Mayo, by whom he had three sons including Sir Robert, and secondly Mary, daughter of Nicholas Blake.
The line continued through the eighteenth century, Sir Henry, 5th baronet married Mary Moore, one of the coheiresses of Garrett Moore of Cloghans and the family was involved in protracted legal proceedings relating to the Moore estate of many years. His son, Sir Robert, married Elizabeth Barker, the residual legatee of his uncle Tobias Blosse of Suffolk, taking that surname with his own to become Lynch Blosse. He also conformed to the Church of Ireland in 1749 although most of his family remained Catholic. His brother Peter making an endowment to the Catholic Church at Balla in his will of 1810. The lands remained in the hands of the Lynch Blosse family until sold in the early 1900s.
The papers in this collection relate to the family from the seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries, and were in the possession of Mrs. R.A. Milne of Shrewsbury, a descendent of the Lynch Blosses.
