The Mullennahone and Carrickcloney lineage
An important letter in John O’Donovan’s Ordnance Survey Letters for Kilmakevoge parish, produced in 1838 and 1839, records that Pierce Edmond Forstall of Rochestown stated that his ancestors formerly possessed the castles of Mullennahone and Carrickcloney.
Pierce Edmond was the son and heir of Edmond Bán Forstall of Ringville, and grandson of Pierce Forstall of New Ross. He was living at the time, dying in 1843, which means he was consulted directly and gave the historical account he knew of his own family.
The passage
What the surveyor wrote down
The passage as written. Note that “Esq.” is inserted above the line after Rochestown, and that the surveyor’s qualification runs on to the end without a break.
Ordnance Survey Letters, Kilmakevoge parish, Co. Kilkenny, 1838 to 1839. Add the holding institution.
There were castles in the townlands of Mullennahone and Carrickcloney in this parish of which there are some remaining. Pierce Edmond Forrestal, of Rochestown, Esq, says that these castles belonged to his ancestors, but I have no documents to prove whether he is right or wrong.
The passage is significant for two reasons. Pierce Edmond was the surviving heir of the Mullennahone and Carrickcloney lineage, and therefore chief of his name; he was consulted on these townlands and gave the account he had.
The writer’s reluctance to accept his word is the honest remark of a historian or journalist. He recorded the information but could not, or did not trouble to, verify it.
It is perhaps the earliest reference to anyone stating that the Mullennahone and Carrickcloney Forstalls stemmed from the same lineage.
How the error travelled
From a letter to two printed books
A single misremembered relationship in a family letter passed into a manuscript pedigree, and from there into two published works on the families of Louisiana, where it stood for the better part of a century.
1865 GO MS 178Genealogical Office manuscript
1931 Creole Families of New Orleansand Old Families of Louisiana
The correction
Mullennahone restored
The manuscript makes Peter the son of Edmond, which is right, and then creates a second Edmond between them and Edmond Dubh. Mullennahone is not named in it at all.
The manuscript makes Peter the son of Edmond, which is right. It then creates a second Edmond, sets him between Peter and Edmond Dubh, and furnishes him with a wife, Eleanor of Dangan, and a residence at Rinn, later Ringville.
Neither belongs to him. Eleanor of Dangan is Elizabeth Butler of Danganspidogue under another name, brought down two generations from the earlier Edmond of Mullennahone, whose wife she was.
The residence needs care. Rinn formed part of Rochestown, which the family held in fee, and Pierce Forstall of New Ross resided at Rochestown later in life. The manuscript calls him Edmond Peter Forstall of Ringville. It renames him, and it uses a name the place did not carry until Alice Kennedy, wife of Edmond Bán, gave it to it. Edmond Bán and Alice were the first of the family to reside there.
The manuscript places Edmond Dubh at Rinn too, when he resided at Gurteens Castle. He is on record as of Mullennahone, of Gurteens and later of Kellymount. Mullennahone is not named anywhere in the manuscript at all.
The correct descent runs Edmond of Mullennahone and Elizabeth Butler of Danganspidogue, then Pierce or Peter Forstall of Carrickcloney and Mary Aylward of Aylwardstown, then Edmond Dubh. The present author established this in 2018.
The two accounts agree
Arrived at twice, by different routes
The omission of Mullennahone from the manuscript is the same absence Carrigan reproduced in 1905, when he presented Mullennahone and Carrickcloney as separate branches.
Pierce Edmond Forstall, the surviving heir of both, told O’Donovan’s surveyor in 1838-1839 that his ancestors had held the castles of Mullennahone and Carrickcloney alike. The surveyor recorded it and added that he had no documents to prove whether he was right or wrong.
The documents were assembled afterwards, and independently. The Forrestals of Ireland in 2020, and The Lineage of Mullennahone 1571 to 1855 in 2022, traced the descent through land acquisitions and forfeitures, deeds, marriage alliances and baptism records, and arrived at the same conclusion Pierce Edmond had stated from family knowledge.
The present author did not know of his statement until August of 2022, after the second of those books had been published. The reconstruction and the testimony were made without reference to one another, and they agree.
What Letitia did not say
In the letters Sister Mary Paul never mentions that her ancestors lived at Mullennahone or Carrickcloney, which leaves the reader to wonder how much family knowledge her father Pierce Edmond passed on to her.
He had told the Ordnance Survey exactly that, within a few years of her writing.
Charles Forstall of Paris
Charles was descended from Nicholas Forstall of New Orleans and was a cousin of Edmond Jean Forstall, to whom Letitia was writing. Edmond must therefore have shared her letters with him.
Charles is the last person shown in the lineage on GO MS 178, and in 1870 a printed work states that Mons. C. Forestall of Paris is believed to be the head of the Kilkenny Forestalls. He may have commissioned the manuscript in order to obtain recognition as chief of the line.
The name of Pierce of New Ross
His brother Dr. John Forstall calls him Pierce throughout the correspondence with New Orleans. He is named Peter on his marriage licence, and Pierce in chancery records and deeds.
Pierce was the name of his and John’s grandfather, Pierce or Peter Forstall of Carrickcloney. Only in his great-granddaughter’s letters, and in the manuscript drawn from them, does he become an Edmond.
Why Carrigan separated the branches
Carrigan published Pierce Edmond’s pedigree from the Ordnance Survey Letters verbatim in 1905, and ended up presenting the Mullennahone and Carrickcloney families as separate branches.
His was the first publication with expanded detail on the Forstalls of the barony of Ida, and it stood as the standard account until The Forrestals of Ireland and The Lineage of Mullennahone 1571 to 1855.
Notes and sources
- O’Donovan, John. Ordnance Survey Letters, Kilmakevoge parish, Co. Kilkenny, 1838 to 1839.
- Genealogical Office MS 178, National Library of Ireland.
- Carrigan, Rev. William. The History and Antiquities of the Diocese of Ossory, vol. IV, 1905.
- The Social State of the Southern and Eastern Counties of Ireland in the Sixteenth Century, 1870.
- King, Grace. Creole Families of New Orleans, 1921; Arthur, Stanley Clisby, and George Campbell Huchet de Kernion. Old Families of Louisiana, 1931.
- Keller, Michael Forrestal. The Lineage of Mullennahone 1571 to 1855. 3rd ed. Castleisland: Muing Historical Press, 2023.
© 2022 Michael Forrestal Keller. This text and the genealogical charts reproduced with it are the work of the author and are protected by copyright. They may not be reproduced without permission.