Donough MacCarthy, 4th Earl of Clancarty

Donough [Donagh] MacCarthy, 4th Earl of Clancarty (1668–1734) fought for James II at the Siege of Derry. His peerage was attainted in 1691 after the defeat. MacCarthy went into exile to the Netherlands, where he lived for some time on the tiny island of Rottumeroog, and in Germany near Hamburg where he died.

Donough MacCarthy
Earl of Clancarty
Reign	1676–1734
Predecessor	Callaghan, 3rd Earl of Clancarty
Born	1668
Died	1 October 1734
Noble family	MacCarthy of Muskerry
Spouse(s)	Elizabeth Spencer
Detail Issue Robert, Justin, & Charlotte
Father	Callaghan, 3rd Earl of Clancarty
Mother	Elizabeth Fitzgerald

Birth and origins

Donough was born in 1668 at Blarney.[1] He was the only son of Callaghan MacCarty and his wife Elizabeth Fitzgerald. His father was the 3rd Earl of Clancarty. His father belonged to the MacCarthy of Muskerry dynasty, a Gaelic Irish family that descended from the kings of Desmond.[2] Donough's mother was from the FitzGerald dynasty, an Old English family. She was a daughter of George FitzGerald, 16th Earl of Kildare, and Lady Joan Boyle.[3] Both parents were Protestant, but his father had originally been Catholic. His parents had married before 1641.

Family tree

Donough MacCarty with wife, parents, and other selected relatives. Charles 1st Viscount Muskerry d. 1641 Margaret O'Brien Thomas Butler Viscount Thurles bef. 1596 – 1619 Elizabeth Pointz Donough 1st Earl Clancarty 1594–1665 Eleanor Butler 1612–1682 James Butler 1st Duke Ormond 1610–1688 Charles Viscount Muskerry c. 1633 – 1665 d.v.p.* Callaghan 3rd Earl d. 1676 Elizabeth FitzGerald d. 1698 Justin Viscount Mountcashel d. 1694 Charles 2nd Earl 1663– 1666 Donough 4th Earl 1668–1734 Elizabeth Spencer 1671–1704 Robert MacCarty 1698–1769 Elizabeth Farnelly Legend XXX Donough MacCarty XXX Duke of Ormond XXX Earls of Clancarty *d.v.p. = predeceased his father (decessit vita patris). Also see the lists of siblings and children in the text.

Donough listed among his siblings
He appears below as the younger of two siblings: Catharine, married Paul Davys, 1st Viscount Mount Cashell[4] Donough (1668–1734)

Earl of Clancarty

His father died in 1676 when he was eight years old.[5] He succeeded as the 4th Earl of Clancarty and inherited his father's massive Irish estates in County Cork and County Kerry. Clancarty's upbringing became a matter of high policy. His mother, one of the few protestants in the family,[6] brought him to England and placed him under the tutelage of John Fell, Bishop of Oxford, for a Protestant education. His mother remarried to Sir William Davys, the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.[3]

Marriage

However, neither his mother nor the bishop could match the influence of his uncle Justin McCarthy, Viscount Mountcashel, who was one of the closest advisers of the Duke of York, the future James II. They convinced King Charles II to provide a royal letter, countersigned by Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of Sunderland,[7] then the principal Secretary of State in England, inviting Clancarty to the Palace of Whitehall for the 1684 Christmas celebrations where, with Justin's connivance, Clancarty was married to Sunderland's daughter Elizabeth Spencer (1671–1704). However, (Burke 1866) reports that they married on 30 October 1684.[8]

They were sixteen and thirteen years old respectively. The couple soon separated and the marriage was not consummated until many years later.

Williamite War in Ireland

When James II landed in Kinsale on 12 March 1689, Clancarty received him in the house he had there.[9] James made him a Lord of the Bed Chamber.[10]

Clancarty then raised a regiment of foot for James II. During the Siege of Derry he marched his regiment up from Munster to Derry where he arrived on 28 June 1689. He then led a daring night attack against the Butchers Gate immediately on the evening of his arrival.[11] The besieged were surprised and the attackers were able to come up against the gate and touch it but were eventually thrown back.

He was taken prisoner at the Siege of Cork in 1690 and held in the Tower of London.[12] He was outlawed and attainted in Ireland by the Williamites on 11 May 1691, forfeiting his titles and losing his estates.[13]

With his wife in exile

He escaped from the Tower of London in 1694 and fled to James II's court at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye.[14]

He returned to England in the new year 1698 and sought out his wife Elizabeth to finally begin their married life, only to be turned in to the authorities by his brother in law, Lord Spencer, who had been alerted by the family servants. The case raised a public furore and William III, who did not take the matter seriously, said that he had never been bothered so much over anything so trivial as the affair of "that little spark Clancarty". Months later, MacCarthy was permitted to flee to exile on the continent, accompanied by his wife.[15] Most of his estates were appropriated by the king's main adviser, the Dutchman Hans Willem Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland.

The couple settled down in Hamburg-Altona and Lübeck. In 1702 they were living in the 'Irish house' close to the Altona sawmill. The following year MacCarthy bought a small tavern near the fishing village of Blankenese on the northern shore of the Elbe estuary, and in 1706 he bought the island and seigneurie of Rottumeroog, in the Netherlands, where he lived with his libertine household until it was washed away by the Christmas flood of 1717. From then on, he spent the winters elsewhere, but returned to the island each summer until he sold it in 1731. In 1723 he acquired a tiny country house in Oudwoude in Friesland. The assertion that he bought the house from Archibald Campbell, 10th Earl of Argyll is not supported by contemporary documents. In 1729 the anti-Orangist statesman Evert Joost Lewe allowed him to live at Elmersma, a manor house in the village of Hoogkerk near Groningen, without paying rent.

Donough and Elizabeth had three children, two sons:[16]

1. Robert (1698–1769), became a captain in the Royal Navy and commanded HMS Adventure[17]
2. Justin, became an officer in the Neapolitan Army[18]

—and a daughter:

• Charlotte, married John West, 1st Earl De La Warr[19]

MacCarthy was a typical adventurer, crossing the Wadden Sea on his yacht and making a living by plundering shipwrecks and gathering washed-up merchandise. The authorities disapproved his methods and suspected him of supporting the Jacobite cause. He was commonly known as 'the crazy earl'. In 1721 he visited London and was restored to his former titles, but without getting back his estates.

A carefully orchestrated story of his successful enterprises was published in 1732. It prompted the myth told to his former countrymen that he owned a large manor near Hamburg.

Death

He died on 1 October 1734 at the Prahlenhof near Hamburg-St. Pauli, leaving severe debts leading to a bankruptcy sale.[20]

Timeline
Age	Date	Event
0	1668	Born at Blarney, Ireland.[1]
8	1676, 21 Nov	Father died.[5]
16	1684, Dec	Married Elizabeth Spencer, daughter of Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of Sunderland.[8]
17	1685, 6 Feb	Accession of King James II, succeeding King Charles II.[21]
21	1689, 13 Feb	Accession of William and Mary, succeeding King James II.[22]
21	1689, 12 Mar	Welcomed James II at his arrival in Kinsale.[9]
21	1689, 28 Jun	Tried to storm the Butchers Gate during the Siege of Derry.[11]
26	1694	Escaped from the Tower and fled to France.[14]
30	1698	Fetched his wife in England and went with her to Germany.[15]
34	1702, 8 Mar	Accession of Queen Anne, succeeding King William III.[23]
36	1704	His wife died.[16]
46	1714, 1 Aug	Accession of King George I, succeeding Queen Anne.[24]
59	1727, 11 Jun	Accession of King George II, succeeding King George I.[25]
66	1734, 1 Oct	Died at the Prahlenhof near Hamburg, Germany.[20]

Notes

1. Seccombe 1893, p. 436, right column: "...[Donough] was born at Blarney in 1668."
2. O'Hart 1892, p. 122: "CORMAC MACCARTY MOR, Prince of Desmond (see the MacCarty Mór Stem, No. 115,) had a second son, Dermod Mór, of Muscry (now Muskerry) who was the ancestor of MacCarthy, lords of Muscry and earls of Clan Carthy."
3. Lodge 1789, p. 104: "Lady Elizabeth, first married to Callaghan, Earl of Clancarthy, who died 21 November 1676; and secondly to Sir William Davis, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and died in July, 1698, having no issue by him, who died 24 September, 1687."
4. Cokayne 1893, p. 390, line 30: "SIR PAUL DAVIES ... having m. Catherine, da. of Callaghan (MACCARTY), 3rd EARL OF CLANCARTY [I.], by Elizabeth, da. of George (FITZGERALD), EARL OF KILDARE [I.] ..."
5. Cokayne 1913, p. 216, line 12: "He [Callaghan] d. 21 Nov. 1676."
6. Kenyon 1958, p. 102, line 8: "His mother, a fierce Protestant isolated in a Catholic family ..."
7. Kenyon 1958, p. 102, line 15: "... on 18 December 1684 Colonel Maccarty presented himself at Christ Church with a royal letter, countersigned by Sunderland, signifying the King's will and pleasure that the Clancarty should attend the Christmas festivities at Whitehall."
8. Burke 1866, p. 344, right column, line 36: "His lordship m. 20 October, 1684, Elizabeth, 2nd dau. of Robert Spencer, Earl of Sunderland ..."
9. Seccombe 1893, p. 437: "When James II landed in Kinsale in 1689, Clancarty received him in his house there ..."
10. Graham 1829, p. 276: "... received and entertained him in his house and was made a lord of the bed chamber."
11. Witherow 1879, p. 152: "At ten o'clock on the night of his arrival, the young boy, warmed it was said with liquor as well as with valour, crossed the Bog at the head of his men, and attacked the outworks at Butcher's Gate."
12. Cokayne 1913, p. 217, line 1: "he was taken prisoner at the siege of Cork 1690 and confined in the Tower of London ..."
13. Cokayne 1913, p. 217, line 3: "... his immense estates (worth at their now value £200 000 a year) having being forfeited, and he himself attainted, when all his honours became forfeited, 11 May 1691."
14. Kenyon 1958, p. 302, line 13: "The Earl of Glencarty had escaped from the Tower in 1694 and fled to St. Germain ..."
15. Kenyon 1958, p. 305: "William had agreed in March [1698] to pardon Clancarty and grant his wife a pension of £1000 a year provided they took up residence in a 'neutral' territory."
16. Carafano 2004, p. 109, right column: "They had a daughter, Charlotte, and two sons, Robert Maccarthy and Justin, before Lady Clancarty's death in 1704."
17. Burke 1866, p. 344, right column, line 41: "Robert, called Earl of Clancarty, captain R. N., commanded the 'Adventure', man-of-war ..."
18. Burke 1866, p. 344, right column, line 40: "The younger [Justin] was an officer in the Neapolitan army ..."
19. Burke 1866, p. 344, right column, line 38: "Charlotte m. to John West, 7th Lord Delawarr ..."
20. Ehrenberg 1897, p. 86: "Vom Grafen Clancarty. In einem dunklen ärmlichen Winkel unserer Landschaft endigte 1734 ein Leben, das auf den Höhen geschichtlicher Bedeutung begonnen hatte ..."
21. Smyth 1839, p. xiii, line 20: "James II. . [Accession] 6 February, 1685"
22. Smyth 1839, p. xiii, line 21: "William and Mary . [Accession] 13 February, 1689"
23. Smyth 1839, p. xiii, line 22: "Anne . [Accession] 8 March, 1702"
24. Smyth 1839, p. xiii, line 23: "George I. . [Accession] 1 August, 1714"
25. Smyth 1839, p. xiii, line 24: "George II. . [Accession] 11 June, 1727"

References

• Burke, Bernard (1866). A Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire (New ed.). London: Harrison.
• Carafano, James Jay (2004). "Maccarthy, Donough, styled fourth earl of Clancarty (1668–1734)". In Matthew, Colin; Harrison, Brian (eds.). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 35. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 108–110. ISBN 0-19-861385-7.
• Cokayne, George Edward (1893). The complete peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct, or dormant. 5 (1st ed.). London: George Bell and Sons. – L to M (for Mountcashel)
• Cokayne, George Edward (1913). Gibbs, Vicary (ed.). The complete peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct, or dormant. 3 (2nd ed.). London: St Catherine Press. – Canonteign to Cutts (for Clancarty)
• Ehrenberg, Richard (1897). Aus der Vorzeit von Blankenese und den benachbarten Ortschaften Wedel, Deckenbuden, Nienstedten und Flottbek (in German). Hamburg: Otto Meißners Verlag.
• Graham, Rev. John (1829). A History of the Siege of Londonderry and Defence of Enniskillen in 1688-9 (2nd ed.). Dublin: William Curry.
• Kenyon, John Philipps (1958). Robert Spencer Earl of Sunderland (1641–1702). Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press Publishers. ISBN 083718150X.
• Lodge, John (1789). The Peerage of Ireland. 1. Dublin: James Moore. - Blood royal, dukes, earls (for Earl of Kildare)
• O'Hart, John (1892). Irish Pedigrees: or, the Origin and Stem of the Irish Nation. 1 (5th ed.). Dublin: John Duffy & Co. – Irish Stem
• Seccombe, Thomas (1893). "MACCARTHY or MACCARTY, DONOUGH, fourth EARL of CLANCARTY". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. 34. London: Smith Elder & Co. pp. 436–438.
• Smyth, Constantine (1839). Chronicle of the Law Officers of Ireland. London: Henry Butterworth. (for Table of reigns)
• Witherow, Thomas (1879). Derry and Enniskillen in the Year 1689. London & Belfast: William Mallan & Son.

Further reading

• Reinder H. Postma, Donough McCarthy, 4th earl of Clancarty, Oudwoude 2008, 2nd. ed. 2014.