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Onomasticon Goedelicum Locorum et Trib-
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the Gaelic Names of Tribes and Places
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Dublin, Four Courts Press: 1993.
Hughes, A.J, and Hannan, R.J.
The Place-Names of Northern
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Joyce, Patrick Weston.
The Origin and History of Irish Names
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Mac Gabhann, Fiachra.
The Place-Names of Northern Ireland:
Vol. 7: County Antrim II—Ballycastle and North-East
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. Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1997.
McKay, Patrick.
The Place-Names of Northern Ireland: Vol. 4:
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Muhr, Kay.
The Place-Names of Northern Ireland: Vol. 6:
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The Place-Names of Northern Ireland:
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See also
Annals of the Four Masters; Languages;
Leth Cuinn and Leth MogaPLUNKETT
The Plunkett family arrived in Ireland with the Anglo-
Norman conquest, and rose from relatively obscure
beginnings to become one of the leading families of
the Pale. A legend arose that they were of Danish origin
and arrived in Ireland in the eleventh century, but the
name is almost certainly derived from the French
blanchet
(from
blanc
, white). The Plunketts came to
hold lands in Dublin, Meath, and Louth, but probably
first settled near Dublin where a Walter Plunkett held
property before his death circa 1270. Walter had a son
John who joined the Franciscans in Dublin, and a
grandson, also called John, who in 1336 was seized of
holdings in Greenoge, County Meath and the manor
of Clonaghlis in County Kildare.
For ambitious families of the fourteenth century, the
route to riches lay through law, commerce, property
acquisitions, and fortuitous marriages, and all these ave-
nues were exploited by the Plunketts. A Thomas Plunkett
of Louth was a chief justice of the common pleas in
1316, and his contemporary John Plunkett, the real
founder of the family’s future greatness, was a profes-
sional sergeant-at-law, representing litigants in the Dublin
courts. John married Alice, granddaughter of Henry of
Trim, who had been mayor of Drogheda in 1272.
Through this marriage John inherited the manors of
Redmore, Stachliban and Beaulieu, all held of de Verdon.
John selected Beaulieu as his principal residence and
had a new parish created for his church there.
As John’s descendents prospered they put down
roots throughout the Pale, giving rise to cadet branches;
ultimately the family came to hold no less than three
peerages. A number of fortunate marriages linked the
Plunketts to the other chief families of the Pale, as
well as leading to the acquisition of further lands. In
1432 Sir Christopher Plunkett was appointed deputy
to the lord lieutenant, John Stanley, on his recall to
England. Sir Christopher married Lady Joan Cusack,
and a splendid (though badly-damaged) fifteenth-
century tomb in Killeen church is probably their final
resting place; in 1449 the Killeen Plunketts were
ennobled. A grandson of Christopher inherited the
Barony of Dunsany through his Cusack relatives. One
of Christopher’s younger sons, Edward Plunkett of
Balrath, County Meath, was implicated in the quarrel
between John Tiptoft and the earl of Desmond in- On Tiptoft’s orders he was arrested and
flogged through the streets of Drogheda, but he
avoided the executioner’s axe, which dispatched the
earl ten days later, and lived to serve as seneschal
of Meath in 1472.