BUTLER-ORMONDof Limerick around four manorial centers or capita:
Nenagh and Thurles (County Tipperary), Caherconlish
(County Limerick), and Dunkerrin (County Offaly),
forming a contiguous group of lordships. Theobald
was also granted important fiefs in the lordship of
Leinster by John during the minority of Isabelle,
daughter and heiress of Strongbow. These he orga-
nized into lordships focused on three great manorial
centers: Gowran (County Kilkenny), Tullow (County
Carlow), and Arklow (County Wicklow). These enor-
mous grants amounted to about 750,000 statute
acres, placing Theobald, if not in quite the same
category as de Courcy, de Lacy, or Strongbow, then
certainly among the major tenants-in-chief of the
crown, thereby laying the foundation of the future
greatness of the family.
In the two centuries that followed, the heirs of
Theobald acquired and lost other territories in Ireland,
particularly in Uí Maine in Connacht, but many of
them had no enduring value. In fact, the Butlers
suffered major losses of territory at the hands of the
O’Kennedys (Uí Chennéidig), O’Carrolls (Uí
Cherbaill), and others in the course of the first half
of the fourteenth century, particularly in northern
County Tipperary and adjacent lands in County
Offaly and northern County Kilkenny. As a conse-
quence of these losses, much of the original heart-
land of the lordship was lost: Nenagh, the chief seat
of the family, was reduced to a frontier outpost by
the end of the fourteenth century. However, the
absenteeism of the neighbouring Anglo-Irish lords,
especially in the neighbouring county of Kilkenny,
permitted the Butlers to compensate for their losses
elsewhere. The purchase of Kilkenny Castle from the
Despensers in 1391, replacing Nenagh as their chief
seat, was only the final piece of a series of acquisi-
tions in the county over the course the preceding
century. Besides, the grant of the liberty of Tipperary to
James Butler, first Earl of Ormond, in 1329, had the
effect of extending the family’s jurisdiction over the
entire county, or at least what remained of it after
the losses sustained in the north in the course of the
same century. This shift in the territorial center of
gravity was further reinforced in the course of the
fifteenth century, when the demesnes of the earls of
Ormond became concentrated in County Kilkenny,
leaving County Tipperary largely in the hands of
cadet branches.
The Earldom of Ormond
Although the Butlers were clearly important ten-
ants-in-chief in the thirteenth century, they did not
play a prominent political role. While Irish magnates
did feature in the royal administration from time to
time, the governorship was frequently controlled
either by churchmen or by royal servants dispatched
from England. However, as the political situation in
the Irish colony deteriorated in the fourteenth cen-
tury, the crown increasingly relied on the cheaper
option of appointing Irish magnates to look after the
troubled affairs of Ireland. Besides, the great lord-
ships of Ulster, Mide (Meath), and Leinster were more
often than not in the control of absentee lords, leav-
ing the way open for those who remained, most
notably the FitzGeralds and the Butlers. The first
member of the Butler family to play a significant
role was Edmund, who was lord deputy of Ireland
1304–1305 and 1312–1314, and chief governor (jus-
ticiar) 1315–1316, during the Bruce crisis. He was
granted the earldom of Carrick in 1315, and was
occasionally styled earl, but he was never created
earl probably because he was unable to visit
England before he died in 1321. It was his son
James, made Earl of Ormond in 1328 during the
Mortimer regency, who received the grant of the
liberty of Tipperary for the term of his life, appar-
ently as the price of his support. While the grant of
the liberty, which made him palatine lord of Tipperary,
was in some respects a de facto recognition that the
county was increasingly a liability to the royal
administration rather than a source of profit, it must
also be seen as an honorific underpinning of the
new title. The jurisdictional powers conveyed with
the liberty were precisely the same as those exer-
cised in the previous century by the lords of Ulster,
Meath, and Leinster. It was in effect an official
recognition that the Butlers had now achieved the
rank formerly accorded only to the greatest Anglo-
Irish magnates. Not least among the ironies of the
new title was the fact that, during the lifetime of
the first earl, Butler control of the cantred of Ormond
began to disintegrate.
The apogee of the power and influence of the
Butler earls in the medieval period coincided with
the careers of James, third earl of Ormond from 1385
to 1405, and his son James, fourth earl of Ormond
from 1411 to 1452. The third earl was justiciar of
Ireland in 1384, and then deputy. He was subse-
quently justiciar in 1393, preparing the way for
Richard II’s first expedition to Ireland, and finally
justiciar and later deputy in 1404–1405. As a fluent
Irish speaker and influential magnate, he negotiated
important submissions on behalf of the king. His son,
the “White Earl,” was undoubtedly the most influen-
tial Irish magnate in the first half of the fifteenth
century. He was eight times chief governor of Ireland:
lieutenant 1420–1422, 1425–1426, and 1442–1444;
justiciar 1426–1427; and deputy 1407–1408, 1424,