Anne Lynch , 3rd dau. possible 1st cousin to Patrick Marcus Lynch 1785-1864. maybe of the following family: Galway of the Tribes The Lynches of Renmore & Duras The Lynches were one of the most powerful of that exclusive group of families known as the Tribes of Galway, and for almost five centuries members of this family played an important role in the social, political, religious and business life of the town. Of the many branches of this wide-spread family the Lynches of Renmore and Duras, a cadet branch of the Lynches of Barna, was one of the most important. The first of the Lynches of Renmore was Mark Lynch (b 1684), who married Jane, the only daughter of Nicholas Biggs of Jamaica; their children included two sons, Patrick (b 1714) and Nicholas. In 1747 Patrick Lynch, the eldest son and heir, married Anne, sister of Sir Charles ffrench, of Castleffrench, Co Galway. Their children included two daughters, and two sons, Mark (b 1755) and Matthew, who became a barrister-at-law. Mark Lynch, of Renmore, the first of the Lynches of Duras, the peninsula that lies northeast of the town of Kinvara, married, first, in 1785, Barbara, the only daughter of Stephen Burke, or Ower, near Headford, with whom he had one son, Patrick Marcus (b 1785). After his first wife's death, Mark Lynch married, in 1792, Victoire, daughter of Richard Wolsey Cormick, of Wolsey Park, in the island of Grenada, by his wife Lucy Barbara, the sister of Sir George Leonard Staunton, Bart. The children of this second marriage were George Staunton, of Clydagh House, Co Galway; Henry Cormick, a captain in the His Majesty's Indian Army in Madras; Richard Marcus, of Glenard, Co Galway; Charles ffrench (who died without issue); Lucy (who married Richard Martyn of Galway); Jeannette Victoire; and Margaret (who died unmarried). Patrick Marcus Lynch, the eldest son of Mark Lynch, of Duras and Renmore, was a justice of the peace and high sheriff of Galway in 1845. He married, in 1820, Ellen, only daughter of John Wilson, of Belvoir, Co Clare. Their children were John Wilson (b 1831), of Duras; William Joseph (d 1874); Barbara (who married in 1851 Lieut - Col Geoghegan); Ellen (who married in 1855 Edward Thomas Stapleton); Eliza; Mary Jane; and Frances, or Fanny. John Wilson Lynch, of Duras and Renmore had a very distinguished career. He was an honorary major in the Galway Militia, a justice of the peace for Galway town and County Clare, high sheriff for Galway in 1858 and for County Clare in 1866, and again for County Galway in 1870. His wife was Frances, daughter of Sir Thomas Redington, KCB, of Kilcornan, whom he married in 1865. Their children included Mark (b 1866, d 1892); Thomas David (b 1870, d 1947); William Patrick; Ellen; and Frances, or Fanny. Thomas David Wilson Lynch married in 1901 Henrietta Kathleen, only daughter of Pierce John Joyce, of Mervue, Co Galway; their children included Maureen, who married James John Smyth, eldest son of John Joseph Smyth, of Masonbrook, Loughrea, and Mark Florimond, who was born in 1903 and died in infancy. His godfather was Florimond, Comte de Basterot, a descendant of the Frenches of Duras, , with whom the de Basterots, a prominent Bordeaux family, had intermarried. Comte de Basterot was a close friend of Lady Gregory's and it was in his summer residence at Duras that she and Yeats first planned what was to become the Abbey theatre. Mark Lynch, the first of Duras, acquired the eastern half of the peninsula from the Frenches, who had been transplanted to south Galway by the Cromwellian Commissioners in the 1650s. The Frenches of Duras were a wealthy family, with extensive merchant connections in the South of France. Towards the end of his life, James French of Duras, who lived more or less permanently in France at his chateau in Chaillot, began disposing of his property in order to maintain his lavish style of living. His daughter, Frances, had married a young Bordeaux lawyer, Bartholomew de Basterot in 1770, bringing with her an enormous dowry, or at least the promise of one. After her death in 1776, James French deferred paying the remainder of his daughter's dowry, and at his death in 1786 a large sum was still outstanding. By this stage, Bartholomew de Basterot had married a second time, to the heiress of a wealthy French planter who had a large estate on the island of San Domingo. But a slave uprising on the island rendered his second wife's dowry worthless. By 1790 he was declared bankrupt and in 1792 he was given permission by a council of his creditors to travel to Ireland in the hopes of gaining the unpaid portion of his first wife's dowry. De Basterot left France just in time, for the French Revolution a short time later swept through Bordeaux, and many of his friends and relations lost not only their fortunes but also their lives. Once in Ireland de Basterot took legal action against the estate of his brother-in-law, the late Patrick French, who had died unmarried. The very costly de Basterot legal case was not settled in his favour until 1796. Unfortunately, almost as soon as he gained possession of the Duras estate he was obliged to sell off large portions of it. Kinvara and its adjoining townlands was sold to Robert Gregory of Coole Park, and the western portion of the Duras estate was sold to Mark Lynch of Renmore. Thomas Wilson Lynch was the last of the Lynches to live at Duras House. It remained in the possession of the Lynch family until the mid 1930s, after which the land and house were purchased by the Jordan family of Doorus who occupied the house for only a few years, after which it gradually fell into ruin. The other Lynch house in Renmore is now the Holy Family School. Seathr¶n of Dubhros The Galway Advertiser, Might be worth trying to get hold of: JOURNAL OF THE GALWAY ARCH¥OLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY JGAHS Vol. VIII (1913–1914) No. ii Blake, Martin J.: An old Lynch manuscript, 65-75. Blake, Martin J. (ed.): Account of the Lynch family, and of memorable events of the town of Galway, written in 1815 by John, son of Alexander, Lynch, 76-93.
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