Richard Blackall

Descendants

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Biography

Richard was originally from Exeter, Devon, England. He was the first ancestor in Ireland of the Blackall family of Limerick, Dublin and Clare, and settled at Black Island, Co. Limerick, Ireland, temp. Charles I of England (1625/1649).^[1]

The earliest mention of Richard in Limerick may be this from 1622:^[2]

There were sixteen leaseholders [under Sir John Dowdall] in the seignory of Killmacow [6-8 miles south of Kilfinny] or Knockbillingsley ... [including] Richard, John and William Blacknall [sic] who held as joint tenants 240 acres ... (Commissioner's report in 1622).

Richard was expelled from Black Island by the rebels on 14 Dec 1641 and deposed that he was robbed of £ 422 worth of stock etc.^[3] He was among those besieged in Kilfinny Castle, July 1642, by the Confederates under Lord Muskerry. Lady Dowdall was besieged with Richard in Kilfinny Castle. He himself served in the Irish Wars under the Earl of Thomond. He married his cousin.

According to Sir Hal Blackall,^[4] Richard "had issue Thomas, ancestor of the Co. Limerick branch (of whom later) and George. The latter settled in Dublin, of which city he was an Alderman and Lord Mayor (1694)." The latter was described in 1670 as "George Blackall, native of the city of London, England, gent", suggesting that he was born before his father settled in Limerick, whether that was before 1641 or before 1622, or else that the pedigree as shown here and elsewhere is questionable.

Sir Hal Blackall wrote to Bridget Lakin:

thank you for the transcript of the Wills of the two Thomas Blackalls (1636 and 1659) and for the pedigrees, though the information they give rather dashes my hopes of ever carrying my own line beyond Richard Blackall who settled in Ireland circa 1640...Now our tradition is that we were the same family as the Blackalls of Exeter, which is somewhat ambiguous. It might [be] the Bishop's family but it on the other hand it might refer to a Devon family of the name, whose pedigree is given in a Herald's Visitation, which however, unfortunately ends with Thomas Blackall, baptised 9 Dec 1625 at St Thomas' Exeter.

Spelling

The family name was variously spelt with and without `h' until the close of the 18th Century, since when the spelling "Blackall" had been adhered to. The streets named after Sir Thomas are spelt "Blackhall", but in the records of the Dublin Corporation and elsewhere we find both spellings of his name. The same applies to Aldn. George Blackall, who in a letter written in 1672 asks his correspondent not to put `h' in his name.^[5] In the Letters Patent of 1667, the grantee's name is spelt "Thomas Blackhall".

Sir Hal Blackall writes:^[6]

The name has been spelt Blackhall and Blackall. The former seems to have been the original way and was continued by the Dublin branch. The Limerick family spelt it both ways but since the 18th century have written it Blackall, which is the form I shall use for all the members in the following pedigree for simplicity.

Sources

1. ↑ The Blackall Family of Limerick, Dublin and Clare, by Henry Blackall, c.1971.
2. ↑ The Diocese of Limerick in the 16th and 17th Centuries, by John Begley, p. 207.
3. ↑ TCD Deps F2 22 p. 134.
4. ↑ Sir Henry William Butler Blackall. Abstracts from Blackall family records. The Irish Genealogist, 1(9):265-275, October 1941, p. 266.
5. ↑ Cal. S.P. Domestic Addenda 1660-85.
6. ↑ See his papers in the Royal Irish Academy.