Thomas Spring of Castlemaine

Thomas Spring of Castlemaine (died 1597) was an English Protestant soldier, landowner and Constable of Castlemaine in County Kerry, Ireland.[1]

Biography

Thomas Spring was born in Lavenham, Suffolk, the son of clothier Robert Spring. He was the grandson of Thomas Spring of Lavenham, the richest merchant in England during the early 1500s.[2]

Spring was an officer in the army of Elizabeth I during the Tudor conquest of Ireland. He served with distinction, and as part of the Plantation of Munster he was granted over 3,000 acres of land in County Kerry in 1578. His land increased to approximately 6,000 acres when, on 12 December 1588, he was granted the estates of Killagha Abbey, which had been seized by The Crown during the dissolution of the monasteries.[3] Spring was instructed to rebuild the abbey in a castle-like manner, so that it could serve as a defensive structure. He also became constable of the castle over the River Maine, with responsibility for maintaining English royal authority over the locality. He was accorded the right to hold several country fairs as a source of income and was in control of collecting tolls and taxes for the Crown. Spring served as High Sheriff of Kerry in 1592.[4] He was the first of the Spring family to settle in Ireland.[5][6]

Spring married Annabelle Browne, the daughter of Sir Anthony Browne, with whom he had two sons.[7] He eldest son, Thomas, was a practising lawyer. His younger son, Walter, served as High Sheriff of Kerry in 1609. Walter's grandson was Walter Spring, who lost much of the family's Irish estate during the Irish Confederate Wars.

References

  1. ↑ Michael C. O'Laughlin, Families of Co. Kerry, Ireland (Irish Roots Cafe, 1994), 137.
  2. ↑ Joseph Jackson Howard, ‘Spring’, The Visitation of Suffolk ( Whittaker and Co, 1866), 165-206.
  3. ↑ James Carmody, 'The Abbey of Killagha, Parish of Kilcoleman, County Kerry', The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Fifth Series, Vol. 36, No. 3, 290
  4. ↑ Michael C. O'Laughlin, Families of Co. Kerry, Ireland (Irish Roots Cafe, 1994), 137.
  5. ↑ Joseph Jackson Howard, ‘Spring’, The Visitation of Suffolk ( Whittaker and Co, 1866), 165-206.
  6. ↑ Charles Smith, The Antient and Present State of the County of Kerry (1756), 57.
  7. ↑ Joseph Jackson Howard, ‘Spring’, The Visitation of Suffolk ( Whittaker and Co, 1866), 165-206.
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