The Ikerrin Crown

Brian Boru depicted wearing the ‘Comerford Crown’ or ‘Ikerrin Crown’ in Dermod O’Connor’s 1723 edition of Geoffrey Keating’s ‘The General History of Ireland’

Patrick Comerford

Introduction

The “Comerford Crown” or “Ikerrin Crown” is a long-lost archaeological artefact probably dating from the Bronze Age. It was discovered in the Devil’s Bit, near Ikerrin, Co. Tipperary, in 1692 and was taken to France by the Comerford family who owned it for over a century, until the mid-1790s, when it was lost during the ‘Reign of Terror’ in the aftermath of the French Revolution.

Although it has not been seen for almost two and a half centuries – perhaps even three and a half centuries – the “Comerford Crown” or “Ikerrin Crown” remains an object of fascination. Although its function was never ascertained and remains uncertain, it became a symbol of Irish identity in the early nineteenth century, and is said to informed the design in 1843 of Daniel O’Connell’s green velvet “Repeal Cap”.

The crown is sometimes referred to by archaeologists as the “Devil’s Bit Mountain gold cap.” The “Milesian Crown” was a more popular term in the nineteenth century because of the symbol that was based on this crown or inspired by it.

The ‘Comerford Crown’ or ‘Ikerrin Crown’ depicted in the ‘Dublin Penny Journal’, Vol 1, No 9 (25 August 1832)

Despite all the speculation about the crown, it remains an enigma. The image used in a depiction of Brian Boru in 1723 is noticeably different from the image of it published over a century later in the Dublin Penny Journal (Vol 1, No 9, 25 August 1832), 140 years after it was discovered, and half a century it was said to have been lost.

These are two contradictory and irreconcilable illustrations. No-one has established with certainty either the function or fate of the crown, and the myths Joseph Comerford created for his own genealogical past make the rescuer of the crown as much a mystery as the object itself.

Château d’Anglure … it gave Joseph Comerford an estate and a French title, but what happened to the crown?

The discovery and rescue of the crown

The “Comerford Crown” or “Ikerrin Crown” was an encased gold cap or crown that was discovered 10ft underground by turf-cutters, at the Devil’s Big in Co. Tipperary in 1692. After its discovery, Joseph Comerford bought the crown, and saved it from being melted down. But who was this Joseph Comerford? And why was he in Ikerrin in 1692.

Joseph Comerford, who bought the crown, became the Marquis d’Anglure in France and claimed to be Baron of Danganmore in Ireland and the head of the Comerford family. He took the crown from Ireland to France when he bought a château in the Champagne region, and the crown may have been lost a century later during the Reign of Terror in the aftermath of the French Revolution.

Joseph Comerford is an enigmatic members of the Comerford family. His origins and place in the family tree have been obscured by his own obfuscation: the family pedigree he registered in Dublin was a self-serving exercise in vanity, aimed at asserting his claim to nobility that would underpin the French aristocratic title he acquired when he bought a château and petit domain in Champagne.

The plaques he erected in the Comerford chapel in Saint Mary’s Parish Church, Callan, Co. Kilkenny, and the Comberford Chapel in Saint Editha’s Parish Church, Tamworth, Staffordshire, were proud but vain efforts by him to link the Comerford family in Co. Kilkenny with the Comberford family of Comberford Hall in the Lichfield and Tamworth area of Staffordshire.

The plaque erected by Joseph Comerford in the Comberford Chapel in the North Transept of Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Although Joseph Comerford claimed on those monuments that his family had been brought low by the ravages of civil wars in Ireland and in England, he appears to have remained in Ireland for some years after the defeat of the Jacobites in the 1690s, without any obvious social, political or financial disadvantage. While he eagerly craved acceptance in French aristocratic circles, the title he acquired has never continued in use in the Comerford family.

Joseph Comerford, the eldest son of Edward Comerford of Clonmel, Co Tipperary, was sworn a freeman of the City of Waterford, on 10 December 1686. He subsequently was commissioned a captain in the Earl of Tyrone’s regiment of foot, a Waterford regiment (despite its name) in the army of James II.

Despite the terms of the Treaty of Limerick following the defeat of the Jacobite cause, Joseph Comerford was still living in Ireland in 1692. In that year, he bought the “Ikerrin Crown,” an encased gold cap or crown weighing about 5 oz, that was discovered 10 ft underground by turf-cutters, and he saved it from being melted down.

Soon after, Joseph Comerford moved to France, and took the crown with him. As Joseph de Comerford of Clonmel, he received letters of naturalisation in France in January 1711. In exile in France, he was made a Chevalier of St Louis, bought the Anglure estate on the banks of the River Aule in Champagne, including the Château d’Anglure, and claimed the title of Marquis d’Anglure by right of purchase. He may be the Comerford who appears as Baron d’Enguemore in Reitstrap’s Armorial.

However, Joseph Comerford returned to Ireland at the beginning of the eighteenth century, when he was living in Cork, and he had moved to Dublin by April 1724, when he registered a fanciful family pedigree at the Ulster Office of Arms in Dublin Castle.

At this time, or soon after, Joseph Comerford probably erected the monument to his great-grandfather, Thomas Comerford, in Saint Mary’s Church, Callan, Co. Kilkenny, and the plaque in the Comberford Chapel in Tamworth, Staffordshire, which is dated 1725. I was involved in the commemorations in Tamworth on 1 April 2025 to mark the centenary of the plaque in the Comberford Chapel.

Joseph Comerford returned to France soon after, and on 28 November 1725, as Joseph de Comerford, he bequeathed the Anglure estate, including “the grounds and seigniories of Mesnil and Granges,” 3km west of Anglure, to his nephew, Louis Luc de Comerford.

When he died in 1729, Joseph Comerford’s will was proved in Paris. Another will, dated 19 May 1729, went to probate in Dublin that year. He was buried in the chapel at the Château d’Anglure not under the title of Marquis d’Anglure but as Baron d’Anglure et Dangermore.

Joseph Comerford and his wife Margaret (née Browne) were the parents of an only daughter, Jane Barbara. But there was no male heir to inherit his claims and titles. Instead, he designated his brother, Captain Luc Luke Comerford as his heir. In default of male heirs, Joseph settled his estates in Champagne on the heirs male of his brother Luke Comerford, and in default of such heirs male on his kinsman, Major-General John Comerford, and his male issue.

Captain Louis-Luc Comerford of Sézanne, north of Anglure, became Seigneur d’Anglure as heir to his uncle Joseph. He appears to have sold the Anglure title and estate in the mid-18th century. According to an advertisement dated 12 June 1752, a quarter of a century after Joseph Comerford’s death, Anglure was associated with the title of a barony from “time out of memory” and with the title of Marquis d’Anglure which was created in 1657.

Louis-Luc de Comerford, who was financially ruined, sold his estates, including Anglure, Mesnil and Granges-sur-Aube, and Belle-Assise, to Jean de Cabanel and retired to Sézanne, north of Anglure, where he lived in dire poverty.

After Louis-Luc Comerford died, his next brother, Captain Pierre-Edouard Comerford, used the title of Baron Dangermore (sic), but he made no pretensions to the Anglure titles. This branch of the Comerford family survived into the early nineteenth century, but died out in 1813 with the death of Captain Joseph-Alexandre-Antoine Comerford (1757-1813). Since then, the titles have never been assumed or claimed by any member of the family.

What happened to the Crown?

But what happened to the “Comerford Crown” that Joseph Comerford saved from being melted down after it was found in Ikerrin and that he took with him to Anglure in France? The eventual fate of the ‘Comerford Crown’ remains a mystery. The crown appears to have survived in safe hands for long time after Joseph’s death. In his Histoire d’Irlande (1758), the Abbé MacGeoghegan suggested it was still preserved in Anglure.

Some accounts say the crown may have been melted down for its intrinsic value in the aftermath of the French Revolution during the Reign of Terror between September 1793 and July 1794.

However, others claimed that the crown had survived the Reign of Terror. A contributor to the Dublin Penny Journal in August 1832 claimed that the crown was then still preserved in the Château d’Anglure. It was owned by Paul Emmanuel Tissandier (1805-1870). But Dr Czerwinski, whose father bought the château in 1832 from the Tissandier family, said: “I never heard anyone speak about the piece of antiquity that you refer to.”

Crown or Bronze Age “hat”

The ‘Comerford Crown’ is not the only Bronze Age “hat” recorded in Ireland. In the late 17th century, a second, similar gold crown or vessel was found nearby at the Bog of Cullen, Co. Tipperary. Known locally as the Golden Bog, due to the sheer quantity of artefacts recovered from its depths in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this morass appears to have been an important ritual site in the Late Bronze Age.

Unfortunately, very few of the objects found in the bog have survived to the present day and the gold “crown” is no different. It was bought in 1744 by a Limerick jeweller, Joseph Kinshalloe, who melted down the artefact to produce 6 ounces worth of gold. Another gold ‘crown’, described rather unusually as shaped like a shell, was also discovered at Kilpeacon, Co. Limerick, in 1821. Regrettably, this object was melted down too for bullion.

The original function of these elaborate gold objects remains uncertain. If they were indeed crowns, then they were probably worn with an inner head-dress or lining that has not survived. They probably belonged to people of high status who wore them during specific ceremonies or rituals.

Another theory suggests ‘hats’ like these adorned wooden statutes or totems that may have depicted local deities. But it has also been argued that these precious items are not in fact crowns, but instead gold bowls or vessels, as with some of the artefacts from the Eberswalde hoard in Germany, which appear too small to fit a human head.

Influence and legacy

The ‘Comerford Crown’ inspired the illustration of Brian Boru wearing the “Milesian Crown” in the frontispiece of Dermod O’Connor’s edition of Geoffrey Keating’s Foras Feasa ar Eirinn, published in Dublin in 1723 as The General History of Ireland. This crown was based on the ‘Comerford Crown,’ and it was used to represent the crown of the provincial kings of Ireland.

Elizabeth FitzPatrick of NUI Galway suggests that because the “Comerford Crown” was found in Munster it inspired the 18th century illustrator of Brian Bóruma “to add it to the Munster king’s royal paraphernalia”.

Over three decades later, the Abbé MacGeoghegan, James MacGeoghegan (1702-1763), in his Histoire d’Irlande (1758), described this gold crown as being in the shape of a bonnet, and added: “This curious part of antiquity was sold to Joseph Comerford and must be preserved in the Castle of Anglure, where he had bought the estate.”

By the early nineteenth century, the shamrock and the harp were the most widely used symbols of Irish identity. The Galway historian, Dr Emily Cullen of NUI Galway, shows how the harp came to be fused with the imperial crown of England, the cap of liberty, the sunburst and the “Comerford Crown” or “Milesian Crown” as one of the principal emblems of Irish identity.

This “Milesian Crown,” based on the “Comerford Crown,” was fused with the harp in an emblem used in 1840 to illustrate the frontispiece to Edward Bunting’s third edition of The Ancient Music of Ireland. This frontispiece consolidated the iconic appeal of the Milesian Crown. Bunting’s emblem of the “Milesian Crown” is based on the 1723 illustration in Dermod O’Connor’s translation of Keating’s Foras Feasa ar Eirinn, which, in turn, is based on the “Comerford Crown”.

While Bunting dedicated this third edition to Queen Victoria, he inserted the Milesian Crown above the harp with the symbol of a wakened nationalism, the sunburst, as a declaration of a separate Irish feudal tradition. Scholars point how that it is notable that the “Comerford Crown,” and not the British crown, was placed above the harp in this image. Emily Cullen points out that instead of ambiguously employing the radiated “Irish crown” above the harp, Bunting purposefully differentiated the provincial Irish crown from that of the British one, through a distinctive design.

Three years after Bunting’s use of the “Comerford Crown,” it also informed the design in 1843 of Daniel O’Connell’s green velvet “Repeal Cap,” which played a crucial iconic role in the construction of his public image.

The artists John Hogan and Henry MacManus used the “Comerford Crown” to design the green velvet “Milesian cap” or “cap of liberty” that they presented to Daniel O’Connell at the “monster meeting” on the Rath of Mullaghmast, near Athy, Co. Kildare, in 1843. An advertisement in The Nation for a copy of the cap, which was mass-produced for sale, pointed out, it was modelled upon “the old Milesian Crown of Gold, dug up AD 1692, at Barnanely, of the Devil’s Bit, County Tipperary, and brought to France by Joseph Comerford, Esq., afterward Marquis of Anglure in Champagne.”

A year later, this harp and crown became the symbol of Ireland on the membership card of Daniel O’Connell’s Repeal Association of 1844. On that card, the harp is surrounded by the sunburst and by Irish political figures including Henry Grattan, Henry Flood, Patrick Sarsfield, Owen Roe O’Neill, Brian Boru and Ollamh Fodhla.

Ollamh Fodhla, reputedly the first Milesian king of Ireland, is wearing the “Comerford Crown” or “Milesian Crown” which is also placed beneath the harp in the central image.

The symbols of Ireland in the centre include a sword, shield, wreath of shamrock and the Milesian Crown. Saint Patrick’s head forms the stem of the device, while a smaller shamrock is inscribed “Remember 1782,” a reference to Grattan’s Parliament.

O’Connell’s followers were deeply moved by the idea of an indigenous Milesian Crown. It came to represent a modern-day Irish crown and was symptomatic of its wearer’s brazen audacity. Throughout the mid to late 1840s, Daniel O’Connell was frequently depicted a mocking way in Punch wearing this Milesian Crown.

O’Connor’s illustration of the “Comerford Crown” in 1723 also gave rise to sporadic curiosity about the artefact on the pages of journals in the nineteenth century. The Dublin Penny Journal claimed the crown was “perfectly eastern” in its “style and workmanship” and “unlike everything of the kind used in Europe within historic times.

A crowned Brian Boru on the east wall of the Chapel Royal in Dublin Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

O’Connell is depicted wearing the crown in an image on the west door of Saint James’s Church, Dublin, designed by Patrick Byrne in 1844. The crown also appears on a head of Brian Boru on the walls of the Chapel Royal in Dublin Castle, and as a label stop in the Church of the Holy Cross in Charleville, Co. Cork, designed by Maurice A Hennessy in 1898.

It is surprising, then, that the “Comerford Crown” did not appear in the motifs designed for the Irish House on the corner of Winetavern Street and Wood Quay, or the Oarsman in Ringsend, two Dublin pubs designed in the 1890s by my great-grandfather James Comerford (1817-1902), when his other depictions include Round Towers, Irish wolfhounds, Erin with a stingless harp, and political figures such as Grattan, Flood and O’Connell.

Daniel O’Connell wearing the ‘Milesian Crown’ in an image at the west door of Saint James’s Church, Dublin, designed in 1844 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Conclusions

Emily Cullen argues that the pairing of the Irish harp emblem with the Milesian Crown is a distinctive and neglected development in nineteenth century iconic discourses. She adds, “It is important, however, to update the Comerford Crown story for a variety of reasons, not least because the authority of this crown was challenged by some as just a decorative vessel.”

She points out that the use of the “Comerford Crown” as a symbol to stand in for the history of a provincial Irish king represents “an attempted transfer of authority to an indigenous Irish crown, a separate iconographic tradition and, ultimately, the dilution of authority of the British Crown.”

In her conclusions, she says, “The fact that there is still a degree of uncertainty about the functions of the Comerford Crown underlines the fact that the harp was juxtaposed with equivocal symbols and, thereby, implicated in speculative narratives that were rendered no less powerful for their ambivalence. Unlike, however, the ‘missing’ Comerford Crown, long transferred to Anglure in France, the Irish harp retains its symbolic authority.”

Further Reading:

Emily Cullen, ‘From the Comerford Crown to the Repeal Cap: Fusing the Irish harp symbol with eastern promise in the nineteenth century,’ in Visual Material and Print Culture in Nineteenth-Century Ireland, ed Ciara Breathnach and Catherine Lawless (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2010), pp 59-72.

Elizabeth FitzPatrick, Royal inauguration in Gaelic Ireland c.1100–1600: a cultural landscape Study (Studies in Celtic History series Vol 22, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2004).

Geoffrey Keating, The General History of Ireland, translated by Dermod O’Connor (Dublin: James Carson, 1723).

Abbé James Mac Geogheghan, Histoire de l’Irlande ancienne et moderne (Paris: Antoine Boudet, 1758, vol 1), pp 100-101.

The Abbé MacGeoghegan, The History of Ireland, Ancient and Modern (tr Patrick O’Kelly (New York: DJ Sadlier, 1845), p 75.

The Dublin Penny Journal, Vol 1, No 9 (25 August 1832).

Joseph Comerford’s pedigree, Genealogical Office Ms 160, ff 102-104.

Biographical note (p 203):

Parick Comerford is an Anglican priest He has been and a former professor in Trinity College Dublin and the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. He lives in retirement near Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire.

•This paper was first published in Under Crimblin Hill: Historical Journal of Dunkerrin Parish Historical Society Vol 5 2026 (ed Professor Salvador Ryan), pp 20-27 (Dunkerrin, Co Offaly, 29 November 2025)

A 300-year-old Comerford death certificate offers insights into family life among the Spanish nobility

The elaborate 300-year-old death certificate of John Comerford, dated 18 May 1725 … he died on 27 October 1723

Patrick Comerford

The year 1725 was significant for a number of events I have been researching or looking back on in the history of the Comerford family in recent weeks.

At a special tercentenary event in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth, organised by Tamworth and District Civic Society last month (1 April 2025), I spoke about the family plaque erected in the Comberford Chapel by Joseph Comerford in 1725, and shared with the Vicar of Tamworth, the Revd Andrew Lythall, in rededicating the memorial.

In my lecture that evening, I tried to explore some of the reasons Joseph Comerford erected that plaque in the Comberford Chapel. But perhaps one significant stimulus may have been the formal issuing in Spain 300 years ago this month, on 18 May 1725, of the death certificate of Major-General John Comerford, who may have been the senior representative of the Ballymack branch of the Comerford family.

Joseph Comerford had bought the chateau in Anglure in Champagne and called himself Marquis d’Anglure. But he had no son to inherit his French chateau and titles as his male heir. In his wills, made in Paris and Dublin, Joseph designated the male descendants of his brother, Captain Luc (Luke) Comerford of Sézanne, as his heirs male, and, in default of Luc Comerford having male heirs, Joseph settled his estates and titles on the heirs male or descendants of his kinsman, Major-General John Comerford (ca 1665-1723).

Badajoz, close to the Spanish border with Portugal … John Comerford was stationed there with his regiment until he died on 27 October 1723 (Photograph: Wikipedia / CCL)

Sone sources say John Comerford was born in Loughkeen, in north Co Tipperary, but is more likely he was born in Waterford. Spanish genealogies name his parents as Don Henrrique (Henry) Comerford, ‘natural de Borough’ and Doña Leonora Graze (Grace) ‘de Balmicourte, natural de Borough’. They are not explicit about the name of the ‘Borough’, but it is almost certainly Waterford.

John seems to have spent his formative and early adult years in Waterford. He was sworn a freeman of the City of Waterford on 23 August 1686, and became an ensign or junior office in Bagnall’s Regiment of Foot in the army of James II, alongside his brother Henry Comerford.

After the Jacobite defeat and the Treaty of Limerick, John Comerford left Ireland and was one of the ‘Wild Geese’ who found refuge in France and Spain and he became an officer in the Spanish army.

He lived in Barcelona and Madrid for much of military career, and on 13 November 1709 he raised a regiment during the Spanish Civil War from a regiment in James II’s Jacobite army, previously commanded by Colonel Dorrington and Colonel Roth. Comerford’s regiment was composed mainly of Irish officers and men and he named the regiment after himself.

Soon after their move to Spain, many of these Irish officers and their regiments were caught up in the Spanish War of Succession (1701-1714). Charles II of Spain died in 1700 without heirs, and Philip V, grandson of Louis XIV of France, was proclaimed King of Spain, triggering the Spanish War of Succession.

Badajoz was controlled in 1705 by the allies in 1705. The supporters if the Habsburg claims conceded the throne to Philip V in the Peace of Utrecht in 1713 in exchange for his renunciation of any claim to France, Philip V was confirmed as King of Spain and renounced any claims to the French throne, Barcelona was recovered by Spain in 1714, and Portugal signed a peace agreement with Spain in 1715 in which it surrendered its claims to Badajoz.

The Spanish army had a brigade of five Irish regiments: Ireland, Hibernia, Ultonia, Limerick and Waterford. Philip V reformed the regiments in the Spanish army in 1715 and renamed them after places instead of their colonels: O’Mahony became Edinburgh, in honour of the Jacobites and the Scottish capital; Crofton whose new colonel was Julian O’Callaghan, became Dublin; Castelar became Hibernia; MacAulif became Ultonia (Ulster); Vandoma became Limerick; and the Regiment of Comerford, with John Comerford as colonel-in-chief, became the Regiment of Waterford (sometimes spelt Guaterford or Vaterford in Spanish documents).

John Comerford was still in active service in the Spanish army in Barcelona in 1718, when he married the widowed Henrietta O’Beirne, and in Badajoz, when he died on 27 October 1723.

The death certificate was formally signed and witnessed in a very elaborate document 300 years ago on 18 May 1725. This fascinating document first came to light with the publication of Micheline Walsh’s research in the National Historical Archive of Spain, Spanish Knights of Irish Origin, published by the Irish University Press and the Irish Manuscripts Commission in four volumes between 1960 to 1978.

John Comerford’s death certificate was drawn up by an Irish-born Catholic priest who was the regimental chaplain in Badajoz, Fray Eugenio O’Maly and was witnessed by several Irish officers in the regiment which was then was stationed in Badajoz: Demetrio O’Dwyer, Diego Tobin, Diego de Poer, Terence O’Kelly, Phelipe O’Reilly, Tadeo Macarty, Gelasio Magenis, Mateo Butler, Juan O’Donell, and by Colonel Daniel O’Sullivan, Conde de Biarhaven (sic). Brigadier Daniel O’Sullivan, the Count of Berehaven and Governor of Coruna, was born in Bantry, Co Cork.

John Comerford’s step-daughter, Maria Therese O’Beirne, married Philip Wharton, 2nd Duke of Wharton, who once owned Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

John Comerford married the widowed Henrietta O’Beirne (née O’Neill) in 1718, while he was on active service in the Spanish army as a colonel in Barcelona.

Henrietta was the widow of Colonel Henry O’Beirne, another Irish colonel in the Spanish army, and a daughter of Henry O’Neill of Eden, Co Antrim, and his wife, Sarah O’Neill, of Shane’s Castle. Henrietta’s brother, John O’Neill, was the father-in-law of Richard Butler, 7th Viscount Mountgarret, and was grandfather of Lord O’Neill, who was killed at the Battle of Antrim during the 1798 Rising.

Henrietta and her first husband, Henry O’Beirne, were the parents of one daughter:

1, Maria Therese O’Beirne (d. 1777), Maid of Honour to the Queen of Spain, who married in 1726 the attainted Philip Wharton (1698-1731), 2nd Duke of Wharton, Marquess of Catherlough, Earl of Rathfarnham and Baron Trim.

Henrietta and her second husband, John Comerford, were the parents of one son and four daughters:

1, Joseph John Patrick Comerford (Don Joseph Jordi Patricio Comerford) (1719-post 1777) – I shall return to his life story further on in this essay.
2, Elinor, married … O’Beirne, and was living with her half-sister the Duchess of Wharton at her house in Golden Square, Soho, London, when she died in 1777. She was the mother of three daughters: ‘Mrs Elinor O’Beirne’, living at the court of Spain in 1777; and two other daughters who were under the age of 21 in 1777.
3, Frances (Doña Francisca) Magdalene.
4, Dorothea, who appears to have been dead by 1777, when her half-sister, the Duchess of Wharton, died in London.

The Royal Palace in Madrid … John Comerford’s step-daughter, Maria Therese O’Beirne, was Maid of Honour to Queen Elisabeth of Spain (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The widowed Henrietta Comerford died in Madrid in August 1747. She and her first husband, Colonel Henry O’Beirne, were the parents of Maria Therese O’Beirne (d. 1777), Maid of Honour to the Queen of Spain. Elisabeth Farnese (1692-1766) of Parma was the wife of Philip V and the de facto ruler of Spain from 1714 to 1746, managing the affairs of state on behalf of her husband, and she was the Regent of Spain in 1759-1760.

While Maria Therese O’Beirne was her Maid of Honour, Queen Elisabeth of Spain gave birth in the Royal Alcazar of Madrid on 11 June 1726 to a daughter she named Marie Thérèse Antoinette Raphaëlle (1726-1746). I canonly speculate whether the Infanta of Spain who would become the Dauphine of France sas named after John Comerford’s step-daughter at court.

A month later, on 23 July 1726, and a year after the death of her step-father, John Comerford, Maria Therese O’Beirne married as his second wife the attainted and widowed Philip Wharton (1698-1731), 2nd Duke of Wharton, Marquess of Catherlough, Earl of Rathfarnham and Baron Trim.

The Duke of Wharton had inherited Rathfarnham Castle, Knocklyon Castle and other estates in south Co Dublin through his mother, Lucy Loftus of Fethard-on-Sea, Co Wexford. He sold those estates to Sir William Conolly, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, for £62,000 in in 1723, two years befor he married Maria Therese O’Beirne.

Wharton led a dissolute life and died aged 32 in the Franciscans monastery in Poblet on 31 May 1731, and was buried next day in the church there. His widow left Madrid for London. There she lived at Golden Square in Soho, was known as Mrs Wharton rather than the Duchess of Wharton and subsisted on a small pension from the Spanish court. A writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine later referred to her step-father, John Comerford, as her father, and in her will made 250 years ago in 1775 she referred to her half-brother, Joseph Comerford, as ‘my deceased brother Comerford’.

She died at Golden Square on 13 February 1777, and was buried at Old Saint Pancras on 20 February 1777. Her will, dated 23 December 1775, went to probate on 1 March and 28 July 1777.

John Comerford’s step-daughter, Maria Therese O’Beirne, was buried at Old Saint Pancras, London, on 20 February 1777 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John Comerford’s elaborate death certificate, and the detailed genealogies prepared for his children and grandchildren and signed by Irish archbishops and bishops were important for his family in the social climate in 18th century Spain.

Documents such these were essential for proving their status of nobility and so allowing them to hold senior rank in the Spanish army, for giving his step-daughter to marry to an exiled duke, for her daughter to became a maid of Honour to the Queen of Spain, for his only son to become a Knight of the Order of Calatrava, and for later descendants to marry into noble families, including the de Sales family, and to assume the titles of count and countess.

But it is interesting that, among these documents, John Comerford’s death certificate is drawn up and witnessed at the same time as Joseph Comerford is erecting the Comberford monument in the Comberford Chapel in Tamworth, and making his wills in Dublin and Paris that assign his titles and claims in France eventually to the descendants of John Comerford.

Don Joseph Jordi Patricio Comerford was born in Barcelona on 5 April 1719, and was baptised in Barcelona Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

As for John Comerford’s descendants, this branch of the Comerford family continued in the male line into at least the early 19th century and the death of Enrique (Henry) Comerfort, Conde de Bryas, sometime after 1815. His niece, Doña Josefa Eugenia Maria Francisca Comerford MacCrohon de Sales, (1794-1865), generally known as Josefina de Comerford, is a romantic figure in Spanish political upheavals in the 19th century and a femme fatale in Spanish revolutionary wars.

John Comerford’s only son and heir, Joseph John Patrick Comerford (1719-post 1777), was also known as Don Joseph Jordi Patricio Comerford. He was born in Barcelona on 5 April 1719, and was baptised in the Cathedral in Barcelona by the Rev Dr Pedro Soro. His godparents were Don Patricio Hogan, a captain of grenadiers in his father’s regiment, and Doña Isabel Grifit y Tobin. He was probably named after Joseph Comerford of Anglure, who was nominating the male members of this branch of the family as his heirs.

Don Joseph Comerford was a Knight of the Order of Calatrava, one of the four Spanish military orders, was the first military order founded in Castile and the second to receive papal approval. He married Maria Magdalena de Sales, Madame de Sales, a widow sometimes described as Marquesa de Sales, and he was still living in 1777. They were the parents of two sons:

• 1, (Major-General) Francisco Comerford (d. 1808), of the Regiment of Ireland – and I shall return to his life in a few moments.

• 2, Enrique (Henry) Comerfort y de Sales, Conde de Bryas. He married Juana Francisca de Comerford y Sales. He moved to Dublin in 1809 with his orphaned niece Josefina. He attended the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and died soon after.

The elder son of Don Joseph Jordi Patricio Comerford was Major-General Francisco Comerford (d. 1808), of the Regiment of Ireland. He was a sponsor in 1772 at the baptism in Spain of Carlos Manuel O’Donnell y Anhetan (1772-1830), father of Leopoldo O’Donnell y Jorish (1809-1867), the first Duke of Tetuan, who was Prime Minister of Spain on several occasions in the mid-19th century.

Joseph Comerford was stationed in Tarifa and died there in 1808 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Joseph Comerford proved the will of his aunt, the Duchess of Wharton, in 1777. He was stationed next to Gibraltar and in Tarifa with his regiment. He was an eyewitness of the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. He married Maria MacCrohon, and died in 1808. They were the parents of Doña Josefa Eugenia Maria Francisca Comerford MacCrohon de Sales (1794-1865), or ‘Josefina’ de Comerford, a femme fatale in the Spanish revolutionary wars and political upheavals in the 19th century.

Josefina was born in Ceuta in Spanish North Africa in 1794, and was baptised on 26 December 1794 in the Church of Nuestra Señora de los Remedios in Ceuta. In her childhood, she moved to Tarifa, where her father died in 1808. She was adopted by her uncle Enrique Comerford, moved with him to Dublin and was with him at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. She moved to Rome before returning to Spain, and became involved on the ultra-royalist side in the political wars in Spain.

The Spanish Regency gave her the title of Condesa de Sales on 21 June 1822, and this was confirmed by Fernando VII. At the fall of the constitutional regime in 1824, she moved to Barcelona. She was imprisoned in the Ciudadela in Barcelona in November 1827, but her death sentence was commuted and she was exiled to the Convent of Encarnación in Seville.

Josefina regained her freedom after the death of Ferdinand VII in 1833. She then lived in Corral del Conde on Calle Santiago in Seville, and is said to have returned to Ireland the 1850s. She died in Seville on 3 April 1865, and was buried in the Cemetery of San Fernando.

Josefina’s life has been the subject of many popular Spanish romantic novels, so that the historical biographical details of her life are often lost in the fictional retelling of her legend. She is often described as ‘the woman general’, ‘la dama azul’, and ‘the fanatic’, while other writers have defended her as ‘a defamed heroine’.

Countess Josefina de Comerford’ depicted by Vicente Urrabieta y Carnicero in an illustration for the novel by Francisco José Orellana, ‘The Count of Spain or The Military Inquisition’ (Madrid: León Pablo Library, 1856)

Further reading:

Micheline Walsh (ed), Spanish Knights of Irish Origin, Documents from Continental Archives, vol iii (Dublin, Irish University Press for the Irish Manuscripts Commission, 1970).

Joseph Comerford and the Comberford monument in the Comberford Chapel, Tamworth, erected in 1725

The Comberford family monument erected in Saint Editha’s Church in 1725 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The Comberford Memorial Tercentenary:
a talk on the Comberford family
and rededication of the 1725 plaque

Tamworth and District Civic Society,

Tuesday 1 April 2025,

7 p.m.: Saint George’s Chapel, Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth,

with rededication in the Comberford Chapel

Introduction:

This year marks the 300th anniversary of the erection of a mural in 1725 of the curious tablet on the wall of the Comberford Chapel or North Transept, also known historically as Saint Catherine’s Chapel. It is one of two Comberford family monuments in the chapel, the other being a much worn and damaged effigy.

The monument is on the wall beneath the window depicting Christ the Teacher, erected almost a century and a half later in 1871 recalling two 19th century vicars of Tamworth, Canon Francis Blick (1754-1842) and his son-in-law, the Revd Robert Watkins Lloyd (1783-1860), and their wives.

I spoke here six years ago (2019) on ‘The Comberfords of Comberford and the Moat House, Tamworth’ (9 May 2019). This evening, to mark this 300th anniversary, I want to:

1, look at that particular monument;

2, look at some of the questions the text on it raises;

3, answer some of the questions it has created over the years for local and family historians;

4, identify who erected this monument 300 years ago; and

5, place it within the context of its setting in this church, both before it was erected and in the context of what was happening in Saint Editha’s Church at the time.

The desecrated and defaced Comberford effigy in the Comberford Chapel in Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

1, Looking at the monument:

The marble tablet erected in 1725 in the Comberford Chapel laments the demise of the main male line of the Comberford family that ended with Robert Comberford’s death, saying that line died out in 1671, although, in fact, he died in 1669. Indeed, his widow Catherine, had continued living at Comberford with her daughter, and she died only eight years before the plaque was erected.

The marble mural bears a Latin inscription that declares:

Hic situm est Monumentum diuturnitare vero
temporis et bellis plusquam civilibus dirutum
familiae non ita pridem florentis. Gentis
amplae et honostae Cumberfordiorum
Qui de hoc Municipio cum in alliistum.
In hoc Templo aedificando optime meruerunt.
Domini Cumberfordiae melaruere annis septigentis.
In Roberto autem novissimo stirpis Angliacae
Staffordiensis viro Gentis extinctum pleratur.
Qui obiit A.D. 1671 et hic cum consorte
Domina Catharina Bates filiisque duabus
Maria et Anna suis Haeredibus Tumulo
conditur Nomen adhuc viger in stirpe
Hibernica, quae Regem Jacobum Secundum
in Galliam secuta est; atque ibi Angluniae
In Provincia de Champagne Dominio
insignitur 1725.

Translated, this inscription reads:

‘This place is truly a fitting monument to a family brought low by wars rather than civic affairs, and that no longer flourishes here. The generous and honest family of Cumberfords richly deserve the gratitude of this town in many things, including in the building of this church. The Lords of Cumberford, who survived for seven hundred years, died out with the death of Robert, last scion of the Staffordshire branch in England, when he died in AD 1671, and was buried here with his wife Lady Catherine Bates and their two daughters and heiresses, Mary and Anne. Henceforth, the name lives on in the Irish branch of the family, which followed James II into exile in France, and there they became the Lords of Anglunia in the Province of Champagne. Erected in 1725.’

In addition, two local historians, Stebbing Shaw (1762-1802) and Charles Ferrers Palmer (1819-1900), and one 19th century family historian, James Comerford, noted that above this plaque there was a representation of the Comberford coat-of-arms (gules, a talbot passant argent) impaling those of Bates of Sutton (sable, a fess between three hands erect argent), with the Comberford crest of a ducal coronet and peacock’s head. This detail has since disappeared, but only in the past century and half or less.

‘Christ the Teacher’ … a stained glass window in the Comberford Chapel in Saint Editha’s Church, commemorates the Revd Francis Blick, Vicar of Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

2, Some questions raised in the text:

In his pamphlet, The Moat House and the Comberford Family, privately published about 60 years ago (ca 1965-1967), DP Adams, then Senior History Master at the Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, Tamworth, says: ‘Two things about this memorial are strange. When and by whom was it erected since it refers to James II’s exile which occurred from 1690 onwards, and where was Anglunia?’

In fact, he’s asking three, not two questions: when was it erected? Who erected it? And where is Anglunia? And he hints at a fourth question: how was a monument with such obvious Jacobite sympathies erected in a parish church in England within a decade of a Jacobite invasion in a concerted campaign to dethrone the House of Hanover?

The plaque is surprisingly open in its Jacobite sentiments, only a decade after the Vicar of Tamworth was convicted for his Jacobite loyalties.

One of Adams’s questions is already answered in the text, which says clearly the monument was erected in 1725. In addition, by clearing up the identity of ‘Anglunia’ the identity of the monument’s patron is revealed.

But they are at least two typographical errors on this monument, and someone more learned in classical Latin than I am may probably identify more:

(i) The date 1671 should read 1669, when Robert Comerford died;

(ii) Anglunia refers to Anglure in the Champagne area in France.

Patrick Comerford with the monument erected in the Comberford Chapel in 1725 by the Comerford family of Ireland

3, Questions created for local and family historians

As I shall point, the tablet was probably commissioned by an Irish officer and merchant, Joseph Comerford of Clonmel and Dublin, who had recently bought the chateau of Anglure in Marne, France, along with the title of Marquis d’Anglure.

He was keen to establish links between the Comerford family in Ireland and the Comberford family in Tamworth, but makes some clear and perhaps deliberate mistakes, if not representations of the stories of both families.

Let me identify some of those deliberate errors when it comes to the Comberford family of Comberford Hall and the Moat House.

Firstly, The tablet says the Comberford family had been living in Staffordshire for no more than six rather than seven centuries.

Then, as I have said, Robert Comberford (1594-1669) died in 1669, and not in 1671 as the monument claims. Robert furnished Elias Ashmole with many of the details of the Comberford family in Lichfield in 1663, although leaving some curious gaps. His wife Catherine was at least 30 years younger than him, and he died in 1669 at the age of 77, he was buried in the Comberford Chapel and his widow and two daughters continued to live at Comberford Hall until she died in 1718.

Indeed, the family had been impoverished during the Civil War, losing the Moat House on Lichfield Street in Tamworth. The family had recovered Comberford Hall, but it had been heavily mortgaged, and Catherine probably remained there as a tenant of the Skeffingtons of Fisherwick, Robert Comberford’s cousins and neighbours. Her will, written in Latin, was made on 18 January 1716, and probate was granted on 7 November 1718.

Her will shows Catherine still held some property in Wigginton, Hopwas and Tamworth, which she divided between her granddaughters, Catherine Brooke and Mary Grosvenor, wife of Sherrington Grosvenor of Tamworth. Both daughters are more likely to have been buried with their husbands than with their parents here in Tamworth.

Catherine died seven years before this monument was put in place, so there were people around in 1725 who would have remembered the family had continued living in this area long after James II’s exile. The Comberford name continued in the Brooke family through Robert’s grandson, Comberford Brooke.

It is true the name died out, but not the family line. Robert Comberford’s descendants continued through female lines in prominent Midlands families, including the Brooke, Giffard, Grosvenor, Mostyn, Parry, Slaughter and Smitheman families, and their descendants.

Indeed, if Robert Comberford was the last of the line and died in 1669 or 1671, during the reign of Charles II, a branch of the family could not have then followed James II to Ireland and then into exile into France.

Château d’Anglure … it gave Joseph Comerford an estate and a title

4, Who erected this monument in 1725?

Joseph Comerford, Marquis d’Anglure, is one of the most enigmatic members of the family. His origins and place in the family tree have been obscured by his own obfuscation:

• The family tree he registered in Dublin was a self-serving and vainglorious exercise, aimed at asserting a nobility that would underpin the French aristocratic title he acquired when he bought a chateau and petit domain in Champagne.

• The plaques he erected in the Comerford chapel in Saint Mary’s Parish Church, Callan, Co Kilkenny, and the Comberford Chapel in Saint Editha’s Parish Church in Tamworth, were proud but vain efforts to link the Comerford family in Co Kilkenny with the Comberford family in the Lichfield and Tamworth area of Staffordshire.

Although he claimed on those monuments that his family had been brought low by the ravages of civil wars in Ireland and in England, he appears to have remained in Ireland for some years after the defeat of the Jacobite cause in the 1690s without any obvious social, political or financial disadvantage. And, while he eagerly craved acceptance in French aristocratic circles, the title he acquired has never continued in use in the Comerford family.

Joseph Comerford’s pedigree, registered with the Ulster Office of Arms, the principal heraldic and genealogical office in Ireland, makes extravagantly fanciful and romantic claims for his origins and ancestry. Yet, paradoxically, it is difficult to disentangle truth from fiction, or to be quite certain about Joseph Comerford’s family origins.

However, we can presume that Joseph Comerford knew and was honest about the names of his parents and grandparents. It would appear, therefore, that his grandfather was Peter Comerford, who married Honor Everard, and that his father was Edward Comerford, a merchant, of Clonmel, Co Tipperary. He married Barbara Browne, and died in November or December 1679, while Barbara died in 1719.

Edward and Barbara Comerford were the parents of three or four sons and two daughters, including Joseph Comerford, the subject of our discussions this evening; Bonaventure Comerford, a Jacobite captain in France who died in 1709 and is buried in Douai; Luke Comerford, also a Jacobite captain; and Michael Comerford, who died in Dublin 1724, and who in his will uses the Comberford coat-of-arms.

Joseph Comerford was a freeman of Waterford (1686) and was a captain in the Jacobite army of James II in Ireland.

However, despite the terms of the Treaty of Limerick after the Jacobite defeat, Joseph Comerford was still living in Ireland in 1692, when he bought the ‘Ikerrin Crown,’ an encased gold cap or crown discovered 10 ft underground by turf-cutters in Co Tipperary, and which he saved from being melted down.

The ‘Comerford Crown’ or ‘Ikerrin Crown’ … bought by Joseph Comerford in 1692 and later kept in his château in Anglure

Soon after, Joseph moved to France, and as Joseph de Comerford of Clonmel, he received letters of naturalisation in France in January 1711. In exile in France, he was made a Chevalier of St Louis, bought the Anglure estate on the banks of the River Aule in Champagne, including Château d’Anglure, and claimed the title of Marquis d’Anglure.

However, he returned to Ireland at the beginning of the 18th century, when he was living in Cork, and in Dublin in April 1724, he registered a fanciful family pedigree at the Ulster Office of Arms in Dublin Castle.

At this time, or soon after, he probably also erected the monument in Saint Mary’s Church, Callan, Co Kilkenny, to Thomas Comerford, who may have been his great-grandfather and who died in 1627 or in 1629. That monument also uses florid Latin and the coat-of-arms of the Comberford family of Comberford rather than that of the Comerfords of Co Kilkenny.

Joseph Comerford returned to France after registering his pretentious pedigree and erecting plaques in Callan and Tamworth that may have been intended to support and substantiate his genealogical claims.

On 28 November 1725, as Joseph de Comerford, he gave the Anglure estate, including ‘the grounds and seigniories of Mesnil and Granges,’ 3 km west of Anglure, to his nephew, Louis Luc de Comerford.

When he died in 1729, Joseph Comerford’s will was proved in Paris. Another will was dated 19 May 1729 and went to probate in Dublin that year. He was buried in the chapel at Château d’Anglure not under the title of Marquis d’Anglure but as Baron d’Anglure et Dangermore.

Although he had an only daughter, Jane Barbara, there was no male heir to inherit his claims and titles. Instead, he had designated his brother Captain Luc (Luke) Comerford as his heir. In default of male heirs, Joseph Comerford settled his estates in Champagne on the heirs male of his brother, Captain Luke Comerford, and in default of such heirs male on his kinsman, Major-General John Comerford, and his male issue.

Captain Louis-Luc Comerford of Sézanne, north of Anglure, became Seigneur d’Anglure as heir to his uncle Joseph. He was financially ruined, sold the Anglure title and estate in 1752, and retired to Sézanne, north of Anglure, where he lived in extreme poverty.

Louis-Luc Comerford’s next brother, Captain Pierre-Edouard Comerford, used the title of Baron Dangermore, but he made no pretensions to the Anglure titles. This branch of the Comerford family died out in 1813 with the death of Captain Joseph-Alexandre-Antoine Comerford (1757-1813). Since then, the French titles have never been assumed or claimed by any member of the family. As for the crown rescued by Joseph Comerford, its fate remains a mystery, though it has inspired various works of art in Ireland.

The Moat House on Lichfield Street, Tamworth … Joseph Comerford’s motives may have included preserving family rights and interests in the Comberford Chapel from later proprietors of the Moat House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

5, The monument and its contexts

The destiny of Joseph Comerford’s crown, title, chateau, and his many pretentious claims are interesting chapters in the story of the decline of a family, and help to explain why he erected the monument in the Comberford chapel.

When Joseph Comberford bought his chateau in Anglure, it came with a title – but with the caveat that the owner had to be what passed in France as noble birth. And that explains the very confusing family tree he registered in Dublin in 1724. Erecting this monument in Tamworth, without using his own name, bolstered that claim – we could accuse him of creating ‘facts on the ground.’

But there were other, more understandable reasons – perhaps more honourable reasons – for his wanting to erect this monument. The Comberford family lost the Moat House on Lichfield Street during the English civil war in the mid-17th century. I have inherited some papers and correspondence that show how successive owners of the house went to great lengths to find out whether the house brought with it rights of burial in the Comberford Chapel: in other words, was the right of burial inherited in the Comberford family, or was it associated with the Moat House.

Of course, the Comberford Chapel predates the family’s ownership of the Moat House. So, we may probably accept, Joseph Comerford, in some way, was probably trying to keep the Comberford Chapel ‘in the family’ – albeit through a very distant and questionable genealogical link – rather than alienate those rights to the owners of the day at the Moat House.

His action was bold, for, as Adams points out, the plaque is surprisingly open in its Jacobite sentiments, only a decade after a local vicar was executed for his Jacobite loyalties. The Revd William Paul (1678–1716) had been a teacher in Tamworth before becoming Vicar of Orton, six or seven miles east of Tamworth, in 1709. He became a nonjuror, joined the Jacobite rebels in 1715, was arrested and convicted of treasons, and was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn on 13 July 1716.

It remained a political and social risk to openly espouse Jacobite sympathies in Tamworth in 1725. But of course, who with the name Comberford or Comerford, would not want to keep, whatever the implied risks, whatever links it was possible to maintain with the Moat House, Comberford Hall and the Comberford Chapel in Tamworth?

Some of the 19th centuries papers relating to the Comberford family and the Moat House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A lockdown ‘virtual tour’ of a dozen Comerford and Quemerford family homes

An artist’s impression by Struan Robertson of Ballybur Castle, the Comerford ancestral home near Cuffesgrange, Co Kilkenny

Patrick Comerford

The lockdown introduced as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic continues to grip most of Europe, and the latest discussions indicate there may be no travel from Ireland to other parts of Europe for the rest of 2020.

But I can still travel in my mind’s eye. And, so, in recent months I have been posting a number of ‘virtual tours,’ inviting you to join me in ‘virtual tours’ of churches, monasteries, synagogues, historic sites, and even pubs and restaurants across Europe.

This evening I invite you to join me in a ‘virtual tour’ with a genealogical theme, visiting a dozen or more ancestral homes of the Comberford family. Most of these are in the Lichfield and Tamworth areas, but some are a little further out in Staffordshire: one or two are in Warwickshire, and one is in Shropshire.

I hope to follow this evening’s ‘virtual tour’ later with a ‘virtual tour’ of ancestral homes of different branches of the Quemerford and Comerford families.

1, Quemerford House, Calne, Wiltshire:

Quemerford House, at the heart of Quemerford village on the edges of Calne in Wiltshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Comerford family in Ireland takes its name from the village of Quemerford, on the edges of Calne in north Wiltshire.

Although the Comerford family never lived at Quemerford House, this house is the main home in the village from which the family takes its name.

According to etymologists, the name is derived from the Old English Cynemaeres-ford, meaning the ford or river crossing at the royal (cyne) boundary (maere) or lake (mere). The 19th century Wiltshire historian and antiquarian, Canon John Edward Jackson, said the name had been written ‘fantastically’ as Quemerford as far back as the reign of Edward I, and pointed out that it had been written also as Comerford and Kemerford. The etymologist Ekwall notes the early variants of the name include Camerford (1204), Kemerford (1226-1228), Quemerford (1240-1245), Cameresford (1292) and Quemerforde (1294).

The village of Quemerford, a suburb of Calne in Wiltshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

Philip de Quemerford, sometimes recorded as Philip of Cummerford, a lawyer from Calne, was living permanently in Co Kilkenny from the beginning of the 14th century, and was attorney to John de Earleye in 1302. The last mention of the Quemerford family in the Calne area of Wiltshire is on 17 March 1344.

But the spelling Quemerford continued to be used by the family into the 15th century, and sometimes even in the 16th and early 17th century. That spelling gave way to Comerford through continuing contacts with the Comberford family in Staffordshire, and the conflation of the two family trees by later genealogists.

2, Ballybur Castle, Co Kilkenny:

Balllybur Castle, Co Kilkenny … the 16th century ancestral home of the Comerford family (Patrick Comerford)

Ballybur Castle, near Cuffesgrange, halfway between Callan and Kilkenny, was the principal Comerford family home in Co Kilkenny for generation.

Richard de Quemerford (fl 1434-1457) held his lands from James Butler, 5th Earl of Ormond and 1st Earl of Wiltshire, in 1434, and was working for the Butlers in Waterford and Carlow.

He appears to have been the ancestor of the Ballybur branch of the family, and many other branches of the family. Ballybur Castle was built in that century, and Richard ‘Roe’ Comerford, who inherited Ballybur Castle ca1532.

The vaulted bedroom on the third floor of Ballybur Castle was once the private chapel of the Comerford family (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

However, Richard Comerford of Ballybur Castle has often been identified with Rochard Comberford of Comberford Hall and Bradley in Staffordshire, and a former bursar of Saint John’s College, Cambridge, giving rise to many confusions in the family tree.

Ballybur Castle remained the main Comerford family residence until it was confiscated from John Comerford during the Cromwellian confiscations in the 1650s. It was the home of a branch of the Mansergh family for generations, and now belongs to the Gray family, who have restored it and made it a popular wedding venue.

3, Danganmore Castle, Co Kilkenny:

The ruins of Danganmore Castle, once owned by the Comerford family, are incorporated into the Forrestal family home (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Danganmore Castle is another Comerford family castle in Co Kilkenny, associated with a branch of the Comerford family of Ballybur.

Richard ‘Boy’ Comerford (died 1622), younger son of Richard ‘Oge’ Comerford of Ballybur (died ca 1579/1580) and younger brother of Thomas Comerford of Ballybur, moved to Danganmore Castle by the early 1570s.

Later, Joseph Comerford, who bought a château in France in the early 18th century and with it the title of Marquis d’Anglure, claimed the head of the Comerford family held the ‘Palatine’ title of Baron of Danganmore. But there never was such a title or peerage.

4, Castleinch, Co Kilkenny:

Desart Court … built by the Cuffe family on the site of Castleinch, owned for generations by the Comerford family

The Quemerford or Comerford family was involved in the civic, mercantile, social, political and ecclesiastical life of the City of Waterford from the early decades of the 15th century. The branch of the Comerford family connected with Inchiholohan for up to 170 years – from the first half of the 16th century until the end of the 17th century – was closely related to the Waterford branch of the family.

This is illustrated by the predominance of a small number of personal names such as Foulk, Garret (Gerald) and George, and the family’s property, commercial and political interests in both New Ross and Waterford, which then competed with New Ross for the place as Kilkenny’s commercial port.

The crossroads at Castleinch, Co Kilkenny. Today there are no surviving remains of the Comerford castle at Inchiholohan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The castle and lands of Inchihologhan passed to Joseph Cuffe and John Butler in dower, and it was stated that the ‘Castle, Manor and lands’ of Inchyolaghan were to be known as Castleinch. Later, the property was called Cuffe’s Desart, and a new residence, Desart Court, was built a few miles from the castle in 1733.

Healy says: ‘Though there was a tradition to the effect that the Comerfords regained at least partial possession at the restoration, I have not been able to discover any document which would place its accuracy beyond doubt.’

5, Château d’Anglure, France:

Château d’Anglure … it gave Joseph Comerford an estate and a French title

Joseph Comerford is one of the most enigmatic members of the family. His origins and place in the family tree have been obscured by his own obfuscation: the family pedigree he registered in Dublin was a self-serving exercise in vanity, aimed at asserting his claim to nobility that would underpin the French aristocratic title he acquired when he bought a château and petit domain in Champagne. The plaques he erected in the Comerford chapel in Saint Mary’s Church, Callan, Co Kilkenny, and the Comberford Chapel in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth, were proud but vain efforts to link the Comerford family in Co Kilkenny with the Comberford family of Comberford Hall in the Lichfield and Tamworth area of Staffordshire.

Although Joseph Comerford claimed on these monuments that his family had been brought low by the ravages of civil wars in Ireland and in England, he appears to have remained in Ireland for some years after the defeat of the Jacobites in the 1690s, without any obvious social, political or financial disadvantage. While he eagerly craved acceptance in French aristocratic circles, the title he acquired has never continued in use in the Comerford family.

Joseph Comerford, the eldest son of Edward Comerford of Clonmel, was sworn a freeman of the City of Waterford in 1686 and later a captain in the Earl of Tyrone’s regiment of foot, a Waterford regiment (despite its name) in the army of James II.

Despite the Jacobite defeat, Joseph Comerford was still living in Ireland in 1692, but later moved to France. As Joseph de Comerford of Clonmel, he received letters of naturalisation in France in January 1711. In exile, he was made a Chevalier of St Louis, bought the Anglure estate on the banks of the River Aule in Champagne, including the Château d’Anglure, and claimed the title of Marquis d’Anglure. Anglure is about 130 km east of Paris and about 30 km north of Troyes, and is in the Champagne-Ardenne area.

Joseph Comerford may be the Baron d’Enguemore who appears in Reitstrap’s Armorial, which may be a misspelling of the soi-disant title of Baron of Danganmore.

He registered a fanciful family pedigree at the Ulster Office of Arms in Dublin Castle in 1724, and soon after erected the monuments in Saint Mary’s Church, Callan the Comberford Chapel in Tamworth, Staffordshire. He died in France in 1729 and was buried in the chapel at the Château d’Anglure not under the title of Marquis d’Anglure but as Baron d’Anglure et Dangermore.

The Comerford family sold the château in the 1750s, and is branch of the Comerford family survived in France until the death of Captain Joseph-Alexandre-Antoine Comerford (1757-1813), a French veteran of the American War of Independence who was twice married but had no children. Although the possibility exists, it is highly unlikely that any other male descendant of the Comerford family is going to come forward to claim the secondary title of ‘Baron d’Anglure’ or the lesser though more accessible designation of ‘d’Anglure’ after the family name.

6, Coolgreany House, near Castlewarren, Co Kilkenny:

Coolgreany House, near Castlewarren, Co Kilkenny, built in 1653, and said to have been the home of Richard Comerford and his son William Comerford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

When John Comerford lost Ballybur Castle during the Cromwellian confiscations in the mid-17th century, the family was offered land near Bunratty, Co Clare, during the transplantations to Connaught.

In the 1660s, following the Caroline Restoration, John Comerford appealed to the Duke of Ormond, his wife’s cousin, for the recovery of Ballybur Castle. His appeal appears to have fallen on deaf ears, and the family moved to north Co Kilkenny.

John Comerford’s grandson, Richard Comerford, is said to be the first member of the family to live at Coolgreany House, near Castlewarren, Co Kilkenny.

The house was built in 1653, and the farm still remains in the Comerford family.

7, The Butterslip, Kilkenny:

   The Butterslip, Kilkenny … William Comerford lived here after his son James Comerford married Anne Langton in 1754 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

William Comerford (ca1692-post 1765) was the eldest son of Richard Comerford who lived at Coolgreany House in the second half of the 17th century.

William Comerford later moved into the Butterslip, the main Langton family home in Kilkenny City, after his son James Comerford married Anne Langton of the Butterslip in 1754.

8, The Mall House, Bunclody, Co Wexford:

The Mall House, Bunclody, home of the Comerford family for generations in Newtownbarry … until recently Bunclody Post Office (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

At the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, one line of the Comerford family of Ballybur moved from Kilkenny to the area around Newtownbarry (Bunclody), in north Co Wexford.

The ancestor of the main line of this branch of the family was Edmond Comerford (ca 1722-1788), a younger son of William Comerford who had moved into the Butterslip.

The Comerford house in Newtownbarry was known as the Mall House. This house later passed by marriage to the Lawler family, and Dr William Comerford Lawler was a well-known doctor in Newtownbarry. This house later became the Post Office in Bunclody.

9, No 11 Beechwood Avenue, Ranelagh, Dublin:

No 11 Upper Beechwood Avenue, Ranelagh … James Comerford died here in 1902, Stephen Comerford continued to live here afterwards, and Anne (Cullen) Comerford died here on 16 November 1903 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

My great-grandfather, James Comerford (1817-1902), moved from Newtownbarry (Bunclody), Co Wexford, in the 1850s. He lived in different houses in the Clanbrassil Street area of Dublin, and finally moved to No 11 Beechwood Avenue, Ranelagh.

He was living there at the time of the 1901 census, when he described himself as a ‘civil servant, retired.’ He had worked most of his life as a stuccodore and architect, and in his last working days he was employed by the Board of Works, now the Office of Public Works.

He died in this house in Ranelagh, where my grandfather was living, on 14 December 1902. Stephen Comerford continued to live here afterwards, and his first wife, Anne (Cullen) Comerford, died here on 16 November 1903.

10, 2 Old Mountpleasant, Dublin:

No 2 Old Mountpleasant, Ranelagh … Stephen Comerford lived here in the first two decades of the 20th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

No 2 Old Mountpleasant, Ranelagh: My grandfather, Stephen Edward Comerford (1867-1921) was born 150 years ago at 7 Redmond’s Hill on 28 December 1867. He lived at a number of houses in the Ranelagh and Rathmines area, including No 11 Upper Beechwood Avenue (1900-1905), and No 2 Old Mountpleasant (ca 1909-ca1913).

Many of his children were born in this house, which is now incorporated in ‘The Hill,’ a well-known pub in Ranelagh. Later, he lived at No 7 Swanville Place, Rathmines, from 1913 until his death in 1921.

11, Ardavon House, Rathdrum, Co Wicklow:

Ardavon House, Rathdrum, Co Wicklow, home to generations of the Rathdrum branch of the Comerford family (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Ardavon House, Rathdrum, Co Wicklow, was the home of the branch of the Comerford family who founded Rathdrum Mill, beside Rathdrum Bridge, in the mid-19th century. Rathdrum Mill finally closed in 1935.

Ardavon House occupied a prominent site at the northern end of the town, facing the junction of the Main Street with the roads to Lowtown and to Clara, Laragh and Glendalough; at the south end of the Main Street, in a similar position, is the Church of Ireland Parish Church of Saint Saviour’s. Between the two, there is a Comerford shop on the Main Street.

James Charles Comerford (1842-1907) of Ardavon House and Rathdrum Mill was a friend and political ally of his neighbour, Charles Stewart Parnell. His wife, Eva Mary Esmonde (1860-1949), was a daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Esmonde VC, from Gorey, Co Wexford, and a three times tennis champion of Ireland. Prominent members of this family in recent times include the Republican activist, author and journalist Maire Comerford and her nephew, the film-maker Joe Comerford.

The Comerford family continued to live at Ardavon House until 1958 when it was acquired by the Wicklow County Vocational Education Committee (VEC) and it was a school until 1991. Ardavon House was badly destroyed in a fire in 1997. Despite local authority undertakings to rebuild it, the house stands derelict today, a sad reminder of former days.

12, Comerford House, Galway:

Comerford House … looking a little neglected beside Spanish Arch in Galway (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

William James Valentine (1903-1970s), a solicitor in Tuam and Galway, was born in Bagenalstown, Co Carlow, and believed his branch of the Comerford family was descended from the Comerford family of Inchiholohan or Castleinch, Co Kilkenny. He was also a well-known local historian in Co Galway. He moved to Comerford House, beside the Spanish Arch, Galway, in the 1950s, but when he retired in the 1970s he moved to Dublin, where he died.

The house was built ca 1800 as a private house. One of its best known residents was Clare Consuelo Sheridan (1885-1970), the sculptor, journalist and writer, lived there in 1948-1954. She was a first cousin of Sir Winston Churchill and of Sir Shane Leslie. She is said to have had romantic interludes with Trotsky, Mussolini, Charlie Chaplin and even Kemal Ataurk. She used the Archway Room in Comerford House as a private chapel. During the 1940s or 1950s she obtained the fine portico now at Comerford House from Ardfry House in Renville, Ornamore.

Comerford House was donated by the Comerford family to the city council for community purposes and was the original home of the Galway City Museum from 1976. A new museum opened in 2006 on a site behind Comerford House.

Comerford House was donated to the city council by the Comerford family to be used for community purposes. However, the Tourist Board and Galway City Council have announced plans (2020) to demolish Comerford House and replace it with a viewing tower.

Duras House … bought by Henry Comerford in the 1850s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Other branches of the Comerford family also acquired interesting houses in the Galway area. In the 1850s, in the immediate aftermath of the Famine, Henry Comerford of Galway bought 4,440 acres of land in Co Galway, including 2,700 acres from Sir William Gregory at Kinvara, the de Basterot estate at Duras, and portion of the estates owned by J. Lambert and J. Browne.

Duras House, six km from Kinvara and 29 km from Galway City, was built by the French family in the 18th century, and passed to the de Bastrot family through marriage.

Ballykeel House, or Ballykeale House, near Kilfenora, Co Clare … became the property of Henry Comerford of Galway in 1839

Henry Comerford of Ballykeale House, Co Clare, and Merchants’ Road, Galway, died on 6 September 1861 at Ballykeale House. His brother, Isaac Comerford of Merchants’ Road, Galway, was his executor. Lane writes that his property passed to his sons-in-law, Captain Francis Blake Forster. The Return of Proprietors, published in 1876, records the representatives of Henry Comerford holding over 2,000 acres in Co Galway.

In 1846, Henry Comerford’s oldest daughter, Mary Josephine Comerford, married Captain Francis Blake Forster, JP, of Forster Park, near Galway, and Hermitage, Kinvara, Co Galway. Their son, Charles French Blake-Forster (1851-1874), High Sheriff of Galway in 1874, was the author of The Irish Chieftains (Dublin, 1872), and had a particular interest in the genealogy of the Comerford family.

Gardenhill House, Castleconnell, Co Limerick … Owen James Comerford (1869-1945) died here on 15 June 1945 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Some recent ‘virtual tours’:

More than a dozen Comberford family homes;

A dozen Wren churches in London;

Ten former Wren churches in London;

More than a dozen churches in Lichfield;

More than a dozen pubs in Lichfield;

A dozen former pubs in Lichfield;

A dozen churches in Rethymnon;

A dozen restaurants in Rethymnon;

A dozen churches in other parts of Crete;

A dozen monasteries in Crete;

A dozen sites on Mount Athos;

A dozen historic sites in Athens;

A dozen historic sites in Thessaloniki;

A dozen churches in Thessaloniki;

A dozen Jewish sites in Thessaloniki.

A dozen churches in Cambridge;

A dozen college chapels in Cambridge;

A dozen Irish islands;

A dozen churches in Corfu;

A dozen churches in Venice.

A dozen churches in Rome.

A dozen churches in Bologna;

A dozen churches in Tuscany.

With Tommy and Rebecca Comerford outside Comerford’s, one of the best known pubs in Doonbeg, Co Clare