Scroll down further to hear about John Ormsby, last heir of Gortnor Abbey and famed writer and tranlator.
The Ormsbys, when first heard of, were a Lincolnshire family. John Ormsby of Louth had a son Edward, who was a Captain in the army of Elizabeth I. Henry Ormsby, son of Edward settled in Ireland during the reign of Elizabeth(about 1590.) Next, we hear that Henry's son, Edward, owns property at Tobbervaddy, Co. Roscommon, and that he is a J.P.(Justice of the Peace) and High Sheriff of Counties Galway and Mayo.
Henry's second son, Anthony, moved to County Sligo, and became the ancestor of the Ormsbys of Rathlee. Malby Ormsby, acquired property at Cloghans, Co. Mayo. His eldest son, John of Cloghans, was father of Robert of Cloghans, and grandfather of the John who built Gortnorabbey, and who became High Sheriff of Mayo in 1719.
This ''John Ormsby of Cloghans and Gortnorabbey" married twice and had(together with other children) a son called William, who married Isabella Palmer of Carrowmore, Co. Mayo. There is to be found among the "Palmer Papers," a note dated 1731, as follows:
"Post-nuptial settlement of William Ormsby, eldest son and heir of *Henry Ormsby of Gortnorabbey, baroney of Tyrawley, Co. Mayo and Isabella , daughter of Thomas Palmer, late of Carrowmore, Co. Mayo.
Portion: £170"
There is also a record among the Palmer Papers of a lease granted by Roger Palmer to William Ormsby, Gortnorabe:
"Lease from Roger Palmer to William Ormsby - Longford and part of Crosmolina called Knockalegean....."
(*Note : there is a discrepancy in the name given to William's father in the Palmer Papers and that given him in Burke' Irish Family Records)
William Ormsby had a son , John , who was High Sheriff in 1783, and who married ,about 1785, Elizabeth Jackson, daughter of George Jackson of Enniscoe. John had a big famiy , of whom 9 daughters all died young or unmarried. He had four sons - John(his heir), George, James and (Rev) Horatio Nelson.
In his "History of the Irish Church," Rev. Thomas Walsh writes:
There is another family in the neighbourhood of Crossmolina, who possess a portion of monastic property of this Abbey(Abbey of the Blessed Virgin, now Abbeytown) as its name denotes: Gortnor Abbey; a family particularly distingushed by persecution and cruelty towards the people, whenever the opportunity ocurred .
The unfortunate rebellion of 1798 gave the representatives of this family an opportunity of indulging their spleen, and of imbruing their handsi n the blood of the Rev. James Conry of Aldergoole. Within the last twenty years, the vengenance has been visibly displayed towards the Ormsbys of Gortnor Abbey."
In local folklore, there is a tradition that the Ormsbys were cursed because of their merciless treatment of the Irish rebels, in fact it was rumoured John Orsmby was in possession of the letter of Reprieve which would have saved Captain Mangan. It is worth noting however that Walsh does not mention Mangan . However in "The French are in our Fairgreen" written by Toss Gibbons, Richard Corcoran , grandson of James Corcoran is recorded as saying :' they cut his head off and put it on the gates of Gortnarabbey,the yeoman's and English Army's Den on the shores of Lough Conn.'
The curse seemed to come true because John his heir John, who had suceeded him in 1811, died young and umamarried in 1817(aged 23.) He was suceeded by his brother George, who was High Sheriff in 1827. He married in 1825 Marianne Jones of Mullinabro, Co. Kilkenny. They had one son John and three daughters. John was the last male Orsmsby to own Gortnor Abbey. He was a renowned author, most famous for his translations of 'Don Quixote' and 'El Cid.'
Thanks to Sr. Veronica Herffernan for her never ending knowledge. also many thanks to David Hicks a local architect who has a wealth of information about Irish Country Houses on his blog http://davidhicksbook.blogspot.com/ Author of 'Irish Country Houses - A Chronicle of Change' Sept '12 & 'Irish Country Houses - Portraits & Painters' Oct.'14.
Ormsby, John
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Ormsby, John (1829–95), writer and translator, was born 25 April 1829 at Gortner Abbey, Co. Mayo, eldest child of George Ormsby (d. 1836), captain in the 3rd Dragoon Guards and high sheriff of Mayo in 1827, and his wife, Marianne, third daughter of Humphrey Jones of Mullinabro, Kilkenny. The Ormsbys had migrated from Lincolnshire in the reign of Elizabeth I; John's mother was descended from Caroline, sister of Oliver Cromwell (qv). Orphaned in childhood, he was placed under the guardianship of Denis Brown, dean of Emly. After attending Dr Homan's private school at Seapoint, Dublin, he entered TCD in 1845 but did not graduate. In 1850 he was admitted to the Middle Temple, but was never called to the bar, having decided on a literary career.
His first contributions were travel pieces and literary musings in magazines such as Fraser's Journal, the Saturday Review, and the Pall Mall Gazette. These were amusing and full of eclectic knowledge; he was exceptionally well read, particularly in eighteenth-century literature. His friend, Leslie Stephen, the first editor of the Dictionary of National Biography, describes him as ‘a genuine humorist. His character was written on his quaint and smooth-shaven face, which used to remind me of the Pied Piper’ (Alpine Journal, Feb. 1896, 35). The best of his journalism was collected in a volume called Stray pieces (1876), while his travels in Tunis were published as Autumn rambles in North Africa (1864). Vigorous and adventurous, he was a member of the Alpine Club from its inauguration in 1858 and was one of the first to climb the Pic de Grivola in August 1859.
Ormsby was most noted as a hispanicist. After extensive travels, in which he visited the scenes associated with the medieval hero El Cid, he undertook the first translation into English of the ‘Poema del Cid’. It is a reduced version, mainly in prose with only the most dramatic passages put into verse. This was followed in 1885 by a four-volume translation of Don Quixote in which he referred to and updated the work of his predecessors in this field. The modern hispanicist R. W. Truman judges it the best translation to have been produced in English.
The last ten years of Ormsby's life were painful; he suffered profound loss of hearing, caused apparently by privations suffered during his Spanish expeditions, and this made him reclusive. He died unmarried at Ramsgate, Kent, England, on 30 October 1895.
Sources
Times, 8 Nov. 1895; Athenaeum, 9 Nov. 1895; Leslie Stephen, ‘In memoriam: John Ormsby’, Alpine Journal, xviii (Feb. 1896), 33–6; Burke, Peerage (1912), Alumni Dubl.; ODNB