captain_thomas_prior [Murray-Prior History Wiki]

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====== Captain Thomas Prior and Elizabeth Fairfax ======
Captain Prior was sent to Ireland in 1636 with his regiment, part of a military response to Irish resistance to English rule.((There is some confusion regarding him, with Burke's Colonial gentry giving his father's name as Robert. The more reliable source states that Captain Thomas Prior's grandfather was Thomas Prior, and his father John Prior of [[wp>Essex|Essex.]]((John & John B. Burke, //A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland: M to Z//, London: Henry Colburn Publisher, 1846, p.1075.)) The first thought is that he was part of Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army who fought in Ireland. They were given land under the benign sounding Act of Settlement in 1652 and 1657; land forfeited from Irish owners after the rebellion of 1641. But the New Model Army was not formed until 1645 and, by then, Captain Prior had been in Ireland for nine years.

There is a connection to Cromwell's Puritans but not as may be expected. Captain Thomas Prior's wife was Elizabeth Fairfax, daughter of [[wp>Thomas_Fairfax,_1st_Lord_Fairfax_of_Cameron| Lord Fairfax of Cameron]], the commander of the Parliamentary Army in the [[wp>English_Civil_War|English Civil War]]. It was her second marriage. With his marriage, Captain Prior sided with the republican side in the English Civil War, but the more moderate faction. Consequently, he was deemed loyal to the monarchy after it was restored in 1660. 

On 30 March 1667, [[wp>Charles_II_of_England|King Charles II]] granted Captain Prior three estates of some 800 acres (nearly 324 hectares) at [[wp>Rathdowney|Rathdowney]], Creallagh and Kilcoran ‘etc’ in the [[wp>Baron_Upper_Ossory|Barony of Upper Ossory]] in Queen’s County (now County Laois).((Rosa Caroline Praed Papers, JOLQ MSS OM64-01, Box 10/7/1: 1910 typescript of the grant, supplied by  by Robert M-P in 1947; Burke.)) Prior’s grant greatly benefited the family, but spare a thought for Morgan Cashin and Bryan McWilliam Fitzpatrick and their families whose land and homes were taken from them. The Fitzpatricks had been Barons of Upper Ossory since 1541, but lost most of their extensive property.((Teddy Fennelly, //Thomas Prior. His Life, Times and Legacy//, Ireland: Arderin Publishing, 2001, pp.1.)) \\
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According to one source (which also incorrectly claims the property was granted to Thomas Prior by Cromwell, the Rathdowney estate was not a major one: "Strangely Rathdowney, which had been seized from the McCashin family and granted to Capt Thomas Prior by Cromwell, was still a very small village in 1665, with only about a dozen persons paid hearth- money in the whole townland of Rathdowney in that year."(([[https://laoishouses.wordpress.com/2021/11/13/coolfin-rathdowney/]]))\\
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Thomas and Elizabeth Prior had three (surviving?) children:\\
1. Their eldest son and heir [[colonel_thomas_prior|Thomas]]; \\
2. Richard, who died unmarried in 1726 at Ely, Cambridge; and \\
3. Mary, who married the Rev. Thomas Murray: they had a son John who became the first Murray-Prior.((Teddy Fennelly, Thomas Prior. His Life, Times and Legacy, Ireland: Arderin Publishing, 2001, pp.81; Burke's //Landed Gentry//, entry for Prior of Essex, and of Rathdowney, Queen's County).)) \\
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**Sources**: to do Family Bible, Kavanagh, Burke's //Landed? Gentry//, Desmond Clarke, Tom M-P booklet; Teddy Fennelly, Thomas Prior. His Life, Times and Legacy, Ireland: Arderin Publishing, 2001, pp.6.