The White and the Plunkett Families
The White and the Plunkett Families
The following letter discusses the White and Plunkett families, though presently I am uncertain how this information may connect to James J. White, the subject of this web page. Its origin, regrettably, is undocumented, a photocopy of the letter having been given to me by amateur genealogists I met in the 1970s in Washington, D.C. In my transcription I have corrected capitalization, inserted some commas in the long list of names, and inserted periods to make full sentences. Please respond if the letter is meaningful to you.
Oct 20 1908
My Dear Ms Walter
I received your letter this morning. Am glad to hear you are all well at present but very sorry to hear you lost your young son. You are making a very good beginning in buying these lots. I will go see them some time. I am sure they will be very valuable at the time you have them paid for. That suburb has a great future I think. So you never knew you had any relatives in Ireland. My youngest sister lives in the old house with the owner of it my nephew James White. I have a sister living in Dublin and another Mother Superior of a convent in the South of Ireland and 2 brothers living in Australia ["in" presumably cut off photocopy of letter] the old house where your grandfather Richard White was born. My father Christopher White, his mother Anne Plunkett, her father General Christopher Plunkett, his father Sir Oliver Plunkett, and his father Sir Lucas Plunkett, and his father Sir Richard Plunkett, his father Sir Christopher Plunkett were all born in the same house. The Punketts were a noble family. The celebrated Archbishop Oliver Plunkett was of the same family. The White family were just as notable. The[y?] were intermarried with the Plunketts and most of the noble families in the County for many hundred years back. Like the Plunketts the[y?] lost all their fine estates and castles in the wars and persecution of Catholics in the 17th century. Since and before that the Seat of the White family was at Clongill Castle in Meath County Ireland. In 1648 it took the army of Cromwell 3 weeks to capture Clongill Castle. That siege wiped out all of the Clongill family except 2 brothers, Sir Patrick White and his brother Robert White that were in the French army at the time of the Massacre of Clongill Castle as tis called to this day. We are decended [sic] from that Robert White and the Plunketts of Clonabraney. Their monuments are still to be seen dating back to the 13th century. I restored the Plunkett tomb in Clonabraney this Summer and a fine marble monument for my great grandfather General Christopher Plunkett. He was in the French army and marched with it through NY and N Jersey to York town where he helped Washington to successfully finish the Revelusionaly [sic] war. He was 97 years when he died. So you see your grandfather and my father were born in a very old house where a lot of very fine people were born lived and died. Both the White and Plunkett families are not of the old Irish or Celtic Race. The[y] came from Normandy to England and then with the English Normans came to Ireland. Both families were mostly lawyers judges and soldiers. In fact like our present office holders both families rose to the highest fame in Ireland. Both lost all for Ireland and their religion. There are 2 branches of the Punketts still famous in Ireland. The Right Honorable Lord Killein [illegible] of Fingale and the Lords of Dunsaney [?]. The Dunsaneys [?]. are Protestants. Fingales are Catholics. Tis a long story.
Yours sincerely, Edward White
View copies of the hand-written letter on pages
1,
2,
3, and
4.
Here are excerpts from an article in the 13 October 1975 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a copy of which was given me by the genealogists who copied the letter above:
Oliver Plunkett Is Canonized By Pope Paul
Vatican City (AP)--Pope Paul VI canonized Oliver Plunkett, an Irish Catholic hanged by Protestant England, as a martyr saint of the Roman Catholic church yesterday and appealed for "peace and reconciliation" in Ireland.
The Pontiff made no direct reference to Northern Ireland's sectarian violence but said of Punkett, a 17th century archbishop of Armagh and primate of Ireland: "Oh, what a model of reconciliation -- a sure guide for our day."
Plunkett was hanged, drawn and quartered in 1681 at Tyburn, now Hyde Park Corner, in London, on charges of high treason against King Charles II,, Pope Benedict XV beatified him blessed, a step below sainthood, 55 years ago.
Plunkett, whose innocence was established within days after his death, had gone to the gallows saying he would "rather die ten thousand deaths than wrongfully to take away one farthing of any man's goods, one day of his liberty or one minute of his life." He had been accused of fomenting revolt against Protestants.
This page maintained by James White, jw3u at andrew dot cmu dot edu.
URL: http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~jw3u/Plunkett.html
© May 1997
