The Fitzpatricks of Ballagharahin, County Laois

The Fitzpatricks of Ballagharahin were a family of Rathdowney parish, Co. Laois, considered notable enough by the Fitzpatrick historian Rev. John Shearman to provide their pedigree in Loca Patriciana. Perhaps such status was due to what Shearman considered their close kinship with the well-known Thady Fitzpatrick MD of Dublin (d.1674), whose descendants became the so-called ‘Fitzpatricks of Ballyboodin’. The great Ossory scholar, Rev. William Carrigan, wrote about the Fitzpatricks of Ballagharahin severally in his research notes and considered them unrelated to the Ballyboodin Fitzpatricks, although he did not qualify why he held his belief. Yet, much evidence from seventeenth and eighteenth-century rent books, deeds of indenture, and wills point to the correctness of Carrigan’s position. The father of John Fitzpatrick, the first of the Ballagharahin line, is proven to be Joseph Fitzpatrick who married Catherine Carroll of Aghnameadle, Co. Tipperary, not Dr Joseph Fitzpatrick of Carlow town, who died without issue. Unproven, but intriguing, is a potential familial relationship between John Fitzpatrick of Ballagharahin and the Lords Gowran. Hence, while the ‘Fitzpatricks of Ballyboodin’ descend from the Mac Fynen line of the Mac Giolla Phádraig, the ‘Fitzpatricks of Ballagharahin probably descend from Brian ‘na Luireach’ Mac Giolla Phádraig.