Donough MacCarthy, 4th Earl of Clancarty

Donough MacCarthy, 4th Earl of Clancarty (1668–1734) fought for James II in the Williamite War in Ireland at the Siege of Derry. He was attainted in 1691 after the defeat. MacCarthy went into exile to the Netherlands, where he lived for some time on the tiny island of Rottumeroog, and in Germany near Hamburg where he died.

Birth and origins

Donough was born in 1668 at Blarney, Ireland.Template:Sfn He was the only son of Callaghan MacCarty and his wife Elizabeth Fitzgerald. His father was the 3rd Earl of Clancarty. His father's family, the MacCarthys of Muskerry descended from the kings of Desmond.Template:Sfn Donough's mother was from the FitzGerald dynasty, an Old English family. She was a daughter of George FitzGerald, 16th Earl of Kildare, and Lady Joan Boyle.Template:Sfn Both parents were Protestant, but his father had originally been Catholic. His parents had married before 1641. He was an only son but had three sisters, who are listed in his father's article.

4th Earl

MacCarty, aged eight, succeeded his father in 1676Template:Sfn as the 4th Earl of Clancarty and inherited his father's massive Irish estates in County Cork and County Kerry. Clancarty's upbringing became a matter of high policy. His mother, one of the few protestants in the family,Template:Sfn brought him to England and placed him under the tutelage of John Fell, Bishop of Oxford, for a Protestant education. She then remarried to Sir William Davys, the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.Template:Sfn

Marriage

However, neither his mother nor the bishop could match the influence of his uncle Justin McCarthy, Viscount Mountcashel, who was one of the closest advisers of the Duke of York, the future James II. They convinced King Charles II to provide a royal letter, countersigned by Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of Sunderland,Template:Sfn then the principal Secretary of State in England, inviting Clancarty to the Palace of Whitehall for the 1684 Christmas celebrations where, with Justin's connivance, Clancarty was married to Sunderland's daughter Elizabeth Spencer (1671–1704). However, reports that they had married earlier on 30 October 1684.Template:Sfn

They were sixteen and thirteen years old respectively. The couple soon separated and the marriage was not consummated until many years later. At that time Clancarty, his bride and his father-in-law all were Protestants. In February 1685 James II, the Catholic, succeeded to the throne. Clancarty and his father-in-law became Catholics in the summer of 1686.Template:Sfn

Williamite War in Ireland

When James II landed in Kinsale on 12 March 1689, Clancarty received him in the house he owned there.Template:Sfn James made him a Lord of the Bed Chamber.Template:Sfn

Clancarty then raised a regiment of foot for James II. During the Siege of Derry he marched his regiment up from Munster to Derry where he arrived on 28 June 1689. He then led a daring night attack against the Butchers Gate immediately on the evening of his arrival.Template:Sfn The besieged were surprised and the attackers were able to come up against the gate and touch it but were eventually thrown back.

He was taken prisoner at the Siege of Cork in 1690 and held in the Tower of London.Template:Sfn He was outlawed and attainted in Ireland by the Williamites on 11 May 1691, forfeiting his titles and losing his estates.Template:Sfn

With his wife in exile

Having been detained for three years, he escaped from the Tower of London in 1694 and fled to James II's court at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye.Template:Sfn

He returned to England in the new year 1698 and sought out his wife Elizabeth to finally begin their married life, only to be turned in to the authorities by his brother-in-law, Lord Spencer, who had been alerted by the family servants. The case raised a public furore and William III, who did not take the matter seriously, said that he had never been bothered so much over anything so trivial as the affair of "that little spark Clancarty". Months later, MacCarthy was permitted to flee to exile on the continent, accompanied by his wife.Template:Sfn Most of his estates were appropriated by the king's main adviser, the Dutchman Hans Willem Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland.Template:Sfn

The couple settled down in Hamburg-Altona and Lübeck.Template:Sfn In 1702 they were living in the 'Irish house' close to the Altona sawmill. The following year MacCarthy bought a small tavern near the fishing village of Blankenese on the northern shore of the Elbe estuary, and in 1706 he bought the island and seigneurie of Rottumeroog, in the Netherlands, where he lived with his libertine household until it was washed away by the Christmas flood of 1717. From then on, he spent the winters elsewhere, but returned to the island each summer until he sold it in 1731. In 1723 he acquired a tiny country house in Oudwoude in Friesland. The assertion that he bought the house from Archibald Campbell, 10th Earl of Argyll is not supported by contemporary documents. In 1729 the anti-Orangist statesman Evert Joost Lewe allowed him to live at Elmersma, a manor house in the village of Hoogkerk near Groningen, without paying rent.

Donough and Elizabeth had three children, two sons:Template:Sfn

1. Robert (1698–1769), became a captain in the Royal Navy and commanded HMS AdventureTemplate:Sfn
2. Justin, became an officer in the Neapolitan ArmyTemplate:Sfn

—and a daughter:

• Charlotte, married John West, 1st Earl De La WarrTemplate:Sfn

MacCarthy was a typical adventurer, crossing the Wadden Sea on his yacht and making a living by plundering shipwrecks and gathering washed-up merchandise. The authorities disapproved of his methods and suspected him of supporting the Jacobite cause. He was commonly known to the Dutch as "de malle graaf" (the crazy earl). In 1721 he visited London and was restored to his former titles, but without getting back his estates.

A carefully orchestrated story of his successful enterprises was published in 1732. It prompted the myth told to his former countrymen that he owned a large manor near Hamburg.

Death and timeline

He died on 1 October 1734 at the Prahlenhof near Hamburg-St. Pauli, leaving severe debts leading to a bankruptcy sale.Template:Sfn

Timeline
Age	Date	Event
0	1668	Born at Blarney, Ireland.
	1676, 21 Nov	Father died.
	1684, Dec	Married Elizabeth Spencer, daughter of Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of Sunderland.
	1685, 6 Feb	Accession of King James II, succeeding King Charles IITemplate:Sfn
	1689, 13 Feb	Accession of William and Mary, succeeding King James IITemplate:Sfn
	1689, 12 Mar	Welcomed James II at his arrival in Kinsale.
	1689, 28 Jun	Tried to storm the Butchers Gate during the Siege of Derry.
	1694	Escaped from the Tower and fled to France.
	1698	Fetched his wife in England and went with her to Germany.
	1702, 8 Mar	Accession of Queen Anne, succeeding King William IIITemplate:Sfn
	1704	Wife died.
	1714, 1 Aug	Accession of King George I, succeeding Queen AnneTemplate:Sfn
	1727, 11 Jun	Accession of King George II, succeeding King George ITemplate:Sfn
	1734, 1 Oct	Died at the Prahlenhof near Hamburg, Germany.

Notes and references

Sources

• – Canonteign to Cutts (for Clancarty)
• – (for timeline)
• – Blood royal, dukes, earls (for Earl of Kildare)
• – 1695 to 1702
• – Irish stem