Corballis of Co. Meath

The Corballis family was remarkable for a number of different reasons: they were substantial Catholic landowners prior to the period of the Williamite Wars; their entire property was forfeited after the defeat of the Jacobites and during the period of the worst of the Penal Laws; within a century they had managed to claw their way back financially and socially, while still retaining the religion of their forefathers.

The ancestor of the Corballis family appears to have been a Thomas Corbally from Dunshaughlin who married Ann Woodtown of Nuttstown in 1571.[1] It would seem that his wife brought a dowry of several farms of land in Jordanstown, Nuttstown and Palmerstown. These farms were given to three sons Simon[2], Robert and Philip.

In 1690 Robert Corballis of Nuttstown, a Catholic, sided with King James II and fought at the Battle of the Boyne and was present at the capture of Trim. He was executed in 1694. He had two children who were made wards of the Preston family of Gormanston.

[1] Fiants of Edward VI   1550 John de la Hyde got a grant of lands in the Dunshauglin area some of which were occupied by Thomas Corbally.

[2] Simon’s descendants became Protestant and prospered. They bought Rathbeale House in Swords and were instrumental in founding the committee that started the Fairyhouse Races. Members of this family married into such families as the Nettervilles, Gormanstons and that of Lord Mowbaly – Danny Parkinson in The Corballis Family of Nuttstown

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