Plunkett of Killeen
According to family lore the origin of the name Plunkett is somewhat hazy and Lady Fingall in her very revealing book about the Plunketts claims that the name evolved in the following manner: the first of the family in Ireland came here with white jennets from which the family were called Blanc jenet and in time Planc jenet and so Plunkett. A sixteenth century authority on families, a Mr. Campion, stated that the Plunketts ‘possessed special monuments proving that their ancestors came to Ireland with the Danes’. Their first substantial settlement was in Beaulieu in Co. Louth.
Whatever the remote origin it is certain that the Plunkett connection with Co. Meath was begun by Sir Christopher Plunkett, the primal ancestor of the Meath family when he married the daughter and heir of Sir Lucas Cusack[1], of Killeen in the early 15th century.
[1] The Cusacks were descended from Hugh de Lacy’s close companion in arms, Geoffrey de Cusack. His last direct male descendant Sir Lucas died in 1388 and Sir Christopher Plunkett, who had married the only daughter, obtained possession of the vast estates.
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