Thomas Talbot

Thomas Talbot (1438 – 1487) was a wealthy landowner and judge in fifteenth-century Ireland. He was the head of the prominent Talbot family of Malahide Castle. His descendants acquired the title Baron Talbot de Malahide, and he himself was recognised by the Crown as Lord of Malahide, although this was not a hereditary title. He was also Admiral of the Port of Malahide. By the time of his death he held lands in four counties and was one of the principal landowners in the Pale. After his death, there was a lawsuit between his widow Elizabeth and a Talbot relative, James, over possession of some of his properties. Early life He was the son of Richard Talbot of Malahide Castle and Matilda (or Maud) Plunkett, daughter of Christopher Plunkett, first Baron Killeen and Janet Cusack. She was a much-married lady, whose other husbands were Jenico d'Artois the younger, and then Thomas Hussey, 5th Baron Galtrim, who was murdered on their wedding day, an event which inspired the nineteenth-century ballad "The Bride of Malahide". Richard Talbot had inherited Malahide in 1432 when he was still a minor and died in 1442. Thomas was given possession of his lands in 1459 on foot of a petition to the Privy Council of Ireland which stated that he had proved that he had come of age, and thus we know that he was born in 1438. His mother obtained letters patent from the English Crown granting her possession of her late husband's estates. In about 1460 his mother made a fourth marriage to Sir John Cornwalsh, Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer. The marriage was reputed to be a stormy one: Cornwalsh was notoriously quarrelsome, and Matilda is said to have been fully a match for him in temper. He built Dardistown Castle in County Meath, with the aid of a grant from the Crown for the construction of defensible houses. Cornwalsh died in 1472, and Matilda died in 1482. Since Cornwalsh had no children, Thomas inherited the Cornwalsh estates, which were principally situated in County Meath; he also acquired lands in County Louth from the heirs of Baron Darcy de Knayth.