The Hussey Barons of Galtrim (Abstract): Ashbourne Library 28 May 2025 at 7:30 pm

My paper on the Hussey Barons of Galtrim is part of a prosopographical study of the baronial families who dominated late medieval Meath (PhD 2020). According to the contemporary Norman-French rhymed chronicle or geste on the Norman invasion of Ireland, Hugh de Lacy in his sub-infeudation of Meath ‘gave a fine territory to Baron Hugh de Hussey’. Part of the text of that grant (c.1172) survives which states that de Hussey was given ‘all the land of Deece which MacGillaSeachlainn held’.

I will trace the family history of the Hussey Barons of Galtrim from the late twelfth century to the early sixteenth century. While Hugh de Hussey, the 1st Baron of Galtrim, lived into old age (he died in 1215), the Hussey family frequently lacked male heirs or they died young, particularly towards the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries. The accumulative effect of the recurring plague may have affected mortality and fertility in the family. This so complicated the succession of the baronacy that in 1422 the matter was brought before a jury of the Chancery Court to make a determination.

Various Barons of Galtrim held active positions in the county administration as sheriff or seneschal of Meath, as supervisors of the keepers of the peace and captains of war. Over three centuries after their initial settlement as infeudees of Hugh de Lacy, the Husseys of Galtrim ultimately survived into the sixteenth century, closely connected by a network of kinship ties to the other baronial families, suggesting a county society with some stability.

Caren Mulcahy

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