Baron Galtrim was an Irish feudal barony: in other words the holder of the barony was entitled to style himself Lord Galtrim, but was not entitled as of right to sit in the Irish House of Lords, although at least two holders of the title did receive a summons to Parliament. The family's use of the title seems to have lapsed in the early nineteenth century: from then on Lord Galtrim was usually referred to simply as "Mr. Hussey of Rathkenny".
Early history
The title Baron Galtrim was held by the Hussey family, who came to Ireland in 1172 in the entourage of Hugh de Lacy, Lord of Meath, and became substantial landowners in County Meath. A junior branch of the family settled in County Kerry, where they acquired lands at Dingle and Castlegregory. The senior branch became linked to the other Anglo-Irish families of the Pale in a close-knit "cousinship": down the centuries they married again and again into the same local. families, especially the Aylmers and the Plunketts. By the end of the thirteenth century the family was influential enough to clash with the Bishop of Meath about the right of advowson. John Hussey, 1st Baron Galtrim, was summoned to the Parliament of Ireland in 1374 with that title. He was already a political figure of some importance: in 1364 the English Crown had appointed him a member of a Royal Commission to investigate complaints of corruption and maladministration by Irish Crown officials. In 1371 it was reported that his lands in County Meath were afflicted with bubonic plague. His brother and heir Edmund was summoned to the Parliament of 1380 as the 2nd Baron Galtrim. Thomas Hussey, 5th Baron Galtrim, who was Edmund's great-grandson, was reportedly murdered on his wedding day: this inspired a nineteenth-century ballad by Gerald Griffin, "The Bride of Malahide". . Nicholas Hussey, 10th Baron Galtrim, was High Sheriff of Meath in 1520-1521. In 1509 he was granted seisin of the lands of his father Patrick Hussey, 9th Baron Galtrim, lately deceased. Nicholas's son Patrick, the 11th Baron, was the son-in-law of the powerful statesman and judge John Barnewall, 3rd Baron Trimlestown, who was Lord Chancellor of Ireland in the 1530s.
The Hussey family under the Penal Laws, and afterwards
While the Kerry branch of the family lost most of their lands during the English Civil War in the seventeenth century, the Galtrim Husseys seem to have escaped serious persecution, although many of the family openly professed the Roman Catholic faith, even at the height of the Penal Laws. From a 1775 lawsuit in which Stafford Hussey, 17th Baron Galtrim, was the defendant, it appears that they employed a complex set of legal devices to overcome the various restrictions on Roman Catholics owning land. While Stafford openly described himself as a Papist his eldest son John seems to have been a "Church Papist" i.e. he conformed outwardly to the Church of Ireland, while strongly supporting the cause of equal rights for Catholics. Stafford died at a considerable age in 1776, and was buried in Rathkenny Church beside his wife Mary Anne Kirwan, who had died in 1774. The inscription on their tomb describes Stafford as a man who "lived respected and died regretted"; Mary Anne was described as a "tender parent and true friend to the poor". His younger son Thomas, who inherited the title on the death of the elder son John in 1803, married Lady Maria Walpole, daughter of Horatio Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford and Lady Rachel Cavendish, in 1777. Since it began with an elopement, it may well be that her parents disapproved of the marriage. Like his father he was an open Roman Catholic and a staunch supporter of Catholic Emancipation.
Rathkenny Murder Trial 1833
The title passed to Thomas's son Edward Thomas Hussey, although it is not clear if he ever used it. Edward Thomas became something of a celebrity in 1833 when a number of men, supposedly at the instigation of a disgruntled tenant of Hussey called James Slevin, tried to murder him: Hussey survived but his steward James Bunn and another man were killed. Slevin was charged with the murders but acquitted. His co-accused Michael Devine was convicted.
Rathkenny House
The Hussey family's main residence from the early seventeenth century was at Rathkenny in County Meath. Rathkenny House still exists: the present building was built by Stafford Hussey in about 1750. It was here that four men attempted to murder Stafford's grandson Edward Thomas Hussey in 1833. Algernon Hussey, grandson of Edward Thomas Hussey, sold Rathkenny House in 1903.
Earl Beaulieu
The statesman Edward Hussey-Montagu, 1st Earl Beaulieu, belonged to a junior branch of this family. His only son John predeceased him and his earldom because extinct at his own death in 1802.
