bagenal, NEWRYABBEY,CURRAN

Nicholas Bagenal was the second son of John and Elinor (Whittingham) Bagnall. The first thing recorded concerning Nicholas is that he killed a man in Leek by misadventure in a brawl “With certain light persons” and was in consequence obliged to “fly” the country. He left England for Ulster, Ireland and this occurred about 1539 when he was thirty years of age. Nicholas married in 1556, Eleanor Griffith, third daughter and co-heiress of Sir Edward Griffith of Penrhyn, North Wales, whose father was Chamberlain of North Wales and lineally descended from Ednyfed Vychan.

A letter, which was written by the Dublin Privy Council to London as follows: “7th December, 1542. And Whereas at the repaire of the Earl of Tyrone unto these parts he has made humble and earnest suit unto us to be mean to your Majesty for the pardon of one Nicholas Bagenal, late your Highness servant who (by chance as the thing into us did appear) was in company of certain light persons, when there was slain one of your Majesty’s subjects. For the while the said Nicholas fled hither and has sithens done here very honest and painful service, and therefore at the humble suite of the said Earl we most lowly beseech your Majesty to be so good and Gracious Lord unto him as to grant your most gracious pardon.” Nicholas was pardoned on the 2nd Mar 1543, by Henry VIII, of any crime. In 1544 the Privy Council in Dublin sent him off to the French wars for three years.

Nicholas served as a “Privy Councillor” and Marshall of the Army. Nicholas Bagenal “could appoint provosts, seneschals, jailors, and other officers for administering justice and for good government of the army. He was in fact the ultimate authority in Ireland in all military affairs with power to inflict punishment and even death.” In 1550 Nicholas Bagenal received a lease for Abbeylands of Newry where he had settled. “He subsequently built a castle called Greencastle, and it was here he brought his Welsh wife and raised a large family, most of whose descendants intermarried with leading Anglo-Irish families, and became entangled in the Irish civil Wars of the 17th century.”