case file № 2 · from The Plunketts

What you lose is a castle; what you gain is a document

A 1643 jury verdict takes the castle away. A 1749 census gives back something better.

The claim you may have met

That this Plunkett family descends from the Plunketts of Dunsoghly, the fifteenth-century tower house near Dublin — and, by the same route, from the Plunketts of Balyna, County Kildare.

Where it comes from: an inherited pedigree that grafted a Roscommon farming family onto a Dublin gentry line at a point the records do not support.

What happened

The tree used to descend from the Plunketts of Dunsoghly, a fifteenth-century tower house near Dublin that is still standing. The descent breaks at the graft: when James Plunkett of Dunsoghly died, a sworn jury in January 1643 found his heir to be consanguineus et heres — a kinsman, and heir. Not a son. The Latin is doing the work, and it is unambiguous: the line the family needed to pass through does not pass.

What replaced the castle is better, because it is evidence rather than a claim. The Census of Elphin, taken in 1749, records exactly two Plunkett households in the whole of Killummod parish, County Roscommon — both marked “Pap.” (Papist), both farming at gentry scale: Patrick Plunkett, widower, at Knockroe, and Sisley Plunkett, widow, at Killummod — the two townlands the tree already named for François Plunkett's family. A Penal-Law census listing a Catholic farming family by townland is worth more than a tower house.

The trade is the whole point, and it inverts what people expect from genealogy. A castle is a claim; a census is a document. And it sets up the arc that follows — Roscommon to France to Saint-Domingue to Arkansas, one of the strangest true migrations in the tree.

The records, in order

1 of 3
JAN 1643JURY VERDICT
“…consanguineus et heres” — a kinsman, and heir. Not a son.
The inquisition after James Plunkett's death. The Dunsoghly descent breaks here.
2 of 3
1749CENSUS
Census of Elphin, Killummod parish: two Plunkett households, both “Pap.”, at Knockroe and Killummod.
The two townlands the tree already named — identified STRONG, not proven: the census gives no ages and no parentage.
3 of 3
1771BURIAL
François Plunkett dies at Torbeck, Saint-Domingue.
The far end of the migration the Elphin notation set in motion.

Plunketts built Dunsoghly. Ours, so far as any record shows, farmed Killummod.

The castle descent is dropped — and the Balyna, County Kildare claim rests on the same broken Dublin descent, so it does not appear here either.

If your tree carries this line

Drop the Dunsoghly descent, and Balyna with it. The earliest documented generation is Patrick Plunkett of Knockroe and Sisley Plunkett of Killummod in the 1749 Census of Elphin — an identification by townland and religion, strong but not a proven parentage, so carry it as that and not as more.

What would change it

A Roscommon parish or estate record tying Patrick of Knockroe to François by name — the census identification is strong on geography and religion, but it names no parents.

The people in this file

✦ Francois Plunkett* (1722–1771) · JAMES PLUNKETT (c. 1587–1641)