Richard Prior

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Richard Prior, Colonial Thomas Prior’s eldest son, inherited his father’s Irish lands and an estate in the northern English county of Derbyshire on the death in 1704 of his sister Isabella Stubber and her husband.¹⁾

In 1685, the Catholic James II succeeded his more pragmatic brother Charles II and in 1689 passed an Act of Attainder. This Act not only reversed the land grants to Protestants such as the Priors, but condemned over 2,000 of them to defend themselves from the charge of high treason. Richard Prior and other Protestants choose to flee, forfeiting their land. Richard fled to Cambridge, to property there that he had inherited from his father as well as some 40 acres in Ely. In 1690, James II’s loyalist army was defeated at the Battle of the Boyne and the Act subsequently repealed. Richard continued to live in Cambridge and on his death his portion of the Rathdowney estate passed to Thomas, his oldest surviving brother and the most famous of the family. By then it appears to have been heavily mortgaged.²⁾

There remains some confusion about the Prior family at this point - Fennelly states that in 1726, Richard Prior died, having appointed his 'his loving nephew Thomas Prior' his executor and trustee. Richard also left Thomas Prior some 40 acres in Ely as well as property in Cambridge. My understanding is that Thomas was his brother.³⁾

¹⁾

John & John B. Burke, A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland: M to Z, London: Henry Colburn Publisher, 1846, p.1075.

²⁾

Teddy Fennelly, Thomas Prior. His Life, Times and Legacy, Ireland: Arderin Publishing, 2001, pp.2,13. He gives Richard's date of death as 1726; other sources state 1736.

³⁾

Teddy Fennelly, Thomas Prior. His Life, Times and Legacy, Ireland: Arderin Publishing, 2001, p.15.