Re: Ralph Swift --- Yorkshire Swifts and Ireland
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In reply to:
Ralph Swift --- Yorkshire Swifts and Ireland
Susan Swift 11/12/09
Hello Sue,
I have tried twice to post on Genealogy.com but in both cases my postings have not been shown so we will have to go this route. My cousin, Fay Breacher, also asked me to contact you and it was she who gave me this email address.......so, to answer your question in Genealogy.com.
The Swift family come originally from Allergill in Co Durham and from Yorkshire in general but most famously from Rotherham where Robert Swyfte established the beginnings of a well documented family in the 1400's and where a monument to him still exists in Rotherham Church. He was known as "the rich mercer of Rotherham".
The connection to Ireland starts in 1627 when Barnham swift was elected to the Peerage of Ireland, 20th March 1627.Irish titles and lands were often given to the English upper class in repayment for some favour to the Monarchy. Barnham Swift became Viscount Carlingford but eventually died without male heir and the title was passed to the Carpenter family who already bore the Tyrconell crest. The families (Swift and Carpenter) still retained close ties and along with the Crowe's and the Calvert's were to intermarry on a couple of occasions (Google Kiplin Hall, Yorkshire... owners).
My Gt Grandfathers x 3&4 came out of Halifax in Yorkshire, an offshoot of the Rotherham family and my 3rd Gt Grandfather, James Platt Swift (born 1784), married Anne Carpenter in 1810 at St Andrews, Holborn, Middlessex (as it was at that time) London.
The greatest migration of Swifts to Ireland occurred in the 1650's when as ardent supporters in the Royalist cause of King Charles 1st against the forces of Oliver Cromwell (English Civil War) several sons of The Rev Thomas Swift of Hereford and his wife Elizabeth Dryden established a seat there in County Kilkenny and called it "Swiftes Heath" (Google Rev Thomas Swift). It was from one of these sons, Jonathan, a Dublin lawyer that Jonathan Swift, the author, was born.
Because Jonathan's father died whilst the baby was in the womb Jonathan was left in the care of his uncle Godwin and was raised at Swiftes Heath. His mother, Abigail Erick, returned to her folks in Leicester, her husband having died young left her without financial support and this was the reason that Jonathan stayed in Ireland. Later generations of Swifts born in Ireland can, I suppose, claim to be Irish by birth but their roots are still English.
Ralph S. Swift.