Colbinstown and Crookstown, County Kildare

Colbinstown castle and lands on the Wicklow border eight miles south of Kilcullen were at first leased by the Eustaces from the Wesleys of Narragh, but were later owned by the 1st Viscount. They were passed to the widow of his third son, Alexander, who was born in 1508 and married Janet (d. 1586), daughter of Robert Eustace of Oldcastle. (Alexander Eustace is described as of "Colbinstown and Kilrush,” the latter being just SW. of Calverstown, owned by his brother the 2nd Viscount. Alexander had daughter June who m. (1) Gerald Sutton of Castletown and (2) Maurice FitzJames of Osbertstown. A son Nicholas by his second wife, Mary, died young.

Their son Maurice was a juror in 1608 and an important man in the county. He died in 1619 outliving his elder son Roland (who had married Anne Archbold without issue), and was succeeded by his second son Richard, who married in 1580 and died in 1630, having had four sons, Captain Thomas (dsp.), NICHOLAS, Maurice and Christopher. Nicholas, who died in 1695 is mentioned on the List of Dispossessed Landowners presented to the Duke of Ormonde in 1664. He was presumably the father of Nicholas of Colbinstown who married Margaret Wicombe (d. 1727) and died in 1702 (or perhaps 1713), leaving two sons Christopher, whose wife was called Jane (d. 1729), who died in 1755 without issue; and Roland who was possibly the father of Nicholas of Ballitore, born 1754. The line then died out and the old castle has been replaced by a farmhouse, but inscribed stones still mark the graves of Jane, Nicholas, Margaret and their son Roland at the summit of the great kill in the ancient graveyard of Killeen Cormac.

Crookstown, south-west of Colbinstown, was owned by the Wesleys of Narragh, but rented for a century by various Eustaces, starting in 1523 with Edmund FitzAlexander of Kilkea of the Mainham and Moone branch. The lease was later held by the 1st Viscount, and passed with the freehold of Colbinstown to the widow of his son Alexander. Later tenants seem to have belonged to the Moone branch.  

These pages © Ronald Eustice, 2007