Esmonde baronets
The Esmonde Baronetcy of Ballynastragh in County Wexford, Ireland, was created on 28 January 1629 for Thomas Esmonde. He raised a cavalry for King Charles I and commanded troops at the Siege of La Rochelle.
Thomas was the son of Sir Laurence Esmonde, who had left the Roman Catholic faith and was made Baron Esmonde in 1632. Laurence first married Margaret O’Flaherty, and they had Thomas. Margaret fled with him to raise him as a strict Catholic. Laurence later repudiated Margaret and married Ellice Butler. Because Laurence would not acknowledge his son’s legitimacy after the second marriage, Thomas could not succeed to the barony, which became extinct on Laurence’s death in 1646. Thomas did, however, gain the family estates in County Wexford.
Over the years, several Esmonde baronets had notable political careers. The ninth and tenth baronets sat in Parliament for Wexford and Waterford, with the ninth also serving as High Sheriff of Wexford in 1840. The eleventh Baronet was MP and Senator of the Irish Free State, and the twelfth was a Cumann na nGaedheal TD for Wexford from 1923 to 1936. The fourteenth Baronet was MP for Tipperary North (1915–18) and later a Fine Gael TD for Wexford (1937–44 and 1948–51); the fifteenth was a Fine Gael TD for Wexford (1951–73); and the sixteenth was a Circuit Court judge and a Fine Gael TD for Wexford (1973–77). John Joseph Esmonde, father of the fourteenth and fifteenth baronets, was also a politician. Two of his sons from his second marriage gained prominence: John Witham Esmonde, a Royal Navy captain, and Eugene Esmonde, a Fleet Air Arm pilot who received the Victoria Cross and the DSO posthumously after dying in 1942. Their uncle, Thomas Esmonde, also won a Victoria Cross in the Crimean War, making the family one of the few with two Victoria Crosses.
The Esmonde family seat is Ballynastragh, Gorey, County Wexford. The baronetcy was vacant as of 26 November 2021.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 18:32 (CET).