Earl of Howth
Irish title (created 1767)
Earl of Howth ( HOHTH) was a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1767 for Thomas St Lawrence, 15th Baron Howth, who was elevated to Viscount St Lawrence at the same time, also in the Peerage of Ireland. The St Lawrence family descended from Christopher St Lawrence who was elevated to the Peerage of Ireland as Baron Howth in about 1425. The third and fourth Barons both served as Lord Chancellor of Ireland. The family's origins are thought to go back to Almeric Tristram, a liegeman of the Anglo-Irish knight John de Courcy, who conquered Howth in 1177. The St Lawrence family claimed significant prerogative rights as Lords of Howth over the whole peninsula, and were prepared to maintain their rights even against the English Crown.
The fourth baron was Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and a distinguished soldier who fought at the Battle of Knockdoe; his grandson, the seventh baron, was also a notable soldier. The eighth baron, commonly known as "the blind lord", was one of the leading Irish statesmen of his time, and led the opposition to the Government's taxation policy in the 1570s. His son, the ninth baron, was an open Roman Catholic, and led the opposition to the Penal Laws in the early 17th century. The tenth baron was a notable military commander who served in the Nine Years War with the Earl of Essex and Lord Mountjoy.
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This entry incorporates text from “Earl of Howth” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.