I'm currently exploring the links between Thomas Williams of the Bank of Ireland and Castlebellingham, Co. Louth. It's complicated and I'll add more as I find it.
Thomas Williams, father of Charles Wye Williams and Richard Williams of Drumcondra Castle, married Mary Ann Quin/Quine in St. Thomas's, Dublin, in 1777. The ceremony was performed by a Rev. Wye, who I believe to be Charles Wye of Co. Louth. The records of St.Thomas's reveal that no rector by the name of 'Wye' worked there at any time during its history, therefore he must surely have been specially requested by the bride and groom. I've discovered no other clergymen by this name, other than Rev. Charles Wye and several members of the same family. Rev. Wye married an Arthur Ormsby and Ann Ashe on the same day, but I've yet to discover who they were.
It appears that Charles Wye Williams, the second son of Thomas and Mary Ann, was named after Rev. Charles Wye, which seems to suggest that there must have been a close relationship between the two families somehow.
Notes on the Wye Family:
The grandfather of Charles Wye was Gilbert Wye of Co. Antrim. (He also owned property in Killiney, Co. Dublin.) Gilbert Wye was a burgess of Belfast and steward to the Earl of Donegall.
His son, Rev. Mossom Wye, was born in Co. Antrim in 1662, and was the rector of Kilsaran 1689 - 1703 (Kilsaran being the parish closest to Castlebellingham, Louth), then the rector of Dunleer, a small town about four or five miles south of Castlebellingham.
Charles Wye (1694 - 1784)
The son of Mossom Wye was the Rev. Charles Wye, born in Dunleer, Co. Louth, in 1694, and who was educated in Donegal by Mr. Cambell. He entered T.C.D. as a Pensioner at the age of 16 on March 28, 1709, and became a Scholar in 1712. He was for some time previous to 1728 his father's Curate in Dunleer. He was
collated to the R. of Darver on Mar. 12, 1734, which he held with Dromiskin, Louth, until Sep., 1752, when he exchanged with Rev. Joseph Pratt, A.M., for the R. of Ballymoney, Co. Cork and Kilmeen, (Ross), with which he held the Curacy of Kinneigh.
A deed exists which mentions a Charles Wye, gentleman, at Plunketts Land, Dunleer, in 1722.
The will of Rev. Charles Wye, dated 11 April, 1765, was proved in Cork 16 Aug., 1784. He mentions in it his son Francis Wye, and two daughters — Mary, wife of Quin, and Elizabeth.
The will of Francis Wye, of Castlebellingham, was proved also in 1784.
In 1784, Robert White of Williamstown, Kilsaran, married Mrs. Wye (widow) of Castlebellingham.
I can find no further information about Charles Wye's daughter, Mary, who had married a man by the name of Quin. I wonder was he of the same Dublin family as the family of Thomas William's wife, Mary Anne Quin?
Francis Quin of Dublin:
In either 1692 or 1715 (two different records record two different dates for the same couple, ie: www.irishgenealogy.ie and 'Diary of Thomas Bellingham'), Francis Quin, a wealthy merchant of Dublin, married, in St. Bride's, Dublin, Jane Bellingham, the daughter of Sir Thomas Bellingham of Castlebellingham. They had a son, Thomas Quin, who was noted as a churchwarden in Kilsaran Parish in 1748. Thomas Quin also proved the will of his aunt, the unmarried Anne Bellingham, in 1758.
Who was this Francis Quin of Dublin? It is known that Mary Ann Quin, who married our Thomas Williams in Dublin in 1777, descended from the family of Mark Quine, apothecary and, in 1676 to 1677, Lord Mayor of Dublin. It is known that Mark Quine had a descendant, the bricklayer/builder Francis Quin.
Notes on Francis Quin - he was admitted to the Freemen of Dublin in 1692 as an apprentice of Thomas Quin, bricklayer. Francis worked on the construction (or re-construction) of St. Werbergh's, Steevens Hospital and, between 1718 and 1724, the library of Trinity College.
I've so far been unable to ascertain whether this is the same Francis Quin who married Jane Bellingham, but if this were the case, then it would link the Dublin Quin family of Mary Ann, who was known to be of the family of the Alderman Mark Quin, to the Castlebellingham area, and would also help to explain why a clergyman of Castlebellingham had officiated at the marriage of Thomas Williams and Mary Ann Quin in 1777.
The Bellinghams:
It seems that the Bellingham family, who had come from Levens in England, settled first in the same Liberties area of Dublin as the Quin family.
Two years before Mark Quine became the third Lord Mayor of Dublin, Daniel Bellingham, a member of the goldsmiths guild, became the first Lord Mayor of Dublin from 1665 to 1666. The Great Mace of Dublin, a ceremonial item, was made in his workshop in 1665 and was subsequently purchased from him by the City Assembly. Daniel Bellingham was the granduncle of Jane Bellingham who married Francis Quin 30 years later. Daniel Bellingham, the first of the Bellingham baronets, died in 1672 and was buried in St.Werberghs, as was his unmarried son, Sir Richard Bellingham, who died in 1699.
The Bellingham baronetcy passed then to Daniel's brother, Henry, who had married a County Louth woman, Lucy Sibthorpe, and, soon after, he acquired the estates of Castlebellingham.
Henry became the High Sheriff of Kildare in 1654 following a stint in the military. It was about this time that he bought Gernonstown, later renamed Castlebellingham, from an ex-soldier, John Perryn, who is believed to have been granted the land following its confiscation after the 1641 rebellion, the original owners being the Gernons. Another document lists land in Kilsaran parish which had been granted to Henry Bellingham for his services in the war, namely 619 acres in Gernonstown, 183 acres in Milestone (later the property of the Woolseys), 80 acres in Williamstown, 108 acres in Lynne and 86 acres in Adamstown. This was confirmed in 1666.
Henry Bellingham's will in 1676 mentioned his sisters, Lady Jane Gilbert and Anne Bickerton, widow. His son, Colonel Thomas Bellingham was the executor of his will and his successor to his estates.
Thomas was the father of Jane/Jenny Bellingham who would marry Francis Quin in Dublin in 1692. Thomas' will was proved in 1722 - he left £500 to his daughter Anne Bellingham should she ever marry, and £500 to her unmarried sister, Abigail, who had been named after her mother, Abigail Handcock, who was, apparently, not a great beauty. Jane, having been provided for when she married Francis Quin, was not mentioned in her father's will, whose executors were his son, Henry Bellingham, and his 'beloved kinsman' Robert Sibthorpe of Dunany. The will of Thomas' daughter, the unmarried Anne Bellingham, was later sworn to by her nephew, Thomas Quin, when she died in 1758.
It seems the Bellinghams maintained links with St.Werberghs - in 1772, Alice Bellingham, the daughter of O'Brien Bellingham of Castlebellingham, was baptised there. O'Brien was the sister of Mary Anne Bellingham, who married Rev. William Woolsey of Milestone, Co. Louth. O'Brien and Mary Anne desecended directed from Thomas Bellingham.
The parents of Anne Palmer who married Richard Williams (who was the son of Thomas Williams and Mary Anne Quin) were George Palmer, the governor of the Bank of Ireland, and Anne Bickarton, the only daughter and heir of Daniel Bickerton of Milestone, Castlebellingham. Daniel Bickerton was the son of Robert Bickerton of Chatilly, Armagh, and of Anne Bellingham. The widowed Anne Bickerton, née Bellingham, was the sister of Henry Bellingham, grandfather of Jane Bellingham who married Francis Quin.