page_title: Upper Ossory
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Upper Ossory / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Castles of Leinster: Ballagh, Laois
context_page_description: Upper Ossory was an administrative barony in the south and west of Queen's County in Ireland. In late Gaelic Ireland it was the túath of the Mac Giolla Phádraig family and surviving remnant of the once larger kingdom of Ossory. The northernmost part of the Diocese of Ossory and medieval County Kilkenny, it was transferred to the newly created Queen's County in 1600. In the 1840s its three component cantreds, Clarmallagh, Clandonagh, and Upperwoods, were promoted to barony status, thereby superseding Upper Ossory.
context_section_description: County Kilkenny was created after the Norman invasion of Ireland from most of the Gaelic Kingdom of Ossory. Kilkenny's medieval cantred of Aghaboe, whose territory was the rural deanery of Aghaboe, corresponded approximately to the later Upper Ossory.  From 1328, the Anglo-Norman Butler Earl of Ormond had palatine jurisdiction over the neighbouring county of Tipperary, and in the 15th century, the Butlers extended this de facto to most of Kilkenny.  This was reflected in the subsidiary title Earl of Ossory which Piers Butler, 8th Earl of Ormond was granted in 1538.  However, in the 14th and 15th centuries, the Gaelic Fitzpatrick family (Irish: Mac Giolla Phádraig) encroached southwards into Kilkenny and ruled as "Lords of Upper Ossory". In 1442, the Irish Treasury and Exchequer were petitioned to award 100 shillings to the Norman-affiliated inhabitants of the town of Kilkenny, for their military service against the neighbouring Gaels and "especially in breaching the castle of McKilpatrick  [sic]".
  In 1541, during the Tudor reconquest of Ireland, Barnaby Fitzpatrick (Brían Óg Mac Giolla Phádraig) was created 1st Baron Upper Ossory upon the surrender and regrant of his lands to and by Henry VIII, legitimating his lordship in the eyes of the Dublin Castle administration. Queen's County was created in 1556 from unshired lands northeast of Upper Ossory. In 1575, Henry Sidney, then Lord Deputy of Ireland, wrote "Upper Osserie is so well governed and defended, by the valor and wisedome of the Baron that nowe is as ... it made no matter, if the countrie were never shired, ... and yet united to some shire it shal be". Fitzpatrick preferred to be subject to the new English planters in Queen's County rather than his Ormond enemies in Kilkenny. By letters patent of 21 July 1600 Upper Ossory was formally transferred to Queen's County.
  An exception was made for an area around Durrow, which remained an exclave of the Kilkenny barony of Galmoy. This was  at the behest of the Earl of Ormond, who was lord of the manor of Durrow, and wanted to have Fitzpatrick raiders tried at the assizes of Kilkenny, where he could ensure a conviction.
  After Arthur Chichester was made Lord Deputy in 1605, the lordship of the Fitzpatricks effectively ended.  A 1621 inquisition in Maryborough (now Port Laoise) ruled that the king, James I, was lord of Upper Ossory, and he proceeded to grant George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham extensive lands in the barony. As late as 1639, a statute refers to "upper Ossory, alias Mac Gil Patricks country".
caption: Ballagharrahin (Ballagh Castle) is a 15th-century five-story towerhouse in Rathdowny parish, Co. Laois used by the Fitzpatricks.
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