Introduction to the Nugent of Farren Connell Papers
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The archive of the Nugent family of Farren Connell, Co. Cavan, comprises a fairly complete record of this major Ulster family, their estates in Cos Cavan and Westmeath, and their careers, mainly in the army (principally that of General Sir Oliver Nugent, who died in 1926), between the 15th and 20th centuries.
The family is a cadet branch of the Nugents, Lords Delvin, afterwards Earls of Westmeath, and has been at Farren Connell since the end of the 17th century. Richard Nugent, 12th Baron of Delvin, was Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1528. The Earldom of Westmeath was created in 1621, with Richard Nugent, 15th Baron of Delvin, being first holder of the title.
The archive contains some 80 volumes and 10,000 documents. Everything up to around 1865 had been listed, and in part calendared, by Sir John Ainsworth of the Irish Manuscripts Commission in the 1950s (see National Library of Ireland Report on Private Collections, No. 166, published in Analecta Hibernica, No. 20 [Dublin, 1958]).
Extremely important material not covered by Ainsworth consists of the papers of General Sir Oliver Nugent, Commander of the 36th (Ulster) Division during and after the Battle of the Somme (D3835/E). Over 200 of Nugent's letters have been published by the Army Records Society as Major General Oliver Nugent and the Ulster Division, 1915-18, edited by Nick Perry (2007).