de Cusack / Cusack
The original structure at Killeen Castle is said to have been a Norman fortification, perhaps wooden, built for the de Lacy magnates, and held from 1172 by the Cusack family, beginning with Geoffrey de Cusack.
The stone castle was built by Geoffrey de Cusack around 1181. The date is carved above the doorway.
Killeen Castle was the seat of the de Cusacks for over 250 years, from Geoffrey de Cusack (1172) until Lady Joan de Cusack (1441), who with her husband, Sir Christoper Plunkett, “caused the church to be built beside the castle.”. This chantry church is now a national monument
The first castle on this site was built in 1181 by Geoffrey de Cusack, a Norman who came to Ireland with Hugh de Lacy. The de Cusacks and their descendants, the de Tuits lived here until around 1402 when Sir Christopher Plunkett (c.1370–c. 1445) married into the family. It is believed that the tomb in the church ruins holds the remains of Christopher and his wife Lady Joan de Cusack. The Plunketts became the Earls of Fingall and are one of the few great Catholic Anglo-Irish families to survive into the 20th century.
In such surroundings the de Cusacks, Lords of Killeen, lived, made war, and expanded their fiefdoms for 225 years until the castle passed to the Plunketts through the marriage of Lady Joan de Cusack to Christopher Plunkett of Rathregan in 1399
CUSACK (6 individuals)
DE CUSACK (4 individuals)
Genealogy (from Greek: γενεαλογία genealogia from γενεά genea, “generation” and λόγος logos, “knowledge”), also known as family history, is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history.