(Vol. i., pp. 385. 473. 492.; Vol. ii., p. 44.; Vol. iv., p. 103.)
Upon an examination of the ancient records which are preserved in the
Exchequer Record Office, at the Four Courts, Dublin, it will be found that
in the year 1632 Sir Vincent Gookin acquired, by purchase from David Earl
of Barrymore, the lands of Cargane in the county of Cork; and from Mr.
William Fitz John O'Hea, in the year 1633, the lands of Ballymacwilliam and
Cruary, in the same county; and that he died on the 7th of Feb.
1637[3];--that Captain Robert Gookin, in recompence for his services as a
soldier and adventurer, obtained an assignment from the Protector of an
estate in the same county, consisting of upwards of five thousand acres,
which he afterwards surrendered to Charles II.; and that thereupon the king
granted it to Roger Earl of Orrery;--that Vincent Gookin died on the 29th
of March, 1692, and that his son Robert, and Dorothy Clayton, were his
executors;--that in the year 1681 the collectors of quit rent made a demand
upon Thomas Gookin, one of Sir Vincent's sons, for the {239} rent of the
lands which his father had purchased from Mr. O'Hea, and that, upon proof
being made to the Court of Exchequer by Mr. John Burrowes, one of Sir
Vincent's executors, that the estate was a "Protestant interest," or, in
other words, that as the family had been of the Protestant religion, and
not implicated in the rebellion of 1641, the lands were therefore not
liable to the payment of quit rent, they were accordingly put out of
charge. It appears also by the records which are deposited in the same
office, that Thomas Gookin, gentleman, was indicted at the sessions held at
Bandon in the year 1671, "for that he, with several others, riotously and
unlawfully did assemble and associatt themselves together at Lislee, on the
27th of December, 1671, and in and uppon David Barry and Charles Carthy,
gentlemen, did make a cruell assaulte and affray, and did beate, wound, and
falsely imprison them, under colour of a warrant from Henry Bathurst, Esq.,
made and interlined by the said Thomas Gookin;" and that Elizabeth Gookin,
of Lislee, spinster, was one of his sureties. This Elizabeth was probably
descended from a Charles Gookin, who claimed the lands of Lislee in the
time of the Protector. By the records in the same department, it appears
that in and previous to the year 1719 a suit was pending in the Court of
Exchequer with respect to the lands of Courtmacsherry; and by the
Receiver's account, which bears the autograph of Robert Gookin, it is shown
that a payment was made to Mrs. Dorothy Gookin for maintenance, and that
there was an arrear due to Lady Mary Erwin, "at ye time of Captain Gookin's
death, which happened in September, 1709:" and in the same office there is
deposited a deed, dated the 30th of October, 1729, which relates to the
lands of Clouncagh, in the same county of Cork, whereto John Allin, an
alderman of the city of Cork, and Elizabeth Gookin, otherwise Towgood, his
wife, and Robert Gookin, Esq., eldest son and devisee of Robert Gookin
deceased, are parties. I have been informed that a lengthened account of
Sir Vincent Gookin is to be found in Lord Stafford's State Letters; that
much information may be gathered from the Privy Council Papers _tempore_
Cromwell, which are deposited in Dublin Castle, with respect to Captain
Robert Gookin; and that in the year 1620 Daniel Gookin was one of the
undertakers in the county of Longford, and that his estate of five hundred
acres afterwards passed to an ancestor of the late popular novelist Miss
Edgeworth.