Walter Dungan, Viscount Dungan Explained

Walter Dungan, Viscount Dungan (c.1650 – 1 July 1690) was an Irish Jacobite soldier and politician.

Dungan was the only son of William Dongan, 1st Earl of Limerick and Euphemia Maria, daughter of Sir Richard Chamber. He was born in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain, but was naturalised by the Parliament of Ireland in 1654.^[1]

His father ensured the family's support for James II of England following the Glorious Revolution. In 1689, Dungan was the Member of Parliament for Naas in the brief Patriot Parliament called by James.^[2] He was granted a commission in James' army during the Williamite War in Ireland, becoming colonel of Lord Dongan's Dragoons. During the Siege of Derry, he was dispatched to Derry to bring news to the Jacobite commander Richard Hamilton that a Williamite flotilla under Percy Kirke had been sent to relieve the city. He was killed on 1 July 1690 while leading a detachment of Jacobite horse at the Battle of the Boyne.^[3]

As a result of Dungan's death, his father's earldom was inherited by special remainder by the first earl's brother, Thomas Dongan.^[4]

Notes and References

1. Ó Ciardha, Éamonn, Dongan, William, Dictionary of Irish Biography (October 2009). Retrieved 1 February 2023.
2. O'Hart, John, The Irish Parliament of King James the Second in 1689, Irish Pedigrees: or the Origin and Stem of the Irish Nation (5th Ed., 1892), Volume 2. Retrieved 1 February 2023.
3. https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/critical/research/researchcentresandnetworks/robertburnsstudies/ourresearch/jacobiteofficersdatabase/thedatabase/d/ Officers of the Jacobite Armies
4. Book: Cokayne. G. E.. 1893. Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct, or dormant (L to M). 5. 1st. London. George Bell & Sons. 82 .

   "Thomas (Dongan) EARL OF LIMERICK &c. [I.], yr. br. of the above earl. and on whom this Earldom and the Viscountcy of Dongan of Clane were entailed under the spec. rem. in their respective creations, was b. 1654 and appears, notwithstanding the attainder of 1691, to have assumed in 1698 and been generally allowed the peerage [I.]."

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