Sir George Oughtred Courtenay, 1st Baronet, of Newcastle ( – 1644) was an Irish landowner and soldier. He defended Limerick at the siege of 1642 during the

Irish Rebellion of 1641 The Irish Rebellion of 1641 ( ga, Éirí Amach 1641) was an uprising by Irish Catholics in the Kingdom of Ireland, who wanted an end to anti-Catholic discrimination, greater Irish self-governance, and to partially or fully reverse the plantatio ...

Birth and origins

George was born between 1580 and 1585, the fourth son of

William Courtenay William Courtenay ( 134231 July 1396) was Archbishop of Canterbury (1381–1396), having previously been Bishop of Hereford and Bishop of London. Early life and education Courtenay was a younger son of Hugh de Courtenay, 10th Earl of Devon ( ...

and his first wife, Elizabeth Manners. His father was a member of the Devonshire gentry but would much later in 1831 be recognised as ''de jure'' 3rd

Earl of Devon Earl of Devon was created several times in the English peerage, and was possessed first (after the Norman Conquest of 1066) by the de Redvers (''alias'' de Reviers, Revieres, etc.) family, and later by the Courtenay family. It is not to be con ...

. His father's family was the English branch of the

House of Courtenay The House of Courtenay is a medieval noble house, with branches in France, England and the Holy Land. One branch of the Courtenays became a Royal House of the Capetian Dynasty, cousins of the Bourbons and the Valois, and achieved the title o ...

. His mother was a daughter of

Henry Manners, 2nd Earl of Rutland Henry Manners, 2nd Earl of Rutland, 13th Baron de Ros of Helmsley, KG (23 September 152617 September 1563) was an English nobleman. Origins He was the son and heir of Thomas Manners, 1st Earl of Rutland and his wife Eleanor Paston. Career Li ...

in England.

Plantation of Munster

His father was an undertaker in the

Plantation of Munster Plantation (settlement or colony), Plantations in 16th- and 17th-century Ireland involved the confiscation of Irish-owned land by the Kingdom of England, English The Crown, Crown and the colonisation of this lan