Richard Ponsonby (c.1678 – 29 November 1763) was an Irish

member of parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

(MP) for a

County Cork County Cork ( ga, Contae Chorcaí) is the largest and the southernmost county of Ireland, named after the city of Cork, the state's second-largest city. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. Its largest market towns a ...

constituency and a justice of the peace (JP) for County Kerry. He was the first of six surviving children of Susannah (née Grice) and Thomas Ponsonby of

Crotta Crotta, ( ga, An Chrotach) is a townland in the Barony of Ormond Lower in County Tipperary, Ireland. It is located between the towns of Borrisokane and Cloughjordan. The woods at Crotta form a part of Borrisokane Forest which consists of several ...

, where his family had been the landowners for two generations after the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. He was educated at

Trinity College Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

. His first marriage was to Helen Meade, third surviving child of Elizabeth (née Butler) and Sir John Meade, on 11 January 1711; she died on 28 March 1743. His second marriage was to Arabella Blennerhassett (b.21 December 1726), 48 years his junior, daughter of Jane (née Denny) and Colonel John Blennerhassett of

Ballyseedy Ballyseedy () is a townland in County Kerry, Ireland. It was historically situated in the parish of Ballyseedy, within the barony of Trughanacmy. The townland contains a number of notable landmarks, including Ballyseedy Wood, a bridge over t ...

. Blennerhassett had made an agreement with Maurice Crosbie of Ardfert and

Arthur Denny (politician) Arthur Denny (29 April 1704 - 8 August 1742) was an Irish politician. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. Denny was a Member of Parliament for Kerry in the Irish House of Commons The Irish House of Commons was the lower house of the ...

of Tralee to partition the county representation amongst the families. The Ponsonbys at Crotta and other southern counties benefited from these agreements through marriage and other arrangements; Ponsonby's family, despite being tainted by legal disputes in his father's earlier years, became in favour with and increasingly influential within the Irish government. Notwithstanding this, Ponsonby had no children by either marriage. In 1731, he became the MP for

Kinsale Kinsale ( ; ) is a historic port and fishing town in County Cork, Ireland. Located approximately south of Cork City on the southeast coast near the Old Head of Kinsale, it sits at the mouth of the River Bandon, and has a population of 5,281 (a ...

, a borough constituency of

; he remained as the constituency MP until 1760. For different years during this time, he was also one of the JPs in Kerry. As he was without issue from his marriages, in 1762 he willed his Crotta estate to his nephew William Carrique (son of his sister Rose and James Carrique) with the agreement that Carrique and his son, James, should take his name; their surname became Carrique Ponsonby.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ponsonby, Richard 18th-century Irish landowners Irish landlords 1678 births 1763 deaths Irish MPs 1727–1760 Irish justices of the peace Members of the Parliament of Ireland (pre-1801) for County Cork constituencies Politicians from County Kerry