A member of the Somersetshire Wellesleighs is said to have accompanied Henry II. to Ireland.
Walleran or Walter de Wellesley, living in Ireland in 1230 (Lynch, Feud. Dig.), witnessed a grant of certain townlands to the Priory of Christ Church about 1250 (Registry of Christ Church); while it is more effectively stated that he then "endowed the Priory of All Saints with 60 a. of land, within the manor of Cruagh, which then belonged, with other estates, to his family, and that he gave to the said priory free common of pasture, of wood and of turbary, over his whole mountain there."
His namesake and son (according to Lynch, Feud. Dig.), "Walran de Wylesley," was in 1302 required, as one of the "Fideles" of Ireland, by three several letters, to do service in the meditated war in Scotland (Parl. Writs, vol. i. p. 363.), and in the following year he was slain (MS. Book of Obits, T.C.D.). The peerage books merge these two Wallerans in one.
William de Wellesley, who appears to have been son to Walleran, was in 1309 appointed Constable of the Castle of Kildare (Rot. Pat. Canc. Hib.), which he maintained when besieged by the Bruces in their memorable invasion of Ireland, and their foray over that county. For these and other services to the state he received many lucrative and honourable grants from the crown, and was summoned to parliament in 1339. In 1347 he was slain at the siege of Calais. (Obits, T.C.D.)
Sir John de Wellesly, Knight, son of William, having performed great actions against the O'Tooles and O'Byrnes of Wicklow, had grants of sundry wardships and other rewards from the year 1335. In 1343 he became one of the sureties for the appearance of the suspected Earl of Desmond, on whose flight Sir John's estates were seised to the crown and withheld for some years. (Lynch's Feud. Dig.)
His successor was another John de Wellesley, omitted in the peerage books, but whose existence is shown by Close Roll 29 & 30 Edw. III., C. H. He died about the year 1355.
William Wellesley, son of John, was summoned to great councils and parliaments of Ireland from 1372; he was also entrusted by the king with various important commissions and custodies of castles, lands, and wards (Patent Rolls C. H.). In 1386 he was Sheriff of Kildare, and Henry IV. renewed his commission in 1403.
Richard, son and heir of William de Wellesley, as proved by Rot. Pat. 1 Henry IV., Canc. Hib., married Johanna, daughter and heiress of Sir Nicholas de Castlemartin, by whom the estates of Dangan, Mornington, &c. passed to the Wellesley family; he and his said wife had confirmation of their estates in 1422. (Rot. Pat. 1 Henry VI., C. H.) He had a previous grant from the treasury by order of the Privy Council, in consideration of his long services as sheriff of the county of Kildare, and yet more actively "in the wars of Munster, Meath, and Leinster, with men and horses, arms and money." (Rot. Claus. 17 Ric. II., C. H.) In 1431 he was specially commissioned to advise the crown on the state of Ireland, and was subsequently selected to take charge of the Castle of Athy, as "the fittest person to maintain that fortress and key of the country against the malice of the Irish enemy." (Rot. Pat. et Claus. 9 Henry VI., C. H.) In resisting that "malice" he fell soon after.
The issue of Sir Richard de Wellesley by Johanna were William Wellesley, who married Katherine ——, and dying in 1441 was succeeded by his next brother, Christopher Wellesley, whose recorded fealty in the same year proves all the latter links; his succession to William as brother and heir, and the titles of Johanna as widow of his father Richard, and of Katherine as widow of William, to dower off said estates. (Rot. Claus. 19 Henry VI., C. H.) At and previous to this time, another line of this family, connected as cousins with the house of Dangan, flourished in the co. Kildare, where they were recognised as Palatine Barons of Norragh to the close of the seventeenth century. William Wellesley of Dangan was the son and heir of Christopher. An (unprinted) act of Edward IV. was passed in 1472 in favour of this William; and his two marriages are stated by Lynch (Feud. Dig.): the first was to
Ismay Plunkett; the second, to Maud O'Toole, was contracted under peculiar circumstances. The law of Ireland at the time prohibited the intermarriages of the English with the natives without royal licence therefor being previously obtained, and not even did the licence so obtained wash out the original sin of Irish birth; for, as in this instance, Maud, having survived her first husband, on marrying her second, Patrick Hussey, had a fresh licence to legalise that marriage. It is of record (Rot. Pat. 21 Henry VII., C. H.), and proves the second marriage of Sir William clearly: yet it is not noticed in any of the peerage books, which derive his issue from the first wife, and not from the second, as Lynch gives it, that issue being Gerald the eldest son, Walter the second, and Alison a daughter.