Richard Óge Martyn

Who was Richard Óge Martyn?

Richard Óge Martyn was a Galway lawyer and member of the Catholic Confederates of Ireland. He was of the senior line of the Martyn family, one of the Tribes of Galway. He lived at Dunguaire Castle, Kinvarra. He worked with his brother-in-law and first cousin, Patrick Darcy, against the Plantation of Connaught in the 1630s, and served on the Supreme Council of the Confederate Catholics in the 1640s. Martyn also served as Mayor of Galway, 1642–1643. He and Darcy were part of a network of Catholic lawyers in Galway who contrived to continue in practice in defiance of the Penal Laws, which barred Catholics from the professions. Richard was admitted to the King's Inn in 1631: he was suspended from practice at the Irish Bar in 1635 as a known Catholic, but permitted to resume practice in 1637, apparently because he had sworn the Oath of Supremacy.

Friends and acquaintances included John Lynch, Mary Bonaventure Browne, and Sir Dermott Ó Seachnasaigh. His contemporaries included Mícheál Ó Cléirigh and Randal MacDonnell, 1st Marquess of Antrim.