1616, Sir Walter Coppinger and Coppinger’s Court, Rosscarbery, Co. Cork.

This article is by Mark Samuel, bases on work he did at the University of London and many thanks to him and courtesy JCHAS 1984. Digital http://www.corkhist.ie/wp-content/uploads/jfiles/1984/b1984-005.pdf

The Coppingers, Cotters and perhaps the Gallweys are of Hiberno-Danish descent. Some of those with this ancestry still have blonde hair.

The Coppingers assembled vast estates in West Cork primarily by the local land owning families raising mortgages and defaulting. One example is the townland of Ballycomane in Durrus. This had been McCarthy of Scart property, mortgaged to Coppinger and when the Coppingers backed the wrong side in the 17th century their land was forfeit.

Much of the estates ended up with the Evans-Freke family (later Lord Carbery), that family around 1778 presumable for raising money commissioned a survey of their estates. The original book of maps in in the National Library Mapping…