Luttrellstown Castle Belonged To My Ancestors

I recently discovered, while viewing my ancestrial chart on my grandmother's side, that my family are descendants of the Luttrells (that, I knew) who owned Luttrellstown Castle in Dublin, Ireland (that, I didn't know).  My grandfather (by 11 times) was Sir Thomas Luttrell.  He was born in the castle in 1496, a couple hundred years after the Luttrells started the castle.  He died in 1554.  He was a Knight, and Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in Ireland. His first marriage took place when he was just a youth, to Anne Aylmer, whose brother, Sir Gerald Aylmer, was a judge and enforcer for King Henry VIII of England at the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries.  He later married Elizabeth Bathe. The Luttrells were the first family to own Luttrellstown castle, and it stayed in the family for 450 years before being sold.  Now it is a 5-star resort with a golf course on the 567 acres.

Prior to the Luttrells coming to Ireland, they lived in England, and also owned Dunster Castle.  This castle was purchased by Lady Elizabeth Luttrell in 1376 and remained with the Luttrell family for 600 years until it was given to the National Trust in 1976.  Now it is a tourist attraction. There is some information that states that the Luttrells originated in France, then went to England, then to Ireland, until some of them started immigrating to America in the 1600s, where more interesting history has emerged.  No doubt there were other castles owned by the wealthy and notorious Luttrells!  At one point they were the biggest landowners in Ireland.

I got interested in all of this when my dad's cousin, Kim, sent me an invite to ancestry.com. He has an incredible amount of information on there, dating back to the 1400s.  I decided to do some research on the internet and I was able to put some pieces of the puzzle together.  Imagine how excited I was to learn our family came from royalty!  Nobody ever told me this before, but I have no doubt my relatives in Indiana know all of this stuff.  I just never see them or talk to them.  I know that they have done a lot of research and even have a website.  (The spelling of Luttrell changed to Luttrull during the time of the Civil War).  I do remember some stories my grandmother told me long ago.  One was that my great, great, great.....and so on, grandfather, fathered his first child at the age of 13.  That may have been Thomas, I don't know for sure.   And something about someone beheading a king.  hmmm  There's so much information out there, and I have been so fascinated with what I have learned so far.  I have to thank Kim for getting me started on this. There's so much more just waiting to be discovered!