Honour of Annaly - Feudal Principality & Seignory Est. 1172

From Overlordship to Interregnum:

How Ireland’s Indigenous Princes Passed Through a 740-Year Arc to a Moment of De Facto Sovereignty (1172–1937)

What follows is a precise, date-anchored legal–historical explanation of how Ireland’s indigenous princely seignories—such as Annaly–Teffia (Longford)—moved from Crown-recognized principalities under English overlordship to a short but consequential interregnum in which English authority was displaced before a republican constitution formally re-ordered sovereignty. The argument does not claim a wholesale restoration of medieval kingship by statute; rather, it explains how recognized dignities were never expressly abolished, creating a legal anomaly during the revolutionary transition.

I. Recognition and Conversion (1172–1605)

1172 — Royal Recognition Begins

• Henry II enters Ireland and asserts lordship.

• Native rulers in regions including Annaly–Teffia are recognized as princes/captains under overlordship.

• Crucially, recognition ≠ extinction: ancient princely status is acknowledged, not denied.

c. 1200–1300 — Palatine & Captaincy Governance

• The Liberty (Palatinate) of Meath is established; frontier territories (including Annaly) are administered through captains of the country.

• Princely authority is represented, not erased.

1541–1603 — Tudor Surrender and Regrant

• Under Henry VIII, native sovereignty is converted into feudal tenure.

• Principalities are transformed into feudal honours vested in Crown tenants.

• In Annaly–Teffia, authority is vested in the Barons of Delvin, later elevated as the Earls of Westmeath.

• Key point: Conversion preserves dignity as honour in gross; it does not abolish it.

1605 — Final Crown Instruments in the Region

• Early Stuart confirmations consolidate feudal governance.

• No instrument abolishes the ancient principality; it remains represented through Delvin/Westmeath.

II. Union Without Abolition (1605–1801)

1605–1800 — Administration, Not Extinction

• English (later British) rule governs Ireland through statutes and land law.

• Peerage and genealogical works continue to record princely origins of territories like Annaly–Teffia.

1801 — Act of Union

• Ireland is incorporated into the United Kingdom.

• No clause extinguishes ancient feudal honours or converted principalities.

• Dignities persist as property-based rights, even as parliamentary sovereignty centralizes.

III. Displacement and the Legal Gap (1916–1937)

1916 — Easter Rising

• British authority is contested, not yet displaced by law.

• The event initiates a process that will remove English governance without addressing feudal dignities.

1921 — Anglo-Irish Treaty

• The Treaty provides for withdrawal and transfer of authority.

• It does not legislate abolition of feudal honours or converted principalities.

1922 — Irish Free State

• British administration withdraws from most of Ireland.

• A de facto interregnum arises regarding historical dignities:

  • English overlordship is gone.

  • No Irish statute has yet extinguished ancient feudal principalities.

• Result: a juridical vacuum in which previously recognized dignities are unextinguished.

1937 — Bunreacht na hÉireann (Irish Constitution)

• The Constitution re-orders sovereignty in the people and the State.

• It prospectively defines constitutional authority.

• It does not retroactively adjudicate medieval feudal dignities or expressly abolish them.

IV. The Governing Legal Principle (Applied)

The situation may be stated with precision:

Where the English Crown recognized an ancient Irish principality and converted its sovereignty into a feudal honour vested in Crown tenants acting as captains of the country, the subsequent withdrawal of English governance does not extinguish that dignity. In the absence of express abolition, the princely authority survives as an inheritable honor in gross vested in the successors of those tenants, namely the Barons of Delvin and Earls of Westmeath.

Why this matters in 1922–1937:
During the interval after English withdrawal and before the 1937 Constitution’s comprehensive settlement, there existed no operative act of extinction. Under English feudal doctrine, silence does not abolish; abolition requires affirmative law.

V. What “Sovereigns of Their Seignories” Means (Carefully)

• Not a claim of restored medieval kingship by statute.

• Yes to a claim of de facto autonomy of dignity:

  • Overlord displaced.

  • Converted honours unextinguished.

  • Holders retain representative princely dignity as a matter of property and status.

• This is analogous to continental mediatized houses whose sovereign functions ended, but whose princely dignity survived absent abolition.

VI. Conclusion

From 1172 to 1937, Ireland’s indigenous principalities passed through recognition, conversion, union, and finally displacement without abolition. The Irish Revolution created a legal anomaly: English governance ended, yet the feudal dignities England had recognized and converted were never expressly extinguished. Until the constitutional settlement of 1937, that gap left ancient princely seignories—such as Annaly–Teffia—legally unextinguished, with their representative dignity surviving as honours in gross in the successors of Delvin and Westmeath.

Irish Princely Peerage Recognized in European Nobility Books and Guides.

For centuries, English and European peerage literature consistently acknowledged the ancient princely character of Annaly and Teffia and other ancient Irish Gaelic Kingdoms, treating them as legitimate territorial dignities rather than mere local lordships. From early modern compilations onward, works such as Burke’s Peerage, The Complete Peerage, and continental Adelsbücher recorded the rulers of Annaly–Teffia as princes or chiefs of princely rank, often noting their status as ancient princes of Ireland or as holders of converted princely authority. These entries were not casual antiquarian flourishes; they reflected the English Crown’s long-standing recognition of Irish principalities and the legal–genealogical need to preserve precedence, descent, and dignity within the wider European nobiliary system.

Importantly, peerage and Adels books functioned as repositories of noble legitimacy, not merely lists of sitting peers. They preserved titles that pre-dated English patents, including Irish princely dignities recognized through homage, treaty, and later feudal conversion. As a result, Annaly and Teffia appeared repeatedly across centuries of noble literature as recognized princely seignories, even after their governance was transformed under English law. The persistence of these references—well into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—demonstrates that English and European nobiliary authorities understood Annaly–Teffia to possess a princely antiquity and dignity that survived political change, and which merited continued recognition in the formal record of Europe’s noble houses.

English and European nobiliary works—most notably Burke’s Peerage and related continental Adelsbücher—long recognized a range of Gaelic princes as holders of legitimate princely rank, recording them as ancient territorial rulers even when they were not English peers of Parliament. Among those repeatedly acknowledged were the O’Neills of Tyrone (styled Princes or Kings of Ulster), the O’Briens of Thomond (Princes of Thomond and descendants of Brian Boru), the MacCarthy Mórs of Desmond (chief princes of Munster), the O’Donnells of Tyrconnell (Princes of Tyrconnell), the O’Conor Don of Connacht (royal and princely rulers of Connacht), the O’Rourkes of Bréifne (Princes of Bréifne), and the O’Farrells of Annaly–Teffia (Princes of Annaly). Burke’s and similar authorities preserved these titles to establish antiquity, precedence, and lawful descent, reflecting the English Crown’s historical recognition of Irish principalities and the European practice of recording noble dignity by blood and territory, even after sovereignty was converted or displaced.

As of 2025, a review of mainstream genealogical, peerage, and nobiliary literature reveals no active, competing claimants publicly asserting succession to the ancient 21 or so Ancient kingdoms or princely seignories of Annaly–Teffia in a manner recognized by English or European nobiliary convention. The historic Gaelic dynasties once associated with Annaly are long extinct in the male line or have not advanced documented, continuous claims to territorial princely dignity in modern peerage or Adelsbuch records. By contrast, the successors of the Earls of Westmeath, through the Honour of Longford (Annaly) created and maintained under English feudal conversion, remain the only line historically documented as holding representative authority over the former principality—first as captains of the country and later as feudal successors-in-representation. While modern Irish constitutional law does not adjudicate medieval dignities, within the framework of historical–legal analysis and nobiliary continuity, no parallel or rival claims to the Annaly–Teffia princely complex are presently evidenced, leaving the Westmeath succession as the sole continuously recorded line connected to that converted princely honour.