James Ware

Sir James Ware (26 November 1594 – 1 December 1666) was an Anglo-Irish historian. Personal details Born at Castle Street, Dublin on 26 November 1594, James Ware was the eldest son of Sir James Ware (1568–1632) and Mary Bryden, daughter of Ambrose Bryden of Bury St. Edmunds. Originally from Yorkshire, his father came to Ireland in 1588 as secretary to the Lord Deputy of Ireland, Sir William FitzWilliam, was knighted by James I, elected to the Irish House of Commons for Mallow in 1613, and served as auditor of Trinity College Dublin He also had a younger brother Joseph, Dean of Elphin from 1642 to 1648, while his sister Martha married Sir William Piers and was the mother of Sir Henry Piers, 1st Baronet, who shared his uncle's antiquarian interests. In 1620, he married Elizabeth Newman and they had ten children together, only two of whom outlived their father, his eldest son James (1622–1689) and the fifth, Robert (1639–1696). The others included Roger (1624–1642), Mary (1625–1651), Rose (1627–1649), who married Richard Lambart, 2nd Earl of Cavan ("the mad Earl"), Elizabeth (1629–1649), John (1631–1650), Ann (1633–1650), Arthur (1637–1640) and Joseph (1643–1644). Career Ware entered Trinity College Dublin in October 1611, where he became interested in Irish history and began assembling a collection of Irish manuscripts. He also made transcriptions from works held in other collections, including that of his close friend James Ussher (1581–1656), Primate of Ireland from 1625 to 1656. During the early 1620s he assisted his father in collating the findings of the 1622 Royal Commission which provided a critical appraisal of the state of affairs in Ireland. His work caught the attention of Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork, who employed him to research his own family history, part of Cork's dynastic ambitions to place the Boyles on the same level as some of the more established families in Ireland.