Bartholomew Van Homrigh

Van Homrigh represented Londonderry (Derry) in the 1692 and 1695–99 Irish Parliaments, in the later session serving on committees and backing the Tory Lord Chancellor Charles Porter when the latter was accused of corruption and favouring Catholics whilst in office.^[5]

On 29 February 1692, William III bestowed the estates of Thomas Dongan, 2nd Earl of Limerick and Christopher Fleming, 17th Baron Slane to the lieutenant-general and commander-in-chief of his forces in Ireland, the Dutch commander Godert de Ginkel, whose victory at the 1691 Siege of Limerick ended the War.^[2] Already a Dutch baron, Ginkel entrusted oversight of the 26,480 acres to Van Homrigh, which the latter said accrued rents of £5,567 11s 11.75d between 1 November 1693 and 1 May 1695, owing to competent estate management; in a letter from either 1691 or 1692, the combined value of both estates was said to be over £4,000 per annum. For this, he asked to be rented in perpetuity about 326 acres of land in Celbridge, of which only 250 were granted.

His efforts were assiduous: Ginkel was urged to be naturalised, as he could not otherwise own property in Ireland,^[1] and Van Homrigh oversaw legal efforts to have Ginkel's possessions confirmed by the great seals of England and of Ireland, done in 1693 and 1695, respectively.^[2] On the decline of the Whig Junto by 1698, the Parliament of England began investigating the King's granting of Irish forfeitures. Though Van Homrigh hoped steadfast opposition by the Country Party would prevent the ultimately successful Act of Resumption (1700) from passage, Ginkel pre-emptively sold his properties for over £7,000, of which two-thirds had to be returned by the Act's terms.

56 letters of correspondence between Van Homrigh and Ginkel survive in the private archive of Amerongen Castle, in 1977 entrusted to the Rijksarchief Utrecht.

Van Homrigh married Hester Stone (d. 1714) in December 1686, and had either three or four children. The eldest daughter, Esther, was the longtime lover of Swift, immortalised in his work Cadenus and Vanessa. The name "Vanessa", which gained relative popularity in the twentieth century, was invented by Swift for the poem, the 'Van' from her surname 'Van Homrigh', and 'Essa' a diminutive for Esther.^[6]