George Hamilton, 4th Baron Hamilton of Strabane

George was born between 1634 and 1639,[lower-alpha 1] probably at Strabane Castle. He was the fourth child, and the second son, of Claude Hamilton and his wife Jean Gordon. His father was the 2nd Baron Hamilton of Strabane and a member of the Strabane cadet branch of the Abercorns. The lords of Strabane owned much land around Strabane and Baronscourt in County Tyrone. George's mother was the fourth daughter of George Gordon, 1st Marquess of Huntly in Scotland. His parents were both Catholic. They married in 1632.[1]

George appears at the bottom of the list of siblings below as the youngest:

1. Catherine (died 1670/1), married James Hamilton of Manorhamilton, brother of Gustavus Hamilton, 1st Viscount Boyne;[3][4]
2. Cecilia, married Richard Perkins of Lifford;[5]
3. James (1633 – 1655), became the 3rd Baron Hamilton of Strabane;[6] and
4. George (1636 or 1637 – 1668), the subject of this article.

In 1638 George's father died while he was still an infant. His older brother James succeeded as the 3rd Baron Hamilton of Strabane as a young child. His mother ran the family estate and they continued to live in the Castle of Strabane.

In 1641, when George was about four years old, the Irish Rebellion broke out. The rebel leader Phelim O'Neill captured and burned Strabane Castle and took him, together with his mother and siblings, as prisoners to Kinard, his usual place of residence.[7] Phelim released his prisoners after some days and sent them to Sir George Hamilton, one of George's uncles.[8]

In 1649, when George was about 12, during the Irish Confederate Wars, Strabane Castle was attacked again, this time by Robert Monro and his Covenanter army. The castle was relieved by Phelim O'Neill, its previous attacker.[9] Phelim married George's mother in November.[10] Phelim became his stepfather and his half-brother Gordon O'Neill was born in due course.

In 1649 Oliver Cromwell invaded Ireland with the Parliamentarian forces. In July 1650, in the Siege of Charlemont, his brother and his stepfather defended Charlemont Fort with remnants of the Confederate Ulster army against a Parliamentarian army under Charles Coote. Having resisted several attacks, the fort finally surrendered to Coote on terms in August and the garrison was allowed to march away. In July 1650, the family's lands were confiscated by the Parliamentarians. In 1652 Phelim O'Neill was captured. He was tried and convicted for treason in October and executed.[11]

In June 1655 his brother drowned in the River Mourne at Ballyfathen, aged about 22.[12][13] His brother had never married and George succeeded him as the 4th Baron Hamilton of Strabane. He is called Lord Strabane rather than Lord Hamilton to avoid the confusion with the Lords Hamilton of the senior, Scottish, branch of the family.

After the Restoration (1660), Lord Strabane, as he was now, obtained the return of most of the family lands, which had been confiscated in 1650 by the Parliamentarians. Although his brother James had fought with Phelim O'Neill's Confederates rather than with the royalists, his brother had fought against the Parliamentarians, not against the royalists and, being born about 1633, was too young to have been involved in the atrocities of 1641.

George married Elizabeth Fagan, a rich heiress, the only child of Christopher Fagan of Feltrim, County Dublin, and of Anne, daughter of Sir Nicholas White of Leixlip Castle.[14][15] Christopher Fagan had lost his estates during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland but got them back as an "innocent papist" after the Act of Settlement 1662.[16] They had at least four children:

1. Claud (1659–1691), became the 4th Earl of Abercorn;[17]
2. Anne (died 1680), married John Browne of the Neale;[18]
3. Charles (died 1701), became the 5th Earl of Abercorn; and
4. Mary (born 1668 or 1669), born after her father's death and would marry as his second wife Garrett Dillon, Recorder of Dublin.[19]

He died on 14 April 1668 at Kenure House, Rush, Dublin, and was buried at nearby St. Mechlin's Church.[20][21] He was succeeded by his eldest son Claud as 5th Baron Hamilton of Strabane, who would in about 1680 become the 4th Earl of Abercorn.

• Brewer, James Norris (1829), A History of Leinster: Embracing the beauties of Dublin, Wicklow, Wexford, Kilkenny &c. &c., London: J. S. Taylor & Co.
• Burke, Bernard (1869), A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire (31st ed.), London: Harrison
• Burke, Bernard (1949), A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire (99th ed.), London: Burke's Peerage Ltd.
• Cokayne, George Edward (1896), The complete peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct, or dormant, 7 (1st ed.), London: George Bell and Sons – S to T (for Hamilton of Strabane)
• Cokayne, George E. (1910), Gibbs, Vicary (ed.), The complete peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct, or dormant, 1, London: St. Catherine Press – Ab-Adam to Basing (for Abercorn)
• Graham, Rev. John (1841), Ireland Preserved; or The Siege of Londonderry and The Battle of Aughrim with Lyrical Poetry and Biographical Notes, Dublin: Hardy & Walker, p. 277
• Lodge, John (1789), The Peerage of Ireland, 5, Dublin: James Moore - Viscounts
• Paul, Sir James Balfour (1904), The Scots Peerage, Founded on Wood's Edition of Sir Robert Douglas's Peerage of Scotland, 1, Edinburgh: David Douglas – Abercorn to Balmerino
• Seaward, Paul (2004), "Charles II", in Matthew, Henry Colin Gray.; Harrison, Brian (eds.), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 11, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 122–145, ISBN 0-19-861361-X (for Restoration)
• Webb, Alfred (1878), "O'Neill, Sir Felim", Compendium of Irish Biography, Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son, pp. 416–418

• Genealogy of George Hamilton, 4th Lord Hamilton on The Peerage website