The Crooke Baronetcy of

Baltimore, County Cork Baltimore (; , translated as "fort of the jewels") is a village in western County Cork, Ireland. It is the main village in the parish of Rathmore and the Islands, the southernmost parish in Ireland. It is the main ferry port to Sherkin Island, ...

was a title in the

Baronetage of Ireland Baronets are hereditary titles awarded by the Crown. The current baronetage of the United Kingdom has replaced the earlier, existing baronetages of England, Nova Scotia, Ireland and Great Britain. To be recognised as a baronet, it is necessary ...

. It was created for

Sir Thomas Crooke, 1st Baronet Sir Thomas Crooke, 1st Baronet, of Baltimore (1574–1630) was an English-born politician, lawyer and landowner in seventeenth-century Ireland. He is chiefly remembered as the founder of the town of Baltimore, County Cork, which he developed into ...

in 1624. The Crooke family came originally from Cransley in

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire ( ; abbreviated Northants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Leicestershire, Rutland and Lincolnshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshi ...

; Thomas Crooke, the father of the first baronet, was a well-known preacher of strongly

Calvinist Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental Reformed Protestantism, Continenta ...

views. Sir Thomas Crooke was granted substantial lands in

County Cork County Cork () is the largest and the southernmost Counties of Ireland, county of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, named after the city of Cork (city), Cork, the state's second-largest city. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster ...

in 1607. He founded the town of Baltimore, which was largely destroyed in the

Sack of Baltimore The sack of Baltimore took place on 20 June 1631, when the village of Baltimore in West Cork, Ireland, was attacked by pirates from the Barbary Coast of North Africa – the raiders included Dutchmen, Algerians, and Ottoman Turks. The attack w ...

in 1631, and he also gave his name to the village of

Crookhaven Crookhaven () is a village in County Cork, Ireland, on the most southwestern tip of the island of Ireland. With an out-of-season population of about sixty, it swells in the summer season to about four hundred, when the occupants of the seasonal ...

. He sat in the

Irish House of Commons The Irish House of Commons was the lower house of the Parliament of Ireland that existed from 1297 until the end of 1800. The upper house was the Irish House of Lords, House of Lords. The membership of the House of Commons was directly elected, ...

as MP for

Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...

in the Irish Parliament of 1613-15. Although he claimed to have been moved principally by religious fervour in founding Baltimore, he was often accused of having founded the town to profit by the spoils of

piracy Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and valuable goods, or taking hostages. Those who conduct acts of piracy are call ...

. Baltimore was described as a nest of pirates, which drew most of its wealth from the pirate trade. A Privy Council investigation in 1608 cleared him of any wrongdoing, but his innocence or guilt is still a matter of debate. The title became dormant in 1666, when the son of the 2nd Baronet, Thomas, obtained a patent on 12 July 1666 for certain lands, and on marrying the sister of the forfeiting proprietor of these lands (Ellen MacDermot MacCarthy, the daughter of Tiege MacDermot

MacCarthy McCarthy (also spelled MacCarthy or McCarty) may refer to: * MacCarthy dynasty, a Gaelic Irish clan * McCarthy, Alaska, United States * McCarty, Missouri, United States * McCarthy Road, a road in Alaska * McCarthy (band), an indie pop band * Châte ...

), he dropped the title. The Crookes of Crookstown House (near Crookstown, County Cork) were descended from Sir Thomas.

Crooke Baronets of Baltimore 1624-1666

(1574-1630)Burke, Bernard, Sir. Burke's genealogical and heraldic history of the landed gentry of Ireland, 4th ed.. London, U.K.: Burkes Peerage Ltd, 1958. (page 196-197 Crooke). *Sir Samuel Crooke, 2nd Baronet (d.1635) *Sir Thomas Crooke, 3rd Baronet, who stopped using the title in 1666. *Thomas Crooke, presumed 4th Baronet (d. 1733) *William Crooke, presumed 5th Baronet (d. 1755) *Thomas Crooke, presumed 6th Baronet *William Crooke, presumed 7th Baronet (d. 1799) *William Crooke, presumed 8th Baronet *Thomas Crooke, presumed 9th Baronet (1817-1876) *Richard Crooke, presumed 10th Baronet (1870-1844) *John Crooke, presumed 11th Baronet (1920-?) *Roland Crooke, presumed 12th Baronet (1951-)

References

{{Reflist *Burke, John ''Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies of England, Scotland and Ireland'' *Usher, Brett "Sir Thomas Crooke" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' *Ekin, Des ''The Stolen Village-Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates'' O'Brien Press Dublin 2008 *Hanna, Mark G. "Pirate Nests and the rise of the British Empire" University of North Carolina Press 2015
Crooke Genealogy
Dormant baronetcies People from North Northamptonshire Irish people of English descent 1624 establishments in Ireland People from Baltimore, County Cork