The title of Earl of Kenmare was created in the Peerage of Ireland in 1801. It became extinct upon the death of the 7th Earl in 1952.
Sir Donough MacCarty, 1st Earl of Clancarty (1594–1665), was an Irish soldier, and politician. He succeeded his father as 2nd Viscount Muskerry in 1641. He rebelled against the government, demanding religious freedom as a Catholic and defending the rights of the Gaelic nobility in the Irish Catholic Confederation. Later, he supported the King against his Parliamentarian enemies during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, a part of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, also known as the British Civil War.
Charles MacCarty, Viscount Muskerry, called Cormac in Irish, commanded a royalist battalion at the Battle of the Dunes during the interregnum. He was heir apparent to Donough MacCarty, 1st Earl of Clancarty but was killed at the age of 31 at the Battle of Lowestoft, a sea-fight against the Dutch, during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, and thus never succeeded to the earldom. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Sir Valentine Browne, of Croft, Lincolnshire, was auditor, treasurer and victualler of Berwick-upon-Tweed. He acquired large estates in Ireland during the Plantation of Munster, in particular the seignory of Molahiffe. He lived at Ross Castle near Killarney, County Kerry. He was MP in three English and one Irish parliaments.
Thomas Dillon, 4th Viscount DillonPC (Ire) (1615–1673) held his title for 42 years that saw Strafford's administration, the Irish Rebellion of 1641, the Irish Confederate Wars and the Cromwellian Conquest of Ireland. He was a royalist and supported Strafford and Ormond. He sided with the Confederates for a while but was a moderate who opposed Rinuccini, the papal nuncio.
Sir James Dillon, 3rd Earl of Roscommon was an Irish magnate and politician. He was born a Catholic but converted at a young age to the Church of Ireland. He supported Strafford during his term as governor of Ireland. In the Confederate Wars and the Cromwellian conquest he was a royalist. He died in 1649, but was nevertheless included as the fifth on the list of people that were excluded from pardon in Cromwell's 1652 Act of Settlement.
Connor O'Brien, 2nd Viscount Clare was the son of Daniel O'Brien, 1st Viscount Clare and Catherine FitzGerald, a daughter of Gerald, 14th Earl of Desmond.
Justin McCarthy, 1st Viscount Mountcashel, PC (Ire), was a Jacobite general in the Williamite War in Ireland and a personal friend of James II. He commanded Irish Army troops during the conflict, enjoying initial success when he seized Bandon in County Cork in 1689. However, he was defeated and captured at the Battle of Newtownbutler later in the same year. He escaped and was accused of having broken parole. After the end of the war, he led an Irish Brigade overseas for service in the French Army. He died in French exile.
Sir Valentine Browne, 1st Viscount Kenmare and 3rd Baronet Browne of Molahiffe (1638–1694), was an Irish Jacobite who fought for James II of England in the Williamite War in Ireland.
Sir William Parsons, 1st Baronet of Bellamont, PC (Ire), was Lord Justice of Ireland from 1640 to 1643. He also served as Surveyor General of Ireland and was an undertaker in several plantations. He was known as a "land-hunter" expropriating land from owners whose titles were deemed defective.
The MacCarthy dynasty of Muskerry is a tacksman branch of the MacCarthy Mor dynasty, the Kings of Desmond.
Callaghan MacCarty, 3rd Earl of Clancarty was the second son of Donough MacCarty, 1st Earl of Clancarty. Callaghan was destined for a Catholic religious career and entered a seminary in France where his family was in exile during Cromwell's rule. When his elder brother died in the Battle of Lowestoft, and the 2nd Earl, his nephew, died in infancy, he unexpectedly left his religious institution, returned to Ireland, and assumed the title. He became a Protestant and married a Protestant wife. Late in life he converted back to Catholicism.
Margaret Magennis, Viscountess Iveagh, also known as Margaret Butler, was the mother of John Butler, the de jure 15th Earl of Ormond. She is remembered by the song A Lament for Kilcash.
Sir Charles MacCarthy, 1st Viscount of Muskerry, also called Cormac Oge, especially in Irish, was from a family of Irish chieftains but acquired a noble title under English law, becoming Viscount Muskerry instead of Lord of Muskerry. He sat in the House of Lords in both Irish parliaments of King Charles I. He opposed Strafford, the king's viceroy in Ireland, and in 1641 contributed to his demise by submitting grievances to the king. Muskerry died during this mission to London and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
David Roche, 7th Viscount Fermoy (1573–1635) was an Irish magnate, soldier, and politician.
Maurice Roche, 8th Viscount Fermoy (1597–1670) was an magnate and soldier in southern Ireland, and a politician of the Irish Catholic Confederation. He joined the rebels in the Irish Rebellion of 1641 in January 1642, early for Munster, by besieging Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork, a Protestant, in Youghal. He fought for the Confederates in the Irish Confederate Wars and sat on three of their Supreme Councils. He fought against the Parliamentarians in the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland and was excluded from pardon at the surrender in 1652. At the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 he recovered his title but not his lands.
Cormac MacDermot MacCarthy, 16th Lord of Muskerry (1552–1616) was an Irish magnate and soldier. He fought at the Siege of Kinsale during Tyrone's Rebellion.
Sir Valentine Browne, 1st Baronet, of Molahiffe, owned a large estate in south-west Ireland and was a lawyer who served as high sheriff of County Kerry.
Redmond Roche was an Irish politician who sat for Cork County in the Parliament of 1640–1649. He was a Protestant during his earlier life but joined the Confederateses in 1642.
Nicholas Preston, 6th Viscount Gormanston (1606–1643) sat in the House of Lords of the Irish Parliament of 1634–1635 and sided with the insurgents after the Irish Rebellion of 1641.