Honour of Annaly - Feudal Principality & Seignory Est. 1172

Character of the interest

The Honour and Seignory of Annaly (Teffia), historically associated with the region later corresponding broadly to County Longford, is properly described in modern Irish law as an incorporeal hereditament, that is, a heritable real right of an intangible nature rather than an estate in the corporeal soil. As such, it consists in a complex of dignitary and seignorial rights (including styles of honour, ceremonial jurisdiction and historic franchises) held in gross and not as a present estate in land.​

As an incorporeal hereditament, the interest falls within the category of real property capable of ownership, inheritance and conveyance, analogous in legal structure (though not in content) to other incorporeal rights such as easements, profits or rights of way, but distinguished by its essentially dignitary and jurisdictional character. It is therefore dealt with in conveyancing as an item of intangible realty, rather than as a mere personal honour or status.​

Historical derivation and conveyance

The seignorial complex associated with Annaly–Longford arose out of medieval grants within the Anglo‑Norman lordship, superimposed upon earlier Gaelic princely structures in the midlands, with later confirmations and re‑grants under the Crown embedding it within the Anglo‑Irish feudal and statutory framework. By the early modern period, these rights had become appurtenant to the Nugent family as Barons Delvin and later Earls of Westmeath, in whom the seignory and associated honours of Longford and Annaly were consolidated.​

In the late twentieth and early twenty‑first centuries, the surviving feudal and dignitary components were the subject of inter vivos conveyances in fee simple, whereby the Earl of Westmeath conveyed his remaining rights of honour, barony and seignory of Longford (including the Annaly complex) to Dr George Mentz, Seigneur of Blondel, with language purporting to pass “all rights, privileges and perquisites” of the barony and seignory. These instruments treat the interest expressly as heritable incorporeal property capable of absolute ownership and transfer, rather than as a mere personal or familial distinction.​

Position within Irish incorporeal hereditaments

Irish land registration rules recognise that incorporeal hereditaments “held in gross” (that is, not merely appurtenant to a particular dominant tenement) may be the subject of registration with absolute or possessory title, where the derivation of both grantor’s and grantee’s estates is satisfactorily established. In that framework, a feudal honour or seignory such as Annaly–Longford is treated as a discrete registrable real right, separate from any present freehold in land but transmissible and enforceable as property.​

Manorial and feudal dignities in the British and Irish context are generally classified in practice as incorporeal hereditaments: they are incapable of physical possession, but they are recognised as inheritable property rights, comparable in legal category (though not in function) to manorial lordships, prescriptive baronies, coats of arms and hereditary offices. While their historic incidenta might have included markets, fairs and courts, in contemporary law their surviving content is overwhelmingly ceremonial and dignitary, and they do not confer any public or governmental authority.​

Nature and limits of the principality style

The designation of Annaly as a “principality” reflects its historic status as a territorial and princely jurisdiction under both Gaelic and feudal arrangements, but in modern Irish law this style is understood as part of the dignity attaching to the incorporeal hereditament rather than as a claim to sovereignty. The present interest is thus a private law right: it may carry titles, precedence and ceremonial privileges, and may be bought, sold or inherited as property, but it does not displace the constitutional authority of the State or create any parallel system of public governance.​

Valuation of such interests for private transactions focuses on their historic provenance, documentary continuity, recognition within specialist markets for feudal and manorial dignities, and any surviving ceremonial or associative privileges, rather than on yield from land or public jurisdiction. Within Irish incorporeal property, Annaly–Longford therefore exemplifies the survival of a medieval feudal complex as a modern, transferable, incorporeal hereditament in real property law.​

The Earl of Westmeath’s claimed succession rests on a combination of historical Crown grants, territorial aggregation under the Nugents, and modern treatment of such dignities as inheritable incorporeal property rather than mere courtesy styles.​

Historical Crown grants and aggregation

• The medieval kingdom/lordship of Meath was granted by the English Crown to Hugh de Lacy, whose barons (including the Nugents as Barons of Delvin) held major portions of the old territories of Meath and its western marches.​

• Over time, royal grants and confirmations to the Nugents brought together baronial and seignorial interests in Delvin (in Meath/Westmeath) and in Annaly/Teffia (broadly Longford), so that the Baron Delvin, later Earl of Westmeath, was portrayed as the principal feudal holder in this block of territory.​

From Gaelic principalities to Nugent dignities

• The areas you list—Teffia, Meath, Caibre (often linked with Cairbre/Gailenga/Calry-type territories) and Annaly—originated as Gaelic princely units (rígdachtaí / lordships) later overlaid by feudal grants under the Crown.​

• In the narrative advanced on Nugent‑linked sites and similar material, the Nugent barony/earldom is presented as the legal successor (via surrender-and-regrant, confiscation and regrant, etc.) to the earlier Gaelic princely jurisdictions in those regions, so that the feudal Nugent dignity is cast as inheriting the “principality” status of Teffia/Annaly and related districts.​

Incorporeal hereditament theory and princely succession

• Under the modern doctrine that hereditary titles and feudal baronies are incorporeal hereditaments, the surviving content of the Nugent barony/earldom (Delvin, Westmeath, Longford/Annaly) is treated as a complex of incorporeal rights—titles of honour, seignories and associated dignities—transmissible by inheritance and, in practice, by conveyance.​

• On that view, if the baronial/earldom line can show a chain of Crown grants and family succession tied to the old territories of Teffia/Meath/Caibre/Annaly, it can claim to be the juridical successor to the princely dignities of those units in the sense of holding the modern incorporeal hereditament that embodies them.​

Why the Earl of Westmeath in particular

• The Nugents as Barons Delvin and Earls of Westmeath are documented as holding Delvin within the Lordship of Meath and later as being associated with the seignories and honours of Longford/Annaly, which is described as corresponding to the former principality of Teffia.​

• Hence, in Nugent‑centric legal-historical argument, the current or last Earl of Westmeath stands as the terminal holder of the aggregated baronial and princely incorporeal hereditament—“fons honorum” for Annaly/Teffia and related districts—until any lawful alienation (such as the 1996/2018 deeds) passes that complex of rights to a successor in title.​

In short, the claim is that the Earl of Westmeath is successor not to territorial sovereignty but to a bundle of feudal and princely dignities, recognised in modern private law as incorporeal hereditaments derived from medieval Crown and Gaelic structures.​