Carey or Cary Dillon, 5th Earl of Roscommon, PC (Ire) (1627–1689) was an Irish nobleman and professional soldier of the seventeenth century. He held several court offices under King Charles II and his successor King James II. After the Glorious Revolution he joined the Williamite opposition to James and was in consequence attainted as a traitor by James II's Irish Parliament in 1689. In that year he fought at the Siege of Carrickfergus shortly before his death in November of that year.
In his younger days, he was a friend of Samuel Pepys, who in his Diary followed with interest Dillon's abortive courtship of their mutual friend, the noted beauty Frances Butler. The couple did not marry; Carey later married Katherine Werden.
Birth and origins
Carey was born in 1627, a younger son of Robert Dillon by his third wife Anne Strode. At the time of his birth, his father was the heir apparent of James Dillon, 1st Earl of Roscommon and held the courtesy title of Baron Dillon of Kilkenny-West. His father would succeed as 2nd Earl in 1641. Some time before that date his father had conformed to the established religion. His father's family owned substantial lands in Meath, Westmeath, Longford and Roscommon. The Dillons were Old English and descended from Sir Henry Dillon who came to Ireland with Prince John in 1185.
Carey's mother was English and a Protestant, a daughter of Sir William Strode in England and widow of Henry Folliott, 1st Baron Folliott in Ireland.
Carey seems to have been the only child of his father's third marriage, but he had half-siblings from his father's earlier marriages and his mother's earlier marriage. His father's first marriage had been with Margaret Barry, daughter of David FitzDavid de Barry, grand-daughter of David de Barry, 5th Viscount Buttevant and sister of David Barry, 1st Earl of Barrymore. His father's second marriage had been with Dorothy Hastings, fourth daughter of George Hastings, 4th Earl of Huntingdon and widow of Sir James Steuart. These four half-siblings are listed in his father's article.
His mother's first marriage had been with Henry Folliott, 1st Baron Folliott. Carey's half-siblings from that side are listed in the article about his mother's first husband.
Carey Dillon was a Protestant. His half-brother James, the 3rd Earl, was converted to the established religion by Archbishop Ussher.
Early life
Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford
In 1630; while Carey was a boy, his grandfather, his father and his eldest half-brother were staunch supporters of Thomas Wentworth, later Earl of Strafford, who was appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1632. About 1635 Carey's half-brother James, later the 3rd Earl, married Strafford's sister Elizabeth. Their eldest son, the future 4th Earl of Roscommon, was named "Wentworth". Strafford, however, also had powerful enemies and was impeached by the English Parliament in November 1640 and after this failed, a bill of attainder was brought against him, which was passed in May 1641 and signed by the king on 10 May. Strafford was executed on 12 May 1641 on Tower Hill.
Carey's grandfather James died in March 1641 and was succeeded by his eldest son, Robert, Carey's father, as the 2nd Earl of Roscommon.
Irish War
The Irish Rebellion of 1641 broke out on 23 October 1641. The 2nd Earl of Roscommon died on 27 August 1642 in Dublin. and was succeeded by his eldest son James Dillon, 3rd Earl of Roscommon, Carey's halfbrother.
During the English Civil War, both Dillon brothers were staunch Royalists: James, who died in 1649, was posthumously listed in Cromwell's Act for the Settlement of Ireland 1652 as one of the leaders of the Royalist cause in Ireland who were excluded from pardon, and thus liable to forfeiture of their estates.
As a younger son with his livelihood to earn, in the war-torn Ireland of the 1640s and 1650s, a military career was an obvious choice for him: he was made a captain by the age of seventeen.