Sir Thomas Prendergast, 1st Baronet

Brigadier-General Sir Thomas Prendergast, 1st Baronet ( 1660 – 11 September 1709) was an Irish politician and soldier.

Early life He was the son of Thomas Prendergast (d. 1725) of Croane, County Limerick, a small Catholic landowner, and Eleanor Condon, daughter of Daniel Condon. Little is known of his early life. and rose to the rank of Brigadier-General, seeing action at the Battle of Oudenarde and finally being killed at the Battle of Malplaquet on 11 September 1709 whilst leading his regiment against the French troops at Blaregnies.

Fighting against him at both of the latter battles was William O'Shaughnessy of the O'Shaughnessy family whose ancestral lands of the Gort Estate in County Galway were forfeited and regranted to Thomas Prendergast, leading to decades of litigation.

Personal life On 10 August 1697 he married Penelope Cadogan (d. 1746), sister of William Cadogan, 1st Earl Cadogan, and daughter of Henry Cadogan and Bridget Waller. Together, they were the parents of a son and three daughters:

Sir Thomas Prendergast, 2nd Baronet (1702–1760), who married Anne Williams, daughter of Sir Griffith Williams, 6th Baronet, in 1739. and, secondly, Charles Smyth, parents of John Prendergast-Smyth, 1st Viscount Gort. Anne Prendergast, who married Samuel Hobson, Esq. of Muckridge House, Youghal. His widow was greatly troubled in her later years by protracted lawsuits against the Butler family of Ballyline over the right to certain lands in County Galway, and several other lawsuits, including one involving her own brother. Jonathan Swift, a bitter personal enemy of the younger Thomas, extended his hatred to the elder: "him who shamed our isle, traitor, assassin and informer vile". This appears to be a garbled reference to the Assassination Plot.