Viscount Clermont

In 1777 he was further honoured when he was made Earl of Clermont, in the County of Louth, in the Peerage of Ireland, with normal remainder to heirs male.

Sir Nathaniel Wraxall wrote on this subject as follows in his memoirs:[4] The very title of "Clermont" which he assumed when raised to the peerage — and which might be esteemed fictitious, as no such place I believe existed in Ireland — assimilated him to the blood royal of France; a younger branch of the illustrious line of Condé having been denominated "Comtes de Clermont".

The name, common among French towns, probably struck him as well-sounding, and he changed the appellation of one of his seats in Ireland to it, calling Reynoldstown "Clermont Park" and afterwards took his title from his residence.

[6] Clermont Park is an estate within County Louth and is near to Lurgangreen, Mooretown and Blackrock and Dromiskin.

[7][8] The mansion house was burned down by armed men in February 1923[9] when owned by Col. Charles Davis Guinness, county representative of the Irish Unionist Alliance,[10] in one of the many politically motivated arson attacks at that period.

Arms of Fortescue: Azure, a bend engrailed argent, plain cotised or
William Fortescue (1722–1806), 1st Baron Clermont (1770, normal remainder); 1st Baron Clermont (1776, special remainder); 1st Viscount Clermont (1776, special remainder); 1st Earl of Clermont (1777, normal remainder), all in the Peerage of Ireland . Mezzotint engraving of portrait by Thomas Hudson (1701–1779). [ 1 ] Normal remainder titles extinct 1806, special remainder titles extinct 1829.