James de Barry, 4th Viscount Buttevant

James was born in 1520, probably at Rathbarry in Barryroe barony, eldest son of Richard de Barry and Isabel FitzGerald.

His father was a son of James de Barry, Lord of Ibane, and his wife Elane MacCarthy of Muskerry.

Before 1550 Barry married Ellen (also called Ilene), an illegitimate daughter of Cormac na Haoine MacCarthy Reagh, 13th Prince of Carbery.

[14][15] In 1570 Buttevant received a lease, to hold for twenty-one years, of "the site of the house of the friars at Killnamullagh, alias Buttevante, County Cork, with its appurtenances at an annual rent of 16 shillings and 8 pence".

[17][18] In the subsequent confiscations of his estates, the Buttevant Franciscan Friary, together with its glebe, passed into the hands of the poet, Edmund Spenser.