Walter Spring the Unfortunate (1620 – c.1678) was an Anglo-Irish Roman Catholic landowner involved in the Irish Confederate Wars.
His control of the strategic fortress at Castlemaine and the lands surrounding Milltown made him an important figure in Kerry.
During the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, Spring’s fortified manor house at Killagha Abbey was attacked by soldiers of the New Model Army armed with canon, leading to its destruction.
Cromwell seized Spring’s extensive estates and granted Killagha to one of his supporters, Major John Godfrey.
However, he was thought to still pose a significant threat by The Protectorate government and was transplanted to County Clare, where he had little influence, under the Act for the Settlement of Ireland 1652.