The 1440s were an especially turbulent period for the Anglo-Irish government of Ireland, marked by bitter feuds and faction fighting, and it was almost impossible for any Irish public official to stand aside from these quarrels.
Welles became drawn into a private war with Thomas Fitzgerald, the turbulent and litigious Prior of the Knights Hospitallers, whose Irish house was at Kilmainham.
[4] Lionel, as Lord Lieutenant, demanded that the Prior be prosecuted and that all the Hospitallers' Irish possessions be seized, but Fitzgerald produced a royal pardon.
Fitzgerald was removed from office in 1447, not on account of his treatment of Welles but because of his bitter feud with the powerful Irish magnate James Butler, 4th Earl of Ormonde.
Catherine, who married Walter Cheevers (or Chevir) of Ballyhealy, County Wexford and Macetown, County Meath, son of William Chevir, judge of the Court of King's Bench (Ireland), and issue including: His wife Anne was dead by 1476: she was described as being the former wife of John Darcy of Platten, possibly the father of John IV who married her granddaughter.