Plassey, County Clare

In 1761, Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive gave orders for his estate in County Clare, centred on the townland of Ballykilty, to be renamed Plassey `the name of the place (now Palashi) where we gained our great victory in India to which I owe all my good fortune'. The victory was the Battle of Plassey in 1757. Shortly afterwards, he was ennobled as Lord Clive of Plassey in the County of Clare in the Irish peerage.

A number of authors have assumed a direct link between Robert Clive and Plassey House, now the administrative centre of the University of Limerick, which is located on the opposite County Limerick bank of the River Shannon, and connected by a bridge to County Clare. More recently, John Logan of the University of Limerick has asserted that there is `no historical basis for ascribing either occupancy or ownership of Plassey House or its adjacent lands to Robert Clive.' It has been suggested that Plassey House was renamed in the late eighteenth century by Thomas Maunsell, who lived there, to commemorate his own role or that of a family member in the Battle of Plassey.