Vincent Gookin (writer)

Sir Vincent Gookin (c. 1594 – 5 February 1638) was an English born landowner in Ireland. He was an anti-Irish writer who created a disturbance in Munster by publishing a letter to Lord Deputy Wentworth attacking the Irish nation in 1634. He fled to England when a warrant for his arrest was issued. His case raised the question of the judicial powers of the Irish parliament.

Gookin was the youngest son of John Gookin, esq., of Ripple Court in Kent, and Catherine, daughter of William Dene (or Denne), esq., of Bursted in the same county, and the brother of Daniel Gookin. He was born, probably in 1584, but perhaps as late as 1590. Little is known of his early years: he spent some time on the Continent, probably involved in the pilchard industry.

He settled in Ireland about 1606 as tenant in fee-simple, under Henry Beecher (and subsequently under Sir Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork, who purchased Beecher's grant), of the manor of Castle Mahon in the barony of Kinalmeaky, County Cork, part of the seignory granted by letters patent (30 September 1588) to Phane Beecher and Hugh Worth as ‘under-takers’ for the plantation of Munster.

Sir Vincent (when and for what reason he was knighted is not known) was a man of considerable enterprise, and was soon remarked as one of the wealthiest men in the south of Ireland, possessing property in England and Ireland, and deriving a large income from his fishery at Courtmacsherry, and from his wool flocks. In spite of his position he bitterly hated Irishmen, and in 1634 he created considerable disturbance in Munster by publishing and circulating, under the form of a letter addressed to the lord deputy, what was described by Thomas Wentworth, the Lord Deputy, as a most bitter invective against the whole nation, natives, old English, new English, Papist, Protestant, Captains, Soldiers, and all, which … did so incense, I may say enrage, all sorts of people against him, as it was evident they would have hanged him if they could. The matter was taken up by parliament, and so "wondrous foul and scandalous" was the libel, that Wentworth clearly perceived that, unless prompt measures were taken by the crown to punish the offender, the question of the judicature of parliament —"wherein", he added naively, "I disbelieve His Majesty was not so fully resolved in the convenience and fitness thereof by any effect it hath produced, since it was restored to the Houses of Parliament in England"—would be raised in a most obnoxious fashion.

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