Osborn Wyddel

Osborn Wyddel the Irishman (fl. 1280), was founder of the houses of Cors y gedol, Wynne of Ynys maengwyn, Wynne of Maes y neuadd, and other important families in Merionethshire.

Life

He came over from Ireland and settled in the neighbourhood of Llanaber, Barmouth, in the latter part of the thirteenth century. Tradition, the only authority for his career, asserts that he was a Geraldine, of the Desmond branch of that family. On this assumption Sir William Betham, Ulster king of arms, thought he was in all probability a son of John FitzThomas, the first Geraldine lord of Decies and Desmond (d. 1261).

The circumstances of his settlement in Ardudwy (North-west Merionethshire) are unknown, though it may be conjectured that he was driven to seek a home in Wales by the temporary overthrow of the Geraldine influence in Desmond which followed the Battle of Callan (1261). A spot called Berllys (or Byrllysg), a little to the north of Cors y gedol, is pointed out as the site of Osborn's first residence.

He afterwards married, it is said, the heiress of Cors y gedol, and moved thither. He was assessed in the parish of Llanaber for the fifteenth levied in 1293 or 1294 upon holders of land in Wales.