'You have heard a long, starcht, studied speech; I say, a starch, studied peice. Mr Speaker, there has been a greate deale of rhetorique; I say a great deale of rhetorique. But I will prove my charge; I will make it good, Mr Speaker, from the front to the reare, front, flanke, and reare; Mr Speaker, that I will."
So spake Sir H Sankys in the House of Parliament at Westminster in April 1659. The politician's habit of repeating himself hasn't changed.
The charge concerned "brown paper envelopes". Sankys claimed that Dr William Petty - he of the Down Survey - had asked for recompense for favours sought. "And Mr Speaker, there was Captain Sands. Captain Sands came for a reprizall; but, said the Doctor to him, will you give me your house, then? His house in Oxman-towne, Mr Speaker, next to Sir Robert Meredith there. Now if that was not a bribe, 'twas an inducement to a bribe. Soe Captain Sands was glad to give the Dr his house in Oxman-towne... I say, Mr Speaker, this was an inducement to a bribe; but I have fouler things in my papers here that I brought from Dublyn; I say from Dublyn, Mr Speaker."
The Cromwellian officer from whom the Sandes - from whence the place-name Newtown Sandes in Co Kerry - claimed descent, must have been Captain Sandys, noted in Prendergast's The Cromwellian Settlement. Sandys was the original spelling of this surname in England, denoting a dweller on sandy soil or near the shore. In Scotland, the name is territorial in origin, from the lands of Sands in the parish of Tulliallen in Fife. "In 1494, these were owned by Thomas Sands and his mother Isobel Hudson, so he may have been the first to take the name" (More Irish Families: Mac Lysaght). But the Sands were in Ireland before the arrival of the Cromwellian officer.
In 1565, Neville Sands of Dublin was appointed surveyor-general in Ireland. A letter of his from Dublin that year concerned the farm of Ballyknockane, Co Laois, "as possessed by the late Mr Hugh Lippiat, whose wife Susan, Sands had married". In 1588, William Sandes was deputy for clerk of check, while in 1625 another William Sandes was attorney of the Exchequer Court.
Christ Church Deeds notes that Watkin Sands was one of three signatories to a document concerning the rents for Lynkardstown, Co Carlow. Also herein a document about a lease to William Sands of Dublin, esquire, of two messuages near Oxmanstowne green, and another concerning an unauthorized building on five messuages in Dublin by John Sands and his son.
A Census of Ireland c.1659 lists the name of 11 Sands tituladoes, in counties Kildare, Longford, Dublin, and Kerry, but nowhere among the principal Irish names. Lancelot Sands, Esq, was titulado of Kilbonane, Co Kerry, and a Poll-Money Ordnance Commissioner for Dingle for 1660-1661.
Taylor & Skinners Maps of the Roads of Ireland (1778) shows Sandes residences at Crievaghmore, Ballymahon, Co Longford; at Kilcavan, Co Laois; at Tullig, south of Castleisland, Co Kerry; and at Drimnacor, north of Athlone, Co Westmeath. The 1814 Directory notes 15 residences, those spelt Sandys being mainly Roscommon, Longford, Wicklow, while the Sandes were largely in Co Kerry. Owners of Land of One Acre and Upwards (1876) shows 16 Sandes holdings in counties Laois, Wicklow, Down, Roscommon, Cork, Limerick, and in Kerry wherein six holdings. The larger holdings were the 11,172 Co Kerry acres of Maurice F. Sandes, Oakpark, Tralee, and the 7,147 acres of Thomas Sandes, Sallowglin, Tarbert, Co Kerry. In his Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent, Samuel M. Hussey tells that prior to the election of 1851 Mr Sandes supported the Home Rule candidate Mr Roland Blennerhasset.
There was a single holding in Ulster, the 34 acres of John Sandes, Ballynaskeagh. Nowadays, it might not be "politically correct", but Edward MacLysaght in his 1982 edition of More Irish Families wrote: "The name became closely identified with Ulster when the H-Blocks hunger- striker, Bobby Sands, died soon after being elected MP for Fermanagh-South Tyrone."
This name is most numerous in The Phone Book of Northern Ireland where there are 120 Sands entries. South of the Border there are but 32 entries, most numerous in the 04 area, north Leinster, and south Ulster.
And as for urban renewal: Newtown names 180 townlands in Ireland, and with the addition of a surname almost another 120. Newtown Sandes was originally Maigh Mheβin ("the middle plain"), and has been anglicised Moyvane, preferred by many inhabitants. In 1837, this village contained 72 houses and 375 inhabitants.