Barrington, Samuel (d. 1693), clockmaker, may have been a son of Francis Barrington, a Cromwellian settler, who died in Limerick in 1683. He was flourishing in Dublin from 1665 to 1674 and had a contract for the maintenance of the Tholsel clock. He moved to Galway and then (1691) to Limerick. He acquired a great reputation and is the best-known seventeenth-century Irish clockmaker. He died on 19 November 1693. A tablet in his memory was erected in St Mary's cathedral, Limerick. He and his wife, Ann, had a son, Benjamin (d. 1733?), who continued the clockmaking trade that Samuel had established in Limerick and was also a watchmaker and copper founder. Samuel and Benjamin, who was mayor of Limerick (1724), belonged to a line of Barringtons eminent in that city. A great-grandson of Benjamin was Sir Joseph Barrington (qv) (1764–1846), 1st baronet, developer of Barrington's Quay. Whether they were connected with the two Isaac Barringtons, father and son, who were watchmakers in Westmoreland Street, Dublin (c.1830), has not been ascertained.
Sources
Burke, Peerage (1912); Brian Loomes, The early clockmakers of Great Britain (1981), 73; Mark Tierney, ‘Sir Matthew Barrington, 1788–1861’, Old Limerick Journal, xxiv (1988), 11; H. J. de Varabeke, ‘The Barringtons of Limerick’, Old Limerick Journal, xxiv (1988), 5–7; William G. Stuart, Watch and clockmakers in Ireland (2000), 7