Sir Thomas Crooke, 1st Baronet
Sir Thomas Crooke, 1st Baronet, of Baltimore (1574–1630) was an English-born politician, lawyer and landowner in seventeenth-century Ireland. He is chiefly remembered as the founder of the town of Baltimore, County Cork, which he developed into a flourishing port, but which was largely destroyed shortly after his death in the Sack of Baltimore 1631. He sat in the Irish House of Commons as member for Baltimore in the Parliament of 1613–1615. He was the first of the Crooke baronets of Baltimore, and ancestor of the Crooke family of Crookstown House.
Baltimore, his foundation, present day
Portrait of James I by Nicholas Hilliard
Baltimore is a village in western County Cork, Ireland. It is the main village in the parish of Rathmore and the Islands, the southernmost parish in Ireland. It is the main ferry port to Sherkin Island, Cape Clear Island and the eastern side of Roaring Water Bay and Carbery's Hundred Isles.
Baltimore in 2005
Baltimore Beacon, also known as Lot's wife