Giles Hovenden

Giles Hovenden or Hovendon was an Anglo-Irish figure of the sixteenth century. He was head of the Hovenden family which he established as a landowning family in Ireland with estates in Queen's County. He also developed business contacts with leading Irish figures such as Conn O'Neill. He exercised guardianship over Hugh O'Neill, the second son of the assassinated of Matthew O'Neill, 1st Baron Dungannon. Hugh eventually rose to become the Earl of Tyrone, the most powerful Gaelic lord in Ireland, best remembered for leading Tyrone's Rebellion and the later Flight of the Earls. Tyrone remained close to the Hovendens, employing three of Giles' sons as officers in the forces that the Crown allowed him to maintain.

As a recent settler from England, Hovenden counted as being "New English" in contrast to the two traditional groups of inhabitants the Gaelic Irish and the Old English. However, unlike the majority of his fellow incomers Hovenden was a Roman Catholic rather than a Protestant. This tradition carried on through the family, and led to some of his descendants fighting for the Catholic Irish Confederates and James II's Irish Army during the seventeenth century.