The family of Lally (also O'Lally or O'Mullally) were an Irish family originally from Tuam, County Galway, who distinguished themselves in the service of the Jacobite pretenders and in the French service.
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Gerard Lally was created a Baronet in the Baronetage of Ireland by the titular King James III and VIII on 7 July 1707. He was succeeded by his son, Thomas Arthur, who took part in the Forty-Five and on his return to France in 1746 was created Earl of Moenmoyne, Viscount of Ballymole and Baron of Tollendally, in the Peerage of Ireland, by the Stuart claimant.
These titles were, of course, never recognised by the government in Great Britain (see Jacobite peerage). In about 1755, he was also created Comte de Lally and Baron de Tollendal by King Louis XV of France, although this may have been merely a recognition of his Jacobite title. He was executed in 1766, but formally pardoned posthumously in 1778. A legend about his execution circulated in the following years, resurrected by A.C.H. Smith in his 2000 novel The Dangerous Memoir of Citizen Sade, in which he has the Marquis de Sade remembering that before the introduction of the guillotine we were burned, or impaled, or broken, when it was our right as noblemen to demand the axe, until they botched Lally-Tollendal and he danced around for half a minute trying to hold his head on.
His only son, Trophime Gérard, was an émigré during the French Revolution, but after the Bourbon Restoration was created (March 21, 1815) he became Marquis de Lally-Tollendal and a Peer of France. He died on the March 11, 1830, by which all the honours became extinct.