Burgage, Leighlinbridge, Co Carlow
Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses.[originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978; Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.]
p. 50. “(Vigors/IFR) A plain two storey 3 bay C18 house. Tripartite doorway with blocking.”
Record of Protected Structures:
Burgage House, Leighlinbridge. Townland: Burgage.
A mid-18th century, three-bay, two-storey house over a basement with rough-cast, battered walls, a round-headed, architraved doorcase with a timber fanlight, sidelights and original, raised and fielded panel door, windows with six panes in each sash and a hipped and sprocketed roof with natural slates and centrally placed stacks. A wing was added at the rear about 1800 making the house an L plan and adding two extra bays including a full-height bow which has wide windows with eight panes in each sash.
Interest: regional, architectural, interior, artistic.
Jimmy O’Toole, The Carlow Gentry: What will the neighbours say! Published by Jimmy O’Toole, Carlow, Ireland, 1993. Printed by Leinster Leader Ltd, Naas, Kildare.
Chapter: Vigors of Burgage
p. 187. “Born in April 1769, Arthur Wellesley enlisted as an Ensign in the British army when he was eighteen. He was elected a member of parliament for Trim in his native County Meath when he was 21, and by 1802 he was a Major-General on the brink of a period in his army career that would make him one of the world’s most famous military men. Nothing in that background or career to suggest why the man who would be remembered in history as the Duke of Wellington should need or bother with a home in Carlow town. The dark secret, was the birth of an illegitimate daughter to his mistress Jane Barnwall, in 1787. Historians still argue about Arthur’s own place of birth, with two schools of thought differing between Mornington House in Merrion Street, Dublin, and the family seat in Meath. Apparently, in later years, the Duke was not very proud of being born Irish, a memory perpetuated by his famous and much quoted phrase – “Had I been born in a stable, it would not have made me a horse,” and yet he was also quoted as saying he was inordinately proud of his Irish house, Erindale, in Carlow. In 1830, it was the home of Thomas Tench Vigors, and was later purchased by the Alexanders of Milford.
“During the early 1790s, Arthur Wellesley oversaw the dispersal of the family estates in Kildare and Meath on behalf of his elder brother Richard, 2nd Earl of Mornington, who, after the sale of Mornington House for £8,000 in 1791, had decided to completely distance himself from Ireland. The effect of the sale was to leave Arthur without a base in Ireland. In the many volumes written about him, no mention has ever been made about an illegitimate child. Richard, the father of a number if illegitimate children was more forthcoming about unmarried parenthood. Elizabeth Pakenham, in her book – Wellington, The years of the Sword – recalled that among the many financial matters dealt with by Arthur for his brother was “Lord Mornington’s nameless friend and her child. Arthur saw them when pay day approached in May, and wrote to (the agent) John Page’s son – [p. 188] ‘I have determined that I will not send the child to school until I return to town, which will be in about a month. Thank you for the money.’ Many years later, Richard is referred to having “appointed a young man named Richard Johnson, one of his illegitimate sons by an early affair, to be his private secretary when he became Lord Lieutenant (of Ireland) in 1821.”
The genealogical work relating to the affair between Arthur Wellesley and Jane Barnwall, a member of a Catholic aristocratic family with a seat in Trimleston, Co Meath, was carried out in the 1950s by Sister Ligouri Headen, a member of the Loreto Order, who died in Dublin in 1970 aged 93. In a written account of her family tree, she named the Honourable Miss Jane Barnwell (Barony of Trimleston, Co Meath) as her great grandmother, but pointedly the identity of her great grandfather is not mentioned. Six months before she died, however, the nun confirmed the affair between Arthur and Jane to her nephew William P. Headen, and the birth of a daughter Jane in 1787 – Sister Ligouri’s grandmother. It seems she was understandably reluctant to commit such a source of scandal and embarrassment to paper.”
When Jane Barnwall became pregnant – both were still teenagers – an arranged marriage was imperative, and a marriage partner was found in a member of the Hanlon family of Carlow, wealthy Catholic tenant farmers in the county. No record of the marriage has been found because of gaps in local parish registers for the period. The child was christened Jane Hanlon, and somewhat unusually for the time, she was educated at Winchester Convent, an elite Catholic boarding school in England.” [p. 189] Family sources suggest that Arthur Wellesley funded her education, and maintained a home in Carlow as a discreet meeting place for himself and his daughter.”
“Jane Hanlon married William O’Callaghan, a man eighteen years her senior, who was born the same year as her father. The O’Callaghans were wealthy general merchants in Tullow, and after living for a while in the town, they moved to Barn Cottage, on the Carlow Road. Their first child, William, was born on 24th July 1814, and his sponsors at baptism were Edward Hanlon and Rosanna O’Callaghan. A daughter, Jane, married Micheal Headon, whose son, William P. Headon, was Sister Ligoui’s father. Another of William and Jane’s daughters joined the Bridgine Order in Tullow, where she died in 1903. Jane O’Callaghan (nee Hanlon) died 1867, and she was interred in Grange Cemetery, where her late husband, aged 96, was buried two years earlier.
p. 190. “It is intriguing to consider if the shadow of his daughter stalked Wellington’s thoughts when he first propounded plans for Catholic Emancipation in 1825, and it was under his premiership in 1829 that the measure finally got British government approval, amid considerable opposition from King George IV and Tory MPs.
Arthur Wellesley was no doubt grateful to the many thousands of Irish officers and soldiers who contributed to eventual victory in the Peninsular War, and among them was Captain Nicholas Aylward Vigors, of the Foot Guards, who was severely wounded at the battle of Barossa on March 5th 1811.”
“Careers in the army, the colonial civil service, and the church predominated through the successive careers of the Vigors, from the arrival of the first of the family, Rev Louis Vigors, who settled in Cork, from Holloden, near Bridgerule in North Devon, about 1614. His grandson, Urban, was the first to settle in Co Carlow after his marriage to Bridget Tench, daughter of Allen Tench, of Staplestown, Co Carlow, who was granted large estates in Co Carlow and Wexford during the reign of Charles II (1661-1685). Urban Vigors’ estate in Old Leighlin was confiscated during the four year reign of James II, but his lands were restored during the reign of William III (1689-1702). His brother, Bartholomew Vigors, was appointed Bishop of Ferns and Leighlin in March 1691, and in his will,he left a farm and £300 to build a manse house in Leighlin – a wish not fulfilled because the house was built in Ferns. Though marriage, various generations of the family added surnames to their own – Tench, of Staplestown; Cliffe, of New Ross; Mercer, of Killinane, Wells and Aylward, of Shankill, Co Kilkenny. At the height of their power as landlords, the Vigors owned just over 4,200 acres of land in Old Leighlin and Wells parishes, with estates in Co Wexford and Tipperary. From their original house in Old Leighlin, they built and acquired houses at Burgage, Holloden (the former home of the Mulhallen family), Kilinane (Mercer’s), Erindale and Belmont, both near Carlow town.
p. 192. “After being injured in the Peninsular War, Nicholas Aylward Vigors returned to London where he pursued a scientific career and became the first secretary of the London Zoological Society. He remained in London until the death of his father in 1828, when he inherited the Carlow estate. With a renewed interest at home, Vigors entered politics, broke ranks with the majority of his fellow landlords represented by the Tories, and his success for the Liberals, against Francis Bruen in the Carlow Borough election of 1832, makred the beginning of one of the bitterest decades in parliamentary politics in Carlow. His election victory, and the success in the country of repeal candidate Walter Blackney and the liberal Sir John Milley Doyle, a year earlier, broke the stranglehold of Tory domination in the county and borough going back to 1695.
…Key election issues were the abolition of tithes (taxes paid to Protestant clergy), the repeal of the Union with Britain, an extension of the franchise (only tenants with a land valuation of £10 and over had the vote), and a secret ballot. Extra police and military had to be drafted in to deal with the abduction of voters, intimidation on both sides and post-election violence….p. 193. Typical “outrages” as the Tory media labelled them, included the burning of farm buildings, people being attacked outside churches, animals killed and injured. .. On the other side, the dilemma for the tenants was the threat of eviction, the weapon of the landlords, used ruthlessly by some, but not all.”
“When the fresh election was called, Vigors and Alexander Raphael, a Roman Catholic of Jewish extraction and a man of great wealth, were nominated by the Liberals…The Liberal candidates won…[p. 194] Once again the election result was appealed, and the Liberals were unseated in favour of Bruen and Kavanagh. Catholic votes who supported their landlords were terrified [to leave their homes], shopkeepers were warned not to serve then, while labourers and tradesmen were warned that they risked their lives if they took employment from them.”
[Vigors won in the 1837 byelection, and won in general election six months later.]
p. 196. … His two half brothers pursued full-time military and civil service careers. Col Joshua Allen Vigors (1805), General Horatio Nelson Trafalgar Vigors (1807-1864), and Charles Henry Vigors.
Their cousin, John Cliffe Vigors (1814-1881) … enjoyed gambling – a pastime that was to cost him most of the Burgage estate… He was succeeded by his nephew Thomas Mercer Cliffe Vigors, whose son and heir, Edward Cliffe Vigors, held the post of examiner of standing orders in both houses of parliament in London.
His sister, Eileen Esmee Vigors, married Rev Arthur Evelyn Ward, Canon of Rochester, in 1909, and it was their son, Stephen Ward, who was a key figure in the Profumo scandal.
Edward Cliffe Vigors and his wife Mary Selena, who were responsible for developing the lawns and the rock garden in the grounds by the river Barrow, had no children, and the last of the family to reside at Burgage was his nephew, Terence Cliffe Vigors, who sold the property in 1978 and moved to live in England. … The last Vigors link with Holloden was Mrs Faith O’Grady, whose mother Esther Alice Vigors, only daughter of Col Philip Doyne Vigors, married Standish de Courcy O’Grady in June 1911. The house has been unoccupied since Miss O’Grady’s death in 1980.”
http://sites.rootsweb.com/~irlcar2/Burgage_House.htm
Until 1978 this was the main estate of the Vigors Family in County Carlow. The Vigors Family came to the area in the mid 17th century. Nicholas Aylward Vigors, FRS was the first secretary of the London Zoological Society. Now owned by the Connolly Family. The property stood mainly in Burgage Demesne, with a strip on the west side in Farranafreney.
Source: Carlow Gentry & http://www.rsai.ie/index
[see image on website]
Detached three-bay two-storey over part-raised basement house with dormer attic, c. 1765, with round-headed door opening having block-and-start doorcase. Extended to rear, c. 1800, with bow added. Interior retains lugged architraves, timber panelled doors, cornices and timber staircases.
http://www.turtlebunbury.com/history/history_family/hist_family_vigors.html
VIGORS OF OLD LEIGHLIN, ERINDALE & HOLLODEN
Spectemur Agendo – Let Us Be Judged By Our Actions
The Vigors family of County Carlow originated in Holloden near Bridgerule on the border between Cornwall and north Devon. Educated at Oxford, the Rev. Louis Vigors was one of hundreds of people from Devon to move to southern Ireland during the early Stuart period, following in the path of the Devonian explorer and whiskey drinker, Sir Walter Raleigh.[1]
Louis’s son Urban Vigors was chaplain to Lord Broghill, whose father Richard Boyle, the Great Earl of Cork, famously arrived in Ireland from Canterbury aged 16 with sixpence in his pocket and fetched up as the richest man in Ireland.[2] Lord Broghill’s brother Robert Boyle is hailed as the father of modern chemistry. The Rev. Urban Vigors also married into the Boyle family.
During the reign of Charles II (1660-1685), the Vigors were granted estates in Co. Carlow, including Old Leighlin and, it is thought, the townland of Clorusk (or Clorouske) near Royal Oak, where Holloden now stands.[3] Urban Vigors, son of the Rev. Urban Vigors and Mary Boyle, was attainted by James II’s Parliament and lost his lands. However, he was restored to his estates by William III and Queen Mary, for whom he served as Commissioner for County Carlow and also as High Sheriff of Co. Carlow. and is recalled by a floor monument dated 1718 in the church at Old Leighlin; the church has 32 memorials to the Vigors family in total. He moved to Old Leighlin after his marriage to Bridget Tench, the daughter of Allen Tench of Staplestown, Co. Carlow, who came to Ireland from Cheshire about 1645. Curiously the Bunbury and Bruen families also originated in that part of the world. Urban’s brother Bartholomew (1643- 1721) succeeded Dr. Narcissus Marsh to become Bishop of Leighlin and Ferns in 1691. (The family fortunes peaked with over 4,200 acres in Carlow.)
Urban and Bridget’s eldest son Richard Vigors of Old Leighlin was a cogent in Captain Pierce Butler’s Dragoons in 1702, and served as High Sheriff of County Carlow in 1714. He had no issue by his first wife but his second wife Jane Cliffe - the youngest daughter of John Cliffe, Oliver Cromwell’s secretary of war – gave Richard three sons and a daughter before his death in 1723. His second son John Vigors was born in 1709 and ultimately succeeded to Old Leighlin. A Freeman of Ross, John was married in 1781 to Anne Alyward, eldest daughter of Nicholas Aylward of Shankhill Castle, Paulstown, County Kilkenny. They had three sons and two daughters.
Nicholas Aylward Vigors (1755-1828), their second son, served with the 29th Regiment during the American War of Independence as a young man. He was 21 when his father died in 1776, leaving him Old Leiglin. He was married firstly in 1781 to Catherine Richards, with whom he had a son Nicholas Aylward Vigors junior, and four daughters. In 1803, a year after Catherine’s death, he was married secondly to Mary (Jane) Browne, with whom he had five more sons and a daughter, the eldest being Thomas Tench Vigors, who would later inherit Erindale. Their other sons included Joshua (who commanded a party of infantry who stormed Delhi during the Indian Mutiny); Charles (who was killed in a horsefall during the Garrison Steeplechase in Dublin in 1844) and the memorably named Horatio Nelson Trafalgar Vigors (who didn’t join the Navy but became a General and a Governor General of St Helena).
On 19 March 1807, a baptism record for Nicholas and Mary’s third son, Horatio Nelson Trafalgar Vigors, includes the words ‘of Erindale’ in brackets but this may have been added later. The name is also in brackets after the baptism of their daughter Dorothea Elizabeth Vigors in April 1809. Erindale is more confidently states as their address by 20 December 1811 when their son John Urbanus Vigors was baptised. (Journal of the Association for the Preservation of Memorials of the Dead in Ireland (1895), p. 28, 29 and 31)
The elder N.A. Vigors was clearly keen to set up his firstborn son, N.A. Vigors junior, who, born in 1785, attained his majority in 1806. N.A. Vigors senior was living at Erindale by January 1812, when he signed a ‘Protestant petition‘, addressed to both Houses of Parliament in London, ‘in favour of persons professing the Roman Catholic religion.’ N.A. Vigors junior was recorded on the same petition as living at Old Leighlin. As such, it seems likely Erindale was constructed between 1806 and 1812. When Sarah Steele published ‘Eva, an historical poem’ in 1816, Mrs Vigors of Erindale was listed as a subscriber.
N. A. Vigors junior, aka Captain Nicholas Aylward Vigors, served under Wellington in the Peninsula Wars and was wounded at Barossa. He later became first secretary to the London Zoological Society. In 1828, having inherited his Carlow estate, he threw himself behind the cause of Catholic Emancipation, successfully defeating the Tories (dominant in Carlow since 1695) and serving as Liberal MP for the county until his death in 1840 put the Tories back in charge.
The following story was originally in the Carlow Morning Post and Saunders News-Letter (23 November). This version appeared in The Statesman (London) on Friday 23 November 1821:
‘On Tuesday night, a beautiful and valuable Devon Calf, the property of N, A. Vigors, Esq. of Erindale, near this town, was taken off the pasture field, and brought to a grotto near the house, where having been killed, by some one or more ruffians, they left the carcass behind, carrying away only the skin. We are totally at a loss to account for such conduct, for if there is one gentleman in the vicinity of Carlow, entitled to the unqualified esteem of the public, Captain Vigors is that man! This gentleman has expended several thousand pounds on his demesne, which he has literally thrown open to the public ; and during the summer months the inhabitants of this town have every accommodation they can wish for, whenever they may be disposed to recreate themselves in the beautiful scenery and improvements of Erindale: yet the liberal proprietor, whose heart and hand was ever open to relieve his fellow-creature–is not secure, as it appears, from outrage.
Thomas Tench Vigors (1804-1850) was living at Erindale from at least 1836 until his death, at Erindale, on 20 February 1850. Shearman’s Directory of 1839 lists him at Erindale with his wife Jane Murphy (nee Rudkin) (c1799-1879 in Boulange, France). Jane was previously married to Patrick Murphy and was the daughter of Gilbert Rudkin of Wells (between The Royal Oak and Paulstown), connected to Rudkin’s Mill of Bagenalstown.
By 1852 Jocelyn Thomas was leasing Erindale from Jane Vigors. Captain Henry Rudkin Vigors, Carlow Rifles, only son of Thomas Tench Vigors, seems to have sold it on in 1864. (Carlow Post, 25 June 1864). In about 1883, Erindale was rented by Arthur McClintock and his wife Susan, who later settled at Rathvinden by Leighlinbridge.
There was a theory that Erindale House was once owned by the Duke of Wellington but this seems unlikely. James Grogan wondered if someone had simply got muddled between Nelson and Wellington. The Iron Duke certainly had Irish connections. Sir Ulysses des Burgh, his aide de camp & assistant military secretary, was married in Carlow in 1815 to Maria, only daughter of the late Walter Bagenal, Esq. who represented County Carlow in several Parliaments. Moreover, Wellington also had an illegitimate daughter, Jane Hanlon / O’Hanlon of Grangemore, Tullow, County Carlow, born circa 1787 through a teenage romance with Alicia Eustace (1773-1860), second daughter of Lieutenant-General Charles Eustace of Robertstown, County Kildare. Being considered spoiled goods, poor Alicia was married off in1797, aged 24, as second wife to the 80-year-old Lord Trimleston. A contemporary report said the occasion caused much ‘mirth’. (Could Grangemore be a mispelling of Castlemore, which was a Eustace house outside Tullow?)
THE BURGAGE & HOLLODEN LINE
Captain Thomas Vigors, a younger son of Urban and Bridget, served in the Black Horse and, by his second marriage to Elizabeth Mercer, was father to the Rev. Edward Vigors, who was born in 1747.[4] The Rev Edward was Perpetual Curate of Old Leighlin, Co. Carlow from 1774 to 1783, during which time he built Burgage House. Prior to this he lived at the Lodge (Eastwood House), Bagenalstown, but in April 1770, he signed a renewable lease (at the yearly rent of £106) for all the lands of Lodge and the Demesne of Bagenalstown to his kinsman Richard Mercer, including the river-side Corn Mill, founded in 1708 and formerly run by Owen Murphy. [5] In 1781 he became Rector of Shankill, Co. Kilkenny. The Rev. Edward died aged 51 in 1797 and was buried in Old Leighlin; his widow Mary (nee Low of Westmeath) died in 1827 and was also buried in Old Leighlin. They had three children, the Rev Thomas Mercer Vigors, and two daughters, Elizabeth and Maria.[6]
On his death in 1797, the Rev Edward Vigors was succeeded at Burgage by his only son, the Rev. Thomas Mercer Vigors (1775-1850). Educated at Trinity College Dublin, Thomas became Perpetual Curate of Old Leighlin until 1815 when he was appointed Rector of Rathasbeck, Queen’s County (Laois). He was later promoted to Powerstown, which he held until his death on the 7th April, 1850. His wife Anne Cliffe was a daughter of the Rev. John Cliffe of New Ross Co. Wexford.
The fortunes of the Vigors of Burgage plummeted when Thomas Mercer Cliffe Vigors bet it all on a horse in the 1887 Derby called The Baron who lost. When Thomas was caught in bed with a maid by his wife, he tried to win her back with the line: ‘If one is going to appreciate Chateau Lafitte, my dear, one must occasionally have a glass of vin ordinaire.’
Eileen Esme Vigors of the Burgage family was mother to Stephen Ward, a key figure in the Profumo scandal which rocked MacMillan’s government in 1963. See Stephen Ward (The Crown) connection to Vigors.
***
‘Colonel Vigors is well known in the antiquarian world as an energetic and enthusiastic antiquarian, and a courteous and cultivated gentleman.’ Londonderry Sentinel – Saturday 6 September 1890
Colonel Philip Doyne Vigors (1825-1903) of Holloden, the seventh and youngest son of the Rev. Thomas Mercer Vigors, was a military man, antiquarian and explorer. In September 1848, he set off for Australia as a subaltern in the 11th Foot on the three-masted convict ship, the Pestonjee Bomanjee, carrying 298 female Irish prisoners; it took 146 days to reach Sydney. In 1851 he managed to join in the Gold Rush in New South Wales, scooping some gold and ore from the Turon River that was later displayed in the drawing-room at Holloden; the wedding ring he gave his wife was made with some of this gold.[8] He then spent four months cruising around the islands around Australia and New Zealand, including Fiji, the Solomon Islands and the New Hebrides; to his collection he added the arm-bone of a girl eaten by cannibals for stealing a coconut. He subsequently served in India and Burma, gathering more items during visits to Java and the Spice Islands.
He returned to Ireland in 1880, moved to Holloden and became a Poor Law Guardian.[9] He was also co-opted onto the County Council. In 1888 he founded the Association for the Preservation of the Memorials of the Dead to record many faded tombstones in cemeteries, working closely with Lord Walter FitzGerald. He was vice president of the ‘Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland’. Among the prize possessions to pass through his hands at Holloden were the Clontarf Chalice, an elk head found at Browne’s Hill, the rosary beads owned by the luckless Spaniard at the heart of the father-son Lynch murder trial in Galway, and the brass blunderbuss reputedly used by Freney the Robber. The walls were also lined with trophies, clocks and weapons, while his library included over 200 books.
In 1894 he was serving as High Sheriff for County Carlow when a notice appeared in newspapers across Ireland announcing that he had been found ‘dead in his bed’ at Holloden on 12 June. He swiftly penned a note to the editor, denying this ‘wicked and most unjustifiable report.’ He lived on until 1903 when, aged 78, he did indeed pass away at Holloden. His body was laid to rest in the family vault in the Old Leighlin Cathedral where a fine black oak Episcopal Throne (which had belonged to Bishop Vigors in 1691) was later erected to his memory by his widow and daughter.[10]
In 1882 Colonel Vigors married Margaret Woodhead of (Brighton?), Sussex, who died in October 1922. Their only child, Esther, was born at Holloden on 16 June 1884. The 1911 Census records the inhabitants of Holloden as Margaret Vigors (aged 58) and her daughter Esther Alice Vigors (aged 26) along with a staff of 3 – Julia Purcell, cook, aged 46, Annie Doyle, parlour maid, aged 22 and Sarah Cane, maid, aged 19.
On 7 June 1911, Esther was married in Leighlin Cathedral to Major Standish de Courcy O’Grady, of the Royal Army Medical Corps, a grandson of The O’Grady and cousin of Standish O’Grady, the Gaelic Revival man. There were five bridesmaids, Stamer O’Grady was best man and the road from Royal Oak to the Holloden Gate was decorated with arches of flowers erected by the villagers. Mrs Vigors hosted an after-party for 200 guests at Holloden, with a wedding breakfast on the lawn.[12]
Lieutenant Colonel Standish De Courcy O’ Grady, CMG, DSO, had the unhappy distinction of being the highest ranking officer from this area of Ireland to die in the Great War. Although the death of the 48-year-old Medical Officer did not take place until 23 December 1920, it was deemed inevitable that he would contact one of the deadly disease so prevalent due to the war. He was buried at the Pieta Military Cemetery in Malta.[13]
His widow Esther died in 1970 aged 86, having had three children - Gerald (1912-1993, who became ‘The O’Grady’), Philip (born 1916), and Faith O’Grady (1913-1980). Faith lived at Holloden and farmed the land until her death in January 1980 after which the house was abandoned. The considerable Vigors library was also sold in 1985, along with much of the furniture, clocks, art and the elk head. Harry O’Grady inherited Holloden and sold the house with 131 acres in 1986, when he was about eighteen years old. A man was apparently planning to quarry the land before the Walsh’s bought it as a base for the excellent Wash’s Whiskey and Hot Irishman.
In 1956-1959, Wilfred Thesiger is said to have written part of his travelogue masterpiece, ‘Arabian Sands’, in a room “at the end of a long corridor” at Holloden whilst staying with his cousin Faith O’Grady. Thesiger’s mother was Kathleen Mary Vigors, a daughter of the bold Thomas Mercer Cliffe Vigors.
With thanks to James Grogan, John Headon, Alma Brophy & others.
FURTHER READING
‘The Vigors Family of Burgage, Leighlinbridge’ (Carloviana, 2011, p. 93-102) by
Victor Connolly of Burgage includes a useful family tree and comprehensive details of the Holloden branch as well as Thesiger, Stephen Ward, Tim Vigors, etc., via the Carlow Historical & Archaeological Society.
FOOTNOTES
[1] The Rev. Louis Vigors arrived in Cork circa 1615. He had been ordained on the 5th of November 1603 by the Bishop of Exeter. In Ireland he was beneficed in the Diocese of Ross where he became Treasurer of the Cathedral in 1631. He died in Devonshire in 1642, as did his widow in 1651. Myles Kavanagh, ‘Eastwood House and the Moneybeg Demesne’, Carloviana 2016, p. 20.
[2] During the English Civil War, Lord Broghill was one of Oliver Cromwell’s closest allies but he was also a natural born survivor. The moment Cromwell died, Broghill realized the game was up and he sent an invite to Charles II to reclaim his throne. Such resourcefulness earned him the gratitude of the new monarch who showered him with gold and titles.
Urban Vigors was beneficed 1634-37 in the Diocese of Cork and Ross, and in 1645 was Chaplain to the 1st Earl of Ossory. He married circa 1635 Catherine Boyle sister of Richard Boyle, Bishop of Ferns (1667–1683) and Roger Boyle Bishop of Clogher (1672-1687). They had a son called Urban.
[3] They also had estates and houses in Derryfore and Rathevan, Queen’s County (Laois) and Ballybar and Corries Co. Carlow (1729) and Seldon, Devonshire (1725).
[4] Urban and Bridget’s second son Thomas Vigors was born c.1685. Thomas was Captain in the Legion Regiment, “The Black Horse” and was Justice of the Peace for Queen’s County (Laois) and High Sheriff in 1714. Captain Thomas married twice, first to Margaret a widow and they had issue of three children Urban, Bartholomew, and Lucy. His second marriage was to Elizabeth Mercer, daughter of Edward Mercer of Knockballystine Co. Carlow and they had issue of three children Richard, the Rev. Edward and Elizabeth.
[5] Born in 1747, the Rev. Edward Vigors graduated with a B.A. in Trinity College Dublin in 1767 and married Mary Low of Lissoy, Co. West- meath, daughter of Edward Low and Elizabeth Nelligan (daughter of the Rev. Maurice Nelligan) in December 1773.
[6] Elizabeth died unmarried on 30 July, 1828 and was buried at Old Leighlin. Maria married the Rev. George Alcock, died in 1854 and is also buried at Old Leighlin
[8] A journal PDV kept of his time in Australia was apparently sold by Christie’s.
[9] I located an article in the Freeman’s Journal of 16 June 1880 relating to the purchase of an estate in Cloughrouske (Clorusk), which was held in trust for Philip D Vigors. I believe this is the purchase of Malcomville and the beginning of it being the seat of the Vigors family. This ties in with a 1958 article in the Kilkenny People in which his daughter, Esther O’Grady, states the house was called Malcomville before her father purchased it on his return to Ireland in 1880.
[10] Dublin Daily Express, 11 April 1906, p. 2.
[12] Dublin Daily Express, 10 June 1911. Richard Sheehan, ‘Fashionable County Carlow Wedding’, Bagenalstown Yearbook 2010, p. 51.
[13] John Kenna, ‘Leighlin Men who Died in the Great War’, Carloviana 2001, p. 88.
Irish Historic Houses 