Aghadoe, Killeagh, Co Cork 

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.] supplement 

p. 289. “(De Capell Brooke, Bt/PB1967) A plain early C19 house in the villa style, standing above a romantic wooden glen on an estate which was granted to Philip de Capell 1172, and continued to be owned by his descendents until the present century; it was known by the local inhabitants as “the Maidan estate” to distinguish it from the other large properties in the neighbourhood, all of which had, at some period in their history, been forfeited. By C16, the family name had been corrupted to Supple; 1797 Richard Brooke Supple of Aghadoe changed his name to de Capell Brooke on inheriting the estate of the Brookes in Northamptonshire. There is a design of ca 1700, probably by a French architect, for an elaborate Palladian mansion at Aghadoe, which was never carried out.” 

The Buildings of Ireland. Cork City and County. Frank Keohane. Yale University Press: New Haven and London. 2020. 

p. 458. “A plain house, primarily of interest on account of the length of tenure of the de Capel family (the name later transmogrified to Supple). As followers of Robert Fitzstephen, the de Capels were granted land at Killeagh c. 1180 which they held until the 1930s, but as absentees from the 1760s. The house is two-storeyed and gabled, with a rendered front of eight irregular bays and a datestone rs 1768. A large quare chimneystack on the back wall looks earlier and may survive from a house built in 1622 to replace the castle that once stood here. Inside, plain rooms with fielded joinery. 

To the SW, a dovecot of unknown date, with a Sheila-na-gig set into the wall and an interior lined with stone nesting boxes. 

At different times, unexecuted proposals were made for a new mansion. Unsigned mid-C18 designs in the RIBA collection show a gaudy classical mansion with straight arcades leading to pavilions. In 1837 Lewis records that the house was to be replaced by a castellated mansion. Some improvements were made at this time. In a wooded valley below the house known as Glenbower (the Deafening Valley), carriage rides and pretty bridges, with castellated abutments and iron parapets, across a thundering brook.” 

p. 21. After the Williamite wars, landowners had the confidence to invest in their property and improve their estates, building new houses and offices, and creating enclosed landscaped demesnes. Of the minor gentry, most aspired to nothing more than a house that was solidly built, symmetrical and convenient. At first, middling houses were unsophisticated in their form and planning, often only one room deep but sometimes having a return containing a staircase or service rooms, thus forming an L-plan or T-plan. Steep gable-ended roofs were almost universal, hipped roofs and the use of parapets the exception. This arrangement continued throughout the 18^th century for gentry houses, and well into the C19 for larger farmhouses. Early examples include Ballinterry (Rathcormac), Velvetstown (Buttevant), Rosehill at Ballynacorra (Midleton) and Aghadoe at Killeagh.  

http://landedestates.nuigalway.ie/LandedEstates/jsp/property-list.jsp?letter=A 

Lewis writes in 1837 that “The present house is about to be replaced by a castellated mansion”. The earlier house is referred to by Wilson in 1786 as the seat of Simon Dring. Aghadoe was occupied by Thomas M. Green at the time of Griffith’s Valuation. The house, valued at £27, was held by him from Sir Arthur De Capell Brooke. The house is no longer extant.  

http://www.turtlebunbury.com/history/history_irish/roadshow/supple.htm 

THE SUPPLES of AGHADOE, CO. CORK 

At the Adare meeting of the 2011 ‘Genealogy Roadshow’, Noel Hayes enquired about a family called Supple from whom he descends. The Supples were an old Anglo-Norman family, descended from Philippe de Capella (or de Capel), one of Strongbow’s original mercenaries. Philippe came to Ireland with Robert FitzStephen in 1177 and took part in the successful Norman conquest of Viking Cork. Sometime before 1182, FitzStephen, as lord of the surrounding manor of Inchiquin, rewarded Philippe with the grant of an estate along the Little Dissour River at Killeagh. [1]  

After the Desmond Rebellion, the Supple family suffered serious financial loss when Edmund Supple was obliged to mortgage 1150 acres of his 5200 acre estate to raise money to replace stock seized by the marauding armies of both English and Irish. Most of these mortgages went to the Dean of Cloyne, a FitzGerald, who duly forged all necessary documents to verify that these same lands had been sold to him and not mortgaged. 

Edmund died in about 1604, leaving a minor heir, William Supple. At this time, English policy dictated that minor heirs of Catholic landowners be raised as Protestants. Thus, wardship of the heir of Aghadoe devolved upon Richard Boyle, lord of the manor of Inchiquin and notorious as the 1st Earl of Cork. He duly took young William into his care at Lismore. In 1613, Boyle sent the boy to live with his brother John, the clergyman, in England and there finish his education. By 1616 William was attending Cambridge University. The Boyles seem to have been genuinely fond of William and he, educated as a Protestant, adapted to their world with ease. He returned to Ireland in 1620, a useful propaganda tool for the government, a native convert to Protestantism. He may have subsequently been employed as some sort of agent or middleman for the Boyle estates in Munster. In early 1622, for instance, he escorted Boyle’s 15 year old daughter, Sara Boyle, on a journey from County Louth to Lismore. 
 
William’s marriage in 1622 to the Earl of Cork’s niece, Kate Smyth of Ballynatray, County Waterford, and his subsequent admission as a freeman to the town of Youghal, may be taken as further proof of Boyle consolidating his patronage over the Killeagh landlord. Supple did not escape the scorn of his peers. A few months after his marriage, his face was disfigured when attacked by an Englishman with a cudgel. The Earl continued to act as patron to the Supples for many years.  

On 11th January 1634, he wrote: ‘My necc Katherye Smyth’s son was Xtened at Ballynetra by my daughter, Countess of Barrymore, Sir Richard Smyth and my self, and named Boyle Burt: God bless him’. 

On 31st December 1634, he noted:‘I sent my poor cozen Crips 20s to Ballynetra, by my Cozen Kate Supple’. 

As late as Christmas 1637, the Earl noted in his diary a gift of six lace handkerchiefs ‘by my niece Kate Supple’. 
 
It must have been during William and Kate’s time that a new mansion was built at Aghadoe. Although the house has not survived, it is shown in detail on a map of 1700 and appears to have consisted of a straightforward central block with two gabled wings. William and Kate probably lived in quarters affixed to a 15th century tower-house while the new house was built. The tower-house has also since vanished but a splendid ivy-clad ‘Sheela-nagig’ that once graced its walls survives. [2] 
 
In 1630 William Supple was appointed a famine commissioner for Co. Cork. The following year, he obtained a royal license to hold a Tuesday market and two fairs each year at Killeagh on June 1st and November 1st. By 1642, he had secured a more influential position when he became sheriff for Co. Cork. Aghadoe’s relative proximity to Youghal may have protected the castle from desecration when the Confederate Wars broke out. William was certainly resident at Aghadoe in May 1643. During the ensuing wars, William fought for the Boyles against the Irish Catholic army. By 1649 he held the rank of major in the Parliamentarian Army and was commander of the English garrison in Youghal. He died some time in the early 1650s and was succeeded by his son, another William Supple. [3] 
 
The younger William continued to forge a close alliance with the Boyle family, serving as Sheriff of Cork City in 1681. He was a direct ancestor of the De Capel Brookes, Bart, of Oakley. The Supple (or Capel) family continued to hold the Aghadoe estate until the 20th century. 

FOOTNOTES 

1. The principal evidence supporting this grant actually comes from the diary of Earl of Cork, written when he himself had become Lord of Inchiquin. On April 8th 1636, he notes: ‘Mr. William Supple [of Aghadoe] showed me the deed of his lands made by Robert FitzStephen unto his ancestor Philip de Capella’. Although this deed has not survived, legal records from the early 14th century also hold that the Capel or Supple family held their land under a feoffment of Robert FitzStephen to Philip de Capella. It was also for Philippe de Capella that Capel Island took its name. He is sometimes referred to as Philip de la Chapelle. 
2. A stone representation of a female exposing her genitalia, it appears to have had a talismanic function against evil in pagan times. 
3. William and Kate Supple also had an unnamed daughter who was the first wife of the Catholic landowner, Sir William Fitzgerald of Glenane. She bore Fitzgerald’s eldest son around 1657.