1480s

Lemanagh or Leamaneagh Castle, Co Clare 

by jenjunebug

Lemanagh or Leamaneagh Castle, Co Clare 

Leamaneagh Castle, County Clare, photograph by Robert French, (between ca. 1865-1914), Lawrence Photograph Collection, National Library of Ireland.

Bence-Jones, Mark. 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. 183. “(Inchiquin, B/PB) A tower of ca. 1480 to which a four storey high-gabled house with rows of mullioned and transomed windows was added 1643 by Conor O’Brien and his wife, the formidable Maire Ruadh, who, after her husband had been killed in a skirmish with Ludlow’s men in 1651, saved her son’s lands by offering to marry a Cromwellian officer of Ludlow’s choosing. Her offer was taken up and she duly married an English cornet of horse; according to tradition, he died through receiving a savage kick from her. Her son, Sir Donagh O’Brien, 1st Baronet, abandoned Lemanaeagh in favour of Dromoland towards the end of C17. Lemaneagh is now a ruin. The gateway of the bawn is now at Dromoland; a stone fireplace from one of the rooms is in the Old Ground Hotel, Ennis. 

Lemaneagh Castle, County Clare, photograph courtesy of Mark Bence-Jones, A Guide to Irish Country Houses.
Donough O’Brien, of Leameneagh and Dromoland, younger son of Murrough O’Brien last King of Thomond, died 1582, painted 1577 on panel, courtesy History of the O’Briens from Brian Boroimhe, AD. 1000 to AD. 1945, by Donough O’Brien, page 200.
Máire Rua O’Brien née McMahon (1615/1616 – 1686) daughter of Turlough Roe McMahon Baronet, wearing Felemish bobbin lace with O’Brien coat of arms. She married first Colonel Neylan, then in 1639, Colonel Conor O’Brien of Lemeneagh, ancestor of Barons Inchiquin, but he was slain in battle in 1651. The Markree Castle information board says she married Edward Cooper then, but Irish Portraits 1660-1860 by Anne Crookshank and the Knight of Glin, published by the Paul Mellon Foundation for British Art 1969, say she then married, to keep the family property, Captain John Cooper of Ireton’s army, whom she is said to have murdered! It’s a rare example of a portrait almost certainly painted in Ireland in the first half of the seventeenth century – see Irish Portraits 1660-1860 by Anne Crookshank and the Knight of Glin, published by the Paul Mellon Foundation for British Art 1969.
Slaney O’Brien, wife of Conor O’Brien (d. 1603/4) of Leamaneh, Daughter of Turlough O’Brien of the Dough and Ennistymon courtesy Max Gheeraerts, Historical memoir of the O’Briens, The Origin and History of the O’Brien Clan by John O’Donoghue, Publ.1860, Martin Breen 2002.
Donough O’Brien of Lemeneagh (1595-1637). Scan from Historical Memoir of the O’Briens, The Origin and History of the O’Brien Clan John O’Donoghue published by Martin Breen (Collection of Lord Inchiquin).
Donough O’Brien (1642-1717), 1st Baronet by Mary Beale, 1690. He lived in Dromoland Castle.
Lucia Hamilton, 1674, daughter of George Hamilton. Wife of Donough O’Brien, 1st Baronet, married in 1674. She died two years later, not long after the birth of his son and heir, Lucius.

MacDonnell, Randal. The Lost Houses of Ireland. A chronicle of great houses and the families who lived in them. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. London, 2002 

p. 219. Leamaneh Castle in Co Clare is a four storey building with many mullioned windows. It is basically a seventeenth century house built on to a 15th century tower. The house was probably built in 1639 when Conor O’Brien married ‘Red’ Mary, the daughter of Sir Toirdhealbhach Ruadh MacMathghamhna (MacMahon), Lord of Clonderalaw. Conor was her second husband and was killed by Cromwellians at a fight in the pass of Inchicronan, in 1651. The story goes that his widow, a woman of strong character, refused to allow his body to be brought home to Leamaneh, saying ‘We need no dead men here.’ She decided that the best way to secure her son’s inheritance would be to marry one of the enemy officers. Consequently, she took herself off to Limerick the next day and promptly married Cornet John Cooper. As she was no beauty (her portrait still survives to prove the point), it must have been the prospect of the inheritance that tempted the Cornet. In any case, it did him no good for, when he made a disparaging comments about her late husband, she allegedly killed him by throwing him out of a window in the castle. Nonetheless, she must have been married to him for at least seven years, because their son Henry was born eight years later. The poet and author Robert Graves descended from the child of this unlikely union. One possible side-effect of his mother’s marriage to the Cornet was that her son by Col O’Brien as brought up as a Protestant.” 

https://theirishaesthete.com/2024/11/29/dromoland-gate/

A Gateway to the Past

by theirishaesthete



Following Monday’s text about souvenirs of Dromoland Castle’s earlier history, it is worth looking at another feature on the estate. A previous residence of the O’Brien family, Leamaneh Castle, County Clare has featured here before (see The Legacy of Máire Rúa « The Irish Aesthete). That building was constructed around 1480 by Turlogh O’Brien, King of Thomond, and is said to derive its name from the Irish ‘Leim an eich’ (The horse’s Leap). In 1543, Turlogh’s son, Murrough O’Brien, surrendered the castle and pledged loyalty to the English crown; subsequently, he was created first Earl of Thomond and Baron Inchiquin. In 1648, his descendant Conor O’Brien extended the tower with the addition of a four-storey manor house following his marriage to Máire ní Mahon who on account of her flaming red hair, was commonly known as Máire Rúa (Red Mary).  The couple’s son, Sir Donough O’Brien later abandoned Leamaneh, moving to Dromoland. In 1902, Lucius William O’Brien, 15th Baron Inchiquin, organised for the castle’s 17th century stone gatehouse to be removed and re-erected at the entrance of Dromoland’s walled gardens, where it can still be seen.