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. 41. “(Louth, E/DEP; Cusack-Smith, Bt/PB). A plain, square two storey C18 house. Three bay entrance front with round-headed doorway, the windows being set very far apart. Late C18 interior plasterwork; shouldered doorcases; pedimented door between entrance hall and staircase hall; staircase of wood with slender turned balusters. Originally the seat of the Bermingham family, Lords Athenry; 22nd Lord Athenry was made Earl of Louth 1759; he features in an unfortunate episode in Dorothea Herbert’s Retrospections (see Ardfry). When he died, the Earldom of Louth became extinct and the Barony of Athenry dormant. In C19, Bermingham became the seat of the Dennises and was the home of John Dennis, founder of the Galway Hounds (afterwards known as the “Blazers”) and one of the most famous hunting men of his day His great-great-grand-niece, Lady Cusack-Smith, the present owner of Bermingham, is herself a legendary horsewoman and MFH.”
Lord Athenry IRISH SCHOOL, C.1720 Adams auction 18 Oct 2022. If painted around 1720 it would be Francis Bermingham (1692-1749/50) 14th Baron of Athenry.Bermingham House was probably built by his son.Bermingham House, County Galway.
entry in MacDonnell, Randal. The Lost Houses of Ireland. A chronicle of great houses and the families who lived in them. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. London, 2002.
“The land was originally the seat of the De Berminghams (the Lords Athenry), the first of whom had been the Lord of Birmingham in Warwickshire and had arrived in Ireland by 1173. His son was one of the ten Norman-Irish and 22 Gaelic-Irish leaders, who in 1243 received estates from Henry III as a reward for their loyalty; his grandson, Meiler de Bermingham, founded the Abbey of Athenry.”
“Richard de Bermingham (‘Richard of the battles’), the head of the family in 1316, won the Battle of Athenry, which saw the defeat of Edward Bruce and the death of Feidlim OConchobhair, King of Connacht. The Annals of Clonmacnoise record that Feidlim had initially joined with Richard de Burgo, Earl of Ulster, but that Bruce had persuaded him to leave the “Red Earl” and to change sides. It would prove to be a fatal decision (and not just for King Feidhlim), since this victory was the turning point in the ‘Norman’ subjugation of the native Irish, a process that was completed in 1318 when another Bermingham, John, crushed the Irish at the Battle of Dundalk. For this victory, in which Edward Bruce was killed, John Bermingham was created Earl of Louth. The English of Oriel murdered him a few years afterwards and his peerage became extinct. (It was to be re-created for his collateral heirs in the 18th century).
“In the 15C, the Lords Athenry appear to have gone native, as did so many of the Norman invaders, and they became ‘more Irish than the Irish themselves’. They took on Irish names – altering their surname to MacFeorais (from FitzPiers) after the progenitor of the family in Ireland – and they seem to have adopted something like the position of a gaelic lord. The 6th Baron was Thomas Og, whose succession to the title was disputed by his uncle, Richard, on the perfectly sound Gaelic principle that the family’s followers had elected him to the rank. Unfortunately for Thomas’s aspirations, the Crown refused to accept this novel method of succession to an Irish peerage. (In the end, Richard’s descendents would inherit the title – in the more conventional way.)
“The 7th Baron was one of those who travelled to Greenwich in order to pay homage to Henry VII in 1489. At this time he was ranked third among the Barons of Ireland (the Lords Kingsale and Gormanstown came fourth and fifth in the pecking order). Sir Henry Sidney, the Lord Deputy of Ireland, described the 9th Lord, in 1572, as being ‘as poore a Baron as lyveth and yet agreed on to be the auntientest Baron of this lande.’
“The 12th Lord became a Dominican friar. He attempted to, and apparently did, give away his peerage in a deed dated 1645. This was an unusual but not unique occurrence in the Irish peerage. The 5th Viscount Buttevant had been passed over in both his peerage and his estates because, although of sound mind, he was deaf and dumb.
Incidentally, the viscountcies of Buttevant and Fermoy were never created as viscountcies by the Crown but simply assumed by their respective families. The editor of The Complete Peerage remarked that this was an ‘audacious and successful assumption of a higher title, which could hardly have occurred anywhere but in Ireland.’
[Note: Wikipedia, ref: Robert Beatson, “A Political Index to the Histories of Great Britain & Ireland”, Third edition, London 1806, Volume III, pg 141.
“The 14th Baron conformed to the Established Church and took his seat in the House of Lords in 1713. Bermingham House was probably built by his son in the 1730s. The 15th Baron was created Earl of Louth and died in 1799, when his earldom became extinct and the barony fell into abeyance. It was claimed the following year by a remote cousin and, in 1836, the Attorney General confirmed to William IV that the nephew of the claimant from 1800 had indeed made out his claim to the peerage. However, nothing seems to have been done and the known legitimate line of the family died out shortly afterwards. (There are, however, illegitimate descendents alive of the gentleman who claimed the title in 1800). Had the Athenry peerage survived, its holder would supercede Lord Kingsdale in his position as Pemier Baron of Ireland.”
“At the beginning of the 19th century, the Dennis family (one of whom, John Dennis of Carraroe, who was born in Fiddane, Co Galway, was a noted hunter…) bought Bermingham House…
The Bermingham estate passed to the descendents of his [the forementioned John Dennis] sister, who had married John O’Rorke of Menlough. Her grandson, Charles Trench O’Rorke, married a lady who was half French, and their daughter, Mollie O’Rorke, was one of the most colourful characters that the Irish gentry ever produced….”
“Mollie married Sir Dermot Cusack-Smith in 1946. …. The Smiths, Sir Dermot’s family, claimed to be descended from a mayor of Dublin in the 12th century. They actually descended from a Joseph Smith, of unknown parentage, from County Carlow, whose great-grandson, the Right Hon. Michael Smith, was made a baron of the Exchequer in 1793. He was created a baronet in 1799 and at the Act of Union was made Master of the Rools and a Privy Councillor for Ireland. He married Mary-Anne, the daughter of James Cusac of Dublin (which was the spelling of the surname that was used in 1799 when he was granted supporters to his cat of arms).
Michael’s son added his mother’s surname to his own and quartered her Arms with his. When his father received the baronetcy, he also rquested (and received) a grant of supporters – in the form of a merman and a trident and a mermaid with a mirror. The 2nd Baronet also rose to become a baron of the Exchequer. Caroline, daughter of Sir William, the 3rd Baronet, married James Middleton Berry of Ballynegall (Sir William was the judge who attempted unsuccessfully in the courts to end the career of Irish political leader Daniel O’Connell.) It was the failure of Caroline’s union to produce children that led the Smyths to inherit that property.
“The heir was a curious gentleman. Sir William Cusack-Smith (the family had changed the spelling) lived for 97 years from 1822 until 1919. From his entry in Burke’s Peerage it appears that during his long life he actually did nothing at all of any note. His uncle, on the other hand, was the Member of Parliament for Rippon in Yorkshire between 1843 and 1846 and eventually became Master of the Rolls in Ireland and it was his grandson who in 1919 became the 5th Baronet. He received the KCMG for his services to the Crown which included stints as Consul to Samoa and Chile between 1890 and 1905. His son was Sir Dermot Cusack-Smith (the 6rh Baronet) who married, as his second wife, Mollie O’Rorke of Bermingham House. ….During her time as mistress of the house, Mollie did her best to make the Bermingham estate self-sufficient, even going so faras to take in paying guests. …
… Celebrities rushed to hunt with Mollie and film director John Huston, who lived at nearby St. Clerans, was joint Master of the Hunt in the late 1960s. Mollie commented that he was ‘more a figurehead than anything else.’”
It was she who had the house painted “hunting pink.” “There, in the middle of a demesne with its original 1500 acres somewhat depleted, Mollie’s daughter Oonagh Mary, now lives with her family.”
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. 25. [Seymour, sub Hale] “An old tower house with a two storey, wide-eaved, bow fronted house of ca 1800 built against the front of it; curved fanlighted doorway and bow.”
Ballymore, County Galway, from Irish Tourist Association Photographic Collection c. 1943, NLI ref NPA ITA 480 box iii.
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. 30. “(Donelan/LGI1912; Mahon/LGI1912 and sub Mahon, Bt/PB) A long low and narrow 2 storey C17 house with an old castle at one end of it, the seat of the Donelans…subsequently became the seat of a branch of the Mahon family. One wing was burnt sometime ante 1913. The house is now in ruins.”
Ballydonelan Castle entrance front, County Galway, collection: Bertie Donohoe, Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
Not in national inventory
Listed in Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
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. 16. “(Morris/IFR) A late-Georgian house of 1 storey over a basement, which becomes a ground floor on the garden front where the ground falls away. Three bay entrance front; fanlighted doorway. Recently enlarged by the addition of a wing at one side in the contemporary style, with “picture” windows, containing a large reception room on the upper floor.”
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. 86. “Trench/LGI1958; and sub Clancarty, E/PB; Mosley, Bt/PB) The Palace of the C of I Bishops of Clonfert, deep in the country by the little medieval cathedral with its splendid Irish-Romanesque doorway. A long low and narrow house of two storeys with an attic of dormer-gables; basically mid C17, dating from when the original Palace was rebuilt by Bishop Dawson; but partly rebuilt late C18. Venetian windows set in arched openings. The Palace has C17 oak beams and joists and possibly its original C17 roof. Yew avenue. When the diocese was amalgamated with those of Killaloe and Kilfenora, 1833, the Palace was bought by J.E. Trench. In 1952 it became the Irish home of Sir Oswald Mosley, Bt, but it was badly damaged by fire 1954. It is now derelict.”
Listed in Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
In Blake, Tarquin. Abandoned Mansions of Ireland II: More Portraits of Forgotten Stately Homes. Collins Press, Cork, 2012.
Detached two-storey former Church of Ireland bishop’s palace with dormer attic, largely built c.1635 and extended in late eighteenth century, but also incorporating late sixteenth/early seventeenth-century house. Front elevation is eight bays, with two-bay return recessed to rear towards west end, and having canted west gable end. Used as private residence from the 1830s to 1954, and ruinous after accidental fire. Remains of single-span pitched slate roof, possibly originally thatched, hipped to west end with diagonally set multiple chimneystacks. Pitched slate roof to surviving dormer. Roughcast rendered walls. Two segmental-headed window openings to second and second last bays of ground floor, with Venetian windows, and square-headed window openings elsewhere, all with tooled limestone sills. Angled brick chimneybreasts and timber raised and fielded shutters visible to interior. Dressed limestone boundary wall extending to west. Set within extensive formerly landscaped grounds with range of single-storey outbuildings to east of access laneway, having pitched slate roofs, rendered walls, and square-headed openings.
Appraisal
The former bishop’s palace, unfortunately a ruin since the 1950s, is an important element in the significant group of ecclesiastical buildings at Clonfert, based on the ancient Saint Brendan’s Cathedral. The building incorporates a late sixteenth-century/early seventeenth-century house, extended in the 1630s and again in the late eighteenth century. The present building is of national significance as it has the remains of a rare seventeenth-century roof, dated by dendrochronology to c.1638, and also had exceptionally rare painted posts supporting the floors. Later phases of the building, including the Ventian windows, are also of architectural interest. The house has associated gardens, a yew walk, and outbuildings, all of which are important for the context of the building and the history of the site as a bishop’s residence.
The charming cathedral dedicated to St Brendan in Clonfert, County Galway has featured here before (see The Traveller’s Rest « The Irish Aesthete). And because Clonfert was, until the 1833, a separate diocese in the Church of Ireland (it remains so in the Roman Catholic church), there was also an episcopal palace, now alas a sad ruin. Standing a short distance to the north of the cathedral, the oldest part of this building is thought to date back to the late 16th or early 17th century, possibly constructed during the episcopacy of Stephen Kirwan (bishop of Clonfert 1682-1701) who served as a justice and commissioner for the province of Connaught. There is no doubt that Clonfert, today a sleepy hamlet, was then judged a place of some importance since in 1579, Elizabeth I, in her Orders to be observed by Sir Nicholas Maltby for the better government of the province of Connaught’declared ‘We are desirous that a college should be erected in the nature of an university in some convenient place in Ireland for instructing and education of youth in lerninge. And We conceive the Town of Clonfert within the province of Connaught to be aptlie seated both for helth and comodity of the ryver of Shenen running by it and because it is also neere to the midle of the realme, whereby all men may, with small travel send their children thither.’ The queen may have heard that during a much earlier period, Clonfert had been a great seat of learning, or perhaps it was just that the cathedral and its ancillary buildings were located in a central location and, as she observed, close to the river Shannon, then a major means of travel through Ireland. However, the idea of establishing a college here never happened, and it was only in 1592 that the country’s first university was founded in Dublin.
As mentioned, while parts of the former bishop’s palace in Clonfert may go back to the late 16th century, a more substantial portion of the building dates from c.1635, during the episcopacy of Robert Dawson, who had become Bishop of the newly-united dioceses of Clonfert and Kilmacduagh in 1627 and would hold that position until his death in 1643 (incidentally, he was also the forebear of a family that would go on to become great landowners and developers in Ireland, not least his great-grandson Joshua Dawson who was responsible for laying out Dawson Street in Dublin and building what is now the Mansion House). Oak beams and roof joists in the palace have been dated to around this period, although further changes and additions were made at some time in the 18thcentury, when a Venetian window was inserted. In his memoirs, published in 1805, the playwright Richard Cumberland wrote about the palace in Clonfert, which he knew well since his father Denison Cumberland had lived there while bishop of the diocese (1763-1772). ‘This humble residence,’ he recalled, ‘was not devoid of comfort and convenience, for it contained some tolerable lodging rooms, and was capacious enough to receive me and mine without straitening the family. A garden of seven acres, well planted and disposed into pleasant walks, kept in the neatest order, was attached to the house, and at the extremity of a broad gravel walk in front stood the cathedral.’ Cumberland also remembered how, while staying with his father on one occasion, he used ‘a little closet at the back of the palace, as it was called, unfurnished and out of use, with no other prospect from my single window but that of a turf-stack’, as a room in which to begin writing what would prove to be his most successful stage work, the comedy The West-Indian (first performed at London’s Drury Lane Theatre in 1771). However, Clonfert was always one of the poorest episcopacies in the country and as a result successive bishops – many of whom managed to have themselves transferred to richer dioceses after only a short period of time – were disinclined to make improvements to their residence. For this reason, it retained much of its 17th century character, being long and low, of eight bays and two storeys with dormer windows. The surrounding demesne also underwent relatively few changes. There survives, for example, a yew walk running south-west of the palace, which may be even older, but certainly has the character of 17th century baroque garden design. Like the building to which it leads, the yew walk is now sadly neglected.
Clonfert Palace remained home to successive Church of Ireland bishops until 1834 when, following the creation of a new united diocese of Killaloe and Clonfert, it became surplus to requirements and was sold to John Eyre Trench. In 1947 his descendants sold the building to the Blake-Kelly family who, four years later, sold it to the next owners who would be the last people to live in the former palace. By then the place was in poor condition and required extensive renovation, along with the installation of electricity, new bathrooms and so forth before it could be occupied; the new chatelaine drove over from her temporary residence in Co Tipperary to oversee this work. Finally, once complete, in February 1952 she and her family arrived, along with a retinue that included housekeeper, cook, maid and chauffeur, as well as a gardener to maintain the grounds. A local newspaper, the Westmeath Independent, reported that ‘‘Sir Oswald and Lady Mosley, who have a large staff, are charmed with Ireland, its people, the tempo of its life and its scenery.’ The same publication also briefly noted that ‘Sir Oswald was the former leader of a political movement in England.’ The ‘political movement’ had, of course, been the British Union of Fascists (later the British Union) and both Sir Oswald and his wife, the former Diana Mitford, had been interned for a number of years during the second World War by the British government, and had found themselves shunned in the aftermath of their release. Ireland had several advantages, not least the fact that two of Diana Mosley’s sisters already owned properties in the country, Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire at Lismore Castle, County Waterford and Pamela Jackson at Tullamaine Castle, County Tipperary. Country houses here were going cheap, and there were still sufficient other landed families still about to make life agreeable to the newly-arrived. For the next two years, the Mosleys remained contentedly at Clonfert, attracting little attention although they were discreetly observed by both the Irish and British governments. Such might have remained the case, had not disaster struck exactly 70 years ago, in early December 1954. At the time, Diana Mosley was in London, but her husband and their two children were in County Galway when fire broke out, seemingly caused by an old beam inside the chimney of the maids’ sitting room. The blaze spread quickly, so fast indeed that according to a report in the following day’s Irish Times, a French maid, Mademoiselle Cerrecoundo, who had run upstairs to rescue some clothes, became trapped in the building. Sir Oswald, his son Alexander and the chauffeur, Monsieur Thevenon, held a blanket beneath one of the windows and the maid leapt to her safety, with only minor injuries to her back and hand. Alas, the old palace was not so lucky and while a handful of rooms and their contents were saved, most of the building was lost as it took an hour and a half for fire brigades to reach Clonfert. The following day, hurricane-force winds and torrential rain ripped across the entire country, compounding the damage done to the house and leaving it a sorry wreck. In 1955 the Mosleys moved to Ileclash, a Georgian overlooking the river Blackwater in County Cork where they lived intermittently until 1963 when the couple moved to France. As for Clonfert Palace, despite being described on www.buildingsofireland.com in 2009 as being of national significance, it was left to moulder into its present advanced state of decay. What could have been saved as a rare example of late 16th/early 17th century Irish domestic architecture has been lost.
Aughrane Castle, also known as Castle Kelly, Ballygar, Co Galway – demolished 1951
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. 15. “(O’Kelly/LG1863; Bagot/IFR) A castellated house of c19 appearance; little bartizans at corners, plain windows with hood mouldings, simple battlemented porch. Gabled range at one end and gabled towers behind.”
A 16th century tower house with 19th century additions. Castle-Kelly is recorded by Wilson as the seat of Denis Kelly in 1786. Lithographs of the entrance to Castle Kelly, Castle Kelly and Ballygar town are included in the sales rental of 1863. It was bought by the Bagots, sold by them to the Department of Agriculture in 1910 and demolished in 1919. Parts of the demesne are now owned by Coillte, the Forestry Service.
Castle Kelly alias Aughrane Castle. Image: courtesy of Dr. Patrick Melvin & Eamonn de Burca/Skehana & District Heritage
The house consisted of an ancient, perhaps 16th century, tower which was extended in later centuries. The three-storey block with a great gable end rising into a stack of five conjoined chimneys represents an 18th century addition. The house was then turned into a ‘beautiful and commanding modern Mansion’ by further battlemented additions in the mid 19th century, reputedly by James Pain of Limerick for Denis Kelly. It is said that debris from a nearby monastic site was used as building stone, although the surface was of new cut ashlar. The house had little bartizans at the corners, plain windows with hood moulds and a simple battlemented porch. The estate was sold by the Encumbered Estates Court in 1863, and thereafter the house was known as Aughrane Castle. A gate lodge was designed by James Forth Kempster in 1871-72 for Christopher Neville Bagot, the new owner, at a cost of £300. In 1904, when the house was advertised for sale, it was noted that the old castle ‘has some interesting old decorated ceilings and oak floors’. The accommodation then comprised an entrance porch and inner hall with Gothic grand staircase; spacious drawing room, library, dining room, writing room, eight family bedrooms, bath room, dressing room, and thirteen servants’ bedrooms, as well as the usual domestic offices.
In 1909, following a disastrous bog slide on the estate, in which one person was killed and eight families were rendered homeless and unemployed, the estate was sold to the Estates Commissioners, and a school of forestry was established in the house and surrounding grounds by the Board of Agriculture. On 15 May 1921, however, the house was burned down by a gang of 30 armed men, who evacuated the caretaker at gunpoint and then systematically doused the furniture with petrol; only the external walls were left standing. The Board of Agriculture filed a claim for £10,000 compensation under the Malicious Injuries Act, but it not clear whether this was ever paid.
Descent: Timothy O’Kelly (fl. 1566); to son, Rory O’Kelly (fl. 1590); to son, Capt. Colla O’Kelly (d. 1615); to son, Col. John Kelly (d. 1674); to son, Col. Charles Kelly; to son, Capt. Denis Kelly (d. 1740); to kinsman, John Kelly (d. 1748); to son, Denis Kelly (d. 1794); to son, John Kelly (d. 1813); to brother, Rev. Andrew Armstrong Kelly (1763-1849); to son, Denis Henry Kelly (1797-1877); sold in Encumbered Estates Court, 1863, to Christopher Neville Bagot (d. 1877); after lengthy legal proceedings to brother, John Lloyd Neville Bagot (1814-90); to son, Thomas Lloyd Neville Bagot (1848-90); to son, Milo Victor Neville Bagot (1880-1913); sold to Estates Commissioners, 1909, and handed over to Board of Agriculture, 1909; burned 1921.
THE BAGOTS WERE MAJOR LANDOWNERS IN COUNTY GALWAY, WITH 19,303 ACRES
The direct ancestor of this family was SIR ROBERT BAGOD, born in 1213, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, 1274, who obtained a grant of the manor of The Rath, near Dublin (known today as Baggotrath; and also the lands of Baggotstown in County Limerick.
Sir Robert died after 1298.
His lineal descendant,
EDWARD BAGOT (1620-1711), of Harristown, King’s County, and Walterstown, County Kildare, Royal Commissioner for King’s County, 1663, High Sheriff of County Kildare, 1677, King’s County, 1680, married, in 1659, Catherine, daughter of William Colborne, of Great Connell, County Kildare, and had issue,
MILO, his heir; Arthur; Christopher; Elizabeth.
The eldest son,
COLONEL MILO BAGOT (1660-1730), of Ard, Newtown, and Kilcoursey, wedded, in 1700, Margaret, daughter of Edmond and sister of Colonel Andrew Armstrong, of Mauricetown, County Kildare, and had issue,
JOHN, his heir; Michael; Charles, ancestor of BAGOT of Kilcoursey; Elizabeth; Mary.
The eldest son,
JOHN BAGOT (1702-60), of Ard, King’s County, espoused, in 1728, Mary Herbert, of Durrow Abbey, King’s County, and had issue,
Milo, dsp; William, dsp; Charles, dsp; JOHN LLOYD, of whom hereafter; Thomas, dsp; Mary, dsp; Margaret.
The fourth son,
JOHN LLOYD BAGOT, of Ard and Ballymoe, Captain, 37th Foot, ADC to Lord Cornwallis during the American war, wedded, in 1775, Catherine Anne, daughter of Michael Cuffe, of Ballymoe, a descendent of James, Lord Tyrawley, and of Elizabeth Cuffe, alias Pakenham, created Countess of Longford.
He died in 1718, leaving issue,
John Cuffe, dsp; William, dsp; THOMAS NEVILLE, of whom we treat; Cordelia; Louisa; Maria.
He was succeeded by his third son,
THOMAS NEVILLE BAGOT (1784-1863), of Ard and Ballymoe, who espoused, in 1811, Ellen, daughter of John Fallon, of County Roscommon, and had issue,
JOHN LLOYD NEVILLE BAGOT, his heir; Bernard William; Charles Augustus; Christopher Neville, of Aughrane Castle; Letitia Mary; Ellen; Catherine.
The eldest son,
JOHN LLOYD NEVILLE-BAGOT JP (1814-90), of Ballymoe, married, in 1843, Anne Georgina, daughter of Edward Henry Kirwan, of Ballyturin Castle, County Galway, and had issue,
EDWARD THOMAS LLOYD, his heir; Edward Henry Kirwan; John Christopher, of Ballyturin House; Charles Henry, of Curraghmore; Anna Isabella; Ellen Georgina.
Mr Neville-Bagot was succeeded by his eldest son,
EDWARD THOMAS LLOYD NEVILLE-BAGOT (1848-90), of Ballymoe and Aughrane, County Galway, who married, in 1876, Ellen, daughter of Francis Meagher, of Ballinderry, County Tipperary, and had issue, an only child,
MILO VICTOR NEVILLE-BAGOT (1880-), of Ballymoe and Aughrane, and Turin, Italy, who married, in 1908, Maria, only daughter of Signor Boccacio, of Turin, Italy, in a childless marriage.
Photo Credit: Dr Patrick Melvin & Eamonn de Burca
AUGHRANE CASTLE (or Castle Kelly), near Ballygar, County Galway, was a castellated house of 19th century appearance.
It had small bartizans at the corners; plain windows with hood mouldings; and a simple, battlemented porch.
There was a gabled range at one end; a gabled tower behind.
It is said that the Bagot family played a very passive role in the life of the area, other than to collect rents due.
Christopher Bagot spent very little time on the estate and left the management to his two brothers, Charlie and John.
Christopher Bagot bought a house in a fashionable part of London, and entertained fairly lavishly.
Through these parties he came to know a young society lady of great charm and beauty called Alice Verner.
Within a short time they were married – believed to be in 1874.
In due course a son was born to them.
Mrs Christopher Bagot continued to have a high life and relations between herself and her husband soon became strained.
They returned to Castle Kelly in 1876, and some time later he banished her and their young son from his home.
He subsequently drew up a will leaving his entire estate to his brother, John Bagot.
His health failed rapidly and he died in 1877.
Mrs Bagot contested the last will made by her husband, and a much-publicised trial ensued at the Probate Court in Dublin.
The trial lasted for a month, and the court found in favour of Mrs Bagot and her son.
The Court administered the estate on their behalf until the young heir came of age.
The entire estate was offered for sale in 1903.
The Irish Land Commission was the purchaser, and later the Irish Forestry Commission acquired Castle Kelly and the 1,600 acres surrounding it.
Ardfry, Abbey, or House, Oranmore, Co Galway – ruin
Ardfry, County Galway, entrance front c. 1870. Copy photograph: David Davison. Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
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. 9. “(Blake/IFR) A long, two storey house probably of ca. 1770 on a peninsula jutting out into Galway Bay where previously there had been a castle which, during the Civil War, Sir Richard Blake garrisoned in the service of Charles I. Principal front of nine bays with a central pediment and a higher, pyramidal-roofed pavilion at either end. On the front face of each pavilion is a two storey curved bow roof with a shallow half-dome. Hall with alcoves supported by pairs of columns edmbeeded in the wall. Dorothea Herbert and a cousin called here in 1784 during the celebrations for the wedding of Joseph Blake, afterwards the Lord Wallscourt, to a daughter of the Earl of Louth; when an unfortunate incident was caused by the cousin’s dog (to which he was in the habit of feeding “ripe peaches and apricots”) “dirtying the room and Lord Louth’s blindly stepping into it.” At the time of 3rd Lord Wallscourt’s marriage to the beautiful Bessie Lock 1822, the house had been empty for some years and was very dilapidated; at first they thought it was beyond repair, but then they decided to restore it; the work was completed by 1826. It was probably then that the house was given its few mild Gothic touches: a pointed entrance doorway with pinnacles beneath a quatrefoil window; battlements on the end pavilions; and a Gothic conservatory with stone piers. The rather strange four storey block at teh back of teh house which has hood mouldings over its small windows may either have been built, or re-faced, at this time. The 3rd Lord Wallscourt, a man of exceptional strength and often very violent, liked walking about the house naked; his wife persuaded him to carry a cowbell when he was in this state so as to warn the maidservant of his approach. In the early years of the present century, the 2nd wife of 4th Lord Wallscourt sold the lead off the roof to pay her gambling debts; so that the house gradually fell into ruin. It was recently re-roofed and re-windowed so as to be used for the film Macintosh Man; now, wiht the film-property roof a skeleton and the windows falling out, the house seems like the ghost of what it was in an earlier stage of its decay.”
Listed in Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
Ardfry House, County Galway, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
Roofless remains of detached two-storey over basement double-pile country house, built c.1780, renovated c.1820, now roofless. Comprising central block having nine bays to front and six bays to rear, having two-bay two-storey towers of c.1820 terminating each end, projecting slightly to front of front pile and having two-bay two-storey bows to front elevations. Further single-bay three-storey block to north-east re-entrant corner. Towers have crenellated parapets with quatrefoils to centre, and decorative carved stone pinnacles to corners. Rendered chimneystacks. Rendered rubble limestone walls with limestone render string course to eaves and moulded render eaves and sill courses to towers. Square-headed chamfered window openings with stone sills. Label-mouldings to windows of four westmost bays of rear elevation, and moulded quatrefoil opening above front entrance. No frames survive. Upper windows to north elevation have moulded heads and upper jambs of medieval limestone work, that to tower having decorative vegetal detailing. Pointed arch door opening with carved limestone doorcase and flaning clustered columns, with ogee detail above having decorative pinnacle, and with moulded lintel to doorway proper. Remains of courtyard to rear, with pseudo-three-centred arched carriage opening with cut-stone voussoirs to north wall. Set outside Oranmore village on a peninsula jutting into Galway Bay.
Appraisal
Built in the late eighteenth century on the site of an earlier castle owned by the Blakes, Ardfry House has been much altered and added to during its life. The first documented restoration was completed in 1826 when some features were added in the then fashionable Gothic Revival style, including pinnacles, crenellations and the quatrefoil window above the entrance door. The house was residence to Lord Wallscourt, about whom it is said that liked to roam naked and was made to wear a cowbell by his wife to warn the maids of his approach. The house received another brief facelift during the early 1970s when it was re-roofed and refenestrated for use in the Paul Newman film, ‘The Mackintosh Man’. Now ruinous, it nonetheless creates an interesting eyecatcher in the landscape.
Ardfry House, County Galway, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
The building is a roofless shell. None of the original fabric remains other than the external walls. It is suffering from structural problems that could lead to full or partial collapse, and there is an immediate threat of further deterioration.
The house dates to circa 1770 and belonged to the Blake Family with later alterations. It adjoins the earlier medieval castle. The house has been in ruins since the mid 20th century. A development for works at this site was granted permission in 2004 by Galway County Council, however, this has not proceeded. The structure is of significant historic importance and requires conservation works to prevent further deterioration.
Recommended Use
Conservation
Featured in Mark Bence Jones, Life in an Irish Country House. Constable, London. 1996.
Now a ruin.
The land was garrisoned by Richard Blake in the service of Charles I. In about 1770 Joseph Blake built a new house here.
Archaeologist describes removal of stone from Gothic-style ruin Ardfry, once home to Irish literary revival figure Valentine Blake, as ‘wanton vandalism’
April 16, 2013 by Lorna Siggins.
“Galway County Council has issued the owners of a late 18th century Gothic-style mansion with an enforcement notice, following demolition of part of its ruined structure.
The local authority has ordered immediate cessation of any further “unauthorised” work at the listed building, which was once home of Irish literary revival figure Valentine Blake, and has directed the owners to consult with the county council heritage and conservation offices on remedial works.
It warns the owners, Kathleen and William Greaney of Cregboy, Claregalway, Co Galway, that they may be guilty of an offence if steps outlined by it are not taken.
The removal of stone from the two-storey ruin overlooking Galway Bay was witnessed by archaeologist Michael Gibbons who has described it as “wanton vandalism”. He reported it to the Office of Public Works, the local authority and Birdwatch Ireland. He has also contacted the Royal Irish Academy, urging it to place the destruction of monuments by “public and private bodies” on its agenda.
Ardfry was built in 1770 by Joseph Blake on whom was conferred the title of Lord Wallscourt. It was designed as a two-storey house with nine bays, a central pediment to the front and a raised roofed pavilion at either end. It was built on the site of an earlier medieval castle owned by the Blakes, one of the tribes of Galway.
It was renovated in 1826 and updated with some gothic features including a pointed entrance doorway with pinnacles, battlements on the end pavilions and a gothic conservatory with stone piers.
The home fell into ruin after the fourth earl’s second wife reputedly gambled away the family money. Architectural historian Tarquin Blake, author of Abandoned Mansions of Ireland and an associated website, says it had many eccentric owners, including one who was known to walk around naked
carrying a cowbell to “forewarn the maids”.
In 1950, the fourth earl’s three granddaughters reclaimed the house and 33 acres of the esstate, and lived in an outhouse close to the ruin. It was used as a set for the Paul Newman film, The Mackintosh Man, in the 1970s, when it was given a new roof and windows and then burned for the film’s purposes.
The land and property was valued at about £1.6 million (sterling) when put up for sale in 2001, and was listed for sale again several times.
The new owners were granted planning permission for holiday apartments, but this has expired.
The ruin, which is a nesting site for owls and is frequented by herons and egrets, is on a peninsula which is rich in archaeological sites, including one of the largest kitchen middens on Galway Bay.
Mr Gibbons says the house was almost certainly built on the medieval castle site, and describes the area as an “archaeological park”. An experimental oyster farm was established at Ardfry in 1902.
“The destruction highlights the lack of protection afforded to our architectural heritage – even on high-profile sites such as this with their rich literary and scientific background,” he says.
Irish landlords, that small band of men who once owned the greater part of the country, do not enjoy a good reputation here. Judged to have been rapacious and, still worse in the popular imagination, foreign, it cannot be denied that many of their number often put personal interest ahead of concern for the condition of tenants, with disastrous results following the onset of the potato blight in the mid-1840s. However, it would be wrong to tar all landlords with the same blackening brush, since there were a few of them who sought to improve circumstances on their property. Among this unusual group, none was more out of the ordinary than Joseph Henry Blake, third Lord Wallscourt, of Ardfry, County Galway. The Blakes were one of the Tribes of Galway, fourteen merchant families who dominated life in the western city from the 13th century onwards. They liked to claim descent from Ap-Lake, one of the knight’s of King Arthur’s round table, but in fact they were originally called Caddell, the first of them coming to Ireland in the 12th century with Strongbow: in the early 14th century Richard Caddell, Sheriff of Connacht in 1303, was known as Niger or Black, from which the name Blake evolved. Like others among the Galway Tribes, the Blakes soon began to acquire land in the surrounding area, a process that accelerated from the late 1500s onwards. Thus in May 1612 Robert Blake of Galway received a grant by letters patent from James I of Ballinacourt (later Wallscourt) and Ardfry, both in County Galway, as well as additional property in County Mayo. His eldest son Richard Blake, a lawyer by training, was knighted in 1624, served as Mayor of Galway 1627-28, and M.P. for the County of Galway in 1639 before becoming Speaker or Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Irish Confederation which sat at Kilkenny from 1647 to 1649. Although the Blakes subsequently lost their lands during the Cromwellian confiscations, they received them back after the Restoration and remained in possession thereafter, basing themselves at Ardfry which lies on the southern shores of Galway Bay.
Sir Richard Blake’s direct descendants died out in 1744 but a kinsman, Joseph Blake bought the estates from trustees and moved to Ardfry where around 1770 he built a house on the site of an old castle. The new property was long and low, at least nine bays wide and of two storeys over basement, with pyramidal pavilions at either end. Here in 1787 came the Hon Martha Herbert, wife of the rector of Cashel-on-Suir, County Tipperary, together with her daughter Dorothea (author of the celebrated Retrospections published a century after her death). On arrival they found ‘a large party of grandees’ whom Dorothea judged to be a ‘formidable set’ and were informed by their hostess that at Ardfry ‘they seldom or ever sat down to a meal with less than a hundred in family’, the latter term being used more loosely then than would now be the case. Hitherto the Blakes had remained Roman Catholic but Joseph’s son, Joseph Henry Blake conformed to established church and was thus able to stand for election to the Irish parliament, to which he was elected in 1790. He retained his seat until the Act of Union a decade later and having voted in favour of this legislation was rewarded with a peerage, becoming Baron Wallscourt of Ardfry. However, his marriage to an heiress, Lady Louisa Bermingham, daughter of the first Earl of Louth, did not produce a son and so it was arranged that the title would devolve by special remainder to one of his nephews. Thus following his death in 1803 at the age of 37, Joseph Blake, son of the first Baron’s younger brother, became second Lord Wallscourt. The latter in turn dying in 1816 aged 19, his cousin Joseph Henry Blake (son of another of the first Baron’s brothers) became third Lord Wallscourt.
Although he had grown up at Ardfry where his father served as land agent, the new Lord Wallscourt had not expected to inherit the estate. At the time of his cousin’s death he was just eighteen and serving as a lieutenant in the army which he had joined after leaving Eton three years earlier. It is often stated that on coming into the title he immediately indulged in reckless spending but one must wonder how much there was to squander: Dorothea Herbert’s observations indicate that the late 18th century Blakes were already living beyond their means, and around 1795 more than 1,500 acres of the original estate (including the townland of Wallscourt) was offered for sale, while another parcel of land was also put on the market. What remained was some 2,834 statute acres (the greater part of it at Ardfry) yielding a notional annual rental of £3,200, although this always depended on the ability and preparedness of tenants to pay what was expected. Lord Wallscourt had financial obligations to meet regardless of actual revenue: various family members and retainers were entitled to an income for the duration of their respective lifetimes to an annual total of £800, and there was a further £7,000 owing, mostly to relatives. Thus the young peer would have found he had little enough to fritter away, especially after 1820 when creditors had the estate placed in trust so as to maximise income and pay off all debts. Under the new arrangement Lord Wallscourt was permitted a yearly allowance of £500. Thankfully a couple of years later he married a 17-year old English heiress, Elizabeth Lock who was beautiful as well as rich and who would be painted by a family friend, Sir Thomas Lawrence in 1825: this portrait hung in Ardfry until the last century. That same year she and her husband, who had now regained control of his estate, came to look at Ardfry which had been sadly neglected and required extensive renovation. ‘The woods and the walks are certainly very pretty,’ Lady Wallscourt wrote to her mother, ‘and some of the trees very old and remind me of those poor dear old woods at Norbury, but the house is even in a worse state than I had expected, and you know I was not prepared to find grand chose. The building at a distance looks very well and is very handsome, but it seems to me impossible anything can be done to it. There is so much to do, repairing and building, to make it all inhabitable, that I am sure Wallscourt will not attempt it.’ Contrary to expectations, her husband did undertake the necessary work and by the end of the following year, after the building had been given some of the gothic flourishes it retains to this day, the couple moved in with their young children, the occasion marked by a ball given for the servants and tenants. At this event, after some initial hesitancy on the part of the guests, ‘the great decorum and silence gave place to the most violent noise and rioting as they grew merrier, and they danced incessantly to a piper till five. They had enormous suppers of a whole sheep and two or three rounds of beef, and all went home mad drunk with drinking Henry’s health in “the cratur”, as they call whisky.’ Lady Wallscourt soon retired upstairs and allowed the nurse in charge of the children to join the throng where she became ‘quite the life of the party…springing and capering about in a most ludicrous way.’
And now let us touch briefly on efforts by Lord Wallscourt to improve the circumstances of his tenants. When travelling about Europe as a young man and through meeting sundry liberal thinkers of the period, he had become impressed by ‘some of the theories, then much debated, for lifting the labourer into the position of a partner with the capitalist.’ Following his return to Ireland, in 1831 he was interested to hear how the County Clare landlord and founder of the Hibernian Philanthropic Society John Scott Vandeleur had invited Manchester-born journalist and proto-socialist Edward Thomas Craig to establish a co-operative community on his own estate at Ralahine. This was duly visited by Lord Wallscourt who found much to engage him and having sent his overseer to study the system in more detail he set aside 100 acres at Ardfry for his own socialist experiment. Even if begun on a smaller scale, the scheme fared better and lasted longer than that at Ralahine (which Vandeleur, who was addicted to gambling, managed to lose in a bet in 1833, after which he fled to America leaving his poor former tenants to fend for themselves against unmerciless creditors). Lord Wallscourt also embarked on other philanthropic enterprises seeking to establish both a national school and an agricultural school as well as sponsoring the education of a number of boys in England and even as far away as Switzerland. He sought to improve the living conditions of tenants, building a two-storey slate-roofed house built as a model to replace the existing thatched cabins of the area. However it proved impossible to find anyone prepared to move into the new property, tenants apparently explaining ‘it would be mighty cold, and my Lord would be expecting me to keep it too clean.’ Eventually after standing empty for five years, a newly-wed couple took the place, on the grounds that it was ‘better than nothing at all.’ During the terrible years of the famine, Lord Wallscourt worked to ensure the well-being of his own tenants, and those on other estates in the area. He sat on a number of relief committees and on the Galway Board of Guardians, where he was critical of the operation of the poor law system and of his fellow guardians, who, he said, seemed ‘little disposed to transact the business for the discharge of which they were elected’. In 1847 he actively associated himself for the first time with the campaign for tenant rights and employed the distinguished agriculturalist Thomas Skilling (later first Professor of Agriculture at Queen’s University, Galway) to create a new tillage project employing labourers and tenants at Ardfry. He even started to establish an agricultural college on the estate.
One suspects that Lord Wallscourt, however well-intentioned, did not tolerate opposition from his tenants or indeed from anyone else. Evidence for this was provided by his wife when she sought a divorce in 1846 ‘by reason of his cruelty and adultery,’ citing several instances when her husband had assaulted her. He was known to be a man of considerable strength and when young had been a keen boxer (more peculiarly he liked to walk about his house wearing no clothes: eventually Lady Wallscourt persuaded him carry a cowbell in his hand when nude so maidservants had notice of his imminent arrival). The couple suffered the loss of their two elder sons, and it was only during a brief rapprochement in late 1840 that an eventual heir was conceived. It may be that Lady Wallscourt did not care for her husband’s humanitarian enterprises. What, one wonders, must she have made for the welcome he gave to the 1848 Paris insurrection that led to the final overthrow of the French monarchy: he even presided at a celebratory public rally in Dublin. The following year he visited Paris with his young son and while there died after contracting cholera. His estranged wife now regained control, since the boy Erroll Augustus Blake was then aged only seven. The co-operative projects at Ardfry were abandoned and more familiar methods of estate management re-instated. On the other hand, upon reaching maturity the fourth Lord Wallscourt followed the parental example and undertook diverse improvements, most notably the establishment of an oyster fishery in Galway Bay which provided local employment. In other respects however, he could not be compared with his father, being so small in stature that he was known in the vicinity as ‘the lordeen’: Nationalist politician T.P. O’Connor later remembered meeting ‘a tiny little man, sad, deprecatory, almost timid in manner.’ This may have been because he was oppressed by money worries, especially after his second marriage. His new wife turned out to be a hopeless gambler: in the early years of the last century the lead was stripped from Ardfry’s roof to pay her debts and the contents – including that lovely portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence – sold. Nor did the Wallscourt peerage survive much longer: the fourth lord was succeeded in 1918 by his only son who died without children just two years later. And so we see Ardfry as it stands today, a shell of a monument to an abandoned social and agricultural experiment. Who knows what might yet have happened here had the third Lord Wallscourt not died in Paris in 1849, and what example it might have given to other landlords in Ireland. The shame is that his efforts to improve the lives of the country’s tenants are today so little known, and the estate on which he carried out his endeavours has been allowed to fall into such disrepair, the trees and hedges cut down, the walls tumbled, the outbuildings and estate cottages gone or, the the main house, little more than four walls. Dorothea Herbert called Ardfry ‘a beautiful place’ and Griffith’s Valuation of 1857 refers to a ‘beautiful and picturesque demesne, well planted with forest and ornamental timber.’ There’s little enough beauty here now.
For more information on the third Lord Wallscourt, I recommend John Cunningham’s truly excellent essay (to which I am much indebted) ‘Lord Wallscourt of Ardfry (1797-1849)’ in Vol. LVII (2005) of the Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society.
Ardrey House was built in 1770 by by Joseph Blake, who later gained the title of Lord Wallscourt. This title became synonymous with the house that has now fallen to ruins. The Wallscourts lived there until the second wife of the fourth Earl frittered away all the family money on gambling. She even sold the lead of every roof on the estate. The mansion was left empty and much of the contents stolen – a grand piano was later rescued from a barber’s shop. In 1922 the Walscourt title became extinct, but in 1950 the three granddaughters of the fourth Earl succeeded in legally reclaiming the house and 33 acres of the family estate. These three Blake sisters, known locally as the three gay mice lived in an outhouse close to the ruin. The family coat of arms, rescued from the ruin reads VIRTUS SOLA NOBILITAT, Virtue Alone Enobles.
Ardfry was designed as a two-storey house with nine bays, a central pediment to the front and a raised roofed pavilion at either end. It was renovated in 1826 and updated with some gothic features including a pointed entrance doorway with pinnacles, battlements on the end pavilions and a gothic conservatory with stone piers.
Ardfry (which means The Height of the Heather) has had a colourful past, thanks to many of its eccentric owners, one of whom was known to walk around the house naked carrying a cowbell to forewarn the maids.
At the time of Griffith’s Valuation it was being leased by the trustees of Lord Wallscourt’s estate to Pierce Joyce when it was valued at £60.
Ardfry House was used in the Paul Newman film, The Mackintosh Man, when the house was re-roofed and re-windowed, and then burnt – destroying many remnants of the internal features.
The lands also contain the ruins of an earlier castle, previously home to the Blakes, one of the 14 `tribes’ of Galway.
In September 2001 the property and land was for sale in the region of £1.6 million
The estate was again for sale in 2004, and also in 2006 with planning permission.
An Bord Pleanala granted planning permission for redevelopment of the site – the development can only be used for the purpose of holiday apartments.
Thankfully it appears changes to the original development plans have been made to ensure that the aesthetics of the original building are maintained. Other conditions include having an archaeologist and conservationist on site during the works and liaising with the local authority on materials used in the project.
In August 2008 it appears no work has commenced on the proposed redevelopment of the site.
Ardfry Castle dates to approx. 1770 and was built by Joseph Blake, member of the famous Blake Family, who later gained the title of Lord Wallscourt.
Ardfry was designed as a two-storey house with nine bays but was later renovated in 1826 to include gothic features and became adjoined to an earlier medieval castle on the lands.
The Wallscourt title became synonymous with the house where the Wallscourts lived there until the second wife of the fourth Earl gambled away all the family money. It was told that she even sold the lead of every roof on the estate in order to feed her gambling problem.
The house fell to ruins and in 1922 the Wallscourt title became extinct. However in 1950, three granddaughters of the fourth Earl were successful in legally reclaiming the house. They were known locally as the three gay mice who lived in an outhouse close to the ruins.
In later years, Ardfry House was used in the Paul Newman film, The Mackintosh Man, where the house was temporarily rebuilt and then burnt, destroying many internal features which remained
Lewis mentions the seat of Lord Wallscourt in the parish of Oranmore but refers to it as Wallscourt rather than Ardfry, which is actually located in the parish of Ballynacourty. The Ordnance Survey Name books mention it as Ardfry House, the residence of Lord Wallscourt At the time of Griffith’s Valuation it was being leased by the trustees of Lord Wallscourt’s estate to Pierce Joyce when it was valued at £60. The house was built in the late 18th century and altered in 1826. The seat of Lord Wallscourt in 1894 and in 1906. It has been in a derelict state since the mid-20th century. In 2006 it was offered for sale as part of a scheme to create luxury apartments in the building.
Ever fancied yourself as an Irish Sleeping Beauty? We’ve got just the thing.
The next Allsop residential auction takes place on Tuesday 21st of April, and while most of us are struggling to make our rent not to mind a 20 per cent deposit for a home – it’s fun to dream about owning an 18th century castle with 28.8 acres in Galway.
Amongst the 331 properties going under the hammer in the auction is Ardfry House in Oranmore.
The detached period residence was built in 1770 by Joseph Blake, who later gained the title of Lord Wallscourt. The Wallscourts lived there until the second wife of the fourth Earl lost the family money through gambling and even sold the lead of every roof on the estate. The mansion was left empty and much of the contents stolen – a grand piano was later rescued from a barber’s shop. In 1922 the Walscourt title became extinct, but in 1950 the three granddaughters of the fourth Earl succeeded in legally reclaiming the house and 33 acres of the family estate. These three Blake sisters were known locally as the three gay mice and lived in an outhouse close to the ruin.
Ardfry was designed as a two-storey house with nine bays, a central pediment to the front and a raised roofed pavilion at either end. It was renovated in 1826 and updated with some gothic features including a pointed entrance doorway with pinnacles, battlements on the end pavilions and a gothic conservatory with stone piers.
The lands also contains the ruins of an earlier castle, previously home to the Blakes, one of the 14`tribes’ of Galway.
If you have couple of million to spare, you could be owning a piece of movie history too. Ardfry House was used in the Paul Newman film, The Mackintosh Man, when the house was re-roofed and re-windowed, and then burnt – destroying many remnants of the internal features.
Planning permission was granted by Galway County Council in 2004 to develop Ardfry House into luxury holiday apartments which has now lapsed.
This property is offered with an orchard, stone cottages and various outbuildings.
The residential auction will be held on Tuesday 21stApril commencing at 9am and the Commercial auction will begin at 10am on Thursday 23rd April. Both auctions will take place at the RDS, Merrion Road, Dublin.
The story of the House at Ardfry Co. Galway and of the Lords Wallscourt who lived there. Less
The Blake Family built the magnificent Ardfry House close to Oranmore County Galway Ireland around 1770. The family became the Barons Wallscourt shortly afterwards and for over a century were the landlords of the area of Ardfry. Changes of fortune overcame the family until the title became extinct around 1920. This is the story of the family, largely from newspaper accounts,and of their time at Ardfry.
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. “(Blake/LG1886) A house in Georgian style on the eastern shore of Lough Corrib; built ca 1868 by Richard Blake, of the Cregg Castle family.” [Richard Blake, 1829-1915 in ancestry.co.uk]
Detached two-storey over basement house, built 1868, having L-plan with extra bay of later date inset to re-entrant corner, and with formal north-facing garden front of five bays with full-height canted bay, single bay facing west, and four bays facing south including staircase and entrance. Hipped slated roofs with two chimneystacks lined up with ends of canted bay, and third stack on ridge at east side, with earthenware chimneypots, and wide eaves with cast-iron gutters and downpipes. Roughcast rendered walls. Square-headed timber sliding sash six-over-six pane windows to ground floor and three-over-six pane to first floor. Windows to canted bay are two-over-four pane to first floor and four-over-four pane to ground floor, double to front face. Basement windows are modern replacements. Entrance doorcase is simple with segmental-headed fanlight and double-leaf door, with flight of limestone steps. House set within landscaped grounds. Yard of associated farm buildings, dated 1842, having range which is partly two-storey, with hipped slate and recent corrugated-iron roof with rendered chimneystack, rendered rubble limestone walls and square-headed openings with small-pane timber casement windows and timber battened doors. Yard enclosed by high rubble limestone wall.
Appraisal
This mid-nineteenth-century house was built for convenience so that the entrance front is assymetrical while the rear, garden, façade has the symmetry associated with Georgian buildings. The house is beautifully sited on a small rise in the centre of a pocket-sized park, well chosen for the relationship to the yard, and for the view of Lough Corrib. The retention of the varied timber sash windows, and timber door, enhances this building.
A house at this site on the First Edition Ordnance map is labelled Annaghdown House. The current house was built in 1868 by the Blake family It is still occupied and well maintained.
Annaghdown House is a 19th-century country house situated on an elevated site overlooking Lough Corrib. It was built in 1868 by the Blakes of Cregg Castle on the site of an older house also known as Annadown House aka Annadwon Lodge.
Eanach Dúin (lit. “the marsh of the fort”) aka Annaghdune aka Enaghdune derived its name from a fortress in this area and was a settlement of much antiquity. Much of Annaghdown was subject to flooding from Lough Corrib in years gone past so any elevated sites in this district were prime locations. One such site is that of the original Annaghdown House (no longer extant).
Ownership of lands in the parish of Annaghdown passed from Staunton to Rochford in the early 18th century by way of a marriage settlement; a daughter of Thomas Staunton MP married John Rochfort of Clogrenan, Co Carlow in 1722).
ANNADOWN HOUSE original building
In the early 19th century the original Annadown House was occupied by Captain William Burke (formerly Lieutenant Burke) and family. The landlord of Annaghdown, at that time, was Colonel John Staunton Rochfort, of the County Carlow withCharles Staunton- Cahill Esq. of Rock Lawn acting as middleman.
At this time, Tithes were a particularly contentious issue in the parish of Annaghdown – where the only Protestant resident was the Rector “who on Sunday officiates in the capacity of parish clerk, first taking care to attend to the pious lectures of the priest of the ancient faith” [Freeman’s Journal - Monday 04 November 1833]. The local gentry was traditionally Catholic.
In 1837 Lewis only noted two gentlemen’s seats in this locality: “Cregg Castle, that of Fras. Blake, Esq., and Waterdale, of Jas. Blake, Esq.” By 1840, he amended it to include more: “The seats are Cregg Castle, that of Fras. Blake, Esq.; Cahermorris, of Capt. Crampton; Woodpark, of John French, Esq.*; Winterfield, of Capt. Butler; and Annaghdown Lodge, of Mrs. Burke. Captain Burke’s wife must have been a French of “Woodpark”, which was a sizeable residence in the townland adjacent to Annaghdown House.
BIRTH In September 1831, at Wood-park*, Co. Galway, the lady of Lieutenant Burke, of a son. Limerick Evening Post, 20 September 1831.
In March 1844, the valuation of the original house and offices (registered in the name of Captain William Burke)took place. Valued at £10, this over basement house comprised of dwelling rooms, halls, returns and a window was also noted. Its offices (or out-buildings) at that time comprised of stables, barns, a privy and store, a piggery, a fowl house. By February 1846, when this valuation was amended, Burkes name was crossed out and replaced by George Woods who was the registered tenant here a decade later.
MARRIAGE In July 1846, at Drumgriffin, Patrick Cavanagh Esq. married Suzette, daughter of Captain William Burke of Annadown House. [Limerick Chronicle - 15 July 1846].
MARRIAGE In May 1849, by special license, Ulysses Burke, son of Captain Burke, Annadown House, married Annette French, daughter of James French, of Rocklawn, Co. Galway.
ANNADOWN LODGE PARK
It would appear that the name Annadown House and Annadown Lodge were interchangeable names for the same property.
In 1851, the tenancy of Captain William Burke comes to and end with the sale the contents of his residence at “Annadown Lodge”:
COUNTY OF GALWAY: THOMAS CONNELL has been instructed by CAPTAIN W. BURKE, of Annadown Lodge, To Sell Unreservedly By Auction at his Residence, on Thursday, the 6th March next, at the hour of One o’Clock a quantity of HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE Comprising Three Brass and Iron Camp Bedsteads; Mahogany and Hardwood Bedstead; Mahogany Tables and Chairs; Case Drawers, Dressing, Glasses, Tea Store; Fenders and Fire Irons; Dressing Tables, Chamber Ware, Kitchen Requisites, &c.; also, a PHAETON and Harness; three Strong Work Horses, two Fillies, four Cows, Ploughs, Harrows, Winnowing Machine, Oat Bin, Saddles, Cart and Plough Tackling, Carpenters’ and Masons’ Tools, Crowbars, spare Axletrees, Scales and Weights, Handbarrows, Ladders, a common Leath, etc. Terms – Cash. Purchasers to pay Auction Commission. Galway, February 22, 1851. [Galway Mercury, and Connaught Weekly Advertiser, 1 March 1851].
Within a month, ANNADOWN LODGE & FARM (the property of Horace Rochfort) is advertised TO LET:
TO BE LET, with immediate possession, for such terms as may be agreed upon, Annadown Lodge and Farm, as lately held by Captain Burke.
There is a good Coach-house, Stables, Barn, etc. The farm contains about 35 Acres (Irish), with a right of Turbary. The house is prettily situated on the shores of Lough Corrib, with good Fishing and Shooting; and there are 70 Acres of Wood adjoining, which would be Let with the above, and is celebrated for its Woodcock shooting - Distant from Galway, by land 12 miles, and by water 7 miles and 5 miles from Headford. Application to be made to Mr Hugh Gilligan, Abbeygate St., Galway.
[Galway Vindicator, & Connaught Advertiser, 12 April 1851].
In the Matter of the Estate of Horatio William Rochfort, Esquire (1809 – 1891) Owner; John Downes Rochfort, Esquire (1826-1885 ), Petitioner. [both sons of Colonel John Staunton Rochfort, M.P.
Rental Maps and Particulars of Fee-simple and Fee-farm Estates situate in the Counties of Galway and Wexford, which will be Sold by Auction in Five Lots, as stated in the Annexed Rental, Particulars, and Maps, by the Commissioners for the Sale of Incumbered Estates in Ireland, at their Court, Henrietta Street, Dublin, on Friday, the twenty-seventh day of June, 1856, at the hour of Twelve o’clock, at noon. This sale includes part of the Lands of Annaghdown, Annagh West, part of the Lands of Cotteentymore, Cotteentybeg, and Lisheenanoran, in the Barony of Clare and County of Galway. Part of the Lands of Annaghdown, and part of the Lands of Cotteenty are held under Lease for Lives renewable for ever, bearing date the 9th day of April 1781, whereby James Skerrett demised to John Rochfort, All that and those, the intermixed Acres in Annaghdown, containing 32 a. 3r, 10p., and also the intermixed Acres in the Lands of Cotteantagh, containing 21a. 1r. 10p., all situate in the Parish of Annaghdown, Barony of Clare, and County of Galway, for the lives of John Staunton Rochfort, since deceased, Robert Rochfort, since deceased, and Anne Rochfort, now Dowager Lady Blakiston, age about 93 years, with covenant for perpetual renewal, upon payment of a fine of one pepper-corn for every such renewal, at the Yearly Rent of £39, late currency, equivalent to £36 sterling, payable half-yearly, on every First day of May and First day of November. The Tenant’s part of the Original Lease is not forthcoming, but an attested copy of the Memorial thereof, together with a Copy of said lease and a tracing of the Map therein referred to, will be given to the Purchaser. The Purchaser shall not be at liberty to object by reason of the non-production of the original Lease or to require evidence of the title of the Lessor to grant the same, or object thereto by reason of any Incumbrance affecting his Interest.
In 1857, at the time of Griffith’s Valuation, Annaghdown Lodge [GV#6] was still the property of Horace Rochfort, Esquire (1809 – 1891) and occupied by George Woods, Annaghdown Lodge. The house had devalued further to £4. George Woods also held 78 acres of land in the neighbouring townland of Coteenty.
In 1880 and 1881, Rikard Blake Esq. served as High Sherriff of Co Galway Town and owned 1,037 acres in the locality.
In the late 19th century 25″ map of Annaghdown the addition of new walled garden and farmyard outbuildings can be seen.
In 1901, the house was occupied by “landed proprieter” Richard Blake (1829–1915) and his sister-in-law Johanna G Ryan, who were both Roman Catholics. Three servants Kate Murray, Mary Goly and Martin Kilkelly were also residing here. His “gentleman farmer” son, Francis J Blake was visiting at Moneen House, Galway at the time the 1901 census was taken. Moneen was the home of his love-interest ”Lilly” aka Adelaide Jane O’Neill Power. In 1904 the couple married, but Lilly died two years later age 29. A second marriage was arranged for him, and in 1909 he married Edith Mary Synnott (1880–1957) daughter of Thomas Synnott of Innismore, Glenageary, Co. Dublin.
In 1911, both Richard and his only child, Francis Joseph Blake (1873–) are still residing here.In addition, Francis’ second wife and young family also occupy Annaghdown House. Servants Kathleen Hays, Margaret Haren, Mary McMurrow and Patrick Faherty were also recorded here.
Richard passed away in 1915 and with that, Francis Joseph Blake Esq. was shortlisted for the position of High Sherriff for Co Galway in 1916. Blake descendants continued to live at Annaghdown throughout the 20th century.
Annaghdown House is still occupied and well maintained.
Annaghdown Castle is a restored tower house on the shores of Lough Corrib. Although there is little known about the Castle, research from its owners brought to light some interesting facts.
The castle is a 15th century Norman style tower house with carbon dating samples dating back to 1440. It was originally believed that the Castle was either built by the De Burgo family or the O’Flaherty clan but it had been discovered that the castle was in fact built for an Anglo-Norman bishop who was backed by the De Burgo’s.
This recently restored tower house picturesquely located on the eastern shore of Lough Corrib was most likely erected by the O’Flaherty Clan in the late 14th century. Unfortunately, little is known of its history. The castle is battered at the base, with a pointed-arch south-facing doorway, and at one time was fortified by a murder hole, although with the recent renovations it was not possible to discern if the murder hole is still present. Prior to reconstruction there were only traces of bartizans at the corners of the south wall and another at the north-east corner, and no crenellations or roof. These items have been reconstructed for the current private dwelling. The east and west gables of the roof remain set back from the level of the main wall. The tower house has been described as five-stories, but in comparing the present structure to photos prior to the reconstruction, the window openings appear to be the same (although windows now fill the gaps), yet only four stories are apparent. From what we could discern, a straight stairway from a small entry chamber leads through the east wall to the first floor, and after that becomes spiral. Two things struck me – one is that although the castle appears quite large, it is amazingly smaller inside when one accounts for the thickness of the walls and the need for staircases in the walls. The other is that a level of care was taken in refitting this castle for modern living — while the interior is modernized, an attempt was made to reconstruct the exterior back to how it may have appeared when first built.
Annaghdown Castle seen above from the air is a 15th century Norman style tower house. The owners, Jessica Cooke and Sean Faughnan had parts of the castle carbon dated during their archaeological excavation of the site. The sample from the ground floor was dated to 1440.
It was traditionally assumed that Annaghdown Castle was probably built by the De Burgo family, some people even linked it with the O’Flaherty’s who were pushed westwards by the De Burghos.
Recently however, Jessica has undertaken more research and found out that Annaghdown Castle was actually built for an Anglo-Norman bishop who was backed by the DeBurgho’s. The bishop was settled across from the much older monastery in a statement about the ‘new order’.
Annaghdown had strategic importance. Holding Annaghdown meant controlling this part of the lakeand whoever had control here, controlled the access to Galway. The main access route to Galway was by water. The current road from Galway was not built until the early 20th century.
Main door at Annaghdown Castle. In the past there was a grate in front of it that could be pulled tight from the inside as an extra layer of defense.
Relationship With Annaghdown Monastery
The nearby monastery (first founded by Saint Brendan in the sixth century) had been the cathedral of the O’Flaherty’s. By the thirteenth century, the bishopric of Annaghdown was absorbed by the archdiocese of Tuam. Nonetheless, the monastery continued to be used into the late 1500’s, well after the Dissolution, supported by its own lands.
There must have been a bit of a stand off between the monastery and the newly built castle, but the monastery continued to thrive for some time.
In defiance of the Anglo-Norman bishop, a round tower was built at the monastery. Jessica Cookerecently discovered the foundations of the tower.
Near the castle was a holy well, Saint Brendan’s well, and the monks used to go on procession to the well for the saint’s feast day.
Irish castle, Annaghdown, County Galway, downstairs vaulted room, now used as a kitchen. Once upon a time this was a spance for storage or for housing animals.
The Irish Castle Is Sold And Modernized
At some stage the castle did end up in the hands of the DeBurgho’s. The De Burgos were a landowning Anglo-Norman family that owned a number of castles and moved from place to place throughout the year.
Sometime in the 16th century howerever, they sold the castle on to the Lynch family, another wealthy landowning family and one of the Galway tribes.
The Lynches were onee of the ‘Galway Tribes’ and were English speaking. They made money not only from the land, but also from trading; they imported wine for example. The Lynch family modernized the castle in the seventeenth-century style. They introduced more fireplaces, enlarged windows, added the minstrel’s gallery and changed the usage of rooms. The prison for example, was disused and became another room at this stage. Battlements were added aiding the guarding of the castle.
Jessica Cooke seen here guarding the battlements at her Irish castle at Annaghdown.
Jessica found a document in the Blosse-Lynch family papers relating to this period. Eilish Lynch wrote a letter to her husband, Roebuck Lynch informing him that she would soon be moving from one tower house to another, and consulting him on a number of practical issues in relation to this. Roebuck Lynch was a magistrate and away in Galway or Dublin on business a lot of the time, while Eilish was managing the various estates.
The Lynch family, namely Roebuck Lynch, refused to sign the Articles of Surrender after the Cromwellian invasion of Galway. Their lands were subsequently confiscated. Annaghdown Castle was ‘decommissioned’ by Cromwell’s soldiers. They pushed the battlements off and broke the main stair case. This beautiful medieval Irish castle was never lived in again. The estate was given to the Church of Ireland.
The last time the castle made history was during the Williamite wars in the late 17th century. In her research, Jessica came across an interesting document. It was the Crown’s pardon to George Stanton, the last defender of Annaghdown Castle which, even though no longer inhabited, had still been used as a strategic point of defense.
The Irish castle reconstruction at Annaghdown has seen the use of traditional materials and techniques, as reflected in this reconstructed timber door.
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The recently restored castle of Annaghdown can be found on the eastern shore of Lough Corrib.
The castle is said to date back to the 14th Century and is thought to have been built by the O’Flaherty clan, or depending where you read it may have been the Archbishop of Tuam in 1421.
When built the castle was used to control lake traffic to and from Galway city as roadways were not built until much later.
The original castle is said to have been five stories high with a murder hole. What you see today looks to be four stories high.
Ray Cook of Galway bought the castle from Lady Cusack-Smith for £2.000 in the 1970’s. What can be seen today is the result of the restoration carried out by Ray and family in a later style than the original castle.
Access – The castle is a short drive from Corrandulla. You will be able to see the site peeping above a line of tree’s as you near the village of Annaghdown. The castle is on private land, so please make sure to ask for permission to visit the site.
Annaghdown Castle stands in Ballylee townland, about 200m to the south of the priory. It was probably erected after 1421 by the Archbishop of Tuam. It is an almost square tower standing five storeys high. It has undergone recent renovation and is not now open to the public. I visited the castle in 1986 and the photographs and notes date from that time. The doorway in the SE wall is protected by a good murder-hole leading from the first floor and by a small loop from the stairway. To the left is a low narrow chamber and a broad stairway rises to the right within the east wall as far as the first floor. Thereafter it becomes spiral and is intact as far as the second but fragmentary beyond that. There is a fireplace at the first floor and mural chambers in the south wall at the first and second floors. There is a vault above the second floor. A long passage in the north wall leads from the stairway between second and third floors. There are traces of bartizans at the corners of the south wall and another at the north-east corner. There are no crenellations. The castle is lit by small slits at the lower levels and two-light windows at the higher levels. There is the usual pecked decoration at the doorways. There is a slopstone at the second floor and a latrine chute exit at the base of the NW wall. The east and west gables are set back from the level of the main wall. There are traces of a gable level with the south wall and there may have been a similar north gable.
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. 2. “(Lambert/IFR) A house of mid to late C18 appearance of two storeys over a high basement. Front of two bay on either side of a central three sided bow incorporating a fanlighted doorcased with rustications, pylons and a keystone surmounted by a pedestal.”
Detached L-plan three-bay two-storey country house with raised basement, built c.1780, with slightly lower canted entrance bay to front (west) elevation, and having one-bay full-height addition to rear to give two-bay north and three-bay south elevations. Now in use as house. Hipped slate roof with rendered chimneystacks and remains of cast-iron rainwater goods. Roughcast rendered walls with cut limestone plinth course. Square-headed window openings, round-headed staircase window to rear elevation, all having tooled limestone sills and replacement uPVC windows. Round-headed door opening with cut and carved limestone doorcase with channelled pilasters, moulded lintel, moulded archivolt with fluting, fluted keystone and having finials, with replacement uPVC door and fanlight, approached by flight of cut limestone steps with cut-stone retaining walls and steel railings. Round arched dressed limestone gateway to yard to south of house, having gable with bellcote. Ranges of multiple-bay two-storey outbuildings to yard, having pitched slate roofs and rendered walls, square-headed window and door openings with timber fittings and segmental-headed carriage arches, some with timber battened fittings. Site entrance to road has cast-iron double-leaf gate with cut limestone piers, flanked by rendered quadrant walls. Set within own grounds.
Appraisal
A middle-size country house with a canted bay adding interest. Ornamentation is focused on the fine limestone doorcase with its unusual finials, the entrance being further emphasised by the splayed flight of cut-stone steps. The diminishing windows are a typical feature of high status homes of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The setting of the house is enhanced by its yard of outbuildings.
In 1786 Wilson refers to Aggard as the seat of Mr. Lambert. In 1837 Lewis recorded Aggard as the seat of J. Lambert. The property at Aggard was being leased by the Lambert family from Reverend Thomas Kelly, at the time of Griffith’s Valuation. Reverend Kelly’s estate, including Aggard, was offered for sale in the Encumbered Estates court in February 1857. In 1894 the seat of J.W.H. Lambert. Aggard House is still extant and occupied.
Walter Lambert of Creg Clare married Miss Martin of Tullyra and had
John Lambert of Milford. Peter Lambert of Castle Ellen. Thomas Lambert.
John Lambert of Milford, Co. Galway, married Mary, daughter of Sir Henry Burke, [9th] Bart. of Glinsk and died 1787 leaving: Walter of Kilquaine: born after 1750, died without children. Henry of Aggard – born after 1750, married his first cousin Anne. (Daughter of Thomas Lambert and Elizabeth Wood.) Died 1820 and was succeeded by his nephew: John Walter Henry (2) [1811-1899] Thomas of Milford Jane – unmarried. Eliza – unmarried. Letitia – married John Fallon of Runnemead, Co. Roscommon. A daughter – married Edmund Kelly of Scregg.
Thomas Lambert of Milford - born after 1750, married 5.9.1805 to Lydia, daughter of Cuthbert Fetherstonhaugh, of Mosstown, Ballymore and died 1822 leaving Mary Ann – married Major Cuthbert Barlow. Lydia – married George Marshall. Cecilia – married Colonel W. Nixon. Charlotte – married Capt. Henry Marshall. John Walter Henry (2) Cuthbert Fetherstonhaugh – unmarried.
2. John Walter Henry Lambert of Aggard, J.P. High Sheriff 1855 birth 5.10.1811 married 11.2.1833 Anne, only daughter of William Fetherstonhaugh, of Derrahiney, Co. Galway. She died 20.2.1859. He died 8.4.1899 having by her:
Thomas Walter of Aggard (3) b.1841. John Henry – born 1844, of Redmount Hill, Ballinasloe, Co. Galway, married Adelaide Dewe of Gloucestershire. William Fetherstonhaugh (Lambert) – born 1852 of Donalstone House, Ballyglunin, married his 3rd,. cousin, Ada Lambert. Anne Caroline – died unmarried 1911. Charlotte – married Lieut.- Col. Cuthbert Barlow. Emily Florence – married Charles Kelly of Westmeath. Elizabeth Jane – married Thomas Barlow. Marion Marcella – married Col. Charles William Brereton. Adelaide – married Rev. Robert O’Callaghan of Hull. Fanny – unmarried. Alice – married John Lamprey of Hampshire.
3. Thomas Walter Lambert of Aggard and Kilquaine, Co. Galway, born 24.3.1841 married 31.5.1865, Elizabeth, 3rd. daughter of Christopher, St. George of Tyrone House. She died 3.12.1910. He died 11.3.1902 leaving:
Christopher Richard Thomas (4) John Walter Henry Charles. Cuthbert Harold, unmarried. Harry William Reginald – married Lilly Scanlon of Bandon. Olivia Bessy Josephine – married Walter Mortimer Dyas of Kells. Charlotte Norah Barlow – married Major William Thomas Conway Poole. Anne Marion – married William Astle Ryan of Wexford. Adelaide St. George – married Robert Sparrow. Guendoleyne Lizzie. Ethel Beatrice – died young. Beatrice Helena.
4. Christopher Richard Thomas Lambert of Aggard, J.P. born 29.10.1868, emigrated to Australia.
John Walter Henry Charles, of Kilquaine, Craughwell, born 20.11.1871 married Mary, Daughter of Rev. John Foot. and had:
Cuthbert Harold – born 24.08.1876 Harry William Reginald – born 17.05.1878 Olivia Charlotte Norah Anne Marion Adelaide St. George Guendoleyne Lizzie Ethel Beatrice Beatrice Helena.
Irish Historic Houses 