County Kildare

Riverstown House, Monasterevin, Co Kildare

by jenjunebug

Riverstown House, Monasterevin, Co Kildare

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. 242. “(De Ryther/LG1863) A C18 house of which all that now remains is what appears to have been a service block, with triple niches on its ends.” 

https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/11902602/riverstown-house-riverstown-co-kildare

Detached nine-bay two-storey building, c.1775, on a T-shaped plan possibly originally part of larger building retaining early aspect with series of round-headed openings to ground floor, single-bay two-storey advanced bays to side elevations having full-height round-headed recessed niches with single-storey round-headed flanking niches, and three-bay two-storey return to rear having single-bay two-storey projecting bay with full-height round-headed recessed niche to side elevation. Hipped roofs with slate. Clay ridge tiles. Rendered chimney stacks. Square rooflights. Moulded eaves band. Cast-iron rainwater goods. Roughcast walls over rubble stone construction (exposed rubble stone construction to side elevations and to part of return). Stringcourse to spring of round-headed openings and to first floor. Round-headed recessed niches (single-storey and full-height) to various elevations. Square-headed window openings. Stone sills. Continuous sill course to first floor. 1/1, 2/2, 3/3 and 6/6 timber sash windows. Series of round-headed openings to ground floor (including door opening). Timber panelled double doors. Spoked fanlights to all round-headed openings. Set back from road in own part-overgrown grounds. Gravel verge to front. Detached five-bay single-storey rubble stone outbuilding with half attic, c.1775, to site. Now disused and part derelict. Gable-ended roof with slate. Clay ridge tiles. Eaves band. Rainwater goods now gone. Rubble stone walls. Red brick dressings. Shallow segmental-headed window openings. Stone sills. Red brick to heads. Fittings now gone. Remains of shallow segmental-headed integral carriageways. Red brick dressings. One now blocked-up (rubble stone) with one remodelled, c.1900, having lintel added forming square-headed opening. Fittings now gone.

Appraisal

Riverstown House is a fine and unusual Classical-style block that may originally have been but a portion of a larger house on the site. Although now disused the house remains in good condition and retains much of its original features, materials and character. Despite being attributed as a service wing the building is much ornamented, with each elevation thoughtfully designed with much incident. The primary elevation is a rhythmic composition of graceful proportions with openings evenly distributed – the round-headed openings to ground floor are an attractive feature, especially when furnished with a series of spoked fanlights. A quasi-Triumphal Arch motif is a recurring theme and is used to grace the side elevations, and in a more pared-down version the side elevation of the projecting bay to the return. Most of the original materials are retained throughout the piece, if in varying states of repair, and include a variety of timber sash fenestration, the spoked fanlights, and slate roofs. The retention of an early external aspect serves to suggest that an interior of note may also survive intact. The building is set in its own grounds and is accompanied by a fine, if neglected, outbuilding, which is itself of some architectural merit.

See Daniel Browne father of Tempe Browne who marries Charles Bagot.

Pickering Forest, Celbridge, Co Kildare

by jenjunebug

Pickering Forest, Celbridge, Co Kildare

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. 231. “(Brooke, Bt of Summerton/PB) A three storey Georgian house with a front consisting of three bays and a two bay projection. In the angle of the projection, an enclosed porch with engaged Doric columns. The front prolonged by a single-storey two bay bow-ended wing.” 

Not in national inventory 

Palmerstown House, Naas, County Kildare – private rental

by jenjunebug

Palmerstown House, Naas, County Kildare

Palmerstown House, photograph courtesy of website.
Palmerstown House, photograph courtesy of website.

https://www.palmerstownhouse.ie/manor-house-kildare.html

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. 230. “(Bourke, Mayo, E/PB) A house rebuilt in late “Queen Anne” style by public subscription as a tribute to the memory of 6th Earl of Mayo, who was Chief Secretary for Ireland and then Viceroy of India, where he was assassinated by an escaped convict in the Andaman Islands 1872. One front with recessed centre and three bay projections joined by colonnade of coupled Ionic columns; other front with pediment raised on a three bay attic, between two three sided bows. Mansard roof with pedimented dormers. Burnt 1923, afterwards rebuilt with a flat roof and balustraded parapet. Subsequently owned by Mr W.J. Kelly and then by Mrs Anne Biddle. The well-known caterer Mrs B. Lawlor, owner of the popular hotel in Naas, began her career as cook to the 7th Earl and Countess of Mayo at Palmerstown.” 

Palmerstown House, photograph courtesy of website.
Palmerstown House, photograph courtesy of website.
Palmerstown House, photograph courtesy of website.
Palmerstown House, photograph courtesy of website.
Palmerstown House, photograph courtesy of website.
Palmerstown House, photograph courtesy of website.
Palmerstown House, photograph courtesy of website.
John Bourke, 1st Baron Naas, (1705-1790), later 1st Earl of Mayo, Engraver William Dickinson, English, 1746-1823 After Robert Hunter, Irish, 1715/1720-c.1803, photograph courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.

https://lordbelmontinnorthernireland.blogspot.com/2013/07/palmerstown-house.html

THE EARLS OF MAYO OWNED 4,915 ACRES OF LAND IN COUNTY KILDARE

This family, MacWILLIAM BOURKE, and that of CLANRICARDE, derive from a common ancestor, viz. WILLIAM FITZADELM DE BURGO, who succeeded STRONGBOW as chief governor of Ireland, 1176. Sir Theobald Bourke, of Ardnaree, the last MacWilliam Bourke in Ireland, escaped to Spain, and was created by PHILIP III Marquis of Mayo.

DAVID BOURKE, of Moneycrower (Bunacrower), during the reign of HENRY VIII, had three sons,

Edmond;

JOHN, of whom we treat;

Miles.

The second son,

JOHN BOURKE, of Moneycrower (Bunacrower), was a captain of horse under the Marquess of Ormonde during the troubles in Ireland, in 1641; at the termination of which he took up his abode at Kill, County Kildare, and marrying Catherine, daughter of Meyler Fay, and niece of Sir Paul Davys, had (with three daughters),

Miles, dsp;
Walter, dsp;
Theobald, dsp;
RICKARD, of whom presently. 

The youngest son,
RICKARD BOURKE LL.D, of Dublin, married Catherine, daughter of Charles Minchin, of Ballinakill, County Tipperary, and was father of

THE RT HON JOHN BOURKE (c1700-90), MP for Naas, 1727-60, 1768-76, Old Leighlin, 1761-8, who wedded, in 1725, Mary, third daughter and co-heir of the Rt Hon Joseph Deane, Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer, and had issue,

JOHN, his heir;
JOSEPH DEANE (Most Rev), Lord Archbishop of Tuam, 3rd Earl;
Richard;
Thomas;
Catherine; Elizabeth; Margaret; Eleanor.

Mr Bourke having been sworn previously of the Irish privy council, was elevated to the peerage, in 1776, in the dignity of Baron Naas, of Naas, County Kildare; and advanced to a viscountcy, 1781, as Viscount Mayo, of Moneycrower (Bunacrower), County Mayo.

His lordship was further advanced to the dignity of an earldom, in 1785, as EARL OF MAYO.

The 1st Earl was succeeded by his eldest son,

JOHN, 2nd Earl (1729-92), MP for Naas, 1763-90, who espoused, in 1764, the Lady Mary Leeson, daughter of Joseph, Earl of Milltown, but died without issue, when the honours devolved upon his brother,

JOSEPH DEANE (Most Rev), Lord Archbishop of Tuam, as 3rd Earl (c1740-94), who married, in 1760, Elizabeth, only daughter of Sir Richard Meade Bt, and sister of John, 1st Earl of Clanwilliam, by whom he had issue,

JOHN, 4th Earl;
Richard (Rt Rev), Lord Bishop of Waterford;
Joseph (Very Rev), Dean of Ossory;
George Theobald (Rev);
and eight daughters.

His lordship was succeeded by his eldest son,

John, 4th Earl (1766–1849);
Robert, 5th Earl (1797–1867);
Richard Southwell, 6th Earl (1822-72);
Dermot Robert Wyndham, 7th Earl (1851–1927);
Walter Longley, 8th Earl (1859–1939);
Ulick Henry, 9th Earl (1890–1962);
Terence Patrick, 10th Earl (1929–2006);
Charles Diarmuidh John, 11th Earl (b 1953).

The heir apparent is the present holder’s eldest son, Richard Thomas Bourke, styled Lord Naas (b 1985).

PALMERSTOWN HOUSE, near Johnstown, County Kildare, is a mansion-house rebuilt in late-Victorian “Queen Anne” style.

The mansion was built by public subscription as a tribute to the memory of the 6th Earl of Mayo, Chief Secretary for Ireland and later Viceroy of India.

The 6th Earl was assassinated by an escaped convict in the Andaman Islands in 1872.

One front has a recessed centre and three-bay projections, joined by a colonnade of coupled columns. Another front has a pediment elevated on a three-bay attic, between two three-sided bows.

The house has a Mansard roof with pedimented dormers.The mansion was burnt in 1923, though afterwards rebuilt with a flat roof and balustraded parapet.

Palmerstown has had a succession of owners, including Mrs B Lawlor, who began her career as cook to the 7th Earl and Countess.

Palmerstown House now functions as a de luxe golf golf resort and functions including christenings, communions, confirmations, family celebrations, retirement parties, anniversaries, corporate events, team-building exercises etc.

Mayo arms courtesy of European Heraldry.

https://theirishaesthete.com/2018/11/14/built-by-his-friends-and-countrymen/

The garden front of Palmerstown, County Kildare. The estate here was acquired in the middle of the 17th century by a branch of the Bourke family, later Earls of Mayo, who built a residence later described as ‘an old fashioned house, added to from time to time in an irregular manner, the rooms low and small but enriched with some good pictures, particularly a set of Sir Joshuas.’ In 1872 Richard Southwell Bourke, the sixth earl, was assassinated while serving as Viceroy of India. Subsequently a new house was erected for the family, the costs defrayed by public subscription: a plaque over the entrance notes that it was built ‘by his friends and countrymen.’ Designed by Thomas Henry Wyatt in what is generously described as a Queen-Anne style, the second Palmerstown only lasted half a century, being burnt during the Civil War in January 1923: the elderly seventh earl was a Free State Senator and therefore vulnerable to attack from Anti-Treaty forces. The building was subsequently reconstructed under the supervision of architect Richard Orpen but without its original third-storey Mansard roof. Having changed hands several times in the last century, it is now a wedding venue.

Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare 

by jenjunebug

Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare 

Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.

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. 301. “Basically a mid-C18 house of three storeys over a high basement and five bays, the top storey being treated as an attic above the cornice which becomes a baseless pediment over the three centre bays. Triple-ridged roof; oculus in pediment; quoines. Single-storey bows were subsequently thrown out on either side of the entrance door and a three storey one bay wing was added. Owned C18 by Lewis Jones; passed by marriage to the Digbys (PB). Afterwards owned successively by the Carroll, Murphy and Lawlor families.” 

Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.

See family tree Lewis Jones b. 1690 and John Digby b. 1702. 

For sale courtesy Goffs

W91 K6DN 7 beds7 baths1115 m2

A magnificent country house dating back to the 18th century tastefully restored by the current owners. For Sale by Private Treaty Osberstown House, Osberstown, Naas, Co. Kildare. On c.17.23 acres Country Estate including Residence, Ballroom, Walled Garden and Lands. N7/M7 4.5 km. – Naas 4 km. – Sallins 2.5 km. – Dublin City Centre 39 km. – Dublin Airport 44 km. Osberstown House is a three storey over basement period house built c.1795 and tastefully restored by the current owners. Extending to approximately 12,000 sq.ft. with many attractive and original features, the property offers a range of possibilities to the prospective buyer. The residence is approached through cast iron security gates, along a sweeping tree lined avenue leading to a gravelled parking area at the front of the house. A separate entrance leads to the mews to the side of the main house.

The house reflects the ambition of the current owners to return this property to its former glory. Dash, which had covered the entire house, was painstakingly removed and the beautiful brick facade re-pointed and sealed. Antique salvaged building materials and decorative pieces were sourced both in Ireland and overseas. The house was rewired, re-plumbed and refurbished to a very high standard.

Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.

The Residence Garden room – Gym – Wine Cellar – Store rooms – Billiard Room – Kitchen/breakfast room – Pantry – Conservatory Entrance hall – Inner hall – Drawing room – Dining room – Den – Study – Bar – Mezzanine Sun Room Master bedroom suite – Guest bedroom suite – Laundry 4 bedrooms – 4 bathrooms The Ballroom 2 large reception rooms – Ballroom – Professional kitchen – Bathrooms – Board Room with roof garden The Mews Two self contained units, accessed via a shared entrance. The accommodation comprising, Kitchen/ Dining room – Living Room – Bathroom – Mezzanine bedroom. BER Ratings D2. Nos 112393277 and 112393335

Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.

The Lands In paddocks Formal gardens Small and large walled gardens Services Mains water, Electricity, O.F.C.H. and Septic tank Shopping and Schools The neighbouring town of Naas provides a comprehensive range of shops, cafes and well renowned restaurants, it is also particularly well served with schools for all ages. There is additionally Clongowes Wood College and within thirty minutes a large number of Dublin schools and universities. Racing & Hunting Kildare is world famous for staging some of the most exciting horse racing events in Ireland. Osberstown lies within a ten minute drive of all three tracks, Naas, Punchestown and the Curragh, as well as most hunting meets with the Kildare Hunt Club. Fishing A wide array of fish lie within the Barrow waters an the Rye River, to the north of Kildare, is for fly fishing only. There is excellent fishing for wild brown trout at Ballymore Eustace and Kilcullen and some excellent trout fishing between Celbridge and Straffan. Travel The M7 motorway to Dublin and Kildare is a mere three minutes away. There is an excellent bus service from Naas to Dublin City Centre and Dublin Airport is approximately 30 minutes drive. Sallins also provides a rail station with a regular commuter service to Dublin City. Solicitors with Carriage of Sale Cathal O’Sullivan, O’Sullivan & Associates Solicitors, 10 Herbert Street, Dublin 2,

Accommodation 

The Residence Garden room – Gym – Wine Cellar – Store rooms – Billiard Room – Kitchen/breakfast room – Pantry – Conservatory Entrance hall – Inner hall – Drawing room – Dining room – Den – Study – Bar – Mezzanine Sun Room Master bedroom suite – Guest bedroom suite – Laundry 4 bedrooms – 4 bathrooms The Ballroom 2 large reception rooms – Ballroom – Professional kitchen – Bathrooms – Board Room with roof garden The Mews Two self contained units, accessed via a shared entrance. The accommodation comprising, Kitchen/ Dining room – Living Room – Bathroom – Mezzanine bedroom. BER Ratings D2. Nos 112393277 and 112393335 The Lands In paddocks Formal gardens Small and large walled gardens

Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.
Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.

BER Details 

BER: Exempt

Directions 

Directions From Dublin proceed South on the N7 and exit at Juction 9 Naas (Big Ball). At Big Ball take second exit off the roundabout onto Monread roundabout and proceed on the Monread Road until you reach the Millennium Road roundabout and take the third exit off the roundabout signposted for Sallins. Take the next left turn onto the Osberstown road and continue on this road for approximately 1 km and the entrance to Osberstown House is on your left.

Osberstown House, Oberstown, Naas, Co Kildare, photograph courtesy Goffs estate agent.

Oldtown, Naas, Co Kildare 

by jenjunebug

Oldtown, Naas, Co Kildare 

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. 229. “(De Burgh/IFR) One of Ireland’s first Palladian windged houses, built ca 1709 by Thomas Burgh, MP, Engineer and Surveyor-General for Ireland, to his own design. Two storey centre block with two storey wings; centre block adorned with pairs of Ionic pilasters, rising to just below the first floor windows; each pair carrying its own short section of entablature; wings also adorned with pairs of Ionic pilasters carrying massive entablatures. The centre block was burned 1950s. a house has now been made out of one of the wings.” 

Not in National Register

See in family tree, Thomas Burgh of Oldtown.

http://www.turtlebunbury.com/history/history_family/hist_family_deburgh.htm

p. 52. With a lineage stretching back to the great Emperor Charlemagne, the de Burgh’s role in Irish affairs has made an immense impact on the shape of the island’s past. From the first Norman knights who cantered across the seas in the 12th century to the courtrooms of Georgian Dublin, the de Burghs have been intrinsically involved with some of the most pivotal events in Irish history. The Oldtown branch was established in Kildare just over 300 years ago by Thomas Burgh, one of the first great Irish military engineers. His descendents include the Georgian orators Walter Hussey Burgh and John Foster, General Sir Eric de Burgh, the singer Chris de Burgh and the 2003 Miss World, Rosanna Davison.

A Call to Arms

The de Burghs claim descent from Charlemagne through Jean, Comte de Konign and Baron de Tonsburgh in the late 10th century. Amongst their more prestigious forbears were Baldwin de Burgh, King of Jerusalem (1118 – 1131) and Ode, Bishop of Bayeux, for whom the Bayeux Tapestry was made. The first of the family to settle in Ireland was William de Burgh, a Steward of Henry II, who personally received the submission of the Kings of Connaught and Meath at Athlone in 1172. In return he was made Governor of Wexford and “Dominus” or Lord of Connaught by Prince John, Lord of Ireland. Tradition states the de Burgh arms were granted when one of the family killed a leading Saracen while fighting alongside Richard the Lionheart. The crusading monarch is said to have dipped his sword in the dead man’s blood and made the shape of a cross over his fallen shield, saying “these, Knight, be thine arms forever”. As William de Burgh was married to Richard’s daughter Isabel, widow of Prince Llewelyn of Wales, it seems plausible that he was the man to whom the arms were first granted.

[p. 53. ]

Protector of the Realm

In 1192, William allied with Donal O’Brien, King of Thomond, against the MacCarthys. He subsequently married O’Brien’s daughter Anne by whom he had a son, Richard, in 1201. When John ascended the English throne in 1199, William’s younger brother Hubert de Burgh (1165 – 1243) was appointed King’s chamberlain. Hubert was to become one of the most influential men in England during the reign of King John. His successful defence of Dover Castle against a French invasion in 1216 gave him the necessary power to stand as sole Regent of the minor Henry III on the death of John, a position he retained until Henry came of age in 1227. (1)

[p. 54] Richard de Burgh, Justiciar of Ireland

William’s premature death in 1204 left his estates with Richard de Burgh, now a four-year-old orphan. It may be presumed that Richard’s wealthy uncle subsequently raised him at one of his many castles in England. Although Hubert had sons of his own, he was an assiduous promoter of his nephew whose conquest of Ulster was launched during Hubert’s regency. By the age of 14, Richard was already one of the principal barons in Ireland. His father had been granted lands in Connaught by O’Brien in 1195 but, despite vigorous campaigning, had been unable to realize it. Backed by his uncle, then Justiciar of England, Richard launched a prolonged war of conquest on Connaught in 1226. Within a year he had taken control of 25 cantreds in Connaught, the remaining five near Athlone being reserved to Henry III and leased to King Felim O’Connor. On his return to Dublin in 1228, Richard was appointed Justiciar of Ireland, a position he retained until Hubert’s fall from power in 1232. Richard died campaigning with Henry III in Gascony in 1243. 

Clanwilliam Burke

Richard was succeeded as Lord of Connaught by his eldest son Walter, later Earl of Ulster. Walter’s brother William Óg de Burgh, ancestor of the Clanwilliam Burkes, lords of Mayo, was a celebrated warrior in the 13th century, fighting in France, Scotland and the Middle East. However, in 1270, his attempt to secure his fathers’ lands in Connaught resulted in colossal defeat by the King of Connaught at the battle of Athankip. William Óg was captured and executed. Nearly fifty years later his only son William Liath de Burgh avenged his death at Athenry (1316), one of the bloodiest battles in Irish history which effectively ended the power of the O’Connor chieftains. 

The Red Earl

Arguably the most influential member of the de Burgh family in the medieval age was Richard, the “Red Earl” of Ulster, only son of the above-named Walter. An enormously ambitious man, he spent most of his formative years campaigning against both the native Irish septs in Ulster and Connaught and the Geraldines of Desmond and Kildare. In 1302 his daughter Elizabeth married Robert the Bruce of Scotland. The Red Earl opposed the invasion of Edward the Bruce in 1315 but his kinship with the Scotsman led the citizens of Dublin to doubt his loyalty and he was imprisoned for several months. In later life he retired to the priory at Athassel, county Tipperary, where he died in June 1326. His grandson, William the “Brown Earl” of Ulster, was assassinated in 1333, leaving a baby daughter, Elizabeth as heiress. She later married Prince Lionel of Clarence, son of Edward III, and through their daughter Philippa the legal ownership of the Earldom of Ulster and lordship of Connaught was transmitted to the Mortimer family and ultimately to the English Crown.

p. 55. En Route to Dromkeen

The de Burghs of Oldtown descend from Éamon Albanach (Edmund the Scot), son of William Liath de Burgh, the victor of Athenry. This era is a particularly complex one in terms of the growing feud between the Clanwilliam Burkes of Mayo and their cousins, the Clanricarde Burkes of Galway … and anyone else passing through the neighbourhood. I do not intend to go into all this in this essay but if anyone is able to sum it all up for me in a couple of paragraphs, I would gladly insert them here. In the meantime, have a read of ‘William Fitz-Adelm de Burgh & The Bourkes of Clanwilliam’ by James Grene Barry, J.P. (originally published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland in 1889.) Another option is ‘The New History of Ireland, V9, Maps, Genealogies, Lists‘, edited by Moody, Martin & Byrne (Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1984) in which Table 39 gives lineage chart for the Lower Mac William: Burkes of Mayo, descendants of Edmund Albanach. At any rate, upon his death in 1375, Éamon Albanach was succeeded by his son, Sir Thomas Bourke who married a daughter of the O’Conor Don. In 1420 Sir Thomas’s grandson John de Burgh of Shruel defeated the O’Brien chieftain and acquired by exchange O’Brien’s sister as a wife and a substantial land grant at Dromkeen, near Pallas Green, in County Limerick. Dromkeen remained in the de Burgh family for the next 420 years. 

Ulysses Burgh, Bishop of Ardagh

The Reverend Ulysses Burgh was eighth in descent from John de Burgh of Dromkeen. Little is known of the generations between save that Ulysses’ father, Richard, was also in Holy Orders. He also had a sister, Eleanor who married a Thomas Apjohn an officer in the army and a tax commissioner for Co. Limerick. Ulysses became Rector of Grean and Kilteely in 1672, rising to become Dean of Emly in 1685. Prior to the outbreak of the Jacobite War in Ireland in 1689, Ulysses fled to London with his family. He returned to Ireland with his sons Richard, William and Thomas in 1690 and all four men appear to have served in William of Orange’s army at the siege of Limerick. His loyalty led to the burning of Dromkeen by the retreating Catholics. However, after William was proclaimed king, Ulysses was generously compensated for his loss and consecratedBishop of Ardagh on September 11th 1692. (2) Bishop Burgh of Ardragh fathered eight sons and three daughters by his wife Mary, daughter of William Kingsmill of Ballibeg, Co. Cork. The eldest son Rickard Burgh succeeded to Dromkeen and also joined the Church. The second son, William, a friend of Jonathan Swift, became Comptroller and Accountant General of the British Army in Ireland, married a daughter of Thomas Parnell and lived at Bert, Co. Kildare; their daughter Elizabeth was mother to John Foster, the great Georgian orator and last Speaker in the Irish House of Commons. It is for Elizabeth that Burgh Quay in Dublin is named. William Burgh’s great-grandson General Sir Ulysses de Burgh succeeded as 2nd Baron Downes and was a brother-in-law to the ill-fated Nathaniel Sneyd of Chesterfield House, Blakcrock, Co. Dublin. Bishop Burgh’s youngest daughter Dorothea married the Rev. Thomas Smyth, Bishop of Limerick, and was thus ancestress of the Viscounts Gort. However, it is Bishop Burgh’s third son, Thomas, who most concerns us here for he was the first of the family to settle at Oldtown.

[p. 56] Thomas ‘The Surveyor’ Burgh of Oldtown (1670 – 1730)

Thomas Burgh of Oldtown (1670 – 1730) is regarded as one of the first great Irish military engineers and rose to become Surveyor General for the country. He was born in 1670 and educated at Delany’s School in Dublin. He entered Trinity College Dublin on November 22nd 1685 but probably fled Ireland with his father in the run up to the Williamite wars. On March 8th 1689 a Thomas Bourk [sic] was commissioned as Lieutenant in Lord Lovelace‘s Regiment of Foot, which served with the Duke of Schomberg’s army in Ireland. He may have been appointed to the Irish Engineers as early as February 1691 but, following the Williamite victory, he appears to have joined the Royal Regiment of Foot commanded by the Earl of Orkney and left for the continent. On 1st August 1692, he received a commission as Captain and he subsequently saw action at the battles of Steinkirk (1692) and Landen (1693). At the Siege of Namur in 1695, he was employed as an engineer, probably under the command of the Dutch artillery expert, John Wynant Goor. Two years later, he was ranked as one of the top twenty five engineers in the British Army and the third most senior in the Irish Establishment. (3) Between 1697 and 1700, Thomas worked under Surveyor-General William Robinson whom he replaced on 10th July 1700, at a salary of £300 per annum, having displaced the second engineer of Ireland, Richard Corneille. On February 12th 1701, he was given charge of overseeing the construction and renovation of all military buildings in Ireland, a commission repeatedly renewed over the next twenty seven years. During this time, he expanded barracks throughout Ireland, completed the rebuilding of Dublin Castle and constructed numerous fortifications and lighthouses along the Irish coastline. (4) His proposal to dredge Dublin Harbour and build a fortified basin to hold ships was ultimately rejected but he continued to be a forceful advocate that Ireland’s inland waterways be made navigable.

p. 57. Perhaps it was in reaction to the destruction of his family home in 1691 that Thomas Burgh became such a vigorous builder. He did not merely restrict himself to military architecture. The City of Dublin made him a Freeman in 1704 in recognition of his ongoing efforts to beautify the rapidly evolving capital. His first known building is the Royal Barracks (now Collins Barracks) on Dublin’s north side. Among his other civic legacies were the original Custom House on Essex Quay, Dublin Castle, the Trinity College Library (1712 – 1732), the Linen Hall, the Kilmainham Infirmary (1711), St. Werburgh’s Church (1715), the Royal Barracks and Dr. Steeven’s Hospital (1721 – 1733). 

Oldtown

In 1696 he acquired a property outside Naas called Oldtown. The site lay near a holy well where St Patrick reputedly baptised Oillill and Illann, the sons of King Dunlang of Leinster. In 1709, he designed and oversaw the construction of a new house at Oldtown, one of Ireland’s first Palladian winged houses. The building comprised of a two storey central block flanked by two storey wings. The centre block was adorned with pairs of Ionic pilasters, rising to just beneath the windows of the first floor. The wings were likewise adorned with Ionic pilasters, all of which carried substantial entablatures. Thomas’s masterpiece was to remain the pride of his descendants until the centre block was destroyed by fire in the 1950s and the family moved into one of the wings.

Private Commissions

By 1721, Thomas Burgh was a very wealthy man. From 1706 to 1714 he had held the office of Lieutenant of the Ordnance of Ireland which, together with the Surveyor-Generalship, made him far the most influential officer in the Irish Ordnance. In 1713 he was elected Tory MP for Naas, which seat he held until his death in 1730. He became a governor of the Royal Hospital of Kilmainham in 1707 and, from 1717, a trustee of Dr. Steeven’s Hospital. Aside from the wealth he had accumulated from his many and ongoing engineering commissions, he and his partner Richard Stewart were operating a very lucrative colliery at Ballycastle, Co. Antrim, which brought him in £2000 in 1721 alone. He was also benefiting from the growing affluence and pretensions of his fellow squires. As early as 1702, he was advising the Quartermaster-General Richard Gorges on how to build garden walls at Kilbrew, Co. Meath. That same year he was recruited as a consultant in the building of Archbishop King‘s Dublin residence; he helped design Marsh’s Library seven years later. The O’Brien family called on him for the construction of the original Dromoland Castle at Newmarket-on-Fergus in Co. Clare. He may also have had a hand in the 1724 design of Oakly Park outside Celbridge for Arthur Price, later Bishop of Meath and Archbishop of Cashel. (5)

p. 58. Death of Thomas

On 10th July 1700, Thomas married Mary Smyth, second daughter of the Rev. William Smyth, Bishop of Raphoe, Kilmore and Ardagh. Her mother Mary was a daughter of Sir John Povey,Chief Justice of Ireland in the reign of Charles II. By her he had five sons and four daughters. The family lived between the country estate at Oldtown and their Dublin townhouse at 37 Dawson Street (now rebuilt). Thomas died at Oldtown on December 18th 1730 at the age of sixty. Burgh was evidently an affable employer. For much of his working career, he employed the same team of smiths, joiners, bricklayers, plasterers, painters, carpenters, slaters and glaziers. 

Thomas Burgh, MP

Colonel Thomas Burgh was succeeded by his 23-year-old son Thomas II, MP for Naas from 1731 until his death in 1759. He was educated at Dr. Sheridan’s in Dublin and Trinity College Dublin, advancing to the Middle Temple in 1728. His first wife, an English heiress, Margaret Sprigg of Clonvoe, left him a daughter Alice who married into the Fox family. In June 1752 he married secondly Catherine, daughter of the politician, Sir Richard Wolseley of Mount Wolseley, Co. Carlow. 

Walter Hussey Burgh, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer

Thomas’s sister Elizabeth married Ignatius Hussey of Donore, Co. Kildare, and was mother of the Right Hon. Walter Hussey Burgh, one of the most eloquent and charismatic lawyers in Ireland during the late 18th century. In June 1783 he was appointed to the lucrative judicial position of Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, one of the Four Courts in Dublin. However, less than six months later, the 40-year-old contracted an illness while inspecting a gaol in Armagh and died. When not in Dublin for the Parliament he lived at Dromkeen, Co. Limerick. He was probably buried at St Peter’s Church, North Circular Rd, Dublin. According to Ken Finlay’s website, ‘a public funeral was accorded to him, and his remains were followed to the grave by the members of the Legislature and the authorities and students of the University”. Another upcoming barrister and Burgh kinsman John Foster, Baron Oriel, immediately succeeded him at the Exchequer.

p. 59. Thomas Burgh, MP for Harristown & Athy

Thomas and Margaret Burgh had two sons, Thomas III and Richard, and two daughters, Mary and Catherine. Born on 23rd January 1754, Thomas was only five years old when his father died and he succeeded to Oldtown. After graduating from Trinity College Dublin, he was called to the Irish Bar in 1779. As part of the Duke of Leinster‘s party, the soft-spoken Kildare man was elected MP for Harristown and Athy in the Irish House of Commons. A close ally of his cousin John Foster, Thomas increased the family wealth by becoming one of the chief undertakers of the Grand Canal. In the summer of 1784 he married Florinda Gardiner, a granddaughter of Luke Gardiner, the property tycoon who developed what became central Dublin in the 1740s and 1750s. Her sister was married to Lord Clancarty and her brother Luke Gardiner had been elected MP for Co. Dublin the previous year. It was in that capacity that Luke introduced the first Catholic Relief Acts of 1778 and 1782, partially dismantling the penal laws. Luke was created Viscount Mountjoy in 1795. In June 1798 he was killed by rebel pikemen while trying to negotiate a surrender at New Ross. 

Thomas & Florinda de Burgh’s Children

Thomas III and Florinda had eight sons of whom two drowned and a third was killed in action while serving with the Royal Navy. The third son Walter Burgh was Vicar of Naas and married Elizabeth Langrishe. The seventh son John was a major with the 93rd Highlanders and married Emma Hunt. The youngest, William, Rector of Ardboe, Co. Tyrone, and St. John’s of Sandymount, Dublin, fathered an impressive eighteen children of whom Maurice was Archdeacon of Kildare and Hubert took Holy Orders and lived in the Vatican. 

Thomas Monck Mason & the Paget Connection

One of Thomas and Florinda’s daughters, Dorothea Burgh, married Captain Thomas Monck Mason, Royal Navy. He was a son of Henry Monck Mason, lieutenant-colonel of the Engineers, by his second wife, Jane Mosse (daughter of Bartholomew Mosse, founder of the Rotunda hospital). Thomas’s early years were at a French speaking school; he may have had Hugenot blood. Thomas had a reputation within the family as a ‘foolhardy’ young man, heading to sea aged 12 and, by his own words, spent his naval years indulging in the many vices prevalent in the Royal Navy at that time. Shortly before his marriage to Dorothea Burgh, his life was turned around and he was from then on ‘led by divine grace’. Alas, Dorothea died in 1820 shortly afer the birth of Frances Florinda. Some 2-3 years later, Thomas married Mary Grey (daughter of the Commissioner of Portsmouth dockyard Sir George Grey, and niece of the future prime minister, Charles Grey) . Mary’s mother (Lady Grey, nee Whitbread) was much involved with the Evangelical movement at that time, so this fitted with Thomas’ new found discipline. Thomas Monck Mason died in 1838 and was buried in Powerscourt. His daughter Florinda Frances Mason married Captain Catesby Paget (1809-1878), son of Hon Berkeley Paget and first cousin of Captain Charles Paget of HMS Samarang.

The Rev. Thomas Burgh

Thomas and Florinda’s eldest son, the Rev. Thomas Burgh was for many years Dean of Cloyne. On 4th May 1811 he married Lady Anna Hely-Hutchinson, daughter of Francis Hely-Hutchinson and sister of the 3rd Earl of Donoughmore (see “Woulfe of Forenaghts”). Like the Gardiners, the Hely-Hutchinsons made a name for themselves in the late 18th century by their sympathy for the Catholic cause and support of Free Trade. 

In his history of the Kildare Hunt (p. 232), Lord Mayo tells a story about how Dean de Burgh of Old Town would never allow a tree to be felled in his demesne. When his son Thomas succeeded him he ‘very properly began to thin out the plantations’. However, while in Naas one day Thomas was ‘pestered for money by an old wrecker clad in an old scarlet hunting coat, well known as old Joe. After repeated importunities all up the long street, he was at last told to go to a warm climate. “Ah!” said old Joe,”if I go there, Master Tom, I’ll be shure to see the ould Dane, and I’ll tell him ye’re cutting down all the timber.”

The Dean and Mrs de Burgh had nine sons and three daughters of whom Francis was a lieutenant colonel with the Dublin City Artillery, Henry married Elizabeth Hendrick of Kerdiffstown House, Florinda married Thomas Tristam, Chancellor of the Diocese of London and Charlotte married Colonel James Tighe of Rossanagh. The Rev. Burgh succeeded to Oldtown in 1832. He died on 4th September 1845; Lady Anna passed away on 27th December 1857.

p. 60. The Return of the De

The Rev. and Lady Anna Burgh’s eldest son was another Thomas. On 6th March 1848 Dublin Castle presented this Thomas with a patent by which his heirs and descendents were granted the right “to resume their ancient name of de Burgh“. Thomas de Burgh lived at Oldtown and married Jane, daughter of a Major Campbell-Graham, 1st Royal Scots, of Scarva House, Clones, Co. Monaghan. Three sons, Thomas, Ulick and Hugo, and a daughter followed.

Thomas and Emily de Robeck

The eldest son Thomas John de Burgh was born on 1st November 1851. As a young man, he served as a lieutenant in the 57th (Middlesex) Regiment (aka the “Die-Hards“), taking part in the 1879 campaign against the Zulus. A fellow officer of the 57th, Lord Gifford, VC, was personally responsible for the capture of Ceshwayo, the Zulu king. He was sometime Deputy Lieutenant, Justice of the Peace and High Sheriff (1884) for County Kildare. On 23rd April 1878 he married Emily Anne de Robeck, eldest daughter of the 4th Baron de Robeck (qv). He later secured a commission in the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, under Lord Baden Powell, attaining the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. During the Boer War, he commanded the 17th Battalion of the Imperial Yeomanry. On 23rd December 1900 he was wounded at Houtkraal. Thomas died in 1931 having had five sons, Hubert, (Sir) Eric, Maurice, Charles and Tom, and three daughters, Helen, Zoe and Una.

Ulick & Hugo de Burgh. When Thomas de Burgh went to war in South Africa, he was joined by his younger brothers Ulick and Hugo. Ulick de Burgh had previously served in the Egyptian campaign of 1892 and later as Inspector General of Remounts at British Army headquarters. In January 1916 he offered for sale Scarva House, his mother’s family home in Clones, with 94 acres. By his wife Anna Paget he had a son Desmond de Burgh who served with the RAF in both World Wars but was killed on active service in January 1943. 

Hugo de Burgh lived at of Ballinapierce, County Wexford, and married Mabel Beaumont of Tarnely Lodge in St. Alban’s. Hugo was killed in April 1900 during the siege of Wepener in the Orange Free State. It seems that Thomas and Ulick subsequently spent some time in California. Hugo was survived by two sons – Lieutenant Colonel Hugh de Burgh, OBE, MC and Ulric de Burgh, an officer in the Royal Navy – and a daughter Madge Anstruther. 

Ulric de Burgh, RN, RAF

Hugo’s younger son Ulric served with the Royal Navy during the Great War, primarily in the North Atlantic, but left voluntarily in 1922. He immediately joined the RAF as a Flight Lieutenant. He stayed with the RAF for 16 years, during which time he was married for the first time. He was recalled to the RN to help set up the Fleet Air Arm and spent most of the Second World War setting up Naval Air stations in New Zealand, India and Ceylon – where he met and married his second wife, mother of Campbell de Burgh. Ulric left the Royal Navy in 1947, joined the merchant marine and retired in 1966. He died in 1977. 

Commander Dashwood Tandy

Thomas de Burgh’s only sister Anna (Louisa Margaret) was born on 29th November 1850. On October 22rd 1874, Thomas de Burgh’s only sister Anna (Louisa Margaret) married Commodore Dashwood Goldie Tandy, RN. The service took place at St. Donlough’s Church and was conducted by the Rev. Charles Edward Tisdall, D.D., Incumbent of the Parish, assisted by the Rev. William Machonchy, A.M., Rector of Coolock. Born in 1841, Dashwood had made a name for himself when he captured a number of slave-carrying dhows on the east coast of Africa during the 1860s. The Commander was only 42 years old when he died suddenly at Oldtown in October 1883. His obituary was published in The Kildare Observer:

NAAS, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1883 – SUDDEN DEATH OF COMMANDER TANDY, R.N.

On Wednesday afternoon, Dr. R. S. Hayes, J.P., district coroner, held an inquest at Naas, on the body of Commander Tandy, Royal Navy, who died suddenly. The deceased gentleman was on a visit to his brother-in-law, T.J.de Burgh, Esq., High Sheriff of the County, and was driving in company with Mrs. de Burgh and Captain Slaney to Baron de Robeck’s residence at Gowran Grange, when he suddenly took ill on the way and expired in the course of a few minutes. The principal evidence taken at the inquest was that of Captain Slaney, who deposed – ‘I was in company with the deceased this day (Wednesday) driving from Oldtown to Gowran Grange. When we started the deceased was in perfect health as far as I could see. On the way we got out of the trap to walk up the hill. On the top of the hill we again got into the trap, and after we had gone a short distance I noticed deceased’s head fall down on his chest, as I thought in a fainting fit. I took him into my arms, and, with the assistance of a man, carried him into a neighbouring house. He never spoke. I believe he died in my arms before I took him out the trap’. Just before he got ill he complained of being unwell, and said that since he was in the East Indies the exertion of walking up a hill always told upon him. Dr. Joseph Alfred Gormly, in medical charge of the troops at Naas, said he made a post-,mortem examination on the body of the deceased, and that his opinion death resulted from heart disease. The jury returned a verdict accordingly.

In her latter years Anne Tandy lived at St. Anne’s in Naas. She passed away at Oldtown on 25th April 1912. Their eldest son, Hugo Shapland Dashwood Tandy, was born on 11th April 1876 but died young on the 28th September 1880. Their younger son, Major Reginald (Reggie) Dashwood Tandy, was born on 23rd May 1883 and went on to become High Sheriff Co. Meath (1912), Magistrate for Co. Meath, Lieutenant of the Lancashire Fusiliers and Major in the Denbighshire Hussars Yeomanry. On 9th May 1906, Reggie married Valerie (Olivia) Wellesley, only daughter of Arthur George Henry Wellesley and Sarah Humprey. (6) He was granted his late mothers’ estate on 30th May 1912. 

Anyone with further information on the Tandy family is advised to contact David & Diana Hope (tandy42@btinternet.com)

p. 61. Death in the Great War

The Great War of 1914 – 1918 brought tragedy to innumerable households throughout Ireland. In the autumn of 1914 the dreaded letter arrived in the post at Oldtown informing Thomas and Emily of the death in France of their youngest son Tom de Burgh, a lieutenant with the 31st Lancers. Prior to his death Tom is mentioned in despatches for distinguished conduct under enemy fire. Three of Tom’s elder brothers received the DSO. (7) The eldest, Captain Hubert de Burgh, was awarded both the DSO and Legion of Honour in 1917 for his services in the Royal Navy. On 28th November 1917 he married Mary Buchan, daughter of John Adye Buchan of Whitehall, Kingsbridge in South Devon. They had a son John and two daughters Deirdre and Rosaleen. 

General Sir Eric de Burgh – Old Friend

Thomas and Emily’s second son General Sir Eric de Burgh, KCB, OBE, was born at Oldtown in 1881. Nearly a century later, his grandson Chris de Burgh penned a ballad to his memory called “Old Friend“. Eric served in the Boer War as a teenager, joined the Indian Army in 1904, won a DSO in 1916 and rose steadily through the ranks to become General of the British Army in India in 1939. In October 1923 he married Mary Fanshawe, only daughter of General Sir Edward Fanshawe, KCB, of Rathmore, Naas. She died in the summer of 1934, leaving two small daughters, Maeve and Rosemary. General de Burgh retired from the army in 1941 and lived for a while at Ard Cairn outside Naas. In 1960 he purchased the rundown Bargy Castle in Wexford where he lived until his death in 1973.

Chris de Burgh & Rosanna Davison

In April 1946, the General’s eldest daughter Maeve married Colonel Charles Davison, MBE. Colonel Davison was born in the Channel Islands and raised on his family’s ranch at Estancia in Argentina. On the outbreak of World War Two, he volunteered for the Special Operations Executive, a newly-formed unit specialising in covert operations and sabotage. As a member of SOE, he twice parachuted behind Japanese lines in Burma, where he spent some years organising Burmese guerrillas in operations against the Japanese occupation army. After the war, he and his wife returned to Argentina where their two sons Richard and Chris were born. The family returned to Ireland in 1960 and the young Davison boys went to live with their grandfather, General de Burgh, at Bargy. 

After the General’s death, the Davisons renovated Bargy and ran it as a hotel; young Chris soon found himself entertaining guests with his guitar. While his brother Richard became a lawyer, Chris adopted his mothers’ maiden name and began releasing singles, commencing with the excellent “Spanish Train” in 1975. Known to the world as Chris de Burgh, he has now sold more than 40 million albums and performed at over 2,500 concerts worldwide. His anthemic “High on Emotion” was No. 1 in 10 European countries. His signature song, “Lady in Red“, reached No. 1 in 25 countries and sold eight million copies around the world. “Lady in Red” is also acknowledged as one of the Top 20 most played songs in America. In December 2003 his 19-year-old daughter Rosanna Davison was crowned Miss World in Sanya, China, becoming the first Irish woman to scoop the beauty pageant.

Captain Charles & Lydia de Burgh

Thomas and Emily’s fourth son Captain Charles de Burgh, DSO, was born in 1886. In 1908 he joined the Mobilization Department of the Admiralty under his first cousin Admiral de Robeck. He orchestrated submarine movements during the Great War, won a DSO in 1917 and subsequently commanded HMS Cyclops (1926 – 27) and the 6th Submarine Flotilla (1928 – 29). He married Isabel Campbell and they lived for many years in the former agents house at Seaforde, County Down. Their daughter Lydia de Burgh became well known for her portraits of Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Anne. A terrific source of gossip to many subsequent generations, Lydia passed away in December 2007.

Hubert and Joan de Burgh’s only son, Major John de Burgh, was born on 17th February 1921 and educated at Stowe. He served with the 16th/5th Lancers in World War Two, was mentioned in dispatches, won an MC in North Africa in 1943 and retired with the rank of Major in 1950. On 29th September 1952 he married Clare Shennan, daughter of Major Kenneth and Lilah Shennan of Shipton Oliffe in Gloucestershire. Lilah’s brother Major Bowes Daly, MC, was sometime ADC to the Viceroy of India and Master of the Galway Blazers. Together John and Clare established Oldtown as one of Ireland’s foremost studs. This produced a Group One winner in 1964, a double Oaks winner (Fair Salinia) in 1978 and, in 1984, achieved a record price for a yearling at the Newmarket sales. Major de Burgh regularly served as a steward at National Hunt meetings throughout the country and was elected to the Turf Club in 1961. He served on the Irish Racing board for 15 years.

On Major de Burgh’s 33rd birthday, his wife presented him with a son, Hubert. A daughter Caroline arrived the following year and a son, William, three years later.

In 1999 Major John de Burgh put Oldtown demesne on the market. His eldest son Hubie de Burgh, formerly bloodstock manager for Shadwell Stud, Newmarket, and of the bloodstock interests for Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Crown Prince of Dubai, at Derrinstown Stud. He now owns Huma Park Stud near Maynooth and runs a bloodstock agency, De Burgh Equine Ltd. His brother William de Burgh runs a successful business in California and his sister Caroline is married and lives in Wales.

Major John de Burgh Clare died aged 89 on 4th December 2010 while Clare passed on 4th November 2016, aged 86. They now lie together at St David’s Church, Naas.

With thanks to Hubie de Burgh, William de Burgh, the late Lydia de Burgh, John de Robeck, Gwyneth Brindley, Campbell de Burgh, Michael J Hewett, Colm Smyth, Gwyneth Brindley, Edmond O’Dea, Nickie Johnson, David Winpenny, Ralph Buerk, Matthew Forde, Nick Coveney, Ursula Ormond, Paul Simon, Jo Minns, Vicki Pattinson, David & Dian Hope, Michael Brennan, Sean Slowey, Vicki Pattinson, Peter Chomley, Hugo de Burgh and George Bates (Illinois).

FOOTNOTES

1. Hubert de Burgh was greatly enriched by royal favour during the early years of John’s reign, receiving numerous townships and castles throughout England, Wales and north west France. It is said that when John captured his rebellious nephew Arthur of Brittany in 1202, Hubert was appointed his jailor and ordered to blind the young Prince, a task he refused to perform. He continued to serve John during the French wars, being held prisoner in the great castle of Chinon in the Loire Valley for two years. He remained loyal to the king during the Baron’s War and is listed as one of the twenty five Barons who guaranteed Magna Carta. In 1217 he married the King’s widow, Isabella, and in 1221 he married Margaret, daughter of King William I of Scotland.
Michael Weiss, “The Castellan: The Early Career of Hubert de Burgh“, Viator, vol. 5 (1974)
2. Burke’s Irish Family Records, 1976, page 338
3. For much of this I am indebted to Rolf Loeber’s invaluable “A Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Ireland 1600 – 1720” (John Murray, 1981). 
4. An English act of 1699 fixed the Irish peacetime military establishment at 12,000 men, as compared to 7000 in England. In practice a section of this army was always deployed outside the kingdom but Ireland was now a major base for Britain’s strategic reserves and consequently bore a considerable share of the overall cost of imperial defence. 
5. While Vicar of Celbridge, Price proposed to Swift’s “Vanessa”. In the late 18th century, Oakly Park was the home of Lady Sarah Napier, one of the famous Lennox sisters. Her sisters Lady Louisa Conolly and the Duchess of Leinster resided at nearby Castletown and Carton respectively. 
6. Arthur was the eldest son of Col. William Henry Charles Wellesley, son of the Rev. the Hon. Gerald Valerian Wellesley D.D., Chaplain to the Queen and Prebendary of Durham, brother of Arthur, 1st Duke of Wellington, and fourth son of Garnet 1st Earl of Mornington.
7. 8,981 DSOs were awarded during the First World War. Each award was announced in the London Gazette together with its accompanying citation.

Oakley Park, Celbridge, Co Kildare (now St. Raphael’s) 

by jenjunebug

Oakley Park, Celbridge, Co Kildare (now St. Raphael’s) 

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. 227. “(Napier, sub Napier and Ettrick, B/PB; Maunsell/IFR) A fine three storey ashlar-faced house of 1724, built for Arthur Price, Vicar of Celbridge – who proposed to Swift’s “Vanessa” and who later became Bishop of Meath and Archbishop of Cashel – possibly to the design of Thomas Burgh, MP, Engineer and Surveyor-General for Ireland. Seven bay front, three bay central breakfront; doorway with segmental pediment, solid roof parapet, bold string courses. Various subsequent alterations. Later in C18, it was the home of Lady Sarah Napier, sister of Lady Louisa Conolly, of Castletown, and of Emily, Duchess of Leinster, mother of the United Irish leader, Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Lady Sarah, born Lady Sarah Lennox, daughter of 2nd Duke of Richmod, was the love of the young George III, who, according to a legend, wrote the song The Lass of Richmond Hill, about her. Oakley afterwards became the seat of a branch of the Maunsell family; it now belongs to a religious order.” 

https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/11805044/saint-raphaels-church-road-oakleypark-celbridge-co-kildare

Detached seven-bay three-storey over basement Classical-style house, built 1724, retaining early aspect with three-bay three-storey breakfront, three-bay three-storey side elevation to south-west, single-bay three-storey recessed end bay to north-east and seven-bay three-storey rear elevation to north-west having single-bay single-storey bowed projecting bay to north. Refenestrated, c.1950. Now in use as hospital. Hipped roof behind parapet with slate. Rolled lead ridge tiles. Cut-stone chimney stacks. Cast-iron rainwater goods. Coursed limestone walls. Cut-stone dressings including stringcourses to each floor and moulded cornice having cut-stone parapet walls with cut-stone coping. Square-headed openings (segmental-headed window openings to basement). Stone sills. Cut-stone surrounds. Replacement 9/9, 9/6 and 6/6 timber sash windows, c.1950. Original 6/6 timber sash windows to basement. 1/1 timber sash windows to bowed projecting bay. Cut-stone doorcase to front (south-east) elevation approached by flight of steps with segmental pediment over on consoles. Cut-stone surround to door opening to rear (north-west) elevation. Replacement timber panelled and glazed timber panelled doors, c.1950. Overlights. Interior with timber panelled shutters to window openings. Set back from road in own grounds. Landscaped grounds to site.

Appraisal

Oakley Park, now known as Saint Raphael’s, is a fine and imposing Classical-style mansion that was built contemporaneously with Castletown House as the residence of Sarah Napier, sister of Lady Louisa Connolly. Of social and historical interest, the house represents the origins of Celbridge as an estate town with sophisticated private buildings flanking both ends of what would become the Main Street. The house retains much of its original character and is a valuable component of the architectural heritage of Celbridge. Composed of graceful Classical proportions on a symmetrical plan centred about a breakfront to both primary elevations (to south-east and to north-west), the house is finely detailed, without unnecessary ornamentation, to include features such as decorative doorcases and a heavy cornice to the roof – the presence of a bowed projecting bay also adds incident to the regular design. The construction of the house in coursed cut-limestone is a good example of the high quality of stone masonry practiced in the locality. Replacement fenestration was inserted in the mid twentieth century, but this has been carried out in keeping with the original integrity of the house – original fenestration remains in situ to the basement, having wide glazing bars, while the interior retains features such as timber panelled shutters to the window openings. Set back from the line of the road in its own grounds, the house retains attractive landscaped lawns to the front (south-east).

https://archiseek.com/2016/1724-oakley-park-celbridge-co-kildare

1724 – Oakley Park, Celbridge, Co. Kildare

Architect: Thomas Burgh

Oakley Park, formerly Celbridge House, was built in 1724 by Arthur Price when he was vicar of Celbridge, later Bishop of Meath, and Archbishop of Cashel. Dr. Price’s steward at Oakley Park was one Richard Guinness, known for his brewing talents. His son, Arthur went on to establish the Guinness Brewery in Dublin. 

In the early 20th century, the house changed ownership many times and fell into disrepair. In the 1930s, Oakley Park was sold to the Christian Brothers, who planned to open a school there. They never managed to get the school up and running and it was sold again. The house was purchased in 1952 by its present owners, the Brothers of St. John of God. Today Oakley Park forms part of the St. Raphael complex training centre for mentally handicapped children and young adults.

From Here to Beer

by theirishaesthete

Formerly the entrance but now the garden front of Oakley Park in Celbridge, County Kildare. The house is believed to have been built c.1724 for the Rev. Arthur Price*, who was then the local rector (he later rose through the ranks, eventually becoming Archbishop of Cashel). Tall and somewhat austere, Oakley Park’s design is attributed to Thomas Burgh, also responsible for the Old Library at Trinity College, of which it is somewhat reminiscent. In the late 18th century, the house was acquired by Lady Sarah Napier, sister of Lady Louisa Conolly who lived nearby at Castletown, and Emily, Duchess of Leinster who lived at Carton. It appears thereafter to have changed hands regularly and at some date in the 19th century, the entrance was moved to the other side of the building (see below). Since 1953 the house and surrounding grounds have been used by the St John of God religious order who run a training centre here for disabled children and young adults.

*Arthur Price’s land steward in Celbridge was one Richard Guinness. On his death in 1752 he left £100 to Guinness and his son, Arthur – Price’s godson – who a few years later established a certain well-known and still flourishing brewery.

http://www.turtlebunbury.com/history/history_family/hist_family_maunsell.html

Maunsell of Oakley Park

The following story is an updated version of that contained in Turtle Bunbury’s 2004 book, ‘The Landed Gentry & Aristocracy of Co. Kildare‘. If you should spot any errors or ommissions, or have further information or photographs of relevance, please let us know. 

A heroic defense of a Waterford Castle against Cromwell’s army earned the Maunsell family considerable respect from their Irish peers when they first settled in Ireland in the mid 17th century. During the Georgian Age, they rose to prominence in Limerick, as bankers, politicians and Mayors. When not in Limerick, they were invariably leading an army from one international battlefield to the next. In the early 18th century, they moved to Oakley Park, Celbridge, Co. Kildare, formerly home to the Napier family, scions of three mighty Generals. In the early 20th century they married into the Orpen family. The connection to Ireland dwindled after the sale of Oakley Park in 1924. Today the house is run by the St John of Gods. 

OrIgin of the Maunsell Family 

p. 153. The name Maunsel is said to be derived either from the Norman French word mancel (an inhabitant of Le Mans) or from le mansel (a feudal tenant occupying a manse farm). The Maunsell family claim descent from Philip de Mancel, Cup Bearer to William the Conqueror. He came to England in 1066, settled in Buckinghamshire, acquired a substantial estate in Leicestershire and built a fine mansion house at Oswick in Glamorgan. His descendents prospered greatly under the Plantagenet kings. In 1163, Sir Robert Maunsell served with the Knights Templar while his eldest son Walter was Napkin Bearer to the King. William’s son Sir John was raised in the Royal Court of Edward Longshanks, received numerous lands and manors in southern England and rose to become one of the most prominent statesmen of his age. During the War of the Roses, Sir Philip Maunsell was captured by the Yorkists at the battle of Tewkesbury and beheaded along with his two elder sons. 

Rhys Maunsell & the Irish Rebellions

p. 154 In 1535, Sir Philip’s grandson and eventual heir, Sir Rhys Maunsell of Oxwich Castle, Glamorgan was dispatched with a body of troops to assist Lord Deputy Grey in suppressing the rebellion of Silken Thomas FitzGerald. (2) For his efforts, he was given a grant for life for the site of the Cistercian abbey of Margam in Glamorgan, as well as the Office of Chamberlain of the County Palatine of Chester, and the royalty of Avon Waters to him and his heirs. After the dissolution of the monasteries, he got a lease of Margam and in 1540 purchased the entire Margam property where he built a mansion house partly on the site of the abbey. (3) One of his grandsons, Captain Rhys Maunsell served for the English against the O’Neills in the Nine Years War. He was captured along with Sir John Chichester at the Battle of Carrickfergus in 1596 and beheaded. Their heads were sent to Tyrone and their bodies buried at Carrickfergus. (4) 

Thomas & APHRA Maunsell (1577 – 1661)

The principal branch of the family continued to live at Chicheley in Buckinghamshire, marrying into some of the greatest dynasties of Tudor and Stuart England. In the early 17th century, the head of the family was Thomas Maunsell (1577 – 1661), a prominent London solicitor and land speculator. In the 1630s he purchased an estate in Waterford from the Earl of Cork where he relocated with his wife Aphra Crayford who bore him a commendable 23 children. Following her death in 1666, Aphra Maunsell was interred in Caherconlish, Co Limerick. A stone tablet in Basso relievo is still within the precincts of the graveyard, though displaced by an overgrowth of trees on the wall of the church.

Thomas and Alphra’s eldest son Colonel Thomas Maunsell, one of the ’49 Officers’, distinguished himself during the Confederate Wars by his defence of Mocollop Castle, Co. Waterford, against Cromwellian forces in 1649. After the siege he converted the ruined castle into his own mansion, which was inherited by his son Thomas. (5) 

p. 155. Following the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, Thomas the Younger was awarded land in Galway, Waterford and the Liberties of Limerick. His sons became merchants and magistrates in Limerick and Cork over the ensuing decades but, upon his death in 1692, the inheritance devolved upon his grandson, Richard. 

NB: Edward Mansell was chaplain to King Charles I during the civil war. His father, Robert Mansell was born circa 1580 and operated as a miller in Great Bourton, Oxon. 

The bankers of limerick

Richard Maunsell (d. 1773) unexpectedly inherited the Maunsell family estates when his three elder brothers predeceased him. He served as Mayor of Limerick in 1734 and was MP for Limerick City in the Irish Parliament from 1740 to 1761, during which time the city developed as a centre of Atlantic trade, particularly in upmarket fashion and woollen manufacture. By his first marriage to Margaret, younger daughter and co-heiress of Thomas Twigg of Donnybrook Castle, Co. Dublin, he had a son, Thomas, and a daughter, Anne. (6) 

Although contemporaries recalled him as ‘an honest but a very dull man’, Thomas Maunsell proved himself a very capable lawyer and married one of the Waller girls from Castle Waller. His oldest son Richard Maunsell emigrated to the USA after he graduated from Trinity and no more if known of him. In 1789, his sons Robert and Thomas co-founded Maunsell’s Bank in Limerick City. Maunsell’s Bank later became the Bank of Limerick, which was one of Irelands’ leading private banks before its collapse in the economic depression that overtook Europe at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. (7) The younger Thomas became MP for Johnstown while Robert later settled in India where he was elected to the Supreme Council of Madras. Another son became Dean of Leighlin while another became Rector of Oranmore, respectively marrying daughters from Macroom Castle and Bunratty Castle. 

Thomas Snr’s eldest three daughters all married well – barristers and landowners from Tipperary and Limerick – but his youngest daughter Dorothea Maunsell caused a tremendous scandal when, aged 15, she eloped with the famous Italian castrato opera singer Giusto Ferdinando Tenducci during the 1760s. (Burke’s Irish Family Records claimed Dorothea was married in 1762 to William Long Kingsman, barrister-at-law. He did indeed become her second husband but not until late in the decade). For more on their extraordinary affair, click here.

Thomas Mausell Snr. later became King’s Counsellor in the Court of Exchequer and and MP for Kilmallock. He finished up as Counsel to the Revenue by Lord Harcourt, an office worth £800 a year. When he died in 1783, his legacy was secured through the survival of his aforementioned namesake son and heir, Thomas Maunsell, MP for Johnstown.

The Norbury Connection

Richard’s second wife Jane was the eldest daughter of William Waller of Castle Waller, Co. Tipperary. By this marriage he had a further five sons. Among these were General John Maunsell who commanded the 56th regiment at the Siege of Havana in 1762, Eaton Maunsell who served as Mayor of Limerick in 1779 and, the eldest, Richard Maunsell who settled at Ballywilliam in County Limerick and married Helena Toler, a half-sister of the 1st Earl of Norbury. As Chief Justice of Ireland during the early 19th century, Lord Norbury was infamous for the number of men he condemned to the gallows. An anecdote survives of how the judge was addressing the jury in one such case when his voice was drowned out by the sound of an irate ass. “What noise is that?” he inquired angrily. “Merely an echo of the Court, my lord“, was the defending barristers risqué reply. But Norbury could be quick too. At dinner one day, his host told him he had shot 31 hares that morning. “I don’t doubt it“, replied his lordship, “but you must have fired at a wig.” (8) 

The Maori Bible

p. 156. Richard and Helena had four sons. The eldest, Daniel, succeeded to Ballywilliam on Richard’s death in 1790. He was grandfather to General Sir Thomas Maunsell, KCB (1906), a prominent soldier in the Punjabi Campaign, the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny. (*) The second son Richard Maunsell lived at Queensboro in Limerick. The fourth son George Maunsell also lived in Limerick and was sometime Collector of the Irish Customs, a post he secured when he married the daughter of the previous Collector, James Smyth. George’s youngest son Robert emigrated to New Zealand in 1834 and became the first person to translate the Bible and Prayer Book into Maori. Richard and Helena’s third son John Maunsell was born in 1752 and became a barrister at the Middle Temple in 1774. Six years later, he married Anne Webster, only daughter and heiress of Edward Webster of Whitehall, Dublin. Anne died in August 1788, giving birth to her only child, Richard. Her widowed husband remained at Carrickoreely, Co. Limerick. 

* In March 2008, I was contacted by Lois Adam’s, granddaughter of Daniel Toler Thomas Maunsell’s eldest son George Edward Maunsell. George was born in Dublin around 1858 and emigrated to Jamaica in 1882 where he died in 1911. Lois would very much like to find some trace of descendants of his family in Ireland or elsewhere. She has been to Dublin and found the graves of Helen, Daniel and and some of his siblings in Mount Jerome cemetery but so far have been unable to locate any living descendants. Please contact me if you have further information.

The Napiers of Oakley Park

p. 156 In 1787, Oakley Park became the home of Colonel George Napier and his wife, the formerLady Sarah Bunbury. Located between the Conolly estate at Castletown and Lord Cloncurry’s estate at Lyons, the Georgian house was originally built in 1724, most likely by Thomas de Burgh (qv). Its first owner was Dr. Arthur Price, the Vicar of Celbridge who proposed to Jonathan Swift’s “Vanessa“. Price later became Bishop of Meath and Archbishop of Cashel. 

p. 157. Dr. Price’s steward at Oakley Park was Richard Guinness, whose son, Arthur went on to establish the Guinness Brewery. Lady Sarah was one of the beautiful Lennox girls, popularised in the book and TV series “Aristocrats” by Stella Tillyard. Her sisters included Lady Louisa Conolly of Castletown and Emily, Duchess of Leinster. (10) 

The Napiers raised eight children in this home. They clearly did something right because the sons grew to be remarkable men. Indeed, for many years afterwards, the house was known by country people as “The Eagle’s Nest,” on account of the high spirit of the Napier boys. During the 1798 Rebellion, for instance, Colonel Napier armed his five sons and instructed them all in the strategy of defence. The boys were educated at the grammar school in Celbridge. Here the eldest boy Charles organised his fellow pupils into a volunteer force and made them parade. However, his younger brother William showed such little respect for these military drills that he was tried by “a drum-head court martial” and sentenced to some sadly unknown punishment. William refused to accept the penalty and so Charles reluctantly gave the go-ahead for the other volunteers to teach the young rebel a lesson. However, “William, his fiery nature revolting against the insult, whirling a large bag of marbles like a sling discharged them amid the crowd, and then, charging, broke the obnoxious drum, and forced his most prominent assailant, greatly his superior in age and size, to single combat. Although getting far the worst of it, and badly hurt in the fight, William, still refusing to give in, was restored to the ranks by his brother for the pluck he had shown.” (11) The long term impact of these schoolyard scraps becomes somewhat more formidable when one considers that Charles, William and a third brother George went on to become three of the greatest British heroes of the Peninsula War. Indeed all three were knighted and promoted to the rank of General. After the death of Colonel George Napier the house and lands were sold to Theobold Donnelly. He changed the name from Celbridge House to Oakley Park.

An image of General Sir William Napier can be found here. He also wrote a series of volumes on the Peninsula War, I believe.

Richard Maunsell of Celbridge

On 1st June 1807, the younger Richard married Maria Woods, only daughter of John Woods of Winter Lodge, co. Dublin, and sister of George Woods, JP, of Milverton Hall, Skerries, Co. Dublin. (9) In 1813 the estate was purchased by John Maunsell for his son Richard Mark Synnot Maunsell, whose son Richard John Caswell Maunsell sold the estate in 1924 and moved to London. So only 3 generations of the family lived there for altogether 111 years. 

9. From 1831, George Woods maintained a pack of hounds to hunt both hares and foxes. In 1849, he was granted the right to hunt foxes in the area by the Louth Foxhounds.

Six Maunsells Brothers

In 1840, the Lord Chancellor was “pleased to appoint” Richard Maunsell a magistrate for County Dublin. He served as High Sheriff for Kildare in 1841 and died on 25th November 1866, leaving six sons. (12) 

John Maunsell, the 46-year-old firstborn, succeeded to Oakley Park. He also inherited an estate of some 1200 acres at Carrickoreely in Co. Limerick from his grandfather. Little is recorded of John save that he studied at Trinity College Dublin, became a barrister at Gray’s Inn in 1834, served as High Sheriff for Co. Kildare in 1868 and never married. 

p. 158 Upon his death in 1882, the property passed to his brother, George Woods Maunsell (1815-1887), previously resident of Ashford, Co. Limerick. George owned several thousand acres in Counties Dublin and Westmeath and was a barrister of prominence in Dublin, with offices at 10 Merrion Square South. He served as JP and Deputy Lieutenant for Kildare and as High Sheriff for Dublin City in 1876 and County Kildare in 1885. On 4th August 1842, he married Maria Synott (d. 1883), eldest surviving daughter and co-heiress of Mark Synnot of Monasterois House, Edenderry, Co. Offaly. (13) Two boys – Mark and George – and two girls Anne and Maria – followed. (14)

p. 159. The third of Richard and Maria’s six sons, the Rev. Richard Dixie Maunsell, succeeded to his maternal grandmothers’ home at Whitehall in Co. Dublin and was Rector of Innistonnagh, Co Tipperary. On 10th February 1859 he married Alicia Laing, daughter of Malcolm Laing, a Scotsman from the Orkney Islands who settled in Jamaica’s Spanish Town at about this time. They had nine childrenincluding Richard Maunsell, BA, MA, (1862-1929), a well-known land agent and secretary of the Irish Landowner’s Convention during a time of much anxiety to Irish landowners. Educated at St Columba’s College and Trinity College Dublin, Richard joined the Dublin firm, Stewart & Kincaird. He subsequently became agent for a number of leading Irish estates and lived at Shielmartin, Portmarnock, which was later home to William ‘The Boss’ McMullan, co-founder of Maxol. On 20 March 1929, Richard and his wife Lucie Eleanor (nee Waters) were on their way to London to meet their only son who had just returned from Egypt where he had been serving for several years with the Sudan Government Railways. Richard had a heart attack and died on the way.

p. 160. The fourth son Edward Maunsell was killed in the muddy trenches at Sebastopol on 10th July 1855 while serving as a captain with the 30th Regiment. 

The fifth son Warren Maunsell lived at Hodgestown, Co. Kildare, and was Rector of Thomastown, Co. Kildare. 

The sixth son Frances Maunsell was also a clergyman, lived at Shrule in the Queen’s County, was Rector of Symondsbury in Dorset and married Emily, another daughter of Malcolm Laing of Jamaica.

Captain Mark Maunsell

George Woods Maunsell passed away on 26th April 1887 and was succeeded by his only surviving son,Mark Maunsell. Mark was born on 22nd October 1843. At the age of 20, he married Lucy Copeland, eldest daughter of Alexander Copeland of Wingfield, Berkshire. He subsequently served as a captain with the 1st Royal Dragoons. Lucy died without issue in the winter of 1875. Two years later, Captain Maunsell married again. His new bride was Mary Caswell, only daughter and heiress of a wealthy Limerick businessman Samuel Caswell, JP, of Blackwater, co. Clare, who had died a few years previously. The Caswell and Maunsell families had been acquainted for years; Mark may have attended Samuel’s funeral. The marriage took place at St. Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, on 26th February 1877. “Two processional marches signalled the arrival of the bridal party. Before the ceremony the hymn “The Voice that Breathed o’er Eden” was sung. After the ceremony came Mendelssohn’s Wedding March. The newly married pair, after having received congratulations without number, and ‘wishes for happiness’ of equal extent, left for Dublin by the four o’clock train, whence they proceed on an extended Continental tour.” 

p. 161. Mary seems to have been rather a frightening woman, preferring the hunting field to life as a mother. For the next ten years, she and Mark lived at Strand House in Limerick, with occasional visits to see Mary’s mother at Blackwater. Mark retired from the army and was a JP for County Clare. In 1887 they relocated to Oakley Park. Mark was quickly appointed JP for Kildare and, from 1890 to 1892, served as High Sheriff for the county. After Mary’s death in August 1893, he was married a third time to Georgina Middleton. 

Dick Maunsell & the Orpen Connection

Captain Mark Maunsell left a daughter Norah and a son, Richard (‘Dick’) John Caswell Maunsell. The latter was born at 80 George Street, Limerick, on 2nd May 1878 and educated at Hailebury College in England and Trinity College Dublin. 

In 1905, he left Trinity and entered at the King’s Inn as a barrister. He was subsequently JP for Co. Kildare. On 24th September 1913 he married Mary Winifred (‘Molly’) Orpen, fifth daughter of Richard Orpen of Ardtully, Kilgarvan, Co. Kerry. The Orpens were a family of rising influence. Molly’s first cousin Sir William Orpen (1878 – 1931) was regarded as the most influential Irish artist of his generation. 

p. 162. His experiences of the Great War inspired him to paint to some of the most powerful images of that horrific conflict. He was knighted in 1918 and the following year was resident artist at the Paris Peace Conference. (16) Sir William’s brother Richard Orpen (1863 – 1939) was Cathedral architect for both St Patrick’s Cahedral in Dublin and St Canice’s in Kilkenny. He also served as President of the Incorporated Law Society from 1915 – 1916. Molly’s brother Dr. Raymond Orpen (1875 – 1952) spent much of his life advancing knowledge of public health in Sierra Leone, Gambia and Nigeria. Her elder sister Amy married Major John Henry Kennedy, TD, eldest son of Robert Kennedy, JP, of Baronrath, Co. Kildare. 

In January 1915, Dick secured a commission as a lieutenant in Kitchener’s army and set off for France with the Inniskilling Fusiliers. He remained with the regiment until 1919, witnessing some of the bloodiest battles of the war. In 1917 he was awarded the OBE, after which he became part of the General Staff. 

The Ireland to which Dick returned after the war was a rapidly changing society. In 1919 Irish Republicans initiated a guerrilla war against the occupying British army that culminated in the birth of the Irish Free State. Mollly Maunsell’s family home at Ardtully in Kerry was one of perhaps two hundred country homes in Ireland burned down during the Troubles. In 1924 Dick sold Oakley Park and moved with his wife and two sons to England. He died on 27th September 1955. Molly survived him until 2nd May 1974.They left two sons, Richard and John, and a daughter Aphra Maunsell who rose to a position of some prominence in the Bank of England. Aphra retired in 1974 and passed away on 21st May 2002 aged 85.

Richard Maunsell & the Phosphoric Revolution

The eldest son, Richard Mark Orpen Maunsell, was born on 15th September 1914 and, like his father, went to school at Haileybury. He later graduated from London University and went to Australia for 13 years where he worked with the chemical firm Albright & Wilson. He was subsequently transferred to Toronto, became a Canadian citizen and was sometime Director of Research for the Electric Reduction Company of Canada. In partnership with Richard Courtney Edquist, another Albright & Wilson scientist, he developed a process for the burning of phosphorus in the manufacture of phosphoric acid that has since been the basis of the manufacture of thermal phosphoric acid worldwide. He died on 2 January 2007. He married Gwendolin Minchin of Australia and had three daughters, Catherine, Elizabeth and Helena Claire Maunsell. 
The eldest daughter Catherine lives in Toronto, Ontario, and was formerly married to Alex Himelfarb, Clerk of the Privy Council, Secretary to the Cabinet and Head of the Public Service. Returning to Ontario in 1980, Catherine began working with the Ministry of Correctional Services and for the last 7 years has served as Manager of Female Offender Programs. She lives in Toronto with her life partner Helen McIlroy. She is grandmother to twin girls – Jesse Grace and Sam Alison Heichert. 
The second daughter Elizabeth lives in Quebec City where she is a professor of epidemiology at Universite Laval and a researcher in the area of psychosocial aspects of breast cancer. She is married to Guy Dumas, now retired but formerly the deputy minister responsible for language policy in the Quebec government. 
The younger daughter Claire had a very successful career as a glass blower as ‘H. Claire Maunsell’. married Paul Ostic and has two children, Rachel Sarah Maunsell Ostic, born 1997, and Maxwell Richard Maunsell Ostic, born 1999. 

p. 163. Richard’s younger brother John Maunsell was born on 30 April 1920 and educated at Haileybury and London University. He served as a Bomber Commander with the Royal Air Force during World War Two and later worked with Unilever. His memoirs of the war were entitled ‘No Such Thing as an Easy Ride‘ and a precy of them is online here. By his marriage to Eileen Conolly he had a daughter Susan born in 1961. In 2009, he was living in Reading. 

Nonie Maunsell

Dick Maunsell’s sister Norah – known as “Nonie”- was the last of the family to live in Ireland. Her niece Aphra Maunsell recalled her as ‘a Dublin character’ such as you will find nowhere else. She was extremely handsome with a beautiful complexion and (as I remember her best) with pretty, softly waving grey hair. She had the wit of the Irish and was a great conversationalist. She dressed in an entirely individual style which had absolutely no reference to any prevailing fashions–usually wearing large picture hats. She was invariably draped in long strings of pearls, and wore diamond rings and a cloak. She lived in Dublin at 8 Wilton Place, in a house which, to the day of her death, had only gas light. There she was surrounded by beautiful furniture, china, and Irish silver. From the time of my father’s marriage in 1913 (she had previously kept house for him at Oakley Park) she shared this flat with her great friend Miss Kathleen Hamilton, who was, in fact my godmother’. Nonie died in Dublin on August 30th 1960 and was buried in the Maunsell plot in the village of Celbridge, Co. Kildare.

St. Raphael’s

Oakley Park was purchased by the Guiney family in 1935 and then sold to the Christian Brothers. Their plans to open a school did not come to fruition and, in the 1950s, the property passed to the St John of Gods. The house now forms part of the St Raphael’s complex training centre for mentally handicapped children and young adults.

Further Reading

The Maunsell family with its numerous branches has not only found extensive coverage in various of Burke’s and other publications, but has also been in depth investigated in Robert George Maunsell’s ‘History of Maunsell or Mansel (And of Some Related Families” (1903) and in Commr Edward Phillips Statham’s and Col Charles Albert Maunsell’s 3 volume work ‘History of the Family of Maunsell (Mansell, Mansel)‘ (1917-1920).

With thanks to Josef Muether, Lois Adams, Paul Ostic, Elizabeth Maunsell, Catherine Maunsell, Anne Armstrong, Wendy Artiss, Patrick Hourigan and others.

Newtown Hill, Leixlip, Co Kildare 

by jenjunebug

Newtown Hill, Leixlip, Co Kildare 

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. 225. “A C18 house in the Palladian style consisting of a two storey three bay pedimented centre block joined by curved sweeps to wings with Gothic-glazed Venetian windows. The doorcase and other features are modern but appropriate. In 1814, the residence of Thomas Hind.” 

Paddy Rossmore. Photographs. Edited by Robert O’Byrne. The Lilliput Press, Dublin 7, 2019. 

“Located on what was once the outskirts of the village of Leixlip, Newtown Hill was a miniature Palladian villa dating from c. 1765, its main block being of three bays and two storeys over basement, wiht a pedimented doorcase in the breakfront centre bay. On either side, single-storey advanced blocks lead to wings taller than the links but not as high as the house, creating a modest forecourt. The front of each wing has a Venetian window on the ground floor and was originally roughcast. When Paddy photographed Newtown Hill it was still in single occupancy and surrounded by several acres of gardens. However, during the first decade of the present century the property was extensively refurbished, the house being divided into four apartments, while further residential accommodation was constructed in the remaining grounds to provide a total of twentyone units, thereby fundamentally altering the character of the site.” 

https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/11804075/newtown-hill-house-newtown-leixlip-ed-leixlip-co-kildare

Detached three-bay two-storey house, c.1765, possibly over basement retaining most early aspect with single-bay two-storey pedimented entrance breakfront, single-bay single-storey advanced flanking linking bays and single-bay two-storey projecting flanking pavilion blocks. Renovated, c.1950. Undergoing renovation, 2002-3. Hipped roofs with slate. Clay ridge tiles. Roughcast chimney stacks. Sproketed eaves to pavilion block with right (north). Cast-iron rainwater goods on eaves course. Rendered walls to central block. Painted. Rendered dressings including quoins to corners and to breakfront, moulded rendered course to eaves and moulded surround to pediment. Roughcast walls to remainder (replacement, 2002, to pavilion block to north). Painted (unpainted to pavilion block to north). Square-headed window openings to central block. Stone sills. 6/6 and 6/3 timber sash windows. Round-headed door opening. Replacement moulded rendered doorcase, c.1950, with open bed pediment over. Replacement glazed timber door, c.1950, with Gothic-style traceried overlight. Round-headed door openings to linking blocks. Timber panelled doors. Timber overpanels. Venetian-style window openings to ground floor pavilion blocks. 6/6 timber sash windows with Gothic-style traceried overlights. Fixed-pane timber sidelights. Square-headed openings (slit-style) to first floor. Fittings not discerned. Set back from road in own landscaped grounds. Forecourt to front. Gateway, c.1765, to south-east comprising pair of rubble stone piers with cut-stone capping having ball finials, decorative wrought iron gates, squared rubble stone curved flanking walls and roughcast outer piers with cut-stone capping having ball finials.

Appraisal

Newtown Hill (House) is an attractive, substantial late eighteenth-century house that retains most of its original form and character. Composed on a Palladian plan comprising a central block with linking wings or bays leading to pavilion blocks, it would appear that this is a true interpretation of the ‘economic villa’ house, the slit-style openings to the first floor of the pavilion blocks suggesting that they may incorporate outbuildings. The house is of social and historical significance, representing the substantial dwellings built by the prosperous class in the late eighteenth century, and the scale and fine detailing of Newtown Hill (House) suggests that it was originally built by a patron of considerable status in the locality. The house retains many important early or original salient features and materials, including multi-pane timber sash windows and slate roofs having cast-iron rainwater goods. The retention of an early external aspect suggests that the house may retain early or original features and fittings of significance to the interior. Set in its own landscaped grounds, and approached by a tree-lined avenue, the house is a prominent landmark in the locality and is announced on the side of the road by a fine gateway that retains early wrought iron gates of some artistic interest.

Newberry Hall, Carbury, Co Kildare

by jenjunebug

Newberry Hall, Carbury, Co Kildare 

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. 223. “(Pomeroy, Harberton, V/PB) A Palladian house of red brick with stone facings, built during 1760s for Arthur Pomeroy, afterwards 1st Viscount Harberton; probably to the design of the amateur architect, Nathaniel Clements. Centre block of two storeys over basement… sold 1840, subsequently owned by Edward Woolstenholme and then by William Pilkington, a Dublin publisher; bought by the Robinson family 1911.” 

Not in national inventory

Sold ca 2010 for €7.5 million, 

https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/75m-estate-is-richest-irish-sale-despite-crisis-26703667.html

Newberry Hall Demesne,

Co Kildare: €7.5m

Although in need of extensive renovation work, this Palladian mansion on 444 acres was sold in September to an unmarried young Irish farmer.

It took just three weeks to sell, during which time 14 farmers and businessmen from Ireland, the US and UK viewed the property. The buyer is understood to have employed one of the leading consultant architects in the business to oversee the restoration, the cost of which may also run into millions.

New Abbey, Kilcullen, Co Kildare 

by jenjunebug

New Abbey, Kilcullen, Co Kildare 

New Abbey House, County Kildare, photograph by Robert French, (between ca. 1865-1914), Lawrence Photograph Collection, National Library of Ireland.

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. 222. (Brereton/IFR; Dixon, Glentoran, B/PB; Urquhart/LGI1958) A house built of two storeys over basement, built ca 1755 near the site of a Franciscan abbey founded 1486 and afterwards leased to Edmund Spenser, who probably wrote most of the six books of the Faerie Queen here. Entrance front with one by on either side of a central three sided doorway; three bay side elevation. Urns on roof parapet. Acquired 1779 by George Brereton, who was killed in a dual in Dublin two years later. The astragals of the windows removed during C19, and post 1864, a partly-glazed Doric porch surmounted by a little glazed kiosk added on the entrance front by Major Robert Brereton, who also added a low wing to the right of the entrance front 1901. Sold 1909, almost immediately resold to Capt Herbert Dixon, afterwards 1st Lord Glentoran, who added a two storey two bay wing to the left of the entrance front and set back from it, obscuring one bay of the original block and in a similar Georgian style, with urns on parapet and astragals in the windows. Surprisingly, at the same time he did not put back the astragals in the original block. Subsequenty sold again, and now the home of Mrs Kenneth Urquhart.” 

Not in national inventory 

https://archiseek.com/2012/newabbey-house-kilcullen-co-kildare

1753 – Newabbey House, Kilcullen, Co. Kildare

Small country house, rebuilt in the 1750s.

Mullaboden, Naas, Co Kildare 

by jenjunebug

Mullaboden, Naas, Co Kildare 

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. 220. “(Crichton, sub Erne, E/PB; Mahon/LG!1912) An irregular two storey Victorian Italianate house, with campanile tower. Burnt 1923 when it was the home of Gen Sir Bryan and Lady Mahon; afterwards rebuilt.” 

https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/11902406/mullaboden-house-coghlanstown-west-co-kildare

Mullaboden House, COGHLANSTOWN WEST, County Kildare

Detached three-bay two-storey house, c.1820, retaining early fenestration with single-bay single-storey projecting porch to centre, two-bay two-storey side elevation to west having pair of single-bay single-storey lean-to advanced bays to ground floor, two-bay two-storey lean-to lower parallel range along rear elevation and two-bay two-storey return to rear to north. Now disused. Gable-ended roof with slate (hipped to porch; lean-to to advanced bays and to return to north-west). Clay ridge tiles. Red brick chimney stacks. Rendered coping to gables. Overhanging timber eaves. Cast-iron rainwater goods on corbels. Roughcast walls. Unpainted. Rendered block-and-start margins to porch. Square-headed window openings (tripartite to ground floor in segmental-headed recessed niches). Stone sills. 6/3 and 6/6 timber sash windows (some retaining original crown/cylinder glass). Square-headed door opening. Timber panelled door. Set in grounds shared with Mullaboden House. Part overgrown grounds to site. Attached range of outbuildings, c.1860, to rear to north on a quadrangular plan (with house forming range to south) about a courtyard comprising: Multiple-bay two-storey rubble stone range on an L-shaped plan (forming ranges to east and to north) with two-bay two-storey wing to north-east and single-bay four-stage projecting water tower to east on a square plan. Gable-ended roofs with slate. Clay ridge tiles. Red brick chimney stacks. Rendered coping to gables. Cast-iron rainwater goods. Pyramidal roof to tower with slate. Clay ridge tiles. Moulded eaves on red brick dentilated cornice. Roughcast walls over rubble stone construction. Unpainted. Rubble stone walls to tower. Dressed stone quoins to corners. Round niche to upper stage with red brick surround. Cut-stone stringcourse to upper stage. Square-headed window openings. Cut-stone sills. Yellow brick dressings. 2/2 timber sash windows. Square-headed door openings. Tongue-and-groove timber panelled doors. Square-headed integral carriageways. Red brick dressings. Timber lintels on posts. Square-headed window openings to upper stage to tower. Stone sills. Red brick dressings. No fittings. Eight-bay single-storey range with attic (forming range to west). Gable-ended roof with slate. Clay ridge tiles. Rendered coping to gables. Overhanging timber eaves with exposed rafters. Cast-iron rainwater goods. Rendered walls over rubble stone construction. Unpainted. Square-headed window openings. Stone sills. Yellow brick dressings including continuous course over heads of openings. Timber casement windows. Square-headed door openings. Tongue-and-groove timber panelled half doors. Gateway, c.1820, to south comprising pair of rusticated granite piers with ball finals having rubble stone curved walls and wrought iron gate.

Appraisal

This building – built as the stable yard to Mullaboden House – is a fine and imposing farmyard complex, formally arranged about a courtyard, which also incorporates accommodation for the farm or stable manager. Although now disused the complex is in good condition and retains most of its original character, features and fittings. The residential portion of the complex is of considerable architectural interest and takes the form of an early nineteenth-century substantial residence, symmetrically planned and with elevations of graceful Classical proportions. The front (south) elevation is centred around a projecting porch (possibly a later addition) and includes refined architectural features such as Wyatt-style tripartite window openings and recessed niches. The house retains most of its original features, including multi-pane fenestration, some incorporating early cylinder/crown glass. The retention of an early external aspect suggests that the interior may also contain original features of note. Completing the quadrangle, the ranges to south are individually of architectural importance and are constructed of unusually fine materials. Each range retains important early salient features, including timber sash fenestration, timber panelled doors and a slate roof. Of special interest is the water tower to west that, as well as being of considerable technical importance, was designed as an aesthetic piece (including refined detailing to the upper stage) and identifies the building in its surroundings. Visible from the road side, the tower also adds picturesque incident to the skyline. The complex as a whole is of social and historical importance and would have historically provided much employment in the locality. Related structures, such as the gateway, are also of interest and retain many of their original fittings – the stone work on the piers reveals the high quality stone masonry practised in the locality.