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. 43. “(Bland/IFR) An early C18 house of three storeys over a basement and 5 bays, built 1715 on the ruins of an O’More fortress. Parapeted roof; later porch; Georgian Gothic staircase window in rear elevation. Large hall, probably formed out of original hall and a room to one side of it; corner fireplace and C18 panelling, decorated with one or two Corinthian pilasters. Staircase hall at back; stairs of noble joinery, with carved decoration on stringings. Two small parlours at front and back, with corner fireplaces; what must have been a similar room, on the other side of the house, has been enlarged by a presumably C19 addition to form a larger dining room, with modillion cornice. Conservatory of ca 1850. Stables of 1792 by Patrick Farrell. Garden wall shaped like a C18 sham ruin.”
Detached five-bay three-storey over basement early-Georgian house, built c.1715, possibly originally two-storey. Renovated with projecting porch added (and possibly with top floor added). Stable complex, dated 1792, to site. Double-pitched and hipped behind parapets slate roof with ashlar chimney stacks. Brick infill to chimneys. Limestone ashlar wall to basement, random rubble stone over with limestone quoins to second floor. Square-headed window openings with limestone sills and three-over-three and nine-over-nine timber sash windows. Interior not inspected. House is set back from road in own grounds; landscaped grounds to site. Freestanding “sham ruin” folly to site. Detached stable block, dated 1792, to site with lunette window openings. Detached gate lodge to site. Now derelict. Gateway to site comprising limestone piers with wrought iron gates.
Bellegrove (also Rathdaire), Ballybrittas, Co Laois – (demolished)
Bellegrove (or Rathdaire), County Laois, photograph courtesy Daniel Finnerty instagram @greatirishhouses ‘.
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.
“(Adair/LG1863) A large Regency house built around three sides of an entrance court, which was later filled in as a winter garden by Cornelia, nee Wadworth, the rich American wife of J.G. Adair, whose wealth also helped to create Glenveigh Castle. Mrs Adair also added an immense conservatory to Bellegrove, designed by Sir Thomas Newenham Deane, with Romanesque arcades supported by pairs of ornate terracotta columns, reproductions of those surviving from the original Basilica of St John Lateran in Rome. Having been burnt, the house stood as a ruin until 1970, when it was demolished.”
Bellegrove (or Rathdaire), County Laois, photograph courtesy Daniel Finnerty instagram @greatirishhouses ‘.Bellegrove (or Rathdaire), County Laois, photograph courtesy Daniel Finnerty instagram @greatirishhouses ‘.Bellegrove (or Rathdaire), County Laois, photograph courtesy Daniel Finnerty instagram @greatirishhouses ‘.Bellegrove (or Rathdaire), County Laois, photograph courtesy Daniel Finnerty instagram @greatirishhouses ‘.Bellegrove (or Rathdaire), County Laois, photograph courtesy Daniel Finnerty instagram @greatirishhouses ‘.
Bellegrove, County Laois, courtesy National Inventory.
Remains of detached two-storey over basement Italianate house, built c.1835, with entrance bay to centre having full-height flanking bows. Burnt down c.1887. Now in ruins with basement filled-in. Site of former winter garden to site. Now dismantled. No roof. Nap rendered rubble limestone and brick walls with ruled and lined detail, rendered quoins, limestone stringcourse and rendered cornice to first floor. Brackets to eaves and limestone blocking course. Square-headed window openings with limestone sills, rendered lugged architraves with pediments (triangular and segmental) to ground floor. Limestone Doric doorcase; fittings now gone. Interior now in ruins. Set back from road in own grounds; grounds now in use as tillage field. Stable complex, pair of detached gate lodges, gateway and site of former winter garden to site.
THE ADAIRS WERE MAJOR LANDOWNERS IN THE QUEEN’S COUNTY, WITH 9,655 ACRESThe family of ADAIR were originally from Scotland and settled in Ireland about 1690, at the time of the battle of the Boyne.
THOMAS ADAIRE, son of Archibald Adaire, wedded Mary Hamilton, and settled in the Queen’s County (Laois).
His son,
ARCHIBALD ADAIRE, married and was father of
JOHN ADAIR, of Rath, Queen’s County, High Sheriff of Queen’s County, 1782, who died in 1809, and was father of
GEORGE ADAIR JP DL (1784-1873), of Rath, High Sheriff of Queen’s County, 1822, who married Elizabeth, second daughter of the Very Rev Thomas Trench, Dean of Kildare (brother of the 1st Lord Ashtown), and had an only son, JOHN GEORGE ADAIR JP DL(1823-85), of Rathdaire, Queen’s County, and GLENVEAGH CASTLE, County Donegal, High Sheriff of Queen’s County, 1867, County Donegal, 1874.
George and his son John George, better known as Jack, built a “state of the art” farmyard at Belgrove in 1851. To justify their investment they ejected their tenants from the best land in Ballyaddan, Rathroinsin, Belgrove, etc., expecting to run the land more efficiently in a larger unit, rather than depending on what they could extract from their tenants.
Jack himself acquired more land in Tipperary, Kildare, and Donegal, and also a large ranch in Texas called the JA Ranch. He died in 1885 on his way home from the States, aged 62 years. Thanks to Dr. Bob Spiegelman of New York we have learned a great deal more about the JA Ranch and Jack’s connections with it, as well as Glenveagh in Donegal. When the Irish Land Commission acquired the Estate in 1935 they divided it among some of the Estate employees and enlarged many of the small farms in the area.
The farmyard was divided between four families, and four of the farm buildings were converted into dwellings. Later on three of the families moved elsewhere or changed from farming. As the other families left the Murphy family bought out the rest of the yard. Michael Murphy Sr. was yard-man on the estate when he was a youth and he got a quarter of the farmyard in the 1935 division; he survived to see his family own the whole farmyard eventually.
Mr Adair married Cornelia, daughter of General J S Wadsworth, US Army, in 1867, and died without issue.
Former seats – Rathdaire, Monasterevin, County Laois; Glenveagh Castle, County Donegal.
RATHDAIRE HOUSE, or Bellegrove, was a two-storey over basement Italianate house of ca 1835, with the entrance bay to the centre having full-height flanking bows.
It was burnt in 1887 and is now in ruins with the basement filled-in.
The fittings are now gone; the interior ruinous.
The house is set back from road in its own grounds, now in use as a tillage field.
Stable complex, pair of detached gate lodges, gateway and site of former winter garden to site.
The striking remains of Bellegrove, County Laois, which has remained a ruin ever since being accidentally gutted by fire in 1887. The core of the house dates from the early 19th century: in 1814, when owned by Thomas Trench, Dean of Kildare, it was described as ‘newly built in a superior style.’ However, the Italianate villa seen today was created much later, in the early 1870s, its architect thought to be William Caldbeck, although other names (among them James Franklin Fuller and Sir Thomas Newenham Deane) have also been suggested. By this time Bellegrove was occupied by John George Adair, his mother having been one of the dean’s daughters. Much given to buying up estates and then either raising the rents or ejecting the tenants, Adair was one of the most reviled landlords of the period; when collecting rents in Laois, he had to be given a police escort. Eleswhere in the country, in County Donegal he acquired 28,000 acres and there in the late 1860s built the Scottish Baronial-style Glenveagh Castle on land that had been cleared. By this time, Adair had married a rich American widow, Cornelia Wadsworth Ritchie, and together they profitably invested in a large Texan ranch (the JA Ranch, its initial’s being those of Adair) which grew to over 700,000 acres, thereby further increasing his wealth. Two years after his (unlamented) death in 1885 Bellegrove was, as mentioned, destroyed by fire but not restored by his widow. What remains today is only part of a formerly larger building, since a substantial winter garden (to the right of the house in the photograph below) designed by Sir Thomas Deane & Son in 1865 has since been taken down; some of the columns in its grand arcade – inspired by the cloister of San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome – were rescued and can be seen elsewhere in the county.
The Adairs of Rath claimed descent from Col. Sir Robert Adair (1659-1745), knighted by King William III at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, whose ancestors were the Adairs of Kinhilt (q.v.) in Wigtownshire. Thomas Adair of Clonterry (Leix) died in 1758, and his grandson John (c1731-1809) was apparently the first to settle at Rath (also known as Rathdaire), near Ballybrittas (Leix). His son George (b. 1784) built a new house on the estate about 1835, which became known as Bellegrove (occasionally Belgrove).
George’s only son, John George Adair (1823-85), originally intended for the Foreign Office, proved to have too fiery a temperament and to restless a spirit for the diplomatic service, and went to America where he made money in brokerage and land speculation. In 1857-59 he bought up land in Co. Donegal to form the Glenveagh estate, from which over 200 tenants were ruthlessly cleared in 1861. Here, between 1867 and 1873 he built Glenveagh Castle in a Scots Baronial style to the design of his cousin, J.T. Trench. He also added a large winter garden to Bellegrove in 1869, to the design of Sir T.N. Deane. In 1869 he married a wealthy widow, Cornelia Wadsworth Ritchie (1838-1921), and they divided their time between Ireland and America, where they lived first in New York and later in Denver.
In 1874, during a hunting trip, they met a Texas cattleman, Charles Goodnight (1836-1929), who persuaded them to purchase land for cattle ranching on the open range in the beautiful Palo Duro country southeast of Amarillo, Texas, where the cattle had sufficient water, excellent grass in summer and could winter comfortably in the protection afforded by the canyon walls. Adair and Goodnight entered into a partnership, by which Adair put up the money for building a massive ranch in the canyon, and Goodnight would became the manager of the ranch and supplied the initial herd of cattle. Adair financed two thirds of the cost, and Goodnight borrowed his one-third share at 10 percent interest from Adair. Goodnight would also draw a $2,500 annual salary. It was Goodnight’s suggestion that the ranch be named the “JA Ranch” from the initials of his partner. Goodnight had a free hand in managing the ranch and rapidly increased the acreage through shrewd land purchases. As a result the undertaking had made a profit of $510,000 by the end of the first five-year contract. Goodnight continued as manager until 1888, by which time Adair had died and been succeeded by his widow. She was sole owner of the ranch until her death, and it remained in her family, passing to the descendants of her first marriage. Her grandson, Montgomery Harrison Wadsworth “Montie” Ritchie (1910–1999), worked at the ranch and was the manager from 1935 until his retirement in 1993. For the history of the ranch, see here.
Although Cornelia Adair became a British citizen and continued to divide her time between England, Ireland and the USA in her widowhood, her children and grandchildren were and remained American at heart and the Irish estates did not remain in the family long after she died in 1921. Bellegrove had anyway been burnt out in 1887 and was not rebuilt; it remains a ruin. Glenveagh was sold in 1929 to another American, Professor Arthur Kingsley Porter. After he disappeared in mysterious circumstances from Inishbofin in 1933 (an episode which is now the subject of a book, soon to be made into a film), the castle was sold in 1937 to an Irish-American art collector and connoisseur, Henry Plumer McIlhenny (1910-86). He sold the estate to the Office of Public Works as a National Park in 1975, and gave the castle and grounds to the Irish government in 1981.
A large Regency house of c.1835, built for George Adair round three sides of an entrance court, which was later filled in as a winter garden by J.G. and Cornelia Adair. This immense conservatory, designed by Sir Thomas Newenham Deane, had Romanesque arcades supported by pairs of ornate terracotta columns, copied from those in St John Lateran in Rome. Having been burned in 1887 the house was not restored as the Adairs had moved their principal home to Glenveagh Castle in Donegal. The winter garden was demolished in 1970, but the ruins of the original building were still standing and free of ivy in 2011. A gate lodge is known to have been designed by William Farrell, who may have been the architect of the house as well.
Descent: John Adair (c.1731-1809); to son, George Adair (1784-c.1850); to son, John George Adair (1823-85), to widow, Cornelia Wadsworth Adair (formerly Ritchie) (1837-1921); sold by her or her executors… in 1935 the estate was acquired and divided among the tenants by the Irish Land Commission. The Adair family of Bellegrove and Glenveagh Castle
John Adair (c.1731-1809) of Rath. Elder son of Archibald Adair and his wife Jane, daughter of Mark Anthony Chateneuf; born c.1731. He married 26 February 1776, Rebecca, eldest child of George Maquay of Dublin, esquire and had issue:
(1) George Adair (1784-after 1850) (q.v.);
(2) John Adair (1792-1839), dsp;
(3) Elizabeth Adair;
(4) Jane Adair, m. F.W. Fortescue of Miltown Grange (Louth) esq.;
(5) Mary Adair;
(6) Sarah Adair;
(7) Charlotte Adair.
He purchased an estate at Rath (Leix) on which Bellegrove was built by his son.
He died 14 July 1809.
George Adair (1784-1873), of Bellegrove. Elder son of John Adair (c.1731-1809) and his wife Rebecca, daughter of George Maquay of Dublin; born 13 September 1784. JP and DL for Co. Leix; High Sheriff of Leix in 1822. In 1850 he created a model farm on the estate which won him prizes for modern agricultural methods but led to the eviction of some tenants. He married 16 May 1822 Elizabeth (1794-1823), second daughter of the Very Rev. Thomas Trench, Dean of Kildare, and had issue:
(1) John George Adair (1823-85) (q.v.).
He inherited the estate at Rath from his father in 1809 and built Bellegrove House there in 1835. He probably made over the estate to his son before his death.
He died on 2 August 1873 and was buried on 6 August at Coolbanagher church (Leix). His wife died 21 March 1823, two weeks after the birth of their son, and is commemorated by a monument at Coolbanagher.
John George (known as Jack) Adair (1823-85), of Bellegrove and later of Glenveagh Castle. Only child of George Adair (1784-1873) and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Very Rev. Thomas Trench; born 3 March 1823. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin. High Sheriff of Co. Leix, 1867 and Co. Donegal, 1874. He set up a brokerage business in the United States in the 1860s and later became a ranch owner and property speculator. Although he did not inherited Bellegrove until 1873, he was probably in control of the estate for some years before his father’s death. He married, 30 May 1867 at the English episcopal church, Paris (France), Cornelia (1837-1921), daughter of Gen. James Samuel Wadsworth of New York and widow of Col. Montgomery Ritchie, but died without issue.
Bellegrove was apparently made over to him during his father’s lifetime and he was listed as owning 9,655 acres in Co. Leix in 1872. He was probably responsible for adding a winter garden designed by Sir T.N. Deane 1869. In 1857-59 he purchased land in Co. Donegal to form a new estate at Glenveagh, where he built Glenveagh Castle to the designs of his cousin, J.T. Trench. At his death his estates passed to his widow and the Irish properties were sold after her death.
He died 4 May 1885 in St. Louis (USA), and is buried in The Lea Church, Killenard, Leix; his will was proved in Dublin, 2 July 1885 (estate in England, £14). His widow died 22 September 1921.
Sources
Burke’s Landed Gentry, 1863; M. Bence-Jones, A guide to Irish country houses, 2nd edn, 1988, pp. 139, 291; E. Malins & P. Bowe, Irish Gardens and Demesnes from 1830, 1980, pp. 56-57
Ballyshanduffe House (also known as The Derries), Portarlington, Co Laois
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. 28. “[Alloway/LG1879] A C19 castellated house originally built 1810 by W.J. Alloway on the site of an old house of the O’Dempseys; remodelled and partly rebuilt ca. mid C19 by R.M. Alloway, two principal fronts, one of them low and nearly 200 feet in length, with battlements and pointed doors and windows; the other front higher and with a square tower. Old arch opposite hall door, surviving from the O’Dempsey house.”
The Alloway family were Quaker merchants in the Devon/ Somerset border area in the late 17th century. William Alloway of Bridgwater (and formerly of Minehead), probably the brother of the first Benjamin Alloway noticed below, is recorded as the leading general merchant in the town, with an international trade and ships plying regularly to Dublin and France. Benjamin Alloway (1670-?1745) seems to have settled in Dublin in about 1700, perhaps as agent for William. The family remained in Dublin over several generations, and maintained the Quaker faith for many years as is indicated by some of their marriages: for example, the first wife of Benjamin Alloway (1728-72) was a grand-daughter of the leading Quaker apologist, Robert Barclay of Urie. It was William Johnson Alloway (c.1771-1829), who perhaps inherited significant wealth from his father-in-law, Robert Johnson, a justice of the common pleas in Ireland, who translated the family into the county gentry by buying a small estate of around 618 acres at Ballyshaneduff (Co. Leix) and building a new house there in about 1810. His son had to partially reconstructed the house after a devastating fire in 1849, and it remained in the family until the early death of Robert Marmaduke Alloway in 1880. With his death, his young children became orphans, and were taken into the care of their mother’s father, Theophilus Lucas-Clements, who acted as their guardian and trustee. He put the Ballyshaneduff estate (by then known as The Derries) up for auction in 1884. The two young sons who would have stood to inherit the estate emigrated to Canada when they reached their late teens, becoming part of the vast Irish diaspora who sought a new life in the colonies. They perhaps chose Canada because their great-uncle Arthur William Alloway (b. 1804) had previously gone there in 1855 and their cousin, William Forbes Alloway (1852-1930) was becoming established and wealthy as a banker and public benefactor in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
The Derries, alias Ballyshaneduff (Co. Leix)
A 19th-century castellated house, built in 1810 by W.J. Alloway on the site of an old house of the O’Dempseys, and remodelled and partially rebuilt by his son after a devastating fire in January 1849. The resulting building had two main fronts: a long, low east front (nearly 200 feet in length) with pointed doors and windows and a castellated parapet, presumably largely of c.1810, and a higher western front with a square tower. In the 1850s, a small ivy-covered fragment of the old house of the O’Dempseys stood opposite the hall door, and near it Robert Morellet Alloway built a replica of an Irish round tower. Like the house, this has gone, and the well-wooded landscaped demesne of some 618 acres is now given over to commercial forestry; few traces remain of the estate. No illustration of the house is known to survive.
Descent: Sir Terence O’Dempsey (d. 1638), 1st Viscount Clanmalier; to son, Lewis O’Dempsey (d. 1683), 2nd Viscount Clanmalier; seized by Parliament 1641 and granted after Restoration to Sir Henry Bennet (1618-85), 1st Earl of Arlington… forfeited 1690 and granted to Henry Massue du Ruvigny (1648-1720), 1st Earl of Galway… sold to Hollow Swordblade Co. of London, which divided it into smaller properties, one of which was sold to William Johnson Alloway (d. 1829); to son, Robert Morellet Alloway (1810-77); to son, Robert Marmaduke Alloway (1840-80); after whose death it was sold in 1884.
The Alloway family of The Derries
Alloway, Benjamin (b. 1670) of Dublin. Son of William and Susannah Alloway of Minehead, born 23 June 1670. He settled in Dublin about 1700. He is probably the person of this name who married, 12 September 1698 at Luxborough or Luccombe (Somerset), Hannah, daughter of Peter Godwin, and had issue including: (1) William Alloway (fl. early 18th cent.) (q.v.). He may be the person of this name who was buried at Minehead in 1745.
Alloway, William (fl. early 18th cent.) of Dublin. Son of Benjamin Alloway (b. 1670) and his wife Hannah, daughter of Peter Godwin, born about 1700. He married, about 1725, Grace, daughter of Archibald Montgomerie of Ayrshire and had issue: (1) Benjamin Alloway (1728-72) (q.v.); (2) Hannah Alloway (d. 1796), m. Jonas Duckett (1720-97) of Duckett’s Grove and had issue five sons and three daughters; died 29 February 1796. His date of death is unknown.
Alloway, Benjamin (1728-72) of Dublin. Son of William Alloway (fl. early 18th cent.) of Dublin, and his wife Grace, daughter of Archibald Montgomerie of Ayrshire, born 1728. He married 1st, 28 or 29 June 1753, Lydia, daughter of John Barclay (1687-1751) and granddaughter of Robert Barclay of Urie (Aberdeens), and 2nd, 27 December 1769, Anne, daughter of William Johnson of Dublin, and had issue: (1.1) David Alloway; probably died young; (1.2) John Barclay Alloway (1754/5-1830) of Mount Pleasant (Dublin); married, August 1787, Catherine Evans (1758-1830) but died without issue, 6 December 1830; (1.3) Robert Alloway (b. c.1756); probably died young; (1.4) William Alloway (b. 1757); (1.5) Mary Alloway (b. 1759); married, 1776, Joseph Sparrow; (1.6) Benjamin Alloway (b. 1761); (2.1) William Johnson Alloway (c.1771-1829) (q.v.) He died 29 April 1772. His widow married 2nd, 1781, George Holmes and had issue a further son (Maj. George Holmes, killed at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815).
Alloway, William Johnson (c.1771-1829) of Ballyshaneduff. Only son of Benjamin Alloway (1728-72) and his second wife, Anne, daughter of William Johnson of Dublin, born 1770×1772. He married, 15 May 1802, Margaret (d. 1834), eldest daughter of Robert Johnson, a judge of common pleas for Ireland, and had issue: (1) Robert Morellet Alloway (c.1803-77) (q.v.); (2) Arthur William Alloway (b. 1804), baptised 3 October 1804; vetinary surgeon in 4th Regiment; emigrated to Canada, 1855; married, 26 April 1832, his cousin Mary Christina Johnson and had issue (including William Forbes Alloway (1852-1930) the Canadian banker and philanthropist); (3) Margaret Anne Alloway (1809-35), born 22 April 1809; died unmarried, 16 April 1835; (4) George Holmes Alloway (c.1815-80); married, 8 December 1847, Florence Gertrude, daughter of Henry McClintock of Dundalk (Louth); died in London, 1880; (5) Anne Alloway (fl. 1835); probably died unmarried; (6) Maria Alloway (d. 1845); married, 19 May 1844, William Conway Morgan (b. 1814), barrister-at-law (who married 2nd, 1854, Catherine Elizabeth Kane and had issue two daughters) and had issue one son; died about 17 May 1845; (7) John Parker Alloway (fl. 1835). He purchased the Ballyshaneduff estate and built a new house there c.1810. He died 2 October 1829. His widow died 18 April 1834.
Alloway, Robert Morellet (c.1803-77) of Ballyshaneduff. Eldest son of William Johnson Alloway (d. 1829) and his wife Margaret, daughter of Robert Johnson, born about 1803. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin (admitted 1820; MA) and Grays Inn (admitted 1826). JP for Co. Leix. Author (as Robert Montgomerie) of The Rose of Rostrevor, 1855; patented improvements in the treatment of peat for use as fuel, 1865. He married, 19 June 1832, Marian (d. 1881), only daughter of William Lewis of Harlech (Dublin) and had issue: (1) Grace Montgomerie Alloway (1838-67), born 19 June 1838; married, 28 November 1865, John Saunders of Burnham (Somerset) and had issue a son; died 8 January 1867; (2) Robert Marmaduke Alloway (1840-80) (q.v.). He inherited Ballyshaneduff from his father in 1829, and partially rebuilt the house after a devastating fire in 1849. Some of the estate land was sold in 1863, and he lived latterly at Wells in Somerset. He died at Wells (Somerset), 8 July 1877; his will was proved 10 August 1877 (estate £450). His widow died at Exmouth, 2 November 1881; her will was proved 13 December 1881 (estate in England £418).
Alloway, Robert Marmaduke (1840-80) of Ballyshaneduff. Only son of Robert Morellet Alloway (1810-77) and his wife Marian, daughter of William Lewis of Harlech (Dublin), born 9 June 1840. Served as a Lieutenant in Dublin City Artillery (resigned 1873). He married 1st, 19 August 1869 at St Peter, Dublin, Isabella Margaret (d. 1876), daughter of Theophilus Lucas-Clements esq. of Rathkenny (Cavan) and Dublin, and 2nd, 24 July 1878 at Weston-super-Mare (Somerset), Laura Georgina (c.1856-1951), daughter of Rev. Joseph Philip Knight, and had issue: (1.1) Edward Lewis Upton Alloway (1872-1903), born 16 March 1872; emigrated to Canada, 1889 and became a rancher at Little Red River, Alberta; died 28 December 1903; will proved 7 May 1906 (estate in England £477); (1.2) Robert Henry Arthur Alloway (1873-1956), born 18 March 1873; emigrated to Canada; died in Vancouver, British Columbia, 21 December 1956; (1.3) Olivia Beatrice Alloway (1875-1938), born 13 January 1875; married, 1909, Charles Vernon Olive, bank clerk, and had issue; died 16 January 1938; will proved 25 August 1938 (estate £1,007); (1.4) Isabella Maria Alloway (b. 1876), born 12 April 1876; unmarried in 1911. He inherited Ballyshaneduff alias The Derries from his father in 1877. It was sold with 364 acres in 1884 by his children’s trustee. He died at Aldeburgh (Suffolk), 7 December 1880; his will was proved 15 June 1901 (estate £1,077). His first wife died 24 April 1876; administration of her goods was granted 24 April 1901 (estate £816). His widow married 2nd, 16 April 1889, Otto Ernesta Haenni, of Godalming, schoolmaster, and died 23 March 1951; her will was proved 11 June 1951 (estate £5,678).
Sources
Burke’s Landed Gentry, 1850, vol. 2, supplement, p.4; 1871, vol. 1, p. 15; M. Bence-Jones, Country Houses of Ireland, 1988, p.28; Dublin Evening Mail, 15 January 1849.
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. 24. [Dennehy/LGI 1958] “A long low two storey house of C19 appearance, with a gabled projection at either end and a recessed three bay centre. The end projections have a Wyatt window in their lower storey and are joined by a glazed loggia. Now the headquarters of Vasa Mink (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. 23. “(Walsh-Kemmis/IFR) A two storey early or mid-C18 house; entrance front of 7 bays with an open-bed pediment and advanced end bays, rather similar to the main block of Landenstown, Co Kildare. Staircase hall with unusual and very bucolic plasterwork on ceiling: shells and wings, circular and octangular panels. Small, low library with alcove on one side of hall, dining room of similar size on other. Large and lofty drawing room in late C18 adition built out at the back of the house, and entered from the half-landing of the stairs; it has an early C19 frieze of foliage. The drawing room addition, which is of two storeys, makes the garden front unbalanced; according to family tradition, a dining room was to be built to balance it, but work was suspended due to 1798 rebellion. The public road from Athy to Stradbally is aligned on entrance front of the house, giving the impression of a long, straight avenue; the vista from the house being closed at the far end by a church of ca 1800, with a Gothic tower. Near the house is an impressive stable yard, with a pediment and facings of ashlar.”
Ballykilcavan is a charming house of c. 1680 near Stradbally in County Laois, in heavily wooded parkland near the road to Athy in County Kildare. Reworked several times over the centuries the house retains its late seventeenth century appearance and is still occupied by the descendants of its original owners who came here early in that century. The mid-nineteenth century owner, Sir Hunt Johnson-Walsh employed William Robinson, “a promising local man'” who subsequently became the doyen of Victorian garden designers, influencing a whole school of gardeners by his naturalistic ‘Robinsonian’ plantings.
The estate was acquired in 1639 by Oliver Walsh, from a family long established in County Kilkenny where they rejoiced in the title of Walsh, Lord of the Mountain. Ballykilcavan was probably begun by his son, another Oliver, who died in 1697. The house has full-height wings like flanking towers at the corners of the entrance front while similar towers at the rear of the house are hidden by later extensions. A feature of semi-fortified 17th century houses, these towers lingered on into the early eighteenth century as decoration.
Ballykilcavan consists of a ground floor (unusually just above ground level), an upper floor and an attic storey, where today the dormer windows have been replaced by skylights. Altered and extended many times over the centuries many rooms retrain their late-seventeenth century dimensions, albeit with later decorations. In the mid 18th century Ballykilcavan was given a more Georgian aspect with a ‘floating’ pediment-gable, a fine cut-stone door case and sash windows with thin glazing bars. There is good 1730s plasterwork on the hall ceiling, and even finer work above the staircase and landing, which is actually the house’s finest room and originally extended from front to back as a gallery before the main staircase was installed.
The first member of the family to achieve prominence was Hunt Walsh, who commanded the 28th of Foot at the siege of Quebec and became a general. He was awarded a valuable estate in Prince Edward Island in a lottery of lands after the Seven Years’ War before succeeding his uncle at Ballykilcavan and becoming MP for Maryborough. General Walsh is likely to have commissioned the magnificent 18th century U-shaped stable block. The next owner was the general’s brother Raphael, Dean of Dromore, who began an ambitious remodelling including a new facade at the rear with a classical cornice and parapet, and a suite of south-facing rooms. Unfortunately, work was disrupted by the 1798 Rebellion so he only managed to complete one side of the building, leaving the remainder blank. This provides a single very large drawing room, entered at the half level from the staircase, with a pair of bedrooms overhead. The drawing room is particularly beautiful, with fine late-eighteenth century woodwork, mahogany doors and a finely modelled cornice.
Dean Walsh was succeeded by his sister’s son, a baronet who assumed the name Johnson-Walsh and the estate passed in turn to his two sons. The second Sir Hunt, Rector of Stradbally, was a keen gardener and built a tunnel to his walled garden at the far side of the Stradbally-Athy road. According to family legend his gardener, William Robinson, doused the hot-house fires before quitting his position on a particularly cold winter’s night. Nobody noticed his absence and, by the time the fires were re-lit, precious plants had perished.
The 1700s layout and avenues were rearranged in the nineteenth century when a new road was built from Stradbally to Athy. A distant section of this road is now on axis with the front door, and acts almost as a continuation avenue with the spire of St. Peter’s First Fruits Church as an eye-catcher in distance. Much of the estate is given over to native woodland, with some spectacular specimen oak trees and Spanish chestnuts, and the record Irish black walnut.
Sir Hunt was succeeded by his son and grandson, whose only child Oonagh married a neighbour, William Kemmis of Shaen. They subsequently changed their name to Walsh-Kemmis and their grandson, David, and his wife Lisa, are the 13th generation to live at Ballykilcavan.
Ballykilcavan has full-height wings like flanking towers at the corners of the entrance front while similar towers on the rear of the house are now hidden by later extensions. These towers were a feature of fortified houses of the seventeenth century and lingered on into the early eighteenth century as decorative features. The house is comprised of a ground floor (unusually at ground level), an upper floor and an attic storey, where the dormer windows have been replaced by skylights. It has been altered and extended many times over the centuries but many rooms retrain their late-seventeenth century dimensions though the decoration is later.
Ballykilcavan House, Stradbally, Co. Laois courtesy National Inventory.
Detached seven-bay two-storey house with dormer attic, built c.1740, with gable to centre and projecting end bays. Extended, c.1975, with two-storey projecting bay added to left, two-storey range added to right and two-storey return to rear. Double-pitched and hipped slate and replacement fibre-cement tile roof with skylight to rear on a circular plan with lead-sheeted plinth; rolled lead ridge tiles; nap rendered chimneystacks; cast-iron rainwater goods on brackets. Rendered painted walls. Square-headed window openings with limestone sills and six-over-six timber sash windows. Limestone pedimented doorcase to door opening with glazed timber panelled door. Entrance/Stair Hall with Portland stone-flagged floor; carved timber staircase with scrolled handrail; decorative plaster ceiling, c.1790; Dining Room with alcove having flanking pilasters; Drawing Room with white marble fireplace; Rococo plaster frieze; decorative plaster ceiling to landing to first floor. House is set back from road in own grounds; landscaped grounds to site; tarmacadam drive and forecourt to approach. Group of detached outbuildings to site, one with three-bay pedimented advanced bay having round-headed openings to first floor.
John Allen, dsp; EDWARD JOHN, of whom hereafter; HUNT HENRY, heir to his brother; Olivia.
Mr Johnson was created a baronet, in 1775, denominated of Ballykilcavan.
Sir John assumed, in 1809, upon the demise of his maternal uncle, the Very Rev Raphael Walsh, Dean of Dromore, the surname and arms of WALSH.
He was succeeded by his eldest surviving son,
SIR EDWARD JOHN JOHNSON-WALSH, 2nd Baronet (c1785-1848), of Ballykilcavan, High Sheriff of Queen’s County, 1825, who died unmarried, and was succeeded by his brother,
THE REV SIR HUNT HENRY JOHNSON-WALSH, 3rd Baronet (1787-1865), Rector of Stradbally, who was succeeded by his son,
SIR JOHN ALLEN JOHNSON-WALSH, 4th Baronet (1829-93), who married, in 1859, Harriet Anne, daughter of the Rev Brownlow William Forde, and had issue, a son,
SIR HUNT HENRY ALLEN JOHNSON-WALSH, 5th Baronet (1864-1953), of Ballykilcavan, who espoused, in 1910, Grace, daughter of the Rt Hon Henry Bruen, of Oak Park, County Carlow, and had issue, an only child,
OONAGH JOHNSON-WALSH, who married (William) Frederick Kemmis, of Shaen House.
Thereafter the family name was changed to WALSH-KEMMIS.
The baronetcy expired on the decease of the 5th and last Baronet.
BALLYKILCAVAN HOUSE, near Stradbally, County Laois, is a two-storey, seven-bay house with a dormer attic, with a centre gable and projecting end bays.
It was built about 1680 in wooded parkland just east of Stradbally.
The estate was acquired by Oliver Walsh in 1639 and the house was probably built by his son, also Oliver, who died in 1697.
The house has full-height wings like flanking towers at the corners of the entrance front; while similar towers on the rear of the house are now hidden by later extensions.
These towers were a feature of fortified houses of the 17th century and lingered on into the early 18th century as decorative features.
The house is comprised of a ground floor (unusually at ground level), an upper floor and an attic storey, where the dormer windows have been replaced by skylights.
It has been altered and extended many times over the centuries but many rooms retrain their late-17th century dimensions, though the decoration is later.
In the 18th century Ballykilcavan was given a more Georgian aspect with a ‘floating’ pediment-gable, a fine cut-stone doorcase and sash windows with thin glazing-bars.
There is decorative 1730s plasterwork on the hall ceiling, and even finer work above the staircase and landing.
The landing is Ballykilcavan’s finest room and originally extended from front to back as a gallery before the main staircase was installed.
The first prominent member of the family was Major-General Sir Henry Hunt Walsh GCB, who commanded the 28th of Foot at the siege of Quebec.
He was awarded a valuable estate in Prince Edward Island in a lottery of lands after the Seven Years’ War before succeeding his uncle at Ballykilcavan and becoming MP for Maryborough.
General Walsh is likely to have commissioned the magnificent 18th century U-shaped stable block.
The next owner was the Major-General’s brother Raphael, Dean of Dromore, who began an ambitious remodelling of the house.
He planned a new front at the rear with a classical cornice and parapet, and a suite of south-facing rooms.
Unfortunately, work was disrupted by the 1798 Rebellion, and Dean Walsh only completed half the building vertically, leaving the remainder blank.
This provides a single, very large drawing room, entered at the half level from the staircase, and a pair of bedrooms overhead.
The drawing-room is particularly beautiful, with fine late-18th century woodwork, mahogany doors and a finely modelled cornice.
Dean Walsh was succeeded by his sister’s son, Sir John Allen Johnson-Walsh, 1st Baronet, who assumed the name Walsh and the estate passed in turn to his two sons.
The second son, Sir Hunt, Rector of Stradbally, was a keen gardener and built a tunnel to his walled garden at the far side of the Stradbally-Athy road.
He also employed a promising local man, William Robinson, to oversee his garden and plant collection.
The story is that master and servant fell out and Robinson doused the hot-house fires before quitting his position on a particularly cold winter’s night.
Nobody noticed his absence and, by the time the fires were re-lit, many precious plants had perished.
In Dublin and later in London, Robinson’s career took-off and he became the doyen of late 19th century garden designers, influencing a whole school of gardening with his ‘natural’ plantings.
Sir Hunt was succeeded by his son and grandson, whose only child Oonagh married a neighbour, William Kemmis of Shaen.
They subsequently changed their name to Walsh-Kemmis and their grandson, David, and his wife Lisa, are the thirteenth generation of the family to live at Ballykilcavan.
The 1700s layout and avenues were rearranged in the nineteenth century when a new road was built from Stradbally to Athy.
A distant section of this road is now on axis with the front door, and acts almost as an avenue with the spire of a First Fruits Church as an eye-catcher in far distance.
Much of the estate is given over to woodland, with some spectacular specimen oaks and Spanish chestnuts, and the record Irish black walnut.
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.]
“A two storey three bay C18 house. Primitive Venetian windows with slightly pointed heads on either side of roundheaded rusticated doorcase; Wyatt windows above.”
Belan House, County Laois, courtesy National Inventory.
Three-bay two-storey house with dormer attic, built c.1750, with pedimented central breakfront. Three-bay two-storey Georgian house, c.1790, attached to rear. Now derelict. Double-pitched and hipped slate roof with clay ridge tiles, nap rendered chimneystacks and cast-iron rainwater goods. Roughcast rendered brick walls with limestone course to eaves. Venetian-style window openings to ground floor, Wyatt-style window openings to first floor with limestone sills and timber sash windows. Round-headed door opening with block-and-start doorcase and timber panelled door with fanlight. Timber panelled shutters to window openings; timber panelled intrados to Venetian window. House set back from road in own grounds; overgrown grounds to site. Group of detached outbuildings to site. Gateway to front comprising rendered piers with wrought iron gates.
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.
“(Croasdaile/IFR) A house of 1855 in the Georgian style, with a portico; built to replace an earlier house on the same site which had been burnt. Sold 1935 and subsequently demolished.”
Listed in Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
p. 97. A house built in 1855 for John Rynne. Demolished.
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. 181. “ (Tydd, Bt/EDB; Butler, sub Dunboyne, B/PB) A plain two storey Georgian house. In 1837, the residence of Mr Justice Moore. Now demolished.”
Richard Lambart, 4th Earl of Cavan by James Latham courtesy artnet.com
Listed in Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
Knockatrina, County Laois, 1986, photograph: William Garner, Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
listed as Knocknatrina, p. 179: “A two C19 storey Tudor-Gothic house with gables, mullioned windows, a curved bow and tall chimneys. Burnt ca 1940, now a shell.”
Listed in Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
Anyone driving south-east from Durrow, County Laois on the N77 cannot fail to notice a striking ruin on a rise just outside the town. This is Knockatrina, yet another Irish house with unclear origins. The land here was owned by the Flower family, created Viscounts Ashbrook in 1751, whose main residence was nearby at Castle Durrow. The fifth Lord Ashbrook had three sons, the youngest of whom, Lt-Colonel Robert Flower is known to have been living in Knockatrina by the late 1860s following his marriage to Gertrude Hamilton: with no expectations of inheriting the main property, this would have been as much as he could expect to receive. And as the youngest of the family, he had to earn his living which he proved admirably capable of doing since he had a strong interest in engineering. He was responsible for a number of inventions, including a handloom for the unskilled and a latch-hook needle for faster weaving: these devices would be put to use by his neighbour the fifth Viscount de Vesci who in 1904 opened a carpet factory in Abbeyleix. Two years later Robert Flower became eighth Viscount Ashbrook, neither of his elder brothers having had male heirs (in 1877 the sixth Lord Ashbrook had divorced his wife Emily on the grounds of adultery with a Captain Hugh Sydney Baillie). As a result he came into possession of Castle Durrow but by that time the family finances were in poor condition and three years after his death in 1919 the ninth viscount was obliged to sell Castle Durrow.
Knockatrina was inherited by the eighth Lord Ashbrook’s eldest daughter the Hon Frances Mary Flower who in 1893 married Henry White, the younger son of a neighbour. As early as 1908 she and her husband were in trouble for failure to pay debts yet somehow they managed to hang on. Following her husband’s death in 1923, Frances White continued to farm and train horses, despite being declared bankrupt in 1928. It was only in 1946 that she finally moved out of Knockatrina and into a nursing home in Kilkenny where she died the following year aged eighty. Knockatrina meanwhile had been bought by Mary Mooney who acted as housekeeper and companion to another local woman, Amy Mercier (Mary Mooney would be the beneficiary of the latter’s will). It seems Ms Mooney acquired Knockatrina as an investment rather than a residence since in 1958 her agent, a farmer in the vicinity, arranged to have the house stripped of all removable fittings and unroofed (this was the period when any such building with a roof was liable to domestic rates, hence many of them had the slates removed). Left a shell, Knockatrina quickly deteriorated and the land on which the remains stand was subsequently sold.
As is so often the case, no records appear to exist offering information about when Knockatrina was built or who might have been its architect. It has been proposed that Robert Flower was responsible for the house’s construction but this seems unlikely, not least because by the time he moved there the family was already burdened by debt. More importantly, on the basis of design it looks to belong to the group of medium-sized country houses including Rathwade, Wykeham and Mount Leinster Lodge. There were all in nearby County Carlow and built during the 1830s to the designs of the prolific (and – like the Flowers – permanently indebted) Daniel Robertson in a loosely Tudor Gothic style. If Knockatrina belongs to the same group, and indeed was designed or inspired by the same architect, this means it would have been erected during the lifetime of the fourth Viscount Ashbrook, whose first wife Deborah Friend was a considerable heiress. Given its proximity to Castle Durrow, Knockatrina would then have served as either a dower house or an agent’s residence. However neither would have been required by the late 1860s, so handing it on to a younger son made sense. Inevitably given that the house has been unroofed for almost sixty years almost nothing of the interior survives (other than some tiles on the entrance hall floor). Fortunately, as can be seen in the photographs above, the present owner does not wish for the building to fall into further disrepair. On the contrary, he is keen to undertake a programme of restoration over the coming years and return Knockatrina to residential use. All being well it won’t be long before the view from the N77 offers passers-by not a ruin but once again a fully functioning house.
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. 178. “(Pigott, Bt/PB 1970; Vesey, de Vesci, V/PB) A small house of ca 1773 with good neo-Classical interior decoration built onto an older structure. Now demolished.”
Listed in Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
…In 1814 the seat of Mrs. Morton. Demolished.
See family tree Major General Thomas Pigott, b. 1734
Irish Historic Houses 