Beside Athlumney are the ruins of Athlumney castle which has a 17th century house attached. It was built in two periods. The older part is a Tower House built in the 15th century. It has three storey and its thick walls and slit windows speak of a time when castles were used for defence and not for comfort. Inside is a spiral staircase with little rooms opening off it. Holes for floor beams remain on the first floor level. The newer part of the castle is attached to the tower to its left. This was built in the late 16th century or early 17th century. It is three storey manor house with four sets of widely spaced mullioned windows. It had large corridors and its ground floor kitchen provided heat for the first floor rooms where the Lord lived. The doorway is cut limestone and there is an oriel window on its eastern wall.
In 1649 when Cromwell was attacking Drogheda, the Maguires who occupied the castle set fire to it to thwart Cromwell. Nearby are the ruins of a 14th century manorial church with triple belfry. In the vicinity there is a motte and bailey.
This is a settlement complex where one can trace the changing forms of a manorial building in Meath since the Norman conquest, it features a motte or artificial hill of the first settlement in the late 12th century.
Athlumney Castle, County Meath, Eason Photographic Collection c. 1912, NLI ref EAS_1732.
Constructed over several centuries – the classic form of the fortified Irish tower house visible as part of the Jacobean mansion. The mid-fifteenth-century tower house, built by the Dowdall family, was considerably enlarged around 1630 by a long, narrow gabled mansion with large mullioned windows and a fine oriel window.
The tower house has four storeys, with an attic and four projecting corner turrets of different sizes containing the stair, latrines and small chambers.
The house was now occupied by the Maguires who in 1649 set fire to the building rather than surrender it to Cromwell’s forces who were scouring the area razing all in their path to the ground. The Castle was again set alight around the time of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 and has remained a ruin since.
Three-stage tower house, c.1500. Four-bay three-storey extension, c.1650, with mullioned windows and gables. Burnt in 1649. Now in ruins. Double-pitched roof with tall chimney stacks to extension. Rubble stone walls. National Monument in state care.
‘Immediately approaching Navan, the river [Boyne] makes a bold sweep round the foot of the hill, from which rise up the ruins of Athlumney Castle, the dilapidated towers and tall gables of which shoot above the trees that surround the commanding eminence on which it is placed, while glimpses of its broad, stone-sashed and picturesque windows, of the style of the end of the sixteenth century, are caught through the openings in the plantation which surrounds the height on which it stands. This beautiful pile consists of a large square keep, with stone arched floors and passages rising into a tower, from which a noble view can be obtained on a clear day; and a more modern castellated mansion, with square stone-mullioned windows, tall chimneys and several gables in the side walls.’
‘Of the history of the castle of Athlumney and its adjoining church, there is little known with certainty; but, standing on the left bank of the Boyne, opposite this point, we cannot help recalling the story of the heroism of its last lord, Sir Launcelot Dowdall, who, hearing of the issue of the battle of the Boyne and the fate of the monarch to whose religion and politics his family had been so long attached, and fearing the approach of the victorious English army, declared on the news reaching him, that the Prince of Orange should never rest under his ancestral roof. The threat was carried into execution. Dowdall set fire to his castle at nightfall and, crossing the Boyne, sat down upon its opposite bank, from whence, as tradition reports, he beheld the last timber in his noble mansion blazing and flickering in the calm summer’s night, then crash amidst the smouldering ruins; and when its final eructation of smoke and flame was given forth, and the pale light of morning was stealing over that scene of desolation, with an aching and despairing heart he turned from the once happy scene of his youth and manhood, and, flying to the continent, shortly after his royal master, never returned to this country. All that remained of this castle and estate were forfeited in 1700. Many a gallant Irish soldier lost his life, and many a noble Irish gentleman forfeited his broad lands that day. We wish their cause had been a better one, and the monarch for whom they bled more worthy such an honour.’
‘Tradition gives us another, but by no means so probable story about Athlumney Castle, which refers to an earlier date. It is said that two sisters occupied the ancient castles of Athlumney and Blackcastle, which latter was situated on the opposite bank of the river; and the heroine of the latter, jealous of her rival in Athlumney, took the following means of being revenged…’
‘…She made her enter into an agreement, that to prevent their mansions falling into the hands of Cromwell and his soldiers, they should set fire to them at the same moment, as soon as the news of his approach reached them, and that a fire being lighted upon one was to be the signal for the conflagration of the other. In the mean time, the wily mistress of Blackcastle had a quantity of dry brush-wood placed on one of the towers of the castle which, upon a certain night, she lighted; and the inhabitants of Athlumney perceiving the appointed signal, set fire to their mansion and burned it to the ground. In the morning the deception was manifest. Athlumney was a mass of blackened, smoking ruins; while Blackcastle still reared its proud form above the woods, and still afforded shelter to its haughty mistress.’
Extracts from The Beauties of the Boyne, and its Tributary, The Blackwater by Sir William Wilde (1850)
This is a 15th century tower-house with four storeys plus attic. There are projecting corner towers. The castle has a barrel vault above the ground floor and access to this level is through a modern doorway in the S wall. The original entrance was in the W wall and was protected by a murder-hole leading from a small room below the first floor level.
Access to the upper floors is by a spiral stairway in the NW corner. There is a gallery in the N wall at the upper level of the vault. There is a fireplace at the first floor and a garderobe at the SE corner. A mural stairway in the S wall leads down to the small room from which the murder-hole leads. A mulit-gabled three-storey house is attached at the S and W. It is four bays long with fine mullioned windows and probably dates from the early 17th century. The large fireplace in the S wall is flanked by ovens and there is another oven near the N wall. A projection in the W wall near the S end housed the stairs.
There is an oriel window in the S wall at the first and second floors. The doorway in the E wall has pecked decoration and a small carved knot. The castle ws burned in 1649 by the Maguires to prevent its capture by Cromwell and again in 1690 after the Battle of the Boyne to deny William of Orange.
Athlumney House, dates from the eighteenth century and sits on the east bank of the Boyne, just south of Navan. The Metge family were Huguenot refugees fleeing the persecution of Catholics in France. Peter de la Metgee was the first of the family to arrive in Ireland. Settling at Athlumney he married Joyce Hatch and had four daughters and a son. He died aged 70 in 1735 and was succeeded by his son Peter.
Peter held lands at Athlumney and Warrenstown, Dunboyne. Peter was married to Ann Lyon, a family from which a Queen Mother in England was to descend. On the staircase of Athlumney there were some carved oak ornaments brought over from Glamis Castle by Janet Lyon. They had four sons and eight daughters. Peter Metge died in 1774. Two of his sons served as MPs in the Irish House of Parliament.
Peter Merge, eldest son of Peter Metge of Athlumney, was MP for Ratoath 1783-4 and also served as magistrate and portreeve (Mayor) of Navan. Peter was a lawyer. He served as M.P. for Boyle and became Baron of the Exchequer. Baron Metge was a local commissioner appointed to supervise the Boyne Canal in 1787.
John Metge, second son of Peter Metge of Athlumney, was MP for Ratoath 1784-90. A captain in the 4th Dragoons he acted as Henry Grattan’s second in his famous duel with Corry in 1800. Peter became deputy auditor general of the Irish Treasury. John later went on to represent Dundalk in the parliament in Westminister on three separate occasions. He served as a seatwarmer for the Earl of Roden who was patron of Dundalk. John also acted as a representative for Lord Roden and signed deeds on his behalf.
John inherited Athlumney on the death of his brother, Peter and he was succeeded by his son, Peter Ponsonby. In 1830s Athlumney was home to Peter Ponsonby Metge and was described as “beautifully situated on the banks of the Boyne, commanding some pleasing views and the demesne is well planted and tastefully embellished.” In the 1800s an underground passage, a souterrain, was discovered at Athlumney and featured in many learned books of the era.
In 1876 Peter Ponsonby Metge of Athlumney held 788 acres in county Meath. Peter’s brother, John Charles, settled at Sion and in 1876 J. C. Metge of Sion, Navan held 968 acres in Westmeath.
Peter Ponsonby died in 1873 and was succeeded by his nephew, Robert Henry Metge.
Robert Henry Metge was M.P for Meath from 1880 to 1884. He married Frances Lambart, daughter of Rev. Charles Lambert, rector of Navan and grand-daughter of Gustavus Lambert of Beauparc. Robert Henry died in 1900 and was succeeded by his son, Robert Henry. Another son Captain Rudolph Cole Metge died as a results of wounds suffered during the first World War.
Robert Henry was born in 1875 and married Mary Galway Creagh of Mallow in 1914. Major Robert Henry Metge, fought in the Boer War and was a survivor of the siege of Ladysmith. He served as a captain in the Welsh regiment and was major in the Leinster regiment. When he returned to Athlumney he fished regularly in the Boyne. In 1930 he wrote a letter to the Irish Times complaining of the decline in the fishing stock in the Boyne and its tributaries. Major Metge came into possession of the seal of the corporation of Navan. He lent it to the National Museum but it was later acquired by Randolph Hearst. Metge supported the efforts of Sir Nugent Everard in promoting the growing of tobacco in the county. He also bred pedigree British Berkshire pigs. Major Metge was a member of the Navan branch of the British Legion. His wife died in May 1939.
In the early 1900s Athlumney was leased to a Mr. Collier, owner of Collier’s Weekly and New York magazine. The Duc d’Orleans visited Mr. Collier there. The Duke was the pretender to the throne of France. Some of the Metge Estate was purchased under the 1923 Land Act. Later the house was occupied by the McEntegart and Farrell families.
Metge’s Lane in the centre of Navan commemorates the family today.
Williamston, County Meath, entrance front c. 1975, 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.
“(Garnett/LGI1912) An impressive three storey nine bay late C18 house, with an elevation almost identical to that of the nearby Rockfield, except that, here, there is no breakfront; it can safely be assumed that the two houses are by the same architect. Ground floor treated as a basement, with channelling; Doric porch; pediment over central first floor window.”
Detached nine-bay three-storey house over basement, built
c.1770, now derelict.
Listed in Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
p. 115. “A very fine three storey cut stone house originally of five bays but extended to nine in the early 19C in the same style. The original house was built c. 1760-70. In 1814 the seat of John Otway. For many years unoccupied.”
Williamstown, County Meath, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
Detached nine-bay three-storey house over basement, built c.1770, now derelict. Hipped slate roof with ashlar chimneystacks and parapet. Channelled limestone to entrance level, with string courses between floor and with ashlar limestone to basement and upper floors. Carved limestone dressings to window openings with timber sash windows. Carved limestone doorcase, flanked by Doric columns with entablature and pediment above. Pedimented window over porch.
Appraisal
This country house is of apparent architectural form and detailing. The form of the building is articulated by the masonry dressings, such as the channelled limestone to the entrance level and the string courses. The imposing carved pedimented Doric porch adds artistic interest to the façade. Though now in poor condition, this building retains many interesting features and materials, such as the timber sash windows and slate roof.
Williamstown, County Meath, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Williamstown, County Meath, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Williamstown, County Meath, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Williamstown, County Meath, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Williamstown, County Meath, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Williamstown, County Meath, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
Many thanks to Peadar O’Colmain for this excellent research and write up:
Williamstown House in County Meath was built around 1770 as a home for the Cuffe family.
The Cuffe Family originated in Somerset, England. Originally they had a manor house at Rowlands, between Taunton and Yeovil which still stands today with a Great Hall, about 25-foot high, with mullioned windows and plasterwork dating from the reign of Queen Elizabeth the First.
The family have a long history in Ireland from the time when Captain John Cuffe adventured to Ireland in 1561 during the Elizabethan age.
The “Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Chronicle, July to December 1811” describes for us; “At Williamstown Co. Meath, the right honourable and Reverend Hamilton Cuffe and uncle of the present earl of Desart and Rector of Drumcondra and Athboy.” He appears in “Kells United Parishes” in 1803. Reverend Hamilton Cuffe, his two children, John and Lucy and his wife, we are told convincingly is called “Mrs Cuffe”. He would later have three more daughters, Nicola, Dorothea and Isabella. The son, John Otway Cuffe of Williamsown House Co Meath died on March 15th 1833.
The house was built in a Palladian style and set on 280 acres. It was originally a three story house over basement with just five bays. It had a hipped-slate roof, carved limestone doorcase with Doric columns and an entablature with a pediment above and a pedimented window over the porch.
The house was modified around 1830 with two more bays being added to either side giving the house the nine-bay frontal appearance that we see today. The stonework is ashlar limestone and the four newer bays match the original structure perfectly. Williamstown House was once in a Parkland setting but this is now all farmland.
It was the first house in Kells to have electricity.
The house was later owned by the Garnett family who also altered the building. John Garnett was at one time the Bishop of Clogher. Originally an English family they were extremely wealthy, owning property in Dublin. They had residences in Athcarne Castle, Kells, Summerseat and Williamstown House.
A Rev George Garnett died in 1856 and left the place to his eldest son, William Stawell Garnett (born 1838). Rev George Garnett is also listed as having owned 304 acres at Knockglass, Crossmolina, Co. Mayo. During and after the Great Famine many of the Garnett family left Ireland and moved to The United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Fiji. Some of them also moved back to England.
The next owners of Williamstown were the Dyas family, owners of the Athboy Lodge Stables. The “Genealogy library reference book” for the 1870s lists a Mr. Nathaniel H. Dyas, of Athboy Lodge, Athboy, as owning 1,231 acres.
Mr Henry Mortimer Dyas was the owner of the horse “Manifesto”, the first horse to win the Aintree Grand National twice (1897 and 1899). The “Manifesto” restaurant at Aintree Racecourse is still called after him. Henry Mortimer Dyas was the subject of a 1913 Court Case in which the jury found against him to the tune of £ 482.00 for assaulting a barmaid Mrs Sarah Ann Williams with whom he had been living. The Judge, Mr Justice Wright desccribed him as a “peculiar man, lax in morality”. The “Commission of the Peace in Ireland ” in 1887 describes him as a “land agent and grazier”. He died on August 25th. 1915. Aged 57 years and is commemorated with an inscription in St Columba’s Church, Kells. Erected by his wife Hilda.
On leaving Williamstown they willed the house to a Miss Julietta Marie Emily “Judy” McCormick of ‘Shandon’, Monkstown, Co. Dublin. This may have been her single and her married name.
She Married Samuel Smith McCormick J.P. They had eight children including a son, John Hugh Gardner McCormick (born 4 April 1886) who was killed in the the First World War on Oct. 19th. 1914.
There was a Brass Lectern in St Columba’s Church of Ireland in Kells with an inscription saying;
“Sine Timore” “To the Glory of God and in loving memory of John Hugh Gardiner Mc.Cormick of Williamstown, Co. Meath. Captain, Royal Warwick Regt. He was mortally wounded in action. Oct. 19th. 1914, and died the same night at a Convent Hospital in German hands at Menin. Aged 28 years.” “Fear God and keep his Commandments”. The lectern is now Dalkey Church in Dublin.
“Sine Temore” is a latin phrase meaning “without fear”
John Hugh was single and left his estate to his father. He is commemorated on Panel 8 of the British War Memorial at Menin Gate, Ypres (now Ieper), Belgium, and the Great War Memorial, Monkstown Church of Ireland, Co. Dublin.
His mother Julietta McCormick herself died on July 30th 1951 and is buried in grave 1290 in Mount Jerome cemetery in Dublin.
Miss McCormack had a maid and friend called Rosie Guerin who then remained living in the lodge of Williamstown House until she passed away in 1997. Her daughter, Anne was born and reared in Williamstown House.
From the sixties or seventies onwards Williamstown House has been abandoned and today is a ruin.
Thanks to Peadar O’Colmain for this great write up.
Williamstown House is located near Kells. Williamstown is a large late Georgian mansion three storeys over basement. The two last bays were added to the each side in 1858 by George Garnett. Bence-Jones described Williamstown as an ‘impressive three storey late eighteenth century house’. Its elevation is almost the same as nearby Rockfield which suggests that the two houses had the same architect. Near the house is a three stage tower erected about 1800. There is a courtyard of outbuildings and estate worker’s cottages dating from about 1780. A pigeon house stood south of the house. The remains of Dulane church and graveyard are to the west of the house. Local man, Liam McNiffe, has written the story of the house in ‘A history of Williamstown, Kells.’
William Williams received lands from Thomas Taylor in 1670 and it was from this family that the townland received its name. In 1766 the lands moved from the Williams family when Esther Williams married Rev. Hamilton Cuffe of Dublin. This couple probably erected Williamstown House in the 1770s. By 1811 the Rev. Cuffe had died and it would appear that the family had left Williamstown by this date. The estate, which was heavily mortgaged, was sold in 1827 to pay off debts.
The mansion house, garden, orchard and demesne lands were sold to Sarah Garnett for £9200. Sarah was a spinster from Kells. The Garnett family were established at Summerseat. Sarah left her lands at Wiliamstown to her first cousin, Rev. George Charles Garnett. In 1837 Williamstown was the residence of Rev. George Garnett. Rev. George Garnett married Margaret Wade of Bachelor’s Lodge. Their eldest son, Hamlet, lived at Teltown while their second son, George, inherited Williamstown George Garnett and his wife had two sons. William Stawell who succeeded to the estate in 1856 and Charles who became a clergyman. In 1862 William erected Williamstown lodge, later re-named Zephyr Lodge probably as a dower house for his widowed mother, Catherine. William was High Sheriff of Meath in 1864. He married Sally Garnett of Teltown.
William added two extra extensions on each side of the house and a pedimented porch in 1858. In the 1876 William Stawell Garnett held 3014 acres in county Meath. The Garnett family left Williamstown by 1881 and the house and lodge were left vacant for a long period. William Stawell died suddenly while on a visit to Kells in October 1898. Williamstown was occupied for a while by the Dyas family. Dr. Thomas Sparrow was living in the house in 1901.
In 1912 John McCormick of Monkstown, Dublin purchased Williamstown House and 127 acres. He was a member of the family which owned Tedcastles and McCormick, major Dublin firms. In August 1914 John joined up and three weeks later was reported missing. John Mc.Cormick was mortally wounded in action on 19 October 1914, and died the same night at a Convent Hospital in German hands at Menin, aged 28 years. Following interviewing a number of soldiers the family eventually accepted that he was dead. Six months later his brother Jim was also killed in the war. Their sister Rose made her home at Williamstown House and lived there until her death in 1972. The travelling actor, A’new McMaster and his family stayed at Williamstown House while on their tours around Ireland. The house was so big that Rose could only live in part of the ground floor and another family lived in the basement. Rose was a member of the Methodist Church. Williamstown House was left vacant following the death of Rose McCormick. It was unoccupied for a considerable period and became derelict.
Trimleston Castle (Tremblestown, Trimlestown), Kildalkey, Co Meath
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.
as in Lord Belmont…”…Here lived 12th Lord Trimlestown, a celebrated figure in mid-C18 Ireland; he kept a large eagle chained up by the front door and he had a magnificent coach which had been presented to him by Mashal Saxe; for, as a Catholic, he had spent much of his life abroad, where he had acquired skill in medicine, so that he would treat the poor of the neighbourhood gratuitously; he also treated a fashionable lady for the vapours by getting four assistants to threaten her with rods in a darkened room. In time, the castle had a fine formal garden… Early in C19, the castle was adorned with what a contemporary described as “ornamental towers, an embattled parapet and other marks of the style which prevailed in the latter part of the sixteenth century.” soon afterwards, however, it was abandoned by the family, and fell into ruin.”
Record of Protected Structures:
Tremblestown Castle, townland: Tremblestown, town: Trim
Medieval towerhouse with18thC house added, and 19thC
crennelations – barnwell mausoleum, a plain single cell with
some simple slabs to the north in a field.
In Blake, Tarquin. Abandoned Mansions of Ireland II: More Portraits of Forgotten Stately Homes. Collins Press, Cork, 2012.
The Landed Gentry and Aristocracy: County Meath. Volume 1. Art Kavanagh, 2005.
Barnewall of Trimlestown, p. 19.
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. 115. “An 18C house incorporating a tower house. The building was further altered in the early 19C. Now a ruin.”
THE BARONS TRIMLESTOWN OWNED 3,025 ACRES OF LAND IN COUNTY MEATH
This family, whose surname was anciently written De Barneval and Barnewall, deduces its lineage from remote antiquity, and claims, among its earliest progenitors, personages of the most eminent renown. It is the parent stock whence the noble houses of BARNEWALLand TRIMLESTOWN branched.
The name of its patriarch is to be found, with the other companions in arms of WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR, in the roll of Battle Abbey. In Ireland, the Barnewalls came under the denomination of “Strongbowians“, having established themselves there in 1172, under the banner of Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, commonly called Strongbow.
SIR MICHAEL DE BERNEVAL, Knight, the first settler, joined the English expedition, with three armed ships, and effected a descent upon Berehaven, County Cork, previous to the landing of his chief, the Earl of Pembroke, in the province of Leinster.
Sir Michael is mentioned in the records at the Tower of London as one of the leading captains in the enterprise; and in the reigns of HENRY II and RICHARD I, he was lord, by tenure, of Berehaven and Bantry.
From this gallant and successful soldier we pass to
SIR ULPHRAM DE BERNEVAL, Knight, the tenth in descent, first possessor of Crickstown Castle and estate, and the founder of what was termed the “Crickstown Branch” of the family.
The great-grandson of this Sir Ulphram,
NICHOLAS DE BERNEVALL (fourth of the same Christian name), married a daughter of the Lord Furnivall, and left three sons,
Christopher (Sir), father of 1st Baron Trimlestown; John, ancestor of the Barons Kingsland; Barnaby (Sir), an eminent lawyer.
The eldest son,
SIR CHRISTOPHER BARNEWALL (c1400-46), as the name began to be spelt, succeeded to the patrimonial estate of Crickstown; and was, in 1445 and 1446, Vice-Treasurer of Ireland and Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.
He married Matilda, daughter of Sir _____ Drake, of Drakerath, and had two sons, of whom the younger,
SIR ROBERT BARNEWALL, Knight, was elevated to the peerage by EDWARD IV, in 1461, in the dignity of BARON TRIMLESTOWN, of Trimlestown, County Meath.
“The next patent of creation that occurs” said the historian, William Lynch, in his work on Feudal Dignities, “is one of considerable importance, as being the first grant (in Ireland) of any description of peerage conveying, by express words, the dignity of a baron of parliament.”
The patent was dated in the second year of EDWARD IV’s reign, and thereby the King ordained and constituted Sir Robert Barnewall, Knight, for his good services to His Majesty’s father when in Ireland, as essendum unum baronum parliamenti nostri infra terram nostram prædictam, to hold to him and the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten, and to be called by the name of Domini et Baronis de Trymleteston, etc;
And also that the said Sir Robert should be one of his, the King’s, Council within the said land during his life, with the fee of £10 yearly, payable out of the fee-farm of Salmon Leap and Chapelizod etc.
His lordship wedded firstly, Elizabeth Broune, by whom he acquired a considerable estate, and had two sons,
CHRISTOPHER (Sir), his heir; Thomas.
He espoused secondly, Anne, daughter of Sir Thomas Plunkett, but had no other issue.
His lordship was succeeded at his decease in 1470 by his elder son,
CHRISTOPHER, 2nd Baron; who obtained a pardon for his participation in the treason of Lambert Simnel.
His lordship married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Plunkett, of Rathmore, and had issue,
JOHN, his heir; Robert; Ismay; a daughter; Alison.
His lordship died ca 1513, and was succeeded by his eldest son,
JOHN, 3rd Baron (1470-1538), an eminent judge and politician, who wedded no less than four times, and was succeeded at his decease by the only son of his first wife, Janet, daughter of John Bellew, of Bellewstown,
PATRICK, 4th Baron, who espoused Catherine, daughter of Richard Taylor, of Swords, County Dublin, and widow of Richard Delahyde, Recorder of Drogheda.
His lordship died in 1562, and was succeeded by his eldest son,
ROBERT, 5th Baron, who married Anne, only daughter of Alderman Richard Fyan, Mayor of Dublin; but dying issueless, in 1573, the barony devolved upon his brother,
PETER, 6th Baron. This nobleman dying in 1598, was succeeded by his only son, by Catherine, daughter of the Hon Sir Christopher Nugent, and granddaughter of Richard, 11th Baron Delvin,
ROBERT, 7th Baron (c1574-1639), who wedded Genet, daughter of Thomas Talbot, of Dardistown, County Meath, by whom he had issue,
Christopher, father of MATTHIAS, 8th Baron; John; Patrick; Richard; Matthew; Mary; Catherine; Ismay.
His lordship had a memorable dispute with the Lord Dunsany regarding precedency, which was decided in favour of Lord Trimlestown by the Privy Council in 1634.
He was succeeded by his grandson,
MATTHIAS, 8th Baron (1614-67), eldest son of the Hon Christopher Barnewall, by Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Edward FitzGerald, Knight.
This nobleman serving against the usurper CROMWELL was excepted from pardon for life, and had his estates sequestered; but surviving the season of rebellion and rapacity, he regained a considerable portion of his lands.
His lordship espoused, in 1641, Jane, daughter of Nicholas, 1st Viscount Netterville, and was succeeded by his only surviving son,
ROBERT, 9th Baron, who married Margaret, daughter of Sir John Dungan Bt, and niece of William, Earl of Limerick, by whom he had two sons and five daughters,
His lordship sat in JAMES II’s parliament in 1689, and dying in June that year, was succeeded by his eldest son,
MATTHIAS, 10th Baron, who had a commission in the 1st Troop of King James’s guards under the Duke of Berwick, and fell in action against the Germans in 1692, when the barony devolved upon his brother,
JOHN, 11th Baron (1672-1746). The 10th Baron having been attainted by WILLIAM III, that monarch granted the family estates to Henry Sydney, 1st Earl of Romney; but those estates were subsequently recovered at law, and were enjoyed by the house of Trimlestown.
His lordship wedded Mary, only daughter of Sir John Barnewall, Knight, second son of Sir Patrick Barnewall Bt, of Crickstown, by whom he six sons and four daughters,
ROBERT, 12th Baron (c1704-79); who lived for many years in France, and pursued the study of medicine with great success.
After his return to Ireland he resided at Trimlestown, and gratuitously and freely communicated his advice to all who applied for it.
His lordship was succeeded at his decease by his eldest surviving son,
THOMAS, 13th Baron, a Knight of Malta, who conformed to the established church, and had a confirmation of the dignity (which, although adopted, was unacknowledged from the time of CROMWELL), in 1795.
His lordship dying unmarried, the title reverted to his cousin,
NICHOLAS, 14th Baron (1726-1813), who espoused firstly, in 1768, Martha Henrietta, only daughter of Monsieur Joseph D’Aquin, president of the parliament of Toulouse, by whom he had issue,
JOHN THOMAS, his heir; Rosalia.
He married secondly, in 1797, Alicia, second daughter of Major-General Charles Eustace.
His lordship was succeeded by his son,
JOHN THOMAS, 15th Baron (1773-1839), who wedded, in 1794, Maria Theresa, daughter of Richard Kirwan, of Gregg, County Galway, and had issue,
THOMAS; Martha Henrietta.
His lordship was succeeded by his son,
THOMAS, 16th Baron (1796-1879), who espoused, in 1836, Margaret Randalina, eldest daughter of Philip Roche, of Donore, County Kildare, and had issue,
THOMAS, died in infancy; Anna Maria Louisa.
His lordship died without surviving male issue, when the barony became dormant.
In 1891, however, the peerage was was claimed by
CHRISTOPHER PATRICK MARY, de jure 17th Baron (1846-91), a descendant of the Hon Patrick Barnewall, second son of the 7th Baron.
The 17th Baron died before he had fully established his claim; but in 1893, his younger brother,
CHARLES ALOYSIUS, 18th Baron (1861-1937), was confirmed in the title by the Committee for Privileges of the House of Lords.
His lordship married, in 1889, Margaret Theresa, daughter of Richard John Stephens, of Brisbane, Australia, and had issue,
Reginald Nicholas Francis (1897-1918), killed in action; CHARLES ALOYSIUS, of whom presently; Ivy Esmay; Marcella Hilda Charlotte; Letitia Anne Margaret; Geraldine Christia Marjory.
He wedded secondly, in 1907, Mabel Florence, daughter of William Robert Shuff, of Torquay, Devon; and thirdly, in 1930, Josephine Francesca, fourth but second surviving daughter of the Rt Hon Sir Christopher John Nixon Bt, of Roebuck Grove, Milltown, County Dublin.
His lordship was succeeded by his second son,
CHARLES ALOYSIUS, 19th Baron (1899-1990), who espoused, in 1926, Muriel, only child of Edward Oskar Schneider, of Mansfield Lodge, Manchester, and had issue,
ANTHONY EDWARD, 20th Baron; RAYMOND CHARLES, 21st Baron; Diane.
He married secondly, in 1952, Freda Kathleen, daughter of Alfred Allen Atkins, of Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire.
His lordship was succeeded by his eldest son,
ANTHONY EDWARD, 20th Baron (1928-97), who wedded firstly, in 1963, Lorna Margaret Marion, daughter of Charles Douglas Ramsay; and secondly, in 1977, Mary Wonderly, eldest daughter of Judge Thomas Francis McAllister, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA.
His lordship died without issue, when the honours devolved upon his brother,
RAYMOND CHARLES, 21st Baron, born in 1930, of Chiddingfold, Surrey.
There is no obvious heir presumptive to the Barony of Trimlestown.
An heir presumptive may be found amongst the descendants, if any, of Thomas Barnewall, of Bloomsbury, London, a cousin of the 17th and 18th Barons Trimlestown.
TURVEY HOUSE, Donabate, County Dublin, was a late 17th century mansion comprising two storeys below a gabled attic storey.
The upper storey has three distinctive lunette windows added between 1725-50.
The house has nine bays and lofty, narrow windows grouped in threes.
This was once the seat of the extinct Viscounts Barnewall (of Kingsland); though subsequently it passed to a kinsman, the 13th Baron Trimlestown.
TRIMLESTOWN CASTLE, Kildalkey, County Meath, is a medieval tower-house with an 18th century house attached.
In the 19th century, the castle was adorned with ornamental towers, an embattled parapet, and other marks of the style which prevailed in the latter part of the 16th century.
Shortly afterwards, however, the family abandoned the castle and it became ruinous.
First published in December, 2015. Trimlestown arms courtesy of European Heraldry.
The ruins of Trimblestown Castle stand to the west of Trim on the banks of the Trimblestown River. The Castle was erected by the Barnwall’s, Barons Trimleston. The place is also known by variations of the name: Tremblestown also Tremleston, Trimlestown and Trimleston.
Hugh de Lacy may have erected a motte at Trimblestown and there is a large mound to one side of the castle but this has also been identified as a tumulus from earlier times. A village may have grown up around the castle, an extensive field system exists surrounding the castle.
In 1461 Robert Barnewall was created Baron Trimleston by Edward IV. The family were very active in affairs of state and also in defending the Pale against attack from the Irish. The second Baron, Christopher, was implicated in the Lambert Simnel affair but received a pardon in 1488. His son, John, the third Baron, served as Lord Chancellor of Ireland from 1534 until his death in 1538. In 1597 Hugh O’Neill defeated the government forces, led by Barnewall, Lord Trimleston, at the battle of Tyrrell’s pass in Westmeath. Barnewall’s son was taken prisoner.
Mathias, Lord Trimleston, was one of the Old English lords of the Pale who met on the Hill of Tara in 1642 and was then outlawed by the English authorities. Mathias was sentenced to be transplanted to Connacht by Cromwell in October 1653 but managed to delay it until 1655 and was granted 1462 acres belonging to the Frenchs of Monivea, Co. Galway. The Barnewalls share the same family motto with the French family: Malo mori quam foederi, I would rather die than be dishonoured. In 1647 General Jones took the castle for the English forces. Trimleston regained Trimblestown and lands in Meath and Dublin after the Restoration and also managed to hold onto lands in Connacht. Matthias died at Monivea in 1667 and was buried in Kilconnel Abbey.
Matthias, the next baron, supported James II and his estate and title were forfeited. The next barons took the title but were not recognised as they were Roman Catholics.
Robert Barnewall, the 12th Baron was educated in France and was noted for his medicinal skills which he used to treat local residents.
There is a Barnwall County in South Carolina. This may be named after a member of the Trimblestown Barnewalls. Colonel John Barnwall acquired the nickname ‘Tuscarora Jack’ following a successful expedition against the Tuscarora Indians to North Carolina in 1711-1712. Barnwell County was called Winton County until 1785 when it was re-named in honour of John Barnwell, a Revolutionary War hero. Robert W. Barnwall, a descendant, was to the forefront of the foundation of the Confederate states of America.
The lands amounting to 681 acres were in the possession of the Hon. Anna Barnewall in 1925 when it was taken over by the Land Commission. As the only daughter of the 16th Baron she married Robert Elliot of Scotland. Her burial site is in the Scottish highlands and there a stained glass window in the church commemorates her: “A kinder hearted and most utterly unselfish woman never lived.”
The 20th Baron Trimleston died at the age of 69 in 1997 and his successor is his brother, Raymond Barnewell, a dairy farmer who lives in England, but he has no children to succeed to the title.
Trimblestown Castle was a three-storey tower-house erected in the fifteenth century possibly by the first Baron Trimleston. There is a loft above the ground floor with a barrel vault above that. High up on the tower wall is a plaque commemorating the marriage of the sixth baron to Katherine Nugent, daughter of Lord Delvin. In the mid-18th century the 12th Lord Trimleston attached a new three-storey house at the north of the tower-house. This has a fine bow projection in the east wall. Early in the 19th century the house was decorated with crenellations and ornamental turrets in the style of the late 16th century. In the early 1800s the castle was abandoned by the family. The castle was in ruins by the 1840s and the demesne was being farmed by a Mr. Allen. The noted horse trainer, Frank Barbour, erected stables and a house at Trimblestown about 1915.
To the north of the castle is an old graveyard in which is located a small stone-built chapel containing the 1680 tomb of Margaret, wife of the ninth Baron Trimleston. This chapel was recently restored by a local committee.
This poetic gravestone is from Trimblestown.
Beneath this stone Silvester lies,
Whose ashes mingles with the Blighs,
He passed through life unstained with pride,
We wept and lamented when he did
His sons whose youth he ne’er neglected
In gratitude his stone erected.
The Landed Gentry and Aristocracy: County Meath. Volume 1. Art Kavanagh, 2005.
Trimlestown Castle, County Meath, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Baron Trimlestown is one of the oldest titles in Ireland, created in 1461 for Sir Robert Barnewall. The family were of Norman origin, their name originally de Berneval (from the small seaside town of Berneval-le-Grand, where Oscar Wilde stayed following his release from Reading Gaol in June 1897). Having first moved to England, following the Battle of Hastings in 1066, they followed Richard de Clare to Ireland, the first to do so, Sir Michael de Berneval, landing in Cork in 1172. Rising to power in the Pale, they were responsible for building Drimnagh Castle, now in a suburb of Dublin, and then gradually acquired substantial land holdings in County Meath. Here in Trimblestown, a few miles west of the town of Trim, they erected a mighty castle, probably in the 15th century and perhaps around the time that the title of baron was granted to Sir Robert Barnewall.
Trimlestown Castle, County Meath, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Trimlestown Castle, County Meath, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Trimlestown Castle, County Meath, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Trimlestown Castle, County Meath, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Trimlestown Castle, County Meath, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
The core of Trimblestown Castle is late mediaeval, rising three storeys and with a massive square tower in the south-west corner. The main block is some 114 feet long and 40 feet wide, internally dominated by a two-storey vaulted great hall that faces towards the river Trimlestown: the exterior of this side is marked by massive corner buttresses. On the south-east side of the tower there is (or perhaps was) a shield bearing the arms of the Barnewall and Nugent families – the two had intermarried – but whether it remains in place is impossible to tell due to vegetation covering much of the walls. Considerable alterations to the building were undertaken in the 18th and 19th centuries, when a large addition was made on the northern section of the site. It is likely that at this time towers similar to those on the river front were demolished and a modern house built, the most notable feature of this being a large bow-front with views to the east. Similarities with the work undertaken during the same period at Louth Castle (see Saintly Connections, August 28th 2017) have led to suggestions that Richard Johnston might have been the architect responsible in both instances. This may have happened around 1797 when the 14th Lord Trimlestown, then aged 70, married a woman less than a third of his age: the suggestion is that she got a new house in return for an old husband. Soon afterwards, her husband also inherited Turvey, County Dublin from a distant cousin and in due course the family moved there, leaving Trimblestown Castle to slip into decay.
Trimlestown Castle, County Meath, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Trimlestown Castle, County Meath, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Trimlestown Castle, County Meath, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Trimlestown Castle, County Meath, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Trimlestown Castle, County Meath, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
For much of the 18th century, although the Barnewalls held onto the greater part of their lands, they were unable to use the title Baron Trimlestown. Their problems had begun in the 1640s when Matthias, eighth Lord Trimlestown, had supported the royalist cause, deprived of his estates by Cromwell and banished to County Galway. Following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, he regained the greater part of his original property, but remained true to the Roman Catholic faith, as did his son Robert who sat in James II’s parliament in 1689. The next couple of heirs, because of their support for the Jacobite cause and their loyalty to Catholicism, were not allowed to use the old title. They lived in France and it was only in 1746 that Robert Barnewall (who claimed the title of twelfth Lord Trimlestown) returned to Ireland and took up residence in the old castle. It is likely to have been during his lifetime (he died in 1779) that the building was first modernised. As an ardent supporter of the Catholic cause, it must have been a blow to him when his heir Thomas conformed to the Established Church (thereby reversing the government attainder and allowing him to be acknowledged after his father’s death as the 13th Lord Trimlestown). Thereafter one generation succeeded another, although more than once the title had to go to a cousin as there was no direct heir. However while there is still a Lord Trimlestown – the 21st – he has no known heirs. It seems likely that after more than 550 years one of Ireland’s oldest peerages will go the same way as the castle from which its name was derived, and fall out of use.
Trimlestown Castle, County Meath, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
he Barnewall family has its roots deep in the soup of myth and legend that is the genealogy of medieval Britain and Ireland. It is said that ‘Le Sieur de Barneville’ hailed from Brittany and was one of the companions of William the Conqueror when he invaded England in 1066, but neither this name nor its many variants (de Barneville; de Barneval, Barnewill, Barnwell etc) seem to occur in Domesday Book. A century later, some members of the family were granted lands in Ireland and settled there, only to be slain by the native Irish. The sole survivor was Hugh (or Ulphran) de Barneville, who was away studying law in England. He is said to have made a fresh start with a grant of lands from King John at Drymnagh and Tyrenure in the Vale of Dublin which his descendants retained until the early 17th century. By the 14th century, they also owned Crickstown in Co. Meath, and Sir Christopher de Barneval (fl. 1386), with whom the genealogy below begins, was seated there. Many of the early generations of the family were both knights involved in military service and lawyers, and from the time the earliest records begin in the 15th century they were receiving their legal training at the inns of court in London. This metropolitan experience and the sophistication it bred meant that they were in demand as administrators and judges back in Ireland. Sir Christopher Barnewall (d. 1446), who was probably trained in London, was appointed a Serjeant-at-Law in Ireland in 1408, King’s Serjeant in 1420, and went on to be Chief Justice of Kings Bench from 1435 and Lord Treasurer of Ireland from 1437. He had two recorded sons, the elder of whom, Sir Nicholas Barnewall (d. c.1465), was Chief Justice of King’s Bench, 1457-63 and inherited Crickstown, and the younger of whom, Sir Robert Barnewall (d. c.1471), pursued a military career in the service of the Duke of York and was raised to the peerage as Baron Trimleston (later usually spelled Trimlestown) in 1461. Sir Nicholas’ descendants continued to hold Crickstown into the 17th century, and a cadet branch of the family became Viscounts Barnewall of Kingsland in 1646.
For the moment, however, I want to stay with Sir Robert Barnewall (d. c.1471), 1st Baron Trimlestown, and his descendants. Sir Robert himself married the heiress of the Le Brun family, who brought him a significant property in Co. Meath, including Trimlestown itself, where he seems to have erected the castle of which parts stand today, albeit in a ruinous condition. His property descended to his eldest son, Sir Christopher Barnewall (d. by 1513), 2nd Baron Trimlestown, who was involved in the Yorkist conspiracy to pass off Lambert Simnel as one of the murdered Princes in the Tower. He can only have been peripherally involved, however, for he was pardoned for his part in the affair and went on to see important military service under King Henry VII’s Lord Deputy in Ireland, the Earl of Kildare. His two sons, John Barnewall (1470-1538), 3rd Baron Trimlestown, and Robert Barnewall (d. by 1547), were both trained as lawyers in London, but it was the elder brother, John, who had the most distinguished career, ending up as Lord High Treasurer and finally as Lord Chancellor of Ireland, roles in which his duties seem to have been as much military as judicial.
The 3rd Baron’s eldest son, Patrick Barnewell (d. c.1462), 4th Baron Trimlestown, sat in the Parliament of 1541 which acknowledged Henry VIII as King of Ireland and at the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign was ‘a ready and willing nobleman in the Queen’s service’. The divisive question of the age was, of course, the breakaway of the English Crown from the Roman Catholic Church, and the attendant dissolution of the monasteries. In England, these measures commanded majority though not universal support, but in Ireland the picture was very different. We do not really know what the personal views of the 4th and 5th Barons were on religion: they probably espoused the government’s position in public and kept to the traditional ways in private. That was at first a tenable position, but Sir Peter Barnewall (c.1540-98), 6th Baron Trimlestown, found it much more difficult to sustain and by the time of the Spanish Armada in 1588 he was recognised as a Catholic and suspected of communication with the enemy. His son, Robert Barnewall (c.1574-1639), 7th Baron Trimlestown, was loyal to the Crown, but could not refrain from protesting about the increasingly severe restrictions on Catholics, and by 1615 he was regarded as ‘a busy and violent recusant’. His grandson, Mathias Barnewall (c.1614-67), 8th Baron Trimlestown, was one of the leaders of the 1641 Catholic uprising, and was outlawed and deprived of his estates in 1642, and in 1653 exiled to County Galway. Although he recovered part of his property at the Restoration (and his son recovered more in 1667), it was all lost again by the 10th Baron, who was Colonel of a Jacobite regiment after the Battle of the Boyne. For being in arms against William III he was attainted in April 1691 and forfeited his peerage and estates. After the Treaty of Limerick, he followed James II into exile in France, where he joined the Irish Brigade and was killed at the Battle of Roumont in September 1692. His son, John Barnewall (1672-1746), was just too young to have been involved in any fighting, and although there can be little doubt that he was enthusiastic about the Jacobite cause, he managed to recover his father’s estates by July 1695. His attempts to reverse the attainder and recover the peerage were unsuccessful, however, and indeed it was asserted that the outlawry of the 8th Baron in 1642, which had never been reversed, had also had the effect of suspending the peerage. Despite the outlawry and the attainder, however, the title continued to be widely used by and about John and his successors in the 18th century in all but the most official documents.
Although the de jure 11th Baron recovered possession of his estates, there seems little doubt that he divided his time between Ireland and France, and his sons made their careers on the continent. His eldest son and heir, Robert Barnewall (c.1704-79), de jure 12th Baron Trimlestown, studied medicine and botany in France and returned to Ireland on his father’s death with a considerable reputation as a physician: skills which he made available to his Irish neighbours, whether gentle or poor. In later life he became an active advocate for the civil rights of his fellow-Catholics, and in the 1770s he was responsible for drafting a form of oath of allegiance which was acceptable to both the Government and to Irish Catholics. This opened up careers in the army to the Catholic population, and laid the foundation for further measures for Catholic relief which took place after his death. It must therefore have been something of an embarrassment to one so prominent in the Catholic cause that his two sons chose to conform to the Protestant religion. Robert was succeeded by the youngest son of his first marriage, Thomas Barnewall (c.1739-96), who lived in France until the French Revolution took place. In 1790 he left his French property in the hands of an attorney (from whom it was seized by the French state in 1793) and returned to Ireland. It was now more than a century since the attainder on the title of Baron Trimlestown, and with the incumbent a Protestant, the Government seems to have made no difficulty about reversing the attainder on the title, which was done in 1795, after which he was summoned to the Irish House of Lords as 13th Baron Trimlestown. He died the following year, and the revived title passed to his nephew, Nicholas Barnewall (1726-1813), 14th Baron Trimlestown. He had been brought up near Toulouse in France, where he was a leading Freemason, and acquired through his marriage the Chateau Lamirolles, where he lived until the French Revolution. His wife having died in 1782, he then moved to England, where he seems to have lived in Bath until he inherited the Irish estates and peerage from his uncle. In 1797 he married for a second time, taking as his wife a young Irishwoman a third of his age, and this would seem to have been the occasion for a major building campaign at Trimlestown Castle to turn it into a modern house. In 1800, however, Nicholas inherited the extensive estates of his distant kinsman, the 5th Viscount Barnewall of Kingsland, which included Turvey House, and soon afterwards Trimlestown seems to have been abandoned, perhaps with his alterations incomplete.
The combination of the estates of the two most prominent branches of the Barnewall family made the 14th Baron quite rich, and he did his best to ensure that the estates and the title would remain together by entering into a new settlement in 1812 which entailed the property on his own male heirs, but with remainder to his cousin Richard Barnewall (c.1744-1826) and his heirs, who would inherit the title if his own heirs died out first. This was the basis on which the estates followed the title on the death of the 16th Baron in 1879. At the same time as drawing up the settlement, he made a new will, which made such generous provision for his widow that his son, a child of his first marriage, John Thomas Barnewall (1773-1839), 15th Baron Trimlestown – who was exactly the same age as his stepmother – went to law in an attempt to get the will set aside on grounds of undue influence. The feud expanded into a separate dispute about the payment of her jointure. Although he ultimately lost both cases, he strung matters out so that judgement was not given until 1833 and the dowager Lady Trimlestown is said to have received no benefit until 1847, by which time she had been widowed for a second time. The 15th Baron was probably responsible for remodelling Turvey House at some point after 1813, but he also seems to have had houses in London (a town house on the Grosvenor estate), Paris and Naples (Palazzo Calabritti), with a mistress in each place. They were the principal recipients of his personal wealth, for he had fallen out with his only son and daughter-in-law, who received only the entailed property. This may explain why the very comfortable finances of the 14th and 15th Barons did not continue. Thomas Barnewall (1796-1879), 16th Baron Trimlestown, leased out Turvey House and gave up the lease on his father’s London house (which the Marquess of Westminster demolished in order to build the colonnaded forecourt of Grosvenor House). He took instead a smaller house on the Grosvenor estate in Park Lane, which he remodelled in 1853. Since the 16th Baron had no surviving sons, on his death in 1879 the entailed family estates passed to a distant kinsman, Christopher Patrick Mary Barnewall (1846-91), who was the great-great-great-great-great-great grandson of the 7th Baron, who had died in 1639. With such a very distant connection, it was obviously difficult to conclusively prove his right to the peerage, and a claim was not submitted to the Committee of Privileges of the House of Lords until 1891. A decision had still not been made when Christopher died in 1893, but his brother Charles Aloysius Barnewall (1861-1937) was soon afterwards confirmed as 18th Baron Trimlestown (Christopher being counted as the 17th Baron). Once again, no personal wealth accompanied the title and entailed estates, and since the new Lord Trimlestown’s family had been gentlemen farmers in County Meath for many generations, he was very much the archetypal improverished Irish peer. He sold Turvey House, which had been tenanted for many years, in about 1902. In 1907 he inherited, perhaps unexpectedly, Bloomsbury House in County Meath, but after living there briefly in the years around the First World War, that too was sold in 1920. As an aside, it may be noted that in 1930, the young John Betjeman became rather obsessed by the combination of ancient lineage and complete obscurity which was represented most notably by Lord Trimlestown, and sought him out at Bloomsbury, only to find that he had sold the place a decade before.
Despite the sales, Lord Trimlestown still owned more than 6,000 acres at his death in 1937. His heir was his son, Charles Aloysius Barnewall (1899-1990), 19th Baron Trimlestown, who farmed in Devon, and it is not clear when any remaining Irish property was sold. The 19th Baron left two sons, who succeeded in turn to the title. The present peer, Raymond Charles Barnewall (b. 1930), 21st Baron Trimlestown, also farmed in Devon until his retirement and now lives in Surrey. He is unmarried and there is no known heir to the peerage, which will become dormant on his death. It seems entirely possible that there is a legitimate heir amongst the many descendants who must exist of the earlier barons, but the chances of any of them being able to prove that they have the senior claim seem much more remote.
To return to the early period of the Barnewall family, the second son of Sir Christopher Barnewall (fl. 1386) was John Barnewall (fl. 1426) of Frankestown (Co. Meath). His son, Sir Richard Barnewall settled at Fieldston in the parish of Clonmethan (Co. Dublin), which was inherited in due course by his grandson, Sir Patrick Barnewall (d. 1552). Sir Patrick, like his contemporaries in the Trimlestown branch of the family, was trained as a lawyer in London, at Grays Inn, and became a serjeant-at-law in Ireland, King’s Serjeant and Solicitor General, 1534-50, and finally Master of the Rolls in Ireland, 1550-52. He was responsible for securing the establishment of an inn of court in Dublin (King’s Inns) in 1538, and was also an MP in the Irish parliament. Although he initially opposed the dissolution of the monasteries, he was granted the sites and lands of Gracedieu Priory in Co. Dublin and Knocktopher Abbey in Co. Kilkenny, as well as leases of some of the lands of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin in the parishes of Swords and Clonmethan where his other lands lay. This generous greasing of the wheels of the Reformation overcame his scruples and laid the foundations of his descendants’ prosperity. His son and heir, Sir Christopher Barnewall (1522-75), was, however, a man of stronger principles, and although not so quixotic as to disclaim his inheritance of monastic lands, he emerged as a steadfast opponent of the Protestant administration, who was willing to shelter the priest and future martyr, Edmund Campion, for a few days in 1569. In 1556 he was granted the Turvey estate at Donabate, on which he built Turvey House, reputedly using stone from Gracedieu Priory. Turvey House became the principal seat of his descendants for several hundred years. His eldest surviving son and heir, Sir Patrick Barnewall (c.1558-1622) was also a committed Catholic and an even more outspoken critic of the Government’s religious policy – as a result of which he spent short periods in prison or under house arrest on several occasions – but he balanced this with a personal loyalty to successive monarchs and marriage ties with the Protestant hierarchy that offered him some protection.
Sir Patrick was succeeded at Turvey House by his son, Sir Nicholas Barnewall (1592-1663), who at the outbreak of the Rebellion of 1641 had a commission to raise such troops as he could muster for the defence of County Dublin. This must have severely tested his loyalties, since many of his friends and relatives joined the rebels (his kinsman Lord Trimlestown and his son-in-law, Lord Gormanston were among the leaders), and perhaps to avoid testing his loyalty too far he was allowed to travel to London, and later to settle in Wales, where his mother’s family had lands. Despite his disagreements with the Government, he remained strongly Royalist, and in 1642, when the Civil War broke out in England, his son Patrick became a commander in the Royalist army. In 1644 he returned to Ireland, where he continued to keep out of politics as much as possible, and in 1646 he was rewarded for his masterly inactivity by being raised to the peerage as Viscount Barnewall of Kingsland (which was often, though incorrectly, abbreviated to Viscount Kingsland). Although in the 1650s he was charged with complicity in a plot against the Lord Protector, briefly imprisoned, and his estates in the Pale sequestered, he recovered Turvey House in 1658 and the rest at the Restoration.
When the 1st Viscount died in 1663 he was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, Henry Barnewall (c.1627-88), 2nd Viscount Barnewall of Kingsland, who seems to have been less politically engaged than his father. However his son, Nicholas Barnewall (1668-1725), the 3rd Viscount, was inevitably caught up in the events of 1688-91. As a strong Royalist and a Catholic, it is hardly surprising that he took his seat in James II’s Parliament of 1689, or that he was later an officer in the Jacobite army. He was outlawed for his offences, but under the terms of the Treaty of Limerick in 1691 the outlawry was reversed and he was allowed to return to his estates. He may have spent some time in France at the exiled Court of James II, but the evidence for this is sparse. All that is known for certain is that his wife spent sometime at St. Germain with her mother, then Duchess of Tyrconnel, and that his elder son, Henry Benedict Barnewall (1709-74) had the Cardinal Duke of York as a godfather, which may imply that the baptism took place in France. Henry Benedict, who succeeded as 4th Viscount while still a minor in 1725, became a leading Irish freemason. He was married, but had no issue, so at his death in 1774 his title and property descended to his nephew, George Barnewall (1758-1800), 5th Viscount. He had been brought up in London as a Protestant, and he was therefore eligible to take up his seat in the Irish House of Lords, which he did in 1787. However, at some point in the 1790s, when several of his kinsmen were scrambling to get out of France, he moved there for reasons which are now obscure. One version of events says that he was confined in a lunatic asylum there, but his will, written shortly before his death, was proved without demur, so this is unlikely.
What happened to the peerage after 1800 is the stuff of romantic legend. The 5th Viscount having no sons or other obvious heirs, the viscountcy became dormant on his death. A young and uncouth Dublin waiter called Matthew Barnewall (d. 1834) believed himself to be descended from the Hon. Francis Barnewall (c.1629-97), a younger son of the 1st Viscount, and in the 1790s, hearing a false report that the 5th Viscount had died in France, he ‘mustered a strong force of the employees of the taverns and the market… and with that formidable army, proceeded forthwith to Turvey… of which he took instant possession. There he cut down timber, lighted bonfires, and for some short time indulged in the exercise of rude hospitality to the companions who had escorted him’, before Lord Trimlestown, who was acting either as guardian or attorney of the 5th Viscount, applied to the court of Chancery and secured his ejection and committal to Newgate Prison on charges of contempt. There he came to the attention of a solicitor called Hitchcock, who became convinced that he boy might really be heir to the peerage, and set about proving it at his own expense, which he was eventually able to do to the satisfaction of the Committee of Privileges of the House of Lords, and the dormancy was ended in Matthew’s favour in 1814. The estates had, however, been bequeathed by the 5th Viscount to Lord Trimlestown, so the peerage was rather an empty honour, although a state pension of £500 a year was granted to the 6th Viscount for life. The 6th Viscount was thrice married, but had no surviving sons, so on his death in 1834 the peerage again became dormant. It was quickly claimed by one Capt Thomas Barnewall, whose petition to the House of Lords was never adjudicated on, but modern scholarship suggests that it was ill-founded, in that his claim that his great-grandfather. Col James Barnewall, was the sixth son of the 1st Viscount Barnewall was incorrect; he was in fact the second husband of the 1st Viscount’s daughter, Mabel, Countess of Fingall. So in 1834 the title became extinct. There continued, however, to be a Lady Kingsland as late as 1890, for the 6th Viscount’s widow survived him for many years. Having been left very little by her husband, she was defrauded of the little she did have by her own brother, and subsequently lived a life of absolute penury in a single room in a tumble-down lodging house in Lambeth, where she and her daughter subsisted on what they earned sewing shirts as piecework, and occasional parish relief. She came to public attention in 1878, when belatedly she made an application to the Universal Benefit Society for financial assistance, and with this help, she was able to live out her last years in slightly more genteel poverty.
The last branch of the family to be explored is that settled at Bloomsbury (Co. Meath). Joseph Barnewall (1781-1852), who rented Bloomsbury from 1829 and bought the freehold in 1835, was the youngest son of Richard Barnewall (c.1744-1826), on whom the 14th Baron Trimlestown had settled his estates in default of his own heirs. Since there is no evidence that he pursued a career he presumably inherited a sufficient sum from his father or through his marriage to make the purchase. Bloomsbury was not a large house at the time, but his elder son, Richard Barnewall (1821-66) doubled its size in 1858. He had no children, so on his early death it passed to his brother, Thomas Barnewall (1825-98), who died unmarried and left it to his sister, Katherine Barnewall (c.1824-1907). Having no close relatives, she chose to leave the property to her distant kinsman, the 18th Baron Trimlestown, who as we have seen was impoverished and obliged to sell off parts of the estate. He occupied Bloomsbury for a time but sold it in about 1920.
The major branch of the family which I have not considered in this post was the senior line, who were established at Crickston (Co. Meath) in the 15th-17th centuries. I have traced their descent below only in so far as is necessary to show the relationship between Barons Trimlestown and the Viscounts Barnewall of Kingsland, who were a cadet branch of the Crickston family. In the 1620s, the latter acquired a baronetcy, and they may have built a new fortified house at Crickston, although if so it was destroyed a few years later during the Civil War. Although their baronetcy is still in existence, the current baronet lives in Australia, and the descent of the honour was early separated from significant landed possessions in Ireland. I cannot see that any of the holders of the title have possessed a country house that would qualify them for detailed study here, but if anyone knows differently I should be very pleased to hear from them.
Trimlestown Castle, Co Meath (aka Trimblestown Castle)
The massive and imposing ruins of the late medieval castle built by the Barnewalls in the 15th century stand on the east bank of the Trimlestown River, some three miles west of Trim. The walls still rise for a full three storeys, with a big south-west corner tower and battlemented wall-heads that give it a romantic silhouette. The castle forms a block 114 feet long and 40 feet wide at the southern end, where the tower stands, but narrows to a fraction of that at the north end. Ivy now covers a shield on the tower said to have borne the arms of the Barnewall and Nugent families, which may suggest that the tower was an addition of the time of the 6th Lord Trimlestown (d. 1598), who married Katherine Nugent. Internally the building is dominated by a two-storey vaulted great hall of 52 ft by 17 ft, that faces towards the river and is marked by massive tapering buttresses, though this is now partially filled with the rubble of collapsed walls. The floors above the vault seem to have had timber floors, and little is therefore left of them. The corner tower is also barrel-vaulted at first-floor level.
The medieval and 16th century castle was evidently damaged in the Civil War, and although the family recovered possession of it fairly quickly, little was done by way of improvements until the 18th century. In 1686, the 9th Baron told his son that he had made ‘considerable improvements’, but this seems to have meant that he had put the castle into repair, for he went on that there was now ‘only a good house wanting’, and suggesting that ‘some little building or improvements’ could be made ‘without incommoding yourself or the fortune I leave you’. But whatever the 10th Baron’s intentions in this matter, they were frustrated by his attainder in 1691 and death the following year. It seems probable that improvements had been made by 1753, when Richard Pococke visited. He described the great avenue leading to the house and church from the Trim road, and says the house is ‘built [on]to an ancient Castle, that was mostly destroyed in Olivers time’, before waxing lyrical about the botanical curiosities which Robert Barnewall (the 12th Baron Trimlestown) had imported.
Trimlestown Castle: an early 19th century engraving showing the east front as altered c.1800. It had probably already been abandoned by this date.
Further changes were made to the northern end of the site in about 1790-1800, either by the 13th Baron, who returned to England in 1790 and died in 1796, or after the second marriage in 1797 of his nephew, the 14th Baron. It appears that until then another square tower stood at the north-east corner, creating a Z-plan layout like that of some 16th century Scottish castles. This north-east tower was demolished in about 1800 to allow the creation of a new east front, the main feature of which is a three-storey bow, with three windows on each floor and miniature battlements at the top. Similarities with work undertaken at Louth Castle around the same time have led to the suggestion that Richard Johnston might have been the architect responsible in both instances, but there is no documentary evidence for this. In 1800, Lord Trimlestown inherited Turvey House in Co. Dublin, and in due course the family moved there, leaving Trimlestown Castle to slip into decay.
It was evidently still habitable in about 1840, when it was fully roofed and there were a kitchen garden and orchards around the house, but in 1849 Sir William Wilde called it ‘forsaken and neglected, a perfect ruin’. Shortly afterwards, a Dublin merchant called Fagan (perhaps the same man as rented Turvey House) rented the place and attempted to arrest the decay by putting on a new roof, enabling his successor – a farming tenant – to occupy the building. The new roof can only have been partial, however, for by the 1860s the northern end was roofless and all trace of polite grounds had disappeared. By 1915, the demesne was part of a successful stud, owned by Frank Barbour, who built a new house and stables nearby.
Descent: Christopher Browne/Le Brun; to daughter Elizabeth, wife of Sir Robert Barnewall (d. c.1471), 1st Baron Trimlestown; to son, Christopher Barnewall (d. by 1513), 2nd Baron Trimlestown; to son, Sir John Barnewall (d. 1538), 3rd Baron Trimlestown; to son, Patrick Barnewall (d. c.1562), 4th Baron Trimlestown; to son, Sir Robert Barnewall (d. 1573), 5th Baron Trimlestown; to brother, Sir Peter Barnewall (d. 1598), 6th Baron Trimlestown; to son, Robert Barnewall (d. 1639), 7th Baron Trimlestown; to grandson, Matthias Barnewall (c.1614-67), 8th Baron Trimlestown; to son, Robert Barnewall (c.1640-87), 9th Baron Trimlestown; to son, Matthias Barnewall (c.1670-92), 10th Baron Trimlestown, who was attainted; seized by Crown and granted to Henry Sydney (1641-1704), 1st Earl of Romney, but returned in 1695 to John Barnewall (1672-1746), de jure 11th Baron Trimlestown; to son, Robert Barnewall (c.1705-79), de jure 12th Baron Trimlestown; to son, Thomas Barnewall (c.1739-96), 13th Baron Trimlestown; to cousin, Nicholas Barnewall (1726-1813), 14th Baron Trimlestown; to son, John Thomas Barnewall (1773-1839), 15th Baron Trimlestown; to son, Thomas Barnewall (1796-1879), 16th Baron Trimlestown; to kinsman, Christopher Patrick Mary Barnewall (1846-91), 17th Baron Trimlestown; to brother, Charles Aloysius Barnewall (1861-1937), 18th Baron Trimlestown, who sold it before 1915 to Frank Barbour.
Barnewall family of Trimlestown, Barons Trimlestown
Barnewall, Sir Christopher (d. 1446), kt. Son of Sir Christopher de Barneval (fl. 1386) [for whom see below, under Barnewall of Turvey House, Viscounts Barnewall of Kingsland] and his wife Eleanor, daughter of Sir Nicholas Rochford of Rathcoffie (Co. Kildare) and Kilbride (Co. Meath). Serjeant-at-law in Ireland, 1408 and King’s Serjeant, 1420-34; a justice of Kings Bench, 1434-46 (Chief Justice, 1435-37, 1437-46). Deputy Lord Treasurer of Ireland, 1430-35 and Lord Treasurer, 1437-46. He married Matilda Drake, daughter and heiress of the last feudal lord of Drakestown and Drakerath, and had issue: (1) Sir Nicholas Barnewall (d. c.1465); Treasurer of the Liberty of Trim, 1436-43; Chief Justice of Kings Bench, 1457-63; knighted 1460; married Ismay (who m2, Sir Robert Bold and died about 1478), daughter and heiress of Sir Robert Serjeant of Castleknock (Co. Dublin) and had issue three sons [from whom descended the Barnewalls of Crickstown and of Dunbrow]; living in 1465 but probably died soon afterwards; (2) Sir Robert Barnewall (d. c.1471), kt. and 1st Baron Trimlestown (q.v.). He inherited Crickstown Castle (Co. Meath) from his father. He died about the beginning of October 1446. His wife’s date of death is unknown.
Barnewall, Sir Robert (d. c.1471), kt., 1st Baron Trimlestown. Younger son of Sir Christopher Barnewall (d. 1446) of Crickstown and his wife Matilda Drake. He was knighted in about 1449 while on campaign with the Duke of York, and was made an Irish Privy Councillor for life and raised to the peerage as Baron Trimlestown, 4 March 1461. It is the earliest Irish peerage to have been created by patent (earlier peerages had been created only by writ of summons). He married* Anne alias Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Christopher Browne (or Le Brun) of Roebuck (Co. Dublin) and had issue including: (1) Christopher Barnewall (d. by 1513), 2nd Baron Trimlestown (q.v.); (2) Hon. Thomas Barnewall, of Irishtown; married Elizabeth Cardiff and had issue one daughter (who married Sir Bartholomew Dill of Riverston). Through his marriage he inherited a half-share in the lordship of Athboy (Co. Meath), including the manor of Trimlestown, where he settled. He died about 1471/2. His wife’s date of death is unknown. * Lodge’s Peerage of Ireland says he married 2nd, Anne, daughter of Sir Thomas Plunkett, but this seems unlikely as she would have been his great-great-niece.
Barnewall, Sir Christopher (d. by 1513), 2nd Baron Trimlestown. Son of Sir Robert Barnewall (d. c.1471), 1st Baron Trimlestown, and his first wife, Anne or Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Christopher Browne of Roebuck (Co. Dublin). He was studying law in London in 1460 and succeeded his father as 2nd Baron, c.1471. He may have been knighted before that, but no record of his knighthood has been found. He was lucky to be one of the eight Irish peers pardoned for his involvement in the Yorkist conspiracy of 1488, in which Lambert Simnel impersonated one of the Princes in the Tower, and was obliged to take the oath of allegiance before the King’s envoy in July 1488. He sat in the Irish Parliament in 1491 and 1493 and fought under the Lord Deputy, the Earl of Kildare, at the Battle of Knockdoe in 1504. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Plunkett of Rathmore, and had issue including: (1) John Barnewall (1470-1538), 3rd Baron Trimlestown (q.v.); (2) Hon. Robert Barnewall (d. by 1547); educated at Grays Inn (admitted before 1520); lessee of the Kings Inn, Dublin, 1541; ancestor of the Barnewalls of Roestown (Co. Meath), which estate he acquired through his first marriage to Johanna Rowe, by whom he had three sons and two daughters; he married 2nd, Elizabeth (who m2, James Bathe), daughter of John Talbot of Dardiston, and had further issue four sons and six daughters; died before 1547; (3) Hon. Ismay Barnewall; married William Bathe of Rathseigh; (4) A daughter; married John Netterville of Dowth, a justice of the King’s Bench; (5) Hon. Alison Barnewall; married Sir Roger Barnewall (b. c.1472), kt. [for whom see below, under Barnewall of Turvey House, Viscounts Barnewall of Kingsland] and had issue. He inherited Trimlestown from his father in about 1471. He died between 1504 and 1513. On a roadside cross about 4 miles south of Drogheda Archbishop Octavian of Armagh promised an indulgence of thirty days to those performing an Our Father and a Hail Mary for the souls of him and his wife. His wife was also dead by June 1513.
…[see website]
Nicholas Barnewall (1726-1813), 14th Baron Trimlestown
Barnewall, Nicholas (1726-1813), 14th Baron Trimlestown. Elder son of Richard Barnewall (fl. 1726-68) and his wife Frances, daughter of Nicholas Barnewall, 3rd Viscount Barnewall of Kingsland, born 29 June 1726. He was a leading figure in freemasonry in Toulouse until he fled to England from the French Revolution in about 1790. He succeeded his cousin as 14th Baron, 24/29 December 1796. In 1799 he was President of the Bath Harmonic Society and presumably then living in that city. He married 1st, 1 November 1768, Maria Henrietta (c.1730-82), only daughter of Joseph d’Auguin, President of the Parliament of Toulouse (France), and 2nd, 8 August 1797, Alicia (1773-1860), second daughter of Lt-Gen. Charles Eustace of Robertstown (Co. Kildare), and had issue: (1.1) Richard Barnewall (b. 1770), born August 1770; died in infancy; (1.2) Hon. Rosalie Barnewall (c.1771-1864), born about 1771; married, 3 December 1795, Peter, Count D’Alton (d. 1851) of Grenanstown (Co. Tipperary), and had issue two sons and one daughter; died in Florence (Italy), 2 February 1864; (1.3) John Thomas Barnewall (1773-1839), 15th Baron Trimlestown (q.v.). After his marriage, he lived at the Chateau Lamirolles, Verdun-sur-Garonne until the French Revolution, when he fled to England, and he subsequently divided his time between England and Ireland. He inherited Turvey House and the Barnewall estates at Roebuck (Co. Dublin) and in Galway and Offaly on the death of the 5th Viscount Barnewall of Kingsland in 1800, and entailed these estates on his male heirs in 1812. He fitted up one room in Roebuck Castle as a theatre before 1795, but sold the castle soon after 1800. In London he had a town house in Portland Place by 1810. He died 17 April 1813. His will, which made extensive provision for his widow, was proved in Dublin in 1813 but contested by his son, and although a compromise was agreed in 1833 she did not actually receive anything until 1847! His first wife died in May 1782. His widow married 2nd, 24 July 1814 at Donabate (Co. Dublin), Lt-Gen. Sir Evan Lloyd (1768-1846) of Ferney Hall (Shrops.) and had issue one son and two daughters; she died at Stanton Lacy House (Shrops.), 25 November 1860.
Barnewall, John Thomas (1773-1839), 15th Baron Trimlestown. Only surviving son of Nicholas Barnewall (1726-1813), 14th Baron Trimlestown, and his first wife, Maria Henrietta, only daughter of Joseph d’Auguin of Toulouse (France), born in France, 29 January 1773. Member of the Royal Irish Academy. In 1812 The Globe noted that he had ‘distinguished himself by some eloquent and impressive addresses’ at popular assemblies in support of Catholic emancipation. He succeeded his father as 15th Baron, 17 April 1813, but was aggrieved by the terms of his will, which he felt made an unreasonably generous provision for his stepmother. He accordingly tried to have the will overturned on the grounds of her undue influence, and the matter was not finally settled until shortly before his death; he was also at law with his stepmother in a dispute over the arrangements for the payment of her jointure, which was not settled until 1843. He seems also, from the terms of his will, to have fallen out with his son and daughter-in-law, who received no share of his personal effects. He married, 16 January 1793, Maria Theresa (d. 1824), daughter of the Irish scientist and eccentric, Richard Kirwan of Cregg Castle (Co. Galway), and had issue: (1) Thomas Barnewall (1796-1879), 16th Baron Trimlestown (q.v.); (2) Hon. Martha Henrietta Barnewall (1800-36), baptised at Bath RC Church, 28 July 1800; died unmarried in Bath, 10 April 1836. After the death of his wife he apparently solaced himself with mistresses: his ‘dear friend’ Eugenia Ponti who lived with him in Naples (to whom he left 50,000 francs*), ‘Heloisa Goury Widow Parry’ in London, who was one of his principal legatees, and Caroline, Marquise de Bailliet in Paris (to whom he left 40,000 francs*). He inherited Turvey House from his father in 1813. He had a house in London, adjoining Grosvenor House, which was purchased after his death by the Marquess of Westminster and demolished to allow the enlargement of Grosvenor House. He seems also to have had a house in Paris, the contents of which were dispersed to friends and relatives by his will, and at the time of his death he was living at the Palazzo Calabritti in Naples. He died in Naples (Italy), 7 October 1839; his will was proved 18 February 1840. His wife died 10 September or 12 October 1824. * 50,000 fr. was about £2,000 and 40,000 fr. about £1,600 at the then prevailing rate of exchange.
Barnewall, Thomas (1796-1879), 16th Baron Trimlestown. Only son of John Thomas Barnewall (1773-1839), 15th Baron Trimlestown, and his wife Maria Theresa, daughter of Richard Kirwan of Cregg (Co. Galway), born 14 April 1796. High Sheriff of Co. Dublin, 1830. He succeeded his father as 16th Baron, 7 October 1839, and continued his father’s legal dispute with his grandfather’s widow until judgement was finally given against him in 1843. He was a founder member of the Society for Irishmen in London, 1844, and in 1848 was one of the few Catholic gentry to join the nationalist Irish Confederacy. He married, 3 November 1836 at Twickenham (Middx), Margaret Randalina (d. 1872), daughter of Philip Roche, and had issue: (1) A son (b. & d. 1837), born 22 August 1837; died in infancy, 27 August 1837; (2) Hon. Anna Maria Louisa Barnewall (1839-1914), born 8 May 1839; married, 4 June 1868, Robert Henry Elliot DL (1837-1914) of Clifton Park (Roxburghs.) and Ballybrittas (Co. Offaly), and had issue one son; died at sea on S.S. Arabia, 16 April 1914 and was buried at Linton (Roxburghs.); her will was confirmed 27 January 1915 (estate £1,475). He inherited Turvey House from his father in 1839, but leased it out. His gave up the lease on his father’s London town house in exchange for what is now 129 Park Lane, which he remodelled in 1853 to the designs of Thomas Cundy II (for the Grosvenor estate) and George Legg (for Lord Trimlestown). He died 4 August 1879 and was buried at Linton; his will was proved 6 September 1879 (effects in England under £80,000; in Ireland, £6,518). His wife died at Ryde (Isle of Wight), 4 September 1872; administration of her goods was granted 17 December 1872 (effects under £9,000).
Barnewall, Hon. Patrick (b. c.1600). Second son of Robert Barnewall (c.1574-1639), 7th Baron Trimlestown, and his wife Genet, daughter of Thomas Talbot of Dardistown (Co. Meath), born in or shortly before 1600. He married 1st, Katherine, daughter of Robert Barnewall of Bremore (Co. Dublin) and 2nd, Katherine, daughter of Mathew King of Co. Kildare, and had issue: (1.1) Christopher Barnewall (fl. 1670) (q.v.). His date of death is unknown. His first wife’s date of death is unknown. His second wife’s date of death is unknown.
Barnewall, Christopher (fl. 1670). Only recorded son of the Hon. Patrick Barnewall (fl. 1600) and his first wife, Katherine, daughter of Robert Barnewall of Bremore (Co. Dublin). He married 1st, [forename unknown], daughter of Gerald Nangle of Kildalkey (Co. Meath), and 2nd, 1670, Jane, daughter of Edward Tuite of Trimlestown, and had issue including: (1.1) Richard Barnewall (d. 1718) (q.v.); (1.2) Patrick Barnewall; died without issue; (1.3) Garrett Barnewall; (1.4) Peter Barnewall. He lived at Woodtown (Co. Meath). His date of death is unknown. His wife’s date of death is unknown.
Barnewall, Richard (d. 1718). Eldest son of Christopher Barnewall and his wife, [forename unknown], daughter of Gerald Nangle of Kildalkey (Co. Meath). He married 1st, Aminett, sister of James Barnewall of Bremore (Co. Dublin) and widow of James Caddell, and 2nd, 3 March 1712, Bridget (d. 1755), daughter of Henry Piers of Ballydrimney (Co. Meath), and had issue: (1.1) Elizabeth Barnewall; married Henry Plunkett; (2.1) Christopher Barnewall (b. 1715) (q.v.); (2.2) Anne Barnewall (d. 1740); died unmarried. He lived at Clonylogan. He died in February 1717/8. His first wife died before 1712. His widow married 2nd, 1723, Robert Barnewall (b. 1702) of Moyrath (Co. Meath), son of Bartholomew Barnewall of Ballyhost (Co. Westmeath) and had further issue one son; she died in 1755.
Barnewall, Christopher (b. 1715). Only son of Richard Barnewall (d. 1718) and his second wife, Bridget, daughter of Henry Piers of Ballydrimney (Co. Meath), born 1715. He married Cecilia, daughter of Matthew Dowdall of Clone (Co. Meath) and had issue: (1) Richard Barnewall (c.1744-1827) (q.v.); (2) Anne Barnewall; married, 13 October 1777, Columbus Drake (1750-1806) of Roristown (Co. Meath), elder son of Patrick Drake of Drakerath (Co. Meath), and had issue two sons and three daughters. He lived at Fyanstown. His date of death is unknown. His wife’s date of death is unknown.
Barnewall, Richard (c.1744-1826). Only son of Christopher Barnewall (b. 1715) and his wife Cecilia, daughter of Matthew Dowdall of Clone (Co. Meath), born about 1744. In 1812, the 14th Baron settled the Turvey House estate on him and his descendants so that it continued to accompany the Trimlestown peerage. He married, 1764. Katherine (d. 1823?), daughter of George Byrne of Seatown, Dundalk (Co. Louth) and had issue: (1) Christopher Barnewall (1765-1849) (q.v.); (2) Patrick Barnewall (c.1773-1854); lived at Causestown; married Barbara (d. 1862), daughter of Thomas Everard of Randalstown (Co. Meath) but had no issue; died at Dalkey (Co. Dublin), 4 August 1854; (3) Joseph Barnewall (1781-1852) [for whom see below, Barnewall of Bloomsbury]; (4) Cecilia Barnewall; married 1st, John Connolly of New Haggard (Co. Meath) and 2nd, Charles Nangle (c.1786-1847) of New Haggard and Kildalkey, son of Walter Nangle, who died bankrupt. He lived at Fyanstown. He died aged 82 at Greenanstown (Co. Meath) in June 1826. His wife is said to have died in 1823.
Barnewall, Christopher (1765-1849). Eldest son of Richard Barnewall (c.1744-1826) and his wife Katherine, daughter of George Byrne of Seatown, Dundalk (Co. Louth), born 3 September 1765. He married, November 1793, Anne (1772-1819?), daughter of Charles Aylmer of Painstown, and had issue including: (1) Esmay Mary Catherine Barnewall (1794-1879), born October 1794; married, 29 September 1836 at Ardbraccan (Co. Meath), Sir Aylmer John Barnewall (1789-1838), 9th bt., of Greenanstown (Co. Meath), and had issue one son; died in London, 5 March 1879, and was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery; (2) Charles Barnewall (c.1800-73) (q.v.); (3) Cecilia Barnewall (c.1801-82); died unmarried aged 80 in Dublin, 3 January 1882; (4) Anne Barnewall (b. c.1803), born about 1803; died unmarried and possibly young; (5) Jane Barnewall (c.1804-81); died unmarried, 20 January 1881; (6) Richard Barnewall (c.1806-89), born about 1806; died 11 March 1889; (7) Mary Barnewall (b. c.1808), born about 1808; died unmarried and possibly young. He lived at Meadstown (Co. Meath), where he was a tenant in 1805 but may have purchased the freehold when it was sold in that year. He died in Dublin aged 84 on 14 August 1849. His wife is said to have died 14 August 1819.
Barnewall, Charles (c.1800-73). Elder son of Christopher Barnewall (c.1775-1849) and his wife Anne, daughter of Charles Aylmer of Painstown, born about 1800. JP for Co. Meath. In 1836 he was a member of the provisional committee promoting the Dublin & Drogheda Railway. Throughout his life, he was a locally prominent leader of the Catholic causes and campaigns, including those for the repeal of the Union, opposition to tithes and securing the rights of Catholic tenants. He married 1st, Katherine, daughter of John Connolly of New Haggard (Co. Meath) and 2nd, 9 October 1844 at St Michan’s RC Church, Dublin, Letitia (c.1825-86), daughter of Gerald Aylmer of Lyons, and had issue: (2.1) Hon. Katherine Barnewall (1845-1928); a nun at Wicklow as Sister Mary Dominic; granted the rank of a baron’s daughter, 2 August 1893; died 15 July 1928; (2.2) Christopher Patrick Mary Barnewall (1846-91), de jure 17th Baron Trimlestown (q.v.); (2.3) Hon. Anna Maria Barnewall (1848-1930), baptised 8 October 1848 at Templenoe (Co. Kerry); granted the rank of a baron’s daughter, 2 August 1893; died unmarried, 10 November 1930; will proved 13 January 1931 (estate £548); (2.4) Hon. Esmay (aka Esmina) Barbara Mary Barnewall (1850-1910), baptised at St Michael’s RC church, Kingstown, Dublin, 30 May 1850; granted the rank of a baron’s daughter, 2 August 1893; married, 21 November 1883 at St Andrew RC Church, Dublin, Nicholas Francis Haly Coppinger (1831-1905) of Monkstown (Co. Dublin) and had issue one son and one daughter; committed suicide, 6 April 1910; administration of goods (with will annexed) granted 27 April 1910 (estate £2,474); (2.5) Hon. Mary Jane Barnewall (1851-1919), baptised at St Michael’s RC church, Kingstown, Dublin, 11 September 1851; a sister of Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Lismore, New South Wales (Australia) as Sister Berchmans; granted the rank of a baron’s daughter, 2 August 1893; died 18 August 1919; (2.6) Hon. Helen Cecilia Mary Barnewall (1853-1936), baptised at St Michael’s RC church, Kingstown, Dublin, 22 November 1853; granted the rank of a baron’s daughter, 2 August 1893; died unmarried, 14 October 1936; will proved 19 December 1936 (estate £6,201); (2.7) Hon. Letitia Fanny Barnewall (1855-1933), born 12 February and baptised at St Michael’s RC church, Kingstown, Dublin, 18 February 1855; a sister of Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Lismore, New South Wales as Sister Ignatius; granted the rank of a baron’s daughter, 2 August 1893; died 31 January 1933; (2.8) Gerald Aylmer Barnewall (1856-71), born 8 May and baptised at St Michael’s RC church, Kingstown, Dublin, 13 May 1856; died young, 2 July 1871; (2.9) Hon. Angelina Barnewall (b. 1857), baptised at St Michael’s RC church, Kingstown, Dublin, 7 October 1857; a Sister of Mercy at Arklow (Co. Wicklow); granted the rank of a baron’s daughter, 2 August 1893; death not traced; (2.10) Hon. Cecilia Mary Barnewall (1859-1908), baptised at St Michael’s RC church, Kingstown, Dublin, 6 May 1859; granted the rank of a baron’s daughter, 2 August 1893; married, 5 October 1907, Maj. Henry Chamney CMG, son of Rev. Joseph Chamney DD of Ard Ronan (Co. Louth); died without issue at Rustenberg, Transvaal (South Africa), 11 July 1908; will proved 17 April 1909 (estate £635); (2.11) Hon. Marcella Mary Barnewall (1862-1930), born 10 October and baptised at Dalkey (Co. Dublin), 16 October 1862; granted the rank of a baron’s daughter, 2 August 1893; died unmarried, 29 October 1930; will proved 12 December 1930 (estate £1,234); (2.12) Charles Aloysius Barnewall (1861-1937), 18th Baron Trimlestown (q.v.); (2.13) Hon. Margaret Barnewall (1864-1916), born at Athboy (Co. Meath), 31 January 1864; granted the rank of a baron’s daughter, 2 August 1893; married, 19 January 1899 at St Andrew RC Church, Dublin, Bertrand Thomas Lambert (who m2, 12 June 1923 Julia More-O’Ferrell), son of Ambrose Lambert, but had no issue; died 17 July 1916; will proved 5 September 1916 (estate £287). He lived at Meadstown and had a house at 72 Eccles St., Dublin. He died in Dublin, 2 May 1873; administration of his goods was granted 9 February 1881 (effects under £200). His widow died 3 March 1886.
Barnewall, Christopher Patrick Mary (1846-91), de jure 17th Baron Trimlestown. Eldest son of Charles Barnewall (d. 1873) of Meadstown and his second wife Letitia, daughter of Gerald Aylmer of Lyons, born 6 October 1846. He succeeded his distant cousin as 17th Baron, 4 August 1879, but did not seek to prove his title to the peerage until 1889 and died before the process was completed. He was unmarried and without issue. He inherited Turvey House from the 16th Baron in 1879, but the property was let throughout his tenure. He died 10 September 1891; his will was proved 29 October 1891 (estate £2,202).
Barnewall, Charles Aloysius (1861-1937), 18th Baron Trimlestown. Third son of Charles Barnewall (d. 1873) of Meadstown and his second wife Letitia, daughter of Gerald Aylmer of Lyons, born 14 May and baptised at St Michael’s RC church, Kingstown, Dublin, 17 May 1861. As a young man he travelled extensively, but after his brother’s death he returned from Australia to Ireland. His elder brother having died in 1891 without establishing his right to the peerage, he proved his claim in 1893 and succeeded as 18th Baron. DL for Co. Dublin. He was a director of the Old Bushmills Distillery Company (resigned 1898). He married 1st, 26 October 1889, Margaret Theresa (c.1869-1901), daughter of Richard John Stephens of Brisbane, Queensland (Australia), 2nd, 10 December 1907, Mabel Florence (d. 1914), daughter of William Robert Shuff of Torquay (Devon), and 3rd, 12 August 1930 at Christ Church, Eltham (Kent), Josephine Francesca (d. 1945), daughter of Rt. Hon. Sir Christopher John Nixon, 1st bt., Vice-Chancellor of the National University of Ireland, and had issue: (1.1) Hon. Ivy Esmay Myee Barnewall (1890-1971), born 14 September 1890; married 1st, 30 April 1917, John Radcliff (d. 1953) of Nigerian civil service, eldest son of George Edward Radcliff JP of Wilmount, Kells (Co. Meath) and had issue one son (killed in action in Second World War); married 2nd, 30 April 1956, John Kidd (d. 1958), son of Thomas Kidd of Linares (Spain); said to have died in 1971, possibly in Cape Town (South Africa); (1.2) Hon. Marcella Hilda Charlotte Barnewall (1893-1965), born 29 June 1893; married, 4 July 1917, Maj. Charles Bathurst MC (d. 1942), son of Lancelot Bathurst, but had no issue; died 11 September 1965; (1.3) Hon. Letitia Anne Margaret Barnewall (1895-1938), born 23 September 1895; married, 11 June 1919 at Corpus Christi RC church, Maiden Lane, London, Lt-Col. Cuthbert Hanson Townsend (1872-1956) of Ewell (Surrey), son of Vice-Adm. Samuel Philip Townsend, and had issue one son; died 2 May 1938; will proved 12 July 1938 (estate £2,645); (1.4) Hon. Reginald Nicholas Francis Mary Barnewall (1897-1918), born 24 September 1897; an officer in the Leinster Regiment (Capt.) in First World War; died unmarried in the lifetime of his father when he died of wounds received in action, 24 March 1918; buried at Bronfay Farm Military Cemetery, Bray-sur-Somme (France); administration of goods granted 19 July 1918 (estate £1,908); (1.5) Charles Aloysius Barnewall (1899-1990), 19th Baron Trimestown (q.v.); (1.6) Hon. Geraldine Christina Marjory Barnewall (1900-02), born 14 June 1900; died young, 23 June 1902. He inherited Turvey House, which was tenanted, from his father in 1891, but sold it in c.1902. In 1907 he inherited Bloomsbury House from his distant cousin, Katherine Barnewall (c.1824-1907), but he sold it in about 1920. He lived at Loughlinstown (Co. Dublin) and in London, and is said to have still owned 6,000 acres in Ireland at the time of his death. He died 26 January 1937 and was buried at Mortlake (Surrey), 3 February 1937. His first wife died 9 January 1901. His second wife died 16 March 1914; her will was proved 25 April 1914 (estate £1,234 in England and £1,427 in Ireland). His widow died 15 June 1945; her will was proved 11 January 1946 (estate £9,452).
Barnewall, Charles Aloysius (1899-1990), 19th Baron Trimlestown. Second but eldest surviving son of Charles Aloysius Barnewall (1861-1937), 18th Baron Trimlestown, and his first wife Margaret Theresa, daughter of Richard John Stephens of Brisbane, Queensland (Australia), born 2 June 1899. Educated at Ampleforth. He served as an officer in the Irish Guards (2nd Lt.) in the First World War. He succeeded his father as 19th Baron, 26 January 1937. He married 1st, 16 June 1926, Muriel (1894-1937), only child of Edward Oskar Schneider of Mansfield Lodge, Whalley Range, Manchester, and 2nd, 7 May 1952, Freda Kathleen (1911-87), daughter of Alfred Allan Watkins of Ross-on-Wye (Herefs), and had issue: (1.1) Anthony Edward Barnewall (1928-97), 20th Baron Trimlestown, born 2 February 1928; educated at Ampleforth; served in the Irish Guards, 1946-48, and was a naval architect, 1949-53; sales executive with P&O Shipping Company, 1965-74; succeeded his father as 20th Baron, 9 October 1990; lived at Boxford (Suffk) and later at Grand Rapids, Michigan (USA); married 1st, 30 September 1963 (div. 1973), Lorna Margaret Marion (1934-88), daughter of Charles Douglas Ramsey and 2nd, 14 May 1977, Mary Wonderly (1925-2006), elder daughter of Judge Thomas Francis McAllister of Grand Rapids, Michigan and formerly wife of Frederick Reese Brown (1915-2007), but had no issue; died 21 August 1997; (1.2) Hon. Diana Barnewall (b. 1929), born 13 October 1929; lived at Farnham (Surrey) and later at Rogate (Sussex); married, 30 October 1954 at the Brompton Oratory, London, Anthony Gerard Astley Birtwhistle (b. 1928), youngest son of James Astley Birtwhistle of Hoghton (Lancs) and Wroxham (Oxon), and had issue four daughters; (1.3) Raymond Charles Barnewall (b. 1930), 21st Baron Trimlestown (q.v.), born 29 December 1930; educated at Ampleforth; undertook National Service in Northern Ireland, 1949-51; dairy farmer at Dartington (Devon) until retirement; succeeded his elder brother as 21st Baron, 21 August 1997; is unmarried and without issue and has no heir to the peerage. He lived at Epsom (Surrey) and subsequently at Dartington (Devon) and Chiddingfold (Surrey). He died 9 October 1990; will proved 14 November 1990 (estate under £115,000). His first wife died 22 June 1937; her will was proved 13 August 1937 (estate £229). His second wife died 5 May 1987; her will was proved 18 September 1987 (estate under £70,000).
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. 269. Sylvan Park: “(Rowley/LG1863; Austin, Bt/PB) A three storey pedimented house with a roof on a bracket cornice. Bought post WWII by Mr. W.R. Austin. Subsequently sold and 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. 115. A three storey early 19C house now demolished. In 1814 the seat of Walter Keating. Very attractive stables survive.
Sylvan Park was located near Crossakiel. Sylvan Park house was a three storey over basement house. The house was demolished and only the stables remain.
Mr. Grattan lived at Sylvan Park 1786. Rev. William Grattan lived at Sylvan Park. His son, Copeland, died in 1850. Humphrey Grattan, late of Sylvan Park, married in 1854. The Grattans disposed of their interest in Sylvan Park in 1853 through the Encumbered Estates Court.
In 1814 Sylvan Park was the seat of Walter Keating. Walter Keating married Jane Morris of Tankardstown in April 1812. In 1835 Sylvan Park was the seat of Walter Keating and had excellent offices with a neat demesne and a good garden.
The Rowley family acquired Sylvan Park. Standish Grady Rowley was the son of Henry Rowley of Maperath, Kells. In 1876 Standish G. Rowley of Sylvan Park held 1,165 acres in county Meath.
Standish died in 1882 and was buried at Crossakiel. The two first ladies in Ireland to obtain licences to drive automobiles were the Misses Rowley, of Sylvan Park, Kells. These ladies were enthusiastic automobilists. Miss Rowely was the only lady steward in the Gordon Lambert Race. In 1911 the house was occupied by widow, Kathleen Rowley and her two daughters Kea Kathleen and Mabel Geraldine. When the Rowley family left Sylvan Park the Smith family became caretakers of the house. Armstrong Auctioneers of Kells managed the estate. In the late 1940s Sylvan Park was purchased by W.R. Austin. In 1949 Mr. Austin founded a private pack of foxhounds. His sons Michael and Anthony assisted him in the hunt.
Summerhill, County Meath, etnrance front, photograph: Maurice Craig, 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.
“(Langford, Bt/EDB; Rowley, Langford, B/PB) The most dramatic of the Irish Palladian houses, probably by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce in collaboration with Richard Castle. Built 1731 for Hercules Rowley, MP, who inherited the estate from his mother, the daughter of Sir Hercules Langford. Crowning a hill, on the lower slopes of which stood the C17 house of the Langfords, the house consisted of two storey seven bay main block, with a central feature of four giant recessed Corinthian columns, joined by two storey curving wings to end pavilions with towers and shallow domes. The skyline was further diversified by two massive square towers rising boldly at either end of the main block; one of several features reminiscent of Vanbrugh, who was, incidentally, Pearce’s first cousin once removed. The front was prolonged by walls of rusticated stonework ending in rusticated arches. All the stonework of the front was beautifully crisp and sharp. The garden front was less spectacular, but elegant, with two storeys of engaged columns as its central feature; it faced along a tree-lined gorge. Large two storey hall. Staircase hall with plasterwork on its walls. Fine rococo ceiling in drawing room, with busts in circular frames and putti in clouds. Small dining room ceiling also rococo, with putti in clouds in centre. Adjoining room with coved ceiling springing from Doric order; this room and the small dining room were eventually thrown together to make a larger dining room. The house was damaged by fire in nineteenth century; it was restored, but the original decoration of the hall was lost, as well as the original staircase. In 1879 and 1880, the Empress Elizabeth of Austria took Summerhill for the hunting season; it is said that her unquiet spirit found more happiness here than in any of the other numerous palaces and houses which she inhabited. After being burnt ca 1922, the house stood for 35 years or so as a ruin. Even in its ruinous state, Summer hill was one of the wonders of Ireland; in fact like Vanbrugh’s Seaton Delaval, it gained added drama from being a burnt out shell. The calcining of the central feature of the garden front looked like more fantastic rustication; the stonework of the side arches was more beautiful than ever mottled with red lichen; and as the entrance front came into sight, one first became aware that it was a ruin by noticing daylight showing through the front door. But ca 1957, the ruin was demolished; an act of destruction, which, at the time, passed almost unnoticed.”
Summerhill, County Meath, courtesy Mark Bence-Jones.Summerhill, County Meath, courtesy Mark Bence-Jones.
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. 115. “A superb house probably designed by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce in collaboration with Richard Castle who carried it out after Pearce’s death. The house was built in 1731 for Hercules Rowley M.P. The arched chimneystacks of the main block show the influence of John Vanburgh. The house was damaged by two fires in the 19C but some plasterwork by the Francini brothers survived. The house was burnt in 1922. Having stood as a magnificent ruin for many years, the stonework was sold and the ruin demolished c. 1962. Only the flanking pedimented arches and screen walls survive.”
The Landed Gentry and Aristocracy: County Meath. Volume 1. Art Kavanagh, 2005.
Langford of Summerhill (Barons Langford)
p. 126. The Rowleys settled in Ireland in the early part of the 17th century. Three brothers, John, Nathaniel and William were the first of that family to arrive on the island. It is most likely hey came to Ireland with Chichester the Lord Deputy. They probaby benefited from the distribution of lands in the Plantation of Ulster. They appear to have been granted some lands in Derry and Edward, John’s son, was based in Castle Roe near Londonderry where he was elected an MP.
John made a very good match with the daughter of an up and coming landlord, Sir Hugh Clotworthy, from neighbouring County Antrim [fn. Hugh’s son John was created Earl of Massareene by King Charles II). Sir John Rowley was John’s son and heir.
The Rowley connection with Meath began in 1671 when Sir John Rowley, MP, married Mary the only child and heir of Sir Hercules Langford of Summerhill and his wife Mary Upton.
…The only son, Hercules Rowley, married his cousin Frances Upton of Castle Upton, co Antrim, in 1705. It must have been he who inherited from Sir Hercules Langford as that man’s will was proved in 1683.
…[their son, Hercules] At the time of his death in 1794 his estate was considerable and was worth £18,000 p.a. The Langfords owned almost 10,000 acres in three different counties, 2,231 in Meath, 3,855 in Limerick and 3,659 in Dublin.
p. 127. He married his cousin the Hon. Elizabeth Ormsby Upton the daughter and heir of Clotworthy Upton who died the same year. Elizabeth also inherited the Ormsby lands in Limerick [Athlacca, Co Limerick]. In 1766 Elizabeth was created Baroness Summerhill and Viscountess Langford of Langford Lodge, Antrim with remainder to her male heirs. …
p. 128. After the death of Elizabeth the Baroness in 1791, her eldest son Hercules succeeded to become 2nd Viscount. Her husband survived three years longer and died in 1794.
Hercules (1737-96) was MP for Co Antrim until he took his seat in the House of Lords in 1791, the year his mother died. …He never married and was succeeded by his niece Frances. In the same year that her grandfather died (1794) she married her cousin, the Hon. Clotworthy Taylour. Born in 1763 he was the 4th son of Lord Headfort. He was MP for Trim and also for Meath during the later decades of the century until his elevation to the Peerage as Baron Langford in 1800. He was high Sheriff of Meath in 1796. [p. 129] After his marriage to Frances in 1794 Clotworthy assumed the name and arms of Rowley.
The second son Richard Thomas was a career Army officer….married and English lady, Charlotte Shipley..The newlyweds decided to honeymoon travelling in Egypt and the Sudan in 1835-36. From diaries and sketches recording their experience an article “A Honeymoon in Egypt and the Sudan” was written by Peter Rowley-Conwy c. 2002. …Charlotte was thought to be the first European woman ever to have visited Petra.
[a descendant of theirs became 9th Baron Langford].
p. 130. The eldest son of 1st Baron Hercules Langford the 2nd Baron (1795-1839), a DL for counties Meath and Dublin was married in 1818 to Louisa Rhodes….
Hercules the second son (1828-1904) settled on the Dublin property of Marlay Park, which thankfully has not entirely disappeared. He was a part-time Army officer, a JP and a DL for Co Meath and honorary Colonel in teh 5th Battalion of the Leinster Regiment. Like many wealthy men of his time he had a pad in London and was a member of the Kildare Club on St Stephen’s Green in Dublin and the Carlton in London.
p. 133. Clotworthy (1825-1854) the eldest son of the 2nd Baron succeeded his father in 1839 when that man died at the relatively young age of 44. Clotworthy was only 14. In 1846 when he was just 21 years old, Clothworthy, now 3rd Baron Langford, married Louisa Conolly from Castletown, the daughter of Col Michael Edward Conolly who was MP for Kildare….They had three sons. The youngest boy was just one year old when tragedy struck the family. Louisa was drowned in a tragic accident.
p. 133. Hercules Edward (4th Baron) had to oversee the dismantling of the Langford empire in Ireland following the various land acts…Although on paper at least the family seemed to be very wealthy, the fact that they were compelled to rent the house [to Empress Sisi of Austria] meant that their annual outgoings were extremely high. It is probably that the repayment of borrowings was the biggest drain on family finances.
p. 134. WWI took a heavy toll on the families of the gentry and aristocracy. Lord Langford lost his son which was all the more poignant since his other son was mentally unstable. [see Bence-Jones Twilight of the Ascendancy.] He now had no immediate heir as his brother was old and had no family but he had a nephew in New Zealand, Clotworthy Wellington. His brother Col William Chambre looked after the estate during the last years of the 4th Baron’s life.
…In 1923 Summerhill was burned by the IRA.
p. 135. The 5th Baron died in 1922 ages only 28. The 5th Baron was succeeded by his uncle, William Chambre Rowley, 2nd son of the 3rd Baron. …
The 6th Baron sought compensation from the Free State Government for Summerhill and its contents. After three years of wrangling the Compensation Board finally agreed that a sum of £43,500 would be paid. This was less than one third of the estimated value of the house and contancts…He accepted and invested in gilt-edged stocks… moved to Middlesex…He consulted his New Zealand relatives about the possibility of rebuilding but none were overly anxious to live in Ireland….
Record ofProtected Structures
Detached four-bay two-storey house, built 1878, with gabled
central bay. Pitched slate roof with rendered chimneystacks
and timber bargeboards. Roughcast rendered walls. Squareheaded
Summerhill, County Meath, photograph courtesy Archiseek.Summerhill, County Meath, photograph courtesy Archiseek.Summerhill, County Meath, photograph courtesy Archiseek.
Summerhill House was a 100 roomed country house which was the ancestral seat of the Langford Rowley family. They owned large amounts of land in counties Meath, Westmeath, Cork, Derry, Antrim, and Dublin as well as in Devon and Cornwall.
Designed by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce and completed by Richard Cassels in the Palladian style, it consisted of a centre block and two wings, built of limestone. Four semi-columns with Corinthian capitals ornamented the front; the main order was carried up the full height of the house. A broad flight of stairs led to the entrance of the mansion. There was a large and very lofty hall, which was similar to Leinster House in Dublin, also by Cassels. The hall contained plaques and oil portraits. To the right on entering was the library. The drawing room had a southern aspect, and contained several portraits of the Rowley family. The state dining room was detached from the main block and had beautifully covered ceilings. The grand stairs led to the bedrooms.
Summerhill, County Meath, photograph courtesy Archiseek.
Destroyed by arson in the early 1920s and the ruins demolished by the 1970s. In 1922 Colonel Rowley, the 6th Baron Langford, sought compensation from the Free State Government and after three years of negotiation with the Compensation Board a sum of £43,500 was paid to the Colonel, approximately one third of the value of the house and contents destroyed in the fire. Nothing remains of the house.
Summerhill House 100 room mansion, baroque palace, built in 1731, the ancestral seat of The Baronets, Barons, and Viscounts Langford – Summerhill Castle. Lynch’s Castle, (above), was already a residence in the immediate vicinity, the ruins of which survive to the present. Constructed for the The Hon. Hercules Langford Rowley, 2nd Baron Langford who in 1732 married his cousin Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Clotworthy Upton. In 1781 Hercules Langford Rowley built a large gothic mausoleum not far from the house, which fell into a ruinous state; some of its exterior walls survive, along with a handful of their curious arched niches. It originally contained a large memorial carved by Thomas Banks and commemorating the death of a beloved granddaughter, the Hon Mary Pakenham (Rowley’s daughter had married Lord Longford, another of whose children Catherine would in turn marry the Hon Arthur Wellesley, future Duke of Wellington). The Banks memorial was rescued from the mausoleum and moved into the main house at Summerhill. Summerhill House was damaged by fire on a number of occasions and then on 4 February 1922, it was set on fire by the Irish Republican Army and completely destroyed. In 1922 Colonel Rowley, the 6th Baron Langford, sought compensation from the Free State Government and after three years of negotiation with the Compensation Board a sum of £43,500 was paid to the Colonel, approximately one third of the value of the house and contents destroyed in the fire. Colonel Rowley invested the money in gilt-edged stocks and moved to Middlesex, England. Summerhill House stood as a ruin until it was totally demolished in 1970. Summerhill House was listed in “Forgotten Houses of Ireland”, as the most beautiful house in Ireland.
Summerhill House was considered to be one of the most dramatic of the Irish palladian houses. Crowning a hill to the south of Summerhill village, the house consisted of a main block with curved wings ending in a tower and pavilion. Summerhill House was designed by Edward Lovett Pearce and completed by Richard Castle, two of the greatest architects working in Ireland in the eighteenth century. Two of the ceilings were attributed to the Lafranchini brothers. Summerhill House, described by Mulligan as a ‘great palatial mansion,’ was erected about 1730 for Hercules Rowley. Bence–Jones described Summerhill as “the most dramatic of the great Irish palladian houses”. The house was burned accidentally about 1800, remodelled in the nineteenth century and burned again in 1921. The ruins were demolished in the middle of the twentieth century and some of the stones from the ruins were used at Dalgan Park, Navan, to construct a loggia. To the north of the house site stands Lynch’s castle which was converted to a folly on the estate. Near the house stood the family mausoleum.
Summerhill House
A mile long avenue to the south of the house was planned. The architect asked to design the gate houses was also working on two gate lodges for a military barracks in India and the two plans became mixed up. Those intended for India arrived in Summerhill and were erected. The houses because of their unusual roofs became known as the “Balloon Houses”. The avenue was never completed as the last third of it stood on public road and so the gate houses were not even part of the demesne.
Though Summerhill House has been demolished, the entrance and tree-lined avenue are reminders of the demesne. The curved wall and gate piers was clearly executed by skilled masons. The entrance acts as a focal point within the village of Summerhill. The village of Summerhill is based on a classical layout, associated with the development of the Summerhill House and demesne. The village consists of a long wide street with a narrow tree-lined green running down the centre. The village green, laid out c.1830 includes a medieval cross.
The ancient seat of the Lynch family had been granted to Henry Jones, Bishop of Meath, for his services provided as Scoutmaster General to Cromwell’s Army. In 1661 Bishop Jones sold the lands to Sir Hercules Langford. The name was changed from Lynch’s Knock to Summerhill.
Sir Hercules Langford died in 1683 leaving a son, Arthur, and a daughter, Mary. He died in 1716. Arthur died without an heir and the estate went to his sister Mary who had married Sir John Rowley in 1671. Sir John Rowley was one of the biggest landowners in County Londonderry.
Sir John was succeeded by his son, Hercules Rowley, MP for Co. Londonderry 1703-42 and heir to Sir Hercules Langford of Summerhill. Hercules Rowley commissioned Sir Edward Lovett Pearce in collaboration with Richard Castle to build one of the greatest and most dramatic of all the Irish Georgian houses in 1731. The house was probably erected in preparation for his marriage in 1732 to Elizabeth Upton. Hercules Rowley died in 1742 when he was succeeded by his son.
Sir Hercules Langford Rowley was M.P. for Co. Londonderry 1743-1760 and for Co. Meath 1761-94. He was a founder member of the Dublin Society in 1731, later the RDS. He was High Sheriff of Meath in 1738. In 1766 Hercules Langford Rowley was elevated to the peerage as Lord Summerhill. Hercules Langford Rowley was known as ‘the incorruptible representative for the County of Meath.’ He served in the Irish parliament for a period of fifty-one years. In 1787 he was appointed as one of the commissioners for the making of a canal from Drogheda to Trim. Johnston-Liik recorded that he died in 1794 having been an MP for over 50 years. In 1776 his wife was made Viscountess Langford and Baroness of Summerhill in her own right. Their eldest son, Hercules Rowley, became 2nd Viscount Langford in 1791 on the death of his mother. When he died unmarried about 1795 the estate went to his grand nephew, Hon Clothsworthy Taylour who was M.P. for Trim 1791-5 and for Co. Meath 1795-1800. He was created Baron Langford in 1800 having assumed the name Rowley in 1796 in order to inherit Summerhill. While he was M.P. for Trim the other M.P. for Trim was Arthur Wesley, the future Duke of Wellington. Clothsworthy voted against the Union in 1799 and for it in 1800 – the title might have had something to do with the change of mind, according to one commentator – ‘he had got his price.’
Baron Langford died in 1825 and his grandson, Clothworthy Wellington William Robert, became third Baron Langford. His son, Hercules Edward, became fourth baron in 1854 when he was just six years old. Educated at Eton he rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the army.
He leased Summerhill to the Empress of Austria for hunting in 1879 and 1880 and was her guest for these periods. Elizabeth married the Emperor of Austria when she was sixteen years old. Travelling and her passion for horse riding became the principle activities by which she could escape the court. Arriving in February 1879 a room was converted to a private chapel, a gymnasium was set up and a direct telegraph line installed to Europe. She was loaned a horse and joined the local hunt. The stag they had been chasing jumped through a space into the Maynooth Seminary with the hounds, and the Empress, in pursuit. The President, Dr Walsh, came out to meet the group and on being introduced to the Empress of Austria lent her his coat or gown, invited them in for refreshment and she promised to return. The Empress managed to hunt nearly every day. In the early spring of 1880 the Empress went straight to Summerhill. On the first Sunday she went to Mass at the seminary in Maynooth and took a gift of a three foot high model of St George slaying the dragon. She was unaware that St George was the patron saint of England and when she was told of its significance she ordered shamrock covered vestments from Dublin. She spent some happy time hunting in Meath. The Empress of Austria was assassinated in 1897 by an anarchist in Geneva.
In 1883 Lord Langford held 2231 acres in Meath, 3659 in Dublin and 3855 in Limerick giving a total estate of 9745 acres.
Hercules Edward fourth baron oversaw the disposal of the Summerhill estate. He died on 29th October 1919 and was interred in Agher cemetery. He lost his son and heir in the First World War and his second son was mentally unstable. His brother, William Chambre, took charge of the estate during his last years and after his death. William became 6th baron when his nephew died in 1922.
In 1921 the house was burned to prevent it falling into the hands of the Black and Tans. Beryl Moore recorded that a large four side clock was the only thing left undamaged and it was donated to Kilmessan Church of Ireland church. On the 4th February 1921 Summerhill House was set on fire by the IRA and completely destroyed. Colonel and Mrs Rowley were away. The five servants who lived in the house were sitting together in the kitchen when they heard a knock on the back door. The English butler did not open the door and some minutes later a whistle was blown and the back door battered in. The servants escaped through a door into the basement and made there way out into the darkness. As they walked down the avenue the house was dowsed in petrol and the fire started in a number of places.
In 1922 Colonel Rowley, the 6th Baron Langford, sought compensation from the Free State Government and after three years of negotiation with the Compensation Board a sum of £43,500 was paid to the Colonel, approximately one third of the value of the house and contents destroyed in the fire. Colonel Rowley invested the money in gilt-edged stocks and moved to Middlesex, England.
In the early twenty first century the eighth holder of the title was constable of Rhuddlan castle and lord of Rhuddlan, Wales. The family reside at Bodrhyddan Hall.
In February 1879 Elisabeth, Empress of Austria, popularly known then and since as Sisi, arrived in County Meath. Unhappily married, restless and inclined to melancholy, she found distraction in hunting and it was this sport which brought her to Ireland. Throughout her six-week stay in the country she followed the hounds almost daily with the Ward Union, the Meath and the Kildare Hunts, always accompanied by the most proficient horseman of his generation Captain William ‘Bay’ Middleton, widely rumoured to be her lover. Her own animals not proving suitable for the Irish terrain, local owners lent or sold the Empress their mounts although the Master of the Meath Hunt Captain Robert Fowler of Rahinstown was heard to expostulate ‘I’m not going to have any damned Empress buying my daughter’s horse.’ Nevertheless before her departure, Elisabeth presented a riding crop to Fowler: it was sold by Adam’s of Dublin in September 2010 for €28,000. During her 1879 visit and on a second occasion the following year the Empress stayed in an immense baroque palace that would not have looked out of place among the foothills outside Vienna. This was Summerhill, one of Ireland’s most remarkable houses the loss of which, as the Knight of Glin once wrote, ‘is probably the greatest tragedy in the history of Irish domestic architecture.’
Summerhill was constructed for the Hon. Hercules Langford Rowley who in 1732 married his cousin Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Clotworthy Upton. It is generally agreed that work on the house began around this date, perhaps to commemorate the union. Also, although impossible to prove absolutely, the most widespread supposition is that Summerhill’s architect was Sir Edward Lovett Pearce. There are echoes in its design of Vanbrugh in whose office Pearce is thought to have trained. Indeed writing of the building in 1752 the Anglican clergyman and future Bishop of Meath Richard Pococke specifically described it as ‘a commanding Eminence, the house is like a Grand Palace, but in the Vanbrugh Style.’ There was already a residence in the immediate vicinity, the ruins of which survive to the present. Known as Lynch’s Castle, it is a late 16th century tower house probably occupied up to the time of Summerhill’s construction. The position selected for Rowley’s new house could scarcely have been better – the 19th century English architect C.R. Cockerell thought ‘few sites more magnificently chosen – the close of a long incline so that the gradual approach along a tree-lined avenue created the impression of impending drama. Finally one reached the entrance front, a massive two-storey, seven-bay block the central feature of which were four towering Corinthian columns, the whole executed in crisply cut limestone. On either side two-storey quadrants swept away from the house towards equally vast pavilions topped by towers and shallow domes.
We must imagine the original interiors of Summerhill to have been as superb as its exterior since little record of them survive. The house was seriously damaged by fire in the early 19th century and thereafter successive generations of the Rowley owners – it had passed to a branch of the Taylours of Headfort, the first of whom was elevated to the peerage as Baron Langford in 1800 after voting in favour of the Act of Union – never seem to have had sufficient funds to oversee a comprehensive refurbishment. In fact in 1851 the estate was offered for sale. However, some work was done on the house, including a new main staircase, in the 1870s, not long before Summerhill was taken by the Empress Elisabeth. A handful of photographs, reproduced in the invaluable Irish Georgian Society Records of 1913 and shown above give us an idea of the house’s decoration, not least that of the double-height entrance hall with its then-compulsory potted palms (just as the wall above the stairs carries an equally inevitable reproduction of Raphael’s Sistine Madonna). We know the drawing room and small dining room both contained elaborate plasterwork and there were clearly some splendid chimneypieces. The IGS Records also lists many significant paintings in the main rooms. Before the end of the 19th century the large gothic mausoleum likewise built by Hercules Langford Rowley in 1781 not far from the house had fallen into a ruinous state; some of its exterior walls survive, along with a handful of their curious arched niches. Originally it contained a large memorial carved by Thomas Banks and commemorating the death of a beloved granddaughter, the Hon Mary Pakenham (Rowley’s daughter had married Lord Longford, another of whose children Catherine would in turn marry the Hon Arthur Wellesley, future Duke of Wellington). The Banks memorial was rescued from the mausoleum and moved into the main house at Summerhill, there seemingly safe from any damage.
On the night of 4th February 1922 the Rowleys were away but five staff remained in the house. When a knock came on the back door, the butler refused to open it but shortly afterwards he heard the door being knocked down. He and the others escaped through an exit in the basement and walked towards the farm; turning around, they saw flames rapidly spreading through the house which by morning was left a smoking shell. It has never been ascertained who was responsible for the burning of Summerhill or why it was attacked in this way, but most likely as elsewhere during the same period it was perceived as representing the old regime and therefore a target for republicans. Afterwards, like other house owners whose property had suffered a similar fate, the Rowleys applied to the new Free State government for compensation, asking for £100,000 to rebuild Summerhill; initially they were offered £65,000 but by April 1923 this had been cut to £16,775 with the condition that at least £12,000 of the sum had to be spent on building some kind of residence on the site, otherwise only £2,000 would be given. The compensation figure was later raised to £27,500 with no obligation to build but by then the Rowleys left the country (one member of the family had already declared ‘Nothing would induce me to live in Ireland if I was paid to do so…’). For the next thirty-five years Summerhill stood an empty shell. The late Mark Bence-Jones who saw the house during this period later wrote, ‘Even in its ruinous state, Summerhill was one of the wonders of Ireland; in fact like Vanbrugh’s Seaton Delaval, it gained added drama from being a burnt-out shell. The calcining of the central feature of the garden front looked like more fantastic rustication; the stonework of the side arches was more beautiful than ever mottled with red lichen; and as the entrance front came into sight, one first became aware that it was a ruin by noticing daylight showing through the front door.’ In 1947 Maurice Craig visited the site. His wonderfully atmospheric photographs from that time corroborate Bence-Jones’ description.
Seaton Delaval still stands, but Summerhill is no more. In 1957 the house was demolished, apparently without any objection. Today the site is occupied by a bungalow of the most diminutive proportions surrounded by evergreens which thereby obscure the view which made this spot so special. The difference in scale and style between the original house and its replacement would be hilarious was the loss of Summerhill not so tragic. The village at its former entrance gates gives visitors no indication that close by stood one of Ireland’s greatest architectural beauties. Indeed one suspects local residents themselves are mostly unaware of what they have lost since there is scant evidence of concern for the welfare of other old buildings in the vicinity. If Summerhill still stood it could be a significant tourist attraction, bringing visitors to this part of the country, not least from Austria and surrounding countries where the Empress Elisabeth enjoys near-cult status. In other words, what went with the house was not just an important piece of Ireland’s architectural heritage but also the opportunity for local employment and income. It is typical, if perhaps the worst instance, of Ireland’s failure to appreciate the potential of her historic buildings, as well as their inherent aesthetic qualities. I think it was Bence-Jones who once called Summerhill Ireland’s Versailles but a more apt comparison would be with Marly, another vanished treasure now known only through a handful of images. As Shelley wrote in 1818, ‘”Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare…’
Now providing access to Dolly’s Grove, County Meath, this limestone triumphal arch seemingly once stood at the entrance to Summerhill in the same county. Among Ireland’s very finest country houses Summerhill was built in the 1730s but is no more, having been burnt in February 1922, after which its dramatic shell survived another thirty-five years before being demolished (for more on the house, see My Name is Ozymandias, April 1st 2013). Summerhill’s design has traditionally been attributed to Sir Edward Lovett Pearce and some of his stylistic tics, such as blind niches and oculi, can be seen here in the Dolly’s Grove arch suggesting the architect was responsible for this piece of work also.
Randlestown entrance front, County Meath, Gillman Collection, 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.
“(Everard, Bt/PB) An important early C18 house, begun ca 1710 by Lt-Col Mathias Everard, who, though he had fought for James II, recovered the estate under the Articles of Limerick; completed by his brother Christopher. Two storey, seven bay entrance front with three bay breakfront and bolection doorcase; garden front also of seven bays with three bay breakfront. A third storey was added ca 1780, treated as an attic above a cornice; and, at the same time, the former garden front because the entrance front, being given a pillared Doric doorcase. Most imaginative late-Georgian interior plasterwork: tropies, roped swags and other motifs in the domed staircase and agricultural implements on the library ceiling. recently demolished.”
Randlestown, County Meath library ceiling c. 1975 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.
Not in national inventory
The Landed Gentry and Aristocracy: County Meath. Volume 1. Art Kavanagh, 2005.
Everard of Randlestown.
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.
Randalstown House was located to the north of Navan. The house was begun about 1710, extended twice in the eighteenth century and stood to the late twentieth century. A three storey over Basement house Randalstown had a pillared Doric doorcase. Bence-Jones wrote that Randalstown had the most imaginative late-Georgian interior plasterwork with trophies and roped swags on the domed staircase.
The Everards of Randalstown can be traced back to the 15th century. Owen Randill of Rendillstown had a daughter, Olive, whom married Pierce Cardy and inherited Rendillstown. Their daughter, Joan Cardy, married John Everard in the early 1400s and so the Everards came to live at Randalstown. In 1519 Patrick Everard of Randalstown was Sheriff of Meath.
Randalstown
Matthias Everard joined the forces of James II in fighting William of Orange. He served during the siege of Limerick in 1691 and under the Treaty of Limerick he submitted to the King and paid £1000 to be restored to this lands. Matthias renovated the old castle at Randalstown and extended in 1708 and 1714, thus creating a country house. Matthias died in 1715 and was buried at Kilberry. His younger brother, Christopher, inherited the estate. He completed the new road from Navan to Donaghpatrick which had been started by his brother. In the 1720 Christopher erected a banqueting house flanked by a canal and a terrace. In 1744 Ranadalstown was described as being well wooded and with a great avenue of full grown ash trees.
In 1748 John Everard of Randalstown conformed to the Established Protestant church.
About 1780 Thomas Everard added a third storey of Randalstown. The interior was remodelled with the main front on the south side being turned round to the north side where a pillared doorcase was erected. In 1795 Thomas was High Sheriff of Meath and was a member of the Grand Jury from 1785 until his death in 1820. He was succeeded by his son, Matthias.
Matthias Everard of Randalstown, born about 1787, commenced his military career at Gibraltar in 1804. In December 1805 Lieutenant Everard was captured on his way from Gibraltar to England by the French fleet. The English prisoners were held on board the La Volontaire which three months later sailed into the British controlled Cape and the prisoners were released. A few years later he participated in the attempt to capture the Spanish colony of Rio de la Plata. He led an attack on Montivideo. Out of the 32 men, 22 were killed or wounded. He was presented with a sword of honour to mark his gallantry by the Patriotic Fund at Lloyds and granted the freedom of Dublin. Promoted to Captain in 1807 Mathias served at Corunna in 1809. After the Napoleonic war Everard was transferred to India and commanded the 1st Batallion at the siege of Hattras in 1817. In 1821 he was appointed major and in 1825 lieutenant colonel. Everard commanded the 14th Regiment at the storming of Bhurtpore in India in 1825. In 1826 he was awarded the companion of the Order of the Bath. In 1841 he was appointed Colonel and in 1851 Major-General. Matthias inherited Randalstown in 1845 but never lived there. He died in 1857 at Southsea, Southampton, unmarried.
In 1837 Randalstown was the property of Col. Everard but the residence of Henry Meredith. It was described as a fine three storey house with a basement situated in an elegant and extensive estate. In 1855 the property as still occupied by Henry Meredith.
Matthias was succeeded by his brother, Richard Nugent Everard, who died in 1863.
Sir Nugent Talbot Everard was born at Torquay, Devon in England in 1849 and he was the first of the Everards to make their home at Randalstown for more than 60 years. In 1863 at the age of thirteen he inherited Randalstown. He was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. He settled at Randalstown about 1870. At the time the estate amounted to 2311 acres. Everard was a supporter of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society which established the co-operative movement in Ireland. Everard was elected President of the co-op movement, the I.A.O. S., in 1905. On the occasion of the coronation of King George V in 1911 Everard was created a baronet. He was a member of the Grand Jury of Meath and its successor Meath County Council. He held the position of High Sheriff and Lord Lieutenant for Meath, and was a co-opted member of the county council, serving continuously from 1899 to 1922. He served with his wife, Lady Everard, on the Meath Agricultural Society and the County Committee of Agriculture. He served in the Royal Meath Milita and served as colonel in the Regiment in Belgium and at Ypres.
Sir Nugent Everard and his son, Richard, were staying in the Sackville Street Club when the rebellion broke out and remained there while the fighting continued. They witnessed the fighting at the GPO and the surrender of the leaders. Sir Nugent kept a diary now in the possession of the family of the five days of the rebellion.
In 1922 he was appointed to the Senate of the new Irish Free State by William T. Cosgrave.
The demise of tillage farming in the 1880s and the consequent decrease in employment opportunities on the land for his workers made him turn his attention to tobacco. In 1898 Sir Nugent Talbot Everard obtained a special licence to grow tobacco. He was joined in the next few years in the experiment by Sir John Dillon of Lismullin, R.H. Metge of Athlumney and F. Brodigan of Piltown. His tobacco growing is mentioned in James Joyce’s Ulysses – “there was that Colonel Everard down there in Navan growing tobacco”. From 1898 to 1938 the Randlestown area of Navan was central to plans to introduce tobacco growing on a commercial basis in Ireland. The estate had its own tobacco plantation and also acted as a rehandling station – taking in tobacco from the local growers and processing it for sale to factories. At its peak, the industry provided almost 100 jobs and played a vital part in the local economy.
Col. Everard died in 1929 in his eightieth year. He was interred at Donaghpatrick – his grave is near the entrance. There is an article about Sir Nugent Everard in the 2000 issue of Riocht an Midhe. After his death the local growers formed the County Meath Co-Operative Tobacco Growers Society. The Co-Operative continued into the 1930s, and closed in 1939, the last year in which tobacco was grown in the county.
Sir Nugent’s only son, Major Richard Everard succeeded him at Randalstown but eleven days later died suddenly. His eldest son became Sir Nugent Everard. He decided to join the British army in 1926 and saw active service during World War II.
Richard Everard provides much information of the Everard family in the 1993 and 1994 issues of the Irish Genealogist journal.
By 1940 Randalstown house was empty and in 1943 it was sold with 412 acres of land to Gerald Williamson. The Williamson family held the property for thirty years until it was purchased by Tara Mines. The house was used for a period as offices for the mines but finally the house was demolished in the 1970s to make way for a tailings dam.
Platten Hall, County Meath, courtesy Thomas U. Sadlier and Page L. Dickinson’s Georgian Mansions in Ireland, published in 1915 by Ponsonby and Gibbs, Dublin.Platten Hall, County Meath, courtesy Thomas U. Sadlier and Page L. Dickinson’s Georgian Mansions in Ireland, published in 1915 by Ponsonby and Gibbs, Dublin.
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.
“(D’Arcy;IFR; Reeves;LGI1912; Gradwell, LGI1958) A very handsome red brick house with stone facings probably built ca 1700 by Alderman John Graham on an estate which, before the Williamite War, had belonged to a branch of the D’Arcy family. Considered by Dr Craig to be a possible work of William Robinson. Originally of three storeys; nine bay front, thee bay breakfront; splendid Baroque doorcase with segmental pediment, engaged Ionic columns and camber-headed fanlight. Camber-headed ground floor windows with scroll keystones. Long side elevations which in later years were largely blind; in the centre of one side, however, was a pedimented doorcase. Large two storey panelled hall with stairs and gallery of fine joinery; engaged fluted Corinthian columns superimposed on fluted Ionic columns. Carved frieze below gallery; fluted Corinthian newels and fluted balusters; ceiling with modillion cornice; floor of marble pavement. Oak panelling in dining room enriched with fluted Corinthian pilasters and elaborately carved segmental pediment over door. Pedimented stables at back of house. The house was originally set in a formal layout of elm avenues. Mrs Delany (then Mrs Pendarves) came to a ball here in 1731. A later John Graham left the estate 1777 to a friend, Graves Chamey; it was sold post 1800 to Robert Reeves, whose son, S.S. Reeves, removed the top storey, giving the house a rather truncated appearance. In later years, too, part of the house was derelict; which would explain why the side windows were bricked up. Platten Hall was sold post 1863 to J. J. Gradwelll; it was demolished ca 1950.”
Platten Hall, County Meath, courtesy Mark Bence-Jones.Platten Hall, County Meath, courtesy Mark Bence-Jones.Platten, County Meath, dining room c. 1915, photograph: Milford Lewis, 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.
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. 115. “Very important three storey early 18C house attributed to William Robinson. The top floor was removed in the early 19C. Very fine interior which included a superb staircase and a panelled dining room. Built for Alderman John Graham. The dining room as re-erected in a house in Dublin. The house was demolished c. 1950.”
See also, for more on William Graham who lived at Platten Hall, Melanie Hayes, The Best Address in Town: Henrietta Street, Dublin and its First Residents 1720-80, published by Four Courts Press, Dublin 8, 2020.
Thomas U. Sadlier and Page L. Dickinson’s Georgian Mansions in Ireland, published in 1915 by Ponsonby and Gibbs, Dublin
A large bedroom, the door of which appears in LXVI is known as the Duke’s Room, the tradition being that Duke Schonberg’s body was laid in state here after the Boyne.
“p. 81 For several centuries this property belonged to the Anglo-Norman family of D’Arcy. Sir John D’Arcy, a distinguished soldier under Edward III, sometime Constable of the Tower, came to Ireland in 1329, and for some years acted as Justiciary; he subsequently fought in both Scotland and in France, serving with distinction at the Battle of Crecy. The castle at Platten built by him passed at his death, 1347, to his younger son, William D’Arcy, father of John D’Arcy of Platten, who was sheriff of Meath in 1404 and 1415. Another Sir William D’Arcy, of Platten, the latter’s great-grandson, apparently a man of considerable bodily strength, carried Lambert Simmel on his back through Dublin, after he had been crowned in Christchurch, for which offence he was obliged to do homage and fealty to Sir Richard Edgecombe, Lord Deputy, in 1488. The family lived on here till the 17C, when they experience various vicissitudes. In 1641 they resisted the attack of Sir Henry Tichborne, ultimately surrendering Platten on terms by which the garrison departed without arms, but were allowed to take some of their good with them. It was perhaps at this period that the old chapel of the D’Arcys, some remains of which may yet be seen, became ruinous. Finally in 1690, on the attainder of Nicholas D’Arcy, who had taken sides with the Jacobites, the property was forfeited.
It next passed into the possession of Alderman John Graham, of Drogheda, a man of great wealth of whom we know little save that he bought landed property, doubtless at an undervalue, from the Commissioners of Forfeited Estates, and that for some years he sat in Parliament for his native city. On his death he was succeeded in the representation of that borough, and also at Platten, where he built the present residence, by his son William.
This William Graham married the Hon. Mary Granville, second daughter of George, Lord Lansdown; she doubtless met him at the court in Dublin when staying with her uncle, Lord Carteret, for he was Lord Leiutenant at the time of their marriage (1729). Thus the owner of Platten found [p. 82] himself allied with some of the first families in England – a circumstance which speedily led to his being sworn a member of the Irish Privy Council, and of coming to the notice of Mrs Delaney, or as she was then, Mrs Pendarves, his wife’s first cousin.”
“p 85 William Graham was sadly extravagant…spendthrift.” On his death, “Platten, in 1748, devolved on his elder son, John Graham, who in that year married Dorothy Sophia, daughter of Richard Gorges, of Kilbrew, in Meath.
‘We have unfortunately no further details as to life at Platten. Its owner, John Graham, seems to have become estranged from his family, and preferred to reside in Dublin, where he had a house in North Great George’s Street. Finally, on his death in 1777, all his property in Meath and Drogheda passed under his will to Graves Chamney, an intimate and valued friend, who for some years previously had resided in Platten Hall. The reason Mr Graham gives for thus passing over his wife and daughter in favour of Mr Chamney is “for his friendship in taking me out of gaol when my own and my wife’s relations would not relieve me.” Graves Chamney died unmarried in 1794, but the property remained in his family till soon after 1800, when it was sold to a Mr Robert Reeves, of Merrion Square, Dublin, who left it to his second son, Samuel Spaight Reeves. From this gentleman, who was resident here in 1863, and by whom the house was lowered a storey, it passed by purchase to John Joseph Gradwell, father of George Fitzgerald Gradwell, JP, the present landlord.”
Platten Hall, County Meath, courtesy Thomas U. Sadlier and Page L. Dickinson’s Georgian Mansions in Ireland, published in 1915 by Ponsonby and Gibbs, Dublin.Platten Hall, County Meath, courtesy Thomas U. Sadlier and Page L. Dickinson’s Georgian Mansions in Ireland, published in 1915 by Ponsonby and Gibbs, Dublin.Platten Hall, County Meath, courtesy Thomas U. Sadlier and Page L. Dickinson’s Georgian Mansions in Ireland, published in 1915 by Ponsonby and Gibbs, Dublin.
Construction started circa 1700 for Alderman John Graham. According to Maurice Craig, possibly designed by Sir William Robinson. Demolished in the 1950s. Replaced by a smaller house on the same site. The farmyard building to the rear still exists.
A description of 1906: “It is an ugly building now, in spite of its rich red colouring; but in former days, when it was a story higher, and had a gabled roof, its appearance was doubtless more attractive.
Like all early Georgian houses, the main entrance is on a level with the ground ; it opens into the imposing hall, which contains a handsome grand staircase in three flights,/ supported by six Ionic columns, the floor being paved in black and white marble. The walls are panelled, and there are other symptoms of early construction; there is some tasteful decoration, the frieze being very richly carved, and displaying tiny figures, quite Jacobean in treatment. Note, too, the gallery, which we also illustrate, with its handsome balustrading, with ramps at the newels. Below the gallery the panels are in plaster.
Platten once afforded considerable accommodation, but one wing has been allowed to fall into disrepair, as its bricked-up windows show, and the excellent rooms in the basement are no longer utilized.
….the dining-room, a large apartment panelled in oak, which is to the right as we enter the hall ; it has handsome high doors with brass locks, and the wainscot is ornamented with boldly carved fluted pilasters. There is a curious, probably early Georgian, mantel in white and grey marble.”
Anyone familiar with the Irish Georgian Society will know that the original organisation of that name was established in 1908 with the specific intention of creating a record of the country’s 18th century domestic architecture. Five volumes were produced over successive years, the first four devoted to Dublin while the last, which appeared in 1913, made an attempt to provide an overview of country houses. Two years later, another work, Georgian Mansions in Ireland, appeared. This book, written by barrister and genealogist Thomas U. Sadleir and architect Page L. Dickinson, both members of the now-dissolved Irish Georgian Society, was intended to correct what they believed to have been a problem with the earlier work: namely that its compilers ‘laboured under a disadvantage, for they had but slight knowledge of the existing material.’ The two authors proposed that whereas the compilers of the Irish Georgian Society volumes were well informed about historic buildings in Dublin, ‘as regards the country districts, their number, their history and their situation were alike unknown.’ For Sadleir and Dickinson, writing almost a century ago, the contrast between historic properties in Dublin and the rest of the country could not have been more stark. The former’s large houses, ‘so far from being, as they once were, the residences of the rich, are too often the dwellings of the poor; at best, hotels, offices or institutions. But the country houses present a delightful contrast. Some, no doubt, have gone through a “Castle Rackrent” stage; but – as anyone who cares to consult the long list in the fifth Georgian volume must admit – the vast majority are still family seats, often enriched with the treasures of former generations of wealthy art-lovers and travelled collectors.’ It is unlikely the authors would have been able to write such words even a decade later, and certainly not today. ‘Irish houses seldom contain valuable china,’ they advised, ‘but good pictures, plate, and eighteenth-century furniture are not uncommon. How delightful it would be to preserve the individual history of these treasures! The silver bowl on which a spinster aunt lent money to some spendthrift owner, and then returned when a more prudent heir inherited; the family pictures, by Reynolds, Romney, Battoni, or that fashionable Irish artist Hugh Hamilton, preserved by that grandmother who removed to London, and lived to be ninety; the Chippendale chairs which had lain forgotten in an attic. Even the estates themselves have often only been preserved by the saving effects of a long minority, the law of entail, or marriage with an English heiress.’ Below are three houses featured in Georgian Mansions in Ireland, with a selection of the pictures included in the book. The line drawings are by the architect Richard Orpen, who had been in partnership with Dickinson before the outbreak of the First World War.
Platten Hall, County Meath dated from c. 1700 and was built for Alderman John Graham of Drogheda: Maurice Craig proposed the architect responsible was Sir William Robinson. Built of red brick and with a tripartite nine-bay facade, it was originally three-storied but the uppermost floor was removed in the 19th century. Alderman Graham’s son William Graham married the Hon. Mary Granville, second daughter of George, Lord Lansdown and cousin of the inestimable Mrs Delaney who visited Platten on several occasions during her first marriage (when she was known as Mrs Pendarves). Sadleir and Dickinson quote one of her letters from January 1733, in which she described a ball given in the house: ‘we began at seven; danced thirty-six dances, with only resting once, supped at twelve, everyone by their partner, at a long table which was handsomely filled with all manner of cold meats, sweetmeats, creams, and jellies. Two or three of the young ladies sang. I was asked for my song, and gave them “Hopp’d She”; that occasioned some mirth. At two we went to dancing again, most of the ladies determined not to leave Plattin till daybreak, they having three miles to go home, so we danced on till we were not able to dance any longer. Sir Thomas Prendergast is an excellent dancer – dances with great spirit, and in very good time. We did not go to bed till past eight; the company staid all that time, but part of the morning was spent in little plays. We met the next morning at twelve (very rakish indeed), went early to bed that night, and were perfectly refreshed on Saturday morning. …’ As for Platten when they knew it, Sadleir and Dickinson comment: ‘Like all early Georgian houses, the main entrance is on a level with the ground; it opens into the imposing hall, which contains a handsome grand staircase in three flights, supported by six Ionic columns, the floor being paved in black and white marble. The walls are panelled, and there are other symptoms of early construction; there is some tasteful decoration, the frieze being very richly carved, and displaying tiny figures, quite Jacobean in treatment. Note, too, the gallery, which we also illustrate, with its handsome balustrading, with ramps at the newels. Below the gallery the panels are in plaster. Platten once afforded considerable accommodation, but one wing has been allowed to fall into disrepair, as its bricked-up windows show, and the excellent rooms in the basement are no longer utilized…the dining-room, a large apartment panelled in oak, which is to the right as we enter the hall; it has handsome high doors with brass locks, and the wainscot is ornamented with boldly carved fluted pilasters. There is a curious, probably early Georgian, mantel in white and grey marble.’ Platten Hall was demolished in the early 1950s.
Platten Hall was located at Donore, just west of Drogheda. Today the cement works occupy part of the estate. Bence-Jones described Platten Hall as a ‘very handsome red brick house with stone facings’ probably from about 1700. Craig considered it possibly the work of Sir William Robinson for John Graham. A large red-brick mansion the design occupied three sides of a square. Situated in an extensive demesne, originally wide avenues of elms radiated from it on all sides, like the spokes of a cart-wheel — a plan fashionable in England; but unfortunately these did not remain perfect. It had a large hall with an open staircase of three flights. Samuel Reeves took a storey off the house in the mid nineteenth century. One wing was closed off and the windows bricked up. The house was demolished in the second half of the twentieth century. The house may have replaced a medieval castle, belonging to the D’Arcy family. The house was originally set out in a formal layout of elm avenues. The church in the grounds was sued as a mausoleum by the successive residents of the Hall. Octagonal pigeon house attached to Platten Hall
According to ‘The parish of Duleek and over the Ditches’ Plattin was purchased from the Forfeited Estates Court by Alderman John Graham of Drogheda. John Graham was the eldest son of Robert Graham of Ballyheridan, Co. Armagh. The Darcy family had held the property before the Battle of the Boyne. Platten being between Oldbridge and Duleek featured in the battle of the Boyne. Graham erected the three-storey red-brick mansion where he resided until his death in 1717. His second son, William, succeeded as he disinherited his first son, Richard.
Mrs. Delaney (Pendarves) wrote of the Christmas at Platen in 1732 – ‘We are to have a ball, and a ball we had; nine couples of as clover dancers as ever tripped. We began at seven, danced thirty-six dances, with only resting once, supped at twelve, everyone by their partner at a long table which was handsomely filled with all manners of cold meats, sweetmeats, creams and jellies. Two or three young ladies sang. At two we started dancing again; most of the ladies determined not to leave Platten till daybreak so we dance don until we were not able to dance any longer. We did not get to bed till past eight.’ A regular visitor to the Grahams Mrs Delaney makes a number of mentions of balls in their home.
The extravagance of William Graham was a matter of public notoriety. Swift had to write to him as he did not meet the rent of a premises he held from St. Patrick’s Cathedral. In 1734 Dean Swift wrote to Mrs. Delaney (Pendarves) that Mr. Graham was ruining himself as fast as possible. One of the bedrooms in the house was called the Duke’s Room after the Duke of Dorset, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland who visited the house in 1732 when the Boyne Obelisk was unveiled.
William Graham died in 1748 and was succeeded by his son, John, who was M.P. for Drogheda 1749-1768. John married Dorothy Gorges of Kilbrew. John was High Sheriff of Meath in 1753. When John died in 1777 all his property went to his steward, Graves Chamney. Graves Chamney became heir as Graham said he had succeeded in ‘taking me out of prison when my wife and relations would not relieve me.’ He was obviously in gaol for debt. Graham resided for the most part in his house North Great Georges Street, Dublin rather than at Plattin. A branch of the Graham family settled at Cromore House, Doneraile, Co. Cork.
In 1800 the property was sold to Robert Reeves of Dublin who bequeathed it to his second son, Samuel Speight Reeves. From Samuel the property passed to John Joseph Gradwell, High Sheriff of Drogheda in 1855. The Gradwells from Preston had already purchased Dowth Hall. Mr. Gradwell died in 1873 and was succeeded by his son, George Fitzgerald Gradwell. The Gradwells were involved in the milling trade in Drogheda. In 1876 Ellen Gradwell of Platten Hall held 615 acres in county Meath. He had three sons and was succeeded by the third son, Francis William Edward Gradwell in 1933 and he was living in the house in 1941. The house passed through the hands of T.J. O’Neill and D’Arcy Slone. The house became derelict and was 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.
A five bay C18 house with a pediment, containing an oculus, above a Venetian window, above a pedimented and fanlighted tripartite doorway. Buttresses at back. In 1814, the residence of Philip Reilly. Now a ruin.”
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.
Newgrove House was located in Balnagon Upper townland, Kilskyre, 6 kilometres west of Kells. The original house has long decayed but it was a medium sized house of two storeys over a basement according to Mulligan. He dated the house to probably around 1760. The house was demolished in 1983. Attached to the house was a courtyard of buildings which still stand today. The stables had unusual flooring. The main entrance to the house has been restored recently. The neighbouring estate to the east was Sylvan Park.
The lands at Newgrove were held by various families. In the late eighteenth century they were held by the Reilly family. In 1774 Hugh O’Reilly was the owner. Frances, widow of Hugh O’Reilly of Newgrove, married Rev. William Maziere Brady, a Protestant minister, who was later vicar at Donaghpatrick but who later converted to Catholicism and lived in Rome. He wrote a number of books. In Rome he became Private Chamberlain to Pius IX and Leo XIII and was created a Papal Knight.
In 1814 the residence of Philip Reilly. Mary Reilly made a defence of her house against the Defenders in 1794. The Defenders were a tenant based secret socity agitating for better conditions for the tenants. Mary Reilly died in 1816 and the property was inherited by her nephew, Hugh O’Reilly of Rathaldron Castle. In 1835 Newgrove was the residence of Counsellor O’Reilly. It was described as a neat house of two storeys and basement, with a good garden and offices and excellent lawn. Hugh O’Reilly of Newgrove was magistrate in 1834. In 1865 Hugh sold the estate to Standish Grady Rowley of Maperath, Kells. The property was then inherited by his son, Clotworthy Rowley, who overspent and the property was purchased by his stepmother in 1902. She sold the house and 109 acres of land to Christopher Leavy in 1919.
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.
“(Dillon, Bt/PB) A three storey give bay early to mid-C18 house. Good quoins; wall carried up to form roof parapet; buttresses on façade. Side elevation of two bays and then three bays set slightly back, prolonged by a two storey office wing. Burnt 1923, afterwards rebuilt without the top storey.”
Miss Elizabeth Dillon of Lismullen, Co. Louth, (later Mrs. James Corry), courtesy Fonsie Mealy Dec 2025James Corry who married Elizabeth Dillon of Lismullen, courtesy Fonsie Mealy Dec 2025.
Mid 18th C, burned in 1923, rebuilt without top storey.
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. 113. (18C house), Skreen: A three storey early 18C house much altered. The top storey may be a later addition. Burnt in 1922. Demolished.
A suggested date for the construction of the house is 1720 –1740 when there was an optimistic period after the Boyne. Lismullen is a typical gentleman’s residence, nothing unique about its design, sited to maximise the use of local scenery. At the turn of the twentieth century the mansion had twenty one rooms and thirty four outoffices. The house had an entrance hall, study, dining room, drawing room, back hall, principal staircase, butler’s pantry, two lavatories and bathrooms, eleven bedrooms, dressing rooms and strong room. The house was decorated with many paintings including a Gainsborough, a Reynolds and portraits of family members and family connections. A door from the main house led into a kitchen, with a scullery and larder. The out offices included a larder, dairy, tiled laundry, apple loft, storerooms and stables. There were three coach houses and a motor house. These out offices were entered through an archway from the back avenue. At the back of these buildings was a large farmyard, hay barn, walled in garden, pleasure ground, conservatory and tennis court.
The Dillons were a prominent family of the Pale. Lodge’s Peerage states that the Dillons of Lismullen were descendants of Thomas, the third son of Sir Robert of Riverstown. William Mallone, Irish papist, was in possession of Lismullen in 1640 but during the Cromwellian confiscation the entire parish of Lismullen and 172 acres at Clonarden in the neighbouring parish of Templekeran parish were allocated to Arthur Dillon. Arthur’s son, John, added further lands to the estate in the Williamite confiscations. Sir John Dillon’s close connection to Ormond may have resulted in William of Orange spending a night at Lismullen after the Battle of the Boyne. A number of personal items were said to have been given to the Dillons by William of Orange in 1690, two days after the Battle of the Boyne. The items included a glass decanter, a glass posset bowl, a bed-coverlet and two pairs of gauntlets.
John was succeeded by his grandson, John Talbot Dillon who as Member of Parliament for Wicklow introduced a successful bill for some relief of Catholics from the penal laws in 1782. For this support of the Catholic cause Sir John Dillon was created a baron of the Holy Roman Empire by Emperor Joseph II of Austria. On 22 February 1783 John Dillon received Royal License to use the title and was created baronet by George III on 31 July 1801. Sir John Dillon, his son, Charles and Nathaniel Preston formed a company to exploit a vein of copper ore on the Walterstown lands of Nathaniel Preston. There appear to have been two Sir John Talbot Dillons living at approximately the same period in the nineteenth century and the lives of both having some common events are often confused by writers.
Sir John Talbot Dillon had six sons and three daughters. His eldest son died before his father. His three remaining older sons, Charles Drake, Arthur Richard and William, held the title of baronet in succession following his death. In March 1847 the stables of Sir William Dillon of Lismullen were rented as extra accommodation for paupers by the Dunshaughlin Board of Guardians as the work house at Dunshaughlin was at full capacity.
The fifth son, Rev. Ralph Dillon, left a son, John, who succeeded on the death of his cousin, in 1852. This John was the father of Sir John Fox Dillon.
Sir John Fox Dillon married Marion Louisa Dykes and the couple had only one child, a daughter, Millicent, born in 1895. Sir John enjoyed hunting and was a member of the Meath Hunt and the Norfolk Hunt. Sir John was a candidate in the first Meath County Council elections, running in Tara district. He received twenty-seven votes but failed to get elected. The 1898 Act stipulated that three seats on the new council were reserved for outgoing members of the Grand Jury and Sir John Dillon was one of the three selected. Sir John had donated a site for a new church at Lismullen and contributed a large amount to the construction costs.
Sir John remained as churchwarden until his death in 1925. Lady Dillon commissioned a window from Harry Clarke in February 1929 as a memorial to her husband for the new church at Lismullen. The window The Ascension was installed above the altar in March 1930. Lismullen church was demolished in 1964 as a result of declining attendance. The Clarke window was removed to storage in Trim and sold by the church authorities in the 1990s.
Sir John grew tobacco to support Sir Nugent Everard in his efforts to introduce the industry on a commercial basis in Meath at the turn of the century. He also supported Everard’s experimentation with the growing of hemp to provide the raw material for cordage and as shelter for the tobacco crop. Sir John invented a machine to scotch the hemp and proposed that the 10,000 tons of hemp imported annually from Russia and Poland be produced in Ireland. In 1918 Sir John Dillon disposed of 1,693 acres of his estate at Lismullen under the Land Acts.
In early 1923 a renewed outbreak of violence occurred in the area surrounding Lismullen. Despite his military experience Sir John was not prepared for the arrival of the arsonists. On 5 April 1923 a group of men stole a trap at Knockmark, drove to Dunsany Stores and took petrol which they took to Lismullen. Later that night a large party of men gained entrance to Lismullen house and set the place alight. When the house was destroyed by fire very few items were saved. Sir John found time to send a note to Killeen to warn the Fingalls that the arsonists had said that Killeen was next. The motive for the burning is not clear with various reasons being put forward at the time.
In 1923 he and his family left Ireland behind to purchase a property, Longworth Hall, in England. Under the Damage to Property (Compensation) Act of 1923 Sir John Dillon received £10,942 to rebuild his house. The new ‘modern residence’ at Lismullen was built on the foundations of the destroyed house which was ‘of a very old fashioned and inconvenient type’. The replacement house was as undistinguished as its predecessor being described by one observer as ‘a modern tasteless building’ in 1942. Sir John Dillon died suddenly on 1 November 1925, at his residence, Longworth Hall, at the age of 82.
Since Sir John had no son a distant cousin, Robert William Charlier Dillon, was the heir. Robert’s father died 6 October 1925, just a month before Sir John’s death so Sir Robert inherited the estate at eleven years of age.
The Dillon lands at Lismullen were compulsory purchased by the Land Commission in 1963.
The house and garden were sold on for charitable and social purposes and became a residential conference centre and a hospitality training centre. It is owned by the Lismullin Educational Foundation, an educational charity, which in 2000 completed a major development of the site and facilities. These are inspired by the spirit of the Prelature of Opus Dei and reflect a Christian outlook on life and culture.
Letters from Georgian Ireland: The Correspondence of Mary Delany 1731-68.
Ed. Angelique Day, foreward by Sybil Connolly. The Friar’s Bush Press, Belfast, UK, 1991.
p. 129. En route from Dublin, end of Aug 1732:
“Dined at Lismullen; Mr Dillon’s house made mighty neat; a vast deal of wood and wild gardens about it. Walked to see the ruins of the old Abby near them – a vast building enclosed with large trees, great subterraneous buildings, with arches of cut stone, which make no other appearance above the earth but as little green hillock, like mole-hills. The arches seem to have been openings to little cells, rather than continued passages to any place; they are very low – whether it be that they are sunk into the ground, or always were so, I can’t judge, but they are formed of very fine cut stone. The Abbey is in the prettiest spot about the house: ‘til surrounded with tall trees, and a little clear rivulet winds about it. The road from Lismullen to Naver [Navan] very pleasant; passed by Arsalah [Ardsallagh] which lies upon the Boyn [Boyne]. The house seems a very antique edifice, it has fine gardens, but the trees and meadows that lie by the river are extremely beautiful; their domains reach all along the river, and half the way to Navan. Navan stands just where the Boyne and Blackwater meet, high over the river. I walked over the bridge by moonlight, along a walk of tall elms which leads to a ruined house they call the Black Castle, from a vulgar tradition of it beign haunted; it lies over the Blackwater, has a vast number of trees about it, and seems to have been pretty. The [p. 130] “spirit” it was visited by was extravagance; it belonged to two young men, who in a few years ruined themselves,and let the seat go to destruction, and ever since they give out it is haunted, it is now another person’s property, and going to be repaired.
The 25th, left Navan, and travelled through bad roads and a dull uninhabited country, till we came to Cabaragh, Mr Prat’s house, an old castle modernized, and made very pretty; the master of it is a virtuoso, and discovers whim in all his improvements [she may have been referring to the delightful villa designed by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce which preceeded the monumental nineteenth century castle on an adjacent site]. The house stands on the side of a high hill, has some tall old teres about it; the gardens are small but neat; there are two little terrace walks, and down in a hollow is a little commodious lodge where Mr Prat lived whilst his house was repairing. …
The 26th, left Mr Prat’s and travelled over the most mountainous coutry I ever was in; still as we passed over one hill, another showed itself. Alps peeped over Alps and “hills on hills” arose [the drumlin country of south Ulster]; the face of the country not pleasant till I came to Shercock [County Cavan], which is a handsome house, and stands over a fine lake, that has several woods and meadows on the sides of it. A vast deal of heath and ploughed land from that till I came within three miles of Coote Hill, then the scene changed most surprisingly, and the contrast is so strong that one imagines they are leaving a desert and coming into Paradise.
The town of Coote Hill is like a pretty English village, well situated and all the land about it cultivated and enclosed with cut hedges and tall trees in rows. From the town one drives nearly a mile on a fine gravelled road, a cut hedge on each side, and rows of old oak and ash trees to Mr Coote’s house [Bellamont Forest]. ..”
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.
“(Chaloner/LGI1912; and sub Enniskillen, E/PB) A brick-built house of ca 1740, two storeys over basement, in which the ground floor rooms are vaulted over and formerly had good mid C18 stucco decoration on the vaults. One room had plaster panelling. The house is now in ruins, through fragments of the stucco work remain.”
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.
Kingsfort House was located near Moynalty in north Meath. Nearby Cherrymount was the first home of the Chaloner family before their new home of Kingsfort was constructed. Kingsfort was completed in 1736 by John Chaloner. The house takes its name from the townland in which it is situated Rathinree, which is the Irish for the fort of the king. There are five ringforts nearby.
Described as a big regular house set in pleasantly rolling countryside Kingsfort was a brick built house of two storeys over basement. A number of rooms had plasterwork and even though the house is ruined fragments of the plasterwork are still visible.
Rev. John Chaloner was born in Shropshire in 1658, studied at Trinity College and became a clergyman in Errigal, Co. Donegal. He became a navy chaplain on board ‘The Royal Sovereign’ a ship despatched to the West Indies to combat piracy. Tradition is that Chaloner managed to acquire a considerable sum of money during this period and in 1704 having returned to Ireland purchased the estate of Captain Stopford near Moynalty.
John Chaloner succeeded his father in 1732 and completed the new house at King’s Fort in 1736. In 1778 John Chaloner was succeeded by Richard who was responsible for major landscaping at Kingsfort.
Richard laid out the Glen, a valley between the two Chaloner houses. He constructed a waterfall, a small lake with an island, a dog’s graveyard and a small two roomed lodge. He was known to his friends as ‘Dicky of the Glen’. Richard Chaloner showed his party allegiance to the Whig party by planting oaks on his estate at Kingsfort. In 1784 Richard Chaloner was appointed High Sheriff of Meath for the year.
Richard Chaloner kept a diary of domestic events from 1810 to 1817, the title page bears the inscription – ‘To record domestic happenings, in which I took a considerable part. It will be a pleasure at some time to bring them back to mind.’ Portions of the diary were reproduced in “Not so much to one side” by Valentine Farrell and there is a copy in the local studies section of the County Library, Navan. Richard made changes to the interior of the house around 1815 and he also rebuilt the staircase.
Richard Chaloner died in 1832 leaving Kingsfort to his eldest daughter’s second son, Richard Cole-Hamilton, who took the name Chaloner.
In 1835 Kingsfort House was described as “a superb building, with suitable offices and a garden attached. It is situated in the centre of the townland and is the seat of Richard Chaloner. The estate is elegantly adorned with plantations, lakes and ornamental grounds.”
In the 1860s the family possessed a mighty bull which they named Sovereign in honour of the Navy ship of Rev. John Chaloner. The bull won many prizes at the RDS and at shows up and down the country. The bull survived an attack of foot and mouth and when it died was buried in one of the ring forts at Kingsfort, renamed in his honour, ‘Sovereign’s Fort.’ A poem was even written in honour of the bull.
In 1876 Richard Chaloner of Kingscourt, Moynalty held 2,100 acres in County Meath. Richard Chaloner was a noted breeder of Shorthorn cattle. In 1879 Richard Chaloner’s shorthorn bullock won first prizes in all the major shows in Britain and Ireland. Richard Chaloner died in 1879, leaving Kingsfort to his nephew Claud Cole –Hamilton who assumed the name of Chaloner in the terms of his great-grandfather’s will. Claud died on 21st June 1917. He was succeeded by his son, Claud Willoughby Chaloner who was a Major serving with the Royal Enniskillen Fusiliers. He and his wife settled at Cherrymount and leased Kingfort for a period before selling it in 1937. The Chaloner family married into the Bomford family and Peter Bamford’s website on the Bomford family is a brilliant source of information on the Chaloner family and their relatives, the Bomfords.
The last of the Chaloners, Desmond, attended Trinity College and served in the British Army from 1943 to 1947 during the Second World War. His grandfather had died at Kingsfort in 1917 and his grandmother had lived on there until 1927. His father had lived at Cherrymount and it was here that Desmond was born. Desmond Chaloner died in England in 2010.
Kingsfort was sold to Mr. Forest and then to Mr. Anthony McCann, who stripped the house. The slates and roof were removed in the 1950s. The estate had been broken up by the Land Commission in 1936.
Randalstown 
Irish Historic Houses 