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. 286. “(Perry/IFR) A C18 house flanked by square courts with cupolas, niches and oculi, added later C18 possibly to the design of David Duckart. Now mostly 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. 136. A three storey mid 18C house with superb flanking courts added in the late 18C. The seat of the Perry family. Now mostly demolished.
Thomastown Castle, County Tipperary, entrance front 1917, photograph: Miss Moira Lysaght, 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.Thomastown, County Tipperary, entrance front c. 1969, photograph: Christopher Tynne, Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 272. “(Mathew/IFR; Daly/IFR) Originally a long two storey house of pink brick built from 1670 onwards by George Mathew, half-brother of the great Great Duke of Ormonde; with a centre one room deep consisting of a great chamber or gallery above a rusticated arcade, and projecting wings; a massive oak staircase led up from the arcade to the first floor. It was probably by the same builders who worked for the Duchess of Ormonde at Dunmore House, near Kilkenny; while Dr Loeber suggests that the arcade may have been a design by Sir William Robinson. The Mathews grew richer through heiress marriages, and the grandson of the builder of the house, another George, who inherited 1711, carried out various additions and improvements…This George Mathew was known as “Grand George” and renowned for his hospitality; people could come uninvited to Thomastown and use it as though it were an inn; many legends have grown up about him, though he has become somewhat confused, in local legend, with “Big George,” Earl of Kingston (see Mitchellstown Castle). In 1812, Francis Mathew, 2nd Earl of Llandaff, called in Richard Morrison to enlarge the house and transform it into a castle. Morrison’s transformation was literally skin-deep; he refaced the house in cement, which was originally painted the rather surprising shade of pale blue’ a mask of Gothic openings was applied to the front of C17 arcade which was glazecd and turned into a “Gothic Hall” with a Gothic chimneypiece of plaster and other Gothic plasterwork. Slender turrets, square and polygonal, were added to the entrance and garden fronts, which remained symmetrical; the two on either side of the entrance have pinnacles like rockets or darts growing out of them; from a distance they look like rabbit ears. Thr office wing to the right of the entrance front was enlarged into a vast Gothic kitchen court and stables; a detached entrance tower was also built. The great upstairs room became a Gothic library; the drawing room remained Classical and was adorned with scagliola columns. Fr Theobald Mathew, the “Apostle of Temperance,” grew up here, his father having been a cousin of 1st Earl of Landaff who more or less adopted him and made him his agent. Lady Elizabeth Mathew, sister of 2nd Earl, left Thomastown to her cousin on her mother’s side, the Visomte de Rohan Chabot, son of the Comte de Jarnac. It eventually passed to the Daly family, but from ca 1872 onwards it was allowed to fall into disrepair; it is now one of the most spectacular ruined Gothic castles in Ireland, much of it submerged beneath the ivy which grows here with an unbelievable luxuriance. In 1938 the ruin was bought by Archbishop David Mathew, the historian, in order to keep it in the family and to save it from destruction.”
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. 136. A large Tudor Revival house designed by Richard Morrison in 1812 for Thomas Mathew 2nd Earl of Llandaff incorporating a late 17C house which may have been designed by Sir William Robinson. Very fine interiors some of which were classical. Now a ruin.
Detached multiple-bay two-storey country house, incorporating seventeenth-century house, enlarged 1812, now in ruins. Comprising central block with office wing to west having square and polygonal towers to front elevation and incorporating an earlier seventeenth-century house. Courtyard with outbuildings to north. Crenellations with machicolations to roofline. Lined-and-ruled render over brick walls with rendered string course to office wing. Ashlar limestone masonry plinths to towers. Projecting entrance bay, in ruins. Square-headed window openings with carved limestone label mouldings having ornate label stops to front. Pointed arch window openings to office wing. Two-storey gate lodge to east having crenellations with machicolations. Rendered brick walls with blank cross-loops to first floor and buttresses to ground floor. Square-headed opening with render hood moulding over pointed arch entrance. Three-stage polygonal tower to east elevation with crenellations and arrow slit windows with hood-mouldings. Coursed rubble limestone walled gardens to north.
Appraisal
This former country house was built by the Matthew family, the earliest house on this site, built by George Matthew dating to c. 1670. The house in its present form was enlarged in the Gothic style by Francis Matthew, II Earl of Llandaff in 1812. Richard Morrison designed the house incorporating a veneer of Gothic openings including the ornate polygonal and square towers to front elevation. The office wing to the right was also enlarged in the Gothic style. From 1870 the house fell into disrepair to become the impressive and spectacular ruin it is today. Much of the original seventeenth-century house survives in the interior of the building. The arched gate lodge to the east mirrors the architecture of the main house and retains many fine details such as the cross loops and hood mouldings. The walled gardens provide an example of the many demesne related activities thereby contributing context to the site.
Built in 1812 for the 2nd Earl of Landaff, the large Tudor Revival castle incorporated a previous 17th century house, thought to have been designed by Sir William Robinson. Now a ruin, the castle was the victim of the decline of the family’s fortunes and was largely closed up in the early part of the 20th century. Now a spectacular ruin.
The original building was a two storey house of pink brick built in the 1670s by George Mathew with early 18th additions. Wilson decribed it in 1786 as “an ancient but handsome edifice”. In the second decade of the 19th century it was enlarged and transformed into a Gothic castle, designed by Richard Morrison for the 2nd Earl of Llandaff. Viscount Chabot is recorded as the occupier in the mid 19th century. He held the property in fee and the buildings were valued at £100. Bence Jones writes that it later was in the possession of the Daly family but from the mid 1870s it began to decay. William Daly was the occupier in 1906 when the buildings were valued at £61.
The family of MATHEW originated from Wales, where at Radyr, Glamorganshire, they long resided; and possessed the town of Llandaff in that county.
SIR DAVID MATHEW (1400-84), Knight, was Standard-Bearer of EDWARD IV, whose monument is still to be seen in Llandaff Cathedral, Glamorganshire.
EDWARD MATHEW, of Radyr, was possessed, in 1600, of the town of Llandaff, and other estates, which his ancestors enjoyed for time immemorial.
At his decease he left an only son,
GEORGE MATHEW, the first of the family in Ireland, who became seated at Thurles, County Tipperary, and married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Poyntz MP, of Iron Acton, Gloucestershire, and widow of Thomas Butler, Viscount Thurles (who died before his father Walter, 11th Earl of Ormond).
Mr Mathew died in 1636, leaving two sons and a daughter, and was succeeded by the elder son,
THEOBOLD MATHEW, of Thurles, who married Margaret, eldest daughter of Sir Valentine Browne Bt, and was succeeded by his elder son,
GEORGE MATHEW, of Thurles, who wedded Eleanor, second daughter of Edmond, 3rd/13th Baron Dunboyne, and was succeeded by his son,
GEORGE MATHEW, who erected a splendid mansion upon his estate at Thurles, containing forty bedrooms, and ample corresponding accommodation for as many guests.
This gentleman distinguished himself by hospitality upon an unprecedented and almost boundless scale.
He fitted up his sumptuous residence as a guest house of the first magnitude, and his guests were informed upon their arrival, that as such they were to regard it, and to consider themselves, in every sense of the word, quite at home.
They might either live in their own suite of rooms, or at the table d’hôte, as they pleased.
There was a coffee-room, tavern, billiards-room, etc, and Mr Mathew himself appeared only as one of the guests.
This highly accomplished and celebrated person had the degree of LL.D conferred upon him, 1677, by his half-brother James, 1st Duke of Ormond, Chancellor of the University of Oxford.
Mr Mathew wedded firstly, Catherine, third daughter of Sir John Shelley, 3rd Baronet, by Mary, eldest daughter and co-heiress of Sir John Gage Bt, of Firle, East Sussex, and had issue, an only child,
GEORGE, his heir.
He espoused secondly, in 1716, Ann, widow of James, 3rd Earl of Tyrone, by whom he no issue, and at his decease, the estates devolved upon his brother-in-law,
GEORGE MATHEW, married his cousin, Mary Anne Mathew, and had issue,
George (1733-8); Elizabeth.
On the failure of male issue in this branch, the estates devolved to
GEORGE MATHEW, of Thomastown, who wedded firstly, Margaret, fourth daughter of Thomas Butler (grandson of the Lord Richard Butler, younger son of James, 1st Duke of Ormond, by the Lady Margaret Burke, eldest daughter of William, 7th Earl of Clanricarde, and widow of Bryan Magennis, Viscount Iveagh, and had issue, a daughter.
Mr Mathew espoused secondly, Isabella, fourth daughter of William Brownlow, of Lurgan, County Armagh (by the Lady Elizabeth Hamilton, eldest daughter of James, 6th Earl of Abercorn), and had issue, a son, who died in infancy, when the estate devolved upon a junior branch of the family,
THOMAS MATHEW, of Thurles, and subsequently of Thomastown, who married, in 1736, Miss Mary Mathews, of Dublin, and had issue,
FRANCIS, his heir; Catherine Ann Maria.
The only son and heir,
FRANCIS MATHEW (1738-1806), wedded firstly, in 1764, Ellis, second daughter of James Smyth (son of the Rt Rev Edward Smyth, Lord Bishop of Down and Connor), and had issue,
FRANCIS JAMES, his heir; Montague James, Lieutenant-General in the Army; George Toby Skeffington; Elizabeth.
He espoused secondly, in 1784, the Lady Catherine Skeffington; and thirdly, in 1799, ______ Coghlan, second daughter of Jeremiah Coghlan.
Mr Mathew, MP for Tipperary, 1768-83, High Sheriff of County Tipperary, 1769, was elevated to the peerage, in 1783, as Baron Landaff, of Thomastown, County Tipperary; and was advanced to a viscountcy, in 1793, as Viscount Landaff, of Thomastown, County Tipperary.
His lordship was further advanced to the dignity of an earldom, in 1797, as EARL LANDAFF.
He was succeeded by his eldest son,
FRANCIS JAMES, 2nd Earl (1768-1833), MP for County Tipperary, 1801-6, Knight of St Patrick, 1831, who married, in 1797, Gertrude Cecilia, daughter of John La Touche, of Harristown, County Kildare, though the marriage was without issue.
His lordship died of syncope in Dublin, on 12 March 1833, aged 65, when the titles expired.
Dying intestate, his estates went to his sister, the Lady Elizabeth Mathew, who died in 1842, leaving the estates to a cousin, the Vicomte de Chabot, the son of her mother’s sister, Elizabeth Smyth.
THOMASTOWN CASTLE, Golden, County Tipperary, was built by George Matthew and dated from ca 1670.
It comprised a long, two-storey house of pink brick.
The house in its present form was enlarged in the Gothic style by Francis, 2nd Earl Landaff, in 1812.
(Sir) Richard Morrison designed the house incorporating a veneer of Gothic openings, including the ornate polygonal and square towers to the front elevation.
The office wing to the right was also enlarged in the Gothic style.
From ca 1872 the great mansion fell into disrepair to become the impressive and spectacular ruin it is today.
Father Theobald Mathew, the famous temperance reformer whose father was a cousin of the 1st Earl, grew up at the Castle.
The 2nd Earl’s sister, Lady Elizabeth Mathew, bequeathed Thomastown to her maternal cousin, the Vicomte de Rohan-Chabot, son of the Comte de Jarnac.
The estate later passed to the Daly family.
The ruinous building was purchased in 1938 by the Rt Rev David Mathew, the historian, who wished it to be kept in the family and saved from destruction.
This expectation proved to have been in vain.
The arched gate lodge to the east reflects the architecture of the main house and retains many fine details, such as the cross loops and hood mouldings.
The walled gardens provide an example of the many demesne-related activities thereby contributing context to the site.
The Tipperary Gentry. Volume 1. By William Hayes and Art Kavanagh. Published by Irish Family Names, c/o Eneclann, Unit 1, The Trinity Enterprise Centre, Pearse St, Dublin 2, 11 Emerald Cottages, Grand Canal St, Dublin 4 and Market Square, Bunclody, Co Wexford, Ireland. 2003.
Matthew of Thomastown, Annfield and Thurles
p. 135. Viscount Thurles was Thomas Butler the eldest son of Walter the 11th Earl of Ormonde. Thomas’s wife was Elizabeth the daughter of Sir John Poynz of Acton, Gloucester, and she was a Catholic. Thomas died tragically in a drowing accident when he was travelling to Ireland from England in 1619. His widow, Elizabeth, had three sons and four daughters. Elizabeth’s eldest son became the 12th Earl of 1st Duke of Ormonde. She did not remain a widow for long. She married George Mathew of Llandaff, Glamorgan, in 1620. [This enterprising lady managed to save Thurles during the Cromwellian wards by telling Cromwell taht she had refused to allow a Royalist company under Colonel Brian O’Neill to occupy the town and sought Cromwell’s help. This action saved the town of Thurles from being despoiled and saved the Mathew family from being dispossessed.]
George and his widow, Elizabeth, had two sons, Theobald, who founded the Thurles adn Annfield dynasties of Mathew, and George Reihill, later of Thomastown, who managed the estates of the Ormondes in Tipperary [The Peerage has him as the son of Theobald]. In the process George succeeded in acquiring substantial properties himself. The fact that George Reihill married Eleanor Butler, the [p. 136] daughter of Lord Dunboyne and widow of Lord Cahir (another Butler) helped considerably. George raised her young son the 4th Lord Cahir and when he was of age married him off to his niece, Elizabeth. George Reihill was the ancestor of the Thomastown Mathews. [George surrendered Cahir Castle to Cromwell in 1649. Apparently he was warned by his mother, Elizabeth, to follow that course of action as she had done in Thurles]. [ note: the Mathew family of Llandaff adopted “Mathews” with an ‘s’ in the mid 17th century]
When the Duke and Duchess of Ormonde were away in England or in Dublin the maintenance of Kilkenny Castle was the provenance of Captain George Reihill Mathew, their relation. The Duchess bombarded him with orders, “my Lord and I doe so much apprehend the danger to the roof of the old hall of the castle of Kilkenny and he desires it may be secured, repaired and mended with as much speed as may be.” “I desire you will furnish the castle of Kilkenny to be in readiness to receive me, my son and his family in the middle of next month.”
p. 137. When the Lady Cahir died George married another widow, who brought with her a dowry of £10,000. She was the widow of the last Earl of Tyrone [ on my family tree I have her as Anne Rickard (1665-1729) but she is married to his son, George Mathew *. She was married to James de la Poer, 3rd Earl of Tyrone (1666-1704), and they had a child, Catherine de la Poer, Baroness de la Poer (1701-1769)].
She had no children [Anne Rickard, according to this book] and when George died in 1689 she became somewhat isolated in Thomastown. [Thomastown was built around 1670 by George Reihill. Prior to that he had lived in Cahir Castle]. She fled to London in 1690 whre she petitioned the government for help, stating that she, a Protestant, had been driven out of Ireladn by her in-laws who were Catholic. [see Marnane, Land and Violence in West Tipperary].
George Reihill was succeeded by his second son, Theobald, who was also twice married. [the eldest son, George, was educated in England and died on the way home from England in 1666]. He died in 1711. Theobald’s son, George, known as “Grand” George, inherited the estate of Thomastown. In his will, Thomas left several bequests including monies to be put in trust and managed for his three daughters until they got married or reached the age of 21. [The ladies in question were Elizabeth, who married Christopher O’Brien of County Clare, Frances, who married John Butler of Co Tipperary, and Elinor who married Kean O’Hara of County Sligo]. He expected a return of 8% on his money. He left money to the youngest son, Bartholomew, and to his “dear cousin” Major George Mathew of Thurles…
The problem of succession in the Catholic Mathew families contrasts with the almost smooth successions achieved by the families of the Butlers of Cahir and the Ryans of Inch.
p. 138. The Thurles Mathews were fortunate that there were three single male heirs following the death of Theobald Mathew in 1699. This meant that no stratagem had to be used to avoid carving up the estate. However, a failsafe plan was put in place in the event that the male heirs were not forthcoming. In 1713 a settlement was put in place, which ensured that in default of male heirs the estate would go to the Annfield and Thomastown branches successively. Similar plans must have been put in place in the other Mathew properties because in 1738 the Thurles and Thomastown estates were joined because of the failure of direct heirs in Thomastown. It should be noted that “Grand” George Mathew who died in 1738 had converted in the early years of the 18th century. This inheritance did put a strain on the Thurles owner, George Mathew, who felt it incumbent to change his religion in 1740.
p. 138. Theobald of Thurles (who died in 1699) did in fact have several sons and daughters himself. He was married three times. By his first wife, Margaret the daughter of Sir valentine Browne he had three sons, George, known as Major George who inherited in 1699, Edmund who died young and James who married Elizabeth Bourke, daughter of the 3rd Baron Brittas. [he is acknowledged to be the father of James Mathew of Thomastown and later of Rathclogheen, who was adopted by his cousin and guardian the 1st Earl of Llandaff. James of Rathclogheen is the ancestor of the modern day Mathews] James had no family. He also had two daughters – Elizabeth who married the 4th Lord Cahir, and Anne who married Viscount Galmoy [ 3rd]
By his second marriage to the heiress, Anne Salle of Killough Castle, County tipperary, he had one son….[see tree]
The Annfield branch of the family found life a little more complicated in that Theobald of Annfield, who inherited in 1714 had two brothers. However there is no record on any legal pressure being applied to compel the family to comply with the penal laws of inheritance.
p. 139. When Theobald died in 1745 the estate went to his son Thomas Mathew. [Thomas had three sons and two daughters, one of whom, Mary, married John Ryan of Inch. The sons were Theobald, who inherited in 1714, Edmund who died in 1772 and James of Borris who married the heiress Anne Morres. They had one daughter who married her cousin Charles Mathew.]
Again there does not seem to have been any pressure put on Thomas to divide the estate. Howver, in 1755 just prior to Parliament considering framing anti-Catholic laws Thomas decided to convert. The fact that his relation, George Mathew of Thurles, who had inherited Thomastown, was now elderly and had no male heir may have been a contributory factor also. George died in 1760 and Thomas Mathew of Annfield now became the sole owner of all the Mathew properties.
p. 141. Thomastown had been repaired and reconstruction began in 1711. [ W. Nolan in Tipperary History and Society] It was reported that “Grand” George Mathew and his family lived ‘frugally’ on the continent for seven years on £600 a year in order to devote his £8,000 rental to the laying out of his 1500 acre demesne and the fitting out of the house with forty bedrooms. [T. Power in Land, Politics and Society in 18th Century Tipperary]…
“Grand” George of Thomastown turned Protestant in the early decades of the 18th century and was elected an MP for County Tipperary. George sat as a Tory and a supporter of the 2nd Duke of Ormonde. He was also elected MP for the period 1727-1736. He died two years later. This was the same George Mathew who was visited by Dean Swift in 1719. In 1704 he was one of nine Catholics in the country who were given licenses to carry arms. However this situation changed after 1715 when the government ordered the seizure of Catholics horses and arms. At some stage in th following years George adn his son were apprehended and searched for arms.
The other two branches of the family remained Catholic. When Lady Thurles died she left her second son Theobald the town and manor of Thurles and an estate of four thousand acres. He was married three times and his second wife was Anne Sall, an heiress. Theobald gave her esate to his second son Thomas and so began the Annfield family. The changes in land ownership, which was effected by the necessity of the Ormonde Duke to reduce his overwhelming debts, benefited many landowners in Tipperary, including the Mathew famiy. They used the opportunity to consolidate and expand their holdings. [other families to benefit were Sadleir, Coote, Langley, Baker, Cleere, Dawson, Dancer and Harrison – T. Power in Land, Politics and Society in 18th C Tipperary]
p. 142. The Mathew family owned Thurles town and because of their patronage the Catholic Butler bishop was allowed to live there. [Whelan in Tipperary society and history]. In addition the Mathew family of Annfield built Inch and Thurles chapels. A plaque on the wall of the chapel, which was built in 1730 in Thurles, stated that it was built by “Big” George Mathew. He was the George Mathew of thurles who married his stepsister Martha Eaton. He was also the son of the Major mentioned above.
The Thomastown dynasty came to an abrupt end with the death of “Grand” George and his grandson who both died in 1738. “Grand” George’s son, Theobald, had died two years earlier in 1736. He was married to a cousin from Thurles, Mary Ann Mathew. Her brother, George of Thurles inherited Thomastown at this time. As George of Thurles had no sons the Thomastown and Thurles estates passed into the ownershop of Thomas of Annfield in 1760. The will, transferring the ownership, was contested unsuccessfully by Margaret the daughter of George of Thurles.
Thomas had converted to the Church of Ireland in 1755 and he was returned an MP for Tipperary in 1761. In the turbulent political climate of the times, his election was seen as a triumph for the pro Catholic interest in the county. Thomas was perceived as being of dubious conformity himself. He conformed again in 1762. He was elected MP again [p. 143] in 1768 but by a very small margin of 25 votes. On petition the result was overturned. Unlike the Pritties who were very widely connected with teh Protestant landowning classes, Thomas Mathew had to rely on his own voters and whatver support he could must from among the more liberal gentry.
…Thomas Mathew’s son Francis was perceived as being a closet Catholic. However, he was fortunate in that he had John Scott (later Lord Clonmell) as his brother-in-law. Scott became solicitor-general and was very influential in government circles. Through his influence, Francis, formerly an opposition MP, became a government supporter and this led to his elevation to the peerage as Lord Llandaff in 1784. Though he had, to some extent, changed his allegiance, he still championed the Catholic cause right up to the end of the century and beyond.
The Act of 1778, which gave an enormous measure of relief to the Catholics, was widely welcomed by the Catholics in Tipperary. The men most associated with the carriage of the Act were Francis Mathew of Thomastown, Lord Clonmel (John Scott, brother in law of Francis, Sir William Osborne and John Hely-Hutchinson. [This close association between Lord Clonell and Francis Mathew wasn’t always harmonious. According to Barrington, in his Reminiscences, Lord Clonmell fought duels with Lord Llandaff, Lord Tryawley and others.] p. 144. The main features of the Act were (1) the removal of the requirement that Catholic property had to be divided among the surviving sons (2) leases could now be given for more than 31 yers (3) the removal of the decree that a son who converted would get immediate possession making his parent a tenant for life only. The Act would only apply to people who took the Oath of Allegiance. …
That is not to say that Francis favoured any change in the status quo with regard to property rights. During the heyday of Whiteboyism he stood four square with the landlords. After the murder of Ambrose Power, a landlord, in 1775, over sixty of the leading figures in Tipperary including Francis Mathew nd Thomas Maude, pledged their lives and fortunes to suppress Whiteboyism.
With the re-emergence of considerable agrarian unrest, the American war of Independence and threatened French invasions, Volunteer Corps were founded all over Ireland. ..Each corps ws comprised of about forty rank and file members drawn from the head tenantry or from friends or associates of the Colonel. Francis Mathew had three corps, one in each of his main holdings at thomastown, Annfield and Thurles.
…p. 145. Francis was made Baron Llandaff of Thomastown in 1783 and he was later made Earl of Llandaff in 1797. The Earl lived the life of a Lord and entertained and was entertained royally. ..
In 1812 Francis the 2nd Earl employed the architect Richard Morrison to “throw a Gothic cloak over the earlier house” (at Thomastown)…
Fortuitous marriages brought additional wealth to the Mathew family starting with George the first Mathew to arrive in Tipperary, who married the widow of Viscount Thurles. His soon George Reihill married the widow of Lord Cahir who was also the daughter of Lord Dunboyne. “Grand” George Mathew, a grandson of George Reihill, married as his second wife Lady Ann Hume who brought him an estate worth £10,000 in the 1680s. He converted the title to his own use and that of his heirs and used the money to make further land purchases. Francis Mathew the 1st Earl received £10,000 with Ellis Smyth of Wicklow when they married in 1764.
…Francis was in serious debt when he inherited in 1777 due largely to marriage payments and unpaid debts from previous generations. Trustees were appointed by Parliament to unravel his affairs and lands had to be disposed of.
When he died in 1806 the estate was still very much in debt for a variety of reaons one of which was his sponsoring a bill to bring a water supply to Thomastown Castle.
p. 147. Francis teh 2nd Earl died in 1833. He had been predeceased by his brother Montague in 1819. His second brother George was insane and had died in 1832, so teh estates passed to Elizabeth his sister. She too died unmarried in 1841.
While the main branch of the family disappeared the Mathew name was kept aloive…For example, Francis Mathew of Rockview House who was mentioned in the will of Elizabeth was married twice and had four sons and two daughters. ..
Thomastown Castle, County Tipperary, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Many people in Ireland will be familiar with the name of Theobald Mathew, a 19th century Roman Catholic priest who became known as the Apostle of Temperance. A member of the Capuchin order, in 1838 Fr Mathew, witnessing the problems arising from excessive consumption of alcohol, founded the Total Abstinence Society in Cork city, where he was then living. Within nine months some 150,000 persons had enrolled in this organisation and at its height during the late 1840s it is estimated that half the population of Ireland were members. What may be less well known is that Theobald Mathew was related to a wealthy, and Protestand, landed family and grew up at Thomastown Castle, County Tipperary where his father acted as agent to a cousin, the first Earl of Landaff. Now a striking ruin, Thomastown was for several centuries the seat of the Mathew family. Of Welsh origin (hence the choice of name for their title), they were connected through marriage to the Butlers, and thus acquired land in this part of the country. As was so often the case, a series of judicious marital alliances made them exceedingly rich, allowing the construction of a large residence in the late 17th/early 18th centuries. In Town and Country in Ireland under the Georges (1940) Constantia Maxwell provides an excellent account of life there in the years after the house had been built by Thomas Mathew. The building was ‘surrounded by gardens adorned with terraces, statuary, and fish ponds, and by a park of some two thousand acres stocked with deer. Mr Mathew, besides being very rich, was held to be one of the finest gentlemen of the age, and, having travelled much on the Continent and lived in London and Dublin, had a large circle of friends. Nothing gave him so much pleasure as to invite these to Thomastown, where he had no less than forty guest-rooms, besides handsome accommodation for servants. The guests in his house were invited to order anything they might wish for, as at an inn; they might seat themselves at the dining-room table without paying irksome respect to rank, or, if they preferred it, dine with chosen companions in their own rooms. A large room was fitted up as a city coffee-house with newspapers and chessboards, where servants had been ordered to bring refreshments at any time of the day. For those who liked sport fishing tackle was provided, as well as guns and ammunition, while hounds and hunters were available in the stables. But, although everything at Thomastown was on such a lavish scale, there was no disorder or waste, for Mr Mathew rose early every morning to look over the accounts, and his servants were well paid, and forbidden to take tips.’ A description of life at Thomastown was provided by Thomas Sheridan in his biography of Jonathan Swift described how the later was so delighted with Thomas Mathew’s hospitality that instead of staying for a fortnight, as originally intended, he remained there for four months.
Thomastown Castle, County Tipperary, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Thomastown Castle, County Tipperary, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Thomastown Castle, County Tipperary, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Thomastown Castle, County Tipperary, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
As mentioned, the house at Thomastown was once surrounded by splendid gardens. Writing in 1778, Thomas Campbell noted that not only was the setting perfect, with the Galtee Mountains ‘set at such a due distance that they are the finest termination for a prospect a painter could desire’ but ‘behind the house is a square parterre, with flowers, with terraces thickly studded with busts and statues; before it, a long and blind avenue, planted with treble rows of well-grown trees, extends its awkward length. In the centre of this, and on the acclivity of the hill, are little fish ponds, pond above pond. The whole park is thrown into squares and parallelograms, with numerous avenues fenced and planted.’ By the time Campbell visited, this style of garden had fallen out of fashion, so he tut-tutted that ‘if a hillock dared to interpose its little head, it was cut off as an excrescence, or at least cut through; that the roads might be everywhere as level as they are straight. Thus was this delightful spot treated by some Procrustes of the last age.’ A few years later, Joseph Cooper Walker was just as critical of Thomastown’s gardens. ‘They lie principally on the gentle declivity of an hill,’ he explained, ‘resting on terraces, and filled with “statues thick as trees”. A long fish pond, sleeping under “a green mantle” between two rectilineous banks, appears in the midst. And in one corner stands a verdant theatre (once the scene of several dramatic exhibitions) displaying all the absurdity of the architecture of gardening. Thus did our ancestors, governed by the false taste which they imbibed from the English, disfigure, with unsuitable ornaments, the simple garb of nature.’ Not much later, perhaps when the second Earl of Landaff, who inherited title and estate on his father’s death in 1806, transformed the house, these by-now old-fashioned gardens were largely swept away in favour of open parkland.
Thomastown Castle, County Tipperary, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Thomastown Castle, County Tipperary, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Thomastown, as previously mentioned, was originally a late 17th/early 18th century house of two storeys, the centre just one room deep with projecting wings forming a short entrance courtyard. However, it appears that the generous Thomas Mathew enlarged the house by filling in the space between the wings to create a dining room, some 50 feet long and 20 feet deep, no doubt to feed all the guests he entertained. Several generations later, the second Earl of Landaff decided to alter the building’s appearance by giving it a Gothick makeover. In 1812 the architect Richard Morrison was commissioned to come up with a design for the place. The original entrance arcade was now glazed to create a Great Hall, while the first-floor gallery became a gothic-style library. However, the drawing room retained its classical decoration, with screens of scagliola columns at either end, a typical Morrison flourish which can still be seen in the library at Ballyfin, County Laois. Meanwhile, the exterior was ornamented with a crenellated parapet and a series of octagonal turrets topped with dart-like finials. As Mark Bence-Jones noted, from a distance these look like rabbits’ ears. A kitchen and service wing at right-angles to the house was also thoroughly dressed in Tudor-Gothic decoration, although a stone tower at the corner of the range is in Norman style. The entire building was covered in stucco, which was then rather oddly painted pale blue. An engraving of the completed work made by John PrestonNeale in 1819 although this included an unexecuted family wing and a more simple service range than that actually constructed. The second earl had no children and following his death, Thomastown passed to a sister Lady Elizabeth Mathew who in turn left the estate to a cousin of her mother, the Vicomte de Chabot. Before the end of the 19th century, it had come into the possession of the Dalys of Dunsandle, County Galway but seemingly by then the house was already falling into ruin. And so it has remained, with much of the central block, where those hospitable dinners were once given, long since collapsed. Today the only diners seen here are cattle.
Thomastown Castle, County Tipperary, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Thomastown Castle gate tower, County Tipperary, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Thomastown Castle gate tower, County Tipperary, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
After Monday’s post explaining the history of Thomastown Castle, County Tipperary, these pictures might be of interest since they show the gate tower that formerly gave access to the main house. It dates from around 1812 and was likewise designed by Richard Morrison: note the Mathew family coat of arms prominently displayed over the gateway. Aside from this detail, the building is almost identical to a similar gate tower at the entrance to the demesne of Borris House, County Carlow. This was also designed by Morrison and at the same date: one wonders if the estates’ respective owners ever noticed or remarked on the duplication?
Thomastown Castle gate tower, County Tipperary, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Thomastown Castle gate tower, County Tipperary, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
In recent days, I have been writing about tangled family trees and difficult marriages that led to questions about the inheritance of titles and estates in the Townshend familyand the Leeson family.
In the Townshend family, scandals and a bigamous marriage threatened the succession to both the title of Marquess Townshend and the ownership of Tamworth Castle. In the Leeson family, a tangled family tree led to the loss of Russborough House in Co Wicklow and the disappearance of the title of Earl of Milltown.
Similar stories are told about the Mathew family of Thomastown, Co Tipperary, and the claims to the title of Earl Landaff.
The Mathew family claimed descent from a branch of the Matthew family of Radyr in Glamorgan, in south Wales. There are three 15th and 16th century Mathew family effigies In Llandaff Cathedral.
George Mathew sold his estate at Radyr in the mid-17th and moved to Co Tipperary. He became the owner of Thomastown Castle, near Thurles, when he married Elizabeth Poyntz (1587-1673), Lady Thurles, widow of Thomas Butler, Viscount Thurles.
It was a marriage that brought George Mathew into a powerful and influential family circle, and he was the stepfather of James Butler (1610-1688), 1st Duke of Ormond.
George Mathew died in 1638, but the Mathew family maintained close connections with the Ormond Butlers in the generations that followed. In 1666, George Mathew was granted a large estate in Co Tipperary, including part of Thomastown. The original Thomastown Castle was a two-storey house of pink brick built in the 1670s by George Mathew with early 18th additions.
Thomastown Castle was the birthplace and early home of Father Mathew, the ‘Apostle of Temperance,’ and his father was a cousin of Thomas Mathew and worked for him as his agent.
Thomas Mathew of Annefield succeeded to the Mathew estates of Thomastown and Thurles in 1760. Wilson described Thomastown Castle in 1786 as ‘an ancient but handsome edifice.’ Thomas was succeeded by his son Francis Mathew in 1777 who was given the title of Earl Landaff in 1797.
Francis Mathew (1738-1806), 1st Earl Landaff, had been MP for Tipperary in the Irish House of Commons in 1768-1783, and was High Sheriff of Tipperary. He was made a member of the Irish House of Lords in 1783 with the title of Baron Landaff, of Thomastown, in Co Tipperary. In 1793, he received the higher title of Viscount Landaff, and in 1797 he was made Earl Landaff.
The Earls Landaff used the invented courtesy title Viscount Mathew for the heir apparent. Despite their territorial designations, the misspelling of Llandaff as Landaff, and the fact that the titles were in the Irish Peerage, the titles all referred to the place in Glamorgan now spelt Llandaff. After the Act of Union, Lord Landaff was elected as one of the 28 Irish peers to the British House of Lords.
This Lord Landaff was married three times. On 6 September 1764, he married Elisha Smyth (1743-1781) in Bellinter, Co Meath. She was a sister of Sir Skeffington Smyth of Tinney Park, Co Wicklow. They had four children, three sons and two daughters: Francis James Mathew, later 2nd Earl of Landaff; General Montague Mathew (1773-1819); the Hon George Toby Skeffington Mathew (died 1832); and Lady Elizabeth Mathew (died 1842).
In 1784, he married his second wife, Lady Catherine Skeffington (1752-1796), a daughter of Clotworthy Skeffington, 1st Earl of Massereene. They had no children, and in 1799 he married his third wife, a woman named Coghlan from Ardo, Co Waterford.
When he died in 1806, he was succeeded in his titles by his eldest son from his first marriage, Francis James Mathew (1768-1833), 2nd Earl Landaff, who had been known by the courtesy title of Viscount Mathew. He was MP for Tipperary in the Irish House of Commons (1790-1792), Callan (1796) and again for Tipperary (1796-1801). As Earl Landaff, he also took his father’s place as an Irish representative peer in the House of Lords.
He opposed the Act of Union, supported Catholic Emancipation, and was seen as ‘a personal enemy of George IV’ when he gave evidence in favour of Queen Charlotte regarding her conduct at the Court of Naples during her famous trial.
Thomastown Castle was enlarged in the early 19th century, and transformed into a Gothic castle, designed by Richard Morrison for Francis James Mathew, the 2nd Earl Landaff.
Lord Landaff married Gertrude Cecilia La Touche, a daughter of John La Touche, of Harristown, Co Kildare. They had no children, and he died in Dublin on 12 March 1833, aged 65.
Lord Landaff’s next brother, Lieut-Gen Montague James Mathew (1773-1819), had died 14 years earlier, on 19 March 1819, and so the family titles became extinct. General Mathew was MP for for Ballynakill in the Irish Parliament until 1800, and MP for Co Tipperary in Westminster in 1806-1819. He was a Whig and a supporter of Catholic Emancipation.
Their youngest brother, the Hon George Toby Skeffington Mathew, also died in 1832. So, when the second earl died, the family titles became extinct, and the estates passed to his sister, Lady Elizabeth Mathew. The Ordnance Survey Name Books record Lady Elizabeth Mathew owned townlands in the parish of Kilfeacle, barony of Clanwilliam, in 1840.
When she died in 1842, she left the family estates and fortune to a cousin, the Vicomte de Chabot, the son of her mother’s sister Elizabeth Smyth. Viscount Chabot was living at Thomastown Castle in the mid-19th century. Later it was owned by the Daly family, but from the mid-1870s it began to decay from the mid-1870s. William Daly was living there in 1906.
As Thomastown Castle crumbled and decayed, a number of pretenders came forward, claiming they were the rightful holders of the title Earl Landaff and heirs to the castle. The most outrageous of these pretenders was Arnold Harris Mathew (1852-1919), self-styled de jure 4th Earl Landaff, also self-styled Count Povoleri di Vicenza.
Mathew was also the founder and first bishop of the self-styled Old Roman Catholic Western Orthodox Church in Great Britain, an Old Catholic Church. His episcopal consecration was declared null and void by the Union of Utrecht’s International Old Catholic Bishops’ Conference. In addition, he was excommunicated by Pope Pius X for illicitly consecrating two priests as bishops which led a London jury to find that ‘the words were true in substance and in fact’ that he was a ‘pseudo-bishop.’
He claimed his father, Major Arnold Henry Ochterlony Mathew, who died in 1894, was the third Earl Landaff, and the son of Major Arnold Nesbit Mathew, of the Indian Army. According to these claims, this Major Arnold Mathew was, in turn, the eldest son of the 1st Earl Landaff, born in Paris five months after his parents married.
This claim was later shown to be based on invented and fictitious information. Arnold Nesbit Mathew originally used the name Matthews, as did his son. He was, in fact, the son of William Richard Matthews and his wife Anne, of Down Ampney in Gloucestershire. Incidentally, Down Ampney was also the home village of the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958(, who composed the tune ‘Down Ampney’ for the hymn ‘Come down, O love divine’
Arnold Harris Mathew put forward his claim to the Garter Principal King of Arms for the title of 4th Earl Landaff of Thomastown, Co Tipperary, in 1890, and placed his creative pedigree on the official record at the College of Arms.
John H Matthews, Cardiff archivist, said in 1898 that the number of claimants to the dormant or extinct earldom was ‘legion.’ In his opinion, Arnold Henry Mathew’s pedigree was ‘too extra-ordinary to commend itself to an impartial mind.’
Nevertheless, Arnold Henry Mathew presented his petition to the House of Lords in 1899, claiming a right to vote with the Irish peers for representative peers in the House of Lords. In his petition, he did not repeat other exuberant claims, including one that his grandmother was Eliza Francesca Povoleri, was an Italian countess and the daughter of a Papal marchese.
His petition was read and referred to the Lord Chancellor, Lord Halsbury, who reported in 1902 that Mathew’s claim ‘is of such a nature that it ought to be referred to the Committee for Privileges; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.’
Mark Bence Jones in a feature in Country Life says Archbishop Mathew also bought the ruins of Thomastown Castle and 20 acres surrounding it to save it from destruction.
Mathew’s aristocratic pretensions, like his life as a ‘wandering bishop,’ were fantasies that continue to resurface in the claims of fantasists and pretenders in many walks of life.
When he died on 19 December 1919, the claims to the Mathew title did not come to an end.
As recently as 1987, a mural memorial was erected in Llandaff Cathedral, claiming it was: ‘In memory of Thomas James Mathew son and heir of Francis James Mathew second Earl of Landaff born in London 1798 died in Cape Town 1862.’ The memorial includes a full display of the coat of arms of the Mathew family of Co Tipperary as Earls Landaff, and the misspelling of Llandaff as Landaff.
Templemore Abbey, County Tipperary entrance and garden fronts c. 1880, photograph: collection Sir John Carden, Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 271. “(Carden, Bt, of Templemore/PB) Templemore Castle, the original seat of the Carden family, was detroyed by fire towards mid-C18; after which a handsome nine bay house was built elsewhere on the demesne. This house was demolished early C19 and a new house built on a more elevated site in demesne adjoining the original park to the west; it was originally known as Templemore Priory, but afterwards called Templemore Abbey. In 1819, this house was no more than a single-stoey Gothic cottage with a very tall round tower and a crocketed square tower but it was subsequently greatly enlarged by William Vitruvius Morrison, in the Tudor-Gothic style….it was burnt 1922.”
Templemore Abbey, County Tipperary, dining room c. 1880 photograph: collection Sir John Carden, 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.John Craven Carden, 1st Baronet by Robert Hunter courtesy of Adam’s auction 13 Oct 2015. This portrait of John Craven Carden is in the uniform of the Templemore Light Dragoons, a volunteer regiment raised in response to the withdrawal of regular troops required for the American War but which rapidly acquired political leverage. Carden had inherited large estates in Tipperary acquired in the Cromwellian settlement of the 17th Century. Although without parliamentry influence, Carden represented landed interests which the Castle administration were keen to control. Bribes were measured and Carden was made a baronet in 1787. He proved to be a sound man in the 1798 rebellion and by fortifying the Market House in Templemore denied the town to the rebels. He also leased the land for a barracks (now the Garda Training College) and donated the site of the Catholic Church in 1810.
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.
Constructed on the site of an earlier house, Templemore Abbey was a vast neo-Gothic mansion designed by one of the masters of the genre in Ireland, William Vitruvius Morrison. The building contains elements of much of Morrison’s best work in the style, Elizabethan gables, battlements and turrets.
Sadly the building was torched during the War of Independence after it had been used by British forces as a base for B Company of the Auxiliaries. After they left the building in May 1921, it was destroyed in an arson attack.
THE CARDEN BARONETS OWNED 6,680 ACRES OF LAND IN COUNTY TIPPERARY
This family, which is of antiquity, removed from Lincolnshire into Ireland about the middle of the 17th century.
The name is local, being derived from the township of Cawarden, or Carden, which lies about eleven miles south-south-east from Chester, which manor was the original inheritance of the family; but the elder branch terminating in co-heiresses, the manor of Over-Carden was carried by marriage into the family of Felton, about the end of the 16th century.
A branch of the family had been settled in Kent, where it appears that it had been for several generations possessed of the manor of Hodford; but that estate was alienated during the reign of ELIZABETH I, by John Carden, to the family of Cobbe, when there is reason to believe that the Cardens of Kent removed into Lincolnshire, and that from them diverged the Irish branch, springing from
JOHN CARDEN (c1623-1728), who settled at Templemore, County Tipperary, about 1650, and married Priscilla, daughter of John Kent, of County Kilkenny, by whom he had issue,
Jonathan, ancestor of CARDEN OF BARNANE; JOHN, of whom we treat; William; Margery; Anne; Abigail; Margaret; two other daughters.
Mr Carden died at the extraordinary age of 105. His second son,
JOHN CARDEN, of Templemore, wedded, in 1717, Rebecca, daughter of Humphrey Minchin, of Ballynakill, and had issue,
JOHN, his heir; Minchin; Paul.
The eldest son,
JOHN CARDEN (1720-74), of Templemore, espoused, in 1747, Elizabeth, daughter and heir of the Rev Robert Craven, and had (with other issue),
JOHN CRAVEN, his heir; Christiana.
The eldest son,
JOHN CRAVEN CARDEN (c1758-1820), of Templemore, married firstly, in 1776, Mary, daughter of Arthur, 1st Viscount Harberton, and had issue,
John (1777-1811); ARTHUR, his heir; another son.
He wedded secondly, in 1781, Sarah, daughter of John Moore, and had issue,
Annesley; Gertrude; another daughter.
Mr Carden espoused thirdly, in 1788, Mary Frances, daughter of Henry Westenra, and sister of Warner William, 2nd Baron Rossmore, and had further issue,
HENRY ROBERT, 2nd Baronet; Harriet Amelia; Frances.
He married fourthly, Anne, widow of the Viscount Monck.
Mr Carden was created a baronet in 1787, denominated of Templemore, County Tipperary.
He raised and commanded the 30th Regiment of Light Dragoons, which, with many other regiments, was reduced at the peace of Amiens.
Sir John was succeeded by his eldest son,
SIR ARTHUR CARDEN, 2nd Baronet (1778-1822), High Sheriff of County Tipperary, 1820, who wedded Mary, daughter of Thomas Kemmis, of Shaen, Queen’s County; but dying without issue, the title devolved upon his half-brother,
SIR HENRY ROBERT CARDEN (1789-1847), of Templemore, High Sheriff of County Tipperary, 1824, who espoused, in 1818, Louisa, daughter of Frederick Thompson, of Dublin, and had issue,
JOHN CRAVEN, his successor; Frederick; Henry Daniel; Arthur (Rev); Elizabeth Caroline; Sarah Sophia; Frances Mary.
Sir Henry was succeeded by his eldest son,
SIR JOHN CRAVEN CARDEN, 4th Baronet (1819-79), DL, High Sheriff of County Tipperary, 1849, who married firstly, in 1844, Caroline Elizabeth Mary, daughter of Sir William Mordaunt Sturt Milner Bt, and had issue,
Beatrice Georgina; three other daughters.
He wedded secondly, in 1852, Julia Isabella, daughter of Admiral Charles Gepp Robinson, and had further issue,
JOHN CRAVEN, his successor; Henry Charles; Frederick Richard; Coldstream James; Derrick Alfred, ancestor of the 8th Baronet; Julia Ellen Beatrice; Norah Irene; Eileen Olive.
Sir John was succeeded by his eldest son,
SIR JOHN CRAVEN CARDEN, 5th Baronet (1854-1931), JP DL, High Sheriff of County Tipperary, 1882, who espoused, in 1891, Sybil Martha, daughter of General Valentine Baker, and had issue,
JOHN VALENTINE, his successor; Audrey.
Sir John, the last of the family to live at Templemore Abbey, was succeeded by his son and heir,
SIR JOHN VALENTINE CARDEN, 6th Baronet (1892-1935), MBE, Captain, Royal Army Service Corps, who married firstly, in 1915, Vera Madeleine, daughter of William Henry Hervet-d’Egville; and secondly, in 1925, Dorothy Mary, daughter of Charles Luckraft McKinnon, by whom he had issue, an only child,
SIR JOHN CRAVEN CARDEN, 7th Baronet (1926-2008), of Jersey, Channel Islands, who wedded, in 1947, Isabel Georgette, daughter de Hart, and had issue, an only child, ISABEL MARY.
Sir John died without male issue, when the title passed to his distant cousin,
TEMPLEMORE ABBEY, County Tipperary, replaced an earlier castle which was destroyed by a fire in the mid-18th century.
In its place another house was erected, though it, too, was demolished in the early 1800s and a new residence was constructed on an elevated location some distance from the original building.
It was called Templemore Priory, though its name was changed subsequently to Templemore Abbey.
This residence was relatively modest, similar to a single-storey Gothic cottage; it was, however, considerably increased in size, ca 1865, by the architect William Vitruvius Morrison in the Tudor-Gothic style.
This was said to have cost £36,000 (£4.3 million in today’s money).
The completed mansion afforded a two-storey entrance front, with finials, oriels, gables, and a castellated parapet.
There was also a long, irregular side elevation.
The Abbey was burnt to the ground in 1922 by the IRA.
Shanbally Castle, County Tipperary, garden front during demolition c. 1957. Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 257. “[O’Callaghan, Lismore, V/PB1898; Butler, sub Ormonde, M/PB; Pole-Carew, sub Pole, Bt/pb] The largest of John Nash’s Irish castles, built ca 1812 for Cornelius O’Callaghan, 1stViscount Lismore. Long and irregular, of smooth silver-grey ashlar; with round and octagon towers, battlements and machicolations. ..2nd and last Viscount Lismore left Shanbally to his cousins, Lady Beatrice Pole-Carew and Lady Constance Butler, daughters of 3rd Marquess of Ormonde; it was sold by Major Patrick Pole-Carew 1954. After a valiant but unsuccessful attempt by Hon Edward Sackville-West (5th Lord Sackville), the author and music critic, to rescue it, the house was demolished 1957 and its ruin dynamited.”
Cornelius O’Callaghan (d. 1797) 1st Baron Lismore by Hugh Douglas Hamilton courtesy Christies British Watercolours.Shanbally Castle, County Tipperary, photograph by Robert French, (between ca. 1865-1914), Lawrence Photograph Collection, National Library of Ireland.Shanbally Castle, County Tipperary, photograph by Robert French, (between ca. 1865-1914), Lawrence Photograph Collection, National Library of Ireland.Shanbally Castle, County Tipperary, photograph by Robert French, (between ca. 1865-1914), Lawrence Photograph Collection, National Library of Ireland.Shanbally Castle, County Tipperary, photograph by Robert French, (between ca. 1865-1914), Lawrence Photograph Collection, National Library of Ireland.
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. 136. “John Nash’s most important and largest Irish castle. Built c. 1806 for Cornelius O’Callaghan 1st Viscount Lismore. The very fine interior included a vaulted entrance hall lit by a series of glass skylights, a splendid oak imperial main staircase and an oval drawing-room.
The castle in good repair was sold in 1954 and despite protests in the press was demolished in 1957. Its destruction was one of Ireland’s great architectural losses this century.”
entry in MacDonnell, Randal. The Lost Houses of Ireland. A chronicle of great houses and the families who lived in them. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. London, 2002
p. 191 “The largest of John Nash’s four Irish castles, Shanbally was in excellent condition when the protectors of Ireland’s heritage in the Irish civil service decided to allow its demolition. Roofed and in good repair at the time it was pulled down, Shanbally’s destruction was one of the most pointless acts of official vandalism in the history of the Irish state.”
p. 192. Nash’s other castles in Ireland were Ravensworth, Caerbays and Aqualate. Shanbally also had the distinction that it was built, not for the descendent o some Cromwellian carpetbagger, but for the scion of an old Irish famiy, Cornelius O’Callaghan.
[pages ripped out]
The Tipperary Gentry. Volume 1. By William Hayes and Art Kavanagh. Published by Irish Family Names, c/o Eneclann, Unit 1, The Trinity Enterprise Centre, Pearse St, Dublin 2, 11 Emerald Cottages, Grand Canal St, Dublin 4 and Market Square, Bunclody, Co Wexford, Ireland. 2003.
O’Callaghan of Shanbally.
p. 163. Cornelius O’Callaghan [1693-1741] was a small county Cork landowner and successful Dublin lawyer. He was Sir Redmond Everard’s solicitor and facilitated him in getting mortgages. Like Redmond he was a convert. In 1713 he and Redmond represented Fethard in Parliament. It is probably that O’Callaghan’s political advancement was paid for by a reduction in Everard’s debts. In 1721 Everard sold his property in Iffa and Offa and centred on Clogheen to O’Callaghan for £11,500. The O’Callaghan family built upon this base and extended their holdings during the next 150 years so that by the mid-19C they were the county’s largest landholders. In 1883 the Lismore estates totalled a staggering 42,000 acres. In Tipperary they owned almost 35,000 acres, while they owned 6000 acres in Cork and over 1000 acres in Limerick. The rent roll was valued at over £16,000 per annum.
…Lord Lismore in his will of 1787 stipulated that his younger son lay out £9,999 in the purchase of lands, and in 1803 his heir bought an estate in Co Laois for £43,620.
p. 164. …the O’Callaghans were noted for their sympathetic approach to the Catholic Relief movement.
The O’Callaghans spent considerable sums over the decades of the 18C improving their estates, building Clogheen village (where Protestant artisans and craftsmen were brought in), drainage schemes, and large scale remodelling of the landscape. These works were facilitated by the appointment of agents. …
p. 160. [Cornelius O’Callaghan 1st Viscount Lismore divorced his wife, Eleanor Butler.] It would seem from the evidence that the marriage ran into trouble shortly after the fourth child was born when Lady Lismore began the habit of chastising her husband, both verbally and physically. According to her brother, the Duke of Ormond, she was a lady who frequently lost her temper. George O’Callaghan gave evidence that he had seen her strike her husband on more than one occasion. In addition she frequently taunted him by stating that Shanbally might be fit for the wife of Lord Lismore but was not fit for Eleanor the sister of the Duke of Ormonde.
p. 161. One of the most startling facts to emerge was that, at the time of the separation, Lord Lismore was in extreme financial difficulty. Although he owned over 40,000 acres of land and despite having received almost £40,000 as a dowry with Eleanor he was reduced to dire straits in the period from 1816-1825. His brother stated that he had only one servant in Shanbally and owned only one carriage and no carriage horse. He also said that in 1817 Lord Lismore was so financially embarressed that he could not travel over to London to see his wife….
The couple was separated in 1819 and Lady Lismore, on the advice of her doctors, decided to travel to a southern country where the climate might be good for her asthma….while in Italy the second time she took a lover, Richard Bingham…[p. 162] It was on the grounds of this adultery that Lord Lismore sought the divorce…. The children were reared by their father.
The seat of the O’Callaghans was at Shanbally Castle, near Clogheen village, where they built a mansion around 1735. There was over 1200 acres of land in the demesne. After the peerage was obtained in 1785 their house was renewed as a castle in 1812. [the castle was unfortunately demolished in 1957]. The new neo-classical house was designed by John Nash….
p. 166. 1st Baron Lismore of Shanbally died in 1797 at a relatively young age. His widow moved to Tunbridge Wells where she remained for the rest of her life until her death in 1827. They had at least two sons, Cornelius and robert William
[the son Cornelius] took his seat in the House of Lords nd voted against the Act of Union in 1800.
[Robert William had an active military career]
In 1806 Cornelius was created Viscount Lismore of Shanbally and in 1838 he was created Baron Lismore of Shanbally Castle. This was one of the Coronation Peerages of Queen Victoria…. Baron Lismore was Lord Lieutenant for Tipperary from 1851 until his death.
p. 167. During the Famine the Lismores worked extremely hard to alleviate the sufferings of the poor. Lord Lismore reduced their rents and provided a soup kitchen at hte gates of his castle. He was describedd as one of Ireland’s benevolent landlords and the town of Clogheen grew and prospered after the Famine.
THE VISCOUNTS LISMORE WERE THE LARGEST LANDOWNERS IN COUNTY TIPPERARY, WITH 34,945 ACRES
This was one of the very few native families which had been dignified by the Peerage of Ireland. The O’Callaghans were formerly princes of the province of Munster, and were seated at Dromaneen Castle. Their Chief, CORNELIUS O’CALLAGHAN, enjoyed very extensive territorial possessions in 1594, according to an inquisition taken by Sir Thomas Norris, Vice-President of Munster, in that year. From this Cornelius descended
CORNELIUS O’CALLAGHAN (c1681-c1742), a very eminent lawyer, MP for Fethard, 1713-14, who married Maria, daughter of Robert Jolly, and had three sons, the youngest of whom,
THOMAS O’CALLAGHAN, wedded, in 1740, Sarah, daughter of John Davis, and had, with a daughter (married to Robert Longfield, of Castle Martyr), an only son, CORNELIUS O’CALLAGHAN (1741-97), MP for Fethard, 1768-85, who was elevated to the peerage, in 1785, in the dignity of Baron Lismore, of Shanbally, County Tipperary.
His lordship married, in 1774, Frances, second daughter of Mr Speaker Ponsonby, of the Irish House of Commons, and niece, paternally, of William, Earl of Bessborough, and niece, maternally, of William, 3rd Duke of Devonshire, and had issue,
CORNELIUS, his heir; Robert William (Sir), GCB, lieutenant-general; George; Louisa; Elizabeth; Mary.
He was succeeded by his eldest son,
CORNELIUS, 2nd Baron (1775-1857), who was created, in 1806, VISCOUNT LISMORE, of Shanbally, County Tipperary.
He married, in 1808, the Lady Eleanor Butler, youngest daughter of John, 17th Earl of Ormonde, and sister of the Marquess of Ormonde, by which lady he had issue,
Cornelius; William Frederick; George Ponsonby; Anne Maria Louisa.
His lordship, Privy Counsellor, 1835, Lord-Lieutenant of County Tipperary, 1851-57, was succeeded by his second son,
GEORGE PONSONBY, 2nd Viscount (1815-98), an officer in the 17th Lancers, High Sheriff of County Tipperary, 1853, Lord-Lieutenant of County Tipperary, 1857-85, who wedded, in 1839, Mary, daughter of George Norbury, and had issue,
George Cornelius Gerald (1846-85); William Frederick Ormonde (1852-77).
His lordship’s sons both predeceased him, when the titles became extinct.
SHANBALLY CASTLE, near Clogheen, County Tipperary, was built about 1812 for Cornelius O’Callaghan, 1st Viscount Lismore.
It was said to have been the largest of John Nash’s Irish castles. Shanbally was long and irregular, of a silver-grey ashlar.
This great mansion was 281 feet above sea-level, and about 80 feet above the level of the adjacent brook.
Shanbally Castle had numerous machicolations, towers and battlements.
The entrance front was pointed-arched, with a vaulted porte-cochere under a porch-tower.
The garden front had a round tower at one end and an octagonal tower at the other, with a central feature boasting two square turrets.
There was a stylish Gothic veranda.
Shanbally demesne is beautifully situated on low ground, in the centre of the valley, between the Galtee mountains on the north and the Knockmealdown mountains on the south.
It commands the most magnificent views of the slopes, escarpments, summits, and groupings of both of these alpine ranges.
Shanbally Castle was situated in a picturesque landscape, bounded to the north and south by two mountain ranges, the Galtees and the Knockmealdowns.
It is said that Shanbally bore a remarkable resemblance to Nash and Repton’s joint venture, Luscombe Castle in Devon, though Shanbally was considerably larger.
The 2nd and last Viscount left Shanbally to his cousins, the Lady Beatrice Pole-Carew and the Lady Constance Butler, daughters of the 3rd Marquess of Ormonde.
Shanbally was sold in 1954 by Major Patrick Pole-Carew.
Following attempts by the Hon Edward Sackville-West (5th Lord Sackville) to rescue the Castle, it was demolished in 1957 and its ruin was blown up.
The following is a composition by Bill Power of the Mitchelstown Heritage Society:
Few acts of official vandalism rival the decision by the Irish Government in 1957 to proceed with plans to demolish Shanbally Castle.
Built for Cornelius O’Callaghan, 1st Viscount Lismore, ca 1810, the mansion was the largest house built in Ireland by the famous English architect, John Nash.
When the Irish Land Commission purchased the Shanbally estate in 1954, one of the immediate questions which it addressed was what should become of the castle.
For a brief period it seemed that a purchaser could be found in the form of the London theatre critic Edward Sackville-West, 5th Lord Sackville, who had a tremendous love of the Clogheen area, which he had known since childhood.
He agreed to buy the castle, together with 163 acres, but pulled out of the transaction when the Irish Land Commission refused to stop cutting trees in the land he intended to buy.
Consequently, by 1957, the fate of the mansion was sealed.
The Irish Land Commissioners, with Irish Government approval, decided to proceed with plans to demolish the castle on the grounds that they had no use for it and that it was in poor condition.
They ignored suggestions that a religious community might be found for the building, and also rejected its suitability as a forestry school.
In that year, Professor Denis Gwynn, wrote an article in the Cork Examiner in which he exhorted the authorities to reverse their decision:
“Shanbally Castle has been well known for years as one of the most graceful and original examples in Ireland of late Georgian architecture,” he said. “Its formal gardens, which have run wild, could easily be brought back to order.”
The Professor pointed out that Shanbally Castle was designed by one of the most famous of all modern architects, who also planned all the well known terraces that surround Regent’s Park in London, and so many other celebrated buildings in England, `What conceivable justification can there be for incurring the great expense of demolishing this unique Irish mansion,’ he asked.
“All around the house, with its long avenues, the land has been admirably laid out and planted with fine trees in groups to enhance the views and to produce valuable timber,’ he continued. `More recently there has been wholesale clearance of the timber. Last summer I saw cutting in progress at many places, and big gaps had been made in the boundary walls to assist removal of the felled trees.
Describing the order to demolish the castle as an `act of vandalism,’ Professor Gwynn called for an inquiry into the circumstances of the decision. There is no sense whatever in squandering public money on the destruction of a beautiful house which is well known to students of Nash’s domestic architecture,’ he added.
But Professor Gwynn’s article was already too late: Despite some local opposition and widespread critical comment, the roof was removed and some of its impressive cut stones were being removed by hand and broken into smaller pieces for use in road building.
The house, with its twenty stately bedrooms, extensive drawing rooms, dining room, library, marble fireplaces and mahogany staircase was rapidly reduced to a state of ruin.
In 1960, The Nationalist newspaper reported the final end of a building which was once the pride of the neighbourhood: “A big bang yesterday ended Shanbally Castle, where large quantities of gelignite and cortex shattered the building”, it said.
In the weeks prior to the explosion, demolition workers bored 1,400 holes, 18 inches above ground, into the cut stone of the castle.
Each hole was then filled with explosives which were detonated on the 21st March, 1960.
Almost all of this material was used for road building.
The protests against the demolition of Shanbally Castle came from some local sources, An Taisce and a few academics such as Professor Gwynn.
Politically, the Fianna Fail Government had no love for houses of the ascendancy.
However, remarkably, it was from within the ranks of Fianna Fail that the only political voices were raised against the demolition plans, albeit privately.
One was Senator Sean Moylan, the Irish Minister for Agriculture until his death in 1957, and the other was his close friend and TD from Mitchelstown, John W Moher.
They were over-ruled by the Cabinet and failed to get wider political support, even from opposition deputies.
When the explosion finally came, the Irish Government saw fit to issue a terse public statement in response to protests favouring the retention of Shanbally Castle for the nation. “Apart from periods of military occupation the castle remained wholly unoccupied for 40 years,” said the statement.
Shanbally Castle was built for Cornelius O’Callaghan, the first Viscount Lismore and was the largest house built in Ireland by the noted English architect John Nash. Acquired by the Irish Land Commission in 1954. On 21 March 1960 the castle, after much controversy, was demolished.
It was widely felt that the castle was in habitable condition, having been sold to the government in good repair. The house had ranges of Gothic windows and was flanked by towers at either end. The interiors were reportedly well-detailed with ornate plasterwork.
For a time it seemed that a purchaser could be found in the form of the London theatre critic Edward Charles Sackville-West, 5th Baron Sackville. He agreed to buy the castle, together with 163 acres, but pulled out of the transaction when the Irish Land Commission refused to stop cutting trees in the land he intended to buy. A statement from the Irish Government released after the demolition of the Castle said in response to protests favouring the retention of ShanballyCastle for the nation: “Apart from periods of military occupation the castle remained wholly unoccupied for 40 years”.
Richmond (formerly Killashalloe), Nenagh , Co Tipperary
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. 241. “(Gason/IFR) A fortified house onto which a three storey house over high basement was built in 1733… partly demolished 1956.”
In Blake, Tarquin. Abandoned Mansions of Ireland II: More Portraits of Forgotten Stately Homes. Collins Press, Cork, 2012.
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.
Bence Jones writes that this was a fortified house onto which a three storey house was built in 1733. The house was later altered and expanded. Richmond was the seat of the Gason family in the 18th and 19th centuries, originally known as Killashalloe. Occupied by Richard Gason in 1814 and in 1837 and held by him in fee in the early 1850s when it was valued at £46. This house remained in Gason possession until 1956 when the roof was removed and the farm was sold in 1962. Part of the facade of the Ulster Bank headquarters at George’s Quay, Dublin, was constructed from blocks of stone from Richmond House (”The Irish Independent”, 16 March 1999) .
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. 238. (Willington.LGI1958) a C18 house of three storeys over basement, 5 bays…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.
Outbuildings of now-demolished Rapla House, built c. 1760, comprising central courtyard with ranges to north, west and south. Pitched and hipped slate roofs with rubble limestone walls. Multiple-bay two-storey north range, now partly in use as house. Building has rendered chimneystacks and square-headed openings having replacement timber windows, cut limestone sills and dressed limestone voussoirs, and timber panelled door with carved limestone surround with keystone. Building has advanced three-bay part to west containing integral carriage arch converted to window. Single- and two-storey west range has rendered rubble limestone walls, brick and dressed limestone carriage arches and doorways with cut limestone surrounds with keystones and timber matchboard doors. South range has rendered rubble walls. Dressed limestone piers to entrance gateway having cast-iron gates. Cut stone piers to road entrance with wheel guards.
Appraisal
These former stables set around a central courtyard retain their original form and structure. The buildings are enhanced by the retention of original features and materials such as the slate roof and limestone sills. The outbuildings are of apparent architectural design, which create a picturesque ferme ornée. The limestone surrounds to the doorways are skillfully carved and are clearly the work of competent craftsmen. The decorative scheme is understated, unified and of high quality. This group of stables form part of a group of demesne structures, which includes an icehouse related to the now demolished Rapla House.
Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
“Butler-Stoney, sub Stoney/IFR) A two storey late-Georgian house. Front with a one bay projection at either end, joined by a balustraded Ionic colonnade…..burnt ca 1920, 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.
Lissen Hall, County Tipperary entrance front 1979, photograph: Wiliam 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.
p. 189. “(Otway-Ruthven/IFR; Carroll/LGI1912) A fine 2 storey mid-C18 house , which Dr Craig considers to have been designed by the same architect or builder as Castle Otway, Co Tipperary. Five bay pedimented breakfront, elegant frontispiece of channelled ashlar, the impost-moulding binding the doorway to the windows on either side. High pitched roof. Now ruined.”
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. 136. A fine two storey mid Georgian pedimented house similar to Castle Otway in the same county. Very fine arched doorcase; built by the Otway family. Now a ruin.
The newly constructed Kilboy, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Country Life.Kilboy, County Tipperary, courtesy of Archiseek.The newly constructed Kilboy, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Country Life.
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. 164. “(Prittie, Dunally, B/PB) A middle to late 18th century house built for Henry Prittie MP, afterwards 1st Lord Dunalley, to the design of William Leeson.
Henry Prittie, 1st Baron Dunalley (1743-1801), Irish school, courtesy of Christie’s.
It had three storeys over a basement; a five-bay entrance front with a central feature of a pediment and four giant engaged Doric columns; Doric entablature running the full length of the front, supported at the sides by giant Doric pilasters; top storey was treated as an attic above the cornice. Ground floor windows with rusticated surrounds and alternat triangular and segmental pediments; rusticated basement; broad flight of steps up to entrance door. Side elevation almost plain, with no entablature or cornice, of five-bays with central Venetian window; keystones over windows and some simple blocking in the window surrounds. Large square hall, with heavy frieze of rather unusual plasterwork, combining putti and foliage with husk ornament and neo-Classical motifs; niche with entablature on console brackets; marble chimneypiece with swags of drapery, plasterwork panel over. Bifurcating staircase in back hall.
Henry Prittie, 3rd Baron Dunalley (1807-1885) by Stephen Catterson Smith courtesy of Christie’s 2013.
House was burnt 1922 and afterwards rebuilt without the top storey. The principal rooms, as rebuilt, had oak panelling in early C18 style; the bifurcating staircase was replaced by a simple oak stairs. Ca 1955 the house was demolished and a single storey house in a vaguely Georgian style was built on the original basement.”
The newly constructed Kilboy, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Country Life.The newly constructed Kilboy, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Country Life.The newly constructed Kilboy, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Country Life.
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. 134. “The most important house designed by William Leeson c. 1780 for Henry Prittie M.P. 1st Lord Dunally. Superb entrance front with engaged Doric portico. Very fine interior with good plasterwork and imperial main staircase. The house was burnt in 1922 and well restored but without the attic storey. In the mid 1950s it was demolished and a single storey house was built on top of the basement storey; reached by the original steps.”
The newly constructed Kilboy, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Country Life.The newly constructed Kilboy, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Country Life.
Detached five-bay single-storey house over basement, built c. 1775, destroyed in 1922 and rebuilt c. 1955 with portico to entrance. Three-bay two-storey side elevations, with large two-storey extension to south-west. Hipped slate roofs with recent cut limestone chimneystacks. Rendered walls with decorative render pilasters. Replacement windows to front. Mainly timber sash elsewhere, with raised cut limestone surrounds with keystones and sills. Segmental- and round-headed openings to extension, with one-over-one pane timber sash windows to south elevation, and doorway with spoked fanlight. Timber panelled double doors under portico, flanked by windows. Two flights of limestone steps to front elevation. Sandstone walls to site boundary with thatched gate lodge and ornate gateway to main, south, entrance and gate lodge with ornate gateway to north-east.
Appraisal
The original house to this site was designed by William Leeson, but only the steps and base of the original building remain. The grounds, demesne walls, entrances and gate lodges are perhaps more interesting than the house, forming an interesting group of demesne structures. The imposing triple-arched entrances set in high demesne walls with their ashlar dressings and gate lodges on both the south and east boundaries create a sense of heightened anticipation before seeing the house.
Kilboy House, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Kilboy House, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Kilboy House, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
Detached L-plan four-bay single-storey gate lodge with dormer storey, built c. 1850. Hipped reed thatched roof with blocked ridges and recent rendered chimneystack. Sandstone rubble walls. Square-headed double one-over-one pane timber sash windows with sandstone voussoirs to ground floor, segmental-headed spoked lunette windows to roof, and segmental-headed door openings with sandstone voussoirs, having glazed timber doors and sidelights.
Gate Lodge, Kilboy House, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
Appraisal
Apparently informed by the cottage ornée type of demesne building, this gate lodge has a number of appealing features such as its lunette dormer windows set in thick curved thatched roofs, its timber sash windows, and its L-plan which allows for a number of complementary views. It is one of a group of demesne structures including the elaborate entrance gates, high demesne walls and single-arch bridge under the avenue nearby.
Kilboy House, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
Entrance gateway, built c.1775, comprising advanced central round-arched carriage opening with portico, flanked by round-arched pedestrian entrances, in turn flanked by pilasters and roughly-coursed rubble limestone boundary walls. Snecked rubble limestone walling, with cut limestone portico with scrolls, archivolts and imposts and dressed quoins and surrounds to pedestrian openings.
Appraisal
This finely-built stone gateway is of apparent architectural design and executed by skilled craftsmen. It presents an impressive entrance to the rebuilt Kilboy House and is a conspicuous landmark on the Dolla to Silvermines road.
Entrance gateway, built c.1775, comprising central round-arched carriage opening, flanked by similar round-arched pedestrian entrances, separated by wrought-iron railings and in turn flanked low rubble limestone walls. Ashlar sandstone masonry with imposts, carved modillions to central archway and with wrought-iron railings to and separating openings.
Appraisal
A finely-executed ashlar composition of apparent architectural design and quality, forming subsidiary entrance to rebuilt Kilboy House.
Kilboy House, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
The Tipperary Gentry. Volume 1. By William Hayes and Art Kavanagh. Published by Irish Family Names, c/o Eneclann, Unit 1, The Trinity Enterprise Centre, Pearse St, Dublin 2, 11 Emerald Cottages, Grand Canal St, Dublin 4 and Market Square, Bunclody, Co Wexford, Ireland. 2003.
Prittie of Kilboy
p. 195. The Prittie dynasty in Kilboy began with Colonel Henry Prittie, one of Cromwell’s more trusted commanders. He was a Captin in Cromwell’s New Regiment of Horse. Druing the war in Ireland he was made Sheriff of Carlow (1650) and later Governor of Carlow. After the successful campaign Prittie was given about 1000 acres in the area in lieu of pay. Like many of his brother officers he immediately began buying up lands that had been awarded to his fellow soldiers who had no wish to remain in Ireland. This, combined with his descendants fortuitious marriages to heiresses, meant that the estate grew over the next 200 years, so that by the middle of 19C the Pritties owned about 16,000 acres of land in Co Tipperary most of which was centred around Kilboy.
p. 196. Henry was marrid to Honor Foley of Stourbridge and he had one son, also called Henry.
Henry was besieged for 21 days in his castle of Dunally by the Jacobites after the Battle of the Boyne. They eventually gained entrance and seized Henry and threw him from the battlements. Henry, quite extraordinarily, survived the fall unhurt and managed to escape. Henry was married to an Allcock and they had two sons and five daughters. The second son, Richard, married an heiress, Barbara Bourchier from Wexford in 1714. One of the daughters married Captain John Bayley of Ballynaclogh, another Cromwellian grantee.
p. 197. It was through marriages to heiresses that estates were extended. The outstanding example of this at the outset of the century is the marriage in 1702 of Henry Prittie (the Colonel’s grandson) to Elizabeth daughter and heiress to James Harrison of Cloghjordan. This alliance added to the sizeable Prittie estate of 3,600 acres a further 900 acres centring on Cloghjordan which had the advantage of being in the same region as the home estate.
p. 197. IN the next two generations each of the heirs to the Prittie estate married heiresses: Deborah Bayley in 1736 and Catherine Sadleir in 1766, thereby further consolidating the family’s interest, landed and political.
p. 197. On the death of Colonel Harrison the estates of Cloughjordan came into the possession of the Pritties of Kilboy. Henry and Elizabeth had one son, Henry…
p. 198. The son, Henry (b. 1708) was active politically and was an MP for Tipperary from 1761-8. A magistrate, he was firmly in the forefront of promoting law and order. He was married to an heiress, the daughter of Venerable Benjamin Neale of Leighlin and widow of John Bayly of Debsborough. This Henry was the man who successfully launched the family into mainstream politics.
…He also made attempts to use the natural resources on his lands. In the 1720s and 30s the Pritties revived interest in mining in the Silvermines. Lead was the mineral being mined at the time. After 1730 the mining was left in abeyance until 1802 when the Dunally Mining Company was formed with the intention of exploiting the ore there and also at a number of other locations.
p. 199. 1st Baron Dunally [as MP] was not in favour of granting any relief to Catholics and like his father he was ardent supporter of the rule of law.
p. 200. In contrast with his public stand, Prittie got on well with his Catholic neighbours and a great friendship existed between the Catholic Carrol family of Lissenhall in North Tipperary and the Pritties.
p. 201. There was a general electin held in 1806. Due to clerical manipulation the Catholic vote secured the election of Montague Mathew and Francis A. Prittie, the brother of 1stLord Dunally, who had moved into the House of Lords. From this period on the Pritties, allied with the Mathew interest continued to be pro Catholic and more liberal in outlook.
p. 202. The Pritties’ liberal views may have been influenced by a tutor who was engaged to teach Francis Aldborough Prittie at Kilboy. He was Rev Henry Fulton, the C of I curate to their parish, who was transported as a convicted United Irishman in 1798.
2nd Lord Dunally was very active in politics and worked with O’Connell to achieve Catholic emancipation.
In 1786, Kilboy was described by Wilson as the fine seat of Henry Prittie. Lord Dunalley is recording as resident at Dunally Castle, Nenagh, in 1814. In 1837 Lewis writes that Kilboy, the seat of Lord Dunalley, “was erected about 60 years since”. In the mid 19th century it was valued at £76+ and held in fee. This house, which the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage describes as a “detached five-bay single-storey house over basement, built c. 1775” and designed by William Leeson, was destroyed in 1922. A similar house was erected on the site but was demolished in 1955. A smaller house is now located on the site.
THE BARONS DUNALLEY WERE MAJOR LANDOWNERS IN COUNTY TIPPERARY, WITH 21,081 ACRES
The founder of this noble family in Ireland was
COLONEL HENRY PRITTIE who, for his loyalty and eminent services to the crown during the civil wars, had a grant or confirmation, from CHARLES II, of Dunalley Castle and other estates in County Tipperary, by patent, in 1678.
The grandson of this gentleman,
HENRY PRITTIE, sustained a siege of twenty-one days, in his castle of Dunalley, against the disbanded soldiers of of the royal army ofJAMES II after the battle of the Boyne.
The besiegers, however, at length entering, Mr Prittie was flung headlong from the top of the castle, though miraculously escaped unhurt.
He married Elizabeth, sister of Charles Alcock, and had issue,
HENRY, his successor; Richard; Priscilla; Elizabeth; Honora; Catherine; Judith.
The elder son,
HENRY PRITTIE, of Dunalley Castle, MP for County Tipperary, wedded, in 1736, Deborah, daughter of the Ven Benjamin O’Neale, Archdeacon of Leighlin, and had issue,
HENRY, his successor; Deborah; Elizabeth; Catherine; Martha; Margaret; Hannah.
Mr Prittie was succeeded by his son,
HENRY PRITTIE, of Dunalley, who espoused, in 1766, Catherine, second daughter and co-heir of Francis Sadleir, of Sopwell Hall, County Tipperary, widow of John Bury, and mother, by him, of Charles William, Earl of Charleville, and had issue,
HENRY, his successor; Francis Aldborough, MP; Catherine; Deborah; Mary; Martha; Elizabeth.
Mr Prittie was returned to parliament for County Tipperary in 1768; and elevated to the peerage, in 1800, by the title of BARON DUNALLEY, of Kilboy, County Tipperary.
The heir apparent is the present holder’s son, the Hon Joel Henry Prittie.
The 4th Baron was the last Lord-Lieutenant of County Tipperary, from 1905 until 1922.
Henry Francis Cornelius Prittie, 7th and present Lord Dunalley, lives in Oxfordshire.
A note in the Dunalley Papers records the sale of the Kerry estate of this family to the Crosbies in 1742 for £1,500.
KILBOY HOUSE, near Nenagh, County Tipperary, was a middle to late 18th century house built for Henry Prittie MP, afterwards 1st Lord Dunalley, to the design of William Leeson.
It had three storeys over a basement; a five-bay entrance front with a central pediment; and four large, engaged Doric columns.
The top storey was treated as an attic above the cornice.
There was a five-bay side elevation.
The mansion was burnt in 1922 and afterwards rebuilt minus the top storey.
About 1955, the house was demolished and a single-storey house in the Georgian style was built over the original basement.
More recently permission was granted for the reconstruction of a new Kilboy House, by the prominent businessman and philanthropist, Tony Ryan.
The project followed a fire that destroyed a large part of the property in 2005.
The local council granted planning permission for the partial demolition of the existing fire-damaged, listed, single-storey dwelling.
The former three-storey period residence over basement, based on the Georgian mansion house, has been built.
The application, in the name of Tony Ryan’s son, Shane, and his wife, stated that the aim was to rebuild the house as it was originally constructed in 1780.
Before reconstruction began, the Ryans paid €60,964 to the council as a contribution to providing public infrastructure such as roads and water.
Johnstown (formerly Peterfield), Puckaun, Co Tipperary
Johnstown (formerly Peterfield), County Tipperary photograph: Lord Rossmore c. 1969 Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 161. “(Holmes/LGI1912) A three storey late C18 block with a similar elevation to the nearby Prior Park, of five bays… probably designed by William Leeson. Pedimented and fanlighted doorcase with two engaged Tuscan columns. Built by Peter Holmes, MP; in 1837, the residence of P.S. Prendergast. 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.
Ashlar limestone gateway, erected c. 1780, formerly leading to Johnstown House, now demolished. Comprises central vehicular arch flanked by pedestrian entrances, all with pilasters, archivolts with keystones and with paterae to spandrels of central arch. Cast-iron gates and low rubble flanking walls. Detached three-bay single-storey former gate lodge to north, built c. 1780 and now in use as shop. Hipped slate roof with rendered chimneystacks, rendered walls with moulded eaves course, and having rounded corners to east gable with wheelguard. Double one-over-one pane timber casement windows with stone sills and with timber matchboard half-door.
Appraisal
This finely-crafted and well-designed gateway and its lodge once served Johnstown House which lay to the north-west and is a reminder of the quality of the now-demolished country house. It forms a group of interesting structures and is a notable feature at the junction of three roads.
Paddy Rossmore. Photographs. Edited by Robert O’Byrne. The Lilliput Press, Dublin 7, 2019.
“Petersfield, otherwise known as Johnstown Park, was built by a branch of the Holmes family in the late eighteenth century. It is unclear whether these Holmeses were related to others of the same name in County Antrim who were of Irish descent (their surname being an Anglicized version of Mac Thomais). They were certainly settled in this part of the country by the early eighteenth century since in 1728 Peter Holmes of Cullen, Co Offaly, paid £4437 for 540 acres of what would become the Petersfield estate. It was his grandson, another Peter, who served as MP in the Irish parliament for Banagher, Co Offaly, and who built the house and named it after himself. The architect is believed to have been the amateur William Leeson, best-remembered for laying out the town of Westport, Co Mayo, for John Browne, 1st Earl of Altamont. Perhaps related to the family of the same surname who became Earls of Milltown and lived at Russborough, County Wicklow, William Leeson, lived in north County Tipperary and seems to have designed a number of houses in the area including Prior Park and Petersfield. The latter was a tall block of three storeys over raised basement and five bays, the three centre ones being closely bunched together. Only a pedimented doorcase with engaged Tuscan columns broke the otherwise-plain facade. The interior seemingly contained good neo-classical plasterwork but no known photographs of it survive. Peter Holmes and his wife Elizabeth Prittie (a sister of the first Lord Dunally) had no surviving children so the estate passed to a cousin, likewise called Peter Holmes. The family remained in ownership until 1865 when Petersfield and almost one thousand acres were sold to William Headech who seemingly moved to Ireland in the 1840s to act as secretary to the Imperial Slate Quarry at Portroe, County Tipperary. He subsequently bought the business and did so well that he was able to pay more than £13,000 for the former Holmes estate.
His descendant remained there until the 1930s when the Land Commission divided up the property, and the house was unroofed. When Paddy photographed Petersfield it was still standing, albeit in poor condition, but has since been demolished.”
Irish Historic Houses 