Kilcoleman Abbey, Milltown, Co Kerry

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. 165. “Godfrey, Bt/PB) A house built or remodelled in late C18 by Sir William Godfrey, 1^st Bt, MP; altered 1830s by Sir John Godfrey, 2^nd Bt, to the design of William Vitruvius Morrison, who threw one of his thinner Tudor-Revival cloaks over the house and gave it four slender corner-turrets with cupolas, similar to those at Glenarm Castle, Co Antrim and Borris, Co Carlow. A two storey service wing with curvilinear gables was also added. Inside the house, Morrison formed a two storey galleried hall, opening with arches onto the staircase. The house was lived in by the Godfreys until ca 1960; after which it was abandoned and has now fallen completely into ruin, most of it having been 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. 82. Kilcoleman Abbey, Milltown (formerly Milltown House) “A plain three storey house built c. 1800, altered in the Tudor Revival style by Richard and William Vitruvius Morrison in 1819 for Sir John Godfrey. Abandoned 1960, some ruins remain.“

https://archiseek.com/2011/1818-kilcoleman-abbey-milltown-co-kerry

1818 – Kilcoleman Abbey, Milltown, Co. Kerry 

Architect: William Vitruvius Morrison 

Also known as Milltown House. More or less abandoned from 1800 to 1818, the house was renovated under the second Baronet, Sir John Godfrey, according to ambitious plans drawn up by architect William Vitruvius Morrison. However the general economic decline of the 1820’s and family misfortunes meant that only the stables and service wing, with its flemish gables, were completed as planned. Later, in the early 1840’s, the third Baronet Sir William Duncan Godfrey further modified the main block of the house, adding an attic storey, a turret, and assorted gables, pinnacles and buttresses. The family abandoned the house in 1958 due to severe dry rot and it was demolished in 1977. 

In O’Hea O’Keeffe, Jane. Voices from the Great Houses: Cork and Kerry. Mercier Press, Cork, 2013. 

p. 215. Under the Cromwellian settlement of Ireland, the Godfrey family from Romney in Kent were granted a 7,000 acre estate in mid Kerry, a grant reaffirmed under the Restoration by Letters Patent dated 13 June 1667. The estate had its origins in the Augustinian priory of Killagha, which was suppressed in 15676 and the lands granted to Captain Thomas Spring of Suffolk. It was later forfeited to Major John Godfrey (1616-75) of Ludlow’s Regiment of Horse. 

The Godfrey family initially lived in Tipperary for fifty years following their arrival in Ireland, before moving to Kerry in teh early part of the eighteenth century. Major John Godfrey’s grandson, John Godfrey (1686-1711), then occupied the old Spring demesne of Bushfield as his principal residence. He was succeeded by his son William Godfrey (1707-47). 

On Wm’s death the estate passed to his brother, Captain John Godfrey (1709-82) who married Barbara Hathaway, granddaughter of Thomas, Earl Coningsby. Captain Godfrey worked hard to improve the lot of his tenants and built the village of Milltown to encourage local enterprise. His son William (1738-1817) succeeded him and he built a new house within the demesne in the 1770s. In 1783 he became MP for Tralee and two years later was elevated to the rank of Baronet. Expensive tastes forced Sir William to assign his life interest in the estate to his eldest son John (1763-1841). John made a well-connected marriage to Eleanor Cromie from County Antrim in 1796, but did not come to live at Bushfield until after his father’s death in 1817. 

p. 216. Sir John was sympathetic towards Catholic emancipatino and provided land for the building of a new Catholic chapel. He employed architects Richard and William Vitruvius Morrison to remodel the old house at Bushfield, which was subsequently renamed Kilcoleman Abbey. 

In 1824 Sir John’s son and heir, William Duncan Godfrey (1797-1873) married a Catholic, Mary Teresa Coltsmann, daughter of John Coltsmann of Flesk Castle in Killarney, much to the surprise of the family. Sir William inherited the estate in 1841, and during the Famine it became heavily burdened by debt, but was saved by the marriage of the heir John Fermor Godfrey (1828-1900) to an English heiress, Mary Cordelia Scutt. Sir John had a keen interest in hunting and kept a famous pack of houses the Kilcoleman Hunt, but was forced to disband it in 1881 due to the constant danger of attack by the Land League. By his death in 1900 most of his powers as landlord and magistrate had been removed under the Local Government Act of 1898. 

He was succeeded by his son, Sir William Cecil Godfrey (1857-1926), who married Maud Hamilton, the only child of Frederick Hamilton of Carbery, County Kildare, in 1885. Following teh birth of their daughter Phyllis, Maud died from medical complications. In 1901, Sir William married Mary Leeson-Marshall of nearby Callinafercy House. During Sir William’s time, the Godfrey estate was sold to the tenants under the terms of the Wyndham Act of 1903, all of teh proceeds going towards teh payment of debts. 

Making a decisive political shift, in the 1918 election Sinn Fein, the Irish republican party, gained all four seats in Kerry, and in the spring of 1921 the first attacks on the Big Houses in Kerry by the IRA began. Kilcoleman Abbey escaped unscathed, due in part to Sir William’s local popularity.  On his death in 1926, Kilcolman was inherited by his brother, John Ernest Godfrey (1864-1935), who in 1889 had been appointed an engineer to the Duke of Devonshire’s estate at Lismore Castle in Co Waterford. In 1933 he and his wife Eileen Curry moved back to Kerry. He was succeeded by his son, Sir William Maurice Godfrey, who lived in England. In 1941, unable to support the family seat, Sir William decided to sell Kilcoleman to his cousin Phyllis Godfrey (1890-1959), who was the last member of the family to reside at the old estate. 

p. 218. Mary Constance Godfrey married Dick Edwards, who became agent of Lismore Castle. It is their son, Dermot Edwards, who is interviewed for this chapter of the book. 

p. 219. Phyllis Godfrey, who was born in 1890 to Sir William Cecil and Lady Maud Godfrey, bought Kilcoleman Abbey, but she did not have the financial resources to maintain the building or teh gardens. Life was far from easy. After the sale in 1942, Dermot’s grandmother Eileen, Lady Godfrey, left Kilcoleman, and with her two daughters, Dorothy and Ursula, returned to live at Lismore.  

[It was demolished in the 1970s. It was full of dry rot. Dr John Knightly, a native of Milltown, wrote his PhD thesis: The Godfrey Family and their Estates 1730-1850.] 

p. 224. After Phyllis Godfrey’s death, Kilcoleman was inhierted for a second time by Sir William Godfrey, who at this time was determined to live in Kerry, though not to restore the ruined house. He was approached by Paulie Fenno, an American heiress, who offered to buy and restore the house and run it as a hotel. The project ran into financial difficulties, however, the the remaining lands were sold to the Land Commission to be divided up among local farmers. In the 1970s Kerry County Council bought and demolished the derelict building. An estate of modern houses now stands on teh site. 

http://landedestates.nuigalway.ie/LandedEstates/jsp/property-show.jsp?id=1975 

Kilcoleman Abbey was the residence of Sir William Godfrey at the time of Griffith’s Valuation, when it was valued at £33. Lewis also records it as his residence in 1837. In 1894 Slater referred to it as the seat of Sir John F. Godfrey. In 1906, it was still part of the Godfrey estate and valued at £35 10s.The Irish Tourist Association survey of the early 1940s refers to it as “Godfrey House, a fine type of Elizabethan type mansion”. Bary states that the original house, built by the first Godfrey to settle in the area at the end of the seventeenth century, was called Bushfield but that it burned down in 1774 though Wilson still refers to it by this name in 1786 and provides a detailed description of the surroundings. Knightly indicates that a new house was then built by Sir William Godfrey. This house was remodelled twice in the nineteenth century. Sir William Maurice Godfrey sold Kilcoleman in the 1960s and it was demolished in 1977. 

http://lordbelmontinnorthernireland.blogspot.com/2016/03/kilcolman-abbey.html

THE GODFREY BARONETS OWNED 6,331 ACRES OF LAND IN COUNTY KERRY 

 
MAJOR JOHN GODFREY, of Colonel Edmund Ludlow’sRegiment of Horse (a member of the ancient family of GODFREY, of Romney, Kent), obtained for his services in Ireland during the rebellion of 1641, a grant of 4,980 acres of land in County Kerry, and settled there. 
 
He married Miss Davies, and was succeeded by his only son, 
 
WILLIAM GODFREY, of Bushfield, County Kerry, and Knockgraffon, County Tipperary, who wedded Deborah, only child of Alderman Luke Lowther, of the city of Dublin, and was succeeded at his decease by his eldest son, 
 
JOHN GODFREY, of Bushfield, who espoused Philippa, daughter of Anthony Chearnley, of Burncourt, County Tipperary, and had issue, 
 

William, dsp; 
JOHN, his successor. 

Mr Godfrey died in 1712, and was succeeded by his only surviving son, 
 
JOHN GODFREY, of Bushfield, who married Barbara, daughter of the Rev Mr Hathway, and granddaughter (maternally) of the 1st Earl Coningsby, and had issue, 
 

WILLIAM, his successor; 
Luke (Rev Dr), Rector of Middleton, Co Cork; 
Edward; 
Anthony; 
Letitia; Phillippa. 

Mr Godfrey died in 1782, and was succeeded by his eldest son, 
 
WILLIAM GODFREY (1739-1817), of Bushfield, who was created a baronet in 1785, denominated of Bushfield, County Kerry. 
 
Sir William, MP for Tralee, 1783-90, MP for Belfast, 1792-7, wedded, in 1761, Agnes, only daughter of William Blennerhassett, of Elm Grove, County Kerry, and had surviving issue, 
 

JOHN, his heir; 
William (Rev), Rector of Kenmare; 
Luke, a major in the army; 
Letitia; Agnes; Phillippa; Arabella; Margaret; Elizabeth. 

Sir William was succeeded by his eldest son, 
 
SIR JOHN GODFREY, 2nd Baronet (1763-1841), who espoused, in 1796, Eleanor, eldest daughter of John Cromie, of Cromore, County Londonderry, and had issue, 
 

WILLIAM DUNCAN, his heir; 
John (Rev); 
Henry Alexander; 
Robert; 
James George; 
Richard Frankland; 
Anne; Agnes; Eleanor. 

Sir John was succeeded by his eldest son, 
 
﷟HYPERLINK “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_William_Godfrey,_3rd_Baronet”SIR WILLIAM DUNCAN GODFREY, 3rd Baronet (1797-1873), JP DL, who married, in 1824, Mary Teresa, second daughter of John Coltsman, of County Kerry, and had issue, 
 

JOHN FERMOR, his heir; 
William; 
Henry Arthur; 
Christiana; Eleanor Isabella. 

Sir William was succeeded by his eldest son, 
 
SIR JOHN FERMOR GODFREY, 4th Baronet (1828-1900). 
 

• Sir John Fermor Godfrey, 4th Baronet (1828–1900); 

• Sir William Cecil Godfrey, 5th Baronet (1857–1926); 

• Sir John Ernest Godfrey, 6th Baronet (1864–1935); 

• Sir William Maurice Godfrey, 7th Baronet (1909–1971). 

The baronetcy expired following the decease of the 7th Baronet, without male issue. 

KILCOLMAN ABBEY, formerly Bushfield, Milltown, County Kerry, was granted in 1641 by CHARLES II to Major John Godfrey “for his services against the rebels“. 
 
Sir William Petty, in his Reflections on Matters and Things in Ireland, called this donation “by no means an equivalent for the Major’s services”. 
 It was built ca 1800 by Sir William Godfrey, 1st Baronet, comprising a fairly plain, Georgian, three-storey block. 
 
The house was altered in 1819 by Sir John, 2nd Baronet to designs of W V Morrison, who gave it a Tudor-Revival makeover, with four slender turrets on each corner, topped by cupolas (not dissimilar to Glenarm Castle and Borris). 
 
A two-storey service wing was added later. 
 
Morrison created a two-storey galleried hall, which opened with arches on to the hall. 
 
The Godfrey family continued to live at Kilcolman until about 1960, when it was abandoned. 
 
It was demolished in 1977. 
 
First published in March, 2016.