We don’t have a National Trust in the Republic of Ireland the way they do in Northern Ireland. We have instead organisations such as the Office of Public Works, The Landmark Trust, Irish Heritage Trust and An Taisce. Sorry to republish this as a separate entry – previously published in my “Places to visit and stay in County Down” entry. I’ve been busy at weekends and not visiting Section 482 properties, but I’ll catch up again with that soon I hope!
Mount Stewart, County Down, by Art Ward for Tourism Northern Ireland, 2016. (see [1])
“The Stewarts came from Scotland to Donegal as part of the Jacobean Plantation of Ulster. Alexander Stewart [1700-1781] and his wife, Mary Cowan, bought a large area of land in County Down in 1744, part of which became Mount Stewart demesne. Mary had inherited a fortune from her brother, Robert Cowan, who was in the East India Company, and was Governor of Bombay.” Mary and Robert’s father John Cowan was an Alderman of the city of Derry in what is now Northern Ireland. Alexander Stewart was MP for Derry.
Alexander Stewart (1700-1781) by Andrea Soldi, courtesy of National Trust Mount Stewart.Oil painting on canvas, Mary Cowan, Mrs Alexander Stewart (1713–1788), by Andrea Soldi (Florence c.1703 – London 1771), circa 1737. A three-quarter-length portrait of a woman with fair hair, seated, turned to the left, wearing a blue dress with a pink bow, and white drapery. She rests her left elbow on a table, and points to the left with her right hand. She married Alexander Stewart in 1737. The artist returned from “the Levant” to London in 1736 and painted in Scotland c. 1756-58.
The National Trust website continues: “A modest house on the shore of Strangford Lough was extended in the 1780s into a long low 2-storey house by Alexander’s son, Robert. Robert also built a walled garden and farm buildings further inland, and commissioned James ‘Athenian’ Stuart to design the Temple of the Winds, one of the finest small neo-classical buildings in Ireland. Through his political connections and marriage, Robert rose through the political ranks, becoming earl and subsequently marquess of Londonderry.“
Robert Stewart (1739-1821) 1st Marquess of Londonderry married, first, Sarah Frances Seymour Conway, and she gave birth to his heir, Robert Stewart (1769-1822) 2nd Marquess of Londonderry, who was later made Viscount Castlereagh.
He then married secondly, Frances Pratt, daughter of Charles Pratt 1st Earl of Camden, Chislehurst, County Kent in England.
Oil painting on paper laid down on canvas, A Conversation Piece with Robert, 1st Marquess of Londonderry (1739-1821), his Second Wife, Frances (1750-1833), their Son Charles William (1778-1854), and their Four Younger Daughters, Selina, Matilda, Emily Jane and Octavia by Thomas Robinson (Windermere before 1770 – Dublin 1810), 1803-08. The daughters shown are Lady Selina Stewart, later Lady Selina Kerr (d.1871), Lady Emily Jane Stewart, Viscountess Hardinge (1789-1865), Lady Octavia Catherine Stewart, later Baroness Ellenborough (d.1819) and Lady Matilda Stewart, later Lady Matilda Ward (d.1842). Their elder three daughters Georgiana (d. 1804), Caroline (1865) and France Anne (1777 – 1810) are not present.
The website tells us: “It was Robert’s son, best known as Viscount Castlereagh, who chose the architect George Dance to design a new wing for Mount Stewart which included a series of fine reception rooms. The west wing was built around 1804–6.“
Mark Bence-Jones writes in his A Guide to Irish Country Houses (1988):
p. 216. “Vane-Tempest-Stewart, Londonderry, M/PB) A long two storey Classical house of 1820s, one end of which is, in fact, a house built 1803-06 by 1st Marquess of Londonderry (father of the statesman, Castlereagh) to the design of George Dance. The seven bay front of 1803-06 house survives as the end elevation of the present house; unchanged, except that its centre bay now breaks forward under a shallow pediment, similar to those on either side of the present entrance front, which are very much of 1820s. The three rooms at this end of the house keep their original ceilings of delicate plasterwork; the centre one, which was formerly the entrance hall, has a ceiling with pendentives, making it an octagon. Behind this former entrance hall is an imperial staircase with a balustrade of elegant ironwork, lit by a dome; this too, is part of the earlier house.“
Robert Stewart 2nd Marquess of Londonderry, Viscount Castlereagh.Amelia Anne Hobart, Viscountess Castlereagh and later Marchioness of Londonderry, courtesy of National Trust Mount Stewart.
The website continues, telling us more about Lord Castlereagh: “Castlereagh is best known in Ireland for his involvement in the repression of the 1798 Rebellion and as one of the architects of the Anglo-Irish Union of 1800, for which he was vilified by many. He was however regarded as a consummate statesman and astute negotiator.
“From 1802 to 1822 he was based in London as Secretary of State for War and Foreign Secretary during the wars with America and France under Napoleon. He was one of the chief negotiators at the Congress of Vienna (1814-15) and his greatest legacy was steering the Congress towards a more equitable balance of power. The Congress was the first multinational European congress; many issues were discussed including the abolition of slavery. Castlereagh became a staunch supporter of abolition, as the trade was ‘repugnant to the principles of humanity and universal morality’.
“The Peterloo Massacre of 1819 earned him more criticism, for although he was not personally responsible and was appalled by the outcome, as Home Secretary he had to justify the yeomanry’s actions. In 1822 he suffered a breakdown and took his own life, just a year after becoming the 2nd marquess of Londonderry.“
Information board courtesy of National Trust Mount Stewart.Information board courtesy of National Trust Mount Stewart.I think Lord Castlereagh is the image of radio dj Dave Fanning!Information board courtesy of National Trust Mount Stewart.
Castlereagh’s father the 1st Marquess and Frances Pratt went on to have many more children.
Information board courtesy of National Trust Mount Stewart.
It was a son from the second marriage, Charles Stewart (1778-1854) who became the 3rd Marques of Londonderry after his brother killed himself. First he married Catherine Bligh, daughter of John 3rd Earl of Darnley. She had a son, who became Charles’s heir, Frederick William Robert Stewart (1805-1872) 4th Marquess of Londonderry. Frederick married Elizabeth Frances Charlotte Jocelyn, daughter of Robert Jocelyn, 3rd Earl of Roden, County Tipperary, but they had no children. She had been previously married to Richard Wingfield 6th Viscount Powerscourt.
After his first wife’s death, Charles Stewart (1778-1854) married Frances Anne Emily Vane-Tempest in 1819. He changed his surname to Vane. Frances Anne’s mother was Katherine MacDonnell whom we came across at Glenarm, the notorious heiress!
Mark Bence-Jones continues: “3rd Marquess, Castlereagh’s younger half-brother, who was far richer than either his father or his brother had ever been, having married the wealthy Durham heiress, Frances Anne Vane Tempest, enlarged the house to its present form ca 1825-28, his architect being William Vitruvius Morrison. A new block was built onto what had been the back of the original house, as wide as the original house was long and long enough to make, with the end of the original house, a new entrance front of 11 bays, with a pedimented porte-cochere of four giant Ionic columns as its main central feature; the three outer bays on either side being treated as pavilions, each with a one bay pedimented breakfront similar to that which was put onto the front of the original house. The outer bays have a balustraded roof parapet, which is carried round the end of the house and along the new garden front. The latter is as long as the entrance front, and has a boldly projecting centre with a pediment and a single-storey portico of coupled Ionic columns; and a curved bow at either end.”
The website tells us: “Castlereagh’s half-brother, Charles Stewart fought in the Peninsula War under Wellington and became British ambassador at Berlin and then Vienna during the Congress. In 1819 he married the wealthy Frances Anne Vane Tempest who had inherited coal mines and a grand estate in County Durham. They travelled widely and rebuilt Wynyard, County Durham and Londonderry House in London. Charles also extended Mount Stewart in the 1840s. His grandson, the 6th Marquess, was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in the 1880s. The 6th Marquess was strongly opposed to Home Rule for Ireland; he and his wife were instigators and signatories of the Ulster Covenant in 1912.“
Charles and Frances Anne had several children. Their daughter Alexandrina married into Emo Park in County Laois.
Mark Bence-Jones continues: “The principal interior feature of the newer building is a vast central hall, consisting of an octagon, top-lit through a balustraded gallery from a dome filled with stained glass, with rectangular extensions so as to form a room much longer than it is wide; with screens of couple painted marble Ionic columns between the octagon and the extensions. Morrison’s reception rooms are spacious and simple; the drawing room has a screen of Ionic colmns at either end. The interior of the house was done up post WWI by 7th Marquess, Secretary of State for Air in 1930s; the central room in the garden front being panelled as a smoking and living room. The 7th Marquess and his wife (the well-known political hostess and friend of Ramsay MacDonald) also laid out an elaborate garden, going down the hillside from the garden front of the house towards Strangford Lough. As well as this noteaable C20 garden, Mount Stewart boasts of one of the finest C18 garden buildings in Ireland, the Temple of the Winds, an octagonal banqueting house built 1780 to the design of “Athenian” Stuart, who based it on the Tower of the Winds in Athens. It has a porch on two of its faces, each with two columns of the same modified Corinthian order as that of the columns of the Tower of the Winds. Mount Stewart was given to the Northern Ireland National Trust by Lady Mairi Bury, daughter of 7th Marquess, ca 1977, and is now open to the public. The Temple of the Winds was given 1962 to the Trust, which has since restored it; the garden was given to the Trust in 1955.”
You can see pictures and read more about the treasures in the house on the website. The website tells us about the various rooms of the house.
“Soak up the atmosphere of the most impressive space in the house, where you can see life-size sculptures by Lawrence MacDonald, alongside the family collection of silver dating from 1694.
“Look down at your feet to take in the original Scrabo stone, which was recently restored after being hidden since the 1960s when it was covered by linoleum.“
When Frederick died, his brother succeeded as the 5th Marquess of Londonderry, George Henry Robert Charles William Vane-Tempest (1821-1884). Like his father, he joined the military. He married Mary Cornelia Edwards, daughter of John Edwards, 1st and last Baronet Edwards, of Garth, Montgomeryshire.
Their son Charles Stewart Vane-Tempest succeed as the the 6th Marquess of Londonerry in 1884. In 1885 he added Stewart to his surname, to become Vane-Tempest-Stewart. In 1875 he married Theresa Susey Helen Chetwynd-Talbot, daughter of Charles John Chetwynd Chetwynd-Talbot, 19th Earl of Shrewsbury. The 6th Marquess served in many posts, including Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland between 1886 and 1889.
Their son Charles Stewart Henry Vane-Tempest-Stewart (1878-1949) succeeded as 7th Marquess of Londonderry. He married Edith Helen Chaplin, daughter of Henry Chaplin, 1st Viscount Chaplin.
The website continues: “Charles’s great-grandson, Charles 7th Marquess, served in the First World War, during which his wife Edith founded the Women’s Legion. At the end of the war, Edith began to create the gardens at Mount Stewart and redecorated and furnished the house, processes she thoroughly enjoyed and continued until her death in 1959. Charles served in the new Northern Irish government following the partition of Ireland in 1921. He later became Secretary of State for Air during the early 1930s. The horrors of the First World War and the rise of Communism meant many were anxious to avoid another European war. For Charles, this meant holding a series of meetings with the Nazi leadership, but his actions and intentions were misunderstood and his career and reputation were fatally damaged.“
“Step inside the drawing room which was the social hub of the house, furnished with comfortable armchairs and sofas gathered around the fireplace, as well as a piano for musical entertainment.
“At one end of the room stands the Congress of Vienna Desk, brought back by Castlereagh Viscount Castlereagh after the Congress and the Peace of Paris in 1815, for which he was made a Knight of the Garter. Above it hangs his portrait, by Sir Thomas Lawrence, alongside many others by the same artist.”
“Visit the dining room which was used to entertain famous guests including Winston Churchill and Neville Chamberlain – both of whom later became Prime Ministers of Britain. Along the walls stand the chairs used during the Congress of Vienna (1814–15). Their needlework covers were commissioned by Edith in the 1930s to display the coats of arms of those present at the Congress, and the countries they represented.“
“Stop by the breakfast room, where Charles and Edith enjoyed relaxed family breakfasts, lunches and afternoon teas overlooking the Sunk Garden that Edith created in 1920–21. Edith introduced the large sliding sash window so that they could have direct access to the garden.
“In the centre of the room you can see the family’s traditional Irish ‘wake’ or hunting table, whilst a collection of Berlin cabinet plates from 1810–20 are displayed in the cabinets.”
Unfortunately it was raining and we were on our way back to Dublin so we didn’t get to explore the gardens though my hairdresser Shane tells me they are splendid.
Information board courtesy of National Trust Mount Stewart.From “In Harmony with Nature, The Irish Country House Garden 1600-1900” in the Irish Georgian Society, July 2022, curated by Robert O’Byrne.Information board courtesy of National Trust Mount Stewart.
We did, however, get to the coach house to see the State Coach.
p. 60. “(Talbot de Malahide, B/PB; Fitzgerald, Leinster, D/PB; Nall-Cain, sub Brocket, P/BP) The lands of Carton always belonged to the Fitzgeralds, Earls of Kildare, whose chief castle was nearby, at Maynooth; in C17, however, they were leased to a junior branch of the Talbots of Malahide, who built the original house there.” [1]
The Carton website tells us that the lands of Carton first came into the ownership of the FitzGerald family shortly after Maurice FitzGerald (d. 1176) played an active role in the capture of Dublin by the Normans in 1170. He was rewarded by being appointed Lord of Maynooth, and given an area covering townlands which include what is now Carton. The website goes on to tell us:
“His son became Baron Offaly in 1205 and his descendant John FitzGerald [5th Baron Offaly, d. 1316], became Earl of Kildare in 1315. Under the eighth earl, [Gerald FitzGerald (1455-1513)] the FitzGerald family reached pre-eminence as the virtual rulers of Ireland between 1477 and 1513.“
Thomas FitzGerald, 10th Earl of Kildare, “Silken Thomas,” c. 1530 attributed to Anthony Van Dyck.
“However, the eighth earl’s grandson, the eloquently titled Silken Thomas [the 10th Earl of Kildare] was executed in 1537, with his five uncles, for leading an uprising against the English. Although the FitzGeralds subsequently regained their land and titles, they did not regain their position at the English Court until the 18th century when Robert, the 19th Earl of Kildare, became a noted statesman.“
It surprises me that after Silken Thomas’s rebellion that his brother was restored to the title and became the 11th Earl on 23 February 1568/69, restored by Act of Parliament, about thirty years after his brother was executed.
It was William Talbot, Recorder of the city of Dublin, who leased the lands from Gerald FitzGerald, 14th Earl of Kildare (1547-1612). William Talbot was created 1st Baronet Talbot, of Carton, Co. Kildare on 4 February 1622/23. He was MP for Kildare in 1613-1615. He built a house at Carton. His son Richard was created 1st Duke of Tyrconnell in 1689 by King James II, after he had been James’s Groom of the Bedchamber. He fought in the Battle of the Boyne and was loyal to the Stuarts, so was stripped of his honours when William of Orange (William III) came to power.
Richard Talbot, Duke of Tyrconnell (1630-1691), courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.Frances Talbot (c.1670-1718) by Garret Morphy courtesy National Gallery of Ireland NGI 4150. She was the daughter of Robert Talbot, 2nd Baronet of Carton, County Kildare, who was a brother of the Duke of Tyrconnell, and wife of Richard Talbot (1638-1703) of Malahide.Tyrconnell Tower in grounds of Carton House, photograph 2014 for Tourism Ireland. [2]
Mark Bence-Jones continues: “After the attainder of Richard Talbot, Duke of Tyrconnell, James II’s Lord Deputy of Ireland, Carton was forfeited to the crown and sold 1703 to Major-Gen Richard Ingoldsby, Master-General of the Ordnance and a Lord Justice of Ireland; who added a two storey nine bay pedimented front to the old house, with wings joined to the main block by curved sweeps, in the Palladian manner. In 1739 Thomas Ingoldsby sold the reversion of the lease back to 19th Earl of Kildare [Robert FitzGerald (1675-1744)], who decided to make Carton his principal seat and employed Richard Castle to enlarge and improve the house.“
Richard Ingoldsby (c.1664/5–1712) was the son of George, who came to Ireland with the Cromwellian army in 1651 and became a prominent landowner in Limerick. Richard fought in the Williamite army. The Dictionary of Irish Biography tells us that Richard Ingoldsby purchased Carton House and demesne in Co. Kildare for £1,800 in 1703 from the Talbot family. He also owned a town house in Mary St., Dublin. He married Frances, daughter of Col. James Naper of Co. Meath; they had at least one son, Henry Ingoldsby (d. 1731). Henry lived the high life in London and Carton had to be sold to pay his debts in 1738, and he sold it back to Robert Fitzgerald the 19th Earl of Kildare.
Robert Fitzgerald (1675-1744) 19th Earl of Kildare, after Frederick Graves, courtesy of Adam’s auction 15th Oct 2019.
Robert FitzGerald the 19th Earl of Kildare married Mary O’Brien, daughter of William, 3rd Earl of Inchiquin.
The Archiseek website tells us:
“In 1739, the 19th Earl of Kildare employed Richard Castle to build the existing house replacing an earlier building. Castle (originally Cassels) was responsible for many of the great Irish houses, including Summerhill, Westport, Powerscourt House and in 1745, Leinster House, which he also built for the FitzGeralds.” [3]
Bence-Jones tells us about the rebuilding of Carton by Richard Castle: “Castle’s rebuilding obliterated all traces of the earlier house, except for a cornice on what is now the entrance front and the unusually thick interior walls. He added a storey, and lengthened the house by adding a projecting bay at either end; he also refaced it. He gave the entrance front a pediment, like its predecessor; but the general effect of the three storey 11 bay front, which has a Venetian window in the middle storey of each of its end bays, is one of massive plainness. As before, the house was joined to flanking office wings; but instead of simple curved sweeps, there were now curved colonnades.”
There is a projecting bay on either side of the garden front facade with a Venetian window in the middle storey of either projecting bay. According to Mark Bence-Jones, these were designed by Richard Castle. The flanking wings were joined initially by curved colonnades, later replaced by straight connecting links.
Mark Bence-Jones continues: “The work was completed after the death of 19th Earl for his son [James (1722-1773)], 20th Earl, who later became 1st Duke of Leinster and was the husband of the beautiful Emily, Duchess of Leinster [Emily Lennox, daughter of the 2nd Duke of Richmond] and the father of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the United Irish Leader.”
James Fitzgerald, 20th Earl of Kildare, later 1st Duke of Leinster by Robert Hunter, Irish, 1715/1720-c.1803. Photograph courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.Emilia Mary, Countess of Kildare (née Lennox) (1731-1814), Wife of the 20th Earl of Kildare and future 1st Duke of Leinster After Joshua Reynolds, English, 1723-1792, photograph courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.Emily née Lennox (1731-1814) Countess of Kildare, wife of the 1st Duke of Leinster, by Allan Ramsay (1713-1784). Oil on canvas, painted 1765. Purchased 1951, No. 1356, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK, Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net)Emily Fitzgerald née Lennox (1731-1814) Duchess of Leinster 1770s by Joshua Reynolds.Margaretta Fitzgerald (d. 1766) Countess of Hillsborough, daughter of Robert Fitzgerald, 19th Earl of Kildare, attributed to Charles Jervas, courtesy of Fonsie Mealy auction. She married Wills Hill, 1st Earl of Hillsborough, Co. Down, 1st Marquess of Downshire.Edward Fitzgerald (1763-1798) by Hugh Douglas Hamilton – http://www.galleryofthemasters.com/h-folder/hamilton-hugh-douglas-lord-edward-fitzgerald.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3835564
They certainly were a rebellious family! It is said that this saved the house from being burnt by Irish rebels in 1920s, as a portrait of Edward Fitzgerald the United Irishman was shown to the would-be arsonists. Emily Lennox’s sister, Louisa, married Thomas Conolly and lived across the parkland in Castletown House. Stella Tillyard writes of the life and times of the sisters, Emily and Louisa and it was made into a mini series for the BBC, entitled “The Aristocrats” which was filmed on site at Carton House. I’d love to read the book and see the movie! She also wrote about Edward FitzGerald.
Edward Fitzgerald (1763-1798), circa 1780, courtesy Whytes March 2025.
When the 1st Duke died, Emily married her children’s tutor and lived very happily with him. She had enjoyed spending time with him and the children at their house in Blackrock, Frascati, which no longer exists, and the children swam in the sea.
Frescati House, County Dublin, photograph by Robert French, Lawrence Photograph Collection, National Library of Ireland.
Emily and the 1st Duke’s heir was William Robert Fitzgerald (1749-1804) 2nd Duke of Leinster. He married Emilia Olivia née Usher St. George (1759-1798).
William Robert Fitzgerald (1749-1804) 2nd Duke of Leinster wearing Order of St. Patrick, by Gilbert Stuart, courtesy Christies.William Robert Fitzgerald, 2nd Duke of Leinster, (1749-1804) Date 1775 by Engraver John Dixon, Irish, c.1740-1811 After Joshua Reynolds, English, 1723-1792. Photograph courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.William Robert Fitzgerald, 2nd Duke of Leinster, K.P. (1749-1804), circle of Joshua Reynolds courtesy of Christie’s Irish Sale 2002.William Robert FitzGerald, 2nd Duke of Leinster (1749-1804) in the uniform of the Dublin Volunteers by Hugh Douglas Hamilton courtesy of Sotheby’s, London, 18 May 2001.Hugh Douglas Hamilton portrait of Emilia Olivia née St. George, 2nd Duchess of Leinster courtesy of Bonhams Old Master Paintings 2018.Emily Margaret FitzGerald (1751-1818), daughter of 1st Duke of Leinster wife of Earl of Bellomont by H D Hamilton courtesy Fine Art Sale Cheffins 2014.Henry Fitzgerald 1761-1829, son of the 1st Duke of Leinster and Emily Lennox, attributed to John Hoppner, courtesy of Adam’s auction 13 Oct 2015.Henry FitzGerald (1761-1829) by Hugh Douglas Hamilton courtesy of Cheffins Fine Art sale 2013. He was a son of the 1st Duke of Leinster and Emily Lennox.Charlotte Boyle-Walsingham, Lady FitzGerald (1769–1831) by John Hoppner, R.A courtesy Sotheby’s Old Masters Day Auction.She was the wife Henry Fitzgerald (1761-1829), of a brother of the 2nd Duke of Leinster.
Mark Bence-Jones continues: “3rd Duke, Lord Edward’s nephew, [Augustus Frederick Fitzgerald (1791-1874)] employed Sir Richard Morrison to enlarge and remodel the house ca 1815, having sold Leinster House in Dublin. Morrison replaced the curved colonnades with straight connecting links containing additional rooms behind colonnades of coupled Doric columns, so as to form a longer enfilade along what was now the garden front; for he moved the entrance to the other front [the north side], which is also of 11 bays with projecting end bays, but has no pediment. The former music room on this side of the house became the hall; it is unassuming for the hall of so important a house, with plain Doric columns at each end. On one side is a staircase hall by Morrison, again very unassuming; indeed, with the exception of the great dining room, Morrison’s interiors at Carton lack his customary neo-Classical opulence.”
Augustus Frederick FitzGerald, 3rd Duke of Leinster, (1791-1874) engraver George Sanders, Scottish, 1810 – c.1876 after Stephen Catterson Smith, Irish, 1806-1872. Photograph courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.Hermione Dunscombe – Duchess of Leinster,” O.O.B., signed lower left ‘Marian Nixon, 1878,” courtesy Fonsie Mealy auction July 2018.
Archiseek continues: “Carton remained in the control of the FitzGeralds until the early 1920s when the 7th Duke sold the estate and house to pay off gambling debts of £67,500. In 2000, Carton was redeveloped as a “premier golf resort and hotel”. A hotel was added to the main house, and the estate’s eighteenth-century grounds and landscaping were converted into two golf courses.” [3]
Mark Bence-Jones continues: “Beyond the staircase, on the ground floor, is the Chinese bedroom, where Queen Victoria slept when she stayed here; it remains as it was when decorated 1759, with Chinese paper and a Chinese Chippendale giltwood overmantel.” Unfortunately we didn’t get to see this room.
The Chinese Room at Carton House, decorated by Emily, Countess of Kildare in the mid 18th century. Above the chimneypiece is a Chippendale mirror erupting into a series of gilded branches, some of which are sconces. Pub. Orig Country Life 18/02/2009 vol CCIII.
Bence-Jones continues: “The other surviving mid-C18 interior is the saloon, originally the dining room, in the garden front, dating from 1739 and one of the most beautiful rooms in Ireland. It rises through two storeys and has a deeply coved ceiling of Baroque plasterwork by the Francini brothers representing “the Courtship of the Gods”; the plasterwork, like the decoration on the walls, being picked out in gilt. At one end of the room is an organ installed 1857, its elaborate Baroque case designed by Lord Gerald Fitzgerald [1821-1886], a son of the 3rd Duke.“
“The door at this end of the saloon leads, by way of an anteroom, to Morrison’s great dining room, which has a screen of Corinthian columns at each end and a barrel-vaulted ceiling covered in interlocking circles of oak leaves and vine leaves.
Bence-Jones tells us: “The demesne of Carton is a great C18 landscape park, largely created by 1st Duke and Emily Duchess; “Capability” Brown was consulted, but professed himself too busy to come to Ireland. By means of a series of dams, a stream has been widened into a lake and a broad serpentine river; there is a bridge by Thomas Ivory, built 1763, an ornamental dairy of ca 1770 and a shell house. Various improvements were carried out to the gardens toward the end of C19 by Hermione, wife of 5th Duke, who was as famous a beauty in her day as Emily Duchess was in hers; she was also the last Duchess of Leinster to reign at Carton, for her eldest son, 6th Duke, died young and unmarried, and her youngest son, 7th Duke, was unable to live here having, as a young man, signed away his expectations to the “50 Shilling Tailor” Sir Henry Mallaby-Deeley, in return for ready money and an annuity. As a result of this unhappy transaction, Carton had eventually to be sold. It was bought 1949 by 2nd Lord Brocket, and afterwards became the home of his younger son, Hon David Nall-Cain, who opened it to the public. It was sold once again in 1977.”
[1] Bence-Jones, Mark. 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.
Mark Bence-Jones writes of Belvedere in his 1988 book:
p. 39. “(Rochfort, sub Belvedere, E/DEP Rochfort/LGI1912; Marlay/LGI1912; Howard-Bury, sub Suffolk and Berkshire, E/PB; and Bury/IFR) An exquisite villa of ca 1740 by Richard Castle, on the shores of Lough Ennell; built for Robert Rochfort, Lord Bellfield, afterwards 1st Earl of Belvedere, whose seat was at Gaulston, ca 5 miles away [Gaulston is no longer standing]. Of two storeys over basement, with a long front and curved end bows – it may well be the earliest bow-ended house in Ireland – but little more than one room deep.”
Bence-Jones continues: “The front has a three bay recessed centre between projecting end bays, each of which originally had a Venetian window below a Diocletian window. Rusticated doorcase and rusticated window surrounds on either side of it; high roof parapet. The house contains only a few rooms, but they are of fine proportions and those on the ground floor have rococo plasterwork ceilings of the greatest delicacy and gaiety, with cherubs and other figures emerging from clouds, by the same artist as the ceilings formerly are Mespil House, Dublin, one of which is now in Aras.”
When Robert Rochfort decided to use Belvedere as his principal residence he employed Barthelemij Cramillion, the French Stuccadore, to execute the principal ceilings. The Rococo plasterwork ceilings were completed circa 1760.
Robert Rochfort the 1st Earl of Belvedere was the son of George Rochfort (1682-1730) and Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Hamilton-Moore, 3rd Earl of Drogheda.
George Rochfort (1682-1730) of Gaulstown, Co. Westmeath, M.P. for Co. Westmeath by Charles Jervas courtesy of Christies Auction 2002.Robert Rochfort (1652-1727) as Speaker of the Irish House of Commons by an unknown artist, Photograph of a painting owned by Michael O’Reilly.He was the father of George Rochfort (1682-1730) of Gaulstown, Co. WestmeathJames Rochfort (executed in 1652 after killing someone in a duel) usually known by his nickname “Prime Iron,” by Garret Morphy.He was the father of Robert Rochfort (1652-1727).
Bence-Jones tells of the Rochforts: “Soon after the house was finished, Lord Bellfield’s beautiful wife [Mary Molesworth, daughter of Richard, 3rd Viscount Molesworth of Swords, Dublin] confessed to him that she had committed adultery with his brother; whereupon he incarcerated her at Gaulston, where she remained, forbidden to see anyone but servants, until his death nearly thirty years later; while he lived a bachelor’s life of great elegance and luxury at Belvedere.“
Belvedere, County Westmeath.
Mary Molesworth was Robert Rochfort’s second wife. His first wife, Elizabeth Tenison, died childless in 1732, from smallpox.
Mrs. Delaney writes of Robert and his second wife “he has discovered an intrigue, and they say he has come to England in search of him [the brother who committed adultery] to kill him wherever he meets him… He is very well-bred and very well in his person and manner; his wife is locked up in one of his houses in Ireland, with a strict guard over her, and they say he is so miserable as to love her even now; she is extremely handsome and has many personal accomplishments.“
It is said that Charlotte Bronte may have been inspired by Mary’s imprisonment to write the character of “the madwoman in the attic” in Jane Eyre.
Belvedere, County Westmeath.Sarah Rochfort (nee Singleton) was the daughter of The Rev. Rowland Singleton (1696-1741) of Drogheda, later Vicar of Termonfeckin, County Louth, wife of Arthur Rochfort (1711-1774) of Bellfield House Co Westmeath, sold at Shepphards.Her husband was imprisoned when he could not pay his legal damages for adultery.
Mark Bence-Jones continues: “Another of his brothers lived close to Belvedere at Rochfort (afterwards Tudenham Park); having quarrelled with him too, Lord Belvedere, as he had now become, built the largest Gothic sham ruin in Ireland to blot out the view of his brother’s house; it is popularly known as the Jealous Wall.”
Tudenham Park was built for Robert’s brother George Rochfort (1713-1794) around 1743. He married Alice, daughter of Gustavus Hume 3rd Baronet of County Fermanagh. Tudenham Park is now a ruin and was recently sold.
The jealous wall is rather disappointingly attached to the visitor centre of Belvedere at the entrance to the park. Robert went to great expense to construct the wall to resemble an artificial ruined abbey, hiring the celebrated Italian architect Barrodotte to work on the project.
The Earl of Belvedere managed to have children despite his antipathy toward his wife. His son George Rochfort (1738-1814), 2nd Earl of Belvedere inherited Belvedere and other estates when his father died in 1774. He also inherited debts, and sold Gaulston House, the house where his mother had been imprisoned by his father. Unfortunately Gaulston House was destroyed by fire in 1920. George Rochfort built an extension onto the rear of Belvedere but spent most of his time in his townhouse, Belvedere House in Great Denmark Street, Dublin.
George Rochfort (1738-1815), later 2nd Earl of Belvedere by Robert Hunter (c. 1715/20-1801), Adams auction 18 Oct 2022.Belvedere House, Belvedere College, Dublin.Inside Belvedere House, plasterwork by Michael Stapleton, Belvedere College, Dublin.Belvedere House, Belvedere College, Dublin.
Robert Rochfort 1st Earl and Mary née Molesworth had a daughter Jane whom it seems was not dissuaded from marriage despite treatment of her mother, and married Brinsley Butler, 2nd Earl of Lanesborough, MP for County Cavan.
George Rochfort (12 October 1738 – 13 May 1814), 2nd Earl of Belvedere, and his second wife Jane née Mackay, by Robert Hunter, 1804 courtesy of Christies.Richard Rochfort (1740-1776) by Robert Hunter courtesy Christies Old Master Paintings and Sculpture. He was another son of the 1st Earl.
The 2nd Earl of Belvedere married first Dorothea Bloomfield, and after she died, he married Jane Mackay. He had no surviving children after his death in 1814. His wife inherited his Dublin property but his sister Jane née Rochfrot inherited Belvedere. Jane married Brinsley Butler, 2nd Earl of Lanesborough. She inherited Belvedere when she was 77 years old! She had married a second time, to John King, and the income from the estate allowed herself and her second husband to live in fine style in Florence.
Jane née Rochfort Countess of Lanesborough (1737-1828) Attributed to Thomas Pope Stevens courtesy Christies Irish Sale 2002.She was the daughter of Robert Rochfort, 1st Earl of Belvedere and married Brinsley Butler, 2nd Earl of Lanesborough.
The male line of the Earls of Lanesborough died out after two more generations. Jane’s son Robert Henry Butler (1759-1806) 3rd Earl of Lanesborough married Elizabeth La Touche, daughter of David La Touche (1729-1817) and Elizabeth Marlay, whom we came across when we visited Harristown, County Kildare (see my entry) and Marlay Park in Rathfarnham, Dublin. The estate passed down to their son, Brinsley Butler, 4th Earl of Lanesborough, but he died unmarried. The estate then passed through the female line. The 3rd Earl of Lanesborough’s sister Catherine married George Marlay (1748-1829), the brother of Elizabeth who married David La Touche.
Elizabeth, Countess of Lanesborough (née La Touche), (1764-1788), wife of 3rd Earl of Lanesborough, Date 1791 Engraver Francesco Bartolozzi, Italian, 1725-1815 After Horace Hone, English, 1756-1825, photograph courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.
Mark Bence-Jones continues: “In C19, the Diocletian windows in the front of the house were replaced with rectangular triple windows; and the slope from the front of the house down to the lough was elaborately terraced. Belvedere passed by inheritance to the Marlay family and then to late Lt-Col C.K. Howard-Bury, leader of the 1921 Mount Everest Expedition; who bequeathed it to Mr Rex Beaumont.” (see [3])
Catherine and George Marlay had a son, George (1791-1880), who married Catherine Tisdall, and the estate passed to his son, Charles Brinsley Marlay (1831-1912). Charles was only sixteen when he inherited Belvedere from his cousin the Earl of Lanesborough.
Charles Brinsley Marlay of Belvedere House County Westmeath, courtesy of The Fitzwilliam Museum.
It was Charles Brisley Marlay who built the terraces leading down to the lake, in the late 1880s. The twelve stone lions were added later. He spent many hours planning the 60 metre long rockery to the side of the terraces, and also built the walled garden. He was known as “the Darling Landlord” due to his kindness to tenants, and for bringing happiness and wealth back to Belvedere. He was cultured and amassed an important art collection, as well as improving the estate.
The inheritance of Belvedere continues to be even more complicated. It passed via Catherine Tisdall’s family. Her mother Catherine Dawson (1762-1821) had married twice. Catherine’s second husband was Charles William Bury (1764-1835), the 1st Earl of Charleville. We came across him earlier, as an owner of Charleville Forest, in Tullamore, County Offaly.
Charleville Forest Castle, County Offaly.
Belvedere passed to Charles William Bury (1764-1835) the 1st Earl of Charleville’s descendant, Lt. Col Charles Howard-Bury (1883-1963). The 3rd Earl of Charleville, Charles William George Bury (1822-1859) had several children but the house passed to the fourth child, Emily Alfreda Julia Bury (1856-1931), as all others had died before Charles Brinsley Marley died. It was therefore the son of Emily Alfreda Julia Bury and her husband Kenneth Howard, who added Bury to his surname, who inherited Belvedere. Their son was Charles Kenneth Howard-Bury (1883-1963).
Charles Howard-Bury left Belvedere to his friend, Rex Beaumont. Eventally financial difficulties caused Mr Beaumont to sell the property, and it was acquired by Westmeath County Council. Two years previously, in 1980, Mr Beaumont sold the contents of the house – I wonder where those things ended up?
The estate is a wonderful amenity for County Westmeath, with large parklands to explore with several follies, as well as the walled garden.
In Belvedere, dining was an opportunity to impress guests not only by the room but by the sumptuous meals, presented by immaculately dressed servants. The rococo ceiling of puffing cherubs and fruits and foliage is attributed to Barthelemji Cramillion, a French stuccodore.
Information boards tells us that the Drawing Room was the place for afternoon tea, after-dinner drinks, music and conversation. Belvedere’s last owners, Charles Howard-Bury and Rex Beaumont would have passed many happy hours relaxing and reminiscing about their wartime experiences and travels across the world, as well as planning trips to Tunisia and Jamaica.
Florence Court, formerly the home of the Cole family, Earls of Enniskillen, is surrounded by a large area of parkland, garden and woodland, with beautiful views to Benaughlin and the Cuilcagh Mountains. photo Courtesy of Tourism Northern Ireland by Brian Morrison 2008 (see [1]).
“Florence Court epitomises the Irish country house: a grand and elegant house in a romantic setting with self-sufficient demesne complete with gardens, parkland, woodland, and supporting buildings. The beauty and peacefulness of Florence Court bely the sometimes turbulent lives of those who lived and worked here during the course of its 300-year history.
“Captain William Cole came to Ireland as part of Elizabeth 1’s army of colonisation in 1601. He oversaw the creation of Enniskillen at its strategically important location on Lough Erne and lived in Enniskillen Castle, becoming Provost and then Governor. Many generations of the family continued to be involved in the governance of the area and as members of parliament. A century later, his descendant Sir John Cole (1680-1726) built a lodge to the south west of the town, and named it after his wife, Florence [née Wray]. The house he built in the 1720s was not fortified as the early 1700s were a time of relative peacefulness in Ulster compared to the previous century. The present Florence Court house we see today was built by Sir John’s son, also called John Cole [1709-1767], who was raised to the peerage as Lord Mount Florence in 1760. The house was still unfinished at the time of young John’s death. The colonnades and pavilions were completed by his son, William Willoughby Cole (1736-1803) who became Earl of Enniskillen in 1789.“
Mark Bence-Jones writes in his A Guide to Irish Country Houses (1988):
p. 125. “(Cole, Enniskillen, E/PB) A tall, early to mid-C18 block of three storeys over a basement and seven bays, its front heavily enriched with rustications, balustrades, pedimented niches and other features; joined by long arcades with rusticated pilasters to pedimented and pilastered single-storey pavilions. The centre block was probably built by John Cole, MP, afterwards 1st Lord Mountflorence, whose mother was the Florence after whom the house is named; the name was probably originally given to a shooting-box built here in the days when the family lived at Enniskillen Castle. The arcades and pavilions seem to date from ca 1770, and would have been added by William Cole, 1st Earl of Enniskillen; they were possibly designed by Davis Duckart. They blend perfectly with the centre block, and the whole long, golden-grey front has a dream-like Baroque beauty that is all the greater for being somewhat bucolic. The centre block has a three bay breakfront with a central pedimented niche between two windows in the top storey, a Venetian window between two niches in the storey below, and a pedimented tripartite doorway on the ground floor. The rear elevation has a central three sided bow with rusticated window surrounds, but there is nothing like the lavish ornament here that there is on the front. Curved sweeps join the back of the house to outbuildings.” [2]
The website tells us: “The house is a bit of a mystery: the architect or architects are unknown and in some of the main rooms superb decorative plasterwork survives though there is no record of who the skilled plasterers were. The main block probably dates to the 1760s and its colonnades and wings to the 1770s. These hide extensive yards and service buildings, grouped cleverly around the back of the house.“
The only room we were allowed to photograph inside was the Colonel’s Room, which is in one of the pavilions and which is where the tour begins.
Mark Bence-Jones continues, describing the inside of Florence Court: “The interior contains some wonderfully vigorous rococo plasterwork, in the manner of Robert West and apparently dating from 1755. In the hall, which is divided from the staircase by an arch, the decoration is architectural, reflecting the outside, with banded pilasters and a Doric frieze. Through the arch and up the staircase of splendid joinery with its handrail of tulip wood, the plasterwork becomes more rococo: great panels of foliage on the walls, and a cornice of pendants and acanthus. From the half landing one gets a view downwards to the hall and upwards through two arches at the top of the stairs to the Venetian Room, lit by the great Venetian window, which has what is probably the finest ceiling in the house; with a swirl of foliage and eagles and other birds of prey in high relief. The drawing room, to the right of the foot of the staircase, has a cornice of acanthus foliage, masks of “Tragedy” and “Comedy,” baskets of fruit and and birds. The ceiling of the dining room, on the other side of the staircase hall, is more elaborate, with foliage and birds and a central panel of cherubs puffing from clouds. There was formerly a delightful ceiling in the nursery on the top floor, with drums, rocking horses and other toys incorporated in the ornament.“
Florence Court in County Fermanagh, photograph by Robert French, Lawrence Photograph Collection, National Library of Ireland.The Staircase Hall at Florence Court resplendent with its decorative woodwork and rococo plasterwork by Robert West; Florence Court, County Fermanagh, Copyright Christopher Simon Sykes/The Interior Archive Ltd, PhotoShelter ID/ I000041iD7fcpfGk, CS_GI15_32.Looking back down the staircase to two tiers of windows surrounded by rococo plasterwork panels attributed to Robert West, Florence Court, County Fermanagh, Copyright Christopher Simon Sykes/The Interior Archive Ltd, Byline/ Sir Albert Richardson, PhotoShelter ID/ I00009VnMC66jNjY, CS_GI15_37.
“After a devastating fire in 1955 the interiors of the house were quickly rebuilt and repaired. The contents had been on loan from the family and many had miraculously survived the fire. They were removed by the 6th Earl in the 1970s, when he and his wife went to live elsewhere but were generously returned by his widow, Nancy, in the 1990s. This breathed renewed life back into the house and the Trust continues to restore the gardens and demesne buildings so that all can enjoy this remarkable house, gardens and demesne and hear the story of those who created them.“
Bence-Jones writes: “The park, which is dramatically overshadowed by the sombre mountains of Benknocklan and Cuilcagh, contains the original Irish or Florence Court yew. The 5th Earl and his son, the late Viscount Cole, gave Florence Court to the Northern Ireland National Trust in 1953. Two years later, the centre of the house was severely damaged by fire; fortunately the staircase and much of the plasterwork was saved, and most of what was lost was restored under the direction of the late Sir Albert Richardson. No photographic record existed of the nursery ceiling, which was among those destroyed, so this was not reinstated. Florence Court is open to the public.”
“At around the same time, the formal landscape of the 1720s was re-designed by William King, one of the great landscape gardeners of the late 18th century, who planted belts of trees to provide shelter and woodland, and clumps of trees in open parkland, where sheep, horses and cattle could graze. The mass of Benaughlin mountain provides a dramatic backdrop to the composition. The demesne provided the immediate needs of the household and employment for staff, servants and farm labourers, with grazing for cattle, sheep and horses, a large deer park, arable land for crops and woodlands for timber. A major restoration of the 19th century walled garden is underway through the dedication of volunteers and staff. The vegetable and fruit garden is full of activity once again, giving a sense of Florence Court as the hive of industry that enabled it to be largely self-sustaining.”
“At its height, it was further supported by nearly 30,000 acres of tenanted farmland, which provided much-needed rental income. The latter part of the 19th century in Ireland was dominated by the Land Wars: a period of unrest and reappraisal of the historic form of land tenure and landlord- tenant relations. Like most other estates, Florence Court’s estate was significantly reduced by various Land Acts brought in by the British government in around 1900 to deal with the situation. In so doing, many houses in Ireland lost their main source of income from tenanted land and began a gradual decline in fortune. With the impact of the 1st and 2nd World Wars and rising taxes, Florence Court eventually proved impossible for the family to maintain and the house was transferred to the National Trust in 1954.”
The website tells us: “Through the 19th century the 3rd and 4th Earls of Enniskillen continued the work of their ancestors by investing in and developing the land and the estate. William, 3rd Earl, was also a keen palaeontologist, and gathered a large collection of fossil fish which he eventually sold to the British Museum. As Grand Master of the Orange Lodge of Ireland he was also involved in many civic duties. William’s first wife, Jane Casamaijor, laid out the American garden with rhododendrons and azaleas on the slopes south of the house. William invested heavily in the estate and demesne. The 3rd Earl also built a Tile, Brick and Pottery Works which turned local clay into drainage pipes, bricks and tiles (no longer extant). The sawmill transformed trees into everything from coffins to fence posts, railway sleepers, furniture and gates.”
[2] Bence-Jones, Mark. 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.
John Barry (1725-1784), who added the name Smith to his surname after his marriage to a wealthy heiress, was the son of James Barry, 4th Earl of Barrymore, of Castlelyons, County Cork, and Barry’s third wife, Anne Chichester, daughter of Arthur Chichester, 3rd Earl of Donegall (it was spelled with two ‘l’s in the title, unlike the county). He married Dorothy Smith, daughter of Hugh Smith of Weald Hall, Essex, and John added Smith to his surname.
John Smith-Barry (1783-1837), son of James Hugh Smith-Barry (1746-1801) settled in Fota, County Cork, after his marriage to Eliza Courtenay of Ballyedmond, Midleton, County Cork.
James Hugh Smith-Barry (1816-1856) inherited Fota and also Marbury Hall in Cheshire. He served as Deputy Lieutenant, Justice of the Peace and High Sheriff of County Cork. He married Elizabeth Jacson of Cheshire. After her husband died, she married George Fleming Warren, 2nd Baron de Tabley of Tabley House, County Chester.
James Hugh Smith-Barry by William Orpen 1904, courtesy of Fonsie Mealy auction 2022.
Arthur Hugh Smith-Barry (1843-1925), the oldest son of James and Elizabeth, inherited Fota and also Marbury Hall. He too served as Deputy Lieutenant, Justice of the Peace and High Sheriff of County Cork as well as Member of Parliament (M.P.) (Conservative) for County Cork between 1867 and 1874. He held the office of Member of Parliament (M.P.) (Conservative) for South Huntingdonshire in England between 1886 and 1900. In 1902 he was created 1st (and last) Baron Barrymore of County Cork.
Alexander Stewart (1699/1700-1781) and his wife, Mary Cowan, bought a large area of land in County Down in 1744, part of which became Mount Stewart demesne.
Burke’s Landed Gentry of Ireland tells us that Francis Swifte, son of Henry of Sheffield, County York, was knighted in 1616 and died in 1642. Henry of Sheffield’s other son was Thomas, who was buried in Canterbury Cathedral, who married Margaret, daughter and heir of the Right Rev. Thomas Godwin, Bishop of Bath & Wells. Many generations of Swift after him had the forename “Godwin.” Thomas and Margaret had a son William, born in 1566, who was Rector of Herbaldown and who married Mary Philpott.
17th Century English School “Portrait of a Gentleman in Armour, Sir Francis Swifte,” courtesy Fonsie Mealy Fortgranite auction.Probably Francis Swifte, son of Henry of Sheffield, County York, was knighted in 1616 and died in 1642.Reverend Thomas Swifte, 17th Century Irish School. He was born in Canterbury in 1561, and married Margaret, daughter and heir of the Right Rev. Thomas Godwin, Bishop of Bath & Wells. He was the son of Henry Swifte; courtesy of Fonsie Mealy’s Fortgranite auction.Many generations of Swift after him had the forename “Godwin.”Late 16th / early 17th Century English School, “Right Reverend Thomas Godwin, courtesy Fonsie Mealy Fortgranite auction.
Thomas and Mary’s son Reverend Thomas (1595-1658) of Goodrich, Herefordshire, England, and Bristow, was ancestor of the Irish Swift family of Swiftsheath and Lionsden. He was devoted to King Charles I and the son of Charles I who was to become King Charles II.
Thomas married Elizabeth Dryden (c. 1605-1658). They had many children, many of whom lived in Ireland. His son Jonathan (d. 1667) was a solicitor in Dublin, who married Abigail Erick of County Leicester, and they had a son, born after his death in Hoey’s Court, Dublin, right next to Dublin Castle, in 1667, also named Jonathan, the famed writer, Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. He wrote many anecdotes about his grandfather in his manuscript The Family of Swift which is preserved in the library at Trinity College, Dublin (I must go to see it!). He died in 1745.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) by Charles Jervas circa 1718, National Portrait Gallery in London, 278.Portrait of Dean Swift attributed to Rupert Barber (1719-1772), courtesy of Adam’s auction 12 May 2013.This must be Jonathan Swift who died in 1745, Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.Portrait of Stella courtesy of Adam’s auction 12 May 2013, attributed to Rupert Barber (1719-1772).“Portrait of Esther Johnson (Stella),” Late 18th / Early 19th Century after James Latham (1696 – 1747) courtesy of Fonsie Mealy Fortgranite sale.
Reverend Thomas Swift (1595-1658) had another son, Godwin Swift (d. 1695), who was Attorney-General to the Duke of Ormonde, and married four times. Geoffrey Marescaux tells us that Godwin Swift paid the famous Jonathan Swift’s school fees. His heir was child of his second wife, Katherine Webster, Godwin Swift (1672-1739), later of Dunbrow, County Dublin and Swiftsheath, County Kilkenny. For information on Swiftsheath, see https://kilkennyarchaeologicalsociety.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/OKR1978-356-Geoffrey-Marescaux-Swiftes-Heath.pdf
Godwin Swift (1672-1739) married his cousin, Elizabeth, who was daughter of another son of Reverend Thomas Swift Vicar at Goodrich and Elizabeth née Dryden, William, who had land in Carlow, Kilkenny, Leitrim and Roscommon.
Godwin Swift (1672-1739) and Elizabeth had a son Godwin who inherited Swiftsheath and also owned Tidenton, County Kilkenny. He married a cousin, Elizabeth Swift, who was daughter of Deane Swift (c. 1674-1714) of Castle Rickard, County Westmeath. Deane Swift (c. 1674-1714) was another son of Godwin Swift Attorney-General to the Duke of Ormonde, by his 3rd wife, Hannah Deane.
Their son Godwin Swift (c. 1734-1815) lived in Swiftsheath and Lionsden, County Meath. He also married a cousin, Maria Swift, daughter of Deane Swift (c. 1707-1783) and Mary née Harrison, daughter of Theophilus Harrison. To add confusion to the family tree, Theophilus Harrison, Reverend of Clonmacnois, married twice, and one of his wives, Eleanor Meade, daughter of William Meade Lt Col of Ballintober, County Cork, had been previously married to Godwin Swift Attorney-General to the Duke of Ormonde as his fourth wife! Mary Harrison’s mother was Theophilus Harrison’s second wife, Martha Swift – yes, another Swift! She was the daughter of Adam Swift of Greencastle, County Down, who was another son of Thomas Swift Vicar at Goodrich and Elizabeth née Dryden.
Reverend Deane Swifte, 17th Century Irish School, cousin and biographer of Dean Jonathan Swift. This is be Deane Swift (1703-1783), son of Deane Swift of Castle Rickard, County Westmeath. His great grandfather was a Regicide, ie. signed the death warrant of King Charles I, but fortunately died before Charles II was restored to the throne, according to Jonathan Swift!Admiral Richard Deane (Regicide) 17th Century English School courtesy Fonsie Mealy Fortgranite auction.The Fonsie Mealy site adds: “Note: Major Joseph Deane (Inistiogue, 1661-66), of Crumlin, County Dublin, and Ballicocksoust, County Kilkenny (formerly the estate of Richard Strange), was the youngest son of Edward Deane, of Pinnock, Gloucestershire, by his 2nd wife, Anne Wase, and was born at Pinnock, 2nd February, 1624. His elder brother, Colonel Richard Deane, a leading member of the Republican party, was one of the Judges who sat on the trial of Charles I, and signed the death warrant of the King. Colonel Richard Deane was entrusted with the settlement of Scotland, which he speedily effected by his temperance and sagacity. He was next appointed one of the “Generals at Sea”, having for his colleague the famous Robert Blake, but was killed in action against the Dutch on 2nd June, 1653. He was honoured with a public funeral and buried in Henry VII’s Chapel at Westminster, but in 1661 his body (being that of a Regicide) was exhumed and cast out of the Abbey. Joseph Deane was educated at Winchester School, and entered the Parliamentary Army as Cornet in Rainsborough’s Horse. He volunteered for service in Ireland under Oliver Cromwell, in whose army he held the rank of Major. Under the Act of Settlement he had two grants of land (16th January, 1666, and 22nd June, 1669), comprising 9,324 statute acres, situated in the counties of Meath, Down, and Kilkenny, 3,859 acres being in Kilkenny. He purchased from Richard Talbot (afterwards Earl and Duke of Tyrconnell) the Manor of Terenure, in county Dublin, for 4,000. He was named on some important committees of the House of Commons, but was fined 10 for absence on 31st January 1665. In 1664 he paid 4s. hearth money for “Ballicagbsust”. In 1677 he served as High Sheriff of county Dublin. He died 21st December, 1699, having been twice married. By his 1st wife Anne —-, he had one son and two daughters – Joseph, of Crumlin, whose son, Joseph, became Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and died without male issue. (1) Anne, married in May, 1673 (as his 3rd wife), Godwin Swift, Attorney-General to the Duke of Ormonde. (2) Elizabeth, married 1st in May, 1672, Captain Henry Grey; 2nd in July, 1677, Donogh O’Brien, of Lemenagh, County Clare. Major Deane married, 2ndly, in 1659, Elizabeth, daughter of Maurice Cuffe, and sister of Captain Joseph Cuffe, of Castle Inch, elected M.P. for Knocktopher in 1665, and by her, who died 3rd April, 1698, had a son and a daughter – Edward whom hereafter M.P. for Inistiogue; and Dorothy, married Maurice Berkeley, of Glasnevin county Dublin.THE MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT FOR THE COUNTY, CITY AND BOROUGHS OF KILKENNYBY G.D. BURTCHAELL, M.A., LL.B [Written for the KILKENNY MODERATOR]Mrs Godwin Swifte of Swifte’s Heath, courtesy of Fonsie Mealy’s Fortgranite sale.
Godwin Swift (c. 1734-1815) of Swiftsheath and Lionsden and his cousin, Maria Swift had another son called Godwin Swift (c. 1779-1814), of Lionsden. This Godwin Swift married yet another cousin, Jane Sophia Swift (1785-1851), in 1803. She was the daughter of Richard Swift (1750-1796) who was the son of John L’Estrange Swift (1709-1793) of Lynn, County Westmeath, who was the son of Meade Swift (1682-1739) of Lynn, County Westmeath, who was the son of Godwin Swift Attorney-General to the Duke of Ormonde and Eleanor née Meade!
Jane Sophia Swift (1785-1851) married secondly, in 1818, Louis Auguste Alexander, Comte Lepelletier de Molende.
Countess Molende née Swift and her granddaughter Luigina de Sadre, Gifted by the artist to W.R. Swifte as a token, as his predecessor Jonathan Swifte served as Rector at Agher Church from 1699 – 1745, courtesy Fonsie Mealy Fortgranite auction.
Godwin Swift (c. 1779-1814), of Lionsden and Jane Sophia Swift (1785-1851) had a son Godwin Meade Pratt Swift (1805-1864) of Swiftsheath and Lionsden.
Identified as “Godwin Pratt Meade Swifte Lord Carlingford (m. MJ Clarke), Leahy, Dixon & Mulvanney, 19th Century Irish School, standing in a landscape by a grey horse with Foulksrath Castle, Co. Kilkenny in the distance”, courtesy of Fonsie Mealy Fortgranite. Godwin Meade Pratt Swift (1805-1864) of Swiftsheath and Lionsdenmarried Mary Jane Clarke of Bansha Castle, County Tipperary.He took the title Viscount Carlingford.Jane Christina Swifte (1810-1854), the wife of “Chevalier Sergio Demacdo, Minister Plenipotentiary of HM Emperor of Brazil,” Early 19th Century Irish School, courtesy Fonsie Mealy Fortgranite. She was the daughter of Godwin Swift of Lionsden and Jane Sophia.
Godwin called himself Viscount Carlingford, reviving a title created in 1627 for another branch of the Swift family. Godwin also added the “e” back to the end of the name Swift. He married first, Maria Theresa Plankenstern, Baroness de Wetzlar of Austria at Paris in 1830 after the birth of their son Ferdinando. [see https://www.youwho.ie/swifte.html ].
Godwin secondly married Jane Anne Hopkins on 18 Mar 1845 at Liverpool after an non legal ceremony some years earlier. Godwin returned with his family from the continent in 1845 to take up residence at Swiftesheath. Jane died at Lionsden, Castle Rickard in 1848 and was buried in the family vault. Godwin thirdly married Mary Jane Clarke on 4 Feb 1863 at Kilkenny and declared himself a widower. Mary was the daughter of Robert Hare Clarke. Godwin died 4 Jul 1864.
He created a flying machine which he hoisted to the top of Foulkesrathe Castle, which stood on the property of Swiftesheath, but it failed to fly and a butler who was piloting the plane broke a leg in his fall.
Identified as Pratt Swifte, Early 19th Century Irish School, courtesy of Fonsie Mealy Fortgranite sale.Mrs. Swifte, grandmother of Thomas Dennis courtesy Fonsie Mealy Fortgranite Auction.19th Century Irish School, Portrait of Mrs. Godwin Swifte courtesy Fonsie Mealy Fortgranite auction.There were so many Godwin Swifts it is hard to identify the sitter.Godwin Butler Meade Swifte (1864-1923) son of “Viscount Carlingford,” wearing uniform of the High Sheriff of Kilkenny, seated holding a sword, D.L. was the High Sheriff of Kilkenny and later Carlow, and resided at Swifte’s Heath, Co. Kilkenny, courtesy of Fonsie Mealy Fortgranite.Ernest Godwin Swifte K.C., with a companion painting of Lady Francis Swifte courtesy of Fonsie Mealy Fortgranite sale.He was the son of William Richard Swift (1807-1890), son of Godwin Swift of Lionsden and Jane Sophia.“Lady Francis Swifte,” with a companion painting of Ernest Godwin Swifte K.C., courtesy of Fonsie Mealy Fortgranite sale.Perhaps it is Ernest Godwin’s sister Julia Frances Swift, who did not marry.
“Built by [Richard Bourke 1572-1635] the fourth earl of Clanricarde, Portumna Castle was the de Burgo family power base for centuries.
“The castle is a unique example of the transitional Irish architecture of the early 1600s. Its bold design combines elements of medieval and Renaissance style that complement each other perfectly.
“A major fire in 1826 left the castle a roofless shell, but the state began to bring it back from ruin in the 1960s. Restoration work continues to this day.
“The dramatic walk up to the building includes charming formal gardens, which create an enchanting sense of the original seventeenth-century setting. The walled kitchen garden is particularly memorable.
“The castle enjoys a sensational view of Lough Derg. The ground floor is open to the public and houses an exhibition that brings the story of the castle and the de Burgo family to life. It is right beside the River Shannon and Portumna Forest Park, which makes it a great choice for a delightful day out.“
Richard Bourke 4th Earl of Clanricarde was brought up and educated in England. He fought on the side of the English against Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and was knighted on the field at the battle of Kinsale. He was a protege of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, and married Frances Walsingham, who was the widow of the poet Philip Sydney (1554-1586) and of Robert Devereux, the 2nd Earl of Essex (1566-1601), favourite of Queen Elizabeth I.
Portrait of Frances Walsingham, along with her husband Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, and in the small picture, Sir Philip Sydney.
The castle was built around 1616 and is a mixture of defensive Elizabethan/Jacobean building and a manor house, marking the transition in building styles. In this is it similar to Rathfarnham Castle in Dublin, which was built around 1583. It retains defensive structures such as machicolations (floor openings in the battlements, through which stones, or other objects, could be dropped on attackers), shot holes, and strong corner towers, and surrounding walls with gunloops and crenellated towers.
The back is similar to the front, except for the addition in around 1797 of a curved porch of Jacobean style in the middle of the garden front (probably in the time of the 12th Earl of Clanricarde who died in December 1797 and was elevated to be a Marquess). I loved the curving steps up to this round door entrance.
Before building Portumna Castle, the principal seat of the Earls of Clanricarde was a castle in Loughrea. As well as building Portumna, the 4th Earl refurbished the castles at Aughnanure and Athenry, amongst others. The Clanricarde earls also owned Clarecastle, Oranmore and Kilcolgan castles.
Aughnanure Castle County Galway, photograph courtesy of OPW website.This was also refurbished by the 4th Earl of Clanricarde.Athenry Castle, County Galway, photograph courtesy of OPW website. This was also refurbished by the 4th Earl of Clanricarde.
The descendants of William de Burgo adopted Irish customs and clothing. Ulick Burke of Clanricarde (d. 1544) became Earl of Clanricarde and Baron of Dunkellin, and was one of the earliest Irish Chiefs to accept Henry VIII’s policy of “surrender and regrant,” accepting Henry VIII as his sovereign.
Ulick’s son Richard, 2nd Earl of Clanricarde, fought the Irish for the British crown.
The castle passed to the 4th Earl’s son Ulick who succeeded as 5th Earl of Clanricarde (d. 1657) and who was created 1st Marquess of Clanricarde. and then to a cousin, Richard (d. 1666), who became 6th Earl of Clanricarde.
Portrait of Ulick, 5th Earl of Clanricarde (d. 1657). He was created Marquess of Clanricarde. He was Lord Deputy and Commander in Chief of Royalist forces against Cromwell in 1649. His Irish estates were lost but then recovered by his widow after the restoration of Charles II to the throne.
The 6th Earl married Elizabeth Butler, daughter of Walter Butler, 11th Earl of Ormond and had daughters so the title passed to his brother William (d. 1687), 7th Earl of Clanricarde.
The 7th Earl’s son Richard the 8th Earl (died 1708) succeeded his father and despite marrying several times had no male heirs, so was succeeded by his brother John, 9th Earl (d. 1722). John was created Baron Burke of Bophin, County Galway, by King James II. He fought on the Jacobite side and was taken prisoner at the Battle of Aughrim in 1691. He was declared an outlaw and the Clanricarde estates were forfeited to the King, but the outlawry was reversed twelve years later on the payment of a whopping £25,000. His son Michael the 10th Earl succeeded him (d. 1726) and fortunately he married well, to Anne Smith daughter of John Smith, Chancellor of the Exchequer, widow of Hugh Parker of Meldford Hall, Sussex, whose income helped to restore the family fortunes.
The 11th Earl, John Smith de Burgh (1720-1782) changed his surname from Bourke to De Burgh.
Henry de Burgh, 12th Earl and 1st Marquess of Clanricarde (1742 – 1797), Attributed to John Smart (British, 1741-1811) courtesy of https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6249637Henry de Burgh, (1743-1797) 1st Marquess of Clanricarde 2nd creation, as Knight of St. Patrick, by engraver William Sedgewick, after Robert Hunter, courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.
The 13th Earl, John Thomas De Burgh (1744-1808), brother of the 12th Earl, was created again 1st Earl of Clanricarde, an Irish Peer, on 29 December 1800, with special remainder to his daughters, if he had no male heir. One daughter, Hester, married Howe Peter Browne, 2nd Marquess of Sligo, and the other, Emily, married Thomas St Lawrence, 3rd Earl of Howth.
John Thomas De Burgh (1744-1808) 13th Earl of Clanricarde was created 1st Earl of Clanricarde, Co. Galway.
His son, Ulick (1802-1874), became the 1st Marquess Clanricarde (of the 3rd creation), and also Baron of Somerhill, Kent. It was during his tenure that the fire occurred. He married Harriet Canning, daughter of Prime Minister George Canning. Ulick was described as being immensely rich.
Ulick John De Burgh, 14th Earl and 1st Marquess of Clanricarde (1802-1874).Harriet Canning, Countess of Clanricarde (1804-1876), married to Ulick John De Burgh, 14th Earl and 1st Marquess of Clanricarde (1802-1874).
Amazing work has been done to reconstruct the castle after the fire. The Commissioners of Public Works acquired the castle in 1968 for preservation as a national monument.
Portumna Castle 1946, photograph from Dublin City Archives and Library. [3]Portumna Castle, County Galway, July 2021.The sign board tells us that the Commissioners of Public Works acquired the castle in 1968 for preservation as a National Monument.Portumna Castle, County Galway, July 2021.Portumna Castle, County Galway, July 2021.The information board tells us that the collapsed spine wall and oak floor beams were reinstated to the original design, based on detailed survey work of surviving features and documentary evidence, including early floor layout plans. The limestone handrail in front of the building was reinstated based on one surviving fragment.Portumna Castle, County Galway, July 2021.The board tells us that the roof trusses are Irish oak. Studies were made of surviving roof timbers of buildings that would have been built around the same time, such as Carrick-on-Suir castle and Rathfarnham Castle.Portumna Castle, County Galway, July 2021.Window mullions were repaired with resin.There was a carriageway road built in either the late 19th or early 19th century, and a well in what was the kitchen.
After the fire the family built a Ruskinian Gothic mansion by Sir Thomas Newenham Deane at the opposite end of the park. Mark Bence-Jones tells us that the new house was not much lived in by the family, for 2nd and last Marquess of Clanricarde, who succeeded 1874, was “the notorious miser and eccentric who spent his life in squalid rooms in London and dressed like a tramp.”
The 2nd Marquess, Hubert George De Burgh-Canning, “the notorious miser and eccentric who spent his life in squalid rooms in London and dressed like a tramp.”
The 2nd Marquess, Hubert George De Burgh-Canning, who died 1916, left Portumna to his great-nephew, Viscount Henry George Charles Lascelles, afterwards 6th Earl of Harewood and husband of Princess Mary (daughter of King George V), because it was said that he was the only member of his family who ever went to see him. The 1862 house was burnt 1922; after which Lord Harewood, when he came here, occupied a small house on the place. Portumna was sold when he died in 1947. [4]
Elizabeth de Burgh, who married Henry Thynne Lascelles, 4th Earl of Harewood. She was the sister ofthe 2nd Marquess, Hubert George De Burgh-Canning.Pictured, the marriage of Princess Mary to Viscount Lascelles.
The castle had a long gallery on the second storey, similar to that in the Ormond Castle in Carrick-on-Suir. Long galleries originated in Italy and France and became fashionable in England after 1550. They were often sparsely furnished and were used for indoor exercise.
The exhibition tells us about various positions of servants in a castle. I was amused by the description of the job of a footman. We are told that they were kept largely for “ornamental” purposes and had to be fairly tall and good-looking, and their wages even rose with their height! Some padded their silk stockings to make their calves look more shapely!
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Clonskeagh Castle, photograph courtesy of Sherry Fitzgerald and myhome.ie
We visited Clonskeagh Castle in December 2023. The name Clonskeagh comes from the Irish “Cluain Sceach” – the meadow of the white thorns. The house was built around 1789 as a country residence (he also had a house in the city) for Henry Jackson (d. 1817), who owned an iron foundry.
The house was built on an elevated site, and originally faced a toward the Dodder River. It was more compact than the “castle” as we see it today as it did not have the porch or the two towers that now stand at the present front of the house. The front door is less impressive than one would expect but this is because it was not the original front. The portico was added around 1886 when the house was inherited by Robert Wade Thompson.
The house was purchased by the parents of the current owner in 1992. The house had been converted into flats and the Armstrongs converted it back into use as a family home. They carried out much work on the building, with the benefit of research and guidance of architectural historian, Professor Alistair Rowan. The website tells us:
“The recent works [in 2019] have included restoration of the major portions of the parapet roof in accordance with best conservation practice; withdrawal of earth from the curtailage of the building, which had been piled up over at least a century giving rise to dampness in the walls; and restoration of rooms in what had been the servants’ quarters to create a small apartment.
“These works have been executed by Rory McArdle, heritage contractor, under the supervision of award-winning architect Marc Kilkenny, with frequent reference to the conservation experts at Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. Fionan de Barra, architect, also provided valuable consultation at the early stages of the project.“
Clonskeagh Castle, photograph courtesy of Sherry Fitzgerald and myhome.ie
In an article in the Irish Times published on October 6th 2022 written by Elizabeth Birdthistle, Marc Kilkenny said: “Working with my father-in-law at Clonskeagh Castle was an immense privilege. This house was like a member of the family and I felt honoured to be entrusted with the works… We reopened the original 18th century entrance to create a new sitting room which reintroduced south light into the entrance hall. We replaced the main roof and rerouted rainwater and transformed part of the basement into a light and spacious apartment with associated garden and steps up to a new terrace by the main kitchen. All works were carried out to the highest conservation standards.” [1]
Clonskeagh Castle, photograph courtesy of Sherry Fitzgerald and myhome.ieClonskeagh Castle, photograph courtesy of Sherry Fitzgerald and myhome.ie
The house contains a beautiful curving staircase with iron balusters, and a spacious upstairs lobby with arches and large sash casement windows letting in the light.
The original owner of the house, Henry Jackson, was the fourth son of Hugh Jackson (1710?–77) of Creeve, Co. Monaghan, and his wife Eleanor (née Gault), who belonged to a family engaged in the linen trade. [2] Hugh Jackson introduced the linen trade to Ballybay, Co. Monaghan, and generally improved the town.
Henry Jackson started in business as an ironmonger in 1766. The Dictionary of Irish Biography tells us that he is listed in the Dublin Directory from 1768 as an ironmonger in Pill Lane, and from 1787 as an iron founder or iron and brass founder in Old Church Street. In 1798 he also had mills for rolling and slitting iron on the quays and for grinding corn in Phoenix Street (both also steam powered) and iron mills at Clonskeagh.
Henry Jackson joined the United Irishmen. He was influenced by the writings of Thomas Paine, the author of The Rights of Man, and Jackson named the house “Fort Paine.” The Society of United Irishmen was formed at a gathering in a Belfast tavern in October 1791. They were influenced by the ideals of the French Revolution, and they wanted to secure “an equal representation of all the people” in a national government. The founders were mostly Presbyterian but they vowed to make common cause with Irish Catholics. Presbyterians as well as Catholics had suffered under the Penal Laws in Ireland, as Presbyterians were “dissenters” from the established Protestant religion. Most of the original United Irishmen were members of the Irish Volunteers, which were local militias set up to keep order and safety when British soldiers were withdrawn from Ireland to fight in the American Revolutionary War (or as those in America call it, the War of Independence).
In Dublin on 4 November 1779, the Volunteers took advantage of the annual commemoration of King William III’s birthday, marching to his statue in College Green and demonstrating for the cause of free trade between Ireland and Great Britain. Previously, under the Navigation Acts, Irish goods had been subject to tariffs upon entering Britain, whereas British goods could pass freely into Ireland.
Painting by Francis Wheatley depicting the Dublin Volunteers on College Green, 1779.
Theobald Wolfe Tone was one of the founders of the United Irishmen. Thomas Russell had invited Tone, as the author of An Argument on behalf of the Catholics of Ireland, to the Belfast gathering in October 1791. By 1798, Tone instigated Rebellion for independence and the formation of a republic in Ireland, and he sought the help of the French. Although Protestant, Tone was secretary to Dublin’s Catholic Committee, a group which had been formed to seek repeal of the Penal Laws. The Catholic Committee was formed in 1757 by Charles O’Conor of Belanagare in County Sligo (see my entry about Clonalis).
Theobald Wolfe Tone, courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.
In 1786 Henry Jackson, who was from a Presbyterian family, joined his son-in-law Oliver Bond, along with James Napper Tandy and Archibald Hamilton Rowan, to form a Dublin battalion of the Volunteers. He was also a member of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen. He sat on several of its committees, acting as its secretary and later as its treasurer, and was present at what proved to be the final meeting of the society when it was raided by the police (23 May 1794).
James Napper Tandy (1740-1803), United Irishman, by unknown artist, presented to National Gallery of Ireland by Mr. Parker 1872, object number NGI 429.
Henry Jackson of Clonskeagh Castle used his foundry to make pikes for the 1798 Rebellion. The website tells us:
“Jackson was involved in preparations for the 1798 Rebellion, and his foundries were engaged to manufacture pikes for combat, and also iron balls of the correct bore to fit French cannons, in anticipation of an expected invasion. His son-in-law Oliver Bond was also heavily implicated in these plans.
“In the event, Jackson was arrested before the ill-fated Rebellion, and imprisoned in England. After some time he was released on condition that he went into exile in America. He died in the city of Baltimore, Maryland in 1817.“
Frank told us that the lyrics of the song “By the Rising of the Moon” may refer to the foundry in Clonskeagh. The lyrics of the song include:
“At the rising of the moon, at the rising of the moon For the pikes must be together at the rising of the moon And come tell me Sean O’Farrell, where the gathering is to be At the old spot by the river quite well known to you and me.“
Clonskeagh Castle, photograph courtesy of Sherry Fitzgerald and myhome.ie
There are tunnels under the house which were perhaps used by Jackson to store his pikes and cannonballs.
The Clonskeagh Castle website continues: “In 1811 the Castle was purchased by George Thompson, a landed proprietor, who had a post in the Irish Treasury, and it remained in the ownership of that family until the early twentieth century. It is interesting to note that whereas Henry Jackson was fired by the objective of Irish independence, the last Thompson family member to occupy the house was vehemently insistent on the preservation of the Union.“
Thompson made alterations to the house and made what was formerly the back of the house into the front. The Armstrongs note that the hallway was thus left quite dark, and they did renovation work to allow light to penetrate from the south.
Notes from a report written by Alastair Rowan, with drawings of the original Henry Jackson house, and the George Thompson additions. Clonskeagh Castle, photograph courtesy of Sherry Fitzgerald and myhome.ie. We can see that the hall is now made bright by opening up the space to the outside.Clonskeagh Castle, photograph courtesy of Sherry Fitzgerald and myhome.ie
The house passed from George Thompson (1769-1860) to his son Thomas Higinbotham Thompson, to his son Robert Wade Thompson (1845-1919). [3] Robert Wade Thompson was a barrister, who married Edith Isabella Jameson, daughter of Reverend William Jameson (1811-1886) and Elizabeth Guinness (1813-1897). Reverend William Jameson was son of John Jameson of Jameson’s Whiskey Company. Elizabeth was the daughter of Arthur Hart Guinness (1768-1855) who was the son of Arthur Guinness (1725-1803), founder of Guinness Brewery.
The house then passed to Robert Wade Thompson’s son Thomas William Thompson in 1919.
The website tells us: “During the War of Independence (1919-1921) the Castle was occupied by the British military, and was used for some time to incarcerate Irish Republicans.“
The castle was purchased in 1934 by G&T Crampton, a property development company who later developed the redbrick houses that now stand on the nearby Whitethorn, Whitebeam and Maple Roads.
Frank showed us a couple of books about the area. The house was for sale when we visited. The new owners will be very lucky to own piece of Irish history.
“Doneraile Court towers majestically over the glorious Doneraile Park, a 160-hectare landscaped parkland and wildlife estate.
“The house was built by the St Leger family around 1645 on the site of a ruined castle. By the time it was refurbished in the mid-eighteenth century it had become an outstanding example of Georgian architecture. Its associations range from links to the famous St Leger Stakes in horse racing and literature, with famous Irish writers such as Elizabeth Bowen. [A horse race took place in 1742 in which Edmund Burke and Cornelius O’Callaghan met a bet as to whose horse could cover the distance fastest between the church steeples of Buttevant and Doneraile. This gave rise to the term “steeplechasing.”]
“Thirteen generations of the St Leger family lived at Doneraile over three centuries. The family had some extraordinary members. For example, Elizabeth St Leger made history when she became the first woman Freemason in the world in 1712.“
Elizabeth (1695-1772) was the daughter of Arthur St. Leger (1656-1727) 1st Viscount Doneraile. He was an active Freemason and sometimes hosted lodge meetings at his home. The story has it that Elizabeth fell asleep in the library, and woke to hear a secret Masonic ceremony taking place. When the Freemasons discovered that she had heard their secret, she had to be sworn in as a member in order to protect their privacy! She remained a member, as can be seen wearing Masonic symbols in portraits. She married Colonel Richard Aldworth, High Sheriff of County Cork.
The house remained in the hands of the St. Leger family until 1969. Following decades of care by the Irish Georgian Society, it passed to the Office of Public Works in 1994.
From the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage:
“Detached three-storey over half basement country house, built c. 1730, containing fabric of earlier house, built c. 1645. Possibly also incorporating fabric of medieval castle. Extended 1805, conservatory added 1825, extended 1869, and also incorporating other nineteenth-century additions.“
The 1730s work on the house was carried out for Arthur St. Leger, 2nd Viscount Doneraile (1694-1734). Mark Bence-Jones suggests that it was the work of architect Isaac Rothery, but Frank Keohane suggests it could have been Benjamin Crawley. [7] The bow-ended block on the left of the garden front was added 1756-58, payment was made for this to architect Thomas Roberts.
Doneraile Park is associated with the poet Edmund Spenser, who refers to the River Awbeg which flows through the park as the ‘gentle mulla’. The lands were bought by William St. Leger (1586-1642) from the Spensers. William St. Leger was a Privy Counsellor, Lord President of Munster in 1627, and MP for Cork County in 1634. In 1634 he was appointed Sergeant-Major-General in the Army, employed to fight against the rebels in Ireland. His father was Warham St. Leger, who was Commissioner of the Government of Munster in 1599.
Doneraile passed from William St. Leger to his son John (d. 1696). John married Mary, daughter of Arthur Chichester 1st Earl of Donegal. Arthur St. Leger (1656-1727) who became 1st Viscount Doneraile was their son. He too was a privy counsellor in Ireland and he was MP for Doneraile. He married Elizabeth Hayes and one of his sons was named “Hayes” (who eventually became the 4th Viscount Doneraile).
The 1st Viscount’s daughter Elizabeth married Richard Aldworth (1694-1776) and their son St. Leger (d. 1787), born St. Leger Aldworth, took the surname St. Leger to become St. Leger St. Leger and was created 1st Baron Doneraile in 1776. He was created 1st Viscount Doneraile of the 2nd creation in 1785.
Arthur St. Leger 1st Viscount’s son John was killed in a duel in 1741.
His son Arthur (circa 1695-1733/1734) succeeded at 2nd Viscount. The 2nd Viscount married Mary Mohun who gave birth to the 3rd Viscount Doneraile, Arthur Mohun St. Leger (1718-1750). He had no children, so the title passed to his uncle Hayes St. Leger (d. 1767), who became 4th Viscount Doneraile. He also died without issue and the title became extinct, until St. Leger St. Leger was created 1st Viscount Doneraile of the 2nd creation.
St. Leger St. Leger’s son was another Hayes St. Leger (1755-1818), 2nd Viscount Doneraile. He married Charlotte Bernard of Castle Bernard, County Cork.
The bow ends on the front facade were built when improvements were made by the Hayes St. Leger 2nd Viscount of the second creation (1755-1819), between 1804-1808. At this time a new kitchen was added to the back of the house along with a now-lost Gothic conservatory.
Hayes St. Leger 2nd Viscount of 2nd creation’s daughter Harriet married Richard Smyth (1796-1858) of Ballynatray in County Waterford (see my entry). Hayes’s heir was another Hayes St. Leger (1786-1854) who became 3rd Viscount Doneraile.
National Inventory Appraisal: “The artist who created the ornate plaster work to the interior is unknown, but was clearly highly skilled.“
The Hall was remodelled in the 1820s, when it was extended into the new porch. It has a screen of paired Ionic pillars, a frieze decorated with rosettes and an acanthus ceiling rose. This would have been in the time of Hayes St. Leger (1786-1854) who became 3rd Viscount Doneraile. He married Charlotte Esther, daughter of Francis Bernard 1st Earl of Bandon, County Cork, and she gave birth to their heir, another Hayes St. Leger (1818-1887), 4th Viscount Doneraile.
Mark Bence-Jones writes in his A Guide to Irish Country Houses:
“…On the other side of the house, a wing containing a new dining room was added 1869 by 4th Viscount Doneraile of the later creation. At the back of the hall is an oval late-Georgian staircase hall in which a staircase with slender wooden balusters rises gracefully to the top of the house beneath of ceiling of Adamesque plasterwork. To the right of the staircase hall is one of the rooms of the original house, with a corner fireplace and fielded panelling; it was possibly in here that, ca 1713, Elizabeth St Leger was initiated as one of the only three women Freemasons in history, after she had been caught spying on a Lodge meeting held by her father. Behind this room was the vast and splendid dining room of 1869 which formerly had an immense mahogany sideboard in a mirrored alcove confronting a full-length portrait of the 4th Viscount with his favourite hunter. He was one of the greatest Victorian hunting men; ironically, he died of rabies through being bitten by a pet fox. The three drawing rooms on the other side of the house are early C19 in character and probably date from the reconstruction after the fire; they have simple but elegant friezes, overdoors with volutes and windows going right down to the floor. The long connection of the St Legers with Doneraile ended when Mary, Viscountess Doneraile died 1975. The garden, which boasts of a Lime Walk and a long “fishpond” or canal surviving from the original C18 layout, is now maintained by the Dept of Lands; as is the park, in which there is still a herd of red deer. The house, after standing empty for several years and becoming almost derelict, is in the process of being restored by the Irish Georgian Society, with a view to finding someone who would be willing to take it on. The 1869 dining room wing has been demolished.” [8]
From the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage: “Floating elliptical winder staircase with curved newel post and turned timber banisters. Timber treads with carved timber panels to side. Decorative render roses under stair. Ornate Adam-style ceiling with central ceiling rose and decorative fluted surround to stair ceiling.”
Hayes St. Leger (1818-1887), 4th Viscount Doneraile married Mary Ann Grace Louisa Lenox-Conyngham (d. 1907), daughter of George Lenox-Conyngham of Springhill. They had daughters, and the daugher Emily Ursula Clare lived in Doneraile until her death in 1927. She married Bernard Edward Barnaby Fitzpatrick, 2nd Baron Castletown of Upper Ossory, County Laois.
The last member of the St. Leger family to live at Doneraile was Mary, Viscountess Doneraile, who died in 1975. She was the wife of the 5th Viscount, Richard Arthur St. Leger (1825-1891). He was the son of Reverend Richard Thomas Arthur St. Leger (1790-1875), who was the son of Colonel Hon. Richard St. Leger (1756-1840) who was the son of St. Leger St. Leger, 1st Viscount Doneraile of the 2nd creation.
The website tells us: “The fine parklands are designed in the naturalistic style of the famous Capability Brown. They include many beautiful water features, plus a parterre walled garden and gardeners’ cottages. There are numerous pathways and graded walks. Lucky visitors might just spot some of the red deer, fallow deer, sika deer and Kerry cattle that live on the estate.” [1]
“Lismore Castle’s 800-year history is everywhere you look, from the stained-glass windows and thick stone walls, to the centuries-old gardens and the exceptional artworks by Old Masters and leading contemporary artists. Available for rent, this exclusive use castle in Ireland’s county Waterford is the perfect retreat for you and your guests.“
You can’t visit the castle inside but you can visit the beautiful gardens.
Photograph courtesy of The Hall and Lismore Castle website.
If anyone wants to give me a present, could you book me in for a week at Lismore Castle?
Lismore Castle Gardens, Co Waterford, photograph Courtesy of Celtic Routes 2019 for Tourism Ireland (see [1])Lismore Castle Gardens, Co Waterford, photograph Courtesy of Celtic Routes 2019 for Tourism Ireland (see [1])
Mark Bence-Jones writes of Lismore Castle:
p. 186. “(Boyle, Cork and Orrery, E.PB; Cavendish, Devonshire, D/PB)…Now predominantly of early C17 and C19; but incorporating some of the towers of the medieval castle of the Bishops of Lismore which itself took the place of a castle built by King John [around 1185] where there had formerly been a famous monastery founded by St. Carthagh and a university which was a great centre of civilisation and learning in the Dark Ages. The first Protestant Bishop, the notorious Myler McGrath, granted the castle and its lands to Sir Walter Raleigh; who, however, seldom lived here, preferring his house in Youghal, now known as Myrtle Grove.” [2]
Mark Bence-Jones continues the history of the castle: “In 1602, Raleigh sold Lismore and all his Irish estates to Richard Boyle, afterwards 1st Earl of Cork, one of the most remarkable of Elizabethan adventurers; who, having come to Ireland as a penniless young man, ended as one of the richest and most powerful nobles in the kingdom. From ca. 1610 onwards, he rebuilt Lismore Castle as his home, surrounding the castle courtyard with three storey gabled ranges joining the old corner-towers, which were given Jacobean ogival roofs; the principal living rooms being on the side above the Blackwater, the parlour and dining-chamber in a wing projecting outwards to the very edge of the precipice, with an oriel window from which there is a sheer drop to the river far below. On the furthest side from the river Lord Cork built a gatehouse tower, incorporating an old Celtic-Romanesque arch which must have survived from Lismore’s monastic days. He also built a fortified wall – so thick that there is a walk along the top of it – enclosing a garden on this side of the castle; and an outer gatehouse with gabled towers known as the Riding House because it originally sheltered a mounted guard. The garden walls served an important defensive purpose when the castle was besieged by the Confederates 1642, the year before the “Great Earl’s” death. On this occasion the besiegers were repulsed; but in 1645 it fell to another Confederate Army and was sacked.”
Mark Bence-Jones continues the fascinating history: “It was made habitable again by the 2nd Earl of Cork – James II stayed a night here in 1689 and almost fainted when he looked out of the dining room window and saw the great drop – but it was neglected in C18 and became largely ruinous; the subsequent Earls of Cork, who were also Earls of Burlington, preferring to live on their estates in England.“
I’m not sure if it’s this window that nearly made King James II faint! Photograph courtesy of The Hall and Lismore Castle website.Richard Boyle (1612-1698) 1st Earl of Burlington and 2nd Earl of Cork, possibly after Sir Anthony van Dyck c.1640, NPG 893.This photograph shows the portrait of Robert Boyle (1627-1691) on the wall, Photograph courtesy of The Hall and Lismore Castle website.Robert Boyle F. R. S. (1627-1691) by Johann Kerseboom, 1689, courtesy of Science History Institute.He was the brother of the 2nd Earl of Cork.Oil painting on canvas, Lady Elizabeth Clifford, Countess of Burlington (1621 – 1698) by Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Antwerp 1599 – London 1641). Three-quarter length portrait, profile to left, head facing, wearing wbite satin dress and blue scarf, pointing with her left hand in a landscape. She married Richard Boyle, 2nd Earl of Cork and 1st Earl of Burlington.Charles Boyle (c. 1662-1704) 3rd Earl of Cork and 2nd Earl of Burlington, by Godfrey Kneller, courtesy of National Trust Hardwick Hall.Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington (1694-1753) by Jonathan Richardson, courtesy of London’s National Portrait Gallery NPG 4818.Richard Boyle 4th Earl of Cork and 3rd Earl of Burlington and Dorothy Savile attributed to Aikman, William Aikman (1682-1731).Oil painting on canvas, Possibly Lady Dorothy Savile, Countess of Burlington and Countess of Cork (1699-1758) by Michael Dahl, circa 1720. Inscribed top right in gold: Lady Dorothy Saville / Daughter to the Marquis of Halifax / married to the Earl of Burlington. A half-length portrait of a young woman, facing, wearing white decollete dres with blue ribbon.Lady Dorothy Savile, Countess of Burlington (1699-1758) with her Daughter Lady Dorothy Boyle, later Countess of Euston (1724-1742) by Michael Dahl (Stockholm 1656/9 ? London 1743), inscribed top right in gold: Lady Burlington / & Lady Dorothy Boyle. Two bust-length portraits, the mother at the right, wearing red, the daughter dressed in white.
“Through the marriage of the daughter and heiress of the architect Earl of Burlington [Charlotte Elizabeth Boyle (1731-1754), daughter of Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, 4th Earl of Cork] and Cork to the 4th Duke of Devonshire [William Cavendish (1720-1764)], Lismore passed to the Cavendishes. The 4th and 5th Dukes took no more interest in the castle than the Earls of Burlington had done; but the 6th Duke [William George Spenser Cavendish (1790-1858)] – remembered as the “Bachelor Duke” – began work at Lismore as soon as he succeeded his father 1811.”
William Cavendish (1720-1764) 4th Duke of Devonshire, after Thomas Hudson, briefly Prime Minister between 1756 and 1757.Charlotte Boyle (1731-1754) daughter of Richard Boyle (1694-1753) 3rd Earl of Burlington 4th Earl of Cork who married William Cavendish (1720-1764) 4th Duke of Devonshire and brought Lismore Castle, County Waterford, into the Cavendish family. Painting after style of George Knapton, courtesy of Chiswick House collection.As the heir of her father, she succeeded to the title of Baroness Clifford of Londesborough suo jure.
We came across the 5th Duke of Devonshire before as he had an affair with and then, after his wife died, married Elizabeth Christina Hervey. Elizabeth Christina had been married to John Thomas Foster (1747-1796), MP for Dunleer, County Louth, of Glyde Court (see my entry on Cabra Castle). After the 5th Duke of Devonshire died, Elizabeth Christina married for a third time, to Valentine Richard Quin 1st Earl of Dunraven and Mount Earl, of Adare Manor in Limerick.
The 6th Duke, William George Spenser Cavendish (1790-1858), son of the 5th Duke’s first wife Georgiana née Spencer, began work at Lismore as soon as he succeeded his father 1811.
William George Spencer Cavendish (1790-1858) 6th Duke of Devonshire, the “Bachelor Duke,” by George Edward Madeley, National Portrait Gallery of London D15276.Photograph courtesy of The Hall and Lismore Castle website, the portrait looks like the 6th Duke of Devonshire.Lismore Castle gardens, County Waterford, 20th August 2023.Photograph courtesy of The Hall and Lismore Castle website.
I love the story of the Bachelor Duke: “By 1812 the castle was habitable enough for him to entertain his cousin, Lady Caroline Lamb [nee Ponsonby], her husband William, and her mother, Lady Bessborough, here. Caroline, who had been brought to Ireland in the hope that it would make her forget Byron, was bitterly disappointed by the castle; she had expected “vast apartments full of tattered furniture and gloom”; instead, as Lady Bessborough reported, “Hart handed her into, not a Gothic hall, but two small dapper parlours neatly furnished, in the newest Inn fashion, much like a Cit’s villa at Highgate.” Hart – the Bachelor Duke [He succeeded as the 6th Marquess of Hartington, co. Derby [E., 1694] on 29 July 1811] – had in fact already commissioned the architect William Atkinson to restore the range above the river in a suitably medieval style, and the work actually began in that same year. Battlements replaced the Great Earl of Cork’s gables and the principal rooms – including the dining room with the famous window, which became the drawing room – where given ceilings of simple plaster vaulting.“
From the website, we can see the interiors of the rooms of the Gothic windows we can see from the Lower Garden.
Photograph courtesy of The Hall and Lismore Castle website.Photograph courtesy of The Hall and Lismore Castle website.Photograph courtesy of The Hall and Lismore Castle website.Photograph courtesy of The Hall and Lismore Castle website.Photograph courtesy of The Hall and Lismore Castle website.
“The Bachelor Duke, who became increasingly attached to Lismore, began a second and more ambitious phase of rebuilding 1850, towards the end of his life. This time his architect was Sir Joseph Paxton, that versatile genius who designed the Crystal Palace and who, having started as the Bachelor Duke’s gardener, became his close friend and right hand man. During the next few years, the three remaining sides of the courtyard were rebuilt in an impressive C19 castle style, with battlemented towers and turrets; all faced in cut-stone shipped over from Derbyshire. The Great Earl’s gatehouse tower, with its pyramidal roof, was however, left as it was, and also the Riding House.“
Mark Bence-Jones continues: “The ruined chapel of the Bishops, adjoining the range containing the Great Earl’s living rooms, was restored as a banqueting hall or ballroom of ecclesiastical character; with choirstalls, a vast Perpendicular stained glass window at either end, and richly coloured Gothic stencilling on the walls and the timbers of the open roof. The decoration of the room was carried out by John Gregory Crace, some of it being designed by Pugin, including the chimneypiece, which was exhibited in the Medieval Court at the Great Exhibition. The banqueting hall is the only really large room in the castle, the interior of which is on a much more modest and homely scale than might be expected from the great extent of the building; but in fact one side of the courtyard was designed to be a separate house for the agent, and another side to be the estate office. Subsequent Dukes of Devonshire have loved Lismore as much as the Bachelor Duke did, though their English commitments have naturally prevented them from coming here for more than occasional visits. From 1932 until his death 1944, the castle was continuously occupied by Lord Charles Cavendish, younger son of the 9th Duke, and his wife, the former Miss Adele Astaire, the dancer and actress, who still comes here every year. The present Duke and Duchess have carried out many improvements to the garden, which consist of the original upper garden, surrounded by the Great Earl’s fortified walls, and a more naturalistic garden below the approach to the castle; the two being linked in a charming and unexpected way by a staircase in the Riding House.”
[2] Bence-Jones, Mark. 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.
The garden front of Kilkenny Castle, photograph by macmillan media 2016 for Tourism Ireland, Ireland’s Content Pool. It sits on the banks of the River Nore. [1]
From the OPW website:
“Built in the twelfth century, Kilkenny Castle was the principal seat of the Butlers, earls, marquesses and dukes of Ormond for almost 600 years. Under the powerful Butler family, Kilkenny grew into a thriving and vibrant city. Its lively atmosphere can still be felt today.
“The castle, set in extensive parkland, was remodelled in Victorian times. It was formally taken over by the Irish State in 1969 and since then has undergone ambitious restoration works. It now welcomes thousands of visitors a year.“
Kilkenny Castle, photograph by unknown 2014 for Failte Ireland, Ireland’s Content Pool. [see 1]
Kilkenny Castle has been standing for over eight hundred years, dominating Kilkenny City and the South East of Ireland. Originally built in the 13th century by William Marshall, 4th Earl of Pembroke as a symbol of Norman control, Kilkenny Castle reflected the fortunes of the powerful Butlers of Ormonde for over six hundred years. [2]
The Butlers fought for the king in Ireland, France and Scotland, and held positions of power including Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the monarch’s representative in Ireland. Mark Bence-Jones tells us that several monarchs have stayed in Kilkenny Castle during the course of its history, including Richard II, James II, Willam III, Edvard VII and George V. [3]
In 1935 the Ormondes ceased to live in the castle, which for the next thirty years stood empty and deteriorating. In 1967 James Arthur Norman Butler (1893-1971), 6th Marquess and 24th Earl of Ormonde sold the Castle to the Kilkenny Castle Restoration Committee for £50. Two years later it went into state ownership.
William Marshall (about 1146-1219) married Isabel the daughter of “Strongbow” Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke. With the marriage, he gained land and eventually the title Earl of Pembroke. Isabel inherited the title of 4th Countess of Pembroke “suo jure” i.e. herself (her brother, who died a minor, was the 3rd Earl). Hence William Marshall became the 4th Earl through his wife, but then then was created the 1st Earl of Pembroke himself ten years after their marriage. They settled in Ireland, beginning with setting up the town of New Ross and then restoring Kilkenny town and castle – a castle had pre-dated them, according to the Kilkenny Castle website.
The present-day castle is based on the stone fortress that Marshall designed, comprising an irregular rectangular fortress with a drum-shaped tower at each corner. Three of these towers survive to this day.
Kilkenny Castle, County Kilkenny, overhead shot courtesy Air Experience AFTA website.Kilkenny Castle, photograph by Mark Wesley 2016 for Failte Ireland, Ireland’s Content Pool. [see 1]
There is an introductory film for visitors in the one of the old round towers. Inside, you can see the thickness of the walls.
By 1200, Kilkenny was the capital of Norman Leinster and New Ross was its principal port. The Marshalls also founded the Cistercian abbeys at Tintern in County Wexford and Duiske in Graiguenamanagh, County Kilkenny, as well as the castles at Ferns and Enniscorthy. Marshall died and was buried in England. [4]
In 1317, the de Clare family sold the Kilkenny castle to Hugh Despenser. The Despensers were absentee landlords. In 1391 the Despensers sold the castle to James Butler, 3rd Earl of Ormond, 9th Chief Butler of Ireland (1360–1405).
The first Butler to come to Ireland was Theobald Walter Le Botiller or Butler (1165–1206), 1st Baron Butler, 1st Chief Butler of Ireland.
In 1185, Prince John landed at Waterford and around this time he granted the hereditary office of Chief Butler of Ireland to Theobald. Before this, there was a Chief Bulter of England, a position Theobald held, but the office of Chief Butler of Ireland was freshly created. The hereditary office was a position of “serjeanty.” Under feudalism in France and England during the Middle Ages, tenure by serjeanty was a form of tenure in return for a specified duty other than standard knight-service. The duty of this serjeanty was to to attend the Kings of England at their coronation and to pour their first cup of wine. [5]
It is said that he was called “Le Botiller” because he received the monopoly of the taxes on wines being imported into Ireland. Timothy William Ferres tells us that it was Theobald, 4th Butler (1242-85) who received the prisage, from King Edward I. As the Chief Butler had to provide the wine, he was given this “prisage” to help perform his role. This privilege only ceased in 1811 when the right was purchased back by the Crown from the Marquess of Ormonde for £216,000. [6]
Theobald the 1st Chief Butler was the first of the family to use the surname Butler. He was involved in the Irish campaigns of King Henry II and King John of England. He built Arklow Castle in County Wicklow. His descendant, the 4th Chief Butler, constructed a stone fortress on the site in the 1280s which became the family’s regional stronghold.
Conjectural reconstruction drawing of Arklow Castle, County Wicklow by Sara Nylund courtesy County Wicklow Heritage.
Over the following centuries, as the Butlers grew into Earls and eventually Dukes of Ormonde centered in Kilkenny, they retained Arklow Castle and the surrounding lands by appointing constables. The 1st Duke of Ormond sold Arklow Castle in 1714 to John Allen of Stillorgan. Today only fragments remain. [see https://surnamearts.com/history/butler/butler-castles-in-ireland/ ]
Theobald died in 1206 and was buried at Wotheney Abbey in Limerick.
He is also said to have built Nenagh Castle.
The OPW website tells us that Nenagh Castle is a fine example of a Norman structure, dating between 1200 – 1220. There are 101 steps in total to reach the top of the tower, and it is five storeys high. The second floor is believed to have once been the main public hall, while the third floor was the lord’s private residence. What stands today is the last remaining tower of three, which were surrounded by a curtain wall. There would have also been a two-towered gatehouse, and it was likely defended by a moat.The castle changed hands multiple times throughout its history, initially acting as the main residence for Theobald Walter, and was the seat of his ancestors, the Butler family, until the mid-14th century. The Mac Ibrien family owned the building in the 15th century, and was returned to the Butler’s in 1533. Photograph by Gramscis Cousin, CC BY-SA 3.0
His son, Theobald le Botiller (1200–1230) 2nd Baron Butler was summoned in 1229 cum equis et armis (Latin: “with horses and arms”) to attend the King in Brittany. He died on 19 July 1230 in Poitou, France, and was buried in the Abbey of Arklow, County Wicklow.
Timothy William Ferres gives us an excellent summary of the Butler genealogy and there are great notes on the Kilkenny Castle website. [6]
The 2nd Baron Butler’s widow was his second wife, Roesia/Rohese de Verdun (c. 1204–1247). She became one of the most powerful women in 13th century Ireland. In 1236 she built Castleroche in County Louth to defend her lands against Irish raiders. The castle was practically impregnable thanks to its position and design.
Castleroche, County Louth, built by Rohese de Verdun, wife of Theobald le Botiller (1200–1230) 2nd Baron Butler. Photograph courtesy of Tourism Ireland.
Theobald Butler 3rd Baron acquired considerable property by marrying Margery, eldest daughter of Richard de Burgh (ancestor of the Earls of Clanricarde). He served as Chief Justiciar of Ireland. His son Theobald (1242-85) succeeded as 4th Baron Butler sat in the Parliament of Ireland. He assisted King Edward I in his wars in Scotland. By his marriage, the 4th Baron acquired considerable land in England.
The 5th and 6th Barons were both sons of the 4th Baron. Theobald’s son Edmond (c.1270-1321) succeeded his brother as 6th Baron and 6th Chief Butler of Ireland in 1299. He was appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1312. He married Joan, the daughter of the 1st Earl of Kildare. In 1315 Edward II granted him the manors of Carrick-on-Suir and Roscrea in Tipperary, with the title of Earl of Carrick. His descendants from his second son, John, later became Earls of Carrick and also Viscounts Ikerrin.
The Earl of Carrick’s son James Butler (c. 1305-38) who succeeded as 7th Baron married Eleanor, whose mother was a daughter of King Edward I. In consequence of this alliance, in 1328 King Edward III named James Earl of Ormond.
His son James Butler (1331–1382) 2nd Earl of Ormond was called the Noble Earl due to his links with King Edward I. He served as Lord Justice of Ireland.
James Butler (1360–1405) who succeeded as 3rd Earl of Ormond on his father’s death made Gowran Castle his usual residence so was called Earl of Gowran. The original Gowran Castle was built in the late 14th century by the Earls of Ormonde. Badly damaged in the Cromwellian wars, it was all but a ruin when Charles Agar acquired a lease of it about 1660 and repaired it. After a fire in 1713, his son James Agar rebuilt it. The house was rebuilt for the 2nd Viscount Clifden in 1817-19 to the designs of William Robertson.
In 1391 James Butler 3rd Earl of Ormond purchased Kilkenny Castle. In 1399 King Richard II stayed in Kilkenny Castle, where he was entertained for fourteen days.
James 3rd Earl was succeeded by his eldest son, James, 4th Earl (1392-1452), who was called The White Earl, and was esteemed for his learning. James was one of the most important figures in Irish politics in the early 15th century. He was Lord Justice of Ireland in 1407, and again in 1440. He died in 1452.
He was succeeded by his eldest son James (1420-61) 5th Earl. He married Avice Stafford in 1438, by whom he inherited substantial lands in the west country of England. After the death of his first wife, he married Eleanor Beaufort, sister of the Duke of Somerset. In 1451, was was made Lord Deputy of Ireland and the next year, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He served as Lord High Treasurer in 1455 and was installed a Knight of the Garter.
The Butler Family become embroiled in the War of the Roses in the 15th Century. When the Wars of the Roses gripped England from the 1450s through to 1487, the opposing houses of Lancaster (the red rose) and York (the white rose) were supported by the earls of Ormond and Kildare, respectively. The 5th Earl of Ormond was loyal to the Lancastrians and Henry VI, who made him Earl of Wiltshire in England. The title of Earl of Wiltshire expired when the throne passed into the hands of the Yorkists in 1461, and the 5th Earl was captured and executed at Newcastle in 1461. In England, Richard Plantagenet 3rd Duke of York’s son came to the throne as King Edward IV.
After the execution of his brother the 5th Earl in 1461, John (1422–1477), who succeeded as the 6th Earl, fled to Scotland with the Lancastrians. He attempted a new Lancastrian uprising in Ireland but the revolt ended with the defeat of his kinsmen by the 8th Earl of Desmond at the Battle of Piltown in the summer of 1462. John was not present at the battle. He went into exile in Portugal and France from 1464. He returned to England 1470-71 on the restoration of Henry VI.
Edward IV, of the House of York, was returned to the throne, however, in 1471. Richard III became king in 1473, until he died in 1475, when Henry VII became king. Henry VII of the Lancaster dynasty married Edward IV’s daughter Elizabeth of York, thus uniting the families.
The 6th Earl of Ormond’s brother Thomas (1426-1515), who succeeded as 7th Earl, was attainted as a Lancastrian, but restored by King Henry VII. He was known as ‘Earl of the Wool.’ Under Henry VII he managed to recover the family position in England and his lands were restored. He was appointed Chamberlain to the Queen in 1486 and Ambassador to Brittany in 1491 and Burgundy in 1497.
From the 1490s he faced troubles in Ireland, as he lacked a male heir. His two daughters became co-heiresses who inherited the Butler estates in England. His daughter Margaret Butler (1465–1537) married Sir William Boleyn and they were the grandparents of Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, second wife of Henry VIII.
When the 7th Earl of Ormond died in 1515, the next male in the family line was Piers Butler (1467-1539). Both the 7th Earl and Piers descended from the 3rd Earl of Ormond. Piers Butler was the son James Butler and Sabh Kavanagh. He was the great grandnephew of James, the 3rd Earl. Before the 7th Earl’s death, Piers’s father laid claims to the Ormond land and title, as the 7th Earl lived mostly abroad.
Someone else could claim to be heir of the 7th Earl of Ormond. James Butler 6th Earl had illegitimate children, though he never married. His son James was called James Ormond, or James Dubh Butler. He was the 7th Earl’s agent in Ireland while the 7th Earl lived in England. Piers Butler murdered him, but was pardoneed for the murder.
In 1485 Piers Butler married Margaret Fitzgerald, daughter of the 8th Earl of Kildare – a political marriage to merge the two dynasties.
In 1498, he and Margaret had seized Kilkenny Castle and made it their chief residence. Through her considerable efforts, the standard of living inside the castle was greatly improved.
Margaret was sometimes styled the “Great Countess of Ormond.” She signed herself “Margaret Fitzgerald of the Geraldines,” and occupied herself in legal matters regarding her family and the Ormond estates. She worked with Piers to develop the estate, expanding and rebuilding manor houses. She also established Kilkenny Grammar School. She urged Piers to bring over skilled weavers and artificers from Flanders and helped establish industries for the production of carpets, tapestries and diapers (a type of cloth). Margaret and her husband commissioned significant additions to the castles of Granagh, and rebuilt Gowran Castle, which had been originally constructed in 1385 by James Butler, 3rd Earl of Ormond. She is also said to have built Ballyragget Castle in County Kilkenny.
Ballyragget castle, County Kilkenny, by Gabriel Berenger, courtesy Royal Irish Academy MS 3 C 30/54.
As Anne Boleyn grew in King Henry VIII’s favour, so did her father Thomas. In 1529, the King persuaded Piers Butler to relinquish the title Earl of Ormond, and the king gave this title to Thomas Boleyn, Viscount Rochford. Piers was created, instead, Earl of Ossory. The king hoped Piers would improve the Crown’s grip over southern Ireland. Piers gained much from Crown.
Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Ormond, died without issue in 1539 and the King restored Piers Butler Earl of Ossory to his original title of Ormond. Piers succeeded as the 8th Earl of Ormond.
Piers is buried in St Canice’s Cathedral, Kilkenny with his wife.
Piers and Margaret’s daughters married well, continuing to build ties with other powerful families. They had daughters Ellen (d. 1597) who married Donough O’Brien (d. 1553) 1st Earl of Thomond; Margaret married Barnaby FitzPatrick, 1st Baron of Upper Ossory; Joan married James Butler, 10th Baron Dunboyne; Eleanor married Thomas Butler 1st Baron Caher; Katherine married Richard Power, 1st Baron le Power and Coroghmore first and secondly, James FitzJohn FitzGerald, 13th Earl of Desmond; Ellice married Gerald FitzJohn FitzGerald (d. 1553, father of 1st Viscount Decies).
Piers’s eldest son James (1496–1546) succeeded him in 1539 as 9th Earl of Ormond, 15th Chief Butler, and 2nd Earl of Ossory. Piers’s second son, Richard (d.1571), was created 1st Viscount Mountgarret in 1550. Another son, John Butler (d. 1570) who lived in Kilcash, County Tipperary, was father of Walter (1569-1632) 11th Earl of Ormond.
James Butler (1504-1564), Soldier, 9th Earl of Ormond and Ossory by Francesco Bartolozzi, published by John Chamberlaine, after Hans Holbein the Younger publ. 1797, courtesy of National Portrait Gallery NPG D39383.
In 1520 there was a plan to marry the eldest son James to a daughter of Thomas Boleyn in an effort to end the controversy over the earldom – but nothing came of it. James married Joan Fitzgerald, daughter of James Fitzgerald, 11th Earl of Desmond.
James was nicknamed ‘The Lame’ because of a limp he acquired in the 1513 invasion of France as part of Henry VII’s army. He had been reared at the Court of Henry VIII and he was created Viscount of Thurles during the lifetime of his father. Henry VIII appointed him Lord Treasurer of Ireland (1532) and he was given seven religious houses on the dissolution of the Monasteries. He was held in high regard by Henry, with the decline of the Geraldines. He died 1546, aged 42, of food poisoning, eleven days after attending a supper at Ely House, Holborn. He and the seventeen of his household who died with him may have been deliberately poisoned. His host, John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland had no motive as he had no quarrel with Ormond. Historian James Murray suggests that Anthony St Leger, Lord Deputy of Ireland, may have been invovled. [8]
As well as his heir, Thomas, the 9th Earl also had a son Edmond (d. 1602) who lived in Cloughgrenan, County Carlow, who gave rise to the Baronets of Cloughgrenan.
As a young boy, Thomas Butler (c.1531-1614), later 10th Earl of Ormond, was fostered with Rory O’More, son of the lord of Laois before being sent to London to be educated with the future Edward VI. He was the first member of the Butler family to be brought up in the protestant faith. In 1546, he inherited the Ormond earldom following the sudden death of his father.
Thomas Butler 10th Earl of Ormond by Steven Van der Meulen. He is holding a wheelcock pistol with his coat of arms in the upper left corner.
Thomas Butler was highly regarded by Queen Elizabeth, to whom he was related through her mother Anne Boleyn. Anne Boleyn was the granddaughter of the 7th Earl of Ormond making Elizabeth and Thomas cousins. Due to his dark hair, he was called “Black Tom,” and the Queen called him “her dark husband” and it is even rumoured that she had a son with him.
Queen Elizabeth promoted him to Lord Treasurer of Ireland in 1559.
The OPW website tells us that after the death of his mother, Joan Fitzgerald, the old feud between the Butlers and the Fitzgeralds broke out again and Black Tom defeated the Earl of Desmond at Affane (1565), the last pitched battle in Britain or Ireland.
He was made Knight of the Garter in 1588 and Earl Marshal of England in 1591.
Carrick-On-Suir, Co Tipperary Courtesy Tipperary Tourism photo by Kerry Kissane All Around Ireland 2021
The Desmond Rebellions in Munster in 1569–1573 and 1579–1583 were motivated primarily by the desire to maintain the independence of feudal lords from the English monarch but also had an element of religious antagonism between Catholic Geraldines (Fitzgeralds, Earls of Desmond) and the Protestant English state. Some of Thomas the 10th Earl’s brothers supported the Fitzgeralds in their rebellion: Edmund Butler (1534-1602) of Cloghgrennan, County Carlow, Edward and Piers (1541-1601). Edmund, Edward and Piers were attainted in April 1570. That meant that Edmund ceased to be Ormond’s heir presumptive and the next brother, John Butler of Kilcash, took his place. However, John predeceased Thomas, in 1570, and John’s eldest son Walter Butler (1559–1633) became heir presumptive.
Kilcash Castle, County Tipperary, photograph by Mike Searle.
Thomas married three times but left no direct male heir. He died in 1614 and was buried in St Canice’s cathedral, Kilkenny. He had a daughter, Elizabeth. She married her cousin, Theobald Butler (1565-1614), 1st Viscount Tulleophelim, who was the son of Black Tom’s brother Edmund (1534-1602) of Cloghgrennan, County Carlow. He died, however, the same year as Black Tom.
King James then orchestrated the marriage of Elizabeth Butler to his Scottish favourite Richard Preston (1589-1628) 1st Baron Dingwall. James I made sure that Black Tom’s daughter Elizabeth (1590-1628) inherited most of the Ormond estate.
Although he did not inherit the majority of the land, Walter Butler (1559–1633) inherited the title and became the 11th Earl of Ormond. Unlike his uncle, who had been raised at Court and reared a Protestant, Walter was Catholic. Because of his devotion to his faith, he was called Walter of the Beads.
Walter Butler’s claim to the family estates was blocked by King James I. Walter he spent much time and money in litigation opposing the King’s decision and was imprisoned for eight years in the Fleet, London, as a result. He was released 1625. The King gave Richard Preston the title Earl of Desmond, as the Fitzgeralds had lost the title of Earl of Desmond due to their rebellion.
The Butler genealogy.
Walter’s son Thomas, Viscount Thurles, predeceased him, so when he died his nine-year-old grandson James (1610-1688) became the heir to the titles. The estates, including Kilkenny Castle, had passed to Elizabeth and her husband Richard Preston Baron Dingwall. Before he died, Walter arranged a marriage between his heir James and Elizabeth and Richard Preston’s daughter in order to unite the estates with the Earl of Ormond title. In 1629 James married his cousin Elizabeth Preston and reunited the Ormond estates.
James Butler (1610-88) 12th Earl of Ormond (later 1st Duke of Ormond) was the eldest son of Thomas Butler, Viscount Thurles, and his wife Elizabeth Poyntz. Following his father’s death in 1619, 9-year-old James was made a royal ward, and was educated at Lambeth Palace under the tutelage of George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury.
The marriage took place on Christmas 1629. In 1630, James and his wife Elizabeth lived in the castle in Carrick-on-Suir.
James succeeded to the Ormond titles in 1633 on the death of his grandfather, Walter Butler, 11th Earl of Ormond. James and Elizabeth Butler’s estates in Ireland consisted of close to 300,000 acres, spread over seven counties, mostly in Counties Kilkenny and Tipperary. However, both he and his wife inherited debts. Debt was to plague James all his life.
James 12th Earl of Ormond and Elizabeth had eight sons and two daughters but only three of those sons survived infancy: Thomas, later Earl of Ossory, born in 1634, John, later Earl of Gowran, also born in 1634, and Richard, later 1st Earl of Arran in 1639. Their daughters were Mary, born in 1640, later Duchess of Devonshire and Elizabeth, born in 1646, later Countess of Chesterfield.
James 12th Earl of Ormond remained loyal to the monarchy and to King Charles I at the time of the 1641 Rebellion and the Civil War. He was appointed commander-in-chief of the army in Ireland in 1641. The family was living at Carrick when the 1641 rebellion broke out. The earl went to Dublin to command the army and Elizabeth and her children moved to Kilkenny Castle.
The Catholic Confederacy, an alliance of Catholics and Anglo-Irish, made Kilkenny their base. James the 12th Earl negotiated on behalf of the king with the Catholic Confederacy. However, Cromwell came to Ireland in 1649 and captured Kilkenny. He ransacked the Cathedral, and attacked Kilkenny Castle.
The castle now forms a “u” shape, because in the time of Oliver Cromwell’s invasion, the fourth wall fell. [7]
James Butler served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1648-1650, the first of three periods as Lord Lieutenant. Following the defeat of the monarchy, he went into exile, moving around Europe with the exiled court of Charles II.
Lady Ormond was highly regarded at Court and was godmother to Princess Mary, daughter of King James II, later Queen Mary. The Kilkenny Castle website tells us that Elizabeth is author of the largest body of extant correspondence of any woman from 17th century Ireland.
Lady Ormond spent a short period in exile with her husband and family in France during the early 1650s. By August 1652, poverty forced her to travel to England to plead with Cromwell for permission to live with her children on a portion of her Irish estates. She argued that it was she who inherited the estates and not her husband. Permission was granted in February 1653 on condition that she ceased all communication with her husband. They reunited later. She returned to her house at Dunmore, Co. Kilkenny.
After the restoration of the monarchy, James Butler was given an Irish Dukedom as Duke of Ormond, in 1661. He was raised to a dukedom in the English peerage in 1682.
The Kilkenny castle website continues: “After the restoration of the monarchy in England, Ormond was rewarded with a dukedom and several high offices by a grateful king. Though he enjoyed the king’s favour, Ormond had enemies at court and as a result of the machinations of the Cabal, which included powerful figures such as the Earl of Shaftesbury, he was dismissed from his post as Lord Lieutenant in 1669.“
Note that the “Cabal” was the term used to refer to the clique around the king. The term comes from an acronym of their names, Sir Thomas Clifford 1st Baron Clifford, Henry Benet 1st Earl of Arlington, George Villiers 2nd Duke of Buckingham, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Lord Ashley 1st Earl of Shaftesbury and John Maitland, 1st Duke and 2nd Earl of Lauderdale.
Ormond served his last term as Lord Lieutenant from 1677-1685. During this time he founded the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham in Dublin for old soldiers. William Robinson served as Surveyor General and architect of the Royal Hospital. He also worked on Kilkenny Castle. As Lord Lieutenant, the Duke lived in Dublin Castle’s State Apartments, and he had work carried out there also.
William Robinson, Royal Hospital Kilmainham.
Mark Bence-Jones describes the Duke’s renovations of Kilkenny Castle:
“The Great Duke transformed the castle from a medieval fortress into a pleasant country house, rather like the chateau or schloss of contemporary European princeling; with high-pitched roofs and cupolas surmounted by vanes and gilded ducal coronets on the old round towers. Outworks gave place to gardens with terraces, a “waterhouse” a fountain probably carved by William de Keyser, and statues copied from those in Charles II’s Privy Gardens. The Duchess seems to have been the prime mover in the work, in which William (afterwards Sir William) Robinson, Surveyor-General and architect of the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, was probably involved, supervising the construction of the Presence Chamber 1679.” [see 3]
A rather amusing article in the Dublin Penny Journal in September 1832 criticises the Duke of Ormond’s renovation “in the bad style of architecture then prevailing on the Continent, a taste for which had probably been imbibed by the Duke in his repeated visits to France. It retained, however, three of the ancient towers, but changed in character and disfigured by fantastic decorations to make them harmonize in style with the newer portions of the building.” The article tells us that the building has been put to right again by the present owner, the Marquess of Ormond, by architect Robertson of Kilkenny.
There has been an entrance hall here at least since the 17th century rebuilding of the castle. The black and white stone floor is laid with Kilkenny Black Marble and local sandstone, laid in the 19th century. The north doorway through the massive curtain wall was remodelled on two occasions in the 19th century. This room has been redecorated using organic naturally pigmented copper green paint. This colour is based on two Edwardian Irish Country house schemes; the Entrance Hall at Beaulieu, Co. Louth and the Saloon at Headford, Co. Meath.
When Ormond retired to England in 1682, the duchess accompanied him and they settled at Kingston House (Kingston Lacy) in Dorset. She died two years later at their town house, Ormonde House, in St. James’s Square, London. Sir Peter Lely painted the duchess but no portrait of her by the artist has been traced. A portrait of her by Henri Gascars is recorded in seventeenth-century Ormonde inventories.
Kingston Lacy, which belonged to James Butler Duke of Ormond, photograph by Vauxhall, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
The last decade of the Duke’s life was marked by tragedy: all three of his sons as well as his wife died. His daughter Elizabeth, who had married Philip Stanhope, 2nd Earl of Chesterfield, had already died at the young age of 25 in 1665. She was Stanhope’s second wife. Stanhope was one of the lovers of the notorious Barbara Villiers, mistress of King Charles II. Her portrait is in the stair hall of Kilkenny Castle.
John, 1st and last Earl of Gowran, died in 1677. Thomas 6th Earl of Ossory died in 1680. His wife Elizabeth died in 1684, and Richard, 1st and last Earl of Arran, in 1686. He himself died in 1688 at Kingston Lacy and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Thomas Butler (1634-1680) 6th Earl of Ossory, studio of Sir Peter Lely, circa 1678, courtesy of National Portrait Gallery NPG 371.He was the second son of the Duke and Duchess of Ormond and father of 2nd Duke of Ormonde.Richard Butler (1639-1685) 1st Earl of Arran, son of the Duke of Ormonde, by Godfrey Kneller, courtesy of National Trust Hardwick Hall.Daughter of the 1st Earl of Ormond, Elizabeth Stanhope née Butler Countess of Chesterfield By Peter Lely –http://www.thepeerage.com/p951.htm#i9503, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org
His daughter Mary (1646-1710) married William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire.
Daughter of the 1st Earl of Ormond, Mary Butler (1646-1710) Duchess of Devonshire in the style of Willem Wissing courtesy of National Trust Hardwick Hall. She married William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire.
Thomas Butler (1634-1682) 6th Earl of Ossory was the father of the 2nd Duke of Ormond. Thomas was a soldier and Naval Commander, known as ‘Gallant Ossory.’ Born at Kilkenny Castle in 1634, his childhood was spent at Kilkenny until he went with his father and brother Richard to England in 1647. They then went to France, where he was educated at Caen and Paris at Monsieur de Camps’ Academy. In Holland he married Amelia of Nassau, daughter of Lodewyk van Nassau, Heer van Beverweerd, a natural son of Prince Maurice of Nassau.
Thomas enjoyed the favour and support of both King Charles II and his queen. Because of his wife’s Dutch connections he was frequently sent on royal missions to Holland. In 1661 Thomas Butler became a member of both the English and Irish houses of Commons, representing Bristol in the former and Dublin University in the latter House. In 1665 he was appointed lieutenant-general of the army in Ireland and in 1666 was created an English peer as Lord Butler.
Having proven himself as an expert military strategist, and whilst visiting France in 1672, he rejected the liberal offers made by Louis XIV to induce him to enter the service of France, and returning to England he added to his high reputation by his conduct during the Battle of Texel in August 1673. From 1677 until 1679, he served alongside his father as a Lord of the Admiralty.
In 1670 he conducted William of Orange to England. In 1677 he joined the allied army in the Netherlands, commanding the British section and winning great fame at the siege of Mons in 1678. He acted as deputy for his father, who was lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and in parliament he defended Ormonde’s Irish administration with great vigour. In 1680 he was appointed governor of English Tangier, but his death prevented him from taking up his new duties.
John Evelyn, the diarist, was a close friend and referred to him as ‘a good natured, generous and perfectly obliging friend’. He died suddenly in 1680, possibly from food poisoning, at Arlington House in London. He was buried in Westminster Abbey
Ossory had eleven children, including James Butler (1665-1745), the eldest surviving son of Thomas the 6th Earl of Ossory, who became the 2nd Duke of Ormonde.
Following his father’s death in 1680, James became the heir to his grandfather, James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond, whom he succeeded in 1688. James Butler 2nd Duke of Ormonde (the ‘e’ was added to the name around this time) inherited all of the Ormonde properties and titles, from both his grandfather and grandmother including her Dingwall title.
James Butler (1665-1745) 2nd Duke of Ormonde courtesy of National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.Oil painting on canvas, James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde (1665-1745) by Sir Godfrey Kneller (Lubeck 1646/9 – London 1723). A three-quarter length portrait, turned slightly to the right, facing, gazing at spectator, wearing armour, blue sash and white jabot, a baton in his right hand, his left on his hip, his helmet placed at the left; cavalry in the distance, right.
James the 2nd Duke married twice: first to Anne Hyde, daughter of Laurence, 1st Earl of Rochester, and a niece Anne Hyde the wife of the duke of York, the future James II. After she died, he married Mary Somerset, a daughter of Henry Somerset, 1st Duke of Beaufort. She married James, then Lord Ossory in 1685 as his second wife. They had one son and five daughters. Only two daughters survived infancy: Lady Elizabeth, unmarried (d.1750) and Lady Mary (d.1713) who married John, Lord Ashburnham in 1710.
The duchess Mary was delighted with the reception she received on her first visit to Ireland. During this visit, she wrote to John Ellis telling him, ‘I have been received with as much respect as the greatest woman in the world could have been both by civil, military and clerical…’
Queen Anne appointed her Lady of the Bedchamber (1702-14). John Dryden dedicated his work Palamon and Arcite to her. The duchess did not join her husband in exile in France but that did not spare her from the humiliation of having her pew in St. James’s Church taken from her at Christmas in 1715. On this occasion she wrote to Ellis complaining that ‘this treatment appears to me very extraordinary, that before anybody has made out their title to the House in the parish I should be turned out of the church after living 30 years myself in the Parish…’ From 1720 until her death in 1733, she lived at Paradise Row in Chelsea, London. She was buried in Westminster Abbey, London.
James 2nd Earl was appointed a Lord of the Bedchamber in 1685; and serving in the army, participated in the victory over the Duke of Monmouth, at Sedgemore. [see 6]
James Butler (1665-1745) 2nd Duke of Ormond, studio of Michael Dahl, oil on canvas, circa 1713 courtesy of National Portrait Gallery NPG 78.
The 2nd Duke carried out more work on Kilkenny Castle. Bence-Jones continues: “[William] Robinson is also believed to have designed the magnificent entrance gateway of Portland and Caen stone with a pediment, Corinthian pilasters and swags which the second Duke erected on the street front of the castle ca 1709. Not much else was done to the castle in C18, for the Ormondes suffered a period of eclipse following the attainder and exile of the 2nd Duke, who became a Jacobite after the accession of George I.” [3]
Although he was later a Jacobite, favouring the return of James III to the throne rather than George I, James 2nd Duke favoured William III over James II. He took up arms under William Prince of Orange. He was present at the Boyne, and during William’s stay in Ireland entertained the king in extravagant style at Kilkenny castle.
Lots of stone carved heads decorate the exterior of the castle. I’m not sure when they were added, but if they were there at the time of King William’s visit the military headgear of some was bound to impress.
There are also stone heads inside the front corridor. I think the corridor’s inner wall was originally an external wall of the castle. The heads inside are regal, not militant.
Once William and Mary were established on the throne of England, he began to reap the rewards of his allegiance. He attended the coronation of the new king and queen as lord high constable of England, and was named as a gentleman of the king’s bedchamber. Later he became a privy councillor in both Ireland and England. The dictionary of national biography tells us that if Ormond had prospered in William’s reign, he was to reach new heights of favour under Queen Anne. In February 1703 Ormond was appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland.
However, his fortunes went downhill, and instead of supporting the accession of George I, he became a Jacobite. He was a supporter of James II’s son James Francis Stuart (1688-1766) and his son Charles Edward Stuart, “Bonnie Prince Charlie.”
Following his involvement in a Jacobite rising, a Bill of Attainder was passed against him. He was impeached for high treason. His English and Scottish honours, including the order of the Garter, and his English estates were seized. Timothy William Ferres tells us that Parliament passed an act which annulled the regalities and liberties of the County Palatine of Tipperary, vested his lands in the Crown, and proclaimed a reward of £10,000 for his apprehension, should he attempt to land in Ireland. [see 6] He fled to France in 1715.
The crown administered his estates until 1721, when parliament passed an act to enable the Duke’s brother, Charles to repurchase the estates.
The 2nd Earl lived out his life in exile, and died at Avignon in France. Despite this, he was buried in 1746 in Westminster Abbey.
The attainder on the 2nd Duke’s estate did not cause the forfeiture of the Irish titles or estates. At the time of forfeiture, it was supposed that the Duke’s honours were all forfeited under the act of attainder passed by Parliament, but it was subsequently decided that no proceeding of the English legislature could affect Irish dignities. James the 2nd Duke had no son, so his brother Charles Butler (1671-1758) succeeded him as 14th Earl of Ormonde and de jure 3rd Duke of Ormonde in the peerage of Ireland. However, Timothy William Ferres tells us that in 1683, Charles had been created Baron Butler, and in 1693, Baron Cloughgrenan, Viscount Tullogh, and Earl of Arran, but he never assumed or was aware of possessing the English and Irish Dukedom or Marquessate.
Charles Butler, 1st Earl of Arran (1671-1758), 14th Earl of Ormond, by James Thornhill. He was the brother of the 2nd Duke of Ormond – http://www.odl.ox.ac.uk/oxfordportraits
The Kilkenny Castle website tells us that Charles attended the University of Oxford and took the Grand tour of Europe. Charles reaped rewards and titles in his support for William III, becoming Baron Butler of Weston in the English Peerage (1694) and Earl of Arran in the Irish Peerage (1694). He rose through the ranks in the British Army. He succeeded his brother as High Steward of Westminster and Chancellor of Oxford University, two posts he held until his death. He was fifty years old when he was able to repurchase the Ormonde estates. He lived in St. James’s Place and Grosvenor St. in London, and a country house in Bagshot Park, Surrey. Upon his death in 1758, the Dukedom and Marquisate became extinct.
He had no children, however, so the title passed to a cousin.
Since there is the portrait of James Wandesforde Butler (1774-1838), 1st Marquess of Ormonde (3rd creation), 19th Earl of Ormonde in the front hall, let’s continue with the genealogy of the Ormondes before we continue further into the castle.
After the childless 14th Earl of Ormonde, the successor was a cousin, John Butler (d. 1766) of Kilcash and Garryricken. His father was Thomas Butler of Kilcash (d. 1738), a grandson of Richard Butler (d. 1701) of Kilcash, a brother of the 1st Duke of Ormond.
Family tree of the Butlers, showing the genealogy of the 15th Earl of Ormonde.Colonel Thomas Butler (d. 1738)of Kilcash and Garryricken by James Latham. Thomas was the father of the 15th Earl of Ormonde, John Butler (d. 1766) of Kilcash and Garryricken.
Colonel Thomas Butler (d. 1738) of Kilcash and Garryricken, father of the 15th Earl of Ormonde, had a brother who became a Catholic Archbishop of Cashel and Emly. Their portraits, by James Latham, hang in the picture gallery of Kilkenny Castle.
Thomas (d. 1738) inherited Kilcash from his grandfather Richard Butler (d. 1701) of Kilcash. A Colonel of a Regiment of Foot in the army of King James II, Thomas married Margaret Bourke, widow of 5th Viscount Iveagh and daughter of William, 7th Earl of Clanricarde. They had three sons: Richard (d.1711), Walter who died in Paris and John Butler of Kilcash, who succeeded to the Ormonde titles as de jure 15th Earl in 1758 on the death of his cousin Amelia, sister of James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde. The couple also had five daughters: one, Honora married Valentine Brown, Lord Kenmare.
The 15th Earl had no children so the title then passed to a cousin, Walter Butler (1703-1783), another of the Garryricken branch, who also became the 9th Earl of Ossory. He was the only son and heir of John Butler of Garricken and Frances, daughter of George Butler of Ballyragget. Walter inherited the Ormonde titles in 1766 which he did not assume, so is called the “de jure” 16th Earl. “De jure” describes practices that are officially recognised by laws or other formal norms, regardless of whether the practice exists in reality.
Walter succeeded to the family estates on 1766 on the death of the 15th Earl and thus moved from Garryricken House to Kilkenny Castle. Walter de jure 16th Earl was a Catholic so was unable to exercise a political role. He undertook the restoration of the Castle, decorating some of the rooms with simple late eighteenth century plasterwork, and also built the stable block across the road from the Castle, today the Design Centre and National Craft Centre. He also built the Dower House, now a hotel called Butler House.
After Walter’s death in 1783, Eleanor moved into the Dower House. His youngest daughter, Eleanor, is known as one of the ‘Ladies of Llangollen,’ who moved with her female partner to a home in Wales.
In 1768 the thirteen-year-old Sarah Ponsonby arrived in Kilkenny to attend a local school. Following her visit to the Butler family at Kilkenny castle, and despite the difference in age, the two formed an immediate friendship and corresponded secretly. In their first attempt to flee in March 1778, they left for Waterford disguised as men and wielding pistols, but their families managed to catch up with them.
The Ladies of Llangollen, Sarah Ponsonby and Charlotte Eleanor Butler, by Richard James Lane, printed by Jérémie Graf, after Lady Mary Leighton (née Parker) courtesy of National Portrait Gallery NPG D32504.
Eleanor was then sent to the home of her brother-in-law Thomas ‘Monarch’ Kavanagh of Borris, Co. Carlow, but made a second, successful attempt and ran away to find Sarah in Woodstock, County Kilkenny. Her persistence won out when both families finally capitulated and accepted their plans to live together.
Walter and Eleanor’s son John (1740-1795) became known as “Jack of the Castle” and was the 17th Earl. Jack’s sister Susannah married Thomas Kavanagh of Borris House in County Carlow (see my entry about Borris House https://irishhistorichouses.com/2020/10/04/borris-house-county-carlow/).
Jack married Anne Wandesford, becoming a Protestant in order to marry her. This allowed him to stand as a member of Parliament. Their sons Her sons Walter and James became 18th and 19th Earls of Ormonde while a younger son Charles inherited the Wandesforde estates and took the name Wandesforde. The Kilkenny Castle website tells us that Anne placed a strong emphasis on health. In Castlecomer she had organised a fever hospital, dispensary and infirmary during the difficult period of the nineteenth century.
Jack and Anne’s son Walter (1770-1820) was given the title Viscount Thurles in 1791. When his father died in 1795 he became the 18th Earl and 1st Marquess of Ormonde. He was made Knight of the Order of St. Patrick in1798 and in 1801 he was created Baron Butler of Lanthony, Co. Monmouth.
After voting for the Act of Union in 1800, Walter took his seat in the House of Lords. He was said to haven a profligate spender, moving in the circle of the Regent, Prince George (later George IV).
In 1805, he married a wealthy heiress, Anna Maria Catherine Price-Clarke (1789-1817).
His Irish estates were worth £22,000 per annum in 1799. In 1811, probably needing money, he negotiated the sale of the presage of wines granted to his ancestor in 1327, and Parliament granted him £216,000 as compensation. He was created Marquess of Ormonde in 1816.
Walter Butler (1770-1820) 1st Marquess of Ormonde (2nd creation), 18th Earl of Ormonde, in the manner of William Beechy.
The walls of the Chinese Withdrawing Room have remnants of hand painted Chinese wallpaper original to the room, with the monochrome grey and white infill carried out by the studio of David Skinner. This delicate paper was probably ordered as part of the redecorations done to the castle by Walter Butler (1770-1820) 1st Marquess of Ormonde (2nd creation), 18th Earl of Ormonde. Walter had three rooms decorated with Chinese Paper in 1801 of which only fragments of one survive. Walter belonged to the circle of the Prince Regent and the paper in Kilkenny is similar to that chosen by the future king for the saloon at the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, and to another set which the regent presented to the owners of Temple Newsam, Leeds.
During the 19th century ladies withdrew here from the dining room leaving the men to enjoy their port and cigars after dinner, as was the social convention.
When Walter the 18th Earl died, the Marquessate of Ormonde and the Barony of Butler of Lanthony became extinct. He was described by Barrington in his Personal Sketches ‘as engaging a person, as many manly qualities, and to the full as much intellectual promise, as any young man of his country,’ but these were ‘either blunted by dissipation or absorbed in the licentious influence of fashionable connection’.
The 18th Earl had no sons so his brother James Wandesford Butler (1774-1838) succeeded him. Upon his death, it was found that Walter’s estate was massively bankrupt. It was left to his successor James, the next Earl of Ormond and his younger brother Charles to bring order to the families’ financial affairs.
James Butler (1774-1838), 1st Marquess of Ormonde, 19th Earl of Ormonde, unknown artist. This portrait hangs in the library of Kilkenny Castle. James Butler was born at Kilkenny Castle the 15th July 1774, third son of John Butler, 17th Earl of Ormonde and Lady Frances Susannah Anne Wandesforde. He was educated at Eton and succeeded his brother Walter as Earl of Ormonde in 1820 becoming one of the largest landowners of Ireland. He and his younger brother Charles Harward were friends of the Prince of Wales. He married Grace Louisa Staples in 1807.
James Butler (1774-1838) was born at Kilkenny Castle the 15th July 1774, third son of John Butler, 17th Earl of Ormonde and Lady Frances Susannah Anne Wandesforde. He was educated at Eton.
After the Act of Union in 1800, James Wandesford Butler (1774-1838) took his seat in London as MP for Kilkenny (1801-20). In 1807 he married Grace Louisa Staples. They had ten children.
Grace Louisa Staples (1779-1860) Marchioness of Ormonde by John Saunders (1750-1825) hanging in the picture gallery of Kilkenny Castle. Daughter of the Rt Hon John Stapes of Lissan, near Dungannon and Henrietta, fourth daughter of Richard, 3rd Viscount Molesworth, she married James Butler, 19th Earl and 1st Marquess of Ormonde (3rd creation) in 1807.
James succeeded his brother in 1820 and because the English honours had become extinct at Walter’s death, it was not until 1821 that he was created Baron Ormonde of Lanthony, Knight of St. Patrick, in the same year. Four years later he was created 1st Marquess of Ormonde (of the 3rd creation).
He officiated as Chief Butler of Ireland at the Coronation of George IV.
He was Vice Admiral of Leinster, Lord Lieutenant of Co. Kilkenny (1831-38) and Militia ADC to King William IV and to Queen Victoria from 1837 until his death.
James Wandesforde Butler (1774-1838), 1st Marquess of Ormonde (3rd creation), 19th Earl of Ormonde, by Richard Rothwell (1800-1868), the portrait hangs in the Hall of Kilkenny Castle. He succeeded his brother Walter as Earl of Ormonde in 1820, becoming one of the largest landowners in Ireland with an estate worth more than £20,000 a year. He was created Marquess of Ormonde in 1825 and officiated as Chief Butler of Ireland at the Coronation of George IV. He married Grace Louisa Staples in 1807, they had ten children. He died in Dublin in 1838 and was succeeded by his eldest son John. In this portrait, the marquess is depicted wearing a dark coat with the blue ribbon of the Order of St Patrick. Rothwell, an Irish artist who had worked as Sir Thomas Lawrence’s chief assistant, was a highly regarded portrait painter.Marquess James Butler, Ormonde (1774 – 1838), 1830, After John Comerford (around 1762 Kilkenny – 1832 Dublin).
It was during James Wandesford Butler the 19th Earl and 1st Marquess’ time that major reconstruction work was carried out at Kilkenny Castle, around 1816 by William Robertson.
After some refurbishment had been carried out at Butler House, the family moved to live there for some years during the reconstruction work of the late 1830s and the 1840s. Robertson, an architect from Kilkenny, practically rebuilt the castle, except the three old towers and the outer walls. The front entrance by the 2nd Duke remains. Robertson swept away the 1st Duke’s embellishments.
The picture gallery of Kilkenny Castle has a wonderful drawing by William Robertson around 1816 of the castle.
Robertson replaced one of two missing sides of the courtyard with a new wing containing an immense picture gallery. The original gallery, on the top floor of the principal range, had been divided into bedrooms.
“Ca. 1826, the Kilkenny architect, William Robertson, when walking in the castle courtyard with the Lady Ormonde of the day, noticed that a main wall was out of true and consequently unsafe. One suspects it may have been wishful thinking on his part, for it landed him the commission to rebuild the castle, which he did so thoroughly that virtually nothing remains from before his time except for the three old towers, the outer walls and – fortunately – the 2nd Duke’s gateway. Apart from the latter, the exterior of the castle became uncompromisingly C19 feudal; all the 1st Duke’s charming features being swept away. Robertson also replaced one of two missing sides of the courtyard with a new wing containing an immense picture gallery; the original gallery, on the top floor of the principal range, having been divided into bedrooms. Robertson left the interior of the castle extremely dull, with plain or monotonously ribbed ceilings and unvarying Louis Quinze style chimneypieces.” [see 3]
On the ground floor of the castle, along with the Entrance Hall are the Chinese Withdrawing Room and the State Dining Room. In a corridor there is a plan of the different floors – I don’t know when it was made, but maybe around 1826 at the time of Willliam Robertsons’s renovation.
Kilkenny Castle: this shows the ground floor with the hall, dining room and withdrawing room, and the Tapestry room in a round tower.Kilkenny Castle.
The ground floor also contains the State Dining Room. The website tells us that this was the formal dining room in the 1860’s. Historic evidence shows that this room was hung in the late 19th century with a red flock paper when it was a billiard room. The strong blue on the walls echoes the colour in the original 19th century-stained glass windows and provides a backdrop for the Langrishe family portraits, which originated in Knocktopher Abbey, Kilkenny, and are now in the care of the State.
Knocktopher Abbey in County Kilkenny, a house incorporating the remains of the first Carmelite friary in Ireland, rebuilt for Lieutenant-Colonel Sir James Langrishe JP DL (1832-1910) after a fire. It was rebuilt around 1866 in High Victorian Gothic to the design of John McCurdy. The paintings on display are part of a generous bequest to Kilkenny Castle from Lady Grania Langrishe in July of 2012. See my footnotes for a description of the portraits of the Langrishe family which are on display. [9]
John Langrishe (1660-1735), son of Hercules Langrishe (the first member of the family who settled in Ireland), became proprietor of the borough of Knocktopher, County Kilkenny.
Knocktopher Abbey, Knocktopher, Co. Kilkenny, photograph courtesy DNG Country Homes & Estates, November 2024.
Most large estate houses would have had both a formal and informal Dining Room. The collection of silverware contains some pieces from the original 18th century collection, purchased by Walter Butler, the 18th Earl, after his marriage to the wealthy heiress Anna Maria Price Clarke.
The 19th century mahogany staircase was designed and made by the local firm of Furniss & Son, Kilkenny and leads to the Tapestry Room and first floor. The use of mahogany in domestic furniture, which is so synonymous with the Grand House, is virtually unknown before the 18th century. Most of the wood imported came from the Jamaican Plantations which were cleared in order to plant sugar cane and cotton. During the 19th century this staircase was hung with several beautiful tapestries from the Decius Mus suite, some of which are now housed in the Tapestry Room.
On the first floor we can visit the Tapestry Room, and then a suite of rooms, the Anteroom, Library and Drawing Room.
The first floor of Kilkenny Castle, with the Tapestry Room then the suite of rooms containing the anteroom, library and drawing room.
The Tapestry Room in the North Tower shows how the medieval castle was transformed in the 17th century to become a magnificent baroque ducal palace. This room was called the Great Chamber in the 17th century and the walls were decorated with embossed and gilded leather hangings on the walls; a fragment of a late 17th/ early 18th century leather has been hung beside the door to give an impression of how rich the room must have been. In the 18th century, they were replaced by a set of tapestries. There are two tapestries from the “Decius” suite in the Tapestry room. The tapestries are attributed to the workshop of Jan Raes, after designs by Sir Peter Paul Rubens.
The ‘Decius’ suite had been in the ownership of the Ormonde family for over 300 years and was displayed in several of their residences before being acquired by OPW for display in Kilkenny Castle. Tapestries were an important feature of the interior decoration of large houses in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries and helped provide interior interest, warmth, and colour. There area more of this series of tapestries in the picture gallery of the castle.
The Gothic block wallpaper that goes halfway up the walls is a reproduction of an eighteenth century Irish wallpaper, reproduced by David Skinner.
The ceiling outlines the keyhole shape of this room, created by the addition of a square tower to the circular medieval tower during the 15th century.
From the website: “Today the first floor space is occupied by three rooms: Anteroom, Library and Drawing Room, as it was in the 19th century. The processional lay out of the rooms, each opening into the next is characteristic of the Baroque style of the 17th century and was know as an ‘enfilade’ suite of rooms. Baroque protocol dictated that visitors of lower rank than their host would be escorted by servants down the enfilade to the nearest room that their status allowed.
“In the 16th and 17th century the State Rooms were situated on this floor. 17th century history records that it was in these state apartments that James Butler 1st Duke of Ormonde received the Papal Nuncio Giovanni Battista Rinuccini during the Irish Confederate Wars of that century.“
James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde (1610–1688) after John Michael Wright courtesy of National Trust images.
The Kilkenny castle website continues: “An Anteroom was a small room used as a waiting room, that leads into a larger and more important room. The Anteroom and the room below, today the Serving Room, were constructed in the area where an earlier stone staircase was situated.” The anteroom features a reproduction poplin wallpaper and bronze figurines in niches.
The anteroom leads to the library. “The interior decoration is a faithful recreation of the furnishing style of the mid to late 19th century. Thanks to a salvaged fabric remnant found behind a skirting board, it was possible to commission the French silk poplin on the walls in its original pattern and colour from the firm of Prelle in Lyons in France. The claret silk damask curtains are also based on the originals were made in Ireland.“
For identification of the portraits in this room, see my footnotes. [10] Not all of the sitters seem to be immediately connected to the Ormonde family.
The Library. Briefly, the portraits on the wall over the door are, from the left, an unknown lady; possibly Rachel Russell the wife of William, 2nd Duke of Devonshire. Rachel was related by marriage to the Ormonde family, her husband was the son of Mary Butler, 1st Duchess of Devonshire; James Butler (1774-1838), 1st Marquess of Ormonde, 19th Earl of Ormonde; Elizabeth Jones (1665-1758), after William Wissing. Wife of John Fitzgerald, 18th Earl of Kildare; and an unknown lady. Photograph courtesy of Kilkenny Castle website.
“One of the nine massive curtain pelmets is original and an Irish firm of Master Gilders faithfully reproduced matching gilt reproductions. The bookcases were also reproduced based on one original bookcase acquired by the OPW in the 1980s, this original with its 19th century glass stands in the right end corner of the library. The matching pair of pier mirrors over the mantelpieces was conserved and re gilded.”
Berber style rugs were designed and woven for this room by the firm of Woodward Grosvenor in the 1990s. The restoration team were fortunate in finding the original receipt for the carpet in the family papers, and were able to trace the original company who had retained the design records. The design is based on patterns adapted from Izmir motifs. The Woodward Grosvenor company was based in Kidderminster, England. The town has been a centre of weaving for many centuries, and in the mid – late 18th century began to specialize in new forms of carpet weaving, earning the title of Carpet Capital of Britain. The company was founded in 1790 by Henry Woodward. in 1855 with his partner Benjamin Grosvenor, he build the Stour valley Mill, the first steam-powered carpet mill in Britain.
The Drawing Room is typically the room in a house where guests and visitors are entertained. Drawing rooms were previously known as ‘withdrawing rooms’ or ‘withdrawing chambers’ which originated in sixteenth century.
The fabrics in this room are vintage glazed and block printed English and French chintzes and have been chosen to recreate the style of the rooms as they appeared in the 19th century family photographs. The Drawing Room picture hang reflects the Edward Ledwich description in his 1789 “Antiquities of Ireland!” when this room was the Presence Chamber or Alcove.
The watercolours on display were painted by Anne Wynne née Butler, daughter of John Wandesford Butler, 1st Marquess, and his wife Grace Louisa Staples. Grace herself painted and exhibited her paintings, and she made sure that all of her children learned to paint. Anne married J.A. Wynne of Hazelwood House in County Sligo in 1838.
The photograph shows how much work the OPW had to do to make the bedroom fit for visitors.
The Blue Bedroom, Kilkenny Castle.
James 1st Marquess of 3rd creation died in Dublin in 1838 and was succeeded by his eldest son John Butler (1808-1854), who became 2nd Marquess, 20th Earl of Ormonde, Earl of Ossory and Viscount Thurles, Baron Ormonde of Lanthony, and Chief Butler of Ireland. John Butler travelled extensively. His Journals, now in the National Library of Ireland, record his many journeys across Europe to Italy and Sicily. He published an account of his travels, Autumn in Sicily, and he also wrote an account of the life of St. Canice, based on a Latin manuscript in the Burgundian library in Brussels.
He married Frances Jane Paget in 1843. He continued the work of rebuilding Kilkenny castle that was started by his father. The castle website tells us that his journals show him to have a deep interest in art, and there are careful descriptions of several of the great galleries in Italy to be found in his writing.
Although he continued to write in his journals during the years 1847 to 1850, no mention of the Irish famine is made.
He died while bathing in the sea near Loftus hall on Hook Head, Co. Wexford. A marble tomb was erected in his memory in St. Canice’s Cathedral, Kilkenny.
The Blue Bedroom, Kilkenny Castle. Top: Wedding of John Butler 2nd Marquess of Ormonde & Frances Jane Paget, 1843 Artist Edmund Fitzpatrick (fl. 1848-1883) The wedding procession in front of Kilkenny Castle, with groups of local people in the streets as the couple are recieved at the Gates. Below: Funeral of John Butler 2nd Marquess of Ormonde, 1854, Artist Edmund Fitzpatrick. The funeral procession in front of Kilkenny Castle, groups of local people in the streets.
The children were still young when their father died in 1854. Frances Jane looked after the Ormonde estates and continued the rebuilding of Kilkenny castle. During the early years of her marriage (1844-1849), she was the Lady of the bedchamber to the Queen Dowager, Adelaide.
Another bedroom is the Chinese Bedroom, connected to the blue bedroom by double doors. This bedroom is decorated with a modern reproduction of a hand painted Chinese wallpaper, part of the Chinoiserie theme of the room. The wallpaper was based on a design from Lissan House in County Tyrone, owned by the Staples family, Grace Louisa Staples became Marchioness of Ormonde when she married James Butler, 19th Earl, 1st Marquess of Ormonde in 1807.
Educated at Harrow, the 3rd Marquess served as Captain for ten years with the First Life Gaurds and was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Co. Kilkenny in 1878, a post he held until his death. During the marquess’s time, a number of royal visitors came to Kilkenny Castle; these included the Duke and Duchess of York in 1899, followed in 1904 by King Edward VII and Queen Alexandria.
From the Poole photographic collection, National Library of Ireland.Royal visitors to the Picture Gallery of Kilkenny Castle: the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George V and Queen Mary with James Butler the 3rd Marquess of Ormond and his wife Elizabeth Grosvenor, also Two other Ormondes (likely the Marquess’ daughter & brother), Marshal & Lady Roberts (Frederick Roberts & Nora Bews), 4th Viscount & Viscountess De Vesci (John Vesey & Evelyn Charteris), Lady Eva Dugdale (later Lady of the Bedchamber), Earl of Ava (Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood d.1900), Sir Charles Leopold Cust (baronet), Sir Francis De Winton, Mr J. T Seigne JP (officer of Ormonde’s estate – we came across him when we visited Kilfane, as he lived in the house there), and “Mr Moncrieffe” James Edward William Theobald Butler (1844-1919) 3rd Marquess of Ormonde by Walter Stoneman 1917, courtesy of National Portrait Gallery NPG x43817.James Edward William Theobald Butler (1844-1919) 3rd Marquess of Ormonde, probably with his wife.
James 3rd Marquess was an Officer of the Life Guards and a Knight of the Order of St. Patrick.
It was during the 3rd Marquess’s time that changes were made to the rather plain picture gallery block created by William Robertson. It was built on earlier foundations, primarily to house the Butler Family’s collection of paintings. Initially the gallery was built with a flat roof that had begun to cause problems shortly after its completion.
The architectural firm of Deane and Woodward was called in during the 1860s to make changes to the overall design of the picture gallery block and corrections to Robertson’s work. These changes included the insertions of four oriels in the west wall and the blocking up of the eight windows, while another oriel added to the east wall.
Woodward and Deane also built the fantastical Moorish staircase to give better access to the picture gallery. Charles Harrison (1835-1903), the stone carver, is credited with the carved naturalistic foliage and small animals which adorn the stairs.
The magnificent Picture Gallery is situated in the east wing of Kilkenny Castle. Deane and Woodward changed the flat roof to a toplit one with impressive wooden beams.
The hammer beam roof structure by Deane and Woodward is supported on carved stone corbels, carved by the O’Shea brothers from Kilkenny. The ceiling was hand painted by John Hungerford Pollen (1820-1902), Professor of Fine Arts at Newman College in Dublin. The decoration is from the quasi-medieval and pre-Raphaelite, and reminds me of Seán Leslie’s painting on beams in Castle Leslie. The cross beams of the gallery feature gilded animal and bird heads. It has taken me several visits to Kilkenny Castle to take it all in!
The large marble fireplace is also designed by John Hungerford Pollen.It was supplied by the firm of Ballyntyne of Dorset Street, Dublin. Foliage carving attributed to Charles Harrison covers the chimneypiece and a frieze beneath is decorated with seven panels, showing the family coat of arms and significant episodes from the family’s long history.
James was the last marquess to live at Kilkenny Castle. He died there and is buried in the private family cemetery. The 3rd Marquess’s brother James Arthur Wellington Foley Butler (1849-1943) became 4th Marquess (and 22nd Earl) of Ormonde in 1919. James’ principal home was at Gennings, Kent where he died in 1943. It seems such a pity his father had improved the picture gallery and he didn’t live there!
He was educated at Harrow and joined the army becoming a lieutenant in the 1st Life Guards. He was state steward to the Earl of Carnarvon when Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. In 1887 he married Ellen Stager, daughter of American General Anson Stager.
Lord and Lady Arthur Butler purchased Gennings Park in Kent in 1901. The purchase of country estate after fourteen years of marriage was reportedly made following the death of Lord Arthur’s cousin George O’Callaghan, 2nd Viscount Lismore in 1899; Lord Lismore had reportedly informed his family that, following the deaths of his two sons, Lord Arthur Butler would be the heir to his estates (a 47,000-acre estate in Ireland centred on Shanbally Castle worth £18,435 annually). [11] Following Lord Lismore’s death in 1898, his Will revealed that he had instead named Lord Arthur’s nieces Lady Beatrice and Lady Constance Butler as the beneficiaries of his estate. [12]
Shanbally Castle, County Tipperary, photograph by Robert French, (between ca. 1865-1914), Lawrence Photograph Collection, National Library of Ireland.
Gennings Park remained the home of Ellen, Lady Arthur Butler (later Marchioness of Ormonde) until her death in 1951. Her son was James George Anson Butler, 23rd Earl, 5th Marquess, 24th Chief Butler (1890–1959). George was educated at Harrow and Sandhurst. In 1915 he married Sybil Fellowes, daughter of 2nd Lord de Ramsey and Winston Churchill’s first cousin. They had two children, Moira and Anthony. George and Sybil were in residence at Kilkenny Castle in 1922 when the building was occupied by Republicans and besieged by troops of the Free State.
He oversaw the 1935 auction of contents at Kilkenny Castle. His younger brother succeeded him, James Arthur Norman Butler, 24th Earl, 6th Marquess, 30th Chief Butler (1893–1971). Arthur was educated at Harrow and Sandhurst. He pursued a military career and served in both world wars. From 1945 onwards, Arthur lived at Gennings Park in Kent with his widowed mother Ellen. In 1955, after her death, he moved with his wife to Cantley Farm, Wokingham, Berkshire. In 1967 he sold the Castle to the Kilkenny Castle Restoration Committee for £50. Two years later it went into state ownership.
As I mentioned earlier, it was James Arthur Norman Butler (1893-1971), 6th Marquess and 24th Earl of Ormonde, youngest son of James Arthur, 4th Marquess of Ormonde, who in 1967 sold the Castle.
The next Earl was a cousin, James Hubert Theobald Charles Butler, 25th Earl, 7th Marquess, 31st Chief Butler (1899–1997). He was a grandson of James Butler, 21st Earl of Ormonde and a cousin of the 23rd and 24th Earls of Ormonde. Upon his death, the Marquessate of Ormonde became extinct and the Earldoms of Ormonde and Ossory and the Viscountcy of Thurles became dormant.
It is now a wonderful place to visit, and has fifty acres of rolling parkland, a terraced rose garden, playground, tearoom and man-made lake, for visitors to enjoy. We enjoyed a delicious moist slice of fruitcake in the vaulted café, which must have been the kitchen, before heading out for a walk around the park.
[3] p. 167. Bence-Jones, Mark. 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.
[8] p. 192. Murray, James (2009). Enforcing the English Reformation in Ireland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, “Whether Ormond’s death was directly attributable to the viceroy’s actions, or simply a remarkable coincidence, is now impossible to determine.”
[9] Knocktopher Abbey in County Kilkenny, a house incorporating the remains of the first Carmelite friary in Ireland, rebuilt for Lieutenant-Colonel Sir James Langrishe JP DL (1832-1910) after a fire. It was rebuilt around 1866 in High Victorian Gothic to the design of John McCurdy. The paintings on display are part of a generous bequest to Kilkenny Castle from Lady Grania Langrishe in July of 2012.
John Langrishe (1660-1735), son of Hercules Langrishe (the first member of the family who settled in Ireland), became proprietor of the borough of Knocktopher, County Kilkenny.
Mr Langrishe, High Sheriff of County Kilkenny, 1696, married firstly, Alicia, second daughter of Harry, 2nd Baron Blayney, and widow of Thomas Sandford, of Sandford Court; and secondly, Miss Sandford, daughter of Colonel Sandford; but had issue by neither of those ladies.
He wedded thirdly, Mary, daughter of Robert Grace, feudal baron of Courtstown, and had an only son, his successor, Robert Langrishe (c.1696-1769).
Robert served as High Sheriff of County Kilkenny in 1740 amd Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod in Ireland 1745-9. His son and heir Hercules Langrishe (1731-1811) served as MP for Knocktopher 1761-1800. Hercules was created a baronet in 1777, denominated of Knocktopher Abbey, County Kilkenny.
Sir Hercules, who was a member of the Privy Council, represented the borough of Knocktopher in the Irish parliament for forty years, during which period he ranked amongst the most distinguished of its members, and was the first who advocated and obtained a partial relaxation of the most atrocious code of laws which oppressed the Roman Catholics of Ireland, a code that consigned 80% of the population to unmitigated and grinding slavery, and reduced the whole of the state to semi-barbarism. He was Commissioner of Excise and Revenue.
In 1755 he married Hannah, daughter and co-heir of Robert Myhill, of Killarney, County Kilkenny, and sister of Jane, wife of Charles, 1st Marquess of Ely. His successor was his son Robert Langrishe, 2nd Baronet (1756-1835).
Irish Historic Houses 
