Arbuthnot, John (d. 1797)

Rossyvera, or Rockfleet, County Mayo

by jenjunebug

Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.

[Rockfleet, but see Rossyvera entry] p. 243. “A two storey late-Georgian house on an inlet of Clew Bay close to an old castle of the celebrated C16 chieftain, Graunuaile or Grace O’Malley; enlarged and remodelled from 1939 onwards by the British diplomat, Sir Owen O’Malley, and Lady O’Malley (better known as the writer and traveller, Ann Bridge). An extra storey, with a flat roof, was added to the house; and a new two bay block built to the right of the original three bay front and projecting forwards from it. The new additions are of random ashlar with the joints raked out and well pointed to resist the weather; the windows are small Georgian sashes. The whole effect is that an old castle enlarged and modernised in C18. The principal rooms are arranged round an oval staircase hall, which is original to the house but was raised and surmounted by a lantern when the extra storey was added. One of the rooms is an octagon. The library bookcases and some of the chimneypieces are of macacauba, a Portuguese colonial timber, which Sir Owen, who was Ambassador in Lisbon, sent to Ireland in the form of containers for his furniture.” 

https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/31306710/rossyvera-house-rossyvera-co-mayo

Rossyvera, County Mayo, courtesy National Inventory.

Detached five-bay (two-bay deep) three-storey country house, under construction 1838, on an F-shaped plan originally five-bay two-storey over basement on a cruciform plan centred on three-bay full-height projecting breakfront abutting two-bay full-height projecting end bay; three-bay two-storey rear (west) elevation centred on single-bay full-height breakfront on an engaged half-octagonal plan. Sold, 1853. Vacant, 1901. Occupied, 1911. Extended, 1939, producing present composition. Roof not visible behind parapet with paired rendered central chimney stacks having stringcourses below capping supporting terracotta or yellow terracotta tapered pots, and concealed rainwater goods retaining cast-iron hoppers and downpipes. Part creeper- or ivy-covered walls with lead-covered coping to parapet. Elliptical-headed central open internal porch with cut-limestone surround centred on cut-limestone keystone. Square-headed door opening into country house with concealed dressings framing timber panelled double doors. Square-headed window openings with drag edged dragged cut-limestone sills, and drag edged tooled cut-limestone lintels framing six-over-six timber sash windows. Square-headed window openings to rear (west) elevation with drag edged dragged cut-limestone sills, and cut-limestone voussoirs (ground floor) or hammered limestone lintels (first floor) framing two-over-two (ground floor) or four-over-four (first floor) timber sash windows. Interior including (ground floor): central hall retaining timber surrounds to door openings framing timber panelled doors; and timber surrounds to door openings to remainder framing timber panelled doors. Set in landscaped grounds with piers to perimeter having stepped capping supporting cast-iron double gates. 

Appraisal 

A country house representing an important component of the early nineteenth-century domestic built heritage of County Mayo with the architectural value of the composition confirmed by such attributes as the deliberate alignment maximising on panoramic vistas overlooking Rockfleet Bay; the cruciform plan form centred on a restrained doorcase; the construction in a local fieldstone offset by “sparrow pecked” limestone dressings demonstrating good quality workmanship; and the uniform or near-uniform proportions of the openings on each floor with the principal “apartments” defined by a polygonal bow: meanwhile, aspects of the composition clearly illustrate the continued development or “improvement” of the country house in the twentieth century with ‘the whole effect [being] of an old castle enlarged and modernised in the eighteenth century’ (Bence-Jones 1978, 243). Having been well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior, thus upholding the character or integrity of the composition. Furthermore, an adjoining walled garden (extant 1897); and lengthy outbuildings (extant 1897), all continue to contribute positively to the group and setting values of a self-contained estate having historic connections with Captain Alexander Wadham Wyndham (1799-1869) of West Lodge, Dorset (NUIG); James Butler Stoney JP (1814-97); William Frederick Ormsby (1858-1941; NA 1911); the O’Malley family including Sir Owen St. Clair O’Malley KCMG (1887-1974) and Mary Dolling Sanders O’Malley (1889-1974), alias Ann Bridge, author of “Frontier Passage” (published 1942) and “The Dark Moment” (published 1952); and Walter Joseph Patrick Curley II (b. 1922), one-time American Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Ireland (fl. 1975-7). 

Rossyvera, County Mayo, courtesy National Inventory.
Rossyvera, County Mayo, courtesy National Inventory.

entry in MacDonnell, Randal. The Lost Houses of Ireland. A chronicle of great houses and the families who lived in them. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. London, 2002 

Rossyvera House, or Rockfleet [see Rossyvera entry], is near to the tower house  of Carrigahowley. It has been suggested that it was originally a dower-house for the O’Donel family, who lived at Newport House (Newport is a small village, ten miles west of Castlebar in the northeast corner of Clew Bay). [p. 181] However, there is an account that it was built ‘as a nice neat house’ by a family by the name of Arbuthnot. 

“In the 19th century the house came into the possession of the Stoney family. They had come from England in the 17th century and in the 19th century James Stoney (1814-1897), a Justice of the Peace, is known to have lived at Rossy-Vera (as it was spelt). His family cannot have owned the house after his time because James’s elder son, Thomas, resided at Oakfield Park, near Raphoe in County Donegal. 

“The next name that is associated with Rossyvera is that of Sir Owen St. Clair O’Malley. Sir Owen described himself as ‘an autochthonous Irishman’ and was one fo the O’Malleys of Belclare. This branch of the family lived at Hawthorn Lodge (or Tallyho as it was originally named), near Castlebar in Co Mayo. One of this family was created a Count of the Holy Roman Empire and another, Loughlin O’Malley, conformed to the Established Church in 1718. His great-grandson, Peter O’Malley, QC, moved to England in the mid 19th century and became the Recorder of Norwich. His son, Sir Edward, was variously Attorney General of Jamaica and Hong Kong and eventually Chief Judge of H.M. Supreme Consular Court for the Ottoman Empire. Sir Owen O’Malley was Sir Edward’s son. He entered the diplomatic service in 1911 and the next year married Mary Saunders. … 

On Sir Owen’s retirement, he and Lady O’Malley began remodelling and enlarging Rossyvera – it is recorded that Sir Owen built the additions with his own hands. They added a two-bay wing to the original three bay house, an extra storey with a flat roof, as well as a cupola on the top of the staircase hall. There is an elliptical hall and a spiral staircase, the three original reception rooms are now four – one of which is an octagon shape – and there are nine bedrooms. The library bookcases and the dining room chimneypiece are made out of macacauba wood, an exotic oriental timber used by Sir Owen to make cases for his possessions when he moved from Portugal to Ireland. [182] with view to reusing the timber, he instructed his packers to employ screws rather than nails when fastening the timber. 

In the 1950s Sir Owen O’Malley and the O’Malley clan Association restored Carrigahowley Cstle (which had been used, at one period, by a family called Flynn for storing hay) and it is now a National Monument. He wrote a history of the O’Malley lordship in the 16th century in The Galway Archaological and Historical Journal (1950). 

Sir Owen sold Rockfleet (the name is a contraction of the anglicization of Carrigahowley) in 1955, and moved to Oxford, where he died in 1974, a month after his wife. The new owner of the house was Carmel Snow, the editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar, and the doyenne of fashion writers during the 1930s and 40s… she restored its original name of Rossyvera. 

In 1957, Rossyvera was bought by Walter P. Curley and his wife, Mary. After a successful career in venture capital, Walter Curley served as Ambassador of the US to Ireladn from 1975-1977 and later, from 1989-1993 as Ambassador to France. .. He and hisw wife now live at Rossyvera for several months a year.” 

Rockfleet Castle, Newport, Mayo 

by jenjunebug

Rockfleet Castle, Newport, Mayo 

Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.

[Rockfleet, but see Rossyvera entry] p. 243. “A two storey late-Georgian house on an inlet of Clew Bay close to an old castle of the celebrated C16 chieftain, Graunuaile or Grace O’Malley; enlarged and remodelled from 1939 onwards by the British diplomat, Sir Owen O’Malley, and Lady O’Malley (better known as the writer and traveller, Ann Bridge). An extra storey, with a flat roof, was added to the house; and a new two bay block built to the right of the original three bay front and projecting forwards from it. The new additions are of random ashlar with the joints raked out and well pointed to resist the weather; the windows are small Georgian sashes. The whole effect is that an old castle enlarged and modernised in C18. The principal rooms are arranged round an oval staircase hall, which is original to the house but was raised and surmounted by a lantern when the extra storey was added. One of the rooms is an octagon. The library bookcases and some of the chimneypieces are of macacauba, a Portuguese colonial timber, which Sir Owen, who was Ambassador in Lisbon, sent to Ireland in the form of containers for his furniture.” 

https://archiseek.com/2009/rockfleet-castle-newport-co-mayo

1550c – Rockfleet Castle, Newport, Co. Mayo 

Rockfleet Castle or Carraigahowley Castle (Carraig-an-Cabhlaigh), County Mayo, courtesy Archiseek.

Rockfleet Castle or Carraigahowley Castle (Carraig-an-Cabhlaigh), is a tower house near Newport. It was built in the mid 16th century, and is most famously associated with the legendary Grainne ni Mhaille, Grace O’Malley, the pirate queen and chieftain of the clan O’Malley, who lived here after she married Sir Richard Burke (Richard the Iron) in 1566. 

The castle has four storeys with a small rectangular corner turret rising above the parapet. The principal apartment was in the top floor where there is a fireplace. After the last war the building was restored by the diplomat Sir Owen O’Malley, a direct descendant of Grace, who lived in the nearby late Georgian house. 

https://www.irelandscontentpool.com/en/media-assets/media/112755

Rockfleet Castle or Carraigahowley Castle (Carraig-an-Cabhlaigh), County Mayo, courtesy Tourism Ireland, Photo by Artur Ilkow, 2016. 
Rockfleet Castle or Carraigahowley Castle (Carraig-an-Cabhlaigh), County Mayo, courtesy Tourism Ireland, Photo by Pawel Sadowski, 2016. 

entry in MacDonnell, Randal. The Lost Houses of Ireland. A chronicle of great houses and the families who lived in them. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. London, 2002 

p. 177 “A late 18th century house with 19th and 20th century additions. Rockfleet stands near the shore of Clew Bay. It had been home to the only woman alleged to have held the position of an Irish Chief, as well as two distinguished diplomatists and their families.” 

p. 178. Carrigahowley is a small, 16th century tower house on the shore of Clew Bay, four storeys high with box machicolations (projecting galleries) on two opposing corners of the parapet. There are very few windows, but there are a number of narrow loops. Carrigahowley, or “Rock of the Fleet of Ships”, is the only residence that can be connected with certainty to Grace O’Malley…unfortunately, most of the tales that concern her are based more on fiction than fact. The house known as Rockfleet stands near the tower house.” 

p. 179. “Grace was born between 1530-1540, the daughter of Eoghan Dubhdara (‘black oak’) O’Malley, the Lord of Upper Umhall, or the barony of Murrisk. Her father’s people were described as sea gods of the western ocean by the inhabitants of Mayo. To everybody else they were known as dangerous pirates. As a child, Grace accompanied her father on his marauding expeditions, and on his death she took over the leadership of the Murrisk O’Malley clan, since her brother was still a child. This was an extraordinary achievement for, despite its logic, it was completely contrary to the Brehon laws of succession in Gaelic Ireland. 

In about 1546, Grace married Donal ‘of the strife’ the son of Giolla Dubh O’Flaherty, the Lord of Iar Chonnacht and Connemara. This marriage lasted for about 15 years – the Joyces (the descendants of Cambro-Normans, who controlled a large part of Co Galway, butchered him before 1561. Grace then married Sir Richard Fitz-David Bourke, The MacWilliam Uachtar, who was known in Irish as ‘Richard of the Iron’ or “Iron Dick’). Thanks to this match, she became Lady Bourke. Her eldest son by Iron Dick, Theobald of the Shops, would become the 1st Viscount Mayo. 

Grace now turned to open piracy, which she called her ‘trade of maintenance.’ An old manuscript described her as ‘a great pirate and plunderer from her youth.’ She was finally proclaimed an outlaw and a reward of £500 was offered for the capture of ‘Grany O’Mayle, a woman that hath impudently passed the part of womanhood, and been a great spoiler and chief commander and director of thieves and murtherers at sea.” An attempt to capture her at Carrigahowly Castle failed after a siege that lasted a fortnight. 

Another tale has it that Grace acquired the castle by marrying her second husband Richard Bourke on a trial basis for a year. At the end of which, having filled the place with her own people and got herself an heir, she dismissed him. 

“In 1576, Grace approached the Lord Deputy, Sir Henry Sidney, in an attempt at a rapprochement with Dublin Castle, but he rejected her overturnes and wrote that ‘she brought with her, her husband; for she was, as well by sea and by land, more than master-mate with him.” The unfortunate Sir Richard Burke died in 1538, leaving Grace a widow for the second time. She now decided to cast her net wider than before and led a raiding party against the Geraldines in Co Kerry. It was a disasterous undertaking. Cpatured by the Earl of Desmond and imprisoned for 18 months, no sooner was she released than she took to piracy once again. Her conduct led Sir Richard Bingham to write that she was a ‘notable traitress and nurse to all the rebellions in Connacht for forty years.’ Her son, Murrough O’Flaherty, had made submission to the Crown and was never forgiven by his mother. Bingham recalled that ‘she fell out of charity with Murrough, and having manned her navy of galleys, she landed at Ballynahinch, where he dwelt, burnt the town, destroyed his people’s cattle and goods, and killed three or four of his men who resisted.’ 

Then she retired to Carrigahowley with ‘all her own followers and one thousand head of cows and mares.’ Grace did not take sides in the political conflicts of the age in which she lived. All were considered as fair game. Consequently, in 1558, when those ships that had escaped from the disasterous defeat of the Spanish Armada sailed into Clew Bay, she made short work of them, and their crews were summarily dealt with, an action which won the approbation of Queen Elizabeth. Seeing her opportunity, Grace decided that now was the time to make her [p. 180] submission to the queen but, being Grace O’Malley, she did not submit to elizabeth’s representative but went in person to the court of London in 1593. However, despite the stories, there is no evidence that Grace actually ever met the queen. When she was in London, she petitioned for the release of her sons, which was granted, and asked for her entitlement from her husband’s lands, but this was refused. The Queen did, however, instruct Bingham to give her ‘some maintenance for her lving the rest of her old years.’ 

There is a famous tale that on her way back from the Queen, Grace was refused hospitality by Lord Howth. In revenge, she seized his infant son, taking him back to Mayo with her and only returning him after she was given a promise that a place would be laid at Howth Castle from that day forwards for the O’Malleys – just in case a member of that family might happen to be passing and in need of refreshment. There are serious flaws in this account of events. For one thing, the Lord Howth in the 1590s had no infant son to be kidnapped by anyone. But the legend is so well known (and a place is still laid at Howth Castle) that it is not impossible she might have kidnapped some member of Lord Howth’s family.” 

“Interestingly, a similar legend concerns Ricard O Cuairsge Bourke, Lord of the mac Williams from 1469 until 1479 (and a collateral ancestor of Grace’s late husband). This version has it that it was this Richard Bourke who seized Lord Howth and, as part of his ransom, insisted that the head of the St. Lawrence family should always ‘keep the door of his Court open at dinner time.’ Perhaps the facts and the legend have become so mixed that it will never be possible to know the truth of the story. 

Grace made a second trip to London in 1595 and died at some date after 1601 for, in that year, one of her galleys was captured with 100 musketeers on board by an English ship. She is allegedly buried on Clare Island in Clew Bay.  

Rossyvera House, or Rockfleet [see Rossyvera entry], is near to the tower house  of Carrigahowley. It has been suggested that it was originally a dower-house for the O’Donel family, who lived at Newport House (Newport is a small village, ten miles west of Castlebar in the northeast corner of Clew Bay). [p. 181] However, there is an account that it was built ‘as a nice neat house’ by a family by the name of Arbuthnot. 

“In the 19th century the house came into the possession of the Stoney family. They had come from England in the 17th century and in the 19th century James Stoney (1814-1897), a Justice of the Peace, is known to have lived at Rossy-Vera (as it was spelt). His family cannot have owned the house after his time because James’s elder son, Thomas, resided at Oakfield Park, near Raphoe in County Donegal. 

“The next name that is associated with Rossyvera is that of Sir Owen St. Clair O’Malley. Sir Owen described himself as ‘an autochthonous Irishman’ and was one fo the O’Malleys of Belclare. This branch of the family lived at Hawthorn Lodge (or Tallyho as it was originally named), near Castlebar in Co Mayo. One of this family was created a Count of the Holy Roman Empire and another, Loughlin O’Malley, conformed to the Established Church in 1718. His great-grandson, Peter O’Malley, QC, moved to England in the mid 19th century and became the Recorder of Norwich. His son, Sir Edward, was variously Attorney General of Jamaica and Hong Kong and eventually Chief Judge of H.M. Supreme Consular Court for the Ottoman Empire. Sir Owen O’Malley was Sir Edward’s son. He entered the diplomatic service in 1911 and the next year married Mary Saunders. … 

On Sir Owen’s retirement, he and Lady O’Malley began remodelling and enlarging Rossyvera – it is recorded that Sir Owen built the additions with his own hands. They added a two-bay wing to the original three bay house, an extra storey with a flat roof, as well as a cupola on the top of the staircase hall. There is an elliptical hall and a spiral staircase, the three original reception rooms are now four – one of which is an octagon shape – and there are nine bedrooms. The library bookcases and the dining room chimneypiece are made out of macacauba wood, an exotic oriental timber used by Sir Owen to make cases for his possessions when he moved from Portugal to Ireland. [182] with view to reusing the timber, he instructed his packers to employ screws rather than nails when fastening the timber. 

In the 1950s Sir Owen O’Malley and the O’Malley clan Association restored Carrigahowley Cstle (which had been used, at one period, by a family called Flynn for storing hay) and it is now a National Monument. He wrote a history of the O’Malley lordship in the 16th century in The Galway Archaological and Historical Journal (1950). 

Sir Owen sold Rockfleet (the name is a contraction of the anglicization of Carrigahowley) in 1955, and moved to Oxford, where he died in 1974, a month after his wife. The new owner of the house was Carmel Snow, the editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar, and the doyenne of fashion writers during the 1930s and 40s… she restored its original name of Rossyvera. 

In 1957, Rossyvera was bought by Walter P. Curley and his wife, Mary. After a successful career in venture capital, Walter Curley served as Ambassador of the US to Ireladn from 1975-1977 and later, from 1989-1993 as Ambassador to France. .. He and hisw wife now live at Rossyvera for several months a year.” 

 
http://landedestates.nuigalway.ie/LandedEstates/jsp/property-list.jsp?letter=R 

An O’Malley castle, owned by the Arbuthnots at the end of the 18th century. By the time of Griffith’s Valuation, the townland was in the possession of William B. Stony, leasing from Captain A.W. Wyndham. The castle ruin is still extant.   

Irish Castles and Historic Houses. ed. by Brendan O’Neill, intro. by James Stevens Curl. Caxton Editions, London. 2002: 

This relatively small tower-house was the principle residence of the great Pirate Queen, Grace o”malley, whose powers were undisputed in the 16th century. 

https://www.geni.com/projects/Historic-Buildings-of-County-Mayo/29699

Rockfleet Castle, Restored Castle – a.k.a. Carraigahowley Castle. 15th century tower house. Home of Grace O’Malley (Grainuale), “The Pirate Queen”.Rockfleet Castle, Restored Castle – a.k.a. Carraigahowley Castle. 15th century tower house. Home of Grace O’Malley (Grainuale), “The Pirate Queen”. 

http://historicsitesofireland.blogspot.com/2011/03/rockfleet-castle.html 

Rockfleet Castle also known as Carrickahowley Castle, stands in a small inlet on the northern shores of Clew Bay in County Mayo. 
The Castle is renowned for its links with Grace O`Malley, a pirate sea Queen who inhabited the castle in the latter part of the 16th Century. 
The castle is four floors high with a small rectangular corner turret rising above the parapet. 
The principal apartment was in the top floor where there is a fireplace. 
The building was restored by the diplomat Sir Owen O’Malley, a direct descendant of Grace O’Malley. 
The castle is signposted (as Carrickahowley) just off the N59 between Newport and Mulranny.               

http://irishantiquities.bravehost.com/mayo/rockfleet/rockfleet.html 

Map Reference: L931955 (0931, 2955)  

Rockfleet or Carrigahowley Castle is a fine 15th- or 16th-century tower house situated beside an inlet of Clew Bay. It is four storeys high with two corner bartizans. There is a fireplace at the top floor.  

It is known to be the principal residence of Grace O’Malley, or Grainneuaile, the famous sea-pirate. In 1574 she beat off an attack by sea-borne English from Galway. She lived at Rockfleet after the death of her second husband, Sir Richard Burke, in 1583. In 1593 she appeared before Elizabeth I and was granted a licence to attack the Queen’s enemies.