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Marlay Park, Rathfarnham, County Dublin – owned by Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council.
Marlay House is owned by Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council. It has been restored for guided tours and the former stables have been converted into a crafts courtyard. The house had been declared unsound in 1977 and the council considered demolition. Insteahd, thank goodness, renovation began in 1992, much of the repairs done by people on an employment training scheme. The Council runs tours of the house during the Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown Heritage festival, which partially coincides with Heritage Week. Stephen and I went on the tour in 2025.
Marlay House was built for David La Touche (1729-1817), adding to an earlier 17th century house called the Grange. David La Touche bought the Grange in 1764. This Grange house is not to be confused with a house called Marlay Grange, mentioned by Mark Bence-Jones in his Guide to Irish Country Houses, and on the excellent website of Timothy William Ferres, Lord Belmont in Northern Ireland, which was built around 1850 and belonged to the Rowleys. [1]
The lands of Marlay Park belonged to the Cistercian Abbey of St. Mary, located in the city of Dublin – see my entry: https://irishhistorichouses.com/2022/11/09/the-church-junction-of-marys-street-jervis-street-dublin/ . After the dissolution of the monasteries by King Henry VIII, the land was granted to Barnaby Fitzpatrick (c.1478–1575) 1st Baron of Upper Ossory. Barnaby’s fourth wife was Margaret, daughter of Piers Butler, 8th Earl of Ormond. His son Barnaby who became 2nd Baron was raised at the English court with King Henry VIII’s son Edward.
Because the lands lay within the southern boundary of the pale, the holding became known as “Grange of the March”, meaning “Farmhouse of the Border.” The property later passed into the possession of the Harold family who were responsible for the defence of this section of the Pale from the attacks of the Irish clans. [2] They were known as “marcher lords” or “wild” border guardians, descendants of Vikings. The area of Harold’s Cross is named after them, specifically from a cross erected to mark the boundary between the lands of the Archbishop of Dublin and the lands of the Harold family, warning them not to encroach further toward the city. [3] The Harolds were dispossessed in after the 1641 Rebellion.
Grange, which was also known as Harold’s Grange, was owned previously by Thomas Taylor (1707-1763), Mark Bence-Jones tells us. [4] Taylor was Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1750. He inherited Grange from his father, also Thomas, who was an eminent agriculturalist, who died in 1727 and is buried in Kilgobbin graveyard. In the Taylors’ time the house was built, and also ornamental grounds and a deer park. Some of the house may have been demolished later when David La Touche was building the new part of the house.
Thomas Taylor (1707-1763) married, first, in 1733, Sarah, whose father John Falkiner held the office of High Sheriff of County Dublin in 1721 (Burke’s Peerage 2003 volume 1, page 1380). In 1747 Thomas married for a second time, this time to Anne (1725-1820), daughter of Michael Beresford, who in turn was the son of Tristram Beresford, 1st Baronet of Coleraine in County Derry.
After Thomas the son died in 1763, Grange was acquired by David La Touche.
The La Touche family was a Huguenot family. Huguenots were French Protestants, and they fled from France due to the punishment and killing of Protestants after Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes – the Edict of Nantes had promoted religious toleration.
David Digues La Touche (1675-1745), born in the Loire Valley, fled from France after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He fled to Holland, where his uncle obtained for him a commission in the army of William of Orange. He fought in the Battle of the Boyne in the regiment under General Caillemotte. [5] He left the army in Galway, where he was billeted on a weaver who sent him to Dublin to buy wool yarn (worsteds). He decided then to stay in Dublin, and with another Huguenot, he set up as a manufacturer of cambric and rich silk poplin. Where I live in Dublin is an area where many Huguenots lived and weaved – we are near “Weaver Square,” and our area is called “The Tenters” because cloth waas hung out to dry and bleach in the sun and looked like tents, hung on “tenterhooks”!
La Touche was an elder of the French Church group in Dublin, many of whom used to meet in what is now the Lady Chapel of St Patrick’s Cathedral. [6]
The La Touches began banking when Huguenots left their money and valuables with David for safekeeping when they would travel out of the capital. He began to advance loans, and so the La Touche bank began. He had two sons, David La Touche (1703-1785) and James Digues (later corrupted to Digges) La Touche.
David La Touche purchased properties which passed to his sons: Marlay House to David (1729-1817), Harristown in County Kildare to John (1732-1805) [see my write-up https://irishhistorichouses.com/2020/09/27/harristown-brannockstown-county-kildare/ ], and Bellevue, County Wicklow, to Peter (1733-1828). Bellevue has since been demolished, in the 1950s [7].
Photograph courtesy of La Touche Legacy website.
At the time of his death in 1785, La Touche’s rental income was £25,000 and the La Touche bank’s profit was £25,000-£30,000. His three sons who survived him, David (also the first Governor of the Bank of Ireland), John and Peter were partners in the Bank. Later, they took in their cousin William Digges La Touche as a Partner, following his distinguished service as Britain’s representative in Basra in the Persian Gulf. David and his brothers had a vast monument erected to their father in Christ Church, Delgany, where their father had died in his favourite country home, Bellevue. [see 6]
David La Touche of Marley, County Dublin (1729-1817), M.P., Banker and Privy Counsellor. Photograph courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.Peter La Touche of Bellevue (1733-1828), Date 1775 by Robert Hunter, photograph courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.Bellevue, County Wicklow, photograph by Robert French, Lawrence Photographic Collection, National Library of Ireland.Photograph courtesy of La Touche Legacy website.
David La Touche (1729-1817) commissioned the building of the extension of Grange, and he named his new house “Marlay” after his wife’s family. He married Elizabeth Marlay in 1762, just before he purchased the property. Her father was Bishop George Marlay of Dromore in County Down.
David La Touche (1729-1817), of Marlay, 1800 by Hugh Douglas Hamilton, courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.
I don’t know what architect designed the enlargement of the original Taylor house at Marlay for David La Touche. Turtle Bunbury claims that the enlargement was by Whitmore Davis. Whitmore Davis joined the Dublin Society’s School of Drawing in Architecture in 1770. A date stone in the house tells us that the first stone of the house was laid by William La Touche in 1794.
David and his family would have spent much of their time in their townhouse in Dublin. Marlay House was their weekend retreat and place for entertainment. I’m not sure when the family purchased 85 St. Stephen’s Green, now part of the Museum of Literature of Ireland (MOLI), but by 1820 George La Touche was resident. George was the unmarried son of David La Touche (1729-1817). [see 6] David La Touche (1703-1785) developed much of the area around St. Stephen’s Green, Aungier Street and the Liberties. In 1812, Peter La Touche bought 9 St. Stephen’s Green, now a Private Members Club.
85 St. Stephen’s Green (in middle), Dublin, photograph by Robert French, (between ca. 1865-1914), Lawrence Photograph Collection, National Library of Ireland.9 St. Stephen’s Green, view of stairhall from first floor landing, UCD archive, Built c. 1756 for the Rev. Cutts Harman, Dean of Waterford, now Stephen’s Green Club, plasterwork is attributed to Paolo Lafranchini.
The La Touche family purchased Harristown in County Kildare in 1768 and hired Whitmore Davis to design the house.
Whitmore Davis also designed the building for the Bank of Ireland at St. Mary’s Abbey in Dublin around 1786-1791. The La Touches were involved with the establishment of this bank in 1783. David La Touche was a major investor.
Peter La Touche hired Whitmore Davis in 1789 to build a church in Delgany, County Wicklow, and John La Touche hired him to design the Orphan House on North Circular Road in Dublin in 1792.
Elizabeth La Touche née Vicars (1756-1842), wife of Peter La Touche, by John Whitaker National Portrait Gallery of London D18415.
The La Touche crest features a pomegranate symbol, for fertility. We see the crest on the urn which tops Marlay House over the front door. The same crest decorates over the front windows in Harristown. The star shaped symbol might be the shape of the pomegranate flower. This shape features on the front pillar gates of Harristown House also. The same crest was added to the stairwell in 85 St. Stephen’s Green.
Marlay House is two storeys over a basement. It has a seven bay front with a central door framed by what Mark Bence-Jones calls a frontispiece of coupled engaged Doric columns. The frontispiece has an entablature enriched with medallions and swags, and urns on the top at either end. The window above is also framed with an entablature on console brackets.
The large central urn located on the roof parapet is on a plinth carved with swags, and there are smaller urns dotted around the roof.
There is a bow at the side of the house and another at the back. The kitchen and staff areas were in the Grange part of the house. We were lucky to tour the Grange as well, to see the large kitchen, which has a galley level, where the lady of the house would instruct the cook what to prepare, remaining well away from the servants.
Unfortunately one is not allowed photography inside the house, but there are a few photographs on the County Council website. The house includes an elegant entrance hall, ballroom, and unusual oval music room, with decorative plasterwork by Michael Stapleton.
Marlay House front hall, photograph courtesy of Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council website.
The Hall has a screen of Corinthian columns and frieze of tripods and winged sphinxes. Our guide pointed out that it is a large front hall for the size of the house. This is because it was built to impress visitors. It is not perfectly symmetrical, but has a dummy door to improve the symmetry.
The smaller Dining Room, off the front hall, also has a dummy door. It has a good frieze and cornice, and is the smaller dining room used for family dining. The house retains nearly all of the original chimneypieces. Our guide pointed out that one can surmise the age of the chimneypiece from the width of the mantlepiece. The Georgian mantlepieces were narrow, made to hold a mirror, which was tilted slightly upward to reflect light, and also to reflect a decorative ceiling. Later mantlepieces were made wider in the Victorian age when people liked to display objects.
There isn’t a feature staircase. There are two staircases, which are more functional than showy. There’s a servant staircase beside the small dining room.
The larger dining room could also act as a ballroom. It has beautiful delicate plasterwork mostly likely to have been made by Michael Stapleton, with a gorgeous ceiling and a decorative niche for a sideboard.
The larger dining room, Marlay House, photograph courtesy of Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council website.
The walls have plaster swags and painted medallions.
There is a portrait of David La Touche in military outfit, and of his father in a soft turban-style hat.
A “jib” door leads to a corridor to the oval room. This room has a portrait of George Marlay, Bishop of Dromore. Musical instruments in the plaster ceiling show that this was a music room. The windows are curved as well as the walls.
Marlay House oval room, photograph courtesy of Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council website.
There is also a fine plasterwork ceiling in the oval room. Unfortunately the photographs do not show the ceiling.
Marlay House interior, photograph courtesy of Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council website.
There is a small vaulted vestibule off the oval room, which has more decorative plasterwork. Othere rooms include a library and another bow room with a decorative ceiling, which has drawings by the La Touche children. One of the library’s walls is dedicated to work by Evie Hone, since she spent time living and working in the courtyard.
In 1781 on a visit, Austin Cooper mentions the house as well as ponds with islands, rustic bridges, waterfalls, gardens with hothouses and greenhouses, an aviary and a menagerie. [8] The grounds were landscaped by Thomas Leggett (fl. 1770s-1810s) and Hely Dutton (fl. 1800s-1820s). [9]
A website about the La Touche family tells us that David (1729-1817) was an investor in the Grand Canal Company, and in 1800 he was its Treasurer. He and his brothers were founding members of the Kildare Street Club in the 1780s. They were also Freemasons. The La Touches were generous and supported most of the large charitable and cultural organisations of the time. [10] David developed an interest in farming and developed a model farm at Marlay.
David La Touche had many children, who married very well. Their daughter Elizabeth (1764-1788) married Robert Henry Butler 3rd Earl of Lanesborough and became the Countess of Lanesborough.
Photograph courtesy of La Touche Legacy website.Elizabeth, Countess of Lanesborough (née La Touche), (1764-1788), wife of 3rd Earl Date 1791 Engraver Francesco Bartolozzi, Italian, 1725-1815 After Horace Hone, English, 1756-1825, photograph courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.
Daughter Emily (1767-1854) married Colonel George Vesey, and they lived in Lucan House (see my entry https://irishhistorichouses.com/2025/12/20/lucan-house-lucan-county-dublin/ ). Her husband’s father Agmondisham Vesey (1708–85) was, interestingly, a member of the house of commons for Harristown, Co. Kildare, 1740–60. He was an amateur architect and designed his residence, Lucan House, built in 1772, with the help of William Chambers, and consulted with James Wyatt (1746-1813) of London and Michael Stapleton for the interiors of the house. There are several similarities between Marlay House and Lucan House, including the bows, and the work by Michael Stapleton. Lucan also has a screen of Corinthian pillars in the front hall, and an oval room.
Daughter Harriet (d. 1841) married Nicholas Colthurst, 3rd Baronet of Ardum, Co. Cork. Another daughter, Anne (d. 1798) married George Jeffereyes (1768-1841) of Blarney Castle (see my entry https://irishhistorichouses.com/2022/09/23/blarney-castle-rock-close-blarney-co-cork/ ). Daughter Maria (d. 1829) married Maurice Fitzgerald, 18th Knight of Kerry, of Glin Castle in County Limerick. David and Elizabeth née Marlay’s sons were David (1769-1816), John David (1772-1838), George (1770-1824), Peter (1777-1830), Robert, who didn’t marry, and William, who is probably the one who lay the foundation stone of the house, who died young.
David La Touche (1769-1816) married Cecilia , daughter of Joseph Leeson, 1st Earl of Milltown, of Russborough House. The Dictionary of Irish Biography tells us that David served as MP for the borough of Newcastle (1790–97, 1798–1800) and MP for Co. Carlow (1802–16) in the UK parliament.
David La Touche of Marlay, Dublin (1734-1806) by Hugh Douglas Hamilton courtesy Christies Old Master & British Drawings and Watercolour.Cecilia La Touche née Leeson (about 1769-1848).
Hugh Douglas Hamilton, (1739-1808) Madame La Touche thought to be Cecilia La Touche who married David La Touche eldest son of R.T Hon David La Touche in 1789, dau of Joseph Leeson, courtesy of Adam’s 28 Sept 2005
John David La Touche of Marlay, Dublin (1772–1830), full-length, in a taupe frock coat and jabot, with Taormina and Mount Etna beyond by Hugh Douglas Hamilton courtesy Old Master & British Drawings and Watercolours, Christies.Gentleman believed to be Robert La Touche by Hugh Douglas Hamilton courtesy Christies Irish Sale 2003. Robert died when a stand collapsed at the Curragh Races.Portrait Of A Young Gentleman, Believed To Be Peter Digges La Touche courtesy of Adam’s 1st April 2009, Irish School, late 18th Century.
Peter (1777-1830) married Charlotte, daughter of Cornwallis Maude 1st Viscount Hawarden. Peter inherited the estate at Bellevue owned by his uncle Peter La Touche.
The family enjoyed theatricals, and the Masque of Comus was performed in 1778 with an epilogue by Henry Grattan, a cousin of Mrs. La Touche. [see 8] The house had its own theatre.
The walled garden in Marlay was built around 1794.
John David La Touche was the next to live in Marlay. He was succeeded by his son David Charles La Touche (1800-1872). He died without marrying, so his brother, Charles John Digges La Touche (1811-1884), succeeded him. The La Touche legacy website tells us that Charles had been at Oxford and knew Newman (later a Cardinal). In 1844, Charles caused consternation among the wider family by becoming a Roman Catholic and moving to Tours in France. Charles had a son, John David (1861-1935), who worked in China in the Imperial Chinese Customs Service, and on his retirement, he returned to Ireland in 1925 and bought a fine residence at Kiltimon, Co. Wicklow. [see 10]
In 1871 the La Touche bank was acquired by Munster Bank.
The La Touches sold the property to Robert Tedcastle around 1850. The Tedcastle family owned a fleet of cargo ships, one of which they named “Marlay”. The “Marlay” was used to carry freight, such as coal, and passengers between Dublin and Liverpool. Tedcastle was a devout Christian and he led a quiet life so the house was no longer a place for parties. His grandchildren came to live with him. One of his grandsons wrote a memoir which discusses growing up in the house. When Robert Tedcastle died, the house went to a distant cousin, but lay empty.
The Tedcastle family lived at Marley until 1925, when Robert Ketton Love bought the house. He lived there until his death in 1939. Robert and his wife Maud bought the property to build a dairy to make icecream, but nearby a rival firm set up so the business didn’t succeed. They then established a market garden at the property. When Robert died in 1939, his son Philip inherited the estate and market garden. He was the largest tomato producer in Ireland, I believe, and also bred racehorses. He died in August 1970 and in 1972 it was bought by Dublin County Council.
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[4] Mark Bence-Jones, A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 202. “(La Touche/IFR) The original early C18 house here, known as the Grange and built by Thomas Taylor, was sold ca 1760 to the banker, David La Touche, MP, afterwards 1st Governor of the Bank of Ireland, who renamed it Marlay, having married a daughter of Rt. Rev George Marlay, bishop of Dromore; and who rebuilt the house later in C18. Of two storeys over a basement. Seven bay front, central window-door framed by frontispiece of coupled engaged Doric columns, entablature enriched with medallions and swags, and urns; window above it with entablature on console brackets; large central urn on plinth carved with swags in centre of roof parapet; smaller urns on either side. Side elevation of 2 bays on either side of a curved bow. Delicate interior plasterwork, said to be by Michael Stapleton. Hall with screen of Corinthian columns and frieze of tripods and winged sphinxes. Fine plasterwork ceilings in dining room and oval room, that in the dining room incorporating a painted medallion; husk ornamentation on dining room walls. Sold ca 1867 to one of the Tedcastle famliy, of the well-known firm of coal merchants. From ca 1925 to 1974 the home of the Love family; for a period, the stained glass artist, Evie Hone, occupied a house in the stable court. Now owned by the local authority and empty, used by Radio-Telefis Eireann as Kilmore House in their recent feature.”
[7] p. 129. Bunbury, Turtle and Art Kavanagh, The Landed Gentry & Aristocracy of County Kildare. Published by Irish Family Names, 11 Emerald Cottages, Grand Canal St., Dublin 4 and Market Square, Bunclody, Co. Wexford, Ireland, 2004.
[8] p. 61-62, Ball, Francis Elrington, A History of the County Dublin: the people, parishes and antiquities from the earliest times to the close of the eighteenth century. Volume III. Alex. Thom, 1902-20.
On Thomas Taylor’s grave in Kilgobbin, it says “Here lieth the body of Thomas Taylor of Harold’s Grange who departed this life the 22nd November 1727. Underneath lie the remains of Samuel Taylor Esq. who departed this life 22nd April 1881 aged 79 years and six months leaving only one daughter who married to the Rev. Dr. Vesey of the City of Dublin. Mrs. Anna Taylor who departed this life Feb 22nd 1821 aged 66 years daughter of John Eastwood Esq. of Castletown, County Louth, wife of Mathew Beresford Taylor Esq who died 8th March 1828 aged 74 years. Mrs. Isabella Taylor who departed this life 1st March 1830, daughter to Sir Barry Collies Meredyth Bart wife of John Keatinge Taylor Esq. aged 36 years Captain 8th Hussars who died 3rd March 1836 aged 52 years. His widow Mary daughter of William Poole of Ballyroan Esq died 28th January 1892. Isabella their eldest child died 1834 aged two years.”
Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 166. “(More O’Ferrall/IFR) The old castle here, which had square corner towers, originally belonged to a branch of the Fitzgeralds, Earls of Kildare. It was sold ca 1705 to the brothers Edward and Edmund Reilly, of Co Cavan, prosperous merchants of Dubln, on which city Edmund was Alderman. Passed to the More O’Ferralls with the marriage of Edmund’s descendant, Susan O’Reilly, to C.E.More O’Ferrall 1849. In 1784, the old castle was abandoned by the family in favour of a single-storey thatched house, which was burnt 1880. Two years later, D.M.J. More O’Ferrall had the old castle dynamited, presumably to provide stone for the large new house which he built between then and 1886, to the design of W.J. Hopkins, of Worcester. The house is in a restrained Victorian Jacobean style, with long, asymmetrical elevations on both the entrance and garden fronts; of two storeys with a gabled and dormered attic in the high-pitched roof. Curvilinear gables; windows mostly rectangular sashes, originally with plate glass; except for a large mullioned window in the garden front, lighting the stairs. Many improvements to the house were carried out by Mr Roderic More O’Ferrall during the years following WWII. The exterior, which had formerly been faced in red brick, was made much more attractive by being rendered in grey cement; and at the same time astragals were put into the windows. The sitting room was hung with a grey and white early C19 French pictorial wallpaper; and the large drawing room, which at times in the past had been divided into two separate rooms, was charmingly redecorated in Georgian Gothic; the orange colour of the walls being set off by the white of the slender Gothic piers and other Gothic ornament. Mr More O’Ferrall has also laid out a garden with notable collection of trees and shrubs.”
FROM ‘THE LANDED GENTRY & ARISTOCRACY OF CO. KILDARE’ BY TURTLE BUNBURY & ART KAVANAGH (IRISH FAMILY NAMES, 2004).
Major Ambrose O’Ferrall’s youngest son, Charles Edward More O Ferrall, was born on 17th May 1805. As a boy he was one of the first students to enroll at Clongowes Wood College, the boarding school outside Naas founded by the Jesuits in 1814. He later went to the Jesuit College of St Acheul near Amiens in France. On 29th November 1849, Charles married 23-year-old Susan O’Reilly, heiress to the Kildangan Castle estates outside Monasterevin, Co. Kildare. Five years later, on October 18th 1854, Susan died giving birth to their only child, Dominick. Charles served as High Sheriff of Co. Kildare during the Crimean War (1856) and passed away on 2nd November 1875.[1]
Upon Charles’s death in 1875, 21-year-old Dominick More O’Ferrall succeeded to Kildangan. He was subsequently DL and JP for County Kildare. In 1879, a year of much political unrest in the Irish countryside, he served as High Sheriff of Kildare. In 1880, a fire destroyed the single-storey thatched house at Kildangan, built by the O’Reillys a hundred years earlier. Two years later, Dominick dynamited the old Geraldine castle and used the stones to build a Victorian Jacobean style house to the design of WJ Hopkins of Worcester. The new house, which cost £18,570, came with its own state-of-the-art heating system, something of a novelty for Irish houses at this time. Electric lights were added in 1910. During his lifetime Dominick also considerably extended the Kildangan estate, with the advice of the eminent British landscape gardener John Sutherland, who laid out the celebrated gardens. He married Annie, daughter of Colonel Francis MacDonnell, CB, of Plas Newydd, Monmouthshire. Dominick died in February 1942.
Dominick and Anne’s eldest son Roderic was known internationally as a successful breeder and trainer of bloodstock. He was born in 1903 and educated at Eton and Worcester College, Oxford. He married Anne Biddle, only daughter of William Christian Bullitt of Washington DC, former US Ambassador to France. Mrs. Biddle was a famous figure on the Irish horseracing circuit during the 1950s and 1960s. During her marriage to Roderic, shed horses trained by Paddy Prendergast at Rossmore Lodge on The Curragh. After the marriage broke up, her horses were trained by Michael Dawson. It was with Dawson that she achieved her most important success as an owner when Sindon won the Irish Derby in 1958. She then moved her horses to her farm at Palmerstown, outside Naas, with Tommy Shaw as her private trainer. [2] She then made history by becoming the first woman trainer to be licensed by the Turf Club. By this time she was “Mrs DB Brewster”. She also had jumpers trained at Grangecon by Paddy Sleator. The best of these was Knight Errant one of only two horses to have won both the Galway Plate and the Galway Hurdle. In the legal battle that followed her separation from Roderic, Mrs. Biddle caused a sensation by accusing her husband of being “a fairy”. Apparently the term was virtually unknown in Ireland at the time – when a journalist for the Irish Press quoted it in a report the news editor called him to his office to explain it. Shortly before his death, Roderic was married again to Patricia Richards, the Australian born ex-wife of the 9th Earl of Jersey.[3] Roderic’s extensive connections included Loelia, Duchess of Westminster, who personally redecorated the dining room at Kildangan. He was president of the Bloodstock Breeders Association. Roderic based his equine activities at Kildangan Stud in County Kildare. Four years before his death in 1990, Roderic sold the farm to Sheikh Maktoum Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and Ruler of Dubai. Kildangan continues to be a world famous stud farm to this day.
Roderic’s brother Francis, who died in 1976, married Mary Mather Jackson and was a chairman of the Anglo-Irish Bloodstock Agency in London. The youngest brother Rory was founder (1936) and chairman of the advertising firm of More O Ferrall. [4] The company became part of the Clear Channel media company in 2002. In September 1947 he married Lady Elizabeth Hare, sister of the 4th Earl of Listowel, and the wealthy widow of the Guinness heir, Viscount Elveden.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Originally a FitzGerald castle, Kildangan was purchased by the merchant brothers Edward and Edmund Reilly in 1705.
[2] Palmerstown was subsequently purchased by the former truck driver turned millionaire Jim Mansfield, architect of the City West business park and Weston Airport. He is not to be confused with the Mansfields of Morristown Latten.
[3] The 9th Earl’s second wife Virginia Cherrill went on to become the wife of Hollywood star Cary Grant.
[4] In 1936 Lady Elizabeth married Major Arthur Guinness, Viscount Elveden, who was killed in action in Holland in February 1945. Her grandson Edward is the present and 4th Earl of Iveagh. Her brother Lord John Hare was an influential Conservative statesman in the 1950s and 1960s. Another brother Lord Richard was a highly regarded academic specializing in Russian literature and social thought. Her eldest brother, the 5th Earl of Listowel, was prominent in the Colonial Office, serving as Secretary of State for India and Burma in 1947
Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 185. “(More O’Ferrall/IFR) A handsome late C18 block incorporating an earlier house. Of three storeys over a rusticated basement; but with only two storeys of windows in the entrance front, and a mezzanine of blind recessed panels between them. Entrance front of seven bays with a three bay pedimented breakfront; lunette window in pediment; lintels with keystones and pediments over windows in lower storey on either side of entrance doorway, which had a segmental pediment and pilasters, but was obscured by a C19 glazed and pedimented porch; long flight of steps up to hall door. Keystones over basement windows. Prominent roof on bold, simple cornice. Side elevation of three storeys over basement and five bays, centre bay breaking forward with a Wyatt window in each storey, including basement. Partly curving staircase. Sold ca 1952, afterwards demolished.”
Listed in Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
p. 107. “Unusual late 18C house with an interesting entrance elevation of two storeys with a blind mezzanine between them. Side elevation of three floors within the same overall height. The principal front had fine quality cut stone detailing. The house incorporates the remains of an earlier late 17C or 18C building. Demolished c. 1950.”
FROM ‘THE LANDED GENTRY & ARISTOCRACY OF CO. KILDARE’ BY TURTLE BUNBURY & ART KAVANAGH (IRISH FAMILY NAMES, 2004).
The Lisard property in Co. Longford was acquired in the mid 19th century by John Lewis More O’Ferrall, second son of Major Ambrose O’Ferrall and brother to Richard More O’Ferrall, Governor of Malta. Born in June 1800 and educated at Downside and Stonyhurst, John became a barrister in Dublin as a young man. In 1836 Prime Minister Robert Peel appointed him joint Commissioner of the Dublin Metropolitan Police. He remained in the post until 1871 during which time he did much to transform the police from a volunteer force into a professional body of “Peelers” or “Bobbys”, both names deriving from Prime Minister Peel. He lived between Granite Hall in Kingstown (Dun Laoighaire) and Lisard in Edgeworthstown.
His grandson Gerald More O’Ferrall inherited Lisard in 1914 and married Geraldine Fitzgerald, granddaughter of the 4th Duke of Leinster (qv). In August 1934 Gerald was appointed land agent for the Sanderson estate in Co. Longford. When tenants refused to pay outstanding rent he secured eviction orders against 11 of them. The Edgeworthstown Tenants Association was quickly formed and an invitation was dispatched to the IRA.
On Saturday 9th February 1935, Gerald hosted a dinner party at Lisard, principally to improve relations with his 21-year-old son, Richard, who had married Miss Moya Brady without family approval a year earlier. At 9pm, four men dressed in Garda uniform and carrying revolvers barged into Lisard, rushed the dining room, grabbed Gerald and tried to drag him away. Richard went to the aid of his father and the IRA opened fire. Richard was shot in the back and Gerald in the chest. The IRA fled soon afterwards.
Gerald’s life was saved by a gold cigarette case in his dinner jacket. Richard was mortally wounded and died in hospital eleven days later.
Although the culprits were never brought to justice, the murder was counter-productive to the IRA. Eamon de Valera’s Fianna Fail government went into overdrive against their former allies, severe measures were brought in to deal with the IRA. The measures included the abolition of trial by jury, the introduction of a Special Criminal Court (non-jury) and of Military Courts, from which there was no appeal.
The O’Ferrall family left Lisard in 1952 and relocated to Kildare. Lisard House was demolished in the 1950’s and the lands purchased by the Forestry Department.
Richard and Moya’s daughter Geraldine, an artist and sculptress, lived a happy and fulfilled life in Dublin. She passed away in 2011 at the age of 77.
Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 229. “(De Burgh/IFR) One of Ireland’s first Palladian windged houses, built ca 1709 by Thomas Burgh, MP, Engineer and Surveyor-General for Ireland, to his own design. Two storey centre block with two storey wings; centre block adorned with pairs of Ionic pilasters, rising to just below the first floor windows; each pair carrying its own short section of entablature; wings also adorned with pairs of Ionic pilasters carrying massive entablatures. The centre block was burned 1950s. a house has now been made out of one of the wings.”
p. 52. With a lineage stretching back to the great Emperor Charlemagne, the de Burgh’s role in Irish affairs has made an immense impact on the shape of the island’s past. From the first Norman knights who cantered across the seas in the 12th century to the courtrooms of Georgian Dublin, the de Burghs have been intrinsically involved with some of the most pivotal events in Irish history. The Oldtown branch was established in Kildare just over 300 years ago by Thomas Burgh, one of the first great Irish military engineers. His descendents include the Georgian orators Walter Hussey Burgh and John Foster, General Sir Eric de Burgh, the singer Chris de Burgh and the 2003 Miss World, Rosanna Davison.
A Call to Arms
The de Burghs claim descent from Charlemagne through Jean, Comte de Konign and Baron de Tonsburgh in the late 10th century. Amongst their more prestigious forbears were Baldwin de Burgh, King of Jerusalem (1118 – 1131) and Ode, Bishop of Bayeux, for whom the Bayeux Tapestry was made. The first of the family to settle in Ireland was William de Burgh, a Steward of Henry II, who personally received the submission of the Kings of Connaught and Meath at Athlone in 1172. In return he was made Governor of Wexford and “Dominus” or Lord of Connaught by Prince John, Lord of Ireland. Tradition states the de Burgh arms were granted when one of the family killed a leading Saracen while fighting alongside Richard the Lionheart. The crusading monarch is said to have dipped his sword in the dead man’s blood and made the shape of a cross over his fallen shield, saying “these, Knight, be thine arms forever”. As William de Burgh was married to Richard’s daughter Isabel, widow of Prince Llewelyn of Wales, it seems plausible that he was the man to whom the arms were first granted.
[p. 53. ]
Protector of the Realm
In 1192, William allied with Donal O’Brien, King of Thomond, against the MacCarthys. He subsequently married O’Brien’s daughter Anne by whom he had a son, Richard, in 1201. When John ascended the English throne in 1199, William’s younger brother Hubert de Burgh (1165 – 1243) was appointed King’s chamberlain. Hubert was to become one of the most influential men in England during the reign of King John. His successful defence of Dover Castle against a French invasion in 1216 gave him the necessary power to stand as sole Regent of the minor Henry III on the death of John, a position he retained until Henry came of age in 1227. (1)
[p. 54] Richard de Burgh, Justiciar of Ireland
William’s premature death in 1204 left his estates with Richard de Burgh, now a four-year-old orphan. It may be presumed that Richard’s wealthy uncle subsequently raised him at one of his many castles in England. Although Hubert had sons of his own, he was an assiduous promoter of his nephew whose conquest of Ulster was launched during Hubert’s regency. By the age of 14, Richard was already one of the principal barons in Ireland. His father had been granted lands in Connaught by O’Brien in 1195 but, despite vigorous campaigning, had been unable to realize it. Backed by his uncle, then Justiciar of England, Richard launched a prolonged war of conquest on Connaught in 1226. Within a year he had taken control of 25 cantreds in Connaught, the remaining five near Athlone being reserved to Henry III and leased to King Felim O’Connor. On his return to Dublin in 1228, Richard was appointed Justiciar of Ireland, a position he retained until Hubert’s fall from power in 1232. Richard died campaigning with Henry III in Gascony in 1243.
Clanwilliam Burke
Richard was succeeded as Lord of Connaught by his eldest son Walter, later Earl of Ulster. Walter’s brother William Óg de Burgh, ancestor of the Clanwilliam Burkes, lords of Mayo, was a celebrated warrior in the 13th century, fighting in France, Scotland and the Middle East. However, in 1270, his attempt to secure his fathers’ lands in Connaught resulted in colossal defeat by the King of Connaught at the battle of Athankip. William Óg was captured and executed. Nearly fifty years later his only son William Liath de Burgh avenged his death at Athenry (1316), one of the bloodiest battles in Irish history which effectively ended the power of the O’Connor chieftains.
The Red Earl
Arguably the most influential member of the de Burgh family in the medieval age was Richard, the “Red Earl” of Ulster, only son of the above-named Walter. An enormously ambitious man, he spent most of his formative years campaigning against both the native Irish septs in Ulster and Connaught and the Geraldines of Desmond and Kildare. In 1302 his daughter Elizabeth married Robert the Bruce of Scotland. The Red Earl opposed the invasion of Edward the Bruce in 1315 but his kinship with the Scotsman led the citizens of Dublin to doubt his loyalty and he was imprisoned for several months. In later life he retired to the priory at Athassel, county Tipperary, where he died in June 1326. His grandson, William the “Brown Earl” of Ulster, was assassinated in 1333, leaving a baby daughter, Elizabeth as heiress. She later married Prince Lionel of Clarence, son of Edward III, and through their daughter Philippa the legal ownership of the Earldom of Ulster and lordship of Connaught was transmitted to the Mortimer family and ultimately to the English Crown.
p. 55. En Route to Dromkeen
The de Burghs of Oldtown descend from Éamon Albanach (Edmund the Scot), son of William Liath de Burgh, the victor of Athenry. This era is a particularly complex one in terms of the growing feud between the Clanwilliam Burkes of Mayo and their cousins, the Clanricarde Burkes of Galway … and anyone else passing through the neighbourhood. I do not intend to go into all this in this essay but if anyone is able to sum it all up for me in a couple of paragraphs, I would gladly insert them here. In the meantime, have a read of ‘William Fitz-Adelm de Burgh & The Bourkes of Clanwilliam’ by James Grene Barry, J.P. (originally published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland in 1889.) Another option is ‘The New History of Ireland, V9, Maps, Genealogies, Lists‘, edited by Moody, Martin & Byrne (Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1984) in which Table 39 gives lineage chart for the Lower Mac William: Burkes of Mayo, descendants of Edmund Albanach. At any rate, upon his death in 1375, Éamon Albanach was succeeded by his son, Sir Thomas Bourke who married a daughter of the O’Conor Don. In 1420 Sir Thomas’s grandson John de Burgh of Shruel defeated the O’Brien chieftain and acquired by exchange O’Brien’s sister as a wife and a substantial land grant at Dromkeen, near Pallas Green, in County Limerick. Dromkeen remained in the de Burgh family for the next 420 years.
Ulysses Burgh, Bishop of Ardagh
The Reverend Ulysses Burgh was eighth in descent from John de Burgh of Dromkeen. Little is known of the generations between save that Ulysses’ father, Richard, was also in Holy Orders. He also had a sister, Eleanor who married a Thomas Apjohn an officer in the army and a tax commissioner for Co. Limerick. Ulysses became Rector of Grean and Kilteely in 1672, rising to become Dean of Emly in 1685. Prior to the outbreak of the Jacobite War in Ireland in 1689, Ulysses fled to London with his family. He returned to Ireland with his sons Richard, William and Thomas in 1690 and all four men appear to have served in William of Orange’s army at the siege of Limerick. His loyalty led to the burning of Dromkeen by the retreating Catholics. However, after William was proclaimed king, Ulysses was generously compensated for his loss and consecratedBishop of Ardagh on September 11th 1692. (2) Bishop Burgh of Ardragh fathered eight sons and three daughters by his wife Mary, daughter of William Kingsmill of Ballibeg, Co. Cork. The eldest son Rickard Burgh succeeded to Dromkeen and also joined the Church. The second son, William, a friend of Jonathan Swift, became Comptroller and Accountant General of the British Army in Ireland, married a daughter of Thomas Parnell and lived at Bert, Co. Kildare; their daughter Elizabeth was mother to John Foster, the great Georgian orator and last Speaker in the Irish House of Commons. It is for Elizabeth that Burgh Quay in Dublin is named. William Burgh’s great-grandson General Sir Ulysses de Burgh succeeded as 2nd Baron Downes and was a brother-in-law to the ill-fated Nathaniel Sneyd of Chesterfield House, Blakcrock, Co. Dublin. Bishop Burgh’s youngest daughter Dorothea married the Rev. Thomas Smyth, Bishop of Limerick, and was thus ancestress of the Viscounts Gort. However, it is Bishop Burgh’s third son, Thomas, who most concerns us here for he was the first of the family to settle at Oldtown.
[p. 56] Thomas ‘The Surveyor’ Burgh of Oldtown (1670 – 1730)
Thomas Burgh of Oldtown (1670 – 1730) is regarded as one of the first great Irish military engineers and rose to become Surveyor General for the country. He was born in 1670 and educated at Delany’s School in Dublin. He entered Trinity College Dublin on November 22nd 1685 but probably fled Ireland with his father in the run up to the Williamite wars. On March 8th 1689 a Thomas Bourk [sic] was commissioned as Lieutenant in Lord Lovelace‘s Regiment of Foot, which served with the Duke of Schomberg’s army in Ireland. He may have been appointed to the Irish Engineers as early as February 1691 but, following the Williamite victory, he appears to have joined the Royal Regiment of Foot commanded by the Earl of Orkney and left for the continent. On 1st August 1692, he received a commission as Captain and he subsequently saw action at the battles of Steinkirk (1692) and Landen (1693). At the Siege of Namur in 1695, he was employed as an engineer, probably under the command of the Dutch artillery expert, John Wynant Goor. Two years later, he was ranked as one of the top twenty five engineers in the British Army and the third most senior in the Irish Establishment. (3) Between 1697 and 1700, Thomas worked under Surveyor-General William Robinson whom he replaced on 10th July 1700, at a salary of £300 per annum, having displaced the second engineer of Ireland, Richard Corneille. On February 12th 1701, he was given charge of overseeing the construction and renovation of all military buildings in Ireland, a commission repeatedly renewed over the next twenty seven years. During this time, he expanded barracks throughout Ireland, completed the rebuilding of Dublin Castle and constructed numerous fortifications and lighthouses along the Irish coastline. (4) His proposal to dredge Dublin Harbour and build a fortified basin to hold ships was ultimately rejected but he continued to be a forceful advocate that Ireland’s inland waterways be made navigable.
p. 57. Perhaps it was in reaction to the destruction of his family home in 1691 that Thomas Burgh became such a vigorous builder. He did not merely restrict himself to military architecture. The City of Dublin made him a Freeman in 1704 in recognition of his ongoing efforts to beautify the rapidly evolving capital. His first known building is the Royal Barracks (now Collins Barracks) on Dublin’s north side. Among his other civic legacies were the original Custom House on Essex Quay, Dublin Castle, the Trinity College Library (1712 – 1732), the Linen Hall, the Kilmainham Infirmary (1711), St. Werburgh’s Church (1715), the Royal Barracks and Dr. Steeven’s Hospital (1721 – 1733).
Oldtown
In 1696 he acquired a property outside Naas called Oldtown. The site lay near a holy well where St Patrick reputedly baptised Oillill and Illann, the sons of King Dunlang of Leinster. In 1709, he designed and oversaw the construction of a new house at Oldtown, one of Ireland’s first Palladian winged houses. The building comprised of a two storey central block flanked by two storey wings. The centre block was adorned with pairs of Ionic pilasters, rising to just beneath the windows of the first floor. The wings were likewise adorned with Ionic pilasters, all of which carried substantial entablatures. Thomas’s masterpiece was to remain the pride of his descendants until the centre block was destroyed by fire in the 1950s and the family moved into one of the wings.
Private Commissions
By 1721, Thomas Burgh was a very wealthy man. From 1706 to 1714 he had held the office of Lieutenant of the Ordnance of Ireland which, together with the Surveyor-Generalship, made him far the most influential officer in the Irish Ordnance. In 1713 he was elected Tory MP for Naas, which seat he held until his death in 1730. He became a governor of the Royal Hospital of Kilmainham in 1707 and, from 1717, a trustee of Dr. Steeven’s Hospital. Aside from the wealth he had accumulated from his many and ongoing engineering commissions, he and his partner Richard Stewart were operating a very lucrative colliery at Ballycastle, Co. Antrim, which brought him in £2000 in 1721 alone. He was also benefiting from the growing affluence and pretensions of his fellow squires. As early as 1702, he was advising the Quartermaster-General Richard Gorges on how to build garden walls at Kilbrew, Co. Meath. That same year he was recruited as a consultant in the building of Archbishop King‘s Dublin residence; he helped design Marsh’s Library seven years later. The O’Brien family called on him for the construction of the original Dromoland Castle at Newmarket-on-Fergus in Co. Clare. He may also have had a hand in the 1724 design of Oakly Park outside Celbridge for Arthur Price, later Bishop of Meath and Archbishop of Cashel. (5)
p. 58. Death of Thomas
On 10th July 1700, Thomas married Mary Smyth, second daughter of the Rev. William Smyth, Bishop of Raphoe, Kilmore and Ardagh. Her mother Mary was a daughter of Sir John Povey,Chief Justice of Ireland in the reign of Charles II. By her he had five sons and four daughters. The family lived between the country estate at Oldtown and their Dublin townhouse at 37 Dawson Street (now rebuilt). Thomas died at Oldtown on December 18th 1730 at the age of sixty. Burgh was evidently an affable employer. For much of his working career, he employed the same team of smiths, joiners, bricklayers, plasterers, painters, carpenters, slaters and glaziers.
Thomas Burgh, MP
Colonel Thomas Burgh was succeeded by his 23-year-old son Thomas II, MP for Naas from 1731 until his death in 1759. He was educated at Dr. Sheridan’s in Dublin and Trinity College Dublin, advancing to the Middle Temple in 1728. His first wife, an English heiress, Margaret Sprigg of Clonvoe, left him a daughter Alice who married into the Fox family. In June 1752 he married secondly Catherine, daughter of the politician, Sir Richard Wolseley of Mount Wolseley, Co. Carlow.
Walter Hussey Burgh, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer
Thomas’s sister Elizabeth married Ignatius Hussey of Donore, Co. Kildare, and was mother of the Right Hon. Walter Hussey Burgh, one of the most eloquent and charismatic lawyers in Ireland during the late 18th century. In June 1783 he was appointed to the lucrative judicial position of Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, one of the Four Courts in Dublin. However, less than six months later, the 40-year-old contracted an illness while inspecting a gaol in Armagh and died. When not in Dublin for the Parliament he lived at Dromkeen, Co. Limerick. He was probably buried at St Peter’s Church, North Circular Rd, Dublin. According to Ken Finlay’s website, ‘a public funeral was accorded to him, and his remains were followed to the grave by the members of the Legislature and the authorities and students of the University”. Another upcoming barrister and Burgh kinsman John Foster, Baron Oriel, immediately succeeded him at the Exchequer.
p. 59. Thomas Burgh, MP for Harristown & Athy
Thomas and Margaret Burgh had two sons, Thomas III and Richard, and two daughters, Mary and Catherine. Born on 23rd January 1754, Thomas was only five years old when his father died and he succeeded to Oldtown. After graduating from Trinity College Dublin, he was called to the Irish Bar in 1779. As part of the Duke of Leinster‘s party, the soft-spoken Kildare man was elected MP for Harristown and Athy in the Irish House of Commons. A close ally of his cousin John Foster, Thomas increased the family wealth by becoming one of the chief undertakers of the Grand Canal. In the summer of 1784 he married Florinda Gardiner, a granddaughter of Luke Gardiner, the property tycoon who developed what became central Dublin in the 1740s and 1750s. Her sister was married to Lord Clancarty and her brother Luke Gardiner had been elected MP for Co. Dublin the previous year. It was in that capacity that Luke introduced the first Catholic Relief Acts of 1778 and 1782, partially dismantling the penal laws. Luke was created Viscount Mountjoy in 1795. In June 1798 he was killed by rebel pikemen while trying to negotiate a surrender at New Ross.
Thomas & Florinda de Burgh’s Children
Thomas III and Florinda had eight sons of whom two drowned and a third was killed in action while serving with the Royal Navy. The third son Walter Burgh was Vicar of Naas and married Elizabeth Langrishe. The seventh son John was a major with the 93rd Highlanders and married Emma Hunt. The youngest, William, Rector of Ardboe, Co. Tyrone, and St. John’s of Sandymount, Dublin, fathered an impressive eighteen children of whom Maurice was Archdeacon of Kildare and Hubert took Holy Orders and lived in the Vatican.
Thomas Monck Mason & the Paget Connection
One of Thomas and Florinda’s daughters, Dorothea Burgh, married Captain Thomas Monck Mason, Royal Navy. He was a son of Henry Monck Mason, lieutenant-colonel of the Engineers, by his second wife, Jane Mosse (daughter of Bartholomew Mosse, founder of the Rotunda hospital). Thomas’s early years were at a French speaking school; he may have had Hugenot blood. Thomas had a reputation within the family as a ‘foolhardy’ young man, heading to sea aged 12 and, by his own words, spent his naval years indulging in the many vices prevalent in the Royal Navy at that time. Shortly before his marriage to Dorothea Burgh, his life was turned around and he was from then on ‘led by divine grace’. Alas, Dorothea died in 1820 shortly afer the birth of Frances Florinda. Some 2-3 years later, Thomas married Mary Grey (daughter of the Commissioner of Portsmouth dockyard Sir George Grey, and niece of the future prime minister, Charles Grey) . Mary’s mother (Lady Grey, nee Whitbread) was much involved with the Evangelical movement at that time, so this fitted with Thomas’ new found discipline. Thomas Monck Mason died in 1838 and was buried in Powerscourt. His daughter Florinda Frances Mason married Captain Catesby Paget (1809-1878), son of Hon Berkeley Paget and first cousin of Captain Charles Paget of HMS Samarang.
The Rev. Thomas Burgh
Thomas and Florinda’s eldest son, the Rev. Thomas Burgh was for many years Dean of Cloyne. On 4th May 1811 he married Lady Anna Hely-Hutchinson, daughter of Francis Hely-Hutchinson and sister of the 3rd Earl of Donoughmore (see “Woulfe of Forenaghts”). Like the Gardiners, the Hely-Hutchinsons made a name for themselves in the late 18th century by their sympathy for the Catholic cause and support of Free Trade.
In his history of the Kildare Hunt (p. 232), Lord Mayo tells a story about how Dean de Burgh of Old Town would never allow a tree to be felled in his demesne. When his son Thomas succeeded him he ‘very properly began to thin out the plantations’. However, while in Naas one day Thomas was ‘pestered for money by an old wrecker clad in an old scarlet hunting coat, well known as old Joe. After repeated importunities all up the long street, he was at last told to go to a warm climate. “Ah!” said old Joe,”if I go there, Master Tom, I’ll be shure to see the ould Dane, and I’ll tell him ye’re cutting down all the timber.”
The Dean and Mrs de Burgh had nine sons and three daughters of whom Francis was a lieutenant colonel with the Dublin City Artillery, Henry married Elizabeth Hendrick of Kerdiffstown House, Florinda married Thomas Tristam, Chancellor of the Diocese of London and Charlotte married Colonel James Tighe of Rossanagh. The Rev. Burgh succeeded to Oldtown in 1832. He died on 4th September 1845; Lady Anna passed away on 27th December 1857.
p. 60. The Return of the De
The Rev. and Lady Anna Burgh’s eldest son was another Thomas. On 6th March 1848 Dublin Castle presented this Thomas with a patent by which his heirs and descendents were granted the right “to resume their ancient name of de Burgh“. Thomas de Burgh lived at Oldtown and married Jane, daughter of a Major Campbell-Graham, 1st Royal Scots, of Scarva House, Clones, Co. Monaghan. Three sons, Thomas, Ulick and Hugo, and a daughter followed.
Thomas and Emily de Robeck
The eldest son Thomas John de Burgh was born on 1st November 1851. As a young man, he served as a lieutenant in the 57th (Middlesex) Regiment (aka the “Die-Hards“), taking part in the 1879 campaign against the Zulus. A fellow officer of the 57th, Lord Gifford, VC, was personally responsible for the capture of Ceshwayo, the Zulu king. He was sometime Deputy Lieutenant, Justice of the Peace and High Sheriff (1884) for County Kildare. On 23rd April 1878 he married Emily Anne de Robeck, eldest daughter of the 4th Baron de Robeck (qv). He later secured a commission in the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, under Lord Baden Powell, attaining the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. During the Boer War, he commanded the 17th Battalion of the Imperial Yeomanry. On 23rd December 1900 he was wounded at Houtkraal. Thomas died in 1931 having had five sons, Hubert, (Sir) Eric, Maurice, Charles and Tom, and three daughters, Helen, Zoe and Una.
Ulick & Hugo de Burgh. When Thomas de Burgh went to war in South Africa, he was joined by his younger brothers Ulick and Hugo. Ulick de Burgh had previously served in the Egyptian campaign of 1892 and later as Inspector General of Remounts at British Army headquarters. In January 1916 he offered for sale Scarva House, his mother’s family home in Clones, with 94 acres. By his wife Anna Paget he had a son Desmond de Burgh who served with the RAF in both World Wars but was killed on active service in January 1943.
Hugo de Burgh lived at of Ballinapierce, County Wexford, and married Mabel Beaumont of Tarnely Lodge in St. Alban’s. Hugo was killed in April 1900 during the siege of Wepener in the Orange Free State. It seems that Thomas and Ulick subsequently spent some time in California. Hugo was survived by two sons – Lieutenant Colonel Hugh de Burgh, OBE, MC and Ulric de Burgh, an officer in the Royal Navy – and a daughter Madge Anstruther.
Ulric de Burgh, RN, RAF
Hugo’s younger son Ulric served with the Royal Navy during the Great War, primarily in the North Atlantic, but left voluntarily in 1922. He immediately joined the RAF as a Flight Lieutenant. He stayed with the RAF for 16 years, during which time he was married for the first time. He was recalled to the RN to help set up the Fleet Air Arm and spent most of the Second World War setting up Naval Air stations in New Zealand, India and Ceylon – where he met and married his second wife, mother of Campbell de Burgh. Ulric left the Royal Navy in 1947, joined the merchant marine and retired in 1966. He died in 1977.
Commander Dashwood Tandy
Thomas de Burgh’s only sister Anna (Louisa Margaret) was born on 29th November 1850. On October 22rd 1874, Thomas de Burgh’s only sister Anna (Louisa Margaret) married Commodore Dashwood Goldie Tandy, RN. The service took place at St. Donlough’s Church and was conducted by the Rev. Charles Edward Tisdall, D.D., Incumbent of the Parish, assisted by the Rev. William Machonchy, A.M., Rector of Coolock. Born in 1841, Dashwood had made a name for himself when he captured a number of slave-carrying dhows on the east coast of Africa during the 1860s. The Commander was only 42 years old when he died suddenly at Oldtown in October 1883. His obituary was published in The Kildare Observer:
NAAS, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1883 – SUDDEN DEATH OF COMMANDER TANDY, R.N.
On Wednesday afternoon, Dr. R. S. Hayes, J.P., district coroner, held an inquest at Naas, on the body of Commander Tandy, Royal Navy, who died suddenly. The deceased gentleman was on a visit to his brother-in-law, T.J.de Burgh, Esq., High Sheriff of the County, and was driving in company with Mrs. de Burgh and Captain Slaney to Baron de Robeck’s residence at Gowran Grange, when he suddenly took ill on the way and expired in the course of a few minutes. The principal evidence taken at the inquest was that of Captain Slaney, who deposed – ‘I was in company with the deceased this day (Wednesday) driving from Oldtown to Gowran Grange. When we started the deceased was in perfect health as far as I could see. On the way we got out of the trap to walk up the hill. On the top of the hill we again got into the trap, and after we had gone a short distance I noticed deceased’s head fall down on his chest, as I thought in a fainting fit. I took him into my arms, and, with the assistance of a man, carried him into a neighbouring house. He never spoke. I believe he died in my arms before I took him out the trap’. Just before he got ill he complained of being unwell, and said that since he was in the East Indies the exertion of walking up a hill always told upon him. Dr. Joseph Alfred Gormly, in medical charge of the troops at Naas, said he made a post-,mortem examination on the body of the deceased, and that his opinion death resulted from heart disease. The jury returned a verdict accordingly.
In her latter years Anne Tandy lived at St. Anne’s in Naas. She passed away at Oldtown on 25th April 1912. Their eldest son, Hugo Shapland Dashwood Tandy, was born on 11th April 1876 but died young on the 28th September 1880. Their younger son, Major Reginald (Reggie) Dashwood Tandy, was born on 23rd May 1883 and went on to become High Sheriff Co. Meath (1912), Magistrate for Co. Meath, Lieutenant of the Lancashire Fusiliers and Major in the Denbighshire Hussars Yeomanry. On 9th May 1906, Reggie married Valerie (Olivia) Wellesley, only daughter of Arthur George Henry Wellesley and Sarah Humprey. (6) He was granted his late mothers’ estate on 30th May 1912.
Anyone with further information on the Tandy family is advised to contact David & Diana Hope (tandy42@btinternet.com)
p. 61. Death in the Great War
The Great War of 1914 – 1918 brought tragedy to innumerable households throughout Ireland. In the autumn of 1914 the dreaded letter arrived in the post at Oldtown informing Thomas and Emily of the death in France of their youngest son Tom de Burgh, a lieutenant with the 31st Lancers. Prior to his death Tom is mentioned in despatches for distinguished conduct under enemy fire. Three of Tom’s elder brothers received the DSO. (7) The eldest, Captain Hubert de Burgh, was awarded both the DSO and Legion of Honour in 1917 for his services in the Royal Navy. On 28th November 1917 he married Mary Buchan, daughter of John Adye Buchan of Whitehall, Kingsbridge in South Devon. They had a son John and two daughters Deirdre and Rosaleen.
General Sir Eric de Burgh – Old Friend
Thomas and Emily’s second son General Sir Eric de Burgh, KCB, OBE, was born at Oldtown in 1881. Nearly a century later, his grandson Chris de Burgh penned a ballad to his memory called “Old Friend“. Eric served in the Boer War as a teenager, joined the Indian Army in 1904, won a DSO in 1916 and rose steadily through the ranks to become General of the British Army in India in 1939. In October 1923 he married Mary Fanshawe, only daughter of General Sir Edward Fanshawe, KCB, of Rathmore, Naas. She died in the summer of 1934, leaving two small daughters, Maeve and Rosemary. General de Burgh retired from the army in 1941 and lived for a while at Ard Cairn outside Naas. In 1960 he purchased the rundown Bargy Castle in Wexford where he lived until his death in 1973.
Chris de Burgh & Rosanna Davison
In April 1946, the General’s eldest daughter Maeve married Colonel Charles Davison, MBE. Colonel Davison was born in the Channel Islands and raised on his family’s ranch at Estancia in Argentina. On the outbreak of World War Two, he volunteered for the Special Operations Executive, a newly-formed unit specialising in covert operations and sabotage. As a member of SOE, he twice parachuted behind Japanese lines in Burma, where he spent some years organising Burmese guerrillas in operations against the Japanese occupation army. After the war, he and his wife returned to Argentina where their two sons Richard and Chris were born. The family returned to Ireland in 1960 and the young Davison boys went to live with their grandfather, General de Burgh, at Bargy.
After the General’s death, the Davisons renovated Bargy and ran it as a hotel; young Chris soon found himself entertaining guests with his guitar. While his brother Richard became a lawyer, Chris adopted his mothers’ maiden name and began releasing singles, commencing with the excellent “Spanish Train” in 1975. Known to the world as Chris de Burgh, he has now sold more than 40 million albums and performed at over 2,500 concerts worldwide. His anthemic “High on Emotion” was No. 1 in 10 European countries. His signature song, “Lady in Red“, reached No. 1 in 25 countries and sold eight million copies around the world. “Lady in Red” is also acknowledged as one of the Top 20 most played songs in America. In December 2003 his 19-year-old daughter Rosanna Davison was crowned Miss World in Sanya, China, becoming the first Irish woman to scoop the beauty pageant.
Captain Charles & Lydia de Burgh
Thomas and Emily’s fourth son Captain Charles de Burgh, DSO, was born in 1886. In 1908 he joined the Mobilization Department of the Admiralty under his first cousin Admiral de Robeck. He orchestrated submarine movements during the Great War, won a DSO in 1917 and subsequently commanded HMS Cyclops (1926 – 27) and the 6th Submarine Flotilla (1928 – 29). He married Isabel Campbell and they lived for many years in the former agents house at Seaforde, County Down.Their daughter Lydia de Burgh became well known for her portraits of Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Anne. A terrific source of gossip to many subsequent generations, Lydia passed away in December 2007.
Hubert and Joan de Burgh’s only son, Major John de Burgh, was born on 17th February 1921 and educated at Stowe. He served with the 16th/5th Lancers in World War Two, was mentioned in dispatches, won an MC in North Africa in 1943 and retired with the rank of Major in 1950. On 29th September 1952 he married Clare Shennan, daughter of Major Kenneth and Lilah Shennan of Shipton Oliffe in Gloucestershire. Lilah’s brother Major Bowes Daly, MC, was sometime ADC to the Viceroy of India and Master of the Galway Blazers. Together John and Clare established Oldtown as one of Ireland’s foremost studs. This produced a Group One winner in 1964, a double Oaks winner (Fair Salinia) in 1978 and, in 1984, achieved a record price for a yearling at the Newmarket sales. Major de Burgh regularly served as a steward at National Hunt meetings throughout the country and was elected to the Turf Club in 1961. He served on the Irish Racing board for 15 years.
On Major de Burgh’s 33rd birthday, his wife presented him with a son, Hubert. A daughter Caroline arrived the following year and a son, William, three years later.
In 1999 Major John de Burgh put Oldtown demesne on the market. His eldest son Hubie de Burgh, formerly bloodstock manager for Shadwell Stud, Newmarket, and of the bloodstock interests for Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Crown Prince of Dubai, at Derrinstown Stud. He now owns Huma Park Stud near Maynooth and runs a bloodstock agency, De Burgh Equine Ltd. His brother William de Burgh runs a successful business in California and his sister Caroline is married and lives in Wales.
Major John de Burgh Clare died aged 89 on 4th December 2010 while Clare passed on 4th November 2016, aged 86. They now lie together at St David’s Church, Naas.
With thanks to Hubie de Burgh, William de Burgh, the late Lydia de Burgh, John de Robeck, Gwyneth Brindley, Campbell de Burgh, Michael J Hewett, Colm Smyth, Gwyneth Brindley, Edmond O’Dea, Nickie Johnson, David Winpenny, Ralph Buerk, Matthew Forde, Nick Coveney, Ursula Ormond, Paul Simon, Jo Minns, Vicki Pattinson, David & Dian Hope, Michael Brennan, Sean Slowey, Vicki Pattinson, Peter Chomley, Hugo de Burgh and George Bates (Illinois).
FOOTNOTES
1. Hubert de Burgh was greatly enriched by royal favour during the early years of John’s reign, receiving numerous townships and castles throughout England, Wales and north west France. It is said that when John captured his rebellious nephew Arthur of Brittany in 1202, Hubert was appointed his jailor and ordered to blind the young Prince, a task he refused to perform. He continued to serve John during the French wars, being held prisoner in the great castle of Chinon in the Loire Valley for two years. He remained loyal to the king during the Baron’s War and is listed as one of the twenty five Barons who guaranteed Magna Carta. In 1217 he married the King’s widow, Isabella, and in 1221 he married Margaret, daughter of King William I of Scotland. Michael Weiss, “The Castellan: The Early Career of Hubert de Burgh“, Viator, vol. 5 (1974) 2. Burke’s Irish Family Records, 1976, page 338 3. For much of this I am indebted to Rolf Loeber’s invaluable “A Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Ireland 1600 – 1720” (John Murray, 1981). 4. An English act of 1699 fixed the Irish peacetime military establishment at 12,000 men, as compared to 7000 in England. In practice a section of this army was always deployed outside the kingdom but Ireland was now a major base for Britain’s strategic reserves and consequently bore a considerable share of the overall cost of imperial defence. 5. While Vicar of Celbridge, Price proposed to Swift’s “Vanessa”. In the late 18th century, Oakly Park was the home of Lady Sarah Napier, one of the famous Lennox sisters. Her sisters Lady Louisa Conolly and the Duchess of Leinster resided at nearby Castletown and Carton respectively. 6. Arthur was the eldest son of Col. William Henry Charles Wellesley, son of the Rev. the Hon. Gerald Valerian Wellesley D.D., Chaplain to the Queen and Prebendary of Durham, brother of Arthur, 1st Duke of Wellington, and fourth son of Garnet 1st Earl of Mornington. 7. 8,981 DSOs were awarded during the First World War. Each award was announced in the London Gazette together with its accompanying citation.
Oakley Park, Celbridge, Co Kildare (now St. Raphael’s)
Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 227. “(Napier, sub Napier and Ettrick, B/PB; Maunsell/IFR) A fine three storey ashlar-faced house of 1724, built for Arthur Price, Vicar of Celbridge – who proposed to Swift’s “Vanessa” and who later became Bishop of Meath and Archbishop of Cashel – possibly to the design of Thomas Burgh, MP, Engineer and Surveyor-General for Ireland. Seven bay front, three bay central breakfront; doorway with segmental pediment, solid roof parapet, bold string courses. Various subsequent alterations. Later in C18, it was the home of Lady Sarah Napier, sister of Lady Louisa Conolly, of Castletown, and of Emily, Duchess of Leinster, mother of the United Irish leader, Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Lady Sarah, born Lady Sarah Lennox, daughter of 2nd Duke of Richmod, was the love of the young George III, who, according to a legend, wrote the song The Lass of Richmond Hill, about her. Oakley afterwards became the seat of a branch of the Maunsell family; it now belongs to a religious order.”
Detached seven-bay three-storey over basement Classical-style house, built 1724, retaining early aspect with three-bay three-storey breakfront, three-bay three-storey side elevation to south-west, single-bay three-storey recessed end bay to north-east and seven-bay three-storey rear elevation to north-west having single-bay single-storey bowed projecting bay to north. Refenestrated, c.1950. Now in use as hospital. Hipped roof behind parapet with slate. Rolled lead ridge tiles. Cut-stone chimney stacks. Cast-iron rainwater goods. Coursed limestone walls. Cut-stone dressings including stringcourses to each floor and moulded cornice having cut-stone parapet walls with cut-stone coping. Square-headed openings (segmental-headed window openings to basement). Stone sills. Cut-stone surrounds. Replacement 9/9, 9/6 and 6/6 timber sash windows, c.1950. Original 6/6 timber sash windows to basement. 1/1 timber sash windows to bowed projecting bay. Cut-stone doorcase to front (south-east) elevation approached by flight of steps with segmental pediment over on consoles. Cut-stone surround to door opening to rear (north-west) elevation. Replacement timber panelled and glazed timber panelled doors, c.1950. Overlights. Interior with timber panelled shutters to window openings. Set back from road in own grounds. Landscaped grounds to site.
Appraisal
Oakley Park, now known as Saint Raphael’s, is a fine and imposing Classical-style mansion that was built contemporaneously with Castletown House as the residence of Sarah Napier, sister of Lady Louisa Connolly. Of social and historical interest, the house represents the origins of Celbridge as an estate town with sophisticated private buildings flanking both ends of what would become the Main Street. The house retains much of its original character and is a valuable component of the architectural heritage of Celbridge. Composed of graceful Classical proportions on a symmetrical plan centred about a breakfront to both primary elevations (to south-east and to north-west), the house is finely detailed, without unnecessary ornamentation, to include features such as decorative doorcases and a heavy cornice to the roof – the presence of a bowed projecting bay also adds incident to the regular design. The construction of the house in coursed cut-limestone is a good example of the high quality of stone masonry practiced in the locality. Replacement fenestration was inserted in the mid twentieth century, but this has been carried out in keeping with the original integrity of the house – original fenestration remains in situ to the basement, having wide glazing bars, while the interior retains features such as timber panelled shutters to the window openings. Set back from the line of the road in its own grounds, the house retains attractive landscaped lawns to the front (south-east).
Oakley Park, formerly Celbridge House, was built in 1724 by Arthur Price when he was vicar of Celbridge, later Bishop of Meath, and Archbishop of Cashel. Dr. Price’s steward at Oakley Park was one Richard Guinness, known for his brewing talents. His son, Arthur went on to establish the Guinness Brewery in Dublin.
In the early 20th century, the house changed ownership many times and fell into disrepair. In the 1930s, Oakley Park was sold to the Christian Brothers, who planned to open a school there. They never managed to get the school up and running and it was sold again. The house was purchased in 1952 by its present owners, the Brothers of St. John of God. Today Oakley Park forms part of the St. Raphael complex training centre for mentally handicapped children and young adults.
Formerly the entrance but now the garden front of Oakley Park in Celbridge, County Kildare. The house is believed to have been built c.1724 for the Rev. Arthur Price*, who was then the local rector (he later rose through the ranks, eventually becoming Archbishop of Cashel). Tall and somewhat austere, Oakley Park’s design is attributed to Thomas Burgh, also responsible for the Old Library at Trinity College, of which it is somewhat reminiscent. In the late 18th century, the house was acquired by Lady Sarah Napier, sister of Lady Louisa Conolly who lived nearby at Castletown, and Emily, Duchess of Leinster who lived at Carton. It appears thereafter to have changed hands regularly and at some date in the 19th century, the entrance was moved to the other side of the building (see below). Since 1953 the house and surrounding grounds have been used by the St John of God religious order who run a training centre here for disabled children and young adults.
*Arthur Price’s land steward in Celbridge was one Richard Guinness. On his death in 1752 he left £100 to Guinness and his son, Arthur – Price’s godson – who a few years later established a certain well-known and still flourishing brewery.
The following story is an updated version of that contained in Turtle Bunbury’s 2004 book, ‘The Landed Gentry & Aristocracy of Co. Kildare‘. If you should spot any errors or ommissions, or have further information or photographs of relevance, please let us know.
A heroic defense of a Waterford Castle against Cromwell’s army earned the Maunsell family considerable respect from their Irish peers when they first settled in Ireland in the mid 17th century. During the Georgian Age, they rose to prominence in Limerick, as bankers, politicians and Mayors. When not in Limerick, they were invariably leading an army from one international battlefield to the next. In the early 18th century, they moved to Oakley Park, Celbridge, Co. Kildare, formerly home to the Napier family, scions of three mighty Generals. In the early 20th century they married into the Orpen family. The connection to Ireland dwindled after the sale of Oakley Park in 1924. Today the house is run by the St John of Gods.
OrIgin of the Maunsell Family
p. 153. The name Maunsel is said to be derived either from the Norman French word mancel (an inhabitant of Le Mans) or from le mansel (a feudal tenant occupying a manse farm). The Maunsell family claim descent from Philip de Mancel, Cup Bearer to William the Conqueror. He came to England in 1066, settled in Buckinghamshire, acquired a substantial estate in Leicestershire and built a fine mansion house at Oswick in Glamorgan. His descendents prospered greatly under the Plantagenet kings. In 1163, Sir Robert Maunsell served with the Knights Templar while his eldest son Walter was Napkin Bearer to the King. William’s son Sir John was raised in the Royal Court of Edward Longshanks, received numerous lands and manors in southern England and rose to become one of the most prominent statesmen of his age. During the War of the Roses, Sir Philip Maunsell was captured by the Yorkists at the battle of Tewkesbury and beheaded along with his two elder sons.
Rhys Maunsell & the Irish Rebellions
p. 154 In 1535, Sir Philip’s grandson and eventual heir, Sir Rhys Maunsell of Oxwich Castle, Glamorgan was dispatched with a body of troops to assist Lord Deputy Grey in suppressing the rebellion of Silken Thomas FitzGerald. (2) For his efforts, he was given a grant for life for the site of the Cistercian abbey of Margam in Glamorgan, as well as the Office of Chamberlain of the County Palatine of Chester, and the royalty of Avon Waters to him and his heirs. After the dissolution of the monasteries, he got a lease of Margam and in 1540 purchased the entire Margam property where he built a mansion house partly on the site of the abbey. (3) One of his grandsons, Captain Rhys Maunsell served for the English against the O’Neills in the Nine Years War. He was captured along with Sir John Chichester at the Battle of Carrickfergus in 1596 and beheaded. Their heads were sent to Tyrone and their bodies buried at Carrickfergus. (4)
Thomas & APHRA Maunsell (1577 – 1661)
The principal branch of the family continued to live at Chicheley in Buckinghamshire, marrying into some of the greatest dynasties of Tudor and Stuart England. In the early 17th century, the head of the family was Thomas Maunsell (1577 – 1661), a prominent London solicitor and land speculator. In the 1630s he purchased an estate in Waterford from the Earl of Cork where he relocated with his wife Aphra Crayford who bore him a commendable 23 children. Following her death in 1666, Aphra Maunsell was interred in Caherconlish, Co Limerick. A stone tablet in Basso relievo is still within the precincts of the graveyard, though displaced by an overgrowth of trees on the wall of the church.
Thomas and Alphra’s eldest son Colonel Thomas Maunsell, one of the ’49 Officers’, distinguished himself during the Confederate Wars by his defence of Mocollop Castle, Co. Waterford, against Cromwellian forces in 1649. After the siege he converted the ruined castle into his own mansion, which was inherited by his son Thomas. (5)
p. 155. Following the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, Thomas the Younger was awarded land in Galway, Waterford and the Liberties of Limerick. His sons became merchants and magistrates in Limerick and Cork over the ensuing decades but, upon his death in 1692, the inheritance devolved upon his grandson, Richard.
NB: Edward Mansell was chaplain to King Charles I during the civil war. His father, Robert Mansell was born circa 1580 and operated as a miller in Great Bourton, Oxon.
The bankers of limerick
Richard Maunsell (d. 1773) unexpectedly inherited the Maunsell family estates when his three elder brothers predeceased him. He served as Mayor of Limerick in 1734 and was MP for Limerick City in the Irish Parliament from 1740 to 1761, during which time the city developed as a centre of Atlantic trade, particularly in upmarket fashion and woollen manufacture. By his first marriage to Margaret, younger daughter and co-heiress of Thomas Twigg of Donnybrook Castle, Co. Dublin, he had a son, Thomas, and a daughter, Anne. (6)
Although contemporaries recalled him as ‘an honest but a very dull man’, Thomas Maunsell proved himself a very capable lawyer and married one of the Waller girls from Castle Waller. His oldest son Richard Maunsell emigrated to the USA after he graduated from Trinity and no more if known of him. In 1789, his sons Robert and Thomas co-founded Maunsell’s Bank in Limerick City. Maunsell’s Bank later became the Bank of Limerick, which was one of Irelands’ leading private banks before its collapse in the economic depression that overtook Europe at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. (7) The younger Thomas became MP for Johnstown while Robert later settled in India where he was elected to the Supreme Council of Madras. Another son became Dean of Leighlin while another became Rector of Oranmore, respectively marrying daughters from Macroom Castle and Bunratty Castle.
Thomas Snr’s eldest three daughters all married well – barristers and landowners from Tipperary and Limerick – but his youngest daughter Dorothea Maunsell caused a tremendous scandal when, aged 15, she eloped with the famous Italian castrato opera singer Giusto Ferdinando Tenducciduring the 1760s. (Burke’s Irish Family Records claimed Dorothea was married in 1762 to William Long Kingsman, barrister-at-law. He did indeed become her second husband but not until late in the decade). For more on their extraordinary affair, click here.
Thomas Mausell Snr. later became King’s Counsellor in the Court of Exchequer and and MP for Kilmallock. He finished up as Counsel to the Revenue by Lord Harcourt, an office worth £800 a year. When he died in 1783, his legacy was secured through the survival of his aforementioned namesake son and heir, Thomas Maunsell, MP for Johnstown.
The Norbury Connection
Richard’s second wife Jane was the eldest daughter of William Waller of Castle Waller, Co. Tipperary. By this marriage he had a further five sons. Among these were General John Maunsell who commanded the 56th regiment at the Siege of Havana in 1762, Eaton Maunsell who served as Mayor of Limerick in 1779 and, the eldest, Richard Maunsell who settled at Ballywilliam in County Limerick and married Helena Toler, a half-sister of the 1st Earl of Norbury. As Chief Justice of Ireland during the early 19th century, Lord Norbury was infamous for the number of men he condemned to the gallows. An anecdote survives of how the judge was addressing the jury in one such case when his voice was drowned out by the sound of an irate ass. “What noise is that?” he inquired angrily. “Merely an echo of the Court, my lord“, was the defending barristers risqué reply. But Norbury could be quick too. At dinner one day, his host told him he had shot 31 hares that morning. “I don’t doubt it“, replied his lordship, “but you must have fired at a wig.” (8)
The Maori Bible
p. 156. Richard and Helena had four sons. The eldest, Daniel, succeeded to Ballywilliam on Richard’s death in 1790. He was grandfather to General Sir Thomas Maunsell, KCB (1906), a prominent soldier in the Punjabi Campaign, the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny. (*) The second son Richard Maunsell lived at Queensboro in Limerick. The fourth son George Maunsell also lived in Limerick and was sometime Collector of the Irish Customs, a post he secured when he married the daughter of the previous Collector, James Smyth. George’s youngest son Robert emigrated to New Zealand in 1834 and became the first person to translate the Bible and Prayer Book into Maori. Richard and Helena’s third son John Maunsell was born in 1752 and became a barrister at the Middle Temple in 1774. Six years later, he married Anne Webster, only daughter and heiress of Edward Webster of Whitehall, Dublin. Anne died in August 1788, giving birth to her only child, Richard. Her widowed husband remained at Carrickoreely, Co. Limerick.
* In March 2008, I was contacted by Lois Adam’s, granddaughter of Daniel Toler Thomas Maunsell’s eldest son George Edward Maunsell. George was born in Dublin around 1858 and emigrated to Jamaica in 1882 where he died in 1911. Lois would very much like to find some trace of descendants of his family in Ireland or elsewhere. She has been to Dublin and found the graves of Helen, Daniel and and some of his siblings in Mount Jerome cemetery but so far have been unable to locate any living descendants. Please contact me if you have further information.
The Napiers of Oakley Park
p. 156 In 1787, Oakley Park became the home of Colonel George Napier and his wife, the formerLady Sarah Bunbury. Located between the Conolly estate at Castletown and Lord Cloncurry’s estate at Lyons, the Georgian house was originally built in 1724, most likely by Thomas de Burgh (qv). Its first owner was Dr. Arthur Price, the Vicar of Celbridge who proposed to Jonathan Swift’s “Vanessa“. Price later became Bishop of Meath and Archbishop of Cashel.
p. 157. Dr. Price’s steward at Oakley Park was Richard Guinness, whose son, Arthur went on to establish the Guinness Brewery. Lady Sarah was one of the beautiful Lennox girls, popularised in the book and TV series “Aristocrats” by Stella Tillyard. Her sisters included Lady Louisa Conolly of Castletown and Emily, Duchess of Leinster. (10)
The Napiers raised eight children in this home. They clearly did something right because the sons grew to be remarkable men. Indeed, for many years afterwards, the house was known by country people as “The Eagle’s Nest,” on account of the high spirit of the Napier boys. During the 1798 Rebellion, for instance, Colonel Napier armed his five sons and instructed them all in the strategy of defence. The boys were educated at the grammar school in Celbridge. Here the eldest boy Charles organised his fellow pupils into a volunteer force and made them parade. However, his younger brother William showed such little respect for these military drills that he was tried by “a drum-head court martial” and sentenced to some sadly unknown punishment. William refused to accept the penalty and so Charles reluctantly gave the go-ahead for the other volunteers to teach the young rebel a lesson. However, “William, his fiery nature revolting against the insult, whirling a large bag of marbles like a sling discharged them amid the crowd, and then, charging, broke the obnoxious drum, and forced his most prominent assailant, greatly his superior in age and size, to single combat. Although getting far the worst of it, and badly hurt in the fight, William, still refusing to give in, was restored to the ranks by his brother for the pluck he had shown.” (11) The long term impact of these schoolyard scraps becomes somewhat more formidable when one considers that Charles, William and a third brother George went on to become three of the greatest British heroes of the Peninsula War. Indeed all three were knighted and promoted to the rank of General. After the death of Colonel George Napier the house and lands were sold to Theobold Donnelly. He changed the name from Celbridge House to Oakley Park.
On 1st June 1807, the younger Richard married Maria Woods, only daughter of John Woods of Winter Lodge, co. Dublin, and sister of George Woods, JP, of Milverton Hall, Skerries, Co. Dublin. (9) In 1813 the estate was purchased by John Maunsell for his son Richard Mark Synnot Maunsell, whose son Richard John Caswell Maunsell sold the estate in 1924 and moved to London. So only 3 generations of the family lived there for altogether 111 years.
9. From 1831, George Woods maintained a pack of hounds to hunt both hares and foxes. In 1849, he was granted the right to hunt foxes in the area by the Louth Foxhounds.
Six Maunsells Brothers
In 1840, the Lord Chancellor was “pleased to appoint” Richard Maunsell a magistrate for County Dublin. He served as High Sheriff for Kildare in 1841 and died on 25th November 1866, leaving six sons. (12)
John Maunsell, the 46-year-old firstborn, succeeded to Oakley Park. He also inherited an estate of some 1200 acres at Carrickoreely in Co. Limerick from his grandfather. Little is recorded of John save that he studied at Trinity College Dublin, became a barrister at Gray’s Inn in 1834, served as High Sheriff for Co. Kildare in 1868 and never married.
p. 158 Upon his death in 1882, the property passed to his brother, George Woods Maunsell (1815-1887), previously resident of Ashford, Co. Limerick. George owned several thousand acres in Counties Dublin and Westmeath and was a barrister of prominence in Dublin, with offices at 10 Merrion Square South. He served as JP and Deputy Lieutenant for Kildare and as High Sheriff for Dublin City in 1876 and County Kildare in 1885. On 4th August 1842, he married Maria Synott (d. 1883), eldest surviving daughter and co-heiress of Mark Synnot of Monasterois House, Edenderry, Co. Offaly. (13) Two boys – Mark and George – and two girls Anne and Maria – followed. (14)
p. 159. The third of Richard and Maria’s six sons, the Rev. Richard Dixie Maunsell, succeeded to his maternal grandmothers’ home at Whitehall in Co. Dublin and was Rector of Innistonnagh, Co Tipperary. On 10th February 1859 he married Alicia Laing, daughter of Malcolm Laing, a Scotsman from the Orkney Islands who settled in Jamaica’s Spanish Town at about this time. They had nine childrenincluding Richard Maunsell, BA, MA, (1862-1929), a well-known land agent and secretary of the Irish Landowner’s Convention during a time of much anxiety to Irish landowners. Educated at St Columba’s College and Trinity College Dublin, Richard joined the Dublin firm, Stewart & Kincaird. He subsequently became agent for a number of leading Irish estates and lived at Shielmartin, Portmarnock, which was later home to William ‘The Boss’ McMullan, co-founder of Maxol. On 20 March 1929, Richard and his wife Lucie Eleanor (nee Waters) were on their way to London to meet their only son who had just returned from Egypt where he had been serving for several years with the Sudan Government Railways. Richard had a heart attack and died on the way.
p. 160. The fourth son Edward Maunsell was killed in the muddy trenches at Sebastopol on 10th July 1855 while serving as a captain with the 30th Regiment.
The fifth son Warren Maunsell lived at Hodgestown, Co. Kildare, and was Rector of Thomastown, Co. Kildare.
The sixth son Frances Maunsell was also a clergyman, lived at Shrule in the Queen’s County, was Rector of Symondsbury in Dorset and married Emily, another daughter of Malcolm Laing of Jamaica.
Captain Mark Maunsell
George Woods Maunsell passed away on 26th April 1887 and was succeeded by his only surviving son,Mark Maunsell. Mark was born on 22nd October 1843. At the age of 20, he married Lucy Copeland, eldest daughter of Alexander Copeland of Wingfield, Berkshire. He subsequently served as a captain with the 1st Royal Dragoons. Lucy died without issue in the winter of 1875. Two years later, Captain Maunsell married again. His new bride was Mary Caswell, only daughter and heiress of a wealthy Limerick businessman Samuel Caswell, JP, of Blackwater, co. Clare, who had died a few years previously. The Caswell and Maunsell families had been acquainted for years; Mark may have attended Samuel’s funeral. The marriage took place at St. Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, on 26th February 1877. “Two processional marches signalled the arrival of the bridal party. Before the ceremony the hymn “The Voice that Breathed o’er Eden” was sung. After the ceremony came Mendelssohn’s Wedding March. The newly married pair, after having received congratulations without number, and ‘wishes for happiness’ of equal extent, left for Dublin by the four o’clock train, whence they proceed on an extended Continental tour.”
p. 161. Mary seems to have been rather a frightening woman, preferring the hunting field to life as a mother. For the next ten years, she and Mark lived at Strand House in Limerick, with occasional visits to see Mary’s mother at Blackwater. Mark retired from the army and was a JP for County Clare. In 1887 they relocated to Oakley Park. Mark was quickly appointed JP for Kildare and, from 1890 to 1892, served as High Sheriff for the county. After Mary’s death in August 1893, he was married a third time to Georgina Middleton.
Dick Maunsell & the Orpen Connection
Captain Mark Maunsell left a daughter Norah and a son, Richard (‘Dick’) John Caswell Maunsell. The latter was born at 80 George Street, Limerick, on 2nd May 1878 and educated at Hailebury College in England and Trinity College Dublin.
In 1905, he left Trinity and entered at the King’s Inn as a barrister. He was subsequently JP for Co. Kildare. On 24th September 1913 he married Mary Winifred (‘Molly’) Orpen, fifth daughter of Richard Orpen of Ardtully, Kilgarvan, Co. Kerry. The Orpens were a family of rising influence. Molly’s first cousin Sir William Orpen (1878 – 1931) was regarded as the most influential Irish artist of his generation.
p. 162. His experiences of the Great War inspired him to paint to some of the most powerful images of that horrific conflict. He was knighted in 1918 and the following year was resident artist at the Paris Peace Conference. (16) Sir William’s brother Richard Orpen (1863 – 1939) was Cathedral architect for both St Patrick’s Cahedral in Dublin and St Canice’s in Kilkenny. He also served as President of the Incorporated Law Society from 1915 – 1916. Molly’s brother Dr. Raymond Orpen (1875 – 1952) spent much of his life advancing knowledge of public health in Sierra Leone, Gambia and Nigeria. Her elder sister Amy married Major John Henry Kennedy, TD, eldest son of Robert Kennedy, JP, of Baronrath, Co. Kildare.
In January 1915, Dick secured a commission as a lieutenant in Kitchener’s army and set off for France with the Inniskilling Fusiliers. He remained with the regiment until 1919, witnessing some of the bloodiest battles of the war. In 1917 he was awarded the OBE, after which he became part of the General Staff.
The Ireland to which Dick returned after the war was a rapidly changing society. In 1919 Irish Republicans initiated a guerrilla war against the occupying British army that culminated in the birth of the Irish Free State. Mollly Maunsell’s family home at Ardtully in Kerry was one of perhaps two hundred country homes in Ireland burned down during the Troubles. In 1924 Dick sold Oakley Park and moved with his wife and two sons to England. He died on 27th September 1955. Molly survived him until 2nd May 1974.They left two sons, Richard and John, and a daughter Aphra Maunsell who rose to a position of some prominence in the Bank of England. Aphra retired in 1974 and passed away on 21st May 2002 aged 85.
Richard Maunsell & the Phosphoric Revolution
The eldest son, Richard Mark Orpen Maunsell, was born on 15th September 1914 and, like his father, went to school at Haileybury. He later graduated from London University and went to Australia for 13 years where he worked with the chemical firm Albright & Wilson. He was subsequently transferred to Toronto, became a Canadian citizen and was sometime Director of Research for the Electric Reduction Company of Canada. In partnership with Richard Courtney Edquist, another Albright & Wilson scientist, he developed a process for the burning of phosphorus in the manufacture of phosphoric acid that has since been the basis of the manufacture of thermal phosphoric acid worldwide. He died on 2 January 2007. He married Gwendolin Minchin of Australia and had three daughters, Catherine, Elizabeth and Helena Claire Maunsell. The eldest daughter Catherine lives in Toronto, Ontario, and was formerly married to Alex Himelfarb, Clerk of the Privy Council, Secretary to the Cabinet and Head of the Public Service. Returning to Ontario in 1980, Catherine began working with the Ministry of Correctional Services and for the last 7 years has served as Manager of Female Offender Programs. She lives in Toronto with her life partner Helen McIlroy. She is grandmother to twin girls – Jesse Grace and Sam Alison Heichert. The second daughter Elizabeth lives in Quebec City where she is a professor of epidemiology at Universite Laval and a researcher in the area of psychosocial aspects of breast cancer. She is married to Guy Dumas, now retired but formerly the deputy minister responsible for language policy in the Quebec government. The younger daughter Claire had a very successful career as a glass blower as ‘H. Claire Maunsell’. married Paul Ostic and has two children, Rachel Sarah Maunsell Ostic, born 1997, and Maxwell Richard Maunsell Ostic, born 1999.
p. 163. Richard’s younger brother John Maunsell was born on 30 April 1920 and educated at Haileybury and London University. He served as a Bomber Commander with the Royal Air Force during World War Two and later worked with Unilever. His memoirs of the war were entitled ‘No Such Thing as an Easy Ride‘ and a precy of them is online here. By his marriage to Eileen Conolly he had a daughter Susan born in 1961. In 2009, he was living in Reading.
Nonie Maunsell
Dick Maunsell’s sister Norah – known as “Nonie”- was the last of the family to live in Ireland. Her niece Aphra Maunsell recalled her as ‘a Dublin character’ such as you will find nowhere else. She was extremely handsome with a beautiful complexion and (as I remember her best) with pretty, softly waving grey hair. She had the wit of the Irish and was a great conversationalist. She dressed in an entirely individual style which had absolutely no reference to any prevailing fashions–usually wearing large picture hats. She was invariably draped in long strings of pearls, and wore diamond rings and a cloak. She lived in Dublin at 8 Wilton Place, in a house which, to the day of her death, had only gas light. There she was surrounded by beautiful furniture, china, and Irish silver. From the time of my father’s marriage in 1913 (she had previously kept house for him at Oakley Park) she shared this flat with her great friend Miss Kathleen Hamilton, who was, in fact my godmother’. Nonie died in Dublin on August 30th 1960 and was buried in the Maunsell plot in the village of Celbridge, Co. Kildare.
St. Raphael’s
Oakley Park was purchased by the Guiney family in 1935 and then sold to the Christian Brothers. Their plans to open a school did not come to fruition and, in the 1950s, the property passed to the St John of Gods. The house now forms part of the St Raphael’s complex training centre for mentally handicapped children and young adults.
Further Reading
The Maunsell family with its numerous branches has not only found extensive coverage in various of Burke’s and other publications, but has also been in depth investigated in Robert George Maunsell’s ‘History of Maunsell or Mansel (And of Some Related Families” (1903) and in Commr Edward Phillips Statham’s and Col Charles Albert Maunsell’s 3 volume work ‘History of the Family of Maunsell (Mansell, Mansel)‘ (1917-1920).
With thanks to Josef Muether, Lois Adams, Paul Ostic, Elizabeth Maunsell, Catherine Maunsell, Anne Armstrong, Wendy Artiss, Patrick Hourigan and others.
Morristown Lattin, County Kildare, garden front c. 1900 Gillman Collection, Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 211. “(Mansfield/IFR) A house originally built 1692 by the Lattin family, of two storeys and a dormered attic, and with a deep one bay projection at either end of its front. By the beginning of C19, the house had undergone various alterations which gave it a somewhat freakish appearance. A four storey tower, crowned with a coat of arms, rose from the middle of th front, in a manner reminiscent of the towers at Gola and Anketill’s Grove, Co. Monaghan; the projections were joined by a single-storey balustraded corridor with Wyatt windows in the centre which was a porch or frontispiece of fluted Doric columns. In 1845, G.P.L. Mansfield, whose mother was the heiress of the Lattins, remodelled the house in Tudor-Revival style, to the design of an architect named Butler. A new front was added, which, at the ends, is no more than a façade, but which fills the space betweenthe two projections; with a symmetrical row of three stepply pointed and pinnacled gables, oriels and a Tudor-style porch. At the same time, the roof was raised; but it was still carried on the old walls; the new front serves no structural purpose, but is secured to the main building with metal ties running through to the back of the house. A tower was also built at one end of the front, and bow windows, with balconies over them, were added at the back. Tall Tudor-style chimenys. Library divided with columns. The house faces along a straight avenue of trees, which continues on the far side of the road. Sold ca 1980, afterwards badly damaged by fire.”
Miss Jane Alcock (1674-1764), daughter of William Alcock (d. 1705) of Wilton Castle in County Wexford, she married Pat Lattin (1668-1732), she died aged 90, courtesy Fonsie Mealy July 2018.Mrs. Mary Mansfield, daughter of George B. O’Kelly of Acton. She married George Patrick Lattin Mansfield (1820-1889) in 1843, d. 1853. Provenance The Mansfield Family, formerly of Morristown Lattin, Naas, Co. Kildare courtesy Fonsie Mealy July 2018.
Listed in Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
p. 139. The Lattin family were prominent merchants in Kildare during the 16th and 17th centuries, well known and respected for their patronage of Catholicism. Like their cousins, the More O’Ferralls, they dispatched many sons to fight on the Continent during the late 18th century, losing one in battle in 1789. Patrick Lattin served in the Irish brigade and was a close colleague of Lord Cloncurry. His uncle Jack became the subject of a popular country dance tune, “Jockey Lattin”, following his premature death in 1731. Morristown Lattin was originally built in 1692 and passed by marriage to the Mansfield family in 1836. It featured in the TV series of The Irish RM as the home of Flurry Knox’s mother.
The Lattin family were initially granted lands in Kildare in the reign of King John (1199 – 1216). By the late 16th century they had established themselves as merchants in the area. In 1621 Richard Lattin stood as MP for Naas and founded an asylum in Naas for the support of “four poor women”, according to Burke’s Irish Family Records, which can’t have made that much impact on 17th century Ireland, but good on them anyway. In 1641 the Lattin estate comprised a fairly modest 660 acres around Naas, a house and tenements in the town itself, as well as three castles elsewhere in the area.[1]
p. 140. Like several Pale families, the Lattins remained Roman Catholic during the troubles of the ensuing centuries but somehow retained their lands. Indeed, their poise was so assured that in 1692 they built a new house at Morristown Lattin. The original building featured two storeys with a dormered attic and a deep bay projection at either end of it’s front.[2] In the final decade of the 17th century, they also acquired a Dublin residence in the parish of St Michan’s, Lattin Court (now part of Greek Street).[3]
Richard Lattin’s descendent George (d. 1773) married Catherine Ferrall, a daughter of Ambrose Ferrall. Her brother Richard married Letitia, only daughter of James Moore of Balyna, and so became ancestor of the More O’Ferralls of Balyna (qv). George and Catherine’s younger son Ambrose Lattin died fighting for the Austrian army in Germany in 1789. It seems likely he was fighting alongside his first cousin Major General James O’Ferrall who was also in the Austrian Service and served in the Revolutionary Wars in Turkey and Italy.
Their eldest son Patrick Lattin was a close friend and aide-de-camp to Count Arthur Dillon, founder of the Dillon Regiment of the Irish Brigade. When Dillon was “dragged out of his cabriolet and murdered by the French soldiers” for his Royalist sympathies in 1794, Lattin, who was in Dillon’s carriage at the time, immediately resigned his commission and returned to live at Morristown. He later returned to Paris and died at his home in the Rue Trudon in 1836.
Morristown Lattin passed to Patrick’s daughter, Pauline, and her husband Alexander Mansfield. Their descendents would retain the property until the 1980s.
Lord Cloncurry recalled Patrick Lattin in his Memoirs thus:
p. 140. “When he quitted the Irish Brigade, after the murder of le beau Dillon, [Lattin] settled at his house of Morristown-Lattin, and was thenceforward, to the close of his life, almost constantly a near neighbour and a frequent guest of mine at Lyons. He was one of a race now, I believe, extinct. A genuine Irishman in heart and person, his service in France, as an officer of the Irish Brigade, had added to his natural gaiety and warmth of feeling the polish and gallantry of a French gentleman, while his manly figure was set off in full perfection by the air and habits of a soldier of the old school. Light-hearted and joyous, the brilliancy of his wit was never clouded, nor his enjoyment of present mirth ever damped by thoughts of the morrow. When his purse was full he drew upon it without scruple, to gratify his taste for pleasure, or to help a friend; when it was empty, I have known him to sit down, and, in three months’ work, to complete a translation of the Henriade, in order that he might relieve the necessities of an émigré friend with the proceeds of its publication. In the one case and in the other, he was equally blithe, and victorious over care.
What a sparkling collision of wit marked the meetings of Lattin and Curran; and yet his amusing powers seemed still more striking when, at his own house in Paris (where I met him in 1805), he told his tales and launched his repartees alternately in French and English, to the mixed audiences which he used there to assemble round him. No thing, and no person, capable of being made the subject of pleasantry, ever escaped; and yet when a blow was given, it was with a skill and lightness that rendered it harmless to the object. Upon one of those occasions, I recollect a M. de Montmorency, whose Christian name was Anne, making his appearance, and announcing that he was enabled to return to France, in consequence of the First Consul having scratched out his name on the list of émigrés. “A present done,” observed Lattin, “mon cher Anne, tu es un zebre — un ane rayée.”
In one of his hours of industrial activity, Lattin wrote a pamphlet in support of the Catholic claims, which brought him into collision with the notorious Dr. Patrick Duigenan. That zealous partisan replied to Lattin’s brochure with so much of his wonted brutal ferocity, as to place himself within the reach of the law as a libeller. Lattin brought an action against him in Westminster Hall, and was awarded damages to the amount (I think) of £500, by an English jury. This result was the basis of a standing joke between Lattin and me. When he had written the original pamphlet, and shown it to me, he had said he was not then in funds to publish it, which I undertook to do, jestingly conditioning my outlay with a claim for half the profits. I used, accordingly, to demand from him a moiety of the damages, as being part of the proceeds of the venture. Lattin died in Paris about 10 years since”.
At this juncture it is worth taking a short detour into the life of Patrick’s uncle Jack Lattin (1710–1731). Normally the death of a man aged 21 in the 18th century would attract little attention but Sean Donnelly of the County Kildare Archaeological Society has lately unearthed that “the demise of Jack Lattin was far from usual, and the memory of his going remained alive in local and family tradition for nearly two centuries”. Jack Lattin was a gentleman musician during the days of Jonathan Swift. His Catholic family, having survived the 17th century intact, were now facing utter bankruptcy in the face of the Penal Laws. [4]
p. 142. There are various versions of the story. One runs as follows. Jack was raised in Paris with his father, the eloquent wit and raconteur Patrick Lattin. He regularly returned home to see his relatives in Ireland. In his bizarre novel, The Life of John Buncle Esq (1756–1766), the notoriously eccentric author, Thomas Amory, makes reference to a knees up in a Dublin pub called The Conniving House where he encountered “dear Jack Lattin, matchless on the fiddle, and the most agreeable of companions; … and many other delightful fellows; who went in the days of their youth to the shades of eternity”. One summer’s day in 1731, Jack danced his way along some 8 miles of road between Morristown Lattin and Castle Browne (now Clongowes), only to drop dead of exhaustion when he arrived.[5] Exactly why – or indeed if – Jack headed off on his fatal marathon dance is unknown.[6] Many say it was a wager that went wrong. Jack’s name was however enshrined in the title of a popular country dance tune, “Jockey Lattin”, that arose shortly after his death and earned him a nod in James Joyce’s Ulysses. (The dance was going strong from at least as early as 1749.)
p. 143.
Jack Lattin dressed in satin Broke his heart of dancing He danced from Castle Browne To Morristown.
Footnotes
[1] The principal holding was Morristown Moynagh (400 acres), later renamed Morristown Lattin. The name survives in the present townlands of Morristown and Lattinsbog.
[2] It was subsequently extended in the early Georgian period to include a four-storey tower, crowned with a coat-of-arms, which rose from the middle of the front, like the towers at Gola and Ancketill’s Grove, Co. Monaghan. The projections were joined by a single-storey balustraded corridor with Wyatt windows and a porch of fluted Doric columns.
[3] They retained this house until 1737, by which time they also had other property in nearby Capel Street.
[4] “ The Strange Fate of John Lattin of Morristown Lattin” (1731), Sean Donnelly, Journal of County Kildare Archaeological Society xviii, 4 (1998-9), 565-88
[5] Castle Browne was the original name for Clongowes Wood Boarding School. The old castle was owned by the Browne family from 1667 until General Michael Wogan Browne sold it to the Society of Jesus to in 1813.
[6] Traditionally, a long distance dance in Ireland – or rince fada – is danced on May Eve or May Day to welcome summer. Often this involved young women carrying large garlands of flowers by way of a greeting to important persons, such as the return of a landlord after a long absence.
Mansfield of Morristown Lattin
p. 139FROM ‘THE LANDED GENTRY & ARISTOCRACY OF CO. KILDARE’ BY TURTLE BUNBURY & ART KAVANAGH (IRISH FAMILY NAMES, 2004).
The Mansfield family have been in Ireland at least since the 12th century when they made their presence known in Co. Waterford. Penalized for their Catholicism in the 17th century, fortune returned when they married the sole heiresses of the Eustaces of Yeomanstown House and the Lattins of Morristown Lattin. During the 1840s they acquired a curious attachment to the Danish colony of St. Croix in the Virgin Islands. Latter day characters closely associated with the family include the parachuter Major Richard Mansfield, children’s author Brownie Downing, Fine Gael politician Gerard Sweetman. Morristown Lattin was sold in 1982 and is now owned by Constance Cassidy and Eddie Walsh.
The de Mandeville family – “de Magna Villa” in Latin – was one of the families that accompanied William the Conqueror from Normandy to England in the late 11th century. From 1210, when Martin de Maundeville was a witness to Ratoath Charter, the name is found in the medieval records of Co. Meath. A branch of the family later settled in Waterford and Tipperary and adopted the name Mansfield. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Edmund Mansfield of Killingford, County Waterford, secured for a bride one of Ireland’s more lucrative daughters in the shape of Catherine Fitzgerald, daughter of John FitzGerald of Dromana, Lord of the Decies, and granddaughter of Maurice Fitzgibbon, The White Knight. The couple do not appear to have had a son and were thus succeeded by their daughter, Mrs. Margaret Mansfield. In 1599, she married her cousin, Walter Mansfield, with whom she settled on part of Sir Walter Raleigh’s Waterford estate at Ballinamultina.
p. 140. As Catholics, the Mansfields of Ballinamultina kept a low profile for much of the 17th century but Mrs. Mansfield’s grandson and ultimate heir, Walter Mansfield, was listed as one of the “Forty Nine Officers” (or Commissioned Officers) who fought against Cromwell in the Confederate Wars of the 1640s. In 1649, Walter’s property was confiscated and he was transplanted to Connaught. Upon the Restoration, Walter’s son Richard recovered a portion of the family estate. He married Dorothea Hore of Shandon, Co. Waterford; her family had also been transplanted to Connaught during the Cromwellian era.
The Kildare connection begins with the marriage of Richard and Dorothea’s eldest son John Mansfield to Jane, daughter and sole heiress of James Eustace of Yeomanstown House at Carragh outside Naas in Co. Kildare. A prominent Catholic dynasty in the early Tudor period, the Eustaces had fallen from grace in the 1580s when the head of the family, Viscount Baltinglass, led an ill-fated revolt against Queen Elizabeth.[1]
In about 1780, John and Jane Mansfield’s grandson John succeeded to the Eustaces property at Yeomanstown and relocated the principal branch of the Mansfield family to Kildare. He married Elizabeth Woulfe, daughter of Walter Woulfe of Rathgormack, Co. Waterford. In 1817, their eldest son Alexander Mansfield (1786- 1842) married Paulina Lattin, only child and sole heiress of the Irish Patriot, Patrick Lattin of Morristown Lattin. Lattin’s wife Elizabeth was daughter and heiress of Robert Snow of Drumdowny, Co. Kilkenny.[2]
Alexander and Pauline Mansfield had five sons and a daughter. One of the younger sons Alexander (1825 – 1901) was a barrister in England and married Maria Howley, eldest daughter of Sir John Howley, the Queen’s Prime Serjeant in Ireland.[3] When Sir John was laid to rest in Glasnevin Cemetery in 1866, his epitaph bore the words “a sound lawyer and an honest man”. A passer by enquired of a friend, “I wonder why two men were buried together.”
Another son Captain William Mansfield died fighting for the British in the battle of Sebastopol in June 1855. The younger sons Richard (1829 – 1893) and Edmund (1833 – 1914) remained bachelors and served as Majors of the Kildare and Dublin Militia respectively. The daughter Eliza (1819 – 1877) was married in 1837 to George Thunder, fourth son of Patrick Thunder of Lagore, co. Meath.[4]
The eldest of Alexander and Pauline Mansfield sons was George PL Mansfield (1820–1889), sometime Deputy Lieutenant and High Sheriff (1851) for County Kildare. On 30th November 1843, he married Mary O’Kelly, youngest daughter and co-heiress of George Bourke O’Kelly (1760 – 1843), a wealthy sugar planter based on the Danish island of St. Croix in the present day Virgin Islands.[5] Mary’s mother was Mary de Pentheneny, a descendent of an old Anglo-Norman family settled in Louth and Meath. There may be a connection between George Kelly and the charismatic Marquess of Sligo who was dispatched as Governor of Jamaica to oversee the abolition of slavery in 1834. Known as “The Emancipator of Slavery”, the Marquess acquired several sugar plantations in the West Indies from his grandmother, the heiress Elizabeth Kelly.
Mary Mansfield’s brother Edmund de Penthheny O’Kelly succeeded to Barretstown, Co. Kildare, and married a niece of the 9th Baron Arundell, a prominent Catholic Englishman. Her sisters Adelaide and Eleanor married Oscar and Harold Oxholm, two brothers from a distinguished Danish family also involved with St Croix. Their grandfather Peter Lotharius Oxholm was sent to the West Indies by the Danish government in 1778 with orders to map all fortifications in the islands and recommend improvements should the American War of Independence spread. Oxholm subsequently married into a prominent St. Croix family and settled down as a sugar planter. The British seized the island during the Napoleonic Wars but, on its return to Denmark in November 1815, Oxholm was installed as Governor General. His son Frederick was Governor of the neighbouring islands of St John and St Thomas from 1834–1836 and 1848–1852. He also served as Governor of St Croix from July – November 1848.
In 1845, two years after his marriage, George began to substantially renovate and extend Morristown Lattin to its present proportions. The house was remodelled in Tudor-Revival style to the design of an architect named Butler. The new house boasted tall Tudor-style chimneys, bow windows, a library divided by columns and a fine Tudor porch.[6] It faced onto a straight avenue of trees more than a mile long, a fitting entrance to what was now one of the largest estates in Ireland. For afficionados of ‘The Irish RM’, this is the house used as Mrs. Knox’s pile “Assolas“. (Thanks James Grogan). It is also, as Peter Sweetman observed in 2014, astonishingly similar to Lisnavagh House, the Bunbury’s casa in County Carlow.
On the eve of the Great Famine, George owned more than 5,000 acres of land in Co. Kildare and was the second largest landowner in the county after Lord Mayo’s 6,000 acres. This included the home farm of Barrettstown and substantial acreages of surrounding bogland. These lands were re-granted to local farmers in conjunction with the Land Reform Acts in the late 19th and early 20th century.
On 12th February 1845, Mary gave birth to a son, George. Two daughters, Pauline and Maude followed. In June 1853, Mary died, leaving her 33-year-old husband an eight year old boy and two small girls. Pauline died aged seven the following January. Young George was educated at Stonyhurst, a Catholic boarding school in Lancashire. On 2nd August 1877 he married Alice Adele eldest daughter of Baron d’Audebard de Ferussac of Paris. The Baron was a scientist of considerable repute so no doubt young George’s time spent star-gazing in the famous Stonyhursy Observatory stood him in good repute when it came to courting the young Parisian lady. Maude (1850 – 1921) never married but lived at Dublin’s Earlsfort Terrace and it was she who was able to explain the origin of the “Jack Lattin” dance.
Like his father, George served as both High Sheriff (1874) and Deputy Lieutenant for County Kildare. He was serving in the latter capacity when the Great War broke out in 1914. The following year he and Sir Anthony Weldon, Lord Lieutenant for the county, expressed their absolute opposition to British plans to enforce conscription in Ireland. They set up a committee to raise sufficient numbers so that “no question can arise as to the loyalty of the County Kildare” with regard to those willing to “join their brethren at the front”. George died on 5th Jan 1929; his French widow survived him until 12th March 1934.
George and Alice had four sons, Eustace, Henry, Alexander and Tirso, and two daughters, Mary and Marguerite.[7] The eldest son Captain Eustace Mansfield was born on 5th November 1879 and, like his father, educated at Stoneyhurst. On 26th Jan 1911 he married Mabel Paget, third daughter of Thomas Guy Paget of Ibstock and Humberstone, Leicester. He served with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers during the Great War. He died on 14th April 1945; Mabel on 20th May 1949. They left a son George PL Mansfield and two daughters, Rosalind and Elizabeth.
Captain Mansfield’s second brother Henry (1881 – 1948) won an OBE in 1918 and rose to become a Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Artillery. He was also a Knight of Malta. On 9th Jan 1913 he married Alice, eldest daughter of Daniel Cronin-Coltsmann of Glenflesk Castle, Killareny, Co. Kerry.[8] They lived at Barrettstown House outside Newbridge, which later passed to his nephew, John Lattin Mansfield. The third brother Alexander Lattin Mansfield married Alice More-O’Ferrall, youngest daughter of Ambrose More O’Ferrall of Balyna (qv), but died of pneumonia at Hainault, Foxrock, Co. Dublin, aged 33 on 14th July 1915.[9]
On 26th June 1918, the youngest brother Tirso Mansfield (1888–1962) married Helen Farrell, fifth daughter of Joseph Farrell, DL, JP of Moynalty House, Kells, Co. Meath. Their son Major Richard Mansfield served with the Royal Army Service Corps and Parachute Regiment in World War Two. Another of Tirso’s sons, John Lattin Mansfield, now resident in the south of France, married the beautiful Australian author-artist Brownie Downing (1824–1995). She was probably best known for the children’s story, “Tinka and His Friends”, which sold 60,000 copies in the 1950s and won The Daily Telegraph Children’s Book of the Year Award. In 1963, John and Brownie went to live at Barrettstown House where they remained until 1970, when they relocated to a yacht in Majorca. They had two sons, Tim Mansfield (who sadly passed away in Australia on 19 August 2019, aged 64) and Beau Mansfield. Tim had some amusing recollections of his time here written in his diary when he was 15.
Tuesday 9th June 1970
Had a very bad thunderstorm today at 4 p.m., the drawing room was
Flooded (due to the hole in the ceiling which John never fixed), the tower was hit 6 times by lightning. Found Mary (the maid) under a table in the dark with a fag in her mouth saying her Hail Mary’s.
Wednesday 12th August
Charles (my brother) leaving for Australia on Friday. Flight booked and all. Bags packed. Pat Cullen and Daphne were here and we had a booze-up in Charles’ honour. John got pretty drunk. Charles and John got swords down off the walls in the main hall and had a mock swordfight which turned almost real and resulted in Charles knocking one of John’s teeth out with the hilt of his sword (John was delighted as he said it was rotten anyway and saves him going to the dentist), otherwise it was a good night. John gave Charles a Georgian silver cigarette case and Mansfield crested brandy bottle also silver.
Captain Eustace Mansfield’s eldest son, Patrick Lattin Mansfield, was born on 1st February 1921 and educated at Eton and Trinity College Cambridge. He served in World War Two as a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery, before returning to Cambridge to complete his Masters degree. On 16th May 1972 he married Elizabeth Kean, daughter of Douglas James Kean of Summerfield, Beaconsfield, Bucks. They now live in Scotland with their son, Alexander, born 29th May 1974, and two daughters.
Patrick’s eldest sister Rosalind was born on 28th April 1915. On 17th April 1941 she married the Fine Gael politician Gerard Sweetman, Minister for Finance between 1954 and 1957. Gerard, who lived at Longtown House in Sallins, Co. Kildare, was killed in a motor crash in January 1970. Mrs. Sweetman was also killed in a car accident in Spain some years later. Her younger sister Elizabeth was born on 7th Sept 1924 and, in 1953, married Robert William McKeever of Kildemcok, Ardee, co. Louth.
Morristown Lattin was sold to Dublin businessman Oliver Caffrey in 1982. An electrical fault shortly afterwards caused the entire left wing of Morristown Lattin to burn down. Tim Mansfield recalls that “not a lot was lost as it was already damp and unused but there was at least one valuable French wall tapestry destroyed, that I remember”. In 1992 the house was purchased by the barristers Eddie Walsh and Constance Cassidy, who gained much media attention in September 2003 when they purchased the Gore-Booth family home of Lissadell, Co. Sligo.
FOOTNOTES
[1] The Eustaces remained Catholic throughout the Penal times. Even as late as 1731, there is evidence of the family building a House of Refuge on their lands at Yeomanstown.
[2] Alexander’s younger brother Walter (d. 1849) succeeded to both Yeomanstown and the Woulfe’s family home at Rathgormack. In 1813, he married Frances, daughter of Owen MacDermott of Great Denmark Street in Dublin. They had six sons and three daughters. Yeomanstown was later sold to the Gill family. Jane Gill married Andrew Moore and sold the main house to Gay O’Callaghan. The Moores then lived at Yeomanstown Lodge, now home to their eldest daughter Gillian.
[3] Sir John presided as Chairman of Quarter Sessions for Tipperary between 1835 to 1865. A contemporary described him as “a most estimable and philanthropic person”.
[4] Their son Lattin Thunder (1838 – 1900) served as JP for County Meath.
[5] George Bourke O’Kelly also resided at Acton House on London’s Horn Lane. Built for the Cromwellian General, Philip Skippen in the 1640s, Acton House was acquired by the Catholic building magnate Nicholas Selby in the late 18th century. He leased it to the O’Kellys – or Kellys, as they were called at this time – until their move to St Croix shortly after Selby’s death in 1834. In 1881, Acton house belonged to Colonel Ross.
Chancery Records for the West Indies refer to an Edmond Kelly Sr. and his wife Ursula being at St. Croix on 23rd February 1778.
[6] “A new front was added, which at the ends, is no more than a facade; but which fills the space between the two projections; with a symmetrical row of three steeply pointed and pinnacled gables, oriels and a Tudor-style porch. At the same time, the roof was raised, but it was still carried on the old wall. The new front served no structural purpose but was secured to the main building with metal ties running through to the back of the house. A tower was also built at one end of the front, and bow windows, with balconies over them, were added at the back. The house boasted a Library divided by columns”. A Guide to Irish Country Houses, Mark Bence-Jones.
[7] On 30th December 1913, the eldest daughter Mary married Thomas Esmonde. Her husband’s father, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Esmonde, Royal Irish Regiment, won a Victoria Cross at Sebastopol, the same battle in which her great uncle William Mansfield perished. The younger Thomas Esmonde was lost at sea on 10th October 1918. Mary lived on until 10th March 1963.
The younger daughter Marguerite (1883 – 1939) was married twice. Her first husband (1905) was Richard Morton Wood, 6th Inniskilling Dragoons, eldest son of Colonel George Wilding Wood of Docklands, Ingatestone, in Essex. He died without male heir on 6th January 1908. In 1911, she married Edward Nettlefold of Brightwell Park, Wallington, Surrey. He was seriously wounded in the war but survived to become a Lieutenant Colonel of the 5th Dragoons.
[8] Alice Mansfield (nee Cronin-Coltsmann) died on 2nd December 1965.[9] Alice Mansfield (nee More O’Ferral) died on 31st March 1962, leaving a son and a daughter.
2026 Diary of Irish Historic Houses (section 482 properties)
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Burtown House and Gardens, Athy, Co Kildare, photograph by Sonder Visuals, 2022, Courtesy Failte Ireland.
The Historic Houses of Ireland website tells us:
“Ballytore, in County Kildare, was a stronghold of the Irish Quakers and the centre of a sizeable Quaker community. One of their members, Robert Power, built Burtown House as the hub of a two thousand acre farming enterprise in the 1720s. His Georgian villa, shown on early maps as “Power’s Grove,” was only one room deep so wings were added later in the century. These were subsequently removed, though their faint outlines can still be identified and Burtown was further extended in the early nineteenth century when a full height bow was added on the garden front.
“The new extension provided a bow ended room on the garden front, a large bedroom above and a grand staircase, lit by a tall round-headed window. Pretty plasterwork in the manner of James Wyatt was also introduced at the time, most notably in an arched alcove in the bow-ended room, which is likely to have been the original dining room. The alcove is filled with a shallow fan, and delightfully cursive sprays of vine leaves, and is flanked by a pair of classical vases on pilasters of foliage with naive Corinthian capitals.
“Burtown has never been sold in all its three hundred years. The house passed from the Power family to the Houghtons and thence to the Wakefields, who gave it a new roof with widely projecting eaves in the early nineteenth century. They also lengthened the sash windows, installed a new front door with a fanlight in a deep recess, and carried out a number of other alterations.
“When Mr. Wakefield was killed playing cricket Burtown passed to his sister, who had married a fellow Quaker from County Tipperary, William Fennell. Their son, William James was a keen horseman but “was asked to leave the Quaker congregation because of his fondness for driving a carriage with two uniformed flunkeys on the back”.
“Today Burtown is in the midst of two hundred acres of parkland, including ten acres of lush flower, vegetable and woodland gardens with many fine walks. The house has now been home to five generations of the Fennell family, and to the acclaimed botanical artist and illustrator, Wendy Walsh. Coincidentally, the leading Irish botanical artist of the early twentieth century, Lydia Shackleton, also came from the same small Quaker community.” [1]
“Donadea Forest Park includes Donadea Castle and estate, the former home of the Aylmer family up until 1935. There are many historical features including the remains of the castle and walled gardens, St. Peter’s church, an ice house and boat house. The Lime tree avenue planted in the 19th century formed the original entrance to the estate. Another feature of the park is the 9/11 Memorial, a scaled replica of the twin towers carved in limestone. The small lake is brimming with ducks, waterhens and has a beautiful display of water lilies in the summer. There is a café open throughout the year.“
In 1581 Gerald Aylmer, (1548-1634), Knight, of Donadea, son of George Aylmer, of Cloncurry, and grandson of Richard Aylmer, of Lyons, built a new tower in Donadea, not fully completed until 1624 and it is now the oldest part of the Castle. [2]
In 1626, he repaired the medieval Church in Donadea and built a new extension in which he established his family burial plot. In the extension he also constructed an Altar Tomb monument as a burial memorial for his family. Gerald was titled by the Crown and became the first Baronet of Donadea.
The Aylmers were connected with the various conflicts and rebellions over the next two centuries. During the wars of the 1640s, Sir Andrew, 2nd Baronet (c. 1610-c. 1671), supported the rebels and was imprisoned at the beginning of the war.
Although he was a brother-in-law of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond, there were no favours granted to him. The Aylmers rebuilt the castle after it was burned by James Butler’s troops.
In 1689, after the battle of the Boyne, Lady Helen Aylmer, widow of the 3rd Baronet, (born Plunkett, daughter of Luke Plunkett 3rd Earl of Fingall) was in charge of the Castle. She was outlawed due to her support for James II, but she managed to hold on to the Castle and lands under the terms of the Treaty of Limerick.
In 1736, Sir Gerald, 5th Baronet, died leaving an only son FitzGerald who became the 6th Baronet.
He was only one year old when his father died and was subsequently raised by his mother (Ellice or Ellen, daughter of Gerald Aylmer, 2nd Baronet of Balrath, County Meath) and her relatives who were members of the established church. FitzGerald subsequently conformed to the established religion. In 1773, he built a new house in front of the Castle and incorporated the Tower in his new residence.
Gerald, 8th Baronet, held the lands of Donadea between 1816 and 1878 and he is accredited with most of the construction work that is visible in Donadea demesne today. He began his building program in the 1820s by re-routing the roads away from the Castle and the construction of a high wall enclosing the demesne. Gate lodges were then built at all the entrances.
He also built a new grand entrance known as the Lime Avenue.
In 1827 he completely remodelled the front of the Castle which gave it an attractive bow shaped appearance. It has been suggested that he employed the renowned architect Richard Morrison to design this new structure.
The older cabin-type dwellings close to the castle were demolished and new estate houses built at the Range. To the west of the Castle he built an eight acre area of gardens and paddocks, surrounded and sub-divided by walls. In the Castle yard he built dwellings for staff and elaborative farm buildings. He also constructed the artificial lake and the Ice House. Large areas of the demesne were planted and, by the time of his death, Donadea demesne was listed as one of the finest parkland settings in the county.
Outside the demesne he was involved in numerous construction projects including the famous ‘Aylmer Folly’, viz. the Tower on the summit of the hill of Allen. (see [2]) Sir Gerald’s grandson Justin, 10th Baronet, died unmarried in 1885. His sister Caroline inherited the castle and much of the demesne, while the baronetcy passed to a cousin. Caroline Maria Aylmer, who was the daughter of Sir Gerald George Aylmer, 9th Baronet, was the last Aylmer to live at Donadea. She died in 1935, leaving the estate to the Church of Ireland who, in turn, passed it bequeathed to the Irish state.
The castle remained unoccupied and its roof was removed in the late 1950s.
For more on the Aylmer family, see The Landed Gentry & Aristocracy of County Kildare by Turtle Bunbury & Art Kavanagh (published by Irish Family Names, 2004).
Open dates in 2026: Feb 9-28, May 5-19, June 5-14, July 6-10, Aug 15-24, 2pm-6pm
Fee: adult €8, OAP/student €5, child free
The Historic Houses of Ireland website tells us:
“In 1685, the village of Ballitore on the river Griese in the southern corner of County Kildare became the first planned Quaker village in England and Ireland. The Shackleton family from Yorkshire settled here some decades later and besides establishing wool and corn mills, founded the famous village school in 1726. Thanks to an entry by Mary (née Shackleton) Leadbetter in her ‘Annals of Ballitore’, we know that the first stone of Griesemount House (also known as Ballitore Hill House) was laid on Midsummer Day in 1817. While the three-bay side elevation is symmetrical, the two-bay front façade with the front door under the left window is quite modest, as was often the case with Quaker houses. It was built by George Shackleton, who had grown up in Griesebank House beside the now-ruinous Ballitore Mills on the river just below. He married Hannah Fisher and they raised 13 children in the new house, including the noted botanical artist Lydia Shackleton, the first artist-in-residence at the Botanic Gardens in Dublin. One of her first recorded sketches is of the house. The family lived here until the early 20th century; the house then changed hands several times. It was briefly owned and restored by the mother of mezzosoprano Frederica von Stade, and has recently come into new ownership.” [3]
Open in 2026: May 17-31, Aug 12-31, Sept 7-16, Dec 17-31, 9am-1pm
Fee: adult €8, student/OAP/child €5
The Historic Houses of Ireland website tells us:
“The forebears of the Greenes of Millbrook House in the far south of County Kildare lived at Kilmanaghan Castle and Moorestown Castle [now a ruin] in County Tipperary. A great grandson of the family patriarch Captain Godfrey Greene moved up to settle near Carlow. William Nassau Greene (1714-1781) was a businessman and magistrate, and built a residence known as Kilkea Lodge (c. 1740) adjacent to the ancient Fitzgerald seat at Kilkea Castle, where his descendants are still resident. A younger son, John (1751-1819), who became High Sheriff of Kildare and Captain of the Castledermot Yeomanry, built a neighbouring house at Millbrook with the help of his father. It was completed in 1776 with its attendant mill and millrace off the River Griese, which had replaced an earlier mill in the nearby Kilkea Castle demesne. The house passed through generations of the family until finally the mill ceased operating under Thomas Greene (1843-1900), a poet and author who was made High Sheriff of Kildare in 1895. The house was left by inheritance to one of the cousins from Kilkea Lodge, father of the present owner. Throughout WWII, he had served as a frontline doctor in the 4th Indian Division in North Africa, Italy and Greece, and returned with his wife in 1950 to an utterly neglected house. Millbrook is still in the process of being restored to its former state.” [5]
Open dates in 2026: Jan 12-16, 19-23, 26-27, 29-31, Feb 3, 5-8, May 1-5, 7-13, 21, 23-34, 26-27, June 25-29, July 2, 20-21, 23-28, Aug 15-23, 8.30am -12.30pm
Fee: adult €6, OAP/student/child €3
16. Steam Museum Lodge Park Heritage Centre, Lodge Park, Straffan, Co. Kildare– section 482
Open dates in 2026: Apr 5-6, 12, 19, 26, May 3-4, 9-10, 16-17, 23-24, 30-31, June 1, 6-7, 12, 14, 20-21, 27-28, July 4-5,11 12, 18, 19, 25-26, Aug 1-3, 8-9, 15-23, 29-30, Sept 5-6, 12-13, 19-20, 26-27, Oct 4, 10, 18, 25-26, 1pm-5pm
Fee: Garden and Museum With steam adult €20, OAP €15, (Sun and Bank Holidays), No steam (Sat) adult €15, OAP €10, Museum only -with steam, adult €15, OAP €10 (Sun and Bank Holidays), No steam (Sat) adult €10, OAP €7, Garden only – adult/OAP €7, student/child free
Lodge Park, photograph courtesy of Historic Houses of Ireland.
The Historic Houses of Ireland website tells us about Lodge Park:
“Lodge Park, overlooking a fine stretch of the River Liffey, was built by Hugh Henry who had married his cousin, Lady Anne Leeson from Russborough [daughter of Joseph Leeson 1st Earl of Milltown]. Completed in about 1776, the centre block forms the core of an unusual composition with curved quadrants leading to a pair of two-storey wings, both attached to two further pavilions by curtain walls to form a unique elongated ensemble of five interconnected buildings, “perhaps the most extreme example of the Irish Palladian style.”
“Henry’s father was the merchant banker Hugh Henry, who had purchased the entire Straffan estate with 7,000 acres. Lodge Park was long thought to be the last building by Nathaniel Clements, who died in 1777, but has now been attributed to John Ensor. The hipped roof is surrounded by a granite-topped parapet, and the walls are finished in rough cast, with ashlar block quoins and granite window surrounds with detailing. It is Ireland’s best exampe of concatenation, having curtain walls attached to the main house, leading to two pavilions, attached by two gateways to two further buildings. Hugh’s son Arthur built the Victorian walled garden, now beautifully restored and open to the public, as well as the fine gate lodge. The house was bought by the Guinness family in 1948.
The walled garden has been beautifully restored while a disused Victorian church has been re-erected in the grounds to house a magnificent Steam Museum with early inventor’s models, scientific engineering models and historic works of mechanical art. The Power Hall displays six huge stationary steam engines, which are run on special occasions.” https://www.ihh.ie/index.cfm/houses/house/name/Lodge%20Park
“Balyna House lies to the south of Moyvalley Bridge over the Grand Canal, about half way between Enfield and Kinnegad on the old Dublin — Galway road. The house lies in the centre of the estates 500 acres. Balyna Estate was granted in 1574 by Queen Elizabeth I to the O’Moore family because they had lost their land in Laois and were reinstated in Balyna.
“Major Ambrose O’Ferrall married Letitia More in 1796. Their eldest son Richard More O’Ferrall was born in 1797. [ I don’t think this is correct. I believe that Letitia More married Richard O’Ferrall (1729-1790) and that their son was Ambrose More O’Ferrall who married Ann Baggot daughter of John Baggot of Castle Baggot, Rathcoole. Richard More O’Ferrall (1797-1880) was their son]. He is reputed for having been responsible for the erection of the Celtic cross which now stands to the rear of the house. It is said that this Cross, along with another was transported from Europe, the two being encased in wooden crates and towed behind the ship on a barge. Legend has it that one was lost at sea, but its twin survives to this day.“
p. 30. [More O’Ferrall] “The ancestral home of the O’More family, the land having been granted to them by Eliz I as a small compensation for their forfeited territories in Laois… A new house was built 1815, which was burnt 1878; this was replaced by the present house, built 1880s. It is slightly Italianate, with a Mansard roof carried on a bracket cornice; of 2 storeys with a dormered attic. Entrance front with two 3 sided bows and a single-storey Ionic portico, 5 by garden front with pediment, the windows on either side being larger than those in the centre. Imposing staircase with handrail of decorative ironwork; ceiling of staircase hall has modillion cornice. Chapel in garden. Sold 1960s, subsequently owned by Bewleys Oriental Cafe Ltd” [6]
The website continues: “The first real record of any house dates from 1815 when Ambrose built a large mansion. That Georgian house was burned down and replaced in the 1880’s by the present Italianate mansion.
“The estate was a refuge for bishops and priests for centuries and Dr. Forstall, Bishop of Kildare, ordained priests here in the year 1678 — 1680. For this loyalty, the family was granted Papal permission to build a private Chapel on the estate (located to the rear of the house) and up to approximately 1914 Sunday Mass was offered. It was only used intermittently after that, with the last occasion being in the summer of 1959.
“The estate remained in the More O’Ferrall family until May 1960 when it was sold to the Bewley family (of Café fame). The wonderful milk and cream in the Cafes came from the pedigree Jersey herd at Balyna. In 1984 the estate was sold to Justin Keating; it was sold again in 1990-1991 to George Grant. Moyvalley was developed into a Hotel & Golf Resort in 2007.
“Balyna House consists of 10 luxurious ensuite bedrooms, 3 reception rooms to cater for up to 100 guests, Balyna Bar and Cellar Bar. The house is available exclusively for private events and weddings.
“In 2014 the resort was purchased by the late Oliver Brady (well-known horse trainer from Co. Monaghan) with his business partner a well know entrepreneur Rita Shah owner of Shabra Recycling Plastic’s Group, Thai business woman Jane Tripipatkul and her son Mark McCarthy who are based in London.
“It is likely that several Irish and European military campaigns were discussed and argued over at Balyna, as apart from the fierce-some O’More’s and the well documented Irish battles in which they took part, several later generations saw service in European armies. All three sons of Richard and Letitia O’Ferrall saw service abroad. The eldest, Ambrose, and his youngest brother, Charles, rose to the rank of Major in the Royal Sardinian Army, while the middle brother, James attained the rank of Major General in the Austrian Hohenzollern Army.“
Incidentally, there was a Bagot family of “Castle Baggot” in Rathcoole, and neither son had children so all the Bagot property, which included land around Smithfield in Dublin and extensive property in County Carlow, passed to the daughter, Ann, who married the above-mentioned Ambrose More O’Ferrall.
“As a digression, it is worth noting that Rory O’ More’s eldest daughter, Anne, married Patrick Sarsfield, 1st Earl of Lucan and famous military leader. His father in law was the man behind the Irish Rebellion of 1641.
“King James had adopted the policy of remodelling the Irish army so as to turn it from a Protestant-led force to a Roman Catholic led one, and Sarsfield, whose family were Roman Catholics, was selected to assist in this reorganisation. Colonel Sarsfield went to Ireland with Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell , who was appointed commander-in-chief by the king.“
Barberstown Castle, photograph courtesy of barberstowncastle.ie
Mark Bence-Jones writes (1988): p. 31. “A tower-house with a long plain 2 storey wing attached. In 1814, the residence of Jos Atkinson, in 1837, of Capt Robinson.”
The website gives a timeline:
“1288: Nicholas Barby built the original Castle towards the end of the 13th Century on the land which was originally owned by the Great Norman family the Fitzgerald’s.
“1310: The Castle was built as a fortress to protect the village and people of Barberstown from the attack of the rebellious Ui Faolain tribesmen who tried to burn the town (among others) in 1310. It has traditionally found itself in the middle of political struggle and local wars which generally resulted in change of ownership.
“Retaining Ownership: Some of its previous owners have gone to extreme lengths to retain ownership. Just how far some went is illustrated by the story of the body that is said to be interred in the tower of the Castle Keep (the original part of the Castle). His fate can be explained by reading the lease on the Castle at the time in which was written that the lease would expire when he was buried underground (ie. his death). The ending of a lease normally resulted in an increase in rent so after the man’s death he was buried in the tower above the earth which ensured the family continued to hold the lease to the Castle!
“The walls of the Castle Keep walls slope inwards so as to prevent an enemy getting out of range by closing up to the building. Ironically however the rooms on the upper floors of the Castle are larger than those on the ground level as their walls are somewhat thinner.
“Penal Times: The neighbouring village of Straffan is named after St. Straffan, one of the early sixth century missionaries. Its close linkages with the local town and people were proven when an underground tunnel from the Church in Straffan to the Castle was found in 1996 during renovations. A ‘Priest’s Hole’ can be also found in the Castle which was originally made to protect the priests of the town during Penal Times.
“1630: William Sutton of one of the most important families in the area owned the property. The population of Barberstown at the time was 36!
“1689: Lord Kingston [I’m not sure who they mean here – Robert King (d. 1693) was the 2nd Baron of Kingston at the time] had his ownership confiscated by Earl of Tyrconnell after the accession to power of James 11 of England. It was around this time that it fell into the less glamorous hands of the Commissioners of the Revenue who let it out to a Roger Kelly for £102 annual rent in the late 1600s.
“1703: It was purchased by Bartholomew Van Homreigh in 1703 for £1,033 the sixth owner in six years. At the time the property was 335 acres. Van Homreigh had been mayor of Dublin in 1697 and his greatest ‘claim to fame’ lies in the fact that he was the father of Vanessa of whom Swift wrote so passionately about. He sold it to the Henrys who were prone to excessive spending at the time….
“1830: The Henry’s had no option but to sell it to Mr. Hugh Barton [1766-1854] who completed the last wing of the house in the 1830s which added to the present day unique architectural status of Barberstown. He is also famed for constructing Straffan House known today at the K-Club.
“1900: As the property became too expensive to retain as a residence, the Huddlestons who owned Barberstown Castle in the 1900s sold it to Mrs. Norah Devlin who converted it into a hotel in 1971. Barberstown was one of the first great Irish country houses to display its splendour to the outside world when it opened as a hotel in 1971. It has maintained the elegance of design over the centuries by sympathetically blending its Victorian and Elizabethan extensions with the original Castle Keep.
“1979: The acclaimed Musician, Singer, Songwriter & Record Producer Mr. Eric Clapton CBE purchased the property in 1979 and lived in the property until 1987. Music sessions took place in the Green Room and original Castle Keep during the time Eric lived here with many famous Rockstars from all over the world coming here to stay.
“1987 to Present Day: Upon purchasing Barberstown Castle from Eric Clapton in 1987, this beautiful historic house has since been transformed from a 10-bedroom property with three bathrooms to a 55-bedroom Failte Ireland approved 4 Star Hotel. They are a proud member of Ireland’s Blue Book of properties and Historic Hotels of Europe.
“Since 1288 Barberstown has had 37 owners all of whom had the foresight to protect its heritage and character. Look out for the names of all the owners of Barberstown Castle painted on the bedroom doors of the hotel!“
One of the entrances to the Castletown demesne has a Gothic lodge, from a design published by Batty Langley (1696-1751) 1741. Batty Langley was an English garden designer who produced a number of engraved “Gothick” designs for garden buildings and seats. He was named “Batty” after his father’s patron, David Batty. He also published a wide range of architectural books.
“The Village at Lyons, County Kildare is often described as a restoration but to be frank it is more a recreation. By the time the late Tony Ryan bought the estate in 1996, the buildings beside the Grand Canal, which had once included a forge, mill and dwelling houses, were in a state of almost total ruin. Therefore the work undertaken here in the years prior to his death in 2007 involved a great deal of architectural salvage, much of it brought from France, although some Irish elements were incorporated such as a mid-19th century conservatory designed by Richard Turner, originally constructed for Ballynegall, County Westmeath. Today the place primarily operates as a wedding venue, providing an alluring stage set for photographs but bearing little resemblance to what originally stood here.”[9]
The entrance front of Lyons House, designed by Oliver Grave for Nicholas Lawless, 1st baron Cloncurry circa 1786 and remodelled by his son Richard Morrison in 1802-05. Pub Orig Country Life 16/01/2003, vol. CXCVII by Photographer Paul Barker. (see[7])
Mark Bence-Jones writes of Lyons:
p. 196. “(Alymer/IFR; Lawless, Cloncurry, B/PB1929; Winn, sub St. Oswalds, B/PB) Originally the seat of the Aylmer family. Sold 1796 by Michael Aylmer to Nicholas Lawless,the 1st Lord Cloncurry, son of a wealthy blanket manufacturer, who had a new house built in 1797, to the design of an architect named Grace.
“Three storey block with a curved bow on either side of its entrance front, joined to two-storey wings by curved sweeps. About 1801, shortly after his release from the Tower of London, where he had been imprisoned for two years on account of his advanced political views and friendship wiht some of the United Irishmen, the 2nd Lord Cloncurry hired Richard Morrison to undertake improvements and alterations to his father’s house, work continuing till 1805.
“During this period, Lord Cloncurry was in Italy, collecting antiques and modern sculpture for the house; he also acquired three antique columns of red Egyptian granite from the Golden House of Nero, afterwards at the Palazzo Farnese, which were used as three of the four columns in a single-storey portico at Lyons, with a triangular pediment surmounted by a free-standing coat-of-arms.The other notable alteration made to the exterior of the house at this time was the substitution of straight colonnades for the curved sweeps linking the main block to the winds, a change similar to that which Morrison made a few years later at Carton. Also the main block and wings were faced with rusticated ashlar up to the height of one storey on the entrnace front. The hall was given a frieze of ox-skulls and tripods based on the Temple of Fortuna Virilis in Rome, doorcases with fluted entablatures and overdoor panels with classical reliefs; a pair of free-standing antique marble Corinthian columns were set against one wall, and vaarous items from Lord Cloncurry’s collection fo sculpture disposed around the other walls. The walls of the dining room and music rom were painted with Irish waterfalls – and other enchanting decoration by Gaspare Gabrielli, an artist brought by Lord Cloncurry from Rome. The bow-ended dining room was also decorated with a wall painting, of Dublin Bay; and was adorned with reliefs of the story of Daedalus.”
The garden front of Lyons House, The new orangery and pool house are the single-storey buildings flanking the central block. Pub Orig Country Life 16/01/2003, vol. CXCVII by Photographer Paul Barker. (see [7])GASPARE GABRIELLI A Group of Five Mythological Landscapes a preparatory scheme for the murals at Lyons, County Kildare courtesy Adams Irish Old Masters 15 May 2025
Bence-Jones continues: “The seven-bay garden front was left fairly plain, but before it a vast formal garden was laid out, with abundant statuary and urns and an antique column supporting a statue of Venus half way along the broad central walk leading from the house to what is the largest artificial lake in Ireland. Beyond the lake rises the wooded Hill of Lyons.
“The Grand Canal passes along one side of the demesne, and there is a handsome Georgian range of buildings beside it which would have been Lord Cloncurry’s private canal station. A daughter of 3rd Lord Cloncurry was Emily Lawless, the poet, a prominent figure in the Irish Revival of the early yars of the present century. Her niece, Hon Kathleen Lawless, bequeathed the Lyons estate to a cousin, Mr G M V Winn, who sold it about 1962 to University College, Dublin, which has erected a handsome pedimented arch from Browne’s Hill, Co Carlow at one of the entrances to the demesne.”
Art Kavanagh’s book on the Landed Gentry and Aristocracy: Meath, volume 1, tells us more about the Aylmers of Balrath. During the reign of Henry VI, Richard Aylmer of Lyons was a Keeper of the Peace for both Dublin and Kildare. He was in charge of protecting the settler community from attack by the neighbouring O’Toole and O’Byrne septs. The family rose to become one of the most prominent families in Meath and Kildare and key figures in the Dublin administration. Before the end of the 16th century they had established two independent branches at Donadea in Kildare and Dollardstown in County Meath.
The first Aylmer of real significance, Art Kavanagh tells us, was John Aylmer (c. 1359 – c. 1415) who married Helen Tyrell of Lyons, an heiress, at the end of the 14th century, and so the family acquired Lyons. [p. 1, Kavanagh, published by Irish Family Names, Dublin 4, 2005]
Mary Aylmer, daughter of Richard Aylmer of Lyons by Hugh Douglas Hamilton courtesy of House Contents Auction by deVeres 2011.
9. The K Club, Straffan House, County Kildare – hotel
Straffan House, the K Club, courtesy of the K Club Resort, 2005.
The Straffan estate formed part of the original land grant bestowed upon Maurice Fitzgerald by Strongbow for his role in the Anglo-Norman invasion of 1169. In 1679, the property was purchased by Richard Talbot, the Duke of Tyrconnell who commanded the Jacobite army in Ireland during the war between James II and William of Orange. Tyrconnell’s estates were forfeited to the crown in the wake of the Williamite victory. In about 1710, the property was purchased by Hugh Henry, a prosperous merchant banker, who also owned Lodge Park. He married Anne Leeson, a sister of Joseph Leeson, 1st Earl of Milltown. Straffan passed to their son, Joseph, who travelled in Europe and collected art. In April 1764 he married Lady Catherine Rawdon, eldest daughter of the 1st Earl of Moira.
Joseph Henry of Straffan, Co. Kildare by Francis Hayman, R.A. (c. 1708-1776) courtesy of Christies Irish Sale 2001.
Their son John Joseph (1777-1846) married Lady Emily Fitzgerald, the 23-year-old daughter of the 2nd Duke of Leinster. He was an extravagant spender and had to sell Straffan in 1831.
Hugh Barton (1766-1854) acquired Straffan House from the Henry family in 1831 and his descendents remained there until the 1960s. The Barton family were part of the Barton & Guestier winemakers. Hugh soon commissioned Dublin architect, Frederick Darley, to build a new house, based on Madame Dubarry’s great Château at Louveciennes to the west of Paris. [10] The house passed through many hands subsequently.
Mark Bence-Jones writes of Straffan House (1988):
p. 266. “(Barton/IFR) An imposing C19 house in a style combining Italianate and French chateau. Main block of two storeys with an attic of pedimented dormers in a mansard roof; seven bay entrance front, the centre bay breking forward and having a tripartite window above a single-storey balustraded Corinthian portico. Entablatures on console brackets over ground-floor windows; triangular pediments over windows above and segmental pediment of central window. Decorated band between storeys; balustraded roof parapet; chimneystacks with recessed panels and tooth decoration. The main block prolonged at one side by a lower two storey wing, from which rises a tall and slender campanile tower, with two tiers of open belvederes. Formal garden with elaborate Victorian fountain. Capt F.B. Barton sold Straffan ca 1949 to John Ellis. It was subsequently the home of Kevin McClory, the film producer, and later owned by Mr Patrick Gallagher, who restored the main block to its original size.”
10. Kilkea Castle, Castledermot, Kildare – hotel
Kilkea Castle County Kildare by Elena on flickr constant commons 2005.
p. 167. “(Fitzgerald, Leinster, D/PB) A medieval castle of the FitzGeralds, Earls of Kildare, especially associated with C16 11th Earl of Kildare, the most famous “wizard Earl.” [Gerald (1525-1585)] After Carton became the family seat in C18, it was leased to a succession of tenants; one of them being the Dublin silk merchant, Thomas Reynolds, friend of Lord Edward Fitzgerald through whom he became a United Irishman, only to turn informer when he realised the full aims of the movement. His role as informer did not prevent the unhappy Reynolds from having the castle, which he had only recently done up in fine style, sacked by the military; who tored up the floorboards and tore down the panelling on the pretext of searching for arms. Subsequent tenants caused yet more damage and there was a serious fire 1849; after which the third Duke of Leinster resumed possession of the castle and restored and enlarged it as a dower-house for his family. The work was sympathetically done, so that the tall grey castle keeps its air of medieval strength with its bartizans and its massively battered stone walls; though its battlements and its rather too regularly placed trefoil headed windows are obviously C19. AT one side of the caslte a long, low, gabled office range was added, in a restrained Tudor Revival style. The interior is entirely of 1849, for the lofty top storey, where the principal rooms were originally situated, was divided to provide a storey extra. The ceilings are mostly beamed, with corbels bearing the Leinster saltire. In 1880s the beautiful Hermione, Duchess of Leinster (then Marchioness of Kildare) lived here with her amiable but not very inspiring husband [Gerald the 5th Duke of Leinster]; finding the life not much to her taste, she composed the couplet “Kilkea Castle and Lord Kildare/are more than any woman can bear.” After the sale of Carton 1949, Kilkea became the seat of the 8th and Present Duke of Leinster (then Marquess of Kildare), but it was sold ca 1960 and is now an hotel.”
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. 117. “About 100 yards from the front of the castle on the right-hand side is the original motte of the castle that was mentioned by Giraldus Cambrensis in 1181. The motte is 40 feet high and is now covered with trees. High in the wall that overlooks the entrance is a carving known as the “Evil Eye” Stone. It is designed to attract the evil eye of anyone entering the building, thus preserving the inhabitants of the castle from evil – for anybody might possess it without knowing. … The stone table in the garden came from Maynooth and was the Council Table of the Earls of Kildare. It is inscribed in Latin with the name of Gerald Fitzgerald, 9th Earl of Kildare, the date 1533 and the family motto “crom-a-boo.”
Thomas FitzGerald, 10th Earl of Kildare, “Silken Thomas,” c. 1530 attributed to Anthony Van Dyck.
p. 118-119: “…legend has it that one day he [11th Earl, Gerald] was at his ease in a room on the ground floor of the castle, when his wife came in and asked him to demonstrate his powers as a great magician. He refused at first but then agreed to her request on the sole condition that she should not cry out in fear. If she did so, he warned her, he would vanish and she would never see him again. He gave her three tests. For the first he caused water to flood the room until it reached all the way to her mouth. Despite this, she held her tongue. He then caused a friend, recently deceased, to enter and shake her by the hand. Again, she kept silent. Finally he conjured up a giant snake to coil itself around her neck and lick her face. Even now, she did not utter a sound but, with the three tests finished, the earl decided on a fourth. He transformed himself into a small bird, which perched on her shoulder. A large black cat crept up behind her and pounced and at this the countess shrieked and fainted. When she came to, her husband had vanished and was never seen alive again.
…The 11th Earl is supposed to return to the scene once every seven years when, mounted on a white horse shod with silver shoes he rides across the country from the Rath of Mullaghmast to Kilkea Castle. He then rides up the stairs to the haunted room and is not seen again until another seven years has passed.”
p. 119. “During the rebellion of the 1640s, the Countess of Kildare leased the castle to the Jesuits. A manuscript from Clongowes Wood College tells us what happened next: ‘In the reign of Charles I, 1634, the good and ever to be honoured Countess of Kildare gave the Castle and all of its furniture to Father Robert Nugent, the Superior of the Jesuits of Kilkea. Father Nugent was a near relative of the Earl of Inchiquin of the noble House of Thomond. In the year 1646 Father Nugent entertained, for twenty days, the celebrated Rinnuccini, the Pope’s nuncio, and several companies of soldiers on their way to besiege Dublin. The nuncio wanting pecuniary means Father Nugent leant him four thousand pieces of gold which the nuncio never repaid; and, consequently, the Jesuit mission was much neglected as they had not sufficient means to support them.”
Elizabeth FitzGerald, née Holles (1638-1666), Countess of Kildare, 1660, by John Michael Wright, wife of Wentworth Fitzgerald 17th Earl of Kildare.
p. 119. “The Jesuits remained at Kilkea until 1646. As for Lady Kildare, she was implicated in the rebellion of 1641 and outlawed in 1642. After the destruction of Maynooth Castle in 1641, George, 14th Earl of Kildare, resided at Kilkea Castle from 1647-1660, and it continued as the family’s principal seat until Robert, the 19th Earl, made Carton House his home in 1738, after his marriage to Lady Anne O’Brien, the daughter of the 3rd Earl of Inchiquin. The 20th Earl of Kildare was made the 1st Duke of Leinster in 1766.
Elizabeth née Jones (d. 1758), Countess of Kildare wife of 18th Earl, daughter of Richard Jones 1st Earl of Ranelagh by Peter Lely.
John Fitzgerald (1661-1707) the 18th Earl had no surviving children and the title passed to his cousin, Robert Fitzgerald (1675-1744) 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 was married to Mary O Brien, daughter of William O’Brien 3rd Earl of Inchiquin. They had 12 children but only 2 survived to majority. They had lived quietly at Kilkea Castle, near Athy, but in 1739 Robert bought back the lease of Carton, in Maynooth, for £8,000. He commissioned Richard Castle, the eminent architect, to reconstruct the existing house. In the pediment over the South front, previously the main entrance, is the coat of arms of Robert FitzGerald and his wife Mary O’Brien. Robert also employed the La Franchini brothers to construct the wonderful ceiling in the Gold Salon. The additions to Carton were not finished when Robert died in 1744 but he left instructions in his will to finish the restoration according to his plans. A monument dedicated to Robert FitzGerald is situated in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. (This portrait hung in Carton until 1949 when the Fitzgerald family sold the estate. It hung in Kilkea Castle until 1960. It was in the FitzGerald family collection in Oxfordshire until 2013.)
p. 120. “In 1787 Kilkea was redecorated and then leased to Thomas Reynolds, through the influence of his relation, Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Reynolds is supposed to have had some of the tall lancet windows put in at Kilkea. One of the most notorious informers in Irish history, Reynolds was born in Dublin in 1771, the son of a prosperous poplin manufacturer, and became the brother-in-law of Theobold Wolfe Tone, one of the founders of the Society of United Irishmen. The Society was founded on 14th October 1791 in Belfast to lobby for parliamentary reform, Catholic emancipation and, as Wolfe Tone said, ‘the unity of all the people – Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter – under the common name of Irishmen.’
In 1797, Reynolds joined the Society (he was to betray their plans for independence to the authorities in Dublin Castle for a large sum of money as early as March of that year); at about the same time he also obtained a lease on Kilkea Castle….[p. 121] Reynolds was in residence at Kilkea until 1798. Having been informed that Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who had escaped arrest after Reynold’s betrayal of the Society, was hiding at Kilkea, Col. Campbell, who commanded the military in the district, arrived there and ordered his men to find the fugitive patriot. The 9th Dragoons and a company of the Cork Militia proceeded to tear the place apart… but all to no avail, since Lord Edward was hiding in Dublin. Reynolds was arrested and held in custody until May On his release he surrendered the lease of the castle to the duke who then re-let it to a Mr. Daniel Caulfield in 1799. This family was to stay in Kilkea for half a century….
‘In 1849, following a fire, Augustus, the 3rd Duke, recovered possession of the castle and undertook a programme of restoration and refurbishment. The great solar on the top floor was divided in two to provide an extra room. The existing windows were enlarged and brought down, or up, so that the façade presented a more balanced and regular appearance, with rows of trefoil-headed windows….
Augustus Frederick FitzGerald, 3rd Duke of Leinster, (1791-1874) Engraver George Sanders, After Stephen Catterson Smith, photograph courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.
Jeremy Williams has suggested that the architect of this remodelling may have been Frederick Darley, who had been engaged by the duke to build the Church of Ireland and the model schools in nearby Athy. In the course of the reconstruction, the great hall was divided to provide a new dining room below, with extra bedrooms above. The table that was in the dining room is the same one on which the Confederation of Kilkenny was signed and had been brought to Kilkea from Carton. The Irish battlements were extended from the former great hall to cover the whole edifice and, in the gardens, French style parterres were introduced.
“In the 19th century the castle was used as a dower house or as a residence for the Marquess of Kildare, the duke’s son and heir.
“Tragedy hit the family early in the 20th century. The 6th Duke was mentally ill and was detained until his death in a lunatic asylum in Scotland. His next brother, Lord Maurice Fitzgerald, died without a male heir and the youngest brother, Lord Gerald, eventually became the 7th Duke. The real problem with this scenario was that Lord Gerald had previously sold his birthright. He had contracted an unsuitable marriage to a Gaiety Girl, just as Lord Headfort had done; however, Gertie Miller was no Rosie Boote. The couple ran up debts and, in order to pay them, Lord Gerald sold his inheritance, should he ever become Duke, to Sir Malaby Deeley, the ’50-shilling tailor.’ Lord Gerald was to receive £1300 a year for life, while Sir Malaby would inherit Lord Gerald’s prospects, should he ever come into them. On the death of the 6th Duke in 1921, he did. Carton was seized by Deeley and subsequently sold to Lord Brockett. It is currently being destroyed as a country house hotel, with hideous and inappropriate new buildings, in the demesne are the usual gold course and chalets aplenty.
p. 122. “The new duke was apportioned Kilkea Castle in the subsequent settlement, but he never accommodated to his reduced state of affaris. He was bankrupted and later stated that the annuity of £1300 was his sole annual income. Gerald Fitzgerald, Premier Duke, Marquess and Earl of Ireland, committed suicide in 1973. His son, the Marquess of Kildare married, as his first wife, Joane Kavanagh, the daughter of the MacMurrough Kavanagh from Borris House in County Carlow. She was the chatelaine of the castle when these photographs were taken. In 1960, the castle with 100 acres was sold for £8000. It was reopened as a health farm, which must have proved financially unhealthy since it had to be closed quite soon afterwards. The castle was sold on and is now a successful luxury hotel.”
p. 222. “The Society of United Irishmen was founded on 14 Oct 1791 in Belfast, to lobby for parliamentary reform, Catholic Emancipation, and, as Wolfe Tone said, for the unity of all the people – Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter – under the common name of Irishmen. Although in 1793 the Government extended the franchise to Catholics with a minimum freehold of 40 shillings, and allowed them to hold minor military rank, the United Irishmen pressed for the full repeal of the Penal Laws, and by 1798 they had thrown in their lot with Revolutionary France from whom they expected military assistance. In March of that year, however, lmost the entire Leinster Directory of the Society was arrested, on the information of Thomas Reynolds, while planning a rising for 23 May. Their leader, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, was later taken and died of his wounds in gaol. Those members who had not been taken then decided to proceed with the rebellion, even if the French did not arrive. Their efforts failed, as they were unable to take Dubln, were defeated in Wicklow and Kildare, and received no assistance for the Northern Directoy, which failed to mobilize. In Co Wexford a ‘Wexford Republic’ was set up, but the atrocities perpetuated upon Protestant captives tarnished this part of the rebellion. The Wexford Republic was defeated at the Battle of Vinegar Hill on 21 June. Two weeks earlier, Henry Joy McCracken led a belated uprising in Ulster, but was defeated at Antrim, and six days later, Crown forces beat his colleague, Henry Munro, at the battle of Ballynahinch. After this, the Ulster part of the rebellion collapsed and McCracken and Munro were executed. Eight weeks later the French under General Humbert arrives on the west coast of Ireland with 1019 men. After an initial success at Castlebar, they were also defeated, so when another French army, with Wolf Tone in attendance, arrived on 12 Oct, the rebellion was all but over. The British captured the French flagship, La Hoche, and Tone was taken prisoner, sentenced to death, he committed suicide in prison. The Government reaction to the uprising was severe, several of the Society’s members were executed and hangings took place all over Ireland. The rebels in Co Wicklow under Michale Dwyer held out in the mountains until 1803, when Dwyer surrendered and was transported, but by then the government had arranged for the dissolution of the Irish Parliament and for the political Union of Great Britain and Ireland.”
11. Leixlip Manor hotel (formerly Liffey Valley House hotel, formerlySt. Catherine’s Park), Leixlip, Co Kildare
The house that stood before the current Manor House was taller and was tenanted by the Earl of Lanesborough. Then in 1792, it was occupied by David La Touche, of the Huguenot banking family. It shortly thereafter burned to the ground and in around 1798 a new house, also called St Catherine’s Park, was built in the same townland to the design of Francis Johnston; it is now Leixlip Manor Hotel & Gardens.
Rt. Hon. David La Touche of Marlay (1729-1817) Date c.1800 by Hugh Douglas Hamilton, Irish, 1740-1808, courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.
12. Moone Abbey, County Kildare holiday cottages– see above
Whole house accommodation in County Kildare:
1. de Burgh Manor (or Bert), Kilberry, County Kildare– whole house accommodation
Bert House or De Burgh, photograph courtesy of National Inventory of Architectural Heritage.
“Beautiful self catering, Georgian Manor centrally located in the hearth of Kildare in a very private setting. De Burgh Manor comprises of 15 bedrooms all ensuite. The ground floor consists of a double reception room, drawing room, dining room, bar, library , breakfast room and kitchen. Situated on c. 6 acres of grounds overlooking the River Barrow.“
The website also tells us about the history:
“De Burgh Manor was built circa 1709 [the National Inventory says it was built around 1780] by Thomas Burgh [1670-1730] of Oldtown [built ca 1709 by Thomas Burgh (1670-1730), MP, Engineer and Surveyor-General for Ireland, to his own design. The centre block was burned 1950s. A house has now been made out of one of the wings. He also designed Kildrought house, a Section 482 property] for his brother William Burgh later known as Captain William De Burgh and who became Comptroller and Auditor General for Ireland. Thomas Burgh was Barracks Overseer for Ireland from 1701 and was also responsible for [building] – the Library at Trinity College Dublin, Collins Barracks Dublin – now a museum – and Dr Steeven Hospital Dublin.
“William De Burgh was born in 1667 and had a son, Thomas, and a daughter, Elisabeth. Thomas, born in 1696, eventually became a Member of Parliament for Lanesboro, Co. Longford. Freeman of Athy Borough and Sovereign of Athy, in 1755 he married Lady Ann Downes, daughter of the Bishop of Cork & Ross. Her mother was a sister to Robert Earl of Kildare. Her brother, Robert Downes, was the last MP for Kildare in 1749 and was Sovereign of Athy.
“Thomas had two sons, William and Ulysses [Ulysses was actually the grandson of Thomas, son of another Thomas]. William born in 1741 went on to represent Athy as an MP in Parliament between 1768 and 1776. A monument to his memory by Sculptor Sir Richard Westmacott, a statue of faith, which depicts him with a book in one hand and a scroll in the other and stands in York Minster. He wrote two books on religion and faith.
“Ulysses, born in 1788succeeded to the title of Lord Downes [2nd Baron Downes of Aghanville] on the death of his cousin William Downes who was made Lord Chief Justice in 1803 and created Lord Downes on his retirement in 1822. It was Ulysses De Burgh who presented the Town Hall Clock to Athy in 1846 and it was he who had the wings added to Bert House. [Mark Bence-Jones writes of Bert: “enlarged early in C19 by the addition of two storey Classical overlapping wings, of the same height as the centre block; which is of three storeys over basement with two seven bay fronts.”]
“Ulysses’ daughter Charlotte was the last of the De Burgh’s to call Bert House home with her husband Lt. General James Colbourne [2nd Baron Seaton of Seaton, co. Devon]. Charlotte and James came to Bert House in 1863 as Lord and Lady Seaton after the death of Lord Downes. It was sold by them in 1909 to Lady Geoghegan who then sold it onto her cousin, Major Quirke.“
2. Firmount, Clane, County Kildare – whole house or weddings
“Firmount House is a unique and stunning venue just outside Clane in County Kildare, only 40minutes from Dublin city centre. Lovingly restored by the owners, the house is known for flexibility and creativity and is now open for weddings, private parties, film shoots, yoga retreats and corporate events. Enjoy visiting the Firmount website and see for yourself the lifelong journey these restoration warriors have taken to provide you with the perfect location in a wonderful, natural setting.
“This fabulous house consists of a sitting room, breakfast room and dining room downstairs reached from a large hallway, alongside a commercial kitchen and butlers pantry. The first floor consists of seven large and sumptuous bedrooms – five doubles and two twin rooms with plenty of room for two travel cots which are also provided. There are also six bathrooms. Heated by oil fired radiators, there are also two stoves in the main entertaining space.
“Firmount House has a colourful history dating from the 13th century when there was reputed to be a fortified house on the current site. The Down Survey of 1655 seems to show a house on the land (then known as Keapock). In the 18th century the house was owned by the Warburtons and sat on extensive grounds. The story of the current house really begins in 1878 when Hugh Henry Snr having married his cousin Emily Henry (of Lodge Park, site of the current K-club) bought Firmount house and renovated it extensively. It seems he took what was a Georgian house, wrapped it in concrete (one of the first houses of it’s kind) and added a Victorian wing to the South.
“The estate consisted of 409 acres at that point. Hugh Henry’s son, imaginatively named Hugh Jr, inherited the house in 1888 and lived there until 1917. It is rumoured that his wife, Eileen, had nightmares of the house going down in flames – although given it was made of concrete, we think she would have been ok. The house became a WWI hospital in 1917 and 390 soldiers were treated there until 1919, with no deaths registered – thank goodness for that. However the next decades were not so lucky for the house. In 1929 the house was bought by Kildare County Council and turned into a TB sanatorium. It ran as such until 1961. There are local stories of movies being run in the ballroom for patients with the now Mayor of Clane, at the projector. And of patients sitting on the elevated banks at the very front of the house on the roadside, watching life on the road go by but being unable to participate. 1964 brought the purchase of the house by the Department of Defence who ran it as a Control Centre for Nuclear Tracking and named it Section Seven Regional Control.
“Here things get really interesting as the basement of the house was intended to house senior officials, media and communications personel in the event of nuclear fall out. It is rumoured the Taoiseach (Irish prime-minister) was supposed to have a bunker on site and the house can still be found on Russian nuclear maps! This picture shows one of the several signs found in the house. The downside of government and county council ownership is that many original period features were lost through ignorance, neglect and the reinforcement of windows, floors, porticos and doors with concrete.
“The current “madthings” bought the house in 2012 with the aim of slowly bringing Firmount house back to life, window by window and floor by floor aswell as bringing Firmount forward into a gathering place with a welcome for all.“
3. Griesemount House, County Kildare, whole house rentals– see above
4. Martinstown House, Kilcullen, Co Kildare – group accommodation and weddings
Martinstown House 2012, photograph courtesy of Martinstown House on flickr constant commons.
“Martinstown House is a stunning Strawberry Gothic-style cottage ornée in Kildare, Ireland that looks like it is right out of a fairy tale. With 130 acres of fields, gardens, and it’s own miniature parkland, Martinstown House is an exclusive venue nestled in a peaceful setting with old growth trees and a picturesque vista. From the moment you step over our threshold you will realise that we are not hotel, but rather a stylish private country residence where your every need is catered for. We specialise in bespoke wedding celebrations, corporate events, retreats, and group bookings.”
featured in Great Irish Houses. Forewards by Desmond FitzGerald, Desmond Guinness. IMAGE Publications, 2008.
p. 232. “Martinstown House is one of the finest cottage ornee style buildings in Ireland today. Originally part of the huge estates of the Dukes of Leinster, this fine house was commissioned by Robert Burrowes [d. 1850, son of Kildare Dixon Borrowes, 5th Baronet] and completed by the Burrowes family between 1832 and 1840, when decorative effects such as thatched roofs, undressed stonework and verandahs made of free growing branches were being incorporated into rural Irish dwellings. While experts feel the house was built in 1833, it may have been started years earlier, with many of the outbuildings including stables and also the walled gardens dating to some time between 1815 and 1820.” The book’s authors add that Decimus Burton was involved in the creation of this house.
[6] 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.
Ideally I would like to continue publishing a blog entry every week but I am still catching up on places I have visited, writing and researching and seeking approval from home-owners, and am unable to keep up the pace!
We visited some big houses that are not on the Section 482 revenue list when we were in County Cork last year during Heritage Week, including Doneraile Court and Fota, both open to the public and well worth a visit. [1] If I run out of places to write about on the section 482 list, I will write about them! But I still have to write about our visit to Cabra Castle, County Cavan, before Christmas last year! [2] We had a wonderful treat of being upgraded to a bedroom suite in the Castle, the Bridal Suite, no less, with our own rooftop jacuzzi.
The 2021 Revenue list of 482 Properties has not yet been published, and I am not sure when we will be able to visit places again, due to Covid transmissibility. I have already mapped out a year’s worth of visits, all around Ireland, and have even booked to stay in some exciting looking houses, but I don’t know what is going to be open – I have been planning around the 2020 list, assuming opening dates, once places do open, will be similar to last year.
In the meantime I can look at photographs and dream, and work on my own home (I painted the bedroom sage green) and garden (my potatoes are chitting) and research upcoming visits. I’m currently reading Turtle Bunbury’s book about the landowning families in County Kildare, and Mark Bence-Jones’s Life in an Irish Country House, and Somerville and Ross’s The Real Charlotte.
We were privileged to be able to stay in Mark Bence-Jones’s house last year for a wonderful week. [3]
Open dates in 2026: May 1-4, 8-10, 15-17, 22-24, 29-31, June 1, 5-7, 12-14, 19-21, 26-28, July 3-5, 10-12, 17-19, 24-26, 31, Aug 1-3, 7-9, 14-23, 28-30, 10am-4pm
Fee: adult/OAP/student, full tour €22, garden tour €8, child under12 years free
“Curraghmore House in Waterford is the historic home of the 9th Marquis of Waterford. His ancestors (the de la Poers) came to Ireland from Normandy after a 100-year stopover in Wales around 1170, or about 320 years before Columbus ‘discovered’ the New World.
“Some 2,500 acres of formal gardens, woodland and grazing fields make this the largest private demesne in Ireland and one of the finest places to visit in Ireland….
“This tour takes in some of the finest neo-classical rooms in Ireland which feature the magnificent plaster work of James Wyatt and grisaille panels by Peter de Gree.”
The website continues: “Curraghmore, meaning great bog, is the last of four castles built by the de la Poer family after their arrival in Ireland in 1167. The Castle walls are about 12 feet thick and within one, a tight spiral stairway connects the lower ground floor with the roof above. Of the many curious and interesting features of Curraghmore, the most striking is the courtyard front of the house, where the original Castle is encased in a spectacular Victorian mansion with flanking Georgian ranges.“
We came across a link to the De La Poer family, also called Le Poer or Power, in Salterbridge, and will meet them again in Powerscourt in Wicklow and Dublin.
The core of the house is the medieval tower, visible from the courtyard facing side of the house, built by the original owners, the La Poers, and the house is still owned by the same family today. The tower may stretch back all the way to the original La Poer occupants from 1167. When we went inside, we stood in what was the original tower, and we could see the 12 foot thick walls.
It was difficult to find Curraghmore House. We drove two kilometres up a stony track; without the reassuring directions, we would not have believed we were on the right road. The road winds along by the River Clodagh. As our guide told us later, the distance from anything else in all directions is one reason the house remains intact. There are three entrances, and all have drives of about 1.5km to the house.
Mark Bence-Jones describes Curraghmore in A Guide to Irish Country Houses as a medieval tower with a large three storey house behind it.He writes that the “original Castle is encased in a spectacular Victorian mansion” with flanking Georgian ranges housing servants, stables, etc. [1] The house is seven bays wide (see garden front) and seven bays deep.
The guide told us that when James Wyatt added to the house, he specifically created windows and no door in the room that faces the garden, to avail of the view. However, the windows are deceptive and are actually “doors,” as they fully open to let in visitors.
“The tower survives from the old castle of the Le Poers or Powers; the house was in existence in 1654, but was rebuilt 1700 and subsequently enlarged and remodelled; it extends round three sides of a small inner court, which is closed on fourth side by the tower. The 1700 rebuilding was carried out by James Power, 3rd and last Earl of Tyrone of first creation, whose daughter and heiress, Lady Catherine Power, married Sir Marcus Beresford…The 1st Beresford Earl of Tyrone remodelled the interior of the old tower and probably had work done on the house as well.“
Mark Bence-Jones continues his description of the house: “The tower and the house were both refaced mid-C19. The house has a pediment in the garden front; and, like the tower, a balustraded roof parapet. The tower has three tiers of pilasters framing the main entrance doorway and triple windows in the two storeys above it, and is surmounted by St. Hubert’s Stag, the family crest of the Le Poers.” (see [1])
We explored the buildings flanking the courtyard while waiting for the guided tour, and found the entrance to the gardens, through an arch, with an honesty box, in which we duly deposited our fee. We had missed the earlier house tour so had a couple of hours to wait for the next tour. We wandered out into the gardens. The gardens are amazing, in their formal arrangement.
I’ll write more about the gardens later, as we learned more about them on the tour.
We gathered with others for a tour. The tour guide was excellent. She told us that the gardens only opened to the public a few years ago, when the more private father of the current (ninth) Marquess died.
As usual, we were not permitted to take photographs inside, unfortunately. You can see some on the website. There is also a new book out, July 2019, it looks terrific! [2] More on the interior later – first I will tell you of the history of the house.
POWER AND MONEY AND MARRIAGE: Don’t be put off by the complications of Titles!
The estate was owned by the la Poer (or de la Poer or Le Poer – I have seen it written several ways) family for over 500 years, during which time the family gained the titles Baron la Poer (1535), Viscount Decies and Earl of Tyrone (1673, “second creation”, which means the line of the first Earls of Tyrone died out or the title was taken from them – in this case the previous Earl of Tyrone, Hugh O’Neill, rose up against the British throne during the Nine Years War and fled from Ireland when arrest was imminent, so lost his title).
The La Poer family was Norman originally, and the name has been sometimes Anglicised to “Power.”
Piers Power (or Le Poer) of Curraghmore, who held the office of Sheriff of County Waterford in 1482, cemented the family’s influence with a strategic marriage to the House of Fitzgerald. His wife, Katherine, was a daughter of Sir Gerald Fitzgerald, Lord of the Decies.
Piers’s son and heir, Richard, further strengthened the power of the family by marrying a daughter of the 8th Earl of Ormond (Piers Butler, d. 1539), Katherine. The rival families of Butler and Fitzgerald, into both of which the Le Poers had married, effectively ran the country at this time when English influence in Ireland had been in decline for several decades. [4]
Richard was created 1st Baron le Power and Coroghmore, Co. Waterford on 13 September 1535. [5]
Richard 1st Baron le Power and Coroghmore died on 10 November 1538, killed by Conor O’Callaghan while intervening (on the Crown’s behalf) in the issue of the succession of the Earldom of Desmond.
After Richard died, his wife married James John Fitzgerald, 13th Earl of Desmond, in 1549/50, who held the office of Lord High Treasurer of Ireland.
I shall intervene here to give a summary of the rank of titles, as I’m learning them through my research on houses. They rank as follows, from lowest to highest:
Baron – female version: Baroness
Viscount – Viscountess
Earl – Countess
Marquess – Marchioness
Duke – Duchess
In 1538 Richard was succeeded by his eldest son, Piers (1526-1545). Piers was a soldier and fought in Boulogne in France for King Henry VIII. After Piers’s premature death in 1545, he was succeeded by his younger brother, John “Mor” Power (d. 1592), 3rd Baron. In 1576, Henry Sidney, the Lord Deputy of Ireland and father of the poet Philip Sidney, stayed with John Mor at Curraghmore. He wrote:
“The day I departed from Waterford I lodged that night at Curraghmore, the house that the Lord Power is baron of. The Poerne country is one of the best ordered countries in the English Pale, through the suppression of coyne and livery. The people are both willing and able to bear any reasonable subsidy towards the finding and entertaining of soldiers and civil ministers of the laws; and the lord of the country, though possessing far less territory than his neighbour (ie: Sir James Fitzgerald of the Decies, John Mor’s cousin) lives in show far more honourably and plentifully than he or any other in that province.” [6]
Sir Henry Sidney (1529-1586), Lord Deputy of Ireland, after painter Arnold Van Brounkhorst, courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.
“Coign and livery” was the practice of getting a ruler’s subjects to host the ruler. I think Sidney must have meant that Lord Power’s subjects were willing to participate in entertainment because they were well treated by Lord Power.
Turtle Bunbury writes of the Le Poer family history in his blog (see [4]). I wonder if I can turn my blog into a way of learning Irish history, through Irish houses? I will continue to quote Mr. Bunbury’s blog here, so I can try to see connections between various house owners as I continue my travels around the country.
It was a common practice at the time for the aristocracy to send their sons to the English Court. It was a way to for the artistocracy to secure favour and contacts, and for the King to secure the loyalty of the aristocracy and their Protestant faith.
John Mor the 3rd Baron married Eleanor, daughter of James FitzGerald the 13th Earl of Desmond, who bore his heir. After she died, he married Ellen MacCartie, widow of the 3rd Viscount Barry. He died in 1592 and was succeeded by his son Richard (d. 1607), 4th Baron Le Poer. The 4th Baron married his step-sister, Katherine Barry, daughter of his step-mother Ellen MacCartie and her first husband the 3rd Viscount Barry.
The oldest son of the 4th Baron, John “Og”, died young, in 1600, predeceasing his father, but not before he married Helen Barry, daughter of the 5th Viscount Barry, Viscount Buttevant, and produced an heir. John “Og” was killed by Edmond FitzGibbon (The White Knight).
The 4th Baron’s other children married well. His daughter Elizabeth married David Barry and gave birth to David, 1st Earl of Barrymore.
His daughter Gille married Thomas Fitzmaurice, 16th Baron of Kerry and Lixnaw. His son Piers married Katherine, daughter of Walter Butler the 11th Earl of Ormond.
After the 4th Baron died, his widow Helen remarried, espousing Thomas Butler the 10th Earl of Ormond, “Black Tom” (you can read more about him in my entry about the Ormond Castle in Carrick-on-Suir, an OPW property www.irishhistorichouses.com/2022/06/26/opw-sites-in-munster-clare-limerick-and-tipperary/). She married a third time, after he died, in 1631, to 1st (and last) Viscount Thomas Somerset, of Cashell, County Tipperary.
The family were very powerful and influential, and Catholic. Despite dying young, John “Og” and Helen had daughters, Ellen, who married Maurice Roche, 8th Viscount Roche of Fermoy (the Peerage website tells us that “She died in 1652, hanged by the Commonwealth regime on a trumped up charges of murder“) and Elinor who married Thomas Butler, 3rd Baron Caher.
King James I ordered Richard the 4th Baron to send his grandson and heir, John, the 5th Baron (born circa 1584), to England for his education, in order to convert John to Protestantism. John lived with a Protestant Archbishop in Lambeth. However, John didn’t maintain his Protestant faith. Furthermore, he later suffered from mental illness.
Julian Walton, in a talk I attended in Dromana House in Waterford (another section 482 house), told us about a powerful woman, Kinbrough Pyphoe (nee Valentine). [7] She is named after a Saxon saint, Kinbrough. Her unfortunate daughter Ruth was married to John Power of the “disordered wits” (the 5th Baron). In 1642, Kinbrough Pyphoe wrote for to the Lord Justices of Ireland for protection, explaining that Lord Le Poer had “these past twelve years been visited with impediments” which had “disabled him from intermeddling with his own estate.” As a result, when Oliver Cromwell arrived in Ireland, he issued a writ on 20th September 1649 decreeing that Lord Power and his family be “taken into his special protection.” In this way, Kinbrough Pyphoe saved the family and estates from being confiscated by the Cromwellian parliament or overtaken by Cromwellian soldiers.
Despite his mental illness, John and Ruth had a son Richard (1630-1690) (along with many other children), who succeeded as the 6th Baron. One of their daughters, Catherine (1641-1660), married John Fitzgerald (1642-1664), Lord of the Decies, of Dromana, County Waterford. We will come back to her later.
Richard (1630-1690) married Dorothy Annesley, daughter of Arthur, 1st Earl of Anglesey in 1654. Richard was Governor of Waterford City and County Waterford in 1661, and MP for County Waterford from 1661-1666.
Richard (1630-1690) married Dorothy Annesley, daughter of Arthur, 1st Earl of Anglesey: portrait of Arthur Annesley (1614-1686) 1st Earl of Anglesey, after John Michael Wright based on a work of 1676, NPG 3805.
In 1672 King Charles II made Richard the 1st Earl of Tyrone, and elevated Richard’s son John to the peerage as Viscount Decies.
Turtle Bunbury writes that Richard the 1st Earl of Tyrone sat on Charles II’s Privy Council from 1667-1679. However, Richard was forced to resign when somebody implicated him in the “Popish Plot.” The “Popish Plot” was caused by fear and panic. There never was a plot, but many people assumed to be sympathetic to Catholicism were accused of treason. In 1681, Richard Power was brought before the House of Commons and charged with high treason. He was imprisoned. He was released in 1684.
WHO TO SUPPORT? CATHOLIC OR PROTESTANT? JAMES II OR WILLIAM III?
James II came to the throne after the death of his brother Charles II, and he installed Richard in the Irish Privy Council in 1686.
When William of Orange and Mary came to the throne, taking it from Mary’s father James II, Richard was again charged with high treason, this time for supporting James II, and he was imprisoned in the Tower of London and died there, in 1690. He was succeeded by his son 25-year-old son John, who became 2nd Earl of Tyrone.
John married his first cousin, the orphaned heiress Catherine Fitzgerald, daughter of above-mentioned Catherine (1641-1660) who married John Fitzgerald (1642-1664), Lord of the Decies, of Dromana, County Waterford. They were married as children in 1673, in order for John to marry Catherine’s wealth. However, Catherine managed to have the marriage declared null and void, so that she could marry in March 1676 her true love, Edward Villiers, son and heir of George, 4th Viscount Grandison [I write more on this in my entry on Dromana www.irishhistorichouses.com/2021/02/06/dromana-house-cappoquin-co-waterford/].
John died aged just 28 in 1693 and was succeeded by his brother James. Before he died, it is said that John made a prediction:
“One night in 1693 when Nichola, Lady Beresford [nee Hamilton, wife of 3rd Baronet Beresford of Coleraine, daughter of Hugh Hamilton, 1st Viscount of Glenawly, Co Fermanagh], was staying in Gill Hall, her schoolday friend, John Power, [2nd] Earl of Tyrone, with whom she had made a pact that whoever died first should appear to the other to prove that there was an afterlife, appeared by her bedside and told her that he was dead, and that there was indeed an after-life. To convince her that he was a genuine apparition and not just a figment of her dreams, he made various prophecies, all of which came true: noteably that she would have a son who would marry his niece, the heiress of Curraghmore and that she would die on her 47th birthday. He also touched her wrist, which made the flesh and sinews shrink, so that for the rest of her life she wore a black ribbon to hide the place.” [8]
At the time of his death, his neice was not yet born! It makes a good story. She was born eight years later in 1701 to John’s brother James.
James, the 3rd Earl of Tyrone, marriedAnne Rickard, eldest daughter and co-heir of Andrew Rickard of Dangan Spidoge, County Kilkenny. He had fought with the Jacobites (supporters of James II), but when William III came to the throne, the 3rd Earl of Tyrone claimed that he had only supported James II because his father had forced him to (this is the father who died in the Tower of London for supporting James II). In 1697 James Le Poer received a Pardon under the Great Seal and he served as Governor of Waterford from 1697 until his death in 1704.
DEVELOPING THE CASTLE In 1700 the 3rd Earl, James, commissioned the construction of the present house at Curraghmore on the site of the original castle. Mark Bence-Jones writes: “the house was in existence in 1654, but was rebuilt 1700 and subsequently enlarged and remodelled; it extends round three sides of a small inner court, which is closed on fourth side by the tower.“(see [1])
Photograph from flickr commons, National Library of Ireland, by Robert French, The Lawrence Photographic Collection, between ca. 1865-1914, ref. L_CAB_04065.
In 1704 the male line of the la Poers became extinct as James had no sons.
The predictions of John the 2nd Baron of Curraghmore came true. Lady Nichola did indeed die on her 47th birthday, and her son Marcus married John’s niece, Catherine Power, or de la Poer.
Catherine de la Poer (1701-1769), the sole child of her parents, could not officially inherit the property at the time. Her Catholic mother made a deal with a Bishop that Catherine would marry a Protestant of his choosing, in order to keep her land. Fortunately, the property was kept for her and she was married to Marcus Beresford (1694-1763), in 1717. This ensured that the house stayed in her family, as Marcus joined her to live in Curraghmore.
Sir Marcus Beresford of Coleraine (born 1694) was already a Baronet by descent in his family. After he married Catherine, he became Viscount Tyrone and 1st Baron Beresford, of Beresford, County Cavan. In 1746 he was created 1st Earl of Tyrone. Proud of her De La Poer background, when her husband died in 1763, Catherine, now titled the Dowager Countess of Tyrone, requested the title of Baroness La Poer.
The Guide told us a wonderful story of the stag on top of the house. It has a cross on its head, and is called a St. Hubert’s Stag. This was the crest of the family of Catherine de la Poer. To marry Marcus Beresford, she had to convert to Protestantism, but she kept the cross of her crest. The Beresford crest is in a sculpture on the front entrance, or back, of the house: a dragon with an arrow through the neck. The broken off part of the spear is in the dragon’s mouth.
The IRA came to set fire to the house at one point. They came through the courtyard at night. The moon was full, and the stag and cross cast a shadow. Seeing the cross, the rebels believed the occupants were Catholic and decided not to set fire to the house. The story illustrates that the rebels must not have been from the local area, as locals would have known that the family had converted to Protestantism centuries ago. It is lucky the invaders did not approach from the other side of the house!
When I was researching Blackhall Castle in County Kildare, I came across more information about St. Hubert’s Stag. The stag with the crucifix between its antlers that tops Curraghmore is in fact related to Saint Eustachius, a Roman centurion of the first century who converted to Christianity when he saw a miraculous stag with a crucifix between its antlers. This saint, Eustace, was probably the Patron Saint of the Le Poers since their family crest is the St. Eustace (otherwise called St. Hubert’s) stag. I did not realise that St. Eustace is also the patron saint of Newbridge College in Kildare, where my father attended school and where for some time in the 1980s and 90s my family attended mass!
I read in Irish Houses and Gardens, from the archives of Country Life by Sean O’Reilly, [Aurum Press, London: 1998, paperback edition 2008] that the St. Hubert Stag at Curraghmore was executed by Queen Victoria’s favourite sculptor, Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm. He was also responsible for the beautiful representation in the family chapel at Clonegam of the first wife of the 5th Marquess, who died in childbirth. [9]
THE INTERIOR OF THE HOUSE
The entrance hall, which is in the old tower, has a barrel vaulted ceiling covered with plasterwork rosettes in circular compartments which dates from 1750; it was one of the rooms redecorated by Marcus Beresford and his wife Catherine (see [1]). Sadleir and Dickinson tell us of the house and the Hall:
p. 49. “Careful remodelling has given to the back of the structure the lines of a complete architectural whole, but there can be no doubt from internal evidence that at least three important additions are in fact embodied; it is also probable that a portion of the centre, which differs in character from the surroundings, was rebuilt in consequence of a fire.“
The entrance hall is part of the original tower house, and you can see the thickness of the walls. The hall now has a Georgian ceiling of bold, regular design. On the wall in the front hall is a huge portrait of Catherine, Marcus Beresford, and their children. Three stuffed lions stand guard, which were brought back from India by a descendant of Catherine and Marcus (more on the lions later).
Sadleir and Dickinson continue: “A flight of stone steps leads up to a corridor giving access to the spacious staircase hall, a late eighteenth century addition, with Adam ornament on the ceiling and walls. The grand staircase, which has a plain metal balustrade, is gracefully carried up along the wall to a gallery, giving access to the billiard room and bedrooms.” (see [6])
Photograph courtesy of Curraghmore website: the corridor from the front hall to the staircase hall.
The staircase hall wasn’t added until the next generation. Above the front hall in the tower house, Marcus Beresford had a magnificent room created, now the Billiard room. Unfortunately we didn’t see it on the tour, but there are photographs on the website.
It has a tremendously impressive coved ceiling probably by Paul and Philip Francini, according to Mark Bence-Jones. The ceiling is decorated with rococo foliage, flowers, busts and ribbons in rectangular and curvilinear compartments. The chimneypiece, which has a white decorative overmantel with a “broken” pediment (i.e. split into two with the top of the triangular pediment lopped off to make room for a decoration in between) and putti cherubs, is probably by John Houghton, German architect Richard Castle’s carver. Bence-Jones describes that the inner end of the room is a recess in the thickness of the old castle wall with a screen of fluted Corinthian columns. There is a similar recess in the hall below, in which a straight flight of stairs leads up to the level of the principal rooms of the house.
The Great Room in the old tower was transformed into a billiard room and has an exquisite 18th century plasterwork ceiling, Photograph courtesy of Curraghmore website.Photograph of Curraghmore mantel in billiard room from Georgian Mansions In Ireland by Thomas U. Sadleir and Page L. Dickinson, printed for the authors at the Dublin University Press, by Ponsonby & Gibbs, 1915. (see [6])Photograph from Georgian Mansions In Ireland by Thomas U. Sadleir and Page L. Dickinson, printed for the authors at the Dublin University Press, by Ponsonby & Gibbs, 1915.Mark Bence-Jones writes that the ceiling in the billiards room was probably decorated by the Francini brothers. (see [6])
The entry via the servants’ quarters, which I thought odd, has indeed always been the approach to the house. Catherine had the houses in the forecourt built for her servants in 1740s or 50s. She cared for the well-being of her tenants and workers, and by having their houses built flanking the entrance courtyard, perhaps hoped to influence other landlords and employers.
Someone asked about the sculptures in the niches in the courtyard. Why are there only some in niches – are the others destroyed or stolen? That in itself was quite a story! A visitor said they could have the sculptures cleaned up, by sending them to England for restoration. The Marquess at the time agreed, but said only take every second one, to leave some in place, and when those are back, we’ll send the remaining ones. Just as well he did this, since the helper scuppered and statues were never returned.
Bence-Jones writes of the forecourt approach to the house:
“[The house] stands at the head of a vast forecourt, a feature which seems to belong more to France, or elsewhere on the Continent… having no counterpart in Ireland, and only one or two in Britain… It is by the Waterford architect John Roberts, and is a magnificent piece of architecture; the long stable ranges on either side being dominated by tremendous pedimented archways with blocked columns and pilasters. There are rusticated arches and window surrounds, pedimented niches with statues, doorways with entablatures; all in beautifully crisp stonework. The ends of the two ranges facing the front are pedimented and joined by a long railing with a gate in the centre.“
Since bad weather threatened on our visit in 2019 (and in 2023!), the tour guide took us out to the Shell House in the garden first. This was created by Catherine. A friend of Jonathan Swift, Mrs. Mary Delany, started a trend for shell grottoes, which progressed to shell houses.
Mary Delany (née Granville) (1700-1788) Paper collage artist; memoir and letter writer, by John Opie, 1792, courtesy of National Portrait Gallery NPG 1030.
Catherine had the house specially built, and she went to the docks nearby to ask the sailors to collect shells for her from all over the world, who obliged since their wages were paid by the Marquess. She then spent two hundred and sixty one days (it says this in a scroll that the marble sculpture holds in her hand) lining the structure with the shells (and some coral). The statue in the house is of Catherine herself, made of marble, by the younger John van Nost (he did many other sculptures and statues in Dublin, following in his father’s footsteps). Robert O’Byrne has a lovely video about shell grottoes and tells us more about this shell house on his website. [10]
Catherine also adorned the interior of Curraghmore with frescoes by the Dutch painter van der Hagen, and laid out the garden with canals, cascades, terraces and statues, which were swept away in the next century in the reaction against formality in the garden. In the nineteenth century, the formal layout was reinstated. [11]
Marcus and Catherine has many children. John de la Poer Beresford (1738-1805) served as first Commissioner of the Revenue.
John Beresford (1738-1805), first commissioner of the Revenue in Ireland, engraver Charles Howard Hodges, after Gilbe, courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.John Beresford (1738-1805), MP by Gilbert Stuart c. 1790, courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland NGI 1133Barbara Montgomery (?1757-1788), second wife of John Beresford (1738-1805) by Hugh Douglas Hamilton, courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland P5547. His first wife was Anne Constantia Ligondes.John Claudius Beresford, Lord Mayor of Dublin courtesy Adam’s 8 March 2006 in style of William Cuming PRHA. He was the son of John Beresford (1738-1805).Elizabeth Cobbe née de la Poer Beresford (1736-1806), wife of Thomas Cobbe (1733-1814) of Newbridge House, Dublin, in a costume evocative of Mary Queen of Scots, miniature, Cobbe Collection. She is the daughter of Marcus Beresford 1st Earl of Tyrone.
Marcus Beresford was succeeded by his fourth but eldest surviving son, the second Earl, George Beresford (1734-1800), who also inherited the title Baron La Poer from his mother in 1769.
The Honourable George de la Poer Beresford (1735–1800), 2nd Earl of Tyrone, Later 1st Marquess of Waterford by Johann Zoffany, courtesy of National Trust Images.
In 1786 he was created Baron Tyrone. Three years later he was made Marquess of Waterford in the Peerage of Ireland. He was therefore the 1st Marquess of Waterford. The titles descended in the direct line until the death of his grandson, the third Marquess, in 1859.
George de la Poer Beresford (1735-1800) First Marquess of Waterford by Gilbert Stuart, courtesy of Bonhams and commons.
Note on spelling of Marquis/Marquess: on the Curraghmore website “Marquis” is used, but in other references, I find “Marquess.” According to google:
Amarquess is “a member of the British peerage ranking below a duke and above an earl. … A marquis is the French name for a nobleman whose rank was equivalent to a German margrave. They both referred to a ruler of border or frontier territories; in fact, the oldest sense of the English word mark is ‘a boundary land’.”
I shall therefore use the spelling “marquess.” If quoting – I’ll use the spelling used by the source. I prefer “marquis”, as “marquess” sounds female to me, although it refers to a male!
George the 1st Marquess had the principal rooms of the house redecorated to the design of James Wyatt in the 1780s. Perhaps this was when the van der Hagen paintings were lost! We can see more of Van der Hagen’s work in a house sometimes open to the public, Beaulieu in County Louth. At the same time, George the 1st Marquess probably built the present staircase hall, which had been an open inner court, and carried out other structural alterations.
The Staircase Hall with its impressive sweeping staircase was created by James Wyatt in the 1780s, Curraghmore, County Waterford, Copyright Christopher Simon Sykes/The Interior Archive Ltd, PhotoShelter ID/ I0000CSsOaT_f.Fk, CS_GI14_39.Photograph from Georgian Mansions In Ireland by Thomas U. Sadleir and Page L. Dickinson, printed for the authors at the Dublin University Press, by Ponsonby & Gibbs, 1915.
As Bence-Jones describes it, the principal rooms of the house lie on three sides of the great staircase hall, which has Wyatt decoration and a stair with a light and simple balustrade rising in a sweeping curve. Our tour paused here for the guide to point out the various portraits of the generations of Marquesses, and to tell stories about each.
Photograph courtesy of Curraghmore website.The large portraits of the women at the bottom of the stairs are the Stuart sisters. Louisa Stuart was wife of Henry, 3rd Marquess of Waterford. She was the daughter of Charles Stuart 1st and last Baron Stuart de Rothesay. Her sister Charlotte married Charles John Canning, 1st Viceroy to India.On the right had side of the photograph is Christiana née Leslie, wife of the 4th Marquess, who previously lived in Castle Leslie in County Monaghan.Elizabeth Stuart née Yorke (1789-1867). Lady Stuart de Rothesay, with her daughters Charlotte (1817-1861) and Louisa (1818-1891) by George Hayter, photograph courtesy of UK Government Art Collection.Photograph courtesy of Curraghmore website.
Bence-Jones writes that the finest of the Wyatt interiors are the dining room and the Blue drawing room, two of the most beautiful late eighteenth rooms in Ireland, he claims.
The dining room is decorated with grisaille panels by Peter de Gree and an ornamented ceiling. Photograph courtesy of Curraghmore website.
The walls have grissaille panels by Peter de Gree, which are imitations of bas-reliefs, so are painted to look as if they are sculpture. De Gree was born in Antwerp, Holland [12]. In Antwerp he met David de la Touche of Marlay, Rathfarnham, Dublin, who was on a grand tour. The first works of de Gree in Ireland were for David de la Touche for his house in St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin. [13]
Photograph courtesy of Curraghmore website.Photograph courtesy of Curraghmore website.
The dining room has delicate plasterwork on the ceiling, incorporating rondels attributed to Antonio Zucchi (1726-1795, an Italian painter and printmaker of the Neoclassic period) or his wife Angelica Kauffman (a Swiss Neoclassical painter who had a successful career in London and Rome).
Angelica Kauffmann (1741-1807) by Angelica Kauffmann, oil on canvas, circa 1770-1775, courtesy of National Portrait Gallery NPG 430.Photograph from Georgian Mansions In Ireland by Thomas U. Sadleir and Page L. Dickinson, printed for the authors at the Dublin University Press, by Ponsonby & Gibbs, 1915.
The Blue Drawing Room has a ceiling incorporating roundels by de Gree and semi-circular panels attributed to Zucchi.
Sadlier and Dickinson tell us: “The principal drawing room is a large apartment, somewhat low, with three windows, four doors, and Adam overdoors; there is a pretty Adam ceiling in pale green and white, the work in relief being slightly gilt.“
Photograph courtesy of Curraghmore website.Photograph courtesy of Curraghmore website.Photograph from Georgian Mansions In Ireland by Thomas U. Sadleir and Page L. Dickinson, printed for the authors at the Dublin University Press, by Ponsonby & Gibbs, 1915.The circular plaques are decorated in monochrome by De Gree, while four semi-circular compartments are believed to have been painted by Zucci, the husband of Angelica Kauffman.
Sadleir and Dickinson continue: “The circular plaques are decorated in monochrome by De Gree, while four semi-circular compartments are believed to have been painted by Zucci, the husband of Angelica Kauffman. The heavy white marble mantel, of classic design, is possibly contemporary with the decoration…A door communicates with the yellow drawing room, smaller but better proportioned, which has an uncoloured Adam ceiling, and a pretty linen-fold mantel in white marble [plate XXXI]. It is lighted by three windows … “
Photograph courtesy of Curraghmore website.“A pretty linen-fold mantel in white marble” [plate XXXI] Photograph from Georgian Mansions In Ireland by Thomas U. Sadleir and Page L. Dickinson, printed for the authors at the Dublin University Press, by Ponsonby & Gibbs, 1915.
Sadleir and Dickinson continue the tour: “A door to the right gives access from the Hall to the library, which has an Adam ceiling with circular medallion heads, and an Adam mantel with added overshelf, the design of the frieze being repeated in the mantel and bookcases. Most of the books belonged to Lord John George Beresford, Archbishop of Armagh, whose portrait hangs over the fireplace.“
John George Beresford was a son of George, the 1st Marquess.
John George Beresford was a son of George, the 1st Marquess.Photograph courtesy of Curraghmore website.The library, Photograph courtesy of Curraghmore website.Photograph from Georgian Mansions In Ireland by Thomas U. Sadleir and Page L. Dickinson, printed for the authors at the Dublin University Press, by Ponsonby & Gibbs, 1915.
MARQUESSES OF WATERFORD
I am aided here by the wonderfully informative website of Timothy Ferres. [14]
George, 1st Marquess of Waterford had several children including some illegitimate. His illegitimate son Admiral Sir John de la Poer Beresford was raised to the British peerage as 1st Baronet Beresford, of Bagnall, Co. Waterford. His other illegitimate son was Lt.-Gen. William Carr Beresford, created 1st and last Viscount Beresford of Beresford. His first legitimate son died in a riding accident.
Harriet Elizabeth Peirse (1790-1825) Lady Beresford, wife of Admiral Sir John de la Poer Beresford (1766-1844) 1st Bt Beresford, of Bagnall, Co. Waterford, by Thomas Lawrence, courtesy of National Trust Hatchlands.Her husband was a son of the 1st Marquess.The first legitimate son of the 1st Marquess, Marcus Gervais de la Poer Beresford (1771-1783), killed in a riding accident.Photograph from Georgian Mansions In Ireland by Thomas U. Sadleir and Page L. Dickinson, printed for the authors at the Dublin University Press, by Ponsonby & Gibbs, 1915.Photograph courtesy of National Portrait Gallery, London, https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/search/keyword:de-la-poer–referrer:global-search
He was succeeded by his second legitimate son, Henry, 2nd Marquess (1772-1826), who wedded, in 1805, Susanna, only daughter and heiress of George Carpenter, 2nd Earl of Tyrconnell. Henry, who was a Knight of St Patrick, a Privy Counsellor in Ireland, Governor of County Waterford, and Colonel of the Waterford Militia, was succeeded by his eldest son, Henry, 3rd Marquess.
Henry de la Poer Beresford (1772-1826) 2nd Marquess of Waterford by William Beechy courtesy of Eton College.Thought to be Elizabeth Louisa Reynell (1783-1856) née De La Poer and formerly wife of Sir Denis Pack, courtesy of Whyte’s Nov 2011. She was the daughter of the 1st Marquess of Waterford, and she married Denis Pack of County Kilkenny and later, Thomas Reynell, 6th Baronet.James Beresford (1816-1841), 4th son of Henry De la Poer Beresford 2nd Marquess, by Joseph Clover, courtesy of Ingestrue Hall Residential Arts Centre.
In an interview with Patrick Freyne, the current Marquess, whom the townspeople call “Tyrone,” explained that it was the third Marquess, Henry who originated the phrase “painting the town red” while on a wild night in Miltown Mowbray in 1837: he literally painted the town red! [15]
I wonder was this the Marquess who, as a boy in Eton, was expelled, and took with him the “whipping bench,” which looks like a pew, from the school. It remains in the house, in the staircase hall! We can only hope that it meant than no more boys in Eton were whipped.
In 1842, Henry the third Marquess of Waterford married Louisa Stuart, daughter of the 1st Baron Stuart de Rothesay, and settled in Curraghmore House. Sadly, when she came to Curraghmore with her husband she had an accident which prevented her from having children.
Louisa Anne Beresford née Stuart (1818-1891) by Sir Francis Grant 1859-1860, NPG 3176.The National Portrait Gallery tells us: “Louisa Stuart was brought up mostly in Paris, where her father was British Ambassador to the French court. She was taught to draw from an early age and art, along with religion and philanthropy, was one of her main interests throughout her life. A gifted amateur watercolourist, she did not exhibit at professional galleries until the 1870s. With a strong interest in the welfare of the tenants on her Northumberland estate, she rebuilt the village of Ford. She provided a school and started a temperance society in the village. Her greatest artistic achievement was the decoration of the new school with life sized scenes from the Old and New testaments that used children and adults from the village as models.”
Louisa laid out the garden. She had been raised in France and modelled the gardens on those at Versailles.
According to the website:
“After Wyatt’s Georgian developments, work at Curraghmore in the nineteenth century concentrated on the gardens and the Victorian refacing to the front of the house.
Formal parterre, tiered lawns, lake, arboretum and kitchen gardens were all developed during this time and survive to today. At this time some of Ireland’s most remarkable surviving trees were planted in the estate’s arboretum. Today these trees frame miles of beautiful river walks (A Sitka Spruce overlooking King John’s Bridge is one of the tallest trees in Ireland).“
Tragically, The 3rd Marquess broke his neck in a fall while hunting, in 1859, and died.
He was succeed by his younger brother, John (1814-1866), who became the 4th Marquess. It was this Marquess who bought the scarey statues in the garden. The tour guide told us that perhaps the choice of statue reflected the Marquis’s personality.
The 4th Marquess had studied to join the clergy. He did not want to be the heir to the estate, with all of the responsibilites that came with it. He became more religious and more forboding as he aged.
John entered the ministry and served as Prebendary of St Patrick’s Cathedral, under his uncle, Lord John (John George de la Poer Beresford, Lord Archbishop of Armagh, the brother of his father the second Marquess).
Our guide told us that John forbade his wife from horseriding, which she adored. When he died in 1866, the sons were notified. Before they went to visit the body, when they arrived home they went straight to the stables. They took their father’s best horse and brought it inside the house, and up the grand staircase, right into their mother’s bedroom, where she was still in bed. It was her favourite horse! They “gave her her freedom.” She got onto the horse and rode it back down the staircase – one can still see a crack in the granite steps where the horse kicked one on the way down – and out the door and off into the countryside!
The oldest of these sons, John Henry de La Poer Beresford (1844-1895), became 5th Marquess, and also a Member of Parliament and Lord Lieutenant of Waterford. Wikipedia tells us that W. S. Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan fame refers to John Henry in his opera “Patience” as “reckless and rollicky” in Colonel Calverley’s song “If You Want A Receipt For That Popular Mystery”!
The second son, Admiral Charles William de la Poer Beresford, was created the 1st and last Baron Beresford of Metemmeh and Curraghmore, County Waterford in the British peerage. His daughter Kathleen Mary married Maj.-Gen. Edmund Raoul Blacque and in 1926 she purchased Castletown Cox, a Georgian classical mansion in County Kilkenny.
Kathleen Mary married Maj.-Gen. Edmund Raoul Blacque and in 1926 she purchased Castletown Cox, County Kilkenny, photograph courtesy of Knight Frank.It was designed by Davis Duckart, built 17567-71 for Michael Cox, Archbishop of Cashel, whose father, Sir Richard Cox, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, had obtained a lease of the estate from the Duke of Ormonde.Castletown Cox, photograph courtesy of Knight Frank.Castletown Cox, photograph courtesy of Knight Frank. It has fancy Castletown Cox, photograph courtesy of Knight Frank.
The 5th Marquess eloped with Florence Grosvenor Rowley, wife of John Vivian, an English Liberal politician, and married her on 9 August 1872. She died in 1873, and he married secondly, Lady Blanche Somerset, daughter of Henry Somerset, 8th Duke of Beaufort, on 21 July 1874. The second Lady Waterford suffered from a severe illness which left her an invalid. She had a special carriage designed to carry her around the estate at Curraghmore.
Lady Blanche Waterford, daughter of the 8th Duke of Beaufort, wife of the 5th Marquess, John Henry, in her specially designed invalid carriage 1896, photograph courtesy of National Library of Ireland, from Flickr constant commons.
Sadly, John Henry killed himself when he was 51, leaving his son Henry to be 6th Marquess (1875-1911).
Henry the 6th Marquess served in the military. He married Beatrix Frances Petty-Fitzmaurice. He died tragically in a drowning accident on the estate aged only 36. His daughter Blanche Maud de la Poer Beresford married Major Richard Desiré Girouard and had a son Mark Girouard, architectural historian, who worked for Country Life magazine.
January 10, 1902, Group shot of guests at a Fancy Dress Ball held at Curraghmore House, Portlaw, Co. Waterford, courtesy of National Library of Ireland.
His son John Charles became the 7th Marquess (1901-34). He too died young. He served as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Regiment of Horse Guards but died at age 33 in a shooting accident in the gun room at Curraghmore. He married Juliet Mary Lindsay. Their son John Hubert (1933-2015) thus became 8th Marquess at the age of just one year old.
A story is told that a woman’s son was hung, and she cursed the magistrate, the Marquess, by walking nine times around the courtyard of Curraghmore and cursing the family, wishing that the Marquess would have a painful death. It seems that her curse had some effect, as tragedy haunted the family. It was the fourth son who inherited the property and titles of Marcus Beresford, all other sons having died.
Provenance Originally housed at Castletown Cox, Co. Tipperary. Reputedly the sitter was the lady who put the curse on the Beresford Family of Curraghmore. Courtesy Fonsie Mealy Oct 2018.
The obituary of the 8th Marquis of Waterford gives more details on the curse, which was described to us by our guide, with the help of the portraits:
“The 8th Marquis of Waterford, who has died aged 81, was an Irish peer and a noted player in the Duke of Edinburgh’s polo team.
That Lord Waterford reached the age he did might have surprised the superstitious, for some believed his family to be the object of a particularly malevolent curse. He himself inherited the title at only a year old, when his father, the 7th Marquis, died aged 33 in a shooting accident in the gun room at the family seat, Curraghmore, in Co Waterford.
The 3rd Marquis broke his neck in a fall in the hunting field in 1859; the 5th shot himself in 1895, worn down by years of suffering from injuries caused by a hunting accident which had left him crippled; and the 6th Marquis, having narrowly escaped being killed by a lion while big game hunting in Africa, drowned in a river on his estate in 1911 when he was 36.” [16]
The lion, along with some pals, stand in the front hallway in a museum style diorama!
The Hunt, January 11, 1902, courtesy of National Library of Ireland.According to the National Library, this is an Otter Hunt! At Curraghmore, May 14, 1901.
It is not all fun and games at the house, as in the pictures above! The guide told us a bit about the lives of the servants. In the 1901 census, she told us, not one servant was Irish. This would be because the maidservants were brought by their mistresses, who mostly came from England. The house still doesn’t have central heating, and tradition has it that the fireplace in the front hall can only be lit by the Marquis, and until it is lit, no other fires can be lit. The maids had to work in the cold if he decided to have a lie-in!
Household staff of Curraghmore, around 1905, courtesy of National Library of Ireland.
John Hubert served as a lieutenant in the Royal Horse Guards’ Supplementary Reserve and was a skilled horseman. From 1960 to 1985, he was captain of the All-Ireland Polo Club, and he was a member of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Windsor Park team. After retiring from the Army, John Hubert, Lord Waterford, returned to Curraghmore and became director of a number of enterprises to provide local employment, among them the Munster Chipboard company, Waterford Properties (a hotel group) and, later, Kenmare Resources, an Irish oil and gas exploration company. He was a founder patron of the Waterford International Festival of Light Opera.
In 1957 he married Lady Caroline Olein Geraldine Wyndham-Quin, daughter of the 6th Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl, of Adare Manor in County Limerick. The 8th Marquess and his wife Caroline carried out restoration of the Library and Yellow Drawing Room. Lord Waterford devoted much of his time to maintaining and improving the Curraghmore estate, with its 2,500 acres of farmland and 1,000 acres of woodland.
He was succeeded by his son, Henry de La Pore Beresford (b. 1958), the current Marquess. He and his wife now live in the House and have opened it up for visitors. His son is also a polo professional, and is known as Richard Le Poer.
The website tells us, as did the Guide, of the current family:
“The present day de la Poer Beresfords are country people by tradition. Farming, hunting, breeding horses and an active social calendar continues as it did centuries ago. Weekly game-shooting parties are held every season (Nov. through Feb.) and in spring, calves, foals and lambs can be seen in abundance on Curraghmore’s verdant fields. Polo is still played on the estate in summer. Throughout Ireland’s turbulent history, this family have never been ‘absentee landlords’ and they still provide diverse employment for a number of local people. Change comes slowly to Curraghmore – table linen, cutlery and dishes from the early nineteenth century are still in use.“
Behind the houses and stables on one side were more buildings, probably more accommodation for the workers, as well as more stables, riding areas and workplaces such as a forge. I guessed that one building had been a school but we later learned that the school for the workers’ children was in a different location, behind a the gate lodge by the entrance gate (nearly 2 km away, I think).
Last but not least, Curraghmore is now the venue for the latest music festival, Alltogethernow. There’s a stag’s head made by a pair of Native American artists, of wooden boughs that were gathered on the estate. It was constructed for the festival last year but still stands, ready for this year (2019)! Some of my friends will be at the festival. The house will be railed off for the event.
Help me to fund my creation and update of this website. It is created purely out of love for the subject and I receive no payment so any donation is appreciated!
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[1] 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.
[3] Thomas U. Sadleir and Page L. Dickinson. Georgian Mansions in Ireland with some account of the evolution of Georgian Architecture and Decoration. Printed for the Authors at the Dublin University Press, by Ponsonby & Gibbs, 1915.
Turtle Bunbury on his website writes of the history of the family:
“On his death on 2nd August 1521, Sir Piers was succeeded as head of the family by his eldest son, Sir Richard Power, later 1st Baron le Poer and Coroghmore…. In 1526, five years after his father’s death, Sir Richard married Lady Katherine Butler, a daughter of Piers, 8th Earl of Ormonde, and aunt of ‘Black Tom’ Butler, Queen Elizabeth’s childhood sweetheart. The marriage occurred at a fortuitous time for Power family fortunes. English influence in Ireland had been in decline for several decades and the rival Houses of Butler and Fitzgerald effectively ran the country. The Powers of Curraghmore were intimately connected, by marriage, with both.”
As a description of the times, and the issue of the succession of the Earls of Desmond, I shall include here some history panels I came across in the Desmond Banqueting Hall in Newcastle West in Limerick (see my entry on Office of Public Works properties in County Limerick):
Information panel on the Earls of Desmond, the Desmond Banqueting Hall in Newcastle West in Limerick.Information panel on the Earls of Desmond, the Desmond Banqueting Hall in Newcastle West in Limerick.
[6] Quoted p. 51, Thomas U. Sadleir and Page L. Dickinson. Georgian Mansions in Ireland with some account of the evolution af Georgian Architecture and Decoration. Printed for the Authors at the Dublin University Press, by Ponsonby & Gibbs, 1915.
[8] Mark Bence-Jones describes it in his book, 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.
In the past, in August 2016, I visited Huntington Castle in Clonegal, County Carlow. www.huntingtoncastle.com Open dates in 2026, but check website as sometimes closed for special events:
Jan 31, Feb 1, 7-8, 14-15, 21-22, 28, Mar 1, 7-8, 14-15, 21-22, 28-31, Apr 1-6, 11-12, 18-19, 25-26, May 1-31, June 1-30, July 1-31, Aug 1-31, Sept 1-30, Oct 3-4, 10-11, 17-18, 24-31, Nov 1, 7-8, 14-15, 21-22, 28-29, Dec 5-6, 12-13, 19-20, 11am-5pm
Fee: house and garden, adult €13.95, garden only €6.95, OAP/student, house and garden €12.50, garden only €6, child, house and garden €6.50, garden €3.50, group and family discounts available
2026 Diary of Irish Historic Houses (section 482 properties)
To purchase an A5 size 2026 Diary of Historic Houses (opening times and days are not listed so the calendar is for use for recording appointments and not as a reference for opening times) send your postal address to jennifer.baggot@gmail.com along with €20 via this payment button. The calendar of 84 pages includes space for writing your appointments as well as photographs of the historic houses. The price includes postage within Ireland. Postage to U.S. is a further €10 for the A5 size calendar, so I would appreciate a donation toward the postage – you can click on the donation link.
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Donation
Help me to fund my creation and update of this website. It is created purely out of love for the subject and I receive no payment so any donation is appreciated!
It’s magical! And note that you can stay at this castle – see their website! [1]
Huntington Castle stands in the valley of the River Derry, a tributary of the River Slaney, on the borders of Counties Carlow and Wexford, near the village of Clonegal. Built in 1625, it is the ancient seat of the Esmonde family, and is presently lived in by the Durdin-Robertsons. It passed into the Durdin family from the Esmonde family by marriage in the nineteenth century, so actually still belongs to the original family.
It was built as a garrison on the strategically important Dublin-Wexford route to protect a pass in the Blackstairs Mountains, on the site of a 14th century stronghold and abbey. It was also a coach stop on the Dublin travel route to Wexford. There was a brewery and a distillery in the area at the time. After fifty years, the soldiers moved out and the family began to convert it into a family home. [2]
There is a chapter on the Esmonds of Ballynastragh in The Wexford Gentry by Art Kavanagh and Rory Murphy. They tell us that it is believed that Geoffrey de Estmont was one of the thirty knights who accompanied Robert FitzStephen to Ireland in 1169 when the latter led the advance force that landed at Bannow that year.
Sir Geoffrey built a motte and baily at Lymbrick in the Barony of Forth in Wexford, and his son Sir Maurice built a castle on the same site. After Maurice’s death in 1225 the castle was abandoned and his son John built a castle on a new site which was called Johnstown Castle. John died in 1261. [3]
After the Cromwellian Confiscations, since the Johnstown Esmondes were Catholic, their lands were granted to Colonel Overstreet, and later came into the possession of the Grogan family. The Ballynastragh/Lymbrick lands were also confiscated and the Ballytramont property was granted to the Duke of Ablemarle (General Monck). The Esmondes later regained Ballynastragh.
A descendant, Laurence Esmonde (about 1570-1645) converted to Anglicanism and served in the armies of British Queen Elizabeth I and then James I.
He fought in the Dutch Wars against Spain, and later, in 1599, he commanded 150 foot soldiers in the Nine Years War, the battle led by an Irish alliance led mainly by Hugh O’Neill 2nd Earl of Tyrone and Hugh Roe O’Donnell against the British rule in Ireland.
Hugh O’Neill (c. 1540-1616) 2nd Earl of Tyrone, courtesy of the Ulster Museum.He was one of the rebels in the Nine Years War, who fought against Laurence Esmonde (b. about 1570, d. 1645).
In 1602 Lawrence Esmonde built a castle and a church at Luimneach near the modern village of Killinerin and near Ballynastragh, which he named Lymbrick after the original Norman motte and bailey in the Barony of Forth. [see 3]
He governed the fort of Duncannon from 1606-1646. In reward for his services, he was raised to the peerage in 1622 as Baron of Lymbrick in County Wexford and it seems that a few years after receiving this honour he built the core of the present Huntington Castle on the site of an earlier military keep. He built a three-storey fortified tower house, which forms the front facing down the avenue, according to Mark Bence-Jones in A Guide to Irish Country Houses. [4]
This original tower-house is made of rough-hewn granite. In her discussion of marriage in Making Ireland English, Jane Ohlmeyer writes that for the Irish, legitimacy of children didn’t determine inheritance, and so attitudes toward marriage, including cohabitation and desertion, were very different than in England. She writes that the first Baron Esmonde behaved in a way reminiscent of medieval Gaelic practices when he repudiated his first wife and remarried without a formal divorce. Laurence met Ailish, the sister of Morrough O’Flaherty (note that Turtle Bunbury tells us that she was a granddaughter of the pirate queen Grace O’Malley!) on one of his expeditions to Ulster, and married her. However, after the birth of their son, Thomas, she returned to her family, fearing that her son would be raised as a Protestant. [5]
Esmonde went on to marry Elizabeth Butler, a granddaughter of the ninth earl of Ormond (daughter of Walter Butler, and she was already twice widowed). He had no children by his second marriage and despite acknowledging Thomas to be his son, he did not admit that his first marriage was lawful and consequently had no official heir and his title Baron of Lymbrick became extinct after his death.
Baron Esmonde died after a siege of Duncannon fort by General Thomas Preston, 1st Viscount Tara, of the Confederates, who considered Esmonde a defender of the Parliamentarians (i.e. Oliver Cromwell’s men, the “roundheads”). Although his son did not inherit his title, he did inherit his property. [6]
After Lawrence’s death the Huntington estate and castle was occupied as a military station by Dudley Colclough from 1649-1674. [see 3]
Lawrence’s son Thomas Esmonde started his military career as an officer in the continental army of King Charles I. For his service at the siege of La Rochelle he was made a baronet of Ireland while his father still lived, and became 1st Baronet Esmonde of Ballynastragh, County Wexford, in 1629. He did not return to Ireland, however, until 1646 after his father’s death. He joined the rebels, the Confederate forces, who were fighting against the British forts which his father held. Taking after his mother, he was a resolute Catholic.
He married well, into other prominent Catholic families: first to a daughter of the Lord of Decies, Ellice Fitzgerald. She was the widow of another Catholic, Thomas Butler, 2nd Baron Caher, and with him had one daughter, Margaret, who had married Edmond Butler, 3rd/13th Baron Dunboyne a couple of years before her mother remarried in around 1629. Thomas and Ellice had two sons. Ellice died in 1644/45 and Thomas married secondly Joanne, a daughter of Walter Butler 11th Earl of Ormond. She too had been married before, to George Bagenal who built Dunleckney Manor in County Carlow. Her sons by Bagenal were also prominent Confederate Colonels. She was also the widow of Theobald Purcell of Loughmoe, County Tipperary. We came across the Purcells of Loughmoe on our visit to Ballysallagh in County Kilkenny (see my entry).
Thomas served as Member of Parliament for Enniscorthy, County Wexford from 1641 to 1642, during the reign of King James II.
His son Laurence succeeded as 2nd Baronet, and reoccupied Huntington Castle in 1682. [see 3]
Laurence made additions to Huntington Castle around 1680, and named it “Huntington” after the Esmonde’s “ancestral pile” in Lincolnshire, England [7]. He is probably responsible for some of the formal garden planting. The Irish Aesthete Robert O’Byrne discusses this garden in another blog entry [8]. He tells us that the yew walk, which stretches 130 yards, dates from the time of the Franciscan friary in the Middle Ages!
Laurence 2nd Baronet married Lucia Butler, daughter of another Colonel who fought in the 1641 uprising, Richard Butler (d. 1701) of Garryricken. Their daughter Frances married Morgan Kavanagh, “The MacMorrough” of the powerful Irish Kavanagh family.
The 3rd Baronet, another Laurence, served for a while in the French army.
A wing was constructed by yet another Sir Laurence, 4th Baronet, in 1720. The castle, as you can see, is very higgeldy piggedly, reflecting the history of its additions. The 4th Baronet had no heir so his brother John became the 5th Baronet. He had a daughter, Helen, who married Richard Durdin of Shanagarry, County Cork. The went out to the United States and founded Huntington, Pennsylvania. He had no sons, and died before his brother, Walter, who became the 6th Baronet. Walter married Joan Butler, daughter of Theobald, 4th Baron Caher. Walter and Joan also had no sons, only daughters.
In The Wexford Gentry we are told that the widow of the 6th Baronet was left in “straitened circumstances” after her husband Walter died in 1767, and sold the estate of Huntington to Sir James Leslie (1704-1770), the Church of Ireland Bishop of Limerick, in 1751. He was from the Tarbert House branch of the Leslie family in County Kerry. Huntington remained in his family until 1825 when it was leased to Alexander Durdin (1821-1892) and later bought by his descendants. [see 3, p. 106].
The line of inheritance looks very convoluted. I have consulted Burke’s Peerage. John Durdin migrated from England to Cork in around 1639. His descendant Alexander Durdin, born in 1712, of Shanagarry, County Cork, married four times! His second wife, Mary Duncan of Kilmoon House, County Meath, died shortly after giving birth to her son Richard, born in 1747. Alexander then married Anne née Vaux, widow of the grandson of William Penn the founder of Pennsylvania. Finally, he married Barbara St. Leger, with whom he had seven more sons and several daughters.
It was Alexander’s son Richard who married Helen Esmonde, daughter of the 4th Baronet, according to Burke’s Peerage. Richard then married Frances Esmonde, daughter of the 7th Baronet.
The 6th Baronet had only daughter so the title went to a cousin. This cousin was a descendant of Thomas Esmonde 1st Baronet of Ballynastragh, Thomas’s son James. James had a son Laurence (1670-1760), and it was his son, James (1701-1767) who became the 7th Baronet of Ballynastragh. It was his daughter Frances who married Richard Durdin of Huntington Pennsylvania, who had been previously married to Helen Esmonde.
Despite his two marriages, Richard had no son. His brother William Leader Durdin (1778-1849) married Mary Anne Drury of Ballinderry, County Wicklow and it was their son Alexander (1821-1892) who either inherited Huntington, or at least, according to The Wexford Gentry, leased and later purchased Huntington, the home of his ancestors.
Alexander also had only daughters. In 1880, his daughter Helen married Herbert Robertson, Baron Strathloch (a Scots feudal barony) and MP for a London borough. She inherited Huntington Castle when her father died. Together they made a number of late Victorian additions at the rear of the castle while their professional architect son, Manning Durdin-Robertson, an early devotee of concrete, carried out yet further alterations in the 1920s. Manning also created W. B. Yeats’s grave, and social housing in Dublin.
There is an irregular two storey range with castellated battlements and a curved bow and battlemented gable in front of the earlier building, which rises above them. The front battlemented range was added in the mid 1890s.
The older part of the castle includes a full height semicircular tower. Inside, when one enters through the portico facing onto the stable yard, one can see the outside of this full height semicircular tower, curving into the room to one’s right hand side, where there is even a little stone window set in the curved wall, and the round tower bulges into the stairway hall, clad with timber and covered in armour.
We entered the castle through a door in the battlemented porticon next to the double height bow facing onto the stableyard and courtyard. Inside the portico are statues which may have been from the Abbey – I forgot to ask our tour guide, as there was just so much to see and learn about.
We were not allowed to take photos inside, except for in the basement, but you can see some pictures on the official website [1] and also on the wonderful blog of the Irish Aesthete [10].
There were wonderful old treasures in the house including armour chest protections in the hallway along the stairs, which was one of the first things to catch my attention as we entered. Our guide let us hold it – it was terribly heavy, and so a soldier must have been weighed down by his armour – wearing chain mail underneath his shielding armour. The chest protection piece we held was made of cast iron! She showed us the “proof mark” on the inside. Cast iron could shatter, our guide told us, so a piece of armour would be tested, leaving a little hole, which proved that it would not shatter when worn and hit by a projectile or sword. This piece dates all the way back to Oliver Cromwell’s time!
To the right when one enters is a room full of animal heads and weapons. There is a huge bison head from India and a black buck, and a sawfish from the Caribbean. A gharial crocodile hanging on the wall was killed by Nora Parsons at the age of seventeen in India! There is also the shell of an armadillo. The room also has a lovely wooden chimneypiece and there is another in the hallway, which has a Tudor style stucco ceiling. We went up a narrow stairway lined as Bence-Jones describes “with wainscot or half-timbered studding.”
Manning Durdin-Robertson married Nora Kathleen Parsons, from Birr Castle. She wrote The Crowned Harp. Memories of the Last Years of the Crown in Ireland, an important memorial of the last years of English rule in Ireland [11]. I ordered a copy of the book from my local library! It’s a lovely book and an enjoyable rather “chatty” read. She writes a bit about her heritage, which you can see in my entry on another section 482 castle, Birr Castle. She tells us about life at the time, which seems to have been very sociable! She writes a great description of social rank:
The hierarchy of Irish social order was not defined, it did not need to be, it was deeply implicit. In England the nobility were fewer and markedly more important than over here and they were seated in the mansions considered appropriate…. The top social rows were then too well-known and accepted to be written down but, because a new generation may be interested and amused, I will have a shot at defining an order so unreal and preposterous as to be like theatricals in fancy dress. Although breeding was essential it still had to be buttressed by money.
Row A: peers who were Lord or Deputy Lieutenants, High Sheriffs and Knights of St. Patrick. If married adequately their entrenchment was secure and their sons joined the Guards, the 10th Hussars or the R.N. [Royal Navy, I assume] Row B: Other peers with smaller seats, ditto baronets, solvent country gentry and young sons of Row A, (sons Green Jackets, Highland regiments, certain cavalry, gunners and R.N.). Row A used them for marrying their younger children. Row C: Less solvent country gentry, who could only allow their sons about £100 a year. These joined the Irish Regiments which were cheap; or transferred to the Indian army. They were recognised and respected by A and B and belonged to the Kildare Street Club. Row D: Loyal professional people, gentlemen professional farmers, trade, large retail or small wholesale, they could often afford more expensive Regiments than Row C managed. Such rarely cohabited with Rows A and B but formed useful cannon fodder at Protestant Bazaars and could, if they were really liked, achieve Kildare Street.
Absurd and irritating as it may seem today, this social hierarchy dominated our acceptances.
I had the benefit of always meeting a social cross section by playing a good deal of match tennis…. The top Rows rarely joined clubs and their play suffered….There were perhaps a dozen (also very loyal) Roman Catholic families who qualified for the first two Rows; many more, equally loyal but less distinguished, moved freely with the last two.
Amongst these “Row A” Roman Catholics were the Kenmares, living in a long gracious house at Killarney. Like Bantry House, in an equally lovely situation.…”
There are some notable structures inside the building, as Robert O’Byrne notes. “The drawing room has 18th century classical plaster panelled walls beneath a 19th century Perpendicular-Gothic ceiling. Some passages on the ground floor retain their original oak panelling, a number of bedrooms above being panelled in painted pine. The dining room has an immense granite chimneypiece bearing the date 1625, while those in other rooms are clearly from a century later.” [10]
The dining room, the original hall of the castle, is hung with Bedouin tents, brought back from Tunisia in the 1870s by Herbert Robertson, Helen Durdin’s husband. The large stone fireplace has the date stone 1625, and a stained glass window traces out the Esmonde and Durdin genealogy. We know that the room is very old by the thickness of the walls. The room has an Elizabethan ceiling, and portraits of family members hang on the walls. You can see a photograph of the room on the Castle Tours page of the website. There is a portrait of Barbara St. Leger, from Doneraile in Cork, who married Alexander Durdin (1712-1807), the one who also married the two Esmonde daughters. It is said that Barbara wore a set of keys at her waist, and that sometimes ghostly jingling can be heard in the castle.
Next to the dining room is a ladies drawing room with white panelled walls and a stucco ceiling with Gothic drop decoration and compartments. I think it was in this room the guide told us that the panelling is made of plaster, created to look like wood panelling. You can see some photographs of these rooms on the castle’s facebook page. The ceiling may seem low for an elegant room but we must remember that it originally housed a barracks! This room also is part of the original structure – the doorway into the next room shows how thick the wall is – about the length of two arms.
Another drawing room is hung with tapestry, which would have kept the residents a bit warmer in winter. There are beautiful stuccoed ceilings, which you can see on the website, and a deep bay window with Gothic arches in the bars of the window.
The Tapestry Room, Huntington Castle, photograph courtesy of Huntington Castle website.The portrait over the fireplace is, I believe, Helen Durdin who married Herbert Robertson.I think this room was added to the castle in 1760.
Huntington was one of the first country houses in Ireland to have electricity, and in order to satisfy local interest a light was kept burning on the front lawn so that the curious could come up and inspect it.
I loved the light and plant filled conservatory area, with a childish drawing on one wall. The glass ceiling is draped in grape vines. The picture is of the estate, drawn by the four children of the house in 1928, Olivia Durdin-Robertson and her brother Derry and sister Barbara, children of Manning and Nora. I loved the pictures of the children themselves swimming in the river, wearing little swimming hats! The picture even has the telephone wires in it. The conservatory area is part of an addition on the back of the castle, added around 1860.
The conservatory is in the brick and battlemented addition to one side of the castle. From the formal gardens to the side of the castle a different vantage shows more of the castle and one can see the original tower house, and the additions.
We were allowed to take photos in the basement, which used to house dungeons, and now holds the “Temple of Isis.” It also contains a well, which was the reason the castle was situated on this spot.
In the 1970s two of the four children of Manning Durdin-Robertson, the writer and mystic Olivia Durdin-Robertson, who was a friend of W.B. Yeats and A.E. Moore, and her brother Laurence (nicknamed Derry), and his wife Bobby, converted the undercroft into a temple to the Egyptian Goddess Isis, founding a new religion. In 1976 the temple became the foundation centre for the Fellowship of Isis [11]. I love the notion of a religion that celebrates the earthy aspects of womanhood, and I purchased a copy of Olivia Durdin-Robertson’s book in the coffee shop. The religion takes symbols from Egyptian religion, as you can see in my photos of this marvellous space:
Turtle Bunbury has a video of the Fellowship of Isis on his website [12]! You can get a flavour of what their rituals were like initially. Perhaps they are similar today. The religion celebrates the Divine Feminine.
After a tour of the castle, we then went to the back garden, coming out from the basement by a door under the stone balcony. According to its website:
“The Gardens were mainly laid out in the 1680s by the Esmondes. They feature impressive formal plantings and layouts including the Italian style ‘Parterre’ or formal gardens, as well the French lime Avenue (planted in 1680). The world famous yew walk is a significant feature which is thought to date to over 500 years old and should not be missed.
“Later plantings resulted in Huntington gaining a number of Champion trees including more than ten National Champions. The gardens also feature early water features such as stew ponds and an ornamental lake as well as plenty to see in the greenhouse and lots of unusual and exotic plants and shrubs.“”Later plantings resulted in Huntington gaining a number of Champion trees including more than ten National Champions. The gardens also feature early water features such as stew ponds and an ornamental lake as well as plenty to see in the greenhouse and lots of unusual and exotic plants and shrubs.“
There is space next to the cafe that can be rented out for events:
A few plants were for sale in the yard. A shop off the cafe sells local made craft, pottery, and books. The stables and farmyard buildings are kept in good condition and buzzed with with the business of upkeep of the house and gardens.
[3] Kavanagh, Art and Rory Murphy, The Wexford Gentry. Published by Irish Family Names, Bunclody, Co Wexford, Ireland, 1994.
[4] 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.
[5] p. 171, Ohlmeyer, Jane. Making Ireland English. The Irish Aristocracy in the Seventeenth Century. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2012. See also pages 43, 273, 444 and 451.
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Irish Historic Houses 
