The present work, a portrait of the second Arthur Guinness (1768-1855), was exhibited at the RHA in 1827 and is also listed in Strickland. Arthur was the second son of Guinness founder, Arthur Guinness (1725-1803) and is credited with greatly developing the business at a time of great change economically and politically. He also extended the operations of the family into such areas as flour milling and banking. Arthurs interest in banking led him to being appointed to the Court of Directors of the Bank of Ireland and later becoming its Govenor. He was also chairman of Dublin Chamber of Commerce and was elected a member of Dublin Corporation. He married Ann Lee in 1793 and had nine children, including Benjamin Lee Guinness who was born in 1798. The letter held by the sitter identifies him and is addressed at Beaumont House, his childhood home, which is now part of Beaumont Hospital on the north side of Dublin. Views of Beaumont House were drawn by his daughter, Mary Jane after some remodeling in the 1850s (see Painting Ireland, Topographical Views from Glin Castle, ref. nos.143 & 144).
Benjamin Lee Guinness by Stephen Catterson Smith Jr courtesy of Adam’s auction 13 Oct 2015, Provenance: St. Annes, Clontarf, and by descent in the family. Born in Dublin in 1849, Stephen was eldest son of portrait painter Stephen Catterson Smith, PRHA and Anne Wyke, herself an artist who exhibited occasionally at the RHA. Stephen Jun. had intended to join the army but owing to financial issues he was unable to enter that profession and instead settled down as a painter in his fathers studio. He is listed in the RHA records as having first exhibited there in 1871 with a Portrait. His father died the following year and he effectively took over the practice and continued the family tradition of painting the great and the good of Irish society. He was a regular visitor to Scotland and it was whilst there in 1905 that he caught a severe cold which permanently affected his health. He died on November 24th 1912, at his home, 42 St. Stephens Green in the same room in which he was born. Walter Strickland notes that Smith Jun. made a number of copies of pictures painted by his father, including portraits of the present Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness and his wife Lady Guinness, which were done, we must presume, for Lord Ardilaun. The original portrait of Benjamin Lee Guinness was painted in 1862/3 and exhibited at the RHA in 1863.
Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness, 1st Baronet (1798 – 1868) was the third son of Arthur Guinness II and his wife Anne Lee and grandson of the first Arthur Guinness, founder of the eponymous brewery. While his father had developed the family business and had extended the familys range of commercial interests, it was Benjamin Lee that brought the brewery onto a different level altogether. By the time of his fathers death in 1855, he had become Irelands richest man by developing a huge export trade.
He enjoyed a successful political career, being elected Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1851 and taking a seat in the House of Commons in 1865, a position he retained until his death. His philanthropy was well known, particularly in his home city of Dublin. He undertook in the 1860s the restoration of St. Patricks Cathedral and is reported as having spent the enormous sum of £150,000 on the enterprise. His Dublin home was what is now known as Iveagh House at 80, St. Stephens Green and in 1852 he purchased Ashford Castle in Co.Mayo adding two large Victorian extensions to the castellated mansion. An avid gardener, he extended the estate to 26,000 acres and planted many thousands of trees and oversaw the development of the massive woodlands. On his death in 1868, he was succeeded in the baronetcy by his eldest son, Arthur (later Lord Ardilaum) who took over the brewery with his brother Edward (later Lord Iveagh). His daughter, Anne (1839 – 1889) married William, Lord Plunket in 1863. He is buried in the family vault in Mount Jerome Cemetery in Dublin.
James Gunning of Castle Coote, County Roscommon (d.1767), Father of the Celebrated beauties, Elizabeth, Maria and Catherine, with Medallion Portrait of his Daughter, Maria Date/ c.1760 Engraver Richard Houston, Irish, 1721/22-1775, courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.Elizabeth Gunning (1733-1790) was a famous Irish beauty who married the 6th Duke of Hamilton in 1752. She then married John Campbell, the future 5th Duke of Argyll.Elizabeth, Duchess of Hamilton and Brandon (née Gunning), (1734-1770) Engraver Richard Houston, Irish, 1721/22-1775 After Francis Cotes, English, 1726-1770, courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.She was the daughter of Colonel John Gunning (1700-1767) of Castle Coote, County Roscommon and of Bridget Bourke (1716-1779), daughter of Theobald Bourke (1681-1741) 6th Viscount of Mayo.Elizabeth married James Hamilton, 6th Duke of Hamilton of Scotland.Photograph courtesy of Glin castle website.The portrait is Margaretta Maria Gwyn (1769-1801), wife of John Bateman Fitzgerald (1765-1803) 23rd Knightof Glin, I believe.
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We visited Swainstown House on Monday 19th August 2019, during Heritage Week. Stephen took the entire week off work. It was an opportunity to visit the section 482 Houses, as all are open that week!
Swainstown is a house built in 1750 of two storeys with a seven bay centre block attached to two wings by curved sweeps with Ionic pilasters, in the Palladian style. It is not known who the architect was, but the Irish Aesthete suggests that Richard Castle may have had a hand in designing it. The wings originally housed the servants’ quarters and the stables. The centre block has a breakfront of three bays, and an arched pediment over the front door. The Irish Aesthete comments on the limestone window lintels, which he says show a “whimsical caprice,”along with the exaggeratedly tall and narrow doorcase [1]. I think the caprice of the lintels must be that the ones on the first storey resemble the ones on the lower storey upside-down. The front door is approached by a broad flight of stone steps.
I always like when the house is still owned by descendants, and Swainstown is one such property. It was built for Nathaniel Preston, an ancestor of the current owner, John “Punch” Preston. Caroline, the listed contact, is his wife. I contacted Caroline in advance, and she told me that Anne, who stood in as tour guide while Caroline was away, would meet us at the door at 2pm. Indeed she was there as promised, and gave us a tour of the house. “Punch” farms the land, and his son Arthur now also farms and has started a chemical-free produce business, Swainstown Farm. [2] We came across Punch in the yard in a tractor when we explored the grounds after the house tour. Caroline and her husband live in the main house and her son in what was formerly the servants’ area.
Nathaniel was given the lands of Swainstown by his father, John (1611 – 1686). According to a website about the history of Navan, John Preston was a grandson of Jenico Preston, 3rd Viscount Gormanston [3]. After much digging, I have found that he was in fact the great grandson. [4]
Stephen found this reference to John Preston in his ancestor Earl George Macartney’s papers! Stephen’s six-times great aunt, Elizabeth Winder, married George Macartney (1695-1779). Earl Macartney recorded genealogical data of some prominent families in Ireland. He writes that John Preston, Alderman of Dublin, was son of Hugh Preston of Bolton in Lancashire. The Prestons originally came from Lancashire.
John’s grandfather Martin, although being the son of Viscount Gormanston, was the youngest son so did not inherit a fortune. John Preston therefore had to build up his own fortune, and so he went into business as a merchant in Dublin. There are conflicting accounts of how John acquired land beyond Dublin. According to a website on Bellinter House, a house built on lands which John purchased, he bought up property after Oliver Cromwell confiscated lands of those who had fought against his Parliamentary armies. The land of Swainstown previously belonged to the Nangle family, an Anglo-Norman family who held the title Baron of Navan. They were Catholic and fought in the army against Cromwell, so were outlawed and their lands confiscated. Confiscated lands were parcelled out to Cromwell’s soldiers as a means of payment for their services. Many of these soldiers sold the land if they had no interest in farming or of living in Ireland. John Preston took advantage of this to establish his family country seats, acquiring 7,859 acres of land in County Meath and Queens County (now Laois) in 1666.
Bellinter House, County Meath, photograph courtesy of Bellinter website. Bellinter is now a hotel, https://www.bellinterhouse.com
The website also tells us of a clever ploy utilised by Preston to protect his land from being returned to its original owners. He placed 1,737 acres in trust for the keeping of two schools, one in Navan and one in Ballyroan in Laois. The website for Bellinter House tells us that this placing of land in trust for schools was probably done in order to make it more difficult for the original owners to seek return of their property, since charitable institutions were now involved! [5]
There is a note, however, on the Navan History website, that “It is reputed that John Preston married a daughter of Baron Nangle of Navan and that this was how he came into the lands in Co. Meath. However, this cannot be confirmed.” I think instead that John Preston’s mother was a Nangle, Mary Margaret, grand-daughter of Thomas Nangle, the 17th Baron of Navan. He may therefore have come into some of his land through his mother. Using the website ancestry.co.uk, I believe Mary Margaret’s father was Jocelyn Nangle, and that he fought in the rebellion of 1641. He probably had land confiscated, but as his family supported Charles II, much of their land was restored to them. A study of the history of the Prestons and the families with which they intermarried would certainly give a fascinating picture of land ownership in the tumultuous and violent times of the Civil War between the armies of Charles I and Oliver Cromwell and struggles for land ownership and restoration under King Charles II.
As well as being a merchant, John Preston was also involved in government and administration. He was appointed as Clerk of the Tholsel (the seat of Dublin city council) in 1650. The Tholsel building stood on the site that is now Dublin’s City Hall. Two days after being appointed as Clerk he was elected as Alderman in the Corporation of Dublin. A few years later he was elected to be Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1653.
John was elected as a Member of Parliament for Navan in 1661. His land ownership was confirmed under the Act of Settlement after the restoration of the monarchy to Charles II. He also owned property in Dublin and he donated the site for the “Hospital and Free School of King Charles II” or more informally called Blue Coat School, a school which was founded in 1669, which is now the home of the Law Society of Ireland. The building of the school became quite controversial as it became a tool for showing off one’s wealth and generosity, and subsequently the building, built by Thomas Ivory, was far grander than that required for a school.
John married, first, Mary Morris of Lancashire, and had three children with her: Mary, Phineas and Samuel. She died in 1654 and he married a second time, to Katherine Ashburnham, widow of a John Sherlock. He married a third time, to Anne Tighe, who was the daughter of Richard Tighe who had also served as an Alderman and then Mayor of Dublin, and had two more sons, John and Nathaniel [6]. He distributed the land he had acquired to his four sons: Phineas, Samuel, John and Nathaniel.
Ardsallagh, which had formerly been a property of the Nangles, went to his son Phineas, although Phineas died before his father so it went to Phineas’s son, John. By the way, it is exciting to note as a former philosophy student that Ardsallagh passed down to the English philosopher Bertrand Russell! According to the Bellinter website, Ardsallagh was passed down through the family and was left by the heirless George James Ludlow, Third Earl of Ludlow, to the Duke of Bedford, as they shared the same political views. This Duke willed the property to his brother Lord John Russell, who became Prime Minister of England. From him, the estate passed down to Bertrand Russell!
Ardsallagh House, County Tipperary, courtesy of myhome.ie
John’s second son Samuel inherited land in County Laois (around Ballyroan and Emo, although Emo Court was not built for another 100 years, by Joshua Dawson in 1790). He married Mary Sandford, daughter of Theophilus Sandford of Moyglare, County Meath.
The third son, John, inherited land in Balsoon, County Meath, and built Bellinter House, near to Swainstown, and Nathaniel, the fourth son, inherited Swainstown.
Nathaniel was born around 1678. In 1713 he followed in the footsteps of his father and was elected M.P. for Navan, and he held this position until 1760, the year he died. He married Anne Dawson in 1719, sister of Joshua Dawson (1660-1725) who developed Dawson Street, Dublin (as well as Anne Street – probably named for his wife Anne [nee Carr] and Grafton Street, and also organised construction of the Mansion House in Dublin in 1710 which was purchased in 1715 to be the official residence of the Mayor of Dublin). [The Navan history website says Nathaniel’s wife was a niece of Joshua Dawson but according to the Peerage website, she was a sister.] Nathaniel’s daughter Anne married Joseph Leeson, 1st Earl of Milltown – another prominent Dublin street name! He had Russborough House in County Wicklow built, so Nathaniel’s daughter married very well!
The Navan history website quotes a lovely description of Nathaniel Preston, written by Mrs. Delaney:
“an old prim beau, as affected as a fine lady: but an honest man, obstinate in his opinions, but the pink of civility in his own house, which is as neat as a cabinet, and kept with an exactness which is really rather troublesome.‟ [7]
Mary Delany (née Granville) (1700-1788) Paper collage artist; memoir and letter writer, by John Opie, 1792, courtesy of National Portrait Gallery NPG 1030.
Nathaniel’s second son, also named Nathaniel, born in 1723, became a Protestant clergyman. His older brother died, and he inherited Swainstown. Reverend Nathaniel died in 1796 and left Swainstown in turn to his son, also named Nathaniel (the third, 1752-1812) – the name was passed on through the family and continues today. [8]
Reverend Nathaniel (1724-1796) married first Alice Dillon, daughter of John of Lismullen. They had several children. After she died, he married again, this time to Mary Hamilton, granddaughter of Gustavus Hamilton, 1st Viscount Boyne, and they didn’t have any more children.
The Preston ancestors are interred in a vault under Kilmessan Church, next to Swainstown.
Mary Preston youngest daughter of the Hon. Henry Hamilton, by Hugh Douglas Hamilton Adam’s auction 20 Sept 2015.Mary Hamilton married in 1764 (as his second wife) the second Nathaniel Preston (1724-1796), Reverend, of Swainstown, Co. Meath. Her father was a younger son of Viscount Boyne of Stackallan, Co. Meath and her parents were intimate with Mrs Delaney who of them said – “I never saw a couple better suited than Mr Hamilton and his wife, their house like themselves looks cheerful and neat…., they have four children, whose behaviour shows the sense of their parents”. Mary’s brother, Sackville Hamilton became a competent and respected Civil Servant.
Swainstown is built on land near an old abbey – Anne showed us the remains of the abbey on the property.
We were also shown Caroline Preston’s book, This Tumult, when we told Anne that we honed our interest in history first by researching our family genealogies. Caroline too researched her family history and what she found was so interesting that she wrote a book about what she found!
It was raining on and off, so we didn’t get to explore the grounds as much as we would have liked, but Anne did show us around close to the house and I took some photographs. I envied them the pool they had installed a few years ago! Also the beautiful grounds.
I love the bridge which we could see from the back of the house! Arthur is developing a path through the woods, that will lead to the ice house, which is being restored. I look forward to returning for a walk in the woods!
According to the peerage website http://www.thepeerage.com/p14786.htm#i147860, the Reverend Nathaniel Preston (second Nathaniel) married Mary Hamilton. However, as the third Nathaniel was born in 1752, Mary Hamilton must have been Reverend Nathaniel’s second wife, as he married Mary Hamilton in 1763.
The Navan history website also claims that this Reverend Nathaniel served on the Grand Jury of Meath in 1801 and 1811, and that his wife Alice’s father John Dillon, his son Charles, and Nathaniel Preston formed a company to exploit a vein of copper ore on the Walterstown lands of Nathaniel Preston. As the second Nathaniel died in 1796, I wonder if it was the third Nathaniel Preston who served on the Grand Jury and who formed the mining company i.e. not the Reverend but the Reverend’s son.
Nathaniel (the third, b. 1752 died 1812) also had a son named Nathaniel (the fourth, b. 1813), who inherited and lived in Swainstown. The fourth Nathaniel is said on the peerage website to have died in 1840, but elsewhere is said to have had his son Nathaniel (the fifth), ie. Nathaniel Francis Preston, in 1843, so the death in 1840 does not make sense. The Bomford website says he died in 1853, which makes more sense. The fourth Nathaniel (b. 1813) married Margaret Winter in 1839. When his father died he inherited Swainstown, which at the time consisted of about 320 acres.
Nathaniel Francis Preston married Augusta Florence Caulfield of Bloomfield, Mullingar, in 1865. According to the Navan history website, a cousin, Arthur John Preston, inherited Swainstown from this Nathaniel, in 1903. Arthur John Preston had a son, John Nathaniel (Nat) Preston. Arthur John was killed along with most of the Dublin Fusiliers in Gallipoli in August 1915. He had written letters to his wife and to his father at Swainstown the day he was killed. His son, Nat, born the same year his father died, inherited Swainstown. He let the lands while in agricultural college in England, then returned to farm the land. He also established a saw mill. He married Madeleine Emily Shirley in 1938, and they had five children. John Peter William Preston, “Punch,” was born in 1947 and inherited Swainstown, and married Caroline.
“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 Marquis 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.
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.
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.
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 Marquis 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.”James Beresford (1816-1841), 4th son of Henry De la Poer Beresford, by Joseph Clover, courtesy of Ingestrue Hall Residential Arts Centre.
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.
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.
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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.
Stephen and I visited Altidore Castle on a grey Saturday, June 1st 2019. I contacted Philip Emmet beforehand and he suggested we come at 3pm for a tour of the house. Philip Emmet is a descendant of the family of the Irish rebel Robert Emmet, who was hung for treason in 1803.
Execution of Robert Emmet, copyright 1897 by Kurz & Allison-Art publishers, Chicago
We arrived early and Philip’s wife Vicky suggested we look around the gardens until the other couple who were coming for the tour arrived. We had spied a pond to our left on our way up the long driveway, and there were stone steps up from the driveway across from the front of the house to a large rectangle of a lawn, edged by huge rhododendrons, so we headed off to explore.
We only had about fifteen minutes, so after looking at the lawn above, we went down toward the pond and the gardens directly outside the house. We found a lovely sunken garden with two lions guarding it, containing a “wishing well.”
We walked around the back, I was conscious that we could look in the windows and not wanting to disturb or pry, I carefully kept my back to the windows and gazed at the impressive view of the wide valley below. What a view!
We headed back to the front of the house then. It is a most odd-looking home. It’s quite small but has imposing castellations. This must be why it is called a “toy fort” (by Mark Bence-Jones) or a “toy castle” (National Inventory of Historic Architecture).
Mark Bence-Jones describes it in his A Guide to Irish Country Houses:
A charming late-Georgian “toy fort,” with four octagonal corner turrets; of two storeys on the entrance side and three on the other sides, where the ground falls away. Despite the battlements on the turrets, the house is more Classical than Gothic; it is symmetrical and has a central Venetian window over a pillared porch. [1]
The house was built for General Thomas Pearce around 1730. It may have been designed by his nephew, Edward Lovett Pearce. General Thomas Pearce (ca. 1670-1739) was a British Army officer, a privy councillor and member of Parliament. He was appointed to Ireland in 1715, ultimately becoming General of His Majesty’s Forces in Ireland. He represented Limerick in Parliament from 1727 until his death. He married Mary daughter of William Hewes of Wrexham, and they had three sons and two daughters. His daughter Anne married her first cousin, Edward Lovett Pearce. [2]
Edward Lovett Pearce was a young Irish architect, born in 1699. He favoured the Palladian style of architecture and studied initially under his cousin the English Baroque architect John Vanbrugh. Lovett Pearce is best known for his work on Castletown House and the Irish Houses of Parliament, which later became the Bank of Ireland on College Green in Dublin. In Italy he met the Florentine architect Alessandro Galilei who was making plans for Castletown. Pearce seems to have taken over the work on Castletown based on Galilei’s plans.
Pearce was also commissioned by his uncle-in-law Thomas Coote (Coote married Edward Lovett Pearce’s aunt Anne Lovett – she was Thomas Coote’s third wife) to build Bellamont House in Cootehill, County Cavan (around 1730). He also designed two houses on Henrietta Street in Dublin, including number 9, for his cousin Mrs. Thomas Carter, and he designed Summerhill, County Meath. He died of an abscess at the young age of 34 in his home The Grove in Stillorgan, Dublin, and is buried in St. Mary’s Graveyard, now a closed graveyard in Donnybrook, which I was lucky enough to see in a tour a couple of years ago.
We followed the other couple in through the porch to meet Philip Emmet, who welcomed us. We stepped into a large high-ceilinged hall.
The inside of the front hall and staircase is odd as the windows don’t look as if they fit the plans, or else the staircase has been moved. Philip does not know a lot about the background of the house. The Irish Historic Houses website states that Altidore was enlarged and modified for a subsequent owner, Major Henry Brownrigg. [3] We did not go upstairs, but Mark Bence-Jones tells us that the staircase is “of stout but elegant joinery with a scrolled end to its balusters.”
By 1773 the house was owned by Reverend William Blachford, Librarian of Marsh’s Library in Dublin. Philip has a portrait of Reverend Blachford’s daughter Mary Tighe, a poet who was famous in her time and was grouped with the Romantic writers Byron and the revolutionary Mary Wollestonecraft. The poet John Keats admired her work. I must borrow her book, Psyche or the Legend of Love from the library!
Mary Tighe (1747-1791), Poet, by George Romney, courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.
Mary, nee Blachford, had a severely religious upbringing. William Blachford died in 1773 leaving his wife Theodosia (daughter of William Tighe of Rossana, County Wicklow), a son John and daughter Mary. Theodosia converted to Methodism, founded by John Wesley, and was involved in many charitable works including supporting the Leeson Street Magdalen Asylum for unmarried mothers, and the Female Orphan House on Prussia Street in Dublin. [4]
Theodosia Blachford née Tighe (c.1780) A self portrait, seated three-quarter length, with her children, Mary and John courtesy of Adam’s 2 April 2008.William Tighe of Rosanna! Portrait by by Charles Jervas (c.1675-1739), courtesy of Adams auction 19 Oct 2021.
At the young age of 21, Mary married her cousin Henry Tighe (1771-1836), son of William Tighe of Woodstock, County Kilkenny. Henry served as an MP in the Irish Parliament representing Inistioge, County Kilkenny.
Mary contracted tuberculosis and lived her final months as an invalid in her brother-in-law William Tighe’s estate of Woodstock, where she died at the age of 37.
A marble statue of Mary, commissioned by her son after her death and carved by Lorenzo Bartolini of Tuscany, stood in the hall of Woodstock before the house was burnt in 1922. Although the original statue was destroyed in the fire at Woodstock, the plaster original of Bartolini’s statue is in the Accademia in Florence. There is also another life-size sculpture of her by English sculptor John Flaxman in her mausoleum in the graveyard attached to the former Augustinian priory in Inistioge, County Kilkenny. [5]
Mary Blachford Tighe (1772-1810) as sculpted by Lorenzo Bartolini ca. 1820, photograph from National Library of Ireland, flickr constant commons.
Woodstock was not rebuilt after it was burned in 1922 and it remains a ruin but the gardens are open to the public.
Reverend Blachford’s son John inherited Altidore and lived there with his wife Mary Anne, daughter of Henry Grattan MP (1746-1820) from nearby Tinnehinch [6]. I don’t think they had any children.
Henry Grattan (1746-1820).
There was another fascinating portrait in one of the beautifully decorated rooms, this time of an Indian military man, who was a servant of an ancestor of Philip’s wife. This ancestor, named Dennehy, worked in India under Queen Victoria, and introduced Victoria to Indian servants – and through him she met her beloved Indian servant, about whom, and their relationship, there was a movie a few years ago, “Victoria and Abdul”! Philip’s wife was in Osbourne, Victoria’s home on the Isle of Wight, and noticed that there is a series of these pictures, matching her own, of Queen Victoria’s other Indian servants. Stephen and I also loved the tv series about young Victoria.
Before the Emmets purchased the house in 1944, the Dopping-Hempenstals owned the house, from 1834-1918. They owned extensive lands in County Wicklow. They rarely lived in Altidore and instead leased it out. At one stage it housed a tuberculosis sanatorium. According to the Irish Historic Houses website, Altidore changed hands many times over the next decades and was owned by two different banks on separate occasions.
Finally, in 1945, James Albert Garland Emmet (who went by “Garland”) purchased the house on three hundred acres from Percy Burton, a bachelor. The Emmets carried out extensive restoration and created a large new garden, centred on a pair of canals from the early 18th century garden layout. These are the bodies of water we saw on the way in. The present owners, Philip (grandson of Garland Emmet) and his wife Vicky, have farmed the estate organically for nearly 20 years.
We moved from the drawing rooms to the dining room. The walls are adorned with fine medallions of Classical figures in stucco relief. They were uncovered when the walls were being redone, under layers of paint and wallpaper! The Irish Aesthete writes about them, and has beautiful photographs on his website:
“One of the past year’s most fascinating personal discoveries was the dining room at Altidore Castle, County Wicklow …. Much of the interior decoration dates from that period [ca. 1730], including the dining room’s panelling. In the last quarter of the 18th century, however, additional ornamentation was added with the introduction of oval and circular plaster medallions featuring female classical deities and graces: this would have been around the period that Altidore was owned by Rev William Blachford … During the same period the interiors of nearby Mount Kennedy – designed by James Wyatt in 1772 but only built under the supervision of Thomas Cooley the following decade – was being decorated by the celebrated stuccadore Michael Stapleton. The medallions are not unlike those seen in Lucan House, County Dublin where Stapleton also worked: might he have had a hand in the plasterwork at Altidore?” [7]
Michael Stapleton (1747-1801) was a famous Irish stuccodore, known as the “Dublin Adam,” referring to the Scottish architect and interior designer Robert Adam (1728-1792), who worked in the neo-Classical style of plasterwork. [8]
Philip told us that his ancestors, the Emmets, had to leave Ireland after Robert (1778-1803) and his brother Thomas Addis Emmet rebelled. Thomas Addis Emmet moved to the United States.
Robert Emmet. Published by Fishel, Alder & Schwartz 64 Fulton St. New York (1880), coloured and framed and entitled ”Robert Emmett, The Irish Patriot” courtesy Adam’s auction 18 April 2012Thomas Addis Emmett (1764-1827) by William Carroll, bearing inscription on back Thomas Addis Emmet by William O’Carroll, 57 Henry Street Dublin, courtesy of Adam’s auction 22 Nov 2015.
Thomas Addis Emmet (1764-1827) was a lawyer and politician from a wealthy Anglo-Irish Protestant family. He sought to end discrimination against Catholics and Protestant Dissenters such as Presbyterians. He tried to find a peaceful way of introducing a non-sectarian democracy to Ireland.
He acted as a legal advisor for the Society of United Irishmen. However, the United Irishmen were declared illegal, so efforts for a peaceful Catholic emancipation were abandoned. Instead, the United Irishmen sought independence from Britain by armed rebellion. Thomas Addis Emmet advocated waiting until the French had arrived for the rebellion, but Edward Fitzgerald (1763-1798) was more impatient and decided to go ahead with the rebellion in 1798. British intelligence infiltrated the United Irishmen and arrested most of the leaders, including Thomas Addis Emmet, on the eve of their rebellion on March 12, 1798. On his release in 1802 he went to Brussels, where he was visited by his brother Robert in October that year, who informed of the preparations for a fresh rising in Ireland in conjunction with French aid. However, at that stage France and Britain were briefly at peace, and the Emmets’ pleas for help were turned down by Napoleon.
I came across this painting of the Emmet house in St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin in the museum at Lissadell.
Thomas received news of the failure of Robert Emmet’s rising in July 1803 in Paris. Robert was hung for treason in front of St. Catherine’s Church in Thomas Street in Dublin on September 20th 1803. Thomas Addis then emigrated to the United States and joined the New York bar where he had lucrative practice.
Thomas Addis Emmet became a member of the “New York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves, and Protecting Such of Them as Have Been, or May Be Liberated,” commonly known as the New-York Manumission Society (N-YMS). Emmet denounced slavery for destroying the character, dignity and natural rights of man. [9]
Thomas Addis’s son John Patten Emmet (1796–1842) studied medicine and developed an interest in Chemistry. He was a chemistry professor at the University of Virginia from 1825 until his death in 1842.
Thomas Addis Emmet’s grandson, son of John Patten Emmet, also named Thomas Addis Emmet (1828-1919), visited Ireland in 1880. He hoped to move to Ireland but unfortunately he was not allowed by the government to live in Ireland, although he was a gynaecologist by profession, because it was thought that, like his ancestors, he may harbour rebellious tendencies. He requested that he be buried in Ireland so he could “rest in the land from which my family came.” Dr Emmet was interred according to his wishes in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin in 1922. His grave marker was designed by the father and brother of the revolutionary Padraig Pearse (they also sculpted the statues adorning St. Augustine and St. John church on Thomas Street).
It was Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet’s grandson, James Garland Emmet, who returned to Ireland and purchased Altidore Castle in 1944. He married Jocelyn Portman, daughter of Claud Berkeley Portman, 4th Viscount Portman of Bryanston, County Dorset in England.
He set up his home as the base the Irish branch of the Emmet family and gathered objects for a collection of Emmet memorabilia. Altidore still hosts an Emmet Museum. Fascinated, Stephen lingered in the museum room and traded stories with Philip. There are lovely miniatures of the Emmet family, and a sketch of Emmet done from his time in court, by – oh, who was it? Someone famous! [10] They also have Robert Emmet’s college books, with his sketches of uniforms – he was a good artist! He was thrown out of Trinity for being a revolutionary. The house also has some artifacts from Thomas Addis Emmet, and also Robert Emmet’s final letter from prison – written not to his fiance, Sarah Curran, as Stephen and I had believed, but to a politician, to urge him to excuse himself for not anticipating the rebellion. Robert Emmet was reknown for his secrecy.
We wandered back out to the ponds, which are divided into three, and are part of a canal running down the mountain. We found the old walled garden – not in use currently – and looked around the farm and the beautiful old farm buildings.
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! For this entry I paid for petrol to drive from Dublin and for the entrance fee for myself and Stephen.
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[1] Bence-Jones, Mark. A Guide to Irish Country Houses published by Constable and Company Limited, London, 1988, previously published by Burke’s Peerage Ltd as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses, vol. 1 Ireland, 1978.
[4] Mary Delany (1700-1788) whose letters are published, was Godmother to a musician in the Wesley family, and explains how the Methodist Wesleys were cousins of Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington – who is honoured in the Wellington obelisk in the Phoenix Park.
The Irish Aesthete also notes: A new biography of Mary Tighe by Miranda O’Connell has been published by the Somerville Press.
[6] Tinnehinch was presented to Grattan, according to Mark Bence-Jones, in gratitude for the part he played in obtaining freedom from British control in 1782. The house has been destroyed by fire but one storey of the ruin still stands and has been made into a feature of the garden of the present house, which is in the former stables.
[8] Other work by Michael Stapleton can be seen in Marlay House in Dublin, several houses in North Great George’s Street including Belvedere House, Powerscourt Townhouse, 59 South William Street, Dublin 2 and in Trinity College Dublin, especially in the Exam Hall and the Chapel. Note that Stapleton was the executor of Robert West’s will, and may have trained with Robert West. We came across Robert West’s characteristic stucco work in Colganstown.
Examination Hall, Trinity College Dublin.
[9] Landy, Craig A. “Society of United Irishmen Revolutionary and New-York Manumission Society Lawyer: Thomas Addis Emmet and the Irish Contributions to the Antislavery Movement in New York” New York History, Vol. 95, No. 2 (Spring 2014), pp. 193-222 (30 pages).
[10] Perhaps the artist was John Comerford, who sketched Robert Emmet during his trial, and a miniature has been made from the sketch. The miniature is now in the National Gallery.
Irish Historic Houses 