I am sad to see that Frybrook House in Boyle, County Roscommon, is once again advertised for sale, with Savills Estate Agent. We visited it recently during Heritage Week this year, 2025, and the owner, Joan, who showed us around gave no indication that she was planning to sell. It was previously sold in 2017, and since then, the owners spent time, effort, money and love renovating and decorating, preparing it for bed and breakfast accommodation. The thirty three windows took a year for a joiner to renovate, and the total renovation took about six years.
They decorated with flair, filling the house with cheeky art and historical elements, researching the history of the house.
The sign on the gate of Frybrook during Heritage Week 2025.
Frybrook is a three storey five bay house built around 1753. [1] A pretty oculus in the centre of top storey sits above a Venetian window, above a tripartite doorcase with a pediment extending over the door and flanking windows. [2] Due to the proximity to the river the house is unusual for a Georgian house in not having a basement.
Henry Fry (1701-1786) built the house for his family and established a weaving industry. The website for the house tells us that in 1743 Lord Kingston, who at that time was James King (1693 – 1761), 4th Baron Kingston, invited Henry Fry, a merchant from Edenderry in County Antrim, to establish the business in Boyle. [3] The Barons Kingston lived in the wonderful Mitchelstown Castle in County Cork and were related to the Kings of King House in Boyle and of Rockingham House, the Baronets of Boyle Abbey (see my entry about King House, https://irishhistorichouses.com/2023/02/02/king-house-main-street-boyle-co-roscommon/.
Henry Fry’s grandfather was from the Netherlands. Henry’s brother Thomas (1710–62) was an artist, recently featured in an exhibition at Dublin Castle.
The “Neglected Genius” Thomas Frye, featured in an exhibition in Dublin Castle.
The Dictionary of Irish Biography tells us that by 1736 Thomas Frye was in London and had become sufficiently established to be commissioned to paint the portrait of Frederick, Prince of Wales, on the occasion of his becoming “the perpetual master of the Company of Saddlers.” Thomas also co-founded a porcelain factory, one of the earliest in England, and he experimented with formulas and techniques for making porcelain, obtaining a patent for his work.
Thomas’s brother Henry Fry (1701-1786) married twice; first to Mary Fuller, with whom he had several children, then after her death in childbirth, to Catherine Mills, with whom he had more children.
Joan brought us inside. The house has its original beautiful plasterwork and joinery, and the tiles in the hall too and staircase are probably original to the house.
The house had been empty for about ten years before the owners bought it in 2018. Most of the fireplaces had disappeared and had to be replaced. There would have been a fine Adam chimneypiece at one time, which was sold by Richard Fry to a member of the Guinness family, our guide told us.
Upstairs are the bedrooms. One in particular is gorgeously decorated with sumptuous colours and fittings and has a carved chimneypiece and jewel-like en suite. The owner asked us not to post photographs as it is the guesthouse piéce de resistance. I do hope the new owners, if it is sold, will maintain it as a guest house as it would be a lovely place to stay! Although it would also make a fabulous home for some lucky family. It has seven en-suite bedrooms.
Robert O’Byrne tells us that “in 1835, Henry Fry of Frybrook and his relative, also called Henry Fry, of another house in the vicinity, Fairyhill, were founding members of the Boyle branch of the Agricultural and Commercial Bank (although this venture failed nationally after only a couple of years). Successive generations of Frys continued to live in the family home until the 1980s when, for the first time, it was offered for sale.” [4]
Another son of Henry Fry, Magistrate, (1701-1786) was Oliver (1773-1868), major of Royal Artillery, Freemason, Orangeman, and diarist. Our guide on the tour of the house read us an excerpt of his diary. The Dictionary of Irish Biography tells us that in 1793 Oliver had to leave Trinity college to go home to help his brother Henry defend his house from the “Defenders.” The Defenders were a Catholic Agrarian secret society that originated in County Armagh in response to the Protestant “Peep o’ Day Boys.” The Defenders formed Lodges, and in 1798 fought alongside the United Irishmen. In later years they formed the “Ribbonmen.” The Peep o’ Day Boys carried out raids on Catholic homes during the night, ostensibly to confiscate weapons which Catholics under the Penal Laws were not allowed to own. [5] The Defenders formed in response, and oddly, grew to follow the structure of the Freemasons, with Lodges, secrecy and an oath swearing obedience to King George III. The Peep o’ Day Boys became the Orange Order.
The Defenders carried out raids of Protestant homes to obtain weapons. When Britain went to war with France in 1793, small Irish farmers objected to a partial conscription as they needed their young men for labour, which increased membership in the Defenders.
The Dictionary tells us about Oliver Fry:
“He was a member of the force of Boyle Volunteers that defeated a large group of Defenders at Crossna and subsequently defended the residence of Lord Kingston (1726–97) at Rockingham. During this latter skirmish he captured the leader of the Defenders, and was later presented with a commission in the Roscommon militia by Lord Kingston.”
Oliver served in the Royal Irish Artillery. The Dictionary of Irish Biography entry about him tells us more:
“In 1822 Fry wrote a retrospective account of his early life, and thereafter kept a very detailed diary. While some of the accounts of his military service were somewhat exaggerated, his diary remains an invaluable source of information on the major events of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, including the agrarian disturbances of the 1820s–40s, the repeal movement, the cholera epidemic of 1831, and the Great Famine. Other more colourful events were also described, such as the visits of Queen Victoria, the Crystal Palace exhibition of 1851, and the Dublin earthquake of 1852. He died 28 April 1868 at his Dublin home, Pembroke House, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, and was buried at Mount Jerome cemetery.“
Despite the oppositional stance with Catholics, our guide told us that the family were generous in famine times, as evidenced by the Bakehouse, the remains of which are next to the driveway to the house. However, a bakehouse isn’t evidence that the family gave out the bread for free!
A sign next to the Bakehouse at Frybrook.
Further evidence of the Fry’s hospitality, Joan told us, are the “hospitality” stones on the piers at the entrance to the house.
The pier stones resemble worn pineapples. The only reference I can find to “hospitality stones” in a quick google search is that hospitality stones were like ancient admission tickets: stones with some marking on them given by someone to indicate that the bearer could produce the stone and receive hospitality in return. The stones on the entrance piers resemble worn pineapples. In the eighteenth century pineapples became a symbol of luxury, wealth and hospitality. A blog of the Smithsonian Museum tells us:
“The pineapple, indigenous to South America and domesticated and harvested there for centuries, was a late comer to Europe. The fruit followed in its cultivation behind the tomato, corn, potato, and other New World imports. Delicious but challenging and expensive to nurture in chilly climes and irresistible to artists and travelers for its curious structure, the pineapple came to represent many things. For Europeans, it was first a symbol of exoticism, power, and wealth, but it was also an emblem of colonialism, weighted with connections to plantation slavery...
“…the intriguing tropical fruit was able to be grown in cold climates with the development, at huge costs, of glass houses and their reliable heating systems to warm the air and soil continuously. The fruit needed a controlled environment, run by complex mechanisms and skilled care, to thrive in Europe. Pineapples, thus, became a class or status symbol, a luxury available only to royalty and aristocrats. The fruit appeared as a centerpiece on lavish tables, not to be eaten but admired, and was sometimes even rented for an evening.
“…The pineapple became fashionable in England after the arrival in 1688 of the Dutch King, William III and Queen Mary, daughter of James II, who were keen horticulturalists and, not incidentally, accompanied by skilled gardeners from the Netherlands. Pineapples were soon grown at Hampton Court. The hothouses in Great Britain became known as pineries. With its distinctive form, the cult of the pineapple extended to architecture and art. Carved representations sit atop the towers of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and other prominent buildings, perhaps an adaptation or reference to the pinecones used on ancient Roman buildings.“
“…During the 18th century, the pineapple was established as a symbol of hospitality, with its prickly, tufted shape incorporated in gateposts, door entryways and finials and in silverware and ceramics.” [6]
The 37-foot-high Dunmore Pineapple, the north front, showing the entrance (photograph by Keith Salvesen from geograph.org.uk (via Wikimedia Commons) [6]
The lovely cafe in the gate lodge is situated on the river, next to the triple arch stone bridge over the River Boyle which was built in 1846 (or 1864, according to the National Inventory). [7]
“A bell was positioned on the roof of Frybrook house and it rang every day to invite the locals to dine in Frybrook, and when there was no room inside the house, tents were erected on the lawn.
“During the 1798 rising (‘Year of the French’) even the officers of the opposing French army were dining in the house.
“Frybrook House also supplied soup to the locals during the Great Famine (1845 to 1852), evidenced by a very large Famine Cauldron in the kitchen.“
I don’t know how it was that the Frys would host the French when Oliver was serving in the army fighting against the French! Perhaps this information is in Oliver’s diary. It would be a fascinating read. The Dictionary of Irish Biography gives a reference for his diary: William H. Phibbs Fry, Annals of the late Major Oliver Fry, R.A. (1909).
The bell may have been used to serve to tell the time for the weaving employees. The rope ran from the top of the house to the ground floor.
The weaving industry had 22 looms, our guide told us. Frybrook wasn’t a landed estate, and the owners did not make their money from having a large amount of land and tenants. The house had six acres. In later years the Fry family sold vegetables, and Lord Lorton established a market shambles for meat and vegetables.
Not all cauldrons were used to feed the public during the Famine. In the kitchen of the house there is a large cauldron that would have been used for washing clothes. The kitchen of Frybrook has many original features.
It has a Ben Franklin designed stove, which was invented to be a stove that was safe for children to be around.
The Famine in the 1840s hit Boyle hard. Information boards in King House tell us about Boyle in famine times. For the King family of Boyle, it was a time of trouble with tenants, as outlined in The Kings of King House by Anthony Lawrence King-Harmon.
This large portrait in the dining room of King House in Boyle is General Robert King (1773-1854), 1st Viscount Lorton, who was the second son of Robert King, 2nd Earl of Kingston.
Robert Edward King (1773-1854) joined the military and distinguished himself in the Caribbean. When he inherited Kingston Hall at Rockingham, Boyle, in 1797, he returned to Ireland and joined the Roscommon Militia and worked his way up to become a General. With Rockingham, however, came debt. In 1799 he married his first cousin, Frances Parsons Harman, daughter of his aunt Jane who had married Lawrence Parsons Harman (1749-1807), who owned the Newcastle Estate in County Longford. Robert worked hard to reduce the debt, and was a tough landlord, evicting many tenants.
In famine years, however, he lowered rents and provided work. The information boards in King House tell us that in the 1800s, Boyle residents suffered with poverty. One third of the population died of hunger and hundreds went to the workhouse. In the 1830s about 500 men, women and children were evicted from Lord Lorton’s estates around Boyle. Many were paid to emigrate to North America.
King House, 2022.King House, 2022.In King House.
The Fry family would have been in the centre of such poverty and hardship, and it must have been a dreadful time. They remained in the town and survived.
Joan told us that the Frys owned a mill, but the information board for the nearby mill does not mention Fry ownership. The current mill seems to have been built around 1810, according to the National Inventory, and the information board tells us that it was originally established by the Mulhall family and has been run by the Stewart family since 1885.
Thank you to Joan for the wonderful tour and for being so generous with her time. She and the owners deserve thanks for bringing Frybrook back so vibrantly to life.
Artwork in Boyle, home of the annual Boyle Arts Festival.
[2] Bence-Jones, Mark. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978) Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
[5] Brendan McEvoy (1986). The Peep of Day Boys and Defenders in the County Armagh. Seanchas Ardmhacha: Journal of the Armagh Diocesan Historical Society.
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Lissadell House and Gardens County Sligo Ireland, Photograph created by Peter McCabe, Tourism Ireland, 2015, taken from Ireland’s Content Pool care of Failte Ireland.This south elevation, facing the sea, has a three-bay central bow with a raised parapet and three-bays either side of the full height bow.Lissadell House, County Sligo circa 1865-1914 by Robert French, Lawrence Collection NLI L_IMP_0936.
We visited Lissadell during Heritage Week 2022. I had been looking forward to seeing it as it has some amazing internal Classical architecture. It is most famous as the birthplace of Constance Markievicz, née Gore-Booth, the first woman senator in Ireland and fighter in the 1916 uprising, and also more recently as the host of a concert of Leonard Cohen. It was only sold out of the Gore-Booth family in 2004.
It was built in 1830-35 for Robert Gore-Booth (1805-1876), 4th Baronet, to the Greek Revival design of Manchester architect Francis Goodwin (1784-1835). It replaced an earlier house nearer the shore which itself replaced an old castle. It is a nine-bay two-storey over basement house built of Ballisodare limestone. [1]
The entrance front (north) elevation has a three-bay pedimented central projection flanked by three-bay side sections. When one approaches on the path one can see that the lower storey is open to the east and west to form a porte-cochere. The house was described by Maurice Craig as being ‘…distinguished more by its solidity than by its suavity and more by its literary associations than by either.’ I find the crafted stone and the massive squareness of it beautiful.
The east elevation which faces the sea has a five-bay central section between two-bay projections. The five-bay section contains a three-bay central breakfront with tall framing pilasters. Above the upper floor windows is a stepped stone feature that runs around three sides of the house.
Other former residents of the house deserve to be as famous as Constance.
Dermot James in his book The Gore-Booths of Lissadell tells us that the Gore-Booths are descended from Paul Gore of Manor Gore, County Donegal. He was MP for Ballyshannon in Donegal, and was created 1st Baronet Gore, of Magherabegg, County Donegal in 1621/22. He married a niece of the 1st Earl of Strafford, Isabella Wickliffe.
Paul Gore of Manor Gore had seven sons, and all married well. His oldest son, Ralph, 2nd Baronet, became the ancestor of the earls of Rosse, who are in Birr Castle[another section 482 property I visited]. Arthur, the second son, became the ancestor of the Earls of Arran, a family that subsequently inherited the very large Saunders Court estate near Ferrycarrig in County Wexford. He was MP for County Mayo and became 1st Baronet Gore, of Newtown Gore, Co. Mayo. A third son, Henry, married the eldest daughter of Robert Blaney of Monaghan and was the ancestor of the earls of Kingston. Two further sons settled in County Kilkenny, giving the family name to Goresbridge, and the seventh son settled in County Mayo and, according to a memorial tablet in Killala Cathedral, married Ellinor St. George of Carrick, County Leitrim, and he died at his residence, Newtown Gore, later named Castle Gore and Deel Castle, near Killala, County Mayo in 1697.
The fourth son, Francis Gore (1612-1712), lived in Ardtarman, County Sligo, which still stands and has been renovated for habitation and self-catering accommodation. [2]
Dermot James tells us that Francis managed to keep on good terms with both the Cromwellians and Royalists during the Civil War, avoiding an engagement with either cause. After the Restoration of Charles II, he was rewarded with grants of land in Sligo, Mayo and Kilkenny, and in 1661 he was knighted and also became M.P. for Sligo. He settled at Ardtarmon, two miles west of Lissadell. He fought for the crown in Lieutenant-Colonel Coote’s Regiment.
Francis and Anne had a son, Robert (1645-1720). He married Frances Newcomen and they had a son, Nathaniel (1692-1737). He married Letitia (or Lettice) Booth, only daughter and heiress of Humphrey Booth, of Dublin. [3] She must have inherited quite a bit since later generations added her surname “Booth” to their surname. In fact, the prosperous Booth estates in the English midlands were added to the Sligo property.
Robert and Lettice named their son “Booth” (1712-1773). In 1760 Booth Gore was created 1st Baronet Gore of Lissadell, County Sligo.
Booth married Emilia Newcomen, daughter of Brabazon Newcomen, and they had several children. Their first son, also named Booth, who became 2nd Baronet, died unmarried, and his brother Robert Newcomen inherited and added Booth to his surname in 1804, when he succeeded as the 3rd Baronet.
Robert Newcomen Gore-Booth inherited in his 60s, and only then married Hannah Irwin from Streamstown, County Sligo (ninety years later this property became part of the Gore-Booth estate). Their daughter Anne married Robert King, 6th Earl of Kingston, son of the 1st Viscount Lorton.
The eldest son, Robert (1805-1876) became the 4th Baronet, and he built the house at Lissadell which we see now. He was Lord Lieutenant for County Sligo and also MP for Sligo.
The 4th Baronet married Caroline King, daughter of Robert Edward King, 1st Viscount Lorton, whom we came across in King House in County Roscommon. Sadly, she died the following year in 1828. Two years later he married Caroline Susan Goold, daughter of Thomas Goold (or Gould). Her sister Augusta married Edwin Richard Wyndham-Quin, 3rd Earl of Dunraven, of Adare Manor in Limerick.
According to Dermot James, “Henry Coulter described Lissadell before Robert inherited the estate as ‘wild and miserable and poor looking.’ But within a few decades Sir Robert had demonstrated ‘the immense improvement which may be made in the appearance of the country and the quality of the soil by the judicious expenditure of capital.’ Coulter continued, considering the estate to be “one of the most highly cultivated and beautiful in the United Kingdom… If the excellent example set by Sir Robert Booth as a resident country gentleman – living at home and devoting himself to the improvement of his property – were more generally followed by Irish landlords then indeed the cry of distress which is so often raised… would never more be heard, even in the west of Ireland.” [Henry Coulter, The West of Ireland published 1862]. [4]
Lissadell, 2022.
Robert was in situ at the time of the Great Famine in the 1840s. He did send some tenants to North America, and was later criticised for the evictions, but on the whole he was a generous landlord. He ran a soup kitchen and provided seed for crops. When his first wife Caroline died the Sligo Journal called her “a ministering angel among the people, her charitie was unbounded and her exertions to relieve the wants and sufferings of the distressed excited the admiration of all classes” when “the dark clouds of pestilence and death covered the land.”
Lissadell, 2022.
Dermot James writes: “If the exterior of Lissadell House is seen by some to be disappointingly plain, Goodwin’s design ensured that the entrance to the interior is all the more unexpected and dramatic. The visitor is met by a spectacularly high entrance hall decorated with Doric and Ionic columns from which there is an impressive staircase in Kilkenny marble with cast iron balustrade leading to the building’s most important feature, the great gallery, lit by sky-lights high above. On Goodwin’s plans, the gallery is marked as the music room, reflecting one of Sir Robert’s tastes, where an organ was installed. In the main, the house then remained largely unaltered for more than a century and a half.“
Mark Bence-Jones describes the entrance stair hall in his Guide to Irish Country Houses (1988) as a lofty two storey hall, partly top-lit, with square Doric columns below and Ionic columns above and double staircase of Kilkenny marble.
In the book Great Irish Houses, with forewards by Desmond FitzGerald, and Desmond Guinness published by IMAGE Publications in 2008, we are told that the scale of the stair hall is such that, unusually, a large fireplace was added to the return landing. The iron balusters are adorned with golden eagles.
Sir Robert took an interest also in the garden and Lord Palmerston of nearby Classiebawn would send him seeds from overseas. He sold some of the property in England and expanded his property in Ireland.
Dermot James tells us that when serving as MP Robert went regularly to London and brought his family and also servants. His servant Kilgallon wrote about the packing up: “They took all the silver plate. It was quite a business packing all up. They had boxes specially made for them. The housekeeper did not go as there was a housekeeper for the London house, a Mrs Tigwell. They took the first and second housemaids, house steward, groom chambers, under butler, and first and second footmen and steward’s room boy. All the other servants were put on board [reduced] wages [but] they were allowed milk and vegetables.” [6]
Kilgallon also described some details about how the Lissadell household was then being run, which is described by Dermot James: “The servants were managed by the house steward, Mr Ball, who engaged all the servants, paid their wages, and dismissed them when necessary. His duties included ordering all the wine for the house and acting as wine waiter at dinners. Ball supervised a small army of footmen, grooms, maids, etc. The groom chambers carved, and with the footmen, waited at all meals, despatched the post, opened the newspapers and ironed them. Their other duties included attending the hall door and polishing the furniture in the main rooms. One of the footmen was also the under-butler who kept the dinner silver in order and laid the dinner table, making sure that plates intended to be hot were kept warm in a special iron cupboard heated by charcoal kept outside the dining room door.”
The maids had to be up at 4am to prepare for carrying hot water to the bedrooms. There was a cook, pastry cook, kitchen maid, scullery maid and some kitchen boys. Kilgallon describes the meals, serving order and seating, and entertainment – there was a small dance in the servants hall once or twice a week, with beer and whiskey punch provided!
Henry William Gore-Booth (1843-1900) inherited in 1876 and became the 5th Baronet. He held the offices of High Sheriff of County Sligo, Deputy Lieutenant of County Sligo and Justice of the Peace for County Sligo. He was also a keen fisherman and Arctic explorer.
His sister Fanny Stella married Owen Wynne of nearby Hazelwood, County Sligo (which was designed by Richard Cassells and was recently owned by Lough Gill Distillery, until sold to American alcohol company Sazerac, which plans to save the house from dereliction).
Lissadell, 2022.
From the entrance hall, we were brought by the tour guide into the Billiards Room full of Gore-Booth memorabilia, including Henry’s fishing equipment. Kilgallon stayed on for the next generation, and he accompanied Henry the 5th Baronet on all of his fishing adventures and Arctic explorations. Kilgallon became Sir Henry’s personal valet as well as his close companion and confidant. At one point he saved Henry from an attacking bear, and the bear was then stuffed and brought back to Lissadell. It used to stand in the front hall, alarming arriving guests!
Kilgallon, with young Angus Gore-Booth.
The original wallpaper has been replaced by David Skinner, an expert on wallpapers of the great houses of Ireland, with hand-blocked period copies.
It is said that Sir Henry’s wife Georgina built the artificial lake at Lissadell in the vain hope that he might stay at home and fish in it, but as the harpoons and whale bones in the billiard room testify, Sir Henry continued to travel.
Robert was President of the Sligo Agricultural Society, and he and his eldest son founded three co-operative societies in the area. He also took over the Sligo Shirt Factory to prevent it from closing and made it flourish again. He was also involved in mining locally, and played a role in setting up the railway connecting Sligo with Enniskillen, subsequently becoming the company’s chairman. He also continued the oyster fishery his father had set up – his father was one of the pioneers in creating artificial oyster beds. Henry married Georgina Mary Hill, daughter of Colonel John Hill of Tickhill Castle, Yorkshire.
Upstairs is the music gallery. Mark Bence-Jones describes it as a vast apse-ended gallery (an apse is an area with curved walls at the end of a building, usually at the the east end of a church), lit by a clerestory (a clerestory is a high section of wall that contains windows above eye level) and skylights, with engaged Doric piers along one side, and Ionic columns along the other. It was hard to capture in a photograph since we were on a tour.
In Great Irish Houses, forewards by Desmond FitzGerald and Desmond Guinness, we are told that the gallery is 65 foot long. It still has its original Gothic chamber organ, which was made by Hull of Dublin in 1812 and is pumped by bellows in the basement! Two Grecian gasoliers by William Collins, a renowned Regency maker of chandeliers, hang on chains from the ceiling. As late as 1846 Lissadell generated gas from its own gasometer.
Lissadell was the first house in Ireland to be lit by its own gas supply. This was produced in a plant installed by Sir Robert about a quarter of a mile to the west of the mansion, complete with a house for the manager in charge of the works.
A team led by Kevin Smith, from the internationally renowned Windsor House Antiques of London, undertook the major task of restoring the gasoliers.
The 4th Baronet and Georgina Mary Hill had five children. The eldest son, Josslyn (1869-1944) was to inherit the property. There was a younger son, Mordaunt, and three daughters, Constance, Eva and Mabel.
It was with Josslyn that Henry William set up the co-operatives. When Josslyn was young, he had socialist ideals, much like his sisters Eva and Constance. He joined Horace Plunkett in his efforts to help the farmers to help themselves, by cutting out the middle man. It took a while for farmers to trust the motivation of Plunkett and Gore-Booth in setting up the co-operatives, thinking that “no good thing could come from a man who was at once a Protestant, a landlord and a Unionist.” Catholic priests even denounced the co-operatives as a “Protestant plot.” Eventually, however, they flourished, and helped the farmers.
Lissadell, 2022.
Josslyn continued to develop the estate, so that it became one of the most progressive and best run in Ireland.
Lissadell, 2022.
Josslyn was a keen gardener and plant breeder. At Lissadell he established one of the finest horticultural enterprises in Europe. By 1906, his gardens provided employment for more than 200 people. The head gardener, Joseph Sangster, became head gardener of the Royal Horticultural Society in England. An advocate of land reform, he let more than 1000 tenants buy out 28,000 acres of the property under the Wyndham Land Act of 1903. The final payments under the scheme were not received until the 1970s. Until he died in 1944, the estate was famous the world over for its varieties of old and new flowers. [7] The current owners are working to re-establish the gardens.
Next we enter a room that is in the bow of the house, and features in a poem by W. B. Yeats. Mark Bence-Jones tells us:
“The rather monumental sequence of hall and gallery leads to a lighter and more intimate bow room with windows facing towards Sligo Bay – the windows Yeats had in mind when he wrote, in his poem on Eva Gore-Booth and her sister, Constance Markievizc:
“The light of evening, Lissadell
Great windows open to the South.”
This room, and all other principal receptions rooms, have massive marble chimney-pieces in the Egyptian taste. The ante-room has a striped wallpaper of lovely faded rose.”
“In memory of Eva Gore Booth and Constance Markiewicz” This is the first part of this poem:
The light of evening, Lissadell, Great windows open to the south, Two girls in silk kimonos, both Beautiful, one a gazelle.
But a raving autumn shears Blossom from the summer’s wreath; The older is condemned to death, Pardoned, drags out lonely years Conspiring among the ignorant. I know not what the younger dreams – Some vague Utopia – and she seems, When withered old and skeleton-gaunt, An image of such politics.
Many a time I think to seek One or the other out and speak Of that old Georgian mansion, mix pictures of the mind, recall That table and the talk of youth, Two girls in silk kimonos, both Beautiful, one a gazelle.”
Constance went to art school in the Slade School of Art in London 1892-1894. She lived in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, where many of London’s bohemians and writers gathered: George Eliot had lived there, Whistler, Henry James and Erskine Childers. At the age of 25 went to Paris to continue her studies, and met and married a fellow artist, the Polish Casimir Markievicz. Many of Constance’s paintings still hang on the walls, as well as some work by Casimir. Their only child, Maeve Allys, was born in Lissadell in 1901.
Constance Gore-Booth (left) and her sister, Eva, in 1895.Lissadell, 2022.Lissadell, 2022.Painting of Countess Markievicz (1868-1927) by Casimir Markievicz (1874-1932), hanging in the National Gallery of Ireland. Constance Gore-Booth studied art in London and Paris, and in 1900 married Count Markievicz-Dunin, a Polish aristocrat. Lissadell, 2022.Casimir Markievicz.Lissadell, 2022.Lissadell, 2022.Lissadell, 2022.Lissadell, 2022.Lissadell, 2022.Lissadell, 2022.
Constance had a strong social conscience, and became involved in the 1913 Lockout, where workers went on strike for better pay. She was then involved in the 1916 Rising, and was jailed for her activity. When the new state was born, she was elected to Dáil Eireann, where she served as Minister for Labour. She was also the first woman to be elected to the House of Commons at Westminster, London, but like many other Irish politicians, she declined to take her seat – members of Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland continue in this tradition and refuse to take their seats in Westminster.
Lissadell, 2022.
Eva was a suffragist and poet, and lived in meagre circumstances in England with her partner Esther Roper.
Lissadell, 2022.
Eva fought for Women’s Rights and clashing with the young Winston Churchill over barmaids’ rights in 1908. She spent many years in Manchester working to alleviate the condition of working women.
Lissadell, 2022.Lissadell, 2022.Lissadell, 2022.
Eva wrote:
The little waves of Breffny
The grand road from the mountain goes shining to the sea And there is traffic on it and many a horse and cart, But the little roads of Cloonagh are dearer far to me And the little roads of Cloonagh go rambling through my heart.
A great storm from the ocean goes shouting o’er the hill, And there is glory in it; and terror on the wind: But the haunted air of twilight is very strange and still, And the little winds of twilight are dearer to my mind.
The great waves of the Atlantic sweep storming on their way, Shining green and silver with the hidden herring shoal; But the little waves of Breffny have drenched my heart in spray, And the little waves of Breffny go stumbling through my soul.
There is also a collection of paintings by a friend of W.B. Yeats, “A.E.” i.e. George William Russell, who was also part of the farming Co-operative movement and, like Yeats, a mystic.
The anteroom still has an engraving that Constance made with her sister Mabel in a windowpane with a diamond in 1898. Drawings from Constance’s sketchbook are displayed also.
I had been particularly looking forward to seeing the dining room as I had seen pictures of it before and it has rather eccentric paintings which I love! Again, it was hard to take photographs because the room was crowded with the tour. Casimir painted portraits onto the pillars. He painted some of the servants, including Kilgallon. The bear shot by Kilgallon stands now beside his portrait.
The long tunnel provides access to a sunken courtyard and the coach house and stable block, which was one of the largest in Ireland. This limestone complex of stables, tack rooms, grain stores and rooms once for staff and guests is now almost completely restored. Today it houses tea rooms, a gallery for exhibitions and lecture rooms.
In the 20th century the family fortunes took a turn for the worse. Constance and Eva died in their 50s. Constance died in 1927 and Eva in 1926.
In June 1927 Constance fell seriously ill. She was admitted to a public ward in Sir Patrick Dun’s hospital (at her own insistence). She had peritonitis, and although she had surgery, it was too late. Constance Markievicz died at 1:25 a.m. on the morning of 15th July, 1927. She was attended by her husband, Casimir. Her brother, Sir Josslyn Gore Booth, had received daily bulletins from the Matron, and immediately arranged to attend the funeral in Dublin.
Lissadell, 2022.
Her brother Josslyn would have preferred a private, family funeral, but this was not to be. In death Constance Markievicz was even more openly appreciated and acclaimed than in life. Three hundred thousand people attended the funeral to pay tribute to “the friend of the toiler, the lover of the poor”, the words of Eamon de Valera, who delivered the funeral oration, and with whom she had founded the Fianna Fáil Party.
Lissadell, 2022.
Two of Josslyn’s sons, Hugh and Brian, were killed in WWII. Hugh, the younger brother, studied estate management in England to run the estate. Brian joined the Navy. The third son, Michael, suffered from mental illness that made him incapable of running the family estate. Josslyn was still alive at this stage, and his four daughters continued to live on the estate – three of them never married. When their father died in 1944, the government assumed responsibility for the administration of the estate when Sir Josslyn’s eldest son was made a ward of the court after a nervous breakdown. Gabrielle took over the responsibility of running the estate at the age of just 26. [8] There was a youngest son also, Angus Josslyn, who succeeded as 8th Baronet. When Gabrielle died, Aideen took over the estate. For decades, the family struggled to maintain the house and the gardens became neglected and overgrown.
The family migrated to live in the bow-room and a small suite of rooms behind when the family of Gore-Booth siblings were living in near poverty in the 1960s and 70s, when the remainder of the house was uninhabited.
During this time the estate went into sharp decline, resulting in the felling of much fine woodland and the compulsory sale in 1968 of 2,600 acres by the Land Commission, leaving only 400 acres around the house.
Terence Reeves-Smyth tells us in Irish Big Houses: “The Lissadell estate had fallen into decline after the death of Josslyn Gore Booth in 1944. Indeed, writing about Lissadell for the Sunday Times around forty years ago, the BBC’s Anne Robinson observed that “the garden is overgrown, the greenhouses are shattered and empty, the stables beyond repair, the roof of the main block leaks badly and the paintings show patches of mildew.” It also featured in the documentary “The Raj in the Rain.”
In 2003 Lissadell was put on the market by the 9th Baronet, Josslyn Henry Robert Gore-Booth (b. 1950), son of Angus the 8th Baronet. You can listen to his memories of Lissadell online, part of the Irish Life and Lore series. [9] It was purchased by Edward Walsh and his wife Constance Cassidy, to become home for them and their seven children.
In the Image publication Great Irish Houses we are told that Edward and his wife Constance commissioned David Clarke, an architect with Moloney O’Beirne, to prepare a conservation plan and restoration of the house began in 2004. Assistance and expert advice was received from Laurence Manogue, a consultant to Sligo County Council. [10]
Lissadell, 2022.Lissadell, 2022.
The Image publications book tells us that there has been a great focus on the gardens, with regeneration of the flower and pleasure gardens. The alpine nurseries with its “revetment walls” (limestone and sandstone), terraces, and ornamental ponds had been neglected for half a century. Now the gardens are cleared and the orchards and two-acre kitchen garden have been reseeded. The plan, in many ways, is to resurrect the horticultural enterprise of Henry and Josslyn Gore Booth. Thirty-eight of an original seventy-eight daffodil narcissus cultivars developed by Sir Josslyn are now back in the ground at Lissadell.
This collection includes Patrick Annesley b. 1943 speaking about Annes Grove in County Cork; Valerie Beamish-Cooper b. 1934; Bryan and Rosemarie Bellew of Barmeath Castle County Louth; Charles and Mary Cooper about Markree Castle in Sligo; Leslie Fennell about Burtown in Kildare; Maurice Fitzgerald 9th Duke of Leinster and Kilkea Castle, County Kildare; Christopher and Julian Gaisford St. Lawrence and Howth Castle; George Gossip and Ballinderry Park; Nicholas Grubb and Dromana, County Waterford, into which he married, and Castle Grace, County Tipperary, where he grew up; Caroline Hannick née Aldridge of Mount Falcon; Mark Healy-Hutchinson of Knocklofty, County Tipperary; Michael Healy-Hutchinson, Earl of Donoughmore, son of Anita Leslie of Castle Leslie; Susan Kellett of Enniscoe; Nicholas and Rosemary MacGillycuddy of Flesk Castle, County Kerry and Aghadoe Heights; Harry McCalmont of Mount Juliet, County Kilkenny; Nicholas Nicolson of Balrath Estate; Durcan O’Hara of Annaghmore, County Sligo; Sandy Perceval of Temple House, County Sligo; Myles Ponsonby, Earl of Bessborough; Benjamin and Jessica Bunbury of Lisnavagh, County Carlow; Philip Scott of Barnfield House, Gortaskibbole, Co. Mayo; George Stacpoole of Edenvale House, Co. Clare; Christopher Taylour, Marquess of Headfort; Richard Wentges of Lisnabin Castle and Philip Wingfield of Salterbridge, County Waterford.
[10] p. 218, Image publications.
[11] Lissadell features in Irish Castles and Historic Houses. ed. by Brendan O’Neill, intro. by James Stevens Curl. Caxton Editions, London, 2002.
Featured in Mark Bence Jones, Life in an Irish Country House. Constable, London. 1996.
Featured in Irish Country Houses, Portraits and Painters. David Hicks. The Collins Press, Cork, 2014.
Featured in Irish Big Houses by Terence Reeves-Smyth
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The Archiseek website describes Strokestown Park house as “a substantial house in the Palladian manner of a central block flanked by wings and curved sweeps. The centre block was completed in 1696 but extended around 1730 by Richard Cassels who added the substantial wings. The house was further altered in 1819 by J. Lynn.” [2]
Strokestown Park, County Roscommon.
We visited Strokestown Park in County Roscommon during Heritage Week 2022. It houses the excellent National Famine Museum and Archive, which is really worth visiting. It sounds grim, but it is a great exhibition and it tells us so much about people’s lives that it is not a grim museum at all. It also tells us about the Pakenham-Mahons, the family who lived in the impressive Strokestown Park. Strokestown Park was the home of the first landlord to be assassinated during the height of the Great Famine of Ireland the 1840s, and it is therefore ideal for the location of the Famine Museum.
In 1979 Nicholas Hales Pakenham Mahon sold the estate to Westward Garage, founded by Jim Callery. The new owners allowed the last of the Mahon family, Olive and her husband Wilfrid Stuart Hales Pakenham Mahon, to remain living in the house until she moved to a nursing home.
Despite no longer being in the hands of the original owners, the house contains the original furnishings and fittings. The house is unchanged from the time when the Mahons lived there.
Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.
The Museum was created when Jim Callery, founder of the Westward Garage which purchased the property, found documents relating to the famine in the family archives. Jim Callery and the Westward Garage carried out a major restoration programme and opened the property to the public. Since 2015, Strokestown Park is cared for by the Irish Heritage Trust, an independent charity. Produce from the original working gardens are grown by volunteers and used in the Strokestown Park Café.
Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.
The website tells us that the house is built on the site of the 16th-century castle, home of the O Conor-Roe Gaelic Chieftains. Before being called “Strokestown House” the property was called “Bawn,” in reference to the bawn of the O Conor-Roe castle.
Nicholas Mahon, a captain in King Charles I’s army, was granted Strokestown as a royal deer park in 1653. Later, after pledging allegiance to King Charles II, he received more land. He was High Sheriff of County Roscommon, 1664-76. [3] He received over 3000 acres in 1678. He started to build a house, which was completed after his death in 1680, in 1696. Terence Reeves-Smyth tells us in his book Irish Big Houses that there is a stone by the door which has 1696 carved into it – the stone is now inside the house.
Strokestown Park featured as Building of the Month in December 2015 on the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage, and it tells us about the 1696 house:
“Evidence of this house survives to the present day at basement level where a panelled still room, previously one of the principal reception rooms, retains a rosette-detailed Jacobean chimneypiece, an egg-and-dart-detailed plasterwork overmantle decorated with fruits and shells, and a compartmentalised ceiling with dentilated moulded plasterwork cornices. Some earlier remains of the castle are also found in the basement where sections of the walls measure almost three metres deep. Memories of the medieval past were carried through into the nineteenth century when the house was still officially called, and was referred to by Isaac Weld (1832) and Samuel Lewis (1837) as “Bawn”.” [4] [5]
Stephen and I were able to see part of the interior of the house, despite the house being closed for restoration work at the time, by joining a Heritage Week talk about a photographic dark room which had been created in the house by one of its residents. Unfortunately we did not get to see the basement or the galleried kitchen.
Captain Nicholas married Magdalena French, daughter of Arthur French of Movilla Castle, County Galway. [6] They had several children. Their son Reverend Peter (d. 1739) became Dean of Elphin and married Catherine, daughter of Paul Gore of Castle Gore, County Mayo (otherwise known as Deel Castle, now a ruin), who was son of Arthur, 1st Baronet Gore, of Newtown Gore, otherwise known as Parkes Castle in Leitrim (see my Office of Public Works in Connaught, Counties Leitrim, Mayo and Roscommon entry).
Another son, Nicholas (c. 1671-1781) married Eleanor Blayney, daughter of Henry Vincent, 5th Baron Blayney of Castle Blayney, County Monaghan.
A daughter, Margaret, married Edward Cooper of Markree Castle, County Sligo (another Section 482 property which we visited).
Strokestown passed via another son, John (d. 1708), who married Eleanor Butler (daughter of Thomas, 3rd Baronet Butler, of Cloughgrenan, Co. Carlow), to their son Thomas (1701-1782). It was Thomas who built on to the 1696 house, to create a residence designed by Richard Cassells, in about 1730.
Terence Reeves-Smyth tells us in his Irish Big Houses that the top storey and balustrade were added probably around 1740 when Richard Castle built the wings for Thomas Mahon. [7]
Richard Castle, or Cassells, (c.1690/95–1751) probably came to Ireland to work for Sir Gustavus Hume to design Castle Hume, Co. Fermanagh. [8] He then worked under Edward Lovett Pearce when Pearce worked on the Parliament Building in Dublin. Pearce died young and Castle succeeded to his practice. The Dictionary of Irish Biography tells us:
“He contributed significantly to the development of Dublin, designing the first imposing town houses in cut stone for the nobility, notably Tyrone House, Marlborough St. (1740–45), built for Marcus Beresford (1694–1793), later earl of Tyrone, and Leinster House, Kildare St. (1745–51), for James Fitzgerald, earl of Kildare, the grandest town house and since the 1920s the seat of Dáil Éireann. His commissions included 85 Stephen’s Green (c.1738), the first stone-fronted house on the Green, latterly part of Newman House; houses in Kildare St., notably Doneraile House (designed c.1743); and Sackville Place...Castle designed many country houses, including Belvedere, Co. Westmeath (designed 1740), which incorporated the ‘Venetian’ window, a common feature of his designs, and Ballyhaise, Co. Cavan (c.1733). By altering and enlarging many houses, he created grand country mansions (often with vaulted stables), notably Powerscourt, Co. Wicklow, with its magnificent Egyptian hall (built 1731×1740; damaged by fire 1974, and since partly restored), Westport House, Co. Mayo (1731–40), and Carton House, Co. Kildare (c.1739–45). Conolly’s Folly at Castletown estate, Co. Kildare (1740), a tall obelisk mounted on multiple arches, is attributed to him. He possibly collaborated with Francis Bindon on Belan House, Co. Kildare, complete with temple and three obelisks (1743), and Russborough, Co. Wicklow (c.1742–55).” [9]
The house has a seven-bay, three-storey over basement central block, with curved curtain walls linking it to flanking pavilions with four-bay principal façades. The centre block front facade has three bays in the centre with giant pilasters either side and two bays beyond on either side. The centre three bays have a central panel on the pediment and the two bays on either side of the pilasters have a balustraded pediment. The front door is set in a tooled stone doorcase with decorative brackets, with an ornate spoked fanlight, and is flanked by traceried sidelights.
The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage tells us that the pedimented archways to outer walls extending from pavilions give access to stable complex and kitchen yards. [10]
The flanking curtain walls have niches flanked by oculus windows on the upper part with tooled stone surrounds, and a Gibbsean doorcase with pediment over.
In 1735, Thomas married Jane Crosbie, daughter of Maurice, 1st Baron Branden, of Ardfert, County Kerry, MP for County Kerry. Thomas Mahon later became MP, first for the Borough of Roscommon in 1739-1763 then for County Roscommon 1763-82, when he was called the “Father of the House.” [11]
Thomas’s son Maurice (1738-1819), named after Jane’s father, married Catherine, daughter of Stephen Moore, 1st Viscount Mountcashell, in 1765. He inherited when his father died in 1782. He was granted a peerage for his support of the Act of Union, and created 1st Baron Hartland, of Strokestown, Co. Roscommon in 1800.
Terence Reeves-Smyth tells us:
“His son Maurice, who became Baron Hartland upon accepting a Union Peerage in 1800, made further additions and modifications to the house, including the inlaid mahogany doors, chimney-pieces and cornices as well as the library.”
Strokestown, image by Chris Hill, 2014, Tourism Ireland, from Ireland’s Content Pool. [1] Mark Bence-Jones writes that in a late-Georgian addition at the back of the house there is a splendid library with a coved ceiling and an original early nineteenth century wallpaper of great beauty, in yellow and brown, which gives the effect of faded gold. [12]
Maurice Mahon also had the main street of Strokestown laid out between 1810 and 1815, and had a tall Georgian Gothic arch erected at the entrance to Strokestown Park, at one end of the main street. At almost one hundred and fifty feet wide, the main thoroughfare, leading up to the gates of the estate, was said to be the widest in Ireland at the time. Apparently Baron Hartland wanted it to be wider than the Ringstrasse in Vienna. [see 12]
Maurice, 1st Baron Hartland had three sons. The first, Thomas (1766-1835) succeeded as 2nd Baron Hartland in 1819. His mother lived another fifteen years after her husband died in 1819, and the museum tells us that receipts for her extravagant spending are kept in the archive.
When Thomas inherited the property in 1819 he hired John Lynn who created the porch, among other renovations. Lynn had served as clerk of works for the building of Rockingham House in County Roscommon, erected in 1810 for Robert, 1st Viscount Lorton to designs by John Nash. We saw pictures of Rockingham House when we visited King House, see my entry. Rockingham House no longer exists. Soon after working in Strokestown, Lynn moved up to Downpatrick, County Down. [13]
Terence Reeves-Smyth continues in Irish Big Houses: “In 1819 Lieutenant General Thomas Mahon, second Lord Hartland, employed the architect J[ohn] Lynn to carry out some more improvements, such as the addition of the porch and giant pilasters to the front. Except for the gardens, few changes were later carried out at Strokestown and it remained the centre of a vast 30,000 acre estate until the present century.”
Thomas the second baron was educated at the Royal School in Armagh, Trinity College Dublin and St. John’s College, Cambridge. He joined the military and became Major in the 24th Light Dragoons. In 1798 he was in command of a garrison in Carlow, where he trapped and killed many rebels. [14] In 1811 he married Catherine Topping, but they did not have any children. He later fought in the Napoleonic wars and in Argentina.
Terence Reeves-Smyth continues:
“In contrast to the exterior, the interior is quite intimate, with surprisingly small rooms – a product of the early date of much of the building. Early 18th century wood panelling survives in parts of the house including the main staircase hall, but many rooms were redecorated in regency times, such as the dining room which still has its early 19th century furniture, including a bath-sized turf bucket and pinkish-red damask wallpaper.“
Terence Reeves-Smyth continues: “Regency additions incorporated the study, which also retains its original furnishings, and the smoking room, which was converted into a laboratory and photography darkroom by Henry Pakenham-Mahon, an amateur scientist, in the 1890’s. The finest regency addition is the library at the back, originally built as a ballroom with a bowed wall at one end to accommodate musicians. This contains Chippendale bookcases and beautiful brown and gold wallpaper, made especially for the walls in the early 19th century.“
Reeves-Smyth continues, describing the kitchen which we did not see: “The old kitchen in the left wing of the house is approached from the dining room along a curved corridor, past store rooms for kitchen utensils and sporting equipment. Fitted with spits and ovens for baking, roasting and smoking, this kitchen has its original balustraded gallery which crosses the high ceilinged room lengthwise, the only example of its kind to survive in Ireland, especially in houses designed by Richard Castle. These galleries allowed the housekeeper to supervise the affairs below – one tradition has it that menus were dropped from the balcony on Monday mornings with instructions to the cook for the week’s meals.
“The wing to the right of the central block contains magnificent vaulted stables carried on Tuscan columns, similar to stables built by Castle for Carton (1739) and Russborough (1741). An underground passage links these stables to the yard on the north side of the house. The estate office was also in this wing, which meant the tenantry had to come here rather than to an office in the village to pay their rent.“
A photograph of the vaulted stables, by Henry Pakenham Mahon (1851-1922).
Maurice Craig tells us in his Irish Country Houses of the Middle Size: p. 21. “The practice of connecting the house with outlying offices by a tunnel seems to be peculiar to Ireland…Strokestown, Bellamont, Castle Coole and Lucan are amongst the Irish examples. In the nature of things, this is a feature of the grander houses, though it has been reported in connection with some of modest size.”
Thomas 2nd Baron married but had no children and his brother Maurice (1772-1845) succeeded as 3rd Baron Hartland when Thomas died in 1835. Maurice had joined the clergy, and was awarded a prebendary (an administrative role) in Tuam Cathedral in 1804.
In 1813 the 3rd Baron Hartland married Jane Isabella Hume of Humewood, County Wicklow, but also had no children and the title became extinct. He had another brother, Stephen, but he predeceased his brothers and had no children. The museum tells us that the 3rd Baron suffered with mental illness, though it does not give us specifics. He was declared insane just a year after he inherited the property in 1835.
The 3rd Baron Hartland married Jane Isabella Hume of Humewood, County Wicklow. Humewood, County Wicklow photograph courtesy of National Library of Ireland, photographer Robert French, Lawrence Collection Circa 1865 – 1914 NLI Ref. L_IMP_3853.
The Dictionary of Irish Biography tells us that it was Denis Mahon who brought a motion against Maurice claiming that he was mentally ill and incapable of caring for the estate. Maurice had allowed the lease to lapse for a portion of the estate and stopped collecting rent from the town of Ballykilcline and its surrounding area. This led to an official declaration stating Maurice was a “lunatic.” Denis was named executor of the estate as well as being named Maurice’s legal guardian.
The museum tells us that when he was declared insane in 1836, two cousins battled in the courts to inherit the property: Denis Mahon (1787-1847) and Marcus McCausland.
Marcus McCausland owned the property of Drenagh, Limavady in County Derry (now a wedding venue). His mother was Theodosia Mahon, a sister of the 1st Baron Hartland, who had married Conolly McCausland-Gage. The nine year court case decided in favour of Denis Mahon. As well as the now poorly managed property, he inherited debts.
Denis was the son of a brother of 1st Baron Hartland, Reverend Thomas Mahon (1740-1811). Reverend Thomas married Honoria Kelly, daughter of Denis Kelly of Castle Kelly, County Galway (also called Aughrane Castle, it has been demolished. It was purchased by Bagots in 1910, I’m haven’t found an ancestral link to these Bagots).
Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.
It was Denis Mahon who was then murdered during the Famine. The story is told in detail in the Famine Museum. The estate was badly run and tenants let and sublet their parcels of land, hence owned smaller and smaller portions of land to grow their crops.
Reeves-Smyth tells us: “Major Denis Mahon, who succeeded to Strokestown on the death of the third and last Lord Hartland in 1845 was so unpopular a landlord during the famine years that he was shot whilst returning from a meeting of the Roscommon Relief Committee in 1848, apparently on suspicion of chartering unseaworthy ships to transport emigrants from his estate to America. His successors were much better regarded and his great-granddaughter and last owner, Mrs. Olive Hales-Packenham-Mahon, was a much loved figure in this part of Ireland. She died in 1981, leaving a house filled with the trappings of three centuries of unbroken family occupation.“
Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.
Captain Denis Mahon chose to help his tenants to leave Ireland. He wanted to reduce his number of tenants. The 1838 Poor Law made a local tax for poor rates. In 1843 the act was amended and introduced new rates, charging landlords a tax for each tenant who had holdings of less than a value of £4. Landlords therefore tried to reduce the number of tenants.
The Famine Museum is introduced by a beautifully handwritten letter by tenants asking not for money or food, but work. The eloquent letter humanises those who were experiencing the poverty of the famine in the 1840s.
Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.
Arthur Young writes in his A Tour in Ireland in 1799 that “the poor live on potatoes and milk, it is their regular diet, very little oat bread being used and no flesh meat at all except on Easter Sunday and Christmas day.”
Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.
Denis Mahon tried to make the estate pay for itself, to pay off the debts he had inherited. He also tried to take care of his tenants. He had two agents, John Ross Mahon and Thomas Conry. He began relief efforts for his tenants in March 1846. 4000 people were provided with corn on a weekly basis at low or no cost, and after a harsh winter, he distributed free seed to his most needy tenants. He also had a soup kitchen set up.
John Ross Mahon wrote to him that the poor rates would exceed receipts of rent. By 1847 the conditions were worse and there was unrest amongst the tenants. Mahon began to evict tenants and to encourage others to emigrate. The Freeman’s Journal in 1848 states that “The evictions on the estate since Major Mahon had taken over amounted to 3006 people, including the 1,490 who were selected to emigrate.” Fewer than half of those who emigrated survived the trek to Dublin and the journey on the ship.
The building of the month entry in the National Inventory summarises: “Major Mahon, an improving landlord, sought to alleviate the situation by judicious depopulation and in 1847 organised the voluntary emigration of almost one thousand of his tenants to North America. However, a far greater number refused to move and were the subject of evictions involving almost 600 families and 3000 individuals. Returning from an evening meeting in Roscommon, where he had urged the Board of Guardians to keep the workhouse open for needy paupers, Major Mahon was fatally shot on the 2nd of November 1847. Three men were hanged for the murder and two were transported, but the true identity of the assassin or assassins has been debated ever since.”
Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.
The Famine Museum tells us that there were secret societies who sought to improve the conditions of the poor. A local one in Roscommon was called the “Molly Maguires.”
Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.
The man suspected to be the mastermind of the murder, Andrew Connor, probably escaped to Canada. Police followed to Canada to try to capture him but to no avail. A man named Patrick Hasty was hanged for the murder, along with two others.
Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.
Denis’s son Thomas predeceased him, childless, and the house passed to his daughter, Grace Catherine. Earlier in 1847, Grace had married Henry Sandford Pakenham (1823-1893), son of Reverend Henry Pakenham, Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, who was from Pakenham Hall in County Westmeath, now called Tullynally (see my entry, it is another Section 482 property which can be visited).
Henry Sandford Pakenham held the office of High Sheriff of County Roscommon in 1830. He was heir to the vast Pakenham and Sandford estates in counties Longford, Westmeath and Roscommon. He legally changed his name to Henry Sandford Pakenham Mahon by Royal Licence in 1847.
After Denis Mahon was killed his devastated daughter Grace moved to the Isle of Wight with her husband, who continued to manage the estate with the help of his agent.
He and Grace Catherine had several daughters, and a son, Henry Pakenham-Mahon (1851-1922).
Henry moved back to live in Strokestown. He was High Sheriff, Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant of County Roscommon, following in the footsteps of his father. He married Mary Burrard and Olive, as mentioned by Reeves-Smyth, was their daughter.
Henry Pakenham-Mahon was a keen horticulturalist and his main contribution to the estate was the development of the gardens. The family lived part-time in Strokestown Park and part-time in England. He developed a Pleasure Garden in the walled garden.
Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.
He also had an interest in photography, and he built a darkroom in Strokestown House.
His daughter Olive, born in 1894, first married Captain Edward Charles Stafford-King-Harman, from Rockingham House, County Roscommon, whom we came across in King House. Tragically, he died in the first world war in 1914. They had one daughter, Lettice. If Lettice had been a boy she would have inherited Rockingham. Olive and Lettice returned to live in Strokestown Park.
Olive married again, this time to Wilfrid Stuart Atherstone Hales, who also fought in the first world war, and later, in the second. A British garrison was set up in Strokestown House during the War of Independence. After an ambush nearby, Wilfrid Stuart Hales was sent to investigate, and he and Olive fell in love. On 18 April 1923 his name was legally changed to Wilfrid Stuart Atherstone Hales Pakenham Mahon by Deed Poll. He married Olive in 1921 and he changed his name after the death of her father in 1922. They went on to have several children. It was her son who sold the estate.
Olive Hales Pakenham Mahon dressed for a visit to Buckingham Palace in the 1930s.Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.
The Pakenham Mahons did not spent much time in Strokestown due to Stuart Hales Pakenham Mahon’s military career, until they returned to live there in the 1950s.
Stuart Hales Pakenham Mahon was interested in finding water and mineral deposits by “dousing,” and the photography display we saw in the house also had information on this topic.
The property has a six acre walled garden and woodlands.
Westward Garage Ltd approached the Pakenham Mahons to buy their land, and terms were agreed. At first the garage only wanted to keep some land and they planned to sell the house, but then Jim Callery found the documents relating to the famine, and had the idea of setting up a famine museum. The company let Olive and her husband remain in the house. Jim Callery employed his cousin Luke Dodd to oversee restoration of the house. [15] In 1987 the house opened to the public, and the Famine Museum opened in 1994. The walled garden opened in 1997, and the herbaceous border is said to be the longest in either Ireland or the UK.
The following day there was a talk about the mausoleum at Strokestown, but we had to move on with our Heritage Week plans. The mausoleum was constructed within an earlier 17th century church and contains a crypt in which members of the Mahon Family were buried. Following years of careful and professional conservation and sympathetic landscaping, this ruin is again accessible and visible to visitors to Strokestown Park.
[6] Bernard, Sir Burke, editor, Burke’s genealogical and heraldic history of the landed gentry of Ireland, 4th ed. (London, U.K.: Burkes Peerage Ltd, 1958), page 471. I’m not sure if “Movilla” mentioned here refers to Moyveela townland.
[7] Reeves-Smyth, Terence. Irish Big Houses. Appletree Press Ltd (22 April 2009)
[12] 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. Note that Mark Bence-Jones claims that it was the 2nd Baron Hartland who laid out the main street of Strokestown and had the entrance built, but the National Inventory tells us that it was Maurice, 1st Baron Hartland.
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Corravahan, courtesy of Ian Elliot.
This house is a delight! The owners, the Elliotts, who purchased the house in 2003, appreciate the intricacies of the house and its history, and convey this with enthusiasm. Corravahan House has an excellent website which describes the history of the house and its occupants, along with photographs from former days.
Ian Elliott obliged us by opening on a day not normally scheduled. Visits are further curtailed by Covid-19 restrictions and distancing and safety requirements. I appreciate when anyone is willing to accommodate a visit this year.
We drove to the house on our way to Donegal to visit Stephen’s mother. We stopped a night in Monaghan, so had plenty of time for our visit. Unfortunately it was raining so we didn’t get to see the gardens – we will have to visit another time!
The National Inventory of Historic Architecture tells us that Corravahan House is an Italianate style three-bay three-storey over basement former rectory, built 1841. It has a one-storey projecting entrance porch to the front, containing a four-panelled timber door. The Inventory website also mentions “glazed tripartite loggia” and the bow on the rear elevation.
The Inventory notes the slate roof “with oversailing eaves” and the cornice on the chimneystacks. The garden facing walls are of “random rubble” with large corner stones at the rear elevation, and other walls have been rendered.
On the garden elevation, there is a Wyatt window with plain stone mullions and projecting cornice under red-brick relieving arch, and brick dressings to window openings on upper floors, garden front.
The Inventory mentions the “ruled-and-lined rendered walls.” Ian pointed this out to us inside the timber lean-to. One can see the original wall, and the lines hand-drawn. The lines are to make the rendered wall appear to be made of stone blocks! We can see a clearer, more recent example of this on a new structure built in the yard, but again, more on this later.
The windows in the bow have curved sashes and timber, although the glass in the windows is flat. These windows would be particularly difficult to craft, to fit the curve of the bowed wall.
Ian greeted us, along with a friendly dog. We stepped into the porch, which has four-over-four timber sash windows to the sides. A further door leads into the entrance hall.
The house was built for a clergyman, Marcus Gervais Beresford (1801-1885). Before he had this house built, he rented nearby as he was the Vicar for Drung, appointed by his father in 1828. The previous parsonage had been condemned as unfit for use. Reverend Marcus Beresford was the great-grandson of Marcus Beresford, the 1st Earl of Tyrone (1694-1763), whom we came across when we visited Curraghmore in County Waterford (the husband of Catherine, who built the Shell House). The 1st Earl’s son John, an MP for County Waterford, was Marcus Gervais’s grandfather, and John’s son, George (1765-1841), Marcus Gervais’s father, became Bishop for Kilmore, County Cavan. Bishop George Beresford married Frances, a daughter of Gervase Parker Bushe and Mary Grattan (a sister of Henry Grattan (1746-1820), the politician and lawyer who supported Catholic emancipation) [2]. Marcus Gervais followed in his father’s footsteps, and as the third son, joined the Church.
Marcus Gervais Beresford, P. Archbishop of Armagh, (1801-1885), as Prelate of the Order of St Patrick by Engraver John Richardson Jackson, After Stephen Catterson Smith. Photograph courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland. The house was built for him.John Beresford (1738-1805), MP by Gilbert Stuart c. 1790, courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland NGI 1133. He was the grandfather of Marcus Gervais Beresford of Corravahan, and son of Marcus 1st Earl of Tyrone.He had the Custom House built in Dublin, designed by Gandon.
The website for Corravahan tells us that the Beresfords engaged the services of the architect William Farrell, who had recently completed the new See House at Kilmore for Bishop George, to construct Corravahan as the new rectory for the parish. According to Wikipedia, William Farrell was a Dublin-based Irish architect who was the “Board of First Fruits” architect for the Church of Ireland ecclesiastical province of Armagh from 1823-1843. In this time he designed several Church of Ireland churches, as well as houses for the clergy. He built several houses in County Cavan, including Rathkenny [ca. 1820] and Tullyvin [built ca 1812], Shaen House in Laois (now a hospital), Clonearl House in County Offaly, and Clogrennan House in County Carlow.
Due to the family’s connections and status, the house was designed to impress. It is the details that indicate its quality, and visitors who were meant to be impressed would have recognised the signs. The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage lists some of the details – for example: “Entrance hall has decorative timber panelled walls set in round headed arch recesses with panelled pilasters having squared Doric entablature. Flooring of decorative black and white tiles mimicking Italian marble.”
The vestibule is Grecian Classical in style. The arches are of plaster. Ian reckons the floor tiles are Portland stone – a stone of particularly good quality – and a darker limestone, perhaps Kilkenny marble. You can see in the photograph the quality craftsmanship of the wood panelling on the walls. And this is just the front hall! A door to the right leads into what would have been the Vicar’s office where he would meet his parishioners. Guests to be entertained would enter straight ahead into the main part of the house.
We entered a room that is now the library. It is the second library of the house. The first room, the Bishop’s office, was the first library. A later resident of the house, Charles Robert Leslie, became wheelchair bound and an elevator was installed into the house where the first library had been, so a second room was converted into a library, which had previously been the morning room. A window was covered over with bookcases, which is still visible from the outside of the house.
Marcus Beresford followed in his father’s footsteps and was appointed Bishop of Kilmore, Elphin and Ardagh in 1854. He moved out of Corravahan, and the next Vicar of Drung moved in, the Reverend Charles Leslie (1810-1870).
This Charles Leslie’s father, John (1772-1854), was the son of Charles Powell Leslie I, whom we came across when we visited Castle Leslie in County Monaghan. John was Charles Powell Leslie’s second son, and since he was not to inherit Castle Leslie, he joined the Church.
Reverend John Leslie (1772-1854) rose quickly due to his connections, and became Bishop of Dromore in 1812 and Bishop of Kilmore, Elphin and Ardagh in 1841. He married the daughter of the Bishop of Ross, Isabella St. Lawrence, from the Howth Castle family of St. Lawrences (her grandfather was the 1st Earl of Howth. The castle was still in private hands, until sold by the Gaisford-St. Lawrence family in 2019. I would love to see it!). He preceded Marcus Beresford as Bishop of Kilmore, Elphin and Ardagh. His eldest son, Charles became vicar of Drung in 1855. He moved into Corravahan with his wife and children (or as they liked to call it, “Coravahn.” [3] Their only daughter, Mary, died shortly afterwards, aged just 15.
Charles Leslie married, first, Frances King, daughter of General Robert Edward King, 1st Viscount Lorton of Boyle, County Roscommon, and his wife Frances Parsons (daughter of the 1st Earl of Rosse, the family who own Birr Castle, County Offaly, another section 482 property), in 1834. After she died, childless, he married Louisa Mary King, daughter of Lt-Col Henry King, 1st cousin of his first wife. The Corravahan website tells us that in 1836, Charles went on a tour of Europe with the Viscount and some members of his family, including his late wife’s cousin, Louisa, who he would marry the following year.
Charles Leslie continued to serve as the Vicar of Drung until 1870. He was then appointed, following in the footsteps of his father and of the former resident of Corravahan Reverend Marcus Beresford, Bishop of Kilmore. He died, however, three months after his appointment and so never moved from Corravahan. Following his death, his widow and five sons retained the house as a private residence, while providing a new, more modest rectory for the parish on nearby land. This house is also listed in the National Inventory of Historic Architecture, as Drung Rectory. The entry incorrectly states that it no longer serves as a rectory. It does in fact still serve the parishes of the Drung Group. It was built around 1870, to the east of the walled garden of Corravahan.
Charles Leslie’s second son, Charles Robert Leslie (1841-1904), lived on the estate, running it for his father after retiring from the British army (the oldest son, John Henry Leslie, married and subsequently lived in England). It was he who became disabled and for whom the elevator was installed. Stephen and I were fascinated to learn that he kept diaries, and that the diaries are on the shelves in the library at Corravahan!
They would be fascinating to read, as he was engaged in Canada as Captain of the 25th King’s Own Borderers, who repelled a Fenian invasion from New York state! The Fenians, an Irish Republican organisation based in the United States, conducted raids on British army forts, custom posts and other targets in Canada in an attempt to pressure the British to withdraw Ireland [4].
Charles never married and when he died, in September 1904, ownership of Corravahan passed to his younger brother, Cecil, third son of Reverend Charles Leslie and Louisa.
The Corravahan website tells us that Cecil Edward St. Lawrence Leslie (1843-1930) was educated at Oxford, returning to live permanently at Corravahan, and served periodically on the judiciary in Cavan, otherwise living off his investments and rental income on lands he owned. The website continues:
“In 1876, he married Emily Louisa Massy-Beresford (1854-1890), a first-cousin-twice-removed of Rt. Rev. Marcus Gervais Beresford, the builder of Corravahan. She was the daughter of Very Rev. John Maunsell Massy, Dean of Kilmore, who had wisely added the name Beresford (by royal licence) subsequent to his equally wise marriage to Emily Sarah Beresford, daughter of Rev. John Isaac Beresford of Macbie Hill, Peebles-shire, who was the grand-niece of George, Bishop of Kilmore and great-great-granddaughter of the Earl of Tyrone. Cecil and “Loo” had two sons, Charles and Cecil George, the last children raised at Corravahan before the present.”
The elder son, Charles, died at the age of 13. The younger, Cecil George, nicknamed “Choppy,” joined the military. He died of tuberculosis in 1919, predeceasing his father.
A fourth son of Reverend Charles and Louisa, Henry King Leslie (1844-1926) married Ruth Hungerford-Eagar. The website tells us that he served as a land agent to numerous estates, and it was while he was living at Kilnahard, Mountnugent, possibly working for the Nugent family of Bobsgrove, or Farren Connell, that Ruth gave birth to their son, Frank King Leslie, in 1885. He died in Gallipoli in 1915. Henry and Ruth also had two daughters, Madge and Joan, to whom we will return presently.
The youngest of Reverend Charles’s five sons, Arthur Trevor Leslie (1847-1886), also joined the military, and died in 1886 at Corravahan, probably due to illness contracted in his service.
By 1930, then, all of Rev. Charles Leslie’s five sons had died, the only survivors of the subsequent generation were Henry’s daughters, Margaret Ruth Leslie (1886-1972) and Nancy Joan Leslie (1888-1972). Thus upon Cecil’s death in 1930 he left Corravahan to his nieces, along with the accumulated wealth of the previous generations. The sisters remained unmarried.
Frank King Leslie’s fiancee, May Haire-Forster, remained close to the family and joined Madge and Joan to live in Corravahan after 1930. The three women lived together in the house for forty years. They modernised the house, having inherited quite a bit of money from their brothers, so they were able to install electricity and central heating. They were careful to preserve many elements of the house that they may have remembered fondly as children, however, in a way that someone who did not grow up in the house may not have retained. They were popular in the neighbourhood and continued to give employment to people of the area.
The sisters installed electric lights before rural electrification of Ireland, which occurred in 1957. The sisters innovatively used a wind turbine system to create their electricity.
The house passed in 1972 to Madge’s god-daughter, Elizabeth Lucas-Clements, daughter of the Lucas-Clements family of nearby Rathkenny House. Rathkenny, also designed by William Farrell, was built for Theophilus Lucas-Clements in the 1820s [5]. Having sold Corravahan and its contents in 1974, largely to meet various bills for death-duties, Elizabeth Lucas-Clements retained much material that was personal to the Leslie family, and, among other items, gave the diaries of Charles Robert Leslie to the current owner.
The house then stood empty for five years and was occupied only occasionally for a further twenty-five years, until it was purchased by its current owners, the Elliotts. The surrounding farmland and outbuildings, walled garden and orchard no longer belong to the house. The National Inventory tells us: “The walled garden is located to the south-east of the lawns, and once formed part of an extensive landscape of gardens, woods, paths, and ponds more in the style of a country house demesne reflecting the particularly wealthy status of the clergy incumbents of Beresford and following him Rev. Charles Leslie.” The Elliotts are restoring the eight acres they have remaining around the house.
We moved from the former morning room to the drawing room.
The room has an egg and dart pattern ceiling cornice and a large bay window. This is the “glazed tripartite loggia having steps to the garden” mentioned in the National Inventory [see 1. And we saw a loggia before in the Old Rectory in Killedmond, County Carlow]. It does not look like a door, but the middle panel of the windows slides up into the frame in an ingenious manner to make a door. Ian is not sure if this bay window is original to the house. On the one hand, it is not well-constructed as it does not have a relieving arch over it, which would lend solidity, and as a result, the ceiling has cracked over time. This seems particularly odd as there is a relieving arch over another window. But William Farrell has built similar designs in other places. Ian has seem something similar to the door/window in Castle Ward, County Down, and apparently there is something like it in Abbeville in Dublin, another Beresford residence.
On a purely personal note, the ironwork on the windows reminded me of the protecting grille on our windows and doors in Grenada, though the Grenada one is simpler.
It was not. There were doors here between the drawing room and the former morning room, closed up when the second library was created. You can see Stephen wearing his mask in the photograph, as we were all protecting ourselves from Covid-19!
We entered the dining room next. Ian pointed out that as we followed the typical daily progress of a house resident from room to room: morning room to drawing room to dining room, we followed the path of the sun shining in to the house! It was well designed!
The bow makes the room look grander and larger than it would with straight walls. It necessitates having slightly curved wooden window frame joinery, however, requiring skill and extra expense. The glass in the windows, fortunately, is not curved, as that would be even more expensive and difficult. The room has more beautiful curtain pelmets and decorative plaster coving.
Interestingly, it appears that the Beresfords had a smaller sideboard than the Leslies. The Leslies had to have the recess widened! They did not leave their sideboard but the Elliotts were lucky enough to find one that fit perfectly!
The room has the Classical feature of symmetrical details, which includes the doors. There are four doors in the room. Two of them, however, exist merely for balance. One leads to a drinks cabinet and the other appears to have been used as a cupboard for the silverware, as it has a strong lock. The other doors lead from the main house, and to the servants’ area, for serving the food.
I was also delighted to see the old fashioned railing around the top of the walls – a tapestry rail. It is perfect for hanging pictures. In the room there was a picture of Marcus Gervais Beresford, who later became the Archbishop of Armagh, and one of Bishop John Leslie, the father of Charles who moved into the house when Marcus Beresford left.
The tapestry rail runs all around the room along the ceiling. On the right, above, is Marcus Gervais Beresford. Note that on the top of the portrait frame is the mitre of an Archbishop. The portrait of Bishop John Leslie is on the left hand side, and in the photograph below:
Next, we went out to the servants’ hall. It has large built-in cupboard along the wall:
This was specially built to hold extra leaves of the dining room table! I wondered what was the purpose of the little shelf under the cupboard. Ian explained – the board on the wall across from the ledge comes down to form a shelf, on which the dishes coming from the kitchen were placed. There is another shelf that can be lowered behind where I was standing to take the photograph, that is on the other side of the door coming from the dining room, which would have been for the dirty dishes!
Before the cupboard was built for the leaves of the table, the wall had what looked like wooden panelling. Guests would have seen this if they glimpsed out into the hall from the dining table, and they would have been impressed to see that even the serving hall was panelled.
What looks like carved wood panelling, is actually wallpaper! I couldn’t believe it – the wood looks so real! I had to run my finger over it, and still found it hard to believe! Unfortunately the rest of the wallpaper has been painted over, below the leaf cupboard. The wood appearance wallpaper would have come halfway up the wall to look like wood panelling.
From the hall we entered a kitchen which is inside the timber lean-to. This was added on since the original kitchen was in the basement. A dumbwaiter was built into this lean-to for the sisters Madge and Joan, for the ease of their housemaid.
Inside the shaft where the dumb waiter goes up and down, Ian pointed out the original wall of the house. It was here that we could see the way the wall had been drawn on, “ruled and lined rendered walls,” to make it look like it was made of stone.
The servants would have lived in the basement and in the outbuildings to the side of the house in the coachyard and stable block. The top of the house was the nursery. I took a photo of the outbuildings from the top floor of the house, the attic storey.
You can just about see the solar panels which have been carefully installed, in such a way as not to damage the roof slates, which have been repaired and replaced by the current owners. The building on the left is new, but has been so well-made that it looks like the older buildings! Here again Ian pointed out how the render has been decorated so that around the new arches, it looks like stonework but is really cement plaster, carefully etched to mimic the original cut stone of the adjacent coach-house doorways.
There are two staircases in the house – the back stairs for the servants, and the main staircase.
The rooms upstairs are airy and bright and surprisingly large. Looking out a window, we had a bird’s eye view of the giant old Lebanon Cedar tree, which must be about 300 years old.
We then used the main staircase to return downstairs. It has a mahogany handrail and carved timber balusters, and is overlooked by a grand arched window.
This Wyatt window topped with arches is a style favoured by the architect William Farrell. There are similar windows in other houses he built, Rathkenny House and the See House in Kilmore. There is also a window like this in the courthouse in Virginia, County Cavan, but this is not an original – the window was originally an arch and was copied from Farrell’s windows.
The stairs are ornamented with Vitruvian scrolls, which is a motif from Greek temples. The fact that these were carved in stone in temples lends to the idea that the stairs are made of stone, although they are of wood. The bannisters are painted black and can be mistaken at a glance for wrought iron.
We ended our tour at the bottom of the stairs in another lovely hall space complete with fireplace. We signed the guest book, and look forward to returning to see the garden and to explore more outside!
“At this stage the house passed to Elizabeth Lucas-Clements ( Margaret’s god daughter) of the aforementioned neighbouring Rathkenny. Catherine Beresford, daughter of the Rt. Hon John de la Poer Beresford had, years before, married Henry Theophilus Clements of also nearby Ashfield Lodge, a cousin of the Rathkenny Lucas-Clements.”
The blog gives a great image of the way the gentry families intermarried and connected:
“These houses and families can often be like circles looping into each other, not unlike Olympic rings, connecting at a point, distant again perhaps for a period, but uniting again before this “pattern “ frequently continues unabated.”
Irish Historic Houses 