Rossleighan

I have passed Rossleighan countless times …. on the way to the dump!  But I have never actually seen it.  It is included because of its relevance to the social history of Clonreher and Lamberton. This post is more about genealogy and the human condition than architectural history. Though I would love to be able to put up a photo of Rossleighan if any one has one that they would let me use.

The 1838 OS survey shows a small farmhouse at Rossleaghan. The present house, and Rossleaghan Villa on the opposite side of the road, now a care home,  are probably both post 1850.     The “Ross” part of the name is easy – it means a wood.  The OS letters of 1838 suggests Ros liathán, ‘wood of the grey man’.  The Irish Places Names prefers Ó Liatháin’s Wood – a name anglicised to Lyons.   The townland belonged to the Kelly family Clonreher, and passed by inheritance to the Bunburys, the Tydds and the Moores, who were certainly resident there up to 1930

Note the glass houses! (top left)

The earliest reference in the press is to the appalling behaviour of the Foran and Whelan families in 1833

On Monday last an inquest was held in Maryborough, to inquire the cause of the death of Daniel Molloy, (upwards of 70 years old,) who expired on the previous Friday night in a ditch near Maryborough.  Molloy was turned out by his relatives, with whom he had lived for nearly 20 years, and was refused admission into any other house; He lay for twenty-nine days and nights previous to his death in the open fields, where he was left to perish by his unnatural relatives in a populous vicinity. The jury found that the said Daniel Molloy came to his death from emaciation, and exposure of his person in a ditch in the open air ; where he was suffered to remain for weeks previous to his death, abandoned and forlorn, by his relatives and friends, viz. Catharine Whelan, Elizabeth Whelan, Margaret Whelan, Daniel Foran, Thomas Foran, James Foran, senior, and James Foran, junior.  The persons named were committed by the coroner to the county gaol. — Dublin Evening Post – Thursday 26 September 1833.

The following year later James Foran was fined 5/- and committed to jail for assault on 24 Nov 1834.  He is in the papers again in 1847, when hunger was biting – the potato crops of autumn 1845 and 46 had failed, and the country is 18 months into the famine. 

A carrier named Martin Hughes, from Ballinakill, was robbed by three men of a bag of rice, and a jar of whisky, on Monday night, in the vicinity of Maryborough. Constable Johns and Sub-constable Gibbon, having heard of the robbery immediately proceeded to Rosleighan, the scene of its perpetration, accompanied by Hughes.  From the spot where Hughes was robbed, they traced the tracks of two men to a dung-heap near Mr. Clark’s barn (John Clark who was leasing Clonreher).  Here the jar of whisky was found buried. From the dung-heap the tracks were again traced back, a distance of about perch,(200 m – a perch is 40 rood and a rood is 5 m)  to the house of men named Foran in that neighbourhood.  No other tracks intervened, either forward or backward, the time. On entering the house, Thomas Foran and his two brothers were seated at the fire, Hughes pointed out Thomas, as one of the men who robbed him ; he also pointed out a pitchfork behind the door, which he said resembled the one with which one of the three men struck him.   Kings County Chronicle – Wednesday 17 February 1847

On the same day the paper ran two other famine related stories:-

The pay clerk of Maryborough East, has paid upwards of £l,800 on the relief works in the Barony, since the 14th November last. It would be interesting to know what the usual cost of relief was per quarter.

A small girl was robbed of a stone of flour, on the Woodville road, near Maryboro’, on Sunday evening. The person who robbed her also attempted to take her cloak.   In the same locality, on Monday evening a boy named Keys was robbed of a bottle of whisky, and 2s 6d worth of bread, which he was taking to Mr. Samuel Campion, of Lalor’s mills. Kings County Chronicle – Wednesday 17 February 1847

A year later the situation is even more desperate.  Evening Standard – Monday 03 January 1848

On the afternoon of last Thursday a carrier named John Doran was attacked by 20 men at Rosleighan, near Maryborough, and plundered of nine sacks of oatmeal, the property of James Sheane, Esq ., of Mountmelick. The Maryborough police, after a diligent search, succeeded in recovering two sacks of the meal, concealed in a field about a mile from the scene of outrage. We understand that the executive has refused, except on extraordinary occasions, to give military escort if the absence of police to protect provisions in their transmission from one town to another; but recommends that special constables be sworn in for that purpose, particularly at the cost of the owners of the bread- stuffs transmitted. If millers are not afforded sufficient protection in the transmission of their flour and meal, society will be soon reduced to a deplorable state, for of what use will money be if we cannot get food to purchase . This is the third plunder of provisions within the last fortnight, on the road between Maryborough and Mountmelick.

On Friday morning, Timothy Boughan set fire to an out-house Rosleighan, the property  Rev. J, T. Moore;  He then gave himself up to the police Maryboiough ; stated what he had done, and said his object was to get himself transported. The offender is from Streamstown, County Westmeath.  (about 60 km away)  Southern Reporter Tuesday 06 November 1849

Rev John Tydd Moore inherited his father’s massive estate in 1846.  It appears that he was a very enlightened landlord, and as a result by 1851 he was negotiating the sale of the main estate at Lamberton for £14,000 to clear the debts that had accrued during the famine.  This is probably when Rossleaghan Lodge was built. 

On the 15 June 1853, at St. Thomas, Dublin, the Rev. Arthur Moore, eldest son of the Rev. John Tydd Moore, of Lamberton Park, in the Queen’s County, to Harriette, relict of Major Murray, of Baliina, County Mayo. Published: Reading Mercury    At this stage he had definitely left Lamberton, but the social standing that it gave still reflected on the family.  For instance Magan of Umma More  will give a far longer line of credit that Magan of North London, or even than Magan of Castletown. The importance of place is part of the Gaelic psyche.

On 23 Aug 1856 there was a deed of conveyance for property near the town of Maryborough in Queen’s County between the Rev. John Tydd Moore of Rosleighan Lodge, Queen’s County and Thomas Turpin of Maryborough.

lt is seldom that we have had to record a more terrific thunder-storm than occurred in the neighbourhood of Maryborough on Friday evening last. At nearly five o’clock it commenced, and the oldest inhabitant, even those who have seen foreign parts, never recollect to have witnessed such continued vivid and violent lightning coupled with most awful thunder. It continued with scarcely any intermission till nearly midnight, and part of the time the most copious rain poured out of the heavens, actually forming rivers in the driest places. Even horses and other animals were nearly paralysed with fear and the horses actually screamed with fright. We have as yet heard of no damage done, excepting what has happened to the small but beautiful greenhouses and conservatories belonging the Rev. J. T. Moore, Rossleighan Lodge.

Soon after six o’clock the dreadful fluid struck down one of the chimneys of a range of greenhouses, 80  feet long, bursting the chimney ; entering the house through the glass at the end, it ran, conducted the wire trellis, up and down the inside, destroying most splendid crop grapes, just ripe, as well the vines and other lovely plants ; Most providentially the gardener and attendants had at the beginning the storm, made for their homes, dreading the torrents rain, otherwise it is more than probable that some of them would have been attending their charge these houses, as is their habit.

Dublin Evening Packet and Correspondent – Tuesday 18 June 1861. cf Clonraher 1877

His wife’s mother had had a very long life – Rebekah Bockett had died at Southcote Lodge in 1857 at the age of 92. 

Southcote Lodge, Berks, the childhood home of Mrs Moore

His sister in law was not so lucky, dying on 7 Jan 1862, aged 56,  at Rathregan Rectory, Dunshaughlin. – Augusta Bockett had married Rev John H Dunn, then of Coolrain, in 1843.  Later in 1862 John Tydd Moore suffered a stroke.    In the Leinster Express October 11, 1862  Rossleighan is advertised to let, its owner suffering from ill health and having to leave.   Money is still a problem and 14 February 1863 the Landed Estates Court was inviting creditors to apply for payment from the sale of  The Rev. John Tydd Moore’s property at Derrytrasna (Moore Valley House) to Edmond, Patrick and Walter Sweetman. 

12 January, 1865. The Freeman’s Journal reported that the unfortunate man had taken his own life. “Rev. John Tydd Moore, incumbent of the valuable living of Erke, in the diocese of Ossory, committed suicide on Friday morning last in his residence near Maryborough. He rose about 9 o’clock, and was supplied with his shaving materials by his valet, who then saw nothing strange in his appearance or conduct. Sometime afterward a housemaid entered the room and found him lying on the bed with his throat completely severed and the razor which he had used beside him. At the inquest which was held the following day a verdict of ‘temporary insanity’ was returned. The unfortunate gentleman was the eldest son of the late Hon. Arthur Moore, for many years a puisne judge of the common pleas. The living which is worth 500l. per annum, reverts to the Crown.’

Charlotte Moore stayed on, running the farm.  Her son Rev Arthur was serving in a parish in Mayo and about to be promoted to be Dean of Achonry (Killala).  On 22 July 1866 her daughter Caroline died, aged 45, the wife of Richard Hawkesworth, Esq., of Forest, Mountrath. 

As soon as they are old enough the Dean sends his sons down to look after their grandmother and run the farm.  They rather let him down. On 17 February 1877 there are five suits by Murdoch Campbell against the Moore brothers and four counter-suits in the courthouse. 

Whilst Murdock Campbell’s ploughman was having lunch Arthur Moore, whose family had retained the shooting rights over Clonreher, removed the steel pointed sock from the plough.  The following day he was pretty beastly to the ploughman. A week later Campbell met Arthur on the farm and asked had he come to take off another sock from the plough.  Moore responded his father never was a blacksmith, implying that Campbell’s was, and that Campbell himself was a puppy, and that everyone in the country knew he was a puppy. The next day John and Arthur Moore called up to Clonreher.  Campbell thought that they were there to apologise, instead of which Arthur punched him.  Fortunately John Kavanagh, Mr. Campbell’s gardener, came up, and an end was put to the affair. 

In Court the Moore’s lawyer, John Roe, described Campbell Murdoch as “pampered, ignorant, and inflated”.  His version was that Campbell said Arthur Moore was a puppy in a muttering manner. Moore told him to repeat it, but he did not.  Moore then told Campbell he was a contemptable  puppy.  The upshot was that Moore was fined £5, though the rows continued for the following year. On reading the case as reported it is very hard to be sympathetic to the Moore brothers, who seem to be a complete pair of wallys.

Saturday, May 29, 1880   the house is advertised to let for 5 years  in the Leinster Express.  It does not let and the Freeman’s Journal – Friday 07 May 1897 announced “The Lord Chancellor has appointed Captain Arthur Moore, Rosleighan, Maryborough, to the Commission of the Peace for the Queen’s County”. 

At Exmouth, Devon, Charlotte, widow of the Rev. John Tydd Moore, M.A., Oxon, Rector of Eirke, Ireland last surviving daughter of the late John Bockett, Esq., of Southcote Lodge, Beading, aged 86, on the 9th inst., Reading Mercury – Saturday 17 June 1882

Her son, Dean Arthur Moore died a month later on 7 July 1882 at Rossleaghan  aged 63, of Pneumonia, still with his deanery in Ballymote where he had been since 1872

Harriette Moore, one of the Dean’s daughters, married Francis Gethin in Feb 1882, with her sister Elizabeth Charlotte Moore as one of the witnesses, just before the death of her father and grandmother.    On 14 January 1885 the Dean’s youngest daughter Caroline married Robert Persse Fitzpatrick, son of the Rev Frederick Fitzpatrick and Olivia , Lord Headfort’s daughter.  Once again Elizabeth was witness. 

The Dean’s sons now owned Rossleaghan jointly, but Arthur seems to have joined the regular army and travelled.  John remained at home with ever increasing money troubles.  In 1889 the bank sent in the sheriff to seize property and discovered that he made over everything that he could to the housekeeper Mary Pilsworth Leinster Leader – Saturday 26 January 1889.   A trailer seized by the sheriff’s bailiff had to be relinquished after Mary Pilsworth (the sister of the apothecary in Portlaoise, she had worked for the Moores for nearly 40 years)  swore an affidavit claiming that the goods had passed to her under a bill of sale in consideration of wages due.  It was a bit mean of John Gore Moore to put Mary through this at the age of 69 – though Moore was in his mid thirties!

 In April 1901 John Gore Moore married Henrietta Galway, daughter of William Galway from Ardee, and they had 4 daughters.  Henrietta  had a miscarriage in the Adelaide and died in 1912.  Moore  was still resident at Rossleighan in March, 1916  when the Nationalist was reporting on his problems with horses and Mr Jessop.  War and revolution rather push his story out of the press!

Clonreher Castle – an indefinite history

The Weekly Irish Times  on Saturday 19 September 1908  reported that, on their annual outing, Lord Walter Fitzgerald told the Kildare Archaeological Society, so far as Clonreher Castle was concerned it had no definite history.

Clonreher as photographed by Helen Roe

Andrew Tierney in the Buildings of Ireland begs to differ.  As the corner towers mimic a scaled down version of Fort Protector he suggests a colonial builder such as John Dunkerley, Sovreign of Naas, who was granted land here in 1563.  Unlike Coolbanagher Castle, whose ruins were demolished after the storm of 2014 rather than being made safe,  (a disgrace for which Laois should blush)  Clonreher is still in reasonable condition though repointing and remedial treatment of mural cracks should be carried out without delay to avoid another embarrassing tragedy.  The images of the cracked tower were taken in 2018 and are borrowed from irelandinruins.blogspot.com

Urgent remedial work is essential – “Property has its duties as well as its rights” Thomas Drummond

Dunkerley’s grant actually refers to the castle of Clonreher,  and Fitzwilliam’s accounts note that Dunkerley owes £253 for “victualling his fort in Leix” in 1565. It may have been built post 1547 as an outer defence for Fort Protector.   Or it may have been built by the O’Dowling – there is an account that Sir Ralph Bagenal took it from the O’Dowlings.  Bagenal, the Lieutenant of Leix and Offaly under Edward VI, had been dismissed for denying the Papal supremacy in 1554, and sought refuge in France, where he lived by selling at a great sacrifice a property worth 500l. a year. 

The rath was probably the original O’Dowling residence – From Helen Roe’s “Tales and Customs of Laoighs”, Folklore of Ireland Society , June 1939 

Near Portlaoighise, there is a rath on the land of Clonreher. The ground was being adapted for a coursing club, and some of the trees growing on this rath were cut down. One tree fell and killed the man who was felling it.  When the tree trunks were being drawn away from the field the chains holding them broke; the tree trunks rolled off the cart, and killed the man who was drawing them away. For many years a certain amount of ill luck followed all the coursing meetings held on this field, and quite recently one of the original promoters of the scheme was found dead on the banks of this rath. (Frank Kelly, in  August 1933).

Daniel Byrne-Rothwell’s 2012 article on Clonreher gives a full account of the early history, though he does not mention that it is also claimed as the birthplace of St Fintan of Clonenagh (Carloviana-No-22-197 p10)        

The Fiants of Queen Elizabeth  in 1576 record Thomas Myrrick as in possession  and it is granted to Robert Hartpole.  https://www.logainm.ie/

It was granted to Sir Pierce Crosby in 1628, but was already in the possession of his father Patrick Crosbie (aka Mac Crossan, hereditary Bard to the O’More)  before 1600 (Calendar of the Patent and Close Rolls of Chancery in Ireland of the Reign Charles I p 360)

Clonreher Castle was “slighted” (made indefensible) in 1656 by the Cromwellians and the lands confiscated. In 1664 Phillimore’s calendar of wills records the will of Richard Crosbie of Clonriher, Queen’s Co. Charles II granted Clonreher to Thomas Dongan, Earl of Limerick (1634 – 1715) in 1670. Dongan, Governor of New York under Charles II and James II, forfeited Clonreher together with his many estates, in 1692 for his support of James II (they are a fascinating family worthy of a post of their own – the name come from the Norman – Dungeon!)

We are now approaching the period when the current house was built, and there are two stories that don’t quite work within the available timeline.   The first is the duplicitous Dunne. 

This is a story told by Daniel O’Byrne in “The History Of The Queen’s County”;  the Castle passed to the Dunne family, and that the last member of the Dunnes who possessed Clonreher was married to a lady of remarkable beauty.   Their three daughters married into ‘respectable’ farming families with gentry connections. Catherine Dunne married into the Conways, Winifred Dunne to the Dalys and Sarah Dunne to the Mihens (Meehan).  Catherine Conway’s daughter married a Kelly and their daughter Margaret Kelly  1770-1847 married Walter Byrne, grandson of John Byrne of Timogoue, (brother of Sir Gregory Byrne, Cromwell’s tailor – but that’s another story!)

The point of this story is that the dastardly Dunne had “a doxy”, a secret mistress, a servant in the castle, who bore him a son, and he married her after his wife died, and the son, becoming a protestant, was able to exclude his half sisters from their inheritance.  If this happened it would have had to be post the Popery Act of 1703. 

But by 1714 John Kelly is resident at Clonreher.  The Conservation Plan for Fort Protector  (Laois Heritage Society) lists him first in 1714  “George Thornton of the City of Dublin and John Kelly of Clonreher leasing a great stone house formerly used as an inn.”   He was still dealing in property in  May 1725.  According to Burke’s Peerage in 1724  Mary Kelly, the daughter of  John Kelly of Clonreher  married Benjamin Bunbury, son of Mathew Bunbury and Anne Blount.

Turtle Bunbury writes:- When Benjamin Bunbury died in 1765, he had no male heir to the Kilfeacle estate and instead left the property to his eldest daughter, Elizabeth Richardson. His wife survived him by seven years. Her death was recorded as follows in the Freeman’s Journal (courtesy of Bob Fitzsimons):   20-22 Oct 1772. DIED At Clonteer near Maryborough, Mrs Bunbury, by whose death a fortune of £1000 per annum devolves to Benjamin Bunbury Esq.; late Lieutenant in the 3rd Regiment of Horse.

In 1777 her niece’s husband John Tydd is resident, who moves to Lamberton in the early 1790s. More research is needed into when and to whom it was granted after the Williamite confiscation.

It is probable that the house was built by John Kelly, and I suspect in the 1730s  Tierney is succinct:-“Five bays, two storey with dormer attic. Tall narrow openings, sashes set close to the wall. Eaves course of cogged brick.  Bulky stacks in the gable-ends, of characteristic T-shape. Small attic windows flank them, and there is evidence for dormer windows on the front, since removed. Late C18 joinery. Staircase with ramped handrail and scrolled tread-ends, continuing up to the attic.” 

Clonreher by Daniel Byrne Rothwell Note the ghosts of the dormers!

After Tydd moves to Lamberton there is then silence for  50 years till we read that Mr. George Craig, of County Fermanagh, married Sarah, sixth daughter of Mr. John Miller, Clonrear Castle, Queen’s County. 31 August 1840  Dublin Morning Register

There was a John Miller who was the postmaster in Portlaoise, but this was a different person. 

Deaths:- In Clonreher, near Maryborough, in her 70th year. Mrs. Miller, wife of Mr. John Miller.   Clare Journal, 26 August 1844

In 1846 John Miller of Clonreher is on the Grand Jury

Murdoch Campbell (1808-1874) was a Glaswegian brought to act as steward to Sir Charles Coote at Ballyfin, Co. Laois.   The inscription on his gravestone in Ballyfin Church of Ireland church states that  ‘by his sole genius and resources he designed and constructed all the works of beauty and solidity in the demesne’.   According to Mulligan these works would have included ‘almost certainly the tower, the ornamental rockwork, the menagerie and kennels’.

In 1846 his son Murdoch jnr  was born.  In  June 1849  Murdoch was a merchant in Mountmellick, selling John Cassels Coffee.  It is not clear whether he had left the Coote’s employ, or just had an additional job. 

In 1850, at the time of Griffith’s valuation, John Miller is still in Clonreher, leasing it from Rev John Tydd Moore.  The Rev John Mooore, who financial straights are dire, is in a house worth £2/5/-  (as opposed to the £12/15/- valuation put on Clonraher,  George Hamilton, whose house is valued at £4.00 is  living at Cappagh North –  R32 P2KC.  His son, George Moore Hamilton, born in 1848 and died at Clonreher, a bachelor, in 1905.  George Hamilton’s father may have been William Hamilton whose sister Mary (b1771) married Philip Lyster (d 1838), and his brother James married Mary Ann Randall in 1842.  His grandparents were butchers in Birr.  It would be interesting to see how they are related to the Hamiltons of Roundwood.

Griffith’s Valuation – The Hamiltons are at 6 and Rev John Tydd is at the arrow on the bottom right – Rossleighan

At the launch of Murdoch jnr’s  agricultural machinery business in June 1870 Mr Fitzpatrick, Maryborough, said he would not like to see those who had partaken of Mr Campbell’s hospitality separate without drinking the healths both of father and son. He had known Mr Campbell, senior, for a period of at least thirty years, and a more honourable, upright man he never met in all his life, or one more competent to discharge the duties of his position. To show that he was a man well competent to manage such extensive estates as those of Ballyfinn , he would mention that in the famine years when the landed proprietors held a meeting at Maryborough, in accordance with the notice in Labouchere’s letter (well worth a google!), Sir Charles Coote was one of those proprietors who did not borrow a penny from the Board of Works , but of his own ample means employed all the hands on his estates and in the neighbourhood for the purpose of making drains and roads, and otherwise improving the soil. As sole manager Mr Campbell had superintendence of all these works. The Deerpark contained about five hundred acres, and all with the exception of a small portion, was under bog, furze -in fact it was a wide waste. This was valued by himself (Mr Fitzpatrick) in the year 1840 at £26, and in 1843 , by Griffith’s valuation, it was valued at a sum less than that. But by Mr Campbell’s management these lands have been all squared into fields of thirty and forty acres in extent, all bounded with neat thorn-quick hedges, and intersected by well made and well kept farm roads ; and from the soil at one time so wretched , he produces as fine crops of wheat, oats, turnips, clover, and so on, as the country could show. The farm buildings which were erected under Mr Campbell’s superintendence do credit to the Ballyfinn estates ; and the extensive system of stall-feeding pursued is highly remunerative. It would be almost impossible to describe the numerous improvements effected under Mr Campbell’s supervision, but it was a patent fact to every one conversant with the Ballyfinn estates, that his conduct of affairs, and his kind advice to all who sought it, was most beneficial to both employer and employees. He (Mr Fitzpatrick) was delighted to find himself there that day to witness the mowing match got up by Mr Campbell, junior, who he hoped would yet take up his father’s place in the esteem of the gentry and farmers of this county, and he also sincerely hoped he would be as successful as his best friend could wish in his new undertaking

It is possible (but unlikely)  that the Campbells arrived at Clonreher before 1860 and that Ms Cummins was actually a Miss Campbell.    

Births Cummins—At Clonreher, Queen’. County, the wife of Wm. H. Cummins, Esq., of son.  Dublin Evening Mail – Monday 09 December 1861. 

They were definitely there by 1865, as tenants of Dean Arthur Moore :-

In the Presbyterian Church Portlaoise Charlotte McLeod Campbell (25) dau of Murdoch Campbell m John Wallace, an Edinburgh solicitor, the son of William Dick Wallace  9  Aug 1865

At Rutland Square Church, Dublin (Findlater’s Church, the Presbyterian church which had opened in 1864) , – On the 9th Inst  by the Rev. Dr Kirkpatrick, Mr William Rodger, C.E, Glasgow, to Susanna Dick, second daughter of Murdoch Campbell, Esq. of Clonreher Castle, Queen’s County Ireland.   Greenock Advertiser – Tuesday 15 December 1868

Anne Campbell beloved wife of Murdoch Campbell Snr d Apr 25 1869 aged 63 at Clonreher

In July 1870 the Leinster Express reported on Campbell’s new business:-  “On Tuesday last a very interesting exhibition of mowing machines was held on the lands of Clonreher, at which a large number of the gentry and farmers attended, by the special invitation of Mr M. Campbell, jun., who has been for some time engaged extensively in selling agricultural machinery of every invention and best make, together with artificial manures and farm seeds as imported by the most eminent firms in the kingdom.  The commodious offices and yards attached to the residence of Mr Campbell, jun., at Clonreher, enables him to keep on stock a large quantity of each of these articles; and as he keeps on hands a supply of the duplicate portions of the machines, this concern must prove a much desired boon to the agriculturists of Maryborough and the wide district of which that town is the centre; and young Mr Campbell, we are sure, will be encouraged and supported in this wide district, which was so long left without such an establishment as that he is now starting. At the present Mr Campbell is largely supplied with implements suited to the requirements of the present season, and it is sufficient to show that these are of the best manufacture , and sold at the most reasonable rate of market profit, when we say that several sales of combined reapers and mowers, together with hay tedders, hay rakes, &c, were effected. At about eleven o’clock Mr Campbell sent his machines to cut down a five acre field of new meadow hay, and the grass being rather thin , the exhibition was one well calculated to afford the many experienced farmers present an opportunity of judging the capabilities of the machines at work. Mr Campbell, we believe, is agent for all the different machines made, but on this occasion he only showed those manufactured by Wood and Samuelson, two of the most, celebrated makers in the world. On the other hand, in justice to another eminent maker, we shall give Samuelson’s machine all the credit due to it—and that is a great deal. The improvements in this year’s machine are very decided,  and are of a three-fold character. They are:—1st. A system of draught which takes all weight from the hocks of the horses, at the same time materially lessening the dead draft of the machine. 2nd. The ” inclined-cut” sickle, a novel means of obtaining a lower cut than in any existing mower , with the important advantage of having the sections riveted to the top of the knifebar instead of the bottom ; this is the only position in which a section can be sharpened by a grindstone at all. 3rd. Running the sickle on hardened steel slips, which leave a clear wedge-shaped space between the sickle and the beam. By this means all clogging matters are discharged from beneath the sickle, which is always quite free in its bed, even in the worst bottomed meadows , and the draft rendered extraordinarily light when the cutting is the worst. These slips are removable, and they completely prevent the wearing into the beam by the sickle. When at work the great advantage of these improvements are noticeable to the observer, and as the same advantages extend to the reaper, there need be no hesitation in pronouncing that this machine has almost approached perfection. The prime consideration for farmers is the price of these machines, and as these two great machines axe equal in that respect, the only way to satisfy themselves is by attending such an exhibition as that at Clonreher, and which we understand , will be repeated at no distant day. The five acres of meadow were soon cut down, by the two machines , which were at once purchased up by two gentlemen on the ground.

10 April 1873 Margaret Cunningham Campbell married Thomas Thompson Lagan, a teacher, the son of James Lagan, a builder from Dundee, in the C of I church, Portlaoise.

July 1874 Murdoch Campbell snr dies, his son James Campbell present.

The Queen’s County Show is now being run by young Murdoch:- Mr Murdoch Campbell is the respected proprietor of the Queen’s County Agricultural Implement Manufactory, and being an extensive and enthusiastic agriculturist, besides being deservedly popular, we are sure he will afford complete satisfaction. The show on Wednesday last was a proof that Mr Campbell is the right man in the place which Mr Mowbray made so hard to fill after himself.   Kilkenny Moderator – Saturday 18 August 1877

On Oct 5 1874 Margaret Spelling (nee Coffey) of New Road Maryborough had a daughter Mary whose father was, according to the birth certificate, Murdoch Campbell of Clonreher.  On 5 June 1875 the death of the 8 month old Mary Murdoch, a servant’s child, of “diseases of the head” was recorded by the illiterate Margaret Spelling of New Road Maryborough

I suspect Murdoch of misbehaving!  However he was an interesting character. As well as being a businessman, land agent, and Senior Deacon in the Maryborough Masonic Lodge, he found the time to do a spot of inventing: In November 1873, The London Gazette reported that he had applied to patent a type of briquette.

Longford Journal – Saturday 30 June 1877 THE RECENT LIGHTNING.. A very large sycamore or beech tree, which is quite close to one end of Clonreher House attracted the lightning, which entered through one the chimneys to an upper room, and continued its course downwards to two rooms immediately underneath. In the upper room a large metal fire grate was completely torn from its bed by the dangerous fluid, and broken into five distinct pieces, whilst in the same room a mirror which lay on chest of drawers at the opposite side was broken into fragments, and the glass slavered in every possible direction. The woodwork of this mirror had completely disappeared, and not trace of quicksilver could be found on the fragments of the broken glass. Continuing its downward course, the lightning burst into the centre room, made clean breach right out through a portion of the brick and solid wall, struck a metal spout reaching from the roof to a water barrel on the ground, and killed an unfortunate grimalkin (an archaic name for a cat, for those who, like me, didn’t know!) who had sought what it probably considered refuge under the barrel from the fearful rain. In the room on the ground floor extensive damage was done, a beautiful Brussels carpet being rendered almost valueless, a massive mahogany chair twisted into shapeless mass, the gilt moulding torn into atoms, and the wall paper stripped from roof to floor. At the time of these occurrences a pigeon in flight was struck and killed, as well as a turkey and duck the ground underneath, and three servants of Mr. Campbell who were in the stables.

So tempting to end here – I am reminded of an account of a raid by the O’Byrnes on the village of Tallaght in 1805 which reported that they had carried off 7 cows, 5 garron (horses)  several goats and sheep and, almost incidentally, 3 women.    However this article actually ends with the fact that they were flung violently on the ground, but, very fortunately, did not receive further injuries than the shock of the sudden fall.

cf with the storm of 1861 at Rossleaghan

Murdock jnr married Elizabeth Williams Kerr, though when and here is not quite clear. 

QUEEN’S COUNTY. ROBERT J. GOFF has been favoured with instructions from Murdoch Campbell Esq (who proposes to give up horse breeding),  to sell his horses peremptorily by Public Auction, On WEDNESDAY, Feb 13  1878 At CLONREHER CASTLE.  This is the year after he and his landlords the Moores had been abusing each other in the fields and in the courts.

Patrick Kelly (b.1853) was an R.I.C. man whose hobby was making iron farm implements. He resigned from the force and, in 1883, bought Campbell’s Queens County Agricultural Machinery.               

Murdoch jnr had died in July 1880 at the age of 34 in hospital in Dublin, leaving a wife and appointing his brother in law  Francis Alexander Williams Kerr as executor.  His wife died 5 months later in Nov 1880

His brother James Campbell had married Elizabeth Robinson and moved to Love Lane (now Donore Avenue) in The Combe.  Their son, named Murdoch McKenzie Campbell, was born in 1873.

Elizabeth Williams Campbell’s brother Francis Alexander William Kerr, of 69, Kildare Street, Dublin, attempted suicide in Dungarvan on Tuesday 5 May 1883  by throwing himself into the river.  He was, fortunately, rescued by some people who were present on the quay. Constable Roothe arrived soon after and took the young man in charge. He was examined by Dr Holland, who certified that he was suffering from delirium tremens and was immediately afterwards conveyed to hospital, where he has since been located.

STATUTORY NOTICE TO CREDITORS. In the Goods Elizabeth Williams Campbell, (formerly wife of Murdoch Campbell), late of Lower Mount-street, in the city Dublin, formerly of Clonreher Castle, the Queen’s County, Widow, Deceased. NOTICE is hereby given, pursuant to the statute 22nd and 23rd Vic, can intituled Act to Further Amend the Law Property and to Relieve Trustees,” that all persons claiming be Creditors, or otherwise to have any claim or demand against the assets of above named deceased Elizabeth Williams Campbell, who died on the 17th day of November, 1880, are hereby required furnish their particulars (in writing) of such claims or demands, or before the Ist day of May, 1881. the undersigned Solicitor for Francis Alexander Williams Kerr, of Kilmore near Enfield, in the county of Kildare, Gentleman, one of the next-of-kin of said deceased, to whom Letters Administration and with the will annexed. were granted forth of the Principal Registry of the Probate and Matrimonial Division of the High Court of Justice in Ireland, on the 31st day March, 1881. And Notice is hereby given that the said Administrator will, after the said 1st day May, 1881, proceed to administer the Estate

Clonreher in 1838

Clonreher from Google Maps 2021

Clonreher, “formerly in the possession of John Miller”  was available on lease of 41 years from Sept 1883    Dublin Daily Express – Saturday 08 November 1884, but did not sell. The Estate of Francis Alexander Williams Kerr, owner, the National Bank, petitioners. Part of the Lands of Clonreher, in the barony Maryborough East, held under lease for unexpired term of 41 years, from 29th Sept, 1883. containing 189 a 3a 17p; annual profit rent, £90. Sale adjourned, the highest offer being £650   Dublin Daily Express – Saturday 08 November 1884 

The sale in 1893

By Saturday 21 July 1906  George Neville Jessop (1882-1940) of Clonreher House was exhibiting at the Waterford Show. On Valentine’s day 1905 he had married Geraldine Lloyd Roe, daughter of John Roe of Oughterard, who described herself, rather remarkably, as a philatelist in the 1911 census.   Her sister Matilda had married John Bourke, a banker from Banagher.   Her grandfather, John Lloyd Roe had been born at Middlemount in 1816 and in 1841 married Belinda Smith, daughter of Westropp Smith of Newgrove, Dunkerrin, a charming house of the middle size in grave danger of extinction, possibly due to the proximity of the motorway, though the road is in a cutting at that point, so the noise should not be intrusive.

Newgrove

The Lord Chancellor has appointed Mr. George N. Jessop, Clonreher House, Maryborough, to the Commission of the Peace for that county.  Saturday 22 May 1909  Weekly Irish Times

In 1930 GN Jessop sold to Basil William Broomfield ((1882- 1967)  from Irey, near Ballyfin. 100 years previously brothers Humphrey Broomfeld, Basil Broomfield, Joseph Broomfield & Henry Parnell Broomfield had all served in the Queen’s County Militia, the very colourful Henry going on to serve in the regular army before settling in Borris Cottage, Portlaoise.

Let us hope that the beauty and historic importance of both the house and the castle are recognised so that future generations will bless the name of their conservators, not curse the name of their vandals. It would be very sad if 21st century custodians allowed the craftsmanship of the 16th century and 18th century to be obliterated by neglect.

. 

Rathleague, Parnell’s home

Rathleague House , near Portlaoise,  built by the Parnells, supporters of Catholic emancipation, anti unionist and liberal landlords was described in the 18th century as being one of the finest mansions in the county – though as that is the height of the description, we haven’t the remotest idea what it actually looked like. 

The Rath at Rathleague

According to The Placenames Database of Ireland  Rathleague means the stone fort,  and it is wonderful to report that much of it still exists on the eastern boundary.   The folklore collection gives a great example of how oral history and a story teller’s imagination can conflate to give a completely false story    Rathleague is situated about two miles out the New Road. This is how it got its name – when the Normans were in Ireland they had many gods. They used have them in forts or raths. They had one at Rathleague in a rath. They used to call it Rain God. As the Normans did not know much about this part of Ireland they had to mark it somehow This is how they knew Rathleague, It was about three (League) miles from the Normans’ camp which was on the Stradbally Road. From then on onwards it was called Rathleague.

The Kildare Rental in Mac Niocaill’s Crown Surveys of Lands lists William Kelly as occupier in 1518.  By 1569 it was in the possession of Francis Cosby

In Pender’s Census of 1659  Thady Dwigin gent, is of Rathleague.   Though totally absent from the current phone book (in the civil records the last one recorded is Michael Duigin of Errill reporting the death of his 80 year old father in 1888), the Duigins or Dwigins were certainly once a Laois family.  In 1688 John and Mary Dwigin are taking a case against Edmond Morress (MP for Queen’s County in James II’s 1689 “Patriot Parliament” and killed at the Battle of Aughrim)  the Attainders of 1691 name Matthew Dwigin of Dunamase,  and James Dwigin of Clonenagh was one of the 15 parish priests registered in Laois in 1704 under one of the earliest penal laws, the Registration Act to prevent the further growth of popery.

Dwigin was probably a tenant of Walter Warneford, a Wiltshire Cromwellian who was based at Mountmellick.  In 1716 his grandson or great nephew Edmund, winding up some of his Irish affairs, had all his lands mapped. He died in 1726 in Mountmellick, having sold Rathleague to John Parnell in 1716.  In 1728 there was an act of the Irish Parliament “Exemplifying the will of Edmund Warneford”.   The Warneford family remained Laois landlords till the 1920s, and in the 1890s nearly half their income (£2000 pa) came from Laois tenants. An English Family Through Eight Centuries  F. E. Warneford, Elisabeth McDougall  1991

Their seat was Warenford Place in Wiltshire.  In 1960, the James Bond author Ian Fleming bought the then derelict Warneford Place and built a new house which he named Sevenhampton Place, incorporating some elements of the original building.  It now belongs to Paddy McNally, the Donegal businessman who made a fortune from Formula 1.

Warneford Place

On 9 April 1716 Thomas Fisher of Rathleague wrote his will (pr 18 July 1718).   Wife: Sarah. Son: Henry. Daughters: Margaret & Elinor. Son-in-law Charles Lester. Daughter: Anne Lester. Brother: James Fisher. Daughter: Mary. Son: William. Grandson: John Luttrell. BENTHAM 1.23 F 1700-1754 p21/70.  Presumable his brother was  James Fisher of Mountrath who died in 1721 and whose daughter married James Calcutt.  (BET 1.23 F 1700-1754 p32/101)  They were probably Quakers whose family had arrived in Ireland in the 1650s from Elton near Chester (see Searching for the Ancestors of Thomas Fisher Jackie L. Fisher 2005).

A Deed, dated 15 March 1727, in the Deeds Registry, “…last Will and Testament of our father, John PIGOTT, Esq’r, deceased, bearing date the 2nd day of March 1708, the sum of £200 sterling was left to me John PIGOTT as a portion, and the sum of £300 stg was left to me Ann PIGOTT as my portion, also a dividend to each of us of £30 more, our shares of our sister Frances PIGOOTT’s portion deceased…”      The Deed was witnessed by Pigott SANDES of Dysart in the Queen’s County, Esq, Warner WESTENRA of Rathleague in the Queen’s County, Esq, and Patrick DALY, a servant to Richard, Earl of Cavan (by whom the monetary shares had been delivered to John and Ann). But Ann PIGOTT alone signed and sealed it.  Warner Westenra was the MP for Maryborough  from 1727 to 1760,  and married Hester Lambert, daughter of Lord Cavan in 1738, whose grandmother was Castilina Gilbert  of Kilminchy, 2 miles from Rathleague.  He was presumably at Rathleague whilst he was building Heath House into which he moved later that year. 

The first Parnell in Ireland was a Cromwellian from Congleton, 30 miles east of Chester.  His grandson was Thomas Parnell (1679-1718) Archdeacon of Clogher, author of the ” Hermit,” and friend of Pope, Swift, Addison, Congreve, and Steele.  “The most capable man,” wrote Oliver Goldsmith in his Life, “to make the happiness of those whom he conversed with, and the least able to secure his own.” His wife (Nancy Minchin), a beautiful and amiable lady, died when he was thirty-two years of age, and thereafter a melancholia settled upon him, and he became mentally disordered (a sickness that he treated with alcohol). He suddenly died at Chester in 1717, when on his way from London to Ireland, and was buried there, in his thirty-eighth year, having being predeceased by his two sons.

Thomas’ sister Margaret married William Burgh, brother of Thomas Burgh the surveyor-general  (Trinity College Library, Steevens’s Hospital, etc. )

His brother John Parnell (1680-1727) married Mary Whitshed (d 1768) one of 13 children of Thomas Whitshed and Mary (Quin), and by the terms of the marriage settlement John had to invest  £1250 in land, which brought about the acquisition of Rathleague and Tonnikele (Tennekill).  Mary’s brother Lord Chief Justice Whitshed and John Parnell were both distinguished judges (quite different from a learned judge – even the most ignorant buffoon who gets a seat on the bench is a learned judge!)  Despite the Westenra and Fisher occupations, Parnell seems to have bought Rathleague in 1716. 

Sir John Parnell ,(1717- 1782) his only son , who succeeded him in 1727 at the age of 10.  He was created a Baronet in 1766 and married Anne Ward in 1744, daughter of Michael Ward (1683–1759) of Castleward, Co. Down and brother of Bernard Ward who built the present Castleward.    It was he who was responsible for beautifying the estate and creating the delights that, were they still there, would make Rathleague one of the most important gardens in Ireland.  He also started the herd of Bakewell’s Leicestershire cattle. 

The diary of his first journey in England is now in the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C. The diary of his second set of English travels in 1769-70 is now in the British Library in London. There is also in The London School of Economics , Coll. Misc. 38:  The handwritten journal of Sir John Parnell entitled ‘Journal of a tour thro’ England and Wales,’ anno. 1769. 

A contrived Arcady at Shenstone’s The Leasowes – Virgil’s Grove

The books are full of memoranda about farming methods and implements and the way in which he might employ them at home. They also contain dozens of sketches of fences, gates and buildings as well as of garden features he had seen in England or which he planned to execute on his return to Ireland.

Parnell particularly liked the root seats that Shenstone had created at The Leasowes in the West Midlands.  Made up of natural stone (as an entrance way), branches, roots, and sodded at the top,  growing climbers to look like a natural bower but (naturally enough) designed as shelter from the rain.

Horner’s “Mapping Laois” reproduces Byron’s 1789 survey.  It shows a pleasure house, a lake with a boat house, a sunken fence (or ha-ha), and a pigeon house.   The last two are now underneath the M7.  The Silver Hall, originally a marshy field where a treasure is said to be buried beneath a tree, between the house and the lake, was clearly inspired by Shentone’s Virgil’s Grove.

Patrick Bowe, the garden historian, has written on Rathleague.  Parnell planted extensive woods and created an artificial lake that was notable for attracting great numbers of wild fowl. Around his house, he laid out gardens, erecting a circular temple in the Doric style as a new focal point for his demesne. (The flat Temple Field with a big pit surrounded by bushes was at the back of Conroy’s Farm).   The latter was criticised by Richard Colt Hoare, owner of the famous English landscape garden at Strourhead. He wrote in his Journal of a Tour in Ireland that its architecture was bad, that its columns were too slender and that it had an inappropriate balustrade on top. Rathleague House was destroyed in a fire in the 1840s and was only partially rebuilt. The temple was finally demolished in the middle of the 20^th  century. Another of Parnell’s projects was at the Rock of Dunamase.  Cromwellian soldiers virtually destroyed the medieval castle on top but Parnell set about the conservation of what remained, reconstructing part of the castle using medieval fragments such as cut stone window and door surrounds from the ruins of other nearby medieval structures and creating a banqueting hall – guaranteed to give SPAB and contemporary conservationists a conniption.

Arrived at Parkgate (Merseyside), the 15th inst. in the Prince of Wales, from Dublin, to be interred in the family vault in the church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, in this city, the remains Lady Parnell (who died at Rathleague, the Queen’s county, the 20th inft.) relict of the late Sir John Parnell, and mother of the present Right Hon. Sir John Parnell, Bart. Chancellor the Exchequer in the kingdom of Ireland. Her Ladyship was an affectionate wife, a tender mother, and a sincere friend, whose death is much lamented by a numerous circle of acquaintance  Chester Courant – Tuesday 28 April 1795

His son Sir John (1744- Dec 1801), the second baronet, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Irish Parliament in 1787 – a brave and honourable man who, in a time when nepotism was accounted almost a virtue and a sign of parental solicitude, resolutely refrained from using his public power for the betterment of his family. He opposed the Act of Union, and was dismissed from office and accused of treason by Castlereagh.

Sir John Parnell, 2nd Bt (1744–1801)
Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (Lucca 1708 – Rome 1787) National Trust at Castleward

He education started with a year at Harrow in 1758 before going on to two years at Eton (1759–60)  He married Laetitia Charlotte Brooke in 1774, and together they had four children.

Sir Charles Coote’s General View of the Agriculture and Manufactures of the Queen’s County:, published in 1801, is not madly enthusiastic  :-  Sir John Parnell occasionally resides at his seat at Rathleague.  The timber is very fine here and the land greatly improved but the mansion house is very old and indifferent A rich plantation of exotics cover the banks of an extensive lake

Their eldest son John Augustus was born crippled and deaf mute. The large walled garden was converted into a safe space for him. John Augustus died in his late 30s in 1812.

It appears that the Parnells may have let the house. “Arthur Moore Mosse, known as Trotty Mosse ( from a mincing gait in his walk ) , drove out from Maryborough to Tinakill and held a long conference with Patrick Lalor, the object of which was to try to persuade him to give up his opposition to tithes”. His great uncle was Bartholomew Mosse

The OS 1835 Map

In April 1801,  the 2^nd son  Henry Brooke Parnell was in London when he married Caroline Elizabeth Dawson, Lord Portarlington’s daughter, from Emo. In 1812 he inherited the baronetcy and followed a political career in London, being created Lord Congleton in 1841.  He published works on financial and penal questions as well as on civil engineering.  In later years he seems to have spent most of his time in London, and his agent William Clarke was living at Rathleague in 1837, according to Lewis.  Congleton hung himself with a silk handkerchief from his bedpost in his London house in 1842 at the age of 65, suffering from ill health and depression.   

His son John Parnell, 2^nd  Lord Congleton, was born in London on June 16th, 1805 and whist at university in Edinburgh in the 1820s embraced rather fundamentalist Christianity, which culminated in the formation of the Plymouth Brethren in Dublin’s Aungier Street.

Back in Laois, on June 19, 1831 Robert Turpin (his mother was Martha Clarke) the sub sheriff for Queen’s County, died at Rathleague.  The duties of this position included presiding over evictions and elections, the appointment of gaolers and hangmen, and the executions of capital punishments He was only in his 30s and he left his widow, Marianne Odlum with three children under 5 years old.  Very tough. 

In 1834  William Clarke of Rathleague  is a juror and on March 12, 1836  the Leinster Express advertises “Whitefooot  will stand this Season at _RATHLEAGUE, near MARYBOROUGH, the residence of Wm Clarke  mares £1  grooms 2/6 “, followed by regular advertisements for stallions over the next number of years.

Freeman’s Journal on Tuesday 28 April 1846 reported that “On last Wednesday, on the part of the Right Hon. Col. Dawson Damer, William Clarke, of Rathleague, Esq., distributed a large sum of money amongst the gallant colonel’s tenantry, for the purpose of buying seed potatoes. On the other hand a couple of years later, perhaps the worst year of famine, his pursuit of people for pulling grass does seem just a tad unreasonable.

List of 1870 Landowners shows a George Clarke of Rathleague, who was presumably the son and heir born to The Lady of William Clarke, Esq. of Rathleague, near Maryborough,  03 May 1837, although there was also  a  William Clarke of Rathleague, a coroner in the 1870 and making the headlines in the Dublin Weekly Nation in May 1880 for seizing Mr. Redington’s cattle for the sum of £40, half a year’s tent. Clarke many years ago became owner of the small property of Pallas, on which Mr. Redington was the principal tenant.  The more Reddington improved the land, the more Clarke increased the rent.  Richard Lalor, the Parnellite MP, denounced Clarke and the land laws.  Redington sold up in 1884-

DESIRABLE INVESTMENT. WH. COBBE WILL SELL BY AUCTION, On MONDAY, 3rd MARCH. 1884, By direction of Mr. Thomas Redington, of Pallas (Within one mile of Maryborough), HIS INTEREST in his valuable Farm, containing about 87 Acres of good arable and grass Land, held by Statutory Lease, at the reduced Rent of £55, being well laid out, cultivated, and highly manured (no second corn crop has been taken during 20 years); residence, thatched cottage, with kitchen, parlour, and several bedrooms, well furnished with iron bedsteads, hair mattresses and feather beds. ALSO, Same time, all his valuable farm horses, and a good high-stepping harness horse, cattle, several springers, new milch cows, 2 two year old heifers, yearling do., calves, &c.; pigs, superior white Yorkshire brood sow, and several store do.; good croydon, by Lawler,  2 side cars, several farm carts and harness, ploughs, harrows, grabbers, and numerous other articles.

In the 1901 census, the Stuart family were living at Rathleague. Present were:

Mary Elizabeth Stuart (daughter of George Wilkinson from Cappakeel), aged 42, a Farmer, widow,
Hannah Frances, daughter, aged 17,
Olive A.M., daughter, aged 14, (who died in 1902)
Georgina, daughter, aged 9,
William, son, aged 6,
Anne Wilkinson, mother, aged 71, a widow, (Anne was the daughter of Edward Luttrell, a farmer, and she was living at Cappakeel in 1858) In 1830 Edward, William and Richard Luttrell, and Edward and William jnr, were all resident at Cappakeel and signatories on the anti repeal of the union petition. One of their farms at Cappakeel was sold in 1884
QUEEN’S COUNTY. Sale Lands, Dwelling-house, and Out-offices, BY AUCTION. On TUESDAY, the 4th of MARCH. 1884. Held under Lord Portarlington (the best of landlords). HENRY ODLUM has been instructed Mr. Robert Luttrell who is removing to his new Farm at Emo. to sell his right, title, and interest, in all that part of the LANDS OF CAPPAKEEL. New Inn (now in his possession). Containing 100 (Irish) Acres with excellent turbary. held at the low Rent of £53 13s. 9d. These Lands are of good quality for tillage or pasture, the tillage land being all in a most forward state for cropping. There is workman’s house on the holding. The Dwelling-house is partly slated, and contains six rooms, kitchen, dairy, and scullery, the out-offices are in good order and extensive, with turf shed. At the same time win he sold one Rick of Oat Straw, and one Turnip Pulper.
Also at Rathleague in the 1901 census were
Charlotte Stuart, sister-in law, aged 71, not married,

And Denis Conroy, a 32 year old  RC servant.

Elizabeth, the 2nd surviving daughter of the late Benjamin Stuart of Emo, died at her brother William’s house at Coolbanagher April 1879. Her older sister Charlotte died in Cincinnati in 1908. 

The Stuarts had married in 1882 at the Cof I church in Coolbanagher.  One of the witnesses was Susan E Meredith; her brother James had married Anne Meredith of  Ballyduff, near Stradbally.  Maria Keegan, who lived at Rathleague in the 1940s was born a Meredith.  William Stuart had died in Sept 1900, aged 68.

Mrs Stuart carried on farming for a few years but decided to emigrate to the USA via Canada on the ship Megantic in August 1910, together with her daughters Frances and Georgina, son William mother Ann Wilkinson, and sister in law – these last two were 80, and she was over 50. Her next of kin in Ireland was recorded as Mr Onions, Borris House, Maryborough.  An amazing adventure.  I wonder if they prospered in Ohio?

Ed Note – a granddaughter of Mrs Stuart has been in touch, and apparently they built a house on  Springwater Avenue, Wenatchee, Washington to which they had moved due to the encouragement of very dear family friends, Dr. Scott and family, who had moved to the Wenatchee area. There Frances married Frances George Ellis from Balbriggan.

In a letter that one of her cousins sent to her grandmother about the house he writes about its condition in the mid 20th century:- “The cellars are very ancient. they are three in number and run parallel with the drawing room.  The discovery was made quite by accident, and would not have happened but for the fact that some of the supports under the floor had crumbled and were being repaired.   The carpenters found that where at most there should have been a two or three foot space , it looked dark and there was a hollow sound as if from a vault.

On getting a flashlight and up some more boards they discovered a passage.   Further examination revealed that there were there were three, cellars which contained only a few jars and bottles.

How and why they came to be there, and why no one knew of their existence is a question. They cover most of the area of the drawing room and were probably used in later days for food and wine storage.

It would appear that they w are part of a large basement and sere converted into cellars when the house was rebuilt. Tba original was an extensive mansion which was demolished at one time The present house was rebuilt from a part of the right wing.

A grove of trees to a large field was at one time an island It the centre of a lake which has since been drained. Trout ere spawned in a pond at the back of the house, and were taken once a year to the lake.”

By 1908 John William Gregg, son of the Bishop of Cork and educated at Repton and Cambridge, was running Rathleague as a stud farm.    He had married Mary Studdert in November 1893.  Her father was Major Charles W Studdert of Aylesbury Road and Cragmoher, Corofin.  An odd advertisement in the Pymouth Gazette 16 Oct 1902 led me to reading about the Boer War remount scandal  “The furniture and live stock belonging to Major Studdert. Cragmoher House, have been sold by auction by the Sheriff of Clare, under an execution in connexion with the purchase the Yeomanry remounts. They fetched £900. Mrs. Studdert was the purchaser.”

THE REMOUNT SCANDAL.  FURTHER PROSECUTIONS.  LONDON, AUG. 7. 1902

More is likely to be heard of the scandals connected with the purchase of remounts for the Yeomanry, which recently led to charges against Major C. W. Studdert and his two sons at Dublin.  Evidence was given showing that Major Studdert bought horses at £8/10/ a piece and sold them to the Government at £30, but the proceedings were abandoned on the defendants paying the Government £2,000, with £1,000 cost. In the House of Commons last evening, however, Mr. St. John Broadrick, the Secretary of State for War, intimated that the persons implicated in the transactions forming the basis of the proceedings against Major Studdert would be prosecuted when the necessary evidence had been collected.

Cragmoher was gutted by fire in the 1980s, but has since been restored

In the 1911 census
Gregg John W R 40 Male Head of Family Church of Ireland
Gregg Mary 40 Female Wife Church of Ireland
Gregg Elenor Mary 16 Female Daughter Church of Ireland
Gregg Florence Amy 9 Female Daughter Church of Ireland
Gregg John B 9 Male Son Church of Ireland
Studdert Agnes S 43 Female Sister in Law Church of Ireland
Callaghan Mary 43 Female Servant Roman Catholic
O’Neil Mary 23 Female Servant Roman Catholic
Bracken John 26 Male Groom Roman Catholic
Rankin Joseph 26 Male Groom Roman Catholic

Their son Private Robert Stoddart Gregg  was killed at the age of 20 in 1916, serving with 1st Canadian Mounted Rifles (Saskatchewan Regt.).  JW Gregg died on March 8th 1924

The Greggs were followed by Hamilton’s, Jacksons, and Keegans according to The Leinster Times which on Aug 23 1941 reported:- The Parnell estate included  at one time the lands of Cullenagh. These lands were acquired by John Toler, Lord Norbury, the notorious ” harming judge.” The remainder of the estate has in recent years passed to the tenants under the Land Purchase Acts. The demesne lands at Rathleague were acquired some few years ago by the Land Commission for division, which has since been carried out, and the residence was disposed of by sale, Mr. Joseph P. Hannan, Rosleighan Park, being the purchaser.

That purchaser was presumably the Keegan family – “KEEGAN – June 20, 1944, at her residence, Rathleague House, Maryborough, Maria Keegan (nee Meredith), beloved and loving wife of George Charles Keegan, formerly of Coolbanagher and Kinsale.” Times Pictorial, Saturday, July 1, 1944.  Her widow died November 3, 1954,  Keegan, George Charles, at the residence of his son-in-law, Robert Levis, Newtown, Naas.  George Charles Keegan from Wexford had been a teacher at the National School in Emo when he met Miss Meredith in 1896, the 4^th of 16 children of Thomas Meredith who was farming at Emo. 

In 1946 it was advertised for sale and was bought by GH Jackson who bred greyhounds, and Mrs Jackson gave butter making classes.  The Jacksons had left, I think for Maida Vale, by 1950. 

The next owner was Mrs A Twiss.  In 1957 her son Major Robert Twiss (born 1919) of the Royal Army Service Corps had been sent to observe the nuclear explosions on Christmas Island.    He gave the Leinster Express an account of his 105 hour flight home.

It began on August 21 when, said the Major: ” I lost a complete day in my life when we crossed the International date line.”   Fiji was the next stopping place and he had time to view the fuzzy haired natives on the volcanic island and to see the cane and pineapple plantations. Disaster nearly overcame them shortly after take-off and the pilot had to jettison two tons of fuel when an engine stepped.  Their second attempt wont smoothly and nine hours later the plane touched down in Brisbane for a night’s stop. Major Twiss described the city as somewhat like a large provincial English town, with- single decker German-type trams in operation.   From Brisbane on to Darwin where the countryside changed from green to bush and from 8,000 feet ” looked like a complete desert.” . After a night in Darwin the plane set course North to Singapore over Borneo, and two days later continued to Colombo.

Next stage took them to Bangkok and on over the Bay of Bengal to Calcutta for refuelling. Then began the longest “hop” over North India to Karachi—18 hours—and on. through the Gulf of Oman, where the view was clear as crystal.     The plane followed the Tigress to Rabbanya, R.A.F. airfield in Iraq and resumed over the vast arid mountains of Turkey. The journey continued over Ankara, Silonika and Mount Olympus to Corfu Island, crossing the Adriatic to Italy. A comparatively short hop over the Alps—after joining in a fiesta in Brindisi—-brought the world trip to an end.   

From Patrick Meehan’s Members of Parliament for Laois & Offaly

The Sunday Independent reported that Mrs Emily Audrey Twiss’s estate was proved at £8,403 in Sept  1970.  Nationalist and Leinster Times Friday, August 23, 1974  Mrs A Twiss of Rathleague  won the Connemara Pony prize at the Abbeyleix show and again in 1976,  the year that 11 year old Sarah Twiss won the 1^st Prize for best toy, puppet or whittled article..    Mr & Mrs Richard Twiss sold Rathleague on 30 acres  in 1989 for just under £150,000

A more contemporary view, with a glimpse of the 18th century yard

It can be hard to work out who lived in which farm at Rathleague.  The Conroy family farmed at Rathleague. Leinster Reporter – Saturday 02 February 1907  William McKenna is giving up farming and selling his stock at Rathleague. The longest on the lands may well be the Haslams.

6 March 1879  Henry Haslam born at Rathleague, son of  Philip Haslam and Jane Griffin.  She was the 17 year old daughter of William Griffin, a labourer, and he the son of Henry Haslam from Rathleague.   The Haslams appear in Laois during the reign of Elizbeth I and Thomas Haslam was lay rector at Cremorgan in 1616.  Later in the 17th Century there were Haslams in the Mountmellick Quaker records, and they have been at Rathleague for about 200 years. They had a 4 roomed house with three windows across the front, according to the 1901 census.  

The tragic end of Elizabeth Jane Haslam, 29,  at Rathleague, Maryborough. was investigated by Dr. Higgins, Coroner for Queen a County, yesterday. The deceased’s father-in-law stated that she had been depressed after coming there on her marriage in November. Her husband left on the 3rd May and wrote stating that he was taking hie passage to New York. The medical evidence showed that death was due to carbolic acid poisoning, and the jury found that the deceased was of unsound mind at the time.   May 1905.   Such a sad story.  Two years older than Henry, they had married at Castleflemming on Wednesday 16 Nov 1904, 6 months earlier.   She was from Clonmore, Errill, the daughter of farmers William and Charlotte Moynan.  Henry remarried on Monday 5 December 1910 (when did Saturday become popular for weddings?)  Sarah Jane Brennan  of Fontstown, Athy. 22 May 1920 Jane Haslam of Rathleague widow aged 59 died, her son Henry Haslam of Rathleague present                  

Rathleague Lodge, originally called Tennekill is just north of Sheffield Cross, and opposite the site of Sir John Parnell’s lake. It is still Tennekill on Cahill’s Grand Jury Map of 1805.  Tigh na Coille, the house in the wood, seems to be a very uninspired name since most of Laois was apparently solid woodland in the 1600s!     Anyone driving along the R425 from Sheffield Cross can’t miss it – the beautiful trees, the stone walled garden and the massive gable chimney stacks wrapping the more delicately drawn house.

It is described in the Buildings of Ireland as a detached five-bay two-storey house, built c.1810, on an asymmetrical plan incorporating fabric of earlier house, c.1740, with two-storey split-level return to rear. Extended to rear. Stable complex to rear site. Walled garden to site. Double-pitched slate roof with nap rendered chimneystacks. Roughcast walls, re-rendered c.1970, painted, with rendered quoins. Square-headed window openings with limestone sills and replacement six-over-six timber sash windows, c.1900. Tripartite window opening to centre first floor. Round-headed door opening with timber pilaster doorcase and timber panelled door with sidelights and fanlight. Timber panelled internal shutters to window openings (none to Wyatt-style window opening); Entrance/Stair Hall with timber staircase having ramped handrail and square section balusters; open arch to right; plaster cornice to roof to room to front with decorative centrepiece; black marble fireplace to room to left and to Garden floor; black stone fireplace to room to right. Set back from road in own grounds; landscaped grounds to site; wrought iron railings to forecourt. Group of detached single- and two-storey rubble stone outbuildings to site, one dated 1740. Walled garden to site with red brick dressings.

The earliest reference to it so far found is when it was lived in by Malachy Delaney who was agent to the Parnells and the Stubbers of Moyne.  Clearly of man of some importance.  From the  Leinster Express Saturday, February 25, 1860 “- In Dublin, Patrick Boland, Esq., of _Arran Quay to Mary, only daughter of the late Charles, Hyland Esq., of Queen-street, and grand-daughter of James Delany, of Tennekilly, Esq., Queen’s County”

The Delaney family deserve at the very least a PhD thesis! The surname Delaney, and its variations, are the Anglicisation of two different surnames, the Gaelic Ó Dubhshláine, and De l’aulnaie of Norman origins. The Norman name means “from the alder grove”, and the Gaelic comes from the words “dubh”, meaning black, and “slán”, meaning defiant, or farewell or from the river Slaney, or just a name – Black Slaney

Malachi’s parents were Martin Delaney and Barbara Albrin of Mountrath.  He married Jane daughter of John Sabatier of Mountmellick in about 1720.  His brother Daniel married Rachel Sharp, the sister of Anthony Sharp of Roundwood.  Their son was Sharp Delaney a Colonel in the American Revolutionary War and the first Collector of Customs in Philadelphia by George Washington.  Malachi was also the grandfather of Lt Col Anthony Gale, the 4th commandant of the US Marine Corps!

Whilst researching this Malachi Delaney I kept being led astray by an equally interesting Malachi Delaney, the son of a farmer between Narraghmore and Mullaghmast.  He had served with distinction in the Austrian Army and returned to Ireland in time for the 1798, when he was one of the officers commanding the rebels in Naas.

Early in 1801 he accompanied Robert Emmet travelled throughout Europe raising support for the  Republican cause.   

Saturday last, Malachy Delany, Esq. surrendered himself in the Court of King’s Bench, to take his trial for having been an officer with the Insurgents, in the county Kildare, during the rebellion. This gentleman had formerly been an officer in foreign service, and it now between fifty and sixty years of age. He was lodged in the New Prison, and is to be transmitted to Naas for trial. Saunders’s News-Letter – Wednesday 16 February 1803       He was acquitted, but then we read that everyone’s least favourite Irishman got involved, Major Sirr (the man who arrested Lord Edward Fitzgerald).

Lieut. Brown, of the Barrack Division in consequence of Information given Major Sirr, has apprehended Malachy Delany, Esq. late of the county of Kildare. Mr. Delany was tried and acquitted at the last Spring Assizes of the county of Kildare.   Nine prisoners, who appeared to be of some Respectability, were lately brought to Kilmainham, from Naas, in carriages, under strong military escort.  Two carriages also arrived at the same time from the North-road, with five prisoners, strongly escorted.—Our private letters state that Mr. Carr, a gentleman of fortune in the county of Westmeath, and Colonel Nesbit, a gentleman of the first respectability in one of the Northern Counties, have been apprehended in their respective dwellings.    Chester Chronicle – Friday 14 October 1803

He appears to have been released.  From The Star  – Saturday 04 April 1807  “Died at Finglas Malachi Delany formerly an office of distinguished merit in the Austrian Service”

Malachi Delany died in 1784, but his son seems to have continued on at Rathleague for a while before the Purdons moved in.  I had wondered if the walled garden at Rathleague Lodge might have been constructed for John Augustus (the deaf mute son of Sir John).

General Sir Charles Coote’s 1801 View of the Agriculture and Manufactures of the Queen’s County gives us a rough date for the remodelling:- Mr Halpen, Sir John Parnell’s agent, has built a handsome house and offices near the road which are very ornamental.

On Sat 1st April 1809- Mrs. Purdon, Rathleague, Queen’s, wife of Edward Purdon, daughter of John Wrixon, of Welshestown, near Charleville, a lady very sincerely regretted by her honourable family connexions and numerous respectable acquaintance.  Her husband was “The Distributor of Stamps” for Queen’s County, (nothing to do with postages and everything to do with Stamp Duty,  William Wordsworth was the distributor in Westmorland!  The Purndons had only married in March 1804.  

The remnant of the Barrington estate at Cullenagh was sold to Sir John Parnell, soon after Col. Jonah Barrington’s s death in 1764 (Sir Jonah Barrington’s grandfather).

Samuel Jones Bernard Anderson, (his full name comes from the announcement of his death in Kentish Weekly Post, Tuesday 08 January 1805, which also announced that his nephew James Dowling Anderson had died)  the Catholic agent of Sir John Parnell, moved into Cullenagh, and fitted up a small chapel in the hamlet of Cullenagh adjoining, for the accommodation of himself and the Catholic tenants.  Apart from being Parnell’s agent Anderson also had a Worsted Mill there.  May 23, 1778 he was advertising a reward for the apprehension of Thomas Dungan a worker who had run away with a quantity of cloth and thread stolen from his looms.

Anderson took the Oath of Allegiance at Portlaoise on 6 Oct 1775 and was a delegate at the Catholic Convention in Dublin in 1792 Archivium Hibernicum  Vol. 67 (2014), pp. 319-340  Gleanings on the personnel of the Catholic Convention, 1792-93   C.J. Woods. He may have been a relation of Bernard Anderson ( 1722 ? – 1803 ) , late of Moate, Ballinakill, Queen ‘ s Co . , who d . in Queen St., Dublin , March 1803.

In 1774 the Irish parliament passed an act that would allow Catholics (“Papists”) to swear their loyalty to the King. Several clergy took the oath, while others adamantly refused. Between 1774 and 1793 Catholic Relief Acts were passed to reverse some of the Penal Laws. The acts, however, applied only to those who had taken the oath.

By 1830 Rathleague Lodge was the residence of Major Barrington.

John Barrington, abt 1710-1784 had 16 children with his wife Sibella French, including Jonah Barrington who ended up in France and John Barrington  who built Castlewood at Durrow.   However the Barringtons at Rathleague cannot have been direct relations of the Cullenagh Barringtons. 

The most likely kinship was a James Barrington, Coachmaker, Landowner (Freeholder 14 Apr 1774), b. Raheenlusk, Co. Wexford, abt. 1743; mar. Stradbally, 1 Sep 1768, Letitia Gray, dau of William Gray of Maryborough, and Margaret Pigott of Dysart; (Though if this is correct Letitia was only 16 at the time of her marriage) 8 children born at Stradbally: Richard Barrington, b. abt. 1770, William Barrington, b. abt. 1773, Henry Barrington, b. abt. 1778, John Barrington, b. abt. 1779, 3 further sons, Letitia Barrington, b. abt. 1782;living 1810 [AB, FT, Freeholders in Queen’s County, Gordon Kinship, McBride (1973), LDS, marriage settlement, ML]  This branch were descendants of the Roundhead Major Thomas Barrington, John Barrington’s ggg uncle.

Major Richard Barrington of the 56^th was Lt Barrington in 1804.  He served in India from 1815 (Bombay Gazette – Wednesday 26 June 1816 Capt. Richard Barrington promoted to Major),  and arrived back in Porstmouth in 1826. He died at Rathleague 30 Apr 1837.    He had at least two children, a son William and a daughter Kate.    On his death his brother John seems to have moved into Rathleague. Richard Barrington, of Lower Ormond-quay, Dublin, Solicitor, married Kate, daughter of the late Major Barrington, of Rathleague Lodge, in the Queen’s County, and formerly of the 56th Regiment in June 1840.  Barrington was practicing at 24 Dominick Street in 1825. 

June 1837

Maria Barrington eldest dau of John Barrington, and niece of Major Barrington died at Rathleague Lodge in July 1838. John Barrington himself died at Rathleague Lodge aged 60 “of an attack of the liver” 6 Aug 1842, leaving a large family to deplore his loss.  In 1846 the Barringtons apparently sold the remainder of their lease

14 March 1846

Leinster Reporter…Saturday, November 28, 1908; John Scott has sold his farm at Rathleague

Shortly after this Rathleague Lodge was bought by the Maher family.

Newpark, Portlaoise, A special for International Women’s Day

So it’s the 8th of March  –  International Women’s Day.  Who knew that Portlaoise had connections with Andrea Praed the first Ozzie writer to explore gender and cross-cultural conflicts, the advent of theosophy and the groundswell of feminist opposition to the legal bonds of marriage?!

My attention was drawn to Newpark House by a couple of submissions on the Council’s Draft Development Plan

We act on behalf of John Killeen in this matter. 

Newpark House and Apartment blocks known as St. Michaels & St. Margarets is an existing apartment development in the centre of Portlaoise. The two-blocks were built in the late 70’s and currently house 10 apartments, a mixture of 1&2 bedroomed apartments. My client is looking to do extensive renovations and alterations to the site to include additional apartment development on the grounds within the vicinity of these two units. Opposite our development at The Maltings site the land within the vincinity of same has been zoned Residential 2, we are seeking a expansion of this zoned area to include the entirity of our site. We make this submission on the grounds that the site is bound on two sides by road frontage and we will be seeking to develop off Harpurs Lane with the new development. Attached find location map of same.

The area to be developed

Newpark House is a period style dwelling located in the centre of a privately developed housing scheme known as Newpark, built in the 1970’s. Newpark House was converted to a mixture of flats and bedsits over a period from the early 80’s to the mid 90’s.  The dwelling has undergone extensive internal works along with external works which was carried out in a piecemeal fashion without proper consultation.  The roof needs urgent attention and was covered down with a canopy covering 20 years ago which has now deteriorated and will now need to be replaced in full. The owner John Killeen is respectful to the history of the dwelling house however, this will need major reconditioning works in the near future and has gone beyond the former original features which the house was built to. We are seeking this to be removed from the records of Protected Structure in order to perserve its current use as a place of residence for 7 individuals and the building needs to be adjusted to meet their needs.    

I apologize if I offend, but I do tend to wonder if the owner John Kileen has any notion of the history of the house of which he is so respectful ! One of the earlier houses in Portlaoise, Newark was built by John McLean before 1814 (when he is recorded as being resident there in Leet’s Directory,) and then became the home of Rev Thomas Harpur around 1820. 

A large tract of land , known by the, name of the Green, on which great hurling parties formerly assembled.  The Green is let out in parks.  On a part of it is a very neat house, the residence of the Rev. Thomas Harpur, built by Mr McClean.  Leinster Express Saturday, November 05, 1831; Page: 4

Thomas was probably the son of Rev Epharim Harpur (d 1810), a Presbyterian, who lived outside Portarlington.  The Rev Singleton Harpur, who died following a fall from his horse in Monkstown in 1806, who had been chaplain to the Royal Irish Regiment in 1785, was a relation.  George Harpur of James Street  Dublin (d 1823) must have been another relative:- “On the 25th March 1826  in Maryborough, by the Rev. Thomas Harpur, Robert Galbraith, Esq., of Mountpelier-hill, to Miss Hannah Harpur, of Stradbally, eldest daughter of the late George Harpur, Esq. of James’s street, Dublin,”  From Freemans Journal, October 18, 1823 we know that George Harpur’s executor was Elizabeth Broomfield, the wife of Henry Parnell Broomfield.  They were clearly related to the Broomfields who were faming at Ballyfin in the 1820s. These Broomfields, who were regularly recorded as Bloomfield, had 4 children. Humphrey who married Elizabeth McGuiness in 15 Apr 1816 and emigrated to Australia, Basil, of Irey, south of Ballyfin,  who signed a “Declaration against Repeal of the Union, 1830”, Joseph, & Henry Parnell Broomfield who married Anne Ince (who d 1855) (probably daughter of Richard Ince, Draper and Ironmonger of Maryborough) on 12 April 1852; lived at Borris Cottage Maryborough.

           

St Margarets & St Michaels – the North and South Pavilions – wouldn’t they look so much better if they were pure Palladian!

Bridget Harpur of Urney, Portarlington, who married Thomas Pilkington of Toar in 1768 might have been a sister or an aunt.  Their son Captain Abraham Pilkington fought at Waterloo.

Thomas Harpur of Newpark,  Portlaoise had married Hannah Colvill of Clontarf in 1815.

Hannah’s father was William Colvill (1737–1820), corn merchant and MP, the second son of William Colvill (1675?–1755), an agent at Newtownards, Co. Down, and his wife Jane, daughter of John Thompson of Blackabbey, Co. Down.

Having lost a good part of his £5000 inheritance in the slave trade (and serve him right!), Colvill joined a firm of flour merchants, Wyld’s of Molesworth Street, Dublin, and eventually succeeded to ownership of the business. He was a director of the Grand Canal Company at its foundation (1772) and became involved (1790) in the Barrow Navigation Company, in which he invested between £20,000 and £30,000.

He was also a founding director of the Bank of Ireland (1783). In the 1790s he was a supporter of Catholic relief and an opponent of the union of Ireland with Great Britain.  I guess it’s not unreasonable to assume that it was his money that paid for the construction of Newpark.

In 1845 one of their daughters, Hannah Harpur, died at Newpark.  1851 in her 65^th year Thomas’s sister in law Margaritta Colvill died at Newpark.  The Harpurs were still there in 1861 when  “a son was born to the lady of J Harpur Esq”, a brother to Thomas Singleton Harpur, born 1851, who emigrated to Australia in 1877. 

To divert – or maybe not!

Matilda Harpur born 1828, was one of five children of Thomas Harpur and Rosa Adams of Tullyhogue, Cookstown, who had married on January 24 1823 .  Rosa died in 1835 and Thomas moved to Dublin where he married Mary Jane Speer, the daughter of a solicitor.  In 1840 the all sailed for Australia on the Lord Western.    In 1846 Matilda married Thomas Lodge Murray Prior (originally of Rathdowney).  Their daughter Rosa Praed (1851-1935) achieved international literary fame as the first Australian author to explore gender and cross-cultural conflicts, the advent of theosophy and the groundswell of feminist opposition to the legal bonds of marriage.

From the genealogy of the Greer family of The Grange, Co Tyrone, we have Mary the daughter of Thomas Harpur of Moy and his wife Sarah Clements of Brackaville marrying John Greer on 5 June 1816.

Thomas Harpur of Moy showed of his invention – a machine for working eight pumps – to the RDS in May 1811.

Then leaping forward to 1853 there is an advertisement n the Australian papers :_   INFORMATION WANTED. A gentleman just arrived from Quebec, Canada, wishes to be informed of the address of either MR WILLIAM HARPUR or MR CHARLES HARPUR of Moy, county Tyrone, Ireland. He was requested to insert this advertisement by TOBY CAULFEILD, a particular friend of his and would therefore be most happy to communicate with either of the above gentleman. Please address to Mr. J.S. Waterson at O’Dowd and Klinefalter’s, Market Square west, opposite Montefiore & Co., William Street [Melbourne]  1853

All of which might suggest that these Hapurs had little to do with Hapur’s Lane in Portlaoise. 

And yet in the National Library of Australia there is “Information and correspondence, relating to Hybla, Monasterevin, Co. Kildare, associated with Thomas Harpur’s family (Thomas Harpur was Praed’s grandfather) (File 51) – Box 42 (MS 8363)”  And Andrea Praed thought that Thomas Harpur of Newpark was her gg grandfather.

For further confusion there was a Thomas Harpur who printed the famous 18^th Century Volunteer fabric at his mills in Leixlip.

And from Saunders’s News-Letter – Monday 28 October 1799 we learn that Basil. HARPUR, late of No. 1 Dame-lane, has removed No. 5, Dame-lane, corner of Trinity-Place for the convenience of carrying on his business more extensively. He respectfully acquaints his Friends and the Public, that he has opened his house by the name of The QUEEN’S COUNTY TAVERN and CHOP HOUSE, in the most extensive manner,

Moving on towards the 20^th century

Richard Edward and Jane Eleanor Odlum (nee Hinds) were living at Green Mills when their first son William Perry was born in 1878, and still there in 1882,  but were at Newpark, when their son Arthur Wellesley was born on the 2th Sept 1884  .  They had been married in the parish church in Castletown in November 1875.  Her father, who lived in Church Street till his death in 1903 at 88,  had had a shop on the South side of the Main Street, Portlaoise from at least 1837 – a grocer, earthenware dealer, and seedsman.

Richard Odlum left school at the age of 14.   He was the financial and business manager of Odlums, speculating on wheat futures making a lot of money in the process. He had a good brain for decision making but he was an autocratic and two of his sons, Arthur and Harold, rebelled and fled to Canada.  In In 1897 the Odlums  added a new kitchen and scullery onto the back of Newpark.    Jane died in 1919 and Richard Odlum died on 24 Feb 1924

In 1909 the Odlums’ daughter Jane Evelyn had married Rev Robert Robinson Tilson.  (b 1871) of the Grand Lodge of Freemasons of Ireland.

In 1926 Mabel Gee of Newpark was applying to be a Dispensary Nurse, so the Odlums were probably letting Newpark.

The Rev Tilson, Rector of Maryborough, died in 1920, leaving his widow Evelyn with four young children.  They lived at Tower Hill, Portlaoise – their son married Deena Jessop,  (whose sister had married Edgar McKeever of Moor Hall Ardee in 1933) their daughter Sylvia married Buce Williamson of Belfast,    Eleanor graduated from Trinity in 1938.  When the grieving widow married Peter Louis Sharp in the 1940s (who died in 1951) they moved back to Newpark.   She and her family were still there in the 1950s – in 1951 she was looking for an experienced cook who could use an Aga; by 1956 she just needed a general cook!  She died in 1960.  Is that when Newpark’s downward spiral started?

Wouldn’t it be great see Newpark sympathetically restored and the magical walled garden once again a place of beauty.  Does anyone else think that it could become swish offices and the garden be vested in the local community?

Morton, Doxey or Gray – who was the lord of Rockbrook?

Driving from Dublin to Laois in the 1980s – Friday evening torture.  Cutting through the car park and past St David’s Castle in Naas.   I never discovered a back double through Monasterevan.    But the worst traffic was at Portlaoise.   So I avoided it by taking a left turn just before the Rock Inn and following the old coach road; that tranquil road down to Sheffield Cross and Ballyroan, was a sweet balm.  There was a ruined house on the left as you left Ballyroan, but though I must have passed it 100 times a year back then, I never stopped to look at it.   Driving past recently for the first time in many years I saw an anaerobic digester and a new house on the site.   I am pretty sure that the original was a two storey, 5 bay house.  Was there a breakfront with a central pediment?  Or was that at Dunkerrin?  I can’t remember.   The moral is photograph, photograph, photograph. 

Arthur Young’s 177s report can never be forgotten.  “Slept at Ballyroan, at an inn kept by three animals who call themselves women; met with more impertinence than at any other in Ireland. It is an execrable hole.”   Even Barrington was not enamoured: – “A Mrs Moll Harding kept the “natest” inn in Ballyroan close to my father’s house.  I recollect to have heard a passenger (they are very scarce there) telling her that his sheets had not been aired.   With great civility Moll Harding begged his honour’s pardon and said they certainly were and must have been well aired for there was not a gentleman came to the house the last fortnight that had not slept in them.”  Laois Inns did not do too well in Tripadvisor precursors.   In 1806 Colt Hoare wrote in his Tour of Ireland “The Emo Inn is a single house.  A good inn and well supplied with post horses though I think I may apply to it what was once said to a Cistercian monk Albior exterius quàm interius – the outside is whiter than the inside; “ in other words, it was a filthy godforsaken dive!

The Freeman’s Journal 1809 Rathmoyle is just outside Abbeyleix

The gables of the 17th Century Preston School still stand to the west of the main street. 

One of the gables of the Preston School

The Prestons and the Nangles intermarried on a regular basis – the Preston family managed to hold on to their estate lands through the centuries despite being staunch Catholics. The head of the family is the Viscount Gormanston, the first Viscountcy created in Ireland.    The Nangles, Barons Navan,  were also a Norman family.   John Preston, great nephew of the 4th Viscount Gormanston (1537-1599), married Mary Nangle, daughter of Jocelyn Nangle of Kildalkey who had been outlawed after the 1641 rising – he was a great great nephew of the 4th Viscount Gormanston.  It was always suggested that when she married Preston she brought with her the lands of Tara and Ardsallagh in Meath, and Emo in Laois.  In Chris Booth’s blog https://chrisb2701.wordpress.com/    he shows that in fact the owner of Emo Park in 1641 was Thomas FitzGerald (Catholic), and by 1670 ownership had transferred to Alderman John Preston (Protestant).     As to the lands in Meath, Mary’s father may have got some of the lands back on the Restoration, as a loyal monarchist.   But there were several Nangle siblings, so she probably would not inherited much, and her brother Walter inherited the Kildalkey estate.

John Preston’s fortune came from purchasing property from the English soldiers and adventurers who had no interest in settling in Ireland. Preston was Mayor of Dublin in 1653-54 and was elected as Member of Parliament for Navan in the restoration parliament of 1661. When Charles II was restored to the throne, John Preston was confirmed in his occupation of 7,859 acres of land in Meath and Queens County under the Acts of Settlement In 1666.  He set up the Preston Schools in 1686, the year of his death, so the suggestion that “as his defective land titles might be questioned in time, he set aside 1000 acres of his gains from the Nangle estates to endow two Protestant schools, judging that any government would be reluctant to question the title to land used for such a worthy purpose.” is probably not correct.   (navanhistory.ie/ and bellinterhouse.com).

His granddaughter Anne married a Dublin banker (Oh, the shame!) by the name of Ephiram Dawson from whom the Earls of Portarlington are descended. Their son incidentally married the daughter of another banker, Joseph Damer, decribed by Walpole as a miser and a usurer!

In the 1836 Selection of Reports and Papers of the House of Commons: Education ; 3, Volume 3, published The Preston School is described as being in a large slated house that cost £500.  The modern school-house was a presentable and comfortable two-storied house, having many rooms above and below, while its extension towards the rear was considerable. The building was then centrally placed in the town of Ballyroan  (O’Hanlon).  The master, Arthur Hutchins, was paid £122 15s.  John Duffy and Charles Duffy who ran rival schools in Ballyroan received £10 pa and £16 pa respectively.  Canon O’Hanlon was sent to the Preston School at the age of 13, in 1834 and describes Hutchins- Mr. Hutchins was rather a tall man, of lithesome shape, and having a good set of features, in which seriousness and vivacity were at once blended. His motions were restless, both within and without the house, and when walking abroad his thumbs were placed in the armlets of his vest, while the tips of his fingers were continually tatooing his breast on either side. In dress he was a stylish gentleman of the olden time, wearing a long-skirted black broad-cloth frock-coat with lappels, a waistcoat and pantaloons to match, a black silk stock, with shirt collars protruding on either side of his cheeks. His shapely silk hat was worn with a jaunty air, and his boots were highly polished ; but probably the most noticeable appendage of his dress was a cambric frill, snowy white, and elegantly crimped, which escaped in full display from the upper part of the vest. An earlier pupil had been Jonah Barrington. Of Charles Duffey’s school O’Hanlon wrote that Duffey put great importance on good manners and his students learnt to bow and curtsey to all the ladies and gentlemen travelling through on the mail coach, to the passengers’ delight.

 Carrying on past the very fine, though much overgrown, Norman motte on the right and up the hill, past the silhouette crib which incorporates the site of a medieval castle according to the OS map, and  to the left is Rockbrook.

The earliest reference to Rockbrook is in the Freeman’s Journal of 1765, followed by Taylor and Skinners 1770 Road Book when it is shown as the seat of Mr Gray.  However Finns Leinster Journal on Saturday, July 31, 1773; lists Thomas Morton  of Ballyroan subscriber.  In, of all places, the Pymouth archives office, there is a marriage settlement of 1 January 1791 between John Morton of Dublin, surgeon, and Rebecca Ingram of Limerick, which includes Rockbrook alias Rockfarm , Newtown and Ballyroan , barony of Cullinagh, Queen’s county, and other land of John Morton in Queens County. 

Freeman’s Journal 1765

In 1776 William Gray of Ballyroan was one of those seeking the office of County Coroner. Was William Wilson’s 1786 The Post-chaise Companion mistaken to list:-“At Ballyroan , on the L. is Rockbrook , the seat of Mr. Gray.”? Or should it have been Morton?

Barrington also wrote of the Mortons at Rockbrook:- Mrs Mary Morton, a very worthy domestic woman, told me many years since that she had but one way of ruling her husband which as it is rather a novel way and may be of some use to my fair readers I will mention in her own words.  “ You know,” said Mrs Morton, “ that Tom is most horribly nice in his eating and fancies that both abundant and good food is essential to his health.  Now when he has been out of temper with me he is sure of having a very bad dinner.  If he grumbles I tell him that whenever he puts me into a twitter by his tantrums I always forget to give the cook proper directions.  This is sure,” added she, “of keeping him in good humour for a week at least.”  Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Volume 3 pg 368

By 1820 according to the Post Chaise Companion it was once again the seat of Mr Gray and Mrs Morton was then at Knapton (which is where Barrington had been born).

 In fact  in December 1808,  it was reported that William Gray, Esq of Rockbrook. Queen’s County, was married to Miss Julia Sophia Portington, of York Street, Dublin and in 1810 William Gray of Rockbrook got a  Game Licence.  They had several children and Gray served as a magistrate.  However the Rockites made life a little tricky for him and there is a letter of 1829  in the Chief Secretary’s archives  about an outrage committed on 2 sheriff’s officers ‘who had been placed in charge of the Premises of William Wall Gray at Ballyroan’.     The next letter in the archive shows the church VERY militant in the form of Rev Pierce Goold, Finnoe Glebe House, Borrisokane requesting firearms to protect his family, explaining ‘as from very contracted means with a very large Family to support I cannot afford even for the sake of my Females to remove them into any of the neighbouring Towns for Protection. I therefore have determined to make the best Defence I am able with my three Sons very young lads’.  Thankfully the Lord lieutenant was opposed to vigilantes and decided that “he cannot consent to the distribution of arms to  individuals”.

In 1833 the newly graduated Corkonian Dr Henry Croly, fourth son of John Croly of South Cregg, Fermoy and Margaret Johnson, and serving as a Dispensary Doctor in Roscrea married the Gray’s eldest daughter, Isabel.  Soon after William Gray and some of his family headed for Canada. 

Warner W. Gray, Esq., of the  Irish Light Infantry, third son Wm. Wall Gray, late Rockbrook House, Queen’s County was married to Meliora  the daughter the late Mr William Thompson of Roscommon  in  December 1838, by which time his father and at least one of his brothers was in Ontario.    William Wall’s death at Lac Amiens, Upper Canada, after a long illness was reported in the Dublin Monitor – Thursday 30 July 1840. 

A grandson William Wall Warner Gray married Louisa Madeline Atkinson in Canada around 1861. They were the parents of at least 3 sons and 4 daughters. He died on 3 February 1901, in London, Middlesex, Ontario, Canada, at the age of 90. He stars in a Freemasonry Report of the London District, Ontario.  May 26th 1875  “ I had the painful duty to perform in St John’s Chapter No 3 to suspend Comp William Wall Gray during pleasure of Grand Chapter for being drunk and for unmasonic conduct I therefore recommend that Grand Chapter will confirm the same.”

One of the earlier Grays of Laois, and maybe the almus pater,  was Edward Gray of Portlaoise, noted in the Dublin Journal of Monday, January 05, 1733 as Treasurer to the Trustees of the Turnpike. The family also had a distillery in Portlaoise – which pretty much destroyed the town in 1782!

Mr L  Flood briefly took Rockbrook, and was recorded as being there in 1837 by Lewis’s Topogaphy.  This was probably Luke Flood, the youngest son of Luke Flood of Rondwood, who had married Olivia Warren in Abbeyleix in September 1827 (prompting Lord Norbury’s remark about rabbits resulting from a flood getting into a warren!)    Finns Leinster Journal Sep 15, 1827; Page: 3.  It was maybe the same Luke Flood who was living at Woodville, Portlaoise in 1818, when he got a game licence, and at Moneyclear, near Balinakill in 1834.

At some point James Doxey lived here (his brother Thomas lived at Clonbrin, just West of Ballyroan).   They were the gg grand children of  Hercules Doxey (d circa 1684 at Killone, near The Heath) who arrived probably as a Cromwelian soldier.  In 1703, although he had married the daughter of a Pole from Ballyfin, Alexander Cosby of Stradbally was so broke that he decided to let Stradbally to Major Lyons and join the army. He borrowed £300 from William Doxey of Raheennahown, between Clopook and Luggacurren to buy a Captain’s comission. It is very hard to work out exactly when James Doxey could have lived at Rockbroock.  He left for Quebec with most of his family in 1818, which is when apparently William Gray was there with his young family.

On 22 Nov 1723 John Doxey acquired a lease to 170 acres of land in the Barony of Cullenagh from Samuel Freeman of Dublin , to hold for a term of 86 years .  

William Doxey, husband of Elizabeth McDaniel, assigned the interest in his property in Ballyroan on June 16 1759 to his two sons Samuel & Hercules Doxey .  Samuel married Isabella Copperthwaite in 1765, and was at that stage living in Clonbrin. 

Deborah Greenham, prob. b. abt. 1745; mar. 1768 Hercules Doxey, brother of Samuel of Mountrath she was bur. 26 Nov 1831, Abbeyleix Parish. Son: James Doxey, b. 1773 prob. Ballyroan, d. 20 Jun 1849 aged 76; mar. Abbeyleix, 3 Jul 1792 Frances Sutliff, b. abt. 1777 of Abbeyleix, dau. of Thomas & Maria/Mary Sutliff of Abbeyleix Parish.

O’Hanlon, in his Legends of Ballyroan, writes of Jemmy Doxey, but gives no indication that he might have lived at Rockbrook.

 Leinster Express April 11, 1863; records the death of the 68 year old Hercules Doxey of Ballyroan, son of the late James Doxey of Rockbrook, the year after his sister Eliza, then living at 62 Waterloo Road, Dublin had married Francis Reynolds of The Parade Kilkenny.  

1841

By 1841 the Preston School had moved in, under the direction of the Rev Mr Lyons.  It did not flourish and at some time must have closed down.  A last gasp by Mr Stoker to reinvigorate it in 1891 was followed by its sale in 1894 to the McMahaon family, who still have it.  The School moved to Abbeyleix and is still remembered in the name of Preston House, it’s home till 1966.

1891

The agent is the father of Lucy Gertrude Franks, one of the founders of the ICA and of The Country Shop on Stephen’s Green

Before leaving Ballyroan, let’s not forget its most famous academic.   Rev Daniel Barrett, rector (or possibly curate) of Ballyroan died in 1759/60. His widow Rossamund Gofton went to Dublin with their 7 year old son, John, better known as Jacky.    At 17 he entered Trinity, and remained there for over 50 years,  becoming Professor of Greek and Professor of Hebrew and Vice-Provost,

“By a strange irony, Jacky Barrett lives on in people’s memories not nearly so much as a scholar and divine, but as a dwarf whose appetite for food was as great as his hunger for literature, and whose love of money was in a proportionate degree.” Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, 1900. For more see https://www.tcd.ie/library/epb/blog/the-ancient-odd-fish-of-the-college/

Lost Lauragh, Portarlington, built by the Vicar Vicars

A Atkinson, described as “a gentleman from the Midlands”, traveled 6000 miles around Ireland in the early 19th century.   The result was The Irish Tourist: In a Series of Picturesque Views, published in 1815.  He was thought to be Anthony Atkinson of Cangort, who was known as Anthony the traveller.  That Anthony died childless in August 1790, which is too early for him to have been the author of The Irish Tourist.    Nor could it have been his cousin Anthony Atkinson of South Park, Ballingarry, which he rented from The Trenchs.   Anthony of Ballingarry died in 1815, but the author of the Irish Tourist also wrote a book entitled Ireland Exhibited to England, which was published in 1823 and in which he noted ” that many of the Presbyterians in Belfast praised God in the most barbarous broad Scotch slang that ever disgraced a conventicle in the mountains.”.  He also wrote “A Course of Essays on Christian Doctrine and Philosophy” published in 1833.

Peter Somerville-Large  in The Grand Irish Tour has done further work on identifying Atkinson (pg 170) placing him as a Quaker resident in Moate.  Atkinson found much to admire on his tour, and plenty to complain about – “filthy little villages”, widespread drunkenness, his own fatigue and so on. But nothing seems to have distressed him quite as much as the treachery of certain Quakers.  His travelogue opens with a four-page apology for the inferior quality of the book’s paper and other materials. His excuse was that, at the beginning of his journey, he had placed “almost the whole of his capital in the hands of certain Friends or Quakers, whose apparent wealth and moral integrity he supposed to be the best security in the world”. But at the end of his journey he found all but one had gone bankrupt, leaving A. Atkinson high and dry.   He pleaded with them that this was “a debt of honour, not of trade” and that he had six children to educate, but it didn’t work: “Having procured from him the main chance, they left him to shift for himself.”    Worse, thanks to the protection of the bankruptcy laws, they were safe from poverty themselves – “building country houses, riding out on fine horses, and even keeping carriages”.  Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose!

In the Irish Tourist he wrote:-

“In my progress towards Portrlington I visited Garryhinch which shall be noticed hereafter and met with a kind reception from Mr Warburton whose sanction and support in the publication of my former work were politely contributed as were also those of Major Chetwood in the same neighbourhood.

But I would do my reader injustice if I passed over in silence the conduct and concerns of Mr Vicars, a clergyman whose manners reflect the highest credit on his profession and whose beautiful villa is an object worth the attention of those who traverse that neighbourhood for pleasure or for information In the conversation of this gentleman and in the inspection of his improvements I spent an evening and morning with much satisfaction.

His extensive information and the philanthropy of his mind were to me, who am in pursuit of improvement, the most acceptable springs of entertainment and while reposing under his hospitable roof in the intervals of attempting to glean the beauties of his villa I was not inattentive to glean from his edifying remarks some plant of knowledge which might give weight to my volume in the hands of a masculine subscriber or some flower of fragrance which by the odour it would shed upon my pages might render them grateful to the fair.

Lauragh the seat of the Reverend Robert Vicars is situate about two miles east of Mountmellick as you pass from thence to Portarlington The house a neat Modern edifice stands at a due distance from the road sufficiently elevated to command a good prospect of the neighbourhood and sufficiently open to be an object of interest to the traveller who passes in that direction  From a mount in Mr Vicars’s improvements the work of art you have a perfect view of the surrounding country and did this prospect comprehend a due proportion of water in richness of scenery it would rival anything of the same extent which we have yet witnessed in that part of Ireland but of this it is nearly destitute.

Towards the south the rock of Dunamase and the  mountains of Cullinagh and Dysart form a sublime boundary to the scene.   Eastward the Wicklow mountains about twenty miles distant are also visible when the atmosphere is clear;  while the improvements of Lord Portarlington from South to East, that is from Coolbanagher to Spirehill, greatly enrich the prospect.   This Spirehill beautifully planted and so called from a spire which has been built on its summit is an extremely interesting object in that direction of the country and as the eye passes Northward Garryhincb enveloped in wood unites its advantages to complete the spectacle.   Westward the mountains of Slievbloom rendered famous by Spencer in bis Fairy Queen with the town of Mountmellick near the foot of one of those mountains terminate the prospect and NW there is an open and extensive view of a level country.

Within this circus the scene is richly improved by the well distributed and highly ornamental plantations on Mr Vicars’s own demesne –  the hill and the valley exhibit those improvements to the view in rich abundance and on the south east margin of the demesne a little pond which Mr Vicars intends to bring forward and render more capacious and which at present is the only water visible on his demesne will be a good object in that direction.

The dwelling house and demesne of Mr Joshua Kemmis just opposite those of Lauragh unite their advantages with the latter to improve the landscape and had nature or the hand of art introduced a large lake into the valley between those seats this scene would for its extent be one of the richest in that part of Ireland.”

So who was the Rev Robert Vicars?  One of the younger of the 12 children of Richard Vicars of Levally, whose eldest sister had married the banker Peter La Touche.    From 1798 – 1804 Vicars was his brother in law’s vicar at Christ Church, Delgany, as well as having the livings of Kilmacanogue and Kilcoole, which also belonged to La Touche.     La Touche had no children and was very keen on building and the church. He was known as a generous man. It was he who built the new Christ Church at Delgany in 1789, and who ordered the La Touche monument in memory of his father, sculpted by John Hickey. He was active in many charitable activities in Dublin and Wicklow and was a founder member of the Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in Ireland. It would not be unreasonable to suppose that he was a patron of his young brother in law, who also set up a school at Lauragh.  The first map that shows the house is the Grand Jury Map of 1809.

Nicholas Carlisle in his topographical dictionary of 1809 had noted, in some amazement “Robert Vicars , the Incumbent ( in 1806), who has cure of souls in both parishes, Ardea and Coolbanagher, is resident , and performs the duties in person.”  The parishes had been combined on Vicars’ arrival in 1804. 

Carrigan is effusive:- “The petitioners of Coolbanagher and Ardea allude to their late excellent rector, the Rev. Robert Vicars. Yet, this worthy man during bis life was assailed for his Christian and tolerant conduct by members of his own profession.  On one occasion at a visitation in the Cathedral of Kildare he was assailed by the late Archbishop of Dublin, as the solitary black sheep among his clergy; and this for having attended a meeting to petition for Catholic freedom ! ! How lamentable is justice! The Protestant parishioners of the Rev. Robert Vicars, in a few years after his decease, became convinced of his excellence, and in testimony of their regard erected a monument to his memory. The Catholic parishioners in complaining of tithes, by which they are oppressed, revert to the virtues and charities of Mr. Vicars, as having softened the pressure of a bad system.”

In 1818 Robert Vicars of Lauragh has a game certificate. From December 1820  Vicars is advertising Lauragh to let. 

In February 1824 he was in correspondence with William Gregory, Under Secretary, Dublin Castle concerning the new jail at Maryborough but still giving his address as Lauragh.

Vicars was still alive in Sept 1829 when he wrote to Daniel O’Connell after the passing of Catholic emancipation, and urging relief for Jews as well, but at some time in 1824 he moved from Lauragh to Coolbanagher Rectory, which had been built in 1790 for the previous vicar of Coolbanagher, The Hon Rev William Dawson, son of Lord Carlow and brother of the Earl of Portarlington of Emo.  Dawson moved to Dublin where he died, aged 85,  in 1839.

From the OS map we can se that the first house at Laragh was bow ended, with the entrance front on the West. 

On the death of Kildare Burrowes of Giltown  in 1790 his son, Ersamus Dixon Borrowes, continued to live in Portarlington whilst the family seat (now the Aga Khan’s stud farm) was taken over by his half brother, Robert Borrowes.   By December 1824 Laraugh was the home of Sir Walter Borrowes , seventh Baronet, and Ersamus Borrowes’ son. In 1829 John Benjamin Keane, an architect who had worked for Richard Morrisson, exhibited a design for Lauragh, commissioned by Sir Walter Burrowes, Bt., at RHA.

Sea The Stars at Giltown

A sporting man, a founder of the Coursing Club, and Master of the Emo Hunt,  he died suddenly whist out hunting near Sheffield, the Graces’ house, in 1831.    There is little evidence of Sir Walter’s life in books and newspapers, though The Borrowes Archive at Maynooth University Library might cast some light on him.  His father was one of the many Erasmus Dixon Borrowes,  and his mother  was Henrietta de Robillard, youngest daughter of the Very Rev. Arthur Champagné, Dean of Clonmacnoise (the great-grandson of the Chevalier Josias de Robillard, Seigneur de Champagné de Torxé, a Huguenot refugee), and great granddaughter (maternally) of Arthur Forbes, 2nd Earl of Granard.   His Aunt Letitia de Robillard married Edward Smyth of the Barbaravilla family and  their son built Mount Henry (Mount St Anne’s) in 1820.  After Walter’s death his brother the Rev. Erasmus Dixon Borrowes, inherited the title and Lauragh, dying there in May 1866.  There are no records of him, positive or negative, during the famine, and Lauragh does not seem to have attracted Whiteboy or Blackfeet attention. n the 16 Aug 1867 there was an auction of the  38 year remaining lease on “THE HOUSE and DEMESNE of LAURAGH, admirably, situated within four miles of Portarlington and two of Mountmellick.  There is a handsome mansion and demesne, upon which a large sum of money has been spent.   The house, which stands upon 53 acr 27p. (Irish) of land, most ornamentally planted with trees of some eighty years’ growth, contains four handsome reception rooms, front and back hall, nine bedrooms and drawing room/ and excellent basement story, with ample accommodation for servants. The out offices are extensive—comprising stabling for fifteen horses, coach house, etc. There is an excellent walled in garden, with a beautifully laid out shrubbery, also a flower garden situated on an island of about an acre. There are two convenient lodges at the gates, which a mail car passes twice daily. The whole is in good repair, and forms a most attractive residence ; a pack of fox hounds hunt in the immediate neighbourhood.”

The house had been turned around and enlarged.  The drive now followed the lakeshore to the entrance on the NE side of the house, and there were loads of additions – a service entrance at the side, the South bow end has become a conservatory, and extra rooms have been built to the left and right of the front door. 

The purchaser was Captain R.A. Smythe, grandson of William Smythe of Barbaravilla and son of Francis Barbara Cooke of the Cookesborough family.

The 30 year old Richard Altamont Smythe was ready to settle down.  By July 1869 he had married Frances Anne Jane Bellingham daughter of Sir Alan Bellingham, 3rd Baronet of Castle Bellingham.    In 1871 he was appointed High Sherriff of County Louth.  In 1873 he applied for a patent for the Invention of ” IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR REGISTERING THE NUMBER OF PASSENGERS CARRIED BY TRAMWAY AND OTHER OMNIBUSES”. 

He retained a considerable amount of property around Drogheda, including The Maiden Tower which he transferred to the Corporation of Drogheda in 1878, an act of generosity that does not seem to be particularly well known or commemorated. Maybe that’s why Smythe preferred Laois to Louth!

Sept 1898 contents sale

Smythe was still at Lauragh in 1896, but sold the contents in Sept 1898 and by the time of the census of 1901 he was living at Court- na-Farraga in Killiney, which had been designed in 1865 byT M Deane for William Exham and in later years became the Killiney Court Hotel, owned by the Buckleys.  According to the ICA guide to Killiney, The Granite Hills, Exham had built it with the inheritance of a nurse who worked for the family and paid for the house on condition that she could remain in their employ!

The next owner was Major Neville Francis s Augustus Maunsell who died at Lauragh on 1 Aug 1919 aged 64 of cirrhosis of the liver.   His father, Rev Robert Augustus Maunsell had been Rector of Coolbanagher and had married Francis Anne Erskine Tipping Hall, from Co Louth.    His brother and father in law had emigrated to New Zealand.   One could imagine him as a rather pickled and irritable character, treating war wounds and rheumatism with gin and whiskey.  

 He had served in the Afghan War as Transport Officer with the Khyber Division of the Cabul Field Force (Medal) Employment [1879-1880].  His wife  Anita Matilda Muntz was born in Chile.  Her father was a partner in  G. F. and P. H. Muntz, of Birmingham, maker of Muntz’s Metal for sheathing ships.

 The census tells us that there was a cook, a nurse, a parlourmaid, 2 kitchen maids, a housemaid and a pantryman.  The nurse was from England and C of E   The cook was from Sligo and C of I.  and two housemaids were Cof I and C of E and from Monaghan and England.  The parlourmaid Annie Graham and the  pantryman Bernard Delaney were locals.  None of the staff were married.  The house has 17 outbuildings and 14 windows across the front. (which suggests that it was a 5 bay, 3 storey house).

Within a month of his death Gaze and Jessop were auctioning STOCK, IMPLEMENTS, CHATTELS, CROPS, AND HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE, For Reps. of the late Major Mansuell ...As advertised in the Kilkenny Moderator  Saturday 18 October 1919

It appears that the next owner was William Hutchinson, who had previously been a land steward, and lived at Killeen.  His family had been farmers at Coolbanagher since the beginning of the 19th Century.  William died in 1959 and is buried in the C of I churchyard at Coolbanagher.    Albert Pratt was able to tell me a little more about John William Hutchinson (1877-1959; always referred to as Willie), and introduce me to his granddaughter who actually lived in Lauragh. She remembered its two facades and its two front doors, running in through one and out of the other with her cousin. She also described the tunnel like entrance to the basement off the avenue.

The demolition sale of 1967 had to be postponed to 1968 because of Foot and Mouth Disease

It would be easy to assume, as I did, that the local names Lansdowne Park and Lauragh meant that the lands had belonged to the Petty Fitzmaurice family, Marquis of Lansdowne, whose seat was at Lauragh in Kerry.  However the name Lauragh (An Láithreach)  the (house-)site   appears in the Calendar to Fiants of reign of Queen Elizabeth.1563. So there is no connection.  It is not clear when the house was destroyed – any details and any pictures of the house would be gratefully received.     

The deforested and devastated demesne in 2020 – compare it with the 1835 OS map above

        

Black Jack Adair and Bellegrove

Ballyphobble, Bellegrove , or Rathadaire

It is a truth almost universally acknowledged that JG Adair was a bad man, and that Bellegrove was built in the 1830s. 

J G Adair

The former is a moral judgement.  I came to this research with the opinion that he might have been a benign despot.  I now believe that though he may not have been actually malign, but he was certainly unpleasant, ignorant, hard nosed and arrogant. 

In September 1617 in a Queens County Chancery Inquisition held at Maryborough Sir Terence O’Dempsey Knight of Ballybrittas was in possession of the O’Dempsey lands in the area which included Bellegrove.  The extract from the Inquisition reads “Rathronsy, Ballypoble, or Ballifoboyle and Boretoban, one plowland.”

The 1890 OS map

Nicholas Kingsley’s excellent blog on  “Landed Families” details the history of the Adairs.  They claimed descent from Col. Sir Robert Adair (1659-1745), knighted by King William III at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, whose ancestors were the Adairs of Kinhilt in Wigtownshire.  Thomas Adair of Clonterry, 2 km NE of Mountmellick, died in 1758, and his grandson John (c1731-1809) was apparently the first to settle at Rath, near Ballybrittas.   His son George was still at Rath in 1814 “About half a mile farther on the left hand is Rath the seat of George Adair Esq. The house is a pretty good family residence having many small rooms in it old but with the front a little modernized The situation is not lofty but the soil is by no means of an indifferent quality”    Survey of Ireland,  William Shaw Mason · 1814

In 1770 Taylor and Skinner’s Maps show three large houses – Bellgrove, of Mr Fitzgerald, Rath of Mr Adair and Jamestown of Mr Rochfort, Ballybrittas Castle is marked to the North of the road, but as can be seen in Seymour’s 1777 view, included in Beranger’s “Views of Ireland” it was already a ruin.

“On the R of Ballybrittas are the ruins of a castle and on the L is Bell Grove the seat of Mr Fitzgerald” Wilson’s The Post-chaise Companion: Or, Travellers’ Directory Through Ireland 1780 1786

The house at Ballyphobble was newly built in 1746

In 1790 John Fitzgerald of Bellgrove died, as reported in The European.  The estate papers of the Marquis of Lansdowne held at the Bowood Archive show John Fitzgerald tenant in Morette died 1790 and his (sub) tenants were listed and given leases in their own right.   John was the younger son of Thomas Fitzgerald of Moret and his mother was a daughter of Sir Daniel Byrne of Timogue.   He left two sons, one of whom became a Clergyman and the other of whom had two daughters.     These Fitzgeralds claim descent from the 11^th Earl of Kildare and Elinor O’Kelly of Timogue during the time that the Earl was an outlaw in the late 16th century.

Ronnie Matthews in The Laois Heritage Society Journal 2008 has done a lot of excellent research:- ” A memorial, unearthed by the author, dated 1718, connected with the adjoining lands of Ballyphoble (Bellgrove) held by Thomas Fitzgerald (of Morette) lists one of his boundaries as the ditch made by Thomas Adair, or some of his tenants. Initially, the lands of Ballyphoble had passed from Richard Warburton to Thomas Dowling, thence to Jonathan Palsey, who in the early eighteenth century sold them on to Thomas Fitzgerald. One question the author was unable to answer was; had Fitzgerald build a house on the land? To try and answer this puzzle, the author recently, together with P.J.Goode, historian, and Mairtin Dalton, historical architect, spent several hours examining the majestic ruins of Bellgrove House. Their initial tour of the property, failed to find any answers. However, within one section, Mairtin suddenly noticed that there was section of a cut limestone course running along the internal wall at floor height. This normally exterior feature indicated with a degree of certainty that the Bellgrove House did in fact contain the remains of an earlier dwelling within its structure. Further detailed examination, by the group, showed that the earlier house was a medium sized two or three storied house (possibly with basement) of typical eighteenth century design. This then was the Fitzgerald house as featured on the later Taylor and Skinner map. It is hoped that further research may discover who was the architect employed by George Adair to build the subsequent mansion.“

Presumably John Adair, living at Rath, persuaded his wife’s brother John Maquay and brother in law, Vernon Darby to join him in a property venture when the Fitzgerald lease on Bellegrove came up for grabs.

In 1797 and 1798 John Maquay and Verney Darby are seeking tenants for Bellgrove – “Offices of every kind newly built and a garden walled in. “It would suit not just a gentleman, but also anyone wishing to carry on a brewery  or other manufacture”. 

Advertised from Feb 1797 to Dec 1798 – Given the 1798 rising they may have chosen the wrong time to speculate in property

Sleater’s road book has Fitzgerald of Bellgrove in 1806 but is possibly incorrect as Dean Trench may have already been in residence.

“The Dean of Kildare made some improvements with bullocks, at Bellegrove, in the Queen’s County, but he has not yet brought them to perfection ; the base of the Patten which he used was entirely of wood, and was fastened on the foot by leather straps”  Reports from the Commissioners – Volume 6, Part 2 – Page 215  House of Commons – 1814

The Survey of Ireland,  William Shaw Mason · 1814 writes;-  “Pursuing now the right hand branch of the road half a mile beyond Ballybrittas to the right you see Bellgrove the beautiful and elegant seat of the Dean of Kildare the house and offices are excellent and newly built in a superior style the prospect is lovely and charming both as to near and distant objects and the lawn laid out with exquisite taste decorated with a piece of water and other improvements.”  Leet also gives Bellegrove as the seat of Thomas Trench, the Dean of Kildare (the Dean also had Ashfield and was to build Glenmalure shortly).    One of the Dean’s 12 children, Elizabeth, married George Adair in 1822.  George was already of Bellgrove in December 1817, when he was appointed High Sheriff.    The Dean died in 1834 at Glenmalure.  His son Thomas Trench was by then in Rath House, and George Adair (married to Trench’s sister Elizabeth) were in Bellegrove.    It really seems like musical chairs!

George’s only son, John George Adair (1823-85), originally intended for the Foreign Office, grew up to be too rude and difficult even for the diplomatic service.  In 1845 at the age of 18 he was sent off to stay with his Italian cousins in Florence and reputedly fathered his hostess’s youngest son (William in the portrait below).  From 1852 he engaged in extensive and successful land speculation buying up bankrupt post famine estates in Tipperary, Kilkenny, and Queen’s Co., and he was a JP in all of these places – a one man Cerberus vulture fund. As a landlord his principal tactic was rent-raising, but in 1853 he evicted twenty-five families from his Tipperary estate.  

Elena Maquay and her youngest son William

 An early exponent of industrial farming he built a state-of-the-art farmyard at Belgrove in 1851 (which still exists). To justify the investment he ejected the tenants from the best land in Ballyaddan, Rathroinsin, Belgrove, etc., expecting to run the land more efficiently in a larger unit, rather than depending on what they could extract from their tenants

In 1855, with William Dargan, he took on the running of the first Irish sugar beet factory at Mountmellick, but that had failed before 1860.  Adair acquired three estates, comprising 28,000 acres, in the Gartan region of north Donegal in 1857 and 1858. He antagonised tenants in the Derryveagh area in disputes over shooting rights, the erection of a police barracks and a pound to hold straying animals until redeemed (since the mountains were unfenced, tenants could not keep animals off Adair’s land), and extensive sheep-farming overseen by imported Scottish shepherds.         

Adair’s Glenveagh steward, James Murray, was beaten to death on 13 November 1860 and it was assumed Ribbonmen killed him. It was later alleged, plausibly, that another Scot, his wife’s lover, murdered him. Adair, who had already issued notices to quit to rearrange landholdings, declared the tenants collectively responsible for shielding murderers and decreed 47 families should be evicted.  50 sq. km were cleared of human habitation.  Here, between 1867 and 1873 he built Glenveagh Castle in a Scots Baronial style to the design of his cousin, J.T. Trench.  He also added a large winter garden to Bellegrove in 1869, and filled in the courtyard with an atrium.  This immense conservatory, designed by Sir Thomas Newenham Deane, had Romanesque arcades supported by pairs of ornate terracotta columns, copied from those in St John Lateran in Rome, some of which are now at Blandsfort.  The winter garden was demolished in 1970, but the ruins of the original building are still standing.  A gate lodge is known to have been designed by William Farrell, copied from one at Blenheim. The North Lodge is a remarkable half-timbered Tudor revival building possibly by Newneham Deane   Andrew Tierney in Pevsner suggests that William Caldbeck may have been the architect of the house as remodelled in 1872-73, as the detailing of the window architraves echoes his work across the road at Emo.  Pevsner also has a good plan of the house by Mairtin D’Alton.  Tierney notes that though the house is wildly exotic in the Irish Midlands, it is typical of the mansions of American industrialists.

 In 1869 John George Adair married a wealthy widow, Cornelia Wadsworth Ritchie (1838-1921), and they divided their time between Ireland and America, where they lived first in New York and later in Denver, even though Adair had bought an additional 9,000 acres in Laois during the 1860s.

Cornelia Adair

They met a Texas cattleman, Charles Goodnight (1836-1929), who persuaded them to purchase land for cattle ranching southeast of Amarillo, Texas, where the cattle had sufficient water, excellent grass in summer and could winter comfortably in the protection afforded by the canyon walls. Adair and Goodnight entered into a partnership, by which Adair put up the money for building a massive ranch in the canyon, and Goodnight would manage the ranch and supplied the initial herd of cattle. Adair financed two thirds of the cost, and Goodnight borrowed his one-third share at 10 percent interest from Adair. Goodnight would also draw a $2,500 annual salary. It was Goodnight’s suggestion that the ranch be named the “JA Ranch” from the initials of his partner.  Goodnight had a free hand in managing the ranch and rapidly increased the acreage through shrewd land purchases.  By the end of the first five-year contract the ranch had made a profit of $510,000. Goodnight continued as manager until 1888, by which time Adair had died and been succeeded by his widow.  She was sole owner of the ranch until her death, and it remained in her family, passing to the descendants of her first marriage. 

Although Cornelia Adair became a British citizen (and was rumoured to be engaged to the Duke of Marlborough) and continued to divide her time between England, Ireland and the USA in her widowhood, her children and grandchildren were and remained American at heart and the Irish estates did not remain in the family long after she died in 1921.   In 1887 two years after Jack Adair’s death Bellegrove (which they had renamed Rathadaire when it was partially rebuilt in 1873)  was accidentally burnt down, probably from a chimney fire and was not rebuilt; it remains a ruin.  Glenveagh was sold in 1929 to another American, Professor Arthur Kingsley Porter.  After he disappeared in mysterious circumstances from Inishbofin in 1933 (an episode which is now the subject of a book by Lucy Costigan,  The Glenveagh Mystery), the castle was sold in 1937 to an Irish-American art collector and connoisseur, Henry Plumer McIlhenny (1910-86).  He sold the estate to the Office of Public Works as a National Park in 1975, and gave the castle and grounds to the Irish Government in 1981.

The 1887 Fire

in 1935 the Bellegrove estate was divided among the tenants by the Irish Land Commission.

https://www.facebook.com/lostbuildingsofireland/photos/a.1826334300971321.1073741909.1413928008878621/1826334454304639 has some great aerial photos of the ruin

Springhill House, Killeshin – A house with a varied history

In researching the history of this very lovely, though sadly unoccupied, house, set high up overlooking the plains of Kildare and the Wicklow Mountains, it seemed that no great Netflix plot was waiting to be discovered.  One historian suggested that it had been the home of  Capt. Knipe and his wife, a 28 stone (180 kg) Indian Princess.  However Knipe lived at the other Springhill, near Borris in Ossory, and his wife’s maiden name was Rachel Gerrard, from Gibbstown, Co Meath.  She may have been “beef to the heel”, and a Meath Princess, but she certainly wasn’t an Indian Princess

The Buildings of Ireland proposes a date of c. 1740.   Tierney’s Pevsner suggests c. 1760 .  Tierney’s description is superbly detailed: – “double gable-ends, five bays wide and flanked by curving screen walls. Side-lit Gibbsian doorway approached up steps. Hall ceiling with ornate stucco strapwork and acanthus leaves with small birds centrally placed to front and back. Raised-and-fielded panel doors throughout, their shouldered architraves — with one exception — removed. The drawing room to the rear has a deep dentil cornice with egg-and-dart mouldings. First-floor bedrooms with box window seats. A quaint feature is the steeply pitched roof and tall chimney of the kitchen wing — which looks earlier, but is probably of the same date.”   I think that it must be before 1755;  any later and when selling the lease in 1777  Cramer would have described  it as “newly built”

From The Buildings of Ireland

In the 16th Century it was part of the estate of Sir William St Leger under the Elizabethan Plantation of Laois and Offaly (Summary of Inquisition of 1622  R. Dunlop). 

By the end of the 17th Century it had become part of the estate of the O’Briens, Earls of Thomond.   The tenant was John Warren of Ballymoyleran, who was on the losing side after 1691, was described thus in 1694: ‘the tenant is very poor and now in gaol who as yet has [had] no abatement on account of the troubles [,] he having dealt very unfaithfully with my lord during the troubles’.

He seems to have suffered on account of his actions during the war when he was accused of having discovered the estate to Tyrconnell which made him ineligible for an abatement of £34 in 1693 ‘because of his unkindness to the family of Thomond’.  Arrears amounted to £150 in 1699 but was reduced to about £100 by 1702.

On 14th June, 1703 Henry, Earl of Thomond, to Maurice Warren, of Nurny, County Carlow, Esq., in consideration, one thousand and fifty-seven pounds. The town and lands of Nurny and Ballinvally, Ballan and Coniger, Cappaghwater, Laraghteige and Garryoung, Ballykeeneen, Aghaclare, Cooleneshigan ;— The estate of John Warren, attainted. To hold to him and his heirs. — Inrolled 7th July, 1703.

It is not quite clear if this included Ballymoyleran / Ballintobber  because by 1704 the hard-line attitude seemed to have softened when one of Thomond’s officials recommended that ‘Mr Warren will clear this arrear, if your honour will allow him the year and a half abatement for the war, which has not yet been made good’.   By 1709 the arrears on the farm were about £5.   The townland of Springhill incudes a tiny exclave surrounding Old Derrig, and it is probably Old Derrig that was Ballintobber, the townland of the well.  Ballymoyleran, the townland of Myler, or of the flat topped hill  (Maol) would fit Spring Hill.

A new lease was acquired by Maurice Warren from Henry, Earl of Thomond in 1712, in return for fitting out a Protestant with horse, sword and pistols to preserve the public peace and the Protestant interest and serve Henry Earl of Thomond and his heirs. 

All the estate and interest of the said Maurice Warren in the said lands became vested in Sir William Cooper, Bart . (MP for Hillsborough, whose house Cypress Grove in Templeogue still exists;  his brother of Thomas Cooper of Gaigue) who, by indenture of lease dated the 22nd February, 1750, demised the said lands and premises to Benjamin Fisher, of Old Derrig.

Much of this early information comes from law reports – the quarrying at Springhill twice led to litigation – Fishbourne v Hamilton in 1890 and Reilly v Walshe in 1914.

Benjamin Fisher of Old Derrig, a magistrate in 1750, married Ester Harvey (of Bargy Castle) (as reported by Pue’s Occurrences 6 May 1758) and describing Fisher as of Springhill.  It was probably his father who was the Benjamin who married the daughter of John Browne and Mary Jennings (ancestor of the Brownes of Browne’s Hill)  in about 1705.  In 1765 Benjamin Fisher is a High Sheriff of Carlow and of Sliguff, near Bagenalstown    In 1761 there is a Christopher Fisher, a freeholder of Springhill.   Frances Fisher married as his third wife Samuel Galbraith circa 1756 at Old Derrig.  Griffith’s Valuation also has the representatives of Benjamin Fisher as the Landlord of Springhill.  And until the sale of the estates under the Land Act following the ruling of the Land Judges Court of in November 1903, much of the land was rented from “the Legatees of _______Fisher”.

At Christmas 1845 there was a most unseemly fracas at the C of I church in Carlow.  The officers and their ladies had been using the gallery, as their pews were inaccessible due to the installation of a new organ.  Mr Faulkner, of Laurel Lodge, as one of the Legatees of Fisher, claimed it and repulsed the officers and their ladies.  Not as bad as the altercation a New Inn, County Tipperary, recounted by Dorothea Herbert.  The vicar’s family took the front pew, but their claim was contested by the Hon Mrs Robinson of Hymenstown, Lord Massy’s daughter.  Lodge’s Peerage was produced (why did anyone have a copy with them at church, I wonder) to show that Mrs Herbert’s family, the Earls of Desart, took precedence over Lord Massy, but that did not stop the subsequent fight in the churchyard. 

Benjamin Fisher may have been a descendant of Sir Edward Fisher’s brothers Richard Fisher, or Vincent Fisher, a vintner. In 1611 Sir Edward, an adventurer from London arrived in Dublin with his brothers and  received from the crown a large tract in West Dublin upon which he built a manor house called Phoenix Park. He also received large tracts in Wexford and other places. In the cess of 1621, he lived on Fishmonger Street in St. Johns Parish in Dublin, and died there in 1630. By 1634 the records mention William Fisher and his son Thomas, and Hugh Fisher, vicar of St. John’s.   There was a quite separate family of Fishers, Quaker millers in Piltown and Youghal, but they did not arrive in Ireland till 1692.    Tied in with the pedigree of the Fishbourne family, The National Library has a release by various creditors of Elizabeth Fisher from charges due out of property of her late husband, Thomas Fisher at Coolenekishy, Co. Carlow, Oct., 1746. (National Library of Ireland, Ms. Joly 51 (i)).  Gordon Fishbourne, Esq., J.P., was the agent for the Fisher estate in the early 1900s.

One of the legatees may have been Frances Jackson, (ROD 506. 120. 378210) daughter of Michael & Rebecca Jackson of Carlow, who died in 1859.    Her father was Quartermaster of the “Green Horse” (2nd (Irish) Horse) which became 5th Dragoon Guards in 1788.

In her will she set up an Asylum for destitute Protestant female servants, ten pounds per annum to be paid out of my said share of the Springhill property and the Museum belonging to my late brother Adam Jackson with all the ancient Books and manuscripts belonging thereto also the House of Commons Journals Almanacs Army Lists etc as books of reference in trust for the public whenever a suitable room shall be obtained for it.  The collection also contained the antlers of a Great Irish Elk.  As a beneficiary of Springhill it may be presumed that she was one of the legatees of Fisher.

It would appear that the Coopers also retained an interest.  The Dublin Weekly Register reported on Sat 21 December 1822 that on Sat 14 Dec 1822 William Cooper of Cooper Hill had had Owen Crosby, wo had lived at Spring Hill for more than 60 years (ie since 1760) as a tenant of the Legatees of Fisher, arrested on a “Court of Conscience” warrant.  He had become Mr Cooper’s tenant in 1821, renting 15 acres at £3 13s an acre, and owed £60.  He had offered the crop on the field to Cooper (valued at £60) and to give up the tenancy, but both offers were refused.  The economics of the field are interesting – his rent is £40 p a, and his gross return in a reasonable year is £60 p.a.  – there’s not much room for error or a bad year!  In the case he paid off £10/2/6 and was remanded on bail till the balance was paid.

On 18 Oct 1858 it was reported that Kate Mary, youngest dau of the late Owen Crosby and niece of William Dargan m James A Roche of Springfield NJ at St John the Evangelist in New York. 

In the graveyard at Killeshin there are a couple of memorials that relate:- 

This stone was erected by Owen Crosby in memory of his wife Mary Crosby otherwise Beaghan. She departed this life the 12th. of February 1804 aged 42 years. May she rest in peace Amen. 

Nearby is a stone to Dargan:- Erected by Patrick Dargan in memory of his mother Sile(?) Dargan who departed this life 24th April 1801 aged 76 years. Lord have mercy on their souls Amen. And also his wife Elizabeth Dargan who dept. this life Dec. the 24th 1813 aged 42 years and of the above Patrick Dargan who departed this lifef (stone broken) aged 83 years. Also his children Michael, Damien Bridget & Patrick who died young. 

William Dargan (28 February 1799 – 7 February 1867) may have been a surviving son.  He was arguably the most important Irish engineer of the 19th century and certainly the most important figure in railway construction.  The exact place of birth is uncertain but may have been Ardristan near Tullow. When William was a boy the family moved to rent a 101 acres farm at Ballyhide, 1.5 km S. E of Springhill.   The names of his siblings are also uncertain, but one genealogical source lists William as the eldest of seven brothers and his will mentions a sister named Selina.   Two influential patrons took a hand in Dargan’s career: John Alexander of the milling family based at Milford, Co. Carlow, and Sir Henry Parnell of Rathleague,  MP for Queen’s Co. 

Dargan gave us not only our railways but also The National Gallery, as part of the 1853 Dublin Exhibition, Ireland’s answer to The Crystal Palace Exhibition.  The enterprise, to which he contributed nearly £100,000, involved him in an eventual loss of £20,000.  Apart from the DART he constructed over 1,300 km (800 miles) of railway around Ireland.

He married Jane Arkinstall in the Anglican Church of St Michael & All Angels, Adbaston, Staffordshire in 1828.   He bought Mount Annville in Dublin (his neighbour at the smaller Mount Annvile House, on the opposite side of the road was the distiller Henry Roe).  By 1857, William Dargan used ‘The Tower, Mount Anville’ as his business address as well as 74 Harcourt Street.   Queen Victoria visited Mr Dargan in 1853 and the visit was described in the Illustrated London Newspaper in September 1853.  A Wellingtonia tree growing outside the main door of Mount Anville House was planted by her and in 1863 plants from Mount Anville were transplanted to create the public gardens in Bray.   Following a very bad fall from his horse, Dargan sold Mount Anville to the Convent of The Sacred Heart and died a year later on 7 February 1867 . 

Mount Anville

He seems to have been universally liked, and had a quick wit, as quoted in Seventy Years of Irish Life by William Richard Le Fanu (1896):- “A spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a gallon of vinegar” and “Never show your teeth unless you can bite”.

Nicholas Harman, of Carlow, settled in Ireland during the reign of James I.   Whence came he?    Most Elizabethan adventurers leave copious genealogies,   But not Harman.  So he was probably not from the grand Harmans of  Sussex and Norfolk.  Nor was he related to William Horman (c. 1440-1535), headmaster at Eton and Winchester, best known for his Latin grammar textbook the Vulgaria; or  Thomas Harman ( fl. 1567),  who was an English writer on beggars, grandson of Henry Harman, clerk of the crown under Henry VII, who obtained the estates of Ellam and Maystreet in Kent.

He was however one of the first burgesses of Carlow, named in the charter granted to that borough by James I in 1614, and was High Sheriff of County Carlow in 1619.  He had two sons, Edward Harman and Sir Thomas Harman of Athy, MP who commanded Sir George Wentworth’s (the brother of Sir Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford who was executed by Charles I) troop in the Athy area in 1643 (Protestant in the Confederate War, Royalist in the Civil War).  Edward’s son was William Harman, of Derrymoyle, Queen’s County (on the Ballickmoyler Road out of Carlow)  and of Dublin whose will was dated 27th April, 1682 and proved 10th Jan 1684. William had two children, both daughters, but the elder died before her father so William left his wealth to his younger daughter Catherine who, around 1680,  married James Fitzmaurice, of Kilmihil, Co Clare, brother of Thomas Fitzmaurice, 21st Lord of Kerry, and uncle of John Petty of Springfield Castle, 1st Earl of Shelburne. 

Sir Thomas Harman’s great grandson was Lawrence Parsons Harman, Lord Oxmanstown and Earl of Rosse (1749-1807), of Newcastle, MP for County Longford, 1775-92, who assumed the additional surname of Harman in 1792, on succeeding to the Harman estates, and married, in 1772, Lady Jane King, daughter of Edward, 1st Earl of Kingston (a dangerous relative- he shot his son’s father in law qv Levally). He was also ancestor of the King Harmans of Rockingham House,  Boyle.   Sir Thomas’ family had lands at Moyle between Carlow and Tullow, Edward’s land was on the other side of Carlow, into Laois, centred on Derrymoyle, Old Derrig, Springhill and Killeshin – considerably more profitable as it included coal mines!

James Fitzmaurice  and Catherine Harman were recorded as living at Bannagh, Co Kerry in 1720 & 1724. The Hon Captain James died before 1749 when his widow advertised the lands of Derrymoyle and the colliery for let.  She was living at Bowensford near Charleville, Co Cork (Pue’s Occurrences 21 February 1749)

On 28 July 1755 her grandson James Fitzmaurice had a son, Harman, by his wife Catherine Moore (both were minors and had married earlier that year!) at Springhill.  The god parents were Warter Wilson Esq, William Moore Esq. , The Hon Catherine Fitzmaurice and Mrs Elizabeth Magrath.    This is the first reference found so far to the Fitzmaurices at Springhill.  Harman married Maria Evans and died 9th July, 1839 at Ardateggle, just over the hill from Springhill.  With thanks to Catherine FitzMaurice, Bandon Genealogy

It is fairly certain that the Fitzmaurice’s never had more than a lease on Springhill, the head landlords being the Fishers, in succession to Thomond to Warren to Cooper. 

In the meantime both Taylor and Skinner (1783) and George Tyner’s  1791 Traveller’s Guide Through Ireland list Springhill as being the seat of Coghill Cramer esq.

However Mr Cramer was trying to sell his interest in 1777, and by March 1790 James Roe, the next tenant,  is selling his interest.  What of James Roe – the complications of the Roe Genealogy make me blanche!  I did discover that he was one who gave his name to the efficacy of inoculation against smallpox in an advertisement in the Freeman’s Journal of 1769.  As I write there are discussions about how people can be persuaded to take the Covid Vaccine.  Maybe we will see similar advertisements!

Oliver Coghill Cramer possessed property in the County Carlow, where he married a Miss Rudkin, “a lady of more beauty than fortune” (the note of disapproval suggests that the commentator had chosen money over beauty!); by her he left two children, Marmaduke Coghill and Hester.  The former married first a Miss Humphreys, also of County Carlow, by whom he had two or three children that died in infancy, and secondly the daughter of Jacob Warren, Esq., of Grangely, County Kildare, a family related to the Wellesleys and descended from John Warren, who held the property 100 years earlier.  The descendants of this marriage are Maurice Cramer, who inherited Beamore at Drogheda from the Countess of Charleville, Captain Cramer of the Rattlesnake, a Trafalgar veteran, and other cousins residing at Drumcondra.

Sarah Marcella FitzMaurice, b 21 Dec 1818, the daughter of Captain James Fitzmaurice RN and Harriet Thomas, grand-daughter of Harman and Maria and great grand daughter of James and Catherine Moore, married Dr James Lafarelle whose father had been renting Springhill since before 1837 (when he appears in Lewis’s Topography.) till at least 1860 when Dr James died. 

Capt Paget Butler (1831- 1913) arrived in 1861.  Henry William Paget Butler, Capt Carlow Militia, was the 4th son of Son of Sir Thomas Butler of Ballintemple.  He married Geraldine Sydney Fitzgerald, one of the three love children of  Lord William FitzGerald, brother of the 3rd Duke of Leinster, to whom the manor of Graney, at Castledermott had been granted.   He left in 1868 (selling a 57 year lease).

However on Wednesday 14 July 1909 Hansard records :-  W. C. Steadman asked Augustine Birrell, the Chief Secretry for Ireland :- Is he aware that the solicitor having carriage of the sale of Thomas Butler’s estate, of Ballyvass, county Kildare, obtained a conveyance to himself of that estate, and also of Butler’s estate of Springhill, Queen’s County, on 9th November, 1903, as shown by a memorial in the Registry of Deeds, Dublin; that the execution of the conveyance was witnessed by two of the solicitor’s clerks; that the only money advanced by the solicitor to Butler was £384; that Butler’s two estates realised £6,079; that the giving of the conveyance left Butler absolutely without means, and that he died in great poverty; whether he is aware that his personal estate was sworn at £3; that the solicitor placed the estate of Springhill in the Land Judge’s Court in a false name and published an improper final notice to claimants and incumbrancers; that Butler’s share of the purchase price of Springhill and bonus was £2,867; will he say if Butler or his widow have received any portion of that money, and, if so, how much, as there is no record of any such payment; if the solicitor has received a payment of £935; and if he will call for a detailed account to show what has been done with Butler’s share of the purchase money of the estate of Springhill?

Mr Birrell:- I am informed by the Registrar to the Land Judge that there do not appear to have been any proceedings in that Court for the sale of the estate of Thomas Butler. As regards the proceedings instituted before the Land Commission, I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to the question asked by him on the 6th instant. As the title to the claims on the estate has not yet been investigated, the charges made in the question against the solicitor having carriage of the sale cannot now be dealt with by the Land Commission. It is open to the parties, if so advised, to raise the question before the Court of the Land Commission at the time of the distribution of the purchase money, or, in the meantime, to take proceedings before a court having jurisdiction in such matters.

This Thomas Butler (1814-1893) is the elder brother of Paget Butler.  His widow, Emma Elizabeth Bertie Cator, had died in 1905, and the beneficiary would have been their daughter Laura and her husband Commander Francis Fitzpatrick Tower, whose only daughter became Lady Dunboyne.  An odd aside, and it is hard to see how and when Butler acquired an interest in Springhill. 

Saturday, October 29, 1892, In consequence of the tenant Joseph Greene leaving the county, an unexpired lease from the legatees of Fisher Esq is to be sold.    John Greene married Elizabeth Anne Lafarelle, daughter if Dr James Lafarelle of Springhill on 11th November, 1861.  His son Joseph Greene b 18 Dec 1861 (5 weeks water!)  at Spring Hill.  He married Charlotte FitzMaurice, daughter of Gamaliel and Charlotte on 13 May 1885 at Kenilworth Square, Rathgar. Dublin.   Charlotte had been born in Laurel Lodge, Carlow (which was the home of the Faulkners, Legatees of Fisher!)  and her father had been born at Old Derrig and died at Ballyhide, the farm that had been rented by the Dargans,  Their children were Elizabeth Adeline Greene b 10 Jan 1892 at Spring Hill and Amy Hilda Greene b 21 Nov 1893 at Ballymagarvey, Balrath, Navan.

When Sarah Marcella Lafarelle’s brother Major Harman Fitzmaurice, the son of Captain James FitzMaurice, RN,  and Harriett Thomas (only daughter of Arthur Thomas of Straw Hall, Carlow),  married his first wife Frances Fitmaurice,   he gave his address as Old Derrig.  Crossleigh is where they were living when Harman jnr was born on 25 Mar 1866.  His mother died 3 years later at Springhill House, , deeply regretted by numerous circle of relatives and friends.   They had presumably moved when Paget Butler left. 

Harman’s second wife was Helena Fitmaurice. They married in September 1876 and his address was Spring Hill House.  She died at Spring Hill 6 days after William Raymond Fitzmaurice of Everton (his first wife’s father), in November 1896. 

In the 1901 Census the 80 year old Harman Fitzmaurice and his 22 year old daughter Ada were in residence.  They had moved to Crossleigh at Ballyhide by 1903, when Ada married Clarence Cary, a land agent of Dublin Street, Carlow.  Harman died in 1908 with his daughter and son in law beside him. 

By late 1901 William Reilly, farmer and harness maker, was of Springhill.  The Census of 1911 lists him (b 1857) his wife Bridget  (b 1858) (daughter of Martin Brennan from Killeshin), their sons John, Thomas and James, their daughter Elizabeth, and his brother in law Thomas Brennan.    His son Big Tom O’Reilly (named after his grandfather Thomas Reilly),  a hero of the War of Independence  died in 1953, and was buried with full military honours.  

Though the house may be in need of TLC, Reilly’s descendants have been in possession longer than any of the preceding owners.

I had hoped to bring Laois’s favourite aviator James Michael Christopher Fitzmaurice DFC (6 January 1898 – 26 September 1965) into the family, but his father Michael Fitzmaurice, who was a prison warder at Mountjoy, was born in Limerick.  His mother, Mary Reardon was the daughter of a steward from Limerick.   His grandfather, also Michael was a policeman and also from Limerick.  James moved with his parents to Maryborough (Portlaoise), in 1902, when his father was transferred to the prison staff there. James attended St Mary’s CBS and subsequently boarded at Rockwell until in 1913 his father sent him, aged fifteen, to Waterford city as a trainee salesman at Hearn’s drapery. Fitzmaurice was of course part of the Bremen flight, the first flight across the Atlantic from East to West in 1928

Raheenduff – the little black fort, one of the most important 17th Century houses in Laois

 Described by The Buildings of Ireland as a “Detached five-bay two-storey house, built c.1730, possibly incorporating fabric of earlier house, c.1675. House is set back from road in own grounds, landscaped grounds to site. Gateway to site comprising roughcast piers with wrought iron gates”. 

Tierney in his Pevsner’s “Central Leinster” does it far more justice, pointing out that since the demolition of Cremorgan it is the only surviving house built by descendants of The O’More’s. He comments that it has “sash windows of various types almost flush with the walls. Inside are high ceilings with tall narrow doorways. Plain central hall. Wainscoted drawing room to the r. with a dentil and egg-and-dart cornice. Original shouldered architraves here and on the first-floor landing. Very fine but much-rotted dog-leg staircase, through an off-centre fan-lit doorway to the rear of the hall. Closely set balusters and ramped railing to the first floor, continued upwards in fretwork. Large high-ceilinged kitchen wing of similar date to the South. An inscription over the coachhouse gives the date 1724, under which are added the initials JB 1840. This suggests that the house was built by the Rev. Francis Moore (d1729), or his daughter Catherine and son-in-law Col. William Caulfeild, married in 1723. The outhouses may have been extended by John Baldwin (`JB’), listed as occupant in 1851.“

Around 1520 Mortagh oge O More was born at Raheenduff.   Edmund T. Bewley wrote “Notes on an Old Pedigree of the O’More Family of Leix” in the JRSAI Vol 5, March 1905 which details how Mortagh was given a grant of Raheendoff in 1563 (and of Cremorgan in 1570).  His family took part in the regular uprisings of that period, and he, his son Lisagh and his son-in-law Dermod O’Lalor are included in a pardon granted in pursuance of a fiant, dated 12th March, 1576-7.

Mortagh married Honor O Lalor and had two sons and a daughter.  The eldest son Lisagh was killed in the fighting in September 1600, and Lisagh’s son Paul was attainted.   The land was granted to his younger brother John Moore, who was buried at Stradbally.  John’s son Pierce Moore married Mary Edgeworth, daughter of Francis Edgeworth of Edgeworthstown, (ca. 1565-1627). Her mother was Jane Tuite (ca. 1570-1641).  They had two sons and four daughters.  On his death around 1650 she remained at Raheenduff and married John Pigott of Disert who died in 1668.  Because of the subsequent history of the house, with the actual owner rarely being the resident, I would suggest that the massive gables with their obviously early stacks are from a house built soon after their marriage (circa 1630), but before the rising of 1641.

In those days it was the Wild Wood of “The Wind in the Willows” – according to Mason’s Statistical Survey, an English commander received the thanks of Queen Elizabeth “for conducting a party of her cavalry in safety through the wood of Iregan from Birr to Athy“.   A virgin forest of oak, pine and yew.

John Pigott’s  daughter with Mary Edgeworth,   Ann Pigott, married Francis Cosby of Stradbally

John Pigott’s  son with Mary Edgeworth,  Thomas, married Bridget Brereton and after he died in 1729 (described as “of Gurteen” ) his property went to his second cousin Thomas Pigott of Hophall, (which became part of Lamberton) but first her brother Bowen Brereton and then her younger brother Arthur Brereton, who died in 1761, described themselves as of Raheenduff.

The property however still belonged to the Moores – Pierce’s son, the Venerable John Moore, Archdeacon of Cloyne had administered John Pigott’s estate in 1669, and his son the Rev Frances Moore, vicar of Athy and Inishannon (quite a ride between those churches on a Sunday – nearly 150 miles!) , who also died in 1729, had married his cousin Catherine Weldon and they had a daughter Catherine.  She married Col. William Caulfeild, who became Lieut Governor of Fort George at Inverness.  He was the son of the Hon. Toby Caulfeild,  and grandson of William Caulfeild, 1st Viscount Charlemont.  They were married in 1723 and this is probably why Thomas Pigott moved out to Gurteen and this is probably when the house was rebuilt – the Caulfeilds were infamous builders – Charlemont House (the Hugh Lane Gallery) the Casino at Marino, …. Caulfeild was born at Clone House, which still stands between Freshford and Ballyragget and descended to the ancestors of Walt Disney.

Clone House

Cradle Hall, Inverness

The Breretons probably moved in when he was made Inspector of Roads for Scotland in 1732, and after the departure of General Wade Caulfeild became responsible for directing the construction of new roads and bridges across the Highlands.    Although he is not as well known as Wade, he is associated with the construction of far more roads than his predecessor. General Wade was responsible for 250 miles (400 km) of road, 40 bridges and 2 forts – whereas Caulfeild was responsible for 900 miles (1,400 km) of road and over 600 bridges – about 5% of all the roads in Scotland, and 1/3rd of all the bridges! He became Deputy Governor of Inverness Castle in 1747 which is probably when he built Cradle Hall in Inverness, only a couple of miles from Culloden where the Duke of Cumberland had massacred the Scots two years earlier. The name Cradle Hall is said to originate from the hoisting of inebriated guests in a cradle to recover. There is a full account of his road building in A Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers in Great Britain and Ireland (Skempton & Chrimes, 2002). During the 1745 Caulfeild served as Quartermaster General to General Sir John Cope, who was so disastrously defeated at Prestonpans, the first significant battle of the Jacobite rising.

The Caulfeild descendants remained as “of Raheenduffe” right up to the 20th century when Lenore Caulfeild of Raheenduff and 40 Roland Gardens, Kensington, (opposite Anouska Hempel’s Blakes Hotel)  married John Garland Cope of Drumily, Co Armagh.  http://lordbelmontinnorthernireland.blogspot.com/2014/01/drumilly-house.html

After Arthur Breterton died in 1761 it is not clear who the next tenant was till David Baldwin arrived    Baldwin, born about 1761 was probably living at Dysart, 1797;   He is of Rahineduff, December 1805, when he was advertised as receiving proposals in writing for the lease of a complete and equipped Brewery and Malt House in Stradbally [Dublin Evening Post, Tuesday 17 December].  His father was John BALDWIN, born 1718; named as the first life for the term of his father’s deed of lease, 1751; his will was proved in Dublin, 22 August 1797, aged 79 [W.B., 1918, of Dysart, Queen’s County, Gent [P.C.I. Index – VICARS]; he was married on 11 February 1760 to Elizabeth CAMBIE, daughter of Solomon CAMBIE of Castletown, County Tipperary [W.B., “Genealogy…” 1918, page 72];  There were three Baldwin brothers who arrived in Laois, one of Doone, near Abbeyleix and one of Summerhill  near Portaloise.  Though whether they were sons of a Cromwellian soldier from Lancashire, as seems probable or, as in a rather more fanciful genealogy,  descendants Henry Baldwin, a ranger of Woods and Forests in Shropshire, who married Elinor, daughter of Sir Edward Herbert, of Red Castle, who was the second son of the first Lord Pembroke, by Lady Anne, daughter of Lord Paar, of Kendall, and sister of Lady Catherine Paar (or Paer), surviving queen of Henry VIII., King of England. That Henry Baldwin had three sons, who settled in Ireland in the time of Queen Elizabeth, only further research will reveal. 

David Baldwin died in 1834, when his horse fell on him.  His son John was born about 1815.  Of his first wife there are no records.  His second wife was  Elizabeth Clarke   (d Apr 1872).  They were married on 23 Aug 1851 in Dysart Enos Church, witnesses Thomas Turpin, Robert Clarke.     She was the daughter of George and Esther Clarke of Killimy, Coolbanagher, and the widow of Robert Onions of Borris.  She had a son and daughter with Robert Onions, and in July 1863 they were riding past Grange, Stradbally when they saw a hayrick on fire, where a poor farmer, in attempting to save his hay, had himself been enveloped in flame. George Onions boldly dashed into the flames and saved him. John Baldwin died in 1873.

During the famine in February 1847 the Leinster Leader reported . About two o’clock on the morning of last Saturday Mr. John Baldwin’s two watchmen at Raheenduff, hearing an unusual tinkling of the sheep bells, suspected that some robbers were prowling about, and armed themselves for the purpose of protecting their employer’s property. The foremost man, on putting his head outside the shed (which had been erected for the watchmen), received a blow of a  bludgeon, which tumbled him back on the floor ; the second man then presented his gun at the assailants, but it missed fire. Having stopped to put on a detonating cap, to have a second offer, the party was off before he could procure one.  After being outside for some time, they perceived that the roof of the shed had been set on fire.   Two or three nights in succession Mr Baldwin’s ploughs had been plundered of their tackling.

In August 1862 the papers reported DEATH OF THE PONY HORSE  Died, at Raheenduffe, Queen’s County, a few days since, in the thirty-fourth year of his age, Nimble Dick, the vell-known pony horse. Dick, during his lifetime, carried a man to the Emo, Ward, and Queen’s County hounds. He was first introduced to the Queen’s County by Mr. Armstrong, of Graigavorne, who afterwards transferred him to Mr. Alloway, the then master of the Emo hounds Subsequently, lie found his way to the stable of Mr. Carmichael, with whom he surpassed his former achievements in the field, jumping and clearing water-leaps upwards of sixteen and seventeen feet wide. His last owner was made a present of Dick’s services, and with him he ‘ crossed country” till about three years ago, when, old age telling on Dick, he was sent to grass, and up to his death he continued to receive that generous treatment which his qualities deserved. During twenty-six years’ hunting Dick never came to grief, nor was he ever beaten off if fairly handled, as can be attested by all the good riders of the different hunts he appeared.

The next tenant, George Gurd, was only there for 6 years.  In January 1880 George Gurd, clerk to the petty sessions in Stradbally, is selling.  His son Thomas Gurd, also clerk to the petty sessions,  kept 30 acres which he is sold in 1892.  Leinster Leader – Saturday 13 August 1892

George Ross arrived in 1880.   1st September 1887, Ploughman and General Farm Servant (single) ; must be well recommended and strictly sober; wages £l2 per anuum, with board. Reply with copy of discharges, Mr George Ross, Raheenduff House, Stradbally, Queen’s County.

In the 1901  Census George Ross, from Kings County (63) his wife Eva Marion,(nee Gaze)  47, their son Gorge Trevor 22, their 9 year old daughter (who died shortly afterwards)  and the maiden aunt Frances Ross (76) were there with three servants

George and Eva Marion were married in 1872 in Dublin and the 18 year old Marion’s father was John Gaze of Gaze and Jessop, auctioneers who also owned The Maryborough Hotel., now the Jeremiah Grant Bar.

Their son Albert was in South Africa.  The Kilkenny Moderator – Saturday 11 January 1908 reports:-   COME BACK TO ERIN. Mr Albert E Ross, says the ” Johannesburg Times,” one of the chief officials of the CSA Railway, has left for home on  six months’ holiday, and before leaving was presented by the residents of Jeppestown and his colleagues with a valuable presentation, a tangible token of their esteem and regard, consisting of a splendid dressing case, richly fitted. Other newspapers paid high tributes to Mr Ross’s ability and courtesy, and his gentlemanly consideration towards his colleagues and subordinates. Mr Ross, who is younger son of Mr and Mrs George Ross, Raheenduff House, (with whom he has been spending his holidays), returns to South Africa at the end of the week. In the dark days of the South African War, Mr Bertie Hoes and Mr Armstrong, son of the late Rector of Stradbally, joined the Imperial Yeomanry, and saw a good deal of service, and both were in the decisive engagements in which our great Irish commander, Earl Roberts, won added glory. Mr Armstrong fell, but his young comrade came through it all, and at the close of the war he took up a position on the Government Railways, where he has been ever since, and, as said already, returns to his duties this week. His many friends In Queen’s County send their best wishes with Mr Roes for his farther prosperity in the land of diamonds and gold.

They were still there in the 1911 census, though now lacking servants.

From his 1916 Obituary – At Christmas, 1914, Mr. Ross, while entering a field through a gate near his residence. was seriously injured in the shoulder and head by the impact of a heavy branch of a tree which smashed on just as he passed under it; the day was stormy, causing the branch to break off. The injury to one of his age was more severe than it would have been to a young man, as might be expected, and though a sound constitution enabled him to avert a fatal termination for several months, still advanced years told its tale, and he never recovered from the unfortunate accident. – Mr. Ross in his early life studied agricultural systems scientifically; this was at a time when few were educated in farming as a science. He was appointed to the position of instructor at the Model Farm, Limerick. on the completion of his studies at Glasnevin Agricultural College, and after a short period there , he was appointed to the charge of Athy Model Schools and farm, from which he was promoted to the instructorship of the more important Model Farm of Kilkenny, which he managed from 1862 to 1878. 

The mourners at the funeral included . T. Ross (son); A. Hipwell and T. K. Hinds (sons in-law): George Ross and Harold Hinds (grandsons); George N. Jessop, J.P. ; T H, Carter, and V. G. Hinds (nephews). The general attendance included:— Sir H. J. Walsh, Bart. ; Dr. M. O’Connell, Rev. A. G. Stuart, Rev. J. J. Delaney, P.P. • Rev. W. Matchett s Rev. W. Hipwell  Messrs John Hipwell, J.P ;  R. E. Odium, J.P. ; William Odium, Digby Odlum, Robert Anderson, Henry Howie, Thomas Davidson. D. McKenna, John Dwen, W. Fisher, J . Thompson; R. N.,  Bro J  O’Keeffe, T. R. Gard, C.P.S. ; James Neill, T. S. Moyles, J. T. Lewis. J. W. Empey. Albert  Empey,  A. Hinchliffe, A. Claxton. William Luttrell, James Salter, C. W. Gard, J. A. Kavanagh, H. Kavanagh, P. Phelan, T. Timmons J.P.  D. Shaughnessy, J Vanton,  Dr. W. Dimond, J. Fennelly, Patrick Dunne, D. P. Shortall, _Bartholomew Dunne, Daniel Dunne, W. Stone, Dr. Rice, F. W. Guy. W. Simpson, P. Donohoe, John Horgan, . Bryan Kelly, Daniel Brennan, M. Kiernan, Joseph Walsh, Gerald Burke, W. Carroll, Joseph Kelly, Thomas Salter, W. Maher, Sergeant Lennon, Constables Burke. Larkin, C. Smith, C. Moore, H. Fineh, J.P. ; H. Meredith. J. Marlette, Colgan, J. Kelly. Maryborough ; T. Mullen, J. Turpin, W. J. Reilly, W. Dobbin, G. Dixon, W.Pilkington. W. A. Rowe, G. Wilson, W. Pattison. W. Simpson, etc. The coffin bore the inscription:— George Ross . died February 9th,1916 aged 77 years” 

Mrs Ross continued farming with the assistance of her son till they sold in 1926 when it was bought by William F. Hendy, of Kildangan, whose family had long been strong farmers in South Kildare.

In 1931, following an arson attack on the gate lodge, William Hendy gave a useful account of the house – The applicant swore that he had living for over five years at Raheenduff House, which bought from Mrs. Ross. In the farm there were 180 statute acres, and kept a proportionate amount of stock. There were 27 apartments in the bouse, which was a quarter of mile from the main road. The avenue was down hill from the road to the house. The gate lodge in question was at the entrance from the main road. The entrance gate was a heavy iron gate, in two parts, hung on stone piers. He had had applications to let the cottage, but had refused to let it, except for a short term to one of his workmen. During the five years he had been there he had had trouble with poachers, and had prosecuted two them. At about 4 o’clock in the evening of the 25th July he saw the gate lodge; it was all right then. On the morning of the 26th July, at 8 o’clock, when he went to bring in cows, he saw smoke going up at the house; he thought it was gipsies, or travelling people, who had the fire. When came a little further he saw fire rising behind the house, and when he came a few perches further saw the thatch roof fallen in, completely burned. Then noticed that the avenue gate was gone, and found that one half of it had been carried in and thrown across the door of the gate lodge, and the other had been thrown in the ditch on the other side of the road. sent for the Guards. There was nothing in the cottage, and it was smouldering away at the time. All the glass in the three windows in the cottage was broken. got estimate from Mr. Ikrgin, Engineer, of what it would cost to rebuild the house. Cross-examined Mr. Byrne, witness said that was greatly surprised when saw the house burned. He knew the people that were poaching. In one instance one of them, whom he chased, challenged him with a gun, and (witness) had to take himself away. That was some time last April. The nearest house to the cottage was a farmer’s place about perches away, the opposite side the road, and in off the road; it was in full view the gate lodge, and there was labourer’s cottage off up the road. He (witness) was not the last one to pass the gate lodge going home. The walls of the gate lodge were stone-mason work. It would be wrong say that they were mud walls. The roof thatch, was in perfect order. He did not suggest that the man he had in it two years ago burned it because he put him out of it.

William Hendy (right) at the Athy Show

A rant – It is dreadfully sad that the owners of Raheenduff in the 21^st  century don’t seem to realise what an important task they have as guardians of this historically very important house, that is as an integral a part of Irish history as Pearse’s St Endas or the O’Conor’s  Clonalis, to preserve it for future generations, and sadder still that the State offers them no real assistance.  There is a €40m sports grant scheme for 2021, which requires no matching finance.  The Local Authority grants for the conservation of a protected structure requires a quantity surveyor to give a detailed cost breakdown of works; planning permission, which also requires a report from a conservation architect,  fire safety certificate or other statutory approval; tax certificate clearance; and a method statement for the works (more work for a conservation architect).  The maximum grant is €13,000, which is little more than the cost of getting the planning permission and applying for the grant.   Bodies like An Taisce and The Irish Georgian Society do what they can, but it is too little, as the annalists of Irish dereliction like Tarquin Blake and David Hicks so clearly show.   Reflect on what has been preserved in Laois:-  too often it is only the benevolence of the very, very rich, like Fred Krehbeil at Ballyfin, David Davis at Abbeyleix, Cholmeley Cholmeley-Harrison at Emo and John Picerne at Capard.    Tom Dobson who saved Glenmalire, Sarah Webb and her husband Patrick who breathed life into Archerstown, James Speedy at Summergrove, Canice Farrell  at Knockatrina,  Mike Fitzpatrick at Aghaboe,   – people like these, who put everything they had into preserving our heritage, are the heroes of Laois’s heritage.    Catherine Martin and Darragh O’Brien,  the ministers, should (but won’t!) hang their heads in shame.

Raheenduff 2000

Raheenduff 2005

Levalley – Spanish adventurers, Jewel thieves and lots of Roes!

As well as being a Mafia Boss, a Don is a Spanish title used to refer to a gentleman of a grand family.   Don Vicaro came to England in 1501 with the 15 year old Catherine of Aragon.

With a rugged jaw, dark flashing eyes and flowing mustachios, his grandson Thomas Vicars cut quite a figure around Spink in an area where even Google Street View has yet to penetrate, though sadly Coilte and Galetech Energy Developments are planning a massive windfarm here. 

Though “The proposed wind turbines are to be located in an upland area, well away, according to the documents submitted, from any protected structure.” Cooper’s Building at Knockardagur, on Cooper’s Hill was probably where the lovely Margret Lalor lived in the late 1500s, though some suggest that it might have been the structure at Castle Coole Bridge in the neighbouring townland of Moat.  The area is in the uplands between Ballinakill and Clogh

 In Irish Lalor is Leathlobhair, “the half-leper,” (which it is hoped was a nickname and not to be taken literally!).    The name of Harry Lalor is remembered as the hero of the massacre of Mullaghmast on the last day of 1577 (which was on March 25th, The Feast of the Annunciation, until Britain adopted the Gregorian Calendar in 1752).     Deavil, Greham, Cosby, Piggott, Bowen, Hartpole, Hovendon, O’Dempsy, and the FitzGeralds of Monasterevan invited between 40 and 400 (depending on whose account you believe) Lalors, O’Moores , O’Dorans, O’Dowlings, O’Deevys, O’Kellys and McEvoys to a meeting at the rath.

The Lalors were late arrivals and Henry Lalor of Dysart, noting that no one who had entered the fort before him had returned, told his companions to make off as fast as they could if he did not come back. On entering the rath and seeing the bodies of his slaughtered companions he drew his sword, and fought his way back to those that survived, and made his escape to Dysart, the Lalor ancestral home.

The aggression between the Irish septs and the planters continued.  In 1606 Richard Cosby challenged the O’Moores to a pitched battle, and defeated them at a battle under the rock of Dunnamase; After the battle, being heavily wounded Cosby was taken to the home of Sir Robert Pigott ( of Dysert ), whose daughter Elizabeth nursed him back to health, and then they soon married.

In the treaty signed at Lalor’s Mills on St Patrick’s Day 1607 the families of 102 Moores, 87 Lalors, 43 McEvoys, 39 Kellys 13 Dorans and 5 Dowlings agreed to abandon Laois and were  transplanted in June 1609 to Tarbert, Co Kerry where they held lands from Patrick Crosbie and his son Sir Pierce Crosbie. The father was a leading figure in Irish history during the plantation period, posing as an English loyalist while in reality being a MacCrossan, bard to the O’Moores. His son was landlord to the septs in Kerry, led regiments in a number of wars and was both Cupholder and Gentleman of the Kings’ Bedchamber to both King James I and Charles I. He lost and then regained his estates and was closely associated with a notorious scandal in which his stepson the Earl of Castlehaven was executed for sexual depravity with Laurence FitzPatrick.   From Laois to Kerry by Michael Christopher Keane gives the whole story.

Mary (or possibly Margaret) Lalor having married Thomas Vicars remained at Knockardagur, where Thomas died in 1616/17.  We are fortunate that Sir William Betham (1779-1853)  who was deputy Ulster King of Arms from 1807 and Ulster King of Arms from 1820, spent a lifetime collating indexes and abstracts of the manuscripts held in the Record Tower of Dublin Castle.  One of the many genealogies that he produced was that of the Vicars family. 

Sir Arthur Vicars in the Ulster Tabard

It was reinforced by Sir Arthur Edward Vicars, KCVO (27 July 1862 – 14 April 1921), Ulster King of Arms from 1893.  Vicars was removed from the post in 1908 following the theft of the Irish Crown Jewels.  He was accused of being careless in his guardianship of the Crown Jewels. On one occasion when Vicars was intoxicated at a party, Aberdeen’s son Lord Haddo took one of the safe keys, stole the jewels and returned them to Vicars by post as a prank.  The actual thieves were possibly Captain Richard Gorges (“a reckless bully, a robber, a murderer, a bugger, and a sod”) and Francis Shackleton (“One of Gorges’ chums in the Castle, and a participant in the debauchery” and younger brother of the famed Artic explorer Ernest Shackleton).  A 1927 memo of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, released in the 1970s, stated that W. T. Cosgrave “understands that the Castle jewels are for sale and that they could be got for £2,000 or £3,000”. They have never been found.  Vicars retired to  the home of his step brother The O’Mahony, at Kilmorna, near Listowel, Co Kerry,   On 14 April 1921, he was taken from Kilmorna House by the IRA.  The house was burnt to the ground and Vicars was shot dead in front of his wife.

The shell of Kilmorna – nothing now remains

Though Margaret (or Mary) Lalor is said to have built the castle here herself, Knockardagur was actually O’Moore property and it was granted by Captain Brian (or Barnaby) O’Dempsey,  in 1611, along with other lands, to Sir Thomas Ridgeway, Earl of Londonderry, from whom Brian O’Dempsey  then obtained a lease in 1628.  In 1617  Barnaby married the widow of Captain Thomas Vicars, and in June 1641 sat in Parliament as M.P. for Ballinakill.

Thomas Vicars and Margret Lalor’s son William Vicars lived at Tonduff on the Dublin side of Abbeyleix.    His son, Richard Vicars was of  Garranmaconly Castle, Skeike and died in 1706/7 leaving several children, one of whom was the Richard Vicars who built Levally. 

The abstracts of Grants of Lands..under the Acts of Settlement and Explanation, A.D.1666-1684 (Appendix to Fifteenth Annual Report from the Commissioners of Public Records of Ireland, 45-280; 1825)   mentions Levalley in 1667 & 1669.    The meaning is “The Half Town”.  Levally was at one stage part of the townland of Graigueard, meaning the high hamlet or barn, and is shown on the Down Survey of 1658.

James Anderson’s 1769 map, reproduced in Horner’s “Mapping Laois” shows it to have been a 7 bay house, 2 stories with a Dutch influenced dormer attic story in a steeply pitched roof, and two massive chimney stacks.   Compare it to Beaulieu in County Louth (1715) or more particularly to Edmondsbury, only 10 km away.  The 1835 OS map shows an enclosed courtyard behind the house, a defensive element derived from the earlier idea of a bawn.

In UCD’s National Folklore Collection there is a story collected in the 1930s that related that “Mr Tim Davin of Eglish Errill age seventy four told me that there is an under ground passage running from a cellar in Levally House now owned by Mr Mansfield to Aghboe. This passage was also used in the Penal Days to store guns and swords. All sorts of ammunition and provisions were also kept there.”

There were three generations of Vicars who lived at Levalley from around 1700 to 1814, all called Richard!    The first, who built the house, married Grace Tydd from Ballybritt, Co Offaly, just North of Roscrea.  His son married Elizabeth Armstrong of Ballykealy, at Fivealley near Birr. They had 12 children, so it is fortunate that the house was large!

Elizabeth married Peter La Touche of Bellevue, Delgany, after her cousin, his first wife, had died.   Elizabeth was famous for her charitable works. She opened an orphanage and school for female children in the grounds of Bellevue and supported the children until they were old enough to fend for themselves. Peter, equally well known for his generosity, built Christ Church at Delgany in 1789.   Perhaps their more famous home does actually survive and is as immaculate as when the La Touche family were there – Luggala in the Wicklow Mountains that was the home of the late Hon Garech Browne, described by Garech’s mother Oonagh Guinness as “the most decorative honey pot in Ireland”  LaTouche died in 1828 aged 95.    Bellevue was demolished in the 1950s. 

Peter La Touche

Bellevue, Delgany

The Hon Gareth Browne at Luggala

Grace married Alexander Boyle some of their many children achieved fame in Australia.  Richard Vicars Boyle started as assistant to William Dargan constructing railways in Ireland; He then became an engineer on East Indian Railway; and finally laid out system railways in Japan.

Old Benes House, Howrah by Vicars Boyle

Anne married a vicar from Devon, Rev Laurence Cainnford.   Charlotte and Fanny were unmarried.   Thomas married Elizabeth Gorges of Kilbrew, (now Tayto Park) County Meath (the great aunt of the Crown Jewels thief)  and had three daughters.

Kilbrew, by Tayto Park. The shell of the house is on on the bottom left

The eldest daughter married Lundy Foot, who became Vicar of Whitechurch.  Lundy’s father was a famed snuff merchant and tobacconist in Westmoreland Street and they lived at Kinvere House, Templeogue,  now called Cheeverstown House.  

Cheeverstown, the home of the Foots

Lundy’s uncle, also Lundy Foot, was a JP for Co. Kilkenny and Co. Dublin, where the family had estates; in 1816 he earned lasting public hatred when he determinedly pursued and successfully convicted a father and his two sons, Peter, Joe, and William Kearney, who had been accused of a murder though the victim’s body was never found. The three Kearneys were executed in a field near Bohernabreena, close to Foot’s house at Orlagh, Co. Dublin; the public execution was attended by thousands of people who opposed the sentence, and it was long held in folk memory. Foot moved to Rossbercon, Co. Kilkenny, where he himself was twice the victim of violence: on one occasion he was riddled with gunshots, and some time later, after he had recovered, he was attacked again (2 January 1835) at the age of 71 and battered to death with a large stone by the son of an evicted tenant whose farm had been acquired by Foot. Lundy Edward Foot, son of the victim, was prosecutor in the resulting trial, where a conviction was unexpectedly achieved when a child testified against the murderer. He is buried at St Matthews, Ringsend.

Edward Vicars became a Major General.  He served at the taking of Gibraltar  and became the civil and military commissioner for the Cape Province (South Africa),   retiring, broken in health, in 1814.  Robert became Vicar of Emo.  George married Deborah Hedley, the daughter of John Hedley of Newcastle upon Tyne.  One of their grandsons was the Ulster Herald, Sir Arthur Vicars;  another was Hedley Vicars Strutt of Mulroy House, in  Donegal.  The many Strutt businesses included the estate agency Strutt and Parker and Lord Rayleigh Dairies.  Yet another was Hedley Vicars who fell in the Crimean War and combined being a heroic soldier with Born Again Christianity.    A biography published shortly after his death records: “His voice in the deadly struggle was heard again as he leaped the parapet and chased the retreating enemy down the ravine. In another minute his raised sword, as if pointing on high, was seen by the light of the struggling moon, and the last words that came from the gallant fellow’s lips were, “This way, 97th.” He fell where the foes were thick around him, and he died not unavenged. His death was brilliantly brave, and talked of as gallant men would desire. But this little volume commemorates chiefly the religious phases of his character, and it is his piety, and not his heroism, which has carried the work into so many religious homes.”

The heir of Levalley, Richard Vicars, married his cousin Anne Vicars from Grantstown. , and after her death was briefly married to Mary Mansfield, daughter of Richard Fozard Mansfield of Bournemouth, dying in 1812 before their second wedding anniversary.. 

In 1798, Jerome Watson, a native of Crosspatrick, parish of Johnstown, was tried in the Garrison, Rathdowney, for an attempted robbery of firearms from the house of Mr. Vicars of Levalley on 17 March, during which attempt the steward, Mr. Whitaker, was accidentally shot dead. William Vicars, (who he?- ed) writing to Thomas Vicars in Dublin on the 21 March, confirmed the murder of Whitaker, adding that some of the windows in the house were broken, and that he himself was obliged to seek refuge, every night since, at the residence of Robert Flood of Middlemount. A servant girl, who was injured in the affray, gave evidence for the prosecution, and swore that Watson and a man named Hennessy from Moore St., Rathdowney, were guilty of the murder of Whitaker. Hennessy escaped from the district and was never heard of again. Following his conviction Watson was flogged by a man named Harney under the orders of Robert Flood, J.P., Middlemount, Commander of the Ossory Cavalry, who was primarily responsible for the execution. Watson was then placed on a cart, and hanged from a tree in Rathdowney Square, the rope having being tied around his neck by a young son of Dr. Jacob of Knockfinn. The cart was then drawn from under him, the body cut down, and buried in a grave already prepared for it beneath the tree. A can of lime was thrown over the body by Walter Phelan, and the grave was then closed. An oblong patch of ground covered with gravel marked the grave in which Watson was interred, known to this day as The Croppy’s Grave. It is no longer the simple gravel oblong but a large and shiny memorial.

In the early 1800s Richard Vicars was running Levalley as a stud farm.  In particular he had a stallion by Robin Aylmer of Painstown’s thoroughbred brown stallion called Ranunculus , a marvellous fencer , whose good qualities , however , were marred by a most diabolical temper.  The stud fee was two guineas and half a crown, to be paid before the stallion was led out of the stable!

He died in 1812, a year after his second marriage.  The house was let to Robert Fitzgerald sometime after 1820, when we know that he was at Middlemount  (Deed 751 556 511091)

Robert’s mother was the daughter of Thomas Roe of Gortnalee and his father was Edward Fitzgerald of Coolanowle.   Gerald FitzGerald, 11th Earl of Kildare had spent his youth under attainder for treason against Henry VIII, and during his journeys around the castles of his fellow earls and chieftains had a son, Gerald Oge, by Eleanor O’Kelly, daughter of the O’Kelly of Timogue. When Queen Mary Tudor pardoned him, however, he married Mabel Browne, daughter of Sir Anthony Browne, Master of the Horse and Gerald Oge was given merely the lands and status of superior gentry. The FitzGeralds of Coolanowle maintained their claims to the Kildare earldom for centuries, and the story may account for the very romantic Knight Service that was paid on Timogue – a single red rose.

Robert’s mother had a very horrid death in 1794, which may be why he came to the other side of the county.    It is hard to see where Edward fits into the Coolanowle family, but it seems probable that he was a younger son of Richard Fitzgerald who was shot in 1776 in a duel with his daughter’s father in law, Edward King, 1st Earl of Kingston.  Fitzgerald’s  son in law, Robert, the 2nd Earl  was tried for murder, by his peers, in 1798 when he and his son murdered Captain Henry Fitgerald, also of the Coolanowle family,  who had eloped with Robert’s daughter.  Robert King and Caroline Fitzgerald were probably more distinguished for employing Mary Woolstenecraft as their children’s governesses than for anything they every accomplished themselves. Novelist, historian, author of “The Rights of Woman” and the mother of Mary Shelley who wrote Frankenstein.   Woolstencraft did not think much of Carline Fitzgerald and never really got over her first impressions that she recounted in a letter to her sister Oct. 30, 1787   “I have not seen much of her, as she is confined to her room by a sore throat; but I have seen half a dozen of her companions, I mean not her children, but her dogs. To see a woman without any softness in her manners caressing animals, and using infantine expressions is, you may conceive, very absurd and ludicrous, but a fine lady is a new species of animal to me.”

Many of the Coolnagowle Fitzgeralds made careers abroad – in 1843 Lieutenant Robert Fitzgerald raised the Scinde Camel Corps at Karachi. The corps consisting of camel-mounted infantry was entrusted with keeping the peace on the Sindh frontier, which later became famous as the Punjab Frontier Force or The Piffers.  His brother James Edward FitzGerald (4 March 1818 – 2 August 1896) was New Zealand’s arguably first prime minister and notable campaigner for New Zealand self-governance. 

In Edward Fitzgerald’s will dated 3/6/1803 he leaves to his father-in-law Thomas Roe of Gortnalee and also John Roe, sum of £3000 for his two daughters Elizabeth and Mary Anne and they die unmarried then to son Robert Fitzgerald, his only son and heir at law. 

1819 – John Shortt of Pallas, eldest son and heir at law of John Shortt late of Pallas deceased (1st part), John Roe of Beckfield, Queen’s Co. surviving trustee and Exor. of Edward Fitzgerald late of Coolanowle, Queen’s Co., deceased (2nd part), Mary Anne Fitzgerald, spinster and only surviving daughter of Edward Fitzgerald (3rd part), James Shortt of Newtown, Queen’s Co. and John Roe, Jnr. of Dublin, gent (4th part) … re forthcoming marriage … re lands etc. of Garrane late in possession of Edward Talbot decd and indenture of lease 1/8/1799 Thomas Talbot and John Talbot did demise and release unto John Shortt and his heirs 88 acres and bog, turbary waters, etc. unto John Shortt for and during the natural lives of John Shortt and Grace Shortt, two of the children or said John Shortt the lessee and John Shortt, son of James Shortt the brother of John Shortt the lessee … John Shortt the lessee has lately died intestate.

Bill filed in High Court of Chancery for foreclosure of both mortgages. Conditional decree for sale of several properties so mortgaged. Thomas Roe died 6/7/1806. Elizabeth Fitzgerald died 20/0ct(?)/1809 unmarried so Mary Anne entitled to £3000 and interest of £1600. Robert Fitzgerald attained his age of 21 years in 1816 (after arbitration) should pay £1600 to James Shortt and John Roe Jnr – and the lands of Garrane(?) to James Shortt and John Roe until the marriage. £1000 by John Shortt to James Shortt and John Roe in trust.[2]

In 1825 George Fitzgerald and Robert Roe are trustees of the marriage settlement of Robert Fitzgerald and Mary Anne his wife

The 1835 OS survey still shows the original house, but on the later 25” survey the house has  a quite different footprint.  Given its stylistic features the rebuilding probably happened in the late 1830s, though it is probable that the early fabric was incorporated in the present house. Tierney in The Buildings of Ireland puts it at circa 1815, which is certainly what it looks like, but for the conflicting evidence of the OS maps. A 5 bay house, with a hipped roof and a Doric doorcase, 2 storeys at the front, and three at the rear. The entrance is very grand, and dated by Dean (Gate Lodges of Leinster) to c 1780. “an elegant and antique entrance comprising deep ogee quadrant walls, the coping of which is continuous as a band into the four containing slender cut stone pillars”. Dean in particular notes the hexagonal brick lodge with special bricks to the angles and lancet windows.

From 1835 Robert Fitzgerald is sitting as a JP and on 5 March 1850 his daughter Elizabeth Malvina married Edward P Roe, the son of the Rev Samuel Roe of Thornton, Leics. at Erke Church – the third generation of Roe Fitzgerald marriages!  His daughter Geraldine does not seem to have married and died on 19 Dec 1896 at Newbridge Rectory.  

In 1849  Robert’s wife Mary Anne died and he married Catherine Jackson, the widow of John Flintoff. 

In 1858 Robert is thinking of moving out, and advertises the house, but nothing comes of the plan.  He died in 1872 and his son John Fitzgerald resigned from the army and came home.   John Fitzgerald had been in the Royal Irish Fusiliers  and saw action on the North West Frontier during the Indian Rebellion.  There he met Henrietta Seton Chisholm,  the granddaughter of George Wilding Chisholm, a successful merchant in Calcutta and owner of the Fairlawn Hotel, and made her his bride.  She may not have enjoyed Laois life because again in 1876 and 1877 the house is being advertised, but there were no takers.    

Her younger sister, Emily Seton Chisholm married Philp Crampton Creaghe of Mitchelstown on September 27, 1874, and they regularly visited Levalley. To turn the 7 degrees of separation into only 3, Dodie Smith’s stepfather, (she of 10001 Dalmatians) was Alec Gerald Seton Chisholm, Henrietta’s nephew.

In May 1897 the papers reported Robert Fitzgerald’s death

With deep regret we announce the death of Captain. J. Fitzgerald, which occurred at his residence, Levally, Rathdowney, on May 24th, at the age of 75. Captain Fitzgerald was the eldest son of the late Mr Robert Fitzgerald, J.P. , and joined at an early age the 87th Royal Irish Fusiliers , from which he retired in 1873. He was appointed to the Commission of the Peace for the Queen’s County on the 16th October, 1874, since which time he has lived a quiet life at Levalley, supporting liberally every good cause in the neighbourhood , assisting without ostentation those whose needs were made known to him , and deserving in every respect the great popularity he bad achieved.

THE FUNERAL:-   On Friday, the 28th instant, the funeral of Captain John Fitzgerald , J.P., took place, whose death , after a long illness, borne in that spirit which characterised the life of the deceased gentleman, occurred at his residence at Levalley, Rathdowney, on May 24th. The cortege left the bouse at 11-30 a.m., the coffins, of which there was a suite—the outer one being of Irish oak, stained, polished, and massively mounted in brass—being borne by the tenants of Ballyedmond and Ballyphilip from the hall door to the centre of the avenue, preceded by the hearse, at which point the coffin was taken by a number of the Royal Irish Constabulary, headed by Sergeant Hugh Dearty, who bore it aloft as far as the demesne entrance, thus paying a last tribute of respect to one whose amiable disposition had won the esteem of all. 

The coffins, which bore the following inscription—JOHN FITZGERALD , Died. May 24, 1897, Aged 75 Years . were covered with wreaths of rare beauty, the most conspicuous being those from Mrs Fitzgerald, Mr and Mrs Philip Creaghe _and their children, Mrs Atkinson, Miss Atkinson , Rev. Hamilton and Mrs O’Connor, Mrs Caldbeck , the Misses Hamilton , Miss Fanny Hamilton also one from the servants of the house. The chief mourners were Mrs Creaghe (sister in-law), Mr Philip Creaghe, R.M., and Rev Canon O’Conor (nephew-in-law). The attendance included the gentry, traders , farmers, and labourers of the neighbourhood those having , vehicles accompanying the remains to the churchyard at Killermogh , where the funeral procession arrived about two o’clock. The service was conducted by the Rev. W. Fry, Rector of Rathdowney, assisted by the Rev. G. M. Fry, and the interment took place in the family burial-ground attached to the church. Among those who attended or sent carriages were—A. W. Perry, J.P.; Loftus T. Roe, Mrs Atkinson , Mrs Caldbeck, Rev. W. B. Fry, Rev. B. E. Carr, Rev. B. F. Johnston, B. H. D. Duckworth, M.D.; E. J. Burnett , R. C. Roe, J. C. Dugdale , R. Williams, A. Shortt, R. P. Kent, R. Pratt , P. J. Murphy, J. E. _Tomlinton, J. Williams , J. Barton, H. Barton, Mrs Phillips, R. R. Mitchell , R. Carey, W. Baird, &c.

In 1901 Henrietta Fitzgerald was still at Levally, but she retired to Castlefleming where she died in January 1912  In the census of 1911 Levally was unoccupied. 

On Monday 14 November 1920 Mr Mansfield , the son of John Mansfield and Anne Huggard of Waterville, Co. Kerry, bought Levally on 50 acres for £4,080.  In February 1921 the marriage of Mr. Joseph Mansfield, Levally, Rathdowney, with Miss Margaret (Daisy) Roe, youngest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Peter Roe, Ballykelly, Roscrea, took place at Skeirke Church.  The Roes were back!  I wonder did Mr Mansfield realise that 100 years previously there had been another Mansfield living in the house – Mary Mansfield, Richard Vicars’ second wife.

Of course the Huggards of Waterville are an interesting family too – Martin Huggard took over a hotel in Waterville in 1914, and his son Noel had both Ashford Castle and Ballynahinch Castle.

The next generation were on the horizon – in 1953 The wedding took place of Mr. Leslie Hutchinson, son of Mrs. Hutchinson and the late Mr. J. Hutchinson, Coolbanagher, Portarlington, and Miss Vera Mansfield. Levalley House . Rathdowney  at Rathdowney church. The ceremony was performed by the Rev. J. Costelloe (England), assisted by the Rev E V C. Watson, Rector, -Monasterevan Miss Myra Mansfield assisted her sister as bridesmaid. Mr. William Allen, cousin of the groom, was best man. The reception was held by Mrs. Mansfield at Levally House. Numerous wedding presents and expressions of good wishes were received by Mr. and Mrs. Hutchinson for their future happiness.

In 1965 the Kilkenny People reported a lucky escape for the house – Rathdowney Fire Brigade were called out on Friday to deal with a fire in Levalley House the property of Mr J. Mansfield. The fire began in the chimney and at one stage threatened to do considerable damage but the brigade confined the blaze .