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The Wolahan family live in Shankill, county Dublin. Their daughter Katie was a pupil at the Chaney Farrell Academy of Irish Dance, county Dublin.

The Earls of Limerick are descended on their maternal side from Edmond Sexten (1486-1555), who held the office of Mayor of Limerick in 1535 and was the first mayor of native Irish extraction. Originally closely associated with the Earl of Kildare, Sexten changed allegiances and ingratiated himself to King Henry VIII. He was given custody of Derriknockane Castle and remained active on the Crown’s behalf, carrying out much of this work at his own expense and at times pleading financial hardship to the Crown. By way of compensation, Sexten was granted the dissolved priory of St. Mary’s in 1537. St Francis’s Abbey came into his possession in the same year. Bartholomew Striche, who succeeded Sexten as Mayor, made an attempt to overturn the grant of St Mary’s by alleging that the expenses which Sexten claimed had not been paid out of his own purse but at the expense of the city of Limerick, and that by implication the grant should therefore have fallen to the corporation. In 1538, Sexten was committed to Dublin Castle for high treason on grounds dating back to his time as Mayor but was later released and continued to enjoy the favour of the Crown. His grandson and namesake Edmond Sexten (1595-1636) was four times Mayor and five times High Sheriff of Limerick city. He, too, was engaged in a series of disputes with Limerick Corporation, primarily concerning the immunity of the lands of the two dissolved abbeys mentioned above, and whether Sexten alone, or the parish generally, was responsible for the upkeep of the church of St John the Baptist, Limerick, whose tithes were appropriate to St Mary’s. His only sister Susan Sexten married Edmond Pery of Limerick (1599-1655) and succeeded as sole heiress to the Sexten property. Her son, Colonel Edmond Pery married Dymphna Stackpole, a wealthy heiress, and when Colonel Perry died in 1721, his son the Reverend Stackpole Pery succeeded to the Sexten, Pery, and Stackpole fortunes. His second son, the Reverend William Cecil Pery (1721-1794) became Bishop of Limerick in 1784, and six years later was created Baron Glentworth. The peerage title was derived from his maternal great-grandfather Sir Drury Wray of Glentworth, Lincolnshire. Three of William Pery’s sisters married in to Limerick families of note: Dymphna to William Monsell of Tervoe, County Limerick; Lucy to Sir Henry Hartstonge of Bruff, County Limerick, Baronet and MP for that county; and Jane to Launcelot Hill of Limerick city. William Pery’s only surviving son, Edmund Henry Pery (1758-1844) was created Viscount Limerick in December 1800 and the Earl of Limerick in February 1803. He fell out with his eldest son and heir apparent because of the latter’s recklessness with money. In order to protect the family’s future, the 1st Earl made a will in which he vested the estate in a trust and made his heirs tenants for life. He was succeeded in the title by his grandson, William Henry Tennison, who did not mix much in society and who died from a sudden attack of bronchitis at the relatively early age of 56. He was twice married, and was succeeded by his son William Hale John Charles Pery from his first marriage to Susanna Sheaffe. In 1868, the 3rd Earl commissioned Edward William Godwin to design Dromore Castle in the Gothic Revival style near Pallaskenry, County Limerick as a country retreat. The building was completed in 1874. In the event, it was rarely used as a residence and eventually sold in 1939. Like his father, the 3rd Earl was twice married. With his first wife, Caroline Maria Gray, he had one son, William Henry Edmund de Vere Sheaffe, who succeeded him as the 4th Earl. He married May Imelda Josephine Irwin but the marriage ended in a separation in 1897. The couple’s only son Gerard, Viscount Glentworth was an RAF pilot and was killed in action near the end of the First World War in May 1918. The title then passed to the 4th Earl’s half-brother, Colonel Edmond Pery from his father’s second marriage to Isabella Colquhoun. His eldest son Patrick succeeded to the title as the 6th Earl in 1967. The current holder of the title is his son, Edmund Christopher, 7th Earl of Limerick. For a more detailed pedigree of the Earls of Limerick and associated families, please refer to P51/9/5-7.

The history of the O’Mara family of Strand house and O’Mara’s Bacon Company go hand in hand. The factory was founded in 1839 by James O’Meara (1817-1899), who originated from the village of Toomevaara in county Tipperary. Having worked for some years in the woollen mills in Clonmel, he got a job as a clerk with Matterson’s Bacon Factory in Limerick and in 1839 founded O’Mara’s Bacon Company in his house on Mungret Street. It is said that he dropped the ‘e’ from his surname as he felt that O’Meara was too long for commercial purposes. James initially sold for Matterson’s but soon began to cure his own bacon in the basement of his house. As his business grew, he acquired dedicated premises for the purpose near the top of Roche’s Street.

In 1841, James O’Mara married Honora Fowley (d. 1878), who worked in the bacon business alongside her husband. A devoted nationalist, James was one of the early supporters of Isaac Butt’s Home Rule movement. He was High Sheriff of Limerick City in 1887, and acted as Town Councillor on Limerick Corporation at least from 1888 to 1898.

James and Honora O’Mara had 13 children, of whom the two eldest surviving sons, Stephen O’Mara (1844-1926) and John (Jack) O’Mara (1856-1919) were instrumental in building up the O’Mara’s Bacon Factory into a great success. The youngest son, Joseph (Joe) O’Mara (1864-1927) became a celebrated opera singer.

When James O’Mara retired from business his son John (Jack) O’Mara became manager of the O’Mara Bacon Factory. In the late 1880s, Jack was invited to Russia by Tsar Alexander III to provide instruction on bacon curing. He stayed in St Petersburg to supervise the construction of a bacon factory. In 1891, his father bought the rights of the Russian Bacon Company and the family imported bacon from Russia into London until 1903. James (Jim) O’Mara (1858-1893) acted as agent for O’Mara’s in London until his untimely death from heart disease. His nephew James O’Mara (1873-1948), son of Stephen O’Mara Senior (1844-1926), took over the agency and held it until 1914.

When John (Jack) O’Mara died in 1919, his younger brother Stephen O’Mara (1844-1926) became Managing Director of O’Mara Limited and remained in that capacity until 1923. Having entered into the family business at the age of fifteen, his great business acumen established O’Mara’s Bacon Factory as one of the most prominent commercial enterprises in Limerick city. He also purchased a bacon factory in Palmerston, Ontario, Canada, which was managed by his son Joseph (Joe) O’Mara (1878-1950) until the business was wound up in the 1940s.

Like his father, Stephen O’Mara was a strong supporter of Isaac Butt’s Home Rule movement and a member of the committee which secured Butt’s election for Limerick city in 1871. He later developed a close association with Charles Stewart Parnell and was elected Member of Parliament for Upper Ossory in Kilkenny South for the Irish Parliamentary Party in February 1886. When the Irish National League split from Irish Parliamentary Party in December 1890, O’Mara took the Parnellite side. He continued to act as trustee of the Party funds until 1908, when he resigned from his trusteeship. Towards the end of his life, his moderate political views became more radicalised under the influence of his sons James (1873-1948) and Stephen Junior (1884-1959). He had agreed with his son James’s decision to resign from the Irish Parliamentary Party in 1907 in order to join Sinn Fein, and personally supported the party in the 1918 General Election. Both Stephen and his son James were strong supporters of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty but were on friendly terms with Eamon de Valera who, it is said, spent the night at the O’Mara family home, Strand House, as the Treaty was being signed in London. In the 1925 election, Stephen O’Mara was elected as Senator to the Free State Seanad.

Stephen O’Mara was also a prominent figure in local politics. He became a Town Councillor on Limerick Corporation in the 1880s and was elected Mayor of Limerick in 1885. He was the first Mayor of Limerick to be elected on a Nationalist ticket. He also served as High Sheriff of Limerick city in 1888, 1913 and 1914.

Stephen O’Mara married Ellen Pigott in 1867, and the couple had 12 children of whom the eldest three died tragically of diphtheria in 1872. From c. 1909 onwards, the family lived at Strand House. Their third son, Stephen O’Mara Junior, was born on 5 January 1884. He entered the family business in 1903 when he travelled to Canada to work in the bacon factory established by the O’Mara family in Ottawa. In 1923, he became Managing Director of O’Mara Limited and created numerous employment opportunities by establishing bacon factories in Claremorris, County Mayo, and Letterkenny, County Donegal, in the 1930s. The three bacon companies were amalgamated in 1938 and formed into the Bacon Company of Ireland. Stephen O’Mara Junior remained the company’s chairman until his death in 1959. In 1987, the Bacon Company of Ireland merged with Hanley of Rooskey and Benesford UK (Castlebar) with assistance from the Industrial Development Agency Ireland (IDA) to form Irish Country Bacon. Shortly afterwards the old O’Mara factory in Limerick was closed down. It was subsequently demolished to make way for a multi-storey car park.

Throughout his life, Stephen O’Mara Junior played a prominent role in both local and national affairs. Unlike his father and elder brother James, Stephen was opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty but in a conciliatory manner. He was prominently identified with the Sinn Fein movement after the Easter Rising. He was one of Eamon de Valera’s strongest supporters and a member of his Fianna Fail Party since its formation in 1926.

When George Clancy, Lord Mayor of Limerick, and his predecessor Michael O’Callaghan were murdered by the British military forces in March 1921, Stephen decided to stand for election and became Mayor. He was re-elected in 1922 and in 1923 but resigned before the expiration of his term of office.

In 1921, Stephen O’Mara Junior was selected to go to America as Special Envoy appointed by Dáil Éireann to the United States to oversee one of the country’s biggest fundraising drives to finance the first Dáil and was made Trustee of the funds. The funds-drive was terminated following the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. Considering himself as the exchequer to the Irish Free State, O’Mara refused to hand over the collected funds to the pro-Treaty administration which resulted in his imprisonment in 1922-1923. He had also been imprisoned for seven days in 1921 for refusing to pay a fine of £10 for non-compliance with a military summons.

The bulk of the money collected during the Bond Drive was left in various banks in New York and remained untouched for a number of years. In 1927, following legal action between the Irish Government and Eamon de Valera, a court in New York ordered that money outstanding to bond holders must be paid back. Having anticipated such a ruling, de Valera’s legal team invited bond holders to sign over their bonds to de Valera, for which they were paid 58 cents to the dollar. The monies so accumulated were used to launch the national daily newspaper The Irish Press. Stephen O’Mara served on the paper’s Board of Directors until his resignation in 1935.

In 1932, Stephen O’Mara was once again sent to America on a mission involving the various consular and diplomatic offices maintained in the country by the Irish Government. Two years later, he was appointed a member of the Commission on Vocational Organisation, on which he served until 1943. In 1959, he was created a member of the Council of State following de Valera’s inauguration as President of Ireland. Stephen O’Mara died less than two months after his appointment, on 11 November 1959.

Stephen O’Mara Junior married in 1918 Anne O’Brien, third daughter of Thomas O’Brien of Boru House, and the couple had an adopted son, Peter O’Mara. Anne’s youngest sister, Kate O’Brien, became one of the most prominent novelists in 20th-century Ireland and a voice of the Irish middle class.

The Odell family were Cromwellian settlers and have been associated with county Limerick since the mid-seventeenth century. In the 1770s, John Fitzcharles Odell built a house, Odellville, in the parish of Ballingarry. The property passed to the Morony family through the marriage of Helen Mary Odell to Edmund Morony in 1860.

Cornelius O'Callaghan (1740/41-1797) was an MP for Fethard between 1761 and 1785. In 1774 he married Frances Ponsonby. In 1785, he was created 1st Baron Lismore of Shanbally, county Tipperary. His eldest son, Cornelius O'Callaghan (1775-1857) was appointed Privy Counsellor of Ireland in 1835 and also held the office of Lord Lieutenant of county Tipperary from 1851 to 1857. He was created Viscount Lismore of Shanbally in 1806. Two year later, he married Lady Eleanor Butler, daughter of John Butler, 17th Earl of Ormonde. He was succeeded by his only surviving son, George Ponsonby O'Callaghan (1815-1898), as 2nd Viscount Lismore. The title became extinct upon the 2nd Viscount's death, his two sons having predeceased him. The family seat, Shanbally Castle, passed to his cousins, Constance and Beatrice Butler, daughters of the 3rd Marquess of Ormonde.

The Odellville estate passed from the Odell to the Morony family through the marriage of Helen Mary Odell to Edmund Morony in 1860. Their elder daughter, Eliza Helena, married in 1884 her cousin, Henry Vereker Lloyd Morony. On his death the property passed to the couple's only child, Helen Mary Matilda Morony, who married Edward Locke Lloyd of Heathfield, county Limerick, in 1917.

The Moynehall estate in county Cavan was granted by the Crown in 1629 jointly to Abigail Moigne née Dodd, widow of Thomas Moigne, Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral; her son Captain Roger Moigne; and her brother-in-law John Greenham. Three years later, Abigail and John released their right to and interest in the lands to Roger. When Roger was slain in the Siege of Drogheda in 1641, his three daughters became jointly entitled to the Moynehall estate. The eldest, Abigail, married Major Nicholas Moore and in 1698 settled her part of the Moynehall estate on her descendants. Samuel Moore the elder (d. 1848) was her great-great-great-grandson. He married Frances Nesbitt of the Lismore family in 1809. Their son Colonel Samuel Moore lived at Rockville and married his first cousin Louisa Nesbitt in 1849. They had an only child, Frances, who in 1883 married Captain Ernest Edward Cator Nevile of Yorkshire.

In 1794, the Moores leased Moynehall to Samuel Adams, whose descendants remained in possession until 1857, when the property was advertised for sale in the Encumbered Estates Court. In 1876, Moynehall belonged to John Fay. Today, it is home to the Backyard Arts and Cultural Centre.

The Monsells, of French extraction, were a plantation family from Dorsetshire, England, who had settled in Tervoe, county Limerick by the 1660s. Many of the early members of the family were prosperous merchants and landowners, most notably Samuel Monsell (d. 1735), a shipping merchant whose business extended from Ireland to England, France, Holland and Spain. Of his several sons, the eldest, William (1705-1772) became a lawyer. His second marriage in 1751 to Dymphna Pery (d. 1774), sister of Edmond Sexton Pery, MP and three-time Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, gave the Monsells not only a distinguished pedigree but considerable political influence. Their son, Colonel William Thomas Monsell (1754-1836), married Hannah Strettell of Dublin, whose father Amos Strettell was director of the Bank of Ireland. Their younger son, Thomas, became Archdeacon of Derry and was father to the noted hymnologist John Samuel Bewley Monsell and to the celebrated botanical artist Diana Conyngham Ellis née Monsell. Colonel Monsell’s elder son, William, was grandfather to and namesake of the distinguished politician William Monsell (1812-1894). His first wife, Anna Maria Wyndham Quin (1814-1855), whom he married in 1836, was daughter of the second Earl of Dunraven of Adare Manor, county Limerick, then one of the wealthiest men in Ireland. William Monsell was created 1st Baron Emly of Tervoe in 1874. The title became extinct on the death of his only surviving son, Thomas William Gaston Monsell (1858-1932), from his second marriage to Berthe de Montigny Boulainvilliers (d. 1890).

The Odellville estate passed from the Morony to the Lloyd family through the marriage of Helen Mary Matilda Morony to Edward Locke Lloyd of Heathfield, county Limerick, in 1917. Their only child, Helen Lucia Lloyd, married in 1945 Michael Allott of Dublin.

Hugh Lilburn was born on 6 November 1888 in Dromore, County Down into a farming family. In 1912, he emigrated to Australia, where he trained as an accountant and was actively involved in the Presbyterian church in Preston, Melbourne. On 25 December 1913, Hugh married Susan Stinson of Ballymoney, County Antrim (b. 18 February 1888), whom he had met in Ireland before emigrating, and who had travelled to Australia with her brother for the wedding. The couple had three children: Stewart, Jean, and Olive. The Lilburn family returned to Ireland in the early months of 1920 and initially settled in Dublin, where Hugh secured a position as an accountant with Craig Garner & Co. In November 1920, he moved to Limerick city to take over the auditing practice of C. W. Metcalfe & Co. In 1941, Hugh Lilburn and his colleague James Leslie Enright were made full partners and the company name was changed accordingly to Metcalfe, Lilburn and Enright on 23 May 1941.

Back in Ireland, Hugh Lilburn continued his strong association with the Presbyterian Church, serving as Honorary Treasurer of the Limerick Presbyterian Church from 1927 and as a ruling elder and clerk of sessions from 1928 until his death. He served as governor of Villiers school and was the author of Presbyterians in Limerick (1946). Hugh’s other interests included history and archaeology, and he was an active member of the Thomond Archaeological Society. Hugh Lilburn died on 27 November 1964, and his wife Susan on 15 October 1967.

Hugh Lilburn’s son, Stewart, was born in Melbourne, Australia on 13 January 1917. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin and, like his father, trained as an accountant. In 1944, he joined Metcalfe, Lilburn and Enright and was made full partner in 1954, when his father took a less active role in the company. Stewart was also an active member of the Limerick Presbyterian Church, serving as its accountant and Honorary Secretary for a number of years. A keen and talented hockey player, Stewart represented Munster and Ireland on many occasions. In 1949, Stewart Lilburn married Florence Eva Armstrong (b. 13 September 1925) of Clontarf, County Dublin. The couple had three children: David (1950-2021), Hugh and Gary. Stewart Lilburn died on 26 July 1998, and his wife Florence on 21 April 2005.