Showing 21 results

In 1945 Michael Allott of Dublin married Helen Lucia Lloyd of Odellville, county Limerick. On the death of her father, Edward Locke Lloyd, in 1963, the Odellville property passed to the Allotts, who operated a dairy farm on the estate and were founders of the Munster Herd of British Friesians in 1945. They were also active members of the National Farmers’ Association (later the Irish Farmers Association), their local co-operative creamery committee at Glenwilliam and later the Golden Vale Cooperative Creamery Ltd.

The Allott family seat, Odellville, was built in the 1770s by John Fitzcharles Odell and passed 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 whose death the property passed to his only child, Helen Mary Matilda Morony. The property passed to the Lloyd family through her marriage to Edward Locke Lloyd of Heathfield, county Limerick, in 1917.

The Armstrongs were a Scottish border clan, prominent in the service of both Scottish and English kings. Numerous and feared, the clan is said to have derived its name from a warrior who during the Battle of the Standard in 1138 lifted a fallen king onto his own horse with one arm after the king’s horse had been killed under him.

In the turbulent years of the seventeenth century, many Armstrongs headed to Ireland to fight for the Royalist cause. Among them was Captain William Armstrong (c. 1630-1695), whose father, Sir Thomas Armstrong, had been a supporter of Charles I throughout the Civil War and the Commonwealth rule, and had twice faced imprisonment in the Tower of London for his support for Charles II. When Charles II was restored to power, he favoured Captain William Armstrong with a lease of Farneybridge, county Tipperary, in 1660, and a grant of Bohercarron and other lands in county Limerick in 1666. In 1669, William was appointed Commissioner for Payroll Tax, and over the next ten years added to his holdings in the area, including the former lands of Holy Cross Abbey and the lands of Ballycahill. He established himself at Farney Castle and married Alice, daughter of Sir Thomas Deane. Of his children, a son, John, married Juliana, daughter of Robert Carew of Castle Boro’, county Wexford, and became progenitor of the Heaton-Armstrong branch of the family. A younger son, Thomas Armstrong, married Juliana’s sister, Mary, and established the Moyaliffe branch.

Thomas Armstrong (1671-1741), High Sheriff of county Tipperary, acquired the lands and castle of Moyaliffe (originally Mealiffe) at around the time of the death of his father, and settled in a small stone house built close to the ruins of Moyaliffe Castle. The birth of seven sons and seven daughters necessitated the construction of the first of the many extensions which characterize the former family seat, also named Moyaliffe Castle. Of his sons, five survived infancy. The eldest, William, succeeded to the family estate; Andrew was apprenticed to a Cork mariner and set up as a merchant; John and Robert became clergymen; and George was apprenticed to a banker. Of Thomas’s daughters, five also survived infancy and married into the Ellard, Dexter, Smyth, Lloyd and Bettridge families, becoming wives of attorneys and clergymen.

William Armstrong (1704-1768), Thomas’s eldest son, never married. Described as a man ‘who seldom refused a request’, William entered into a number of ill-advised bonds and low-rate leases and left his financial affairs under the dubious management of his brother-in-law, James Dexter. The catastrophic state of these affairs did not come to light until William’s death, when his brother and successor, the Reverend John Armstrong (1708-1781), found himself burdened with heavy financial responsibilities. Many of the complicated legal cases into which John was forced to enter as a result dragged on for two generations.

Ordained in 1734, the Reverend John Armstrong served as Curate of Kilfaird from 1734 to 1737 and as Rector of Tipperary from 1737 to 1753. He also acted as headmaster of the local Erasmus Smith Grammar school. He married Frances, daughter of schoolmaster John Garnett of Tipperary, and had issue seven sons and four daughters, of whom two boys died in infancy. Of the surviving sons, Thomas, Edward and Alfred entered the army, while William and Robert followed in their father’s footsteps and became clergymen. Only one of the daughters, Anne, ever married, taking as her husband in 1793 William Bagwell of Shanrahan, county Tipperary.

The Reverend John Armstrong bore witness to a dramatic event during morning prayers on 6 June 1753, when a gang of armed men burst into St Mary’s Church in Tipperary and abducted Susannah Grove. The clergyman’s courageous conduct in an attempt to prevent the abduction was witnessed by Lord Townsend, then Viceroy of Ireland, and impressed him so deeply that he promoted the Reverend John Armstrong’s eldest son, Thomas, to the rank of captain.

Captain Thomas Armstrong having predeceased his father in 1774, the Moyaliffe estate was in due course inherited by his younger brother, the Reverend William Carew Armstrong (1752-1839), known to his family and friends as Billy. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, he graduated in 1778, and was appointed first Vicar and later Rector (1789-1797) of Moyaliffe. He also held the rectorship of Moylough in the diocese of Tuam, and the chancellorship of the diocese of Cashel. His interest in architecture manifested itself in the construction of a new parish church on a medieval church site in nearby Killvalure, and a Georgian wing to Moyaliffe Castle, running at right angles to the main block. He is also credited with some of the landscaping on the estate, including the planting of a parkland of oaks and beeches, and the establishment of a beech walk overlooking the Clodagh River (which was cut away in the 1960s).

In 1789, the Reverend William Carew Armstrong married the Honourable Catherine Eleanor Beresford (d. 1837), eldest daughter of the Most Reverend the Honourable William Beresford, first Baron Decies, Archbishop of Tuam, and granddaughter of Sir Marcus Beresford, first Earl of Tyrone. Their three younger sons followed the by now familiar family tradition: Marcus Beresford and Alfred Thomas became clergymen, while George De la Poer secured a commission in the army (which he was later obliged to resign on account of drunkenness). The three daughters, Elizabeth, Frances and Clara never married. The Reverend Marcus Beresford Armstrong was the progenitor of the Ballydavid branch of the family in county Waterford, where his eldest son, William, settled. William’s only male child, Captain Marcus Beresford Armstrong, was later to succeed to the Moyaliffe estate.

William and Catherine’s eldest son, John Armstrong (1791-1846), led the life of a gentleman as a landed proprietor and magistrate for Sligo and Tipperary. Through his marriage in 1815 to Catherine Somers, daughter and heiress of Thomas Somers, he came into possession of estates in Mayo and Sligo, most notably the Somers family seat, Chaffpool, where he took up residence and set up improving the estate, which included the demolition of the old house and construction of a new one, complete with out-offices and landscaped grounds. He also became involved in local politics, serving as Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant for Sligo and, in the parliamentary elections of the 1830s, acting as agent for the Tory candidate, Edward Cooper of Markree Castle. John was well respected as magistrate, and during the famine was unanimously elected as chairman of the Upper Leyny and Tubbercurry Relief Committees. He died prematurely on 2 December 1846 of typhus fever, which he is said to have contracted by getting caught in a downpour on his way to the committee meeting at Tubbercurry and sitting through the meeting in half-dried clothes. The Sligo Journal paid tribute to him as a man who ‘fell a victim of his sense of devotion to the cause of charity.’

Like the previous generations, John and Catherine Armstrong had a large family of eight sons and two daughters. The eldest son, William (b. 1816), was a Captain in the 47th regiment and served in the War of India. He married in June 1848 a French woman, Mathilde Rose, daughter of Count de la Brosse, but died just eight months later in March 1849. His only son, John, was born posthumously in May of that year. The second son, Thomas (b. 1822), also served in India, where he died unmarried in 1847. The third son, George (b. 1823), died unmarried in 1864. The family estate then evolved upon the fifth son, James Wood Armstrong (b. 1827), Captain in the Royal Navy. Like his father, James acted as both landlord and magistrate in Sligo but, although well-liked by his tenants, was considered harsh in the latter role. In Tipperary, he improved the Moyaliffe estate and enlarged the family home by the addition of the Victorian façade. The plans for its design were drawn up in 1864, the year James succeeded to the estate. He became ill while attending a shooting party at the Templehouse demesne as a guest of the Perceval family in late November 1889 and died in the care of that family three weeks later. To honour his memory, the Select Vestry of Tubbercurry Parish Church built the Armstrong Memorial Chancel as an addition to the church. The family estates evolved on James’s younger brother, Captain Edward Marcus Armstrong (b. 1829), who as Lieutenant had fought in the Crimean War and was wounded in the Battle of Alma. Having returned from the front, he married Frances Steele in 1863 and made Moyaliffe Castle his main home, dying there without issue in 1889.

As all but one of Edward’s siblings were unmarried or had died without issue, and as his only nephew, John, had died in 1853, the property evolved on Edward’s first cousin once removed, Marcus Beresford Armstrong (1859-1923). The eldest (and the only son) of the five children of William Armstrong (1826-1889) of Ballydavid, county Waterford, Marcus chose a military career and rose to the rank of Captain in the 8th Brigade of the Northern Irish Division of the Royal Artillery. In 1888, he married Rosalie Maude (1868-1956), second daughter of Maurice Ceely Maude (1820-1904) of Lenaghan Park, Enniskillen, county Fermanagh. Rosalie’s paternal grandfather, the Reverend John Charles Maude (1792-1860), rector of Enniskillen, was the fifth son of Cornwallis Maude, first Viscount Hawarden (1729-1803) of Dundrum, County Tipperary, from his marriage to his third wife, Anne Isabella Monck, sister of first Viscount Monck.

Captain Marcus and Rosalie Armstrong had four children. The eldest, William Maurice Armstrong (b. 1889), known in his childhood and early youth as Maurice and later as Pat, followed the distinguished military tradition of his family, rising to the rank of Captain in the 10th Royal Hussars (the Prince of Wales’s Own). He served in India until the outbreak of the First World War, when he joined the Expeditionary Force as part of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade. On staff of Major-General Sir Beauvoir de Lisle at Mons and at the landing and evacuation of Gallipoli in the famous 29th Division, and later serving in Egypt, Captain Pat Armstrong was awarded a Military Cross in 1916 for gallant and distinguished service in the field. He was killed on 23 May 1917 by a sniper while inspecting his troops in a front-line trench at Arras, France. Following his death, the General commanding the Cavalry corps wrote: ‘I do not know of anyone of his age who had a more promising future before him, as not only did he love his profession, and show most of the qualities needed for him to shine in it, but he had such a charming personality that all he came in contact with loved him, and were able to show their best work when working with him or under him.’

Pat Armstrong’s eldest sister, Cornelia Ione Kathleen Armstrong (1890-1967) married in 1918 Sir William Lindsay Everard (1891-1949) of Ratcliffe Hall, Leicestershire, a brewer, pioneer aviator, founder of the Ratcliffe Aerodrome and MP for Melton from 1924 to 1944. They had two children, Bettyne (1919-1989) and Patrick Anthony William Beresford (‘Tony’) (1922-2011), of whom the latter died unmarried. Bettyne married as her first husband Major Denis Butler, ninth Earl of Lanesborough (1918-1998) and by her had two daughters, Georgina (1941-1947) and Denyne (b. 1945). The marriage was dissolved by divorce in 1950. She later married Richard Peter Michael Spencer and by him had a daughter, Serena, and a son, Richard.

The middle daughter, Winona Rosalie Armstrong (1893-1982), known to her family as Jess, married in 1927 Captain William Daryl Olphert Kemmis (1892-1965) of Ballinacor, county Wicklow. The youngest daugher, Lisalie Maude Armstrong (1897-1990), also married in 1927. Her husband, Odo George Henry Russell (1899-1980) of Broadmead Manor, Folkestone, Kent, was Major in the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment). He retired from the army in 1936, but on the outbreak of the Second World War re-joined his regiment and was sent to France in October 1939. He was wounded and reported missing in May-June 1940 and spent the remainder of the war in German prison camps, mostly at Spangenberg. He was released from captivity in the last days of March 1945.

Following the death of his only son, Captain Marcus Beresford Armstrong made the decision to pass the Moyaliffe estate to his second daughter, Jess. (The Mayo and Sligo estates had been sold to the Congested Districts Board in 1904.) She and her husband divided their time between Moyaliffe and Ballinacor until the death of Captain Kemmis in 1965, when through a series of events Jess Kemmis lost ownership of both Ballinacor (which was inherited by her husband’s maternal cousin, Major Richard Lomer) and Moyaliffe, which was offered for sale to the Land Commission. She was later able to regain possession of Moyaliffe Castle and 12 acres of the demesne, but not the surrounding farm.

As she had no children, and as the marriage of her younger sister was also childless, Jess Kemmis bequeathed Moyaliffe Castle and grounds to her distant relation, Robert George Carew Armstrong (1911-1983), of Natal, South Africa. They were related through Jess Kemmis’s great-great-grandfather, the Reverend William Carew Armstrong, whose younger brother, the Reverend Robert Carew Armstrong, was Robert’s great-great-grandfather. Following Robert’s death, the property passed to his eldest son, Graham Carew Armstrong (b. 1946). It remained in the hands of the Armstrong family until July 1999, when it was sold to John Stakelum.

The Sandville branch of the Barry family is descended from David Barry, who received a grant of land in county Limerick having saved the life of an Englishman during the 1641-42 war. Originally called Fryarstown, the name of the estate had been changed to Sandville by the time of the marriage of John Barry in 1804 to Mary O’Shaughnessy. Their eldest son, James, established himself at Bellevue, Croom, county Limerick, while the Sandville property passed to the third son, John. Following the latter’s death without issue in 1860, both properties passed to James Grene Barry (1841-1929), James’s eldest son.

The Leamlara branch of the family is often referred to as Standish Barry to distinguish it from the other Barry families in the area. The Leamlara estate near Carrigtwohill, county Cork, was granted to the Barrys at the time of the Anglo-Norman invasion. A castle built on the property in the fourteenth century was utilised in the mid eighteenth century for the construction of Leamlara House. It remained the family seat until the death of Henry Standish Barry in 1945, when his two surviving daughters sold the property to the Irish Land Commission. Leamlara was the birthplace of Garrett Standish Barry, the first Catholic Member of the Parliament to be elected after the 1829 Emancipation Act.

The title Earl of Ormonde is one of the oldest titles in the peerages in the British Islands. It was first granted in 1328 to John Butler (d. 1338). The 19th Earl of Ormonde, James Wandesford Butler (1777-1838), held the office of Lord Lieutenant of county Kilkenny between 1831 and 1838 and the office of Militia Aide-de-Campt to King William IV from 1832 to 1837. In 1825, he was created 1st Marquess of Ormonde. The last holder of the titles was James Hubert Theobald Charles Butler, 7th Marquess of Ormonde (1899-1997), upon whose death the marquessate became extinct and the earldom became dormant. The family's main seats were Cahir Castle in county Tipperary and Kilkenny Castle in county Kilkenny.

The O’Carrolls of Lissenhall were an old Irish Catholic family and prosperous landowners in county Tipperary. During the era of penal laws they conformed to the established religion to ensure the retention of their estates and, in a further process of Anglicisation, removed the ‘O’ and the last ‘l’ from their surname.

Perhaps the most famous of the eighteenth-century Carrols was Lieutenant-General William Parker Carrol (1776-1842), whose distinguished military career earned him a knighthood in 1816. Originally trained as a lawyer, he joined the army as a volunteer at the commencement of war with France in 1794. By 1800, he had risen to the rank of Captain and was posted to a fencible regiment in Gibraltar, where he learnt to speak fluent Spanish. Six years later, Carrol distinguished himself as part of the ill-fated British expedition against Buenos Aires. He frequently volunteered in dangerous and difficult situations and his knowledge of Spanish proved to be an essential service to the army. During the Peninsular War, he took part in 28 different engagements and was decorated by both the British and Spanish no less than twelve times. When his father died in 1816, Carrol retired from the army and took over the management of the family seat Tulla, county Tipperary. A year later, he married Emma-Sophia Sherwill (1799-1819) and by her had two children, William Hutchinson Carrol (1817-1895) and John Egerton Carrol (1819-1852). He resumed his army career in 1821 and was posted to Malta and later to the Ionian Islands, but, having contracted malaria, was forced to return home in 1830. He died at Tulla on 2 June 1842.

Carrol’s elder son, William Hutchinson Carrol (1817-1895), followed his father into the army, reaching the rank of Captain in the Iniskilling Dragoons. Upon his father’s death in 1842, he assumed responsibility of the family estate in Tulla, which his father’s long absences had left in some disarray, with large debts. In 1853, Captain Carrol purchased Lissenhall near Nenagh, county Tipperary, its demesne and several other adjoining tracts of land through the Incumbered Estates Commission. At the time of sale, Thomas Dagg was a tenant in Lissenhall and an arrangement was made for him to rent the house and demesne. This arrangement suited Captain Carrol as he at the time had not sufficient funds to undertake a relocation to Lissenhall. This turned out to be a mixed blessing however, for when in 1869 Carrol was in a position to move from Tulla to the larger house in Lissenhall, Thomas Dagg refused to move. The legal position was not resolved until 1873.

In December 1862 Captain Carrol married Elizabeth (Bessie) Leslie Griffin (d. 1887) and the couple had six children of whom one only survived six weeks. Carrol died in 1895, and the family estates passed to his only surviving son, Egerton Griffin Carrol, who died just 15 months later. The responsibility for the management of the estate was left to his three sisters, Alice Isabel (1865-1940), Maud Rose (1865-1942) and Florence Kate (1871-1935), but it was Alice who bore the bulk of it. Her succession to the management of the Lissenhall estate came about at a time when the Land Acts came into force. As the estate’s holdings eroded through the sale of lands to its former tenants, the difficulty of keeping the enterprise afloat grew increasingly complex. Alice had on-running interactions with her solicitors concerning The National Income Tax Recovery Agency, The Irish Land Commission and Lloyds Insurance. By the 1920s she also had to contend with thefts of her stock and equipment and threats to her safety by the IRA. By this time, she had to bow to the inevitable and oversaw the disposal of Lissenhall house and demesne to the Land Commission and eventually left the property in 1922. Alice continued to live in Nenagh, county Tipperary until 1927 before moving to England. She died unmarried on 23 January 1940.

Maude Rose Carrol, the second daughter of William Hutchinson, married in June 1902 George Maxwell Angas, a gentleman farmer and a consummate horseman from Yorkshire. The couple lived at the Manor Farm, Wissendine, Rutland until 1910, when they moved into Lissenhall in order that George could better manage a farm he owned nearby. During the following years and up to the time Lissenhall was vacated he was of considerable help to Alice in the management of the Lissenhall estate. However, the Angas family left Lissenhall in 1922 in the face of continuing unrest in the area. The couple’s daughter Rosaleen married Paul Johan Tausch (1899-1967), a skiing instructor from Austria and the couple made their home in The White House, Coggeshall, Essex.

Florence Kate Carrol, the youngest of William Hutchinson’s daughters, eneoyed greater freedom than her elders sisters. Outstanding in amateur theatricals and an exceptional equestrian, she found a perfect partner in Philip Clement Scott (1871-1932), son of Clement Scott, the influential English theatre critic, playwright and travel writer. Philip’s mother Isabel du Maurier was aunt to the actor Gerald du Maurier, whose daughter Daphne du Maurier reaped international fame as a writer. Florence and Philip’s only child, Anthony Gerald O’Carroll Scott (1899-1980) spent his boyhood at Lissenhall and was particularly close to his Maude and Alice during his parents’ extended absences. Like so many of his ancestors, he enjoyed a long and varied military career. His wife, Helena Gertrude James (1899-1984), whom he married in August 1926, was to follow him on each and every posting during his career. Their only child, June Mary O’Carrol Scott was born in 1928. She and her husband, James Robertson (1920-2000), an officer in the Guards Armoured Division, both trained as teachers following James’s retirement from the army in 1964. June taught at primary level in a number of locations over the next twenty years. She is the author of A Long Way from Tipperary (1994), which traced the history of her father’s Irish ancestors, and of Only Remember the Laughter (2005), an account of her own life story. In 2002, having become a widow and with no children of her own, she donated the Carroll family papers and memorabilia to Limerick Civic Trust.

The Coote family’s association with Ireland began with Sir Charles Coote (1581-1642), who in 1621 was granted one of the first baronetcies in Ireland for his military service to the crown during the Nine Years War. In 1628, he founded the town of Mountrath in county Laois. His son and namesake was created Earl of Mountrath in 1660. The title became extinct in 1802 on the death of Charles Henry Coote, 7th Earl of Mountrath. However, the title Baron Castlecoote, granted to Charles Henry in 1800 for his support of the Act of Union, passed to his distant cousin and namesake, Charles Henry Coote (1754-1823) of Leopardstown Park, county Dublin, eldest son of the Very Reverend Charles Coote, Dean of Kilfenora. Along with the title, he also inherited the 7th Earl’s Irish properties. This title, too, became extinct on the death of Eyre Tilson Coote (1793-1827), the third baron, but his widow, Barbara née Meredyth, retained ownership of the Coote estate. Following her death in 1874, the estate passed to Sir Eyre Coote (1857-1925) of West Park, Hampshire, grandson of the younger brother of the second Baron Castlecoote. The Coote Papers reflect this rather complex network of family relationships and resulting problems of succession.

John Daly was born in Limerick City on 18 October 1845 as the son of a labourer. At the age of 18, he became a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), founded in 1858 to crusade for the establishment of an independent Irish Republic. Its sister organisation in the United States was known as the Fenian Brotherhood. Fenianism was particularly strong in Limerick where John Daly emerged as one of the leaders of an ill-prepared Fenian Rising in 1867. When the attack was repelled, Daly was forced to flee the country. After a period of exile in America, he returned home to reinvigorate the IRB and to promote its aims among the general public. In 1883, John Daly was arrested for his involvement in the so-called Dynamite Campaign, a transatlantic conspiracy directed by Clan na Gael, the rebranded Fenian Brotherhood in America. He was sentenced to penal servitude in Chatham and was later moved to Portland Prison in Dorset. Here he met and befriended a fellow-Fenian, Thomas Clarke, who was serving a sentence for his involvement in a failed attempt to blow up London Bridge as part of the Fenian Dynamite Campaign. Born on 11 March 1858 as the son of a sergeant in the British Army, Clarke had joined the IRB in 1878 and become one of its leading figures.

John Daly was released from prison on health grounds in 1896. His brother Edward having died in 1890, Daly was now responsible for the support of his widow and ten children. After a year of fundraising in America for Clan na Gael, he returned to Limerick and established a bakery in May 1898 at 26 William Street, where several of his nieces worked. John Daly became a figurehead for Limerick nationalist politics and, in spite of efforts to disqualify him, won a seat on the City Council. He was elected Mayor of Limerick City on three occasions (1899-1901) and became known as the Fenian Mayor. The spectacular elevation to civic office of a convicted felon was indicative of the appeal of the republican message to the artisans and labourers of the city.

When Thomas Clarke was released from prison in 1898, Mayor Daly arranged to have the Freedom of the City bestowed upon him as a mark of respect for his contribution to the pursuit of Irish independence. It was during this time that Clarke became acquainted with Daly’s niece, Kathleen (1878-1972). They later married in America, where Clarke joined Clan na Gael and became highly regarded among its leadership. His return to Ireland in 1907 proved a catalyst for the reinvigoration of the IRB. A new generation of Fenians emerged in Ireland, promptly imposing their militancy on the aging upper political structures of the organization. Among the key figures of this movement alongside Clarke were Seán Mac Diarmada, Patrick Pearse and John MacBride, all friends of the Daly family.

The IRB influenced the formation of the Irish Volunteers, a military organization established in 1913 to lend nationalist support to the Home Rule Bill then going through parliament. The Limerick branch of the Irish Volunteers was founded on 25 January 1914 and located its offices at No 1 Hartstonge Street. Among its most prominent members were Con Colbert and John Daly’s nephew Edward (Ned) Daly. When an auxiliary branch of the women’s nationalist organisation Cuman na mBan was established in Limerick on 5 June 1914, John Daly’s nieces became heavily involved in its activities. As the Irish Volunteers grew in strength, they made a significant declaration of intent by landing rifles at Howth and Kilcoole in July-August 1914. In 1915, the Irish Volunteers displayed their organisational capabilities by mounting the Dublin funeral of the celebrated Fenian hero Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa. Patrick Pearse’s impassioned oration at Rossa’s graveside, in which he extolled a continuation of the Fenian tradition, was effectively a declaration of war on the British presence in Ireland. Both Thomas Clarke and Edward Daly were key figures in Rossa’s funeral arrangements, the latter as the Officer Commanding Irish Volunteers. Kathleen Clarke assisted by helping to manage the transport of Volunteers to and from the capital.

The determination of Clarke, Pearse and Mac Diarmada to advance the republican cause led to the Easter Rising in 1916. In the weeks prior to it, Roger Casement oversaw a German shipment to Ireland of rifles and ammunition. However, his ship was intercepted by British warships and failed to land its cargo. The Rising commenced in Dublin on 24 April, when Volunteers seized control of strategic buildings in the city centre and numerous detachments secured an outer defensive ring. The Military Council established headquarters in the General Post Office on O’Connell Street, where Pearse read aloud the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. Commandant Edward Daly led the Four Courts garrison where some of the most prolonged and intensive combat occurred. Éamon de Valera was Commandant of the Boland’s Mills garrison. Con Colbert headed a detachment at Watkin’s Brewery and later fought at nearby Marrowbone Lane. Sean Heuston commanded a small force at the Mendicity Institute. Proclamation signatories Clarke and Mac Diarmada remained in the GPO as members of the Provisional Government.

The military phase of the Easter Rising ended on 29 April 1916. Central Dublin was heavily shelled by British artillery, reducing much of the city centre to rubble. Following the Volunteers’ surrender, the British reacted swiftly and executed fourteen Volunteer leaders, including Patrick Pearse and Thomas Clarke on 3 May, Edward Daly on 4 May, Con Colbert and Sean Heuston on 8 May and Seán Mac Diarmada on 12 May. Roger Casement was hanged in England on 3 August for his part in the failed gun-running. Many others were arrested and interned indefinitely in British detention facilities. John Daly, devastated by the loss of his nephew and many close friends, died on 30 June 1916 aged 70. His influence and legacy was marked by the volume of good wishes the Daly family received from organisations and individuals alike. His and his Fenian comrades’ deaths in 1916 marked the beginning of a more organised and effective military campaign against British rule in Ireland.

Among those who fought in the Easter Rising was Edward Thomas Dore, a native of Glin, county Limerick, who had joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood while a student at Rockwell College. He was arrested and interned at Frongoch until the end of 1916 with many of the noted Irish freedom fighters of the time. In 1918, he married Commandant Edward (Ned) Daly’s sister Nora (1889-1977) and took over her family’s bakery business at William Street, Limerick, which he continued to operate until his retirement in August 1971. In 1931, he co-founded the Limerick Memorial Committee to fundraise for a monument on Sarsfield Bridge in Limerick city to honour those who died in the Easter Rising. The sculptor Albert Power (1881-1945), who was invited to design the monument, submitted his proposal in November 1936 and its construction began in 1938 with a view to unveiling the statue on the 25th anniversary of the Easter Rising in 1941. However, the outbreak of the Second World War, the death of Albert Power and a shortage of funds stalled the project, and it was not until 27 May 1956 that the memorial was unveiled. Edward Dore died at his home on 17 June 1972.

Edward Dore’s son Edward Francis Dore was a devoted nationalist and adopted the Irish spelling of his name. Born in 1921, he studied at University College, Dublin and gained an MA degree in Modern Irish in 1941. While at UCD, he was active in An Cumann Gaelach and in the Language Movement. After some further postgraduate work he joined the translation department of the Dáil. In 1957, he was appointed director of the office of the Ordnance Survey. During his tenure, he upgraded and expanded the work of the Placenames Commission and became the country’s leading authority on place names. In 1964, he founded the Placenames Association (An Cumann Logaimneacha) to inform the public of the Commisson’s work and established the Association’s journal, Dinnseanchas, which he continued to edit until his death. De hÓir gave several lectures annually, wrote a number of articles on Irish language subjects and in 1963 published a book in Irish on the lives and work of Eugene O’Curry and John O’Donovan, his nineteenth-century predecessors in the Placenames Office. De hÓir also had a deep interest in archaeology and was a long-standing member of the Royal Society of Antiquaries. He died on 20 December 1975 at Meath Hospital, Dublin, aged 54.

The De Lavals were a notable Huguenot family who claimed descent from King Henry IV of France and held title to extensive seigneuries in Picardy. Like other Huguenot families, they had greatly benefited from the Edict of Nantes issued by Henry IV in 1598, which granted substantial rights to Calvinist Protestants in a strongly Catholic country. The Edict was bitterly opposed by the Catholic clergy and many French parliaments and was eventually revoked by Louis XIV in 1685. The revocation deprived French Protestants of all religious and civil liberties and subjected them to intense religious persecution. The Vicomte Henri Robert d’Ully de Laval was imprisoned at Laon in 1688 and his estates were declared forfeit. He was able to escape in September 1689, and eventually sought refuge in Ireland. He moved to Portarlington in 1695, where his rank and considerable wealth allowed him to establish a leading position in the community.

In 1808, the Vicomte’s great-granddaughter Deborah Charlotte Newcombe married Thomas Gilbert Willis, son of Thomas Willis, the Master of Portarlington’s most famous French school. Thomas Gilbert, who had taken Holy Orders in the Anglican community, was appointed Rector of Kilmurry Church, Limerick (now adjacent to the campus of the University of Limerick); his son Thomas was appointed Curate to the same church in 1832. Thomas Gilbert was also appointed Prebendary to St Mary’s Cathedral, and Master of the Diocesan School which he ran from his house in Thomas Street. He died in 1837 and was buried outside the west door of the Cathedral. Following his death, his widow opened a Day and Boarding School for Young Ladies in No. 5 Pery Square, while his son William continued to run the private school in Thomas Street. Thus, the strong tradition of education established by the Willis family in Portarlington was successfully extended to Limerick.

The Knights of Glin are a Geraldine family whose title can be traced back to Sir John FitzJohn or Seán Mór na Sursainge who lived ca. 1260, and whose grandfather, Maurice FitzThomas had been granted the barony of Shanid, near Glin. John FitzJohn had established much authority in west Limerick, having built castles at Glin and Beagh (near Askeaton) in 1260. In 1299, he was holding half a tuath in Glancarbery which corresponds to the present parish of Kilfergus or Glin.

The romantic title, The Knights of Glin, can be attributed to the gaelicising of the Anglo-Normans of Desmond, the titles being similar to Gaelic chieftainships. Up to the end of the 17th century, the Knight of Glin was sometimes referred to as the Knight of the Valley, valley being the English translation of ‘Glin’, a corruption of the Irish ‘Gleann’, itself an abbreviation of Gleann Corbraighe (Glancarbery).

The history of the Knights of Glin is an interesting one as it reveals the struggle of a Catholic landed family against English rule, and ultimately its’ capitulation when the Penal Laws came into effect. The eighteenth century is indeed one of the more interesting periods in which they moved from being medieval Norman overlords and Irish chieftains to become Anglo-Irish gentry . John FitzGerald succeeded as the 19th Knight of Glin in 1732. When the Penal Laws swung into force, whereby a Catholic owned estate could be handed on intact only if one of the sons became protestant within 3 months of the father’s death, John was under enormous pressure to convert and convert he did.

John’s brother Edmond, succeeded as 20th Knight of Glin and ran up huge gambling debts. He was imprisoned in the Four Courts Marshalsea Prison for non-payment of debts and consequently his brother Richard, succeeded as the 21th Knight. One of Richard’s more famed hobbies was that of duelling which he is said to have learned on the continent. He also excelled at horseracing and Byrne notes that it was during his time that a race-course was established at Glin. He also raced at Clogheen, Co. Tipperary and the Curragh, Co. Kildare. Thomas, the next brother in line, succeeded Richard in 1775. He, like his brothers before him, was frequently in debt and passed this debt to his son John Bateman FitzGerald in 1781. Despite great financial difficulties, this most enterprising of individuals initiated the building of Glin Castle, which has been lived in by the Knights of Glin and their families ever since. By the time of his death, the family had successfully transformed themselves from medieval Irish chiefs to Anglo-Irish gentry, due to John Bateman’s marriage to an English lady, Margaretta Maria Fraunceis Gwyn, and the building, against all odds, of a Georgian pile.

The beginning of the tenure John Fraunceis Fitzgerald, 24th Knight of Glin coincided with a bankruptcy sale at Glin, but fortunately, he was able to replenish the family coffers through gambling. He was particularly interested in his Gaelic background and was a fluent Irish speaker and antiquarian. Known locally as both ‘Ridire na mBan’ (Knight of the Women) due to his extra-marital activities, and Seán Gruama (Grim-faced John) due to his bouts of temperamental behaviour, John Fraunceis was indeed a colourful character. A ballad from 1830 illustrates his detractors views:

His vices have made, and still make him so poor
That bailiff or creditor is ne’er from his door.
And deep tho’ in debt, he’s deeper in sin,
That lecherous, treacherous, Knight of the Glin

This hoary old sinner, this profligate rare,
Who gloats o’er the ruin of the virtuous and fair;
In gambling and drinking and wenching delights
And in these doth spend both his days and his nights.

Yet there is the man who’s heard to declare
‘Gainst O’Grady he’ll vote if the priests interfere.
But the priests and O’ Grady do not care a pin
For the beggarly, profligate, Knight of the Glin!

It is interesting to note, however, that John Fraunceis was also recognised for his generosity towards tenants, particularly during the famine. He died of cholera in 1854 which he contracted while attending to the unfortunates in the Poor House in Glin. His obituary in the Limerick Chronicle of 26 April 1854 stated ‘…the influence of his position and his personal exertions were ever directed to relieve the wants of the poor…’

Like his father before him, the 25th Knight, John Fraunceis Eyre, known as ‘The Cracked Knight’, was a somewhat eccentric character prone to being ‘temperamental’. Folklore surrounding his antics and erratic behaviour abound. Among the many mentioned by Gaughan include his habit of riding his horse into the homes of those he was visiting, going so far on one occasion as attempting to ride the horse up the stairs; the time he publicly whipped Colonel Henry H. Kitchener (his ‘pet aversion’) at the Tralee races; and his curious fascination with chamber-pots. He was sympathetic to his tenants however, and was popular with the locals.

Continuing with the custom of nick-naming the Knights, the moniker of the 26th Knight, Desmond John Edmund, was ‘the Big Knight’. He married Isabella Lloyd Apjohn in 1861 and she proved to be instrumental in managing the estate, which was just as well, as her husband ‘showed little interest or inclination in this matter’ (Gaughan, p. 124). Desmond John Edmund was a deputy lieutenant and a justice of the peace of county Limerick, and in general, had a the typical Anglo-Irish gentleman’s life which was taken up mainly with hunting, shooting, fishing and entertaining. It was during his tenure that the Long Rock Weir on the Shannon was refurbished and salmon fishing in the area became a profitable enterprise. It was also, however, the time of the Land League and agrarian unrest, which resulted in various outrages committed on farms of evicted tenants in Glin. Desmond John Edmund came under extreme pressure as a result of the Land League and the National League and ‘bitter denunciations between him and the supporters of the League continued in the press’. (Gaughan, p. 132). The Big Knight was under much financial pressure. In 1867 he borrowed £2000 by way of mortgage and this raised the principal sums charged on the Glin estate to £17,091. It seems by the numerous mortgages created in the 1860’s and the 1870’s that he was simply borrowing from one creditor in order to pay the other. (Ballinderry de Pauillac, p. 4)

By the time the 27th Knight, Desmond FitzJohn Lloyd FitzGerald, inherited in 1895, the estate was in a state of semi-permanent insolvency. He had made the wise move of marrying Lady Rachel Charlotte Wyndham Quin, younger daughter of the 4th Earl of Dunraven, who brought with her much needed funds. She tragically died after the birth of their first child, Desmond Windham Otho, in 1901. The respite was brief, however, and under the Land Act of 1903, he sold 3,200 acres of the estate, as well as the Riddlestown Park estate, which he had inherited, and a further 800 acres of the Glin estate a few years later. During FitzJohn’s tenure, the Irish revolution took place, and life for the Knights of Glin took another dramatic turn. Unusually, he remained resident in Glin Castle during the War of Independence, when anti-treaty forces had destroyed great houses of other landed families, and it was this lofty defiance that ultimately saved Glin Castle from being burnt down by a band of rebels in February 1923. As the present Knight of Glin recounts: ‘ When a gang came to burn the house down in 1923, he roared at them from his chair, “Well, you will have to burn me in it boys”. The “boys” repaired to Glin for a few libations and it was said that the locals got them so drunk they never returned to finish the job.’ FitzJohn’s main interests in life were attending shooting parties in Adare Manor, Curragh Chase, Hollypark or playing in golf tournaments in Lahinch. He suffered a stroke in 1914 which left him partially paralysed and in later life became reclusive.

The 28th Knight of Glin, Desmond Windham Otho, was educated at Winchester and then Lancing. In 1924, when in his early twenties, he moved to London and, having always been mechanically minded, set up a garage in the fashionable St James Street area with a Captain Alistair Miller, the son of a Scottish baronet. The business was called Miller & FitzGerald Ltd and specialised in buying and selling exclusive cars such as the ‘Voisin’. While in London, he was one of the “Bright Young Things” socialising in the Bachelor’s Club and the Savoy. When the high life got too much, he set off with his grandfather, the 4th Earl of Dunraven, and some of his Blennerhassett cousins on sailing trips to the Mediterranean and back, some lasting as long as 3 or 4 months. Monte Carlo was a favourite resting place as too was Cowes, where they attended the famous yacht races. Unfortunately, the business back in London went under and a protracted court case between the former business partners ensued. In 1929, Desmond Windham Otho married Veronica Villiers, a cousin of Sir Winston Churchill, and a veritable tour de force who set about restoring Glin Castle while her husband set about improving the farm. Desmond Windham Otho contracted tuberculosis and was ill for a long period. He sought treatment in Arizona and Switzerland but finally succumbed to the disease in 1949, leaving a young widow and three children. Veronica remarried in 1954 to Horatio Ray Milner, a very wealthy Canadian businessman, and subsequently relocated to Canada. Milner was instrumental in saving Glin Castle and the estate from certain financial ruin by investing £60,000 in restoration work in the late 1950s.

Desmond John Villiers, the 29th Knight of Glin, was educated in Stowe, England; Trinity College, Port Hope, Ontario; University of British Columbia; and Harvard University. He was a leading figure in Irish architecture and decorative arts and for many years was Christie’s representative in Ireland. A keen family historian, he left The Glin Papers on permanent loan to the University of Limerick in 1998. The Knight married Madam Olda FitzGerald and had three daughters. He died in 2011, and with him also died the most illustrious and romantic of titles.