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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 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 respectable Irish Roman Catholic middle class.

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.

Firkin Crane, one of Cork City’s landmark buildings, was designed in 1855 by Sir John Benson to meet the needs of the city’s thriving butter market. Following the closure of this trade in 1924, the building acted as a margarine factory. It was later acquired by Joan Denise Moriarty with the financial assistance of the Arts Council to have it refurbished as a home for her professional dance company. During the refurbishment, the building was gutted by fire. It was subsequently restored with support from Cork City Council, the Irish Government, the European Union, Irish businesses, multi-national corporations and the Irish American Fund, and re-opened in 1992 as a centre dedicated to dance, living theatre, concerts, opera, art exhibitions, poetry readings and a variety of sound, visual and multimedia arts. Until 2006, Firkin Crane was also the location of the Institute for Choreography and Dance (ICD), directed by Mary Brady, which aimed to stimulate choreographic practice and dance research as a means of dance development. It provided space for interchange between choreographers to examine issues, work methodologies and goals particular to each, in a practice-centred environment. Today, Firkin Crane provides a supportive environment for professional artists in the form of a professional residency programme, Blank Canvas.

Maxwell, Weldon & Co. was a firm of solicitors operating from premises at 15 Eden Quay, Dublin in the early twentieth century.

Chrysalis Dance is Ireland’s only neoclassical dance company, combining in its choreographies sophisticated classical ballet with sleekly modern elements of contemporary dance. The company emerged from a workshop held in June 2003 under the direction of Judith Sibley at Shawbrook School of Dance, County Longford to commence the research and development of an original neoclassical work. The company premiered its first work, Strings, in the Black Box, Galway in April 2004. Since then, Chrysalis Dance has toured Ireland with several well-received choreographies and has enjoyed sell-out runs at national dance festivals. The company has been resting since losing its Arts Council funding in 2013.