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LISNAVAGH
Thomas Kane McClintock Bunbury, 2nd Baron Rathdonnell (1848 - 1929)
This page will be consistently updated. Comments and corrections are much appreciated.
Born in 1848, Thomas Kane
McClintock Bunbury was
destined to inherit the vast
estates and peerage of his
uncle at the age of 31.
This chronology is simply designed to create a backdrop against which Tom
Bunbury, later 2nd Baron Rathdonnell, lived his 81 years. By placing it
on the web, it is hoped that these pages might be of mutual benefit to others
researching similar characters from this age. Born just over a decade into
Queen Victoria's reign, the first part of Tom Rathdonnell's life was essentially
framed by the unrelenting drive of the Britain Empire. His father, William
McClintock Bunbury (1800 - 1866) was first and foremost a sailing man.
In his youth he had explored the South Seas with Charles Darwin and his
cousin - the future Admiral Sir Francis McClintock - and chased slavers
around the coast of Brazil after the abolition of slavery. He retired from
the Royal Navy with the rank of Captain. The timber of his old ship, HMS
Samarang, would go to form some of the furniture which the Captain commissioned
for his magnificent new family mansion, Lisnavagh House in County
Carlow. The first brick of the new house was laid on 23rd January 1847 and
by the time of Tom Rathdonnell's birth nearly two years later, the house
was nearing completion. But 1847 also marked the worst near of the Great
Famine, the effects of which were to dramatically reshape the future of
Ireland. In 1868, Tom's uncle John McClintock was elevated to the
Irish Peerage as Baron Rathdonnell by Disraeli's Tory government.
In 1879, the title - and a vast estate that spread all across Ireland -
came to Tom and from him it descends to the present - and 5th - Baron Rathdonnell,
who is my father, Benjamin.
By 1879, the calls for Home Rule in Ireland were loud. Tom Bunbury, a product
of his age, appears to have sided with those who wanted to retain the parliamentary
union with Britain. He was an officer and before that, an old Etonian, as
were his two sons, the eldest of whom Billy Bunbury would die fighting for the British
in South Africa during the Boer War. In the early 20th century, Tom was
one of the more powerful Anglo-Irish magnates in Ireland. On the eve of
the Great War he was Chairman of the Leinster Unionists and President of
the Royal Dublin Society. He was also sometime Lord Lieutenant of County
Carlow. Locals knew him as 'Auld Rathdonnell'; his son and grandson referred to him as 'The O.B', probably meaning 'The Old Boy'.
He outlived his wife by five years, passing away at the age of 81 in 1929.
He was succeeded at Lisnavagh and as 3rd Baron by his second and only surviving
son, Thomas Leopold McClintock Bunbury.
1842
Tom's father Captain
William Bunbury
sailed the Pacific Ocean alongside
Darwin and Fitzroy in the 1830s. He
built Lisnavagh House in the 1840s.
November 3: Marriage of TKMB's parents, Captain William McClintock (Bunbury) and Pauline, second daughter of Sir James Matthew Stronge of Tynan Abbey, Co. Armagh.
1846
Captain William McClintock assumes name of McClintock Bunbury in compliance
with the will of his late uncle, Thomas Bunbury.
Captain Bunbury returned as Tory MP for County Carlow. He retains seat for
next 16 years.
1847
January 21: Foundation stone of New House at Lisnavagh is laid.
1848 - Year of TKMB's Birth
1848 was a year of revolutions throughout continental Europe. For a short
period, absolutist governments were replaced by liberal administrations,
near universal suffrage was introduced and elections were held to constituent
assemblies to draw up new national constitutions. In England, the Chartists
rebelled for equal votes for all but are brutally crushed so they don't
arise again until 1918.It was sometimes described as the "springtime
of the people." Ireland was still reeling from the effects of a devastating
potato blight and the death of Daniel O'Connell.
February 24: King Louis-Philippe of France abdicates and the Second Republic
is proclaimed in Paris. This revolution sends political sent political shock
waves across Europe, and revolutions broke out in Berlin, Vienna, Rome,
Prague, Budapest and Kraków.
April 5: 2nd Lieutenant Leopold McClintock (the future Admiral), whom TKMB's
father taught how to sail, sets off for the Arctic on the HMS Enterprise,
commanded by Sir James Ross, in pursuit of the fate of the late Sir John
Franklin.
July 23 - 29: William Smith O'Brien launches short-lived Young Ireland rebellion.
August 26: TK's uncle John McClintock celebrates his 50th birthday.
November 22: Sir Hugh Gough (the future Viscount), cousin of TKMB's father,
defeats an army of rebelling Sikhs at Ramnuggar, thus consolidating Britain's
commercial and political dominance in India.
November 29: Birth of TKMB, eldest son of Captain William McClintock Bunbury
of Lisnavagh and his wife, Pauline (nee Stronge, of Tynan Abbey).
Contemporaries: Lord Iveagh (b. 1847).
1850
Captain Bunbury celebrates his 50th birthday.
1851
September 1: Birth of Tom's only brother, John William ("Jack") McClintock Bunbury.
1852
Lord Downshire recommends Tom's uncle, John McClintock, for a peerage.
Captain and Mrs Bunbury celebrate 10 years of marriage.
1855
July 5: Death of Tom's paternal grandfather, John McClintock, MP, of Drumcar.
It has always been my belief
that this portrait depicts Tom
Bunbury's sisters, Bella and
Helen, who were both fated
to die tragically young.
1857
March 3: France and Britain declare War on China.
April 30: At the General Election, Captain William McClintock Bunbury and Henry Bruen (Tory)
returned unopposed for Carlow County. Tom's uncle John McClintock and Chichester
Fortescue win the Louth seats. However, the Whigs, led by Lord Palmerston,
finally win a majority in the House of Commons as the Tory vote fell significantly.
May 10: Outbreak of Indian Mutiny.
1858
August 26: TK's uncle John McClintock celebrates 60th birthday.
TOM BUNBURY GOES TO ETON (1859)
In September 1859, Tom went to Eton, starting in Mr. Hawtrey’s, which was effectively a separate house for the younger boys. He subsequently had the good fortune to be moved into the house of Dr Edmund Warre (1837-1920) at a time when Warre's was at the zenith of its success in both scholarship and sport. His brother John joined him in Warre's in September 1865. According to The Times, the McClintock Bunburys and Dr Warre were cousins but I'm none too sure about this. Dr Warre was a schoolmaster much in the same vein as Thomas Arnold, the man who single-handedly revived public schools when he took over Rugby in 1828. (Public schools had been on the slide since the end of the Napoleonic Wars. For instance, by 1835, Charterhouse was down to 99 pupils). Central to this new era was the notion of team-sport, the idea that people could and should play together, as kindred souls, for a common goal. When you went out to bat, you were part of a team. Prior to this, sport had tended to be about boxing, racing and personal achievement – all conducive to gambling. The team spirit – or Muscular Christianity as some call it – ignited across the Victorian Empire and spread from Bennetsbridge and Drumcar to the farthest reaches of Ceylon and South America. Dr Warre certainly subscribed to this point of view. He was elected Headmaster in 1884, a position which he retained until 1905. After a period of retirement he was in 1909 appointed provost of Eton in succession to Dr. James Hornby, but during the greater part of his provostship he was incapacitated by ill health from taking any very active part in the government of the school. He took much interest in sport at Eton, and the high standard of rowing to which the Eton eights, including Jack and Tom Bunbury, attained was due in a large measure to his coaching. Rowing was a particularly exclusive sport and nobody who had ever been employed in manual labour was allowed to row. S.D. Muttlebury recalled practicing in a stationary gig without footstraps, with Warre laying his hand on Muttle’s foot during the recovery and saying: “Your feet look right, but you are still trying to pull up with your great toe.” “I thought it a fad then,” wrote Muttlebury, “but I am convinced that it is one of the most important points in rowing.” From 1860 to 1884, when Warre became headmaster and passed the coaching baton to S.A. Donaldson, Warre “was practically alone on the towpath” and turned out a succession of eights for Henley starting in 1861, all trained more or less identically, all more or less successful. (see: The Rowers of Vanity Fair; http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/The_Rowers_of_Vanity_Fair/Warre_E).
As his brother Jack and son William would later be, Tom was a self-elected member of Pop, aka the Eton Society, members of which were entitled to wear checked spongebag trousers, and a waistcoat designed as they wish, as well as the right to furl their umbrellas and sit upon the wall on the Long Walk, in front of the main building. Pop’s less charming side involved their caning sessions, known as ‘Pop-Tanning’, in which ‘a large number of very hard strokes were inflicted by the President of Pop in the presence of all Pop members. The culprit was summoned to appear in a pair of old trousers, as the caning would cut the cloth to shreds and leave the boy's buttocks bleeding’.
One of Tom's classmates was the fun-loving and handsome boatsman Bill Farrer, aka the Rev William Farrer (d. 1934). (There were seven Farrer’s at Eton in 1874). Tom was apparently rather poor at Latin and used to solicit Bill’s help with his homework. When Dr Warre was elected Provost of Eton forty years later, he received a letter of congratulations from Tom containing what The Times described as ‘verses written in the doggiest of schoolboy Latin’:
‘T. Bunbury.
ETON’S WELCOME.
Nun redit in proprium regnum Caput Ipse Magister,
Tutoremque Bello et Ludentia Prata salutem,
Murus et exclamat ‘Dulce redire Domum’;
Gaudet Etona omnis; Domini puerique juvantur;
Nunc Ursoe redeunt in sua tecta duo.
Please Sir, I hadn't time to do any more.
Dr Warre wrote to thank Tom for his kind words. Tom replied that he hadn’t written them at all and it was only when Charles Fletcher’s Life of Warre was published that it was revealed that Bill Farrer was the culprit. (See Bill Farrer’s obituary, The Times, Thursday, Nov 29, 1934; pg. 19; Issue 46924; col B)
Tom remained at Eton until July 1868.
1860
Captain Bunbury celebrates his 60th birthday.
1861
April 12: Death of TK's maternal grandmother, Isabella, Lady Stronge.
December 18: TK's neighbour, (Sir) Charles Burton, 5th Bart, (1823 - 1902)
weds an American heiress, Georgina May Haliburton, only daughter of David Halliburton
of Texas. They have no children.
General: After 14 years in Parliament, Captain Bunbury is forced to retire
due to ill health. In return for his services he is offered and accepts
the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds. His seat is presently filled by
Dennis Pack-Beresford.
1862
Captain and Mrs Bunbury celebrate 20 years of marriage.
1863
Lord Randolph Churchill moves into Tom's class at Eton.
1864
December 2: Death of TK's grandfather, Sir James Matthew Stronge, aged 80. His uncle succeeds as Sir James Matthew Stronge, and is elected MP for Armagh (1864-74). Sir James is a Lieutenant-Colonel with the Royal Tyrone Fusiliers.
1865
Feb 1: In General Election that puts the Tory partnership of Derby and
Disraeli in power, Dennis Pack-Beresford and Henry Bruen are returned unopposed
for the Tories in Carlow.
General: Tom Conolly, uncle to the future Katherine Anne Rathdonnell, tries
to run the Charleston blockade in the US Civil War, had his boat shot to
smithers, clambered onto some driftwood, hailed a passing yacht bound for
England and jumped ship off the Donegal coast making it back to Donegal
Town in the nick of time to secure his seat in that week's General Election.
September: Jack Bunbury joins Tom at Eton.
1866
June 2: Less than 20 years after the first brick was laid at Lisnavagh, Captain William Bunbury McClintock Bunbury passes away at Lisnavagh in his 66th year. With his death, 16-year-old Tom Bunbury effectively succeeds to Lisnavagh. The Captain is buried in the family vault at St. Mary's in Rathvilly where he would all to soon to be joined by his wife and daughters. In his will, he instructs his brothers, George Augustus Jocelyn McClintock, Robert Le Poer McClintock, Henry Stanley McClintock and John McClintock (later 1st Baron Rathdonnell) that all life tenants and tenants in tail "shall take and from thenceforth use the surname of Bunbury only and no other name in addition to his or her or their Christian names and shall bear the arms of Bunbury quartered with his, her or their own family arms". He bequeathed to his widow and sole executor of his will, £3000 and "the use of my mansion house and demesne at Lisnevagh together with the use of all my pictures, plates, china, linen, glass, furniture, horses, carriages, harness, saddles, bridles, farming stock and implements of husbandry" until each of his children was 21 after which they would also be entitled to such usage. He also provided £14,000 for his two younger children, Jack and Isabella, and a further £300 pa up until their 21st birthday "for or towards their advancement in the world". John Calvert Stronge and Thomas Vessey Nugent were his trustees.
Back at Eton, Tom played on Dr Warre's soccer team in their cup match against Evan's on the last day of the school year. One contemporary stated that 'Warre's owed their success in a great measure to the play of Bunbury, who never missed a kick'. Also on that team was Walter Calvert ('who, though Flying-man, kept very much on the defensive, and was always in the way') and Bill Farrer ('who played with equal certainty as long-long and short-behind'. (ANNALS OF AN ETON HOUSE, WITH SOME NOTES ON THE EVANS FAMILY, BY MAJOR GAMBIER-PARRY (John Murray, 1907), p. 137). It's definitely worth tracking the book 'Edmond Warre, D.D., C.B., C.V.0' by Charles Robert Leslie Fletcher.
At Henley, of the twenty-eight medals awarded for fours and eights, twenty-seven went to nineteen Etonians, seventeen of whom had been or were then students of Warre.
November 18: TK's uncle, John McClintock (later Baron Rathdonnell) is appointed
Lieutenant of the town of Drogheda (18th Nov) and a Colonel in the Louth
Militia (until his death).
General: Death of TK's youngest sister Isabella McClintock Bunbury in her
23rd year. She is buried alongside her father in the family vault at St.
Mary's Church in Rathvilly.
1867
Reform Act significantly widens the suffrage and disenfranchises more smaller
boroughs.
Abortive raid on Chester Castle. Fenian Rising in Ireland. Rescue of Kelly
from police van in Manchester. Execution of the 'Manchester Martyrs' Allen,
Larkin, and O'Brien.
On 18th November 1867, Lord Rathdonnell was returned as HM Lord Lieutenant for both Louth and Drogheda.
Death of Digby Mackworth Dolben (1848–1867), poet and former Eton classmate of Tom. Tom's housemaster, Dr Warre, became a deacon and priest in 1867. J.J. Hornby became headmaster and Warre loyally supported him for the next seventeen years.
1868
TK obtains his place on the Eton Eleven in 1868 and leaves the school in July.
In November 1934, Tom was described in The Times as ‘almost the only stroke of a winning Ladies Plate crew who weighed less than 10 stone’.
27 February – 1 December: Former Chancellor of the Exchequer Benjamin Disraeli in office as Prime Minister.
First Horse Show held by Royal Dublin Society in Dublin.
August 26: TK's uncle John McClintock celebrates 70th birthday.
December 10: Gladstone becomes British Prime Minister at the head of a Liberal
government. Many consider Gladstone a kindly man, deeply conscious of the
land problem in Ireland. However, TK's grandfather Sir James Stronge thought
so little of Gladstone that he had his white headed skull etched on the
bottom of his favourite lavatory at Tynan Hall.
December 21: TK's uncle John McClintock created Baron Rathdonnell in
the Peerage of Ireland 'in recognition of his services to the Protestant and Conservative causes'. (Webster) The title was granted through a law that allowed
one new peer of Ireland for every three peerages of that kingdom which became
extinct. The preceding peerage created before Rathdonnell was that of Fermoy
in 1856 which had proved such a fiasco many thought the Irish peerage was actually defunct. Although Lord Rathdonnell had no son, 'the title conferred
on this wide-spread and well-connected family will not become extinct, as
there is a special remainder to the sons of his late brother', Captain William
B McClintock Bunbury, RN, MP, the eldest of whom was Thomas Kane McClintock
Bunbury, will succeed. Lord Downshire had recommended him for a peerage
in 1852. Having the elderly and much respected Field Marshall Lord Gough
as your cousin, not to mention the Earl of Clancarty, can only have boosted
his chances. Also, Sir Francis Leopold McClintock was appointed naval aide-de-camp
to Queen Victoria during 1868 and such connections between the McClintock
and Royalty can only have heightened their chances of a peerage. Indeed,
McClintock and his wife met the Prince and Princess of Wales when they came
across for the Punchestown Races. The Marquess of Abercorn was promoted to the Irish Dukedom later in the years.
This would appear to be Tom
Bunbury sporting the uniform
of the 12th Royal Lancers with
whom he served as a young man.
1869 (aged 21)
Gladstone disestablishes Protestant Churches in Ireland.
Sir Joseph Neale McKenna and his co-directors sacked from National Bank of Ireland, leaving debts of nearly £400,000.
March 18 (Thursday): Tom's uncle - erroneously referred to as "Viscount
Rathdonnell" - was one of a hundred nobles and "upwards of
a thousand Deputy Lieutenants, magistrates and country gentlemen"
with Irish connections who signed a letter to The Times protesting
against the proposed disestablishment of the Church of Ireland . He attended
a meeting of the Diocesan Council of Armagh, presided over by the Lord Primate,
and was among those subsequently elected to represent the laity.
April: One of Tom's friends (certainly in later life) was Bache Cunard, heir of the New York shipping magnate whose father died in April 1869. The Illustrated London News (Vol. LIV, June 5, 1869, p.579) published his fathers will as follows: “The will of Sir Edward Cunard, Bart., of the city of New York, where he died, April 6 last, at the age of fifty-three, was proved in London, on the 25th alt., under £300,000 personalty, by his brother, William Cunard, Esq., of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and of St. James's-street, Westminster, the acting executor, power being reserved to his nephew, Charles Gilbert Franklyn, Esq., of New York, also an executor appointed. The will is dated July 18, 1866, and is declared as being made in conformity with and is valid by the laws and Constitution of the United States. The testator was possessed of considerable property in the British provinces, also largely interested in the shares of the British and North American Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company, and in the British and Foreign Steam-Packet Company. He has made a liberal provision for his daughters, and leaves the residue of his property between his three sons—leaving to his eldest son, now Sir Bache Cunard, Bart., a moiety thereof, and to his other sons, Edward and Gordon, the remainder equally between them”.
June 10: Rathdonnell attends another debate on the future of the Church,
presided over by the Duke of Rutland. The issue was discussed over lunch
in Willis's Rooms, London, given by the supporters of the United Church
of England and Ireland.
July 28: TK secures a commission with the Inniskillings (aka the 6th Regiment
of the 6th Dragoons). It would seem that the regiment was then alternating
between the towns of Cahir, Longford, Dundalk, Newbridge and Dublin - with
short stints at York, Brighton and Manchester. The regiments' colonel at the time Tom joined was Lt-Gen. Lewis Duncan Williams. Williams retained the post until
1st August 1874 when succeeded by Gen. Sir Henry Dalrymple White, KCB.
September: Rathdonnell again amongst the more prominent attendees at crisis
talks hosted in Dublin's Molesworth Hall .
Another image of Tom Bunbury
dressed for business.
1870
April 20: Tom, then serving with 12th Royal Lancers, is initiated into Grand
Lodge of Ancient Free & Accepted Masons of Ireland.
May 5: Tom's uncle, the Baron Rathdonnell, appointed Custos Rotorum for Co.
Louth.
May 30: Tom's step-grandmother Lady Elizabeth McClintock celebrates her 90th
birthday.
July: Jack Bunbury leaves Eton.
October 24: At the age of 19, Jack McClintock Bunbury, successfully
matriculates from Brasenose College, Oxford.
Death of TK's 16-year-old sister, Helen McClintock Bunbury. She is buried
alongside her father and sister in the family vault at St. Mary's in Rathvilly.
Lord Rathdonnell makes an important antiquarian discovery at Drumcar in
the shape of Prince Tomar's Sword.
Home Rule movement launched by Isaac Butt.
Gladstone passes the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act - the first attempt
by the British government to address the Irish land question. 'Ulster Custom'
(tenants receiving interest or compensation for improvements they made to
their holdings) was made law. The Act also intends to protect tenants from
being evicted. This was ineffective, but did indicate that the Liberals
were interested in land reform.
TK purchases "Germaines" as a house for the estate agent, I believe.
In 1870, there were three schools in the Rathvilly parish - one at Lisnavagh superintended by Rev S Quintin which seems to have been mixed, and the other two at Bough (one girls, one boys) superidntended by the Rev T.D. Hume (and S. Quintin). List of Schools in Connection with Church Education Society (1870), Volume 28, from Royal Commissioner on Nature and Extent of Instruction by Institutions in Ireland for Elementary or Primary Education, and Working of System of National Education: volume VIII, miscellaneous papers
1871
January: Chichester Fortescure becomes President of the Board of Trade
and Lord Harrington succeeds as Chief Secretary of Ireland.
May 31: TK commissioned as a Lieutenant and is stationed at Plymouth &
Dartmoor. He appears to have been living at Lisnavagh at this time.
December 30: Having graduated from Oxford, TK's brother Jack enlists as
Sub-Lieutenant with 2nd Dragoons.
One Tuesday night, when Tom was a Lieutenant, the Scots Grey's Glee Club convened at the No. 29 Troop Room for an evening of music and readings. Tom's reading of a work called 'The Happy Man' is said to have 'created roars of laughter'. An unacknowledged newspaper account explains, 'Pat Murphy, the hero of the piece, deserts from his regiment in India and is introduced to the audience in the act of washing his shirt, or rather a shirt-front, which Pat simply wears for the 'honour of the service'. Whilst engaged at this he discovers a number of blacks carrying a palaquin, with a princess inside, and a large tiger in pursuit. The men drop the palaquin and seek to save themselves, when Pat shoots the tiger and makes love to the princess, and asks her to become Mrs Murphy. Lieutenant Bunbury described Pat's love scene in a most humorous manner, but when he proceeded to refresh the imaginary Princess with endless rolls of sausages and a large bottle of whiskey produced from the inside of a drum, the laughter was uncontrollable'. The piece came between a comic song by Private Fraser called 'Cliquot - Lutzow's Wild Chase' and another song by Troop -Sergeant Major Masterton called 'The Horn of Chase'. One of the highlights was 'Teatotal Society' sung by Private Boyle. 'God Save the Queen' brought the very pleasant evening to a close. Among those in attendance were Colonel Nugent, Surgeon-Major Stoney, Captain Hozier, Captain Farquhar, Captain Donnithorne, Lieutenant Scott, Lieutenant Bunbury, Lieutenant Wilson (adjt) and Quarter Master Liddle. A footnote explained that the regiment was being exercised daily that week, from 9 - 11am, in out-post duty and scouting under the command of Colonel A Nugent. On Tuesday the regiment was exercised in reconnoitring duty under the command of Captain Hozier (Brigade Major). [From newspaper cutting in the Isabella - Tom diary of 1866].
Another of the ditties they might have sung was this rousing song by a Mr Maclagan:
Lo! The gallant Greys are charging,
For the days o' auld langsyne!
Lo! The gallant Greys are charging,
How bright the hero's brand,
When it flames on high in Freedom's cause,
Or falls for Fatherland!
Lo! The gallant Greys are charging.
Lo! The gallant Greys are charging,
Have ye seen the thunder cloud
Burst its bands of winter terror
When will tempests round it crowd!
So they rent the ring around them,
So they flash'd upon the day!
So the mighty hosts were scattered,
So the monster crowds gave way!
Lo! The gallant Greys are charging,
Lo! The gallant Greys are charging,
Scotland waves her bonnet blue!
Dreams of glory start before her,
Alma heights and Waterloo!
Crown each warrior's brow with bays!
Scotland still can trust her honour
To her sons, the gallant Greys"
Lo! The gallant Greys are charging,
1872
The Lisnavagh Archives (L/3/6) contain an original bundle of bills from 1872-74, submitted to Colonel Kane Bunbury, by Messrs McCurdy & Mitchell, the architects of the wings added to Oak Park, Co. Carlow. These were to pay for 'Mr Corrigan's house on the estate of Colonel Kane Bunbury', as well as for Rathvilly cottages, for Rathvilly glebe-house, for Rathvilly police barracks, etc, and for repairs to the roof of Lisnavagh. So did Colonel Bunbury pay for the construction of all those houses, and were those cottages the ones on Phelan Row (which we thought were built by a housing trust).
On Valentine's Day 1872, a woman I presume to have been Kate Bruen sent Tom a note that read:
Can I ever forget the delight of that day
When the bright shawl was won by the gallant Scots Grey?
I blushed like a "Rose" and my heart gave a sigh,
As I caught the bright flash of his deep "Vi'let" eye,
My "Heartsease" it fled, when I saw the Hussar,
Who stole my poor heart at the Carlow Bazaar!!!
But then there is a rather confusing Valentine message, date and author unknown.
Tommy Bun!
Tommy Bun!
Oh! That you and I were one!
Say but "yes"
And I will bless
The happy visit at C-_rt_n!
Tommy Bun
Tommy Bun
You can play Leap Frog and run,
But can you shine,
My Valentine,
And let me be your own G_rd_n!
What is confusing about this is the double heart with the arrow through
it at the base of the ditty. One heart is initaled 'T.B.' but the other
is 'J.G' so who was that?!
1873
On February 22nd 1873, The Glasgow Herald commended Tom's manners
when he rode out with the Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire Foxhounds
four days earlier. The scarlet sportsmen met at Castlemilk 'where Captain
Stuart dispensed his usual hospitality; after which a move was made to Netherton
braes, where they found at once'. The fox escaped but was eventually
'run to ground in a drain quite close to Old Frams house at Calderwood'.
The author, with the pseudonym of 'Stringhalt' went on to 'condemn that
dreadful system of man-traps, namely running wire through a hedge which
is hardly visible, until you are made aware of the fact by a frightful "cropper".
He goes on to say: 'Captain Bunbury, Scots Greys, who went well, did
a thing I have read about but never heard authenticated. At one of the wire
fences he got off, laid his red coat over the wire and then led his horse
over'. Tom had been among the first up when the fox went to ground,
along with Messrs. Durham Kippen, Peter Whyte, John Reid yr of Gallowflat,
A. Chalmers, Geo. Kidston and Mr Stuart yr.
November 23: Birth of Arthur Thomas Bruen, younger brother of KA Rathdonnell.
Julian Sturgis (1848–1904), the librettist and a former school pal of Tom's from Eton becomes the first American to win an FA Cup Final when he helps Wanderers F.C. triumph.
By 1870 the 'typical' landlord owned about 2,000 acres, but by 1876 less than 800 landlords own half the country, 302 of which owned 33.7 per cent of Irish land. Almost half of the 800 landlords were absentee, in that some were resident outside Ireland with many more resident on other Irish estates (Foster).
Katherine Anne Bruen
married Tom Bunbury
in 1874.
1874
On 1st January 1874, Tom was one of three gentlemen commissioned as Justice of the Peace for Carlow, alongside Sir Clement James Wolsely, Bart, and Samuel Fenton. The commission ran until 1st June 1876. (339 | Return of Number of Gentlemen appointed to Commission of Peace in Ireland, 1874-76).
February 4: TK resigns commission in army in advance of his wedding.
February 17: General Election sees Disraeli's Conservative party return
to government. The election also sees Irish Nationalists in the Home Rule
Party become the first significant third party in Parliament. One considerable
shock to the government comes when Chichester Fortescue, the President of
the Board of Trade, is defeated at the polls. TK's cousin Sir James Stronge
is also defeated. Gladstone took it as a direct indication of the low esteem
in which the Irish held him. Fortesuce, reported The Times, was "the
embodiment of the Irish policy of the government, its guiding spirit and
most active instrument in framing and carrying the "healing measures"
which were expected to cure all the ills of the country".
February 26: Nine days after the General Election, a historic alliance of
two of Carlow's great Anglo-Irish families occurred with the marriage of
26 year old Tom McClintock Bunbury and Katherine Anne Bruen, the eldest
daughter of Henry Bruen of Oak Park, MP. Among the wedding presents they
received were the elaborate clock in the Blue Room at Lisnavagh and a walnut
cabinet presented "To TB" by "Scottie"; the latter currently
houses my father's secret cigar stash and sits on top of a desk made from
the timber of the Samarang!
March 1: Four days after his brothers' wedding,
Jack is made a Lieutenant in the Scots Greys.
February - April: TK and KA on honeymoon. An account of their honeymoon
journal is currently being transcribed.
May 30: Lady Elizabeth McClintock celebrates her 95th birthday.
August 1: General Williams steps down as Colonel of the Inniskillings and
is succeeded by Gen. Sir Henry Dalrymple White, KCB.
August - September: Henry Tudor Parnell conveys a parcel of Wicklow land
to TK in the early autumn.
On 22nd September 1874, Thomas was appointed magistrate for Co. Carlow.
November 4 1874: The Death of Colonel Kane Bunbury
Sad but anticipated death (apparently at Lisnavagh) of Colonel Kane Bunbury in his 97th year. Jack succeeds to Moyle and a number of other estates. An account with James Morris of 140 Tullow Street, Carlow, tells us that the Colonels last bill was for six candles, one box of tea and four sugars amounting to 7 d 7s. The Colonel is buried in the family vault at St. Mary's Church in Rathvilly where Captain McClintock Bunbury lay with his two daughters. The Carlow Sentinel gave him an overtly flowery obituary, mostly abut his cousin Hugh Gough, and described the funeral as follows:
The remains of this universally esteemed gentleman, whose lamented demise we recorded in our last issue, were interred on Thursday last, in the family vault at Rathvilly Church. Notwithstanding the early hour announced for the funeral to leave Moyle (nine o’clock), it was one of the largest that has taken place in this country for many years past, all sections of the community being numerously represented in the morning cortege. Between three and four hundred scarfs and hatbands were distributed amongst the tenantry and employees on the Bunbury estate, most of whom walked in procession before the hearse from Moyle House to the high road, where they filed off and joined the large concourse who followed the remains (which were enclosed in a suit of three coffins) to the Churchyard, a distance of some ten miles by the Tullow Road. The outer coffin was covered with black cloth and bore on plated shield the simple inscription, “COLONEL KANE BUNBURY, died November 4, 1874, aged 97 years”. The Chief mourners were Lord Rathdonnell, Lord Viscount Gough, Mr Thomas M’Clintock Bunbury, Mr John Bunbury, Captain Bunbury (Lisbryan), Mr William Johnson and Mr James Smith. On reaching Rathvilly, the coffin was carried into the church by the tenantry, when the opening portion of this solemn burial service was read by the Rev. Samuel Quinton. It was then borne to the entrance of the family vault, and the remainder of the burial service having been read by the Rev. James P. Garrett, it was lowered to its last resting place. The funeral arrangements were most satisfactorily carried out by Mr. Boake of this town.
November 30: Death of KA's six-year-old brother John Richard Bruen.
December 28: TK and KA have first child, a daughter, the Hon. Isabella (Katharine)
McClintock Bunbury.
1875
March 7: Birth of Charles Bruen, youngest brother to Katherine Anne Rathdonnell.
He passes away unmarried aged 30 in 1905.
General: Charles Stewart Parnell elected MP for County Meath.
General: TKMB becomes a member of the Royal Dublin Society and retains membership
for next 54 years, rising to become its President.
S
Again, I need to confirm whether
this is Katherine Anne Bruen
(later 2nd Lady Rathdonnell)
or her mother-in-law, Pauline
McClintock Bunbury (nee Stronge).
.
1876
Saturday January 1: Death at Lisnavagh of Tom Bunbury's mother, Mrs. Pauline McClintock Bunbury. Accordoing to The Irish Times, she had been 'in delicate health for some time'.
January: The Prince of Wales is taken ill. Upon his recovery, Tom's uncle,
Lord Rathdonnell, convenes a meeting of the magistrates of County Louth
to congratulate the Queen and Princess.
April 21: Birth of Mary Emily ("Mimi") McClintock Bunbury, second
daughter of TK and KA.
May 22: Lord Rathdonnell attends the Queen's Levee at St James's Palace.
General: TK serves as High Sheriff for County Carlow.
1877
May 11: Birth of the Hon. Pauline (Caroline), third and youngest daughter
of TK and KA.
May 30: Death of 97-year-old Lady Elizabeth McClintock, daughter of the
1st Earl
of Clancarty and widow of John McClintock of Drumcar.
June: Spencer Gore, grandson of the Earl of Arran, wins first Men's Singles title at Wimbledon.
Anne Rathdonnell, "a constant student of Prophecy", was convinced that Russia was the "Great Beast" of the Book of Revelations. Her great-nephew, CEC Lefroy, recalled Drumcar scene thus. "In the year 1877, Uncle John was a gentle, very sensitive, lovable old man of nearly 80. His heart's desire has always been for peace and quiet. Of very talkative people he would say, "they would bother a rookery". He was a Conservative to the backbone; a lover of old days and old ways. The social, political and moral changes, which he perceived to be taking place in the World (even then), disturbed him greatly. "Shocking". "Shocking. "Shocking". Were the words which frequently fell from his lips. To me he seemed to take very kindly from the first. For two summers before he died (in May 1879) I spent my holidays at Drumcar. I can well imagine his evident pleasure in tipping me with a half-a-sovereign when he said good bye to me, for what he plainly felt would be the last time of seeing me- and such it proved. [Aunt Anne] had been very handsome in her youth and bore herself with much grace and dignity (also authority) in her old age. She was widely known in County Louth as "Queen Anne". She certainly ruled her domain in a queenly manner. As the eldest member of her family she had always played a great part in its life, for she possessed remarkable will-power and strength of mind. In earlier years she and Uncle John had traveled much on the Continent and had spent several winters in Italy and had moved among intellectual and cultured people. It was her energy and deep political convictions which got Uncle John into Parliament for Count Louth and in the end secured the peerage for him". After Uncle John's death she gave a home for ten years to our sisters Annie and Freda. It was a home with great ideals of life and its responsibilities. The conversation, whether of past, present or future, was always pitched high; always worth listening to. Deeply religious, ready for merriment and hearty laughter; a buoyant, courageous, hopeful nature. All through life she was in touch with interesting people. I remember meeting several times in Chester Square the Hon. Frederica Plunket, famous then as the first woman to climb the Matterhorn, and her sister the Hon. Kate Plunket, now equally famous for having lived 112 years. It must be gratefully recorded that during her ten years of widowhood Aunt Rathdonnell saved no less than £80,000, which she distributed very widely among various nephews and nieces, a wonderful boon and blessing to them all".
Robert Watson was one of
the great huntsmen of the
Victorian Age. In 1878, Tom's
brother Jack Bunbury
married
Watson's daughter Myra.
Winter 1877: Lord Rathdonnell listed as a subscriber to the Turkish Compassionate Fund, established by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts as a relief fund for the Mohammedan victims of the Turko-Russian war, who, driven out of their homes, sought refuge in Constantinople, the capital of their monarch, the sultan.
1878
September 11: Jack
Bunbury marries Elizabeth Myra Watson, daughter of Robert Watson
of Ballydarton, Co. Carlow.
September 15: Birth of a son for TK and KA, William McClintock Bunbury.
(The writer Lord Dunsany was born in 1878 and educated at Eton- that makes
him a contemporary of Billy).
Parnell attends first meeting of the Land League in Tullow. The League was
formed to obtain the three Fs: Fair Rent, Free Sale and Fixity of Tenure.
1879
May 17: Death of 79-year-old John McClintock, 1st Lord Rathdonnell
May 17: TK McClintock Bunbury succeeds his uncle as 2nd Baron Rathdonnell.
The size of his Irish estates subsequently increase to 18,923 acres (g.an.val.
£15,400). Broken down into counties, this comprises of Carlow (8058),
Louth (3000), Tyrone (2886), Fermanagh (2600), Meath (1215), Monaghan (1006),
Dublin (600) and Kildare (558). Tom's brother Jack has a further 3098 acres
at Moyle (g. an. Val. £2741). Tom's father-in-law Henry Bruen was
the largest landowner in Carlow with 16, 477 acres in the county, as well
as 6932 acres in Wexford and 218 acres in Kildare bringing his total to
23,627 acres (gr.an.val. £17, 481).
June: Vere St Leger Goold loses to Rev Hartley in Men's Final at Wimbledon. In 1907, he is arrested and convicted of murder.
During the 1870s and 1880s, Tom Bunbury became well known as one of the
greatest cattle breeders in the British Isles.
Anchor, his prize shorthorn bull, swept the awards across Ireland, Scotland
and England in 1879.
Tuesday 1st July: Lord Rathdonnell watched Lisnavagh's prize shorthorn
bull Anchor compete at the Royal Agricultural Society's Show at Kilburn.
The show took place on a sun-swept afternoon enabling the men and women
to walk directly on the hard clay ground rather than on the sleepers and
planks of wood laid out in paths. A week earlier the place had been so muddy
that "a witness of wide experience testified that the slough of
despond at Kilburn exceeded the muddy battlefields of Balaklava".
The showground was a riot of colour and noise with visitors pouring in to
see the latest mechanical inventions - traction engines. Cattle and horses
were herded between it all. Jersey dairy cows. The Danish Butter show. The
British Beekeepers Association. The Prince and Princess of Wales were in
attendance. So too was the brilliantly named Russian ambassador, his Excellency
Count Schouvaloff, who had made such an impact at the Congress of Berlin
the previous year. The first RAS show took place at Battersea in 1862 drawing
1,986 livestock entries from 535 exhibitors. At Kilburn in 1879 there were
2,874 entries from 809 exhibitors, including 46 animals of foreign breed.
These included 179 shorthorns, 63 Herefords, 53 Devons, 95 Sussex as well
as numerous Longhorns, Kerry, Welsh, Scotch, Suffolk, Norfolk and numerous
dairy cattle. But the greatest turn out of all was the 302 cattle sent over
from Jersey and Guernsey. Also present were 777 sheep, 716 horses, 18 mules,
9 asses and unknown quantities of pig, goat and poultry. Judging the 313
classes were 125 gentlemen, including a number of foreign judges. Everything
was there to be judged - butter, bacon, ham, cheese, cider, hops, honey,
railway meat-wagons, mechanical inventions, market gardens, sewage farms.
The Shorthorn class was the highlight of the opening day. The judges were
G. Drewry of Holker, Lancashire, A. Mitchell of Alloa, Scotland and Richard
Chaloner of King's Fort, Co. Meath. It was onto this contest that Anchor
walked. The problem was, Chaloner himself had bred Anchor from his own famous
herd. And he had sold it to Rathdonnell! As such, Chaloner stepped down
as judge and left it to his colleagues. The correspondent for The Times
breathlessly takes up the tale. "Seventeen bulls above three years
old took no little time in adjudication; the contest ended in Mr W. Linton's
lengthy old roan, "Sir Arthur Ingham", the hero of any number
of showyards but now gone to pieces at the age of 7 ½ years, receiving
his last Royal notice in the shape of a commendation; Mr. John Outhwaite's
grand "Royal Windsor", at the venerable age of 10 ½ years
taking the 4th prize, the Earl of Ellesmere's "Attractive Lord"
being placed third, though beaten by a still finer beast, Mr David Willis's
"Rear Admiral" which stands second in the class, while clearly
ahead of all is Lord Rathdonnell's "Anchor" from county Carlow,
thus scoring an honour for Ireland".
Late July: Anchor went on to win first prize at the Highland Show.
August: Anchor sweeps the prize from the Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland
at Newry. And so Anchor returned to Lisnavagh, the most prized bullock in
an Empire on whose ass the sun never sank.
July 24: The Lord Chancellor reported to the House of Lords that the claim
of the new (and by now prize-winning) Baron Rathdonnell "to vote at
the elections of representative peers for Ireland had been established to
his satisfaction".
August: Michael Davitt founds the Land League of Mayo in Castlebar. New agricultural
depression setting in and organised land agitation on the rise. This paved
the October: Foundation of the Irish National Land League. Rural disturbances
began to increase dramatically in the Irish countryside.
August – Lord R, joins Bruen, Pack-Beresford, W. Johnson of Prumplestown, T. Burgess and others in exhibiting and prize winning at 34th annual Tullow Show amid ‘very gloomy surroundings’.
General: TK starts as Steward of the Horse Show at a time when shows held
in courtyard of Leinster House.
Lisnavagh House with what was known as the Lord's Lamborghini parked outside.
1880
January: After his hugely successful year with Anchor, Tom subscribed to
the Duchess of Marlborough's Relief Fund for the distressed of Ireland.
The following year, the Duchess staged a version of Gilbert and Sullivan's
bright operetta Pinafore at Dublin Castle to raise money for the fund. A
witness reported that "on the whole the undertaking was very creditable
to all engaged in it …the sisters, cousins, and aunts were recruited
from the prettiest girls".
September: Growing confrontation between tenants and agents over unfair
rents and evictions leads to celebrated and novel strategy was the ostracism
or "boycotting" of its Captain Boycott, a land agent on Achill
Island. Parnell's support for boycotting is seen as advocating a constitutional
alternative to widespread violence.
General: TK served two years as Chairman of the RDS Committee of Agriculture
when the Society first purchased the land at Ballsbridge.
General: The Land War begins as a protest against the high cost of rent
during an agricultural depression. Agrarian 'outrages' rise to three times
the normal average in the years 1880-82 (though the vast majority of incidents
consisted of acts of intimidation such as sending threatening letters, rather
than acts of violence). On average there were seventeen murders per year
of landlords and their associates during the land war, as well as acts of
violence such as cattle maiming. According to Murphy, however, much of the
successes of the agitation came from peaceful actions rather than violence.
(James H Murphy) .
General Election, the Liberals, led by the fierce oratory of retired former
Liberal leader WE Gladstone trounce Disraeli's Torys at the Poll and Gladstone
again becomes Prime Minister.
On 25th March 1880, Arthur McMurrough Kavanagh was appointed Lieutetant for Carlow, with Tom as one of his magistrates.
1881
General: Gladstone, who returned to power in 1880, passes Land Act which guarantees 'the 3 Fs'. The first phase of the land war duly ends with the introduction of what turned out to be the unstable notion of dual ownership of land by landlords and tenants. Although this was an improvement on the 1870 Act it was still a disappointment to the tenants and the League. Fixity of tenure was dependant on the payment of rent but tenants who were behind on their rent were not covered under the terms of the Act. The League was not satisfied with the limited delivery on 'the 3 Fs' in the 1881 Land Act and insisted on full peasant ownership. As Herbert Remmell wryly observed in his memoir 'From Cologne to Ballinlough', there were no peasants in Ireland by the end of the 19th century. '[The British] would only tolerate the existence of poor tenants, not peasants with land and property rights".
Thursday January 27: Tom Bunbury attending the fourth annual meeting of the Dublin Branch of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in the hall of the King and Queen's College of Physicians. Robert McDonnell, MD, was in the chair while Tom's great-uncle Alfred H McClintock, MD, sometime Master of the Rotunda, was one of the main players of the night. Alfred died that same autumn. See: THE BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL, Feb. 5, I881.
February 3: Birth of Thomas Leopold McCB, 3rd Baron Rathdonnell, and great-grandfather of Turtle Bunbury.
March: Spring Show at RDS celebrates 50 years with first shows held at Ballsbridge.
Tom still Chairman of RDS Agriculture Committee at this time.
April 5: A census of the population of Dublin reveals the number of inhabitants
within the Municipal Borough as 249,486, inhabiting 24,261 houses.
April 19: Death of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beconsfield.
May 5: KA formerly presented to Queen Victorian by Viscountess Gough to
receive congratulations on her new status as Lady Rathdonnell. The presentation
took place in the drawing room at Buckingham Palace on a sunny Thursday
afternoon.
May 13: A tenant of the Rathdonnells by name of Sarah McCaron is evicted
for non-payment of rent.
May 23: Two weeks later, the Prince of Wales held a Levee at St. James's
Palace on his mothers behalf. Tom attended and was formerly presented to
the future monarch by his colleague from the Freemasons, the Earl of Donoughmore.
The entire peerage and every foreign ambassador seems to have been present
that day - with the exception of the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador who was
presumably tied up signing the new Triple Alliance with Italy and Germany,
designed as a counterweight to the growing power of France and Russia.
May 25: Some of Dublin's streets are lit for the first time. The times were
changing fast.
June 18: I assume Tom remained in London for the two weeks after the Prince's
levee at St. James's. He was certainly there on the evening of Saturday
June 18th 1881 to celebrate the bicentennial of the 2nd Dragoon of the Royal
Scots Greys at the Albion on London's Aldersgate Street. The regiment was
raised in 1681. He is listed in The Times as the sixth most senior man present
after the Duke of Teck, Major von Vietinghoff (military attaché to
Germany), General Darby Griffith, Filed Marshall Lord Strathairn and the
Earl of Dunmore. The band and pipers of the regiment were in attendance
and performed throughout the evening.
June 25: The following Friday both Tom and Kate attended a State Ball given
by the Queen at Buckingham, dancing quadrilles and polkas in the company
of Britain's most eminent princes, statesmen, military heroes, ambassadors
and nobles.
October 13: Parnell is imprisoned in Kilmainham for inciting people to intimidate
tenants taking advantage of the Land Act. The Land Wars have been dominating
Irish affairs for several months. The Land League is suppressed and outlawed.
An auxiliary organization, the Ladies' Land League, steps into its place.
October 16: Fierce rioting breaks out in Dublin after the arrest of John
Dillon, M.P., and other Land Leaguers.
October 21: Five days after the Dublin riots, Viscount Masserene convenes
a meeting of kindred spirits in Dundalk to ponder the matter. Unable to
attend in person, the Rathdonnells dispatch their agent to hear what is
said.
November 1: Tom Rathdonnell singled out as one of the Ulster landlords who was 'prepared to accept that tenants, many still burdened by debts and arrears, could not yet resume their full rantal obligations'. As such he offers 'an unsolcited abatement of 50% on the gale of rent due on 1 November'. (The End of Liberal Ulster, Frank Thompson).
Wednesday 28 December: Death of Captain D.W.P. Pack-Beresford (1818-1881).
‘DEATH OF CAPT. DENIS WILLIAM PATRICK PACK-BERESFORD Esq. D.L., J.P.of Fenagh House, Carlow.
The death [aged 63] of Capt. Denis Pack- Beresford took place last week at his residence Fenagh House,Carlow. We regret having to add his name to the obituary list of this year the death of the above estimable gentleman, which took place, rather suddenly, on Wednesday night last.
He had been suffering from an acute attack of gout which he appeared to have surmounted ; but that dread enemy was only momentarily baffled , for, it returned on the morning of Wednesday last , and put a sudden termination to the life of this widely-known and popular gentleman. He succumbed to an attack of apoplexy shortly before mid-night. He was the second son of the distinguished Peninsular officer, the late Major-General Sir Denis Pack, K.C.B. (who five times received the thanks of Parliament for his military services), his mother was the Lady Elizabeth Louisa la Poer Beresford, daughter of George, First Marquis of Waterford.
Denis was born on the 7th July 1818 and assumed, by Royal License, the additional name of Beresford in March 1854, in compliance with the will of his godfather and relative William Carr, Field Marshal Viscount Beresford, G.C.B. by virtue of which he had succeeded to that nobleman's estates in Carlow.
In 1858 he was appointed Deputy-Lieutenant and Justice of the Peace and served the office of High Sheriff for Carlow county. In 1862 on the retirement of Capt.W.K. McClintock Bunbury he was elected Member of Parliament for Carlow in the Conservative interest, he was re-chosen at the General Election of 1865.
On the 12th February 1863 he married Annette Caroline, only daughter of Robert Clayton Browne, Esq. D.L. of Browne's Hill, and Harriette Augusta Hamilton, by whom he leaves a youthful family of seven sons and two daughters.
Capt. Denis Pack-Beresford was educated at the Royal Academy, Woolwich, he received his commission in 1836 and commenced his career in the Royal Artillery. On the breaking out of the Crimean War he volunteered for active service and was appointed extra aide-de-camp to General Cator and accompanied that officer to the East.
On his return to Carlow he retired from the service to devote himself to the duties of his property as resident landlord. In every relation of life he was highly esteemed and his loss as an improving resident landlord, a liberal employer and generous benefactor of the poor, will be long and severely felt and especially in the locality of Fenagh, which he raised from a condition of wretchedness to comfort and prosperity. Like most country gentlemen, the deceased was an active votary of all field sports, and in the racing world was well known on both sides of the St. George's Channel.
The remains of this lamented gentleman were interred in Lorum churchyard. The funeral which left Fenagh House shortly after noon was one of the largest that has taken place in the county for many years, the immense gathering , composed of men of all classes and creeds. Following a portion of the solemn funeral service held in Fenagh House which was read by the Rev. T.G.J. Phillips, Rector of Fenagh, the mournful cortege which extended fully a mile proceeded to Lorum, which was reached about two-clock. The coffin was brought into the church where the service was read by the Very Rev. the Dean of Leighlin and the Rev. Canon Finlay.
The remains were encased in a suit of three coffins, the outer one of polished oak with gilt mountings, and bearing the simple inscription of the name, age, and date of death. It was laden with wreaths and immortelles, prepared by loving hands and placed there by relatives present and others were sent by the following, who were unable to attend :- Mr and Mrs Clayton-Browne, Mrs William Clayton-Browne, Lady Burton, Mrs Reynell Pack, Mrs Arthur Elliott, Mrs James Anson Farren, Sir William Reynell Anson, Algernon H. Anson, Esq. R,N. (nephews) Miss Ada Newton and Mrs William Vesey.' (From the Bunbury Papers, transcribed by Jean Casey on behalf of Michael Purcell).
December 31: (Saturday) 1881 concludes with a court case. A tenant named Sarah McCaron takes Tom to the Land Commissioners Court. Mrs. McCaron was evicted for non-payment of rent on May 13th which is approximately when Tom was being introduced to Queen Victoria. She subsequently took "forcible possession" of a cabin on the land. She still owed four years of rent, about £76. Tom offered her £20 if she gave up. Judge O'Hagan said this was "a hopeless case" and advised Mrs. McCaron to accept Tom's offer and clear out. The outcome remains unknown.
View towards the Pigeon Park at Lisnavagh.
1882
January 4: Four days after the McCaron Case, TK attends what is to be one
of the greatest gatherings of the Irish aristocracy and landed gentry ever
known - "the rank and educated intelligence of the country as well
as the property" as The Times pompously put it. The meeting
took place in the Exhibition Palace on Dublin's Earlsfort Terrace and was
presided over by the Duke of Abercorn. More than 3000 showed up to yell
out "hear hear" and roar out three cheers and generally protest
against the way the sub-commissioners were implementing Gladstone's Land
Act in Ireland. Some landlords stated that they had supported the Land Act
on the premise that it would not be unjust or arbitrary. But there had been
too many cases that went against the interest of the landlords to justify
their continuing support. The meeting concluded with Sir George Colthurst
urging the attendees to organize and combine in defense of their rights,
dramatically stating that by unity they had a chance of winning for otherwise
they would lose forever. concluded with everyone singing "God Save
the Queen" to the accompaniment of an organ. There is a detailed
report of this meeting in The Times and what the likes of Arthur
Kavanagh, the Earl of Dartey and the Marquis of Waterford said but maybe
one can find a potted version elsewhere.
May: Kilmainham Treaty offers end to agrarian violence and Parnell is released
from prison. He promises to discourage violence among Land Leaguers and
the government agreed to extend the terms of the 1881 Act.
General: The Irish National League was founded in 1882 to take the place
of the now outlawed Land League.
May 6: Lord Frederick Cavendish, British Secretary for Ireland, and his
secretary Thomas Henry Burke, are stabbed to death by the "Invincibles"
in Phoenix Park.
June 21: On the night of the summer solstice, the Rathdonnells attends their
second State Ball at Buckingham Palace given by the Queen. Mr. Liddell's
Orchestra performed for the guests.
October 2: Elizabeth Myra McClintock Bunbury gives birth to a son for Jack,
christened Geoffrey.
October 8: Parnell summons a conference at Avondale and launched the Irish
National League. The passage of the 1881 Land Act and his release from Kilmainham
had led to the disbanding of the original outlawed Land League. However,
it soon emerged that the Land Act was unsatisfactory as it had only addressed
the issue of Fair Rents. The new League shifted its emphasis from land reform
to Home Rule. Although the idea of national independence meant little to
the tenant farmers, both Parnell and Davitt believed that the Land War and
the end of landlordism was a step on the way to their ultimate aim - national
independence. This is an indication of the relationship between the land
question and the national question.
General: Jack Bunbury was wrapped up in the Fenelon affair.
Tom's eldest daughter Isabella
went on to marry Forrester
Colvin and was mother to Dame
Mary Colvin, Director of the
Women's Royal Army Corps.
1883
In 1883, alienated shareholders of the Munster Bank began a whispering campaign against certain directors who were said to be helping themselves to huge unsecured loans. Chairman William Shaw brazenly declared: ‘I never in my life bought £500 worth of speculative security; anything I have ever bought, I bought to keep’. However, it soon emerged that Shaw had received a personal loan of £80,000, more than double that of all the other directors combined. He and the other directors had also received excessively generous dividends. Shaw’s resignation in 1884 coincided with the public acknowledgment that the bank did indeed have substantial long-standing bad debts. The Munster Bank was rescued by Cork brewing magnate JJ Murphy, who reincarnated it as the Munster & Leinster Bank which, in 1966, was subsumed into Allied Irish Bank.
January: TKMB is embroiled in the land controversy when his agent, Mr.
Gillespie, is accused of robbing "struggling tenants in Omagh of
every last farthing" in a time of great hardship. "It is
conduct such as this which has brought landlords in this country into such
disrepute and detestation. There is no mill on the property to grind corn
nor game or fish to take, not a pounds worth of timber. Still, this arbitrary
and grasping spirit cannot bear to even allow the smallest benefit to the
tenants who have emptied their pockets of every six pence demanded".
I don't know who wrote this or how serious the accusations were but the
original may be in one of the Archive boxes at Lisnavagh.
May 21: Queen Victoria hosts another Drawing Room at Buckingham. This time
Kate Rathdonnell presents her cousin Mrs. John Conolly to the Queen.
September 23: The Irish National League hold a second meeting in Tullow,
presided over by Patrick Hanlon with Patrick Kelly of Tullow proposing.
Hanlon opened the meeting by referring to the decline of landlordism in
Ireland and pleaded for the public to support the Irish Parliamentary Party
in the upcoming elections. Speakers included O'Dwyer Grey (MP for Carlow), Charles Dawson (Lord Mayor of Dublin and MP for Carlow) and Joseph Biggar. The Catholic clergy (including the Rev. M. Brennan of Rathvilly) took a
very active part in the formation and direction of the Carlow branches of
the INL. In relation to these meetings it should be recalled that the editorials
of contemporary issues of The Nationalist and Leinster Times gave
their unconditional support to the ideals of the INL.
1884
February 18: A fund-seeking advertisement in The Times states that Tom's aunt, the Dowager Lady Rathdonnell, was on the committee for St Agatha's Convalescent Home in Shoreditch, Hastings. Countess Cowper was patron of the place. Two years later, these Evangelical women managed to secure the devoutly religious Charles Latimer Marson as their curate the following year.
GAA founded in Hayes Hotel, Thurles.
1885
April 1885 (from the PPP): 'On Saturday last, April 11th, Mr Jameson, Sub-Sheriff for Carlow, accompanied by his bailiffs and protected by a strong guard of police, visited the townland of Kilcloney, near Borris to seek possession from Mrs Anne Waters of her farm., in pursuance of a decree obtained by Mr Beresford the landlord for the recovery of a hanging gale. This hanging gale had been on the estate for more than a century and a half and was in existence long before the property came into the possession of the present landlord. Amongst those present were Joe Delany, a well known bailiff from Borris and an underling of Mr Beresfords named Burke who distinguished themselves throughout be their insolence and impertinence. The sub-sheriff arrived at noon and proceeded to take possession of the premises by having the furniture removed from the dwelling house. After part of the effects had been brought out , Mrs Waters, being advised by her friends that she had done all that was necessary as a protest, she satisfied the landlords claim by paying the money due. The proceedings were attended by a large crowd of local people with a contingent of horsemen present and the scene was also graced by the presence of a number of ladies.
The Rev. W.P. Bourke, who was loudly cheered, then addressed the assembled crowd - - He stated that he did not think it well that they should separate without protesting formally against the outrageous treatment that Mrs Waters had been subjected to.
Young Mr Beresford came of age a few weeks ago and his first introduction to his tenantry there was through the sheriff , who had come to eject Mrs Waters not because she was unable to meet all just demands on rent etc but because she had refused to pay the hanging gale which was due before Mr Beresford was born, or before Mr Beresford owned a piece of land in Kilcloney. The father of the present Mr Beresford was dead, and as they were told to say nothing of the dead except what was good, and as he had nothing good to say about the late Capt. Beresford he would extend to him the charity of silence.
From this day on , he said, the Beresford family will be known as "Hanging-gale Beresford". "I tell the people" he continued, "that they need not be particularly squeamish as to what means they would adopt to stop fox-hunting by the landlords on their land". Mr M. Waters thanked the people for coming out to support them. The gathering then dispersed cheering for Mrs Waters and the Irish National League.'
April 1 - 7: The Prince and Princess of Wales make their first visit to
Ireland in 17 years. They bring their young son Prince Edward with them.
There's an outstanding account of the occasion in The Times. After
lunch the 16th Lancers escorted the Royal Couple down Nassau Street, Merrion
Square and Mount Street to the RDS showgrounds at Ballsbridge where TK was
part of a fine aristocratic gathering headed up by the Duke and Duchess
of Leinster, the crowds waving handkerchiefs and cheering all the way.
June 26: The Rathdonnells once again attended the State Ball at Buckingham.
November 24 - December 18: General Election in UK.
General: Edward Gibson, later Lord Ashbourne and Lord Chancellor of Ireland,
pushed through the Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act whereby the Government
would offer up to £5 million to enable tenants o borrow the whole
purchase price for their holdings.
Lord Randolph Churchill (1849–1894), former school freind of Tom's from Eton, becomes Secretary of State for India, 1885–1886.
1886
From "Carlow History and Society" (Editor, Dr. Thomas
McGrath, ISBN 978-0-906602-386]: 'In mid-January 1886 the Freeman's Journal reported that four tenants of Lord Rathdonnell, three of whom had been served with civil bills for six months rent, met land agent Mr. Johnson and offered him the rents less a reduction of 15 per cent and law costs involved in achieving the reductions. Johnson refused to take the rents stating that he could not agree to the reductions. Tenant John Nolan told him cattle were making half what they were getting three years earlier. Johnson had a rather different view of the reasons for their refusal to pay their rents at the normal rates ---------
The times are not so bad at all. There is a little depression to be sure, but if you would drop your leaguing, subscribing to the Land League and other funds, and keep out of the public house, you would be able to pay your rents and be better off. It's the Land Leauge may be blamed for this work.
Fr. John Phelan, parish priest of Rathvilly, took up the tenants' cause in a letter to the Freeman's Journal where he stated that the application by both classes of tenants for the 15% reduction had met with an obstinate determined non possumus. Lord Rathdonnell's conduct in this respect contrasted very unfavourably with the action of Earl Fitzwilliam and Lord Bessborough towards their tenants on almost adjoining estates, those benevolent noblemen having given reductions to their respective tenants of all creeds and classes without any exceptions or reservations whatecer of from 20 to 50 per cent.
Fr. Phelan was caustic in his criticism of Lord Rathdonnell stating that the paltry abatement of 15 per cent scarcely entitled his lordship to take rank in public estimation among the kind and indulgent landlords of the country.
But, sir, it is consoling to know that the days of heartless, unsympathetic landlordism are numbered and it soon will become as extinct as the dodo. Under the fostering care of a paternal Legislature the tenants' interests will be protected and the landlord's power for working evil be effectually destroyed'.
27 March 1886: Carlow Sentinel reports on a large gathering in Rathvilly for the unveiling and blessing of a statue of St Patrick, designed by Hague of Dublin and built in the studio of Pearse & Sharpe in Dublin, given to Rathvilly by the workmen on the Tullow & Baltinglass line of the railway.
1 June: Rathvilly and Tullow Railway Stations open.
November 17: Marriage of Henry Bruen of Oak Park (brother to Katherine
Anne, Lady Rathdonnell) to Agnes Mary McMurrough, youngest daughter of the
Incredible Art MacMurrough Kavanagh, MP, of Borris House.
That same year, Henry Bruen is elected High Sheriff of Co. Carlow.
Musical recitals instituted at Royal Dublin Society.
On Tuesday September 14th 1886 an advertisement in The Times stated
that "LADY RATHDONNELL highly RECCOMMENDS her experienced NORTH GERMAN
GOVERNESS who will shortly be disengaged. French, music and usual English
subjects. Address: Fraulein Moller, Lisnavagh, Tullow, Co. Carlow".
Presumably young Billy was learning German?
Historian Sir Henry Maxwell Lyte (1848–1940), a former school mate of Tom's from Eton, becomes Deputy Keeper of the Public Records (until 1926).
Lord Randolph Churchill (1849–1894), former school freind of Tom's from Eton, becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1886–1887.
1886: Landlordism in Borris: 'On Monday last Mr Jameson, Sub-Sheriff of Carlow, accompanied by a force of twelve police under the command of Sub-Inspector Joy, proceeded to Borris to sell a horse the property of Mrs Anne Watters of Kilcloney, which had been previously seized. The seizure was made to realise a sum of 10 pounds which at the request of the landlord R.W. Pack-Beresford granted at the Courthouse, Carlow.
The history of Mrs Watters' persecution by the landlord ever since she dared to go into the land court to have a fair rent fixed is extraordinary, and shows an insane desire by the landlord to ruin a respectable, industrious tenant. In the year 1884 Mrs Watters had a fair rent fixed on her farm. In 1885 Mrs Watters offered the half year's rent due but it was refused by the agent Mr Fitzherbert of Abbeyleix and payment was demanded of the old hanging gale which had been running on the farm for upwards of 200 years.
Mrs Watters and her son Michael refused to yield to this unjust demand, and in the month of April their cattle were seized and sold by the sheriff. In 1886 a year's rent was again demanded and the tenant refused to pay that amount on account of the hanging-gale, which had been extorted. Legal proceedings were again taken and the interest in the farm was put up for sale in March of this present year. The farm was bought in for the tenant by another person and a years rent paid to the sheriff. The sheriff's costs amounted to 10 pounds to recover this cost a horse was seized on the understanding that it would be sold at a sale in Borris. The horse, which is a fine animal, was ridden by a boy into Borris. Both horse and boy were profusely decorated with green ribbons. Immediately behind the horse was led a donkey bearing on his back a grotesque figure dressed in full hunting costume. The figure was designed to typify landlordism but many said the makers of the figure were too flattering to that group. The rider of the horse and his queer-looking companion were met outside the town by the Borris Brass Band and escorted up and down the street. Meanwhile news was received that the sheriff and auctioneer , Mr George Wilson, had decided to sell the horse at a sale to be held on the farm at Kilcloney . On hearing this Rev. W.P.Bourke and Michael Watters and a large crowd proceeded to Kilcloney to demand that the sale be held in Borris. The sale was then cancelled.
The gathering was then addressed by Rev. W.P.Bourke who was received with cheers. He said that he had been out all morning although he was suffering from a severe cold. He said that Beresford was only hurting himself by making such an unjust demand for a hanging gale that was not called for for 40 or 50 years before. All opposition must be directed against "Hanging-gale Beresford" he declared. Mr P. Murphy proposed thanks to Mrs Anne Watters and her son Michael for having so courageously, now for the third time, faced the greedy landlord "Hanging-gale Pack-Beresford".
Mr J.C. Breen said the name Pack-Beresford sounded bad and if ever a name stunk in the nostrils of any right thinking Irishman it was the name of Pack-Beresford for he had attempted to sell out Mrs Watters farm and make her family quit the country.
Michael Watters then addressed the meeting , he thanked all present for
their support and the countrymen in America and Australia who were sending over large sums of money to the National League to support the downtrodden for victory.
If there was one spot more than another in all Ireland where the people should be united for the overthrow of landlordism it should be in Carlow. There is not a place in Ireland that has suffered so much from landlords. It was here that the saddest scenes ever witnessed were made manifest. They could all recall the days of Charley Doyne who spread desolation over the entire country, he drove thousands of souls out without a home or shelter. From the hillsides of the White Mountains, to St. Mullins and Marley and through Slyguff and Kilcloney.
Today we have another Charley --Mr Charley Thorpe to do the landlords dirty work.
The meeting then broke up but before doing so they dragged the landlord effigy" from the donkey and after being deluged with paraffin oil was set
fire to and reduced to ashes.' (PPP)
1887
29 January: The Dublin newspaper known as The Union is founded. The Unionist newspaper's goals were stated in its first edition as "A Journal devoted to the maintenance of the Union in the three kingdoms."
Feburary 10: The Right Honourable Arthur McMurrough Kavanagh, P.C., Lieutenant of the county of Carlow, has, with the approval of his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, appointed Denis R. Pack-Beresford, Esq. of Fenagh Lodge to be a Deputy Lieutenant for that county. (From the Carlow Sentinel).
March 1: Queen Victorian holds another Levee at St. James's Palace. The Earl of Morton, who had lately succeeded to the title, was presented to the Queen by his friend, Lord Rathdonnell. The Earl had married Helen Ponsonby two years earlier which may be the origin of their connection.
Foxhunt at Lisnevagh: ' Tuesday March 5th [1887] saw the Carlow and Island Hounds at Lisnevagh, the seat of Lord Rathdonnell, and though his lordship has this winter abandoned the hunting saddle for the deck of his yacht he will , I am sure, be pleased to read how we found a smart fox in the laurels of the pleasure grounds; how he took us past the farm, and, running inside the demesne wall, with the field pounding alongside on the road, at last elected to leave at the Tallow [SIC] extremity of the demesne; how we hunted him merrily to the railway, ran parallel to it for a time, and then, inclining to the left, marked him to ground near Tankardstown cross roads, after a cheery twenty five minutes, over a good country. (Transcribed from a Copybook by Michael Purcell)
March 7: The Times publishes a series of articles on "Parnellism and Crime" between March 7, 1887 to April 17, 1888 accusing Charles Stewart Parnell of involvement in illegal activities, in particular, involvement of the 1882 Phoenix Park Murders. A special commission, known as the "Times Commission", is proposed by Lord Frederick Cavendish to investigate the allegations, as well as investigate links between the Home Rule party and the Fenians, eventually proving the letters forgeries written by Richard Pigott in 1890.
March 29th: The Irish Crimes Act of 1887 is introduced by Rathdonnell's former Eton colleague Arthur Balfour in response to the boycott of certain landlords by their tenants (led by the National Land League), suspending the right to trial of people suspected of involvement in the boycott. The Crimes Act was passed in September, despite protests from Liberal and Home Rule Members of Parliament, and would continue until 1890. Balfour becomes Chief Secretary later enacting the policy of "killing Home Rule with kindnes".
April 19: Gladstone delivers his speech on 'The Irish Question'.
Tuesday May 18: Rathdonnells attend another State Ball at Buckingham at which Henry Tinney's orchestra unleashed the quadrilles, valses and polkas.
June 26: The highest temperature ever recorded in Ireland, 33.3C (91.9F) at Kilkenny Castle.
The 1887 Land Act, an extension of the Ashbourne Act of 1885, is passed by Parliament.
The period of rent set by the Land Court is reduced to 3 years.
According to census records 69,084 emigrate from Ireland to the United States.
The Plan of Campaign starts its first phase as tenant farmers begin withholding rent from landlords.
September: Birth of Henry Arthur Bruen, son and heir to Henry and Agnes
Bruen of Oak Park, and nephew to the Rathdonnells. He is to be their only
surviving child.
A REPRESENTATIVE PEER: PRONI refers to largely duplicated letter of 16 September 1887 from Lord Rathdonnell, Lisnavagh, Rathvilly, Co. Carlow, to Lord Belmore asking for his support in the next vacancy but one in the Representative Peers lists. 'In consequence of the sad death of Lord Doneraile, there is a vacancy among the representative peers of Ireland. Lord Kingston and Lord Wicklow were selected as the next two candidates for election, and one of them will now be elected in the room of Lord Doneraile, leaving only one name on the selected list. I venture therefore to ask for your vote and support after Lords Kingston and Wicklow have been elected representative peers. I am a Conservative in politics, in what I consider the true sense of the word, namely, a constitutionalist and a Unionist, in favour of such judicious reforms as may from time to time be necessary to adjust and harmonise the principles of firm government with individual liberty. I am sensible of the important responsibilities at the present time resting on a member of the Upper House of Parliament, and if by your kind aid I succeed in obtaining a seat, I shall endeavour to justify the trust you repose in me.I may say that I am habitually a resident in Ireland.'
First All-Ireland hurling finals takes place.
November: Opening of new St Patrick Church in Rathvilly. The original chapel in Rathvilly was a large old slated building built by Father Wall in 1785 and was still in use as a national school in 1883. It ceased to be used with the opening of the new church, ‘after which it was demolished and the building materials utilized for parochial purposes’. A list of all those living in the USA who subscribed to the building can be found here on Carlow Rootsweb. Jack Langton of Carlow Rootsweb gave an entertaining anecdote about how his great-grandfather was
asked to help solicit funds for a new Catholic church in Moneenroe. As he knew
everyone, he decided he would ask of both Catholic and Protestant alike. Should a
non-Catholic demur, he would then ask if they would like to contribute to a
fund to tear down the old Catholic church.
1887 Land Act, an extension of the Ashbourne Land Act, allows for excluded leaseholders into the system set up two years previous.
1888
August: Dublin Horse Show involves more than a thousand mostly Irish-bred
horses. It is the largest and possibly the best show the RDS had yet hosted
with hundreds of huntsmen from England coming across to purchase good Irish
hunters. Tom entered a mare by Revenge into the 4 year old hunting fillies
class and came second to Mr. Donovan.
General: TK elected to the Committee of the Royal Dublin Society.
Jack the Ripper on the loose in London.
Disastrous GAA tour to the USA coincides with Harrison's victory over Cleveland in US elections.
See: Miscellaneous County Carlow Inscriptions extracted from : Journal for the Preservation of the Memorials of the Dead in Ireland, 1888.(Thanks to Terry Curran).
Lisnavagh House @ James Fennell.
1889
February 22: Death of Lord Dunsany, brother to Horace Plunkett and father
to the writer.
Wednesday April 10: Tom was elected a Representative Peer of Ireland in
place of Lord Dunsany.
April 19: Lord Lucan was likewise elected to fill the seat of the lately
departed 3rd Earl of Portarlington.
December 22: Death of Ann McClintock, Dowager Lady Rathdonnell.
The (younger?) Rathdonnells sail the Mediterranean on board the yacht Nukteris - there is an album of that name in the Lisnavagh Archives (M/6 and H/3) containing mainly commercial photographs of North Africa, Sicily, Portugal, etc.
October 1889: 'Mr Denis R. Pack-Beresford -" hanging -gale Beresford"- a young man who seems bent on perpetuating the evil traditions of his family- has made himself most unpopular amongst the people of Carlow by his harsh treatment of the poor widow woman, Mrs Anne Watters of Kilcloney, Borris and now another notice from "hanging-gale Beresford" makes clear his intention to take further law proceedings against his tenant, Mrs Watters, for rent and has duly been served upon her in the last few days legal notice by Mr Thorp of Bagenalstown. Two months ago this tenant had to lay down, in one payment, the full amount of three half years rent and costs. We know for sure what is to follow now for Mrs Watters, who we should say had better look out again! .
Mrs Watters effects have been seized by the sheriff year after year. Those who are in favour of fox hunting would do well to take note of this, they will see that this rackrenter's greedy desire has done more than all the others to work out its total extinction. First and last "hanging-gale Beresford" has proved himself destitute of common decency or he would never have entered into a conflict with his tenant for a paltry "hanging-gale" that accrued in the days of some unknown landlord long before his great grandfather was born.
One of the collectors for the Bagenalstown Races Fund having taken a subscription from "hanging-gale Beresford" has returned the subscription. Now " hanging-gale Beresford" has informed his lofty friends and sympathisers of his chagrin, and they are now asking that their subscriptions be also returned. Major Alexander, who had intended running a horse in a race, wrote to say, "under no circumstances, would I give the Race Meeting my support". We congratulate the Bagenalstown Race Committee on having disassociated themselves from the rackrenters and evictors of the County Carlow.' (From a copybook / scrapbook in the PPP).
December 1889 . Irish National League meetings discussing the Beresford vs Watters events.
Ballon and Rathoe Branch Monthly meeting. The secretary noted 54 men from Ballon and 3 from Rathoe in attendance. He recorded that "the inclemency of the weather accounted for the numerical inferiority of the deputation from Rathoe". A letter was read from the Borris Branch relative to the monstrous behaviour of Mr Pack-Beresford of hanging-gale notoriety, towards a tenant of his named Mrs Watters. The principal feature of the letter was a resolution which the Ballon / Rathoe branch was asked to adopt, to stop Mr Beresford from hunting with the Carlow hounds. One member pointed out that they could not stop him hunting as he is in the habit of riding on the roads. Mr Hanlon, said that he did not approve of this method of stopping hunting. After further conversation the meeting unanimously adopted the resolution and directed the secretary to communicate their intentions to Mr Robert Watson, the Master of the hounds.
Carlow town , Tinryland and Bennekerry Branch. Meeting held in Town Hall. A resolution was read from Borris condemning the treatment which Mrs Waters had been subjected to by the landlord, Mr Beresford, and expressed the opinion that the farmers ought, in self-respect and to show their sympathy by preventing Beresford from hunting over their lands. The Chairman, Mr John Kelly, said that it was for the farmers to decide if they would permit this objectionable person to hunt over their lands.
Bagenalstown Branch. Following a lengthened debate the following resolution was passed. We call upon Mr Beresford to reconsider his harsh treatment of Mr Michael Waters and his mother and ask him "to put Mr Waters on an equality with the other tenants on the estate, failing to do this we ask the tenant farmers to mark their disapproval of his treatment by preventing him from hunting over their lands".
Tullow Branch. The meeting was requested by the Borris branch to oppose the tyrannous treatment of Mr Michael Waters , who was one of their members. James Murphy said that the Beresfords are the sorest and bitterest landlords in the county Carlow. The Chairman, Mr Thomas Bolger, asked if anyone could enlighten them as to the merits of this case. He said that he was inclined to question anything that comes from Borris as the people of that place have been very unreliable in the past and he was reluctant to stop Mr Beresford from hunting over his lands. Mr Michael Murphy from Roscat told the meeting that the hounds of the hunt had chased a pony of his across a wire fence, causing such injuries to the animal as caused its death in a short time. He sought compensation from Mr Watson who directed him to Mr Hardy Eustace who told him that the huntsman was irresponsible for every and all damages whilst engaged in the chase. The Chairman stated that in his opinion the hunt was eminently calculated to develop both muscle and daring ; "and we know that some of the most daring officers the patriot armies of Ireland ever produced got their training in the hunting field, albeit the majority of modern foxhunters would sooner be considered West Britons". The secretary was directed to write to Borris to suggest a county convention on the subject.
Newtown Branch. The meeting after lengthened consideration of a Resolution from Borris to stop Mr Beresford from hunting over the land in the area, and of which he is the main landlord, decided to allow the matter to stand over until the next meeting, the secretary, John D. McGrath, having reason to believe that the dispute is about to be settled.
From Carlow Nationalist 1890.
'At Bagenalstown court Mr Denis Robert Pack-Beresford recently obtained a decree for the possession of Mrs Anne Watters farm at Kilcloney, Borris. For the past 6 years Mrs Watters, a poor widow and her family have been resisting the attempts of the landlord to extort a hanging-gale that has been due from time immemorial. The costs heaped on the tenant during this struggle have been enormous. Mrs Watters has offered to pay the rent due minus these costs, but the landlord shows no disposition to come to a reasonable settlement.
From the time that Mr Beresford became the landlord, six years ago, he has sought to continue the policy of Lord Beresford of evicting Catholics from the land. The rents being paid on time and up to date he had no weapon to make his power be felt and to chastise a tenant but to fall back upon the "hanging-gale" which course of action would mean utter ruin in 19 out of every 20 cases on his estate. William Ward J.P. of Bagnalstown , one of our great peacemakers, frequently sought justice for the tenant but Mr Beresford defied his reasoning. Should the landlord proceed to extremes , the tenant and her family will have the sympathy and support of every honest man in County Carlow.
Following "hanging gale" Beresford's manoeuvres a Convention of the Irish National League was called and addressed by Father B. O' Neill. He stated that he knew the landlords of Carlow perhaps better than any other clergyman present, and he would say,: “For deeds that are dark, and for tricks that are mean, the landlords of Carlow are peculiar". He heard the name Beresford mentioned, (hisses ) well he knew Beresford and through persecution by the Beresfords the parish over which he ruled was reduced in population from 10,000 Catholics to a little over 5,000.
Where are all these men gone? Who put them out?
Charley Doyne -( pitchcap ) that's who a most unmitigated scoundrel (groans). He was the man who done the dirty work for Kavanagh and Beresford (groans). The people of Carlow are the most obedient, self-sacrificing people in Ireland but they are been bruised and trampled upon, and if a worm were trodden upon it would turn, and turn the people will (loud cheering and applause). Old Whitty, the parson, of Ballyoliver had told a Catholic asking for a Lease that he would not get it because he would vote against him. He (Father O'Neill) knew what happened to Tom Cloven when he went in with a half-years rent, he could give no more because his cattle were dying ... Beresford put him out (hisses). Bruen and Kavanagh misrepresented Carlow for 25 years, no doubt it was said that Carlow had a number of gentry of the bluest of blue blood ...Well we all know the origin of some of these blue-blood aristocrats (laughter).
Father Ryan , Dwyer Gray, A.M. Sullivan and himself (Father O'Neill) were to speak from a platform on a Saturday night in Borris but the whole platform was blown up , and there was no dynamite anywhere in the neighbourhood except what was in Mr Kavanagh's demesne. Self preservation was the first law of nature and he now proposed that they form a defensive combination of the Irish tenants and approve the objects and aims of the Irish Tenants' Defence Association. (cheers).
The meeting then concluded. (From the Pat Purcell Papers).
December 25: Death of the Incredible Arthur MacMurrough Kanavagh, former MP for Carlow, of Borris House.
1890
Wednesday February 12: Lord George Harris, a former school friend of Tom's from Eton, was appointed Governor of Bombay. Indeed, in the 1890s all three of the Indian governors and two governors-general were Warre graduates. Harris was three years Tom's junior and the same age as Jack, being born in Trinidad in 1851. He was also an acclaimed cricketer. Both men were taught the sport at Eton by R. A. H. Mitchell and the Rev. G. R. Dupuis, obtaining their place in the Eton Eleven in 1868 and the two following years. To celebrate his appointment, 100 of his friends from Eton, Oxford and the political ring threw a dinner party at Café Monico in Piccadilly. Their old headmaster, Dr. Warre, presided over the occasion. Tom was present.
On the following day, 13 Feb 1890, The Times reported that the Lord Lt had had 'appointed Lord Rathdonnell to be Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of Co Carlow in place of the Rt Hon Arthur Kavanagh'.
Tuesday June 17: The Duke of Portland presents Tom to the the Prince of Wales at the annual Levee in St James's Palace.
The golden age of Irish tennis gets underway with Joshua Pim, Willoby Hamilton, Frank Stoker and Lena Rice reigning victorious at Wimbledon and Mabel Cahill of Ballyragget defeats Roosevelt's cousin to win the US Open.
Friday July 5: Tom and Kate attend another State Ball at Buckingham.
August: At the Dublin Horse Show, TK is among those who greeted the vice-regal
party of the Lord Lieutenant and his wife, the Countess of Zetland.
November 17: As the cattle sales come to a close, so 41 cows (making an
average of £23 9s 8d) and 9 bulls (averaging at £19 16s 8d)
from the Drumcar shorthorn herd were brought under the hammer. Mr. R. Thompson
paid 51 guineas for Lady Florrie, Lord Headfort paid 38g for Elfreda and
Mr. A Bellingham paid 35g for the bull Pilgrim of Love.
December 1890: Frank DuBédat’s company, one of the oldest and most respected stock-broking firms in Dublin, was declared bankrupt. DuBédat swiftly withdrew £1,000 from his firm’s London agency and fled to South Africa. Investigations revealed he had debts of over £100,000.
General: TK appointed Her Majesty's Lieutenant for Co. Carlow.
1891
Land Act of 1891 creates a Congested Districts Board empowered to purchase
land and create viable holdings in the poorest areas in the western counties
from Donegal to Cork and a loan fund for tenants who wished to purchase
their lands.
March 31: Death of Granville George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville, British
statesman.
May: Denis Pack Beresford of Fenagh House engaged to marry Alice, only daughter of Mr James A, Lyle of Portstewart House, County Derry, and Glandore, County Antrim.
August: Denis Pack-Beresford marries Alice Lyle in Bangor. The Rathdonnells do not seem to have attended but gave the couple two silver mounted liqueur decanters. Jack and Myra McClintock Bunbury presented them with a turquoise and diamond pin. Contact Turtle or Michael Purcell for full details of this wedding and the guests.
November 1891: 'Hunt report: Palmam qui meruit ferat! All were pleased to see the brush given to the Hon. Mary McClintock Bunbury , Lord Rathdonnell's daughter, who displayed such skillful horsemanship, quickness, and general aptitude for the chase as is seldom witnessed in one so young.' (PPP)
LISNAVAGH UP FOR SALE
The Lisnavagh Archives contain a letter from 1891 written to Lord Rathdonnell from F. Lowry Lightfoot, Old Palace Yard, Westminster, about the wording of an advertisement for the sale of Lisnavagh by private treaty (6,600 acres, of which 1,200 are demesne, a stone-built mansion which with all the offices and out-buildings are of modern construction and in perfect order, proximity to Dublin, etc, etc). Why were they trying to sell it? Could it be that they were seeking a valuation for some other reason, such as a property tax and putting it on the market was a way of getting a valuation? Or maybe they could see what was coming and were considering Drumcar as the main base rather than Lisnavagh? In 1891, Louth was probably quite an attractive place to live for a Unionist like Tom Rathdonnell, not too far from his mother's home turf in Armagh and all his other northern friends. But perhaps the fact his wife hailed from Carlow swung him back south ... I presume that in 1900 the plan was for young Billy to inherit one house (Lisnavagh?) and young Tim to inherit the other, but who on earth knows! That is the joy of history - unraveling the jigsaw and shouting 'Eurkea!' when a piece fits.
Tom's second daughter Mary was
known as Mimi. In November 1898,
she married Henry Duncombe Bramwell.
1892
Thursday Feb 4: The Landowner's Convention held their annual meeting in
the Leinster Lecture Hall on Molesworth Street, the Duke of Abercorn presiding.
TK was in attendance along with Lords Castltown, Cloncurry, Langford and
Dunalley, Sir
Thomas Butler, the O'Connor Don and the Earl of Rosse. The Duke
of Clarence had just died and there was an epidemic of influenza across
the land. Abercorn called the Land Purchase Act of the previous session
"undoubtedly one of the most far-reaching and liberal measures of land
reform that have ever been carried out by any Government in this or any
other country". When he mentioned certain names, the crowd booed that
of Parnell and hissed at Redmond.
Friday February 26th: On his 18th wedding anniversary, Tom resigns his commission
as a Captain in Prince Albert's Own Leicestershire Yeomanry Cavalry.
Meanwhile, in April 1892, young Billy enters Eton, and is placed in Mr. Donaldson’s House.
Summer: A year before Gladstone's second Home Rule Bill is rejected by the House of Lords, Tom attends another huge Unionist convention in Dublin. The delegates filled two halls and included the chairman Lord Fingall, the Duke of Leinster and Lords Mayo, Dunsany, Emly, Ventry, Massy and Cloncurry as well as Colonel Cosby of Stradbally, Colonel Dease, Walter MacMurrough Kavanagh (son of the limbless Art) and Major Barton of Straffan. Their wives sat in the balcony lending "a pleasing grace to the proceedings [and] took a lively interest in all that went on". Before the speeches, n orchestra played a number of pieces, capped by "God Bless the Prince of Wales" and "Rule Brittania". "The enthusiasm was simply unbounded when the strains of the National Anthem fell on the ear".
August: LANDLORDISM NEAR BORRIS: On Tuesday last (2nd August ) a widow, Mrs Anne Waters, at the age of 81 years with her family, were thrown out upon the roadside by her landlord, Mr Denis Pack-Beresford. Now deprived, not only of her home, but also of the resources of livelihood which she hoped to bequeath to her children. It will be remembered that so far back as August 1891 the tenant paid the entire amount due, viz., two years' rent including hanging-gale, and full legal costs, but as the period for redemption had expired a cheque for the amount is now held by Pack-Beresford's agent. So the poor tenant is now in the position of having parted with home and money. Mr Pack-Beresford so far has both, and it will be interesting to watch what he will do with poor Mrs Waters farm.
The case is one eminently deserving of close public attention. The circumstances of the case reveal an arbitrariness that recall the by-gone days when the landlord could do what he liked. For the past six years Mrs Waters has been harassed by unreasonable rent exaction, and mulcted in law costs. The rent and heavy legal costs was long since paid to the agent, Mr Charles Thorpe who then wanted the tenant to enter an agreement containing unjust conditions.
Last week, Mrs Waters, with her family, was thrown out upon the roadside and their house handed over to the tender mercies of the sheriff and the emergencymen, (crow-bar brigade), at least one of whom wore a revolver, they have now barricaded the premises as if they feared an armed invasion to recapture it.
Mr. Pack-Beresford will find that all Nationalists will combine, and that
Landlordism in its old form must not be revived in this country, and that respectable tenants, who are willing to pay their just obligations shall not be turned from their homes in order to satisfy a vindictive and despotic landlord. The employees of Mr Pack-Beresford have been engaged during the past week in Carting over to Fenagh House the produce of Mrs Waters land, and some of the crops (including a heap of coal) have been stored at Pack-Beresford's farm. The greedy landlord's serfs with six horses and the necessary implements entered the Waters farm and without either care or consideration for the condition of the grain the whole corn crop was cut down and is left melting on the ground from that day to this. It is stated that portion of the work was personally superintended by Mr Denis Pack-Beresford.
Other items removed by the emergencymen were; farm carts, tools, two ricks of hay, implements, a donkey croydon, presses, furniture, utensils and sundry articles. The root and vegetable crops are likewise claimed by Mr Pack-Beresford and are specially guarded, the poor tenant today not knowing the luxury even of a potato from her own garden.
(From the scrapbook of Landlord Agent, Mr Charles Thorpe, in the PPP.)
October 2: Death of TK's nephew Geoffrey McClintock Bunbury aged 9.
General: The cattle market was in tatters. Prices for pedigree shorthorns
had fallen to their lowest levels in twenty years with the average falling
to £24 (as compared with £45 in Anchor's hey-day). Only the
Queen's herd managed to fetch decent prices. Tom was specifically mentioned
in The Times end of year report, alongside the Earl of Derby, as
being "among those whose sales were affected by the badness of the
times".
General: In 1892 the death took place at Lisnavagh of George Augustus
Chichester May (1815 - 1892), the former Chief Justice of Ireland who
stepped down at the height of the Parnell controversy in 1880. Known as
"The Chief" amongst his own family, his departure from the post
was a matter of considerable drama at the time. I do not yet know why he
was at Lisnavagh.
A YACHT CALLED THAUMA
Lloyds Shipping Register of 1891 mentions Tom's yacht, a 160.85 ton wooden schooner called Thauma, from the Greek for 'magic'. It measured 98.7 long, 22.3 breadth and 12.3 deep. It was built by R & H Green of London in 1851 and belonged to Cowes. There is a large photo album relating to this yacht at Lisnavagh.
1893
Friday January 27: The Irish Unionists hold a banquet for 400 in the Round
Room at the Rotunda, principally to celebrate all those who had won seats
back from the Home Rulers in the election. A string bad is stationed in
the gallery which was reserved for the ladies. Once again lengthy speeches
were given stating the case of Unionism.
May 22: Lord Salisbury makes his first visit to Ulster. Tom takes a train
from Belfast to Larne to be part of the crowd welcoming him and the Marchioness
off the "Princess Victoria". On the train with him were
the Earl of Kingston and four directors of the Belfast & Northern Counties
Railway Company (Edmund McNeill, H. McNeile, RH Reade and James Wilson).
And Tom was right up there on the platform of Union Hall when the former
Prime Minister addressed a huge crowd of Union Jack waving Ulster Unionists
two days later.
Monday July 10: The Rathdonnells attended the Prince of Wales's State Ball at Buckingham. Herr Gottleib's Vienna Orchestra provided the tunes.
Friday September 8: Tom is part of the well-heeled deputation of Irish peers
who presented Lord Salisbury with a handsomely bound album by way of a thanks
for his party at Hatfield House earlier in the week. The presentation took
place in Salisbury's private room in the House of Lords.
October 14: Death of TK's only brother, Jack
McClintock Bunbury, aged 43.
General: TK becomes member of the Council of the Royal Dublin Society.
In 1894, Tom's
eldest daughter
Isabella was
married in
Drumcar to a
young soldier
called Forrester
Colvin, who later
served with her
brother Billy in
the Boer War.
1894
February 14: One week after Jack Bunbury's will was proved by the Probate
Division of the High Court, Tom and his co-executor Edmond Venables issue
a statement to The Times in which, acknowledging Jack's death and
invite anyone to whom Jack still owed money to write the particulars of
their claim and send them to the executors before 2nd April 1894. Thereafter,
Jack's possessions and assets would be distributed in accordance with his
will.
April 2: Deadline for anyone seeking to make claims on Jack's will.
May 13: Death of Kate's mother, Mary Margaret Bruen (nee Conolly).
Friday June 31: Tom shelled out a substantial price of 105 guineas for a
shorthorn cow called Bliss, formerly belonging to the late Hugh Aylmer's
herd at the Manor House in West Derenham, Norfolk. Three days later he was
back in London for the annual State Ball, no doubt bragging about his new
purchase. When the 86 year old Alexander Mitchell (the judge at Kilburn
when Anchor won) died that same year, Tom was among those who went up to
look at the famous Alloa shorthorn herd in Clackmannanshire, Scotland and
purchased some more cows and possibly a bull. The average price was £35
indicating a relative return to normality for the cattle market, although
the Alloa herd was particularly well prized.
July 26: TK's eldest daughter Isabella marries Lt
Col Forrester Farnell Colvin, CBE, 9th Lancers, of Shermanbury Grange,
Horsham, Sussex.
October 16: Marriage of KA's second sister Elizabeth Bruen to Edward
Ussher Roberts of Gaultier, Woodstown, Co. Waterford, only son of Arthur
Ussher Roberts.
Wednesday October 24: John Thornton & Co. hosted a sale at Drumcar,
cataloguing five bulls and 32 cows and heifers. The herd was originally
established at Lisnavagh and bred from the excellent stock which Lord Fitzwilliam
held at Coolattin and tracing directly to the Mason blood "which
so greatly improved the stock of Ireland about half a century ago".
The herd had been so prolific at Drumcar that "it has quite outgrown
the winter accommodation and hence the sale". Curiously the best
price he got at the sale was from Lord Fitzwilliam himself - £35 for
a cow called Golden Secret. He sold another cow, Flower Blossom, to E. Jones
for 35g and another, Ocean Gun, to Mr. Doyne for 34g. I presume he sold
the rest for lower prices?
1895
Wednesday May 22: Princess Louise, Marchioness of Lorne, hosted a Drawing Room for the ladies of the realm on behalf of the Queen. Kate Rathdonnell attended and presented her daughters Pauline and Mary.
A lady by name of Linda Mason once wrote to me stating that her great-grandfather, James Gilbert Kennedy, is noted in both the Irish Records Index and Burkes Peerage as having died at Lisnavagh aged forty on 10th December 1895 from 'cirrhosis of the liver. 12 months syncope'. The informant of the death was James Chaed who was present at Lisnavagh. JGK's father, Dr Evory Kennedy, was an eminent physician who lived at Belgard Castle and Merrion Square in Dublin. Linda says he also 'apparently had something to do with temperance yet dyed of gout - I find it hard to believe that tippling was not a family practice!!' Linda speculated that James - described on her grandmother's birth certificate as 'gentleman' - might have been a guest at Lisnavagh. However, according to his wife's death certificate, JGK's profession was 'Investigator. Land Commission' so perhaps he was there in a professional capacity and perhaps Rathdonnell had him done away with! Alas there is no mention of JGK in the Lisnavagh Visitor's Book which begs the question, are you still called a visitor if you arrive in body but depart in spirit.
Lord Rathdonnell becomes trustee of new found Rathvilly School in Birmingham, founded by former Bough schoolmistress Mary Earl.
On Tuesday October 1st 1895 a meeting of the Tynan Harriers agreed to amalgamate with Armagh to form the Armagh and Tynan Hunt under mastership of W.P. Cross.
General:
First Boyle Medal for Science awarded by Royal Dublin Society.
Edward Brophy and William Weir build the Masonic
Lodge on Athy Road in Carlow.
The composer Sir Hubert Parry (1848–1918), a former school mate of Tom's from Eton, becomes Director of the Royal College of Music, until 1918.
1896
June 1: Jack Bunbury's widow Myra McClintock Bunbury marries secondly Baron
Maximillian de Tuyll.
Wednesday July 13: Rathdonnells attend a Garden Party given by the Prince
and Princess of Wales at Buckingham.
August 11: Marriage of KA's younger sister Helen Maria to Major Charles
Willoughby Bishop, JP, 9th Lancers, of Barton Abbotts, Tetbury, Gloucester,
third son of James Bishop of 42 Belgrave Square, London SW1.
General: TK appinted Hon. Colonel of the 6th Battalion of the Irish Rifles.
General: Mick Purcell has references in the PPP to Lord Rathdonnell of Dunleer
as being owner of two pubs in Rathvilly - Fanning's pub in Rathvilly (1896)
and also owner of Fennell's pub, Rathvilly (1899).
Tom's youngest daughter,
Pauline McClintock Bunbury,
was married at Drumcar in
1897 to an English officer,
Major Fred Dalgety.
1897
June 10: Marriage of TK's youngest daughter Pauline to Major Frederick John Dalgety, 15th Hussars, of Lockerley Hall, Hants.
Lord Rathdonnell & the Celbridge Charter School.
William 'Speaker' Conolly of Castletown House, Celbridge, Co. Kildrae, died in 1729. In his will he provided for the erection of a charity school to accommodate 40 orphans or other poor children. In 1809, the administration of the school was transferred to the Incorporated Society for promoting Protestant schools in Ireland. The Society's schools were known as the Charter Schools. One of the conditions on tranfer of the school to the Society was that the Conollys could reserve the right to nominate 30 children to the school. Children so nominated became known as the Conolly foundationers. In the early years, the school concentrated on preparing the children for positions in domestic service and in manufacture. In later years, the pupils began to receive an intermediate education, the emphasis shifting to careers in education. In 1897, Mrs Conolly of Castletown wrote to the Society expressing concern that the Conolly foundationers were receiving an education that unfitted them for their situation in life. She proposed that the Society purchase the interest in the leases of two houses (Landscape House and Kildrought House) in Celbridge that could be then converted into a boarding school for the Conolly girls. The Society agreed to Mrs Conolly's proposition. In 1898, a deputation from the Society visited Celbridge and found that the two houses proposed by Mrs Conolly were not available but another, that of Lord Rathdonnell, was. However, when the Society received the estimate of the cost of alterations to the house (1,500 pounds) it decided it could not go ahead with the scheme. (Thanks to Anne Dollard). The Lisnavagh Archives refers to a series of houses owned by Rathdonnell in the 1930s and leased to Angela Moore (Landscape View), James Lennon and William Kelly.
1898
November 3: Mimi McCB, second daughter of TK and KA, marries Lt Col Henry Duncombe Bramwell, 15th Lancers.
1899
January: Billy entes the Scots Greys from the Militia.
February 26: TK and Kate celebrate 25 years of marriage.
General: Alice Butler, the Georgia-born great-granddaughter of Pierce the
revolutionary, recalls a visit to Ballintemple:
'Our arrival was truly Irish. On getting out of the train at Shillelagh,
10 miles from Ballin Temple, we were met by a large family barouche, lined
with pink satin and a good deal the worse for wear. It had originally belonged
to Lord Fitzwilliam of Coolatin who, as he lived on a hill above the town,
was spoken of as the Lord Above . She later continued, Ballin Temple was
one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen. It had a thousand acres
and three woods: the upper, the middle and the lower. In front of the comfortable
Georgian house rose a high terraced bank of rhododendrons which, when in
full bloom, and the sun setting behind them, looked like a red river. At
the bottom of the third wood flowed the River Slaney, somewhat like a Scottish
river, tumbling over brown mossy rocks and full of salmon … In the
spring the woods were literally carpeted with bluebells, the bluest and
largest I have ever seen, often having fifteen bells on one stalk'.
The composer Sir Hubert Parry (1848–1918), a former school mate of Tom's from Eton, becomes Professor of Music at the University of Oxford, until 1908.
In 1899, W.P. Cross was succeeded as Master of the Armagh and Tynan Hunt by Miss Isa McClintock who remained master until her death in 1952. “An appointment of this nature indicates very clearly that hunting has always been ahead of the times in relation to equality. Gender, class, creed and race are not taken into consideration in assessing who is best to lead the hunt. Isa was a member of the Fellows Hall McClintocks from Tynan, a tall striking woman who always rode side-saddle and was a fearless, skilful horsewoman of outstanding respect for her 54 year mastership!
The Hon. William Bunbury, known to the
family as Billy, was heir to the Lisnavagh
estate and the Rathdonnell peerage. In
1900, he was killed when a stray bullet
struck him during a skirmish with Boer
guerillas near Kimberley, South Africa.
1900
February 17: TK's eldest son and heir 2nd Lieutenant Billy Bunbury dies aged 21, following wounds received in action near Kimberley, South Africa, during the Boer War.
1901
Feb. 1901. Died, Mrs Ellen Bloomfield, wife of Major G. Bloomfield,
Thornville, Palatine, Carlow. Buried in Killeshin.
Feb.1901. Died, Major Godfrey Colpoys Bloomfield, an Indian officer, who
died at his residence, Thornville, Palatine on 25 Feb. aged 75 years. He
entered the army at the age of 16 years and at once proceeded to India,
where he had a distinguished military career, having served through many
engagements. He was honourably mentioned in dispatches and rendered
important service by raising a native regiment during the Mutiny 1857-1858. It was the first native regiment that ever lived in barracks. The regiment,
the 31st Punjab Native Infantry, is still known as "Bloomfield's Sikhs". The
funeral took place on Thursday , his remains were carried to the entrance
gates of his residence and burial took place in Killeshin. The chief mourner
was Mr Edward S. Maffet (son-in-law).
KA's brother, Arthur Thomas Bruen starts 23 year long career as land agent in Ireland.
Tom's former Eton school mate Sir Joseph Dimsdale (1849–1912) becomes Lord Mayor of London (1901–1902).
1902
20 January: Birth of Kevin Barry.
2 October: Death of Sir Charles Burton, 5th Bart, of an illness related
to a fall in the garden. He was born in 1823 and educated at Eton. He served
as a lieutenant in the 18th Dragoons until his retirement aged 23 in 1849.
In 1861, he wed an American heiress, Georgina May, only daughter of David
Halliburton of Texas. They had no children. He lived at Pollardstown (Pollacton)
House outside Carlow and was a keen supporter of the Carlow & Island
Hounds until he fractured a leg while riding to meet hounds with his good
friend Robert Watson one frosty morning. Lady Burton survived him by two
years. The executors of his will were Lord Rathdonnell (TKMB) and William
Rotchford of Cahir Abbey, Cahir. Both men were bequeathed £100 for
administrative purposes while the bulk of the Burton family fortune was
left to his niece.
General: Tom Rathdonnell elected Vice President of the Royal Dublin Society.
Tom's former Eton school mate Arthur Balfour becomes Prime Minister until 1905.
1903
The Wyndham Act, introduced by the Chief Secretary, allowed an entire estate to be sold - presumably on condition if three quarters of the tenantry acquiesced. The government provided loans to tenants at reduced interest for the purchase of land and gave bonuses to landlords who sold. The loan was repayable over 68 years … which was in effect the year I was born so one wonders what happened to all the money in arrears!
Tom enters Lisnavgh bulls into nine categories at the Royal Dublin Society - and comes away with eight 1st prizes.
There are papers suggesting that parts of Lisnavagh House were rebuilt at this time.
1905
February 23: Death of Kate Rathdonnell's youngest brother Charles Bruen, unmarried, aged 30.
July: Memorial to 1798 hero Father John Murphy unveiled in Tullow.
1906
November 16: Tom and Kate Rathdonnell attend unveiling of Memorial to the Fallen Heroes of the Royal Scots Greys (2nd Dragoons) on Princess Street in Edinburgh by the Earl of Roseberry.
1907
The Covered Yard and Steel Tank were erected in 1907 by Thomas Thompson of Hanover Works in Carlow. The concept was the same as the design they used at the Main Hall of the RDS and Simmonscourt Hall, erected by the Collens. The company continues to run under Peter and Joyce Thompson and they had something to say to the Millenium Bridge and the East-Link Bridge.
July 6: Theft of Irish Crown Jewels.
Evicted Tenants Act provides for compulsory sale of land needed for evicted tenants.
Vere St Leger Goold, former Wimbledon finalist, convicted of murder.
In 1906, Tom and Katherine Anne attended the unveiling of the
Memorial to the officers and men of the Royal Scots Greys killed
during the Boer War. The name of the Hon. William McClintock
Bunbury was etched upon this. Approximately 85 years later, Tom's
great-great-grandson found himself asleep beneath this
same monument after a hefty night on the batter.
1908
July 14: Kate Rathdonnell's brother, Arthur Thomas Bruen, marries Lily, youngest daughter of Francis Ruttledge, JP, of Coolbawn Cottage, Co. Wexford.
1909
Tim McClintock Bunbury is elected High Sheriff of County Carlow. His uncle Henry Bruen of
Oak Park - KA's eldest brother - is elected High Sheriff of Co. Wexford.
Sir Richard Butler, "an archetypal Victorian gentleman… magistrate
and member of the hunt committee", succeeds to Ballintemple on
the death of his father, Sir Thomas.
January: Perhaps the most unlikely beneficiaries of the Night of the Big Wind of 1839 were those old enough to remember it when the Old Age Pensions Act was enacted in January 1909, 70 years after the event and 100 years ago this month. The Act offered the first ever weekly pension to those over 70. It was likened to the opening of a new factory on the outskirts of every town and village in Britain and Ireland. By March 1909, over 80,000 pensioners were registered of whom 70,000 were Irish! When a committee was sent to investigate this imbalance, it transpired that few births in Ireland were ever registered before 1865. As such, the pensions committees had decreed that if someone’s age had 'gone astray' on them, they would be eligible for a pension if they could state that they were ‘fine and hardy’ on the Night of the Big Wind 70 years earlier. One such applicant was Tim Joyce of County Limerick. 'I always thought I was 60', he explained. 'But my friends came to me and told me they were certain sure I was 70 and as there were three or four of them against me, the evidence was too strong for me. I put in for the pension and got it'.
May 1909 was the month for sunshine, June 1909 was the month for dullness, coldness and in places for its wetness. It was an absolute shocker. Northerly winds were frequent during the month.
In 1909, representation’s were made by a Mr.,RJ Mecredy (a renowned motoring historian) to the British Automobile Association,with a view to setting up in Ireland. Following a visit in 1910 by Colonel Bosworth and Stenson Cooke, AA Secretary, offices were opened in Dublin and Belfast, with a sub-office being opened in Cork c1912-13. The AA Irish Secretary was a Mr., Arthur Allen.
28 October 1909: The New Zealand Tablet's Irish News section reports: 'LOUTH - LONG-PENDING NEGOTIATIONS: After four years' negotiations, the tenants of Lord Rathdonnell at Drumcor, County Louth, have signed agreements for the purchase of their holdings'.
1910
July 15: Tom and Kate Rathdonnell in attendance at the Japan-British Exhibition in London over which Prince Arthur of Connaught presided. (Telegraph). Louis Brennan demonstrates his latest version of the monorail system at with such success that, at Churchill's behest, the Prime Minister Herbert Asquith went for a much publicized ride on board, and Brennan picked up the Grand Prize.
August 4: Marriage of Kate Rathdonnell's youngest sister Grace Bruen to Sir Hunt Henry
Allen Johnson-Walsh, 5th Bart, of Ballykilcavan, Offaly.
September: Sir Richard Butler returns to his 7000 acre estate at Ballin Temple in time for his American wife, Alice Leigh, to deliver their first-born son and heir, Thomas Pierce Butler, on 18th September 1910. Like Rathdonnell, Sir Richard was a keen farmer and "began by breeding herds of black Aberdeen Angus cattle, later turning to the cultivation of Clydesdale shire-horses". Crops, sheep and pigs were also farmed. Hope and Francis Morris worked at Ballintemple when the estate consisted of about 1000 acres. In a charming article entitled "Days of Yore at Ballintemple" they recalled the employees gathering in the farmyard at 8 o'clock in the morning to the fading chimes of the yardbell. Here they would receive their instructions from for the day ahead. "The bell was rung again at 1 o'clock for lunch break, 2 o'clock to return to work and finally at 6 o'clock to gladly end another day on the farm." Full-time employees numbered 8 - 10 with seasonal labourers brought in "at peak times such as hay-making, harvesting and potato picking". Children were often given a week off school in October to help with these chores. Harvesting took a particularly long time, starting with "the cutting of the corn with a binder followed by the stoking of sheaves … [which were then] left perhaps a week before being put into hand stacks. When the corn seemed mature enough the stacks were then drawn by horse and cart to the haggard and put into large ricks". Threshing took place over 5 or 6 days later in the autumn and was something of a social event as men from neighbouring farms came in to help out. Another few days of threshing took place at the end of February in order to have fresh seed ready for sowing the Spring crops.
December 10: Birth of John Martin Bruen (DSO), only son of Arthur and Lily Bruen, and nephew to the Rathdonnells.
The Rathdonnells have always had a
soft spot for horses. In 1914, a hunter
called Lisnavagh went to the Western
Front and served during the Great War.
Lisnavagh was one of the few horses
who returned alive.
1911
April 2: Census recorded for Ireland and England (Sunday night) but curiously no record of any Rathdonnells, Bunburys or McClintocks at Drumcar or Lisnavagh that night.
November 7: Death of the Baron de Tuyll, second husband to Myra Watson,
the widow of Jack Bunbury.
LISNAVAGH THE WAR-HORSE
On 26th Jan 1911 the Rathdonnells may have attended the wedding of Eustace Mansfield and Mabel Paget at St Mary’s of Cadogan Street. Mabel, an English heiress and third daughter of the late Guy Paget of Ibstock and Humberstone, Leicester. She was given away by her brother Guy. Before they set off for a honeymoon in Paris, Mabel gave her new husband a splendid hunter called Lisnavagh which she had purchased from the Rathdonnells. On Saturday 28 June 1913, the Princess Royal, the Duchess of Fife and Princess Maud were present at the International Horse Show in Olympia, London, when Lisnavagh took second place (to Mrs Bennett Raby’s Cork) in the class for ‘Hunter Mare or Gelding, conveying more than 14st’.[i] Two days later, Lisnavagh took fourth place in the class for ‘Hunter Mare, or Gelding, capable of carrying front 13st 7lb to 15st.’[ii]
In August 1914, Eustace Mansfield took Lisnavagh with him to the Western Front in the service of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Born in November 1879, Eustace Mansfield was the firstborn son of George Mansfield of Morristown Latten.[iii] Like his father, Eustace was educated at Stonyhurst, a Catholic boarding school in Lancashire. Eustace’s mother Alice Adele was the eldest daughter of Baron d’Audebard de Ferussac of Paris, a scientist of considerable repute. When the Great War broke out in 1914, George Mansfield, father of Eustace and Deputy Lieutenant of Co Kildare, issued a joint statement with Sir Anthony Weldon, Lord Lieutenant for the county, expressing their absolute opposition to British plans to enforce conscription in Ireland. They set up a committee to raise sufficient numbers so that “no question can arise as to the loyalty of the County Kildare” with regard to those willing to “join their brethren at the front”.
Captain Mansfield and Lisnavagh served on the Western Front until Eustace was shot in the neck and invalided home. He had been promoted to the rank of Captain and was serving with the Northamptonshire Regiment at the time. On Monday 27th September 1915, C and D Companies near Foss 8 were attacked from the rear by Germans using bombs. Captain Mansfield collected a mixed force of men and counter-attacked to relieve C Company. A further counter-attack to regain the village at Foss was cancelled after several senior officers, including General Thesiger, were killed by a shell whilst organising the attack. The battalion held their positions for the rest of the day before being relieved on the evening of the 27th. The battalion had suffered very heavy losses with over 400 casualties.[iv]
Lisnavagh returned with him to Ireland and subsequently won a prize at a horse show in England. The horse is buried near where the glasshouse used to be at Morristown Latten. Eustace died on 14th April 1945 and Mabel on 20th May 1949. This story was told to me by their only son (George) Patrick Mansfield. They also had two daughters, Rosalind and Elizabeth, one of whom inherited the silver horse trophy won by Lisnavagh.
Lisnavagh was a fortunate horse. Over a million horses were sent to France from Britain and Ireland during the Great War; only 62,000 returned alive. One assumes these were heart-breaking statistics for horse lovers like Tom and Kate Rathdonnell. These thoughts were further enhanced after reading Max Hasting’s introduction to Michael Morpurgo's War Horse, the story of Joey, beloved mount of a Devon farmer's son, translated into a beast of battle and burden in France. He reports that, ‘between the Somme in July 1916 and the Armistice in November 1918, the British Army recorded 58,090 horses killed and 77,410 wounded by gunfire; 211 were killed and 2,220 wounded by poison gas; while several hundred were killed by aeroplane bombs.’
With thanks to Rosa Kende.
Footnotes
[i] News - The Horse Show. The Coaching Corinthian, The Times, Monday, Jun 30, 1913; pg. 6; Issue 40251; col C
[ii] News - The Horse Show. The Connaught Trophy, The Times, Tuesday, Jul 01, 1913; pg. 7; Issue 40252; col G
[iii] Eustace’s brothers were Henry, Alexander and Tirso, about wich I have written in the Kildare Gentry. On 30th December 1913, Eustace’s eldest sister Mary married Thomas Esmonde. Her husband’s father, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Esmonde, Royal Irish Regiment, won a Victoria Cross at Sebastopol, the same battle in which her great uncle William Mansfield perished. The younger Thomas Esmonde was lost at sea on 10th October 1918. Mary lived on until 10th March 1963. Eustace’s younger sister Marguerite (1883 – 1939) was married twice. Her first husband (1905) was Richard Morton Wood, 6th Inniskilling Dragoons, eldest son of Colonel George Wilding Wood of Docklands, Ingatestone, in Essex. He died without male heir on 6th January 1908. In 1911, she married Edward Nettlefold of Brightwell Park, Wallington, Surrey. He was seriously wounded in the war but survived to become a Lieutenant Colonel of the 5th Dragoons.
[iv] http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=49720
1912
March 8: Death of Kate Rathdonnell's father, Rt. Hon. Henry Bruen, aged 84.
September 14: Marriage of Kate's brother Edward Francis Bruen to Constance
Dora Drummond, younger daughter of Admiral Edmund Charles Drummond of Highfield,
Halesworth, Suffolk.
November 26: Marriage of Tom and Kate Rathdonnell's second son and heir, Captain T.L. Mclintock Bunbury, to Ethel
Ievers Synge. See the Ievers
family.
1913
June 13: Marriage of the Rathdonnell's 26-year-old nephew Henry Arthur
Bruen to Gladys McClintock, only daughter of Arthur George Florence McClintock
of Rathvinden, Leighlinbridge, Co. Carlow.
General: Kate Rathdonnell's brother (Admiral) Edward Francis Bruen commanding HMS Bellephron.
General: Tom Rathdonnell unanimously elected President of the Royal Dublin Society.
Mrs Bridget Lawlor opens up her catering business in Naas. She quickly comes to dominate the trade, particularly at the Royal Dublin Society and Punchestown where, by 1923, the society event is the Jockey's Ball. When the races came to Punchestown, both Naas and Ballymore Eustance went into party mode for the occasion right down to old fellows playing melodians and young gals dancing by every crossroads in the county.
1914
New water-works opens in Carlow.
February 26: Tom and Kate Rathdonnell celebrate their Ruby Wedding after forty years of marriage.
On Saturday 25th April 1914, the Nationalist reported that the Carlow Urban Council had decided to rename Carlow's Hay Market 'by the old name of 'Templecroney Square and to rename Wellington Square 'Governey Square' after the Council Chairman, Michael Governey (who died in 1924). A wealthy boot factory owner, Mr. Governey was an ardent supporter of
Parnell and had been favoured as Parliamentary representative of County Carlow, but withdrew in favour of Walter McMurrough Kavanagh. With Monsignor Ryan of Tipperary he was appointed co-trustee of the National
Volunteers at the time of their formation in 1915. He later supported John Redmond, particularly during the Convention of
1917 of which he was a member. His second wife was a daughter of Colonel Brodie and sister of Rev. Wilfrid Brodie, C.P., St Paul's
Retreat, Ilkley, Yorkshire. As well as Michael Governey (who said he would rather
they did not call any street in Carlow after him but was told by J. Brennan, with much laughter, 'You have no call to interfere', those present at the 1914 meeting were: Thomas Murphy, Patrick
Lawler, John Murphy, J.D. McGrath, J.Brennan, William Purcell, Edward
Duggan, John Foley, W.J.Jackson, J.D.McCarthy. Mr. W.A.Lawler, Town Clerk
and Mr. Cardery, B.S. Councillor William Purcell referred to above was grandfather to J.J.Woods and uncle to the late Pat
Purcell, 1895-1994, Killeshin /Carlow. (PPP)
26 July: Massacre on Bachelor's Walk.
August: Outbreak of the Great War.
November 23: Birth of William Robert McClintock Bunbury, 4th Baron Rathdonnell,
only son of Captain TL and Ethel McCB.
November 24: Birth of Anne Bruen, daughter of (Admiral) EF Bruen and his
wife Constance.
November 26: Death of TKMB's uncle Colonel George McClintock, aged 88, at Fellows Hall.
1915
Tom's old Eton school friend and former Prime Minister Arthur Balfour becomes First Lord of the Admiralty until 1916, when succeeded by Winston Churchill, son of another of their classmates.
29 October: Rt Rev Maurice Day, Bishop of Clogher, writes to Lord Rathdonnell from Bishopscourt, Clones, Co. Monaghan, to thank him for contributing £700 to the various Monaghan parishes. In today's currency, that £700 would equate to £30,000 or €34,000. This letter is now framed at Bishopscourt.
1916
Monday 24 April: Outbreak of Easter Rising in Dublin leaves 110 soldiers, RN, RIC, Dublin Metropolitan Police and loyalist volunteers dead and 350 wounded. Also 180 civilians died; 614 injured. Of the rebels 15 were executed, 100 were sent to Penal Servitude, 6 were imprisoned and 1700 deported. I don't yet know how many rebels were killed in action. (This from contemporary accounts of the Unionist newspaper). Lord Rathdonnell is staying in Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire) at the time as it is also the Spring Show at the Royal Dublin Society. John Evelyn Wrench recalls meeting him in his memoirs, 'Struggles, 1914-1920', and talks of how Rathdonnell and Mr Doyne were the only two officials who were physically able to reach the show when it began on the Tuesday. They attempted to keep the show in motion while Wrench nipped up Killiney Hill with some binoculars and watched Dublin 'and notably the Post Office in Sackville Street, which was occupied by the Rebels, being shelled with wonderful accuracy by the gun boats in Kingstown'. Wrench also recalls how, on the Wednesday, 'a very hot day ... the English troops marched up from Kingstown and generally made a halt when they reached Ballsbridge before they got into the line of fire. One British regiment consisted of young recruits, such a nice lot of boys. We brought them lemonade, for which they were most grateful. Only six or eight hundred yards on they had to pass houses that were occupied by rebel snipers, and nearly two hundred of them were killed and many wounded. It always seemed to me such a wanton waste of life, though we tried to explain to them as well as we could the geography of the streets in that part of Dublin and what they might expect'. These young recruits were the men killed in the Battle of Mount Street Bridge. Mick Purcell drew my attention to another of Wrench's remarks where he says: 'Perhaps my upbringing in Fermanagh has enabled me to see "the other fellow's standpoint" so wholeheartedly that sometimes I find that I am almost taking sides against myself. It is an uncomfortable state of affairs!' I sometimes wonder whether, for all his Unionism, Tom Rathdonnell might not have thought a bit like that.
31 May - 1 June: Just over a month after Tom is caught up in the Easter Rebellion, Kate Rathdonnell's brother Admiral E.F. Bruen commands HMS Bellerophon at the Battle of Jutland. She fired sixty-two 12 inch rounds and received no damage. After the battle she swept with the other vessels of the Grand Fleet regularly.
Tom's former school colleague (and former Prime Minister) Arthur Balfour becomes Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 1916–1919
Massacre on the Somme
Among those who fought in this dreadful battle in July 1916 were Norman Stronge, Alan Cameron, Ted Brown (of Alcock & Brown), Hubert Gough, William Allgood, Alan Drew and Captain Maurice Collis-Sandes (killed). Meanwhile, on Thursday July 6, the Court Circular of The Times informed its readers that "Lord Rathdonnell has returned to Lisnavagh". It was the King and Queen's 23rd wedding anniversary.
As Ireland tumbled towards
the warfare of 1916 - 1923,
the 2nd Baron Rathdonnell
became one of the key
players in deciding the
fate of the 32 counties.
Discretion was his valour.
1917
Sir Richard Butler serving with the 60th Rifles (now the Green Jackets)
in France and later with the British Expeditionary Force in Mesopotamia.
In 1917 he is the one of the first men to reach Damascus in the wake of
the city's fall to General Allenby. It was at this time he heard the sad
news from Carlow.
KA's brother (Admiral) Edward Francis Bruen commanding HMS Resolution;
wasn't he at Jutland?
In the warm spring of 1917, Ballintemple, the last Butler seat in County
Carlow, was destroyed by what most believe to have been a straightforward
accident, a fire started when a plumbers blow-lamp set the dry-rot filled
roof rafters alight.
General: TKMB on the Executive Committee of the Unionist Alliance when they
met in 1917 shortly after the Government threatened to introduce conscription
to Ireland. The war was already won by this stage so the issue never came
to a head.
In February, 'the Noble Count Plunkett', a colleague of Tom Bunbury's from the RDS, is among those elected as the first Sinn Fein T.D. for North Roscommon during an election that contemporaries called the ‘Election of the snows’ when a blizzard similar to that of February 1947 struck Ireland.
During the 1917 Irish Convention it become clear to Rathdonnell and the Southern Unionists that the Ulster Unionists were so opposed to Home Rule that they were prepared to break away. Hence, the concept of a Six-County (originally Nine-County) Ulster. The British government also seemed to have little interest in the south, its war-torn eyes focused still on the great ship-building industry in Belfast. The government was preoccupied by one of the most disastrous years in the war. Ireland was still a low priority. Sinn Fein was correct when they sceptically suggested Lloyd-George’s interest in resolving the Irish crisis was so he could appease Irish-American interests in Washington and get the USA on side for the war effort.
1918
October 23: Birth of (Lt Col) Francis Bruen (DSC), only son of (Admiral) Edward Francis Bruen and his wife Constance. EF Bruen, then commanding 2nd Cruiser Squadron, was awarded the order of Companion of the Bath and also received high decorations from France, Russia and Japan.
Extraordinary bedspread made at Lisnavagh by women including Ethel McCB, Emily McClintock and many Burgess, Woods and other familiar names.
THE FISHERY CONSERVATORS.
To The Editor of the Nationalist. October 23rd 1918.
Dear Mr. Editor - In connection with the letter appearing in your issue of last week under the name "Fisherman" , I would like to emphasise that the matter referred to by your anonymous correspondent is a fishery question and I would also ask all the licensed fishermen interested to inquire who "Fisherman" is, as I think that an anonymous letter-writer is not only a public danger but also a coward - Yours truly, Kane J. Smith. (Thanks to PPP).
I have been told about – but not yet seen – the beautifully presented roll books from Rathvilly school, dated July 1918 and Oct-Nov 1918. It shows how badly the community was hit by the Spanish Flu influenza. At least three people died in Tobinstown – Bill’s brother, Atty’s mother and one of Betty’s cousins. Children were protected from this information. Nellie O’Toole’s brother was sickest in family but survived. She recalled how Lady Rathdonnell would daily dispatch a soup wagon from Lisnavagh down to the village at Phelan’s Row.
1919
Dail Eireann is established after Sinn Fein victory in 1918 General Election. Henceforth, the Irish Volunteers become known as the Irish Republican Army.
30 April : Lisnavagh’s general manager Leonard Hutcheson Poe (1888-1929) marries Kathleen Gladys Grogan, daughter of William Edward Grogan of Slaney Park, Co Wicklow (and sometime of Moyle?). Leonard is a grandson of the Tipperary solicitor William Thomas Poe. His father was Captain George Leslie Poe (1846-1934), Royal Navy, of Santry Court, Dublin, and Glen Ban, Abbeyleix. His mother was Mary Caldecott (d.28 Nov 1934), eldest daughter of Edward Charley of Conway House, Dunmurry, Co. Antrim. Leonard’s older brother Captain Charles Vernon Leslie Poe, KRRC, was born in 1880 and served in the Boer War and the Great War but was killed in action with the Expeditionary Force in March 1915. (Reported missing March 8th). Leonard’s older sister Violet Mary Poe (1878-1940) was married in 1902 to Gerald Edward Campbell Maconchy, youngest son of George Maconchy of Rathmore, Co. Longford, and has issue. Leonard’s youngest sister Muriel Gladys Poe was born in 1882, won the MBE in 1920 and died unmarried on 30 August 1942. Leonard’s uncle Sir Hutcheson Poe lived at Heywood Gardens and entertained Empress Sisi of the Austro-Hungarian Empire when she visited. It is worth looking at the profiles of both Sir Hutchison Poe and his brother Admiral Sir Edmund Salmon Poe again, as they were considerable achievers in the military, naval and art worlds of late Victorian and early Edwardian era.
Sunday June 15: Alcock and Brown land their Vimy in Connemara.
Wednesday June 25: The Court Circular of The Times informs its readers
that "Lord and Lady Rathdonnell have arrived in London from Lisnavagh,
Rathvilly, Co. Carlow".
Saturday August 23: A garden party is held at Lisnavagh, "by invitation of Lord Rathdonnell, HML, and Lady Rathdonnell, president of the [Carlow] County Red Cross. Those invited included the vice-presidents of the Red Cross districts, war workers of all classes, and the county magistrates. There were many other guests. A message of thanks from the King to all the soldiers, sailors, airmen and war workers from the county was read by Lord Rathdonnell, and hearty cheers was given for his Majesty. The proceedings closed with the playing of the National Anthem".
Richard Abbott's "Police Casualties in Ireland" lists 493 RIC officers killed between the start of the Troubles in 1919 and disbandment in 1922. Perhaps another 100-ish also died as a result of accidents or non-political killings in that period.
1920
March 17: Death of to KA's brother-in-law, Edward Ussher Roberts, husband to Elizabeth Bruen.
April 26: The Times (Court Circular) notes that "Lord Rathdonnell has returned to Lisnavagh … from London".
On 15th May 1920, The Nationalist gave the following report, kindly transcribed by Michael Purcell:
In May 1920 Lord Rathdonnell applied for £1,000 compensation for the malicious burning of Rathvilly police barracks, his property, on the night of the 7th April 1920. (These were presumably the barracks built by Tom's great-uncle Kane Bunbury in the 1870s - TB).The building was described by W.P.Hade C.E. (County Engineer) as a substantial building of granite, two story house with two rooms downstairs. Mr L.H. Poe said he was general manager for Lord Rathdonnell and looked after his property.
Mr. Byrne - You collect the rents for Lord Rathdonnell ?
Witness - yes.
Byrne - You do nothing else for him ?
Witness-Oh, yes I do.
Byrne- By no stretch of the imagination you could not desrcibe yourself as a caretaker of Rathvilly police barracks ?
Witness- I look after the property. I had no recourse to the barracks since they became vacated last November.
In reply to Mr Hamilton, witness stated that Lisnavagh, Lord Rathdonnel's residence , was 2 three/quarter miles from the barracks.
Mr Hamilton submitted that a general manager was competent to make the information , as was laid down in the case of Barnwall and Adolphus. Mr Poe was not a land agent but a general manager of the property.
His Honor held that Mr Poe was qualified to make the deposition. He would award £525 with £10 costs, to be levied off the county at large.
Same court . Sergeant Finnegan applied for £1,200 compensation for furniture and chattels lost on the night of the fire. (case dismissed).
Captain Frederick Beecham Lecky looked for £1,000 for burning on the 14th of April of Ballykealy Police Barracks.
A group of Irish Republican Army activists had planned to burn down Fenagh House in 1920, no doubt propelled by Pack-Beresford's machinations against Mrs Watters in 1890-1891. Michael Purcell had this story confirmed by Pat Purcell, May Gibney and Robert Browne-Clayton of Browne's Hill. However, they were ordered not to proceed by a directive issued by de Valera, stating that attacks by the IRA on the "Big Houses" of the gentry were to cease. It is believed that this directive from de Valera was issued because of his close friendship with Erskine Childers who had intervened with him on behalf of the gentry of Ireland.
May 21: Lord Rathdonell again returned to Lisnavagh from London (The Times).
June 6: Death of Kate Rathdonnell's unmarried younger sister, Mary Susan Bruen.
June: Carlow Urban Council change name of Wellington Square to Governey Place.
14 August: According to the New York Times, Lord Rathdonnell was now emerging as one of the leading Southern Unionists objecting to the proposed Partition of Ireland. See here for more.
20 September: Kevin Barry arrested in Dublin.
Wednesday Oct 20: Lord and Lady Rathdonnell were back in London.
1 November: Kevin Barry hanged in Dublin aged 18, the first to be executed since 1916.
Friday November 5: Rathdonnells back at Lisnavagh.
Dec 1: Tom Rathdonnell in the minority (53 v 111) in - I think - opposing the use of the word 'Southern' to describe the new Senate of Ireland under the terms of the GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL. However, he seems to have been won around to the idea. At this time, the Southern Unionist population was estimated at 350,000 people,
1921
8th February 1921. Died Patrick O'Toole aged 30 years, Clerk, Brown Street, died for Ireland in prison.
18th April 1921. Died Michael Fay aged 22 years, I.R.A.---Motor Driver,
Rathvilly Parish, Died for Ireland - Killed by enemy Forces.
30th April 1921. Died Owen Rice, aged 26 years, Factory Hand, Staplestown
Road, Carlow. Shot by Crown Forces.
(Transcribed by Mary Corcoran -
unusual entries in Carlow Cathedral Death Register
September 9: Death of TK's son-in-law, Lt Col Henry Bramwell.
KA's brother (Admiral) Edward Francis Bruen appointed Director of Naval
Equipment at the Admiralty (until 1923).
May: Tom was, along with the Earls of Meath and Wicklow, Viscount Powerscourt
and Sir William Goulding, among the fifteen peers and eight Privy Councillors
scheduled to sit on the Senate of Southern Ireland under the terms of the
1920 Government of Ireland Act. The Senate convened in the Department of
Agriculture and Technical Instruction in 1921 but was boycotted by Irish
nationalists. Only fifteen members attended its first meeting - Rathdonnell
was among them, as were Lord Cloncurry, the Marquess of Sligo, Sir Bryan
Mahon, Archbishop Gregg, Andrew Jameson, Sir Andrew Beattie, E.H. Andrews,
Henry S. Guinness, H.P. Glynn, J.W.R. Campbell, F.F. Denning, C.G. Gamble,
Sir William Taylor, and Sir Nugent Everard. The Lord Chancellor of Ireland,
Sir John Ross, did not attend due to ill health. Two more Senate meetings
were held over the next couple of weeks, with dwindling interest at each
one.
General: Two-thirds of land in Ireland has by now become the property of
the Irish tenants. Closure of the land question finally comes to and end
in the 1920s after land purchase became compulsory. It is the end of a process
that began in the land agitations of 1879-82 and was a process that had
altered the social and political landscape of Ireland.
General: "In 1921 members of Sinn Fein descended on [Ballimntemple],
in the family's absence, seeking to extort money. The manager of the dairy,
a man called Johnson, physically resisted and was shot for his pains in
the chest. He ultimately made a full recovery."(Bushell, p. 48).
1922
January 14: "The House of Commons of Southern Ireland had a curious
resurrection a few months later, when as part of the process of ratification
of the December 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty its members were called together
to approve it and appoint the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State
on 14 January 1922. (There were interesting theological debates between
Collins and the British government as to who had the right to summon this
meeting, and on what authority.) This was the first occasion when the Trinity
College representatives sat in an assembly with the Sinn Feiners. Of course
by this point the Second Dáil had itself narrowly approved the Treaty,
and the anti-Treaty members of the Dáil simply boycotted the meeting.".
March 4: Death of TK's daughter-in-law, Ethel McClintock Bunbury, grandmother
to the present Baron Rathdonnell.
March 25th:
Sinn Fein Club.
At a meeting of the Killeshin Cumann Sinn Fein held on 24th March 1922 a
resolution was passed unanimously that there be no elections until a new
register be procured and men and women from 18 years of age be entitled to a
vote and that a copy of the resolution be sent to President de Valera,
President Griffith and Michael Collins, Chairman of the Provisional
Government.
(signed) Patrick Purcell. (Letter in the PPP).
June: The Third Dáil replaces what remains of the Southern Ireland
institutions.
When he handed over the keys to Leinster House, Tom may have been rather nervous that he’d also handed over the colossal monument of Queen Victoria and Foley’s Albert at the entrance and garden fronts respectively.
1923
January 5th 1923. Terrible County Carlow Tragedy - Young man shot dead.(Courtesy of Michael Purcell, son of Edward Snoddy's sister)
On Friday week an appalling tragedy was enacted in the house of Mr. E. S. Maffett, solr., Thornville, Palatine, Carlow. The facts are that Edward Snoddy, aged about 18, formerly of the Blackbog, and J. Bermingham, Kellistown, were fired at in Thornville, Palatine. Snoddy was shot in the back and Bermingham was shot through the jaw, the bullet entering one side and coming out the other. After the tragedy Miss Maffett cycled to the Carlow Military Barracks to give word and she came back in the lorry with the military, who conveyed the dead body of Snoddy to the barracks, and also the wounded man to the hospital, and placed a guard on the house.
Mr R. P. McDonald, Coroner, opened an inquest on Saturday. The following were sworn on the jury :- James Dunphy, J.P.Pidgeon, Garrett Hearns, Robert S. Moore, Jas. Corcoran, James Kelly, John Coakley, John O'Neill, Thomas Doyle, Thomas Doran, William O'Neill, Thomas Clarke, James O'Brien, Martin O' Rourke, John O'Neill, John O' Brien, Joseph Russel,Patrick Carpenter, John Byrne and James Doyle.
Patrick Snoddy, deceased's father, identified the body as that of his son, who had been a railway porter. He was a political prisoner till quite recently. He last saw him about ten months ago.
Doctor L. Doyle deposed to making a superficial examination of the body. He found a bullet wound in the back of right forearm, there was also a wound at the back of the left shoulder. It looked as if the shots were fired from behind. The inquest was adjourned.
THE FUNERAL.
On Saturday evening the remains were conveyed to the father's residence, at Blackbog, where they lay overnight, numerous people coming to pay their respects to the dead and sympathy with the living. On Sunday, the interment took place in the family burial ground, Ballinacarrig, and the funeral was large, all classes, creeds and shades of political thought being represented. The funeral cortege was preceded by the Graiguecullen Fife and Drum Band, playing appropriate music along the route. There were several wreaths. Following the coffin was a large guard of honour, composed of the dead man's comrades in the Carlow Brigade I.R.A. and also the Carlow Cumann na mBan. The general public followed. A volley was fired over the grave and the "Last Post" sounded, and the large crowds then dispersed. The following were the chief mourners:- Patrick and Mary Snoddy (parents). Sam, John, Michael, and Thomas, (brothers). Mrs Lizzie Leonard, Mrs Joe Phelan, Mrs
Paddy Jones, Mrs Joe Redmond, Mrs Pat Purcell and Esther (sisters). Frank and Val Slater (uncles), Mrs Bridie Walsh (aunt).
1924
January: Death of former Carlow Council chairman Michael Governey.
26 February: Tom and Kate celebrate Golden Wedding anniversary.
3 August: Tailteann Games commence at Croke Park, to be followed by Tex Austin's International Rodeo. Click here for more.
14 August: Joseph Brennan dispatches a letter on behalf of the Minister
of Finance announcing the Governments intention to purchase the whole of
Leinster House for £63,000. Tom heads a committee to consider the proposal
and the concept of a full-time move to Balls Bridge. Nicholas White has
written about the transfer of Leinster House from the RDS to the Dail in
his book, "Science and Colonialism in Ireland" (Cork University
Press, 1999) but confessed to me that he had "raided most of the
relevant material from Terence de Vere White's history of the RDS".
This describes Lord Rathdonnell's involvement as primarily agricultural
and gives most of the credit to the society's chief executive, Edward Bohane,
and to Judge Wylie.
1925
April 13: Death of KA, Lady Rathdonnell, in Algiers. Why she was there is unclear. Her body was returned to Ireland in lead coffin. Lead coffins were (and still occasionally are) used for vault / crypt
interments, ie not an earth burial - an interment in a built structure,
sometimes above ground, sometimes below. Classic examples exist in Mount
Jerome and Glasnevin cemeteries. It was a sign of wealth and privilege and took fashion in the 19 century in
particular. It was a high Victorian symbol of class. The lead coffin would be encased in 1 or 2 outer coffins - normally oak 'and
weighs a bloody tonne' according to Dublin undertaker Gus Nichols who has one! Many churches had
subterranean vaults as well - Christ Church Cathedral is a good example. St.
Andrews Church on Westland Row has a huge vault under the street.
Monday November 9: The Times noted Lord Rathdonnell's return to Lisnavagh
from England.
TK's brother-in-law, Admiral Edward Francis Bruen retires from Navy.
Four Generations: In 1926, Tom attended
the christening of his great-grandson,
Patrick Cox, at Woldringfold. Here he is
pictured holding the baby alongside his
son-in-law Forrester Colvin, right,
and his grandson, Jack Colvin.
1926
January 5: The Most Rev Dr Patrick Foley, Bishop of Kildare & Leighlin,
turns the first sod on the site where the huge Carlow beet processing plant
stood until its closure in March 2005. Construction was completed in record
time and processing of that first sugar beet campaign commenced in mid-12th
June: Birth of Pat Colvin, son of Jack and Hester Colvin, grandson
to Forrester and Isabella and great-grandson of Tom Rathdonnell.
October, 1926. It was one of four sugar plants in the country - Mallow,
Thurles and Tuam following in Carlow's footsteps. Sugar beet was the lifeblood
of the local community and major part of the industrial fabric of Carlow
Town for many years. Among the major protestors on the factory's closure
in 2005 was Tiger Kearns, a Vietnam War veteran who worked at the factory
for close on forty years. He maintained that his hometown of Rathvilly was
one of the best places for growing sugar beet in the world.
Tuesday January 19: The Times notes Lord Rathdonnell's return to
Lisnavagh from England.
Tuesday April 20: The Times again notes Lord Rathdonnell's return
to Lisnavagh from England. .
May 23: Death of TK' son-in-law, Major Frederick Dalgety. He had been ill
for some time but apparently his wife, a committed Christian Scientist,
discouraged any treatment.
August: First Competition for the Aga Khan Trophy at the Dublin Horse Show.
1927
May 21: Charles Lindberg makes aviation history as first person to fly solo across the Atlantic from Paris to New York in the Spirit of St Louis.
December 24: Death of TK's brother-in-law, Henry Bruen, aged 71.
Sinn Feins' Tomas O Deirg, a veteran of 1916, is elected FF TD for Co/.
Carlow, a seat he retains until his death in 19 Nov 1956.
Death of Sam Maguire aged 48. He was the only Protestant ever to captain
a GAA team. He hailed from Dunmanaway, Co. Cork. He was an active member
of the IRB, assisting in gun-running plots to kidnap British MPs and, allegedly,
in the assassination of Sir Henry Wilson, MP for North Down, in 1922.
The 2nd Baron Rathdonnell
and his great-grandson,
Patrick
Cox, taken in 1926.
1928
March: Death of TK's friend and agent Leonard Poe, "a loss which touched
him (TK) very deeply". TK returns from a visit to South Africa soon
afterwards.
On Armistice Day 1928, the statue of William of Orange outside Trinity was blown up; the shell was so precarious it had to be taken down; its lead was used to plug holes in the Liffey.
November 29: TK enters "select ranks of octogenarians"
and celebrates 50th year since he succeeded his uncle as Baron Rathdonnell.
December 20: The members of the Royal Dublin Society re-elect Tom for a
further term of office as President. His term had now lasted fifteen years.
A year after his death, Sam Maguire is honoured by a Cup, made by Hopkins
& Hopkins and modeled on the Ardagh Chalice, was presented to Kildare
GAA.
1929
In 1929, they installed new boiler system at Lisnavagh, comprising a 3-section boiler from Crane of Whitehall. It was the height of inegnuity at the time, requiring no engines. I spent most of 2007 filling the No. 2 section and keeping its flues clean.
February: TK presented with Oswald Birley's portrait of him in oils by
the RDS. He duly presented it to the Society and it hangs in the Council
Chamber today.
Spring Show: As re-elected President, TK attends but has a seizure at the
end of the show "from which he never rallied".
May 22: Death of TKMB at Lisnavagh aged 80 years old. His death was registered
with The Times. There was a private funeral at St Mary's Church in Rathvilly. "No mourning
or flowers, by request". A Celtic Cross was later erected over his grave.
May 24: An obituary to TKMB is published in page 7 of The Irish Times.
May 25: An obituary to TKMB is published on page 16 of The Times three days later.
19 September: The Irish Times published some details of TK's will, stating
that he had left £19,739 1s 2d in England. From this he left £100
to his butler, Lewis Kaye, and £50 each to his steward, Henry Giff,
and his gamekeeper, Charles Nicholl. Any man who had been his servant for
more than three years was given 6 months wages. This latter bequest sounds
rather generous. "He gave £200 to his son-in-law Colonel Colvin
and the residue of the property to his son, TLMB, who succeeds to the Barony.
His daughters are provided for under settlements. Probate is granted to
his son-in-law Colonel Forrester Farnell Colvin of Shermanbury grange, Hosrham,
Sussex".
General: Lord Rathdonnell's interests as President of the RDS were primarily
agricultural. After his death in 1929, the RDS elected John Joly. The election
came shortly after a decree that the term of office for a President be reduced
from a life appointment to three years. According to Terence de Vere White,
the purpose of this decree was twofold. It enabled the Society to honour
more of its distinguished members whilst simultaneously "avoided
the embarrassments which longevity sometimes produces". This would
imply that Rathdonnell had perhaps lived considerably longer than he was
meant to!
Irish Hospitals Sweepstake begins.
John Joseph White of Beech Hill, grandfather of Gordon Merry, was i/c of buying cattle for Lisnavagh in TK's reign - as well as being agent for Rathsallagh and Ballinure. Mr. Merry reckons they were all shagging like rabbits.
1930
November 4: Death of TK's sister-in-law, Agnes Mary McMurrough Bruen (nee Kavanagh), widow of Henry Bruen.
1932
Eucharistic Congress overshadows second Tailteann Games.
1935
July 25: Death of TK's youngest daughter, Pauline Dalgety, probably in agony as, being a Christian Scientist, she refused all medication.
1936
February 16: Death of TK's son-in-law, Lt Col Forrester Colvin.
1937
September 28: Death of TLMB, 3rd Baron Rathdonnell. TK's grandson WRMB
succeeds as 4th Baron.
November 25: WRMB marries Pamela Drew.
Less than 25 years after Tom's death, the big house at
Lisnavagh was reduced by two thirds so that his grandson,
the 4th Baron, could realistically hold onto the place.
1938
September 17: Birth of Thomas Benjamin McCB, 5th Baron Rathdonnell.
September 26: Death of KA's unmarried younger sister Eleanor Margaret Bruen.
1941
January 7: Death of KA's youngest sister Lady Grace Johnson-Walsh.
July 30: Death of KA's sister Elizabeth Roberts.
1942
Execution of George Plant.
1945
March 6: Death of KA's sister, Helen Maria Bishop.
1946
The I.R.A. resumed operations, causing Irish President Eamon de Valera to declare war on the organization.
Operation Shamrock begins.
1947
The Big Snow in January and February.
Ireland benefitting from the Marshall Plan (1947-52), experiencing inflation, as salaries increased considerably. This countered the effects of a temporary British ban on coal exports which brought the Irish railroad system to a standstill (Feb. 1947).
1948
A hotly contested election campaign, won by Fianna Fail.
1949
Several steps undertaken to deregulate the Irish economy, such as permitting the sale of white bread of prewar quality.
1952
The main wing of Lisnavagh House is knocked down. Churchill after the bombing of the house of commons in 1941 opted to rebuild it in its original configuration despite the fact that it would not accommodate all the members of the house. His rationale was ‘We shape our buildings thereafter they shape us’.
Between 1950 and 1960, over 500,000 people emigrate from Ireland.
1953
September 3: Death of KA's brother-in-law, Sir Hunt Henry Johnson-Walsh, 5th Bart.
1954
Friday November 12: Death of KA's nephew Henry Arthur Bruen of Oak Park.
'The death occurred on Friday 12th November of Captain Henry Arthur Bruen,
Oak Park, Carlow.
The late Captain Bruen was educated at Eton and was a graduate of Sandhurst,
the Military College.
In 1907 he was gazetted to the 15th Huzzars and served with the Cavalry
Regiment during the
1914-18 World War.
He afterwards returned home to farm the extensive Oak Park estate which, as
a model of good
husbandry bears the imprint of his orderly mind and progressive methods. He
was considered an
authority in all branches of agriculture. He gave good employment to a large
staff , many of whom are
housed on the estate.
He served as a member of the Committee of the Royal Dublin Society for many
years and was associated
with the old Carlow Show Society.
Captain Bruen was a member of the Kildare Street Club, Dublin and the
Cavalry Club of London.
He was President of Carlow Golf Club.
He is survived by his wife and Daughter, Mrs Patricia Boyse, Slaney Lodge,
Enniscorthy.
The remains were removed from St. Brigids Hospital to St. Mary's Church on
Saturday.
Following a Service the funeral took place to the family burial place on the
Oak Park estate,
an unfinished temple some distance from the house. The plain oak coffin was
carried from the
church to the motor hearse by employees. The funeral proceeded at walking
pace where the coffin was transferred
to the house and a further Service was taken. The coffin was then
transferred to a farm drea and drawn by a farm horse
to the burial ground.
The attendance included Commander Martin Bruen R.N. Lord and Lady Kildare,
Lord Rathdonnell, Sir Standish and Lady Roche, Viscount de Vesci, Sir Walter
Couchman, Lt. Browne-Clayton, General Sir Charles and Lady Broad, Baron de
Roebeck, Sir Thomas Butler, Countess Fitzwilliam, General Dennis, Captain
John Rochfort, Captain Oliver Hardy Eustace-Duckett, Robert Harvey-Eustace,
Brigadier and Mrs Booth, Colonel William Duckett, Colonel. and Mrs E. Pike,Commander Denis Pack-Beresford, Colonel Philpotts,Colonel Mitchell,
Commander C. Skrine, Lt. Colonel Rupert Beauchamp Lecky, Major
Bishop,Captain H.C.P. Hamilton, Major Stanley Barret, Lt. Colonel Archibald
Macalpine-Downie, Mr Hope Bagenal, Captain J.B. Blackett, Dermott
McMurrough-Kavanagh, Mrs Olive Hall. Isobel Lecky-Watson,
Colonel J. Farrell, Colonel K. Alexander,Major H. Bramwell, Major John
Alexander, Major Bishop, Mr Patrick Governey, Chairman of Carlow Urban
Council. Dr Joseph Kelly, Carlow, Mr M Ruddle, Provincial Bank, Mr P.
Atcheson, Bank of Ireland, etc etc etc....
Transcribed by Mary Corcoran from Nationalist reporter's notebook November
2009.
1963
Carlow Nationalist, July 1963.
Million $ Handshake.
This week I shook hands with a millionaire in Rathvilly , Co. Carlow. He is
Kansas industrialist Mr. George McGrew who is spending a few weeks at
Lisnavagh House, the home of the late Lord Rathdonnell.
Mr McGrew has rented the 130 years old house for £1,000 a month, and with
him are his family and a number of friends and business associates - about
12 in all. A staff of eight has been hired to look after them.
Head of a radio component company, Mr McGrew says he would like to start a
similar concern here, but he has no definite plans in mind at the moment. If
such a factory materialised it would employ around 250 people. Mr McGrew
likes the idea of siting a branch of his company here because of our labour
situation, low operating costs and lower tax rates.
He is enjoying his visit to Rathvilly and has given indications that he
might return.
"We are more like guests here than tenants" he said.
(My aunt believes the McGrews may have introduced mint juleps to Lisavagh).
1965
Carlow Nationalist - Death of Mrs Olive Hall.
Mrs Olive Hall (87) of Kellistown House, Carlow who died at her home last
week was one of Ireland's most remarkable women. She had the unique
distinction of having been Master of the Carlow Foxhounds for the record
span of 45 years.
She became Master in 1920, the fourth Master which that famous pack had had
in 157 years.
(John Watson 1807-1869, his son Robert Watson 1869 -1904, W.E. Grogan
1904-1920, and Mrs Hall 1920-1965, her daughter Barbara Eustace-Duckett
1965-1965, her other daughter Olive Alexander 1965- ?).
Olive Hall was the widow of Major William Charles Hall and daughter of Sir
Standish O'Grady Roche Bt. of Ahade, Tullow, Co. Carlow.
She bred many fine hounds, among them a Peterborough champion, and with
Isaac Bell, another famous sporting personality who died recently, she
developed blood-lines which are the accepted breeding in many packs today.
She was born in 1877, and was a descendant of Sir David Roche Bt., famous
Master of the Limerick Hounds from 1861 to 1879.Her love of hunting began at
an early age and she was regarded as an outstanding side-saddle rider of her
day. In addition to hunting she also excelled at salmon fishing and
gardening. She last rode to the hounds in September, at the age of 87. She
was much loved by her staff whom she always treated with kindness and
consideration. The oldest member of Mrs Hall's staff present at the funeral
was Mr. Frank Bingham who has served the family for more then 43 years. Mrs
Hall is survived by her daughters, Mrs O.H.Eustace-Duckett of Castlemore,
Tullow and Mrs J. Alexander, Milford House, Carlow, grandchildren and great
grandchildren.
The eighty-eight wreaths included one each from Queen Elizabeth II of
England and another from The Queen Mother.
Note from Michael Purcell 2010. Olive would come into our shop and we always
addressed her as Lady Hall, ( she never objected or corrected ) I remember I
was a bit disappointed to find out following her death that she was just a"plain" Mrs !.
Mrs Hall was a tall, heavy-set woman and there is a story told of one of the
stable-hands ( a small man ) passing a remark to her when she returned
from a hard days hunting, he said to her " I think the horse is sweating
excessively Mam" and she replied "don't be ridiculous man, so would you be
sweating excessively if you just spent the last five hours lodged between my
thighs".
When Mrs Hall died in March 1965 her daughter Mrs Eustace Duckett of
Castlemore, took on the Mastership in September. She died shortly
afterwards, then Mrs Alexander, Mrs Hall's other daughter, Mastered the Hunt
for that season. In 1966 through lack of followers it was decided to close
the Hunt. The Hounds are on loan to the Galway Hunt.
December. 1965. The Nationalist and Leinster Times.
Death of Mrs Barbara Eustace-Duckett.
The death of Mrs Barabra Eustace-Duckett took place at her home in
Castlemore, after a long illness. Daughter of the late Major and Mrs Hall,
Kellistown, deceased was a member of the Carlow Hunt for many years. On the
death of her mother last spring, she was unanimously appointed Master of the
Carlow Hunt. Her interests were not confined to hunting, She was one of the
foremost breeders in the country of Labrador Retrievers and the prefix"Castletown" was well known not only in Ireland but also in Great Britain,
Canada and the U.S.A.
She was also secretary of the Retriever Field Trials Association and acted
as a judge on many occasions.
She is survived by her husband Mr. Oliver Hardy Eustace-Duckett, her
daughters, Mrs O' Lambert, New Ross; Mrs K. Carvill, Castlemore and her
sister Mrs J. Alexander, Milford, Carlow.
From: Page 1, Bailly’s Magazine of Sports & Pastimes, Vol. LXVII, No. 443, January 1897.
"LORD RATHDONNELL.
When the Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland was in its declining years, the late Richard Chaloner used to remark “that there were two men in whom he had confidence and hope, one of them being Tom Bunbury”. Of Tom Bunbury, now better known as Lord Rathdonnell, what pleasing reminiscences would not the late “Druid” have given us? For he was a man after his own heart – stroke in the Eton boat; the best man across country; winner of the point-to-point heavy-weight race of the Pytchley; breeder of Shorthorns; one of the organisers of the Dublin shows; owner of a yacht – what themes his graphic pen would have written had his valuable life been spared!
About the year 1597, Alexander McClintock found his way from Scotland into the north of Ireland; he bought large estates, and settled in County Donegal. His granddaughter married Nathaniel Alexander and became mother of the first Earl of Caledon. His grandson John had a numerous family, which afterwards became allied with several of the noble houses of Ireland; he resided at Drumcar, Co. Louth, and was succeeded by his nephew, whose grandson, John McClintock became the first Baron Rathdonnell, of Rathdonnell, Co. Donegal. This first Lord Rathdonnell was succeeded by his brother's son, Thomas Kane McClintock Bunbury, born November 29th 1848, whose father, Captain William Bunbury McClintock, RN, MP for Carlow, was described by the late Mr. Chaloner “as a very fine old fellow who loved a stout horse and kept a good Shorthorn”, and who built the magnificent farm buildings at Lisnavagh in stone, on four sides of a square, with water in a huge circular basin in the middle, and which are probably the finest in Leinster. They stand on what the late Mr. William Johnson of Prumplestown, the agent, used to remember as a bog, for he had shot snipe on it when a young man. He died in 1866, and his son succeeded to the title as second Baron Rathdonnell in 1879.
When a boy of ten years he was sent to Eton and educated under John Hawtry and Dr. Warre. He distinguished himself greatly by his love of sport and became an expert oarsman, winning the sculling in 1868, and the pairs twice in 1867, with his cousin Mr. Calvert, and in 1868 with Mr. F. A. Currey, He rowed in the Eton eight at Henley in 1867 and 1868, winning the Ladies’ Plate on each occasion, he being captain of the boats and rowing stroke. He also played in the Wall and Field eleven at Football for two and three years; twice ran second in the School Hurdle Race, and one year was fifth in the school mile.
His brother, Jack Bunbury, who afterwards rowed for Oxford. Rowed with him in 1868, and stroked the Eton eight for the next two years, so that three years in succession there was a Bunbury at the stroke oar: his young son, bent on following his father’s footsteps, pulled stroke in the Eton eight at Henley in 1896, when they won the Ladies Plate; and he is also already a capital rider to hounds. This successful early training at Eton doubtless gave Lord Rathdonnell a desire in later years for yachting, for he has sailed down the Mediterranean and back on more than one occasion in his schooner Thauma.
In 1869, a year after leaving Eton, Lord Rathdonnell joined the Scots Greys, but retired four years later on his marriage with Miss Bruen, eldest daughter of the Right Hon. Henry Bruen, of Oak Park, Carlow, and settled down to the management of his estates in Counties Carlow and Louth, where he had a thousand acres in each, breeding Shorthorns and horses, and diverting his leisure with hunting, shooting and deer stalking, of which he is particularly fond.
When a boy he was a fine rider, his good hands and seat making him a capital pupil for Robert Watson in the Carlow & Island county, who soon taught him to love “the sport of kings”. His excellent training in youth stood him in good service in after years, for when hunting was made “uncomfortable” in Ireland he took Great Bowden Hall in Leicestershire, hunted with the Pytchley South Quorn (then Sir Bache Cunard’s) and Cottesmore hounds for several seasons, and no man went better or was more popular in that famous country.
His brilliant Success when he won the point-to-point steeplechase in 1885 is the talk of the sporting Northamptonshire farmers, of which the country still has a few left, to this day. No man, say they still, had better horses or went straighter across the country than he did. This great race, although kept secret, was largely attended, upwards of two hundred horsemen being present when the meeting was reached at Buckby Folly. The course was about 4 miles and a half, in the shape of a horseshoe, over a grass country with stiff fences and an open brook. Lord Rathdonnell dressed at John Cooper’s, where they weighed out, and who very hospitably entertained them. There were 29 entries, against 22 in 1884 and 19 in the year previous. The scene was brilliant in the extreme when Mr. Cooper’s hospitable home was left for the start, and from the hill near the Folly the race could be seen nearly the whole way. Captain (Bay) Middleton made the running, the whole field being well together; but the Captain soon came to grief, and Mr. W.H. Foster took up the running; when about a mile from home Lord Rathdonnell, on Redskin, rushed to the front, and although carrying a stone over top-weight, won by about half a length, Mr. Gordon Cunard being second, Captain Middleton third, and Mr. James Pender fourth, Captain F. Osbourne being fifth, and the first representative of the light teens, four out of the fourteen-stone division being the first home. A great reception awaited the winner, who, not forgetting his host, quietly remarked, “I tell you what, John, it was that glass of old brandy you gave me that did it”. He had previously won a Harlow point-to-point race before leaving Ireland.
His taste for Shorthorns, commenced at home, was whetted by Mr. Bolton’s fine herd at the Island, where that gentleman at one time kept a pack of hounds to give sport to the good folks of Wexford. His old friend, Mr. Doyne’s choice little herd at Wells hard y, as well as his flock of Border Leicester's developed further interest in breeding choice cattle and sheep.
He has tried to breed weight-carrying hunters, with a certain amount of success, but experience has shown, what others have also found out, that the Irish hunter after all is more or less a chance animal, for he has found it very hard to breed a horse up to 15 stone that he could ride himself, though several are red annually at Lisnavagh. Revenge who stood at Lisnavagh for many years, has proved one of the best hunting sires, and Victoricus by Victor out of an Arbitrator mare is getting very good young stock at the present time.
Formerly the herd of Shorthorns was kept at Lisnavagh. He first bought a few of the Old Blossoms, the Glossys and some of Torr’s G’s at the Island, and a few animals from Mr. George Allen’s and Major O’Reilly’s herds in Ulster and Louth. The bull Anchor, a purchase from Mr. Chaloner at King’s Fort, brought the herd into prominent notice’ for this fine bull twice won the £155 Chaloner Plate at the Dublin Show; was placed first at the Newry Show of the Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland; carried off the Tweeddale Gold Medal at the Highland Society’s meeting at Perth, and, at the great Royal International Show at Kilburn in 1879 Anchor was placed first, and stood well forward for the £100 championship for the best male; the judges, however, differing, an umpire on the spur of the moment was called in, and, overlooking the elegance and character, as well as the great natural substance, of Anchor, awarded the championship to one of the fat Telemachus bulls from Burghley. Saxon King was afterwards obtained from Mr. Talbot Crosbie in County Kerry. He also won the Chaloner Plate in 1882, and was first at the Kilkenny Meeting two years later, of the Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland.
Booth blood which was for so long a period the mainstay of the Irish Shorthorn, was tapped about 1882, and Scottish King and King Otho were hired from Warlaby.
A few years after the death of his uncle, the late Lord, he removed his herd into County Louth, where he now resides. Farming is, however, still carried on at Lisnavagh, but grazing is more the feature, the land being better adapted for it than for breeding. About 150 bullocks are bought late in the autumn, dishorned, and about 100 ewes; these are grazed on through the summer, and an auction is held in October. The return of the same purchasers year after year is the best proof of the appreciation of the stock; for a greater feeder in the north of England has lately proved that Irish bullocks will dress out to be about 81/2 lbs., whereas the more fashionable blue greys will only kill to about 71/2 lbs. to every 14lbs live weight.
At Drumcar the herd has been significantly increased, very choice animals now being bred there. At the late Mr. Aylmer’s sale in Norfolk the best of the Castanets were purchased. One or two Medoras from the King’s Fort and the bull “Flower Prince” from that patriarchal breeder, Mr. Andrew Mitchell of Alloa, on the banks of the Forth, and a few animals of Booth blood from Mr. Heinemann in Kent were at different times added to the herd. Prince and Sir Alan Studley were hired from Warlaby, and Royal Zingaro, from King’s Fort, with his beautiful colour and rare hair and quality, has long been an efficient sire. The dam of this bull is at present alive and well in the herd at Drumcar, and has produced several very fine animals, both male and female.
Colonel Butler, the agent, who resides at Greenmount, close by, takes as keen interest in the herd as Mr. Adair does in the farming at Lisnavagh, his regret, and those round him, being the distance between the two estates, otherwise they might have his lordship more often hunting amongst them in the Carlow county. Ryder, the herdsman at Drumcar, is just as devoted to Shorthorns as his master; and on a field-day, when the boys gather up the herd from the distant meadows by the river Dee on to the lawn, no pleasanter sight can be seen than the interest one and all take in their choice as to which is best, and how they have thriven since the last gathering.
Occasional sales have dispersed much of the blood, with good effect, throughout Ireland, whilst some animals have found their way into the Lothians, England and Wales. It should be mentioned in evidence of the merit of the old Lisnavagh stock, that some calves were brought by Mr. Evan Jones and taken into Carmarthenshire, and one of them recently took a high position when exhibited at the Tredegar Show last November.
At the Dublin Spring Show a few young animals are exhibited in good natural condition, for Lord Rathdonnell strongly objects to the forcing and cramming system now so much in vogue; they generally receive the notice of the judges. Two years ago the Duke of Leinster’s £150 cup for the best group of Shorthorns was awarded to a bull, cow, and two heifers from Drumcar.
Lord Rathdonnell was elected a member of the Royal Dublin Society in 1875, and was soon afterwards appointed to the Council, and has been twice Chairman of the Agricultural Committee. He is also a prominent member of the Viceregal Commission on Horse Breeding in Ireland. He is a very active steward at the Spring Show, and to his energy and organising abilities a portion of the great success of the August Horse Show is due. There he is very much to the fore, especially in the jumping enclosure, where he has annually organised the grand parade of prize horses which has been so successful a feature of the shows at Balls Bridge. At most of the Irish race meetings he is generally present. His geniality and kindness of heart, his quick sound judgement and good common sense have endeared him to everyone with whom he comes in contact, while his racy humour and ready wit have, among his more intimate acquaintances, deservedly entitled him to the sobriquet of the “Merry Lord”. "
With thanks to William Bunbury, Michael Purcell, Chris Bilham, Penny Hatfield and others.
Articles
- Benjamin Bunbury I (1642-1707)
- William Bunbury I (1674-1710)
- Thomas Bunbury I (1705-1774)
- William Bunbury III (1744-1778)
- Benjamin Bunbury II (1751-1823)
- Thomas Bunbury II (d. 1846)
- Captain William McClintock Bunbury (1800-1866)
- Tom McClintock Bunbury - 2nd Baron Rathdonnell (1848-1929)
- Hon. Jack Bunbury (1851-1893)
- Hon. Billy Bunbury (1878-1900)
- T. L. McClintock Bubury, 3rd Baron Rathdonnell (1881-1937)
- W.R. McClintock Bunbury, 4th Baron Rathdonnell (1914-1959)
- Major Hugh Massy (1914-1987)
- Kinsellagh's Hill
- Germaine's of Lisnavagh
- Rathvilly School, Birmingham