Leinster Leader – December 2004
NEW BOOK TELLS STORY OF ARISTOCRACY OF KILDARE
Castletown House, Celbridge, Co. Kildare, was an, if not the, appropriate venue for launch of a new book on the history of Kildare.
The house once owned by one of Ireland’s richest men, Speaker Connolly, hosted the publication of a book the aristocracy of Co. Kildare.
Historian and traveller, Turtle Bunbury, has provided plenty of detail about the life and times of eighteen of the county’s most influential “big house families,” include the Connolly family.
“The Landed Gentry & Aristocracy of County Kildare,” was launched with the support of Kildare Kitchens and Tindal Wines.
A large gathering, including members of some of the families portrayed, turned up on 8 December for a first look at the book which covers more than a thousand years of Irish history.
Families include the Aylmer, Barton, de Burgh (singer, Chris, is related), Clements, Connolly, Guinness, Henry, Fennell, Fitzgerald, Latten, La Touche, Mansfield, Maunsell, Medlicott, More O’Ferrall, Moore, de Roebeck and Wolfe.
Mr. Bunbury, who is also working on a travel book on Sri Lanka, has provided much detail about the lives of these often eccentric families, who had their share of failure as well as success.
The book, published by Irish Family Names, describes itself as a short potted history but is a neat and comprehensive overview of its field.
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Leinster Leader, January 2005
Con Costello - Looking Back
The families of de Burgh and Clements are each devoted a chapter in Turtle Bunbury’s well researched “The Landed Gentry & Aristocracy of County Kildare”, in a series published by Irish Family Names.
The Clements family is descended from a 17th century English wine merchant, while the de Burghs claim Charlemange as an ancestor.
Settled at Oldtown, Naas, since the late 17th century the family has produced many celebrated soldiers, including General Sir Eric de Burgh, who was a President of the Co. Kildare Archaeological Society, and his grandson Chris de Burgh, the popular singer who has sold more than 40 million albums and performed over 2,500 concerts worldwide.
Acknowledging that Guinness is undoubtedly one of the most famous names associated with Ireland amongst the international community, the first identifiable member of the family is Richard Guinness who was born about 1690.
Now the best know member of the dynasty is Desmond who, with his late wife Mariga, established the Irish Georgian Society which awakened interest in historic houses, and especially ensured the preservation of Castletown House at Celbridge. Their son, Patrick, initiated a DNA test which confirmed their bloodline’s genetic affiliation with the Gaelic sept of Magennis of Co. Down.
Families which have disappeared from the county in modern times include those of Aylmer of Donadea, Wolfe of Forenaghts, More O’Ferrall of Balyna and Kildangan, Mansfield of Morristown Lattin, La Touche of Harristown, Barton of Straffan, and of course the Fitzgeralds.
Bunbury concludes that “It will not be long before the last of the tweed-clad, Spaniel toting gentlemen vanishes in his entirety, taking with him a remarkable chapter in Irish history.”
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Leinster Leader, January 2005
BETWEEN THE COVERS WITH HENRY BAURESS
A look at Kildare’s most influential families
Historian and traveller, Turtle Bunbury, has provided plenty of detail about the life and times of eighteen of the Kildare’s most influential families.
In “The Landed Gentry & Aristocracy of County Kildare,” he has provided fascinating details about eighteen families whose names pepper the history of not only Kildare but Ireland it one time legal power centre, London.
The Aylmer, Barton, de Burgh (singer, Chris, is related), Clements, Connolly, Guinness, Henry, Fennell, Fitzgerald, Latten, La Touche, Mansfield, Maunsell, Medlicott, More O’Ferrall, Moore, de Roebeck and Wolfe families are among a network of around four hundred families who governed Ireland for more than 200 years after King William’s victory over the Jacobite forces at the Boyne in 1689. These families from the Protestant gentry and aristocracy - the Anglo Irish ascendancy - held great power up until the end of the 1900’s.
Turtle Bunbury and Art Kavanagh have brought together an entertaining overview of the stories of these families, whose role in Irish history will no doubt continue to be debated.
Where did they come from? Some descended from old Irish chieftains. Others came via the Norman invasion 800 years ago and other arrived from England in the 1650’s.
Yet others, like the La Touche and de Robeck, were the modern equivalent of asylum seekers on the run from religious and political turmoil on the European mainland.
Whatever about their origin, Turtle Bunbury says they were the privileged elite and Kildare’s proximity to Dublin brought it to the forefront during those the aforementioned two hundred year period.
The lot of the gentry, while apparently privileged, has not always been a bed or roses. There have been thorns on the rosebushes.
One of the Clement family, Nat, was the architect and designer of the Aras an Uachtarain and is credited with the design of Newberry Hall and Williamstown in Carbury, Lodge Park in Straffan and Colganstown in Newcastle, Co. Dublin.
But other members of that family found themselves on the wrong side of the status quo on occasions. A female member was arrested for witchcraft during the Salem witch trials in the United States. Much later, another was a prominent IRA supporter in the 1930’s and was interned in the Curragh during the World War 11 period.
The one time richest man in Ireland, Speaker Connolly, did not have aristocratic blood in him.
The son of a Protestant inn-keeper from Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal, went to study law and began collecting land in voluminous amounts at very cheap rates. All above board? One of his friends who aided his development was the London banker, Sir Alexander Cairns, whom Jonathan Swift described as “a shuffling scoundrel.”
Two of Dublin’s best known streets, Henry Street and Moore Street, are named after the Moore family of Monasterevin.
The widow of one of the Earls married the Restoration dramatist, William Wycherly. She died before him and the playwright lost a lot of money fighting the will. One result was he spent seven years in Fleet Prison in London.
The Wolfe family of Forenaughts in Naas, whose home is now part of the Smurfit thoroughbred operation, suffered during the Emmet Rebellion in 1803 when two of them were dragged from their carriage in Dublin and murdered. Another, Richard, died in the Sudan when his army unit was sent to relieve Gordon garrison in Khartoum in 1885.
A member of the Henry family, Michael Charles Henry, the last of his family to live at Straffan House and Lodge Park, was a Commander in charge of the Port Crew on board the first Polaris submarine, Resolution.
Turtle, who is also working on a travel book on Sri Lanka, has provided much detail about the lives of these often eccentric families who had their share of failure as well as success.
What of the author himself, whose surname appears in the index of the book?
One of the Lennon sisters, Sarah, who featured in Stella Tillyards book, “Aristocrats,” married the Suffolk racing magnate, Sir Charles Bunbury. She divorced him and later, in 1787, Oakley Park near Celbridge, became her home and that of her husband Colonel George Napier.
If it was not death, gambling also took its toll on the aristocracy. One of the Fitzgeralds lost Carton House in Maynooth as a result.
Turtle’s family are from Rathvilly, Co. Carlow, and came to Ireland 300 years ago. One of his ancestors, a Norman knight at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, got land in Cheshire near a place called Bunbury. One of the family lost almost everything when he supported Charles 1 and hopped it to Ireland.
The family were settled into Carlow by the 1660’s.
There are five or six explanations as to how he was Christian named Turtle. One is because he was a third son and the Latin for that is Tertius. Another, he said, is that his grandmother gave him three turtles when he was a baby. “There are others but we will leave them aside,” he said in an interview with the Leader.
He went to school in Dublin, at Castle Park in Dalkey until he was thirteen and then headed to Perthshire in the Scottish highlands for his secondary education. He loved it there. Back to Trinity where he started law but changed to history finishing there in 1996.
A three year spell in Hong Kong in the magazine/ media area followed but he returned to Ireland and got stuck into the history business where he is now working with publisher, Art Kavanagh.
The Kildare book is part of a series and there could be another Kildare related book by the 32 year old Dublin-based historian.
In between researching the gentry he has been doing a book on Sri Lanka with James Fennell of Athy and that, “Living in Sri Lanka,” will be out next year. Part of that project includes a three month spell in the country.
During his history period in Trinity, Turtle specialised in Irish history from the 17th to 19th centuries. He started work on the Kildare book in April of this year in conjunction with others such as Enneclan.ie.
As far as the author is concerned, entry to the world of the aristocracy was not impossible. Speaker Connolly did it but, he said, Speaker played by the rules of that group of people, which contained both heroes and villains.
Many of those big families are gone. If Kildare had about fifty of them in their heyday, less than half of them remain intact.
He found the families he wrote about “very helpful.”
Publisher, Art Kavanagh, has produced a number of county based books on such families, including Wexford, Tipperary, Kilkenny and now Kildare. Others are due to come on stream this year.
The book describes itself as a short potted history but is a neat and comprehensive overview of its field. Every school and library should have one.
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Leinster Leader, October 2005
FAMOUS FITZGERALDS GATHER AT MAYNOOTH CASTLE - HENRY BAURESS
Former Taoiseach, Dr. Garrett Fitzgerald was in Kildare this week to discuss some family linen in public and the gathering at Maynooth Castle revealed a very mixed bag.
Accompanied by leading Irish harpists, Anne Marie O’Farrell and Cormac de Barra, the thoroughly modern Garrett spoke about Garrett Mor Fitzgerald, the 8th Earl and Lord Deputy of Ireland in the 15th century.
Also on hand to dish up yarns on other members of the dynasty was his namesake, Desmond Fitzgerald, the Knight of Glin and Renagh Holohan, author of ‘The Irish Chateaux - In search of the Descendants of the Wild Geese.”
The Fitzgeralds were one of the most powerful families but as Turtle Bunbury and Art Kavanagh highlighted in their recently published history of Kildare’s landed gentry and aristocracy, there were ups and downs and even offs, in the case of a head or two.
In the latter case, those of you who like loyalty in their fellow humans, may be consoled by the fate of Christopher Parese who had his head removed after selling out Maynooth Castle in 1534.
Dr. Garrett told us that when Gearoid Og (Young Garrett), 9th Earl of Kildare, was summoned to London to answer charges against him - the Crown thought its middle management were running away with themselves and perhaps more - he beefed up his stronghold at Maynooth Castle and left his son, best known as Silken Thomas, in charge.
But soon afterwards, Silken or Thomas Fitzgerald, Lord Offaly, hearing a false account that his dad had been executed in England, led his followers in rebellion.
Unwisely, as we now know, he marched to Connaught to get support and left his foster brother, Christy Parese, in charge of the homestead.
Silken thought its defence was so strong that no one could take it over.
That would have been all right if Christy and his security team did the business.
But when on 14 March 1535, the Lord Deputy, Skeffington, attacked the Castle, a month or so after burning the town, he got an offer which made the Castle take over easy.
Parese shot out a letter - it probably arrived faster than many of our e-mails today - offering to facilitate the take over in return for a sum of money and a “competent stay during his life.”
The corrupt bribe taker arranged it so that when Skeffington’s army arrived resistance was faint from a team which “snorted at the night like grunting hogs.”
Parese, expecting knighthood if not sainthood, met the Lord Deputy himself later in the afternoon.
According to Holinshed’s Chronicles of 1570, when the pair met, the Deputy “very coldly and half sternly” casting an eye towards him, said, “Parese, I am to thank thee on my master the King his behalf. And because I may be the better instructed how to reward thee during my government, I would gladly learn what thy lord and master bestowed on thee.”
Parese thinking the Deputy would better the Fitzgerald largesse, told him of all the good they had given him and done for him. The Lord Deputy replied: “Why, Parese, couldst thou find in thy heart to betray his castle who has been so good a lord to thee? Truly thou are so hollow to him, wilt never be true to us.”
The Lord Deputy ordered Parese be given his promised money on the surrender of the Castle “and after to chop off his head, declaring thereby that although he embraced the benefit of the treason, he could not digest the treachery of the traitor.”
None of yer auld Tribunal with free barristers for Mr. Parese.
Another Fitzgerald ancestor was luckier.
John Fitzthomas, created the 1st Earl of Kildare in 1316 had an early escape. As a baby, he was supposedly rescued from a fire by a pet ape, thus giving the family its crest.
Another, Garret Mor, the 8th Earl of Kildare, known as the Great Earl, was described in the Annals of the Four Masters as a “mighty man of stature, full of honour and courage.”
But he did have a hot temper, “not so sharp as short.”
The family were often in trouble with the Crown. In 1552, Maynooth Castle, which had been taken from it as a result of the Silken Thomas rebellion was returned to Gerald, Silken’s half brother and he was restored to the title as 11th Earl of Kildare.
But in 1580, he was arrested on suspicion of treachery, and his Countess, Mabel, had to humbly beseech her Majesty for mercy and crave favours.
She appears to have aided the 11th Earl in his hours of need.
Not all the women appeared so supportive. In 1759, the Knight of Glin told us, Gerald Fitzgerald, the 15th Earl of Desmond was proclaimed a rebel. His wife, Eleanor Butler, Countess of Desmond, told the Privy Council that he was driven to rebel by Government provocation and his “wicked brother John’s” plotting.
But she was also anxious to secure her own livelihood and went as far as to offer to divorce her husband in order “to have some livelihood to live upon.”
The family faced further tough times in the 1806-1825 period and Ms. Holohan provided extracts from the diaries of Lady Isabella Fitzgerald, niece of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, recalling her days at Carton, Leinster House and Blackrock.
As they left Carton after the 1798 rising, they were stopped and obliged to get a passport at Leixlip where they were “shocked at the sight of a dead body erected by the soldiers against a cart and covered in derision with green ribbons.”
Isabella left for France and when she returned in 1812 she went to see the family home, Leinster House, now hosting the Houses of the Oireachtas. It had been, she said, “quite neglected and was now more like a convent than a nobleman’s hotel”.
The Gentry & Aristocracy of Co. Kildare
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Turtle Bunbury’s debut book, “The Landed Gentry & Aristocracy of Kildare”, offers a unique and lively historical insight into eighteen of Co. Kildare’s most influential “big house” families. The book features fifty illustrations and covers more than a thousand years of Irish history. The families profiled are those of Aylmer, Barton, de Burgh, Clements, Conolly, Guinness, Henry, Fennell, FitzGerald, Latten, La Touche, Mansfield, Maunsell, Medlicott, More O’Ferrall, Moore, de Robeck, and Wolfe. The story of these often eccentric dynasties is set against the backdrop of the past – the violent religious wars of the 17th century, the rise of the British Empire in the 18th and the run up to Irish independence in 1921. Read of