Armstrong – The Farneybridge Branch
The Cromwellian Soldier Hulett
The Cromwellian soldier, Hulett, whose Christian name does not appear in available documents, must have looked out over the battlements of Farney Castle with some satisfaction. He would have been able to trace the course of the tree-fringed Farney River which went southwards beneath the castle to join the Suir, and the line of the old pilgrim road to Holy Cross Abbey that came westwards over the Rock Hill to cross the stone bridge near the foot of the castle. The battlements presented a fine view of the good country reaching away eastwards towards the Abbey, and of the hill country to the west rising up to the Drombane hills. The castle was now his, together with some 60 acres in its vicinity—his allotment for his role in soldiering in the successful Cromwellian campaign in Ireland.
Bagwell
The Origin of the Bagwell Family
The John Bagwell, who was the scion of the family in the mid 1700s, had so far deviated from his Quaker roots that he bloodied his hands fighting duels. He was known to have fought at least three. He also became the cutting edge of the militant and extreme right wing Protestantism that peaked during that period with the extraordinary trial and execution of Fr. Nicholas Sheehy, Parish Priest of Clogheen.
W.P. Burke in his excellent history of Clonmel states rather quaintly that the history of the Bagwell family previous to 1730 is, like the origin of the Amazon, obscure. We do know that originally the Bagwells were a Quaker merchant family. John of Clonmel had two brothers, William, who was a merchant in Dublin and Phineas. He had one sister, Mrs. Airy. Burke goes on to say that the earlier ancestors, given in Burke’s Landed Gentry, are imaginary.
Bianconi
Bianconi & The Corpse Under The Bed
The Chief Secretary of Ireland once asked Bianconi how, he, a foreigner, had acquired such a distinguished position in Ireland. Bianconi had replied: “Well, it was because, while the big and the little were fighting, I crept up between them, carried out my enterprise and obliged everybody.”
There is a good story told about Bianconi and his trusted agent Dan Hearn. In the mid 1830s, Bianconi, accompanied by Dan Hearn was out driving around the country inspecting cars and visiting agents. Occasionally they would have to spend the night away from home. One night coming from Thurles they had to take lodgings at a carman’s stage, which was managed by a woman called Biddy Minehan. Biddy had only one room vacant and the two men had to share the bed. Neither could sleep. Dan, who was feeling cold, put his hand under the bed saying, “There must be an iceberg under here”. With that he jumped out of the bed and raced down the stairs to the kitchen where the carmen were smoking and drinking.
Butler of Cahir
Lord Cahir’s Siblings Kidnapped
This strange tale is recorded in Dorothea Herbert’s book Reminiscences. ‘Lord Cahir’s mother was a poor mendicant woman in the town of Cahir for many years and winnowed corn for her subsistence. When the late Lord Cahir died his expectants found out that this old woman’s children were next heirs to his Lordship. They had them kidnapped and secretly conveyed to France where they were reared in miserable poverty. Mrs. Jefferies, a sister of the Chancellor, Lord Fitzgibbon, passing through Cahir, heard at an Inn, the history of the old beggar woman and her two children.
She sent for the woman and took notes of her tale, which she laid before the Chancellor. On further investigation the whole was proved to be fact and the Chancellor procured warrants for bringing the children over (to England).
Carden of Barnane
The Attempted Abduction of Eleanor Arbuthnot
On Sunday, 2nd July 1854 a covered carriage containing four ladies was being driven by James Dwyer towards the entrance gates of Rathronan House, near Clonmel. The ladies, who were returning from Sunday Service in nearby Rathronan Church, were Jane, Eleanor and Laura Arbuthnot, three sisters, and Miss Lydon. Jane was married to Captain Hon. George Gough, son of Field Marshal Viscount Gough. Eleanor and Laura were both unmarried, and lived at Rathronan House as well as at St Helens, the Gough residence near Dublin. Miss Lydon was governess to the Gough children.
The ladies, sitting two opposite two, were chatting gaily until they noticed John Carden riding his horse close to the carriage. That did not unduly alarm them, as John, the bachelor landlord of Barnane, on the slopes of the Devil’s Bit, had been in the habit of turning up at functions which Eleanor was attending for the past two years. He was infatuated with her. It was only when they sighted a two-horse brougham at the entrance gates and a number of strange men near it that they became alarmed.
Damer
What good is Damer with all his riches
When he has nothing in his breeches!
As Rich As Damer
Of all the Gentry families that ever settled in Tipperary the Damers were the only ones to become part of the folklore, not alone of Tipperary but of many parts of Ireland. The old saying ‘as rich as Damer’ is based on a long tradition concerning the great wealth which was amassed by Joseph Damer.
Joseph Damer was born in Dorset in England in 1630. He became a captain in the Parliamentary Army and came to know Oliver Cromwell. According to some writers he was made a special envoy whose duty it was to liaise with Cardinal Mazarin of France. The story goes that it was at this point in his career that he developed an overriding passion for accumulating wealth, following the example of Mazarin. The good Cardinal was so acquisitive that he was said to be worth over twelve million pounds (sterling we presume) when he died.
Grubb
Anecdotes relating to Grubb Ladies
Tennis in the summer months provided the daughters of the Ascendancy with as good an opportunity of meeting and attracting young men as hunting did in the winter. ‘The girls there were all in short, exceedingly tight white dresses’ Lady Talbot de Malahide reported of a County Dublin tennis party in the summer of 1913. ‘Nothing was left to the imagination.’ Bence Jones went on to say ‘They were as bad as Joan Grubb, the young daughter of a Tipperary County family, who followed the example of Mrs. Sadleir-Jackson and rode astride’.
Joan, whose first husband was killed in May 1915 in the Great War, eventually became Mrs. De Sales la Terriere. Bence Jones in his remarkable book Twilight of the Ascendancy mentions Mrs. De Sales La Terriere as one of the elderly ladies of advanced years living in decrepit country houses in the late 1950s. He went on to say that she was fortunate in that her castle in County Tipperary was solidly built so that although totally neglected it did not actually fall down. She cooked her dogs’ food in the hall and had no vehicle except a horse and trap. She wore a man’s cap, jacket and tie, rather in the manner of John Vere Foster.
Hely-Hutchinson
Donoughmores Caught Up in 1916 Rebellion
Towards the end of April 1916, Lord Donoughmore (Richard Hely-Hutchinson), the 6th Earl, and his wife, who were now living mostly in England on account of their wartime activities, crossed over to Dublin for his Investiture as a Knight of St. Patrick. The ceremony took place in the Viceregal Lodge in the Phoenix Park. During the ceremony the Viceroy was giving himself kudos for the sterling way in which he was fulfilling his role. Lord Donoughmore winked over his head at Maurice Headlam an English Civil Servant and friend of the Donoughmores. Both men knew that Sinn Fein had become very active and had staged a mock attack on Dublin Castle, which had been swept under the carpet by the authorities. After the ceremony they travelled to the ancestral home of Lord Donoughmore, Knocklofty in Tipperary.
The Langley Family
How Langley Lost his Hand at the Siege of Clonmel
Cromwell’s siege of Clonmel in May 1650 lingers on in Tipperary folk memory, not least because it was where Cromwell met his only real repulse in Ireland, and where Irish resistance finally collapsed. Looming large in the folklore is one Henry Charles Langley, a lieutenant in one of Cromwell’s cavalry regiments, Colonel Sankey’s Regiment of Horse. He is on record as being one of the first to volunteer to storm the breach made in a wall of the town, after an earlier assault on the breach had left about a thousand Cromwellian infantry trapped inside and slaughtered. When the infantry refused to advance a second time the General appealed to his cavalry. Folklore embellishes the moment, telling that Cromwell called out that whoever would be first through the breach would get his pick of Tipperary land, and that it was Langley who was that first brave man.
Mansergh of Grenane
The Mansergh family, whose principal residence is Grenane House, in the townland of Grenane, near Tipperary Town, has been much researched, thanks mainly to Senator Martin Mansergh, the most high-profiled member of the present generation, and to his grandmother, Ethel Marguerite Mansergh. She was herself a Mansergh, belonging to the Cork branch of the family. She was born in 1876, and was partly educated at Bowenscourt, the home of the novelist Elizabeth Bowen, with whom the Cork Manserghs were connected by marriage. Ethel Marguerite married her second cousin Philip St George Mansergh of Grenane in 1907. It was not the first time that a Mansergh married a Mansergh cousin.
Mathew
Fr. Theobald Mathew
Perhaps the most famous of all the Mathew family was the priest whose name became synonymous with the Temperance Movement, Fr. Theobald Mathew.
Lady Elisha Mathew, sister of 2nd Lord Llandaff, survived him dying in 1840. She left, in her will, all her estates to the Duke of Leinster, James Daly and Rev. Theobald Mathew with remainders to Viscount Chabot, his son Viscount Jarnac, Captain Mathew reputed to be her son by George IV, and James Daly.
Father Theobald Mathew was the godson of Elizabeth Mathew and she was very caring towards him. He was descended from Theobald Mathew and Anne Salle, the founders of the Thurles and Annfield lines, through his father, a second cousin of Francis the 1st Earl. Fr. Mathew was therefore a third cousin of Elizabeth Mathew.
Fr. Mathew became very famous because of his campaign against the abuse of drink.
Maude
Dundrum House, the seat of the Maude Lords Hawarden, is now one of Ireland’s premier Hotels. Dundrum House, a magnificent building designed by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce in the middle of the 18th century, was bought by Mr. Austin and Mrs. Mary Crowe about thirty years ago. Much of the old building has been retained and is carefully maintained.
A general election was held in 1761. One of the candidates was the very right wing Protestant, Sir Thomas Maude. The other was the converted Catholic, Thomas Mathew. Thomas Mathew was perceived as being of dubious conformity. He conformed again in 1762. During the course of polling, Maude’s election agent, Daniel Gahan, questioned the qualifications of freeholders, whether they were born of Catholic parents, educated as Catholics, or if converts, to produce their certificates of conversion.Gahan challenged Mathew’s election agent, Thomas Prendergast, with the assertion that his wife was Catholic and that therefore he was disqualified from voting. A duel ensued resulting in Prendergast’s death.
O’Callaghan of Shanbally
Why Lord Lismore Divorced His Wife
In what must have been one of the most traumatic events in the history of this famous Tipperary family, Cornelius O’Callaghan, Lord Lismore, divorced his wife in 1826. This was no quietly hidden divorce but was the subject of a Bill in the House of Lords. The Bill was entitled “An Act to dissolve the Marriage of the Right Honorable Cornelius Viscount Lismore, of the Kingdom of Ireland, with Eleanor Viscountess Lismore his now Wife, and to enable him to marry again; and for other purposes therein mentioned”.
In the course of the proceedings many witnesses were called who told of the events leading up to the separation and subsequent divorce of the couple. The witnesses included the Hon. & Rev. Richard Ponsonby, the Dean of St. Patricks, who officiated at the wedding, William Edmund Tugwell, a clerk who served Lady Lismore with a copy of the Divorce Bill, Sarah Bean, a servant, Miss Patey, a companion to Lady Lismore, the Rt. Hon. the Dowager Viscountess Lismore, Lieutenant General Sir R.W. O’Callaghan, the Duke of Ormonde, the Marchioness of Ormonde, George O’Callaghan, Doctors and other officials.
Otway of Templederry
John Otway the Cromwellian Officer
John Otway, a lieutenant in Cromwell’s army, and formerly of Ingham Hall in Westmoreland, found himself at least in a geographically prominent position around 1655 when he took possession of the old Morris stronghold in Latteragh, up about 700feet on the south-west shoulder of the Devil’s Bit range. Across the valley of the little Nenagh River, then known as the River Geagh, the shapely Templederry Hills looping along the skyline presented a most pleasing view. Towards the west the straight-topped bulk of the Silvermine Mountain, with the summit of Keeper Hill showing above it, added to the picturesque scene.
Despite its commanding situation Latteragh Castle, a 13th century circular keep on a rocky hillock, had one major drawback for Lieutenant Otway: it was hopelessly dilapidated, due probably to the Cromwellian campaign.
Ponsonby/Barker of Kilcooley
The Human Hot Water Bottle
When Captain Chambré Ponsonby brought his wife back to Kilcooley in 1873 the happy couple were greeted with illuminations and a triumphal arch in the neighbouring town and a bonfire at the entrance to the demesne. Cheering tenants pulled their carriage and there was music and dancing all night.
Whiskey and beer were provided for all comers by the bridegroom’s uncle, Sir William Ponsonby-Barker, the then owner of Kilcooley. Though a stern Evangelical he did not object to the country people enjoying themselves.
This was the same William Ponsonby-Barker who, on occasion, took a maidservant to bed with him as a human hot water bottle. He justified himself on the spiritual precedent of the Biblical King David. It seems that after family prayers he would line up the maids to make his choice. Bence Jones goes on to say that on one occasion the maid of his choice ‘offended his olfactory sensibilities, so he sprinkled her liberally from a bottle which he took in the dark to contain eau de cologne but which in fact contained ink!’
Prittie of Kilboy
Kilboy House, the home of the Prittie family, who later became Lords Dunalley, was designed by William Leeson around 1780. Described in The Vanishing Houses of Ireland as the most important house that Leeson designed, the author went on to say ‘Kilboy had a superb entrance front with engaged Doric portico. It had a very fine interior with good plasterwork and imperial main staircase. The house was burnt in 1922 and well restored but without the attic storey. In the mid 1950s it was demolished and a single storey house was built on top of the basement storey; reached by the original steps.’
Kilboy has now come into the possession of Mr. Shane Ryan, son of Mr. Tony Ryan of G.P.A. fame who has developed the demesne, capturing much of the former glory of the old Kilboy.
Ryan of Inch
How Mr. Ryan Arrested a Grave Robber
While this short study deals with the Ryans of Inch only, it should be noted that Burkes Landed Gentry has notices of two families of Ryan in Tipperary, Ryans of Inch and Ryans of Ballymackeogh. The ancestor of the Ryans of Ballymackeogh, according to Burke, was William, whose son married a daughter of Colonel John Ewer in the later 1600s. These must be the same Ryans mentioned by the Earl of Cork who was seated at Lismore in the 1600s. He wrote in his diary that ‘my cozen Wm. Ryan sent me a faier new yrish Harp which I sent to the Lord Keeper of England….’
No notice of an old Catholic Irish family would be complete without some macabre story being told concerning one of its members.
‘Mr. Ryan was coming one night from Clonmel, on horseback accompanied by his servant. As they passed by Cashel they saw a light up in the Rock. Mr. Ryan determined to see what it was or what was going on, so he halted. He told the servant to come with him. The servant was afraid and refused to go but Mr. Ryan told him he would shoot him if he did not, so under pressure he agreed.
Sadleir
John Sadleir the Suicide Banker
One of the most extraordinary men to have ever emerged from Tipperary was John Sadleir. Described as ‘the suicide banker’ John was a financial wizard whose magic went sadly awry. He was the Nick Leeson of his time.
Clement Sadleir was married to Johanna, the sixth daughter of James Scully of Kilfeacle, in 1805.
Initially Johanna’s hand was sought, not only by Sadleir, but also by a gentleman from County Limerick. James Scully himself favoured the Limerick suitor, but Johanna was more partial to Sadleir who, being a Tipperary man, was ‘nearer to home’. James Scully gave a dowry of £2,500 with his daughter and promised a further £1000 in his will.
Scully
The Battle of Ballycohey
William Scully from Ballynaclough, near Golden in Co. Tipperary, was an extraordinary man by any standards. He was the man who instigated the Battle of Ballycohey, which occurred on August 14th 1868.
He was a brother of Vincent Scully of Castle Park, Cashel, who owned almost 6000 acres of land. William himself owned over 1300 acres and another relative, Francis, was M.P. for Tipperary before, during and after the Famine. Vincent Scully was an M.P. for Cork from 1852 when he was elected in a by-election. The Scullys were an old respected Catholic family and seem to have originated from Mantlehill and Kilfeacle where they built a Catholic Chapel.
The Scullys have been described as comprising part of the Catholic Gentry, which included the Butlers of Cahir and Kilcash, the McCarthys of Springhouse, the Mandevilles of Ballydine, the Ryans of Inch, the Mathews of Thurles and the Fogartys of Castlefogarty. William Scully was an adventurous man who had emigrated to America in his youth and made a large fortune during the Civil War there