COMERFORD WAY: Patrick Comerford’s online journal on Anglicanism, theology, spirituality, history, architecture, travel, poetry, beach walks ... and more
Michael Joseph O’Rahilly, an image of ‘The O’Rahilly,’ at his birthplace in Ballylongford, Co Kerry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)
Patrick Comerford
Despite months of protests, an Bord Pleanála has approved the demolition of 40 Herbert Park, Ballsbridge, the former Dublin home of The O’Rahilly, the only leader to have been killed fighting during the 1916 Rising.
The planning authority earlier this week approved the demolition of the house to make way for an apartment and hotel development of up to 12 storeys on adjoining sites of 36, 38 and 40 Herbert Park.
Numbers 36 and 38 have already been demolished but several houses of similar vintage and style at numbers 1-34 Herbert Park are included on Dublin City Council’s Record of Protected Structures.
Derryroe Ltd, a development company owned by the McSharry and Kennedy families, also owns the Herbert Park Hotel, and has received approval despite opposition from several residents’ associations and heritage organisations, Dublin city councillors and the Department of Culture and Heritage.
The birthplace in Ballylongford, Co Kerry, of Michael Joseph O’Rahilly, who called himself ‘The O’Rahilly’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)
The decision has angered many people in The O’Rahilly's birthplace of Ballylongford, in north Co Kerry, according to this week’s edition of the Kerryman. Michael Finucane, the owner of the house where The O’Rahilly, tells the Kerryman that the decision is ‘a disgrace.’
He says the fact that the O’Rahilly’s in Ballylongford home is a listed building, while his Dublin residence is to be demolished is ‘frustrating.’ The O’Rahilly’s widow, Nancy (née Brown), lived in the house until 1961.
Michael Joseph O’Rahilly (1875-1916), who called himself The O’Rahilly, was a founding member of the Irish Volunteers in 1913 and took part in the Howth gun-running. Despite opposing the action, he took part in the Easter Rising in Dublin and was killed during the retreat from the GPO.
He was born in Ballylongford, Co Kerry, the son of to Richard Rahilly, a grocer, and Ellen (née Mangan), who lived in a substantial house on the corner of Bridge Street and Quay Street in Balylongford.
He was educated at Clongowes Wood College, Co Kildare. When his father died 1896, he abandoned his medical studies and returned to Ballylongford to take care of the family business in Ballylongford.
But he sold the family business in Ballylongford to the Finucane family in 1898, married Nancy Brown in New York in 1899, and become a wealthy man with a substantial private income, before returning to Ireland in 1902. After a number of return visits to America, he moved to 40 Herbert Park in 1910.
In Gaelic tradition, chiefs of clan were called by their clan name preceded by the definite article, such as The O Morchoe, The O Donnell, The O Neill and The MacGillicuddy of the Reeks. Michael Rahilly assumed the title The O’Rahilly, but was he ever entitled to the title?
The Rahilly family grave in Ballylongford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)
He spent much time in genealogical research, trying to prove a family connection with – if not direct descent from – the Gaelic poet Aodhagán Ó Rathaille (ca 1670-1726), and used a coat-of-arms, complete with supporters, for the Rahilly family that was based on the coat-of-arms of the O’Reillys of Cavan, but that was never registered.
He was born Rahilly, but spelt his name in different ways at different stages in his life. When his first child was born in 1900, he was still calling himself Michael Joseph Rahilly. But by 1901, he was calling himself Michael Ioseph Rathaile, Ua Rathaille in 1903 in 1909, and using the moniker ‘The O’Rahilly’ from as early as 1905. He seems to have used the spelling O’Rahilly from 1909 on, a change that was followed other members of the Rahilly family.
When he adopted the title The O’Rahilly, he claimed he was the eldest surviving member of the male line of his family. His wife Nancy became known as Madame O’Rahilly.
But there never was a known figure called The O'Rahilly before that in traditional Gaelic nobility. Michael Joseph Rahilly was the eldest male line descendant of Michael Rahilly (ca 1765 - ca 1810) of Killarney. His son, Michael Joseph Rahilly was living in Ballylongford by 1832, and was the father of Richard Rahilly, the father of ‘The O Rahilly.’
However, there is no substance to his claims that he was the eldest male line descendant of the entire family.
The plaque on O’Rahilly’s childhood home in Ballylongford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)
William Butler Yeats defended O’Rahilly on this point in 1938 in a poem The O’Rahilly that begins:
Sing of the O’Rahilly,
Do not deny his right;
Sing a ‘the’ before his name;
Allow that he, despite
All those learned historians,
Established it for good;
He wrote out that word himself,
He christened himself with blood.
How goes the weather?
An inscription on the Rahilly family grave in Ballylongford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)
Small boats in the harbour at Saleen Pier … the ruins of Lislaughtin Abbey are above the bank in the distance (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)
Patrick Comerford
Sunday was a rain-soaked day, and after the church services in Askeaton and Tarbert on Sunday morning, and the Easter Vestry meeting in Tarbert, two of us decided against going on to Ballybunion in the rain. Instead, we headed west along the old coast road past the church ruins at Kilnaughtin, and we found ourselves for the first time at Saleen Pier, just north of Ballylongford, below the ruins of Lislaughtin Abbey.
Ballylongford (Béal Átha Longphurit) in north Co Kerry is a little inland from the south side of the Shannon Estuary. Among the people born in Ballylongford are the poet Brendan Kennelly, the general Lord Kitchener, and Michael Joseph O’Rahilly (1875-1916), a key figure in the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916 who called himself ‘The O’Rahilly.’
Ballylongford first developed in the late 18th century as small ports developed as safe havens along the shores of the Shannon Estuary in counties Limerick, Clare and Kerry.
Old Ordnance Survey maps show Saleen Pier and a boat quay, with a Collector’s Office and a Coast Guard station. In some illustrations the name Saleen is spelt ‘Sawline.’
The new pier was part of the work on the ‘First Division’ or ‘Lower Shannon’ undertaken by the Commissioners for the Improvement of the Navigation of the River Shannon. Commander William Mudge RN (1796-1837), the admiralty surveyor, was one of the three members of the Commission for the Improvement of the Navigation of the Shannon, appointed in October 1831. Captain Mudge reported on the Shannon estuary, downstream of Limerick. Thomas Rhodes covered the river upstream from Limerick, while Colonel John Fox Burgoyne co-ordinated their work.
Mudge’s father was General William Mudge (1762-1820), a godson of Samuel Johnson. General Mudge was an artillery officer and the surveyor who was an important figure in the work of the Ordnance Survey and the principle figure in the development of measuring the degrees of longitude and the arc of the meridian.
Many of the harbours and quays along the Shannon Estuary were planned by the admiralty surveyor Commander William Mudge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)
Commander Mudge was appointed to conduct the survey of the coast of Ireland around 1825. He first proposed building or improving piers or quays at Ballylongford and also at Kilrush, Carrigaholt, Tarbert, Querrin, Glin, Foynes, Kilteery, Cahercon (Kildysert), Clare (now Clarecastle), the River Deel to Askeaton and the River Maigue to Adare.
Saleen Pier was planned as the new port for Ballylongford, and the works at Saleeen cost £1,811. Of this, almost half (£891) came as a government grant and the rest came from the three principal landed proprietors in the area: Stephen Edward Colles, £504; the representatives of M Black, £185; and Trinity College Dublin, £230. The amounts omit shillings, so there is a difference of £1 between the total and the sum of the contributions.
When Commander Mudge died in Howth on 20 July 1837, he was buried in the churchyard at Howth. In the decade that followed, Saleen Pier was completed around 1843-1844 at a point where Ballyline River flows into the Shannon Estuary at Ballylongford Creek. The crane at Saleen was built by Clarke of Ringsend, Dublin.
The crane at Saleen Pier was built by Clarke of Ringsend, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)
Two stones at Saleen are marked S↑C. They hace a slightly different design to stones at other quays built by the Shannon Commissioners, but they show that the Shannon Commissioner built this quay.
Saleen Pier continued to serve commercial traffic on the Shannon for over a century, with boats and trading vessels travelling to and from Scattery Island, Kilrush, Limerick and other points along the river. There are even accounts of emigrant boats leaving Ballylongford for North America.
Saleen Pier was in commercial use at least until 1953. The Limerick Harbour Commissioners maintained a register of vessels trading on the Shannon in 1945-1953. This register shows that the last trading vessel to use Saleen Pier was the St Senan. It left Limerick on 29 September 1953 for Kilrush and Ballylongford, carrying 55 tons of general cargo.
Unlike other piers and harbours, Saleen Pier seems never to have been transferred to the local authorities by the Commissioners of Public Works or Board of Works under the terms of the Shannon Act 1885.
Kerry County Council tried to take over the pier from Waterways Ireland in recent years, but Waterways Ireland found the pier was stilled owned by the Board of Works.
Opposite the pier, the ruins of Lislaughtin Abbey stand above the bank of the Ballyline River, around the riverbend below Saleen Pier. Further downriver, to the north, the ruins of Carrigafoyle Castle can be seen closer to the Shannon Estuary.
Ballylongford Boat Club leases the shed at Saleen Pier, the Crane and Pontoon remain in place, and the Customs Office is still in use.
Carrigafoyle Castle is north of Saleen Pier, closer to the Shannon Estuary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)
From Saleen Pier, we continued on to Lislaughtin Abbey, strolling through the mediaeval ruins and the graves, including the high cross erected to the memory of the family of ‘The O’Rahilly.’
On our way back to Tarbert, a brown road sign pointed to Kilcolgan Strand. But the narrow road ended in a cul de sac, with a gate blocking any further journey and no apparent path to shoreline below.
We stopped for coffee at the museum in Foynes before returning to Askeaton late on Sunday afternoon.
Ballylongford Boat Club is based at the shed at Saleen Pier (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)
The church ruins in Ballylongford, Co Kerry … the Revd Alexander Hanlon worked in the parish throughout the Great Famine in the 1840s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
I have been the priest-in-charge of the Rathkeale and Kilnaughtin Group of Parishes since January 2017, which includes a large part of North Kerry, from Tarbert and Ballylongford to Ballybunion, to Listowel and Moyvane or Newtownsandes.
Officially, the name of Tarbert parish is Kilnaughtin, recalling the older church to west of Tarbert. So, there is a deeply-embedded sense of history and continuity in ministry here in Saint Brendan’s.
The list of my predecessors in this group of parishes defy the stereotypical images of Church of Ireland clergy. We are not all like the plummy caricatures of ‘the more-tea-vicars’ found on television dramas. The variety of backgrounds of my predecessors shows what a mixture we are, not only in the Church of Ireland, but throughout all society in Ireland. Each one of us is a beautiful part of the mosaic that goes to make up Irish identity, and we need every colour and tincture, every shade and hue, to make that picture complete.
I have already been talking about one of my curious, indeed eccentric, predecessors, the Revd Sir William Augustus Wolseley (1865-1950), who was the curate here for almost 20 years, from 1888 until 1906, and later in life, quite unexpectedly, inherited a family title.
But, perhaps, the most curious title claimed by any of the clergy in this parish was the title of ‘The O’Hanlon,’ an ancient title for the head of a Gaelic Irish clan. It is even more intriguing that this title was claimed by too by one of near-contemporaries, whose time in this diocese almost overlapped. Yet, these two priests seem to have had no close ties of kinship.
The Revd Dr Alexander Patrick Hanlon (1814-1898), who called himself ‘The O’Hanlon,’ was born at Miltown Malbay, Co Clare, the son of Patrick Hanlon, a local Roman Catholic farmer.
Hanlon may have become a member of the Church of Ireland through contact with the Dingle mission, although I am not quite sure about these details. In any case, he would have been seen as a ‘mature student’ when he entered Trinity College Dublin late in 1839 at the age of 23, and graduated BA in 1844. He later studied for ordination and was ordained deacon in 1846 by the Bishop of Killaloe for the Diocese of Ardfert, and priest in 1847.
He was first a curate in 1846-1848 in Murhir, 4.5 miles south of Tarbert, close to border of Co Kerry and Co Limerick, making him one of my predecessors in this parish. The main town today in what was Murhir parish is Moyvane or Newtownsandes. Hanlon seems to have lived in Ballylongford, and today Murhir and Ballylongford are part of the Tarbert group of parishes within the Rathkeale and Kilnaughtin Group of Parishes.
During his time in this parish, he was praised for his ‘unremitting’ and ‘constant’ work with local people in their suffering during the Great Famine in the 1840s and for his ‘genuine charity.’
He freely distributed milk, bread and medicine, working with orphans and the elderly, and it was said: ‘ Not a house in which fever is to be found (and they are the greater in number), but he visits in person.’
Moyvane was at the heart of the Revd Alexander Hanlon’s parish on the Kerry/Limerick border (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
After his time in Ballylongford, Moyvane and Tarbert, Hanlon moved on to parish ministry in Co Meath (1848-1849), Co Tyrone (1849-1851), Mountshannon on the shores of Lough Derg, Co Clare (1851-1871), Co Waterford (1872-1875) and Co Longford (1872-1875).
At one time, it seems, he was considering an appointment back in Co Kerry, in Dingle, during a vacancy in the parish 1864. He was visiting the parish when his wife suffered an epileptic attack while swimming in Dingle Harbour with their young children. She died soon after, and she was buried in Saint James’s churchyard in Dingle.
Hanlon stayed on in Mounshannon in Co Clare for another few years, and he received the degrees LL.B. and LL.D. from Trinity College Dublin in 1865. In a speech in 1867, he defended his work with the Irish Society and the Irish Church Missions, but he was always at pains to deny he had any antagonism towards the Roman Catholic church or his Catholic family, friends and neighbours.
He married a second time in 1871; his second wife Rebecca Parker was from Ballhalmet House, Tallow, Co Waterford. A year later, he moved from Mountshannon to Tallow Parish in west Waterford, and he remained there until he became deputy secretary of the Irish Society in 1879. He was feted at a garden party in Dugort organised by the Achill Mission in 1889.
Hanlon died at Ballyhalmet House, Tallow, Co Waterford, at the age of 84 on 10 December 1898, and was buried inside the ruins of Kilwatermoy Church.
It is curious that his younger, near contemporary, the Revd William Hanlon (1849-1916), who also worked in Church of Ireland ministry in these dioceses, also claimed the title of The O’Hanlon. He was a doctor’s son from Portarlington, and he was ordained deacon in 1874 and priest in 1875.
He came to this diocese, the Diocese of Ardfert and Aghadoe, when he became the Rector of Dromtariffe in 1877. Although Dromtariffe is in Co Cork, halfway between Millstreet and Kanturk, at the time it was in the Church of Ireland Diocese of Ardfert, and in the Catholic church it remains in the Diocese of Kerry.
Hanlon’s father died on 6 July 1890, and a year later, in 1907, Hanlon assumed the title of ‘The O’Hanlon’ by deed registered in the Irish Court of Chancery. Along with the title of ‘The O’Hanlon,’ he also claimed to be chief of the Sept of O’Hanlon and Hereditary Standard Bearer of the King in Ulster.
In the bizarre pedigree he compiled in support of these claims, Hanlon said his lineal ancestor had given Saint Patrick the site in Armagh for his first cathedral.
Hanlon, who was also an honorary chaplain to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, died at Innishannon Rectory on 26 April 1916, two days after the Easter Rising broke out in Dublin.
That is all sounds fantastic. Except, for the minor detail that the last person before either of these two 19th century priests to have been accepted generally as the head of the family was the 17th century rapparee, Redmond O’Hanlon, also known as ‘the Count.’
After the restoration of King Charles II in 1660, Redmond O’Hanlon returned to Ireland and installed himself as clan chief over the old O’Hanlon territories, styling himself ‘the Count.’ He was declared an outlaw in 1674 and became a rapparee around Newry and Carlingford Lough, and was described as being ‘pre-eminent among all the Tories in Ulster.’
Redmond O’Hanlon was killed on the night of 25 April 1681 in the hills in Co Down. His head was severed and was put on display at Downpatrick prison.
After Redmond O’Hanlon’s death, other members of the O’Hanlon family and their circle were hunted down as ‘Tories,’ and his surviving family fled to Co Donegal. Local lore says his son, also Redmond O’Hanlon, exhumed his body, and reburied him in the Church of Ireland churchyard at Conwal Parish in Letterkenny … which is a long way from Ballylongford and Moyvane and a long way from Portarlington.
Buildings of the former Achill Mission in Dugort … Alexander Hanlon was feted by the Achill Mission at a tea party in Dugort in 1889 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
These notes were prepared to accompany the second of two stories recorded at Saint Brendan’s Church, Kilnaughtin (Tarbert), Co Kerry, as part of ‘Poetry With Paddy, Summertime on the Steeple Road’:
The former Rectory, Tarbert, Co Kerry … was this once the home of the Revd William Augustus Wolseley? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
I have been the priest-in-charge of the Rathkeale and Kilnaughtin Group of Parishes since January 2017, which includes a large part of North Kerry, from Tarbert and Ballylongford to Ballybunion, to Listowel and Moyvane or Newtownsandes.
Officially, the name of Tarbert parish is Kilnaughtin, recalling the older church to west of Tarbert. So, there is a deeply-embedded sense of history and continuity in ministry here in Saint Brendan’s.
The list of my predecessors in this group of parishes defy the stereotypical images of Church of Ireland clergy. We are not all like the plummy caricatures of ‘the more-tea-vicars’ found on television dramas. The variety of backgrounds of my predecessors shows what a mixture we are, not only in the Church of Ireland, but throughout all society in Ireland. Each one of us is a beautiful part of the mosaic that goes to make up Irish identity, and we need every colour and tincture, every shade and hue, to make that picture complete.
One of the most eccentric of them was a former curate in Kilnaughtin and Glin, the Revd Sir William Augustus Wolseley (1865-1950). He was the curate here for almost 20 years, from 1888 until 1906. I was interested to hear about when I arrived because, although we are not related, there have been connections over the generations between the Wolseley and Comberford and families over the centuries.
The first of the Wolseley family to come to Ireland was William Wolseley from Wolseley in Staffordshire, who fought alongside King William III at the Battle of the Boyne. Eventually, the family acquired a large estate outside Tullow, Co Carlow, and named it Mount Wolseley, now known as a golf resort and wedding venue.
The family tree is difficult to untangle at times, but the head of the Irish family had the hereditary title of baronet, which entitled him to put ‘Sir’ in front of his first name.
Frederick York Wolseley … gave the Wolseley name to one of Britain’s most famous car marques
Probably the most famous of all the Wolseley family members was Frederick York Wolseley, who in 1895 started producing one of Britain’s most famous car marques – the Wolseley. The name dominated the British motor industry for eight decades until 1975, when the last car with the Wolseley name was produced.
His brother, Field Marshal Viscount Wolseley, was one of Britain’s most important general s in the late 19th century. He was born in Dublin, in retirement lived in the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, and is commemorated in a very decorative monument in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin.
The Revd William Augustus Wolseley was the curate in Tarbert and Ballylongford for almost two decades. While Wolseley was the curate here, Dean Robert Beatty (1833-1921) was the Rector of Kilnaughtin (1878-1921). Beatty lived in Glin, and the 1901 census shows Wolseley lived in Rusheen in Ballylongford, although he may also lived for a time in the Rectory in Tarbert.
William was born on 19 April 1865, the only son of Charles Wolseley (1809-1889) and a grandson of the Revd William Wolseley, Rector of Dunaghy (1831-1846), Co Antrim. He was descended through an obscure branch of the family from the first baronet, Sir Richard Wolseley, and his father, Charles Wolseley, could never have expected that his only son was going to become the heir to this family title.
This was a strongly clerical branch of the Wolseley family, and the young William had two uncles who were priests, including the Ven Cadwallader Wolseley, who was Archdeacon of Glendalough, a canon of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, and Rector of Saint Andrew’s, Dublin.
So, the young William was probably thinking of ordination from an early age, without any thoughts of a title or celebrity.
William Augustus Wolseley was educated in Rathmines at a then-famous school run by the Revd Dr Charles William Benson and at Trinity College Dublin, where he graduated BA in 1887. He was awarded the Wall Biblical Scholarship in 1888, and earned a first class Theological Exhibition in 1889 that entitled him to the Divinity Testimonium, then the basic qualification from TCD for ordination in the Church of Ireland.
Within a year, he was ordained deacon in 1888 by the Archbishop of Dublin, Lord Plunket, on behalf of the Bishop of Limerick, and he was appointed curate of this parish. A year later, he was ordained priest by Charles Graves, Bishop of Limerick, Ardfert and Aghadoe.
Saint Brendan’s Church, Kilnaughtin, where William Wolseley was curate for 18 years (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Wolseley remained a curate in this parish for 18 years until 1906. During his time in this parish, he supplemented his income as a tutor to the Hewetson family, and his name appears only once in the parish baptismal records in Kilnaughtin.
He may have spent most of his time in Hewetson family household. But I still wonder what brought Wolseley to Tarbert.
Wolseley remained a curate in this parish for 18 years before moving to West Australia in 1906. He worked in two parishes there until he moved to England in 1920 to work as the curate in parishes from 1921 to 1927.
So, he had been ordained for almost 40 years and was in his early 60s when he was still working as a curate in a small rural parish in the north of England. Not where an aspiring priest might have expected to be at that stage in his life, considering he came from a titled family with many senior clerics among his close relatives and a senior, distinguished general as his second cousin.
What did he do for the next five years, between 1927 and 1932? I am not sure what he was doing, but during that time he had the bishop’s permission to officiate in the Diocese of Durham.
He was the Vicar of Alnham in rural Northumberland from 1932. That year, at the age of 67, he married Sarah Helen Grummitt from Grantham in Lincolnshire, on 16 June 1932. A year later, in 1933, he inherited the Wolseley title in the most unexpected way from his very distant cousin.
The story is told in Alnham that the news came one day by post so that nobody but the Wolseleys knew about it. That morning, the butcher from Rothbury arrived in the village in his van and knocked on the vicarage door, calling: ‘Butcher Mrs Wolseley.’ There was no reply, so he tried again: ‘Butcher Mrs Wolseley.’ This time the response was: ‘Lady Wolseley if you please.’
Australian newspapers that reported his inheritance described him as ‘a rather eccentric clergyman, notorious wherever he went for the prodigious rate at which he preached.’ I am not sure yet whether this means that he preached too quickly, far too often, or that he preached for far too long … I am still hoping to find out in the parish records.
The 11th baronet retired from parish ministry in 1942. He was then in his late 70s, and he died at the age of 84 on 19 February 1950. He had no children and the title passed to yet another distant cousin, a cobbler living in a four-room flat in Bromborough, Cheshire.
Sir Dick Wolseley, the ‘elevator baronet’ (Source (Wikipedia, WP:NFCC#4)
Sir William’s immediate predecessor, Sir Dick Wolseley (1872-1933), the tenth baronet, who was his first cousin once removed and worked as an elevator operator or ‘lift boy’; and Sir William’s immediate successor, Sir Garnet Wolseley (1915-1991), the 12th baronet, was his second cousin once removed and was a cobbler, born into poverty on Merseyside.
All three inherited their family title through a bewildering set of circumstances in an entangled family tree.
When Sir John Richard Wolseley (1834-1874), 6th Baronet, died aged 40, he was succeeded by his brother Sir Clement James Wolseley (1837-1889), probably the last of the family to live at Mount Wolseley. The estate was sold for £4,500 in 1925 by Sir John’s daughters to the Patrician Brothers.
Meanwhile, the title of baronet passed out in an ever-widening circle of distant cousins, and even the printed and online versions of the family tree are confusing and show many inconsistencies.
The eighth baronet, the Very Revd Dr Sir John Wolseley (1803-1890), was the Dean of Kildare (1859-1890) when he inherited the title in 1889. But he held the title for only three months when he died on 26 January 1890. In all, seven successive holders of the title have died without immediate, direct heirs.
The title of baronet in the Irish branch of the Wolseley family to passed out in an ever-widening circle of distant cousins, and even the printed and online versions of the family tree are confusing and show many inconsistencies.
The eighth baronet, the Very Revd Dr Sir John Wolseley (1803-1890), was the Dean of Kildare (1859-1890) when he inherited the title on 16 October 1889. He only held the title for three months, and died on 26 January 1890. In all, seven successive holders of the title have died without immediate, direct heirs.
The tenth baronet, Sir Reginald Beatty Wolseley (1872-1933), known as Dick Wolseley, was the son of a Dublin doctor. He inherited the family title when his cousin died in 1923, but he never used this title. Instead, he sought anonymity in self-imposed exile, working as an ‘elevator boy’ at the Black Hawk Bank Buildings in Waterloo, Iowa, for 18 years and living as plain Dick Wolseley.
He married his mother’s nurse, they separated a day later, they divorced, the divorce was annulled, and as Sir Reginald and Lady Wolseley moved to England.
Dick, Sir Reginald, died 18 months later near Ilfracombe in Devon on 10 July 1933. Only a few villagers attended his funeral in Berry Harbour; 12 farmers carried his coffin, and his wife was dressed entirely in white. And so the title passed to his distant cousin, the Revd Sir William Augustus Wolseley (1865-1950), who became the 11th baronet.
When the former curate of Tarbert died in 1950, it was not clear who was going to inherit his title.
But the Wolseley lineage had become so distant and dispersed by then that Debrett’s Peerage began an international search for an heir to the title. It seemed at the time that the heir would be a very distant cousin and two Americans vied for the title: Noel Wolseley, of Manchester, New Hampshire, and Charles William Wolseley, of Brooklyn, New York. The search seemed to be reaching a conclusion when a widow living in Wallasey, near Liverpool, Mrs Mary Alexandra Wolseley (née Read), claimed the title on behalf of her son, Garnet Wolseley, a 35-year-old shoemaker.
It was soon discovered that Mary’s late husband was descended from a line in the family that many had thought had died out in the 19th century. Experts from Debrett’s examined the competing claims. The American contenders were ruled out, and the quiet, pipe-smoking bachelor cobbler became the 12th baronet of Mount Wolseley, Co Carlow.
At the time, Garnet Wolseley was earning £5.10s a week as a shoemaker and each day rode a bicycle to work in a backstreet shop. His wife, Lillian Mary Ellison, had worked in a greengrocers and as a telephone operator in Liverpool, and they had lived ordinary working-class lives in post-war England until a genealogical quirk transformed them into Sir Garnet and Lady Wolseley.
Sir Garnet died in Canada on 3 October 1991. Since then, the title has not passed officially to a 13th baronet. The presumed baronet, Sir James Douglas Wolseley from Texas, has not been able to prove his claims to the title successfully, his name is not on the Official Roll of Baronets, and so the Wolseley title has been considered dormant since 1991.
Mount Wolseley House near Tullow, Co Carlow … sold in 1925 for £4,500 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
These notes were prepared to accompany the first of two stories recorded at Saint Brendan’s Church, Kilnaughtin (Tarbert), Co Kerry, as part of ‘Poetry With Paddy, Summertime on the Steeple Road’:
The church ruins in Ballylongford, Co Kerry … the Revd Alexander Hanlon worked in the parish throughout the Great Famine in the 1840s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
I was writing this morning about some of the unusual titles and exotic genealogical claims of some of the priests and bishops in the Diocese of Limerick, Killaloe and Ardfert over the centuries.
But, perhaps, the most curious title claimed by any of the clergy in this diocese was the title of ‘The O’Hanlon,’ an ancient title for the head of a Gaelic Irish clan. It is even more intriguing that this title was claimed by two near-contemporaries, whose time in the diocese almost over-lapped, yet they seem to have no close ties of kinship with each other.
The Revd Dr Alexander Patrick Hanlon (1814-1898), who called himself ‘The O’Hanlon,’ was born at Miltown Malbay, Co Clare, the son of Patrick Hanlon, a local Roman Catholic farmer.
Hanlon entered Trinity College Dublin late in 1839 at the age of 23, and graduated BA in 1844. He later studied for ordination and was ordained deacon in 1846 by the Bishop of Killaloe for the Diocese of Ardfert, and priest in 1847.
He was first a curate in 1846-1848 in Murhir, 4.5 miles south of Tarbert, close to border of Co Kerry and Co Limerick, making him one of my predecessors. The main town in the parish today is Moyvane or Newtownsandes. He seems to have lived in Ballylongford, and today Murhir and Ballylongford are part of the Kilnaughtin Parish within the Rathkeale and Kilnaughtin Group of Parishes.
During his time in this parish, he was praised for his ‘unremitting’ and ‘constant’ work with local people suffering during the Famine and for his ‘genuine charity.’ He freely distributed milk, bread and medicine, working with orphans and the elderly, and it was said: ‘ Not a house in which fever is to be found (and they are the greater in number), but he visits in person.’
Moyvane was at the heart of the Revd Alexander Hanlon’s parish on the Kerry/Limerick border (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
He later served in parish ministry at Kingscourt, Co Meath (1848-1849), Altedesert, Co Tyrone, in the Diocese of Armagh (1849-1851), Saint Caimin’s (Iniscaltra), Mountshannon, Co Clare, in the Diocese of Killaloe (1851-1871), Tallow in the Diocese of Waterford and Lismore (1872-1875) and Kilashee and Ballymackcormick, Co Longford, in the Diocese of Ardagh (1872-1875).
He seems to have been considering an appointment to Dingle parish during the vacancy in 1864 and was visiting the parish when his wife suffered an epileptic attack while bathing in Dingle Harbour with their young children. She died soon after, and she was buried in Saint James’s churchyard in Dingle.
Hanlon stayed on in Mounshannon for another few years, and he received the degrees LL.B. and LL.D. from Trinity College Dublin in 1865. In a speech in 1867, he defended his work with the Irish Society and the Irish Church Missions, but he was at pains to deny he had any antagonism towards Roman Catholicism.
He married a second time in 1871; his second wife Rebecca Parker was a daughter of James Parker of Ballhalmet House, Tallow, Co Waterford. A year later, he moved from Mountshannon to Tallow Parish in west Waterford, and remained there until he became deputy secretary of the Irish Society in 1879. He was feted at a garden party in Dugort organised by the Achill Mission in 1889.
He died at Ballyhalmet House, Tallow, Co Waterford, at the age of 84 on 10 December 1898, and was buried inside the ruins of Kilwatermoy Church.
The French Church, Portarlington … William Hanlon was born in Portarlington in 1849 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
His younger, near contemporary, the Revd William Hanlon (1849-1916), also worked in ministry in these dioceses and also claimed the title of The O’Hanlon. He was the only son of Dr Michael William Hanlon (1810-1890) of Portarlington, and a grandson of Captain William Hanlon of Mountmellick.
He was born on 20 August 1849. He studied at Trinity College Dublin (BA 1873, MA 1876), and was ordained deacon in 1874 and priest in 1875 by the Bishop of Cork. He was curate in Youghal, Co Cork (1874-1877) before becoming Rector of Dromtariffe, Co Cork (1877-1879).
Dromtariffe parish is halfway between Millstreet and Kanturk in north-west Co Cork, but at the time it was in the Diocese of Ardfert, and in the Roman Catholic church it remains in the Diocese of Kerry.
In 1877, Hanlon married Elizabeth Letitia Elrington, daughter of the Vicar of Swords, and granddaughter of the Revd PW Drew, Rector of Youghal, and he moved back from Ardfert diocese to the Diocese of Cork and Cloyne in 1879 when he became Rector of Innishannon, Co Cork (1879-1916). His father died at Hanlon’s rectory in Co Cork on 6 July 1890.
In 1907, Hanlon assumed the title of ‘The O’Hanlon’ by deed registered in the Irish Court of Chancery. Along with the title of ‘The O’Hanlon,’ he also claimed to be chief of the Sept of O’Hanlon and Hereditary Standard Bearer of the King in Ulster. In the pedigree he compiled in support of his claims, Hanlon said his lineal ancestor had given Saint Patrick the site in Armagh for his first cathedral.
Hanlon claimed this ancestry down through 1244, when Henry III invoked the help of the O’Hanlons and other Ulster clan chieftains against the Scots. From there, Hanlon claimed descent from Patrick O’Hanlon, lived in Co Louth, son of Phelim O’Hanlon, and who was named as an outlaw in 1660. Patrick O’Hanlon’s son Shane settled in Portarlington at the end of the 17th century, and became a member of the Church of Ireland. His son Michael held land in the Portarlington area, and his only son was said to be Captain William Hanlon, the father of Dr Michael Hanlon.
Hanlon, who was also an honorary chaplain to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, died at Innishannon Rectory on 26 April 1916, two days after the Easter Rising broke out in Dublin.
Redmond O’Hanlon was said to have escaped by swimming across Carlingford Lough (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
This all sounds fantastic. Except, for the minor detail that the last person before either of these two 19th century priests to have been accepted generally as the head of the family was the rapparee Redmond O’Hanlon, also known as ‘the Count.’
Redmond O’Hanlon was probably born in Poyntzpass, Co Armagh, ca 1640, but local lore says he was born at the foot of Slieve Gullion, a legend that helped to link him the mythical hero Cu Chulainn.
Redmond’s father, Loughlin O’Hanlon, was the heir to the chiefdom of the O’Hanlon clan. Eochaidh O’Hanlon had ruled all the land from Newry to Armagh in 1599, but his son sided with Sir Cahir O’Dochertaigh in a doomed rebellion. Eochaidh Og was exiled to Sweden, while most of the O’Hanlon lands were confiscated and given to Scottish and English planters. The O’Hanlons lost their castle at Tandragee in 1611 when it was given to Oliver St John.
Some of their land was returned to the O’Hanlon family and Redmond O’Hanlon was educated at ‘an English school.’ However, it is said, he fled to France after the Irish Confederation was defeated in 1652 and joined the French army.
After the Caroline Restoration, Redmond O’Hanlon returned to Ireland and installed himself as clan chief over the old O’Hanlon territories, styling himself ‘the Count.’ He was declared an outlaw in 1674 and became a rapparee around Newry and Carlingford Lough, and was described as being ‘pre-eminent among all the Tories in Ulster.’
In one incident in 1679, Henry St John and the Revd Lawrence Power of Tandragee were attacked by a group of bandits, and St John was shot dead. O’Hanlon was blamed for the attack, and a reward of £200 was offered for his apprehension.
Art McCall O’Hanlon, Redmond’s foster brother, shot Redmond O’Hanlon in an exchange on the night of 25 April 1681 at a camp in the hills above Eight Mile Bridge in Co Down. By the time soldiers arrived to retrieve his body, Willie O’Shiels had severed Redmond’s head and fled. His head was put on display at Downpatrick prison.
After Redmond O’Hanlon’s death, other members of the O’Hanlon family and their circle were hunted down as ‘Tories,’ and his surviving family fled to Co Donegal. Redmond O’Hanlon was originally buried at Ballynabeck, near Tandragee, but local stories say his son, also Redmond O’Hanlon, exhumed his body, and reburied him in the Church of Ireland churchyard at Conwal Parish in Letterkenny … which is a long way from Portarlington and Drumtarifffe, and a long way from Miltown Malbay and Moyvane.
As for Tandragee Castle, it was rebuilt by the Montagu family, Dukes of Manchester, in 1836, and remained in their family until 1939. Today, it is a popular tourist attraction known as ‘Tayto Castle.’
Buildings of the former Achill Mission in Dugort … Alexander Hanlon was feted by the Achill Mission at a tea party in Dugort in 1889 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
The wide streets of Moyvane, Co Kerry, show that this was once the planned town of Newtownsandes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)
Patrick Comerford
On the road between Tarbert and Ballybunion and back again from Ballybunion to Glin and Askeaton, two of us stopped at the weekend to visit Moyvane (Maigh Mheáin, ‘main or middle plain’), a village in Co Kerry off the N69 between Listowel and Tarbert.
The parish was originally called Murhur, but there are few historical references to its past, and its name today is still a matter of discussion and debate.
With its broad streets, and its sense of plan and hope, Moyvane looks as though it once was a planned town with a visionary landlord. The name Moyvane was adopted by the village as recently as 1939 when a plebiscite was held by the Parish Priest, Father Dan O’Sullivan.
The Post Office says this is Moyvane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)
But, in fact, Moyvane is the name of a townland about two miles south-west of the village, and the official name of the place is still Newtownsandes. Although the road signs and the post office kept telling me that this is Moyvane, many of the local people still call this Newtown, and the name above the local co-operative still proclaims in bold lettering that this is Newtownsandes.
Pride of place is the parish goes to the poet and song writer Thomas Moore (1779-1852), whose father John Moore was born here, and to Philip Cunningham, a leader in the 1798 Rising, later executed in 1804.
The Roman Catholic Parish was formed in 1829, in the immediate aftermath of the Catholic Emancipation. The first parish church was built in 1837, and a date stone built into a wall in the village near the original entrance to the church and the school marks this date.
The name Newtownsandes was chosen by the local landlord, George Sandes, in the early 1880s. Sandes is said to have been a cruel landlord at the time of the Land War. But, while some local narratives describe him as a Cromwellian, he lived two and a half centuries after the Cromwellian wars, and the Sandes family were in this part of Ireland a century or more before the arrival of Cromwell in Ireland.
The Sandes family originally spelled its name Sandys in England, and they may have been descended from a family that lived in Sands in the parish of Tulliallen in Fife, Scotland. They arrived in Ireland long before any Cromwellian officer, and this has been their home ever since.
The Co-op says this is Newtownsandes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)
In 1565, Neville Sands of Dublin was appointed surveyor-general in Ireland. A letter from Dublin that year said a farm of Ballyknockane, Co Laois, was ‘possessed by the late Mr Hugh Lippiat, whose wife Susan, Sands had married.’ In 1588, William Sandes was a court official, and in 1625 another William Sandes was attorney of the Exchequer Court.
The deeds of Christ Church Cathedral record that Watkin Sands was one of three signatories to a document involving lands in Lynkardstown, Co Carlow. William Sands of Dublin rented property near Oxmantown Green in Dublin, and was followed by his son John Sands.
The Petty Census of Ireland in 1659 lists the name of 11 Sands landowners in Co Kildare, Co Longford, Dublin, and Co Kerry, and Lancelot Sands was a landowner in Kilbonane, Co Kerry, and held public office in Dingle, Co Kerry, in 1660-1661.
Lancelot Sandes was granted an estate in Co Kerry in 1667 under the Acts of Settlement. The Ordnance Dublin Name Books noted in the 1830s that he held lands from the estates of Trinity College Dublin. William Sandes held several townlands in the parishes of Kilnaughtin at Tarbert, and Knockanure and Murher in the area of present-day Moyvane.
Kerry football tradition celebrated in street art in Moyvane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)
Moyvane may have been part of the estates of Trinity College Dublin from Elizabethan times, but by the early 19th century, Moyvane House was the residence of John Sandes, and the Sandes family had lived there for many generations.
At the time of Griffith’s Valuation, William Sandes was leasing Moyvane Farm to Stephen Sandes at Moyvane North.
Interesting member of the family include the Revd Robert Leslie Wren Sandes (1820-1895), who was he Curate of Listowel in 1848, and the Curate of Aghavallen (Ballylongford) in 1850-1858. He baptised Horatio Kitchener, one of the great generals in World War I, at Aghavallen in 1850, and he was living Ballylongford in 1852, when he married his first cousin Alicia Ponsonby.
Charles Lancelot Sandes was one of the principal land holders in the parish of Aghavallen or Ballylongford in Co Kerry at the time of Griffith’s Valuation in the 19th century. He also owned Carrigafoyle Castle, was leasing his property to Stephen Sandes, and held some lands in the parish of Morgans, Co Limerick.
In 1863,1864 and 1865, over 2,000 acres of the estate of William Sandes was offered for sale in the Landed Estates Court. In the 1870s, Charles Sandes of Carrigafoyle Castle and Bayview, Clontarf, Co Dublin, owned 1,208 acres in Co Limerick and 227 acres in Co Kerry, while the estate of Thomas Sandes of Sallowglen, Tarbert, amounted to over 7,000 acres in the 1870s.
Other Sandes holdings in this part of Co Kerry in the 19th century included Killelton House, which Charles L Sandes leased to William Hickie, Pyrmont House in Kilnaughtin (Tarbert), also known as Fyrmont, which William Sandes let to Thomas Sandes. The Sandes family and their descendants lived there until the 1920s, when the estate was sold and the house was later demolished.
William G Sandes was leasing Greenville near Listowel from the Earl of Listowel at the time of Griffith’s Valuation and it was a home of this branch of the Sandes family until World War I. It was repaired and rebuilt in the 1920s.
There is a local story that George Sandes was involved in the forceful eviction of some of his tenants in 1886. That year, some local residents changed the name of the village to Newtown Dillon, to honour John Dillon, a Home Rule politician.
But the new name was a temporary whim or fashion, and the original name remained unchanged until 1916, when another attempt was made to change the name – this time to Newtown Clarke, after Thomas Clarke, one of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916.
The Church of the Assumption was dedicated on 25 August 1956, when Father Dan O’Sullivan was still the parish priest (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)
A new parish church, the Church of the Assumption, was built when Father O’Sullivan was still the parish priest. It replaced an older parish church built around 1833, and the new church was dedicated on 25 August 1956.
The architect of the church was the Cork-based architect, James Rupert Boyd Barrett (1904-1976). He was born in Loughborough, and was educated at Clongowes Wood College, the CBS School, North Richmond Street, Dublin, Dublin School of Art, and University College London.
At the age of 24, he set up in practice in Cork in 1928, and designed many major buildings throughout Ireland, including the Department of Industry and Commerce in Kildare Street, Dublin, and churches in Cork and Kerry, as well as schools, hospitals, town halls and houses.
The carved altar, with images of the Four Evangelists, in Church of the Assumption, Moyvane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)
The church in Moyvane, which cost about €60,000 to build, in 1956, could seat up to 800 people, and at the time it was believed to be the biggest church in recent years. The main contractor was MrJohn McSweeney, Castleisland. The church was designed in contemporary fashion in which every part of the construction plays a vital role and so that the whole blends into one harmonious composition.
When Father Sean Jones was ordained priest in ill be ordained to the priesthood on Sunday, July 1st in the Church of the Assumption, Moyvane, recently [1 July 2018], he was the first priest ordained in the diocese of Kerry in 12 years.
Inside the Church of the Assumption in Moyvane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)
The most recent attempt to change the name of the village to Moyvane failed again a few years ago. In a vote on a name-change held by Kerry County Council, the proposal to change the name failed to gain the required 51 per cent majority of eligible voters.
In all, 473 ballot papers were returned, with 407 voting for and 66 against the name change, but a minimum of 435 yes voters of the 868 eligible voters was needed, a spokesman at the registrar of electors in Kerry County Council told The Irish Times.
But the name of Newtownsandes still exists on a map and the register of electors but nowhere else. Indeed, while the signposts have said Moyvane since 1975 and the post office is Moyvane, the electorate remains confused by other suggested names and a dispute about the proper title of the local creamery.
To this day, Moyvane Creamery still bears the name Newtownsandes Co-op – and it is also one of the remaining independent co-operative creameries in Co Kerry.
A window in the parish church in Moyvane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)
Evening lights at Lislaughtin Friary near Ballylongford, Co Kerry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)
Patrick Comerford
After a recent weekend in Ballybunion, two of us stopped on our way back to Askeaton at Ballylongford to visit Lislaughtin Abbey, which has been described as ‘one of the most elegant Hiberno-Gothic buildings on the Shannon Estuary.’
Although it is known locally as Lislaughtin Abbey, it was founded as a Franciscan friary. It is 1.3 km north of Ballylongford, on the east bank of the River Ballyline and the Ballylongford Creek and to the south of the Shannon Estuary.
The friary was founded for the Order of Friars Minor or Observant Franciscan Friars in 1470 by John O’Connor, Lord of Kerry, John O’Connor endowed the friary with altar vessels and other furnishings.
The foundation, in the Diocese of Ardfert, was later approved by Pope Sixtus IV in 1477, who instructed the Prior of Ballinskellings, the Archdeacon of Aghadoe and the Dean of Ardfert to grant the license if the site was suitable.
The friary was named after Saint Lachtin, who is said to have brought Christianity to the area, and who died in 622.
No written life of Saint Lachtain or Lactean has survived. However, a short biographical note was written about him by the Anglican hymn-writer, the Revd Sabine Baring-Gould. And he features in the lives of a number of other Irish saints, where some miracles are ascribed to him.
This saint, also called Lactenus, Lactinius and Lactanus, came from a distinguished family in Muskerry, Co Cork. According to legend, while Saint Molua lived as a disciple of Saint Comgall of Bangor, an angel appeared to him and predicted the birth of Lactinus – after an interval of 15 years – who was to be his future friend and companion. Afterwards, it was related, that Saint Molua never smiled until he heard of the infant’s birth.
Saint Lachtain was born some time in the sixth century, and his mother is called Senecha. The accounts of his birth are drawn from accounts of the births of Jacob, Jeremiah and Saint John the Baptist, who were blessed before they were born. It is said that as an infant Lactinus was miraculously preserved from suffering and also healed his mother from a dangerous tumour and saved neighbours’ cattle from a plague.
When he was 14, he moved to Saint Comgall’s new abbey in Bangor, where Saint Molua was his teacher. He was sent out to found religious houses, and these included Achadh Úr or Freshford, Co Kilkenny, where he gave his name to Saint Lachtain’s Church, the Church of Ireland parish church.
His miracles are said to have included raising the dead to life. He ruled over or founded many monasteries, and he is called bishop in some martyrologies, including the Carthusian Martyrology, and the martyrologies of Ferrarius, of Canisius, and of Joannes Kerkested, although he is always called ‘Lactinus of Achadh-ur.’
He died on 19 March 622, according to the Annals and the martyrologies. He is commemorated by Saint Cuimin of Connor in these lines:
Lachtain, the champion, loved
Humility, perfect and pure.
He stands, throughout all time.
In defence of the men of Munster.
The Great East Window in Lislaughtin Friary near Ballylongford, Co Kerry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)
Cornelius O’Connor and his wife, Avelina FitzGerald, donated a processional cross to Lislaughtin Friary in 1479. The silver gilt cross bears the figure of Christ and the symbols of the Evangelist set at the ends of the cross arms. The figures on the collar below the crucifixion represent Franciscan friars or Saint Francis.
When John O’Connor resigned as Lord of Kerry in favour of his son he retired to the friary as member of the Franciscan Third Order, and he was buried at the friary in 1485.
The friary was so important in the Irish mediaeval church that a Franciscan provincial chapter was held in Lislaughtin in 1507.
Thomas FitzGerald, heir of the Knight of Glin, was buried there in 1567 after his execution.
During the siege of nearby Carrigafoyle Castle in 1580, the abbey was twice raided by Elizabethan forces. Three friars, Daniel Hanrahan, Maurice Scanlan and Philip O’Shea, were unable to make their escape and were beaten to death in front of the high altar. The friary was sacked and the buildings were destroyed.
The cross donated by Cornelius O’Connor and Avelina Fitzgerald was possibly hidden for safekeeping at this time, and the friary was then dissolved.
Lislaughtin Friary was ‘solitary and surrounded by woods’ by the early 17th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)
In 1617-1618, a Franciscan friar, Donatus Mooney, describes the friary as being ‘solitary and surrounded by woods’ which suggests it was then unoccupied. The friary was granted to James Scolls and then to Sir Edward Denny.
The church and graveyard remained in use by local people, and some friars returned in 1629. But it was destroyed once again by Cromwellian troops in 1652.
A sketch in 1792 shows a typical slender Franciscan tower was still standing that year, but the tower collapsed some years later. The friars continued to maintain a presence in the area, and the Franciscans appointed guardians until 1860, perhaps in the hope of recovering their friary.
Lislaughtin retains some fine examples of late mediaeval stonework in the great east window, the sedilia, piscina, choir windows, the great window in the south transept, the west window and the tombs of the O’Connor and FitzGerald families.
The abbey church is a long building divided into choir and nave with triple sedilia. The collapsed square tower was over the choir arch. The 30 windows are pointed and of cut limestone. A two-storey building contained refectory and dormitory.
Inside the ruins of ‘solitary’ Lislaughtin Friary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)
The friary remains today include the church with a south transept, the cloister and domestic buildings located to the north. One of the two carved tomb niches on the north side of the nave was possibly made for the burial of John O’Connor, the friary’s founder. In the chancel on the south side there are sedilia or seats for the clergy.
The friary had a library and a scriptorium on the top storey which was accessed from the friars’ dormitory. The dormitory cubicles have a recess under each window, possibly a storage area for friars’ personal items, such as books or writing utensils.
The friary’s garderobe or latrine block is a two-storey structure to the north-east.
The silver processional cross commissioned for Lislaughtin Friary in 1479
The silver processional cross commissioned for the friary in 1479 was made by William Cornel of Dublin. It lay hidden for over two and a half centuries until it was unearthed in March 1871 by John Jeffcott, a farmer who was ploughing some reclaimed bogland at Ballymacasey, south of Lislaughtin.
Although some pieces of the cross were missing and it had suffered minor damage, the cross is still largely intact and in good condition. It The cross remained in the Jeffcott family home in Ballylongford for 18 until it was acquired by the Royal Irish Academy for preservation and public display.
The cross is 67 cm tall and is made from silver gilt. It was made into a complete piece from four separate components: the cross itself, with the horizontal bar attached by sockets and rivets; a collar below; a knop or rounded knob; and a hollow socket for attaching a handle.
A figure of Christ, which was cast separately, adorns the centre of the cross.
The cross is covered with a floreated outline that is typical of the late Gothic period and gives it a particularly ornate look.
The back of the cross is plain. The inscription is engraved in three lines on each arm of the cross and the text is interlaced with flowers and animals.
At the end of each arm and in the centre are quatrefoils, each with the symbol of one of the four evangelists: an eagle for Saint John, a lion for Saint Mark and calf for Saint Luke. The fourth quatrefoil in missing the human figure, representing Saint Matthew.
The stylised figure of Christ has rivulets of blood, elongated arms, a crown of thorns and a moulded loincloth. The figure is attached to the cross with three small nails, one in each hand and one at the feet. Christ’s eyes are closed and his protruding ribs and the wound in his side are clearly visible.
Beneath the cross, an eight-sided flared plinth or collar has a series of cast monks or friars, each holding a cross in his left hand while the right hand is raised in blessing. This collar is set on a twisted knop with another eight-sided decoration of rosettes and leaves. This knop sits on of a tapering circular socket with a decoration of serrated ribs, where a metal shaft would have been attached to carry the cross in processions.
The Lislaughtin cross is similar in style to the 40 or so processional crosses found in Britain and Ireland dating from the same period. They include the Bosworth Crucifix, which once belonged to the Victorian book collector and antiquarian James Comerford (1807-1881), and a 15th century processional cross in the Hunt Museum in Limerick.
James Comerford’s son, James W Comerford, exhibited and presented the Bosworth Crucifix to the Society of Antiquaries ‘in the name of his late father, James Comerford, Esq., FSA.’ The processional cross in the Hunt Museum was bought at auction in Christies in 1961 by John Hunt for £130. The Lislaughtin Cross is now in the National Museum in Kildare Street, Dublin.
An ogee-hooded late mediaeval tomb in Lislaughtin Friary near Ballylongford, Co Kerry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)
Sunset seen through the west wall of Kilconly Church in Co Kerry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)
Patrick Comerford
Two of us went for a brisk walk on the two beaches in Ballybunion, Co Kerry, after lunch on Sunday afternoon [25 February 2018] in Daroka, where we had a table upstairs looking out at the ruins of Ballybunion Castle and the cliffs on the Atlantic coast.
Although snow is threatening later this week, it still felt like early spring in the afternoon, with a slow setting sun that was glistening on the calm waves and the sand.
Late afternoon sunshine on the beach at Ballybunion on Sunday (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)
The sun was still setting on our way back to Askeaton, when we stopped to look at the church ruins and graveyard in Kilconly, halfway between Ballybunion and Tarbert, and close to Beal Beach.
The church ruins and churchyard nestle in a small field off the Wild Atlantic Way, with a babbling brook running through the sheltered creek as it makes its way to the Shannon estuary and the sea.
The name of Kilconly is linked to Saint Conla, who is said to have built the earliest church at this place. The ruins are said to date from the 12th to 15th century, but it is difficult to know when the church fell into disuse.
The parish is in the Diocese of Ardfert and Aghadoe, and until the mid-19th century the Treasurers of Ardfert were also Rectors and Vicars of Kilconly. They included Cecil Pery, 1st Lord Glentworth, who was Treasurer (1758-1780) and later became Bishop of Killala and then Bishop of Limerick.
The church ruins at Kilconly (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)
However, the parish was too small to afford a resident rector or curate, and pastoral care in the parish was normally in provided by the curate of Aghavallin in Ballylongford, who acted as the curate of Kilconly. The tithes amount to £83.1.5¾ and there are two glebes, amounting to about four acres.
The appointment of a treasurer of Ardfert ceased in 1845. But the church may have fallen into disuse long before that, perhaps even before the Reformation. Today, Kilconly – like neighbouring Ballybunion – is part of the larger Rathkeale and Kilnaughtin Group of Paerishes.
Inside the ruins of the church, I caught a glimpse of the sun in the western sky through the west wall. All was silent around me as the sun stayed in place, balancing like a balloon in the sky.
Near the shore are the ruins of the ancient castles of Beale and Lick. Beale Castle belonged to FitzMaurice family, Barons of Kerry and later Earls of Kerry. The fortifications of the castle were demolished around 1600 by Patrick FitzMaurice (1551-1600), the 17th Lord Kerry. That year, Maurice Stack, an officer in Queen Elizabeth’s army, was invited to the castle by Lady Kerry and murdered by her attendants.
In 1633, Beale Castle was named as Beau-lieu in the Pacata Hibernia. The Civil Survey (1654-1658) refers to ‘an old stump of a castle called Licke.’
Litter House, once the home of the Wren family, originally belonged to the Blennerhassett family and passed by marriage to the Wren family.
A seastack near the ruins of Lick Castle is known locally as the ‘Devil’s Castle’ or Caislean an Deamhain.
Kilocnly also has interesting links with Saint John’s Church in Ballybunion, which was built with funds donated by Mrs Mary Young in memory of her husband, John Young. Mary Young was born Mary O’Malley in Kilconly and met her husband John Young, a tea planter, while she was working in Kilkee, Co Clare.
When John Young died, Mary Young inherited his considerable wealth. She used much of her wealth to finance building the convent in Ballybunion in 1887, Ballybunion House, and Saint John’s Church, which cost £8,500.
From Kilconly, we drove on to Beale Beach, with in the west constantly behind us.
As we made our way down to Beale Beach, we caught a last glimpse of the setting sun, as it balanced in the sky, like a Mediterranean sunset. Perhaps it was a promise of summer sunshine in Greece later year; perhaps it was a warning of the coming snow and freezing temperatures later this week.
A Mediterranean-like sunset near Beal Beach on Sunday (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)
