Loftus Hall, Co Wexford, is back on the market, this time for €2.6 million

Loftus Hall … dates back to the first Anglo-Norman settlements in Co Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Loftus Hall, near Fethard-on-Sea, Co Wexford, is perhaps the largest country house in south Co Wexford and is said to be the ‘most haunted house’ in Ireland. Aidan Quigley, the owner of Loftus Hall on the Hook Peninsula, between Hook Head and New Ross, traded until last year as an after-dark tourist attraction with ghostly goings-on. But the house is now closed to the public and is back on the market with an asking price of €2,625,000.

Travelling around the Hook Peninsula recently, two of us stopped briefly to look at Loftus Hall. The house is known for many myths and legends, including ghost stories and hauntings. But it is also an important part of the architectural heritage and historical legacy of Co Wexford.

The house stands on the original site of Redmond Hall, first built by the Redmond family ca 1350, at the time of Black Death, on the site of an earlier castle. The family traces its line back to Raymond le Gros, who landed at Baginbun, south of Fethard-on-Sea on the Hook Peninsula, on 1 May 1170.

Alexander Redmond or FitzRedmond was granted the Hook area in the first wave of the Anglo-Norman settlements. His descendants, Robert and Walter Redmond, built the castellated mansion known as Redmond’s Hall in the early 14th century.

During the civil and confederate wars of the mid-17th century, Redmond Hall was attacked in 1642 by English soldiers loyal to Charles I.

Alexander Redmond, who was 68 at the time, barricaded the Hall and prepared to defend it. He was assisted by his sons, Robert and Michael, some of their tenants, two men at arms and an itinerant tailor who was working in the Hall at the time. The defenders were only 10 in number, armed simply with long-barrelled fowling pieces.

In the lengthy battle that ensued, Captain Aston realised his cannon were too small to have any impact on the main door. To add to his woes, half his men abandoned him as they pillaged the countryside. As the battle dragged on, a heavy mist from the sea enveloped the Hook Peninsula.

When the Irish Confederates at Shielbaggan heard of the attack, they marched to the Hall and surprised the attackers under cover of the fog. About 30 English soldiers escaped to their boats and back to the fort. But Captain Aston was among those who were killed. Many others were taken prisoner, and several were hanged at Ballyhack and New Ross, including one of the Esmonde brothers.

The Redmond family pedigree, registered in 1763, claims Alexander Redmond also defended the Hall against one or even two attacks by Cromwellian forces in 1649. There is a tradition that the defenders used sacks of wool to block up breaches in the walls created by cannon fire. These woolsacks and a representation of the Hall are depicted on the coat of arms confirmed to the Redmond family in 1763.

It is said that Alexander Redmond negotiated favourable terms with Cromwell and died in the Hall in 1650 or 1651. But the surviving family members were evicted and held onto only one-third of their original estates in Co Wexford.

The pier gates at the entrance to Loftus Hall … the earlier house, Redmond Hall, was bought by the Loftus family in the 1660s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Hall and most of the Redmond estates on the Hook Peninsula were later bought by Nicholas Loftus from ‘several adventurers and soldiers.’ The Loftus family was descended from Adam Loftus (1533-1605) of Rathfarnham Castle, Archbishop of Armagh (1562-1567), Archbishop of Dublin (1567-1605), Lord Chancellor of Ireland (1573-1576, 1581-1605) and first Provost of Trinity College Dublin (1592-1594).

Adam Loftus had 20 children, and his eldest son, Sir Dudley Loftus, was granted lands around Kilcloggan in south Wexford in 1590. His son, Nicholas Loftus acquired the Manor of Fethard-on-Sea in 1634 and Fethard Castle became the family residence. His son, Henry Loftus, moved from Dungulph Castle to the Hall in 1666, when it became the principal residence of the Loftus family.

The Redmond family disputed the claims of the Loftus family in court but without success. They were compensated in 1684 with lands in Ballaghkeene in north Co Wexford. Some of their descendants joined the Wild Geese in France and other European armies, others were involved in banking and politics. One branch of the family became a prominent political dynasty in Co Wexford in the 19th and 20th centuries, including John Redmond, who led the Irish Party until he died in 1918.

To establish the new name of his house, Henry Loftus placed an inscription in stone on the entrance piers: ‘Henry Loftus of Loftus Hall Esq 1680.’ He carried out extensive repairs to the Hall in 1684.

The Loftus family rose in the peerage over the following centuries, receiving the titles of Baron Loftus of Loftus Hall (1751), Viscount Loftus of Ely (1756), Earl of Ely (1766, and again in 1771). But the male line of the family and titles died out in 1783. Loftus Hall was inherited by the last earl’s nephew, Sir Charles Tottenham (1738-1806), MP for Fethard-on-Sea (1776-1783) and then for Wexford Town (1783-1785).

His father, Sir John Tottenham, had married the Hon Elizabeth Loftus in 1736. She was the daughter of Nicolas Loftus (1687-1763), and her two brothers, Nicholas Hume-Loftus (1708-1766) and Henry Loftus (1709-1783) had no male heirs to inherit their titles of Earl of Ely and their vast estates, including Loftus Hall and Rathfarnham Castle.

On inheriting Loftus Hall, he changed his name to Charles Tottenham Loftus, and in time received the titles of Baron Loftus of Loftus Hall (1785), Viscount Loftus (1789), Earl of Ely (1794) and finally, with the passage of the Act of Union, Marquess of Ely (1800).

His descendant, John Henry Wellington Graham Loftus (1849-1889), inherited Loftus Hall and the family titles as 4th Marquess of Ely in 1857 when he was only an eight-year-old. He was still in his 20s when he rebuilt Loftus Hall in 1872-1879, under the direction of his mother, Jane (Hope-Vere) Loftus (1821-1890), Dowager Marchioness of Ely and a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Victoria.

Loftus Hall … rebuilt in the 1870s by John Loftus, 4th Marquess of Ely (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Lord Ely extensively rebuilt the entire house, adding many ornamental details such as the grand staircase, mosaic tiled floor, elaborate parquet flooring and technical elements not seen in Irish houses before, including flushing toilets and blown-air heating.

He was inspired by many of the details at Osborne House, Queen Victoria’s summer residence on the Isle of Wight. Its deliberate alignment maximises the panoramic vistas overlooking across Waterford Harbour and Saint George's Channel.

Loftus Hall stands on 70 acres of land and includes five reception rooms and 22 bedrooms. It is a three-storey house with a nine-bay front and without a basement. The symmetrical frontage is centred on the pillared porch, and the house has a balustraded parapet that hides the roof.

One of the most-admired features of the house is the magnificent hand-carved oak staircase. Other examples of fine Victorian craftsmanship include encaustic tiled floors, timber panelled doors, marble Classical-style chimneypieces, a ceiling with a stained-glass lantern and an Acanthus ceiling rose, decorative plasterwork, a bow-ended reception room and a chapel.

The diminishing scale of the windows on each floor produce a graduated visual impression. The decorative plasterwork is the work of James Hogan and Sons of Dublin. It has been said the stucco details might have been designed to resemble a grand hotel.

The adjacent coach house and stable outbuilding, the walled garden and a nearby gate lodge enhance the setting.

Loftus Hall was built in the expectation of a visit by Queen Victoria. But perhaps the proposed visit was all in imagination of the Dowager Marchioness: the Queen never visited Loftus Hall, and young Lord Ely was weighed down by unbearable debts.

He died at the age of 39 without children, having crippled the estate financially with his grand building scheme aimed at boosting his social standing in the aristocracy but probably hiding a sense of insecurity and a desire for acceptance.

The impoverished estate passed with the family titles to his distant cousin, John Henry Loftus (1851-1925), the son of a Church of Ireland priest. But the estate was in such a poor financial state that the new Lord Ely eventually decided to sell Loftus Hall.

Loftus Hall was bought in 1917 by a Benedictine order of nuns, who lived there for 18 years. It was then bought in 1935 by the Sisters of Providence, who ran a school for girls interested in joining the order until the early 1980s.

When the convent closed, Loftus Hall was bought in 1983 by Michael Devereux who reopened it as Loftus Hall Hotel. But it closed again in the late 1990s. It remained in the hands of the Devereux family until late 2008, when it was sold to an unnamed buyer. There were rumours it had been bought by Bono of U2, but it had been bought by the Quigley family from Bannow, Co Wexford.

In recent years, the Quigley family turned Loftus Hall into a tourist attraction with guided tours and seasonal events. The five acres of walled gardens underwent a major restoration five years ago, and a beautiful space has emerged trom the overgrown tangle that had not been cared for in many years.

It is difficult to determine where history ends and legends and fiction begin at Loftus Hall (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

To this day, fact and fiction are so closely entwined in the history of Loftus Hall that it is difficult to determine where history ends and legends and fiction begin.

Loftus Hall is the subject of two apocryphal legends. The first is the famous ‘Legend of Loftus Hall’ and the second is the story that the house was built in the expectation of a royal visit by Queen Victoria that may have been planned only in the mind of the Dowager Marchioness.

It is said that Sir Charles Tottenham was at Loftus Hall in 1775 with his wife and daughter Anne. During a storm, a ship unexpectedly arrived at the Hook Peninsula, and a young man was welcomed at the doors of Loftus Hall.

One night, the family and the visitor were playing cards. In the game, each player received three cards, but Anne was only dealt two cards by the mystery man. A butler at the table was just about to question the man when Anne bent down to pick up the card she thought she may have dropped. As she bent beneath the table, she saw the mysterious man had a cloven foot.

As Anne stood up and challenged him, he went up through the roof, leaving behind a large hole in the ceiling. Soon Anne became ill, and the family was ashamed of her. She was locked away in the Tapestry Room, where she refused food and drink, and sat with her knees under her chin, looking out across the sea towards Dunmore East, waiting for the mysterious stranger to return. She died in the Tapestry Room in 1775. It is said that when she died, they could not straighten her body, and she was buried in the sitting position in which she had died.

It was said that the hole in the ceiling could never be repaired properly, and that to this day there is still a part of the ceiling that is slightly different from the rest.

The family eventually called on Canon Thomas Broaders, the local Roman Catholic parish priest who also a tenant on the Loftus Hall estate, to exorcise the house. Canon Broaders was parish priest of the Hook and Ramsgrange for almost 50 years, and the epitaph on his grave in Horetown Cemetery reads:

here lies the body of Thomas Broaders,
Who did good and prayed for all.
And banished the Devil from Loftus Hall.

But if this exorcism – if it ever took place – ever worked, it did not end the ghost stories. The ghost of a young woman, said to be Anne Tottenham, is said to return to Loftus Hall frequently.

However, there are main details in the story that are difficult to reconcile with historical details and facts.

Firstly, Canon Broaders died on 17 January 1773, two years before the supposed date of the story of Anne Tottenham and the card game.

Secondly, Charles Tottenham did not inherit Loftus Hall until 1785, ten years after these supposed events. He probably lived before that at either Tottenham Green, near Taghmon, or at Delare House, the Tottenham family townhouse in New Ross.

Thirdly, the first account of those events was published in The Whitehall Review on 28 September 1882 – over 100 years after they are said to have taken place.

Fourthly, the damaged ceiling could hardly have survived: the 17th century Loftus Hall was levelled in 1871 and the present house was built in its place in the 1870s.

Fifthly, there is a similar tradition in Taghmon that the whole affair took place at Tottenham Green, then the Tottenham family home, and not at Loftus Hall.

Indeed, some people believe these stories were told to keep local people away while Lord Ely was waiting for Queen Victoria to call – an anticipated visit that never materialised, if it was ever planned.

Today, the family titles are held by (Charles) John Tottenham, a former prep school teacher in Alberta Canada, who succeeded in 2006 as 9th Marquess of Ely, 9th Earl of Ely, 9th Viscount Loftus, and 9th Baron Loftus. His sister, Lady Ann Elizabeth Tottenham, is a retired suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Toronto and the second woman to be elected a bishop in the Anglican Church of Canada. Their father, Charles John Tottenham (1913-2006), 8th Marquess of Ely, emigrated to Ontario.

Loftus Hall came to market in 2008 with an asking price of €1.7million and in need of refurbishment, but a subsequent sale fell through. It was back on the market in 2011 at the substantially lower price of €625,000, and it was bought by Aidan Quigley and his brother Shane. It is back on the market again with an asking price of €2,650,000.

But whoever buys Loftus Hall will need deep pockets. To replace the windows could cost over €350,000, Aidan Quigley estimates. The hotelier Francis Brennan, who visited the house for his RTÉ show At Your Service, put the overall renovation costs at €20 million.

Loftus Hall stands on 63 acres by some of the most breath-taking coastline in the south-east, and the selling agents say it has potential for a boutique spa, country guesthouse and other commercial uses. It has 2,179 sq m (23,454 sq ft) over three floors, with 22 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms, reception and function areas.

The lands are laid out in six divisions and mostly down to tillage. The land is suitable for many types of crops, horticulture and market gardening. Loftus Hall also has a private beach and walled gardens – captivating with their feature designed stone wall’s offering privacy and a potential gardeners paradise. In the right hands, this could still be be the retreat of dreams.

Loftus Hall is on the market through Keane Auctioneers of Custom House Quay, Wexford.

Delare House was built in 1790 as the townhouse of the Tottenham family in New Ross, Co Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Precentor of Limerick who drowned in Dublin on his way home to Wexford

Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick … Robert Grave was Precentor of Limerick and Bishop of Ferns when he drowned in Dublin Bay on his way home to Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Among the many projects that have disappeared in the midst and mists of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown, one was a proposed talk to the Friends of Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, last month (8 September 2020) on the precentors of the cathedral.

It was planned as a light, even quirky, yet scholarly, look at some of my predecessors as precentor, recalling some of the more interesting, but also some of the more humorous, more curious and even more eccentric people who have gone before me, and, perhaps, even some of the more tragic precentors too.

The list of Precentors of Limerick goes back to 1204, but their biographical details are very light until the beginning of the 15th century, when we come across Dionisius or Denis O’Dea, who was allowed five years leave of absence as precentor to study at Oxford in 1415. He then became Bishop of Ossory in 1421, but he was allowed to remain Precentor of Limerick too. He had not yet been ordained a priest, and needed a papal dispensation for his ordination and consecration because he was the illegitimate son of a subdeacon.

Awly O Lonysigh, who succeeded O’Dea as Precentor in 1421, was also made Rector of the Monastery of Saint Catherine O’Connell, Limerick, which was abolished because of the ‘dissolute lives of the nuns.’ But he was deprived of office in 1445 when he was reported to the Pope as a ‘notorious fornicator.’

John or Richard Purcell, who was Precentor of Limerick in 1455, was also Archdeacon of Lismore, Papal Nuncio in Ireland and Collector of Papal Dues, and while he was Precentor of Limerick he was also Bishop of Ferns (1457-1479).

After the Reformation, John Long became Precentor of Limerick in the 1560s, and later became Archbishop of Armagh (1584-1589). His successor, Thomas Purcell, was dismissed in 1573 because of his support for the Desmond rebellion. Described as ‘a tall horseman,’ he seems to have spent some time in exile in Spain, and was killed by a Colonel Zouche in 1581.

One of the more tragic precentors at the end of the 16th century must have been Robert Grave.

Born in Kent ca 1560, he was said to have been educated at Cambridge University to have received the degree of MA. However, I can find no record of any college he attended in Cambridge, the date of his degree, when or where he was ordained, or when and why he came to Ireland.

He was in Ireland by 1590, when he was appointed Dean of Cork. A year later, he was appointed Precentor of Limerick in 1591, Precentor of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, in 1595, and then became Prebendary of Tullbracky in Limerick in 1600.

He was holding all four positions in cathedrals three different when he was nominated Bishop of Ferns and Leighlin on 30 April 1600 and was appointed bishop by letters patent on 17 July 1600.

At the time, the two dioceses were facing major financial crises. Grave’s predecessor in the Diocese of Ferns, Hugh Allen (1582-1599), had died at Fethard in 1599 and was buried at the parish church there.

But Hugh Allen, like Bishop Alexander Devereux before him, had made long irregular and long leases of many parts of the see lands. For example, he illegally leased the Manor of Fethard and other lands in south Co Wexford, to his son John Allen, and leased over 1,500 acres of other church lands at small rents to Sir Henry Wallop of Enniscorthy Castle.

In the neighbouring diocese, Richard Meredith had been Bishop of Leighlin (1589-1597) while he was also Dean of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin (1584-1597), and had once been jailed for his complicity in treason.

Meredith spent most of his time in Dublin. When he died in 1597, he was buried in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and the see of Leighlin remained vacant for three years until it was united with Ferns at the appointment of Robert Grave as Bishop of Ferns and Leighlin.

Saint Edan’s Cathedral, Ferns … the Diocese of Ferns was united with the Diocese of Leighlin at the consecration of Bishop Grave in 1600 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Diocese of Ferns and Leighlin included most of Co Wexford and Co Carlow and parts of Co Wicklow and Co Laois (then Queen’s County).

Robert Grave was consecrated Bishop of Ferns and Leighlin in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, in August 1600. But he was allowed to retain all his other church posts when he became bishop, including the office of Precentor of Limerick.

At the time, the Bishops of Ferns were living in Wexford, rather than Ferns. In the early 15th century, Bishop Patrick Barrett transferred the bishop’s residence from Ferns Castle to New Ross and built Mountgarrett Castle as his residence. Later bishops lived at Fethard Castle in south Co Wexford, but they seem to have had their principal residence in Saint Mary’s Parish, Wexford, and were buried in the now ruined Saint Mary’s Church.

However, tragedy struck the new bishop soon after his consecration. As he and all his family made their way home by sea to Wexford, they were drowned in Dublin Bay on 1 October 1600. Bishop Grave had a watery grave, and was never buried in Saint Mary’s in Wexford.

Grave’s successor as Bishop of Ferns, Nicholas Stafford, was from an old Wexford family and had been Chancellor of the Diocese of Ferns and Leighlin. He was consecrated bishop early in 1601, and when he died in on 15 November 1604 he was buried in Saint Mary’s Church, Wexford.

Grave’s successor as Precentor of Limerick, John Burgoyne, was also educated at Cambridge. But the records of his education at Cambridge are verifiable, and show that he was educated at Jesus College and received the degrees BA (1581) and MA (1584). While he was Precentor of Limerick (1601-1614), Burgoyne was also Precentor of Waterford (1613).

Over the next few weeks, I may look at some other Precentors of Limerick. Perhaps, when this pandemic has passed and this lockdown is lifted, I may get to tell more stories about these predecessors in Saint Mary’s Cathedral on another day.

Mary Street, Wexford … a reminder in a street name of the former Saint Mary’s Parish (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Dubhán and Hook Church are part of the story of Hook Lighthouse

The ruined Hook Church or Saint Dubhán’s Church at Churchtown, north of the Hook Lighthouse in Co Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

Hook Head and the Hook Peninsula in south-west Wexford includes hidden coves, some important mediaeval sites, including the Hook Lighthouse, and some important architectural and archaeological sites, such as the castles at Fethard, Dungulph, Houseland, Slade and Kilclogan, and Loftus Hall.

The area is replete with legends, myths and tales about the giant Finn Mac Cumhal, Celtic saints and monks, Anglo-Norman landings, ghostly sightings and early Ogham stones.

But this is also an area with a rich collection of churches, monastic sites and holy wells, including the churches at Templetown, the abbeys at Tintern and Dunbody, and early church settlements.

Hook Church or Saint Dubhán’s Church at Churchtown, seen from the north-west (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

On the way back from visiting Hook Head and the Hook Lighthouse, I stopped to visit the ruins of Hook Church or Saint Dubhán’s Church at Churchtown, linked with Saint Dubhán, who came to the Hook from Wales in 452 AD and established a monastery on the site of the lighthouse.

The date given for his arrival is just 20 years after the supposed arrival of Saint Patrick in 432, and while Saint Patrick is said to have been working in the northern part of the island.

Saint Dubhán is said to have lit the first warning beacon for ships at Hook Head shortly after his arrival. This beacon was maintained by the monks for 700 years until the lighthouse was built.

Saint Dubhán built a church and soon the whole peninsula was known as Rinn Dubháin. The name Dubhán can be translated into English as a ‘fishing hook’ and so, it is said, the peninsula became known as Hook Head.

Saint Dubhán is said to have been an older brother of Saint Elloc, the patron of Templetown, and is name is remembered at Saint Elloc’s Well or ‘Toberluke.’

The later chancel in the ruins of Hook Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The church was later attached to a house of Augustinian canons. Mediaeval references date from 1245, when the chaplains of Saint Saviour of Rindeaun were urged to maintain the lighthouse.

The remaining ruins of the church date from the 13th or 14th century. The nave dates from the 13th century and the chancel was added later.

Looking into the Hook Church from the original east wall of the mediaeval church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The original east wall of the mediaeval church, now in the centre of the church, includes remains of antae or projections of the side walls beyond the gable, and there is evidence of a round-headed window in which a doorway was inserted to give access to the later chancel.

The nave, which was extended in length, and the later chancel survive almost complete. The original nave is earlier, and the east wall has remains of antae and a destroyed window over the chancel arch.

The nave was extended at the west end and provided with opposing round-headed doorways towards the west end. The doorway on the north side has a stoup in situ. There are corbels at the west end to support a gallery and the west gable has an unusual double bellcote.

The surviving piscina in the chancel of the Hook Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

There is a blocked door towards the east end of the north nave wall. The chancel has a three-light ogee-headed window with glazing grooves on the wall and a statue shelf and niche at the north end of the east wall. There are three small windows on the south wall and one on the north wall. There is a piscina, aumbry and Easter Sepulchre in the chancel.

Inside the Hook Church at Churchtown, Co Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The names of local families buried in the surrounding churchyard include: Barry, Chapman, Colfer, Connelly or Connolly, Crowley, Dunne, Fanning, Fortune, Holland, Kavangh, Kennedy, Mason, Moran, Murphy, O’Brien, Power, Wallace and White.

Saint Dubhán was commemorated on 11 February, and his story is still told as part of the guided tours of the Hook Lighthouse.

Looking out through one the three small windows of the south wall in the Hook Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

By ‘Hook or by Crook’, I was determined to see Hook Lighthouse

The Lighthouse and visitor centre at Hook Head, at the south-west tip of Co Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

It is part of folklore in the south-east that when the Anglo-Normans arrived in Ireland in 1169-1170, Strongbow vowed to take Waterford City ‘by Hook or by Crook’ – referring to Hook Head in Co Wexford on the east bank of Waterford estuary, and Crook village on the west bank in Co Waterford.

Later versions say the phrase was used by sea captains to express their determination to make the haven of the bay in bad weather using one headland or the other as a guide. Others imagine the phrase is derived from a vow by Oliver Cromwell to take Waterford by Hook or by Crook, by fair means or foul.

Recently I travelled from Waterford through New Ross, by fair means rather than foul, to visit the Hook Lighthouse at the end of the Hook Peninsula in south-west Co Wexford, which claims to be the oldest operational lighthouse in the world. It has been voted one of Ireland’s favourite attractions and visiting it is a truly unique experience.

Looking out to sea at Hook Head (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019; click on image for full-screen resolution)

The present lighthouse traces its story back to the first purpose-built lighthouse, built 800 years ago in the early 13th century by Strongbow’s son-in-law, William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke. But a beacon may have stood on this site from the fifth or sixth century, associated with Saint Dubhán and his followers, said to have built the first Hook Church at Churchtown nearby.

The monastery at Churchtown was founded by Saint Dubhán in the early fifth century. The peninsula became known as Rinn Dubháin (Dubhán’s headland). According to tradition, the monks kept a warning beacon to warn sailors of the dangers of shipwreck on the rocky headland.

Tradition claims Saint Dubhán set up a form of beacon as early as the fifth century. The Hook is known in Irish as Rinn Dubháin, Saint Dubhán’s Head. His name sounds like the Irish word duán, meaning a fish hook, and so Hook Head acquired its name in English.

The entrance to the ‘Monks’ Chapel’ at the Hook Lighthouse (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The Anglo-Normans landed in 1169-1170 at Bannow and Baginbun in south Wexford and Passage in Co Waterford, all visible from Hook Lighthouse. They quickly took over much of the south and east of Ireland, and Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke (‘Strongbow’) became Lord of Leinster.

Strongbow’s daughter Isabella married the powerful knight William Marshal in 1189, and he succeeded his father-in-law as Earl of Pembroke and Lord of Leinster. He founded New Ross, 30 km up river, as the port of Leinster, and in the early 13th century he began to develop Leinster, building castles, founding towns and bringing in English tenants.

The Lighthouse structures have survived since the early 13th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The precise year of building the lighthouse is not known, but Marshal first came to the area in 1201, he died in 1209 and the first map that shows the lighthouse serving its function is dated 1240, so construction must have taken place between these dates. He probably built the tower of Hook in 1210-1230 as a landmark and light tower to guide shipping to his port at New Ross.

Exhibits in the lighthouse suggest Marshal was inspired by the Pharos or Great Lighthouse at Alexandria and the Crusaders’ Lighthouse at Acre which he would have seen during the Crusades.

The small group of monks at Hook Church at Churchtown nearby were the first custodians of the light. They became the first light-keepers and may have helped to build tower. For centuries, the light was provided by a coal-fire beacon. The monks lit warning fires and beacons all through the years to warn sailors of the dangerous rocks on the peninsula.

Climbing the 115 steps of the mural stairway within the wall of the Lighthouse (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Hook Lighthouse is a fascinating example of mediaeval architecture. The tower stands four storeys high, with walls up to four metres thick. The tower has three rib-vaulted chambers in the lower tier, while the upper, narrower section would have carried the warning beacon.

These two tiers are connected with a mural stairway of 115 steps within the wall. The tower was built of local limestone and the original building survives intact. The first tier is 13 metres in diameter at the base and has three storeys, each with its original 13th-century stone fireplace.

The thickness of the wall contains a number of mural chambers, including two garderobes or toilets. The upper tier is 6 metres in diameter: originally it supported the beacon fire, which was later replaced by the lantern.

The thickness of the wall contains a number of mural chambers (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Mediaeval references dating from 1245 show how the chaplains of Saint Saviour of Rindeaun, or Hook Church at Churchtown, were urged to maintain the lighthouse. The monks left the tower at the dissolution of the monastic houses during the Reformation and were replaced by the lighthouse keepers.

For several centuries after it was built, the Tower remained under the control of the civic authorities in New Ross. Annually, the Sovereign or Mayor of New Ross and the burgesses or town councillors asserted their authority over the waters at the Hook by firing an arrow into the sea at Hook Head.

A new, coal-burning lantern was installed at the top of the tower in 1671 to replace the old beacon light, and further improvements were made in 1704.

The monks left the tower at the dissolution of the monastic houses during the Reformation (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Meanwhile, the ownership of the Hook and the tower passed to Henry Loftus of nearby Loftus Hall. Nicholas Loftus, known as the ‘Extinguisher,’ threatened to close the lighthouse in 1728 unless the authorities agreed to an increase in the rent he collected.

The coal fire was finally abandoned in 1791 when a whale oil lantern 12 ft in diameter was installed with 12 lamps was installed.

An Act passed by Parliament in 1810 transferred control of all lighthouses on the Irish coast to the Corporation for Preserving and Improving the Port of Dublin.

New gas lights were installed in the Hook Lighthouse in 1871, lit by gas manufactured in the enclosure known as the gas yard.

Fog signals at the lighthouse were a warning to seafarers during dense fog that can descend suddenly on the peninsula. The fog signal was essential in days before radar and radio. Fog guns at the cliff edge were fired every 10 minutes. These were replaced by explosive charges set off at the top of the tower on an extending arm. Finally, a compressed air horn or hooter blasted every 45 seconds during fog.

Three houses were built for the lighthouse keepers in the 1860s. Paraffin oil became the source of power in 1911, and a clockwork mechanism changed the light from fixed to flashing. This mechanism had to be wound up every 25 minutes by the keeper on duty.

Finally, in 1972, electricity became the power source, and light-sensitive switches were installed to control the lantern. The Hook Lighthouse was converted to automatic operation in March 1996, and the last light-keepers who had climbed the stairs and tended the light for generation were withdrawn from the station. The lighthouse.

The lighthouse was automated in 2011 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The Hook’s foghorn was heard for the last time in January 2011, when all the foghorns were turned off. It was felt that the technology on modern ships was so advanced that the foghorn was no longer needed.

The lighthouse is now operated by the Commissioners of Irish Lights, the Irish lighthouse authority, and is monitored remotely from Dun Laoghaire. Despite local claims, the Hook Lighthouse is the second oldest operating lighthouse in the world, after the Tower of Hercules in Spain.

The old keepers’ houses were turned into a visitor centre and the lighthouse was opened to the public as a tourist attraction in 2001. The visitor centre includes a gift shop, art workshop, exhibits and a café, and guided tours are available seven days a week.

The guided tour takes visitors up the 115 well-worn spiral steps of the tower to explore the thick-walled chamber, following in the daily and nightly steps of the former light keepers.

A life-sized hologram figure of Saint Dubhán tells of dark and cold nights spent with his fellow monks in the fifth century warning sailors against the dangers with a beacon they kept alight on the headland.

Further up, Strongbow’s son-in-law, William Marshal, is introduced as ‘the greatest knight that ever lived.’ Marshal’s hologram tells of his empire in south-east Ireland and how he built the lighthouse tower in the 13th century to guide shipping up the estuary and the river to his port at New Ross.

The balcony offers spectacular views across the Hook Peninsula, over Waterford Bay and out across Saint George’s Channel, where the Irish Sea meets the rolling Atlantic.

Looking out to sea from the tower (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

In June 2011, Hook Lighthouse was listed first by the Lonely Planet among the ‘Top 10 Flashiest Lighthouses,’ was described as ‘the great granddaddy of lighthouses.’

The phrase ‘by Hook or by Crook’ was used by Washington Irving in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820) and by Ernest Hemingway in The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1938), and the phrase was featured in the opening scene in the British television series The Prisoner (1967):

No 6: Where am I?
No 2: In the Village.
No 6: What do you want?
No 2: Information.
No 6: Whose side are you on?
No 2: That would be telling. We want information… information… information.
No 6: You won’t get it.
No 2: By hook or by crook, we will.

Having visited the Lighthouse at Hook Head, I went in search of the origins of the phrase ‘by Hook or by Crook’ – did it originate with Strongbow’s determination, or Cromwell’s, to capture Waterford, by fair means or by foul?

It is highly unlikely that Strongbow spoke English, still less that he spoke it well enough to make rhyming puns in the heat of battle, or that he knew the intimate details of local topography long before the area had been conquered – or properly mapped.

The first recorded use of the phrase ‘by hook or by crook’ is in 1380 in the Controversial Tracts of John Wyclif.

The origin of the phrase is obscure, with one explanation that it comes from the customs regulating which firewood local people could take from common land: they were allowed to take any branches they could reach with a billhook or a shepherd’s crook.

So, the phrase was already in use for almost 300 years before Cromwell’s arrival at the gates of Waterford, which deprives historians of finding even a hint of humour or witticism in his language and commands.

The Lighthouse at Hook Head has a story that dates back 800 to 1500 years (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Loftus Hall is a fine house without giving credibility to any of the ghost stories

Loftus Hall … dates back to the first Anglo-Norman settlements in Co Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

Travelling around the Hook Peninsula recently, between Hook Head and New Ross, two of us stopped briefly to look at Loftus Hall, perhaps the largest country house in this part of south Co Wexford.

Loftus Hall is known for many myths and legends, including ghost stories and hauntings. But it is also an important part of the architectural heritage and historical legacy of Co Wexford.

The house stands on the original site of Redmond Hall, first built by the Redmond family ca 1350, at the time of Black Death, on the site of an earlier castle. The family traces its line back to Raymond le Gros, who landed at Baginbun, south of Fethard-on-Sea on the Hook Peninsula, on 1 May 1170. Alexander Redmond or FitzRedmond was granted the Hook area in the first wave of the Anglo-Norman settlements. His descendants, Robert and Walter Redmond, built the castellated mansion known as Redmond’s Hall in the early 14th century.

During the civil and confederate wars of the mid-17th century, Redmond Hall was attacked in 1642 by English soldiers loyal to Charles I.

Alexander Redmond, who was 68 at the time, barricaded the Hall and prepared to defend it. He was assisted by his sons, Robert and Michael, some of their tenants, two men at arms and an itinerant tailor who was working in the Hall at the time. The defenders were only 10 in number, armed simply with long-barrelled fowling pieces. In the lengthy battle that ensued, Captain Aston realised his cannon were too small to have any impact on the main door. To add to his woes, half his men abandoned him as they pillaged the countryside. As the battle dragged on, a heavy mist from the sea enveloped the Hook Peninsula.

When the Irish Confederates at Shielbaggan heard of the attack, they marched to the Hall and surprised the attackers under cover of the fog. About 30 English soldiers escaped to their boats and back to the fort. But Captain Aston was among those who were killed. Many others were taken prisoner, and several were hanged at Ballyhack and New Ross, including one of the Esmonde brothers.

The Redmond family pedigree, registered in 1763, claims Alexander Redmond also defended the Hall against one or even two attacks by Cromwellian forces in 1649. There is a tradition that the defenders used sacks of wool to block up breaches in the walls created by cannon fire. These woolsacks and a representation of the Hall are depicted on the coat of arms confirmed to the Redmond family in 1763.

It is said that Alexander Redmond negotiated favourable terms with Cromwell and died in the Hall in 1650 or 1651. But the surviving family members were evicted and held onto only one-third of their original estates in Co Wexford.

The pier gates at the entrance to Loftus Hall … the earlier house, Redmond Hall, was bought by the Loftus family in the 1660s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The Hall and most of the Redmond estates on the Hook Peninsula were later bought by Nicholas Loftus from ‘several adventurers and soldiers.’ The Loftus family was descended from Adam Loftus (1533-1605) of Rathfarnham Castle, Archbishop of Armagh (1562-1567), Archbishop of Dublin (1567-1605), Lord Chancellor of Ireland (1573-1576, 1581-1605) and first Provost of Trinity College Dublin (1592-1594).

Adam Loftus had 20 children, and his eldest son, Sir Dudley Loftus, was granted lands around Kilcloggan in south Wexford in 1590. His son, Nicholas Loftus acquired the Manor of Fethard-on-Sea in 1634 and Fethard Castle became the family residence. His son, Henry Loftus, moved from Dungulph Castle to the Hall in 1666, when it became the principal residence of the Loftus family.

The Redmond family disputed the claims of the Loftus family in court but without success. They were compensated in 1684 with lands in Ballaghkeene in north Co Wexford. Some of their descendants joined the Wild Geese in France and other European armies, others were involved in banking and politics. One branch of the family became a prominent political dynasty in Co Wexford in the 19th and 20th centuries, including John Redmond, who led the Irish Party until he died in 1918.

To establish the new name of his house, Henry Loftus placed an inscription in stone on the entrance piers: ‘Henry Loftus of Loftus Hall Esq 1680.’ He carried out extensive repairs to the Hall in 1684.

The Loftus family rose in the peerage over the following centuries, receiving the titles of Baron Loftus of Loftus Hall (1751), Viscount Loftus of Ely (1756), Earl of Ely (1766, and again in 1771). But the male line of the family and titles died out in 1783. Loftus Hall was inherited by the last earl’s nephew, Sir Charles Tottenham (1738-1806), MP for Fethard-on-Sea (1776-1783) and then for Wexford Town (1783-1785).

His father, Sir John Tottenham, had married the Hon Elizabeth Loftus in 1736. She was the daughter of Nicolas Loftus (1687-1763), and her two brothers, Nicholas Hume-Loftus (1708-1766) and Henry Loftus (1709-1783) had no male heirs to inherit their titles of Earl of Ely and their vast estates, including Loftus Hall and Rathfarnham Castle.

On inheriting Loftus Hall, he changed his name to Charles Tottenham Loftus, and in time received the titles of Baron Loftus of Loftus Hall (1785), Viscount Loftus (1789), Earl of Ely (1794) and finally, with the passage of the Act of Union, Marquess of Ely (1800).

His descendant, John Henry Wellington Graham Loftus (1849-1889), inherited Loftus Hall and the family titles as 4th Marquess of Ely in 1857 when he was only an eight-year-old. He was still in his 20s when he rebuilt Loftus Hall in 1872-1879, under the direction of his mother, Jane (Hope-Vere) Loftus (1821-1890), Dowager Marchioness of Ely and a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Victoria.

Loftus Hall … rebuilt in the 1870s by John Loftus, 4th Marquess of Ely (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Lord Ely extensively rebuilt the entire house, adding many ornamental details such as the grand staircase, mosaic tiled floor, elaborate parquet flooring and technical elements not seen in Irish houses before, including flushing toilets and blown-air heating.

He was inspired by many of the details at Osborne House, Queen Victoria’s summer residence on the Isle of Wight. Its deliberate alignment maximises the panoramic vistas overlooking across Waterford Harbour and Saint George's Channel.

Loftus Hall stands on 70 acres of land and includes five reception rooms and 22 bedrooms. It is a three-storey house with a nine-bay front and without a basement. The symmetrical frontage is centred on the pillared porch, and the house has a balustraded parapet that hides the roof.

One of the most-admired features of the house is the magnificent hand-carved oak staircase. Other examples of fine Victorian craftsmanship include encaustic tiled floors, timber panelled doors, marble Classical-style chimneypieces, a ceiling with a stained-glass lantern and an Acanthus ceiling rose, decorative plasterwork, a bow-ended reception room and a chapel.

The diminishing scale of the windows on each floor produce a graduated visual impression. The decorative plasterwork is the work of James Hogan and Sons of Dublin. It has been said the stucco details might have been designed to resemble a grand hotel.

The adjacent coach house and stable outbuilding, the walled garden and a nearby gate lodge enhance the setting.

Loftus Hall was built in the expectation of a visit by Queen Victoria. But perhaps the proposed visit was all in imagination of the Dowager Marchioness: the Queen never visited Loftus Hall, and young Lord Ely was weighed down by unbearable debts.

He died at the age of 39 without children, having crippled the estate financially with his grand building scheme aimed at boosting his social standing in the aristocracy but probably hiding a sense of insecurity and a desire for acceptance.

The impoverished estate passed with the family titles to his distant cousin, John Henry Loftus (1851-1925), the son of a Church of Ireland priest. But the estate was in such a poor financial state that the new Lord Ely eventually decided to sell Loftus Hall.

Loftus Hall was bought in 1917 by a Benedictine order of nuns, who lived there for 18 years. It was then bought in 1935 by the Sisters of Providence, who ran a school for girls interested in joining the order until the early 1980s.

When the convent closed, Loftus Hall was bought in 1983 by Michael Devereux who reopened it as Loftus Hall Hotel. But it closed again in the late 1990s. It remained in the hands of the Devereux family until late 2008, when it was sold to an unnamed buyer. There were rumours it had been bought by Bono of U2, but it had been bought by the Quigley family from Bannow, Co Wexford.

In recent years, the hall has been turned into a tourist attraction with guided tours and seasonal events. The five acres of walled gardens at Loftus Hall have undergone a major restoration Spring 2016. From the overgrown tangle that had not been cared for in many years, a beautiful space has emerged to be explored and enjoyed.

It is difficult to determine where history ends and legends and fiction begin at Loftus Hall (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

To this day, fact and fiction are so closely entwined in the history of Loftus Hall that it is difficult to determine where history ends and legends and fiction begin.

Loftus Hall is the subject of two apocryphal legends. The first is the famous ‘Legend of Loftus Hall’ and the second is the story that the house was built in the expectation of a royal visit by Queen Victoria that may have been planned only in the mind of the Dowager Marchioness.

It is said that Sir Charles Tottenham was at Loftus Hall in 1775 with his wife and daughter Anne. During a storm, a ship unexpectedly arrived at the Hook Peninsula, and a young man was welcomed at the doors of Loftus Hall.

One night, the family and the visitor were playing cards. In the game, each player received three cards, but Anne was only dealt two cards by the mystery man. A butler at the table was just about to question the man when Anne bent down to pick up the card she thought she may have dropped. As she bent beneath the table, she saw the mysterious man had a cloven foot.

As Anne stood up and challenged him, he went up through the roof, leaving behind a large hole in the ceiling. Soon Anne became ill, and the family was ashamed of her. She was locked away in the Tapestry Room, where she refused food and drink, and sat with her knees under her chin, looking out across the sea towards Dunmore East, waiting for the mysterious stranger to return. She died in the Tapestry Room in 1775. It is said that when she died, they could not straighten her body, and she was buried in the sitting position in which she had died.

It was said that the hole in the ceiling could never be repaired properly, and that to this day there is still a part of the ceiling that is slightly different from the rest.

The family eventually called on Canon Thomas Broaders, the local Roman Catholic parish priest who also a tenant on the Loftus Hall estate, to exorcise the house. Canon Broaders was parish priest of the Hook and Ramsgrange for almost 50 years, and the epitaph on his grave in Horetown Cemetery reads:

here lies the body of Thomas Broaders,
Who did good and prayed for all.
And banished the Devil from Loftus Hall.

But if this exorcism – if it ever took place – ever worked, it did not end the ghost stories. The ghost of a young woman, said to be Anne Tottenham, is said to return to Loftus Hall frequently.

However, there are main details in the story that are difficult to reconcile with historical details and facts.

Firstly, Canon Broaders died on 17 January 1773, two years before the supposed date of the story of Anne Tottenham and the card game.

Secondly, Charles Tottenham did not inherit Loftus Hall until 1785, ten years after these supposed events. He probably lived before that at either Tottenham Green, near Taghmon, or at Delare House, the Tottenham family townhouse in New Ross.

Thirdly, the first account of those events was published in The Whitehall Review on 28 September 1882 – over 100 years after they are said to have taken place.

Fourthly, the damaged ceiling could hardly have survived: the 17th century Loftus Hall was levelled in 1871 and the present house was built in its place in the 1870s.

Fifthly, there is a similar tradition in Taghmon that the whole affair took place at Tottenham Green, then the Tottenham family home, and not at Loftus Hall.

Indeed, some people believe these stories were told to keep local people away while Lord Ely was waiting for Queen Victoria to call – an anticipated visit that never materialised, if it was ever planned.

Today, the family titles are held by (Charles) John Tottenham, a former prep school teacher in Alberta Canada, who succeeded in 2006 as 9th Marquess of Ely, 9th Earl of Ely, 9th Viscount Loftus, and 9th Baron Loftus. His sister, Ann Elizabeth Tottenham, is a retired suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Toronto and the second woman to be elected a bishop in the Anglican Church of Canada. Their father, Charles John Tottenham (1913-2006), 8th Marquess of Ely, emigrated to Ontario.

Loftus Hall reopens to public next month, on 13 April 2019.

A Redmond Clan gathering is planned for Loftus Hall on 1-3 May, with a special reception at the Bishop’s Palace, Waterford, to honour the memory of John Redmond, leader of the Home Rule Party.

The Bishop’s Palace Waterford … a reception in May honours the memory of John Redmond (Photograph Patrick Comerford, 2019)

How did George de Valero, born in New York, become Éamon de Valera in Bruree?

The Éamon de Valera homestead north of Bruree, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

On the way back from Charleville in north Co Cork to Askeaton on Saturday afternoon, I stopped at Bruree to visit de Valera’s Cottage in Bruree, Co Limerick, the childhood home of Éamon de Valera (1882-1975), the rebel leader in 1916 who went on to became Taoiseach and President of Ireland.

My memories of de Valera stretch back to a childhood near Capproquin, Co Waterford, when ‘Dev’ spoke out against the Fethard-on-Sea boycott – which was spoken of in hushed tones in every household in the south-east in the 1950s – and to schooldays when one of his grandsons sat in a desk in front of mine in the study hall in my boarding school.

Little did I realise then that I would spend many late nights as a young journalist staying up late and working into the early morning on late shifts in The Irish Times, waiting for the former president to die. I still remember how boring it was, waiting, watching, and going home as the summer dawn broke.

Éamon de Valera died on 29 August 1975, aged 92, at the Linden nursing home in Dublin. It was just before noon and one of my day’s off, which seemed to frustrate the reason behind working all those late nights and early morning shifts that marked out that first summer in Dublin after joining The Irish Times from the Wexford People a few months earlier. The obituary supplement that I had been involved in preparing went to press without my presence.

A year later, though, that supplement was published as a book edited by Peter Tynan O’Mahony, and my small meagre contribution was included – a pen and ink sketch and short description of de Valera’s coat-of-arms, which celebrated his assumed Spanish ancestry and heritage. The book was launched in Kilmainham Jail, and at the age of 24 I found unexpectedly that for the first time I had contributed to a published book.

As dusk was beginning to turn to darkness late last Saturday afternoon [5 January 2019], I eventually found the de Valera Cottage, 1 km north of Bruree. For such a large giant on the landscape of Irish history, this is a very humble homestead. The house is a labourer’s cottage, built in 1885 by Kilmallock Poor Law Union, and it still tells of the humble origins of a family could never have realised the greatness that was going to be thrust on them in the century that followed.

The small house is a detached three-bay single-storey labourer’s cottage, built around 1885, with a pitched slate roof, rendered chimneystacks and rendered walls. The sash windows and timber battened half-door help to conserve the original character of the cottage. It retains its original form and structure and is now a rare example of houses like this.

But Éamon de Valera was not born here. Rather, he was born in New York City on 14 October 1882, and while he was later known as Edward, then as Eddie, and finally as Éamon de Valera, he was first known as George and was registered at birth as George de Valero.

The child was brought to Ireland by his uncle Ned in 1885, following the death of his father, named as Juan Vivion de Valera, while his mother, Catherine Coll, stayed on in New York.

He would spend the rest of his childhood days in this cottage, even after his mother remarried. Here he lived with his widowed grandmother, Elizabeth Coll, his uncle son Patrick Coll and his aunt Hannie Coll.

As a child, the young Dev worked hard on the family’s small holding of half an acre, going to school first in a school in Bruree founded in 1862, and then to the Christian Brothers’ school in Charleville. The family could not afford a bicycle, and it must have been a tough 11 km walk each morning and evening for the boy.

Later, a scholarship gave him a place Blackrock College at the age 16, and he would spend much of the rest of his life in Dublin.

The de Valera cottage in Bruree, Co Limerick … but where are his ancestral roots to be found (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

I wondered at the weekend why the wording on the plaque at the ‘de Valera cottage’ does not name his mother, his father, his grandmother, his uncle, his aunt, or anyone other family who might have lived there.

Indeed, a marriage certificate has never been found for Éamon de Valera’s parents, and throughout his life he was long troubled by its absence and by the absence of any evidence of their wedding – or of his father’s identity. Nor is there any verifiable evidence of the supposed death of his father, Vivion de Valera, in any of the places where his mother said he had died, including Denver and New Mexico. In fact, there is little historical evidence that Juan Vivion de Valero or Vivian de Valera ever existed.

Catherine (Kate) Coll was born 21 December 1856, almost 30 years before the de Valera Cottage was built, so it is stretching history a little to say that this is his ancestral home. She emigrated to the US in 1879, still nine years before the cottage was built, and she first took a job with a wealthy French family in Manhattan.

The official story says that in this household in Manhattan she met a young Spanish man, Juan Vivion de Valero or Vivion de Valera, a former sculptor who turned to teaching music after his eye was damaged by a chip of marble. Some accounts said he was born in Spain in 1854; others said he was born in 1853 in Matanzas, Cuba, the son of Juan Manuel de Valera, and had come to the home of her employers to give music lessons to their children.

She would say they were married in 1881. According to de Valera’s biographers, Lord Longford Thomas P O’Neill (London: Hutchinson, 1970), the couple were married in Saint Patrick’s Church in Greenville, New Jersey, on 19 September 1881. But parish records show no record of any Coll-de Valera wedding, either at Saint Patrick’s or in any other church, nor is any such marriage recorded in civil records in the area in the period 1875-1887.

Her son – George, or Edward – was born the following year. The New York State records contain two de Valera birth certificates. The first, dated 10 November 1882, gives his name as George de Valero. The second is a ‘corrected certificate’ dated 30 June 1910. This second certificate, issued almost 28 years after he was born, now gives his first name as Edward and his surname as de Valera, and so George de Valero became Edward de Valera.

Kate would later say that Vivion de Valera was always in poor health, that he left his young family behind and travelled to Denver, Colorado, hoping healthier air would help him, but that he dies a few months later. Once again, however, is no relevant death certificate anywhere in the US.

Forced to work full time as a nurse, Kate sent her infant child back to her home in Co Limerick to be cared for by her mother, brother and sister.

Indeed, no record survives of Kate Coll’s marriage, there is no independent evidence in Spain or the US that the man she named as her husband ever lived, apart from the birth and baptism certificates that first named the child as George de Valero and his father as Juan Vivian de Valero.

With her young son back in Co Limerick, Kate Coll married Charles Wheelwright (1857-1929), an English-born coachman, in Saint Francie Xavier Church, Manhattan, on 7 May 1888. Without any supporting documents, the officiating priest took her at her word that she had been married before and that her first husband had died, leaving her a widow.

The church required a dispensation for the marriage, but Charles later became a Roman Catholic. The family moved to Rochester, New York, and they were the parents of a daughter Ann (1889-1897) and a son, Thomas Wheelwright (1890-1946), who was ordained a Redemptorist priest in 1916.

Charles Wheelwright died in 1929, and Kate died on 12 June 1932. They are buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Rochester. Later in life, Éamon de Valera would say that as he child he had occasional visits from a ‘woman in black’ he believed to have been his mother.

In later life, Éamon de Valera regularly visited the cottage in Bruree, and in 1972 he opened the de Valera Museum in his former school in Bruree. The Office of Public Works restored his childhood cottage on the outskirts of Bruree in the 1980s. President Mary Robinson officially opened the refurbished de Valera Museum and Bruree Heritage Centre in his former school in 1997.

Over the years, Dev asked many people, including his half-brother, his cousin, church authorities in the US and Spain, and the Irish minister in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War, to help him in this search. Proof of the marriage would silence persistent whispers about his legitimacy and prove that his mother had been telling the truth about his parentage.

But no such proof was ever found by family members, historians, biographers or genealogists.

The questions about Éamon de Valera’s ancestry are no reflection on the man’s honesty, integrity, pariotism or political acumen. His decision to lead his supporters into Dail Eireann in 1927, and the peaceful handover after the 1932 election show his commitment to a democratic transition in the new Irish state; his 1937 Constitution, if read in its time rather than by today standards, is a strong guarantee of democracy with its separation of powers at a time when Fascism was on the march throughout Europe; and his public stand brought an end to the Fethard-on-Sea boycott.

It is sad that in the Ireland of his day he felt he had to hide his background because of the prevailing prejudice and judgmentalism.

His biographer Tim Pat Coogan speculated that questions surrounding de Valera’s legitimacy may have prevented him from seeking ordination to the priesthood.

But did the questions about his father and his parents’ marriage and doubts about his ancestry also cause de Valera to become ‘more Irish than the Irish themselves’?

And did the plight of a mother who felt she had to protect her son against what would have been inevitable consequences, cause him to write the articles in the Constitution that the primary place of a woman place was in the home?

Sunset at the de Valera cottage north of Bruree, Co Limerick, last weekend (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

A window in the Comberford Chapel recalls two interesting Tamworth vicars

‘Christ the Teacher’ … a stained glass window in the Comberford Chapel in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

In recent weeks, I have written about the Commerford window in Saint Polycarp’s Church, in Finaghy, Belfast, and about the Catherine O’Brien windows in both Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, and Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale, Co Limerick.

Within the past year, I have also written about the perilous future facing the windows in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth.

The chancel east window dates from 1870 and was designed by William Wailes (1808-1881), the proprietor of one of the largest and most prolific stained glass workshops in England. This East Window shows the Apostles, with 12 smaller angels, an inscription that reads: ‘Ye glorious company of Apostles praise thee.’ This East Window is a tribute to the Revd James Ogilvy Millar (1828-1890), who was instrumental in restoring the church while he was the Vicar of Tamworth (1865-1869).

The three windows in the chancel clerestory by Ford Madox Ford and William Morris tell the story of Saint Editha.

The East Window in Saint George’s Chapel dates from 1874 and was designed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898) for William Morris. Another window by William Morris and Burne-Jones in Saint George’s Chapel is in memory of the Revd Brooke Lambert (1834–1901), an Anglo-Catholic slum priest in the East End. These windows are among the artistic treasures of the Pre-Raphaelite Movement.

A memorial window in the North Aisle, beside the Comberford Chapel, was designed by Henry Holiday of the Arts and Crafts Movement and made by James Powell and Son at their Whitefriars Studio. This window commemorates the Revd Maurice Berkeley Peel (1873-1917), a grandson of Sir Robert Peel and for a brief period Vicar of Tamworth (1915-1917).

At the time, however, I missed describing the window in the Comberford Chapel or North Transept, representing Christ the Teacher. For many decades, because of its location in the Comberford Chapel, I have been familiar with this window, which dates from 1871. This memorial window recalls two 19th century vicars of Tamworth, Canon Francis Blick (1754-1842), his son-in-law, the Revd Robert Watkin Lloyd (1783-1860), and their wives.

The inscription at the bottom of the window reads: We give thee thanks O Lord God Almighty. In loving memory of Francis Blick & Anne his wife, also of Robert Watkins Lloyd & Anne his wife MDCCCLXXI (1871).

Canon Francis Blick (1754-1842) was the Vicar of Tamworth for almost half a century from 1796 until his death in 1842 (Image courtesy Tamworth Borough Council)

Canon Francis Blick (1754-1842) was the Vicar of Tamworth for almost half a century from 1796 until his death in 1842. Some years ago in a feature in the Tamworth Herald, he was described as a ‘remarkable man’ and one of Tamworth’s least known but most worthy ‘unsung’ heroes in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Blick was educated at Saint John’s College Oxford, (BA, MA), and was ordained deacon 1776, and priest in 1778. He was a curate first in Coughton with Sambourn in Warwickshire from 1776, and then in Sutton Coldfield from 1779.

At the end of January 1791, while he was still a curate in Sutton Coldfield, Blick was banned from preaching by his rector, the Revd John Riland, after preaching an inflammatory sermon against certain sects and parties ‘in contradiction to man’s doing his duty, by moral conduct, in keeping the law.’

Blick’s silencing came only a few months before the Birmingham riots that year. Despite his rector’s efforts to silence him, Blick canvassed the support of some influential but partially-biased people and published what was probably a sanitised version of his sermon.

Blick may have taken his lead from the Revd Spencer Madan, Rector of Saint Philip’s, Birmingham, who in February 1790 preached a sermon equating Presbyterians with Republicans, and who was swiftly challenged by Joseph Priestley. Madan was a subscriber to Blick’s publication, which included Blick’s sermon and the correspondence between Blick and Riland.

Blick then moved to Suffolk, where he served briefly as a curate in Wissett, in Waveney. But by 1795, it appears, he was teaching in Tamworth. A year later, in 1796, he was appointed the perpetual curate or Vicar of Tamworth with Glascote and Hopwas, in succession to the Revd Michael Baxter.

Blick remained Vicar of Tamworth for 42 years and although he is now largely forgotten he became one of the most influential figures in the town in his time. A recent publication, Tamworth, The Parish, Town and Napoleon by Sue Wood, details Blick’s writings from 1796 to 1811.

‘Christ the Teacher’ … a detail from the stained glass window in the Comberford Chapel in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth (Photograph: Sheepdog Rex/ Rex Harris)

The year Blick arrived at Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth, 1796, was the year Nelson captured the island of Elba, and the year parliament voted down proposals that Roman Catholics be admitted into the government.

At the end of each year, Blick penned a memorandum of the notable events during the previous 12 months. He used blank pages in the parish register of baptisms and burials for these jottings on matters in church and town, interwoven with his comments on the war against Napoleon.

His first entry at the close of 1796 records his arrival at Saint Editha’s: ‘On Feb 28 this year, died Rev Michael Baxter and was succeeded by the Rev Francis Blick AM, as vicar and perpetual curate of the church of Tamworth.’

The year 1798 was marked by the United Irish Rising in Ireland, and by the attempted French invasions of Ireland. Blick wrote in his ornate copperplate handwriting: ‘England, for the first time saw since she was a nation, her troops conveyed by inland navigation.

‘The Buckingham and Warwickshire regiments first passed along the canal through this parish, a hundred men in each boat, with arms, field pieces and other necessaries. They rested one night each at Tamworth and Fazeley. After this several other regiments passed to Ireland in the same way. In all more than 12,000 men.’

He also writes on everyday life in Tamworth. At the close of 1799, he says: ‘This year was remarkable for an excess of cold and wet weather which so materially injured all fruits and grain as almost to prevent their ripening or being gathered in.’

In his entry at the close of 1800, Blick notes: ‘At the general election which took place this year in the month of July, Sir Robert Peel and Major General William Loftus were unanimously elected Representatives for Tamworth.’

Loftus (1752-1831), who was MP for Tamworth until 1812, had been an MP in the Irish Parliament for Fethard, Co Wexford (1796-1798), and then for Bannow, Co Wexford (1798-1800), before the passing of the Act of Union. He had commanded an army brigade at the Battle of Vinegar Hill in 1798. His interests in Tamworth arose from his second marriage, in 1790, to Lady Elizabeth Townshend, daughter of George Townshend, 1st Marquess Townshend, who owned Tamworth Castle and bought the Moat House, the former Comberford family home on Lichfield Street in Tamworth. He died in Kilbride, Co Wicklow, in 1831.

Blick continued to teach in Tamworth, and his students included Sir Robert Peel, the future prime minister, who was a son of the first Sir Robert Peel, and he attended Blick’s school in Tamworth from 1798 to 1800.

The future Prime Minister’s father, also Sir Robert Peel, also opened a school for some of the poor boys of Tamworth. Tamworth’s Free Grammar School had been founded in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, but had become a school for boys from privileged backgrounds who had being taught by private tutors. In 1826, Blick began raising money for a new school in Tamworth, and by 1828 his efforts had raised £1,200 for the new school at Saint Editha’s Rooms.

From 1828, Blick was a canon of Lichfield Cathedral as the Prebendary of Pipa Parva, He died in April 1842, at the age of 87, after he had been the Vicar of Tamworth for almost half a century. Blick was succeeded by the Revd Robert C Savage, who was Vicar of Tamworth and perpetual curate from 1842 to 1845.

Blick was the father-in-law of the Revd Robert Watkins Lloyd (1783-1860) the Welsh-born son of a vicar and a member of family with many clerical members down through the generations.

Lloyd, who was educated at Saint John’s College, Cambridge (BA, 1804; MA, 1807), was ordained deacon in 1806 by James Cornwallis, Bishop of Lichfield, and priest in 1807. While he was a Fellow of Saint John’s, Cambridge (1810-1812), he became the Headmaster of the Grammar School in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, in 1811. After a year, he started to take boarders, and eventually filled the house with them. But he refused to instruct the free scholars, except as a matter of favour. After repeated remonstrances, the trustees appointed another headmaster. When Lloyd appealed his dismissal to the Court of Chancery in 1814, he had no success.

Meanwhile, in 1812, Lloyd married Anne Blick, a daughter of Canon Francis Blick of Tamworth. Perhaps through the influence of his father-in-law, Lloyd secured his appointment as Perpetual Curate or Vicar of Wigginton, which included Comberford village, and Wilnecote in 1818. He remained in those parishes until he died at Wilnecote on 12 December 1860.

Lloyd’s eldest son, Revd Francis Llewellyn Lloyd (1819-1888), was also educated at Saint John’s College., Cambridge (BA, 1840; MA, 1843; BD, 1850), and was a Fellow of Saint John’s from 1840 to 1858. He was Vicar of Aldworth, Berkshire, from 1858 to 1888, when he did much to restore the church and built the porch before he died in 1888.

‘Christ the Teacher’ … a detail from the stained glass window in the Comberford Chapel in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth (Photograph: Sheepdog Rex/ Rex Harris)