‘Under an oak, in stormy weather, I joined this rogue and whore together’: Jonathan Swift’s wedding in Lichfield

Comberford Hall glimpsed from the train between Tamworth and Lichfield on a foggy morning yesterday … where was the oak tree near Lichfield where Dean Jonathan Swift conducted a wedding? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

When I travel on the train between Tamworth and Lichfield, I take familial pleasure in stretching my neck to catch a swift glance of Comberford Hall, in the rich rolling green Staffordshire countryside, surrounding by mature, spreading trees.

I wondered as passed Comberford Hall on a foggy morning yesterday about a curious account by Dean Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) of a visit to Lichfield almost 300 years ago, when he recalls a clandestine wedding he conducted while he was sheltering from the rain beneath the branches of a spreading tree.

Local lore now associates the story with the name of Shire Oak, near Walsall. But I sometimes wonder whether Swift might instead have conducted that hasty wedding near Lichfield, beneath a spreading oak tree between Tamworth and Lichfield.

Or, as he was travelling on from Lichfield to Chester, could Swift’s wedding have taken place beneath one of the spreading trees along Cross in Hand, on the north-west fringes of Lichfield, once the opening stage of the ancient pilgrim route between Lichfield and Chester, a journey of 142 km (88 miles)?

The last oak of Shire Oak remembered in the pub signs at the Shire Oak, on the corner of Lichfield Street and Chester Street, near Walsall (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Jonathan Swift never married, despite persistent speculation about whether he secretly married Esther Johnson (‘Stella’) in 1716. He also had an interesting relationship with Esther Vanhomrigh (‘Vanessa’), but they never married either, and she died in 1723.

Three years later, in March 1726, the Dean of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral travelled from Dublin to London to deliver the manuscript of Gulliver’s Travels to his publisher, Benjamin Motte. Motte recognised a best-seller but also realised this was an anti-Whig satire and risked prosecution. Swift may have had the manuscript copied so his handwriting could not be used as evidence in any prosecution.

Motte grudgingly gave Swift only £200, and cut, edited or altered many passages and added other material. He used five printing houses to speed production and to avoid piracy, and the first edition of Gulliver’s Travels was published in two volumes on 28 October 1726. By then Swift was back in Dublin. On the return journey, he travelled on foot or on horse from London back to Chester.

Swift later recounted how he stopped near Lichfield on that return journey and sought shelter from what he described as ‘a summer tempest’ under a large oak by the road. I imagine a Swift looking diminutive beneath the Lichfield oak, like Gulliver in Brobdingnag, the land of giants.

While he was there, a man and a pregnant woman joined him, also seeking shelter from the rain under the same spreading tree. Swift recalled the incident later in a letter to his friend Alexander Pope, and how he engaged the pair in conversation. He found they were on their way to Lichfield to be married, but it was obvious the woman was heavily pregnant and that little time was left for a wedding to take place. Every drop of rain was the loss of yet another fretful moment.

The dean realised no time should be lost. He proposed to save the couple the rest of their journey to Lichfield and offered to marry them there and then. His offer was gladly accepted, the ceremony was performed and as the rains cleared and the skies brightened, the newly-weds were about to set off home. But as they were about to leave, the groom realised they needed a certificate to convince their families that they had been married legally and had a church wedding.

When he asked the dean for paper confirmation of the nuptial legalities, Swift pulled out some crumpled paper and a pen, and wrote wittily:

Under an oak, in stormy weather,
I joined this rogue and whore together;
And none but he who rules the thunder
Can put this rogue and whore asunder.

The monument to Jonathan Swift in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

From Lichfield, Swift travelled on to Chester, and from there to Holyhead to board a boat back to Dublin. His Thoughts on various subjects, also published in 1726, Swift mused again on marriage: ‘Matrimony has many children; Repentance, Discord, Poverty, Jealousy, Sickness, Spleen, Loathing, &c.’

Swift was back in England one more time in 1727, and again stayed with Alexander Pope. The visit was cut short when Swift received the news that Esther Johnson was dying and rushed back home to be with her. She died on 28 January 1728, though Swift was not present at her death and was too ill to attend her funeral in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. He died on 19 October 1745.

The Shire Oak area near Walsall is named after an ancient tree that was said to have been the sole survivor of the original Walsall Wood. The oak stood on the London to Chester road, marking the boundary between Walsall and Shenstone. Local legend there says that this was the oak where Swift had sheltered and had married the couple on their way to Lichfield. All that now remains of that oak is a piece preserved with a plaque at Shire Oak School

The Shire Oak public house stands at the corner of Lichfield Road and Chester Road in Walsall. The Royal Oak off Chester Road closed in 2015 and was abandoned.

The Shire Oak public house stands at the corner of Lichfield Road and Chester Road in Walsall (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Of course, there other oaks and spreading trees near Lichfield with literary credentials. The local history group Lichfield Discovered has asked whether a spectacular ancient oak tree on Cannock Chase, west of Lichfield, inspired JRR Tolkien.

Tolkien spent time at military camps on the Chase during World War I. When he was in Lichfield in September 1915, he met three close schoolfriends at the George Hotel on Bird Street – a gathering that may have inspired his writing about young hobbits contemplating heading off to war.

Lichfield Discovered has also suggested that the ancient oak tree on Cannock Chase inspired the Ents, tree-like creatures led by Treebeard who fought alongside the forces of good in The Lord of the Rings.

In his poem Ghosts, written in Lichfield on 19 December 1940, Philip Larkin (1922-1985) may be referring to the ghost story of the White Lady at the Swan on Bird Street. Larkin refers to Beacon Park when he says ‘this corner of the park was haunted’, and he refers to people in Lichfield who recounted being touched by something

Like a slim wind with an accusing hand –
Cold as this tree I touch.

Trees also feature in Christmas 1940, a poem written by Larkin that same night:

‘High on arched field I stand
Alone: the night is full of stars:
Enormous over tree and farm
The night extends,
And looks down equally to all on earth.

‘So I return their look; and laugh
To see as them my living stars
Flung from east to west across
A windless gulf?

– So much to say that I have never said,
Or ever could.’

The trees along Cross in Hand Lane prompted an exchange with the poet and songwriter Frank Callery (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The morning fog was a mere memory yesterday afternoon when I went for a walk along Cross Hand Lane behind the Hedgehog after the mid-day Eucharist in Lichfield Cathedral. When I was in Tamworth and Lichfield about this time in February last year, I posted photographs on Facebook taken that day of both Comberford Hall and of the spreading trees along Cross in Hand Lane. In reply, the Dublin-born poet and songwriter Frank Callery, who now lives in Kilkenny, shared with me his song ‘The Lichfield Oak’, which he describes as ‘a mock Traditional / Folk song in search of a singer’:

The Lichfield Oak by Frank Callery:

O the Lichfield Oak was tall and grand,
For centuries it made its stand;
And many folk who passed that way
Admired its shade by night and day!

Inclement weather being the scene,
For shelter, there reposed the Dean;
From Chester came an urgent pair
And with the Dean they sheltered there!

The woman, she was big with child,
She told the Dean, in accents mild,
‘In Lichfield soon we must be wed
Before my bundle’s brought to bed!’

‘Ah!’ says the Dean, ‘No time be lost!
I’ll wed you here without the cost!
And save a journey too, no doubt,
When stops the rain, just turn about!’

‘But what about the ‘Cert’? they cried,
‘ ’Tis requisite — they’ll think we’ve lied!’
From out his pocket came the pen,
And this is what he wrote for them:

Chorus:

‘Under an oak, in stormy weather,
I joined this rogue and wench together,
And none but he who rules the thunder,
Can put this wench and rogue asunder.’

The Lichfield Oak was strong and straight
A Parson might officiate
For those who wished to jump the broom —
The high road for a honeymoon!

And if a cert be requisite
The Parson’s word is law and writ,
To prove the couple truly wed
And give them licence for the bed.

But the Dean being straighter nor the Oak
His holy writ contained no joke,
With crumpled paper and with pen
He made them ‘man and wife’, Amen!

Chorus:

‘Under an oak, in stormy weather,
I joined this rogue and wench together,
And none but he who rules the thunder,
Can put this wench and rogue asunder.
Can put this wench and rogue asunder!’

Spreading trees offer shelter on Cross Hand in Lane in Lichfield, along the old pilgrim road to Chester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Lichfield Oak © Frank Callery, 23 July 2021.

Johnstown: a Georgian town in Kilkenny has been bypassed but not forgotten

Johnstown village in Co Kilkenny was planned by the Hely family in the 18th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Patrick Comerford

In my childhood days, the village of Johnstown in Co Kilkenny was a stopping point on the road journey between Cappoquin, Co Waterford, and Dublin. As children, we thought it was unique as a small village with such broad streets, a square and a tall church tower. But it must have been a stopping point for many other families too, halfway way between Cork (130 km) and Dublin (120 km).

Johnstown stands at the crossroads of the R639, the R502 and the R435 regional roads. But it is now longer familiar to families and so many motorists since it was by-passed by the M8 in December 2008.

During this year’s summer ‘road trip’ two of us returned to Johnstown, to see its broad streets, its square and the parish church, known as Saint Mary’s Church, Fertagh, with its landmark tower.

Johnstown is in the Barony of Galmoy, which takes its name from the River Goul. The village of Johnstown was first laid out in the early 1700s by either Sir John Hely (ca 1650-1701) of Foulkscourt Castle or his eldest son, George Hely of Foulkscourt House.

Sir John Hely, who gave his name to Johnstown, obtained a grant of the old estate of the Purcell family at Foulkscourt in 1697. He had become Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas in 1695, and he acted as Speaker of the Irish House of Lords in 1696-1697.

The planned village was developed in 1770 by John Hely of Foulkscourt, who was inspired by his estate village at Winterbourne Stoke in Wiltshire. The square became the nucleus of the village, with three houses in each quadrant, or 12 in all. The village developed and expanded from this square.

Saint Mary’s Church, Fertagh, perpetuates the memory of the parish of Fertagh dating back to the sixth century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

For many years, the Irish name of Johnstown was rendered as Cuirt a’ Phuca, meaning ‘the Haunted Court.’ But the legend of a ‘Pooka’ or ghost arose from a misinterpretation of the Gaelic name for Foulkscourt, Cuirt Phuco.

Saint Mary’s Church, Fertagh, perpetuates the memory of the parish of Fertagh, which dates back to perhaps the sixth century. The old Irish name of Fertagh was Fertae Caerach, which may mean ‘Circular Grave,’ and the name was retained through the centuries.

The tower of Fertagh was said to have been built by a mythical character known as the Goban Saor. But rhe area has long been associated with Saint Ciarán, the patron saint of the Diocese of Ossory, who is said to have lived in the locality and to have watered his cow at Tobar an Phuicin. A pattern was once held in the area on Saint Ciarán’s Day, 5 March. Kieran’s Road ran from Fertagh Church by the old churches at Borrismore and at Rathealy to Callan.

The early Celtic Church and the mediaeval priory at Fertagh were both dedicated to Saint Ciarán. The tower and an old wall dated from the 10th century. The limestone tower is 100 ft high and 50 ft in diameter at base.

Grangefertagh, a sixth century round tower 3.5 km north-east of Johnstown, is associated with Saint Ciarán of Saigir and was attacked by the Vikings in 865. A Viking Age brooch found in Ballyspellan in 1806 is now in the National Museum of Ireland.

The tower at Fertagh is said to have been attacked and burned in 1136 by Muirceartach O Loughlin of the Northern Ui Neill, who plundered and burned the churches of Upper Ossory. The chief master of Fearta, Eochaidh O Cuinn, fled to the tower with the community and church valuables, but the door was forced and the occupants and contents of the tower were destroyed by fire.

The ornamental entrance doorway was moved from the earlier church to Saint Mary’s Church in 1799 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

During the Anglo-Norman reforms of the Church in the 13th century, the Blanchfield family founded at a priory dedicated to Saint Kieran at Fertagh for the Regular Canons of Saint Augustine.

Royal letters in 1251 granted protection to the Prior and Canons of Fertakeragh and Ackidm Acarth (Aghmacart). The rectories of Fartagh and Donoughmore were appropriated to the priory, which had an estate of about 1,000 acres, including a grange or farmhouse by the River Goul.

At the suppression of the monasteries in 1540, the Prior of Fertagh, Robert Shortall, was given a pension of five marks. In 1567, the priory and its lands were granted to a branch of the Ormond Butlers.

The Church of Ireland parish continued to use the church of Fertagh from the Reformation until 1731, when the church was repaired and rebuilt as a parish church.

The church roof collapsed in 1780 and the church was abandoned. The ornamental entrance doorway of the west gable and the perpendicular style tracery East Window were moved to Saint Mary’s Church, Fertagh, in 1799. A small tracery window from the north wall and a carved polygonal baptismal font were later moved to Johnstown Roman Catholic church.

The decorative East Window was salvaged from the earlier, mediaeval Fertagh Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Saint Mary’s Church, Fertagh, is a well-composed modest-scale church with the standard arrangement of a nave that are typical of churches sponsored by the Board of First Fruits. The church tower and parapet stand out against the skyline.

The cut-stone dressings include a finely-carved doorcase of mediaeval provenance, and it is said the decorative East Window was salvaged from the earlier, mediaeval Fertagh Church.

This is a three-bay, double-height church built by the Board of First Fruits between 1796/1799 and 1801. It has a single-bay, single-storey vestry at the north-east, and a single-bay, three-stage entrance tower with a parapet at the west end.

The pitched slate roofs have clay ridge tiles, there is cut-limestone coping and cast-iron rainwater goods on squared rubble stone eaves. The random rubble stone walls may have been rendered originally rendered.

The squared rubble stone advanced corner piers on the tower have square-headed slit-style blind apertures, there are cut-limestone stringcourses at each stage on the tower, and the rendered battlemented parapet on a moulded cornice has stepped corner pinnacles and cut-limestone coping.

The pointed-arch windows are blind on the north side. They have cut-limestone sills, squared limestone voussoirs, Y-mullions in the nave forming a bipartite pointed-arch arrangement.

The East Window, with cut-limestone dressings, is said to have been salvaged from the mediaeval church of Fertagh. It has Y-mullions forming a four-part elliptical-headed arrangement with decorative overlights to the arch that have hood moulding over supporting squared limestone voussoirs.

The church is well maintained outside and inside, with stained-glass windows of artistic importance and a timber gallery at the west end. The surrounding churchyard has an array of gravestones with high quality stone masonry.

The other interesting antiquity at Fertagh is Kilpatrick’s Chapel, founded in the 15th century by the Mac Giolla Padraig alias FitzPatrick alias Kilpatrick, of Upper Ossory, to house the ‘Kilpatrick Tomb.’

Fertagh is in the Diocese of Ossory, but is grouped with Kilcooley, Saint Mary’s, Littleton, and Crohane in the Diocese of Cashel. The parish is vacant at present.

The pointed-arch windows are blind on the north side (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Soon after Johnstown had been laid out, its reputation grew in the early 18th century with the popularity of the mineral spa at Ballyspellan Spa Well. When Thomas Sheridan and Jonathan Swift visited the spa in 1728, Sheridan wrote a poem praising the medicinal qualities of the spa.

Sheridan wrote, in part:

All you that wou’d refind your Blood
As pure as fam’d Llewellyn
By Waters clear, come ev’ry Year
To drink at Ballyspellan

Tho’ Pox or Itch, your Skins enrich
With Rubies past and telling,
T’will clear your skin before you’ve been
A month at Ballyspellan …

If dropsy fills you to the Gills
From Chin to Toe tho’ swelling
Pour in, pour out, you cannot doubt
A Cure at Ballyspellan.

Swift penned a retort that read, in part:

Dare you dispute,
You Sawcy Brute,
And think there’s no rebelling
Your scurvey Lays,
And senseless praise,
You give to Ballyspellan.

Howe’er you bounce,
I here pronounce
Your Med’cine is repelling
Your water’s mud
And sowrs the Blood
When drank at Ballyspellan.

Those pocky Drabs
To cure their scabs
You thither are compelling
Will back be sent
Worse then they went
From nasty Ballyspellan

Ballyspellan Spa is no more but the water that made it famous still flows into the well house at Ballyspellan.

Johnstown has been bypassed by the M8 since 2008 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Saint Finnian’s Church, Cahersiveen, is now a pizza and wine bar

Saint Finnian’s Church, Cahersiveen, Co Kerry … built in 1863-1864 and now the Oratory Pizza and Wine Bar (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Patrick Comerford

After visiting Kells Bay House and Gardens, and spending some time at Kells Bay Beach last weekend, two of us continued west along the north loop of the Ring of Kerry, and visited the town of Cahersiveen.

Cahersiveen’s place in church history include the story of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty (1898-1963), who is known as the ‘Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican,’ for his daring exploits and the rescue of over 4,000 people, including Jews and Allied soldiers, in Nazi-occupied Rome, and the monumental Daniel O'Connell Memorial Church, across the street from the house where he lived in his dying days.

This time, I also wanted to see the former Church of Ireland parish church in Cahersiveen, Saint Finnian’s Church, which has housed the Oratory Pizza and Wine Bar since 2016.

The first Church of Ireland parish church in Cahersiveen stood on Old Merchant Street.

Saint Finnian’s Church was designed by the church architects Welland and Gillespie (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

From early days, the parish was a rectory and vicarage held by the Augustinian Canons of the Monastery of Killaha. The first priests in the parish are recorded in the early 15th century, including William MacGildrome, an Augustinian canon, in 1402, John O’Sullebayn, who died in 1422, and his successor, Maurice O’Sullebayn.

In 1455, the rector, Florence O’Sullivan, was accused of simony and fornication.

The Revd Piers Butler, who was the Rector of Cahersiveen in 1686-1712, was the father of Theobald Butler of Priestown, Co Meath, ancestor of the Butlers of Waterville. Theobald Butler went on trial in Tralee in 1742, accused of killing Edward Segerson, who had tried to attack and plunder a shipwreck and murder the ship’s crew. But Butler was cleared of all charges.

Piers Butler’s successor, Canon Philip Chamberlain, was described by Jonathan Swift as ‘a man of very low parts and understanding with a very high conceit of himself, and pretty mad into the bargain.’

The Revd Richard Orpen died in Bordeaux in 1770 while he was the Rector of Cahersiveen. His successor, the Revd Henry Parish, a Cambridge graduate, first came to Ireland as a chaplain to Charlotte Lady Townshend, the heiress of Tamworth Castle and wife of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, George Townshend (1724-1807), the 1st Marquess Townshend.

While the Revd Barry Denny was the Rector of Cahersiveen, a new church was built in 1815 with a loan of £540 from the Board of First Fruits, and was later described as ‘a neat plain edifice.’

The tower and spire at the north-west corner of Saint Finnian’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

This church was replaced half a century later when Denny’s successor, Canon Richard Moore, was the Rector of Cahersiveen. Saint Finnian’s Church was a new church designed by the church architects Welland and Gillespie, with a tower and spire at the north-west angle and a polygonal robing room at the south-east angle.

The church on West Main Street was built in 1863-1864, and the contractor was James Hunter. The site was adjacent to the main road and opposite the avenue that led to the rectory, and the land was bought from a local merchant Thomas Leslie.

The former church is 170 ft long and 100 ft wide and was built of green sandstone. The cornerstones, the spire and the surrounds of the stain glass windows are all made with limestone. The windowsills and roof are made with Valentia Slate.

Inside, the church could hold up to 200 people. This is a Gothic Revival style church, with a four-bay side elevation, a single-bay two-stage projecting entrance tower at the north-west. The tower is built on a square plan with buttresses, a belfry with a limestone ashlar octagonal spire. There is single-bay vestry at the south-east corner.

Looking into Saint Finnian’s Church … inside, the church could hold up to 200 people (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The parish of Cahersiveen was amalgamated with Valentia in 1923. The last funeral in church was of a local businessman, Harold Blennerhassett, in February 1968.

The last rector while the church was still open was Canon James Leslie Enright, who was also one of my predecessors as Precentor of Limerick. The church closed ca 1972.

Shortly after it closed, the building was bought by the O’Driscoll family and Aine O’Driscoll ran it as a craft shop and the Oratory art gallery in the 1980s and 1990s. The building was reroofed and renovated internally in late 20th century to accommodate its use as gallery.

Emma Louise Benson and Daragh O’Driscoll opened the Oratory in June 2016, and it has since been voted one of the best restaurants in Kerry.

The north porch of Saint Finnian’s Church … the church closed ca 1972 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The saints and bishops who link the Isle of Man with the Church in Ireland

Inside Peel Cathedral … the cathedral of the Isle of Man and of the smallest diocese in the Church of England (Photograph: Peel Cathedral / raycollister.com)

Patrick Comerford

I was musing this morning about a holiday on the Isle of Man in 1965, when I was in my early teens, how it offered me first experiences of staying in an hotel and of ‘island hopping.’

I still remember reading about the history of the island and visiting many of its sites, including Saint German’s Cathedral in Peel.

The Isle of Man, with 15 parishes and 40 churches, is the only component of the Diocese of Sodor and Man, and while the Isle of Man is not part of the United Kingdom, the diocese is part of the Church of England. The Bishop of Sodor and Man sits in the Tynwald, the Manx legislative assembly, but cannot sit as a bishop of the Church of England in the House of Lords.

The island is equidistant from England, Ireland and Scotland, so, at times, after the Isle of Man was separated from the Diocese of Trondheim in Norway, it was not clear in church history whether the island was part of the Church in Scotland, in England or in Ireland.

The name ‘Sodor’ in the title of the diocese refers not to an imaginary island in the Thomas the Tank Engine tales, but to the southern part of the Hebrides of Scotland, which have not been part of the diocese since the 13th or 14th century.

Tradition says the diocese was founded by Saint German – not to be confused with Saint Germanus of Auxerre – a Celtic missionary who lived from ca 410 to 474, and a contemporary of Saint Patrick. Saint German’s Day is celebrated on 13 July. Later Irish saints on the island’s list of bishops include Saint Maughold (feast day 31 July), the fourth bishop, a disciple of Saint Patrick, and the seventh century missionary Saint Conan. Some traditions on the island say the parish of Braddan was named after Saint Brendan the Navigator.

In the confused histories of the diocese, there is evidence that at one point during Viking rule in the late 11th century, the Isle of Man and Viking Dublin were part of the same diocese.

John Dongan or Donegan was the last bishop of the united diocese of Sodor, which split into the Scottish and Irish or Manx parts during the Western Schism. Pope Urban V appointed him Archdeacon of Down in 1368, and he worked as the papal tax collector and nuncio in Ireland. As a reward, he was appointed Bishop of Mann and the Isles (Sodor) in 1374, and was consecrated by Cardinal Simon Langham, former Archbishop of Canterbury. However, Dongan was kidnapped on his way back from Avignon, imprisoned in Boulogne-sur-Mer, and was ransomed for 500 marks.

He did not get back to the Isle of Man until 25 January 1377, when he celebrated his first Mass in Saint German’s Cathedral, Peel.

Allegations surfaced in 1380 that Dongan was illegally holding on to the revenues he had been collecting officially in Ireland for Pope Urban. However, the allegations may have been made because Dongan supported the English-backed Pope Urban against the Scottish-backed anti-pope Clement VII.

Clement VII deposed Dongan as bishop in 1387, replacing him with Archbishop Michael of Cashel, a Franciscan friar. Although Dongan remained the de facto bishop in the Isle of Man, this marked the final rift between the Hebrides and the Isle of Man within the diocese. The Scottish-controlled islands were lost to the new bishop, and Dongan was left with a tiny diocese that was too small and too poor for a full-time bishop.

By the early 1390s, was in England, acting as an assistant bishop to the Bishop of Salisbury and performing ordinations on behalf of the Bishop of London, until 1391, when he was appointed Bishop of Derry. He became Bishop of Down in 1394, and in that role negotiated on behalf of the English crown with the Gaelic leaders of Ireland and Scotland. In 1405, he was appointed ‘Keeper of the Liberty of Ulster.’ He resigned as Bishop of Down in 1413 and died soon after.

Later in the 15th century, Richard Payl, a Dominican friar who had been appointed Bishop of Dromore by Pope Gregory XII in 1407, was appointed Bishop of Mann and the Isles by Antipope John XXIII in 1410, and remained bishop in the Isle of Man until ca 1433.

Although the Isle of Man was never legally part of England, the diocese became part of the Province of Canterbury until it was transferred to the Province of York in 1542.

Even then, the appointment of bishops produced some anomalies before and after the Reformation. At least two bishops were also Abbots of Chester, then in the Diocese of Lichfield. After the Caroline Restoration, Isaac Barrow was allowed to hold the overlapping appointments of Bishop of Sodor and Man (1663-1671), Governor of the Isle of Man (1664-1671) and Bishop of St Asaph (1669-1680) in Wales.

However, the diocese continued to receiver a number of bishops with strong Irish connections.

Thomas Wilson (1663-1755), who was Bishop of Sodor and Man for almost 60 years (1697-1755), first studied medicine at Trinity College Dublin from 1682, where his friends and contemporaries included Jonathan Swift, future Dean of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, and his tutor was John Barton, afterwards Dean of Ardagh. He graduated BA in 1686, and was ordained deacon that year, before attaining the canonical age, by William Moreton, Bishop of Kildare, in Saint Brigid’s Cathedral, Kildare.

When he arrived as bishop, he found most of the churches on the Isle of Man were in ruins. He rebuilt many churches, built new churches and libraries, advocated agrarian reforms to the benefit of tenants, promoted the Manx language, and was an early supporter of the Anglican mission agency, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG, now USPG).

He corresponded with Cardinal Fleury, Archbishop of Aix in France, and they joked that ‘they were the two oldest bishops’ and ‘the poorest in Europe.’ When he died in at the age of 91, he was still an active bishop.

Claudius Crigan, who bishop in 1784-1813, was born in Omagh, Co Tyrone, around 1739, the son of a tailor, and studied classics and theology at TCD.

William Ward, who was born in Saintfield, near Belfast, in 1762, was Bishop of Sodor and Man in 1828 to 1838. As bishop, he vigorously opposed a proposal in 1836 to amalgamate the diocese with the Diocese of Carlisle. The proposal failed, and Ward remained bishop until he died in 1838.

Walter Augustus Shirley (1797-1847),who was the Bishop of Sodor and Man in 1846-1847, was born in Westport, Co Mayo. His paternal grandfather was the controversial Walter Shirley, who was censured by the Bishop of Clonfert, reprimanded by the Archbishop of Dublin, and who is buried in Saint Mary’s Church, Dublin. His maternal grandfather, Sir Edward Newenham, was MP for Enniscorthy, Co Wexford (1769-1776), and for Co Dublin (1776-1797).

Shirley was a cousin of Edward Newenham Hoare (1802-1877), who was Dean of Achonry and then of Christ Church Cathedral, Waterford. Shirley was an advocate of Catholic Emancipation, a friend of the Tractarians, and Archdeacon of Derby in the Diocese of Lichfield before he was appointed Bishop of Sodor and Man. His episcopal consecration was delayed because of his ill-health, and he died within three months of his consecration.

A second proposal to amalgamate Sodor and Man with an English diocese was made in 1875, this time with a new Diocese of Liverpool, which was still at the planning stage. The proposal failed, and Rowley Hill (1836-1887) became Bishop of Sodor and Man (1877-1887).

Hill was born in Derry, a son of Sir George Hill. When he was appointed to the Isle of Man, he was the youngest bishop in Anglican Communion. He too was in favour of amalgamating his island diocese with the new Diocese of Liverpool, as this would allow better stipends. Most of his clergy agreed with him but lay opposition was against him and the new diocese was formed in 1880 without the Isle of Man.

Two further bishops – John Wareing Bardsley (1887-1891) and Charles Leonard Thornton-Duesbury (1925-1928) – were also educated at TCD. More recently, Bishop Robert Paterson (2008-2016) was involved in a review of the Church of Ireland Theological Institute in 2015-2016, while I was a member of the academic staff.

There is an amusing Irish connection with the Diocese of Sodor and Man. In their operetta Patience (1881), Gilbert and Sullivan mention the Bishop of Sodor and Man in the song ‘If you Want a Receipt for that Popular Mystery’ sung by Colonel Calverley.

In a reference is Bishop Rowley Hill, the song lists the elements of a Heavy Dragoon, including ‘Style of the Bishop of Sodor and Man’:

If you want a receipt for that popular mystery,
Known to the world as a Heavy Dragoon,
Take all the remarkable people in history,
Rattle them off to a popular tune.

The pluck of Lord Nelson on board of the Victory –
Genius of Bismarck devising a plan –
The humour of Fielding (which sounds contradictory) –
Coolness of Paget about to trepan –
The science of Jullien, the eminent musico –
Wit of Macaulay, who wrote of Queen Anne –
The pathos of Paddy, as rendered by Boucicault –
Style of the Bishop of Sodor and Man –
The dash of a D’Orsay, divested of quackery –
Narrative powers of Dickens and Thackeray –
Victor Emmanuel – peak-haunting Peveril –
Thomas Aquinas, and Doctor Sacheverell –
Tupper and Tennyson –Daniel Defoe –
Anthony Trollope and Mister Guizot!

The poet John Betjeman later described the Bishop of Sodor and Man as ‘that luckless Bishop whose cathedral is a beautiful ruin of green slate and red sandstone on an islet overlooking Peel.’

Today, the chapter of Saint German’s Cathedral, Peel, includes the Dean, the Archdeacon, and four canons with the designations of Saint Patrick, Saint Maughold, Saint Columba and Saint German – an acknowledgement of the centuries-old link between the Diocese of Sodor and Man and the saints and churches of Ireland and Scotland.

Inside Peel Cathedral (Photograph: Peel Cathedral / Claire Fox Schreuder)

A second look at Samuel Johnson’s opinion of Irish writers and literature

Samuel Johnson in pensive mood … his statue in the Market Square, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the Lichfield-born lexicographer and writer, is still known as the compiler of the first authoritative English-language dictionary. Yet the accidental discovery of papers of his biographer, James Boswell (1740-1795), in an Irish castle gives us many insights into his life and his literary circle.

Two well-known statues of Johnson and Boswell are the gifts and works of the Dundalk-born artist and writer Percy Hetherington Fitzgerald (1834-1925): the statue of Johnson at Saint Clement Dane’s Church in The Strand, London (1910), and an earlier statue of Boswell (1908) in the Market Place, Lichfield.

Samuel Johnson’s statue at Saint Clement Dane’s in The Strand, London, by the Irish sculptor Percy Fitzgerald (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In his inscription on the Lichfield statue, Fitzgerald describes himself as the ‘Biographer of Boswell and editor of Boswell’s Johnson.’

However, the literary theorist Terry Eagleton has described Johnson as being ‘virulently anti-Gaelic.’ So, during on a recent visit to Lichfield, I found myself taking another look at Dr Johnson’s Irish connections and the Irish figures in his circle of friends.

A doctorate from TCD

The Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Samuel Johnson had a wide circle of Irish friends in London, had positive opinions about Irish writers and Irish literature, and is known forever as Doctor Johnson because of the honorary degree he received from Trinity College Dublin.

At an early stage, Johnson failed to secure employments as a schoolmaster because he did not have a university degree. When Johnson’s private school at Edial near Lichfield became a financial disaster, he moved to London. There, while he working as a journalist, his skills as a writer were recognised in 1738 with his poem London, which attracted the praise of Alexander Pope.

Samuel Johnson’s house in Gough Square, London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Pope knew Johnson feared being drawn into the hack journalism of ‘Grub Street’ and still hoped to become a grammar school teacher, Pope wrote to the Staffordshire politician, John Leveson-Gower (1694-1754), Earl Gower, asking him to act on Johnson’s behalf.

Gower asked Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Dean of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, to intervene so that Johnson might receive an MA from TCD. Either Gower’s pleas fell on deaf ears or Swift refused to act; Johnson never received the degree, never worked again as a teacher, and so continued to work as a journalist and writer.

The Long Room in Trinity College Dublin … Samuel Johnson received an honorary doctorate in 1765 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Eventually, with the publication of his Dictionary, TCD bestowed an honorary Doctor of Laws degree on Johnson in 1765, and for ever after he was known as Dr Johnson.

Swift and Johnson

The statue of James Boswell in the Market Square, Lichfield, by the Irish artist Percy Fitzgerald (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Boswell recalled that Johnson ‘seemed to me to have an unaccountable prejudice against Swift.’ Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s father, Thomas Sheridan (1721-1788), was Swift’s godson and once worked in the theatre with David Garrick.

But when Boswell asked Johnson whether Swift had personally offended him, ‘he told me he had not.’ Johnson went on to tell Boswell: ‘Swift is clear, but shallow. In coarse humour he is inferior to Arbuthnot; in delicate humour he is inferior to Addison.’

Johnson’s Life of Swift reveals that he actually liked the dean. Commenting on Wood’s Halfpence, he says Swift ‘delivered Ireland from plunder and oppression, and shewed that wit, confederated with truth, had such force as authority was unable to resist.’

Johnson evoked Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels in his series of ‘Parliamentary Reports,’ which he disguised as from ‘The Senate of Lilliput.’ The debates were secret at the time and it was illegal to reproduce them in print, making it a true test of Johnson’s ability to write imaginative and satiric works.

Three Irish bishops

John Myatt’s mural of Samuel Johnson on a corner wall in Bird Street, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Johnson was a High Church Anglican, and he was strongly influenced by the writings of the Caroline Divine Jeremy Taylor, Bishop of Down, Dromore and Connor.

At times when Johnson ‘was most distressed,’ his biographer, Sir John Hawkins (1719-1789) recommended him to read Rules and Exercises of Holy Living and Dying by Jeremy Taylor and his Ductor Dubitantium.

Johnson regarded Jeremy Taylor as the best of ‘all the divines that have succeeded the fathers.’ He once adapted Taylor’s words for his private preparation for receiving the Sacrament of Holy Communion.

Two Church of Ireland bishops who were part of Johnson’s inner circle were Thomas Percy of Dromore and Thomas Barnard of Killaloe.

Thomas Percy, Bishop of Dromore (1782-1811), was once described by Archbishop Stuart as ‘inactive and useless,’ but he was an important literary figure in his day. He was a member of Johnson’s Literary Club, a friend of Oliver Goldsmith and Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the editor of the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, which fired the imagination of Walter Scott.

Bishop Thomas Barnard … a portrait in the vestry in Saint Flannan’s Cathedral, Killaloe, Co Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Thomas Barnard (1727-1806) was part of Johnson’s circle of friends in London while he was Bishop of Killaloe (1780–1794). Barnard, who later became Bishop of Limerick, Ardfert and Aghadoe (1794-1806), was a member of the Literary Club, and his friends in London included Boswell, Garrick, Goldsmith, Percy, Reynolds and Edmund Burke.

In 1783, Johnson wrote a charade as a tribute to Barnard, and he once said of him: ‘No man ever paid more attention to another than he has done to me … Always, sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate his friendship of his own accord, will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.’

Oliver Goldsmith’s statue outside Trinity College Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Johnson was particularly high in his praise of Oliver Goldsmith, contributed lines to both The Deserted Village and The Traveller, and he said of Goldsmith’s Traveller: ‘There has not been so fine a poem since Pope’s time.’

Praising She Stoops To Conquer, Johnson said: ‘I know of no comedy for many years that has so much exhilarated an audience, that has answered so much the great end of comedy – making an audience merry.’

In his Latin epitaph for Goldsmith, Johnson wrote:

Oliver Goldsmith: A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian,
Who left scarcely any style of writing untouched,
And touched nothing that he did not adorn;
Of all passions, whether smiles were to be moved or tears,
A powerful yet gentle master;
In genius, sublime, vivid, versatile,
In style, clear, elevated, elegant -
The love of companions,
The fidelity of friends,
And the veneration of readers,
Have by this monument honoured the memory.

Irish politicians

Edmund Burke’s statue outside Trinity College Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The many Irish politicians among Johnson’s friends included Edmund Burke, and the brothers Thomas Fitzmaurice and William Fitzmaurice, who became Lord Shelburne and later Lord Lansdowne.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was born in Dublin and educated at TCD, but he spent most of his political career in England and as an MP in Westminster. Johnson admired Burke for his brilliant mind.

A silhouette of Hester Thrale, Samuel Johnson’s muse, at Thrale’s House on Tamworth Street, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Johnson’s muse, Hester Thrale (Mrs Piozzi), quotes Johnson as once saying of Burke: ‘You could not stand five minutes with that man beneath a shed while it rained, but you must be convinced you had been standing with the greatest man you had ever yet seen.’

But Johnson strongly disagreed with Burke’s politics, which he condemned in his pamphlet The Patriot. Perhaps Johnson had Burke in mind when he made his famous remark about patriotism and scoundrels.

Thomas FitzMaurice (1742-1793) was the second son of John FitzMaurice, Earl of Shelburne. His wife, Lady Mary O’Brien, was a daughter of Murrough O’Brien, 5th Earl of Inchiquin, and in 1790 she inherited the title of Countess of Orkney from her mother.

Thomas FitzMaurice was a friend of Johnson, Garrick and the Thrales, and was MP for Calne and Chipping Wycombe. When he died in 1793, the Gentleman’s Magazine noted: ‘He formerly lived on the most intimate terms with Johnson, Hawkesworth, and Garrick.’

His brother, William Fitzmaurice (1737-1805), became 2nd Earl of Shelburne and a prominent statesman. He was British Prime Minister from 1782 to 1783 and Marquess of Lansdowne. Johnson praised him as ‘a man of abilities and information,’ open to ideas, and said he ‘acted like himself, that is, unlike anybody else.’

Other members of Johnson’s Club included Lord Charlemont, the Irish politician, Agmondesham Vesey (1708-1785) of Lucan, Accountant-General of Ireland, and Sir Thomas Charles Bunbury, first husband of Lady Sarah Lennox of Celbridge, Co Kildare, an aunt of Lord Edward FitzGerald.

‘The last place where I should wish to travel’

Aphorisms from Samuel Johnson seen in the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Johnson’s circle of Irish friends in London also included Arthur Murphy and Charles O’Conor. However, Boswell, in his Life of Johnson records Johnson as having famously said on one occasion: ‘The Irish are not in a conspiracy to cheat the world by false representations of the merits of their countrymen. No, Sir; the Irish are a fair people; – they never speak well of one another.’

Boswell also records the following conversation with Johnson:

He, I know not why, shewed upon all occasions an aversion to go to Ireland, where I proposed to him that we should make a tour.

Johnson: It is the last place where I should wish to travel.

Boswell: Should you not like to see Dublin, Sir?

Johnson: No, Sir; Dublin is only a worse capital.

Boswell: Is not the Giant’s-Causeway worth seeing?

Johnson: Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see.

The bust commemorating Samuel Johnson in the south transept, Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

But what did Johnson truly think of Ireland? Boswell recalls Johnson once saying to an Irishman, during a conversation on Ireland’s political state: ‘Do not make a union with us, Sir. We should unite with you, only to rob you. We should have robbed the Scotch, if they had had any thing of which we could have robbed them.’

He also recalls Johnson saying: ‘The Irish are in a most unnatural state … Did we tell them we have conquered them, it would be above board: to punish them by confiscation and other penalties, as rebels, was monstrous injustice.’

In a letter to the Irish writer and historian Charles O’Conor (1710-1791), Johnson wrote in 1755: ‘I have long wished that the Irish literature were cultivated. Ireland is known by tradition to have been once the seat of piety and learning; and surely it would be very acceptable to all those who are curious either in the original of nations, or the affinities of languages, to be further informed of the revolution of a people so ancient, and once so illustrious.’

Papers in Malahide Castle

Malahide Castle, Co Dublin … James Boswell’s papers were discovered accidentally in the 1920s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In an accident of history, two collections of the private papers of James Boswell, including intimate journals for much of his life, were discovered in Malahide Castle, Co Dublin, in the 1920s and sold to an American collector Ralph H Isham, by James Boswell Talbot (1874-1948), Lord Talbot of Malahide.

Lord Talbot of Malahide was Boswell’s great-great-grandson. But both sets of papers were not sold until Lady Talbot tried, without success, to censor some of Boswell’s more explicit descriptions of his sexual encounters.

Boswell’s papers are now in Yale University and they provide revealing insights into his life and thoughts of Johnson and his biographer. They include voluminous notes on his Grand Tour of Europe, his tour of Scotland with Johnson, and meetings and conversations with eminent members of The Club, including Garrick, Burke, Goldsmith and Reynolds.

Samuel Johnson’s statue on the exterior of the choir in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This feature was first published in May 2018 in the Church Review (Dublin and Glendalough) and the Diocesan Magazine (Cashel, Ferns and Ossory)

Words of wisdom from Samuel Johnson at the Queen’s Head, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Catching glimpses of Tarbert House during an afternoon in Tarbert Bay

Tarbert House seen from Tarbert Bay during an afternoon sailing (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Patrick Comerford

I have often passed Tarbert House during my fortnightly visits to Tarbert, Co Kerry. But my first time to see the house clearly was during my afternoon sailing across the Shannon Estuary yesterday [20 June 2017].

Tarbert House is normally hidden by the large trees that surround it. But as we sailed out of Tarbert Bay, the house came into clear view as it rose up from the surrounding trees and parkland in the distance.

Tarbert House, which dates from 1690, is a Georgian era house built by John Leslie or by James Leslie, Bishop of Limerick, in the Queen Anne style of architecture. The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage suggests the house was built ca 1720.

In 1786, Wilson describes it as ‘happily situated on an eminence commanding an extensive view.’ Tarbert House was owned by Robert Leslie at the time of Griffith’s Valuation, when it was valued at £24 10s.

In the past, visitors to the house are said to have included Jonathan Swift, Benjamin Franklin, the Duke of Wellington, Daniel O’Connell, Charlotte Bronte, Lord Kitchener and Winston Churchill.

After a visit to Tarbert House, Dean Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) wrote: ‘The Leslies have lots of books upon their shelves. All written by Leslies about themselves.’ However, Swift is also said to have written these lines about the leslies of Castle Leslie in Glaslough, Co Monaghan.

John Paul Jones sought shelter for his ship at Tarbert when he was chased by the British navy during the American War of Independence. In order to confuse his pursuers, Raymond McGibney told us in the bay as we looked at Tarbert House, John Paul Jones sent men ashore to place lanterns in the trees, indicating he was still in the bay. Then, under cover of darkness, he sailed silently out to Valentia and on to the US where he founded the US navy.

We were told this story inspired the name of the Lanterns Hotel on the road between Tarbert and Glin.

The US President Benjamin Franklin came to visit Sir Edward Leslie as part of his efforts to rekindle trade between Ireland and America. Franklin presented Sir Edward with a type of rose which, when planted in the gardens of the house, became the inspiration for the famous Rose Pattern that was woven into the curtains that hang to this day in Tarbert House. The pattern has been used since then in curtains as far away as the White House by Nancy Regan, who also visited Tarbert House.

Daniel O’Connell was a friend of the Leslie family and Tarbert House still holds a parchment that is a plea to the House of Commons in 1813 for Catholic Emancipation, signed by bishops, politicians and other notables, including Daniel O’Connell and his brother.

Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855), the author of Jane Eyre, spent part of her honeymoon at Tarbert House, although there is no record of her visit. She married her father’s curate, the Revd Arthur Bell Nicholls, in April 1854. She went to West Clare first and then came to Tarbert House, where she spent a night or two. They then went on to Tralee and to Killarney, where she missed her step getting into a boat. It turned out she was pregnant at the time but soon after she had a miscarriage and died as a result.

Lord Kitchener, who was baptised in a font that is now at Saint Brendan’s Church in Kilnaughtin, once lived on the Leslie estate at Ballygoghlan, where his father had a farm. Surviving correspondence tells how, as a boy, he came to the shore to gather seaweed for his mother’s bath to help relieve her arthritis.

Sir Winston Churchill’s aunt Leonie Jerome married a Leslie cousin, John Leslie of Castle Leslie and it is said that as a boy Winston Churchill spent some of his school holidays at Tarbert House.

Tarbert House, which is located in ancient parkland, retains many of its original internal features, furniture, pictures and decorative forms. They are testimony to the importance of this house in Ireland’s architectural heritage.

Although the estate was sold to the tenants around 1904, Tarbert House remains the home of the Leslie family to this day, and is occasionally open to the public during the summer months.

Tarbert House is open this year [2017], from May to August, from 10 am to 12 noon, and from 2 pm to 4 pm, and during National Heritage Week (19 to 27 August) the house is open each day from 10 am to 4 pm. However, it is advised to contact the house directly before making any arrangements to visit.

Tarbert House emerges from the surrounding trees and parkland and rises above Tarbert Bay (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

‘Our seducers were our accusers’: the lurid tales of members of Askeaton Hellfire Club

The ruins of Askeaton Hellfire Club on an island in the River Deel, with the ruins of the Desmond Castle in the background (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Patrick Comerford

The ruins of Limerick Hellfire Club stand beside the ruins of the Desmond Castle on the island in the middle of the River Deel. As the fast-flowing waters of the river thunder past, making their way under the old narrow bridge, these ruins appear like a benign presence in the heart of the town, especially in the early evening as the sun sets behind them and the rooks and herons hover above the remains of this centuries-old crumbling structures.

The ruins of the Hellfire Club stand within the bailey of Askeaton Castle. They date from 1636-1637, when this building was first erected as a detached barracks or tower.

The barracks or tower was built by the builder and designer, Andrew Tucker, for Richard Boyle (1566-1643), the 1st Earl of Cork, who had recently acquired Askeaton Castle.

The tower was built with battered walls with cut stone quoins, and the remains of a three-bay was built on top of the battered base later, some time in the mid-18th century.

There is a bow to the south elevation of the house and a shallow projecting end-bay to the north elevation. The house is roofless, with a limestone eaves course. The course rubble limestone walls have tolled quoins, a brick stringcourse and brick quoins to the upper floors.

There are square-headed door openings to the north elevation, a square-headed window opening to the bow with a brick architrave, and camber-headed window openings to the west, with brick voussoirs. The round-headed window opening to the east elevation has a brick surround, flanked by round-headed niches with brick surrounds and a continuous brick sill course.

By 1740, the building belonged to the St Leger family, who may have engaged John Aheron to design the bow-sided house which was built on top of the base of the barracks. By then, this was the meeting place of the Askeaton Hell Fire Club, and the building was probably used by the club until the end of the 18th century.

The club in Askeaton traced its origins to the first Hellfire Club, formed in 1719 by Philip Wharton (1698-1731), 1st Duke of Wharton. Wharton was a rake who gamble away Rathfarnham Castle in Dublin and most of his inheritance. In 1726, he married Maria Theresa O’Beirne (sometimes known as Maria Theresa Comerford). When he was in the advanced stages of alcoholism, the couple moved to a Cistercian abbey in Catalonia, where he died in 1731. His widow returned to London, and after his will was proved in court she lived comfortably in London society.

The club continued long after Wharton’s death, and the club in Askeaton was founded around 1736-1740. Known as a satirical gentlemen’s club, the revelries of its members shocked their neighbours and the outside world. The two other clubs in Ireland were based on Montpelier Hill, south of Tallaght, and near Clonlara, Co Clare.

In his recent book Blasphemers & Blackguards, The Irish Hellfire Clubs (2012), David Ryan examines the stories of these clubs. But, while local folklore recalls lurid tales of outrageous rituals, there is little actual information or evidence of the activities of the Askeaton Hellfire Club, and the name and supposedly lurid activities may have been opportunities to slight the church and to snub clerical authority, or mere excuses to hide their debauchery during evenings of wine, women and song.

James Worsdale’s painting of the members of the Askeaton Hellfire Club

One tradition recalls how a member of the club was thrown from one of the windows into the River Deel below during the course of a ‘drunken frolic.’

Evidence of the club and its members survives in a painting by James Worsdale (1692-1767) from sometime between 1736 and 1740. This painting shows a group of club members in Askeaton drinking, smoking and in conversation. Bottles of wine sit on a rack in the foreground, and there is a large bowl of punch on the table.

Eleven men and one woman, as well as a boy, fill the painting. Some of the figures that have been identified include: Edward Croker of Ballingarde, his son John (died 1804); Wyndham Quin of Adare, father of the 1st Earl of Dunraven; Thomas Royce of Nantenan, near Askeaton; John Bayley of Debsborough, Nenagh, Co Tipperary; and Henry Prittie, father of Henry Prittie (1743-1801), father of Lord Dunalley.

Worsdale, who was a founding member of the Dublin Hellfire Club, is on the far left of the painting, trying to attract the attention of the only woman in the painting. Most critics identify this woman as Margaret Blennerhassett, who was known as Celinda and who was the wife of Arthur Blennerhassett, a magistrate, of Riddlestown Park, Rathkeale. She was born Margaret Hayes, the eldest daughter of Jeremiah Hayes of Cahir Guillamore, Bruff.

Celinda is said to have been the only woman who ever became a member of the Askeaton Hellfire Club. The story is told that in her curiosity she tried to find what the men did during their meetings at the club. She hid herself in the meeting room before the members arrived, and when they discovered her she was formally inducted as a member to ensure her silence.

Later, her husband drowned in a boating tragedy in the Lakes of Killarney in 1775.

Some critics, however, have identified the woman in this painting as Laetitia Pilkington, alongside her husband, the Revd Matthew Pilkington (1701-1774), one-time friends of Jonathan Swift, Dean of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. This would date the painting from some time before 1738.

Matthew Pilkington moved to London, where he became friends with the painter James Worsley, led a dissolute life, divorced Laetitia, and was jailed in 1734. When he returned to Ireland, he enjoyed the patronage of Archbishop Michael Cobbe of Dublin and the Cobbe family of Newbridge House, Donabate.

Laetitia Pilkington (1709-1750), was the daughter of a Dublin obstetrician, Dr John van Lewen. After Matthew fabricated the circumstances that led to their divorce, she was arrested for a debt of £2 and ended up in a debtors’ prison in London.

If she was forced into discreet prostitute to earn a living later in life, she was also scathingly critical of the clergy of day. Speaking probably from the experience of her husband’s own lifestyle, she said ‘the holiness of their office gives them free admittance into every family’ and they abuse this so that ‘they are generally the first seducers of innocence.’

‘Our seducers were our accusers,’ she wrote.

The monument in Saint Ann’s Church, Dawson Street, Dublin, commemorating Laetitia Pilkington (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

When Laetitia Pilkington died in 1750, a monument was erected in Saint Ann’s Church, Dawson Street, Dublin, with clear references to the sufferings she had endured at the hands of her merciless husband. Less than a month after her death, Matthew Pilkington married his mistress Nancy Sandes.

In 1811, an evangelical magazine published an obituary of Captain Perry, a carousing individual and likely member of a Hellfire Club. After a short lifetime of excessive living and radical thinking, he died an early death as he struggled to repent. It was a warning to readers of the dangers of being involved in such circles.

The building was abandoned by the club sometime around 1840, and the club is inaccessible to the public, as the Office of Public Works continues work at stabilising the building.

The Limerick Leader in May 1958 that James Worsdale’s painting of the members of the Askeaton Hellfire Club was being offered for sale to Limerick City Council for £350. It is now in the National Gallery of Ireland.

Although the ruins of the Askeaton Hellfire Club have fallen into disrepair, the overall original form of this building is easily discerned, as are features such as the door and window openings. It retains many well-crafted features such as the brick window surrounds and limestone battered walls, and the high roof and the tall chimneys are of interest.

The building has a curved bow at one side of each of the building’s two principal fronts, and one of them has a Venetian window. If, as is possible, the house dates from the 17th century, then this could be one of the earliest known examples of a Venetian window on a curve, not just in Ireland but anywhere else in Europe – which could just make it a far more interesting building than the myths and legends surrounding its rakish revellers.

Sunset at Askeaton Castle and Hellfire Club, seen from Saint Mary’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)