The last bohemian of Luggala: ‘We won’t see the likes of those lives again’

The tale of Roderic O’Connor making his first entrance to Luggala is an apt beginning. Another time and place, the summer of 1980 when John Boorman was shooting part of his medieval fantasy Excalibur within the vast 5,000-acre estate, wildly positioned in the Wicklow Mountains.

He was entrusted with only one job, the set trout tickler, responsible for ferrying the local fish from nearby Annamoe for the scene where Merlin first retrieves the magical sword from the lake.

Slightly tardy, as he invariably was, Boorman encouraged him to hurry on, at which point O’Connor broke into a gentle trot – never a run – only to trip over himself, sending the unwitting trout flying into the shivering edges of Lough Tay, the shoot effectively ruined for the day.

[ ‘Chaos, conflict and creativity’: The extraordinary life of Garech Browne ]

Boorman did not hold it against him for long: they became lifelong friends, as indeed O’Connor became to Garech Browne, son of the Guinness heir and last part-custodian of Luggala before his death in 2018, the year before the estate was privately sold.

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Soon, O’Connor was a frequent guest at Browne’s famously eclectic gatherings – of writers, poets, painters, musicians, diplomats – until one day O’Connor never left, taking up residence in a small cottage on the estate where he continued to live until the night of his death, on October 18th, resulting from a fire. He was 77, the last of the now vanished lives at Luggala.

He was forever loyal to his bohemian behaviour, an effortless raconteur and witty beyond words.

Author Paul Howard spent many a day at Luggala researching his 2016 book on Tara Browne, Garech’s younger brother, immortalised in the Beatles song A Day in the Life. “Roderic had this wonderfully ironic sense of the world, that you shouldn’t take things very seriously,” says Howard. “Sometimes Garech would fixate for days on end over a misprint in the newspaper, something like that, and Roderic balanced him out a bit.

“He certainly liked his pleasures, cigarettes and alcohol and good conversation, but he was really curious about the world, and always the most brilliant company.”

When he enrolled at Trinity, to read foreign languages, he turned up the first day, then didn’t turn up for the rest of the year

—  Roderic O'Connor's brother, Nicholas Preston

Ahead of his funeral, which takes places in Roundwood on Saturday, his only sibling, Nicholas Preston – 17th Viscount Gormanston, the oldest title in the peerage of Ireland, created in 1478 – has some cherished memories his brother, six years his junior. Luggala has held a special place in both their lives.

“Long before he came to Wicklow, Roderic had travelled all over the world,” says Preston. “When he enrolled at Trinity, to read foreign languages, he turned up the first day, then didn’t turn up for the rest of the year.

“Our mother felt he should apply for the Army. He applied for his passport instead, and the moment it arrived he headed for the Far East, took an interest in Buddhist writing, then went to Australia, tracing his family on his father’s side. As it turned out he never qualified in anything. He would have made a very good lawyer, but a wonderful life, wonderfully lived.”

Preston’s father, the 16th viscount Gormanston, was killed in action during the Battle of France in 1940, meaning he succeeded to the family titles before his first birthday; Maurice O’Connor married his widowed mother, Pamela Gormanston, in 1943, before Roderic was born on Hatch Street in Dublin, in 1946.

“Also our maternal grandfather, Edward Hanly, who hailed from Roscommon, and after the famine spent time in the Argentine, came home and bought the Avonmore estate, near Annamoe, so there was always that Wicklow connection there.

“It was my friendship with Garech which first brought them together, and although they were quite unlike, were extremely fond of each other. We won’t see the likes of those lives again, most certainly not.”

[ Garech Browne: Last Days at Luggala – ‘We’re skirting around the fact he was an alcoholic’ ]

Browne’s friends soon became O’Connor’s friends, little surprise given his similarly infectious enthusiasm for good company, particularly at Luggala, so magically timeless and unspoilt as to be a world apart.

Something about that first drew me there, in 2013, when I lived in another small cottage perched above Lough Tay. O’Connor soon introduced me to Browne, and a taste of their long Champagne lunches, before adjourning to the drawingroom, a bottle of Marqués De Riscal in hand.

Later, on my occasional visits to O’Connor during that long, unbroken lockdown of a summer, that remained his red of choice, as the play of light at sunset repeatedly teased us both with its miraculous perfection.

“Roderic would read the newspaper from cover to cover, and then he’d read between the lines,” says Howard. “And would tell you whose real interest that story was. Then he’d say something like ‘Oh, I’ll have a bit of news on my own project soon’, give you a wink, but you never knew what that project was.

“He always saw the fun, that life was a series of terrible things, with intermittent funny set-pieces that you had to get pleasure out of.”

He was always up to date in current affairs, had a great mind, and his understanding of planning law was as good as any barrister I know

—  Long-time friend Kathryn Ward

About 10 years ago he connected with his son Sebastian, born in the Philippines but who now also lives in Wicklow, with his wife and two young children.

Another lifelong friend, Kathryn Ward, first met O’Connor in a bar in London, where she was working, and then randomly met him again in Dublin, when she was studying law.

“Of course he insisted we go for a drink in the Shelbourne, instead of me going to my lecture,” she says. “The conversations were always wonderfully varied, a story about taking Marianne Faithfull to an opium den in Singapore, or recommending books on the history of India.

“He was always up to date in current affairs, had a great mind, and his understanding of planning law was as good as any barrister I know.”

Ward also spent some time living at Luggala, and like Howard, myself and many others, will treasure the memory of a life now vanished.

“It’s so hard to single out any one thing about Roderic, just the warm memories,” says Howard. “He also had a great laugh, full of devilment, which always segued into a great big cough.

“You’d almost be frightened to make him laugh, it was such an episode. But he loved laughter, especially after throwing in some witty observation, sometimes a little cutting, but never mean.”