ON A wintery September Saturday some 20 people gathered to view an old and big Co Kildare house which is about to get a new lease of life. Their interest, however, was not so much in the house as in the family who built it in 1760. The visitors were members of the Irish section of the Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland and the house was built for Robert La Touche, a grandson of the founder of the La Touche Bank, which later became the Bank of Ireland.
Unlike today’s bankers, the La Touches, in common with their fellow refugees from France, had a reputation for fearing God, hard work and probity. It was their conscience, as well as political expediency, that drove them from Catholic France after the 1685 revocation of the Edict of Nantes restarted the persecution of Protestants. In the second half of the 17th century some 10,000 French refugees came here in search of freedom to practise their religion and they thrived as merchants and craftsmen. The Huguenots settled in many parts of the country. In Dublin, the street names Mercer, D’Olier, Digges and Fumbally bear evidence to their status in the city. But they settled elsewhere too, notably in Portarlington, Co Laois where their fine houses remain and where the local Church of Ireland contains their records, in Cork where French Church Lane and Lavitt’s Quay still exist and in Lisburn, Co Antrim.
Famous Huguenots include James Gandon, Richard Cassells, Sheridan Le Fanu, Dion Boucicault, Samuel Beckett, William Dargan and Francis Beaufort.
Today the Huguenot Society here has about 100 members. Many are Catholics, unlike the majority in the much larger group in Britain, and while some bear Huguenot names, others have no Huguenot connection.
Many famous Huguenot names have died out or are now scarce in Ireland, notably Dubedat; but others such as Seigne, de Courcey, Mercer, Lefroy and Despard remain.
The small group who visited Harristown House near Kilcullen included Mercers, Germains, Camiers, Jacques and Henseys (formerly de Hennezel). They were shown around by Noella Beaumont whose husband’s family bought the property in 1946. It has been open to the public for some time but she is in the process of promoting it as a venue for weddings and other private functions. Although sitting on 750 acres, the house must generate more income to meet maintenance demands.
Harristown House on the banks of the Liffey, was one of three houses built by the grandsons of David Digges La Touche, (Marley Park in Rathfarnham and Bellevue, now Delgany golf course), being the others. This David, a refugee who ran a poplin business in Castle Street, started the La Touche Bank in 1710 and his three grandsons each put up £20,000 to fund the establishment of the Bank of Ireland in 1783. David III was the first governor.
The La Touches left Harristown nine years after a fire in 1891 as, it is said, they never felt comfortable in it again. The new owner, a Dr Graham from Northern Ireland, willed it to his niece who stripped everything out, including doors, floors and fireplaces, for an auction before selling it to Maj Michael Beaumont. He brought much of the furniture from his stately home, Wooton House in England. A portrait of his father-in-law, MP Grace who had emigrated penniless to America from Co Laois, hangs in the dining room.
It was the La Touche connection, however, that most interested the visiting Huguenots. On the 300-year-old many-arched bridge spanning the Liffey, Pastor Robert Dunlop of the Baptist Church in Brannockstown, which was founded by John La Touche, spoke of the relationship between Rose La Touche and the philosopher and artist John Ruskin. Much of their unrequited love story took place at that very spot.
Now a Dublin woman, Vicky La Touche Price, a great-granddaughter of Robert La Touche, has produced a short booklet on the Irish Huguenots. “The society plans to promote knowledge of the Huguenots to show how they integrated into Ireland and became as Irish as the Irish themselves and the huge contribution they made.” It also explains how to research Huguenot ancestry.
She tells the story of how, in 1778, the Bank of Ireland lent £20,000 to the administration in Dublin Castle to buy provisions for the army, but shortly afterwards a government request for a further loan was politely refused on the grounds that the original had not been repaid. In 1922 the bank lent money to the struggling new state to keep its affairs running.
The La Touches are still in public life. The Fine Gael TD Olivia Mitchell is a La Touche, through her grandmother, and when the county council opened Marley Park to the public this was noted on a plaque.
The Lady Chapel in St Patrick’s Cathedral Dublin was set aside for Huguenot refugees to worship in French between 1666 and 1816. Nowadays, a commemorative service takes place in the cathedral annually. This year it is on next Sunday. The French ambassador, or his deputy, always attends, proving that the link to France is still alive.