An Irishwoman’s Diary on Youghal, Dromona and the FitzGeralds

The regrettable news that Glin Castle, the famed ancestral home of the late Desmond FitzGerald , Knight of Glin, has been put up for sale makes it all the more remarkable that another FitzGerald demesne is about to celebrate 800 years of continued occupancy by the same family. Originally FitzGerald lords of Desmond and the Decies, the Villiers-Stuarts of Dromana in Co Waterford continue to hold the territory along the Blackwater derived from a grant by King John in 1215. The “Youghal Celebrates History” conference in September this year will concentrate on the FitzGeralds of Desmond and their progress from Gallic warlords to Gaelic overlords (youghalcelebrateshistory.com). The epic of Dromana as the junior branch of the mighty FitzGerald clan is a saga which begins in the early 13th century and the creation of the earldom of Desmond in 1329. From there on, in a sequence depicted in a FitzGerald family tree created by Gerard Crotty for the 800th anniversary celebrations at Dromana in July (dromana800.com), the story continues through the centuries to yield a fabric of research from which contributors to the Youghal conference are cutting their historical cloth.

Along with the extensive family archive stretching from the 13th to the 21st centuries now held at University College Cork, sources might include references to the feud between the 14th Earl of Desmond and the 10th Earl of Ormond in 1565, or to the voluptuous Barbara Villiers, influential mistress of Charles II. Then there is Henry Villiers-Stuart, who had Daniel O’Connell as his election agent in their parliamentary campaign for Catholic Emancipation in 1826. The pairing defeated George Beresford of Curraghmore and won the Waterford seat, possibly assisted by the fact that, as O’Connell wrote to his wife, “We breakfasted at Kilmacthomas, a town belonging to the Beresfords, but the people belong to us”.

In its themes and locations, the Youghal conference spreads itself about. The town’s shoreline follows the estuary of the Blackwater, which turns south at Cappoquin to enclose the Decies within the slopes of the Drum Hills and the gorge which opens out at Villierstown. How the FitzGeralds of Desmond and the Decies decanted into the Villiers-Stuarts or how the orphaned heiress Katherine FitzGerald became Viscountess Grandison and great-grandmother- in- law of William Pitt the Elder will be explored at Youghal, where the opening event in Tynte’s Castle will be introduced by Sir Adrian FitzGerald, 34th Knight of Kerry.

Tynte’s Castle is close to the former college house where Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork, established himself before moving to Lismore. Boyle’s widowed kinswoman Elizabeth Boyle married Edmund Spenser in 1594; her third husband was Roger Seckerstone and, 10 years before her death in 1622, she married Sir Robert Tynte of Youghal. She is buried in Kilcredan churchyard near Ballymacoda and her effigy shares Tynte’s monument at Kilcredan with Tynte’s first wife, Philippa Harris.

These women, however, may not be the subject of Dr Clodagh Tait's paper on "Woman Trouble: Richard Boyle and some Riotous FitzGerald Ladies" and may not appear in Julian Walton's "History of Dromana" or in Dr David Dickson's description of "The Villiers-Stuart Estate in the 18th Century". But in his talk on "Poets and Patrons from Gearoid Iarla to Piaras Mac Gearailt", Donal Ó Catháin may mention Kilcredan, given that Piaras Mac Gearailt (1700-1791) was a member of the Ballycrenane FitzGeralds and a poet whose birthplace was the centre of the local Cúirt Éigse, the native Irish culture which Spenser despised. Mac Gearailt is now probably remembered best for his anthem Rosc Catha na Mumhan, and is buried in the Hill Cemetery at Ballymacoda, a few miles from Kilcredan.

The comprehensive lecture programme for Youghal Celebrates History includes a tour of Dromana House and its gardens carved into the escarpment above the river. Anyone who can’t wait until September might look at the schedule for Dromana 800 which takes place in July at Dromana, hosted by Barbara Grubb and her mother Emily Villiers-Stuart. There, among others, Ken Nicholls, Dr Diarmuid Scully, Robert O’Byrne, Peter Murray, and Julian Walton will discuss the FitzGeralds of the Decies, their histories and their art, while Dr Anthony Malcolmson tackles the troublesome women of the family, one of whom must surely be that old Countess of Desmond who died in a fall from a cherry tree at the reputed age of 140.