Happy Christmas to everyone, time to slow down and enjoy
Monthly Archives: December 2015
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 23 December 2015
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,
Cork Independent, 23 December 2015
Cork Harbour Memories (Part 42)
Landmark histories at Lismore Castle
The setting for the construction of the Boyle legacy was the impressive Lismore Castle and beautiful town of Lismore. A building of national importance, the castle incorporates the framework of various building projects dating primarily to the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. The National Inventory of Architectural Inventory records that the vestiges of medieval fabric in some of the towers confirming the archaeological significance of the site. The castle forms a principal landmark feature in the centre of Lismore, the range to north overlooking the broad River Blackwater. The various battlemented towers and turrets ornament the skyline and are visible from a distance.
Historical interpretative panels around the town record that the name Dungarvan is said to have originated from an old fortification to the east of the town. St Carthage is said to have founded a monastery, a celebrated seat of learning and the head of a diocese in the vicinity. Such was the fame of the place that not less than 20 churches were founded in its vicinity. In 812AD it was plundered by the Danes, who over a period till 915, ransacked the monastery five times. In the year 1095 the town was destroyed by an accidental fire, and in 1116, 1138, and 1157 both the town and the monastery suffered from fire.
The Anglo-Normans, after landing at Waterford, marched to Dungarvan and secured it by erecting a fortress for its defence in 1185. Four years afterwards it was taken by the Irish, who put Robert de Barry, the commander, and the whole of the garrison to the sword. The fortress, however, soon afterwards was rebuilt by the Anglo-Norman garrison in the area, and for many ages continued to be the residence of the bishops of the see. In 1518 McGrath, Archbishop of Cashel and Bishop of Lismore granted the manor and other lands to Sir Walter Raleigh. In time, these with the rest of Raleigh’s lands were purchased by Sir Richard Boyle. The castle was greatly strengthened and improved by Boyle, who built three other forts in the neighbourhood. Boyle also obtained a charter of incorporation for the town in 1613, and a grant for a market and fairs. The surrounding lands within a mile and a half round the parish church were made a free borough. The charter also invested the corporation with the privilege of returning two members to the Irish parliament. At the commencement of the Confederate war in 1641, the castle was besieged by a force of 5,000 Irish under Sir Richard Belling. It was defended by the Earl’s son, Lord Broghill, who compelled them to abandon the attempt.
On the death of Richard, third Earl of Burlington, and fourth Earl of Cork, the most considerable part of that nobleman’s estates, both in England and Ireland, devolved upon his daughter, Lady Charlotte Boyle. She married in 1748, William Cavendish, fourth Duke of Devonshire, in the possession of whose descendant, the present Duke, the castle now remains. The Lismore Castle papers held in the National Library of Ireland record the mid-eighteenth century estate supported a diverse range of urban and rural communities and comprised agricultural land of variable quality, about 70 per cent of it in the valleys of the rivers Bride and Blackwater in west Waterford and east Cork. This comprised considerable holdings at Lismore and the Manors of Tallow, Lisfinny, Curraglass and Mogeely, and Conna and Knockmourne in County Waterford. The remainder lay fifty miles to the west in and around Bandon, with smaller portions of Spittal lands in the south of County Tipperary and detached portions near Cork, Youghal and Dungarvan.
The present detached multiple-bay rubble stone Gothic castle at Lismore was reconstructed in 1849, on a complex quadrangular plan about a courtyard incorporating fabric of earlier rebuilding of 1812, and the original castle, 1612. The historic gardens at Lismore Castle are divided into two very different halves. The Upper Garden is a complete example of the seventeenth century walled garden first constructed by Richard Boyle, in about 1605. The outer walls and terraces remain and the plantings have changed to match the tastes of those living within the Castle. The Lower Garden was mostly created in the nineteenth century for the 6th Duke of Devonshire, Joseph Paxton’s patron. The garden is informal with shrubs, trees and lawns. The stately Yew Avenue is where Edmund Spencer is said to have written the Faerie Queen. This avenue is much older than the garden itself, probably seventeenth century.
Nearby is the impressive Saint Carthage’s Cathedral, which traces its origins back to an enclosed early monastic settlement. The present building, however, incorporates an early seventeenth-century chancel and a late seventeenth-century nave to which the tower and spire were added in 1827 by the Pain brothers George (1793-1838) and James (1779-1877). Among the treasures of the cathedral are four memorial stones dating to the ninth century; the tomb of the McGrath family (1557) with its carved figures of Saints Gregory the Great and Catherine of Alexandria amongst others; funerary monuments of Classical and Gothic design including one (ob. 1805) signed by Thomas Rickman (1776-1841) of Liverpool; and the celebrated Currey Memorial Window (1896), a pre-Raphaelite masterpiece executed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones (1833-98).
To be continued…
Happy Christmas and happy new year to all readers of the column, many thanks for the continued support.
Captions:
824a. The impressive Lismore Castle from a mid nineteenth century drawing (source: Cork City Library)
824b. The beautiful Lismore Castle Gardens, September 2015 with members of the Irish Post Medieval and Archaeology Society (picture: Kieran McCarthy)
Cork City Council Commences Electricity Generation at Tramore Valley Park, Cork
Cork City Council, through its normal operations, buildings, transport etc consumes approximately 30 million units of energy per annum of electricity, fuel, gas, etc. As part of the National Climate Change policy, Cork City Council, like all other public bodies, is required to reduce its energy consumption by 33% by the year 2020 which equates to 10 million units per annum.
The Kinsale Road landfill site (now Tramore Valley Park), which ceased accepting waste for landfilling in 2009, will continue to generate methane gas from the 3 million tonnes of waste deposited over the 40 year lifetime of the landfill site. This gas will now be beneficially used to generate electricity for Cork City Council and also ensure that the Council meets its EPA license obligations in regard to landfill gas treatment. The quantity of electricity being generated is adequate to supply 500 houses on an ongoing basis until 2021.
The project is a collaboration between Cork City Council, The Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, who are providing ongoing support for the sale of electricity under the REFIT scheme, and a private energy supplier, Vayu Energy. Michael O’Brien, Senior Engineer, stated:
“The electricity generation project will generate 3 million units of energy per annum that will be sold to Vayu Energy. The project, which has been funded by Cork City Council, will reduce emissions to the environment and will also substantially contribute to the Council’s 2020 energy reduction targets, as well as showcasing an innovative project in the Tramore Valley Park. It is timely that the project be commissioned in the same week as the global summit in climate change is taking place in Paris”.
Ross McConnell, Vayu Energy stated:
“We are delighted to be partnering with Cork City Council on this project. It’s an excellent example of the type of initiative that will help in meeting the Government’s targets for renewable energy. We see enormous potential for schemes such as this to transform the way electricity is produced in Ireland over the decades to come. This is important not only from an environmental sustainability viewpoint but also in terms of the country’s long-term economic competitiveness and security of energy supply”.
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 17 December 2015
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,
Cork Independent, 17 December 2015
Cork Harbour Memories (Part 41)
The Boyles: From London to Charleville
The line of Richard Boyle’s family was long. Apart from those introduced the last number of weeks, the children of his household in the decade of the 1610s and 1620s included: Geoffrey Boyle (1616-1617), Dorothy Boyle (1617-1688),Sir Lewis Boyle, 1st Viscount of Kinalmeaky (1619-1642), Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrey (1621-1679), Mary Boyle (1625-1678), Francis Boyle, 1st Viscount Shannon (1625-1699) and Margaret Boyle (1629-1637). Many of these married well, all part of their father’s quest for success and for further privilege.
Sir Lewis Boyle (1619-1642) married Elizabeth Feilding, Countess of Guildford, on 26 December 1639 at Chapel Road,Whitehall, London. He was created 1st Baron of Bandon Bridge on 28 February 1627/28, as an heir to his father. He was created 1st Viscount Boyle of Kinalmeaky, on 28 February 1627/28. He fought on the English side in the Battle of Liscarroll in North Cork on 2 September 1642. The Battle was part of the confederate wars (1641-1653). The war was fought between the native Irish Catholics and the Protestant British settlers supported by England and Scotland. The confederate Catholics formed their headquarters in the city of Kilkenny essentially making confederate Ireland an independent state.
Francis Boyle, 1st Viscount Shannon (1625-1699), married Elizabeth Killigrew, daughter of Sir Robert Killegrew on 24 October 1638 at King’s Chapel, Whitehall. He was educated at Eton College, Windsor. He fought in the Battle of Liscarroll in 1642. He was created 1st Viscount Shannon, Co. Limerick on 6 September 1660. He was Captain of the Troop of Horse between 28 July 1662 and 1685 and was invested as a Privy Counsellor of Ireland. He held the office of Governor of County Cork on 20 August 1672 and lived at Shannon Park. Carrigaline.
The national British biography records that Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrey (1621-1679), after two years of study at Trinity College, was sent, when seventeen, to travel on the Continent with his brother, Lord Kynalmeaky. On his return, he commanded a troop in the expedition against the Scotch, under the Earl of Northumberland. In 1640 he married a daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, and arrived with her at Lismore the very day hostilities began in Ireland. He fortified his father’s house. At the battle of Liscarroll he was taken prisoner, but was soon rescued. He opposed the cessation of arms in 1643, and in 1644 joined Lord Inchiquin and others in a letter to the King, praying that no peace should be concluded with the Irish. He acted under Lord Inchiquin at CastleLyons, Youghal, and elsewhere, and in 1646 took Lord Muskerry’s castle at Blarney.
After the execution of Charles I, Roger retired to his estate in Somersetshire, and was about to depart for the Continent to plot for the restoration of the Stuarts, when Oliver Cromwell called on him, showed him duplicates of his foreign correspondence, proving that his plans were known. He offered him the option of imprisonment or service under the Commonwealth. He accepted the latter, returned to Ireland, and met Cromwell near Waterford, late in 1649, with 1,500 men whom he had assembled.
Afterwards in England Roger continued to be one of Cromwell’s most trusted friends and advisers. Roger was for a time governor in Scotland, and was one of Richard Cromwell’s council. Finding the latter an incompetent ruler, he favoured the restoration of Charles II. Returning to Ireland, and working with pro Charles II forces, he seized Youghal, Clonmel, Carlow, Limerick, Drogheda, Galway, and Athlone for the King, and helped to end the rule of the Parliament in Ireland. After the Restoration he was made Earl of Orrery, Lord Justice, and President of Munster.
When he was created Earl of Orrery in 1660 he was granted lands in counties Cork, Kerry, Limerick and Kilkenny in 1666 amounting to almost 14,000 acres. In 1661 he built a mansion amongst the ancient church lands at Rathgogan in North Cork. He renamed the area Charleville, in honour of Charles II. The ancient parish church of Rathgogan had been for a long time in ruins. Samuel Lewis in his Topographical Dictionary of Ireland in 1837 denotes that the charter granted from Charles II to Roger, Earl of Orrery made the town a free borough, and the inhabitants were incorporated under the designation of the “Sovereign, Bailiffs, and Burgesses of the Borough of Charleville”. The corporation consisted of a sovereign, two bailiffs, twelve burgesses, and an indefinite number of freemen. A classical school was founded by Roger, who endowed it with £40 per annum. The charter conferred upon the corporation the privilege of returning two members to the Irish parliament, which was regularly exercised till the Act of Union, when the borough was disfranchised, and the £15,000 awarded as compensation was paid to the Earls of Shannon and Cork. Such was the importance of the Charleville that it was incorporated into the main Limerick Road and Samuel Lewis in 1837 records that a military force of two officers and 40 men were stationed there, but there was no permanent barrack. Such was the importance of securing this town in a military strategic sense, a constabulary police station had also been established in the town by Lewis’s study.
To be continued…
Happy Christmas and happy new year to all readers of the column, many thanks for the continued support.
Captions:
823a. Roger Boyle, 1621-1679 (source: Hutton Archive)
823b. Main Street, Charleville, c.1900 (source: North Cork Through Time by Kieran McCarthy & Dan Breen)
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 10 December 2015
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,
Cork Independent, 10 December 2015
Cork Harbour Memories (Part 40)
Robert Boyle – A Man of Science
Continuing on from last week to explore the legacy of Richard Boyle’s children, Catherine Boyle (1615-1691) was the seventh child of Richard Boyle and Catherine Fenton. In the 1650s her younger brother Robert Boyle (1627-1691) had a laboratory in her London house, as well as in Oxford, and they conducted science experiments together. Her personal archive of letters suggest that her influence and encouragement on her brother’s work were considerable. Robert’s contemporaries widely acknowledged Catherine’s influence on his work, but later historiographies dropped her from the record. Theirs was a lifelong intellectual partnership, where as brother and sister, supported each other’s scientific ideas. This year marks the 400th anniversary of the birth of Catherine Boyle, later Lady Ranelagh, A special commemorative plaque was unveiled at the entrance to Lismore Castle earlier this year on 27 June as part of the annual Robert Boyle Summer School.
The Encyclopedia Brittania describes Lismore Castle-born Robert Boyle as an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher and theological writer, a prominent figure of 17th-century intellectual culture. He was best known as a natural philosopher, particularly in the field of chemistry, but his scientific endeavours covered many areas including hydrostatics, physics, medicine, earth sciences, natural history, and alchemy. In his memoirs he denotes; “I look upon experimental truths as matters of great concernment to mankind”. His enormous output also comprised Christian devotional and ethical essays and theological tracts on biblical language, the limits of reason, and the role of the natural philosopher as a Christian. He subsidised many religious missions as well as the translation of the Scriptures into several languages. In 1660 he helped found the Royal Society of London.
In a biography of Boyle by Michael Hunter (2009) entitled Boyle, Between God and Science, he details that Robert was educated at Eton and arising out of his work in literature and science, in 1654 he was invited to Oxford. He took up residence at the university from c.1656 until 1668. In Oxford he was exposed to the latest developments in natural philosophy and became connected with a group of notable natural philosophers and physicians, including John Wilkins, Christoper Wren, and John Locke. These individuals, together with a few others, formed the Experimental Philosophy Club, which at times convened in Boyle’s lodgings. Much of Boyle’s best-known work dates from this period. In 1659 he and Robert Hooke, the inventor and subsequent curator of experiments for the Royal Society, pursued the creation of their famous air pump and used it to study pneumatics. Their discoveries regarding air pressure and the vacuum appeared in Boyle’s first scientific publication, New Experiments Physico-Mechanicall, Touching the Spring of the Air and Its Effects (1660).
Boyle and Hooke discovered several physical characteristics of air, including its contribution in combustion, respiration, and the transmission of sound. One of their discoveries, published in 1662, later became known as Boyle’s Law. The law describes the inversely proportional relationship between the absolute pressure and volume of a gas, if the temperature is kept constant within a closed.
In 1668 Boyle left Oxford and took up residence with his sister Catherine in her house on Pall Mall in London. There he set up an active laboratory, employed assistants, received visitors, and published at least one book nearly every year. Living in London also provided him the opportunity to participate actively in the Royal Society.
The very first Royal Society of London meeting occurred on 28 November 1660 following a lecture at Gresham College by Christopher Wren. Joined by other leading polymaths or knowledgeable people including Robert Boyle and John Wilkins, the group soon received royal approval, and from 1663 it would be known as ‘The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge’. The Royal Society’s motto ‘Nullius in verba’ is taken to mean ‘take nobody’s word for it’. It is an expression of the determination of Fellows “to withstand the domination of authority and to verify all statements by an appeal to facts determined by experiment”. The first issue of Philosophical Transactions was published in 1665 and set up the important concepts of scientific priority and peer review. It is now the oldest continuously-published science journal in the world.
Robert Boyle was a man who achieved both national and international renown during his lifetime. He was offered the presidency of the Royal Society (in 1680) and the episcopacy but declined both. Throughout his adult life, Boyle was sickly, suffering from weak eyes and hands, recurring illnesses, and one or more strokes. He died at age 64 after a short illness made worse by his grief over Catherine’s death a week earlier. He left his papers to the Royal Society and a bequest for establishing a series of lectures in defence of Christianity. These lectures, now known as the Boyle Lectures, continue to this day.
The annual Robert Boyle Summer School in Lismore is also a celebration of the life, works and legacy of Robert Boyle, the “Father of Modern Chemistry” and native of Lismore. Starting with an introduction to Boyle, his work and times and continuing over four days with talks, walks and discussion, the school is a place where scientists and non-scientists can meet and discuss ideas relating to our modern world.
To be continued…
Captions:
822a. and 822b. Portraits of Boyle by the same artist, Johann Kerseboom; the image of Boyle is the same but the setting and frame are presented differently (source: Chemical heritage Foundation)
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 3 December 2015
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,
Cork Independent, 3 December 2015
Cork Harbour Memories (Part 39)
The Boyle Family Legacy
At Richard Boyle’s monument in St Mary’s Church in Youghal, some of his sixteen children are represented in small statue form. Joan Apsley married Richard at Limerick on 6 November 1595; she was 17 and he was 28. She was one of two daughters and co-heirs of William Apsley, of Limerick, one of the council to the first Plantation President of the province of Munster. The marriage brought to her husband an estate worth £500 a year, which he continued to receive until at least 1632. Boyle was living in Mallow when his 21-year-old wife Joan died in childbirth shortly before Christmas 1599. She was buried with her still-born son in Buttevant church.
Subsequently Richard became acquainted with Catherine Fenton (1582-1629), daughter of Sir Geoffrey Fenton. Her uncle Edward was a friend of Sir Francis Drake, politician and sailor. On 25 July 1603, Sir George Carew knighted Richard Boyle at St Mary’s Abbey, Dublin. That same afternoon, Richard and Catherine Fenton were married. Catherine went on to bear her husband six sons and eight daughters. Many of the
First in the Boyle-Fenton line was Roger Boyle (1606-1615) who died quite young. Next up was Lady Alice Countess Barrymore Barry (1607-1667). In 1631 Alice married David Barry (1604-1642) and succeeded to the Barrymore estates on 10 April 1617 on the death of his grandfather. He was created Earl of Barrymore on 28 February 1628. During the 1641 rebellion, he sided with the Crown upon whom his title and lands depended. On 10 May 1642 he stormed the Castle of Ballymacpatrick (now Careysville), near Fermoy, which was held by his grand-aunt, and hanged forty of the rebel leaders in the early morning. He led a regiment at the Battle of Liscarroll in September 1642. He died two weeks later of a fever on the 29 September 1642 at his house in Castlelyons.
Sarah Boyle (1609-1633), married Sir Thomas Moore. He was the son of Garret Moore, 1st Viscount Moore of Drogheda. Garret was Privy Counsellor of Ireland in 1604 and held the office of Member of Parliament (M.P.) for Dungannon in 1613. He held the office of President of Munster in 1615. After Thomas’s death, he married Robert Digby, 1st Baron Digby of King’s County in 1620. He was invested as a Privy Counsellor in 1641.
Lettice Boyle (1610-1657) married George Goring, Lord Goring, son of George Goring, 1st Earl of Norwich. He gained the rank of Colonel in 1633 in the service of the Regiment of mixed foot and horse in the Low Countries. He held the office of Governor of Portsmouth from January 1638/39 to September 1642. He held the office of Member of Parliament for Portsmouth between 1640 and 1642. He gained the rank of Lieutenant-General in 1641.
Joan Boyle (1611-1655) married George Fitzgerald, 16th Earl of Kildare. They had three sons and six daughters. One of the sons (Robert, the eldest) and two of the daughters died young. One more of the daughters, Catherine, did not marry. One of the daughters Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald (1642 – died c. 1697/98) married Callaghan MacCarty, 3rd Earl of Clancarty, and subsequently married Sir William Davys, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.
Richard Boyle (1612-1698), 1st Earl of Burlington, 2nd Earl of Cork was knighted at his father’s house in Youghal, by Lord Falkland, the Lord Deputy of Ireland. As Sir Richard Boyle, he then went on his travels abroad with an annual allowance of £1500. In 1639, the young Sir Richard undertook to raise, arms, and provide 100 horse to attend upon King Charles I of England in his expedition into the North of England against the Scots. For this and other occasions, his father, Lord Cork, supplied him with £5553 sterling. Sir Richard Boyle was returned as Member of Parliament for Appleby in the Parliament of 1640, and appointed a member of the Privy Council of England, but was subsequently excluded for his Royalist sympathies after the outbreak of the English Civil War. At the age of 22 he married the 21-year-old Lady Elizabeth Clifford, daughter of Henry Clifford 5th Earl of Cumberland, on 5 July 1635 in Skipton Castle. They had six children. Following the Restoration, Richard was appointed a Privy Counsellor and Lord Treasurer of Ireland on 16 November 1660.
Catherine Boyle (1614-1691) was the seventh child of Richard Boyle and Catherine Fenton. When Catherine Boyle was nine and a half years old, she moved in with the Beaumont family because she was to be wed to one of their sons, Sapcott Beaumont. When she was thirteen, Thomas Beaumont, father of Sapcott Beaumont died. This event caused the marriage arrangements between Katherine and Sapcott to dissolve. She moved back home and two years later married Arthur Jones, heir to Viscount Ranelagh at the age of 15 and she became known as Katherine Jones. In the 1650s her brother Robert Boyle had a laboratory in her London house, as well as in Oxford, and they experimented together. She was also prominent in the Hartlib Circle of correspondents. The Hartlib Circle was the correspondence network set up in Western and Central Europe by Samuel Hartlib, an intelligencer based in London, and his associates. She commissioned Robert Hooke in 1676, to modify her house to include a laboratory for her brother Robert Boyle.
To be continued…
Captions:
821a. Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Burlington and 2nd Earl of Cork by Sir Anthony Van Dyck (source: Cork City Library)
820b. Richard and Catherine Boyle depicted on their memorial in St Patrick’s Church Cathedral Dublin (source: Archive, St Patrick’s Church Cathedral)
