Vere Hunt in a crashing machine

‘Set out at two o’clock for Tipperary . . . Soon after I had the misfortune to find myself in a crashing machine, for, crash went the front spring of the crazy depository in which I was journeying, and, having extricated myself by a judicious leap-out from the ill-fated vehicle, I perambulated ankle-deep to the aforesaid Bruff, when, then and there arriving, I found the parlour of the Inn occupied by Cork butchers and discontented farmers.’ This is the entertaining Vere Hunt - soldier, politician, gambler and enlightened landlord - writing in his diary about market day at Bruff, in the county of Limerick, Ireland. He died two centuries ago today, leaving behind a series of diaries only a few extracts of which have ever been published.

Hunt, born in 1761, at Curragh Chase in County Limerick, was the oldest son of Vere Hunt and his second wife Anne Browne. He had one brother, John Fitzmaurice, and a sister, Jane. He inherited his father’s estate, and, in 1784, married Eleanor daughter of Lord Glenworth, the Protestant bishop of Limerick. He was elevated to a baronetcy the same year, and also became High Sheriff of County Limerick. He showed loyal support to the King and raised and commanded three regiments of foot during the French Revolutionary Wars. On returning to Ireland he was made MP for the Borough of Askeaton in 1797, but the Borough was disenfranchised at the Union, and he left politics in 1800.

Hunt was the founder of a village called New Birmingham in Tipperary, which he had built to service a coal mine he owned at Glengoole. He is remembered as a progressive landlord, often seeking ways to improve the lot of his tenants. However, he was not a great entrepreneur. He purchased Lundy Island, for example, believing it would save him from paying British taxes. After installing an Irish colony there, the place soon became a liability, and it was many years before the family was able to dispose of it. He appears to have had a tendency to gambling, which led him to spend some in a debtor’s jail in London. He was also known to have a strong liking for the theatre and literature. Vere’s only son Aubrey was educated at Harrow with Lord Byron and Robert Peel, and went on to have five sons and three daughters. He was grandfather to the poet and critic Aubrey Thomas de Vere and to the politician and social commentator Sir Stephen de Vere, 4th Baronet. He died on 11 August 1818. A little further information can be found at Wikipedia, the Limerick City website, and the Glengoole website.

Hunt left behind some diaries, most of which (1796-1809) are held by Limerick City Library - a full description of them can be found around page 40 in this large Word file on the Hunt and De Vere family holdings. Although the diaries have never been published in book form, the Dublin Magazine published some extracts in 1943, and then Melosina Lenox-Conyngham included a significant batch of those extracts in her Diaries of Ireland - An Anthology 1590-1987 (Lilliput Press, Dublin 1998). Some pages can be read online at Amazon, but a pdf of all the pages on Hunt can be read online at the Limerick City website. The following extracts are all taken from Lenox-Conyngham’s book.

28 March 1798
‘The County [Limerick] met at one over the Exchange. I proposed that it be recommended to landlords to give a temporary abatement to poor tenants on account of the fall of grain, and to pay tythes for those under £10 a year rent. It was negatived. A memorial was sent to the Lord Lieutenant signed by thirty-six Justices to proclaim the entire county as in a state of insurrection. Dined at Harry Fosbery’s and got drunk.’

9 April 1798
‘My dear wife & darling Aubrey went to Limerick on their way to Dublin & probably England to avoid the dangers of this unhappy distracted county ... A guard mounted. Then came back to dinner, lonesome! I cd not eat a bit.’

17 April 1798
‘Heard that my Uncle Harry’s son, Phineas, was the head of the United Irishmen about Cappah, but that he gave himself up to General Sir James Duff and made a full discovery.’

19 May 1798, Dublin
‘Dined at Tom Quin’s. At nine an express came for the Surgeon-General, who dined with us, to go off to dress Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s wounds, who had just been taken by Major Sirr and Justices Swan and Ryan.’

23 May 1798, Dublin
‘The town in great confusion and a rising expected every hour ... Went to the Castle, saw Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s uniform ... Lord Rossmore showed me an impression of the Great Seal found on Lord Edward ... People taken up every instant and flogged by military law to get confessions ... Determined to send my family off without delay, called with a hackney coach for Lady Hunt, Aubrey and Jenny Bindon, and set out for the Prince of Wales Packet. She could not sail, the wind being foul, and we all slept on board. Heard from Captain Hill of the Lady Fitzgibbon that Frank Arthur, Dr Hargrove, Doctor Ross (all from Limerick) and others were apprehended, and from my Uncle William Hunt that his son Billy was taken up.’

17 January 1800, Dublin
‘Got into the harbour at daylight and after landing, proceeded to Dublin on foot and put up at Quin’s Hotel in Crow Street. In the evening to the House of Commons and most warmly welcomed by Lord Castlereagh. Called on Lord Glentworth and consulted him on my expectations from Government. Strongly advised by him not to take any bargain, as those who acted steadily and honourably to the Government would be more liberally treated than if they made a contract.’

3 April 1811, Curragh Chase
‘This morning at four o’clock departed this life, John Leahy, who lived for seventy or eighty years with my father and me, and who lived as a pensioner with me for the last twenty years. His honesty and fidelity were great, and I sincerely lament the departure of so old, tried and valuable a domestic. Ordered a coffin to be made for him of the old elm-tree, coeval with himself, or rather antecedent to him, which was blown down last winter. Kill a lamb and dine on a forequarter of it, fish etc. Dr Lee the parish priest of Adare with me. After dinner, he and I go up to Leahy’s house, where I give directions for his wake, funeral etc. Lee sleeps here.’

17 May 1813, Dublin
‘Look in at Gilbert and Hodges, see some books bespoke by Aubrey, and see for the first time the celebrated Archibald Hamilton Rowan, who walked in attended by two monstrous and beautiful Danish dogs.’

4 June 1813, Dublin
‘Very fine day, and being the King’s birthday, the town was in bustle and hurry from morning till night. In the early part of the day a Review in the Phoenix Park, where all ranks and classes were crowded together to see poor soldiers sweating and stinking, and great Militia officers, from the mighty Colonel to the puny Ensigns, exhibiting their bravery and military acquirements. City Buckeens on hired horses and with borrowed boots and spurs; young misses slipping away from their mammas to meet their lovers; old maids taking snuff, and talking and thinking of old times; pickpockets waiting for a lob, and old bawds and whores for a cull; handkerchiefs in constant employ, wiping dust, sweat and dander from the face and head; coaches, landaus, gigs, curricles and jaunting cars in constant jostle and confusion in the backstreet to avoid paying money and the shops open to try to get some; mail coaches making a grand procession through the principal streets.

A Levee at the Castle, attended as usual by pimps, parasites, hangers-on, aidecamps, state-officers, expectant clergymen, hungry lawyers, spies, informers, and the various descriptions of characters that constitute the herd of which the motley petty degraded and pretended Court of this poor fallen country is made up. Alas, poor Ireland.

I spent the day lounging about, seeing what was to be seen, and, in proud feelings of superior independence, looked down with utter contempt of the weakness of an administration, imbecile, evasive, and mouldering into contempt; and every loss of public opinion and respect ever must attend the paltry pretended administration of this despicable and degraded country.

After dinner take a rambling circuit over Westmoreland Street and up Anglesea Street. Lounge into booksellers’ shops, then to Crow Street to see, according to ancient custom, all the blackguard boys collected to insult and pelt with small stones, gravel, periwinkles, etc. the ladies who go to the Play on this night. Boxes being free for the ladies, consequently it may be supposed what degree of respect is due to that class of the tender sex who avail themselves of enjoying a theatrical treat.’

3 November 1813, Dublin
‘Omitted in my journal yesterday that I saw the new Lord Lieutenant, Lord Whitworth, for the first time, it being his weekly day of giving audience, and of keeping up the mockery of state in this fallen and degraded sham-court.

He drove in from the park with his wife, the Duchess of Dorset, and one aide de camp, in a plain coach and four postilions in buff cloth, plain jackets, and two out-riders. The castle seemed deserted, few, I believe, seeking audience; and except the mere hangers-on, secretaries and clerks, two or three Generals and Judges, I presume, from appearance, His Excellency was not much annoyed by visitors.’

18 October 1814, Bruff
‘Arrived in Bruff at half past one. Fair day there and meet many friends in Bennett’s Inn, all in desponding strains, lamenting the decreased value of fat cattle, the best fat cows bringing this day but twelve guineas each. Milch cows high from £18 to £20, pigs tolerably high, sheep low. Set out at two o’clock for Tipperary and meet near Kilballyowen a very fine threshing machine for Decourcy O’Grady. Soon after I had the misfortune to find myself in a crashing machine, for, crash went the front spring of the crazy depository in which I was journeying, and, having extricated myself by a judicious leap-out from the ill-fated vehicle, I perambulated ankle-deep to the aforesaid Bruff, when, then and there arriving, I found the parlour of the Inn occupied by Cork butchers and discontented farmers to whose society I would have unfortunately been consigned for the day but for the hospitality of John Bennett who invited me to his house, where I fared capitally both in board and bed. I was highly pleased at seeing there in a very small square pond opposite his hall door, duck, mallard, cooter and various other wild fowl in great abundance and perfect tameness, and I was particularly amused by the eccentricities of Standy Bennett who, in his way, is both clever and entertaining ... he is about to publish a book of poems, which of course I will be among the first to have. In bed at eleven and sleep like a top.’

The Diary Junction

Splinters fell on me

‘Went to Mohill Poor House. Was shot at in the Main Street of Mohill by James Murphy from the door of his house in that town about half past one in the afternoon. The ball struck the house near me, the splinters fell on me. James Murphy was arrested and committed.’ William Sydney Clements, the Third Earl of Leitrim, one of the most hated landlords in Ireland at the time, was assassinated 140 years ago to the day. His diaries, of which only brief extracts have been published in an anthology, testify to both his callous behaviour towards tenants and threats to his life.

Clements was born in Dublin in 1805, and educated at Sandhurst. He was commissioned an ensign in 1824, served in Portugal in 1826-1827; and, in 1831, he was appointed a captain in the 43rd Light Infantry. On the death of his elder brother in 1839, he became Viscount Clements and a Member of Parliament for County Leitrim. Then, on his father’s death in 1854, Clements succeeded to the title Third Earl of Leitrim. He retired from the British Army with the rank of lieutenant colonel, and spent the rest of his life looking after his estates - 90,000 acres in the counties of Donegal, Galway, Leitrim and Kildare - and living at Lough Rynn Castle, Leitrim. However, in time, he became an overbearing landlord evicting tenants at will, and was much hated. He fought strongly against Gladstone’s Irish Land Act of 1870; and, after a row with the Earl of Carlisle, he was deposed from his position as a justice of the peace. After surviving various assassination attempts, he was murdered along with his clerk and driver on 2 April 1878 - his murderers were never caught. A full account of the murder can be read at the Lough Rynn website. Further biographical information is available at the same website or at Wikipedia.

On his death, Clements left all his property, including a set of diaries, to a cousin (not to his siblings, or indeed to his nephew who was the heir to his title). The diaries were handed down through the generations and a few pages of extracts appeared in Diaries of Ireland - An Anthology 1590-1987 by Melosina Lenox-Conyngham (Lilliput Press, Dublin 1998). The author cites the following source: ‘From a transcription by Marcus Clements, owned by Charles Clements.’ Some pages of the anthology can be read at Amazon. Here are several extracts from Clements’ diaries (as found in the anthology).

18 April 1857
‘Went to Dublin and to Killadoon. I was shot at passing through Tooman. Two copper caps snapped. The gun or pistol missed fire. I went into the house of the widow Burbage and her son Mch’l Burbage appeared to be the person who had done the act.’

21 January 1858
‘[Tenant rights meeting in Milford] Engaged all the Public Houses. Police came in - about sixty. People came in two mobs of about two hundred strong each. The meeting held on the hill above the town - not on the estate.’

17 July 1858
‘Evicted Widow McRann of Eskerkilen and obtained possession from the sheriff.’

13 September 1860
‘Received a challenge from James Murphy by post. Sent to Mr Wm Jones [Murphy’s landlord?] who called on me. I gave him the letter I had received from James Murphy and called on him to protect me.’

15 September 1860
‘Went to Mohill Poor House. Was shot at in the Main Street of Mohill by James Murphy from the door of his house in that town about half past one in the afternoon. The ball struck the house near me, the splinters fell on me. James Murphy was arrested and committed.’

8 October 1860
‘Received an address from the town and neighbourhood of Mohill to congratulate me on my escape from assassination.’

4 December 1860
‘Leave Lough Rynn at 7.30 a.m. Arrived Manorhamilton at 1 p.m. Received rents. At night a tar barrel was burned and a band played through the town to greet my arrival.’

6 March 1861
‘Inquired into the cutting off of the tail of Thompson’s cow in Farnaught. Found that there was every reason to believe that the tail was cut by young Malachy Fanning and his brother Charles. Thos Cunnion of Farnaught and Edward Corr of Farnaught were with Malachy Fanning in his father’s house. The father Fanning was absent. Ordered that Fanning pay Thompson £1.’

12 May 1863
‘Went to Doaghbeg with Wilson [his bailiff], gave notice to Michael Martin No 10, Pollet and Pat’k Kelly No 8 that I would evict them; also to Wm McAteer, Doagh Beg, I would evict him and to Dennis Boyce of Ballinacrick that I would remove him for harbouring McGinley who was evicted.’

’17 January 1870
A robbery took place this night - two shirts, two pocket handkerchiefs taken out of the Bleach Green at Killadoon - some lemons taken from the Green House & some of the Gardener’s tools.’

20 January 1870
Went to the garden and examined the footmarks of the man who had been there on Monday night. I took a model of them and compared with Rutherford’s and remarked his mode of walking which left no doubt of his being the man.’

26 March 1871
‘Leave Derry bv the 6.20 train - changed carriage at Omagh and was unable to find a privy fit to be used. At another station, I think Ballybay, they were going to remove me from the carriage but the Station Master civilly allowed the carriage to proceed. Dundalk - the carriage was again changed. The privy at Enniskillen was also unfit for use.’

The Diary Junction

The Fortescues go to Bath

‘This has been a terrible wet day. Doctr Fraser was here, Fortescue has got a cough which he (Fraser) says will prevent his beginning the waters as soon as he otherways woud. We dined hearty & thank God are except him all well. No lodgings yet fix’d on so we are to pass this night here.’ This is Marianne Fortescue, born all of a quarter of a millenium ago today, writing in her diary about a tour from Ireland to Bath so that her husband, Matthew, could take the waters in the hope of a cure for gout. Although the Fortescue family had a long history in County Louth, and although the estate house built by Matthew, Stephenstown House still exists as a picturesque ruin, there is very little information available online about Marianne. Indeed, most of what we know about Marianne and Matthew comes from Marianne’s diary.

Marianne (Mary Anne) Fortescue, born on 17 May 1767, was the daughter of John McClintock, of County Louth, Ireland, MP for Enniskillen and Belturbet. On New Year’s Day 1787, she married Matthew Fortescue, a descendant of Faithfull Fortescue who had acquired lands after his Ireland adventures in the 17th century. The Fortescues had a house in Dublin and were there when the rebellion of 1798 broke out. Matthew also had built Stephenstown House in Louth in 1785 (which remained in the Fortescue family until the 1970s, though it fell into ruin in the 1980s - see Abandoned Ireland for photos). They had four children, according to the Fortescue Family Genealogy website. Marianne died in 1849.

The only reason Marianne is remembered today is because of a diary that she kept for some periods of her life. According to History of Knockbridge by Padraig O’Neill (1994) (extracts can be found at the Fortescue Family Genealogy website): ‘[In the diaries,] she gives details of life in Stephenstown, the rounds of parties and the visitors who were constantly coming and going. In that year she also gives an account of a journey she made with her husband to Bath because he suffered from gout. At that time it was a long coach journey to Dublin where they stayed until the weather and conditions at sea facilitated passage to England. She describes her journey through England - the wonderful bridges, tremendous hills, acqueducts and the Welsh ale. She also mentions seeing the coal-pits and a visit to Worcester where she described the china manufacture. She describes the treatment her husband received at the spa. The journey home from Bath to Stephenstown took three full days. She was in Dublin when the rising of 1798 took place and gives an account of the losses on both sides which were very exaggerated. She says that the North has remained calm and she returned to Stephenstown. There are many references to Lisrenny and Corbollis and dancing in Dundalk until four in the morning. In 1798 she states that the gentlemen at the county meeting in Louth were all unanimous against the Union. She gives a graphic description of a tragedy at sea when Captain Morton's vessel was wrecked at Haggardstown and all on board perished.’

Only two periods of her diary seem to be extant: 1797-1800 and 1816-1818. Very brief extracts can be found in Diaries of Ireland edited by Melosina Lenox-Conynghim (The Lilliput Press, 1998) - see Amazon for a preview. However, the diaries, as edited by Noel Ross, have also been published in full in the Journal of the County Louth Archaeological and Historical Society (available online at JSTOR, preview available, log-in required): Vol. 24 No. 2 (1998), Vol. 24 No. 3 (1999), Vol. 24 No. 4 (2000), Vol. 25 No. 2 (2002). Ross claims in his introduction that the diaries are important ‘as a local social document’. Here are several extracts concerning the Fortescues journey to Bath.

21 October 1797
‘We breakfasted & dined at the same hotel & at six o’clock in the eve’g all set out in a coach to go to Pier Head to Mr S. Page as we heard the Leister packet was to sail at twelve o’clock. We drank tea & supp’d with him. The children lay on a bed there from eight o’clock untill they were waked to go on board, which we all did at about half past twelve. It was a very dark, rainy, windy night. I was not the least bit frighten’d & remain’d quite free from sickness untill about five o’clock on Sunday morn’g the 22d. I was quite delighted between eight & nine at the sight of Holy Head. We had a very rough passage, every thing in the ship falling about & the waves dashing over us every moment. When we came to anchor we all got into the boat to get up to Jacksons House; it was raining very heavy on us, but we did not think much of that, as I was so delighted to get on shore We all breakfasted there and were very much delay’d after as we did not get off from that untill two o’clock.’

22 October 1797
‘Bangor. Here we arrived at eight o’clock in the eve’g. got very safely over the ferry & eat our dinner & all are well. We intend sleeping here.’

23 October 1797
‘Conway. A fine day. We breakfasted this morn’g at Bangor, the harpur was playing all the time. I liked it vastly & think the place very pretty. In comeing here we came over two dreadful! hills. Penmont Muir & Penmont Ross, the road was very rough. I walk’d up the first mention’d hill as I thought it quite tremendous. We came a short journey this day, only 17½ miles. There is a very beautiful old castle here which we walk’d out to see. Fortescue felt fatigued so we dined early, and will soon go to rest for this night.’

24 October 1797
‘Llangollen. A fine day. We breakfasted at eight o’clock this morn’g at Conway and arrived here at past six this eve’g. We came about forty six miles, about Llanwrst is wonderfully beautifull & hilly. We only pass’d thro’ it & had a superb view along the road for about six or seven miles, then it was excessive ugly to Kernioge. Between that & Corwen there was some parts beautifull and a most wonderfull high bridge & a tremendous hill. From Corwen to this place was truly beautifull, the road ran mostly along the banks of the Dee, and some places look’d quite dangerous as the bank was nearly perpendicular and above 200 feet above the river. Here we are to sleep & have dined. I like the Welsh ale. It threatens to rain this night heavy.’

25 October 1797
‘Shrewsbury. We left Llangollen at half past eight this morn’g & a very wet one it was. We got to Oswestry to breakfast at eleven. Between Llangollen and Oswestry there is a fine place of Mr Middletons Chirk Castle ’tis called & a very nice town just near it call’d Chirk. We pass’d two acqueducts & great canal works & had a view of the River Dee about half way, ’twas altogether excessively pretty. We left Oswestry a little past twelve & arrived here before four o’clock. We pass’d a beautifull rock at Nescliff, there were only a few cabins near it. We have only travell’d thirty miles this day. Fortescue complains of being a little tired. We have dined & are to sleep here.’

26 October 1797
‘Kidderminster. We left Shrewsbury at a quarter past eight, Fortescue not very well. The road from it to Cole brook dale is quite beautifull. It was so foggy a morning that we could not see much of Shrewsbury. It soon clear’d up & was very fine. There is a new iron bridge only about one month finish’d within a mile of Cole brook dale. It is amazelingly light looking, only one arch, it is pannell’d. The old one is very curious & handsome. Altogether ’tis a delightfull place. A vast quantity of wood along the road at one side & at t’other a river. We breakfasted at C.B. dale & left it a little after eleven. There is a tremendous hill just after passing the bridge & on top of it there are great iron works & coal pits. The next place we came to was Bridge North, it is a large town & an old castle leaning quite crooked, it suffer’d by Oliver Cromwell. We left that at two and arrived here at half past four. It is a very good looking town and a carpet manufacture carried on in imitation of Turkey. Here we dined & are to sleep. The bells have been ringing all the eve’g.’

27 October 1797
‘Gloucester. We left Kidderminster early this morn’g. It was very foggy but grew very fine before we got to Worcester. We were very much entertain’d walking about & looking at the china manufacture which is amazingly curious. We saw all the different processes & were much delighted with it - and the town is a very nice one. We saw some of the most beautifull china I ever beheld, one dinner sett came to 900 gs. We went into the Town Hall which is a great old building with pictures of kings & queens. We pass’d three hours in seeing all that & eating breakfast. We left that at half past one & drove to Tukesbury in a very short time. It seem’d a large town but made no delay there and only changed horses & came on here. There is an exceeding curious looking old church which we perceived out of the bed room window. We are to sleep here & have dined, we had stew’d lampreys, stakes & chops, the first mention’d dish has made me very sick.’

28 October 1797
‘Bath. We left Glocester this (very charming) morn’g a little after eight. We breakfasted at Rodboro’ at ten, it is a delightfull place, the country quite beautifull. There is a great manufacture carried on there of cloth & casimere, it look’d gay as possible & every soul seem’d busy. Nailsworth a place just near it is also delightfull. We left that before eleven and drove to Petty France which seem’d a poor little ugly place. The Duke of Beauforts Demesne just joins it, what we coud see of that over the wall appear’d handsome & grand plantations. We got chaises there and arrived here at half past three, we have eat our dinner at the White Lyon in Market Place. Fortescue consulted little Spry, he advised him to see Doctr Fraser. We intend sleeping here.’

29 October 1797
‘This has been a terrible wet day. Doctr Fraser was here, Fortescue has got a cough which he (Fraser) says will prevent his beginning the waters as soon as he otherways woud. We dined hearty & thank God are except him all well. No lodgings yet fix’d on so we are to pass this night here.’

6 November 1797
‘Fortescue has had no sympton this day of gout, however he seems a little better. He sat up till nine, but has not eat any meat these three or four days past. Matt seems still a little feverish. Anna & I are pretty well. We quit our lodgings in Argyle Buildings at about two o’clock this day & came to No. 7 Milsom Street & are very comfortably fix’d. Fanny dined with us: this day has been very fine. Fortescue went at one to the Pump Room in a chair & took a glass of water.’

9 November 1797
‘Fortescue is this day infinitely better, he got up early, so did I and walk’d to the Pump Room. There were not many there tho’ an uncommon fine day. He drank a glass of water & we were home at half past nine to breakfast. He has eat much heartier & I am in great hopes he is now in a fair way of recovering. He dined at home. J.F. & I dined at Mrs Fosters, there were just eight of us at dinner & about thirty came to cards in the eve’g. Jack came home to Fortescue before nine. I did not untill ten o’clock.’

10 November 1797
‘This has been a delightfull day. Fortescue is amazing well, he went before breakfast for his glass of water, eat his breakfast hearty after. Fanny call’d on me to walk. We all set out together, he & Jack went to market. Fanny & I to divert ourselves. We walk’d for a long time & went thro’ the Abbey Church which I liked very much. We dined before four. Fanny stay’d with us.’

13 November 1797
‘Nothing new this day. Fortescue certainly has got the gout in his foot, he has been in a good deal of pain. He went before breakfast to the Pumps in a chair & again at one o’clock. It has been a fine sunny day. it did not however tempt me out. The children & I are pretty well. I finish’d the Man of Destiny.’

16 November 1797
‘Fortescue vastly better this day but not quite free from gout, however no headache. It has rain’d & is a dirty day. I work’d & read all the morning & finish’d a long letter to my mother. & also finish’d Bridon’s Tour & was much entertain’d.’

25 December 1797
‘This has been a fine day but a great fog in the morning. I went to the Abbey Church & came home directly after. Fortescue has felt this day as if he had got cold, my head is not quite well yet. I got a letter from Eliza.’

30 December 1797
‘Another very Fine day. I have been idleing about all this day also, my cold still bad so did not stir this eve’g. Fortescue & the children are very well.’


The Diary Junction

A Highland diarist in Ireland

‘Christmas day. What a pity - I forgot teetotalism when I mixed the puddings, and not one of the outside men would taste them. Now when those unruly people have such self-command where they think it a sin to yield to temptation, is it not plain that properly educated they would be a fine and a moral race, almost equally plain that those thousand crimes they do commit they have not been taught to consider sins.’ This is from the delightful, but opinionated, diary of Elizabeth Smith, born, in Scotland, 120 years ago today. She moved with her Irish husband to manage and improve his landed estate in County Wicklow, and her diaries are considered literary but also important for what they reveal of Ireland’s social history before and after the potato famine in the mid-19th century.

Elizabeth Grant was born on 7 May 1797 in Edinburgh to Sir Peter Grant, a lawyer and MP, and his wife, Jane. Her childhood was spent mostly at the family estate of Rothiemurchus, Strathspey, and in London, with her education provided by governesses and tutors. In her mid-20s, she was writing, and earning money from, stories for magazines such as Fraser’s and for The Inspector: a Weekly Dramatic Paper. However, her father fell into debt and, in 1827, took his family to India where he had managed to secure himself a position as a judge in Bombay. While in India, in 1829, Elizabeth married the Irishman, Henry Smith. When he inherited a neglected estate, Baltiboys, in County Wicklow, they went to Ireland, to rebuild the house and develop the farms.

Elizabeth raised three children, and actively helped to manage and improve the estate. She also continued to supplement the family income by writing. She died in 1885. Her memoir of years spent in Scotland was edited and abridged by her niece, Lady Strachey, and first published, by John Murray, in 1897 as Memoirs of a Highland Lady. This has been reprinted many times over the years, and is freely available online at Corpus of Scottish Writing (1898 edition) and Internet Archive (1911 edition). There is much less information readily available about her married life and time in Ireland, but see Wikipedia, Am Baile, Highland history and culture, the Rothiemurchus website, or the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (log-in required).

From around 1840, Smith kept a diary, which she hoped would provide guidance and instruction for her children. Although she kept the diary until her death, the entries during the 1840s are considered particularly complete and informative. In 1980, the Clarendon Press published The Irish journals of Elizabeth Smith, 1840-1850: a selection, as edited by David Thomson with Moyra McGusty. Then, in 1991, Canongate Classics brought out a more complete edition of the diaries, under the title The Highland Lady in Ireland: Journals 1840-50 edited by Patricia Pelly (a great great granddaughter of the diarist) and Andrew Tod. This edition, however, omits the years from 1843 to 1845 when, in response to the Irish famine, the family moved to Paris. The publisher claims, ‘[Smith’s] sharp observations of all classes of society however, from corrupt landowners to the poor and often dissolute farm-workers, make this book a memorable and important chronicle of her times and a unique contribution to the social history of Ireland.’

According to Andrew Tod’s introduction, the diaries add to ‘the Highland lady’s reputation as an extremely distinguished diarist’, but also significantly help revise the historical picture of Irish landlordism, and give (after the family’s return from France) a day-to-day account of how the eastern part of Ireland coped with the challenges of the potato blight. Some pages of The Highland Lady in Ireland: Journals 1840-50, including the introduction, can be read online at Googlebooks. An excellent review of the diaries by Janet K. TeBrake can also be read at History Ireland.

Here are several extracts from Elizabeth Smith’s diaries.

6 February 1840
‘Very fine hunting morning, bright but cold. Had cold luncheon ready in the hall for the hunters, no one called in but the Doctor who made a good dinner and gave Janey and me a Latin lesson, and told us Lady Milltown was not well, complaining of no one ever calling on her, out of spirits. Her Lord complaining that she never dresses till near dinner-time, an idle slovenly habit she learned in France, never stirs out, she that used to be so active, he don’t know on earth what to do with her; so it must be for she has no pursuit. With that beautiful house [Russborough] full of the choicest works of art she has no pleasure in it but to see it now and then dusted, her fine family of children are no resource to her. She is incapable of assisting in their education. No reader, beyond a novel which only wearies the spirits, no worker.

And here let me remind you, dear little girls, of an old saying of dear Grandmama’s that a woman who had not pleasure in her needle was never happy, and very seldom good, it may sound a little forced but it is nevertheless perfectly true. A woman has so many solitary hours. Reading through all would be very far from profitable to her, a scientifick pursuit or a devotion to some particular art would withdraw her attention too much from these numberless little duties upon which the happiness of all around her depends.

Besides this want of occupation poor Lady Milltown has had the misfortune to yield to a vile, irritable, jealous, malicious temper which has alienated every friend, and of what avail to her is all her wit and her talent and her rank of which she is so vain now that she is getting old? The spirits that once carried her through are deserting her and she has nothing to replace them with, no one loves her, not even her children, I can’t excuse her failings though I make every allowance for her entire want of education, her early marriage to a profligate man, her later marriage to an unprincipled one, for she knows the right way, and won’t pursue it.’

9 July 1840
‘Your father says, dear children, that I shall quite frighten you into fancying your mother had been in her youth a monster of wickedness from the severity with which in mature age I have censured the follies and the flippancies of girlhood, for my indiscretions amounted to no more serious crime, bad enough. What can be more odious than a pert flirting girl, often betrayed by her giddiness into little better than a jilt. First of all inconsiderately entangled herself, then without reflecting on her duty to him whose whole object she had become or on her own feelings towards him, or on his character, or on the reasons urged against him; was easily frightened into giving him up, and weakly led to act a heartless part in affecting levity very ill timed and God knows very unlike the reality. The whole tale was melancholy, none acted rightly and each I believe suffered for it. Let it rest with the Dead.’

24 October 1840
‘The Doctor was quite agitated yesterday in telling us of a most shocking piece of negligence - worse - neglect of positive duty in our Vicar and Curate. A girl thirteen years of age, for whom they are receiving an annuity from the County, allowed to live among papists, unacquainted with the nature of an oath, remembered two years ago to have said some prayers, etc. This shocks him and others because it came before them in a Court of Justice, where her testimony could not be received by the magistrates on account of her ignorance; but I could rake up fifty such cases or such like, where the total inattention of our clergy is every day increasing evils that a generation of better care will not eradicate. And people wonder that the reformed religion does not spread here. I wonder it is tolerated - it seems to fail to produce even in gentlemen an idea of their duty. What effect can it have on the poor. Mr. Moore is greatly more culpable than Mr. Foster - he knows his duty, which the other poor creature really does not - poor Ireland!’

25 December 1840
‘Christmas day. What a pity - I forgot teetotalism when I mixed the puddings, and not one of the outside men would taste them. Now when those unruly people have such self-command where they think it a sin to yield to temptation, is it not plain that properly educated they would be a fine and a moral race, almost equally plain that those thousand crimes they do commit they have not been taught to consider sins.’

1 April 1841
‘Mr. Murray is to be buried to-morrow, there is no idea who will be the new agent, Lord Downshire not being a man of any attachments except to his purse. Tom Murray heard he meant merely to keep a common bailiff here at an inferiour salary. Ogle Moore has written to ask for the house. Will it be given? Will Mrs. Moore like coming in to play parson’s wife in the village so many miles farther from the gaieties of Dublin and nearer to clerical duties.’

The Diary Junction

The Irish Difficulty

William Joseph O’Neill Daunt, a staunch follower of Daniel O’Connell, the so-called Liberator, who advocated repeal of the union with Great Britain, was born 210 years ago today. Although a modest, somewhat reclusive man, ‘too scrupulous to be a successful politician’, he did make a significant contribution to the home rule movement and towards disestablishment of the Irish church. His diaries - kept through four decades - show a lively and literary mind, perhaps more content writing letters to newspapers in his later years, than as an activist.

William Joseph O’Neill Daunt was born in Tullamore, King’s County (now Offaly County) on 28 April 1807, the son of Joseph Daunt and Jane Wilson. In 1828, he broke with his family to convert to Catholicism. A protégé of Daniel O’Connell, he was a Member of Parliament for Mallow between 1832 and 1833, but was unseated by a petition. He was a charter member of the Repeal Association, set up by O’Connell, for a repeal of the Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland. In 1839, he married Ellen Hickey, and they had two children. They lived at Kilcascan, Ballineer, County Cork.

In 1841-1842, Daunt was O’Connell’s secretary while the latter was lord mayor of Dublin. He collaborated with others to found the Irish weekly nationalist newspaper, Nation, and occasionally contributed to it, though later he distanced himself from it and the radical Young Ireland movement. After O’Connell’s death, Daunt retired from politics. However, in the mid-1850s, he helped to found the Irish church disestablishment movement, and campaigned regularly through to 1869 when the Disestablishment Act became law. He also supported Home Rule, which he viewed as the best likely outcome for Ireland short of full repeal of the union. Daunt died in 1894. Further brief biographical details can be found at The Peerage and Ricorso.

In his entry on Daunt for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (log-in required), D. M. Cregier, concludes: ‘Too introverted and reclusive, and possibly too scrupulous to be a successful politician, Daunt was nevertheless important as a link between the repeal and home-rule movements, and as an observer and chronicler of Irish nationalist politics for over sixty years. His unpublished journals and letters to scores of correspondents, as well as his many published works, are major historical sources, significant for their factual accuracy and broadmindedness.’

Daunt wrote several books on Irish politics and history (as well as a few novels under the pseudonym Denis Ignatius Moriarty). His Essays on Ireland (1888), freely available at Internet Archive, includes an essay entitled The Irish Difficulty. Here’s a sample: ‘For eighty-five years we have been subjected to English legislation, a length of time sufficient to test the effect on Ireland of the legislative union; and at the end of that long period we find our country disturbed by conspiracies; great portions of its revenue, public and private, exported to England; its inhabitants divided into hostile classes; whole districts swept by occasional famines; bitter discontent developing into  horrible crimes; manufacturing industry brought so low, that only about 80,000 persons in a population that still amounts to 5,000,000 are engaged in it; multitudes flying to America in pursuit of that prosperity which at home they have failed to acquire beneath the rule of an alien legislature, and bearing with them into exile deep and ineradicable hatred of the system that has stripped their native land of the means God had given for their support.’

Two years after Daunt’s death, in 1896, his daughter, Alice, edited selections from his diaries (40 years worth) which were published by T. Fisher Unwin (London) as A Life Spent for Ireland: Being Selections from the Journals of the late W. J. O’Neill Daunt. Alice writes in her introduction: ‘Mr Daunt’s character stands pretty well revealed through the pages of his diary. He was upright and honourable, unalterably true to his political and religious principles, and to his private friendships. His simplicity was that of a child; he could scarcely be brought to believe evil of anyone, without at least overwhelming proofs. His estimation of himself was a very humble one, and therefore he was quite free from those petty jealousies and spites that sometimes disfigure the career of public men. His urbanity and gentleness were charming, his sweetness of character and manner increasing the more helpless, physically, he grew. Latterly he became very lame and feeble, and moved with difficulty, although he came downstairs daily about two o’clock. The end came very unexpectedly.’

Here are some extracts from Daunt’s A Life Spent for Ireland.

29 March 1847
‘In the midst of sharp privations of various kinds, I this day rode to Clonakilty to borrow money at the bank to pay the tithes to the Protestant minister. I have sometimes dined on Indian meal porridge and sheep’s milk, sometimes on a pennyworth of rice, and gone supperless to bed. Of this I do not complain, for it is caused by a visitation of Providence. But of the Established Church I do complain, for it is the visitation of England, not of Providence. . .’

31 January 1851
‘For a fortnight nothing has occurred to diversity the monotony of existence. Planting, thinning, and pruning as usual, and teaching my daughter to read, spell, etc.

2 February 1858
‘Bought a horse . . . from Curly Crowley for £18. He told me he could have got £2 more from a sporting gentleman in our neighbourhood. “You would have got his promise,” said I, “but you know he is not the best pay.” “Och, I wouldn’t care for that,” returned Crowley, “for he couldn’t keep me out of the money beyond the next quarter sessions, and the cost of the process would be only five shillings.” There was something very ‘Irish’ in this notion of selling a horse on the security of a lawsuit with the purchaser. . .’

17 February 1858
‘Visit from C_, who seems to have found the fairy cap. Recently a hamper of wine was sent to him by an anonymous donor, and a friend, who is not a relation, has written to offer him the gift of a large sum of money. . .  He tells me that when his brother was appointed rector of D_, Father Creedon, whom the previous rector had tormented with souperism, asked him to abstain from interference with the Catholics. His reverence answered, “I’ll get every man of them to come to my church if I can; but I won’t give them so much as a potato for coming.” Creedon was quite satisfied with this, well knowing that, bribery apart, there would be no conversions.’

25 July 1859
‘My pugnacious youngster came in to-day with his face streaming blood from a blow of a stone near the eye. . . It was almost impossible to get him to tell who hit him. “It is done now,” said he, “and what does it matter who did it?” He took the matter very philosophically, saying that “in our course through life we must expect to meet accidents.” . . .’

3 September 1859
‘Letter from Scott, who tells a story of Father Strickland, S.J., recently returned from India, where he learned to wear a long beard kept trimmed to a point. While preaching a few days since in Sligo, he observed that an old woman was greatly affected, and shed tears. He ascribed her emotion to his sermon, and seeing that she still retained her place when the congregation had dispersed, he went to her and . . . inquired the cause of her tears. She looked up wistfully at his beard, and sobbed out, “Och, it’s bekaise your riverence reminds me powerful of my poor ould goat that died last week.” Father Strickland came away more amused than flattered.’

26 September 1859
‘Arthur O’Connor came here. It seems that his Uncle Feargus made a will leaving Arthur everything he had. The legatee is slightly puzzled to discover whether everything means anything or nothing. I incline to the latter interpretation. . . When I was about six or seven years old, a certain countess, whom my mother took me to visit, pronounced me to be “a handsome boy with a bad countenance.” I do not name her ladyship, who was said to have scared Lord C_ into marrying her, by threatening to stab herself in the event of his refusing to accompany her into Hymen’s temple. She was a very clever woman . . . could be very captivating and very disagreeable. In old age she still clung to the vanities of youth. I have seen her, when more than fourscore, with a bare neck, an enormous sable wig, curled into multitudinous ringlets, and surmounted by a fantastic little pink satin hat, that contrasted strongly with her old, withered, wrinkled, toothless, haggard visage. . .’

3 August 1864
‘Returned home. . .  Found a card of invitation to the banquet to come off in the Rotundo on the 8th inst., on the occasion of laying the foundation stone of the O’Connell monument. . . I am pledged to attend the contemplated Repeal meeting whenever it is held, and one political trip to Dublin will be quite enough for me just now.’

9 August 1864
‘Letter from John Martin, asking permission to nominate me one of the Repeal Directory of five. . .’

8 September 1864
‘The Times not having printed my recent letter on the Viceroyalty and the State Church, Mr Carvell Williams sent a copy of it to the Morning Star, in last Thursday’s issue of which it occupies a prominent place.’

9 September 1864
‘The Times has printed my letter, though somewhat of the latest. . .

10 September 1864
‘Letter from the Archbishop of Cashel warmly congratulating me on my letter. . .’

30 September 1864
‘The Times has published four letters of mine. The last was in reply to a Mr W. J. Lawson, who attacked some of my statements on Irish finance and its mismanagement. . .’

24 October 1864
‘The stir we have made about Irish fiscal wrongs has compelled the Government to issue a tract in self-defence. This is a report to the Viceroy by Dr Neilson Hancock on the public accounts between Great Britain and Ireland, and it is precisely such a combination of balderdash, falsehood and impudence as might have been expected, reply. . .’

24 January 1886
‘Letter from Lady F. Dixie, announcing the gracious reception by the Prince of Wales of my article on The Irish Difficulty.’

30 January 1886
‘Parnell and his party have turned out the Tory Government. . .’

16 February 1886
‘Accompanied my son to Dunmanway, where he, as a magistrate, had to register claims to vote for Poor Law Guardians. One of the claimants was a fine old relic of the last century, aged 97; he remembers the French fleet in Bantry Bay. . .’

12 April 1886
‘On the 8th Gladstone made his speech, introducing the measure of Home Rule for Ireland; a speech of splendid eloquence. It occupied three hours and twenty-five minutes. He deserves gratitude for this attempt to solve the old international quarrel. . .’

I know my own death

‘I feel that I know my own death, and have known it tor a long time. I feel that I died long ago, the same death I shall die later on. When I think of my own death, I do not think of something that has yet to happen, but of something that happened long ago but was forgotten. When I am of this mind, it seems to me that my death is what is most me. I think it is much more me than all the rest of my life.’ This is from the diaries of Seán Ó Ríordáin, born a 100 years ago today, who is one of most important of  Irish-language poets. Although he kept diaries for much of his life, few extracts have ever appeared in English.

Ó Ríordáin was born in Ballyvourney, County Cork, on 3 December 1916. When he was only 10, his father died of tuberculosis, a disease that he would also contract as a young man, and leave him with chronic poor health. His family moved to Cork city, where he and his brothers were sent to a Christian Brothers school. From 1936, he worked in the motor taxation office, remaining there until he took early retirement in 1965. During the latter years of his life, he wrote a column in The Irish Times, commenting strongly on national affairs, and lectured at University College Dublin. He died in 1977. Further biographical information can be found at Wikipedia, Transcript Review or Cork Institute of Technology.

But, it is for his poetry in the Irish language that Ó Ríordáin is remembered. He only published four collections in his lifetime, roughly one every decade. According to Transcript Review: ‘His writing is the product of patient distillation, and as a result is resonant and potent. [He] forged a personal idiom unlike that of any other Gaelic writer. It is an idiom made of key-words representing key-ideas, innovative compounds, and bombastic adjectives coined by the poet. His telling vocabulary is coupled with clarity of syntax.’

Ó Ríordáin was also a diarist for much of his life. A few excerpts from his journals have appeared in Irish-language publications - in the Irish-Language literary journal Comhar, and in Seán Ó Coileáin’s 2011 biography. More recently, the Irish-language publisher Cló Iar-Chonnacht has brought out Anamlón Bliana: Ó Dhialanna an Ríordánaigh, an anthology of 365 entries from Ó Ríordáin diaries, as collated by Tadhg Ó Dúshláine, one for each day of the year. ‘Together,’ the publisher says, ‘they provide a unique insight into the tortured mind of the poet, from 1940 when he first began to write in his diary.’

According to Róisín Ní Ghairbhí writing in The Irish Times, ‘The Ó Ríordáin of the diaries is precocious, erudite and articulate, and these excerpts are a fascinating insight into the troubled mind of a poet.’ She goes on: ‘The diary excerpts reveal a man with a mystic’s mind, a scholar’s passion and a generous cosmopolitan outlook. The raw intimacy of some of the writing is unsettling; elsewhere the reader will laugh out loud at Ó Ríordáin’s self-deprecation. His dim view of Irish bishops (he deems them Pharisees), his irreverent humour (he compares his suffering to that of Jesus, who at least, he says, had the consolation of wine and Mary Magdalene) and his repeated crises of faith remind us that he had a rebellious streak, which, although often overlooked since, was a great inspiration to the next generation of writers in Irish.’

The only extracts from Ó Ríordáin’s diaries that I have been able to find in English were published nearly 20 years go in The Diaries of Ireland: An Anthology 1590-1987 (The Lilliput Press, 1998) edited by Melosina Lenox-Conyngham. Here are several extracts.

11 August 1964
‘I have just returned from a funeral. A Protestant who died yesterday was being taken to the church at seven this evening. I went into this church for the first time and felt a strong sense of eeriness. I stood at the door and looked in. A small chapel was visible. The congregation was standing, its back to me, facing the altar. It was divided in two, a path in the middle. The altar and the minister could be seen at the end of the path. ‘Holy - Holy - Holy’ was written on the altar cloth. The place had the appearance of poverty, although the building seems ostentatious from the outside. The coffin was at the foot of the altar. I must confess that I was deeply moved, that is to say that every part of my mind was moved and renewed, and every moment of my life back to the days of my youth, and I might even say that I felt the hundreds of years between me and the Reformation slipping away when I looked into that holy place this evening. It was as though I had opened a door in my own soul that I had not had the courage to open until now. That was the strangest thing of all: that it seemed to me that I was looking at something which concerned me closely but that I had neglected, and I felt guilty. It was though I had visited relatives with whom my own family had long been at odds, people whom we had denied and avoided, and suddenly a hidden part of my own heritage was revealed to me. I found it difficult to satisfy my eyes. If allowed, I would have remained till midnight, peering about. There before me was Protestantism within which I hitherto had seen only from without. These are the people whose faith and way of life and destiny I had thought was to remain outside. This evening I saw them inside - inside though still outside. I felt that here was spiritual shelter. Although they had separated from the larger flock at the time of the Reformation, observe the heed they paid to the altar, to the altar cloth, to the priest’s vestments, to the rail, to the chapel itself, and observe how they had preserved these and other things. Who would claim that they did not preserve something of faith and sanctity and efficacy? Who would claim that their prayers are not heard?

I have long known a man of this congregation, but I never saw him pray to God until today. I looked on his back and on his grey hair and felt guilty. Why guilty? Because, I suppose, this thing has been happening among us for ages and we closed our eyes firmly to it. I felt also that I had been here before, although I had not. There is a part of Ireland and a part of the Church and a part of me here that exists nowhere else. Simple and not so simple people have been worshipping God, in this way, in this kind of church, for hundreds of years. Behind this worship is one great historical deed: the rejection of the Pope’s authority. It took great courage to risk damnation, but it required even greater faith to believe in the teaching of this severed Church. What a thing a great deed is, be it right or wrong! To do is to live! Think of the suffering, the love, the hate, the bloodshed, the philosophy, the history that followed this deed. All this activity must have contributed greatly to the light of truth.’

1 August 1963
‘I feel that I know my own death, and have known it tor a long time. I feel that I died long ago, the same death I shall die later on. When I think of my own death, I do not think of something that has yet to happen, but of something that happened long ago but was forgotten. When I am of this mind, it seems to me that my death is what is most me. I think it is much more me than all the rest of my life.

Like everyone else, I am a rich man for I have death in the bank. I cannot be drawn upon, however; death cannot he spent until it has matured. Death is land that cannot he sold or tied up in money, and we must live our life without it. We are often impoverished, without as much as a penny to spend, despite all this wealth we have stored up.’

2 June 1964
‘I saw a fat, ugly, middle-aged woman the other night. She is long married. Where is the snow that was so bright last year? I remember when she was a vision, when I thought I was in love with her. There was no beauty or contentment in the world then but what could he found in her. Now I wouldn’t care if she didn’t exist. She is a fat, ugly, old woman. Other, younger women, now hold the sway that she once held. This is an old story - the departure of youth and beauty. But it is even worse when they don’t depart but still remain, and we continue to crave them. People matter not a whit. They come and they go. But youth and beauty are eternal, and however old we may be they remain our constant goal. It was always people between twenty and twenty-five that Marcus Aurelius saw on the Appian Way. That is enough to break one’s heart.’

21 March 1974
‘I have been grasping for breath today and yesterday. Perhaps death is near. It doesn’t bother me in the least. I remember a fine, sunny day long ago in Clondrohid. I lived in Ballyvourney at the time, and cannot have been yet fifteen. I think my aunt Kathleen (now dead) was there. I don’t remember who else, but there were many. I got a spin in a large motor car that had no roof. The world was very airy. It is only a memory. Everyone is dead.’

The Diary Junction

Lord and Lady Cavendish

Frederick Charles Cavendish, an English politician and protege of William Gladstone, was born 180 years ago today. He was brutally murdered in Dublin, hours after being appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland. He was only 45. His wife, Lucy Lyttelton, was a niece of Gladstone, and, briefly, served as a Maid of Honour to Queen Victoria. She kept a detailed diary from the age of 13 until the death of her husband, and, naturally, there is much about Lord Cavendish in its pages. A fan of Lucy’s - Denise H who describes herself as an Anglophile in Minnesota - has made the diary freely available online, along with an excellent index.

Cavendish was born on 30 November 1836 at Compton House, a stately home, in Eastbourne, England, the second son of the 7th Duke of Cavendish. He was educated at home and then at Trinity College, Cambridge. He served as a cornet in the Duke of Lancaster’s Own Yeomanry Cavalry, before taking a post as private secretary to Lord Granville, who was then Lord President of the Council. He remained in that position from 1859 to 1864. In 1864, he married Lucy Caroline Lyttelton, the second daughter of the 4th Baron Lyttelton, and a niece of William Gladstone’s wife. They would have no children.

In 1865, Cavendish was elected to parliament as a Liberal MP for the Northern Division of the West Riding of Yorkshire. After serving as Gladstone’s private secretary, from July 1872 to August 1873, he became a junior lord of the Treasury until the 1874 election brought the Tories back into power. With Gladstone again PM in 1880, Cavendish was appointed financial secretary to the Treasury, until 1882 when he was offered, and accepted, the post of Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland (nominally subordinate to the Lord-Lieutenant but effectively government minister in charge of Ireland). He travelled with the Lord-Lieutenant, Earl Spencer, to Dublin on 6 May. Later that same day, he was walking in Phoenix Park with Thomas Henry Burke, the Permanent Under-Secretary, and they were both murdered by Irish nationalists. Subsequently, during the trial of the murderers, it was established that the plot had been against Burke, and that Cavendish was only killed because he was in Burke’s company.

After her husband’s death, Lucy became an increasingly active campaigner for girls’ and women’s education. She was a member of the royal commission on education in 1894 (one of the first women to serve on a royal commission); and she was a long-serving president of the Yorkshire Ladies’ Council of Education (1885-1912). In 1904 she was awarded an honorary degree (Doctor of Laws) at the formal inauguration of Leeds University for ‘notable service to the cause of education’. She died in 1925, but was not forgotten - in 1965, Cambridge University named its first postgraduate college for women after her. Further information can be found at Wikipedia (Lord Cavendish, Lady Cavendish) or the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (log-in required, free with UK library card).

Lady Cavendish was an assiduous diarist for the first part of her life, from the age of 13 until the death of her husband. Her diaries were edited by John Bailey (her brother-in-law) and published by John Murray in 1927 as The Diary of Lady Frederick Cavendish. The diary is used as a major resource by Andrea Geddes Poole in her recent book Philanthropy and the Construction of Victorian Women’s Citizenship: Lady Frederick Cavendish and Miss Emma Cons (parts of this can be read online at Googlebooks). Also, a review of the published diary can be read in a 1927 edition of The Spectator.

The diaries, as published, however are all freely available online - at the Lady Lucy Cavendish Diary Blog - thanks to a shy lady, Denise H, who describes herself at ‘just an Anglophile in Minnesota’. The diary records, Denise says, ‘an exciting whirl of the best upper class life of the time both in town and in the country. From crowded London dinner parties to extended stays at the most famous British country manors (Chatsworth, Holker), to travels to the continent and the West Indies, her diary records a life that Anthony Trollope could only imagine.’ Apart from a full index of Lady Cavendish’s diary by date, Denise has also indexed the entries by topics and names. Her site also includes the editor’s introductions to each of the various diary volumes.

Here are several extracts from Lady Cavendish’s diary chosen because they shed light on the life of Lord Cavendish (F. or Fred.). The first includes her mention of her future husband, and another concerns her wedding day; Uncle W, being Gladstone, also appears in these extracts. (FN in square brackets indicate Bailey’s footnotes as inserted into the text by Denise.)

20 November 1862
‘A notable day; I came to Chatsworth chaperoned by At. Y. and Tallee, in default of Papa, who is too busy commissioning, besides he told me he had a romance abt Chatsworth, and wanted to see it in lovely weather, never having been here since ‘39. It is most delightful being again with my Tallee, and we have managed already a quiet sit and a spell of capping verses! I can’t judge of the house yet, only it seems immeasurable. We find the Duke of Devonshire, Ly. Louisa, and Ld. Frederic Cavendish, [FN: This is the first mention of her future husband.] Ld. and Ly. George Cavendish and daughter, Ld. and Ly. Fanny Howard and daughters, Mr. Charles Clifford, Mr. Vyner, etc., all family I fancy. Round game, at which I won 4s.’

11 March 1871
‘My precious Fred sent me a full account [FN: There had been a fire at Holker.]. Something in his dressing-room chimney did the mischief, but he suspected nothing till he was woke about 5 by a loud crash, and looking into the dressing-room, was driven back by suffocating hot smoke. He groped as fast as he could (no possibility of putting any clothes on!) to the other wing, alarmed the house, and set everyone to work saving pictures and books from the rooms below. The Duke and Uncle Richard worked hard, but when F. came down again from an expedition (commanded by the Duke in the advancing dawn!) to get on some borrowed clothes, the drawing-room and library were ungetatable, and alas some good pictures were lost: the Vernet (calm sea), the large Ruysdael, the Van der Cappelle, the Canaletto, and the S. Christopher by either Memling or Albert Dürer; engines came one after another and were efficacious in preventing the fire spreading to the old wing, which however was hardly to be averted except by the providential change of wind at the critical moment when the very doors of communication between the 2 wings were burnt. All is utter ruin of the new wing.’

2 February 1874
‘The meeting was in the Keighley Mechanics’ Institute, at 8. The fine big hall was crammed in every corner. F. spoke with rather less effect than at Halifax, confining himself almost entirely to finance, but the people listened famously well, and I enjoyed the sight of their keen, shrewd faces. At first there were symptoms of opposition, from Tory, extreme Radical, and Republican (! ! !) sections, but all this seemed to dwindle away. My proudest time was during the questions, in which my old Fred does certainly excel. He is thoroughly up upon all the subjects and one could see growing respect and confidence in the faces below. Jolly old Mr. Wilson followed suit with unbounded good-will and pluck, but not quite with all the knowledge of the various matters one could wish; occasionally taking wild Radical flights, occasionally coming out rather old Tory than otherwise; but always with straightforwardness and bonhomie. What with F.’s profound earnestness and his humorous hitting, they are a good deal like Tragedy and Comedy. The meeting ended with splendid enthusiasm, and was all but unanimous, barely 6 hands being held up against us.’

7 June 1864
‘Our wedding day. I cannot write about it. I can only look backwards with loving regret, and forward with bright but trembling hope. We were married in Westminster Abbey, by Uncle Billy, and came here [FN: The Duke of Devonshire’s house at Chiswick in which both Fox and Canning died. It is now the property of the Municipality.] about 4 o’clock, into peaceful summer loveliness and the singing of birds.’

31 January 1881
‘A very notable week of Parliamentary events. The “debate” on leave to bring in the Coercion Bill began afresh on Monday, and the House sat for 41 1/2 hours. The Speaker and Dep. Speaker (Dr. Playfair) relieved each other, and the House divided itself as before into relays. On Tues. night F. was to sit up, and to go to bed at 8 on Wednesday morning the 2nd Feb. Instead of which, when he turned up at that hour, he announced that after some breakfast and a tub he was to go back again, as a coup d’état was decided on. The Speaker had gone on patiently calling the wretches to order over and over again, and about midnight the Tories made a dead set at Dr. Playfair, who had taken the Chair, to “name” one of the lot. He wouldn’t do what the Speaker had declined to do, and a bear-garden ensued. The Front Opposition bench all stalked out of the House, and rest took to shouting. Only poor Mr. Childers was on the Government bench at the time; but after a bit Bright came in and made a good speech which quieted them. Meanwhile F. went off in a cab to Devonshire House and pulled unlucky Hartn. out of bed at 1 when he had just got there and was sound asleep. The rest of the night passed peacefully. Very few even of the Government knew what was planned between the Speaker, Uncle W., and Sir Stafford; but some notion of a decisive step impending must have prevailed, for at 9 a.m. the House was pretty full. I hurried matters at home, but couldn’t omit Prayers for any coup d’état! so that I was just in time at 9.30 to be too late. The Speaker took Playfair’s place at 9, and without sitting down made a stately little speech as to the obstructed condition of things, and proceeded to say that under the exceptional circumstances he should call on no member to speak, but should at once call for the division. Biggar, one of the most offensive of the Irish, like a hunched-back toad to look at, who was comfortably expecting to resume his speech (interrupted by Playfair’s leaving the Chair), was thus left high and dry! and, before any of them could say Jack Robinson, the division was taken and leave given to bring in the Coercion Bill, which was immediately read a 1st time. When I got there, a bit of the business was being got thro’ and then came the announcement that the House do adjourn (for only 2 1/2 hours!), received by a worn-out cassé cheer of joy as the hapless M.P.s rushed out of the House and home to bed. We came across Sir Bow-wow Harcourt and Cavendish by Westminster Hall in high feather, Sir Bow-wow saying that it was the 1st time in history that Cavendish had been known to be in bed at 1, and then he was pulled out of it! F. went to bed, but had to be back by 12. Motions for adjournment went on just as if nothing had happened, and so came 6 with no progress made. Uncle W. then gave notice of Anti-Obstruction Resolutions.’

4 November 1881
‘—F. had talks with Uncle W. about his resignation, which he is very seriously contemplating about Easter, on the strength of having carried out all the great foreign matters of policy that he took office to do. The conversation as I have it from F. was pretty much as follows. Uncle W. began by saying that resigning the Chancellorship of the Exchequer would have the great drawback of in a manner binding him to remain on as P.M. for an indefinite time. His reasons for wishing to give it up altogether he then went into.

(I ought to have put in, after his words about the Exchequer, what he then proceeded to say as to his having been called to office. All the special reasons which justified his taking office were at an end or nearly so: the Berlin treaty carried out, Afghanistan evacuated, Transvaal settled, finance put on a satisfactory footing. Two matters that had since arisen no doubt still required his care - the state of Ireland, and Parliamentary Obstruction; but these were, he trusted, in a hopeful way of being settled.)

Never liked the tone even of Sir Robert Peel, when he used to complain of the severity of public service; which, in his (Uncle W.’s) opinion, was fairly requited and not heavier than duty called for. At the same time, he considered that after 50 years of public service it was not well to be obliged to work with the intensity which office now entailed, nor was it desirable to look forward to end one’s days in the contentions necessarily entailed by the office of P.M. In the next place, his position towards the Queen was intolerable to one who throughout life had reverenced her as a constitutional sovereign, inasmuch as he now had to strive daily with her on the side of liberty as opposed to jingoism. In the 3rd place he said it was only fair to Lord Granville and Hartn., who had led the party thro’ difficult and disagreeable times. F. acknowledged the force of all this, but represented the practical impossibility. While he retained his full powers, the country would not let him resign and nobody else could lead. Uncle W. then suggested temporary abstention on his part as meeting these difficulties; though he acknowledged that a retired Minister was inevitably the centre which attracted all discontent.

Subsequently, he mentioned the House of Lords, but said he thought of that with great reluctance. F. replied that to take a peerage was his only possible course if he was bent on retiring; that the country would otherwise always be turning to him and clamouring for him; that in the H. of Commons he could never occupy a 2nd place. Uncle W. laughed and said, “You have indeed put a serious bar in the way of my retiring.” When he spoke of Ld. Granville, F. said he had heard on good authority (which he did not quote - it was a letter from Lord Acton to Mazy) that Ld. G. meant to retire whenever Uncle W. did. At this he was greatly surprised; but said he did fear Ld. G.’s life was not a good one. He spoke of the effects of old age: said he was constantly reminded of Cobden’s remark about Ld. Palmerston - that with age authority was apt to increase as powers of judgment decreased; and quoted the D. of Wellington as another instance of harm done by old men. Nevertheless he was obliged to confess that he had stood the hard work of the last session without harm, and was in perfect force, and better than he had been. Spoke of a former time when he could not sleep on one side without disquiet and bad dreams - was now quite free from that. He tried to make out that Ireland might be quiet and the regulation of the House all settled by Easter. F. thinks there is hardly any chance of this. Within this very week he has given F. to read an able and exhaustive paper (such as might furnish matter for a 3 hours’ speech) on Local Government for the guidance of Mr. Dodson. How could this be launched and then left to others? (F., however, has learnt since that it is to be laid before a special Committee on which Uncle W. will not sit.) The talk ended by his saying he would consult Lord Granville.

The impression F. gathered from the whole conversation was that the thought of retirement was not so much prompted by the personal longing for it (tho’ without doubt it is a vision which refreshes and cheers him to turn to) as by conscientious scruples with regard to Ld. G. and Hartn., and as to his own conviction against old men going on at politics till they drop. He hates making himself the exception. (But N.B. what an exception he is, as a matter of fact!)

The upshot seems to me that he will find it impossible to retire before there is some indication of serious overstrain in him, either mental or bodily. That otherwise, however he might seclude himself he would remain a great power in the country, such as would necessarily hamper his successors. That the only feasible way, supposing his powers anything like what they are at present, would be by taking a peerage. That, unless he should be in real danger of breaking down, it could not be right for him to leave the helm in the present state of politics; nor can the moment be foreseen when it would be right. I think the hope of being able to retire soon will continue to please him; but that he will find it impossible at any given moment except under the above-mentioned conditions. Taking a peerage and continuing to be P.M. might do; but it could hardly be bearable for him to be P.M. with no power over the H. of C. and in a minority in the H. of Lords.’

The sieges of Limerick

‘This day also the French forces departed for Galway to the great satisfaction not only of the inhabitants, but of all the garrison that remained in town. They remained some time at Galway till ships came to carry them into France, thinking it impossible Limerick should hold out a siege, offering to lay wagers it would be taken in three days.’ This is John Stevens, who died 290 years ago today, writing in a diary about his time as a soldier in Ireland fighting for the Jacobite cause. Although he went on to settle in London and work for many years as a translator (from Spanish and Portuguese) of some distinction, it is his diary, an important primary source about the Jacobite war in Ireland and the sieges of Limerick, for which he is most remembered.

Stevens was born in London, in 1662 or thereabouts, the son of a page to Queen Catherine of Braganza. It is assumed his mother was Spanish. He entered into a military career, and accompanied the Second Earl of Clarendon, when he was made lord lieutenant of Ireland in 1685, to Dublin as one of his gentlemen-at-large. Two years later Stevens was appointed collector of taxes at Welshpool, for an area covering mid-Wales and the borders. As a Catholic and supporter of James II, he was forced to flee after the so-called Glorious Revolution, to France, and then with the Jacobites to Ireland. In Dublin, though penniless, he eventually obtained a commission in Fitzjames’s regiment (James Fitzjames being the illegitimate son of James II) and served in the ensuing Jacobite war in Ireland.

Before long, though, Stevens had taken refuge in Lisbon, Portugal. By 1695, he was back in London, where he settled down to write and make a living translating Portuguese and Spanish texts. Over the next 30 years or so he published over 20 translations, including a revision of Shelton’s version of Don Quixote. He also produced a revised edition of Monasticon Anglicanum, a history of defunct church properties designed to appeal to gentlemen amateurs. From 1712 to 1715, he was editor of the British Mercury. He died on 27 October 1726. Further biographical information can be found at Wikipedia, the out-of-copyright Dictionary of National Biography, or the modern Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (which requires log-in).

Stevens is largely remembered today not so much for the works he published in his own lifetime but for a journal he kept during his military service in Ireland. This was not published until 1912 when Clarendon Press brought out The Journal of John Stevens, containing a brief account of the war in Ireland 1689-1691. The book’s editor, Rev. Robert H. Murray, explains in his long introduction about the diary’s history and its previous use by historians. He also notes that the version he consulted (held by the British Library) was not itself the original journal, kept day by day, but one written up from notes that had been. And although the diary is ‘barren of some personal details’, Murray adds, ‘it is a very human document indeed.’  It is plain, he says, that a scholar like the author did not relish his life as a soldier: ‘He is conscious of the mistakes of his generals, of the loss of promotion, of the lack of pay, of the blisters on his feet, and of the hunger in his stomach.’

Stevens’ journal is considered a major primary source of information about the Jacobite war in Ireland, and, in particular, about the sieges of Limerick. See, for example, And So Began the Irish Nation by Brendan Bradshaw; Jacobite Ireland by J. G. Simms; The Williamite Wars in Ireland by John Childs; or Conquest and Resistance: War in Seventeenth-Century Ireland by Pádraig Lenihan. The journal itself is freely available online at Internet Archive or the CELT website hosted by University College Cork. Here are several extracts.

2 July 1690
‘At break of day those few drums there were beat as formally as if we had been a considerable body, but it was only mere form and we scarce the shadows of regiments, the bodies being dispersed and gone. What was left in dismal manner marched as far as Dublin, where when each commanding officer came to view his strength, shame of marching in such case through the city we not long before had filled with expectation of our actions and hopes of gathering part of the scattered herd caused us to halt in the fields without the town. The colours of each regiment being fixed on eminences that all stragglers might know whither to repair, in the space of near three hours each regiment had gathered a small number, the Grand Prior’s as one of the most considerable being then 100 strong. Thus we marched through the skirts of the city, passing over the river at the Bloody Bridge, which is the farthest off in the suburbs, being now only the remains of four regiments, the others being either quite dispersed or gone other ways, we halted again in a field at Kilmainham, a hamlet adjoining to the city. The general opinion was that we were to encamp in the park till such time as our men came up, and what forces had not been in the rout as also the militia should join us, and then either maintain the city, or, if it were judged expedient, give the enemy battle, which gave occasion to some of our small number to steal away into town thinking they might soon be back with us. But about noon we were all undeceived, the other three regiments having orders to march, and ours only left there without any or knowing whence to expect them. Being thus left by all our lieutenant-colonel marched us away, which we did not hold above a quarter of an hour when we were reduced to only twenty men with the colours. On the road we overtook the Lord Kilmallock’s Regiment, which was untouched, being quartered in Dublin when the defeat at the Boyne. The whole day was a continual series of false alarms, the greatest reached us within two miles of the Naas, where Kilmallock’s officers attempting to draw up their men to line the hedges, the confusion and terror of the soldiers who had never seen the enemy was such they were forced in all haste to march away, It was ridiculous to see the brother of the traitor O’Donnell who had the name of lieutenant-colonel reformed in our regiment, pretend to take authority upon him here, and order us to line the hedges, when at that time our whole strength was but six musketeers, eight pikes, four ensigns, and one lieutenant besides myself, to this was that but the day before hopeful regiment reduced, and yet not one of the number killed, unless they perished who were left drunk when we fled which were four or five. For our comfort no enemy was within twenty miles of us, but fear never thinks itself out of danger. We followed Kilmallock’s men with such speed it had been hard for an enemy to overtake us, and that regiment though till then untouched was in such a consternation that when they came to the Naas they were not 100 strong. Here being quite spent with marching two days without rest or food I used my utmost endeavours to persuade O’Donnell, who as I said pretended to act as lieutenant-colonel, to take up quarters for the few men that were left, to refresh them that night, and be the better able to march next morning, but all in vain. The general infection had seized him and he fancied each minute he stayed was to him time lost and an opportunity given to the enemy to gain ground upon us. Therefore following the dictates of his fear he hasted away commanding all to follow him, but necessity pressing more than his usurped authority, I stayed a while in the town with an ensign who had a lame horse, and having refreshed ourselves with bread and drink which was all the town afforded, we followed both on the same lame creature five miles to Kilcullen Bridge, where we could hear no news of our men, though they lay there that night. So inconsiderable was a regiment grown that it could not be heard of in a town where there are not above twenty or thirty houses and but three good ones. Here we took up for the remaining part of the night in a waste house, and rested the best we could till break of day.’

28 July 1690
‘We continued here. Brigadier Sarsfield marched away with the horse under his command who had quartered in the neighbourhood. At our setting out of Limerick there marched also four pieces of cannon and a body of horse and dragoons, all which took the way of Loughrea for the conveniency of the road which is hard and fit for draught, whereas the way the foot took (as I said before) was unfit for heavy carriages, but being the shorter was judged best for the foot, both for their ease and that they might the sooner relieve Athlone, which was thought to be pressed and in danger and by their coming might be strengthened the better to expect farther relief. But upon the news of the enemies quitting the siege, the foot marched back the easiest though the longest way, and where they could have quarters to refresh them.’

2 August 1690
‘Most of our horse and dragoons, some on the one side of the river some on the other, marched towards Athlone. This day also the French forces departed for Galway to the great satisfaction not only of the inhabitants, but of all the garrison that remained in town. They remained some time at Galway till ships came to carry them into France, thinking it impossible Limerick should hold out a siege, offering to lay wagers it would be taken in three days. Immediately upon their departure His Grace the Duke of Tyrconnel ordered it to be proclaimed that no person should presume to ask above thirty shillings for a pistole, thirty-eight shillings for a guinea and seven and sixpence for a crown in silver, pistoles before being sold for five pounds in brass and silver crowns for thirty or forty shillings. Nay this day the French marched out some of them gave a crown for each silver three-halfpenny piece.’

29 August 1690
‘The enemy’s cannon played as before and enlarged the breach to above forty paces. At the bridge one shot cut both the chains of the drawbridge and did some other damage but not of much moment, because the enemy’s battery had not a full view of it, and their shot came slanting towards one end, yet the passage was very dangerous. The Grand Prior’s detachments were all relieved this afternoon except that where I commanded, which continued in the same place till night, when being relieved we only marched into the street, and having joined the rest of the regiment to the trenches on the south-west side of the town, where we continued all night expecting an attack. The night was extreme cold, dark and rainy and we almost spent for want of rest. For my own particular as appears by this relation I had had none at all for three nights before this and but very little during the whole siege, nor indeed was it possible to have much being upon duty every other day and continually alarmed when we expected to rest. Our cannon and small shot fired the whole night round the walls, and much railing was betwixt our men and the enemies, for we were so closed up on all sides that though the night was stormy we could easily hear one another.’

The Diary Junction