The Conolly Family and Castletown, the first 100 years, 1722-1821
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William Conolly was born in Ballyshannon Co Donegal in 1662, the son of a local innkeeper. From such humble origins, he rose to become the wealthiest most powerful politician in Ireland. The Conolly family were presumably of Catholic Irish background although it is likely they had converted sometime before Williams birth. He trained as an attorney in Dublin, where he practiced law in the 1680s. His career, however only took off following the Williamite war of 1688-91.
In 1689 Catholic James II of England fled to Ireland following the glorious revolution which swept his son in-law William of Orange to power in Britain and Ireland. King William pursued his rival to Ireland, where decisive battles were fought at Derry, the Boyne, Aughrim and Limerick in 1690-1. Conolly proceeded to make the most of the opportunities created by the Williamite victory in Ireland. William of Orange confiscated the lands of James Catholic supporters and it was through dealing in these forfeited estates that Conolly established his fortune. By 1703 he had spent over £10,000 acquiring over 15,000 acres spread across 7 counties. By any standards he had generated an immense fortune in a remarkably short period of time.
Conollys success was however partly based on the advantages of a successful marriage. In 1694 he had married Katherine Conyngham, the daughter of a Williamite hero, Sir Albert Conyngham. Like Conolly she was from Donegal. She was of higher social status and his marriage allied Conolly with many of the leading families in Ulster. In addition to her connections and strong personality, she brought a marriage portion of £2,300 which Conolly promptly invested in forfeited land. Not all of his dealings were based on such legitimate grounds. In 1700 he featured in a singular case, involving impersonation and body-snatching in order to pursue a fraudulent claim for a mortgage worth £12,000, demonstrating the lengths he was prepared to go to secure a favourable deal.
At the same time that Conolly was increasing his private wealth and status, he was emerging as an important public figure. In 1692 he was elected to the Irish Parliament for the town of Donegal. He would remain a member of the Irish House of Commons until 1729. In 1715 upon the accession of King George I, he was appointed Speaker of the House of Commons. As Speaker, Conolly acted as chairman of the House of Commons. His role was not to be impartial, but to act as the chief government representative in the Commons. His growing political influence was rewarded in 1717 when he was appointed one of three Lord Justices who would run the country in the absence of the Viceroy. At a time when Sir Robert Walpole was establishing himself as the first Prime Minister in England, Conolly was doing something similar in Ireland.
Conollys own perception of his wealth and status can perhaps be best seen in his own building projects. He acquired his first Dublin house in 1707 on Capel Street. Capel Street then was the fashionable centre of Dublin and Conollys house was by far the largest on the street. It was probably similar in scale to the main block of Castletown. He also continued to amass further properties. In 1718 he purchased an estate of 18000 acres in Ballyshannon, thus buying his home town. In 1723 he acquired Rathfarnham Castle in Co. Dublin although neither he nor any of his descendants ever lived there. By his death he owned over 100,000 acres and enjoyed an annual income of almost £17,000 a year making him the wealthiest and the most powerful politician in Ireland. Castletown would become the symbol of his great wealth.
If Castletown was a monument to the Speaker, it was but one of many. His death in October 1729 was marked by public pageantry on a grand scale. In his will he left £1,000 to cover the costs of his funeral, as well as various sums for his friends and family to buy mourning rings. His funeral as described in the Dublin Weekly Journal of 8 November 1729 was very elaborate, it was attended by all the Members of Parliament, the Lord Lieutenant, Lord Mayor and various nobility and gentry. There were also sixty seven poor men dressed in black signifying Conollys age. Everybody in the procession was also wearing linen scarves of Irish manufacture, a gesture of support to the Irish linen industry and also the initiation of a custom which would continue into the twentieth century.
Conollys greatest misfortune was perhaps his failure to produce an heir. This lack of an heir meant that upon his death in October 1729 his estates and fortune were divided between his widow Katherine and his nephew William James Conolly, the son of his younger brother Patrick. In 1734, William Conolly junior married Lady Anne Wentworth, the daughter of the Earl of Strafford and they lived in Leixlip Castle until the death of Katherine in 1752, thus beginning the long and continuing association between Castletown and Leixlip Castle.
Sadly Speaker Conolly himself spent little time at Castletown, as public duties usually detained him in Dublin, although in the last year of his life he spent more time at Castletown as his health worsened. Even in its unfinished state the house attracted important visitors. The Lord Lieutenant spent Christmas at Castletown, while in 1725 a Dublin Castle official fell to his death while viewing the still incomplete house from scaffolding. It was only after the Speakers death that the house began to be fully used, in the manner he had intended. His wife continued to act as a political hostess throwing lavish parties at Castletown to perpetuate her husbands memory. Castletown became a fashionable place to be seen and was regarded as a rival to the Vice-Regal Court in Dublin Castle. In the early 1730s Katherine effectively ran a casino in the house when the Lord Lieutenant Dorset banned gambling. Carriage races along the avenue were also a feature of Castletown entertainments and Katherine long partook fully in these activities with a host of rakish young men. Upon her death in 1752, at the age of ninety, it was lamented that the huge house that used to be crowded with guests of all sorts was empty and forlorn. Mrs Delanys tribute upon her death in 1752 gives some indication of Katherine Conollys virtues as a hostess, We have lost our great Mrs Conolly She died last Friday and is a general loss. Her table was open to all friends of all ranks and her purse to the poor. She was I think in her ninetieth year. She had been dropping for some years, but never too ill to shut out company.
Katherine Conollys longevity meant that the Speakers nephew also named William only inherited Castletown in 1752. Unfortunately he died two years later, and was succeeded by his son Thomas who was still a minor. Thomas Conolly (1738-1803) arrived at Castletown in 1759 following his marriage to Lady Louisa Lennox (1743-1821) in 1758. Lady Louisa, the third of the famous daughters of the Duke of Richmond, had spent much of her childhood at Carton near Maynooth, the home of her sister Emily, Duchess of Leinster. Her elder sister Caroline married the leading English politician Henry Fox, while her younger sister Sarah led a turbulent private life before eventually setting down in Oakley Park in Celbridge in 1781. Lady Louisa had no children and instead devoted much of her energies to improvements to the house and demesne at Castletown. The Staircase Hall, Dining Room, Print Room and Long Gallery are amongst the rooms that can be considered symbols of her contribution to the house. Castletown in these years again became a lively hospitable place, with a constant stream of visitors including everybody from the Lord Lieutenant to London actress Sarah Siddons. Through her correspondence with her sisters as well as the meticulously kept household accounts a vast amount of information has survived about Castletown in the mid to late eighteenth century.
Thomas Conolly was the quintessential Irish gentleman, a keen huntsman and a fine horseman, as well as a politician and landowner. Regarded as the wealthiest commoner in the kingdom: he actually spent much of his career in debt because of large debts he inherited from his father. Conolly sat in the Irish parliament for forty years where he prided himself on his often imagined independence. His character and temperament, however, did not always lend themselves to political success, he usually tended towards indecision and rarely grasped opportunities that came his way. Although a patriot in the broadest sense of the word, Conolly was a strong supporter of the Act of Union in 1800. This support for the Union, which extinguished the independent Irish Parliament in College Green, was partly influenced by the 1798 rebellion which had a profound effect on the extended Conolly/FitzGerald family. At Castletown twelve servants and footmen were dismissed for involvement in the rebellion. The Conollys were deeply shocked by the attitude of their tenants considering the good relations they had always enjoyed with them. Worse was to come however with the tragic death of Lady Louisas favourite nephew, the United Irishman leader Lord Edward Fitzgerald. She was amongst the last people to see him before his death in Newgate gaol in May 1798. At the other end of the political spectrum was Thomass nephew, Lord Castlereagh, the Chief Secretary, who was entrusted with quashing the rebellion and introducing the Act of Union.
Thomas Conollys political career ended with the Union, and disillusioned with life in Ireland, the Conollys contemplated leaving Castletown. Following his death in 1803 Lady Louisa considered selling the house for use as a barracks to alleviate some of his debts. The Barrack Board was not interested and turned down the offer. Lady Louisa changed her lifestyle and devoted the remaining years of her life to charitable works instead of improvements to the house and estate. Amongst her achievements was the establishment of a school on the site of her husbands kennels inside the gates of Castletown. A new Protestant church was also erected inside the gates to replace the previous church which had been destroyed in the 1798 rebellion. She survived her husband by eighteen years dying in August 1821. Her nephew George Napier left the following account of her funeral, which captures the esteem, in which Louisa was held by her tenantry and servants:
as soon as day light appeared, the people began to collect in the park in front of the house many thousands were assembled many from thirty and forty miles off, so well was she known I ordered the great door to be thrown open and the procession moved from the hall the moment the body appeared one long loud cry of despair issued from the assembled multitude the coffin was lowered into the vault; then again the that thrilling cry was heard, but louder and longer a general rush was made to the vault, each striving to get a last look at the coffin which contained the remains of One they almost revered as a saint.
