WHYTE'S THE ECLECTIC COLLECTOR SATURDAY 6 APRIL 2019 AT 11AM

The Mount Cashell Archive In the late 17th century Stephen Moore purchased the Kilworth estate in county Cork. His grandson, also Stephen Moore, was created Viscount Mountcashell of the city of Cashell in 1766. The Viscount’s son became the Earl of Mountcashell in 1781. The family owned extensive estates in Counties Cork and Tipperary most of which were sold in the second half of the 19th century. Their seat was Moore Park, a large Georgian house extended in the 19th century. The house and estate was bought by the War Department in 1903. The house was accidentally burnt in 1908. After use as a military camp, Moore Park today houses a research centre for Teagasc – The Agricultural & Food Development Authority of Ireland. Stephen Moore, 3rd Earl Mount Cashell, styled Lord Kilworth, was born in Dublin in 1792, the son of Stephen Moore, 2nd Earl Mount Cashell. In 1819 he married Anna Marie Wyse a Swiss woman and they lived in Switzerland and Germany, before emigrating to Canada in 1833 where they remained until 1870 when they moved to London. He died ín Paddington, London, aged 91 in October 1883 and was succeeded by his son Stephen Moore, 4th Earl Mount Cashell (1825–1889) who was in turn succeeded by his younger brother Charles William Moore, 5th Earl Mount Cashell (1826–1898). Charles William Moore, married Charlotte Smyth of Ballynatray, County Waterford in 1848 and in 1858 assumed the additional name of Smyth. The Smyths of Ballinatray owned over 7000 acres in county Waterford as well as 272 acres in county Limerick. In the 1890s Ballynatray was inherited by the eldest daughter of Earl Mount Cashell, Lady Harriette Gertrude Isabella Smyth. Harriette attempted to elope with Patrick Fleming, brother of the estate’s game keeper Thomas but was thwarted and instead married Colonel John Henry Graham Holroyd in 1872. They assumed the name Holroyd Smyth. Captain Rowland Henry Tyssen Holroyd Smyth was born in 1874, the eldest son of Colonel and Lady Harriette Holroyd-Smyth. His family knew him as ‘Rowley’; the populace as ‘The Captain’. 1n 1902, six months after his fathers’ death, Rowley married Alice Ponsonby, a direct descendent of Sir John Ponsonby of Bessborough. Alice, through her mother Mary Plunkett was a niece to Horace Plunkett and cousin to the author Edward Plunkett, 16th Baron of Dunsany. Rowley was devoted to hunting and he so neglected his duties as farmer and landlord that many of his tenancies fell in and, since only tenanted land was subject to compulsory sale under the various Land Acts, he became one of the largest land-owners in Southern Ireland. Rowley’s wife Alice also loved to hunt but she is more notable for the relationship she developed with the local IRA during the War of Independence and Civil War. One note in the archive from Michael Cashman O.C. Glendine Coy. IRA, requesting a loan of the pony and car, suggests she materially assisted the IRA. Her correspondence with Anti-Treaty prisoners sentenced to death in the Civil War reveals firm friendships. Given that many great houses she knew well such as Bessborough, Mitchelstown, Moore Hall, Ballynastragh, Castle Bernard, Cappoquin House, Convamore and Desart Court were burnt by the IRA at this time, Ballynatray’s survival is undoubtably due in part to these relationships The archive passed to Kitty Fleming, granddaughter of Thomas Fleming, whose brother Patrick almost eloped with Harriette Holroyd Smith in 1868. Provenance of lots 12-30; also 203-209, 318, 336, 342 and 615: Moore (Earls of Mount Cashell) family; Holroyd-Smyth family; Catherine ‘Kitty’ Fleming; Thence by descent to the present owner