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8 he following article consists and hear him then expound on his Young'. simply of a few comments Irelandism and other topical issues. They on the Young Irelander, came en masse to Cahermoyle to cele- William Smith O'Brien brate his 1847 election victory. In 1846 (1803-64), Member of Parlia- O'Brien, following the Repeal policy of ment for Limerick from 1835-1848, and his handling only Irish business in parliament Co. Limerick home. The information has and refusing to sit on a Scottish railways been garnered primarily from the works of committee, was imprisoned in the two historians who have done much precincts of the House of Commons. recently to rehabilitate the character and Lucy wrote how: 'The trades people at career of Smith O'Brien, Richard Davis Newcastle & Rathkeale are most and Robert S1oan.l vehement in your support.' William Smith O'Brien was the Still, a confluence of circumstances progeny of Sir Edward and Lady Charlotte ensured William was perpetually uncertain O'Brien. He only inherited the 'Smith' of that Cahermoyle would remain his home. his moniker in 1809, upon the death of his In the first place it had never been mother's father, William Smith. It was to absolutely preordained that Cahermoyle William Smith that the large estate at was destined to become his, though family Cahermoyle belonged. He bequeathed it lore did claim that the old William Smith first to his daughters, Charlotte and had suggested it was suitable for Harriet, and secondly to young William. Charlotte's second son. Then in the mid- Cahermoyle is located in the west of 1830s an impostor, claiming to be Thomas County Limerick and the nearest towns to Smith, a deceased (aged eight, in 1812) it both today and when Smith O'Brien lovechild of William Smith's, emerged to Miniature portrait of claim part of the Cahermoyle estate. After resided there are Rathkeale and William Smith O'Brien c.1840 Newcastle (West). (Limerick Museum) some public embarrassment for the family The seat of the O'Brien family in the the impostor was proven to be the son of a early nineteenth century was Dromoland, elected as MP for Limerick. This necess- market gardener from London. and it was here that William grew up itated that he take up a residence in A want of money, too, affected William (between his study periods in England, London, too, for half the year. At first Lucy and Cahermoyle: MP's were not paid a that is). He later lived at Inchiquin Cottage travelled with William for the parlia- salary at this period and William was in Corofin. Having first prevaricated mentary sessions that normally lasted heavily reliant on his mother for financial between careers in the navy or army - for from late January to August, a journey that support. He simply was not making he was the second son, after Lucius entailed three days travel from Caher- enough from the rents on his estate to O'Brien (1800-72), later the thirteenth moyle to London by boat and coach. This continue to run and improve Cahermoyle Baron Inchiquin - William settled upon life became more difficult as their family grew as he wished, and to live for half or more at the Bar. In 1828 he entered politics and - the first son, Edward, was born in early of the year in London, where he contin- served as Member for Ennis until 1831. It 1837. Soon William's long journey was uously stayed in very modest quarters. was with his 1832 marriage to Lucy supplemented by long separations. The Charlotte insisted that to spend money on Gabbett that part of the Cahermoyle estate family habitually arrived now only in refurbishing Cahermoyle, or Carmoyle as was granted to William by his mother. The spring to see the patriarch. When she wrote, would be to waste it if William marriage came just six weeks after O'Brien's political complexion changed in did not give up politics. In January 1838, William first met Lucy at the Curragh. 1843 from independent Liberal to William conveyed back to his mother both They were wed on 19 September in Repealer, he joked to Lucy (who worried the Cahermoyle house and six acres of the Milltown Malbay, Co. Clare. Lucy's father, over the political move) did she not think lands in exchange for an annual payment Joseph Gabbett, had been Tory Mayor of it better, now he was heavily involved in of £120. Charlotte took possession of the Limerick, 1819-20. Initially William's the Repeal Association and stationed more house, though it was understood that family had been unhappy with the in Dublin than London, closer to Caher- William and his family continued to both marriage but soon all came to like and moyle. Lucy failed to see the humour. run the estate and live in the house when love Lucy. William Smith O'Brien grew to love in Ireland. The Cahermoyle estate entire was Cahermoyle, but it was never comfortably However, having previously derided valued in September 1832 at £4,016 a year. his. He enjoyed reposing periodically on Cahermoyle as a mere farmhouse and William received just 318 acres, worth the estate, primarily from August or complained about the situation of the £600 a year, plus the Georgian house that September to January. There he witnessed house on the estate, Charlotte, especially was quite dilapidated. For the course of the birth of his first daughter in autumn of in the wake of Sir Edward's death and reparations, from October 1832 to October 1840. There he read widely - Rousseau, Lucius' marriage (reducing her status at 1834, the O'Brien's lived in Lucy's father's Bentham, Thucydides - and wrote and Dromoland) started to intimate she would house at 78 George's Street (now corresponded diligently on the pressing like to live, perhaps, at Cahermoyle. This, O'Connell St.) in the city. The house was questions of the day: education, tithes or combined with Charlotte's distaste for his still only just habitable and in 1835, Lucy poor law. And the locals liked and admired repeal politics, left William's position often and William, while beginning to entertain William both personally and profess- quite tenuous. In 1843, as he was on the there, continued planting and repairing ionally. Bodies of people from Rathkeale cusp of joining the Repeal Association, the house and grounds. and Newcastle came up to his house William advised Lucy to 'prepare for the It was also in 1835 that William was spontaneously to inquire as to his position, worst': he was certain they were about to Postcard showing Cahermoyle house c.1905 (Limerick Museum) be excluded from Cahermoyle. and feeling rather desperate at the However, the combination of this Still, the near-constant anxiety of desertion of so many men from his difficulty with Lucy's death ensured that O'Brien's with regard to Cahermoyle was ostensible throng of rebels - brought about Cahermoyle was now tarnished for Smith matched only by an intensification of his by the urgings of local Catholic curates - O'Brien. For the last three years of his life affinity for the place. After the 1846 O'Brien proclaimed he would head for he felt, he said, no more than a visitor at secession of the Young Irelanders from Cahermoyle, whose tenantry would Cahermoyle. Depressed 'by the sorrows of the Repeal Association, Sloan (p. 165) conceal and protect him from the British a domestic calamity' and 'harassed by contends, O'Brien's 'preference for life at authorities. After Ballingarry and the anxiety connected with my property' Cahermoyle became more evident than failure of the rising, Clarendon, the Lord O'Brien took to travelling Europe and ever.' That year Charlotte gave him £100 Lieutenant, believed O'Brien to be making Arneri~a.~- to combat his unhappiness, for papering and painting the house. This his way to Cahermoyle. Certainly, when Smith O'Brien made his Irish home in prolonged stay was, for Sloan, indicative of arrested at Thurles railway station the Killiney, Co. Dublin. Political involvement O'Brien's failure to provide leadership to ticket he held was for Limerick. was kept to letter writing. the new group in the years prior to 1848. Having been transported alongside William Smith O'Brien died on one of Sloan does, however, acknowledge fellow rebels to Van Dieman's Land his travels, in Bangor, north Wales, on 18 O'Brien's sense at the time that he was (Tasmania), William Smith O'Brien, in June 1864. His second daughter, Charlotte, more needed in Limerick than Dublin on 1856, was pardoned and returned to was with him. Smith O'Brien was buried in account of the incipient famine and its Ireland. Bonfires marked the prodigal's Kilronan cemetery near Cahermoyle, consequent devastation. Cahermoyle path through Limerick. In Cahermoyle the where a small mausoleum now stands. escaped the worst ravages of the famine as family 'repaid the devotion of their tenants Hundreds of his tenantry attended the it was mostly given over to grazing and the by an entertainment in August. One funeral. Earlier thousands had paid their tenants were not too potato-dependent. hundred and fifty dependants and friends respects in Dublin. Edward, William's William, however, was immersed in dined on beef, mutton and pasties, washed eldest son, was a classicist who had Limerick's efforts to combat the potato down by wine and flagons of native ale.' travelled Greece with his father. He rebuilt blight and attended any number of Relief Dancing and sports accompanied the Cahermoyle in the 1870s in an Italianate Committees and Board of Guardians festivities. For Davis this was patriarchal style. Like Dromoland, the house event- meetings at Newcastle. landlordism at its best.3 ually fell out of the family's ownership and In the epochal year of 1848 O'Brien However, the reunion with Cahermoyle is now a nursing home for the elderly. couldn't keep away from his 'beloved' was not without an unfortunate coda. In Cahermoyle. Returning to Ireland from a 1848 O'Brien, to secure the estate for his REFERENCE trip to post-revolution France he headed family in case he was executed, had put 1. R. Sloan, William Smith O'Brien and the straight for home. Afterwards, he spent Cahermoyle in a trust. His brother Lucius Young Ireland Rebellion of 1848 (Four most of the month of June recuperating at and friend Woronzow Greig were the Courts Press, Dublin, 2000), R. Davis, Cahermoyle after being injured during an trustees. When he returned from exile, Revolutionary Imperialist: William Smith O'Brien, 1803-1864 (The Lilliput Press, affray in Limerick between Old and Young Lucy naturally devolved responsibility for Dublin, 1998), R. Davis and M. Davis, Irelanders, although fomented in all managing the estates back to William, but (eds.), The Rebel in his Family: Selected probability by government spies. As the not officially. Upon her death in June 1861, Papers of William Smith O'Brien (Cork Young Irelanders verged ever closer to neither of the trustees would consent to University Press, Cork, 1998). See also T. open rebellion, Smith O'Brien went in July William's request for full ownership of the Keneally, The Great Shame: A Story of the on a tour of the southern Confederate estates. William refused to speak to or Irish in the Old World and the New (Chatto Clubs to foment, and organize for, the meet Lucius again and his friendship with & Windus, London, 1998) and B. M. imminent cataclysm. In the midst of this Greig, his duelling second in their youth, Touhill, William Smith 0, Brien and his Revolutionary Companions in Penal Exile prelude to revolt he still planned for a too, was damaged irrevocably. A fairly (University of Missouri Press, Columbia short stay at Cahermoyle. He did not financially rewarding compromise was and London, 1981). make that trip, though, as events soon reached whereby the estate went to his 2. R. Davis and M. Davis, p.48. overtook the man. eldest son, Edward, with an annuity of 3. R. Davis, p.327. Shortly before the rising at Ballingarry, £2,000 for William himself. 4. T. Keneally, p.325.