VIDA AND A LASTING LEGACY...

SEAMIE BRISCOE TELLS THE STORY OF VIDA LENTAIGNE, A WOMAN WHO MADE TERMONFECKIN HER HOME AND PROVIDES A UNIQUE LINK TO THE PRESENT DAY HOME OF TERMONFECKIN CELTIC FC

FORMER Laytown resident and member of the Meath Archaeological Society, Mr. Ormonde Waters addressed a gathering of over 300 people in Belvedere, Western Australia, when Mr. Brian Bourke, the Australian Ambassador elect to Ireland and the Holy See, unveiled a plaque to the memory of the renowned Fenian, John Boyle O’Reilly (pictured below).

The unveiling ceremony took place just 119 years after the famous escape by O’Reilly to America, from the convict colony where he had been sentenced to spend 20 years.

Representatives of church groups, historical societies, genealogical societies, members of Parljament in western Australia, local government officials and members of the Irish community were among those present for the ceremony. Entertainment was provided by a piper, guitarists and by a recital of a poem, and letter, written by O’Reilly.

The Ambassadordesignate, in his address, recalled how O’Reilly ‘ thumbed his nose’ at the WA convict establishment by escaping on the American whaler, Gazelle, while it was cruising off Bunbury in March 1869. O’Reilly he said was a ‘great patriot, not a criminal.’

He recalled that O’Reilly, ‘a brilliant resourceful and intrepid Irishman, author, editor, and patriot’ was among 62 political prisoners from Ireland who arrived in the colony on the last convict ship, the Hougoumount in 1868. On his escape he made his way to Boston where he became editor of the Pilot newspaper and won repute in that country as a poet and lecturer.

Mr. Waters, in his address, said that this was a proud day for the Irish and, for him, an intensely emotional experience to hear Brian Bourke, the former State Premier, play just tribute to the great Fenian patriot, poet and champion of minorities. O’Reilly, he recalled, was born on June 28, 1844 at Dowth Castle, Co. Meath. His father was schoolmaster at the Netterville Institute, a home for widows and orphans. At 11 years of age he became a printer’s apprentice on ‘ The Drogheda Argus’ newspaper, later going to work on ‘ The Guardian’ in Lancashire.

Returning to Ireland in 1863, he enlisted in the 10th Hussars, then stationed in Dundalk. ‘He joined the army because he enjoyed the life of a soldier’. In October 1865, he was approached by John Devoy ‘ to win over’ the 100 Irishmen in his regiment to Fenianism.

Arrested and tried by a general Court Martial in Dublin, he was sentenced to death on July 9, 1866. This was commuted to 20 years penal servitude in Australia. On Thursday, January 9, 1868, the ‘Hougoumount’ dropped anchor in the Swan River and disgorged her human cargo or279 convicts, 62 of them Irish.

Reports of the unveiling ceremony were carried in many major newspapers in Western Australia - and posted to Ireland to Mrs. Peggy O’Reilly, local organiser of the annual John Boyle O’Reilly Commemoration ceremonies in Dowth.

Mrs. O’Reilly says that Mr. Bourke, who will be taking up his post as Ambassador in July, has promised to attend this year’s ceremonies, at Dowth, in August.

HELEN Evelyn Vida Haslam was born in London on 1 s t Ma r c h 1894 and was called Vida by her family. Her father was Lewis Ha s l a m ( 1856-1922), a manufacturer born in Bolton who later entered politics, becoming a Liberal MP for Monmouth and Newport, Wales. He married Helen Dixon ( born 1860 in Oxfordshire) in April 1893. In the 1901 census Lewis Haslam describes himself as a cotton spinner with an address in Cranley Gardens, Kensington, London. Vida had a younger sister, Lilian Viola Haslam, who was born in July 1897.

In 1916, during the First World War, Vida enlisted in the Voluntary Aid Detachment behind the frontline in France. After the war, on 7th October 1919, Vida married Joseph Lentaigne at Brompton Oratory London. Joseph was a Barrister at Law, who worked in Rangoon, Burma (now Myanmar) and whose family came from Tallaght House, Co. Dublin.1 The couple travelled to Burma after the wedding where Joseph worked for the British administration there. Joseph had fought in the First World War with the Ghurkhas and even brought a Ghurkha batman with him to Burma.

On 7th September 1921 a daughter Helen Phyllis Mary Josephine (JoJo) was born in Burma. Tragically Vida’s husband Joseph died from the effects of cholera on 9thSeptember 1921, only two days after the birth of his daughter. Vida was devastated but followed her husband’s wishes and journeyed to Ireland in December 1921 to bring up her young daughter there.

Vida Lentaigne established herself in Ireland and bought the house and lands of the Smyth family at Newtown, outside Termonfeckin sometime in the 1920s.2 “A vast house in rural Ireland, a young widow trying to do the right thing, a string of French governesses and a thoroughly rebellious, creatively gifted and stubborn daughter.” Jojo spent her formative years with her mother in Newtown House, until she left Ireland for London around 1940.

During her tenure at Newtown, Vida Lentaigne relied on the good council of Mr. Stanley Matthews from Mount Hanover, Co. Meath, who visited her regularly, and assisted her with various problems and situations which had arisen.

The first branch in Ireland of the United Irishwomen (U.I.) was established in Termonfeckin in November 1929 (founded as the ‘United Irishwomen’ in 1910). Mrs Lentaigne cleared a large basement room in Newtown to allow U.I. branch meetings and later Irish Countrywomen’s Association (I.C.A.) guild meetings to be held. The basement was later converted into a kitchen area where Mrs. Walsh of Rath gave cookery classes. From 1933 on, Mrs Lentaigne allowed the newly constituted I.C.A. to use Newtown House as a venue for the first of their Summer Schools.

She was also a founding director of Country Workers Ltd in 1930, which was set up to encourage and promote local craft working. The Country Shop (founded in St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin in 1930) held its first exhibition of country crafts in October 1933. The Termonfeckin branch exhibited a varied collection of crafts which included handmade gloves, willow baskets, footballs, knitting, bottled fruits, vegetables and jams. Glove-making was also a speciality of the branch and the ‘ Tarmon glove’ was highly sought after. It is recounted that glove-making classes were carried on at Newtown on Tuesday afternoons from 2 to 3 p.m. She also helped finance and encourage the art of basket-making and leatherwork in the village, which specialised in making leather footballs, the ‘ tube and case’ for the GAA.

Basket making was also introduced with Mrs Lentaigne bringing some English basket-makers over to teach the craft. The first to be taught locally were a Mr Fleming and Mr Brennan.

Mrs. Lentaigne threw herself wholeheartedly into the life of the community. She was a generous employer and had at least six girls working in the house, five people were employed in the garden, and over twenty men worked on the 400 acre farm; her foreman for many years being Patrick Gorman of Yellow Gap, while Bill Reilly was her chauffer. In her time at Newtown she had 7,000 trees planted around the estate, doubling what had been previously been there.

With the assistance of Mrs Thunder of Blackhall and other local women she arranged festive events for local children, particularly at Christmas, when a Christmas tree would be cut down and taken from Newtown and erected in the parochial hall.

She also allowed the use of her land at Sheepeston on the Seapoint Road for sporting occasions, and was instrumental in establishing sports days there in 1928, 1929 (where her mother helped her with presentation of prizes) and 1930, and later during the 1940s when Gaelic football matches was played by St Fechin’s teams.

Despite her busy domestic schedule Vida Lentaigne entered local politics in the 1930s and was elected as a councillor onto Louth County Council in 1934, running for the United Ireland Party. She is noted as being on the library committee in May 1935 and in 1941 she voiced her concerns over the food voucher scheme which operated during the Second World War. She was Honorary Secretary of the Termonfeckin Nursing Association and read the report at its first A.G.M. in January 1939. She was also a committee member of the Louth Board of Health for some years until the autumn of 1941. With a continuation of her political work ethic she was instrumental in having the Newtown cottages approved and built by Louth Co. Council in the late 1930s. She bowed out of politics in 1942 by not allowing her name be put forward in the local elections of that year.

In late 1939 Mrs. Lentaigne was instrumental in bringing around a dozen Catholic ref