The royal visit that cost its host a family fortune
IT’S a safe bet that no statue of Queen Victoria will ever be erected in Killarney, though many might well concede that the legendary monarch did much to kick-start tourism in this bustling Kerry town. As Prince Charles this week follows in the footsteps of his famous ancestor, it will mark another link in the county’s centuries-old connection with royalty, as well as highlighting how the 1861 visit of the Prince of Wales’s great-great-great grandmother effectively bankrupted a venerable family fortune.
Henry Arthur Herbert, owner of Muckross House, the jewel in Killarney’s tourist crown, was given six years’ notice to prepare for his Queen’s two-day stay at his spectacular mansion on the shores of the town’s picturesque lakes – and used every month of it to squander a great inheritance in a folly of ambition and avarice. While any visit anywhere by a member of the British royal family has always caused an expected stir of excitement, back in the 19th century it triggered nothing less than an avalanche of anticipation. Victoria wasn’t just a monarch of an empire upon which the sun never set – she was, quite simply, the most powerful woman in the world.
Having followed the family footsteps into politics in 1847, Henry Arthur Herbert quickly became Lord Lieutenant of Kerry – a position making him Victoria’s official representative in the Kingdom. Having inherited Muckross House – deemed ‘one of the finest and largest of the Elizabethan-style houses in a style of great splendour’ – the arrival of his queen set the upwardly mobile Henry on a six-year path of refurbishment that would ultimately result in the dissolution of a grand family fortune.
So in the hope it might lay the ground for a knighthood, the Eton and Cambridge-educated scion of a powerful family went on an extravagant spree that took him to France, Belgium, Holland and Italy in pursuit of priceless tapestries, gilt mirrors, Persian carpets, silverware, musical instruments, linen, china and servants’ uniforms, all of which were specially commissioned.
Queen Victoria and her entourage of 100 arrived in Killarney on August 26, spending their first night at a formal banquet in Killarney House, the seat of Valentine Augustus Browne, the 4th Earl of Kenmare.
In contrast, the monarch had designated her following two-day stay at Muckross House a private affair, intending it to be ‘very quiet’, surrounded by her family and extended retinue.
Greeted by her hosts, Henry and his artist wife Mary on the lawn of the house, Victoria entered a mansion where everything down to the door-knocker had been specially made to commemorate the occasion. A suite of rooms commanding panoramic views across Lough Leane and Muckross Lake was reserved for Victoria’s own use.
Touring the demesne the next morning, the Queen’s carriage convoy took in Dinish Island, Mangerton Mountain and the Torc Waterfall – all places that would become the foundation of Killarney tourist wealth for centuries to come.
Setting a trend that is still followed today, Victoria was taken on a boat trip around the famous Lough Leane and picnicked on Innisfallen Island. Journeying in the afternoon with her ladies-inwaiting to an elevated position overlooking the Upper Lakes, the normally reticent sovereign clapped her hands in delight, declaring the vista so enchanting it should be termed Ladies View. The moniker stuck.
In her diary that evening she wrote: ‘The view was magnificent. We had a slight shower, which alarmed us all, from the mist which overhung the mountains; but it suddenly cleared away and became very fine and very hot.’
Proving herself as curious about the pleasures of Killarney as any modern-day American or Continental visitor, Victoria spent her final morning visiting the ruins of the 15th-century Muckross Abbey.
Eleanor, the eldest Herbert daughter, noted that the queen ‘is to have ivy from the abbey and ferns from various local places sent to her palace at Osborne on the Isle of Wight as recollections Luxurious: The bedroom that Queen Victoria used in 1861 of this place’. Observing the customary royal munificence, Victoria gave Mrs Herbert a bracelet of gold, pearls and diamonds in gratitude for the hospitality. In return, she was presented with three of Mary Herbert’s watercolours of The Upper, Middle and Lower Lakes – all of which still remain in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle.
While the Herbert family continued to reap a solid income from the copper mines on the Muckross peninsula, the aftermath of the royal visit saw a slow decline in their fortunes as the massive debts incurred in refurbishment slowly dragged the estate toward bankruptcy.
The hoped-for knighthood from Victoria never came, and the precarious situation was further compounded by Henry Herbert’s undertaking of a flurry of unwise investments. The family finances became so perilous by the end of the century that the Muckross estate was forced for auction by the Standard Life Assurance Company in 1899, only to be subsequently withdrawn from sale due to a lack of interest.
A distant relative by marriage, Arthur Edward Guinness, 1st Baron Ardilaun of Ashford Castle, eventually bought Muckross House and lands, renting it to wealthy visitors. In 1911, the estate was again sold – this time to William Bowers Bourn, a wealthy Californian mining magnate, who presented it to his daughter Maud as a wedding present. In 1932, Muckross House and its 11,000 acres were presented to the State, thus becoming Ireland’s first National Park.
While Queen Victoria may have indirectly prompted an international shopping spree of such unbridled excess it eventually toppled a noble family’s fortune, her visit did put Killarney on the tourist map. As the arrival of the Industrial Age saw the advent of a new and vibrant middle class keen to travel, generations were keen to follow in the legendary monarch’s footsteps. So inspired was Alfred Lord Tennyson on his visit to Killarney, he celebrated its ‘sublime majesty’ in his poem, Blow Bugle Blow.
‘The splendour falls on castle walls / And snowy summits old in story / The long light shakes across the lakes / And the wild cataract leaps in glory.’
Though he might not have realised it, Tennyson had probably written the first advertisement for Killarney.