Stamullen

IN MEMORY

Sympathy is extended to the family and friends of Mr Noel Darker, late of Cooperhill Julianstown, who recently passed away.

STAMULLEN ROAD CLUB

The Stamullen Road Club will host their annual Grand Prix Cycle Races in the Stamullen and Fingal this coming Saturday and Sunday, April 8th and 9th. On Saturday the club will host the John Reilly Memorial Races at Balscadden with the underage racing beginning at 10.30am, while the senior racing starts at 11.45. The racing circuit course will consist of Balscadden, Gormanstown, Stamullen village, Milestown and back into Balscadden. The racing at Balscadden should finish up around 1.15pm on Saturday. On Sunday the annual Grand Prix Races will be hosted in Stamullen village. Registration/signing-on and all racing will begin outside the St. Patricks`GAA complex at Cock Hill and the first race will get under way at 12.15.

The racing circuit for Sunday will consist of Stamullen, Clinstown, Tullog, Naul, Whitestown Cross, Balscadden, Gormanstown and back into Stamullen. Delays are inevitable and hopefully they will be kept to a minimum throughout the day. Parishioners, motorists, cyclists, pedestrians, dog walkers etc. are being asked to make sure to abide by the Road Marshalls & Garda directions and to make sure that all pets are kept under control during the racing.

Your patience, consideration and co-operation are being kindly asked for and is very much appreciated by the club. Anyone who may also be in a position to perhaps lend a hand on either Saturday and/or Sunday next should come along and make themselves available to any of the club members and all offers of help would be greatly appreciated by the club.

`BOWLED`ACHIEVEMENT

The local Bowls Club have achieved the honour of emerging as champions in the Meath Division 2 League, so well done and the best of congratulations to them on yet another great season. Bowls continue every Tuesday and Thursday evenings at the GAA complex at Cock Hill from 8 until 10pm. Anyone wishing to join the successful local club can do so by contacting Rose at 01-8412086.

SPRING TIME

At last, the spring has arrived, a little bit more warmth in the sun, brighter evenings and growth everywhere. Flora and fauna abounds throughout the parish at the moment, habitats are thriving for many species and varieties. The population of wild animals across the rural townlands also appears to be in a healthier state than it was a few years back with stoats, foxes, badgers, squirrels, hares, rabbits and a variety of smaller mammals to be seen in all parts of the parish.

An indication of such a healthy wild animal increase can also be gleamed from the huge increase in the various birds of prey that can be seen soaring and hovering in the skies above, all of whom depend on such mammals for their own survival. The parish of Stamullen is particularly beautiful at this time of the year, an array of colour and a hive of activity amidst the natural heritage of the area.

JENICO THE 12TH VISCOUNT

The most isolated Railway Station along the entire east coast of Ireland is that at Gormanstown.

The station first opened in June of 1844 and the reason for its very existence was the fact that the then Viscount Gormanston, Jenico Preston, had a huge and very significant input into the construction and the topographical layout of the Dublin to Drogheda Railway at that time.

Initially Preston was not at all too happy that the railway line was to go through his lands, however, after he had seen the potential benefits to this new mode of transport, he became greatly encouraged by it and so; when the `Lord` wished for the train to stop close to his residence at Gormanstown Castle, there wasn’t a soul who was going to argue and the station came into being. Jenico Preston was the 12th Viscount Gormanston and he was also the man who had been restored to this title following the forfeiture of it by the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th and the 11th Viscounts who had lost this title following the Rebellion Wars in Ireland of the 1640`s and although the title was briefly restored towards the close of the 17th century, the family were to lose it yet again following the Battle of the Boyne as they had sided with James against William of Orange.

It was also following the death of Jenico the 12th Viscount in the year 1860 that the mention of the legendary Foxes of Gormanston tale appears for the first time. Jenico had formerly been restored to the title of Premier Viscount of all Ireland by the `mad king` George the III in the md 1790`s after the King of England had heard the tale of how Jenico`s father, Anthony Preston, had passed away and Jenico was only 11 years old. His mother, Henrietta Robinson, had been separated from Jenico`s dad and following his sudden demise she arrived at Gormanston Castle along with other members of her family from Suffolk in England and demanded that the young Jenico be handed over to her. Henrietta was of the Church of England Faith and the Preston family were staunchly Catholic and they refused to let the boy and heir to the Viscountcy leave the castle.

Jenico`s grandmother, Thomasine Barnwall, along with a family friend and parish Curate at St. Michan`s in Dublin, Father Dixon, managed to smuggle the young Jenico first to Dublin, thence to Brussels and finally to Paris in order to avoid the Robinson family getting their hands on him to take him back to England; their objective being that the young Viscount would then be raised in the Church of England Faith. On many the occasion, while the boy was in hiding, swords were drawn to ward off the would-be kidnappers and the Preston family fought long and hard in securing the boy`s safety. Eventually Jenico met and married a Margaret Southwell in the mid 1790`s and, on hearing the tale of the young man`s escapades, George the III was impressed and so he restored the title and all its associations to Jenico making him the 12th Viscount Gormanston.

Jenico went on to construct the fine castle that can be seen on the grounds today; it having been erected from around the year 1800 to 1820. With such a colourful, tragic, daring and often dangerous life, along with a period of immense change in Ireland from the 1790`s until his death in 1860, it is then perhaps no wonder that such a tale as the `Foxes of Gormanston` is associated with the that of the 12th Viscount.