DEATHat The Mountcashel Arms in Kilworth
- THE TRAGIC END TO A PASSIONATE LOVE AFFAIR -
New €50m suite of measures to support the live performance sector
A new €50m suite of measures to support the commercial live performance sector to assist producers, promoters, venues and musicians was announced on Monday by the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin TD. In addition, the Minister announced that she is establishing the Return to Live Entertainment Working Group to develop overarching Covid-19 sectoral guidance for the live entertainment sector.
€25M FOR LPPS
Included in the announced funding this week is a significantly enhanced Live Performance Support Scheme (LPSS); a new support for sole traders and music businesses to pay fixed costs; a new capital fund to install recording facilities for live streaming; and a new local performance scheme this summer for villages and town centres.
Following exceptional demand for the pilot LPSS in 2020, a fund of €25m will now be made available for 2021. The scheme is set to provide significant job opportunities in the live performance sector. It will support the continued production of high quality artistic output, as was demonstrated during the pilot phase of the LPSS, which recently provided thousands of days of employment to hundreds of musicians, actors, crew and technicians when no other opportunities were available.
The objective now is to support employment and wellbeing opportunities in the live performance sector across all genres and continued high quality artistic output for the general public.
The scheme is aimed at commercial venues, producers and promoters in the culture sector (e.g. music, entertainment and theatre). Key features of the scheme - which will see awards range from €10k upwards - include: the support of live performances that will occur on or before 30th September 2021; Support for the creation of employment and wellbeing opportunities in the culture and creative industries and the generation of high quality artistic output.
The Live Performance Support Scheme 2021 will be open for applications from Friday, 19th March until Wednesday, 14th April.
€14M SCHEME FOR LIVE ENTERTAINMENT BUSINESSES
Funding of up to €14m has also been made available for a new scheme to make a contribution to the overheads of businesses that have been significantly negatively affected by Covid-19 and that do not qualify for other business supports.
The main features of this new Music Entertainment Business Assistance Scheme (MEBAS) will see support offered by way of two levels of flat payments: €2,500 for businesses with a VAT-exclusive turnover of €20k-€100k; €5,000 for businesses with a VAT-exclusive turnover in excess of €100k.
Self-employed businesses, whether sole traders, partnerships and incorporated entities operating exclusively within the commercial live entertainment sector, are eligible to apply. The scheme is expected to open next month.
€5M TO LOCAL AUTHORITIES FOR OUTDOOR LIVE PERFORMANCES
€5m will be allocated to local authorities to facilitate programming of outdoor live performances in summer 2021 animating town centres for local communities, should public health considerations permit. The Department will develop guidance to mitigate the risk of congregation. It will allow for the procurement by local authorities of performances by local performers. Performances can be recorded or streamed if health restrictions prevent live events. Local authorities will be encouraged to engage events companies to develop and deliver a programme of performances.
€5M FOR LIVE ENTERTAINMENT SECTOR
A separate €5m will be available for a scheme of capital supports for the commercial live entertainment sector. This will be applied to supporting the installation of high quality recording and streaming facilities in venues through a competitive grant application process.
€1M TO ST. PATRICK’S FESTIVAL
Up to €1 million has been allocated for the St. Patrick’s Festival 2021 to support the employment of performers, producers, artists, technicians, creatives and support staff. With gatherings still restricted, SPF 2021 has curated a rich and dynamic programme of events involving hundreds of artists, musicians, performers, creators, and community organisations that will be broadcast on the St. Patrick’s Festival TV online channel over six days and nights, marking the national day.
WORKING GROUP
The membership of the Return to Live Entertainment Working Group would include stakeholders with appropriate technical knowledge in the planning, management and delivery of events who will be charged with ensuring that the necessary guidance will be in place to facilitate the reopening of the sector when it safe to do so. The establishment of this group addresses a recommendation of the Arts and Culture Recovery Taskforce.
The Department will have regard to the recommendations of the Night-time Economy Taskforce within the implementation and rollout of the measures.
It was Friday 8th December 1797 when he arrived at Kilworth’s Mountcashel Arms. Ushered upstairs by innkeeper Bartholomew Simmons, this tall and mysterious figure rested for a while. He then saddled up once more and rode down the street and through the gates of Moore Park. And then up to the Great House.
The Times of London reported that ‘ he was seen lurking about the demesne of Lord Mountcashel, and disguised.’ Stephen Moore, second Earl Mount Cashell was in Cork and thankfully his wife, Margaret, the Countess, was not about. But he did speak to some servants who told him that young Lady Mary King, younger sister of the Countess, was not in Kilworth. Returning to the inn he retired to his room and directed Simmons to call him for the 6.00 coach leaving on the following morning.
Simmons was anxious, and he had good reason. This tall, well-built stranger of military bearing could spell trouble. All about Kilworth rumours of an impending rebellion were rife. Landlords had received letters warning them of reprisals if rents were raised, or in fact not lowered. Ominously, only recently a tithe collector had been thrown over the Mill Bridge, and the Fermoy dragoons had been unavailable to answer Lord Mount Cashell’s call for help. Mansions in the area were being plundered for arms, demesne trees were being cut down for pike handles and roving gangs of tenants dressed in the Whiteboy smocks were maiming the gentry’s cattle or lopping off noses and ears of rent collectors. True, the militia with its Protestant officers, and supported by the likes of Mount Cashells’ Yeomanry - local Protestant gentry - were responding savagely with widespread flogging and hanging of suspects. It was clear to Simmons that no one could feel safe in Kilworth and beyond, and especially so when there were strangers about recruiting for the rebel United Irishmen.
THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER
Who was this stranger resting now at The Mountcashel Arms? Almost thirty years of age and a Lieutenant Colonel in the regiment of Guards, he was Henry Gerald Fitzgerald a member of the Earl of Kingston’s household. A high ranking officer with a commission bought for him by the Kingstons, he was raised in Mitchelstown Castle. It seems that he was first cousin to Lady Caroline King, wife of the 2nd Earl, and had been treated as one of the family all his life. Having served with distinction on the Continent he was now an experienced soldier living by the Thames in London and, according to papers of the time, he was husband to ‘a very beautiful lady’ - an heiress - and father to a boy and girl.
YOUNG LADY GOES MISSING
Throughout the autumn of 1797 English society was shaken with the story that Lady Mary King, seventeen-year old daughter of Lord Viscount Kingsborough was missing. The latter was son of the ageing first Earl of Kingston and both he and his wife, Lady Caroline, feared she was dead. The Kings maintained a residence at Windsor outside London and here Lady Mary lived for part of the year with her mother while her father remained in Mitchelstown. Her parents’ marriage could not be described as a happy one and they were in effect estranged, due in part to the philandering of His Lordship.
LOCATED AT LAST, AND THE ‘SEDUCER’ UNMASKED
One September morning in that year of 1797, servants reported the absence of Lady Mary from her apartment in her parents house in Windsor. Known to be fragile, deeply unhappy and complex in character, she left a suicide note declaring she was about to throw herself into the Thames. The servants searched the house and gardens, the river was trawled and a bonnet and shawl were found. These were recognised as Marys’. Her stricken mother was grateful for the daily visits of cousin Henry who called each day to console her while she awaited the urgent arrival of her husband, Robert, and her son, the Hon Colonel Robert Edward, from Mitchelstown. And then relief came. It appears that ‘the beautiful and accomplished’ daughter, as the Northampton Mercury called her, took pity on her mother and sent a note declaring she was alive and well. But she added that she was resolved not to return to the old unhappy life. Like Harry and Megan, she had had enough!
But where was she? Lord Kingsborough was resolved to find his daughter and newspapers of the time show him offering one hundred guineas for her return - a very substantial sum when 10d per working day was seen as a fair labourer’s wage. This led to a young coachman calling to tell him that a few days before his passenger had bade him stop to pick up a young lady who walking by the road. Without hesitation she had entered the carriage and off they went into town. And on the way these two strangers as he had thought, had now become very affectionate towards each other! And then there was a further development: a young female servant maid visited Lady Caroline and told her of a young woman answering to the description of Lady Mary was sleeping with a gentleman at the boarding house where she worked. Further, she had come upon the young lady unawares busy cutting short her long dark brown tresses.
At this point the papers of the time tell us that a gentleman entered the room and the shocked young maid exclaimed, ‘That’s the man I’ve been talking about!’. A dismayed and unnerved Henry Fitzgerald withdrew promptly and now the pursuit was on. Soon agents for Lord Kingsborough located Mary and she was hastily despatched to Ireland. As for Fitzgerald, he made for home and awaited the Kingston response.
THE DUEL IN HYDE PARK
In those dying days of the eighteenth century, a gentleman regarded a challenge to a duel as the appropriate answer to an insult. Hence, it does not surprise to read that twenty-five year old Colonel the Hon. Robert Edward King would issue a challenge to Fitzgerald to meet him with pistols at the ready. The challenge was accepted and the two met in Hyde Park on Sunday 1st October. Standing ten paces apart, both fired twice. King sustained a shoulder wound, and at this his second, Major Wood, declared he would accept an apology from Fitzgerald. In response, the latter was prepared to say he merely did wrong. But this was seen as not going far enough and the two combatants resumed, each firing twice more but both missing their targets. By now Fitzgerald had run out of ball and powder, and this led to a postponement until the next day.
But news of the duel had spread and the Duke of York, commander of all troops in England, had both duellists arrested for breaching army rules against duelling. This heralded the end of the affair… for now. But Colonel King determined to have the last word. He sent Fitzgerald a note to say t that if he ever appeared near his family again ‘depend upon it, the consequences will be fatal.’ That note has in fact survives to this day, but if it were to have been produced at a trial some months later it may have sealed the fate of a man accused of murder.
THE AFTERMATH
In the aftermath of the duel Fitzgerald confessed to his wife and they had been reconciled. But, finding she was pregnant, young Lady Mary King now feared for her own and child’s life.
Still infatuated with Fitzgerald, she now sent him a note imploring him to come and ‘rescue’ her, his loved one, from Ireland. A maid undertook to ensure the delivery of the note - but first of all that maid saw an advantage in showing it Earl Kingston and his son, the colonel. They saw that by this they could now set a trap and resolve this affair of honour once and for all. They directed the maid proceed to London with the cry for help and they in Mitchelstown would make ready for the arrival of Fitzgerald, a man about whom we read in the Kentish Gazette, 29 December 1797 was a ‘monster’ who had ‘an innocent girl destroyed’.
TENSION BUILDS IN MITCHELSTOWN AND KILWORTH
With Lord Viscount Kingsborough becoming 2nd Earl of Kingston on the death of his father on November 8th, the scene now shifted to Mitchelstown. Tensions in the region around were very high and Araglen, for example, had become a no-go area. We can gauge this from an event some weeks later that saw murder of the hated landlord St George Mansergh of Macroney Castle and his host for the night, Jasper Uniacke. The two were attacked by up to thirty United Irishmen at Carey’s Cottage, and in the event Mrs Uniacke and her son were savagely beaten.
A STRANGER IN MITCHELSTOWN
Travelling by mail coach from Dublin, Colonel Henry Fitzgerald arrived in Mitchelstown. A fellow passenger thought he was ‘of a suspicious appearance’ and said that throughout the journey he had been spending quite some time poring over maps of County Cork. Still infatuated with Mary, Fitzgerald assumed she was at the Castle and was determined to come and bear her away. Heavily disguised, he checked into the King’s Arms at King’s Square, bizarrely affecting a foreign accent to confuse Barry the innkeeper. Stepping out only at night, he must have presented as a shifty figure in a town that was rife with rumours of the United Irish recruiting agents. Three nights or so he spent roaming about hoping to glance his Mary but all was to no avail (it appears she was in Dublin). Eventually he realised that she was not at the castle, so where could she be? A good guess would be Kilworth, at Moore Park, home of her sister Margaret, wife of 2nd Earl Mount Cashell. And so, he resolved to head for Kilworth to seek her out.
In the meantime, Barry the innkeeper had grown very suspicious of the stranger. What was he about? Nothing for it, he thought, but to ride into Fermoy where his lordship Robert, with son Colonel Edward, were reviewing a parade of the Roscommon Militia. On hearing Barry’s suspicions the alarmed Kings galloped back to Mitchelstown. But, arriving there, they learned that the bird had flown.
But all was not lost as news emerged later in the evening that a man answering the description of
the mysterious stranger had checked in to the inn in Kilworth some hours earlier and had been seen ‘lurking’’ about Moore Park. As yet, no one knew who he was but John Hartney, former militia private and now employed at the the King’s Arms would recognise him if he were to see him again. He agreed to accompany the two Kingstons to Kilworth and was probably well paid for his trouble.
THE CLASH AT THE MOUNTCASHEL ARMS
Arriving at The Mountcashel Arms in those early hours of Saturday 9th December 1797. Simmons the innkeeper confirmed that his guest was now sleeping upstairs but would take the eight o’clock coach to Cork in the morning. Not knowing for certain who the stranger was, the Earl of Kingston it is recorded that he directed a waiter to ‘ask the gentleman, with his compliments, to speak for a moment with Lord Kingsborough.’
There are various accounts of what happened next but they differ only in minor detail. The three men rushed up the stairs and here is how the Northampton Mercury of 12th January 1798 described the scene:
Lord Kingsborough rapped at the door, requiring admittance; the other (Fitzgerald) knowing his voice, replied that he was locked in, and could not open the door, but if he had any thing to say to him, he would receive it in writing under the door.
Colonel King recognised the voice and the ‘enraged young nobleman’ kicked in the door. On gaining entrance, he spied a case of pistols on a sideboard. Now we turn to the Hampshire Chronicle of 23rd December for what happened next:
On both seizing the pistols they grappled with each other, and were struggling, when the Earl of Kingston …entered the room, and finding them in the contest, and that his son must lose his life from the situation the deceased had him in, the earl fired and the colonel fell.
Writing in 1895, Fermoy barrister J. Roderick O’Flanagan wrote that the Kingstons now summoned Dr Pigot - son of the eminent lawyer and judge, Chief Baron Pigot - who lived in the impressive two storey house, today the sadly derelict Coughlan’s of Main Street. In their contribution to the De Valera inspired folklore initiative of 1937-38, Gort Rua (Mitchelstown) National School children recorded that Dr Pigot, on being awakened from his slumbers and coming to his window, was greeted by the sight of the Earl below calling ‘Run down at once to the hotel. I shot a man there. See if you can do anything for him.’ Pigot ‘threw a cloak around himself,’ wrote a Gort Rua NS child in 1938, and headed down to the hotel. But Dr Pigot’s earnest efforts were to no avail: a pistol ball had penetrated Fitzgerald’s heart.
INCRIMINATING NOTE RETRIEVED BEFORE GOING TO MOORE PARK
Although the Kingstons were in a state of extreme excitement, they still had the good sense to probe the victim’s pockets. There found the note that Edward had written threatening to kill Fitzgerald if ever he returned to Mitchelstown. This little document would have provided vital evidence of an intention to murder but they were now ensuring that it would not be available in any proceedings against them.
Still in an agitated state, the Earl and son headed down to Moore Park, the home of the Earl’s daughter Margaret, Countess Mount Cashell. On meeting the Earl said ’God, I don’t know how I did it; but I most sincerely wish it had been by some other hand than mine’. The shocked but wise Margaret advised the two to present themselves to the authorities and submit to the law. Following on from this, the newspapers of the time report that they presented themselves to an officer of the court in Cashel. Given their exalted status as members of one of the most powerful families in the land, they probably calculated they would have little to fear.
BURIED IN KILWORTH CHURCH GRAVEYARD
As for poor Colonel Fitzgerald, some days later The Times of London carried a report that he had been buried in the little churchyard at the Kilworth Protestant church, now the Village Arts Centre. Lady Mount Cashell who with her little sister Mary, had played with him as children, did not attend - nor did any of the Kings, nor indeed his wife or children. The only mourners were Simmons, the innkeeper, a corporal and five privates.
THE LAW TAKES ITS STRANGE COURSE
A charge of murder was brought and the two noble Kingstons together with servant John Harney were consigned to Cork jail from which on April 9th they were brought to appear at the Cork Assizes. Quickly it became clear that the evidence against Colonel King and Harney was far too flimsy, and the jury of commoners found both he and Harney not guilty. As for the Earl of Kingston, being a Peer of the realm he was in the happy position of being able to choose a trial not by jury, but by his peers in the Irish House of Lords, that is, in the stately colonnaded building that stands today as the Bank of Ireland directly across from the entrance gate of Trinity College.
On May 18th, 1798 one of the most sensational trials of the century took place before two marquesses, twenty-seven earls, fourteen viscounts, three archbishops and other nobles of lesser standing. It was an all-ticket affair with the nobles of the land and gentry jostling for admission. So great was the interest that seven hundred thronged the galleries. Leading for the defence was the most eminent lawyer of his day, Newmarket man John Philpot Curran who heard his client answer ‘not guilty’. Tension reached its highest when the main prosecution witnesses were called. But, to the apparent surprise of all, witnesses did not appeared although Curran insisted they had been summoned. And crucially, Fitzgerald’s estranged wife who knew of the incriminating threatening note did not show. Hence there could be no other verdict but ‘not guilty’. Thus, the Earl of Kingston was free to return to Mitchelstown.
THE FINAL CHAPTER
As for Mary, it is recorded that her baby by Fitzgerald died soon after birth. One report says the Kingstons had initially planned to consign her to a convent in Portugal - a not unusual sentence for a disgraced woman of rank in those days. But this never happened, and in 1805, unrepentant and outspoken, she became the wife of a native of County Longford, a minor gentleman named George Galbraith Meares.
She died in Clifton, Gloucestershire, in 1819 the mother of four children. And as for her father the Earl of Kingston, he died just one year after the trial, aged forty-four, and was buried in the family vault at Kingston College chapel.
Note: The Mountcashels signed themselves with two words, ‘Mount’ and ‘Cashell’, that is, ‘Mount Cashell’ (the old spelling of Cashel, from which they took their title and where they had extensive holdings, had a double ‘l’). With the passing of time, the name was rendered as one word, ‘Mountcashel’ , especially in the press.
Vandalism in a Mitchelstown laneway was leading the news in the year 2000, as businesses in New Square said they were ‘ sick’ of the criminality in a nearby laneway. There were claims that an unlit alley, running to the rear of their buildings, was the scene of criminal damage incidents and litter dumping. The group said that if something was not done rapidly, that they feared serious damage to property would occur.
“There were builders putting in the foundation for a manhole on the lane last Friday and they didn’t finish until 8pm, at which time they placed a barrier around it. However, they arrived Monday morning to find the barrier knocked and the manhole demolished. Whoever did it, had even ripped up the pipes and stood on the concrete that had been laid,” a local told TheAvondhu.
The complainant also said that litter was causing a significant health risk and blame was centred on young people hanging out in the area.
In Ballindangan, residents were threatening Cork County Council with blockading a local road in protest at the failure to repair its surface. The Ballindangan to Ballylough Road, was said to be covered with potholes and ‘getting worse day by day’.
“We have repeatedly appealed to councillors to have something done about the state of the road and we have been ignored. Ample time has been given for something to be done, but it’s getting worse and should not be tolerated,” a local told TheAvondhu.
Saint Michael’s Hall in Ballyduff was filled to capacity for the 20th Annual West Waterford Drama Festival. Bill Canning, chairman of the event, welcomed all present and brought laughs from the audience as he asked for a show of hands as to who had been there on the first night of the event, 20 years previous.
Carrie Crowley, a well known radio and television presenter, was special guest and in her speech, she recalled the many happy days and nights spent in Ballyduff and spoke of the village and its people having ‘that something special’ that sets it apart.
Plans to find a Miss Milk Rás 2000 were finalised and a competition was to be held via TheAvondhu, in which nomination papers would be published. People could name the person most befitting of the cycling beauty queen competition.
Gardai had circulated a warning that fake £20 notes were in circulation across the area. Gardai said that they were easy to spot, as the paper used was inferior compared to that used for real tender and did not carry a silver security strip. The investigators said that all £20 notes should be examined, to ensure they were not fake.
There were plans underway to link Lismore in County Waterford with their namesake town in Australia. Rob Gates, Mayor of Lismore on the Antipodean continent, wrote to the local town commissioners stating that his electorate were anxious to get in touch over the Millennium year. Local commissioners in the County Waterford town greeted the news with enthusiasm and goodwill.
“In these times when towns are twinning all over the world, it seems apt that the two Lismores have some contact with each other. We could arrange an internet link-up and a joint meeting,” suggested John Heneghan.
The commissioners decided to write a reply to the Australian mayor and suggest a meeting via an online medium.
A Fermoy man who discovered his grandchildren’s pet dogs were poisoned, said he feared the potential risk of young children also being poisoned. Pat Thornhill, who lived at Strawhall, offered a reward for information so that the perpetrators could be tracked down. The first dog died after becoming sick and passed away just two hours after first signs of the poisoning appeared. He believed that the attack was a targeted one and he appealed to people to contact the gardai with information.
There was a special service held in Kingston College, Mitchelstown following the arrival of a new chaplain to serve the community. Martha Gray Stack - who sadly passed away recently - was officially welcomed as the new religious minister for the area. A large crowd gathered in the College church for the service, which was led by the Right Reverend Bishop Paul Colton of Cork, Cloyne and Ross.
In sport - White City FC scored a 4-0 victory in their match against St Mologga’s. The team were moving closer to their goal of first division status. Scorers were Thomas Murphy (penalty), Mick Roche, Kieran Luddy and Stephen Slattery.
Grange/Fermoy AC athlete Mary Sheehan won the Adare 10Km race, with a new course record.