Wicklow Roots

[Sinead]

I have friends living in Clonegal, she is from Dun Laoghaire and he from Inchicore!
Spent a few days with them earlier in the year. There is a great village attitude
and friendship there, they all work hard with the Tidy Towns. A nice place but
a bit too far down the country for me.

Sinéad

[Snowhite]

Rocker,

Daughter was married in Avoca on Thursday, like her Ma and Da, with the reception afterwards in Rathsallagh House, Dunlavin. A beautiful place and a great day. But being up in the Gap in a heavy downpour is a bit unsettling, the headlines keep popping up in your head...."Father of Bride Found at Bottom of Steep Ravine"! Would you believe I've never been that far into West Wicklow before? Wicklow is really like two or more counties, with the mountains acting as a divider between them, and up around Carnew would have more in common with North Wexford and Carlow than Wicklow itself. Some people reckon it's part of the reason why the county can't put together a decent Senior Football team in the All-Ireland championship....there's no unity amongst the different regions. When we were going to school, as Denis and Jabra will remember, the Bray lads were very quick to tell you that they were "Wickla", nowadays Bray seems to be just another suburb full of plastic Dubs.

Skins
My son built his house about 10 mins away from Rathsallagh House, such a beautiful place for a wedding reception. I love going over the gap to his house it's just such great scenery, funny how my ancestors came from Rathnew/Rathdrum area and now 2 of my son's live in Wicklow, one is just outside Wicklow Town and the other is over the far side in Grangecon, Wicklow The son in Grangecon and his wife both work in Dun Laoghaire and travel up and down everyday, the other son works in Glasthule. costs them a fortune in petrol

[skins]

Yes, Snowy/Sinéad, some of these places are brilliant to live in, but not so nice if you're faced with a long trek to the city on a daily basis, in all kinds of adverse weather conditions. Wicklow Town wouldn't be too bad, with a choice of public transport, but I'd balk a bit at the idea of Grangecon, I think.

[slipper]

Yes, remember them well, Denis. Tommy Campbell was another one, and a chap named McGarry. Do you recall a bloke called Niall O'Neill, who lived at Shanganagh Bridge? Was at a funeral in Clonegal a few months ago; there was a meal afterwards in the Mount Wolseley Hotel, followed by a white-knuckle ride home through thick fog over the hills via Shillelagh, Tinahely, etc. Not for the faint-hearted!

Did Tommy Campbell have a younger brother named Francis ? There was a chap from Bray with that name in my class - I was a year behind you - and he had an older brother in Eblana, wonder if that was Tommy? Anyway this kid caused a sensation in school when at the height of the Davy Crockett craze he showed up in a fringed mock leather jacket and coonskin hat - I think they had relations in the U S - it goes without saying he was the envy of everybody in our class,if not the whole school!

[skins]

Sorry, Slipper, can't remember that, even though I was at a Birthday party in his house on Old Connaught Avenue once.

[Rocker]

Was in the National Art Gallery this morning at the Frederic William Burton exhibition....class.
details of the man,
http://www.libraryireland.com/irisharti ... burton.php

During his early period he did lots of family portraits all in watercolour...fantastic. One caught my eye,,,painted in 1849 the La Touche family at Bellvue House, Delgany. Peter la Touche, his mother Charlotte Maude, daughter of Cornwallis, first Viscount Hawarden. The blurb attached to each picture was excellent and improved my history and geography no end, I also found out that the la Touche family were Hugenot bankers.

Bit about the La Touche family,
http://homepage.eircom.net/~latouche/History.htm

[Denis Cromie]

Good info there Rocker. The La Touche Legacy committee are a active group and hold regular seminars down here. I attended one of them and enjoyed it. The La Touche's have a very interesting history and their legacy is highly regarded in Greystones.

[Rocker]

Wicklow Heritage send me the odd posting and this arrived today,

http://www.countywicklowheritage.org/pa ... ?path=0p2p

Great info on place names.

[Rocker]

A few years ago I went to Donard and Glendalough searching for family. At one stage one of them worked in Humewood House so I got interested in that. It has had ups and downs and is now called Humewood Castle. The other day I heard a report the tech/cable billionaire John Malone who now owns it has spent 40 million on renovations. Here is a little history on the castle.

http://curiousireland.ie/humewood-castl ... klow-1870/

http://www.buildingsofireland.ie/niah/s ... o=16402701

[Rocker]

This New year period is a great time for meeting relations whom we haven't seen for years. There we are like flotsam and jetsam crowded into every room chatting and getting reacquainted with each other.I'm mad into the family history so started to relate stories I have found out about mutual GtGt Grandfathers and their tough times in Wicklow.

Lo and behold various different relations piped up...I go walking in the Wicklow hills every week.......I go to Glendalough every month....I love doing the lakes at glendalough.... it has to be a tribe thing. None of these had any idea of the others,most had never met before, they never knew our forefathers came from Wicklow...yet each of them felt at home in Wicklow and love every moment they are there.

Scary!!

Now, I'm going to rope some distant relations into the family research...yippee

[Rocker]

It was on Tuesday, March 14th, 2017, around 1am, that the R116 rescue helicopter suddenly went off-radar.

To mark the first-year anniversary of that tragic day, Greystones Coast Guards are holding a short remembrance ceremony on Wednesday, March 14th. Also being remembered on the day is Catriona Lucas, a Coast Guard volunteer who lost her life on September 12th, 2016 whilst on a search with the Doolin/Kilkee unit.


The ceremony kicks off at 7.30pm, with a piper playing at the south end of the pier before 5 flares are released out at sea by the Greystones Coast Guard boat and the RNLI Wicklow ALB. This will be followed by a minute’s silence.
Those attending will then be invited into the Ridge Angling Clubhouse for some refreshments, as the piper bookends the ceremony.

https://www.greystonesguide.ie/sittin-o ... f-the-bay/

[Denis Cromie]

Fair dues Rocker you know what happens in Greystones better than I do. Are you thinking of moving down ?

[Toss]

Fair dues Rocker you know what happens in Greystones better than I do. Are you thinking of moving down ?

Dont think she would have enough coins to keep the ESB meter running down there .... I expect Greystones will be needing more school places in 5 years after the latest blackout

[Denis Cromie]

Leave it to ya Toss. but I can tell you it'll have nothing to do with me.

[Rocker]

The more you delve into family history and roots the more you realise that we have such entwined lives. While scratching my head about family names in Wicklow and reading up bits and pieces I came across this snippet about the Grove in Glencree and the Glencree Society.

Tie ins with Sallynoggin, Sandycove, Dún Laoghaire...
must spend a Sunday there in the Summer

http://glencreesociety.com/about-us/history/

[Rocker]

So many famous people came from Wicklow.

Today I heard of a talk in Blessington about Dame Ninette de Valois OM CH DBE (6 June 1898 – 8 March 2001). She was born Edris Stannus and lived the first years of her life in Wicklow. Her father was Lt.-Col. Thomas Robert Alexander Stannus, born on 29 September 1870. He died on 17 July 1917 at age 46, from wounds received in action. He was severely wounded in the Gallipoli campaign. He returned to active service in the autumn of 1916, and was mentioned in despatches and recommended for the D.S.O. and the Legion of Honour.

Ninette de Valois was born as Edris Stannus on 6 June 1898 at Baltyboys House, an 18th-century manor house near the town of Blessington, County Wicklow, Ireland and in 1905 moved to England to live with her grandmother in Kent.

The young Edris Stannus started attending ballet lessons in 1908, at the age of ten, and at the age of thirteen she began her professional training at the Lila Field Academy for Children. It was at this time that she changed her name to Ninette de Valois and made her professional debut as a principal dancer in pantomime at the Lyceum Theatre in the West End. In 1919, at the age of 21, she was appointed principal dancer of the Beecham Opera, which was then the resident opera company at the Royal Opera House.
In 1923, Valois joined the Ballets Russes, a renowned ballet company founded by the Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev. Later in her life, Ninette de Valois claimed that everything she knew about how to run a ballet company she learned from working with Diaghilev.
After leaving the Ballets Russes, in 1927, Valois established the Academy of Choreographic Art, a dance school for girls in London and the Abbey Theatre School of Ballet, Dublin. When the Sadler's Wells theatre re-opened in 1931, Valois moved her school into studios there, under the new name, the Sadler's Wells Ballet School. A ballet company was also formed, known as the Vic-Wells Ballet. The Vic-Wells ballet company and school would be the predecessors of today's Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and Royal Ballet School.

[keeper]

Interesting posts Rocker, thanks for them !