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Continued from previous page
Pat Purcell Papers. Part 6-
Not We From Kings But Kings From Us.
Letter,
Genealogical enquiry, Dated, May, 1931.
From: J.
Hallam [ ? ],
Threadneedle
Street, City of London, England.
To: Pat
Purcell,
Town Hall,
Carlow, Ireland.
(Continued
extracts edited by Michael Purcell from 52 page letter.
Part six of
a FAMILY CHRONICLE compiled in 1862 by Henrietta Maria Hickey.
Not many
County Families in Carlow and other counties have sustainable pedigrees,
they like to think they have but close examination of their pedigree
chart may reveal a questionable "bastard" relationship to a well
connected family on the British mainland.
Many the
commoner with money purchased property in Ireland in poor times for land
prices or was granted land for some service or other.
Their first
inclination after settling in Ireland is to claim a blood tie with a
titled or aristocratic family bearing a similar surname, all the better
to lord it over their "gentry" neighbours.
The British
resident of noble position is often surprised when contacted by their
recently hatched Irish "cousin" by the introduction of a dubious bastard
son, daughter or sibling of their own ancestor in order for the
relationship to be acknowledged.
One such
story concerning the Carlow Rochfort family has often been repeated and
is worth recalling to memory.
It is said
that the first of the Rochforts to settle in Carlow were stone cleavers,
they lived in a straw roof cabin near a quarry in Clogrennan.
A son of
this family was taken under the wing of Lady Beth a member of the
Cheevers family of noble stock. She had the boy educated and practised
in the manners of a gentleman to such a measure that the boy went to
Oxford to complete his education.
One day
while on a visit to London he was introduced to a lady of social
standing and presented her with a purple silk kerchief. She was
impressed by the young man and a romantic attachment developed between
them. However her father doubted the young man's social affability and
sought to make inquiry as to his background by sending his trusted
manservant to accompany the young man to Ireland and report back what he
saw.
Travelling
to Ireland on the boat the young man confided in the servant telling him
that
his Irish family were
poor people of low standing and if the servant would return to his
master with a good report he would in time make the servant rich enough
to have his own servants.
The servant
agreed but said he would not lie to his master.
They arrived
by boat on the river Barrow to the young man's cabin in Clogrennan and
the first sight the servant saw were two goats butting heads and the
father sitting on a 3 legged stool peeling potatoes with his finger
nails (for the Irish peasantry grew long nails to use for peeling
potatoes). The servant turned away exclaiming he had seen enough.
He returned
to London by the next boat. When he arrived he found that his master had
taken seriously ill and was close to death.
He hurried
to his bedside and told him that upon arrival at the young man's home in
Ireland he was welcomed by not one but two butts (slang for butler) and
saw the family cutlery the like of which he had never seen before in
mansion or palace and there were two large boats for use by the family
on the river that ran alongside the house situated in the countryside.
The father
gave his blessing on the marriage, the young man secured the family
wealth and purchased several thousand acres of land at Clogrenne from
the Duke of Ormonde. He built a mansion with 52 rooms with 365 panes of
glass, one for each day of the year and they lived contentedly among
their Irish "aristocratic" neighbours.
I will not
put the servant's name to paper for he too settled in Carlow with his
new wealth and impressed all with his acquired gentlemanly ways whilst
proclaiming his family connection to the highest ranks of British
nobility with his pedigree charts on parchment with a mark for his
fancied bastard grandfather.
Today his
descendants trot about Carlow as if the blood of nobility flowed through
their veins. Indeed it was a lady descendant of that same servant who
first told me the story of the Rochforts saying one could tell from
their appearance and manner that they were of ill breeding.
"She knew
her own" never was it truer stamped on a persons forehead.
Our family
motto " NOT WE FROM KINGS BUT KINGS FROM US" tells us all we need to
know of our own family pedigree. Cheevers
family In a footnote to the previous posting, "Not Us
From Kings But Kings From Us" Henrietta Hickey added:-
"the Cheevers family held lands in Carlow,
Wexford and Kildare. They were of Norman-French extraction whose
ancestors came to Ireland with the forces of the second King Henry who
led his army in response to a plea from Pope Adrian to surpress the
barbarous Irishery and restore the Kingdom of Leinster to the
McMurroughs . Knight Roger and Knight Henry de Cheevers of Devon and
Cornwall were granted lands in Leinster. The family were dispossessed of
their lands in 1650 by the English Parliamentarian Army [Cromwell], they
were moved to poor land in the West of Ireland. The family motto in
translation is "We Subdue Those
Who Would Oppose Us”. Some of the family became members of the
Society of Friends [Quakers], one of whom was a prominent Preacher. The
family seat in Carlow was situated in Grangeforth at Tullow". [note added in 2012 by Michael Purcell. The
Browne-Clayton archive records that some of the Cheever lands ended up
in the ownership of the Browne family of Browneshill.
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