LISSADELL HOUSE By Eoin, Ben and Rory

CONTENTS Location The Gore-Booths The Cassidy-Walshes History Poem Gardens Constance Markievicz Nowadays Pictures

LOCATION Lissadell House is located in Lissadell which is just beside Raghly. If you are wondering where Raghly is, it is just outside Grange.

THE GORE-BOOTHS The Gore-Booths were the family who first owned Lissadell House. Sir Henry had five children; Constance (born 1868), Josslyn ( born1869), Eva (born1870), Mabel (born 1874) and Mordaunt (born 1876). W.B. Yeats, during one of his visits to the Gore-Booth home, described them in a poem as 'two girls in silk kimonos, both beautiful, one a gazelle'. Constance enrolled in the Slade College of Art, London in 1893, and by 1898 had moved to Paris working in the Rudolphe Julian Art school. It was here she met and married the artist Count Casimir Dunin-Markievicz from Poland. They returned to Ireland and settled in Rathmines, Dublin in 1903.

THE CASSIDY-WALSHES In 2003, the house was put up for sale by the then-owner, Sir Josslyn Gore- Booth,a grand-nephew of the original Josslyn Gore-Booth, for €3 million. A consortium was set up consisting of businessmen and politicians to buy the house in trust for the state. However, the house was eventually sold to a private couple, the prominent Dublin barristers Edward Walsh and Constance Cassidy, who began to restrict access through the estate shortly after, citing privacy and safety concerns.

HISTORY The estate was formed from land granted in the early 17th century to the Elizabethan soldier, Sir Paul Gore for his services to England during the Nine Years War. The House took five years to build, from 1830 to 1835 but was inhabited since 1833 by Sir Robert Gore-Booth. In 1876, Sir Robert left the House and surrounding gardens to his son, Henry Gore-Booth. The estate was bought by the Cassidy-Walsh family in It was once 32,000 acres but now consists of less than 500 acres. Lissadell House was one of W.B Yeats’ favourite holiday destinations. During the famine the Gore-Booths set up soup kitchens and gave to all of the starving people.

POEM W.B Yeats liked the house so much, he wrote a poem about it. “In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Constance Markievicz” The light of evening, Lissadell, Great windows open to the south, Two girls in silk kimonos, Both beautiful, one a gazelle. The gazelle being Constance Markievicz.

THE GARDENS The Alpine garden was created in 1714 as a pleasure garden, but by the 1920s it was an exhibition garden for the alpine and herbaceous plants collected and bred by Sir Josslyn Gore-Booth. The Victorian Kitchen Gardens were made to supply the owners with food. The kitchen gardens The alpine gardens

COUNTESS MARKIEVICZ. Constance Georgine Markievicz, Countess Markievicz, née Gore-Booth was born on the 4 February was an Irish Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil politician and revolutionary nationalist. In December 1918, she was the first woman elected to the British House of Commons, though she did not take her seat and, along with the other Sinn Féin TDs, formed the first Dáil Éireann. She fought during the 1916 Easter Rising.

NOWADAYS Nowadays it is a tourist location and there are sometimes special events hosted there. For example, in July there was a ‘Yeat’s birthday party’. Concerts are also held there.

PICTURES

CREDITS Everything: Ben, Rory, and Eoin