Showing 794 results

The 2nd Lord Bloomfield became a diplomat like his father and served as ambassador in Vienna from 1860-1871, after which he retired. He became a peer in the United Kingdom and was given the title Baron Bloomfield of Ciamhalta in County Tipperary, a neighbouring property to Loughton demesne. Although he died at Ciamhalta in 1879, he was buried in Borrisnafarney Church, Loughton where his father was buried. In 1845, he married the Hon. Georgiana Liddel, youngest daughter of the 1st Lord Ravensworth and they had no children. His sister, Georgiana Mary Emily married Henry Trench of Cangort Park in 1836 and he sold the Loughton estate to him in 1870.

Harriet Douglas, daughter of John Douglas of Suffolk, married Benjamin Bloomfield in 1797 and moved to Ireland with him shortly after. She died in 1868

Benjamin Bloomfield was born on 13 April 1768, son of John Bloomfield, Lieutenant of the grenadiers and Miss Waller. In 1797 he married Harriet Douglas of Suffolk and they moved to Ireland soon after. They had one son, John Arthur Douglas Bloomfield, born in 1802, a daughter, Charlotte who died in 1828, and a daughter Georgiana, who later married Henry Trench of Cangort Park. His sister, Anne Bloomfield, married Thomas Ryder Pepper of Loughton House. When Pepper died in 1828, he left Loughton House to Lord Bloomfield.

He commanded a battery of artillery at Vinegar Hill during the 1798 Rebellion. During his long military career he held the following posts: G.C.B. and G.C.H., a Lieutenant-General in the army, Colonel- Commandant of the Royal Horse Artillery, Governor of Fort Charles, Jamaica, and a Privy Councillor. He held the distinguished and confidential offices of Clerk, Marshal, Private Secretary and Privy Purse to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, afterwards King George IV. He was nine years Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Sweden, and subsequently Commandant at Woolwich.

Lord Bloomfield died in Portman Square, Woolwich on 15 August 1846 and his remains were taken to Loughton House.

The Birr War Pensions Committee was established under the national Naval and War Pensions Committee.

Birr Business and Professional Women’s Club was formed in the County Arms Hotel, in November 1967. It was the first business and professional women’s club to be formed in Ireland outside of Dublin.

Middleton Westenra Biddulph was born on 17 August 1849 at Rathrobin, Mountbolus, King’s County (Offaly). He was one of six children, and the eldest surviving son of Francis Marsh Biddulph (1802–1868) and Lucy Bickerstaff (d. 1896). She was born in Preston, Lancashire and they married in 1845. The Bickerstaff connection was to be an important one for the surviving sons of Francis Marsh Biddulph, and led to a substantial inheritance in the 1890s for Middleton W Biddulph, and his brother Assheton, who lived at Moneyguyneen, Kinnitty.
The Biddulph ancestors were from Staffordshire, and later Wexford, and had arrived in King’s County from as early as 1694 or 1660. Lt Col. Biddulph held about 1,000 acres, of which perhaps 600 to 700 acres he farmed with the balance leased to his long-standing Protestant tenants. His landholding was principally in the townlands of Rathrobin and those adjoining of Clonseer, Cormeen, Kilmore and Mullaghcrohy, all near Mountbolus, in the civil parish of Killoughy and the barony of Ballyboy.

Middleton Biddulph went to Foxcroft House boarding school in Portarlington, aged 11, thereafter to the Royal School in Banagher, and joined the army when he was eighteen, enlisting with the Northumberland Fusiliers (Fifth Regiment). Initially an ensign or cornet, he rose in the ranks quickly and was a Lieutenant by 1871, Captain in 1881 and Major from 1885. Before retirement in 1896 he held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He spoke French, German and Hindustani and stations included: Hythe March (1872), St Helier’s, Chatham (1879) Portsmouth (1881), Agra (1880), Mullingar (1882), Newcastle (1886), Colchester (1887) and Aldershot (1891). It was while he was at Mullingar with the Ist Batt. Northumberland Fusiliers that he was appointed adjutant of the Ist Northumberland and ordered to proceed to Alnwick. It appears that he met his future wife, Vera Flower, following on from an introduction by her brother Stanley Smyth Flower (1871–1946), who was also an officer in the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers. They married in 1891. Vera Josephine Flower was a daughter of Sir William Flower, Director of the British Museum of Natural History, South Kensington, London. They did not have children.

When Biddulph retired from the army in the mid-1890s, he returned to Rathrobin and rebuilt the old house with the benefit of the Bickerstaff inheritance over the period 1898 to 1900. He employed Sir Thomas Drew as architect and William Beckett of Dublin as the builder. Once the new Rathrobin House was completed, Lt Col. Middleton Biddulph got on with his duties as a landlord and was a regular attender at the Petty Sessions, the Board of Guardians, and the County Infirmary, served as High Sheriff in 1901, and was appointed Deputy Lieutenant of the County in 1910. He was also on the board of the King’s County Joint Committee for Technical Instruction and the King’s County Farming Society. He and his wife left for England in June 1921 as the military campaign of the IRA in the locality intensified, and Rathrobin House was destroyed by Republican IRA forces in April 1923. While he seemed to have planned to return to Ireland after this, an attack on his land agent, Violet Magan, and his own declining health delayed plans to do so, and he died in Chelsea in May 1926.

Thomas Berry was born in 1737 or 1738, the eldest son of John Berry (1702-1768) who was buried at Kilbeggan. In 1759 he married Frances Berry. Through her connection, he acquired Eglish Castle in the 1770. He was reputed to hold a large tract of land in the Barony of Philipstown as well as land in the Barony of Eglish. He farmed much of the land himself which for the most part was grazed by sheep. He also established a bleach green at Eglish. He died in 1815 at Eglish and was buried there.