Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1928-1929 (Creation)
Level of description
Extent and medium
493pp
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Lewis Goodbody was a son of Lewis Frederick, one of the five sons of Robert of Mountmellick, and was born at Clara in 1866 and died there at Drayton Villa on 8 January 1933, aged 66. He was educated at Birkdale, Lancashire and at Trinity College, Dublin from where he graduated in 1887. He joined the firm of Tisdall & Goodbody, later Goodbody and Tisdall, then of 15 Dame Street and Tullamore on qualifying as a solicitor in 1891. In 1893 he was active in the campaign to save the union and defeat the Gladstone home rule bill and was hon. secretary to an anti-home rule demonstration in Tullamore. Tisdall was pushed out in 1901 and the new firm of A & L Goodbody commenced in 1902. Lewis Goodbody was a keen sportsman with a strong interest in cricket and motoring. He was an original member of the Irish Automobile Club and his firm were the solicitors to the Irish Dunlop Company’s stock exchange prospectus in 1899. Goodbody lived in Kilcoursey, Clara throughout his life and what with inherited wealth and business acumen his establishment was able to support a governess, a cook and a parlour maid. Lewis Goodbody died at Clara at the age of 66 and was buried at the Friends Burial Ground, Clara. He was survived by his wife, Edith Lisetta Pim and two daughters and one son. The latter spent much of his time in India and died there in 1974.
Repository
Archival history
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Original incoming and copy outgoing correspondence concerning aspects of estate management undertaken by A. & L. Goodbody, solicitors on behalf of Lord Digby, such as rent collection, timber sales, illegal timber cutting on the estate, the terminal illness of Edward Nesbitt (estate bailiff), fishery rights on the Erne and the Moy, and sporting rights over the lands of Geashilll granted to Lord Digby and his father for life by the tenants.
Includes copy letter from Goodbody to Digby concerning fishery rights: '...As to the possibility of future legislation here. Well nothing that the [Salmon Fisheries] Association can do will stop the Government if they want to pass legislation. Strong opposition was put up about the ridiculous Irish language movement without any effect whatever. The idealists seem to get it all their own way and the opposition had not the courage to speak out their mind or vote as their conscience tells them they should vote, so they appear to have stayed away in the Senate instead of voting against it.' (8 May 1929)