My Uncle Creagh, who lives in Birmingham, Alabama (and at least claims to read this blog!) just found out he has to have some fairly major surgery in a few days.

So Uncle Creagh, I just wanted to: (a) test whether you really read this blog; and (b) let you know that you will be in my thoughts and prayers over the next few days! Good luck!

*For those of you curious about the name Creagh, it is an old family name in our family. It’s a Gaelic name, and I’ve always heard that it translates to “laurel branch,” which is kind of confirmed in the text of the article I’m pasting below – it says “O’Craoibh, of which Creagh is the anglicised form,” means “branch.” (Of which Creagh is the angilcised form!?! I’m sure many of you out there who have never seen the name Creagh before think that “Creagh” could use some further anglicisation itself!) The article mentions Creagh Castle, and I remember some years back my Uncle Creagh was on a business trip to Ireland and actually visited his namesake castle! That’s supposedly a photos of Creagh Castle above.

Anyway, here you go:

THE CREAGHS

Another family with a long-standing connection with Doneraile were the Creaghs. They are descended from the O’Neills of Thomond who in a battle against the Danes in Limerick wore laurel branches to their helmets, thus earning the name O’Craoibh (branch), of which Creagh is the anglicised form. From the eleventh to the sixteenth century the family was settled in County Limerick, where, in 1312, John Creagh. of Adare. was Mayor of Limerick. The date of arrival of the Creaghs in Doneraile is not clear. but one branch of the fainily appears to have settled in County Cork by the sixteenth century: Christopher Creagh was Mayor of Cork in 1541, and a man of great influence and power amongst the native Irish. His direct descendant, John Creagh, was ancestor of the senior branch of the family, the Creaghs of Ballyandrew and Laurentinum. His secomid son, Doctor John Creagh, was living in Doneraile at least as early as 1760, when the followimig advertisement appeared in the Cork Evening Post: ‘Wanted, a servant to manage a small garden. If he is a single man, well recommended, and not corpulent. he may hear of a place by applying to Doctor Creagh of Doneraile. Dr. Creagh married twice, first a Miss Ruddock of Wallstown by whom he had one child, Catherine,to whom we will return later.His second wife was Judith Ussher from Co. Waterford,and by her he had another daughter, Mary, who in 1779 married Kilner Brazier of Lizard, Co. Limerick.Their son, George Washington Brasier-Creagh, was ancestor of the Brasier-Creaghs of Creagh Castle. This house, originally called Castle Saffron, and standing beside a well-preserved tower-house, one-time stronghold of the Roche family, became a Creagh property in1788, when Dr. John Creagh leased it from Mr. William Love. The original house was built by John Love before 1750 and is said to have contained rooms with plasterwork by the Francini brothers.Creagh Castle, as it became known was destroyed by fire towards the end of the eighteenth century and was rebuilt in 1816 by William Brasier-Creagh, incorporating the old front of the original house, which gives the building a somewhat earlier look. The two bay addition on the south side of the house was built in 1911 to provide a larger drawing room and is in exactly the same style as the original block. William’s brother, George, also made many improvements to the estate, including the spectacular Gothic entrance gates and gate lodge, which were built in 1827. Doctor John Creagh had a younger brother, Michael, who leased the townland of Laurentinum from Lord Doneraile and built on it the main seat of the Creaghs. shortly after his marriage in 1741 to Catharina Parker. Laurentinum House was originailly three-storey in size, but the top storey was taken down in the late l840s or early l850s and the house reroofed. The new roof has a very low hip and wide projecting eaves and gives the house a somewhat nineteenth-century feel.

Catharina and Michael had one son, John who drowned in the Awbeg when young. Michael seems to have lost his wife at around the same time as he remarried in 1745. His second wife was Mary sister and heiress of Captain Richard Gethin, and he was succeeded by his eldest son, Arthur Gethin Creagh who in 1770 married Isabella. daughter of William Bagwell. MP, of Clonmel. Co. Tipperary. They had five sons and five daughters, and three of their children are of particular interest. The second son, the Rev. John Bagwell Creagh. built a house known locally as the Hermitage on the townland of Ballyandrew. This is an ancient towniand. where Druids are said to have had their sanctuary near the medicinal well before St. Patrick came to Ireland. This townland came into the possession of the Creagh family by the marriage of John’s grandfather. Michael Creagh, to Miss Gethin. but it might have had an earlier connection with the Creaghs as well, because the area is famous for two ghosts. both related to the Creagh family: the first one of these is known as the dog of the Creaghs: the second is the ghost of a Miss Creagh. who, when her lover had been killed by her father, came by an untimely death.

Hermitage House is a good example of early nineteenth-century vernacular style. There are one or two other examples of this style left in North Cork, hut none in as good a state of preservation as this one. The original dwelling house, which existed before the Hermitage was built, now forms part of the courtyard to the rear of the house. This was the home of the Atkins family who are interesting in their own right. Richard Atkins. who lived in the house in the early eighteenth century, married Anne. only daughter of the O’Sullivan Beare. Richard was killed by a fall from his horse returning from Hunting, and his only child,John Atkins, was an ancestor of Thomas Davis.

There is another house of interest near the Hermitage. This dwelling, Saffron Hill Cottage. was built by the Rev. Edward Sayers, who was appointed curate of Doneraile in I 708. It later became the home of Kilner Brasier, who married Mary, daughter of Dr. John Creagh of Castle Saffron, and most of their children were born at Saffron Hill. One of them, George Washington Brazier-Creagh, lived here up to the time of his marriage and before succeeding to Creagh Castle. He afterwards sold the property to Viscount Doneraile, whose mother-in-law, Mrs Lenox-Conyngham. lived here between 1852 and 1861. The second child of interest of Arthur and Isabella Gethin Creagh was their eldest son, Michael. He lived for a time at Kilbrack Cottage, which is said to be the oldest inhabited house in Doneraile. It is of a complex structure, being originally a three bay, single-storey cottage. The roof was originally thatched and the house adorned with an ornamental bargeboard but both features have now disappeared. A fourth bay was added to the facade early on and a one-and-a-half-storey extension was built to the rear. A severe landlord, Michael became unpopular with his tenants, and in 1829 he became a target of an assassination attempt by the \Vhiteboys, now called locally the Doneraile Conspiracy, the idea of which was to get rid of three landlords, Michael Creagh, Vice-Admiral Henry Evans and George Bond Lowe. On a January night that year, Dr. Norcott of Cottage, Doneraile was returning from a party with his daughter, when two persons fired at his carriage, wounding the coachman and footman, and sending several bullets through the carriage. In a court case which followed, it was revealed that Dr. Norcott’s carriage was fired at by mistake because it closely resemnbled that of Mr. Creagh’s. The prisoners had a lucky escape as well:,they were initially sentenced to be hanged, but the sentence was afterwards altered to transportation for life. From 1835 to 1849, Kilbrack Cottage was the home of the Very Rev. P. Sheehan, Parish Priest of Doneraile (not to be confused with the famous author Canon Sheehan, who lived at Bridge House. Doneraile, some fifty years later). According to local tradition, he was forbidden by Lord Doneraile to have two horses on his carriage and in an act of defiance harnessed two mules to it instead. In the l860s. the house was owned by Edmund Boycott, brother of the infamous Captain Boycott.

The intended assassination of their eldest son frightened Michael’s parents, and, anxious to move to the safety of the Main Street, purchased and demolished Doneraile House, the home of the Synans, in 1830. Here they commenced the building of a large townhouse, starting with a coach house, an attractive cut-stone building with limestone arches, which was completed in 1832. Creagh House a five bay, two-storey townhouse over a high basement was finished some five years later. Although it might not appear so from the outside, this house was built for serious entertainment. The reception rooms are huge and noted for extravagant plasterwork; they were linked across the main hall to form a ball room on big occasions. Elizabeth Bowen, who was related to the Creaghs by marriage, refers in her book. Bowen Court, to parties and wedding dejeneurs for over 200 guests at Mrs Creagh’s in the 1870s. Creagh House has another claim to fame, and here we come to the third child of interest of Arthur and Isabella: their second daughter married Matthew Shaw, and one of their children, Isabella, married the famous English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, who no doubt visited his wife’s grandparents at Creagh House during his trips to Ireland. The Creaghs occupied the house until 1892, when it was leased to Edward Croker, JP. until his death in 1910.

Laurentinum, the main family seat, remained in the Creagh family until December 1847, when it was sold in the Landed Estates Court to Stephen Fagan. The Creaghs of Doneraile subsequently emigrated to Australia and the name has disappeared from Doneraile.

http://www.iol.ie/~nodonnel/gentleman’svillage.htm