Enniskerry Victorian Festival runs again this year on Sept 15th, and details of the event are at the Festival homepage. A couple of years ago I made a newspaper highlighting some news that might have been reported during Victorian times. You can read it all about it, below. Enniskerry & Powerscourt Gazette | Sept 1861…
Category: Guardian Minute Books
The Tooles of Ballyreagh: A townland in the 1850s
Ballyreagh is towards the south end of the parish of Powerscourt on the northern edges of Powerscourt Mountain. Driving today, as you pass the entrance to Crone wood heading towards Glencree, you immediately enter Ballyreagh – the road roughly divides the townland in two. Its northern boundary is marked by the Glencree river, along the…
Report on the state of wine at Powerscourt (1853)
The following was logged in the Guardian minute books regarding the wines in the cellar at Powerscourt. This survey was carried out during the minority of Lord Powerscourt, when his mother (who remarried Lord Castlereagh) was one of the three Guardians of the Estate, which was managed by Captain Cranfield: Report on the State of…
Powerscourt National School in the 19th Century
Background It seems hard to imagine now, but in the early 1800s, there was no system of education in Ireland. The provision of education was chaotic, and relied on local support, support of Christian Societies, and the efforts of parents keen to educate their children. Successive governments of the time did little more than commission…
The Widow Dixon
This year’s Journal features local stories and people. The articles will be published online in advance and the compiled Journal will be available from September in paperback. This article is from Michael Seery Mrs Dixon’s Barn is part of Enniskerry lore. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the Roman Catholic community used the…
New Road 1849
Here’s a note in the Powerscourt Guardian Minute books (#381) which indicates that the Forge Road was built in Summer 1849. The new road from the corner of the Free houses on the Kilgarran Road to the Police Barracks in Enniskerry has been for some months completed and the agent now produces a letter from…
You’re Fired!
There’s some evidence to suggest that Lord Powerscourt, 7th Viscount, took control of some aspects of the demesne management well before his majority. One issue that was obviously close to his heart was the development of the gardens. In 1851, the Guardians of Powerscourt (Lord Roden, the minor’s grandfather, Lady Castlereagh, his mother, and William…
Houses in the Village 1855
On 22nd February, 1855, Captain Cranfield, the estate agent, wrote to the Guardians of Powerscourt who were responsible during the Minority, which the minute books recorded as follows. Do you have any more details about these buildings, which seem in the main to run down Church Hill: Captain Cranfield begs to submit a list of…