My Top 10 Books of 2014

Good evening!

This was a great year for books, I think. The year started of well for fans of the sixteenth century with Lauren Mackay's fantastic biography of the diplomat Eustace Chapuys, which I reviewed and loved. If you're interested in the Tudor court or in the world of diplomacy, do pick up a copy. Since then, I've brought these books to New Haven, Oxford, London, Portballintrae and Gloucestershire with me and they have been great company. I'm currently working my way through two books that I hoped to finish before the end of the year - The Six Wives and Many Mistresses of Henry VIII by Amy Licence and The Medieval Housewife and other women of the Middle Ages by Toni Mount, both of which I'll post more about in the new year. From Inside the Tudor Court on, here are my ten favourite reads of 2014, in order of publication.

1. Finding Camlann by Sean Pidgeon (novel) (published by W. W. Norton & Company)  This novel reads as a love letter to Oxford no less effusive than Brideshead Revisited, but in this case the story of an archaeologist on the quest for the historical origins of the legend of King Arthur allows the story to lovingly evoke the one side of Oxford life that Brideshead tried to avoid at all costs - actual academics. Long and haunting descriptions of the British countryside and a crackling dynamic between the archaeologist and an employee at the Oxford English Dictionary make this a short but cerebral novel that I absolutely loved. It had me hooked, I stayed up to finish it and I hope we'll see more from Sean Pidgeon in 2015. (Full review to follow)

2. Four Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Romanov Grand Duchesses by Helen Rappaport (non-fiction) (published by Macmillan) I thought Helen Rappaport's Ekaterinburg, about the weeks preceding the murder of the Romanov family in 1918, was a triumph of a book and while the decision to write the first full-length biography of Nicholas II's daughters meant that Four Sisters lacked the dramatic intensity of her earlier work, Rappaport managed to produce a deeply moving and painstakingly researched account of the Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia. Their childish quarrels, the friends they made when they volunteered as nurses during the Great War, the Grand Duchess Olga's deep love for a wounded soldier and the twilight of Imperial Russia intersect to produce an intimate account of four too-short lives.

3. George Boleyn: Tudor Poet, Courtier and Diplomat by Clare Cherry and Claire Ridgway (non-fiction) (published by Made Global) One of three of Henry VIII's brothers-in-law to end his life beneath the headsman's axe, George Boleyn was no saint and no prude, either. But he emerges from the pages of Clare Cherry and Claire Ridgway's biography as a committed and talented young man with a sincere passion for the Protestant faith. Cherry and Ridgway know their subject and his world, and they use that knowledge to lift him from the shadow thrown by his famous sister, rehabilitating him while never failing to remind us of the grizzly world in which he lived and died. 

4. How to Ruin a Queen: Marie Antoinette, the Stolen Diamonds and the Scandal that Shook the French Throne by Jonathan Beckman (non-fiction) (published by John Murray) I don't know what it is about the Affair of the Necklace, but it seems to produce more than its fair share of historical works that could also be praised for their literary merits. In 1942, the Hungarian-Jewish writer Antal Szerb produced a book called The Queen's Necklace which, if you can find it, cannot come any more highly recommended. It is utterly beautiful. Likewise, Jonathan Beckman's account of one of the greatest jewellery heists in history is written in such a delicious style that, if edible, it would produce moomoo-necessitating levels of obesity. It was a joy to read this book and Beckman works through the initiators, and victims, of the Affair with consummate skill. Like Szerb's book, and Antonia Fraser's biography, it left me feeling even more sorry for poor Marie-Antoinette, but it also managed to delve deeper than before into the murky personality of the Comtesse de la Motte and it's the inescapable whiff of that dreadful woman that lingered long after I finished reading. 

5. The Creeper by Emerald Fennell (novel) (published by Bloomsbury) I bought this sequel to Shiverton Hall because the author is a good friend of mine and because I thoroughly enjoyed the first book in the series. On a side note, I have such a low threshold for any kind of horror that if Emerald does ever turn her hand to writing that genre for adults, you will find me manfully dousing myself in water from Lourdes and using rosaries like lassos. But I digress. This creepy and intrigue-laden ghost story at a ghoulish English boarding school is perfect for children or for those of us who have never been able to see the clock turn to 3 a.m. again without silent tears courtesy of The Exorcism of Emily Rose. 

6. Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China by Jung Chang (non-fiction) (published by Vintage) Chairman Mao's biographer returns with this compelling and page-turning life of the notorious "Dragon Empress" who presided over the waning years of the Chinese monarchy. Cixi's insatiable ambition, murderous self-promotion and pathological meddling usually cause bile to mix with ink in the historian's pen, but Chang offers up enough of the Empress's virtues, namely her hard-headed pragmatism, her charisma and her impressive list of political victories to balance the scales. 

7. The Paradise Tree by Elena Maria Vidal (novel) (published by CreateSpace) Like Finding Camlann, this is a cerebral book with a love of nature underpinning its dialogue. Here, it's a defence of Catholicism and the experience of Irish immigrants as they set out for a new life in Canada and the United States during the reign of Queen Victoria. The grasp of Irish colloquialisms  is impressive, as is the way Irish words peppered conversation even before the Gaelic Revival at the end of the century led, irony of ironies, by the privileged offspring of the Protestant Ascendancy. A love of domesticity, quotes from the Bible and Irish folk songs to start each chapter, and a pretty heartbreaking subplot about how far one character will go to prosper in their new homeland made The Paradise Tree a thought-provoking read. (Full review to follow)

8. Eleanor of Castile: The Shadow Queen by Sara Cockerill (non-fiction) (published by Amberley) Proof that biographies of medieval personalities don't have to succumb to flights of fantasy, The Shadow Queen was a wonderful read about a supreme multi-tasker. Businesswoman, landlady, princess, politician, adviser, wife, mother and patron of the arts, Eleanor of Castile also managed to keep the royalist home fires burning during the Second Barons' War. Like the indomitable Hapsburg Empress Maria Teresa five centuries later, Eleanor didn't seem to find being nearly-constantly pregnant a deterrent. The invasion of Wales and the Diaspora are also dealt with. I would say that The Shadow Queen deserves to be considered the definitive biography of its subject.

9. Edward II: The Unconventional King by Kathryn Warner (non-fiction) (published by Amberley) Sympathetic without being sentimental, The Unconventional King is as much a warning against trusting in the power of repetition as it is a biography of a monarch whose disastrous reign ended in his deposition and mysterious disappearance. Warner uses every contemporary source available to her to prove that nearly every popular image of King Edward II is totally unfounded - the effeminate appearance, the domestic cruelty, the cowardice, the alleged illegitimacy of his eldest child and the grotesque cameo of a red hot poker in his final moments. They're all bunkum. She's also refreshingly frank about what his bisexuality, to use a word familiar to us but alien to him, and lays out the evidence to support her view that his relationship with Piers Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall was probably a romantic one. Gutsy, outgoing, strong, handsome and with a flair for bonhomie, Edward II has clearly caught Kathryn Warner's interest and she's repaid him with a stellar and brutally honest account of his life. 

10. Midnight at the Pera Palace: The Birth of Modern Istanbul by Charles King (non-fiction) (published by W. W. Norton & Company) It is hard to put into words how much I enjoyed Midnight at the Pera Palace. A social history of the city of Istanbul from the end of the First World War to the aftermath of the Second, the narrative is framed around a hotel that was built to attract a European clientele. Fantastically written, perfectly structured and with a cast of hundreds of men and women who visited the hotel from the fall of the Ottoman sultanate through the tortured birth of the Turkish republic, Midnight at the Pera Palace is a grand story of humanity. It is modern history at its finest. I could not put it down and I plan to visit the city next year. 

The Duchess and the Ascendancy

As part of the Royal Family and as wife to the future King, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge is already a member of the Irish aristocracy. At the time of her marriage, she acquired the title of Baroness Carrickfergus. However, recent research into the Duchess's family tree has also discovered that Catherine is descended from the Marquess of Lansdowne (below), the Irish-born Ascendancy aristocrat who was British Prime Minister at the time of the American War of Independence. The Petty-Fitzmaurice family were later hugely influential in the Irish Southern Unionist movement and in the early twentieth century, the Marquess of Lansdowne was the Tory leader in the House of Lords, where he campaigned tirelessly to try and preserve Ireland's legislative Union with Britain. After the 1911 House of Lords Act, this was no longer possible and the focus of the Unionist campaign shifted to "saving" Ulster from the proposed Home Rule settlement. Many southern unionists, like Edward Carson, jumped ship at that point to join the controversial "Save Ulster" campaign, much to the Marquess's chagrin. His son, and another of Catherine's distant relatives, the Earl of Kerry, attended the 1914 Buckingham Palace Peace Conference, organised by King George V, to try and negotiate a peaceful solution to Ireland's mounting sectarian and political tensions.

The Duchess has thanked the amateur genealogists who uncovered this familial link during a school project in Australia, which also discovered ties to Sir Christopher Bullock, Winston Churchill's principal private secretary at the end of the First World War. 

The full Daily Telegraph article can be read here. 

21st November, 1920: Ireland's Bloody Sunday

Today is the anniversary of the so-called "Bloody Sunday" of 1920. It was a gruesome day in the middle of the Irish War of Independence, or the Anglo-Irish War, depending on one's terminology, in which thirty-one people lost their lives in a cycle of increasingly-unhinged violence. It was neither the first time, nor the last time, that such a thing would occur.

Since the end of the First World War, just over two years earlier, Ireland had slid inexorably into violence. Like most of Ireland's historical violence, it was presented as a conflict between two rival nations - Ireland and Britain - when, in fact, it bore all the hallmarks of a civil war. The failure of the republican Easter Rising of 1916 and the British administration's lethally incompetent, and cruel, repression of it had radicalised Irish nationalism and pushed many into the arms of the republican paramilitary movements. In the northern province of Ulster, Protestant hysteria at the proposed implementation of Home Rule for Ireland had led to widespread sectarian violence, particularly in rural areas, and there was little doubt in the British government's mind that any attempt to force the northern-most six counties to participate in any form of all-island independence would result in unparalleled civil unrest - if not a bloodbath. 

In the south, the who's who and the what's left of the Irish aristocracy, known as the Ascendancy, were quietly preparing themselves for the liquidation of their way of life and the whole island suffered through attacks and counter-attacks. In Dublin, the British-born and Ascendancy-related Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord French, was struggling to hold on to power through increasingly desperate measures, all the while being undermined by the hunger strike-suicides of republican prisoners, republican-led spy-rings inside Dublin Castle, various attempts on his life and assassinations of numerous politicians, military service personnel and policemen. The main party of Irish republicanism, Sinn Féin, had been outlawed; many of its leaders were in jail. In retaliation, republicanism's military wings, like the IRA and the Volunteers, had carried out numerous night-time attacks. In Sligo, Mayo and Clare, the homes of the local aristocracy were torched to the ground, leading some of the Ascendancy to characterise the republican movement as the second coming of the French Revolution. The Volunteers' newspaper, An t Óglach, had declared that its supporters should used "all legitimate methods of warfare against the soldiers and policemen of the English usurper" and "slay them if necessary". The behaviour of a supplementary force of British ex-soliders, known as the Auxiliaries or "the Black and Tans," because of the colour of their uniforms, was borderline psychotic and capriciously cruel. Earlier in the year, they had burned the entire southern city of Cork to the ground, reminding many Irish nationalists of the dark legends of Oliver Cromwell and the inherent cruelty of the British.

It was in this environment of death, civil war, repression and reprisal, that Bloody Sunday took place.

Golf, Rory and the ghost of the Anglo-Irish

23 year-old Rory McIlroy is, almost without question, the most globally-successful sportsperson to come out of Northern Ireland. Right now, he is the highest ranking golfer in the world. But in the last week far more attention has being paid to his nationality than to his achievements. Today's edition of the Belfast Telegraph ran the provocative headline: "Rory: I feel more British than Irish." The reason being that in a recent interview, McIlroy had expressed ambivalence about who he would compete for if golf was included as a sport in the 2016 Olympics in Rio: Team GB or Team Ireland? McIlroy stressed that he had not made his mind up yet. In fact, he hadn't even made up his mind if he would compete, but he acknowledged that whoever he competed for, he'd probably end up annoying somebody. 

To re-cap, Rory McIlroy is a Catholic, which on the basis of statistics means that he's expected to consider himself Irish rather than British. On the other hand, he's from Holywood and attended Sullivan Upper School, both of which are right slap-bang in the heartland of Northern Ireland's yacht, country and golf club scene. It's a place where the only tricolour you're likely to see is a French one at a wine and brie party. When it comes to his golfing career, he's so far competed under the umbrella of Ireland, because in golfing, the tournaments are still organised on all-island basis, rather than around political borders. But, if golf goes ahead to the Rio Olympics in 2016, that won't be the case. For the first time in his life, Rory McIlroy will have to choose to compete under the Union flag or the Irish tricolour and whether he'll be standing for God Save the Queen or Amhrán na bhFiann at the ceremonies. 

McIlroy himself is, understandably, a little piqued that his recent success has been drowned out in the media speculation about his preferred nationality. In an open letter, posted via his Twitter account, he eloquently expressed his frustrations and tried to put an end to the debate: -

Having just won three out of my last four tournaments, including a second Major Championship, I was hoping that my success on the golf course would be the more popular topic of golfing conversation today! However, the issue of my cultural identity has re-emerged, and with it, the matter of my national allegiance ahead of the Rio Olympics in 2016. 

I am in an extremely sensitive and difficult position and I conveyed as much in a recent newspaper interview. 

I am a proud product of Irish golf and the Golfing Union of Ireland and am hugely honoured to have come from very rich Irish sporting roots, winning Irish Boys, Youths and Amateur titles and playing for Ireland at all levels. I am also a proud Ulsterman who grew up in Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. That is my background and always will be. 

I receive huge support from both Irish and British sports fans alike and it is greatly appreciated. Likewise, I feel like I have a great affinity with American sports fans. I play most of my golf in the US nowadays and I am incredibly proud to have won both the US Open and the US PGA Championship in the last two years. 

As an international sportsman, I am very lucky to be supported by people all over the world, many of who treat me as one of their own, no matter what their nationality, or indeed mine. This is the way sport should be. 

Since turning professional at 18, I have travelled the world playing the game that I love and consider myself a global player. As the World No 1 right now, I wish to be a positive role model and a sportsperson that people respect, and enjoy watching. 

I feel very fortunate to be in a position to play the sport that I love professionally and to have enjoyed the success that has come my way. 

I wish to clarify that I have absolutely not made a decision regarding my participation in the next Olympics. On a personal level, playing in the Olympics would be a huge honour. However, the Games in Rio are still four years away and I certainly won’t be making any decisions with regards to participating any time soon. 

The Olympics will be great for the growth of golf on a global scale, but my focus right now is on being the best player I can be, trying to win Major Championships and contributing to what will hopefully be a victorious European side at the forthcoming Ryder Cup Matches against the USA. 

Lastly, I would like to thank everyone for the amazing support that I receive around the world every time I play. It is hugely appreciated . . . Rory

If one was to look solely at Rory McIlroy's dilemma, then it undoubtedly seems silly and facetious to be kicking up a fuss over what team he might play for in four years time if he decides to go ahead and compete. It seems a bit like fighting over where to have your wedding, before receiving a marriage proposal. But the debate does shine light on an area of Irish modern culture that receives the old Irish problem of too much attention and too little understanding: Where do we stand on our national identity?

Northern Irish Protestants, particularly ones who have lived in Northern Ireland all their lives, are known to get quite angry if someone refers to them as "Irish." On the one hand, this seems stupid and pedantic. After all, before 1921, the phrase "Irish" was used to describe their ancestors. On the other, why shouldn't they have the right to embrace a new national identity, in the same way Czechoslovakians did after 1918 or Germans did after 1871? Simply because Northern Ireland hasn't been around forever doesn't mean that it has no right to exist or that people have no right to emotionally invest in it. 

Equally, Rory McIlroy's position as a cradle Catholic who self-identifies as British represents one of the great silent minorities of Northern Irish demographics. Since the days of Daniel O'Connell, Irish nationalism has not traditionally been very kind to Catholics who see themselves as British; the ugly sobriquet of "West Brit" was, and is, hurled at them because it's felt as if they've somehow let the side down. They're often seen as deficient and nobody, really, likes to talk about them. But they do exist and in fairly sizable numbers, particularly as you move "up" the socio-economic pyramid. Time after time, every census and every report that comes back about Northern Ireland indicates that there is a significant segment of the northern Catholic community who would not back a united Irish republic, either because of pragmatic, economic or sentimental reasons. Why are they not being acknowledged? And why, even more incredibly, are they not been targeted by the Unionist parties, particularly the moderate Ulster Unionist who, quite frankly, need every vote they can get? And why, when there is a Northern Irish British Catholic like Rory McIlroy, who is prepared to talk about it, do we all seem so incredulous?

But for me, the dilemma faced by Rory McIlroy and by thousands of people of our generation in the North summons up, Banquo-like, the ghost of the Anglo-Irish. The great losers of Irish historiography. Abandoned by their northern allies, who were only concerned with "saving Ulster" and in creating a new "Northern Irish" identity at the expense of the old Irish one, and completely written-out of the great myth of Irish nationalism, in which everything with the word "Irish" in it must ipso facto by anti-British, hardly anybody talks about the Anglo-Irish today. (If they've even heard of them, at all.) But their situation, and the hyphen in their nationality, is perhaps the one most relevant to Northern Ireland today; it merits being talked about.

The Anglo-Irish were a social group descended from the Norman invaders of the twelfth century, who subsequently intermarried with the native Gaelic aristocracy and also with the wider Irish population. They existed predominantly in the southern three provinces of Ireland - Leinster, Connaught and Munster - and they had little to do with the seventeenth-century plantations of Ulster, which saw the creation of the unique, if misunderstood, Ulster-Scots community. In the aftermath of the Boyne, the Anglo-Irish made up between about a tenth and a fifth of the overall Irish population; they are almost all members of the Church of Ireland and a significant number made up the aristocratic Ascendancy. Some of their more famous sons included the author Jonathan Swift, the "Iron" Duke of Wellington, the great politician Edmund Burke (below), the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the novelist C.S. Lewis, the famous Nationalist leader C.S. Parnell and the nineteenth century Foreign Secretary, Lord Castlereagh. And, of course, W.B. Yeats, who captured the Anglo-Irish view that some people should be poor and some should be rich because the world was prettier that way. A view, incidentally, which still survives on the Malone Road.  

Prior to the eighteenth century, the term "British" was hardly ever used - especially not in Ireland. One was simply an English/Irish/Cornish/Scottish/Welsh subject of the Crown. By the time the rising tide of nationalism was sweeping across Europe in the aftermath of the French Revolution, the Anglo-Irish community had already been settled in Ireland for six hundred years. It was far too late for them to suddenly get a new identity, just because everyone else on the European continent seemed to be rushing hell's-bells for a national label with which to define themselves and everything to do with their culture. (Edmund Burke, like his hero Marie-Antoinette, found the whole thing a bit unsettling, to say the least.) By the end of the nineteenth century, it was quite clear that the Anglo-Irish were on the wrong side of history, as Ireland pulled itself apart over the issue of independence from Britain. Unionism was strongest in the North and the orange-and-purple militancy of the Ulstermen had no time for the wishy-washy Anglo-Irish, with their fondness for old Irish culture. As far as the Nationalists were concerned, the vast majority of the Anglo-Irish were traitors. Loyalty to the King was loyalty to a foreign, hostile power. Since they didn't fit into either polarity, by the time Partition occurred in the 1920s, the Anglo-Irish simply vanished from the history books. For Northern Ireland to work, Unionists had to make it seem as if partition was predestined - a kind of six counties' manifest destiny, if you like. An historical view grew-up that the North had always been so inherently different from the South that separation was basically inevitable. In that version of events, there was no room for the 15% of the population who lived in the South, but who had self-identified as both royalist and Irish. For Nationalism, of course, it was easier to blame the English for everything, rather than to concede the awkward reality that there was a significant number of Irishmen and women who had not wanted independence.

It would be easy for me to stand on my historical pedant's drum and demand that we pay attention to the history of the Anglo-Irish because once upon a time they existed and, because of that, they deserve to be properly studied like any other part of history. It would equally be valid for someone to riposte that  I'm over-sentimentalising them, in order to make a point about modernity. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the vast majority of the wealthiest member of the Anglo-Irish community had been far more concerned with preserving the privileges of the aristocracy against (what they saw) as the French Revolution-inspired hysteria of nationalism and from the jumped-up working-class demagogues of the Orange Order, who the Ascendancy loathed just as much as they did the IRA. Maybe there isn't much in the history of the Anglo-Irish that's actually worth emulating? Maybe they were predominantly selfish, reactionary and backward? Maybe the reason why they ultimately vanished from history was because they were an eighteenth century social class trying to live in a twentieth century world? (See below: enjoying their bling-tastic lives.)

But the point about the Anglo-Irish is that they chose and that the real reason that they were written out of Irish history wasn't because of what they did, but because of what they were. And that's the biggest problem in Ireland, then and now: we are far more concerned with what you are than with what you do. What Rory McIlroy captures is a generation that's sick and tired of having their identity forced upon them by history and other people's expectations. Why can't we acknowledge that the past happened and not keep trying to revive its divisions?

Basically, whether you like it or not, eight hundred years ago, in a period with radically different morals and attitudes to war, the English invaded Ireland. They came, they settled, they intermarried. They conquered Ireland, and then they ruled Ireland, with the help of the Irish themselves. Expecting every vestige of a British identity to vanish from the entire island of Ireland is a bit like expecting every immigrant group to vanish from the continental United States. Then again, another awkward fact: whether you like it or not, British rule quite clearly didn't quite work out for everyone and over the centuries, they didn't exactly set themselves to winning hearts and minds, did they? Seven hundred years after the invasion, the vast majority of Irish people chose to expel imperial rule and to become an independent nation. These two developments are historical fact, both the invasion of the 1100s and the independence of the 1900s brought good and bad things. Most things in History do. They have left a whole litany of national identities to chose from. The Anglo-Irish believed themselves to be a fusion of Ireland's cultures; the majority of them were strong monarchists, but many were also enthusiastic supporters of the Gaelic Revival, the Irish language, music, literature and the arts. They were, for better or worse, the original products of a mixed marriage. 

It's been nearly a century since Partition. It shouldn't surprise us that people are beginning to question their identities and that we're once again beginning to see a generation that's comfortable calling themselves Irish subjects of the British crown or Irish citizens of the United Kingdom. If you see yourself as solely British, solely Irish or as uniquely Northern Irish, then that's your prerogative. Go for it. 

And for all their many faults, perhaps that should be the legacy of the Anglo-Irish: take an interest in all the parts of Ireland's fascinating history, but be prepared to bend the rules a little. People fought and died for it a long time ago; you don't need to fight the same battles again. Don't be too rigid; don't be stuck in any one category. And while you're doing that, do what Rory McIlroy has done - have a strong sense of civic pride and make your homeland proud. After all, despite what we've done to it, it's still one of the best places on Earth. Maybe that's why we get so worked-up about it. 

The White Star sisters

By 1907, Britain's White Star Line had an impressive fleet of liners that enabled the company to connect Britain with both its imperial colonies and with the rest of the world. Advertising maps alerted the public to the vast geographical remit of the White Star company and its corresponding ability to move passengers across the globe in comfort, speed and security. The most prestigious of all routes was the transatlantic passenger lane between England and America. Like their rivals at the Cunard Line, some White Star ships left from Liverpool and some connected to American ports like Boston, but the flagships of the line left from the southern port of Southampton, with stop-overs at Cherbourg in France and Queenstown in Ireland, before heading across the ocean to New York. White Star vessels were known for the comfort of their accommodation and the company's impressive safety record - its only major sinking had been the loss of the Republic in 1909, which had taken over a day to sink, enabling a full evacuation. There were five prestigious ships that operated the transatlantic route in 1907 for White Star - the Oceanic and the four sisters known as "the Big Four," the Cedric, Celtic, Baltic and Adriatic. The Oceanic had been nicknamed the "Queen of the Ocean" when she was launched in Belfast in 1899, at a ceremony watched by the cream of the Irish Protestant Ascendancy - including the Duke of Abercorn, the Marquess of Londonderry and the Marquess of Dufferin. 

But by 1907, the arrival of Cunard's awe-inspiring Lusitania and Mauretania had removed the sparkle from White Star's commercial crown. Not only were the new Cunarders the largest ships afloat, but they were also the fastest and the most luxurious, as well as using the famous four funnel design previously reserved for German ships. With the funding of their new de facto owner, the wealthy American financier J.P. Morgan, White Star Line's chairman, J. Bruce Ismay, met with the former Lord Mayor of Belfast, Lord Pirrie, one of the controlling partners of the world-famous Belfast shipyards, Harland and Wolff. They agreed to combat the Cunard threat by building two new ships in quick succession that would dwarf the Cunard sisters in terms of size and in the comfort offered to its passengers. In order to do that, both Ismay and Lord Pirrie realised that speed would have to be sacrificed. Deciding to make a virtue out of a necessity, they later marketed that the White Star's journey across the Atlantic - which usually took a full day longer than the Mauretania's - could be done so in much greater comfort and stability. A third sister was planned for a later date, which would have re-established White Star's monopoly of the British transatlantic trade - had the plan worked. As with the building of the Oceanic, Ismay's directive was summed up in the phrase, "Nothing but the best."

Thousands of workers toiled for three years to build the first of the Olympic-class liners. Most of the men came from the Protestant-dominated working-class districts of east Belfast, where the Harland and Wolff yards were (and are.) The Olympic was launched in 1910 and sailed on her maiden voyage, to great media ballyhoo, in May 1911 (above). Nearly half again as large as the Mauretania, she was also much more attractive in terms of her outward appearance and she was deliberately designed to have the sleek, elegant exterior favoured by European royalty when it came to designing their enormous private yachts. White Star's hopes that their new queen would corner the lucrative upper-class transatlantic market was shown by the fact that there was room for over one thousand first class passengers. They had access to the ship's grand staircase (now legendary because of the number of times it's featured in movies about the Titanic), lounges and restaurants based on the royal apartments at the Palace of Versailles, a smoking room that rivaled the best gentlemen's clubs in London with its fireplace, leather armchairs, mahogany walls and stained glass windows. There were verandas that were based on the winter gardens made popular on German ships, wide promenade decks, an enormous dining saloon that could sit five hundred people at one sitting, reception rooms based on Jacobean country houses, Turkish baths inspired by the decadence of the Ottoman sultans, a gymnasium, a squash court and the world's first ever swimming pool onboard a luxury liner. The first class staterooms were decorated in a variety of historical styles and there was a huge range of prices, moving from the fairly basic cabins on A-Deck to the lavish parlour suites on B-Deck. Second class accommodation was sombre, comfortable and very obviously Edwardian (below) and third class was spacious, clean and comfortable. The prices, of course, for all three classes were correspondingly quite a bit higher than they were for other ships. It added to the Olympic's intentional sense of distinctive superiority over her rivals.

All of this positive publicity - and, some would say, the White Star Line itself - was dealt a death blow eleven months later, when the slightly larger Titanic sailed on her maiden voyage. She was practically identical to the Olympic and only ocean liner buffs can recognise the difference between the two from photographs (the Titanic enclosed part of its promenade deck, expanded the Louis XVI restaurant, added in an extra cafe for first class passengers and added an extra layer of exclusive luxury suites on B-Deck, hence why she was just over a thousand tons heavier than her sister.) Four days into her first voyage, the Titanic sustained a side-on collision with an iceberg and sank just under three hours later, with the loss of over fifteen hundred lives. It was, at that point, the worst maritime disaster in history and it caused a media sensation, that has never quite gone away. The White Star sustained a huge financial loss, but what was arguably even more damaging was the image the Titanic created of a company that was either callous or incompetent. Perhaps both.

With the benefit of hindsight, it does seem as if White Star was doomed from the moment its flagship became the most famous disaster in history. The shadow of the Titanic was a long one that would cast a darkness over the company for the rest of its existence, but it seems slightly simplistic to assume that from the moment Titanic hit the iceberg, White Star's own demise was also inevitable. 

The third of the White Star sisters, the patriotically-named Britannic, was launched in 1914. Larger than the Titanic and kitted-up with enough lifeboats and the latest safety provisions, Britannic might have helped restore the White Star's reputation, had she had the chance. But when the First World came, the Olympic was pulled out of service and turned into a troop transport for the Royal Navy and the incomplete Britannic became a hospital ship. The Olympic had a stellar war-time service record and she was nicknamed "Old Reliable." But the Britannic sank in 1916 after hitting a German mine in the Mediterranean. Until 1936, she was the largest ship built on British soil; she is still the largest British passenger liner to actually have sunk at sea in a shipwreck.

When the war ended in 1918, White Star had lost a great number of its ships to the Allied war effort, and with only the Olympic left out of its three super-ships, the company was facing a bleak feature until the British government decided to honour its promise to reward the firms that had served it so faithfully during the war. Ocean liners were being taken from Germany under the terms of the peace treaties as a form of reparations and public feeling in Germany, like everything to do with the Versailles peace settlement, was outraged by it. A medium-sized liner called Columbus, which had been built in 1913 for the Nordeutscher Lloyd company, was seized and given to the White Star Line, who re-named her Homeric. With two funnels and a gross tonnage of just over 35,000, Homeric (above) was a pleasing ship, with a conservative aesthetic and comfortable accommodation (below - one of the first class corridors). A renovation was ordered in Belfast shortly after, when it was decided that her 18 knots sailing speed was too slow for White Star to maintain its weekly schedule of Atlantic sailings, but apart from that the Homeric proved a very popular running mate to the Olympic when she entered service for White Star in 1922.

But the Homeric, although pretty and popular, was not enough to replace the mighty Britannic, which would have been White Star's pride and joy if she hadn't been lost in Britain's campaign against the Germans and Ottoman Empire. The chosen replacement was the largest ship built in German history, so far, which would ameliorate the sting of having lost the largest ship built in British history, so far - at least, for the British. She was the 56,000-ton Bismarck, named after the statesman who had helped unite Germany in the 1870s. Her smaller sisters, the Imperator and Vaterland, had already been seized. Imperator had become Cunard's Berengaria and Vaterland had gone to become the United States's first major transatlantic luxury liner, Leviathan. Bismarck had never been finished and now she was finished for the White Star Line, under her new name, Majestic (below). She entered service in 1922 as the largest ship in the world and immediately helped re-solidify White Star's former reputation for size, luxury and security. 

With the Majestic, Olympic and Homeric now in service as running mates, White Star was able to start operating one of the most financially successful routes on the north Atlantic. Having three ships  meant that one ship would always be at sea or being re-provisioned, whilst the others were leaving New York and Southampton on a weekly basis to complete in-tandem crossings of the Atlantic. The Olympic remained one of the most consistently popular ships of the decade, which rather dispels the myth that the Titanic continued to haunt the ocean-going public's mind. The Majestic, with her cavernous first class rooms (below), also helped attract a loyal clientele in the economically-prosperous 1920s. However, when the Great Depression hit in the early 1930s, the transatlantic market temporarily imploded and ships that had been designed for point-to-point travel across the often-rough Atlantic, like the Majestic or Olympic, struggled to adjust to the indignity of short hot-weather cruises, desperately designed to turn some kind of profit.

By 1934, it was clear that White Star's days were financially numbered. Its fleet was made up of ships that were either too old, too big or both. There were a number of collisions, power-cuts, a huge drop in booking numbers and a new spate of edgy-chic superships were emerging from Germany, France and Italy which made British ships seem antiquated and fusty. The Olympic, alone, managed to keep up respectable (if not exactly healthy) booking numbers - a testament to the affection she was still held in - but her days were numbered and White Star began to look on her enormous running costs, frequent technological difficulties and occasional collisions as a headache. In 1934, the company merged with their old enemies, Cunard, to form the Cunard-White Star Line - all their resources would now be pooled into creating a glamorous new liner to modernise Britain's transatlantic image and counter the humiliation posed by Germany's Bremen, Italy's Rex or France's forthcoming Normandie.

There were clear signs from the beginning that Cunard was the dominant force in the new "partnership." Of the six prestigious ships the new company now had at its disposal for the premier run across the Atlantic - the Majestic, Olympic, Homeric, Berengaria, Mauretania and Aquitania - three would have to go, immediately. Two more would be kept around to run alongside the Queen Mary, until her new sister-ship, Queen Elizabeth, was completed in 1939/1940. Both the Mauretania and Olympic, as the oldest of the set and the ones most in trouble, were quickly agreed upon as the first two that had to go. There was a public campaign to keep one, or both, as floating hotels or museums and it's difficult not to groan at the financial and historical mistake that was made in not preserving the Olympic. In the age of Titanic mania that began in the 1950s and has continued ever since, it would surely have been a goldmine to whoever owned it. As well as a fascinating one for subsequent generations.

Signs of the pro-Cunard bias of the new merger came when a decision had to be reached about which of the two companies' flagships - the 52,000-ton Berengaria or 56,000-ton Majestic - should be kept on to serve until the Queen Elizabeth was ready. Despite the fact that the Majestic was larger, younger and safer than the Berengaria, it was Majestic who was sold for scrap and the Berengaria which was kept on. The Homeric survived long enough to participate in the festivities to mark King George V's Silver Jubilee in 1935, but as the slowest and smallest of the six ships, it did make sense that she should be scrapped too.

With its three former ships having completely vanished into scrap metal and scattered pieces of furnishing, the White Star's last two surviving ships were the motor ships Georgic and a new Britannic. They continued to sail under the White Star colours until their careers ended in 1956 and 1960, respectively. Cunard, however, dropped the White Star name in 1949 and today the company's name survives in a commercial sense solely as a kind of white-gloved service exclusively reserved for those occupying the most expensive suites on the current Cunard ships, Queen Mary 2, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth. Once a year, on the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, those three ships hoist the White Star flag for the day.

A History of Modern Ireland: The coming of the Penal Laws

A Note

The history of Ireland is a complex and controversial subject. The relationship between the past and prejudice is symbiotic. The fury, passion and venom that it is still capable of provoking in people - many of whom have never set foot in Ireland - is a testament to the enduring power of the island's story. This post and those that follow it serve no political agenda; they are simply a result of my historical curiosity in Ireland's political history from the 1600s until the present day. This is not an attempt to justify or demonise what happened in Irish history. It is simply an attempt to present the story of Irish politics - from the birth of the "Ascendancy parliament" in the 1690s -  until Partition, as fairly and rationally as I can. Some of the phrases used have been simplified so that those unfamiliar with Irish history might be able to follow it. Any offensive republican or unionist comments left - particularly any implying that a particular group does not "belong" in Ireland - will not be approved for publication. Discussion is encouraged; manners are demanded.

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The events which were to define Ireland in the eighteenth century actually began in England in the seventeenth century, with a crisis inside the Royal Family. In 1660, Charles II became king and throughout the twenty-five years he sat on the throne, more and more people became concerned about his Portuguese wife’s failure to have any children (right). The next in line to the throne was Charles’s younger brother, Prince James, Duke of York. James - a tall, blond and handsome war hero - had once been very popular, before he took the decision to convert to Catholicism in 1669. James’s first wife had been a Protestant and the couple had two daughters together, Mary and Anne, who were born before their father became a Catholic; they remained Protestant. After their mother’s death, James re-married to Princess Maria-Beatrice of Modena, an exceptionally beautiful Italian princess, who was also a Catholic. James became King James II in 1685 and there were many people who were extremely unhappy at the idea of a Catholic king. However, Queen Maria-Beatrice still had no children and the general consensus was that James II should be allowed to stay on the throne until he died, when the throne would pass to his eldest daughter from his first marriage, Mary, a Protestant who had recently married her cousin, Prince William of Orange, one of the most powerful Protestant princes in Europe. 

Then, in 1688, the Queen gave birth to a healthy baby boy and Protestant politicians began to fear that this would mean a line of Catholic kings stretching far into the future. Determined to bring down James II and prevent his son from inheriting the throne, Protestant members of the royal family, parliament and the army began to spread a false rumour that the new baby prince was not in fact the king’s son. They claimed that Maria-Beatrice had really given birth to a dead child; the dead child had been smuggled out of the palace by her Catholic advisers and then one of her priests had brought in a healthy male child who was passed off as her son. This vile scandal, known as “the Warming Pan Scandal,” resulted in a series of riots and unrest. Terrified, Queen Maria-Beatrice fled under the cover of night to nearby France, taking her baby with her. King James, too, was forced to flee, when William of Orange invaded with an army. In 1689, Parliament declared that James II was no longer legally king and that William of Orange was now King William III. He would share the throne with his wife, Queen Mary II. It was the only time in British history, so far, the monarchy operated under something called “shared sovereignty.”

The Irish Presidency's new chair

After years of using the vice-regal throne (left) that once sat in Saint Patrick's Hall of Dublin Castle, Ireland's presidency has elected to commission a new chair (right) for the presidential swearing-in, claiming that the old chair, which was used by the Viceroy of Ireland during the days before Partition, is in a state of disrepair. As Andrew Cusack muses on his blog, it seems a shame to let the old chair fall out of use, given that a good furniture repair expert must have been available?

The chair of the Viceroy and his consort, the vicereine, were shorn of their British royal arms at the time of Partition; the vicereine's chair was sent over to the Sinead Eireann, the upper house of the Irish bicameral parliamentary system, to be used as the seat of its presiding officer, the Cathaoirleach. The viceroy's chair, which became the president's chair, also had its original fabric (below, which included the shamrock and symbols of the monarchy) stripped away in the 1930s, in favour of something more simple and republican.

The conservative blog of Andrew Cusack laments the retirement of the old chair and reflects on its past history.

The return of the Ascendancy

Ever wondered what it would be like to spend a week, an evening or a weekend living like a member of the Irish Ascendancy? Well, The Irish Times has just profiled one of my favourite places in the country - the absolutely beautiful Montalto estate, a few miles from where I live, and currently administered by my childhood Sunday school teacher, David Anderson MVO MBE. The estate, which dates from the early eighteenth century, was originally the home of the earls and countesses of Moira and it represents one of the triumphs of Italianate architecture amongst the homes of the Irish aristocracy. During the rebellion of 1798, there was considerable fighting on the estate between those who supported the rebellion and those who were loyal to the Crown. At that time it was the home of the 2nd earl of Moira, who later became Marquess of Hastings, a hero of the British army during the American War of Independence and later British Governor-General of India. The marquess sold the estate in 1802, four years after the rebellion, whereupon it passed into the hands of the Ker family and later the earls and countesses of Clanwilliam in 1912. In his amusing history of the estate, Lord Belmont in Northern Ireland reports that one countess of Clanwilliam refused to live in the house "because of the regrettable infestation of ghosts."

The house and estate has now lovingly been restored and, believe me, it's absolutely beautiful. With all the modern conveniences, it somehow still manages to feel as if someone magically stopped the clock in 1910.

For The Irish Times article on its restoration, click HERE.

And many congratulations to David, the Wilsons and everyone at Montalto. It's a magnificent place and beautifully restored.

Obituary: Diana, Duchess of Wellington (1921 - 2010)

The Daily Telegraph and The Times are carrying the obituaries concerning the recent death of a member of the Ascendancy by marriage, Her Grace The Duchess of Wellington, who passed away at the family home on November 1st, at the age of eighty-nine. The Duke, now a widower at the age of ninety-five, has expressed his grief at his wife's death only a few months before their sixty-seventh wedding anniversary, but a friend has remarked to The Times that "He is grateful that they had so many happy years together."

Born Diana Ruth McConnel in 1921, the late Duchess was the daughter of the Scottish Major-General Douglas Fitzgerald McConnel and his wife, Ruth (née Garnett-Botfield.) She was married to Arthur Wellesley, the heir to the duchy of Wellington, in 1944, when the future Duke (then Marquess Douro) was on active service for the British war effort. In 1972, following the death of his father, Gerald, Arthur inherited the family's main titles, becoming the eighth member of the Wellesley family to hold the title of Duke of Wellington, Duke of Ciudad Rodrigo, Duke of The Victory, Prince of Waterloo, Marquis of Torres Vedras and Earl of Morington. 

The main title of Duke of Wellington had first been awarded to the duke's ancestor, also called Arthur, a member of the Irish Protestant Ascendancy. It was given to him by King George III, in recognition for his military services to Britain during the Napoleonic Wars, in which Arthur was instrumental in securing Britain's eventual triumph and the liberation of the kingdoms of Portugal and Spain from Bonapartist occupation. He later served as British Prime Minister from 1828 to 1830 and again from 1834.

As a result of the duke's heroism on the battlefield which led to the destruction of the Bonaparte regime and the restoration of the French monarchy, the Wellesley family today are amongst a very rare group of aristocrats who hold titles in more than one kingdom - William I, the first King of the Netherlands, gave the family the hereditary title of "Prince of Waterloo," in honour of the great battle of 1815, against Napoleon. Ferdinand VII, King of Spain, gave him the title of "Duke of Ciudad Rodrigo" and Maria I, Queen of Portugal, awarded the family the rather magnificent title of "Duke of the Victory" and "Marquis of Torres Vedras." In addition to this, the dukes of Wellington also remain true to their Ascendancy heritage by holding a title in the Irish nobility - they are the hereditary earls of Morington, a title now usually used by the second in line to inherit the Wellington duchy. So, as well as holding titles in both strands of the British peerage (Great Britain and Ireland's), the dukes of Wellingtons are also Grandees of Spain, nobles of Portugal and jonkheers of the Netherlands. The family's subsidiary title, reserved for the heir-apparent, is Marquess Douro. Thus, the late Diana was the Marchioness of Douro between 1944 and 1972. The family's Spanish title - the duchy of Ciudad Rodrigo was abdicated by the current Duke of Wellington in March of this year and given to his eldest son, Lord Douro. The appointment of Lord Douro to the duchy was confirmed by the Spanish Royal Household and King Juan Carlos in the spring.

Lady Diana is survived by her husband, Arthur, Duke of Wellington and by their five children - Arthur, Duke of Ciudad Rodrigo and Marquess Douro (65) and his wife, Her Royal Highness Princess Antonia of Prussia (great-granddaughter of Kaiser Wilhelm II); Lord Richard Wellesley (61); film producer and author, Lady Jane Wellesley (59); Lord John Henry Wellesley (56) and his wife, Corinne (née Vaes); and Lord James Wellesley (46) and his wife, Emma. Duchess Diana is also survived by her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

The Daily Telegraph, which still carries aristocratic obituaries as a matter of course, reported that announcements concerning Lady Diana's funeral will be made shortly.

Diana Wellesley, The Most Noble Duchess of Wellington, Member of the British Empire for services to the Community of Hampshire, Princess van Waterloo and Duchess of The Victory, who passed away at the family home on 1st November, 2010.

Helicopter crash in Northern Ireland

The Mountains of Mourne in the south-east of Northern Ireland are usually far more famous for their beautiful scenery, which inspired Northern Irish author, C.S. Lewis, to create the mythical land of Narnia in his seven-part children's series The Chronicles of Narnia, first published between 1950 and 1956. However, at 4 o'clock on Saturday afternoon, near the tiny village of Leitrim, an Agusta helicopter went down, with the loss of three lives.

The  helicopter, which had been privately hired, had taken-off from Saint Angelo airport in Fermanagh, in the western half of Northern Ireland, earlier in the afternoon, bringing two guests home from a hunting week. Amongst those killed was Charles Stisted (47), captain of the Guards Polo Club in Windsor, and a close personal friend of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.

Following news of the crash, the Police Service of Northern Ireland helicopters were quick on the scene where, not long after, they confirmed that the pilot, Mr. Stisted and his passenger, had sadly been killed on impact.

South Down MP, Margaret Ritchie, the leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), said "The local community is in absolute shock, but their thoughts are with the families and friends of the victims. Their thoughts and prayers are with them. What should have been a happy occasion has ended in tragedy."

In London, Clarence House issued the following statement on behalf of Prince Charles, his wife and his sons, after hearing the news of Mr. Stisted's death:  "The Prince of Wales, The Duchess of Cornwall, Prince William and Prince Harry are all shocked and deeply saddened by this terrible tragedy. Their Royal Highnesses' thoughts and prayers are with the families of those killed at this dreadful time."

The Feast of the Assumption, 1524

"It would be so wonderful to see you all again for Assumptiontide, which we are marking with a supper and dance at Hever this year, as usual. I do so hope you can make it. Anne is back from London, as the Queen is on progress for the summer, and, as usual, she has been the most wonderful help to me, especially as this time of year always has such unhappy memories with the anniversary of Henry's death weighing upon my mind. Mary has come back from Leeds, where she and William have been decorating their new house together, although sadly William could not accompany her this time, as His Majesty had need of him. My husband, alas, remains in London for much the same reason and George has gone back to Oxford, to spend the holiday with some of his classmates... You asked about the Wyatts in your last letter. Well, old Sir Henry remains a martyr to the gout, as always, his eldest girl, Margaret, is at Court with Anne and she has come home at the same time and for the same reason. Her younger sister, Mary-Anne, is due to be presented as a debutante at Court, next summer, with my mother acting as her sponsor. Truth be told, I think she is rather looking forward to getting away and once it is decided whether she is to presented to the Queen or to the Duchess of Suffolk, preparations can begin in earnest. As for Tom and his wife, Bess, I am afraid I am at a loss as to what to tell you. In short, Jocasta, it can best be put this way - Tom has fallen in love with Anne who, quite sensibly, has rejected his advances, and Bess has fallen in love with anyone and everyone, except her husband. Their marriage is not just miserable but conspicuous in its misery, which  makes matters worse, as I know all too well from the behaviour of my brother in recent months. In any case, the Wyatts' marriage has caused quite the scandal, as only scandals which take place in either the London Set or in small, rural communities, can. And it is to Tom and Bess's great misfortune that they happen to be members of both.... Do write to me with all your news, With love and prayers, Elizabeth."

- A letter from Lady Elizabeth Boleyn to Lady Jocasta Howard, from The Rise and Fall of the House of Boleyn by Gareth Russell

Today marks the Feast of the Assumption in the Church Calendar and the extract below comes from an incomplete novel of mine, The Rise and Fall of the House of Boleyn.©

In this scene, some members of the Boleyn family are spending the summer of 1524 at their main residence, Hever Castle, in the southern county of Kent (above.) Kent, which is known as the "Garden of England," was much-loved by the Boleyns and despite having homes in Essex, Norfolk and London, as well as dozens of minor manors across the kingdom, Hever remained their favourite castle.

In the summer of 1524, Henry VIII had not yet declared his interest in the youngest of the Boleyn children, Anne, and her elder brother, George, had recently been betrothed to the society heiress, Jane Parker. The eldest Boleyn, Mary, had been married for four years to the courtier and art collector, Sir William Carey. Also in residence at Hever are the girls' mother, Lady Elizabeth, and their Anglo-Irish grandmother, Lady Margaret, daughter and co-heiress of the Earl of Ormonde, who, today, would be described as "Ascendancy" class.

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As events transpired, Tom Wyatt was not to lay eyes on Anne again until a full six weeks after her seventeenth birthday, when the impending Feast of the Assumption made it impossible for him to avoid her any longer. It was traditional that, on some of the great Holy Days - mainly the Epiphany, Easter Sunday, the Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, the Assumption and All Saints' Day - the most prominent families of the Weald would congregate in one of the families' parish chapels to attend Mass together. Tom had been in London for Saint Peter and Saint Paul's Day, meaning that he had mercifully avoided the Boleyns' company, but with the arrival of the Assumption and his return to the family home at Allington, he could not put off a reunion any longer. Moreover, when Tom had discovered that, this year, the Assumption was to be marked by a Mass at St. Peter's Church, "the Boleyns' chapel," and had subsequently tried to wriggle out of attending, his ailing father had insisted he attend, in order to pay his respects to the new Earl of Kent, who would almost certainly be there, now that the mourning for his late father had ended.

Riding past Hever on the way to the church, on that predictably sweltering Assumptiontide, Tom could see lanterns, tables and decorations being set out around the gardens of the castle by a busy army of servants, all at Anne and Elizabeth's instructions, he presumed. A small statue of the Virgin had already been installed near the bridge, with poesies of flowers clustering around her feet. From somewhere in the grounds, he could hear the voice of three maids cheerfully singing Star of the Sea in honour of the Holy Mother. Later, there would be music and dancing far into the balmy evening in honour of the Assumption and the overwhelming aroma of the flowers the Boleyn women had clustered around their garden as decoration for the night-time ball wafted softly through the heavy summer morning air. Hever always reminded him of Anne and seeing the castle and its gardens abuzz with preparations that bore all the hallmarks of her sensibilities, Tom felt a new sense of foreboding at seeing her after their last, disastrous meeting.

The Finnebrogue Estates in Northern Ireland

Lord Belmont in Northern Ireland offers a fantastic account of one of the oldest and finest homes of the Protestant Ascendancy in Ulster - Finnebrogue.

The estate and the area, which lies near to my old school and was once owned by the Perceval-Maxwell family, is also famed for its production of the finest venison in the Province.

It's proved particularly interesting because I am working on a television script based on life amongst the Ascendancy in Ulster in the years surrounding the Partition of Ireland. Many of the show's characters will be real, including the designer of the Titanic, Thomas Andrews, who was himself part of the Ascendancy and various real-life politicians like Sir Edward Carson, Viscount Brookeborough, the fabulous Marchioness of Londonderry and the celebrated Jewish-Unionist, Sir Otto Jaffe, who twice served as Lord Mayor of Belfast. However, the show's main characters will be fictitious and the plan is for most of the story's fictitious families to have titles that did, in fact, once exist in the Irish aristocracy, but which had died out by the time the story commences (1911.)

In relation to Finnebrogue, one of the supporting characters - Helena FitzEustace - is the daughter of Baron Portlester (the real Portlester title died out in the reign of King Henry VII) and in the story, Helena marries Lord Wingfield Cromwell, the heir to the earldom of Ardglass. The Earls of Ardglass were Cromwells (from Thomas's side, not Oliver's) and the real family founded the area on which my school now stands. However, in reality, the Ardglass earldom died out in the reign of King James II, when the last earl, Lord Vere Essex Cromwell, died without heirs. However, in my script, the long-dead Vere did have children and so the Earls of Ardglass are still alive and flourishing in County Down into the 1900s.

The courtesy title enjoyed by the earl's heir was that of "Viscount Lecale" (Lecale was one of my school houses) and the Finnebrogue Estate actually came into existence partly through the generosity of the real Earls of Ardglass in the 17th century and their sons, the Viscounts Lecale.

As with many members of the Ascendancy class, the residents of Finnebrogue House played an important role in the life of Northern Ireland after the country was formally created in 1921, as Lord Belmont relates of the last of the Perceval-Maxwell to live on both house and estates: -

"Major John Robert Perceval-Maxwell DL, of Finnebrogue (1896-1963), was a farmer, a breeder of Shorthorns and Herefords and an active figure in the political and cultural life of Northern Ireland. He was a member of both the House of Commons and the Senate, and from 1945 to 1949 was Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Commerce. He was also a founder member of the Northern Ireland Regional Committee of the National Trust (NT) in 1936 and for a time the Government of Northern Ireland's nominee on the Council of the NT in London. He was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of County Down in 1935, and was High Sheriff in 1937."