"The Grand Lodges"

"The Towers"

Eileen Geoghegan, Mrs Murphy,

Her Grace, Duchess of Devonshire & Lady Sophie

Paddy Clance, Scamp, Mrs Clance, Nora Meskill, Mary Landers.

  A Gooooogle on Kiely-Usher turned up nothing, strange that. We had better rectify that before we continue. Arthur Kiely, Gent. he styled himself Arthur Kiely-Usher. Himself and his brother John Kiely were married to two sisters, Martins, from Galway. Arthur came into possession of of the Holmes Jackson Estate of 8,000 acres at Ballysaggartmore round about 1817/18. Rivalry and envy between the two sets of brothers/sisters, John owned Strancally Castle, where he boasted that it took four minutes to get from the kitchen to the dining room, a BIG house. Arthur wanted to better that, he picked a spot for the great house, a lovely site, and he wanted an Avenue, the route he chose for the avenue crossed a small stream, we call it the Ballywayna, the route was flat and went through some wooded areas. It also went through land occupied by tenant farmers. Arthur didn't feel comfortable living cheek by jowl with the restless peasantry, possibly because he was about to evict tenants off a large area of the land to accommodate his avenue. The tenants had two choices, go out the mountain and try to eke out a living on the moors or emigrate. Ballysaggart village of today is the product of Kiely-Ushers evictions and cruelty. Back to the Towers, he built his avenue and on the approach from Lismore he erected two "Porters lodges" described in 1834 as " ~Castellated style ~ over which is a perpendicular pointed arch, enriched with crockets, and terminated  with a finial" these are the Grand Lodges. The photo of the Grand Lodges illustrates the symmetry of one set and the total lack of it in the second set. These houses / Lodges were identical, mirror images of each other, while the Towers are completely different as you will see in the photo of the Towers. Murphy's lived in the lodge to the right of picture. The 3 rooms were identical in size, each 12 feet by 9 foot 6 inches. Left of picture you see the Archway into the Tower at Murphy's beside that there was a Fig tree, in recent years someone has cut it down and replaced it with ? Warm summer days eating the delicious figs off that tree, why did they cut it down !  "Vandals, Philistines, Horticultural Assassins" Then he comes to Ballywayna stream, he erects a 3 span bridge of cut stone, at either end of the bridge he erects guard houses with gates, the Towers. The Towers, as you can see, on the left the style is square with the tower on top centre of the arch, while in the other one, the style is round with one square tower, and a round tower at one corner. Even the flying buttresses on the right tower are missing in the opposite tower. Inside the towers, in each of the four corners there used to be a round hole which went down for a considerable depth why they were there, I don't know. But, they provided the basis for many a good story by John Clance. The bridge was gated at both ends, only the rusting brackets are visible today, I never remember gates hanging there. To get through, one would have to be admitted through one set of gates - held, and if they were satisfied they let you out the other set of gates. Of course we don't know, but, folk memory of these times tell us that people were held captive in the guard houses, in deep circular shafts built into each of the towers. His Architect must be one of the worse ever in that profession - the towers are nice, but they are all over the place in so far as there is no uniformity of style or elevation. In my young days these towers were almost completely covered by Laurels and bushes. Myself and John Murphy occasionally traveled along this path and over the bridge "Tunnel" to Ballysaggartmore house. John would be going to either Pender's or Timmy Murphy's in Cool, we thinned beet for Sean Moriarty, at Ballysaggartmore, drills a mile long for sixpence a drill. Myself and John played hurling with Glen Rovers, Bertie Nugent was the man in charge at the time, the back door of the lodges was the "Goal" sometimes Mam would hunt us, more times the ball went up onto the roof, then we had to climb the gate to retrieve it. Timmy Murphy was a great fan of heavyweight boxing amongst other things, he got a pair of boxing gloves somplace, myself and John shared them, one each and squared up to each other, I spent more time on the "canvas" than standing if I remember rightly, John had a leathel left hook.

Kiely-Usher was so feared/hated that a group of men from Ballysaggart decided to assassinate him. They tried and failed, eventually captured and transported for life, they were: Michael Lombard, 49 - Bartholomew Lawton, 25 - James O'Brien, 30 - James Liddy, 30 - John Clancy, 45 - John O'Keefe, John O'Toole, Araglen, and John Liddy. Kiely Usher ran out of money long before he finished the great house. The Duke of Devonshire bought most of the Estate and owns it today. And the peasants walk their dogs on a fine day through Kiely Ushers front gate. The book at 21 years old this year is showing it's age, poet's aplenty inside, including: Fr Michael Troy O.M.I. John Lyons, Knockaniska, Bill O'Brien, Mickey O'Brien, Eugene O'Brien. The cover shows the Grand Lodges/Towers (Kiley's Folly) and the Ogham stones from Seemochuda. Ourselves and Murphy's lived in the Grand Lodges at one time. Bill Murphy and Eily, Angela, Timmy (RIP), Helen, John and Margaret, related to Tim Murphy in Cool. Jack and Eily Geoghegan Paddy Johnny and Michael, Jack and Ellen Clance, John and Paddy, Kate Pender and "Kenayly" as she called him, 18 of us lived around the "Grand Lodges" in the 50's. The roof is gone off the Lodges, Clance's and Kate Pender's house's are bulldozed. Kate was a tough woman between Goats and dogs and senile Kenayly she was hard to beat. Myself and John Murphy would be called upon from time to time to lift the leg of her bed which had fallen through a hole in her floor, just inside her door was a plaque advertising a shipping company possibly the White Star Line, Kate often spoke of "Hackensack New Jersey". Bill Murphy was killed at the Monument in Lismore when he fell from his bicycle. Bills headstone in the new cemetery in Lismore, says "Late of the Grand Lodges" the only one that I am aware of. Mrs. Clance "Adopted" me, I got the choice cuts of the boot shaped bread she had for Paddy, loads of butter and Paddy's Little Chip Marmalade. We had a cow or two, pigs chickens a donkey and cart, firing from the woods around us, all for half a crown a week. The Duke [of Devonshire] and the Duchess were frequent visitors in the summertime, and nice people they were, they brought artist's who painted portraits of myself and Margaret Murphy one time, Mag is hanging in the great hall in Chatsworth I suppose.

The woods round the Lodges were cut down by McAinish sawmills of Abbeyleix, a village of timber houses complete with stables were erected beside us for the workmen, Paddy Molloy, Tom Sarsfield, Kilsheelan, Larry Shanahan, Carrick on Suir, Johnny Gosling, Sligo I think and Tom Dooley Carrick, are just a few that I recall. Our house would be full every night, the Clance's, John in particular was a storyteller [Liar] he told stories that would leave us afraid to go to bed, no electric light and no running water that time - The stories about Kiely Usher and his cruelty, his family are buried in a crypt in the woods at Ballysaggartmore. The Black gate at Ballywayna was a favourite place for John Clance to set his stories, even in daylight we ran past that gate. Dan Kennefick looked after the Crypt, we were terrified of the poor man in case he was a ghost or something else. The final end of the Crypt was when, as the story goes, some Cork boys stole the lead off the coffins. The Cork boys got blamed for everything in those days. My Grandfather, Johnny Corcoran wasn't slow about telling good scary stories either, how many times did he explain his late arrival from work, head gardener at Fort William, Duke of Westminster - by saying his bike stopped dead in the road and he couldn't get through, more likely he was in the snug at Mikey Joe's in Lismore with my father. Our Doctors were the Whites, Dr Winnie and her father William before her. These two people deserve to be remembered, they represented the very best values of their profession, Old Dr White was called to a sick patient in Doon, Araglen, he went by pony and trap and refused to take any payment for it. Today we get CareDoc and Triage nurses, maybe we get sick more often. The rest of the story of the Towers is in history books. The real history of the towers were the people who lived there. Murphy's moved to Brighton, Paddy Clance went to his sister in England, John Clance moved to Lismore and Kate & Kenayly died at home. I went to Manchester and when I came back the rest of the family had moved to Killbree, Lismore. The Towers / Grand lodges were abandoned, there were one or two foreigners attempted to live the "Rural" life out there but they didn't last long.