People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 11, 16 March 1905, Page 10

People We Hear About

Sitrgeon-General Alfred Keogh, who has bee» appointed Director-General of the Army Medical Corps is a son of the late Judge Keogh. Mr William Marconi, of wireless telegraphy fame, will celebrate his 30th birthday on April 25 and was in ins 21st year when he brought his invention to England. Marconi has an Italian father and an Irish mother. A Dublin paper states that a marriage has been arranged between Mr. Marconi and the H o n. Beatrice O Br*en, fifth daughter of the late Lord Inchiquin. Dr Sullivan (says the Montreal ' True Witness ') has retired from the Medical Faculty of Queen's College, Kingston, after fifty years' connection witfi the institution as student a o d professor. The careers of Farrel in Halifax, Hingston in Montreal, and Sullivan in Kingston remind us in the first place that while a great many rank and file physicians are materialists, the leaders of the profession are generally earnest Christian men • and in the second place, that a Catholic doctor does not always find his creed a hindrance to his advancement. Kingston has deserved to be called the Canadian Derry yet Michael Sullivan has been its Mayor, has been the most honored professor in its Medical College, and sits in the Senate of the Dominion to represent the district ot which it is the centre. Lady Cork, now an aged woman and a widow, was Lady Emily de Burgh, is sister to Lord Clanricarde, and becamo the wife of the late Lord Cork in 1853. As a girl her beauty was so brilliant and so greatly admired tifrat, at the time of her marriage, she received a jewelled gift subscribed for by the smart bachelors of London. Lady Cork has had a marvellous social record. Her hus>bami was a noted Liberal peer, held office on several occasions, and she entertained Royalty and smart society in London and at Masterton House, Somerset. Lady Cork has, even now, the remains of her transcendant attractions. Her black eyes arestill Ai'viid, and their coloring continues brilliant. She never follows the fashion of the day, but dresses in a style of her own. Her head is always adorned by a black iace cap, which in the evening has for ornament a single pear-shaped pear; of great sixe anl value, tkat drops on her forehead in the style that obtained in 1-830. A competent authority has declared that the pearls of Lady Cork, Lady Iv«agh, and Lady Lan^downe are among the most precious in London. Lady Cork and her late lord celebrated their golden wedding in July, 1903. The .sale by Sir T. H. Grattan Esmonde, Bart., M P., of his Wexford estates to his tenantry furnishes occasion for recalling some interesting if not quite novel particulars of His ancestry :— Sir Thomas Grattan Esmonde, Bart., M.P., is the chief Whip of the Irish Nationalist Party. With the Esmonde estate in Wexford, Sir Thomas should also have inherited a Wexford peerage which has long been ragarded as beyond recall. His ancestor, Sir Lawrence Esmonde, who obtained large grants of confiscated 'land in the south-eastern corner of Ireland in the reign of Jamejs 1., was created Lord Esmonde, Baron ot Limeriok, County Wexford. An unscrupulous man, he had the grace when he was dying in 1646 to leave his property to his son, Sir Thomas Esmonde, the first baronet, but for a romantic reason the peerage did not jdesceind. Sir Lawrence Esmonde joimed the Revformed Church, and in a military expedition in Connaught fell in love with, a fair daughter of Thomas O' Flaherty, who was a 7ealous Catholic. They were married, and a son, Thomas, was born to them. Lady Esmonde, fearing that the boy would be brought up as a Protestant, fled with him to her family in Connaught. Her husband thereupon repudiated the marriage because it was contracted by a Protestant and a Catholic. He married again on the strength of this repudiation, but he had no further issue. His sloji Thomas received a baronetcy in 1728, and rose lo be a General of the Catholic Confederaf ia» Army in "the fight wilh Cromwell. His is the 'baronetcy which Sir Thomas Grattan Esmonde enjoys to-day. The present Sir Thomas, it may be added, is a Catholic, and a Chamberlain of the Papal Household. Sir Thomas is— through his mother— the great-grandchild of the Immortal Henry G rattan, though he ha 9 but little of the eloquence of his illustrious forbear.