The Burning of Ballynastragh

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 28, 19 July 1923, Page 15

The Burning of Ballynastragh

PRICELESS TREASURES DESTROYED. ' The destruction of Ballynastragh House, the historic home of the Esmondes, is a heavier v blow to Ireland than the public has yet realised. It was one of the oldest houses in continuous possession of one family in Ireland. That family was Irish and Catholic, yet it clung to its abode for centuries in spite of wars, persecutions, and penal codes. In the early Norman times the name of Esmonde figured prominently in Wexford affairs. The first of the religious persecutors, Henry VIII., dispossessed Marcus Esmonde of Ballynastragh. Later, Patrick Esmonde was dispossessed by Elizabeth, and James Esmonde by James I. Cromwell, William 111., and Queen Anne, each in turn, confiscated the family property. After that there was tranquility until 1798, when. John Esmonde, grandfather of the present Baronet, was hanged as a rebel, and his children bad to fly the country until 18 years later, when the 9th Baronet recovered Ballynastragh again. Since 1620 there have been eleven Baronets at Ballynastragh, all but one of whom, the late Sir John Esmonde, have been turned out of their home by their political opponents. The Esmondes have shown amazing pertinacity in clinging to their ancient seat through the vicissitudes of all these centuries of history; and it remains to be seen whether the latest attempt will succeed where Henry VIII. Elizabeth, Cromwell, William 111., Queen Anne, and George 111. failed. The last person to burn down Ballynastragh was Oliver Cromwell, but these who attacked a defenceless home on March 8, 1922, may congratulate themselves on eclipsing even the destruction he wrought. Cromwell allowed some furniture, documents, silver, and clothing to be saved ; hut the present-day destroyers, though they permitted the rescue of an old' chalice of the Penal days, and some venerated relics, burned the altar-stone on which the chalice had rested for 300 years, and the altar where Mass had been celebrated constantly since 1682. They burned the chapel in which for generations infants had been baptised, the living-absolved from their sins, and the dead had rested; and where only a few weeks before the last Lady Esmonde had reposed in her coffin. The list of art treasures and historical records reduced to ashes in Ballynastragh is heart-breaking to contemplate. The library contained thousands of booksmany of them rare—the careful collection of several generations ofa cultured race. Books of history, art, and science; the literatures of Greece and Rome, of France and Germany, of Italy and 'Spain, had all contributed their quotas. There was one room full of books on ! Ireland, many of them unobtainable to-day— even their catalogues, arcdestroyed. The journals of both Houses of the Irish Parliament from ]6lf; to 1800, in their fine Dublin bindings; reports of, Irish pre-Union Commissions; official tables of Irish finance and trade; Blue Books dealing with industry and commerce in the days of the Irish Parliament—all these would now be valuable; all have perished in the flames. The bound files of the Dublin newspapers from 1776 to 1800; the local journals with the history of Wexford for nearly 150 years, valuable to the historian of the future, have gone with the rest. \ Ballynastragh's hoard of historical documents is an even greater loss. The intimate records of 300 years of history are gone for ever. The Confederation of Kilkenny, the Jacobite movement, the working of the Penal, Laws, the records of the men of '9B, the intimate personal relations of men and women who lived and suffered in these days, are all gone. With them have perished the manuscript collection of Col. de Montmorency —a name familiar to Irish Academicians the result of his life's research into ?*tlie fates and fortunes of Irishmen serving in all the European armies in the 18th century. t Greater loss still, the papers and manuscripts of Grattan are vanished in smoke, along with other relics of, the great statesman —his duelling \ pistols, the shoe-buckles he wore on, the Declaration of Irish Rights, tlie cup he last drank from when leaving Ireland to die in London. A great mass of autograph letters has also perished — from such diverse persons as the Duke of Berwick (son of James II.), Lord Chesterfield, Charles James Fox, Daniel O'Connell, Bishop Milner, Wm. Smith, O'Brien, John Mitchel, Gladstone, Parnell, Cardinal Manning, Led XIII., and Pius X., not to mention other names. Besides these treasures of Irish interest, historical collections from many *<p arts, of-the world were here assembled: Greek and. Etruscan pottery, bronzes,, Aztec and Maori

weapons from the Caribbean Seas, the American prairies, the "South Sea Islands, etc. All were gone, together with beautiful china, old Irish glass, furniture, portraits, engravings, and old political cartoons that can never be replaced.