Moydrum's unforgettable fire

Paul Hughes, Westmeath Historian in Residence

Fenced off on private lands to the east of Athlone stand the ruins of Moydrum Castle, which burned to the ground one hundred years ago, on July 3, 1921. Consumed by vegetation, containing ‘no trespassing’ signs and with its former parkland driveway now dotted with private houses, it’s hard to believe that this was once the palatial heart of a sprawling estate overseen by a baron.

An album of photographs kept in the National Library of Ireland – one of the few records of the estate to survive its destruction in 1921 – gives us some idea of what life was like at the castle in its heyday. Priceless portraits of long-dead aristocrats brooded over a dining room fit for a king. Women of the gentry gathered in its gardens to hold bicycle races, on the banks of a lake which once existed on the castle grounds. Moydrum Castle, the seat of the Handcock family and the Lords Castlemaine, was where members of the aristocracy came to dine, to play or to hunt – and as the home of a member of the House of Lords, and the king’s representative in Westmeath, it was a potent symbol of British power in the heart of Ireland.

All of this came to an end, however, on Sunday July 3, 1921, when 60 members of the IRA’s Athlone Brigade descended on this stately mansion and lit the spark of its demise – the final act in an almost fortnight-long cycle of violence and reprisals.

The association between the Handcock family, who were originally from Devon, and Moydrum began during the 17th century, when they were granted lands confiscated from Catholics during the Cromwellian conquest and settlement of Ireland. Well-connected and wealthy, the family built a mansion on the site in the 1750s, and carved out the beginnings of a dynasty.

The original Baron Castlemaine, William Handcock, was the son of a Church of Ireland minister who was elevated to the peerage in 1812. The same year, Handcock commissioned the renowned Irish architect, Sir Richard Morrison, to reimagine the existing mansion at Moydrum into a castellated, gothic-revivalist structure reminiscent of the Tudor era, and the work was completed two years later. In 1837, the topographer Samuel Lewis described Moydrum Castle as a ‘handsome residence’, and a ‘solid castellated mansion with square turrets at each angle, beautifully situated by a small lake, and surrounded by an extensive and richly wooded demesne’.

The 1st Baron Castlemaine was made a viscount in 1822 but on January 7, 1839, died suddenly during the infamous ‘Night of the Big Wind’, leaving no issue. The title of Baron Castlemaine passed to his brother, and in the hands of his successors, Moydrum Castle and the family’s estate thrived and expanded.

By the turn of the century, the 5th Baron Castlemaine – owner of Moydrum Castle at the time of its destruction – held 12,000 acres (49 square kilometres) of land in Westmeath and Roscommon. While some estates in financial difficulty were under pressure to sell to tenants on foot of the land reforms of the early 1900s, this was not the case for the Handcocks. Nevertheless, by 1914, according to research by historian Eugene Dunne, Castlemaine had sold over half of his lands, including all of those in Roscommon and a substantial portion of his Westmeath holdings.

Albert Handcock, the 5th Baron Castlemaine, was the owner of Moydrum Castle at the time of its destruction. Born in Athlone in 1875, from an early age he was carefully groomed for membership of the British governing class. Educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford, Castlemaine also served as an officer with the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.

In 1898, he followed his father into the British House of Lords as a representative peer, and the following year, he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Westmeath – a post which had also been held by the 4th Baron.

The lord lieutenancy was a largely ceremonial position, and the extent of Castlemaine’s powers was his ability to raise a militia in Westmeath during wartime. But the position was still an important symbol of prestige and connections to the Crown, and it meant that for nearly 23 years, Castlemaine was the representative of the British sovereign in Westmeath, starting with Queen Victoria in 1899 and ending with the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922.

Castlemaine was a steadfast unionist, and hostile to the project of Irish home rule. He was vice-president of the Irish Unionist Alliance, an organisation which propagandised heavily against moves towards Irish self-government, and in 1912, he was also elected president of the Unionist Club of Westmeath. Castlemaine was outspoken in his anti-Home Rule views, and had ample opportunity to voice them locally as the only unionist member sitting on Westmeath County Council after 1914.

He suffered little in the way of pushback against his views until late 1913. A fire broke out at Moydrum in 1912, causing limited damage and filling the castle with smoke, forcing Lady Castlemaine (Annie, née Barrington) to escape the building with a wet towel wrapped around her head. However, the fire was traced to a chimney flue, and there was no evidence of any foul play. In November 1913 however – the same month as the founding of the Irish Volunteers – a shot was fired through the window of Castlemaine’s drawing room at Moydrum, a taste of what was to come six and a half years later.

On the outbreak of the First World War, Castlemaine threw his support behind the British war effort, taking charge of a committee to raise funds for the provision of ambulances on the Western Front. While for men of his outlook, the war brought about an opportunity to reaffirm Ireland’s place within the British Empire, the conflict was instead the catalyst for the emergence of a radically different political consensus. April 1916 brought the Easter rising, and within two and a half years, Sinn Féin had swept the boards at the December 1918 general election, going on to form a separatist parliament, Dáil Éireann.

The ensuing guerrilla war launched by the IRA against Crown forces comprised the sort of violence which culminated in the events of July 3, 1921.

The immediate origins of Moydrum Castle’s destruction can be traced to Benown, near Glasson, five miles from Moydrum and outside the gates of the Harmony Hall, the mansion built by members of the Handcock-Temple family of Waterstown House. On June 20, 1921, Colonel-Commandant Thomas Stanton Lambert, the commanding officer of the British Army’s 13th Infantry Brigade, headquartered at Victoria Barracks, Athlone, was travelling home from a tennis party at nearby Killinure House, the home of the Metge family. Driving the car was Lambert’s wife, Geraldine, and also in the vehicle were Lieutenant-Colonel E. L. Challenor, the officer at the helm of the Athlone-based 1st Battalion, Leicestershire Regiment, and Challenor’s wife and niece.

Lying in wait for Lambert was a section of the IRA’s Tubberclair Company under John J. Elliott of Tonagh House, Tubberclair, who had orders to arrest and disarm any British officers moving about in the district. Elliott’s men ordered the car to halt near the gates of Harmony Hall. When Lambert’s wife drove on, further down the road Elliott’s men opened fire with rifles and shotguns. Lambert was struck in the neck as he turned to return fire with his sidearm, and at 9pm later that night, he died in the military hospital in Athlone.

In the days that followed the British officer’s death, Crown forces, specifically the notorious Black and Tans and the Royal Irish Constabulary’s Auxiliary Division, went on a destructive rampage in nearby districts.

Acting on bad intelligence that Lambert’s assassins had escaped across Lough Ree to Roscommon, they crossed the county boundary on June 21 and burned over 50 houses in the village of Knockcroghery. Back in Westmeath some days later, they destroyed several homes in the Coosan and Mount Temple areas. As Thomas Costello, OC of the IRA’s Athlone Brigade recalled, the Tans targeted the homes of ordinary people and gave them no time to either dress or gather belongings before being ejected from their homes.

Following these atrocities, the IRA’s active service unit operating around Athlone then came under immediate pressure from its General Headquarters (GHQ) to respond by burning the homes of several local loyalists.

However, Costello weighed up the pros and cons of this strategy and decided on a different approach. Perhaps to avoid being portrayed in a similar light as the Black and Tans, or leaving the IRA open to accusations of sectarianism, instead he believed that a move against Moydrum Castle would be more effective, given Castlemaine’s status as a member of the House of Lords.

And so, at around 3.30am on the morning of Sunday July 3, 1921, about sixty men under Costello’s command descended on Moydrum Castle. Lord Castlemaine was in Scotland at the time, but his wife and their daughter, Evelyn were on the property, along with their servants and staff.

When the IRA roused the household from its slumber, Costello informed Lady Castlemaine of the IRA’s intention to burn Moydrum Castle, and he explained his reasons for doing so. He ordered a number of his men to assist her in recovering several boxes of valuables, before the group split up and began dowsing each of the castle’s 34 rooms with petrol.

Armchairs were removed from the castle and placed in the front lawns to provide some comfort for the Handcock women, such as it was, as their home met its fiery end. The IRA then set fire to the building, withdrawing in formation and giving a military salute to Lady Castlemaine, who Costello recalled ‘remained very dignified under the circumstances’.

As the republicans disappeared into the night, the castle was engulfed by flames and by morning, it was a smouldering, unsalvageable shell, which only the front facade remaining. The total damage caused by the blaze was estimated at £120,000, or over £6m today, adjusted for inflation.

Costello, who had relatives working on the Moydrum estate, later told the Bureau of Military History that Lady Castlemaine had refused to identify him or any of his comrades to the authorities, telling Crown forces: ‘The men who burned the castle were gentlemen and behaved as such.’

In a court case in October 1921, then Handcock family was awarded £100,000 in compensation for the destruction of Moydrum Castle. Lord Castlemaine and his family subsequently settled in the London borough of Wimbledon, selling their remaining Irish estate to the Irish Land Commission in 1924. He died in 1937, and was succeeded as 7th Baron by his brother, Robert.

Though the original grandeur of Moydrum Castle is scarcely discernible from its ruins, its story remains very much alive in local memory. In 1984, it gained international notoriety when U2 selected a photo of the ruin for the cover of their fourth studio album, The Unforgettable Fire.