Local history: George Bingham welcomed to Castlebar in 1824

PART ONE

By Tom Gillespie

IN 2020 author Tom Blaney published The Notorious Third Lord Lucan - an Embattled Life. The book had several references to the Lucans' involvement with Castlebar, where as landlords they had control of 60,000 acres of land.

It had the jubilant trappings of the homecoming of a long-lost hero. As reported in Ballina Impartial on August 9, 1824, an immense consort went out to meet Lord Lucan as far as Ballyglass, 10 miles from Castlebar, and soon as he entered Castlebar the tenantry unyoked the horses from the carriage and bore him in triumph through the town.

The subsequent celebrations in August 1824 included the presentation of a welcoming address signed by over 150 of the leading inhabitants of the district, and a grand public dinner attended by about 100 people.

After a lapse of more than a quarter of a century, a Lucan was again in Mayo. But it was not Richard, the Earl of Lucan, who came, but his son and heir, the 24-year-old Lord George Bingham.

There were multiple welcoming speeches and fulsome toasts to both the absent Earl and the youthful guest of honour. The speeches, including that of gracious thanks from Lord Bingham, were carefully phrased: there was a brief mention of the unfortunate happenings in 1798; that the Earl’s health necessitated his spending ‘a portion of his time in a warmer climate’, and of the ‘cordiality and good feeling that had always existed between the inhabitants of Castlebar and its vicinity and (the Earl’s) family’.

The wider public contributed to the festivities with welcoming ‘illuminations’ - evening displays of lamps at windows or outside houses throughout the town.

Many must have very mixed or contrary feelings about this public expression of unalloyed admiration, even adulation, towards the dashing young cavalry officer and his long-unseen father.

Yet, there must have been widespread relief that the main proprietor and landlord of the district was again prepared to engage directly with their affairs.

The final decades of the previous century under the patronage of the first Earl were probably remembered by much of the population as better times than they were now experiencing.

In those early days, visitors had described Castlebar and the Lucan influence in surprisingly upbeat terms.

Carlisle’s Topographical Dictionary (1810) saw the town in about 1790 as ‘one of the neatest in Ireland - the houses were well built and good-looking and no town in the kingdom is more rapidly increasing. Lord Lucan interests himself extremely about the welfare of the place… and what is truly praiseworthy, has the high character of being one of the best landlords’.

The spectacles may have been rose-tinted and the comments partial, but nevertheless indicated a positive mood among many - even the poor majority - at that time.

But without the Lucan presence, not even a sporadic one, modest municipal improvements in Castlebar district had largely come to a halt. Meanwhile the general downturn in agricultural prices with the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815 intensified the economic and social problems in Ireland.

The relative optimism of the late 18th century had dissipated: visitors and commentators in Mayo were now more inclined to point out the poor state of the Lucan domain.

Unemployment, begging, poor housing, the lack of paved roads and town lighting, and the virtually dormant town corporation in Castlebar were all now frequently noted.

In years when crops were poor, many went hungry: for example, Richard, the second Earl, received news in 1822 that 10,000 or 11,000 on his estates had nothing to eat. It is not known what he did in response, but it seems likely that he made a charitable donation of some sort.

Like it or not, the area’s inhabitants were stuck with Lucan - at least for the foreseeable future. They needed the benevolent involvement and promotional weight of a Lucan if there was to be any hope of improvement.

Richard had continued to rely on his Mayo income to support his family in fitting style, to develop his new Leleham estate, and to pursue his cultural and social interests in England and on the Continent.

But by the 1820s, his Mayo estates were less reliable as a cash-cow. As economic conditions had tightened in Ireland, rent arrears on the Lucan estates increased.

In 1823, his then main agent in Mayo, Charles O’Malley, again reported poor returns because of ‘unfortunate years in farming’. The time had come to get a firmer grip on the Lucan’s Irish assets rather than rely on local agents.

Richard demurred, but his heir was made of sterner stuff and was delegated to make the 1824 visit.

George was given formal power of attorney by his father to deal with Lucan interests in Mayo. The Lucan agents did continue to communicate by letter through Richard, who still formally held the Lucan purse strings, including being primary paymaster of George’s expensive lifestyle.

Those who welcomed George to Castlebar were under no illusion that a regular, let alone constant, Bingham/Lucan presence could now be expected.

The current Earl had not been seen in Mayo for a quarter of a century, and his heir had his army career with its constantly changing postings, not to mention a life among the fashionable in England.

The 1824 visit by Bingham lasted less than two months, and he did not reappear for another sojourn until April 1825. But one encouraging move soon became public knowledge.

An extensive area not far from the site of the destroyed Castlebar House was ordered to be enclosed as a site for a new Lucan residence. George employed John Papworth, the architect of Leleham House, to draw up plans for a house which would become known as a new Castlebar House of ‘The Lawn’.

In the interests of economy, and perhaps to avoid a local show of extravagance, this was not to be of the scale or opulence of Leleham. The house was to be based on a stock design of a small villa in a book Papworth had published.

As finally built, it would be a very plain two-storey affair on a square plan and with a three-bay frontage - ‘it hardly deserves that name of a mansion’ through one visitor referred to it as a 'Lodge’.

NEXT WEEK: Elections generally were the playground of political elites.