Bawn Villa- Lunacy, Poetry, Romance & Tragedy 1860-1970

Old Bawn Villa in the late 1960s

For well over one hundred years from the 1840s to the 1960s a very fine house, one of the finest in the district, once stood by what is now a little used tennis court in the Dodder Valley Park, just a hundred metres from the Old Bawn Road.  Like many houses that stood for over a hundred years, it was a home that saw much drama, romance, poetry and tragedy.  For the greater part of its history it was known as “The Villa” or “Old Bawn Villa”, and it is from this house, that the local neighbourhood of “Bawnville” takes its name.  In its earliest years it was known as “Mountain View” and was home to the prominent Neill Family, wealthy and successful Mill Owners, who ran and eventually moved to the neighbouring Haerlem Mill House, a stones throw across the field, in what is now Millbrook Lawns  (The Wood, to be precise).

Imprint of Bawn Ville (Bawnvilla).  Note the current Tennis Courts, in Dodder Park

Bawn Villa, previously called Mountain View before the 1860s.  

The Neill Family moved from Bawn Villa to Haerlem.

In the 1860s Bawn Villa was one of the most opulently furnished residences in Tallaght.  Entering the residence, visitors were greeted by two large statues prominently displayed just inside the hall door, one of the Magdalene, the other of "Shell Venus".  Coats were hung on a mahogany hall stand. Green demask  curtains dressed the windows.  In the parlour hung a number of oil paintings, engravings and prints and guests could sit on one of the two antique rosewood chairs, on the sofa or on the easy chair.

The dining room was filled by eight handsome carved dining room chairs covered in Moroccan leather and a set of modern screw telescopic mahogany dining tables, a mahogany cabinet and sideboard.  The hearth was endowed with mantle-piece glasses and chimney ornaments, parlour fenders and fireside irons. In the kitchen was found the usual kitchen and pantry furniture, tea-trays, a cruet stand, culinary utensils,  china, glass and delft.

Upstairs, the bedsteads were of mahogany, maple, and iron, covered with curled hair mattresses, and the floors were dressed with  Brussels and Kidderminster carpets  and new hearth rugs.

In 1869 John Neill auctioned off the contents of the farm yard- A bay mare and gray mare (quiet to ride)  and a strong draught horse; hens, turkey, Spanish and old Irish Geese, one hundred loads of first-class manure, a hay-cutter by Picksley and Sims and two ladders, a hay-rake and riddles and a Tumbril cart,  sets of tacklings, churns, crocks and milk pails.

After the Neill family moved across to Haerlem in 1866, John Neill let the property on a short term basis.  

Oldbawn Villa was briefly occupied in 1867 by Christopher Hamilton- a well endowed lunatic from Fort Lyster (previously Fort William) in Roscommon, who took up residence there, where he promptly expired in November 1867.   Hamilton was the grandson of Christopher Kerwin Lyster, and son of Elisabeth Hamilton, Lyster's daughter.  He had inherited a substantial 'life estate' on the death of his mother in 1857, in addition to a separate legacy from his grandfather. However failing to keep up payments on the interest of certain encumbrances on the estate, Hamilton found himself asset rich but cash poor.  Christopher Hamilton’s estate, in (the parish of Drumatemple, Barony of Ballymoe), County Roscommon was in the possession of the Court of Chancery by the mid 1850s.  About 600 acres belonged to the representatives of Christopher Hamilton in the second half of the 19th Century). Hamilton had been found, by commission, to be a lunatic in 1827. His passing in 1867, and his estate, gave rise to notable legal proceedings among his extended family, and the life tenants of his estate.

If Hamilton was a lunatic, as the committee found, he had been one for 40 years before he died in Bawn Villa, Tallaght in November 1867. 

Old Bawn Villa- To be Let- July 1870

The Furlongs of Bawn Villa- Poetry, Romance and Tragedy 

By 1885 Bawn Villa had become home to the Furlong family. James Walter Furlong, gentleman farmer and journalist, was Irish, Catholic and Nationalist. A Wexford man, and son of Philip Furlong, of Crandaniel, Co. Wexford, J.W Furlong had established himself as a notable sports correspondent and editor with the Irish Daily Independent.  His early life was devoted to commercial pursuits and 'the laying of odds'.  He was an owner and breeder of greyhounds and racehorses, a number of which enjoyed considerable success.

James Furlong was a close associate of Andrew Cullen Tynan of Whitehall- a substantial landowner, large farmer and passionate Parnellite.  Despite Tynan being over 20 years older than Furlong, they had much in common.  In addition to their shared political leanings and love of country pursuits, they both had an interest in the Independent- Tynan as a founding investor and Furlong as its sports editor.  They also both had a number of daughters with literary leanings.  Tynan was father to Katherine Tynan and Norah Tynan O’Mahony.

The Furlongs had briefly lived in Knocklyon (or Knoclaighin) Lodge, under Mount Pelia, and Fern Vale near the Chapel in Bohernabreena with their four young daughters- Katie, Mary, Margaret and Alice- before finally settling into The Villa in Old Bawn.

Bawn Villa became one of a number of cultural focal points in Tallaght for the emerging Celtic revival- a place where artists, poets, writers and musicians would gather for evenings of poetry, song and debate.  Among the guests were reputedly W.B Yeats and most certainly Patrick J McCall.  Patrick McCall, the writer of the ballads ‘Boolavogue’ and ‘The Boys of Wexford’, was a regular visitor.  The son of Wexford parents, his affection for the county was acquired during the summer holidays he spent in his maternal grandmother’s house, doubtlessly endeared him to James Furlong- himself a Wexford man by birth.

Old Bawn Villa also became a political house- hosting early meetings of the Bohernabreena Branch of the Irish National League in 1891.  Furlong had become acquainted with many of the leading members when resident in Fern Vale.

For the four young daughters of the house, it was a time of innocence, romance and promise. Margaret Furlong would respond coyly to the overtures of PJ McCall, eight years her senior, during those candle lit evenings of poetry, discussion and music.  Alice, a fine soprano, would sing her standard party piece- the Deh Vieni from Mozart’s Nozze de Figaro or sing with one of her sisters, a duet from  Don Giovanni.    

The Furlong girls would regularly travel to Dublin, accompanied by their father, to attend meetings of the Irish National Literary Society in College Green, of which both Mary and Alice were council members . There they would mix and mingle with the leading lights of the Irish Literary Revival, W.B.Yeats, Dr George Sigerson and many others.

The daughters would, each in their own way, be influenced and inspired by the talents of visiting guests to Bawn Villa.  But this time of innocence would be brief as the Furlong family was struck by a series of tragedies.

The first was the death of young Katie who died on July 27th 1894, aged only 20. After her death, among her papers, was found a sonnet- the only example found from one who had died ‘with all her music still in her’.  Mary Furlong, her sister, was to pay her own poetic tribute to her sister, after her passing:

“Little sister, first to die

On the threshold of the sky

In God’s heaven you will stand

With your lily in your hand.

Waiting 'til we come to you”.

Mary Furlong herself would die an untimely death, only four years later- joining her sister in the graveyard in Tallaght, but not before her mother and father.  

In June 1897 Mary was a nurse in Madame Steeven’s Hospital, when her father was unexpectedly brought into her ward, after suffering a tragic accident.  On a suburban racecourse (Jones' Road) which James Furlong was visiting- a horse broke loose and riderless, and James, a stalwart and athletic man, attempting to restrain the stallion, was flung to the ground- suffering injuries which over the course of several days would prove to be fatal. He died on the 9th June 1897.  

The cortege for the funeral of James Furlong was so long that when the first of the carriages and traps, leaving from his residence in convoy, had arrived in the Dominican Priory in Tallaght village, the last carriage had not yet left the avenue of The Villa, a quarter of a mile away.  It was the last journey down what Furlong had considered to be a terrible road.  Shortly before his death, he and his wife had written to the Irish Daily Independent, the newspaper to which he himself was the sport editor-drawing attention to the poor condition of the road from Bawn Villa to Tallaght:

“A mill race flows out of the public road through an open gate, and for fully a quarter of a mile the road is covered with two feet of water after a heavy rainfall, through which the residents of this district have to wade if they wish to attend divine service or visit the village.  At the present time all of my family are laid up with severe colds from the effect of the wettings received, owing to the terrible floods on the road”.

This was written not long after the untimely death of his 20 year old daughter.

The great and the good of Tallaght- Dr. Poett, the Boothmans, Muldoons, Neills, Stubbs, Boardmans, Jordans, Fox, and M’Granes, came out to pay their last respects, along with the editors and newspapermen from many of the principal newspapers.  Family friends- the Tynans and O’ Mahonys,  were among the most prominent mourners. The residents of Tallaght and district sent a beautiful wreath of wild flowers.

After the funeral, friends gathered in the residence of John O’ Mahony where it was decided to raise a testimonial for the benefit of the Furlong family. A subscription list was opened and a large sum was forthcoming.  John O’ Mahony was elected Hon. Secretary and Andrew. C. Tynan, Hon. Treasurer. Over £260 was raised within five weeks of the funeral “for the benefit of the widow and daughters of James Furlong”.  Sadly it would not benefit his widow very much.  Many of those who assembled for the funeral of James Furlong, would gather once again on the avenue of Bawn Villa only ten week later, for the funeral procession of his widow, Mrs. Mary Furlong (nee Murtagh) who died at the age of 48, on August 24th  1897.  Her three remaining and bereft daughters- Mary, Margaret and Alice, still mourning the loss of their father and sister, were once again comforted by the Tynan and O’ Mahony families as the long procession stretched from Old Bawn Villa to Tallaght village.  Margaret was comforted by her soon to be husband, P.J. McCall.

It was a time of great sadness, but also of creativity in Bawn Villa.  While mourning the loss of her parents Alice Furlong focused on completing her first volume of poetry- “Roses and Rue” which would be published the following year.  Mary would deal with the grief by throwing herself into her nursing work, in an attempt to reduce the amount of pain and suffering in the world.  Less than a year after her mother’s death, Mary would respond to a call for nurses to go west- to deal with a serious outbreak of Typhoid.  Nursing patients in a fever hospital in Roscommon, Young Mary Furlong would quickly succumb, dying herself from the malady in 1898.

In only four years, Bawn Villa had tragically lost four of it’s six residents. Only Margaret and Alice remained, when Bawn Villa was put up for sale by the executors of James Furlongs estate in 1898. 

Margaret Furlong married P.J McCall in 1901 and lived with her husband and his father, a spirit merchant, on Patrick Street in Dublin.

Alice focused singularly on her work as a writer and poet, publishing eight novels in five years, and setting out to translate Shakespeare's MacBeth into Irish.  Alice Furlong retained close links with Tallaght, and later spent time living in Haerlem House, with the Muldoons, a prominent and notable family in the district, who had acquired Haerlem from the Neill family at the turn of the century.

She would often recall her childhood, coming of age and the end of innocence  growing up in Tallaght.  She would write of her visits to the Dominican Priory- and the wonders to be seen there.  In her short story “The House of Peace” published not long after she left Bawn Villa, in the Irish Monthly in 1907 she recalled being shown the necklace and cross of Marie Antoinette- she who lost her cross and her head in the France revolution. 

Alice Furlong, Poetess of The Villa- Old Bawn 

In later years Alice Furlong wrote, and indeed read, almost exclusively in Gaelic. She contributed much to the cultural revival in the early 1900s, and later expressed feelings of guilt and remorse for perhaps contributing to the movement towards violent nationalism in the years leading up to 1916 and the civil war.  She retained her love and attachment to Tallaght, up to the time of her death in 1946.

The Barrons of Old Bawn Villa

The Villa was bought by William Gresham Barron, a thirty six year old small farmer, of comfortable means.  William and his thirty nine year old wife, Edith, had been living in Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow, before they moved to Old Bawn, and were both in receipt 'of substantial incomes'.

In December 1895 William G. Barron, Gentleman Farmer, and his wife were living in “Berryfield”, a substantial residence in Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow.  On the 16th December at 4 o’ clock in the morning, William and his servant-man, John Hughes set off in a cart, on a journey to Dublin City, to deliver a load of holly and ivy, which they sold in Dublin for the Christmas Markets, before collecting a load of turnips and other produce.  On their way home to Enniskerry, on the best of terms, they decided to make a stop in Stepaside to take some refreshments. It is not clear how long they tarried there, but what is known, is that by the time they got back to Berryfield, John Hughes, servant-man, was both excited and thirsty. Asking his master for a glass of stout, he was given a promise, that the stout would be forthcoming, only after he had completed his work in the stableyard.   Hughes then promptly proceeded to the kitchen in quest for drink, were he met the amicable Edith Barron, who without question gave him a bottle of stout. But by now, Hughes fancied something with a little more spirit and objected to the stout. On becoming increasingly obstreperous and disorderly, William, Edith and her sister Miss Rease, endeavoured to eject Hughes from the kitchen and the incident quickly escalated into a melee.  Numerous utensils were smashed and Edith was assaulted by Hughes.  He was eventually persuades to go home with his wife, which he reluctantly did.  Looking at the clock- 11 pm – Hughes realised the night was but a pup.  

Against his wife’s best guidance,  Johnnie made his way back to the principal residence of Berryfield, and proceeded none-too-gingerly to hammer the knocker on the hall door,  Just hard enough to wake Mr and Mrs Barron from their slumber, and to remove the actual knocker itself from the woodwork.  Barron, looking out and down from an upstairs bedroom window, advised Hughes, we can assume in less than parliamentary language, to go home and go to bed.  Hughes replied by dispatching a projectile towards his masters head. A fusillade followed prompting Barron to get his loaded pistol from a locker and repeatedly fire out the bedroom window in the direction of Hughes, who was chaotically launching a barrage of turnips and stones in the direction of his masters boudoir.  It’s fair to say the Hughes had the best of the engagement, at least on the night, as he successfully sent missiles through twenty seven separate panes of glass in the house and escaped unhurt. He continued battering away at the front of the residence while Miss Rease and one of the  servant girls, discreetly made their escape out the back and into Enniskerry to summon the local constabulary who arrived at 1 a.m.  Hughes had managed not just to break 27 windows, but almost every fragile thing within the rooms behind them. He was arrested and charged with assault and malicious destruction of property, for which he received three months imprisonment with hard labour.  Barron claimed he had only fired his pistol in the air.

The occurrence created quite a sensation in the district and it was not long after this that William and Edith Barron thought that a move to Old Bawn Villa in Tallaght, would be just the thing.  Sadly, even greater tragedy was soon to visit the newest residents of “Bawn Villa”.

A Greater Tragedy

At 7 o’ clock in the evening on Sunday the 20th June 1901, while Mr. William Barron was a couple of hundred yards away from the avenue leading to his residence, in the company of a neighbour Tom Muldoon, his wife Edith, a  ladylike woman, was vainly struggling to extinguish a mass of flames in which she was bodily enveloped.  The distracted woman, finding herself in flames, burst out of the house shouting wildly, ran out onto the lawn and fell to her knees, with the hope of rolling herself around in the grass to extinguish the flames.  Her heartrending cries for help reached the ears of a young man named John Muldoon who had been passing through some fields, having left the company of Mr. Barron and Thomas Muldoon, his father a short time earlier.  He at once ran to her aid and did all he could to save the lady- helping to extinguish the flames on her person and a smouldering apron still burning inside the house- before summoning help. He led Edith back to the house, and rushed down the avenue to the Old Bawn Road where he met with William and Thomas, and informed them of the terrible circumstances back in the house. They hurried to the house and medical assistance was send for.  Mrs Crawley, another neighbour, hearing the commotion, had rushed to the house and sat with Edith as she lay in shock on the bed while they awaited the arrival of the local Dr. Poett. Remarkably, Edith, briefly retaining her faculties was able to explain to Mrs. Crawley she had been going up the stairs to light the bedroom fire and was carrying a Paraffin Lamp when it burst into flames, sending her apron and cloth’s into a ball of fire.

Mrs. Edith Rachel Barron died seven hours later, at 2am the next morning from shock caused by extensive burns all over the body.  An inquest was held in Bawn Villa the next day by the County Coroner, Dr Harty, at which he commended John and Thomas Muldoon for their prompt actions in endeavouring to save the life of Edith Barron.

The following October (1902) Mr. C.W.G. Barron would put “Bawn Villa” up for sale on 20 statute acres.

History and Tallaght are full of coincidence and curious things.  And this, for me is both:  William and Edith Barron had no children.  In the 1901 census William and Edith Barron are the only Barron Family resident in the district. Within a year of that census Edith Barron would be dead- having burnt to death as a result of a paraffin lamp exploding in her home, while her husband was talking to a local insurance agent.    In 1911, there are no Barrons at all recorded as living in the district.  By 1932 however a gentleman by the name of Henry P. Barron is a resident of nearby Jobstown- not far from Bawn Villa- just up the top of Kiltipper Lane.  Henry P. Barron invented and patented a new kind of "safety-vacuum-paraffin lamp"- One with a religious style, with which he intended to make his fortune during the Eucharistic Congress.  His day job? An insurance agent!

Carthy

In the second decade of the 1900s Bernard Carthy, son of Edward Carthy, a farmer from Mount Pelia, moved down to the Villa in Oldbawn, having recently farmed in Killinarden.  He died young, at 40 years of age in 1924.  The property stayed in the Carthy family until his wife, Margaret died in Roundwood, Co. Wicklow 37 years later in 1961. 

Mr & Mrs Bernard Carthy on the steps of Bawn Villa

Sale of Bawn Villa, 1961.
Bernard Carthy had died almost 40 years earlier.
The house would become home to the Kavanagh Family after 1961, until it was sold to a developer seven years later

In November 1961, one month after the death of his wife, the executors of the will of Bernard Carthy, who had predeceased her in 1924, put Bawn Villa up for auction on the 17th November 1961. The property was on a 900 year lease from 1st May 1837 at a rent of £50 per annum.

The compact residential holding had a beautifully proportioned two-storey slated Georgian residence enjoying pleasant parklands, a splendid view of the Dublin Mountains, and was approached by a short avenue. It was described as being in a good fishing and hunting district, one mile from a school and church.  A bus service passed the door. There was also a gate lodge “let to a very good tenant”.  The house contained two reception rooms, four bedrooms, a bathroom and W.C, two maids’ rooms, a kitchen, scullery and pantry.  The yard contained a hay shed, a cow shed, a calf shed, and usual out-offices.  The 20 statute acres were divided into four fields and two walled in paddocks.  Just as it was in 1868.

After 1961, Bawn Villa became the residence of  Mr. Joseph Kavanagh and his family.  His eldest son John Noel Kavanagh married Ellen Donohue in Two Mountains, Quebec, Canada in 1965.  The residence of Bawn Villa, on 20 statute acres of land, was sold to developers in 1968.

 

Bawn Villa- Sold to developers in February 1968

Newly laid tarmac for Tennis Courts, on the site of Bawn Villa, mid 1970s

Dodder Park Tennis Court- To the western end of which once stood  "Bawn Villa"

Afterword 

The Furlong Family burial place is in Tallaght Burial ground (Saint Maelruain's) beside what was The Commons of Tallaght. 

Margaret McCall (nee Furlong) died in 1944.  In her will, among her many bequests, she left £100 for the publication of poems by her sisters, Alice and Mary Furlong.  She left £500 for the publication of Irish Airs and Songs by her husband P. J. McCall. She left £20 to the Prior of the Dominican Priory, Tallaght. 

Alice Furlong, last of the four Furlong girls died in 1946. Chief mourners at her funeral were Mr. Hallissey and P.B. Bowen, the executors of her sisters will. The President of Ireland was represented at her funeral by Col. S. O' Sullivan

Albert Perris 

Share, Like and Subscribe