We left the Bellew story at the end of the 18th century in Family History.
It had all been a bit of a struggle. Roger de Bellew cannot have found it easy arriving in Ireland as a Norman invader; then, when the family had been assimilated into the social tapestry, there was Cromwell quickly followed by King William and confiscation of lands and privileges, not to say loss of life at the Battle of Aughrim.
The 19th century brought a change in the weather. Patrick Bellew was born in 1798 and succeeded to the Baronetcy upon the death of his father in 1827. Only two years later the family’s fortunes changed. Patrick married a half Spanish (her mother was English) heiress, Anna Fermina, daughter of Don José Maria de Mendoza y Rios. Mendoza’s story has already been told here.
Barmeath, hitherto an unpretentious mid-Georgian country house, was transformed by Patrick and his bride; “rational good sense was replaced with wild baronial fantasy” (Pevsner). Battlements, round towers, bold machicolations, huge arrow loops, bartizans, buttresses, a Norman gateway and a portcullis were the order of the day in an architectural assertion of our Norman ancestry.
This rather vulgar spending spree coincided with Catholic Emancipation when Patrick and his brother Montesquieu were returned to Westminster as Members of Parliament for Co Louth. A cursory consultation of Wikipedia confirms that neither brother played a leading role in politics.
Richard Montesquieu Bellew (12 February 1803 – 8 January 1880) was an Irish politician. He took office as a Junior Lord of the Treasury in Lord John Russell’s first government on the death of Denis O’Conor.
Patrick Bellew, 1st Baron Bellew PC (Ire) (29 January 1798 – 10 December 1866), known as Sir Patrick Bellew, 7th Baronet, from 1827 to 1848, was an Irish Whig politician.
Born in London, he was the son of Sir Edward Bellew, 6th Baronet and his wife Mary Anne, daughter of William Strange. He succeeded his father as baronet in 1827. In 1831 he was elected to the House of Commons for County Louth, a seat he held until 1832. He was reelected for the constituency in 1834, representing it for the next three years. Bellew served as High Sheriff of County Louth in 1831 and was then appointed Lord Lieutenant of Louth until his death in 1866. He was also Commissioner of National Education in Ireland from 1839 to 1866 and a Commissioner of Charitable Donations and Bequests for Ireland from 1844 to 1857. He was admitted to the Irish Privy Council in 1838 and in 1848 he was raised to the Peerage of Ireland as Baron Bellew, of Barmeath, in the County of Louth.
However, Patrick was a big fish in the smallish pool of Irish 19th century society. He was rich enough to be a good landlord and no doubt relished public office, so long denied by the Penal Laws. What could possibly go wrong?
A cursory glance along my bookshelves surprisingly reveals no entries for Barmeath. Apart from Pevsner’s ‘Building’s of North Leinster’, information is scant. I was surprised to find no reference by Brian de Breffney in his ‘Castles of Ireland’. Similarly, Barmeath fails to feature in ‘The Irish Country House’, ‘Great Irish Houses & Castles’, or numerous other top drawer publications. One wonders if this is by choice or omission? The castle deserves to be better appreciated and documented, the sumptuous interiors are some of the finest in the land. (I recall Country Life ran a feature a few years ago, but the place warrants something more hardback).
In part, I understand the authors cynicism towards Sir Patrick’s extravagant flight of fancy, after all if he wanted to be strictly authentic to his Norman ancestry he would have instructed his architect to recreate the medieval privy with its open chute. Nevertheless, it is remarkable the place has survived as a family home, and fortuitous that it has not been turned into the ubiquitous ‘luxury hotel & golf resort’, (Air BnB does not count).
The late Jeremy Williams rather enjoyed the house and remarked about the hermitage at park’s edge; alas,no hermit.