The Invention of Memory

I was given The Invention of Memory for Christmas three years ago by Alan Higgs. It is by Simon Loftus and traces the story of his family from their arrival in Ireland in 1560 until Mount Loftus burned down in 1934.

I own that I got bogged down in the early history of his family and until this month it remained only dipped into. Of necessity there was too much general Irish history but as his account moves into the 18th century the balance shifts to the lives of his ancestors in a wealth of detail drawn from letters, account books, and diaries. Its subtitle is fitting; An Irish Family Scrapbook. Reading it I am reminded of Castle Rackrent (that Sir Edward Loftus read not long after it was published) and Barry Lyndon. The domestic details of their lives provide a procession of vignettes to savour; everything from their relations with their neighbours and their servants to descriptions of hunting breakfasts and grand dinners. The cost of everything is meticulously recoded from the clock-winder to the chimney sweep and provisions for the larder.

Ruefully remembering my low pain threshold, I read that after one such hunting breakfast Sir Nicholas was thrown trying to jump “an ugly stone gap” and his arm was broken. He realised that he had ridden the horse at the obstacle badly and with phlegm said to his mount “now, sir, do it your own way”. The horse sailed beautifully and safely over with Sir Nicholas and his broken arm on board.

Politics does not play a large part. Nevertheless the chicanery preceding the Act of Union in 1800 did interest me. The Westminster government were aware that a clear majority of Irish MPs and Peers would vote against it in the Dublin parliament. The only way of dissuading them was outright bribery. They set aside £1.5 million to this end. Lord Ely, a Loftus cousin, was paid £45,000 for the loss of the boroughs of Fethard,Clonmines and Barrow, which came to six parliamentary seats, but he also controlled Wexford, which returned two members to the Irish parliament but would only send one to Westminster – another £15,000 for Lord Ely, with which he was dissatisfied. After protracted negotiations with the Lord Lieutenant and William Pitt he became a Marquis in the Peerage of Ireland and Baron Loftus in England. This was not quite enough so he secured well-paid jobs for his sons: a Commissioner of the Treasury and Bishop of Clogher. Then to round things off, his cousin General William Loftus was given a sinecure colonelcy (£1,597 a year) and Lieutenancy of the Tower of London (£745 a year). Ely is reckoned to have milked more than any other Irish Peer in this most blatantly corrupt purchase of votes.

The fire that destroyed Mount Loftus, for once, was not arson. A maid hung some clothes to dry above the Esse stove. They were wrapped in tissue paper that scorched and fell on the stove. The house was to some extent rebuilt and the last member of the family to live there was Bettina Grattan Bellew,  Jack Loftus’s eldest daughter. When she died in1995 the house and its contents were sold.