In a letter to his wife from Tralee dated 25 March 1824, Daniel O’Connell wrote, ‘I came here yesterday about one o’clock to attend a consultation with Lord Headley, etc, on an act of parliament for dividing Castleisland among the six gentleman of whom Lady Headley, his mother, is one’.1
A nineteenth century correspondence about the costs incurred in processing the act which included O’Connell ‘being brought over specially to London to attend consultations’ described Castleisland before partition as ‘principally old with thatched houses and small cabins which scarcely contained a single good house’:
When the partition was made, the unlucky and unhappy proprietors had to pay near £7,000 for dividing a then miserable village and 650 acres of land.2
One hundred and fifty years on from O’Connell’s letter to his wife, it was edited and published by his great great grandson, Maurice Rickard O’Connell (1922-2005) wherein Maurice commented, ‘the act does not appear to have aroused any public interest’.3
It did, however, arouse the interest of Michael O’Donohoe who – as is evident from a letter in the Collection from Dick Spring, TD – went to some lengths to secure a copy of it.4
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The 25-pg Act can be read here.
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1 Series reference IE MOD/75. 2 Letter to the Editor of the Kerry Evening Post from John Leahy dated 21 September 1863 (Kerry Evening Post, 26 September 1863). 3 The Correspondence of Daniel O’Connell (Vol III) 1974. 4 IE MOD 75/75.1/75.1.1. The Minister for Foreign Affairs informed Michael that the GEORGII IV REGIs document was traced eventually 'to the Kings Inn Library in Dublin'.
