YOU know the way there is always a big explosion at the end of James Bond movies, well, Lord Browne once considered contacting the producers and asking them to blow up his vast farmyard buildings at Westport House, Co Mayo. The eleventh Marquess of Sligo, Lord Jeremy Browne was strapped for cash at the time and was prepared to consider just about anything, even selling the family pile.
In the end he decided against both those options. Acting contrary to the advice of just about everybody, and with no advertising or marketing, Jeremy opened Westport House to the public in 1960, the year before he married his wife, Jennifer.
Designed by architects Richard Cassells and James Wyatt in the 1700s, Westport House was built on the site of a stone fort once home of infamous pirate queen Grace O’Malley, or Granuaile. The Brownes are her direct descendants and, in an ironic twist, the 16th-century feminism of the bold pirate queen, whose audacity impressed the imperious Queen Elizabeth I, is now being emulated. The five Browne sisters, Sheelyn, Karen, Lucinda, Clare and Allanah, are in line to inherit the house and estate from their father. Because the laws governing Jeremy’s trust stipulated one male heir, some years ago, he had to table a Private Bill in the Oireachtas to allow his daughters inherit.
According to lore, when Granuaile slept in her many castles along the west coast, she would tie the rope of her boat to her toe, always on alert for uninvited guests. Back then the Atlantic waters lapped around the foundations of her stone castle at the site of the present Westport House. However, in 1800, a dam was built, so these days the waters of spectacular Clew Bay only skirt the edge of the estate. The seaward side opens on to a panoramic vista framed by pyramidal holy mountain, Croagh Patrick and distant Clare Island, rising from the horizon like a great sleeping whale as leafy walkways meander through the grounds and out onto the pretty heritage town, whose centre was also designed by architect James Wyatt.
While Westport House has a vital connection with the town, relations between the ascendancy family and locals were not always harmonious, as they are today. The Brownes once owned vast tracts of Mayo lands and had control over thousands of tenants – peasant farmers, small shopkeepers, and artisans.
As the last vestiges of medieval landlordism were being challenged at the turn of the 20th century, protracted negotiations continued between the 5th Marquess of Sligo and the Congested Districts Board concerned the handing over of lands. Local branches of the Land League and the United Irish League vigorously defended the agrarian and fundamental rights of the tenantry. There were cattle-drives and court cases, animals were impounded and land-agents abused. Indeed, one of the first mass meetings, addressed by Charles Stuart Parnell, and organised by Michael Davitt, had been held in Westport on June 8th, 1879.
Repeated famine and mass emigration in Co Mayo had left an emasculated and decimated population. During the Famine of the 1840s the Brownes were forced to abandon their stately home and live in relative penury in a town house for a time because they could not afford to pay rates.
Patently, the upkeep of this magnificent piece of Irish heritage demands lots of energy, conviction and money. The fact that relations with the local authority, Westport Town Council, are now good has helped to facilitate a longterm masterplan for the house and its parklands. In recent years, under the joint management of Sheelyn and Karen, a major re-roofing project was effected; a new room was opened which is dedicated to a collection of paintings donated to the family by the famous Italian Baroque art collector, and relative, the late Sir Denis Mahon; and leisure facilities for a pirate adventure park were installed.
How the original pirate queen would respond to the fact that over the last 50 years her progeny have welcomed over four million visitors through the gates of her one-time home is a matter of speculation. How she would react to the fact that thousands of revellers are expected to spend the weekend, roaming the grounds for the inaugural Westport Festival of Music and Performing Arts this summer is also a moot question. But then again the eccentric bluesy sound of one of the artists, Seasick Steve, may be just the thing to evoke the ghost of a female sailor who spent much of her life dancing across waves.
Certainly, with her all-hands-on-deck record, she would hardly be surprised to see the present Browne ladies teetering on ladders or with streaks of paint on their faces as they grapple with the everyday domestic minutiae of their family home.
The inaugural Westport Festival of Music and Performing Arts will be held on June 23rd and 24th.