My ancestors - Blennerhassett - Contents
Letitia Blennerhassett
Grave of Letitia Blennerhassett, Aghavallen Church, near Ballylongford, Co.Kerry.
Photo 1990.
Letitia Blennerhassett (see here and here and here), descendant of Edward III,
born 9th June 1780, Rossbeigh, Co.Kerry,
mar 1stly, settlement in [Deed dated 29th June 1799], to Richard Ponsonby and had issue,
he died 20 Apr 1811,
she quickly re-married,
her young children by him appear to have remained with Ponsonby relations rather than with her,
she is listed as Letitia Ponsonby, Church of Ireland, at 2nd mar,
mar 2ndly, Wed 10 July 1811,
St.Michael's church
(Church of Ireland, also here),
Pery Square, Limerick city,
see [Clare Journal, Monday 15th July 1811],
to William Lindsay [born 1788]
and had issue.
Is this our Letitia Blennerhassett?
Could this Letitia Blennerhassett be our Letitia Blennerhassett who was the mother of George Cashel (born Co.Kerry, 1807). Consider this speculation:- Our family remembered the name "Letitia Blennerhassett".
- She is the only known Letitia Blennerhassett of that time in Co.Kerry.
- She is one of twin girls who were the youngest (perhaps indulged?) children of a vicar.
- Her father was chaplain to the Kerry Militia. Her sister Elizabeth married in 1791 to an officer, Capt. Edward Fuller.
- She married in 1799 at 19 (very young) to another officer, Major Richard Ponsonby.
- Ponsonby has an inheritance of £4,000 which Letitia will inherit if he dies. And yet later we find he dies and she does not inherit it.
- Her vicar father
died early 1804 when she was 23.
- She perhaps has an affair leading to the birth of George Cashel in 1807 (her age 27).
- Ponsonby cuts her off? Ponsonby had a huge inheritance, but later we see Letitia is not well off, and her daughters by Ponsonby are living with Ponsonby relations, without her. Maybe she was disgraced? The Ponsonby girls in the 1820s still have their inheritance. Louisa Ponsonby does not even consider her mother Letitia when settling her estate in 1825.
- Did Letitia have the affair with Cashel (child born 1807) while still married to Ponsonby (died 1811), and then did Ponsonby cut her off from any money, and take custody of the children, who retained their inheritance?
- Interestingly, there is a settlement at exactly the right time for her to be having an affair: [Deed, 1806]. It is unclear what the legal language in this deed means. It refers to their marriage settlement of 1799, and the inheritance of £4,000 (which comes from the Ponsonby side). It may be that this is Letitia getting disinherited for having an affair. That she cannot inherit this money but Ponsonby's children can.
- No Ponsonby divorce bill is found before his death.
-
Letitia Lindsay
says that her father
Thomas Rupert Lindsay
said there was some scandal, and Letitia was
"drummed out of Ireland".
- She is listed as Letitia Ponsonby at 2nd mar, NOT Letitia Cashel. (i.e. She did not marry Cashel. Maybe Cashel was also married.)
- Cashel must be Catholic.
- At George Cashel's baptism his mother might be listed as Letitia Ponsonby.
- She gives up the Cashel child, to be raised Catholic by its Cashel relations,
and goes to the big city (Limerick) to avoid scandal.
- After her (perhaps estranged) husband dies 1811, she is free to marry. She marries again in Limerick city in 1811 to her late husband's employee, a much younger man (her age 31, him age 23). They are both from Co.Kerry but they marry in Limerick city.
- Letitia's 2nd husband William Lindsay is from a family linked to Leslie. The Rowan family is linked to Blennerhassett, Leslie and Cashell.
- In 1825, Letitia's daughter Louisa Ponsonby falls pregnant in a great scandal. Like mother, like daughter? Louisa is living with Ponsonbys, without her mother. Nor is her mother called on to help, despite being alive and in Co.Kerry. It is a bit of a coincidence that I am looking for a Letitia Blennerhassett who maybe had an affair, and I find one whose daughter had an affair.
- Louisa won a case to keep her inheritance, perhaps because she was over age 21 and her father was dead, and, unlike the case with her mother, no one could disinherit her.
- Letitia's disgraced daughter Louisa came to live with her at Tarbert by 1829.
Maybe Louisa would be sympathetic towards George Cashel as a result of her experience.
- Letitia's 2nd husband William Lindsay was the brother of Thomas Lindsay (born 1794) who was a policeman.
- Letitia's daughter Mary Ponsonby married by settlement, 28 June 1828, to William Miller, chief constable of police at Listowel, Co.Kerry.
- Letitia's possible son George Cashel (born 1807) joined the police in Sept 1828.
- If this is her, did she have any contact with her son
George Cashel
over the many decades they were both alive?
(She died 1876. He died 1882.)
His branch certainly remembered the name "Letitia Blennerhassett"
and used Blennerhassett as a family name.
- "Mahony" is a common name, but still this is interesting: Arthur Blennerhassett (the future 3rd Baronet, and maybe the man who recommended George Cashel for the constabulary in 1828) married a Catholic, Sarah Mahony of Blennerville, Co.Kerry, in 1826. Cashel's first posting was under Chief Constable Darby Mahony (born Cahir, Co.Tipperary) in 1829. William Lindsay may have married an Anne Mahony in 1840. Blennerhassett Lindsay may have sp the Catholic baptism of a John Mahony of Tarbert in 1853.
- William Lindsay was the brother of George Lindsay, who married the grand-dau of the 1st Earl Mount Cashell. (No known connection with the Cashell surname though.)
- George Lindsay married his wife without the consent of her guardian in 1829.
- Some of the Lindsays did well, but others were quite poor. Remarkably, Letitia's grandson Edward Brodrick was a poor sailor who was actually illiterate.
- Letitia's nephew Thomas Harnett Fuller eloped in 1832 to Glasgow to marry his wife.
- Thomas Harnett Fuller's son James Franklin Fuller wrote an account of the Trial of Rowan Cashel in 1901-04. His grand-aunt was Letitia Blennerhassett, who may have had an affair with a Cashel.
