Kilcroney House

Dr. Humphrey Lloyd was the distinguished scientist and philosopher who served as President of both the British Science Association and the Royal Irish Academy. On succeeding Dr. Richard MacDonnell as Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1867 he removed to the Provost's House in Dublin and in 1869 sold Kilcroney to Matthew P. D'Arcy, owner of Dublin's Anchor Brewery. D'Arcy lived here with his second wife, Christina Daly, while he sat as a Liberal M.P. for County Wexford and High Sheriff of Dublin City, entertaining here on a grand scale. D'Arcy was not re-elected in 1874 and by 1880 Kilcroney was sold to Alfred Edward West and his Canadian wife, Florence.

Florence's Floriculture

Florence grew up amidst "a perfect grove of verdure and blossoms" at Cataraqui, a bucolic estate three miles outside the old city walls of Quebec. The household there included her maternal grandfather, Rear-Admiral Edward Boxer, R.N., known in naval circles as, "a legend in his own lifetime," an anachronism who was, "gruff, 'unparliamentary' in his language, terrifying to juniors, but with a heart of gold".

As well as bringing a healthy dowry to her marriage, Florence brought to Ireland her expertise in gardening, and if Kilroney had been badly received in London for its architecture in 1860, seventy years later it positively shone at the Royal Horticultural Show of 1928. The flowers she grew at Kilcroney won 17-prizes, including 9-first places, and for winning the most prizes in the show she was awarded the Royal Horticultural Medal. Her Irish Daffodils won the Barr Memorial Daffodil Cup and the driveway up to Kilcroney still bursts into life every spring with her prize-winning daffodils. Her gardener in the 1920s, Charles E. Coster, was renowned as an expert in growing Gladiolus.

"Ulster's Gallant Woman Admiral"

Florence and Alfred were the parents of four children including Hazel who won fame as the "Ulster Admiral" in 1922. In 1921, Hazel had divorced her husband, Lt.-Col. Herbert Curling Laverton, and moved onto her steam yacht, The Lady of the Lake, anchored on Loch Erne in County Fermanagh. It was requisitioned by the British during the Irish War of Independence and renamed HMS Pandora. With a pair of pistols in her belt, Hazel took command of the ship and ferried men from the Ulster Special Constabulary to carry out a successful assault on Magheramenagh Castle (where she had lived with her friends the Johnstons before the war) in conjunction with the Battle of Belleek. Still in command, she then led the rescue operations following the Battle of Pettigo - the largest military engagement between the British and the Irish Republican Army since the Easter Rising of 1916. A BBC newsreel from the time made her famous in cinemas across the world.

Country Club to Nursing Home and Dublin Oak Academy

Florence survived her husband and remained at Kilcroney before her death in 1936. It then became the Kilcroney Country Club and received a visit in the summer of 1938 from JFK's sister, Rosemary Kennedy. In 1955, it became a nursing home run by the Hospitaller Order of St. John of God and Dan Breen - a former volunteer with the Irish Republican Army and a Fianna Fáil politician - was among those who spent his final years here. Since 1993, Kilcroney has been thoroughly renovated for its present use as the Dublin Oak Academy.