Lohort Castle (Entrance) Sir Timothy O'Brien was not only a resident of Lohort but also was a local 'character'. An exceptional man of no great fame himself, he was connected with events and times that were very notable indeed. He was associated with Lohort for about forty years until 1922. One hundred years ago Lohort was owned and occupied by a man called Timothy O'Brien. Unusual for a resident of this latterly very English retreat, he was a Catholic. He inherited his knighthood from his grandfather. He inherited the castle and land from his father who had purchased it in the break-up of the Egmont/Percival estates some ten years or so earlier. His father was a prosperous Dublin publican, a younger son of Sir Lucius O'Brien of Dromoland and nephew of William Smyth-O'Brien, the famous Irish Nationalist and liberal politician from County Clare. The family was a senior branch of the extended Earls of Thomond and Earls of Inchequin clan; his less reputable roots led back to Morrogh O'Brien Lord Inchequin, 'Morrogh of the Burnings' ,well known to the people around Castlemagner for his victory over Lord Taaffe and Sir Allister McDonnell at Knocknanuss in 1647. Sir Timothy's youth was spent in Dublin and at aristocratic colleges in Ireland and in England. Very much the Anglo-Irish gentleman of wealth and leisure, as a young man he moved in the top levels of Establishment society in Ireland and England and excelled at various sports. His chief claim to sporting fame was as a batsman with the English cricket team. He also played for Ireland and indeed had the unique distinction of representing both countries at international level. He organised and financed the setting up of the famous Lords cricket ground in London. As well as Club, County and International matches. In those days most Big Houses and landlord estates, including Lohort, Castlecor and Ballygiblin in this area, sported a cricket team. Sir Timothy played with Lohort and the ambition of every local lad was to clean-bowl the famous and lordly batsman. A few succeeded, one was the late Billy Alex Callaghan's father (Alex) who was groom to Sir John Wrixon-Beecher and played on the Ballygiblin team. The old people got great satisfaction from Alex's achievement ! Sir Timothy was also noted locally for bringing the first ever motor car on to the stony roads of Castlemagner. The story goes that his fantastic machine emerged from the main gate of Lohort on a sunny August evening around 1890. He headed up through Cecilstown village, going towards Ballygiblin and Ballyhass in a cloud of smoke and dust, clattering and banging like a machine gun. A young lad from the village raced in front of the car, apparently being chased down by it. He waved a red flag on a pole and shouted 'clear the way for his Lordship, clear the way!'. His progress sent cattle and horses racing in fright along the roadsides and droves of locals, convinced that 'the soldiers are coming' took off for Ballygiblin wood to hide for their lives. Sir Timothy, like the rest of the Anglo-Irish gentry in North Cork, rode to hounds with the Duhallow Hunt. He was a noted horseman and point-to-pointer despite his lanky height of 6'4". His membership of the Duhallow Hunt was to prove disastrous. In 1890 he bought a hunter from David Roche, Lord Fermoy, for £100. The horse turned out to be broken-winded and Roche refused to take it back. After a bitter exchange of solicitors' letters, the two men chanced to come together at a meeting of the Duhallow Hunt at Cecilstown in January 1891. Sir Timothy confronted Roche "You are a liar and a cheat and a swindler; you have lived by swindling for the past 20 years". The two were quickly separated and Roche issued a writ for slander immediately. The case was heard in the Circuit Court in Cork City in June 1891 and, because of the status and repute of Sir Timothy, it assumed countrywide interest with Counsels of national status appearing for each side. After much-reported legal argument, the judge found in favour of Roche. He said that neither man was interested in money but wanted only to run the other man out of North Cork in disgrace. He held that such an objective was not in the spirit of the law. He awarded Roche 1 farthing damages but each party was to bear their own costs. Roche took an appeal to the London Courts and the case was re-heard there in June 1892. Most of the Duhallow Hunt present at the confrontation in Cecilstown were called to London as witnesses, along with numerous servants and character witnesses. Sir Timothy's chief witness was his own groom who gave evidence that he had regularly assisted Roche in horse deal swindles. Roche's counsel was able to show that the groom had previously been employed by Roche but had been sacked for dishonesty. The groom's status as an unbiased witness was demolished. After a hearing, which lasted 3 months and attracted national interest, the judge found for Roche. He re-iterated the comments of the Circuit Court judge and awarded Roche only £5 damages. However, he allowed Roche full costs and Sir Timothy had to bear all the costs of the two trials. The costs were huge and he more or less went broke paying them. The case was famous for 'Irishisms', that it threw up 'Witness: Lord Fermoy grabbed Sir Timothy's bridle Judge: For legal accuracy, was it the horse's bridle or Sir Timothy's? Groom: The horses, my Lord; Sir Timothy was not bridled* that day" (* i.e. he shot his mouth off) The case is still a standard text for students of the Law of Tort as related to Slander. Throughout his life, Sir Timothy was very much a loyalist British Establishment figure and his association with Lohort Castle ran through what were probably the most hectic events in Irish nationalist history. The latter days of his cricketing career coincided with the Land League and the bitter struggles between landlords and tenants that brought the Land Act of 1886. He was a partisan on the Landlord side, being remote and unsympathetic towards his own tenants. He was a Parnellite and took Parnell's side in the political campaign that ended with the death of Parnell in 1891. When the Boer War broke out in South Africa in1899 he was active in promoting the jingoistic Establishment war propaganda and attempted to procure men and horses locally for the British Army. He had some limited success and a few men from Cecilstown went to join the Munster Horse regiments in South Africa - never to return. But the bitter Land War had sprung a new confidence in the population of rural Ireland and emigration to America and Australia was taking its toll on rural youth; the Irish countryside was no longer a ready recruiting ground for men to carry the burden of imperial military ambition. With the resurgence of Home Rule politics in Ireland in 1912, Sir Timothy was a close personal friend of John Redmond, and a patron of the Irish Volunteers. His support for Home Rule was tempered by strong personal opposition to a Gaelic-dominated Home Rule Irish government and to any attempt to break the British connection - a political confusion not unknown in the Ireland of today. When native Irish politics took a turn towards force of arms and John Redmond fell from favour for supporting Irish involvement in the British war effort in the First World War, Sir Timothy abandoned the Nationalist Party and slipped from public view. During the War of Independence, Sir Timothy spent his time in London and Dublin, mingling with British Establishment figures, appearing at great social events and, when self-rule for Ireland appeared inevitable, promoting separate Loyalist government for Northern Ireland. Lohort castle remained mostly unoccupied and the castle came to be used as an observation post by British Army patrols from Mallow . On the night of 7th of July 1921, the castle was burned by the local I.R.A. After the signing of the Treaty in 1922, Sir Timothy declined to reconcile himself to life under Irish self-government. He sold Lohort and went to London were he died, broke and in obscurity,` in 1928. To Irish people, from a perspective of over 70 years of successful independent nationhood, Sir Timothy O'Brien emerges as a man of little historical importance. He was fully fledged as a member of an Establishment class that ruled 'the Empire on which the sun never sets'. He lived to see that great empire crumble and his class and cohort in Ireland pushed aside and replaced by Irish national resurgence. But he was an outstanding international sportsman and we Irish love our sportsmen (and women !). He was at the centre of a famous Slander case, and he involved himself at some level in all the stirring events through which he lived. His time at Lohort is now remembered only for two things He brought the first motor car to this part of the country, and He was bowled for a duck by Billy Alex's father !