Sir Timothy O’Brien was not only a resident of Lohort but also was a local ‘character’. A man of exceptional sporting fame himself, he was connected with events and people of great national moment through the Parnell period and the early days of Irish national emergence. He was associated with Lohort for about forty years until 1917.
In the last quarter of the 19th century, Lohort was owned and occupied by a man called Sir 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 at the break-up of the Egmont/Perceval estates. His father was a prosperous Dublin publican, a younger son of Sir Lucius O’Brien of Dromoland, a nephew of William Smyth-O’Brien, the famous Irish Nationalist and liberal politician from County Clare, and close friend and confidante of the great Daniel O‘Connell. The family was a cadet branch of the extended Earls of Thomond and Inchequin whose 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 Alasdair McColla Ciotach McDonnell at Knocknanuss in 1647. Continue reading “Sir Timothy O’Brien”