Reynolds of Dalystown

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Laurence (1793-1877) became a successful businessman in Dublin which enabled him to buy a country estate back home in County Longford.

He was father of Surgeon Lieutenant-Colonel James Henry Reynolds, whose heroism  at the Battle of Rorke's Drift in the Zulu War in 1879 won him a Victoria Cross and considerable fame and recognition. We'll come back to James Henry shortly.

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Laurence set out for Dublin as a young man to make his fortune. In this he was successful and by the mid 19th century his business interests included “a tavern, hotel, horse bazaar and livery stables” at Queen St, near the quays. (Marrying a rich widow, Margaret Kearney, whose first husband Patrick Savage had owned the tavern was a wise move, no doubt). By the mid 19th century he achieved sufficient prominence to be elected as an Alderman of the city corporation, a position he retained for over twenty years and which he would also have put to good use to advance his business interests.

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By the 1840s he appears to be living at Kingstown (now Dun Laoghaire) then a fashionable suburb away from the grime of the city. They had at least two sons (Laurence Patrick, b. about 1842 and James Henry b. 3rd February 1844) and three daughters (Rose b.1841, Margaret b. 1847 and Ellen b. 1848).  By the 1860s he has purchased a large landed estate  of nearly 1,000 acres– at Dalystown near Granard, of course, near where he was born! The ambitious but probably penniless young man of half a century earlier has returned as Lord of the Manor, more or less. He died there on 14th April 1877, aged 84.

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Laurence’s family

Laurence’s children moved a step up the ladder from their father’s original tavern-keeper status by marrying into the professional classes.

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Rose, the eldest, married Francis Davys a medical doctor and Coroner for County of Dublin and had at least five children.

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Ellen married Michael Verdon a solicitor. The celebrant at their marriage was Fr George Conroy the Bishop of Ardagh, and who had been secretary to Paul Cullen, Ireland’s first Cardinal and a hugely influential figure who set the Irish Catholic church in the pattern that persisted until the late 20th century.  Unfortunately, Ellen died at 27, giving birth to her daughter Ellen Emily, and her husband Michael did not long survive her.

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Margaret died in childhood.

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Eldest son, Laurence Patrick (1842-1918) married Rose Mary Kennedy of Cavan. Both fathers are described on the marriage certificate as ‘Gentlemen’. One of the witnesses was an R. Davys, not a child of his sister Rose as they were still too young, but probably related to her husband. He and Rose Mary had no children.

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Laurence, it seems, managed the Dalystown estate as a Gentleman Farmer after his father’s death, and he took an active part in local affairs, serving on various committees and acting as a Justice of the Peace (lay magistrate).

 Perhaps an unpopular judgement, or his actions as a landlord, was behind an incident reported in the Freeman’s Journal on 30 May 1879:

Outrage on a magistrate

Longford, Thursday

Last night Laurence Reynolds Esq, JP of Dalystown in this county, when returning home from the Longford races, was attacked by a large party of men and taken out of his carriage and beaten. His servant was also much abused. Mr. Reynolds (who is unable to identify his assailants) holds property in this county. He is a brother of Surgeon-Major Reynolds, of Rorke’s Drift fame.

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At this time, tension between landlords and tenants was rapidly increasing due to rent levels, insecurity of tenure and changing agricultural practices, so much so that in the weeks surrounding this incident, a series of mass meetings to agitate for land reform led to the setting up of the Land League. Perhaps it was his tenants who had a grievance against Laurence who were behind the attack.  (A 1,000-acre estate such as Dalystown could have had something like 50 tenant families). His father had died just a couple of years previously, and Laurence may have changed some established customs to the detriment of his tenants.

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The mention of his brother’s fame is notable, as it was only a few months since the battle and shows that popular knowledge of the events was widespread. It might be thought that the attack was a ‘revenge’ for his brother’s imperialist exploits but such anti-colonialist views hardly existed at this time.