The entrance hall of the mansion of Curraghmore is the ancient keep, which was built by the De la Poers in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, foursquare, the walls ten feet thick. The rest of the house is eighteenth century. The original edifice is briefly described in The Antient and Present State of the County and City of Waterford, by Charles Smith, published in Dublin in 1740, and in The History, Topography and Antiquities of the County and City of Waterford, by the Rev. R. H. Ryland, published by Murray in 1824. Sir Marcus, first Earl of Tyrone, and his son, afterwards first Marquess of Waterford, made considerable additions, which, according to the date inscribed upon the lead work, were completed in 1771. From the old keep, transformed into an eighteenth-century entrance hall, a flight of steps leads to the inner hall, whence a wide staircase rises, following the walls, and out of which open the reception rooms. These face upon lawn and fountain and terrace. Over the entrance door are carved the family coat; and the crest of the De la Poers, a stag couchant bearing a cross upon his forehead, crowns the parapet. Upon the garden front are sculptured the Beresford shield and their crest, "a dragon's head erased, the neck pierced with a tilting spear, and holding the point broken off in the mouth." Motto, Nil nisi cruce.
Such was the home of the five brothers, when their father, Lord John dc la Poer Beresford, in holy orders, succeeded his brother in 1859. Lord Charles Beresford, who had been for some years at school in England, joined the Navy in that year. He came to Curraghmore in his brief and widely spaced intervals of leave, while his brothers came home more frequently during their vacations. In those days, the stables were filled with horses, the house was populous with guests; and the great courtyard in front of the house, now silent, resounded with the cheery bustle of a jovial company coming and going. All winter the house was thronged; there was hunting six days in the week; and more than a hundred horses were stabled at Curraghmore. Lord Charles Beresford has told how that many a time, when, as a midshipman, he was humping beef into the blood-boats for the Fleet, did he think not without envy upon his brothers, each with his two or three hunters, riding to hounds at Curraghmore.
The house of Beresford derives from the "very old and eminent English family of Beresford of Beresford, in the county of Stafford," and from the De la Poers, an ancient Breton family, and their quarterings include the noble houses of Hamilton, Monck, Carpenter, Plantagenet, Lastile and Leon, Mortimer, De Burgh, Holland, Wake, Wevill, Beauchamp, Delaval, Blake. The Beresfords represented the English plantation in the North of Ireland, until the marriage was made which united them with De la Poers, who were of the first English plantation in the South.
Tristram Beresford came into Ireland in the reign of James I., as manager of the corporation of Londoners, known as "The Society of the New Plantation in Ulster." The first Tristram settled at Coleraine, in county Londonderry. His son, Sir Tristram, first Baronet, in common with the first created Baronets of Ulster, bore on his shield the open red hand of Ulster, hitherto borne by the forfeited O'Neils. Sir Randal, second Baronet, sat in the first Parliament held after the Restoration.
Sir Tristram, his son, commanded a regiment of foot against King James II., and was attainted. He it was who married the Hon. Nicola Sophia Hamilton, concerning whom a legend of the supernatural is current. Briefly, it is that the friend of her early years, the Earl of Tyrone, visited her after his death, according to agreement, and, to prove the reality of his appearance, touched her wrist, shrivelling nerve and sinew, so that ever afterwards she wore a bracelet of black velvet. A picture, supposed to represent this lady, hangs in Curraghmore. It must be said that the evidence of it extant is so highly dubious, that the story is not worth telling in detail.
Sir Tristram was succeeded by his son, Sir Marcus, fourth Baronet, who married the Lady Katherine de la Poer, who was Baroness in her own right. Thus the two houses were conjoined. Lady Katherine was the only daughter and heiress of James, third and last Earl of Tyrone. She was allowed the Barony of La Poer in fee by resolution of the Irish House of Lords, on 16th November 1767. Sir Marcus her husband was created Earl of Tyrone in 1746. The son of Sir Marcus and Lady Katherine, George De la Poer, was created Marquess of Waterford in 1789, and Knight of St. Patrick at the Institution of the Order in 1783. First Marquess, he was the first De la Poer Beresford.
The De la Poer, Power, or Poher, family traces its descent from Comorre I., Count of le Poher, who married the widow of Jonas, King of Domnonée, and who died A.D. 554. Le Poher was one of the five independent states of Brittany, of which the others were La Domnonée, La Cornouailles, Le Vannes, and Le Leon. The genealogy of the Le Poers is interesting, if only by reason of its romantic names. From Comorre I., Count of le Poher, descended the Counts Comorre, Erispoë, Rivallon, Nominoë. Nominoë married one Argantal, defeated Charles the Bald, drove the Franks out of Brittany, and was proclaimed King of that country in 841. He was succeeded by his son Erispoë, who married Mormohec. From the aforesaid Rivallon descended Salomon, who (having achieved a little murderous intrigue) succeeded King Erispoë, and married Wembrit. From the brother of Salomon, Mathuedoi, descended Alain, Count of Vannes and Duke of Brittany, who fought against the Normans, and who was driven by them to take refuge in England. His son Alain (called Barbe-torte) returned to Brittany, drove out the Normans in his turn, and united Le Poer to the Duchy.
From the Pohers, in the female line, descended Arthur, Duke of Brittany, who was done to death by John, King of England, A.D. 1203. There is this other link between John of England and the De la Poers, that in the demesne of Curraghmore an ancient bridge of stone, over which the English King is said to have passed, spans the river and is called John's Bridge to this day. From the Duchess Constance, the mother of Arthur of Brittany, descended the Duchess Anne, who married King Louis XII. of France. Brittany was thus incorporated in France.
The Pohers seem to have come to England with Duke William of Normandy, called the Conqueror. In 1066 they are found in Devonshire; and later, in Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Herefordshire; a fructuous and an acquisitive clan. They came to Ireland in the reign of the second Henry: then came Sir Robert, Sir Roger, William and Simon. Sir Roger helped in the invasion of Ulster. But the founder of the De la Poers of Curraghmore was Sir Robert, who, in the year 1172, accompanied King Henry II. as Knight Marshal, and to whom was given by the King, the town of Waterford and a great parcel of county Waterford.
Towards the end of the sixteenth century, Sir Henry Sidney, in the course of his account of the province of Munster, communicated to the Lords of the Council, describes his visit to John, Lord le Poer, who was born in 1527. "27th Feb., 1575. The day I departed from Waterford I lodged that night at Curraghmore, the house that Lord Power is baron of, where I was so used, and with such plenty and good order entertained (as adding to it the quiet of all the country adjoining, by the people called Power country, for that surname has been since the beginning of the Englishman's planting inhabitants there), it may be well compared with the best ordered country in the English Pale. And the Lord of the country, though he be of scope of ground a far less territory than his neighbour is, yet he lives in show far more honourably and plentifully than he or any other, whatsoever he be, of his calling that lives in his province."
The "Peerage of Ireland" of 1768 urbanely observes: "It is very remarkable, that in so long a succession in this family, and in a country continually disturbed and torn by rebellion and civil wars, that not one of this family was ever engaged in any rebellion against the crown of England, nor was there ever a forfeiture in the family during the space of six hundred years that they have been planted in Ireland; and they at this day enjoy the family lands, and reside at the same place they were originally settled in, in the county of Waterford. In a grant of letters patent from King Charles II. to this Richard, Lord la Poer, bearing date the 9th May, the twenty-third year of his reign, there is this recital. That the ancestors of the said Richard, Lord la Poer, from their first planting in Ireland, for above four hundred years, had entirely preserved their faith and loyalty to the crown of England, in consideration therefore," etc.
Sir Tristram Beresford, up in the North, fought against King James Second; but