I’VE always enjoyed visiting Curraghmore, whether for the Waterford Country Fair or various horse related events, but this visit was going to be special. My photographer and I were going to spend an afternoon with Lord Waterford at Curraghmore just outside the village of Portlaw near Carrick on Suir. The visit had been arranged in the convivial surroundings of the recent National Hound Show in Stradbally where the Waterford huntsman, Niall Dunne, had come away with an armful of red rosettes including the Robin Hunt Trophy for the best Brood Bitch.
Our host for the afternoon, Henry Nicholas de la Poer Beresford, 9th Marquess of Waterford, which is a bit of a mouthful, but he is better known in the hunting world as Tyronie. A man of few words, he is modest almost to a fault (with little to be modest about). He has been joint-master of the Waterford for the last four seasons, rebuilding a family tradition which had been dormant since the 1950s when the last member of his family filled a similar role. No less than 10 members of his family have preceded him in the mastership since 1843. His joint-masters are the brothers Raymond and Allan Morrissey, John Kiely and Ian Shanahan.
The Waterford hunting pedigree is not short on blacktype – his cousins Lady Anna Johnston and Emma Thompson are joint-masters of the Limerick Foxhounds. His mother, still very much to the good, is sister of Lady Melissa Brooke, formerly joint-master of the Limerick and the Kildare. Until his late father (who was also known as Tyrone though not his christened name) passed in 2015, he had held the lesser and subsidiary title of Lord Tyrone which he then surrendered to his eldest son, Richard, who lives in England where he is a professional polo player. As far as titles go, Dukes come first with Marquess second, Earls third and all the rest barely runners-up!
Polo has always been a very important part of family life. Having left Harrow, he managed a polo yard in England and played off the very creditable handicap of four goal, a handicap his father also shared in his playing days. He retains his connection with polo as a steward of the Hurlingham Polo Association, the governing body of world polo.
Young Richard who plays with the 4Quarter Team is a six-goal player which places him in the very top league of the non-Argentinian players. Polo handicaps run from minus 2 right up to 10 with only a handful of players above six. He is soon due to get married to a daughter of Kim Richardson who hunts the Crawley and Horsham in England. Richard has plans to produce Curraghmore Whiskey, distilled from malting barley grown on the estate using water from the Clodagh River. Sadly, production has not reached a stage where the golden nectar could be sampled. He has two other children, Marcus Patrick who lives in New Zealand and works in the world of finance, and Camilla Juliet still a student in Bath University.
We didn’t have the opportunity to meet the Marchioness (Lady Waterford) who was unavoidably away visiting her family in the UK. Formerly Mandy Thompson, she comes from Borris-in-Ossory and is a sister of David Thompson who, until recently, hunted the Laois Foxhounds.
The afternoon was going to be busy as there was a lot of country to be covered and coverts to be drawn from the history of Curraghmore, Ireland’s largest and finest estate, family history of the Waterford’s, a bit of polo but foxhunting was always going to be first draw.
STRONGBOW
The family have been in Curraghamore since the early 1200s shortly after they made landfall at Bannow Bay with Strongbow in 1177. Walking around the house, its vastness is overpowering, with the largest courtyard in Ireland designed by the renowned architect John Roberts. Overlooking the courtyard is the family crest, a stag’s head with the cross of St Hubert between the antlers. It is said that it was just this cross that saved the house from being burned during the Troubles. A local detachment of irregulars baulked when it came to setting the sacred cross alight during the civil war and so the house was saved.
Since their arrival in Curraghmore, the family have been adept at being the right religion at the right time and equally footsure in steering their way through the pitfalls of politics and as a result, have managed to keep the estate intact.
Asked how many rooms are there in Curraghmore, “no idea, who can tell,” came the laconic reply. Lowering the bar, I then asked how many bedrooms? “Couldn’t say I’ve only been in some of them.” Obviously his career as an estate agent would be limited! Possibly the high point of the visit was the hunting study with memorabilia of former masters and marquess. One shelf holds the silver hunting horns and hunting caps of the masters since 1830.#