Cé hé Simon Rawlence?

Simon Rawlence enjoying a Guinness at The Three Fiddles

Simon, can you tell us a little about yourself and your Irish connection?

It was not until I had been living in Prague for several years that I discovered my Irish origins. Up until then I had considered myself British, but “British” in a colonial sense, both sides of my own and my wife’s family were born overseas in India, Japan, Cyprus etc.

Growing up, my son Ben had been very influenced by this history and he himself worked for many years in Africa. Ben became a writer and wished to write a book about his family’s colonial past. I was to help him. My Grandmother’s maiden name was Law, We knew that she was born in Cyprus in 1887. I rediscovered her unpublished Memoirs in which she refers to the family home in Ireland, a place called Rossnaree in county Meath, which still stands today. So we booked flights and headed off to Meath.

The old house sits on the banks of The Boyne and overlooks Newgrange. A crucial crossing of the river took place just there which contributed to William’s victory in the Battle of the Boyne. And family lore has it as the original site of the Salmon of Knowledge. A Law ancestor reputedly raised a troop of cavalry for the winning side in the Battle.

The history goes back even further, Seán O'Sullivan [of the Wild Geese] later repeated a poem he learned at school. “Dead Kings came to me at Rossnaree, where I was dreaming…” Legend has it that they carried back the body of the High King Cormac so that he could be buried on Christian ground and just made it over the Boyne to Rossnaree on the way to the Hill of Tara, and his remains are buried in the garden to this day - hence the poem by Francis Ledwidge

Rossnaree had an extensive library, the love of my Cousin Bob. Bob had died and the house is now owned by his widow Aisling, herself the great-granddaughter of the legendary revolutionary - and Muse of Yeats - Maud Gonne. Maud Gonne had married instead John MacBride who was executed along with James Connolly in 1916 [following the Easter Rising] and whose son was the Noble Peace Laureate Seán MacBride.

In the library, Ben and I found well preserved letters back home from the Colonies, newspaper clippings, even original share certificates of the Suez canal - a rich repository indeed for Ben’s book.

My great-grandfather Archibald was one of four brothers. The eldest - Robert inherited the land, the other three went out to the Colonies and were knighted for their efforts, Michael, an International Judge in Egypt, Edward the Finance Minister of India and Archibald the Chief Justice of Malaya. We understood then the meaning of being Anglo Irish, as a family our first colony was in fact Ireland!

The Laws, as well as being landowners were also bankers. Robert Law was a partner in a private bank as well as a director of the Bank of Ireland. They had a villa in Nice in the south of France, where my great grandfather Archibald was born in 1856. Accordingly, they kept a coach in Boulogne for their travels.

Archibald is a family name in recognition of a famous ancestor, Archibald Rowan HamiIton. ARH eventually inherited Killyleagh Castle. He was an active revolutionary and one of the founders of the United Irishman. Their plot was foiled and when Lord Edward Fitzgerald was killed. Archibald was imprisoned, but escaped down the proverbial knotted bedsheets and lived in exile for many years: first as a friend of Robespierre in France and then in the US. He was in the square when Robespierre and 60 others were guillotined and he recorded “that the blood came over his ankles“. Eventually through the persistence of his devoted wife Sarah, he was pardoned by the King and his lands restituted.

Going back further, another ancestor was Archbishop Adam Loftus, a protege of Queen Elizabeth I. In those turbulent times, he started life as a Catholic priest in Yorkshire but bending with the times converted to Protestantism, eventually becoming Chancellor of Ireland and the founder of Trinity College Dublin. Many Anglo Irish families can trace their ancestry back to this man, including Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington. The Anglo Irish gentry made a strong contribution to British Military success as well as its colonial history. One of Wellington’s commanders at Waterloo was another ancestor, General Sir John Ormsby Vandeleur.

My father and his brother Edward both joined The Irish Guards in WW2, Edward being killed in the failed Operation Market Garden in 1944. In the film A Bridge Too Far, Edward’s battalion commander Joe Vandeleur was played by Michael Caine.

I had a young cousin, Charlie, who has a special claim to fame in the realm of skydiving.

He was the most recent member of the family in the Irish Guards, something that would have been unheard of 20 years ago, as his parents live in the tiny village of Bruree in the Republic. When I last visited them, I took the time to search out the very humble dwelling in that very village where De Valera was brought up by his grandparents. His birth and parentage is clouded in mystery and some theories point to an Anglo Irish biological father and then all his career a British Spy.

Also an Irish guardsman and a WW2 Army Commander was Field Marshall Alexander a Law relation. So too was Montgomery whose full name was Bernard Law Montgomery.

Which leads me nicely to speak about my middle name Fitzgerald, and its origins in Ireland.

Gerald of Windsor’s father was a Norman knight and Constable of Windsor Castle. When the Normans invaded Wales, Gerald defended Pembroke Castle against successive Welsh uprisings. He married the daughter of the last King of Wales, Rhys ap Tewdwr (name sound familiar ?) Princess Nesta. After many adventures they had five children. the second of these was Maurice Fitzgerald who lead the vanguard of Strongbow’s invasion of Ireland in 1169.

As you can deduce from the foregoing, I am a history buff and will shortly be starting a History reading group for like-minded oldies. So you will understand what enthusiasm I have had uncovering and writing about my wife Katerina’s distinguished parents. They are best described in a recent interview I did for Radio Prague which you can find here.

Here is a note from the family bank. And here you will find the basis of a contribution I made the recent book on WW2 Memoirs.

I am working on a current project that can be found here Donio. The Film is a documentary about the Underground University that existed here during the period of Normalisation and involved the participation of young British Academics. The film comes at an important time as many of the protagonists are now elderly. Also, as we know, at a time when current politicians are attempting to close down journalism, public broadcasting etc.. I feel it is important that the younger generations are made aware of the history of the dissent that survived, promoted independent learning and was the kernel that was there and able to develop the post Communist culture, including some key academics, entrepreneurs and politicians, such as Petr Fiala, who were themselves former students.