The Reeks

THE McGILLYCUDDY OF THE REEKS WERE MAJOR LANDOWNERS IN COUNTY KERRY, WITH 15,518 ACRES

CORNELIUS or CONNOR McGILLYCUDDY, born ca 1580; died by shipwreck in 1630, having married firstly, Joan, daughter of John Crosbie, Lord Bishop of Ardfert; and secondly, Sheelagh, daughter of Richard Oge McCarty, of Dunguile, by whom he had a son, Niell, and a daughter.

By his first wife he had, with other issue,

DONOGH or DONATUS McGILLYCUDDY, of Carnbeg Castle, County Kerry, born in 1623; Sheriff of Kerry, 1686; obtained a grant of arms from Carney, Ulster King of Arms, in 1688.

He wedded Marie, youngest daughter of Daniel O'Sullivan, of Dunkerron, County Kerry, and dying about 1695, having had issue, his elder son,

CORNELIUS McGILLYCUDDY, who married though died without an heir in 1712, and was succeeded by a cousin,

DENNIS McGILLYCUDDY, who married and was succeeded by his son,

CORNELIUS McGILLYCUDDY, born in 1720, whose son,

FRANCIS McGILLYCUDDY, of The Reeks, born in 1751.

His lineal descendant,

DENIS DONOUGH McGILLYCUDDY OF THE REEKS, DSO, late lieutenant, Royal Navy; born in 1852; succeeded his brother in 1871; married, in 1881, Gertrude Laura, 2nd daughter of Edmond Miller, of Ringwood, Massachusetts, USA, and had issue,

ROSS KINLOCH McGILLYCUDDY OF THE REEKS; lieutenant, 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards; born in 1882; wedded Victoria, daughter of Edward Courage, of Shenfield Place, Essex; and had issue,

JOHN PATRICK McGILLYCUDDY OF THE REEKS, born in 1909. Dying in 1959, he was succeeded by his son,

RICHARD DENIS WYER McGILLYCUDDY OF THE REEKS, (1948-2004) ~ see piece below.

THE REEKS, near Beaufort, County Kerry, is a two-storey, five-bay, late Georgian house. It has an eaved roof and pilastered porch, doubled in length with an extension of the same height and style.

Effectively this forms a continuous front of ten bays, the original porch, no longer central, remaining the entrance. The two end bays of the extension protrude slightly.


AT THE end of the 19th century, before the Land Purchase Acts, Richard McGillycuddy's grandfather, whose mother had injected American money into the family, distinguished himself in the 1st World War, winning the DSO and the Légion d'Honneur.

From 1928 to 1936, he sat in the Senate of the Irish Free State as a supporter of the moderate WT Cosgrave and an opponent of the republican Eamon de Valera.

In the 2nd World War, he returned to the colours and became a regular informant on what was happening in neutral Ireland.

His grandson, Richard Denis Wyer McGillycuddy, was born in 1948. Richard's father, the senator's son, who had succeeded in 1950, himself died in 1959 as a result of wounds sustained during the 2nd World War in the Northampton Yeomanry.

At the time Richard was only 10 and still at his preparatory school before going on to Eton. His English mother, although never feeling at home in Ireland, carried on dutifully at Beaufort to preserve the family inheritance for her son.

Every August, she organised a rather gentrified cricket match played on the lawn of the house - but it was abandoned around 1970 after young Richard, who had little interest in cricket and was not watching, was knocked unconscious by a mighty drive by a visitor who had played for the Cambridge Crusaders.

The young McGillycuddy's passion was cars, and he went into the motor trade in London after a brief sojourn at the University of Aix-en-Provence.

He was unreceptive to the efforts of his uncle Dermot, a Dublin solicitor much beloved of McGillycuddys of every class and creed, to interest him in Ireland. Tall and dashing, the rugged and auburn-haired young McGillycuddy of the Reeks was much in demand in London among the Sloane Rangers.

Eventually, in 1983, at the age of 35, he married Virginia Astor, the granddaughter of the 1st Lord Astor of Hever.

Feeling that he had little in common with the local people in Kerry, McGillycuddy decided to sell the Reeks, and moved to France, where he acted as a property consultant to prospective British purchasers of chateaux and lesser French properties.

After the birth of his second daughter in 1990, the family returned to live in Ireland - not, however, in their ancestral territory, but nearer Dublin, where they rented a succession of houses, the last of them in Westmeath.

He continued to dabble in property, and latterly sold insurance; but it was a handicap that his upper-class English demeanour disappointed expectations raised by his Irish-sounding name.

Although he could be charming in the appropriate company, he did not relate well to Irish people outside his own class.

Meanwhile, despite poor health, his wife carved out a niche for herself doing valuable work as a prison visitor.

McGillycuddy was active in the council of Irish chieftains who had been recognised by the Irish Genealogical Office. Richard McGillycuddy was survived by his wife and two daughters.

He was succeeded by his first cousin, Donough, who lives in South Africa.