Prince Philip had bit of ancestry with link to Westmeath
In a tiny way – minuscule one might even say - Prince Philip had a connection with Westmeath, through an ancestor who was a key figure in the lineage of most of Europe’s royalty.
Like his wife, Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, was descended from Queen Victoria. In fact, the Royal couple were second cousins once removed.
Through Queen Victoria, they were both descended from Anne de Mortimer (or Anne Mortimer as she is sometimes styled), who was born at New Forest, Tyrrellspass, on December 27, 1390.
Anne was a direct descendant of William the Conqueror, and it is through her that Queen Elizabeth – and all those monarchs named above, as well as hundreds of other Royals throughout Europe – derive their rank.
At 18, Anne married Richard Conisburgh, 4th Earl of Cambridge, and their son, Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, was father of brothers Edward IV and Richard III of England. Through Edward IV, Anne is great-great-grandmother of King Henry VIII, and it is through Anne and Richard that the House of York claimed the throne of Britain.
The line from Anne de Mortimer (who died at just 21 years of age, giving birth to her son), down to the rest of the European monarchy continued not though Henry VIII, however, but through his sister, Margaret, Queen of Scots.
Anne herself was daughter of Richard de Mortimer, the 4th Earl of March, and Eleanor Holland of Kent, who was Lieutenant of Ireland, and who was killed in a battle at Kells, County Kilkenny, at just 24 years of age.
His father, Edmund, the 3rd Earl of March, had extensive lands in this country, and built a castle at Faughalstown, on the shores of Lough Derravaragh, described in 1826 in an angling book as being in ruins, with just the foundation lines visible, and “a very small relic of one of the inferior buildings of the fortress”.
The writer, Gregory Greendrake continued: “The castle, which covered, including its area, more than an acre of ground, was surrounded by a deep ditch, and, judging from the lines of its foundations, it was on the plan, and could not have been much, if at all, inferior in magnitude, to the castle of Trim.”
It is not clear where exactly at New Forest, Anne de Mortimer was born – nor why it was there that she was born and not at Faughalstown.
Ruth Illingworth
Historian Ruth Illingworth reveals that a number of Westmeath people have met Prince Philip over the years.
“One was Colonel William Harvey-Kelly of Clonghugh and Killucan (1924-2015). He met Colonel Harvey Kelly at the War Memorial Gardens in Islandbridge during the historic visit to Ireland by the Queen and Philip in May 2011,” says Ruth, going on to add that Colonel Harvey Kelly was on duty outside Buckingham Palace on the day of the Coronation in 1953.
Ruth adds that Westmeath members of the ONE and the Irish United Nations Veterans Association were on parade at Islandbridge in May 2011 and there is a photo showing the Queen and Philip walking past Martin Coyne, from Mullingar, who was then the ONE National President.
Belvedere
In addition, she continues, Prince Philip’s two youngest grandchildren, Louise and James Wessex (the children of Prince Edward), are descended through their mother from the 1st Earl of Belvedere, Robert Rochfort and his unfortunate wife, Mary Molesworth, kept prisoner for so many years by her husband at Gaulstown House.
Gaisce
Two young Mullingar women met the Prince in 2006 when he joined then-president Mary McAleese at a Gaisce awards ceremony in Dublin.
Paula Carton and Samantha Naughton both received Gold Gaisce medals at the ceremony. The Gaisce awards are similar in intent to the Duke of Edinburgh Awards, established by Prince Philip in 1956, and are part of the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award Foundation.