Dromod Lodge
Sarah O Shea, 2021
This lodge belonged to the O’Connell family, it was Daniel O’Connell’s younger brother James O’Connell who owned all the land in that area and the townland of Mastergeehy where Dromod Lodge is located. James O’Connell established himself at Killarney in the early nineteenth century, leasing lands from the Herbert family of Muckross house.
On the 29th of October 1869, he was made a Baronet of Lakeview and of Ballybeggan. In 1870 Sir James O’Connell built Lakeview house replacing an earlier house called Lakeville. It was built in 1740 and located in the southern end of the townland of Maulagh. Lakeview house still exists and is in the possession of the decedent of Sir James O’Connell.
His estate amounted to over 18,000 acres in the 1870s and included lands in the parish of Ratass in the barony of Trughanacmy, Kerry. Sir James was the son of Morgan O’Connell, a general store proprietor and Catherine O’ Mullane both parents being from a Roman Catholic family. O’Connell was the younger brother of Daniel Charles Count O’Connell. He was married to Jane O’ Donoghue and had five children the eldest son succeeding as Sir Maurice James O’Connell, 2nd Baronet (1821-1896)
While I was doing my research I spoke to Josephine (Bradley) Leavy she said that she thinks the Barons/Landlords (especially the absentee landlords the Bradley’s were fortunate that the O Connells Landlords visited & knew them as based in Ireland) by having tenants it was a way of keeping the Irish subservient but by the end of the 19th & beginning of 20th centuries the English parliament amended rights of all tenants that landlords had to give or concession to their tenants by way of gifting a small piece of land /dwelling to them. So perhaps this is what prompted the O Connells to gift the Lodge and land to James Bradley.
In person the genealogist told me about the Griffith Valuations which is a record of all land rented recording the landlord, tenant, how much land or what type of land you have in 1852.
Names and details of people who lived in Dromod lodge
