Success means event likely to become annual fixture

Mary Molesworth Art and Heritage Festival

The inaugural Mary Molesworth Art and Heritage Festival in Rochfortbridge on Sunday was such a success that it looks likely to become an annual affair. Glorious sunshine drew large crowds to the many tours and lecturers tracing the life of the tragic Mary and the history and heritage of the community.

Mary Fagan, one of the organisers, declared “the whole Mary Molesworth things has really caught on – it’s a film in the making”.

“We can’t get it all into one day and will be looking to run it again next year,” she announced.

Sunday was the culmination of weeks of activity. Mary has been amazed at the generosity and goodwill the organisers enjoyed. “People are so good!” she said.

Mary Molesworth was married to Robert Rochfort, Earl of Belvedere, when she was 16. He subsequently imprisoned her in Gaulstown House for three decades, forbidding anyone to talk to her, and she was only released on his death. Now, centuries later, Robert is remembered as the ‘Wicked Earl’ and Mary is, finally, heard and heralded.

At the heart of the festival was the Mary Molesworth Portrait Competition. It attracted a large and varied collection of entries from across Ireland. The portraits were on display in the Convent Chapel along with an exhibition of local stories, photographs and more, and a steady stream of viewers filed passed throughout the day.

A lecture and demonstration at Boyhan’s Forge attracted around 100 people. Shem Caulfield gave an informative talk on wrought iron gates.

“It breaks my heart to see wrought iron gates being thrown on a skip – they are valuable material and part of our heritage and should be protected, our history is written in those gates,” he said.

There was applause when Mr Caulfield praised the organisers of the festival, saying that “this sort of stuff is really important”.

On display were a few wrought iron gates which were reported to have been made in Boyhan’s Forge, and a stone with a metal ring on top, which would have been used to bend metal on a timber structure. The stone was recovered by Seamus Martin, who “saved this significant find”, Mr Caulfield remarked.

Also on display was a smaller gate which once hung at the entrance to the local boys school, founded in 1830 on a site near the forge. Rita Clarke, former principal of the school, was “thrilled to see this gate”.

She recalled that when the new boys school celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1999, the late Tom Newman, who had preserved the gate, presented it for viewing. She said he would have been thrilled to know that it was “on display again today”.

Stephen Quinn, blacksmith, displayed some of the tools that would have been used in the forge and demonstrated how to put fancy touches to iron gates – fish tails, scrolls and other ways to “snazz things up”.

Frances Fagan, one of the organisers of the forge event, thanked Maura Conroy, the present owner of the forge, for permitting its use in the festival. She also pointed out several items donated by local people for the event, among them a sickle, a branding iron, and tongs, all of which would all have been made in Boyhan’s Forge. Inside the forge, David Lawrence from Farthingstown, and a local woman spoke of “what a lovely man” the late Jack Boyhan, blacksmith, had been, as they perused the posters and photographs on display.

Throughout the day, a bus ferried members of the public to the various sites of interest, and lectures at the sites, and on the bus, were provided by local history enthusiast volunteers.