The official launch of Rachel Finnegan’s new book “Memories of Gentry Houses in Skibbereen and Douglas, County Cork” which contains transcripts of 4 memoirs composed by 3 of the Fleming sisters on their childhood homes of New Court, Skibbereen, and Tramore House, Douglas. The talk will focus mostly on the memoirs relating to the Fleming family of Newcourt House. These were the matriarch, Mrs Lizzie Fleming, and her four daughters, who grew up in New Court and lived there until they left for marriage. The first New Court memoir was written by Judith Chavasse in 1925 and the second by her older sister, Sue Fitzgerald, in 1926. Their youngest sister, Hats Haythornthwaite, then added these to the two Tramore memoirs and had them bound into a volume that was never published. The New Court memoirs were written from the perspective of two mothers in late middle age recalling their idyllic childhood days with their parents, Lizzie and Becher Lionel Fleming, under the eagle eye of their maiden aunt Nin Fleming, their nurse Mamie Camier from Goleen, and a succession of largely useless governesses. Rachel will also refer to the Tramore memoirs, which tell of the astonishingly independent lives of the Fleming sisters’ talented and unconventional Reeves aunts. As reflected in the memoirs, the lives of these women, unencumbered by the burdens of marriage and motherhood, were deeply intertwined with philanthropic and parish endeavours that have left a lasting mark on the fabric of St Luke’s Church of Ireland, Douglas.

Address
Fuchsia Room, West Cork Hotel, Co. Cork County