FROM THE ARCHIVES:The depth of feeling over proselytising by Protestant groups continued after Independence as this report of the burning of a country mansion which was to become a home for "illegitimate" Protestant children in 1938 shows. A local man was later charged and acquitted by a jury.– JOE JOYCE
PORTLAND PARK House, about three miles from Portumna, the property of Major C. K. Butler-Stoney, was destroyed by fire in the early hours of this morning by armed men. Major Butler-Stoney has not lived there for the past ten years, and the house had been given by him to the trustees of Emmanuel Home, Rathgar, Dublin, as a home for Protestant children.
Mr. J. W. Densmore, his wife and two children, with the maid, Miss Meredith, who were in the house, had prepared to receive seventeen orphans from Emmanuel House to-day.
At 2.30 a.m. armed men, numbering twenty-four, according to the occupants, arrived, and, waking the inmates, ordered them outside, and proceeded to set fire to the building, a fine old mansion overlooking the Shannon. A little later they left the place.
Mr. Densmore notified the Guards, and Chief Superintendent Quinn and Superintendent O’Boyle, Nenagh, and Guards from Lorrha arrived, but could do little to save the house, and nothing in it was saved. Major Butler-Stoney, who was in Dublin at the time, lives in a house about a mile from Portland Park. Last Friday, 710 acres belonging to [him] were allotted to tenants.
It was learned in Dublin last night that Mr. and Mrs. Densmore were later taken by car to Dublin, and are stopping with friends. Mrs. Densmore stated that she heard the sound of marching outside the house at about two o’clock in the morning, and when she looked out she saw a number of men on the lawn. There was a loud knocking at the door shortly afterwards, and when Mr. Densmore went to see who was it was he found eight men on the doorstep.
They told him they had come to burn the house, and that he would have to leave, and take anybody else in the house with him. Mr. and Mrs. Densmore left immediately, and took a few small things with them. There were, she said, about twenty men altogether; some of them were masked, and some carried revolvers and cans of petrol
Mrs. Densmore said that the men were courteous to her, and one of them said that they did not like burning the house, but that they had their orders.
The Emmanuel Home in Dublin is full, and Major Butler-Stoney told an Irish Timesreporter yesterday that he had given the house to the trustees to provide another home to which Protestant children could be sent.
It is understood there was some bad feeling in the district, but an assurance had been given it would not be a proselytising institution, and that only Protestant children would be sent [there]. There was no question of land trouble, since the lands had been divided some time ago.
http://url.ie/axed