Search Results for 'Dudley Persse'

The name Persse is synonymous with Galway, the first members of the family having arrived in this country with the Cromwellians and many of them making significant contributions to life here since, the best known being Isabella Augusta Persse who later became Lady Gregory.

The church of St Nicholas of Myra was first built c1320, making it 700 years old this year. It is the largest medieval church in Ireland and there has been constant Christian worship there since it was built. The chancel with its three windows in the south wall dates from the beginning, the nave, and the transept date from about a century later. In 1477 Christopher Columbus is believed to have worshipped here. In 1484, the church was granted Collegiate jurisdiction by which it was to be governed by a warden and vicars who would be appointed by the mayor and burghers of the town.

Isabella Augusta Persse (later Lady Gregory), grew up in Roxborough House, Co Galway, a large rambling estate house, with magnificent gardens, commanding some 18,000 acres over which her father Dudley Persse presided with almost feudal authority. His 13 children knew their wheel-chaired bound father as The Master.*