Castle Left to Nation — Historic Seat of Galway Tribes Family

Connacht Tribune, February 5th, 1938

Monivea Castle with its splendid grounds and estate stretching over low hills and woodlands some miles from Athenry, historic seat of the Galway Tribes family of the Ffrenches since the sixteenth century, has been given to the Government of Ireland as a national possession.

A romantic story lies behind this gift to the Irish people.

The giver has died in faraway Manchukuo, sundered province of the vast land of China. She was Miss Kathleen Emily Alexandra French, whose ancestry lines go back to this ancient Khan, rulers of the Mongols on the one side, to the chivalrous Norman tribe of the Galway Ffrenches on the other.

Miss French was the only child of the diplomat, Robert Percy French. She was born on June 1864, her mother being a Russian lady, whose wealth was derived from her father, descendent of a Russian princess and the son of the Mongol Khan. She was a cousin of the Duc de Stacpoole, who has described her Russian estates and life in his "Irish and Other Memories".

Miss French succeeded to her Galway estate in 1896 and when her father died she visited Monivea and built on its grounds a magnificent marble mausoleum, in the centre of which is carved a fine reclining figure of her diplomat father. The materials for that mausoleum were collected from all over Europe.

Miss French remained in Russia when the revolution broke out and witnessed the events of the first years of the new Soviet Government. Her property in that country was confiscated but she suffered no personal injury, though she openly helped émigrés to escape from the country. In the end she was arrested but was exchanged as a British subject.

One of the clauses of the will by which Miss French leaves her Galway estate to Ireland is that it must be used for the furtherance of art. Her Russian castles had been converted by the Soviet Government into art museums, an arrangement which gave her great satisfaction. The historic documents in her library are preserved in her Simbirsk house. She continued to aid émigrés when she went to Russia, to Manchuria, and was arrested on one of the journeys she made to Siberia to trace some relatives.

She acted as League of Nations representative in Harbin, Manchukuo, when she died, and took part in the work of transferring emigrants to Canada. Her health broke down and in 1929 in an effort to recover it she undertook a journey into the interior. She became a legend to the white people in that distant land, and was sought after for many diplomatic favours, continuing her work of rescue up to her death.

At present a cousin of Miss Kathleen French lives in Monivea. She is Miss Rosamond French, who shares all of her relative's enthusiasm for the arts.

The late Canon James Allas French, of Strokestown, County Roscommon, was also a cousin of the brilliant Irish—Russian lady whose death has proved such a loss to European and Asiatic peace, though of such benefit to creative art in this country.