An Irish-Cypriot couple:
Sir Hal Blackall and
Maria Severis
7:30p.m. GMT Wednesday 13 January 2021
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Outline
My
connection to the Blackalls
Life
1889-1932:
Before Cyprus
- Deep roots in the legal profession:
- Henry Blackall (1851-1931), solicitor, from
Limerick married his double fifth cousin
Isabella Emily Butler (1866-1939) from Cork, at St. Andrew's Church,
Westland Row,
Dublin, on 1 September 1888
- Henry's parents, Jonas Blackall (c1812-1888), solicitor,
of Gardenhill,
County
Limerick, and Catherine Blackall (c1816-1889) of Killard, County Clare,
were third
cousins
- Jonas was apprenticed to a relative of his paternal
grandmother Elizabeth Barrington
- Henry William Butler Blackall, later known informally as
Hal, was the firstborn of Henry and Isabella's
nine children
- Born on 19 June 1889 at 93 George('s) Street in Newtown
Pery
in Limerick, the Blackall town house and legal offices since before 1867
- Baptised in St. Michael's parish
on 23 June 1889
- 93 O'Connell Street is still a solicitor's office today
- At home for censuses of 1901 and 1911 (although his younger sister
Isabel was already a boarder in 1901 with the Faithful Companions
of Jesus nuns at Laurel Hill, all of 10
minutes walk from home!)
- The Blackalls of Limerick City also had country houses:
- Sir Hal eventually sold Gardenhill House in Castleconnell
parish
- According to Sir Hal, his grandfather Jonas had "built
another residence near Castle Connell which he named Bloomfield
- The present Bloomfield House was Broomfield on historic
OSi
maps and the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
estimates that it was built before Jonas's birth (1790-1810)!
- The Blackalls probably summered in Kilkee (near Catherine's
birthplace in Killard), where one of his sisters
was born in 1893; they had a Kilkee-born cook in 1901
- The cook was 62 in 1901 but only 49 in 1911!
- Received a Jesuit education (including classical Greek):
- 1900-1903 (as Blackhall) at Sacred Heart College, Crescent
House, Limerick
(only 3 minutes walk from home; and
where his father had been one of the earliest pupils)
- acknowledged (again as Blackhall) among Crescent
Alumni:
Another distinguished lawyer was Sir Henry
Blackhall (OC1903), who was consecutively Attorney General in Cyprus
and in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), and Chief Justice in Trinidad and in
Hong Kong.
- then at Stonyhurst College in Lancashire
- Then St. G. Coll. Surrey (St.
George's College, Weybridge?)
- Trinity College Dublin:
- Admitted on 21 Jun 1907 left page right page:
Admissorum Nomina: Henricus Guil. Butler
Blackall
Fidei Professiones: RC
Patres: Henricus
Patrum Qualitates: solicitor
AEtatis Anni: 18
Nativitatum Loca: Limerick
Ludimagistri: St. G. Coll. Surrey
Tutores: Mr. Kelleher
- As early as 1793 Roman Catholics had been permitted to
enter and take degrees in Trinity
- Only two RCs among the 34 new students on this page in
the admission register
- Under the Maynooth Statutes of 1956, Dublin Archbishop
John Charles McQuaid's ban on attendance at Trinity College was
extended to all dioceses:
Only the Archbishop of Dublin is competent to
decide, in accordance with the norms of the instructions of the Holy
See, in what circumstances and with what guarantees against the danger
of perversion, attendance at that College may be tolerated.
- The ban was lifted in 1970.
- Henry took Firsts in History and Law
- won every possible Law prize and scholarship
- BA, ?LLB
- King's Inns:
-
BLACKALL, HENRY WILLIAM BUTLER (b. 19 June
1889) eld. s. of Henry Blackall, solicitor, of 93 George Street,
Limerick, and Isabella Emily Butler; B.A. (Sen. Mod.); M 1909.
1912/M/01 [2 items]. Colonial Service in Kenya, Nigeria, Cyprus, Gold
Coast. Knighted (1945) as President of the West Indian Court of Appeal,
1943-6; Chief Justice of Hong Kong, 1946-8; President of the West
African Court of Appeal, 1948-51. Genealogist. Died 1 Nov. 1981. Who's
Who. [Ferguson, King's
Inns Barristers 1868-2004 (2005, p. 140)]
- Placed first in the class of 11 men called to the bar on
Friday 1 November 1912
- Classmates included his fellow genealogist Cecil
Stackpoole Kenny (1891-1915),
whose father was a solicitor practising at 55 George Street, directly
across the street from the Blackalls.
- His pedigrees and family histories in
the National Library of Ireland are separate from the Stackpoole Kenny papers
- Blackall and Kenny shared distant Blackall cousins
- Ferguson also writes (p. 119):
The King's Inns has always educated many more
students than chose to join the Law Library.
...
Many graduates of the King's Inns will have been reconciled to going
abroad. From the late nineteenth century, Irish barristers regularly
took up colonial appointments. In 1909 the Bar Council took credit for
having
"brought before the Colonial Office the claims of the Irish Bar to a
share in the appointments to Colonial legal offices, and with the
assistance of the Attorney-General of Ireland were enabled to secure
that the same notification of vacancies should be given to the Irish
Bar as is given to the various Inns of Court in England, and these
notices have since been sent to the Under Treasurer, King's Inns, who
has forwarded them to the Secretaries of the Bar Council to be posted
in the Library" (The
Irish Law Times and Solicitors' Journal, xliii, 4 December
1909, p. 299)
- World War I:
- Served throughout the First World War (Times
obituary)
- Medal card
- Private, South Irish Horse, Regimental Number:
2077
- Commissioned 2/Lieut., Cheshire Regiment, 26 Mar 1918
- RAF, founded on 1 April 1918 (mentioned in Times
obituary but not on medal card)
- Ferguson (p. 79) does not list him among the 127 members
of the Irish Bar who served in the First World War, so we can infer
that Henry had not joined the Law Library after his 1912 call to the
Irish Bar
- Did he take a year out to study genealogy before the
outbreak of war?
- Both his first volume of Genealogical Notes and Records
and his transcription of the Letters Patent granting lands to
his Blackhall ancestors are dated 1913
- Post-war address in England:
- 9 Cavendish Rd., Southsea, Hants.
- Belle Vale Lodge, Gateacre, nr. Liverpool
- Colonial Legal Service 1919-51:
- Crown Counsel, Kenya 1919
- Appointed Member of Legislative Council of Kenya 1920
- Did not contest the first elections in Kenya later in
1920
- Crown Counsel, Nigeria 1923
- Attorney-General, Cyprus 1932-6
Marriage
to Maria/Maritsa Severis
- First impressions of Nicosia (© Centre of Visual Arts and Research):
Went for a walk around the city with Thomas. The
cathedral built by the Crusades is now a mosque and being Ramadan we
could not enter inside. Nicosia is a regular Eastern city. The
different houses being together each of their own part of the bazaar.
It is certainly incomparably more interesting than a place like Lagos…
- Maria became "his charming and capable wife", daughter of
Demosthenes Severis, Chairman of the
Bank of Cyprus
- She was almost 20 years his junior (see August 1945
passenger list left
side right
side)
- Married on 21 April 1934 (wedding photograph)
- Queen's Counsel 1935
- Sold Gardenhill House
1934-1981:
Married life
- Colonial Legal Service 1919-51:
- Attorney-General, Gold Coast [Ghana] 1936-43
- Member of Executive Council (all Europeans), Gold Coast
- Member of Legislative Council (Executive Council members
and others, incluing Africans), Gold Coast
- Governor's Deputy, Gold Coast, 1940
- Chief Justice, Trinidad and Tobago
1943-46
- President West Indian Court of Appeal 1943-46
- Chief Justice, Hong Kong 1946-8:
CHIEF JUSTICE SIR HENRY BLACKALL TO BE POSTED
HERE
The announcement was made yesterday that Sir Henry Blackall, Chief
Justice of Trinidad, has been appointed Chief Justice of Hong Kong. Sir
Henry is at present in British Guyana, and it is expected that he will
leave for Hong Kong at an early date. Sir Henry William Butler Blackall
was born in 1889, the son of the late Mr Henry Blackall, of Garden
Hill, County Limerick, a descendant of the ninth Baron Dunboyne. Sir
Henry was married in 1934 to Maria, only daughter of Mr D. Severis, at
one time a member of the Legislative Council of Nicosia, Cyprus. The
new Chief Justice of Hong Kong was educated at Stonyhurst and later
Trinity College, Dublin, from which he received his BA and LLB. (1st
place). He also obtained first class honours in Modern History and was
first prizeman in Roman Law and first prizeman in International Law and
Jurisprudence.
Fought with Cheshires
Sir Henry had a distinguished record in World War I when he served with
the Cheshire Regiment and Royal Air Force. Appointed Crown Counsel in
Kenya in 1919, Sir Henry became a member of the Legislative Council
there in 1920. In 1923 he was Crown Counsel in Nigeria and was Acting
Solicitor-General between 1923 and 1931.
(South China Morning
Post and Hongkong Telegraph, Vol. II, No. 395, Sunday 24
March 1946; republished 24 March 1996.)
- President West African Court of Appeal 1948-51
- Retired in 1951 to White Arches, Kyrenia
- Almost annual visits to Dublin during the 1950s and 1960s,
when he went to the Public Record Office every day
- Regularly attended meetings of the Irish Genealogical
Research Society at the Irish Club, 82 Eaton Square, London, inclulding
lecturing about "The Butlers of County Clare" on 24 June 1953
- Remained in Kyrenia until after the Turkish occupation
in 1974.
- Hubert
Butler wrote:
They had a beautiful house at Kyrenia and I
cherish a letter that he wrote me after the Turkish occupation, when he
had to abandon it and move to Greek Nicosia. He wrote with marvellous
nonchalance about his loss and gave such a vivid understanding
description of the Greco-Turkish struggle, that I asked if I could
print it in the Jorunal [of the Butler Society]. He said,
"No, it has nothing to do with the Butlers".
That is, of course, true, yet now that he is gone I wish it had been
published. It would have been a memorial to a very old man who could
face misfortune with sangfroid and detachment.
- Sir Hal wrote to the Thomond Archaeological Society in
1977,
complaining of "loss of memory from old age (88)", offering
the North
Munster Antiquarian Journal a pedigree of the
O'Mulvihills, which never materialised
- Listed as "Blackall, Sir Henry, Q.C., 7 Halkydon Street,
Nicosia, Cyprus" in the Thomond Archaelogical Society membership lists
(NMAJ, Vol. XXI, 1979, p. 69)
- Maritsa died on 1 January
1981, in the arms of
her nephew's wife Rita Severis
- Hal died ten months later,
on 1 November
1981, the 69th anniversary of his call to the Irish Bar, aged 92
Legacy
- Obituaries:
- Journal of
the Butler Society, vol. 2, no. 2, p. 155, by
his eighth
cousin twice removed Hubert Butler (1900-91)
- The Irish Genealogist,
vol. 6, no. 3, p. 396, by H.D.G. [presumably his fellow Gallwey
descendant and editor of the journal Hubert Dayrell Gallwey (1915-1983)]
- The Times, Saturday, 7
November, 1981; pg. 8; Issue 61076; col H.
- North
Munster Antiquarian Journal, Vol.. XXIV, 1982,
p. 117 by E. MacLysaght (1887-1986)
- Wikipedia entry
- Honours:
- Knighthood (Knight Bachelor in 1945 New Year Honours)
- Ll.D. (jure dignitatis) (D.U.) 1945:
Clare Champion 14 July 1945
CHIEF JUSTICE OF
TRINIDAD
Among those who received
honorary degrees at the Commencements held at Trinity College,
Dublin, last week, was Sir Henry
William Butler Blackall, Chief
Justice of Trinidad and President of
the West Indian Court of Appeal,
upon whom was conferred, "in
absentia," the degree of LL.D. (jure
dignitatis). Sir Henry, who is a
graduate of T.C.D., received a Knighthood at the New Year. He is
grandson of the late William Butler, of
Bunnahow, a former High Sheriff of
this county, and a collateral descendant [GGGGGGnephew] of the famous
Clare lawyer, Sir
Toby Butler, who was M.P. for Ennis
in the historic parliament of 1689
and Solicitor-General to King James
II.
- Fellow of Irish Genealogical Research Society, 1969
- Contributions published in the Society's journal The Irish Genealogist
from 1941 until after his death in 1981.
- Drafted the new rules of the Society after the death of
the founder Fr. Wallace Clare in 1963
- Vice-President from 1964
- Also Vice-President of The Butler Society and a regular
contributor to its journal
- Sample publications:
- [Blackall, 1941]
- Sir Henry William Butler Blackall.
Abstracts from Blackall family records. The Irish Genealogist,
1(9):265-275,
October 1941.
- [Blackall, 1952]
- Sir Henry William Butler Blackall.
The Butlers of County Clare. North Munster Antiquarian
Journal,
6(4):108-129, 1952.
- [Blackall, 1953]
- Sir Henry William Butler Blackall.
The Butlers of County Clare (continued). North Munster
Antiquarian Journal,
6(5):153-167, 1953.
- [Blackall, 1955]
- Sir Henry William Butler Blackall.
The Butlers of County Clare (concluded). North Munster
Antiquarian Journal,
7(2):19-45, 1955
[This three-part series was reprinted as a single stand-alone
publication and is now
available in an online version].
- [Blackall, 1969]
- Sir Henry William Butler Blackall.
The Burnells and the Penal Laws. The Irish Genealogist,
4(2):74-80, October
1969.
- [Blackall, 1971]
- Sir
Henry William Butler Blackall. The Blackall
family of Limerick, Dublin and Clare, 1971.
- [Burke, 1976]
- Burke. Irish Family Records.
Burke's Peerage, 5th edition, 1976 [Blackall
entry, pp. 111-13].
- Family:
- Sir Hal and his only brother George Jonas Butler
("Friday") Blackall (1902-1976) had no issue
- survived by three sisters (who all died in 1986), three
nephews, one niece, in-laws
- by 1985, just one Blackall in Irish Telephone Directory
(Cuid a Dó)
- by 1994/5, just one Blackall in Irish Telephone Directory
(01 area)
- surname virtually "daughtered out" in Ireland
- Archives:
- Gave his record of his researches on the Blackalls to
Edward MacLysaght, who deposited it in the MS Dept of the National
Library of Ireland (MacLysaght Collection, pp. 3470-3480)
- Fr. Mark Tierney (1925-2011), O.S.B., of Glenstal Abbey,
described
himself as Sir Hal's literary executor and deposited seven
boxes of his genealogical papers in the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin
- Fr. Mark's greataunt Jane Healy was married to Sir
Hal's uncle Nicholas George Blackall
- These papers remain poorly indexed and catalogued
- They include several enormous manuscipt volumes of
Genealogical Notes and Records - Volumes I and II in Box 4, Volumes III
and V in Box 1, Volume IV in Box 5, etc.
- The Centre
of Visual Arts & Research of the
Costas & Rita Severis Foundation in Nicosia
holds Sir Henry's personal diaries dating from 1929 – 1980 and
many, many photographs, e.g.
- Sir Harry W. B. Blackall
Papers, Rhodes House, Oxford University Libraries
- Colonial Service:
- Parallels to career of Sir Paget John Bourke (1906-1983):
- not called to the Irish Bar until 1928, six years after
foundation of the Irish Free State
- married Sir Hal's second cousin once removed Doris
Killeen in 1935
- joined the British colonial service
- Chief Justice of Cyprus 1957-60
- Knighted 1957
- uncle of Mary Terese Winifred Bourke, better known by
her married name, Mrs. Mary Robinson
- Genealogy:
- He performed an invaluable service to all those related
to Blackalls by devoting up to seventy years of his life to
investigating and documenting the history and genealogy of the family
- He did much of his work in the Public Record Office of
Ireland
before it was destroyed during the Irish Civil War in 1922
- The 1941 article above was accompanied by a true copy of
the Letters Patent of 5 April 1667, granting lands in County Limerick
to Thomas Blackhall [sic] under the Act of Settlement, which had
formerly been in the Public Record Office, Dublin, being a transcript
made about 1913 by the author.
- The 1941 article also included abstracts from Prerogative
Wills, Grants of Administration, Marriage Licence Bonds, etc., which
may also have been lost in the 1922 fire.
- He should be of great
interest to the Beyond 2022 team who are
attempting to restore as much as possible of what was lost in
1922
- His research work on the Blackall family history has been
invaluable to me personally for several decades
- But:
he
was reluctant to express doubt by using such words as 'probably' or
'possibly', or such expressions
as 'may have been'. He preferred to give a judicial verdict on the
evidence available. This
legal approach sometimes let him down when fresh facts later came to
light.
- Even reputable newspapers have occasionally carried fake news about Blackalls.
- To those who may be reluctant to publish anything that is
not perfectly researched, with the result that nothing ever
appears,
he liked to quote the adage
The best is the greatest enemy of the
good
The
Blackall roots
- The Blackalls are described by Sir Hal as "Cromwellian
Landed Gentry"
- They became Catholic middlemen
- George Blackall, Lord Mayor of Dublin, "stated in no
uncertain terms" in a 1694 letter "that his family came from Devon"
- The Burnells and the Penal Laws:
- Sir Hal's ancestry was not entirely Catholic
- His GGGGgrandfather Christopher Burnell (c1700-c1778)
lived at Ranaghan, Co. Clare and was a `Papist' and all his children
were so trained.
- Christopher was a victim of that iniquitous provision of
the Popery Act 1703 whereby an undutiful son, on becoming a Protestant,
could prevent a `Popish' father providing for his Catholic offspring
from his estate.
- See Chancery Bill of 7 June 1763, Henry Burnell, gent. v.
Christopher Burnell, Mary his [2nd] wife [Henry's stepmother] and
Cornet James Butler, her nephew.
- Henry, the eldest son, was the undutiful one. When he
expressed a desire to become a Protestant, Christopher and Mary
threatened to maintain him no longer.
- Henry alleged that Christopher and Mary made a treaty for
James Butler to buy Ranaghan in trust for their children, and
Christopher admitted to making over his estate in said lands by a deed
registered in Jan 1763.
- Christopher claimed that Henry did not conform to the
Church of Ireland on principle, but was idle and extravagant and
desirous to spend more than the family's circumstances allowed, and so
threatened not to support him if he changed his religion. He had been
at great expense to apprentice Henry to a merchant at Ennis, but Henry
quitted business and in April 1763 made his recantation. He would be
willing to provide for Henry were he a dutiful son.
- The Butlers of Bunnahow, from which branch Sir Hal's
mother descended, were the only branch of the
Butler family which continued to adhere to the Catholic Faith
throughout the
Penal times
- Killard
- There is a lease for lives dated 17 Apr 1740 of 629 acres
of the lands of Killard, Cahirlonemore and Cahirlonebeg [Caherlean]
from John Westropp of Attyflin, Co. Limerick, to Thomas and John
Blackall
- The Great Famine in Killard
- THE EVICTIONS AT KILLARD, COUNTY OF CLARE, Limerick and Clare Examiner,
Wednesday 24 October 1849:
A letter has appeared on the LIMERICK AND
CLARE
EXAMINER, of the 26th ult., signed John [McMahon] Blackall, Killard ...
the house
levelling which took place within
the last twelve months, on what he now terms his son [George]'s
portion of Killard. ... Hugh and Thomas Clancy, the father
and son, never paid rent; Hugh Clancy was married to
the sister of Mr. [John McMahon] Blackall, and got the place in right
of his
wife from old George Blackall, deceased.
- See also Illustrated London News, 9
February 1850
- The Blackall lands descended to Marcella (Miss Massie)
Blackall (1866-1948).
- Miss Massie wanted the Killard farm to remain in the
Blackall name, and actively encouraged her niece Nancie Blackall's
relationship with Sir Hal's brother "Friday" Blackall, her second
cousin.
- He was 44 and she was 41 by the time they married, and
they had no issue.
- By 1963, they had sold up in Killard and moved to Dublin.
- Royal descents
- Sir Hal was 9th cousin twice removed of the present Queen
of England, as both of his parents and her mother
were descendants of Walter Butler, 11th Earl of Ormonde (d.
1632/3)
- DNA
- Closest Y-DNA matches to John Blackall of Liverpool, but
of County Clare ancestry, are the surnames Blackledge, Blacklidge,
Blackler, Berdahl, Ekman