Adam's At Home Auction Sunday June 17th, 2018

9 SILVER FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE FAMILY OF DALY, O’DALY, Ó DÁLAIGH (LOTS 1 - 58) This is one of the original Gaelic septs of the O’Neills, renowned for their connection to the ancient literature of the country. The Daly’s of Dunsandle descend from a successful lawyer, Denis Daly, at the end of the 17th century who, seeing where advantage lay, conformed to the so-called Established Church and bought extensive estates in County Galway, land that had, in effect, been stolen from the displaced or reduced Catholic aristocracy. In the Dublin parliament the Daly’s became influential and built a handsome Palladian mansion at Dunsandle, near Athenry, Co. Galway to reflect their status. Raised to the peerage as Barons of Dunsandle and Clan Conal, a curious set of circumstances prevailed. The 2nd Baron, who had placed a clause in his financial settlements that no Catholic could inherit Dunsandle installed a daughter of one of his tenants, Mary Broderick, in a substantial house, Attymon near to Dunsandle. He had what genealogists euphemistically refer to as “natural children”, eighteen to be exact. He married her in 1864 and they produced three more children. He died in 1893 and as none of his children were legally entitled to the peerage it went to cousins and died out in 1911. Of these children the girls were brought up as Catholics, the boys, Protestant, most being sent to Eton College subsequently seeking careers in the army. However the eldest son, William married the daughter of a great Catholic Galway landowner, Sir Thomas Burke of Marble Hill whose wife was a daughter of the Earl of Westmeath, and reverted to his mother’s faith, thereby excluding himself from the succession to Dunsandle, although he was co-heir to his father’s will in other respects. His son Major Denis Daly bought Russborough in 1931. An extant inventory of Dunsandle (1911) shows that most of the contents, including the silver, did in fact come to Russborough. It should be said that the Daly’s desire to find a suitable house to receive the contents of Dunsandle and their careful custodianship of Russborough through times of dire economic conditions is the reason that Russborough survived. A cousin, Major Bowes Daly, according to the terms, inherited Dunsandle, but sold it and it was demolished in the 1950s, a considerable architectural loss for the country. DALY Before an oak tree proper, a greyhound current, sable Deo Fidelis et Regi