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Charles Kenneth Howard-Bury was born in London to Captain Kenneth Howard-Bury and his wife Lady Emily Alfreda Julia Bury, youngest daughter of Charles William Bury, 3rd earl of Charleville. He was educated privately at Charleville Castle, at Eton College and at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. He joined the 60th Rifles in 1904 and was posted to India, where he began his life-long love of exploration and mountaineering. He climbed the Tien Shen mountains in Tibet in 1912 and kept a travel diary. A book 'The Mountains of Heaven' from this diary was published in 1990.

In 1912 he inherited Belvedere House, Mullingar, County Westmeath, from his cousin Charles Brinsley Marlay. From this time, Charleville Castle ceased to be used by the family.

He resumed active service during the First World War, commanding the 7th and 9th battalions of the King's Royal Rifles. He served at Arras, the Somme, Passchendale and Ypres where he was captured and remained a prisoner of war at Furstenburg until 1919. Following the war, he returned to mountaineering and led the first expedition to Everest which surveyed the route to the summit for future climbers.

Following the successful expedition to Everest, Howard-Bury was a well-known figure and entered politics. He was MP for Bilston (South Wolverhampton) in 1922 and MP for CHelmsford between 1926 and 1931, when he retired after inheriting Charleville Estate on the death of his mother. During the Second World War, he was appointed an assistant commissioner for the British Red Cross. During this time he met Rex Beaumont, an actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company and at that time in the RAF during the war. They became close friends and together renovated Belvedere House where they lived for the rest of their lives. In 1948, Howard-Bury auctioned most of the contents of Charleville Castle including furniture and paintings.

Howard-Bury died in 1963. He bequeathed Charleville etsate to his cousin, Major William Bacon Hutton Bury, the grandson of the 4th earl of Charleville's elder sister, Lady Katherine Beaujolois Bury and hr husband Edmund Bacon Hutton. He bequeathed Belvedere to Rex Beaumont.

Charles William Bury inherited the Charleville estate when he was a mere 6 months old. His father, John Bury (1735-64), drowned four months after inheriting Charleville from his maternal uncle, Charles Moore (1712-64), earl of Charleville (of the 1st creation). The estate was several thousand hectares in size and included the town of Tullamore. In 1785, Bury reached the age of 21, graduated with a BA from Trinity College Dublin and returned to Tullamore which had been partially destroyed after the great balloon fire of that year. He granted new leases in the town and brought about its rapid development. He employed Francis Johnston to design three major landmarks in Tullamore: St Catherine’s Church, the Market House, and the Gothic fairytale castle, Charleville Forest, which was set in 1500 acres of woodland.
In his political career he was returned MP for Kilmallock in 1789-90 and again in 1791-7. He became Baron Tullamore on 26 November 1797, Viscount Charleville on 29 December 1800, and 1st earl of Charleville (of the 2nd creation) 16 February 1806.
He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1803 and a fellow of the Society of Arts in 1814. He published a paper in the RIA’s Transactions in 1799 on the subject of turf ash and became president of the academy from 1812-1822.

Lady Katherine Arabella Beaujolois Bury was the eldest daughter of Charles William George, 3rd earl of Charleville, and his wife Arabella. She married Col. Edmund Bacon Hutton of the Royal Dragoons in 1873.

Alfred Bury was the youngest son of Charles William, 2nd earl of Charleville and his wife Harriet Charlotte Beaujolois Campbell. His brother the 3rd earl and wife both died in their mid-thirties leaving five young children as wards of court. Alfred was named as their guardian and brought them up in Charleville Castle. He married Emily Frances Wood but they had no children. When his nephew and former ward, the 4th earl, died at the young age of 22 in New York in 1874, the earldom reverted to Alfred. He was only to be Earl of Charleville for one year as he died in Brighton in 1875. He had no male heirs and the title became extinct.

Born in Croghan, County Tipperary, to William and Mary Perkinson, William emigrated to England with his wife and lived in Widnes, Lancashire. They had three children, William (b. 1866), Michael (b. 1869) and Richard (b. 1871).

Born in Croghan, County Tipperary, on 3 November 1798, John Monaghan married Lucy Kemp on 19 February 1827 in Suffolk, England, and emigrated to Michigan, United States of America . He died there on 15 May 1873 and is buried in Lenawee, Michigan.

Labour Party politician and T. D., 1922-1956

Henry George Farmer was born in Birr Barracks on 17 January 1882 and was later baptised in the Garrison Church. He was the son of Sergeant Henry George Farmer and Mary Anne Farmer (nee Moore), Depot, Leinster Regiment.

Henry had three siblings, Martha Mary who was born in London and sadly a brother and sister who died in infancy, both of whom were interred in Birr Military Cemetery.

Henry was an accomplished musician at a young age. He joined the Royal Artillery, at Birr as a ‘boy soldier’ just a month and ten days after his 14 birthday on 27 February 1896. Upon joining he was recorded as being four foot and six and a half inches tall. He has brown eyes and light brown hair. Initially he played the violin and clarinet, but took private lessons on the horn.

Throughout his life Henry was also a prolific writer, his first published piece was a ‘Sketch of the Leinster Regiment’ which appeared in the King’s County Chronicle in 1901, in this he outlined the history and origins of this famous Irish regiment. Farmer’s next publication in 1904 was a far more substantial ‘Memoirs of the Royal Artillery Band: its origin, history and progress.'

Henry left the Royal Artillery Band in November 1911 due to medical reasons. Soon afterwards he took up a job as a musical director in the Broadway Theatre, New Cross, London. Later in 1914 he was offered musical directorship of the Coliseum Theatre in Glasgow but soon transferred to the Empire Theatre also in Glasgow. He remained there for 33 years.

During this time he become an external student at the University of Glasgow, later becoming a postgraduate there and completing his master’s degree and PhD. Farmer’s doctorate thesis, which he completed in 1926 was ‘A musical history of the Arabs’. Other music interests of Henry were Irish and Scottish music, which saw a publication in 1947 ‘A history of music in Scotland’.

Henry Farmer married Amy Maud Jackson in 1904. He died at the age of 83 in South Lanarkshire, Scotland.