Lady Desart's enduring legacy to modern Kilkenny

A century ago, a woman deeply intertwined with Kilkenny City, was one of the first Irish women to sit in the new Free State Senate in December 1922.

One of only four women to sit in the new upper house of the Irish government, Ellen Odette Bischoffsheim, was not born in Ireland but she had  a profound impact on her adopted home of Kilkenny.

She has been called ‘the most important Jewish woman in Irish history’.

THROWBACK: Kilkenny city in 1983 - see pics!

Pictures from Kevin's World (via RTÉ, 1983)

Ellen Odette Bischoffsheim, also known as Lady Desart of Kilkenny, was the daughter of an extremely wealthy Jewish banker, Henry Bischoffsheim (who founded Deutsche Bank, Paribas and Société Générale). Her father, originally prospered during the German industrial revolution and subsequently expanded the family banking business into France and eventually London where the family settled. He was reputedly one of the wealthiest men in Europe.

Ellen and her sister Amelia were both born in London and grew up in immense privilege. Despite his Jewish ethnicity, Bischoffsheim was accepted into the highest echelons of society and the political establishment due to his wealth. The family saw both daughters marry successfully into the British aristocracy, with Ellen and Odette marrying into Anglo Irish families. As well as great wealth, the Bischoffsheim parents also gave their daughters a legacy of charitable works and a dedication to helping the less privileged.

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Ellen was the second wife of William Cuffe, the 4th Earl of Desart, whom she married  aged 24, on April 27 1881. It was declared the wedding of the season with the bride reportedly bringing a dowry of £150,000 to the union. When the newly-weds arrived at Kilkenny railway station two days later, it was said that huge crowds gathered to greet them. The road between Kilkenny and Desart was festooned with evergreen boughs and coloured banners while the village of Cuffe’s Grange  was also decorated in their honour.

The marriage didn’t produce any children but the couple were very happy together splitting their time between the Desart estates in Ireland which totalled over 9000 acres and their home in England. However in 1884, the outbreak  of agrarian violence because of the Irish Land Wars prompted William Desart to close up Desart Court and relocate permanently to the UK for the next 14 years.

In 1898  William died prematurely aged 53 after a short illness. Ellen, his widow now in her early 40s, retired to live with her family at Ascot, in Berkshire but after the death of her brother-in-law Otway Cuffe, returned to live at Aut Even near Talbot’s Inch, to continue his legacy of good works in the Kilkenny community.

When her husband had originally died, his younger brother Otway Cuffe had come to live in Kilkenny to take over the family interests. He soon became known to everyone in Kilkenny as the Captain, due to his military career in the British army. The combination of his drive and Lady Desart‘s financial resources soon started to make a major impact on the city. First they established a theatre on Patrick Street, (now the site of Zuni restaurant) which was capable of seating 800 to 900 patrons. Lady Desart underwrote the entire cost of the project, which opened in October 1902.

The duo next moved on to restore an old mill at Talbot’s Inch which has once been one of Ireland’s best known woollen mills. Encouraged by Captain Cuffe, Lady Desart bought the derelict mill in 1904, to completely  restore and rebuild it to re-open at Easter 1906. She also bought 90 acres of land  on which she developed a village of thirty cottages  for the mill workers in the then popular, Art and Crafts style.  She also financed a suspension bridge across the Nore for the workers to travel to the mill. Later she  underwrote a private school, recreation hall and dental surgery for the village.

In 1905 she and Otway Cuffe, purchased a premises in Patrick Street for the Kilkenny Woodworkers, a group of local young men who wanted to start a woodwork business. They later moved to a factory in Talbot’s Inch which boasted the most modern machinery at the time. The company had a shop in Nassau St in Dublin which later moved to 66 Grafton St. A fire in 1927 destroyed the factory and it wasn’t rebuilt. However, examples of the Kilkenny Woodworkers craft can still be seen in the carved front doors at Aut Even, the bookcases in St Kieran’s College and the beautiful shop front of PT Murphy’s jewellery shop on the High St today.

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Lady Desart also purchased the site for the Carnegie Library in Kilkenny City in 1910 and paid for the furnishing of the building. She opened the building  with a silver key from PT Murphy’s jewellers, on November 3, 1910.  

Following the death of Otway Cuffe in 1912, Lady Desart, proceeded with a project to build a hospital for Kilkenny in his honour.  Opened in 1915, it boasted the most up to date operating theatre and X Ray room then available with a lot of the furniture made by the Kilkenny Woodworkers. It became a military hospital during WWI but reverted to civilian use afterwards.

While the hospital was under construction, the Countess also oversaw the building of Desart Hall in New Street, which had a ballroom, a stage, dining room, kitchen and cloakrooms. It became a much loved community amenity and later became the property of St Kieran’s College.  

Despite her English and Jewish heritage, Lady Desart was also an active member and later President of the Gaelic League. Although she never mastered the complexity of the Irish language, she saw parallels between the revival of  Irish  and Hebrew and understood how much a native language contributes to a sense of national identity.

In recognition of her generous philanthropy, Lady Desart was appointed to Seanad Eireann in 1922 by William Cosgrave. She was the first Jewish woman to serve as an Irish Senator and remained in the Seanad for 12 years until her death. She had remained a practising Jew all her life and was deeply involved with Jewish charities in the UK, but Ireland and particularly Kilkenny, seemed to have stolen her heart. She died on June 29 1933, aged 75 at her home in Dublin and was mourned deeply by the people of Kilkenny. She was later buried beside her husband William, in Falmouth.

As recognition of her benevolence to her adopted city, a Kilkenny bridge was named in her honour in 2014. During her own lifetime she  had received the Freedom of the City in November 1910, claiming at the time to be the only woman in Ireland thus honoured.

Both Lady Desart and Otway Cuffe were exceptional people. They invested time, energy and money into making Kilkenny a better place for people to live and prosper. Their  creative legacy laid the foundations for the vibrant and dynamic city that Kilkenny has grown into today