Born in Naples, Italy, on the 10th of May 1819, the son of Arthur James Plunkett, 9th Earl of Fingall, Baron Killeen, K.P. P.C. Lord Lieutenant and Custos rotulorum [keeper of the rolls] for Meath, and his wife, Louisa Emillia, daughter of Matthew Elias Corbally, of Corbalton Hall, Co. Meath.
Cornet in the 8th Hussars: 17th of September 1839.
Lieutenant, 8th Hussars: 5th of March 1841.
Captain, 8th Hussars: 23rd of January 1846.
Embarked for the Crimea aboard the H.T. "Jura" and joined the regiment on the 19th of November 1854.
Major, 8th Hussars: 13th of October 1856.
Retired, by the sale of his commission, on the 12th of May 1857.
Captain Plunkett served the Eastern campaign from the 19th of November 1854, including the Siege and fall of Sebastopol, and served with the detachment of the regiment under Lieut-Colonel De Salis in the Expedition to Kertch on the 22nd of May 1855.
Entitled to the Crimean medal with clasp for Sebastopol and the Turkish Medal.
On the 12th of February 1857 he married Elsie Mary, daughter of Mon. Francis Alexis Rio and his Welsh wife.
Her father was a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.
They had one son, Arthur James Francis (see below) and two daughters: Mary Louisa and Henrietta Marie.
His wife died of consumption at Pau, France, on the 16th of November 1862. Although he had inherited the Earldom on the 22nd of April 1869, he continued to live in France and did not return to Ireland, and Killeen, until 1880.
On his arrival "home" he was presented with a beautiful hand-illuminated address by subscribers from the locality.
[PB: dates?] He became a P.C. [PB: Privy Counsellor?] and Deputy Lieutenant for Meath.
Arthur Plunkett died at Killeen Castle, Tara, Co. Meath, on the 24th of April 1881. His death certificate shows the main cause of his death was "Haemplegia. Fourteen years." [PB: Hemiplegia? — total paralysis of arm, leg and trunk on one side of the body?]
From the Drogheda Advertiser, 30th of April 1881:
"Death of the Earl of Fingall.
We regret to announce the death of the Right Hon. the Earl of Fingall, which took place on Sunday at Killeen House.
His Lordship was in his 62nd year and unlike the Lord Fingall of O'Conner's day he took little part in public affairs.
He was very popular and had the reputation of being an excellent landlord.
The deceased was married to the daughter of the Chevalier Rio, but Lady Fingall had long pre-deceased her husband.
We need scarcely add that the family was a Roman Catholic one and the brother of the peer is the Hon. and Reverend William Plunkett, the well-known Redemptionist Father.
Yesterday, with subdued and solemn pomp, the remains of the deceased Earl were laid amongst the ashes of his illustrious ancestors, close to the family mansion."
A footnote in the church history declares:
"In the demesne are the ruins of a 15th century semi-fortified church, the remains being important enough to be regarded as a National Monument."
Plaques on the walls commemorate earlier Earls, but nothing for the 10th.
But in 1995 Brigadier P.D Hogan, a member of the Military History Society of Ireland, furnished the following:
"On recently going to Killeen Castle, once the seat of the Plunkett family, I found it in ruins, having been burned to the ground a few years ago.
Right beside it is a 15th century church, now also a ruin.
In the graveyard surrounding it are the graves of families of the district who bore the name Plunkett.
Inside the church itself are the graves and monuments of members of the Plunkett/Fingall family going back to the 15th century.
One stone memorial slab on the floor marks the resting place of the Earl you are seeking.
It is presumably the entrance to a tomb and carries no mention of army service or indication of military rank.
The Plunketts were probably more conscious of their position in the peerage than in the army. The inscriptions read as follows:
"Arthur James Plunkett. 10th Earl of Fingall. Son of the 9th Earl. Born May 10th 1819 — Died April 24th 1881.
-Arthur James Francis Plunkett, 11th Earl of Fingall. Son of the 10th Earl. Born April 1st 1859 — Died November 12th 1929.
- Elizabeth, wife of the 11th Earl of Fingall. Died October 28th 1944.
- Henrietta Maria Plunkett, younger daughter of the 11th Earl of Fingall. Died February 21st 1947."
[NB: The spelling of Fingall on all the monuments in the church uses two "l"'s.]
His only son, Arthur James Francis, was born in Rome on the 1st of April 1859. He grew up in France, spending much of his time in Paris with his father and two sisters.
Occasionally, however, he visited Killeeen for hunting in the winter season and lived by himself, with a couple of servants, in the big house.
Extracts from "A History of Killeen Castle":
"Soon after his eldest [?] son had persuaded him to return home, this son celebrated his 21st birthday. The butler preparing the celebrations got gloriously drunk, and set the dining room on fire, damaging the only good pictures at Killeen, including two Van Dykes."
Inheriting the title in April of 1881, he also became High Sheriff of County Meath in the same year.
In May 1883 he married Elizabeth Mary Burke, daughter of George Burke, Esq., of Danesfield, J.P. for Co. Galway.
Four children were later born into the family.
He was State Steward to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Earl Spencer, 1882-85, and Master of Horse in 1905.
He was also a Lieutenant in a battalion of the Leinster Regiment, Meath Militia, 1880-87, served in the South African War with the 17th Battalion of the Imperial Yeomanry, was a Major in the 5th Battalion of the Connaught Rangers, 1901-05, and in World War One served with the 7th Battalion of the Leinster Regiment.
He died suddenly in November 1929, but his widow, Elizabeth, not until 1944.
His eldest son, Oliver James Horace, was born in London in June 1896, his father being at the time mining for gold in Australia with Lord Casey (the Governor General of Australia).
He joined the 17th Lancers in August 1914, although his father had wished him to join the 8th Hussars and so following family tradition.
In 1915 he went to France. He was wounded in May 1916 by the premature explosion of a practice bomb in which a man was killed and he and two others wounded, and spent nearly a year in hospital while his leg healed.
After convalescing in Ireland he went back to France and was awarded the Military Cross in March 1918 for an action at Hattencourt, France, during the German counter-offensive.
He also at one time commanded the escort of thirty-five men of the 17th Lancers detailed as permanent escort to Lord Haig.
He became Captain in June 1925 and remained in the 17th Lancers until 1929, when he went onto the Reserve of Officers, rejoining from this in August 1939 to serve during World War Two, but only in England.
He had inherited Killeen Castle and the title of the 11th Earl in November 1929 but in 1951 he sold the castle to Sir Victor Sassoon, with the Earl still acting as agent, although he actually left in 1953.
In April 1965 his first wife, Jessica, died, and in May 1966 he married the widow of a life-long friend, Frank Richardson.
Following a fall in December of 1978 in which he fractured his pelvis he was confined to a wheel-chair until his death from heart-failure in March 1984, the last of his line. His widow returned to Australia to live.
In May 1981, the castle was deliberately set on fire, before being sold again in 1989.
[PB: Deliberately set on fire?]