Mary Robinson launches Lord Altamont’s memoirs

SPECIAL GUEST? Jeremy Browne pictured with Mary Robinson and Tim Knatchbull at Westport House on Friday evening at the launch of Lord Altamont’s memoir ‘A Life at Westport House - 50 Years A Going’.?Pic: Conor McKeown

Mary Robinson launches Lord Altamont’s memoirs

Ciara Moynihan

Former President of Ireland Mary Robinson was in Westport on Friday last, May 16, to launch ‘A Life at Westport House, 50 Years A-Going’, the memoirs of Lord of Altamont Jeremy Browne, the eleventh Marquess of Sligo.
A large crowd attended the private launch, which was held in Westport House. Welcoming those gathered, Lord Altamont’s eldest daughter, Sheelyn Browne, spoke about the genesis of the book, and introduced guest speakers Nora Heraty, who has worked at Westport House for 43 years, and Westport Town Councillor Margaret Adams, whose family lived in the gate lodge of Westport House. She thanked both women for their many years of support, as well as many other townspeople and families who contributed to the survival of the estate.
Both Ms Heraty and Cllr Adams then regaled the crowd with their many heartwarming and often funny memories of Westport House and the Browne family.  
Taking to the podium, Mary Robinson expressed her delight at being asked to help launch ‘A Life at Westport House, 50 Years A-Going’. “This is an extraordinarily happy occasion, a happy occasion for Jeremy and Jennifer, for their daughters, for all who have been linked to this house, a happy occasion for Westport, and I think for the whole of Mayo,” she said.
Mary Robinson continued: “This book is a very important record of the commitment of Jeremy, Jennifer and the family to saving Westport House and Estate, to keeping the estate within the family, and, by developing it into a major tourist attraction, to benefitting the people of Westport, and more widely, of Mayo. It’s the story of a personal passion, which benefitted many.”
At just 21 years of age, Jeremy Browne and his wife, Jennifer, decided to open the doors of Westport House to visitors in 1960. The move was a bid to save the historic stately home from decline – a fate too many other great houses in Ireland have suffered – and it proved a master stroke.
That summer, 3,000 people visited the house, once the home of the pirate queen Grace O’Malley, or Granuaile. The ensuing half century at Westport House was certainly colourful. It included procuring seals, wrestling with llamas, the appearance of a giant pink rabbit, wild monkeys on the loose, unseasonal photo shoots with bikini-clad ‘models’, countless television appearances and the sensational story of how Lord Altamont broke his family trust.
Egged on by by friends and family, Jeremy Browne at last put pen to paper to record his years at the helm (these days it is Lord Altamont’s daughters and heirs who run the enterprise), and the resulting memoirs give a fascinating insight into the history of and life at Westport’s most iconic building.
The book, compiled by Sheelyn Browne, contains a wonderful display of images over the 50-year timespan. It also includes personal anecdotes of Jeremy’s trials and tribulations in what has become one of Ireland’s best loved heritage, family-fun, adventure and camping destinations. Many of the photos in the book have been generously contributed by award-winning photographer and friend of Westport House, Liam Lyons.
“Since 1950, there has been a vast input of work, involvement and support by a number of extraordinarily talented people and good friends who believed that Westport House and Estate was worth saving and cherishing,” says Jeremy Altamont. “I hope this book will be enjoyed by many people, to include not only those interested in Ireland’s heritage houses and collections but [also] those interested in how Westport House and Estate has survived and played its part in contributing to tourism in the West of Ireland.”

‘A Life at Westport House’ is on sale exclusively through Westport House on www.WestportHouse.ie/shop and in onsite gift shops.