Frenchpark House - A House with a Political Interest

Written by Ben Kesp 

Frenchpark House, Co. Roscommon, Ireland, built in the mid 17th century was the ancestral seat of the Barons de Freyne. The house was rebuilt in the 18th century to the fashion of a Georgian style. 

Charlotte Despard, a cousin of the de Freyne’s family was an Irish novelist and Sinn Féin activist who spent much of her life at Frenchpark house. In 1908 Charlotte formed the Irish Women’s Franchise League along with Hanna Sheehy Skeffington and Margaret Cousins. In 1909 she met with Mahatma Ghandi who influenced her in his ways of passive resistance although only for a short time. During the War of Independence she joined with Maud Gonne and formed the Prisoner’s Defence League to support republican prisoners. She was imprisoned by the new government of the Irish Free State during the Irish Civil War and had strongly opposed the Anglo Irish Treaty. 

The earliest member of the de Freyne family to live at Frenchpark was Patrick French Fitzstephen. His son Dominick French was granted 5,000 acres in County Roscommon in 1677. His descendent Arthur French was created Baron De Freyne in April 1851. The family attained extensive lands and in the 1870s Lord de Freyne owned 25,436 acres in Co. Roscommon, 4,052 acres in Co. Sligo and 328 acres in Co. Galway. In July 1906 over 36,000 acres of Frenchpark Estate was vested in the Congested Districts Board, which was set up in 1891 to help with poverty and congested living in the West and North West of Ireland. 

In 1952, the house and lands were sold by the 7th Baron de Freyne to the Irish Land Commission who demolished the house and buildings in 1975. 

Photos: Landed Estates Galway