I have been going back, fascinated all over again, reviewing my notes on the life of my mother's mother's mother, Emily MacDonnell
Boissevain. Her life reveals much of the culture and concerns of her times, especially
relations between the Netherlands and Ireland, and the Netherlands and Indonesia.
Emily was an Irish
woman who married a Dutchman and lived her life in Holland. Her letters provide
a unique cross-cultural window on Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands and
Indonesia, with a few interesting sidelights on the United States. The letters especially show how much of
Ireland she brought with her to Holland.
Like Trojan Aeneas
settling in the area that became Rome, Emily brought with her the household
gods of Protestant Dublin. She was proud of her Irishness and spoke English to
her 11 children during her long years as the wife of Dutch newspaper editor
Charles Boissevain, although she learned enough to write a few letters in
Dutch. After the death of Charles she
lived alone with the family governess, Polly, meeting separately with visitors
based on Emily’s higher status. Yet she
bonded like a Viking conqueror with the country in which she settled. Emily never traveled alone, and only visited
where she had relatives.
Emily’s Father: Hercules MacDonnell
Emily’s parents were Judge Hercules Henry Graves MacDonnell
and Emily Ann Moylan; we have letters from Judge Hercules MacDonnell to his
granddaughter Olga. Emily’s family on
her father’s side can be traced back to Somerled, the first Lord of the Isles
in the 12th century (see genealogy).
Her grandfather Rev. Richard MacDonnell was Provost of Trinity College,
Dublin, and was a solid Provost during an uneventful period, according to the
history of the college.
Judge Hercules MacDonnell had an even better-known brother, Sir
Richard, who became Britain’s
Governor-General (or equivalent) of five British colonies -- Gambia, St.
Vincent and Lucia, Nova Scotia, South Australia and Hong Kong. Following that he was knighted and retired to
the south of France. His wife was called Blanche. Any map of South Australia will show the
MacDonnell range of mountains at the northern extremity, near Alice Springs, named
after Sir Richard. Some ports and rivers
are also named after him and his wife Blanche. A desert plant is also named
after him. In Hong Kong, Sir Richard was oine of the first to build a house
high above the city.[1]
The MacDonnell family can be traced back to Alastair
Carrach, grandson of the 1st Lord of the Isles in Scotland, who
founded the Keppoch branch of the great Clan Donald. In 1431, part of Keppoch lands were forfeited
and given to the MacIntoshes, causing a feud between the MacIntoshes and the
MacDonnells of Keppoch. The MacDonnells
were warriors and the 9th chief of the clan, who was exiled for most
of his life, served in the Swedish army.
The 12th chief of the clan was murdered along with his
brother in 1663. Coll, the 15th
chief of the clan, was noted for his fierceness and was called “Coll of the
Cows;” he resisted by the power of the sword MacIntosh attempts to retake his
lands. His son Alexander, the 16th
chief, died fighting for the Jacobites at the Battle of Culloden. At some point the MacDonnells emigrated to
Ireland where they became part of the Protestant (Presbyterian or Church of
Ireland) ruling gentry.
The motto of the MacDonnell family was “toujours prêt”
(always ready). In Dutch, a word
pronounced like “prêt” means “fun” and this meaning of the word is more descriptive
of the flavor of the atmosphere in the home that Emily MacDonnell made with
Charles Boissevain. “Fun” is a good
description of the goal of Olga Boissevain, their third daughter, according to
her daughter [interview, 1996]. Another
MacDonnell family motto was “per mare, per terra”, which has a military association
because it was adopted as a motto by the U.S. Marines.
Emily’s Mother: Emily Ann Moylan
Hercules MacDonnell was a lawyer (a barrister, arguing in
court) when he married Emily Ann Moylan, who was referred to in the press at
the time as the niece of Lady Jodrell.
Since his religious father did not approve of the marriage to Miss
Moylan (either because she was too young or was not Church of Ireland; the
stories do not say), the two eloped to London via Liverpool, whence they
traveled via “horseless carriage” on the just-completed railway line connecting
the two cities. They were said to be the
first couple in history ever to use the horseless carriage as a vehicle for
elopement.
Coincidentally, Lady Jodrell’s daughter eloped at virtually
the same time, because her parents considered her too young to marry, so that
the Moylan-Jodrell cousins’ elopements were covered by the press at the same
time, as in the clip shown on the previous page.
Emily Héloїse MacDonnell
Emily Héloїse MacDonnell was born in Dublin in June 1, 1844.
She grew up in a Dublin suburb and Sligo Bay, the daughter of Judge Hercules
Graves MacDonnell and Emily Ann Moylan.
Emily met Charles when he was a young journalist visiting
Dublin to cover an international exposition.
Charles Boissevain was two years older than Emily, having been born in
Amsterdam on October 28, 1842. While in Dublin, he became ill. A sponsor of the
exposition, Dublin attorney Hercules MacDonnell, invited Charles to recuperate
in his home. His daughter Emily tended
to Charles and they fell in love.
Charles returned to Holland with his fiancée, and Emily married Charles
Boissevain in Southampton [Woolston?] on June 27, 1867. [Stamboek van der Boissevains, entry for Charles Boissevain, p.
143.]
For the rest of her life, Emily’s main contact with Ireland
seems to have been from visiting her Jameson and Crichton and Phibbs relatives
at Sligo Bay in the northwest of Ireland.
She died at Het Houten Huis near Drafna in Blaricum on January 26, 1931,
surviving Charles by about four years and the British-born family governess
Polly by about two years.
Robert Boissevain [who left his wife and six children in
Holland and emigrated to America to the voiced disapproval of all but his
mother] said to his sister Hilda: “ I never feared opening a letter from my
mother. Never were there reproaches in
it.” [Interview, 1996.]
[1] Randal
Marlin researched Sir Richard’s life in Dublin in the 1990s. An Australian
desert flower is named after Sir Richard.
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