Lady Claire Besnyoe (née Burke) grew up in Ballydugan House, and has returned to her childhood family home after 33 years working in Austria.

“One of my earliest memories growing up here in Ballydugan Estate is the pony that was bought for me being given to my sister, I was bitterly disappointed,” Claire begins with a chuckle. “My sister and I, we were always together, and we had a wonderful governess.

“Growing up in this house, it was noticeably different from the people around us and to a large extent my father’s workmen on the farm. Some of them lived in the farm cottages. The wages they got didn’t cover much, and they had large families, so there was hardship in the lives of the local people – most visibly in the clothes they wore, the food they ate and the fact there was no running water or electricity in their houses. I’m going back to the 1940s and 50s. Given that I was born in 1930, I have a very long memory.

“My father had a hard time starting out here. He inherited the farm in 1935 and at the time there was an economic war, and it impacted very strongly on the people.

Lady Claire Besnyoe. \ Larry Morgan Photography

“In order to stay, my father had to fight the land commission to allow him to keep the farm. Family folklore says he went alone to plead before the authorities. He said, ‘I can give employment at a time when it’s greatly needed. I can support 10 families’. And he did. I remember him saying, ‘If anyone ever came to me for a day’s work, I never turned them away’. It was a time when life was hard for the local people.

“The farm was hard work. My father kept cattle, they were mostly Hereford and Shorthorn and went from here to the pastures of Kildare to be finished. We also had a large flock of sheep.

“No artificial fertilisers, pesticides or tractor were used here on the farm back in my father’s day. It was a different type of farming then.

“My father never went to the fair. There was a cattle buyer in Loughrea at the time, he used to sell them for us. Those were the days when the cattle walked. You had to have two or three men walking your cattle from 5am to wherever they were going.

“The fair in those days was on a Thursday, and the farmers brought pigs, sheep and pony carts and farm carts. They made pens with the creels from the carts in the main street of the town.

“Those were the days where, when I look back, there was poverty. They hadn’t invented rubber boots or waterproof clothing and a man working on the farm was expected to be out working in the rain no matter what.”

Horses and Ballydugan

“My father was interested in horses and it was a family tradition to ride with the hunt, the Galway Blazers. Once in a while, the hunt would meet in front of the house, for a lawn meet.

“My father bought two steeplechasers, they were sent to a trainer outside Dublin. They had simply wonderful names – Irish Coffee and Uncle Whiskers.

It caught the attention of the local people – there’s this old man riding steeplechasers at over 50

"Both the horses were entered into the Aintree Grand National in 1960 and my father rode one of them. I think he was 55 at the time. It caught the attention of the local people – there’s this old man riding steeplechasers at over 50.

“If anybody talks to me about horses, they always say, ‘Your father rode in the Grand National?’ and I say with pride, ‘Yes he did’.

“My mother was also a fine horsewoman, very gifted with regards the training of young horses because she had a lot of passion for it, and great patience.”

Education

“My mother belonged to the generation of young women that didn’t go out to work. They got married. She always said to us, ‘You need to be competent to earn your own living and not depend on anyone’.

I was very conscious that I was a child who had grown up during World War II

“I think that was a valuable piece of advice. So I started out by doing a degree in modern languages in Trinity College in Dublin.

"I was very conscious that I was a child who had grown up during World War II, and the war was something that was very much part of me, I had watched it and lived through it.

“My ambition as a young person was to contribute in some way to peacekeeping and to the future of Europe.”

Life in Vienna

“I decided the United Nations (UN)was the future of a very tragic recovery period after the war, so I went on a student visa to New York. I remember going to that building beside the river week after week asking for a job.

“Eventually, I was sent up to the 17th floor where a group of officials were working together to set up an organisation devoted to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. It was going to be in Austria, and so that’s where I went.

“I started right at the bottom of the scale. I worked in Vienna for the UN for 33 years.

I came home to where I belonged

"The name of the organisation was the International Atomic Energy Agency – it was set up to use nuclear science to the benefit of mankind as it had been under an embargo because nuclear had been associated with warlike ambitions.

"I then retired and came home to Ireland. I came home to where I belonged.”

Home on the estate

“Family ties and the continuation of a tradition are of course reasons why I am happy to be home. I also like the trees, grass and nature all around me.

"The knowledge that this is still a working farm bringing in an income is also something that makes me happy.

“Owning an estate in Ireland is, in a sense a burden, because for several hundred years it was a source of distress for local people.

I still take very great care to blend in, I’m proud to say I think I am accepted

"So coming back my sense of identity was, can I build bridges between the land owning side of the family and the local people roundabout? I still take very great care to blend in, I’m proud to say I think I am accepted.

“There is still an element of resentment against the land owners. I understand it is something you would need to expect.

"Ballydugan was always a modest working farm, my father worked out in the fields with the men. He did the herding to a large extent from a horse. You’d see him in his raggy trousers and his battered old hat out working.”

Ballydugan Estate today

“I decided that in terms of profitability, dairy farming would be best for Ballydugan. The farm today is leased by Seamus Quigley and home to a 450-cow dairy herd under the management of Sean Ryan.”

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