Isaac Langrell - Connaught Ranger by Maura Gibson
Edith Cavell 1865 – 1915 was a British born nurse who was responsible for saving the lives of many soldiers during the First World War. Without discrimination, she saved as many as she could by helping them to escape from German-occupied Belgium. Accused of treason, she was court-martialled, found guilty and sentenced to death. She was shot by a German firing squad on 12th October 1915.
Coachman/Chauffeur on the Bellingham A. Somerville Estate
Isaac Langrell was born at Seapark in 1890. His parents were Isaac Langrell, from Cappagh, Aughrim and Margaret Ost Walker from Wicklow Town. His parents married in 1888. Isaac with his seven siblings spent his young growing up years on the Bellingham A. Somerville Estate where his father was a coachman/chauffeur. Margaret Ost Walker was the daughter of sailmaker Edward Walker of Wicklow Town. Margaret Walker’s brother John Isaac Walker was a printer with a printing works in Wicklow Town.
Isaac with his brothers, Henry and John and James, became soldiers. Isaac joined the Connaught Rangers. While serving in Belgium during the First World War in 1914 Isaac was captured. He became a prisoner of war. It was reported in the papers he was missing, feared dead. He was one of many soldiers who were helped by Nurse Cavell to escape for Belgium into Holland.
Report from the Wicklow People 1916. Mons Hero home from the war
Private Isaac Langrell, Connaught Ranger, second son of Mr and Mrs Langrell, Clermont, Rathnew is at present home on leave. Private Langrell was one of those who disappearance for a period of nine months gave rise to considerable anxiety. With the assistance of the heroic Nurse Cavell he was carefully stowed away in a woods with a number of other British soldiers, and in the course re-joined his regiment being for a time with Private Keogh. He has had remarkable luck so far, escaping without wounds of any sort and it is hoped he will have the same good fortune in future combats with the enemy.
Market Square
Around 1920 Isaac Langrell and Margaret Walker moved to Market Square, Wicklow Town. Isaac died at Market Square in 1928 his wife Margaret died at Market Square in 1943. The house at Market Square passed to their unmarried daughter Margaret Langrell. Margaret later owned a sweet factory and turned the house in Market Square into a small hotel. Her brother Edward (Ned) Langrell married Margaret Murray, Wicklow Town. Ned was ten years younger than Margaret Murray. They married in Dublin in 1923. He was Church of Ireland she was Catholic. Margaret Murray was the daughter of Patrick Murray and his wife Margaret. After Patrick Murray died his widow ran her businesses in Wicklow Town. She was a shrewd businesswoman right up to the time she died aged 96 years. When she died she left Ryan’s Hotel and other properties to her daughter Margaret. In the 1950s Margaret Murray Langrell ran a greengrocer’s shop on The Mall. On Edward (Ned) Langrells death certificate he is recorded as a waiter. No doubt he learned his skills in his wife Margaret’s hotel.
Isaac Langrell’s first cousin John James Walker son of his mother’s brother printer John Isaac Walker and Elizabeth Sylvia Farrell also went to War. He was not as fortunate as his cousin Isaac Langrell. John James joined the Royal Field Artillery. He died in action in Flander Fields on 28th August 1914. He was 21 years old.
See also Sheila Clarke’s article The Somervilles of Clermont House
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