Monkstown Memories : Castor & Pollux
Look up near GZ and you’ll find Castor & Pollux standing on the rooftops. Or is it?
Castor & Pollux
Castor & Pollux feature on the coat of arms of the DeVesci family who were landlords of this area – the Griffiths Valuation of the 1850s shows Lord DeVesci having 115 properties in Monkstown. They leave a large imprint still on the area with many of the roads and parks reflecting their family names – deVesci, Vesy and Knapton (an area of Yorkshire). The private De Vesci Gardens sit nearby..
The Vesci/Vesey family name appears to be Norman in origin – originating from Vassy, Calvados. The family name can be traced in Ireland back to the 13th century. They have strong connections with Abbeyleix – Abbeyleix House being the family seat. They even had a claim to the Scottish throne!
The coat of arms has a viscount’s coronet at the top and has a cross sable on a patriarchal cross of the field. Once source states that the statues are “two savages each holding in his exterior hand a club over his shoulder”….so perhaps not Castor & Pollux?
Castor & Pollux are the mythological basis for the stars of that name and the star sign gemini - they were twin brothers (with different fathers!!) and demigods in both Greek and Roman mythology. The image used in the background of this page was from our Siciliy trip where there is a Castor & Pollux Temple in Agrigento.
Family Motto
The motto under the coat of arms reads “sub hoc signo vinces” : “In this sign you will conquer”. It comes from ancient greek and is used by many others too – from the Finnish Defence Force Reconnaissance to St. Eunan's College, Letterkenny.
De Vesci Terrace
De Vesci Terrace was built in 1838 as part of the expansion of Kingstown with the advent of the railway. The De Vesci Gardens sit nearby – a private park which residents of the Victorian terrace get the key to – over 4 acres of land. Dec 17 one of the properties was for rent – 8,500 per month….6 double bedrooms and 4 bathrooms…..not even an en-suite each!
Nr 9 De Vesci Terrace
Nr 9 was on sale in Sept 2017 for 2.4M so I guess I’d want a key to those private gardens at that price.
At the time of the sale previous owners of Nr 9 were identified – Arthur Guinness (not THE Arthur but a relative), Grace O’Shaughnessey (Irish Supermodel), Conor Brady (Former Irish Times editor and author) and Henning Thomsen. Henning was the German Information & Cultural minister in the 1930s who passed his time as a spy! Henning was a member of the Reiter-SS and served in Norway before coming to Dublin. He saw out the Emergency here and survived extradition attempts from the UK – joining a construction company as a front! He returned to Germany in 1951 and worked in more embassy positions in Peru/Bonn/Tehran/Cameroon/Iceland.
The Geocache
With the expensive nature of the properties and twitching curtains this is intended as an easy stop – the cache is a magnetic nano (sorry) and up on high - please replace as found so it's not easily visible. It’s definitely not near ground level and the rodent traps. Bring a tall friend. The Garden is as mentioned above : PRIVATE - Please respect this and don't enter the garden. The cache is retreived from outside the park.
The First
Congratulations go to Zkzkz and Jewelandarlin for finding the cache first.