In 1953, the Lecky name was added to the growing list of departing gentry families from County Carlow. The Ballykealey seat had been in their possession since 1649, but not even three centuries of roots and tradition could hold back the tide of a rapidly changing financial climate that had already accounted for the departure of most of their neighbouring landed families. The 300-acre estate was bought by the Land Commission, and the house was purchased in the early 1960s for use as a noviciate by the patrician Brothers, owners of the Wolseley family seat near Tullow since 1915.

The sale of Ballykealey was the first tell-tale sign of looming financial problems for the last owner, Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Beauchamp Lecky, who moved to London with his family. Within four years, he had reported debts of £19,000, and assets of £15,000. As a result of the deficit, bankruptcy proceedings were instituted against him, and were due for hearing in December 1957 at Guildford in Surrey. On 26th September, 1957 the War Office Colonel said his early morning good-byes to his wife and three children, got on a train for central London, and was never seen again by family and friends. Thirty-six years on, the missing persons file on Colonel Lecky still remains open at Scotland Yard.

In the weeks and months following his disappearance, the search spread to the Ballykealey estate, and a poster with personal details and a photograph was circulated to Garda stations throughout the country. By January 1958, the search switched to Schleswig-Holstein, in Northern Germany, and police in Hamburg on the Danish border of the East German frontier were alerted. This was an area where he had served during the last months of the Second World War. Two diviners had pin-pointed three hospitals in Flensburg, where they thought he might be living.

His family did not believe he had run away from his financial problems, which they insisted could have been solved. The mystery of his disappearance deepened when police examinations of his personal papers revealed that for several years he had been writing weekly cash checks for £50, and that an estimated £10,000 had gone from his bank account in this way. He had borrowed £600 from moneylenders at 45%. It was generally accepted that the family was now living beyond their monthly civil service income. A blackmail theory now emerged, but the question of who the blackmailer might be only added to the confusion. The Colonel, aged 49 when he disappeared, was described as a disciplined man.

This description was issued to police stations in Britain and Ireland: "Missing - Civil Servant, born 20.10.1908, height 5ft. 10in, complexion fresh, hair fair and wavy, parted in the centre; has fair toothbrush moustache, large ears with very prominent lobes, wears spectacles for reading and driving motor-car, dressed in dark grey suit, black Homburg hat, black shoes, is known to be in possession of a holdall, contents unknown; is known to be in financial difficulties."

It was a time of awful agony for his wife Margaret, their 18-year old daughter Penny, and sons Jasper (13) and Bryan (8). Brigadier Francis S. Reid Secretary to the Speaker of the House of Commons, husband of the Colonel's sister Dorothy, and Captain Frederick Barton, married to his other sister, Aileen, were all deeply involved in the widespread effort to find the Colonel. Throughout, the family remained firmly convinced that he was alive, but whatever his fate, it still remains an unforgotten and unresolved mystery for the Leckys.

The estate had five Lecky owners, three of whom were brothers, between 1908 and 1928. Colonel Lecky had inherited through his uncle, Frederick Beauchamp Lecky and his father Robert St. Clair Lecky, successive owners following the death of their nephew John Rupert Frederick Lecky who was killed in action in 1915 while serving as a Lieutenant with the 7th Battalion , Royal Fusiliers during the First World War. John, an only son, had inherited Ballykealey in 1908, the same year the Wright Brothers Orville and Wilbur had arrived in France with the aircraft they first got into the air at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in 1903. Unlike the American response to their achievement , Wilbur got an enthusiastic response in France. Their success caught the imagination of 23-year old John Lecky, and with available cash to spend, he decided to build an aircraft at Ballykealey. He engaged the services of an English engineer to help with the design and construction, and while the plane was fully built, it is not known if he ever did get an aerial view of his estate, and nearly Ballon village. People in the village still have parts of the aircraft, including the engine.

Molly Lecky, born 1907, shared her first cousin's passion for aircraft, and she was one of dozens of women RAF pilots who flew American-built planes to Britain during WWII. She was killed when a plane she was flying was lost on June 14th, 1942. The two great wars took their toll among the Leckys.

Another Cousin, Robert Maxwell Lecky-Pike of Kilnock, a pilot during WWI, was killed in action on 9th August 1915, and his nephew David Ebenezer Lecky-Pike, was 20 when he was killed in a action in March 1945. The Leckys were one of several Quaker families in County Carlow, the first of them having come to County Donegal from Stirling in Scotland during he reign of Elizabeth 1 (1487-1509). In 1873, John J. Lecky had 1,440 acres at Ballykealey. John F. Lecky had 44 acres at Lenham Lodge, and W.E.H. Lecky , the historian, had 721 acres at Aughanure, Bestfield and Kilnock.

This property he inherited from his father John Lecky of Newgardens and from his mother Maria Hartpole of Shrule Castle, Co Laois, he inherited an additional 1,200 acres. W.E.H. Lecky was an absentee landlord, but Dr. Donal McCartney's observation of him could have been reasonably applied to the several generations of Carlow Leckys who were resident landlords - "He was an absentee, content to work through an agent. It doesn't follow that he was otherwise a bad landlord. In fact the evidence is all to the contrary. The tenants on Lecky property appear to have been fairly well off and respectable." Writing in the 1966 issue of Carloviana he noted that Lecky supported Gladstone's Land Act of 1970 giving tenants a measure of security against evicting landlords. Lecky did not appear to have been a rack-renting landlord, and during his controversial election as an M.P. at Trinity College Dublin, it was not denied that there were families on Lecky lands who had been there for upwards of 150 years.

In his writings, he was a bitter opponent of Home Rule, and expressed outright opposition to the Land League and its leaders. He claimed, according to McCartney, that Home Rulers were animated by two ideas - a desire to plunder the landlords, and an overwhelming hatred of England. Gladstone and his fellow Liberals, who would hand over Ireland to the Home Rulers, must be either traitors or fools. Ironically, in Dr. McCartney's words, Lecky in his writings had made "Home Rulers out of everyone except himself". Following his death in 1903, his Carlow and Laois lands were sold and the proceeds given to endow the Lecky Chair of History at Trinity College, where a bronze statue of the historian by Sir William Coscombe John, and financed through public subscription, was unveiled in 1906.

Back in Carlow, his cousin , John Frederick Lecky, was Secretary and Treasurer of the Carlow branch of the Irish Landowners Convention, setup to defend landlords against the torrent of change brought about by the success of the Land League, and the painful reality that the old order was crumbling before their very eyes. Such was the extent of the change that when the Grand Juries, the long-time preserve of the landlords, were replaced by County Councils in 1898, John Frederick Lecky failed in his attempt to win a seat on the new body against his Catholic neighbor, Maurice O'Neil.

The following is the family motto as emblazoned on the hand-made rug in the foyer:

Semper Paratus virtus post funera vivit
" Always Prepared, Virtue endures beyond the grave "

Lecky land ownership was relatively modest, which meant they were never key players in the parliamentary political arena, where they supported the Tories, without an active degree of participation. As a consequence, few difficulties were reported with their tenants. They did hold the positions of Deputy Lieutenant, High Sheriff, and Justices of the Peace in the county.

Apart from Ballykealey and Kilnock, the family had homes at various periods at Staplestown, where they first settled in county Carlow, the location of a mill run by Robert Lecky; Kilmeany, Rathrush and Newgardens, near Carlow town. In his will of June 1707, Robert left his son John Lecky one gold guinea, and his interest in land at Kilnock; his sons James and John got equal shares in Ballykealey. "To my cousin Alexander Lecky his house and garden and free grazing of six callops of cattle on the land of Conoborough; £3 to the poor of Friends at Newsgardens Monthly meeting. £20 to the poor people in the neighborhood of Ballykealey. To my three daughters, Dorothy, Jean and Rebecca, £600 between them , provided they marry with consent of executors and trustees. My son James to build a dwelling house upon the lands at Rathrush for my wife Mary to dwell in." It was Mary, one of the Quaker Watson family, who persuaded her husband to join the Society of Friends.

Hint of the family discord emerged in the will of Joyce Lecky, widow of John Lecky of Kilmeany, dated 17th April, 1736 - "To my son William Lecky, 1.3s0. and no more; 40 at interest for my daughter Jane Robinson, alias Lecky, without the control of her husband." It seems her son William and son-in-law John Robinson, from Killopharm, Co. Meath, were out of favor when Joyce made her will.

Before public work were put in place during the famine to provide employment, local Relief Committees were set up in various areas, and the main organizer in Forth was John James Lecky. These committees were organized among the clergy and gentry to collect subscription to provide assistance to families in greatest need. According to family tradition, it was during the Famine that the artificial lake in the grounds of Ballykealey was dug out to provide employment.

Recent aerial view of Ballykealey Manor Hotel, showing the lake

Mark Bence-Jones described the present house as a somewhat stylized Tudor-Gothic structure build about 1830 for John James Lecky to the design of Thomas A. Cobden. Tradition has it that before John James married Sara Lucia Smith, in July 1825, her father John Smith of Balby in Yorkshire, insisted that plans be prepared for a new home for his only daughter, and that her generous dowry financed the building of the house.

Patrician Brothers Novices at Ballykealey

The Patrician Brothers sold Ballykealey in the mid-1970s, and it was unoccupied for long periods before being sold by the Coleman family to John and Evelyn McCabe from Bailieborough, County Cavan, who opened a hotel there in 1988.

A Small Tribute to the Wright Brothers...

John Rupert Lecky inherited Ballykealey House in 1908. He was an avid follower of the huge developments in aviation and a great admirer of the achievements of the Wright Brothers. He engaged the services of an English engineer to assist him in a rather ambitious project to build an engine-powered aircraft of his own. It has been possible through the study of sketches and photographs which exist from that time, to offer an accurate account of how the Lecky Bi-plane would have looked and functioned.

It is not known if "Captain Johnnie's" aircraft ever actually achieved full flight, however, it is a belief held locally that the 'plane did actually take off but unfortunately crashed on its maiden flight on the side of Ballon Hill.

Aerial view of Ballykealey Manor Hotel