"Who'll Buy Killarney?": Social, Legislative, and Literary Responses to the 1956 Sale

Abstract

"Who'll Buy Killarney?"Social, Legislative, and Literary Responses to the 1956 Sale Julieann Ulin In late September 1956, a group of Americans left the Abbey Theatre after seeing Denis Johnston's Strange Occurrence on Ireland's Eye and passed a music shop on O'Connell Street as they returned to their hotel.1 The shop window was decorated with copies of shamrock-covered sheet music for the popular song "How Can You Buy Killarney?" The song's title poses a question asked by an American tourist so taken in by the region's beauty that he immediately asks his guide how he may purchase it: "How can I buy it?" he said to his guide."I'll tell you how," with a smile he replied."How can you buy all the stars in the skies?How can you buy two blue Irish eyes?How can you purchase a fond mother's sighs?How can you buy Killarney?"2 As the Americans passed the shop, their driver pointed out a banner that someone had pasted across the outside of its window, announcing that the song title's question now had a very different answer: "it's sold."3 The passengers that night included J. Stuart Robertson of Boca Raton, Florida, an American of Scotch-Irish descent whose purchase of two of the three Lakes of Killarney the month before from Mrs. Beatrice Grosvenor, the niece of the 7th and last earl of Kenmare, had prompted the revision to the song's gentle mockery of the impossibility of the American's question. On June 9, 1956, the Irish Times reported that inheritance duties following the death of the earl of Kenmare would force his niece to sell 8,300 acres of the Killarney estate, including the lower and middle lakes of Killarney: "The [End Page 15] 14th century castle of Ross and the ancient abbey of St. Finian Lobhar, Kenmare House and home farm are included in the sale, with deer-stalking and five miles of salmon fishing."4 The AP announcement made international front-page news, complete with a stage Irish accent: "'Tis a hard thing to have to tell, but Missus Beatrice Grosvenor confirmed today she wants to sell Killarney. There'll be tears in the beers of the Boston Irish."5 Locally, The Kerryman reported that news of the proposed sale "hit County Kerry like an atom bomb fireball."6 The period from the announcement of the sale in June through Robertson's triumphant arrival at his new estate in September and the subsequent revelation of his plans for Killarney garnered international publicity and prompted a comparative assessment of Ireland's laws in relation to other nations in terms of the state's role in conserving key landscapes. The initial announcement of the intended sale was conjoined in the Irish public discourse with the specter of the American millionaire. The United States appeared alternately a model or a threat in terms of its use of natural landscapes as admiration for the American national parks system competed in the press with photos and descriptions of Coney Island as a potential precursor to an American's designs for Killarney. In fact, neither vision captured the reality of Robertson's actual plans for development, which were based upon Palm Beach's exclusive country clubs and envisioned an enclave for wealthy Americans of Irish descent to "return" to Ireland. Robertson's decision in February 1958 to sell his interest in the property to his fellow shareholders, and the subsequent scrapping of his development plans by the shareholders by June of that year, have obscured the debates within this two-year period and the social, legislative, and literary responses to the sale. A 1985 Irish Times article about the death of Grosvenor, for instance, skips over Robertson completely: "Mrs. Grosvenor answered the syrupy, often-sung question 'How can you buy Killarney' in 1957, and won world headlines at the same time, when she sold off a large part of the Kenmare estate to Mr. John McShain, an American millionaire who still lives in Killarney House."7 The article not only gets the year of the sale wrong; it also mistakes Grosvenor's direct...