The details regarding the birth of my great-great grandfather Abraham Creighton have long been shrouded in secrecy and controversy. One of those secrets has been the identity of his mother; yet another scandal wiped from the official records, yet another story that dared not reveal itself.
In the early 1980's I spent some periods of time with my much-loved aunt Joey in London and she told me of what she knew about these events. She told me also of a visit she had herself made to the National Portrait Gallery of Ireland in Dublin. She had gone there to find a portrait of some personal significance. But before she had located the portrait an elderly attendant walked up to her, smiling and stated emphatically "You'd be from Erne then". My aunt apparently had replied that in a way, "Yes, you could say that." My aunt Joey then inquired why had he asked. The attendant said nothing and lead my aunt to a room containing the very portrait she had come to Dublin to see, the portrait of "Mary, Countess of Erne". The attendant winked saying, "There would be no mistaking you, would there then? It's those eyes, I'd be thinking."
Mary, Countess of Erne, was born Mary Hervey, daughter of Frederick Augustus Hervey, Earl of Bristol and became the second wife of the much older John Creighton, the first Earl of Erne in 1778. It was not a happy marriage. The couple did officially produce one daughter, Caroline Creighton, but in 1781 Mary left her husband never to return to Ireland. My aunt's great grandfather, Abraham Creighton, whose portrait she had been given by her father and which now is here with me in Australia, was born later that year, most likely in Bath. And the cover-ups began.
Did John Creighton, the old Earl, suspect that his beautiful young wife Mary had given birth to a son, and that the father of her child was none other than his own young son from his first marriage, Abraham? We will never know. All that we do know is that before too long John Creighton would declare his son Abraham insane, that Abraham would be incarcerated for forty years in Brooke House, London, and that the official records would show that Abraham Creighton, second Earl of Erne, died without offspring.
Did John Creighton, the old Earl, suspect that his beautiful young wife Mary had given birth to a son, and that the father of her child was none other than his own young son from his first marriage, Abraham? We will never know. All that we do know is that before too long John Creighton would declare his son Abraham insane, that Abraham would be incarcerated for forty years in Brooke House, London, and that the official records would show that Abraham Creighton, second Earl of Erne, died without offspring.
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