page_title: Lyons Demesne
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Lyons Demesne / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Part of the village of the Lyons Estate which has now been restored and turned into a hotel
context_page_description: Lyons Demesne, also Lyons Estate, is a country house and estate in Lyons Hill, County Kildare, Ireland. It is located near Newcastle Demesne and Celbridge, to the northeast of Tipperstown, 24.8 kilometres west of the city centre of Dublin. The Georgian house, completed in 1797 under architect Oliver Grace, is set in 600 acres. Historically, Lyons was the setting of a notable duel between Daniel O'Connell and John D'Esterre. University College, Dublin, Lyons Research Farm consists of a portion of the original Lyons Estate and is used by the School of Agriculture, Food Science and Veterinary Medicine for teaching and research activities.
context_section_description: Michael Aylmer inherited the estate at the age of four in 1733 and became indebted to the  banker Sir Nicholas Lawless (later Baron Cloncurry), eventually losing the house in 1796.  Lawless commissioned architect Grace to build a "grand Georgian mansion" in 1785, and it was completed in 1797. His son, Valentine Lawless, 2nd Baron Cloncurry, continued the efforts between 1804 and 1810, developing the house further. In 1807 Lady Cloncurry was observed there by an Italian  painter, Gaspare Gabrielli,  who had been hired to paint the frescoes, committing adultery with a neighbour, Sir John Piers, 6th Baronet.   As a result her husband divorced her following an action for criminal conversation which aroused enormous public interest.
  A duel took place at Lyons in 1815 subsequent to a speech made by O'Connell. He was challenged by John D'Esterre, a member of Dublin Corporation, who objected to O'Connell's description of 'Corpo' being a 'beggarly corporation'. The expectation was that D'Esterre would kill O'Connell. However it was O'Connell who mortally wounded D'Esterre with a shot in the hip which lodged the bullet in D'Esterre's stomach.
  Frederick Lawless, a brother of the writer, naturalist, and historian Emily Lawless, with whom she was very close, was the last heir to the estate, after their elder brother Valentine died without a male heir in 1928. But his occupancy was short lived, as Frederick himself died on 18 July 1928, and the title was extinguished.
  University College, Dublin (UCD), purchased the Lyons Estate in 1963, the purchase consisting of Lyons House and approximately 1,200 acres (490 ha). In the early 1990s, the university sold the house and half of the land, approximately 620 acres. It was purchased by Ryanair businessman Tony Ryan in 1996 for £3.5 million who spent over £80 million renovating it, and it was bequeathed to his wife upon his death. The village part of the estate was sold to the Cliff Collection in 2016 and developed into a hotel called Cliff at Lyons. The restaurant Aimsir opened in 2019, and earned two Michelin stars.
caption: Part of the village of the Lyons Estate which has now been restored and turned into a hotel
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "2432", "Image ImageLength": "696", "Image Orientation": "0", "Image Software": "Picasa", "Image DateTime": "2018:08:12 17:18:55", "Image ExifOffset": "126", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[53, 17, 59]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "W", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[6, 33, 24]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSDate": "2018:08:12", "Image GPSInfo": "250", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "524", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3235", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2432", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "696", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "400", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "384401105f43d5c50000000000000000"}