(1814-1879)
George Charles Trimble, was
self made man,
who became a prominent barrister and landlord in Tyrone, in 1862
he is recorded as owning over 2,600 acres. He was born a Presbyterian,
but became an atheist and despite his beliefs, used church connections,
to became a layman in the Church of Ireland Cathedral in Clogher,
which gave him social standing and a vestige of respectability.
Brackenridge lived in Ashfield
House near Clogher
County Tyrone, he dined with the writer William
Carlton a Tyrone man when he revisited Clogher in 1847. Carlton
and Brackenridge became friends, Carlton went on to write a novel
about him entitled 'The
Black Baronet'
Marrying into the Bunberry
family of Augher castle, he used his grandmothers name and assumed
the title of Lord Brackenridge. From their marriage, they had a
son Upton, born in 1872.
When  Upton grew
up he moved to Paris where supported by his father's money the young
man lived the life of a playboy. After some time he married a French
lady who spoke little English, he died in 1927 at the age of 55.
Brackenridge was not a popular
man in his locality, he was looked down upon by the ruling class.
His solution to remedy this was to build a mausoleum on a hilltop,
so that people who looked down upon him in his lifetime were forced
to look up to him after his death.
His mausoleum was just after
the famine its construction provided much needed employment, it
consists of a vault with a three storey tower topped with iron railings,
It can be seen from a large area of the Clogher valley
George Brackenridge died in July 1879 and
was buried in his vault. There he lay undisturbed until his tomb
was broken into by the Black and Tans who stole his his rings and
watch chain.
During the second world war it is said American GI's stationed
locally also broke into the tomb. |
