>From Novels and Novelists from Elizabeth to Victoria http://books.google.ie/books?id=bc1_9GZ5nQEC&pg=PA151&dq=Tipperary&lr=&as_brr=1 Marguerite Countess of Blessington Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington, was one of the six children of a certain Edmund POWER, Esq. of Knockbrit, in the county of Tipperary, and afterwards of Clonmel. With the great pretensions to gentle descent which are usually found in Irishmen of no very illustrious origin, with a handsome exterior, debauched morals, and brutal tastes, this gentleman [Power] was a type of county Irishism in the last century [1700's]. He fought duels, drank, gambled, defamed the character of his neighbors, behaved with coarseness to his wife and with cruelty to his children, even tried his hand at murder-and eventually after a long career of sin and infamy closed an old age of ignominious dependence without evincing one sign of penitence. There was a completeness in the blackguardism of this scamp, which renders it highly dramatic and interesting. As a young man he was "the buck" of all Tipperary, and wherever he went, from hall to cabin, his fine figure and swagger, white cravats, super-abundant frills and ruffles, leather breeches, and top boots, excited enthusiastic applause, and gained him the honourable titles of "beau Power" and "Shiver the frills." He married the daughter of the judicially murdered Edmund SHEEHY, and after the first illusions of love had vanished, he used to employ his muscular arm in administering correction to that poor lady, and during the infliction of the punishment would painfully remind her that she was the daughter of a convicted rebel. As his small estate at Knockbrit gave him a few hundreds per year, like a spirited Irish gentleman. More on the delightful Mr. Power and the April, 1807 murder of a Lonergan boy at the addy above. Really interesting. Janet