Randal John Somerled McDonnell, 8th Earl of Antrim KBE (1911–1977) was a diplomat, activist, soldier and administrator. He became chairman of the National Trust in 1965.[1]
Life
editHe was the son of Randal Mark Kerr McDonnell, 7th Earl of Antrim, and his wife, Margaret Isabel Talbot, daughter of John Gilbert Talbot. He was educated at Eton College and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he was a friend of Evelyn Waugh, and left without taking a degree. He succeeded his father in 1932.[1] In 1937 Antrim visited Valencia, during the Spanish Civil War, with Cyril Connolly.[2]
During the Second World War Antrim was a Royal Navy officer, with the rank of Lieutenant-Commander. With the Special Operations Executive and Peter Fleming he served in various theatres of war.[3][4][5]
In 1965, Antrim and eleven other Irish peers presented a petition to the House of Lords arguing that the law still provided for Irish representative peers to represent Ireland. Henry Moore, 10th Earl of Drogheda, had continued to sit as one until 1954, long after the creation of the Irish Free State, and it was simply a question of providing a new mechanism for the elections. However, the Lords rejected the petition.[6]
Antrim was Chairman of the National Trust from 1965 to 1977.[7]
Family
editAntrim married the artist Angela Sykes in 1934: she was the daughter of Sir Tatton Benvenuto Mark Sykes, 6th Baronet, and sister of Christopher Sykes. They lived at Glenarm Castle.[8]
They had three sons, one of whom died young, and a daughter Lady Christina who married Joseph Hoare, son of Sir Reginald Hervey Hoare. The elder surviving son Alexander succeeded his father as Earl; the younger son was Hector McDonnell the artist.[1][9]
Notes
edit- ^ a b c Winnifrith, John. "McDonnell, Randal John Somerled". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/31389. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ Humphrey Carpenter (7 November 2013). The Brideshead Generation: Evelyn Waugh and His Friends. Faber & Faber. p. 311. ISBN 978-0-571-30928-3.
- ^ Michael Bloch; James Lees-Milne (8 December 2011). Diaries, 1942-1954. Hodder & Stoughton. p. 387 note 23. ISBN 978-1-84854-709-4.
- ^ Thaddeus Holt (11 May 2010). The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War. Simon and Schuster. p. 622. ISBN 978-1-4391-0388-3.
- ^ Tim Jones (8 July 2005). SAS: The First Secret Wars: The Unknown Years of Combat and Counter-Insurgency. I.B.Tauris. p. 77. ISBN 978-1-86064-676-8.
- ^ Turek, Andrew (1991). "The Irish Peerage: A Modest Proposal". The Cambridge Law Journal. 50 (2): 347–353. ISSN 0008-1973.
- ^ James Lees-Milne; Michael Bloch (21 December 2011). Diaries, 1971-1983. Hodder & Stoughton. p. 432. ISBN 978-1-84854-710-0.
- ^ "Angela MacDonnell (1911–1984): Sculptor, The Dictionary of Ulster Biography". Retrieved 18 May 2015.
- ^ McDonnell, Hector; Miller, Sanda (1988). "Interview with Hector McDonnell". The GPA Irish Arts Review Yearbook: 93–99. ISSN 0791-038X.