John McConnell and Margaret Neill had 5 children: three daughters, Elizabeth (who later changed her name to Eilis), Memi and Mabel; and two sons, Dunville and Villiers. Elizabeth and Memi spent much of their adult lives in Canada, while the boys lived mostly in the USA. The youngest daughter Mabel developed strong Irish connections, which however may have offended her father.

Mabel Washington McConnell was born on 4 July 1884, hence her middle name, and like her sisters attended Victoria College (the boys almost certainly attended Inst) and graduated from Queens with a BA in 1906. She and her friends (and sister Eilis) became nationalists and Irish language enthusiasts, and she was a committee member of the Gaelic League. She was also a socialist and supporter of the suffragettes. (The University area was a centre for suffragists, and many of their meetings were held in a house at the other end of College Green. James Craig's wife was chairman of a local suffragist branch.)

After graduating she took a shorthand and typing course and briefly was secretary to the President (ie Vice Chancellor) of Queen's University, but moved to London in 1908 to take a postgraduate teaching certificate. In 1909 she was a temporary secretary to George Bernard Shaw for several months, and in March 1911 she did secretarial work for George Moore. In London in 1910 she met Desmond FitzGerald (1888-1947), who was to become her husband.

Desmond FitzGerald was a Londoner. His father, Patrick FitzGerald, had emigrated from a small farm near Mitchelstown, Co Cork, to become a stonemason, and later a builder, in England. His mother, Mary Anne Scollard (1847-1927) from Castleisland, Co Kerry, was a seamstress and met Patrick in London; they married in 1870 and had six children, of whom Desmond (actually christened Thomas Joseph) was the youngest.

Tommy, or Desmond as he had become, had literary interests from a young age. Despite the offer of his brother William (editor of the Wide World magazine) to send him to university, he became a clerk. By 1908 he was part of a London literary group (the Tour Eiffel group) with TE Hulme, Edward Strorer, FS Flint, Florence Farr, Joseph Campbell and others. These were the English Imagists, to whom Ezra Pound was introduced by FitzGerald and Farr in 1908. He also attended the Irish Literary Society, studied Irish in classes run by the Gaelic League and was secretary to the Irish Texts Society, Some of his poems were published in 1917-18 in the New Age, and a collection, La Vie Quotidienne, was privately printed in France in 1925.
When Mabel discovered she was pregnant, she eloped with Desmond in May 1911, moving to St Jean du Doigt in Brittany where their first son was born and Desmond wrote. [It is not clear whether she eloped from College green House or from the family's summer house in Donaghadee, but given the time of year it seems likely she was in Belfast). In April 1913 they moved to West Kerry where Desmond, along with Ernest Blythe and The O'Rahilly, became leaders of the Irish Volunteers in Dingle. The McConnells' dismay at Mabel's unsuitable marriage to a London Irish Catholic (not to mention the premarital pregnancy) seems to have been replaced by a pragmatic acceptance: Mabel and Desmond spent Christmas 1913 in College Green House (and had tea with James Connolly after a Republican meeting). In 1914, FitzGerald organized and drilled the Irish Volunteers in Kerry. Their second son as born in Ventry, Dingle, in March 1914.

At the outbreak of the First World War, when Dunville and probably also Villiers were fighting with the British Army, Mabel wrote to George Bernard Shaw in December 1914, trying to get him to support the nationalist movement:

I should be prepared to stake a good deal on the statement that the majority of Ireland outside of Ulster is pro-German in this war. For sentimental reasons, hatred of England and love of a brave fighter, she is necessarily on Germany's side, and of course for the common sense reason that Germany holds the potentiality of nationhood for us; since the war started Ireland has put aside the shabby little dream of paper freedom that was all Redmond could get from England and has seen a larger vision.

Mabel kept hens, which (for some obscure reason) she fed at night-time, by the light of a lantern. Not surprisingly, the British thought she was signalling to the Germans and the FitzGeralds were forbidden to live near a port, so they moved to Bray, Co Wicklow (not considered a port). In the summer of 1915 Desmond was imprisoned for seditious speech, leaving prison just before the 1916 Rising. Both Desmond and Mabel volunteered at the GPO in Easter 1916, but Pearse sent Mabel home, unwilling to take both parents of young children. Desmond, as adjutant to The O'Rahilly, was in charge of the food supplies, and of evacuating the wounded on surrender. To his surprise he was not arrested (his English accent was always a help), and escaped home to Bray; he was arrested subsequently and given a life-sentence, commuted to 20 years. He was released in mid 1917, then re-arrested in May 1918 and spent another year in Gloucester Gaol.

Mabel orchestrated Desmond's election campaign for the December 1918 Westminster election on the slogan, 'Put Him In To Get Him Out." He was duly elected, but refused to take his seat and joined the first Dail. He became Substitute Director of Publicity for the Dail, publishing a regular Bulletin to counter British propaganda, and making contact with foreign and British journalists through his poet friend Flint. Ezra Pound was fascinated by the re-emergence of the young poet he had known a decade earlier as a revolutionary, as can be seen in his Cantos (Canto VII). The FitzGerald's third son was born in 1920. Desmond was arrested again on 11 February 1921, but released in July and as Director of Publicity attended the London Treaty negotiations at the end of 1921. He actually brought the text of the treaty back to Dublin with one of the negotiators.
In January 1922 when attending the Celtic Race Conference in Paris as Minister for Publicity outside the Cabinet, Desmond called on James Joyce and suggested to him that his name be put forward for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Joyce later hinted at this in a part of Finnegans Wake which appeared in the periodical Transition.

Desmond favoured the Treaty and was appointed Minister for External Affairs in W T Cosgrave's Cabinet in September 1922. Mabel's sympathies, however, were with the Republicans. This was a painful conflict (their 8-year-old son talked of dinner tables at which the children asked their father to "pass the salt, traitor!"). In 1924 he became Minister for Defence. After the murder of Kevin O'Higgins, Mabel's position shifted and they reconciled. At 41, Mabel was very keen to have a last child, a daughter, as a symbol of their reconciliation. In 1926 their fourth son, Garret, was born. Mabel went abroad to recuperate her health (and recover from the disappointment), and the baby was sent to her sister Memi in Bangor for several months.
On the death of John McConnell in 1928 they were able to buy a large house near Bray in which they entertained, among others, WB Yeats and TS Eliot. From 1931, Desmond was in opposition, at which time his philosophical Catholicism opened up not only journalism activities but also lecturing as a Visiting Professor of Scholastic Philosophy at Notre Dame University, Indiana. He lost his Dail seat in 1937, but was elected to the Senate in 1938 until 1943. He died of a heart attack in 1947. Mabel lived on until 1958.

Their youngest son, Garret, became an economist, and went into politics, becoming Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland. His mother's and grandparents' connections with Presbyterian Belfast were an influence on his politics and although he was to sign the Anglo-Irish Treaty so strongly opposed by the Ulster Unionists, he did so in a genuine belief that it offered a chance for peace in Northern Ireland. Although he never lived in College Green House, he is aware of its connections to his family and through his niece Jennifer, who then lived in Belfast, he provided the splendid photograph of the house at the turn of the century which has been a key source for the restoration of the building. He thinks he visited College Green at the age of two months (but admits he has no recollection of the fact) and called at one of the flats on a visit to Belfast in 1945, but otherwise did not see it for sixty years till its restration was complete.

Although his photographs show a very solid citizen, John McConnell seems to have kept in touch with his scattered and temperamental children. Perhaps he was not without a more flamboyant side himself: in 1927, at the age of 82, he flew from London to Paris and back 48 hours later. Family history recounts that when he initially presented himself at London's Croydon airport, he was refused because he was in his pyjamas, and that he was going to Paris to visit a mistress.

John McConnell died on 10 March 1928. His will did not leave money directly to his children, but put it in trust - till after their deaths. As Dr FitzGerald points out, it is hard to know why he thought his grandchildren would be any more worthy of his benevolence.

James Craig, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, who knew McConnell quite well through the family whiskey business, sent his condolences to his widow. It is quite possible that Craig would have visited College Green House. From September 1921 until Stormont was built, Northern Ireland's Parliament met in the Presbyterian College overlooked by College Green House. Although we have no firm evidence to support the supposition, it seems very likely that at the end of the day's business Craig may well have called on his friend McConnell. It is tempting to speculate that the Minister for External Affairs of the Irish Free State and the Northern Ireland Prime Minister may even have taken tea under the same roof, albeit perhaps on different days!

What is certain however, is that it is a house that has embraced a wide spectrum of Irish politics under its roof.

We are indebted to Jennifer FitzGerald and Pauline Ginnetty for their generosity in making this history available.