When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Up for sale "American Poet" Grace Denio Litchfield Hand Signed Monogram Page Dated 1904.
composer. Born William Chichester, he changed his surname to O'Neill in
1855. The eldest son of Reverend Edward Chichester, he was a member of the
prominent Irish Chichester family headed by the Marquess of Donegall. He
was the great-great-great-grandson of John Chichester, grandson of Edward
Chichester, 1st Viscount Chichester, and younger brother of Arthur
Chichester, 2nd Earl of Donegall. O'Neill was educated at Foyle College, Derry, Shrewsbury School and Trinity College, Dublin,
and was ordained in 1837. He was a prominent church organist and
composer of church music, glees and songs. When the Belfast
Hospital for Sick Children was opened in 1878, Reverend O'Neill
was appointed as the first president of the Medical Board. A marble dedication
was installed in the hospitals surgical ward honouring him. This was a role he
fulfilled with keen interest up until his death, at which time his son Robert
Torrens took over the responsibility.
In 1855 he succeeded to the substantial O'Neill estates on the death of
his relative John O'Neill, 3rd Viscount
O'Neill (on whose death the viscountcy became extinct) and
assumed by Royal licence the surname of O'Neill in lieu of Chichester the same
year. In 1868 the O'Neill title was revived when he was raised to the peerage
as Baron O'Neill, of Shane's Castle in the County Antrim.
Lord O'Neill married, firstly, Henrietta, daughter of Robert Torrens, judge of
the Court of Common Pleas
(Ireland), and his wife Anne in 1839. After her death in 1857 he
married, secondly, Elizabeth Grace, daughter of the Venerable in 1858; she was Henrietta's first cousin. His third
son from his first marriage, Robert Torrens O'Neill, represented Antrim Mid in
Parliament for many years. He died in April 1883, aged 70, and was succeeded in
the barony by his eldest son from his first marriage, Edward. Two of
Lord O'Neill's descendants gained particular distinction. His grandson Robert William Hugh O'Neill was Speaker of the Northern Ireland House of
Commons and created Baron Rathcavan in 1953 while his Minister of Northern
Ireland and given a life peerage as Baron O'Neill of the Maine
in 1970. Elizabeth Grace, Lady O'Neill, died in 1905.
