Clodagh Finn: The Kerry aristocrats who deserve a series on Netflix

The earl's tenants on his north Kerry estate were eking out a miserable living to pay rents that did not even come close to funding his extravagant lifestyle

Francis Thomas Fitzmaurice continued
to entertain at his opulent townhouse
on the Champs Élysées Paris, oblivious
to the revolution that was gathering
pace. Picture: Trust of the Bowood Collection

Fact, they say, is infinitely more enthralling than fiction and here is proof of it in the story of the last earl of Kerry who, from 1789, continued to entertain at his opulent townhouse on the Champs Élysées in Paris, oblivious to the French revolution that was gathering pace all around him.

Francis Fitzmaurice, third earl of Kerry, and his wife, Anastasia Daly, a Catholic divorcee 20 years his senior (a scandal in itself) went on living as they had always done, printing as many as 500 invitations to their lavish soirées and ordering the very best of food.