Christopher Gaisford-St Lawrence, owner of Howth Castle in Ireland and racing enthusiast – obituary

Christopher Gaisford-St Lawrence, who has died aged 93, was a noted figure in the life of Ireland – as the owner of Howth Castle, an estate to the north of Dublin held in unbroken line by his family from 1177, where he lived for three-quarters of a century – and on the turf.

It is said that the family’s Norman founder, Almeric, seized Howth peninsula from the Danes on the feast of St Lawrence, so giving his descendants their name. Centuries later, in 1909 the last male-line St Lawrence, the childless 4th Earl (and 18th Baron) of Howth, left the estate to his nephew, Julian Gaisford, who adopted the name. Gaisford was a Catholic, his father having been converted by John Henry Newman.

Sited on the peninsula at the north-eastern end of Dublin Bay, the seat of the St Lawrences has a place also at the start of Finnegans Wake: “riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs”. These directions to Howth were printed on every Irish 10 Punt note.

Christopher Gaisford-St Lawrence inherited the estate in 1955 from his uncle. It was still being run on largely pre-war lines, though the number of gardeners had been cut back to around a dozen. He put his energies into bringing the farming practices up to date and eliminating unnecessary costs. The number of gardeners fell further. To make ends meet, however, it was still necessary to sell a few acres of land for housing every year.

In 1973 he decided to try something new and opened a nine-hole golf course on part of the farm. Buying a bar licence was very expensive, so he went for a cheaper option and built the Deer Park Hotel, with 22 economy bedrooms. The course was the first public pay-and-play course in the Republic and an instant success, making golf available to a whole section of the population who had had no opportunity to play the game before. 

He devoted the next two decades to expanding the facility, ending up with two full 18-hole courses; a 12-hole par three course, and 18 long holes of pitch and putt. The hotel was upgraded and expanded, but it was the golf that made the money: in 1992 more than 190,000 tickets to play golf were sold.

A cavalry officer before inheriting Howth, Gaisford-St Lawrence’s own main sporting interests lay in the horse world, in riding, foxhunting and eventing in his young days, and later in racing. For 12 years, he was deputy senior steward of the Turf Club, Ireland’s then regulatory body for horse racing. Of the 58 racehorses he owned, 28 were winners in 50 races. 

The best of them were Place d’Etoile, winner of the Pretty Polly Stakes, Curragh, 1970, and, better still, Sweet Farewell, winner of the Sun Chariot Stakes, Newmarket, 1974, both trained by Sir Hugh Nugent. A well-worn video clip of Sweet Farewell racing to victory in the Sun Chariot Stakes became a staple feature of New Year celebrations at Howth, after a dinner of roast grouse, a game of poker, and much laughter as Gaisford-St Lawrence regaled the company with absurd incidents from his past.

Christopher Stephen Gaisford-St Lawrence was born at Ascot, Berkshire, on June 12 1930, the second of three children and elder son of Stephen Gaisford-St Lawrence, a naval officer, and his wife Mary Clare, a daughter of Lt-Col Edward Mostyn. Christopher grew up at Eversley, Hampshire, with an annual summer holiday at Howth, then owned by his bachelor uncle Tom. He was always treated as his uncle’s heir.

All the family and staff at Howth were Catholic. The parish priest came to say early mass in the chapel on Wednesdays. In September 1939, Christopher was standing in the hall of the castle when he heard Chamberlain announce war with Germany on the wireless. 

He returned to England and to Ladycross prep school, from where in 1943 he progressed to Ampleforth. A boy who lived for his ponies and dogs, at Ampleforth he and a friend in his house kept ferrets, putting them to good use to supplement the wartime diet. The quantities of rabbits they caught and prepared for the cook were sometimes enough to provide lunch for the whole house.

In 1948, after retirement from the Admiralty, Christopher’s father moved his family to a wing of Howth. Christopher left school for Sandhurst, and received a commission in the Royal Scots Greys, his uncle Brigadier Cyril Gaisford-St Lawrence’s old regiment. Soldiering took him to Germany (1950-52) and Libya (1952-55), and provided him with a fund of stories to tell, and re-tell, ever after. He was boarding a troop ship home from Libya in early 1955 when heard that his uncle Tom had died, spelling the end of his Army days.

By now a captain, he had been chosen to be ADC to Maj-Gen David Dawnay, who commanded 56th London Armoured Division. Dawnay had picked him for his riding skills, and explained that he must stay in the Army until the end of the point-to-point season in May 1956, which he did gladly.

While living in London, he met debutantes Penny and Flicky Drew, identical twins, glamorous and blonde, who were being noticed in the gossip columns. When he married Penny on February 5 1957, their wedding provided the “good news” item at the end of the ITN television news. 

Four children were born over the next decade, and with the flourishing golf business and horses in training, Gaisford-St Lawrence and his wife settled into a congenial routine of summer race meetings – Epsom and Ascot were firm fixtures, as was Longchamp in October – and winter shooting parties.

The success of the golf courses encouraged competitors: in the 1990s and early 2000s a dozen new courses were built in North Dublin. As golf then declined in popularity, there was overcapacity. The hotel was hit badly by the recession of 2009-10 and closed in 2014. 

The Howth estate was no longer viable, and in 2019 it was sold to Tetrarch Capital, under an agreement which allowed Gaisford-St Lawrence to stay on in part of the castle for 20 years – a period which some feared might not be long enough for a man who, at 89, still liked nothing better than outdoor work, cutting up wood and clearing drains.

Exceptionally for a fit man of his age, he was always a heavy smoker. When past 90, he reflected that while he had probably never smoked more than 80 cigarettes a day, he had seldom smoked less than 200 a week, and he had had barely a day’s ill health. Last year, aged 92, he danced late into the night at the party after a grandson’s wedding. When he returned to his hotel, he found himself locked out, and so climbed in through a window.

He died in the night at Howth, suddenly and unexpectedly, having spent much of the day trying to clear a blocked drain, and to finish a fiendishly difficult jigsaw puzzle. There were 14 fresh cigarette butts in an ashtray by the side of the puzzle.

With his wife Penny (Penelope), daughter of Major Arnold Drew, he had two sons and two daughters. Following her death in 2010, he married, secondly, in 2011, Meryl Long, née Guinness, who survives him.

Christopher Gaisford-St Lawrence, born June 12 1930, died October 29 2023