Page 102 - GAHS Journal Volume 9

A QUIET WOMAN?

Audrey Warnock (nee Moore) was the rector’s daughter who
lived next door to the Deverell twins in Greystones for some
years as a child in the 1940s and 50s. She remembers the
elderly Morphy sisters, but her only recollection of Churchview
was watching the coronation on their television - she says she
was very bored!

There are signatures and contributions in Averil’s photograph
album, autograph book, and extensive scrapbook that are
redolent with Greystones names such as the Morphy sisters, the
Mecredys, and the Bewleys. Many are entangled by the habit of
marrying those from the immediate social and family circle: Tobin
to Jameson with links to Blood and Featherstonhaugh, Cherry to
Mecredy with links to Ross, the maze is seemingly endlessly
looped.

Childhood and early adolescence appears to have been
typical of her class and era, but much of the evidence points to
a family who enjoyed having fun. In April 1909, for example,
there were competitive games at Craan, Whitshed Road, the
home of Dublin stockbroker Richard Manifold and uncle of Alfred
and Frederick, who were Bank of Ireland officers and would have
known Averil’s paternal uncle George Robert who was by then
Assistant Secretary. A faded scrap of paper shows her fellow
players included Jessie and Charles Manifold, Neville Johnston
Figgis, and Frederick Gibson Heuston.

Greystones Golf Club featured prominently too, its history
littered with names that resonate throughout Averil’s professional
and social life. The twins and their father regularly played
competitive golf with members of all the previously mentioned
families: George Newcomen Morphy waxed particularly lyrical
about his passion for golf. His father Judge Morphy was a
7

7 See 1906 Echoes from Kottabos, written as a Trinity undergraduate.
98