Page 99 - GAHS Journal Volume 9

GREYSTONES ARCHAEOLOGICAL & HISTORICAL SOCIETY JOURNAL VOLUME 9

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pupil at The French School in Sidmonton Place, a largely
Protestant school for young ladies. The names on the cast lists,
and the photographs, for school productions of Shakespeare tell
their own story: Mecredy, Odlum, Jameson, D’Olier, Acton,
Archer, Dowse, Jeffcott, many the daughters of well-known
merchants and figures in the political life of Dublin. The school
was one of the better ones of its type then: it certainly enabled
Averil and her schoolfriend Nina Joyce Moore to get straight into
Trinity College Dublin. Others, such as Judge Morphy’s
daughters, Enid Noel and Edith Armorel of Churchview,
Greystones, had to ‘top up’ their education by prior attendance
at Alexandra College.

The French School’s very longstanding, and fearsomely able
head, Caroline Reilly, saw the school through an unequalled
period of social change and was not regarded as an overt radical.
But it inculcated a particular ethos, which went beyond the usual
middle-class expectations of a suitable husband.

Following a familiar practice, Averil’s twin brother William
Berenger Statter Deverell was sent off to boarding school -
Portora Royal School, Enniskillen - a pattern of separation that
was to continue throughout their lives, mainly due to William’s
subsequent military career. The list of Portora past pupils
included Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett, Richard James
Mecredy, the sons of Judge Morphy, and members of the Figgis
and Featherstonhaugh families, as well as the twins’ cousin
Colville Montgomery Deverell.

In 1910, shortly before Averil and William became
undergraduates at Trinity, the Deverells bought Ellesmere from
the Furlongs and moved into the house that was to remain the

6 This school closed in 1960 - for further information see The French School,
Jennifer Flegg 2004. Rahan was burnt down in 1983.
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