Lord Henry Mount Charles was a visionary with a generosity, charisma and resilience that endeared him to admirers across the generations

"It wasn't an easy ride," Henry Mount Charles told the RTE documentary of his life broadcast last Christmas. "I've had good times, I've had bad times, I got to know the dark side of myself, I battled with my demons - on occasions my demons won. But the show went on, and the rest, as they say, is rock and roll history."

On Thursday morning, the Conyngham family announced the peaceful death of the Marquess Conyngham in the late hours of Wednesday 18th June "following a long and valiant battle with cancer".

"A beloved husband, father, grandfather, and custodian of Slane Castle, Lord Henry’s courage, and unwavering spirit inspired all who knew him," they stated.

"Lord Henry (74) leaves behind an extraordinary legacy as a passionate steward of Ireland’s heritage, dedicating his life to preserving Slane Castle and transforming it into a beacon of culture, music, and community. His visionary leadership and generosity touched countless lives, while his warmth, humour, and resilience endeared him to friends, colleagues, and admirers across generations."

The castle estate on the banks of the Boyne had become an iconic rock venue since Thin Lizzy first performed there in 1981, and became internationally known when the 1999 Robbie Williams concert was broadcast to the world by Sky TV. Little did the 25-year-old Henry Conyngham know, when he had to make an abrupt return from his publishing job in London in 1976 to run the family estate in Slane, that he would be playing host to the biggest names in world music on the banks of the Boyne over 40 years.

It was this success at creating a ‘Slane Castle’ brand that led the Conynghams to develop Slane Irish Whiskey, which saw Brown Forman, producers of Jack Daniels, join them in a $50 million investment in the project.

However, at the same time that everything was falling into place on the whiskey project, Lord Henry was fighting a health battle, and was quite public about his lung cancer diagnosis.

At the opening of the distillery at the castle in 2016, he said the project brought together the heritage of the family at Slane since 1703, and “all the crazy things” they had been doing at the castle since Thin Lizzy and ‘Whiskey in the Jar’ in 1981.

In 1976, Henry Conyngham was working, very successfully, in London, with the publishing house Faber, three years after graduating from Harvard University, when he got a phone call from his father, Frederick, saying that due to tax impositions, he was going to have to leave Slane, and it would have to be sold or Henry would have to come home. A method of transfer was devised by which Henry would be able to take control of the estate, but it meant that his father would have to leave Ireland and become a tax exile, moving to the Isle of Man. His parents had divorced many years earlier, and his mother, Eileen, who died in December 2016, was living at Galtrim, Dunsany. In 1970, she had been the subject of a ‘siege’ at the castle when a dozen men attempted a takeover of the building in a row over fisheries rights on the Boyne.

Henry and his then wife, Juliet Kitson, an American, arrived from London with son, Alexander. Daughter Henrietta was to arrive later in the year, and the first initiative at the castle was a restaurant, opened in December 1976.

Slane was also used as a film location, playing host to Sean Connery, Lesley Anne Down and Donald Sutherland, and even a scene from ‘The Riordans’. It wasn’t an easy time to run an Anglo-Irish estate in Ireland; the Troubles in Northern Ireland, just up the road from Slane, were in full swing. Being asset rich but cash poor didn’t help. Some family heirlooms were auctioned at Sothebys, for whom Henry was doing some work in the fine arts department. A large estate in Kent, England, was disposed of by the family trust.

An enduring relationship began in the spring of 1981, when concert promoter Eamonn McCann, one half of MCD Concerts with Denis Desmond, arrived with a proposal to stage a rock concert in the natural amphitheatre that is the immediate surrounds of the castle.

In his autobiography ‘Public Life – Private Space’ published in 1987, Henry Mount Charles wrote: “Eamonn and Denis had assembled a perfect bill to christen the site: Thin Lizzy, an up-and-coming young Irish band called U2, and Hazel O’Connor, then riding on the wave of the film called 'Breaking Glass’.”

Some 18,000 people attended that first concert on 16th August 1981, an apprehensive time as the Hunger Strikes were taking place at the time, and Anglo-Irish estates were being targeted.

But it was successful, and was followed in the early years by the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Queen, David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, Guns n’Roses, Neil Young, The Verve, Robbie Williams, and into the noughties with return visits from U2 and the Stones, as well as Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Stereophonics, Madonna, Oasis, Bon Jovi, Kings of Leon and Foo Fighters, and most recently, Harry Styles in 2023.

Crowds reached 80,000 at the best-selling gigs on Henry’s lawn. The Dylan concert in 1984 was marred by riots in the village, but over the years, as success grew, the organisation and security improved.

1981 also saw the opening of a night club at the castle, which was to be a popular entertainment venue through that decade.

In 1984, U2 recorded their ‘Unforgettable Fire’ album at Slane Castle; Henry is listed as ‘crew’. But in 1991 came his ‘annus horribilis’ when the castle was destroyed by a real fire. Luckily, the family was staying at Beauparc House that night, which he inherited from relative Sir Oliver Lambert, and escaped the horrors. Their bedrooms were engulfed. Many priceless antique and art pieces were destroyed, and it took a decade of concert income to refurbish the pile, from Guns N’Roses in 1992, to the double U2 concerts of 2001.

The crash of the Lloyds insurance company around the same time, of which he was an underwriter, caused further financial strain. The shocking murder of gamekeeper, Timothy Kidman, by poachers on the estate in 1989, also brought great sadness to the family. The gamekeeper was living in the wing house at Beauparc House at the time. There were also drownings at some of the concerts, as fans tried to swim across the Boyne to the venue.

The Slane peer dabbled in politics, and in 1982 joined the Fine Gael party, to which he was attracted by Garret Fitzgerald’s Constitutional Crusade. He unsuccessfully sought a European Parliament election nomination in 1984. By 1985, he had become disillusioned with the political establishment, and in an effort to flush out Dessie O’Malley, who was reported to be considering forming a new party, proposed a new party called New Departure. It didn’t happen, and O’Malley didn’t welcome him into the Progressive Democrats, and by 1992 he was back in Fine Gael. He ran in the general election that year, polling 4,161 votes in the Louth constituency.

Henry became known as Lord Oddsocks after appearing on the Late Late Show wearing sock that didn’t match, which he often did for luck. After three children with Juliet – Alexander, Henrietta and Wolfe, the couple divorced in 1985, and while on a trip to France as a guest of Moet and Chandon, Henry met Lady Iona Grimston, an English girl who worked for the champagne company. He was besotted, sought her out after his return home, and she became his second wife, and mother of Tamara.

In March 2009, Henry Mount Charles became the eighth Marquess Conyngham on the death of his father, Frederick, and under the peerage title system, his son, Alex, assumed the title Earl of Mountcharles. A former employee of Irish Distillers in Australia, Alex has spearheaded the whiskey distillery project with his father, and Frederick even had an input into the original whiskey blend.

At the launch of Slane Irish Whiskey in Dublin in May 2017, Henry said he wanted to create something that would survive long after he was gone. The launch was an emotional time for the family, as he was battling ill-health at the time. “For so many years, we have been on the threshold of a dream, and now this is the dream come true," he said.

His maternal grandfather, Captain ‘Kong’ Newsam, founded Navan Carpets, and Henry told his late mother, Eileen, that ‘Slane Whiskey is my Navan Carpets’.

“She got a great kick out of that!”

In all of his endeavours, Lord Henry was supported by long-time secretary and PA, Emer Mooney.

In the RTE documentary, ‘Henry Mount Charles: A Lord in Slane’ by Dearg Films, he spoke of his alcoholism problems following the trauma of the Dylan riots, the Kidman murder and the castle fire, and how his friend, Adam Clayton of U2 helped his through this period by getting him the help he needed.

Henry's lung cancer was diagnosed in 2014, and in 2017, he was near death at one stage. But he held his own, and after chemotherapy and radiation, was on a new cancer drug, which extended his life for many years, to which he was always grateful to his consultant.

The Covid-19 pandemic saw a hiatus in concerts at Slane, but they came back with a bang with Harry Styles two years ago, opening up Slane to a new generation of both fans, as the eighth Marquess Conyngham was also happy to hand the baton on to a new generation.