Armar Lowry-Corry, 5th Earl Belmore (5 May 1870 – 12 February 1948) was an Irish nobleman and the eldest son of

Somerset Lowry-Corry, 4th Earl Belmore Somerset Richard Lowry-Corry, 4th Earl Belmore, (9 April 1835 – 6 April 1913), styled as Viscount Corry from 1841 to 1845, was an Irish nobleman and Conservative politician who served as Governor of New South Wales from 1868 to 1872. Backgro ...

Early years

He was born in

Government House, Sydney The Government House is the heritage-listed vice-regal residence of the governor of New South Wales, Australia, located on Conservatorium Road in the Sydney central business district adjacent to the Royal Botanic Garden, overlooking Sydney H ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

during his father's term as

Governor of New South Wales The governor of New South Wales is the viceregal representative of the Australian monarch, King Charles III, in the state of New South Wales. In an analogous way to the governor-general of Australia at the national level, the governors of the ...

, baptised in Sydney Cathedral and styled Viscount Corry until he succeeded his father in the earldom in 1913.

Education

From 1881 to 1883 Corry attended

Malvern House Preparatory School Malvern House Preparatory School, at Kearsney, Kent, was a preparatory school which specialised in preparing boys for entry to the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth. Notable pupils * Armar Lowry-Corry, 5th Earl Belmore, attended the school from ...

, near

Dover Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...

, then from 1883 to 1887

Winchester College Winchester College is a public school (fee-charging independent day and boarding school) in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It was founded by William of Wykeham in 1382 and has existed in its present location ever since. It is the oldest of the ...

. Before Cambridge he spent a year at the Rev. A. K. Harlock's school in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

, and finally was at

Trinity Hall, Cambridge Trinity Hall (formally The College or Hall of the Holy Trinity in the University of Cambridge) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It is the fifth-oldest surviving college of the university, having been founded in 1350 by ...

from 1888, where he graduated in 1891.''The International Who's Who'' (1911), p. 315 He then trained as a

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and ...

at the

Inner Temple The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as the Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court and is a professional associations for barristers and judges. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wal ...

and was

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

in 1897.

Castle Coole

The 5th Earl gained the rank of captain in the

Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers was an Irish line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 until 1968. The regiment was formed in 1881 by the amalgamation of the 27th (Inniskilling) Regiment of Foot and the 108th Regiment o ...

. He held the offices of High Sheriff of County Fermanagh (1895) and High Sheriff of County Tyrone (1901),

justice of the peace A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...

in County Fermanagh and County Tyrone and a deputy lieutenant of County Fermanagh. He was in charge of the family's ancestral seat, Castle Coole, in County Fermanagh during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, when all country houses in the county were requisitioned by the armed forces because of the strategic importance of the

flying-boat A flying boat is a type of fixed-winged seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in that a flying boat's fuselage is purpose-designed for floatation and contains a hull, while floatplanes rely on fusela ...

base on

Lough Erne Lough Erne ( , ) is the name of two connected lakes in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It is the second-biggest lake system in Northern Ireland and Ulster, and the fourth biggest in Ireland. The lakes are widened sections of the River Erne, ...

. As Mark Bence-Jones explains, "Lord Belmore, an elderly and autocratic bachelor of elephantine build, tried to keep the military out of his own demesne of Castlecoole (sic), but it was discovered that the place was held originally by a Plantation grant which obliged the grantee to help with the defence of the country. So the authorities declared Castlecoole escheated, giving it back to Lord Belmore when the military left. The military did not, however, go into the house, where Lord Belmore lived on undisturbed. Living with Lord Belmore in that palatial classical mansion overlooking a lake inhabited by a flock of greylag geese were his rather sad bachelor brother and his four unmarried sisters, the Ladies Lowry-Corry, with whom he was not on speaking terms. When Lord Belmore first inherited Castlecoole there were eight unmarried sisters living with him there; since then one had married and three had died – one drowned in the lake and, according to legend, turned into a greylag goose. Lord Belmore and his brother and sisters had always occupied the same places in church, strung out in a line according to age; there were gaps where the deceased Ladies Lowry-Corry had been, for when they died the survivors had not closed ranks."Mark Bence-Jones 'Twilight of the Ascendancy' Constable, London 1987

Death

He died on 12 February 1948 aged 77 and was succeeded by his only surviving brother.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Belmore, Armar Lowry-Corry, 5th Earl 1870 births 1948 deaths High Sheriffs of County Fermanagh High Sheriffs of Tyrone People educated at Winchester College Alumni of Trinity Hall, Cambridge Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers officers Members of the Inner Temple Deputy lieutenants of Fermanagh Armar Earls Belmore