{"id":3228,"date":"2016-06-20T20:43:16","date_gmt":"2016-06-20T20:43:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.internationaldiplomat.com\/?p=3228"},"modified":"2016-06-20T20:43:16","modified_gmt":"2016-06-20T20:43:16","slug":"irish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/12h71.com\/?p=3228","title":{"rendered":"Irish Courtesan: Margaret Leeson (1727-1797)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Born to a wealthy landed family in Killough, Co. Westmeath, her birth name was Peg Plunkett, one of her mother\u2019s twenty-two children. Because of her mother\u2019s death and to escape an abusive brother she went to Dublin. She was abandoned by several lovers before turning to prostitution.
\nShe became pregnant as a teenager and was kept by the child\u2019s father until the child died. At this point she lost everything and took to being unmarried and relying on the support of men. She adopted the name Leeson to gain some respectability after several liaisons with a Dublin merchant. She never revealed his identity but he is thought to have been Joseph Leeson, 2nd Earl of Milltown.\u00a0 She is known to have had other children.
\nProfile of an Irish Courtesan<\/strong>
\nReputed as the best known brothel-keeper of eighteenth century Georgian Dublin, she accommodated some of the most celebrated and titled gentry winning the seal of social approval when the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 4th<\/sup> Duke of Rutland, became a client. She refused service to the Earl of Westmorland because he treated his second wife \u2018shabbily\u2019 and insulted the Prince Regent twice while visiting London. \u00a0Her clients also included lawyers, conmen, journalists, theatre-folk and petty villains.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Her first establishment in Drogheda Street was run in partnership with her friend and courtesan, Sally Hayes, until it was vandalised probably by an unruly gang known as \u2018Pinking Dindies\u2019 from the upper class and others who roamed the city brandishing their swords. She then moved to Wood Street before settling most notoriously in Pitt Street on the site of the present Westbury Hotel. She led a colourful, if rackety, existence as leader of Dublin\u2019s demi-monde accepting 500 guineas from Lord Avemore to discontinue her brief marriage to his gormless son.
\nAfter thirty years she decided to reform but found her collection of IOUs had become worthless and she was incarcerated in a debtor\u2019s prison run by a former client, Captain Mathews, where she tried to commit suicide. To raise cash she decided to write her Memoirs \u201cwritten by herself\u201d documenting her life as a Madam and the vicissitudes of her retirement. She opened the work by noting \u201cI shall now commence with the<\/em> most<\/em> memorable epoch of my unfortunate life \u2026.\u201d<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0 It appeared in three volumes. \u00a0Script on the cover reads \u2026\u201canecdotes, sketches of the lives and bon mots of some of the most celebrated characters<\/em> in Great-Britain and Ireland\u201d.<\/em> The first two volumes sold well but the third appeared posthumously after she died from venereal disease resulting from gang rape on her way home from the Dublin district of Drumcondra.
\nResurfacing for the first time in 200 years, a re-edited and annotated version by scholar-critic, Mary Lyons, embellished with period portraits and engravings, has been published as *Memoirs of Mrs. Leeson, Madam 1727-1797<\/em>. Literary reviews describe her as a character of exuberant energy, determination and self-reliance \u2026 with immense style and gusto \u2026 portraying a vivacious, witty and outspoken woman, a prototype feminist, who gives an astonishingly detailed picture of high and low life on the decadent fringes of Georgian Dublin. There is a contemporary biography about her and in 2014 she was the subject of an Irish radio documentary on Peg Plunkett titled The Scandal of Mrs. Leeson<\/em>.
\nResting Place<\/strong>
\nShe is said to have atoned for her life and had converted to Catholicism. She died aged 70. \u00a0An obituary was published in the Dublin Evening Post on 17 May and she was laid to rest in the city\u2019s ancient Saint James\u2019 Graveyard. Closed to the public for almost thirty years the cemetery is now under rehabilitation through the efforts of a local History Association with the support of other partners.
\nIta Marguet, June 2016<\/strong>
\nNote<\/strong>:\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Acknowledgement is given to sources used in this text. The re-edited *book is published by Dublin, Lilliput Press, 1995 xxiv (290 pp) with bibliography and reference notes. \u00a0Mary Lyons was educated at Alexandra College and Trinity College, Dublin. Founder member of the Library Association of Ireland\u2019s Rare Books Group she was formerly an antiquarian cataloguer and bibliographer in the British Library, and now writes and broadcasts as a literary critic and eighteenth century historian.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Born to a wealthy landed family in Killough, Co. Westmeath, her birth name was Peg Plunkett, one of her mother\u2019s twenty-two children. Because of her mother\u2019s death and to escape an abusive brother she went to Dublin. She was abandoned by several lovers before turning to prostitution. She became pregnant as a teenager and was
+ Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[539,549],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-itas-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/12h71.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/12h71.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/12h71.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/12h71.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/12h71.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/12h71.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3228\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/12h71.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/12h71.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/12h71.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}