Four years ago this month an invitation XI cricket team from Jamnagar, India undertook an Irish tour. The itinerary included a visit to Ballynahinch Castle Co Galway to pay homage to a celebrated former occupant, writes Lorna Siggins
The Connemara castle's Indian connection began in 1924, when Prince Ranjitsinhji commissioned an inspection of the place and decided to rent it for the summer season. Only two years after the 1922 treaty with Britain, violence was still rampant in the area. In 1923, irregulars had set fire to Renvyle House, home of the surgeon, writer and Free State senator Oliver St Gogarty. Lord Killanin's home in Spiddal was also targeted, and many landlords had fled across the water.
"Into this still-seething cauldron, fired by the twin flames of frustrated political aspirations and inbred hatred of all things imperial" plunged an "arch-imperialist" and renowned cricket player, according to his biographer, Anne Chambers. So what had attracted an Indian prince and loyal British subject, born in a remote hamlet in the western Indian province of Kathiawar (now Gujarat), to the west of Ireland? Chambers draws on State and personal papers, personal archives and memories to piece together a fascinating story, which begins when a six-year-old child is "plucked from obscurity" by a childless maharajah and named the heir designate to an Indian state.
She recounts how Ranjitsinhji was sent to England for his education and became a highly accomplished cricketer. He developed a distinctive batting stroke - the leg-glance or glide - which is associated with his name even today. "An easy one for the Black Prince" noted a Punch magazine cartoon in 1899, when he had scored 2,780 runs during that season and looked as if he would make 3,000.
Ranji's claim to his title in Nawanagar in his native India was not quite so effortless, for he had never been formally adopted. But after much political and diplomatic activity, he was inaugurated as Jam Saheb of Nawanagar in 1907.
Ten years later, India was in the midst of political turmoil as the swaraj movement led by the Indian National Congress party began a campaign of serious agitation against British rule and tens of thousands flocked to Gandhi's crusade. It was during Ranji's attempts to stem the demand for self-rule, and his appointment to the League of Nations by Britain, that he first encountered the Irish delegation led by W.T. Cosgrave.
That marked the beginning of his association with Ireland. Chambers describes how he heard about Ballynahinch and how it became his retreat. An expert card player, and man who had also defaulted on his debts in England due to his extravagances, Ranji was reputed to have won the castle in a poker game in a Monte Carlo casino. His decision to establish a home in Ireland has never been fully explained, Chambers says - he certainly didn't come for the weather - but one influential factor was maintenance of a relationship which was to endure for 13 years.
The friendship between Edith Borissow and Ranji dated back to his days as a cricketer in England; there was some talk of them becoming engaged, but it was only talk, for an Anglo-Indian marriage would have been much frowned on. Known locally as "Mrs Williams", Edith travelled to Connemara to spend time with the prince. After his death, she vanished as discreetly as she had arrived.
Ranji's other great passion was angling, Chambers writes. When he first took up residence, the Ballynahinch ghillies and boatmen expected him to be a bit of a clown with a rod. She recounts how he set off on his first outing under the "expert but cynical eye" of Mick Meala, who believed that a salmon was far more intelligent than any human. To Meala's surprise, Ranji hooked a "monstrous" fish on his first cast, and the ghillie began shouting instructions.
"Take him easy, take him easy. . .that's it, your lordship, let him run!" Suddenly, Ranji's line snapped, the fish escaped, and the ghillie looked at him in disgust, and roared: "Ye bloody black bastard, ye lost him!" Pulling on the oars, Meala "dumped" the prince in the boat's stern. It was a measure of Ranji's confidence and sense of humour that he was to recount the story himself on many occasions.
"In my time, I have travelled over most of the world, "Ranji remarked to a reporter much later, shortly before his death in 1933. "But to me, the most beautiful place of all for retirement and rest is my Connemara home in Ballynahinch."
Ranji: Maharajah of Connemara by Anne Chambers (Wolfhound Press, €12.99) is the latest in a series of biographies by the author. Her first subject - Grace O'Malley or Granuaile - also had a close link with Ballynahinch. The 16th century pirate queen married Donal-An-Chogaidh O'Flaherty, Ballynahinch chieftain, and the estate was held in her family until her grandson was dispossessed by Cromwell.
The Granuaile story is currently the focus of a new Discovery channel TV documentary series on five of history's most fearless female warriors, and Chambers has been hired as Irish consultant for the filming on location in Mayo, Galway and Dublin this spring. Grace O'Malley is in good company in Warrior Women. Boadicea and Joan of Arc will also be profiled in the series, which is to be presented by the actress Lucy Lawless.
Granuaile's legacy will also be toasted at the ninth annual Féile Chois Cuain in Louisburgh, Co Mayo, this weekend, when dozens of traditional musicians from here and abroad will participate in concerts, master classes and set-dance workshops. Further information is available from Michael O'Grady, Old Head, Louisburgh at (098) 66276.
The pirate queen may even crop up, in the guise of a question or two, at the National Maritime Quiz in Galway tomorrow at 7 p.m. The quiz is being held to raise funds for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) at the Galway Bay Hotel, Salthill, and prizes include an exotic holiday for four. Entry costs €120 for a table of four. For further information, contact the organisers at (091)520034.