The youngest, Patrick, now Earl of Desmond, was two years younger than his sister, and will make our acquaintance as a lad fresh from Eton.
In these days money was not plentiful with the Desmonds.

Not but that their estates were as wide almost as their renown, and that the Desmonds were still great people in the country's estimation.

Desmond Court stood in a bleak, unadorned region, almost among the mountains, half way between Kanturk and Maccoom, and the family had some claim to possession of the land for miles around.

The earl of the day was still the head landlord of a huge district extending over the whole barony of Desmond, and half the adjacent baronies of Muskerry and Duhallow; but the head landlord's rent in many cases hardly amounted to sixpence an acre, and even those sixpences did not always find their way into the earl's pocket.

When the late earl had attained his sceptre, he might probably have been entitled to spend some ten thousand a year; but when he died, and during the years just previous to that, he had hardly been entitled to spend anything.
But, nevertheless, the Desmonds were great people, and owned a great name.