Jenico Preston, 17th Viscount Gormanston

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Jenico Nicholas Dudley Preston, 17th Viscount Gormanston (born 19 November 1939), is the only son of Jenico William Preston, 16th Viscount Gormanston (1914-1940) and Pamela Hanly, daughter of Captain Edward Hanly and Lady Marjorie Feilding. A Roman Catholic Anglo-Irish aristocrat, he is the Premier Viscount of Ireland. Like his forebears, Lord Gormanston attended the Benedictine academy of Downside School. His Great-grandfather was Sir William Francis Butler of Bansha Castle, County Tipperary and his Great-grandmother was the celebrated Victorian artist, Elizabeth Thompson aka Lady Elizabeth Butler.

He succeeded to the title before his first birthday, when his father died in action at Dunkirk during the Battle of France, 1940. He is a connoisseur of art and lives in Kensington, London. His ancestral seat is Gormanston Castle in County Meath, Ireland, though it is no longer in the family's possession. The castle is fully maintained by the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor (OFM) who bought it circa 1950. Since a boarding school for boys, and a co-educational day school, Gormanston College was established in the adjacent grounds.


[edit] Personal life

He has been married twice:


Peerage of Ireland
Preceded by
Jenico Preston
Viscount Gormanston Succeeded by
Current incumbent
Order of precedence
Preceded by
The Rt. Hon. Viscount Hood
United Kingdom Order of Precedence
(gentlemen)
Succeeded by
The Rt. Hon. Viscount Mountgarret