Re: Crofton Memoirs 1911
Don't know if it would matter to her but the current Lord Crofton still visits the locality fairly regularly. The estate is still there, minus the house. The last Roscommon Croftons (Mote, not Moate, Demesne - about 2 miles from Roscommon Town) only left in the 1940s. The local heritage group are a font of info on the Croftons - some of their relatives were employed as domestics etc so still have first hand accounts of the "big" house, its workings and their employers. Might also be worth getting in contact with the Moate (Co Westmeath) and Ahascragh contingents, particularly the latter, who I believe may have been the more affluent ones and most likely to leave a trail. I wouldn't swear to it, but I'm fairly sure I've seen a photocopied copy of the Crofton Memoirs at one stage. If it is the one I'm thinking of, its relability is not to be counted upon as it was produced as an amateur/family document and some of the group I was with could point to inaccuracies fairly easily.
One of the Lady Croftons (Caroline I think but don't quote me) was a very keen photographer when it was still a novelty (turn of century, I guess). There are lots of her glass negatives in the National Library as well as Roscommon Country Library (uncatalogued) and sometiems pop up in books. She seems to have been a bit of a philantropist and took photos of the "ordinary" locals more than anything else, a subject which doesn't exist much in photographic evidence of the time.
Rebecca