By Niamh Holohan
Kilkenny city and county oozes charisma and magical enchantment. The castle boasts native fairytalesque allure. There are so many global links that trace their heritage back to Ireland.
I was partially raised on the fables and fairytales that Walt Disney reimagined and created. I have had a Disney fever ever since and when I learned from a serendipitous conversation that Walt Disney’s heritage and connections stemmed from his ancestors in Ireland. I was so flabbergasted that I wanted to proclaim it to everyone everywhere. What really gave a cat (myself) her cream was that they were based in Kilkenny for almost two hundred years.
According to the BBC, Disney was a well- known name in Ireland in the 1600s-1800’s- in fact a dean of Armagh Cathedral bore this name. However, this name is etched into Kilkenny history. It originated in France channeling to England and then settling in Ireland. It is of Norman- French extraction and anglicized from ‘d’Isigny’ which literally means ‘from Isigny’ and refers to families who came from the town of Isigny-sur- Mer in Normandy.
Walt Disney’s great Grandfather Arundel Elias Disney was born in Kilkenny in 1801 and he married Maria Swan in 1832. Walt’s grandfather Kepple Disney was born on November 2nd that year. Having married, they set sail from Kilkenny to Ontario in 1834. According to sources they lived comfortably in Ireland known from the earliest records and leased 122 acres of land. In 1792 their abode was large and spacious. Their home was situated in a vastly improved area of Kilkenny.
Walt Disney’s grandfather married an Irish born immigrant Mary Richardson in 1858. Disney’s father Elias was born in Canada in 1859. The family lived nomadically. In 1878 they relocated to Kansas. Elias worked on his father’s farm until 1884 and for a further two decades was situated in Colorado, Denver, Florida and Chicago he settled in Missouri with his wife Flora and five children of which Walter (Walt was born in Chicago Illinois on December 5 1901). Walt Disney and his brother Roy both founded the Walt Disney company in 1923 and along with his other siblings were raised on the tales of the Emerald Isle. His mother would captivate their imaginations reading Irish and Celtic fairy stories to them as children.
In 1925 Walt honeymooned in Ireland with his Bride Lillian Disney. The wealth of Celtic history and fairytales always weaved their way into his storytelling sculpting the magic of his globally acclaimed studio. Both Walt and his wife bought and exchanged the iconic Claddagh rings for one another as a declaration of their love. They wore these for the remainder of their lives allegedly never taking them off. The tradition of folklore transcended to his own children; Diane Disney, Miller and Sharon Mae Disney.
According to a source featured in an article in the Walt Disney Family Museum; In 1946 when Walt was rebuilding his studio following the aftermath of World War II, he compiled a letter to his sibling Ruth that ran; ‘We are starting a picture on the Leprechauns or ‘little people’ so we plan to spend most of our time (in Ireland), gathering background material and learning all we can about Irish Folklore’.
It would take a further fourteen years before this vision materialized. Throughout the 1940’s and 1950’s he visited Dublin numerous times in an effort to research his film Darby O Gill and the Little People and later made more Irish inspired films namely the fighting Prince of Donegal, based on the biography of Red Hugh O’ Donnell. Sean Connery and Jimmy O’ Dea were two of the cast in this classic film Darby O’ Gill and the Little People. Walt and Lillian did visit Ireland for the premier of the film.
In a BBC article the renowned Kilkenny Historian and former tour guide Frank Kavanagh recalls Disney’s trips and said;
‘He always took part in the yacht races down there. But we’re Irish -we don’t make a big deal of these things. We just said ‘ah yeah, we know Mr. Disney he’s a nice guy they came from France forgetting everything in between but the whole family as they are today started out in Kilkenny. They went from being Lords in the 1300s to failed invaders in England through the various tortures that went on becoming Irish immigrants. It’s a story in itself its everything that you’d expect from the Disney family -creative magic’.
Having visited Orlando’s Magic Kingdom and Disneyland Paris the magic of Walt Disney is literally spellbinding. It captivates you and you never ever forget how Disney strived to change the world and preserve the perpetual youth and magic and capture the imaginations of children of every age. Considering his origins are in the Kingdom of the Cats it’s surprising that he created the most iconic mice Minnie and Micky mouse. Well there’s are pair of them in it. But we are the Kilkenny cats and will forever claim the Kilkenny mice that came from the heart of Disney.
Castlecomer woman Niamh Holohan’s educational background is in journalism and the humanities and has long been a lover of writing which is very close to her heart.
