Catherine Wilmot (1773 – 1824) was an Irish

Irish people

The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...

 traveller and diarist.

Life

She was born in Drogheda

Drogheda

Drogheda is an industrial and port town in County Louth on the east coast of Ireland, 56 km north of Dublin. It is the last bridging point on the River Boyne before it enters the Irish Sea....

, County Louth

County Louth

County Louth is a county of Ireland. It is part of the Border Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the town of Louth. Louth County Council is the local authority for the county...

, where her father was the port surveyor. He was transferred to a similar post in County Cork

County Cork

County Cork is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and is also part of the province of Munster. It is named after the city of Cork . Cork County Council is the local authority for the county...

 in 1775, where Catherine was raised. She was connected to John Ryder, archbishop of Tuam.

She was an unmarried woman in her late 20s when she was invited to accompany the party of Lord Mountcashel

Earl Mount Cashell

Earl Mount Cashell, of Cashell in the County of Tipperary, was a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1781 for Stephen Moore, 2nd Viscount Mount Cashell, who had previously represented Lismore in the Irish House of Commons...

 and his wife the former Margaret King

Margaret King

Margaret King was an Irish hostess, writer, traveller, and medical adviser. Despite her wealthy aristocratic background, she had republican sympathies, shaped in part by having been a favoured pupil of Mary Wollstonecraft...

 on a tour of the continent in 1802. The Mount Cashells entertained lavishly, especially during the first nine months in Paris, and through them she met Napoleon Bonaparte, made friends with Angelica Kauffmann

Angelica Kauffmann

Maria Anna Angelika/Angelica Katharina Kauffman was a Swiss-Austrian Neoclassical painter. Kauffman is the preferred spelling of her name; it is the form she herself used most in signing her correspondence, documents and paintings.- Early years :She was born at Chur in Graubünden, Switzerland,...

 and had an audience with the Pope, Pius VII. She then went to Russia to bring home her sister Martha, who was living there as a favourite of Princess Dashkov

Yekaterina Romanovna Vorontsova-Dashkova

Princess Yekaterina Romanovna Vorontsova-Dashkova was the closest female friend of Empress Catherine the Great and a major figure of the Russian Enlightenment...

, and spent two years there.

She settled in France, where she died of tuberculosis in 1824. She never married.

Her diaries were published in 1920 by Thomas Sadleir

Thomas Sadleir

Thomas Ulick Sadleir was an Irish genealogist and heraldic expert. He was successively registrar of the Order of St Patrick, Deputy Ulster King of Arms and Acting Ulster King of Arms....

, and later by H. Montgomery Hyde and the Marchioness of Londonderry.

Works

• An Irish Peer on the Continent, 1801-03 (1920)
• The Russian Journals of Martha and Catherine Wilmot (1934)
• More letters from Martha Wilmot; Vienna 1819-29 (1935).
• The Grand Tours of Katherine Wilmot, France 1801-1803, and Russia 1805-07 (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1992)