hall in 1650 or 1651 after which his surviving family were evicted, allowed only to retain a third of their original estates in County Wexford. The Loftus family were English 'planters' who had owned land in the area from around 1590 when Sir Dudley Loftus was granted the lands around Kilcloggan. Nicholas Loftus acquired the manor of Fethard-on-Sea in 1634 and Fethard Castle became the family residence, that was afterwards occupied by the Redmond family after they were evicted from the house which is now Loftus Hall. After the end of Cromwell's campaign, Nicholas Loftus was given extensive lands in the south of County Wexford and purchased the hall from 'several Adventurers and soldiers', but it was only in 1666 when his son Henry moved to the hall from Dungulph that it became the principal residence of the Loftus family. To establish the new name of his property, he had the following inscription inscribed in stone on the entrance piers at Portersgate: 'Henry Loftus of Loftus Hall Esq. 1680'. Nonetheless, the old name remained in use till the end of the century. In 1684, Henry Loftus carried out extensive repairs to Loftus Hall, which needed repairing after the turbulent events of the previous decades. The Loftus family rose in the peerage over the following centuries. In 1800, the then owner of the hall, Charles Loftus, Baron Loftus, was created Marquess of Ely. It was his descendant, John Loftus, 4th Marquess of Ely, who between 1872 and 1884, refurbished the old hall, and used the existing structure, resulting in the present house. The Redmond family had disputed the claim of the Loftus family in court but without success. In 1684, they were compensated with lands in the Barony of Ballaghkeene in the north of County Wexford. Some of their descendants joined the movement of the Wild Geese and served in a number of foreign armies, most notably that of France. Others were involved in banking and politics, and became a local political dynasty in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in support of the Irish Party of Isaac Butt and Charles Stuart Parnell. The most notable of these was John Redmond who led the party till his death in 1918. Later developments Between 1872 and 1884, John Henry Wellington Graham Loftus, 4th Marquess of Ely (1849-1889), under the guidance of his mother Lady Jane Hope Vere Loftus (Lady in Waiting to Queen