Born: Unknown, Ireland
Died: 1881
Country most active: Ireland
Also known as: Margaret Lindsey
This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Linde Lunney. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Porter, Margaret Lavinia (d. 1881), philanthropist, was eldest daughter among three sons and five daughters of Thomas Lindsey, gentleman, of Hollymount, Co. Mayo, and his wife (m. 1784) Lady Margaret, daughter of Charles Bingham, 1st earl of Lucan. In 1816 Margaret Lindsey married the Rev. John Grey Porter (1789–1871), rector (1814–71) of Kilskeery, Co. Monaghan, and rector of Donaghmoyne; he was son of John Porter, bishop of Clogher. The family was very wealthy; John Grey Porter contributed largely to the funds of the Church of Ireland, giving at various times a church, glebe house, and schoolhouse to local parishes, and also £5,000 to endow the see of Clogher, £1,575 to endow his own parish, and smaller amounts annually to three other parishes.
On a visit to Italy soon after her marriage, Margaret Grey Porter bought samples of Italian appliqué work, and on their return to Monaghan, she and her maid, Ann(e) Steadman, worked out how to achieve the same effect by applying cambric or organdie cut-outs to a net background with tiny decorative stitching. The new lace, with its artistic designs, aroused interest, and from about 1820 the two women developed patterns and taught the necessary craft skills to the women and girls around Carrickmacross. It was immediately recognised that the extra income from selling lace was a valuable assistance to poor families; when the Grey Porters left the area, two Misses Reid of Rahans carried on the teaching and a lace school was started in Cullaville, Co. Armagh. In the aftermath of the famine, Tristram Kennedy, then agent to the Bath estate, reorganised and revitalised the industry.
In 1830 John Grey Porter bought the Belleville estate in Co. Fermanagh, for £68,000; the Belmore lands in Fermanagh, Tyrone, and Longford were acquired for a further £136,000; and in 1850 he bought and remodelled the superseded Clogher episcopal palace, renamed Clogher Park, where his widow lived until her death in 1881. In the 1870s the family owned over 20,000 acres. There was one son, John Grey Vesey Porter, and six daughters, one of whom married John W. Ellison-Macartney, MP for Tyrone 1874–85.