Foxes of Gormanston

On 31 May 2023, that day's emotional episode of EastEnders concluded with a fox walking fearlessly across the road in Albert Square following the death of Lola Pearce-Brown who had weakly suggested that she would like to come back as a fox. The sight of a red fox has many interpretations including in this case, recovery following the death of a loved one. Perhaps this can also be the case with the foxes of Gormanston Castle in the Republic of Ireland where when the Viscount of Gormanston is on his deathbed, an earth of foxes would surround the castle and make noises while keeping vigil of the family and their Viscount's spirit as it plums for flight to the great Gormanston in the sky.

Why do they do this?

This legendary phenomenon goes back many years when a previous Viscount of Gormanstown spared a vixen (female fox) and her babies while out hunting. When that Viscount was on his deathbed, the nearby foxes (sans nursing vixens) came to the castle's doors for their thanksgiving vigil. They continued this tradition every time the Viscount died.

Examples include

1. Lord Fingall was told this story by a local villager at the time of the death of the 12th Viscount of Gormanstown in 1860, "My Lord, you will not find any foxes today, all the foxes have gone to Gormanston to see the old Viscount die." The 12th Viscount died that day surrounded by foxes. For several days, foxes were sighted around the home and approaching it. Three foxes were reported playing and making noise near the house shortly before his death after being discovered crouching in the grass the day after the man died. The foxes strolled through the chickens without ever touching them which is unorthodox for a fox (just ask any chicken farmer). Once the funeral was over, the foxes vanished from the Viscount's
   estate.
2. Upon the death of thirteenth Viscount in 1876, foxes from all across the country flocked to the demesne in pairs. They were seated under his bedroom window all night, howling and barking. The twelfth Viscount appeared to be recovering when the foxes appeared, barking under the window, yet he died unexpectedly that night. It is believed that a swarm of foxes marched across the fields parallel to the cortege transporting his body to the churchyard.
3. Foxes had been sighted around the house and approaching the house for several days before the fourteenth Viscount Gormanston died in 1907. While his son was caring for the earthly remains overnight, he heard a faint disturbance outside the chapel. When he opened the side door, there was a full- grown fox resting on the gravel path and many more wandering silently around within a few yards. According to the gardener and the coachman, a dozen foxes were barking and screaming near the chapel.
   When the fifteenth Viscount died in 1925, foxes surrounded the chapel where he was reposing and refused to leave until daybreak, with all efforts made by Viscount Gormanston's brother rendered futile.
4. The 16th Viscount died in Dunkirk, France during the evacuation of Dunkirk as the Nazis took over France but that didn't stop the foxes from keening over the Viscount's death and we know this thanks to a quote from a neighbour of the Viscount at the time who said "something has happened to Viscount Gormanston, the foxes were barking all night long".
5. There was another member of the Preston family (who held this peerage and had resided in Gormanston castle for many centuries until the middle of the previous century) and when he was legally declared dead after being listed missing in action for seven years, the foxes didn't hold their traditional vigil and that was because that man was alive! He resurfaced in 1952 after suffering from memory loss, a good few years after his wife remarried (oops).
6. This generation of Prestons sold the estate (right down to the castle) to the Franciscans and the Franciscans transformed the estate into a boarding school which opened as Gormanston College in 1954. When one of the Prestons died in Tasmania (an island off the south of Australia) in 1967, the students of Gormanston College were awoken to a cacophony of foxes barking and howling.
   Even without their idols being in the same country, the foxes of Gormanston will still mourn their recently deceased Preston and with the advent of nature cameras and what not, we may be able to capture the next time it happens. As a tribute to the legend, the Prestons who still have the Viscount Gormanston title have a fox featured on the family coat of arms.