History of Oughterard Golf Club
Oughterard Golf Club was established in 1974 as a 9 hole course. At this time the course was owned by the Willis family but in 1986 the members agreed to purchase the course from the family. In 1997 major reconstruction works were carried out which included the lengthening of many of the holes, the creating of many features including lakes, ponds and rockeries and the construction of the new club house facility.
The history of the Willis family and how they were involved in the Club is very interesting. It starts with John Willis from Ardee in Co. Louth, whose son and heir was Dr. Thomas Willis a founder of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul in Ireland in 1844. Dr. Thomas Willis was born in 1790 and lived for 91 years. His first two children were boys, Thomas Jnr. and Robert, and remarkably both followed him into the medical profession and both practised in Oughterard.
The two brothers married two sisters who were daughters of Edmond O’Flaherty. Dr. Thomas Willis junior married Kate O’Flaherty in 1856 and Dr. Robert Willis married Mary Anne O’ Flaherty in 1859, who at the Griffiths valuation of 1855 was the owner-occupier of Gortrevagh, Ardnasillagh, and Rabitt Island, altogether 496 acres, and his second wife Anne Cottingham daughter of George Cottingham of Corrib View. At a formation of a Conference (branch) of the society of St. Vincent de Paul in Oughterard in 1852, Edmond O’ Flaherty was elected President and George Cottingham, who was described as “Farmer and Coroner” was elected as an Honorary Member.
Dr. Robert Willis and his wife, Mary Anne were married just nine years when he died in 1868, in which time they had five children, the last of whom named Robert Edmond, after his father and grandfather, was but one month old when his father died. Dr. Robert Willis was a close fried of Sir William Wilde, father of Oscar Wilde, and is frequently mentioned in Wilde’s classic book “Lough Corrib” published in 1987.
When Edmond O’Flaherty died in 1883 it was Robert Edmond Willis who inherited the Willis estate as it became to be known. Robert Edmond married Ann Hardiman and they had three daughters, Lilly, Mary and Dillah. The two youngest died young but Lily, who was born in 1897, did not marry and took over the estate from her father when he died in 1947.
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