Lady Emily Hodson, née Beresford, had no direct descendents, so she left the Woodhouse estate to her relative, Lord Hugh de la Poer Beresford, a young naval officer. Emily Hodson was the daughter of Colonel George John Beresford, and inherited Woodhouse from her older brother John George, who died at Woodhouse in 1925 after unsuccessful attempts to make a fortune from cattle raunching in Wyoming. His wife returned to America (with the house's chandeliers, rugs and even fireplaces!) and Woodhouse fell to Emily.
In her attempts to find a suitable heir, one tale goes that Lady Emily invited her younger relative William Beresford for lunch at Woodhouse. As they were driving along the avenue she asked him what he thought of the place. William replied that all the trees made it rather gloomy and, perhaps a little put-out, Lady Emily willed it to William's younger brother Hugh instead. Hugh was delighted and in a letter to a friend, he wrote of his luck in inheriting, not just a home, but pretty woodlands, a working farm, and a beautiful landscape that the river meanders through on its way to the sea.
Source: Stradbally na Déise II by Tom Hickey, John Keane and Brian Corry (2013), p. 114-5.
