Viscount Lismore
(1815-1898)
1 March 1861

Volume 2, page 251, sitting number 2296.

[The sitter's coat-of-arms appears on the side of the plinth next to him, surmounted by a viscount's coronet. The prop must have been specially prepared for this sitting after Viscount Lismore made an appointment to visit Silvy's studio.]

The title Baron Lismore of Shanbully, in Co Tipperary, was created in the Peerage of Ireland in 1785. The 2nd Baron was created Viscount Lismore in 1806 and was made Baron Lismore in the Peerage of the United Kingdom in 1838.

George Ponsonby O'Callaghan was born on 16 March 1815, the son of Cornelius O’Callaghan, 1st Viscount Lismore and Lady Eleanor née Butler. On 25 July 1839 he married Mary Norbury, daughter of George Norbury. He had two sons but both of them predeceased him.

He served as an officer in the service of the 17th Lancers. He held the office of High Sheriff of County Tipperary in 1853. He succeeded his father on 30 May 1857, becoming 2nd Viscount Lismore of Shanbally in the County of Tipperary.

He died on 29 October 1898 at the age of 83. His peerages became extinct.

'Viscount Lismore died at eight o'clock on Saturday evening, after a week's illness, at 5, Clifton-crescent, Folkestone. The deceased nobleman, George Ponsonby O'Callaghan, was the only surviving son of the first Viscount. He was born in 1815, and was therefore 83 years of age. He married, in 1839, Mary, second daughter of John George Norbury, and in 1857 succeeded his father as Baron Lismore in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. Late of the 17th Lancers, he was Hon. Colonel of the Tipperary Militia from 1855, and Lord-Lieutenant of the County of Tipperary from 1857 until 1885. As Lord Lismore leaves no heir the title becomes extinct' (Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 31 October 1898).