‘Lady Mason story optioned for TV’

    

Great news from the world of books: Doneraile Court, Kathleen Aldworth Foster’s novel based on the life of “The Lady Mason,” Elizabeth St. Leger, has been optioned for adaptation for television.

It’s an entertaining story that bridges, however improbably, Masonic history and the Young Adult genre of fiction. (I have a review of the book somewhere in the stack at The Journal of the Masonic Society, if we ever get to publishing again.) From the publicity:

Lady Freemason Book

Optioned for TV Series

CORK, IRELAND - Great Island Productions, a TV production company based in Cork, Ireland has announced a major deal with author Kathleen Aldworth Foster to adapt her historical fiction novel Doneraile Court: The Story of The Lady Freemason into a TV series.

The book option agreement marks an exciting new chapter for the riveting, 300-year-old tale of Elizabeth St. Leger Aldworth, who was known as The Lady Freemason. “This is not just another story we’re bringing to life,” said Mark Kenny, CEO of Great Island Productions. “This is a captivating narrative about a trailblazing Irish woman that’s a thriller, mystery, and love story set against the backdrop of Doneraile Court in County Cork.”

Foster’s novel centers around an incident that took place in the home in 1712. Elizabeth, the daughter of 1st Viscount Doneraile Arthur St. Leger, was caught one night spying on Freemasons during a ritual. The gripping tale leads to unexpected twists and turns as the men are forced to make a life-or-death decision. Spoiler alert: The real Elizabeth was spared and later married her savior, Richard Aldworth of Newmarket.

Kathleen Aldworth Foster

“I wanted to delve deeper into the mystery of this courageous woman and her highly unusual involvement with the ever-secretive Freemasons, which is still primarily an all-male fraternity,” said Kathleen Aldworth Foster, an American of Irish heritage. “The story has captivated me ever since my first visit to Ireland in 2006 while tracing my own Aldworth family roots in County Cork.”

The Georgian mansion, Doneraile Court, is the centerpiece of Doneraile Estate and Wildlife Park, which is owned and operated by Ireland’s Office of Public Works. The park and house are top attractions in County Cork. The house is open for tours in the summer after extensive renovations in recent years.

“Our partnership with Kathleen underscores our shared passion for engaging storytelling and historical intrigue,” says Great Island CFO/CTO Jim Robinson, who is also an actor. “As plans unfold for adapting The Story of The Lady Freemason into a TV series, audiences can look forward to experiencing a unique blend of drama and history that also addresses issues of gender and inequality still relatable today.”

Great Island Productions is committed to bringing original content from Cork and Munster to global audiences through innovative storytelling across various genres.

     

‘Perfect Square to host Doneraile Court author’

    

Okay, I’m late with coverage of the Scottish Masonry conference in Virginia from early November, but it’s coming. In the meantime, let me promote this speaking event. Kathleen Aldworth Foster, author of the novel Doneraile Court (told you about it some time ago), is on the Masonic speaking circuit.

She’ll appear December 14 at Perfect Square Lodge 204 at Masonic Hall, after the lodge meeting. I think this has all the details:

Click to enlarge.

Photo ID is required to enter Masonic Hall. If you want to attend the lodge meeting, bring your Masonic ID, etc. and be in the Colonial Room at seven.

Also, she will appear at the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania’s Masonic Temple in Philly on Saturday, December 17 in the Masonic Library and Museum Speaker Series, which will be streamed also. (And we at New Jersey’s research lodge are hoping to book her for a date in 2023. Her talk concerns the process of researching and writing her novel, after all.)

     

‘New novel: Doneraile Court’

    

‘A young woman faces death when she’s caught spying on a dark and bloody secret initiation ritual. Based on a true story.’ Click here.

The following is not a book review, because I haven’t read the book, but I want to share the news of a fictionalized take on one of Masonic history’s oddest oddities. Speaking of Ireland (see post below), a newly published novel romanticizes the famous story of a lady who found herself initiated into Freemasonry one night several years prior to the birth of the grand lodge era.

Doneraile Court: The Story of the Lady Freemason by Kathleen Aldworth Foster is based on the singular occurrence of an Irish lodge making a Freemason of the teenaged Elizabeth St. Leger.

Doneraile Court was the home of the young lady and her family. For those who don’t know, during the embryonic period before lodges bought their own buildings, chose proper names, and were assigned sequential numbers by their grand lodges, they often met inside Masons’ homes. (It was the early years of the Accepted Mason.) This was the case of Bro. Arthur St. Leger (d. 1727) of Doneraile House, who was made 1st Baron Kilmayden and Viscount Doneraile in 1703 by Queen Anne. Not an average Joe.

dochara.com

Masonic meetings, attended by the baron’s sons and select close friends, convened inside a ground floor lodge room with an adjoining library. As some remodeling work was underway, certain walls were temporarily incomplete, and so Elizabeth, age either 17 or 19, was able first to hear, and then to see Masonic ritual work. She was discovered by the lodge tyler (his lordship’s butler), and the rest is the stuff of weird Free and Accepted anecdote.

As I said, I don’t have any idea what is contained in the pages authored by Ms. Aldworth Foster. For an impressively researched disquisition of the event and its aftermath, replete with family tree and house floor plan, I can refer you only to Bro. Edward Conder’s “The Hon. Miss St. Leger and Freemasonry,” published in AQC Vol. VIII (1895).

Ms. Aldworth Foster is an experienced journalist and publicist in New Jersey. Maybe someone should contact her to arrange a nice dinner and reading/signing event. (I just learned of her appearance four days ago at Soldato Books in Jersey.)

You are wondering about the Aldworth part. Yes, Elizabeth St. Leger married Richard Aldworth, becoming The Hon. Mrs. Aldworth. The author, in her publicity, says there is no family tie.