Lady Louisa Conolly

Lady Louisa Conolly
Lady Louisa Conolly, by George Romney, 1776.
Born	Lady Louisa Augusta Lennox (1743-12-05)5 December 1743
Died	August 1821 (aged 77–78)
Known for	Lennox Sisters
Spouse(s)	Thomas Conolly

Lady Louisa Conolly (5 December 1743 – August 1821) was an Irish noblewoman. She was the third of the famous Lennox Sisters, and was notable among them for leading a wholly uncontroversial life filled with good works.

Born Lady Louisa Augusta Lennox, she was the third of the four Lennox Sisters immortalised in Stella Tillyard's book Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa, and Sarah Lennox and in the BBC television series based on it. The Lennox sisters were daughters of Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond, whose father, the first duke, was an illegitimate son of King Charles II of England.

Louisa was still a child when her parents died within a year of each other in 1750 and 1751. After this, Lady Louisa was brought up by her much older sister Emily FitzGerald, Duchess of Leinster, in Kildare. In 1758, aged 15, she married Thomas Conolly (1738-1803), grand-nephew of William Conolly, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. Her husband, a wealthy land-owner and keen horseman, was also a successful politician who was elected to Parliament as early as 1759. The couple lived in the Palladian mansion Castletown House in County Kildare, the decoration of which she directed throughout the 1760s and 1770s. The Conolly summer residence 'Cliff House' on the banks of the River Erne between Belleek, County Fermanagh and Ballyshannon County Donegal was demolished as part of the Erne Hydroelectric scheme, which constructed the Cliff and Cathleen's Fall hydroelectric power stations. Cliff hydroelectric power station was constructed on the site of 'Cliff House' and was commissioned in 1950.