Limbless Landlord

Footless! Legless, in fact, and armless too. Nothing to do with a state of intoxication, though - Arthur MacMurrough Kavanagh was was born with no legs or arms, and yet was a husband and father, an expert horseman, a first class shot, a noted yachtsman, an active local Justice of the Peace and administrator, and a Member of Parliament. And an exemplary 19th century Irish Landlord. And all this before modern medicine had developed the prosthetic limb.

He is perhaps best known for his travels, and mainly for those when he was young. Before he reached the age of 21 he toured the Nile Valley and the Sinai Desert by boat and on camelback. He visited Russia and the Great Makariev Fair on horseback, the World Trade Fair of the day. He rode through Persia and India where he hunted from the back of an elephant and took a job as a dispatch rider. And all before he entered politics meeting people like William Ewart Gladstone, Charles Stewart Parnell, Benjamin Disraeli and Daniel O'Connell.

This is his story.