At least one member of the Martin family at Ross House, Co. Galway posing in a wonderful motor car, that was housed in the stables when not in use.

It has been suggested that the lady may be the novelist Violet Martin (of Somerville & Ross, and The Irish R.M. fame), but Violet was born in 1865 so would have been only around 33 or 34 when this photo was taken.

Colonel C.P. Dawson. This is an entry from the 1907 Motorist's Year Book: "DAWSON, Colonel C. P., Ross, County Galway. Cars: Leon Bollée, Clément, Panhard, Wolseley. Hobby: Mechanics. Introduced the first car into Connemara in 1897. Clubs: Naval and Military, Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland."

Car is either a Turrell-Bollée Voiturette or a Coventry Motette. A Leon Bollée were very much the equivelent of a Ferrari in their day and were much copied. In Britain H J Lawson of British Motor Syndicate fame bought the patents with a view to manufacturing a copy, which he did through his company The Coventry Motor Company Limited of which Charles McRobie Turrell was the General Manager. The car thus produced was called the Coventry Motette., and there is a rare picture of it on page 79 of the October 1956 issue of The Veteran and Vintage magazine.

Date: Circa 1899