Jenico Preston, 17th Viscount Gormanston

Jenico Nicholas Dudley Preston, 17th Viscount Gormanston (born 19 November,1939), is the only son of Jenico William Preston, 16th Viscount Gormanston (1914-1940) and Pamela Hanly, daughter of Captain Edward Hanly and Lady Marjorie Feilding. A Roman Catholic Anglo-Irish aristocrat, he is the Premier Viscount of Ireland. Like his forebears, Lord Gormanston attended the Benedictine academy of Downside School. His Great-grandfather was Sir William Francis Butler of Bansha Castle, County Tipperary and his Great-grandmother was the celebrated Victorian artist, Elizabeth Thompson aka Lady Elizabeth Butler.

He succeeded to the title before his first birthday, when his father died in action at Dunkirk during the Battle of France, 1940. He is a connoisseur of art and lives in Kensington, London. His ancestral seat is Gormanston Castle in County Meath, Ireland, though it is no longer in the family's possession. The castle is fully maintained by the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor (OFM) who bought it circa 1950. Since a boarding school for boys, and a co-educational day school, Gormanston College was established in the adjacent grounds.

Personal life

He has been married twice:

* 1) Eva Antonie Landzianowska (1974- 1984), she died 1984; (two sons)
** The Honourable Jenico Francis Tara Preston (born April 30, 1974).
** The Honourable William Luke Preston (born May 3, 1976).

* 2) Lucy Arabella Fox, daughter of the actor Edward Fox and his first wife, actress Tracy Reed.