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David Merridith (Non-Spoiler)
David eventually marries Laura Markham in London and together they have two sons - Jonathan and Robert. He soon grows bored of city life and becomes restless, wanting to to something useful with his life. He becomes depressed and begins to visit prostitutes and feel suicidal.
Eventually, his father, Lord Kingscourt passes away, leaving his land to David. David moves back to Ireland, thrilled at the prospect of being able to do something productive with his life. He makes plans on how he would improve his father’s estate:
This was before the potato famine and had David been able to realize his dreams, he could have avoided some of the tragedy. But he inherites an extremely debt-ridden estate and it was all he could do to keep it going as it was. He turned back to his old ways of sleeping around and drawing prostitutes.He would build a new pier and a moorings for the fisherman, perhaps a model school for the smallholders’ children. Get in a proper estate manager to help the tenants; some local man, a young man, who was clever and decent. Maybe send him to the Agricultural College in Scotland. Teach the people about soil and hygiene. Give them the benefit of modern ideas. Encourage them to widen their old-fashioned thinking, to change their outmoded customs and unwise ways. This reliance on the ‘lumper’ or ‘horse potato’, for example, when it was clearly so prone to infestation by blight - that could all stop now. Merridith would stop it. Kingscourt would be the best-anaged estate in Ireland, or anywhere in the United Kingdom for that matter (247).
He's bankrupt and decides to start fresh by moving with his family to America, but he is brutally murdered while in the port at New York before he even gets a chance to leave the boat.
Work Cited
O’Connor, Joseph. Star of the Sea. Florida: Harcourt Books, 2002. Print.