2. Clover Hill Gate Lodge, Cloverhill, Belturbet, Cavan
3. Farnham Estate, Farnham Estate, Cavan – hotel
4. Killinagh House, McNean Court, Blacklion, County Cavan – whole house rental and lodge
5. Lismore House, Co Cavan – was a ruin. Place to stay: Peacock House on the demesne
6. Olde Post Inn, Cloverhill, County Cavan
Whole house rental County Cavan:
1. Killinagh House, McNean Court, Blacklion, County Cavan – whole house rental
3. Virginia Park Lodge, Co Cavan – weddings
1. Cabra Castle, Kingscourt, Co. Cavan – section 482, hotel
This is a hotel but unlike some heritage house or castle hotels, they do allow visitors to view the building: the website states that they are open between 11am to 4pm for visitors for viewing all year round, except at Christmastime.
“This old stone cottage built between 1830 -1850 is tucked away at the archway entrance to the Cloverhill Estate. This cottage is surrounded by gardens and woodland. The magic of this cottage is undeniable. Originally built for the Gate Keeper this cottage reflects heritage with rustic simplicity. Though some features and fittings have been replaced, the survival of historic features, including the label mouldings and timber bargeboards add to its character and charm.“
Cloverhill House is now a ruin. Mark Bence-Jones tells us the house was built 1799-1804 for James Saunderson (1763-1842) to the design of Francis Johnston. [1] Robert O’Byrne adds that it was in fact extended in 1799, but built originally in 1758 (thus was built for James’s father Alexander, who married Lucy Madden of the Hilton Park House Madden family, another Section 482 property. A date stone gives us the date of 1758.) [2] Mark Bence-Jones tells us that the house passed by inheritance to the Purdons, and was sold by Major J.N. Purdon ca 1958. The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage tells us that the Sanderson family were instrumental in the development of Cloverhill village with the building of the Church of Ireland church and estate workers’ houses.
Cloverhill Gate Lodge, County Cavan, photograph courtesy airbnb website.
The house is featured in Tarquin Blake’s Abandoned Mansions of Ireland, Collins Press, Cork, 2010.
From James Sanderson (1763-1842) the property passed down through the female line since the son, also named James, had no heirs. It passed first to Mary Anne, who was unmarried, and then to her sister’s son, Samuel Sanderson Winter (1834-1912), whose parents were Lucy Sanderson and Samuel Winter (1796-1867) of Agher, County Meath. Samuel Sanderson Winter married Ann, daughter of John Armytage Nicholson of Balrath Bury, County Meath (we came across this family before as Enniscoe in County Mayo was inherited by Jack Nicholson, of the Balrath Bury family). Samuel Sanderson Winter’s son died young so Cloverhill passed to the son of his sister, Elizabeth Ann Winter, who married George Nugent Purdon (1819-1910). This is how the house passed to the Purdon family.
The house passed to their son, John James Purdon, who died childless so it passed to his nephew, John Nugent Purdon, son of Charles Sanderson Purdon. John Nugent Purdon sold Cloverhill demesne ca 1958 to Mr Thomas Mee. [3]
Farnham Estate, County Cavan, photograph courtesy of hotel Instagram page.Farnham House, photograph from National Library of Ireland, flickr constant commons.
David Hicks tells us in his Irish Country Houses, A Chronicle of Change that the wing of Farnham House that survives today is the truncated section of a much larger mansion. Dry rot led to demolition of a substantial section of the Maxwell ancestral home. The family’s connection was severed in 2001.
Farnham Estate, County Cavan, photograph courtesy of hotel Instagram page.
The estate was granted by King James I to the Waldron family in 1613. Henry Waldron named the estate after his wife’s family. The Waldrons built a castle here in 1620.
The website gives us a history of the estate:
“1664- The Waldrons of Dromellan Castle (early name of Farnham House) were forced to sell the estate to settle gambling debts. Bought by Bishop Robert Maxwell, thus beginning the Maxwell family connection that was to continue for more than 330 years (family motto is Je suis prêt – I am ready’).”
Farnham Estate drawing room, County Cavan, photograph courtesy of hotel Instagram page.
Mark Bence-Jones adds in his A Guide to Irish Country Houses (1988, p. 123):
“…A few years later the estate was sold to Robert Maxwell [1598-1672], Bishop of Kilmore, whose cathedral was nearby. The Bishop’s son, John Maxwell, built a new house here ca 1700, which was improved ca 1780 by Barry Maxwell, 3rd Lord Farnham and first Earl of Farnham of 2nd creation, who added a library designed by James Wyatt.“
Timothy William Ferres tells us of the Maxwell lineage:
John Maxwell of Farnham, High Sheriff of County Cavan, 1674, who dsp 1713, was succeeded by his nephew, The Reverend Doctor Robert Maxwell; who dsp 1737 and was succeeded by his cousin, John Maxwell (1687-1759), High Sheriff of County Cavan, 1757, MP for County Cavan 1727-56, who was elevated to the peerage, in 1756, in the dignity of Baron Farnham, of Farnham, County Cavan.
In 1719 he married Judith, heiress of James Barry (1660-1725) of Newtownbarry, County Wexford. Their son Robert succeeded as 2nd Baron Maxwell, and he was created Viscount in 1760 and 1st Earl of Farnham in 1763. Robert married Henrietta Cantillon, the widow of William Matthias Stafford-Howard, 3rd Earl of Stafford.
Henrietta Diana née Cantillon (1728–1761), Dowager Countess of Stafford by Allan Ramsay courtesy of Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum;http://www.artuk.org/artworks/henrietta-diana-17281761-dowager-countess-of-stafford-85788She married, first, William Matthias Stafford-Howard, 3rd Earl of Stafford, and after his death, Robert Maxwell, 2nd Baron and 1st Earl of Farnham.
See also the wonderful book by Melanie Hayes, The Best Address in Town: Henrietta Street, Dublin and its First Residents 1720-80, published by Four Courts Press, Dublin 8, 2020. She has a chapter on John Maxwell, (1687-1759) 1st Baron Farnham.
The Farnham Estate website tells us that Robert was a keen agriculturalist and agent of improvement who put the most technologically and scientifically advanced agricultural methods into action. The website tells us:
“In1777, noted agricultural scientist and topographer Arthur Young said of Farnham; “…upon the whole Farnham is one of the finest places that I have ever seen in Ireland; the water wood and hill are all in great stile and abound in a variety of capabilities. The woodland plantations of Derrygid coupled with the lakes of Farnham and Derrygid were noted by Young who described them as being ‘uncommonly beautiful; extensive and have a shore extremely varied.” In the 1770’s, approximately 100 labourers were employed in maintaining the landscape at Farnham.“
Robert 1st Earl and Henrietta’s daughter Henrietta married Denis Daly (1747-1791) of Dunsandle, County Galway.
Denis Daly (1747-1791) of Dunsandle, County Galway, attributed to Joshua Reynolds, courtesy of Christies 2012 Mount Congreve the London Sale.
The first Earl’s son John predeceased him and didn’t marry, so the 1st Earl’s brother Barry succeeded him. Barry Maxwell was a barrister and MP for County Cavan and later for Armagh city. When his mother Judith née Barry died in 1771 he must have inherited as he changed his name to Barry Barry. Then when his elder brother Robert Maxwell, 1st and last Earl of Farnham, died in 1779, he inherited and his name was changed back to Barry Maxwell, and he succeeded as the 3rd Baron Farnham, of Farnham, Co. Cavan. He was created 1st Earl of Farnham, Co. Cavan (Ireland, of the 2nd creation) on 22 June 1785.
Portrait of Barry Maxwell (1723-1800) 1st Earl Farnham by George Romney courtesy of www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-4507942He was the son of John Maxwell, 1st Baron Farnhamand Judith Barry.
When Robert 1st Earl’s first wife Henrietta died, he married secondly, in 1771, Sarah, only daughter of Pole Cosby, of Stradbally Hall, Queen’s County, and sister of Lord Sydney, but they had no further children. Sarah had been previously married to Arthur Upton (d. 1763) of Castle Upton, County Antrim. After her second marriage she was known as the Countess of Farnham.
The Countess of Farnham, probably Sarah née Cosby, wife of Robert Maxwell, 1st and last Earl of Farnham(of the first creation), painted by Hugh Douglas Hamilton, courtesy of Sothebys 2001.
The first Earl had another brother Most Reverend HenryMaxwell (d. 1798), who became Bishop of Dromore and Bishop of Meath.
Right Reverend Henry Maxwell (d. 1798) Bishop of Meath, Irish school courtesy of National Trust Castle Ward
Reverend HenryMaxwell married Margaret Foster, daughter of Rt. Hon. Anthony Foster Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer between 1766 and 1777, who lived in Collon in County Meath.
Their sons became respectively John Maxwell Barry Maxwell (1767-1838) 5th Baron Farnham and Reverend Henry Maxwell (d. 1838) 6th Baron Farnham, and the Baronetcy continued to their descendants. The Earldom was recreated for the elder brother Barry, 3rd Baron (1723-1800), who obtained a viscountcy and earldom, in 1780, as Viscount Farnham, and, in 1785, Earl of Farnham (2nd creation).
The dining room at Farnham House. Pub Orig Country Life 02/01/2003, volume CXCVII. Photographer Paul Barker.With portrait ofRight Reverend Henry Maxwell (d. 1798) Bishop of Meath.
The three brothers, Robert 1st Earl, Barry 1st Earl of second creation and Reverend Henry had a sister, Anne, who married Owen Wynn (1723-1789) of Hazelwood, County Sligo.
Barry Maxwell, 1st Earl of Farnham served as MP and Privy Counsellor. He married first Margaret King of Drewstown, County Meath, who gave birth to their son and heir John James Maxwell (1759-1823) later 2nd Earl of Farnham. Barry married secondly Grace, daughter of Arthur Burdett. His son did not have children and the Earldom and Viscountcy became extinct on his death.
Photograph of Farnham House from Country Life, A Chinese Chippendale chair in the hall at Farnham House. Pub Orig CL 02/01/2003, volume CXCVII. Photographer Paul Barker.
The website tells us of the building of Farham:
“In 1795, Earl of Farnham Barry [Barry Maxwell (1723-1800)] asked James Wyatt, one of the most fashionable architects of that time, to draw designs for three ceilings. Although there is no evidence of them being installed at Farnham, these plans are now housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Some work was undertaken by Wyatt though around the 1795 timeframe and to this day, a library case where his design has been noted stands inserted in an alcove on the staircase landing.
“In the early 1800s, a coat of arms was incorporated onto the façade of the house. Comprised of the arms of the Maxwell and Barry family, they are supported by two bucks, with a buck’s head on top of the Baron’s coronet as the crest.
Barry’s son James John Barry 2nd Earl engaged Francis Johnston to build. The website tells us:
“In 1802 Francis Johnston, architect for Dublin’s famous GPO building, was engaged to complete an extension of the existing house to provide an edifice to the southwest garden front.This is the latter day surviving Farnham House, which is now incorporated as the centrepiece of the hotel complex design.“
Mark Bence-Jones describes the house as built by Francis Johnston:
“Johnston produced a house consisting of two somewhat conservative three storey ranges at right angles to one another; one of them, which incorporated part of the earlier house, including Wyatt’s library, having a front of eight bays, with a die over a two bay breakfront, and a single-storey Doric portico; the other having a front of nine bays with a three bay pedimented breakfront; prolonged by one bay in the end of the adjoining range. The interior was spacious but restrained, the principal rooms having simple ovolo or dentil cornices. Elliptical staircase hall, with simple geometrical design in the ceiling; stone stair with elegant metal balustrade.“
The staircase at Farnham House designed by Francis Johnston.Pub Orig Country Life 02/01/2003, volume CXCVII. Photographer Paul Barker.Farnham Estate, County Cavan, photograph courtesy hotel.
The website continues: “In the depths of the earth beneath Farnham lies a myriad of passages. These passages were constructed to allow food, supplies and heating fuels to be brought into the mansion house by the servants. Such underground passages kept the servants out of sight from Lords and Ladies Farnham and their guests and no doubt were used by the servants to enjoy some activities of their own, which they would not have wanted Lord and Lady Farnham to witness!“
When James John died childless in 1823, a cousin, John Maxwell Barry Maxwell (1767-1838), son of Rt. Rev. Henry Maxwell, became 5th Baron Farnham.
The website tells us: “In 1823, a new system of management for the Farnham estate was introduced, employing persons as inspectors of districts, buildings, bog and land and a moral agent! The main duties of the moral agent were to encourage the tenantry to adhere to the main principles contained in Lord Farnham’s address to them. These included: keeping of the Sabbath, responsibility towards the education of their children, imbuing within their children a strict moral sense and to ensure that they abstained from all evil habits, including cursing and the distillation or consumption of alcohol.“
The 5th Baron Farnham died childless in 1838, so his brother Reverend Henry Maxwell became the 6th Baron Farnham. He married Anne Butler, daughter of the 3nd Earl of Carrick. Their son Henry became the 7th Baron Farnham (1799-1868). Their daughter Sarah Juliana married Alexander Saunderson of Castle Saunderson. The other sons Somerset and James became 8th and 9th Baron and then the son of their brother Richard Thomas Maxwell, Somerset Henry Maxwell, became the 10th Baron.
Mark Bence-Jones tells us: “In 1839, 7th Lord Farnham (a distinguished scholar and genealogist who, with his wife, was burnt to death 1868 when the Irish mail train caught fire at Abergele, North Wales), enlarged the house by building new offices in the re-entrant between the two ranges. Also probably at this time the main rooms were changed around; the library becoming the dining room, and losing any Wyatt decoration it might have had; Wyatt’s bookcases being moved to the former drawing room.“
The drawing room at Farnham House. The portrait to the right is of thr Rt Hon John, 5th Baron Farnham by Sir Thomas Lawrence.Pub Orig Country Life 02/01/2003, volume CXCVII. Photographer Paul Barker.Photograph of Farnham House from Country Life, Pub Orig Country Life 02/01/2003, volume CXCVII. Photographer Paul Barker.Farnham Estate, County Cavan, photograph courtesy Bennett Contruction website.
Somerset Henry Maxwell, 10th Baron, married Florence Jane Taylour, daughter of Thomas Taylour, 3rd Marquess of Headfort. Their son, Arthur Kenlis Maxwell (1879-1957), became 11th Baron in 1900.
The website continues the timeline:
“1911- Records mention a staff of 11: butler, cook, governess, nursery maid, nurse, footman, ladies’ maid and several house and kitchen maids. Some 3,000 of Farnham’s then 24,000 statute acres were sold off.
“1914-1918- Lord Farnham rejoined the military; he was captured, imprisoned and released after the Armistice. His political efforts failed to prevent the exclusion of three counties from the jurisdiction of Northern Ireland.
“1921-1931- Lord and Lady Farnham left for England. They emptied the house of its furniture, due to widespread burning and looting of country houses. The 1923 Land Act would ultimately end landlordism in Ireland: by 1931, Lord Farnham retained only his demesne lands at Farnham, which he operated in a more intensive fashion in order to increase much-needed revenue.“
Arthur Kenlis Maxwell managed to escape from a prisoner of war camp during the first world war. He and his family returned to Farnham estate in 1926 and began to renovate the house. His son and heir died in the second world war aged just 37, and the title passed to his grandson, Barry Owen Somerset Maxwell. Barry Owen’s mother died in a plane crash when he was just 21.
“1950- Economic decline had by now affected the demesne. A Farnham Tintorreto ’Christ Washing the Feet of His Disciples’ was sold in 1955; the Canadian National Art Gallery in Ontario paid some $100,000. 1956- Barry Owen Somerset Maxwell, 12th Baron Farnham became the last member of the Maxwell family to reside at Farnham House.
“In 1961, dry rot was discovered within the Farnham house and in an attempt to alleviate it, the oldest part of the house looking across the parkland, and the additions made to the house in 1839, were demolished.”
Mark Bence-Jones describes the changes: “Ca 1960, the present Lord Farnham, finding the house to be badly infested with dryrot, demolished the range where the entrance had formerly been situated, as well as the additions of 1839; and remodelled the surviving Johnston range to form a house in itself; being assisted in the work by Mr Philip Cullivan. The pedimented front is still the garden front, as it was formerly; the back of the range being now the entrance front, with the portico re-erected at one end of it; so that the entrance is directly into the staircase hall. The surviving range contains Johnston’s dining room, which has been the drawing room since 19C rearrangement; as well as the boudoir and the former study, now the dining room. One of Wyatt’s bookcases is now in the alcove of the former staircase window. The demesne of Farnham has long been famous for its beauty; a landscape of woods, distant mountain views and lakes, which are part of the great network of loughs and islands stretching southwards from Upper Lough Erne.“
The entrance front of Farnham House, as remodelled in 1961. In an attempt to alleviate dry rot, the oldest part of the house was demolished. Pub Orig Country Life 02/01/2003, volume CXCVII. Photographer Paul Barker.The portico that was on the original entrance front was moved to the rear of the garden front to form a new entrance when part of the house was demolished in 1942. It is now incorporated into the interior of Farnham Estate hotel.Photograph courtesy hotel.Photograph of Farnham House from Country Life, Pub Orig Country Life 02/01/2003, volume CXCVII. Photographer Paul Barker.
The website continues:
“1995 – 2001 – Lord Farnham abandoned farming and leased the agricultural lands to local farmers. One of his last acts on the Farnham demesne was the planting of a group of trees to mark the New Millennium. Lord Farnham died in March 2001 and his wife, Diana, Baroness Farnham now resides in England where she is a current Lady in Waiting to Queen Elizabeth II. Farnham House estate was sold to a local entrepreneur who developed it into a hotel resort.
“Present Day – The resort is owned by Mr. Thomas Röggla and along with his team at the resort, every effort is made to provide genuine hospitality in this new phase in the evolution of this magnificent location. Thus, the indelible-mark made by the Maxwell family, as far back as 1664 on the landscape of Farnham Estate will continue to be appreciated by future generations.”
The multimillion refurbishment and extension was headed by architect Des Mahon of Gilroy McMahon, who had previously worked on the National Museum at Collins Barracks and the Hugh Lane Gallery extension.
4. Killinagh House, McNean Court, Blacklion, County Cavan – whole house rental and a lodge
Killinagh House, County Cavan, built 1827, a former Glebe House, three-bay two-storey over basement.Photograph courtesy of Killinagh House facebook page.
“Killinagh Lodge is situated within 1 mile from the village of Blacklion in the picturesque grounds of Killinagh House, a former Church of Ireland manse dating back to Georgian times.
“Set in the courtyard, Killinagh Lodge offers luxurious, purpose built, self catering accommodation on the shores of Lough MacNean. Boasting its own private access to the Lough, Killinagh Lodge is set in one of the most beautiful and tranquil locations where you can enjoy the grounds of the wider Estate.“
The house website tells us:
“Killinagh House is a unique, Georgian Country House, situated in the heart of the Marble Arch Global Geo Park, in west County Cavan. The perfect getaway for peace and relaxation. We cater for customer comforts, special requests and reasonable prices.
“The perfect retreat to unwind and recharge the batteries. Peaceful and quiet with relaxed garden views. Killinagh House is at the heart of Marble Arch Global Geo Park, ideally located for outdoor pursuits, including golf, fishing and nature walks.”
Killinagh House, County Cavan,Photograph from National Inventory of Architectural Heritage.
The National Inventory further describes it: “Roughcast rendered lime-washed walls with string course above basement. Three-over-six timber sash windows to first floor and six-over-six to ground floor all with stone sills and timber internal window shutters. Front door set in smooth-rendered segmental-arched recess, having four-panelled door in classical surround of slender Doric pilasters, metope frieze and cobweb fanlight above. Basement well to east, north and west side. Stone steps leading to entrance with recent metal railings.“
5. Lismore House, Co Cavan – was a ruin. Place to stay: Peacock House on the demesne
Lismore House, Co Cavan – restored house (believed to have been the agent’s house) and a place to stay, Peacock House, available on airbnb. Of the original Lismore House, attributed to Edward Lovett Pearce (1699-1733), only the two wings and tower survive.
The Peacock House, workers cottage on Lismore Desmese, County Cavan. Photograph courtesy airbnb website.
The airbnb entry tells us of The Peacock House: “The Peacock House is located within the Lismore Demesne. It was once the dairy and workers cottage. From the 1980s onwards it was used to house peacocks, giving the cottage its name. After being left dormant for 80 years it was lovingly restored.” It has two bedrooms.
Lismore House, County Cavan, Photograph from National Inventory of Architectural Heritage.The Inventory tells us it is: “Symmetrical pair of detached six-bay two-storey flanking wings to former Lismore House, built c.1730, having advanced outermost end bays to each block, single-bay two-stage flanking tower formerly attached to south corner of house having single-bay extension to north…Rubble stone walls having red brick quoins, eaves course, and string course. Red brick surrounds to oculi at first floor over round-headed ground-floor windows and central segmental-headed door.“
It was probably built for Thomas Nesbitt, (c. 1672-1750), of Grangemore, County Westmeath, High Sheriff of County Cavan, 1720, MP for Cavan Borough, 1715-50 [4].
The house was restored by Richard and Sonya Beer. [5]
Mark Bence-Jones writes about Lismore House in A Guide to Irish Country Houses (1988), p. 186:
“Originally the seat of the Nesbitts, passed to the Burrowes through the marriage of Mary [Mary Anne, born 1826, daughter of John Nesbitt and Elizabeth Tatam] Nesbitt to James Burrowes [1820-1860, of Stradone House, County Cavan] in 1854; Lismore passed to the Lucas-Clements family through the marriage of Miss Rosamund Burrowes to the late Major Shuckburgh Lucas-Clements in 1922.“
Lismore House, County Cavan, Photograph from National Inventory of Architectural Heritage: “Blind lunette and oculus to gables facing former house.”
Mary Anne and James had a son, Thomas Cosby Burrowes (1856-1925). He married in 1885 Anna Frances, daughter of Richard Thomas Maxwell, and grand-daughter of the sixth Baron Farnham (of Farnham Estate), by whom he has issue two daughters. One daughter, Rosamund Charlotte Cosby Burrowes, of Lismore, married, in 1922, Major Shuckburgh Upton Lucas-Clements in 1922. [6] The main house was vacated c.1870 when the family relocated to Lismore Lodge, formerly the agent’s house.
Mark Bence-Jones continues: “Having stood empty for many years, the house fell into ruin and was demolished ca 1952, with the exception of the “tower” wings. The office wings are now used as farm buildings, and the family now live in the former agent’s house, an early house with a Victorian wing and other additions.”
Lismore House, County Cavan, Photograph from National Inventory of Architectural Heritage: “Tower having mansard slate roof, rubble stone walls with cut-stone platbands, cut-stone surrounds to window openings, round-headed openings with raised keystone and impost blocks to former ground floor, and segmental-headed openings to former basement level.”
6. Olde Post Inn, Cloverhill, County Cavan– accommodation, restaurant and wedding venue
The website tells us: “The Olde Post inn was built in the 1800s. It opened as a post office in 1884, grocery & residence. It had a number of owners and was for some time derelict before it was renovated into a restaurant with accommodation in early 1990s. It has been run as a restaurant since and was taken over by Gearoid & Tara Lynch in November 2002. Since then it has gone under further refurbishment and been extended to include two Hampton Conservatories.“
The Old Post Inn, County Cavan, photograph courtesy of website.
Virginia Park Lodge, County Cavan, photograph courtesy website.
This was formerly the hunting lodge of the Taylours, Marquess Headfort, who also owned Headfort House in County Meath. It was built for the First Earl of Bective, Thomas Taylour (1724-1795), son of Thomas Taylor 2nd Baronet Taylor, of Kells, County Meath, who served as MP for Kells and as a Privy Counsellor in Ireland. His mother was Sarah Graham from Platten, County Meath. Thomas the 1st Earl of Bective also served as Privy Counsellor. He married Jane Rowley, from Summerhill, County Meath.
Thomas Taylour (1724-1795) 1st Earl of Bective wearing the star and sash of the Order of St. Patrick by Gilbert Stuart and studio, courtesy of Sotheby’s. He built Virginia Park Lodge.Headfort, County Meath, photograph courtesy of Irish Georgian Society.
It was their one of their younger sons, Reverend Henry Edward Taylour (1768-1852), who lived at Ardgillan Castle in Dublin. Their son Thomas the second earl became the 1st Marquess of Headfort, and added to Virginia Park Lodge and imported plants to create the parkland surrounding the Lodge.
The Marquess of Headfort married Mary Quin, from Quinsborough, County Clare. The Lodge passed through the family to the 4th Marquess, Geoffrey Thomas Taylour, son of the second wife of the 3rd Marquess. He married a music hall star, Rosie Boote, which scandalised society, but they moved to the Lodge and lived happily and had many children.
The Lodge was bought by chef Richard Corrigan in 2014, and he has undertaken much work to restore it to its former glory.
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[1] Bence-Jones, Mark. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
Stephen and I visited Lucan House during Open House Dublin in 2025. I am delighted that the house and thirty acres of parkland and woodland on the River Liffey have been purchased by South Dublin City Council in 2024, and they are being prepared for use as a public amenity.
Volunteer guide Colin took us around the outside of the house first, and to the stables, then back to the house where we were allowed to wander around on the ground floor, marvelling at the plasterwork by Michael Stapleton and the joinery detail.
The house we see today replaced an earlier medieval house. A painting by Thomas Roberts produced shortly before its demolition shows what appears to be a late-medieval tower house with a manor house with castellated roofline to one side. [1] It was demolished by Agmondisham Vesey (1708–85) to make way for the current house.
A painting by Thomas Roberts produced shortly before its demolition shows what appears to be a late-medieval tower house with a fortified manor house with castellated roofline to one side.
We passed the ruin of a medieval period church, the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on the way along the driveway to the house – I am not sure if the original house was attached to this ruin.
Robert O’Byrne tells us that Vesey’s wife Elizabeth lamented the destruction of the older building, ‘with its niches and thousand other Gothic beauties,’ but her husband was determined to build the new house.
Our guide told us that William Sarsfield acquired the site in 1566. A later William Sarsfield (d. 1675) who lived at the Lucan House property married a woman said to be an illegitimate daughter of King Charles II, Mary Crofts (c. 1651-1693) (also called Mary Walters). Mary Crofts’ mother Lucy née Walter (d. 1658) was also mother of James Scott (1649-1685) Duke of Monmouth, who was recognised by Charles II as his offspring. Both Mary and James took the name Crofts as she and her brother were placed with with William Crofts, 1st Baron Crofts, a close friend of the King, to be raised. James changed his name to Scott, taking his wife’s name when he married. Lucy Walters was also a lover of Theobald Taaffe, 1st Earl of Carlingford (c. 1603 – 1677), who may have been Mary Crofts’s father.
Portrait by Godfrey Kneller. This could be Mary Crofts, who married William Sarsfield. She was the daughter of Lucy Walter, mistress of Charles II and mother of James, Duke of Monmouth. The Duke was placed at an early age with Lord Crofts, a close friend of the King, and took the name Crofts. It appears that his half sister Mary also took the name Crofts though her father was not Charles II but probably Theobald, Earl of Carlingford. Follwing Sarfield’s death in 1675 she married William Fenshaw, a Master of Requests. [ https://picryl.com/media/portrait-of-a-lady-possibly-mary-crofts-c-1651-1693-by-sir-godfrey-kneller-34c8af ]Lucy Walter (1630-1658), as a Shepherdess by Peter Lely; Abbotsford, The Home of Sir Walter Scott; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/lucy-walter-16301658-as-a-shepherdess-208642
William Sarsfield (d. 1675) and Mary Crofts had a daughter, Charlotte (d. 1699), who married Agmondisham Vesey (d. 1738). It was his son, Agmondisham Vesey (1708–85), who built the current Lucan House, with the help of William Chambers.
William’s brother was Patrick Sarsfield (d. 1693) 1st Earl of Lucan. They grew up at another property, Tully in County Kildare, but they moved to Lucan when their father inherited the property in the early 1650s. Their mother Anne was the daughter of Rory O’More, a leader of the 1641 rebellion.
Patrick Sarsfield Earl of Lucan d.1693 attributed to Hyacinthe Rigaud, French, 1659-1743.Honora Bourke (1675-1698), Countess of Lucan and Duchess of Berwick, French School 17th century. This portrait hangs in Kilkenny Castle. She married, firstly, General Patrick Sarsfield, 1st Earl of Lucan, son of Patrick Sarsfield, circa 9 January 1689/90 and secondly, James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick-Upon-Tweed, son of James II Stuart, King of Great Britain and Arabella Churchill, on 26 March 1695 at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Île-de-France, France. She was the daughter of William Bourke, 7th Earl of Clanricarde and Lady Helen MacCarty. Honora’s sister was Margaret, Lady Iveagh, wife of Thomas Butler of Kilcash. Honora died aged 22 at Pesenas in France. Both her sons inherited their father’s titles. Oval, 1/2 length portrait. Sitter wears a yellow dress with a blue ermine-trimmed, blue wrap. It was possibly taken from a portrait painted on the occasion of her marriage to the Duke of Berwick at St-Germain-en-Laye.
Both Sarsfield estates were confiscated by the Cromwellian regime and the family was transplanted to Connacht in 1657. Their father was restored to the Tully lands in 1661 by order of Charles II. In 1654 Lucan house was given to Cromwellian soldier Theophilus Jones (d. 1685) who later turned against the Cromwellians and helped to restore King Charles II to the throne.
The Sarsfields were Catholic. Patrick Sarsfield joined the military – the Dictionary of Irish Biography tells us that he served in one of the English regiments in the French army. These had been formed as a result of the secret treaty of Dover and allowed Catholics to avoid the test act and serve as officers. However, Sarsfield was implicated in the Popish Plot, and was dismissed from the army.
During a brief visit to Ireland he tried unsuccessfully to regain the family estate at Lucan to which he was then the heir presumptive. [2]
His military reputation soared as a consequence of his significant role in the defeat of Monmouth’s rebellion (1685) – who was his brother-in-law! James II promoted Patrick Sarsfield to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He fought in Ireland with the Jacobites against William III, and James created him earl of Lucan in January 1691. He was involved in negotiations for the Treaty of Limerick. He went on to fight in the French army and died of battle wounds in 1693. The Dictionary of Irish Biography continues:
“He married Lady Honora Burke, the 15-year-old youngest daughter of the 7th earl of Clanricarde, sometime during the winter of 1689–90. Their only child was born (April 1693) at the court in exile of James II in Saint-Germain-en-Laye and was named (in honour of the prince of Wales) James Francis Edward. He served in both the French and Spanish armies and died without issue in St Omer in 1719.“
Patrick Sarsfield is memorialised by a memorial in the garden designed by James Wyatt.
Agmondisham Vesey was the son of John Vesey (1638-1716) Archbishop of Tuam, who also served as Lord Justice of Ireland and Privy Counsellor. He claimed the Lucan estate on behalf of his wife and by 1674 and was able to purchase the estate at a low price. [3] Theophilus Jones was compensated by lands elsewhere.
Charlotte Sarsfield died only three years after her marriage to Agmondisham Vesey. They had two daughters: Henrietta, who married Caesar Colclough (1696-1766) of Tintern Abbey in County Wexford; and Anne Vesey, who married John Bingham (d. 1749), 5th Baronet of Castlebar, County Mayo. Their son Charles Bingham (1735-1799) 7th Baronet was created 1st Earl of Lucan in 1795, but these Earls of Lucan did not inherit Lucan House.
John Bingham, 5th Bt., of Castlebar Attributed to Robert Hunter courtesy Christie’s Irish Sale 2001.Charles Bingham, 1st Baron of Lucan (1735-1799), later 1st Earl of Lucan, Engraver John Jones, After Joshua Reynolds, courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.
Instead, Lucan House passed down to a son of Agmondisham Vesey’s second wife, Jane Pottinger. She was the widow of Thomas Butler (d. 1703) 3rd Baronet of Cloughgrenan, County Carlow, with whom she had no children. She and Agmondisham went on to have several children, the eldest of whom was Agmondisham Vesey (1708–85).
Agmondisham Vesey (1708–85) was a politician: a member of the house of commons for Harristown, Co. Kildare, 1740–60, and Kinsale, 1765–83. He was accountant and controller general from 1734 to his death, and a member of the privy council from 1776 to his death. He was also an amateur architect, and he designed his residence, Lucan House, built in 1772, with the help of William Chambers, who also designed the Casino in Marino in Dublin, built over the years 1758-76 (see my entry https://irishhistorichouses.com/2023/11/09/office-of-public-works-dublin-the-casino-at-marino/ ).
The fine stable block was designed earlier, in 1750s. Chambers may have been involved in the design of the stable block.
Bence-Jones describes the house as two storey over basement with a central feature of a pediment raised on a three bay attic, carried on four engaged Ionic columns. The ground floor is rusticated on the projecting three bays. The outer bays on the ground floor were also rusticated but the rustication was removed.
The house has five bay side elevation and a garden front with central curved bow containing an oval room which may have influenced James Hoban, designer of the White House in Washington DC (also said to be inspired by Leinster House).
Mark Bence-Jones tells us that Agmondisham Vesey consulted with James Wyatt (1746-1813) of London and Michael Stapleton for the interiors of the house. Robert O’Byrne adds he was aided by Wyatt’s Irish representative Thomas Penrose. James Wyatt had a flourishing country house practice in Ireland from the early 1770s until his appointment as Surveyor General of the King’s Works in England in 1796. [4]
The front hall has a screen of columns marbled to resemble yellow Siena, with squared pilasters to match on the back wall of the hall.
All the rooms on the ground floor at Lucan House are as they were when the house was completed in 1780, with the exception of a new floor in the library and bathrooms, which the Italian embassy added in the 1950s. [5] There is a large kitchen in the basement which we did not see.
In the Wedgwood Room, to the left of the hall, has a splendid ceiling. After much research an exact match for the original paint in the Wedgwood Room was found when the house was restored. The powder blue emphasises the marvellous stucco work by Michael Stapleton, and trompe l’oeil rondels said to be by Peter de Gree. However, Robert O’Byrne tells us that these are in fact prints that have been painted over. The ceiling curves downwards at the corners giving the effect of a shallow dome. At the centre of the gently domed ceiling is a medallion depicting a warrior kneeling before Minerva and by her maidens.
The room off the front hall to the back of the house is the Oval Room. The curve of the bow window is reflected in a facing curved wall, creating the oval shape. The bow has three windows placed in arches with decorative semicircles over the windows, which reflect the round decoration in the centre of the ceilng.
Robert O’Byrne points out that the arrangement of the front hall with the screen of columns to the rear with a central door opening into an oval room is also found in Castle Coole, County Fermanagh, which was designed in the early 1790s by James Wyatt – which is probably than the arrangement laid out in Lucan House (see my entry about Castle Coole https://irishhistorichouses.com/2024/03/21/castle-coole-county-fermanagh-a-national-trust-property/ ).
The large arch over the door entering from the front hall is repeated in the walls, which hold mirrors that look like doors. This room, Robert O’Byrne tells us, was designed as the Drawing Room but in later years served as a dining room. On the walls plaster “girandoles”, ornamental candle holders that are normally mounted on walls. O’Byrne tells us that Michael Stapleton created the design of these plaster girandoles. [see 1].
The room held an exhibition by Foley Architects, who prepared plans for South Dublin City Council for their transformation of Lucan House and its demesne for public use, including delicate watercolour paintings by Jérémy Cheval (his name is apt due to the prominent presence of the horse in the front hall!). Foley architects examine the entire site, with its Church Tower House ruin, main residence, boathouse, bathhouse (which we did not see as it is further from the house) and stables, its watercourse and vegetation.
The other room on the ground floor is a library with shelving units. I don’t know whether these units were in the house originally, or whether they are a later addition.
Robert O’Byrne tells us that the ceiling has been covered in plasterwork centred on another medallion, featuring, unusually, he points out, the Christ child and infant John the Baptist together with a lamb.
Vesey married his cousin Elizabeth, daughter of Right Reverend Sir Thomas Vesey, 1st Baronet, Bishop of Killaloe and of Ossory. Elizabeth Vesey was one of the founders of the Blue Stockings Society! This was an informal women’s social and educational movement in England in the mid-18th century that emphasised education and mutual cooperation. They liked to discuss literature, and invited men also to their gatherings. Elizabeth and Agmondesham did not have children, and they lived much of their time in London, where Elizabeth held her intellectual literary salons.
Robert O’Byrne tells us that like his wife Elizabeth, Vesey also took part in a conversational club. In 1773, during the period that work was underway on the new house, he was elected to the ‘Club’, the informal dining and conversational group established ten years earlier by Samuel Johnson and Joshua Reynolds. Johnson and James Boswell granted him the notional title of ‘Professor of Architecture,’ and the latter wrote that Vesey had ‘left a good specimen of his knowledge and taste in that art by an elegant house built on a plan of his own at Lucan.’ [see 1]
Behind the house is a boat house, on the River Liffey.
A sulphur spring was discovered in 1758, and a health spa opened that year in the area.
Watercolour painting by Jérémy Cheval of the spring, which must be located within the grounds of Lucan House.
The house passed to the son of a younger brother of Agmondisham. The younger brother, George, married a second cousin, Letitia Vesey. Their son George (1761-1836) inherited Lucan House. He married Emily La Touche (1767-1854), daughter of David La Touche (1729-1817) of Marley House in Dublin.
George and Emily’s daughter Elizabeth married Nicholas Conway Colthurst (1789-1829) 4th Baronet of Ardrum, County Cork. We came across the Colthurst family when we visited Blarney Castle in Cork. Their second son, Charles Vesey Colthurst, changed his name to Charles Vesey Colthurst-Vesey in 1860. He served as Justice of the Peace for Kildare and for Dublin, and High Sheriff of Dublin, and he lived at Lucan House. The house passed through their family until 1921, when it was sold.
Portrait of Mrs. George Vesey and Her Daughter Elizabeth Vesey, later Lady Colthurst, 1816 by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780-1867). Location: Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University Massachusetts USA.
Capt Richard Colthurst (afterwards 8th Bt) sold it 1932 to Charles Hugh O’Conor, President of Irish Association of the Order of Malta and brother of the O’Conor Don of Clonalis House in County Roscommon. Charles Hugh O’Conor and his wife Ellen Letitia More O’Ferrall were parents of the next O’Conor Don, Father Charles O’Conor (see my entry about Clonalis https://irishhistorichouses.com/2020/10/16/clonalis-castlerea-county-roscommon/ ).
A daughter, Mary Ellen O’Conor, married Luke William Teeling, Conservative MP for Brighton in the UK, who sold Lucan House after WWII to the Italian government, for use as their embassy. First it was leased by the Italian ambassador as a residence in 1942, and then bought by the the Italian government in 1954.
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We visited Leinster House, the seat of Irish Government, during Open House Dublin 2025. We were lucky to get tickets! Open House Dublin events book out almost immediately.
Leinster House was built from 1745-1752 for James Fitzgerald (1722-1773) 20th Earl of Kildare and first Duke of Leinster.
James Fitzgerald (1722-1773) 20th Earl of Kildare later 1st Duke of Leinster, by Robert Hunter c. 1803, courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.
James’s father, Robert FitzGerald (1675-1744) 19th Earl of Kildare, made Carton in County Kildare his principal seat and employed Richard Castle (1690-1751) from 1739 to enlarge and improve the house (see my entry https://irishhistorichouses.com/2024/06/04/carton-house-county-kildare-a-hotel/ ). Before that, the Earl of Kildare had lived in Kilkea Castle in County Kildare.
After the destruction of Maynooth Castle, occupied by Earls of Kildare, in 1641, George, 14th Earl of Kildare, resided at Kilkea Castle from 1647-1660, and it continued as the family’s principal seat until Robert, the 19th Earl, built Carton House. [1]
Robert, 19th Earl of Kildare (1675-1744) after Frederick Graves, courtesy of Adam’s auction 15th Oct 2019. Robert FitzGerald, (1675 – 1744) was married to Mary O Brien, daughter of William O’Brien 3rd Earl of Inchiquin. They had 12 children but only 2 survived to majority. They had lived quietly at Kilkea Castle, near Athy, but in 1739 Robert bought back the lease of Carton, in Maynooth, for £8,000. He commissioned Richard Castle, the eminent architect, to reconstruct the existing house. In the pediment over the South front, previously the main entrance, is the coat of arms of Robert FitzGerald and his wife Mary O’Brien. Robert also employed the La Franchini brothers to construct the wonderful ceiling in the Gold Salon. The additions to Carton were not finished when Robert died in 1744 but he left instructions in his will to finish the restoration according to his plans. A monument dedicated to Robert FitzGerald is situated in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. (This portrait hung in Carton until 1949 when the Fitzgerald family sold the estate. It hung in Kilkea Castle until 1960. It was in the FitzGerald family collection in Oxfordshire until 2013.)
The 20th Earl, James, employed Richard Castle from 1745 to build him a new house in the city, which is now called Leinster House, and began to be so called around 1766 when James Fitzgerald was created Duke of Leinster. He was told that this was not a fashionable area to build, as at that time most of the upper classes lived on the north side of the Liffey around Mountjoy Square and Henrietta Street. He was confident that where he led, fashion would follow, and indeed he was correct.
The building as it was originally constructed is a double cube of granite on the east and north fronts and Ardbraccan limestone on the west entrance front. It has a forecourt on the Kildare Street side, which Christine Casey tells us in her Dublin volume of the Pevsner series The Buildings of Ireland is in the French seventeenth century manner, which probably derived via Burlington House in London, a house which would have influenced Richard Castle. The form is Palladian, an eleven bay block of three storeys over basement with a “tetrastyle” (i.e. supported by four columns) Corinthian portico over advanced and rusticated central bays. “Rustication” in masonry is a decorative feature achieved by cutting back the edges of stones to a plane surface while leaving the central portion of the face either rough or projecting markedly, emphasising the blocks. [2]
Casey points to the unusual arrangement of pediments on the windows of the first floor, as an alternating pattern would be the norm, rather than the pairs of segmental (i.e. rounded) pediments flanked by single triangular pediments in the bays to either side of the central three windows. [see 2]
The centre block has a balustraded balcony, and the attic and ground floor windows have lugged architraves: the architrave is the classical moulding around the window and “lug” means ear, so the windows have “ears,” otherwise called shoulders. The term “Lugs” was made famous as a nickname for a policeman in the Dublin Liberties, “Lugs” Branigan, a man known for his sticking-out ears. A heavyweight boxing champion, he had a reputation as the country’s toughest and bravest garda. The ground floor windows have are topped with a further cornice – a horizontal decorative moulding.
Originally, Casey writes, the house was linked to the side walls of the forecourt by low five-bay screen walls with Doric colonneads and central doorcases flanked by paired niches. The colonnade was given a pilastered upper storey in the nineteenth century, and was rebuilt in the 1950s when the colonnade was filled in, Casey explains. The lower storey on the left side when facing the building (north side) still has the colonnade: you can compare the stages of building the colonnades in the pictures below. In fact this colonnade was reinstated after being filled in. It was recently (when written before 2005) reinstated, Casey tells us, by Paul Arnold Architects, and topped with the nineteenthy century screen wall above which we see today.
In the Malton drawing of Leinster house we can see that the side walls of the forecourt had pedimented arches. The present piers, wrought iron gates and railings were added in the 1880s, built by T.N. & T.M. Deane.
To the south of the forecourt lay a stable court, with a stable and coach house block and a kitchen block which was linked to the house by a small yard, which must have been very inconvenient when dinner was served!
The garden front is fully rusticated on the ground floor, with advanced two-bay ends.
The central first floor window has a triangular pediment. The door porch was added in the nineteenth century. The lawn lay on property leased from Viscount Fitzwilliam.
Irish Architectural Archive exhibition about Leinster House.It was designed by Richard Castle (1690-1751) with later input from Isaac Ware (1704-1786) and Thomas Owen (d. 1788). Here we see the location of the Main Hall, Supper Room and Parlour and Drawing room on first floor, Picture Gallery and principal bedrooms on second floor and Nursery and children’s and staff rooms on third floor. There is a separate kitchen and stores block and stable block.
James’s father died in 1744 before his house at Carton was complete, so it was finished for James the 20th Earl. James was the second son of his parents the 19th Earl and his wife Mary (d. 1780), eldest daughter of William O’Brien, 3rd Earl of Inchiquin. His elder brother died in 1740.
The Dictionary of Irish Biography tells us that James’s political career began on 17 October 1741, when (then known as Lord Offaly) he entered the Irish house of commons as member for Athy. In 1744 he moved to the House of Lords after he inherited the earldom. [3] It was then that he embarked on his town house in Dublin. Now the houses of parliament are located next to Leinster house, but at the time, they were located in what is now the Bank of Ireland on College Green in Dublin.
Parliament House, Dublin, with the House of Commons dome on fire, 27th February 1792.Parliament Buildings Bank of Ireland, College Green, Dublin, between ca. 1865-1914, photograph by Robert French, Lawrence Photograph Collection, National Library of Ireland.House of Lords, Parliament Building, Bank of Ireland, Dublin, between ca. 1865-1914, photograph by Robert French, Lawrence Photograph Collection, National Library of Ireland.
The Dictionary of Irish Biography continues:
“His seniority in the peerage, popularity, and electoral interests ensured his appointment to the privy council (12 May 1746). He was made an English peer, Viscount Leinster of Taplow, Bucks. (1 February 1747), and appointed lord justice (11 May 1756). Master general of the ordnance (1758–66), he became major-general (11 November 1761) and lieutenant-general (30 March 1770). He was also promoted through the Irish peerage, becoming marquis of Kildare (19 March 1761) and duke of Leinster (26 November 1766).” [see 3]
James married Emilia Mary Lennox (1731-1814) in 1747, two years after Richard Castle began work on James’s townhouse. She was the daughter of General Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond. Her grandfather the 1st Duke of Richmond was an illegitimate son of King Charles II of England. Emilia’s sister Louisa (1743-1821) married Thomas Conolly (d. 1803) and lived next to her sister in Carton, at Castletown in County Kildare (see my entry https://irishhistorichouses.com/2024/03/15/castletown-house-and-parklands-celbridge-county-kildare-an-office-of-public-works-property/
Emily Fitzgerald née Lennox (1731-1814) Duchess of Leinster 1770s by Joshua Reynolds.This terrific portrait of William Conolly (1662-1729) of Castletown, County Kildare is in the dining room.
Richard Castle died in 1751 before the town house was complete. He died at Carton, the Earl of Kildare’s country seat, while writing a letter with instructions to a carpenter at Leinster house. Isaac Ware stepped in to finish the house. An exhibition about Leinster House in the Irish Archictural Archive explains that following the death of Richard Castle in 1751, little further about the building is recorded until 1759. By this time, English architect Isaac Ware, famous for his A Complete Body of Architecture published in 1756, had become involved with the project. The Fitzgeralds began to use the house in 1753 while work on the interior continued.
Inside, the house has a double height entrance hall with an arcaded screen of Doric pillars toward the back which opens onto a transverse corridor that divides the front and rear ranges. I found the hall hard to capture in a photograph, especially as we were part of a tour group. The hall reminded me of the double height entrance hall of Castletown, and indeed Christine Casey notes in her Buildings of Ireland: Dublin that the plan and dimensions of Leinster House relate directly to those of Castletown house in County Kildare, which was built in 1720s for William Conolly, and which was probably, she writes, built under the direction of Edward Lovett Pearce, possibly with the assistance of Richard Castle. [2]
It is the double height that reminds me of the great hall in Castletown, although Castletown has a gallery and Leinster house does not. The niches remind me of the similar front hall in Gloster house in County Offaly, which although a private family home, in 2025 is a Section 482 property which you can visit on particular days.
The black and white flooring is original to the house. [see 2] The red marble doorframe was added later.
The coffered ceiling in the Hall in Leinster house is different from the ceilings in the front hall in Castletown or Gloster. The deep coffered cove rises to a plain framed flat panel with central foliated boss. There is an entablature above the Doric columns around the four sides of the hall. The square ovolo framed niches above have statues and above the main door the niches have windows.
The chimneypiece in the front hall, Casey tells us, was originally faced with a pedimented niche on the north wall opposite, flanked by the doorcases. The chimneypiece is of Portland stone, she describes, with ornamental consoles and above the lintel, enormous scrolls flanking a bust pedestal.
The principal stair hall is a two bay compartment north of the front hall. Casey tells us that Isaac Ware inserted an imperial staircase – one in which a central staircase rises to a landing then splits into two symmetrical flights up to the next floor – into a hall compartment which was meant for a three flight open well staircase. The staircase is further marred, Casey tells us, by a later utilitarian metal balustrade. Casey does not mention the plasterwork here, which is very pretty. The wooden staircase is a later addition.
Beyond the stair hall is the former Supper Room, which is now the Library of the Oireachtais, which fills the entire depth of the house. I found the lights rather offputting and think they ruin the intended effect of the room and the ceiling, which Casey tells us derives from Sebastiano Serlio (1475-1554), an Italian architect who was part of an Italian team who built the Palace of Fontainbleau, and Tutte l’opere d’architettura et prospetiva (All the Works of Architecture and Perspective) is Serlio’s practical treatise on architecture.
The room has three screens of fluted Ionic columns – one at either end and one in front of the bow at one side of the room. Originally, Casey informs us, there were six fluted columns to each screen, paired at the ends of the room and in the centre of the north bow, but in the 19th century one column was removed from each pair. On the walls the corresponding pilasters would have matched the six columns.
The bow is considered to be the first bow in Dublin, and the design of the house is said to have inspired the design of the White House in Washington DC, designed by a man from Kilkenny, James Hoban.
A pedimented doorcase is flanked by ornate chimneypieces based on a design by William Kent. These are surmounted by Corinthian overmantels after a design by Inigo Jones, possibly made to frame portraits, Casey suggests, of the Earl and Countess of Kildare painted by Reynolds in 1753-54. [see 2]
Next to the Supper Room on the garden front is the large dining room, also designed by Isaac Ware. It is of three bays, and has decorative doorcases and a beautiful ceiling attributed to Filippo Lafranchini.
Christine Casey next describes the Garden Hall, with a more modest shell and acanthus ceiling and a chimneypiece with claw feet. Next is the former Private Dining Room, she tells us, a room from 1760, which has a ceiling with acanthus, rocaille shells and floral festoon forming a deep border to a plain chamfered central panel.
Casey tells us that the Earl of Kildare’s Library is at the southeast corner of the house, and that it has pedimented bookcases. It too was designed by Isaac Ware.
Designs for the ceiling of the Earl of Kildare’s dressing room by Richard Castle, 1745, IIA 96/68.1/1/17, 18, 19. Irish Architectural Archive exhibition about Leinster House.As with the several surviving designs for the front elevation of Leinster House, these three beautifully executed drawings for proposed ceilings in the Earl of Kildare’s dressing room are indicative of the attention to design detail which Richard Castle brought to the project in an effort to satisfy his demanding clients. The third variant shows the ceiling almost as executed.
Before we go into the separate building that holds the current Dáil chamber, let us go up to the first floor. The former gallery now holds the Senate Chamber, and it fills the north end of the eighteenth century house. Both Richard Castle and Isaac Ware prepared plans for this room, but the room was unfinished when the Duke of Leinster died in 1773.
James died on 19 November 1773 at Leinster House and was buried in Christ Church cathedral four days later. His eldest son George predeceased him, so the Dukedom passed to his second son, William Robert Fitzgerald (1748/49-1804). The 2nd Duke completed the picture gallery in 1775 to designs by James Wyatt (1746-1813).
The ceiling as designed by James Wyatt is tripartite. I defer to Christine Casey for a description:
“at its centre a chamfered octagon within a square and at each end a diaper within a square, each flanked by broad figurative lunette panels at the base of the coving and bracketed by attenuated tripods, urns and arabesque finials… It remains among the finest examples of Neoclassical stuccowork in Dublin.“
Irish Architectural Archive exhibition about Leinster House: Sketch showing the interior of the Senate Chamber of Leinster House by Con O’Sullivan, 1930s (IAA 96/145.1). Founded in 1747, Henry Sibthorpe & Co were one of the leading painting and decorating firms in Dublin from the first half of the 19th century to the mid 20th, and they closed in 1970s. Some of its records survive in the National Archives and in the IAA. Drawings showed perspective views of proposed decorative schemes to prospective clients. This dawing by Sibthorpe employee Con O’Sullivan shows a proposed repainting of the Senate Chamber.
Wyatt created an elliptical vault over the principal volume of the room and a half-dome above the bow.
On the inner wall of the room Wyatt places three ornate double-leaf doorcases and between them two large white marble chimneypieces. The chimneypieces have high-relief female figures to the uprights and on the lintel, putti sit “between headed spandrels enclosing urns and confronted griffins.”
Unfortunately with the tour group I was unable to get good photographs of the room, the chimneypieces or the carved doorframes.
At the south end of the ground floor corridor is a top-lit stair hall which leads to the Dáil chamber. This separate building originally housed a lecture theatre, built in 1893 by Thomas Newenham and Thomas Manly Deane. Before this was built, let us look at the rest of the history briefly of the Dukes of Leinster who continued to use the house as their Dublin residence.
The first duke’s wife Emilia went on to marry her children’s tutor, William Ogilvie. This would have caused quite a scandal, and she and her husband lived quietly in Blackrock in Dublin at their house called Frascati (or Frescati), which no longer exists. She and the Duke of Leinster had had nineteen children! She had happy times when the children were young and their tutor would take them bathing in the sea near Frescati house. She and her second husband went on to have two daughters.
Frescati House, County Dublin, photograph by Robert French (between ca. 1865-1914), Lawrence Photograph Collection, National Library of Ireland.
A younger son of Emilia and the Duke of Leinster, Edward (1763-1798) became involved in an uprising in Dublin, inspired by the French Revolution, and he was put in prison as a traitor and where he died of wounds he’d received while resisting arrest.
Edward Fitzgerald (1763-1798)
Another son, Charles James (1756-1810) served in the Royal Navy. He also acted as M.P. for County Kildare between 1776 and 1790, Commissioner of Customs between 1789 and 1792 and M.P. for County Cavan between 1790 and 1797. He held the office of Muster Master-General of Ireland between 1792 and 1806 and Sheriff of County Down in 1798. He was M.P. for Ardfert between 1798 and 1800 and was created 1st Baron Lecale of Ardglass, Co. Down [Ireland] in 1800. He held the office of Member of Parliament (M.P.) for Arundel in England between January 1807 and April 1807.
A sister of Edward Fitzgerald (1763-1798), Emily Maria Margaret (1751-1818) married Charles Coote 1st Earl of Bellomont, County Cavan.
William Robert Fitzgerald, 2nd Duke of Leinster, K.P. (1749-1804), circle of Joshua Reynolds courtesy of Christie’s Irish Sale 2002.
The Dictionary of Irish Biography tells us about the second duke:
“He was returned as MP for Dublin city in 1767, though he was too young to take his seat, and it was only in October 1769 that he returned to Ireland to sit in parliament. He represented the constituency until 1773, supporting the government for most of this period. On learning that he was a freemason, the grand lodge of Irish freemasons rushed to make him their grand master and he served two terms (1770–72 and 1777–8). On 19 November 1773 he succeeded his father as 2nd duke of Leinster. The family home of Carton in Co. Kildare had been left to his mother but he, somewhat vainly, was determined to own it and purchased her life interest, a transaction that was the major source of his future indebtedness. His aunt, Lady Louisa Conolly, believed that he was ‘mighty queer about money’ and that his ‘distress’ about it was ‘the foundation of all that he does’ (HIP, iv, 160). In November 1775 he married Emilia Olivia Usher, only daughter and heir of St George Usher, Lord St George, a union that helped to ease some of his financial problems.“
HUGH DOUGLAS HAMILTON portrait of Emilia Olivia née St. George, 2nd Duchess of Leinster courtesy of Bonhams Old Master Paintings 2018.
The 2nd Duke was active in politics. He died in 1804 and is buried in Kildare Abbey.
William Robert Fitzgerald (1749-1804) 2nd Duke of Leinster wearing Order of St. Patrick, by Gilbert Stuart, courtesy Christies.
One of William Robert Fitzgerald’s daughters, Emily Elizabeth (1778-1856) married John Joseph Henry of Straffan house in County Kildare, now the K Club. A son, Augustus Frederick (1791-1874) became the 3rd Duke of Leinster. He sold the town house in 1814. Since the Union in 1801 when there was no longer an Irish Parliament, a townhouse in Dublin was no longer essential. It was purchased by the Dublin Society, a group founded for “improving Husbandry, Manufactures and other useful arts and sciences.”
Augustus Frederick Fitzgerald (1791-1874), 3rd Duke of Leinster, engraver George Saunders after Stephen Catterson Smith, courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.
From 1815-1922 Leinster House was the Headquarters of the Royal Dublin Society – the “Royal” was added to the Society’s name in 1820. Rooms in the house were used to accommodate the Society’s library and museum as well as offices and meeting spaces. The original kitchen wing of the house was converted to laboratories and a lecture theatre. Gradually more buildings were added around the house, including sheds and halls for the Society’s events, namely the Spring Show and the Horse Show.
Note at Irish Architectural Archive exhibition about the RDS at Leinster House.Irish Architectural Archive exhibition about Leinster House.Configuration of Leinster house as RDS and centre of culture, learning and innovation the site of The Dublin Society (1815-1820) and the RDS (1820-1922). The School of Drawing (1845) was to the left, and later became the Metropolitan School of Art and the National College of Art and Design which continued as the National College of Art on this site until 1980, when it moved to Thomas Street and its facilities were incorporated into the adjacent National Library. The former kitchen and stable block were amended and expanded to host sculpture galleries, a stone yard, laboratories and lecture facilities. It had a 700 seat lecture theatre. To the right, Shelbourne Hall and the Agricultural Hall in the mid 19th century had facilities to display agricultural and industrial products, and it was later the site of the Museum of Archaeology. The Museum of Natural History (1857) and the National Gallery of Art (1860) were first developed for RDS collections, an dwere later expanded in conjunction with the Department of Science and Art/South Kensington and the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction.
Leinster Lawn was the site of industrial and agricultural exhibitions. In 1853, the Great Industrial Exhibition ran on the RDS grounds at Leinster House, just two years after Prince Albert’s Exhibition in the Crystal Palace in London. Constructed of iron, wood and glass, the Irish Industrial Exhibition building was paid for by William Dargan and installed by Richard Turner on Leinster Lawn in a matter of months. Its architect was John Benson, who was knighted for his efforts.
Spring Shows and Industries Fairs (1831-1880) and early Horse Shows (1864-1881) were also held on Leinster Lawn.
Irish Architectural Archive exhibition about Leinster House.Opening of the Dublin Great Exhibition, Illustrated London News 4th June 1853, IIA 80/010.20/1. A successor to the Great Exhibition held in the Crystal Palace, London in 1851, the Great Industrial Exhibition ran on the RDS grounds at Leinster House from 12 May to 31st October 1853. As much a marvel as any of the objects on display was the edifice in which the exhibition was housed. Constructed of iron, wood and glass, the Irish Industrial Exhibition building was paid for by William Dargan and installed by Richard Turner on Leinster Lawn in a matter of months. Its architect was John Benson, who was knighted for his efforts.
The National Museum and National Library were built in 1890, and were designed by Thomas Newenham Deane and his son Thomas Manly Deane.
The museum and library were designed as a pair of Early Renaissance rotundas facing each other. The rotundas have a single storey yellow sandstone Roman Doric colonnade surrounding them. Above is a row of circular niches. Above that are columns framing round headed windows and panels of red and white marble. The pavillions next to the rotundas have a rusticated ground floor, with Venetian windows on first floor level and Corinthian pilasters.
The Lecture Theatre was built in 1893, and was also designed by Thomas Newenham Deane. The lecture theatre is a horseshoe shaped top-lit galleried auditorium with a flat west end that originally accommodated a stage and lecture preparation rooms.
Irish Architectural Archive exhibition about Leinster House: The RDS lecture theatre.
Single and paired cast iron Corinthian columns support the gallery in the former theatre. The building was appropriated as a temporary Dáil chamber in 1922 on Michael Collins’s recommendation, and in 1924 the government acquired Leinster House to be the seat of the Oireachtais. The theatre was remodelled: a new floor was inserted over the central block of seats to make a platform for the Ceann Comhairle, the clerk of the Dail, and the official reporters. The lower tier of seating was replaced with rows of mahogany and leather covered seats designed either by Hugh O’Flynn of the OPW, as the exhibition in the Irish Architectural Archive tells us, or by James Hicks & Sons according to Christine Casey, and the upper tiers became the press and public galleries. The stage was closed in and replaced by a press gallery and adjoining press rooms. The gallery was remodelled around 1930.
To enter Leinster house, you go through a security hut upon which a controversial sum was spent by the Office of Public Works. I love the way the hut goes around a large tree. I assume a large part of the cost of the hut was the beautiful marble countertops!
[1] MacDonnell, Randal. The Lost Houses of Ireland. A chronicle of great houses and the families who lived in them. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. London, 2002.
[2] Casey, Christine. The Buildings of Ireland: Dublin. The City within the Grand and Royal Canals and the Circular Road with the Phoenix Park. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2005.
Dartrey House (formerly Dawson’s Grove), Co Monaghan
Dartrey, County Monaghan, garden front, Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.Portrait of Thomas Dawson (1725-1813), Lord Dartrey, 1st Viscount Cremorne, miniature, courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.
Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 100. “(Dawson, Dartrey, E/PB1933) A large Elizabethan-Revival mansion by William Burn, built in 1846 to replace an earlier house of about 1770. This earlier house, described 1778 by Rev Daniel Beaufort…was of three storeys over basement, the entrance front was of seven bays…..The Elizabethan-Revival mansion which took the place of this house, built by Richard Dawson, 3rd Lord Cremorne and later 1st Earl of Dartrey, had long and somewhat monotonous elevations of curvilinear gables, mullioned windows and oriels, with, sporadically, a square turret and cupola. There were numerous Tudor chimneys, a generous application of strapwork and a two-tier terrace along the garden front with many yards of latticed balustrading.
“The quoins were partly curved.
.”.. The house overlooked Lough Dromore, where, on a wooded island, Thomas Dawson, 1st Lord Dartrey and afterwards Viscount Cremorne, built a domed mausoleum ca 1770 in memory of his first wife, Lady Anne, to the design of James Wyatt, containing a dramatic lifesized sculptural group, including an angel with outstretched wings, by Joseph Wilton. The Elizabethan-Revival mansion, after standing empty for some years, was demolished ca 1950; the mausoleum, which had become roofless, so that the monument was suffering from teh weather as well as from vandalism, was repaired by the Irish Georgian Society 1961.”
Listed in Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
Also known as Dawson Grove, Dartrey was built in 1846 and designed by William Burn as a large Elizabethan Revivial mansion to replace an earlier house on the site. Built for Richard Dawson, 3rd Lord Cremorne and later 1st Earl Dartry, it had very long façades with legions of mullioned windows, oriel windows, tudor chimneys and curvilinear gables relieved by square turrets with cupolas.
On the garden front (pictured) was a two level terrace facing onto Lough Dromore. On an island in the lake there was also a fine Mausoleum to the design of James Wyatt from around 1770 which was recently restored.
The house was demolished in the 1950s – after remaining empty for many years, the house was lent by the last owner to the RSPCA for a ball after which the County Council demanded rates for the house. All that remains of the estate are various gatehouses, the ruined Mausoleum and a fine stable block built around five sides of an octagon – built around 1850 to the design of William Burn.
THE EARLS OF DARTREY WERE MAJOR LANDOWNERS IN COUNTY MONAGHAN, WITH 17,732 ACRES
The family of DAWSON was originally from Spaldington, Yorkshire; whence, towards the close 0f ELIZABETH I’s reign, it removed to Ulster.
THOMAS DAWSON, who became, in the following reign, a burgess of Armagh, was grandfather of
JOHN DAWSON, who married into the family of Henry Ussher, Lord Archbishop of Armagh.
Archbishop Ussher was twice married: first about 1573, to Margaret, daughter of Thomas Eliot of Balrisk, County Meath; secondly, to Mary Smith, who survived him. His widow married John Jeeves, of Drogheda, Alderman, by whom she had issue, Anne Jeeves, who married (as his second wife), Walter Dawson in 1660, from which a considerable property in counties Armagh and Tyrone came to the Dawson family.
John Dawson was father of
WALTER DAWSON, of Armagh, who married firstly, Mary, daughter of Edward Dixie, and had issue,
WALTER, his heir; Thomas, ancestor of Catherine, Countess of Charleville; Edward; Margaret; Mary; Elizabeth.
He espoused secondly, in 1680, Anne, daughter of John Jeeves.
Mr Dawson died in 1704, and was succeeded by his elder son,
WALTER DAWSON, who wedded, in 1672, Frances, daughter of Richard Dawson (by which marriage the estate of Dawson Grove, County Monaghan, was conveyed to this family), and had issue,
RICHARD, his heir; Walter; John; Mary; Elizabeth.
Mr Dawson, an officer in Cromwell’s army, died in 1718, and was succeeded by his only surviving son,
RICHARD DAWSON (c1693-1766), of Dawson Grove, an eminent banker, alderman of the city of Dublin, MP for St Canice, 1727-60, Monaghan Borough, 1761-6 (great-grandson of John Dawson, of Armagh, who died intestate).
Alderman Dawson wedded, in 1723, Elizabeth, daughter of the Most Rev Dr John Vesey, Lord Archbishop of Tuam, and sister of Sir Thomas Vesey Bt, Lord Bishop of Ossory, and had issue,
John, died in 1742; THOMAS, his successor; Richard, of Ardee; Frances.
He was succeeded by his eldest surviving son,
THOMAS DAWSON (1725-1813), of Dawson Grove, who was elevated to the peerage, in 1770, in the dignity of Baron Dartrey, of Dawson’s Grove, County Monaghan; and advanced to a viscountcy, in 1778, as Viscount Cremorne, of Castle Dawson, County Monaghan.
His lordship married firstly, in 1754, the Lady Anne Fermor, youngest daughter of Thomas, 1st Earl of Pomfret, by whom he had a son and a daughter, both of whom died in adolescence.
He wedded secondly, in 1770, Philadelphia Hannah, daughter of Thomas Freame, of Philadelphia, by Margaretta, daughter of William Penn, the celebrated founder of that city, by whom he had another son and a daughter, who also died young.
His lordship, thus deprived of direct descendants, was created, in 1797, Baron Cremorne, with remainder to his nephew, Richard Dawson, and the heirs male of that gentleman.
Dying without an heir in 1813, the viscountcy expired, and the barony of Cremorne devolved upon his great-nephew,
RICHARD THOMAS DAWSON (1788-1827) as 2nd Baron (only son of Richard Dawson, MP for Monaghan), who espoused, in 1815, Anne Elizabeth Emily, third daughter of John Whaley, of Whaley Abbey, County Wicklow, and had issue,
RICHARD, his successor; Thomas Vesey.
His lordship was succeeded by his elder son, RICHARD, 3rd Baron (1817-97), who wedded, in 1841, Augusta, second daughter of Edward Stanley, of Cross Hall, Lancashire, by his wife, the Lady Mary Maitland, second daughter of James, 8th Earl of Lauderdale.
His lordship was installed a Knight of St Patrick, 1855; a Lord-in-Waiting, 1857-66; Lord Lieutenant of County Monaghan, 1871-97.
He was advanced to an earldom, in 1866, in the dignity of EARL OF DARTREY.
By his wife he had issue,
VESEY, his successor; Edward Stanley (1843-1919); Richard Westland Westenra (1845-1914); ANTHONY LUCIUS, 3rd Earl; Mary Eleanor Anne.
His lordship was succeeded by his eldest son,
VESEY, 2nd Earl (1842-1920), MP for County Monaghan, 1865-68, High Sheriff of County Monaghan, 1878, who married, in 1882, Julia Georgiana Sarah, daughter of Sir George Ormby Wombwell Bt, and had issue,
Richard George, 1890-94; EDITH ANNE (1883-1974), of Dartrey House; Mary Augusta, 1887-1961.
His lordship died without surviving male issue, when the titles devolved upon his brother,
ANTHONY LUCIUS, 3rd Earl (1855-1933), who wedded, in 1878, Mary Frances, suo jure Baroness de Ros, only child of the 23rd Baron de Ros, and had issue,
Una Mary, Baroness de Ros;Maude Elizabeth; Eleanor Charlotte Augusta.
On the decease of the 3rd Earl, in 1933, the titles became extinct.
The Lady Edith Windham was the last member of the family to live at Dartrey.
The Dartrey Papers contain extensive historical information about the family.
The Earl of Dartrey possessed the following land during the Victorian era:-
DARTREY HOUSE, near Rockcorry, County Monaghan, was a large Elizabethan-Revival mansion by William Burn, built in 1846 to replace an earlier house, known as Dawson Grove, of ca 1770.
It was built for Richard Dawson, 3rd Baron Cremorne and later 1st Earl of Dartrey.
This noble and magnificent demesne is situated on the gorgeous chain of the Cootehill lakes, a few miles east-north-east of Cootehill.
It is separated from the neighbouring demesne of Bellamont forest, County Cavan, only by a narrow belt of one of the main lakes, Dromore Lough.
The mansion had long, monotonous elevations of curvilinear gables, mullioned windows and oriels, with, sporadically, a square turret and cupola.
There were numerous Tudor chimneys, a generous application of strapwork and a two-tier terrace along the garden front with many yards of latticed ballustrading.
The quoins were partly curved.
Dartrey House overlooked Lough Dromore where, on a wooded island (Black Island), the 1st Viscount Cremorne built a domed temple about 1770 in memory of his first wife, Lady Anne Dawson.
The sheer size of Dartrey House proved too much for the 20th-century financial resources of the family.
Most of its contents were sold by auction in 1937 and the entire building was demolished in 1946 by the Hammond Lane Foundry, Dublin, who paid £3,000 for the salvage – a dreadful return on the £30,000 it cost to build the great mansion.
Lady Edith, elder daughter of the 2nd Earl, was the last Dawson to live in Dartrey House, and it was she who was forced to make the decision to demolish it in 1946.
Now, only the magnificent site overlooking Lough Dromore is visible.
The red-brick stable block contemporary with the 1846 house survives, and was renovated by the Irish Georgian Society (presumably at about the same time as Lady Anne’s temple).
There is also a surviving farmyard, in ruinous condition, which seems to be contemporary with (or even earlier than) the early 1770s house.
The following description of the Dartrey Estate near Cootehill, County Monaghan, Ireland, was written in 1773 by the Reverend J Burrows, visiting tutor to the Dawson family:
A thousand acres of lake, three hundred of which flows within a few yards of the house, with hills on each side covered with the most beautiful delicious woods, bring all fairyland to one’s imagination. On the other side of the lake is a large island, wonderfully shaded on all its sides but with a bald pate of open ground on the top, giving a very pleasing and uncommon effect.
Beyond that are woods that lose themselves in the clouds. People who are not used to lakes cannot conceive into what delightful forms they throw themselves, and how much the little islands, here and there interspersed, which contain one or two trees, add to their beauty.
The Dartrey estate, originally known as Dawson Grove, was established by the Dawson family in the 17th century alongside Bellamont Forest, a demesne of similar size – over a thousand acres.
Richard Dawson, a banker and Dublin alderman, built the present (Church of Ireland) church on the Dartrey estate in 1729.
It was established in its own separate parish of Ematris soon after.
The Dawsons added a north gallery to the church in 1769, and much later the Corry family (from Rockcorry) added a south gallery, raised on arches to avoid desecrating the burial ground beneath it.
A fire caused serious damaged in 1811 leaving the church for a period without a roof.
The fine west tower was built in 1840, and the sanctuary apse in 1870.
With the demolition of the Dawson mansion in 1950, and their once thriving estate turned over to forestry, St John’s appears isolated.
However it shares services with St James’ church, Rockcorry some 2½ miles away, which the Dawsons built in 1855, and both churches continue well supported by the local farming community.
But the view from St John’s cemetery across Inner Lough, once described as “one of the best in Ireland”, is currently obscured by conifers.
The Northern Standard, Saturday, 8th March, 1856:-
FIRE AT DARTREY HOUSE
We regret to announce the breaking out of a destructive fire, on Saturday evening last, at Dartrey House, the magnificent residence of Lord Cremorne, in this county.
The fire is supposed to have originated in the flue of one of the rooms in the basement storeys, which broke out near the roof, and before effective aid could be procured, had enveloped the entire of the upper storey of the north-eastern wing of the building.
The existence of the fire was first observed about six o’clock, by Mr. Little, Lord Cremorne’s steward, who hastened with a number of his labourers to render all the assistance within their power.
Mr. Little’s exertions up to the final subduing of the fire were unremitting.
Captain Boyle, of Tanagh, and the Rev. T. A. Robinson, were immediately on the ground, and aided materially in checking the fire, which, however, raged with a great fury until the arrival of the fire engines from Monaghan.
Previous to the arrival of the engines, the exertions of those present were directed to cutting off the communication between what is termed the Old and New House, a strong wall dividing the two portions of the house.
At a few minutes past seven in the evening, a messenger from Dartrey arrived at Mr. McCoy’s, of Monaghan, in whose care the town engine is; fortunately, all Mr McCoy’s staff were about his concern, it being pay night, and were consequently available for immediate work.
Four horses from Campbell’s posting establishment were immediately harnessed to the engine, and it started for Dartrey, where it arrived at nine o’clock.
In the meantime, Mr. McCoy sent a requisition for the Ordnance engine, to the officer commanding the detachment of Militia stationed here.
This engine was placed on a float, and, with a pair of horses from the Canal Stores, proceeded to Dartrey, where it arrived in time to do efficient service, under the directions of Sergeant Crooks, of the Monaghan Regiment, whose exertions elicited the commendation of every person present.
Nothing could exceed his intrepidity and cool daring ; indeed, at one moment it was supposed he had fallen a victim, a large beam having fallen just where he had been standing a second before. A. A. Murray Ker, Esq., Lord Cremorne’s agent, was in Monaghan when intelligence of the fire arrived; he immediately started for Dartrey, where he remained until a late hour on Sunday evening; by his presence and individual exertions he animated the energies of the very many who aided in extinguishing the fire.
Amongst those present who worked with hearty good will were – and certainly first on the list – the Rev. T. A. Robinson, Captain Boyle, Wm. Murray, Esq., Richard Mayne, Esq., (this gentleman, we regret to say, was severely hurt by an accident), Rev. John Wolfe, Subinspectors Kirwan and Fortesque; a number of young gentlemen from Cootehill and Monaghan were also most effectual aids.
We do not know the names of the Cootehill gentlemen or we would gladly give them. Amongst those from Monaghan we noticed Messrs. Watkins, Lewers, and Campbell.
The Constabulary from the surrounding stations to a man exerted themselves in a most praiseworthy manner, both by individual exertion and protection of property.
Amongst the most exertive and daring of them was one named Kinsella, from Cootehill station.
The costly furniture, pictures, and mirrors were all saved, with the exception of such injuries as their removal caused.
On learning the existence of the fire, our own chief anxiety was as to the safety of an exquisite group of statuary, “Cupid and Psyche”, which stood in the vestibule of the Grand Staircase; – this beautiful piece of art, though in extreme danger, escaped with but the fracture of one of the arms of the descending figure; the injury is not material, and can be remedied.
The portion of the building entirely destroyed consists of Lord and Lady Cremorne’s private apartments, Drawing-room, and her ladyship’s Boudoir, both of which were magnificent apartments; the cut stone walls seem safe; all the apartments over the east point are destroyed; the Grand Hall, Billiard-room, and Drawing-room are safe, as is also the entire of the basement storey.
The fire continued smouldering and occasionally to blaze out up to five or six o’clock on Sunday evening.
The assurance on the house was heavy, and will more than cover the estimated damages; but much depends on the decision architects arrive at as to the state of the outer walls.
It is, on the whole, surprising that the damage done is not of much greater extent, when the means of overcoming it were so distant.
The tenantry in the neighbourhood all assembled on Tuesday with carts and horses, and cleared away all the debris of the fire, before the arrival of Lord and Lady Cremorne.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE NORTHERN STANDARD
Sir, Allow me, through your paper, to render Lord Cremorne’s grateful thanks to all those who used such strenuous exertions in checking the conflagration at his Lordship’s beautiful mansion on last Saturday night.
The Assurance Companies concerned have every reason to be thankful, (and indeed have already expressed themselves to that effect), to the assembled multitude who lent their best exertions towards arresting the progress of the flames, and saving such a large amount of property.
It would be impossible to personally thank each and all of those I saw distinguishing themselves, for their name was “Legion”.
The constabulary were early on the ground from Rockcorry, and very shortly after from Cootehill, Drum, and Newbliss, and were most efficient and steady.
The fire engines from Monaghan arrived in quite the brigade style, and certainly deserve especial consideration.
The Corporation engine, under the direction of Mr. McCoy and his very active and intelligent workmen, and the Barrack engine, managed by Sergeant Crooks, who most creditably kept up the character of his regiment by his cool and daring conduct.
The tenantry to a man worked with a will. I could name hundreds who were towards morning nearly – and often quite – exhausted and faint.
Nothing could exceed the care taken of the furniture, pictures, and mirrors, in their removal, and wonderfully little damage has been done.
I am happy to say that the Assurances cover the loss and damage to both building and furniture – and again thanking most sincerely those who so kindly gave their valuable aid in time of need.
I remain, your obedient servant, A A Murray Ker, Newbliss.
Henry Skeath has sent me interesting information with regard to Dartrey:
I have attached an article (above) from The Northern Standard about a serious fire at Dartrey House in 1856 just ten years after the place was built.
Two good articles on Dartrey appeared in recent editions of the Clogher Record.
In 2004 June Brown detailed the rise and fall of the estate. June was friendly with Lady Edith, the last of the family at Dartrey, and keeps in touch with her descendants.
The 2009 edition contains a well-researched article by June’s granddaughter, Victoria Baird, about Lady Augusta wife of the 1st Earl of Dartrey.
Lady Augusta endowed St. James’s in Rockcorry where a photograph of her still hangs.
St. John’s Church is affectionately known as St. John’s in the Wood.
The Dawson gallery contains a fireplace for the comfort of the family.
In 1996 St. John’s celebrated 275 years of worship and the Rev. J. T. Merry, rector, produced a short history of the parish.
The Dartrey Heritage Group is undertaking wonderful refurbishment work on the mausoleum which was designed by James Wyatt.
The building has been stabilised and a new domed roof erected.
The Rev. Daniel Beaufort visited in 1780 and noted that the sculptural group within, by Joseph Wilton, had cost £1,000.
The quarterly bulletin of the Irish Georgian Society for Jan-Mar 1961includes an article on it.
Wilton’s work suffered at the hands of vandals but there are ambitious plans for restoration.
In 2008 the Heritage Group completed the restoration of a 60-foot column, also designed by James Wyatt, erected in 1807 to the memory of Richard Dawson who was elected to five successive Parliaments.
It stands prominently along the main road.
The 1846 stable block, five sides of an octagon, restored by the Irish Georgian Society in 1961, has been allowed to fall into disrepair again in recent years.
Of Dartrey House, hardly a vestige remains.
Parts of the basement can be seen and the once-graceful terraces on the garden front can still be traced.
It was once one of the finest estates in Ireland.
London residence ~ 30 Curzon Street.
First published in September, 2011. Dartrey arms courtesy of European Heraldry.
The Parliamentary Gazetteer of Ireland tells us that County Monaghan is an inland county, in the centre of the south of the historic province of Ulster.
It is bounded, on the north, by Tyrone; on the east, by Armagh; and on the west, by Cavan and Fermanagh.
“A noble and magnificent demesne, the property of the Viscount Cremorne [later Earl of Dartrey], on the southern margin of the barony of Dartrey, is situated on the gorgeous chain of the Cootehill lakes, 1½ miles from Cootehill; and is separated from the rival demesne of Bellamont Forest in County Cavan, only by the narrow belt of one of the main lakes called Dromore.”
“From the contiguity of Dawson Grove and Bellamont Forest, and the beautiful natural lakes which in many places form their line of demarcation, they may be said in various instances to reflect each other.”
“Separately they are splendid residences; conjointly they form a rich combination of many of the elements of landscape.”
On Saturday afternoon four of us met Noel Carney, of Dartrey Heritage Association, who took us to see Dartrey demesne, former seat of the extinct Earls of Dartrey.
This was my first visit to Dartrey, once a very large estate comprising almost 18,000 acres, with extensive boundary walls and picturesque gate lodges (there were eight in total) carrying on interminably.
We stopped off en route at the main entrance lodge of ca1847, fully restored, extended, and inhabited, once incorporating the estate post office.
This lodge is made of ashlar stone, with a Tudor-style entrance surmounted by a blank shield.
Several hundred yards further along the main public road we turned into another driveway, which eventually led us to the “new” stable block, a large, impressive, grand affair comprising five sides in red brick.
This derelict stable block was constructed in the 1840s to replace an older block.
The standard of craftsmanship by masons was remarkable, as Noel pointed out to us.
The bricks were made in situ, and even straw marks could be seen on the ones that had dried on the ground.
The New Stable Block is not in a good state, although it’s not beyond redemption for another purpose, such as apartments or business premises, or units.
It was practically ruinous several decades ago, and today at least it’s in better condition than that.
There used to be a large clock encased in a circular stone feature in the middle of the block, though it has disappeared.
A short distance further on we stopped off at the original, or “Old” stable block of, it is thought, the 1770s.
It, like its younger sibling, is privately owned and closed off.
THEREAFTER we drove through overgrown estate tracks to the Island Bridge, also known as the Iron Bridge, which connects the estate to Black Island.
This is a single-arch bridge, erected in the 1840s, which leads to the glorious mausoleum or temple dedicated to the Lady Anne Dawson.
The skill of the blacksmiths and stonemasons can be admired on this little bridge, with its superbly carved stone abutments and wrought-iron handrails.
When we crossed the bridge we caught a glimpse of the remains of the great mansion house of Dartrey. All that’s left of it today is the basement and rubble.
Dartrey House (or Castle) was demolished in 1946, because the last member of the Dawsons to live there, Lady Edith, simply couldn’t afford to maintain it, and couldn’t find a buyer.
From the edge of the lake, not far from the Iron Bridge, we could see the site of Dartrey House (or Castle), a very large mansion which was built in 1846.
The Dartrey Estate lies in County Monaghan, though straddles the neighbouring county of Cavan.
Dartey: Basement Cellar (Image: Henry Skeath, 2002)
All that remains of the house are the ruins of the basement and cellars, so it’s almost invisible at ground level from a distance.
Dartrey: Basement Cellar (Image: Henry Skeath, 2002)
The Land Acts deprived great estates like Dartrey and Lough Fea of their income and, when the 2nd Earl of Dartrey died in 1920, without a male heir, the estate was inherited by his eldest daughter, Lady Edith.
Dartrey: Ruins (Image: Henry Skeath, 2002)
Crippled by the immense cost of maintaining Dartrey, its outbuildings, gate lodges, stable block, and everything else, Lady Edith decided initially to sell the contents of the house.
A four-day auction of the contents, including thousands of books from the library, and valuable old-master paintings, was held in 1937.
Lady Edith Windham (1883-1974) couldn’t afford the exorbitant rates bills, and found it impossible to find a buyer for the house, so made the decision to salvage what she could of it, including the slates, staircases, and doors, wooden casings etc, before Dartrey House was finally demolished in 1946.
By this stage Lady Edith was living in the former land steward’s house, not far from the big house itself.
The Dawson family of County Monaghan came from Yorkshire to Ireland during the reign of Elizabeth I, Thomas Dawson becoming a Burgess of Armagh. Subsequently Richard Dawson, a Cromwellian cornet of horse, assembled the nucleus of the family’s estate in the 1650s and 1660s through the acquisition of thirty-one townlands, based around a property called Dawson’s Grove on the banks of a chain of lakes separating counties Cavan and Monaghan. Richard Dawson’s only child, a daughter named Frances, married her cousin Walter Dawson. Their son Richard was an Alderman of Dublin, an MP for County Kilkenny and the owner of a family bank. He further expanded the estates both in County Monaghan and elsewhere. With his wife Elizabeth, daughter of John Vesey, Archbishop of Tuam, he had four children, their third son being Thomas Dawson born in 1725. After coming into his inheritance the latter built a new house at Dawson’s Grove in the early 1770s and also bought and redeveloped a residence in London, Cremorne House, Chelsea where the garden designer Nathaniel Richmond was commissioned to lay out the grounds (although the house is long gone, this is now the site of Cremorne Gardens, just down river from Battersea Bridge). In May 1770 Thomas Dawson was created Baron Dartrey of Dawson’s Grove, and in June 1785 Viscount Cremorne.
In August 1754 Thomas Dawson married Lady Anne Fermor, youngest daughter of the first Earl of Pomfret, with whom he had two children before she died in March 1769. Her husband’s grief was considerable, but not so great as to prevent his marrying just over a year later Philadelphia Hannah Freame. She was the granddaughter of William Penn, whose family owned land in County Cork but who is better known as the founder of Pennsylvania. By his second marriage to Hannah Callowhill William Penn had eight children one of whom, Thomas Penn, married Lady Juliana Fermor, eldest daughter of Lord Pomfret. This explains how Thomas Dawson should have met his second wife Philadelphia, whose mother Margaret Freame, was another of William Penn’s children. In other words, he married his first wife’s niece. And, as her name indicates, she was born in the city of Philadelphia in 1740.
Philadelphia Freame’s marriage to Thomas Dawson was marked by the building of a house for the Dartrey estate’s agent, Charles Mayne, which was then given the name Freame Mount. Lady Anne Fermor, however, was commemorated in a more original fashion with the construction of a mausoleum which stands in the middle of Black Island on raised ground facing the former site of Dawson’s Grove. Based on a surviving elevation for the west front which shows the inspiration of the Pantheon in Rome, the design of the Dartrey Mausoleum has been attributed to James Wyatt, making it the English architect’s first commission in Ireland and contemporaneous with Wyatt’s Pantheon, the famous assembly rooms on London’s Oxford Street. The building in Monaghan is a tall, square block built of locally-fired red brick raised on a limestone plinth. The exterior, featuring a sequence of blind windows and oculi, is relieved on the western front (which would have been visible from Dawson’s Grove) by a shallow tetrastyle portico with four pilasters (note their unusual fluted capitals) beneath a pedimented entablature. Above this cube rises a dome, its open centre providing the only light for the interior which would have been even more dramatic when viewed on nights with a full moon.
In August 1774 the Dublin Hibernian Journal reported, ‘A few days ago was landed in Dublin a beautiful Marble Monument done by Joseph Wilton, Esq., of Portland Street, London, which Lord Dartrey is to erect in a Temple at his seat in Co. Monaghan, to the memory of his late wife, Lady Anne Dawson, daughter of the late Earl of Pomfret.’ The London-born Wilton, a founder-member of the Royal Academy, had in 1764 been appointed ‘Sculptor to his Majesty’ by George III. His funerary monument in the Dartrey Mausoleum, for which he was paid 1,000 guineas, is the only commission he received in Ireland; during the same period he also sculpted a bust of Thomas Dawson, now in the Yale Center for British Art. Like that piece, Wilton’s work inside the mausoleum is carved in Carrara marble and was installed against the eastern wall above a plain altar. A plaque recalls both Lady Anne, described as possessing ‘all the external Advantages which contribute to form a shining Distinction on Earth’, and the couple’s prematurely deceased daughter Henrietta Anne ‘who lived long enough to justify all the fairest Hopes of a Mother.’ To one side of a large funerary urn are the lifesize figures of Lady Anne’s grieving husband and their young son clinging to his father in both terror and sorrow; the pair of them gaze up at the hovering form of an interceding angel. It is a remarkably theatrical piece of work, and must have been especially effective when seen by moonlight.
The subsequent fortunes of the Dartrey Mausoleum have been mixed. At some date in the 19th century, the dome was taken, or fell, down and replaced with a shallow slated pyramidal roof, and the brick walls plastered. The last member of the Dawson family to live at Dartrey, Lady Edith Windham, eldest child of the second Earl of Dartrey, sold the estate in 1946 to the Irish Forestry Commission (now Coillte) which continues to own the land on which the mausoleum stands. Dawson’s Grove, rebuilt in the 1840s as Dartrey Castle, was demolished and the view across to Black Island obscured by dense planting of evergreen woodland. Meanwhile the mausoleum was left to languish and although the Irish Georgian Society undertook some repairs in the 1960s, the building succumbed to decay, its roof was lost and the sculptural group – as can be seen in photographs above – seriously vandalised. Such might have remained the case, had it not been for the energy, imagination and commitment of a local group, the Dartrey Heritage Association which over the past decade has steadily worked to ensure the restoration of this outstanding monument. Securing funding from a variety of sources, including the local County Council, the Heritage Council and once more the Irish Georgian Society, together with monies raised by other means, the DHA has now almost completed this project. The building is once more intact and with a domed roof, and inside the sculptural group has been repaired with missing sections scrupulously replaced. The entire project is a wonderful testament to what can be achievied by a local voluntary body with sufficient determination and persistence, and ought to serve as an example for others throughout the country. Above all the restoration of the Dartrey Mausoleum shows that nothing is beyond salvation, provided the will is there.
In the late 18th century, Thomas Dawson, Viscount Cremorne, passed responsibility for his Irish estate Dawson’s Grove, County Monaghan to his heir and nephew, Richard Dawson. To the dismay of his uncle, Richard – who served as a local MP in the Irish parliament – proved to be something of a radical and in 1799 consistently voted against the Act of Union. In the event, he died eight years later (predeceasing Lord Cremorne) after which he was remembered as being ‘the most active in promoting improvements, the most useful and the most popular man this country ever knew.’ As evidence, in the aftermath of his death, a fifty-eight foot high limestone Doric column surmounted by a funerary urn was erected on the edge of the Dawson’s Grove demesne. The arms of the Dawson family appear on two sides of the monument’s square base plinth and the following inscription on the other two sides: ‘This column was erected by the free and independent electors of the county of Monaghan to perpetuate the memory of Richard Dawson Esq., who was unanimously returned by them to five successive parliaments. He died their faithful representative on 3 September 1807, aged 44 years.’ The column, its design attributed to James Wyatt, has been restored in recent years. Dawson’s Grove was eventually inherited by Richard Dawson’s son, another Richard, who in 1813 became Baron Cremorne.
Lucan House, photograph courtesy of South Dublin City Council.Primrose Hill is part of its original demesne.
Bence-Jones, Mark. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 195. “(Sarsfield, Lucan, E/DEP; Colthurst-Vesey/LGI1912; Colthurst, Bt/PB; O’Conor Don/IFR; Teeling (formerly Burke), LGI1958) A Palladian villa built 1770s by Agmondisham Vesey, MP, replacing an earlier house which itself replaced the old castle which had belonged to Patrick Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan, hero of the Seige of Limerick. The estate came to Agmondisham Vesey’s father through his first marriage to the Sarsfield heiress; but instead of leaving it to his daughter by her, who was the ancestress of the Binghams, Earls of Lucan, he left it to Agmondisham, who was his son by his second marriage. Agmondisham Vesey acted as his own architect, while consulting with Sir William Chambers, and also James Wyatt and Michael Stapleton, with regard to the interior. Of two storeys over basement, seven bay entrance front with a central feature of a pediment raised on a three bay attic, and carried on four engaged Ionic columns, the gound floor beneath them being treated as a basement, and rusticated. The central feature of Charleville, Co Wicklow, is similar. Five bay side elevation; garden front with central curved bow containing oval room; the plan resembling that of Mount Kennedy, Co Wicklow. The house is entirely free-standing, the officed being detached and connected to it by an underground passage. The interior has very fine neo-classical decoration on the walls and ceilings, some if not all of it by Stapleton. The hall has a screen of columns marbled to resemble yellow Siena. The Wedgwood Room, the ceiling of which curves downwards at the corners giving the effect of a shallow dome, has roundels painted by Peter de Gree. The small but attractive demesne by the River Liffey contains a Coade stone urn on a pedestal designed by James Wyatt and erected as a monument to the great Sarsfield, and a Gothic hermitage. Inherited from the Colthurst-Vesey family by Capt Richard Colthurst (afterwards 8th Bt), who sold it 1932 to H.E. Charles O’Conor, President of Irish Association of the Order of Malta. Re-sold post WW(II by Charles O’Conor’s son in law, William Teeling, MP, to the Italian gov’t, for use as their embassy.”
Detached seven-bay two-storey over basement Palladian country house, c.1775, with three-bay pedimented breakfront and three-bay rere bow, each having attic storey. Five bays to south side. Roughcast rendered walls with granite platband, string courses, sill course and quoins. Ashlar granite walls to breakfront, with rusticated ground floor and four half-engaged giant Ionic columns above. Small pane sash windows with stone sills throughout. Timber panelled door with elaborate fanlight. Hipped slate roof behind parapet with stone cornice and rendered chimney stacks. Retains many fine interior features, including late eighteenth-century plasterwork. Single-storey service building to north, with roughcast rendered walls, round-headed windows, segmental-headed archwayand single-pitched roof. Set within mature demesne parkland with various outbuildings (separately recorded).
An impressive, imposing and substantially intact country house and demesne, with a richly decorated interior. Partly designed by William Chambers, with interior plasterwork by Michael Stapleton, Historically and socially important as the principal land holding in Lucan village with which the demesne is intimately associated.
Detached multiple-bay single-storey with attic former stable building, c.1790, now in use as house and storage building, and partly unoccupied. Built on a C-shaped half-octagonal plan. Roughcast rendered walls to convex side. Rendered, ruled and lined walls to concave side, with five three-bay sections alternately having superimposed arcade or ashlar pedimented breakfront. Pedimented breakfront to single-bay end bays. Granite platband at arch springing level. Timber sash windows with stone sills. uPVC casement windows to southern domestic section. Timber tongue and groove doors with overlights. Hipped slate roof with red brick dentil eaves course. Single-storey red brick lean-to shed to north.
A particularly handsome and well-executed stable building, retaining many original features. Set just inside one of the main demesne gates, it presents a most striking façade on entry. Also a dominant presence on the Leixlip Road and in the vista west from Lucan village. An integral element of this intact demesne.
Lucan House, often described as a pure Palladian villa, was constructed by Agmondisham Vesey, who cleared the previous residence and began construction in 1772. Vesey, although not an architect, designed the house in conjunction with William Chambers, with Michael Stapleton responsible for the plasterwork.
However this image by John James Barralet, and in the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art is inscribed: “Lucan House, Co Dublin, built 1776 by the Rt. Hon. Agmondisham Vesey from his own designs with the help of the Dublin builder Michael Stapleton”.
The estate passed through the Sarsfield, Vesey and Colthurst families through marriage – the descent of the house was through the female line, as no member of the family produced a male heir.
In 1925, the entire contents of the house were sold at auction. In 1954, it was purchased by the Italian Government for use as the residence of the Italian Ambassador to Ireland. At the time, they purchased the house, it was an empty shell.
Last Monday, the Presidents of Ireland and Italy jointly inaugurated a new public park in Lucan, County Dublin, the space henceforth to be known as Parco Italia. The reason for this somewhat unusual name? Since 1942 Lucan House, which stands at the centre of the 30-acre park, has been the official residence of successive Italian ambassadors to this country. The building here has, like so often, a long and complex history but in its present form was commissioned in the early 1770s by the estate’s then-owner Agmondisham Vesey who, although he consulted several eminent architects, played an active role in the eventual design. Vesey’s house replaced an earlier one, probably dating back to the Middle Ages but much altered over the centuries. A painting by Thomas Roberts produced shortly before its demolition shows what appears to be a late-mediaeval tower house with a fortified manor house with castellated roofline to one side. Vesey’s wife Elizabeth, a noted bluestocking (and close friend of Elizabeth Montague) lamented the destruction of the older building, ‘with its niches and thousand other Gothic beauties,’ but her husband was determined to start afresh. To do this, he not only had to overcome his spouse’s opposition but also the original house’s associations with noted Irish patriot Patrick Sarsfield, first Earl of Lucan. His forebear, Sir William Sarsfield, had acquired the Lucan estate in 1566 and although temporarily dispossessed during the Confederate Wars, several generations of the family lived there until the marriage in 1696 of heiress Catherine Sarsfield (a niece of Patrick Sarsfield) to Agmondisham Vesey, father of the man responsible for building Lucan House.
As mentioned above, Agmondisham Vesey, displayed a keen interest in architecture despite his involvement in many other activities: a Member of the Irish Parliament, he was also a Privy Councillor and Accountant and Controller General of Ireland. Like his wife Elizabeth he liked to keep abreast of cultural developments: in 1773, during the period that work was underway on the new house, he was elected to the ‘Club’, the informal dining and conversational group established by Samuel Johnson and Joshua Reynolds 10 years earlier. Johnson and James Boswell granted him the notional title of ‘Professor of Architecture,’ and the latter wrote that Vesey had ‘left a good specimen of his knowledge and taste in that art by an elegant house built on a plan of his own at Lucan.’ Boswell exaggerated his friend’s role in the matter because while Vesey undoubtedly had a hand in Lucan House’s appearance, so did a number of architects, not least Sir William Chambers who in 1773 sent him now-lost ‘Designs for a Villa.’ It is thought that the facade of the building was based on this work, not least because in March 1774, Vesey wrote to Chambers, ‘I am much more intent in finishing the South front of your Plan at Lucan this summer.’ The aforementioned facade is of seven bays and two storeys over basement except for the breakfront three centre bays which feature an additional attic storey beneath a pediment (despite Vesey reminding Chambers ‘You have taught us to think pediments but common architecture). This central section is faced in granite ashlar with four half-engaged giant Ionic columns above a rusticated ground floor. Originally at that level the two bays on either side were given rusticated render, as can be seen in an engraving of the house produced by Thomas Milton in 1783, but this was removed at some later date. Lucan House’s design looks to have been the inspiration for Charleville, County Wicklow, designed by Whitmore Davis in 1797, although the facade of that building is entirely faced in ashlar and runs to nine bays. Meanwhile, at Lucan, the house forms a rectangular block, other than a three-bay bow to the rear that, as with the facade, rises three storeys over basement.
If Sir William Chambers was involved in designing the exterior of Lucan House, James Wyatt, together with his Irish representative Thomas Penrose, can claim much credit for the building’s interiors, with Michael Stapleton responsible for much of the plasterwork found on many of the walls and ceilings in the ground floor, as well as the main staircase and first-floor lobby. Lucan House has some of the finest examples of neo-classical decoration in Ireland, beginning with the entrance hall, to the rear of which a screen of columns and pilasters painted to imitate Siena marble, provide access to the principal reception rooms. That to the immediate left here, now called the Wedgewood Room but originally the breakfast room, is a perfect square, its walls rising to a gently domed ceiling at the centre of which is a medallion depicting a warrior kneeling before Minerva accompanied by her maidens. Around the room, floral drops surround panels containing what appear to be grisaille paintings: in fact, these are in fact prints overpainted at some date when age had caused them to fade. To the rear is the drawing room, although this was intended to be the dining room. Its walls were left undecorated (and today covered in paper) but again the ceiling has been covered in plasterwork centred on another medallion, this one, somewhat unusually, featuring the Christ child and infant John the Baptist together with a lamb. The rear of the house is taken up by what is now the dining room but was originally intended to be the drawing room. The ceiling decoration here is simpler than that in the previous rooms, but the walls are decorated with plaster girandoles, their design found among those created by Michael Stapleton. Oval in shape, the bow in the window is echoed by a similarly curved wall centred on a door leading back into the entrance hall. This arrangement of the two rooms – hall with screen of columns to the rear and central door opening into an oval room – is found in Castle Coole, County Fermanagh designed in the early 1790s by James Wyatt. Agmondisham Vesey died in 1785 and having no children, left the estate to his nephew Colonel George Vesey. The latter’s only child, Elizabeth Vesey, married Sir Nicholas Colthurst and their descendants lived at Lucan House until the property and its contents were sold in September 1925 by Captain Richard Colthurst (later eighth baronet), after which it was occupied by Charles Hugh O’Conor and then his son-in-law William Teeling. In 1942 the building and surrounding gardens were rented by the Italian government and then bought 12 years later, to serve as a residence for its ambassador. It continued to serve the same purpose until this month, at the end of which the present ambassador leaves his position and the property passes into the hands of a new owner, the local authority, South Dublin County Council. What happens to both house and grounds in the future remains to be seen.
For anyone wondering, the bronze buffaloes seen in the grounds and fibreglass horse in the entrance hall, all by contemporary Italian artist Davide Rivalta and placed in their present positions last year, are due to remain on site.
Ardbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry Fitzgerald
Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 7. “The Palace of the (C of I) Bishops of Meath, on the site of the old castle where the Bishops lived from C14. Bishop Evans left money for the building of a new house here early in C18; his successor, Bishop Henry Downes, came here with Dean Swift to lay out the ground; but it was not until the time of the next Bishop again, Arthur Price, that the house was begun ca 1734, to the design of Richard Castle. When the two 2 storey 5 bay wings of what was to be a Palladian mansion had been completed, Price was elevated to the Archdiocese of Cashel. For the next 30 years, the subsequent Bishops did nothing about building the central block, but lived in one of the wings, using the other for guests. It was not until early 1770s that Bishop Henry Maxwell, a younger son of 1st Lord Farnham, decided to complete the house; he is said to have boasted that he would build a palace so grand that no scholar or tutor would dare to live in it. He obtained designs from Thomas Cooley and also from one of his own clergy, Rv. Daniel Beaufort, Rector of Navan, who was a talented amateur architect. Both of them were, to a certain extent, under the influence of James Wyatt, who produced a sketch of the garden front. The centre block, which was eventually begun 1776 and took several years to build, is a simple and dignified grey stone house of 2 storeys and 7 bays, with an Ionic doorcase; it harmonises well with Castle’s wings, to which it is joined by curved sweeps with niches. The garden front, also of 7 bays, has a 3 bay central breakfront in which the ground floor windows are set in a blind arcade. The restrained neo-Classical interior plasterwork is said to have been designed by Wyatt, though Beaufort was asked by Bishop Maxwell to design a ceiling for the entrance vestibule 1780. This is a narrow room with a barrel-vaulted ceiling of shallow hexagonal coffering; a door under a large and elegant internal fanlight at its inner end opens into the main hall or saloon in the middle of the garden front, which has a cornice of mutules and elliptical panels above the doors. The principal and secondary stairs lie on either side of this saloon, which also communicates with the drawing room and dining room in the entrance front, on either side of the vestibule. Despite Bishop Maxwell’s hope that the grandeurs of Ardbraccan would discourage scholars and tutors from aspiring to the diocese, his successor was Thomas O’Beirne who had started life as a humble schoolmaster; but who none the less carried out improvements to the outbuildings, advised by Beaufort. The more aristocratic Bishop Nathaniel Alexander carried out grander improvements to the outbuildings in 1820s and 30s. The handsome farm and stable yards are joined by a tunnel under the garden terrace.”
George Montgomery, Bishop of Meath (c. 1566-1621), courtesy of Fonsie Mealy auction 2021.Ardbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry Fitzgerald
Ardbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry Fitzgerald
€10,150,000
11 Bed
7 Bath
2150 m² for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry Fitzgerald.
Ardbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry Fitzgerald
Once home to the Lord Bishop of Meath, and with a history going back one thousand years, Ardbraccan House owes its design to one of the most significant architects working in Georgian Ireland. Thanks to award winning restoration works, this Palladian Mansion is presented in ideal condition, while the approx. 101ha (250 acres) of lands include pleasure grounds, gardens, pastures and farmlands and so comprise one of the county’s finest country estates.
Right Reverend Henry Maxwell (d. 1798) Bishop of Meath Irish school courtesy of National Trust Castle WardArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry Fitzgerald
Mansion House, approximately 2,150 sq. m. (23,142 sq. ft.) 4-bedroom guest wing, 2 bedroom staff apartment, 4 guest lodges SPECIAL FEATURES • Approx. 101 Hectares (250 Acres) Country Estate with lands laid out in grazing paddocks and woodlands in the Boyne Valley • Walled garden, specimen trees, pleasure grounds, formal gardens and secluded walking trails • Historic 18th Century Georgian Mansion designed in the Palladian style by a team of architects including Richard Castle, architect of Leinster House • Beautiful and elegant original features throughout, with ideally proportioned reception and entertainment rooms • Full stables, stud farm and horse sport facilities Additional farmyards and coach houses and outbuildings • Excellent lands, ideally maintained and suitable for grazing, sporting pursuits or tillage • Eleven bedrooms in the central main house, four-bedroom guest wing, and two-bedroom staff apartment • Historic church and four additional lodges on site, including two apartments • Located just 5km from Navan • Approx 56km from Dublin International Airport • Approx 12km from Ballyboy Private Airfield • Excellent road network throughout the lands, including tunnels linking farmyards • Lands very well laid out with excellent secure fencing • Heritage award winning restoration of the Main Residence
Ardbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry Fitzgerald
ARDBRACCAN HOUSE Ardbraccan House joins Castletown and Carton as one of Ireland’s most significant Palladian mansions, taking its design from the hey days of classical Georgian Architecture. Contributed to by many of Europe’s most significant architects and designers, craftspeople and creators, it has been refurbished to award-winning standards. The principal mansion sits at the heart of lands that have been equally well designed, tended and restored over the centuries. A significant two storey over basement centrepiece is flanked by curved linking enfilades leading to a pair of symmetrical guest wings, one of which also houses a set of palatial stables. Reached via a sweeping set of stone steps, Ardbraccan preserves the symmetry so loved by the Georgians by means of a rare and beautiful barrel-vaulted hall, leading through to the wider Great Hall beyond. This feature allows the principal Dining and Drawing rooms three windows apiece, with lavish views across the estate parklands. Both of these gracious rooms have particularly fine neo-Classical plasterwork. The Great Hall has a William Chambers chimney piece, elegant plasterwork and French windows to the garden terrace. It leads to the Library and Study. Adjacent to this, the main Stair Hall has plasterwork to designs by James Wyatt, who also worked on Slane Castle.
Ardbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry Fitzgerald
Also at this level are a servery / kitchen, a pair of cloakrooms and a second staircase. At garden level there is a larger kitchen / breakfast room, gym, laundry room, playroom, pantry, stores, brickfloored beer cellar and wine cellar. The vaulted, country-style garden level kitchen is a particularly beautiful room. Light-filled it has an Aga, granite worktops, wooden-topped island unit, York flagstone floor, and solid timber cabinetry.
Ardbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry Fitzgerald
Upstairs are four generous bedroom suites, and two further bedrooms, and on the second floor, you will find a further five bedroom suites. All are beautifully proportioned with views across the gardens and parklands. A kitchenette on the top floor is a wise convenience for both nightcaps and morning coffees.
Ardbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry Fitzgerald
The two adjoining wings have been beautifully refurbished. To the left is a semi-separate wing with a kitchen, breakfast area, dining area, staff room and laundry room, with one bedroom at ground level, and three generous bedrooms above.
To the right, the ground floor houses stables, a tack room and boot room, while above is a kitchen, living room, two bedrooms and a loft.
Ardbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry Fitzgerald
Guest and staff accommodation throughout the estate is also provided in four lodges altogether. At the main entrance, the Main Gate Lodge offers a one-bedroom residence, providing an elegant and welcoming setting as you enter the estate.
At the rear entrance, the Kells Gate Lodge features two bedrooms, along with its own private parking area and garden, ensuring privacy. Built in the late 1990s, this lodge was designed in a traditional period style to blend with the aesthetic of the estate. Additionally, at the entrance to St. Ultan’s Church, which has been de-consecrated in recent years, stand two beautifully refurbished cottages: The School House and Sexton’s Cottage. Both of these lodges feature two bedrooms and have been meticulously restored, including the refurbishment of original sash windows, and are finished to an very high standard throughout.
Ardbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry Fitzgerald
RESTORING ARDBRACCAN, A PROJECT OF PASSION While the house and lands at Ardbraccan feel timeless, history marches on, and estates such as this thrive on the care of each succeeding generation. After lying vacant towards the end of the last century, previous owners lavished their attention on a painstaking restoration project. Working to conservation standards, specialist craftspeople used and revived traditional methods to bring the woodwork, plasterwork, stonework, roofs and windows back to their former glory. Where replacements were necessary, items were sourced and salvaged from sister properties in Ireland and the United Kingdom. Chimney pots were re-cast to match the originals, and the roofs were restored using the original slates, copper and leadwork. Specialist painters, stoneworkers and stuccadores congregated, some to apply and pass on their skills, and others to perfect their craft with the masters. Glass was handblown, and work extended right through to the inlay details in mother of pearl, as well as brass, pewter, marble and papier mache. At the same time, services were brought up to twenty first century standards. The project was renowned in Ireland, and in 2002 Ardbraccan was accoladed with An Taisce’s BestRestoration of a Private Building award. More recently, Ardbraccan’s owners have continued this legacy by restoring one of the wings, upgrading the behind-the-scenes services, sensitively revitalising the interiors, and refurbishing some of the lodges. LANDS AT ARDBRACCAN With approximately 101 Hectares (250 Acres) of excellent land, the immediate gardens at Ardbraccan are thought to have been originally designed by Ninian Nevin, who also designed the Iveagh Gardens in Dublin, and those at the home of the President of Ireland, Áras an Uachtaráin. Notable in the immediate vicinity of the main house are pleasure gardens with paths leading to informal gardens, shrubberies, small conservatories and a brick-lined walled garden. This was restored with the expertise of Daphne Shackleton, whose portfolio also includes gardens at Slane Castle, Virginia Park, the historic gardens at Loughcrew, and restorations at Ballintubbert and Baronscourt. These gardens speak of history and time: one Yew tree on the property is thought to be more than 500 years old. Stands of mature trees shelter the house and provide privacy, while opening up to reveal unspoilt views. The pastures and woodlands are separated by a pair of ha-has, adding to the sense of expansiveness. Beyond these are stud-railed paddocks and pastures. The parklands were extensively drained, fenced and replanted with specimen trees in the early 2000s, and the care has been on-going since then. Extensive yard and farm buildings include Palladian style yards, with stables, coach houses, a restored clock tower, lofted hay stores, a timber-panelled tack room, and horse walker. Two of these yards are linked by an underground tunnel. Further farm buildings are south, beyond a private sunken garden. These include a walled orchard, bell tower, grain lofts and a dovecote. A more-modern farmyard is screened within a former walled garden. There is also an historic church, now deconsecrated, on site. The estate is set within a single block, with the exclusion of a minor public road beyond the immediate core. Offering unparalleled privacy, and huge opportunity, the estate and lands at Ardbraccan give extraordinary scope for country and sporting pursuits, equestrian enterprises and farming. They also comprise an idyllic retreat in The Royal County, in a welcoming community, within easy reach of Ireland’s capital, and Dublin Airport, connecting you to the world, just half an hour away.
Ardbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry FitzgeraldArdbraccan House, Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, C15W8C0 for sale March 2025 courtesy Sherry Fitzgerald
Detached double-pile seven-bay two-storey over raised basement central block, built c.1776, flanked by quadrant walls to five-bay two-storey kitchen and stable wings, built c.1735. Former residence of the Bishops of Meath, now in use as a private house. Hipped slate roof to main block with ashlar chimney stacks. Hipped slate roof to flanking blocks with central chimney stacks. Ashlar Ardbraccan limestone walls with string course and a carved limestone cornice. Rear elevation with central three bays advanced with full length square-headed window openings to central block with ashlar limestone reveals, tooled limestone sills and timber sash windows. Laundry house, granary, outbuildings, icehouse and walled gardens to rear.
Appraisal
Ardbraccan House and demesne occupy an historically important site as it has been the seat of the Bishops of Meath since the fourteenth century. It has archaeological sites within the demesne including a holy well and two mounds. Architecturally the house is significant as Richard Castle designed the kitchen and stable blocks while the central block appears to be a culmination of the designs of Thomas Cooley and James Wyatt, together with amateur architect the Rev. Daniel A. Beaufort. The house displays the finest construction materials, such as Ardbraccan limestone and high quality fixtures and fittings. The house is set in mature pasture land with formal gardens and walled gardens.
Ardbraccan, County Meath, courtesy National Inventory.Ardbraccan, County Meath, courtesy National Inventory.Ardbraccan, County Meath, courtesy National Inventory.Ardbraccan, County Meath, courtesy National Inventory.Ardbraccan, County Meath, courtesy National Inventory.Ardbraccan, County Meath, courtesy National Inventory.Ardbraccan, County Meath, courtesy National Inventory.
Casey, Christine and Alistair Rowan. The Buildings of Ireland: North Leinster. Penguin Books, London, 1993.
p. 113. “The house was begun in the 1730s for Bishop Arthur Price, to designs by Richard Castle, who clearly envisaged a typical Palladian house with a large central block joined by curved links to kitchen and stable wings. When Price was raised to the Archbishopric of Cashel, building activity ceased at Ardbraccan; only the wings had been completed, and they served as accommodation for successive, and presumably less worldly, bishops until the 1770s. They survive today as rectangular four-bay, two-storey blocks with hipped roofs and central chimneystacks. The architecture is simple: sash windows, twelve-pane below and six-above, with a continuous string-course between. The S kitchen wing, now remodelled internally, had originally two-storey kitchen with a gallery or walkway to facilitate efficient supervision. The N stable wing, similar to Castle’s work at Strokestown in Co Roscommon, and to other stable blocks by him, is groin-vaulted throughout, the vaults carried on Tuscan columns set on the deep round bases that are characteristic of Castle’s architecture and derive ultimately from the bases of the minor order of Palladio’s basilica at Vincenza.
“The decision to complete the house was made by Henry Maxwell, a younger son of the first Lord Farnham and Bishop of Meath for 32 years from 1766 to 1798. In 1773 he obtained a preliminary design for the central block from James Wyatt. This shows a simple seven-bay, two-storey block above a basement, astylar and studiously understated, with regular sash windows, embellished only by architraves at ground-floor level, an Ionic doorcase and string-courses. The existing house, a reticent seven-bay two-storey building of grey Ardbraccan limestone, although almost certainly not by Wyatt, differs little from his conception, and both Thomas Cooley and the Rev. Daniel A. Beaufort, the amateur architect who provided the later and more detailed designs for the house, were undoubtedly guided by it… [p. 114].Cooley’s plans are restrained and nearer to Wyatt’s than Beaufort’s, which are often fussily grandiose and old-fashioned. Wyatt left no model for the garden front, proposals for this elevation were less inhibited. What was built is a simple seven-bay façade – the three centre bays advanced and expressed as full-length windows on the ground floor, set in round-headed relieving arches, a design close to Cooley’s drawings of 1775, though they lack the rather gauche arches of the design as built.
“In one sense the plan of Ardbraccan follows the traditional double-pile layout: a hall flanked by public rooms, with the principal and service stairs in the middle on each side and three rooms at the rear. What is different is that the usual large square hall is here placed in the centre at the rear, behind a narrow vaulted vestibule, an arrangement which first appears in Cooley’s plans of 1773 and 1774 and permits the rooms on either side to be large rectangular spaces, each with three windows, instead of the more common near square plan.
“The ground plan for the unsigned and unexecuted Adamesque design was the most unusual and up-to-date of all the proposals: a rectangular hall, elliptical stairhall and circular saloon, all on a central axis flanked on each side by dining and drawing rooms, parlour and library.
“Internal features suggest the close involvement of Cooley: the square, ample proportions, the free yet restrained treatment of anthemion and foliate motifs to the joinery and plasterwork, particularly the bay-leaf garlands in the dining room and the simplified – and freely treated – mutule cornice in the stairhall. An elegant finishing touch is the curved inner edge of the mahogany doors throughout the ground floor, all of which operate on a swivel rather than a hinge, a measure of the absolute refinement of late C18 building. Ardbraccan is a sophisticated house, cool and reticent rather than graceful, and more elegant than endearing.”
Ardbraccan, County Meath, “This formal dining room features panels on the wall painted in a delicate acqua tone and a large dining table ” copyright Luke White/The Interior ArchiveLW_268_18
Ardbraccan County Meath copyright Luke White The Interior Archive, dining room LW_268_13
This formal living room is furnished with an Aubusson carpet and a formal arrangement of sofas and armchairs. Ardbraccan House, Copyright Luke White/The Interior Archive Ltd, LW_268_06
The comfortable library is decorated in warm shades of red. Ardbraccan, Copyright Luke White/The Interior Archive Ltd, LW_268_05
The gracious entrance hall features a drum table and walls painted a neo-classical grey, Ardbraccan, Copyright Luke White/The Interior Archive Ltd, LW_268_26
Ardbraccan County Meath, This landing is furnished with a mahogany period sideboard and a pair of matching table lamps and armchairs ,copyright Luke White The Interior ArchiveLW_268_15
The master bedroom is decorated with a formal portrait above the fireplace, Ardbraccan County Meath copyright Luke White The Interior Archive , the master bedroom LW_268_14
Record of Protected Structures:
Detached double-pile seven-bay two-storey over raised
basement central block, built c.1776, flanked by quadrant
walls to five-bay two-storey kitchen and stable wings, built
Ardbraccan House Liscarton. Bishop’s Palace. Historic house which served as the residence of the Church of Ireland Lord Bishop of Meath. residence of a bishop for over one thousand years, first of the Bishop of Ardbraccan and later following the merger of many small dioceses into the Diocese of Meath as the residence of the Bishop of Meath. By the Middle Ages a large Tudor house, containing its own church, known as St. Mary’s, stood on the site. 1734Bishop Arthur Price (1678-1752) decided to replace the decaying mansion with a new Georgian residence. Initially the two wings of the house were built, before the main four-bay two-storey block of the house was completed in the 1770s by Bishop Maxwell. It was partly designed by the acclaimed 18th-century German architect Richard Castle (also known as Richard Cassels) was the architect of many notable Irish buildings including Leinster House in Dublin.Ardbraccan House and demesne occupy an historically important site as it has been the seat of the Bishops of Meath since the fourteenth century. It has archaeological sites within the demesne including a holy well and two mounds. Architecturally the house is significant as Richard Castle designed the kitchen and stable blocks while the central block appears to be a culmination of the designs of Thomas Cooley and James Wyatt, together with amateur architect the Rev. Daniel A. Beaufort. The new bishop’s palace became famous for the quality of its architecture. Funded by government grants and locally paid tithes, the Church of Ireland bishop held court from the mansion, which was the centre of a large agricultural demesne. However the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1871, following the previous scrapping of Roman Catholic-paid tithes, fatally weakened the economic survival of the bishop’s estate, which was left totally reliant on the small local Church of Ireland community, and in 1885 the bishop sold the estate and house, moving to a smaller mansion nearby (which Church of Ireland continued to live until 1958 and which was then sold to a Roman Catholic religious institute, the Holy Ghost Fathers). Ardbraccan House was bought by Hugh Law, the son of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland and remained in the ownership of his descendants until sold by Colonel Owen Foster in 1985 to Tara Mines who used it as a guest residence for visiting businessmen. In the late 1990s the house once again changed hands. The new owners invested large sums to completely restore the mansion. In 2002 the restoration of Ardbraccan House won the An Taisce Best Restoration of a Private Building award. It is now open to the public. In the early 2000s, the County Meath planning authority approved plans to build a major new motorway linking Clonee and Kells through part of the house’s historic demesne. The Irish Georgian Society and environmentalists criticised the proposal. The motorway would also pass through the pristine parkland of a religious seminary called Dalgan Park and close by the historic Hill of Tara, seat of the ancient Árd Rí na hÉireann (High King of Ireland). The motorway is currently (2008) being built.
Ardbraccan was the seat of the diocese of Ardbraccan founded by St. Breaccan and St. Ultan. In the middle ages Ardbraccan became the seat for the Protestant bishops of Meath and a large house was erected with a chapel dedicated to St. Mary. The bishops of Meath were interred in the churchyard at Ardbraccan. The house was replaced by a Georgian building in the eighteenth century. The kitchen and stable wings were completed first in the mid 1730s and then the central block was erected about 1776. The two wings were designed by Richard Castle, the pre-eminent architect working in Ireland at the time while the central block was an amalgam of the designs of Thomas Cooley and James Wyatt, together with amateur Navan architect, the Rev. Daniel A. Beaufort. The house was constructed with limestone from the nearby White Quarry. The house is set in mature pasture land with formal gardens and walled gardens. There is a courtyard of domestic and agricultural buildings to the north of the house. The farm and stables are joined to the house by a tunnel under the garden terrace. A dome-shaped icehouse, dating from about 1800, is located to the south of the outbuilding complex. A gable fronted gate lodge was constructed about 1776 when the main house was completed. Known as Ardbraccan House or Bishop‟s Palace the house was the residence of the bishops of Meath until 1885, after which it became a private residence.
In 1734 Bishop Arthur Price decided to replace the old Tudor house with a new residence and commissioned Richard Castle to prepare plans. Arthur Price had been vicar of Celbridge and resided at Oakley Park. Here his steward at Oakley Park was Richard Guinness, who was acclaimed for his brewing talents. Richard‟s son, Arthur, went on to establish the Guinness Brewery in Dublin in 1759. While the new house was in the process of construction Price was elevated to Archbishop of Cashel and construction came to a halt. The kitchen wing was used as the bishop‟s residence for more than thirty years until Bishop Henry Maxwell decided to complete the building. Bishop Maxwell was a younger son of the 1st Lord Farnham of Cavan. James Wyatt, Thomas Cooley and Rev. Daniel Beaufort of Navan drew up plans and it would appear that while Wyatt‟s plans were used but Beaufort and Cooley also influenced the final house. Beaufort attended the laying of the foundation stone but had to leave early due to a toothache. Beaufort described the house as being “in a style of superior elegance, and yet with such simplicity as does equal honour to his lordship’s taste and liberality.‟ Maxwell is said to have boasted that he would build a palace so grand that no scholar or tutor would dare live in it. Bishop Maxwell also constructed the nearby Ardbracan church about 1777. The Bishops of Meath resided at Ardbraccan during the late eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries. Rev. James Singer became bishop in 1852 but resided mostly in Dublin and the house at Ardbraccan was shut up in the 1860s. In 1876 Rev. William Plunket became bishop of Meath and he resolved to sell Ardbraccan as the costs of upkeep were too large for a now disestablished Church of Ireland.
The bishops moved to a smaller house in the locality, Bishop’s court, now An Tobar. Bishop Plunkett sold the house in 1885 to Hugh Law, son of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland. At the time Fr. Kearney P.P. Bohermeen suggested purchasing the Bishop‟s Palace as a seminary but his bishop did not agree with the suggestion. The house remained in the Law family until it passed by marriage to the Foster family. In 1985 Colonel Owen Foster sold Ardbraccan House to Tara Mines who used it as an occasional guest residence for visiting businessmen. The Fosters moved to the old schoolhouse at the entrance to the churchyard and were noted for their great care of the grounds of the church. In the late 1990s the house was once again sold.
Copied from meath-roots.com”
The Irish Aesthete: Buildings of Ireland, Lost and Found. Robert O’Byrne. The Lilliput Press, Dublin, 2024.
Ardbraccan, County Meath. January 2021
“For many centuries, Ardbraccan was the seat of the Church of Ireland Bishop of Meath. In 1734, following his appointment to the diocese, Arthur Price embarked on building a new residence for which one of his predecessors, John Evans, had left the sum of £1,000. Designs for a Palladian house were provided by Richard Castle and work began on the project but then halted in 1744 when Price was transferred to the archdiocese of Cashel. By this date, the wings of the building had both been completed and one of these, intended to house the kitchen, was converted into a residence for Price’s successors. Only following Henry Maxwell’s appointment as Bishop of Meath in 1766 was it decided to finish work on the site. In the early 1770s new designs were sought from three architects, not least James Wyatt, based in London. Thomas Cooley, then also working for Richard Robinson, Archbishop of Armagh, likewise produced plans, as did local rector and amateur architect, the Rev. Daniel Beaufort. The finished house, in the then-fashionable cool neoclassical style, is an amalgam of all three men’s proposals. The garden front of the main block… is of seven bays with a three-bay central breakfront, the ground floor windows set in a blind arcade. Ardbraccan remained the seat of Maxwell’s ancestors until after the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1869 and has been owned by a number of private individuals since that date.”
Right Reverend Henry Maxwell (d. 1798) Bishop of Meath Irish school courtesy of National Trust Castle Ward.
Palladian is a much-abused term in this country, frequently applied to buildings which visibly have no link with Palladio but which happen to be old. Rather than attempt to re-write an already admirable summary, I here quote from the Encyclopaedia Britannica: ‘Palladianism, style of architecture based on the writings and buildings of the humanist and theorist from Vicenza, Andrea Palladio (1508–80), perhaps the greatest architect of the latter 16th century and certainly the most influential. Palladio felt that architecture should be governed by reason and by the principles of classical antiquity as it was known in surviving buildings and in the writings of the 1st-century-bc architect and theorist Vitruvius. Palladianism bespeaks rationality in its clarity, order, and symmetry, while it also pays homage to antiquity in its use of classical forms and decorative motifs.’ Palladianism as we see it in Ireland emerged in the early 18th century, heavily influenced by English practitioners and theorists such as Colen Campbell whose Vitruvius Britannicus was published in 1715, and his patron Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington (and also, let it not be forgotten, 4th Earl of Cork, since he was a large landowner in this country). The first indisputably Irish Palladian house is Castletown, County Kildare on which work began c.1722 with its facade designed by Florentine architect Alessandro Galilei (1691-1737), today best known for his work at the basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome.
One aspect of Palladianism often overlooked is its functionality: seduced by the beauty of the overall design we are inclined to forget these buildings were intended to serve a practical purpose. In the 16th century many of Palladio’s clients were wealthy Venetians who owned country estates on which they wished to spend the summer months. The estates were working farms, and the houses Palladio created at their centre reflect this reality. Because of his admiration for classical design and the importance of symmetry, rather than permit a variety of stand-alone farm buildings scattered across the site as had customarily been the case, he consolidated them into a single unit. Thus the archetypal Palladian villa is dominated by a central residence with a facade inspired by Roman temples (hence the frequency of pedimented porticos). On either side of this block run a series of lower wings symmetrical in appearance and practical in purpose. Behind their calm and orderly exteriors a quantity of different activities would take place, whether the preparation of meals or the storage of grain, the housing of livestock or the washing of clothes. There would be stables and dovecots, piggeries and chicken coops, all of them part of a single harmonious unit. The concept was both simple and yet sophisticated, rational yet handsome. In the late 19th century the American architect Louis Sullivan proclaimed ‘form ever follows function.’ Palladio’s villas demonstrate the truth of this maxim. As his influence spread beyond Italy, so too did his designs and the practical philosophy that underlay them. This approach found a particularly warm reception in Ireland where from the late 17th century onwards landowners sought to bring order to their estates and to create new residences at their core.
One such estate was Ardbraccan, County Meath. This had been the seat of a bishopric for over a thousand years and in the 16th century a large Tudor house called St Mary’s stood there. However by the early 18th century the old residence had become so dilapidated that a new house was deemed essential. In 1734 then-Bishop of Meath Arthur Price made a start on the project but within a few years he had been transferred to the Archbishopric of Cashel (where incidentally he was responsible for unroofing the old cathedral, seemingly because he found his carriage could not easily be driven to the top of the hill on which it stands). It would be another 30 years before the work initiated by Price was brought to completion, but the two wings of the building he commissioned were completed before his departure. The architect employed for this task was Richard Castle, whose personal history remains somewhat shrouded in mystery. He is believed to have grown up in Dresden, where his father, an English-born Jew named Joseph Riccardo, served as Director of Munitions and Mines to Friedrich Augustus, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. By 1725 Castle, sometimes called Cassels, had come to England where he is likely to have encountered Lord Burlington and his circle of Palladians. Three years later he moved to Ireland, supposedly at the request of Sir Gustavus Hume, to design Castle Hume, County Fermanagh. Not long after Castle began working as a draughtsman for Sir Edward Lovett Pearce on the plans of the new Parliament House then being built in Dublin. Following Pearce’s death in 1733 Castle took over some of his unfinished commissions and also became the most notable designer of country houses in Ireland. He was, therefore, the obvious choice when Bishop Price sought an architect for the new residence at Ardbraccan.
Understandably visitors to Ardbraccan focus their attention on the main house, finished in the 1770s to the designs of no less than three architects: James Wyatt, Thomas Cooley and the Rev. Daniel Beaufort. As a result, the rest of the structure receives less notice, even though it offers one of the purest examples of Palladianism in Ireland. To north and south of the central block run arcaded quadrants that link to two-storey, five-bay wings, their entrances facing one another across the house’s forecourt. The facade presented to the world is one of order and equilibrium, harmony and proportion. In classic Palladian fashion Castle provided facilities for a wealth of complementary domestic and agricultural activities, all housed in splendidly constructed outbuildings that remain intact. These include stables and carriage houses, kitchens and laundry yard, pump yard and slaughter house, piggeries, granary, dovecotes, cattle sheds and fowl yards, accommodation for the large community of workers who engaged in diverse activities, and rising above them all a clock tower to ensure time was kept on the day’s tasks. One of the pleasures of these buildings is the quality of their finish, a tribute to Irish workmanship at the time. It is worth noting the way different sections interact; the mixture of cut and uncut stone within the stable block to the north, for example, is surprisingly successful. On this side of the house a Gibbsian door permitted the bishop to descend to the yard via a flight of handsome steps, and then climb another short sequence to the mounting block for his horse. Inside the wing itself look at the superlative groin vaulting in the stables, the vaults carried on solid Tuscan column. Elsewhere the interplay of curved wall and staircase is another delight. These were all practical spaces, intended to ensure the estate operated smoothly and would be almost self-sufficient. Nonetheless as much attention was paid to their design and construction as to the episcopal residence. Here are the tenets of Palladianism put into practice and showing their mettle.
Pastoral scene with country house as backdrop: Ardbraccan, County Meath. The central block dates from the 1770s when it was constructed for the then-Bishop of Meath, Henry Maxwell. Visiting the place two centuries ago, the English agronomist and politician John Christian Curwen wrote that Ardbraccan ‘is a modern edifice, erected by the former Bishop on a plan of the late Dr Beaufort; which unites much internal comfort with great external beauty and simple elegance, well designed and appropriated for the residence of so considerable a dignitary of the church. The grounds are laid out with great taste, and the luxuriant growth of the trees and shrubs affords incontestable evidence of the fertility of the soil.’
A moment when the Virginia Creeper perfectly matches the colour of the door: the façade of Ardbraccan, County Meath. Dating from the late 1760s the building has a complex history, since Henry Maxwell, Bishop of Meath commissioned designs from three architects: James Wyatt, Thomas Cooley and Daniel Beaufort, the last of these also being a local Anglican clergyman. In the end the façade reflects elements of all their proposals, although it is closest to that of Wyatt.
A detail of the plaster frieze running around the walls of the staircase hall at Ardbraccan, County Meath. We know that in 1773 James Wyatt produced drawings for the centre block of the house. These were commissioned by Henry Maxwell, Bishop of Meath whose brother Barry Maxwell, Earl of Farnham would likewise employ Wyatt to design a new house for him in County Cavan a few years later. In the event, the architect’s plans for Ardbraccan were modified to incorporate elements from schemes by both Thomas Cooley and Daniel Beaufort, the latter a gifted amateur who was also Rector of nearby Navan. However, the staircase hall’s plasterwork is distinctly Wyatt’esque and so it is surely not too fanciful to imagine that at least this part of his proposal was executed without intervention from other hands.
A businessman from Maryland is the latest American to buy an Irish country estate, in this case Ardbraccan, a Palladian pile partly designed by Richard Castle, the classical-style architect who also created Leinster House
for sale, bought 2013
9 May 2013 by Jack Fagan
A wealthy American businessman has availed of the sharp fall in the price of country estates here to buy one of Ireland’s finest Palladian mansions on the Ardbraccan Estate in Navan, Co Meath.
Charles Noell, who co-founded JMI Equity in Baltimore, Maryland, has paid close to the asking price of €4.9 million for the 18th century mansion and 120 acres of formal gardens, ancient woodlands and parkland about three miles outside Navan.
Noell was underbidder last February for the 420-acre Dowth Hall estate on the river Boyne between Slane and Drogheda which was bought by a local businessman for €5 million.
Noell is the latest American to invest in a large estate in Ireland following the purchase of Humewood Castle in Co Wicklow, and Woodhouse Estate in Co Waterford, in recent months by American businessmen.
Noell is best known as president of the family investment company of John J Moores, founder of BMC Software, who last year attracted international attention when he sold the San Diego Padres baseball team for €800 million.
George Windsor-Clive, an international equestrian property agent, who advised Noell, said his client enjoys an interest in bloodstock and racing, and he expects that he will breed horses at Ardbraccan.
The marketing campaign here was handled by Pat O’Hagan of Savills who said that when the “overseas buyer” indicated his interest in acquiring the Navan estate the deal was wrapped up in record time and the sale closed last Friday.
Ardbraccan was built in the mid-1700s as the palace of the bishops of Meath. It is now a vast home, extending to 2,150 sq m (23,142 sq ft), and includes a stunning range of reception rooms and 15 bedrooms, six of which are suites.
Like many other great mansions, Ardbraccan, partly designed by Richard Castle, conforms to the classical style of a central block joined to subordinate wings by curved linking walls inset with niches.
riginally housing butlers’ and housekeepers’ rooms and kitchens, the south wing now provides well-proportioned guest accommodation including three reception rooms and four bedrooms.
The north wing is mainly used for staff accommodation and a farm office.
The central block, built after the two wings, is a simple and dignified grey stone house of two storeys over basement and seven bays with an Ionic doorcase.
When the last owner, property investor David Maher, acquired Ardbraccan, the property had been unoccupied for almost 20 years and was in need of considerable attention. Over four years the house, yards, gardens and grounds were restored by specialist craftsmen using traditional methods and, where necessary, salvaged materials from Ireland and the UK.
Chimney pots were specially cast to match the originals and roofs recovered with original slates, and worked in copper and lead. Internal fittings were also restored and replaced and parklands were fenced and replanted with specimen trees.
One of the unusual features of the house is a narrow entrance vestibule with a barrel-vaulted ceiling. This allows the principal rooms on either side to be large rectangular spaces, each with three windows looking out on to the spectacular gardens.
rdbraccan differs from most layouts in that it has a large square hall at the rear of the house behind the entrance vestibule. The Great Hall has French doors leading to the rear garden. This also connects directly with the drawingroom and the diningroom. The principal and secondary stairs are on either side of the Great Hall.
Like the rest of the house, the basement has also been tastefully restored and includes a wide range of facilities including a kitchen, wine cellar, pantry, laundry room, playroom and billiard room. And of course a boot room. Where would you be without one?
SEVERAL small bishoprics gradually coalesced into one See, which received the name of Meath, at the end of the 12th century.
In 1568, the bishopric of Clonmacnoise was incorporated with it by act of parliament.
It extends from the sea to the River Shannon, over part of six counties, viz. Meath, Westmeath, King’s County (Offaly), Cavan, Longford, and Kildare.
From east to west it extends 80 miles; and in breadth, about 25 at a medium.
The Lord Bishop of Meath traditionally took precedence next to the four archbishops (Armagh, Dublin, Cashel, Tuam), and has been styled Most Reverend.
The other bishops, excepting only the Lord Bishop of Kildare, took precedence according to the date of their consecration.
Entrance Front
ARDBRACCAN HOUSE, near Navan, County Meath, is a large Palladian mansion house which served from the 1770s until 1885 as the seat of the Lord Bishop of Meath.
By the Middle Ages a large Tudor house, containing its own church, known as St. Mary’s, stood on the site.
Bishop Evans left money for the building of a new residence here early in the 18th century.
His successor, Bishop Downes, came here with Dean Swift to lay out the new ground; though it was not until 1734 that Bishop Price (1678-1752) decided to replace the decaying mansion with a new Georgian residence.
Initially the two wings of the house were built, before the main four-bay two-storey block of the house was completed in the 1770s by Bishop Maxwell.
It was partly designed by the acclaimed 18th-century German architect Richard Castle (also known as Richard Cassels).
Garden Front
When the two two-storey, five-bay wings had been completed, Bishop Price was translated to the archbishopric of Cashel.
For the following thirty years, succeeding bishops did nothing about building the centre block, but resided in one of the wings, using the other for guests.
It wasn’t till the early 1770s that Bishop Maxwell, a younger son of the 1st Baron Farnham, decided to complete the house.
This prelate boasted that he would erect a palace so grand that no scholar or tutor would dare inhabit it.
The centre block, which was eventually begun in 1776, took a number of years to complete.
It comprises two storeys and seven bays, with an Ionic doorcase.
This block complements the wings with curved sweeps and niches.
The garden front has a three-bay central breakfront.
The interior plasterwork is Neo-Classical in style.
Bishop Alexandercarried out more elaborate renovations to the outbuildings in the 1820s and 1830s.
THE disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1871 fatally weakened the economic survival of the bishops’ estate, which was left totally reliant on the small local Church of Ireland community.
In 1885, the Church of Ireland sold the estate and house.
The bishop moved to a smaller mansion nearby (until 1958, when it was sold to a Catholic religious institute, the Holy Ghost Fathers).
Ardbraccan House was bought by Hugh Law, the son of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland and remained in the ownership of his descendants until sold by Colonel Owen Foster in 1985 to Tara Mines who used it as a guest residence for visiting businessmen.
In the late 1990s, Ardbraccan once again changed hands.
The new owners invested large sums to restore the mansion house.
Ardbraccan was the seat of the diocese of Ardbraccan founded by St. Breaccan and St. Ultan. In the middle ages Ardbraccan became the seat for the Protestant bishops of Meath and a large house was erected with a chapel dedicated to St. Mary. The bishops of Meath were interred in the churchyard at Ardbraccan.
The house was replaced by a Georgian building in the eighteenth century. The kitchen and stable wings were completed first in the mid 1730s and then the central block was erected about 1776. The two wings were designed by Richard Castle, the pre-eminent architect working in Ireland at the time while the central block was an amalgam of the designs of Thomas Cooley and James Wyatt, together with amateur Navan architect, the Rev. Daniel A. Beaufort. The house was constructed with limestone from the nearby White Quarry. The house is set in mature pasture land with formal gardens and walled gardens. There is a courtyard of domestic and agricultural buildings to the north of the house. The farm and stables are joined to the house by a tunnel under the garden terrace. A dome-shaped icehouse, dating from about 1800, is located to the south of the outbuilding complex. A gable fronted gate lodge was constructed about 1776 when the main house was completed.
Known as Ardbraccan House or Bishop’s Palace the house was the residence of the bishops of Meath until 1885, after which it became a private residence.
In 1734 Bishop Arthur Price decided to replace the old Tudor house with a new residence and commissioned Richard Castle to prepare plans. Arthur Price had been vicar of Celbridge and resided at Oakley Park. Here his steward at Oakley Park was Richard Guinness, who was acclaimed for his brewing talents. Richard’s son, Arthur, went on to establish the Guinness Brewery in Dublin in 1759. While the new house was in the process of construction Price was elevated to Archbishop of Cashel and construction came to a halt. The kitchen wing was used as the bishop’s residence for more than thirty years until Bishop Henry Maxwell decided to complete the building. Bishop Maxwell was a younger son of the 1st Lord Farnham of Cavan. James Wyatt, Thomas Cooley and Rev. Daniel Beaufort of Navan drew up plans and it would appear that while Wyatt’s plans were used but Beaufort and Cooley also influenced the final house. Beaufort attended the laying of the foundation stone but had to leave early due to a toothache. Beaufort described the house as being ‘in a style of superior elegance, and yet with such simplicity as does equal honour to his lordship’s taste and liberality.’ Maxwell is said to have boasted that he would build a palace so grand that no scholar or tutor would dare live in it. Bishop Maxwell also constructed the nearby Ardbracan church about 1777.
The Bishops of Meath resided at Ardbraccan during the late eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries.
Rev. James Singer became bishop in 1852 but resided mostly in Dublin and the house at Ardbraccan was shut up in the 1860s. In 1876 Rev. William Plunket became bishop of Meath and he resolved to sell Ardbraccan as the costs of upkeep were too large for a now disestablished Church of Ireland. The bishops moved to a smaller house in the locality, Bishop’s court, now An Tobar.
Bishop Plunkett sold the house in 1885 to Hugh Law, son of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland. At the time Fr. Kearney P.P. Bohermeen suggested purchasing the Bishop’s Palace as a seminary but his bishop did not agree with the suggestion.
The house remained in the Law family until it passed by marriage to the Foster family. In 1985 Colonel Owen Foster sold Ardbraccan House to Tara Mines who used it as an occasional guest residence for visiting businessmen. The Fosters moved to the old schoolhouse at the entrance to the churchyard and were noted for their great care of the grounds of the church.
Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.
featured in Great Irish Houses. Forewards by Desmond FitgGerald, Desmond Guinness. IMAGE Publications, 2008.
Designed by James Wyatt for Lord Knapton, later the 1st Viscount de Vesci, building began in 1773. Built between 1773 and 1778, it was a typical plain Georgian box. By the mid-19th century the De Vesci’s had grown wealthier and wanted the house to look somewhat grander.
Many of the adornments – such as architraves and large ballast rails – were added in the 1840s to the design of Thomas Wyatt, a nephew of James Wyatt, added these adornments. The De Vesci family retained the house until 1994 when the present owner Sir David Davies acquired the property and began the latest phase of restoration.
When David Davies acquired the house in 1994, he employed John O’Connell, one of Ireland’s foremost conservation architects, to restore the building.
Sir David was determined to preserve and reuse all the original architectural elements, which included acquiring at auction the 18th century original window sashes. Fortunately, the Penrose Wyatt Collection fo Drawings in the National Library of Ireland had office drawings relating to the gold room/saloon of Abbey Leix so they could be accurately returned to their 18th century states.
One of the main decisions taken by Sir David was to alter a wing built in the mid 19th century to the west of the building. The original idea had been to drive the house more towards the west, with the addition of a new dining room, large library and billiard room beyond. This was never completed. Today it has become a wonderful and sympathetic addition to the main house. “It was a horrible concrete looking thing with three chimneys,” says Sir David. “John O’Connell was asked to make it look sympathetic with the rest of the house. I now call the finished product the John O’Connell wing!”
The nearby courtyard and 19th century dairy have been retained, as has the area where carriages and service stores for the house were kept. What appears to be a single storey structure from the outside has two floors inside. It was dug out so its height would not impact on the lines of the main house. On the opposite side of the main house is an unusually short extension of the basement to the first floor. A mezzanine level allows movement between each floor. The grand forecourt, which has been executed to an Italianate design, provides a tremendous podium for the house to sit upon.
Inside, the entrance hall is very much the heart of the house. The hall floor, unlike many 18th century properties, is not Portland stone but French limestone. The fireplace, which is not original and dated earlier than the house, came from a De Vesci house in London. The screen columns are all original, while the stuccowork is a fine example of neo-Classical design. Great mahogany doors, many with original locks and handles, lead from the hall.
As was often the fashion at the time in the early 20th century, the entrance hall doubled as a sitting room in winter months, and large curtains across the entrance door helped retain the heat. Sir David has returned the hall to what it is likely to have looked like in 1770. There are two great Irish tables – one from 1720 is pine, painted to look like ebony, while the other is a slightly later piece, dating to 1750. A set of four chairs, designed by Wyatt for Dunsandle House in Co Galway, were bought from Russborough. The stone colouring is true to 18th century form. Indeed, the colouring is authentic throughout with the dining room primarily cream and the drawing room a plaster or rose pink colour. The original dining room was a long way from the kitchen ans so now its primary purpose is as a music room and sir David has held a number of concerts in it.
[p. 39] The fireplace here is shown on early drawings for the room and it is fascinating to compare the vision for this great neo-classical room with the reality. The room has, however, been subjected to two great upheavals. The first was a fire in the 1950s but the second – and far more serious – occurred in 1996 during the restoration.
[picture credit: The front of the house shows the refacing, which took place in the 19th century. The façade is rendered and the finish gives the impression of sandstone. ]
[grissailes by de Gree in the music room which was originally designed as a dining room]
“A smouldering fire, confined to this room and the one adjacent, resulted in the doors leading to the second suite of rooms being badly burned. The ceilings in both rooms also had to be taken down, cleaned and restored. As much of the ceiling design is executed in gold, it was resistant to the worse of the fire damage. Cliveden Conservation, a company specialising in restoration and renewal of plasterwork and marble fireplaces, restored the ceilings of the two great rooms after the fire, but also copied and carved the original Wyatt fireplace in the drawing room which was so badly damaged that it had to be replaced. Also reinstated were the French limestone tiles in the front hall.
Primarily the music room was designed to have a typical ‘wedding cake’ interior with a strong emphasis on cream and gold colourings. Sir David has opted for more Adam colours such as pink and green and the result is magnificent. The pelmets were designed by O’Connell and have blended into the overall design seamlessly. Pull-up curtains have been installed as draw curtains would have taken up too much space. The double doors, with brass handles and carvings, were modelled from another Wyatt design. It is thought the mahogany came from Honduras and was already 1,000 years old when it was felled for the house in 1770.
The drawing room is one of the most elegant and best proportioned rooms in the house. Sir David has a young family and so the room is also comfortable. The ceiling features a circular motif design with two large panels either side. The room also suffered extensive damage during the recent fire and required extensive restoration that took more than a year to complete. Many of the panels had to be removed and repaired or replaced.”
[picture caption: the music room showing the neo-classical plaster decoration designed by James Wyatt. According to John O’Connell it is probably the most authentic Wyatt room in Ireland, aside from the great dining room at Curraghmore.]
[the study with the carved festoons in the style of Grinling Gibbons.]
p. 40. “The original house ended where there is now a set of four scagliola columns when in the 1840s the De Vescies decided to create a long gallery through to where the glass conservatory once stood. Sir David decided to partition the gallery, given its proximity to the kitchen, in order to create a dining room with both a formal and informal dining space. The Knight of Glin helped with the furnishings. ‘All the furniture and paintings here have been brought in the last 25 years,” Sir David says. “It was a time when the Knight was persuading people to buy Irish furniture and paintings and bring them back to Ireland. Much of the stuff here was bought in America. It’s important these furnishings in the house don’t come across as a museum piece. This is very much a family home.”
“The great wing built off the house has the largest and longest butler’s pantry in Ireland, which leads to the upstairs kitchen. The floors in this area are of oak found on the estate. Beyond the kitchen is a wonderful family room in what was formerly the billiard room. The entire first floor is made up on family rooms, bedrooms, dressing rooms and en suite bathrooms. All the original bath and tap finishings have been retained, with slate flooring used under the baths to prevent damage. The real richness at work at Abbey Leix is the contrast between the formal and informal, between the everyday and the elaborate. In its simple elegance, it remains as true to the early 18th century original as any house in private ownership today.”
[picture caption: The white chimneypiece in the drawing room is to the design of James Wyatt. The Irish mirror was designed by Francis and John Booker of Essexbridge, Dublin.]
[The present dining room was a large tri-partite library in the mid 19th century.]
[The formal dining table, which had a fine collection of Wyatt dining chairs, can seat up to 24 guests. The painting is of Sir David Davis by Lord Dunsany.]
Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.
featured in Georgian Mansions in Ireland with some account of the evolution af Georgian Architecture and Decoration by Thomas U. Sadleir and Page L. Dickinson. Dublin University Press, 1915.
Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.
Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses.[originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978; Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.]
P. 1. Abbey Leix, Co Leix: “[Vesey, De Vesci, V/PB] A three storey late C18 block, built from 1773 onwards by Thomas Vesey, 2nd Lord Knapton and afterwards 1st Viscount de Vesci, with some interiors being designed by James Wyatt. Seven bay entrance front, with three bay pedimented breakfront; frontispiece of coupled Doric columns and entablature around entrance door. Five bay garden front with three bay breakfront. In C19 the elevations were made more ornate with a balustraded roof parapet, entablatures over the windows, balconies and other features. A large conservatory was also added at one side of the house, which was blown away by the “great wind” of 1902 and replaced by a wing containing a new dining room. The principal rooms in the main block have ceilings and, in the old dining room, walls decorated with Wyatt plasterwork. The hall has a screen of fluted Ionic columns;
from myhome.ie. The fireplace mantel of siena and white marble in the front hall, with a well-carved centre panel, is from a Dublin mansion [from Georgian Mansions in Ireland, as well as following information about paintings] There’s a portrait of Le Grand Dauphin by Pierre Mignard, and pictures of Michael Boyle, Archbishop of Armagh [ he was an ancestor of the family through the marriage of Sir Thomas Vesey, 1st Baronet, with his granddaughter Mary Muschamp]; of John Vesey, archbishop of Tuam; Sir Thomas Vesey, Bt, 1712, afterwards Bishop of Ossory the first Lord Knapton; Mrs Colclough, wife of Caesar Colclough, of Duffrey Hall, Co Wexford and sister of the first Lord Knapton; Agmondesham Vesey, father of Ann, Lady Bingham, as a child [also an ancestor of the Veseys of Lucan, which estate he acquired by his first marriage with Charlotte, daughter of William Sarsfield, who was the elder brother of the celebrated Patrick Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan, and by whom he had an only daughter, Anne, wife of Sir John Bingham, Baronet, ancestor of the present Earl of Lucan. He left the estate to his oldest son of his second marriage, so subsequent owners are not descended from the Sarsfields]; and of the Elizabeth, wife of the first Lord Knapton. This last painting is by Stephen Slaughter, and dates to 1744.
BJ cont. “the drawing room is hung with a C19 blue wallpaper. The demesne contains some magnificent trees, including oaks which are part of a primeval forest. A formal garden with terraces and ironwork balustrades was laid out by Lady Emma Herbert, who married 3rd Viscount 1839; inspired by the garden of her Russian grandfather, Count Simon Woronzow, at Alupka, near Yalta, in the Crimea. Towards the end of C19, in the time of 4th Viscount, whose wife was Lady Evelyn Charteris, daughter of 10th Earl of Wemyss, Abbey Leix was the Irish outpost of the “Souls.” The garden is now open to the public.”
Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.
Colliers International
Tel: 01 633 3700
PSRA Licence No. 001223
€20,000,000
9 beds, 10 baths, 2500 sq metres,
Eircode: R32 E2W4 A splendid and most distinguished Irish 18th-century mansion positioned within a remarkable and ancient woodland demesne of over 1,000 acres. Abbey Leix is one of the most venerable 18th-century houses in Ireland and, following a spectacular restoration, it is also one of the most congenial. In any list of important Irish country houses Abbey Leix has a prominent place. The late-18th-century mansion, clothed in the Italianate manner in 1859-60, enjoys a remarkable position within a private estate comprising some 1,120 acres and includes some of Ireland’s most notable remaining ancient woodland and extensive frontage to the River Nore. The accommodation is grand and beautifully executed with the mansion comprising some 26,910 square feet or 2,500 square metres.
Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.
The mansion is augmented by 10 lodges and cottages on the estate. Abbey Leix was designed in 1773 by the noted architect James Wyatt. The house is an elegant three-storey Classical mansion of seven bays, the three central bays under a triangular pediment. The arrangement of rooms is elegant and simple, with three major rooms on the park front. There is a deep hall, with a screen of columns separating it from the east-west-running staircase hall and corridor. The music room at the south-eastern corner of the house retains the light, decorative plasterwork for which Wyatt was so admired. Plaster roundels framed by swags of husks were decorated with grisaille by the artist De Gree a few years after completion, probably about 1785. In the middle of the 19th-century the Italianate character was adopted and the great Classical library and a conservatory were added.
Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.
At the same time the front of the house was enclosed within an Entrance Court with terraces added to the rear. A comprehensive and sympathetic restoration was undertaken in 1995. The whole north-west corner of the accommodation was redesigned to provide a new family room (out of rooms subdivided in the 1966), kitchen, and butler’s pantry. A new state dining room was created out of two-thirds of the original library, the remainder now comprising a smaller library. A considerable programme of conservation of the major rooms followed. The works create a 21st-century family home with an appropriate balance between comfort and informality on the one hand and grandeur for entertaining and the display of art on the other. Abbey Leix has one of the most important collections of trees in Ireland. Whereas elsewhere in Ireland the primeval forests of oak, birch, alder and willow have been almost entirely depleted, the woods on Park Hill across the river from the house are among the last surviving remnants of Ireland’s ancient woodland.
Abbey Leix, like so many places in Ireland, owes its origins to religious settlement, and specifically to the French Cistercian monks who came to Ireland in the mid-12th-century. An ancient stone bridge on the estate, known as Monk’s Bridge, marks where they located their abbey. The present demesne evolved out of the monastery’s granges, woods and fields. One tree, the oldest oak in Ireland still survives from this period. The de Vesci family fashioned a landscape as beautiful as the house they built during their ownership between 1675 and 1995. A stud farm is positioned within the original farmstead and includes an attractive range of cut-stone outbuildings.
A beautiful principal yard, complete with a clock tower, was built of local limestone in 1822. The quadrangular yard contains 24 loose boxes. A separate farmyard has a range of farm sheds. The farmland provides good grazing. The limestone soil is highly fertile and ideal for rearing and keeping bloodstock, being well laid out in gently undulating fields and paddocks. The lands are well sheltered by the surrounding woodland. Positioned centrally within the estate the house is quiet and private, the wooded drive being c. 1 mile long. “As few places elsewhere, Abbey Leix gives a sense of the longue durée of Irish history. Having been home to French Monks, O’More Princes, Ormonde Earls, de Vesci Viscounts, and a Welsh Knight, the house, its park and woods form a microcosm of our past.” William Laffan, 2017.
Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.Abbeyleix House, County Laois, photograph courtesy of Colliers.
A seven-bay, three-storey over basement with dormer attic Classical-style country house, begun 1773, with a pedimented breakfront having a cut stone Doric door-case to the ground floor. Originally brick, later rendered by Thomas Henry Wyatt. Five-bay elevation to garden front with breakfront having cut sandstone doorcase and Wyatt style window openings to flanking bays.
“A good landlord, and an improving man, his first care was to remove the old village on the banks of the Nore, and to build a new one, long known as New Abbeyleix, on a better site further from the river.f He also demolished the former family residence, and, in 1773, erected in its place the present mansion, which took several years to complete.”
THE VISCOUNTS DE VESCI WERE MAJOR LANDOWNERS IN THE QUEEN’S COUNTY, WITH 15,069 ACRES
This and the illustrious family of De Burgh, Marquesses and Earls of Clanricarde, derive from a common progenitor; namely,
JOHN, Earl of Comyn and Baron of Tonsburgh, Normandy, son of BALDWIN II of Boulogne, founder of the house of BLOIS, in France.
From the eldest son of this noble John descended the house of Clanricarde; and from the younger,
EUSTACE DE BURGE, Baron of Tonsburgh, that of which we are now to treat.
This Eustace had two sons, Charles and John, both companions in arms of WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.
The elder son,
CHARLES, built the castle of Knaresborough, in Yorkshire, and was succeeded by his brother,
JOHN FITZ RICHARD, who wedded Margaret, aunt of King STEPHEN, and was succeeded by his eldest son,
EUSTACE FITZ JOHN, feudal lord of Knaresborough, who espoused Beatrix, daughter and sole heir of Ivo de Vesci, by Alda, only daughter and heir of William Tyson, Lord of Alnwick, and was succeeded by his elder son,
WILLIAM, who assumed the name and arms of VESCI, and had a grant from HENRY II of Alnwick Castle.
He was sheriff of Northumberland during the greater part of that reign, and was a principal commander in the battle fought near Alnwick, wherein the Scottish army sustained a signal overthrow.
This William’s elder son,
EUSTACE DE VESCI (1169-1216), one of the twenty-five feudal barons appointed to enforce the observance of MAGNA CARTA, married Margaret, daughter of WILLIAM, King of Scotland.
This nobleman was succeeded by his son,
WILLIAM DE VESCI, who espoused firstly, Isabel, daughter of William Longespée, Earl of Salisbury; and secondly, Agnes, eldest daughter of William Ferrers, Earl of Derby; and in right of the latter had a share of those lands assigned to him in Ireland, belonging to William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke.
He died in 1253, and was succeeded by his eldest son,
JOHN DE VESCI, who was summoned to parliament, 1264, as Baron Vesci.
His lordship dsp 1289, and was succeeded by his brother,
WILLIAM DE VESCI, who was summoned to parliament in 1295, and was one of the competitors for the crown of Scotland during the reign of EDWARD I.
This nobleman was Justice in Eyre for all the royal forests beyond Trent, and one of the Justices-Itinerant touching the pleas of the forest, Governor of Scarborough Castle, and Lord Justice of Ireland, where he was Lord of Kildare.
His lordship died in 1297, leaving an only daughter, Isabel; and the male line of his family was continued by his brother,
THOMAS DE VESCI, who settled in Newlands, Cumberland, where the family continued until his descendant,
WILLIAM VESEY, having the misfortune to kill his antagonist in a duel, fled into Scotland, whence he removed to Ireland, in the reign of ELIZABETH I.
He wedded a daughter of the family of Ker of Cessford, and was succeeded by his only son,
THE VEN THOMAS VESEY, Archdeacon of Armagh, 1655; whose son and heir,
[Georgian Mansions in Ireland with some account of the evolution af Georgian Architecture and Decoration by Thomas U. Sadleir and Page L. Dickinson. Dublin University Press, 1915:
“The Most Rev. John Vesey, Archbishop of Tuam, father of the purchaser (of Abbeyleix), may also be called the founder of this family in Ireland, for from him descended the Veseys of Lucan, Co Dublin; Hollymount, County Mayo; and Derrabard, Co Tyrone; as well as Baron Fitzgerald and Vesey, a title now extinct, and the family of Vesey-Fitzgerald. During the vice-royalty of Tyrconnell he suffered great hardships at the hands of the native Irish, though it was only when their lives were in danger that he and Bishop Tenison, of Killala, consented to quite Connaught. fn. see Dictionary of National Biography. Taking his wife and twelve children, he fled to London, where he lived in straightened circumstances, having no means of subsistence save a lectureship of £40 per annum, which the interest of his friends obtained for him. While in England he was attainted by James II’s Irish Parliament, but after the Revolution he returned to his diocese, and resumed the prominent part which he had been accustomed to take in the affairs of the country, of which he was twice appointed Lord Justice. It was probably as some recompense for his misfortunes that his eldest son, Thomas, when only 25 and during his father’s lifetime, was created a Baronet… He took great pleasure in laying out and planting his seat at Hollymount, Co Mayo, described by John Wesley, when he visited it some forty years afterwards, as “one of the pleasantest places in Ireland.” There he died on 28 March 1716, having been in failing health for two years. ]
This learned prelate, who was thrice one of the Lords Justices of Ireland, left issue,
THOMAS; Agmondisham, ancestor of the Earls of Lucan; John, in holy orders; William; Francis; Mary; Elizabeth; Anne.
His Grace was succeeded by his eldest son,
THOMAS VESEY (c1668-1730), who was created a baronet in 1698, denominated of Abbeyleix, Queen’s County.
Sir Thomas, subsequently taking holy orders, was consecrated Lord Bishop of Killaloe in 1713, and translated to the see of Ossory in the following year.
[Georgian Mansions in Ireland with some account of the evolution af Georgian Architecture and Decoration by Thomas U. Sadleir and Page L. Dickinson. Dublin University Press, 1915:
p. 13. “The above-mentioned Sir Thomas Vesey had a singular career. Born at Cork in 1673 [ie. differs from webpage date], of which city his father was then Dean, he received his education at Eton, and Christ Church College in Oxford…. It is said that he had early intended to take Orders, but it was not until 1699, after he had returned to Ireland, that the young Baronet was ordained a deacon. Preferment in his father’s diocese naturally followed, and in the following year, soon after he was priested, he was presented to a Galway living, and preferred to the Archdeanery of Tuam – an office which he resigned in 1703. During the vice-royalty of the second Duke of Ormond he acted as his chaplain, and on his recommendation was appointed by Queen Anne to the Bishopric of Killaloe, which he held for little more than a year, beign translated in 1714 to the See of Ossory. Notwithstanding that his rapid promotion was due to court influence, his character both as a man and a prelate stood high, and he was greatly respected by his clergy. We have no records of his residence at Abbeyleix, though it is known to have been the birthplace of his only son, born in 1709 [fn. The Compete Baronetage, by G.E. C.], and it seems probable that he constantly lived there. Some difficulty appears to have arisen with regard to his title to the estate, for in 1711 he invoked the aid of Swift to assist him in getting an Act of Parliament to settle the matter. The Bishop died in Dublin on 6 Aug 1730, and was buried in St. Anne’s church.By his wife Mary Muschamp, who survived til 26 Feb 1749, he had one son and two daughters, of whom the younger, Elizabeth, a versatile and accomplished woman, married first William Handcock, of Willbrook [fn. now called Moydrum Castle, and the residence of his representative, Lord Castlemaine], Co Westmeath, and secondly he cousin Agmondesham Vesey, MP, of Lucan, Co Dublin. [fn. Kildare Journal of Archaeolgoy, vol. vii, no. 6, p. 404]. As Mrs Vesey, the friend of Dr. Johnson, she was long prominent in London society for her literary receptions, celebrated in the pages of Horace Walpole and Madame D’Arblay.”]
He wedded Mary, only surviving daughter and heir of Denny Muschamp, of Horsley, Surrey, Muster-Master-General of Ireland, and his wife, Elizabeth, eldest daughter of the Most Rev Michael Boyle, Lord Archbishop of Armagh, by whom he had issue, two daughters, and a son,
SIR JOHN DENNY VESEY, 2nd Baronet, who was elevated to the peerage, in 1750, by the title of Baron Knapton.
[Georgian Mansions in Ireland with some account of the evolution af Georgian Architecture and Decoration by Thomas U. Sadleir and Page L. Dickinson. Dublin University Press, 1915:
p. 13. Sir John Denny Vesey, 2nd Bt, of Abbeyleix, succeeded his father in the title and estates. He had matriculated as a Gentleman Commoner at Christ Church, Oxford, in July 1727, but relinquished his studies on entering the Irish Parliament as M.P. for Newtown Ards before the end of that year. For ths borough he sat for 23 years, and on 10 April 1750, in recognition of his political services, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Knapton, taking his title from a townland on his property adjoining Abbeyleix, which in its turn had been named from Knapton in Yorkshire, a former seat of the family… Lord Knapton, who had been appointed Governor and Custos Rotulorum of the Queen’s County in 1746, during the rebellion in Scotland, died on 25 June 1761, aged 52.]
He espoused, in Elizabeth, daughter of William Brownlow MP, of Lurgan, County Armagh, by the Lady Elizabeth Hamilton, his wife, daughter of the 6th Earl of Abercorn, and had issue,
THOMAS, his successor; Elizabeth; Anne; Jane.
His lordship [who had been appointed Governor and Custos Rotulorum of Queen’s County in 1746, during the rebellion of Scotland]
died in 1761, and was succeeded by his son,
THOMAS, 2nd Baron (1735-1804), [the former’s only surviving son, second Lord Knapton]
who was created, in 1776, VISCOUNT DE VESCI, of Abbey Leix.
[Georgian Mansions in Ireland with some account of the evolution af Georgian Architecture and Decoration by Thomas U. Sadleir and Page L. Dickinson. Dublin University Press, 1915:
“His only surviving son, Thomas, second Lord Knapton, served in Lord Drogheda’s Regiment of Horse, in which he was promoted to the rank of Captain Lieutenant a few months after his father’s death. He was subsequently a Captain in the 123rd Regiment of Foot. {fn. Kelly’s Almanack and Directory for 1795. In 1782 he acted as a General of Volunteers}. After he had retired from the service, on 24 April 1769, he married Selina Elizabeth. He had a town house in Dawon St, Dublin, inherited from his father, but on his marriage moved to a newer and more fashionable residence at 26 Merrion Square. A good landlord, and an improving man, his first care was to remove the old village on the banks of the Nore, and to build a new one, long known as New Abbeyleix, on a better site further from the river. (fn. History of Queens Co p. 154). He also demolished the former family residence, and, in 1773, erected in its place the present mansion, which took several years to complete. During the administration of the Marquess Townsend, Lord Knapton was in opposition, but he accorded his support to the measures of his successor, Earl Harcourt. [fn. The Irish Parliament in 1775, p. 174]. It was not, however, for political reasons, but for having “acted with great spirit and propriety in discountenancing and suppressing the outrageous proceedings of the White Boys” {fn. Harcourt Papers, vol. x p. 198}that he was, on 18 July 1776, advanced to the Viscounty of de Vesci. Besides being an active magistrate, he was a hospitable man, and frequently gathered round him parties of friends. ….Lord de Vesci died at Abbeyleix of a paralytic stroke on 13 Oct 1804. ]
His lordship married, in 1769, Selina Elizabeth, eldest daughter and co-heir of the Rt Hon Sir Arthur Brooke Bt, of Colebrooke, County Fermanagh, by whom he had issue,
JOHN, his successor; Arthur, in holy orders; Charles; Elizabeth; Selina, m Andrew Nugent, of Portaferry.
The 1st Viscount was succeeded by his eldest son,
JOHN, 2nd Viscount (1771-1855), of Abbey Leix, who wedded, in 1800, Frances Letitia, daughter of the Rt Hon William Brownlow, of Lurgan, County Armagh.
[Georgian Mansions in Ireland with some account of the evolution af Georgian Architecture and Decoration by Thomas U. Sadleir and Page L. Dickinson. Dublin University Press, 1915:
p. 16. Of the second Viscount we have the following account, written the year before he died, by an anonymous writer [ he died at Portaferry, Co Down, the residence of his son-in-law, Col Patrick Nugent]]: “,,,An ever resident landlord, he has spent all his life amidst his tenantry; and whereever you turn the fruits of his paternal care are seen.” His elder son, the 3rd Viscount de Vesci, died at 4 Carlton House Terrace, London, on 23 Dec 1875 [he was MP for Queens co, 1835-7, and 1841-52; a representative peer, and an Ecclesiastical Commissioner for Ireland] leaving, with other issue, John Robert William, 4th Viscount, H.M.L. for the Queen’s county, sometimes Lieut-Col of the Coldstream Guards, and of the Honorable Artillery Company of London, who was created Baron de Vesci of Abbeyleix in the peerage of the UK in 1884. On his decease, 6th July 1903, this barony expired, while the Irish honours devolved on his nephew, the 5th and present holder…. note that the 2nd Visciount was MP for the borough of Mayborough, 1796-97, a Representative Peer, and for many years, Lord Lieut. of Queen’s Co.]
The heir apparent is the present holder’s second son, the Hon Oliver Ivo Vesey.
In a Country Life article of 1991, entitled ‘Abbeyleix, County Laois …’, the late John Cornforth provided a short but still serviceable account of Vesey family history, largely based on the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland list of the de Vesci papers as it then stood:
… The Veseys first appeared in Ireland in the second quarter of the 17th century and, like a surprising number of families, rose through service in the Church of Ireland. The first of them, the Venerable Thomas, ended up as Archdeacon of Armagh in 1655 and died in 1662.
Both his sons followed him into the Church, the elder one, John, becoming Archbishop of Tuam [in 1679], a Privy Councillor and a Lord Justice of Ireland. Three of the Archbishop’s five sons also entered the church, with Thomas, the eldest, being made a baronet [in 1698] and a bishop [in 1713], in his father’s lifetime. He had the foresight to marry, [in 1699, Mary Muschamp], the granddaughter of an even more distinguished Archbishop, Michael Boyle, who was both Primate [1678-1702] and Lord Chancellor [1665-85]. …
Through this marriage, Sir Thomas Vesey acquired the Abbeyleix estate, which was given to the couple as Mary’s marriage portion, by her father, Denny Muschamp. Muschamp was a tax farmer and land speculator as well as adviser to his father-in-law, Archbishop Boyle, and he became involved in Abbeyleix in 1675 through buying the rest of a 99-year Crown lease from the trustees of the will of Sir Edward Massey, an act that immediately led to litigation with the trustees and the beneficiaries of the will. That, together with other complications, led to a series of claims and counter-claims that caused the case to drag on until 1769. …
In 1995, the 7th and present Lord de Vesci sold Abbey Leix sold most of the demesne (excluding, however, the part which went with Knapton).
The purchasers were Sir David Davies, an Irish-born and based international banker and businessman, and his wife, Linda, whose ‘spectacular restoration’ of the house carried forward the de Vesci tradition of improvement and was the subject of an article by Jeremy Musson entitled ‘Abbeyleix, County Laois …’, published in Country Life on the 24th July, 2003.
Prior to the sale of the house and its residual contents, Lord de Vesci had removed, among many other things, his collection of family portraits and the archive.
However, later in 1995, agreement was reached for the sale of the latter to the National Library of Ireland, where it is now made more easily and widely accessible by the publication of the present catalogue.
Thomas Eustace Vesey, 7th and present Viscount de Vesci (b 1955) is managing director of Horticultural Coir Limited.
ABBEYLEIX HOUSE is a seven-bay, three-storey over basement with dormer attic Classical-style country house, begun 1773, with a pedimented breakfront having a cut stone Doric door-case to the ground floor.
Five-bay elevation to garden front with breakfront having cut sandstone doorcase and Wyatt style window openings to flanking bays.
Two-bay single-storey wing to west, renovated ca 1840, with façade enrichments added.
It was extended to the west, post-1902, comprising a seven-bay single-storey wing with breakfront having three-bay advanced centre bay. Balustraded forecourt of ca 1840, to the north.
Formal gardens, post-1839, to south comprising series of artificial terraces with balustrades, flights of steps and ha-has.
The house is set within a landscaped demesne approached by gravel drive; balustraded formal courtyard to Entrance Front with gravel drive and grass centrepiece; group of formal gardens to Garden Front including series of artificial terraces with balustrades, flights of steps and rubble stone ha-has; pond to sheltered garden to south-west.
From Georgian Mansions in Ireland with some account of the evolution af Georgian Architecture and Decoration by Thomas U. Sadleir and Page L. Dickinson. Dublin University Press, 1915:
P. 10. Abbeyleix house, the residence of the Viscount de Vesci, is a large four-storied rectangular building, situated in a splendid demesne, celebrated for its magnificent oaks, of over 700 acres, not far from the small but picturesque town from whence its name is derived. Externally it presents an uninteresting appearance for although constructed of red brick with a stone front, by plastering the whole it has entirely lost its Georgian character; internally, in spite of modern embellishment, much of the original work is still preserved. The character of the ornament is well shown in the Hall: two fluted columns support an entablature, and the Adam style appears both in the frieze and the fan decoration of the walls. There is a tall handsome mantel of siena and white marble, with well-carved centre panel, which was formerly in a Dublin mansion. Besides the masterly portrait of Le Grand Dauphin, by Pierre Mignard, a recent purchase of the present Viscount, this apartment contains pictures in oils of Michael Boyle, Archbishop of Armagh [an ancestor of the family through the marriage of Sir Thomas Vesey, 1st Bt, with his grand-daughter Mary Muschamp.]; John Vesey, Archbishop of Tuam; Sir Thomas Vesey, Bt, 1712, afterwards Bishop of Ossory; first Lord Knapton, in early manhood; Mrs Colclough, wife of Caesar Colclough of Duffrey Hall, County Wexford, and sister of teh first Lord Knapton; Agmondesham Vesey (father of Ann, Lady Bingham0, as a child; and Elizabeth, wife of teh first Lord Knapton [she was a daughter of William Brownlow of Lurgan, MP for county Armagh], by Stephen Slaughter, dated 1744.
p. 11 “Passing to the left from the Hall we enter a large lofty sitting room, wiht three mahogany doors and carved wood overdoors; the decoration is in plaster panels enriched with Adam ornament. There is a conventional Adam ceiling and frieze, the mantel, doubtless contemporary, being of white marble carved. … At the opposite end of the house lies the grand staircase, in two flights, with light balustrade of iron and oak handrail, the plan being similar to that at Caledon.”
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Georgian Mansions in Ireland with some account of the evolution af Georgian Architecture and Decoration by Thomas U. Sadleir and Page L. Dickinson. Dublin University Press, 1915.:
“The corridor bisecting the house passes through the staircase hall, and has been carried on to afford communication with a modern addition containing a library and breakfast room. In this corridor are a fine portrait of Nicholas de Launay, by Hyacinth Rigaud, and a pleasing picture, which has been engraved in mezzotint, of the Right Honourable William Brownlow, of Lurgan, Co Armagh, half-length seated, by Gilbert Stuart. [fn. He was father of Frances Letitia, Viscountess de Vesci, and ancestor of Lord Lurgan.]
The drawing room and dining room, also on this floor, have a south aspect, and overlook the beautifully laid out pleasure grounds: the former, spacious apartment, though lacking in any Georgian interest, contains several oil-paintings, including Thomas, first Viscount de Vesci, by Gilbert Stuart; Margaret, wife of Sir Arthur Brooke, Bart., of Colebrook, Co Fermanagh. [fn. she was the only daughter of Thomas Fortescue, of Reynoldstown, Co Louth, and sister of the first Lord Clermont]. There is also a case of miniatures, in which are examples of the work of Nathaniel Hone, Adam Buck, Gervaise Spencer, and others.
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Georgian Mansions in Ireland with some account of the evolution af Georgian Architecture and Decoration by Thomas U. Sadleir and Page L. Dickinson. Dublin University Press, 1915:
“In the bedrooms most of the joinery is modern, but the Georgian brass grates, in some cases black-leaded, have been well-preserved.”
p. 11. Nothing now remains of the Abbey founded at Leix, in the territory of the O’Mores, by the Cistercians in 1183, though some of the buildings were not finally demolished till the last quarter of the eighteenth century. This establishment, caleld in some documents “the little Abbey of Lenix,” existed till the dissolution, when the site, which is said to be that of the present mansion, together with some 820 acres in the immediate neighbourhood, passed to the Crown, being granted in 1562 to Thomas, Earl of Ormond, [p. 12] “Black Tom,” for services against the rebels. It does not appear that it was ever a residence of the Butler family, but it remained in their possession till in or about 1698, when it became the property of Thomas Vesey, who had lately marrieed a wealthy heiress in the person of Mary, the only daughter of Denny Muschamp, of Horsley, Surrey, Muster-Master General in Ireland, and who in the same year was created a Baronet of Ireland.
p. 12. The most reverent John Vesey, Archbishop of Tuam, father of the purchaser, may also be called the founder of the family in Ireland, for from him descended the Veseys of Lucan, County Dublin; Hollymount, County Mayo, and Derrabard, County Tyrone; as well as Baron FitzGerald and Vesey, a title now extinct, and the family of Vesey-Fitzgerald. During the vice-royalty of Tyrconnell, he suffered great hardships at the hands of the native Irish, though it was only when their lives were in dangerthat he and Bishop Tenison, of Killala, consented to quit Connaught. Taking his wife and twelve children, he fled to London, where he lived in straitened circumstances, having no means of subsistence save a lectureship of £40 per annum, which the interest of his friends obtained for him. When in England he was attainted by James II’s Irish Parliament, but after the Revolution he returned to his diocese, and resumed the prominent part which he had been accustomed to take in the affairs of the country, of which he was twice appointed Lord Justice. It was probably as some recompense for his misfortunes that his eldest son, Thomas, when only 25, and during his father’s lifetime, was created a Baronet. Swift occasionally mentions the Archbishop, who published several sermons, as well as a “Life of Primate Bramhall” and appears to have been a man of refined tastes. He took great pleasure in laying out and planting his seat at Hollymount, County Mayo, described by John Wesley, when he visited it some forty years afterwards, as “one of the pleasantest places in Ireland.” There he died on 28 March 1716, having been in failing health for two years.
Single-arch rubble stone hump back road bridge over river, built c.1840, with cut granite voussoirs. Random rubble stone walls with cut granite voussoirs. Round-headed openings with cut granite voussoirs and rubble stone lining. Sited spanning river; iron gate to centre of bridge; cut stone retaining walls to river banks to north and to south; tubular steel cow grill to east.
Freestanding six-bay single-storey boathouse, built c.1850, with yellow brick piers and open gable ends. Double-pitched slate roof with scalloped slate and red clay tiles, concrete ridge tiles, decorative cresting, timber eaves and decorative timber bargeboards and open framing to gable ends. Coursed rubble stone to base of walls with yellow brick intermittent piers. Square-headed window openings with concrete chamfered sills, yellow brick dressings to lintels and timber lattice panels. Yellow brick internal walls. Sited to west of river on an elevated site; section of iron railings to open gable end to west; gravel drive to east; grass river banks to north and to south.
Detached seven-bay three-storey over basement with dormer attic Classical-style country house, begun 1773, with pedimented breakfront having cut stone Doric doorcase to ground floor. Five-bay elevation to garden front with breakfront having cut sandstone doorcase and Wyatt style window openings to flanking bays. Two-bay single-storey wing to west, renovated c.1840, with façade enrichments added. Extended to west, post-1902, comprising seven-bay single-storey wing with breakfront having three-bay advanced centre bay. Balustraded forecourt, c.1840, to north. Formal gardens, post-1839, to south comprising series of artificial terraces with balustrades, flights of steps and ha-has. Slate mansard roof hidden behind balustraded parapet with rolled lead ridge tiles, rendered panelled chimneystacks with yellow clay pots and cast-iron rainwater goods. Flat-roofed dormer attic windows, flat-roof to wing not visible behind guilloche parapet, roof to wing not visible behind guilloche parapet. Nap rendered walls with ruled and lined detail, unpainted, with sandstone dressings including quoins, quoins strips, stringcourses and cornice. Nap rendered to wings with ruled and lined detail. Square-headed window openings with stone sills on corbels. Gibbsian surrounds to ground floor windows, shouldered surrounds to first floor windows with balconettes to breakfront windows and architraves to top floor windows with keystones, all with three-over-three and six-over-six timber sash windows. Wyatt-style surrounds to Garden Front. Tripartite door arrangement, cut-limestone Doric frontispiece with entablature with timber panelled double doors and decorative overlight. Gibbsian surround to door opening to Garden Front with timber French door. Round-headed window openings to wing with concrete sills, pillared surrounds, moulded archivolts and timber casement windows with overlights. Timber panelled internal shutters to window openings; entrance hall: stone tiled floor; decorative marble fireplaces; Ionic screen wall; Wyatt-style plasterwork to walls and to ceiling. Abbeyleix House is set within landscaped demesne approached by gravel drive; balustraded formal courtyard to Entrance Front with gravel drive and grass centrepiece; group of formal gardens to Garden Front including series of artificial terraces with balustrades, flights of steps and rubble stone ha-has; pond to sheltered garden to south-west.
Multiple-bay two-storey stable complex, built c.1800, on a quadrangular plan with courtyard. Pair of round-headed integral carriageways with belfry and ogee dome to east and series of elliptical-headed carriageways. Multiple-bay two-storey range, c.1800, to east on a triangular plan with kitchen courtyard connecting to Abbeyleix House. Detached four-bay single-storey rubble stone stable range, c.1800, to west. Double-pitched slate roof on quadrangular and triangular plans with rolled lead ridge tiles, roughcast chimneystacks with red clay pots, timber eaves and cast-iron rainwater goods. Timber belfry to apex with corner pilasters and ogee dome. Double-pitched slate roof to stable range with concrete ridge tiles and timber eaves. Roughcast render over rubble stone walls, unpainted. Random rubble stone to stable range. Square-headed window openings with concrete sills, some rendered surrounds and two-over-two, three-over-three and three-over-six timber sash windows. Series of lunette window openings to first floor with concrete sills and timber fixed-pane windows. Round- and elliptical-headed carriageways (two integral) with rendered surrounds and timber panelled double doors. Square-headed door openings to stable range with timber panelled half-doors. Utilitarian interiors with timber stalls. Set adjacent to west of Abbey Leix House approached by gravel drive; tarmacadam and gravel courtyard to centre of quadrangular range; cobbled courtyard to centre of triangular range.
‘I must return to give you an account of Lady De Vesci’s. I am quite in love with her and with their state of living. It is entirely without form, everybody doing as they please, and always a vast number of people in the house. Lady Knapton, his mother, lives with them, and seems no restraint upon anybody, she is so good-humoured. We were about six or seven ladies and as many gentlemen, divided into different parties about the room, some working, some reading, some playing cards, and the room being large and very full, it had a most comfortable appearance. It opens into the library on one side and the dining-room on the other. As it rained most of the time I was there I did not see much of the grounds, but the park is not laid out, as they have employed all their time and money in making a comfortable house first, which I think the most sensible plan. Lady De Vesci was very loth to let us go so soon, but Mr. Dawson had business at home that prevented our staying longer. However, we go again into their neighbourhood the end of next week, as Sir Robert and Lady Staples have been very pressing with their invitations, and insisted upon our naming the time, which we accordingly did, and Lady De Vesci begs we will come to her again after that, to meet Lord and Lady Tyrone, so you see we have enough to do; besides we have a ball to go to on Wednesday next, which a distant neighbour has invited us to, and when all this is over we meditate a trip to Dublin, to buy some things we have occasion for.’ From Lady Caroline Dawson to Lady Louisa Stuart, September 1778.
The Irish Aesthete: Buildings of Ireland, Lost and Found. Robert O’Byrne. The Lilliput Press, Dublin, 2024.
p. 2. Abbeyleix House, County Laois – June 2016
“Abbey Leix was designed in 1773 by James Wyatt for Thomas Vesey, Lord Knapton (later first Viscount de Vesci). As originally built, the house was an elegant three-storey classical mansion of seven bays, the three central bays under a triangular pediment. In the middle of the nineteenth century the third Viscount de Vesci and his wife Emma, daughter of the 11th Earl of Pembroke, added a great classical library and a conservatory, extending the eighteenth-century library to twice its length. Their architect was T. H. Wyatt (descended from a cousin of James Wyatt).
“These alterations gave the building a more pronounced Italianate character through added features such as stone details, Gibbsian window surrounds, emphatic quoins and balconies. The most notable external work was the addition of a balustrade parapet running around the attic, thereby masking dormer windows on an additional storey to provide staff accommodation. Portland cement render applied to the exterior drew these changes together, giving the impression of a unified composition. At the same time as alterations were being made to the building, Lady de Vesci embarked on redesigning the gardens to the rear. Here, a series of elaborate formal terraces was introduced. It has been proposed that the design of these terraces was inspired by those at Alupka in the Crimea, the palace of Lady de Vesci’s Russian maternal grandfather, Prince Worontsov, although more likely they were the invention of Abbey Leix’s chatelaine. In the mid-1990s the house and estate were sold to Sir David Davies, who embarked on a thorough restoration of both. More recently, Abbey Leix was bought by Irish entrepreneur John Collison.”
“Castle Coole is one of the greatest neo-classical country houses in Ireland. Home to the Earls of Belmore, it was commissioned and built to impress by the first Earl of Belmore by Amar Lowry Corry, 1st Earl Belmore (1740-1802) and furnished largely by Somerset Lowry Corry, 2nd Earl (1774-1841).”
Armar Lowry-Corry (1740-1802) 1st Earl Belmore.
Mark Bence-Jones writes in his A Guide to Irish Country Houses (1988):
p. 64. “(Lowry-Corry, Belmore, E/PB) The most palatial late C18 house in Ireland, built 1790-98 by 1st Earl Belmore to the design of James Wyatt, who adapted earlier designs by Richard Johnston, and also showed himself to be much influenced by Stuart and Revett’s Antiquities of Athens, so that the house is an unusually perfect example of late C18 Hellenism, massive and unrestrained; yet keeping certain Palladian features such as Venetian windows and a balustraded roof parapet; and following the traditional Palladian plan of a centre block and wings.” [2]
James Wyatt (1746-1813) was an English architect who, despite living in England, had a flourishing country house practice in Ireland from the early 1770s until his appointment as Surveyor General of the King’s Works in England in 1796. [3] He designed Abbeyleix House in County Laois around 1772. We came across work by Wyatt at Slane Castle in County Meath and at Curraghmore in County Waterford.
The property came into ownership of the Lowry-Corry family in 1655 when it was purchased by John Corry, a merchant from Scotland, from one of the settlers who came to Ireland during the Ulster Plantation. He filled the office of High Sheriff of County Fermanagh.
His son James was a supporter of William of Orange, and a castle at Coole was burned down during the fighting between Williamites and Jacobites. James also acted as High Sheriff for County Fermanagh, as well as for County Monaghan, and was Member of Parliament (M.P.) for County Fermanagh between 1692 and 1718. He died in 1718.
James married Sarah Anketell, daughter of Oliver Anketell of Anketell Grove in County Monaghan. They had a son, John (1666-1726). He too served in the role of High Sheriff and of MP for County Fermanagh.
Colonel John Corry, MP (1666–1726), courtesy of National Trust Castle Coole.
The Castle Coole website tells us that a replacement habitation was built around 1707. This building was of brick, with sash windows and tall chimneys, which indicate that the inhabitants did not expect an attack as the building was not fortified.
John Corry married Sarah Leslie. They had several children, and named their son Leslie (1712-1741). Leslie inherited the estate of Castle Coole in 1726 when he was still a minor. The estate was managed by his cousin, Margetson Armar, who married Leslie’s sister Mary in 1736. Sarah Leslie’s sister Martha married Reverend William Armar, Archdeacon of Connor and Margetson Armar was their son.
Leslie died unmarried.
John Corry and Sarah Leslie’s other children were all daughters. Only one of the daughters, Sarah, went on to have children of her own, so the property passed to her offspring. Sarah married Galbraith Lowry (1706-1769). Due to the fact that she brought an inheritance with her to the marriage, Galbraith added Corry to his surname to become Lowry-Corry. He came from County Tyrone, and served as High Sheriff for County Tyrone and also for County Monaghan, and was MP for County Tyrone. His wife gave birth to their heir, Armar Lowry-Corry (1740-1802) who built Castle Coole. A daughter, Anne, married William Willoughby Cole, 1st Earl of Enniskillen, of Florence Court in County Fermanagh.
Sarah née Corry (1709-1779) who married Galbraith Lowry (1706-1779) who added Corry to his surname.Galbraith Lowry (1706-1779) who added Corry to his surname.
The website continues: “Through marriages and connections, the combined estates of the Lowry, Corry and Armar families (amounting to over 70,000 acres of tenanted land by 1779) were all inherited by Armar Lowry Corry in 1779. Armar, MP for Tyrone, was raised to the peerage as Lord Belmore in 1780 (and earl in 1797) and began to plan a new house, more suited to contemporary taste and his position in society. Architect Richard Johnston from Dublin was employed in 1789 but Belmore switched to James Wyatt, then at the height of his career and particularly skilled in the neoclassical style. Wyatt never visited the site, sending all his drawings from England. Much of the building work was carried out by skilled Irish builders and craftsmen and some of the furniture designed by Wyatt was made by the Irish joiners, including a great mahogany sideboard, and a large wine cooler for the dining room. The house is faced with Portland limestone from England; specialist plasterers under Joseph Rose created the decoration to the ceilings and walls; marble chimneypieces were commissioned from Richard Westmacott and Domenico Bartoli created scagliola columns and pilasters.“
Armar had the house built in a new location, at the top of the hill, since he suffered from rheumatism so wanted to avoid damp. The old house burned down in 1797 while the new house was being built.
Mark Bence-Jones writes: “The centre block is of two storeys and nine bays, with a pedimented portico of four giant Ionic columns on the entrance front, and a curved central bow lined with giant fluted Ionic columns on the garden front; the wings single storey and consisting, on the entrance front, of deep colonnades of fluted Doric columns ending in small Doric pavilions, and on the garden front of five bay links and end pavilions with Venetian windows. The ends of the wings have central features of four fluted Doric columns and are as perfectly finished as the major elevations; all being of beautifully cut masonry in a pale silvery Portland stone which was brought here at great expense, being shipped to Ballyshannon, taken overland to Lough Erne, shipped to Enniskillen and taken the last two miles in bullock carts.” [see 2]
The website continues: “Castle Coole boasts some of the finest neoclassical architecture, interiors, furniture and Regency furnishings in Ireland. Original drawings by the architects, the building records, inventories and invoices recording the daily work of the joiners, plasterers and painters in the 1790s and the furnishing of the house 1807 to 1821 helped guide the restoration of Castle Coole in the 1980s. This combination of place, collection and archival record must be unique in Ireland where so many records and collections have been dispersed. It speaks of careful husbandry by generations of the family who cherished the past.“
The website continues its description of Castle Coole: “The ground floor of the central block contains the principal receptions rooms. The wings and first floor bedrooms were the family’s private quarters. The vast basement contains service rooms with separate areas governed by Housekeeper, Butler and Cook, who could come and go via a large service tunnel that connected the basement to the service yards.“
One is not allowed to photograph inside, because the furnishings are owned by the present 8th Earl. You can see photographs of the sumptuous interiors on the website. The house was handed to the National Trust by the 7th Earl in 1951 but the family still occupy a wing.
Bence-Jones continues: “it seems that the austerity of the interior plasterwork was to some degree for reasons of economy; though in fact it is entirely suited to the Grecian purity of the house. The single-storey hall is of great depth and dramatic simplicity, its only adornments being a Doric frieze, a pair of small Doric chimneypieces by Westmacott facing each other on either side and a screen of Doric columns in porphyry scagliola at the inner end.‘
Castle Coole, Fermanagh, Tourism Northern Ireland 2018 (see [1]). It has a wonderfully large front hall, intended to resemble a Roman atrium, with scagliola (imitation marble, the recipe for scagliola died with the man who created it) Doric columns and lovely plasterwork, which matches the Carrara marble fireplace. Specialist plasterers under Joseph Rose created the decoration to the ceilings and walls; marble chimneypieces were commissioned from Richard Westmacott and Domenico Bartoli created scagliola columns and pilasters.The rosettes in the frieze are from an old Corry coat of arms, and chalices are from the Lowry coat of arms.
For more about the wonderful interior of the house, of which one can take a tour, see the website. The tour takes in the centre block. It includes the library, drawing room, dining room, morning breakfast room, and the round impressive Saloon with its bow front.
Mark Bence-Jones writes: “The splendour is reserved for the oval saloon in the middle of the garden front, which is lined with grey scagliola Corinthian pilasters and has a frieze of swags and delicate ornament on the flat of the ceiling; it is flanked by the drawing room and the dining room, forming a magnificent enfilade. The library, which has its original delicately moulded bookcases, is on one side of the hall, separated from the drawing room by the staircase hall, which contains a double stone staircase of great length, leading up to a landing with a screen of yellow and brown scagliola Doric columns.”
The Library, which has a particularly impressive pelmet which end with what our guide told us have been called griffin heads but she thinks, and I agree, that they look more like camels, reflecting the 2nd Earl’s passion for travel. He travelled extensively in Egypt, travelling up the Nile, and he sponsored excavations and began a collection of Egyptian antiquities. He sold some of these later to the British Museum in 1842 to pay off debts. The unusual tentlike ceiling of the kitchens is made of a special fireproof material as it is underneath the room where the 2nd Earl stored his treasures.
The stair hall has a staircase that breaks into two, to create a “floating” imperial staircase, with iron balusters that contain gilded rosettes, with a slim mahogany handrail. At the bottom of the stairs is a table with many lamps for the residents and guests to bring up to their room at night.
Bence-Jones describes: “The first floor lobby, lit by glass domes, rises into an attic storey which is not visible from the outside of the house; and is surrounded by a gallery with a colonnade probably inspired by the interiorsof the Parthenon and the Temple of Poseidon at Paestuum. In 1797, just before the present house was completed, the earlier house, which was small, built 1709 and with a rather heavy pediment, was burnt to the ground. The earlier family pictures and furniture were probably lost in this fire, which would explain why the house contains comparatively few portraits, making for large stretches of unrelieved wall, again very much in keeping with the Grecian simplicity. As a contrast, however, there is the sumptuous gilt Regency furniture in the saloon, introduced by 2nd Earl, and the bed, festooned with flame silk, in the state bedroom, said to have been decorated for George IV, who, however, never slept here. The garden front of the house overlooks a lake on which there is the oldest nonmigratory flock of greylag geese in the British Isles; it is said that if ever they go, the Belmores will also go. There are some wonderful trees in the park, and fine stables by Sir Richard Morrison. Castlecoole has been maintained by the Northern Ireland National Trust since 1951 and is open to the public.”
Upstairs above the saloon is the bow room, decorated with Chinese style wallpaper, curtains and covered furniture. This room was used by the ladies during the day for sewing, reading and playing cards. Also upstairs is a lovely double-height lobby that has more pretty plasterwork, and the state bedroom decorated for King George IV, with a particularly beautiful tester bed with gorgeous folded swags of curtains, original tassels and fringes, pleated sunburst lining and a generous rosette of scarlet silk above the bed inside the curtains. Bed steps flank the bed, like the ones we came across and used during our stay in “Norman’s Room” in Castle Leslie, and the bed is topped with gold coronets and gilt poles), as we have come across before in other houses (Charleville in County Wicklow and Loughton in Offaly). The lobby is lit by an impressive oval skylight and two further circular skylights. On the upper, attic, floor, that one can see from the lobby, are more Doric columns painted to look like marble, and a iron balustrade that matches the staircase. Doors off the lobby lead to the bow room and the state room, and two doors either side lead to the four principal bedrooms in the corners.
Armar Lowry-Corry served as MP and High Sheriff for County Tyrone and after he inherited Castle Coole, High Sheriff of County Fermanagh. He married Margaret Butler, daughter of Somerset Butler, the 1st Earl of Carrick, County Tipperary.
Armar Lowry-Corry was married to Margaret Butler (1748-1775) daughter of Somerset Hamilton Butler, 8th Viscount Ikerrin, 1st Earl of Carrick, County Tipperary.Allegorical scene with Juliana, Countess of Carrick as Wisdom directing her younger daughters, Lady Henrietta Butler and Lady Margaret Butler/Lowry-Corry, as Beauty and Virtue, by Richard Cosway, courtesy of National Trust Castle Coole.
They had a son, Somerset (1774-1841) who became the 2nd Earl of Belmore. Margaret died young, and Armar remarried, this time to Lady Henrietta Hobart, the daughter of the Earl of Buckinghamshire, who was Lord Lieutenant at the time. Henrietta however was not happy at Castle Coole and was twenty two years younger than her husband so they divorced, which would have been unusual at the time. He married a third time, this time to Mary Anne Caldwell, in 1794, from nearby Castle Caldwell in County Fermanagh (now a ruin).
Somerset Lowry-Corry, 2nd Earl of Belmore by Hugh Douglas Hamilton, courtesy of National Trust Castle Coole.
Somerset held the office of Member of Parliament (M.P.) (Tory) for Tyrone between 1797 and 1802. In 1800 he married Juliana Butler, daughter of Henry Thomas Butler, 2nd Earl of Carrick
The website continues: “The 2nd Earl [Somerset (1774-1841)] had campaigned fiercely against the Act of Union of 1800 which led to the abolition of the independent Irish parliament. He lost his parliamentary seat, only becoming a representative peer in the British House of Lords in 1819. In the meantime, he concentrated on the furnishing of Castle Coole, commissioning John and Nathaniel Preston of Dublin to supply complete rooms of furniture from 1807 onwards. Inspired no doubt by the interiors he saw in London where he had a house, Castle Coole was as lavishly furnished as the greatest Regency interiors.
“To add to the splendour the Second Earl of Belmore commissioned furniture from Preston’s of Dublin in 1807, in lavish French Empire style. Preston’s also made the most extravagant piece of furniture in the house, the State bed, which was commissioned for the visit of George IV in 1821, although in the end he never visited Castle Coole meaning the ornate decoration has stayed in perfect condition.
“Perhaps to escape creditors, Somerset took his family away for a 4-year tour of the Mediterranean in 1816, visiting Malta, Egypt and the Holy Land. He acquired a paid position as Governor of Jamaica [appointed by his friend the Duke of Wellington, who was prime minister at the time] in 1828 finding himself in the middle of a highly volatile situation. Leading up to the abolition of slavery, the British government sought to improve the living conditions of the [300,000] enslaved people, but this was resented by the plantation owners who dominated the local assembly [in Jamaica]. Belmore’s attempts at moderation were not welcomed by either side. In December 1831 many of the enslaved people rebelled, martial law declared, and the leaders executed. Belmore was blamed for mis-handling the situation and recalled to London. His conduct was subsequently vindicated, but it must have been a bitter end to his posting.“
Somerset’s son Armar Lowry-Corry (1801-1845) became the 3rd Earl of Belmore but died a few years after his father and his brother Somerset (1835-1913) succeeded as the 4th Earl.
Henry Thomas Lowry-Corry (1803-1873) by and published by William Walker 1867, NPG Ax15852. He was the son of Somerset Lowry-Corry (1774-1841) 2nd Earl of Belmore and Juliana née Butler, daughter of Henry Thomas Butler (1746-1813) 2nd Earl of Carrick.
The website continues: “The 4th Earl, Somerset (1835-1913), rescued the family’s finances by selling land, reducing the estate to some 20,000 acres, enabling a partial redecoration of Castle Coole. In 1867 Somerset was appointed Governor General of New South Wales, where he supported the development of the railways. The 5thEarl never married but lived on modestly at Castle Coole with five unmarried siblings [one of whom was his brother Cecil the 6th Earl]. By the time the 7thEarl [a great nephew of the 4th Earl, grandson of the 3rd Earl, Major Galbraith Lowry-Corry (1913-1960)] inherited in 1949, the burden of taxes and the expense of maintaining the house led to the house and 70 acres of land being transferred to the National Trust with a grant from the Ulster Land Fund, the contents remaining on loan.“
Somerset Richard Lowry-Corry 4th Earl of Belmore by Stephen Pearse courtesy of National Trust Castle Coole.
“The present 8th Earl lives nearby and continues to take an active interest in the house and demesne.“
Castle Coole, Fermanagh, Tourism Northern Ireland 2018 (see [1]).
The house is very cleverly surrounded by tunnels for the servants, which run along the basement level outside the house. The tunnels allow light to reach down to the tall sash windows of the basement. There is a special entrance for horse riders, where they can enter the tunnels after their hunt to go into the basement of the house where a special area for changing and washing was created in the basement with a unique Roman bath-style plunge pool down a few steps for the home owners and their guests, which would be filled by the servants with heated water. The changing area is beautifully designed and the tunnels are covered with grills which let in the light, so that the basement lets in the sunlight.
Another underground tunnel leads down to the Grand Yard. It was created in order to avoid a servants’ entrance at ground level. Deliveries could be made by driving up the tunnel to a back door into the basement area.
The Castle Coole website tells us: “The Grand Yard was designed by Richard Morrison for the 2nd Earl of Belmore in 1817. The area was used for several purposes including dairy, stables, laundry house, candle factory and servants accommodation quarters [including the Steward’s House, which is still owned by Lord Belmore, as well as the farm yard].
“The Grand Yard is surrounded by stables and coach houses. The stables and coach houses not only housed the family’s work horses, coach horses and coaches but also had space available to accommodate visitor’s horses and coaches – Strangers Stables and Coachhouses as they were referred to on plans.“
[2] Bence-Jones, Mark. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
[4] Castle Coole, County Fermanagh, booklet published by the National Trust, originally written by Peter Marlow, revised by Oliver Garnett, with a forward by the 8th Earl of Belmore, 2013.
I have been dividing previous entries that were divided by Province into division by county as my entries were too long!
On the map above:
blue: places to visit that are not section 482
purple: section 482 properties
red: accommodation
yellow: less expensive accommodation for two
orange: “whole house rental” i.e. those properties that are only for large group accommodations or weddings, e.g. 10 or more people.
green: gardens to visit
grey: ruins
donation
Help me to pay the entrance fee to one of the houses on this website. This site is created purely out of love for the subject and I receive no payment so any donation is appreciated!
The house was built in 1779 for Samuel Hayes and may have been designed by James Wyatt (1746-1813), or by Samuel Hayes himself. It then passed to the Parnell family and was the birthplace of the politician Charles Stewart Parnell. In 1904 the state purchased the Avondale Estate to develop modern day forestry in Ireland.
Open dates in 2026: Jan 12-14, Feb 9-13, Mar 9-11, 25-27, June 10-13, 22-24, 29-30, July 1-4, 13-18, 27-30, Aug 15-23, Sept 7-12, 19, 26, Oct 5-7, 12-14, 9am-1pm
Open dates in 2026: June 2-30, Tues-Fri, July 1-31, Tue-Sat, Aug 4-23, 10am-2pm
Fee: adult €10, entrance fee is a voluntary donation in honesty box at door
No pets allowed.
The website tells us:
“The house was built on and incorporates the remains of an older structure, visible on the 1750 maps of Dublin. Situated on the lands owned by Hannagh Tilson Magan it was commissioned by her or by her son William Henry Magan between 1815 and 1820.
“William Magan is known to have employed the Architect William Farrell to design a country house, Clonearl, in Co. Offaly in 1815. This house was destroyed by fire in the 1840’s but it is clear from the surviving plans that the distinctive pillastered design is mirrored in both Killyon manor, Co. Meath another Magan/Loftus house and in Corke Lodge. Unusual fenestration and similar door treatments also link the two surviving properties. Close by the church at Crinken, endowed by Hannagh Magan was also designed by Farrell. So it would not be unreasonable to assume that Corke Lodge, which has all the hallmarks of an architectural ‘capriccio’ is by the same hand. The main façade and the two front reception rooms are in the classical style. The rooms at the back and above have gothic detailing.
“The last Magan owner of this property as well as the other huge Magan/Tilson/Loftus estates was Augusta. Her eccentricities and reclusive life are said to have inspired Charles Dickens, who visited Dublin, in his creation of Miss Haversham, in the Great Expectations.
“The most striking feature of the house is the bold architectural treatment of the classical facade, a miniature of the two great houses mentioned above. By contrast, the back elevations are in a flat gothic stile reflecting the romantic nature of the planted ‘wilderness’. The interiors retain all their original features in terms of marble mantle pieces, pillared architraves and plasterwork. Although the house originally would not have been used for more than a few days a year by the Magans when bathing in the nearby sea or visiting the family tombs at Crinken, it has been continuously inhabited since its incorporation into the Woodbrook estate By Sir Stanley Cochrane in 1906. Sir Stanley, heir to a mineral water fortune, was an accomplished athlete and opera singer who created on his estate championship cricket pitches a golf course and the Laurel Park Opera House, precursor of Glyndebourne, and where Dame Nellie Melba sang.
“The house as it presents itself today was restored and furnished in 1980 by architect Alfred Cochrane. It pioneered the current trends in historicist restoration of country houses and was featured in a number of local and international publications.“
Opening (if Covid allows) April 2nd to July 1st, 2022. By appointment only.
“The gardens surrounding this late eighteenth century house (c.1790) were laid out towards the end of the nineteenth century with plantings of many fine specimens including Rhododendron arboreum, Magnolia soulangeana ‘Alba’, and Camellia japonica. Also included are a number of specimen mature trees, including a fine Chilean myrtle, Luma apiculata, planted c. 1880. When the Butler family acquired the property, a white garden in a sheltered enclosure behind the house was added together with a wild meadow which reaches its peak in mid June.
“The indefatigable Mrs Delany, eighteenth century social commentator, diarist, artist and friend of Dean Jonathan Swift commenting on Rossanagh demesne on which Dower House was built wrote: ‘It is a very pretty place… neatly kept’. As early as 1733, A.C. Forbes noted that the largest tree in Ireland, a Spanish chestnut flourished in the demesne. It was under this tree that Methodist preacher, the Reverend John Wesley preached during one of his many visits in June, 1789. Rossanagh holds links to many well known ‘personalities’ of the day including musician/composer, Thomas Moore, artists, George Romney, Maria Spilsbury-Taylor, politicians, Henry Grattan and William Pitt, the Younger together with Patrick Bronte, father of distinguished English novelists, Charlotte, Emily and Anne. Described as one of ‘Wicklow’s finest gardens’ (Jane Powers), the gardens are open each year in aid of The Wicklow Hospice.“
7. Greenan More, Rathdrum, Co Wicklow– section 482
The Gardens open Wednesday 6th April until Saturday 24th September 2022
Hours Wednesday – Saturday 11am–4pm
“Designed to be a thoroughly immersive experience, the gardens are home to one of Ireland’s largest private collections of plants. A riot of colour, shape and texture, the gardens are always on the move with fresh surprises at every visit.”
Open dates in 2026: Mar 29-31, Apr 1-12, 14-19, 21-26, 28-30, May 1-10, 12-17, 19-24, 26-31, June 1-7, 9-14, 16-21, 23-28, 30, July 1-5, 7-12, 14-19, 21-26, 28-31, Aug 1-2, 3-9, 11-23, 25-30, Sept 1-6, 8-13, 15-20, 22-27, 29-30, Oct 1-4, 6-11, 13-18, 20-31, Nov 1, Mar, Apr, Oct, Nov, 9.30- 5pm, May-Sept 9.30am-6pm
Fee: adult house and garden tour €17.50, garden €10.50, OAP/student house and garden tour €15, garden €9.50, child 4-12 years house and garden €4, concession- youth 12-18 years house and garden €15, garden €9.50
“The very best gardens intrigue and restore us, and so it is with June Blake’s garden which is a rare fusion of inspired design and painterly planting. Situated in the townland of Tinode in west Wicklow, and spread over three rural acres, it wraps itself around June’s home, a handsome Victorian farm-steward’s cottage surrounded by a huddle of austerely beautiful, granite-stone farm buildings, one of which -the Cow House- has recently been the subject of an award-winning, modern architectural conversion.In a previous life, Blake was a gifted jewellery maker. Those same carefully honed skills- a razor sharp eye and keen attention to detail, an artist’s deep appreciation of colour, texture and form, as well as the ability to take a raw, unpolished material and expertly craft it into something aesthetically deeply satisfying- still shine through brightly in her excitingly contemporary country garden. Within it are many different areas of interest. These include intricately planted borders of gem-like beauty, swathes of naturalistic, prairie-style planting, sculptural landforms, a flower meadow that comes to life in spring with sprinkles of crimson red Tulip ‘Red Shine’, generous stretches of woodland intersected by curving cobble paths and filled with choice shade-lovers, and a formal, rectangular pool whose silver sliver of water is a mirror to the cloud-streaked Wicklow sky.Each one is so thoughtfully, imaginatively and expertly executed that it would be enough by itself to bring joy to the heart of any gardener. But it is when they are combined together as a whole that they form what is, without doubt, a truly remarkable garden.” Fionnuala Fallon.
The house was designed by William Caldbeck in 1864. Tinode House was burned to the ground in 1922 by the IRA, and has since been partially rebuilt.
“Ballyknocken House, Farm and Cookery School – Scenically located on 280 acres only 47 km south of Dublin City Centre in County Wicklow, Ireland. Our charming 4* Victorian style farm guesthouse offers 7 guest bedrooms plus a 3-bedroom Milking Parlour apartment, surrounded by scented kitchen gardens, offering a farm to fork experience. Home to celebrity chef and award-winning food writer, Catherine Fulvio, we pride ourselves on continuing the family tradition of providing B&B accommodation for over fifty years here in County Wicklow.
“We offer an intimate, cosy, warm and friendly experience not only for individual guests for Foodie Short Breaks and for visiting Wicklow but we also welcome private parties, whether it’s a corporate, friend and family gathering or hen party. Ballyknocken can be booked exclusively for accommodation, cookery events and onsite activities for your company day out or your celebration.“
2. Bel Air Hotel (formerlyCronroe), Ashford, Co Wicklow
“Bel-Air is an old Manor House Hotel on 200 acres farm and parkland. The house and stable yard are in the middle of the estate, with the land surrounding it in all directions. There is wonderful parkland to the front of the house looking out to the coast, while the tillage land is behind the house. In the centre of the estate is old woodland, which has lovely jumping lanes. In the spring, bluebells and wild garlic bring colour and aroma to the tracks and trails. And the heady scent and sight of the vibrant yellow gorse makes your heart sing.
“The stable yard is from ca 1750 and the current house was built in 1890. Both the house and the yard are listed for preservation and wherever you look you find evidence of the old days.
“Even though we are less than an hour from Dublin, you feel like you are miles from anywhere and you also take a leap back in time. Bel-Air is not just a place – it’s a way of life!“
3. Brook Lodge and Macreddin Village, County Wicklow
“Relax and unwind at The Wells Spa, a designated ‘resort spa’. Dine at The Strawberry Tree, Ireland’s first certified Wild and Organic Restaurant, or La Taverna Armento, a Southern Italian style bistro. We also host Actons Country Pub, The Orchard Café, an Organic Bakery, a Smokehouse and a Wild Food Pantry and much more. Macreddin Golf Course designed by European Ryder Cup Captain Paul McGinley is a short stroll from BrookLodge.
“Macreddin Village has twice won AA Hotel of the Year, Ireland’s Culinary Hotel of the Year and Ireland’s Luxury Eco-Friendly Hotel. Other recent awards for The Strawberry Tree Restaurant include titles such as Best Restaurant and Best Organic Restaurant.“
“Clone House, first built around 1650, is surrounded by five acres of private land and gardens.
“Based in the heart of vibrant and beautiful County Wicklow, just an hour south of Dublin, Clone House offers a unique holiday experience and quality accommodation for up to 26 guests.
“We cater for events such as family reunions, corporate events, hens & stags and small weddings.“
“Clone House was originally built by the O’Byrne family in the 1650’s. Back then it was the Manor House on a large estate stretching across Moneyteigue, Clone and Coolahullen. The house’s history is as grand and interesting as its demeanor. Clone House provided refuge to the famous Billy Byrne of Ballymanus, was burnt down in the 1798 Rebellion, restored around 1805 and nowadays functions as a beautiful guesthouse.“
5. Croney Byrne, Rathdrum, Co Wicklow – courtyard accommodation
“Wicklow is a great holiday destination and you will love staying in our luxurious Self Catering Holiday Homes in one of the most beautiful locations in Irelands Ancient East. Croneybyrne Courtyard is a family friendly destination where children love our park with playground and collecting their eggs for breakfast from our hens and geese. See our accommodation page for more details. A mere 1 hour drive from Dublin city it is a great escape with many acres of wilderness on our doorstep including Clara Vale Bird Sanctuary and Wildlife Reserve where you can spend hours exploring without seeing another soul or hearing the sound of modern distractions. There you will see Sika Deer as well as Badger, Fox, Rabbits and the occasional Hare, not to mention the myriad of Birds, including the spectacular Red Kite and Spotted Woodpecker.
“There are forest and mountain walks, we are near the Avonmore Trails and within easy reach of the Wicklow Way and the beautiful Vartry Tracks and Trails. Or for the more adventurous, there are challenging Rock Climbing activities as well as hiking on the highest mountain in Wicklow Lugnaquilla or the many mountain tops in the area. If you are looking for a Walking Holiday in Wicklow see our Walking/Hiking pages for a list of our top walks in the area.“
6. Druid’s Glen hotel and golf club (formerly Woodstock), Newtownmountkennedy, Co Wicklow
Mark Bence-Jones writes of Woodstock, which has now been converted to Druid’s Glen hotel:
p. 287. “(Tottenham, sub Ely, M/PB) A three storey five bay block of ca 1770, with single-storey five bay block added ca 1840 by Rt Rev Lord Robert [Ponsonby] Tottenham [1773-1850], Bishop of Clogher [son of Charles Tottenham Loftus 1st Marquess of Ely], who bought the property after 1827; it had previously been rented for a period by the Lord Lieutenant, Marquess Wellesley. The centre block has a one bay breakfront and a die which was probably added by Bishop Tottenham at the same time as the single-storey Ionic portico, which is by Sir Richard Morrison. Giant blind arches in end pavilions; balustraded parapets on wings. Garden front with curved bow in central breakfront; now asymmetrical because of projecting C19 wing on one side and other additions. Hall running through the full depth of the house, divided by a screen of columns from the staircase, which is of fine solid C18 joinery; rococo plasterwork in the manner of Robert West in panels on the walls above the staircase, and curving round the apse at the back of the hall in the bow of the garden front; similar plasterwork on the ceiling of the staircase and landing. Dining room with rococo plasterwork in centre of ceiling. Large and lofty drawing room in right hand wing with frieze and cornice of elaborate C19 plasterwork, rather in the manner of Sir Richard Morrison. Handsome C19 room with bold cornice and ceiling medallion in wing flanking garden front. Sold 1947, afterwards the home of Mr and Mrs G. Van den Bergh. It is now the home of Mr and Mrs William Forwood, who have carried out a most sympathetic restoration of the house, with the help of Mr Jeremy Benson.”
The National Inventory tells us:
“Detached five-bay three-storey over basement former country house, built in 1770, now in use as a hotel / country club. The original house was probably to designs by Robert West the eminent Irish stuccodore. Two-storey wing additions added in c.1830 to designs by Sir Richard Morrison. There are later additions to the rear elevation. The walls are finished in painted lined render. A short flight of stone steps rises to the front door; it has a four-pane fanlight and is flat-headed. This is set within a projecting portico with Ionic columns. Window openings are flat-headed and have moulded surrounds; those to the piano nobile also have blocking courses and projecting cornice. The hipped roof is finished with natural slate and cast-iron rainwater goods. Chimneystacks are rendered with plain caps and clay pots. Much of the late Georgian interior has been retained; this includes rococo plaster work to the hallway, the original stair and fireplaces to principal rooms. The building is set within a large demesne which is now in use as a golf course.” [3]
7. Hunter’s Hotel, County Wicklow
Hunter’s Hotel is open for Accommodation, Breakfast, Morning Coffee, Afternoon Tea & Dinner every day. We serve Lunch on Saturdays & Sundays. http://www.hunters.ie/index.html
8. June Blake’s Garden, Turkey House and Cow House, Tinode, Blessington, Co Wicklow – June Blake’s Garden, see above
It was built around 1750 as stables and converted in 1798. The range consists of four wings based around a large courtyard with the main wing to the front (west) having two-storey projections to its north and south ends.
The website tells us: “Rathsallagh House has been owned and run by the O’Flynn family for over 30 years, it has a happy and relaxed atmosphere with log and turf fires in the bar and drawing rooms. The food at Rathsallagh is country house cooking at its best, Game in season and fresh fish are specialities. Breakfast in Rathsallagh is an experience in itself and has won the National Breakfast Awards a record four times.
“Rathsallagh also has conference and meeting rooms, Spa room, billiard room, and tennis court and is surrounded by the magnificant Rathsallagh Golf Club.“
Joanna and David at Rathsallagh, photograph courtesy of Rathsallagh House.RathsallaghHouse, County Wicklow, photograph courtesy of Rathsallagh House.Rathsallagh, photograph courtesy of Rathsallagh House.J Channing RS Rooms, Rathsallagh, photograph courtesy of Rathsallagh House.Rathsallagh, photograph courtesy of Rathsallagh House.
The website tells us: “Summerhill House Hotel is where glamour and the countryside blend in one of Ireland’s prettiest villages. Our location in the cosy village of Enniskerry is a gloriously refreshing antidote to city living or stressful lives. Reconnect with family and friends and let the kids run free. Lose track of time as you breathe in clean air, stride for miles through nature walks on your doorstep, stargaze under big skies, and, most importantly – relax, with a dose of the finest Wicklow hospitality.“
11. Tinakilly House, Rathnew, Co Wicklow – country house hotel
“Set in 14 acres of mature landscaped gardens overlooking the Irish Sea Tinakilly offers peace and tranquillity yet is only 45 minutes from Dublin. This stunning award winning Country House Hotel in Wicklow is steeped in history and oozes charm and sophistication.“
Mark Bence-Jones writes (1988):
p. 304. “A house of 1870 by James Franklin Fuller, built for Commander Robert Charles Halpin, RN, who commended the steamship Great Eastern when she laid the first Atlantic cable. In vaguely Queen Anne revival style; entrance front with two bay centre between three sided bows; pedimented porch. Roof on bracket cornice with central dormer. Side elevation with central three sided bow. Very impressive central hall, an early example of the hall-cum-living room which was to become an almost obligatory feature of late Victorian and Edwardian country houses; with an imperial staircase rising to a bridge gallery which continues around two of the walls. The ceiling is elaborately coved and coffered; the soffits of the stairs and gallery are richly ornamented with plasterwork. The fireplace is surmounted by a triple window, so that the flue appears to vanish; a conceit which, like the “living hall” itself, became increasingly popular towards the turn of the century. Halpin died 1894; his widow was living at Tinakilly 1912.”
The website gives us the history:
“Tinakilly House was constructed for Captain Robert Halpin, who was born in Wicklow Town and who succeeded in becoming Commander of The Great Eastern when it laid most of the world’s transoceanic telegraph cables. The cable connecting Europe to America was laid in 1866 from Valentia Bay in Ireland to Hearts Content in Canada. A section of this cable and a fine colour print of The Great Eastern can be seen today in Tinakilly Country House Hotel & Gardens. Most of Captain Halpin’s memorabilia is in the National Maritime Museum in Dun Laoghaire.
“Halpin is reputed to have been given an open cheque by the British Government to build his new mansion in gratitude for his contribution to improving world communications and thereby world trade. He recruited the then very fashionable Irish architect, James Franklin Fuller, to design the house. The timber, which is so evident and gives such character, was selected in London by Halpin. The doors on the ground floor are of Burmese mahogany with many panels of different woods, the best of which are in “birds eye” maple. The architraves window shutters and stairs are in American pitch pine. Fireplaces were imported from Italy with the exception of the drawing room where a fine Georgian one graces the room.
“In 1870 the land extended to 400 acres, two Head Gardener’s were employed, one for inside the walled garden to grow fruit and vegetables and the other to supervise the seven acres of pleasure gardens. There are fine stands of beech eucalyptus and evergreen oak while two giant sequoias (American Redwood) are at either end of the old tennis court. The site chosen for the house is on elevated ground two miles north of Wicklow Town, overlooking Broadlough Bird Sanctuary and the Irish Sea.
“Halpin married the daughter of a wealthy Canadian whaling merchant. They had three daughters, the youngest of whom, Belle, lived in Tinakilly until the early 1950’s. Captain Halpin died at the young age of 58 from blood poisoning after cutting his toe.
“In 1949 the house and lands were purchased by Augustus Cullen, a Wicklow solicitor. The Trustee’s sold on condition that Belle Halpin retain the house for her lifetime, which she did until 1952. Rumour has it that her ghost continued to occupy the house as well as Miss Halpin’s housekeeper – hence the Cullen’s never took occupation. During the last six years of Mr Cullen’s ownership, the house was only used in the summer when it was rented by a group of Jesuit priests for summer retreats. Any ghosts quickly departed.
“In 1959 the house and lands were sold to Mr Gunther Smith whose nephew, Mr Heinrich Rolfe, inherited the property in 1962. His wife ran the house as a guesthouse while Mr Rolfe concentrated on farming. A colourful Frenchman called Jean Claude Thibaud then rented the house and ran it as a “Restaurant Francais”. A thatched cottage bar was constructed in the hall while stucco plaster on the dining room walls appeared to give an effect of “waves by the sea”. One day Jean Claude discovered his kitchen chimney was blocked by the home of a family of building crows. Not wishing to climb out onto the roof to discover which of the 36 chimney pots needed freeing, he took a sledgehammer to a top floor bedroom and through the flue of a fireplace allowing the smoke into the bedroom. He then opened the window and closed the door. A French solution to an Irish problem.
“In 1978 an Irish couple, Dermot & Anne Garland, who had experience in running the Pembroke Restaurant in Dublin, swapped with the Thibauds and completed a purchase agreement for Tinakilly House. The Garland’s redecorated Tinakilly and ran a successful restaurant. Dermot tragically died leaving Anne to struggle on with their two young sons.
“In 1982 Tinakilly sold to William & Bee Power, who decided to develop a full hotel putting bathrooms ensuite and installing a modern fully equipped kitchen. Redecorating and furnishing of the hotel was undertaken by William & Bee to ensure the homely Victorian character so evident to the visitor today. Great care has been taken in all reconstruction work to maintain the nautical theme. Bedrooms were named after ships.
“In 1991 the Power’s constructed 15 suites all overlooking the Irish Sea and Broadlough Bird Sanctuary. Sunrise is a spectacle to behold. The Victorian Halpin Suite was developed to cater for conferences and weddings.
“In 1997 the East wing was extended northwards with the addition of 24 suites and a lift, bringing the total compliment of bedrooms to 51. Also in that year, a new dining room, the Brunel, was built to the west of the house. All of this work has been architect controlled to ensure the true character of Tinakilly is maintained. In January 2000, Tinakilly was taken over by William & Bee’s son and daughter-in-law, Raymond & Josephine.
“In 2013 Tinakilly House changed hands again, the owners are passionate about this grand country manor, adding refreshing touches through out the house but always in keeping with the character. The Great Hall is alive again with chatty conservations over afternoon tea, the Brunel restaurant and menus are refreshing, wedding guest fill the house with laughter and joy. So check back with us to see the old and new meld to give this beautiful Victorian manor a new chapter in history.“
The website tells us: “Tulfarris Hotel & Golf Resort is a luxury 4 star retreat situated in the garden of Ireland, County Wicklow. Perched on the banks of the Blessington Lakes against the backdrop of the Wicklow mountains, yet only 45 minutes drive from Dublin. Offering delicious food, relaxed bars and deluxe guest accommodation, the views are breathtaking and the golf course is immense. Step back in time as you enter the 18th century Manor House which stands imposingly at the heart of our 200 acre resort. Get married, get your colleagues together or get some rest and relaxation. Tulfarris Hotel in Wicklow is yours to enjoy.“
The website tells us of the history of the house:
“Tulfarris House derives its name from the land it is situated on. Tulfarris comes from the Gaelic ‘Tulach Fherghuis’ meaning Fergus’ Hill.
“From a document known as the Faints, which contains legal judgements from the Tudor period, it is clear that the lands known as Tulfarris were included with the manor of Rathmore, Co. Kildare. This estate was in the possession of Gerald Fitzgerald (Garret Oge), 9th Earl of Kildare. Until 1534, the Fitzgerald dynasty dominated both the lands and events that occurred in much of Ireland. The rebellion of Gerald’s son Thomas, popularly known as Silken Thomas, resulted in the confiscation of the entire estate by the crown. In 1541, the crown to Walter Troot, Vicar of Rathmore, leased the manors of Rathmore, including Tulfarris.“
Gerald Fitzgerald (1487-1534) 9th Earl of Kildare
“Shortly afterwards in 1545, the lands were granted in full to Sir John Travers, a knight from Monkstown, Co. Dublin. Sir John Travers had an heir by his first marriage, Henry. Henry married Gennet Preston [d.1599], daughter of the third Viscount of Gormanstown [Jenico Preston, d. 1560]. Henry however, died young leaving two daughters, Mary & Catherine. John Travers died in 1562 and the lands were inherited by Henry’s daughters, Mary & Catherine.
“Mary married James Eustace, 3rd Viscount of Baltinglass. After James played a leading role in the Desmond Rebellion of 1579, The Baltinglass estate including Mary’s share of Rathmore, were confiscated by the crown. Mary managed to have her share of the estate returned to her in her husband’s lifetime.
“Her sister Catherine married John Cheevers of Macetown, Co. Meath. Catherine’s share of the Rathmore Estate included Tulfarris and was inherited by Catherine’s son Henry. Henry in turn married Catherine Fitzwilliam and their son Walter inherited the title to Tulfarris. Inquisitions dated 24th September 1640, detail the size of the estate at the time of Henry Cheever’s death. According to this document, Tulfarris contained one ruined Castle, 20 messuages, 70 acres of land and a manor.
“Tulfarris’ turbulent history continued and in a list of outlaws intended for the House of Lords and dated 1641-1647, five entries for Tulfarris were found. During that time, the crown again confiscated Tulfarris.
“Tulfarris and other properties were granted to Colonel Randall Clayton on 15th October 1667, in trust for the officers of the Cromwellian soldiers of 1649. Tulfarris was subsequently granted to Captain John Hunt of the Cromwellian soldiers of 1649. His son, Vere Hunt, later sold the land to John Borrowes of Ardenode, Co. Kildare. In 1713, Robert Graydon of Russellstown held Tulfarris. The means of transfer of ownership between Borrowes and Graydon is uncertain, however, Borrowe’ss niece and granddaughter both married Graydons.
“Much of the house’s more recent history is associated with the Hornridge family who held the land from the early eighteenth century until the 1950’s. James Hornridge came to Ireland from Gloucester with Cromwell’s parliamentary Army in 1659 and settled in Colemanna in Co. Carlow.
“The Historical information regarding how the Hornridge’s came to own Tulfarris is unclear. His son Richard Hornridge married Hester Hogshaw of Burgage, Blessington Co. Wicklow in 1699. It is most likely that Tulfarris came into the Hornridge’s possession through this marriage.”
13. Wicklow Head Lighthouse, Dunbur Head, County Wicklow – Irish Landmark accommodation
Gatelodge, Woodenbridge, photograph courtesy of airbnb site.
“Beautifully restored small Castle situated in the Vale of Avoca, within walking distance of the Golf Club. Only 4km from Arklow Town and only 3km from the stunning Avoca Village. The Castle is ideal for those who are looking for a relaxing break to take in the beautiful scenery, walk ways, fishing and golfing.
“The space If you choose to book the Gatelodge, you and your guests will have full use of the Small Castle.“
[1] Bence-Jones, Mark. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
orange: “whole house rental” i.e. those properties that are only for large group accommodations or weddings, e.g. 10 or more people.
green: gardens to visit
grey: ruins
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Mayo:
1. Belleek Castle and Ballina House, originally Belleek Castle, Ballina, Mayo – hotel and gives tours
Belleek Manor, or Castle, courtesy of National Inventory of Architectural Heritage.
The website tells us:
“Welcome to your authentic Castle Experience in the beautiful West of Ireland in Ballina, County Mayo. An award winning hotel & wedding venue with a gourmet restaurant, cafe and museum on site!
“Explore Belleek Castle, an iconic Irish Country Home a restaurant, wedding venue, boutique hotel and spectacular exhibition of the eclectic Marshall Doran Collection of which one of our academically trained guides will be delighted to take you on a tour.
“Belleek Castle has been a member of the prestigious Ireland’s Blue Book since 2016. Ireland’s Blue Book is a romantic collection of Irish Country House Hotels, Manor Houses, Castles and Restaurants. Located throughout the island of Ireland these charming and stylish hideaways are the perfect choice for your holiday vacation in Ireland. They are also ideal for a midweek or weekend break and those seeking a romantic getaway.
Open dates in 2026: Mar 13-26, Apr 17-25, June 12-26, July 8-24, Aug 15-23, 2pm-6pm
Fee: adult €8, OAP/child/student €3, National Heritage Week free
Brookhill House, photograph from National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. [1]
The National Inventory tells us it is a:
“Detached three-bay two-storey double-pile over part raised basement country house with attic, built 1845, on a T-shaped plan centred on single-bay full-height gabled frontispiece; three- or five-bay two-storey rear (south) elevation centred on single-bay full-height gabled “bas-relief” breakfront… “Restored”, 1990-1…Tudor-headed central door opening approached by flight of thirteen drag edged tooled cut-limestone steps between wrought iron railings, trefoil leaf-embossed timber doorcase having engaged colonette-detailed moulded rebated reveals with hood moulding on polygonal label stops framing timber panelled door. Pointed-arch flanking window openings with creeper- or ivy-covered sills, timber Y-mullions, and carved timber surrounds framing timber casement windows. Square-headed window openings in tripartite arrangement with drag edged dragged cut-limestone sills, timber cruciform mullions, and rendered flush surrounds having chamfered reveals with hood mouldings framing two-over-two timber sash windows without horns. Hipped square-headed central door opening to rear (south) elevation approached by flight of nine drag edged tooled cut-limestone steps between replacement mild steel railings, tooled cut-limestone surround having chamfered reveals with hood moulding framing glazed timber panelled double doors having sidelights below overlight. Square-headed window openings with rendered flush surrounds having chamfered reveals framing timber casement windows. Interior including (ground floor): central hall on a square plan retaining carved timber lugged surrounds to door openings framing timber panelled doors, and moulded plasterwork cornice to ceiling; and carved timber surrounds to door openings to remainder framing timber panelled doors with carved timber surrounds to window openings framing timber panelled shutters on panelled risers. Set in landscaped grounds.
Appraisal
“A country house erected to a design attributed to Frederick Darley Junior (1798-1872) of Dublin representing an important component of the domestic built heritage of the rural environs of Claremorris with the architectural value of the composition, one enveloping a “four square” house annotated as “Brook hill [of] Kirwan Esquire” by Taylor and Skinner (1778 pl. 214), confirmed by such attributes as the deliberate alignment maximising on panoramic vistas overlooking landscaped grounds; the symmetrical frontage centred on a “medieval” doorcase demonstrating good quality workmanship with the corresponding Garden Front centred on a streamlined doorcase; the diminishing in scale of the multipartite openings on each floor producing a graduated tiered visual effect with the principal “apartments” defined by polygonal bay windows; and the robust timber work embellishing the roofline. Having been well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior where contemporary joinery; Classical-style chimneypieces; and decorative plasterwork enrichments, all highlight the artistic potential of the composition. Furthermore, adjacent outbuildings (extant 1893); a lengthy walled garden (extant 1893); and an abbreviated “Triumphal Column” erected over the burial place of Joseph Lambert JP (1793-1855), all continue to contribute positively to the group and setting values of an estate having historic connections with the Lambert family including Joseph Lambert (1760-1813), one-time High Sheriff of County Mayo (fl. 1796); Alexander Clendenning Lambert JP DL (1803-92), ‘County Treasurer late of Brookhill County Mayo’ (Calendars of Wills and Administrations 1893, 432); Colonel Joseph Alexander Lambert JP DL (1855-1907), ‘late of Brookhill Claremorris County Mayo and of Bouverie Road West Folkestone Kent’ (Calendars of Wills and Administrations 1908, 297); and Brigadier Alexander Fane Lambert DL (1887-1974), later of Auld Licht Manse, Angus, Scotland; and a succession of tenants including Valentine Joseph Blake JP (1842-1912), ‘Land Agent’ (NA 1901); Major General Reginald Henry Mahon (1859-1929; NA 1911); and Katharine Tynan Hinkson (1859-1931; occupant 1916-21), poet and author of the autobiographical “The Years of the Shadow” (1919) and “The Wandering Years” (1922).“
The Landed Estates database tells us:
“Brookhill was situated on church land held by the Gonnes, who leased the house to the Kirwans in the late 1770s. Occupied by the Lambert family from the 1790s to the 1940s when it was sold to Gerald Maguire, a solicitor in Claremorris. Now the home of the Noone family.” [2]
3. Old Coastguard Station, Rosmoney, Westport, Co. Mayo– section 482
Open dates in 2026: June 29-30, July 1-31, Aug 1-30, Sept 1-8, 11am-4pm
Fee: adult €1, child/OAP/student free
Old Coastguard Station, County Mayo, photograph from National Inventory of Architectural Heritage.
The National Inventory tells us it is “A coastguard station erected to a design examined (1876) by Enoch Trevor Owen (c.1833-81), Assistant Architect to the Board of Public Works (appointed 1863), representing an important component of the later nineteenth-century maritime architectural heritage of County Mayo. Having been reasonably well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with quantities of the original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior: the introduction of replacement fittings to the openings, however, has not had a beneficial impact on the character or integrity of the composition. Nevertheless, an adjacent boathouse (extant 1897) continues to contribute positively to the group and setting values of a neat self-contained ensemble making a pleasing visual statement in a low hillside overlooking the islet-studded Westport Bay.“
4. Partry House, Mayo – part of Museums of Mayo– sometimes open to the public
“Partry House is a charming historic house in a unique and secluded old estate by the shores of Lough Carra.
“Built in 1667 on the site of an old Castle, it is set in just 250 acres of unspoilt woodland, bog, pasture and parkland.
Farm
“The farm and gardens are run on ecologically friendly and organic principles. Wildlife abounds on this peaceful sanctuary in scenic South County Mayo.
“Now restored in keeping with its age and character, Partry House is open in part to the public during July and August.
“Partry House dates from 1667 when it was built on the remains of Cloonlagheen Castle by Arthur Lynch as a dowager house for his mother Lady Ellis, widow of Sir Roebuck Lynch [2nd Baronet, 1621-1667] of Castle Carra.
“Sir Roebuck’s lands were seized by the Cromwellians and he was compensated by lands at Castle Carra during the first half of the seventeenth century. The Castle was named after Cloonlagheen (‘the meadow of the little lake’) townland on which it stands.
“Evidence of the original castle was discovered during restoration work in 1995 when slit windows opening inwards were found at knee level on the first floor. Old castle walls can be seen incorporated into stable walls.
“Knox’s ‘History of Mayo‘ (1910) clearly states that Cloonlagheen castle was owned in 1574 by Abbé MacEnvile who was over Ballintubber Abbey. This was part of the Elizabethan survey called the ‘Divisons of Connaught’.
“The Lynchs, of the noted Galway family, occupied Partry House from 1667 until 1991; over 330 years in residence. Many of the ancestors of the present Lynch family are buried in a ring-fort graveyard on the estate, where their achievemements are noted on a large stone obelisk. Military, Exploratory and Humanitarian, their dates and names are written in stone.
“The one-time islands Moynish, Creggaun and Leamnahaye are linked to the shore by means of the Famine Walk built between the lake and a bog area. This and the fine limestone shore edging date from famine times when the Lynchs looked after their tenants providing food and work for them. Two old cast iron pots used to cook cornmeal stand in the garden.
“The obelisk commemorates George Quested Lynch MD who returned at once to Partry from Euphrates on hearing of the famine and died here of Typhus in 1848, aged only 34. The Lynchs, along with Browns of Westport House and the Moores of Moore Hall chartered the ship the ‘Martha Washington’ to bring corn meal from America for their tenants.”
5. Turlough Park, County Mayo – National Museum of Ireland Museum of Country Life
“Turlough Park was built in 1865, to replace a much older building near the entrance to the park. The name of the village and estate derives from the Irish turlach, signifying a lake that dries up in the summer period.
“Turlough Park was the home of the Fitzgerald family, to whom the estate was granted under the Cromwellian land settlements of the mid-seventeenth century.
“At its largest, the Turlough estate consisted of almost 8,500 acres requiring many indoor servants and outdoor estate workers to maintain the house and lands. In 1915, the Congested Districts Board – established to initiate economic improvements along the western seaboard – purchased and re-distributed the Fitzgerald estate.“
“A notable family member was George Robert [c. 1712-1782], son of George and later known as the ‘Fighting Fitzgerald’. Famous for his brave and reckless horsemanship, and a renowned duellist, George Robert was involved in a number of disputes and family quarrels. He was found guilty of murder and hanged in Castlebar, Co. Mayo in 1786.“
Mary née Hervey was George “Fighting Fitzgerald”s mother.Johann Zoffany Portrait of George Fitzgerald (1748-1786) with his Sons George and Charles (roughly 1764) courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland and Crawford Gallery.
“His younger brother Charles Lionel would inherit the Turlough Park estate.
“The architect Thomas Newenham Deane designed Turlough Park House. Deane was also the designer of the National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology in Dublin.
“The architectural style of the house has been referred to as ‘Victorian Gothic’. The two-storey house built of limestone rises to a high-pitched roof with dormer windows. It incorporates an open central Gothic porch bearing the house’s 1865 date stone.
“A service area adjoining the house, which once accommodated the kitchen and stable block, now incorporates visitor facilities such as the gift shop and café. In such houses, the kitchen was detached from the main house to avoid cooking smells disturbing the family and their guests and to minimise the risk of fire.“
“An imposing stained glass window above the porch incorporates the Fitzgerald family crest and bears the motto Honor Probataque Virtus (Honour, Probity & Virtue).”
“While the library was used mostly for recreation and study, the room was also where tenant farmers paid their quarterly rents to their landlord, the Fitzgerald family. The agent, seated facing the glass doors where the tenants entered, would note the payment in his rent book and issue the tenant with a receipt. It is said that the landlord sometimes sat behind the concealed door to hear what the tenants had to say without being observed.“
This room is furnished and decorated the way it may have looked around 1900. Most families occupying a house for a long time accumulate a variety of furniture from different eras and in different styles. The furniture here is from the Decorative Arts & History collections of the Museum.“
“Among the items is a Lyrachord Piano, which is the only one of its kind in the world. The left side operates like a piano and the right like a harpsichord.“
“There is also a nest of tables with harp and shamrock inlay typical of the Killarney school of furniture, as well as an embroidered armchair from Adare Manor, Co. Limerick dating from 1850.
“Becoming part of the National Museum of Ireland, Turlough Park House remained in the same family until 1991 when it was purchased by Mayo County Council. The proposal to open the house as a museum was a local initiative which led eventually to a decision made in 1995 to locate part of the National Museum of Ireland here. The Museum’s Folklife collections had been stored for a long time in Daingean, Co. Offaly, awaiting a suitable venue.“
“As the house was not suitable as a major exhibition space, a new building was purpose-built alongside it. Housing the Museum galleries, this award winning design was created by the architectural branch of the Office of Public Works. As part of the project, the Office of Public Works also restored the original ‘Big House’. The grounds and gardens were restored by Mayo County Council.“
The website tells us: “One of the few privately-owned historic houses left in Ireland, Westport House was built by the Browne family whose connections to Mayo date back to the 1500s. Their lineage relates them and the house to the trail-blazing pirate queen and chieftain, Grace O’Malley.“
“In 2017, Westport House was bought by another local and historic family, the Hughes family, who hope to ensure its survival into the future.
“Built in the 18th century, Westport House was designed by the famous architects, Richard Cassels, James Wyatt and Thomas Ivory. Westport House is located west of the Shannon and is considered to be one of Ireland’s most beautiful historic homes open to visitors – and is today often described as being one of Ireland’s National Treasures. It is situated in a superb parkland setting with lake, terraces, gardens and magnificent views overlooking Clew Bay, the Atlantic Ocean, Clare Island and Ireland’s Holy Mountain, Croagh Patrick right in the heart of the Wild Atlantic Way. It was built … by the Browne family, who are direct descendants of the famous 16th century Pirate Queen – Grace O’Malley.
“After Grace O’Malley’s death, a report stated that for forty years she was the stay of all rebellions in the West. She was chief of the O’Malley Clan and ruled the seas around Mayo. Grace O’Malley had several castles in the West of Ireland and it was on the foundations of one of these that Westport House was actually built. There is still an area of her original castle in the basement of the House (now known as The Dungeons), which is on view to visitors.
“The original house which would have been smaller, was built by Colonel John Browne [1631-1712], a Jacobite, who was at the Siege of Limerick and his wife, Maude Burke [or Bourke, (1640-1690)] in 1679-83. Maude Burke was Grace O’Malley’s great-great granddaughter. The house did not have the lake or a dam and the tide rose and fell against the walls.
“The east front of the House, as it is today, was built in 1730 by Colonel John Browne’s grandson, also John- 1st Earl of Altamont [1709-1776]. He hired the famous German architect, Richard Cassels. It is built with the finest limestone taken from the quarry south of the estate farmyard and was executed by local craftsmen. Richard Cassels also designed Carton, Haselwood, Russborough and Leinster Houses.
John Browne (1709-1776), Baron Mount Eagle, 1st Earl of Altamont, of Westport, County Mayo, after Joshua Reynold, Adams auction 18 Oct 2022.
“From the plans made in 1773, the ground floor contained:
The Waiting Room – now The Library
Front Staircase – now the Ante- library
Living Room – now The Front Hall
Back staircase – now part of the present Drawing Room
Dressing Room – now the East end of The Long Gallery.
“It was only one room deep, built round an open courtyard.
“In 1778, Peter, the 2nd Earl Of Altamont built the south wing to the Thomas Ivory plans his father had commissioned but had not carried out. Ivory’s south façade has a delicacy quite unlike Cassel’s bolder work on the East. In the 1780’s Peter’s son John Denis, 3rd Earl of Altamont (who later became the 1st Marquess of Sligo), completed the square of the House. He engaged James Wyatt to decorate his new Long Gallery and Large Dining Room (one of the great English architects who is responsible for other significant buildings in the town of Westport and further afield).“
John Denis Browne (1756-1809) 1st Marquess of Sligo Date 1806 Engraver William Whiston Barney, British, fl. c. 1805 After John Opie, English, 1761-1807, courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.
“In 1816, Howe Peter (2nd Marquess of Sligo) began his alterations to the House. He built on the north wing for men servants and between 1819-1825, he built on the south wing. The south wing was built as a two-tiered library designed by Benjamin Wyatt. This was warmed by hot air and due to defects in the system, it was destroyed by fire almost immediately in 1826.
“In the 1830s, the central open courtyard where the Marble Staircase now sits, was covered in and Howe Peter made a new library by running a gallery round the now enclosed wall. In 1858 his son George abolished his father’s Library, moving it to where it is today and replaced it with the Marble Staircase.
“On the west side of the house, the highly effective balustraded terraces’above the lake and the landing places were put in by George Ulick (6th Marquess of Sligo). These were designed by the English architect, Romaine Walker, whose main Irish work was the remodelling of Waterford Castle.“
The website continues, telling us about the Browne Family:
“The story of the Browne Family is a microcosm for the wider and, at times, turbulent history of Ireland. Each generation has had to contend with and adapt to the prevailing social, political and religious changes encountered along the way. Despite revolution, invasion, plantation, famine and confiscation, the bond uniting Westport House and its family remained right up until 2017.
“The Browne Family originally arrived into Mayo from Sussex in the 16th century. Through marriage with daughters of native Irish landowners and by purchase, they built up a small estate near The Neale. As a Catholic family, they were fortunate that their lands were situated in Connaught thereby escaping the notorious confiscations of Cromwell. It was with John Browne III (1638-1711) with whom the connection with Westport House commenced. A successful lawyer, he married Maud Burke, daughter of Viscount Mayo and great-great granddaughter of the Pirate Queen Grace O’Malley (Granuaile 1530-1603).
“John Browne greatly increased his estate in Mayo and Galway including Cathair-na-mart (Stone-fort of the Beeves), a ruinous O’Malley fortress on the shores of Clew Bay. John’s good fortune was swept away as Ireland was plunged into chaos in the Williamite Wars. A Catholic, John supported the Jacobite cause and was appointed a Colonel in the Jacobite army. From the iron mines on his lands near Westport, he supplied the army with cannon balls and weapons. The defeat of the Jacobite army at Aughrim and Limerick in 1691 brought financial ruin in the confiscations that followed. At his death in 1711, his estate was reduced to Cathair-na-Mart and a few hundred acres.
“The Penal Laws which followed left his grandson, John IV, with little option but to conform to the prevailing religion in hope of surviving the confiscations and political upheaval. John IV gradually revived the family fortune. Young and ambitious he set about extending his estate and transforming the old O’Malley castle into modern day Westport House. In 1767, he – along with architect, William Leeson – replaced the old village of Cathair-na-Mart with a new town of Westport where he established a thriving linen industry. An excellent farmer he set about improving the fertility of his lands, which for the most part were of poor quality. He became the 1st Earl of Altamont. In 1752, his son and heir, Peter, 2nd Earl Of Altamont, married the heiress Elizabeth Kelly from Co. Galway whose estates in Jamaica further enhanced the family fortune. It is said that – as part of the dowry – her father insisted that he take the Kelly name and he became known as Peter Browne Kelly.
“John, 3rd Earl of Altamont, continued the innovative farming tradition of his grandfather. He created the lake to the West of Westport House and planted trees. He laid out the principal streets of the present town of Westport and many of the streets in Westport today are named after Browne Family members such as Peter Street, James Street, Altamont Street and John’s Row. He also established a theatre at the Octagon and built the town of Louisburgh. In 1787, he married Louisa Catherine, daughter and heiress of the famous English Admiral Earl Howe. During his lifetime, the French inspired 1798 Rebellion occurred. Aided by the arbitrary actions of Denis Browne, his younger brother, against the Irish insurgents (which earned him the reputation of “ black sheep” of the family), the Rebellion was crushed.
“In 1800, there was an Act of Union with England. The 3rd Earl voted for it and became the 1st Marquess of Sligo and an Irish representative peer. The reason the title is Sligo when the family home is in Mayo, is that in 1800 there was already an Earl of Mayo, a Viscount Galway to the south and a Lord Roscommon to the East. West was the Atlantic Ocean, so it had to be North – the land of Yeats and black cattle – Sligo.
“His only son Howe Peter, 2nd Marquess of Sligo, inherited in 1809 at the age of twenty-one. Extravagant and generous, his early life subscribed to the popular image of a “regency buck”. Friend of Byron, de Quincy and the Prince Regent, he traveled extensively throughout Europe on the “grand tour”. He excavated at Mycenae and discovered the 3,000 year old columns of the Treasury of Atreus. To bring them back to Westport, he took some seamen from a British warship and was subsequently sentenced to 4 months in Newgate prison. He married Hester, the Earl of Conricard’s daughter, with whom he had 14 children and settled down to life in Westport. He bred many famous race horses both at Westport and the Curragh. One of his horses, Waxy, won the Derby. He owned the last two of the original breed of Irish Wolfhound. In 1834, he was appointed Governor of Jamaica with the difficult task of overseeing the “apprenticeship system” a period prior to the full emancipation of the slaves. He met with great opposition from plantation owners and other vested interests. He was first to emancipate the slaves on the family’s Jamaican plantations. The first “free village” in the world, Sligoville, was subsequently named in his honour. A liberal, he was one of the few Irish Peers to vote for Catholic Emancipation. He died in 1845 as the clouds of the Great Famine descended over Mayo.
“His son, George, the 3rd Marquess, inherited a terrible legacy. The West of Ireland was worst affected by the famine. Westport House was closed and with no rents forthcoming, George borrowed where he could, spending £50,000 of his own money to alleviate the suffering of the tenants. With the guidance of his mother, Hesther Catherine, he imported cargoes of meal to Westport Quay and sub-vented the local workhouse, then the only shelter available to the destitute. He wrote tirelessly to the British Government demanding that they do more to help the famine victims. He wrote and had published a pamphlet outlining many pioneering reforms of the economic and social conditions that had led to the famine. In 1854, on being offered the Order of St. Patrick, an honour once held by his father and grandfather, disillusioned by England’s Irish policy (a reoccurring sentiment at Westport House!), the 3rd Marquess wrote “ I have no desire for the honour.” An exhibition about the Great Famine is on display in Westport House as told through Hesther Catherine’s letters to the estate’s agent in Westport, Hildebrand.
“John succeeded his brother as 4th Marquess. He had to contend with the huge changes that occurred in the ownership of land in Ireland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Above all he was a “professional” farmer whose main contribution was to transform a reduced and almost bankrupt estate into a profitable one solely from agriculture. This work was continued by the 6th Marquess who added a sawmill, a salmon hatchery and planted extensively. The compulsory acquisition of the main entrance to the House for local public housing occurred in the ownership of the 8th Marquess which altered the historic relationship that had existed between the House and the town of Westport.
“In 1960, in the midst of a great depression and facing rising death duties, the 10th Marquess, Denis Edward, his wife Jose and son Jeremy (11th Marquess) decided to open Westport House and the grounds to the visiting public. It was a pioneering venture in a place and at a time that was remote and depressed. Over the succeeding decades, the 11th Marquess and his family developed the Estate into a Tourist Attraction.
The Grounds & Gardens
“The Brownes of Westport House knew the value of trees in a landscape too, as the stunning woodland in the estate’s grounds attest. Westport Demesne retains 100 acres of historic woods dating back to the 1700s.
“Back in the day, these trees provided a number of resources for the Westport House Estate. They created a shelter belt from the harsh Atlantic weather systems, they provided a fuel and timber source for heating and building materials, and they created a lush green back drop for the ‘naturalised parkland’ design landscape.
“The lords and ladies loved to interact with the landscape by promenading along a deep networks of track and trails. They would bring their visitors along these paths too, impressing them with the grandeur and beauty of the estate’s stately woodlands. Aptly enough, these design pathways and the areas of woodlands they ventured through were known as ‘the pleasure grounds’.
“An elaborate network of serpentine pathways meandered along, softly curving – following the style of landscape design that was popular during the 1800s and remains timeless to this day. The trails led the walker deep into the woodlands and surrounding landscape, where they could discover hidden design elements, such as sculptural pieces of architecture, exotic plant and tree species and new views.
“The pyramidal cone of Croagh Patrick was one of the most emphasised views in the Westport House Demesne, and a number of the historic pathways were specifically designed to yield the most captivating vistas. The woodlands even had purposely made gaps to seduce the stroller with sudden framed glimpses of the famous Reek.
Opened to the Public in 1960
“By the early 1960s, most historic homes of its nature were either burnt, knocked down or abandoned. Not so for Westport House. Jeremy – 11th Marquess of Sligo (1939 – 2014), took the estate in a whole new direction with inspiration from the “Big Houses” in the UK who had opened their doors to the interested public who were keen to see how the “other half” lived. In 1960, when Jeremy and Jennifer opened the attraction, the admission price was 2/6 for adults and 1/- for children. Admission to the grounds was 6d for both adults and children. In 1960, 2,400 visitors visited Westport House.
“Jeremy had a remarkable passion for product development and marketing. He was inspired by other houses that were becoming sustainable and viable by diversifying their offering from not only heritage but including other leisure attractions. He felt strongly that Westport House needed to appeal to a wider audience than those solely interested in antiques and architecture. Over time, he introduced a number of fun attractions. In the 1970s, the Slippery Dip (Cannon Ball run) and the Miniature Railway (Westport House Express) were added discretely on the grounds. A Camping and Caravan Park was developed – as well as Horse Drawn Caravan tours of Connemara – and Gracy’s Restaurant (situated at the Farmyard was created from what was originally a cowshed) and a shop evolved from a similar situation. There were even one armed bandits in the basement at one point in time and the giant pink rabbit called Pinkie was introduced as the estate’s mascot. The Tennis Courts, Pitch and Putt, a Flume Ride (The Pirates Plunge), Jungle World (The Pirates Den), and of course The Giant Swans on the lake were also phased in. In 2008, the Ships Galleon (The Pirate Queen) was introduced.
“It was during this time that Jeremy and Jennifer realised that in order to be able to leave the estate to their daughters, drastic action would need to be taken. Jeremy had signed a family trust aged 21 to leave the estate and title to his son. They went on to have five wonderful daughters (with no sign of a male heir). With the help of Mary Robinson QC (and later, first female president of Ireland) and Michael Egan, solicitor from Castlebar, Jeremy succeeded in bringing the Altamont Act through the senate in 1992 allowing him to leave the estate to his daughters and break the trust. He did not enact the same for the title of Marquess of Sligo and today, the 12th Marquess of Sligo, Sebastian Browne, resides in Sydney, Australia.
“In 2003, Jeremy commissioned Michael Cooper, his brother-in-law, to create a sculpture of Grace O’Malley – the original of alabaster stone is situated in the House and a bronze casting is in the garden. This was the beginning of reinstating her back where she belongs – in her home, with her family, and where the re-branding of the estate in 2009 as Westport House and Pirates Adventure Park emanated from.
“It was around this time that Sheelyn and Karen Browne – the two eldest of Jeremy’s five daughters – took the reins and added an Adventure Activity Centre, a seasonal Events Programme as well as holding the first large music festivals on the estate while Clare and Alannah ran Gracy’s Bar. Fifth sister, Lucinda, was always happy to lend a hand when home from the U.K. In 2017, the Browne family sold the house and estate to the local Hughes family who own neighbouring Hotel Westport and workwear provider, Portwest. A new chapter in the history of Westport House & Estate has begun. The Hughes family immediately started working on the grounds and gardens of the estate. The adventure park has been upgraded with a variety of new attractions and rides and there are plans to further invest in adventure. In 2021, urgent and necessary restorative works to Westport House will begin. And our new CEO’s main focus – along with the Hughes family – has been to produce a master plan for the entire estate that will ensure the sustainability and viability of the house and estate into the future.“
Places to stay, County Mayo:
1. Ashford Castle, Mayo/Galway – hotel
Ashford Castle, photograph Courtesy Aervisions 2016for Tourism Ireland, Ireland’s Content Pool (see [5]).
The website tells us: “Unrivalled service, warm Irish hospitality and five-star luxury await at Ashford Castle, part of The Red Carnation Hotel Collection. Situated in a spectacular 350-acre estate, discover sumptuous rooms and suites, splendid interiors brimming with antique furniture, fine fabrics and unique features at every turn.“
It was built originally by the Norman De Burgo family around 1228.
Ashford Castle, Cong, County Mayo, photograph by Robert French, Lawrence Photographic Collection, National Library of Ireland.Ashford Castle, photograph by Brian Morrison 2015 for Tourism Ireland, Ireland’s Content Pool (see [5]).Ashford Castle, photograph by Brian Morrison 2015 for Tourism Ireland, Ireland’s Content Pool (see [5]).
Mark Bence-Jones writes in A Guide to Irish Country Houses (1988):
p. 12. “(Browne, Oranmore and Browne, B/PB; Guinness, Bt/PB) A vast and imposing Victorian-Baronial castle of rather harsh rough-hewn grey stone in a superb postion and the head of Lough Corrib…built onto an earlier house consisting of a 2 storey 5 bay Georgian shooting-box enlarged and remodelled in French chateau style. The shooting-box and estate originally belonged to the Oranmore and Browne family; they were sold by the Encumbered Estates Court in 1855 and bought by Benjamin Lee Guinness, afterwards 1st Bt., head of Guinness’s brewery, who transformed the shooting-box into the French chateau. From the 1870s onwards, his son, Arthur, 1st and Last Lord Ardilaun, added the castle, which was designed by James Franklin Fuller and George Ashlin. He also built the tremendous castellated 6 arch bridge across the river, with outworks and an embattled gateway surmounted by a gigantic A and a Baron’s coronet, which is the main approach; from the far side of this bridge the castle looks most impressive. Its interior, however, is a disappointment, like the interiors of so many late-Victorian houses. The rooms are not particularly large, and some of them are rather low; everything is light oak, with timbered ceilings and panelling. The main hall was formed out of 2 or more rooms in the earlier house, and has a somewhat makeshift air; it is surrounded by an oak gallery with thin uprights and a staircase rises straight from one side of it. Another room has an immense carved oak mantel with caryatids and the Guinness motto. Magnificent gardens and grounds; large fountain, vista up the hillside with steps; castellated terrace by the lake. Sold ca 1930, now a hotel.” (see [3])
Ashford Castle, Cong, County Mayo, photograph by Robert French, Lawrence Photographic Collection, National Library of Ireland.Ashford Castle, Cong, County Mayo, photograph by Robert French, Lawrence Photographic Collection, National Library of Ireland.Ashford Castle, Cong, County Mayo, photograph by Robert French, Lawrence Photographic Collection, National Library of Ireland.Ashford Castle, Cong, County Mayo, photograph by Robert French, Lawrence Photographic Collection, National Library of Ireland.Ashford Castle, photograph by Brian Morrison 2015 for Tourism Ireland, Ireland’s Content Pool (see [5]).George V Dining Room, Ashford Castle, Co Mayo, Courtesy Jack Hardy 2016for Tourism Ireland, Ireland’s Content Pool (see [5]).Billiards Room, Ashford Castle,Courtesy Jack Hardy 2016for Tourism Ireland, Ireland’s Content Pool (see [5]).Afternoon tea, Ashford Castle, Co Mayo Courtesy Kelvin Gillmor 2014. (see [5])Ashford Castle, photograph by Brian Morrison 2015 for Tourism Ireland, Ireland’s Content Pool (see [5]).Ashford Castle, photograph by unknown, for Tourism Ireland, Ireland’s Content Pool (see [5]).Ashford Castle, photograph by Brian Morrison 2015 for Tourism Ireland, Ireland’s Content Pool (see [5]).
2. Belleek Castle and Ballina House, originally Belleek Castle, Ballina, Mayo –
Belleek Manor, or Castle, courtesy of National Inventory of Architectural Heritage.
The website tells us:
“Welcome to your authentic Castle Experience in the beautiful West of Ireland in Ballina, County Mayo. An award winning hotel & wedding venue with a gourmet restaurant, cafe and museum on site!
“Explore Belleek Castle, an iconic Irish Country Home a restaurant, wedding venue, boutique hotel and spectacular exhibition of the eclectic Marshall Doran Collection of which one of our academically trained guides will be delighted to take you on a tour.
“Belleek Castle has been a member of the prestigious Ireland’s Blue Book since 2016. Ireland’s Blue Book is a romantic collection of Irish Country House Hotels, Manor Houses, Castles and Restaurants. Located throughout the island of Ireland these charming and stylish hideaways are the perfect choice for your holiday vacation in Ireland. They are also ideal for a midweek or weekend break and those seeking a romantic getaway.
“The neo-gothic Country House, dating from 1831, has not lost its flavour by over modernisation…This historic Belleek Castle is informal, hassle-free and friendly, rich in decor and antiquities, with many open log fires to warm your steps back through half a millennium.”
Belleek Manor, or Castle, courtesy of National Inventory of Architectural Heritage.Belleek Manor, or Castle, courtesy of National Inventory of Architectural Heritage.
It continues in the history section:
“Belleek Castle was built between 1825 and finished in 1831 for the cost of £10,000. The building was commissioned by Sir Arthur Francis Knox-Gore for the cost of £10,000 and . The manor house was designed by the prolific architect John Benjamin Keane, and the Neo-Gothic architecture met the taste of the time, when Medieval styles became fashionable again.”
John B. Keane began his career as assistant to Richard Morrison in the early 1820s and set up his own practice by 1823, David Hicks tells us in his Irish Country Houses, A Chronicle of Change. The stone for the house was quarried from nearby quarry in Moyne. Francis Arthur Francis Knox-Gore had inherited the estate in 1818 when he was 15, and the manor was built after his marriage to Sarah Nesbit Knox from Castle Lacken, County Mayo. It is thought to have replaced an earlier structure, as the basement area of the castle today appears to be older than the floors above.
The website continues: “The house is thought to have replaced an earlier structure & is named after the original Belleek Castle, a 13th Tower House Castle situated on the banks of the River Moy. Francis lived at Belleek Castle with his wife Sarah and his 9 children until his death in 1873. According to his wishes he was buried in Belleek Demense. A striking Neo-Gothic Monument, designed by James Franklin Fuller, now marks his grave and is situated in the middle of Belleek Woods. It is said that his wife & favourite horse are both buried beside him. His eldest son Charles Knox-Gore inherited & became the 2nd Baronet. Charles died without issue in 1890 & was also buried in Belleek Demense beside the River Moy, and his dog Phizzie was buried beside him. The house was inherited by his sister Matilda who married Major General William Boyd Saunders of Torquay. Their grandson William Arthur Cecil Saunders-Knox-Gore sold the house in 1942.
“The house was later purchased by the Beckett family who intended on converting the Manor House into a stud farm but later sold the house. Mayo County Council purchased the house in the 1950s and used the Manor House as a hospital & military barracks and was later abandoned it. It was at this time that Mayo County Council considered taking the roof of the building to avoid paying rates. Fortunately Marshall Doran, a merchant navy officer and an avid collector of fossils and medieval armour, acquired the run down property in 1961, restored it and opened it as a hotel in 1970. Some of the rooms are in 19th style, whilst most of the interior design has a medieval and nautical touch. Marshall, being quite a craftsman, did a lot of the work himself, assisted by John Mullen, and supervised the restoration expertly. Today, the Castle is managed by Marshall’s son Paul Doran and Ms. Maya Nikolaeva.“
Belleek Manor, or Castle, courtesy of National Inventory of Architectural Heritage.
And about the tour of the castle:
“The Belleek Castle Tour includes an explanation of the origins of the Castle and the history of its former owners, the Knox-Gore family, the Earls of Arran. Learn about the life of Marshall Doran an adventurer, sailor & smuggler who restored Belleek Castle in the 1960’s. Visitors will see private dining rooms, decorated in opulent romantic style, as well as rooms designed by Marshal such as the Medieval Banquet Hall, the Spanish Armada Bar and the Tween Deck. The highlight of the tour is The Marshall Doran Collection, which is one of the finest collections of Jurassic fossils, Medieval Weapons and Medieval armour in Ireland. Visitors will also see the Grace O’Malley “The Pirate Queen’s” bed, the last wolf shot in Connaught and other curiosities.”
Magherameena Castle, Belleek, County Fermanagh, also designed by John Benjamin Keane, no longer standing. National Library of Ireland NLI Ref L_CAB_04725 National Library of Ireland
3. Breaffy House Resort, Castlebar, Co Mayo (formerly Breaghwy)
The website tells us: “Breaffy House Resort is located in the heart of County Mayo and is the perfect destination if you are looking for a well-deserved and relaxing break! Set on 101 acres, the resort consists of 4* Breaffy House Hotel and Self-Catering Apartments, only a 2 minute stroll between House Hotel & Apartments.”
Mark Bence-Jones writes (1988):
p. 47. “(Browne/IFR) A large Victorian Baronial mansion of rough-hewn grey stone with red sandstone around the windows; unusually long for its height. Entrance front with single-storey battlemented porch. Garden front with stepped gables, polygonal corner turret with battlements and pointed roof, and another battlemented turret set at an obtuse angle to the façade. Sold ca 1960. Now an hotel.” (see [5])
Archiseek describes it: “Dominick Andrew Browne built the present Breaffy House in 1890. The house is a Scottish baronial mansion and is victorian in style and was designed by English architect William M. Fawcett from Cambridge. The house has boldly recessed facades, a polygonal corner turret with battlements and pointed roof, a second turret set at an obtuse angle to the facade and stepped gables. The entrance front has a single story battlement porch. The building has tall slender chimneys and there are dormer windows on the roof.” (see [3])
4. Enniscoe House, Castlehill, Ballina, Co Mayo – section 482accommodation
The website tells us: “Owned and run by Adrian & Geraldine Noonan, Knockranny House Hotel & Spa is one of Ireland’s finest 4 star hotels in Westport.
“Set in secluded grounds on a hillside, this luxury hotel stands proudly overlooking the picturesque town of Westport and enjoys breathtaking views of Croagh Patrick and Clew Bay’s islands to the west and the Nephin Mountains to the north, one of the best Westport hotels locations.
“The welcoming atmosphere at Knockranny House Hotel Westport begins with the open log fires in the reception hall, and is carried throughout the property with its antique furniture, excellent spa facilities, superb cuisine and friendly service, creating a genuine sense of relaxed warmth and hospitality. Previously voted as AA Irish hotel of the year. “
Mount Falcon Estate, Co Mayo_by Mount Falcon 2020 for Tourism Ireland, Ireland’s Content Pool. (see [5])
The website tells us:
“Mount Falcon Estate is a luxury 32 bedroom 4-star deluxe hotel with 45 luxury lodges located on the west bank of the River Moy and is situated perfectly for exploring the 2500km of rugged Irish coastline called The Wild Atlantic Way. Mount Falcon hotel offers 100 acres of magical woodlands, between Foxford and Ballina, in North County Mayo, the most beautiful part of the West of Ireland. Situated in the heart of the Moy Valley (which encompasses Mayo North and Co. Sligo) this Victorian Gothic manor house (est. 1876) exudes understated elegance from a bygone era. Originally constructed as a wedding gift, Mount Falcon Estate has subsequently become known as the most romantic house in Ireland.
“Mount Falcon’s owners, the Maloney Family fell in love with the Estate and transformed it into one of the top Hotels in Ballina and Mayo. The owners have invested heavily in an ongoing restoration programme, and have ensured that the integrity and charm of the Estate have been completely retained. AA Hotel of the Year 2009/2010 & IGTOA Boutique Hotel of the Year 2011. Best Manor House Hotel in Ireland 2015, Hotel of the year 2017 Manor House Hotel, Traditional Luxury Hotel 2018 Luxury Travel Diary, Irelands Favourite Place to Stay Connaught 2018 Gold Medal Awards People Choice Winner, Top 100 Best Wedding Venues 2018 One Fab Day.“
Mark Bence-Jones writes (1988): p. 213. “(Knox/IFR) A Victorian Gothic house of rough-hewn stone, built 1876 for U.A. Knox [Utred Augustus Knox JP DL (1825-1913)], probably to the design of James Franklin Fuller. Of two storeys with a three storey bock to which a tower was added. Plate glass windows. There is a similarity between Mount Falcon and Errew Grange. Mount Falcon is now a hotel.“
The National Inventory adds:
“A country house erected for Utred Augustus Knox JP DL (1825-1913) to a design signed by James Franklin Fuller (1835-1924) of Great Brunswick Street [Pearse Street], Dublin, representing an important component of the later nineteenth-century domestic built heritage of County Mayo with the architectural value of the composition, one evoking strong comparisons with the Fuller-designed Errew House (1872-7), Errew, confirmed by such attributes as the deliberate alignment maximising on scenic vistas overlooking gently rolling grounds; the compact, albeit multi-faceted plan form; the robust rock faced surface finish offset by sheer limestone dressings not only demonstrating good quality workmanship, but also compounding a ponderous two-tone palette; the slight diminishing in scale of the openings on each floor producing a feint graduated visual effect with the principal “apartments” defined by polygonal bay windows; and the spire-topped tower embellishing a multi-gabled roofline. Having been well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior where encaustic tile work; contemporary joinery; restrained chimneypieces carrying the monogram of the proprietor (“UAK”); and decorative plasterwork enrichments, all highlight the considerable artistic potential of a country house having subsequent connections with the Aldridge family including Major John Beauclerk Aldridge RA (1900-76), previously of Glenmore: meanwhile, a discreet benchmark remains of additional interest for the connections with cartography and the preparation of maps by the Ordnance Survey (established 1824).” [7]
7. Owenmore, Garranard, Ballina, Co. Mayo –section 482 accommodation
Tourist Accommodation Facility: Open in 2026: all year except Jan, Feb, Mar 1-9, July 1-23, Dec 22-31
Since it is listed in Revenue Section 482 under Tourist Accommodation Facility, it does not have to open to the public.
Originally called Millbrook, Mark Bence-Jones tells us (1988):
p. 229. “(Orme/LGI1912; McCausland/IFR) An early C19 house of two storeys over high basement. Entrance front of 5 bays; single-storey Doric portico with a die up broad flight of steps. Entablatures on console brackets over windows of lower storey. Side elevation of one bay with a curved bow; at the other side is a two storey bowed wing of the same height and style as the main block, set back from it and joined to it by a canted bay. Eaved roof on cornice. Two drawing rooms en suite with decoration of ca 1830; ceilings with plasterwork in compartments; pediment over double-doors. Dining room ceiling with delicate plasterwork in centre surrounded by rectangular frame with similar decoration.” [3]
Timothy William Ferres tells us it was built ca 1847, and when the estate was decimated by the Land Acts, about 1926, it was sold to the Knox family. It was sold again in 1950 to Major Marcus McCausland.” [4]
It seems to have been built for William Orme (1810-76), JP. The National Inventory adds:
“the compact plan form centred on a pillared portico demonstrating good quality workmanship in a blue-grey limestone; and the very slight diminishing in scale of the openings on each floor producing a graduated visual impression with those openings showing sleek “stucco” dressings. Having been well maintained, the form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior, including crown or cylinder glazing panels in hornless sash frames: meanwhile, contemporary joinery; and ‘splendid ceilings [revealing] the superb skill of the Italian masters introduced for this work’ (Irish Tourist Association Report 1942), all highlight the artistic potential of the composition.”
8. Turin Castle, Turin, Kilmaine, Co. Mayo, Ireland – whole castle rental, up to 12 guest
“Turin Castle in County Mayo is a luxury self catering venue near Ballinrobe in County Mayo Ireland. It is a unique medieval castle set against the backdrop of picturesque countryside. This exclusive and intimate venue is the perfect location for a romantic, castle wedding or family gathering. Unfortuntately It is not suitable for stag or hen parties. It is the only privately owned castle in Ireland with en-suite facilities. The castle sleeps a maximum of 12 people and is hired on a self catering basis but catering can be arranged if required. Please ask for details.
“If you are looking for a truly exceptional medieval experience, Turin Castle in County Mayo will not disappoint. The castle is ideal for a family holiday with a difference or a special intimate wedding affording total privacy.
“Turin Castle is situated in the ancient barony of Kilmaine, the castle is surrounded by 16 acres of rich walled pasture land and is an ideal choice for couples searching for an idyllic but small wedding venue. The nearest town is Ballinrobe which is 8 km away offering a good selection of pubs and eateries. The picturesque village of Cong famous for the John Ford film ” The Quiet Man” and Ashford castle are also close by. The castle is conveniently located close to excellent golf courses.“
The website includes a good description of its history:
“1238 was a most auspicious year in the long and turbulent history of County Mayo. For we are told in the annals of the four Masters that the foreigners erected Castles In Conmacnaine Cuile(Kilmaine) and Muinter Murchadha.(Robeen).
“The Foreigners were Anglo-Normans led by Richard de Burgo, son of William de Burgo. One of the most powerful Lords in England. In 1228 Richard had received the Overlordship of the whole of Connacht from the English King, Henry II, making him the “ red Earl “ the most powerful man in Ireland.
“The de Burgo dynasty survived and flourished up until Elizabethan times when the two hereditary titles of upper and lower Mac William (From William de Burgo, known as the conqueror) were finally abolished. During this time the de Burgos had become completely integrated into Gaelic society adopting Gaelic customs, laws and language becoming “ Hiberniores Hibernis ipis”. More Irish than the Irish themselves .However this was the beginning of the end of the old Gaelic order in Ireland and opened the way for the final conquest and plantation of Ireland.
“The origins and history of Turin Castle Ireland and neighbouring castles are sadly mostly lost in the mists of time. According to the chronicler O’Donovan “ In the parish of Kilmaine there are several square Castles said to have been built by the Burkes ( de Burgos) There is one in Kilmaine, one in Cregduff, one in Elistron and one in Killernan”. Turin would appear to derive from the old Irish meaning ‘small bleaching field’. Which may suggest that Turin Castle Ireland was involved in the very lucrative trade of sheep farming. There was a growing market for hides, meat and wool in continental Europe and by the mid 16th Century Kilmaine, politically and economically was the most important barony in the county. In 1574 there were 41 castles in an area of just 10 miles long by eight broad, by far the highest concentration of castles in Connacht, an indication that agriculture was on an industrial scale. The producers were the owners or tenants of the estates who would have enjoyed the protection of the upper and lower Mac William and in turn the Mac Williams would profit from the duty imposed which would probably directly affect the commodity market price in Galway. Keeping the lines of communication open was essential hence the need for a line of Castles protecting the trade route from Lough Corrib to Galway. Apart from this liberal studding of castles in Kilmaine another possible indication of the profitability and importance of this trade was the presence of a large mercenary army loyal to the Mac Williams.
“In the division of Connacht 1570-1574 one Walter Mac Remon is listed as being resident of Turin Castle Ireland.The Mac Remons was a cadet branch of the clann Seonin who were one of the chief de Burgo clans of Ireland.
“Following the death of the Mac William Sir Richard Bourke, in September of 1586. The de Burgo clans and the Mac Donnells along with the O’Malleys and the Joys(Joyces) rose up against the English oppressors in an attempt to reinstate the Mac Williamship and other lordships which the English had abolished. One of the signatories to a document presented to the council of Connaught was Walter Mac Jonyn ( Seonin) of Towrin (Turin). This document attested that the principle reason for the rebellion was the abolition of the Mac Williamship and other titles.
“In 1589 the de Burgo clans along with the O’ Flaherties,Joys and Clandonnel rose up against the English forces and plundered the baronies of Clare,Kilmaine and Clanmorris.
“Sir Murrough O’Flaherty [(1540-1626)I believe he was a son of Grace O’Malley and Donal O’Flaherty] stayed with a few men at Keltyprichnane in Kilmaine and sent the rest under his son Teige to plunder the baronies of Clare and Dunmore where they burned 16 towns and gathered 3000 head of cattle and horses. The” rebel forces” gathered at the Carre in Kilmainham and engaged the English. Edward Bermingham of MilltownCastle and former Sherrif of Mayo joined the battle after being attacked by Teig O’ Flaherty. He described the battle in a letter written from Athlone on the 31st March:-
“The soldiers not neglecting their time went against them; there was a volley of shot on both sides.They came to the push of the pike with great courage, when the said Teig O’ Flaherty was slain with eight of his company. They were then disordered and I with six horsemen of mine and eight footmen, being beside our battle as a wing ready to charge upon the breach, did charge,
When I struck their Guidion (standard bearer) under his morion (helmet) with my staff and ran him through in the face of battle. I followed another and had him down, and so did my horseman Kill 5 more at that charge. We had not six score of ground to deal with them when they recovered a main bog. Three of my horsemen and eight footmen did kill of them in the bog 16.
Her majesties attorney in that province (Mr Comerford)understanding of their disordering, issued forth when he met of them and did slay 16.Divers others in the fight did kill of them, so that I account there is slain of them 80 and upwards. The attorney and I brought the head of Teige O’Flaherty to Sir Richard yester night that was wonderful glad, for this Teige was the stoutest man in the province and could do most.”
“According to a letter written by Comerford at Turin Castle Ireland dated 29th March Comerford rode two miles to the battle field and sallied forth on the fugitives with six shot, seven footmen and four horsemen killing 24.
“Following the subjugation and pacification of the Gaelic lords and subsequent plantation of Mayo. Many of the Castles were abandoned by their new English owners preferring the comfort of Manor houses. In some cases, incorporating the existing building or cannibalising materials from it. From records we know that Turin Castle Ireland had been abandoned for at least two hundred and fifty years up until its restoration in 1997.“
11. Westbrook Country House, Castlebar, County Mayo – boutique country house holiday rental
“A New Boutique Georgian Country House, Westbrook epitomises elegance & splendour. Located between the tourist meccas’ Westport & Castlebar, Westbrook Country House is the ideal base from which to explore the stunning West of Ireland Wild Atlantic Way, cycle the Greenway, sail on Clew Bay, climb Croagh Patrick, visit Knock Shrine or the National Museum of Country Life, or catch a show in the Castlebar Theatre Royal.
“As restful or as adventurous as you prefer your break to be, Westbrook Country House is the perfect place to base yourself; with world-class home cooked breakfasts, and stylish, spacious, immaculate five star hotel-grade guest rooms & suites complimented by a relaxed, friendly family atmosphere.
“Curl up on a leather armchair in front of a roaring fire with a first edition or your favourite novel in our library, climb in under crisp white linen sheets on one of our sumptuous beds or sink into a bubbling Jacuzzi bath with your favourite music & a lovely glass of Sauvingon Blanc, our vibe is opulent and fabulous but down to earth, and homely. We pride ourselves on guest consideration that is second to none.
“Arrive as a Guest, leave as a friend. We look forward to welcoming you to Westbrook.”
[3] Bence-Jones, Mark. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
Irish Historic Houses 
