Laurentinium, Doneraile, Co Cork
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. 182. “(Creagh/IFR: Morrogh-Bernard/IFR; MacCarthy-Morrogh/IFR) A Georgian house of two storeys (originally three) over a high basement. Six bay front with pilastered porch. Eaved roof.”
The Buildings of Ireland. Cork City and County. Frank Keohane. Yale University Press: New Haven and London. 2020.
p. 27. Of mid-C18 Palladian interiors, good representative examples with panelled dados, lugged architraves, fielded panelling and chunky cornices are found at Coole Abbey House, Assolas, Cloghroe, Kilshannig, and Blackrock House. Curiously, the heavy Palladian lugged architrave remained in use in the county long after it fell out of fashion elsewhere. At Lisnabrin, Dunkathel, Burton, Rockforest and Muckridge, the form is encountered in late C18 Neoclassical interiors, suggesting an innate conservatism among local joiners. The finest joinery in most houses is reserved for the staircase, and in many cases these have survived. The best early C18 staircases, at the Red House and Annes Grove, have alternating barley-twist and columnar balusters, big Corinthian newel posts, ramped handrails and carved tread-end brackets. Mount Alvernia (Mallow), Carrigrohane and Cloghroe all have good mid-C18 staircases of a similar type; that at Lota is exceptional in its use of mahogany and for its imperial plan. Good Neoclassical staircases, geometrical in form with delicate ironwork balustrades, survive at Maryborough, Newmarket Court and Castle Hyde; the destruction of those at Vernon Mount is a particularly sad loss.
The best early plasterwork is that of the Swiss-Italian brothers Paolo and Filippo Lafranchini at Riverstown, where highly sculptural late Baroque figurative ornament is applied to the walls and ceilings of the Saloon… Filippo alone decorated two rooms at Kilshannig, blending late Baroque figures with lighter acanthus arabesques and putti. Rococo plasterwork featuring scrolling acanthus and birds comparable to the Dublin school of the 1760s is encountered in the Saloon at Castlemartyr, and at Maryborough. At Laurentium (Doneraile) and the Old College (Youghal), it is rather more hesitant. For the most part, stucco workers remain anonymous, so it is a happy circumstance that Patrick Osborne’s accomplished work at the former Mansion House at Cork is recorded. He also probably worked at Lota, as well as at Castle Hyde. Good Neoclassical plasterwork in low relief and employing small-scale classical motifs of the type made fashionable by Robert Adam and James Wyatt is found at Maryborough, at Old Court House (Rochestown), and at the Old College and Loreto College at Youghal.
https://www.igs.ie/conservation/project/laurentinum-house
Set within a mature park landscape with entrance gates and a gate lodge to the north, Laurentinum House was constructed circa 1745. Originally a three-storey structure, the top floor was removed around 1850 and the porch was also added around this time. For many years prior to the dawn of the twenty-first century the house lay unoccupied and fell into disrepair. Marred by a leaking roof, damaged ceilings and floors among other problems, the current owners sought to completely restore the property and applied to the Irish Georgian Society in 2003 for a grant to assist in these conservation works. Between 2003-2007 the Irish Georgian Society awarded over €10,150 toward the works at Laurentinum House.
Brief description of project: Over €9,000 was given in 2003-2004 for the restoration of the timber sash windows. This included installing new sash cords, staff beads, and parting beads and other pane and timber repairs, as well as authentic replacements when absolutely necessary. In 2005 a further €1,150 was granted for the recreation of the front door which was badly damaged by water ingress and rot. In conjunction with other bodies which financially contributed to the roof restoration and reinstatement of the interior platerwork, the Irish Georgian Society grants significantly helped in the restoration of this mid-eighteenth century home.
Architectural description: Laurentinum house is an L-plan house of six bays and two storeys over a half-basement. It has a hipped slate roof with rendered and block lined walls at the front and side elevations. To the front at basement level, the walls are channelled ashlar with a cut limestone string course between it and the ground floor. The entrance is market by a flat-roof porch with flanking pilasters, a moulded cornice, a stepped parapet, and a square-headed door opening with sidelights. The inner, timber door is double-leaf and is bordered by fluted Ionic pilasters. Timber sash windows of nine-over-six configuration are to ground floor with six-over-six sash windows to all other floors. A round-headed twelve-over-eight window with a fanlight at half-landing is to the rear elevation. A rendered, rubble stone, three-bay, one-storey lodge is situation to the rear of the house.
NIAH Listing:
https://www.buildingsofireland.ie…
Detached L-plan six-bay two-storey house over half-basement, built c. 1745, facing south-east. Former second floor removed and house re-roofed c. 1850, having projecting porch to front, one-bay deep addition to three-fifths of rear under catslide roof, and single-bay three-storey flat-roof addition to south-west elevation. Hipped slate roof with oversailing eaves, rendered chimneystacks and cast-iron rainwater goods. Rendered rubble limestone walls, painted lined and ruled to front and side elevations and limewashed to rear. Front elevation has channelled ashlar to basement, cut limestone quoins and cut limestone string course between basement and ground floor. Flat-roof porch has tripartite front elevation, with render pilasters flanking openings, moulded cornice, stepped parapet with panels, square-headed door opening with flanking sidelights having cut limestone sills, approached by flight of limestone steps. Square-headed inner door is glazed timber and double-leaf, flanked by fluted Ionic-style pilasters with limestone plinths, in turn flanked by walling with panelling having moudled surrounds. Square-headed window openings, some blind to south-west elevation, with limestone sills and having timber sliding sash windows, recently repaired to front, nine-over-six pane to ground floor, and six-over-six pane to first floor, basement and to rear elevation. Round-headed twleve-over-eight pane stairs window to rear elevation with fanlight. Some brick voussoirs evident to rear elevation. One-over-one pane to south-west addition. Farmyard to rear. Three-bay single-storey lodge set at junction of farmyard lane and main avenue, now disused, having pitched slate roof with projecting eaves and rendered brick chimneystack, exposed and rendered rubble stone walls, and having square-headed timber casement window and timber battened door to front, and rounded-headed window and door openings to rear with limestone voussoirs, doorway now blocked. Double-leaf wrought-iron gates adjacent to lodge. Set in mature parkland landscape. Entrance gates and lodge to north.
Appraisal
This distinguished classically-proportioned eighteenth-century house was built by Michael and Catherine Creagh and modified in the nineteenth century by reducing its height and giving it a nineteenth-century appearance with projecting eaves and a low hipped roof. The building retains much of its fabric, such as the varied timber sash windows and the fine portico and inner doorway. The house is set in a mature parkland setting and retains a disused lodge along the avenue.
Irish Historic Houses 