Lismullen, Tara, Co Meath

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.

“(Dillon, Bt/PB) A three storey give bay early to mid-C18 house. Good quoins; wall carried up to form roof parapet; buttresses on façade. Side elevation of two bays and then three bays set slightly back, prolonged by a two storey office wing. Burnt 1923, afterwards rebuilt without the top storey.”

Not in National Inventory

Record of protected structures:

Lismullen House, townland: Lismullen, town” Tara-Skyrne

Mid 18th C, burned in 1923, rebuilt without top storey.

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.

p. 113. (18C house), Skreen: A three storey early 18C house much altered. The top storey may be a later addition. Burnt in 1922. Demolished.

http://meathhistoryhub.ie/houses-k-p/

A suggested date for the construction of the house is 1720 –1740 when there was an optimistic period after the Boyne. Lismullen is a typical gentleman’s residence, nothing unique about its design, sited to maximise the use of local scenery. At the turn of the twentieth century the mansion had twenty one rooms and thirty four outoffices. The house had an entrance hall, study, dining room, drawing room, back hall, principal staircase, butler’s pantry, two lavatories and bathrooms, eleven bedrooms, dressing rooms and strong room. The house was decorated with many paintings including a Gainsborough, a Reynolds and portraits of family members and family connections. A door from the main house led into a kitchen, with a scullery and larder. The out offices included a larder, dairy, tiled laundry, apple loft, storerooms and stables. There were three coach houses and a motor house. These out offices were entered through an archway from the back avenue. At the back of these buildings was a large farmyard, hay barn, walled in garden, pleasure ground, conservatory and tennis court. 

The Dillons were a prominent family of the Pale. Lodge’s Peerage states that the Dillons of Lismullen were descendants of Thomas, the third son of Sir Robert of Riverstown. William Mallone, Irish papist, was in possession of Lismullen in 1640 but during the Cromwellian confiscation the entire parish of Lismullen and 172 acres at Clonarden in the neighbouring parish of Templekeran parish were allocated to Arthur Dillon.  Arthur’s son, John, added further lands to the estate in the Williamite confiscations. Sir John Dillon’s close connection to Ormond may have resulted in William of Orange spending a night at Lismullen after the Battle of the Boyne. A number of personal items were said to have been given to the Dillons by William of Orange in 1690, two days after the Battle of the Boyne. The items included a glass decanter, a glass posset bowl, a bed-coverlet and two pairs of gauntlets. 

John was succeeded by his grandson, John Talbot Dillon who as Member of Parliament for Wicklow introduced a successful bill for some relief of Catholics from the penal laws in 1782. For this support of the Catholic cause Sir John Dillon was created a baron of the Holy Roman Empire by Emperor Joseph II of Austria. On 22 February 1783 John Dillon received Royal License to use the title and was created baronet by George III on 31 July 1801. Sir John Dillon, his son, Charles and Nathaniel Preston formed a company to exploit a vein of copper ore on the Walterstown lands of Nathaniel Preston. There appear to have been two Sir John Talbot Dillons living at approximately the same period in the nineteenth century and the lives of both having some common events are often confused by writers. 

Sir John Talbot Dillon had six sons and three daughters. His eldest son died before his father. His three remaining older sons, Charles Drake, Arthur Richard and William, held the title of baronet in succession following his death. In March 1847 the stables of Sir William Dillon of Lismullen were rented as extra accommodation for paupers by the Dunshaughlin Board of Guardians as the work house at Dunshaughlin was at full capacity. 

The fifth son, Rev. Ralph Dillon, left a son, John, who succeeded on the death of his cousin, in 1852. This John was the father of Sir John Fox Dillon. 

Sir John Fox Dillon married Marion Louisa Dykes and the couple had only one child, a daughter, Millicent, born in 1895. Sir John enjoyed hunting and was a member of the Meath Hunt and the Norfolk Hunt. Sir John was a candidate in the first Meath County Council elections, running in Tara district. He received twenty-seven votes but failed to get elected. The 1898 Act stipulated that  three seats on the new council were reserved for outgoing members of the Grand Jury and Sir John Dillon was one of the three selected. Sir John had donated a site for a new church at Lismullen and contributed a large amount to the construction costs.  

Sir John remained as churchwarden until his death in 1925. Lady Dillon commissioned a window from Harry Clarke in February 1929 as a memorial to her husband for the new church at Lismullen. The window The Ascension was installed above the altar in March 1930. Lismullen church was demolished in 1964 as a result of declining attendance. The Clarke window was removed to storage in Trim and sold by the church authorities in the 1990s. 

 Sir John grew tobacco to support Sir Nugent Everard in his efforts to introduce the industry on a commercial basis in Meath at the turn of the century. He also supported Everard’s experimentation with the growing of hemp to provide the raw material for cordage and as shelter for the tobacco crop. Sir John invented a machine to scotch the hemp and proposed that the 10,000 tons of hemp imported annually from Russia and Poland be produced in Ireland. In 1918 Sir John Dillon disposed of 1,693 acres of his estate at Lismullen under the Land Acts. 

In early 1923 a renewed outbreak of violence occurred in the area surrounding Lismullen. Despite his military experience Sir John was not prepared for the arrival of the arsonists. On 5 April 1923 a group of men stole a trap at Knockmark, drove to Dunsany Stores and took petrol which they took to Lismullen. Later that night a large party of men gained entrance to Lismullen house and set the place alight. When the house was destroyed by fire very few items were saved. Sir John found time to send a note to Killeen to warn the Fingalls that the arsonists had said that Killeen was next. The motive for the burning is not clear with various reasons being put forward at the time. 

In 1923 he and his family left Ireland behind to purchase a property, Longworth Hall,  in England. Under the Damage to Property (Compensation) Act of 1923 Sir John Dillon received £10,942 to rebuild his house. The new ‘modern residence’ at Lismullen was built on the foundations of the destroyed house which was ‘of a very old fashioned and inconvenient type’. The replacement house was as undistinguished as its predecessor being described by one observer as ‘a modern tasteless building’ in 1942. Sir John Dillon died suddenly on 1 November 1925, at his residence, Longworth Hall, at the age of 82. 

Since Sir John had no son a distant cousin, Robert William Charlier Dillon, was the heir. Robert’s father died 6 October 1925, just a month before Sir John’s death so Sir Robert inherited the estate at eleven years of age. 

The Dillon lands at Lismullen were compulsory purchased by the Land Commission in 1963. 

The house and garden were sold on for charitable and social purposes and became a residential conference centre and a hospitality training centre. It is owned by the Lismullin Educational Foundation, an educational charity, which in 2000 completed a major development of the site and facilities. These are inspired by the spirit of the Prelature of Opus Dei and reflect a Christian outlook on life and culture. 

Letters from Georgian Ireland: The Correspondence of Mary Delany 1731-68. 

Ed. Angelique Day, foreward by Sybil Connolly. The Friar’s Bush Press, Belfast, UK, 1991. 

p. 129. En route from Dublin, end of Aug 1732: 

“Dined at Lismullen; Mr Dillon’s house made mighty neat; a vast deal of wood and wild gardens about it. Walked to see the ruins of the old Abby near them – a vast building enclosed with large trees, great subterraneous buildings, with arches of cut stone, which make no other appearance above the earth but as little green hillock, like mole-hills. The arches seem to have been openings to little cells, rather than continued passages to any place; they are very low – whether it be that they are sunk into the ground, or always were so, I can’t judge, but they are formed of very fine cut stone. The Abbey is in the prettiest spot about the house: ‘til surrounded with tall trees, and a little clear rivulet winds about it. The road from Lismullen to Naver [Navan] very pleasant; passed by Arsalah [Ardsallagh] which lies upon the Boyn [Boyne]. The house seems a very antique edifice, it has fine gardens, but the trees and meadows that lie by the river are extremely beautiful; their domains reach all along the river, and half the way to Navan. Navan stands just where the Boyne and Blackwater meet, high over the river. I walked over the bridge by moonlight, along a walk of tall elms which leads to a ruined house they call the Black Castle, from a vulgar tradition of it beign haunted; it lies over the Blackwater, has a vast number of trees about it, and seems to have been pretty. The [p. 130] “spirit” it was visited by was extravagance; it belonged to two young men, who in a few years ruined themselves,and let the seat go to destruction, and ever since they give out it is haunted, it is now another person’s property, and going to be repaired. 

The 25^th, left Navan, and travelled through bad roads and a dull uninhabited country, till we came to Cabaragh, Mr Prat’s house, an old castle modernized, and made very pretty; the master of it is a virtuoso, and discovers whim in all his improvements [she may have been referring to the delightful villa designed by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce which preceeded the monumental nineteenth century castle on an adjacent site]. The house stands on the side of a high hill, has some tall old teres about it; the gardens are small but neat; there are two little terrace walks, and down in a hollow is a little commodious lodge where Mr Prat lived whilst his house was repairing. … 

The 26^th, left Mr Prat’s and travelled over the most mountainous coutry I ever was in; still as we passed over one hill, another showed itself. Alps peeped over Alps and “hills on hills” arose [the drumlin country of south Ulster]; the face of the country not pleasant till I came to Shercock [County Cavan], which is a handsome house, and stands over a fine lake, that has several woods and meadows on the sides of it. A vast deal of heath and ploughed land from that till I came within three miles of Coote Hill, then the scene changed most surprisingly, and the contrast is so strong that one imagines they are leaving a desert and coming into Paradise. 

The town of Coote Hill is like a pretty English village, well situated and all the land about it cultivated and enclosed with cut hedges and tall trees in rows. From the town one drives nearly a mile on a fine gravelled road, a cut hedge on each side, and rows of old oak and ash trees to Mr Coote’s house [Bellamont Forest]. ..”