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Marlay Park, Rathfarnham, County Dublin – owned by Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council.
https://www.dlrcoco.ie/en/heritage/heritage
Online tour https://www.dlrcoco.ie/heritage/heritage
Marlay House is owned by Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council. It has been restored for guided tours and the former stables have been converted into a crafts courtyard. The house had been declared unsound in 1977 and the council considered demolition. Insteahd, thank goodness, renovation began in 1992, much of the repairs done by people on an employment training scheme. The Council runs tours of the house during the Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown Heritage festival, which partially coincides with Heritage Week. Stephen and I went on the tour in 2025.
Marlay House was built for David La Touche (1729-1817), adding to an earlier 17th century house called the Grange. David La Touche bought the Grange in 1764. This Grange house is not to be confused with a house called Marlay Grange, mentioned by Mark Bence-Jones in his Guide to Irish Country Houses, and on the excellent website of Timothy William Ferres, Lord Belmont in Northern Ireland, which was built around 1850 and belonged to the Rowleys. [1]
The lands of Marlay Park belonged to the Cistercian Abbey of St. Mary, located in the city of Dublin – see my entry: https://irishhistorichouses.com/2022/11/09/the-church-junction-of-marys-street-jervis-street-dublin/ . After the dissolution of the monasteries by King Henry VIII, the land was granted to Barnaby Fitzpatrick (c.1478–1575) 1st Baron of Upper Ossory. Barnaby’s fourth wife was Margaret, daughter of Piers Butler, 8th Earl of Ormond. His son Barnaby who became 2nd Baron was raised at the English court with King Henry VIII’s son Edward.
Because the lands lay within the southern boundary of the pale, the holding became known as “Grange of the March”, meaning “Farmhouse of the Border.” The property later passed into the possession of the Harold family who were responsible for the defence of this section of the Pale from the attacks of the Irish clans. [2] They were known as “marcher lords” or “wild” border guardians, descendants of Vikings. The area of Harold’s Cross is named after them, specifically from a cross erected to mark the boundary between the lands of the Archbishop of Dublin and the lands of the Harold family, warning them not to encroach further toward the city. [3] The Harolds were dispossessed in after the 1641 Rebellion.
Grange, which was also known as Harold’s Grange, was owned previously by Thomas Taylor (1707-1763), Mark Bence-Jones tells us. [4] Taylor was Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1750. He inherited Grange from his father, also Thomas, who was an eminent agriculturalist, who died in 1727 and is buried in Kilgobbin graveyard. In the Taylors’ time the house was built, and also ornamental grounds and a deer park. Some of the house may have been demolished later when David La Touche was building the new part of the house.
Thomas Taylor (1707-1763) married, first, in 1733, Sarah, whose father John Falkiner held the office of High Sheriff of County Dublin in 1721 (Burke’s Peerage 2003 volume 1, page 1380). In 1747 Thomas married for a second time, this time to Anne (1725-1820), daughter of Michael Beresford, who in turn was the son of Tristram Beresford, 1st Baronet of Coleraine in County Derry.
After Thomas the son died in 1763, Grange was acquired by David La Touche.
The La Touche family was a Huguenot family. Huguenots were French Protestants, and they fled from France due to the punishment and killing of Protestants after Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes – the Edict of Nantes had promoted religious toleration.
David Digues La Touche (1675-1745), born in the Loire Valley, fled from France after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He fled to Holland, where his uncle obtained for him a commission in the army of William of Orange. He fought in the Battle of the Boyne in the regiment under General Caillemotte. [5] He left the army in Galway, where he was billeted on a weaver who sent him to Dublin to buy wool yarn (worsteds). He decided then to stay in Dublin, and with another Huguenot, he set up as a manufacturer of cambric and rich silk poplin. Where I live in Dublin is an area where many Huguenots lived and weaved – we are near “Weaver Square,” and our area is called “The Tenters” because cloth waas hung out to dry and bleach in the sun and looked like tents, hung on “tenterhooks”!
La Touche was an elder of the French Church group in Dublin, many of whom used to meet in what is now the Lady Chapel of St Patrick’s Cathedral. [6]
The La Touches began banking when Huguenots left their money and valuables with David for safekeeping when they would travel out of the capital. He began to advance loans, and so the La Touche bank began. He had two sons, David La Touche (1703-1785) and James Digues (later corrupted to Digges) La Touche.
David La Touche purchased properties which passed to his sons: Marlay House to David (1729-1817), Harristown in County Kildare to John (1732-1805) [see my write-up https://irishhistorichouses.com/2020/09/27/harristown-brannockstown-county-kildare/ ], and Bellevue, County Wicklow, to Peter (1733-1828). Bellevue has since been demolished, in the 1950s [7].
At the time of his death in 1785, La Touche’s rental income was £25,000 and the La Touche bank’s profit was £25,000-£30,000. His three sons who survived him, David (also the first Governor of the Bank of Ireland), John and Peter were partners in the Bank. Later, they took in their cousin William Digges La Touche as a Partner, following his distinguished service as Britain’s representative in Basra in the Persian Gulf. David and his brothers had a vast monument erected to their father in Christ Church, Delgany, where their father had died in his favourite country home, Bellevue. [see 6]
David La Touche (1729-1817) commissioned the building of the extension of Grange, and he named his new house “Marlay” after his wife’s family. He married Elizabeth Marlay in 1762, just before he purchased the property. Her father was Bishop George Marlay of Dromore in County Down.
I don’t know what architect designed the enlargement of the original Taylor house at Marlay for David La Touche. Turtle Bunbury claims that the enlargement was by Whitmore Davis. Whitmore Davis joined the Dublin Society’s School of Drawing in Architecture in 1770. A date stone in the house tells us that the first stone of the house was laid by William La Touche in 1794.
David and his family would have spent much of their time in their townhouse in Dublin. Marlay House was their weekend retreat and place for entertainment. I’m not sure when the family purchased 85 St. Stephen’s Green, now part of the Museum of Literature of Ireland (MOLI), but by 1820 George La Touche was resident. George was the unmarried son of David La Touche (1729-1817). [see 6] David La Touche (1703-1785) developed much of the area around St. Stephen’s Green, Aungier Street and the Liberties. In 1812, Peter La Touche bought 9 St. Stephen’s Green, now a Private Members Club.
The La Touche family purchased Harristown in County Kildare in 1768 and hired Whitmore Davis to design the house.
Whitmore Davis also designed the building for the Bank of Ireland at St. Mary’s Abbey in Dublin around 1786-1791. The La Touches were involved with the establishment of this bank in 1783. David La Touche was a major investor.
Peter La Touche hired Whitmore Davis in 1789 to build a church in Delgany, County Wicklow, and John La Touche hired him to design the Orphan House on North Circular Road in Dublin in 1792.
The La Touche crest features a pomegranate symbol, for fertility. We see the crest on the urn which tops Marlay House over the front door. The same crest decorates over the front windows in Harristown. The star shaped symbol might be the shape of the pomegranate flower. This shape features on the front pillar gates of Harristown House also. The same crest was added to the stairwell in 85 St. Stephen’s Green.
Marlay House is two storeys over a basement. It has a seven bay front with a central door framed by what Mark Bence-Jones calls a frontispiece of coupled engaged Doric columns. The frontispiece has an entablature enriched with medallions and swags, and urns on the top at either end. The window above is also framed with an entablature on console brackets.
The large central urn located on the roof parapet is on a plinth carved with swags, and there are smaller urns dotted around the roof.
There is a bow at the side of the house and another at the back. The kitchen and staff areas were in the Grange part of the house. We were lucky to tour the Grange as well, to see the large kitchen, which has a galley level, where the lady of the house would instruct the cook what to prepare, remaining well away from the servants.
Unfortunately one is not allowed photography inside the house, but there are a few photographs on the County Council website. The house includes an elegant entrance hall, ballroom, and unusual oval music room, with decorative plasterwork by Michael Stapleton.
The Hall has a screen of Corinthian columns and frieze of tripods and winged sphinxes. Our guide pointed out that it is a large front hall for the size of the house. This is because it was built to impress visitors. It is not perfectly symmetrical, but has a dummy door to improve the symmetry.
The smaller Dining Room, off the front hall, also has a dummy door. It has a good frieze and cornice, and is the smaller dining room used for family dining. The house retains nearly all of the original chimneypieces. Our guide pointed out that one can surmise the age of the chimneypiece from the width of the mantlepiece. The Georgian mantlepieces were narrow, made to hold a mirror, which was tilted slightly upward to reflect light, and also to reflect a decorative ceiling. Later mantlepieces were made wider in the Victorian age when people liked to display objects.
There isn’t a feature staircase. There are two staircases, which are more functional than showy. There’s a servant staircase beside the small dining room.
The larger dining room could also act as a ballroom. It has beautiful delicate plasterwork mostly likely to have been made by Michael Stapleton, with a gorgeous ceiling and a decorative niche for a sideboard.
The walls have plaster swags and painted medallions.
There is a portrait of David La Touche in military outfit, and of his father in a soft turban-style hat.
A “jib” door leads to a corridor to the oval room. This room has a portrait of George Marlay, Bishop of Dromore. Musical instruments in the plaster ceiling show that this was a music room. The windows are curved as well as the walls.
There is also a fine plasterwork ceiling in the oval room. Unfortunately the photographs do not show the ceiling.
There is a small vaulted vestibule off the oval room, which has more decorative plasterwork. Othere rooms include a library and another bow room with a decorative ceiling, which has drawings by the La Touche children. One of the library’s walls is dedicated to work by Evie Hone, since she spent time living and working in the courtyard.
In 1781 on a visit, Austin Cooper mentions the house as well as ponds with islands, rustic bridges, waterfalls, gardens with hothouses and greenhouses, an aviary and a menagerie. [8] The grounds were landscaped by Thomas Leggett (fl. 1770s-1810s) and Hely Dutton (fl. 1800s-1820s). [9]
The house once again has an aviary!
A website about the La Touche family tells us that David (1729-1817) was an investor in the Grand Canal Company, and in 1800 he was its Treasurer. He and his brothers were founding members of the Kildare Street Club in the 1780s. They were also Freemasons. The La Touches were generous and supported most of the large charitable and cultural organisations of the time. [10] David developed an interest in farming and developed a model farm at Marlay.
David La Touche had many children, who married very well. Their daughter Elizabeth (1764-1788) married Robert Henry Butler 3rd Earl of Lanesborough and became the Countess of Lanesborough.
Daughter Emily (1767-1854) married Colonel George Vesey, and they lived in Lucan House (see my entry https://irishhistorichouses.com/2025/12/20/lucan-house-lucan-county-dublin/ ). Her husband’s father Agmondisham Vesey (1708–85) was, interestingly, a member of the house of commons for Harristown, Co. Kildare, 1740–60. He was an amateur architect and designed his residence, Lucan House, built in 1772, with the help of William Chambers, and consulted with James Wyatt (1746-1813) of London and Michael Stapleton for the interiors of the house. There are several similarities between Marlay House and Lucan House, including the bows, and the work by Michael Stapleton. Lucan also has a screen of Corinthian pillars in the front hall, and an oval room.
Daughter Harriet (d. 1841) married Nicholas Colthurst, 3rd Baronet of Ardum, Co. Cork. Another daughter, Anne (d. 1798) married George Jeffereyes (1768-1841) of Blarney Castle (see my entry https://irishhistorichouses.com/2022/09/23/blarney-castle-rock-close-blarney-co-cork/ ). Daughter Maria (d. 1829) married Maurice Fitzgerald, 18th Knight of Kerry, of Glin Castle in County Limerick. David and Elizabeth née Marlay’s sons were David (1769-1816), John David (1772-1838), George (1770-1824), Peter (1777-1830), Robert, who didn’t marry, and William, who is probably the one who lay the foundation stone of the house, who died young.
David La Touche (1769-1816) married Cecilia , daughter of Joseph Leeson, 1st Earl of Milltown, of Russborough House. The Dictionary of Irish Biography tells us that David served as MP for the borough of Newcastle (1790–97, 1798–1800) and MP for Co. Carlow (1802–16) in the UK parliament.
John David (1772-1838) married Anne Caroline, daughter of Charles Tottenham of New Ross, County Wexford.
Peter (1777-1830) married Charlotte, daughter of Cornwallis Maude 1st Viscount Hawarden. Peter inherited the estate at Bellevue owned by his uncle Peter La Touche.
The family enjoyed theatricals, and the Masque of Comus was performed in 1778 with an epilogue by Henry Grattan, a cousin of Mrs. La Touche. [see 8] The house had its own theatre.
The walled garden in Marlay was built around 1794.
John David La Touche was the next to live in Marlay. He was succeeded by his son David Charles La Touche (1800-1872). He died without marrying, so his brother, Charles John Digges La Touche (1811-1884), succeeded him. The La Touche legacy website tells us that Charles had been at Oxford and knew Newman (later a Cardinal). In 1844, Charles caused consternation among the wider family by becoming a Roman Catholic and moving to Tours in France. Charles had a son, John David (1861-1935), who worked in China in the Imperial Chinese Customs Service, and on his retirement, he returned to Ireland in 1925 and bought a fine residence at Kiltimon, Co. Wicklow. [see 10]
In 1871 the La Touche bank was acquired by Munster Bank.
The La Touches sold the property to Robert Tedcastle around 1850. The Tedcastle family owned a fleet of cargo ships, one of which they named “Marlay”. The “Marlay” was used to carry freight, such as coal, and passengers between Dublin and Liverpool. Tedcastle was a devout Christian and he led a quiet life so the house was no longer a place for parties. His grandchildren came to live with him. One of his grandsons wrote a memoir which discusses growing up in the house. When Robert Tedcastle died, the house went to a distant cousin, but lay empty.
The Tedcastle family lived at Marley until 1925, when Robert Ketton Love bought the house. He lived there until his death in 1939. Robert and his wife Maud bought the property to build a dairy to make icecream, but nearby a rival firm set up so the business didn’t succeed. They then established a market garden at the property. When Robert died in 1939, his son Philip inherited the estate and market garden. He was the largest tomato producer in Ireland, I believe, and also bred racehorses. He died in August 1970 and in 1972 it was bought by Dublin County Council.
2025 Diary of Irish Historic Houses (section 482 properties)
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[1] http://lordbelmontinnorthernireland.blogspot.com/2012/05/marlay-grange.html
[2] http://marleygrange.ie/history-of-marley-grange/
[3] https://www.hxparish.ie/history
[4] 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. 202. “(La Touche/IFR) The original early C18 house here, known as the Grange and built by Thomas Taylor, was sold ca 1760 to the banker, David La Touche, MP, afterwards 1st Governor of the Bank of Ireland, who renamed it Marlay, having married a daughter of Rt. Rev George Marlay, bishop of Dromore; and who rebuilt the house later in C18. Of two storeys over a basement. Seven bay front, central window-door framed by frontispiece of coupled engaged Doric columns, entablature enriched with medallions and swags, and urns; window above it with entablature on console brackets; large central urn on plinth carved with swags in centre of roof parapet; smaller urns on either side. Side elevation of 2 bays on either side of a curved bow. Delicate interior plasterwork, said to be by Michael Stapleton. Hall with screen of Corinthian columns and frieze of tripods and winged sphinxes. Fine plasterwork ceilings in dining room and oval room, that in the dining room incorporating a painted medallion; husk ornamentation on dining room walls. Sold ca 1867 to one of the Tedcastle famliy, of the well-known firm of coal merchants. From ca 1925 to 1974 the home of the Love family; for a period, the stained glass artist, Evie Hone, occupied a house in the stable court. Now owned by the local authority and empty, used by Radio-Telefis Eireann as Kilmore House in their recent feature.”
[5] Young, M.F. “The La Touche Family of Harristown,” Journal of the Kildare Archaological Society, volume 7. 1891. https://archive.org/details/journalofcountyk07coun/page/36/mode/2up
[7] p. 129. Bunbury, Turtle and Art Kavanagh, The Landed Gentry & Aristocracy of County Kildare. Published by Irish Family Names, 11 Emerald Cottages, Grand Canal St., Dublin 4 and Market Square, Bunclody, Co. Wexford, Ireland, 2004.
[8] p. 61-62, Ball, Francis Elrington, A History of the County Dublin: the people, parishes and antiquities from the earliest times to the close of the eighteenth century. Volume III. Alex. Thom, 1902-20.
On Thomas Taylor’s grave in Kilgobbin, it says “Here lieth the body of Thomas Taylor of Harold’s Grange who departed this life the 22nd November 1727. Underneath lie the remains of Samuel Taylor Esq. who departed this life 22nd April 1881 aged 79 years and six months leaving only one daughter who married to the Rev. Dr. Vesey of the City of Dublin. Mrs. Anna Taylor who departed this life Feb 22nd 1821 aged 66 years daughter of John Eastwood Esq. of Castletown, County Louth, wife of Mathew Beresford Taylor Esq who died 8th March 1828 aged 74 years. Mrs. Isabella Taylor who departed this life 1st March 1830, daughter to Sir Barry Collies Meredyth Bart wife of John Keatinge Taylor Esq. aged 36 years Captain 8th Hussars who died 3rd March 1836 aged 52 years. His widow Mary daughter of William Poole of Ballyroan Esq died 28th January 1892. Isabella their eldest child died 1834 aged two years.”
[10] http://latouchelegacy.com/the-marlay-rathfarnham-family/
Irish Historic Houses 