Blackrock Castle, Cork, from the National Library of Ireland, flickr constant commons.
The Archiseek website tells us:
“Blackrock Castle lies on the shore of the river Lee, in the city of Cork, in County Cork in Ireland.
“The circular watchtower of Blackrock Castle was built in 1604, on the site of an earlier fort. With its 2.2 meter thick walls, it was designed to withstand cannon fire. It was built to defend the city against attacks from pirates and the Spanish, who had landed at Kinsale 3 years earlier. But it also served to protect the English Lord Deputy Mountjoy against the citizens of Cork, who had been slow to acknowledge King James I.
“Later Blackrock Castle was used by the Mayors of Cork for the Admiralty Court. Also known as the Maritime Court, it exercised jurisdiction over all maritime caes and offences.
“In 1827 the castle was gutted by fire following the annual Corporation banquet. Two years later, in 1829, it was rebuilt and enlarged in Gothic Revival style.
“Later it was used as a meeting place, a private residence, a restaurant and commercial offices before it was acquired by the Cork City Council in 2001. At present the castle houses an astronomy center/museum especially aimed at children.” [1]
Blackrock Castle, County Cork, photograph by Robert French, Lawrence Photographic Collection, National Library of Ireland.Blackrock Castle from Views in Ireland after Thomas Sautelle Roberts courtesy Adams Irish Old Masters 15 May 2025
1829 – Blackrock Castle, Co. Cork
Architect: James Pain
Blackrock Castle, County Cork, photograph courtesy Archiseek.Blackrock Castle, County Cork, photograph courtesy Archiseek.Blackrock Castle and the River Lee, County Cork 1796, photograph courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.
Blackrock Castle, County Cork, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
Detached castellated fortification, re-constructed 1829, having circular five-storey crenellated tower to the north-west on to the Lee River with two crenellated towers to south set in courtyard bounded by curtain wall with single- and two-storey buildings. Retaining elements of earlier phases of building. Restored and converted to use as an observatory with a new building constructed to the south-east, c.2005. Squared coursed limestone walling with cut limestone crenellations, capping stones and stringcourses. Double lancet windows in square-headed openings with hood mouldings to the second and third floors of the north side of the large tower having stone mullions and tracery. Smaller lancet and narrow square-headed window openings to the remainder of the buildings having small pane timber casements and some hood mouldings. Replacement sheeted timber door to depressed three-centred-arched opening and two glazed and timber doors in elliptical-arched openings, all leading on to courtyard. Pointed arch gateway to river set in gatehouse with cut limestone crenellated turrets to corners. Rubble limestone curtain wall with remnants of lime render to southern wall. Pedestrian gateway to east set in crenellated limestone surround. Crenellated gateway in south wall comprising Tudor-arched opening set in ashlar limestone crenellated wall flanked by ashlar limestone crenellated towers with timber gates. Pedestrian gateway to east. Set on south bank of river, overlooking the harbour.
Appraisal
This landmark building has undergone a number of reconstructions since the first tower was built on this site, c.1582. The present building mainly dates from 1828-29 when the building was rebuilt under the direction of James and George Richard Pain. The castle embodies a huge amount of architectural and social history gathered over five centuries during which time the building was used as a defence fortification to guard the river, a sentinel tower to guide shipping, a light house, a private residence, a restaurant and now an observatory. The limestone construction displays fine craftsmanship in its stonemasonry with different techniques and phases of development visible throughout the building.
Blackrock Castle, County Cork, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Blackrock Castle, County Cork, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Blackrock Castle, County Cork, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Blackrock Castle, County Cork, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Blackrock Castle, County Cork, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Blackrock Castle, County Cork, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Blackrock Castle, County Cork, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Blackrock Castle, County Cork, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
Blackrock Castle, County Cork, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Blackrock Castle, County Cork, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Blackrock Castle, County Cork, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
Freestanding ashlar entrance gateway, built c.1825. Central carriage arch comprises four-centred Tudor-style arch surmounted by crenellated parapet with square-profile ashlar crenellated turrets having single blind arrow loops supporting arch and flanking recent double-leaf timber gate. Four-centred Tudor-style arch to pedestrian entrance with segmental coping adjoining single store gatehouse to the east. Rubble stone wall surmounted by recent railings to the west. Commemorative plaque on western turret records the rebuilding of the castle in 1828.
Appraisal
The entrance to the castle is an early-nineteenth-century interpretation of a medieval castellated gateway. Executed in high quality stonework, the composition is balanced and the four-centred arch is an attractive centrepiece. It was probably designed by George Richard and James Pain, architects to the Admiralty Court of the City Corporation, who were responsible for the restoration work at the castle at the time.
Blackrock Castle, County Cork, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
Staggered single-bay single-storey former gate lodge, built 1828, to east of southern gateway into castle. Flat roof hidden by crenellated parapet. Rubble limestone walls with cut limestone string course and copings to crenellations. Square-headed openings with bipartite windows having one-over-one timber sliding sash windows. Recent glazed extension facing courtyard, now in use as café.
Appraisal
The castle, originally built in 1604 by Lord Deputy Mountjoy to protect the passage to the city along the river, was restored in 1828 to a design by George Richard and James Pain at the behest of the Admiralty Court of the City Corporation. It was used as a banqueting room and to hold court sessions. It is an important landmark in the defensive architecture of Cork Harbour. The restoration is a fine example of an early nineteenth century interpretation of a late medieval fortified watch tower enclosure. The craftsmanship of the ashlar parapets and entrance is reserved for these areas so as to reinforce the appearance of strength of the main walls.
Blackrock Castle, County Cork, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
‘About half-past two o’clock on Tuesday morning, Blackrock Castle was observed to be on fire, and in a few minutes presented a very imposing sight. The waters were illuminated, and the surrounding hills completely lit, presenting more the appearance of noon-day than of a dark night. Immediately after the cupola blazed with the greatest splendour, the heavy leads caught fire and sent to the river a liquid body of burning lead, the concussion between the red-hot lead and water sending forth a crash resembling the noise of artillery; the rain which fell about the time on the burning lead roof, yielding a noise like the fire of musketry. The whole presented a grand and awful sight, and continued burning with unabated fury for upwards of three hours. The roof has completely disappeared, and the timbers in the wall were burning this morning at seven o’clock. Fortunately, the inmates escaped unhurt. Had the wind been in another direction, the surrounding houses would probably have been destroyed. The fire is supposed to have been caused by a slate having broken the glass of the river light which is kept on Blackrock Castle for the use of ships, and the fire caught the roof.’ Dublin Morning Register, March 2nd 1827.
Blackrock Castle, County Cork, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Blackrock Castle, County Cork, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Blackrock Castle, County Cork, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Blackrock Castle, County Cork, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Located on a limestone outcrop in the river Lee to the immediate east of Cork city, Blackrock Castle was originally built in the early 1580s and maintained by the local burghers according to a contemporary document, ‘to resist pirates and other invasion’ (it should be remembered that as late as 1631, the coastal village of Baltimore, further to the west was sacked by pirates and more than 100 of its residents carried off into slavery in Algiers). The first castle was little more than a watch tower which also served to help guide ships into Cork harbour. However, in the early 17th century, Ireland’s Lord Deputy Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy caused the building to be enlarged and reinforced, with walls over seven feet thick and the main circular tower having a diameter of some 34 and a half feet. Returned by James I to the citizenry of Cork in 1608, this structure held artillery intended to repel any would-be invaders venturing up the river. In 1722, the castle was damaged by fire and, according to Charles Smith’s Ancient and Present State of the County and City of Cork (1750), the corporation spent £296 refurbishing the building, this work including the creation of ‘a very handsome octagon room, from whence is a delightful prospect of the harbour, from Passage to Cork.’ Here, according to Smith, ‘the mayors of Cork hold an admiralty court, being, by several charters, appointed admirals of the harbour.’ In addition, on the first day of August each year, the mayor and corporation held an ‘entertainment’ in the building, ‘at the charge of the city.’ Such remained the case until February 27th when a serious fire, as described above in the Dublin Morning Register, largely destroyed the old castle.
Blackrock Castle, County Cork, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Blackrock Castle, County Cork, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Blackrock Castle, County Cork, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Blackrock Castle, County Cork, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
In December 1827, Cork Corporation voted a sum of £800, and the Harbour Commissioners a further £200 towards the cost of rebuilding Blackrock Castle. The job was entrusted to architect siblings James and George Pain, both pupils of John Nash, who had each come to Ireland during the previous decade and established thriving practices. As designed by the Pains and completed within two years, Blackrock Castle looks like a medieval fortress, its dominant feature being a large circular tower to which is attached a much more slender and somewhat taller turret: the latter continued to have navigation lights on its roof to aid shipping. Around the tower, a series of battlemented walls enclose a courtyard, helping to confirm the image of a romantic gothic castle. Despite being described in the Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society in 1914 as ‘one of the prettiest and most striking objects to be seen on the river Lee’, the building thereafter suffered from neglect for much of the last century,. It was leased to a professor of botany in the 1930s and then sold in the 1960s to a group of local businessmen, after which it served as a bar, a restaurant, commercial offices and, for one period, as a private residence. In 2001 Blackrock Castle was bought back by Cork Corporation for IR£825,000 and a programme of restoration was undertaken. For almost 20 years, the building has housed an observatory run by Munster Technological University and laboratories staffed by astronomical researchers from the same institution. Although open to the public and hosting exhibitions, because the castle always served practical purposes, internally there is little of decorative interest, other than a fine limestone chimneypiece from the second quarter of the 17th century and originally in a since-demolished house called Ronayne’s Court. Better to rejoice in the handsome exterior, with the waters of the river Lee washing against a sequence of towers and turrets.
Blackrock Castle, County Cork, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
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. 86. “Trench/LGI1958; and sub Clancarty, E/PB; Mosley, Bt/PB) The Palace of the C of I Bishops of Clonfert, deep in the country by the little medieval cathedral with its splendid Irish-Romanesque doorway. A long low and narrow house of two storeys with an attic of dormer-gables; basically mid C17, dating from when the original Palace was rebuilt by Bishop Dawson; but partly rebuilt late C18. Venetian windows set in arched openings. The Palace has C17 oak beams and joists and possibly its original C17 roof. Yew avenue. When the diocese was amalgamated with those of Killaloe and Kilfenora, 1833, the Palace was bought by J.E. Trench. In 1952 it became the Irish home of Sir Oswald Mosley, Bt, but it was badly damaged by fire 1954. It is now derelict.”
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.
In Blake, Tarquin. Abandoned Mansions of Ireland II: More Portraits of Forgotten Stately Homes. Collins Press, Cork, 2012.
Detached two-storey former Church of Ireland bishop’s palace with dormer attic, largely built c.1635 and extended in late eighteenth century, but also incorporating late sixteenth/early seventeenth-century house. Front elevation is eight bays, with two-bay return recessed to rear towards west end, and having canted west gable end. Used as private residence from the 1830s to 1954, and ruinous after accidental fire. Remains of single-span pitched slate roof, possibly originally thatched, hipped to west end with diagonally set multiple chimneystacks. Pitched slate roof to surviving dormer. Roughcast rendered walls. Two segmental-headed window openings to second and second last bays of ground floor, with Venetian windows, and square-headed window openings elsewhere, all with tooled limestone sills. Angled brick chimneybreasts and timber raised and fielded shutters visible to interior. Dressed limestone boundary wall extending to west. Set within extensive formerly landscaped grounds with range of single-storey outbuildings to east of access laneway, having pitched slate roofs, rendered walls, and square-headed openings.
Appraisal
The former bishop’s palace, unfortunately a ruin since the 1950s, is an important element in the significant group of ecclesiastical buildings at Clonfert, based on the ancient Saint Brendan’s Cathedral. The building incorporates a late sixteenth-century/early seventeenth-century house, extended in the 1630s and again in the late eighteenth century. The present building is of national significance as it has the remains of a rare seventeenth-century roof, dated by dendrochronology to c.1638, and also had exceptionally rare painted posts supporting the floors. Later phases of the building, including the Ventian windows, are also of architectural interest. The house has associated gardens, a yew walk, and outbuildings, all of which are important for the context of the building and the history of the site as a bishop’s residence.
The charming cathedral dedicated to St Brendan in Clonfert, County Galway has featured here before (see The Traveller’s Rest « The Irish Aesthete). And because Clonfert was, until the 1833, a separate diocese in the Church of Ireland (it remains so in the Roman Catholic church), there was also an episcopal palace, now alas a sad ruin. Standing a short distance to the north of the cathedral, the oldest part of this building is thought to date back to the late 16th or early 17th century, possibly constructed during the episcopacy of Stephen Kirwan (bishop of Clonfert 1682-1701) who served as a justice and commissioner for the province of Connaught. There is no doubt that Clonfert, today a sleepy hamlet, was then judged a place of some importance since in 1579, Elizabeth I, in her Orders to be observed by Sir Nicholas Maltby for the better government of the province of Connaught’declared ‘We are desirous that a college should be erected in the nature of an university in some convenient place in Ireland for instructing and education of youth in lerninge. And We conceive the Town of Clonfert within the province of Connaught to be aptlie seated both for helth and comodity of the ryver of Shenen running by it and because it is also neere to the midle of the realme, whereby all men may, with small travel send their children thither.’ The queen may have heard that during a much earlier period, Clonfert had been a great seat of learning, or perhaps it was just that the cathedral and its ancillary buildings were located in a central location and, as she observed, close to the river Shannon, then a major means of travel through Ireland. However, the idea of establishing a college here never happened, and it was only in 1592 that the country’s first university was founded in Dublin.
As mentioned, while parts of the former bishop’s palace in Clonfert may go back to the late 16th century, a more substantial portion of the building dates from c.1635, during the episcopacy of Robert Dawson, who had become Bishop of the newly-united dioceses of Clonfert and Kilmacduagh in 1627 and would hold that position until his death in 1643 (incidentally, he was also the forebear of a family that would go on to become great landowners and developers in Ireland, not least his great-grandson Joshua Dawson who was responsible for laying out Dawson Street in Dublin and building what is now the Mansion House). Oak beams and roof joists in the palace have been dated to around this period, although further changes and additions were made at some time in the 18thcentury, when a Venetian window was inserted. In his memoirs, published in 1805, the playwright Richard Cumberland wrote about the palace in Clonfert, which he knew well since his father Denison Cumberland had lived there while bishop of the diocese (1763-1772). ‘This humble residence,’ he recalled, ‘was not devoid of comfort and convenience, for it contained some tolerable lodging rooms, and was capacious enough to receive me and mine without straitening the family. A garden of seven acres, well planted and disposed into pleasant walks, kept in the neatest order, was attached to the house, and at the extremity of a broad gravel walk in front stood the cathedral.’ Cumberland also remembered how, while staying with his father on one occasion, he used ‘a little closet at the back of the palace, as it was called, unfurnished and out of use, with no other prospect from my single window but that of a turf-stack’, as a room in which to begin writing what would prove to be his most successful stage work, the comedy The West-Indian (first performed at London’s Drury Lane Theatre in 1771). However, Clonfert was always one of the poorest episcopacies in the country and as a result successive bishops – many of whom managed to have themselves transferred to richer dioceses after only a short period of time – were disinclined to make improvements to their residence. For this reason, it retained much of its 17th century character, being long and low, of eight bays and two storeys with dormer windows. The surrounding demesne also underwent relatively few changes. There survives, for example, a yew walk running south-west of the palace, which may be even older, but certainly has the character of 17th century baroque garden design. Like the building to which it leads, the yew walk is now sadly neglected.
Clonfert Palace remained home to successive Church of Ireland bishops until 1834 when, following the creation of a new united diocese of Killaloe and Clonfert, it became surplus to requirements and was sold to John Eyre Trench. In 1947 his descendants sold the building to the Blake-Kelly family who, four years later, sold it to the next owners who would be the last people to live in the former palace. By then the place was in poor condition and required extensive renovation, along with the installation of electricity, new bathrooms and so forth before it could be occupied; the new chatelaine drove over from her temporary residence in Co Tipperary to oversee this work. Finally, once complete, in February 1952 she and her family arrived, along with a retinue that included housekeeper, cook, maid and chauffeur, as well as a gardener to maintain the grounds. A local newspaper, the Westmeath Independent, reported that ‘‘Sir Oswald and Lady Mosley, who have a large staff, are charmed with Ireland, its people, the tempo of its life and its scenery.’ The same publication also briefly noted that ‘Sir Oswald was the former leader of a political movement in England.’ The ‘political movement’ had, of course, been the British Union of Fascists (later the British Union) and both Sir Oswald and his wife, the former Diana Mitford, had been interned for a number of years during the second World War by the British government, and had found themselves shunned in the aftermath of their release. Ireland had several advantages, not least the fact that two of Diana Mosley’s sisters already owned properties in the country, Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire at Lismore Castle, County Waterford and Pamela Jackson at Tullamaine Castle, County Tipperary. Country houses here were going cheap, and there were still sufficient other landed families still about to make life agreeable to the newly-arrived. For the next two years, the Mosleys remained contentedly at Clonfert, attracting little attention although they were discreetly observed by both the Irish and British governments. Such might have remained the case, had not disaster struck exactly 70 years ago, in early December 1954. At the time, Diana Mosley was in London, but her husband and their two children were in County Galway when fire broke out, seemingly caused by an old beam inside the chimney of the maids’ sitting room. The blaze spread quickly, so fast indeed that according to a report in the following day’s Irish Times, a French maid, Mademoiselle Cerrecoundo, who had run upstairs to rescue some clothes, became trapped in the building. Sir Oswald, his son Alexander and the chauffeur, Monsieur Thevenon, held a blanket beneath one of the windows and the maid leapt to her safety, with only minor injuries to her back and hand. Alas, the old palace was not so lucky and while a handful of rooms and their contents were saved, most of the building was lost as it took an hour and a half for fire brigades to reach Clonfert. The following day, hurricane-force winds and torrential rain ripped across the entire country, compounding the damage done to the house and leaving it a sorry wreck. In 1955 the Mosleys moved to Ileclash, a Georgian overlooking the river Blackwater in County Cork where they lived intermittently until 1963 when the couple moved to France. As for Clonfert Palace, despite being described on www.buildingsofireland.com in 2009 as being of national significance, it was left to moulder into its present advanced state of decay. What could have been saved as a rare example of late 16th/early 17th century Irish domestic architecture has been lost.
‘Dunloe Castle stands on a bold promontory overlooking the river near the bridge. It has a worn, but wild and hardy look about it, as if it had suffered much at the hand of time, but remained undaunted and vigorous still. The view from the castle is most exquisite, and the row down the river will be found to be not the least interesting portion of the excursion…The castle has been kept in good repair by its various proprietors. Its position was, in former days, a strong one; and it was doubtless erected for the purpose of commanding the river and the pass into the mountains. In the time of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, it frequently stood the brunt of warfare; and in 1641 it was besieged and nearly demolished by the Parliamentary forces under Ludlow.’ From The Lakes of Killarney by Robert Michael Ballantyne (1865)
Dunloe Castle, County Kerry, courtesy Irish Aesthete.
Dunloe Castle, County Kerry, courtesy Irish Aesthete.
Dunloe Castle, County Kerry, courtesy Irish Aesthete.
‘Let no one leave Killarney without rowing a mile or two down the Laune and visiting Dunloe Castle by water; – as we did in the “gloaming” of a summer evening, when the lake was calm – the grey fly floating on its surface, and the salmon and trout springing from the waters…but here stands the Castle on its bold promontory above the river – a firm, fearless looking keep, approached by a steep hill-road, recalling both by its shape and situation, one of the Rhine towers. Land, by all means and, as it is permitted, ascend; and passing through a turngate, walk along the terrace, which commands a view of the magnificent slopes, which a little pains might easily convert into hanging gardens. The greater part of the kitchen-offices were burnt some years ago, so that the dwelling-castle has a gaunt and isolated appearance, in accordance with the wild mountain scenery.’ From A Week in Killarney by Mr and Mrs S.C. Hall (1843)
Dunloe Castle, County Kerry, courtesy Irish Aesthete.
Dunloe Castle, County Kerry, courtesy Irish Aesthete.
Dunloe Castle, County Kerry, courtesy Irish Aesthete.
‘As we drive along, behold beneath us a view of Dunloe Castle, the remains of an old fortress, that, like Ross Castle, was used by the turbulent chiefs of the country as a place of strength and security. It suffered many vicissitudes and, at last, during the reign of Oliver Cromwell, was partly demolished by bombardment. It has been, by some late repairs, converted into a very romantic residence by the late Major Mahoney, whose politeness and attention every stranger was sure to experience. There is an embattled walk around the top, from which an extensive view of the Lake and the surrounding mountains may be taken, if the stranger deem it of sufficient importance to pause for it.’ From A New Guide to the Scenery of Killarney by D.E. Fitzpatrick (1845)
Dunloe Castle, County Kerry, courtesy Irish Aesthete.
Bellamont Forest, Cootehill, Co Cavan – maybe gardens open
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. 37. “(Coote, Bellamont, E/DEP; O’Gowan/IFR) One of the most perfect examples in the British Isles of a Palladian villa; built ca 1730 for Thomas Coote, Lord Justice of the King’s Bench in Ireland, to the design of his nephew, Sir Edward Lovett Pearce; inspired in particular by Palladio’s Rotunda at Vincenze and his Villa Pisani at Montagnana. Of red brick, with ashlar facings; two storeys over a rusticated basement, with a mezzanine fitted in at the sides. The upper storey treated as an attic, above the cornice. Five bay front with pedimented Doric portico; side elevations with central Venetian windows, the centre light of each being blind; one of them having entablatures and recessed columns, the other more simply treated. The hall has a high coved ceiling with a modillion cornice and a moulding in the keyhole pattern; the walls are decorated with rondels containing busts, some of which are said to represent members of the Coote family. The saloon has a richly ornamented coffered ceiling and a pedimented doorcase. The dining room has a deeply coved coffered ceiling (described by Dr. Craig as ‘eminently characteristic of Pearce’); and a screen of engaged fluted Ionic columns at one end. The bedrooms are arranged around a central upper hall, lit by an oval lantern enriched by plasterwork. The coved and coffered ceiling of the library dates from 1775, and was put in by Thomas Coote’s grandson, Charles, who succeeded his cousin as 5th Lord Colooney 1766 and was made Earl of Bellamont of 2nd creation 1767. In honour of this, he changed the name of the house, which had formerly been Coote Hill, to Bellamont Forest. Lord Bellamont was a somewhat absurd figure, ultra-sophisticated and ardently Francophile – he insisted on making his maiden speech in the Irish House of Lords in French – pompous and an inveterate womaniser. He left several illegitimate sons, to one of whom he bequested Bellamont, his only legitimate son having predeceased him. In 1874, Bellamont was sold to the Dorman-Smith (now O’Gowan) family, of which the politician Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith, Governor of Burma at the time of the Japanese invasion, was a younger son. Bought recently by Mr. John Coote.”
Built between 1725 and 1730 for Thomas Coote, once Lord Justice of Ireland, and designed by Coote’s gifted nephew, architect Sir Edward Lovett Pearce. Bellamont Forest is one of Ireland’s finest 18th-century palladian villas. The house is four bays square, built over two storeys, with a basement. The house is built of red brick with ashlar facings, and has a Doric limestone portico, with pediments over the windows.
Detached Palladian-style square-plan four-bay two-storey over basement country house, built c.1730, with central Doric entrance portico raised above flight of steps, three-storey over basement side elevations, three recessed central bays to rear elevation. Hipped slate roof behind parapet wall with central valley, and cast-iron rainwater goods, some with decorative detailing. Two pairs of symmetrically arranged red brick chimneystacks with connecting arches. Profiled carved stone cornice to parapet coping. Red brick Flemish bond walls with moulded limestone stringcourse below upper floor continuing around sides of the building treating upper level as attic storey, stone quoins to ground floor only. Carved limestone plinth with torus moulding above finely-cut V-jointed rustication to top half of basement having random coursed stone finish below ground level. Prostylar tetrasytle pedimented Roman Doric portico to centre entrance level with enriched entablature having metopes with musical instruments, standing on ashlar stone plinth approached by steps with ashlar side walls having cornice and plinth. Door opening within portico in carved sandstone lugged architrave surround with carved swag to door head, projecting cornice, and carved stone round-headed arched detail above. Panelled timber double-leaf door with fixed overpanel. Three-over-three timber sash windows in architrave surrounds to first floor. Six-over-six sash windows to ground floor having pedimented surrounds in outer bays with carved stone architrave surrounds and decorative floral motifs to upper angles, ashlar stone apron and carved brackets supporting moulded sills. Windows to inner bays within portico having lugged architraves and moulded sills on carved brackets without pediment or apron. Segmental-headed windows to basement level having two-over-two timber sash windows. Windows having stone cills without architraves to upper floor, side elevations. Three-over-three mezzanine windows to side elevations, to north side all as functioning openings, to south only west bays functional. Central windows at ground floor to south side paired as Venetian window with central blind arch having entablature and central arch on Doric columns, simpler version to north side with plain stone surrounds. Central ground floor window to rear elevation having lugged and kneed architrave with hood on scrolled console brackets and ashlar apron, advanced outer bays having ground floor Venetian windows with blind side lights and ashlar entablature and archivolt . Small side lights to corresponding basement windows below. Tunnel connecting to outbuildings to north-east.
Bellamont House is an iconic building of national importance set in a dramatic demesne landscape. It is considered the best and earliest example of a Palladian villa in Ireland. The house was designed the Coote family by their cousin, Sir Edward Lovett Pearce (d.1733), who was the leading exponent of Palladian architecture in Ireland. Having trained under the English Baroque architect Sir John Vanburgh (1664-1726) Pearce’s short but successful career included the former Parliament House on College Green, Dublin and many town and country houses including Summerhill House in Co. Meath and two houses on Henrietta Street in Dublin. Bellamont Forest is his most important house design to have been built and the association with this very important architect makes it one of the most significant country houses in this country. Pearce used architectural motifs derived from Palladio’s Italian villa designs, including the Venetian window arrangements with continuous sills, pedimented window surrounds, and Doric portico. The portico had originally been proposed in antis as an open loggia within the plan at the expense of the entrance hall. Instead, placed prostyle it aims to affirms a kind of moral dignity about the architecture and its patron. More prosaically, additional space was gained for the entrance hall, and the external portico was better suited to the Irish climate than an open loggia. The plan has all the compactness of a Palladian villa. The simple treatment of the main stairs may seem surprising, tightly compressed as it is in a narrow space off the hall with none of the gravitas of theatre that has come to be associated with the country house staircase. However the modesty of the main stair does not anticipate the impressive columnar bedroom lobby, the encircling effect of its Tuscan order and oval lantern, an oblique reference perhaps to the centralised plan of Palladio’s Villa Rotonda. It was a theme to be revived later at Russborough and Bellinter by Richard Castle. Bellamont is one of the few houses in Ireland with a mezzanine storey as expressed in the north and south elevations. The interior displays elements of artistic importance, in particular the finely tooled decorative plasterwork, but also in the carvings of the marble and stone fireplaces in the principal rooms and marble busts of the Coote family. Though a modestly sized country house, Bellamont uses symmetrical design and use of red brick to promote a sense of solidity for a house perched on an exposed elevated site enjoying spectacular views of the surrounding lakes and Dromore River. The farm and stable yards located to the north-west of the main house would once have been necessary to support the running of a large country house and together with the entrance gates and gate lodges form an important group of demesne related structures.
Archaeological research would appear to indicate that Richard Coote had a fortified house at Collooney sometimes referred to as Bellamont House or Collooney Castle. A later structure in the town, also known as Bellamont House, is not associated with the Coote family. A possible site for Collooney Castle has been identified by Timoney drawing on earlier sources such as Terence O’Rorke
featured in Great Irish Houses. Forewards by Desmond FitgGerald, Desmond Guinness. IMAGE Publications, 2008.
p. 94. “ The owner, John Coote, bought Bellamont in 1987, thus restoring the estate to the Coote family after it had been gambled away by an ancestor, Captain Richard Coote, and sold to the Smith family in the 19th century. John Coote grew up in Australia, after the Coote family emigrated in 1906, and became involved in sheep farming. The first he knew of Bellamont Forest was from an article in Country Life in 1962. Later, he learned more from his aunt and uncle, Muriel and John Coote, who had visited Bellamont’s then owner, Eric Dorman-Smith, a general in the British army. Four generations of Smiths had lived at Bellamont when Coote, an interior designer, paid a visit and found the property was for sale. He could not resist and bought the house and estate.
“The estate was very run down at the time,” Coote recalls. “The house was structurally sound, but it was in a sorry state. For the last two decades I have restored the house and parklands. The drive has been re-routed so that when you arrive – and this is the beauty of Pearce – the house doesn’t look like a huge villa. When you view it from the back, however, it’s a totally different house and it looks quite large indeed.”
The approach has been to return the estate, where possible, to its 1729 appearance. A painting currently hanging at Leixlip Castle shows the estate as it was at the this time, and Coote has used it as his guide. The façade of the house has been left largely untouched, with the main work done to the windows, some of which have been repaired and glass paneling restored.
Entering the house through the portico, you notice musical instruments are a feature of the exterior engravings. Inside the entrance hall scrapes have been taken and the original colouring has been returned with the assistance of Dr Ian Bristow, a UK painting expert. A very fine Irish table, a copy from a drawing by Pearce, is a hugely impressive feature of this room. The busts have always been present and were bought most likely on the Grand Tour. The flooring is Portland stone and layers of floor polish have been removed to return it to its natural state. Peat buckets and lanterns are all from Coote and Co [p. 97] while the Earl of Bellamont may have introduced the fireplace.
The saloon has a fine example of an early baroque ceiling and a new chandelier has been installed based on the Pearce chandelier in the House of Lords. Portraits of the Earl of Bellamont and the Countess of Bellamont by Reynolds have been copied and hung on the wall. The original of the Earl of Bellamont is hanging in the National Gallery in Dublin, while the portrait of the Countess of Bellamont is owned by the Duchess of Abercorn’s family.
Double doors lead into the dining room with its wall colouring taken from the colouring of the frieze in the fireplace. Gib and dummy doors maintain Pearce’s symmetry while contemporary artworks hang on the walls….
The family sitting room contains a fireplace with shield motif and acanthus leaf. The chair linen was woven according to an 18th century sample found on the estate. Originally, this room was a series of rooms, but after a fire in the 1760s the Earl of Bellamont had a new ceiling installed and made this a companion room to the dining room. At some point, the dining room would probably have served as the state bedroom.
Like all Palladian houses, the staircase at Bellamont is to the side. The small library, which is first left off the entrance hall, is used a great deal as it attracts winter sunshine. As with many of the smaller rooms, the original Pearce fireplace remains. The fringes for the curtains were handmade in London using 18th century looms, while the bookcases were made in Australia.
Upstairs, on the first floor landing, a new floor made of 150 year old Baltic pine salvaged from a nearby bridge has been laid. In addition to the dummy doors, all the bedrooms lead from the hall. The tables are copies of some fine examples at Powerscourt and family portraits adorn the walls.
John Coote’s latest phase of work at Bellamont is to renovate the outbuildings and to create additional bedroom suites, the headquarters of his successful furniture design company, Coote and Co, and a new concert hall. “These estates need to work,” he says.
John Coote has restored Bellamont Forest and ensured it has risen from the landscape of Cootehill to retake its place at the forefront of Palladian design.”
Irish Castles and Historic Houses. ed. by Brendan O’Neill, intro. by James Stevens Curl. Caxton Editions, London. 2002:
Bellamont Forest was designed by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce for the Cootes, Earls of Bellamont, around 1730. The family were descended from a brilliant soldier, Sir Thomas Coote, who was killed in 1642 ‘in a skirmish with the Irish.’ His four sons were given land in different parts of Ireland – Sligo, Laois, Monaghan and Cavan – giving rise to the legend that. you could walk across the country from one coast to the other without leaving Coote land.
Designed around 1730 by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce, the house is one of the finest examples of Palladian architecture in Ireland. Loosely based on Palladio’s Villa Pisani, the house stands four-square on rising ground. It is constructed in red brick with a Doric limestone portico and pediments over the windows to either side. The entrance hall is particularly striking, with the simplicity of its black and white paved floor and marble busts of Roman emperors.
The house is private, but the grounds are accessible from the town and offer some pleasant walks. The town gets its name from the marriage of Thomas Coote, a colonel in the Crown forces, to Frances Hill of Hillsborough.
Bellamont House completed in 1730 by Judge Thomas Coote and designed by the architect Edward Lovett Pearce. In 1800 it passed to an illegitimate son of Earl Charles Coote, who is reported to have fathered up to 18 children by five women. Charles, variously described as a tyrant, a madman, and a person of “disgusting pomposity”, was tried in 1764 for murdering a man during the ‘Oakboy’ rebellion which he helped to repress brutally. He got off and is immortalised in a camp portrait by Joshua Reynolds in the National Gallery. The estate was gambled away by descendant John Coote in 1874 and bought by the Dorman-Smiths, whose most famous member, Eric ‘Chink’ Dorman-Smith, served in the British army in both world wars before being sacked in 1942. He was a good friend of Ernest Hemingway, went home to Bellamont, changed his name to O’Gowan and turned republican, allowing the IRA to use the estate as a training ground, and advised its executive during the Border Campaign. He died in 1969. The most recent owner, John Coote was brought up on a sheep station in the Australian outback, his family having emigrated in the early 1900s. Coote died suddenly in 2012, and the house is now for sale (March 2015).
Here is Bellamont Forest, County Cavan which can lay claim to being the most beautiful house in Ireland. Certainly its situation is unparalleled, since the building sits on a rise at the end of a mile-long drive, the ground to either side dropping to lakes, the world beyond screened by dense woodland. Bellamont is an unexpected delight, hidden from view until one rounds the last turn of the drive and sees the house ahead. In purest Palladian style and looking like a villa in the Veneto, Bellamont is believed to have been designed c.1725-30 by the pre-eminent architect then working in Ireland, Sir Edward Lovett Pearce who was also responsible for the Houses of Parliament in Dublin (now the Bank of Ireland), and a number of since-lost country houses such as Desart Court, County Kilkenny and Summerhill, County Meath. Pearce was a cousin of Bellamont’s builder Thomas Coote, a Lord Justice of the King’s Bench. The Cootes had come to Ireland at the start of the 17th century and prospered so well that within 100 years their various descendants owned estates throughout the country. Ballyfin, County Laois which has recently undergone a superlative restoration was another Coote property.
The appeal of Bellamont lies in its exquisite simplicity, beginning with an exterior which is of mellow red brick with stone window dressings. Of two storeys over a raised rusticated basement, the front is dominated by a full-height limestone portico reached by a broad flight of steps. The imposing effect is achieved by the most effortless means and using the plainest materials, but there can be no doubt that Bellamont was always intended to impress. The Portland stone-flagged entrance hall, with its coved ceiling and pairs of flanking doors, sets the tone for what is follow. While there are small rooms immediately to right and left, the latter traditionally used as a cosy winter library, the main reception areas lie to the rear of the building, a sequence of drawing room, saloon and dining room which retain their 18th century decoration including the chimneypieces. The first of these is believed to have once been a series of rooms, but following a fire in 1760 acquired its present form including the elaborate recessed ceiling which was probably intended to complement that in the dining room on the other side of the saloon. The walls of this central room contain contain stucco panels once filled with family portraits, the best-known of which – painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1773 and showing the Charles Coote, Earl of Bellamont resplendent in his robes as a Knight of Bath – now hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland.
The aforementioned Earldom of Bellamont was a second creation of the title for a member of the family. Evidently an ostentatious and pompous man – seemingly he insisted on making his maiden speech in the House of Lords in French, to the bemusement of his fellow peers – Lord Bellamont can at least be credited with having the good taste to enhance the house built by his grandfather. He married a daughter of the first Duke of Leinster and by her had four daughters and just one son who died in Toulouse at the age of 12, his body being brought back to Bellamont to lie for three days on the upper landing before burial in the family vault. As a result of there being no legitimate heir, the earldom again lapsed on Lord Bellamont’s death in 1800. However, despite being seriously wounded in the groin during a duel with Lord Townshend, he managed to have at least 16 offsring out of wedlock by four different women, and one of these sons, also called Charles Coote, inherited Bellamont Forest. Ultimately it was sold out of the family in the middle of the 19th century and bought by the Smiths (later Dorman-Smiths), one of whom Major-General Eric Dorman-Smith served in the British army during both the First and Second World Wars after which, having changed his surname to O’Gowan, he became involved with the IRA.
In 1987 Bellamont Forest was bought by John Coote, an Australian interior designer whose family had emigrated from Ireland at the start of the last century. John dearly loved the house and undertook to restore it to a pristine condition, keeping the decoration spare so that the beauty of the rooms’ architecture would be more apparent. There was never a great deal of furniture, just a few large pieces he had specifically made and which were inspired by Georgian workmanship. In revealing the building’s purity he not only demonstrated the splendid taste of Pearce but his own also, since it would have been tempting to intervene in the interiors. Those interiors served wonderfully for entertaining, which John did frequently. I have been to a great many terrific parties at Bellamont, and even hosted a few there, one of which – a birthday dinner for 30 – is thankfully uncommemorated by any photographs. But there are ample souvenirs and joyous memories of John’s own sundry social gatherings, such as the thé dansants he loved to throw, when a 16-piece orchestra would play in the saloon and Jack Leslie would demonstrate how to dance the Black Bottom. The last great party at Bellamont took place during the summer of 2009 to mark John’s 60th birthday and was spectacular even by his standards, with drinks in the lower gardens followed by dinner and dancing outdoors in the balmy air. The following year John was obliged to put Bellamont Forest up for sale, and thereafter he rarely visited the place. Tomorrow marks the first anniversary of his death, which happened unexpectedly while he was working in Indonesia. He is still sorely mourned by all of us who knew him in Ireland. Meanwhile Bellamont slumbers, awaiting a new owner who will kiss the place back to life; there is talk now of an auction in March. One prays that whoever next assumes responsibility for Bellamont will bring to the house the same flair and fun as did John Coote for so many years.
Since first writing of Bellamont Forest (La Belle au Bois Dormant, January 21st), I have heard from a number of readers concerned about a set of 18th century marble busts formerly in the house. Although none can be verified with absolute certainty, various tales exist concerning the origin of these busts. It is said, for example, that they represent different members of the Coote family responsible for building Bellamont. It has also been proposed that they were brought back from mainland Europe after a Grand Tour and installed in niches in the entrance hall and first-floor landing specifically created to accommodate them. What can be confirmed is that the busts were already in the house more than two centuries ago. Sir Charles Coote, an illegitimate son of the last Earl of Bellamont, produced a Statistical Survey of Cavan in 1802 in which he wrote of the house, ‘The entrance from the portico is a lofty hall, thirty feet by thirty, which is ornamented with statuary in regular niches…’ Likewise in 1835 Lieutenant P. Taylor’s statistical report on the parish of Drumgoon includes a description of Bellamont with the observation, ‘The portico enters into a lofty hall 30 feet square, tastefully ornamented with statuary…’ I am grateful to Kevin Mulligan for bringing these two references to my attention.
The earliest known visual evidence of the busts’ presence in the house comes from a photograph album presented by Richard Coote to his neighbour Lady Dartrey in September 1870. Now in the possession of the National Library of Ireland, it includes a view of the entrance hall (then serving as a billiard room), which with that institution’s permission I reproduce above; one can assume the picture was taken at some date prior to 1870 (and incidentally, how fascinating to see the hall decorated in such high-Victorian style). A photograph in Volume V of the Irish Georgian Society’s Records (see top of this piece) which was published in 1913 and shows the busts in their niches appears to be a section of the earlier picture. Thereafter it would seem the busts remained within the house through changes of ownership – until last year. Following the death of John Coote in January 2012, the busts were removed from Bellamont. After representations from the Irish Georgian Society, in September Cavan County Council issued notice to a number of parties requiring the busts’ return. To date this has not happened. I do not intend to become immersed in legal niceties, not least because the matter could yet go to litigation. On the other hand, the busts’ removal does raise a number of significant questions about what constitutes a permanent fixture within a historic building and what should be deemed a transitory decorative feature. In the case of the busts no violence was done to the house during their removal, for which nothing other than a step ladder was required. In other words, unlike say when a chimneypiece is taken out, the structure suffered no damage. The Government’s 2011 Architectural Heritage Protection Guidelines for Planning Authories proposes: ‘free-standing objects may be regarded as fixtures where they were placed in positions as part of an overall architectural design.’ It also states that ‘Works of art, such as paintings or pieces of sculpture, placed as objects in their own right within a building, are unlikely to be considered as fixtures unless it can be proved that they were placed in particular positions as part of an overall architectural design.’ It is worth noting first that these are only guidelines; the document’s opening page counsels that what follows ‘does not purport to be a legal interpretation of any of the Conventions, Acts, Regulations or procedures mentioned. The aim is to assist planners and others in understanding the guiding principles of conservation and restoration.’ In addition, the advice offered is that works of art can only be deemed fixtures provided there is proof ‘they were placed in particular positions as part of an overall architectural design.’ In the case of the Bellamont busts the lack of such conclusive documentary evidence is an obvious problem for anyone championing their return. We do not know the artist responsible, or the date of their creation. Were they commissioned or bought ‘off the shelf’? Can it be conclusively demonstrated the niches were designed to accommodate them? The next photograph shows the entrance hall in the mid-1980s not long before Bellamont Forest was bought by John Coote; over the intervening century every aspect of the room’s decoration has changed except for the busts.
I am unaware of any similar case to the Bellamont busts in this country at the moment or indeed in the past but it has to be said that recent precedents in Britain are not encouraging. In 1990, for example, Canova’s marble statue of The Three Graces, which had been commissioned by sixth Duke of Bedford in 1814 and installed in a purpose-built temple at Woburn, was removed after it had been judged not to constitute a part or fixture of the building. Only following four years of intense negotiation was the statue jointly bought by the Victoria & Albert Museum and the National Galleries of Scotland. More recently in 2007 Dumfries House and contents were offered for sale by the Marquess of Bute. Those contents included the only fully documented suites of furniture made by Thomas Chippendale. If anything could be deemed a fitting, albeit free-standing, it was surely these Chippendale pieces. Yet they would have been dispersed at auction (for which catalogues were printed by Christie’s) but for the intervention of the Prince of Wales who subsequently helped to establish a charitable trust preserving Dumfries and its furnishings. Alas in Ireland we have no such well-connected champions of the country’s architectural heritage, nor have we shown much concern for preserving the historic contents of our houses. For this reason, the issue of the Bellamont busts is important and could set a precedent. But it is essential that sentiment does not cloud any discussion relating to their removal. Over centuries an inordinate number of works of art have been taken from their original or long-term settings and placed elsewhere, as a visit to any state gallery or museum will demonstrate. To insist that proprietors of historic buildings may not dispose of certain items which have remained in the same location beyond a certain period of time is to trespass dangerously on the rights of private ownership. It could also hinder rather than help the cause of heritage preservation by inspiring antagonism among the very people we are trying to encourage and support. Having seen the busts in place over many years, my ardent wish is that they will be restored to the niches they occupied for so long. But I am also sufficiently aware of the complexities of the case to appreciate this might not happen.
Having been once to Bellamont (see La Belle au Bois Dormant, January 21st), it is impossible not to return. Here is the upper floor of the house’s main cantilevered staircase. The relative want of ornamentation – only plasterwork curlicues embellishing each sprung arch – forms a striking yet sublime contrast to the elaborate workmanship found on the floor below.
THE EARLS OF BELLAMONT OWNED 5,321 ACRES OF LAND IN COUNTY CAVAN
This is the parent stock whence the noble houses of COOTE, Earls of Mountrath, and COOTE, Lords Castlecoote, both now extinct, emanated.
This noble family derives its origin from
SIR JOHN COOTE, a native of France, who married Isabella, the daughter and heir of the Seigneur Du Bois, of that kingdom, and had issue,
SIR JOHN COOTE, Knight, who coming into England, settled in Devon, and married a daughter of Sir John Fortescue, of that county.
His lineal descendant,
JOHN COOTE, heir to his uncle, 28th Abbot of Bury St Edmund’s, wedded Margaret, daughter of Mr Drury, by whom he had four sons,
Richard; FRANCIS, of whom we treat; Christopher; Nicholas.
Mr Coote’s second son,
FRANCIS COOTE, of Eaton, in Norfolk, served ELIZABETH I; and by Anne, his wife, had issue,
SIR NICHOLAS COOTE, living in 1636, who had two sons,
CHARLES, his heir; William (Very Rev), Dean of Down, 1635.
Sir Nicholas’s elder son,
SIR CHARLES COOTE (1581-1642), Knight, of Castle Cuffe, in the Queen’s County, served in the wars against O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, at the head, as Captain of the 100th Foot Regiment, with which corps he was at the siege of Kinsale, and was appointed, by JAMES I (in consequence of the good and faithful services he had rendered to ELIZABETH I), provost-marshal of the province of Connaught for life.
In 1620, he was constituted vice-president of the same province; and created, in 1621, a baronet, denominated of Castle Cuffe, Queen’s County.
Sir Charles distinguished himself, subsequently, by many gallant exploits; but the most celebrated was the relief of Birr, in 1642.
Being dispatched, with Sir Thomas Lucas and six troops of horse, to relieve that garrison, and some other fortresses, it was necessary, in order to effect the objective, to pass the causeway broken by the rebels, who had thrown up a ditch at the end of it.
Sir Charles, leading thirty dismounted dragoons, beat the enemy, with the loss of their captain and twenty men; relieved the castles of Birr, Borris, and Knocknamase; and having continued almost forty hours on horseback, returned to the camp with the loss of only one man.
This is the surprising passage through Mountrath woods which justly caused the title of MOUNTRATH to be entailed upon his son.
Sir Charles married Dorothea, youngest daughter and co-heir of Hugh Cuffe, of Cuffe’s Wood, County Cork, and had issue,
Charles, his heir; Chidley, of Killester, Co Dublin; RICHARD, ancestor of the EARL OF BELLAMONT; Thomas, of Coote Hill; Letitia.
The younger son,
RICHARD (1620-83), for his hearty concurrence with his brother, SIR CHARLES, 2nd Baronet, in promoting the restoration of CHARLES II, was rewarded with the dignity of a peer of the realm.
Being the same day that his brother was created Earl of Mountrath, Richard Coote was created Baron Coote, of Coloony, in 1660.
In 1660, Lord Coote was appointed Major to the Duke of Albemarle’s regiment of horse; and the same year he was appointed one of the commissioners for executing His Majesty’s declaration for the settlement of Ireland.
His lordship was, in 1675, appointed one of the commissioners entrusted for the 49 Officers.
In 1676, this nobleman resided at Moore Park, County Meath; and at Piercetown, County Westmeath.
He married Mary, second daughter of George, Lord St George.
Following Lord Coote’s decease, in 1683, he was interred at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin.
His second son,
RICHARD, 2nd Baron (1636-1701), Governor of County Leitrim, 1689, Treasurer to the Queen, 1689-93, MP for Droitwich, 1689-95, was, in 1688, one on the first to join the Prince of Orange.
In 1689, he was attainted in his absence by the Irish Parliament of JAMES II.
His lordship was created, in 1689, EARL OF BELLAMONT, along with a grant of 77,000 acres of forfeited lands.
His lordship was Governor of Massachusetts, 1695;,and Governor of New York, 1697-1701.
The King had sent Lord Bellamont to New York to put down the “freebooting“.
Unfortunately he was responsible for outfitting the veteran mariner William Kidd, who turned into ‘Captain Kidd’, who terrorised the merchants until his capture in 1698.
According to Cokayne ”he was a man of eminently fair character, upright, courageous and endependent. Though a decided Whig he had distinguished himself by bringing before the Parliament at Westminster some tyrannical acts done by Whigs at Dublin.”
His lordship wedded, in 1680, Catharine, daughter and heir of Bridges Nanfan, of Worcestershire, and had issue,
NANFAN, his successor; RICHARD, succeeded his brother.
His lordship was succeeded by his elder son,
NANFAN, 2nd Earl (1681-1708), who married Lucia Anna van Nassau (1684-1744), daughter of Henry de Nassau, Lord Overkirk, in 1705/6 at St Martin-in-the-Fields Church, London.
He died at Bath, Somerset, from palsy, without male issue, when the family honours devolved upon his brother,
RICHARD, 3rd Earl (1682-1766), who, in 1729, sold the family estate of Coloony, County Sligo, for nearly £17,000.
In 1737, he succeeded his mother to the estates of Birtsmorton, Worcestershire.
Macaulay described him as “of eminently fair character, upright, courageous and independent.”
On his death, the earldom expired.
The last Earl was succeeded in the barony of Coote by his first cousin once removed,
THE RT HON CHARLES, 5th Baron, KB, PC (1738-1800), son of Charles Coote, MP for County Cavan, son of the Hon Thomas Coote, a Justice of the Court of the King’s Bench of Ireland, younger son of the 1st Baron.
In 1767, the earldom of Bellamont was created again when Charles, Lord Coote, was created EARL OF BELLAMONT (3rd creation).
In 1774, Lord Bellamont was created a baronet, of Donnybrooke in the County of Dublin, with remainder to his illegitimate son, Charles.
Following his death in 1800, the titles became extinct as he left no surviving legitimate male issue, though he was succeeded in the baronetcy according to the special remainder by his illegitimate son Charles, 2nd Baronet.
BELLAMONT FOREST, near Cootehill, County Cavan, now sits amid approximately one thousand acres of parkland and lakes.
It is one of Ireland’s finest 18th-century Palladian villas.
The house is four bays square, built over two storeys, with a basement, built of red brick with ashlar facings, and has a Doric limestone portico, with pediments over the windows.
The main house has been re-roofed and the chimneys rebuilt; the current owner has also rewired the house.
A new heating system has been installed on the ground floor with concealed radiators and the entire house re-plumbed.
There are both excellent formal reception rooms and beautiful entertaining rooms, coupled with a comfortable family atmosphere.
It provides extensive bedroom accommodation for both family, guests and staff, and in addition boasts the former linen hall.
The gardens have also been developed and greatly enhanced and act as further entertaining space.
As I’m sure you may be aware I’ve already featured Bellamont Forest in Co Cavan on this page. Due to the generosity of Charles Dorman O Gowan ( and friend ) I’ve got some photos previously never seen publicly , (along with some other very old ones which I’ve recently come across – the 1870s ones ). Charlie’s great great grand father bought the estate in 1874 for £145,000 . The family sold it circa 1980. There have been 3 owners since . As per my previous posts on Bellamont , the renovation of the house continues unabated.
8/8/2016
Bellamont Forest, ,near Cootehill,originally the Cavan seat of the Coote family , whose other branches included Ballyfin . Subsequently the Smith ( O Gowan) family paid about £145,000 in 1874 for the estate and they had many interesting members over the years including ” The Brigadier “, Eric Dorman O Gowan – he changed his name from Smith after a wrangle with Winston Churchill and the British government of the time -they owned it for over 100 years . Then the Mills family for a few years , John Coote an Australian designer and now John Morehart. Designed by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce in the style of Villa Capra /Rotonda by Andrea Palladio ( the Villa Pisani at Montagnana is very similar)for his uncle Thomas Coote in the mid 1720s. It really is exquisite in the trueness of its form . Despite a huge fire about 12/15 years after completion which destroyed much of the house and roof , the “rebuild ” was extensive and it retains its true form . Many timbers/joists after recent refurbishment works displayed evidence of burning and scorching from that fire. It was circa 1775 one of the main reception rooms , the library,had its flat ceiling replaced by the splendid vaulted one that exists today .Evidence of 18th century wallpaper still exists in the space above it where there was once a room ( in pictures section). Sitting overlooking 2 lakes( anyone can have one ) ,the house is quite simply breathtaking . My bias towards the beauty of this house , I’m rarely lost for words , requires me to state , show me another as pure and elegant .This is of National, if not international importance. Lovett Pearce also was responsible for amongst other buildings the former Irish Parliament on College Green and Castletown House. The house is ,as seen in the pictures ,undergoing extensive renovation work after a period of some neglect and possible inept or at least ill advised refurbishment works, but also the ravages of time, standing for not far off 300 years might take its toll on any building .I’m positive all owners tried their best during their time .
One of Ireland’s most architecturally important houses, Bellamont Forest in Cootehill, Co Cavan has sold
Wed, Jun 3, 2015
by Madeleine Lyons
One of Ireland’s most architecturally important houses, Bellamont Forest in Cootehill, Co Cavan has sold for around €2million. The substantial Palladian villa on 1000 acres has been purchased by a US couple with Irish interests and a number of international properties. The 18th century property had been on the market by a liquidator for €1.35million, until three weeks ago when final offers of more than €1.5million were invited by selling agent Ganly Walters. It’s understood the new owners, who currently own a holiday property in Ireland, plan to refurbish Bellamont for private use in a restoration project that will cost upwards of €2million.
According to Robert Ganly most of the bidding took place over a 48 hour period between the US couple and two other interested parties from the UK and Ireland. There had been a lot of interest in the property both for its historical significance as one of the finest examples in the British Isles of a Palladian villa and its role at the centre of a 1991 divorce action between the late owner John Coote and his wife Andrea (an Australian politician)….
Built between 1725 and 1730 for Thomas Coote, the Lord Justice of Ireland and designed by Coote’s gifted nephew, architect Sir Edward Lovett Pearce. Pearce’s other works include the former Houses of Parliament in College Green, now The Bank of Ireland. He later became Surveyor General of Ireland, a post which he held until his death in 1733.
The house is four bays square, built over two storeys, with a basement. The house is built of red brick with ashlar facings, and has a Doric limestone portico, with pediments over the windows.
Considered one of the most perfect Palladian villa ever built in Ireland, Bellamont House is not well known, but the Coote family who built it are. The first was Sir Charles Coote who died in battle at Trim in 1642, leaving his four estates to his four sons.
His youngest son Col. Thomas Coote was granted the lands in County Cavan after the Act of Settlement in 1662 and was the founder of the town known as Cootehill.
After his death in 1671 the estate was passed to his nephew Thomas Coote, who later became a Lord Justice of the Kings Bench in Ireland and was made a Knight of the Bath ‘in testimony of his good and laudable service in suppressing tumultuous and illegal insurrection in the northern parts of Ireland’.
After Thomas married his third wife Ann Lovett in 1697, Coote became the uncle-in-law of Sir Edward Lovett Pearce, a cousin who was the most important architect in Ireland during the early 18th century. It was Pearce who built Thomas Coote’s new house in 1730, the design based on Palladio’s Villa Rotonda at Vicenza.
The name was changed to Bellamont Forest by Coote’s grandson Charles, who inherited the estate in 1764 and became the Earl of Bellamont in 1767. Lord Bellamont was a interesting figure, described by some as a man of ‘the highest refinement’, but also a ‘tyrant’, ‘madman’ and ‘a person of disgusting pomposity’.
An consumate womaniser, he sired at least six illegitimate children, with six different women, including 5 from his wife. After his death the estate passed to these descendants who became less than prosperous.
In 1874 Edward Smith, a coal tycoon bought the Bellamont house and lands for £145,000. Following his death in 1880, the estate was continuously passed down until 1984 when the Irish ‘troubles’ persuaded the family to sell the estate.
Three years later John Coote a descendant whose family immigrated to Australia in the early 1900s, visited Ireland and discovered the derelict estate was for sale and seized the chance to buy it.
After 23 years of renovation, Coote completed the work of his lifetime at his family home, Bellamont Forest. It is truly an extraordinary achievement and the house is virtually unaltered since Pearce’s day. The 11,350 square foot, two-storey main house was re-roofed, rewired and replumbed, with underfloor heating installed on the ground floor.
Double doors lead into the 25ft by 29ft ballroom, the most ornate room in the house that showcase an exceptional coffered ceiling. The main reception room is the library, whose original flat ceiling was replaced by Lord Bellamont in 1775 with a more elaborate coved one to match the dining room. This was the only major alteration made to the house in 238 years.
The stone staircase leads to the mezzanine floor, which leads to a large bedroom with ensuite bath and an office, both with vaulted ceilings.
The staircase continues up to the first-floor bedroom hall, top-lit by a decorative elliptical lantern that later became a typical feature of Irish houses.
A second staircase leads to the basement, where much of the original stone-flag flooring and vaulted brick ceiling has been restored. There’s an apartment, large orignial kitchen, dining room, media room and wine cellar.
The servants’ tunnel links the basement with the landscaped walled garden to the rear of the house.
The vast former linen hall has also been restored to provide five reception rooms and five bedrooms with bathrooms.
John Coote died in 2012 and the property sits empty and quietly awaits someone with the financial ability to make the needed repairs and love this ancient family seat once again.
Ballyhaise House, Ballyhaise, Co. Cavan – agricultural college
Ballyhaise House, County Cavan, photograph by Robert French, Lawrence Photograph Collection, National Library of Ireland.
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. 22. “[Humphryes] An important house by Richard Castle, built ca 1733 for Brockhill Newburgh. Of 2 storeys over basement, and 7 bays, faced in brick, with ashlar dressings. Entrance front with pedimented central feature of 4 Ionic pilasters superimposed on a Doric entablature and 4 Doric pilasters. Garden front with central curved bow, which has round headed windows and a doorway under a consoled pediment. The bow contains an oval saloon which Dr. Craig considers may well be the earliest surviving oval room in the British Isles; it keeps its original plasterwork on the ceiling, which, surprisingly, is a brick vault; the groun dfloor as well as the basement being vaulted over, as in the King House in Boyle, Co Roscommon. The doors and chimneypiece in the saloon are all curved. Sold ca 1800 to William Humphreys, who extended the house by adding 2 storey wings of the same height as the original block and also of brick with stone facings; but with a neo-Classical flavour; the slightly projecting end bays on the entrance front being framed by broad corner strip pilasters, supporting entablatures with dies. The windows in these bays are tripartite, with entablatures over them on console brackets. Sold by the Humphrys family in the present century, now an agricultural college.”
Ballyhaise House was built for the Newburghs, a local landowning family, in the 1730s. Richard Cassels (1690-1751) was of German origin and also known as Richard Castle. He settled in Ireland around 1728 and worked with Edward Lovett Pearce on the Houses of Parliament before becoming the leading country house architect of his day in Ireland. Ballyhaise House has been used as an agricultural college since the beginning of the 20th century and has been much altered.
Detached eleven-bay two-storey over basement former country house, built c.1735, possibly with core of c.1700, comprising seven-bay central block having pedimented centre bays with superimposed orders and a three-bay semi-circular bow to rear elevation. Lower outer bays added c.1820 with recessed intermediate bays and advanced end bays having tripartite windows, southern bay forming end of four-bay side elevation. Now in use as college. Hipped and slated roofs with lead ridges and rendered chimneystacks of simplified Vanbrughesque design, having clay chimneypots with lotus-flower decoration. Parapet to central block as stone entablature with central pediment retaining trace of tympanum sculpture, similar entablature over bow to rear, lower stone cornices to outer bays and south wing. Red brick walls with architectural detailing of ashlar sandstone to front of main block and to later end wings, ashlar stone to centre three bays. Centre bays articulated with pilasters in superimposed Doric and Ionic orders, upper Ionic order having pulvinated frieze and cornice extending across higher central block. Doric order having blank metope frieze, cornice carried across central block and intermediate bays with plain ashlar band above and plain frieze below. Plain raised ashlar bands flanking end bays over both storeys carried round to the side elevations. Ruled-and-lined rendered walls to basement below string course at window head level and ashlar outer bays. Side elevation to south with simplified banding courses at mid height and a continuous string course under the upper storey sills. Side elevation to north of rubble stone with brick surrounds to openings and large quoins to the north-west corner. The rear elevation of roughcast render, smooth ruled-and-lined render to bow. Shouldered architraves to ground and first floor windows with ashlar sill course at ground floor and six-over-six timber sash windows. Tripartite windows to outer bays with ashlar mullions and cornice hoods on scrolled brackets, six-over-nine timber sash windows to centre section at ground floor windows. Segmental-headed windows to basement with plain architraves and six-over-six timber sashes. Square-headed door opening to central bay with recent glazed double-leaf entrance doors in shouldered architrave surround topped by a segmental pediment with shell motif over carved floral garland. Rear elevation with round-headed windows to basement and ground floors, segmental-headed to first floor, both types having plain reveals to bow and brick surrounds elsewhere. Square-headed door opening to bow with shouldered architrave surmounted by corbelled canopy with carved sandstone swag motif, round-headed blind door opening to main ground level above with Gibbs surround and open-bed pediment on scroll brackets. Entrance hall with plastered brick-vaulted ceiling with deep severies and coffered centre. Black and white stone floor tiles and tall Kilkenny limestone open-bed pedimented chimneypiece. Four main reception rooms off hall, Bishop’s Room having marble chimneypiece, running mould cornice and decorative centrepiece. Peacock Room having plastered brick-vaulted ceiling with elliptical-headed formerets, modillion cornice and heavy foliate centrepiece. Walls having hand-painted wallpaper with dado rail and deep skirting, panelled window joinery and panelled door with flanking pilaster architraves and plain entablature over-door and replacement marble fireplace. Oval Room in bow opens off hall to rear with compartmentalised oval ceiling having dentil cornice and foliate centrepiece, stucco panelled walls with dado rail and round-headed windows with panelled window joinery, curved Kilkenny limestone chimneypiece having central corbel with fish-scale design. Ballroom now in use as a lecture room with decorative modillion cornice and centrepiece with decorative feather motifs, dado rail and deep skirting boards, Carrara marble chimneypiece with fluted Corinthian columns supporting mantle having decorative Greek key and palmette motif to lintel. Panelled window shutters, soffits and window backs with fan detail to reveals, timber panelled doors with similar fan details to panels and overdoor with floral garlands. Stair hall off entrance hall to south with service stair beyond lobby room to the north. Dogleg stair from basement to first floor with sandstone steps from ground floor to basement. Turned balusters set on pears and blocks and scrolled tread ends with decorative fretwork detail. Door openings in stair hall have round-headed overdoors with decorative spider-web motif emulating fanlight and flanking pilaster architraves. Dining room in end bay now used as a boardroom with decorative cornice having palmette motifs, grey marble chimneypiece having flanking Ionic columns, timber panelled window and doors with fan details to panels and decorative floral garland to overdoor. Arched recess to west-end wall. Offices to basement all with brick vaulted ceilings, stone flags in parts with black and red quarry tiles to entrance hall, plain rendered window embrasures with simple historic timber shutters to some windows and some cast-iron fireplaces. Ground floor raised above surrounding area opening onto steps flanked by balustrade at raised level enclosing basement area across front and south elevation, further steps lead down to driveway. Situated within an extensive designed landscape on rising ground in a meander of Annalee River. Extensive stable and farmyard complex extends up hill to west, large south-facing walled garden to north-west, gates and lodge to south-east.
Ballyhaise House is architecturally one of the most significant houses in Cavan. A multiple phased building set in an early designed landscape, the core of house, vaulted over basement and ground floor, date from c.1705. A historic watercolour painted before 1730 depicts the earlier house with related buildings and bridge in the wider landscape setting. The house was remodelled after this date for Brockhill Newburgh MP, and the work has traditionally been attributed to Richard Castle (1690-1751), one of Ireland’s foremost Palladian architects. However, it is now thought to be the work of Sir Edward Lovett Pearce. The demesne landscape was described in Rev Henry’s ‘Upper Lough Erne’ in 1739. The advanced outer bays were added c.1820, possibly by the Dublin architect William Farrell (d. 1851), and are similar in detail to his work at nearby Rathkenny House and Kilmore See House. The interior is well preserved, the architectural detail reflecting the historic evolution of the house, with classical detailing added to earlier vaulted ceilings being a notable feature. The demesne constitutes an ensemble of structures and designed landscape features of high quality, including a largely intact stable yard, a walled garden, and entrance gates, and adds to its setting and context.
Built by Brockhill Newburgh and originally composed with wings in the classic Palladian manner (removed when the house was extended in the early nineteenth century), Ballyhaise was deemed by Jonathan Swift, ‘not only the best, but the only house he had seen in Ireland’.
Like Bellamont, the house at Ballyhaise is distinguished as a building predominantly built of brick with its classical detail perfectly mediated, cleanly and precisely, in contrasting stone trim. Instead of a freestanding portico, the idea of the temple front is addressed in the frontispiece, a pedimented breakfront formed with two tiers of pilasters – Ionic over Doric – which observed the strict hierarchy that applies to the classical orders. Ballyhaise was further innovative for its introduction to Irish domestic architecture of the central bowed projection, distinctive here in its accommodation of a complete oval form within the plan, a shape that derives from French baroque architecture of the seventeenth
century. Though difficult to conceive now, Ballyhaise was even more remarkable in that its original form had been conceived with the classic expanded Palladian layout, its central block set between curved wings in a manner that enjoyed an enduring popularity in Ireland, having begun with houses like Carton and Castletown in County Kildare. At Ballyhaise, this grand composition with its low arcaded wings terminating in polygonal pavilions, equal to the most ambitious of Palladio’s villa designs, was swept away when new wings were formed in the early nineteenth century. The massing of the central block at Ballyhaise between lower square subsidiary towers and a series of small pyramid roofs recurred at Lismore (fig.14), where the surviving wings rather more grandly reaffirm the Palladian idea of closely integrating the agricultural practicalities of the farm with the house.
Ballyhaise House As part of James I’s plantation of Ulster, in 1609 John Taylor of Cambridge received a grant of 1,500 acres in an area of County Cavan called Aghieduff. Here he established the town of Ballyhaise and, according to a mid-19th century report, ‘built a strong Bawn of lime and stone for his own residence, on the site of the present castle, which, from it position, commanded the ford over the river.’ John Taylor married Ann the daughter and heiress of Henry Brockhill of Allington, Kent – their elder son was Brockhill Taylor who served as Member of Parliament for the borough of Cavan in the 1630s. On his death he left no son but two daughters one of whom, Mary inherited the Cavan estate. She married Thomas Newburgh - their second son, Colonel Brockhill Newburgh, (c.1659 – 1741) was the next owner of Ballyhaise since his elder brother died in 1701 without heirs. During the Williamite Wars, Colonel Newburgh had raised a company of soldiers and participated in several battles in support of what would prove to be the winning side.
In 1704 he was appointed High Sheriff of Cavan and served as an M.P. from 1715 to 1727, as well as acting as chairman of the local linen board. Ballyhaise remained in the possession of the Newburgh family until around 1800 when it was sold to William Humphreys, a Dublin merchant who had made his fortune in the wood trade. In 1905 the state bought the property and has run it as an agricultural college every since.
‘It were also to be wished that even our gentlemen would in their country-seats imitate Colonel Newburgh, a great improver in the Co. of Cavan, who as well as several others, does not only use stucco work, instead of wainscot, but has arched his fine dwelling-house, and all his large office-houses, story over story, and even all their roofs in the most beautiful manner without any timber.’ Samuel Madden, Reflections and Resolutions Proper for the Gentlemen of Ireland, Etc.1738. ‘This seat, for beauty and magnificence, may vie with any in Ireland. There is an ascent to it by several terraces from the river, which are adorned with ponds, jets d’eau, fruit and flowers. The house is about 140 feet in front – it is made to last for ever – the roofs and all the apartments being vaulted, and curiously finished with stucco work; and yet scarce any house in Ireland has so brisk and lively an aspect – the just mixture of the brick and hewn stone, and the proportion of the parts adding life to one another; the large court and offices also behind it are all vaulted. It is not easy to pass by this fine seat without delaying at it, but to do justice to the house, its various apartments, gardens, vistas, avenues, circular walks, roads and plantations rising to the tops of all the hills around, would require a description that would draw me too far from my present design.’ Rev. William Henry, Upper Lough Erne, 1739. ‘The affairs of Ireland being sometime happily settled, the gentlemen of the country now began to quit their cottages, and build mansion houses, suitable to their estates and fortunes. The arts hitherto unknown in Ireland, architecture in particular, began to receive encouragement; of which no gentleman of private fortune gave juster and more useful specimens than Mr Newburgh. His dwelling house as well as offices being arched throughout, in the upper as well as lower stories are thereby of course, free from the danger and power of fire. The compliment that the late Dean Swift paid to Mr Newburgh on the planning such a singular but useful edifice, was as uncommon, as there is reason to believe it sincere, viz. That it was not only the best, but the only house he had seen in Ireland.’ Particulars relating to the Life and Character of the Late Brockhill Newburgh Esq. ,1761.
As part of James I’s plantation of Ulster, in 1609 John Taylor of Cambridge received a grant of 1,500 acres in an area of County Cavan called Aghieduff. Here he established the town of Ballyhaise and, according to a mid-19th century report, ‘built a strong Bawn of lime and stone for his own residence, on the site of the present castle, which, from it position, commanded the ford over the river.’ Further English and Scottish settlers were encouraged to move into the area and when Nicholas Pynner undertook his government-commissioned survey of the province’s plantation in 1618-19 he found eighteen such families living at Ballyhaise ‘and everything around the infant colony appeared in the most prosperous condition.’ The disturbances of the 1640s were a setback to the enterprise but by the time of Charles II’s restoration to the throne in 1660, Ballyhaise’s settlement was once more progressing. John Taylor had married the daughter and heiress of Henry Brockhill of Allington, Kent and their elder son was duly christened Brockhill Taylor; he served as Member of Parliament for the borough of Cavan in the 1630s. On his death he left no son but two daughters one of whom, Mary inherited the Cavan estate. She married Thomas Newburgh and the couple had several sons, the second of which, Colonel Brockhill Newburgh, was the next owner of Ballyhaise since his elder brother died in 1701 without heirs. During the Williamite Wars, Colonel Newburgh had raised a company of soldiers and participated in several battles in support of what would prove to be the winning side. In 1704 he was appointed High Sheriff of Cavan and served as an M.P. from 1715 to 1727, as well as acting as chairman of the local linen board. However it is for the building projects he undertook on his Ballyhaise estate that Colonel Newburgh is best remembered. In 1703 he and another local landowner rebuilt the bridge here as an eight-arched stone structure, and during the same period he also embarked on a grand scheme to lay out a new town, described after his death as being ‘in the form of a Circus, the houses all arched, with a large circular market house in the center; a building, in the opinion of some good judges, not unworthy the plan of Vitruvius or Palladio; and which (if we may be allowed to compare small things with great) bears no distant resemblance to the Pantheon at Rome, but with this difference, without the opening of the convex roof at the summit, contrived to give light to the latter.’ Unfortunately in 1736 the market house collapsed and had to be rebuilt; in 1837 it was reported to be ‘an arched edifice built of brick and of singular appearance.’ It has since gone and the present market house, with ill-considered uPVC windows, does little to improve what remains of Colonel Newburgh’s once-elegant and innovative programme of urban planning.
The near-contemporaneous accounts carried above give us an idea of Colonel Newburgh’s ambitious developments of his own house and grounds at Ballyhaise, and the impact these made on visitors to the area. The gardens, it is clear, were an elaborate baroque arrangement of ‘ponds, jets d’eau, fruit and flowers’ spread across a sequence of terraces that descended to the river before the land rose up once more on its far side. As for the house, its architect has long been the subject of speculation. It used to be attributed to Castle, but given that Colonel Newburgh is believed to have been born c.1659 (and died in 1741) and that certain elements of the building, not least the red brick used in its construction, are associated with Sir Edward Lovett Pearce, he now seems more likely to have been responsible. Ballyhaise was probably constructed on the site and incorporated parts of an earlier dwelling dating back a century to around the time of John Taylor’s arrival; one imagines this to have been defensive in character. Colonel Newburgh’s house, on the other hand, projects its owner’s assurance and the more tranquil character of the time. The core of the building was of two storeys over half-basement, and of seven bays. As already mentioned red brick was used except for the three centre bays which are of limestone with Ionic over Doric pilasters below a full entablature supporting a pediment. The narrow entrance is reached at the top of a flight of steps, a garland of carved flowers fitted beneath the door case’s segmental pediment containing a scallop shell. In 1746 the architect and designer Thomas Wright who was then visiting Ireland as a guest of Lord Limerick (see Do the Wright Thing, July 28th 2014) made a sketch of the front of Ballyhaise as it then was. This can be seen above and indicates the house was the centrepiece of a Palladian scheme extended on either side by quadrants before terminating in pavilion wings. None of this remains today and the interior has likewise undergone changes since first completed when it was vaulted throughout, allegedly as a precaution against fire. What remain largely unaltered are the entrance hall and rooms immediately on either side; one of these, the so-called Peacock Room, contains wall paper from the first half of the 19th century, covered in varnish at some later date but otherwise in good condition. To the rear of the entrance hall is the room which best evokes Colonel Newburgh’s house, a small oval saloon. Its walls covered in plaster panelling beneath a shallow coffered dome, the saloon contains a simple Kilkenny marble chimneypiece and two windows on either side of what surely must once have been an opening onto a balcony at the centre of the projecting bow.
Ballyhaise remained in the possession of the Newburgh family until around 1800 when it was sold to William Humphreys, a Dublin merchant who had made his fortune in the wood trade. By then the house must have looked very old-fashioned and it was therefore subjected to a complete overhaul. The quadrants and wings were demolished and the main block extended on either side to hold drawing and dining room respectively, both lit by generous tripartite windows. The contrast between these and the original early 18thcentury windows is only one of a number of incongruities, accentuated on the exterior by the unmistakable difference in tone of brick. Inside rather narrow passages provide access to the main reception rooms which are large and mostly plain although the overdoors carry floral friezes. The main staircase, squeezed into too tight a space, leads to the first floor former bedrooms which are also simple although some, such as that immediately above the oval saloon, retain their Georgian decoration and chimney piece. Mr Humprheys’ heirs enjoyed the advantages of his wealth for barely a century before it ran out and the house was once more sold, this time to the state which in 1905 bought the estate to run as an agricultural college. Ballyhaise has served this purpose every since, a mixed blessing for the place. Inevitably there have been losses, not least to the surrounding parkland where no evidence of Colonel Newburgh’s fantastical gardens survive; of course, these may well have been swept away when the property was modernised by Mr Humphreys. Recent additions to the building stock in the grounds are pedestrian in design, but the old stable blocks remain and have suffered relatively little compromise. And most importantly the house itself survives and has of late benefitted from remedial works, particularly to the roof. Not all is as was when Colonel Newburgh embarked on his improvements but the words of the Rev. William Henry written in 1739 still ring true: Ballyhaise appears to have been ‘made to last for ever.’
THE HUMPHRYS’ OWNED 5,146 ACRES OF LAND IN COUNTY CAVAN
WILLIAM HUMPHRYS, of Ballyhaise, County Cavan, younger brother of Christopher Humphrys, of Dromard, married Letitia Kennedy, and had issue,
Christopher, b 1786; WILLIAM, of whom we treat; John, 1809-18; Anne; Matilda; Letitia; Amelia; Caroline; Sophia.
Mr Humphrys, High Sheriff of County Cavan, 1822, was succeeded by his second son,
WILLIAM HUMPHRYS JP DL (1798-1872), of Ballyhaise House, High Sheriff of County Cavan, 1832, who wedded firstly, in 1826, Anna Maria, daughter of John Pratt Winter, of Agher, County Meath, and had issue,
WILLIAM, his heir; JOHN WINTER, succeeded his brother; Mervyn Archdall; Anne Elizabeth.
He espoused secondly, in 1838, Maria Clarissa, daughter of Hugh Moore, of Eglantine House, County Down, and had issue,
WILLIAM HUMPHRYS (1827-77), High Sheriff of County Cavan, 1877, who died unmarried, and was succeeded by his brother,
JOHN WINTER HUMPHRYS (1829-84), of Ballyhaise House, High Sheriff of County Cavan, 1879, who married, in 1854, Priscilla Cecilia, daughter of the Rev J P Garrett, of Killgaron, County Carlow, and had issue,
WILLIAM, his heir; John Mervyn; James Winter; Charles Vesey; Mervyn Archdall; Francis Edward; Arthur Armitage; Llewellyn Winter; Percy Raymond; Caroline Elizabeth; Priscilla Cecilia; Clara Christina; Anna Maria; Emily May.
Mr Humphrys was succeeded by his eldest son,
WILLIAM HUMPHRYS JP (1855-97), of Ballyhaise House, Lieutenant RN, who wedded, in 1879, Alice, daughter of James Stannard JP, of Bricketstown House, County Wexford, and had issue,
WILLIAM, his heir; NUGENT WINTER, succeeded his brother; Ethel Elizabeth; Evelyn Alice.
Mr Humphrys was succeeded by his eldest son,
WILLIAM HUMPHRYS (1883-1906), of Ballyhaise House, Lieutenant, 17th Lancers, who died unmarried, and was succeeded by his brother,
NUGENT WINTER HUMPHRYS (1885-1931), of Ballyhaise House, Lieutenant, Manchester Regiment, who espoused, in 1911, Blanche Ada de Vivefay, daughter of William Edward Wilson, of Daramona.
BALLYHAISE HOUSE, Ballyhaise, County Cavan, is one of the most notable mansions in County Cavan.
The house comprises two storeys over a basement, with seven bays; with ashlar dressings, faced in brick.
The entrance front has a pedimented feature with four Ionic pilasters.
The garden front has a central carved bow with round-headed windows.
The bow contains an oval saloon, which has been considered one of the earliest of its kind in the British Isles.
Ballyhaise was sold in 1800 to William Humphrys, who enlarged the house considerably by adding two storey wings of the same height as the original block.
The estate was sold by the Humprys family in 1906 and now serves as an agricultural college.
Carrigafoyle Castle stands on a rocky islet in a marsh on the south side of the Shannon Estuary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
Patrick Comerford
On the way back from Ballybunion to Askeaton at the weekend, two of us stopped near Ballylongford on the Shannon Estuary to visit Carrigafoyle Castle, Co Kerry.
Ballylongford, between Ballybunion and Tarbert, is the birthplace of the poet Brendan Kennelly, the World War I general Lord Kitchener, the 1916 leader ‘The O’Rahilly,’ and Detective Garda Gerry McCabe who was murdered by the IRA in Adare in 1996.
Carrigafoyle Castle is 3 km north of Ballylongford, between the high-water and low-water marks on the shore of the Shannon Estuary, set on a small rocky islet in the marsh. its name comes from the Irish, Carraig an Phoill, ‘Rock of the Hole.’
Although the castle was wrecked in a series of bloody sieges, it remains a remarkable castle with its large tower built by the O’Connors of Kerry between 1490 and 1500. In size and grandeur, it compares with Blarney Castle, and was once one of the strongest fortresses in Ireland. It rises to 26.4 meters (86.6 ft) and immediately conveys strength.
Across the broad estuary of the Shannon are Carrig Island and Scattery Island, which provided shelter for the island and enhanced its strategic location.
We stepped across to the castle from the road along across a raised path of stones that are often submerged at high tide. Although there are no facilities, visitors can engage with the mediaeval experience, climb the circular stone staircase to the top and take in.
The sweeping, majestic panorama from the turrets and battlements Carrigafoyle Castle on the Shannon Estuary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
Carrigafoyle Castle was built by Connor Liath O’Connor of Kerry at the end of the 15th century on what was originally an island, using a design borrowed from the Anglo-Normans.
Carrigafoyle Castle is five storeys high. There is an unusually-wide, spiral staircase of 104 steps in one corner of the tower, leading to the battlements, and small rooms and the main living spaces opening off the stairs, including vaults over the second and fourth storeys.
Within the bay, the castle-rock was defended on the west and south sides by a double defensive wall; the inner wall enclosed a bawn, and surrounding this was a moat covered on three sides (the east lay open) by the outer wall, where a smaller tower stood. The precipitous sides of the castle-rock were layered with bricks and mortar.
The spiral staircase leads to the top of Carrigafoyle Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
The stone bawn wall at the foot of the castle once contained a boat dock where boats could dock and tie up safely at high tide. This was important in the 1500s while the O’Connors of Kerry continued to ‘inspect’ ships passing to and from the port of Limerick – others would have called it piracy.
Carrigafoyle Castle was the main stronghold of the O’Connor Kerry family, who for 400 years were the key family in north Kerry. From here, they intercepted ships making their way up the Shannon to Limerick, 32 km upriver, boarded them and took a part of their cargoes. This practice continued into the mid-16th century.
The Siege of Carrigafoyle Castle during the Desmond Wars in 1580 was part of the crown campaign against the forces of Gerald Fitzgerald, 15th Earl of Desmond, during the Second Desmond Rebellion.
During the rebellion, the castle was held by 50 Irish, along with 16 Spanish soldiers who had landed at Smerwick harbour the previous year in the 1579 Papal invasion; women and children were also present. Months earlier, an Italian engineer, Captain Julian, had set about strenthening the castle’s defences under the direction of the Countess of Desmond. By the time of the siege, she had retreated Castleisland while Captain Julian remained at the castle.
Inside the ruins of Carrigafoyle Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
The castle was attacked by naval artillery on land and sea, under the command of Sir William Pelham. Pelham had marched through Munster with Sir George Carew and took command of an additional 600 troops. He was supported by a fleet of three ships under the command of Sir William Winter. It was the largest army ever seen in the west of Ireland.
The bombardment of the castle was carried out over two days, six hours each day. On Palm Sunday, Pelham ordered a party of troops to cross to the sea-wall, where they were pinned down by gunfire and had boulders hurled at them from the battlements. The Earl of Ormond described seeing the sea-channel fill with wreckage as the sides of the castle-rock became slippery with blood.
The final assault was led by Captain Humfrey Mackworth and Captain John Zouche. The tower cracked under the impact of two or three shot, and the great west wall collapsed on its foundations, crushing many people inside the castle. The survivors fled through the shallow waters, but most were shot or put to the sword. The rest, including one woman, were brought back to camp and hanged from trees. Captain Julian was hanged three days later. All the castle occupants, including 19 Spanish and 50 Irish, were massacred.
The strategic significance of the siege is shown in the swift way in which other Desmond strongholds fell once news of the destruction had spread. The castle at Askeaton was abandoned, and the garrisons at Newcastle West, Balliloghan, Rathkeale and Ballyduff fled soon after. . In 1583, the Earl of Desmond was killed at Glenageenty in the Slieve Mish mountains near Tralee.
Brendan Kennelly’s poem ‘Small Light’ was inspired by the story of the servant girl who is said to have betrayed Carrigafoyle Castle during the siege.
The castle was later recovered by John na Cathach (John of the Battles) O’Connor Kerry. In 1600, this John na Cathach surrendered the Castle of Carrigafoyle and his estates into the hands of the Earl of Thomond, President of Munster, and obtained a regrant of them from Queen Elizabeth. When he died in 1640 he had five daughters but no sons and his titles and estates passed to his kinsman, Donal Maol O’Connor.
Carrigafoyle Castle was known as ‘the impregnable castle’ because of its long resistance to Cromwell’s attacks. It was one of the last castles in Ireland taken by the Cromwellians, and the 12 people found in it were hanged. By 1659, Carrigafoyle Castle had a garrison of 40 to protect the south shore of the Shannon. But the castle was so damaged it was never properly repaired. Despite its wrecked condition, it was occupied in the early 20th century by a Dr Fitzmaurice and his family.
Opposite the castle is the ruined mediaeval Church of Carrigafoyle, built in the same style.
Carrigafoyle Castle is now a listed National Monument, and is managed by the Office of Public Works. In recent years, the castle has hosted the O’Connor Kerry Clan gatherings. Although it remains in its ruined state, it has been restored in parts and is open to the public from June to September from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Climbing to the top in Carrigafoyle Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
‘Carrick and Carrig are the names of nearly seventy townlands, villages and towns, and form the beginning of about 555 others; craig and creag are represented by the various forms Crag, Craig, Creg, &c., and these constitute or begin about 250 names; they mean primarily a rock, but they are sometimes applied to rocky island. Carrigafoyle, an island in the Shannon, near Ballylongford, Kerry, with the remains of Carrigafoyle castle near the shore, the chief seat of the O’Conors Kerry, is called in the annals, Carraig-an-phoill, the rock of the hole; and it took its name from a deep hole in the river immediately under the castle.’ From The Origin and History of Irish Names of Places by P.W. Joyce (1869)
‘Sir William Pelham and the earl of Ormond set out early this year [1580] on a fresh campaign in Desmond’s territory; the first marching first to Limerick in the beginning of February, and the latter to Cork, and both forming a junction at the foot of Slieve Mis, near Tralee. They spared neither age nor sex in their march, and, owing to the state of desolation to which the country had been reduced, suffered not a little inconvenience themselves for want of provisions. They then marched northwards to destroy the castles still garrisoned by Desmond’s men, and first laid siege to the strong castle of Carrigafoyle (Carrig-an-phuill) situated in an islet in the Shannon, on the coast of Kerry. The Four Masters say that Pelham landed some heavy ordnance from Sir William Winter’s fleet, which arrived on the Irish coast about this time, and battered a portion of the castle, crushing some of the warders beneath the ruins; but other annalists make no mention of cannon landed from the ships.’ From The History of Ireland, Ancient and Modern by Martin Haverty (1867)
‘For the rebels it was a losing game all through. Pelham and Ormond took Desmond’s strongholds one by one. Carrigafoyle Castle on the south shore of the Shannon was his strongest fortress. It was valiantly defended by fifty Irishmen and nineteen Spaniards, commanded by Count Julio an Italian engineer: but after being by cannon until a breach was made, it was taken by storm about the 27th March. Without delay the whole garrison, including Julio with six Spaniards and some women, were hanged or put to the sword…A few days after the capture of this fortress the garrisons of some others of Desmond’s castles, including Askeaton, abandoned them, terrified by the fate of Carrigafoyle.’ From A Short History of Ireland, from the Earliest Times to 1608 by P.W. Joyce (1893)
Solsborough, County Tipperary, courtesy National Inventory.
Detached three-storey over basement former country house, built c. 1830, having pedimented breakfront to three-bay front elevation with porch, five-bay side elevations, projecting three-bay block and two-storey wing to rear. Top storey added c. 1860. Roof removed 1953, cut stone chimneystacks remain. Ashlar limestone walls with brick inner leaf, rubble limestone to basement, limestone string course and rendered brick eaves course. Square-headed window openings with limestone voussoirs to front elevation and brick to sides and basement, with cut stone sills. Round-headed window with carved limestone archivolt and consoles to breakfront. Square-headed door opening with limestone surround recessed in flat-roofed porch comprising limestone Doric columns and pilasters supporting frieze and cornice, with limestone steps and parapet walls. Extensive outbuildings to site.
Appraisal
This house makes an interesting group with its extensive outbuildings, walled garden, and the gates and railings to the entrance. Although roofless for over fifty years, the walls are in remarkably good condition, evidence of the high quality masonry. Once the home of the Poe family, the estate was financed by Indigo plantations in India, until the invention of synthetic indigo dye in the late nineteenth century caused the market to collapse.
Outbuildings set around two yards, built c. 1830. South yard has walls to east and south and L-plan building to other sides comprising six-bay two-storey former carriage house and hayloft to west and six-bay two-storey former carriage house with integral carriage arch to north. North yard has L-plan building comprising two-storey three-bay former stables and hayloft with bellcote to west, multiple-bay single-storey outbuildings to east, new outbuildings to north, and north elevation of south yard to south side. Remains of walled garden to north. Outbuildings have pitched and hipped slate roofs with slated ventilation openings and brick chimneystacks, dressed limestone walls, square-headed openings with timber louvres, timber sash windows and matchboard doors and brick surrounds. Round-headed door openings to south yard with paned fanlights and brick surrounds, and elliptical-arched carriage opening with dressed limestone voussoirs. Stables to south yard have cut limestone bellcote with pediment and string courses, and brick mangers to interior. Remains of a walled garden to north, with brick faced north wall.
Appraisal
These outbuildings are remarkably well constructed for such functional buildings, with dressed limestone used for the more prestigious front yard. They form an interesting group with Solsborough House, the walled garden, and the gates and railings at the entrance. The faint but discernable horizontal line across the façades of the buildings shows their original height, before being raised to be in proportion with the house, which had a third storey added. The louvres and vents throughout were used for air circulation for drying hay, and today give a distinctive roofline to the buildings. The roofs were so well constructed that the original slates are still in situ. The brick used in the west façade of the stables wall provides cavities for built-in mangers for hay. On the interior, carved timber arches delineate each stall. Bricks are also used to face the south elevation of the north wall of the former walled garden and would have stored heat, and enabled the cultivation of fruit trees from warmer climates.
Solsborough, County Tipperary, courtesy National Inventory.
Quadrant gateway erected 1863. Square-profile cut limestone piers with moulded panels to inner and outer ends of quadrants. Inner piers flanked by ornate cast-iron piers to pedestrian entrances. Similar ornate cast-iron gates and railings, latter with limestone plinth. Snecked dressed limestone walls with triangular coping to site boundary. The insciption on the northern pier unusually gives the builder’s name and date of erection of the gateway.
Appraisal
These gates and railings are of apparent artistic value, and evidently the work of skilled craftsmen. The attention to detail is such that the outer pier to the north has been carved on two faces and turned at an angle to present a pleasing aspect to both approaches. These impressive gates form an interesting group with Solsborough House, its outbuildings and walled garden.
After Monday’s melancholic post about the former bishop’s palace in Clonfert, here is a more cheering story. More than eight years ago, in May 2016, the Irish Aesthete was taken to see a house called Solsborough in County Tipperary. Dating from the first half of the 19th century, although likely on the site of an older property, the place had long since been unroofed and abandoned, and like so many other buildings of its kind, left a shell on the landscape. But in 2014 Solsborough was bought by the present owners who gradually embarked on an ambitious and thorough restoration programme: as can be seen in the photographs above, this was only beginning to get underway at the time of the 2016. Today the house has been fully and wonderfully brought back to use, a further demonstration that no such building is beyond salvation – and re-use – provided there is sufficient vision on the part of those responsible.
Solsborough, County Tipperary, photograph by Irish Aesthete.
Solsborough, County Tipperary, photograph by Irish Aesthete.
Of late, and even before the publication last year of The Irish Country House: A New Vision (Rizzoli, 2024), the Irish Aesthete has been increasingly interested in discovering historic properties which have undergone an improvement in their fortunes. For many decades, and certainly for much of the last century, our architectural heritage suffered from cruel, and even from time to time gratuitous, negligence. In consequence, we lost much which could have and should have been saved, as can be seen by the considerable number of ruined structures scattered across the national landscape. But of late, there appears to be a change of attitude and, at least in some quarters, a desire not to leave older structures fall into ruin. Instead, they are being brought back from the brink by a new generation of owners who have the imagination to see the potential in what was built by our predecessors, and a determination that these buildings have a future as well as a past.
Solsborough, County Tipperary, photograph by Irish Aesthete.
Solsborough, County Tipperary, photograph by Irish Aesthete.
Solsborough, County Tipperary, photograph by Irish Aesthete.
Solsborough, County Tipperary, photograph by Irish Aesthete.
Over the past ten years or so, a number of state-backed initiatives, run by both central and local government as well as a number of other agencies, have begun to provide financial assistance to owners who wish to undertake restoration work on their historic property. While the funds available are not necessarily as much as might be needed, the existence of these supports likewise indicates a change in attitude towards our built heritage, not least a better understanding of how important is its preservation. Of course, many old properties continue to face dilapidation and disrepair, most often through simple neglect. However, it is imperative that sometimes we celebrate what has been saved. As the prodigal father proclaims to his disgruntled elder son in Luke’s Gospel, ‘it was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.’
Solsborough, County Tipperary, photograph by Irish Aesthete.
Solsborough, County Tipperary, photograph by Irish Aesthete.
Solsborough, County Tipperary, photograph by Irish Aesthete.
Solsborough, County Tipperary, photograph by Irish Aesthete.
Today’s pictures show just such a lost and found property, Solsborough, County Tipperary. The present house dates back to the 1830s but appears likely to have been constructed on the site of an older residence since the family who lived there, the Poes, had been settled in this part of the country since the 1660s. Like so many other buildings of this ilk, Solsborough was unroofed in c.1953, thereby saving the then-owners the necessity of paying domestic rates. When the Irish Aesthete first visited the place nine years ago, little more than the exterior walls remained, although by then the building was encased in scaffolding as the owners, who had bought it in 2014, were already intending to embark on a restoration programme. Returning to the house now, and as these pictures show, it is difficult to believe this was once a roofless ruin, so thorough a job has been undertaken on the place. To see Solsborough in all its glory now is to understand why there are occasions when we must make merry and be glad.
Solsborough, County Tipperary, photograph by Irish Aesthete.
Solsborough, County Tipperary, photograph by Irish Aesthete.
Ardfert Abbey, County Kerry – Destroyed by IRA by fire in 1922.
Ardfert Abbey, County Kerry entrance front, photograph: c. 1870, collection: Col. Talbot Crosbie, 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.
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. 8. “Crosbie/IFR) A house originally built towards the end of C17 by Sir Thomas Crosbie, MP; “modernized” 1720 by Maurice Crosbie, 1st Lord Brandon, and again altered ca 1830, though keeping its original character. Two-storey main block with seven-bay front, the two outer bays on either side breaking forwards and framed by quoins; a pedimented centre, in which a single triple window was substituted at some period – presumably during the alterations of ca 1830 – for the three first floor bays. Plain rectangular doorcase; and a high eaved roof on a modillion cornice.
“The front was elongated by lower two-storey wings which protruded forwards at right angles to it, thus forming an open forecourt, then turned outwrds and extended for a considerable way on either side. Irregular wing at back of house.
“Inside the house, the panelled hall was decorated with figures painted in monochrome on panels. There was an early 18th century staircase and gallery; Corinthian newels, and more panelling on the landing with Corinthian pilasters; modillion cornice. A large drawing-room boasted compartmented plasterwork on the ceiling. Here there was a full-length Reynolds portrait of Lady Glandore. Caryatid chimneypiece in one room.
“The gardens had an early formal layout: sunken parterre; yew alleys; trees cut into an arcade; avenues of beech, lime and elm. A ruined Franciscan friary was in the grounds.
“The mansion was burnt to the ground by the IRA ca 1922, and all that remains are some relics of the formal garden.
“Ardfert eventually passed to Rev John Talbot (see Mount Talbot), son of 2nd Earl of Glandore’s sister, who assumed the additional surname of Crosbie. It was sold in the present century by J.B. Talbot-Crosbie. Nothing now remains of the house, but there are still some relics of the formal garden.”
Ardfert Abbey, County Kerry, drawing room, 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.Theodosia Bligh (1722-1777), Countess of Glandore, attributed to James Latham, courtesy of Adam’s 5 Oct 2010.
Featured in Mark Bence-Jones, Mark Bence Jones, Life in an Irish Country House. Constable, London. 1996.
“Built for Sir Thomas Crosbie, MP, built himself a house a few miles inland from the North Kerry coast at Ardfert, of which his grandfather John Crosbie had been Bishop. The Crosbies were descended from the O’More’s of Laois, their surname was originally “MacCrossan,” meaning “son of the rhymer” – were granted lands in North Kerry by Queen Elizabeth i. Sir Thomas Crosbie’s house, which was improved by his grandson Sir Maurice Crosbie in 1720, was very much of its time….A ruined Franciscan friary in the grounds caused the house to be known eventually as Ardfert Abbey.
THE EARLS OF GLANDORE OWNED 9,913 ACRES OF LAND IN COUNTY KERRY
This family came into Ireland during the reign of ELIZABETH I when one of the house of CROSBIE, of Great Crosby, in Lancashire, left two sons, Patrick and John.
PATRICK CROSBIE, the elder son, obtained a considerable landed property, and was succeeded by his son,
PIERS CROSBIE (1590-1646), who incurred the resentment of the great Earl of Strafford, for opposing in parliament his violent measures, which obliged him to quit the kingdom, when a second prosecution was carried on against him by the Star Chamber, in England, which ended in his confinement in the Fleet, from whence he escaped beyond seas, and continued abroad until Lord Strafford’s trial, when he became, in his turn, evidence against him.
He is said to have been created a baronet by JAMES I, and was a gentleman of the Privy Chamber to CHARLES I, and a Lord of the Privy Council.
Sir Piers died without issue, and bequeathed his estates to his cousins, Walter and David Crosbie.
THE RT REV JOHN CROSBIE, his uncle, Lord Bishop of Ardfert, appointed to that see in 1601, married Winifred, daughter of O’Lalor, of the Queen’s County, and had, with four daughters, six sons,
WALTER (Sir), 1st Baronet; DAVID, ancestor of the EARLS OF GLANDORE; John (Sir), of Tullyglass, Co Down; Patrick; William; Richard.
The Queen’s letter to Lord Deputy Mountjoy, dated from the manor of Oatland, 1601, directing his appointment to the see of Ardfert, describes the Bishop as
“a graduate in schools, of the English race, skilled in the English tongue, and well disposed in religion.”
He was prebendary of Dysart in the diocese of Limerick.
His lordship’s second son,
DAVID CROSBIE, Colonel in the army, Governor of Kerry, 1641, stood a siege in Ballingarry Castle for more than twelve months.
He was afterwards governor of Kinsale for CHARLES I.
In 1646, Colonel Crosbie inherited a portion of the estate of his cousin, Sir Piers Crosbie, son of Patrick Crosbie, who had been granted a large portion of The O’More’s estate in Leix.
He married a daughter of the Rt Rev John Steere, Lord Bishop of Ardfert, and had, with four daughters, two sons,
THOMAS (Sir), his heir; Patrick, of Tubrid, Co Kerry.
Colonel Crosbie died in 1658, and was succeeded by his elder son,
SIR THOMAS CROSBIE, Knight, of Ardfert, High Sheriff of Kerry, 1668, knighted by James, Duke of Ormonde, in consideration of the loyalty of his family during the Usurper’s rebellion.
Sir Thomas, MP for County Kerry in the parliament held at Dublin by JAMES II, 1688, refused to take the oath of allegiance to WILLIAM III.
He married firstly, Bridget, daughter of Thomas Tynte, of County Cork, and had issue,
DAVID, father of 1st and 2nd Barons Brandon; William; Patrick; Walter; Sarah; Bridget.
Sir Thomas wedded secondly, Ellen, daughter of Garrett FitzGerald, of Ballynard, County Limerick, by whom he had no issue; and thirdly, in 1680, Elizabeth, daughter and co-heir of William Hamilton, of Liscloony, King’s County, by whom he had a daughter, Ann, living in 1694, and (with a daughter) four sons,
THOMAS; John; Pierce; Charles; Ann.
Sir Thomas’s eldest son,
DAVID CROSBIE, of Ardfert, wedded Jane, younger daughter and co-heir to William Hamilton.
He died in 1717, and was succeeded by his heir,
SIR MAURICE CROSBIE (1690-1762), Knight, of Ardfert, who married the Lady Elizabeth Anne FitzMaurice, eldest daughter of Thomas, Earl of Kerry.
Sir Maurice, MP for County Kerry, 1713-58, was elevated to the peerage, on his retirement, by the title Baron Brandon, of Brandon, County Kerry.
His lordship was succeeded by his eldest son,
WILLIAM, 2nd Baron (1716-81), MP for Ardfert, 1735-62, who was created a viscount, in 1771, as Viscount Crosbie, of Ardfert, County Kerry.
His lordship was advanced to the dignity of an earldom, in 1776, as EARL OF GLANDORE.
His lordship married firstly, in 1745, Lady Theodosia Bligh, daughter of John, Earl of Darnley; and secondly, in 1777, Jane, daughter of Edward Vesey.
He was succeeded by his only surviving son,
JOHN, 2nd Earl (1753-1815), PC, MP for Athboy, 1775.
He chose to sit for the latter, and held the seat until 1781, when he succeeded his father in the earldom and entered the Irish House of Lords. He was sworn of the Irish Privy Council in 1785.
In 1789, he was appointed Joint Master of the Rolls in Ireland alongside the Earl of Carysfort; was married in London, in 1771, by Frederick Cornwallis, Archbishop of Canterbury, to the Hon Diana, daughter of George, 1st Viscount Sackville. The marriage was childless.
The earldom and viscountcy expired on his death; the barony, however, reverted to his lordship’s cousin,
THE REV DR WILLIAM CROSBIE (1771-1832), 4th Baron, son of the Very Rev the Hon Maurice Crosbie, Dean of Limerick, younger son of the 1st Baron.
His lordship wedded, in 1815, Elizabeth, eldest daughter of David La Touche, of Upton, by whom he had a daughter,
THE HON ELIZABETH CECILIA CROSBIE, who married, in 1837, Henry Galgacus Redhead Yorke MP.
The 4th Baron served as rector of Castle Island in County Kerry.
On his death, in 1832, the title expired.
ARDFERT ABBEY, Ardfert, County Kerry, was a mansion originally built at the end of the 17th century by Sir Thomas Crosbie.
It was renovated in 1720 by Sir Maurice Crosbie (afterwards 1st Lord Brandon), and further altered about 1830.
The house comprised a two-storey block with seven-bay front, the two outer bays on either side breaking forwards and framed by quoins.
There was a pedimented centre; plain recangular doorcase; and a high, eaved roof on a modillion cornice.
The front was elongated by lower two-storey wings which protruded forwards at right angles to it, thus forming an open forecourt.
Inside the house, the panelled hall was decorated with figures painted in monochrome on panels.
There was an early 18th century staircase and gallery; Corintian newels, and more panelling on the landing.
A large drawing-room boasted compartmented plasterwork on the ceiling.
Here there was a full-length Reynolds portrait of Lady Glandore.
The gardens had an early formal layout: sunken parterre; yew alleys; trees cut into an arcade; avenues of beech, lime and elm.
A ruined Franciscan friary was in the grounds.
The mansion was burnt to the ground by the IRA ca 1922, and all that remains are some relics of the formal garden.
Ardfert Abbey (or House)eventually passed to the 2nd Earl of Glandore’s sister, the Lady Anne Crosbie, who married William John Talbot in 1775.
Her eldest son,
The Rev John Talbot-Crosbie MA, of Ardfert House, married Jane, daughter of Colonel Thomas Lloyd, in 1811; was MP for Ardfert, prior to taking Holy Orders.
In 1816, his name was legally changed to John Talbot-Crosbie.
He died in 1818.
His eldest son,
William Talbot Talbot-Crosbie JP DL (1817-99), of Ardfert House, High Sheriff of County Kerry, 1848.
He married firstly, Susan Anne, daughter of Hon Lindsey Merrick Peter Burrell, in 1839. He married secondly, Emma, daughter of Hon Lindsey Merrick Peter Burrell, in 1853. He married thirdly, Mary Jane, daughter of Maj.-Gen. Sir Henry Torrens, in 1868 at Edinburgh. In 1880, his name was legally changed to William Talbot Talbot-Crosbie.
His youngest son,
Lindsey Bertie Talbot-Crosbie JP DL (1844-1913), married Anne Crosbie, daughter of Colonel Edward Thomas Coke and Diana Talbot-Crosbie, in 1871; Lieutenant, RN; High Sheriff of County Kerry, 1903. His 2nd son,
John Burrell Talbot-Crosbie (1873-1969), of Ardfert House, married Mary, daughter of Gilbert Leitch, in 1910.
The marriage was childless.
Mr Talbot-Crosbie sold Ardfert House (the garden gates being re-erected outside the parish church in Tralee as a memorial to the Crosbie family).
It stood close to Ardfert Village, next to Ardfert Friary with extensive surrounding grounds.
The house was evacuated by the Crosbies and most of its furniture and belongings removed prior to it being burned by the IRA in August, 1922.
Article from a publication written thereafter: The Lord Danesfort:
“May I give two illustrations of damage to property since the truce, and of the manner in which it has been treated? I take the case of Mr. Talbot-Crosby, and I mention his name because his case was fully reported in the Cork newspapers of May last.
What happened was this. His house, Ardfert Abbey, was burnt to the ground at the end of 1922, or the beginning of 1923. In May, 1924, his case came before the County Court Judge. It was, I venture to think, a most astounding case.
It was admitted that if, at or shortly before the time when the house was burnt, Mr. Talbot Crosby had been in residence, he would have been entitled, I think, to a sum of something like £21,000 compensation.
But the counsel or solicitor who appeared for the Free State at that hearing raised this extraordinary defence. He pointed to a section in the Act of 1923 to the effect that if the house was not at the time of the damage maintained as a residence by the applicant, the applicant should only get what they called market value.
Then he went on to argue that Mr. Talbot Crosby had been driven out of his house by threats of violence some few months before; therefore, his compensation, which would otherwise be £21,000, should be reduced to £2,250.
Did ever such a travesty of justice come before the Court of any civilised country in the world?
It comes to this, that if there is a ruffianly body in Ireland desirous of getting rid of a man, turning him out of his house and country and destroying his property, all it has to do is to terrorise him, shoot at him, turn him out of Ireland, and having allowed a few weeks, or whatever time this Court thinks necessary, to elapse after he has left Ireland, then to burn his house down and otherwise destroy his property.
Then, when he comes to ask for compensation, he only gets one-tenth of what he would otherwise receive. I hope the noble Lord will see the gravity of a ease of that sort. I have already given him particulars of it, and I trust he has applied to the Free State and is able to give me the explanation that they offer.”
Former Dublin residence ~ Fitzwilliam Square.
First published in August, 2013. Glandore arms courtesy of European Heraldry.
The Glandore Gate, which once marked the main entrance to the Ardfert Abbey estate in County Kerry. Of limestone ashlar and flanked by battlemented walls, with a two-bay single-storey flat-roofed Gothic…
Ireland’s Decade of Centenaries, marking the country’s ten years of transformation 1913-23 is now drawing to a close, but there are still opportunities for analysis and reflection about what happened during that period. On Saturday, October 7th the Irish Aesthete will be participating in County Tipperary’s annual Dromineer Nenagh Literary Festival (celebrating its own 20th anniversary), in conversation with poet Vona Groarke about some of the great houses which were burnt in the early 1920s, many of them never rebuilt and lost forever. One such was Ardfert, County Kerry, set on fire in August 1922. The photographs above show the building before and after the conflagration, while those below are images of the interior, including the panelled hall with its classical grisaille figures, and the splendid main staircase, all lost in that fire, after which the house was pulled down so that nothing survives as a memory of its existence….
Ardagh House, Ardagh, Co. Longford – Sisters of Mercy convent
Ardagh House, County Longford, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
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. “[Fetherston, Bt/PB1923] An irregular 2 storey house of predominantly early to mid C19 appearance. Eaved roof on bracket cornice; porch and corridor with pilasters. Now a domestic science college.”
Ardagh House, County Longford, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
Attached eight-bay two-storey (originally three-storey) over-basement former country house, originally built c. 1730 and altered c. 1826 and c. 1863. Three-bay two-storey block (formerly a ballroom) attached to the southeast end, having hipped slate roof with overhanging bracketed eaves. Single-bay porch with tetrastyle porch to the centre of the front façade (south), adjoined to the east by a four-bay single-storey addition/conservatory with pilasters and lean-to roof. Now in use as training college by the Sisters of Mercy (from c. 1927) with multiple extensions to the east and the northeast. Hipped slate roof with overhanging bracketed eaves and cast-iron rainwater goods. Flat roof to porch. Painted rendered walls. Square-headed window openings with painted sills and a mixture of replacement, six-over-six, and three-over-three pane timber sliding sash windows. Moulded cornices, square profile piers, and pilasters to porch. Wrought-iron cross finial over porch. Square-headed window openings to single-storey addition/conservatory having eight-over-eight pane timber sliding sash windows with moulded sills. Segmental-headed with moulded surround to west elevation of porch having one-over-one pane timber sliding sash window with moulded bracketed sill. Square-headed entrance opening to porch (recessed) with moulded surround, decorative console brackets, and timber panelled double leaf door. Accessed via stone steps. Painted rendered boundary wall with piers and wrought-iron railings to basement area of front elevation. Set in landscaped surroundings to the north of Ardagh. Gates and gate lodges to the west and the southeast, complex of outbuildings and stable block to the rear (north) and to the northeast.
Appraisal
This substantial former country house retains much of its early character; despite a fire in 1948 that resulted in it being reduced it to two storeys in height. Much interesting fabric remains, such as some timber sliding sash windows, and console brackets to the porch. Although probably early-to-mid eighteenth century in date, this structure now has a predominantly early-to-mid nineteenth-century appearance. The elegant porch and conservatory, and the former ballroom/block to the east, were also added at this time. It also retains some of its early fabric to the interior, despite the fire in 1948 (see below), including plasterwork and fireplaces. This building has important historical connections with the Fetherston family, who developed much the village of Ardagh, particularly in the 1860s. The first recorded mention of the Fetherston family at Ardagh is of a Thomas Fetherston (died c. 1749), who bought a house and 235 acres of land in 1703. The Fetherston estate was some 11,000 acres in size by c. 1900. It is thought that Thomas Fetherston built Ardagh House (or an earlier house) sometime during the first half of the eighteenth century, perhaps c. 1730. The house was in existence in 1744/5 when Oliver Goldsmith (c. 1728 – 1774) visited the house. Apparently, Goldsmith based his most famous play ‘She Stoops to Conquer’ on his experience at Ardagh House, when he mistook the house for an inn/hotel. However, Lewis (1837) states that the play in question is ‘Mistakes of a Night’. The Fetherston were later granted the rank of Baronet in 1780. There was an Ardagh House in existence c. 1780 (Taylor and Skinner maps 1777 – 1783). John Hargrave (1788 – 1833) carried out ‘trifling alterations for Sir George Fetherston’, c. 1826 (IAA). James Rawson Carroll (1830 – 1911) later carried out extensive ‘alterations, repairs and additions’ for Sir Thomas John Fetherston, between c. 1860 – 1864. Plasterwork was carried out in 1877 for the Fetherston Trustees (the fifth Baronet, Revd. Sir George Ralph Fetherston had moved to Wales). In 1903 Sir George sold the freehold of their farms to over 300 of his tenants under the Irish Land Act of 1903 but retained the house and the surrounding lands until his death in 1923. The house was partially destroyed by fire in 1922 during Irish Civil War (1922 – 1923). It was sold to the Sisters of Mercy in 1927, who then established a convent and domestic science school here. The house was again badly destroyed by fire in 1948 and the top floor had to be removed as a result. This building forms the centrepiece of a large group of related sites and is an important element of the social history of Ardagh and County Longford.
Ardagh House, County Longford, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Ardagh House, County Longford, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Ardagh House, County Longford, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
In Irish Castles and Historic Houses by Brendan O’Neill
and Irish Castles and Historic Houses. ed. by Brendan O’Neill, intro. by James Stevens Curl. Caxton Editions, London. 2002:
Lady Fetherstone’s ancestral home was Ardagh House, a manor house, situated to the north of the village and now a convent. It was here, it is fabled, that young Oliver Goldsmith swaggered and bragged in the mistaken belief that he had arrived at an inn. The landlord humoured him for the night, but Goldsmith’s dismay on realising his mistake the following morning can easily be imagined. However, he later turned his embarressment to his advantage, the incident being central to his comedy, ‘She Stoops to Conquer,’ which was first performed in 1773.
When you stand in the centre of Ardagh Village and look south, you get an impressive view of the former Ardagh House with also was a Former Convent, also known as St Brigid’s Training Centre. Originally, it was Ardagh House, home of the Fetherston family.
The house was built about 1730 by Thomas Fetherston and it remained the principal seat of his family until the early 1920s. It underwent alterations on a couple of occasions in the 1800s.
A north of England family, the Fetherstons arrived in Ardagh around 1700, having acquired a small amount of land here. They expanded their estate in later years and it was they who built Ardagh Village as it stands today.
Ardagh House was the scene of a famous episode in the youth of the writer Oliver Goldsmith (separate entry on Goldsmith). While travelling back to his home in Pallas from school in Edgeworthstown, he stopped in Ardagh to seek lodgings.
A local directed him to the ‘big house’, saying it was the local inn. The Fetherstons recognised him and ‘played along’ with his misunderstanding to the extent that a daughter of the squire waited on him. The next morning, Goldsmith was told the truth, and he later wrote the play She Stoops To Conquer or The Mistakes Of A Night’, based on the episode.
The last landlord, Rev. Sir George Fetherston was an Anglican clergyman who lived mainly in England. He died in 1923, but by then the estate had been broken-up, with most tenants buying their farms under the land acts. In 1922, the I.R.A. had attempted unsuccessfully to burn the house.
In 1927, the Sisters of Mercy arrived and soon established a training centre for domestic science. The course was modernised later and the centre – St Brigid’s – remained open until 2008. There was a serious fire in the convent in 1949 resulting in renovations that included the removal of the top storey.
Beside the house is a spacious coach yard, which was restored by the Sisters of Mercy
Casey, Christine and Alistair Rowan. The Buildings of Ireland: North Leinster. Penguin Books, London, 1993.
p. 111-112.
p. 112 “Now much altered, it clearly followed a double-pile plan, with a large entrance hall, the principal stair in the centre of the E flank and the reception rooms opening off the hall. The decoration is now C19 and neoclassical in character. All that survives from the early Georgian house is fielded panels to the shuttering and door jambs. In the C19, the house was extended by adding a ballroom at the SE corner, a projecting three-bay block with ample sash windows and a hipped roof with oversailing bracketed eaves. A classical porch and arcaded conservatory were added to the entrance front. Most of the C19 alterations were carried out either by Sir George Fetherston, who landscaped the demesne grounds, or by Sir Thomas, who built a large stable court and erected the picturesque estate buildings in Ardagh village. The stables of 1863 by J. Rawson Carroll are attractive redbrick ranges with slated half-hipped roofs in vaguely Scandinavian idiom.
THE FETHERSTON BARONETS, OF ARDAGH, WERE MAJOR LANDOWNERS IN COUNTY LONGFORD, WITH 8,711 ACRES.
The founder of this family,
CUTHBERT FETHERSTON, of the ancient stock of the Fetherstons of Heathery Cleugh, County Durham, settled in Ireland after the battle of Worcester, in which Sir Thomas Fetherstonhaugh was made prisoner, and afterwards beheaded at Chester.
The eldest son of this Cuthbert,
CUTHBERT FETHERSTON, had three sons,
Cuthbert, ancestor of Fetherston of Bracklyn; THOMAS, of whom hereafter; Francis.
The second son,
THOMAS FETHERSTON, settled at Ardagh, County Longford and marrying Miss Sherlock, had four sons,
John (Very Rev), Dean of Raphoe; William, of Carrick; Francis; RALPH, of whom we treat.
The youngest son,
RALPH FETHERSTON (c1731-80), of Ardagh, MP for Longford County, 1765-6, was created a baronet in 1776, denominated of Ardagh, County Longford.
He wedded firstly, Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Samuel Achmuty, of Brianstown, County Longford, by whom he had an only daughter, Elizabeth; and secondly, Sarah, daughter of Godfrey Wills, of Will’s Grove, County Roscommon, by whom he had four sons and four daughters,
THOMAS, his heir; Godfrey, killed in the East Indies; John; Francis; Sarah; Maria; Letitia; Elizabeth.
Sir Ralph was succeeded by his eldest son,
SIR THOMAS FETHERSTON, 2nd Baronet (1759-1819), MP for County Longford, 1783-1800, for several years in parliament, who married Catherine, daughter of George Boleyn Whitney, of New Pass, County Westmeath, and had issue,
GEORGE RALPH, his successor; John; THOMAS, succeeded his brother; Elizabeth; Catherine; Isabella; Sarah; Octavia.
Sir Thomas was succeeded by his eldest son,
SIR GEORGE RALPH FETHERSTON (1784-1853), 3rd Baronet, MP for County Longford, 1819-30, who espoused, in 1821, Frances Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Richard Solly, of York Place, Portman Square, London, though the marriage was without issue.
Sir George and Lady Fetherston landscaped the demesne grounds and the village of Ardagh. The conversion of the old house into the mansion within its demesne may have been completed at this time, and involved the re-siting of the village street or road. The village clock-tower and surrounding buildings were erected in 1863 in remembrance of Sir George and of his life-long devotion to the moral and social improvement of his tenantry, and the site whereon they stand purchased by Frances Elizabeth, his widow. A memorial stone in the old church records his death on 12th July 1853, and that his wife died in London twelve years later and was buried in Walthamstow.
Sir George was succeeded by his youngest brother,
THE REV SIR THOMAS FRANCIS FETHERSTON (1800-53), 4th Baronet, who married firstly, in 1823, Adeline Godley; and secondly, Anne L’Estrange, of Moystown, County Offaly, and had issue,
George Ralph, died in infancy; THOMAS JOHN, his successor; Edmund Whitney; John Henry; Albert William Boleyn; Boleyn Henry Francis; Henry Ernest Wiliam; Rosa Elizabeth; Catherine.
Sir Thomas was succeeded by his eldest surviving son,
SIR THOMAS JOHN FETHERSTON, 5th Baronet (1824-69), who espoused, in 1848, Sarah, daughter of Henry Alcock, and had issue,
GEORGE RALPH, his successor; Adeline Margaret; Caroline Louisa.
Sir Thomas was succeeded by his only son,
THE REV SIR GEORGE RALPH FETHERSTON (1852-1923), 6th and last Baronet, who died unmarried, when the baronetcy expired.
Sir George was born in Dublin and educated at Brighton College.
In his mid-twenties he entered Salisbury Theological College to prepare for ordination into the ministry of the Church of England.
He served as curate in Tenby and Worcester City, and for six years as Rector or Vicar of the Parish of Pydeltrenthide in Dorset.
He served also as an honorary chaplain to Millbank Military Hospital, London, during the 1914-18 War.
He was one of the first two men in Holy Orders to serve as Sheriff in their Counties until the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland clerics of the Anglican Communion were not permitted to hold such Office.
Being Sheriff in 1897 he received the Diamond Jubilee Medal and preached his Jubilee Sermon in St. Patrick’s Church, Ardagh.
Sir George was a man of many interests and hobbies — music, travel, cycling, fishing, photography, collecting ancient china and stamps, bird-watching and study of insects.
He travelled widely in Europe, Africa, North and South America.
This must have absorbed some of the Ardagh estate income.
He was Fellow and Vice-President of the Guild of Church Musicians and of the Victoria College of Music London.
Who’s Who credited him with the composition of 150 alternative tunes for Hymns Ancient & Modern, various chants, songs and other music, but none of these are to be found in current chant and Hymn books.
His publications have been listed as The Malvern Hills, Through Corsica with a Pencil. The Mystery of Maple Street, A Poem: The Rose of England. An Incident in the Siege of Antwerp, A Legend of Corpus Christi College, and four books of Sermons and Addresses.
These may have been published privately for limited sale or distribution.
Sir George may not have had much interest in the ownership and management of the estate.
He entered into voluntary agreements with over 300 tenants to sell to them the freehold of their farms, under the Irish Land Act 1903.
The Ardagh estate was not acquired or purchased by the Irish Land Commission, which, however, advanced the money required by the tenants and others, and the holdings were vested in them by the Commission in 1922-23.
An area of 427 acres of bog land was vested in trustees for the use of purchasing new freeholders.
Sir George retained Ardagh House and demesne acres until his death in a Worcester City Nursing Home, and burial in Tenby, South Wales, in 1923.
An attempt to destroy the house by fire in 1922 may have been a local expression of dissatisfaction with allocation of estate land or an effort to hasten sale of the last remnants of the estate.
Manuscripts written in Irish were salvaged from the 1922 flames of Ardagh House.
ARDAGH HOUSE is an eight-bay, two-storey (originally three-storey) over-basement house, originally built ca 1730 and altered ca 1826 and ca 1863.
A Three-bay, two-storey block (formerly the ballroom) was attached to the south-east end, having hipped slate roof with overhanging bracketed eaves.
A single-bay porch with tetra-style porch to the centre of the front façade (south), adjoined to the east by a four-bay single-storey additional conservatory with pilasters and lean-to roof.
Ardagh House was acquired as training college by the Sisters of Mercy ca 1927, with multiple extensions to the east and the north-east.
It retains much of its early character despite a fire in 1948 that resulted in it being reduced to two storeys in height.
Much interesting fabric remains, such as some timber sliding sash windows, and console brackets to the porch.
Although probably early-to-mid 18th century in date, this structure now has a predominantly early-to-mid 19th century appearance.
The elegant porch and conservatory, and the former ballroom/block to the east, were also added at this time.
It also retains some of its early fabric to the interior, despite the fire in 1948, including plasterwork and fireplaces.
THE POET and novelist Oliver Goldsmith (1728-74), when a young man, once loitered on his way between Ballymahon and Edgeworthstown, strayed from the direct road, and found himself benighted on the street of Ardagh.
Wishing to find an inn, but inquiring “for the best house in the place”, he was wilfully misunderstood by a wag and directed to the large, old-fashioned residence of Sir Ralph Fetherston, 1st Baronet.
Sir Ralph, whom the poet found seated by a good fire in the parlour, immediately perceived the young man’s mistake; and being humorous and well-acquainted with Goldsmith’s family, he for some time encouraged the deception.
The incidents of the occasion form the groundwork of Goldsmith’s well-known comedy “Mistakes of a Night.”
Originally from County Durham in England, by 1651 Cuthbert Fetherstonhaugh was living in Philipstown (now Daingean), County Offaly, the first of this family to settle in Ireland. His grandson Thomas married Mary Sherlock from Kildare and the couple moved to Ardagh, County Longford where around 1703 he bought some 235 acres of land from the Farrell family. At some point between this acquisition and his death in 1749 he commissioned a new residence in Ardagh; this building is said to have provided part of the inspiration for Oliver Goldsmith’s 1773 comedy She Stoops to Conquer since the playwright mistook the Fetherstonhaugh’s house for an inn. The couple’s eldest son Ralph sat in the House of Commons of the Irish Parliament for 12 years from 1768 onwards and in 1776 was created a baronet. He also simplified the family surname to Fetherston (other branches retained the name in full). His eldest son Thomas, the second baronet, likewise sat as an M.P., in the Irish Parliament until 1800 and thereafter at Westminster until his death in 1819. The third and fifth baronets, Sir George and Sir Thomas Fetherston respectively were responsible for giving the local village of Ardagh its present appearance, by commissioning new housing for the local population. In the early 1860s Sir Thomas employed Dublin-based architect James Rawson Carroll to design one- and two-storey cottages around a green featuring a clock tower erected to the memory of his uncle, Sir George (see Commemorating a Life-long Devotion « The Irish Aesthete)
Sir Thomas Fetherston had only one son, another George, who was only 13 when he inherited the estate. He later became an Anglican clergyman and travelled widely, meaning he did not spend as much time in Ardagh as had his father. Under the terms of the Wyndham Act, in 1903 Sir George sold most of the estate – by then running to some 11,000 acres – to his tenants, retaining only the house and demesne. When he died unmarried at the age of 70 in 1923 the baronetcy died out also. Within a few years, the former family home had been sold to an order of nuns, the Sisters of Mercy who moved into the building and then gradually added extensions to the east side, from which they ran a home economics college. As in the case of so many other such properties, at the start of the present century the nuns gradually wound down operations here and in 2007 the house and surrounding 227 acres was sold at auction for €5.25 million. However, that sale fell through and it was back on the market for €5; by June 2009, as the effects of recession began to be felt, that price had dropped to €3.25 million. It was finally sold at auction in June 2012 for €1.36 million. Since then, the house has sat empty.
As mentioned, the main house at Ardagh is thought to date from the first half of the 18th century when constructed for Thomas Fetherstonhaugh. But much of its present appearance is 19th century, when it was refurbished first by Sir George Fetherston (who laid out the surrounding grounds) and then by his nephew Sir Thomas. The latter was responsible for the present stable block which, like a considerable portion… [see blog entry]
Gaulstown House, Ballynagall, County Westmeath courtesy National Inventory.Gaulstown entrance front, County Westmeath, photograph: Maurice Craig, 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.
Detached three-bay single-storey Palladian-style villa with attic level, built c.1730, over a high basement. Now in use as a private house. Single-bay pedimented breakfront to centre of front façade (south) and gable-fronted projection to centre of north façade creating cruciform plan. Pitched natural slate roof having projecting cut stone bracketed eaves course (to main roof and pediment), cast-iron rainwater goods and a tall chimneystack to either gable end (east and west). Cut stone acroterion blocks to either end and to apex of eaves pediment to entrance front. Roughcast rendered walls over projecting basement with cut stone eaves course continued around pedimented breakfront as a string course. Square-headed window openings to ground floor having cut stone sills, lugged ashlar surrounds and one-over-one pane timber sliding sash windows. Diocletian window to pediment having ashlar surround with projecting keystone over. Segmental-headed openings to the basement having cast-iron security bars. Venetian window to central bay at ground floor level to rear (north). Central round-headed doorcase with sidelights (set in ashlar panels with moulded ashlar cornices over), creating Venetian arrangement, with fanlight over having ashlar block-and-start surround. Timber panelled door. Doorcase reached up splayed flight of cut limestone steps flanked by iron railings to either side. Set back from road in extensive grounds with main entrance gates to the south, at start of long approach avenue. Located to the northwest of Castlepollard.
Appraisal
An impressive and well-executed small-scale Palladian house/villa, of early eighteenth-century appearance. It is very well detailed in good quality ashlar limestone and retains most of its early fabric despite recent works after years of dereliction. The form of this house is quite unusual for a building of this type and date in that the ground floor is built over a high basement. This appealing structure was designed with obvious architectural aspirations and is extremely well-proportioned, having instant visual appeal. It is strangely imposing for a structure built on such a small scale and this is down to the quality of the massing. Gaulstown House must have been designed by an architect of some pedigree and Casey and Rowan (1993) suggest that perhaps even Sir Edward Lovett Pearce or his assistant William Halfpenny were responsible for its designs. Gaulstown House was the home of the Lill Family, c.1780. The good quality entrance gates to the south complete the setting of this fine composition, which is an important element of the architectural heritage of Westmeath.
Gaulstown House, Ballynagall, County Westmeath courtesy National Inventory.
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. 141. “A very interesting and attractive early to mid 18C single storey gable-ended house. Pedimented breakfront with Venetian doorcase, interesting plan. In the 18C the seat of the Hill family. Derelict.”
Gaulstown House, Ballynagall, County Westmeath courtesy National Inventory.Gaulstown House, Ballynagall, County Westmeath courtesy National Inventory.Gaulstown House, Ballynagall, County Westmeath courtesy National Inventory.Gaulstown House, Ballynagall, County Westmeath courtesy National Inventory.
Casey, Christine and Alistair Rowan. The Buildings of Ireland: North Leinster. Penguin Books, London, 1993.
In a book of his photographs published the year he died (2011) architectural historian Maurice Craig included the image above of Gaulstown, County Westmeath which he had taken in 1975. He recalled seeing the house then for the first time and commented, ‘It looked a bit neglected, but it seemed to be all there, especially the roof. I saw a new house only a few yards away (out of frame on the left) and drew the obvious conclusion: that my pet would soon be bundled away. I was wrong.’ In fact Maurice was wrong on two counts. Firstly there never was a new house only a few yards away, it is actually hundreds of yards away and completely invisible from Gaulstown. And of course its construction did not mean the loss of the old house which continues to stand almost four decades after it was noted by Maurice.
Gaulston House, County Westmeath, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.Gaulston House, County Westmeath, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
As is unfortunately all too often the case, we know little about the origins of Gaulstown. It bears similarities to a pair of similarly miniature Irish villas, Whitewood Lodge, County Meath (1735) and Ledwithstown, County Longford (1746) both of which are attributed to Richard Castle. Both are also larger and more refined in their details, and one has a sense that Gaulstown, the earliest of the trio (dating from c.1730) was something of a trial run for the other two. Casey and Rowan propose that it might have been designed by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce or perhaps his associate William Halfpenny. Maurice Craig was inclined to agree with this assessment but it seems too grand an attribution for such a modest dwelling. Might not Gaulstown instead have been the work of an amateur, perhaps even the original owner, a member of the Lill family generations of which lived here in the 18th and 19th centuries (although they would change their name to de Burgh for the sake of an inheritance)? Without wishing to disparage its considerable charms and its importance Gaulstown has the appearance of a building containing a variety of architectural motifs borrowed from books but, as the interior layout reveals, without these being necessarily completely understood or interpreted.
Casey and Rowan describe Gaulstown as being of only one storey over raised basement and with an attic, but this is not really the case since it possesses a trio of reasonably substantial floors. The roughcast rendered exterior is rigorously plain of three bays, that in the centre of the south-facing facade projecting forward. A long flight of steps leads to the substantial cut-limestone doorframe, which is an adapted Venetian window above which floats a small Diocletian window beneath the pediment: the only other openings on the front are windows on either side of the entrance, so that the building has an ascetic rigour that is most appealing. Inside the main floor was originally divided (just like ancient Gaul) into three parts. The centre space formed one room running south to north for the full, albeit not terribly considerable, depth of the house. However at some date, probably for reasons of greater comfort and warmth, a partition wall was inserted dividing it into entrance hall with drawing room behind: the latter has a Venetian window mirroring that used for the entrance. To the east is a dining room, to the west the staircase and, behind it, a small boudoir or office. The stairs are lit by a large window on the return and they lead to a surprising number of bedrooms. Meanwhile the basement is also more generously spacious than would superficially appear to be the case.
Gaulston House, County Westmeath, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
‘This appealing structure,’ comments the author of Gaulstown’s assessment in http://www.buildingsofireland.ie ‘was designed with obvious architectural aspirations and is extremely well-proportioned, having instant visual appeal. It is strangely imposing for a structure built on such a small scale and this is down to the quality of the massing.’ This is an admirable summary of the house, which further benefits from its setting, being reached at the end of a long straight drive and surrounded by open countryside. To the immediate west are the remains of the old brick-walled garden, behind is a still-working farmyard. These elements enhance the impression that Gaulstown was always intended as the residence of a gentleman farmer even though Casey and Rowan rightly refer to it possessing ‘an aristocratic or cultivated rusticity.’
Gaulston House, County Westmeath, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Gaulstown apparently changed hands on a number of occasions before being acquired by the current owner’s grandfather. Today it is a family home, the present generation of occupants keenly aware of the building’s need for some remedial work: damp is something of a problem on the gable walls and, as these pictures make clear, the fenestration could be improved. Yet these issues are not insuperable, and one of the pleasures of the house is that it looks to have retained so many of its original features such as the panelled doors and shutters with their chunky lugging, the plain but deep cornicing, the understated stair balustrades and so forth. It could, and ought to, be restored to better condition and the aspiration is that this will happen before too long. A little gem like Gaulstown deserves to be preserved, not least because today there are too few of its kind left in Ireland.
Gaulston House, County Westmeath, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Irish Historic Houses 