Castle Talbot, Blackwater, County Wexford
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. 75. “(Talbot, sub O’Reilly/IFR) A three storey five bay Georgian block with curved sweeps. Would appear to be basically early or mid-C18; but the fenestration looks late-Georgian; perhaps also third storey is later addition, since the house looks too high in proportion to the sweeps. Good quoins and pedimented and fanlighted doorcase, with rusticated piers. In each of the sweeps there is a door with a shouldered architrave between two niches; doors and niches having fluted keystones. Ball finials on the coping of the sweeps. Good C18 gate piers with ball finials; slender battlemented tower in grounds.”
Featured in The Wexford Gentry by Art Kavanagh and Rory Murphy. Published by Irish Family Names, Bunclody, Co Wexford, Ireland, 1994.
p. 207. Talbot.
[book by Mary Stratton Ryan, Talbot of Castle Talbot, County Wexford.]
Francis of Ballynamony (Talbot’s Castle), received his Ballynamony estate in 1617 during the period of the Wexford plantations. He received over 25,000 acres in Co Wexford. He was a Protestant. He married Anne the daughter of Sir William Synnott, Knt, of Ballyfarnoge, Co Wexford. Francis lived throught eh trouble times of the 1641 Rebellion, and he was persecuted as a Protestant. When the insurgents assumed command of affairs in the town they arrested and confined in the Castle, Francis Talbot, Henry Masterson, and Donagh Conners, Clerk…. Early in 1642 they were sent to Kilkenny to be tried for their lives. He survived that trial but died in Dec 1646.
p. 209. Francis was succeeded by his son, Walter, who apparently was a Catholic, at least for a time, and two daughter, John (married to Col John Synnott) and Margaret (married to Mark Synott). It is not clear how Walter as a Catholic managed to hold on to his lands, but it may well have been that he claimed that since his father was a committed Protestant in 1641 and had suffered as such that he was an Innocent.
Walter Talbot was High Sheriff of Wexford in 1649, and in 1687 he was mentioned in the Charter of King James as a free Burgess, as was his son William. Walter married Elinor, the daughter of William Esmonde of Johnstown, Co Wexford, and they had two sons and one daughter, Elinor, who married James Sherlock of Ballyna, Co Wexford. The second son was Charles Talbto fo Curracloe who married Anne Wallis.
The eldest son was William Talbot of Ballynamony, an MP for Wexford in the Parliament of King James in 1689. He fought at the Siege of Derry in 1690, fighting in the army of King James, and was killed there.
p. 210. Matthew married twice. He married firstly Juliana the daughter of Rickard Donovan of Camolin, and widow of the 6th Earl of Anglesey, and secondly he married, in 1783, the daughter of John D’Arcy of Kiltullagh, Co Galway(widow of Count D’Arcy of France, a brilliant scholar,mathematician and soldier, and by chance, her uncle). This lady was in her time the doyen of the French salons and was lady in waiting to Queen Marie Antoinette. She was known as “La Belle d’Arcy.”
…The three sons of “La Belle d’Arcy” were very keen to go to France and fight against Napoleon. “It was decided that they cast lots and James the youngest of the tree won the lottery. War in those days was something rather romantic and [p. 211] Jane Talbot followed her son to Bologne and brought her family. The second son John Hyacinth continually hung about hte army as an amateur soldier, feeling rather hard done by because of not winning his army Commission. On the restoration of teh Bourbon monarchy in 1814, Jane returned to Paris where she was welcomed by the remnant of the “Ancienne Noblesse” and her salon was again a brilliant social centre. Her daughters were made “Chanoinesses” a dignity which carried with it the title of Countess. Jane died in Paris in 1826 and is buried there.
p. 212. There was an article in the Dec issue of Ireland’s Own in 1909, written by T.P. Croker, concerning John Hyacinth Talbot, which contained the following:
p. 213. Coming to later times, we find teh Wexford connection of the Talbot family evident in the local records and tradition. They were very poor at the end of the eighteenth and tehbeginning of hte nineteenth century. They and the Esmondes were the only Catholic families in he county Wexfrod who succeeded in holding even a small portion of their estates and at the same tiem remaining Catholic. One of the Castle Talbot family, John Hyacinth Talbot, held a position at the Fort of Rosslare over the customs officers there at £300 a year. When Walter Redmond of Ballytrent was dying, he advertised his daughter, Anne Eliza, with a fortune of £15,000, which was a very big sum, and the lands of Ballytrent. Talbot of the Fort, who lodged in Wexford, sought her hand. He had the blood adn she the money, and the match was arranged, and in this way the Talbots came to Ballytrent, which was the residence of the Redmonds.”
John Hyacinth, along wiht Thomas Esmonde, was also responsible for bringing Pugin, the famouns church designer, to Wexfrod. This renowned architect was instrumental in the design of several churches in Wexford, including Gorey and Enniscorthy.
By his first marriage he had three daughters…Anne Eliza Mary received Talbot Hall as her dowry, and so it passed into the possession of teh Redington family.
p. 214. Jane Anne Eliza married Sir James Power, the 2nd Baronet, of Edermine, Co Wexford, the owner of Powers Distilleries, and they had a family. As her dowry she ws given the Talbot property at Galbally, near Bree, and so that property passed into the possession of the Powers of Edermine.
Detached five-bay three-storey country house, built 1753, on a T-shaped plan with single-bay (single-bay deep) full-height central return (north). Vacant, 1863. Occupied, 1911. Sold, 1979. Resold, 1988. “Restored”, 1990. Sold, 1992. Hipped slate roof on a T-shaped plan centred on hipped slate roof (north) with clay ridge tiles, rendered, ruled and lined buttressed chimney stacks having cut-granite corbelled stepped capping supporting crested terracotta tapered pots, and cast-iron rainwater goods on rendered slate flagged eaves retaining cast-iron octagonal or ogee hoppers and downpipes. Rendered, ruled and lined wall to front (south) elevation on rendered chamfered plinth with rusticated cut-granite quoins to corners; part creeper- or ivy-covered roughcast surface finish (remainder). Round-headed central door opening approached by flight of three cut-granite steps supporting cast-iron “Griffin” bootscrapers, cut-granite doorcase with rusticated piers supporting “Cyma Recta”- or “Cyma Reversa”-detailed pediment on fluted “Dosserets” framing timber panelled door having overlight. Square-headed window openings with cut-granite sills, and inscribed surrounds framing six-over-six or three-over-six (top floor) timber sash windows. Square-headed window openings in tripartite arrangement to rear (north) elevation with cut-granite sills, timber mullions, and concealed dressings framing six-over-six or three-over-six (top floor) timber sash windows having two-over-two or one-over-two (top floor) sidelights. Round-headed niches centred on square-headed door openings (“sweeps”) with cut-granite thresholds, and cut-granite lugged surrounds centred on fluted keystones framing timber boarded doors. Interior including (ground floor): central entrance hall retaining carved timber surrounds to door openings framing timber panelled doors, and plasterwork cornice to ceiling; and carved timber surrounds to door openings to remainder framing timber panelled doors with timber panelled shutters to window openings. Set in landscaped grounds with rendered piers to perimeter having statue-topped cut-granite capping supporting spear head-detailed wrought iron double gates.
Appraisal
A country house erected for Matthew Talbot (d. 1795) representing an important component of the mid eighteenth-century domestic built heritage of County Wexford with the architectural value of the composition, one annotated as “Castle Talbot [of] Talbot Esquire” by Taylor and Skinner (1778 pl. 144), confirmed by such attributes as the deliberate alignment maximising on panoramic vistas overlooking gently rolling grounds; the symmetrical footprint centred on a Classically-detailed doorcase demonstrating good quality workmanship in a silver-grey granite; and the diminishing in scale of the openings on each floor producing a graduated visual impression: meanwhile, aspects of the composition, in particular the neo-Palladian “sweeps”, clearly illustrate the continued development or “improvement” of the country house in the later nineteenth century. Having been well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior, including some crown or cylinder glazing panels in hornless sash frames: meanwhile, contemporary joinery; restrained chimneypieces; and plasterwork refinements, all highlight the artistic potential of the composition. Furthermore, adjacent outbuildings (extant 1903); and a folly-like tower ‘some years since improved [with] its summit surmounted with embattled ornaments’ (Lacy 1863, 501), all continue to contribute positively to the group and setting values of an estate having historic connections with the Talbot family including William Talbot JP (1765-1849) and Mathew Talbot (1787-1838; Lewis 1837 II, 139); Major William Talbot (1789-1861), ‘an unsuccessful claimant of the Earldom of Shrewsbury in 1856-7’ (Walford 1913, 625); and John Hyacinth Talbot JP DL (1852-1920), ‘Landowner’ (NA 1911; Calendars of Wills and Administrations 1920, n.p.).
Irish Historic Houses 