Benefitting from Attention


‘”Grey Lambert,” as he was called, had taken up his abode in a corner of the castle under whose shadow they stood the lonely castle of Coolhull – and no entreaty could induce him to leave. He was a singular, but a fine looking person; wore neither hat nor cap; never cut either his beard or hair, which were purely, perfectly white, and flowed over his shoulders, and down his breast, even below a leather girdle that encircled his coarse frieze wrapping coat; his feet were bare; his forehead high and bald; his dress clean, betokening singularity, but not poverty; and he had been a traveller in his youth-a sailor-a soldier -some said a pirate; but that, I firmly assert, never could have been the case, for Lambert was the gentlest of old men; children and animals (who seem to have an instinctive dread of bad people) all loved him; and on Sunday evenings the village urchins, and their little cur dogs, visited him in his castle, or sat at his feet on the green sward, while he recounted tales and adventures of other lands. ‘
Extract from Sketches of Irish Character by Mrs S C Hall (London, 1829)





Relatively little is known about what Mrs Hall described as ‘the lonely castle of Coolhull’ in County Wexford. It is believed to date from the 16th century when constructed by the Devereux family, whose Norman forebears, originally from Évreux in France, had come to Ireland with Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, otherwise known as Strongbow, and been granted lands by him in this part of the country where they remained prominent and built a number of castles before losing much of their property in the mid-17th century following the Cromwellian settlements. Unlike elsewhere, there does not appear to have been a castle on this site before the 16th century when the Devereuxes acquired the land on which it stands. The first Ordnance Survey of 1840 markted the castle as a roofed building, and a drawing made by William Frederick Wakeman for the OF service during this period shows it to have been thatched. However, it would appear that the castle then ceased to be a residence, a farmhouse being built close by and the older structure given over to agricultural purposes. Handed over to the Irish State in the 1970s, it has undergone considerable restoration in recent years.





Coolhull Castle is rather unusual in design, comprising a four-storey tower at the west end attached to a three-storey fortified long house. Tower houses sometimes had such a building added to them at a later date, but this is all of the same period, a uniformity being given to the structure by having the same stepped crenellations along the roofline. The whole building constructed of local granite, for defensive reasons it had only one entrance, found on the north wall of the tower. Once inside, a door to the left provides access to the house while a newel staircase immediately ahead rises anti-clockwise to the upper floors of both the tower and the fortified house. Inside the former, each level is thought to have held a garderobe and bedroom. Meanwhile, the house contained cellars and storage areas on the ground floor, with the main living space, the hall, was on the floor above, along with the most important bedroom, each of which had its own fireplace; surviving granite corbels indicate that the ceilings in these spaces were not as high as would have been the case in earlier periods, but the window openings were larger, permitting more light to enter. The windows on the uppermost floor are noticeably smaller and fewer, and there are no fireplaces, suggesting that this was where the family’s retainers lived. According to the late Sean Rothery, there are some 130 castles in County Wexford, but Coolhull is quite unlike most of them and it is therefore wonderful to see that its fabric has been given necessary attention.


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What Survives




The mid-13th century porch of St Lachtain’s church in Freshford, County Kilkenny. It is believed that the saint after whom this was named established a monastery here at some date prior to his death in 672, but in the aftermath of the Reformation, the church fell into a poor condition, undergoing extensive renovation in 1731 and again in the mid-19th century. As a result, the sandstone porch at the west end is the only part of the mediaeval monastery to survive. It comprises four orders of ornamented arches, the inner one, the plainest, containing a dedicatory inscription in Old Irish: ‘Or do Gilla-Mocholmoc u Ce[nn]cucain do rigne. Or do Neim ingin Cuirc acus do Mathgamain u Chiarmeic lasndernad in tempul-sa’ (Pray for Gilla Mocholmoc O Cennucain who made it. Pray for Neim [Niamh], daughter of Curc and for Mathgamain O Chiarmeic, for whom this church was made.) As is often the case, the outer order, separated from the other three by a shallow barrel vault, is the most elaborate, separated from the rest by a shallow barrel vault and carved with a step pattern and zoomorphic masks. On the west face are two figurative panels, one depicting a rider figure, the other two ecclesiastics. These, together with a third figurative panel set into the jamb of the inner order, do not appear to be in their original locations and may have been arranged when the church was rebuilt in the 18th century. The upper part of the porch is 19th century.




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Hunting for a House


Irish readers over a certain age may remember the name Molly Cusack-Smith, since her colourful exploits (and sometimes language) often appeared in newspapers during the closing decades of the last century. Lady Cusack-Smith was a descendant of the Revd John O’Rorke, a Church of Ireland clergyman and member of an ancient Irish family which had once been based in what is now County Leitrim, where they had claimed the title Prince of Breifne. The Rev. O’Rorke had begun his ecclesiastical career as curate of Moylough, Co Galway, later becoming Rector of Foxford, Co Mayo, and Vicar of Straid, in the Diocese of Achonry, although he continued to live in Moylough (pluralism and non-residence being common features about Church of Ireland clergymen at the time). However, his primary interest appears to have been the acquisition of property, since he leased land from the Bellews of Mountbellew, County Galway and then bought the Clonbern estate in the same county from the family of the late William Beresford, Archbishop of Tuam. His landholdings also included over 1,600 acres in Co Roscommon and 217 acres in Co Westmeath. Married three times, he eventually diedin 1849 at the age of 73 after a fall from his horse. His son, Charles Dennis O’Rorke, inherited not just the Clonbern estate but also another at Bermingham, County Galway, bequeathed by his uncle John Dennis. This, in turn passed to his son, Charles Trench O’Rorke, before the greater part of the family’s landholdings, running to more than 5,000 acres, were acquired by the Irish Land Commission in 1927. Charles Trench O’Rorke had one child, a daughter christened Adela Mary, but known as Molly. 





Molly O’Rorke was born in 1905 and from an early age hunted with her father’s pack of harriers, since the family had long been associated with the local hunt known as the Galway Blazers. In the 1930s, she moved to Paris, initially with the intention of studying music but then opting for fashion, establishing herself as a couturier in London and specialising in evening dresses. At a cocktail party during the war she met Sir William Robert Dermot Cusack Smith whose family, like her own, was Irish. The couple married in 1946, had a daughter two years later but then parted ways. In a 1992 interview Molly Cusack-Smith explained ‘He was very rich and had a title. We got engaged because it seemed a good idea. But, actually, it wasn’t.’ Returning to Ireland and hunting, she became the first woman master of the Galway Blazers before founding the North Galway hunt where she was joint-master until her retirement in 1984. Every year at Bermingham House, she hosted a hunt ball once described as ‘the last clarion call of the stranded gentry’ and famous for the exuberance of all attendees: to paraphrase what was once said of the 1960s, if you could remember a Bermingham House hunt ball, you weren’t there. The tone was set by the event’s hostess, renowned for her colourful behaviour and language both on and off the hunting field. Of the various stories told about her, perhaps the best known is of the occasion when, at the end of the hunt, a groom remarked on the sweaty condition of her horse. To which she is said to have responded ‘You’d be sweaty, too, if you’d spent the past three hours between my legs.’ Molly Cusack-Smith died at the age of 92 in 1998. 





Bermingham House, the setting for all those legendary hunt balls, takes its name from the Berminghams, Barons Athenry, who once owned the land here, until their line died out with the first (and last) Earl of Louth who died in 1799. The house and estate were leased to John Irwin Dennis in the late 1830s before being bought  by him in 1851 in the Encumbered Estates’ Court. Along with 200 acres of farmland, it has now come on the market once more, with the opportunity for a new owner to host parties equal to those of the house’s former chatelaine. Dating probably from the mid-18th century, the building has a curious facade, of two storeys over basement and three bays, the latter spaced exceptionally far apart and both windows and door rather small considering the overall size: this is particularly curious because the west elevation is of four bays and the east of five. Inside, a pedimented doorcase leads from entrance to staircase hall, the latter having pretty neo-classical plasterwork in arches above doors and recessed bookcases. The main reception rooms have good late 18th century chimneypieces and are all painted in bold colours, as is the case with many Irish country houses. Naturally, given its previous predilection for hunting, there are fine stable yards to the rear. 


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A Victim of Temperance



After Monday’s examination of a fake castle in County Tipperary, here is a real one, albeit now in very poor condition, elsewhere in the same county. On the banks of the river Cromogue, Borrisoleigh Castle is a rectangular four-storey tower house, with the remains of a gable on the south-east wall and evidence of lower buildings once on the north-western side. It was constructed by a branch of the de Burgo (Burke) family, who were prominent in the area, although often under attack from their neighbours the O’Dwyers. A stone once embedded in a wall of the castle had a Latin inscription which translated as ‘Richard Bourke—Alice Hurley, Friend and foe make this marble rise. Come friend to our arms; the enemy begone.’ It has since been moved elsewhere. As for the castle, according to John O’Donovan who was employed by the Ordnance Survey in 1840, a brewery operated by the Biddulph family had been attached to the castle but by the time O’Donovan arrived, this had closed (he attributed the business’s failure to the temperance movement then being driven by the Capuchin friar Fr Theobald Mathew).



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Castles in the Air


The origins of the Royal Irish Constabulary can be traced back to July 1814 when Robert Peel, then Chief Secretary for Ireland, established the Peace Preservation Force, a rudimentary policing body intended to counter growing rural unrest around the country. The colloquial names ‘Bobby’ and ‘Peeler’ used to describe members of the police force originated during this period and were derived from Peel’s name. Sir Richard Willcocks, a former Dublin Magistrate and Special Government Magistrate, is the PPF’s first appointed Chief Magistrate and was sent to the Barony of Middlethird with a base at Cashel, County Tipperary. This part of the country includes the village of Annacarty, which lies some ten miles north-west of Cashel. Within a few years, it was experiencing disturbances occasioned by Cornwallis Maude, 3rd Viscount Hawarden whose family had a history of evicting tenants and raising rents on their estate. In 1821, he provided the land on which  a police barracks was built in Annacarty. A year later, Peel’s legislation was superseded by the Irish Constabulary Act, which established a police force in each of Ireland’s four provinces, all having their own inspector-general appointed by the Lord Lieutenant. The Constabulary (Ireland) Act of 1836 then merged those provincial forces into a single centralized body (though it did not operate in the capital, which retained its own force, the Dublin Metropolitan Police). Following its involvement in the suppression of the Fenian Rising of 186, Queen Victoria granted the organisation the prefix ‘royal’, being thereafter known until its disbandment in 1922 as the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC). 






During the War of Independence (1918-21), the RIC Barracks at Annacarty was attacked on several occasions and, as a result, the resident force was supplemented by members of the Black and Tans (‘Temporary Constables’ made up largely of British ex-soldiers who were brought to Ireland in an attempt to suppress revolution). During this period, the barracks sergeant was a man called Cornelius O’Sullivan, originally from Kerry: his being from outside the area was not unusual in the RIC, since there was a concern that locals might have an excessive allegiance to the immediate locality). It appears that O’Sullivan was in contact with the IRA unit in the area, encouraging it to take the barracks. However, he was then taken away from the site by members of the British military and never seen again, presumed killed: his body has never been found. Perhaps due to its defensive design, Annacarty was one of only two RIC barracks to hold out throughout the War of Independence. Once the Following the official declaration of a truce between the British and Irish on 11th July 1921, the building was handed over to the local IRA which then occupied the building. Unfortunately, the following year it was subsequently attacked by an Anti-Treaty force and a siege of several days then took place. After the barrack’s leader was wounded and his men had run out of ammunition and supplies, in early May 1922 they were forced to surrender. The Anti-Treaty group then set fire to the place, which has stood a ruin ever since. 






Standing on high ground above and a short distance from the village, the former RIC barracks in Annacarty is of interest for a number of reasons, not least that it was one of the very first such buildings to be constructed, believed to be 1821-2. The architect is unknown, but must have been someone with an interest in historic design, since the barracks takes the form of a miniature castle, with crenellations along the roof level, an hexagonal tower on the south-west corner (note the gun loop on one of its sides) and a bartizan on the north wall. There’s also an unusual cross pommy-shaped gun loop on the second floor of the west wall, further indicating a knowledge of mediaeval architecture. The large arched openings on both ground and first floor soften the otherwise aggressive appearance of the barracks, but overall its form is indicative of the need at the time it was commissioned for a police barracks capable of withstanding attack: most later RIC barracks were altogether more domestic in character and quite often stood within the local town, rather than apart from it. While the interior of the building has now gone, the sturdiness of its construction means the barracks continues to provide an observation point for activity in the immediate area. A fascinating survivor.


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Split Pairs



Above are the stone gate piers at the entrance to Kilmacroom, County Cork. Below are the gate piers at the entrance to Hazelwood, which lies a mile or so away from the first property, both being houses owned by members of the Lysaght family. Seemingly, the two lions once stood guard on either side of the entrance to another Lysaght property in this part of the country called Mount North (since demolished), but they were then lost in a game of poker to the Longfields of Longueville, who later installed them at another of their estates, Waterloo. The lions were subsequently retrieved by the Lysaghts but being undecided which of their houses they should adorn, a compromise was reached by placing one lion on the pier of each entrance, with obelisks crowning the other side.



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All’s Wells



Buried inside the present 19th century Wells House in County Wexford is a much older building, thought to date from the second half of the 17th century. This was constructed by John Warren, a soldier in the Commonwealth army, who as payment for his service was granted more than 6,000 acres here. A ‘plain square building’ the original Wells and surrounding estate were sold in 1704 to Robert Doyne, whose descendants would continue to own the property until 1966. The Doynes claimed descent from the medieval Gaelic sept of Ó Duinn (O’Dunne), lords of Uí Riagáin (Hy‐Regain) in that part of Ireland that is today known as County Laois. Around the time that Warren had been granted the land at Wells, Robert Doyne’s father had been deprived by the Commonwealth government of his own property. However, the family successfully regained what had been lost: it helped that Robert Doyne had conformed to the Established Church, become a wealthy barrister and married a widow who brought money and property with her. Hence he could afford to buy the Wells estate, along with other lands so that by the time of his death he had built up a holding of some 9,800 acres. 





As mentioned, the present Wells House dates from the late 1830s when designed by Daniel Robertson for another Robert Doyne who, like his forebear, had married a wealthy widow, Annette-Constantia Uniacke, a niece of the first Marquess of Waterford. It is easy to understand why the Doynes should decide that work needed to be undertaken on what was their principal residence. Samuel Lewis, writing in 1837, noted that the earlier house on the site ‘was, for nearly three years after the disturbances of 1798, occupied as a barrack by the king’s troops ; it is now about to be rebuilt in the Elizabethan style by the proprietor, as a residence, and will in future be called Wells Abbey.’ While the change of name does not appear to have taken place, by 1844, James Fraser could write that the house ‘has been recently repaired, and altered from a plain square building to the early style of Tudor architecture; and the grounds around the mansion, and the approaches to it, are in process of formation in a style conformable thereto.’ Doyne had evidently been thinking of giving the family home a new appearance for some time, having commissioned designs from Thomas Cobden in 1819 (a classical design) and then for additions and alterations from Sir Richard Morrison in 1836. But ultimately he opted for Robertson’s scheme, which like so much of the latter’s work, evoked 16th century manor houses, with an asymmetrical facade incorporating an abundance of gables and clusters of chimneys. The result, unusually faced mellow red brick is, as Frederick O’Dyer has noted, more English in style than the majority of Robertson’s houses, which tended to be faced in either granite or limestone. 





The seven-bay Wells House is of two-storeys over basement with a dormer attic, a breakfront gabled centre bay incorporating a large Tudoresque doorcase. Both end bays also break forward and are gabled, a gentle asymmetry introduced by that to the north having a canted bay window on the first floor (this lights the main staircase). The garden front presents a more balanced appearance. As might be expected from its exterior, the main reception rooms of Wells House, County Wexford are very much in the Tudorbethan mode, with the use of oak panelling in a variety of styles, as well as Gothic-style timber panelled doors and shutters, and groin vaulted ceilings. The double-height staircase hall is particularly fine, with cast-iron balusters supporting carved a timber banister terminating in Gothic-style octagonal newels and a timber surround to the canted bay window found on the half-landing.
An unexpected change of decorative styles can be found in the drawing room, which is panelled in white and gilt rococo boiseries. Whether original Louis XV or a later imitation of that period’s style it is hard to tell, and no information appears to exist about their origins, although surviving plans indicate they were installed when the house was given its present form by Robertson. Might the boiseries have been acquired by Robert Doyne when, as a young man, he had embarked on a Grand Tour of mainland Europe, in the company of no less than Beau Brummell? The quality of workmanship is high, many of the panels filled with a multitude of small fleurs-de-lis, while close to the top of the walls at either end of the room are two elaborately carved panels, one featuring musical instruments and sheets of music, the other a quiver of arrows and the head of Diana. And it all fits the room perfectly, so was either created for this space or else, if from somewhere else, adapted accordingly. In any case, the Doynes continued to occupy the property until the mid-1960s, after which Wells House passed through a couple of other hands before being bought by the present owner in 2022: today it is open to the public, with self-catering cottages in the yard, and a variety of tours and events held in the main building. 



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Ecclesiastical Ambition




Yet another example of the Church of Ireland’s ambitious building strategy during the 19th century, this is St John’s in Kilturk, County Wexford. Later than most and not part of the Board of First Fruits programme, it was designed in 1859 by Joseph Welland, then Architect to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, the first service being held here three years later. One reason for the relatively late date is that it replaced an earlier church of 1808-12, described by Samuel Lewis in 1837 as ‘a neat edifice whose tower fell down soon after its erection’ and this, in turn, stood on the site of a medieval parish church. The present structure continued to be used for services until the mid-1970s, and after its closure suffered from vandalism, leading to large-scale dismantlement and leaving what can be seen today.




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A Little Known Site


‘Among Mr. Windele’s MSS.* in the Royal Irish Academy is to be found a comparison between Mallow Castle and that of Dromaneen, which latter was erected by the O’Callaghans, and occupies a strikingly bold position on a rock over the Blackwater, about three miles west of Mallow. He considers them as practically contemporaneous, each belonging to the Tudor era, and he is of opinion that Dromaneen may be taken as a specimen of the last phase of castellation in the descent from the lofty moated keep to the simple Manor House. The forms of doorways, fire-places, etc., would refer the date of the building at once to the close of Elizabeth’s reign. Both castles, he considers, fair specimens of the transition style which pervaded the strong houses of a semi-military class of the period. Mallow, somewhat earlier than the other, preserves much of the general form of the structure of the era of the Roses, while Dromaneen approaches more nearly to the modern domestic building. The precautions adopted for defence in the earlier castles are nearly all rejected in this, and what few military features it possesses seem to have been designed as much for ornament as protection. In both castles the broad Tudor windows descend in greater proximity to the ground, the dark loop disappears and the strongarched floors and stone stairs are absent; the walls are not of massive thickness, while domestic comfort and accommodation seem mainly studied. Mallow but little diverges from the old outline of the stately keeps of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, while Dromaneen is but the next step to the modern mansion, and all defences in the former are greatly abandoned, but still in a less degree than in the latter, as has been already noted.’
Extract from ‘The Manor and Castle of Mallow in the Days of the Tudors’, by Henry F. Berry, Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, Volume II, March 1893.
(For more on Mallow Castle, see Picturesque Remains – The Irish Aesthete)





As noted above, Dromaneen Castle, County Cork dates from the early 17th century, c.1610, when constructed by Cahir O’Callaghan, who had submitted to the English crown and then been regranted the property. It stands immediately east of an earlier square tower house to which it is linked by a bawn wall. The castle’s location is particularly striking: to the south, it is approached across a wide flat plain, but the north side stands at the top of a limestone  above the river Blackwater. In 1637 Donough O Callaghan succeeded his father at Dromaneen and in the following decade he played a prominent part in the Confederate Wars, being a member of the Supreme Council of the Irish Confederation of Kilkenny. In consequence, and following the English parliament’s Act of Settlement of August 1652, he and his family were transplanted to County Clare and Dromaneen, together with 1,000 acres of land, were granted to Sir Richard Kyrle. Following his appointment as Governor of the Province of Carolina in America, Kyrle sold his Irish property to Richard Newman, who had already bought some 5,000 acres in this part of the country. Dromaneen Castle appears to have suffered during both the Confederate and Williamite Wars, being occupied by an English cavalry troop during the latter period. However, the Newmans are supposed to have lived there until c.1738 when they built a new residence nearby called Newberry. Thereafter the castle was abandoned and left to fall into the customary dereliction. 





Dromaneen Castle is an L-shaped building, composed of a three-storey gable-ended block to the north and what may have been a later, and lower, kitchen range to the south. Like so many other semi-fortified mansions built around Ireland during this period, the upper floors have large window openings and inside a particularly fine chimneypiece with mouldings can be seen on the first floor. As mentioned, the castle sits within a bawn wall, with principal access to the courtyard being through a handsome classical gateway, with an elliptical arch and a three-tier cornice carried on brackets: this is comparable to a doorcase seen at the near-contemporary Kanturk Castle elsewhere in the county (see An Abandoned Project – The Irish Aesthete). A fascinating site, although a National Monument Dromaneen Castle is located on private land, and this helps to explain why it is less well-known than other similar buildings of the same period.  


*John Windele (1801-1865) was a Cork-based antiquarian.

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Now Bare



In a corner of the graveyard surrounding the now roofless 19th century church at Killaloan, County Tipperary can be seen this very substantial square limestone mausoleum. On one side, a pair of marble plaques set within shallow blind arches below small trefoil openings commemorate  Catherine Rebecca and Catherine Isabella Osborne, respectively wife and daughter of Sir Thomas Osborne who lived with his family in nearby Newtown Anner. Sir Thomas died in 1821 and his widow in 1856, but the mausoleum is supposed to have been constructed c.1865, so presumably their daughter was responsible for commissioning it. Whatever remains once lay there were removed after the mausoleum was broken into some decades ago, and today it is possible to enter and walk around the interior, passages on all four sides facing the central space which has a series of empty niches intended to hold coffins but now bare.



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