Spotted recently on a minor road in County Kilkenny, this handsome pedimented arch which is flanked on either side by gates. These in turn lead to quadrants terminating in large cut-stone posts. The whole is most arresting despite being in a sad state of disrepair, and appears once to have been the entrance to an estate called Ringwood. In the 18th century, Ringwood was owned by members of the Agar family and the core of a still-extant house nearby was most likely built in the late 1730s by James Agar whose political ambitions were blighted by a long-standing dispute with one of the leading orators of the period, Henry Flood. The two men fought a duel in 1765 and then a second one four years later using pistols. Agar fired first and missed, he shouted ‘Fire, you scoundrel,’ and was promptly shot dead: although the deceased’s family brought a case against Flood for murder, he was found guilty of manslaughter in his own defence and freed. James Agar’s son George had a happier political career than his father, and was eventually ennobled as first (and last) Lord Callan. His prelate nephew Charles Agar became Archbishop first of Cashel and later of Dublin before likewise receiving a peerage as first Earl of Normanton. The Normanton seat today is Somerley, Hampshire which lies just a couple of miles away from a market town called Ringwood.