Monthly Archives: May 2020

A Waste of Resources



Boarded up and falling into dereliction: the former administration block of the workhouse in Mullingar, County Westmeath. Many of the other buildings that were part of this complex have since been given fresh purpose by the Health Service Executive (albeit with the introduction of uPVC windows: when will official Ireland ever provide a lead here?). However, this handsome house, which is at the entrance to the site, is in a wastefully poor state, only saved from total ruin by being constructed in sturdy limestone. Dating from 1841 and built in the Tudor-Gothic style to the design of architect George Wilkinson, the building’s present state is a shameful waste of state resources.


Getting High



Another week, another cross, this one found in Killamery, County Kilkenny. A monastery was founded here in the 7th century by St Gobhan, and the High Cross is thought to date from the late 8th/early 9th century. Although there are scenes with figures (now well-worn) around the cross itself, the shaft is decorated with abstract patterns, those of the western front featuring a floral motif; seemingly a much-weathered inscription on the base reads OR DO MAELSECHNAILL, ‘A Prayer for Máel Sechnaill’ who was High King of Ireland 846-862. The capstone, which takes the form of a gabled roof, used to be touched by visitors as a cure for headaches.
The High Cross stands in the grounds of a graveyard close to the ruins of a former Church of Ireland place of worship dedicated to St Nicholas. Dating from 1815, it was constructed with assistance from the Board of First Fruits but services ceased to be held here less than 90 years later, and it has since fallen into its present state.


Spring


Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;





The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.





What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

Spring by Gerard Manley Hopkins 
Photographed at Coolcarrigan, County Kildare 

A Lost Daughter


After last week’s post about a late 17th century stone cross at Robertstown, County Meath: in the adjacent graveyard stands – just about – this tombstone, featuring an image of the crucified Christ  below which are the heads of two winged angels. The tomb was erected by local man Patrick Hand to commemorate his daughter Eleanor who had died in August 1836 at the age of 24.

Outstanding in its Field



Kilcoltrim, County Carlow: a substantial, five-bay, three storey over basement house that dates from the mid-18th century, it is listed by Samuel Lewis (1837) as being the residence of Edmund Hegarty but has long fallen into ruin. The most notable feature of the building, a cantilevered stone staircase located at the centre of the building, is documented as still intact when David Griffin compiled his list of vanishing or lost Irish country houses in 1988. This feature has since gone and little beyond a disintegrating shell now remains.


The Persistence of Faith


The Cruise, or Cruice, family has been mentioned here before, specifically with regard to the remains of Rathmore Church, County Meath (see https://theirishaesthete.com/2012/11/19/music-sent-up-to-god). They were the descendants of an Anglo-Norman soldier with the name de Cruys who came to Ireland in the 12th century and settled in this part of the country, gaining control of land that stretched from what is now North County Dublin and well into Meath. More than 15 miles north of Rathmore can be found the ruins of another church in a place called Cruicetown, thereby showing its direct link with the family. Now standing at the highest point in a field, and surrounded by a low, subcircular stone wall, Cruicetown church is believed to date from the late 12th or early 13th century, and to have once served a settlement in this area, begun when the Normans constructed a motte and bailey. At the start of the 14th century, when all Irish churches were being valued for the Papacy in order to assess the proportion of their revenue that should be given as tax, that at Cruicetown as valued as £2, 15 shillings and eight pence. The church continued to be used for services until the mid-16th century, but probably fell into disuse soon afterwards and was already in a ruinous state by 1622 when visited by James Ussher, then Church of Ireland Bishop of Meath.





The Cruises remained in this part of the country until the upheavals of the 17th century. They also, like many old Anglo-Norman families, remained loyal to the Roman Catholic church, the consequence being that eventually they came into conflict with the English authorities. There appears to be some confusion about what became of the Cruises of Cruicetown in the aftermath of the wars of the 1640s (in which they had supported the defeatedCatholic side). Many reports declare that Christopher Cruise was forced to forfeit his property at Cruicetown and then transplanted to Connacht, only some time later his son Lawrence being able to regain possession of the land here. On the other hand, a very substantial report on the site produced by Dr James Galloway in 2005 states that ‘the Cruise family appear to have retained their position as lords of Cruicetown in the post-1640 period’ and that in 1686 ‘the manor was granted by royal patent to Laurence Cruise.’ Certainly, they owned land here for another century, until in 1789 Joseph Cruise sold his interest in Cruicetown to one Arthur Ahmuty, a retired colonel formerly in the service of the East India Company and now living in London. With this transaction, the Cruice family’s major interest in Cruicetown came to an end.





Cruicetown church contains two notable features, the first being a remarkable chest tomb inside a niche on the south wall of the chancel. Dedicated to the memory of Water and Elizabeth Cruise, it features recumbent figures of the two deceased, above their heads appearing that of God flanked by trumpet-blowing angels. The figures rest on a base with four pilasters carved with foliage, rosettes and hearts while the end of the chest features symbols of mortality. On the wall above is a dedicatory plaque containing heraldic motifs of the Cruise and Dalton families, and the information that the tomb had been erected in 1688 ‘AND IN THE 4TH YEARE OF THE REIGNE OF THE MOST ILLVSTRIOVS PRINCE OVR GRACIOVS KING JAMES THE SECOND’
The tomb was erected by the couple’s son, Patrick Cruise and he was also responsible for a sandstone cross that stands outside the church and to the south of the building; an inscription on one side of the monument reads ‘Pray for the souls of Patrick Cruise and Catherine Dalton, his wife, daughter to William Dalton 1688’. It is clearly inspired by much earlier Irish High Crosses and yet considerably more primitive in design. One face features the crucified Christ with a winged head above, while the other side carries a depiction of the Virgin with a rather substantial Child occupying her lap. It would appear that even when this pair of additions were made to Cruicetown church, the site had already been abandoned for services and now only served as a burial place. The persistence of an ancient religious faith in Ireland during this period is remarkable to observe.

Idiosyncratic


The idiosyncratic façade of Dunmain, County Wexford. The house can be dated to the 1690s when the land on which it stands were bought by Arron Lambert. It subsequently passed through a number of different owners including the owners but has been occupied by the present family since being bought at auction in February 1917. At either end of the five-bay, two-storey over basement building rise conical roofed octagonal towers, weather-slated like the rest of the building; that on the right houses a tiny 19th century chapel on the ground floor. It is unclear whether they are original to the building, or a later insertion. The granite pillared portico approached by a flight of steps looks to have been added in the 19th century.

Down the Boreen


Tucked into the hedge, halfway down a boreen (from the Irish bóithrín, meaning ‘a little road’) that leads to the remains of Robertstown church and graveyard, County Meath, is this old stone cross. Much weathered, and missing part of its shaft, the cross’s south face bears a carving of Christ’s crucifixion and, at the base, an inscription dating from 1685 and advising that it was first erected during the reign of the ‘SOVERAIN LORD KING JAMES THE SECOND BY THE GRACE OF GOD.’

Look to the Stars



Internationally acclaimed for his work, the astronomer William Edward Wilson was born in 1851 in Belfast, where his grandfather, also called William, had made a fortune in the shipping business. As a result, William senior bought each of his four sons an estate, that given to William junior’s father, John Wilson, being Daramona, County Westmeath. The younger William, not enjoying good health as a child, was educated at home but when he was 19 the opportunity arose to join an expedition travelling to Algeria to witness a total solar eclipse. This inspired his interest in astronomy and in due course he acquired his first telescope. When aged thirty, he constructed his own observatory at Daramona, on a site immediately adjacent to the house. Here he worked for the rest of his life, until his early death in 1908. Among the scientific breakthroughs with which he is credited are the production of the first photo-electric measurements of the brightness of stars and the first accurate determination of the temperature of the solar photosphere. He was also responsible for making a series of outstanding celestial photographs. As a result of his work, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1896 and awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree by Trinity College Dublin in 1901.





Daramona is a mid-19th century, three-bay, two-storey Italianate villa probably built by John Wilson soon after the birth of his son, the future astronomer. There was an older house immediately behind the present one, but it has long since been demolished; it is suggested that the somewhat over-scaled limestone Doric entrance porch was recycled from the previous building. The doorcase behind has a particularly wide fanlight and sidelights. The interior is typical of the period, the most interesting space being the very substantial library, the largest room on the ground floor, which has timber panelled walls and, above the chimneypiece, a panel bearing the family coat of arms. Immediately behind the house, on the site of the earlier house, are two long service wings. Wilson’s two-storey observatory, completed around 1892 and originally domed, stands left of the rear of the house. Beyond it is a curtain wall topped with a balustrade and incorporating a pedimented doorcase leading providing access to the rear avenue.





Not long after Edward Wilson’s death in 1908, his widow and children moved first to County Cavan and then, following the outbreak of troubles in the 1920s, to England. His telescope was offered to the University of London where it remained until 1974; it is now in Liverpool’s Merseyside County Museum. Much of his original instrumentation when to Trinity College Dublin. Meanwhile, Daramona was sold to another family who lived in and maintained the property until it was put on the market in 2000. House and land were then bought by a local building firm which applied to construct 38 houses on the site. Thanks to a campaign by scientists in Ireland and around the world, this application was refused by the county council which in due course conferred protected structure status on the main building, ancillary outhouses, demesne wall and gates. Since then it would appear nothing has been done, so that today Daramona is fast falling into decay and – once more – taking with it part of the national history. Looking for a solution to this problem? One might as well follow William Wilson’s example, and look to the stars.


Source of Salvage Sought


The decoration on a roof of a single-storey cottage close to the remains of Clongill Castle, County Meath. A pair of wonderfully carved limestone sphinxes flank what might be either an eagle or a phoenix. These figures look to have been salvaged from a grand entrance gate, but where was it, and what happened to the rest of the building? All suggestions welcome…