Monthly Archives: January 2024

Saint or Goddess?


Later this week, February 1st will mark St Brigid’s Day. For those readers unfamiliar with her, Brigid is one of Ireland’s three national saints (the other two being Patrick and Columba), but not much is known about the woman. Supposedly she was born c.451, the daughter of a chieftain and a slave who had been baptised by St Patrick, was raised in a Druid household but then converted to Christianity and founded a religious house for women in what is now Kildare. Inevitably she also established other churches elsewhere in the country (early Irish saints were much given to roaming about the island) and performed many miracles. She is said to have died in 525 and a cult soon developed around her: the first account of Brigid’s life was produced during the following century by St Ultan of Ardbraccan. But did she actually exist? An increasingly popular theory proposes that Brigid was originally a pagan goddess, daughter of the Dagda (a kind of father-figure in ancient Irish mythology), and that with the arrival of Christianity her cult was simply transferred to a holy nun. The day on which she is annually celebrated, February 1st, happens to have been the occasion of a pagan festival marking the onset of Spring. This alternative image of Brigid is now widely promulgated: Dublin, for example, is about to host a five-day festival celebrating ‘the spirit and legacy of the Celtic goddess Brigit’, although quite what an imaginary deity’s spirit and legacy may be remains unclear. Meanwhile, in Kildare where the saint is supposed to have founded her community, the local authority is running Brigid 1500, a week-long festival intended to ‘celebrate and commemorate the extraordinary St Brigid, – A Woman, A Life, A Legacy- and the enduring impact of her life as we reach the 1500th anniversary of her passing.’





In the centre of Kildare town, St Brigid’s Cathedral is said to stand on the site where the aforementioned saint established a church and community of like-minded women in the year 480. This foundation survived long after Brigid’s death, becoming a double community of women and men, over which an Abbess ruled (as indeed, she held jurisdiction over the local bishop). Successive generations of nuns kept alive the memory of their founder by tending a fire which was never allowed to go out. In his Topographia Hibernia of c.1188, Gerald of Wales (otherwise known as Giraldus Cambrensis) wrote, ‘At Kildare, in Leinster, celebrated for the glorious Brigit, many miracles have been wrought worthy of memory. Among these, the first that occurs is the fire of St. Brigit, which is reported never to go out. Not that it cannot be extinguished, but the nuns and holy women tend and feed it, adding fuel, with such watchful and diligent care, that from the time of the Virgin, it has continued burning through a long course of years ; and although such heaps of wood have been consumed during this long period, there has been no accumulation of ashes.’ Gerald also noted that the fire was surrounded by a circular hedge made of stakes and brushwood, into which no man could enter. If any male was so foolish as to do so, ‘he will not escape the divine vengeance.’ Despite these supposedly secure defences, in 1220 Henry de Loundres, Archbishop of Dublin ordered the extinction of the fire. Meanwhile, the church first established by Brigid underwent similar traumas: it was pillaged and burnt by the Vikings in 835, then rebuilt before being burnt again on a couple of occasions in the mid-11th century and then plundered in 1136.





As seen today, St Brigid’s Cathedral was begun at some date in the 1220s by Ralph of Bristol, Bishop of Kildare. Like its predecessors, this suffered assault several times and, following the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the mid-16th century, fell into serious disrepair. The roof was taken off in 1588 and the building was judged ruinous in 1615. The diocese of Kildare was always among the poorest in the country, and this helps to explain why the cathedral was so often left in poor condition. In 1681 William Moreton embarked on restoring the building with what resources were available; he would write to the Duke of Ormond that he had ‘endeavoured the most since he came to Kildare to repair the insupportable ruins of it.’ Repairs to the choir, nave and chancel cost £500, of which £200 came from private subscriptions, with Moreton providing £112. Work was completed in 1686. Nevertheless, further dilapidation occurred and finally, in the mid-1870s and over the next 20 years, St Brigid’s Cathedral underwent a thorough restoration overseen by George Edmund Street, with an initial budget of £5,000 although the eventual cost was more than double this figure. This is the building seen today, rather severe with exposed stone walls and just a few ancient monuments, or parts of these, which had survived the various attacks on the fabric. Outside is a round tower, the second tallest in Ireland, which has similarly undergone repairs and improvements over the centuries. Brigid: Christian saint or pagan goddess? Take your choice…

A Familiar Sight




A not-uncommon sight in rural Ireland: a pair of abandoned cottages on a minor road in the Knockmealdown Mountains, County Waterford. Their semi-detached status and matching design suggest these were originally built for local estate workers. The buildings are reasonably substantial, of two storeys and with several rooms on each floor. It appears work was begun on restoring one of them but this has been left incomplete and now the pair are sliding into ruin. Sadly, this is a story that can be found repeated in every part of the country.



All the Poorer

 

Elm Hill, County Limerick is a house dating from c.1790 when constructed for the Studdert family. Of six bays and two storeys over raised basement, when offered for sale in the aftermath of the Great Famine, the building was described as containing ‘a spacious and lofty parlour, drawing room and hall; nine capital bedrooms, large kitchen and servants’ hall, besides larder, dairy, closet and cellars of a superior description and in thorough repair.’ It seems to have remained in good condition until the beginning of the present century, after which Elm Hill was left standing empty. The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage, in a survey undertaken in September 2008 reported that while it had fallen into some disrepair, ‘this imposing house retains much of its former grandeur. A high level of technical and artistic skill is evidenced in its design, particularly in the tooled limestone doorcase, the carved timber door and the slate-hung elevations. Internally there are a number of interesting features, notably the slate fireplaces and plastered ceilings.’ Such was its significance that under the terms of the 2000 Planning Act, Elm Hill was designated as a protected structure, with the relevant safeguards such a designation is supposed to provide. However, in June 2021, following proposals from some of its elected representatives, Limerick City and Council removed the house from the list of protected structures, on the grounds that Elm Hill had become unstable and dangerous. It now appears the house is to be demolished and its stone sold off. Such a scenario was commonplace in Ireland during the 1950s and ’60s, but that it should still be occurring today is astonishing and provides evidence that the country’s architectural heritage is no more appreciated, or its future more secure, than was the case 70-plus years ago. Buildings neither rise nor fall without the engagement, or disengagement, of those responsible. If Elm Hill had become ‘unstable and dangerous’, this was because it was allowed to do so, even while designated as a supposedly protected structure. Where, in this instance, was the relevant protection? Under the terms of the 2000 Planning Act, the local authority could – and should – have intervened to ensure the house’s conservation. Instead, it permitted the building to fall into ruin, and then shamelessly removed it from the list of protected structures. As so often in Ireland, legislation exists but implementation does not. Another part of our history disappears – and we are all the poorer for it.

Tremendous Swagger



Francis Andrews was born in Derry 1718. The official Trinity College Dublin website describes his father as being a man ‘of independent means’, but the Dictionary of Irish Biography notes that contemporary gossip proposed Andrews senior had been imprisoned for debt. In any case, the parent died when his son was aged only two, after which the widow Andrews married a Mr Tomkins who took such good care of the boy, that the latter was able to attend Trinity College Dublin, graduating in 1737 and elected a Fellow three years later. He then read law at the Middle Temple in London and was called to the Irish Bar in 1746. Andrews was a noted bon viveur and his legal practice does not appear to have interfered with a very busy social life, at one time involving travel to Italy on a Grand Tour. Nevertheless, Andrews did possess scholarship, impressing professors in Padua with his knowledge of Latin and classical authors. The most momentous change in his circumstances occurred in 1758. He happened to be in London when it was announced that the Provost of Trinity College Dublin, Richard Baldwin, had died. A month later, Andrews was appointed by George II to the position, the first layman to hold the post since 1626. His close friendship with John Russell, Duke of Bedford and Richard Rigby, then respectively Lord Lieutenant and chief secretary of Ireland, are believed to have played a major role in securing him the Provostship as did – according to the same aforementioned gossip – lobbying by the popular actress Peg Woffington. In 1759 he was elected to the Irish House of Commons for the first time and to the Irish privy council two years later. Thereafter, despite – or perhaps thanks to – his responsibilities in the college, he served on innumerable committees and boards, as well as maintaining an already hectic social round. Not surprisingly, in 1774 he was obliged to travel abroad for the sake of his health, but died on his way back to Ireland. During his time as Provost, Andrews was responsible for establishing a number of new professorships, as well as a chair in music (its first incumbent was Garrett Wesley, first Earl of Mornington and father of the Duke of Wellington). He also oversaw much building work within the college, not least the construction of a residence for himself and his successors, the Provost’s House. 





Unquestionably the most splendid private residence remaining in Ireland’s capital, Number 1 Grafton Street is otherwise known as the Provost’s House. The building was commissioned by Francis Andrews in 1759, in other words almost immediately after he had taken up his new post; previous provosts had occupied lodgings in the college quadrangle, so this was something of a departure, not least because the house with its substantial forecourt closed off from the street by a high stone wall, looks more like a nobleman’s palace than an academic’s residence.  The splendour of the place was immediately and widely recognised. In September 1764, a London newspaper, the St James’s Chronicle, reported ‘The King of France has not so splendid a palace in all his Dominions as that the University [of Dublin] has lately erected for its Provost.’ The building is thought to have been designed by Dublin architect John Smyth, although as is well known the facade is a shameless copy of the garden front of General Wade’s London residence, designed by Lord Burlington in 1725 (and demolished in the 1930s). That design was, in turn, taken from one of Andrea Palladio’s drawings owned by Burlington. Smyth had form here: St Thomas’s church on Marlborough Street, Dublin which he designed around the same time was directly modelled on Palladio’s church of the Rendentore in Venice (the church was destroyed in 1922 during the Civil War). As for the Provost’s House, even at the time its indebtedness was noted; in 1761 George Montagu, then living in Dublin while his cousin the Earl of Halifax was Lord Lieutenant, wrote to Horace Walpole, ‘The provost’s house of the university is just finished after the plan of General Wade’s, but half of the proportions and symmetry were lost at sea in coming over.’ The only difference between the earlier buildingsand this one is that the Provost’s House is flanked by long, low pedimented single-storey wings.





The fine vaulted entrance hall of the Provost’s House in Trinity College Dublin is divided into two sections by a pair of substantial arches, behind which lie two ground floor reception rooms and a pair of staircases. The walls here are rusticated in wood, painted to imitate stone, that material used for the flagged floor and the chimney piece on the south wall. To the rear on the ground floor, the drawing room is surprisingly modest but the neighbouring three-bay dining room, in keeping with Francis Andrews’ fondness for social life, is altogether more substantial and elaborate in its decoration. Here the stuccowork, as elsewhere in the building, was undertaken by siblings Patrick and John Wall, while James Robinson and Richard Cranfield were responsible for the carving. Moving upstairs,  the first-floor saloon is one of the great rooms of 18th century Dublin, only comparable to that in 85 St Stephen’s Green (see The Most Beautiful Room in Ireland? « The Irish Aesthete).. Running the entire length of the building, the saloon is lit by a west-facing central Venetian window flanked by pairs of sash windows. With its deep coved ceiling, the space is divided in three by two Corinthian columnar screens, while elaborately carved chimneypieces can be found on either side of the door giving access to the saloon. At the southern end of the space hangs a portrait of the man responsible for its creation, the aforementioned Francis Andrews, painted by Anton von Maron, presumably when both men were in Rome. Facing him at the other end of the room is a portrait by Thomas Gainsborough of John Russell, Duke of Bedford, Chancellor of the University, 1765-1771 and old friend of Francis Andrews. A room of tremendous swagger, the saloon, like the rest of the Provost’s House, testifies to the assurance of Ireland in the mid-18th century.


In Memory




After Monday’s post about the Ponsonby tombs at Fiddown, County Kilkenny, here is a less well-preserved old church: the shell of an early 18th century building at Anatrim, County Laois. A simple barn-like structure, it is distinguished by the stocky, three-stage tower at the west end and a Venetian window, now largely blocked with stones, to the east. The church ceased to be used for services when a new one was built to the immediate south in 1840. What survives in the interior are a couple of fine wall monuments, one to the Delaney family of Ballyfin with a coat of arms inside a cartouche flanked by urns beneath a pediment (†1731-1770), and the other a plain tablet with broken segmental pediment commemorating Isaac Sharp of Roundwood (†1756). In the surrounding graveyard is the Sharp family’s barrel-vaulted mausoleum.



Let us Leave Something to Testify that we have Lived


Originally from Cumberland, Sir John Ponsonby came to Ireland in the early 1650s and was appointed a commissioner for taking the depositions of Protestants concerning murders said to have been committed during the Confederate Wars: as a reward for his labours, he was granted a large parcel of forfeited lands at Kildalton, County Kilkenny. These had previously belonged to the Anglo-Norman D’Alton family (hence the name Kildalton, meaning Church of the Daltons). Appointed Sheriff of Counties Wicklow and Kilkenny in 1654, and elected to represent the latter in the first post-Restoration Irish parliament, Sir John Ponsonby married as his second wife an heiress, Elizabeth Folliott, in whose honour he renamed his Irish estate Bessborough. (For more on this house and its history, please see In the Borough of Bess « The Irish Aesthete and Back to Bessborough « The Irish Aesthete) When he died in 1668, he was buried in the church at Fiddown, several miles to the south of his property. Inside this building and to the immediate right of the east wall window, is a simple framed memorial declaring ‘Here lies ye body of Sir John Besborough who departed this life Anno Dom 1668 in ye 60th year of his age.’ Generations of his descendants came to be laid to rest in the same place, and today the little church remains a rare example in Ireland of a church filled with monuments to the same family. 





A religious settlement is thought to have been established at Fiddown in the sixth century, but the origins of the present building can be traced back to c.1200. Like so many others, the church evidently underwent some vicissitudes during the 17th century and in 1731 Dr Edward Tenison, then Bishop of Ossory, reported it was in need of a new roof and that the walls needed to be pointed; the following year, ‘the roof was taken down in order to put on a better one.’ The rector during this period, the Rev Robert Watts, was energetic in his ambition to improve the condition of the building and ensure its future. To the left of the east window, a white marble plaque framed in black Kilkenny marble advises ‘This Chancel was Rebuilt and Beautified by Revd Robert Watts M.A. Dean of St Canice and Vicar of Fiddown 1747 who after a Contest at Law and in Equity Carried on for Nineteen Years and Fifteen hundred Pounds Expended by him Recovered the Great Tithes of the Parish from the Subtractor for the Benefit of all Succeeding Incumbents. Quatenus nobis Denegatur dui Vivere Relinquamus aliquid que nos vixisse testemur.’ (Insofar as it is denied to us to live, let us leave something to testify that we have lived). Evidently at some earlier date, a righ to the tithes from this parish had been granted to someone else, but the Rev Watts was determined to have them back and went to law in order to make sure this happened. In 1748 he presented the church with a set of communion plate., no doubt benefiting from the additional income he now enjoyed thanks to the restitution of tithes. The building continued thereafter to be in excellent repair; at the start of the 19th century it was reported to have been ‘very handsomely fitted up by the late Earl of Bessborough’ (presumably the second earl who had died in 1793). Following a visitation by the Bishop of Ossory in 1829, the church was described as being ‘in excellent repair both inside and outside, all the wood work has been recently painted, and a new Gallery and Vestry Room have been erected.’ Average attendance at services was given as 40. The earliest Ordnance Survey maps show the building to have been considerably larger than what can be seen today on the site. Following the construction of a new Church of Ireland church in Piltown in 1859-62, the main body of its predecessor at Fiddown was taken down, leaving only the chancel which by then had been serving for almost 200 years as the Ponsonby family’s mortuary chapel.





A number of memorials inside Fiddown church commemorate members of the Briscoe family, who also lived in this part of the country. (The surrounding graveyard contains a tomb marking the burial place of one Edward Briscoe, ‘of Crofton in the County of Cumberland in England, who departed this life the 20th day of July Anno Dom 1709 and in the 58th year of his age.’ Sir John Ponsonby’s first wife, Dorothy Briscoe likewise came from Crofton, Cumberland, so it seems safe to assume that Edward was some relative of the family). But the greater part of the church’s interior is dedicated to celebrating the Ponsonbys, with the north wall dominated by a large memorial devoted to Brabazon Ponsonby who in 1744 rebuilt Bessborough, five years after he had been created first Earl of Bessborough. This splendid monument features the earl and his wife dressed as ancient Romans atop an engraved sarcophagus, the whole set within a frame of Sienese marble columns supporting a pediment carrying the family arms. The inscriptions reads ‘Under this Marble lie the Remains of Brabazon Ponsonby, Earl of Bessborough, Viscount Duncannon and Baron Bessborough in Ireland, and Baron Ponsonby of Sysonby in Leicester Shire in Great Britain, and of Sarah his wife Grand Daughter and Heiress to Primate Margetson. The Virtues of their Private lives need not here be Recited, they are Engraved in the Hearts and Minds of many who will deliver them from one Generation to another beyond the duration of a Perishable Tomb. This monument is Erected, not as a necessary Memorial of them but as a Testimony of Gratitude and Respect owing from their son William Earl of Bessborough.  He had the Honor of Serving his Majesty King George the 2nd in Several Publick employments of great Trust and Dignity and Departed this Life July 1758 aged 81. She in May 1733 aged 52.’ The work is signed on one side by W Atkinson of London (d.1766). Both the second and third earls lived for the greater part of their lives in England and the church therefore has no monuments to either; it was only in the 19th century that the fourth earl and his family settled back at Bessborough and thereafter further memorials were added to the interior so that today they stretch back over three centuries. As already mentioned, cuch buildings are not common in Ireland, although a similar example stands not too far away at Clonagam, County Waterford which is likewise filled with funerary monuments, this time to the de la Poer Beresfords, Marquesses of Waterford (please see Awaiting the Day of Judgement « The Irish Aesthete). 

Prominently Located




After Monday’s post about Tikincor Castle, County Waterford (see The House at the Head of the Weir « The Irish Aesthete), here are the remains of another early fortified house: Ballycowan Castle, County Offaly. Prominently sited on a rock outcrop immediately north of the Grand Canal, the building seemingly occupies the site of an earlier castle belonging to the O’Molloys but much of the present structure was erected here by Thomas Morres in 1589. Climbing four storeys to a string course above which soar a series of tall, slender chimneys, the castle displays more visible evidence of its fortified character than does Tikincor, having no windows on the lowest level and a number of bartizans along the roofline. Ballycowan changed hands c.1625 when it came into the possession of Sir Jasper Herbert and his wife Mary Finglas, who extended the building to the east and placed a plaque carrying their arms above a new doorway here. Seemingly the castle suffered damage during the Confederate Wars and their aftermath, which is when the south-west side of the building collapsed. Not least thanks to its location, Ballycowan remains one of the most familiar ruins in this part of the country.



The House at the Head of the Weir


Tikincor (from the Irish Tigh Cinn Chora, meaning The House at the Head of the Weir) is a townland adjacent to both the river Suir and County Tipperary: it lies just inside County Waterford. The house in question dates from the early 17th century and is one of the fortified residences then coming into fashion. It is believed to have been built for Alexander Power, a member of the de la Poer family which owned extensive lands in this part of the country. However, during the upheavals of the Confederate Wars of the 1640s and their aftermath, the Powers lost possession of Tikincor which passed into the hands of the Cromwellian supporter Sir Thomas Stanley whose son, John, future Chief Secretary for Ireland, was born in Tikincor in 1663. However, not long after that date it appears that Sir Thomas disposed of the property, since it then came into the hands of an elderly lawyer and politician, Sir Richard Osborne, whose descendants continued to own Tikincor for the next couple of centuries.





Burke’s Landed Gentry of 1871 proposes that the Osbornes first settled in Ireland in 1558 but from whence they came does not appear to be known. Sir Richard, who sat as Clerk of the King’s Court in Ireland for 13 years from 1616, was created a baronet in 1629 and thereafter sat as MP for County Waterford on a number of occasions until his death in 1667. In 1690 his grandson, Sir Thomas Osborne was responsible for building the narrow five-arched bridge over the Suir which is still known by his name and which provided convenient access to the family’s lands on either side of the river. The Osbornes continued to live at Tikincor until the late 18th century when they moved to Newtown Anner, on their County Tipperary property. Incidentally, the current heir to the baronetcy is Britain’s former Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne. 





Tikincor Castle, as the building is usually known, is an excellent example of the fortified houses constructed throughout Ireland in the first decades of the 17th century when the country was at peace. Few of them survived the Confederate Wars and many can now be found in a ruinous condition, such as Burncourt, County Tipperary (see Burntcourt « The Irish Aesthete) and Ichtermurragh Castle, County Cork (see Whom Love Binds as One « The Irish Aesthete). Tikincor shares many characteristics with both of these, T-shaped and built of rubble, it climbs three storeys to a many-gabled attic floor marked by a string course, above which soar tall slender chimneys indicating a greater number of hearths than would have been the case in earlier tower houses. A staircase was likely accommodated in the wing that projects on the east side, while the west front now has a wide arched opening on the ground floor, probably a later alteration. Tikincor does not appear to have been occupied after having been abandoned by the Osbornes; it was described as being ‘in ruins’ on the first edition Ordnance Survey map in 1840. Such remains its condition today.

Beyond the Tower House



Graffan House, County Offaly is thought to date from the early 17th century when it may have been constructed as a glebe for the adjacent Ballintemple Church, now also an ivy-drenched ruin. Of three bays and two storeys, the building occupies a fine position on raised ground with views over the surrounding countryside. The house is T-shaped, with the staircase likely occupying the projection, indicating, as Andrew Tierney has noted, ‘the movement beyond the tower house to something more symmetrical.’