Monthly Archives: November 2024

A Gateway to the Past



Following Monday’s text about souvenirs of Dromoland Castle’s earlier history, it is worth looking at another feature on the estate. A previous residence of the O’Brien family, Leamaneh Castle, County Clare has featured here before (see The Legacy of Máire Rúa « The Irish Aesthete). That building was constructed around 1480 by Turlogh O’Brien, King of Thomond, and is said to derive its name from the Irish ‘Leim an eich’ (The horse’s Leap). In 1543, Turlogh’s son, Murrough O’Brien, surrendered the castle and pledged loyalty to the English crown; subsequently, he was created first Earl of Thomond and Baron Inchiquin. In 1648, his descendant Conor O’Brien extended the tower with the addition of a four-storey manor house following his marriage to Máire ní Mahon who on account of her flaming red hair, was commonly known as Máire Rúa (Red Mary).  The couple’s son, Sir Donough O’Brien later abandoned Leamaneh, moving to Dromoland. In 1902, Lucius William O’Brien, 15th Baron Inchiquin, organised for the castle’s 17th century stone gatehouse to be removed and re-erected at the entrance of Dromoland’s walled gardens, where it can still be seen. 



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Souvenirs of a Lost Demesne


Dromoland Castle is now such a familiar part of the County Clare landscape that it is easy to overlook the fact that this was by no means the only residence ever built on the same site, being instead merely the latest of them. It appears likely that a 16th century tower house stood here before being swept away by, or incorporated into, an early 18th century house. A water colour of the latter building, painted shortly before it was swept away, shows this to have been of classical design, and of ten bays and two storeys over raised basement with a four-bay pedimented breakfront. It only stood for some 100 years because in 1813, the estate’s owner Sir Edward O’Brien, fourth baronet, decided that he needed a new house, and invited the young architect James Pain, then working at Lough Cutra, County Galway (see Domat Omnia Virtus* « The Irish Aesthete) to come up with designs. Pain’s initial proposal was for another classical residence and nothing came of the project, but then Sir Edward also looked at schemes from Richard and William Vitruvius Morrison, and from Thomas Hopper  and did not used these either (although Hopper’s Doric Temple gatelodge still greets visitors to the estate, as can be seen below). Six years later Pain, together with his brother George, came up with another scheme, this time for a large Gothic castle. The design proved acceptable and was slowly constructed over the next two decades at a cost of some £50,000. Writing in 1837, as building work concluded, Samuel Lewis described the new residence as ‘a superb edifice in the castellated style, lately erected on the site of the ancient mansion, and surrounded by an extensive and richly wooded demesne…’ 





While the Pain brothers’ castle now dominates the Dromoland estate, traces remain of its 18th century predecessor. Set atop an artificial mound to the west of the house – and now regrettably wedged between a road and a motorway – is an elegant octagonal Belvedere. The building dates from the early 1740s and is believed to have been designed by self-trained architectural draughtsman John Aheron, a protégé of Dromoland’s then-owner Sir Edward O’Brien. Passionately interested in horses – and gambling – Sir Edward apparently commissioned the Belvedere so that he could watch racing across his land, and have views as far as Ennis, the county town some seven miles away. The building is of rubble stone with brick dressings, which may have once been rendered, and cut stone used for the cornice, string course and arches over the door and windows, three of which are glazed, the others blind. Entrance to the building is gained via a flight of stone steps on the eastern front while on the opposite side a cutting in the ground provides access to a semi-basement, presumably where servants would have prepared food and drink. The single room main floor has a vaulted ceiling and was heated by a fireplace set in the north-west wall. Having fallen into disrepair, the Belvedere was repaired some years ago.  





An estate map of c.1740 shows the gardens at Dromoland to have had an elaborate formal layout featuring a series of avenues and terraces, as well as vistas of which a Temple of Mercury formed part: located to the north-east of the house, it stands at the crossing point of two straight paths. Encircled by yew trees, the temple is composed of eight Doric columns supporting a timber dome covered in lead on which perches a bronze statue of Mercury, derived from Giambologna’s original of 1580. Seemingly, Sir Edward O’Brien had gambled the entire Dromoland estate on one of his stable, a horse called Sean Buí, winning a race at Newmarket. Fortunately the horse came in first and following the animal’s death, he was buried beneath the temple. Sir Edward’s passion for equestrian sport can be found in another souvenir of the 18th estate: an archway into the former stableyard. Now rather lost at the rear of a bedroom extension, the archway is of crisp limestone ashlar and bears a tablet set into the pediment. Dated 1736, it is inscribed with a motto derived from one of Horace’s Odes and reads ‘In Equis Patrum Virtus’ (In horses lie the father’s power). As is well known, Dromoland Castle and surrounding 330 acres were sold by the O’Brien family in 1962 and then became an hotel, as continues to be the case.


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Flying High


This High Cross formerly stood in the village of Bealin, County Westmeath but seemingly was moved a short distance to its present location by the Handcock family who owned the local Twyford estate. However, Bealin may not have been its original location, as it carries an inscription that reads OROIT AR TUATHGALL LAS DERNATH IN CHROSSA (‘A Prayer for Tuathgal who caused this cross to be made’). Tuathgal was an abbot of the monastery at Clonmacnoise, County Offaly who died in 811, suggesting that the cross came from that site. While much of the cross is covered in the customary Celtic knot pattern, one side features a lion at the bottom and the other a hunting scene with a horseman and spear, and a dog biting the leg of a deer. Unfortunately, the cross’s present position, in the middle of boggy fields above Bealin village, makes it difficult to visit and examine.

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An Occurrence of a Very Extraordinary Kind


Originally from Cornwall, the Codd family is thought to have come to Ireland as part of the Cambro-Norman invasion. One Hivelot Cod witnessed a charter of Raymond FitzGerald (otherwise known as Raymond le Gros) at some date between 1175-1185, and within a decade or so Hugh Cod who attested a grant to Dunbrody Abbey before 1200, indicating that by then the Codds already had become established in what is now County Wexford where they built and occupied a number of castles. So it remained until the upheavals of the 17th century when, while some branches of the family converted to the Anglican faith, others remained resolutely members of the Roman Catholic church and suffered in consequence. One of them, James Codd of Clougheast Castle near Carne, a captain in the Confederate army, was killed at Duncannon in 1643, seemingly leaving one daughter. The Down Survey of 1655 notes that in 1641 James Codd, an Irish Papist, had owned 194 acres in Carne parish 186 of which, including Clougheast Castle, were then granted to Edmond Waddy, a cornet in the Cromwellian army. His descendants lived in the old building until the late 18th century when Dr Richard Waddy, described as a physician and yeoman, began constructing a new three-storey house to one side of the castle.  It has been proposed that this building was burnt by insurgents during the 1798 Rising.





Perhaps because of the assault on his property, Dr Waddy became a loyal supporter of the British government and following the collapse of the rising in June 1798, he led a search party that discovered two key figures in the Wexford rebellion, John Henry Colclough and Bagenal Harvey, who had been hiding on the Greater Saltee Island several miles off the coast: both men were subsequently hanged. While toasted by government authorities for his actions, Waddy then attracted widespread opprobrium in the area, so much so that he retreated to Clougheast Castle and barricaded himself there with a handful of servants. However, in February 1800, the
Gentleman’s Magazine carried a report of ‘an occurrence of a very extraordinary kind’ which had occurred there some time before. According to the article, Dr Waddy was in such fear for his own security that the entrance to his bedroom was secured by an antique portcullis. It then explained that ‘A few days ago, a mendicant popish friar of Taghmon, named Burn, visited the doctor in his castle, and was hospitably entertained at dinner – in the evening, when it was time to part, Burn begged to be allowed to remain, and after some difficulty on the part of his host, was permitted to lie in a second bed in the vaulted chamber. While the Doctor and the friar were going to their beds, the friar expressed great anxiety that his host should say his prayers, a duty which the Doctor, who had drank freely, seemed disposed to neglect; in the middle of the night, Doctor Waddy heard somebody drawing his cavalry sword, which hung at his bed’s head, and immediately after was attacked by the friar, and was now endeavouring to murder his host; the latter received several wounds in the head and arm, and at length the friar supposing that he had accomplished his purpose, attempted escape under the portcullis. Doctor Waddy had just strength enough remaining to loose the cord which supported it, and it fell on the priest with such violence, almost to sever his body, which fell down lifeless into the apartment below. The next morning the body of the friar was found, and the servants, going into their master’s apartment, found him covered in his own blood – Immediate medical aid was had, and we have the satisfaction of hearing that Doctor Waddy is now out of danger. A Coroner’s Inquest was held on the body of Burn, and the jury (composed of the Roman Catholic inhabitants of the neighbourhood) found a verdict of “accidental death”.’ Several decades later, in the first volume of his entertaining but unreliable Personal Reminiscences, Sir Jonah Barrington told the story of Dr Waddy and the friar but embellished it by describing how half of the deceased (that part which lay inside the portcullis) was eaten by the castle’s occupant, too fearful to leave his home in search of other food. A fanciful story, but quite without basis in fact. Dr Waddy remained in possession of Clougheast Castle until his death in 1826 when it was inherited by his only son John, also a physician and a local Justice of the Peace.





Dr John Waddy appears not to have lived in Clougheast Castle but instead to have built a new residence nearby, a two-storey thatched house. Through his mother, Oscar Wilde was related to the Waddys and is said to have visited Clougheast Cottage, as the building was called, on several occasions. Dr John Waddy died without issue in 1875, and while his widow remained there for at least a decade, the property was later sold and passed through a succession of hands before being bought by the present owner more than 20 years ago. By then, the adjacent house, built by Dr Richard Waddy but then left a shell, had been turned into a family home (and the courtyard converted into a number of residences) but the castle itself needed the complete renovation it has since received.  Thought to date from the 15th century when constructed by the Codds, it rises three storeys over a barrel-vaulted chamber, climbing to the attic gable which incorporates a dovecote. Above, this a walled walk around the pitched roof provides superlative views across the surrounding landscape. Many of the rooms below, given new floors and ceilings, still retain their fireplace and window openings. During the course of the restoration, many items were discovered spanning the centuries since the castle was first raised; these have been carefully preserved and help to explain the building’s evolution. This has been a long and carefully considered enterprise, as so often embarked upon by the owner without necessarily appreciating how much time and effort (and indeed cost) would be involved. An philanthropic undertaking that merits everyone’s gratitude.


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Catching the Eye



The Volunteer Arch at Lawrencetown, County Galway has featured here before (see Accidents Happen « The Irish Aesthete) but there are a number of other buildings that survive on the former Bellevue estate, not least this Gothick eyecatcher which now stands on the side of a public road but would once have been a found along the private avenue leading to the since-demolished main house. Probably dating from the late-18th century and intended to suggest the remains of an otherwise lost building, the rubble-stone walls have a recessed central bay and flying buttresses at each end. The roofline is finished with crenellations topped with pinnacles while below a pointed arch ‘door’ is  flanked by ogee-arched openings with cut-stone sills.



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A History of Restoration


Thought to have been born in the Donegal region of Ulster c.624, Adomnán, or Eunan as he is more widely known, was one of the many early Irish Christian monks who achieved widespread fame and ultimately canonisation.  When young, he may have spent some time at Durrow Abbey, County Offaly (see On the Plain of Oaks « The Irish Aesthete) which had been founded during the previous century by Saint Columba, to whom he was related. This would also explain why eventually he moved to the island of Iona, off the Scottish coast, where Columba had established another great monastery in 563, and where Eunan would become ninth abbot in 679. Renowned for his scholarship, between 697-700 he wrote the work for which he is best remembered, the Vita Columbae (or Life of St Columba). He died in 704.





St Eunan is believed to have been born in or close to the town of Raphoe, County Donegal where he established a monastery. Nothing of this survives, the earliest remains being two fragments of carved sculptural stonework probably once part of a door lintel. In the 12th century, Raphoe was established as a Diocesan See, and surviving evidence of the cathedral then erected can be found in the south-east section of the chancel, including a triple sedilia and a piscina bowl. However, St Eunan’s suffered greatly during the upheavals of the 16th and 17th centuries, and therefore underwent extensive restorations and alterations. The first of these began around 1605 when the Scottish-born clergyman George Montgomery, who had previously served as chaplain to James I, was appointed by the king not just Bishop of Raphoe, but simultaneously Bishop of Clogher and Derry (he was translated to the See of Meath alone in 1610). Montgomery’s successor Andrew Knox, another Scotsman, served as Bishop of Raphoe until his death in 1633, but also as Bishop of the Isles in his native country until 1619 (when he resigned so that his eldest son Thomas Knox could take over the diocese). On Knox’s arrival in Raphoe, the cathedral was described as ‘ruinated and decayed’ and therefore substantial restoration was undertaken during his episcopacy: a door lintel in the south porch is an inscription: AN. KNOX II EP I. CVRA. With its scrolled volutes, this porch (see final picture) is of interest because of its Italianate Baroque design, thought to date from the late 17th or very early 18th century, a rare surviving example from that period. Meanwhile, it may be that further work was undertaken on the building during the episcopacy of  yet another Scotsman, John Leslie (1633-1661), the ‘fighting bishop’ during whose time a new palace was built on an adjacent rise (see From Bishops to Bullocks « The Irish Aesthete). Nevertheless, the greater part of the cathedral as seen today dates from the 1730s, during the long episcopacy of Nicholas Forster, who served as bishop of the diocese from 1716 to 1743 and therefore had ample time to see to the building and improve its condition, helped in this enterprise thanks to funds left by one of his predecessors, John Pooley (died 1712). Visitors enter St Eunan’s through a porch below the west tower built by the bishop in 1738 but the transepts also added by Forster would be demolished in the late 19th century as part of the next restoration project. Incidentally, during his episcopacy, Forster also commissioned the handsome Volt House (now a heritage centre), which stands on Raphoe’s Diamond not far from the cathedral and was originally intended to house four widows of Church of Ireland clergymen.





Despite all the attention paid to St Eunan’s in the early 18th century, once more it suffered neglect, so much so that in 1876, the diocesan correspondent to the Ecclesiastical Gazette judged the place to be ‘the most neglected church in the diocese’. Between 1888-82 an extensive programme of restoration was undertaken by architect Sir Thomas Drew to return the cathedral’s ‘mediaeval’ character. Among other work done, the transepts, pews, and a gallery all dating from Forster’s time were removed. Much of what can be seen inside the building – the chancel arch, the east gable windows, the encaustic tiled floor, the timber panelling behind the altar and many of the present window openings all date from Drew’s intervention. Some of the stained glass windows in the chancel and nave were designed by members of  the An Túr Gloine studio. The west porch’s timber doors featuring Celtic motifs, symbols of the four evangelists and a border inscription were carved by a Mrs McQuaid, wife of a former rector, in 1907 in memory of her father Dean Joseph Potter who had died two years earlier. A few years ago, the cathedral underwent its most recent series of renovations, with €450,000 spent on a new roof and the repair of defective stonework, as well as the installation of interior lighting and a certain amount of redecoration. St Eunan’s has a long history of restoration, but, all being well, another such programme ought not to be required for a long time to come. 

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As the Wheel Turns



Located beside the river Laney, the former corn mill at Bealick, County Cork was constructed by the Harding family in the closing years of the eighteenth century at a time when demand for cereal crops were high due to the Anglo-French wars. Of rubble stone, the triple-pile gable-fronted eight-bay four-storey building continued in operation throughout the 19th century and in 1899 the mill wheel’s power was harnessed to provide electricity to nearby Macroom: seemingly the town was one of the first in the country to benefit from electric street lighting. Fallen into dereliction, the building was restored a decade ago and turned into a visitor centre, although the premises were resolutely closed when the Irish Aesthete paid a call.



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The Irish Dizzy

Many people will be familiar with the life of Benjamin Disraeli, popularly known as ‘Dizzy’, leader of the British Conservative party from 1868 until his death in 1881, twice Prime Minister during that period, and a great favourite of Queen Victoria. Much less well-known will be an Irish man of slightly earlier period with a strikingly similar name. Benjamin Disraell (c. 1766-1814) has betimes been proposed as an uncle of the future premier, although it is worth noting the slightly different spelling of his surname (it ends with a double l rather than an i). Furthermore, as was pointed out by Bernard Shillman, (writing in the Dublin Historical Record Vol. 3, No. 4, Jun. – Aug., 1941), Disraeli’s father Isaac is reported to have been an only son, meaning he would not have had a brother. As for the Irish Mr Disraell, while his origins are appear uncertain (he may have come to Ireland as a youth, and it has been proposed that he was of French Huguenot extraction), in December 1795 he is registered as – as a public notary – entering a Deed of Partnership with one Joseph Walker of Anglesea Street, Dublin to buy and sell lottery tickets and shares, etc., and deal generally in the ‘trade, art or mystery’ of the lottery business from premises at 105 Grafton Street. Almost five years later, in July 1800, Messrs Walker and Disraell advertised in the Freeman’s Journal that ‘the only Prize of £30,000 ever sold in this Kingdom’ had been obtained fromtheir office, ‘besides an innumerable Quantity of minor Prizes, such as £5,000, £2,000 £1,000, £500 etc., etc., etc.’  Shillman noted the memorial of a lease, dated 31st August, 1801, by Benjamin Disraell to Hugh Fitzpatrick, printer and bookseller, the premises described as No. 4 East Side of Capel Street near Essex Bridge for 47 years at an annual rental of £120. This is the building which can be seen in James Malton’s print of Essex Bridge and Capel Street published in 1797.

Benjamin Disraell was sufficiently successful in business that by the age of 35, he was able to retire to the country, buying an estate called Bettyfield, near Rathvilly, County Carlow. Although extensively altered c.1825, the core of the house here dates from around 1780, a five-bay, three-storey over basement building. Now called Beechy Park, since 2008 it has been owned by horse trainer Jim Bolger. Unhappily, Mr Disraell was not to enjoy his property for long, dying in 1814, at the age of 48; he was buried in the churchyard of St Peter’s, Dublin. His will made provision for a number of bequests for charitable purposes.Among these was the sum of £1,000 ‘to be expended in building a good and substantial house as near to the town of Rathvilly as may be, for the purpose of a free school for the education of poor children, and accommodation for a schoolmaster; the further sum of £2,000 for the endowment of said school, to be conducted on the most enlightened and liberal principles, under the care and superintendence of the Lord Bishop of Leighlin and Ferns.’

The schoolhouse constructed thanks to Benjamin Disraell’s bequest opened in 1826 and continued to serve the same purpose until 1977. It was designed by County Cork-born Joseph Welland, who would later go on to become Architect to the Board of First Fruits and subsequently to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. Standing in its own grounds, from the exterior, the building suggests it might be a small Palladian villa. Of cut granite, it has six bays, with round-headed recessed windows in the centre block and flanking bays to pedimented wings. Inside, the former school is larger than initially appears to be the case. The wings each hold a large, high-ceilinged chamber (presumably once classrooms), while the centre block is of three storeys with several rooms at each level. After it ceased to operate as a school, the property was converted into a community centre but in recent weeks has been offered for sale at a price of €275,000. A building of high quality and fine design, one must hope that it soon finds a new owner, someone who will cherish this legacy of the Irish Dizzy.

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