Category Archives: Architectural History

Beautifully Situated on a Fine Declivity


Mount Juliet, County Kilkenny dates from the 1760s when commissioned by Somerset Butler, 8th Viscount Ikerrin and 1st Earl of Carrick from an unknown architect. Located on an estate he had bought towards the end of the previous decade. The house sits on high ground above the river Nore and across from Ballylinch, a property which had anciently belonged to the monks of Jerpoint Abbey and which had passed through a number of hands before being inherited by Eleanor Redman, who married James Butler, third viscount Ikerrin: they were the paternal grandparents of Somerset Butler. The original name of the land on which Mount Juliet stands was Oldtown but this was changed to Waton’s Grove, after the Waton family who lived there until they forfeited their property in the aftermath of the Cromwellian settlement. It then passed through a succession of owners, including James II, until finally being purchased by Somerset Butler, probably in the late 1750s: a bridge over the river in front of the house carries the inscription, ‘This bridge was built at the private expense of Somerset Hamilton Earl of Carrick in the year 1762.’ Having acquired the place, he chose to call it Mount Juliet, after his wife, Lady Juliana Boyle, a daughter of the first Earl of Shannon. 





When Arthur Young visited Mount Juliet  in 1776, he described it as ‘beautifully situated on a fine declivity on the banks of the Nore, commanding some extensive plantations that spread over the hills, which rise in a various manner on the other side the river: a knole of lawn rises among them, with artificial ruins upon it…’ Another visitor in 1818 describes walking around ‘the flower gardens and to the green house which is on an uncommon plan and then round the back lawn, which is very pretty, well wooded with pretty oak between the boles of which is a beautiful view of distant woods and hills and here and there a reach of the river.’ However, the writer thought the house ‘very large, old fashioned and not pretty,’ although he did allow that it seemed ‘comfortable and convenient.’ 





Designed by an unknown architect, Mount Juliet is of three storeys over-basement. The house originally faced north-east looking down towards the river with a seven bay facade between two shallow curved bows with arched windows on two storeys. The central breakfront has Venetian windows on the two upper storeys above a tripartite pedimented and fan-lit doorway (since enclosed within a porch). There is a perron and double steps in front of the door, with iron railings  At the start of the last century, the entrance was moved to the other side of the building, with a single-bay three-storey projecting entrance bay added. Much of the interior decoration was commissioned by the second earl, Henry Thomas Butler, who inherited the estate in 1774, also the year in which he was married. The main reception rooms have splendid plasterwork, again by unknown hands, although in the style of Michael Stapleton,not least the dining room, the walls of which are lined with medallions enclosing classical figures in relief and surrounded by delicate garlands of grape leaves. But each room has its own distinctive character, as well as a variety of fine marble chimneypieces, many of which were installed when the house underwent alterations in first decades of the last century. The second earl was also responsible for the entrance hall dominated by an Imperial staircase supported by a screen of fluted Ionic columns. When the house’s orientation was altered at the start of the last century, a room was added immediately beyond the stairs’ return. 





While the first two Earls of Carrick appear to have lived within their means, the same cannot be said of the third. Soon after he died in 1838, leaving two infant sons, an auction was held at Mount Juliet where lots on offer included ‘the entire household furniture, plate, and plated ware, valuable paintings, books, piano forte, china, glass, &c.; as well as horses, carriages, farming implements and all livestock. Then in 1852, a large part of the family’s land, ‘‘upwards of 7,000 acres statute measure’ was sold by the court for the Sale of Incumbered Estates in Ireland, the auction realising a total of £40,200. By this date, all that remained was the townland of Mount Juliet and its house, which had been inherited by the fifth earl, Somerset Arthur Butler, who entered the Grenadier Guards as an ensign in 1856 and took part in the Crimean War, retiring from service as a captain in 1862. Unmarried, seemingly in later years he became a recluse and following his death in 1901 is said to have left much of his personal fortune to the Plymouth Brethren of which he was a member. Title and what remained of the estate then passed to a cousin, Major Charles Henry Butler, who never lived in the property but passed it on to his eldest son, the future seventh earl who in turn leased Mount Juliet to the wealthy General Sir Hugh McCalmont. 





Just before the outbreak of the First World War, General Sir Hugh McCalmont bought Mount Juliet from the seventh Earl of Carrick. The McCalmonts were responsible for carrying out a number of alterations to the house, not least changing its orientation and creating a ballroom in one of the wings. The family remained at Mount Juliet until 1988 when they in turn sold the property. Since then it has operated as a luxury hotel with a Michelin starred restaurant. Over the past year, the hotel’s new owners have undertaken an extensive restoration and redecoration of the house.


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Two Ruins, One Site


Located in County Meath, but close to the border with County Offaly, Castlejordan is said to take its name from a man named Jordan, but who he might have been is open to conjecture. One suggestion is that he was a Norman knight called Jordan de Courcy, a relative (possibly a son) of John de Courcy who in the late 12th century conquered much of eastern Ulster. According to this story, following the senior de Courcy’s downfall, Jordan fled or was exiled to Exeter but later returned to Ireland and erected a fortress which came to be known as Castlejordan. The alternative version is that the place owes its origins to a later settler, Jordan Comyn who is held to have founded an Augustinian Priory a few miles away at Ballyboggan. 





Found beside the river Monagh, by their scale the ruins of Castlejordan indicate that this was once a fortress of some importance, used to defend the inhabitants of the Pale against incursions by the local O’Connor family. It appears that during the 16th century, the castle regularly changed hands between the English and Irish, although towards the end of the Tudor period it was held by Sir Henry Duke. Following his death in 1595, the property was inherited by one of Duke’s daughters, Mary who married Richard Gifford, and it would appear their descendants remained living in the area until the early 19th century, although the castle came under attack several times during the Confederate Wars of the 1640s. How much of the building survived from this period is open to question: by 1837, in his Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, when writing about Castlejordan, Samuel Lewis simply noted ‘here are the ruins of a castle, formerly occupied by the Giffords.’ The last member of the family associated with the site appears to have been Marie Giffard (note the slight difference in spelling of the surname by the late 18th century). She married Frederick William Lewis Augustus, Count de Lusi, who from 1834-38 served as Prussian Envoy Extraordinary to the Court of Greece. What remains of the castle is in two parts. That closer to the river is a squat, three storey structure, the north-west front flanked by a pair of circular towers, and with tall chimneys on two gable ends. This might be considered complete in itself, but rather strangely, some distance to the south is another structure, a single tall, slender tower at least five storeys high and with masonry on one side indicating it was once part of a bigger building (but now forming the backdrop to a private garden, rather like a modern version of the 18th century folly). Has Castlejordan castle been the subject of a detailed study or archaeological survey? It would seem not, but any further information on the place would be fascinating to see. 




A short distance to the west of the old castle lies another ruin, this time of a Church of Ireland church. Samuel Lewis advised readers that this was built in 1826, likely on the site of an earlier place of worship, since records survive showing that services were held in Castlejordan during the 17th and 18th centuries: In 1693, for example, the church and chancel here were recorded as being in good repair. According to Lewis, the new building was constructed at a cost of £664, 12 shillings and one penny. On the other hand, the Parliamentary Directory of 1846 gives a figure of £923, one shilling and six and a half pence. Both sources agree that the expense was borne thanks to a loan from the Board of First Fruits, and the later document also provides the helpful information that while the church could hold 100 persons, attendance averaged 40. Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic chapel had an attendance of 600. As the Parliamentary Directory noted, while the Protestants of the parish amounted to 60, the number of Roman Catholics was 4,024. By the early 20th century, the church in Castlejordan was united with a number of other parishes and eventually closed for services in 1978. Today, just the tower which would have stood at the west end of the building, still remains in place, like a response to the singular tall tower of the older castle to the south.  

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All Locked Up



A former lock keeper’s cottage on the Royal Canal in County Westmeath. Dating from c.1810 and adjacent to Lock Number 35, the cottage was built to a common plan and style by the Royal Canal Company as part of its development of the facility. Single storey and just one room deep on either side of the entrance, this modest residence is given architectural appeal thanks to the shallow arches into which door and windows sit. The house here shown was extended more recently, but the work appears to have been left incomplete and it now stands boarded up by the canal.



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An Uncertain Attribution



Dating from the end of the 15th century, Farney Castle, County Tipperary began as one of the circular tower houses that are predominantly found in this part of the country. Originally owned by the Butler family, following the restoration of Charles II in 1660, the property were leased to Captain William Armstrong whose father, Sir Thomas Armstrong, had served in Ireland as colonel of the Horse in support of Charles I during the course of the Confederate Wars, and had been twice imprisoned by Oliver Cromwell. The Armstrongs would remain here until the 19th century, buying out the Farney lease and acquiring further lands in the area, including those of the nearby Holy Cross Abbey. At some date in the early 19th century, the old castle was greatly extended by the addition of a five bay, two-storey over raised basement house at the south-east end of which is a polygonal four-storey tower. In a loosely Tudorbethan style, there is uncertainty about who might have been the architect responsible, with William Vitruvius Morrison mentioned but also Charles Frederick Anderson, who worked a lot in this part of the country before emigrating in 1849 to the United States where he had a successful practice in New York and Washington, D.C. The Armstrongs remained in residence at Farney until the late 19th century when the property was sold. Today it is owned by the designer Cyril Cullen. 



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A Very Superior Style of Sculpture and Architecture


‘Abbey of Sligo: A monastery was founded in this town A.D. 1253 by Maurice Fitz Gerald, then Lord Justice, under the invocation of the Holy Cross, for friars of the Order of St. Dominick. It is seated pleasantly, on the river Gitley, and near the sea.
In 1270, 1360, and 1394, the town was destroyed by contending factions, and the monastery pillaged; and in 1414 there were but 20 Friars resident in it. The next year the whole pile was consumed by fire. This misfortune being represented to Pope John XXIII, then present at the Council of Constance, he issued the following Apostolic letters:’ 






‘ “John, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to all Christian believers, who shall see these present letters, salvation and apostolic blessing.
It having been represented unto us, that the church and house of the Dominicans at Sligo, in the diocese of Elphin, in which it is affirmed twenty brothers have long devoutly served God, were lately burnt by fire, and that the prior and some of the brethren of the order desire to repair said church and house, a work of considerable expense, the means to defray which they do not possess. We, consulting the honour of said church, and willing that it should be repaired, that the faithful may resort thither more freely for devotion, and be desirous to contribute more liberally towards its repairs when they shall find themselves replenished with celestial gifts: relying, as we do on the mercy of the Omnipotent God, and by the authority of his blessed apostles, Peter and Paul, do compassionately relax ten years, and as many forty days of penance (decem annos et totidem quadragenas) enjoined on all penitents and those who have confessed, on the feasts of the assumption of the blessed Virgin Mary and St. Patrick shall devoutly visit the aforesaid church, and contribute to its repairs.
Our will is, that if there is any indulgence, either for ever or for a certain time, granted by us, to those who shall visit and assist in repairing said church and house, that it shall from henceforth be null and void. Dated at Constance, the 16th of the Calends of February, in the 5th Year of our Pontificate, A.D. 1415”.’






‘The present building was now begun in a very superior style of sculpture and architecture. Among its principal benefactors were O’Conor, Lord of Sligo, and Peirce O’Timony, a man of considerable wealth and property, whose statue was placed in the cloister. There are two large chapels, divided by a square belfry: the tower is entire, except the battlements at the top. The arches are lofty, and enriched with foliage and angels. The three sides of the cloisters are covered by an arched roof. The front and sides of the altar are ornamented with Gothic arches, foliage, and tracery, and there are pedestals for statues. The eastern window is very beautiful, and a stone gallery surrounds the nave. Several feet from the ground is the tomb of O’Conor and his lady, kneeling on each side of an altar. The Gothic arches, fluted pillars, and multiplicity of minute and curious ornaments, make us wonder at the high degree to which the arts of sculpture and architecture were now carried, and particularly how much money could be procured for the accomplishment of such a work in a country torn by rebellion and domestic dissension, as was the case with Ireland at this time… An inquisition, on the 27th of Elizabeth, finds this monastery had a church, a steeple, cemetery, and two other stone buildings, a fishing weir, with some parcels of land.’ 


From The Antiquities of Ireland by Francis Grose, Vol. I (London, 1791)
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Castle Hackett


Castle Hackett, County Galway dates back to the 13th century when, as the name indicates, it was built by the Anglo-Norman Hacketts who had arrived in the country during the previous century and mostly settled in the south-east (for example, in County Carlow, where the settlement of Hacketstown testifies to their presence). By the 15th century, the castle had passed into the possession of the Kirwan family, one of the 14 Tribes of Galway and the only one to be considered of Gaelic origin. They continued to occupy the building until the early 18th century when a new house, also called Castle Hackett, was constructed nearby: this was burnt by anti-Treaty forces in 1923 but subsequently rebuilt. As for the old castle, still surrounded by portions of a bawn wall, it makes for a striking ruin on the landscape.


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Of Napoleon’s Toothbrush and Other Matters


One of the oldest institutions in this country, the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland dates back to 1654, although its first royal charter was granted by Charles II in 1667. The man behind this initiative was John Stearne who, like many other characters during this period, was able to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances and thereby survive and even flourish. Born in County Meath in 1624, Stearne had attended Trinity College Dublin and became a scholar there, but left without taking a degree around the onset of the Confederate Wars in 1641, when he moved to England. There he spent time first in Cambridge and then Oxford, returning to Ireland a decade after he had left it and becoming a fellow of Trinity College Dublin. The university had been given a dilapidated building on nearby Dame Street by the city’s corporation but lacked funds to restore it: In 1654 Stearne persuaded college authorities to hand the property over to him, on the understanding that he would convert it ‘unto the sole and proper use of physicians’ where he would act as life president. It says much about his persuasive charm that Stearne’s proposal should have been accepted, that he then managed to secure donations for the building’s refurbishment before riding, seemingly without problems, over the transition from Commonwealth to Restoration, and then ensure that the organisation he had established should receive royal approbation. Two years after this was achieved, Stearne died just days before his 45 birthday (one wonders whether he was familiar with the maxim ‘physician heal thyself’). Happily, the college survived. Initially it was known as the Fraternity of Physicians of Trinity Hall, but after receiving a second royal charter from William III and Mary II in 1692 , it was renamed the King and Queen’s College of Physicians in Ireland, retaining this title until 1890 when the present title was formally adopted. Once the direct link with Trinity College was broken following the grant of a second charter, the physicians became homeless and this remained the case for more than the next century, meeting in the homes of successive Presidents. However, a hospital opened on Dublin’s Grand Canal Street funded by a substantial legacy the College of Physicians had received from Sir Patrick Dun following his death almost 100 years earlier in 1713. This hospital, named after Dun, included a meeting room and accommodation for the college’s library, but  in the new hospital. Nevertheless, the physicians still wanted their own substantial premises, and this finally became possible in 1860 when the Kildare Street Club, which had occupied a couple of houses on Kildare Street since the 1780s, offered to sell these buildings to the College.






Just four months after taking possession of its new home, the college suffered a setback when the Kildare Street buildings were almost entirely destroyed by fire. Fortunately, the property was insured and this meant that the physicians, instead of having to spend money adapting what had once been two private residences into a public institution could instead start afresh with a building designed for their specific purposes. Six architects were invited to submit proposals, the winner of the commission being William G Murray, whose practice was responsible for many banks, insurance companies, railway stations and so forth. While the facade of the college underwent some modifications when the original sandstone was replaced by Portland stone in 1964, inside remains much as it looked when first completed in 1864, Professor Christine Casey noting that today the building’s sequence of rooms ‘is among the best-preserved Victorian interiors in the city.’ A flight of steps in the vestibule leads to the top-lit, double-height stair hall with grand imperial staircase: this space introduces visitors to a long processional axis running like a spine through the centre of the building. At the top of the staircase and occupying the entire street frontage is the library, originally conceived as two spaces, a library and a museum, but now one room lit by five windows. Meanwhile, down off the central landing, a long colonnaded corridor leads to the first of two great meeting rooms, the Graves Hall. This was part of Murray’s original design, a double-height space lwith ribbed coved ceiling, the walls of which are lined with Corinthian pilasters between which hang a collection of portraits on the west wall and twin light windows on the east. At the north and south ends and flanking the chimneypieces are white marble statues on plinths: these represent four former presidents of the college, including Sir Dominic Corrigan who was responsible for negotiating the purchase of the site and the fund-raising required after the fire. Corrigan can also be given the credit for a further extension to the building, this time designed by McCurdy Mitchell in 1873.  This area at the rear of the old houses had previously been filled by the Kildare Street Club with a racquet court and other rooms. Another long barrell-vaulted and colonnade corridor now led to the second great hall, today named after Corrigan, its walls lined with a further collection of portraits. 






The RCPI is home to many extraordinary objects. The library, for example, contains over 20,000 books, pamphlets and journals, primarily but not exclusively focussed on medicine, including Sir Patrick Dun’s own library, bequeathed to the college in 1713. Likewise many of the portraits, busts and statues represent doctors and physicians, but not all of them. There are medical instruments dating back to the 18th century and later. Then there is the extraordinary Quin Tassie collection, consisting of 26 drawers of more than 1,700 miniature gem casts and moulds imitating antique models and believed to have been created in the 18th century by the internationally renowned Scottish gem engraver James Tassie working with his mentor and patron, Irish physician Henry Quin; it was donated by his family to the college in 1926. Finally, and perhaps most extraordinary of all the items held by the college, is Napoleon Bonaparte’s toothbrush. As is well known, when the former emperor was exiled to the island of St Helena, he was attended by an Irish doctor, Barry O’Meara. He had served as a surgeon with the British Army in Egypt and Sicily, before being court-martialled for acting as a second in a duel in Sicily. O’Meara then entered the Royal Navy as an assistant surgeon, ending up in St Helena where, according to Napoleon in Exile: or, A Voice from St. Helena, a best-selling memoir he published in 1822 a year after the emperor’s death, O’Meara was bequeathed various mementoes, including the aforementioned toothbrush with a silver gilt handle stamped with the letter ‘N’. Today, it can be viewed, along with much else, in the Royal College of Physicians. 


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Playing Peekaboo




After Monday’s post about Ardfinnan Castle, here are the remains of a religious house found a little to the south on the other side of the river Suir. This is known as Lady’s Abbey, a Carmelite friary dating from the early 14th century and most likely closed down just over 200 years later during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Little survives other than the walls of the church which has a nave separated by a central tower from the chancel concluding in a two-light east window. A south transept also contains a window, the jambs of which feature a carved head, one of a bearded man, the other looking distinctly unhappy, perhaps because he and his companion are now almost lost in the dense ivy that covers so much of the building.




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For the Infirm



The former County Infirmary in Armagh city. As designed by George Ensor, work began on the building in 1767, but was only completed in 1776 with the south wing overseen by architect Richard Louch and carpenter John Harvey. Of two storeys over-basement and nine bays, it has a three bay  breakfront with substantial pediment. The facade is  coarse rubble with cut limestone used for door and window surrounds and the quoins. Originally, there were a pair of Gibbsian entrances, one  located on either side of the breakfront but that to the right was moved to the centre early in the last century. That to the left can be seen still in situ, although now a window and making the building unsatisfactorily lopsided. Various additions were made to the hospital in the 19th and 20th centuries before it closed in 1991 and the site adapted for other purposes.   



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A Sadder Sight than One would Think



‘It was a sadder sight than one would think,
To see that ruined church upon the hill,
Deserted, dreary, lone and desolate;
But then its spire would point to heaven still.
Like standard-bearer wounded in the fight,
Who, with his last remaining strength, upholds
His nation’s banner; so this dying church,
In its last hours, seemed bent on saving souls.

‘Twas sad to see the windows broken through;
But then they let God’s air and sunshine in:
The church, once closed to keep all errors out,
Now seemed as if it prayed more light to win.
And early spring-birds entered fearless there,
Within the church-pale unconverted came,
And built their nests within the pulpit’s shade,
And never dreamed there could be any blame…’





‘I wondered if the ancient fathers slept
In peace, within the churchyard just away,
While this, their pride, their consecrated dome,
So all unheeded crumbled to decay;
And more, if creeds escape while churches fall,
If they’ve no broken doors and windows, too,
By time’s or progress’ hand,—through which the light
Of higher truths comes brightly streaming through.

I climbed with fear the staircase weak and old,
That tottered like a ship by tempest driven,
And wondered if the saints had feared as much,
When through its creed they groped their way to heaven;
And stood within the galleries that ran
From end to end, and bent and gazed below
With heart that trembled like the saints of old,
Lest all should crumble, and I “sink to woe.”…’





‘And, as I gazed, and thought how sad that now
No feet of worshippers its old aisles trod,—
Alike forsaken by its builder, man,
And him to whom they gave, its owner, God;
I heard the voice of children in their mirth,
A group of little faces gathered there,
All unbaptized, some fresh from God’s own hand,
Who played and sported where they knelt in prayer.

I lingered till the human angels passed,—
Until the sun was growing faint and dim,
When, soft and sweet, amid the, stillness there,
The birds—Heaven’s choir—began their vesper hymn;
And while I listened to their “Te Deum,”
That made the ruin with its echo ring,
I said, “Not half so sweet the anthems loud,
That many souls in dim cathedrals sing!”‘



Extracts from The Ruined Church by Achsa Sprague (published posthumously, 1864)
Photographs show the ruins of Coolaghflags church, County Kilkenny, a late mediaeval chapel which was enlarged c.1750.

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