Category Archives: Architectural History

A Repetitive Story


Twenty years ago this week, the contents of Lissadell, County Sligo were offered for sale at auction. The importance of accumulated house contents is insufficiently appreciated in this country. Often spanning hundreds of years of occupation by the same family, they represent changes in taste, and in affluence, not just of a particular property’s owners, but of the entire country. They inform our knowledge of Ireland’s history through both good times and bad, and provide enlightenment about how our forebears, of whatever status, lived. Accordingly, their dispersal represents the dissipation of knowledge, leaving us all less well-informed and thereby poorer. In the case of Lissadell, the house, and its predecessor, had been home to generations of the same family, among whom was the revolutionary politician Constance Markievicz. Her association with the building, along with that of many other distinguished figures in Irish history, led to a widespread public campaign for the property and surrounding estate to be bought by the state. As has been so often the case, before and since, this did not happen, and accordingly Lissadell’s contents were auctioned. One of the key losses from this event was a collection of furniture specifically commissioned by an earlier owner, Sir Robert Gore-Booth, for the house. Dating from the 1830s, these pieces were representative of taste in Ireland at the time and were believed to have been made by the Dublin firm of Williams & Gibton. Until the auction, Lissadell was the only house in Ireland to retain its original furniture by this company, so the dispersal was much to be regretted. The items’ importance can be gauged by the fact that most of the lots exceeded their estimates: a rosewood writing table, for example, which was expected to make €8,000-€10,000, fetched €19,000. In the dining room, a set of 17 mahogany chairs (€12,000-€18,000) fetched €22,000 and the dining table itself (€30,000-€50,000) went for €65,000. Forced to bid against other potential purchasers, Lissadell’s new private owners managed to acquire some pieces, such as a pair of handsome mahogany Grecian-style bookcases clearly inspired by the work of Thomas Hope and, again in the dining room, a sturdy mahogany sideboard. But many of the contents, first installed some 170 years earlier, now left for good and not just the Williams & Gibton furniture. There were, for example, a number of fine 17th century Italian baroque paintings, many in spectacular gilt frames, which had been acquired for the rooms by Sir Robert Gore-Booth. And then there were all the miscellaneous objects that build up in any house over generations, from sets of copper jelly moulds to discarded furnishings such as old curtains. These, as much as the more valuable pieces, are what inform the history of a building, and when they are gone, part of that history disappears forever. 





In Ireland, it has long been apparent that if the remaining number of historic houses and contents are to survive, then a coherent strategy to secure their future needs to be considered. The first attempt to devise such a strategy occurred back in 1985 when a body called the Irish Historic Properties Commission, established three years earlier, produced a report written by the late Kevin B Nolan and Lewis Clohessy and called Safeguarding Historic Houses. This clearly stated that ‘our heritage historic properties cannot be preserved without the active and consistent support of the Irish Government.’ Eight years later, in 1993 the Irish Georgian Society and another body since gone, Irish Heritage Properties, held a conference on the future of the Irish country house, subsequently publishing a report on its proceedings. This makes for melancholy reading, since so many of the problems then highlighted remain to the present day, not least the want of sufficient support from central and local government. Ten years later again, Professor Terence Dooley of Maynooth University, at the request of the Irish Georgian Society and the Dept of Environment, Heritage and Local Government, produced a report, A Future for Irish Historic Houses? A Study of Fifty Houses. A year later, the same government department invited Indecon International Consultants to produce an Examination of the Issue of Trust-type Organisations to Manage Heritage Properties in Ireland. Most recently, in 2015 the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht in collaboration with Irish Historic Houses Association after extensive consultation with a wide variety of interested parties and stakeholders, issued an Action Plan for the Sustainable Future of the Irish Historic House in Private Ownership, a document which was duly approved by the Irish cabinet and appeared in 2016. In other words, no one can complain that the challenges facing the Irish country house and the retention of its contents have been insufficiently examined and analysed. Produced over a period of almost 40 years, these and other documents have constantly made the same point: that houses in private ownership, if they are to have a viable future and hold onto their original furnishings, need assistance from central and local government, the kind of assistance that is available in other European countries but has consistently failed to materialise to any adequate extent in Ireland.





Outside observers often note with surprise that in Ireland there is no equivalent of the National Trust which operates on the other side of the Irish Sea and in Northern Ireland. An attempt was made to create such an equivalent with the establishment of the Irish Heritage Trust in 2006. The IHT was largely the brainchild of the Irish Georgian Society’s current president Sir David Davies. The original purpose of this organisation was that it would, like the National Trust, acquire for public access significant heritage properties deemed to be at risk and for which the State did not want to assume direct responsibility. This would ensure that the houses and their contents would remain intact and preserved for future generations. At the time of its establishment and in recognition of the potential significance of IHT’s work, the government of the time earmarked €35 million for the organisation over the duration of the National Development Plan 2007-2013. Accordingly the IHT entered into discussions with the owners of a number of properties judged to be most suitable for such an arrangement. At all times the relevant government department – for Environment, Heritage and Local Government as well as the Department of Finance – was briefed on developments at Anne’s Grove and in 2008 all relevant parties agreed the IHT would assume responsibility for its first estate thanks to an endowment fund of €5 million (drawn from its National Development Plan funding) and associated tax credits. Then in December 2008, the department’s minister wrote to the IHT advising that due to changing circumstances it would not be possible to provide the necessary support. The IHT has since successfully reinvented itself, but the fact remains that there is still no equivalent of the National Trust in Ireland, and historic properties, along with their contents, continue to be lost because of want of state support for their survival. Today’s photographs show the empty interiors of Howth Castle, sold in 2019 after being occupied for more than 800 years by the same family. The house’s remaining contents were dispersed at public auction two years ago in September 2021. Unless there is a change in state policy towards these properties, and towards the histories they contain, more such sales will occur in the years ahead. And we will continue to be the poorer. 

Early Industry


The former flour mills at Shrule, County Longford. Rising adjacent to the river Inny and thought to date from the start of the 19th century, it appears to be a rare example of an early industrial premises in this part of the country. Samuel Lewis, in his Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837), wrote that it annually produced around 4,000 barrels of flour. The business must have been successful because around 1850 a five-storey extension was added to the existing L-shaped building. However, the mills appear to have closed down at the start of the last century and the entire complex is now roofless and empty. 

The Real Deel



The ruins of the late 18th century Deel Castle, otherwise known as Castle Gore, in County Mayo have featured here before (see Sent Up in Flames « The Irish Aesthete) but rather confusingly the remains of a second, older building with the same name stand close by. The original Deel Castle – which might be classified as the real Deel – is a tower house sitting above the river Deel, thought to date from the 16th century when constructed by the Bourke family, then dominant in this part of the country. Like so many other such buildings, it is rectangular but larger than usual, of four storeys and with a substantial bartizan on the south-west corner of the roofline, above which rise tall, narrow chimneystacks. As is also typical of tower houses, there is only one point of access, a modest arched doorcase on the west side. It remained in the possession of the Bourke family until the late 17th century when, after Colonel Thomas Bourke had fought on the side of King James in the Williamite Wars, the property was forfeited and granted to Sir Arthur Gore.




Born in London, Paul Gore (created a baronet in 1622) had come to Ireland in the late 16th century in the service of Elizabeth I as commander of a troop of horse and eventually settled in County Donegal, representing Ballyshannon for a number of years in the Irish House of Commons. Arthur Gore (created a baronet in 1662) was his second son, and likewise both a soldier and politician, becoming High Sheriff of both Mayo and County Galway, and later of Leitrim. Having settled in Mayo, he received the Bourkes‘ former property, Castle Deel and in due course, his son having predeceased him, passed this to his grandson, also called Arthur Gore. When Mrs Delany visited the place in 1732, she noted, ‘tis an old castle patched up and very irregular, but well fitted up and good handsome rooms within. The master of the house, Arthur Gore, a jolly red-faced widower, has one daughter, a quiet thing that lives in the house with him; his dogs and horses are as dear to him as his children, his laugh is hearty, though his jests are course.’ The second baronet’s son, yet another Arthur, was created Earl of Arran in 1762. It would appear that the family continued to live in Deel Castle but towards the end of the 18th century, the estate was leased to James Cuff, first (and last) Lord Tyrawley who built the now-ruined house within sight of the old castle. Cuff’s mother Elizabeth was a sister of Lord Arran, which helps to explain why he should have been granted a lease on the place. Lord Tyrawley had no legitimate heirs, although he had two illegitimate sons by an actress, one of whom, James Duff, lived in the new Deel Castle until his death in 1828, after which that building reverted back to the third Earl of Arran. As for the old castle, it was occupied by Colonel St George Cuff, thought to have been the illegitimate son of James Cuff; the colonel’s wife Louisa Maria Knox Gore, was descended in the maternal line from the second Earl of Arran, making the family connection clearer. It was only after the colonel’s death in 1883 that the old castle likewise returned to the Gores and remained with them until after 1921 when the new house was burnt by the IRA and left the ruin still seen today.




As already mentioned, the original Deel Castle was a substantial tower house. To the east of this, possibly as early as the 17th century, an extension was built which was probably further improved in the 18th century. A bartizan on the south-east corner of the extension certainly suggests an early date, since it would come from a time when the occupants of the building would consider themselves vulnerable to attack. In any case, this section is of three storeys and five bays, with a limestone Gibbsian doorcase on the groundfloor. The outline of a gable on the eastern side of the facade indicates that a further building once stood here, perhaps to match that which still extends forward immediately beyond the tower house to the west, thereby creating a courtyard in front of the building. Little remains inside either the original or the later structure, the roof long gone, along with the various floors, windows and chimneypieces: the external walls alone now survive. This decay has occurred only in the past 100 years since, unlike its neighbour, Deel Castle was not burnt during the early 1920s but still occupied. Only afterwards was it abandoned, and left to fall into the present state of ruin. 


Just a Skeleton



The skeleton of the former Roman Catholic chapel in Hugginstown, County Kilkenny. This building was constructed c.1800, in other words almost three decades before Catholic Emancipation, and had an interior that preserved its original decoration, a rare survivor from that period. However, as so often is the case, this was judged to be outdated and forty years ago the church was put out of service, with  a singularly unimpressive replacement erected elsewhere in the village. The interior was subsequently dismantled and the roof removed, so that today only the shell seen here remains. 


A Palimpsest of Irish Architectural History


Descended from the late 10th century High King of Ireland Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill, for much of the period following the Norman invasion, the O’Melaghlins (later McLoughlin) were a dominant family in what is now Westmeath. As such, they built various fortified residences for themselves, including the core of what is today called Moate Castle: the town of Moate derives its name from the motte and bailey which was erected here by the Normans. The O’Melaghlin castle is thought to have been constructed around 1500 and remained in their hands for a century until sold by Feardorcha O’Melaghlin to Hubert Dillon, who lived a short distance north of Moate at Drumraney. However, in the upheavals of the mid-17th century, Dillon’s son lost the castle, which was granted to an English soldier called Humphreys. In 1655 he, in turn, sold the property to another soldier, Captain John Clibborn, whose forebears came from Yorkshire and whose descendants would live in the place for the next couple of centuries. 






As mentioned, the Clibborns continued to live in Moate Castle for some 200 years; in Samuel Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837), it was listed as the residence of Cuthbert John Clibborn. Following his death in 1847, he was succeeded by his eldest son Thomas Strettel Clibborn, then aged just ten. Having graduated as an engineer from Trinity College Dublin, in 1859 Thomas Strettel Clibborn emigrated to Australia where he spent the rest of his life, where thanks to his keen interest in racing, he became secretary of the Australian Jockey Club, where he proved to be an outstandingly effective administrator, remaining in the position until shortly before his death in 1910. In Burke’s Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Ireland (published 1912), Clibborn’s eldest son George Holmes Clibborn’s elder son is listed as being ‘of the Castle, Moate, County Westmeath’ but he likely never lived there as even during his father’s lifetime it seems to have been rented to a succession of tenants, including Gilbert Nugent (later of Jamestown Court), a Quaker businessman called William Wooley and Edward Fetherstonhaugh. At the beginning of the last century, the local postmaster, a Mr Moore occupied the building, followed by Mr Gardiner, who taught at the local Church of Ireland school. For just over half a century, the property has been owned by the Mitchell Family who recently placed it on the market.






Moate Castle sits high above the town’s main street but what can be seen from here is actually the back of the building: the main entrance is on the other, north-facing side and looks out over several acres of enclosed land, presumably once laid out as gardens. The original castle is in the eastern section of the main house and is of two bays and three storeys. Various additions were made to this from the late 17th to the end of the 18th centuries, beginning with an extension to the immediate west which is likewise three storeys high and of three bays. At the western extremity and on the rear, a two-storey bow-fronted extension was also added at some unknown date. Returning to the facade, this shows a four-bay house of three storeys, the interior accessed via a relatively modest Gibbsian limestone doorcase. The building on this side is flanked by two-storey, gable-ended pavilions that createa a shallow forecourt; both of these are now in poor condition but must once have been fine structures. Beyond the eastern pavilion is the yard with stables and coach house: here a Sheela na gig has been inserted into the wall immediately above a Gothic arched. Stepping inside, the castle proves to be less substantial, and much more manageable as a home, than its external appearance might suggest. The entrance hall contains a  fine mid-18th century staircase giving access to the upper floors, with a drawing room to the immediate right and a passage leading to what might have been the original dining room and thence the kitchen in the old castle. Upstairs, a similar passageway leads to a number of bedrooms. Throughout the building, decoration is spare, reflecting the fact that the Clibborns were Quakers. Moate Castle deserves a thorough examination than it has been given hitherto as the house can be seen as a palimpsest of Irish architectural history across more than 500 years, reflecting changes in taste and material circumstances during that long period. The hope must be that a sympathetic new owner can be found for the property, sensitive to its significance and prepared to ensure that Moate Castle can continue to bear witness to the country’s past. 

Answers Sought



On the banks of the river Barrow, at the point where Counties Carlow and Laois shade into each other, stands this building, known as Clongrennan Lock (also Lanigan’s Lock). Not far away are what remains of Clongrennane Castle, a 15th century construction, with the now-ruined early 19th century residence of the Rochfort family close by. Was this building, with its little turreted towers at each corner, originally part of the same estate? There appears to be no information available about the site: all answers welcome.


A Good Fry


In his Dictionary of British 18th Century Painters, Ellis Waterhouse describes Thomas Frye (1710-62) as ‘one of the most original and least standardised portrait painters of his generation.’ Frye was born in Edenderry, County Offaly, a younger son of one John Fry whose father, born in Holland of English parents, appears to have settled in Ireland in the 17th century. Little is known of Frye’s training, although in their book on Ireland’s Painters, Anne Crookshank and the Knight of Glin note that his earliest signed work, dated 1732, ‘seems to have silvery echoes of James Latham’ so perhaps he spent time in the latter’s studio. Around this time, or even earlier, Frye left Ireland and by 1736 had settled in London where he was sufficiently well-known to be commissioned to paint the portrait of Frederick, Prince of Wales for the Company of Saddlers. While Frye specialised in portraiture, from the mid-1740s onwards, he became involved in the manufacture of fine porcelain and from around 1747 onwards he managed a factory producing this ware which he had co-founded in Bow on the outskirts of London. Due to ill-health, he had to retire from the business in 1759 but then concentrated on creating mezzotints, in which medium he again displayed both imagination and  innovation. Today Frye is best-remembered for two series of mezzotints issued in the years immediately prior to his death; these show a fondness for dramatic chiaroscuro and what has been called a ‘Gothic intensity.’ As is widely known, these pictures would have a considerable influence on Joseph Wright of Derby and other later artists. Published in 1760 and 1761, the two series are all of heads, almost life-size, and although the sitters were unnamed, they are believed to have been taken from life: Strickland, in his Dictionary of Irish Artists (1913) reports that Frye had difficulty persuading ladies to sit for these pictures, as they were uncertain of the company in which their portraits would appear.  Strickland also recorded that having been very corpulent and prone to gout, Frye adopted a spare diet, in consequence of which he ‘fell into consumption’ and died in April 1762. 





For a long time, two of Thomas Frye’s portraits hung in a house called Frybrook, in Boyle, County Roscommon. This property dates from some time after 1742 when the Edenderry merchant Henry Fry (older brother of the aforementioned Thomas Frye) was invited to move to Boyle by James King, fourth Baron Kingston whose family owned the town and, when there, lived in King House. As with many other large landowners of the time, King was keen to improve the economic circumstances of his estate, and thereby increase his own income, so Fry was expected not just to settle in Boyle but also to establish a weaving business there. The Frys appear to have prospered; in  1835, Henry Fry of Frybrook and his relative, also called Henry Fry, of another house in the vicinity, Fairyhill, were founding members of the Boyle branch of the Agricultural and Commercial Bank (although this venture failed nationally after only a couple of years). Successive generations of Frys continued to live in the family home until the 1980s when, for the first time, it was offered for sale. Thereafter the house somehow survived but slowly fell into decline and appeared at risk of being lost forever until purchased by the present owners five years ago. 





Frybrook is located in the centre of Boyle, on land immediately north of the river (also called Boyle) with its gate lodge – now a cafe – standing immediately beside the town’s main bridge. Found at the end of a short drive, the house is of five bays and three storeys, the absence of a basement explained by the proximity of the river, with its threat of flooding. Frybrook is rather more grand than the usual urban residence, its facade suggesting a country house, with a pedimented limestone doorcase with sidelights below a Venetian window above which is an oculus window. Inside, the ground floor has an entrance hall with main staircase to the rear, and reception rooms to the right and left; behind these, and down a few steps are the former servants’ quarters. The stairs climb to the first floor where additional large reception rooms, with fine cornices and handsome architraves above the windows, can be found; originally the main bedrooms were on the floor above. On the way up to this level, unusually the return is semi-elliptical with a door in its centre giving access to the service areas to the rear of the house. As mentioned, Frybrook was at risk of being lost before being bought by the present owners five years ago. Since acquiring the building, they have undertaken extensive restoration and plan to open Frybrook as a guest house in 2024. 

A Stout Burial Place



Inside a walled enclosure overlooking the plains of County Kildare, the church of Oughterard (from the Irish Uachtar Árd, meaning ‘a high place’) is thought to have been originally established in the sixth or seventh centuries, although the present buildings are of later date. What remains of what must once have been a substantial religious settlement are a truncated round tower and a barrel-vaulted chancel with a 14th century three-light window at the east end. Much of the nave has been lost, but on the south wall is the burial site of Arthur Guinness, founder of a certain well-known Irish business. The reason he was entombed here: his maternal grandfather William Read was a tenant farmer in this part of the country (and, it is sometimes said, Arthur Guinness was born in his mother’s family house when she returned there for the event).


A Spacious Piece of Antiquity


‘Whilst there is scarcely an old castle, abbey or ruin of any pretensions throughout the length and breadth of Green Erin, since the introduction of cheap literature, that has not been over and over described till we have naturally began to tire of their repetition, is it not strange that none of these popular writers have as yet attempted a description of the many remnants of antiquity abounding in Clonmore in the County of Carlow, particularly its venerable castle? From Ben-Hadir to Ben-Urris, from Donaghadee to Dingle, there is scarcely a place whose particular beauties have not at some time been duly chronicled; guide books in variety too, have been given to the public of Antrim and Cork, of Wicklow and Kerry, and every picturesque locality round our island; yet amongst them all, poor Clonmore – but a few hours drive (only thirty-five Irish miles) from the metropolis – has been completely unheeded and neglected. None of the Penny Journals published by Folds or Coldwell, Hardy, or Gunn and Cameron have even mentioned its name! Grose, in his Antiquities of Ireland, published in 1791-3, has given two neat views of the castle, which the Author of these pages is happy to say he has a few copies of; but then Dr. Ledwich, who furnished the descriptive portion of that work, on account of Grose’s premature death, has dismissed the subject in a few lines. Lewis’ Topographical Dictionary and Ryan’s History of the County Carlow, both of their accounts of the castle and its antiquities are meagre enough, and incorrect in some particulars, which I intend to point out as I proceed; and, with the exception of these three publications, no recent writer that I could come at has ever favoured us with even a single line on the subject.’
From The Antiquities and History of Cluain-Mor-Maedhoc, Now Clonmore by John MacCall (1862)





Clonmore Castle: The spacious piece of antiquity of this place is situate near Hacketstown, and in the barony of Rathvilly. In shape it is square; one hundred and seventy feet by the same. The castle has towers at each angle, and is surrounded by a fosse, of about twenty feet in depth. The walls are five feet thick; and the narrow, stone-cased windows were obviously furnished with iron bars. One of the side walls has disappeared, but the other three are in good preservation and, if unassailed by the Gothic hands of man, will probably resist the tooth of Time for ages to come. The demolished wall, was no doubt removed in order to procure ingress to two or three cabins and their appurtenances, which classically ornament the interior. Indeed, I have been credibly informed, that part of the window-cases now serve the very ignoble purpose of forming part of the materials of some pig-sties! But such desecration of ancient works of art, by the unthinking and ignorant, is not at all an uncommon circumstance in this country.’
From The History And Antiquities Of The County Of Carlow by John Ryan (1833) 





‘Cromwell’s army landed in Dublin in August 1649 and in 1650 the Cromwellian colonels, Hewson and Reynolds, captured the castle and ordered it to be slighted so as to make it indefensible, reducing the castle to the ruins that may be seen today. The fortress was both strong and large, square in plan, with high curtain walls defended with a tower at each corner. Although the Parliamentarians destroyed the gatehouse, extensive ruins indicating various halls and chambers remain. The northeast tower, known as the Six Windows, is still well preserved complete with a gargoyle known as “the pooka’s head.” Patrick Wall was granted the castle of Ballynekill (Clonmore) following the restoration of Charles II, together with 69 acres and 1 rood. In 1697, following the Williamite Settlement, what remained of the castle passed into the hands of Ralph Howard of Dublin. He was created Baron Clonmore in 1776, elevated to Viscount Wicklow in 1785, and his son Robert was made Earl of Wicklow in 1793. Clonmore was still in the hands of the Howard family in 1823, but then, around 1900, it passed to the Stopford family, Earls of Courtown.’
From The Byrnes and the O’Byrnes, Vol. II by Daniel Byrne-Rothwell (2010)

Ireland’s Taj Mahal




Welcome to Ireland’s equivalent of the Taj Mahal, and the smallest chapel in Europe (also reputedly the second-smallest in the world), located in the centre of Carrick-on-Shannon, County Leitrim. Designed by architect William Hague and completed in 1879, the chapel was commissioned by local businessman Edward Costello to commemorate his wife Mary Josephine who had died two years earlier at the age of 47. Erected on the site of a former Methodist chapel and faced with ashlar limestone, the building measures 12 feet wide by 16 feet long. Crests on either side of the entrance contain the letters EMC and the Costello coat of arms with the motto ‘Ne te quaesiveris extra’ (Do not look outside for yourself). Lined in Bath stone, the interior has a carved marble altar behind which are stained glass windows by Mayer of Munich. Sunk into the floor and on either side of tiles bearing symbols of the Passion of Christ, are two large sheets of glass: through that on the left can be seen the coffin of Mrs Costello, while her husband’s remains lie to the right.