My Name is Ozymandias

Apr1

In February 1879 Elisabeth, Empress of Austria, popularly known then and since as Sisi, arrived in County Meath. Unhappily married, restless and inclined to melancholy, she found distraction in hunting and it was this sport which brought her to Ireland. Throughout her six-week stay in the country she followed the hounds almost daily with the Ward Union, the Meath and the Kildare Hunts, always accompanied by the most proficient horseman of his generation Captain William ‘Bay’ Middleton, widely rumoured to be her lover. Her own animals not proving suitable for the Irish terrain, local owners lent or sold the Empress their mounts although the Master of the Meath Hunt Captain Robert Fowler of Rahinstown was heard to expostulate ‘I’m not going to have any damned Empress buying my daughter’s horse.’ Nevertheless before her departure, Elisabeth presented a riding crop to Fowler: it was sold by Adam’s of Dublin in September 2010 for €28,000.
During her 1879 visit and on a second occasion the following year the Empress stayed in an immense baroque palace that would not have looked out of place among the foothills outside Vienna. This was Summerhill, one of Ireland’s most remarkable houses the loss of which, as the Knight of Glin once wrote, ‘is probably the greatest tragedy in the history of Irish domestic architecture.’

Summerhill was constructed for the Hon. Hercules Langford Rowley who in 1732 married his cousin Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Clotworthy Upton. It is generally agreed that work on the house began around this date, perhaps to commemorate the union. Also, although impossible to prove absolutely, the most widespread supposition is that Summerhill’s architect was Sir Edward Lovett Pearce. There are echoes in its design of Vanbrugh in whose office Pearce is thought to have trained. Indeed writing of the building in 1752 the Anglican clergyman and future Bishop of Meath Richard Pococke specifically described it as ‘a commanding Eminence, the house is like a Grand Palace, but in the Vanbrugh Style.’
There was already a residence in the immediate vicinity, the ruins of which survive to the present. Known as Lynch’s Castle, it is a late 16th century tower house probably occupied up to the time of Summerhill’s construction. The position selected for Rowley’s new house could scarcely have been better – the 19th century English architect C.R. Cockerell thought ‘few sites more magnificently chosen – the close of a long incline so that the gradual approach along a tree-lined avenue created the impression of impending drama. Finally one reached the entrance front, a massive two-storey, seven-bay block the central feature of which were four towering Corinthian columns, the whole executed in crisply cut limestone. On either side two-storey quadrants swept away from the house towards equally vast pavilions topped by towers and shallow domes.

We must imagine the original interiors of Summerhill to have been as superb as its exterior since little record of them survive. The house was seriously damaged by fire in the early 19th century and thereafter successive generations of the Rowley owners – it had passed to a branch of the Taylours of Headfort, the first of whom was elevated to the peerage as Baron Langford in 1800 after voting in favour of the Act of Union – never seem to have had sufficient funds to oversee a comprehensive refurbishment. In fact in 1851 the estate was offered for sale. However, some work was done on the house, including a new main staircase, in the 1870s, not long before Summerhill was taken by the Empress Elisabeth. A handful of photographs, reproduced in the invaluable Irish Georgian Society Records of 1913 and shown above give us an idea of the house’s decoration, not least that of the double-height entrance hall with its then-compulsory potted palms (just as the wall above the stairs carries an equally inevitable reproduction of Raphael’s Sistine Madonna). We know the drawing room and small dining room both contained elaborate plasterwork and there were clearly some splendid chimneypieces. The IGS Records also lists many significant paintings in the main rooms.
Before the end of the 19th century the large gothic mausoleum likewise built by Hercules Langford Rowley in 1781 not far from the house had fallen into a ruinous state; some of its exterior walls survive, along with a handful of their curious arched niches. Originally it contained a large memorial carved by Thomas Banks and commemorating the death of a beloved granddaughter, the Hon Mary Pakenham (Rowley’s daughter had married Lord Longford, another of whose children Catherine would in turn marry the Hon Arthur Wellesley, future Duke of Wellington). The Banks memorial was rescued from the mausoleum and moved into the main house at Summerhill, there seemingly safe from any damage.

On the night of 4th February 1921 the Rowleys were away but five staff remained in the house. When a knock came on the back door, the butler refused to open it but shortly afterwards he heard the door being knocked down. He and the others escaped through an exit in the basement and walked towards the farm; turning around, they saw flames rapidly spreading through the house which by morning was left a smoking shell.
It has never been ascertained who was responsible for the burning of Summerhill or why it was attacked in this way, but most likely as elsewhere during the same period it was perceived as representing the old regime and therefore a target for republicans. Afterwards, like other house owners whose property had suffered a similar fate, the Rowleys applied to the new Free State government for compensation, asking for £100,000 to rebuild Summerhill; initially they were offered £65,000 but by April 1923 this had been cut to £16,775 with the condition that at least £12,000 of the sum had to be spent on building some kind of residence on the site, otherwise only £2,000 would be given.
The compensation figure was later raised to £27,500 with no obligation to build but by then the Rowleys left the country (one member of the family had already declared ‘Nothing would induce me to live in Ireland if I was paid to do so…’). For the next thirty-five years Summerhill stood an empty shell. The late Mark Bence-Jones who saw the house during this period later wrote, ‘Even in its ruinous state, Summerhill was one of the wonders of Ireland; in fact like Vanbrugh’s Seaton Delaval, it gained added drama from being a burnt-out shell. The calcining of the central feature of the garden front looked like more fantastic rustication; the stonework of the side arches was more beautiful than ever mottled with red lichen; and as the entrance front came into sight, one first became aware that it was a ruin by noticing daylight showing through the front door.’ In 1947 Maurice Craig visited the site. His wonderfully atmospheric photographs from that time corroborate Bence-Jones’ description.

Seaton Delaval still stands, but Summerhill is no more. In 1957 the house was demolished, apparently without any objection. Today the site is occupied by a bungalow of the most diminutive proportions surrounded by evergreens which thereby obscure the view which made this spot so special. The difference in scale and style between the original house and its replacement would be hilarious was the loss of Summerhill not so tragic. The village at its former entrance gates gives visitors no indication that close by stood one of Ireland’s greatest architectural beauties. Indeed one suspects local residents themselves are mostly unaware of what they have lost since there is scant evidence of concern for the welfare of other old buildings in the vicinity.
If Summerhill still stood it could be a significant tourist attraction, bringing visitors to this part of the country, not least from Austria and surrounding countries where the Empress Elisabeth enjoys near-cult status. In other words, what went with the house was not just an important piece of Ireland’s architectural heritage but also the opportunity for local employment and income. It is typical, if perhaps the worst instance, of Ireland’s failure to appreciate the potential of her historic buildings, as well as their inherent aesthetic qualities. I think it was Bence-Jones who once called Summerhill Ireland’s Versailles but a more apt comparison would be with Marly, another vanished treasure now known only through a handful of images. As Shelley wrote in 1818,
‘”Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare…’

Mercury Rising?

Mar27

The onset of snow yesterday morning in the grounds of Ardbraccan, County Meath. The deity points heavenward and enquires with good reason: whither the weather?

The Bells, the Bells…

Mar23

No longer in use but still in place: the old servants’ bell box at Fort William, County Waterford. Note that when this was put up the house enjoyed the luxury of no less than three bathrooms between eight bedrooms. Trust me, that’s more than some large Irish houses possess even today.
I shall be writing more about Fort William in a few weeks’ time.

Maximum Impact, Minimal Means

Mar20

The limestone gate lodge of Townley Hall, County Louth, believed to have been designed around 1819 by the main house’s architecturally informed owner Blayney Townley Balfour and his wife Lady Florence Cole. Taking the form of a dimunitive Greek temple, it makes a striking impression not least thanks to the pedimented and Doric columned portico. Although now empty, it continues to be well preserved and to demonstrate the possibility of achieving a lot with a little.

The Bellamont Busts

Mar18

Since first writing of Bellamont Forest (La Belle au Bois Dormant, January 21st), I have heard from a number of readers concerned about a set of 18th century marble busts formerly in the house. Although none can be verified with absolute certainty, various tales exist concerning the origin of these busts. It is said, for example, that they represent different members of the Coote family responsible for building Bellamont. It has also been proposed that they were brought back from mainland Europe after a Grand Tour and installed in niches in the entrance hall and first-floor landing specifically created to accommodate them.
What can be confirmed is that the busts were already in the house more than two centuries ago. Sir Charles Coote, an illegitimate son of the last Earl of Bellamont, produced a Statistical Survey of Cavan in 1802 in which he wrote of the house, ‘The entrance from the portico is a lofty hall, thirty feet by thirty, which is ornamented with statuary in regular niches…’ Likewise in 1835 Lieutenant P. Taylor’s statistical report on the parish of Drumgoon includes a description of Bellamont with the observation, ‘The portico enters into a lofty hall 30 feet square, tastefully ornamented with statuary…’ I am grateful to Kevin Mulligan for bringing these two references to my attention.

The earliest known visual evidence of the busts’ presence in the house comes from a photograph album presented by Richard Coote to his neighbour Lady Dartrey in September 1870. Now in the possession of the National Library of Ireland, it includes a view of the entrance hall (then serving as a billiard room), which with that institution’s permission I reproduce above; one can assume the picture was taken at some date prior to 1870 (and incidentally, how fascinating to see the hall decorated in such high-Victorian style). A photograph in Volume V of the Irish Georgian Society’s Records (see top of this piece) which was published in 1913 and shows the busts in their niches appears to be a section of the earlier picture. Thereafter it would seem the busts remained within the house through changes of ownership – until last year.
Following the death of John Coote in January 2012, the busts were removed from Bellamont. After representations from the Irish Georgian Society, in September Cavan County Council issued notice to a number of parties requiring the busts’ return. To date this has not happened. I do not intend to become immersed in legal niceties, not least because the matter could yet go to litigation. On the other hand, the busts’ removal does raise a number of significant questions about what constitutes a permanent fixture within a historic building and what should be deemed a transitory decorative feature. In the case of the busts no violence was done to the house during their removal, for which nothing other than a step ladder was required. In other words, unlike say when a chimneypiece is taken out, the structure suffered no damage.
The Government’s 2011 Architectural Heritage Protection Guidelines for Planning Authories proposes: ‘free-standing objects may be regarded as fixtures where they were placed in positions as part of an overall architectural design.’ It also states that ‘Works of art, such as paintings or pieces of sculpture, placed as objects in their own right within a building, are unlikely to be considered as fixtures unless it can be proved that they were placed in particular positions as part of an overall architectural design.’
It is worth noting first that these are only guidelines; the document’s opening page counsels that what follows ‘does not purport to be a legal interpretation of any of the Conventions, Acts, Regulations or procedures mentioned. The aim is to assist planners and others in understanding the guiding principles of conservation and restoration.’ In addition, the advice offered is that works of art can only be deemed fixtures provided there is proof ‘they were placed in particular positions as part of an overall architectural design.’ In the case of the Bellamont busts the lack of such conclusive documentary evidence is an obvious problem for anyone championing their return. We do not know the artist responsible, or the date of their creation. Were they commissioned or bought ‘off the shelf’? Can it be conclusively demonstrated the niches were designed to accommodate them?
The next photograph shows the entrance hall in the mid-1980s not long before Bellamont Forest was bought by John Coote; over the intervening century every aspect of the room’s decoration has changed except for the busts.

I am unaware of any similar case to the Bellamont busts in this country at the moment or indeed in the past but it has to be said that recent precedents in Britain are not encouraging. In 1990, for example, Canova’s marble statue of The Three Graces, which had been commissioned by sixth Duke of Bedford in 1814 and installed in a purpose-built temple at Woburn, was removed after it had been judged not to constitute a part or fixture of the building. Only following four years of intense negotiation was the statue jointly bought by the Victoria & Albert Museum and the National Galleries of Scotland. More recently in 2007 Dumfries House and contents were offered for sale by the Marquess of Bute. Those contents included the only fully documented suites of furniture made by Thomas Chippendale. If anything could be deemed a fitting, albeit free-standing, it was surely these Chippendale pieces. Yet they would have been dispersed at auction (for which catalogues were printed by Christie’s) but for the intervention of the Prince of Wales who subsequently helped to establish a charitable trust preserving Dumfries and its furnishings.
Alas in Ireland we have no such well-connected champions of the country’s architectural heritage, nor have we shown much concern for preserving the historic contents of our houses. For this reason, the issue of the Bellamont busts is important and could set a precedent. But it is essential that sentiment does not cloud any discussion relating to their removal. Over centuries an inordinate number of works of art have been taken from their original or long-term settings and placed elsewhere, as a visit to any state gallery or museum will demonstrate. To insist that proprietors of historic buildings may not dispose of certain items which have remained in the same location beyond a certain period of time is to trespass dangerously on the rights of private ownership. It could also hinder rather than help the cause of heritage preservation by inspiring antagonism among the very people we are trying to encourage and support. Having seen the busts in place over many years, my ardent wish is that they will be restored to the niches they occupied for so long. But I am also sufficiently aware of the complexities of the case to appreciate this might not happen.

The Irish Aesthete welcomes comment on this or any other topic covered here, provided it is expressed in temperate language.

Visitors Welcome

Mar16

Here is Russborough, County Wicklow, a house long close to my heart. Engraved from a drawing by John Preston Neale, this image appeared in the second series of Views of the Seats of Noblemen and Gentlemen in the United Kingdom published in 1826. Russborough opens to the public for the season tomorrow so do think of paying a visit in the coming months, whether by horse or other means of transport.

The Cosby Show

Mar11

It was only after the Norman Invasion of the late 12th century that Ireland started to be divided into counties of which there eventually were – and still are – thirty-two. Much of this work was undertaken during the 16th century when successive Tudor monarchs encouraged English settlers to take over large tracts of land hitherto owned by the unruly Irish. In 1556, for example, Mary I created two new shires in the midlands, named Queen’s and King’s County after herself and her consort Philip II of Spain. Exceptionally Laois, as Queen’s County has been known since Independence, neither has any sea coast nor borders onto any county which does so. It is therefore the most landlocked region of Ireland and for centuries was controlled by the O’Mores (sometimes spelled O’Moore), the leading family of the region’s Seven Septs. Rory O’More who died in 1557 and his son, Rory Óg O’More were both notable leaders in Ireland’s wars against the Tudors while another member of the same family, also called Rory O’More, would become head of the 1641 Rising against the English.
The O’Mores’ opponents included successive generations of Cosbys beginning with the arrival in Ireland of Sir Francis Cosby, a soldier from Nottinghamshire who was granted land in Queen’s County after being appointed General of the Kern (an armed Irish foot soldier) by Mary in 1558. Since this land traditionally belonged to the O’Mores it is not surprising Sir Francis remained in perpetual conflict with Rory Óg until the latter was slain in a battle against English forces in 1577; Sir Francis would himself be killed three years later in the Battle of Glenmalure where the Irish were led by the celebrated warrior Fiach MacHugh O’Byrne (The Irish Aesthete sometimes likes to imagine Fiach as one of his more bellicose ancestors).

Sir Francis Cosby was succeeded by his oldest son Alexander who created a residence in the former Franciscan Friary of Stradbally, Queen’s County. The name Stradbally derives from the Irish term An Sráidbhaile meaning a village or town of one street. And so it remains to this day; Stradbally is effectively a long linear street with two openings on the western side forming Market Square and Courthouse Square. Remnants of the old friary survive but in the closing years of the 17th century the Cosbys built themselves an alternative residence which was then added to and embellished by successive generations before it in turn was deemed no longer suitable (the house’s appearance is known from a rare topographical painting of Stradbally dating from circa 1740).
In 1766 the estate was inherited by Dudley Cosby, who the previous year had been appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Denmark at a time when negotiations were underway for the marriage of Christian VII and Princess Caroline, a sister of George III; that wedding took place around the time Cosby inherited Stradbally and its unhappy consequences are familiar to anyone who has read Stella Tillyard’s 2006 book A Royal Affair. Cosby’s own marriage proved as fatal. Having been ennobled in 1772 as Lord Sydney of Leix and Baron of Stradbally, he embarked not just on the construction of a new house but the courtship of a bride to occupy it. In December 1773 he married Lady Isabella St Lawrence, daughter of the first Earl of Howth. A month later he was dead: whether the two events were related is unknown. Since he had no direct heirs, the peerage lapsed and the estate, with its still-incomplete house, passed to a cousin, Admiral Philips Cosby. He had been born in America where his father was Lt Governor of Annapolis and his uncle General William Cosby Governor of New York. Though Admiral Cosby retired from the Royal Navy in 1782, he was repeatedly recalled to serve during later wars against the French.

The house begun by Lord Sydney and completed by his heir forms the core of the present Stradbally Hall; of two storeys over a raised basement and nine bays long, its chaste late 18th century classical decoration survives in the three linked reception rooms on the garden front. But the building’s external appearance was radically altered during the 1860s when Colonel Robert Cosby employed the architect Sir Charles Lanyon to enlarge and remodel Stradbally Hall. A new entrance front was added to the property featuring two-bay projections on either side of a single-storey Doric portico. Meanwhile on the garden front the house’s existing recessed centre section was filled with a stupendous three-arch loggia and a two-storey bachelors’ wing added to the immediate west.
Lanyon also made many changes to the building’s interior, not least the creation of a vast, top-lit central hall. This features a Victorian oak staircase climbing up to a picture gallery some sixty feet long and twenty feet wide above which is suspended a coffered and barrel-vaulted ceiling with glass occupying a considerable part of the space; at either end of the gallery small lobbies were created by the insertion of a pair of pink marble Corinthian columns and each side of the gallery is flanked by a line of bedrooms.

Nothing else can match the scale and grandeur of the hall, but some of the groundfloor rooms come close, not least the ballroom which also serves as a library. The most notable feature here is the ceiling, decorated with a series of 24 early 19th century French paper panels telling the story of Cupid and Psyche. And while the basic form of the three interconnecting reception rooms on the garden side remains much as they were when first built in the late 18th century, their decoration is now distinctly Victorian, not least thanks to the gilt wallpaper in the drawingroom. This is what gives the house is unique character: an awareness that no major alteration has been made to its appearance for around 150 years.
Stradbally Hall’s size makes it plain that this was a house designed for entertaining on a massive scale. The early 19th century Irish memoirist Sir Jonah Barrington, who was born not far away at Abbeyleix, writes of a dinner at Stradbally Hall during which a half-blind guest sitting next to Admiral Philips Cosby mistook the latter’s knobby fist for a bread roll and thrust his fork into it with easily imagined consequences. Still home to the Cosby family, Stradbally Hall is undergoing a vigorous renewal thanks to the attentions of the present generation, Tom and Gesa, who encourage a variety of imaginative activities on the estate. The best-known of these is an annual music festival, the Electric Picnic, which takes place at the end of summer. It’s probably not what Lord Sydney envisaged when he embarked on building the house, but anything that keeps slates on Stradbally’s roof is to be encouraged.

For further information about Stradbally Hall and fourteen other houses, see the new soft-cover edition of my book Romantic Irish Homes published by CICO Books. Incidentally, if you are journalist/blogger who is interested in featuring the book, do contact Mark McGinlay at CICO (publicity@cicobooks.co.uk) for further information and/or to be put on the review copy list.

Now Just a Memory

Mar9

I realise that this photograph may not look especially inspiring. However, it shows the residue of yard buildings lying to the east of Summerhill, County Meath, site of the greatest of Ireland’s country houses lost in the last century. Scarcely anything remains of this immense baroque palace or of the many other buildings once found throughout the Summerhill estate. This particular block, today used to shelter cattle, is a rare survival from otherwise widespread destruction.
I will be writing more on Summerhill in a few weeks’ time.

The Stockpiling of Centuries

Mar6

An accumulation of Victoriana on top of a cabinet on the first-floor gallery of Stradbally Hall, County Laois. More next week about this fascinating house, in which restrained 18th century classicism was subsequently encased within full-blown 19th century baronial extravagance.

Risen from the Ashes

Mar4

In 1913, Sir John Keane, who had succeeded his father as fifth baronet twenty-one years earlier, decided to carry out some embellishments of the family seat, Belmont, more commonly known as Cappoquin House, County Waterford. Sir John was a descendant of the O’Cahans of Ulster who had lost their lands during the province’s plantation in the early 1600s and, like so many others, been forced to resettle west of the Shannon. Towards the end of the 17th century, one of them changed his name to Keane, converted to Anglicanism and entered government service as a lawyer. In 1738 his son John Keane acquired three 999-year leases on the town of Cappoquin and surrounding estate from Richard Boyle, fourth Earl of Cork and Burlington. John Keane’s grandson, also called John (1757-1829) and created a baronet in 1801, was responsible for building Cappoquin House on the site of an old Fitzgerald castle around 1779.

We will probably never know the architect responsible, although the name of John Roberts (1712-96), responsible for many other notable buildings in Waterford City and County, has often been proposed. Located on a prominent site above the point where the river Blackwater turns 90 degrees en route to the Irish Sea, the house’s south-facing seven-bay ashlar facade with three-bay breakfront rises two storeys over basement, its parapet finished with a line of urns. There are scarcely any images of the house before 1930 other than an 1843 watercolour signed R Armstrong. This shows the old conservatory to the immediate east side of the house and also a servants’ wing unattached to the main house, which explains the former’s survival after the latter went up in flames in 1923.
Seemingly much of the interior of Cappoquin had charming Adamesque plasterwork but this did not extend to the drawing room. So in 1913 Sir John Keane engaged the services of Page L Dickinson to embellish that part of the house. Dickinson is a curious character, the author of a memoir The Dublin of Yesterday published in 1929 after he had moved to England in voluntary exile from post-independence Ireland and filled with laments for a since-lost ancien regime. But he also wrote, in conjunction with Thomas Sadleir, the excellent Georgian Mansions in Ireland (1915) which contains detailed accounts of, among many other houses, Dowth Hall (see Netterville! Netterville! Where Have You Been?* of December 24th).

Fifth son of the Dean of the Chapel Royal in Dublin, Page L Dickinson was first apprenticed to the architect Richard Caulfield Orpen (brother of artist William Orpen), and then became his partner in the practice. In 1913 he was asked to improve the appearance of Cappoquin House’s drawing room primarily through the addition of plasterwork decoration. Lack of photographs, which the building’s owner would lament after it had been gutted by fire, means we do not know how the finished room looked. But an idea of its appearance can be gleaned from surviving correspondence between the two men because in some of his letters Dickinson not only described what he proposed to do but included sketches of same. The latter show oval wall panels and swags in the Adam-revival style then fashionable. The work was carried out by a Dublin craftsman, Michael Creedon of Clare Lane and again extant documentation shows that he expected to complete the job at a cost of £130 ‘as the ornament would be rather close to the eye & would consequently have to be modelled with special care.’
In addition to the drawing room decoration, Dickinson also designed a new loggia immediately outside on the west front of the house. This was to replace a flimsier 19th century timber and slate structure, and was sufficiently robust to survive the 1923 fire. Once more, Dickinson’s letters show the evolution of the design to its final form, an excellent example of architect and client working together to produce a satisfactory result. All the work was completed in late spring 1914, just months before the outbreak of the First World War.

So how was it that Cappoquin House came to be gutted by fire in February 1923? The explanation lies in Ireland’s complicated history during this period. In December 1921 representatives of the British government and those of the fledgling Irish state had signed a treaty concluding hostilities and providing for Ireland’s independence – except for six counties in Ulster which remained part of the United Kingdom. Not everyone in this country welcomed the treaty’s outcome and an extremely violent civil war ensued. Among those targeted by anti-Treaty supporters were members of the new state’s upper parliamentary house, the Senate: no less than 37 houses belonging to Senators were deliberately burnt out. In December 1922 Sir John Keane had accepted an invitation from the Free State government to become a Senator. The consequences were inevitable.
In fact, he had already realised that Cappoquin House, like many other similar properties in Ireland, was vulnerable to attack. His wife and children had moved to England and he had arranged to have the best furniture, pictures and silver taken away and put into storage. Much was lost when the house was set on fire, not least an historic library, but a great many of the contents were spared destruction. Immediately Sir John set about applying to the Irish government for compensation for his losses and investigating how best to go about restoring the hollow structure. Although he received less financial support than had been requested, he still went ahead with the project, initially intending to work with the same architect as ten years before. But by this time Dickinson had already moved to England, so he recommended his former partner Richard Orpen who did take on the job.

Cappoquin House is a very rare example of an historic Irish property rebuilt following its deliberate destruction, and it stands as a tribute to the tenacity of the redoubtable Sir John Keane who, incidentally, also remained as an active Senator until 1944, by which time he was aged over seventy. A lot of trouble was taken to ensure the house’s interiors were as splendid as they had been before the fire, and the extensive papers dealing with its gradual reconstruction make for fascinating reading. This time the exquisite plasterwork decoration in most of the main reception rooms had to come from the London firm of G Jackson & Sons – one can only assume Mr Creedon was no longer in business in Dublin – and all their invoices remain. For example plasterwork of the octagon above the main stairs (seen at the start of this piece) cost £166. Ironically due to insufficient funds the only area not redecorated was the old drawing room which had been given its splendid new appearance just a decade before the fire. Today Cappoquin House and its equally delightful gardens remain in the ownership of the same family, admirably cared for by Sir John’s grandson, Sir Charles Keane and his wife Corinne. They welcome visitors so here is an opportunity to see for yourself an Irish house that rose like a phoenix from the ashes of destruction (see http://www.cappoquinhouseandgardens.com/).

For more about the restoration of Cappoquin House after the 1923 fire, see my article on the subject in the current spring issue of the Irish Arts Review.

The Irish Aesthete

This is not an Oxymoron

Category Archives: Country House