Category Archives: Galway

In Three Parts


‘The cathedral movement has taken root in Ireland. Our readers must be familiar with the new cathedral at Kilmore, and the restorations in progress at S. Patrick’s, Dublin, ( though, we regret to say, without good professional advice) at the cost of Mr. Guinness; and at Limerick under Mr. Slater’s care. A scheme for a new cathedral at Belfast, for the diocese of Connor, has been brought before the public, by the Bishop of Down, Connor, and Dromore, as a memorial to Jeremy Taylor, and now in the far west in the county of Galway the restoration or rather rebuilding of the once metropolitical and still cathedral church of Tuam has been undertaken in a manner which deserves special and laudatory mention.’  
From The Ecclesiologist, Volume XXII, 1861




St Mary’s Cathedral in Tuam, County Galway, is a building in three parts, one of which comprises just an arch, albeit of exceptional scale and beauty. The earliest place of worship here is supposed to have been established in the 6th century by local saint Jarlath. However, several hundred years passed before a cathedral was constructed, at some date in the first half of the 12th century and under the patronage of Turlough Mór O’Conor, High King of Ireland in the decades before his death in 1156. Unfortunately this building was almost entirely destroyed by an accidental fire in 1184, leaving just the elaborately carved chancel arch still standing. In his Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland (Dublin, 1845), the antiquarian George Petrie provided the following detailed description of this structure: ‘Of the ancient church of Tuam the chancel only remains; but, fortunately, this is sufficient to make us acquainted with its general style of architecture, and to shew that it was not only a larger, but a more splendid structure than Cormac’s church at Cashel, and not unworthy of the powerful monarch to whom it chiefly owed its erection. This chancel is a square of twenty-six feet in external measurement, and the walls are four feet in thickness. Its east end is perforated by three circular-headed windows, each five feet in height and eighteen inches in width externally, but splaying on the inside to the width of live feet. These windows are ornamented with the zig-zag and other mouldings, both externally and internally, and they are connected with each other by label, or stringcourse mouldings, of which the external one is enriched with paterae. In the south wall there is a window similarly ornamented, but of smaller size.
But the great feature of this chancel is its triumphal arch, — now erroneously supposed to have been a doorway, — which is, perhaps, the most magnificent specimen of its kind remaining in Ireland. It is composed externally of six semicircular, concentric, and recessed arches, of which the outer is twenty feet six inches in width at its base, and nineteen feet five inches in height ; and the inner, fifteen feet eight inches in width, and sixteen in height. The shafts of the columns, — which, with the exception of the outermost at each side, are semicircular, — are unornamented; but their capitals, which are rectangular, on a semi-circular torus, are very richly sculptured, chiefly with a variety of interlaced traceries, similar to those on the base of the stone cross ; and in two instances, — those of the jambs, — with grotesque human heads.
The imposts are, at one side, very richly sculptured with a scroll and other ornaments ; and, at the other side, present a kind of inverted ogive ; and these imposts are carried along the face of the wall as tablets. The bases are unornamented, and consist of a torus and double plinth. The arch mouldings consist of the nebule, diamond frette, and varieties of the chevron, the execution of which is remarkable for its beauty. I have only to add, that all the ornamental parts of this chancel are executed in red sandstone.’ 




Following the catastrophic fire in 1184, nothing appears to have been done to the site of St Mary’s Cathedral until the start of the 14th century, when the Dean of the time was granted ‘relaxation of a hundred days of enjoined penance to those who contribute to the rebuilding of Tuam Cathedral, begun by the late Archbishop William [de Birmingham, 1289–1312] and continued by the Dean Philip, who petitions for aid to complete it.’ Like so many other religious buildings, in the 16th and 17th centuries, St Mary’s suffered from alternate assault and neglect: the earliest surviving written description of the building from c.1672 by John Lynch describes it as falling down. However, in 1688 Archbishop John Vesey rebuilt the tower, an event commemorated by a plaque which carries both his name and that of James II. Other minor alterations and improvements were made to the second cathedral over the next 150 years, the entrance of which remained the former chancel arch and sanctuary. The style of the building is English Gothic, with a five-light east window incorporating two quatrefoil windows under a sexfoil centrepiece. Despite its merits, in The Ecclesiologist the anonymous author judged the cathedral harshly, declaring ‘with most perverse ingenuity a conventicle-like oblong structure was stuck on to the east of this, the chancel arch being converted into a portal, the chancel into a porch, and an inner door cut through the eastern triplet. This hideous building was the titular cathedral but really Anglican parish church of Tuam.’ When further work took place in the 19th century, the second cathedral became a Diocesan Synod Hall, Library and Registry.




Reverting to The Ecclesiologist, in 1861 it reported that the Anglican population of Tuam had more than doubled from 310 to 640, ‘and the Vicar and Provost of Tuam, the Rev. C. Seymour , who has already introduced choral service and the observance of the holy-days, was alike anxious to promote more church room, and to provide Tuam with a worthy cathedral. He has accordingly placed the matter in the hands of Sir Thomas Deane who has, we are glad to say without sacrificing the old chancel, produced the plans of a church of real cathedral character and considerable dimensions at a computed cost of £9,000, while funds enough are promised to render the commencement of the building a matter of proximate accomplishment.’ Two years later, The Builder was able to inform its readers that the Deane’s design for the extension to the west end of the older building ‘partakes of the character of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin and St Canice’s in Kilkenny. The walls and the tower will present the Irish characteristic of crennelated [sic] battlements. The clerestory windows of the nave will be of the circular cusped type. At each end of the nave will extend aisles supported externally by buttresses, and lighted by pointed windows in the early style. The western entrance, at the extremity of the nave, will be a broad pointed archway. Immediately over it will extend a double arcade of pointed windows, and above these the principal window of the nave, consisting of a group of seven pointed windows. The choir, which will be without aisles, will be lighted by ordinary pointed windows. Each transept will be lighted with circular windows, and large five-light windows at the extremities. The tower will be a plain quadrangle flanked by four small towers, and all surrounded by crenellated battlements, and above it will rise a stone spire. The material to be used in the external structure is limestone. The interior of the church will be lined with a remarkably fine description of red sandstone, from Nefin in the County of Mayo, supposed to be the same stone that was used in the construction of the ancient arch. On each side of the nave, within, will extend a row of four columns, each consisting of a central column of limestone, encircled by four smaller columns composed of green Galway marble. The roof, within, will be open timbered.’ The only prominent feature not mentioned in this description is the High Cross now located in the south transept, for the obvious reason that it was not in this place at the time. Dating from around the same period as the original cathedral was constructed, the cross is believed to have stood close to this building but following the fire was dismantled, with different pieces acquired by different owners. Only in the 19th century was it reassembled and brought to Dublin for the Great Exhibition of 1852. Following this event, the cross returned to Tuam but then was the subject of an argument between the Roman Catholic church and the Church of Ireland, each claiming ownership. Eventually agreement was reached whereby it was placed at a point in the town between the two faiths’ respective cathedrals. By the 1980s the cross was suffering damage from pollution and, following restoration, was moved to its present location in St Mary’s. 


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King John was not a Good Man


‘King John was not a good man –
He had his little ways.
And sometimes no one spoke to him
For days and days and days…’
From King John’s Christmas by A.A. Milne

Historic buildings tend to attract myths, as anyone who has consulted the Dúchas national folklore collection can confirm. As an example, the number of properties in Ireland which Oliver Cromwell is held responsible for destroying would have required him to spend considerably longer than the nine months he did in this country. Similarly, the construction of a large number of Anglo-Norman castles here are often attributed to King John, although he only and briefly visited Ireland twice: the first time in 1185 when, as Lord of Ireland, he failed both to strengthen the administration of his lordship and to bring Norman colonists like Hugh de Lacy under royal control. His second visit in 1210, by which time he had become King of England, was more successful but very short, lasting two months. Nevertheless, in popular memory he is held responsible for commissioning many castles around the country, including that in Athenry, County Galway, even though he never made it to this part of the island and the castle was built some 20 years after his death in 1216.




Seemingly the earliest recorded association between Athenry Castle and King John can be found in John Dunton’s Teague Land: or A Merry Ramble to the Wild Irish published in 1698. According to Dunton, ‘When King John came into Ireland to reduce some of his rebellious people here, he built the town of Athenry, and environed it with a good stone wall to be a curb upon them in those parts.’ This association with the long-deceased monarch then became embedded in local mythology and when the peripatetic German Prince Hermann von Puckler-Muskau visited Athenry in 1828, after lamenting the wretched state of the town, he wrote that ‘Here stood a rich abbey, now overgrown with ivy, the arches which once protected the sanctuary lie in fragments amid the unsheltered altars and tombstones. Further on is a castle with walls ten feet thick, in which King John held his court of justice when he came over to Ireland.’ Likewise, a decade later the historian John O’Donovan, who worked in the Topographical Department of the first Ordnance Survey decided that Athenry seems to have been built by King John in the year 1211 to put down the Hy-Briuin, Hy-many and Hy-Fiachrach Aidhne, three most ferocious Connachtan tribes.’ On the other hand, the ever-reliable Samuel Lewis in his Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) noted that Athenry was ‘the first town established by the De Burgos and Berminghams, the Anglo-Norman invaders of Connaught, and at a remote period was surrounded by walls, and became a place of importance.’ 




Meyler de Bermingham was the great-grandson of Robert de Bermingham, an Anglo-Norman knight who had arrived in Ireland in the early 1170s and settled in what is now County Offaly. In the 1230s, Meyler and his father Peter de Bermingham participated in the Norman invasion of Connaught. As part of this, the former built a castle by a fording point on the river Clarin at a spot known as Áth na Rí (Ford of the Kings), from which derives the name Athenry. As for the castle, set inside enclosure walls, it is a large three storey rectangular hall-keep with base-batter, with a basement that would have been used for storage, a great hall on the first floor and an attic above. The battlements date from the 13th century as do the arrowslits in the merlons. In the 15th century, these parapets were incorporated into gables at the north and south ends for a new roof. When first built, the castle’s entrance was at first-floor level, accessed via an external wooden stairs. Carvings on the exterior of the doorcase and inside two of the window openings feature floral motifs in a local style, transitional between Romanesque and Gothic and known as the ‘School of the West.’ The castle appears to have been abandoned in the 16th century and old photographs show it as a roofless ruin. However, in 1991, the Office of Public Works initiated restoration work on the site and it is now open to visitors during the spring and summer periods.


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Something of a Mystery



Occupying a prominent site on Main Street in Eyrecourt, County Galway, this curious building is now known as St Martin’s but, one suspects, formerly had another name. The house may date from the 17th century but was given much of its present appearance in the 18th, likely when the present three-bay, two storey-over-basement central block was constructed, perhaps as a dower house for the main Eyrecourt House, the ruins of which lie not far away to the north-east (see Bring It Home « The Irish Aesthete). The half-bow to the immediate right is something of a mystery (on two occasions, the Irish Aesthete has been unable to explore the interior): it then extends further before running down to the rear and leading to a series of walled enclosures. The two-storey flat roofed extension to the left may be easier to explain: in the 1820s the house was occupied by a wealthy local man, Christopher Martin, who provided much of the funds for the adjacent Roman Catholic church dedicated to Saint Brendan. Seemingly, a first-floor passageway provided a direct link to a balcony at the rear of the church. For some time in the last century, the house served as a presbytery for the parish priest, its name St Martin’s perhaps a tribute to St Brendan’s patron. The gryphons perched atop columns at the base of the steps are particularly fine, although whether they are original to the site is open to question.



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Sacred Origin and Pious Association


‘From childhood it has been my fortune to see, many times, as fine a specimen of a round tower as time and the ravages of man allowed to remain in our midst. It was situated at a remote village, called Kilbannon, distant some three miles from the ancient archiepiscopal town of Tuam. Standing at the northern side of a little graveyard and upon a perfectly level plain, it is visible for miles round. Near it are the ruins of an old Dominican monastery or nunnery (for it is variously described in old annals)…The name of the place, “Kilbannon”, is indicative of its sacred origin and pious association ; and tradition ascribes to the ruins the fame of a Saint Bennan, who is supposed to have been a disciple of Jarlath, the first Bishop of Tuam, after whom that See was called in ecclesiastical history. St. Jarlath was believed to have been an intimate follower of the glorious Apostle himself, and we may note, that but a few short miles, as the crow flies, from the Church of Bennan was the illustrious school of Cluan-fois, otherwise Cloonfush, founded by St. Jarlath, and in his time and long after known as “the mother of many memorable missionaries”.’
From ‘The Round Tower of Kilbannon’ by Richard J. Kelly, The Irish Monthly, Vol.14, 1886




‘There is a pillar tower at Kilbennan, near Taam. Before the young Bishop Benignus, or Bennin, had come to the territory of Conmaicne, or Tuam, in the Barony of Dunmore, the place now called Kilbannon had been known by the name Dun-Lugaidh, i.e., Louis’s Fortress. When St. Benignus, in company with St Patrick, had come from Donach Patrick to Dun-Lugaidh, it is said that the saint dug a fountain, in the waters of which he baptized nine lepers, who became instantly healed of their leprosy. Niatha, the chieftain of that district, and all his followers and clients, and all the people of the entire country of Conmaicne — St. Jarlath’s cousins, himself and his father and relatives — were baptized in that fountain. That well, or fountain, is to be seen to this day at Kilbennan. Its waters gush forth from the foot of the Round Tower which to this hour is to be seen. Two things remain to this day to confirm the truth of the historical event — first, the “Dun” or pillar tower of Lughaidh ; second, the fountain gushing forth at its foot. At the time, say, A.D. 440, the Dun existed, it was the fortified home of the chieftain Xiatha.’
From The Aryan Origin of the Gaelic Race and Language by the Rev. Ulick J. Bourke (1875)




‘Kilbannon: Sometimes called Ballygaddy, which is the name of the townland and bridge adjoining the site, is situated two miles N. W. from Tuam Railway Station. The Round Tower still remains, to the height of about forty-five feet. It is broken away on one side, but the doorway is nearly perfect, being of the ordinary form, round-headed, and with inclining jambs. The Church adjoining is a rude early Christian building. No vestiges of genuine antiquity have come under my observation, save the Round Tower, which is associated with the name of St. Bunaun-one of three brothers; another, St. Bernaun, being the reputed founder of Knockmoy.’
From The Towers and Temples of Ancient Ireland by Marcus Keane (1867) 


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Seventy Years Ago…


The charming cathedral dedicated to St Brendan in Clonfert, County Galway has featured here before (see The Traveller’s Rest « The Irish Aesthete). And because Clonfert was, until the 1833, a separate diocese in the Church of Ireland (it remains so in the Roman Catholic church), there was also an episcopal palace, now alas a sad ruin. Standing a short distance to the north of the cathedral, the oldest part of this building is thought to date back to the late 16th or early 17th century, possibly constructed during the episcopacy of Stephen Kirwan (bishop of Clonfert 1682-1701) who served as a justice and commissioner for the province of Connaught. There is no doubt that Clonfert, today a sleepy hamlet, was then judged a place of some importance since in 1579, Elizabeth I, in her Orders to be observed by Sir Nicholas Maltby for the better government of the province of Connaught’ declared ‘We are desirous that a college should be erected in the nature of an university in some convenient place in Ireland for instructing and education of youth in lerninge. And We conceive the Town of Clonfert within the province of Connaught to be aptlie seated both for helth and comodity of the ryver of Shenen running by it and because it is also neere to the midle of the realme, whereby all men may, with small travel send their children thither.’ The queen may have heard that during a much earlier period, Clonfert had been a great seat of learning, or perhaps it was just that the cathedral and its ancillary buildings were located in a central location and, as she observed, close to the river Shannon, then a major means of travel through Ireland. However, the idea of establishing a college here never happened, and it was only in 1592 that the country’s first university was founded in Dublin.





As mentioned, while parts of the former bishop’s palace in Clonfert may go back to the late 16th century, a more substantial portion of the building dates from c.1635, during the episcopacy of Robert Dawson, who had become Bishop of the newly-united dioceses of Clonfert and Kilmacduagh in 1627 and would hold that position until his death in 1643 (incidentally, he was also the forebear of a family that would go on to become great landowners and developers in Ireland, not least his great-grandson Joshua Dawson who was responsible for laying out Dawson Street in Dublin and building what is now the Mansion House). Oak beams and roof joists in the palace have been dated to around this period, although further changes and additions were made at some time in the 18th century, when a Venetian window was inserted.
In his memoirs, published in 1805, the playwright Richard Cumberland wrote about the palace in Clonfert, which he knew well since his father Denison Cumberland had lived there while bishop of the diocese (1763-1772). ‘This humble residence,’ he recalled, ‘was not devoid of comfort and convenience, for it contained some tolerable lodging rooms, and was capacious enough to receive me and mine without straitening the family. A garden of seven acres, well planted and disposed into pleasant walks, kept in the neatest order, was attached to the house, and at the extremity of a broad gravel walk in front stood the cathedral.’ Cumberland also remembered how, while staying with his father on one occasion, he used ‘a little closet at the back of the palace, as it was called, unfurnished and out of use, with no other prospect from my single window but that of a turf-stack’, as a room in which to begin writing what would prove to be his most successful stage work, the comedy The West-Indian (first performed at London’s Drury Lane Theatre in 1771). However, Clonfert was always one of the poorest episcopacies in the country and as a result successive bishops – many of whom managed to have themselves transferred to richer dioceses after only a short period of time – were disinclined to make improvements to their residence. For this reason, it retained much of its 17th century character, being long and low, of eight bays and two storeys with dormer windows. The surrounding demesne also underwent relatively few changes. There survives, for example, a yew walk running south-west of the palace, which may be even older, but certainly has the character of 17th century baroque garden design. Like the building to which it leads, the yew walk is now sadly neglected.




Clonfert Palace remained home to successive Church of Ireland bishops until 1834 when, following the creation of a new united diocese of Killaloe and Clonfert, it became surplus to requirements and was sold to John Eyre Trench. In 1947 his descendants sold the building to the Blake-Kelly family who, four years later, sold it to the next owners who would be the last people to live in the former palace. By then the place was in poor condition and required extensive renovation, along with the installation of electricity, new bathrooms and so forth before it could be occupied; the new chatelaine drove over from her temporary residence in Co Tipperary to oversee this work. Finally, once complete, in February 1952 she and her family arrived, along with a retinue that included housekeeper, cook, maid and chauffeur, as well as a gardener to maintain the grounds. A local newspaper, the Westmeath Independent, reported that ‘‘Sir Oswald and Lady Mosley, who have a large staff, are charmed with Ireland, its people, the tempo of its life and its scenery.’ The same publication also briefly noted that ‘Sir Oswald was the former leader of a political movement in England.’ The ‘political movement’ had, of course, been the British Union of Fascists (later the British Union) and both Sir Oswald and his wife, the former Diana Mitford, had been interned for a number of years during the second World War by the British government, and had found themselves shunned in the aftermath of their release. Ireland had several advantages, not least the fact that two of Diana Mosley’s sisters already owned properties in the country, Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire at Lismore Castle, County Waterford and Pamela Jackson at Tullamaine Castle, County Tipperary. Country houses here were going cheap, and there were still sufficient other landed families still about to make life agreeable to the newly-arrived. For the next two years, the Mosleys remained contentedly at Clonfert, attracting little attention although they were discreetly observed by both the Irish and British governments. Such might have remained the case, had not disaster struck exactly 70 years ago, in early December 1954. At the time, Diana Mosley was in London, but her husband and their two children were in County Galway when fire broke out, seemingly caused by an old beam inside the chimney of the maids’ sitting room. The blaze spread quickly, so fast indeed that according to a report in the following day’s Irish Times, a French maid, Mademoiselle Cerrecoundo, who had run upstairs to rescue some clothes, became trapped in the building. Sir Oswald, his son Alexander and the chauffeur, Monsieur Thevenon, held a blanket beneath one of the windows and the maid leapt to her safety, with only minor injuries to her back and hand. Alas, the old palace was not so lucky and while a handful of rooms and their contents were saved, most of the building was lost as it took an hour and a half for fire brigades to reach Clonfert. The following day, hurricane-force winds and torrential rain ripped across the entire country, compounding the damage done to the house and leaving it a sorry wreck. In 1955 the Mosleys moved to Ileclash, a Georgian overlooking the river Blackwater in County Cork where they lived intermittently until 1963 when the couple moved to France. As for Clonfert Palace, despite being described on www.buildingsofireland.com in 2009 as being of national significance, it was left to moulder into its present advanced state of decay. What could have been saved as a rare example of late 16th/early 17th century Irish domestic architecture has been lost.


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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 Good Gossip

Ballinderry Park, County Galway has featured here in the past (see Sturdy as an Oak « The Irish Aesthete) and indeed features in the recently published The Irish Country House: A New Vision (see A New Vision « The Irish Aesthete), a photograph of its dining room appears on the cover. Very sadly, Ballinderry Park’s owner, George Gossip, died recently, a great loss to anyone who was interested or engaged in the preservation of Ireland’s architectural heritage. 




Castlecarra, County Mayo

George and his late wife Susan (who died in 2015) were responsible for rescuing and restoring Ballinderry Park from what would otherwise have almost certainly have been dereliction and loss. Assisted by the late conservation architect Jeremy Williams, they transformed the house from almost ruin into a supremely comfortable home, amusingly described by one visitor as ‘more George than Georgian.’ Prior to moving there and undertaking this very substantial project, they had lived at Tullanisk, County Offaly where they offered accommodation to paying guests: among George’s many talents, he was an outstanding cook, as anyone who enjoyed his hospitality can testify. But his great passion was for the country’s historic houses, the people responsible for their creation and the fates that have befallen so many of them. Rather like Mariga Guinness before him, he loved setting out on expeditions to clamber around sites and see what might be found. The Irish Aesthete has experience of many such outings, often begun in the morning with the preparation of a picnic – usually eaten on the remaining stones of a long-fallen building – before the route was planned and the journey began. Our last such excursion was in July when the two of us left Ballinderry to drive through East Galway and then up to County Mayo where he wanted me to see the location of a once-great but now lost property at Castlecarra which had belonged to the Lynch family and which George believed had been built in the last quarter of the 17th century. As the pictures above indicate, little now remains here (as early as 1844 the house and offices were described by Samuel Nicholson as ‘now almost ruins’), except two vast gateposts signalling the entrance to the place, beyond which are various tumbling walls and – a short distance away – what was likely once a series of stable yards. This was one of only six – possibly more – stops made in the course of a day, despite George already being in poor health, evidence of his indefatigable curiosity and enthusiasm. And over the next week, he sent a stream of emails with further information and possible leads to find out more about Castlecarra and its history. For decades, he had been taking photographs of historic buildings, in a variety of structural conditions, and had thus built up a substantial collection: recently, these were place in the care of the Irish Architectural Archive, although unfortunately his intention to catalogue them did not come to pass. Another incomplete project on which he had been working for some time was a book chronicling Ireland’s sporting lodges, about which the two of us had many conversations. Sooner or later, one hopes, the book will be published.




Ballinderry Park, County Galway

George’s other important role was acting as a key figure, along with Susan Kellett of Enniscoe House, County Mayo (see Comfortable in its Own Skin « The Irish Aesthete) in the establishment in 2008 of Historic Houses of Ireland (originally Irish Historic Houses Association), as a registered Irish Charity. Founded with the active encouragement of the Government at the time, the HHI represents private owners of Irish country houses and supports them with the ongoing responsibilities and challenges that come with ownership of such properties. In doing so, the organisation effectively represents the interests of all such owners and houses, whether or not they are members, in a manner that previously did not exist. The Irish Aesthete has always been a keen supporter of the HHI, and indeed in 2020 established an annual prize to be given to a member in recognition of work undertaken to preserve this important part of our national heritage (see A Worthy Recipient « The Irish Aesthete for last year’s recipient). George had a clear vision of what the HHI could be and do, and was determined that it become a significant presence in Ireland and thereby better ensure the survival of our country houses. For this and so much else, we are all much indebted to him. He was, indeed, a very good Gossip.

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A Fine Specimen


Handsomely set against a background of woodland, the 16th century tower house at Castlegrove, County Galway is known as both Feartagar Castle and Jennings Castle, the latter name derived from a family believed to have lived there for a period. The building is thought to have been constructed by the de Burgos (otherwise Burkes) who controlled much of the land in this part of the country, but the Jennings may indeed have been responsible, since the two families were related to each other. The surname Jennings originally McSeonins, or sons of John (de Burgo), which was first anglicised to Jonine and then to Jennings, sometimes spelled Jenings.




The castle comprises a rectangular, five-storey tower measuring some 12 by 10 metres. Both the eastern and west roof gables survive, as do chimney stacks on either end as well as on the northern side. At the top of each of the four corners are well-preserved curved bartizans, while above the pointed arch doorway on the eastern wall is a further machicolation. At various levels on every side are a series of arrow slits as well as a number of mullion windows with hood mouldings. Although apparently unoccupied since the mid-17th century, the building is in an excellent state of repair, certainly when compared with many other tower houses found elsewhere around the country. 




The castle is believed to have remained in the hands of the de Burgo or Jennings family until the 1650s when, like so many other such properties, it was taken from the owners by the Cromwellian government in the aftermath of the Confederate Wars. It was then granted to the Blakes, members of another well-known County Galway family who had likewise been displaced from their original land holdings. Successive generations of Blakes lived on the property until the mid-19th century, a new house being erected here in the 1830s. However, in the aftermath of the Great Famine, the entire estate was sold through the Encumbered Estates Court, bought for £15,750 by John Cannon. Following his death, it was sold again to Frederick Lewin and was inherited by his son Thomas before being burnt July 1922, seemingly by anti-Treaty forces. The remains are now lost in nearby woodland, with the older tower house today in better condition than its successor. 

New Purpose Sought


Last November, the Connacht Tribune reported there had been no expressions of interest in acquiring Garbally Court, a large early 19th century house on the outskirts of Ballinasloe, County Galway, even though it was being offered for just €1. More than two years earlier, the building’s present owner – the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clonfert – had offered to transfer Garbally Court along with some of the surrounding grounds to the authority for that nominal sum of a single euro. However, a commissioned Consultants’ Report had suggested expenditure of some €4.2 million would be needed just to stabilise the house and bring it up to a reasonable standard. While elected representatives of the area were keen for the acquisition to go ahead, in the hope that Garbally Court could be turned into a tourist attraction, thereby bringing business into the area, the County Council Executive’s advice to the group which needed to approve such matters prior to a full council meeting was that upgrading costs were prohibitive, even before running costs and possible future uses were taken into account. In November, the council’s director of services was quoted as advising councillors that the building ‘is not in our ownership and nor are we willing to take possession but the door is always open for anyone to come in and renovate the property for whatever purpose. But so far, nobody has come next nor near us.’ 




Garbally Court was built for Richard Le Poer Trench, second Earl of Clancarty. The Trenches claim descent from Frederic de La Tranche, his name supposedly derived from the family’s origins in the town of La Tranche in Poitou. Monsieur de La Tranche is believed to have left France as a result of religious persecution and settled in Northumberland in 1574. One of his sons, James Trench, a clergyman, settled in Ireland, becoming rector of Clongell, County Meath. His only child, Anna, married her first cousin Frederick Trench; it appears that he was responsible for initially buying the land in East Galway that formed the basis of the Garbally estate. The couple’s son, another Frederick, continued to acquire more land, especially in the aftermath of the Williamite Wars. In the next generation. Richard Trench married an heiress, Frances Power, in 1732; she brought further wealth and property to the family. Their eldest son, William Trench sat in the Irish House of Commons like his father before him, before being created first Baron Kilconnel (1797), then Viscount Dunlo (1801) and finally Earl of Clancarty (1803). He and his wife Anne Gardiner had no less than 19 children, their eldest son Richard succeeding to the titles and estates on his father’s death in 1805. The second earl was a politician and diplomat of considerable ability. After sitting in the Irish House of Commons until the dissolution of the Irish Parliament in 1800, and then in the English House of Commons until he became a member of the peerage, after which he sat at Westminster as an Irish representative peer. Close friendship with Castlereagh meant that after the latter became foreign secretary in 1812, the earl was entrusted with a succession of crucial diplomatic missions, attending the Congress of Vienna with the rank of plenipotentiary. He served twice as Britain’s ambassador to the Netherlands, that country’s king making him Marquis of Heusden in 1818; following his retirement as ambassador, he was also created Viscount Clancarty in the English peerage in 1823. But thereafter, and following Castlereagh’s death, he largely withdrew from political life and turned his attention to life in County Galway, where work was well underway on building Garbally Court. 




As mentioned, the present Garbally Court dates from the early 19th century. Its predecessor on the site had been badly damaged by fire in 1798, but it would be more than 20 years before work on a new house began. In 1819 the second earl commissioned designs from English architect Thomas Cundy, best-known for acting as surveyor of the Grosvenor family’s London estates and being involved in the initial development of Belgravia in the years prior to his death in 1825. Garbally Court is Cundy’s only work in Ireland, although he did design a number of lodges in various architectural styles for Coolmore, County Cork (see Trans-Atlantic Links « The Irish Aesthete) none of which were actually built. The architect, like others at the time, produced work in whatever style best suited his client. Hawarden Castle in Wales, for example, is – as its name indicates – in the Gothic manner, but Garbally Court is austerely neoclassical. Square in plan, the house is of two storeys and eleven bays, the entrance front relieved by a single-storey Doric porte-cochère, while the rear elevation has a single storey, three-bay bow. Regular and segmental pediments alternate over the ground floor windows. Originally the house was constructed around a central open courtyard but this was later covered and made into a picture gallery. The earl’s descendants continued to own Garbally Court until 1921 when, along with the surrounding demesne, it was sold to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clonfert for £6,750. The following year the diocesan boys’ school, St. Joseph’s College, moved to the site and constructed classrooms and other ancillary buildings close to the house. A boarding school was run here until 2008 when it closed down and since then a new school has also been built, hence the need to find fresh purpose – and a new owner – for Garbally Court. What both might look like remains to be seen.

A Piece of Stage Scenery


Around 1783 Peter Daly, then a young man of 20, left home to seek his fortune. Daly was a younger son whose father, Darby Daly, had died some years earlier leaving the family property, Dalysgrove to his eldest-born, Francis. The Dalys could trace their ancestry in this part of the country back to Dermot O’Daly of Killimor, whose five sons were the forebears of many prominent East Galway landowners thereafter, not least the Dalys of Dunsandle (see Dun and Dusted « The Irish Aesthete). Unlike their cousins, however, the Dalys of Dalysgrove remained Roman Catholic while managing to hold onto their estate. In adulthood, Peter Daly might have followed the example of other young adventurers and moved to France, or Austria or Italy, or even North America, then just achieving independence. Instead, he travelled to Jamaica where he became the owner of several coffee plantations, the crops of which were exported to England. In 1806, he married Bridget Louisa MacEvoy, daughter of Christopher MacEvoy, another substantial plantation owner in the West Indies; the couple would have three sons. Interestingly, Peter Daly named his Jamaican estate Daly’s Grove, after the family property back in Ireland. Eventually, in the late 1820s, he had made sufficient money in the Caribbean that he was able to buy the original Dalysgrove in County Galway from his elder brother Francis. By this time, he had also acquired another property in the same part of the world, Corbally, which had previously been owned by a branch of the Blake family.





The Blakes were one of the Tribes of Galway, the 14 families who dominated trade in that city during the MIddle Ages. Like many of the other Tribes, they began to buy land in the surrounding counties and according to an account of the family records published in 1905, Peter Blake, third son of Sir Richard Blake of Ardfry, County Galway (for more on this house, see All Washed Up « The Irish Aesthete), was in December 1679 granted the castle and lands of Corbally by patent. His descendants remained living there until 1829 when the property was sold to Peter Daly. (Incidentally, Sir Henry Blake, the 19th century British colonial administrator who was successively Governor of the Bahamas, Newfoundland, Jamaica, Hong Kong and Ceylon – now Sri Lanka – was the grandson of Peter Blake who sold the estate to Daly). Occupying a prominent site on high ground, Corbally began as a late-mediaeval tower house but c.1780 the Blakes built a large classical house in front of this. An old photograph shows that the building’s facade was of three storeys over basement and of seven bays, the centre bay in a pedimented breakfront with a typical tripartite doorcase on the groundfloor approached by a short flight of stone steps and an oculus within the pediment. Directly below this, and between the two third-floor windows was a large panel displaying a coat of arms. Following Peter Daly’s acquisition of the property, the house’s name was changed to Castle Daly and significant changes were made to the garden front, where the old tower house was given a twin to create a pair of projecting wings with a forecourt between them. The roofline of both towers was ornamented with limestone crenellations supported on corbels. While these helped to convey an impression of antiquity, the two bays between them retained the 18th century Venetian tripartite doorcase with a Diocletian window directly above, although the roofline was again given crenellations. Similar work was carried out at Dalysgrove after it too had been acquired by Peter Daly. 





As mentioned, thanks to the fortune he had made in Jamaica, Peter Daly was able to buy both the Corbally (thereafter Castle Daly) and Dalysgrove estates, and return to live in Ireland where he carried out significant alterations to both properties. It helped that in November 1835, he was awarded £2,318, 11 shillings and six pence by the British government. Why so? Because this sum was compensation for the abolition of slavery in the Caribbean colonies. Peter Daly had hitherto had 113 slaves working for him on his Jamaican plantation and, following the Slave Abolition Act which came into effect in 1834, owners were entitled to seek recompense from the government for loss of revenue. Daly was among 170 people in Ireland who so benefitted under the terms of the act (for more on this, see Dirty Money « The Irish Aesthete). Peter Daly had two sons who survived to adulthood, and following his death in 1846 the elder, James, inherited Castle Daly while the younger, Peter Paul was left Dalysgrove; curiously both men died in the same year, 1881. While the Castle Daly estate ran to 3,495 acres of land, that at Dalysgrove had just 500. However, by 1906, presumably following sales under the terms of the various Land Acts, Castle Daly was surrounded by just 100 acres of untenanted demesne. The last of the family to own this property was Dermot Joseph Daly who in July 1945 sold Castle Daly. Two months later, an advertisement announced that various items removed from the house – shutters, windows, chimneypieces, wooden flooring, staircases – were being offered for sale in convenient lots. The house built by the Blakes was later demolished but for unknown reasons the garden front, as composed by Peter Daly, was left standing, a strange spectacle on the horizon looking, as Mark Bence-Jones noted, ‘like a folly, or a piece of stage scenery.’ Down in the village below and in a prominent position in front of St Teresa’s Catholic church (and formerly facing the entrance gates to the estate) can be seen the Daly Mausoleum which dates from 1860.