Levels of History

May21

The staircase in Ashbrook, County Derry, one of the oldest continuously occupied houses in this part of the country. The land on which it sits was granted to General Thomas Ash by Elizabeth I in the 1590s as a reward for his aid in quashing the O’Neill Rebellion during the Nine Years War and the family (later Beresford-Ash) has remained there ever since. The rear section of Ashbrook is a 17th century house but in the 1760s a new section was added to the front providing ground floor rooms with higher ceilings than had hitherto been the case. As a result, upper floor levels had to be altered resulting in the present arrangement, seen below, whereby a single flight of stairs leads from a top-lit gallery to bedrooms at the front of the house.

Lip Service

May16

As is still remembered, legislation collectively known as the Penal Laws meant that for much of the 18th century Roman Catholics under the authority of the British government found it hard to practice or express their faith publicly. It is worth pointing out that these laws were as much an affliction in England, Wales and Scotland as they were in Ireland, but the numbers of Catholics here were proportionately far greater than in those other countries. only in the late 1700s/early 1800s was the legislation gradually relaxed, ultimately leading up to the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829 which created full emancipation for members of this faith. But even prior to that date, Catholics had begun to embark on the construction of what at the time were always called chapels, buildings in which they could gather to hold their services. The great age of Catholic church building came in the post-emancipation era, which makes these early buildings all the more precious since relatively few of them still survive. They tended to be simple in form and design, not least because the costs involved in putting them up were borne by the local population, few of whom would have been wealthy. Weekly collections among the faithful led to the creation of a fund which was then used to pay for construction costs: Thackeray’s account of visiting various chapels during his tour of Ireland in 1842 make plain that the majority of those in attendance were the poorest of the poor.

St Brigid’s in Portumna, County Galway dates from 1825, and was therefore constructed a few years before full Catholic Emancipation had been achieved. A basic T-plan in form, it has a three-bay nave leading up to a pair of wide single-bay transepts, this simple design being a reflection of the limited resources then available. In 1858 a three-bay wide and one-bay deep porch was added to the west end, rising two storeys before being topped by a square-plan tower drum. It may be around this time that the exterior of St Brigid’s received its neo-gothic ornamentation such as the crenellated parapets and towers, and corner buttresses, thereby dressing up the original structure. In this form it remained in use for the next century. However in the late 1950s a new St Brigid’s was built on the adjacent former market square, using stone from the Portumna Castle which had been built in the 1860s and gutted by fire in 1922: evidently the local community felt their old church was no longer good enough for services. The now redundant church was converted into a sports hall, and served as such for some time before being deemed unfit for that purpose also. Since then it would appear the building (transferred into private ownership) and an adjacent abandoned convent, has sat empty, a prey to the elements and to vandalism.

How, one wonders, might the generation which contributed often very tiny sums of money judge what has become of St Brigid’s church in our own age? Would they consider the shillings and pence they could scarcely have afforded to hand over well-spent on a building which their descendants seem willing to leave fall into dereliction? Would they be satisfied that this is how their legacy, the hard-earned – and hard-paid for – right to free and open expression of faith, should be treated in such a fashion? Asking these questions is not intended to offend or to criticise the burghers of Portumna. The present circumstances of St Brigid’s are by no means unique: they are replicated in towns right across the country and are symptomatic of a greater problem. Like so many other historic properties in Ireland, this one is listed by the local county council as being a ‘protected structure’ but one wonders what protection it is being offered. According to information provided by the Citizens Information Board, ‘A protected structure is a structure that a planning authority considers to be of special interest from an architectural, historical, archaeological, artistic, cultural, scientific, social or technical point of view. If you are the owner or occupier of a protected structure, you are legally obliged to prevent it becoming endangered, whether through damage or neglect.’ That legal obligation is meant to be enforced by the relevant local authority: there is no evidence of enforcement here but again that is hardly unusual. Last week, after two months’ negotiation between political parties, this country finally got a new government. When the various ministerial portfolios were announced, there was no reference to anyone being responsible for the department of heritage: apparently it comes under the remit of the Minister for Regional Development, Rural Affairs, Arts & the Gaeltacht but is of so little consequence that the name wasn’t even judged worthy of inclusion in this long-winded title. Too often the excuse offered for neglect of the country’s architectural heritage is that it represents the interests or legacy of alien others: this is the explanation customarily proffered to explain the wasteful abandonment of our country houses, for example. Nothing could more truly be representative of the national narrative than St Brigid’s, raised by and for the local population to serve their needs and to express their beliefs. Its neglect, like the title of new government ministries and the manner in which legislation regarding protected structures fails to be enforced, accurately express Ireland’s attitude towards our heritage: we may pay lip service to the visible evidence of our past but really we don’t care what becomes of it.

Down with Mrs Delany

May4

In June 1743 Mary Pendarves (née Granville) married as her second husband the Anglican clergyman Dr Patrick Delany who a year later was made Dean of Down. As a result, although the couple’s main residence was at Delville on the outskirts of Dublin, they often spent time in the Dean’s diocese there occupying a house not far from Downpatrick with the distinctive name of Mount Panther. Much embellished after its acquisition by the future first Earl Annesley in 1770, for two centuries Mount Panther was judged one of the finest properties in County Down with especially fine plasterwork in the ballroom and drawing rooms. It survived until the 1960s but is now a ruin. However, a few souvenirs of Mount Panther have been incorporated into a house in neighbouring County Antrim including these curved doorcases and doors which were a feature of the staircase hall. Also rescued from Mount Panther were the neo-classical plasterwork wall decorations which incorporate a variety of motifs including the head of a big cat, although it looks more like that of a lion than a panther.

An Architectural Conundrum

May2

In Three Homes, a memoir published in 1938, playwright and author Lennox Robinson, together with his siblings Tom and Nora, recalled their childhood in late 19th century County Cork. Robinson was born in Douglas, now a dormitory suburb of Cork city but then still a separate village lying a few miles to the south-east. The youngest child of a stockbroker-turned-clergyman, he was born in a since-demolished property called Westgrove but often visited his aunt Eleanor, who had married a wealthy brewer, John Frazer Crichton, in Donnybrook House which still stands. This the Robinsons in their recollections describe as being ‘lowbuilt, old and charmingly planned, rooms open one into the other on the ground floor a bedroom opened off the dining room, the drawing room on the opposite side of the hall had its back drawing room and the same plan was repeated in the bedrooms upstairs.’ More than a century later, although the condition of the building has somewhat deteriorated, the layout remains unchanged.

The origins of Donnybrook House are unclear. We know that by the mid-18th century the land on which it stands had come into the ownership of the Davies family as the Rev Boyle Davies, Dean of Cloyne died there in 1763. He was the son of another of those ambitious Anglican clerics so common to the era, in this case the Rev Rowland Davies whose father of the same name had come to Ireland from Herefordshire probably in the 1640s: Rowland Davies was born in Cork in 1649. He entered Trinity College Dublin in 1665 and initially seemed destined for a career in medicine before switching to the church. After taking orders in 1671 he held several minor offices and then became Dean of Cloyne in 1679. An ardent supporter of the Anglican faith (in 1716 he published a treatise called A truly Catholick and Old Religion, shewing that the Established Church in Ireland is more truly a member of the Catholick Church than the Church of Rome), he participated in the Battle of the Boyne, and the Sieges of both Limerick and Cork before returning to his pastoral duties. In 1707 he became Precentor of Cork and three years later Dean of the same diocese. He died in 1721. Rowland Davies may have been responsible for the purchase of Donnybrook’s land. On the other hand, he is known to have been a tenant of the Blarney estate, where two of his sons were born, until it was sold in 1702 to Lord Chief Justice Sir Richard Pyne for £3,000. It is said that the winged cherub heads seen above the arched ground floor windows of Donnybrook’s wings came from Blarney. Furthermore Rowland Davies built himself a house called Dawstown on part of what had formerly been McCarthy land north of Blarney. Here he died and here one branch of his descendants continued in occupation until the early 19th century. One wonders therefore whether the Donnybrook estate might have been bought by the Dean for his son, or whether Boyle Davies himself bought it. Curiously a year after the latter’s death his widow Mary, whose maiden name was Travers, leased the place to one Boyle Travers, who was a cousin of both her and her late husband (the reason for their shared first name is that they were both descendants of Elizabeth Boyle whose father Richard Boyle had become Archbishop of Tuam in 1638).

The Davies/Travers/Boyle family synopsis above helps to explain why it is not easy to work out the origins of Donnybrook House. Douglas emerged as an urban settlement from the early 18th century onwards thanks to the development here of mills associated with the textile and weaving industries which produced linen sailcloth. Tellingly the first such to open was Donnybrook Mills in 1726 (it was also one of the very last to close in the 20th century). A large pond which stood in front of the house (it can be seen in the watercolour above which dates from the first half of the 19th century) is now dried out. However formerly it served as catchment for a millrace that twenty feet below drove the millwheel. The site on which Donnybrook House stands is therefore at the top of a slope, the ground dropping sharply to the immediate north of the building. A substantial basement beneath the main rooms could be the earliest part of the fabric, dating back to before the arrival of the Davieses; in other words, as was so often the case, a newer residence was created incorporating parts of an older one. It has been proposed that a McCarthy castle stood here, thereby establishing another link with Blarney.
As one sees it today, the central block of the house, facing east, is of five bays and features a fine carved limestone doorcase with pretty fanlight above. The building initially looks single storey but this is not the case: a mid-18th century staircase directly beyond the front door leads to a first floor, the only evidence of which on the outside of the building is a solitary dormer window likely dating from the late 19th century and lighting the upper landing. The two slightly projecting tower ‘wings’ are believed to have been added in the early 1800s. They served both to increase accommodation and to give the house a more ancient, picturesque appearance (hence the gothic arched windows). As can be seen in that early watercolour, like the rest of the exterior the towers were originally rendered but subsequently covered in weather slates. Various additions were also made to the rear of the building over the course of two centuries, including a rather fine Edwardian bathroom that opens off the staircase return.

Donnybrook House’s original setting has long since gone: the surrounding gardens no longer exist, nor do any mills that once operated in the vicinity. Likewise most of the other historic houses and villas once dotting the landscape in this part of the country are gone: today almost the entire area is given over to housing estates. As is apparent, the building at present needs some attention. The roof of the south tower (that to the left of the entrance) has collapsed, bringing down the floors inside and making this part of the building unsafe. Meanwhile the north tower is suffering from water ingress and risks becoming similarly hazardous. This damage is not visible from the exterior because blind gothic windows on the upper level were designed to conceal the pitched roofs. On the other hand, the central section of the property appears to be in relatively good condition although rather damp, and has continued to be used and occupied. Internally some of the original 18th and early 19th century wooden joinery, including wainscot panelling, has survived, as have a number of the old sash windows. The spirit of the house invoked by Lennox Robinson and his siblings can still be felt.
Here is a building waiting to be rescued from what too often has been the fate of such properties in Ireland: ruin and disappearance. Wonderfully the present owner is keen to restore Donnybrook House and bring it back to residential use. Rescue and refurbishment is still feasible and must be encouraged. Donnybrook House is an important and rare testament to Cork’s architectural and industrial history. Its preservation merits everyone’s support.

With special thanks to Ciara O’Flynn, Built Heritage Conservation Consultant/Buildings Archaeologist, for generously sharing her research into Donnybrook House.

Opportunity Knocks

Apr25

Opportunism and those who practise it are not, as a rule, judged very favorably. Yet there are times when our verdict on opportunists can be inaccurate or imperceptive. Much of Georgian Dublin is a manifestation of opportunism at work: the result of a handful of perspicacious developers – another now-detested term – recognising an opportunity and responding to it. This was certainly the case with the first Luke Gardiner who piecemeal built up landholdings on the northside of the city and there created new streets and terraces to meet growing demand for residential property. Gardiner’s first venture in this arena, and the basis of his future success, was the development from the late 1720s onward of Henrietta Street.

Luke Gardiner was a man of modest origins, far removed at the start of his professional life from the wealth he would come to enjoy. Much the same could be said of his protégé Nathaniel Clements who, although enjoying somewhat less humble beginnings, was the youngest of five sons and very much expected to make his own way. This he did, like Gardiner, by building houses and then selling them on: the parallels between the past and the present can sometimes be discomfiting. Henrietta Street was also Clements’ first venture into property development, as he took on several sites from Gardiner. One of these was number 4 (originally 5) Henrietta Street which he completed around 1740-41 and sold to George Stone, then Bishop of Ferns. Stone occupied the building but did not finish paying for it, until 1747 when he was appointed Archbishop of Armagh and, in turn, opportunistically moved into a still-grander residence on the street before selling No.4. Its second owner was John Maxwell, MP for County Cavan who nine years later would be created first Lord Farnham. Of Scottish ancestry, Maxwell was the descendant of three generations of clerical opportunists: the Farnham estate in County Cavan had originally been purchased by his grandfather, the Anglican Bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh. When John Maxwell acquired No.4 Henrietta Street, it came with a plot of land to the immediate east, perhaps serving as a garden. In 1754 Maxwell’s only daughter married another MP, Owen Wynne of Sligo, likewise the descendant of opportunists, although in this instance they had been army men. Around the time of his marriage the plot next to No.4 passed into Wynne’s hands and a house was built here. Today it is No.3 Henrietta Street.

There are unanswered questions remaining about the history of 3 Henrietta Street, not least who was responsible for its design. The house is sometimes attributed to Nathaniel Clements because like its neighbour – which he almost certainly did build – there is a semi-circular bow at the back of the building. On the other hand, by the time of No.3’s construction, Clements had moved on to other projects and, more critically, he and Maxwell were political opponents, so it seems unlikely his assistance would have been sought here. Perhaps when Wynne embarked on the enterprise he decided to copy some features of his father-in-law’s adjacent residence. The interior shows alterations believed to date from 1830. Originally the entrance hall – like other houses on this side of the street – would have been of two storeys with the stairs visibly rising to the first floor. In the 19th century this staircase was taken out and a smaller one inserted, divided by a wall from the front of the house with the new entrance hall made just one storey high. But the first floor reception rooms retain much of their original decoration, the pair to the front of the room having a deep frieze with strapwork and festoons, while below the walls are sectioned by plaster panelling. To the rear at this level is a wonderful room with rococo stuccowork in the coved ceiling which extends into the bow, and gives the space a more intimate character than any of the others possess.

As already mentioned, in the 19th century 3 Henrietta Street, like almost all other houses in the vicinity, underwent changes both of design and usage. The advent of the King’s Inns at the top of the street, and the gradual departure of private owners in the aftermath of the 1800 Act of Union meant many of the buildings came to be used as solicitors’ offices: in the decades leading up to his death in 1885 some three-quarters of the street were bought by the lawyer Tristram Kennedy and let to other members of his profession. However, his property portfolio was subsequently acquired by another – altogether less attractive – opportunist, former Dublin Lord Mayor Joseph Meade. Seeing a chance to get a good return on his investment, notoriously he converted most of the houses into tenements. The original interior spaces were divided to fit in more rooms for entire families to occupy and valuable items such as chimney pieces were stripped out and sold off. This was the fate of 3 Henrietta Street for a large portion of the last century, and evidence of its decline, as much as of its glory, can still be seen in the building. But the house is now on the market, and awaits a new owner who can offer it a viable future. What will happen next? As has been the case here over the past two and a half centuries, opportunity knocks – and 3 Henrietta Street once more awaits the advent of an opportunist.

Forgotten Virtuosi

Mar21

The stuccowork found in Irish houses is rightly renowned for its exceptional combination of vivacity and virtuosity. Yet the attention given to this field of design has focussed primarily on practitioners in the 18th century, with little notice paid to those who came later. It is curious that this should be the case: in the decades between the 1800 Act of Union and the onset of the Great Famine in the mid-1840s several waves of house building occurred across the country, and many of these properties were elaborately decorated. By this date plasterwork was no longer created ‘free-hand’ on site but instead frequently made elsewhere in sections and then installed under supervision. But who were the people who carried out this work? While we often know who was responsible for the architecture, the names of firms and craftsmen who created the interiors seen today seem to be unknown, or at least not to have excited scholarly interest. The three houses featured today demonstrate that more could be done to honour and celebrate these virtuosi who did so much to enhance the properties on which they were employed.

Although a much older property existed on this site, Borris House, County Carlow was comprehensively redesigned for the McMorrough Kavanaghs in the second decade of the 19th century by Sir Richard Morrison (see An Arthurian Legend, November 4th 2013). In terms of decoration, the finest room in the building is the one seen first by visitors: the entrance hall. We believe Morrison was responsible for every element of the design here, ceiling plasterwork, scagliola columns, doorcases and chimney piece. Although the room is almost square it appears to be a circular space due to a radiating ceiling and the carefully proportioned screen of paired columns forming a ring around the perimeter wall. On the ceiling eight beams emanate from a central coffered section to meet florid plaster embellishment that includes festoons of fruit, flowers and leaves resting on masked heads, sheaves of wheat and the crescent moon, and a sequence of immense eagles, their heads thrusting into space beyond outstretched wings. The capitals on top of the columns display equal creativity, as they do not correspond to any of the classical orders but are of Morrison’s own design, incorporating a band of lion heads. The skill involved in carrying out this programme of work is outstanding – but who did Morrison employ to transform his ideas on paper into a three-dimensional reality?

Emo Court, County Laois has been discussed here on a couple of recent occasions (see Seen in the Round, February 1st last and Of Changes in Taste, March 14th last). Designed in the 1790s by James Gandon, the house’s interiors were only gradually completed over the next seventy years. One of the first spaces to be completed was the dining room, decorated in the early 1830s under the supervision of London architect Lewis Vulliamy. It is likely that Gandon would have proposed a spare, neo-classical scheme here but Vulliamy came up with something altogether more sumptuous, especially on the ceiling which has been divided into a series of sections centred on a rectangle containing a highly elaborate rose (looking more like a chrysanthemum) from which a chandelier would have been suspended. On either side thick bands running the length of the ceiling are filled with ribboned hexagons from which overflow vine leaves and bunches of grapes: this same motif is used again on the perimeter of the ceiling. Meanwhile a pair of demi-lunes immediately above and below the chandelier rose contain an eagle standing on a rippling band of ribbon, its wings stretching beyond crown of oakleaves encircling the bird. Closer again to the edge bare-breasted maidens are flanked by spirals of foliageputti stand on either side of ornamental urns and pairs of doves flutter within floral coronets. Extravagantly absurd and yet executed with such assurance and aplomb somehow the whole scheme comes together. Who deserves the credit for this feat?

Ballyfin, County Laois (see The Fair Place, July 21st 2014) has been superlatively restored in recent years and now functions as an hotel that sets a standard for all others in this country and beyond. Ballyfin was designed for the Coote family in the early 1820s by Sir Richard Morrison, on this occasion partnered by his son William Vitruvius. The entire house is an exercise in opulent splendour of the kind John Nash was then creating for George IV at Buckingham Palace. Nowhere is this more manifest than the saloon which at either end has screens of green scagliola columns beneath rich Corinthian capitals. These lead the eye up to the coved ceiling over which once more ornament has been incited to run riot. Here panels contain figures of bare-breasted maidens surrounded by scrolled foliage so similar to those found on the dining room ceiling at Emo Court that both must have been executed by the same craftsmen. Likewise in the corners of the saloon ceiling in Ballyfin are pairs of putti, in this instance jointly supporting a lyre. The bordered runs of vine leaves and grapes seen at Emo are here replaced by long garlands of flowers but the spirit and style are consistent between the two houses. The most striking difference can be found on the Ballyfin’s ceiling entablature where snarling lions (or perhaps leopards) face each other separated by a crowned mask. It’s both deft and daft, and above all thrilling to realise craftsmanship of this calibre was available to patrons in 19th century Ireland. Time surely to celebrate the persons responsible, and to ensure their names and contribution to our heritage no longer remain unknown.

Of Changes in Taste

Mar14

Those of us blessed – or perhaps afflicted – with an aesthetic cast of mind are inclined to believe that in matters of taste absolutes exist, and that our own judgement is invariably sound. Yet even a cursory scan of cultural history reveals that taste and its manifestations change from one era to another and are dependent on many factors, not all of them aesthetic. Our own judgement is thereby revealed to be, if not fallible, certainly more subjective than we might imagine to be the case: we are the products of our age, and so is the environment we create around us. The evolution of the interiors at Emo Court, County Laois offer evidence of the ever-changing subjectivity of taste. The history of the house’s gradual construction was summarised a few weeks ago (see In the Round, February 1st 2016) but this can be seen by an exploration of its rooms. The building was commissioned in 1790 by John Dawson, first Earl of Portarlington, his architect being James Gandon who had already designed the neo-classical church at nearby Coolbanagher for the same discerning patron. Emo Court’s entrance front is perhaps the truest expression of Gandon’s intentions, a severe seven-bay facade, the three central bays stepped forward to feature a giant pedimented Ionic portico featuring the family coat of arms. The end pavilions, likewise brought forward, appear to be single-storey, their upper sections featuring Coade stone panels featuring on one side the Arts and on the other a pastoral scene. Relatively little of the rest of the house was finished before Lord Portarlington died in 1798 leaving a widow and young children, after which the project went into abeyance for several decades.

The next burst of activity occurred during the period 1824-36 when the wastrel second Earl of Portarlingon commissioned English architect Lewis Vulliamy to draw up designs for Emo Court. Born in 1791 and apprenticed to Robert Smirke before establishing his own practice, Vulliamy is summarised in one biographical notice as being an ‘eclectic designer’ who was ‘competent in any style required of him.’ Buildings designed by him range from the since-demolished Italian Renaissance Dorchester House, London to Jacobethan Westonbirt House in Gloucestershire. Vulliamy oversaw the completion of the garden front with its own giant Ionic portico and, indoors he initiated work on the rotunda and completed the dining room. The latter’s most notable feature is the ceiling plasterwork, richly ornate in the style preferred during the late Georgian period and almost certainly not what Gandon would have had in mind for this space (or any other within the building). This is even more the case with the next stage of work at Emo which only occurred following the second earl’s death in 1845. He left the estate, and considerable debts, to a nephew, the third earl who was only in a position to embark on a fresh programme of decoration in 1860. The architect now employed was Dubliner William Caldbeck who designed what is now the library (but was originally a drawing room) with its neo-rococo ceiling and extraordinary Carrara marble chimneypiece that features putti frolicking amongst grapevines, and the salon (formerly a library/ballroom) which has screens of green marble Ionic columns at either end. During this period the walls of the drawing room were hung with damask silk, and those of the entrance hall with embossed leather. We move further and further from the neo-classical concept of James Gandon and his patron.

In 1920 Emo Court and its surrounding demesne were sold to the Land Commission, not an organisation ever renowned for its taste. The land was broken up and the house sat empty and stripped of all contents until 1930 when, with the immediate parkland and lake, it was sold to the Jesuit Order for use as a novitiate. One of the residents during the following decades was Fr Francis Browne, the well-known photographer who would record the interior of so many remaining Irish country houses. During their time there, the Jesuits made a number of changes to the interior of Emo Court. The rotunda and adjacent drawing room, for example, were adapted for use as a chapel. This necessitated the removal of the mahogany double doors between the two spaces, together with two of the Corinthian Siena marble pilasters immediately inside the former and the chimneypiece in the latter. Part of the rotunda’s inlaid floor was also taken out to accommodate an altar in what was now a chapel sanctuary (the drawing room holding the congregation). Likewise the salon was altered to act as a refectory, the end screens including the green marble columns being taken out, along with its chimneypiece. Meanwhile the drawing room became a conference room.

Owing to a decrease in their numbers, the Jesuits left Emo Court in 1969 and the house was soon afterwards bought by Major Cholmeley Dering Cholmeley-Harrison who had already restored one property in this country, Woodstown, County Waterford (which famously he rented to Jacqueline Kennedy and her family in the summer of 1967). Major Cholmeley-Harrison employed the London firm of Sir Albert Richardson & Partners to oversee Emo’s restoration, and it was discovered most of the elements removed by the previous occupants had not been destroyed but stored and could therefore be reinstated. Thus The warped mahogany doors were flattened with weights and braces to return to their original form before being once more hung, while the demolished wall of the rotunda was rebuilt and the floor re-inlaid. The drawing-room got back its neo-rococo chimney piece and became a library and the Jesuit’s refectory was similarly given back its chimneypiece, screens and marble columns. In the entrance hall, coves to either side were were painted by Geoffrey Ghin in trompe l’oeil to Gandon’s unexecuted design for stuccowork here. In 1994 Major Cholmeley-Harrison presented Emo Court and its land to the Irish state, remaining in residence there until his death eight years ago. Today Emo is an accumulation of different eras’ taste, not least that of only four decades ago. The present decoration of the main reception rooms – the hessian-covered walls in the dining and drawing rooms, the acid green paint covering both walls and ceiling in the salon – are reflections of another period’s taste. Were Emo Court to be restored today, it is inconceivable such materials or colours would be employed. No doubt some visitors, and perhaps some employees of the Office of Public Works which is now responsible for the property, must yearn to instigate a programme of redecoration which would include an assiduous investigation of original paint shades and finishes so that these could be reinstated. The craze for historically ‘accurate’ decoration is a reflection of our own age and as likely to be superseded as have many others before. What makes Emo Court so interesting is precisely the building’s ability to incorporate so many shifts in taste without giving first place to any one of them. Instead they must perforce co-exist. There’s a lesson here for all of us blessed or cursed with an aesthetic cast of mind.

With thanks to the Office of Public Works for permission to photograph the interiors of Emo Court. The house reopens to the public on March 24th.

Head In the Clouds

Mar7

In his Preface to Dublin Decorative Plasterwork of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (1967) C.P. Curran argues that any study of the subject must concern itself primarily with the latter period: ‘This is so for two reasons. The Dublin stuccodores’ craft reached a singular perfection in that century and notwithstanding the loss their work has suffered and still undergoes in the vicissitudes of the city’s growth, examples of its various excellence are still abundant and are accessible for study.’ Today’s examples, all now in Dublin Castle, admirably illustrate this point.

Demolished in the early 1950s owing to the value of the land on which it stood, Mespil House now tends to be remembered as the home of artist Sarah Purser. But the man responsible for its construction is just as worthy of notice, having enjoyed a distinguished career across diverse fields.
Born in Cork in 1698, after studying first at Trinity College Dublin and then at the University of Leiden, Edward Barry became a doctor like his father before him. Initially he practised in his native city, there writing his first book, A Treatise on a Consumption of the Lungs, published in 1726. In addition to his medical work, he found time to become a member of the Irish Parliament, representing Charleville from 1745 to 1761. By the time his political career began, he had already moved to Dublin, and here produced his principal medical work, On Digestion in 1759. A decade earlier he had been elected President of the College of Physicians and in 1754 he was appointed Regius Professor of Physic at Trinity College Dublin. But he was as interested in the arts as the sciences, and on good terms with many of the notable writers of his day. In 1736 he reported to John Boyle, Earl of Orrery (and future Earl of Cork) about their mutual friend Dean Swift, ‘I’m concerned to hear that Swift is confin’d by some Disorder; I hope nothing but a bilous cholic, which a few Satyrical evacuations will remove.‘ At the age of 63 Barry decided to move his practice to London but there is some question over whether he did as well there as had been the case in Ireland. According to Boswell, Samuel Johnson once remarked of Barry, ‘He was a man who had acquired a high reputation in Dublin, came over to England and brought his reputation with him, but had not great success.’ Created a baronet in 1775, he died the following year but not before producing a final book running to almost 500 pages: Observations, Historical, Critical and Medical on the Wines of the Ancients, and the Analogy between them and Modern Wines. This was the remarkable man responsible for building Mespil House in 1751.

Returning to Curran’s Preface, the author comments that ‘The diversity and excellence achieved by the middle of the eighteenth century is unquestionably due to outside stimulus. In the arts, no more than in nature, there can be no Declaration of Independence, since to be isolated is to be sterile and an organism is strong only in so far as it can assimilate.’ One of the outside stimuli from which indigenous stuccodores assimilated ideas during this period was Barthelemy Cramillion, whose origins and training remain unknown, although it has been suggested he was French Huguenot or Walloon by birth. He first appears in Ireland in August 1775 when employed by Dr Mosse to decorate the chapel of the new Lying-In Hospital, now known as the Rotunda: the contract bound him to complete the work within thirteen months. In December 1757 he was again engaged to execute the chapel altarpiece within six months. His total bill, finally settled in 1760, came to £585, nine shillings and ninepence. He left Ireland a year or two later but then returned in 1772 and in the Dublin Journal advertised his services to ‘Any Nobleman or Gentleman inclined to employ him.’ Two ceilings removed from Mespil House before its demolition and now installed in Dublin Castle (top and bottom series of pictures) have been credited to Cramillion by Joseph McDonnell in Irish Eighteenth-Century Stuccowork and its European Sources (1991). On the other hand, Timothy Mowl and Brian Earnshaw in their 1999 book An Insular Rococo question that attribution, noting that Mespil House dates from 1751, four years before Cramillion appears working on the Rotunda chapel. They also believe the ceilings ‘appear to be the work of two different plasterers,’ noting technical differences in the moulding of figures and in compositional layout. Unless additional documents turn up, most likely we will never know for certain who was responsible. The top group is centred around a medallion depicting Minerva Introducing the Arts to Hibernia, while that below shows Apollo as Sun God emerging to scatter the clouds. Incidentally, a third ceiling from Mespil House is now in Áras an Uachtaráin.

Similar uncertainty hangs over the authorship of another ceiling now in Dublin Castle (shown in the middle group of photographs above) but taken from another, long-since demolished building. Tracton House once occupied a site at 40 St Stephen’s Green, on the corner with Merrion Row. A bank stands there today and Tracton House was pulled down in 1912 to facilitate the commercial premises’ development. The lost building dated from the mid-1740s when the MP, surveyor and director-general of fortifications Arthur Jones-Nevill acquired the site to build himself a fine town residence. In 1765 it passed into the hands of James Dennis who fourteen years later was raised to the peerage as Baron Tracton and from him the property acquired the name by which it was thereafter known. The building subsequently underwent modifications according to changes of ownership and use but one portion remained unaltered: a first-floor back drawing room. This kept intact its decoration as installed at the time of Jones-Nevill. When the whole place was pulled down coincidentally the National Museum was keen to acquire a good example of the Georgian domestic interior and so the room was carefully removed and reinstated in Kildare Street where it stayed for another three decades until once more taken down: it moved to its present location in the 1960s. The main focus of the Tracton House room is its ceiling on which (as J.B. Maguire has discussed in a fascinating article published in the 2012-13 volume of the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland) are inscribed two dates: 1746 and 1752. Might it be that the ceiling, the central lozenge of which shows Apollo Musagates opulently lounging in the clouds, a lyre resting on one knee, was decorated in two stages? Could the outer compartments featuring diverse trophies of the arts associated with this god have been created before or after the Apollo, hence the two dates? As with the Mespil House ceilings, it seems unlikely we will ever be able to come up with absolute answers. But in the meantime, a visit to these rooms in Dublin Castle is encouraged, especially as it provides an opportunity to put your head in the clouds and there join the company of classical deities.

A Unique Legacy

Feb22

Few houses better exemplify the maxim of initial appearances being deceptive than Headfort, County Meath. An immense, austere block – the limestone facade including wings runs to more than five hundred feet – in 1789 it was described by then-Lord Lieutenant the Duke of Rutland as ‘a long range of tasteless building’ and three years later George Hardinge said it was ‘more like a college or an infirmary’ than a private residence. Headfort was built for the descendants of Thomas Taylor who came to Ireland in the middle of the 17th century in the company of his school contemporary Sir William Petty. By 1660 Taylor had secured 21,000 acres of land in Cavan and Meath, and settled outside Kells. No trace remains of the original house constructed by the family, but from the middle of the 18th century onwards plans were under way to build a new country seat suitable for their advancement in the Irish peerage: already a baronet, the third Sir Thomas Taylor, who inherited the estate in 1757, would be created Baron Headfort in 1760, Viscount Headfort two years later and Earl of Bective in 1766. His son, in turn, would become first Marquess of Headfort in 1800.

The first architect consulted about designs for a new house was Richard Castle, a favourite for such commissions among Irish landowners during the period. However in this instance his proposals of 1750 failed to win the approval of the second Taylor baronet; an extant portfolio is marked: ‘Mr Castle’s plan and a damn bad one.’ John Ensor and another anonymous architect also drew up proposals for a similarly Palladian-style building but these too were spurned. The Taylors were not as wealthy as some of their contemporaries and funds to spend on the building were limited. Presumably this is why although still more designs were commissioned in 1765 from fashionable neo-classical architect William Chambers those were similarly rejected. In any case, by that date work had already started on a sober, and accordingly economical scheme which, on the basis of a 1760 plan inscribed GS, is attributed to George Semple, a Dublin-based builder and self-taught architect. Whoever was responsible, the house’s exterior would not have required much architectural skill in its composition. Of three storeys and 11 bays, the near-identical front and rear elevations of grey Ardbraccan limestone are largely unrelieved other than by pedimented doorcases.

But if the house’s exterior lacks ornament, its interior was intended to present a different image. Between 1771 and 1775, Lord Bective requested Scottish-born architect Robert Adam to produce decorative schemes for a suite of rooms in the newly completed Headfort. Adam, who never visited this country, duly came up with designs for the entrance and staircase halls, as well for as a series of three adjacent spaces on the garden front culminating in a double-height saloon that was known as the ‘Eating Parlor.’ Even if not all his proposals were fully implemented, the interiors are of immense importance as the only extant examples of Adam’s work in Ireland. Once more due to shortage of funds, a simplified version of the suggested decoration was executed in the entrance and staircase halls. But the architect’s original drawings survive and indicate that other elements of the scheme were carried through, not least in the Eating Parlor, where the only major modification saw the architect’s recommended barrel-vaulted ceiling instead being coved. Created by reconfiguring the house’s layout to merge two rooms on both ground and first floors, the Eating Parlor is lit by a line of tall windows between which stand the original marble-topped console tables and pier glasses. Facing these are a pair of carved white marble chimneypieces with circular overmantles holding classical compositions by the Italian artist Antonio Zucchi, who worked with Adam on a number of other occasions; further Zucchi work is found elsewhere in the room, including a ceiling centrepiece. The rest of the walls are covered with panels intended to contain Taylour family portraits, and a number of matching doorcases. The adjacent, somewhat smaller, saloon is similarly decorated but the third room in the suite, the Chinese Drawing Room, has since lost the landscape wallpaper from which derived its name.

Inevitably with the passage of time, the fabric of Headfort began to deteriorate; problems of damp coming into the building were a particular problem. It didn’t help that since 1949 the house has served as a preparatory school, with inevitable wear and tear on its fabric. Due to the significance of the Adam interiors, in 2004 the World Monuments Fund placed the house on its list of 100 Most Endangered Sites. Thereafter the Headfort Trust, thanks to funding from the WMF, Ireland’s Heritage Council and relevant state departments, initiated a programme of essential work including repairs to the roof, chimney stacks and gutter piping. Internally the trust embarked on a conservation and research project that revealed the original Adam decorative scheme. Nowhere was this more the case than in the Eating Parlor which underwent complete refurbishment thanks to aid from the Irish Georgian Society which in 2008 made the room the beneficiary of its 50th anniversary fundraising efforts. For a long time the Eating Parlor had been painted a shade of blue more usually found in hospital wards. However analysis of the walls revealed they had first been decorated using a variety of mid- to dark shades of verdigris, a scheme which tallied with the Adam drawings. The same colours were also used in the staircase hall, while those of the Saloon are softer, with an abundance there of pink and pale blue. When initially finished, and furnished, the effect must have been quite startling and highly novel, and even today, depleted of their contents and put to alternative use, these rooms can still confound the popular notion of how a chaste neo-classical interior should look. Today, when no other examples of Adam’s work can be seen on this island, it is a unique legacy.

From the Same Hand

Feb17

Two County Kildare mid-18th century houses, located less than four miles apart and linked by marriage not long after both were constructed. It is therefore no wonder that they share certain characteristics, not least in the matter of decoration. The elaborate cornice above is found in the drawing room of one house, that below in the dining room of the other. But they clearly come from the same hand and show the inspiration, if not necessarily the involvement, of Robert West who was producing work of this kind during the 1750s/60s.

The Irish Aesthete

This is not an Oxymoron

Category Archives: Historic Interior