On the Orders of the King

May23

From across the river Shannon, a view of the castle erected on the site of an earlier Viking settlement in Limerick city during the opening years of the 13th century. Built at the order of King John, its purpose was to protect this part of the country from incursions by Gaelic clans to the west. This part of Limerick, King’s Island, accordingly came to be known as ‘English Town.’ In the mid-18th century an infantry barracks was installed inside the castle, resulting in the demolition of its eastern side so that more accommodation could be constructed. In turn, during the last century the local corporation demolished the barracks and erected municipal housing inside the complex. In turn this was pulled down and the inevitable glass-box ‘interpretative centre’ installed in its place.

A Great House that had Lost its Pride

Feb12

Half a century ago, in 1968, the big house at Kilballyowen, County Limerick was demolished. As its then-owner Lt.-Col. Gerald Vigors de Courcy O’Grady – whose family have been based there for hundreds of years – recalled some time later, ‘The huge rooms were too big to live in; it was impossible to live in a house of that nature. If you could live there in warm conditions – yes. It was just a necessity. No I didn’t just want to leave it empty, so there are no remains. I do not like living near ruins; there are too many around here.’ His wife commented that by the late 1960s the house ‘was in a terrifying state of repair and we did not have the money to fix it. We had thought of selling just the house, but then we were afraid we might lose the land as well. It was a great house that had lost its pride.’ There was no support for the owners and no state interest in the preservation of such properties. And so, like very many others, Kilballyowen came down.

The surname O’Grady derives from the Irish Ó Grádaigh or Ó Gráda, meaning ‘noble’. The O’Grady family originally lived in East County Clare where they were based in the area around Tuamgraney (where they built a tower house adjacent to what is now the oldest centre of continuous religious worship in Ireland, St Cronan’s which dates from the 10th century). During the Middle Ages various O’Gradys frequently held high positions in the Roman Catholic Church. It helped that clerical celibacy was then not much enforced. Thus in 1332 Eoin (or John) O’Grady became Archbishop of Cashel and, in 1366 his son, also called John, became Archbishop of Tuam. In turn, the latter’s son, another John O’Grady, was made Bishop of Elphin in 1405. At the same time they were frequently at war with other families in the area, not least their distant cousins and former allies, the O’Briens who eventually drove the O’Gradys out of Clare. One of the family, a younger son called Hugh O’Grady had in the early 14th century married a daughter of the head of the O Ciarmhaic family in Knockainy in east Limerick and this would lead their descendants to settle at Kilballyowen. There successive male heirs became the head of the family and were known as The O’Grady.

The core of the now-demolished Kilballyowen was a tower house dating from c.1500, around which a house had been built in the first half of the 18th century, and then further extended by a new wing in 1810: in 1837 Samuel Lewis described the property as ‘a handsome modern building in a richly planted demesne.’ The building had a five-bay façade with a two-bay projecting extension to one side: the garden front featured a three-bay breakfront. Nothing of the house remains but the stableyard to the immediate north-west remains. Set around an open court, the four blocks are of almost equal dimensions and contain carriage houses, stalls and accommodation for the employees who would formerly have worked here. Although in poor repair, the buildings still bear testimony to the character of the old house. Had times been different, had it survived even a decade or two longer, might Kilballyowen be standing yet? What happened here also happened right across the country during the 1950s and ‘60s. While better support mechanisms are now in place to provide some assistance, they are relatively modest, thereby leaving much of our stock of historic houses at risk. The story of Kilballyowen, a great house that had lost its pride, is a too-frequent story in Ireland.

The Balbec of Ireland

Jan29

‘Some sixteen miles from Limerick, in the direction of Cork, the Irish Balbec claims the attention of the passer by. It is a place to arouse sympathies with departed greatness; to remind the sojourner that earthly fabrics bow to Time. Here is a combination of ancient glory and present debasement – faded grandeur and upstart pretension, not to be rivalled, perhaps, in any other land…
The place was anciently called Killochia, Kilmocheallog, and Kilmaloge, whence Kilmallock, or the church of Moloch, from an abbey for Canons Regular, founded here by St Mocheallog, or Moloch, at the beginning of the seventh century. The absence of early records in this country prevents our tracing its history for several centuries; but the magnificence of the ruins, which obtained for it the proud, but mournful, appellation of the Balbec of Ireland, evince its progress to distinction. Who were the great men that directed its measures – who presided over its religious houses, taught in its schools, or governed its forces, we know not; all its earlier history is lost in the obscurity of its remote origin, and the interest given to every spot trodden by the good or the brave, of days when the land was the Land of Saints, is unfelt.’

James FitzGerald ‘was created Earl of Desmond by patent A.D.1600 and took up his residence at Kilmallock under the protection of the Lord President of Munster [George Carew]. The joy of the followers of the race of Fitz-Gerald knew no bounds, at the prospect of again beholding one of the hereditary chieftains, under whom they and their fathers so long lived. Crowds thronged all the streets, doors and windows, “yea, the very gutters and tops of the houses were filled, as if they came to see him whom God had sent to be the comfort and delight their soules and heartes most desired; and they welcomed him with all the expressions and signs of joy; every one throwing upon him wheat and salt, as a prediction of future peace and plenty.”…
Yet this was to be all shortly changed. The next day was Sunday, and the Earl attended service in the parish church. When the followers of Desmond learned that their lord had forsaken the faith of his fathers, their hearts were utterly alienated from him. At first they tried expostulation, imploring him, on their knees, to return to the ancient creed; he refused to abandon the religion he was reared in [the Anglican church] and urged the spirit of toleration to be inculcated by the gospel. This by no means satisfied their views; they reviled him as an apostate, looking on him as a spy from England – an instrument employed to sap the foundations of their Church; and the voices which the day before uttered blessings, now inverted their prayers, and heaped curses on his head. They denied his right to the title of Desmond; every ignominy was cast on him as he passed through Kilmallock; and not being able to stir without insult and reproach, he left the town and returned to England. His death seems to have made little sensation, as the following account of it in the Pacata Hibernia shows. “The 11th (January 1601), the Lord President had intelligence from England, that James (the late restored Earl of Desmond) was dead, and that eighteen hundred quarters of oates were sent into Munster for the reliefe of oure horses”.

‘An abbey near the town is partly in ruins and partly preserved – the latter portion [where the Earl of Desmond attempted to worship in 1600] used as the parish church. It was dedicated to St Peter and St Paul, and was used in the days of monastic institution as a collegiate church, consisting of nave, aisles and transepts, and beautiful and noble it must have been in its former splendour, and still with its lines of pillars, massy and grey – lofty pointed arches springing from the square shafts – the lancet-shaped windows of five lights yet preserved, and the sculptured memorials of the Knights and their dames, who when living frequented it, all to pray for victory, or to pray for the repose of those who had fallen in the fight, preserves many a point of picturesque beauty.’

Extracts from Kilmallock – The Balbec of Ireland, in The Irish National Magazine, And Weekly Journal of Literature, Science and Art, Saturday, July 11, 1846.

A Tantalising Hint

Dec6

A former gate lodge to Elm Park, otherwise known as Clarina Park, County Limerick. Designed by brothers James and George Pain, the house here was built 1833-36 for Eyre Massey, third Baron Clarina following the latter’s marriage to 18-year old heiress Susan Barton (her father was the Hiberno-French wine baron Hugh Barton). Built at the cost of £50,000 with an abundance of towers and castellations, Elm Park was demolished in the early 1960s. Today this lodge, the carriageway since enclosed to increase accommodation, is one of the few extant buildings to give a tantalising hint of the lost house’s appearance.

When Captain Rock Called

Sep6

All that remains of the former Church of Ireland church in the village of Athlacca, County Limerick. Samuel Lewis’ Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) notes of this building, ‘The church, built by aid of a loan of £560 from the late Board of First Fruits, in 1813, was burnt by the Rockites in 1822; and the present church, a small but neat edifice, with a tower and lofty spire, was erected in the following year by a cess levied on the parish.’ The ‘Rockites’ were supporters of a widespread agrarian revolt across south-west Ireland during 1821-24, the name derived from a mythical ‘Captain Rock’ who was supposedly their leader. Athlacca church remained in use until 1942 after which the greater part of the building was demolished, leaving just the tower and spire as a reminder of what once stood here.

For Fine Dining

Jul12

One of Ireland’s lesser known mediaeval monuments: the 15th century Desmond Banqueting Hall in Newcastle West, County Limerick. Built on the remains of an earlier structure (the remains of lancet windows on the south wall suggest it may once have served as a chapel), the hall sits above a vaulted lower chamber. The building was part of a castle complex developed here by the FitzGerald family, Earls of Desmond who remained in occupation until the end of the 16th century. The castle then passed into the possession of the Courtenays, later Earls of Devon, but was badly damaged during the Confederate Wars of the 1640s and likely not occupied thereafter (an adjacent house, occupied by the Courtenays’ agent, was burnt in 1922 during the Civil War). The Banqueting Hall was restored some years ago when an oak screen and musicians’ gallery were installed, along with a hooded limestone chimneypiece.

The Old New

Nov30

Evening light falls on the remains of the ‘New Church’ by Lough Gur, County Limerick. Originally dating from the 15th century when built by the Earls of Desmond, in 1642 it was described as a ruin. However, the church was restored in 1679 when Rachel, Dowager Countess of Bath (whose late husband had inherited a large amount of land in the area) presented a chalice and patten to what she described as her ‘chapel-of-ease’ as well as an endowment of £20 to provide for a chaplain. By the 19th century it once again became a ruin but conservation work was undertaken in 1900 on the instruction of the seventh Count de Salis, whose forebears had inherited the Bath estates here. Today the church is once more a ruin. Tradition has it that the composer and harpist Thomas Connellan who died nearby in 1698 is buried here in an unmarked grave.

An Abode of Wolves

Oct24

The County Limerick town of Kilmallock derives its name from a Saint Mocheallóg who in the late sixth/early seventh centuries established a religious house in the vicinity: the name thus derives from the Irish Cill Mocheallóg meaning ‘the church of Mocheallóg.’ Following the arrival of the Anglo-Normans, Kilmallock grew in importance to become second only to the city of Limerick in this part of the country. It subsequently became a stronghold of the FitzGerald Earls of Desmond and owing to a location between Cork and Limerick became a centre for both trade and government.

Evidence of Kilmallock’s former significance can be found in various old buildings, not least the Dominican priory of St Saviour. Located outside the town walls close to the river Loobagh, this house was established in 1291 when with the consent of King Edward I the friars bought land from one of Kilmallock’s burgesses John Bluet. However, Gerald le Marshall, then-bishop of Limerick who held authority over the area disapproved of this transaction taking place without his approval and had the Dominicans expelled from the site. An inquiry held in Cashel by William de Vesci, one of the country’s Lords Justices, ruled that le Marshall should not acted as he did since the friars owed no rent or service to the bishop for their priory. Soon afterwards they returned and remained in residence for several centuries.

St Saviour’s Priory retains a number of fine features, many of them added thanks to patronage by the local FitzGerald family: a niche-tomb believed to commemorate one of them can be seen on the northern wall of the chancel. The core of the extant buildings date from the late 13th/early 14th centuries when the main body of the church was constructed. The tall crossing tower was added in the 15th century, as was the southern transept with its elaborate window. To the north lies the cloister, one side of which has been reconstructed to give an impression of how it would once have appeared. Throughout the site are various carvings in different states of preservation featuring human heads and foliage.

Kilmallock’s strategic importance made it vulnerable to attack from which religious houses were not protected. In 1570 during the first Desmond Rebellion James FitzMaurice FitzGerald, cousin of the fifteenth Earl of Desmond (then in custody in London) burnt the town, leaving it, as the Annals of the Four Masters reported, ‘the receptacle and abode of wolves.’ Already by that date the priory had officially been closed but it appears the friars were still in the area, if not in occupation of the buildings. In 1648 during the Confederate War, Murrough O’Brien, first Earl of Inchiquin sacked the priory and executed two of the remaining friars. Yet even in the 18th century the Dominicans continued to be a presence, three of them recorded in Kilmallock in 1756. The site was finally abandoned thereafter and fell into ruin but has been the scene of extensive restoration work in more recent times.

The Well Improved Seat

Oct5

What remains of The Grange, County Limerick. Dating from the second half of the 18th century, it was described by William Wilson in 1786 as ‘the beautiful and well improved seat of Standish O’Grady.’ The property remained with the O’Gradys until that branch of the family died out in 1861 after which it passed to the Crokers, to whom they were related by marriage. But Captain Edward Croker likewise had no heirs and The Grange was inherited by his two sisters. The house was still intact in the 1940s but thereafter began to deteriorate and is now just a shell. The 19th century entrance gates give an idea how this beautiful and well improved seat must once have looked.

A Little Gem

Aug10

Although County Limerick has a rich stock of historic buildings dating back as far as the early Christian era, much of its architectural heritage is insufficiently known or celebrated. A newly published little gem of a book should help to rectify this situation. An Architectural Tour of County Limerick does exactly what its title proposes, offering visitors to the area an opportunity to discover a wealth of sites ranging from that piece of 19th century gothic whimsy, Dromore (shown on the cover above) to the 13th century Trinitarian Abbey dovecote in Adare (below), and taking in many other properties along the way. With a text written by historian Declan Downey and delightfully illustrated by Nesta FitzGerald, the book deserves to encourage a rash of informed readers to descend on County Limerick and see for themselves what delights this part of the country has to offer.

An Architectural Tour of County Limerick is published by the Irish Georgian Society and available from www.igs.ie price €12.50.

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