Not so Cosy

Mar9

There has been much talk in recent years of the decline of the Irish village: here is an example of the deterioration found across the country. On a key corner site in Crossakiel, County Meath stands a now-vacated former pub and grocery which, with slates gone from the roof and windows broken, only looks set to fall into further ruin. When that happens, as seems to be inevitable, the possibility of Crossakiel having a viable commercial future will grow even more remote than is the case at present. And so the decline continues.

In the Midst of Winters

Feb29

From Samuel Lewis’ Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837):
‘Agher, a parish, in the barony of Upper Deece, County of Meath, and province of Leinster, 2 ½ miles (S. S. W.) from Summerhill; containing 360 inhabitants. It is situated on the road from Summerhill to Edenderry, and from the latter town to Dunboyne, and contains 1900 statute acres, as applotted under the tithe act. Its surface gently undulates, and the soil consists of loam of different qualities: about one-third of the land is under tillage, and the remainder, with the exception of about 100 acres of bog, half of which is cut away and partly planted, is good grazing land. There are quarries of limestone; the Royal Canal passes near the southern extremity of the parish. Agher House, the residence of J. P. Winter, Esq., occupies a beautiful situation in a demesne of about 650 statute acres, containing some fine timber: the gardens are extensive and well laid out; and the neat appearance of the cottages on the estate manifests the proprietor’s regard for the comforts of the peasantry. The living is a rectory, in the diocese of Meath, and in the patronage of the Crown: the tithes amount to £80. The church is a neat edifice, erected by voluntary contributions and a parochial rate, in 1804: it contains a window painted by Gervaise, representing Paul preaching at Athens, from the cartoons of Raphael, which was formerly in the private chapel at Dangan, in the adjoining parish, when that place was the seat of the Wellesley family. There is a glebe-house, with a glebe of 12 ½ acres. In the R. C. divisions this parish forms part of the union or district of Laracor, or Summerhill: the chapel is situated on the townland of Agher, on ground given by the family of Winter. The parochial school for both sexes is aided by annual donations from Mr. Winter and the rector, and there is a private pay school; also a dispensary.’

The Winter family originally came to Ireland under curious conditions. According to Burke’s Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland (1835), Dr Samuel Winter, an Anglican clergyman originally from Warwick had during the English Civil War settled in a parish in northern England. However, ‘In 1650 Dr Winter was obliged to resign the living of Cottingham, York, of which he was Rector, being ordered by the then Government to proceed to Ireland with the Commissioners appointed for the settlement of that country, as their Chaplain, and was soon after (on 3rd June 1652) constituted Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, which the preceding troubles had left almost dissolute. In this office he exerted himself with great zeal and success to reassemble the surviving members, and to re-establish the discipline of the University. He appears to have been removed from the provostship at the Restoration.’ Dr Winter then returned to England but not before confirming himself in the ownership of lands in Counties Offaly, Meath and Westmeath. On his death these were duly inherited by his eldest son, another Samuel, who had married a sister of the anabaptist Cromwellian solder, Colonel Zierom Sankey. Subsequent generations made equally good marriages, the most significant of which was the union c.1738 of Francis Winter (who had already inherited the estate of his childless elder brother) and Margaret Pratt, daughter and heiress of Benjamin Pratt of Agher, County Meath: like the Winters, the Pratts originally came to Ireland as part of the Cromwellian settlement and had bought Agher from Henry Jones, Bishop of Meath. In 1771 the son of Francis and Margaret Winter, yet another Samuel Winter, was left Agher on the death of his Pratt grandfather. Soon after he built a new house on the land, moving into it in 1776. However, the cost of the property, of three storeys over basement, together with other financial setbacks, obliged Samuel first to mortgage and then to sell some of his other lands. Thereafter the family seem always to have been short of funds: in 1817 Samuel’s son John Pratt Winter was forced to lease Agher, auction his stock and furniture, and take his wife and younger members of the family to live in a boarding house in Paris where they remained for seven years.

The last of the Winters to live at Agher was Captain Charles Edward Purdon-Winter who in 1936 sold the estate to the Irish Land Commission. The land was split into diverse lots and in 1947 the house demolished by controlled explosion, its rubble used to fill the basement. Today little remains to recall the Winters of Agher other than the church and its surrounding graveyard, both of which they did so much to beautify. The church was erected by the family in 1804 on the site of an older building (Jonathan Swift held the living from 1699 until his death in 1745). It was further extensively refurbished by the Winters in 1902 and at that date a four-stage buttressed tower and porch was added at the west end. Internally the church’s most distinguished feature is the window above the altar table. After Raphael and representing St Paul preaching to the Athenians, this was originally made for the private chapel of nearby Dangan Castle, seat of the Wellesleys (forebears of the Duke of Wellington) until abandoned by them at the end of the 18th century. The artist responsible was Dublin-born Thomas Jervais, who according to Strickland, ‘For the Duke of Leinster he executed some stained glass, which was formerly in the bow-window in the large room in Leinster House; and did several windows for Lord Charlemont at Marino, which were destroyed by fire in March, 1807. Three windows by him were formerly in Rathfarnham Castle, as recorded by Austin Cooper in 1781; but they have now disappeared.’ Around 1770 Jervais moved to London where he remained for the rest of his life. Thus the Agher window now appears to be the sole surviving example of his workmanship in this country and is particularly important because it is not stained but painted, using a technique he devised for himself. Less rare but equally charming is the Winter mausoleum found in the graveyard, its first occupant of its barrel-vaulted interior being Samuel who died in 1811. A late flourish of the Gothick style, the façade has a three-bay battlemented façade, the breakfront centre capped with pinnacles as are the outer miniature turrets. The arched opening is flanked by similar windows with a recessed quatrefoil above each. It stands a memorial to past Winters and, with little else remaining to do so, serves as a recollection of their long presence in this part of the country.

The Irish Georgian Society is currently fund-raising to help with the cost of restoring the Jervais window in Agher Church. The work comprises a series of painted panels which were then fitted between thin lead bars to make the picture. In its present position (see above), it contains an error of assembly: can anyone spot what that is?

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.

Simple Pleasures

Jan27

As a rule the focus of architectural heritage is on historic properties with a distinguished, and traceable, pedigree. An unintended consequence of this approach is that across the country the fate of many secondary, vernacular buildings is overlooked and they are permitted to fall into ruin. Many of these, however, have their own inherent beauty even if not always so obviously apparent. Here are two views of an old rubble stone barn in County Meath. Like thousands of others it is entirely functional, even mundane and yet possessed of a distinctive character that deserves to be cherished.

Man Proposes, But…

Jan18

Reference was made here some weeks ago to the Board of First Fruits (see Made Better by Their Presents II, December 12^th 2015). Although it had a considerable impact on the Irish landscape in the 18^th and early 19^th century, this organization is today little known. To reiterate briefly, the board was established in 1711 to provide financial assistance for the building and improvement of the Church of Ireland’s places of worship and glebe houses. First funded by a tax on clerical incomes from 1778 onwards it received grants given by the Irish Parliament, after 1785 this being a yearly sum of £5,000. Following the Act of Union, this country’s Anglican clergy became absorbed into the newly-formed United Church of England and Ireland and thereafter the amount of money made available to the Board of First Fruits rose: its annual grant doubled to £10,000 in 1808, soared to £60,000 between 1810-16 before dropping first to £30,000 and then £10,000 after 1822. As a result of this money, the Church of Ireland was able to embark on a building spree: in the first quarter of the 19^th century almost 700 churches were either newly constructed or renovated, along with 550 glebes and 172 schoolhouses. While the entire country benefitted from this programme, there were regional variations depending on the level of engagement by whoever was then in charge of a diocese. Among the most committed to the scheme was Thomas Lewis O’Beirne, Bishop of Meath for a quarter-century (1798-1823). O’Beirne is a fascinating character. Born into a Roman Catholic family in County Longford, initially he studied for the Catholic priesthood at the Jesuit seminary in St Omer, France: his younger brother Denis was there at the same time and completed his studies (the siblings would later serve in the same parish of Templemichael, Longford, Thomas as rector and Denis as parish priest). A breakdown in health led Thomas to England where he converted to Anglicanism and attended Trinity College, Cambridge. Highly intelligent, industrious and devotedly loyal to the Church of Ireland, he was appointed first to the Diocese of Ossory in 1795 before being transferred to Meath three years later. During his long episcopate, he embarked on an improvement of both clergy and buildings in the diocese, a schedule of work which has been thoroughly investigated by Mary Caroline Gallagher in her 2009 doctoral thesis on the subject.

Exhibiting the customary fervour of the convert, O’Beirne believed incumbents ought to be resident in their parishes (not something which had hitherto been universally the case) and services should be held in churches that were structurally sound and, appropriately designed and maintained. Hence his keen interest in improving both clergymen’s homes and places of worship. He was fortunate in his timing, his period as Bishop of Meath coinciding with the Board of First Fruits having most money to distribute, commonly through a mixture of grants and loans to parishes (which on occasion had the effect of saddling parishioners with long-term debt). Today we look at two Meath churches that underwent redevelopment in O’Beirne’s time. The first of these (top and above) is St Patrick’s at Castletown-Kilpatrick. There was a mediaeval church on this site and parts of it were incorporated into the newer building, in particular over the east window a portion of what is believed to be a 15^th century tomb stone showing a woman in prayer. There are also two old arched windows on the second floor of the belltower and a stone head that projects from the wall of the church. These were presumably rescued by the man responsible for the building’s refurbishment, whose name features in a stone plaque over the doorcase (which also looks to be older than the main body of the church). The plaque reads ‘This Church was Rebuilt by Order of The Rigt. Honb. & Rt. Revd. Th. Lewis Lord Bishop of Meath. The Revd. Robt. Longfield Rector. Henry Owens Esqr. & Henry Liscoe, ChurchWardens. Robt. Wiggins Builder. A.D; 1820.’ The cost of the project was £467 and four years later a glebe house was also constructed to the immediate south at a cost of £1,107, this work financed by a Board of First Fruits loan. Declining numbers of worshippers meant that by the third quarter of the last century it had become difficult to sustain the church, which closed for services in the mid-1960s. The glebe house had already been sold and demolished around 1945.

Just a few miles south of Castletown-Kilpatrick stands St Sinch’s, Kilshine (above and below). According to legend St Abbán, whose father was a king of Leinster, founded a convent here and placed at its head a holy virgin called Sinche or Sineach, the church being called Cill-Sinche (thus the Anglicised name Kilshine). By the 18^th century this building had fallen into poor repair and so a new church was built in 1815 at a cost of £1,600 with funds provided by the Board of First Fruits. As at St Patrick’s the occasion was commemorated with a plaque: ‘The rebuilding and restoring of this Parish Church, after it had laid in ruin for upwards of a century, were the effects of the pious exertions of that excellent Prelate, the Right Honourable and Most Reverend Father in God, Doctor Thomas Lewis O’Beirne, Lord Bishop of Meath, who in the conscientious discharge of the functions of his high and important office not only caused many other churches in this Diocese to be rebuilt and restored, but procured for that most respectable Body, the Reverend the Parochial Clergy, residences and glebes within their respective Livings, suitable as far as it was possible to their situations, thereby enabling them duly to discharge the duties of Resident Protestant Clergymen, and to dispense to their parishioners of that persuasion the invaluable comforts of Our Blessed Religion. Aided by a pecuniary grant of 1,600 from the Board of First Fruits obtained through the intercession of His Lordship the Bishop of Meath.’ Let it not be thought the work of Bishop O’Beirne went unrecorded. But once more declining attendance numbers meant St Sinch’s had closed for services by 1958 after which its monuments were removed: today both here and St Patrick’s, Castletown-Kilpatrick are united with the church at Donoughpatrick where services continue to be held. Meanwhile tangible evidence of the efforts of Thomas Lewis O’Beirne and the Board of First Fruits to ensure the Church of Ireland had a long-term future looks to be irreparably vanishing. It seems only a matter of time before both these churches, and many more beside, vanish from the countryside altogether. Truly as Thomas à Kempis advised ‘Homo proponit, sed Deus disponit.’

The Peripatetic Cleric

Jan13

The above oil, painted in Constantinople in 1740 by Jean-Étienne Liotard, features in a marvellous exhibition devoted to the Franco-Swiss artist running until the end of the present month at the Royal Academy, London. The sitter was the Anglican clergyman Richard Pococke, then on an extended Grand Tour lasting more than eight years. Pococke’s travels took him not only around Europe but also to Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon & Syria, Asia Minor, and Greece: fortunately his full correspondence (predominantly letters sent to his mother, always addressed as ‘Honoured Madam’) from this period has been edited and published in three volumes in recent years by Dr Rachel Finnegan and is much recommended. From these we learn of Pococke’s meetings in 1740 with Liotard who was then resident in Constantinople, hence in this picture Pococke is represented in oriental costume (a fashion which the artist did much to promote when he returned to Europe). From 1747 onwards Pococke spent increasing periods of time in Ireland where his restless spirit directed him on several journeys around the country: his published tour of 1752 is also compelling reading. He was appointed Bishop of Ossory in 1756 and then of Meath in 1765 but died only a matter of months after assuming the latter office. His memorial in the graveyard of Ardbraccan, County Meath can be seen below. As mentioned, the Liotard exhibition is unquestionably worth seeing, not least for its strong Irish interest since he had many patrons in this country including Simon Luttrell, first Earl of Carhampton, the Earl of Clanbrassil and above all William Ponsonby, second Earl of Bessborough who had first invited Liotard to accompany him to Constantinople.

Seasonal Greetings

Dec25

Looking across the river Boyne, a view of Donaghpatrick parish church, County Meath. On an ancient site (as the name implies, the original church is said to have been founded by St Patrick), the building was extensively reconstructed in the 1860s by architect James Franklin Fuller but still incorporates a mediaeval tower. To the right can be seen the charming parish hall of 1890.
The Irish Aesthete wishes all friends and followers a very Happy Christmas.

Vaulting Ambition

Oct24

Mention has been made recently of George IV’s visit to Ireland in 1821, and the time he spent with his mistress Lady Conyngham in Slane Castle, County Meath. Here is a view of the ceiling in the castle’s saloon on which – if any horizontal position was assumed during the time spent there – he likely gazed. The history of the building’s construction and decoration is complex, and seems to have involved a number of architects. It has been proposed that an amalgam of Francis Johnston and Thomas Hopper was responsible for the design of the saloon, its historically inaccurate but delightful Gothic dome from c.1813 featuring twenty miniature fan vaults which lie between the same number of ribs all leading to a central boss from which is suspended the single candelabra.

When Royalty Comes to Call

Oct12

Today the visit of George IV to Ireland in 1821 is primarily remembered because it is believed to have led to the road between Dublin and Slane, County Meath being made as straight as possible. But the event was noteworthy for other reasons, not least due to the fact this was the first time a reigning English monarch had arrived in the country without bellicose intentions (as had last been the case when James II and his son-in-law fought here for control of the British throne, with the latter victorious at the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690). The original arrangement would have had George IV land south of the capital at Dunleary, from whence he would set out to make a formal entry into the city. However following the death of his estranged wife Caroline of Brunswick just days before the visit was due to begin, it was felt expedient a more low-key approach be taken to the king’s arrival. Accordingly the royal party landed on August 12th 1821 at Howth harbour where the fifty-nine year old monarch made an immediate impression on the waiting crowd by displaying symptoms of being, to use modern parlance, tired and emotional after the rigours of his passage across the Irish Sea. (Incidentally, his footprints, memorialised by a local stonemason, can still be seen on Howth’s west pier). He flung himself into the throng, shaking hands with anyone within reach before being put into a carriage that set off for the Phoenix Park and the Viceregal Lodge. On arrival there, the king again abandoned protocol by insisting the park gates be thrown open and, in descending from his carriage, making an impromptu speech during which he declared, ‘rank, station and honour are nothing: to feel that I live in the hearts of my Irish subjects, is to me the most exalted happiness.’ No wonder one commentator observed that he was behaving not as a sovereign but ‘like a popular candidate come down upon an electioneering trip.’

Despite national woes due to the economic downturn following the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, and indeed owing to the consequences of the 1800 Act of Union, George IV’s visit had been keenly anticipated. It helped that he had expressed a wish everyone he met during his time in Ireland should be wearing locally-produced clothing, thereby giving a boost to trade. In addition, he asked that Lord Forbes, son of the Roman Catholic Earl of Granard, be one of his aides-de-camp for the duration of the visit, and he arranged to act as witness for the installation of the Earl of Fingall as the first Catholic member of the Order of St. Patrick. For his own official entry into Dublin – this was after a period of recovery in the Viceregal Lodge – he wore the order’s ribbon over a full military uniform, shamrock on his hat and on his breast a rosette ‘more than twice the size of a military cockade’: no wonder comparisons were made with election candidates. The formal procession of some 200 carriages began by making its way down Sackville (now O’Connell Street) accessed via temporary gates for which keys were handed to the king by the Herald, Athlone Pursuivant. Progress was slow due to the crowds, and this set the tone for subsequent events, all of which attracted enormous and consistently enthusiastic attendance. The welcome he received in Ireland was in striking contrast to his unpopularity in England, and more than once he noted the difference between the ‘triumph of Dublin’ and the ‘horrors of London’ where he was often booed in the streets. Up to the day of departure, on 5th September and from Dunleary which was then renamed Kingstown in his honour, the numbers following his course never diminished and the visit concluded with Daniel O’Connell – Ireland’s so-called Liberator – kneeling before the monarch and proferring a laurel wreath

For members of Ireland’s aristocracy, George IV’s visit was especially significant since it appeared to offer them an opportunity to entertain their monarch. Still today there are a number of State Bedrooms created in 1821 in expectation of a royal guest. The best-known of these is in Castle Coole, County Fermanagh but another can be found in Loughton, County Offaly (in recent years this has been home to Minister for Children and Youth Affairs James Reilly but it is now on the market). Alas the hopes of many prospective hosts were dashed, because while the king did make a few excursions out of Dublin – notably to Powerscourt, County Wicklow where by lingering over luncheon he avoided being swept away by the waterfall, damned in anticipation of his arrival, which burst through its barricades and swept away the viewing platform – outside Dublin he stayed for several nights in one place only: Slane Castle, County Meath. For those unfamiliar with the tale, herein lies the explanation for the fast straight road from the capital: Slane was the home of George IV’s mistress, the Marchioness Conyngham, and her accommodating husband. Neither the king nor his inamorata were in the first flush of youth, and both were equally corpulent. These circumstances however did nothing to dampen their ardour. As was written of them at the time, ‘Tis pleasant at seasons to see how they sit/ First cracking their nuts, and then cracking their wit/ Then quaffing their claret – then mingling their lips/ Or tickling the fat about each other’s hips.’ And according to one contemporary observer, Lady Conyngham ‘lived exclusively with him during the whole time he was in Ireland at the Phoenix Park. When he went to Slane, she received him dressed out as for a drawing-room; he saluted her, and they then retired alone to her apartments.’ Hence those other State Bedrooms going abegging…

One house that did receive a royal visit was Annesbrook, County Meath – presumably because its location was not too off the route to Slane. Annesbrook is a relatively modest country residence which may have begun as a farm house before being extended westwards in either the late 18th or early 19th century. The front of the building is of two storeys and three bays, the emphatic arch of the centre groundfloor entrance echoed in the shallow relieving window arches to either side. Inside, the hall is divided by a screen of Corinthian columns, the stairs snaking upward inside a bow to the north. That might have been the limit of the house had not its owner in 1821, one Henry Smith, decide to improve the property in anticipation of the king coming to call. Thus he aggrandised the facade by the addition of an enormous limestone portico comprising four Ionic-capped columns beneath a pediment that soars above Annesbrook’s shallow hipped roof. Then to the north of the main block he constructed a single storey, four bay extension in which to entertain the king to lunch. While the exterior of this is plain, the interior, accessed via a antechamber off the dining room, is a riot of gothick decoration, a late flowering of the 18th century style prior to the advent of historical accuracy. Whether on the ceiling, walls or even the marble chimneypiece, Annesbrook’s gothick is as much rococo as mediaeval, with an overlay of classical symmetry. The room is a playful frolic, the plasterwork treated like icing sugar ornamentation, an opportunity to demonstrate the unknown stuccodore’s ingenuity and skill. It was always intended as a backdrop for entertainments and that remains the case: the house’s present owner has worked to preserve the room as best as resources allow, and to this end has received assistance from a variety of agencies including the Irish Georgian Society. While sections of the ceiling still require attention, more than sufficient has already been secured for the remaining work to be undertaken once requisite funds become available. Visitors to Annesbrook today can admire Henry Smith’s enterprise, perhaps more than did George IV: seemingly on the day of his visit to the house, the sun shone and the royal guest chose to dine outdoors. Ironically he never even saw the room built to entertain him.

All the Saints

Oct10

Inside the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey, Duleek, County Meath, a 17th century box tomb bearing the arms of four families once prominent in the region: the Plunketts, Bellews, Prestons and St Lawrences. At either end four panels contain figures. Those above are, from left to right, St Patrick, St Catherine of Alexandria, St Thomas à Becket and St Peter. Those at the other side are less well preserved and therefore more difficult to identify but they appear to include an Archangel (perhaps Gabriel), a Crucifixion scene and, furthest right, St George slaying the dragon. Who might be swinging a thurible to his immediate left?

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