Category Archives: Restoration

A Brave Initiative



The story of Dr James Barry – a military surgeon in the British army during the first half of the 19th century who, on his death in 1865, was discovered to have been a woman called Margaret Anne Bulkley – is well-known. However, today’s post concerns another doctor of the same name and period, but who lived in County Kerry. Born in 1800, James Barry settled in Cahersiveen, where he had a successful practice and, despite being a Justice of the Peace, was a supporter of the Fenians: during an unsuccessful uprising in this part of the country in February 1867, it was reported that he had given shelter to a number of Fenians, one of their leaders, John Joseph O’Connor, taking the doctor’s horse when they departed. And an official report into local disturbances during the 1872 elections noted ‘the obstructive attitude of a local J.P., Dr. Barry, when the police were trying to restore the peace’ with the doctor described as ‘a disgrace to the Bench.’ Barry was clearly a man of both influence and affluence: by 1828 he was able to make an offer to Daniel O’Connell to buy the materials of Carhan House (where Daniel O’Connell had been born), although this may have meant just the doors, chimneypieces and so forth: the earliest Ordnance Survey map of 1841 already describes Carhan as being ‘in ruins.’ The same map also shows the first bridge across the river Fertha linking Cahersiveen with the Iveragh Peninsula; hitherto the only way to get across was by ferry. A pedestrian timber structure (it would be replaced in the 1930s with the present concrete bridge), this features on the Ordnance Survey map as ‘Barry’s Bridge (in progress). It was officially opened in 1847. The doctor’s motives for involvement in this project may not have been altogether altruistic because the following decade he built himself a fine new residence on the other side of the river and overlooking Cahersiveen. Access to this property was made easier by the existence of a bridge bearing his name.





In January 1857, Dr Barry married, seemingly for the first time. His bride was Honoria Ponsonby, whose family had, until the previous decade, lived at Crotta House, an important 17th century residence which survived in part until the 1970s. Honoria was a widow, having previously been married to Richard Francis Blennerhassett of Kells, County Kerry. His wedding may have spurred the doctor into building a new house for himself and his wife, because the following year he embarked on just such a project, leasing a site from the Marquess of Lansdowne on the north side of the river, with the land running down to the water’s edge and the marquess contributing £100 towards its construction. The building was given the name Villa Nuova, although, again looking at the earliest Ordnance Survey map, there is no evidence of an older structure here, certainly not one of any substance. As first built, Villa Nuova was of two storeys over raised basement; the rear of the latter looks to be of earlier date, so there may have been some kind of structure here before. The exterior’s most notable feature are the facade’s two steeply pitched gables with a small recessed bay between them. The present entrance porch, accessed at the top of a flight of Valencia slate steps, replaces an earlier one burnt in the 1920s. On either side of the house are two-storey canted bays which may be original or perhaps added later, although they can be seen in an early photograph of Villa Nuova. 





The history of Villa Nuova in the last century is a little unclear. Dr Barry and his wife had no children of their own, and the house thereafter seems to have passed through a variety of hands. In the 1901 Census, it is listed as being occupied by Resident Magistrate Major Ernest Thomas Lloyd, retired from the Bengal Civil Service, together with his four young children and three household servants. Ten years later, the occupant of the building was local solicitor James Shuel. However, by the early 1920s Villa Nuova was owned by one Bartholomew Sheehan, a local merchant who also had commercial premises in Cahersiveen: both these and the house suffered from being attacked and burnt by anti-Treaty forces in 1922. In consequence, Villa Nuova was left gutted and had to be reconstructed, so that much of the interior seen today dates from the mid-1920s. This includes a series of tiled chimneypieces produced by a Devon-based company called Candy and Co, as well as handsome oak doors and architraves, and a fine staircase. Villa Nuova then became home to the Duffy family, a relative of whose was the last to live in the house some 20 years ago. In September 2007, the building, together with some 54 acres, was sold to a local company for €2.35m, but was then left empty and unoccupied. Most recently, together with the immediate land, it has been bought by new owners who have embarked on an ambitious programme of retrieval and restoration, with the intention of bringing the place back to a habitable condition in which they will live. It’s a brave initiative, and – as always with such projects – deserves applause and all possible support.



For readers interested in following the restoration of Villa Nuova, the owners are chronicling progress on YouTube ((1) Villa Nuova – YouTube) and Instagram (@villa_nuova_)

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Making A Swift Connection



The name Woodbrook has been given to a number of houses in different parts of Ireland, and the natural assumption would be that it derives from the property having once had a brook in woodland. In the case of Woodbrook, County Laois, however, it combines the second syllable of original owner Knightley Chetwood’s surname along with the first syllable of that of his wife Hester Brooking: hence Woodbrook. An article written by Walter Strickland and published in the Journal of the Archaeological Society of the County of Kildare in 1918 provides a detailed account of the origins of the Chetwood family and their arrival in Ireland following the restoration of Charles II in 1660. There is some uncertainty as to how Knightly Chetwood, whose family had been impoverished English gentry, managed to acquire the lands in County Laois on which Woodbrook now stands: Strickland proposes that it may have come to him via his spouse, but without being able to say precisely how this should have been the case. In any case, some years after the couple’s marriage in August 1700, despite living contentedly in County Meath, he embarked on a project to build a residence on his midland’s property, albeit with some reluctance: at one stage he implored a friend to find him another house in Meath, since otherwise he would be condemned to ‘go and live in a bog in a far off country.’ Indeed, being as Strickland says ‘an uncompromising Tory,’ following the accession of George I in 1714, Chetwood found it best to live, if not in a bog then certainly in a far-off country, spending a number of years in mainland Europe before returning to Ireland around 1721 when he took an oath of allegiance to the Hanoverian monarch and abjured the Stuart pretender. It may have only been after this time that serious work commenced on the house at Woodbrook.





We know more about the early development of the Woodbrook estate than would usually be the case thanks to surviving correspondence between Knightley Chetwood and Dean Swift, who not only provided its proprietor with advice but visited the place on a number of occasions. There was likely some kind of residence already on the site, not least because Chetwood was able to write letters from there even before his new house had been built. Strickland cites a note from Swift to his host dated 6th November 1714 and composed when he had arrived at Woodbrook to find the Chetwoods away from home. The following month, after the dean’s departure, Chetwood informed him, ‘This place I hate since you left it.’ Swift is believed to have been responsible for planting a grove of beech trees close to the house, although these were cut down in 1917 for sale to the then-Government. The two men also make regular reference to an area of the estate called the ‘Dean’s field.’ Once Chetwood returned from his self-imposed exile and turned his attention to erecting a new house, Swift’s opinion was again sought, the dean recommending in June 1731, ‘I can only advise you to ask advice, to go on slowly and to have your house on paper before you put it into lime and stone.’ Unfortunately, it was around this time that the friendship of almost twenty years came to an end. Chetwood seems to have had a tricky, volatile character. He had already become estranged from his wife, husband and wife formally separating in 1725, and he was inclined to find himself embroiled in rows on a regular basis: that he and Swift should fall out accordingly seems to have been inevitable. Chetwood died in London in 1752 and Woodbrook then passed to his elder surviving son, Valentine but since he spent most of his life out of Ireland, it was the younger son Crewe Chetwood who stayed in Laois. The next generation, Jonathan Cope Chetwood, did live at Woodbrook from the time he inherited the property in 1771 until his own death in 1839. As he had no immediate heir, the estate went sideways passing to Edward Wilmost, a great-grandson of Crewe Chetwood, who duly took the additional surname of Chetwood. However, following the death during the Boer War of Edward Wilmot-Chetwood, Woodbrook passed to another branch of the family, being inherited by Major Harold Chetwood-Aiken; his widow lived there until 1965 when what remained of the estate was taken over by the Land Commission. 





The evolution of the house now standing at Woodbrook is complex, even by Irish standards. The original building commissioned by Knightley Chetwood can be seen in a pencil drawing reproduced in Strickland’s 1918 article and shows the long east-facing entrance front, seemingly single-storey but with two-storeys visible to one side and dominated by a great doorcase beneath a steeply-pitched roof. A 1770 ground floor survey is described by Colum O’Riordan in House and Home as depicting ‘a vaguely L shaped building with an indeterminate number of accretions around an older core.’ Much of this structure appears to have been damaged or destroyed in a fire in the early 19th century, after which Jonathan Cope Chetwood undertook extensive alterations to the house, not least the addition of a new neo-classical entrance front facing south. Designed c.1815 by James Shiel, it included a spacious hall off which opened drawing and dining rooms. The older part of the building contained the library and staircase, and, beyond these, service quarters including a double-height kitchen one wall of which was filled with a great dresser and above which, according to Strickland, were painted the words ‘BE CLEANLY. HAVE TASTE. HAVE PLENTY. NO WASTE.’ Later in the 19th century, further changes took place, not least in the drawing room where the walls were covered with 15 murals representing scenes of the Scottish Highlands: still extant (although some are currently undergoing restoration), they were painted in 1840 by artist David Ramsay Hay, commissioned by Lady Jane Erskine, daughter of the 25th/8th Earl of Mar and wife of  Edward Wilmot-Chetwood, as reminders of her native country. At some unknown date, a five-storey polygonal tower was added towards the rear of the house on the east side.
Alas, the later decades of the last century were not kind to Woodbrook. All the ancient trees, not least those lining the avenue to the house, were all cut down in 1969. The lake to the immediate east, created by Jonathan Cole Chetwood, also suffered devastation causing the loss of what was said to have been the largest heronry in the country. Then, in the 1970s, the owners of the house demolished almost all of what had stood behind Shiel’s early 19th century extension, everything that had remained from the original building constructed by Knightley Chetwood, along with the great kitchen and the polygonal tower. This strangely truncated property somehow survived until the present century when another owner ambitiously reconstructed the sections that had been reduced to rubble just a few decades earlier. In consequence, at least on the exterior, Woodbrook looks much as it did when still occupied by the last members of the Chetwood family. Just under two years ago, the house and surrounding lands changed hands once more, and the current owners have embarked on an ambitious and admirable programme of restoration and restitution, with thousands of trees being planted, the lake being brought back to life and the surrounding lands improved. Similar considerate work is taking place inside the building so that in due course Woodbrook will once again take its place among County Laois’s finest country houses. It’s always thrilling to visit a property which is undergoing renewal, and the owners of Woodbrook deserve all the applause and support they can get. 


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A Prize for Bravery


August 2015

March 2018

April 2023

Regular readers of this site may remember that five years ago, the Irish Aesthete established an annual prize for owners of historic houses here, kindly sponsored by the O’Flynn Group and organised in conjunction with Historic Houses of Ireland (HHI). This year’s recipients of the prize are the owners of Dromdiah, County Cork, about which more can be read here: The Age of Austerity « The Irish Aesthete.
When first visited almost a decade ago, the house was a roofless shell, smothered with vegetation both inside and out, and widely regarded as beyond salvation. Not long afterwards it was bought and since then has undergone a painstaking restoration that now nears completion (the owners hope to move into the building later this year). The work at Dromdiah shows that no property is beyond salvation and once again demonstrates a new wave of interest in bringing Ireland’s historic houses back to life. As such it is a very worthy recipient of the 2025 HHI-O’Fynn Group Heritage Prize.







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Visionary



After Monday’s melancholic post about the former bishop’s palace in Clonfert, here is a more cheering story. More than eight years ago, in May 2016, the Irish Aesthete was taken to see a house called Solsborough in County Tipperary. Dating from the first half of the 19th century, although likely on the site of an older property, the place had long since been unroofed and abandoned, and like so many other buildings of its kind, left a shell on the landscape. But in 2014 Solsborough was bought by the present owners who gradually embarked on an ambitious and thorough restoration programme: as can be seen in the photographs above, this was only beginning to get underway at the time of the 2016. Today the house has been fully and wonderfully brought back to use, a further demonstration that no such building is beyond salvation – and re-use – provided there is sufficient vision on the part of those responsible.


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An Occurrence of a Very Extraordinary Kind


Originally from Cornwall, the Codd family is thought to have come to Ireland as part of the Cambro-Norman invasion. One Hivelot Cod witnessed a charter of Raymond FitzGerald (otherwise known as Raymond le Gros) at some date between 1175-1185, and within a decade or so Hugh Cod who attested a grant to Dunbrody Abbey before 1200, indicating that by then the Codds already had become established in what is now County Wexford where they built and occupied a number of castles. So it remained until the upheavals of the 17th century when, while some branches of the family converted to the Anglican faith, others remained resolutely members of the Roman Catholic church and suffered in consequence. One of them, James Codd of Clougheast Castle near Carne, a captain in the Confederate army, was killed at Duncannon in 1643, seemingly leaving one daughter. The Down Survey of 1655 notes that in 1641 James Codd, an Irish Papist, had owned 194 acres in Carne parish 186 of which, including Clougheast Castle, were then granted to Edmond Waddy, a cornet in the Cromwellian army. His descendants lived in the old building until the late 18th century when Dr Richard Waddy, described as a physician and yeoman, began constructing a new three-storey house to one side of the castle.  It has been proposed that this building was burnt by insurgents during the 1798 Rising.





Perhaps because of the assault on his property, Dr Waddy became a loyal supporter of the British government and following the collapse of the rising in June 1798, he led a search party that discovered two key figures in the Wexford rebellion, John Henry Colclough and Bagenal Harvey, who had been hiding on the Greater Saltee Island several miles off the coast: both men were subsequently hanged. While toasted by government authorities for his actions, Waddy then attracted widespread opprobrium in the area, so much so that he retreated to Clougheast Castle and barricaded himself there with a handful of servants. However, in February 1800, the
Gentleman’s Magazine carried a report of ‘an occurrence of a very extraordinary kind’ which had occurred there some time before. According to the article, Dr Waddy was in such fear for his own security that the entrance to his bedroom was secured by an antique portcullis. It then explained that ‘A few days ago, a mendicant popish friar of Taghmon, named Burn, visited the doctor in his castle, and was hospitably entertained at dinner – in the evening, when it was time to part, Burn begged to be allowed to remain, and after some difficulty on the part of his host, was permitted to lie in a second bed in the vaulted chamber. While the Doctor and the friar were going to their beds, the friar expressed great anxiety that his host should say his prayers, a duty which the Doctor, who had drank freely, seemed disposed to neglect; in the middle of the night, Doctor Waddy heard somebody drawing his cavalry sword, which hung at his bed’s head, and immediately after was attacked by the friar, and was now endeavouring to murder his host; the latter received several wounds in the head and arm, and at length the friar supposing that he had accomplished his purpose, attempted escape under the portcullis. Doctor Waddy had just strength enough remaining to loose the cord which supported it, and it fell on the priest with such violence, almost to sever his body, which fell down lifeless into the apartment below. The next morning the body of the friar was found, and the servants, going into their master’s apartment, found him covered in his own blood – Immediate medical aid was had, and we have the satisfaction of hearing that Doctor Waddy is now out of danger. A Coroner’s Inquest was held on the body of Burn, and the jury (composed of the Roman Catholic inhabitants of the neighbourhood) found a verdict of “accidental death”.’ Several decades later, in the first volume of his entertaining but unreliable Personal Reminiscences, Sir Jonah Barrington told the story of Dr Waddy and the friar but embellished it by describing how half of the deceased (that part which lay inside the portcullis) was eaten by the castle’s occupant, too fearful to leave his home in search of other food. A fanciful story, but quite without basis in fact. Dr Waddy remained in possession of Clougheast Castle until his death in 1826 when it was inherited by his only son John, also a physician and a local Justice of the Peace.





Dr John Waddy appears not to have lived in Clougheast Castle but instead to have built a new residence nearby, a two-storey thatched house. Through his mother, Oscar Wilde was related to the Waddys and is said to have visited Clougheast Cottage, as the building was called, on several occasions. Dr John Waddy died without issue in 1875, and while his widow remained there for at least a decade, the property was later sold and passed through a succession of hands before being bought by the present owner more than 20 years ago. By then, the adjacent house, built by Dr Richard Waddy but then left a shell, had been turned into a family home (and the courtyard converted into a number of residences) but the castle itself needed the complete renovation it has since received.  Thought to date from the 15th century when constructed by the Codds, it rises three storeys over a barrel-vaulted chamber, climbing to the attic gable which incorporates a dovecote. Above, this a walled walk around the pitched roof provides superlative views across the surrounding landscape. Many of the rooms below, given new floors and ceilings, still retain their fireplace and window openings. During the course of the restoration, many items were discovered spanning the centuries since the castle was first raised; these have been carefully preserved and help to explain the building’s evolution. This has been a long and carefully considered enterprise, as so often embarked upon by the owner without necessarily appreciating how much time and effort (and indeed cost) would be involved. An philanthropic undertaking that merits everyone’s gratitude.


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A Good News Story


Back in January 2017, the Irish Aesthete wrote about an abandoned property called Brandondale in County Kilkenny as follows: ‘The house dates from c.1800 when it was built by Peter Burtchaell whose family had come to Ireland in the middle of the 17th century. The Burchaells were involved in the linen industry which then thrived in this part of Ireland, and also seem to have acted as agents for the Agars, Lords Clifden, large landowners whose seat was Gowran Castle in the same county. Peter Burchaell married the heiress Catherine Rothe and her fortune duly passed into the family which would have provided the necessary money for building a house like Brandondale. In his Handbook for Ireland (1844) James Fraser wrote that the property, ‘occupying a fine site on the northern acclivities of Brandon hill, commands the town, the prolonged and lovely windings of the Barrow, the picturesque country on either side of its banks, and the whole of the Mount Leinster and Black Stairs range of mountains.’ The architecture of the house was that of a two-storey Regency villa, old photographs showing it distinguished by a covered veranda wrapping around the canted bow at the south-eastern end of the building which had views down to the river.’



‘The last of the Burtchaell line to live at Brandondale was Richard, who occupied the place until his death in 1903. He and his wife Sarah had no children and she remained on the property for the next twenty-nine years, struggling to make ends meet by taking in paying guests. After her death the house and remaining fifty acres were sold to the Belgian Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove who first resided there and then rented out the place before he in turn sold it. In the 1980s Brandondale was bought by an Englishman Walter Dominy who moved in with his family and established a printing business. After this failed, in 1993 Mr Dominy left a suicide note in his car while travelling on the Rosslare to Fishguard ferry: fifteen years later an English tabloid newspaper found him living in France. But meanwhile Brandondale changed hands yet again and at some point was subject to a spectacularly poor refurbishment which saw the Regency veranda removed and all the old fenestration replaced with uPVC. In recent years it was taken into receivership and offered for sale on 25 acres for just €150,000, an indication of the building’s atrocious condition (and also of a Compulsory Purchase Order from the local council on part of the land). The place has apparently been sold once more but still sits empty and deteriorating: it can only be a matter of time before Brandondale’s condition is judged so bad that, despite being listed for preservation, demolition is ordered. After which, no doubt, an application will be lodged for houses to be built on the land. A fait accompli.’ (A Fait Accompli « The Irish Aesthete)




That was then, this is now. Happily, the Irish Aesthete’s gloomy predictions of what would happen to Brandondale have proven incorrect. In fact, far from being demolished, the house was subsequently bought by a young couple who are gradually restoring the place as their time and funds allow, and who intend to live in the building as soon as possible. The salvation of Brandondale, rather like that of Cangort Park, County Offaly (see A Work in Progress « The Irish Aesthete) indicates that none of our architectural heritage is beyond salvation and that there are citizens here willing to take on the challenge of bringing such properties back to life. A good news story and one that deserves applause and support. 

A Work in Progress



Currently undergoing restoration, this is Cangort Park, County Offaly. Dating from 1807 when designed by Richard Morrison for William Trench (a younger brother of the first Lord Ashtown), the house is more substantial than the initial impression of a three-bay, two-storey villa might suggest. The eastern elevation reveals just how substantial is the building, its centre occupied by a three-bay segmental bow flanked by single bay windows set inside shallow relieving arches. Meanwhile, the ground floor rear is dominated by two equally grandiose tripartite windows. Returning to the facade – which, like the rest of the house is faced in lined-and-ruled plaster – much of this is given over to an impressively over-scaled main entrance, set within a recessed arched porch and approached by a flight of stone steps. Over the door is a rectangular plaster panel depicting putti riding a dolphin, a curious detail for a house located about as far away from the sea as is possible in Ireland.


When the Wheel (Re)Turns


Last week, the Irish Times carried a feature on how an old mill complex at Kilmainham, Dublin was to be restored and given new life as a ‘major tourist attraction.’ (see The former Dublin mill set to become the city’s next major tourist attraction – The Irish Times). There is always an element of surprise about such articles, as though the existence of such a site would be unknown to readers, and so information about it would come as a revelation. In fact, Kilmainham Mill, which in its present form dates from c.1800  but may have been the site of much older buildings serving the same purpose, has been in and out of the news for many years. The mill ceased to function in 2000 and three years later a development company called Charona Ltd applied for permission to convert the place into 48 one, two and three-bedroom apartments in a mixture of new and refurbished buildings. When Dublin City Council approved the scheme, the decision was appealed by a number of local residents and the director of Kilmainham Gaol to the planning authority, An Bord Pleanála. The latter body gave its assent to the developers’ proposals in February 2005, subject to some modifications, but then nothing happened, the economic recession came and the buildings, subject to the inevitable assaults by vandals, were left to fall into dereliction. Finally and following a long campaign by the aforementioned local residents, in December 2018, the site was purchased by the Dublin City Council, and in March 2021, the Irish Times carried a lengthy article announcing that building work would soon commence on the mill buildings: the authority’s project manager declaring that the restoration would be “a game changer in terms of visitor attractions.’  Presumably in another couple of years, the same newspaper will carry another piece announcing the mill’s imminent refurbishment as a major tourist attraction, especially since last week’s article noted that Dublin City Council did not at present have the funds required to carry out the job and would need to turn to central government for assistance. The price tag for this work? Presently estimated to be between €25 million and €30 million.




An admirable website run by Mills and Millers of Ireland (www.millsofireland.org) lists more than thirty mill sites across the country which are at present open to the public. One of these is Fancroft Mill which literally straddles Counties Tipperary and Offaly since the Little Brosna river, which runs right through the property, marks the dividing line between the two counties.  The present complex was constructed over a number of different periods but originally dated back to the late 18th century when owned by the Pims, a Quaker family from Mountmellick, County Laois. The mill was re-equipped and enlarged from 1883 onwards, with further extensions added later. It remained in use well into the second half of the 19th century, but then fell into disrepair until the place was bought by the present owners, Marcus and Irene Sweeney. 




Beginning in 2006, the Sweeneys embarked on an extensive and thorough restoration of the Fancroft Mill complex. The stone work was cleaned, conserved and repaired, 90  new sash windows installed, the four-storey bay re-roofed and ogee details over the doors enhanced. Internally, repairs to floors and the installation of new stairs permitted safe access to virtually all areas for visitors on guided tours. The water wheel, still for more than 60 years, revolved once more in 2009 and the following year a set of new mill stones was installed, permitting milling capability to be restored for domestic purposes: more recently, a generator was installed and contributes to the household heating system. A tea room and lecture/performance space have also been created inside the complex, a section of the space set aside to house the archives of Mills and Millers of Ireland. Acknowledgement of the work undertaken here was made in 2017 when the Irish Georgian Society awarded the Sweeneys with a Conservation Awards; two years later, Fancroft Mill won the Norman Campion Award Best Museum/Industrial Heritage Site presented by the Industrial Heritage Association of Ireland. Dublin City Council should have a word with the plucky owners of this property. They have shown what can be achieved without a series of headlines in the Irish Times – and for considerably less than €25-€30 million.

Fancroft Mill is open at certain times to the public. For information, please see: Fancroft Mill

A Neighbourhood Replete with History



A modest village in County Laois, Aghaboe (from the Irish Achadh Bhó, meaning ‘field of cows’), has been briefly mentioned here before (see Happily Disposed in the Most Elegant Taste « The Irish Aesthete) in relation to Heywood, some 12 miles away, where a pair of mediaeval windows have been incorporated into an 18th century folly. But Aghaboe itself deserves attention, since it was once the site of an important early Christian monastery, adjacent to which is now a restored early 18th century house along with other buildings of interest. 





The original abbey at Aghaboe was established in the 6th century by St Canice, who was interred here and around whose tomb would grow a substantial monastic settlement. In the 8th century, one of the abbots was St Fergal (otherwise Virgilius), mathematician and astronomer who would later move first to France and then to Austria where he became Abbot of St Peter’s Abbey in Salzburg. Nothing from this period in the monastery’s history survives due to repeated assaults on the place. The abbey was attacked and plundered by the Vikings in 913 before being rebuilt in 1052 with the relics of St Canice enshrined here. It was burned again in 1116 and rebuilt in 1189. In 1234 an Augustinian priory was established on the site (a Norman motte and bailey had already been constructed nearby). However, both the priory and a town which had grown up around it were burnt in 1346 by Diarmaid Mac Giollaphádraig, St Canice’s shrine being destroyed in the process.  In 1382 Finghan MacGillapatrick, Lord of Upper Ossory established a Dominican friary here and this survived until its suppression in 1540. What remains at Aghaboe are traces of the Dominican church, a long, barn-like building without aisles typical of the mendicant preaching orders, with one transept at the south-west end. There is a fine window at the east end of the nave and an ogee-headed piscina nearby on the south wall. In the transept, the east wall features a tall arched niche and there are also a couple of smaller aumbries. A watercolour by Daniel Grose dated 1792 depicts an elaborately carved doorcase on the south side but this has since disappeared. A few other traces of the church’s former decoration survive on the exterior of the Church of Ireland church lying behind the ruin: this dates from 1818 although the curious tower here – the lower portion square-shaped, the upper an awkwardly-placed octagon – may be a survivor from the Middle Ages, along with the three much-weathered heads over the west door. 





Just a few hundred yards south-east of the ruined and present churches, and overlooking both, stands Aghaboe House, a curiously double-fronted residence. The south facade, thought to date from c.1730, is of seven bays and two storeys, with a fine limestone pedimented doorcase. The north side is some 40 years later and is of five bays, centred on fan-lit doorway below a Venetian window above which a pediment breaks the shallow roofline. Internally, the house – which may incorporate elements of an older residence – is similarly divided into two parts, suggesting it was originally one room deep, with the larger rooms to the north, not least the double-height staircase hall with benefits from the Venetian window on the upper floor. Recently offered for sale, Aghaboe House was in a semi-ruinous condition when bought almost 40 years ago in 1984 by its present owner who has since gradually restored the building, along with others on the site, including another two-storey block diagonally to the immediate east. This might once have had a match on the western side; if so, it has long since disappeared. For much of the last quarter of the 18th century, Aghaboe House was home to the historian and Church of Ireland clergyman Rev Edward Ledwich (author of the text accompanying Francis Grose’s Antiquities of Ireland, published 1791-95) which suggests it could have served as a glebe house until a new one was built in 1820. The enlargement of the main house might even have been undertaken by Ledwich while he was in residence, since he and his wife had at least four daughters and four sons. Along with its neighbours, Aghaboe House contributes to an assemblage of buildings covering some 1,500 years of Irish history.



For more information about Aghaboe House and its sale, see: Aghaboe House, Aghaboe, Ballacolla, Co. Laois – Property.ie

An Excellent Example





Dromdihy – otherwise Dromdiah – County Cork has featured here a couple of times, the first occasion almost eight years ago, when the building was in a very poor condition and looked as though it were destined to go the way of so many other abandoned Irish country houses: into oblivion (see pictures above). However, a couple of years later, the property was bought by a couple determined to bring it back to life and when the Irish Aesthete revisited in 2018 (see pictures immediately below) work had begun on clearing the site and parts of Dromdihy hitherto submerged in vegetation had re-emerged. The interior also, much of it previously inaccessible, was likewise visible and even possible to explore (albeit only at basement level, the upper floors having long-since been lost). Further progress was made, but then the pandemic intervened, putting something of a halt to proceedings. Now, however, work on the site has resumed and considerable changes occurred, as can be seen by the latest number of photographs (see bottom series). All being well, within another year or two, Dromdihy will habitable and once more be a family home. 





As was noted here back in 2015, Dromdihy dates from the early 1830s when constructed for Roger Green Davis, agent for the absentee landlord Sir Arthur de Capell-Brooke. A description of the house thirty years after being built noted that it ‘consists of a centre and two wings, ornamented with Doric columns and with a portico at the eastern end, by the hall is entered, and off which are hot, cold, vapour and shower baths. The first floor comprises five sitting-rooms; on the second floor are four best bedrooms, with dressing-rooms and water-closet…’ Evidently Green Davis spared no expense on the property: it is said that the stone was cut by craftsmen brought from Italy for the purpose. But if the design was admirable, its execution left something to be desired: seemingly from the start Dromdihy suffered from damp, the roof leaking and the interior manifesting both dry and wet rot. Green Davis’ son John, a barrister, sold the place to William Stopford Hunt, an Assistant Land Commissioner and well-known cricketer. He retained ownership of the estate until 1923, at which time the house and surrounding ninety acres were purchased by the O’Mahony family. They ran a manufacturing and timber business on the estate but by 1944 the house was deemed uninhabitable and its roof removed. It went into decline thereafter, one that until recently looked irreversible. But, as has already been mentioned and as these pictures demonstrate, provided sufficient determination and imagination exist, no building is beyond salvation. Dromdihy deserves to be held up as an example of what can – and should – be done in this country.