Category Archives: Temple

At a Crossroads


Encircled by yew trees, here is the Temple of Mercury in the grounds of Dromoland Castle, County Clare. The building dates from the early 18th century, and appears on an estate map of c.1740 which shows it to have been of a elaborate formal layout that included avenues and terraces, as well as vistas of which this would have formed part, since it stands at the crossing of two straight paths. The temple features eight Doric columns supporting a timber dome covered in lead atop which perches a bronze statue of Mercury.

All That’s Left


A temple in what was once part of the demesne at Santry Court, County Dublin. The main house here was built c.1703 for Henry, third Lord Barry of Santry, scion of the ancient Cork family, who laid out classical gardens around the building. The latter, of red brick with stone facings and with an entrance approached via a long flight of steps, was extended by the addition of wings on either side probably undertaken by the fourth and last Lord Barry of Santry. He is better remembered today for killing a manservant, Laughlin Murphy, while drunk in September 1738. Subsequently tried by his peers and found guilty of murder, he escaped execution thanks to a royal pardon granted in 1740 and moved to England where he died eleven years later. Having no direct male heirs (although his unfortunate widow lived on until 1816), his Santry estate passed to cousins, the Domvilles who remained in possession of the property until the last century. It subsequently came into ownership of the Irish state but suffered from neglect and was gutted by fire in 1947, the ruins regrettably being demolished in the late 1950s: a short film on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw7Nb9tKcFI) shows a family visiting the shell of the house. While the greater part of the demesne is now covered in housing, a little over 70 acres of the old demesne still survives as a public park.