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One of the Prettiest and Most Striking Objects to be seen on the River Lee


‘About half-past two o’clock on Tuesday morning, Blackrock Castle was observed to be on fire, and in a few minutes presented a very imposing sight. The waters were illuminated, and the surrounding hills completely lit, presenting more the appearance of noon-day than of a dark night. Immediately after the cupola blazed with the greatest splendour, the heavy leads caught fire and sent to the river a liquid body of burning lead, the concussion between the red-hot lead and water sending forth a crash resembling the noise of artillery; the rain which fell about the time on the burning lead roof, yielding a noise like the fire of musketry. The whole presented a grand and awful sight, and continued burning with unabated fury for upwards of three hours. The roof has completely disappeared, and the timbers in the wall were burning this morning at seven o’clock. Fortunately, the inmates escaped unhurt. Had the wind been in another direction, the surrounding houses would probably have been destroyed. The fire is supposed to have been caused by a slate having broken the glass of the river light which is kept on Blackrock Castle for the use of ships, and the fire caught the roof.’
Dublin Morning Register, March 2nd 1827. 





Located on a limestone outcrop in the river Lee to the immediate east of Cork city, Blackrock Castle was originally built in the early 1580s and maintained by the local burghers according to a contemporary document, ‘to resist pirates and other invasion’ (it should be remembered that as late as 1631, the coastal village of Baltimore, further to the west was sacked by pirates and more than 100 of its residents carried off into slavery in Algiers). The first castle was little more than a watch tower which also served to help guide ships into Cork harbour. However, in the early 17th century, Ireland’s Lord Deputy Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy caused the building to be enlarged and reinforced, with walls over seven feet thick and the main circular tower having a diameter of some 34 and a half feet. Returned by James I to the citizenry of Cork in 1608,  this structure held artillery intended to repel any would-be invaders venturing up the river. In 1722, the castle was damaged by fire and, according to Charles Smith’s Ancient and Present State of the County and City of Cork (1750), the corporation spent £296 refurbishing the building, this work including the creation of ‘a very handsome octagon room, from whence is a delightful prospect of the harbour, from Passage to Cork.’ Here, according to Smith, ‘the mayors of Cork hold an admiralty court, being, by several charters, appointed admirals of the harbour.’ In addition, on the first day of August each year, the mayor and corporation held an ‘entertainment’ in the building, ‘at the charge of the city.’ Such remained the case until February 27th when a serious fire, as described above in the Dublin Morning Register, largely destroyed the old castle. 




In December 1827, Cork Corporation voted a sum of £800, and the Harbour Commissioners a further £200 towards the cost of rebuilding Blackrock Castle. The job was entrusted to architect siblings James and George Pain, both pupils of John Nash,  who had each come to Ireland during the previous decade and established thriving practices. As designed by the Pains and completed within two years, Blackrock Castle looks like a medieval fortress, its dominant feature being a large circular tower to which is attached a much more slender and somewhat taller turret: the latter continued to have navigation lights on its roof to aid shipping. Around the tower, a series of battlemented walls enclose a courtyard, helping to confirm the image of a romantic gothic castle. Despite being described in the Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society in 1914 as ‘one of the prettiest and most striking objects to be seen on the river Lee’, the building thereafter suffered from neglect for much of the last century,. It was leased to a professor of botany in the 1930s and then sold in the 1960s to a group of local businessmen, after which it served as a bar, a restaurant,  commercial offices and, for one period, as a private residence. In 2001 Blackrock Castle was bought back by Cork Corporation for IR£825,000 and a programme of restoration was undertaken. For almost 20 years, the building has housed an observatory run by Munster Technological University and laboratories staffed by astronomical researchers from the same institution. Although open to the public and hosting exhibitions, because the castle always served practical purposes, internally there is little of decorative interest, other than a fine limestone chimneypiece from the second quarter of the 17th century and originally in a since-demolished house called Ronayne’s Court. Better to rejoice in the handsome exterior, with the waters of the river Lee washing against a sequence of towers and turrets.


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The Pale Moon was Rising


For the week that’s in it: on the side of a road to the immediate north-west of Tralee, County Kerry can be found the graveyard of Clogherbrien. Seemingly, this site is where Mary O’Connor, the original Rose of Tralee, was buried. According to popular legend, she was a poor but beautiful servant girl with whom William Mulchinock, member of a wealthy merchant family fell in love and about whom he later wrote the following sentimental lines:
‘The pale moon was rising above the green mountains,
The sun was declining beneath the blue sea,
When I strayed with my love by the pure crystal fountain,
That stands in the beautiful Vale of Tralee.
She was lovely and fair as the rose of the summer,
Yet ‘twas not her beauty alone that won me.
Oh no, ‘twas the truth in her eyes ever dawning
That made me love Mary, the Rose of Tralee.’





The same popular tale proposes that in 1843, having been falsely accused of the murder of another local man, William Mulchinock was forced to abandon the lovely Mary O’Connor and flee Ireland, moving to India where he became a war correspondent on the Northwest frontier during the Afghanistan War. Supposedly, following the intervention of fellow Irishman and Commander-in-Chief of the British army in India, Field-Marshall Hugh Gough, after six years Mulchinock was able to return home. However, the day he arrived back in Tralee happened to coincide with Mary O’Connor’s funeral.  Seemingly Mulchinock was heartbroken, although he recovered sufficiently to marry later that year and move to the United States where he and his wife Alice had a number of children, Mulchinock, legend would have it, then abandoned this family, preferring to return once more to Tralee where he pined for Mary O’Connor before dying of fever in 1864. 





For all its whimsical charm, the above story bears little semblance to the truth. William Pembroke Mulchinock (1820-64) was indeed the member of a well-to-do merchant family in Tralee, and indeed a supporter of the Young Ireland movement in the 1840s. On the other hand, the date of his marriage to Alice Keogh of Ballinasloe was 1847 (when he was supposed still to be in India) and, accompanied by his wife and a young daughter, he emigrated to the United States in 1848: the couple would later have a son. In New York, Mulchinock worked for various newspapers and wrote verses, publishing a collection in 1851: tellingly, this volume (dedicated to Henry Longfellow) did not include ‘The Rose of Tralee.’ That poem had already appeared in print in 1846, when included in a volume called The heir of Abbotsville by English author, Edward Mordaunt Spencer, published the verses in his 1846 volume, The heir of Abbotsville, with an annotation stating ‘Set to music by Stephen Glover, and published by C. Jeffreys, Soho-square.’ As for Mulchinock, it is true that his marriage failed and that he returned to Tralee where in 1861 he was one of the founders of the Kerry Star, the first Roman Catholic-run newspaper in Kerry, dying of fever in October 1864. Returning to Mary O’Connor, her own supposed burial place is marked not by one of the handsome table tombs which proliferate in Clogherbrien graveyard, but by a singularly ugly modern monument. 


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Kindly Regarded Here


Writing about follies more than 70 years ago, illustrator and author Barbara Jones described these structures as ‘built for pleasure, and pleasure is personal, difficult to define. Follies are fashionable or frantic, built to keep up with the neighbours, or built from obsession. They are at once cheerful and morbid, both an ornament for a gentleman’s grounds and a mirror for his mind.’ When Jones’s Follies and Grottoes first appeared in 1953, little had been written about the subject but by the time a revised and enlarged edition was published in 1974, follies were much studied and appreciated. That updated work also contained a gazetteer of follies, including those in Ireland, with Jones commenting that Irish examples were ‘better preserved than they would be in England, for follies are kindly regarded here, and few heave a brick at them.’ Jones’s list was quite patchy, but since then, architect James Howley has published his invaluable The Follies and Garden Buildings of Ireland (1993), so now there is an abundance of information about where to find most, if not quite all, of them in this country. Herewith today, three examples of the genre. 





Coming into the coastal town of Ardglass, County Down from the south, the visitor’s eye is caught by a small gothic structure high on a hill. Now in the middle of a housing estate, this is Isabella’s Tower, a two storey construction, measuring 27 feet high and 18 feet wide. The first level is octagonal with one door and one window. A staircase, now gone, led to an upper floor which is circular with four windows. It was built in 1851 by Aubrey William Beauclerk (1801-1854) for his daughter, Isabella, who was suffering from tuberculosis, so that she could enjoy the bracing air coming from the Irish Sea. Evidently, this did the job as Isabella survived, marrying a sergeant-major from Corfu in 1867. The tower later served as a coastguard station, before the surrounding land was gradually sold off and it now stands neglected, a prey to vandalism.





The main house at Monksgrange, County Wexford was originally built in 1769 (see Monksgrange « The Irish Aesthete) but with only the north quadrant and wind completed. Towards the end of the 18th century, work began on construction of a southern wind but then the 1798 Rebellion erupted and the Richards family, who owned the property, fled to England, only returning some 20 years later. Subsequently plans for the southern wing were abandoned but the stones on the site reused to construct a folly in the gardens behind the house. Dating from 1822, this takes the form of a miniature castle, of two storeys with arched gothic doorcase and windows below a battlemented roofline.





Barbara Jones proposed that in country house gardens there is difference between temples and follies, the former being generally classical in style, the latter gothic. But she also insisted that ‘there is a difference of mood; a temple is an ornament, a folly is glass, and bones and a hank of weeds.’ Her argument fails to withstand scrutiny, since the essence of a folly lies in its name, because whatever the style of architecture employed, its purpose is essentially decorative rather than functional. This is certainly the case with one of the country’s more recent follies: the temple at Altamont, County Carlow (see Developments Awaited « The Irish Aesthete). The building was erected by Corona North in 1998, shortly before she died and constructed of local granite with six Doric columns supporting a domed roof. The temple is beautifully situated at the topmost point of a field to the rear of the house offering eastward views towards the distant Wicklow Mountains. 


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Make Merry and Be Glad



Of late, and even before the publication last year of The Irish Country House: A New Vision (Rizzoli, 2024), the Irish Aesthete has been increasingly interested in discovering historic properties which have undergone an improvement in their fortunes. For many decades, and certainly for much of the last century, our architectural heritage suffered from cruel, and even from time to time gratuitous, negligence. In consequence, we lost much which could have and should have been saved, as can be seen by the considerable number of ruined structures scattered across the national landscape. But of late, there appears to be a change of attitude and, at least in some quarters, a desire not to leave older structures fall into ruin. Instead, they are being brought back from the brink by a new generation of owners who have the imagination to see the potential in what was built by our predecessors, and a determination that these buildings have a future as well as a past.





Over the past ten years or so, a number of state-backed initiatives, run by both central and local government as well as a number of other agencies, have begun to provide financial assistance to owners who wish to undertake restoration work on their historic property. While the funds available are not necessarily as much as might be needed, the existence of these supports likewise indicates a change in attitude towards our built heritage, not least a better understanding of how important is its preservation. Of course, many old properties continue to face dilapidation and disrepair, most often through simple neglect. However, it is imperative that sometimes we celebrate what has been saved. As the prodigal father proclaims to his disgruntled elder son in Luke’s Gospel, ‘it was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.’ 





Today’s pictures show just such a lost and found property, Solsborough, County Tipperary. The present house dates back to the 1830s but appears likely to have been constructed on the site of an older residence since the family who lived there, the Poes, had been settled in this part of the country since the 1660s. Like so many other buildings of this ilk, Solsborough was unroofed in c.1953, thereby saving the then-owners the necessity of paying domestic rates. When the Irish Aesthete first visited the place nine years ago, little more than the exterior walls remained, although by then the building was encased in scaffolding as the owners, who had bought it in 2014, were already intending to embark on a restoration programme. Returning to the house now, and as these pictures show, it is difficult to believe this was once a roofless ruin, so thorough a job has been undertaken on the place. To see Solsborough in all its glory now is to understand why there are occasions when we must make merry and be glad.



I shall be speaking next Thursday, September 11th at the Old Museum Building, Belfast on the subject of The Irish Country House: A New Vision (see The Irish Country House: A New Vision by Robert O’Byrne – UAH) and at the Hunt Museum, Limerick on Thursday, September 18th (see Hunt Family Memorial Lecture – ‘The Irish Country House: A New Vision’ – The Hunt Museum)

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Ray of Light




The remains of a little church in Ray, County Donegal, said to have been founded by St Fionnán in the sixth century, although the present building is late mediaeval. It has four arched windows on the south wall and an entrance at the west end as well as what appears to be another, long-blocked entrance on the east gable wall. Inside stands what is thought to be the tallest High Cross in Ireland, rising more than 19 feet high. According to legend, the cross was originally made for St Columba who planned to bring it across to Tory Island but instead presented the finished work to St Fionnán. A charming story but it is now accepted that the cross dates from several centuries after both men lived. Aside from its exceptional height, the cross is also notable for being cut from a single piece of stone from the Muckish mountains, and for being very thin, only about six inches deep: this perhaps explains why, unlike many other High Crosses, it is undecorated. The cross was blown down in a storm in the mid-18th century and lay on the ground until the 1970s when placed in its present location.



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A Summer Memory


As we approach the winter solstice, a visit from precisely six months ago to Primrose Hill which sits above the village of Lucan, County Dublin. The house is a late 18th century villa, the design of which has been sometimes attributed to architect James Gandon. Today, it sits amid several acres of gardens developed by the present owner and his late parents.



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A Perfect Dozen

Irish Architectural Archive, Merrion Square, Dublin, September 2012

Belan, County Kildare, September 2013

Dawson Mausoleum, Dartrey, County Monaghan, September 2014

See House, Kilmore, County Cavan, September 2015

Kilfane, County Kilkenny, September 2016

Mount Panther, County Down, September 2017

This week, the Irish Aesthete marks its 12th birthday. As always, such an anniversary always surprise, not least because when this site was inaugurated, the question most often asked was ‘How long before you run out of material?’ There was no answer to that query at the time, and there isn’t one now. Since 2012, the Irish Aesthete has covered a considerable range of buildings, eras and styles across all 32 of the island’s counties; herewith a dozen images from previous Septembers to illustrate this point. Some of them are in perfect condition, others in varying stages of Ireland (as is so often the case here). But so much of the country’s architectural heritage remains to be discovered and discussed, and that’s what lies ahead: whether for one or 12 years, the journey goes on. As always, thank you to all friends and followers for continuing to travel around Ireland with the Irish Aesthete. Your company and interest remains enormously important and greatly appreciated. And so we go forward.

Clonony Castle, County Offaly, September 2018

Castle Cuffe, County Laois, September 2019

St Brigid’s Hospital, Ballinasloe, County Galway, September 2020

Castle Oliver, County Limerick, September 2021

Coolamber, County Westmeath, September 2022

Edmondstown, County Roscommon, September 2023

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Alternative Options Sought



After Monday’s discussion of Garbally Court, County Galway, here is the stableyard which lies a short distance to the east of the house. The U-plan building dates from c.1820 and was therefore presumably designed by the same architect as the house, Thomas Cundy. Of limestone ashlar, it is similarly severe in manner and, like Garbally Court itself, has a two-storey, eleven bay facade, in this case with a central pedimented carriage arch flanked by Giant Order pilasters. The north and south sides of the courtyard are of nine bays and the west end has a central gateway with arched openings on either side. For a long time this was part of the diocesan school complex, but now, once more like Garbally Court, another use must be found for the complex.