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Recalling Lost Houses


In his Topographical Dictionary of Ireland published in 1837, Samuel Lewis wrote of Kilcommon, County Mayo that the old church here, ‘was a chapel of ease, built in 1688 by Archbishop Vesey, who was buried in it, and was made the parish church on the church of Kilcommon becoming ruinous. The present church, which is also in Hollymount, was built in 1816, the late Board of First Fruits having granted a loan of £1000 ; it is a handsome building, with a cast iron spire, and is fitted up with English oak.’ The church, dedicated to King Charles the Martyr, is of cruciform shape and constructed of limestone ashlar; as Lewis noted, rather unusually, the spire is made of cast-iron. Services continued to be held here until November 1959 and the roof removed four years later. Seemingly the doorcase went to Ballintober Abbey and a wall monument remounted in St Mary’s Church, Ballinrobe, both in County Mayo, while the English oak mentioned by Lewis was repurposed in St Paul’s Church, Glenageary, County Dublin and the east window moved to St John’s Church, Lurgan, County Armagh.





In the same entry, Lewis notes that the family vaults of the Binghams, Lords Clanmorris, along with monuments of the Lindsey and Ruttledge families are to be found in the graveyard of King Charles the Martyr. The Binghams had settled in this part of the county in the mid-17th century and there built a house called Newbrook; it was accidentally destroyed in a fire in 1837 and not rebuilt. The monument, to the immediate east of the church, commemorates John Bingham who in 1800 agreed to surrender to the government the two parliamentary seats he controlled in the local borough in exchange for £8,000 and a peerage (for more on this, see Where Turkeys Voted for Christmas « The Irish Aesthete). Visitors to the graveyard note that the tomb is ‘Sacred to the memory of The Right Honorable John Charles Smith de Burgh Bingham, Lord Baron Clanmorris of Newbrook in the County of Mayo, A NOBLEMAN distinguished for the possession of those many eminent virtues which adorn life whether we consider him in the Character of a HUSBAND, FATHER, LANDLORD or FRIEND.’ Another side of the same monument observes that also interred here is Lord Clanmorris’s daughter Caroline Bingham, who died at the age of 15 in April 1821, a month before her father. The Lindsey family settled in the area in 1757 when Thomas Lindsey married Frances Vesey, a granddaughter of John Vesey who had built a house at Hollymount which she duly inherited; the family remained on the estate there until the start of the last century when it was sold to the Congested Districts’ Board. As for the Ruttledges, they lived at Bloomfield, a large house built c.1776. The tomb here commemorates Elizabeth, wife of Robert Ruttledge and daughter of Francis Knox of Rappa Castle, elsewhere in the county. According to the inscription, ‘Her engaging mildness unceasing humanity and warm affection endeared her to all her acquaintance and her uniform and unobtrusive piety together with the unremitting firmness with which she performed all her duties during a life of 56 years afforded them the consoling and confident hope that her soul fled to that place where the spirits of the just are made perfect.’





As already mentioned, the Bingham’s home, Newbrook, was destroyed by fire in 1837 and never rebuilt. Hollymount, originally built by Archbishop Vesey at the start of the 18th century but substantially altered in the 19th, was eventually inherited by Mary Lindsey who in 1885 at the age of 19 married Heremon FitzPatrick; his sister Mary FitzPatrick, better known as Patsy, was one of the great beauties of the late 19th century who at the age of 16 had an affair with the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) before being hastily married to William Cornwallis-West, with whom she had three children. Her brother Heremon, who had assumed the surname Lindsey, remained in possession of Hollymount until 1922 when it was sold; the house is now a ruin. Bloomfield, home of the Ruttledges, was similarly sold in the early 1920s, acquired by the Land Commision and subsequently damaged by fire, it is now a ruin. As for Rappa Castle, childhood home of Elizabeth Ruttledge, it too has become a roofless shell (see Crumbling is not an Instant’s Act « The Irish Aesthete). So this collection of tombs in the graveyard of a derelict church is all that remains to recall a series of once powerful families in County Mayo.

In Carrickfergus


‘For several miles before the traveller reaches Carrickfergus, his attention will be arrested by its fine old castle, built upon a rock, which, though not lofty, yet projecting into the sea, causes it to stand out conspicuously. It consists of a massive and lofty keep, surrounded by an embattled wall of considerable circuit, fortified by towers at intervals, and having a frowning gateway, protected by two half-moon towers, connected by a curtain wall; the draw-bridge has disappeared, and the moat is filled up, but the portcullis and the apertures for letting stones, melted lead, &c., fall on the heads of assailants, are still to be seen.
The exact period at which the castle was built and the town of Carrickfergus founded, seems to be involved in some degree of doubt. M’Skimin, the accurate and laborious historian of the town, informs us that “the founding of this building is lost in the depths of antiquity;” elsewhere he, however, states that a colony was established here in 1182 by the celebrated John de Courcey, who “soon after began to erect castles and forts to secure his conquests” in Ulster. Perhaps the earliest distinct mention of the castle of Carrickfergus occurs in the account of King John’s journey in the year 1210. From the itinerary compiled by Thomas Duffus Hardy, F.S.A., from original records and published by the Record Commissioners, we find that John remained at Carrickfergus from the 19th to the 28th July, and a dispatch from him to his father, Henry II, king of England, dated at Carrickfergus, in which he mentions having taken the castle, is said to be still extant among the MMS. in the library of Trinity College Dublin. The architecture of the castle clearly shows it to have received many additions and alterations at various periods. The assizes for the county of Antrim were long held within its walls. It has at all times been esteemed an important fortress, and from time to time has been accordingly repaired; in 1793 it was converted into a barrack, as which it was until recently occupied, the great tower serving as an armoury, magazine, and ordnance storehouse. A ramble through its court-yards, along its walls, and into many of the obscurer parts of this ancient fortress, will amply reward the tourist for a short delay.’
From Belfast and its Environs (Dublin, 1842)






‘Carrickfergus Castle is supposed to have been founded by De Courcey about the end of the twelfth century, and is a place of considerable importance in the history of Ireland. From the middle of the fourteenth to the end of the sixteenth century, it was the only stronghold north of Dundalk which remained uniformly in the hands of an English garrison, and to the loyalty of the townsmen of Carrickfergus is chiefly to be attributed the recovery of the Northern Pale in the reign of Elizabeth. The castle was besieged and taken by Edward Bruce in 1315; it is said that the garrison, before surrendering, were driven to devour thirty Scots whom they had made prisoners. In 1333 the Irish overran all the south part of the county of Antrim, and the garrison of the castle with the inhabitants of the town that had arisen under shelter of its walls, were left alone in the midst of enemies. In 1386 the town was burned by the island Scots, and suffered again in 1400. In 1503 Gerald, Earl of Kildare, lord-deputy, afforded some relief to the struggling colonists by garrisoning the castle. In 1555, he Scots undere Mac Donnell, Lord of Cantyre, laid close siege to the castle until July 1556, when Sir Henry Sidney relieved the garrison with great slaughter of the besiegers. In 1573 the town was burned by Brian Mac Phelimy O’Neill, chief of Claneboy, who was hanged here along with Mac Quillan, chief of the route, in 1575…’
From The Penny Cyclopedia, Vol.VI (London, 1836) 






‘The year 1760 is memorable as being the year in which the French, under the command of Commodore Thourot, landed in Carrickfergus and attacked the town. Though the castle was in a most dilapidated state, a breach being in the wall next to the sea fifty feet wide, no cannons mounted, and the garrison few in number, yet Colonel Jennings, encouraged by the mayor and other inhabitants, bravely met the invaders, and when driven back by the superior strength of their assailants, they retreated into the castle and repulsed the French, even though they forced the upper gate. But all the ammunition being expended, a parley was beaten, and the garrison capitulated on honourable terms. During the attack several singular circumstances occurred. When the French were advancing up High-street, and engaged with the English, a little child ran out playfully into the street between the contending parties. The French officer, to his honour be it recorded, observing the danger in which the little boy was in, took him up in his arms, ran with him to a house which proved to be his father’s, the sheriff, and having left him safe, returned to the engagement. This really brave and humane man was killed at Carrickfergus Castle gate…The French kept possession of Carrickfergus for some time; but the alarm having been carried all over the country, and troops gathering fast to attack them, they were constrained to embark on board their vessels and set sail; and two days afterwards were attacked off the Isle of Man by an English squadron, when Commodore Thourot was killed, and the French ships captured, and so ended an expedition which was better executed than planned, cost the French money, men and ships, without one single advantage to be derived which any man of experience or military discernment could possibly look for.’
From The Dublin Penny Journal, No.15, Vol.I, October 6 1832

Out of Service




After Monday’s account of Bessbrook, here is what might be classified as one of the casualties of the town’s success: the former St Jude’s church a couple of miles to the south-west. The building dates from 1772 and has been attributed to architect Thomas Cooley since by that date he had begun receiving commissions from Richard Robinson, Archbishop of Armagh (and who carried on employing Cooley until the latter’s early death in 1784). Whoever was responsible, the design is a standard hall of three bays with a tower and entrance at the west end, built of coursed rubble with granite used for the doorcase, windows and quoins. Although capable of accommodating a congregation of some 120 souls, St Jude’s probably never attracted that number and it was abandoned as a place of worship in the late 1860s when a new Church of Ireland church was constructed in Bessbrook.



Walled In


Rowallane, County Down was given its present name in the second half of the 19th century by a Church of Ireland clergyman, the Rev.John Robert Moore; he was inspired by Rowallan Castle in Ayrshire, whence his Muir ancestors were said to have come. In Ireland, the Moores acted as agents for the Annesley family and for a number of years the Rev Moore served in that role: his sister, in 1828 his younger sister Priscilla Cecilia married the third Earl Annesley, but following the latter’s death ten years later, her brother took over much of the responsibility for the widow and her young children. Castlewellan having not yet been built, at the time, the Annesleys were living at Donard Lodge, elsewhere in County Down. Here the Moore siblings, sister and brother, created a splendid garden running to some 80 acres, featuring a hermitage, aviary, shell house, visitors’ dining room, as well as cascades and waterfalls and decorative bridges: one suspects at least part of the inspiration for all this came from Tollymore not far away (see Do the Wright Thing « The Irish Aesthete).  Only once his nephew, the fourth earl, had come of age did the Rev Moore retire as agent and focus on his own interests. The previous year he had married, but just six years later she died. A widower and in his mid-50s, he now decided to embark on creating a home for himself, in 1858 buying 507 acres in the townland of Creevyloughgare just south of the village of Saintfield. Over the following decades, he acquired more land in the area, so that eventually his total hosling was just short of 1,000 acres. 





The land which the Rev Moore bought at Creevyloughgare contained just a modest farmhouse, so one of his first tasks was to provide himself with a more impressive dwelling. Work here started around 1860-61 and was completed in 1864. While larger than its predecessor (parts of which may have been incorporated into the structure) the new house has no grand architectural pretensions, being a long, plain building of two storeys. A single-storey porch with gothic doorcase sits at the centre of the double-gabled facade;; this dates from 1931 when the house was enlarged and remodelled. To the south lies the stable courtyard, begun in 1865 and entreed through a castellated gothic archway, beside which is a tall bell tower, dated 1867. The top of the tower serves as a belvedere, with lancet windows on three sides and an oculus on the fourth, as well as a viewing platform on the top, offering an ample prospect over the surrounding countryside. 





The area between the stableyard and the house at Rowallane is taken up by a walled garden covering just over two acres and divided into two sections. Originally the entire site would have been given over to the production of fruit and vegetables but in the opening decades of the last century these were gradually supplanted by ornamental shrubs, climbers and herbaceous perennials. When the Rev Moore died in 1888, he left the estate for ten years to a nephew, James Hugh Moore Garrett, with the stipulation that Rowallane should then pass to another nephew, Hugh Armytage-Moore on the latter’s 25th birthday in 1898. In the event, Armytage-Moore did not move there for another five years, having – like his uncle and other members of the family before him – acted as agent for the Annesley estate: his sister, another Priscilla Cecilia Moore, had married her cousin, the fifth Earl Annesley (incidentally, another sister was married to composer and artist Percy French). Whereas the Rev Moore had been primarily interested in laying out the demesne at Rowallane – blasting rock to create drives through the property, and then setting up sundry standing stones and ornamental cairns along the routes, as well as establishing many stands of trees throughout the demesne – Armytage-Moore was a plantsman who subscribed to botanical expeditions by the likes of Frank Kingdon-Ward and then benefitted from the discoveries that they made, some of the results of which can still be seen in Rowallane’s walled garden, contentedly sharing space with many indigenous Irish plants, in a model of the Robinsonian-inspired garden. Armytage-Moore died in 1954 and the following year Rowallane was acquired by the National Trust which continues to be responsible for the property. 

A Gardener’s Legacy


This week marks the first anniversary of the death of architect and garden designer Angela Jupe at her home at Bellefield, County Offaly, where the Irish Aesthete had paid a visit just a few weeks before that unhappy event. After graduating from university, she worked for a number of architectural firms before heading up a design team at the Industrial Development Agency (IDA). But by the mid-1980s she had established her own practice and begun to follow her personal passion for gardening. She created two businesses, the Traditional Gardening Company which specialised in garden design and construction, and the Garden Furnishing Company, a retail outlet. 





As the name of her garden design business indicates, Angela Jupe loved old-fashioned gardens: an obituary in the Irish Times quoted her observation that ‘Some modern landscape architecture feeds only the eyes and forgets that we have noses for scent and hands for touch…Not only is there too much hard landscaping but it leads to plants that grow into a little circle requiring no pruning, care or attention.’ The first country garden she created for herself was at Fancroft Millhouse, County Tipperary which had stood empty and neglected for 12 years before she bought it in 1997 and embarked on a thorough restoration, not just of the grounds but also the house and outbuildings. Then in  2004 she took on a fresh challenge, moving to Bellefield, where the stables and walled garden had stood unused for the previous three decades.





Bellefield is a charming small gentleman’s residence dating from the first years of the 19th century. A keen believer in conservation and architectural salvage, Angela Jupe filled the house with decorative items brought from other buildings, as she also did when restoring the stableyard to the rear. And in the two-acre walled garden, which again benefitted from her attention and experience, she constructed both a charming little onion-domed folly and a large glasshouse from various pieces of salvage. The garden itself, formerly completely overgrown, displays her various passions, not least for snowdrops, of which there are more than 300 different varieties, one of the largest such collections in Ireland. In addition, there is an abundance of old French roses, rare daffodils, Chinese peonies and old fruit trees. Following her unexpected death, it emerged that she had left the Bellefield, the house and its garden, to the Royal Horticultural Society of Ireland (RHSI) of which she had been a long-standing supporter and board member. The process of transfer of ownership is still ongoing, but the RHSI is currently maintaining the site and hopes to open it to the public next year.

A Cause for Worry



Like so many Irish towns, Ennis, County Clare sometimes seems determined not to take best advantage, or best care, of its architectural heritage. Nothing better exemplifies this unfortunate state of affairs than Bindon Street, a short stretch of road comprising two terraces facing each other, both holding six properties. A mixture of two and three bays wide, the houses are of three or four storeys over basement, with handsome limestone doorcases and, in most cases, mellow brick facades. Dating from the early 1830s, Bindon Street has the potential to be a splendid, albeit rather truncated, thoroughfare, a celebration of Ennis’s thriving mercantile and architectural past. Alas, while some of the buildings have been decently maintained, others suggest all is not well. No. 1, for example, is distinguished from the others by a bay window added to the ground floor around the middle of the 19th century. At this level all seems fine, but raise your eyes and note the insertion of unsuitable uPVC windows, at least in some openings – others on the top floors are boarded up. A cause for worry. 



P.S. And would someone please do something about all those ugly exposed electric cables snaking across every building. 

Successive Ruins



Another abandoned Church of Ireland church, this one in Dungarvan, County Kilkenny. It dates from 1812 when constructed with help from the Board of First Fruits. As earlier gravestones around the building attest, his was not the first such place of worship on the site. A drawing made in 1799 by amateur artist Austin Cooper, after an original by landscape painter James George Oben, shows the church’s predecessor: what would appear to be a late-medieval structure with a bellcote on the west end and a door on the north wall. The main body of the building was roofless but the east end featured a four-storey tower with crenellations, which presumably provided accommodation for the cleric who conducted services. Today the church which replaced it is in no better condition.


The Bells, The Bells


Earlier this month, one of Cork city’s best-known landmarks celebrated the tercentenary of its construction. Located high above the river Lee and immediately west of Skiddy’s Almshouses (see Alms and the Man « The Irish Aesthete) St Anne’s church dates from 1722 when it was constructed close to the site of an earlier place of worship, St Mary’s, which had been severely damaged in 1690 when Cork was besieged by Williamite forces under the authority of John Churchill, future first Duke of Marlborough. The exterior of the building is rather plain, using a mixture of red sandstone rubble that seemingly came from the mediaeval Shandon Castle which stood nearby, and cut limestone for quoins and the round-arched window surrounds taken from a former Franciscan friary elsewhere in the city. The most notable external feature is the substantial entrance doorcase, approached via two flights of stone steps and comprising a round-arched doorway flanked by Tuscan pilasters supporting a very substantial entablature. 





The interior of St Anne’s underwent an extensive refurbishment in the last decade of the 19th century when the pine barrel-vaulted ceiling was installed and much of the chancel panelled in the same dark-stained wood. Either then or at some other date, the customary box pews were also removed from the nave although a version of them survives in the short north transept which also holds a monument incorporating a mosaic panel depicting St George and dedicated to members of the parish who had died during the First World War. Supported on Ionic columns, a gallery at the west end remains from the original design, as do the barley-twist balusters of the communion rail, but the stained glass is predominantly late-Victorian, as are the pulpit and desk, both carved from Devonshire stone. 





As mentioned, St Anne’s best-known feature is its bell tower, a sturdy piece of work rising 120 feet with walls seven feet thick: energetic visitors can climb 132 steps to reach this point, which offers spectacular views across the city and surrounding suburbs. In 1749-50, the tower was raised a further 50 feet by the addition of three diminishing stages, clad in limestone and with clasping pilasters in Tuscan, Doric and Ionic orders successively, the whole crowned with a lead dome with a gilded weathervane in the form of a salmon: in Cork parlance, this is known as ‘the goldie fish.’ The city corporation was responsible in 1847 for adding a clock face to each side of the tower. Again, locals have called this the ‘four-faced liar’ since the time on each clock does not always correspond with that of its immediate neighbours. The eight bells within the tower are much loved by Corkonians; they were cast in Gloucester in 1750 and installed two years later, ringing for the first time on 7th December 1752 to mark the marriage of Henry Harding to Catherine Dornan. Each bell carries a different graceful inscription, such as ‘When us you ring we’ll  sweetly sing’ and ‘Prosperity to the city and trade thereof’. Shandon’s Bells are synonymous with the city, but a decision not to ring them was taken two years ago at the start of the Covid pandemic, and they have not been heard since. The people of Cork will know normality has returned when the bells of St Anne’s ring out once more.