Encircled


The Tower House appears on this site regularly, often under the guise, or at least the name, of a castle. However, tower houses are distinct from, and appeared later than, castles which were introduced into Ireland by the Anglo-Normans in the 12th and 13th century and are substantial defensive structures, fortified keeps on raised ground within a walled enclosure. According to archaeologist Colm Donnelly, tower houses should be regarded as a species within the castle genus. While they were often erected inside a protective bawn wall, the typical tower house was a less complex building than the Norman castle, being, as its name implies, a tall, single tower. In this respect, the structures bear similarity to what are known as Peel Towers in northern England and the Scottish borders, and which date from much the same period. 





The origins of the Irish tower house date back to 1429. In that year, a statute issued by Henry VI, King of England (and ostensibly Lord of Ireland) declared, ‘It is agreed and asserted that every liege man of our Lord, the King of the said Counties, who chooses to build a Castle or Tower House sufficiently embattled or fortified, wither the next ten years to wit 20 feet in length, 16 feet in width and 40 feet in height or more, that the commons of the said Counties shall pay to the said person, to build the said Castle or Tower ten pounds by way of subsidy.’ The ‘said Counties’ to which this document refers covered the area taking in parts of what are now Meath, Louth and Kildare in which English authority still held sway and which was known as the Pale. And the intent behind the statute was to ensure better protection of that area from incursion by those who lived outside its perimeter.  It is often proposed that this piece of legislation, with its financial incentive, did much to encourage the popularity of tower houses within the boundaries of the Pale. However, soon enough they also began to appear elsewhere throughout the country, their construction popular among both descendants of the Anglo-Norman families and members of the Gaelic nobility. They continued to be built for some 200 years and it was only in the first half of the 17th century that they were superseded by fortified houses. It has been estimated that between 1400 and 1650 in the region of 3,000 tower houses were constructed. Many of them survive to the present day, in various states of repair.




No two tower houses are identical but customarily they were square or rectangular in shape, running to four or five storeys in height and with a single arched doorcase on the ground floor providing the only point of access. A number survive in County Tipperary which, unusually, are circular; one of these at Moorstown was shown here three years ago (see In the Round « The Irish Aesthete). Here is another, Ballynahow which is exceptionally well-preserved. It is believed to date from the early 16th century when erected by a branch of the Purcells, a family closely allied to the powerful Butlers, and whose main base was at Loughmoe (see A Former Family Seat « The Irish Aesthete): the latter incorporates a more typical tower house into a later fortified house. Ballynahow, on the other hand, is free-standing and, as already mentioned, cylindrical in shape. Thereafter much of its design and layout follows the typical pattern, with a large vaulted ground floor reached by an arched door on the east side (with a murder hole strategically placed above) and only narrow slits in the walls at this low level to provide light to the interior while not leaving those inside exposed or visible to attack. Larger window openings can be found on the upper floors, along with substantial chimneypieces as these were the main residential quarters for the occupants. They were reached thanks to a stone spiral staircase climbing around the immediate inside of the building. Four machiolations are evenly spaced along the roofline; the tower house would originally have been finished with a conical dome. It appears that as late as the 1840s the lower floors of Ballynahow were still in residential use and this may help to explain why it is in such good condition. 

A Reminder



In the little village of Newmarket, County Kilkenny stands this rather substantial building, of nine bays and one storey with half-attic. Designed in a loosely Tudoresque style with arched limestone ashlar recesses at ground level, the centre of the facade is occupied by a single-bay breakfront featuring a large carriage arch, now blocked, above which a framed plaque is carved with the date 1839. Now seemingly disused, it was presumably constructed an agricultural outbuilding for the Castle Morres estate which lay immediately to the south. While Castle Morres itself is gone (unroofed in the 1930s and demolished in 1978), this survives as a reminder of a now-vanished estate.


Replete with Memories


Lisronagh, County Tipperary is today not so much a village as a hamlet, but this was not always the case. According to Samuel Lewis, in 1837 it had a population of 981, whereas in the census of 2016, the number of inhabitants had fallen to 184. The latter figure is even a fraction of what it had been in the Middle Ages: surviving documentation from 1333 show Lisronagh’s population likely exceeded 400. At that time, the land here was held by Lady Elizabeth de Burgh, daughter of a descendant of William de Burgh, the Anglo-Norman knight who in the late 12th century had acquired vast estates in this part of the country. William de Burgh is thought to have built some kind of fortified structure at Lisronagh, probably of wood, but this was probably later replaced by a stone castle. That building is not what is seen on the site today, since the earlier structure appears to have been destroyed in the 15th century by Edmond Butler, eighth Baron Dunboyne and Seneschal of Tipperary. 





Lisronagh Castle, or what remains of it, is a 16th century tower house. A document dated 1530 in the collection of the National Library of Ireland shows the grant by one Richard Howet to Piers Butler, Earl of Ossory (later eighth Earl of Ormond) ‘of the tenement of the castle of Lisronagh.’ The present building may have been built thereafter, and remained the property of the Butler family at least into the latter part of the 17th century. When and how it fell into disrepair does not appear known. A large opening close to the base of the east wall (which faces the adjacent road) suggests this was the original entrance, although that is around the corner on the north side. High above the arched doorcase are corbels that would once have supported the now-lost machiolation; also largely gone are the window stones, presumably removed at some date. Internally, the tower house follows the usual pattern with a large, vaulted chamber of the ground floor. A flight of stairs to the immediate right of the entrance leads to the floors above, one of which retains a fireplace but otherwise little of the interior decoration survives. 





Immediately north of Lisronagh Castle is an abandoned church. Dedicated to St John the Baptist, it dates from 1831 when constructed with the aid of funds from the Board of First Fruits, and on the site of a Medieval building (presumably serving the 400-plus populace recorded as having been here in the 1330s). The church very much conforms to the Board of First Fruits typology, having a three-bay nave with access at the west end beneath a two-stage bell tower. The entrance features a handsome stone carved Tudor arch but otherwise there is little decoration and certainly nothing inside, which has been given over to vegetation (as has the eastern end of the church). Services ceased here a century ago, in 1923, and the building subsequently became roofless and open to the elements. So there they now stand, side by side, two historic properties, both abandoned, both replete with memories of the past.

Prior to This



The remains of the 15th century church at Cloughprior, County Tipperary. Its name derives from the fact that in the 12th century the land on which the building stands came into the possession of the Augustinian Priory of St John the Baptist some ten miles south at Tyone, on the outskirts of Nenagh. It subsequently became a parish church but then fell into ruin, although the surrounding graveyard has consistently remained a place of burial. Of note here is a separate, walled section set aside for members of the Waller family who for some 20o years lived close by at Prior Park, a house dating from the 1770s. One of those more recently interred was 26-year old Edward de Warenne Waller, killed in a terrorist bomb attack in Bali in 2002. 



Whom Love Binds as One



An ancient story lies behind the name of Ightermurragh Castle, County Cork. In the second quarter of the 17th century,  Edmund fitzjohn FitzGerald, son and heir of the last official Seneschal of Imokilly, had three daughters. Since there was no son to inherit his property, he decided to divide it between the trio, allowing them to choose which part of the property they would take.  The eldest said ‘Beigh Inse na Chruithneactha agam sa’ (I will have the Wheat Field by the River): this is a tower house called Castle Richard. The middle daughter said ‘An Cnoc Ghlas damh-sa’ ( The Green Hill for me): this is a townland which came to be known as Knockglass. Finally, the youngest daughter, Margaret FitzGerald said ‘Agus an t-Iochtar mo Rogha’ (The lower is my choice): from this utterance the name Ightermurragh is said to have derived.





Margaret FitzGerald married a local man, Edmond Supple, whose family was said to have descended from a Norman knight called de Capel or de la Chapelle. The couple embarked on constructing a new residence for themselves at Ightermurragh; a chimneypiece still extant on the first floor carries the following inscription in Latin ‘Edmundus Suppel Dominus Margritatque Gerald, hanc struxere Domum quos ligat unus amor 1641’ (Edmund Supple and Margaret Gerald, whom love binds as one, built this house in 1641). As was so often the case, especially during the troubled period of the Confederate Wars, the couple did not long enjoy the place: before long: in 1642 the Catholic rebels, having failed to persuade Supple to join them, drove him and his wife and children from Ightermurragh Castle and burnt it out. Edmund Supple died in 1648 and not long after the remains of the building and surrounding lands came into the possession of Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery who managed to hold onto this acquisition even after the Restoration of Charles II when many old Irish families managed to have their estates returned to them. Edmund Supple’s descendants instead received other land in the area and built a new house for themselves, which they called Supple’s Court. In the 18th century, Ightermurragh Castle – presumably restored – was leased to a branch of the Smyth family. However, in 1772 Mr Beverley Smyth was attacked by a band of robbers who broke into the building and supposedly roasted the occupant on a gridiron in order to make him tell them where he kept his money. The castle was thereafter abandoned and left to fall into its present condition. 





Of five storeys (including an attic and semi-basement) and divided by four string courses, Ightermurragh Castle – really a fortified house – stands on a rise above the river Womanagh and is cruciform in shape. What might be considered the main block runs east to west and measures 72 by 32 feet, with walls some five feet thick. The dimensions of the wings are 20 by 16 feet, the walls around four feet thick;; that to the south held the entrance, to the north the main staircase.  Forty-five feet high, the building retains six of the original seven chimneystacks which rise a further ten or 15 feet; twelve of the fireplaces survive in situ. Of various dimensions, there are 45 windows, although none on the west gable end. 


The Shifting Lens



Next week, on Monday 8th and Tuesday 9th May,  the 21st annual Historic Houses Conference takes place at Maynooth University, County Kildare with the theme ‘Picturing the Country House’. The Irish Aesthete will be among this year’s speakers, giving a talk entitled The shifting lens: A Century of Photographing Ireland’s Ruined Country Houses.
Over the past 100 years, many of these historic properties have been either destroyed or left to fall into ruin. During the same period, how such houses are represented in photographs has also changed. In the early 1920s, pictures were taken to provide objective evidence of damage and loss: their primary purpose was functional. However, gradually other, more personal responses to ruined houses began to emerge, so that today it might be said there is a pocket industry in recording decay and neglect (the Irish Aesthete is guilty as charged). Might this change in approach have affected attitudes towards Ireland’s country houses, perhaps encouraging perception of them less as emblems of a foreign oppressor and more as gracious remnants of a former era, their loss more a source of regret than delight. Over 100 years, have these photographs helped to alter ways of thinking, or do they reflect the evolution of a different mindset? To be discussed at next week’s conference…


For further information on the 21st annual Historic Houses Conference, please see 21st CSHIHE Conference flyer.pdf (maynoothuniversity.ie)

 

Second Time Around

Dowth Hall, County Meath was first discussed here in December 2012, when the house and surrounding land were offered for sale. Now, more than a decade later, the place has come back on the market. Below is the original text, along with fresh photographs of Dowth Hall taken in recent weeks. 



Located midway between Slane and Drogheda, and immediately north of the river Boyne, Dowth is today known as the site of one of a number of important Neolithic passage tombs in County Meath, others in its immediate vicinity including Newgrange and Knowth. But Dowth deserves to be renowned also for an important mid-18th century house. Dowth Hall dates from c.1760 and was built for John, Viscount Netterville (1744-1826). His family, of Anglo-Norman origin, had been settled in the area since at least the 12th century: in 1217 Luke Netterville was selected to be Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland. That religious streak remained with them and come the 16th century Reformation, the Nettervilles remained determinedly Roman Catholic. For this adherence some of them suffered greatly; when Drogheda fell to Oliver Cromwell in September 1649 the Jesuit priest Robert Netterville was captured and tortured, subsequently dying of the injuries sustained. Nevertheless, the Nettervilles survived, and even acquired a viscountcy. They also held onto their estates, one of a number of families – the Plunketts of Killeen Castle and the Prestons of Gormanston spring to mind – who retained both their religious faith and their lands, thereby disproving the idea that all Catholics automatically suffered displacement during the Penal era.





The sixth Viscount was only aged six on the death of his father, the latter dismissed by Mrs Delaney as ‘A fop and a fool, but a lord with a tolerable estate, who always wears fine clothes’ and otherwise only notable for having been indicted the year before his son’s birth for the murder of a valet (he was afterwards honourably acquitted by the House of Lords). The young Lord Netterville was raised by his widowed mother and spent much time in Dublin where the family owned a fine house at 29 Upper Sackville (now O’Connell) Street. The old castle in Dowth seems to have fallen into ruin and so, a few years after coming of age, Viscount Netterville undertook to construct a new house on his Meath estate. As is so often the case, information about the architect responsible for Dowth Hall is scanty. The common supposition is that the building was designed by George Darley (1730-1817), who had been employed for this purpose by Lord Netterville in Dublin where he was also the architect of a number of other houses. And indeed, from the exterior Dowth Hall, rusticated limestone ground floor and tall ashlar first floor with windows alternately topped by triangular and segmental pediments, looks like an Italianate town palazzo transported into the Irish countryside; not least thanks to its plain sides, the house seems more attuned to the streets of Milan than to the rich pasturelands of Meath.





The real delight of Dowth lies in its extravagantly decorated interiors, where a master stuccadore has been allowed free hand. The drawing room (originally dining room) is especially fanciful with rococo scrolls and tendrils covering wall panels and the ceiling’s central light fitting suspended from the claws of an eagle around which flutter smaller birds. None of the other ground floor rooms quite match this boldness but they all contain superlative plaster ornamentation, with looped garlands being a notable feature of the library. Again, the person responsible for this work is unknown, but on the basis of comparative similarities with contemporary stuccowork at 86 St Stephen’s Green in Dublin (on which George Darley is supposed to have worked) Dowth Hall’s decoration is usually attributed to Robert West (died 1790). Although not as extensive, there is even a certain amount of plasterwork decoration in the main bedrooms on the first floor, which is most unusual. And the house still retains its original chimneypieces (that in the entrance hall even has its Georgian basket grate), along with fine panelled doors and other elements from the property’s original construction. This makes it of enormous importance, since many other similar buildings underwent refurbishment and modernisation in the 19th century during which they lost older features.





There are reasons why Dowth Hall has survived almost unaltered since first built 250 years ago. The sixth Viscount Netterville, somewhat eccentric, fell into dispute with the local priest and was banned from the chapel on his own land; in retaliation, he built a ‘tea house’ on top of the Neolithic tomb from which he claimed to follow religious services through a telescope. But then he seems to have given up living at Dowth and moved back to Dublin. He never married and on dying at the age of 82 left a will with no less than nine codicils. One of these insisted that the Dowth estate go to whoever inherited the title, but it took eight years and a lot of litigation for the rightful heir, a distant cousin, to establish his claim. He did so at considerable cost and so, despite marrying an heiress, was obliged to offer Dowth for sale; the last Lord Netterville, another remote cousin, again died without heirs in 1882 and the title became extinct. Meanwhile Dowth was finally bought from the Chancery Court in 1850 by Richard Gradwell, younger son of a wealthy Catholic family from Lancashire. His heirs continued to live in the house for a century, but then sold up in the early 1950s when the place again changed hands. It did so one more time around twenty years later when acquired by two local bachelor farmers who moved into Dowth Hall. Following their respective deaths (the second at the start of last year), a local newspaper reported that the siblings had gone to Drogheda ‘every Saturday night, would attend the Fatima novena at 7.30pm then would walk over West Street to see what was going on, although they never took a drink or went to pubs.’ Now Dowth Hall is for sale, and there must be concern that it finds a sympathetic new owner because the house is in need of serious attention. It comes with some 420 acres of agricultural land, which means a sale is assured but that could be to the building’s disadvantage: it might fall into further desuetude if the farm alone was of interest to a purchaser. Too many instances of this have occurred in the past and it must not be allowed to happen here. One feels there ought to be some kind of vetting process to ensure prospective buyers demonstrate sufficient appreciation of the house. Only somebody with the same vision and flair as the sixth Lord Netterville should be permitted to acquire Dowth Hall.



Dowth Hall, along with 420 acres, was sold in January for €5 million. Now with 552 acres, the house is back on the market for €10 million. 

Not Very Gay




In the mid-1780s, Ralph Smyth purchased the Gaybrook estate in County Westmeath from one John Gay (reputedly related to the earlier John Gay, whose 1728 ballad drama The Beggar’s Opera, produced by John Rich, was famously said to have made ‘Rich gay and Gay rich’). Advised by amateur architect, the Rev Daniel Beaufort, Smyth embarked on building a new residence for himself on the property, but the gates and lodges are of a later date, constructed by his younger son Robert who inherited the place in 1827. At the eastern end of the estate, the front elevation of this one, with a canted central bay, suggests the house was only on one level. However, examination of the rear indicates it was actually two storeys high. Dean, in his gazeteer of Leinster lodges, speaks of the octagonal entrance hall having ‘a delicately vaulted plaster ceiling’ but alas, no evidence of this now survives, in consequence of the lodge being long neglected. The house itself, having survived until the early 1970s, was subsequently demolished.



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.




Not Long for This World



Unlikely to last much longer: a ruined tower house in County Tipperary known as Knigh Castle. The north-west portion of this four-storey building survives best, but much of the other walls has tumbled down, exposing the interior with its barrel-vaulted roof on the first floor. Despite occupying a prominent position on high ground beside a crossroads, little is known of Knigh Castle, and soon it threatens to become no more than a memory.