Up in Alms



The former Ormonde Hospital in Kilkenny city. Originally established by Walter Butler, 11th Earl of Ormonde in 1632, the Hospital of Our Most Holy Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was actually an almshouse built at 4 High Street (the site today occupied by a bank building) where it remained for the next 200 years, being repaired in 1783 when it provided accommodation for eight widows and their families. In 1839 John Butler, second Marquess of Ormonde moved the hospital to this site on Barrack Street, into a property constructed in the then-fashionable Tudor-revival style, and the old premises on High Street were demolished two years later. Today the building shown here is occupied by various social services.


A Considerable Place of Strength


‘This family is originally of Norman extraction and was anciently called De La Montagne. In the reign of King Edward III, its members were styled Hill, alias De La Montagne; but in succeeding ages, they were known by the name of Hill only.
Sir Moyses Hill, Knt. (descended from the family of Hill, of Devonshire, two members of which were judges of England at the beginning of the 15th century, and one lord mayor of London, anno 1484), went over to Ireland as a military officer, with the Earl of Essex, in 1573, to suppress O’Neill’s rebellion; and was subsequently appointed governor of Olderfleet Castle, an important fortress at the period, as it protected the harbour of Larne from the invasion of the Scots. Sir Moyses represented the county of Antrim in the parliament of 1613, and having distinguished himself during a long life, both as a soldier and a magistrate, died in February 1629-30, and was succeeded by his elder son Peter Hill esq but we pass to his younger son Arthur who eventually inherited the estates on the demise of Peter’s only son Francis Hill esq of Hill Hall, without male issue.
The said Arthur Hill esq of Hillsborough, was colonel of a regiment in the service of King Charles I, and he sate in parliament under the usurpation of Cromwell, as well as after the Restoration, when he was sworn of the privy council…’
From A General and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire by John Burke, Esq. (1833)





‘Hillsborough: This place, originally called Cromlyn, derived its present name from a castle erected by Sir Arthur Hill in the reign of Chas. I, which at the time of the Restoration, was made a royal fortress by Chas. II, who made Sir Arthur and his heirs hereditary constables, with twenty warders and a well-appointed garrison. The castle if of great strength and is defended by four bastions commanding the road from Dublin to Belfast and Carrickfergus; it is still kept up as a royal garrison under the hereditary constableship of the present Marquess of Downshire, a descendant of the founder, and is also used as an armory for the yeomanry.’
From A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland by Samuel Lewis (1837) 





‘Colonel Hill, having built within a few years, at his own charge, and upon his own lands, during the rebellion, for the encouragement of an English plantation and security of the country, a considerable place of strength, called Hillsborough fortified with four bastions, or flankers, commanding the chief roads in the county of Down leading from Dublin to Belfast and Carrickfergus; His Majesty was pleased to consider that the surprise thereof, upon any insurrection, might prove very prejudicial to his service, and how much it would conduce to His Majesty’s service and the safety of the country that a guard should be placed in that fort for the security thereof; he therefore granted a patent at Westminster for erecting it into a royal garrison by the name of Hillsborough Fort, with a Constable and officers to command it, to be called and known by the name of Constable of Hillsborough Fort, and twenty warders to be nominated and chosen by him; the Constable to have an allowance of 3s. 2d. a day and the warders 6d. each; and this office was granted to him, his heirs and assigns, for ever.’
From Historical Notices of Old Belfast and its Vicinity; A Selection from the Mss. collected by William Pinkerton, Edited with notes by Robert M Young (1896)

Cross Again




Not too far from Termonfeckin Castle, seen here earlier in the week, stands St Fechin’s church, alas now standing forlorn and neglected in the midst of a graveyard. Here can be found a sandstone High Cross, some nine feet tall and somewhat weathered but with an unbroken nimbus ring. Above a tapered shaft decorated on all four sides with abstract, interwoven patterns, the centre of the east face shows the Crucifixion, while the west face depicts Christ in glory.



A Towering Presence



Today it’s difficult to believe that the little County Louth village of Termonfeckin was once the palatial seat of successive Archbishops of Armagh, who in the later Middle Ages preferred to live here rather than in the primatial city further north (think of this as being the Irish equivalent of the Papacy taking up residence in Avignon during the same period). Nothing now survives of that building – what remained was demolished in 1830 – but a second late-medieval castle still stands, a tower house probably built in the 15th century and then repaired in 1641 by the Brabazon family who were then a dominant presence in this part of the country. The castle is three storeys tall and has a projecting tower; a second one has long since gone. The interior boasts a vaulted ceiling on the first floor but alas, on the occasion of a recent visit, the building’s key holder could not be located. Perhaps another time…


In Transition


Sixty-five years ago, in July 1957, the Irish Times announced that the gardens of Mount Congreve, County Waterford ‘are to be open to the public for the first time’ on three afternoons each week over the following two months. The unnamed writer declared that few finer gardens of their kind were to be found on either side of the Irish Sea, those at Mount Congreve including a large 18th century conservatory and a walled garden where the quarter-mile of herbaceous borders held some 15,000 plants in hundreds of varieties ‘timed to flower in the coming weeks.’ In addition, there were rare trees and shrubs, and lawns offering attractive views of the adjacent river Suir. The owner of this property, the Irish Times correspondent explained, was Ambrose Congreve, then-Chairman of Humphreys & Glasgow Limited, the London fuel and chemical engineers ‘who are marketing small nuclear power plants.’




Originally from Staffordshire (and collaterally related to the Restoration playwright William Congreve), members of the Congreve family first came to Ireland in the 17th century, one of them, the Rev. John Congreve, settling in County Waterford. His grandson, another John, was responsible for building Mount Congreve c.1760, its design sometimes attributed to local architect John Roberts but this is conjectural. As built, the house was of three storeys and seven bays, with slightly projecting two-storey wings on either side beyond which lay the service yards. Successive generations of the family lived there, alternating the first names John and Ambrose until the last of these, Ambrose Christian Congreve who died in 2011 at the age of 104 leaving no heir. Thanks to his considerable wealth, he was responsible for transforming both the house and surrounding gardens. The former he enlarged in the 1960s, not least by the addition of a substantial bow at the centre of the entrance front, centred on a rather modest Baroque limestone doorcase. Additions were also made to the wings and yards which were given cupolas and more limestone doorcases. Mr Congreve had a plutocrat’s taste: he liked everything large and abundant and almost to the end of his life he was making changes to the building and its contents, both of which might be described as plush. Outdoors, as a young man he was inspired by what he saw Lionel de Rothschild had created in his own garden at Exbury in Hampshire. From the early 1930s onwards Mr Congreve set about emulating this example, not least by planting the same species in large groups. ‘When one plants anything,’ he declared, ‘whether it involves five or fifty plants, they should be planted together and not dotted here and there’: as a result, at Mount Congreve, enormous numbers of one variety of magnolia or azalea can be found in the same location to spectacular effect. Thanks to its size – it runs to some 70 acres – Mount Congreve’s garden holds over 3,000 different trees and shrubs, more than 2,000 Rhododendrons, 600 Camellias, 300 Acer cultivars, 600 conifers, 250 climbers and 1,500 herbaceous plants. 




In 1979, recognising that he had no direct heir, Ambrose Congreve transferred ownership of his family house and some 71 surrounding acres to a charitable organisation, the Mount Congreve Trust with the understanding that all of this property would eventually pass to the Irish state. However, part of the arrangement was that 66 acres of gardens would only become national property 21 years after his death, and the house and immediate five acres only in 2059. Thus, when he died in 2011, it appeared that the greater part of the gardens would not be taken under state care until 2032 – and the house and balance of land still not for a further 27 years. Inevitably, dispute followed, with unfortunate consequences, not least that the contents of the house – including a library dating back to the 18th century – were dispersed in a number of auctions, leaving the place empty. Meanwhile, the gardens on which he had lavished so much care and expense also deteriorated – today a very large 18th century greenhouse is in very poor condition – as discussions took place over who should be responsible for their upkeep. Only in 2019 was agreement reached whereby the trust transferred both the house and gardens to the local authority, which subsequently received a grant of €3.7 million from a Department for Rural and Community Development programme targeting regional development to restore and improve Mount Congreve. At the moment, the entire site is closed to the public (the house itself swathed in scaffolding, hence no pictures of it today), while necessary work takes place. It appears a couple of rooms on the ground floor of the main building will be accessible when the project is completed, along with one of the adjacent yards used to welcome visitors. But what will become of the rest of what is a very substantial house, which for more than a decade has sat vacant and shuttered? It remains to be seen if some new purpose is proposed for the place.  

Cornered



Located beside an early 19th century church, this is Haynestown Castle, County Louth. Believed to date from the 16th century, it is a square, three-storey tower house made distinctive by having a massive turret at each corner. These have slit windows on the two upper floors but otherwise the building has few openings, its entrance on the west front long since blocked up. The central sections of this and the east side are notable for being finished with large arches.


Till He Come



The skeleton of a former parish church at Rathbarry, County Cork. It dates from 1825 when constructed at a cost of £1,900, of which £1,000 was provided by John Evans-Freke, sixth Baron Carbury who lived in nearby Castle Freke: the family mausoleum is immediately south of the church. The building is more elaborate than most such structures erected at the time with help from the Board of First Fruits, the three-storey buttressed tower finished with a slender pinnacle in each corner, and the main entrance on the west front being via a projecting narthex. Inside the chancel and below the east window are the surviving portions of late-19th century mosaic work provided by the ninth baron and his wife. The church ceased to be used for services in 1927, just over a century after it had been finished.


The Most Elegant Summer Lodge




In January 1799 Isaac Corry was appointed Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer, and five months later, in order to raise money for Britain’s war against France, he introduced a property tax, based on the number of windows in any building, which for obvious reasons made him deeply unpopular throughout the country. Born in Newry in 1753, Corry was the descendant of a Scotsman who had settled in Ireland in the first quarter of the previous century. The family flourished (Rockcorry, County Monaghan derives its name from one of them), not least thanks to their involvement in trade: Isaac Corry’s father was both a merchant and an MP for Newry, his son succeeding him in the latter position. Although called to the bar, Corry does not seem to have practised much as a lawyer, preferring political life although he had limited private means during a period when election campaigns could be expensive affairs and candidates therefore needed to be wealthy. In 1788 he became Clerk of the Irish Ordnance, and the following year a Commissioner of the Revenue before being made a Privy Counsellor in 1795. As the 18th century came to a close, Corry became an ardent supporter of the union with Britain, bringing him into conflict with Henry Grattan who, on one occasion, described him in the House of Commons as ‘a half-bred lawyer, a half-bred statesman, a mock patriot, a swaggering bully and finished coxcomb, a coward, a liar and a rascal.’ The two men subsequently fought a duel, one of a number in which Corry participated during his lifetime and on this occasion he was wounded. It has been claimed that the actual Act of Union was drafted in the drawing room of Corry’s country house, Derrymore, County Armagh. 




A substantial thatched cottage orné, Derrymore dates from c.1777. The architect is unknown, although it has been proposed that the landscape designer John Sutherland was responsible, since Sir Charles Coote wrote in 1804 that Sutherland had been responsible for laying out the surrounding demesne; Coote also described the house as ‘the most elegant summer lodge I have ever seen.’ Although of one storey over basement, Derrymore is more substantial than might initially appear to be the case, since it consists of an elongated U, two substantial wings projecting back from the central block, creating a slim courtyard between them. The main entrance is at the top of the courtyard, a fanlit doorcase leading to a hallway on either side of which are domed and curved vestibules that give access to the wings. Directly in front is the drawing room, a plain space notable for its exceptionally large bay window that runs almost the full height of the building flanked by quatrefoils under hood mouldings. The bay is composed of 82 panes of glass and there are further mullioned windows on each of the wings, which ought to have left Corry paying a very substantial tax bill following the introduction of his own legislation in 1799 – except that a clause in the bill allowed for any window, no matter how big, to be considered as just one provided each pane did not exceed 12 inches in width. Nevertheless, financial difficulties eventually obliged him to sell the property some years before his death in 1813. Derrymore then passed through several hands before being donated to the National Trust in 1952. Today the wings are occupied by tenants and the drawing room only intermittently open to visitors.



Step into the Garden



After last Monday’s post about the house on Fota Island, County Cork, it is worth noting that the immediate demesne, including one of Ireland’s most important late 19th/early 20th century arboretums, also survives and can be visited. To the rear of the main building lie a series of walled gardens which have been well-maintained by the Office of Public Works and at the top of these the Irish Heritage Trust has restored a series of greenhouses now filled with plants. In consequence, the site provides an opportunity to explore an Irish country house in its original setting, something not always possible.


Left Without a Handkerchief


The Irish Aesthete is delighted to announce the publication of his latest book, Left without a Handkerchief. A long time in the making, this tells the stories of ten Irish families across the centuries, leading up to the moment when each of their homes was attacked and most often burned during the troubles of the early 1920s. Whence the title? On January 10th 1923 Louise Bagwell wrote a short letter to her mother-in-law Harriet describing what had taken place during the previous night. Around 12.30am, a large number of men had arrived at Marlfield, County Tipperary, home to generations of the Bagwell family for some 230 years, and informed the occupants they had ten minutes to dress and gather up whatever items they could. Meanwhile, the intruders sprinkled petrol around the ground floor rooms and applied a match. ‘Then’, Louise Bagwell explained, ‘for an hour we had to stand and watch the darling old home burn.’ Only when the fire had done sufficient damage to the building did the men depart: afterwards its chatelaine discovered they had taken her bag and coat with them. Everything had been lost, she lamented, all the family’s possessions going back generations, leaving them with little other than the clothes they had hastily donned: ‘We hadn’t even a handkerchief.’


Photograph shows Ardfert, County Kerry, burnt on 3rd August 1922 and subsequently demolished. Left without a Handkerchief is published by Lilliput Press (please see Left Without a Handkerchief by Robert O’Byrne – The Lilliput Press)