A Castle in Miniature



After Monday’s post about the Widows’ Almshouses in Castlebellingham, County Louth, here is a view of the gatehouse originally built to gain admission to the property from which the village derived its name, Bellingham Castle. As mentioned, the ‘castle’ was an 18th century house to which battlements and other faux-Gothic decoration was added by Sir Alan Bellingham in the mid-1830s. The architect responsible for this work was Thomas Smith who received a not-dissimilar commission from Sir Patrick Bellew at Barmeath Castle elsewhere in the county. At Barmeath Smith designed a Norman gateway into the yard, so it would appear he can also be credited with the gatehouse at Castlebellingham, a miniature castle comprising a sophisticated mixture of rubble and dressed stone and render. Today the building no longer serves its intended purpose but stands as an island surrounded by roads. 


Alms and the Man


Until the start of the 18th century, the village of Castlebellingham, County Louth was known as Gernonstown, named after the Gernon (otherwise Garland) family, the first of whom, the Anglo-Norman knight Roger de Gernon is thought to have arrived here in the 12th century with Strongbow. As evidence of their presence in this part of the country, there is also a Gernonstown to the northwest of Slane, County Meath. However, in Louth the Gernons were ousted by later arrivals, the Bellinghams. The first of that family to come to Ireland was Henry Bellingham who appeared here in the mid-17th century and in the great reallocation of Irish land which then took place, he was received or bought some of it based around Gernonstown; his possession of what would be the future Castlebellingham estate was confirmed by Charles II following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. When Henry Bellingham died in 1676, the estate was duly inherited by his son Thomas who in 1690 took the side of William III, becoming a colonel in his army and serving as a guide on the march south from Dundalk. In retaliation, the forces of James II burnt the colonel’s residence, probably an old Gernon tower house. A new house for the family was built around 1710 and it is about this time that the surrounding village acquired the new name of Castlebellingham. Today an hotel, the house was extensively remodelled and enlarged at the end of the 18th century and then given a fashionable Gothic makeover in the 1830s. 





Located to the east immediately outside the gates of Bellingham Castle, as seen today the core of the village dates from the 19th century when it was carefully laid out in picturesque style by the Bellingham family. Among the most delightful features is a group of former almshouses built immediately adjacent to the Church of Ireland church to accommodate the widows of estate workers. A plaque above the main entrance to this building declares that it was endowed by Sir William Bellingham. Created a baronet in 1796, Sir William died thirty years later in 1826, and the almshouses, endowed with £64 per annum, were erected as a result of a legacy in his will. Sir William had no sons of his own, so the estate and baronetcy were inherited by a nephew, Alan Bellingham, but he died exactly ten months after his uncle, therefore it was Sir Alan’s son, the third baronet (another Alan) who undertook to honour Sir William’s intentions. The design of the building is often attributed to architect William Vitruvius Morrison, not least because it bears similarities to a couple of other ornamental cottages for which he was responsible: Carpenham, County Down and Lough Bray, County Wicklow. Here, as with both of the others, the building has steeply-gabled roofs and an amplitude of detail, such as the decorative bargeboards, ornamental finials, diamond-patterned pointed windows and tall brick chimneys. A further three detached two-storey cottages were subsequently built on the other side of the lane. 





The Widows’ Almshouses were modest enough residences, with a single room on the ground floor and another two above. The interiors were altered since first built, but the essential structure remains unaltered, with just a tiny yard to the rear of each before meeting the church grounds. Five years ago, in April 2016, the entire block was offered for sale for the modest sum of €100,000, but with the proviso that the almshouses were in need of refurbishment. The property was duly sold and in September 2018 an application was made to, and granted by, the local authority for the four units to be upgraded and converted into two dwelling houses. Nothing appears to have happened since then and unfortunately the almshouses are in poor condition. One must hope that sooner rather than later something will be done to bring this important part of the area’s architectural heritage back to decent condition. 

RIC (Ruins in Connaught)



The remains of an RIC Barracks at Islandeady, County Mayo. The building dates from the first half of the 19th century when constructed on a plot provided for the purpose by local landlord Sir William Palmer who lived at Castle Lacken, today also a ruin. Of two storeys and three bays, the barracks is a handsome structure, with the focus on its cut-limestone doorcase. There is a small yard to the rear with holding cell. It remained in operation until early 1920 when, like many other remote buildings held by the force, it was abandoned owing to the War of Independence. In June of that year, the barracks was gutted by fire, again a common circumstance, and has remained a ruin ever since.


Forlorn



Stripped not just of contents but also all character, this is what remains of the former Presbyterian church in Creggs, County Galway. Outside Ulster, there were always relatively few Presbyterians outside faith, and this is a rare example of such a building in Connaught. It opened for services in 1863 but clearly never attracted much of a congregation as the church was closed just over sixty years later in 1925. The west front displays a playful engagement with form, the Gothic arched doorcase below a trefoil window, and then on the tower above, and slightly recessed, a circular opening below rounded arch. The roofless walls now stand, forlorn and purposeless, in a puddle of gravel.


A Fine Portrait


This year marks the tenth anniversary of Maurice Craig’s death, and next year the seventieth anniversary of the publication of Dublin 1660-1860: The Shaping of a City, the book for which he is still best remembered. Seemingly, although it took 13 years for the first run of 2,000 copies to sell, the work has never since been out of print. For many readers, it remains the definitive guide to Ireland’s capital during the Georgian era, despite enormous numbers of other books on the same subject having appeared before and since. Although he came to be regarded as the one of the foremost experts on the country’s architectural history, this was far from being a foregone conclusion. When young, Maurice appears to have entertained notions of being either a painter or a composer, but ultimately realised that the written word was his best form of communication. Even so, his doctoral thesis from Trinity College Dublin was concerned not with buildings but the 19th century poet Walter Savage Landor, and the back of a copy of Dublin 1660-1860 declares ‘his recreations include travel, ship-modelling and the history of transport’. To which one might add vintage motor cars and book-binding, as well as noting that his first book (which appeared in 1948) was a biography of the Earl of Charlemont. And, as anyone who knew Maurice can attest, he loved cats.




In his preface, Maurice Craig announced that Dublin 1660-1860 had been conceived more as a ‘portrait’ than a history, by which he meant the author had opted to focus on certain aspects of the narrative and omit others. Developing the portrait metaphor, he noted that some readers might not appreciate such an approach, ‘but if I paint my sitter in a purple tie, that need not imply that he has no others in his wardrobe.’ Certainly he introduced more colour into his text than is customarily the case, opening the story not in Dublin or even in Ireland, but with a lively description of the fall to Ottoman forces of Constantinople in May 1453. In a variant on the theme of the Butterfly Effect, Maurice proposed a link between ‘this great Levantine catastrophe’ and a date more than 200 years later, July 27th 1662, when James Butler, Duke of Ormonde ‘stepped out of his pinnace on to the sands of Dublin Bay. The Renaissance, in a word, had arrived in Ireland…The Middle Ages were at last at an end.’ It’s a bold statement, and one open to dispute, but it sets the tone for what follows over the next 300-plus pages, across which Maurice painted his portrait of the city with bold strokes and bright shades that help to make this a genuine page-turner. When writing of Aldborough House, for example, he briskly notes how the Stratford family title, ‘passed rapidly through a ludicrous succession of spendthrift holders, ending with the sixth and last Earl who bred dogs, advertised patent pills, and died in Alicante in 1875.’ The point about such prose is that it leaves the reader longing to learn more on the subject. And when writing of 18th century Dublin’s relatively weak literary legacy, he took a clever swipe at the censored Ireland of the mid-1950s, observing that ‘a society uncertain of its foundations and its destiny is, as we are now proving, unhappy ground in which to cultivate the art of letters.’ And again, as anyone who knew him can testify, Maurice was never averse to expressing a personal opinion. Thomas Cooley’s Neoclassical City Hall (the former Royal Exchange), he deemed ‘a little cold…its best points are its site, the excellence of the detail and the grandeur of the central hall. It does not inspire much affection.’ 




Re-reading Dublin 1660-1860 what strikes this reader once more is Maurice Craig’s exceptional erudition, and his ability to wear a great deal of learning lightly. The book is as much a social as an architectural history of the city, and this makes sense: all buildings, even prisons, are erected with varying degrees of social interaction in mind. So while Maurice provides much information on architects and patrons across the span of 200 years, he also places their enterprises within a broader context. This often leads in turn to the text taking unexpected diversions, as the author shares another piece of historical anecdote with us. For example, at one point, when writing of the growth of newspapers in mid-18th century Ireland, he then reflects on how pamphlets often better reflect concerns of the time. This in turn leads him to describe an occasion in 1759 when rumours of union with Britain led to ‘startling eruptions of popular feeling: the jacquerie broke into the Parliament House, placed an old woman in the Speaker’s Chair, rigged up a gallows and threatened various dignitaries with death,’ all of which sounds reminiscent of events which took place in Washington, D.C. earlier this year. Ending as it does in the mid-19th century, the book concludes on a somewhat melancholy note, Maurice noting how in Dublin ‘after sixty years the loss of political status is beginning to induce an unmistakable feeling of provincialism.’ Since his book first appeared in 1952, many other authors have investigated the development of Ireland’s capital during what has come to be known as the long 18th century, but none has managed to capture so well the atmosphere of that period, to conjure up for us the spirit of the age, and to present it with such grace. 


Today’s images are taken from Dublin 1660-1860 and are all by Maurice Craig, demonstrating his talents as an architectural draughtsman.
The Little Museum of Dublin is currently hosting a series of lectures on the city’s history delivered by Professor David Dickson, author of Dublin: The making of a capital city (2014). For more information, see The Dublin Lectures 2021 – The Little Museum of Dublin

Glasleck



The Presbyterian church at Glasleck, County Cavan which, as a cut-stone plaque set into the wall advises, was built in 1836. Its first minister was the Reverend Randal McCollum who remained in this office until his death in 1874. Aside from attending to his flock, he also maintained a farm and wrote a number of works, not least Sketches of the Highlands of Cavan and of Shirley Castle, in Farney, Taken during the Irish Famine, which was published in 1856. A diary he kept for ten years, 1861-71 is now in the collection of Cavan County Council. Evidently there was once a thriving Presbyterian community in this part of the country, thereby justifying the building’s construction, but it gradually declined in the second half of the last century and closed in 1998, when the congregation was amalgamated with that of First Bailieborough.


Seeking Fresh Purpose


A little classical gem: a lodge at the entrance to St Patrick’s College, Carlow. The English-born architect Thomas Alfred Cobden, who designed the main buildings on the site (and who for a couple of decades received an astonishing number of commissions in this part of the country), is thought to have been also responsible for the lodge which dates from around 1820. It has a beautifully austere facade, the pedimented portico supported by a pair of Doric columns, these features made of the local granite. The interior has an entrance hall and two rooms, but alas at the moment is empty and – inevitably – falling into neglect: surely some use can be found for the place?



O’Fallons’ Country


‘The sept of the O’Phelans is recorded in the earliest annals of Ireland. They were styled Princes of Desies, a territory comprising the greater part of the County of Waterford, with a portion of Tipperary. Malachy O’Phelan was their chief at the time of the Anglo-Norman invasion, and his was the principal native force that, in co-operation with the Danes of Waterford, sought, but unsuccessfully, to hold that city against the newcomers. Malachy was taken prisoner, and condemned to die, but his life was spared on the intercession of Dermod McMurrough, who had on that day come down from Ferns to celebrate the marriage of his daughter with Strongbow.’ 





‘A King of the Desies was long after recognised, and was summoned, as such, in 1245 to aid Henry the Third in the Scottish war; but the sept, having been subsequently expelled from their old homes, some, after a brief sojourn in Westmeath, crossed the Shannon into Connaught, where they spelt their name, O’Fallon, and a district in Roscommon, between Athlone and the County of Galway, was hence known as O’Fallons’ country, while the sept was distinguished as the O’Fallons of Clanhudach.’





‘In the time of Queen Elizabeth Redmond O’Fallon was the Chief. Of his estates Edmund O’Fallon had livery, as his son and heir, in 1606, of which in the ‘unsettling’ settlements of James the First, he thought it prudent to take out a fresh patent. It bore date in 1612, and confirmed to him the manor, castle, town, and land of Miltown, in the barony of Athlone, with sundry lands and a water-mill annexed; part of Ballyforan near the Suck, its island and fishing weir, the castle of Turrock, ‘moieties’ of the castles of Newtown and Ballyglass, with lands and chiefries in the County of Roscommon, and markets and fairs at Miltown, besides other premises at Balrath, in Westmeath. These interests he was obliged to claim on petition to the Commissioners at Athlone after the civil war of 1641, as were eight other proprietors within the O’Fallons’ country, the claims of all seeking restoration as to their ancient ancestral estates. The Supreme Council of Catholics in 1646 was attended by two members of this sept, William Fallon of Miltown and Stephen Fallon of Athlone. In 1677 another Edmund O’Fallon, styled of Mote, passed patent for 344 acres in Galway, as did a John Fallon for 131 in Roscommon.’


Text taken from King James II’s Irish Army List, 1689 by John d’Alton (published 1855). Pictures show the now-ruined – and thoroughly pillaged – remains of Cloonagh, County Roscommon, an early 18th century house which was built and occupied by a branch of the O’Fallon family. James O’Fallon, who was Roman Catholic Bishop of Elphin for thirty years, lived in the house, dying there in December 1786. A pity to see this link with the area’s history about to be lost.

Leading Nowhere


An entrance into the former demesne of Affane, County Waterford. The core of the house here dated from the 17th century but had a new front added in the first half of the 19th century with canted bows on either side of the entrance. These ashlar gateposts with screen walls on either side and arched pedestrian openings on either side were probably erected around the same time. Once leading towards the main building, now they go nowhere but provide a reminder of what used to be here: the house itself is a ruined shell.

Lopsided



A County Wexford property formerly known as Grange, but now called Bannow House is thought to date from the mid-1830s when built for Thomas Boyce, although it work may have been initiated a couple of decades earlier by his father Samuel: the Boyce family had settled in the area in the 17th century. Of two storeys, the south-facing facade is of eight bays, the two centre ones breaking forward, with the entrance marked by a fine portico approached by four granite steps and featuring four Ionic columns. Curiously, the rear of the house is lopsided: while the west side runs back six bays, that to the east is more shallow, and partially hidden behind a high screen wall, suggesting a section of the building here was at some date demolished. In any case, an opening in that wall leads to a large and handsome yard constructed, like so many buildings in this part of the country, of local granite.