A Master Plasterer


Drumcondra House, County Dublin was discussed here a month ago (see An Italian in Ireland, February 11th 2019). That property was built for the early 18th century lawyer and politician Marmaduke Coghill who had inherited land in the area from his father. Prior to having a new residence constructed, Coghill lived in an existing house close by called Belvedere (sometimes spelled Belvidere). The Civil Survey of 1654-56 notes ‘There is upon the premises a faire brick house, slated…’ That building was extensively altered in the following decade by another lawyer, Sir Robert Booth and it was after his death in 1681 that Marmaduke Coghill’s father moved there. Once Drumcondra House was built, Belvedere was let to Henry Singleton, who in 1740 became Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas and fourteen years later Master of the Rolls. Mrs Delany records that in 1750 he was making extensive alterations to Belvedere, including the addition of a large drawing room to the rear of the building. This room has a wonderful ceiling with elaborate plasterwork. The stuccodore responsible is unknown, but stylistically the ceiling bears similarities to those a few miles away in Glasnevin House (see Misjudging a Book by its Cover, December 22nd 2014) which is attributed to the St Peter’s Stuccodore. Might this be another example of his craftsmanship?

Dirty Money


In the 1830s, William Drummond Delap of Monasterboice House, County Louth was paid £1,933 by the British government. The reason: he was being compensated for the abolition of slavery in the Caribbean colonies. Mr Delap, it transpires, had owned 96 slaves on two plantations in Jamaica. Slavery there, and on the other islands in the area, had been abolished in 1833, but such was the level of complaint about loss of revenue from former owners, not least those like Mr Delap who lived on the opposite side of the Atlantic, that four years later parliament passed the Slave Compensation Act, resulting in some £20 million being paid out.
Little work has been done in Ireland on the benefits enjoyed during the 17th and 18th centuries by some country house estate owners who were involved in plantations, although twelve years ago History Ireland published a highly informative article by Nini Rodgers on the subject of Irish links to the slave trade (see: https://www.historyireland.com/18th-19th-century-history/the-irish-and-the-atlantic-slave-trade). In England, and indeed in France too, much more research has been undertaken on the matter, not least at University College London’s Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-ownership, where archival examination has discovered who were the beneficiaries: it has, for example, documented which country houses owe their existence, in part or whole, to money that came through slavery in the Caribbean. In 2013, the centre created a database of the individuals who were paid compensation when slavery was finally abolished, and it includes some 170 names of people in Ireland, not least William Dunlop Delap. His brother Colonel James Bogle Delap, a friend of George IV, received £4,960. Among the others, some are well-known, such as two members of the banking La Touche family (£6,865 between them) and Howe Peter Browne, second Marquess of Sligo (£5,425). However, by far the largest beneficiary was one Charles McGarel of Larne, County Antrim whose claim for 2,777 slaves on twelve different plantations led to his receiving no less than £135,076. (To explore the documentation relating to Ireland, see: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/search).





William Drummond Delap was a descendant of Hugh Dunlop who around 1600 moved from Ayrshire in Scotland to Sligo where he was involved in the wine trade. His son Robert moved to County Donegal, which is where successive generations of the family lived, their surname becoming corrupted to Delap. Robert Delap, born in 1754, graduated from Trinity College Dublin and was admitted to the Middle Temple before being called to the Irish bar in 1778. Two years before he had married Mary Ann Bogle, daughter of James Bogle of Castlefin, County Donegal. It was Mary Ann’s family, likewise of Scottish origin, which had plantation interests in Jamaica: the UCL Legacies of British Slave-ownership site lists 21 persons of that name. Evidently she acquired a substantial stake in these properties following her marriage: Robert Delap died at sea while returning from the Caribbean in 1782, leaving a widow with several young children including William Drummond who was then barely two years old. In 1805 he married Catherine, eldest daughter of William Foster, Bishop of Clogher and brother of John Foster, last Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. In 1811 John Foster described his niece’s husband as ‘a good man of business resident in London where he acted as a merchant and has a West India property of his own to look after.’ Around 1830 he decided to move to Co Louth, where many of his wife’s family owned land, and there he bought various parcels to create an estate of more than 1,200 acres on which he either built, or more likely enlarged, Monasterboice House. He also laid out elaborate terraced gardens and planted many specimen trees. On a rise south-west of the house he erected a folly, called Drummond Tower after his maternal grandmother who had helped to raise him after his father’s early death. In 1861 he resumed by licence the family’s original surname of Dunlop.





Not much appears to be known about the history of Monasterboice House, now a ruinous building. At its core looks to be a typical late-mediaeval tower house, which as was so often the case has been subject to various structural alterations but is still clearly distinct rising on the northern section of the site. To the south is what appears to be a late 18th/early 19th century residence, of two storeys over basement, three bays with the centre one in the form of a substantial bow. The ground floor of this has glazed doors that once opened onto the terraced gardens and is flanked by Wyatt windows typical of the period. The house’s principal entrance lies on the west side, and was formerly approached by a long avenue. Perhaps to harmonise with the old tower house, this section was gothicised in the Tudoresque manner with arched windows and a large porte-cochere in front of a castellated porch. The back of the house opens to two large yards beyond which was the walled garden. It looks as though the building was developed in three sections, first the tower house, then the villa and finally a Tudor-Gothic expansion. In Samuel Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, he writes of Monasterboice House that ‘a spacious mansion is now being erected by the proprietor.’ Lewis’ work came out in 1837, just as compensation was being paid to former plantation owners, such as William Drummond Delap/Dunlop. A suspicion forms that the money he then received was used to improve his country residence. Future generations did not enjoy it for long: his son and heir Robert Foster Dunlop married a cousin, the Hon Anna Skeffington but the couple had no son and their daughters do not seem to have occupied the place. At the start of the last century, the estate built up by William Drummond Delap was divided up and while the Louth Archaeological and History Society Journal reported in 1945 that the house was ‘in a fair state of preservation’ that is certainly no longer the case.

Relics of Auld Decency



The remains of Tober House, County Wicklow. The building is believed to date from c.1720 when constructed for a branch of the Powell family (not Power, as is often stated) It appears the house originally rose two storeys over basement but an additional floor was later added above the moulded string course. It’s curious to note that the windows on the ground floor are not symmetrically spaced: one of them on the ground floor being much closer to the entrance than the other. Parts of the slate cladding on the south wall survive, as does the handsome limestone lugged doorcase. Tober is said to have been gutted by fire at the end of the 18th century, perhaps during the time of the 1798 Rebellion when this part of the country was engulfed by violence. It has stood a ruin ever since.



Eventual Salvation


The entrance to Derrynane, County Kerry, ancestral home to Daniel O’Connell. It is interesting to read in Emer Crooke’s recently-published book on how country houses fared during the first decades after Independence* that when O’Connell’s descendants first offered the property to the state in 1945, this was declined. A letter from the Department of Finance written in October of that year argued that ‘in view of the uncertainty as to the purchase price, the capital expenditure involved in putting the house to rights and the large recurring expenditure entailed in maintenance the minister does not favour state acquisition.’ Responsibility for Derrynane was shortly after taken on by a private trust but it soon ran into difficulty and began appealing to the government for funds. When these were not forthcoming, the house was placed on the market but in 1963, after no buyer had been found, the state took on Derrynane which has ever since been managed by the Office of Public Works.


*White Elephants: The Country House and the State in Independent Ireland, 1922-73 by Emer Crooke (University College Dublin Press)

Taking a Defensive Position


Charles Fort outside Kinsale, County Cork has been discussed here before (see On the Defensive, May 29th 2017). Built between 1678-83 it stands on land to the south-east of the harbor. Directly across on a promontory to the south-west is an earlier fortification known as James Fort. Both structures were named after British monarchs, Charles Fort deriving its title from Charles II, James Fort from his grandfather James I. He had succeeded to the English throne in 1603, just over a year after the combined Irish and Spanish forces had been defeated at Kinsale by Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy. The vulnerability of Ireland’s southern coastline to invasion led the crown authorities to initiate the construction of a fortress from which any approaching ships could be seen and the occupants of which could provide a defence of Kinsale Harbour.




Work began on the construction of James Fort even while James I predecessor, Elizabeth I, was still alive. Its advantageous position meant there had already been an earlier fortification on the site; known as Castle Ny-Parke this had been occupied for a time during the Siege of Kinsale by Spanish troops before they were displaced by Sir Richard Smyth, a brother-in-law of Richard Boyle, the future Earl of Cork. But there was a concern that the Spaniards could return, and in greater numbers, hence the decision to build anew. The fortress’s design came from a military engineer Paul Ive who in 1589 had published a treatise The Practise of Fortification. A few years later Ive was praised by Walter Raleigh for his ‘judgement, invention and industry’ so it is understandable he was given the commission of overseeing the construction of James Fort which cost £675. This is four-sided fortress at the centre of a pentagonal bastion; inside the fort’s walls are various other structures to provide accommodation for troops and so forth. The remains of a hexagonal blockhouse lies close to the water’s edge.




Developments in fortification design, especially the construction of increasingly sophisticated star-shaped bastions following the example of those created by the French Comte de Vauban, meant Ive’s work at James Fort quickly came to look old-fashioned. Hence the decision to build the larger and more modern Charles Fort on the other side of the harbour entrance. Before then James Fort had seen some action in the 1640s during the Confederate Wars but it suffered greater damage in the Williamite Wars towards the end of the 17th century when a gunpowder store exploded. Thereafter the building went into steady decline and by the 19th century was already described as being a ruin: it has remained in this condition to the present day.

Institutionalised




The garden front of Garron Tower, County Antrim. Built at a cost of £4,000 over several years from 1848 onwards, the house sits on a plateau high above the sea and with views, on a clear day, across to Scotland. Intended as a summer residence, Garron Tower’s architect is thought to have been Lewis Vulliamy, his client being Frances Anne, Marchioness of Londonderry who had inherited land here from her mother, the second Countess of Antrim. It has been suggested that her intention was to own a property superior to Glenarm Castle, inherited by her aunt, which stands a few miles further south. Garron Tower’s austere exterior is not aided by the use of black basalt, but the original interiors were said to be luxurious. The property was little used after Lady Londonderry’s death and by the end of the 19th century was rented for use as a hotel. It was badly damaged by fire in 1914, the house was converted into a school in 1950 and now exudes a grimly institutional air.


Theory and Practice



One of James Gandon’s designs for the façade of Emo Court, County Laois. In the 1780s the architect was employed by enlightened patron John Dawson, first Earl of Portarlington to come up with plans for a new house on his country estate. This is one of Gandon’s proposals, and interesting to compare with Emo Court as eventually built. The process was devilled with setbacks, beginning with the Lord Portarlington’s unexpected death in 1798, by which time only the shell of the house had been constructed. It took more than sixty years, and the involvement of a number of other architects, before work on the building was finally completed. As a result and reflecting changes in taste, various alterations, external and internal, were made to the original scheme. Many of Gandon’s original drawings, plus those of his successors, are currently on display in the Irish Architectural Archive, 45 Merrion Square, Dublin. Below is one of the Gandon proposals for the garden front, and a photograph of the same prospect today.


All Things Human Hang by a Slender Thread


From History of the Irish Hierarchy by Rev. Thomas Walsh (1864):
‘Athassel, in the Barony of Clanwilliam, and on the west side of the river Suir. William Fitz Adelm de Burgo founded this abbey under the evocation of St. Edmund, king and confessor, for canons regular of St. Augustine.
A.D. 1204, the founder was interred here.
A.D. 1309, the prior was sued by Leopold de Mareys and Company, merchants of Lucca, for the sum of five hundred marcs, £2,500 sterling.
A.D. 1319, the town of Athassel was maliciously burned by the Lord John Fitz Thomas.
A.D. 1326, Richard, the Red Earl of Ulster, was interred here.
A.D. 1326, Bryan O’Brien burned Athassel to the ground.
A.D. 1482, David was prior.
A.D. 1524, Edmund Butler was prior, and the last who presided over this venerable establishment. Its property in land consisted of 768 acres, besides twenty messuages, and the income of rectories amounting to £111 16s 8d, or twenty-two marcs, which would in American money exceed $550.
All this property was granted forever to Thomas, earl of Ormond, at the yearly rent of £49 3s 9d. Queen Elizabeth confirmed this grant and remitted the reserved rent.
Athassel is one of the most extensive ruins in the kingdom, and scarcely yielded to any in extent and splendor. The whole work was uniform, regular, and finished in a fine limestone.’





From The Official Illustrated Guide to the Great Southern and Western Railway by George S. Measom (1867):
‘The site was chosen with the usual taste and judgement of “monks of old”; although a few shriveled trees are now all that remains of the woods by which it was formerly encompassed, and of which there is abundant evidence. A gentle, fertilizing and productive river still rolls beside its shattered glories; and the ruins afford ample proof of the vast extent, as well as the singular beauty of the structure, when the “Holy Augustinians” kept state within its walls. To their order may be traced the most elaborate and highly wrought of all the ecclesiastical edifices in Ireland; their abbeys in that country “evincing a style of architectural elegance and grandeur but little inferior to their fabrics in England and on the Continent”.’





From The Parliamentary Gazetteer of Ireland (1846):
‘The ruins of the edifice are still extensive, and indicate its former magnitude and splendor. The choir measured 44 feet by 26; the nave, of the same breadth as the choir and supported by lateral aisles, was externally 117 feet in length; the tower was square and lofty; and the cloisters were extensive. A tolerable view of the ruins from the north-west, and exhibiting the dilapidated tower, the roofless nave, the cloisters and a roofless chapel in the south-west corner, is given by Dr. Ledwich in his Antiquaries of Ireland. “We cannot,” says that antiquary, “behold the numerous arches, walls, windows, and heaps of masonry promiscuously mixed in one common ruin, without saying with Ovid: Omnia sunt hominum tenui pendentia filo: Et subito casu, quæ valuere, ruunt.’ [All things human hang by a slender thread: that which seemed to stand strong, suddenly falls into ruin]

The House by the Churchyard

In 1863 Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu published one of his most successful works The House by the Churchyard. The book, which like many 19th century novels was initially serialized and accordingly has a convoluted plot, is set in the village of Chapelizod to the immediate west of central Dublin. Sheridan Le Fanu knew the area well: not long after he was born in 1814 his father, an Anglican clergyman, was appointed chaplain of the Royal Hibernian Military School (now St Mary’s Hospital) in the Phoenix Park which lies directly north of Chapelizod. This is the eponymous House by the Churchyard, standing – just about – outside the gates of the adjacent St Laurence’s Church. The building is believed to date from c.1740, just a few decades before the period in which Sheridan Le Fanu’s novel is set. It has been standing empty and neglected for some years and now looks to be in a seriously dilapidated condition. Unless there is an intervention soon, it will be necessary to write another book, this one called The Lost House by the Churchyard.


Incidentally, this is not the only historic property in Chapelizod in perilous condition: a little to the east, the last surviving house from a terrace built around 1700 is boarded up and on the verge of disintegration. 

Well Protected


At the end of the sixth century a holy man called Fintán but now better known as St Munna, established a religious settlement at Taghmon, County Westmeath (Teach Munna: St Munna’s church). This flourished, and came to boast some 230 monks, but the present building on the site dates from the mid-15th century. This may have been before or after the place was ransacked in 1452 by Farrell MacGeoghegan in whose family territory it lay. The need for security explains the church’s most striking feature, the fortified tower at its west end where a resident priest could be safe from attack. This is of four storeys and configured like many of the tower houses then being constructed across the country, with a store on the ground floor and living/sleeping quarters on the upper levels.



In the 16th century St Munna’s church passed under the control of the Nugent family but had become ruinous within 100 years. However, by 1755 it was being used by the Church of Ireland for services and in 1843 extensive restoration work was carried out under the supervision of Joseph Welland, head architect for the Board of Ecclesiastical Commissioners: it is no longer in use for services. Aside from the tower, the building’s other notable feature is a sheela-na-gig above a window on the north wall.