One of the past year’s most fascinating personal discoveries was the dining room at Altidore Castle, County Wicklow. Often described as a Georgian ‘toy fort’ the house was built c.1730 for General Thomas Pearce, uncle of the architect Sir Edward Lovett Pearce, who may well have been responsible for its design. Much of the interior decoration dates from that period, including the dining room’s panelling. In the last quarter of the 18th century, however, additional ornamentation was added with the introduction of oval and circular plaster medallions featuring female classical deities and graces: this would have been around the period that Altidore was owned by Rev William Blachford, Librarian of Marsh’s Library and father of early Romantic poet Mary Tighe (author of the once-much read Psyche, or the Legend of Love),  and subsequently by her brother. During the same period the interiors of nearby Mount Kennedy – designed by James Wyatt in 1772 but only built under the supervision of Thomas Cooley the following decade – was being decorated by the celebrated stuccadore Michael Stapleton. The medallions are not unlike those seen in Lucan House, County Dublin where Stapleton also worked: might he have had a hand in the plasterwork at Altidore?