Tag Archives: Architectural History

Beyond Balief


The histories of some Irish buildings are easier to trace than others. The origins and owners of Balief Castle, County Kilkenny prove particularly elusive. It is commonly stated that the castle, actually another late-medieval tower house, was constructed by a member of the Shortall family. The Shortalls were of Norman origin, and settled in this part of the country in the late 13th century: a townland is still called Shortallstown. The Shortalls allied themselves with another, more powerful, dynasty, the Graces, Barons of Courtstown, and this helped to assure the possession of their lands. Both the Graces and the Shortalls remained loyal to the Roman Catholic faith and to the Stuart cause. In 1689, the then Baron of Courtstown raised and equipped a regiment of foot at his own expense to support James II during the Williamite Wars, and Thomas Shortall joined this force. When the baron died the following year, his son Robert Grace succeeded as head of the regiment but he was badly wounded at the Battle of Aughrim in July 1691 and died the following year. Nevertheless, the regiment continued to operate, with Captain Thomas Shortall commanding a company of 100 men at the second Siege of Limerick. Following the treaty concluded there in October 1691, Shortall like many others left Ireland and joined the French army. He is said to have continued to serve until the age of 88, and to have died in 1762 at the age of 104.




What happened to Balief Castle in the aftermath of the Williamite Wars is something of a mystery, but it appears to have passed into the hands of the St George family, which owned large estates in County Kilkenny. In Atkinson’s The Irish Tourist (1816) Balief Castle is described as being ‘the seat of Mr St. George’, presumably Robert St George whose father Sir Richard St George lived not far away at the since-demolished house of Woodsgift. However, it would seem there was another, more modern residence here, again no longer standing, since the earliest Ordnance Survey map shows ‘Balief House’ on or adjacent to the same site of the castle. Hercules Langrishe St George is later listed as owning the property, and being a local Justice of the Peace before Balief became occupied in the 1860s by Denis W Kavanagh, another gentleman whose family owned land in the area. Thereafter it is hard to find any more information about the place. 




Most Irish tower houses are either square or rectangular. Circular examples are relatively rare, although one has featured here in the past, Moorstown Castle, County Tipperary (see In the Round « The Irish Aesthete). Thought to date from the 16th century, Balief Castle is another member of this small group. The building castle rises approximately 35 feet and has an interior diameter of the castle of 15 feet, eight inches with walls some eight feet, four inches thick. As is customary, it has a single entrance, a pointed arch door on the west side. Immediately inside, is the staircase, with an ascent to the top by 50 stone steps, the majority of which are eight inches thick (the final nine being six and a half inches thick), but all floors and other internal divisions have long been lost, leaving one space that climbs to a still intact domed roof. Today Balief Castle stands in the middle of a field, little noticed and little known. 


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Astonished at the Splendour


The former House of Lords in what is now the Bank of Ireland, College Green, Dublin was discussed here some time ago (see Where Turkeys Voted for Christmas « The Irish Aesthete). As is well known, after the building ceased to be used as the Irish Houses of Parliament and had been purchased by the bank, Francis Johnston was invited to make alterations, including the creation of a central Cash Office behind Edward Lovett Pearce’s south front. This five bay, double-height space rises to a richly decorated coved ceiling, the centre of which supports a clerestory concluding in a coffered ceiling. When George IV visited the bank during his visit to Ireland, he was reportedly ‘astonished at the splendour’ of the hall.

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On the Hill of the Fairies


In 1897 Edith Leeson Marshall married Sir Home Gordon, 12th (and last) baronet of Embo. A passionate cricketer, Sir Home wrote extensively on the sport although he never seems to have been an outstanding player. His wife Edith, descended from the first Earl of Milltown, was the youngest child of Richard and Rebecca Leeson Marshall, an evangelical Christian couple. Her father had inherited from his uncle an estate in County Kerry called Callinafercy and there built a comfortable, unpretentious villa for his family, the place later described by his daughter as ‘a house without a redeeming feature.’ But he died when Edith was only aged seven and her widowed mother moved about mainland Europe before settling in Richmond, outside London. In her entertaining memoir, The Winds of Time (1934), Edith Gordon describes how, at the time of her marriage both she and her new husband were convinced he could look forward to a future as a successful novelist, ‘but when, after some months of strenuous effort in the literary and journalistic worlds, he had only succeeded in obtaining the editorship of Banjo World at three guineas a month, my confidence began to wane…’ Meanwhile, Lady Gordon began to write, albeit under a pseudonym, for various publications including Ladies’ Field, then edited by the notorious Lady Colin Campbell. When she published a collection of essays under her own name in 1908, this was ‘received with astonishment by certain of my friends and acquaintances. “How clever of you to be able to write,” they exclaimed in terms of surprise mingled with awe.’ Through her writing, Lady Gordon also came to know Edward Hudson, founder of Country Life, and often accompanied him on expeditions, thereby getting to visit many country houses and meeting the likes of Edwin Lutyens, Gertrude Jekyll and William Robinson, with whom she shared an Irish background. All of these individuals would influence her when she came to commission a house for herself in County Kerry. What inspired her to embark on such an enterprise? Lady Gordon explained that by 1913, she had grown tired of life in London and its seemingly endless society crazes. ‘I felt I must get away from everybody and everything if I were not to become like the lady in the Divorce Court who, on being reprimanded by the judge for the frequency with which she committed adultery, flippantly remarked, “Well, what else can you do between tea and dinner”?’ And so, having inherited some money, she bought a parcel of land in County Kerry.





A rare example of an Arts and Crafts house in Ireland, Ard na Sidhe (meaning ‘Hill of the Fairies’) sits above Caragh Lake to the immediate west and ‘surrounded by mountains varying in colour from deepest purple to distant misty blue.’ Initially a wooden house was constructed on the site, but this proved problematic. In The Winds of Time, Lady Gordon claimed ‘I may as well remark that, having designed all the important parts of the house myself, such as the drawing room and the veranda, the bay-windows and my own bedroom, I had left such uninteresting details as the chimneys and stairs to the contractor.’ The latter individual she then blamed for such problems as the entrance hall being in the wrong place, claiming that when this was pointed out to him, ‘he drew himself up, and with an ingratiating smile, remarked that in view of the great success of the rest of the house I must forgive him. “It is really the nicest little house I ever built,’ he added with pride, “and the first in which I’ve been able to carry out all my own ideas”.’ In due course and inevitably, the wooden building had to be replaced with something more substantial, this one designed by the English-born Percy Richard Morley Horder, who in 1915 exhibited a drawing for the house at the Royal Academy in London. Although little remembered today, Horder enjoyed a successful career during his lifetime (he died in 1944). His early work tended to be in the Arts and Crafts style, while in the interwar period he became known for his Neo-Georgian work. He designed, or remodelled, a large number of country houses in England as well as churches (he was the son of a Congregationalist minister), university buildings in Cambridge and Oxford, as well as a large part of the Nottingham University’s campus. When young, Horder was good looking and could have charm, but he also had a ferocious temper, hence his nickname of ‘Holy Murder.’ His elder daughter thought that ‘he was the most remarkable man I have ever met, the most dedicated, the most charming (when he chose to be) and the most awful.’ Meanwhile, in an account of his life by Clyde Binfield published in 1988, it was recalled that Horder had a habit of treating his clients with disdain. ‘It was how most professionals might sometimes wish to treat their clients, if they dared. Horder’s way became legendary. He would shout at them, his voice sounding through the floor. “You come here and hector and bully me”, he shouted as one client retreated quietly from the room.’ Nevertheless, he seems to have enjoyed a good relationship with Lady Gordon who admitted that she had chosen him ‘out of a number of competitors, chiefly for his romantic appearance, which I felt somehow would be reflected in his designs and work. She also acknowledged not being the easiest of clients and given to regular changes of mind: ‘No architect, I am sure, ever had so much to contend with, and none ever emerged more amiably out of the ordeal, not even uttering a protest when submitting a drawing which, I saw one day, to my horror, was numbered “103”.’ Incidentally, the original wooden house was taken down and re-erected at the nearby town of Killorglin where it served as a Sinn Fein club until burnt out by the Black and Tans. 





Although reminiscent in design of an English manor house, Ard na Sidhe is built of local materials including sandstone from Glenbeigh, the only exception being Westmorland roof slates. Its exterior composed of a series of steep gables and mullioned windows, the building is surrounded by a sequence of gardens originally laid out by Lady Gordon, surrounded by low stone walls, all meandering down to the lake shoreline. Again, in her memoir, she lays claim for having been responsible for the gardens’ design, after an unnamed ‘lady gardener’, employed to help with laying out the site, revealed ‘that she knew even less about it than I did.’ Lady Gordon battled on alone but much enjoying the experience: ‘I must candidly say that I did not feel in the least that my garden was a “school of peace.” On the contrary, I should describe it as a perennial nightmare…on the other hand, my garden never bored me. It worried me by day, and kept me awake by night; it made me swear and it made me weep; and it would have taken very little more to make me scream.’ Unlike other houses in this part of the country, Ard na Sidhe survived both the War of Independence and the Civil War, although raided on at least seven occasions by troops belonging to various factions, and having items – including a motor car – stolen. But in the aftermath, separated (and eventually divorced) from her husband and with a diminished income, Lady Gordon found herself obliged to sell the property. ‘Parting with it,’ she wrote, ‘took an ever-increasing financial strain off my mind, but it left a hole in my heart which has never been filled…’ The house then passed through a number of hands before being acquired by the family of its present owners who in 1960 opened the place as a small hotel. More recently, Ard na Sidhe benefitted from a superlative restoration by architectural firm Howley Hayes Cooley, during which the original steel framed leaded casement windows were repaired and the stone exterior repointed in lime, while the interior underwent a replanning of the public areas and bedrooms. Many features which had been lost over intervening decades and, just as importantly, Ard na Sidhe’s original character, were brought back, along with panelled walls, stone chimneypieces, oak and stone flooring and oak doors. Today Ard na Sidhe looks and feels as though its original chatelaine still lived on the premises. 


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Kenure Park



After Monday’s post about the melancholy fate of Kenure Park, County Dublin, here are the other remains of the estate: two gate lodges. The first of these, close to the centre of Rush town and erected around the mid-19th century, stands inside curved quadrant walls of wrought iron concluding in granite piers with vermiculated bands and concluding in spherical finials, this work. believed to date from c1740. The lodge itself, of single storey and three bays with a pedimented central breakfront, appears to be currently unused and suffers from having the render stripped from its exterior. The second lodge, which lies to the north of the now-demolished house, is again of single storey and three bays with a central pedimented breakfront. Thought to date from c.1830, the building retains its render which features boldly vermiculated quoins. In this case, however, the gate piers are in a much poorer state of repair.

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Two Days to Demolish the Work of Centuries


Rush is a coastal town lying some 15 miles north of central Dublin. Following the Anglo-Norman settlement in the late 12th century, much of the land in this area fell under the control of the Butler family, although the latter’s main base was further south in what are now Counties Kilkenny and Tipperary. As a result, during the medieval period the property was leased to a succession of tenants. In the mid-17th century, the estate was owned by James, the 12th Earl of Ormond and future first Duke of Ormond and according to the Civil Survey of 1654, the property was then occupied by one Robert Walsh. Estimated to extend to 300 acres, and valued at £120, the estate consisted of ‘one Mansion House of stone & one slated house of Office, a Barne & Stable slated, one thatcht Barne two other houses of office thatcht, six tenements, five cabbins part of an old castle Valued by ye Jury at five hundred poundes, a garden plott, one young orchard with some young trees set for ornament, a ruined Chappell of Ease, one horse mill now out of use & one decayed Pigeon House.’ Subsequently, a branch of the Hamilton family held the estate: within the walls of the ruined St. Catherine’s church is a tomb remembering ‘the affable, obliging, exemplary, wise, devout, most charitable, most virtuous and religious, the RT. Hon George Lord Hamilton, Baron of Strabane’ who died there in 1668. However, the Rush property was once more in the possession of the Butlers until 1715 when the second Duke of Ormond’s was attainded after he had fled to France and given his support to the Jacobite cause. The estate was then acquired by Henry Echlin whose great-grandfather Robert Echlin had moved from Scotland to Ireland where he was appointed Bishop of Down and Connor in 1612. A judge and ardent bibliophile, Henry Echlin was created a baronet in 1721 and on his death four years later, the title and estate in Rush passed to his grandson, Sir Robert Echlin. The latter’s wife Elizabeth (née Bellingham) continued the family’s engagement with books, being a writer and friend of Samuel Richardson (she is remembered for having penned an alternative, less shocking, end for Clarissa). Like George Hamilton before him, Sir Robert, who died in 1757, is buried in the now-ruined St Catherine’s church, his tomb reading
‘Here lies a man without pretence,
Blessed with plain reason and common sense,
Calmly he looked on either life and here
Saw nothing to regret or there to fear.
From nature’s temperate feast rose satisfied
Thanked Heaven that he lived, and that he died.’
Readers familiar with the works of Alexander Pope will recognised that the first two lines are a variant of those written by the poet for his On Mrs Corbet, who died of a Cancer in her Breast, while the other four come from Pope’s epitaph to Elijah Fenton. 






Sir Robert Echlin had no direct male heir and so the Rush estate and baronetcy passed to his nephew, Sir Henry Echlin who appears to have been something of a wastrel and who dissipated the greater part of his inheritance before dying suddenly in 1799. Long before then, gambling debts had cost him the Rush estate which in 1780 was bought by his cousin Elizabeth. A daughter of Sir Robert, she had been left a mere shilling by her father who disapproved of what he deemed Elizabeth’s unsuitable marriage to Francis Palmer of Castle Lacken, County Mayo (for more on the Palmers and Castle Lacken, see https://theirishaesthete.com/2022/09/12/castle-lacken). Thus the estate passed into the hands of the Palmers who chose to rename the place Kenure Park (from the Irish Ceann Iubhair, meaning the Headland of the Yew Trees), by which it has been known ever since. Francis and Elizabeth Palmer’s son, Roger, on his death in 1811 bequeathed ‘May Money’ to the area. According to the terms of his will, £2,500 was to be laid out in Ireland ‘in proper securities at 6% p.a. compound interest, and I desire that the interest be employed every succeeding year, in the month of May, for the purpose of giving a marriage gift to ten women. Never married, between the ages of twenty & thirty-two years, at the rate of £10 each.’  Furthermore, ‘They must be from the poorest & born upon any part of my estate in the County of Dublin, but women born in the environs of the town of Rush, within two miles of my estate be preferred.’ Seemingly this fund still exists, although now dormant. Meanwhile, successive generations of Palmers lived on the estate until the death without a direct male heir of Lt. General Sir Roger Palmer, fifth baronet, in 1910. Kenure Park then passed to Colonel Roderick Henry Fenwick-Palmer who retained the property until 1964 when, unable to maintain it any longer, he sold the place to the Irish Land Commission for £75,500. Most of the land was divided between local farmers, with the rest acquired by Dublin County Council for housing and playing fields.





A succession of houses were constructed on what eventually became known as the Kenure estate. The scant remains of what is thought to be a late-medieval tower house lie to the north of the later Palmer residence, and this may have been the ‘Mansion House of stone’ mentioned in the Civil Survey of 1654. In any case, that building was succeeded by another, constructed either during the time of the dukes of Ormond or else soon after the estate came into the hands of the Echlins. A description of this house survives, since it was visited in June 1783 by the antiquary Austin Cooper who noted that ‘About half a mile from the (Roman Catholic) Chapel is Rush House, once the seat of the Echlin family, and which now belongs to a Mr. Palmer. It is a large quadrangular building in the old style, terminated by a hewn parapet ornamented with urns. In the front is a small pediment supported by four Tuscan pillars, which evidently appears to be a modern addition. The situation of it is low, but the view of the sea agreeable. The improvements about it are very neat and kept in good order.’ This late 17th/early 18th century house appears to have remained intact until the outbreak of fire in 1827 but the damage cannot have been too serious since photographs show both the bow-ended drawing room and the room above it had elaborate rococo ceilings in the style of Robert West. In 1842-44 extensive work was carried out on the building to the designs of George Papworth, the exterior refaced in stucco in the manner of a Nash London terrace and a tremendous pedimented Corinthian portico of granite added to the facade. Inside, the entrance hall was given engaged Doric columns and walls covered in yellow scagliola. Beyond this rose a top-lit Imperial staircase with ornate wrought-iron scrolled balustrading, further Doric columns on the ground floor and Ionic pilasters above. All  survived until 1964 when the house was sold and a four-day auction held to dispose of the contents, which realised a total of some £250,000. Contemporary reports noted that a pair of Buhl cabinets went for just £120, while a Chinese Chippendale display cabinet, sold to a London dealer, made £6,800, seemingly the highest price yet paid for a single piece of furniture at auction in Ireland. Today these figures seem absurdly low. To give a couple of examples: in June 2008, that same Chinese Chippendale cabinet was sold at auction by Christie’s for more than £2.7 million. And in October 2006, two mid-18th century chairs attributed to the London cabinet makers William and Richard Gomm and once part of a set of five in Kenure Park, sold for US$408,000.  Meanwhile, an undignified fate awaited the house itself, which was left standing empty by the county council, subject to the inevitable decay and equally inevitable assault by vandals who eventually managed to set fire to the place. Finally, after 14 years of neglect, the authority sought tenders for Kenure Park’s demolition, although after local petitioning, Papworth’s great portico was left standing, a melancholic reminder of what had been lost. As a headline in the Irish Times noted in September 1978, it took ‘Two Days to Demolish the Work of Centuries…’

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A Prize for Bravery


August 2015

March 2018

April 2023

Regular readers of this site may remember that five years ago, the Irish Aesthete established an annual prize for owners of historic houses here, kindly sponsored by the O’Flynn Group and organised in conjunction with Historic Houses of Ireland (HHI). This year’s recipients of the prize are the owners of Dromdiah, County Cork, about which more can be read here: The Age of Austerity « The Irish Aesthete.
When first visited almost a decade ago, the house was a roofless shell, smothered with vegetation both inside and out, and widely regarded as beyond salvation. Not long afterwards it was bought and since then has undergone a painstaking restoration that now nears completion (the owners hope to move into the building later this year). The work at Dromdiah shows that no property is beyond salvation and once again demonstrates a new wave of interest in bringing Ireland’s historic houses back to life. As such it is a very worthy recipient of the 2025 HHI-O’Fynn Group Heritage Prize.







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Erected for their Posterity



Above the pointed arch doorway with cable moulding at the entrance to a now-roofless church in Naul, County Dublin is a plaque stating that the building had been ‘Erected by Hon. Edward Hussey and his wife Lady Mabel (nee Barnwall) for their posterity in the year of Our Lord God 1710.’ This memorial also features the Hussey coat of arms and motto ‘Cor Immobile’ (Immovable Hearts). The plaque suggests the building dates from the early 18th century but more likely it was reconstructed then as a chantry chapel for the Husseys (whose vault lies within the nave), because the Civil Survey of 1654-6 described it as being ruinous with only ‘the walles of ye parish church’ still standing. In addition, at the east end there remains a fine double ogee-headed window (a second, less ornamented opening can be found on the south wall). At the start of the 19th century, a Church of Ireland church was constructed to the immediate north of this little structure but was then demolished in 1949 due to insufficient numbers attending services there.



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Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona duit*

Abbey Leix, County Laois

Ballyvolane, County Cork

Lodge Park, County Kildare

Oakfield Park, County Donegal

Malahide Castle, County Dublin

In 1959, following a visit to Ireland, Johnny Cash wrote a song called ‘Forty Shades of Green.’ Given that this is St Patrick’s Day, it seems appropriate to offer readers of the Irish Aesthete a small selection of those shades…

Killruddery, County Wicklow

Garinish Island, County Cork

Blarney Castle, County Cork

Farmleigh, Dublin

Kells Bay, County Kerry

*Translation to English: Happy St Patrick’s Day
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A Most Singular Act of Architectural Vandalism



After last month’s post about the Museum Building in Trinity College Dublin (see A Remarkable Building « The Irish Aesthete), here is another property designed by the same architectural team of Deane & Woodward. Dating from 1859-61, the former Kildare Street Club replaced a number of other buildings on the same site. The club was founded in 1782, when William Burton Conyngham (1733–96), having been blackballed by Daly’s Club in Dame Street, established a rival organisation at 6 Kildare Street. By the middle of the following century, and although the club had taken on adjacent premises, the members felt the need for further expansion and therefore commissioned Deane & Woodward to come up with an entirely fresh scheme. Unlike the typical London clubhouse, which was inclined to be designed in the style of a classical Italianate palazzo, the Kildare Street Club is more Italo-Byzantine in manner, the red brick facade relieved by large window openings and abundant use of grey and white stone. The grand interior had a double-height staircase hall, and equally capacious reception rooms, as well as a racquet court with dressing rooms, smaller games rooms and, in the attic storey, members’ bedrooms. 



In what Professor Christine Casey has rightly described as ‘the most singular act of architectural vandalism in recent Dublin history’ (although this title could be keenly contested), the interior of the Kildare Street Club was ruthlessly gutted in 1971, after its members had moved out of the premises prior to joining forces with another club. Thereafter a development company applied to convert the building into offices, and received permission from the local authority to do so. While certain features remain in situ, such as some of the chimneypieces and cornicing, the rooms today bear little resemblance to their original state. The exterior, on the other hand, still looks much as it always did, and includes a series of densely carved columnar capitals and bases, the work here attributed to the Cork-born O’Shea brothers, as well as Charles Harrison and Charles William Purdy: one of the bases famously represents a number of monkeys engaged in a game of billiards. Today the former club houses both the Alliance française and the manuscripts department of the National Library of Ireland.



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Glimpses into the Past


Barely a mile to the north of Castle Carra, County Mayo (see last Monday, Difficult to Locate without a Guide « The Irish Aesthete) can be another substantial ruin, this time of a religious settlement. Like the castle, Burriscarra Abbey, as it is now popularly known,  is believed to have been established by the Anglo-Norman Adam de Staunton. He granted the land here to the mendicant Carmelite order, founded by St Berthold in 1154. The date given for the establishment of the house at Burriscarra is 1298, just over a quarter century after the first Carmelite friary had been founded in Leighlinbridge, County Carlow. At Burriscarra, the friars did not remain in situ for long. For reasons unknown – perhaps warfare, perhaps devastation caused by the Black Death – by 1383 they had gone, after which the property lay abandoned for some 30 years. 





In 1413, the former Carmelite friary at Burriscarra was given to the Augustinian order which had already established a house elsewhere in the county at Ballinrobe (see Unclear Past, Unclear Future « The Irish Aesthete). The Augustinians appear to have been invited by Edmund and Richard Staunton, descendants of Adam de Staunton. On arrival, the friars found the place in a poor state of repair, these circumstances made worse in 1430 when the buildings were burned, presumably during one of the internecine disputes that bedevilled Ireland throughout the 15th century. In consequence, a Papal indulgence was granted to anyone who visited the church and gave alms for its repair.  After the rebuilding of the friary a dispute arose between the Carmelites and the Augustinians over ownership of the property. However, it appears the Augustinians remained in residence of the friary until, like all other religious houses, it was suppressed in the 16th century. In 1607 the lands of Burriscarra were granted by James I to one John King, who then sold them on to the Bowens, after which, like nearby Castle Carra, they passed into the possession of the Lynch family and eventually being taken into the care of the Office of Public Works. 





Today Burriscarra friary consists of a roofless church with a side aisle on its south-west side and the remains of a two-storey domestic range incorporating a cloister garth to the immediate north. Much of what survives likely dates from the rebuilding of the property in the 15th century, following damage caused by the fire of 1430. Access to the church is through a small round arched window at the west end. At the head of the building, what was once a very substantial east window occupying much of the gable wall was later blocked up and a much smaller opening created. The southern wall had another three large windows and while these remain, all their tracery is lost. Below these, in what would have been the choir, are a sedilia and piscina. The former is demarcated by a trefoil arch concluding on either side with a carved head, one of which has suffered considerable damage. Note also how the decoration of column capitals inside the arch differ from each other and that the ogee-headed window inside the arch is slightly off-centre, as also is the point of the adjacent piscina’s arch. The only window to retain its tracery can be found inside the side aisle, accessed via two large arched openings on the south wall nave. Like nearby Castle Carra and the subsequent 18th century house, what survives of this religious establishment offers us glimpses into the complexities of this country’s history.

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