This 19th century domed greenhouse closes a vista inside the walled garden of Malahide Castle, County Dublin. The building is not original to the site: seemingly it came from a convent in south County Dublin and was installed here in recent years by Malahide Castle’s owners, Fingall County Council. It is a handsome addition to the walled garden, but the state of some of the roof timbers suggests insufficient maintenance.
Not a miniature Greek temple, but a mausoleum erected in 1860 to the Corry family. It stands in the same cemetery as the remains of Movilla Priory church, County Down seen here last Wednesday. Originally from Scotland, the Corrys moved to Ulster in the early 17th century and settled on the Ards Peninsula. In the first half of the 19th century, Robert Corry became extremely wealthy through involvement in quarrying and timber. It was he who commissioned this mausoleum, believed to have been designed by his second son John, a keen amateur architect (he was also responsible for the design of the Italianate Elmwood Presbyterian church in Belfast). John Corry was clearly well-informed, since the building conforms to strict Greek revival rules, the little temple featuring an open base plinth around which runs a peristyle of Doric columns supporting a pedimented entablature.
Movilla, County Down takes its name from the Irish magh bile, which means ‘plain of the ancient tree’ because in pre-Christian times a sacred tree had stood here. A monastery was founded here in 540 by St Finian and grew to be one of the most important in the country. However, after being sacked by Vikings in the ninth century, it went into decline and was eventually re-established as an Augustinian priory. This was closed down during the Dissolution of the Monasteries and today all that remains are the gable ends of a 15th century church, the space between them filled with tombstones.
Text here…
The handsome 18th century stable yard at Castle Archdale, County Fermanagh. Dating from the early 1770s, the house here was built to replace an older one which had in turn superseded a plantation castle badly damaged in 1689. Of six bays and three storeys over basement, and the largest Palladian house in Fermanagh, Castle Archdale stood on high ground overlooking the shores of Lower Lough Erne. In 1942 the building was requisitioned by the RAF and thereafter never returned to being a private residence: left to fall into ruin, it was demolished in 1970. The stable yard, which stood directly behind, is all that remains to testify to the house’s former presence. It is now used as offices and the grounds of Castle Archdale used as a caravan park.
Abbey Leix, County Laois
‘I must return to give you an account of Lady De Vesci’s. I am quite in love with her and with their state of living. It is entirely without form, everybody doing as they please, and always a vast number of people in the house. Lady Knapton, his mother, lives with them, and seems no restraint upon anybody, she is so good-humoured. We were about six or seven ladies and as many gentlemen, divided into different parties about the room, some working, some reading, some playing cards, and the room being large and very full, it had a most comfortable appearance. It opens into the library on one side and the dining-room on the other. As it rained most of the time I was there I did not see much of the grounds, but the park is not laid out, as they have employed all their time and money in making a comfortable house first, which I think the most sensible plan. Lady De Vesci was very loth to let us go so soon, but Mr. Dawson had business at home that prevented our staying longer. However, we go again into their neighbourhood the end of next week, as Sir Robert and Lady Staples have been very pressing with their invitations, and insisted upon our naming the time, which we accordingly did, and Lady De Vesci begs we will come to her again after that, to meet Lord and Lady Tyrone, so you see we have enough to do; besides we have a ball to go to on Wednesday next, which a distant neighbour has invited us to, and when all this is over we meditate a trip to Dublin, to buy some things we have occasion for.’
From Lady Caroline Dawson to Lady Louisa Stuart, September 1778.
Carton, County Kildare
‘At last we have left Dublin, and are arrived at this place, which I find more agreeable than I expected, though I don’t think I should like to stay long; but for a couple of days it will do very well, as there is a good deal to see. I can’t say much for the entertainment within, as the Duchess is not more agreeable in her own house than she was in mine ; however, I am not sure but what I should grow to have some liking, or at least esteem, for her, as I am convinced she is perfectly good and well meaning. The Duke seems very fond of her, and being stupid himself, does not, I daresay, find out that she has any deficiency of understanding. Lady Charlotte [FitzGerald, sister of the Duke of Leinster], who is really sensible, seems to do what she pleases with them both. You will be surprised when I tell you there are at present four generations in the house, the Duchess having her mother and grandmother paying her a visit, which, with her children, makes up four, and the great-grandmother is a very good-looking woman, not older than most people’s mothers, and the Duchess’s mother, Lady St. George, one would take to be fifteen. I must describe her to you, because she is so remarkable. She has a very pretty little figure, with a face not handsome, but well enough, and her dress in the afternoon is a polonaise trimmed with gauze ; upon recollection, I am telling you wrong, for it is a Circassian, all over loops and tassels (like the one Mrs. Stuart brought from Paris last year), and a little black Henri Quatre hat upon her head, with her hair dressed up to it behind. In a morning she wears an orange-coloured habit embroidered, or rather embossed, with gold, and a great rich gold stuff waistcoat, with broad laced ruffles, and a little white beaver hat with a bunch of white feathers upon the top, and a black stock, so that she looks the finest French figure you ever saw. Everything seems to go on in great state here. The Duchess appears in a sack and hoop and diamonds in an afternoon, French horns playing at every meal, and such quantities of plate, etc., that one would imagine oneself in a palace; and there are servants without end.’
From Lady Caroline Dawson to Lady Louisa Stuart, October 1778.
Castletown, County Kildare
‘On Saturday they asked if I should like going to Castletown, Mr. Conolly’s, and upon my answering in the affirmative we set out in the coach and six with all due state. I was very much entertained, as it is a very pretty place, though a flat (which you will not credit, I suppose) ; but there’s very fine wood, a fine river, and views of mountains from every part of it, so the flatness does not strike one so much, and I never saw any place kept so neat and nice. They first carried me to the cottage, for you must know it is quite the fashion in Ireland to have a cottage neatly fitted up with Tunbridge ware, and to drink tea in it during the summer. We then went to the house, which is the largest I ever was in, and reckoned the finest in this kingdom. It has been done up entirely by Lady Louisa, and with a very good taste ; but what struck me most was a gallery, I daresay 150 feet long, furnished in the most delightful manner with fine glasses, books, musical instruments, billiard table, in short, everything that you can think of is in that room, and though so large, is so well filled, that it is the warmest, most comfortable-looking place I ever saw ; and they tell me they live in it quite in winter, for the servants can bring in dinner or supper at one end, without anybody hearing it at the other, in short, I never saw anything so delightful, and I am sure you would have been in raptures. Lady Charlotte [FitzGerald] is so fond of it that she would have me go into every hole and corner of that great house, and then made me walk all over the shrubbery, so that by the time we had finished I was compleatly tired.’
From Lady Caroline Dawson to Lady Louisa Stuart, October 1778
Next Sunday afternoon, I shall be speaking at Emo Court, County Laois on Lady Caroline Dawson and her visits to country houses around Ireland. For further information, please see: http://emocourt.ie/event/robert-obyrne-lady-caroline-dawson-an-18th-century-country-house-guest
Familiar to anyone who has driven between Dublin and Cork on the M8, this is Gortmakellis Castle, County Tipperary, a tower house dating from the late 15th or 16th century. Relatively little seems to be known of its history, other than it was once owned by the Stapleton family but around 1650 came into the possession of William Pennefather, an English soldier who settled in this part of the country. His descendants remained in residence until they built a new house Ballyowen (formerly New Park) c.1750 after which Gortmakellis was left to fall into its present roofless condition.
Thro’ the long morning have I toil’d
O’er heath and lonely wood,
And cross the dark untrodden glen
The fearful game pursu’d:
But deeper now the gathering clouds
Collect along the sky,
And faint and weary warn my steps
Their homeward course to hie.
And now the driving mist withdraws
Her grey and vapoury veil:
I mark again the sacred tower
I pass’d in yonder dale.
A little while, and I shall gain
Yon hill’s laborious height;
And then perhaps my humble cot
Will chear my grateful sight.
Ah now I see the smoke ascend
From forth the glimmering thatch;
Now my heart beats at every step,
And now I lift the latch;
Now starting from my blazing hearth
My little children bound,
And loud with shrill and clamorous joy
Their happy sire surround.
How sweet when Night first wraps the world
Beneath her sable vest,
To sit beside the crackling fire
With weary limbs at rest;
And think on all the labours past,
That Morn’s bright hours employ’d,
While all, that toil and danger seem’d,
Is now at home enjoy’d.
The wild and fearful distant scene,
Lone covert, whistling storm,
Seem now in Memory’s mellowing eye
To wear a softer form;
And while my wand’rings I describe,
As froths the nut-brown ale,
My dame and little list’ning tribe
With wonder hear the tale.
Then soft enchanting slumbers calm,
My heavy eyelids close,
And on my humble bed I sink
To most profound repose;
Save, that by fits, the scenes of day,
Come glancing on my sight,
And, touch’d by Fancy’s magic wand,
Seem visions of delight.
The Gamekeeper’s Return at Night by Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges (1821).
Photographs of the former Gamekeeper’s Lodge at Woodlawn, County Galway.
The façade of Churchtown, County Kerry. This house replaced nearby Castle Corr (see last Wednesday) as a residence for the McGillycuddy family, and may have been built in part using stone from that now-ruined building. In 1717 Dennis McGillycuddy married Anne Blennerhassett and Churchtown subsequently passed into the possession of her family, remaining with them until the second half of the 19th century when bought by forebears of the present owners (who now offer it as a holiday let). Believed to date from 1740, building is slate-fronted on its southern side and this was also the case with the now-rendered, five-bay façade, plain other than the cut limestone doorcase.
With a backdrop of the McGillycuddy Reeks, evening light shines on what remains of Castle Corr (Cáisleán an Chórraig, the castle of the Marsh), County Kerry. This tower house was built in the middle of the 15th century by the McGillycuddys and, despite the family remaining Roman Catholic and backing James II in the Williamite Wars, they managed to retain the property. Badly damaged during the Confederate Wars of the 1640s, the building was subsequently restored and continued to serve as a residence until the mid-18th century when nearby Churchtown was built. It is said that the latter’s basement storey was constructed of stone taken from Castle Corr, which has long lost its southern side. What survives today stands somewhat incongruously in the middle of a golf course.
