Tag Archives: Architectural History

A Brave Initiative



The story of Dr James Barry – a military surgeon in the British army during the first half of the 19th century who, on his death in 1865, was discovered to have been a woman called Margaret Anne Bulkley – is well-known. However, today’s post concerns another doctor of the same name and period, but who lived in County Kerry. Born in 1800, James Barry settled in Cahersiveen, where he had a successful practice and, despite being a Justice of the Peace, was a supporter of the Fenians: during an unsuccessful uprising in this part of the country in February 1867, it was reported that he had given shelter to a number of Fenians, one of their leaders, John Joseph O’Connor, taking the doctor’s horse when they departed. And an official report into local disturbances during the 1872 elections noted ‘the obstructive attitude of a local J.P., Dr. Barry, when the police were trying to restore the peace’ with the doctor described as ‘a disgrace to the Bench.’ Barry was clearly a man of both influence and affluence: by 1828 he was able to make an offer to Daniel O’Connell to buy the materials of Carhan House (where Daniel O’Connell had been born), although this may have meant just the doors, chimneypieces and so forth: the earliest Ordnance Survey map of 1841 already describes Carhan as being ‘in ruins.’ The same map also shows the first bridge across the river Fertha linking Cahersiveen with the Iveragh Peninsula; hitherto the only way to get across was by ferry. A pedestrian timber structure (it would be replaced in the 1930s with the present concrete bridge), this features on the Ordnance Survey map as ‘Barry’s Bridge (in progress). It was officially opened in 1847. The doctor’s motives for involvement in this project may not have been altogether altruistic because the following decade he built himself a fine new residence on the other side of the river and overlooking Cahersiveen. Access to this property was made easier by the existence of a bridge bearing his name.





In January 1857, Dr Barry married, seemingly for the first time. His bride was Honoria Ponsonby, whose family had, until the previous decade, lived at Crotta House, an important 17th century residence which survived in part until the 1970s. Honoria was a widow, having previously been married to Richard Francis Blennerhassett of Kells, County Kerry. His wedding may have spurred the doctor into building a new house for himself and his wife, because the following year he embarked on just such a project, leasing a site from the Marquess of Lansdowne on the north side of the river, with the land running down to the water’s edge and the marquess contributing £100 towards its construction. The building was given the name Villa Nuova, although, again looking at the earliest Ordnance Survey map, there is no evidence of an older structure here, certainly not one of any substance. As first built, Villa Nuova was of two storeys over raised basement; the rear of the latter looks to be of earlier date, so there may have been some kind of structure here before. The exterior’s most notable feature are the facade’s two steeply pitched gables with a small recessed bay between them. The present entrance porch, accessed at the top of a flight of Valencia slate steps, replaces an earlier one burnt in the 1920s. On either side of the house are two-storey canted bays which may be original or perhaps added later, although they can be seen in an early photograph of Villa Nuova. 





The history of Villa Nuova in the last century is a little unclear. Dr Barry and his wife had no children of their own, and the house thereafter seems to have passed through a variety of hands. In the 1901 Census, it is listed as being occupied by Resident Magistrate Major Ernest Thomas Lloyd, retired from the Bengal Civil Service, together with his four young children and three household servants. Ten years later, the occupant of the building was local solicitor James Shuel. However, by the early 1920s Villa Nuova was owned by one Bartholomew Sheehan, a local merchant who also had commercial premises in Cahersiveen: both these and the house suffered from being attacked and burnt by anti-Treaty forces in 1922. In consequence, Villa Nuova was left gutted and had to be reconstructed, so that much of the interior seen today dates from the mid-1920s. This includes a series of tiled chimneypieces produced by a Devon-based company called Candy and Co, as well as handsome oak doors and architraves, and a fine staircase. Villa Nuova then became home to the Duffy family, a relative of whose was the last to live in the house some 20 years ago. In September 2007, the building, together with some 54 acres, was sold to a local company for €2.35m, but was then left empty and unoccupied. Most recently, together with the immediate land, it has been bought by new owners who have embarked on an ambitious programme of retrieval and restoration, with the intention of bringing the place back to a habitable condition in which they will live. It’s a brave initiative, and – as always with such projects – deserves applause and all possible support.



For readers interested in following the restoration of Villa Nuova, the owners are chronicling progress on YouTube ((1) Villa Nuova – YouTube) and Instagram (@villa_nuova_)

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A Good Showish Figure



To the immediate east of St Macartan’s Cathedral in Clogher, County Tyrone stands the former bishop’s palace which was likewise rebuilt in the early 18th century by the Rev Dr John Stearne. Mrs Delany visited the place in August 1748 when it was occupied by Stearne’s successor, Robert Clayton and his wife, and while she thought the garden  ‘pretty with a fine large sloping green walk from the steps to a large basin on water, on which sail most gracefully fair beautiful swans,’ she was less satisfied with the house, describing it as ‘large, and makes a good showish figure; but great loss of room by ill-contrivance within doors. It is situated on the side of so steep a hill that part of the front next the street is under ground and from that to the garden you descend fifty stone steps which is intolerable.’ In consequence, while the seven-bay entrance front is of three storeys, the six-bay garden front is of four storeys. As seen today, the old palace is the result of work undertaken here by Lord John George Beresford, bishop in 1819-20 and then Lord Robert Tottenham. Following the union of the diocese of Clogher with the archdiocese of Armagh in 1850, the property was sold and became a private residence. The interiors are rather plain, the most striking feature being the staircase, the ceiling of which is painted with six cherubs: these represented the children of Thomas Stewart Porter who inherited what was then called Clogher Park in 1903. The house subsequently became a convent for the Sisters of St Louis, but is now a residential care home.



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In the Ancient Style


One of the lesser-known figures in early 18th century Irish cultural life is the Rev John Stearne, successively Dean of St Patrick’s, Dublin, then Bishop of Dromore and finally Bishop of Clogher. Born in 1660, he was the son of another John Stearne, Professor of Medicine at Trinity College Dublin and founder of what would become the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. In 1705 the younger Stearne succeeded his mother’s kinsman Jerome Ryves as Dean of St Patrick’s where he rebuilt the deanery (a house that would be destroyed by fire in 1781), the first of several such projects he undertook. The next came following his elevation in 1713 to the Bishopric of Dromore where he inherited an incomplete episcopal palace at Magheralin from his predecessor, Tobias Pullen. The latter had spent some residence which Stearne further extended and finished at a cost of more than £333: this building is also, alas, no more. Then, following his translation to Clogher, he is recorded by his near contemporary Walter Harris as having spent £3,000 ‘in building and other improvements.’  A considerable amount of the money is likely to have gone towards a new cathedral, commissioned by Stearne only a year before his death in 1744. 





A bachelor, Bishop Stearne was an ardent bibliophile, one of the keenest book collectors of his generation. In June 1713 he informed his friend William King, Archbishop of Dublin (another great book collector) that he sought a remedy for ‘that disease which inclines men to buy more books than they can have much use for.’ Even while he was Dean of St Patrick’s, his fondness for acquiring volumes had been noted in verses by William Percival, Dean of Emly, who wrote:
‘Near St Sepulchre’s stands a building
Which, as report goes, ne’er had child in;
The house is large, and to adorn her,
From garret down to chimney corner,
The upper chambers were well lined
With antique books, and books new coined;
Which plainly shewed its founder’s head
With learning of all sorts supplied…’*
His collection would become a useful resource for many scholars, not least the aforementioned Walter Harris who, in the preface to his updating of Sir James Ware’s writings, gratefully noted that the bishop ‘gave me free leave to make Extracts out of his valuable Collections relating to Ireland.’ In June 1738, John Copping, newly appointed Dean of Clogher told Sir Hans Sloane that Stearne, then aged 78, ‘carries in him a magazine of knowledge, unimpaired by his great age, with a constitution of body which I dare not match. An easy temper, with an engaging affability makes his house the constant resort of all the learned and polite world, and as he is a bachelor, you will not wonder that his hospitable doors are open to the ladies.’ Copping added that the bishop was as communicative as he was knowing. ‘His study is large, containing I believe 6 or 7000 volumes, among which are some curious pieces, and I believe there is nothing in his collection with which he is not intimately acquainted.’ Five years earlier, Stearne had donated £1,000 to his alma mater Trinity College Dublin for the construction of a printing house (designed by Richard Castle) and two years later gave a further £200 for the purchase of block types used in printing. It might have been expected therefore that following his death he would leave his library, which he had long regarded as ‘a resource for others’, to the college where he had long served as vice-chancellor. Instead, he opted to divide the collection between different institutions, TCD having already received in 1741 the collection of depositions relating to the 1641 rebellion, which Stearne had bought from the widow of Dr John Madden. Over 2,000 works from his collection to the library established more than forty years earlier by Narcissus Marsh, declaring in his will that this was but ‘a small token of the great regard I have for the bountiful erector and endower of this Library.’ By the terms of his will, he endowed a number of charities, including Dr Stevens’ Hospital and St Patrick’s Hospital (established by his old friend, Jonathan Swift), as well as leaving funds for the completion of the cathedral which was then under construction at Clogher. 





Located on a rise above the village, the cathedral at Clogher has always sat within the walls of what was once a Celtic hill-fort. As a religious settlement, the building is said to owe its origins to St Macartan, a companion of St Patrick, who c.493 founded a monastery here. In 1111, at the reforming Synod of Ráth Breasail, Clogher was established as a diocese, its boundaries roughly conforming to those of the medieval Kingdom of Airgíalla, although for a period during the 12th century its centre was moved to Louth. Nothing survives of the original cathedral. Dedicated to St Macartan, it was rebuilt c.1183 and then again in c.1295, before the entire site was severely damaged in two fires in the years 1395 and 1396. Further damage was inflicted on several occasions during the upheavals of the 16th century, so that by the time James Spottiswood was appointed bishop in 1621, he found the cathedral church ‘altogether ruynous. The walls of an Abbey church standeth by, which will beare no roofe.’ Although he undertook extensive restoration works, these suffered again over the course of the Confederate Wars and their aftermath, and it was only in the early 18th century that this part of the country experienced sufficient peace for John Stearne to undertake the construction of a new cathedral, although in doing so, almost all evidence of earlier buildings here were cleared. Stearne’s architect is believed to have been the builder/architect James Martin, about whom little is known except that he died almost the same time as did the bishop. Although quite clearly a classical structure, the building was described at the time as being ‘in the ancient style of English architecture.’ As explained by Peter Galloway in The Cathedrals of Ireland (1992) this clearly does not suggest the latest iteration of St Macartan’s was an early example of the Gothic revival, but rather that it had a cruciform plan ‘which was a notable move away from the hall-and-tower type of church in standard design in the late 17th century.’ In 1816-18, alterations ‘in the Grecian style’ were made to the cathedral by the then-dean, Richard Bagwell, the most obvious instance of which was the addition of an open stonework balustrade with obelisk finials around the top of the tower at the west end. Internally, further changes took place in 1865 when the galleries along the south and north sides were removed, so that only that on the west side, accommodating the organ, can be found today. The interior of the building is relatively plain, relieved by a variety of memorials between round-headed windows, most of which have been filled with stained glass: the Venetian east window has Ionic columns and pilasters and commemorates Lord John George Beresford, Bishop of Clogher 1819-20. Still well-maintained by the local community, St Macartan’s is perhaps not the most engaging cathedral in Ireland: one wonders what might have been its final appearance had both John Stearne and James Martin lived to see the work completed. 


*Patrick Delany, Dean of Down, also wrote a verse, Written on a Window, at the Deanery House, St Patrick’s, in which he mentioned the genial hospitality provided there by both Stearne and his successor Jonathan Swift.
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Simple but Effective



The Mucklagh Gate formerly providing access to the Charleville Forest estate (see: The Consequence of Extravagance « The Irish Aesthete). Although the date 1860 is inscribed on a lintel, it is possible that this castellated building was designed at the start of the 19th century by Francis Johnston when he was working on the main castle. The rubble stone entrance, simple but effective, comprises a battlemented carriage gateway flanked by round towers, with pedestrian access via one of the latter.



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Guarding the Pass of the Shannon


‘In 1140 the ancient town of Athlone was just as important a military post as it is today. The ancient Castle, still guarded jealously and fortified in modern fashion; the frowning batteries with guns all looking towards Connaught, speak clearly of the invasions expected from that quarter. Seven hundred years ago, a Celtic dun of earth rose on the very same spot where now stands the Castle raised by the ancient spot by King John’s ecclesiastico-warrior architect, John, Bishop of Norwich. The Castle of Athlone has ever guarded the pass of the Shannon, and has seen many a hard fight for its possession down to the last great struggles when De Ginkle defeated St. Ruth and destroyed the hopes of the Stuarts.’
From Ireland and the Anglo-Norman Church by the Rev.G.T. Stokes (1897)





‘The castle, which occupies a spur or offset from the higher grounds on which a part of the town is built, was erected in the reign of John, and enlarged and strengthened by Elizabeth. The ancient keep is in the centre of the court or area of the castle, and is used as a barrack. The buildings, which have been erected on the platform, next the lower side of the town, are occupied by the officers of the castle, the walls of which rising above those which sustain the mound, add to their imposing appearance on the outer side. In other parts the platform is surrounded with modern works mounted with cannon, calculated to command not only the approaches from the Connaught side, but to sweep the bridge itself.’
From A Handbook for Travellers in Ireland by James Fraser (1844)





‘This castle saw many changes in Ireland. It was sometimes held by the Irish, or by rebellious noblemen like the Clanricardes, specially during the Wars of the Roses, when Ireland was left to mind itself. In Queen Elizabeth’s time the Castle was made a seat of the Presidency of Connaught, with a Chief Justice and an Attorney-General for Ireland…Under Cromwell, the Castle was the seat of the Court of Claims, which regulated the lands assigned to the proprietors transported into Connaught. In 1690-91, the Castle was held by Colonel Grace for James II. He was killed in the Siege, June 20th 1691, and was buried in St Mary’s Church, where a monument formerly used to stand to his memory…The Castle has been adapted to modern warfare; but still the ancient keep, curtain walls, and water-gate can plainly be traced. Sir H. Piers in his History of Westmeath, written in 1682, describes the Castle thus, “In the centre of the Castle is a high raised tower which overlooketh the walls and country round it. On the side that faceth the river are the rooms and apartments which served always for the habitation of the Lord President of Connaught and the Governor of the Castle; the middle Castle being the storehouse for ammunition and warlike provisions of all sorts”.’
From The Proceedings and Papers of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Vol. I, Fifth Series (1892)


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Death is the Door of Life



The Malone Mausoleum in the graveyard of Kilbixy, County Westmeath was erected in the late 18th century, its design attributed to James Wyatt who is thought also to have been responsible for the adjacent St Bigseach’ church. The building was commissioned by Richard Malone, first (and last) Baron Sunderlin who lived nearby in the long-lost Baronston House. Faced with ashlar limestone, it takes the form of a weighty square block on a stepped base plinth above which rises a pyramidal roof. Comparisons have been made with the mausolea of Halicarnassus and Knidos, and, with regard to the north-east elevation, the fourth century BC Choragic Monument of Thrasyllos on the south face of Athens’ Acropolis. The building’s Greek cross interior contains three sarcophagi, one for Malone, one for his late uncle Anthony Malone (whose extensive estates he had inherited) and one for his brother Edmond, a well-known Shakespearean scholar of the period. Access to the interior is via double doors, above which is an inscription reading ‘Mors Janua Vitae’ (Death is the Door of Life) while on the south-west can be seen the Malone coat of arms with the inscription ‘Fidelis at Urnam’ (Faithful until Death). Thanks to the Follies Trust, the mausoleum underwent extensive restoration in 2023 but recently a tree in the graveyard came down beside it and while this does not appear to have damaged the main structure, the cast-iron railings may have suffered. 



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A Feast of Colour and Light


The first member of his family to settle in Ireland, Anthony Atkinson appears to have arrived here in the late 16th/early 17th century, serving as a soldier who rose to the rank of Lieutenant. In due course, he was granted land in County Offaly where, prior to his death in 1626, he built a residence called Cangort Castle. During the Confederate Wars and their aftermath, this building was garrisoned for the crown but later captured by members of the Commonwealth army and badly damaged. When the original owner’s grandson, another Anthony Atkinson, recovered the property in the aftermath of the Restoration in 1660, he built a new house adjacent to the ruins of the castle and, allowing for various additions and alterations, this remained the family’s home until it was sold in 1957. In the early 18th century, a third Anthony Atkinson, married to Mary Guy (whose father was Admiral John Guy, remembered for breaking the boom across the river Foyle and thereby relieving the Siege of Derry) trained as a barrister and served as an MP in the Irish Parliament. Several generations later, in 1859 the estate was inherited by 12-year old Guy Newcomen Atkinson, and it would seem that once he came of age in 1868, the house was extensively remodelled to its present appearance. On his death in 1890, he, in turn, left a young heir, Guy Montague Atkinson, who after coming of age chose to sell Cangort to his uncle, William Henry Atkinson; it was the latter’s grandson, Major Anthony Guy Atkinson, who sold the house in 1957, thereby ending the family’s link with this property.





The present Cangort House owes much of its appearance to architect William George Murray, who, as mentioned, likely received this commission from Guy Newcomen Atkinson after the latter had come of age in 1868. The son of William Murray, a cousin of Francis Johnston in whose office he trained, the younger man had become a partner in his father’s practice in 1845 along with Abraham Denny. Following Murray senior’s death four years later, the two younger men remained partners until 1855, after which William George Murray ran his own practice with considerable success, specialising in banks and railway buildings. However, in his final years, the architect found himself embroiled in a legal action taken by one of his clients, the Provincial Bank of Ireland, concerning this organisation’s headquarters located on the corner of College Street and Westmoreland Street, Dublin. When this building was completed in 1867, the cost was double the estimate and while the banking hall had been completed, the intended first-floor offices for the directors and management had not been fitted out. The bank took Murray and the building contractor John Nolan to court, alleging fraud and collusion in connection with the issue of certificates for extra work on the property. Although the two men were acquitted, the court of appeal ruled that, because of errors and negligence on Murray’s part, an inquiry should be held to establish whether the sums of money for extra work which Nolan claimed from the bank should be paid. Murray died in 1871, not yet aged 50. The former bank building is now part of the College Green Hotel.




The initial impression of Cangort House suggests that the whole building is an example of the Jacobethan style which became popular in the 19th century. But the west front provides evidence that at least some of the earlier structure remain, with a series of tall arched windows on ground and first floors breaking up the rendered surface. The three-bay south front is faced in ashlar limestone with advanced gabled bays having tripartite windows at either end and a pair of coats of arms in panels set each side of the central doorcase: perhaps prior to Murray’s makeover, this might have been the entrance front? The latter is now on the east side of the house, which has another coat of arms above an additional gable, and a smaller gabled porch to one side; the service yards on the north side lie behind a screen wall here. Inside the building, the same Jacobethan inspiration prevails, the various corridors’ ribbed vaulted ceilings resting on corbels. As with the exterior, only on the east side of the building is its earlier decorative history apparent. The present owners, who have recently decided to sell, wisely chose to brighten up what would otherwise threaten to be a series of mid-19th century sombre spaces. As a result, this is a house of colour and light, boldly demonstrating that Victorian interiors need not be dark. Nor indeed need their exteriors, as shown by the addition of a natural pool on the east side, fed with rain water and filled with aquatic plants. Today a feast of colour and light, the building offers a gloriously alternative approach to the Irish country house. 

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How Dreadful is this Place



Like Drimnagh Castle, seen here on Monday, the nearby St Mary’s church would once have stood amidst woodland and fields several miles outside the city of Dublin, whereas today it is surrounded by suburban housing estates. Set inside a circular enclosure, this has been a religious site since at least the arrival of the Cambro-Normans, if not longer.  In 1193 the church was given by Prince John to form a prebend in the St Patrick’s collegiate church (later Cathedral) and afterwards vested in the Archbishop of Dublin. The English engraver Francis Jukes produced a view of the area in 1795 which shows the church’s tower which still survives, but the main body of the building was reconstructed in 1817 with a loan of £1,000 from the Board of First Fruits. A new Church of Ireland church was built close by in the last century, but this one continues to be used for services by a religious organisation called the Hope Centre. The entrance at the base of the tower has a fine cut limestone doorcase with broken pediment beneath which is a plaque with a quotation from the Book of Genesis ‘How Dreadful is this Place, none other is the House of God, and this is the Gate of Heaven.’ Above it is a solitary skull; seemingly there were also crossbones but these went missing in the 1990s.


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Showing What Can be Done


Forty years ago, in 1985, the artist and architectural historian Peter Pearson got in touch with the Congregation of Christian Brothers, a religious order which had come to own Drimnagh Castle, once surrounded by forest but by then almost lost in Dublin suburban housing. In John D’Alton’s History of the County of Dublin (1838), the building is described as occupying ‘a spot of much romantic beauty, overlooking at the east the city and bay, and at north, the Park, Castleknock and Clondalkin, while towards the south the view is bounded by the mountains of the county of Dublin, presenting a dark and solemn aspect, congenial to the decaying splendour of the edifice.’ Alas, the same romantic views are no longer to be found today. The building’s history dates back to 1215 when the lands of Drimnagh and Terenure were granted by King John to Hugh de Berneval and when the latter died without issue, these grants were passed to his brother Reginald, whose descendants, their name eventually becoming Barnewall, came to be one of the most significant families in this part of the country: Raymond Barnewall, 21st Baron Trimlestown died last year and, having no known heirs, so ended one of the oldest Irish titles, dating back to 1461 (see Fallen Out of Use « The Irish Aesthete). The Barnewalls remained in the castle until the first decade of the 17th century when Elizabeth Barnewall, heiress to the property, married a cousin, James Barnewall of Bremore (see A Work in Progress « The Irish Aesthete) after which Drimnagh was let on a 99-year least to Sir Adam Loftus, nephew and namesake of the Archbishop of Dublin who had been responsible for building Rathfarnham Castle just a few miles to the south-east (see A Whiter Shade of Pale « The Irish Aesthete). A century later, however, Drimnagh Castle – like Bremore Castle – was sold to Henry Perry, Earl of Shelburne and so passed into the ownership of the Marquesses of Lansdowne. Both buildings were let to a succession of tenants, in the case of Drimnagh Castle until 1904 when it was bought by a successful dairy farmer and Dublin City councillor, Joseph Hatch. He undertook considerable restoration work on the property, used by his family as a summer residence until the 1950s when it passed into the possession of the Christian Brothers. While the order initially used the castle as a school, they subsequently moved into a purpose-built establishment on the land. As a result, the old building was left unoccupied (except for a collection of fowl kept there by one member of the religious community) and gradually fell into disrepair. Its future looked uncertain and, like so many other old properties in the greater Dublin region, Drimagh Castle might have been lost had not Peter Pearson intervened. 






The evolution of Drimnagh Castle from its origins into what can be seen today is complicated and, on more than one occasion, unclear. As was so often the case, the building likely began as a wooden structure, this in due course replaced by stone. The oldest part of the castle is a stocky keep access to which is through a single, low Gothic door on the east side with a typical murder hole directly above. This entrance leads to an undercroft, notable for retaining reedmarks on its vaulted ceiling; analysis of these might be able to confirm a date for when the keep was constructed. In the 18th century, this space was converted into a kitchen, with the insertion of a number of ovens and a large open fireplace. Stone steps at the north and south ends of the undercroft lead to the great hall immediately above. To the immediate north and rising one storey higher, the tower and gatehouse are thought to have been added in the 16th century. Further substantial changes occurred during the 18th century when many of the building’s windows were made larger so as to bring more light into the rooms. On the east side an external stone staircase was added giving direct access to the great hall through a cut-limestone doorcase. It may be that the moat, a parallelogram and something of a rarity among surviving Irish castles, similarly dates from the 18th century when the property was responsible for a number of mills in the area, their mechanism driven by the water which then fed into the river Camac. In one corner of the grounds is a little square battlemented folly, again likely an addition from the Georgian period: its west face overlooking the moat incorporates a late medieval window and later granite doorcase with arched light above, both of which appear to have come from elsewhere. When the Hatches took over the castle in the early 1900s, they made further changes to the buildings, not least inserting brick pediments above many windows and doors, as well as taking out many of the 18th century sash windows. They also converted a 17th century barn into a set of stables and rebuilt the coach house on the opposite side of the rear courtyard, giving its roofline the same curved gables seen on the castle roofline.






When Peter Pearson first approached the Christian Brothers 40 years ago about undertaking work on Drimnagh Castle, the building was in a pitiful state and looked unlikely to have any viable future. Nevertheless, thanks to a grant of £3,000 from Dublin Corporation and assisted by a number of state and charitable agencies as well as a voluntary local committee, work began on the site in 1986. Writing in the Irish Arts Review three years ago, Pearson has described what followed as employing the Italian concept of restauro: ‘which implies both conservation of existing structure and appropriate replacement of elements beyond repair. It implies an artistic rather than a moralistic approach to giving old buildings new life and it means that there has to be an element of compromise if historic buildings are to live on with new uses.’ It is unlikely that were such a project to be initiated today that such an approach would necessarily be permitted, but had it not been adopted at the time, then most probably Drimnagh Castle would no longer stand today. Inevitably, compromise meant not all features of the building’s history could be represented. The best example of this is the great hall which, in the 18th century, had been split into two reception rooms reached via a panelled staircase. The inevitable question arose: ought this later intervention be retained or should the space be returned to what was believed to have been its original appearance? The latter option was chosen, but this meant a degree of conjecture since so little of the material fabric survived. What can now be seen is to a large extent new, not least the hall’s roof entirely constructed of green Irish oak and assembled on site by trainee carpenters. The same was true of the carved gallery running around the upper level of the gallery; here can be admired portrait effigies of many of those involved in the enterprise (including Pearson) which serve as trusses for the roof. The floor is covered in tiles made for the space and based on original medieval tiles found at Swords Castle, County Dublin (see Palatial « The Irish Aesthete), while the window glass was all made for the hall. Outside, in what had been an empty, neglected area of ground at the back of the site, a formal garden with parterres of box was laid out. Today on lease from the religious order and still dependent on voluntary support for its daily maintenance, Drimnagh Castle is an outstanding example of what can be achieved by persistence, dedication and imagination. As so often, much remains to be done around the building and its grounds, but 40 years after Peter Pearson first proposed the property’s rescue, it continues to deserve accolades and amply repays a visit. 

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The Old and the New



Unused for almost 160 years, the old church at Ballyclog, County Tyrone dates from 1622 when it was built on the site of an ancient place of worship by the then-rector, the Rev Bradley. Constructed of dark stone with a brick belfry, the building was summarised by Samuel Lewis in 1837 as ‘a small plain ancient structure with a tower and spire; and in the churchyard are the family vaults of the Steuarts of Steuart Hall, and the Bells of Belmont, to whom some handsome monuments of freestone have been erected.’ Three decades later, another rector, the Rev. Greene, decided the time had come to commission a new church, erected within sight of its predecessor. Used for services since 1868, St Patrick’s was designed by Welland and Gillespie, joint architects to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners of the Church of Ireland. It has been described by Prof. Alistair Rowan as ‘a roguish little building…wilfully adapting Irish architectural elements to jazzy ends.’ Among the most obvious of these elements is a tower on the south-west corner, which rises from a battered base around which snake bands of red stone up to a greatly extended conical spire. 



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