Tag Archives: Castlemartyr

A Different Sensibility



After Monday’s post about Castlemartyr, readers might be interested in seeing some old photographs of the house’s interior when it was still owned and occupied by the Boyles, Earls of Shannon. The pictures date from the late 19th/early 20th century, and were taken by Nellie Thompson, wife of the sixth earl. The two above show the saloon as it was then decorated, filled with a vast quantity of furniture including a grand piano and a billiard table. The two below reflect the family’s travels overseas and what they had collected: prior to inheriting his title and estate in 1890, for example, the sixth earl had been living in Canada where he served as a Mountie. What most immediately strikes any viewer of these images is how dark and cluttered were the rooms, how filled with furnishings and fabrics, all competing and contrasting with each other. An insight into a different aesthetic sensibility from that of our own age.


Weathering the Storms

IMG_0902
The castle from which Castlemartyr takes its name was likely built in the middle of the 15th century when the lands in this part of the country passed into the control of the FitzGeralds of Imokilly. For more than 100 years from 1580 it was subject to successive sieges and assaults; in 1581, for example, Thomas Butler, Earl of Ormond captured the building and hanged the ancient mother of John Fitzedmund FitzGerald from its walls. Castlemartyr became part of Sir Walter Raleigh’s estate which he then sold to Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork in 1602. It is likely that the Boyles built the two-storey manor with tall gable-ended chimney stacks that runs behind the older castle. But the property had to withstand attack again during the Confederate Wars of the 1640s and once more in 1690, after which it was finally abandoned to become a picturesque ruin while a new residence went up on a site to the immediate west.

IMG_0814

Flying High

IMG_0884
More superlative rococo plasterwork by Robert West, this time in the double cube former ballroom of Castlemartyr, County Cork. The room was added to the existing house in the second half of the 1760s by Richard Boyle, second Earl of Shannon. The house remained in the family until the beginning of the last century and more recently has become a hotel. Anyone in the area should remember that at present this room contains many of the original Boyle portraits which formerly hung here and have now temporarily returned to their former home.

IMG_0888

Coming Home

Third Earl of Shannon
A portrait of Henry Boyle, third Earl of Shannon in his robes as a Knight of St Patrick. The picture is attributed to William Cuming (1769-1852) who served first as President of the Society of Artists in Dublin and then as President of the Royal Hibernian Academy. This is one of a group of Boyle family portraits temporarily returning to the Shannon’s former seat, Castlemartyr, County Cork, now an hotel: the pictures will hang in the house for the month of February. Next Friday, January 30th at 7pm I shall be in Castlemartyr holding a public conversation with the present Earl of Shannon, Harry Boyle about his family’s history. We will also be showing a collection of photographs of the house taken in the closing decades of the 19th century when Castlemartyr was still in Boyle ownership. For more information about this event, please contact corkigs@gmail.com