An Abandoned Project

Dec7

The history of Ireland in the later Middle Ages becomes immensely complicated due to the fractious character of Irish families and their habit of forming, and then breaking, alliances with each other. The south-west of the country (now Counties Kerry and Cork) was for a long time dominated by the MacCarthy Mórs, Kings of Desmond under which were three cadet branches ruling over their own territories whenever not feuding among themselves. Following the death of the last of King of Desmond, Donal IX in 1596 leaving only an illegitimate son, a dispute broke out between various members of these septs over who was entitled to claim his position. One of those who sought to become the new MacCarthy Mór was Dermot MacOwen MacCarthy, a descendant of Dermod, the third son of Cormac Fionn MacCarthy Mór (1170-1242), King of Desmond (although for the purposes of his claim MacOwen MacCarthy contended he was descended from Cormac’s eldest son). But at the same time Dermot MacOwen was in dispute with a cousin, Donogh MacCormac MacCarthy for the title of Lord of Duhallow, one of the three subordinate septs of Desmond. Yet in 1598 the two men joined forces to attack Castle Hyde, home of the settler Arthur Hyde, which after a three-day siege was captured and burnt. They then reverted to their earlier quarrel over the Lordship of Duhallow. Under these circumstances, it is no wonder the Irish were so often unable to defeat their common foe, the invading English.

Following the death of Donogh MacCormac MacCarthy during a skirmish in the Clare-Galway region in 1601, Dermot MacOwen MacCarthy became the undisputed Lord o Duhallow and it is likely that around this time (or following his release by the English government in the aftermath of the Battle of Kinsale during which he had been imprisoned) work began on the construction of a his new residence immediately south of Kanturk, County Cork: on a map of Ireland made by John Norden between 1609 and 1611, there is a castle shown at “Cantork” (Kanturk). It is sometimes proposed that Donogh MacCormac was responsible for initiating work on this castle, but given that he died in 1601 that seems unlikely. Seemingly in order to pay for the building’s construction, MacCormac MacCarthy mortgaged large tracts of his territory even though under Gaelic law all such land was deemed communal property. The mortgagee was Sir Philip Percival who had arrived in Ireland in 1579 and by such means was able to amass a large estate for himself. No documentation survives about Kanturk Castle’s construction, but one legend claims it was built by seven stone-masons all called named John: for a time the building was known as ‘Carrig-na-Shane-Saor’ (the Rock of John the Mason). Work on the site seems to have stopped in 1618 after English settlers in the area objected to the castle being too large and too fortified. Accordingly the English Privy Council ordered work be discontinued. It is said that MacCormac MacCarthy was so angry at this instruction that he ordered the blue ceramic tiles on the castle’s roof be smashed and thrown into a nearby stream, which thereafter has been known as Bluepool.

Kanturk Castle, otherwise called Old Court, rises beside the Dalua river, a tributary of the Blackwater. It is constructed of local limestone rubble, with cut stone used for the mullioned and transomed windows as well as the hoods, cornices, quoins and corbels. The same cut limestone can also be seen around entrance doors, and what remain of the chimney pieces on each floor inside the building. The castle is rectangular in form, measuring twenty-eight by eleven metres and rising four storeys with a five storey, twenty-nine metre high tower at each corner. The main entrance is on the western side, a work of Italian Renaissance inspiration with an elaborate entablature above the Ionic columns on either side of the round headed door frame. Since it is located on what would have been the first floor, presumably the original approach was via a flight of steps (on the other hand, given the gun holes on other parts of the building, perhaps the raised entrance served as a defensive device?) To the rear of the castle is another more familiar arched entrance on the ground floor. Inside the floors are all gone. One of the stories about Kanturk Castle is that, after his fit of pique over the Privy Council order, MacCormac MacCarthy never occupied the place. However, given the quality of the remaining chimney pieces (some were later removed to Lohort Castle), this seems unlikely. Whether the building was ever fully completed or thereafter much used remains open to conjecture.

Dermot MacCormac MacCarthy was succeeded by his son, Dermot Oge, who married Julia, daughter of Donal, last O’Sullivan Beare and widow of Sir Nicholas Browne whose father had bought the vast MacCarthy estates in Kerry. Having participated in the Confederate Wars of the 1640s, both Dermot Oge and his son were killed in 1652 at Knocknaclashy, west of Mallow, in the course of battle against a Cromwellian force led by Lord Broghill. Twenty years earlier financial exigency had led him to enter into the aforementioned mortgage agreement with Sir Philip Percival, so the family’s ongoing possession of their land was already vulnerable. In the aftermath of the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660 the Court of Claims denied the MacCarthys Equity of Redemption on the old mortgage. Instead ownership of the Lordship of Duhallow and the manor of Kanturk was awarded to ‘Sir Philip Percival, baronet, minor, grandson and heir of the said Sir Philip the Elder.’ Ultimately Sir Philip’s great-grandson Sir John Perceval became Baron of Burton, county Cork, in 1715, Viscount Perceval, of Kanturk, in 1722 and finally Earl of Egmont in 1733. Although Kanturk Castle appears in the background of a portrait of the second earl and his wife painted c.1759 by Sir Joshua Reynolds (now in Bradford Museum), the family made their residence at Lohort Castle, another former MacCarthy stronghold. In 1900 the seventh earl’s widow presented Kanturk Castle to England’s National Trust, which had only been founded five years earlier, on condition the building be maintained in the condition in which it was received. For much of the last century the castle was the National Trust’s only property in the Republic. In September 1951, it granted the building to An Taisce (a long-established charitable organisation engaged in the preservation and protection of Ireland’s natural and built heritage) on a 1,000 year lease and at a rent of one shilling per annum if so demanded. In 2000 the National Trust officially transferred the title deeds of Kanturk Castle to An Taisce, which is now responsible for the building, a national monument, on behalf of the Irish people.

A Generous Welcome to the World

Nov21

The generous proportions of the front door in the entrance hall at Ballymacmoy, County Cork. Since the early 18th century the house has been home to successive generations of Hennessys, one of whom Richard emigrated to France where he became an officer in the famous Dillon’s Regiment before settling in the Cognac region and founding the eponymous family firm. The present building dates from the second decade of the 19th century, replacing an older property when its excessively heavy slates caused the roof to collapse, killing a pig and a goose, and injuring a beggar who unfortunately happened just then to call to the door.

Well Janey Mac

Nov11

On the upper section of Main Street, Kinsale, County Cork can be found this house dating from c.1780. Of two storeys and three bays, it retains sash windows, that at the centre of the first floor being tripartite. Evidently at a relatively early date part of the building was converted into retail premises which required the insertion of a second entrance as well as adjacent shop window and fascia, all achieved with unusual sensitivity. The property now houses a café and bakery called Janey Mac (an old Irish expression used to denote surprise).

Lo Arthur Leary

Nov2

In Ireland the term Abbey is often applied to any mediaeval religious ruin. Thus the friary at Kilcrea, County Cork is often called an abbey, even though it was established by the Observant Franciscans. On the other hand, the site – or at least a spot close to it – was originally settled by St Cere or Cyra. An early Irish Christian, she founded a nunnery here and it is from her that the friary’s name derives: Cill Chre (Cell of Cyra) which was anglicized to Kilcrea. The Franciscan friars only arrived in 1465 at the request of Cormac Láidir Mór, Lord of Muskerry (as this part of Cork was anciently called). A branch of the great MacCarthy Mor dynasty, this family later became Viscounts Muskerry and Earls of Clancarty before being dispossessed of their lands and attainted in the late 17^th century. But they were at the height of their power when Kilcrea Friary was established, as is testified by the nearby castle built around the same time: Cormac Láidir Mór was also responsible for building the castles at Blarney and Dripsey (otherwise known as Carrignamuck). However in 1494 he was killed by his brother and nephew at the latter location, and was interred in the centre of Kilcrea’s choir.

Kilcrea friary was dedicated to St Brigid of Kildare and for more than a century appears to have thrived under MacCarthy patronage even after religious houses were officially suppressed in 1541. During the Elizabethan era circumstances changed, especially following the appointment of John Perrot as President of Munster in 1570. During his tenure in office Thomas O’Herlihy, Roman Catholic Bishop of Ross was imprisoned in the Tower of London and only released after almost four years on the surety of Cormac MacDiarmuid MacCarthy, then Lord of Muskerry: following O’Herlihy’s death in 1579 he too was buried at Kilcrea. Five years later the friary was sacked by English soldiers and thereafter it was subject to several assaults and changes of ownership. In Joseph Stirling Coyne and Nathaniel Willis’s The Scenery and Antiquities of Ireland (1841), it is written that Kilcrea Friary’s ‘principal interest arises from the melancholy contemplation of the gloomy and neglected aisles, where the dust of prince and peasant lie mingled in undistinguishable contusion beneath the ruinous tombstones, which are scattered over every portion of the church and convent. Most of these stones bear the names of the old families and septs of the district: McCarthy, M’Swiney, and Barrett, are the most numerous. There are doubtless many interesting monuments to be found here; but the accumulation of mould, bones, and other relics of mortality within the precincts of the ruins, renders it impossible to discover them without considerable labour…’

One of the monuments at Kilcrea Friary so summarily dismissed by Stirling Coyne and Willis is the tomb of Art Ó Laoghaire or O’Leary, whose widow Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill (an aunt of Daniel O’Connell) wrote a famous lament following her husband’s death in 1773 at the age of just twenty-six. A former captain in the Huzzars Regiment of the Austrian Imperial army O’Leary had, following his return to Ireland six years earlier, become involved in a dispute with a neighbour, Abraham Morris, High Sheriff of County Cork. Following his refusal to sell a horse to Morris for £5 (as Roman Catholics were obliged to do under the Penal Laws of the time) O’Leary was declared an outlaw and on being discovered by Morris and a group of men was shot dead at Carrignanimma: Morris would die two years later, his life shortened, it was believed, after he had in turn been shot by O’Leary’s brother. Meanwhile Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill composed her remarkable Caoineadh, a 390-line lament in which she mourned her husband’s death and called for revenge on his killers; for long remaining part of the country’s oral tradition, the words were only written down many years later. Art O’Leary was initially buried elsewhere before being interred in Kilcrea Friary where his tomb can be seen with an inscription believed to have been also composed by his widow: ‘Lo Arthur Leary, Generous, Handsome, Brave/Slain in His Bloom lies in this Humble Grave.’
After passing through diverse hands, since 1892 Kilcrea Friary has been in the care of the Office of Public Works.

Vanishing into the Clouds

Oct31

Sufficiently spooky for Halloween: the spire of the former Presbyterian church in Clonakilty, County Cork. On a plot of land leased from the town’s then-owner the fourth Earl of Shannon, this dressed limestone building was completed in 1861. The tower is its most distinctive feature, the spire’s onset marked by a gargoyle at each corner. Since 1924 the site has served as Clonakilty’s post office.

Take Three

Sep21

This week the Irish Aesthete celebrates its third birthday. When first posting in September 2012, I had no idea that the project would develop as it has since done, nor that it would attract such a loyal following (and certainly not that I would still be doing this now). A sincere thanks to everyone who has been reading these pages over the intervening period, and for your support and encouragement which – as any writer can confirm – make such a difference. Your own contributions and comments continue to be most welcome although a courteous tone is necessary if you wish for a response.
Over the past three years many posts have been gloomy or dispiriting in character, reflecting the problems faced by Ireland’s architectural heritage, and its want of sufficient support from public and private quarters alike. But given today’s occasion demands a more celebratory spirit, here is a trio of historic houses which have been featured before, all of them restored and brought back to vibrant life thanks to the imagination and passion of their respective owners.

Rokeby Hall, County Louth which first featured here in February 2013 (Building on a Prelate’s Ambition) was built in the 1780s as a country retreat for then-Archbishop of Armagh Richard Robinson. As his architect Robinson chose Thomas Cooley who had already been responsible for many of the new buildings in Armagh, including the Archbishop’s Palace. Unfortunately Cooley died in 1784 and so his plans were handed over to the youthful Francis Johnston: born in Armagh, Johnston’s abilities had been noticed by Robinson who sent him as an apprentice to Cooley in 1778. The house’s severe limestone façade hides a more inviting interior, of three storeys over basement, since Rokeby contains a particularly generous attic concealed behind the parapet, centred on a circular room lit by glazed dome. A similar circular landing on the first floor provides access to the main bedrooms.
Descendants of the Robinson family remained in possession, although not necessarily in occupation, of Rokeby until the middle of the last century. Thereafter the property passed through a variety of hands often with unfortunate consequences. When the present owners bought the place in 1995, for example, the library had been stripped of its bookcases and divided in two with one half used as a kitchen. Over the past twenty years, a process of reclamation has taken place, driven by the correct balance of enthusiasm, commitment and ongoing research into the house’s history. Most recently the present owners have impeccably restored Rokeby’s mid-19th century conservatory.

The County Cork farmhouse shown above was discussed here in May 2014 (A Dash of Panache). when I noted that far too many such buildings in Ireland are abandoned to the elements ‘for no apparent reason other than the fallacious notion that they have ceased to be fit for purpose.’ This is especially true of the country’s older domestic dwellings, ripe for adaptation to contemporary use but instead deserted in favour of something newer – something which will in turn no doubt suffer the same fate. Indeed, one has only to venture into the countryside to see bungalows considered the ne plus ultra of modernity a few decades ago now drifting into a ruinous condition. More regrettably the same fate befalls far too many of Ireland’s handsome old farmhouses which with just a modicum of inventiveness could be given fresh leases of life as an alternative to their more common fate: mouldering into dereliction.
That looked the only prospect for this property until it was taken on by the present owner and brought back to life after a half-century of being left unoccupied. A low-key and sympathetic approach was adopted to the rescue programme. The old kitchen, for example, retains its original tiled floor and as much of the old ochre wall colouring as could be preserved; new cupboards have been sympathetically painted to harmonise with what was already in situ. A slightly more elaborate approach was taken to the decoration of two reception rooms to the front of the house – the chimneypieces here are clearly not original – but they share the same comfortable, unassuming character found throughout the building, as does the large glazed space that now runs along the ground floor. Chairs, tables and other items of furniture have been picked up over a period of time and during the course of extensive travels, none of them for great price. Most of the artwork was acquired in the same way or came via friends. The result serves as a model of how to transform an apparently unsalvageable old farmhouse into a comfortable and smart private residence

The double-height entrance hall of Gloster, County Offaly featured here last month (Spectacle as Drama) but the rest of this house merits equal attention. Gloster is believed to date from the third decade of the 18th century and to have been designed by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce, a cousin of then-owner Trevor Lloyd. The original two-storey building was of nine bays but two further bays were later added on either side making the facade exceptionally long. A series of terraces in front offer views to a lake and then mountains beyond, while another vista is closed by an arch flanked by obelisks. The sense of baroque theatre evident in Gloster’s siting continues indoors, and not just thanks to its spectacular entrance hall. To left and right run further rooms providing a wonderful enfilade rarely found in Ireland. These reflect changes in taste after the house was first constructed. The cornicing in the sitting room above, for example, is evidently from later in the 18th century as is the chimney piece but there is no sense of disharmony anywhere and diverse stylistic elements comfortably co-exist.
Gloster remained in the ownership of the Lloyds until 1958 when it was sold to the Salesian order of nuns who opened a convalescent home in the house and built a large school to the rear. When I first visited in the early 1980s the nuns were still in occupation but it was already evident that they were struggling to maintain the property. Indeed in 1990 they closed down operations and Gloster’s future looked uncertain, especially since it changed hands on a couple of occasions. Thankfully the present owners bought the place in 2001 and since then they have worked tirelessly and splendidly to turn around Gloster’s prospects. Inevitably, given the scale of the undertaking, this remains a work in progress. But already an enormous and admirable programme of restoration and refurbishment has been undertaken. Gloser demonstrates what can be done, even on limited means, provided the task is accompanied by sufficient courage and verve.

My thanks again to all readers and followers of the Irish Aesthete for your ongoing support. Please encourage more people to become interested and engaged in Ireland’s architectural heritage. You can also discover me on Facebook (TheIrishAesthete), Twitter (@IrishAesthete), Pinterest (irishaesthete) and Instagram (The.Irish.Aesthete).

Upstairs Downstairs

Sep16

The staircase in the Red House, Youghal, County Cork. So called after the brick used in its construction, this building dates from the first decade of the 18th century when it was built for the wealthy Uniacke family: the design has been attributed to a Dutch architect called Leuventhen. Although parts have been subsequently altered, much of the interior retains its original appearance, including the Corinthian-capped pine balusters, alternately fluted and barley-sugared. The paneling would also look to be original: on either side of the stairs’ return is a round-arched niche which presumably would originally have held a statue.

The Age of Austerity

Sep7

The Irish countryside: so littered with the remnants of once-fine houses. Now their walls, if these still stand, are smothered in ivy, their interiors providing a shelter for species of trees and shrubs formerly permitted only in the garden, and a habitat for wildlife which would never have been allowed indoors. Here runs a tumbling line of estate wall, there the suggestion of a former gate lodge, across the fields can be seen the remains of a stableyard, closer to hand lifestock grazes in what was clearly once a landscaped demesne. Until recently, and aided by fictional accounts such as Elizabeth Bowen’s The Last September, a widespread belief persisted that the majority of these properties were burnt during the upheavals of the 1920s. We now know this was not the case, that while a number of significant country houses were destroyed in the course of the War of Independence and subsequent Civil War, many more survived. Their ruin came later, when the Land Commission had taken away the surrounding acreage necessary to sustain their upkeep, when rates grew too high, and the cost of employing sufficient workers too great. Unable to afford maintenance, owners departed their houses, sold up the contents, watched a new owner to remove chimneypieces and other fittings, saw the roof taken off and accepted the inevitable: yet another ruin to add to Ireland’s already substantial number. Such was the fate of Dromdihy, County Cork.

Dromdihy, sometimes called Dromdiah, stands on raised ground with superlative views for many miles north-eastwards as far as the Irish Sea close to Youghal. The original owner was one Roger Green Davis who acted as land agent for Sir Arthur de Capell-Brooke, an absentee landlord. Despite his surname, de Capell-Brooke’s family was actually of Irish origin. The first of their number had probably come to the country with the Normans when they were called de la Chappelle, Des Chapelles or De Capella. This was later hibernicised to Sheapallh and then converted in English to Supple. There were many Supples in East Cork but the majority of them lost their lands during the 17^th century. One branch however, through familial association with the Boyles, Earls of Cork and by converting to the Anglican church, retained an estate based around the town of Killeagh. In the mid-18th century Richard Supple married Mary Brooke,of daughter of Arthur Brooke, of Great Oakley, Northamptonshire. In 1797 their son, Richard Brooke Supple inherited the English estate from his great-uncle Wheeler Brooke in obedience to whose wishes he assumed the surname Brooke, at the same time adding the orignal surname of his own family: six years later he was created a baronet. His heir Sir Arthur de Capell-Brooke was an explorer who travelled through Scandinavia and published several books about what he had seen. When not engaged in these activities, he lived in Northamptonshire, hence the need for an agent to look after his Irish estate.

One wonders how much attention Sir Arthur paid to his property in Ireland since Roger Green Davis, who had inherited the position of agent from his own father William, was able to build up a landholding of more than 2,250 acres in County Cork, albeit some of it rented from the de Capell-Brooke estate. Thus the need to build a residence befitting his status, which Dromdihy was intended to proclaim. Completed in 1833 according to Samuel Lewis, the architect responsible for the house’s design is unknown: in some accounts it is attributed to Roger Green Davis. If so, he must have been a man of austere taste since Dromdihy demonstrates a predilection for the most distilled form of neo-classicism. The central block, of five bays and two storeys over basement, is rendered with cut limestone employed for parapets and cornices, quoins and window surrounds, varying treatment of the window’s architraves relieving what might otherwise be a monotonous facade. On either side of this are single-storey wings, that to the left (now entirely submerged in overgrowth) having Doric columns flanking a window and concluding in a bow. At the other end of the building, the wing served as entrance to the house, approached via a flight of steps and accessed through a pedimented portico with four fluted Doric columns, all in crisp limestone. The design is so pared back, so devoid of extraneous ornament, so uncompromisingly faithful to the ideology of Greek Revivalism it might have come from the hand of a Schinkel or von Klenze.

A description of Dromdihy in the 1860s noted that it ‘consists of a centre and two wings, ornamented with Doric columns and with a portico at the eastern end, by the hall is entered, and off which are hot, cold, vapour and shower baths. The first floor comprises five sitting-rooms; on the second floor are four best bedrooms, with dressing-rooms and water-closet…’ Evidently Green Davis spared no expense on the property: it is said that the stone was cut by craftsmen brought from Italy for the purpose. But if the design was admirable, its execution left something to be desired since seemingly from the start Dromdihy suffered from damp, the roof leaking and the interior manifesting both dry and wet rot. Roger Green Davis’ son John, a barrister, sold the place to William Stopford Hunt, an Assistant Land Commissioner and well-known cricketer. At the start of the last century, he had let the place to Lieutenant-General Sir Lawrence Parsons (a cousin of the Earls of Rosse) whose daughter Nora Robertson would later write the memoir Crowned Harp. However Stopford Hunt retained ownership of the estate until he sold up in 1923 at which time the house and surrounding ninety acres were purchased by the O’Mahony family. They ran a manufacturing and timber business on the estate but by 1944 the house was deemed uninhabitable and its roof removed. Dromdihy has been in steady decline ever since, an empty shell high on the rise visible to anyone travelling south from Youghal.

On the Town VIII

Aug17

Bank Holiday Monday morning and a coach pulls into the main square of Macroom, County Cork. The passengers step gingerly down, a few of them take photographs outside the former castle’s entrance but most wander about for a few minutes looking bewildered. Then they all climb aboard again and the bus departs. It doesn’t help that in the middle of a town which promotes itself as the tourism gateway to West Cork and South Kerry not a single premises is open for the visitors. No chance of getting a cup of coffee, or buying a postcard, or bringing home a souvenir of Macroom. Nothing to look at but shuttered shops and the residue of Sunday night’s revelry on the streets. No wonder the bus didn’t linger.

Deriving its name from the Irish Maigh Chromtha, believed to refer to a crooked oak that once stood in what is now the main square, Macroom was of some significance in pre-Christian Ireland. However, its modern history really begins with the construction of a castle above the river Sullane, probably first begun in the 12^th century by the O’Flynns who then controlled this part of what was the Kingdom of Muskerry. The McCarthys subsequently became the dominant family and at various dates they both enlarged and improved Macroom Castle. The building suffered a series of assaults in the 16^th and 17^th centuries. In 1602 Cormac McDermot Carthy, Lord of Muscry was arrested by the government authorities and the castle besieged, during which time it caught fire. Then in 1650 Boetius MacEgan, Bishop of Ross who was a leading figure in the Confederate camp (and clearly not a pacifist) assembled a force at the castle which was set on fire rather than allow it fall into the hands of the approaching English Commonwealth army led by Roger Boyle Lord Broghill. In an ensuing battle the bishop was captured but promised his freedom if he persuaded the garrison of Carrigadrohid Castle to surrender: instead he exhorted those inside the castle to ‘Hold out to the last’ and was accordingly hanged from a nearby tree. Seemingly Macroom Castle was then burnt again by the New Model Army’s General Henry Ireton, presumably prior to his death after the Siege of Limerick in 1651. Macroom next passed briefly into the hands of Admiral Sir William Penn of whose son, the Quaker convert William Penn, would found the state of Pennsylvania in America in the 1680s. Meanwhile following the restoration of Charles II in 1660 Macroom had been restored to the McCarthys who renovated the castle before losing it again in 1691 owing to their allegiance to James II. The need for the English government to pay troops who had fought in Ireland led to the castle being sold at auction in 1703 when it was bought by that speculative entity the Hollow Sword Blade Company. In turn this organization resold it to lawyer and politician Francis Bernard (popularly known as Judge Bernard after he became a Judge on the Irish Court of Common Pleas). By the middle of the 18^th century Macroom Castle was occupied by the Hedges Eyre family who acquired the building outright in the 19^th century. When Robert Hedges Eyre died childless in 1840, Macroom was inherited by his cousin, the Hon William Henry Hare Hedges-White who, following the death of his elder brother twenty-eight years later, became third Earl of Bantry. In 1850 his eldest daughter, Lady Olivia Hedges-White was born in Macroom Castle which she eventually inherited.

The town of Macroom effectively grew up around, and in order to service the needs of, the castle at its centre. However the advantageous location at a river crossing on the main route from east to west also helped to encourage development as a centre for commerce: seemingly the original market house was erected here by the McCarthys in 1620 (its sandstone successor, now the Town Hall, dates from two centuries later). Writing in 1837 Samuel Lewis described Macroom as consisting ‘of one principal street, nearly a mile in length, and towards the western extremity having a wider space, in which is the newly erected market-house, forming one side of a square, of which the opposite side is occupied by the hotel and the castle gateway: the inhabitants are supplied with water from springs and public pumps recently erected by subscription…There are no fixed sources of public amusement, but the town is frequently enlivened by the lovers of field sports and steeple chases, for which the neighbourhood is celebrated. There are two flour-mills and two tanyards at present in operation; and there were formerly a distillery and saltworks, which have been discontinued. The principal trade is in corn, which is brought into the town daily by the farmers, and purchased on account of the Cork merchants; the quantity sold during the year 1835 exceeded 39,000 barrels. The market is on Saturday, and is abundantly supplied with butchers’ meat, vegetables, and provisions at a moderate price; and from January till May there is a weekly market for pigs, many of which are slaughtered here and afterwards sent to Cork. From May till the end of the year, cattle fairs are held on the 12th of every month alternately in the town and at the village of Masseys-town, the property of Massey Hutchinson Massey, Esq., a little to the southwest.’
Masseytown mentioned above is a district to the immediate west of the Sullane that includes a particularly charming terrace of houses dating from the early 1860s; these are overlooked by the fine limestone courthouse with central Venetian window. The building probably dates from the 1820s, as does the Church of Ireland across the river which was designed by George Pain. Most of the houses in the immediate vicinity likewise were erected in the first half of the 19^th century when the mud cabins hitherto occupied by many of Macroom’s residents were replaced by the present structures.

Nothing better represents Macroom’s current state than the condition of its castle remains. The building which had already survived so much damage over the previous centuries, was burnt one last time by Anti-Treaty forces in 1922 and two years later the castle and demesne were sold by the widowed Lady Ardilaun (previously Lady Olivia Hedges-White) to a group of local businessmen. The structure survived until the 1960s but so poorly supported that the greater part of it then had to be demolished. What remains is a section of the western wall with a three-stage square tower at its north-west corner, the whole perched above the river and providing a dramatic view from the other side of the bridge, not dissimilar to that at Lismore with the castle above the Blackwater. But unlike Lismore what remains of Macroom Castle appears as insufficiently maintained, and as vulnerable to demolition, as what has already been lost. So too do the buildings directly below it, several of which are now vacant (a not uncommon condition throughout the town). Likewise the early 19th century Church of Ireland directly across the road to the castle: this is now boarded up and its stained glass windows in perilous condition (several have already been broken). Two years ago the National Roads Authority controversially tacked a pedestrian crossing onto the old stone bridge: while such a facility was obviously necessary, its siting and design (or want of same) took no account of the historical context. The same is true elsewhere in the town. Visitors passing through the old castle gates on the square will not find open parkland but a series of ugly buildings developed from the 1930s onwards as a secondary school: again no doubt an important facility for the townspeople but the location is ill-chosen, particularly when in the background can be seen the remnants of the castle falling into irreparable decrepitude. An opportunity to exploit the castle’s significant history, not least to American visitors thanks to a link with William Penn, remains grossly unexploited. But this is the case throughout Macroom, a town that markets itself as a tourism destination and then does little to encourage tourists to linger. No wonder those bus passengers soon climbed back onboard and drove away.

A Swagger of Garlands

Aug8

The central panel of the Portland stone chimney piece in the entrance hall at Kilshannig, County Cork. On either side of a mask flow garlands of flowers and fruit carved with such precision and depth that they look as though ready to drop to the floor (were they not secured by hooks at either end of the panel). Evidently whoever was responsible for this exquisitely assured work liaised with stuccadore Filippo Lafranchini, since the chimney piece decoration echoes the latter’s ceilings throughout the house’s main rooms. (For more on Kilshannig’s plasterwork, see Exuberance, May 18th 2015).

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