Tag Archives: County Cork

The Four Penny Castle


Now surrounded by suburban housing, Monkstown Castle, County Cork once stood proud in its own grounds and overlooking the estuary of the river Lee and access to Cork harbour. The building dates back to the 17th century when it was constructed c.1636 by one Anastasia Gould, wife of John Archdeacon, said to have been a naval officer who was overseas supporting the King of Spain. Legend has it that when he returned home and saw this large structure on his land, he immediately assumed it had been erected by his enemies, and accordingly fired on it, one cannon ball hitting the battlements. The other story associated with Monkstown Castle is that Anastasia Gould was determined not to waste money on its construction and so employed the workmen at a fixed rate with the stipulation that they purchase their daily food supplies and so forth from her at a moderate price. When the job was finished, all bills paid and all sums collected, she found that the castle had cost her precisely four pence. 




Like many similar properties in Ireland, Monkstown Castle has experienced mixed fortunes over the centuries. The Archdeacons do not appear to have enjoyed possession of the building for very long as in the aftermath of the Confederate Wars and the arrival of the Cromwell’s New Model Army, both castle and surrounding estate were granted to Colonel Hercules Huncks, remembered today for having refused to sign Charles I’s execution order (and accordingly being described by Oliver Cromwell as a ‘froward, peevish fellow’). Huncks sold the property to Michael Boyle, Dean of Cloyne (and future Archbishop of Armagh) but in the aftermath of the Restoration the Archdeacons were living there once more, perhaps as tenants of Boyle. In any case, owing to their allegiance to the Stuart cause, they lost the castle again in the aftermath of the Williamite Wars and in due course it was inherited by two of his granddaughters who had married into the Vesey and Pakenham families; thus portions of the estate came to be owned by both the Earl of Longford and the Viscount de Vesci. How well the castle stood is open to question. In 1700 during his Visitation to the diocese Dive Downes, Bishop of Cork and Ross wrote that ‘Mr. O’Callaghan, a Protestant, lives in Monkstown, in a good square castle with flankers. However, at some point in the 18th century it was rented to the government to serve as an army barracks and in his Ancient and Present State of the County and City of Cork first published in 1750, Charles Smith says the castle ‘is large and in ruins, and is flanked by 4 square turrets.’ On the other hand, the Dublin Penny Journal of August 1833, although judging it a ‘large and gloomy pile of building’, comments that the castle is ‘in good repair.’ 




By the early 19th century, Monkstown Castle was owned by the Veseys but leased to one Bernard Shaw, Collector of Cork Port and a member of the same family as the future dramatist George Bernard Shaw. A large chimneypiece inside the building carries the initials B.S. and the date 1804 (as well as 1636) , indicating work was undertaken here at that time, undertaken by local architect William Deane. Bernard Shaw was duly succeeded by his son, Bernard Robert Shaw who lived here until 1869 when he and his wife moved to England where they died. Whether the castle was still occupied is open to question as around 1840 the Shaws had built a large residence close by, called. Castle House. In June 1871 the estate of Bernard Robert Shaw running to 905 acres was advertised for sale. At the start of the last century, the castle was used by the local badminton club before being acquired in 1908 by the newly-established Monkstown Golf Club, which then made the building its club house. MGC bought the castle and what was then a nine-hole course from the De Vesci estate in 1959 for £4,000, selling the castle and some 32 acres in 1967 for £22,000. Thereafter, while the surrounding land was divided up into plots for housing, the castle remained empty and falling into disrepair, becoming a roofless shell. Between 2008 and 2010 extensive restoration work was carried out on the property, which had permission to be divided into three apartments. However, while re-roofed and made watertight, the building was then left unfinished and has remained in this state ever since. In recent years, it has been on the market for €800,000. Not a huge sum, but somewhat more than the four pence the castle originally cost Anastasia Gould. 


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As the Wheel Turns



Located beside the river Laney, the former corn mill at Bealick, County Cork was constructed by the Harding family in the closing years of the eighteenth century at a time when demand for cereal crops were high due to the Anglo-French wars. Of rubble stone, the triple-pile gable-fronted eight-bay four-storey building continued in operation throughout the 19th century and in 1899 the mill wheel’s power was harnessed to provide electricity to nearby Macroom: seemingly the town was one of the first in the country to benefit from electric street lighting. Fallen into dereliction, the building was restored a decade ago and turned into a visitor centre, although the premises were resolutely closed when the Irish Aesthete paid a call.



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A Missed Opportunity




In her marvellous memoir Bricks and Flower, Katherine Everett described how, in August 1922 and at the age of 50, she had cycled from Limerick to Macroom, County Cork at the request of her distant cousin and godmother Olive, Lady Ardilaun to see what remained of the latter’s property, a castle in the centre of the town which had just been burned by anti-Treaty forces. Located above the river Sullane, the castle dates back to the 12th century and for several hundred years was occupied by the McCarthys before eventually passing into the ownership of the Hedges Eyre family before eventually being inherited by Lady Ardilaun. Two years after the fire, she sold the castle to a group of local businessmen; the main part of the building was demolished in the 1960s, with just the outer walls remaining, a series of mediocre school buildings erected within them. What survives suffers badly from neglect (as indeed does the river and the nine-arch bridge crossing which dates from c.1800) with the local county council failing to make the most of what has potential to be a popular visitor attraction. Instead, Macroom’s most significant piece of architectural heritage as been left to moulder: a missed opportunity.


The Bishop’s Legacy



After Monday’s tale of Riverstown, County Cork, here are the scant remains of another, slightly earlier property built by another member of the same family. In 1710 Dr Peter Browne, former Provost of Trinity College Dublin, was appointed Church of Ireland Bishop of the United Dioceses of Cork and Ross. Ten years later, he acquired some 118 acres of land to the immediate south-east of the city, with the intention of constructing there ‘a good, substantial and convenient dwelling house and a chapel thereunto adjoining together with suitable offices.’ Named Bishopstown and finished in 1726 at a cost of more than £2,000, he created this property and surrounding demesne to serve as “a fit and convenient residence for himself and his successors, the bishops of Cork and Ross”.  The adjacent chapel was consecrated in 1730. Alas, his successors failed to appreciate this legacy and already by 1792 the house at Bishopstown was described as being ‘in a state of decay and totally unfit for the residence of the bishop.’ In the early 1830s the place was leased to a farmer and then in 1878 the Ecclesiastical Commissioners sold the land and buildings. It passed through various hands before being bought by Cork Corporation about half a century ago. Many of the buildings were then in a better condition than is now the case (and some of them have been demolished over the intervening years). What remains is a former farmhouse incorporating an early 18th century limestone doorcase retrieved from the since-lost mansion, and the skeletal remains of the chapel (see below). In the immediate vicinity, jostling for attention with a children’s playground, are a pair of small, three-arched bridges and fragments of a circular battlemented shell house, thought perhaps to have been built during the episcopacy of Robert Clayton, the bishop here 1735-45. Bishopstown today is a heavily-developed suburb of Cork city.


Rescued from Ruin


The extraordinary work of sibling stuccodores Paolo and Filippo Lafranchini, born in the Italian-speaking Swiss canton of Ticino but resident in Ireland for many years, has featured here before (see, among others, To the Muses « The Irish Aesthete and Exuberance « The Irish Aesthete). A relatively little known example of their skills can be found in Riverstown, a house to the immediate north-east of Cork city. The land on which the property stands came into the possession of the Browne family in the second half of the 17th century, but assumed much of its present appearance after 1733 when it became the residence of Dr Jemmet Browne, a Church of Ireland clergyman who would serve successively as Bishop of Killaloe, Dromore, Cork and Ross, Elphin and finally Archbishop of Tuam, which position he held at the time of his death in 1782. The earliest known reference to Riverstown is found in Charles Smith’s The Ancient And Present State of the County and City of Cork, published in 1750, where it is described as ‘a pleasant seat of the Lord Bishop of Cork. The house is beautified with several curious pieces of stucco, performed by the Francinis, brothers.’ We know, therefore, that the work executed in the saloon at Riverstown was carried out either before Browne became Bishop of Cork (1745) or very soon afterwards. And that he continued to carry out improvements on the building in the years after Smith’s book appeared, since a hopper is dated 1753. The exterior gives little idea of the rich decoration inside. The entrance front is modest, of two storeys and five bays, although what was the garden front is more substantial, running to seven bays and three storeys. The north end of the house the gable ends were replaced by a pair of full-height canted bays, that to the front climbing an additional storey, this last alteration believed to date from c.1830

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It tells us a great deal about this country’s cosmopolitan culture in the 18th century that a Church of Ireland clergyman – and one who rose to become an archbishop – should have decorated his private residence with pagan iconography. The saloon in Riverstown includes a series of eight panels across three walls, all of them including figures. The fourth wall has three windows and between these are a pair of mirror set in elaborate frames. The ceiling is also covered in stuccowork, centred on an oval frame derived from Nicolas Poussin’s Le Temps soustrait La  Vérité aux atteints de L’Envie et de la Discorde, painted in 1641 for Cardinal Richelieu and now in the Louvre. As for the figurative wall panels,for a long time thought as being random, the source for these was identified by Joseph McDonnell in 1991 as being taken directly from the Roman antiquarian Paolo Alessandro Maffei’s edition of Leonardo Agostini’s Gemme Antiche Figurate, published 1707-09. Beginning with the chimneypiece, the panel above it depicts the mythological Roman figure of Marcus Curtius on horseback, while next to it is one showing Aeneas carrying his father Anchises. The third panel shows Liberty, followed by Ceres and then Fides Publica, Fortuna and Cincinnatus. Finally, the panel at the far end of the room and facing the chimneypiece depicts Roma mounted in a chariot. That chimneypiece is not the original one (which is now in a first floor bedroom) but a replacement installed during restoration work in the 1960s). As already mentioned, between the three windows are two framed mirrors (still holding their original glass) surrounded by elaborate plasterwork incorporating flowers, foliage and female busts. The opposite wall is centred on a door, its frame with a finely carved broken pediment. To the north of the saloon are a pair of bow-ended drawing rooms, again much of their present decoration dating from the 1960s restoration of Riverstown. 






Riverstown remained in the possession of the Browne family until the middle of the last century but by the 1950s it stood empty and the threat of irreparable deterioration seemed so likely that moulds of the saloon were made by the Office of Public Works; these were installed in the Irish President’s residence Áras an Uachtaráin. Not long afterwards Riverstown and its surrounding land were bought by a Cork market gardener, John Dooley who in the mid-1960s collaborated with the Irish Georgian Society on restoring the building, thanks to donations from the public. By the end of 1965 Riverstown’s saloon had been restored to its former beauty, the initial work costing £717. The Dooleys were sufficiently inspired by this initiative to undertaken further work on the house and in the IGS’s January-March 1970 Bulletin, it was reported that one of the house’s two late 18th century drawing rooms ‘has been given a new dado, architraves, chimney-piece, overdoors and overmantel.’  Ten years after the society’s initial involvement, still more work had been achieved as a feature in the Cork Evening Echo noted, with the second drawing room walls covered in green silk and hung with 18th century pictures. Riverstown continues to be home to the Dooley family.

Going into the Night



Tucked away in a corner of the graveyard at Ballynoe, County Cork: a mausoleum dedicated to members of the Nason family. It takes the form of a miniature temple, with arched entrance below pediment (containing a blind oculus) and flanked by two arched winows, the building constructed of rough hewn stone with ashlar employed for door and window surrounds. There were two branches of Nasons, living in different parts of the county, but in 1808 John Nason of Newtown (which lies close to Ballynoe) married Elizabeth Nason of Bettyville (a house east of Fermoy and since demolished), and this mausoleum appears to commemorate them and their descendants (one of whom, incidentally, was Kate Meyrick, née Nason, the notorious night club proprietress in 1920s London). A monument to Elizabeth Nason dominates the interior but a nearby plaque lists subsequent members of the family, the last of whom is given as being of Newtown Lodge in 1929. This house then passed out of Nason ownership and was recently offered for sale.


An Unhappy Trinity



Currently for sale: this trio of former almshouses on the outskirts of Glanmire, County Cork. Each slightly different from the others, the buildings, designed by an unknown architect in neo-Gothic style with lattice glazing and triangular Oriel windows, are thought to date from the 1820s and built on the instruction of the Colthurst family, perhaps Sir Nicholas Colthurst who until his death in 1829 served as Member of Parliament for nearby Cork city. Sadly, all three have been left to fall into their present dilapidated state and are now in need of complete renovation. They are available for €140,000 each.


Tomb to the Unknown



The modest graveyard of Killathy, County Cork contains the remains of a late-medieval church but is dominated by the roofless shell of a large mausoleum, its pedimented facade of limestone ashlar featuring rusticated pilasters on either side of a wide arched opening, access to the interior barred by substantial metal gates (and a great deal of vegetation). The cement-rendered sides and rear of the building are completely plain and there is no indication anywhere for whom it might have been constructed, no crest, no name, nothing. Killathy lies mid-point between Castle Hyde, home to generations of the Hyde family, and Convamore, now a ruin but once residence of the Hares, Earls of Listowel: perhaps this mausoleum was erected for one of these families?


*A helpful reader has pointed out that the NIAH proposes the mausoleum was erected by the Jackson family. 

Hidden Histories



As seen today, Fermoy, County Cork owes its existence to John Anderson, an ambitious Scotsman who settled in Ireland as a merchant in the early 1780s. Before the end of the decade, he had established a national mail-coach service and Fermoy, with its bridge over the river Blackwater, became a stop on the route between Cork and Dublin. Then in 1791 he bought the town from the Boyle family and began to develop it with such success that in less than 20 years Fermoy’s population had grown from a few hundred to 4,300. One of the reasons for this is that in 1797 the British government decided to establish a major military base here, with Anderson providing the sites for two large barracks on the north side of the river. The first of these, the east, was constructed 1801-6, its western equivalent begun in 1809; the buildings, dominated by large central squares, accommodated thousands of troops and were designed by local architect Abraham Hargrave. Following the departure of British troops in 1922, the barracks were burnt and all the buildings demolished. Today only parts of the outer walls and the arched gateways survive: the grounds to the east are now used by the GAA and that to the west by the local rugby club.


In an Irish Country Garden




The garden front of Ballyvolane, County Cork. Dating back to 1728, the original house was constructed for Sir Richard Pyne, a former Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, of seven bays and three storeys. Almost 150 years later, in 1872 George Pyne, who had recently acquired the estate, commissioned local architect and antiquarian Richard Rolt Brash to remodel the building to give it the present Italianate appearance, as well as remove the top floor. The original gardens at Ballyvolane were laid out in the early 19th century, but much of what can be seen today is due to the work of the Green family who bought the place 70 years ago in 1953. Next Friday, June 30th I shall be giving a talk at Ballyvolane on Ireland’s country house gardens, with cocktails beforehand and dinner after. For more information about this event, please see: Robert O’Byrne aka The Irish Aesthete ‘Irish Country House Gardens’ Talk and Dinner (ballyvolanehouse.ie)