Tag Archives: County Galway

Hunting for a House


Irish readers over a certain age may remember the name Molly Cusack-Smith, since her colourful exploits (and sometimes language) often appeared in newspapers during the closing decades of the last century. Lady Cusack-Smith was a descendant of the Revd John O’Rorke, a Church of Ireland clergyman and member of an ancient Irish family which had once been based in what is now County Leitrim, where they had claimed the title Prince of Breifne. The Rev. O’Rorke had begun his ecclesiastical career as curate of Moylough, Co Galway, later becoming Rector of Foxford, Co Mayo, and Vicar of Straid, in the Diocese of Achonry, although he continued to live in Moylough (pluralism and non-residence being common features about Church of Ireland clergymen at the time). However, his primary interest appears to have been the acquisition of property, since he leased land from the Bellews of Mountbellew, County Galway and then bought the Clonbern estate in the same county from the family of the late William Beresford, Archbishop of Tuam. His landholdings also included over 1,600 acres in Co Roscommon and 217 acres in Co Westmeath. Married three times, he eventually diedin 1849 at the age of 73 after a fall from his horse. His son, Charles Dennis O’Rorke, inherited not just the Clonbern estate but also another at Bermingham, County Galway, bequeathed by his uncle John Dennis. This, in turn passed to his son, Charles Trench O’Rorke, before the greater part of the family’s landholdings, running to more than 5,000 acres, were acquired by the Irish Land Commission in 1927. Charles Trench O’Rorke had one child, a daughter christened Adela Mary, but known as Molly. 





Molly O’Rorke was born in 1905 and from an early age hunted with her father’s pack of harriers, since the family had long been associated with the local hunt known as the Galway Blazers. In the 1930s, she moved to Paris, initially with the intention of studying music but then opting for fashion, establishing herself as a couturier in London and specialising in evening dresses. At a cocktail party during the war she met Sir William Robert Dermot Cusack Smith whose family, like her own, was Irish. The couple married in 1946, had a daughter two years later but then parted ways. In a 1992 interview Molly Cusack-Smith explained ‘He was very rich and had a title. We got engaged because it seemed a good idea. But, actually, it wasn’t.’ Returning to Ireland and hunting, she became the first woman master of the Galway Blazers before founding the North Galway hunt where she was joint-master until her retirement in 1984. Every year at Bermingham House, she hosted a hunt ball once described as ‘the last clarion call of the stranded gentry’ and famous for the exuberance of all attendees: to paraphrase what was once said of the 1960s, if you could remember a Bermingham House hunt ball, you weren’t there. The tone was set by the event’s hostess, renowned for her colourful behaviour and language both on and off the hunting field. Of the various stories told about her, perhaps the best known is of the occasion when, at the end of the hunt, a groom remarked on the sweaty condition of her horse. To which she is said to have responded ‘You’d be sweaty, too, if you’d spent the past three hours between my legs.’ Molly Cusack-Smith died at the age of 92 in 1998. 





Bermingham House, the setting for all those legendary hunt balls, takes its name from the Berminghams, Barons Athenry, who once owned the land here, until their line died out with the first (and last) Earl of Louth who died in 1799. The house and estate were leased to John Irwin Dennis in the late 1830s before being bought  by him in 1851 in the Encumbered Estates’ Court. Along with 200 acres of farmland, it has now come on the market once more, with the opportunity for a new owner to host parties equal to those of the house’s former chatelaine. Dating probably from the mid-18th century, the building has a curious facade, of two storeys over basement and three bays, the latter spaced exceptionally far apart and both windows and door rather small considering the overall size: this is particularly curious because the west elevation is of four bays and the east of five. Inside, a pedimented doorcase leads from entrance to staircase hall, the latter having pretty neo-classical plasterwork in arches above doors and recessed bookcases. The main reception rooms have good late 18th century chimneypieces and are all painted in bold colours, as is the case with many Irish country houses. Naturally, given its previous predilection for hunting, there are fine stable yards to the rear. 


The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

The Real Thing


After last Monday’s discussion of the incomplete fantasy that is Brittas Castle, here are some remains of the real thing. Moylough Castle in County Galway dates from the first half of the 13th century and is associated with the Norman de Cotterell and de Cogeshale families who would have arrived in this part of the country around that time. Three sides of the building survive, of three storeys and constructed of local limestone rubble, almost 40 feet long and 21 feet wide, rising to 46 feet with walls over six feet thick. It is thought that the Normans occupied the site until the late 13th or early 14th centuries, after which it passed into the possession of the dominant O’Kelly family. However, like many such properties, it was probably abandoned in the 17th century and left to fall into its present ruinous state, today beloved only by the cattle sharing the same site. 


The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

Death Before Dishonour



Deep in the woods of Monivea, County Galway can be found the ffrench Mausoleum. This was commissioned by Kathleen ffrench to commemorate her father Robert who died in 1896. Said to have been designed by Francis Persse, the architect brother of Lady Gregory, the mausoleum was completed in 1900 at the cost of some £10,000. Built of Wicklow granite, it takes the form of a miniature castle, with the ffrench arms and motto Malo Mori Quam Foedare (Death before Dishonour) above the door. The marble-lined interior, lit by stained glass from Mayer of Munich, contains a life-sized white Carrara sculpture of Robert Ffrench in his robes of the Order of Malta, carved by  Italian sculptor Francesco Jarace. Alas, the building was locked on a recent visit, so it was not possible to see this. Kathleen ffrench was the last of the family to live at nearby Monivea Castle and, following an exceptionally adventurous life, including some time imprisoned in Russia following the Bolshevik Revolution, on her death in China in 1938 she left the entire estate to the Irish State with a request that the very substantial family home be used as a residence for indigent artists. As so often in this county, her wishes were not honoured and other than a 16th century tower house, the whole place was subsequently demolished.  



The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

Three Quarters Left



After last Monday’s concern over the fate of Ballyteige Castle, County Wexford, here is an example of what can happen to a neglected historic monument. This is Barnaderg Castle, County Galway, a five-storey tower house believed to have been built by Malachy O’Kelly in the 16th century. Standing on a low mound and in an area prone to flooding, even in summer, the building was probably once entirely surrounded by water and reached via a drawbridge. Today, only three sides of the tower house survive, the south being entirely gone and those on both the west and east (where a mullioned window can be seen on the fourth floor) are vulnerable.



The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

A Memory of What has Gone



The gates and gatelodge which once led to Ryehill, County Galway. The estate here originally belonged to a branch of the Redington family, whose main residence was elsewhere in the county at Kilcornan. In 1832 Eleanor Redington, who had inherited Ryehill from her father four years earlier, married Stephen Roche of Granagh Castle, county Kilkenny and it may have been around this time that the main house was constructed; of two storeys over raised basement, it was of seven bays, the three central ones forming a shallow bow. The building was unroofed in the 1950s and has now gone, but the gatelodge, believed to date from around the time of the Redington-Roche marriage, serves as a reminder of what once stood here. Of one storey, it has a particularly fine pedimented limestone Doric portico flanked by ashlar quoins. A substantial two-storey extension has been added to the rear in recent years. 


The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

Castle Hackett


Castle Hackett, County Galway dates back to the 13th century when, as the name indicates, it was built by the Anglo-Norman Hacketts who had arrived in the country during the previous century and mostly settled in the south-east (for example, in County Carlow, where the settlement of Hacketstown testifies to their presence). By the 15th century, the castle had passed into the possession of the Kirwan family, one of the 14 Tribes of Galway and the only one to be considered of Gaelic origin. They continued to occupy the building until the early 18th century when a new house, also called Castle Hackett, was constructed nearby: this was burnt by anti-Treaty forces in 1923 but subsequently rebuilt. As for the old castle, still surrounded by portions of a bawn wall, it makes for a striking ruin on the landscape.


The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

In Three Parts


‘The cathedral movement has taken root in Ireland. Our readers must be familiar with the new cathedral at Kilmore, and the restorations in progress at S. Patrick’s, Dublin, ( though, we regret to say, without good professional advice) at the cost of Mr. Guinness; and at Limerick under Mr. Slater’s care. A scheme for a new cathedral at Belfast, for the diocese of Connor, has been brought before the public, by the Bishop of Down, Connor, and Dromore, as a memorial to Jeremy Taylor, and now in the far west in the county of Galway the restoration or rather rebuilding of the once metropolitical and still cathedral church of Tuam has been undertaken in a manner which deserves special and laudatory mention.’  
From The Ecclesiologist, Volume XXII, 1861




St Mary’s Cathedral in Tuam, County Galway, is a building in three parts, one of which comprises just an arch, albeit of exceptional scale and beauty. The earliest place of worship here is supposed to have been established in the 6th century by local saint Jarlath. However, several hundred years passed before a cathedral was constructed, at some date in the first half of the 12th century and under the patronage of Turlough Mór O’Conor, High King of Ireland in the decades before his death in 1156. Unfortunately this building was almost entirely destroyed by an accidental fire in 1184, leaving just the elaborately carved chancel arch still standing. In his Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland (Dublin, 1845), the antiquarian George Petrie provided the following detailed description of this structure: ‘Of the ancient church of Tuam the chancel only remains; but, fortunately, this is sufficient to make us acquainted with its general style of architecture, and to shew that it was not only a larger, but a more splendid structure than Cormac’s church at Cashel, and not unworthy of the powerful monarch to whom it chiefly owed its erection. This chancel is a square of twenty-six feet in external measurement, and the walls are four feet in thickness. Its east end is perforated by three circular-headed windows, each five feet in height and eighteen inches in width externally, but splaying on the inside to the width of live feet. These windows are ornamented with the zig-zag and other mouldings, both externally and internally, and they are connected with each other by label, or stringcourse mouldings, of which the external one is enriched with paterae. In the south wall there is a window similarly ornamented, but of smaller size.
But the great feature of this chancel is its triumphal arch, — now erroneously supposed to have been a doorway, — which is, perhaps, the most magnificent specimen of its kind remaining in Ireland. It is composed externally of six semicircular, concentric, and recessed arches, of which the outer is twenty feet six inches in width at its base, and nineteen feet five inches in height ; and the inner, fifteen feet eight inches in width, and sixteen in height. The shafts of the columns, — which, with the exception of the outermost at each side, are semicircular, — are unornamented; but their capitals, which are rectangular, on a semi-circular torus, are very richly sculptured, chiefly with a variety of interlaced traceries, similar to those on the base of the stone cross ; and in two instances, — those of the jambs, — with grotesque human heads.
The imposts are, at one side, very richly sculptured with a scroll and other ornaments ; and, at the other side, present a kind of inverted ogive ; and these imposts are carried along the face of the wall as tablets. The bases are unornamented, and consist of a torus and double plinth. The arch mouldings consist of the nebule, diamond frette, and varieties of the chevron, the execution of which is remarkable for its beauty. I have only to add, that all the ornamental parts of this chancel are executed in red sandstone.’ 




Following the catastrophic fire in 1184, nothing appears to have been done to the site of St Mary’s Cathedral until the start of the 14th century, when the Dean of the time was granted ‘relaxation of a hundred days of enjoined penance to those who contribute to the rebuilding of Tuam Cathedral, begun by the late Archbishop William [de Birmingham, 1289–1312] and continued by the Dean Philip, who petitions for aid to complete it.’ Like so many other religious buildings, in the 16th and 17th centuries, St Mary’s suffered from alternate assault and neglect: the earliest surviving written description of the building from c.1672 by John Lynch describes it as falling down. However, in 1688 Archbishop John Vesey rebuilt the tower, an event commemorated by a plaque which carries both his name and that of James II. Other minor alterations and improvements were made to the second cathedral over the next 150 years, the entrance of which remained the former chancel arch and sanctuary. The style of the building is English Gothic, with a five-light east window incorporating two quatrefoil windows under a sexfoil centrepiece. Despite its merits, in The Ecclesiologist the anonymous author judged the cathedral harshly, declaring ‘with most perverse ingenuity a conventicle-like oblong structure was stuck on to the east of this, the chancel arch being converted into a portal, the chancel into a porch, and an inner door cut through the eastern triplet. This hideous building was the titular cathedral but really Anglican parish church of Tuam.’ When further work took place in the 19th century, the second cathedral became a Diocesan Synod Hall, Library and Registry.




Reverting to The Ecclesiologist, in 1861 it reported that the Anglican population of Tuam had more than doubled from 310 to 640, ‘and the Vicar and Provost of Tuam, the Rev. C. Seymour , who has already introduced choral service and the observance of the holy-days, was alike anxious to promote more church room, and to provide Tuam with a worthy cathedral. He has accordingly placed the matter in the hands of Sir Thomas Deane who has, we are glad to say without sacrificing the old chancel, produced the plans of a church of real cathedral character and considerable dimensions at a computed cost of £9,000, while funds enough are promised to render the commencement of the building a matter of proximate accomplishment.’ Two years later, The Builder was able to inform its readers that the Deane’s design for the extension to the west end of the older building ‘partakes of the character of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin and St Canice’s in Kilkenny. The walls and the tower will present the Irish characteristic of crennelated [sic] battlements. The clerestory windows of the nave will be of the circular cusped type. At each end of the nave will extend aisles supported externally by buttresses, and lighted by pointed windows in the early style. The western entrance, at the extremity of the nave, will be a broad pointed archway. Immediately over it will extend a double arcade of pointed windows, and above these the principal window of the nave, consisting of a group of seven pointed windows. The choir, which will be without aisles, will be lighted by ordinary pointed windows. Each transept will be lighted with circular windows, and large five-light windows at the extremities. The tower will be a plain quadrangle flanked by four small towers, and all surrounded by crenellated battlements, and above it will rise a stone spire. The material to be used in the external structure is limestone. The interior of the church will be lined with a remarkably fine description of red sandstone, from Nefin in the County of Mayo, supposed to be the same stone that was used in the construction of the ancient arch. On each side of the nave, within, will extend a row of four columns, each consisting of a central column of limestone, encircled by four smaller columns composed of green Galway marble. The roof, within, will be open timbered.’ The only prominent feature not mentioned in this description is the High Cross now located in the south transept, for the obvious reason that it was not in this place at the time. Dating from around the same period as the original cathedral was constructed, the cross is believed to have stood close to this building but following the fire was dismantled, with different pieces acquired by different owners. Only in the 19th century was it reassembled and brought to Dublin for the Great Exhibition of 1852. Following this event, the cross returned to Tuam but then was the subject of an argument between the Roman Catholic church and the Church of Ireland, each claiming ownership. Eventually agreement was reached whereby it was placed at a point in the town between the two faiths’ respective cathedrals. By the 1980s the cross was suffering damage from pollution and, following restoration, was moved to its present location in St Mary’s. 


The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

King John was not a Good Man


‘King John was not a good man –
He had his little ways.
And sometimes no one spoke to him
For days and days and days…’
From King John’s Christmas by A.A. Milne

Historic buildings tend to attract myths, as anyone who has consulted the Dúchas national folklore collection can confirm. As an example, the number of properties in Ireland which Oliver Cromwell is held responsible for destroying would have required him to spend considerably longer than the nine months he did in this country. Similarly, the construction of a large number of Anglo-Norman castles here are often attributed to King John, although he only and briefly visited Ireland twice: the first time in 1185 when, as Lord of Ireland, he failed both to strengthen the administration of his lordship and to bring Norman colonists like Hugh de Lacy under royal control. His second visit in 1210, by which time he had become King of England, was more successful but very short, lasting two months. Nevertheless, in popular memory he is held responsible for commissioning many castles around the country, including that in Athenry, County Galway, even though he never made it to this part of the island and the castle was built some 20 years after his death in 1216.




Seemingly the earliest recorded association between Athenry Castle and King John can be found in John Dunton’s Teague Land: or A Merry Ramble to the Wild Irish published in 1698. According to Dunton, ‘When King John came into Ireland to reduce some of his rebellious people here, he built the town of Athenry, and environed it with a good stone wall to be a curb upon them in those parts.’ This association with the long-deceased monarch then became embedded in local mythology and when the peripatetic German Prince Hermann von Puckler-Muskau visited Athenry in 1828, after lamenting the wretched state of the town, he wrote that ‘Here stood a rich abbey, now overgrown with ivy, the arches which once protected the sanctuary lie in fragments amid the unsheltered altars and tombstones. Further on is a castle with walls ten feet thick, in which King John held his court of justice when he came over to Ireland.’ Likewise, a decade later the historian John O’Donovan, who worked in the Topographical Department of the first Ordnance Survey decided that Athenry seems to have been built by King John in the year 1211 to put down the Hy-Briuin, Hy-many and Hy-Fiachrach Aidhne, three most ferocious Connachtan tribes.’ On the other hand, the ever-reliable Samuel Lewis in his Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) noted that Athenry was ‘the first town established by the De Burgos and Berminghams, the Anglo-Norman invaders of Connaught, and at a remote period was surrounded by walls, and became a place of importance.’ 




Meyler de Bermingham was the great-grandson of Robert de Bermingham, an Anglo-Norman knight who had arrived in Ireland in the early 1170s and settled in what is now County Offaly. In the 1230s, Meyler and his father Peter de Bermingham participated in the Norman invasion of Connaught. As part of this, the former built a castle by a fording point on the river Clarin at a spot known as Áth na Rí (Ford of the Kings), from which derives the name Athenry. As for the castle, set inside enclosure walls, it is a large three storey rectangular hall-keep with base-batter, with a basement that would have been used for storage, a great hall on the first floor and an attic above. The battlements date from the 13th century as do the arrowslits in the merlons. In the 15th century, these parapets were incorporated into gables at the north and south ends for a new roof. When first built, the castle’s entrance was at first-floor level, accessed via an external wooden stairs. Carvings on the exterior of the doorcase and inside two of the window openings feature floral motifs in a local style, transitional between Romanesque and Gothic and known as the ‘School of the West.’ The castle appears to have been abandoned in the 16th century and old photographs show it as a roofless ruin. However, in 1991, the Office of Public Works initiated restoration work on the site and it is now open to visitors during the spring and summer periods.


The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

Something of a Mystery



Occupying a prominent site on Main Street in Eyrecourt, County Galway, this curious building is now known as St Martin’s but, one suspects, formerly had another name. The house may date from the 17th century but was given much of its present appearance in the 18th, likely when the present three-bay, two storey-over-basement central block was constructed, perhaps as a dower house for the main Eyrecourt House, the ruins of which lie not far away to the north-east (see Bring It Home « The Irish Aesthete). The half-bow to the immediate right is something of a mystery (on two occasions, the Irish Aesthete has been unable to explore the interior): it then extends further before running down to the rear and leading to a series of walled enclosures. The two-storey flat roofed extension to the left may be easier to explain: in the 1820s the house was occupied by a wealthy local man, Christopher Martin, who provided much of the funds for the adjacent Roman Catholic church dedicated to Saint Brendan. Seemingly, a first-floor passageway provided a direct link to a balcony at the rear of the church. For some time in the last century, the house served as a presbytery for the parish priest, its name St Martin’s perhaps a tribute to St Brendan’s patron. The gryphons perched atop columns at the base of the steps are particularly fine, although whether they are original to the site is open to question.



The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

Sacred Origin and Pious Association


‘From childhood it has been my fortune to see, many times, as fine a specimen of a round tower as time and the ravages of man allowed to remain in our midst. It was situated at a remote village, called Kilbannon, distant some three miles from the ancient archiepiscopal town of Tuam. Standing at the northern side of a little graveyard and upon a perfectly level plain, it is visible for miles round. Near it are the ruins of an old Dominican monastery or nunnery (for it is variously described in old annals)…The name of the place, “Kilbannon”, is indicative of its sacred origin and pious association ; and tradition ascribes to the ruins the fame of a Saint Bennan, who is supposed to have been a disciple of Jarlath, the first Bishop of Tuam, after whom that See was called in ecclesiastical history. St. Jarlath was believed to have been an intimate follower of the glorious Apostle himself, and we may note, that but a few short miles, as the crow flies, from the Church of Bennan was the illustrious school of Cluan-fois, otherwise Cloonfush, founded by St. Jarlath, and in his time and long after known as “the mother of many memorable missionaries”.’
From ‘The Round Tower of Kilbannon’ by Richard J. Kelly, The Irish Monthly, Vol.14, 1886




‘There is a pillar tower at Kilbennan, near Taam. Before the young Bishop Benignus, or Bennin, had come to the territory of Conmaicne, or Tuam, in the Barony of Dunmore, the place now called Kilbannon had been known by the name Dun-Lugaidh, i.e., Louis’s Fortress. When St. Benignus, in company with St Patrick, had come from Donach Patrick to Dun-Lugaidh, it is said that the saint dug a fountain, in the waters of which he baptized nine lepers, who became instantly healed of their leprosy. Niatha, the chieftain of that district, and all his followers and clients, and all the people of the entire country of Conmaicne — St. Jarlath’s cousins, himself and his father and relatives — were baptized in that fountain. That well, or fountain, is to be seen to this day at Kilbennan. Its waters gush forth from the foot of the Round Tower which to this hour is to be seen. Two things remain to this day to confirm the truth of the historical event — first, the “Dun” or pillar tower of Lughaidh ; second, the fountain gushing forth at its foot. At the time, say, A.D. 440, the Dun existed, it was the fortified home of the chieftain Xiatha.’
From The Aryan Origin of the Gaelic Race and Language by the Rev. Ulick J. Bourke (1875)




‘Kilbannon: Sometimes called Ballygaddy, which is the name of the townland and bridge adjoining the site, is situated two miles N. W. from Tuam Railway Station. The Round Tower still remains, to the height of about forty-five feet. It is broken away on one side, but the doorway is nearly perfect, being of the ordinary form, round-headed, and with inclining jambs. The Church adjoining is a rude early Christian building. No vestiges of genuine antiquity have come under my observation, save the Round Tower, which is associated with the name of St. Bunaun-one of three brothers; another, St. Bernaun, being the reputed founder of Knockmoy.’
From The Towers and Temples of Ancient Ireland by Marcus Keane (1867) 


The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by