Tag Archives: County Wexford

All’s Wells



Buried inside the present 19th century Wells House in County Wexford is a much older building, thought to date from the second half of the 17th century. This was constructed by John Warren, a soldier in the Commonwealth army, who as payment for his service was granted more than 6,000 acres here. A ‘plain square building’ the original Wells and surrounding estate were sold in 1704 to Robert Doyne, whose descendants would continue to own the property until 1966. The Doynes claimed descent from the medieval Gaelic sept of Ó Duinn (O’Dunne), lords of Uí Riagáin (Hy‐Regain) in that part of Ireland that is today known as County Laois. Around the time that Warren had been granted the land at Wells, Robert Doyne’s father had been deprived by the Commonwealth government of his own property. However, the family successfully regained what had been lost: it helped that Robert Doyne had conformed to the Established Church, become a wealthy barrister and married a widow who brought money and property with her. Hence he could afford to buy the Wells estate, along with other lands so that by the time of his death he had built up a holding of some 9,800 acres. 





As mentioned, the present Wells House dates from the late 1830s when designed by Daniel Robertson for another Robert Doyne who, like his forebear, had married a wealthy widow, Annette-Constantia Uniacke, a niece of the first Marquess of Waterford. It is easy to understand why the Doynes should decide that work needed to be undertaken on what was their principal residence. Samuel Lewis, writing in 1837, noted that the earlier house on the site ‘was, for nearly three years after the disturbances of 1798, occupied as a barrack by the king’s troops ; it is now about to be rebuilt in the Elizabethan style by the proprietor, as a residence, and will in future be called Wells Abbey.’ While the change of name does not appear to have taken place, by 1844, James Fraser could write that the house ‘has been recently repaired, and altered from a plain square building to the early style of Tudor architecture; and the grounds around the mansion, and the approaches to it, are in process of formation in a style conformable thereto.’ Doyne had evidently been thinking of giving the family home a new appearance for some time, having commissioned designs from Thomas Cobden in 1819 (a classical design) and then for additions and alterations from Sir Richard Morrison in 1836. But ultimately he opted for Robertson’s scheme, which like so much of the latter’s work, evoked 16th century manor houses, with an asymmetrical facade incorporating an abundance of gables and clusters of chimneys. The result, unusually faced mellow red brick is, as Frederick O’Dyer has noted, more English in style than the majority of Robertson’s houses, which tended to be faced in either granite or limestone. 





The seven-bay Wells House is of two-storeys over basement with a dormer attic, a breakfront gabled centre bay incorporating a large Tudoresque doorcase. Both end bays also break forward and are gabled, a gentle asymmetry introduced by that to the north having a canted bay window on the first floor (this lights the main staircase). The garden front presents a more balanced appearance. As might be expected from its exterior, the main reception rooms of Wells House, County Wexford are very much in the Tudorbethan mode, with the use of oak panelling in a variety of styles, as well as Gothic-style timber panelled doors and shutters, and groin vaulted ceilings. The double-height staircase hall is particularly fine, with cast-iron balusters supporting carved a timber banister terminating in Gothic-style octagonal newels and a timber surround to the canted bay window found on the half-landing.
An unexpected change of decorative styles can be found in the drawing room, which is panelled in white and gilt rococo boiseries. Whether original Louis XV or a later imitation of that period’s style it is hard to tell, and no information appears to exist about their origins, although surviving plans indicate they were installed when the house was given its present form by Robertson. Might the boiseries have been acquired by Robert Doyne when, as a young man, he had embarked on a Grand Tour of mainland Europe, in the company of no less than Beau Brummell? The quality of workmanship is high, many of the panels filled with a multitude of small fleurs-de-lis, while close to the top of the walls at either end of the room are two elaborately carved panels, one featuring musical instruments and sheets of music, the other a quiver of arrows and the head of Diana. And it all fits the room perfectly, so was either created for this space or else, if from somewhere else, adapted accordingly. In any case, the Doynes continued to occupy the property until the mid-1960s, after which Wells House passed through a couple of other hands before being bought by the present owner in 2022: today it is open to the public, with self-catering cottages in the yard, and a variety of tours and events held in the main building. 



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Ecclesiastical Ambition




Yet another example of the Church of Ireland’s ambitious building strategy during the 19th century, this is St John’s in Kilturk, County Wexford. Later than most and not part of the Board of First Fruits programme, it was designed in 1859 by Joseph Welland, then Architect to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, the first service being held here three years later. One reason for the relatively late date is that it replaced an earlier church of 1808-12, described by Samuel Lewis in 1837 as ‘a neat edifice whose tower fell down soon after its erection’ and this, in turn, stood on the site of a medieval parish church. The present structure continued to be used for services until the mid-1970s, and after its closure suffered from vandalism, leading to large-scale dismantlement and leaving what can be seen today.




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Incongruous



South of Enniscorthy and close to the banks of the river Slaney, the Cambro-Norman Fitzhenrys are believed to have built Macmine Castle, County Wexford in the 13th century and remained on the site until the confiscations of the 1650s after which it eventually passed into the hands of the King family. In 1835, it was described as ‘an old ruin by the river’ but after being purchased through the Incumbered Estates Courts in 1860, the castle was rebuilt and enlarged by John Richards. It was presumably around the same time that this splendid castellated gateway was constructed, the architect responsible unknown. Today, the castle is an abandoned ruin and behind the gateway, as J.A.K. Dean has observed, ‘a modern bungalow occupies the site of the Kings’ gate lodge.’ Above the arch, a plaque reads ‘Magh-Mayne Castle Erected 1290.’



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Of More than Ordinary Interest


‘Clonmines: Ths group of ruins is of more than ordinary interest, as it contains a church which was described by the late G. V. Du Noyer as, in his opinion, quite unique in Ireland, if not in Britain the fortified or Castle Church of Clonmines [see last section of text below]. This singular building stands on a rise of ground adjoining the monastery but detached from it, and when viewed from the westward quite resembles a square castle, the north-east and south-west angles of which are prolonged into small but lofty crenellated turrets. Du Noyer thinks that it is exceedingly probable that this building was erected by Nicholas the clerk at the close of the fourteenth century…’





‘…Clonmines was a parliamentary borough, and elected members of Parliament until the Union. A castle was built here by one of the family of Roger de Sutton, who accompanied Fitz Stephen to Ireland. This castle was in modern times converted into a dwelling-house. Archdall, in his “Mon. Hib.,” states that “Clonmines is a borough town, in the barony of Shelburne, six miles south-east of Dunbrody. The family of Cavanagh founded a monastery here for Eremites following the rule of St. Augustine. In A.D. 1385 it was enlarged and beautified by Nicholas the clerk, son of Nicholas; and the friars of the order of St. Dominick afterwards obtained possession of it. Nicholas Woding was the last prior…’





‘…Fraser, in his Survey (Robert Fraser, Statistical Survey of the County of Wexford, 1807), tells us that the Danes had a mint at Clonmines, and we learn from the State Papers that Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Queens Mary and Elizabeth, all worked the silver and lead mines here. On the 12th of January, 1552, Joachim Gunderfilgen explains to the Privy Council that he is building a workshop at Ross, and was unable to send particulars about the mines. Later on Mr. Robert, Record Surveyor of Mines for the Privy Council of England, sends an account of the silver and lead got at Clonmines and molten at Ross. In the time of Queen Elizabeth, Walter Pepparde had charge of these mines for the Queen; his son Anthony seems to have been the founder of Peppard’s Castle, Co. Wexford.’
Extracts from Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Volume VI, Fifth Series, 1896.





‘I allude to a fortified church, or rather castle-church, forming one of the groups of ecclesiastical ruins at Clonmines on the shore of Bannow Bay, in the county of Wexford. This singular building stands on a rise of ground adjoining the monastery, but detached from it, and when viewed from the westward quite resembles a square castle, the north-east and south-west angles of which are prolonged into small but lofty crenellated turrets…The doorway nearly facing the spectator conducts to the church, and the arched recess adjoining it may have been intended for a tomb or seat, and probably the former. Externally this church measures thirty-seven feet by twenty-six feet, the walls being five feet thick, thus imparting to it an unusual degree of strength and solidity; the parapet walls are about two feet eight thick , and are all embattled.
The east wall is pierced, at the height of about seven feet from the ground, by a small window of two pointed lights. It is not till we enter this building that its true character and object become apparent, and we at once perceive that we are in a lofty arched room, half church and half residence. The eastern end of this room forms a square of sixteen feet six inches, and is groined with massive chamfered ribs, springing from each corner, and crossed by others, springing from the sides. This groining defines the limits of the church; the remaining western portion being simply arched, and is somewhat lower than the eastern, thus forming a flat typanum overhead, against which was laid the wooden partition which screened off the living room. In the sill of the window on the south side, is a small piscina; and in the north and south walls, at their junction with the east wall, there are small square unornamented aumbries; to the right of the door in the west wall there is a small stoop.’ 
Extracts from ‘Notes on some Peculiarities in Ancient and Mediaeval Ecclesiastical Architecture’, by George Victor Du Noyer, Esq in Journal of the Kilkenny and South-East of Ireland Archaeological Society, Volume V, New Series, 1864-66


Please note: The remains at Clonmines, County Wexford stand on private land and are not open to the public.
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Offering an Alternative Vision


Last May, the Irish Aesthete looked at the sad fate of St Loman’s, Mullingar, a vast range of buildings dating from the 1850s and originally opened as a lunatic asylum (see Squandering National Resources « The Irish Aesthete). St Loman’s continued to offer long-term residential care for psychiatric patients until it was closed in December 2013. Since then, the state body responsible for the property, the Health Service Executive, has done nothing with it, allowing the place, which might be restored and used for a number of other purposes, not least housing, to fall into steadily worse condition. For the HSE, these circumstances are not unusual: the organisation owns some 200 buildings at least 110 of which have been categorised as ‘surplus to requirement.’ Deemed unfit for their original purpose, these properties have often been neither repurposed nor passed on to new owners. Instead the HSE appears to prefer that they sit vacant and deteriorating. At the end of last month, the Irish Independent reported that the health body had been presented by local authorities with a total bill of almost €800,000 in derelict site levies, some 50 per cent of which remained unpaid, with the largest bill linked to a former nurses’ building at University Hospital Galway where the organisation was being charged €245,000. It is worth pointing out that these buildings are the property of the Irish people, and supposedly in the care of the HSE. Too often that care is not forthcoming and instead one state body is expected to fine another, the money coming out of the same public purse, as funded by the taxpayer. Fortunately, there are exceptions to this sad and repetitive tale, as can be seen in Enniscorthy, County Wexford.






St Senan’s dates from a decade after St Loman’s but was intended to serve the same purpose: to act as Enniscorthy District Lunatic Asylum. Located on a site some 250 yards above the river Slaney and a prominent local landmark for more than a century and a half, the building was designed by architects James Bell and James Barry Farrell, and cost in the region of £40,000 to construct. Primarily faced in red brick produced on the site, with yellow brick used for the dressings, the hospital sits on a plinth of locally quarried granite. Opened in 1868, the building is an astonishing 650 feet (225 metres) long and follows an unusual asymmetrical plan centred on a thirteen-bay, three-storey central block with projecting five-bay wings on either side, much of the rest of the facade being broken up with a sequence of five-storey Italianate towers, most of them intended to store water. While the central block was used for administration, a chapel, dining hall and so forth, the long wings on either side provided accommodation for male and female inmates, of which there were originally supposed to be 232 of each sex, although this number would later rise: some 250 staff were employed on the site in different roles. St Senan’s remained in use until early in the present century. In 2010, it was one of three hospitals ordered by the Mental Health Commission to cease admissions, with the property described as ‘dilapidated, depressing and not fit for human habitation.’ By 2014, it was being used by the HSE for same-day respite care and administrative offices, but had been placed by An Taisce on the latter’s top 10 nationally significant buildings at risk. St Senan’s closed in 2015. 





In January 2017, less than two years after closing to patients, St Senan’s on a site of some 46 acres was offered for sale by the HSE with a guiding price of  just €780,000. The property was bought by a local development company, Bree Investments Ltd, which, working with GKMP Architects, is now in the midst of an imaginative and ambitious job of converting the former hospital into 60 large apartments. What this project shows is that it is possible for an old building to be given new purpose, one quite different from that originally envisaged but no less needed, especially today. If a commercial entity can undertake such a job on the basis that eventually profit will be realised, one must ask why the HSE, which is constantly short of funds (and consistently overreaching its annual budget) could not do likewise. Instead of sitting on assets which decline in value through want of maintenance, it should either engage in restoration and regeneration, or dispose of the property to a third-party which will do so. St Senan’s offers an alternative vision of what can happen to such historic properties.

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Norman Wisdom


Nine years ago, Wexford County Council opened the first phase of ‘The Norman Way’, a 65-kilometer self-guided heritage trail along the south-east coast, which leads to a variety of mediaeval buildings in diverse stages of repair. According to the website promoting this route, while the Normans invaded England in 1066, ‘a century later they came to Ireland,’ thereby suggesting that their arrival in this country was an altogether peaceable affair. Furthermore, apparently, ‘as generations of Normans made their home here, their Norman way of doing things enhanced everyday life in Ireland.’ It’s open to question whether the native Irish were delighted to welcome the arrival of Norman wisdom. As Tony Canavan of History Ireland has observed, ‘from a historian’s point of view, on the trail’s website and information panels, ‘the presentation of the Normans (setting aside questions of definition) may raise an eyebrow’ since they are portrayed not as invaders but as though they were modern-day immigrants. It is easy to understand the appeal of creating such a route – the official site expresses hope that this initiative will stimulate commercial and community benefits in the areas through which it runs – but this ought not to be at the expense of historical accuracy. 





Although of Norman origin and hard to miss as it rises above the flat Wexford countryside, Ballyteige Castle is not one of the sites included in The Norman Way. For several hundred years, this was one of the seats of the Anglo-Norman Whitty family, with references to its members being found in Irish documents from 1247 onwards; in 1418 Robert Whitty of Ballyteige became Bishop of Ferns, an office he held for the next 40 years. The original castle is said to have been burned by Art Mac Murrough Kavanagh in 1408, so what can be seen today – a four-storey tower house – was constructed after that date. What makes the site particularly fascinating, and important, is that so much remains, including much of the bawn wall and two large circular towers at the north-east and north-west. Attached to the tower house and running along the east side is a later house, now abandoned and boarded up, and behind this is what would have been a substantial courtyard enclosed by the western wall. It is known that the Whittys remained in occupation of Ballyteige until the mid-1650s when, like so many other Roman Catholics, Richard Whitty had the property taken from him. Ballyteige was then granted to the Colcloughs of nearby Tintern Abbey (see The Little Sister « The Irish Aesthete) and it was later sold to an Edward Meadows. It appears to have been occupied until relatively recently, but is now abandoned and falling into dereliction. 





Some two miles north-east of Ballyteige Castle can be found a cemetery surrounding what remains of a mediaeval church called Grange, thereby suggesting it was once part of a monastic estate. On the church’s interior north wall is a large and well-preserved monument to Walter Whitty of Ballyteige. In April 1594 he had been kidnapped by Spanish sailors whose vessel was then passing along the Wexford coast, and carried back to their country after they declined payment for his release, declaring that ‘they desired more the credit in Spain of having taken a great gentleman prisoner, than any ever so great ransom.’ (cited in Journal of the Waterford & South-East of Ireland Archaeological Society, Vol IV, 1898). Somehow, Walter Whitty managed to find his way back home and spend the rest of his days at Ballyteige where he died in 1630, but the marble monument inside the church dates from 1647. The Whitty coat of arms features a lion rampant, but locals, perhaps unfamiliar with these animals, preferred to believe it was a cat. This, in turn, gave rise to a legend that a feline murderer was responsible for Whitty’s demise. There seem to be two versions of the story. In one, Walter Whitty, having failed to shoot any rabbits while hunting, took out his wrath on a cat he saw sitting on a sandbank. When he returned home to Ballyteige Castle, a cat on the premises took its revenge by lunging at his throat and killing him. In the other version, Whitty seduced the daughter of a local witch and then, having taken her out to see in a boat, drowned the girl. Hearing of this, the witch transformed herself into a cat, lunged at Whitty’s throat and killed him. Strangely, neither account features in the Norman Way literature. Neither does Ballyteige Castle, which could benefit from official attention as a building that holds evidence of human habitation across many centuries, from the Normans to the present day. 

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Turneresque



Today a country house hotel, Marlfield, County Wexford dates from the mid-19th century when constructed as an agent’s residence for the estate of the Stopfords, Earls of Courtown who lived close by in Courtown House (since demolished). The family retained ownership of the property until 1977 when it was sold to Ray an Mary Bowe who subsequently opened it as an hotel. Of rubble stone with brick facings, the original three-storey building has a four-bay, east-facing entrance front, with central two-bay breakfront. Requiring more space for guests, in 1983 the Bowes commissioned work from architects Cochrane, Flynn-Rogers and Williams whose most notable addition is an elegant curvilinear conservatory on what had previously been the main entrance: this has now been moved to the north side. In the style of those designed by Richard Turner around the time Marlfield was first erected, the conservatory now serves as a dining room. 



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Inspiring Reverential Awe


‘The foundation-charter of this abbey is in the Monasticon Anglicanum, and recites, that Harvey of Mount Maurice, who was Seneschal to Richard Earl of Pembroke, made a grant of divers lands to St.Mary and St.Benedict, and to the monks of the abbey of Blidewas in Shropshire, for erecting an abbey at Dunbrody for Cistercian monks; to this charter Felix, Bishop of Ossory, is witness, who was promoted to that see in the year 1178. This place is in the barony of Shelburn, four miles south of New Ross. The Cistercians, from their first introduction into this isle by St. Malachy, Archbishop of Armagh, were much favoured by the Irish nobility, and not less by the English. Hence they everywhere acquired immense possessions, and were enabled to execute in the best style, their different religious houses. Richard, Earl of Pembroke and Walter, his grandson, were benefactors to Dunbrody.
Harlewin, Bishop of Leighlin, was interred in the abbey-church, A. D. 1216, a great part of which he caused to be erected, and Edward III. in 1348, granted a confirmation of all the possessions of this abbey, and so did Henry IV. in 1402.’





‘Perhaps the most extraordinary instance of a sacrilegious plunderer that occurs in our ecclesiastical annals is that of Alexander Devereux or De Ebroico, the last abbot of Dunbrody. By deed dated the 10th of May 1522, he granted to his relation, Stephen Devereux, the town and villages of Battlestown, little and great Haggart, Ballygow and Ballycorean, for the term of sixty-one years, at the annual rent of twenty-two marks, and having thus liberally provided for his family, he surrendered the abbacy, and was consecrated Bishop of Ferns in 1539, in St. Patrick’s, Dublin, by George Brown, Archbishop of Dublin, and others. In this see he continued the same course as before at Dunbrody. He leased to his brother, James Devereux, and his kinsmen Philip and William Devereux, almost all his see-lands, at small rents. After presiding at Ferns for almost twenty-seven years, he died at Feathard in 1566.’





‘The ruins of Dunbrody are great, and have a grandeur, which at first sight inspires reverential awe; to which the solitude of the place and its wilderness not a little contribute. The walls of the church are pretty entire, as is the chancel. In the church are three chapels vaulted and groined. The great aile is divided into three parts by a double row of arches, supported by square piers, the inside of the arches have a moulding which springs from beautiful consoles. The tower is rather low in proportion to the building, and is supported by a grand arch, very little inferior to that of Boyle and Ballintubber: The foundation of the cloisters only remains, they were spacious. The western window is of an uncommon form, and the western door under it magnificent, with filigree open work cut in the stone, of which one single bit now  survives, and that almost worn smooth by time, but raised enough to put the finger under it.’

Extracts from The Antiquities of Ireland by Francis Grose (Dublin, 1791)
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The Same but Different



Following last Monday’s post about Johnstown Castle, County Wexford (see This Magnificent Building « The Irish Aesthete), herewith two of the five entrances to the estate. That above, which is believed to date from the early 19th century, perhaps erected soon after the property was returned to the ownership of the Grogan family, consists of a pair of cement-rendered, two-storey polygonal lodges flanking gateposts. An old photograph shows that the entire structure was once more elaborate in style, the lodges having Perpendicular Gothic windows on the ground floor and oculi above, and the space between them filled by a castellated arch. It would have borne similarity with another of the entrances, seen below, for which signed drawings by Martin Day, dated 1846, survive. This one takes the form of a miniature castle, constructed of rubble stone and cut granite for dressings, with a three-storey, battlemented tower incorporating a first-floor Tudoresque Oriel window, standing to one side of the castellated gate. 



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This Magnificent Building


The Irish line of the Esmonde family is believed to be descended from Geoffrey de Estmont of Lincolnshire, one of the thirty Norman knights who accompanied Robert FitzStephen to land at Bannow, County Wexford in 1169. Seemingly, Estmont built a motte and bailey at Lymbrick in the Barony of Forth in Wexford, where his son Maurice constructed a castle on the same site. Following the latter’s death in 1225, this building was abandoned, his son John erecting another castle on a new site, which came to be named Johnstown Castle and which survived until 1945. The property remained in the possession of the Esmondes until the mid-17th century when, as members of the Roman Catholic Confederate alliance, they suffered expulsion: Oliver Cromwell is said to have spent a night here immediately prior to his forces sacking Wexford town in early October 1649. Johnstown Castle was subsequently granted to one of his troops, Colonel John Overstreet, but eventually in 1692 it was bought by John Grogan whose descendants lived there until 1945: in the early 1800s, the Grogans were the largest untitled landowners in Ireland, with estates running to some 20,000 acres. Presumably they occupied and perhaps enlarged a house already on the site, but no evidence of it is immediately apparent today, so thorough was the reordering of the building in the second quarter of the 19th century. Before then, one member of the family, Cornelius Grogan, became involved in the 1798 Rebellion, being made commissary-general of the local rebels;’ army. Whether he assumed this role voluntarily or under compulsion has remained open to question: at his trial, Grogan pleaded that he had been forced to take a nominal lead but had committed no overt act of treason. However, this was insufficient to stop his being hanged and beheaded, and for the Johnstown estate to be escheated by the British authorities: on payment of a substantial fine, it was recovered by the former owner’s youngest brother John Grogan.





As seen today (and visited on a singularly miserable, wet day), Johnstown Castle is largely the creation of John Grogan’s son Hamilton Knox Grogan-Morgan who in 1836 commissioned designs for both the building and its gardens from Daniel Robertson, although in Home Sketches (1852), Thomas Lacy wrote that the now-lost main staircase had been the work of English-born Thomas Hopper. Meanwhile, at Johnstown, Robertson appears to have been assisted by Wexford architect Martin Day, who signed many of the preparatory drawings for the building. A late exercise in fanciful Gothick, most of the castle is constructed of local shale, with the Carlow granite employed for quoins, and dressings around windows, doors and archways. The aforementioned Thomas Lacy devoted several pages to enthusing over the transformed castle, summarising it as ‘this magnificent building.’ Despite claiming that he dared not attempt a detailed description of its ‘elegantly furnished rooms, the ceilings, the rich and gorgeous papering, the magnificent curtains and drapery in general,; the mantlepieces and articles of vertu that ornament them; the splendid mirrors, the vases, the candelabra, the tables, chairs, sofas, ottomans, and the other indescribable articles,’ somehow Lacy managed to wax lyrical for several pages. The main hall, for example, he wrote ‘presents a massive and truly characteristic appearance; so much so, that if an intelligent person was brought thither in his sleep, he would, upon awaking, be at once convinced that he was within the hall of some grand castle or stately palace.’ In the library, ‘The furniture of this grand apartment is in keeping with its character; the chairs, sofas, tables and bookcases are all of the choicest and best description; this is such a room as Bacon, Newton, Locke or Walter Scott, would like to call his own.’ Of the dining room he declared, ‘oak panelling and carving can be seen; the darkness of the oak is finely relieved by the rich gilding of the ceiling and the other parts of the chamber. This room has a really gorgeous appearance, and reminds one of the House of Lords, which, in some measure, it resembles both in form and decoration.’ And so, despite protestations of inability to attempt an adequate description, Lacy goes on, room after room after room. 





Following Hamilton Knox Grogan-Morgan’s death, his widow Sophia married Sir Thomas Esmonde, so that, at least temporarily, the Johnstown estate reverted to the original family. The property was then inherited by the Grogan-Morgan’s elder daughter Jane, married to George Forbes, seventh Earl of Granard. In turn, Johnstown passed to the couple’s younger daughter Adelaide, wife of Lord Maurice FitzGerald, a younger son of the fourth Duke of Leinster. Following her death in 1942, the estate was inherited by her grandson Maurice Victor Lakin. Two years later, the contents of the castle, running to 1,187 lots, were sold at auction over a period of five days by Jackson, Stops & McCabe. Some 114 of the items on offer, about one-tenth of the total, were bought by the Office of Public Works, not least because in certain cases there were few other potential purchasers. For example, according to a contemporary report in the Irish Press, ‘It was hard to find bidders for some of the massive oak furniture. An oak side table on carved pillars, 7ft long, brought only £5 and the same sum bought the carved oak pedestal sideboard.’ Happily the majority of these lots can be seen in the building today. In 1945 the Johnstown estate was given to the Irish State by Maurice Lakin in lieu of death duties. The castle itself was taken over the the Department of Agriculture and initially served as an educational college, before becoming a centre for agricultural research, with laboratories established on site. Since 1976, an agricultural museum has operated in the yards. Less hearteningly, during the second half of the last century some serious losses occurred, not least the medieval tower attached to the front of the building: a residue from the original Esmonde era, it stood to the immediate left of the porte-cochère but was swept away soon after the property passed into state hands. Inside the castle, the greatest loss was the demolition of the magnificent Imperial staircase, a confection of neo-Gothic carving, cleared out to make way for a library for the college. Today, while the building is owned by Teagasc, Ireland’s Agriculture and Food Development Authority, it is managed by the Irish Heritage Trust which for the past decade has been gradually undertaking restoration work here, as funds permit. In addition, the IHT, which opens the castle to the public, has been refurbishing some of the main rooms, thanks to a mixture of purchases, loans and gifts, with some pieces now returned to their original home. A happier story than has often been the case for Irish country houses. 


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